Challenge Numbers

The Challenge Numbers are the counterweight to the Pinnacles. Where a Pinnacle names the opportunity of a life period, the Challenge names its price of entry: the particular way you will be inadequate to the task until you are not. There are four, they are derived from the same reduced birth-date digits as the Pinnacles, and they are calculated not by addition but by subtraction.

That single methodological difference produces the system's most distinctive feature. Because each Challenge is the absolute difference between two single digits, it can never exceed 8 — there is no Challenge 9, and there never can be. It can, however, be 0, which no other number in numerology can. A Challenge 0 is read as the heaviest of all: it means no single weakness dominates, that every challenge is present at once, and that you must therefore choose your own lesson rather than have one assigned.

Challenges are also the one place in numerology where master numbers are reduced. An 11 becomes a 2 and a 22 becomes a 4 before the subtraction is performed, because the challenge is concerned with the ordinary digit beneath the master vibration rather than the master vibration itself. The four Challenges are usually read as a sequence — the first governing early life, the second the middle years, the third running the whole span, and the fourth the later years.

How to calculate

Reduce your birth month (M), day (D) and year (Y) to single digits, reducing master numbers too. First Challenge = |M − D|. Second = |D − Y|. Third = |First − Second|. Fourth = |M − Y|.

See also

Related terms

All glossary terms