Ars Geomantica
Cast the Shield Chart
Sixteen figures made of dots in the sand. The medieval earth oracle gives one judge, and the judge answers the question you actually asked.
Your Question
Geomancy answers closed, practical questions best. Ask about one matter, phrased so that a yes or a no would both make sense.
The Sixteen Figures
Fortuna Major
Fortuna Major · The Greater Fortune
Earth · Sun · Leo · Favourable
Success that arrives because of who you are rather than what you arranged. Slow, solid and durable — but it demands that you act from your own authority rather than borrow someone else's.
Fortuna Minor
Fortuna Minor · The Lesser Fortune
Fire · Sun · Taurus · Favourable
Quick, external good luck — an offer, a shortcut, a helping hand. It works best for short matters. Do not build a long structure on it.
Via
Via · The Way
Water · Moon · Cancer · Mixed
Everything is in motion. Via is the figure of transition — favourable for travel, relocation and any question about leaving. Poor for anything that needs to stay put.
Populus
Populus · The People
Water · Moon · Capricorn · Mixed
Populus takes the colour of whatever surrounds it. Alone it means nothing happens; among strong figures it amplifies them. Consult others — the answer is with a group, not with you.
Laetitia
Laetitia · Joy
Air · Jupiter · Pisces · Favourable
The upward figure. Health, celebration, promotion and honest happiness. Excellent in almost every question except those where you need something to settle.
Tristitia
Tristitia · Sorrow
Earth · Saturn · Aquarius · Unfavourable
The downward figure — sadness, delay, and burial. It is genuinely good for one thing only: matters that need to be buried, hidden or finished quietly.
Puella
Puella · The Girl
Water · Venus · Libra · Favourable
Pleasantness and charm. Very good in love and in anything requiring diplomacy. Weak where you need endurance or confrontation — Puella prefers to make peace than to hold a line.
Puer
Puer · The Boy
Fire · Mars · Aries · Mixed
Raw forward energy without much judgement. Excellent for contests, surgery and anything requiring a decisive strike. Bad for negotiation, love and patience.
Acquisitio
Acquisitio · Gain
Air · Jupiter · Sagittarius · Favourable
Things come in. The best figure in the system for money, business and any question of whether you will get what you asked for. It says yes, and it says more than expected.
Amissio
Amissio · Loss
Earth · Venus · Scorpio · Unfavourable
Things go out. Bad for money and possession, but genuinely favourable when you want to be rid of something — a debt, a habit, an illness or a person.
Carcer
Carcer · The Prison
Earth · Saturn · Capricorn · Unfavourable
You are held. Sometimes that is imprisonment and sometimes it is protection or a necessary commitment. Nothing moves while Carcer sits in the position of the outcome.
Caput Draconis
Caput Draconis · The Head
Earth · Node · Virgo · Favourable
The start of something. Favourable for launching, opening and entering. It says nothing about how the thing ends — only that beginning it now is correct.
Cauda Draconis
Cauda Draconis · The Tail
Fire · Node · Sagittarius · Unfavourable
The end of something. Bad for anything you want to continue; excellent for anything you want finished. Leave, close, complete.
Rubeus
Rubeus · The Red One
Water · Mars · Gemini · Unfavourable
The traditional advice is blunt: if Rubeus appears in the first house, discard the chart and ask again another day. Where it stands, temper and appetite are distorting the picture.
Albus
Albus · The White One
Water · Mercury · Cancer · Favourable
Peaceful, clear-headed and slow. Very good for study, advice and long deliberations. Too passive for questions that need speed or force.
Conjunctio
Conjunctio · The Conjunction
Air · Mercury · Virgo · Mixed
Two things come together. Neutral in itself and coloured by its company — but in questions of lost property and reunion it is the most hopeful figure of all.
The Twelve Houses
In a full house chart, the first twelve figures are distributed across these domains.
1. The querent, body and self
2. Money and moveable goods
3. Siblings, neighbours, short journeys
4. Home, family, land and endings
5. Pleasure, children and creation
6. Work, service, illness
7. Partners, marriage and open enemies
8. Death, debt and other people's money
9. Travel, faith and higher study
10. Career, honour and authority
11. Friends, hopes and allies
12. Hidden enemies, confinement and the unconscious
In short
Cast a full geomantic shield chart — four mothers, daughters, nieces, witnesses and judge — and read all sixteen figures with their planets, elements and verdicts.
- If Rubeus or Cauda Draconis falls in the first house, the tradition says the chart is unfit — ask again another day.
- Populus alone means nothing is moving. Read it as a request to consult other people rather than as an answer.
- Via and Populus are the two figures that cannot be reversed; they are their own mirror.
- Note the judge before you interpret the question emotionally. Geomancy rewards reading the chart before reading your hopes.
16
Figures
9c
Earliest practice
8
Possible judges
12
Houses
Geomancy began as ilm al-raml, the science of the sand, practised across North Africa and the Middle East by the ninth century. The diviner made rows of marks in sand or dust without counting them, and the parity of each row — odd or even — produced the figures.
It entered Europe through twelfth-century Latin translations from Arabic and became, for several centuries, the most widely practised divination on the continent after astrology. Its great advantage was speed: a geomantic chart could be cast in minutes where a horoscope needed tables, arithmetic and an accurate birth time.
The system is unusually rigorous for a divinatory art. Sixteen figures, four generated at random and the rest derived by strict binary addition, produce a single judge. Modern readers sometimes note that the underlying mathematics is straightforward binary arithmetic, several centuries before Leibniz described it as such.
Questions Readers Ask
What are the four mothers?
The only genuinely random figures in the chart. Everything else — daughters, nieces, witnesses and judge — is derived from them by fixed rules.
What does the reconciler add?
It is the sum of the judge and the first mother, and it describes how the verdict will actually reach the person asking.
Can the judge be any of the sixteen figures?
No. Only eight figures can ever be a judge, because the derivation always produces an even-parity figure. This is a known feature of the mathematics.
Is a geomantic verdict binding?
No. This is offered for interest and entertainment. Treat the chart as a way of clarifying your own thinking rather than as advice to follow.