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Geomantic Shield Chart

Geomancy builds a whole chart from four figures of points. Enter the four Mothers — by striking marks, by casting, or by copying a chart from paper — and every other figure of the shield follows by transposition and by adding figures line by line, odd and even.

Select any position to see how it was derived. Attributions are the Golden Dawn set, each labelled with its source and a confidence level; the arithmetic is exact, the symbolism is one tradition's reading.

Shield · read right to left

Mothers: Hand-worked example chart

M IM IIM IIIM IVD ID IID IIID IVN IN IIN IIIN IVRWLWJR

Walk the derivation

Whole chart shown. Walk the derivation to watch Mothers become Daughters, Nieces, Witnesses and Judge.

The chart in words

Entry · Strike pad

Strike the points

The traditional method: for each of the sixteen lines, strike a row of marks without counting, then reduce the row to odd or even. Press Strike as many times as you like — only the parity of the count sets the line, and the chart re-derives with every mark.

Sources: Of Geomancy; The Art and Practice of Geomancy

Now striking Mother I · Head (Fire) · line 1 of 16

No marks yet — this line keeps its current value.

Strike record

Laid out as on the shield, Mother I on the right. Select a cell to strike that line; a dash means the line was not struck here.

M I

M II

M III

M IV

Entry · Transcribe

Copy a chart from paper

Select a line to switch it between one point and two. The grid is laid out as on the shield, Mother I on the right. On the shield, select a Mother first, then one of its lines, to do the same.

Mother I

Acquisitio

Mother II

Laetitia

Mother III

Carcer

Mother IV

Puella

Reference · Golden Dawn set

The sixteen figures

Planetary rulers are common to Agrippa and the Golden Dawn. Elements and signs are the Golden Dawn set only; Agrippa and the treatise ascribed to Gerard of Cremona give several figures different signs and elements. Only the eight even figures can stand as Judge.

  • Via

    The Way

    Moon · Water · Cancer

    4 points · even · mobile

    Can be Judge

  • Populus

    The People

    Moon · Water · Cancer

    8 points · even · stable

    Can be Judge

  • Conjunctio

    Conjunction

    Mercury · Earth · Virgo

    6 points · even · mobile

    Can be Judge

  • Carcer

    Prison

    Saturn · Earth · Capricorn

    6 points · even · stable

    Can be Judge

  • Fortuna Major

    Greater Fortune

    Sun · Fire · Leo

    6 points · even · stable

    Can be Judge

  • Fortuna Minor

    Lesser Fortune

    Sun · Fire · Leo

    6 points · even · mobile

    Can be Judge

  • Acquisitio

    Gain

    Jupiter · Fire · Sagittarius

    6 points · even · stable

    Can be Judge

  • Amissio

    Loss

    Venus · Earth · Taurus

    6 points · even · mobile

    Can be Judge

  • Laetitia

    Joy

    Jupiter · Water · Pisces

    7 points · odd · mobile

  • Tristitia

    Sorrow

    Saturn · Air · Aquarius

    7 points · odd · stable

  • Puella

    The Girl

    Venus · Air · Libra

    5 points · odd · stable

  • Puer

    The Boy

    Mars · Fire · Aries

    5 points · odd · mobile

  • Rubeus

    Red

    Mars · Water · Scorpio

    7 points · odd · mobile

  • Albus

    White

    Mercury · Air · Gemini

    7 points · odd · stable

  • Caput Draconis

    Head of the Dragon

    North Node of the Moon · Earth · None: the Moon's North Node (☊)

    5 points · odd · stable

  • Cauda Draconis

    Tail of the Dragon

    South Node of the Moon · Fire · None: the Moon's South Node (☋)

    5 points · odd · mobile

The tradition

Geomancy — geomantia, divination by earth — reached Latin Europe in the twelfth century through translations from Arabic, where the art was known as the science of the sand: the figures were made by striking rows of marks in sand or dust and reducing each row to odd or even.

The method is arithmetic rather than inspiration. Four Mothers are produced by chance; every other figure of the shield follows from them by transposition and by adding figures line by line. The Arabic manuals already gave the figures elemental and planetary natures; Latin writers developed competing zodiacal schemes, and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn taught one of them, the set this instrument shows.

Reading the instrument

  • The shield reads right to left. Mother I stands at the top right, Mothers II to IV continue leftward, then the four Daughters. Nieces sit beneath their pairs, the Witnesses beneath those, and the Judge at the bottom centre with the Reconciler beside it.
  • Adding two figures compares each line: odd + odd and even + even give even (two points), odd + even gives odd (one point). Daughters are not added but transposed — Daughter I is the head lines of the four Mothers, Daughter II their necks, and so on.
  • The traditional check: a correctly worked Judge always has an even total of points. Each Mother line reaches the Judge twice, directly and through the Daughters, so the odd lines cancel in pairs. Because this chart is derived automatically the rule is shown but can never fail; on paper, an odd Judge means a slip.
  • Planetary rulers are common to Agrippa and the Golden Dawn. Elements and signs are the Golden Dawn set only: Agrippa and the treatise ascribed to Gerard of Cremona assign some signs and elements differently. The Golden Dawn table gives the two Dragon figures the Moon's nodes in place of a sign, where older schemes place them in signs of the zodiac.
  • The house chart places Mothers in houses 1 to 4, Daughters in 5 to 8 and Nieces in 9 to 12, using the twelve astrological houses that geomancy borrowed.

Where it descends from

De Occulta Philosophia (Three Books of Occult Philosophy)
Agrippa gives the planetary rulers of the sixteen figures. His sign and element assignments differ in places from the Golden Dawn set used here.
Of Geomancy
A short manual printed with the so-called Fourth Book of occult philosophy. Its attribution to Agrippa is disputed, though Agrippa himself says, in De incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum, that he wrote a geomancy. A source for the method of striking rows of points.
Astronomical Geomancy
Traditionally ascribed to Gerard of Cremona, though the ascription is doubted. Its zodiacal attributions form a further scheme distinct from both Agrippa's and the Golden Dawn's.
The Golden Dawn
Israel Regardie's publication of the Order's papers, including its geomancy instruction. The element and sign set shown in this instrument is the Golden Dawn's.
The Art and Practice of Geomancy
John Michael Greer's modern manual: a clear account of the derivation, the house chart, the traditional checks and the optional Reconciler.

What this does not claim

The arithmetic is exact: given four Mothers, every other figure follows mechanically. Nothing here claims that a cast foretells anything. The attributions are one historical scheme among several, each marked with a confidence level; where the manuals disagree — on signs and elements, on the Dragon's Head and Tail, on whether to use the Reconciler at all — the instrument names the scheme rather than settling the dispute. Cast draws on the browser's random number generator, not on marks struck in sand.

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