Meaning
The diagonal from the bottom-left cell to the top-right joins interest, logic and luck, and the school reads its total as temperament: the warmth of feeling. Up to one digit is read as feeling kept at arm's length; two or three as the norm, feeling and good sense in proportion; four as strong warmth and a need for a steady bond; five as feeling leading the personality; and six or more as feeling that can overwhelm the rest.
In our own words, the diagonal describes how near the surface a person's feelings run. Alexandrov's books read it more narrowly, as a carnal temperament to be matched between partners; we keep the tradition's name.
Every band, in our words
The line is read by the number of digits in its three cells, on thresholds of its own. Our reading of each band follows, with the share of dates that fall in it over every day of the twentieth century and of the twenty-first.
- 0–1, weak. Feeling kept at arm's length. Dates: 19.0 percent of 1900 to 1999, 24.6 percent of 2000 to 2099.
- 2–3, normal. The norm: feeling and good sense in proportion. Dates: 40.5 percent of 1900 to 1999, 51.1 percent of 2000 to 2099.
- 4, strong. Strong warmth, and a need for a steady bond. Dates: 20.5 percent of 1900 to 1999, 14.8 percent of 2000 to 2099.
- 5, maximal. Feeling leads the personality. Dates: 13.7 percent of 1900 to 1999, 7.1 percent of 2000 to 2099.
- 6+, overload. Feeling can overwhelm the rest. Dates: 6.4 percent of 1900 to 1999, 2.4 percent of 2000 to 2099.
What fills the line
Its three cells are among the scarcer ones, so the total is modest: 3.06 on average for the 1900s and 2.54 since 2000. Two or three digits, the band the tradition reads as the norm, is the commonest total, 40.5 percent of twentieth-century dates and 51.1 percent of twenty-first-century dates.
Some compatibility sites read a mismatch on this diagonal between partners as a forecast about the relationship. Nothing supports it, and we repeat none of it.
What this page leaves out
The school compares two people's lines for compatibility and teaches transitions between cells; we compute neither. Births from 2000 are read on the classic formula, with the "+19" variant as a labelled option.
Correspondences
Each item with how it stands: “sourced” is in the work cited, “our construction” is EsoTerrier’s own, and “disputed” means the sources disagree.
- Line name (Alexandrov school)
- Temperament (темперамент); the English name is ours sourced
- Thresholds
- 0–1 weak; 2–3 normal; 4 strong; 5 maximal; 6+ overload: the common Russian scheme; whether they match Alexandrov's own in every band is open disputed
- Readings of each band (EsoTerrier)
- Written fresh in our own words; the Russian sites' readings repeat Alexandrov's books and are not translated our construction
- Arrow in the Western birth chart (Phillips, as summarised)
- "Spirituality": the same three cells in a grid flipped top to bottom, date digits only Phillips gives the name Spirituality to this diagonal, the one Alexandrov calls temperament, which shows how far apart the two traditions are. sourced
How the schools read it
- Alexandrov's school and the Russian tools
- Add the digits in cells 3, 5, 7 and read the total on the line's own thresholds; the line is Temperament.
- Afisha and a few others
- The same cells, drawn with 1 2 3 across the top, so that this diagonal is drawn as a diagonal.
- Practitioners of "+19"
- For births from 2000 the digits counted change, and with them the total. A convention, offered by us only as a labelled option.
- Templeton and Phillips
- The "arrow of Spirituality": a strength when all three cells hold date digits, a weakness when all three are empty; no bands.
- EsoTerrier
- The diagonal describes how near the surface a person's feelings run. Alexandrov's books read it more narrowly, as a carnal temperament to be matched between partners; we keep the tradition's name.
Claims about it
-
The temperament line is Pythagorean.
falseWhat the record shows: Pythagoras wrote nothing and no early source has a digit square. The eight lines are the Alexandrov school's addition to the Russian square, in print from 1999.
-
The square's lines add up like those of a magic square.
falseWhat the record shows: In a magic square, such as the Lo Shu or Dürer's of 1514, every line makes the same sum. Here a line is the number of digits in three cells, and its total varies from date to date.
-
Phillips's "arrow of Spirituality" for these cells is an arrow of Pythagoras.
falseWhat the record shows: The grid of date digits with its arrows comes from Hettie Templeton in Sydney, 1940, carried on by David Phillips. Pythagoras is the brand, not the source.
-
The diagonal reads a person's sexual temperament and decides which partner suits them.
unverifiedWhat the record shows: Alexandrov's scheme for intimacy, from his 2016 big book; never tested. We keep the name temperament and read nothing about anyone's sexuality or partners.
-
A difference of 0 or 1 between two people's totals on this line means good compatibility.
unverifiedWhat the record shows: A practitioners' rule of thumb across Russian compatibility sites, not traced to Alexandrov's text and never tested. We compare no squares.
