Part of Spirit

pahrt uhv SPIR-it

greek: Δαίμων (Daimon) · latin: Spiritus

Definition

The Part of Spirit is a point worked out by formula rather than seen in the sky — the Hellenistic Lot of Spirit (Greek klēros daimonos; Arabic Sahm al-Ghayb). It is the sect-mirror of the Lot of Fortune: by day the formula is Ascendant + Sun − Moon, and by night it flips to Ascendant + Moon − Sun. In effect, you take the arc from the Moon to the Sun and measure it out from the Ascendant to find the lot's zodiac degree.

In Tradition

In Hellenistic and traditional Western practice the Lot of Spirit is the partner to the Lot of Fortune. Dorian Greenbaum classes it as the Lot of the Sun and reads it as the point of soul, intentional action, vocation, and deliberate choice — the active side that answers Fortune's account of bodily circumstance. The two work as a pair: Fortune for what life gives you, Spirit for what you choose and will.

In Practice

Astrologers work out Spirit alongside Fortune in the birth chart, using the formula that reverses by sect — the rule that tells day births from night births. Its sign and house are read for where vocation and deliberate effort concentrate, and the planet that rules its sign (its disposing planet) is examined for more detail. Spirit is the starting point of zodiacal releasing from Spirit (Chris Brennan, Demetra George), the main Hellenistic time-lord technique for tracking periods of action, career, and self-directed growth — while releasing from Fortune covers periods of bodily circumstance.

Historical Origin

Spirit appears in early Hellenistic technical writing alongside Fortune in Dorotheus of Sidon's Carmen Astrologicum (1st century CE), and is given full time-lord application in Vettius Valens' Anthologiae (c. 145-175 CE), Book IV. The Arabic transmission preserves it as Sahm al-Ghayb, and the medieval Latin vocabulary names it Pars Daemonis or Pars Spiritus. Modern access to the Spirit-based time-lord procedure runs through Schmidt and Hand's Project Hindsight translations of Valens, and through Brennan and George.

Definition

In Tradition

In Practice

Historical Origin

Further Reading