Article text is currently English only. The calculation below and the rest of the interface follow your chosen language.
In short
A challenge number is a difference between two parts of the birth date, read in Western-style numerology as a lesson for a period of life. This app reduces month, day and year to single digits, subtracts them in pairs for three sub-challenges, and subtracts the first two for a main challenge that lasts for life. Challenges run from 0 to 8.
What the term means
Challenge numbers are the companions of the pinnacle cycles, made by subtraction instead of addition. Each is the gap between two parts of the birth date, so it can only be 0 to 8. Three sub-challenges cover successive periods of life and a main challenge is read as present throughout.
Where the term comes from
The engine follows Numerology Made Easy by William Mykian, chapter 8, "Meeting Your Challenges" (p.71-77). The book describes challenges as "closed doors" to be opened, about the choices one makes in response to circumstances. It gives a text for each number from 0 to 8 and calls 0 the challenge of choice. The pinnacles, by contrast, follow the AIFAS course notes.
How this app computes it
- Month, day and year are each reduced to one digit with a digit sum, masters collapsed.
- First sub-challenge: the gap between month and day. Second: day and year. Third: month and year. Main challenge: the gap between the first and second.
- The first runs from birth to 36 minus the Life Path digit; the second and third last 27 years each, back to back.
A small illustration
The book's own example is 21 September 1938. Month 9, day 3 and year 3 give a first sub-challenge of 6, a second of 0 and a third of 6, with a main challenge of 6. The engine's Bhagyank for this date is 33, read as 6 for the bands, so the periods are 0 to 30, 31 to 57 and 58 to 84.
Pages that use this term
- Numerology profile calculator - returns all four challenges with their periods.
- Numerology feature - where the challenges are shown.
- Mulank, Bhagyank and Life Path - the Life Path that sets the periods.
- Master number 11 - why a master is reduced for age bands.
Related terms
- Pinnacle cycle - the addition companion.
- Life Path number - sets the first period.
- Digit sum - reduces each part of the date.
- Master number - never a challenge.
Numerology Profile
Mulank, Bhagyank, the Lo Shu grid and your name's numbers - from one date and one name.
What it needs
Name and birth date
That is more than this article asks for - it only ever takes a date, and sometimes a time, and never a name or a birth place. So this one runs on its own page, which asks for exactly what it needs and stores none of it.
Run it on its own page