Any Geomancers Here?

crystal dawn

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).











exellent!
Also the elements (which you have listed above = fire water air earth) are very important in geomancy. The figures also have a secondary element too, which can be seen like the court cards in the tarot where for instance the king of cups would be considered as fire of water, fire the king element and water the suit element. In the same same way the geomantic figures reflect this dual element connection. This can help us to understand the figures better and how gently or severe their qualities will be in a reading and also possibley more importantly how well the figures relate to each other in a chart.

blessed be

crystal
 

Barleywine

exellent!
Also the elements (which you have listed above = fire water air earth) are very important in geomancy. The figures also have a secondary element too, which can be seen like the court cards in the tarot where for instance the king of cups would be considered as fire of water, fire the king element and water the suit element. In the same same way the geomantic figures reflect this dual element connection. This can help us to understand the figures better and how gently or severe their qualities will be in a reading and also possibley more importantly how well the figures relate to each other in a chart.

blessed be

crystal

Ah, that may be the missing piece. As I noted in another post, I'm almost at peace with the second Agrippa scheme (assignment "by Nature"), but a couple still don't seem to make sense (except for Venus, which some considered "hot" instead of "cold", and perhaps Jupiter, which was considered more temperate than "hot"). I will need to locate these secondary attributions. Suggestions?
 

Barleywine

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

Yes, they did, and they ran the sequence counter-clockwise starting with the 10th (cardinal) house. It appears that Agrippa ran it clock-wise starting with the 1st house (this must be deduced from his statement that the succedent assignment of the Daughters goes 2nd, 11th, 8th and 5th, since he isn't specific regarding the cardinals (simply identifying them as 1st, 4th, 7th and 10th), and the cadent houses he populated by geomantic addition from the other triplicities and didn't use the Nephews/Nieces.
 

crystal dawn

Ah, that may be the missing piece. As I noted in another post, I'm almost at peace with the second Agrippa scheme (assignment "by Nature"), but a couple still don't seem to make sense (except for Venus, which some considered "hot" instead of "cold", and perhaps Jupiter, which was considered more temperate than "hot"). I will need to locate these secondary attributions. Suggestions?







any of john michael greers books should have them in -

earth divination earth magic

the art and practice of geomancy

he usually refers to them as being the outer element and the inner element.

blessed be

crystal dawn
 

Barleywine

Nature of Planets and Signs According to GD

I finally put together the Golden Dawn elemental attributes from The Complete Golden Dawn System of Magic with the planetary assignments from Stephen Skinner's Oracle of Geomancy and came up with the following alignment. The only change I made was to move Fortuna Minor to Air (for which, apparently, there is some historical precedent) in order to create balance. This produces a primarily sign-based system that uses Lilly's planet and sign natures and Agrippa's attributes for Caput Draconis and Cauda Draconis. There are still a few oddities between the elements and the stated natures of the planets (Lilly considers Sol more "temperate" in its heat than Mars!), but I'm basically OK with this from an astrological standpoint. I will give the other alignments (Agrippa, Fludd) another chance if I come up with evidence of a more comprehensive basis for them. According to the experts on the Astrology forum, there probably isn't one.

Fire:

Fortuna Major, Sun – Diurnal (Temperately Hot/Dry/Fiery/Choleric) in Leo (Hot/Dry/Choleric)
Puer, Mars (Hot/Dry/Fiery/Choleric) in Aries (Hot/Dry/Choleric)
Acquisitio, Jupiter (Temperately Hot/Moist/Airy/Sanguine) in Sagittarius (Hot/Dry/Choleric)
Cauda Draconis, South Node in Scorpio – Saturn and Mars – Fire/Choleric

Air:

Fortuna Minor, Sun – Nocturnal (Temperately Hot/Dry/Fiery/Choleric) in Leo (Hot/Dry/Choleric)
Tristitia, Saturn (Cold/Dry/Earthy/Melancholic) in Aquarius (Hot/Moist/Sanguine)
Albus, Mercury (Cold/Dry/Earthy/Melancholic) in Gemini (Hot/Moist/Sanguine)
Puella, Venus (Temperately Cold or Hot/Moist/Phlegmatic - Sanguine) in Libra (Hot/Moist/Sanguine)


Water:

Laetitia, Jupiter (Temperately Hot/Moist/Airy/Sanguine) in Pisces (Cold/Moist/Phlegmatic)
Via, Moon - Waxing (Cold/Moist/Phlegmatic) in Cancer (Cold/Moist/Phlegmatic)
Populus, Moon- Waning (Cold/Moist/Phlegmatic) in Cancer (Cold/Moist/Phlegmatic)
Rubeus, Mars (Hot/Dry/Fiery/Choleric) in Scorpio (Cold/Moist/Phlegmatic)


Earth:

Carcer, Saturn (Cold/Dry/Earthy/Melancholic) in Capricorn (Cold/Dry/Melancholic)
Conjunctio, Mercury (Cold/Dry/Earthy/Melancholic) in Virgo (Cold/Dry/Melancholic)
Amissio, Venus (Temperately Cold or Hot/Moist/Phlegmatic - Sanguine) in Taurus (Cool/Dry/Melancholic)
Caput Draconis, North Node in Capricorn - Jupiter and Venus – Earth/Melancholic
 

Barleywine

Couple of Questions on the Golden Dawn System

In examining the Golden Dawn system of astro-geomantic interpretation, I can across a couple of subtleties that I haven't seen in the other source material.

The first is the idea of "aspects" between the planets assigned to the figures in each of the chart houses. Now, these aren't "real" aspects, which require actual degrees of separation to identify, just 30 degree chunks of real estate that are measured from the "house of the question" in both directions, "Dexter," or counter to the normal progression of the houses, and "Sinister," or in the same direction as that progression. The aspects used are the basic ones from traditional astrology: semi-sextile, sextile, square, trine, quincunx and opposition (there is a mention of semi-squares, but that would require a 45 degree relationship that isn't possible without a mid-point system of division). The idea seems to be that, for example, if there is a figure/planet that is complementary to the one ruling the house of interest in another house 2 slots (60 degrees) or 4 slots (120 degrees) away, it will bring a benevolent influence of the nature of its own house to bear upon the "house of interest." The opposite would be true for a malevolent planet in one of the "hard" aspects; a number of "hard/soft" combinations would also be possible.

The second subtlety has to do with the concept of "planetary affinity," the idea that each planets is "friendly" to a number of other planets and either unfriendly or neutral to certain others. The designations for these in Lilly's work seem rather inconsistent, so I'm using the system provided by Vedic Astrology. The Golden Dawn material says to look at the affinity of two planets (the planet ruling the question and any other) that are in "aspect" as described above and decide whether the other planet exerts a beneficial or detrimental effect on the ruling planet. This is fairly basic astrology; the only difficulty I have is that in the Vedic system any two planets are not necessarily in a "reciprocal" relationship (e.g. Sol may be neutral to Mercury, but Mercury "likes" Sol) such that there is only a one-way affinity. As I see it, since the goal is to determine what modifies the nature of the ruling planet, I will always consider the affinity of the other planet for the ruling planet as the determinant if the relationship is non-reciprocal, rather than the other way around. This seems to make sense since it's an indicator of the level of cooperation to be expected of the other planet in supporting the ruler of the question. In the above example, it's arguably more revealing to know that Mercury in its supporting role "likes" the Sun than that Sol is indifferent to Mercury.

Does anyone use these practices? If so, do you have another source that gives more detail than the GD documents?
 

crystal dawn

great site

I know in the book occult philosophy one of the examples of agrippas geomancy reading have the arabian style figures (ie using lines instead of dots to represent the figures). I thought this was an interesting alternative way of displaying the figures.

blessed be

crystal dawn
 

crystal dawn

also as each figure is made up of four rows of dots. Each one of the four rows represents one of the elements -

fire
air
water
earth

one dot states that the element is active and two dots state passive.
so for example cauda draconis consists of fire water and air but not earth

..* fire
..* air
..* water
* * earth

and fortuna minor consists of fire and air but not water or earth

..* fire
..* air
* * water
* * earth

This is another interesting way of exploring the figures and I think adds even more depth to their individual meanings.

blessed be

crystal dawn
 

Barleywine

great site

I know in the book occult philosophy one of the examples of agrippas geomancy reading have the arabian style figures (ie using lines instead of dots to represent the figures). I thought this was an interesting alternative way of displaying the figures.

blessed be

crystal dawn

Yes, I started using that since it's tidier, the dots tend to meander sideways in the house triangles unless I'm careful about entering them. I've been using the computer program on the following site to lay out the figures after I generate the four Mothers, so I don't have to worry about drawing all the dots neatly into the "shield." It does seem that Puer and Puella are flip-flopped in the print-out, though (wrong names on the figures).

http://www.princeton.edu/~ezb/geomancy/geostep.html