The Geomantic Pyramid

by Frater Pyramidatus 2011 Brian Adam Newman

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law In 2010 I published, electronically, A Geomantic Curiosity, which revealed, as far as I can tell for the first time, the mathematical and scientifically flawless key to the art of Lineal Geomancy. One cannot say it received a negative response, nor a mixed one, because quite frankly no one seemed interested. Even on specialist forums in cyberspace the paper merely clocked up a handful of warm comments, with perhaps two enthusiastic cheers. Despite this Lineal Geomancy needs revivification into a solid pillar of Hermetic instruction, besides other branches like astrology, the Qabalah, ceremonial magick and the Tarot. I shopped in Glastonbury recently and, of thousands of volumes on the occult in general, only three on this Art reared their diminutive heads. All seemed only to paraphrase Agrippa and Barrett. All this superstitious secrecy is very silly. All numerical keys have been published. A great example is W. S. Andrews and Magic Squares and Cubes; which shows people were actively publishing every number key discernible, and over a century ago. It seems that poor old Geomancy had to wait a little longer. In all honesty the information I adumbrate probably has been published decades ago, I just couldn't find it in the literature of straight-cut Hermetics. So I don't claim to be a pioneer, simply someone trying to 'reboot' this antiquated tradition. This data was not in the Golden Dawn books I had, nor in Crowley, nor Zalewski, nor the infamous www.abrahadabra.com, nor elsewhere in cyberspace; even the well known Hermetic author John Michael Greer thanked me for these insights. People should also realise that computer circuits have been around for longer than actual electronic computers. All the truth tables and bit parity checks on a P. C. were more or less thrashed out a hundred years before the pocket calculator by people engaged in the same, seemingly boring, numerical escapades as myself. A political note... In the year 2011 I think we could all settle on the following axiomatic statement: We are becoming increasingly dependent on machines we do not understand. Everything we do today is dictated, in subtle and direct ways, by devices. We need technology to live. In this unprecedented climate I think people should be encouraged to more and more study Hermetics to stem the flow of a culture plummeting towards a suicidal cybernetic maelstrom of unfathomable complexity. Our planet is on a precipice, terrifying and alluring, where only a handful of psychopaths need 'pull the plug' for our top-heavy utilitarian utopia to crumble even more quickly than the five decades it has taken to develop such a monstrous edifice. I believe the more people induced to study Hermetics the better it will be for everyone. As a Scientific Illuminist I have never adopted the stance of Ludd, but I worry about the educational deficit amongst not only our youth, but seemingly most people I meet. We are trained as specialists in universities, to

become academic appendages perfectly streamlined to fit into a technocratic pyramid, fulfil our functions perfectly, and then join the countless hordes of the horizontally grateful and spiritually anaesthetized Specialists whose invariable epitaph remains: I Did My Little Bit. The esoteric, yet universally applicable, building blocks of Hermetics are remedies for this pernicious scenario also. Humanity should enjoy this renaissance in every way, not simply by pressing buttons. Errata for A Geomantic Curiosity There were four, thankfully minor, mistakes in my previous paper. 1) On the table at the bottom of page eight I gave the distribution frequency of Carcer in the Right Witness as '3' when it obviously should be '2'. 2) The sigil I gave for Fortuna Minor is wrong and should terminate on Fortuna Major, not Fortuna Minor; consequently the 'master diagram' near the end of the paper is also wrong. 3) I think the positioning of the Qemea is 'wrong' in that it should be shifted 90 degrees anticlockwise to provide a better looking diagram in general with a vertical axis of symmetry. 4) I also stated that the decimal magic square given was the only one applicable when in fact it is not. If you flip each figure upside down you can arrive at another decimal square just as applicable in that paper; but oddly enough irrelevant to the Geomantic Pyramid. Pyramid? 'Pyramid' is the most convenient term for what I have developed, although neither accurate literally or metaphysically. As far as Qabalism in general is concerned it only has three levels, so even in that quite malleable system of metaphors it is not strictly a pyramid. However we press on. It is composed of four levels. 1) An eight-by-eight square, with groups of four squares being the Mothers used to generate the Unique Shields, and therefore the Ruling Figures of 2). This square is symmetrical in the number of points in each column and row being equal. 2) A four-by-four square symmetrical in Geomantic, decimal, Elemental and Platonic (regular polygon) number systems. 3) A three-by-three square generated from 2) that connects the conventional Square of Saturn to the I Ching, via the Five Elements of the Western Tradition. 4) A two-by-two square permuted from 3) that completes the scheme, the base of the capstone of the Pyramid, with a basic scheme of the Four Elements expressed through the polarity of masculine and feminine. The Base of the Pyramid In A Geomantic Curiosity we established the following order for the 16 Ruling Figures from a pseudo binary progression based on the unique distributions within each Unique Shield; that is all Unique Shields have certain Figures in three places not found elsewhere. This order is 1 Via, 2 Fortuna Minor, 3 Puella, 4 Laetitia, 5 Caput Draconis, 6 Rubeus, 7 Fortuna Major, 8 Populus, 9 Puer, 10 Cauda Draconis, 11 Carcer, 12 Amissio, 13 Acquisitio, 14 Conjunctio, 15 Tristitia and 16 Albus.

Each Unique Shield is generated from four Mothers, hence each Ruling Figure has four expressions that create it. Every tableau is purely dependent from only four Mothers. It is unnecessary to show each Unique Shield in full, we simply place the Mothers only as a basis for our work. This fits in better with the fourfold development of the Pyramid. We position the Mothers in a two-by-two square; the first on the top left, the second on the top right, the third on the bottom left, and then the final Mother on the bottom right.

We then arrange them according to the Qemea scheme given in A Geomantic Curiousity. (However in this paper I have rotated this decimal square 90 degrees.)

We place the four Mothers appropriate under each square. We also acquire another magic square when we consider the base as an eight-by-eight in that each column and row totals to 48 points. This diagram is partly shaded, purely for ease of reference.

The Ruling Figures We have our 16 Figures tallied with the decimal key. This decimal key is one of many magic squares of Jupiter, and totals to 34 in every way. If we add up the points in each Geomantic Figure they total to 24 every way. For the Four Elements we ascribe them to the Figures in the following way. Fire 1 Via Air 3 Puella Water 5 Caput Draconis Earth 7 Fortuna Major Fire 9 Puer Air 11 Carcer Water 13 Acquisitio Earth 15 Tristitia Fire 2 Fortuna Minor Air 4 Laetitia Water 6 Rubeus Earth 8 Populus Fire 10 Cauda Draconis Air 12 Amissio Water 14 Conjunctio Earth 16 Populus

This ascribes the Four Elements, in pairs, according to the traditional Geomantic order of the Elements of Fire, Air, Water and Earth. This is also the Platonic ordering of the Elements; that is the tetrahedron, octahedron, icosahedron and cube (finally we have the dodecahedron answering to Spirit, but that is beyond our scope of working). We now have the following Elementally symmetrical square.

Each Geomantic Figure has three levels, and you can break down each Figure into a permutation of the Elements.

We take a column of two dots as representing Fire, a column of four dots as Earth, an upward pointing triangle of dots as Air, and a downward pointing triangle of dots as Water.

Thus Populus would be Earth/Earth/Earth; Via would be Fire/Fire/Fire; and Albus Earth/Water/Air. Calling these the three 'terms' of the Figure is my own literary device; as is defining the top term as the 'first', the middle the 'second', and the lowest as the 'third'. Each of the first terms of the Ruling Figures correspond to our scheme of the Four Elements without flaw.

The Four Elements are equally distributed in every row and column, and although not equally given in the diagonals they are in the four corners, in the corner groupings of four squares, and two other groupings of four squares. Each Figure also has three numbers drawn from the Platonic Solids of the tetrahedron, octahedron, icosahedron and cube (or 'hexahedron'). These polygons are formed by lines drawn across the interstices of the economical groupings of spheres. The most spheres that can be in simultaneous contact is four; if we draw lines across their interstices we produce a tetrahedron, composed of four equilateral triangles. The next figure is the octahedron, composed of eight spheres; then the icosahedron, cube and finally the dodecahedron which is composed of 32 spheres. You might assume the cube as the third in this series, but it is actually always the fourth. The ancients allocated Fire to the tetrahedron because it pointed upwards; the cube to Earth because of its stability; the icosahedron to Water because it 'rolled' better than the others, amongst many other reasons. Thus the Platonic Order is Fire, Air, Water, Earth and Spirit. In the Hermetic Qabalah it is

generally different. Each Figure has its four rows allocated to this sequence with Fire at the highest row, and Earth lowest.

We perform arithmetic, permuting the rows in each Figure with geometrical attributes of the Platonic Solids; arriving at three numbers for each Figure which collectively possess symmetrical properties. The table below gives basic data for the Platonic Solids, excluding the dodecahedron.

We take each Geomantic Figure and either deal with the points, lines or faces. As the rows in each Figure correspond, via Element, to the four Solids, this is remarkably simple. We give examples which employ the faces of the Solids. Via has one point in each row. We multiply the number of faces in each Solid once: 4 + 8 + 20 + 6 = 38. For Populus we have two points in each row, and we simply double the previous sum, and get 76. If we have one point per row we multiply by one, if two points we double. With Albus, for example, we take the top row of two points and take the number of faces in a tetrahedron twice, the faces in an octahedron twice, the faces in an icosahedron once, and the faces found in a cube twice: (2*4) + (2*8) + (1*20) + (2*6) = 56. The other two numbers assigned to each Figure follow the same logic with the number of lines and points in each Solid. The numbers total equally in each row and column. Those generated from the faces are especially useful in being unique for each Figure. The following table provides this arithmetic.

The sum of the point generated figures totals 180 across each row/column; that of the lines 360; and that of the faces 228. Only the numbers for the faces generate a unique number each time, as previously stated; however 228 is also the value in Hebrew of OTz ChIIM, 'The Tree of Life', and KRVB, 'Cherubim'. These two isopsephisms are illuminating when we think of the Cherubim as being the Fixed Zodiac signs, and the Four Beasts that protect the Supernals of the Tree of Life from the Stooping Dragon that arose after The Fall [sic]. For which see Israel Regardie's The Golden Dawn, and many other places. We now have a magic square symmetrical in (at least) Geomantic, Elemental, decimal and Platonic Solid geometry; and we progress to the next level of the Pyramid. The diagram below gives the combined symbolism.

The Square of Saturn and the 'Westernised' I Ching The logic that springs from the Ruling Figures to the Square of Saturn is not mathematical as hitherto. I am using Yetziratic, so called, correspondences to develop the next level. The Qemea of Saturn is a three-by-three square of the numbers one to nine, arranged so that each row, column and diagonal totals to 15. It is called the Square of Saturn because the third Sphere on the Qabalistic Tree of Life, Binah, is traditionally associated with the planet Saturn. (It would be nave, if not presumptuous, to assume that this configuration actually has anything to do with the planet Saturn.) This is upside-down from what is typically displayed in Hermetic texts.

Each grouping of four squares of Ruling Figures corresponds to a single square in the threeby-three arrangement.

The Yetziratic symbolism within this three-by-three square is fundamentally based on the outermost corners of the Ruling Figures grid, and the Elements allocated.

The group of four squares in the top left corresponds to Fire as this Element tallies with that of the top left individual square. And thus for the other corner groups of four squares, with Air in the bottom left, Water in the bottom right and Earth in the top right.

The central set of four squares correspond to Spirit, as this Element is said traditionally to bind and separate the others.

The set of four squares in the upper middle correspond to Sol as it is between the Elements of Fire and Earth; the former representing the energy of Sol, and the latter its gravitational fulcrum.

Luna is allocated to the set of four squares in the lower middle, between the Elements of Air and Water; the former is Qabalistically equated with intellect and the Astral Plane, and the Sphere of Yesod (the Moon), the latter because of Her effect on the ebb and flow of tides.

The set of four squares on the middle left are attributed to Lingam, or the phallus; as a posited combination of the active principles of Fire and Air.

The set of squares on the middle right is allocated to Yoni, or the kteis; as a posited combination of the passive elements of Water and Earth.

We arrive at this three-by-three arrangement.

We have allied the Yetziratic symbols with the integers of the traditional Qemea of Saturn. The following symbol string arises, which is polarised linearly.

There are other wonderful synchronisations in Sol being the first, or highest, of these numbers; and in Luna being nine in this scheme and the Qabalistic Tree of Life. Fire is next to Lingam, and Water next to Yoni. The progression of the Four Elements is the same as the Zodiacal (Fire, Earth, Air & Water). Spirit is in the middle and functions as a mirror polarising the rest. If we ascribe the trigrams of the I Ching, as 'westernised' by Crowley, we discover a circular symmetry similar to the traditional Wheels of the Trigrams discussed by Richard Wilhelm.

This configuration is different from those found in Wilhelm. However, we still acquire a symmetry in that each of the reflected pairs of trigram are composed of nine parts; if we take the liberty of expressing a yin as two components, and yang as one. The Polarised Capstone

This is simply a two-by-two square, with each being ascribed one of the Four Elements, and each being either positive/masculine or negative/feminine.

We take the Square of Saturn beneath and find the four squares of the upper left are Fire, Lingam, Spirit and Sol and thus Fire/Masculine. The bottom right set of four squares are Water, Yoni, Spirit and Luna and therefore Earth/Feminine. The top right set is more feminine in its parts than the bottom left, so the former is Water/Feminine, the latter Air/Masculine. You may think this last level as overly simplistic, which it may be. However, it helps you use the Pyramid from a magical perspective if one wishes to 'explore' the binary permutations from the top down, or vice versa. We have two symbols detailed here, three symbols on the three-by-three, and four symbols with the square detailing the Ruling Figures. Our Geomantic Pyramid is complete. When we permute the four levels, stepping down the Pyramid stage by stage, we have four

to the fourth power permutations, or 256. This is a curious device slightly akin to the Elemental Watchtowers of Dr. Dee and Sir Kelly, as developed by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Poetic Mnemonics and the Unique Shields I have contrived a poem that helps one remember the 16 sets of four Mothers that generate each Unique Shield, and their Ruling Figures. It is a 16 line poem, the initial letter of each of the first four words of each line being a notarius of the Mothers. As the translations, from the Latin, of the Geomantic Figures hardly start with unique initials I have taken the liberty of renaming some of them. Via Path Puella Maiden Puer Boy Carcer Incarceration Caput Draconis Head of the Dragon Acquisitio Acquisition Fortuna Major Greater Fortune Tristitia Sorrow Cauda Draconis Tail of the Dragon Fortuna Minor Lesser Fortune Amissio Forfeiture Laetitia Joy Conjunctio Conjunction Rubeus Redness Albus Whiteness Populus Population

The Ruling Figures are determined from the number of syllables, so that if the first word has one syllable, then the highest row of the figure, that of Fire, has one dot; if two syllables two dots. Thus the four initial words give out the four Mothers of each Unique Shield, and the Ruling Figure. This short, ostensibly hyperbolic, poem deals with the notions of ascension and atonement. Freedom's Frontier By Her still wings I slowly fly, All my worries gently do die... The heavens soar wide, softly quiver, Clouds mingled golden silver. Mellowed by sounds with wingd feet, Holy is wonder! Gallant retreat! Madly thinking some word may unseal, Hallowed frenzies! Glories surreal! Rare jewels Herself by wisdom gave, Just let all turmoil wave on wave, Rest joyful. Moving by Her dream, Love's raiment! I tremble serene. Reigning joy! Thankful height! Jazzy lights by contoured night, Rapture's journey! Twisting mirth! Little remains but far-flung Earth.

Love is the law, love under will