What do you think?
Rate this book
Where is Your Part of Fortune?
Your Part of Fortune can indicate your career path, your vocation, your mode and level of income, your health, your connection with the wider world, and on a deeper level, how your soul can grow to its highest expression. As it is comprised of a combination of your Sun, Moon and Ascendant, three of the most significant places in a chart, it could be said that the Part of Fortune is just as important as all three put together. There is little information about this important point as modern astrology tends to regard it as a minor part of the chart. Ancient astrologers, however, used it regularly and I hope that this book inspires you to learn more about yourself and its impact on your life.
- GenresAstrology
55 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 4, 2018
147 people are currently reading
19 people want to read
About the author
Barbara Goldsmith
24 books97 followersan American author, journalist, and philanthropist. She received critical and popular acclaim for her best selling books, essays, articles, and her philanthropic work. She was awarded four honoris causa doctorates, and numerous awards; been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, two Presidential Commissions, and the New York State Council on the Arts; and honored by The New York Public Library Literary Lions as well as the Literacy Volunteers, the American Academy in Rome, The Authors Guild, and the Guild Hall Academy of Arts for Lifetime Achievement. In 2009, she received the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Merit medal from the Republic of Poland. In November 2008, Goldsmith was elected a “Living Landmark” by the New York Landmarks Conservancy. She has three children and six grandchildren. The Financial Times declared that "Goldsmith is leaving a legacy—one of art, literature, friends, family and philanthropy."
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 24, 2020
A “book” written in hurry
This is a tiny pocket book of 70 pages. The quantity should not matter as long as the quality is not compromised. However, in this case, the quality is even “thinner” than the quantity.
My problem with the quality of the book is the writing style as well as the content matter, either in terms of being sketchy and incoherent, or arguably even in terms of technicality. Not to mention its lack of originality or at least deep engagement with the material makes it an unnecessary book to write/read.
To give you an idea what I mean by the sketchy writing quality: the first headline of the book, for instance, reads “what is the part of fortunes?”. Here, instead of briefly saying what the Part of Fortune is, the author talks about how there are not “enough information” on the subject or the Western Astrology treats it as a “minor point”, etc. so she took it upon herself to write a book on the subject. She writes 5 paragraphs under this headline, jumping from one idea to another, but she fails to answer WHAT IS THE PART OF FORTUNE.
Apart from the fact that she fails to provide a comprehensive definition for the core concept of the book, by saying the reason she wrote the book was due to scarcity of information on the subject, she implies she must have done a primary research on the subject and/or have translated materials from the medieval Persian, Arabic, or Hellenistic manuscripts. However, judging by the content and the included references at the end of the book, I doubt if that was the case.
The book does not provide any original viewpoint/argument, nor does it provide a comprehensive synthesis of information on the subject from other books. So, I am baffled why she even wrote this “book” which is neither original, reflexive, nor exhaustive.
The other problem I have with this book (but admittedly it is not limited to this one) is the very possible misunderstanding and misrepresentation of Part of Fortune among Modern Western Astrologers. I speculate the misunderstanding comes from taking the meaning of “fortune” literally, and assuming it simply means “how/where you are fortunate in your life”. Moreover, following the habit of Modern Western Astrology, they a-priorly associated it with psychological disposition based on the qualities of the sign/house placement without empirical research for verification.
I highly doubt the medieval astrologers used the Part of Fortune in this way at all (they were not very much into psychological dispositions after all). Instead, they probably used it exclusively for timing techniques such as Zodiacal Releasing to see *WHEN* the native is “lucky” rather than how or where.
The reason they named it “fortune” was probably because based on “pure luck” the chart unfolds from a point that might be advantageous or disadvantageous to the native. For example, a person whose phase of career peak starts at age 20 is “luckier” than a person whose career peak phase starts at the age of 70. The significance of Part of Fortune was something like drawing a dice to determine from which point astrologer should start the profected chart. Hence the name “Pars Fortunae” or “Part of Fortune”. So I doubt if Part of Fortune was even used by Perso-Arabic or Hellenistic astrologers in the qualitative/descriptive way the author (or her references) present(s).
The other issue I have with this book is giving examples of famous people as an evidence of the validity of the descriptions of placements. I never understood the value of including the names of celebrities/famous people as some sort of evidence for a single placement/aspect in isolation to the entirety of the chart.
For instance, the author mentions since Queen Elizabeth has her Part of Fortune in Taurus, this is an evidence this placement makes the native rich!! This casual name dropping of famous people in this manner when it fits the theory, ignores the fact that there are millions of people with this placement who are poor, and that the Queen of England has many other placements/aspects in her chart that could have contributed to the wealth she has accrued from stealing from other nations as well as her own subjects. In other words, for every Madonna or Queen of England, we can find 1000s of people with the given placement whose lives refute these descriptions. Similarly, I highly doubt if Part of Fortune in Taurus is over-represented in the chart of other wealthy people or Part of Fortune in the first house in the chart of celebrities who are obsessed with their appearances. (If there is a data to support this, I would like to have a loot at it. Otherwise, Queen Elizabeth or Madonna are NOT supportive data!) It is unfortunate that many astrology authors today substitute empirical data gathered through scientific means with a few name dropping of “celebrities”.
There are more to say about the flaws of this book, but since I do not want my review to be longer than the book itself, I suffice with these few examples.
This is a tiny pocket book of 70 pages. The quantity should not matter as long as the quality is not compromised. However, in this case, the quality is even “thinner” than the quantity.
My problem with the quality of the book is the writing style as well as the content matter, either in terms of being sketchy and incoherent, or arguably even in terms of technicality. Not to mention its lack of originality or at least deep engagement with the material makes it an unnecessary book to write/read.
To give you an idea what I mean by the sketchy writing quality: the first headline of the book, for instance, reads “what is the part of fortunes?”. Here, instead of briefly saying what the Part of Fortune is, the author talks about how there are not “enough information” on the subject or the Western Astrology treats it as a “minor point”, etc. so she took it upon herself to write a book on the subject. She writes 5 paragraphs under this headline, jumping from one idea to another, but she fails to answer WHAT IS THE PART OF FORTUNE.
Apart from the fact that she fails to provide a comprehensive definition for the core concept of the book, by saying the reason she wrote the book was due to scarcity of information on the subject, she implies she must have done a primary research on the subject and/or have translated materials from the medieval Persian, Arabic, or Hellenistic manuscripts. However, judging by the content and the included references at the end of the book, I doubt if that was the case.
The book does not provide any original viewpoint/argument, nor does it provide a comprehensive synthesis of information on the subject from other books. So, I am baffled why she even wrote this “book” which is neither original, reflexive, nor exhaustive.
The other problem I have with this book (but admittedly it is not limited to this one) is the very possible misunderstanding and misrepresentation of Part of Fortune among Modern Western Astrologers. I speculate the misunderstanding comes from taking the meaning of “fortune” literally, and assuming it simply means “how/where you are fortunate in your life”. Moreover, following the habit of Modern Western Astrology, they a-priorly associated it with psychological disposition based on the qualities of the sign/house placement without empirical research for verification.
I highly doubt the medieval astrologers used the Part of Fortune in this way at all (they were not very much into psychological dispositions after all). Instead, they probably used it exclusively for timing techniques such as Zodiacal Releasing to see *WHEN* the native is “lucky” rather than how or where.
The reason they named it “fortune” was probably because based on “pure luck” the chart unfolds from a point that might be advantageous or disadvantageous to the native. For example, a person whose phase of career peak starts at age 20 is “luckier” than a person whose career peak phase starts at the age of 70. The significance of Part of Fortune was something like drawing a dice to determine from which point astrologer should start the profected chart. Hence the name “Pars Fortunae” or “Part of Fortune”. So I doubt if Part of Fortune was even used by Perso-Arabic or Hellenistic astrologers in the qualitative/descriptive way the author (or her references) present(s).
The other issue I have with this book is giving examples of famous people as an evidence of the validity of the descriptions of placements. I never understood the value of including the names of celebrities/famous people as some sort of evidence for a single placement/aspect in isolation to the entirety of the chart.
For instance, the author mentions since Queen Elizabeth has her Part of Fortune in Taurus, this is an evidence this placement makes the native rich!! This casual name dropping of famous people in this manner when it fits the theory, ignores the fact that there are millions of people with this placement who are poor, and that the Queen of England has many other placements/aspects in her chart that could have contributed to the wealth she has accrued from stealing from other nations as well as her own subjects. In other words, for every Madonna or Queen of England, we can find 1000s of people with the given placement whose lives refute these descriptions. Similarly, I highly doubt if Part of Fortune in Taurus is over-represented in the chart of other wealthy people or Part of Fortune in the first house in the chart of celebrities who are obsessed with their appearances. (If there is a data to support this, I would like to have a loot at it. Otherwise, Queen Elizabeth or Madonna are NOT supportive data!) It is unfortunate that many astrology authors today substitute empirical data gathered through scientific means with a few name dropping of “celebrities”.
There are more to say about the flaws of this book, but since I do not want my review to be longer than the book itself, I suffice with these few examples.
January 23, 2021
So simplistic and superficial it gave no insight
The book takes you through how to calculate the part of fortune in your chart, and then provides very glib and superficial concepts of the significance of potential energy dynamics you could be working through based on the house, the sign, and angles of this point in your chart. To me her explanations of the psychological nuances of the spectrum of energy evoked by this point in the chart were so shallow and cursory that I really couldn’t glean much insight.
On the plus side, it was extremely easy to read and well organized.
The book takes you through how to calculate the part of fortune in your chart, and then provides very glib and superficial concepts of the significance of potential energy dynamics you could be working through based on the house, the sign, and angles of this point in your chart. To me her explanations of the psychological nuances of the spectrum of energy evoked by this point in the chart were so shallow and cursory that I really couldn’t glean much insight.
On the plus side, it was extremely easy to read and well organized.
December 26, 2024
simple and to the point!
A short intro and synopsis of the POF in signs, houses and aspects. Always reminding us to take the WHOLE chart into account. If you know astrology but don’t know much about the POF this is a great introduction.
A short intro and synopsis of the POF in signs, houses and aspects. Always reminding us to take the WHOLE chart into account. If you know astrology but don’t know much about the POF this is a great introduction.
October 20, 2020
Good intro on part of fortune
This is a really good resource for someone like myself who doesn’t know very much about the lot of fortune and wants to look deeper into astrology
This is a really good resource for someone like myself who doesn’t know very much about the lot of fortune and wants to look deeper into astrology
January 31, 2021
interesting! a good intro to the part of fortune - makes me wanna look more into it
April 2, 2022
Great Resource
This book efficiently explains the Part of Fortune and gives specific delineation interpretations. Any astrologer or hobbyist will love it.
This book efficiently explains the Part of Fortune and gives specific delineation interpretations. Any astrologer or hobbyist will love it.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews