Earth Divination, Earth Magic: A Practical Guide to Geomancy

Great reference book.

Love this book. A unique book on divination -resurrecting an ancient art/practice. I am thrilled with this book. Happily putting it into practice.

Well written, easy to use, easy to follow. Informative and quite possibly the only book needed on this subject. The author is obviously well versed and knowledgeable. His passion for this type of divination is apparent.

I ordered this for a friend. He found it quite interesting. Who knows, maybe he'll share some of his Earth wisdom with me.

Since I'm both a fan of Greer and of Geomancy, I have to say I really enjoyed this book. For most of you not in the know, Geomancy is a form of divination that came from the Arabic countries and was first talked about in Peter de Abano's "Heptameron" which is often attributed to Henry Cornelius Agrippa who compiled the mammoth work "Three Books of Occult Philosophy".Geomancy is related to the "Earth". It was traditionally used by drawing a box in the sand or loosely tilled soil with a stick. Then the diviner would focus on the question and make random stabs with the stick inside the box. Depending on if the total stabs was an even or odd number, a Geomantic figure was being created using a series of four lines of dots. And this same procedure would continue fifteen more times until a total of sixteen rows of dots had been tallied. If you think THAT's tough, then the manner in which the Geromantic characters are made will baffle you.The first sixteen lines were split into groups of four and thus you had the Four Mothers. Then you took the top line of dots of each Mother in order & from that you get the Four Daughters. Then you add the Daughters to get the Nephews. (Still with me?) THEN you add the Nephews to get the Right and Left Witnesses. Finally you add the Witnesses together and you got the Judge.Actually once you've created the dots and all the figures two or three different times, it becomes rather simple to remember how. Complicated? Yes. Easy to do? Yes with repetition. The tricky part is how you apply the Geomantic figures to the Medieval Astrology chart. This is a square chart where you take each figure and place it according to the outline in the book. This is standard procedure and it too becomes rather easy after five or six times of making a chart.Now you might ask, "Well if the Judge is the final outcome, why go to the bother of putting the figures in specific houses of the chart?" Because thru the use of Astrology and it's Aspects (squars, conunctions, oppositions, trines, sextiles, etc.) you can gain a LOT of useful information about the question and questioner that you may otherwise overlook.Actually Geomancy is a LOT easier to use and learn than the standard 78 Tarot cards! There's only sixteen standard Geomantic figures too. Plus the fact Geomancy is related to one particular element and all it governs: Earth. This includes careers, employment, physical health, home, love, real estate & land holdings, wealth, money, jewels, fame and fortune, etc. These areas are governed by the Gnomes of whom Ghob is the Elemental King.So why haven't people made more use of this system? Well the complexity for one thing. It's quite daunting at first but if you persevere, you'll see it's quite easily used. Unfortunately however this form of divination does take time to perform thus it does not lend itself so easily for those who'd like to use it at a Psychic Fair.Greer offers some tips on making the castings quicker but he really shines when he shows you how to construct a box with a lid to put in sand or loose crumbled dirt for your divination. Plus he offers you some excellent ideas for using Geomancy together with Magical workings.I've read almost all of the books dealing with Geomancy over the years and I have to give credit to Greer for making this book easily readable and quite usable. I rate this book five stars on a five star scale for it's treatment of a particularly confusing subject and the versatility of the subject matter for other things aside from divination. It does include a pretty decent bibliography as well as a handy index which is always helpful.

Geomancy is probably the least practiced system taught by the Golden Dawn, and I believe the reason for this is how it was and is continuing to be taught. It is made to seem overly complex, like an elaborate mathematical equation, but underneath it all lies a much simpler system, and Earth Divination, Earth Magic by John Michael Greer exposes this simplicity to great effect.This book has two sections, the first covering the divinatory aspects of geomancy, which includes a brief history, an overview of the geomantic figures, the method of casting a chart, and then several methods of reading it. What is noteworthy about this section is that it contains many elements of teaching that are absent from the original GD documents on the subject, particularly in terms of interpreting the figures that have been obtained. The shield chart is also an extremely useful method of obtaining the figures which works in a very common-sense way. The multiple examples given bring the theory a little closer to home, and there is also some space given to specific questions (and slightly different methods for obtaining the answers for them) such as how to find a missing person or predicting the weather (still as valid today as they were in the Middle Ages).The second section of the book deals with the magical application of geomancy, and this becomes a lot more obviously GD. The planetary spirits (or genii) and their sigils are covered, along with basic GD ritual like the LBRP. A consecration ceremony for a geomantic box is also given, and skrying and talismans are covered to some degree. There is not much new here for a GD student, however, as it has been predominantly covered before, but it may be of use to those with little or no exposure to GD ritual.This is an invaluable text for making the archaic instructions of the GD on geomancy make a lot more sense. It provides additional instruction for those who have already mastered the basics, but are struggling to interpret a full geomantic chart. I think it's time that this system gained more exposure in the magical community and that more people practice it, and Greer's book will aid greatly to that end.Review originally posted at Mishkan ha-Echad.

Must have.