Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
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. 177 3 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. 178 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. 179 6 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. 180