On Elemental Dignities in Geomancy

“For there is none of the sensible Elements that is pure, but they are more or less mixed, and apt to be changed one into the other: Even as Earth becoming dirty, and being dissolved, becomes Water, and the same being made thick and hard, become Earth again; but being evaporated through heat, passeth into Air, and that being kindled, passeth into Fire, and this being extinguished, returns back again into Air.”

(Agrippa, Chap. III)

Each of the four elements of occult philosophy do not appear in a vacuum, but interact and intermingle.

In fact, it’s this intermingling of the elements that forms everything you can touch, see, feel – in the ‘sensible’ world, or the world of sensation – and even some things that you cannot. Elemental Dignities is a way of looking at these relationships between the four elements. These relationships can be either harmonious, neutral or conflicting. When elements that are harmonious to each other, they support and reinforce the other. Alternatively, conflicting elements can oppose or weaken each other.

In this post I’m going to explore the idea of Elemental Dignities, where the concept comes from, and how it can be applied to Geomancy. Whilst it’s a technique that has occasionally thrown up some interesting results, I’m also going to talk about the possible drawbacks to using the technique in Geomancy.

Compared to my usual articles, this is going to be blessedly short. The the foundation of this article is based on a few of my other articles. If you haven’t read the other elemental articles, I suggest you take a look before diving into this one:

1. The Four Occult Elements

2. Anatomy of a Geomancy Figure

3. [Coming Soon: Ruling Elements of the Geomantic Figures]

What are Elemental Dignities?

Elemental dignities are a way of seeing these interactions between elements in a divination reading – whether geomancy or tarot. Knowing how a pair of elements interact can tell us whether the elements are strengthened or weakened in the relationship. This allows a reader to know whether something is strong or weak in the reading, and provides the reader the ability to do two things in a reading:

1. Place more importance on the figures (or cards, in a Tarot reading) which are the strongest.
2. Notice patterns in the relationship between figures (or cards) and thus provide more patterns to interpret in a reading.

In Tarot, Elemental Dignities are usually used to interpret relationships between cards in a reading. Though in Geomancy, Elemental Dignities is more used to assess how strong a particular figure is in locum – in the place or position it is in.

The Two Pairs of Sensible Qualities

If you’ve been keeping up with my articles on Elemental Theory in occultism, and the elemental nature of Geomancy then you note that there are two pairs of ‘qualities’ (four in total), and certain elements share qualities and others do not.

Let’s recap with this diagram:

As you can see, there are two pairs of qualities which form binary ‘spectrums’ – i.e. ‘hot’/’cold’, ‘dry’/’wet’. These are qualities that are classically termed ‘sensible’ in that they can be ‘sensed’ by us in the everyday world.

You will also see from the diagram that each element shares a quality with another element next to it – for example, both Earth and Water share the ‘Cold’ quality. And, if you look at two elements that are opposite, you will note that there is no shared quality; they are on the opposite end of the spectrum in both pairs of qualities.

A key to understanding elemental dignities is understanding these qualities of the four elements.

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Relationships Between Elements

Taking any pair, the relationships between elements can either be strengthening, harmonious, neutral or conflicting.

The two sets of elements that share no quality between them are Water & Fire, and Earth & Air. You will notice that in the diagram with the qualities, they are opposites (or “opposed”). These are ‘conflicting’ elements, and when placed next to each other, they fight and weaken the other.

When elements share either the ‘hot’ quality or the ‘cold’ quality, the elements are ‘friendly’ and one will strengthen the other when placed nearby. When you look at the sigils/glyphs of the elements, this is the same as when the triangles point the same way. So Air and Fire both have upright pointing triangles – they are both moving upwards – so they strengthen each other. This is the same as saying they share the ‘hot’ quality. And Earth & Water share the ‘cold’ quality, their triangles are pointing downwards indicating they both in the same direction – i.e. downwards.

A pairing is seen as neutral when they share the ‘Wet’ or the ‘Dry’ quality. So Earth and Fire, or Air and Water are ‘neutral’ pairings. When placed together they are neither deleterious (conflicting) nor supportive but just happily co-exist!

And finally, which elemental pairings strengthen one another? Well, like strengthens like. Fire is strengthened when it is with fire. Water is strengthened when it is with water. And so on. This is the complicated occult philosophy way of saying “small fire plus small fire equals big fire”, or “earth plus earth equals big mound of earth”.

The Elemental Fields of the Shield Chart.

When we look at the Shield Chart, we see 16 ‘positions’ a figure can be in. These are often termed the ‘houses’ of a shield chart. Each has a meaning assigned to them. Houses 1-12 are associated with the 12 astrological houses. And houses 13-16 are unique to Geomancy, usually termed ‘The Court’ they denote the answer or the judgement of the question that’s being asked.

When creating the Daughters of the chart, we use a process of transposition whereby each row across the four Mothers is transposed to being one of the Daughters. For example, the first Daughter is created from the four ‘heads’ (the top, or fire, row of the Mothers). The second Daughter from the four necks, etc.

When you recall that the anatomy of a figure is also elemental (Head=Fire, Neck=Air, Body=Water, Feet=Earth), you could interpret the four Daughters as four elemental figures. The first element is made up of all fire, the second of all air, the third of water, and the fourth of earth. This is an exciting prospect as it brings to mind sub-elementals (sometimes called tatwas) – fire of air, water of earth etc. But that’s a conversation for another time!

This can lead to an interesting point – that each of the four daughters has an assigned element, and thus maybe all of the 16 houses have an elemental association.

These elemental ‘positions’ I usually term Elemental Fields. And from the four daughters, we can extrapolate an order to assign all of the houses to an element. Using the natural order of the elements in Geomancy, the order of density from Fire to Earth, we can go:

• 1^st Mother – Fire

• 2^nd Mother – Air

• 3^rd Mother – Water

• 4^th Mother – Earth

The same with the daughters, and the same for the nieces. And finally:

• Right Witness – Fire

• Left Witness – Air

• Judge – Water

• Sentence – Earth.

What are the Elemental Dignities in Geomancy?

As I mentioned, Elemental Dignities are the results of the relationships between elements placed together. In a Geomantic Shield Chart, we have the elemental ‘fields’ of the 16 houses. And, by the means of casting a chart, we have the sixteen figures that are placed into those houses (or ‘elemental fields’). As each figure is associated with one of the four elements, we have an active relationship between the element of the figure and the elemental field it is placed in.

So, for example – if Laetitia was placed in the fifth house (the first Daughter), the figure of Laetitia is ‘strengthened’. This is because Laetitia is a figure of pure fire and the fifth house is ruled by fire. As such, fire + fire = strengthened fire. Yet, if the figure of Laetitia was in the third house – or the third mother – then because that position is ruled by water, the figure would be weakened considerably.

There are two ways that I can think of to interpret this concept:

1. The elements are emphasised, if they are strengthened – placing more meaning on them – and diminished, or become less important, when weakened.
2. The figures that are in an opposing element (‘weakened’) are in crisis and cause more ‘disturbance’ in the chart.

To illustrate, let us pretend we have Puer (a figure of Air) in a chart. In the first way of reading it, if Puer appeared in an elemental field of air then it would emphasise the figure. So Puer would ‘delight’ in the second mother (Lucrum – finances, possessions) and thus it would emphasise this house as important in the reading. If it was in the Eighth House (Mors – house of death) it would be diminished. This is very similar to the concept of ‘planetary joys’ in Astrology.

Now, using the second way of interpreting – Puer in the Eighth House would highlighted the area as one of potential conflict, illustrating that the eighth house had some sort of disturbance.

I’ve looked over a few of my old charts to see how this concept could be used in Geomancy. In looking at both ways of interpreting elemental dignities, I see the second method as something that rings true in these charts. That figures in conflict in a house provides an additional layer of meaning that coincides with what happened in those situations.

Why use Elemental Dignities?

Using the idea of elemental fields and the elemental dignities could provide an additional layer to the interpretation of a chart, placing an emphasis on certain areas of the chart to be looked at in a similar way that other methods do.

Those that have come from an occult background that are fluent with the concept of the four elements and how they interact can easily apply this theory to a geomancy chart to develop a more elemental based reading. Indeed, those that have come from a background of Tarot reading in the Golden Dawn style may find this technique something of interest.

What problems can using elemental dignities in Geomancy present?

Having said that, I do think there could be a couple of difficulties that stem from using Elemental Dignities in Geomancy Charts.

One such difficulty could come from the fact that certain figures will never be highlighted within a certain field, thus limiting the way in which certain figures express themselves in the four houses. For example, if you use the concept that opposite elements diminish and de-emphasise a figure – then Tristitia would never be important if placed in the second house (Lucrum – wealth). If you used the idea that ‘elements in conflict’ produced problem houses, then only four figures in each house could emphasise the house as having a form of conflict – or requiring a level of attention in a reading and in someone’s life.

This is all to say that elemental dignities could ultimately limit the flexibility that Geomancy has in expressing itself by placing weight on certain placements over others – no matter the question or circumstances. Though I have seen the technique work in some of my charts. Charts where the information provided by this technique is accurate and isn’t ‘flagged up’ by other techniques.

It’s definitely something to keep in mind… but only time will tell if this technique is something that always provides the right answer, or limits the ability of the Shield Chart to express itself and the information contained.