Minderwiz
The release of Traditional Morinus v. 5.5 (updated today to version 5.6) allows me for the first time to run a thread on the Lots/Parts that covers both the Hellenistic basics and allows some development to the modern usage.
In order to try some of the measures in this thread you need to install version 5,6 of Traditional Morinus on your computer. Sadly despite my initial enthusiasm the range of calculation power is missing from the Full version (which still treats most measures as Arabic Parts). Hopefully this will be included in later versions as modern Astrologers are also exploring the use of Lots/Parts in their work. You can dowload from:
https://sites.google.com/site/tradmorinus/morinus
(downloads are at the bottom of the page and MorinusWin, is the Windows version the other version is Linux)
And some useful threads on it here:
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=170384
and here:
b
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=174745
both of which I have made sticky for the duration of this thread. To do the calculations easily you will need version 5.5 or later. Earlier versions will not allow all the calculations to be automated. (so you'll need a calculator to try them out on your own chart).
Firstly some background and definition of terms.
I will use the term 'Lot' to keep things simple and to avoid cumbersome dual names. It's easier, if not always exact or correct (because of the flow of the history of Astrology) but it makes following the thread easier.
Secondly, whilst I'm drawing on texts, I'm going to keep it as simple as possible,
Robert Zoller in his book 'The Arabic Parts in Astrology' attributes the earliest reference to these measures to Ptolemy's tetrabiblos - the four books. And at the time that Zoller wrote in 1980, he was reflecting the then current knowledge. It's now reasonably clear that there are sources pre-Ptolemy and that Ptolemy actually disapproved of the Lots, except for the Lot of the Moon - what we now call the Part of Fortune or Fortuna using its Latin name. We now know that most of his contempories and almost certainly earlier Astrologers used a range of these. This range was extended to the point of ridicule by medieval Arab Astrologers but that should not detract from the usefulness of a core body of measures.
So what is a Lot? Essentially, it measures the distance between two important planets and or points and then projects that distance from a third planet or point. The result is a point of balance and hence importance, relating to your specific issue.
Now that sounds a bit complex so lets take a simple (and fundamental) example. Most newcomers to Astrology learn that there are three key things in determining character or temperament (though other things may still contribute) - those 3 keys are the Ascendant, te Sun and the Moon Their zodiacal positions tell us much about someone. Ptolemy's Lot of Fortune takes the distance from the Sun to the Moon and then projects that distance from the Ascendant.
This Lot gives an impression of how external events beyond their control will affect their lives - how the wheel of fortune will treat them. Fortune here includes not just wealth, but health and happiness that result from external factors Ptolemy treated this Lot as so important that he used it as one of the five key points that could indicate the person's life expectance and future prospects - the others were the Ascendant, the Sun and Moon and the MC. Sometimes there is reference to a sixth point, the pre-natal lunation (either the Full Moon or New Moon that fell immediately prior to birth).
As late as the seventeenth century, Lilly still used the Part (Lot) of Fortune in his predictive systems.
Ptolemy calculated the Lot using the formula
Asc + Moon - Sun (all three measured in zodiacal degrees).
Ptolemy used only this formual, no matter what time the birth took place but it's now clear that most of his contempories and later Arab Astrologers calculated the Lot differently depending on whether the birth was during day time (diurnal) or night time (nocturnal). In Hellenistic Astrology the ruler of the Day is the Sun, the ruler of the night is the Moon. The usual calculation was based on the 'Sect' Lord (Sect simply meaning whether it was day or night).
Thus Ptolemy's measure was 'correct' for Day births but if the birth was by night the formula was:
Asc + Sun - Moon (notice that the last term in both calculations is the 'Sect' Lord or ruler)
This use of a distinction between night and day versions of Lots is quite common in Hellenistic Astrology because they treated Day and Night as having different qualities that affected people in a significant way. This distinction is now largely lost but you will still find it in films and plays - look how many horror stories are set at night - or how we see this distinction in the nature of Sun and Moon, both in Astrology,Tarot and other mantic arts.
For this thread I will often distinguish between diurnal and nocturnal versions for the lots.
Once you have installed Traditional Morinus, you will find that it has only one Lot installed - the Lot of Fortune but that you can add other lots through it's editor. How that is used I'll look at in the next post when we look at the Lot of the Spirit (the Lot of the Moon).
To end this post I'll look at an example of the calculation of the Lot of Fortune - this is my own natal Lot. I will used decimal fractions to keep the maths down.
My Ascendant is 23.5 Leo (measured as a decimal fraction)
My Sun is 29.75 Libra (again measured as a decimal fraction)
My Moon is 21.32 Aquarius (again measured as a decimal fraction)
These positions need to be converted to 360 degree format, counting from 0 Aries.
So,
Ascendant = 143.5 degrees
Sun = 209.75 degrees
Moon = 321.3 degrees
My birth was nocturnal, so the formula for the Lot of Fortune is:
144.5 + 209.75 - 321.32 = 31.93 degrees or just short of 2 degrees Taurus.
The ruler of my Lot is Venus and it's condition and position in my chart will say quite a bit about the way external factors affect me. Note that for Hellenistic Astrologers it's the ruler of the Lot that is important. Aspects to the Lot may exist but they are secondary to aspects to the Lot ruler.
My Venus is in the angular in the fourth House, so that may say something about the area of life where fortune either smiles or does not it's also just under the Suns beams but heading in the right direction - out of them. It's direct and reasonably speedy. My Venus is in Scorpio, it's detriment, so my fortune is unlikely to be overflowing but I might well be in the right position at the right time (Venus angular) and it's conjunct Mercury, which might give some reasonable communication skills that can influence the outcome.
That's a very brief and selective look at the Lot of Fortune but I'll expand on it later because the Lot of Fortune is often used in other Lots to examine more specific qualities. I'll also look at the processs of using the Lot of Fortune in predictive work, though I hope that Dave will also contribute on his own methods - Lots are not just for the Traditional Astrologer.
In order to try some of the measures in this thread you need to install version 5,6 of Traditional Morinus on your computer. Sadly despite my initial enthusiasm the range of calculation power is missing from the Full version (which still treats most measures as Arabic Parts). Hopefully this will be included in later versions as modern Astrologers are also exploring the use of Lots/Parts in their work. You can dowload from:
https://sites.google.com/site/tradmorinus/morinus
(downloads are at the bottom of the page and MorinusWin, is the Windows version the other version is Linux)
And some useful threads on it here:
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=170384
and here:
b
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=174745
both of which I have made sticky for the duration of this thread. To do the calculations easily you will need version 5.5 or later. Earlier versions will not allow all the calculations to be automated. (so you'll need a calculator to try them out on your own chart).
Firstly some background and definition of terms.
I will use the term 'Lot' to keep things simple and to avoid cumbersome dual names. It's easier, if not always exact or correct (because of the flow of the history of Astrology) but it makes following the thread easier.
Secondly, whilst I'm drawing on texts, I'm going to keep it as simple as possible,
Robert Zoller in his book 'The Arabic Parts in Astrology' attributes the earliest reference to these measures to Ptolemy's tetrabiblos - the four books. And at the time that Zoller wrote in 1980, he was reflecting the then current knowledge. It's now reasonably clear that there are sources pre-Ptolemy and that Ptolemy actually disapproved of the Lots, except for the Lot of the Moon - what we now call the Part of Fortune or Fortuna using its Latin name. We now know that most of his contempories and almost certainly earlier Astrologers used a range of these. This range was extended to the point of ridicule by medieval Arab Astrologers but that should not detract from the usefulness of a core body of measures.
So what is a Lot? Essentially, it measures the distance between two important planets and or points and then projects that distance from a third planet or point. The result is a point of balance and hence importance, relating to your specific issue.
Now that sounds a bit complex so lets take a simple (and fundamental) example. Most newcomers to Astrology learn that there are three key things in determining character or temperament (though other things may still contribute) - those 3 keys are the Ascendant, te Sun and the Moon Their zodiacal positions tell us much about someone. Ptolemy's Lot of Fortune takes the distance from the Sun to the Moon and then projects that distance from the Ascendant.
This Lot gives an impression of how external events beyond their control will affect their lives - how the wheel of fortune will treat them. Fortune here includes not just wealth, but health and happiness that result from external factors Ptolemy treated this Lot as so important that he used it as one of the five key points that could indicate the person's life expectance and future prospects - the others were the Ascendant, the Sun and Moon and the MC. Sometimes there is reference to a sixth point, the pre-natal lunation (either the Full Moon or New Moon that fell immediately prior to birth).
As late as the seventeenth century, Lilly still used the Part (Lot) of Fortune in his predictive systems.
Ptolemy calculated the Lot using the formula
Asc + Moon - Sun (all three measured in zodiacal degrees).
Ptolemy used only this formual, no matter what time the birth took place but it's now clear that most of his contempories and later Arab Astrologers calculated the Lot differently depending on whether the birth was during day time (diurnal) or night time (nocturnal). In Hellenistic Astrology the ruler of the Day is the Sun, the ruler of the night is the Moon. The usual calculation was based on the 'Sect' Lord (Sect simply meaning whether it was day or night).
Thus Ptolemy's measure was 'correct' for Day births but if the birth was by night the formula was:
Asc + Sun - Moon (notice that the last term in both calculations is the 'Sect' Lord or ruler)
This use of a distinction between night and day versions of Lots is quite common in Hellenistic Astrology because they treated Day and Night as having different qualities that affected people in a significant way. This distinction is now largely lost but you will still find it in films and plays - look how many horror stories are set at night - or how we see this distinction in the nature of Sun and Moon, both in Astrology,Tarot and other mantic arts.
For this thread I will often distinguish between diurnal and nocturnal versions for the lots.
Once you have installed Traditional Morinus, you will find that it has only one Lot installed - the Lot of Fortune but that you can add other lots through it's editor. How that is used I'll look at in the next post when we look at the Lot of the Spirit (the Lot of the Moon).
To end this post I'll look at an example of the calculation of the Lot of Fortune - this is my own natal Lot. I will used decimal fractions to keep the maths down.
My Ascendant is 23.5 Leo (measured as a decimal fraction)
My Sun is 29.75 Libra (again measured as a decimal fraction)
My Moon is 21.32 Aquarius (again measured as a decimal fraction)
These positions need to be converted to 360 degree format, counting from 0 Aries.
So,
Ascendant = 143.5 degrees
Sun = 209.75 degrees
Moon = 321.3 degrees
My birth was nocturnal, so the formula for the Lot of Fortune is:
144.5 + 209.75 - 321.32 = 31.93 degrees or just short of 2 degrees Taurus.
The ruler of my Lot is Venus and it's condition and position in my chart will say quite a bit about the way external factors affect me. Note that for Hellenistic Astrologers it's the ruler of the Lot that is important. Aspects to the Lot may exist but they are secondary to aspects to the Lot ruler.
My Venus is in the angular in the fourth House, so that may say something about the area of life where fortune either smiles or does not it's also just under the Suns beams but heading in the right direction - out of them. It's direct and reasonably speedy. My Venus is in Scorpio, it's detriment, so my fortune is unlikely to be overflowing but I might well be in the right position at the right time (Venus angular) and it's conjunct Mercury, which might give some reasonable communication skills that can influence the outcome.
That's a very brief and selective look at the Lot of Fortune but I'll expand on it later because the Lot of Fortune is often used in other Lots to examine more specific qualities. I'll also look at the processs of using the Lot of Fortune in predictive work, though I hope that Dave will also contribute on his own methods - Lots are not just for the Traditional Astrologer.