Any Geomancers Here?

[Barleywine]

the books i found most useful where astrological geomancy - terrestrial astrology by stephen skinner and greers book earth divination,

It looks like Terrestrial Astrology may be unavailable new at a reasonable price (Amazon has one for $160 new and one for $32 used). I'm presently using Skinner's Oracle of Geomancy from 1977, an earlier work than 1980's Terrestrial Astrology. I may just wait until his Geomancy in Theory and Practice (hardcover, Feb 2011) becomes available through Amazon.
Greer's Earth Divination is still readily available.

 

[ekb]

In reading the Golden Dawn material (Regardie's compilation) and also Agrippa and Heydon, its clear that the astrological approach is far superior.

... so why even bother with it?

Actually, there *is* a decent reason to bother - it's an illustration of how Ptolemaic dignities work in combination with the basic elemental polarities. As a quick cheat sheet, it works for when you get stuck... but they're far from the depth and detail you can get from actually doing the math.

You just need to make sure that the author of the cheat sheet had a clue. Which isn't always the case. It's only 192 items (with either 3x4 or 5x4 possible values) for building your own, which puts it firmly in the range of being a DIY project...

Just curious, how do you figure in the court cards for the odd/even determination? They aren't numbered the way the trumps and pip cards are. By a simple 1-2-3-4 progression, from King to Page? By polarity? Or something else entirely?

In some gaming decks, they are: 11-14. The other advantage is that a suit is balanced, where a regular playing card deck isn't - there's a bias towards odd numbers.

Another approach that worked fairly well for me in practice was to pull the Courts and read using only those. The Rank is the outer/upper part of the figure while the Suit is the inner/lower part - Qs = Water of Air (in some systems) = Caput Draconis, Kp = Air of Earth (in some systems) = Fortuna Minor. A side effect of this was that if I didn't replace the card with each Mother, I reduced the probabilities of the number of unique charts. To compensate, I would do new draws for the Daughters and Nieces. This expands the possibilities to 43680 unique sets of each grouping... which starts to approach a reasonable level of complexity.

I also remembered a bit of weirdness that I do when laying out an astrological/square chart: Mothers sit on the Cardinal houses, Daughters on the Succedent, and Nieces on the Cadent. The ruling element of the first figure determines where I begin laying out - fire figures mean I start with 1st house, earth on 10th, air on 7th, and water on 4th. After that, I lay out counterclockwise following the conventional house numbering. If I start with 10th, 2nd Mother is in 1st, 3rd Mother in 4th, 1st Daughter on 11th, 1st Niece on 12th...

Sounds needlessly complex, right? It's mostly to keep me focused while doing the math. The more of that flavor of hyperfocus I can generate, the better the results I get. YMMV.

The only twist I can think of is how to count the tile with two blank ("0") ends.

I'd do it as evens (or flux in the manner I was describing previously). Then again, I'd do the sum of the whole tile as the number of dots... because that's the number of dots. Pull 16 and you have your Mothers, yadda yadda yadda.

I've not seen a double-six set in such a long time. My set at home is a double-twelve. However, both of these styles have that same bias issue - this time, towards even results. A double-nine set wouldn't have that bias.

I used to be a strong advocate of dice for readings. Not so much these days. I can still throw 1d4+1d6+1d8+1d20 all at the same time, but my concern is getting proper randomization out of that without breaking out a dice cup. Even then, good polyhedral dice that approach a quality distribution can be expensive and hard to find - the closest that are available are from GameScience, but even those have some un-evenness in results.

Besides, it's easier to pull cards... especially when discussing this on a forum devoted to cartomancy and using tarot cards in interesting ways.

 

[Barleywine]

I also remembered a bit of weirdness that I do when laying out an astrological/square chart: Mothers sit on the Cardinal houses, Daughters on the Succedent, and Nieces on the Cadent. The ruling element of the first figure determines where I begin laying out - fire figures mean I start with 1st house, earth on 10th, air on 7th, and water on 4th. After that, I lay out counterclockwise following the conventional house numbering. If I start with 10th, 2nd Mother is in 1st, 3rd Mother in 4th, 1st Daughter on 11th, 1st Niece on 12th...

Sounds needlessly complex, right? It's mostly to keep me focused while doing the math. The more of that flavor of hyperfocus I can generate, the better the results I get. YMMV.

I'm glad you brought this up, since I was going to ask. There appear to be differing opinions on how to populate the houses with the figures. GD places the 1st Mother in the 10th, then goes counter-clockwise, 1st, 4th, 7th; 1st Daughter in the 11th, then 2nd, 5th, 8th; 1st Nephew/Niece in the 12th, then 3rd, 6th, 9th. Stephen Skinner follows the Golden Dawn method. I like your tweak of starting with the angular elemental house of the triplicity represented by the first figure (except it doesn't work astrologically for Caput and Cauda, which have no natural Sign/House correspondences; but see below)

In "Of Geomancy," the 1st Mother goes in the 1st house, then it goes clockwise, 10th, 7th, 4th; the Succedents go 2nd, 11th, 8th, 5th; and the Cadents are populated by combining the figures in the other triplicities (i.e. the 3rd - Gemini's natural house - is populated by geomantic addition of the figures in the 7th - Libra's house - and 11th - Aquarius' house, etc). This seems unnecessarily complex and no rationale is given for not using the Nephews/Nieces. The argument I've seen for this house progression is that the Signs and Planets move clockwise across the heavens (diurnally, that is), and the geomantic figures represent the moving Signs and Planets, not the fixed Houses. As an astrologer I can appreciate this subtlety.

The "clarification" of the GD system I found on-line follows "pseudo" Agrippa (apparently the authorship is in doubt) in the ordering of the house assignments, but uses the Nephewa/Nieces in the Cadent houses. The only oddity in all this is that the North and South Lunar Nodes don't have 'Signs" associated with them in astrology. "Agrippa" and Skinner give them to Capricorn and Scorpio, respectively.

 

[ekb]

I like your tweak of starting with the angular elemental house of the triplicity represented by the first figure (except it doesn't work astrologically for Caput and Cauda, which have no natural Sign/House correspondences; but see below)

I'm talking about the ruling element of a figure:
Fire: Laetitia, Cauda Draconis, Fortuna Minor, Amissio
Air: Puer, Rubeus, Acquisitio, Conjunctio
Water: Populus, Via, Albus, Puella
Earth: Fortuna Major, Tristitia, Caput Draconis, Carcer
(from Fludd)

Working the ruling attributions as astrology:
Fire: Puer, Fortuna Major, Fortuna Minor, Acquisitio, Cauda Draconis
Air: Albus, Puella, Tristitia
Water: Populus, Via, Rubeus, Laetitia
Earth: Amissio, Conjunctio, Caput Draconis, Carcer
(from d'Abano)

I'm not a fan of the asymmetry of the second, so I use the first set. The usual caveats about ill dignified first figures also apply with what I do in a reading, but since that puts Rubeus on 7th or Cauda on 1st, the meaning is more "use caution when interpreting" than "don't read this chart." And with those figures in those contexts, that's just good sense.

When shopping for signs for the Caput/Cauda pairing, I use them as solar-lunar hemispheres in connection with the Traditionalist planetary attributions - Caput runs through from Aquarius to Cancer as a minor note; Cauda from Leo to Capricorn. To use a musical metaphor, the planet is the root of the chord, the solar/lunar adds the third and Caput/Cauda as fifth - you can have a major or minor chord with just 2 notes, but you need 3 to get all 4 of the basic chords. (I'm not getting into suspended chords, because I'm not in the mood for country right now).

Again, this is where I'm being experimental based on my reading of the source materials. I've had good results with these techniques, but can't vouch for anyone else trying them.

 

[crystal dawn]

It looks like Terrestrial Astrology may be unavailable new at a reasonable price (Amazon has one for $160 new and one for $32 used). I'm presently using Skinner's Oracle of Geomancy from 1977, an earlier work than 1980's Terrestrial Astrology. I may just wait until his Geomancy in Theory and Practice (hardcover, Feb 2011) becomes available through Amazon.
Greer's Earth Divination is still readily available.

crikey
I got my copy from a healing fair (second hand but very good condition) for £6 many years ago now, but i still consider it to be invaluable. I also have skinners oracle of geomancy and pennicks oracle of geomancy.

blessed be

crystal

 

[Barleywine]

I'm talking about the ruling element of a figure:
Fire: Laetitia, Cauda Draconis, Fortuna Minor, Amissio
Air: Puer, Rubeus, Acquisitio, Conjunctio
Water: Populus, Via, Albus, Puella
Earth: Fortuna Major, Tristitia, Caput Draconis, Carcer
(from Fludd)

Yes, I understood your meaning, I just phrased it awkwardly. I will have to seek out Fludd's sign and planet attributions to get the sensibility out of this arrangement.


"Agrippa" has it thus, according to Sign rulerships and dignities (these are astrologically straight-forward):

Fire: Puer, both Fortunes, Laetitia (Mars in Aries, Sun in Leo - Diurnal & Nocturnal, Jupiter in Sagittarius)
Air: Albus, Amissio, Trisitia (Mercury in Gemini, Venus in Libra, Saturn in Aquarius)
Water: Via, Populus, Rubeus, Cauda Draconis (Moon in Cancer - Waxing & Waning, Mars in Scorpio, South Node in Scorpio)
Earth: Puella, Conjunctio, Carcer, Caput Draconis (Venus in Taurus, Mercury in Virgo, Saturn in Capricorn, North Node in Capricorn)


And then by planetary nature and figure (which he seems to prefer):

Fire: Fortuna Major, Rubeus, Puer, Amissio (Sun in Leo - Diurnal, Mars in Aries, Mars in Scorpio, Venus in Libra)
Air:, Fortuna Minor, Puella, Laetitia, Conjunctio (Sun in Leo - Nocturnal, Venus in Taurus, Jupiter in Sagittarius, Mercury in Virgo
Water: Acquisitio, Cauda Draconis,Via, Populus (Jupiter in Pisces, South Node n Scorpio, Moon in Cancer - Waxing & Waning)
Earth: Carcer, Tristitia, Albus, Caput Draconis, (Saturn in Capricorn, Saturn in Aquarius, Mercury in Gemini, North Node in Capricorn)


I need to pursue more diverse sources for the "nature" of the planets. If he is referring to the "Planetary Temperaments" (Hot/Dry, Cold/Moist, etc.), I have only a nodding acquaintance with those, and it was quite a few years ago that I last considered them (they are barely a footnote in "modern" astrology).

 

[Queen Hippolyta]

I didn't see geomancy listed among the acceptable forum topics, and have been interested in starting a discussion thread. I've used it for a few years but pretty much in isolation. I had a couple of questions for those similarly inclined to get the topic rolling.

I first encountered geomancy in a practical way through Stephen Skinner's "Oracle of Geomanyc" and what I could glean from Israel Regardie's Golden Dawn writings and fragments of more archaic documentation. Skinner is a bit light on interpretation, but I haven't yet pursued more recent stuff (Greer, et al). What are you using for source material and why is it useful?

I never found keeping a box of earth handy very practical, and the pencil-and-paper approach seems too disconnected from the source. Regardie suggested using either stones or dice as a way to generate the figures. The dice also seem a bit too "pre-fabricated" (although the cube is symbolically sound), so I spent a considerable amount of time scouring my back yard for similarly sized and shaped stones to use for random drawing. What method do you use for generating the geomanctic figures?

Do you use the standard-derivation layout, the astrological house chart, or both?

I hope there is enough interest to keep this going.

I have been up all night and my head is fuzzy. Tell me again what is geomancy? I want the long list. I will come back in the morning and read it as I really need my beauty sleep.


Thanks,

Queen Hippolyta

 

[Barleywine]

I need to pursue more diverse sources for the "nature" of the planets. If he is referring to the "Planetary Temperaments" (Hot/Dry, Cold/Moist, etc.), I have only a nodding acquaintance with those, and it was quite a few years ago that I last considered them (they are barely a footnote in "modern" astrology).

After some digging, I found what I needed (or at least a couple of versions of it). Lilly is good, but James Wilson's 1880 Dictionary of Astrology is consistent with Lilly and even more comprehensive on the natures of both the planets and signs. He seemed to have a healthy respect for Lilly, but not for some others whom he felt "should have known better" on this subject. I downloaded a copy of Tetrabiblos as well, but it seems a bit fragmented in the way it puts the attributions forth. I haven't yet found what I was really looking for: a thorough table that ties it all together.

Using this information, I was able to comprehend nearly all of Agrippa's second set of assignments, but a few still escape me. For example, what does the "cold/dry/earthy/melancholic planet, Mercury (huh?) in the "cold/dry/earthy/melancholic" sign Virgo have to do with the element of Air? For that matter, what does Conjunctio ("joining, connecting") have to do with Air, which in tarot has to do more with "cutting apart?" Venus in Libra doesn't seem to make much sense as Fire either; Liliy places its temperament somewhere between Air and Water. Other than those I'm mostly OK with Agrippa's assignment "by Rule," even the association of Fortuna Minor with Air for balance, as some other of the "ancients" did as well.

I tried the same exercise with Fludd's list but didn't come as close; maybe I just need to find his definitions of the planetary natures. Or maybe I'm just missing some arcane, "interior" meaning in all this. I'm thinking, though, of sticking with Agrippa's initial attribution by sign triplicity since it seems the most logical so far.

 

[Barleywine]

Tell me again what is geomancy?

Stephen Skinner says: "Geomancy originally meant divination by the signs of the earth. Webster's Dictionary defines geomancy as 'divination by means of figures or lines (as in natural or artificial configurations of earth or by connecting dots jotted at random on paper).' The word is derived from two Greek words, gaie or ge meaning the earth and manteia meaning divination."

You'll find the "long list" on Wikipedia, which is where I would have to go to get it for you.

 

[crystal dawn]

I'm glad you brought this up, since I was going to ask. There appear to be differing opinions on how to populate the houses with the figures. GD places the 1st Mother in the 10th, then goes counter-clockwise, 1st, 4th, 7th; 1st Daughter in the 11th, then 2nd, 5th, 8th; 1st Nephew/Niece in the 12th, then 3rd, 6th, 9th. Stephen Skinner follows the Golden Dawn method. I like your tweak of starting with the angular elemental house of the triplicity represented by the first figure (except it doesn't work astrologically for Caput and Cauda, which have no natural Sign/House correspondences; but see below)

In "Of Geomancy," the 1st Mother goes in the 1st house, then it goes clockwise, 10th, 7th, 4th; the Succedents go 2nd, 11th, 8th, 5th; and the Cadents are populated by combining the figures in the other triplicities (i.e. the 3rd - Gemini's natural house - is populated by geomantic addition of the figures in the 7th - Libra's house - and 11th - Aquarius' house, etc). This seems unnecessarily complex and no rationale is given for not using the Nephews/Nieces. The argument I've seen for this house progression is that the Signs and Planets move clockwise across the heavens (diurnally, that is), and the geomantic figures represent the moving Signs and Planets, not the fixed Houses. As an astrologer I can appreciate this subtlety.

The "clarification" of the GD system I found on-line follows "pseudo" Agrippa (apparently the authorship is in doubt) in the ordering of the house assignments, but uses the Nephewa/Nieces in the Cadent houses. The only oddity in all this is that the North and South Lunar Nodes don't have 'Signs" associated with them in astrology. "Agrippa" and Skinner give them to Capricorn and Scorpio, respectively.

I think the golden dawn used this system so that all the mothers fall in houses ruled by cardinal signs, all the daughters fall in houses ruled by fixed signs and all the nephews/nieces fall in houses ruled by the mutable signs. Though I do agree on first inspection in does seem rather a complex placing of the figures.

blessed be

crystal dawn