Numerology

Discover the destiny numbers hidden in your date of birth.

Numerology, in the Pythagorean tradition, reduces the digits of your birth date to reveal the patterns of destiny. It reads the Life Path number for your life's overall direction, the Birthday number for innate talent, and the Personal Year number for this year's place in the nine-year cycle. The idea that numbers have qualities reaches back to the Pythagoreans of the sixth century BCE, but the Life Path calculation used now is a form set down and popularised in the United States early in the twentieth century. Eleven, twenty-two and thirty-three are left unreduced as master numbers, and their force is held to make them demanding to carry. Numbers taken from a name work from its spelling, so spelling it differently changes the result.

How it works

The digits of your birth date are added and reduced to a single figure to find your life path, with 11, 22, and 33 kept as master numbers. Add your name and we also calculate your expression, soul urge, and personality numbers.

What you'll get

You see the path your life path number describes along with love, career, money and health, the flow of your personal year and month, your challenge number and your lucky elements. The personal day appears only while you are looking at the month that holds today, and the karmic debt number belongs only to those whose numbers come to 13, 14, 16 or 19 — without one, that section simply does not appear.

Hundreds of millions share your life path

Countless people were born on the same day of the same month of the same year, and because the life path reduces those digits to one, far more people than that share the number. Try to explain yourself entirely through the life path and you will always hit a part that does not fit. It serves you far better to read it alongside the birthday, expression and soul numbers, and to look at the places where they disagree.

Learn the feel of the numbers, not a list

Memorising what one through nine mean as a list slips away quickly. Grasp the broad grain first, that odd numbers push forward and even numbers support, that one, five and seven stand alone while two, six and nine move with others, and the rest follows. The readings on the result page sit on top of that grain, so knowing it makes them far easier to take in, and the numbers stop feeling like a vocabulary you have to keep looking up.

How to use the personal year

The personal year turns in a cycle of nine, so it tells you roughly where in that turn you now stand. A first year is for sowing and a ninth is for clearing, which means the same undertaking carries differently depending on when you start it. Rather than launching something large in a ninth year, finish off what is old and prepare the next turn, and the first year that follows will feel much lighter.

When the name and birth numbers disagree

Sometimes the number from your birth date and the number from your name tell different stories. Neither is wrong. In this tradition the birth number is taken as the inborn grain and the name number as the grain other people see. If the two disagree, it means what you want inside and what shows outside are not the same, and that gap is itself worth reading. People often find the gap describes them better than either number alone.

What not to settle with numerology

Do not fix a moving date, a contract date or anything involving a large sum by a personal year or personal day. Numerology is a frame for gauging the grain of a period, not a device for picking auspicious dates, and there is no evidence that numbers carry such power. Nor would we suggest changing how you spell your name to improve its number. Take the flow as reference and let real conditions settle the decision.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the master numbers 11, 22, and 33?

They are left as they are instead of being reduced to a single digit. The same energy is considered to press more strongly, bringing a larger task, so they are read separately.

Do I have to enter my name?

No. Your birth date alone gives your life path and your personal year, month, and day. Adding your name brings in the expression, soul urge, and personality numbers.

Which spelling of my name should I use?

Numerology assigns values to Latin letters, so use a Latin-script spelling. Pick one — the passport version or the one you normally use — and keep to it, since a different spelling gives different values.

What is the difference between the life path and the personal year?

The life path is the direction you are born with and never changes; the personal year is the character of that particular year, cycling through nine. Read the large frame from the life path and what this year is for from the personal year.

Can I use the numbers of a lunar birthday?

You can, but numerology settled in the West, so using the solar date's digits is the convention. Choose lunar and it is converted before the digits are added. A life path reduces every digit down to one, so a shift of only a few days already gives a different number.