I think your distinction between geomancy and astrology is driving at the essential difference between a consultation of the stars and the casting of lots by whatever means. The casting of lots is indeed two steps removed from the heavens, and perhaps this is the reason that the revealed religions really frown on this type of divination. Of course the planets reflect the way the lots fall, but as you say, with astrology there is one less layer of earthly mists through which the information must pass before it reaches us, as it were.

I appreciate your explanation of “transparency,” and its connection to Mercury. This makes a lot of sense to me, because divination as such is Mercurial. I am sure that there are very few people who do not “distort the message,” which again brings me back to the Lilly quote in my previous comment. How many people can truly live up to that standard?

Yes on your point re the length of life, or really any natal determination.

Best wishes,
Nina

Aye, true enough. My point there was that the astrologer is only one step removed from heaven; the geomancer is two steps removed. The astrologer simply has to NOTE or CALCULATE (based on objective things like observation and math) where Mars and the other planets are in the heavens. And then interpret it. The geomancer, on the other hand, must use his points to first DIVINE (based on subjective movements like making dots) where Mars and the other planets are, before the task of interpretation comes. He can do that successfully only to the extent that the inner planets of his microcosm accurately reflect the outer planets in the microcosm, i.e., to the extent that he is “transparent”. I don’t mean to say that the geomancer must come up with astronomically accurate placements if his reading is to be of value. I guess a better way to put it is: geomancy is really a consultation of the inner planets, not the outer ones.

PARACELSUS: The inners stars of man are, in their properties, kind, and nature, by their course and position, like his outer stars, and different only in form and in material. For what is outside is also inside; and what is not outside man is not inside. The outer and the inner are ONE thing, ONE constellation, ONE influence, ONE concordance, ONE duration . . . ONE fruit.

Transparency is a technical term from the Qabalah — a state of consciousness associated with Mercury, Messenger of the Gods. The best messenger is the one who does not distort the message, but faithfully repeats or reflects it. It ends up being a fairly rare thing, in my observation.

The interior correlation, incidently, is why we can calculate the length of life from the placement of the planets in the nativity. We are measuring life force. As the strength of Mars in the heavens at birth, so the strength of the life force of the inner Mars. Total up the life force of the inner planets and express them in years, and you have the length of life.

Up to $.04 now.

I agree with your description of the geomancer as the link between heaven and earth (and one might say that the astrologer is in the same position). In astrology, as in geomancy, the practitioner errs when he is not “transparent” as you say.

This is why William Lilly said: “The more holy thou art; and more neer to God, the purer Judgment thou shalt give.”

Best wishes,
Nina

Traditional horary provides much more detail in its answers than geomancy. The benefit of geomancy is that it is portable — requiring only a stick, the soil or sand at one’s feet, and knowledge of the method and interpretation in one’s head. The major drawback is that the geomancer, himself, is the connecting link between heaven and earth, and so unless he is more or less “transparent”, he is apt to distort the influences of heaven in marking them in earth.

Geomancy, in olden days, was not seen purely as a divinatory system. It was part of a more integrated system recognizing that the three Arts — Astrology, Magic, and Alchemy — are really three aspects of One Art. The principles underlying geomancy are a way to connect all three. It is not simply a collection of 16 dot-figures. Those dot-figures may be connected up and formed into shapes, i.e., visible representations of number and mathematical principles. Those shapes are the foundation of the doctrine of signatures in astrology, talismans and seals in magic, and the symbols of alchemy. This is why traditional depictions of the skirt of the Charioteer in Trump 7 of the Tarot show geomantic figures prominently.

“Nature is written in symbols and signs.”
- John Greenleaf Whittier

A universal beauty showed its face;
The invisible deep-fraught significances,
Here sheltered behind form’s insensible screen,
Uncovered to him their deathless harmony
And the key to the wonder-book of common things.
In their uniting law stood up revealed
The multiple measures of the uplifting force,
The lines of the World-Measurer’s technique,
The enchantments that uphold the cosmic web
And the magic underlying simple shapes.
- Sri Aurobindo Ghose

“The shape of things is the shape of things to come.”
- Veronikos

“All the effects of Nature are only the mathematical consequences of a small number of immutable laws.”
- Pierre Simon de Laplace

“Geometry is knowledge of the eternally existent.”
- Plato

“Number is the within of all things.”
- Pythagoras

Therein is the true value of geomancy and its principles.

$.02 (chi-ching)