Geomancy (from Old French geomancie <Late Latin geōmantia <Late Greek geōmanteia< geo, "earth" + manteia, "divination") from the eponymous ilm al-raml ("the science of sand"), is a method of divination that interprets markings on the ground, or how handfuls of dirt land when you toss them. The Arabic tradition consists of sketching sixteen random lines of dots in sand.
In Africa one traditional form of geomancy consists of throwing handfuls of dirt in the air and observing ho ...
The poem Experimentarius attributed to Bernardus (Bernard) Silvestris (Silvester), who wrote in the middle of the 12th century, was a verse translation of a work on astrological geomancy.
Gerard of Sabionetta (Sabloneta), who lived in the thirteenth century, wrote or translated Astronomical Geomancy from Arabic into Latin. An original in Arabic is possible, as the traditional method of structuring a geomantic divination follows the direction of Arabic writing. (Astronomical Geomancy is erroneously attributed to Gerard of Cremona; Sabionetta is near Cremona s ...
Geomancy in western tradition requires no instruments and no calculations; it is based solely on the human propensity for pattern recognition.
Diviners in medieval Europe used parchment or paper (expensive in those days!) for drawing the dots of geomancy but they followed the traditional direction of notation (right to left) for recording the dots. Western occultism still defines geomantic technique as marking sixteen lines of dashes in sand or soil with a wand or on a sheet of paper. The dashes aren't counted as they are made (thus ...
