Is a rarer life path number a better one?

The method offers no way to say so. Rarity here has a single cause: whether a master number takes one of the totals that would otherwise reduce to that digit. A 6 is scarcer than a 7 for that reason and no other.

Do 6 and 8 have anything in common with 7 because they sit beside it?

Not in the arithmetic. Their totals overlap nowhere — 24 gives a 6, 25 a 7, 26 an 8 — and a date lands on exactly one of them. Any resemblance is in the descriptions, which were written independently of the sums.

My sibling and I were born a day apart and have different numbers. Is that usual?

It is the normal case. One day changes the total by one, so consecutive dates almost always give consecutive numbers. The exceptions are the stops at 11, 22 and 33 and the wrap from 9 back to 1.

Which of these five numbers is the commonest?

Of the five, 9 by a hair: 3 898 dates between 1930 and 2025, against 3 895 for 8 and 3 894 each for 5 and 7. Those gaps come from where the window starts and stops, not from anything about the numbers.

How a 7 differs from its neighbours, in the addition

Numbers that sit next to each other in the row 1 to 9 are usually treated as though they were neighbours in the method as well. In the addition they are not. This page puts the totals behind 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 side by side, and the arithmetic separates them in a way the row does not.

The totals behind each of the five numbers

Every number is reached from a short list of first totals, and the lists are what actually differ.

5 comes from 5, 14, 23, 32 and 41. 6 comes from 6, 15, 24 and 42. 7 comes from 7, 16, 25, 34 and 43. 8 comes from 8, 17, 26, 35 and 44. 9 comes from 9, 18, 27, 36 and 45.

Four of the five lists hold five totals. The six's list holds four, because 33 — which would otherwise come down to 3 + 3 = 6 — is a master number in this convention and is kept as 33 instead.

The consequence shows up in a count of dates. Between 1930 and 2025 there are 3 894 dates giving a 5, 3 894 giving a 7, 3 895 giving an 8 and 3 898 giving a 9 — against 2 244 giving a 6. In percentages: 11.11 for a 7 and 6.40 for a 6, so a six turns up a little over half as often as either of the numbers beside it.

What the tradition makes of neighbouring numbers

In this tradition each number carries its own cluster of descriptions, and the clusters are not arranged on a scale. Nothing in the method makes 6 and 7 more alike than 2 and 7; the row from 1 to 9 is a set of labels, not a ladder, and being adjacent in it means only that the digits are adjacent.

Schools do write about the numbers in contrasts — the 6 as the number they associate with obligation to other people, the 7 with enquiry, the 8 with structure, the 9 with things ending. Those pairings come out of the descriptions, which were written separately, and not out of the sums that produced the numbers.

That is the whole relationship: the tradition supplies vocabulary, the addition supplies the number it is pinned to, and neither one tests the other.

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Consecutive days, consecutive numbers — until a master number cuts in

A day one higher adds exactly one to the total, so dates in the same month usually step the life path up by one as the calendar advances. January 1991 shows both the pattern and where it breaks.

1 January 1991: 1 + 1 + 1 + 9 + 9 + 1 = 22, kept as a master number. 2 January: 23, then 2 + 3 = 5. Then 24 → 6 on the 3rd, 25 → 7 on the 4th, 26 → 8 on the 5th, 27 → 9 on the 6th.

7 January: 28, then 2 + 8 = 10, then 1 + 0 = 1 — the wrap. 8 January: 29, then 2 + 9 = 11, kept. 9 January: 30 → 3. 10 January: the digits are 1, 0, 1, 1, 9, 9, 1, adding to 22 again.

So the 7 in that month is the 4th and nothing else, and its calendar neighbours are a 6 and an 8 exactly as the row suggests. In another month the same five numbers land on different days: the ordering is a property of the digits, not of where 7 sits among the meanings.

Where a 6 goes missing and a 7 never does

The master number that thins the sixes out does it unevenly. 1984 holds 42 dates that give a 7 and five that give a 6: 1 January, 10 January, 29 September, 1 October and 10 October, and no others in the whole year.

The reason is mechanical. In 1984 the year contributes 1 + 9 + 8 + 4 = 22, so the day and month have to add 2 or 20 to reach the totals 24 and 42. Adding 11 would reach 33, and 33 is kept rather than reduced, which removes an entire band of dates from the six. Only five day-and-month combinations in the year supply a 2 or a 20, and those are the five dates.

1949 is thinner again, with three dates giving a 6 in the entire year. No year does anything of the kind to a 7, because none of the five totals behind it is a master number. That difference, and not the descriptions, is the sharpest thing that can be said about a 7 next to a 6.

Questions about the comparison

Is a rarer life path number a better one?: The method offers no way to say so. Rarity here has a single cause: whether a master number takes one of the totals that would otherwise reduce to that digit. A 6 is scarcer than a 7 for that reason and no other.
Do 6 and 8 have anything in common with 7 because they sit beside it?: Not in the arithmetic. Their totals overlap nowhere — 24 gives a 6, 25 a 7, 26 an 8 — and a date lands on exactly one of them. Any resemblance is in the descriptions, which were written independently of the sums.
My sibling and I were born a day apart and have different numbers. Is that usual?: It is the normal case. One day changes the total by one, so consecutive dates almost always give consecutive numbers. The exceptions are the stops at 11, 22 and 33 and the wrap from 9 back to 1.
Which of these five numbers is the commonest?: Of the five, 9 by a hair: 3 898 dates between 1930 and 2025, against 3 895 for 8 and 3 894 each for 5 and 7. Those gaps come from where the window starts and stops, not from anything about the numbers.

See my full reading