Facts & origins · accretions

Lucky numbers agree with nothing

You can tell a real tradition from something bolted on later by counting how much the sources agree with each other. Nobody publishes that count. Here it is.

The measurement

For each field: how many distinct sign-and-value pairs exist across the twelve signs, against how many times any source states one. Where the two numbers are close, effectively every source is saying something different.

Distinct values against attestations, all twelve signs.
field	distinct values	attestations	oldest source
element	12	114	antiquity
modality	12	129	antiquity
polarity	12	78	antiquity
lucky Number	64	68	modern only
lucky Colour	50	89	modern only
stone	30	49	modern only
flower	17	22	modern only
metal	11	11	modern only
tarotCard	4	4	modern only

Twelve values, or 64

Element, modality and polarity manage exactly twelve values each — one per sign — across more than a hundred attestations spanning every century in the corpus. Every source that states them states the same thing.

Lucky numbers manage 64 distinct values across 68 attestations. That is very nearly one new answer per source, and not one source older than 1929 mentions them at all.

Neither of those is a reason to stop enjoying a birthstone. It is a reason not to be told it is ancient, and a reason the correspondence table on every sign page is banded by what kind of claim each row is rather than printing them all in one list at one weight.