Ten systems, one birth. See where they agree, and where they argue.

Three foundations, seven lenses.

A foundation is a complete chart in its own tradition, and you buy one. A lens reads that same birth moment through a different structure, and you add as many as you want. Every card below is drawn from one demonstration chart, 12 April 1985, 07:45, London.

1. Foundation

   Vedic

   India, c.1500 BCE

   Placements against the fixed stars, and which life period is running.

   Vedic measures from the stars themselves rather than from the seasons, so its signs sit about twenty four degrees behind the Western ones. It is also the only system here that divides a life into named periods and says which one you are in.

   The 27 nakshatras
   1 of 10
2. Foundation

   Western

   Hellenistic Mediterranean, c.200 BCE

   Planets and houses against the seasons, and how they aspect each other.

   Western measures from the equinox, so its signs follow the seasons rather than the constellations. It is the one that reads the angles between planets as a structure in their own right.

   The 12 sun signsThe 12 rising signs
   2 of 10
3. Foundation

   Four Pillars

   China, Tang dynasty onward

   Year, month, day and hour read as a balance of five elements.

   Four Pillars has no planets in it at all. It reads a birth as four pairs of characters, then asks which of the five elements is plentiful, which is missing, and what that does to the rest.

   The 10 day mastersThe 12 year animals
   3 of 10
4. Lens

   Human Design

   Synthesis, 1987

   How you take in energy, and how you are built to decide.

   The newest system here and the only one assembled deliberately, out of the I Ching, astrology, the chakras and the kabbalistic tree. It is about mechanics rather than meaning: what the body responds to, and how a decision is supposed to arrive.

   Types and authoritiesThe 64 gates
   4 of 10
5. Lens

   Gene Keys

   Contemporary, from the same 64 gates

   The same gates read as a sequence of shifts, not a fixed type.

   Gene Keys uses the same sixty four figures as Human Design and the I Ching, and reads each one as a range rather than a label. Every gate has a difficult expression and a settled one, and the distance between them is the point.

   The 64 keys
   5 of 10
6. Lens

   Numerology

   Pythagorean lineage

   Name and date reduced to a small set of recurring numbers.

   The only system here that reads your name as well as your birth. Letters become numbers, the numbers reduce to single figures, and the same few figures then recur across different parts of a life.

   The life paths
   6 of 10
7. Lens

   Nine Star Ki

   Japan, from nine-palace theory

   Your number in a nine-year cycle, and where you sit in it now.

   Three numbers from the date alone: the character other people deal with, the one running underneath it, and how you read on first meeting. It also says which year of a nine year cycle you are currently in, which none of the others do.

   The 9 stars
   7 of 10
8. Lens

   Tzolk'in

   Maya, Mesoamerica

   Your day sign in a 260-day count with its own logic of time.

   A count of two hundred and sixty days, kept without a break for a very long time, and tied to nothing in the sky. It is the only calendar here that does not take its length from the sun or the moon.

   The 20 day signs
   8 of 10
9. Lens

   Birth runes

   Norse, Elder Futhark

   The runes tied to your birth position in the year.

   Twenty four runes laid over the solar year at fifteen degrees each. This is a modern arrangement rather than a historical practice, and the reading says so before it says anything else.

   The 24 runes
   9 of 10
10. Lens

    I Ching

    China, c.1000 BCE

    Your birth hexagram, read as a situation and its direction.

    The oldest text here, and the one the sixty four gates of Human Design and Gene Keys were taken from. It describes situations rather than people, so it reads a birth as a position rather than a personality.

    The 64 hexagrams
    10 of 10

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We read charts for pattern and coherence, not prediction. Nothing here tells you what will happen, and nothing here tells you who you are; it shows you a structure and leaves the judgement with you.