Ever since the days of the ancient Babylonians and Egyptians, there have been societal pronouncements on which days of the year are officially considered ‘lucky’ and ‘unlucky.’ As the existence of the Coligny Calendar from the 2nd Century C.E. indicates, even Celtic peoples (and presumably their priesthood, the Druids) had a list of officially-designated ‘good’ and ‘evil’ days. The provenance of such lists is usually ascribed to ‘learned astrologers’ or angels who handed the master list of good and bad days over to somebody important-enough to garner a mention in the Christian Bible. Given that there are only 365 days in a year, 366 in a leap year, there’s bound to be some overlap in the lists, but from what I’ve seen of such lists, there’s quite a bit of diversity too. Oftentimes, it’ll differ based on whether said-list of lucky and unlucky days is for purposes of agriculture, romance, starting things, or general fortune.
What constitutes a ‘lucky’ day? The consensus is, they’re days on which some good event or unanticipated gain comes to us, seemingly from out of the blue. They’re days on which taking a big risk or embarking on a new endeavor or project will greatly pay off for us, either immediately or sometime further down the road. In terms of children born, a lucky day is traditionally considered to bless them with particular good fortune in life, and will endow them with certain characteristics which will aid them on their way to success. What constitutes an unlucky day? The consensus is, they’re days on which some bad event or unanticipated loss comes to us, seemingly from out of the blue. They’re days on which taking a risk or embarking on a new endeavor or project not only doesn’t pay off, they bring us unanticipated loss, trouble, sorrow, pain and other complications we didn’t see coming. In terms of children born, an unlucky day is traditionally considered to endow them with a disadvantage and undesirable characteristics which will pave the road to misfortune for them.
Such hard-and-fast universal lists of what constitutes ‘lucky’ and ‘unlucky’ days of the year I was skeptical-of at first. After all, aren’t the success or failure of our days a matter of what kind of energy we bring to them? Doesn’t luck and misfortune vary from person to person, independently of a hard-and-fast list of days? Then I came across the lists (pictured above) of unfortunate days for males and females, plus a list of days considered propitious for love and marriage. These were some more gems I found in ‘Grand Orient’s’ A Manual of Cartomancy. How old these lists are, Grand Orient doesn’t say. But as with the Wizardology Cards, I was forced once again to confront my facile assumptions when I gave it a good look.