Free Lot of Friends Calculator

The Lot of Friends is the Hellenistic lot of friendship, alliance, and social support, the point in your chart that describes the nature and source of your bonds with other people. It belongs to the eleventh house, which the ancient astrologers called the place of the Good Spirit, the house of friends, allies, hopes, and benefactors. Built from Mercury and the Moon and projected from the Ascendant, its sign, house, and ruler describe how you connect and where your friendships come from.

Where the Lot of Fortune shows the body and material circumstance, and the Lot of Spirit shows deliberate action and intention, the Lot of Friends narrows to your social world: the people who support you, the alliances you form, and the style of your companionship. Read it as one clear piece of testimony about friendship, then weigh it through the eleventh house, its ruler, and the rest of the chart. It belongs to the wider family of Arabic parts (lots), which you can compute together with the Arabic Parts Calculator.

The Lot of Friends uses three points: the Ascendant, Mercury, and the Moon. The formula is the Ascendant plus Mercury minus the Moon, which takes the arc from the Moon to Mercury and projects it from the rising degree. The earliest source, Dorotheus of Sidon in the first century, keeps the same formula for both day and night charts, so this lot is not sect-reversed the way the Lot of Fortune is. An exact birth time matters here, because the calculation begins from the Ascendant.

Some later authors disagreed about the night chart. Olympiodorus, al-Andarzaghar, and Sahl reversed the lot after dark to the Ascendant plus the Moon minus Mercury, while Dorotheus, Masha'allah, and Abu Ma'shar kept it the same by sect. Augurine follows the older non-reversed Dorothean form, the same convention it uses for the other lots the earliest sources keep constant by day and night. The point is computed in the Rust engine, in the same of-date frame and whole-sign houses as the rest of your chart, so it agrees with your other lots rather than drifting from them.

The Lot of Friends is built from two planets that name the two halves of friendship. The Moon is attachment and rapport, the felt sense of closeness and the people you are bonded to day to day. Mercury is exchange and communication, the conversation, shared interest, and back-and-forth that a friendship actually runs on. The lot measures the arc between them, from the bond you feel to the way it is spoken and shared, and casts it onto your own horizon.

So when you study your Lot of Friends, look at the condition of both Mercury and the Moon in the chart, not only the lot's position. A strong, well-placed Mercury sharpens the communicative, idea-sharing side of your friendships. A strong Moon deepens the felt, caretaking, belonging side. The balance between them often marks the difference between the friend you talk with for hours and the friend you simply sit beside. For the desire and attraction side of relationship rather than companionship, see the Lot of Eros.

The single most useful step is to find the planet that rules the sign your Lot of Friends falls in, then read that planet's condition and house. The lot names the subject. Its ruler tells you how the subject tends to turn out. A Lot of Friends in Libra ruled by a Venus on the Midheaven describes a very different social life than the same lot ruled by a Venus hidden in the twelfth house.

Check the ruler's house, which shows where your friendships lead you, its sign and dignity, which show how well supported they are, and any aspects to it. Jupiter or Venus reaching the ruler tends to bless the friendships with ease and loyalty. Saturn or Mars reaching it can mean bonds that are tested, slow to form, or marked by distance and conflict. This calculator surfaces the ruler and its house so you can read that line first.

It is easy to confuse the relationship lots. The Lot of Eros is built from Venus and the Lot of Spirit and describes desire and what you long for, the appetitive pull. The Lot of Friends is built from Mercury and the Moon and describes companionship and the network of people who support you. Some ancient sources even blur the two, but Eros leans toward passion while the Lot of Friends leans toward fellowship. Its natural counterweight is the Lot of Necessity, the point Valens paired with Eros for the people who constrain you rather than free you, and the relational bond of the Lot of Marriage sits beside it for partnership.

The Lot of Friends is also distinct from the general eleventh house and from a few later parts that share its name. The eleventh house is the chart's whole region of friends and allies; the Lot of Friends is a single derived point inside that territory, calculated specifically from Mercury and the Moon. And some medieval and modern lists carry a different friendship part, a Powerful Friends or Honourable Acquaintance built from the Lot of Fortune and the Sun rather than Mercury and the Moon, which descends from the later medieval parts lists rather than the early Greek tradition. They share a topic but differ in formula and meaning. This calculator computes the original Dorothean lot of friendship.

The Lot of Friends describes the shape of your social world. Other techniques tell you when it comes alive. An annual profection to the eleventh house turns the year toward friends, groups, and benefactors, and the ruler of that house becomes the year's lord. Transits crossing the degree of your Lot of Friends, or its ruler, often coincide with the arrival, deepening, or loss of an alliance. The classic Valens timing method, zodiacal releasing, can be released from any lot to find its active chapters.

The Lot of Friends has been recorded continuously since Dorotheus, carried through Olympiodorus and the anonymous Greek lot lists into the medieval Arabic authors, who kept it in the eleventh house of friends and allies. For a faster look at which of your lots are lit right now, the Lot Activation Map reads the whole set against the current sky.