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Geomancy in the Islamic World and Western Europe
Charles Burnett1
(Warburg Institute, University of London, London WC1H 0AB., U.K.)
Western geomancy. In spite of the name, this has nothing to do with Chinese
geomancy or fengshui. Rather, it bears a resemblance, both in appearance and in
spirit, to Yi Ching. It appears to have arisen among the Berbers of North Africa,
and spread from there both to other parts of the Islamic world and, through
translations into Latin, into Western Europe.2 The earliest Latin translator, Hugo
of Santalla (mid twelfth century) gave the science the name ‘geomantia’
(‘divination from the earth’); in Arabic it is called ‘the science of sand’ (‘‘ilm
al-raml’). These names derive from the fact that the first action is to draw four
rows of a random number of points on the sandy ground (or on a board lightly
dusted with sand). One then joins them up two by two, and observes whether one
or two points remain. The
‘geomantic figure’ is then
composed of these single
or double points, in four
rows.
Hence
the
resemblance
to
the
hexagram of the Yi
Ching.
Four
figures
are
constructed in this way,
called
the
‘mothers’
(figures 1-4). From them
Figure 1. The Geomantic ‘horoscope’
are derived four more figures, by adding up the points in each row, called the
1
Charles Burnett, Ph.D., Professor of the History of Islamic Influences in Europe at the Warburg Institute,
University of London. Specialties: Transmission of Arabic science and philosophy to Western Europe,.
2 For geomancy in Arabic, Greek and Latin see P. Tannery, ‚Le Rabolion‘, in Mémoires scientifiques, IV,
Toulouse and Paris, 1920, 295-411. For a detailed account of Western geomancy, its texts and its practices,
see T. Charmasson, Recherches sur une technique divinatoire: La géomancie dans l’occident médiévale,
Geneva, 1980. For a general history see S. Skinner, Terrestrial Astrology: Divination by Geomancy, London,
Boston and Henley, 1980.
Zhouyi Yanjiu 周易研究 Zhouyi Studies (English Version), vol. 7, no. 1 (September, 2011) 176-180
©2011 Zhouyi Studies (English Version)
CHARLES BURNETT
‘daughters’ (5-8). The eight resulting figures are then added two by two to
produce four ‘granddaughters’ (9-12). The granddaughters are added two by two
to produce the two ‘witnesses’ (13-14), and the witnesses are added to produce
the final ‘judge’ (15).3 What we have now is a geomantic ‘horoscope’ which is
analogous to the square astrological horoscope.
Figure 2. The 16 combinations, and a
talisman for discovering water (Paris,
National Library of France, MA ar. 2687, f.
16). From Tannery, ‚Le Rabolion‘, p. 302.
There are 16 possible combinations of single and double points.4 These are
related to the twelve signs of the zodiac,
and, like them, are assigned to the four
elements, the four directions, the four
times of day etc. Just as, in the
astrological horoscope, the signs are
considered in relation to the twelve
‘places’ (or houses) on the ecliptic,
starting from the ascendant point in the
East, so the geomantic figures are
considered in respect to the ‘houses’ they
occupy in the geomantic horoscope (the
first twelve houses being equivalent to
Figure 3. A talisman for discovering buried treasure, with the compass
directions marked on it. Ibid. f. 65r. From Tannery, ‚Le Rabolion‘, p. 308.
the astrological houses, which are each related to a different topic: oneself, ones
possessions, ones parents, ones children etc.). The geomantic figures also behave
like planets, which ‘aspect’ each other, depending on which astrological house
Sometimes a sixteenth figure is derived from the first and the fifteenth figure, and called the ‘super-judge’
(16). See Figure 1.
4 See Figure 2. For further examples of the geomantic figures see Figures 3 and 4.
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GEOMANCY IN THE ISLAMIC WORLD AND WESTERN EUROPE
they are in: the figures in houses one and five are in ‘trine’ with each other, being
separated by four houses, the figures in houses one and seven are in ‘opposition’
to each other. The figures called the ‘witnesses’ and ‘judge’, which fall outside
the twelve houses, give further testimonies. The geomantic texts also reflect a
different division of the sphere: into the 28 mansions which the moon travels
through in its monthly cycle.
The geomantic texts go into great detail
on how to answer questions posed by the
client on all manner of subjects, and are
indistinguishable from the sets of
questions that you find in astrological texts
which have the title ‘interrogations’. For
the subject of the interrogation one looks
at the geomantic figure in the first house;
for the object of his desire, that in the
seventh house, again as in astrology. The
answers to the questions are based on the
consideration of several different elements:
the nature of the figure, the relationship of
the figure other figures, the testimonies of
the witnesses and the judge, etc. An
example may be taken from Gerard of
Cremona’s late twelfth-century text on
geomancy:5
Figure 4. Geomantic figures in Hugo of Santalla’s text
on geomancy. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Digby 50, f.
If you want to know whether the king will die, then assign the first house to the
king, the sixth house the illness. The geomantic figure‚ Amissio’ (‚loss’) is in the
first house, and is in conjunction with ‚Rubeus’ (‚red’) in the second house.
‚Rubeus’ is also in the sixth house, and is in quartile aspect to Cauda (‚the tail’) in
the ninth house. ‚Tristitia’ (‚sadness’) is both in eighth house, which is the house of
death and in the tenth house, which is the house of the king, and ‚Amissio’ is in the
twelfth house, the house of affliction. The .judge’ is ‚Carcer’ (‚prison’), which is
also an unfortunate figure. Thus the prediction is that the king will die.
It is not by chance, then, that geomancy is described as ‘another astrology’ or
5
Charmasson, op. cit., 64-5.
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CHARLES BURNETT
‘the little daughter of astrology’.6 Considerable space is given over to describing
the principles and raison d’etre of the technique. One text by Hugo of Santalla
writes that ‘Whatever is established in this world…has been allotted a not
dissimilar exemplar in the higher circle; whatever also here below is agitated by
some movement, imitates the movements of the higher region which are
congruent with it. And thus it is clear that figures of the kind that we wish to
investigate here completely follow the forms of the signs and the lunar mansions’.7
As Robert Fludd of the mid-seventeenth
century (but drawing on medieval texts)
asserts, the initial casting of points on the sand
must be done without deliberate counting, so
that the human soul, which is of the same
essence as God’s mind, determines the number
of points without bodily or sensual
interference. 8 He compares the attitude of
the geomancer to that of the prophet: ‘as
rapture in general is called the abstraction,
alienation and illumination of the human mind
proceeding immediately from God, from which
Prophecy is produced, so also a certain species
of rapture and ecstasy is required for divination
through Geomancy, which is not called the
illumination of the mind immediately issuing
from God, but rather a collecting together of
his spread-out rays and their concentration in a
narrow place—namely the seat of the human
body itself and its own home, so that through
Fig. 5. The frontispiece of Robert Fludd’s geomancy.
them the divining soul itself may discern more brightly the simple truth’.9
Bartholomew of Parma (1294) describes geomancy as the practical side or ‘little daughter’ of the art of
astrology, and also as ‚another astrology‘: ‚Note that in this art every point is deposited according to a star of
the heavens. Every figure is is deposited according to certain element in the order of the four elements.
Similarly every figure is is deposited according to the sign of the star among the twelve signs of the heavens,
a planet and the part of the world, which are 4: east, west, south and north. Geomancy is nothing other than
‘another astrology’ (altra astrologia’)‘: E. Narducci, I Primi due Libri del „Tractatus Sphaerae“ di
Bartolomeo da Parma, astronomo del secolo XIII, Rome, 1985, 38 and 40.
7 A translation of the Latin text of the preface printed in C. H. Haskins, Studies in the History of Medieval
Science, 2nd ed., Cambridge (Mass.), 1927, 78.
8 Robert Fludd, De animae intellectualis scientia seu geomantia hominibus appropriata, in Fasciculus
geomanticus, Verona, 1687, pp. 3-170 (see 5-6 and 30). See Figure 5.
9 Ibid., 13.
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GEOMANCY IN THE ISLAMIC WORLD AND WESTERN EUROPE
So, geomancy owes its efficacy to the spiritual and celestial forces of the whole
universe. Moreover, it is a universal science, independent of religion and place.
Like Yi Ching it provides a way to solve problems, and to negotiate the future, and,
again like Yi Ching, it is a way open to anyone who is willing to purify his soul and
follow the signs.
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