Another System of Elemental Affinities for the Geomantic Figures

December 9, 2019 By polyphanes in geomancy Tags: african, arabic, binary, element, elements, french, geomantic figures, quaternary 2 Comments

There’s not a lot of modern geomantic literature out there, it’s true. Most geomantic stuff written is decisively pre-modern (a good deal of which is already digitized and free to access by anyone!), and the rest of it that is modern is…well, sometimes it’s hit or miss, though there are more winners among the lot than not. Still, compared to the endless books put out on Tarot or astrology or runes or playing cards, there’s just not a lot out there as far as geomancy books are concerned. But, interestingly enough, it turns out that the French have been quite busy with geomancy in the 20th century.

Unlike modern Anglophone publications on geomancy, of which there really haven’t been all that any, I’ve got at least a dozen books stacked on my desk, all published in the 20th century in French, some more scholastic or academic than others, some more pop-divination or pop-occult than others. It’s honestly refreshing in many ways, though not nearly so surprising in others; after all, the French are well-known for having colonized much of Africa and large parts of the Middle East, and I’m positive that their colonialism and imperialism fed into their anthropological and cultural studies of many of the places that they situated themselves and took over. Without putting a silver-lining spin on it, this research does help Western understanding of African and Arabic styles of geomancy, and has led to plenty of texts being written in French on geomancy, deriving information from both the Western European tradition as well as the African and Arabic traditions of the art.

Much of the French geomantic literature is pretty standard stuff that you’d find in any other geomantic text, but there are a lot of surprising finds, too. Some of the more outré topics I’ve invented or delved into (e.g. geomantic emblems or geomantic magic squares) were already known to and explored by French geomancers, which is an incredible relief to me—it means that I’m not the only crazy one in the room, and I don’t have to completely reinvent the wheel when I can see what else has already been written about it—or some of the really obscure finds I’ve had to piece together were already well-described and known to the French (e.g. the traditional assigning of the geomantic figures being based on an older system of associations to the lunar mansions) but perhaps the one most startling thing about many (but not all) French geomantic texts is the system of elements they use to describe the elemental rulerships and affinities of the figures. As we all know, the geomantic figures are composed of different combinations of the four classical elements, but each figure is also generally aligned with one particular element as a whole. Which element that would be is based on one of two systems, an older and more pervasive one that appears based on which elements are active or passive in a figure (e.g. Albus given to Water) and a slightly more recent one based on the planetary-based zodiacal rulerships of the figure (e.g. Albus given to Gemini because it’s a Mercury-ruled figure). Heck, I’ve even come up with a theoretical association of my own, also based on the elemental structure of a figure but less symbolic and more based on what cancels out and what’s left after that (though I don’t myself use this one).

But this particular system so common in so many French geomancy texts is different. Like the traditional elemental system and my own innovative theoretical one, this French system is also structural, but it’s not really based on which individual elements are active or passive in a figure. Rather, it’s based on the dot patterns of the upper two lines of a figure. Consider the qura`ah (or qirrah), the spindle-dice so commonly used in and associated with Arabic and Persian geomancy:

As I’ve mentioned before, a pair of these spindle-dice are used together to generate four Mother figures all at once: you take both, spin the blocks on each spindle, and slap them down together on the table, and you read pairs of blocks, one from each spindle. So, in the image above, the four Mothers that would result from that particular arrangement of spindle-dice are Caput Draconis, Acquisitio, Caput Draconis, and Albus.

Geomantic figures are essentially binary numbers (base-2): you have four rows, each row having one or two dots, giving you a choice of sixteen figures (2⁴ = 16). However, you could also consider the geomantic figures as quarternary numbers (base-4), too: rather than considering individual rows, you look at the upper two rows and bottom two rows together. In this way, rather than a single row being one of two options (single point or dual point), you get a pair of rows that has one of four options (4² = 16: single-single, single-dual, dual-single, dual-dual). If we break down a geomantic figure into two pairs of rows rather than four individual rows, we can consider what the symbolism of a pair of rows means.

What these French geomancies do is give a different elemental association to the points found in pair of rows:

Single-single (shaped like a vertical line, :, e.g. the upper part of Fortuna Minor): Fire, a single flame burning upwards.
Single-dual (shaped like an upwards-pointing triangle, ⸫, e.g. the upper part of Puella): Water, something that pours out and expands downwards.
Dual-single (shaped like a downwards-pointing triangle, ⸪, e.g. the upper part of Caput Draconis): Air, something that rises and expands upwards.
Dual-dual (shaped like a square, ⸬, e.g. the upper part of Albus): Earth, the stability of the level plane.

EDIT: Okay, I don’t know what’s going on, but apparently the dot patterns don’t show up in text right on all computers. On some computers it displays as described, but on other computers it displays where the Earth four-point square is set to Air, the Water upwards-triangle is set to Earth, and the Air downwards-triangle is set to Water. I don’t know how to resolve that or why that happens. The content of the post is right, but the dot characters here may not be depending on your platform, browser, etc.

Some texts go further and try to relate these point-arrangements to the I Ching—which I don’t agree with due to a lack of any significant connection historical or otherwise—saying that single-single Fire is given to old Yang, dual-single Air to young Yin, single-sual Water to young Yang, and dual-dual Earth to old Yin. Whatever. I don’t agree with a Chinese or I Ching-based origin of geomancy, as there’s already plenty of evidence suggesting that geomancy originates in Arabia, and even if not, I’d still favor a north African origin anyway. What connections there are between geomancy and I Ching, I find, are entirely superficial, and it didn’t help that European missionaries didn’t know what else to call fēng shuǐ besides “geomancy”, leading to centuries of misnaming and misunderstanding. Just like with the pips of dominoes and the points of geomancy (as I brought up a bit ago), just because things look kinda similar doesn’t mean that they share a common origin.

Back to the topic at hand. This is an interesting way to adapt the four-element symbolism to the simple shapes produced from two, three, or four points put together. Admittedly, I find it a little weird, since I’d normally be inclined to give the single-dual upwards-pointing triangle to Air and dual-single downwards-pointing triangle to Water, but I get where this symbolism is going from; after all, Water is associated with downwards motion and Air with upwards (or at least sideways) motion, and I’d want to look at the shapes these points make from the perspective of direction rather than expansion, but I get it.

That’s the whole basis for this elemental symbolism. To find the elemental association of a particular figure, simply look at the upper two lines of a figure, and that point arrangement gets you the ruling element of that figure. That’s all there is to it. Thus:

Fire figures (upper two lines single-single): Via, Cauda Draconis, Puer, Fortuna Minor
Air figures (upper two lines dual-single): Caput Draconis, Coniunctio, Acquisitio, Rubeus
Water figures (upper two lines single-dual): Puella, Amissio, Carcer, Laetitia
Earth figures (upper two lines dual-dual): Fortuna Maior, Albus, Tristitia, Populus

Far less common than this, though, some texts will also look at the bottom two rows of a figure in the same way to get a sub-element, such that Via is Fire-on-Fire, Albus is Earth-on-Water, and so forth, but that’s super uncommon—but, then, so is the notion of sub-element or secondary elemental rulers in general (even if I make heavy use of such symbolism). Most texts simply leave the association at one element based on the upper two rows, and that’s about it. Still, because I’m fond of tables and charts, we can come up with a simple such table that plots out which figure belongs to which primary (upper) and secondary (lower) elemental structures:

	Upper Fire (:)	Upper Air (⸪)	Upper Water (⸫)	Upper Earth (⸬)
Lower Fire (:)	Via	Caput Draconis	Puella	Fortuna Maior
Lower Air (⸪)	Cauda Draconis	Acquisitio	Carcer	Tristitia
Lower Water (⸫)	Puer	Coniunctio	Amissio	Albus
Lower Earth (⸬)	Fortuna Minor	Rubeus	Laetitia	Populus

I suppose the symmetry of the figures would be better preserved if I swapped around the Air and Water rows and columns, but I rebel at that, personally, so whatever.

As far as how to use such a system of elemental affinities and rulerships, I mean, it’s the same as any other: they can be used as a basis for meditating upon and contemplating the figures, understood in relationship to other figures, compared in terms of elemental strengths or weaknesses based on what’s around it or where it’s placed in a chart, and the other usual uses; in that, it’s just another system of elemental rulerships available for the figures, just like any other. What I can’t really figure out, however, is where this system came from. It doesn’t appear in any older European or Western text I’m aware of, and only seems to appear in most (but not all) French texts, suggesting a common language-bound origin—and, given the French history of colonialism and imperialism in areas where African and Arabic traditions of geomancy were practiced, might have just such an origin. Plus, the use of pairs of rows in a figure does neatly echo the use of spindle-dice, which were historically only found in the Middle East and South Asia, further suggesting an Arabic practice—though maybe not an utterly ancient one, since the spindle-dice were not there from the beginning of the practice and I don’t recall seeing any row-pairwise analysis of figures brought up in any of the texts I’ve glanced over.

Now, back in the days from the old Geomantic Campus Yahoo! Group days, I swear I saw some image of some North African instance of geomancy that gave these same row-pairwise associations of the elements (like there was a tarp up in the background of a reading being done with some diagrams, including linking the four elements to the Tetragrammaton), but looking back through the group (before the old archives of all Yahoo! groups vanish in a few days), I can’t seem to find anything along those lines, so maybe I saw such a thing somewhere else. I know I’ve come across such a thing a long time ago, but at the time I didn’t think much of it, so I don’t have any notes or references to such a system. (If anyone knows the picture, direct me to it, as I’d be greatly appreciative.) And, as I’ve said, most—but not all—of these modern French geomancy texts seem to share this system, and it really only seems to be French geomancy texts that do this. To me, this indicates a single, common origin that spread outwards from there within the Francophone geomanticulture (hey, we have “occulture”, why not “geomanticulture” too?). Happily, many French geomantic texts include a bibliography, so it’s not terribly hard to track down such texts.

From what I can see, this system of elements likely happened at some point between 1940 and 1986. I give these two dates because these are the years of publication for the famous French occultist, Mason, and Martinist Robert Ambelain, who published La Géomancie Magique in 1940 and La Géomancie Arabe in 1986; in the former, he gives the usual older European (pre-Agrippa) form of elemental assignments to the figures, but in the latter, this row-pairwise one. However, earlier texts than La Géomancie Arabe use this system, too, like in the 1978 La géomancie: un art divinatoire by Alain le Kern. So, probably somewhere around the 1950s, this new method of assigning elements came into the French geomanticulture (the word’s sticking with me now), and may well have an Arabic origin or, more likely, a North or Northwest African origin. Beyond that, I can’t currently tell.

Still, it’s a nifty system. Another method to think about, for those who find a logic in it.

Reviewing the Trithemian Conjuration: Dechristianizing DSIC

July 15, 2019 By polyphanes in creative, link, materia, occult, pgm Tags: adaptation, arabic, ashen chassan, christian, christianity, drawing spirits into crystals, francis barrett, gateways through stone and circle, islam, prayer, red work, reviewing the trithemian conjuration, rufus opus, satyr magos, seven spheres, shams al-ma`arif, the magus, trithemius 1 Comment

Where were we? We’re in the middle of discussing the early modern conjuration ritual The Art of Drawing Spirits Into Crystals (DSIC), attributed to the good abbot of Spanheim, Johannes Trithemius, but which was more likely invented or plagiarized from another more recent source by Francis Barrett in his 1801 work The Magus, or Celestial Intelligencer. Many who are familiar with it either read it directly from Esoteric Archives, came by it through Fr. Rufus Opus (Fr. RO) in either his Red Work series of courses (RWC) or his book Seven Spheres (SS), or came by it through Fr. Ashen Chassan in his book Gateways Through Stone and Circle (Fr. AC and GTSC, respectively). I’ve been reviewing the tools, techniques, and technology of DSIC for my own purposes as well as to ascertain the general use and style used by other magician in the real world today, and today we can move on to other topics Last time, we discussed how we might tackle certain problems that could come up in conjuration when things go sideways. If you need a refresher on what we talked about last time, go read the last post!

As we’ve shown at many points during our review, survey, and discussion over the past number of weeks, it’s clear that DSIC is very much a relatively late product of Western Renaissance Hermetic, Solomonic, and qabbalistic literature, relying especially on Agrippa’s Fourth Book and the Heptameron of Pietro d’Abano but also referencing many other texts in those same lines, which were universally written with either pseudo-Jewish language, Christian language, or both. I mean, heck, DSIC itself is attributed to a Christian abbot, Johannes Trithemius of Spanheim, so it should come as little surprise that we’d find Christian phrases and reliance on the power of Jesus Christ in our prayers—even if the real authorship of DSIC lies either with Barrett himself or one of his contemporaries or near-predecessors.

It really shouldn’t catch anyone off-guard that every tool, implement, and prayer in DSIC is accompanied with or emblazoned by names of God or references to Jesus; after all, that pretty much is the whole of the grimoire tradition from a pretty early period onwards up into the modern era. After all, the majority of Europeans have (for better or worse) been various kinds of Christian for at least the past 1000 years, if not 1500 or even longer more; for the past thirty or so generations of European-centric culture, people were born Christian, lived Christian, and died Christian. It was heresy, apostasy, and blasphemy to do otherwise—though, of course, the exact limits of what could be considered “Christian” would certainly vary from place to place and people to people, especially once you account for even longer-lived traditions that carried on under Christian masques.

It’s only within relatively recent history that people born within a largely European or Western culture are willingly and openly choosing to live in non-Christian ways again, and though some of those people do so in a way that’s respectful and understanding of their Christian heritage (which of course they have), many people just outright leave it all behind and want nothing to do with it anymore. And I don’t blame them! It’s not like Christianity, beautiful religion that it can be when you get into the theologies and eschatologies and salvific elements, has earned itself a good reputation when you factor in the institutionalization, politics, war crimes, sexual abuse epidemics, colonization, and all the other horrific problems that come about when you become an imperialist power of the shit-filled world we live in. As the Indian philosopher Bara Dada once said, “Jesus is ideal and wonderful, but you Christians, you are not like him”.

To get to the point: we have a modern, thriving occulture and occult scene being played out on worldwide platforms that has dozens, hundreds of spiritual lineages, traditions, and practices being shared, applied, experimented with, adjusted, and adapted by a hundred times as many people each and every day. The problem that arises, as far as DSIC (and this post) is concerned, is when people are presented with a ritual text and want to (or are directed or suggested to) apply it but are yet unwilling to do so due to its Christian tone and approach because they themselves are uncomfortable with Christianity. What can be done?

In all honesty, the easiest choice is to just use the text as written: despite any hangups, chips on your shoulder, or hesitation when it comes to Christian language and theology, the honest-to-God most straightforward approach here is to just suck it up, shelve your hesitations or chips or blocks, and use DSIC. It’s already a complete (well…mostly, sorta) text that works, and has been shown to work by Christians and non-Christians alike (I’m proof of just that). You don’t need to be Jewish to use Psalms in magic, you don’t need to be Hindu to make pūjā for the devas, you don’t need to be Buddhist to use mantras for the bodhisattvas, and you don’t need to be Christian to use DSIC. If the only thing that prevents you from using DSIC (by all accounts an easy, straightforward method to Western-style conjuration, if not an introduction to even heavier and more laborious and intense texts than that) is you, then either you should sit with yourself and try to resolve your hangups that has nothing directly to do with them (it’s not like Christian authorities would exactly approve of what DSIC does!), or perhaps find a different approach to magic and conjuration entirely that doesn’t cause you such problems.

But that’s not a great answer, and can come across as pretty insensitive. Plus, with the title of the post as it is, you can guess I’m not gonna accept that answer myself.

Yes, there are ways we can modify the ritual text to avoid references to Christ; that’s not that difficult at all, and is actually pretty trivial if you know a few non-Christian set phrases here and there to replace Christian set phrases. For instance, the divine name Agla is, in reality, an acronym for the Hebrew phrase Atah Gibor Le-olam Adonai, “You are mighty forever, my Lord”, and we see echoes of this in some of the older prayers used in Christianity, such as “mighty unto the ages of ages” or “whose mercy endures forever and ever” or “world without end”. So, for instance, whenever we see a conclusion to the prayer that ends in “through Jesus Christ our Lord” or any variation thereof, we can replace it with “for the honor and glory of God Almighty” or “for your honor and glory” (depending on whether God is being addressed or not in that specific prayer). Instead of “in the name of the blessed Trinity”, we can simply say “in the name of God Almighty”—or, if you wanted to replace this with a more Islamic flavor, “in the name of God the Most Gracious and Most Merciful”. Changes like this are pretty easy and straightforward to make.

For instance, below is a copy of the DSIC ritual script that contains just the prayers from DSIC, but with all references to Christ and the Trinity removed and substituted with fairly appropriate changes in bold text:

O God, you who are the author of all good things! I beseech you, strengthen this your poor servant, that he may stand fast without fear through this dealing and work. I beseech you, o Lord, enlighten the dark understanding of your creature, that his spiritual eye may be opened to see and know your angelic spirits descending here into this crystal.

O inanimate creature of God, be sanctified and consecrated and blessed to this purpose: that no evil phantasy may appear in you, or, if one should gain ingress into you, that they be constrained to speak intelligibly, truly, and without the least ambiguity, for the honor and glory of God Most High. Amen.

As your servant standing here before you, o Lord, who desires neither evil treasures, nor injury to his neighbor, nor hurt to any living creature; grant him the power of descrying those celestial spirits and intelligences that may appear in this crystal, and whatever good gifts—whether the power of healing infirmities, or of imbibing wisdom, or discovering any evil likely to afflict any person or family, or any other good gift—you might be pleased to bestow on me. Enable me, by your wisdom and mercy, to use whatever I may receive to the honor of your holy name. Grant that all this may come to pass for your honor and glory. Amen.

In the name of God Most High and Most Holy do I consecrate this piece of ground for our defense, so that no evil spirit may have power to break these bounds prescribed here, by the everlasting power of God. Amen.

I conjure you, o creature of fire, by Him who created all things, both in Heaven and Earth and the Sea and in every other place whatsoever, that you cast away every phantasm from you, so that no hurt whatsoever shall be done in any thing.

Bless, o Lord, this creature of fire, and sanctify it that it may be blessed, and that your blessing may fill up the power and virtue of its odors, so that neither the enemy nor any false imagination may enter into them, that all things may serve towards your honor and glory. Amen.

In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful! I desire you, o strong mighty angel NN., that if it be the divine will of him who is called Tetragrammaton … the Holy God, the Father, that you take upon yourself some shape as best becomes your celestial nature, and appear to me visibly here in this crystal, and answer my demands in as far as I shall not transgress the bounds of divine mercy and grace by requesting unlawful knowledge, but that you graciously show me what things are most profitable for me to know and do, to the glory and honor of his divine majesty, he who lives and reigns, world without end. Amen.

Lord, your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Make clean my heart within me, and take not your holy spirit from me.

O Lord, by your name have I called NN.; suffer him to administer unto me, and that all things may work together for your honor and glory, that to you, o Lord, be ascribed all might, majesty, and dominion. Amen.

O Lord! I give to you my hearty and sincere thanks for the hearing of my prayer, and I thank you for having permitted your spirit NN. to appear unto me, whom I, by your grace, will interrogate to my further instruction, in your holy Light. Amen.

Do you swear by and within the True Light of God that reveals all secrets and obliterates all darkness that you are truly the spirit as you say you are and that you come to help me as I have called you?

O great and mighty spirit NN, inasmuch as you came in peace and in the name of the ever-blessed and righteous Trinity, so too in this name you may depart, and return to me when I call you in His name to whom every knee bows down. Farewell, o NN.! May peace be between us for the eternal honor and glory of God Almighty. Amen.

To God, the Father, the eternal Spirit, the fountain of Light, the Creator of all creation, and the Sustainer of all life be all honor and glory, world without end. Amen.

Like, I did all that in about five minutes, copy-pasting and all. It wasn’t hard. And, moreover, it ties in just fine with the use of the DSIC tools that similarly don’t involve Christian language; the few divine names that are used have no relationship to Christ (which is another argument in favor of their ultimate Solomonic origins, I might add). All the things I replaced were only in the prayers to be made, and were replaced with pretty bland and basically-equivalent things that maintained the same sense of what I wanted to use to begin with. Heck, based on some of Fr. RO’s writings before on using more classically Hermetic stuff, I’ve got my own version of drawing out the circle specifically with a more Hermetic-Gnostic bent, which departs more from the DSIC phrasing but does exactly the same thing:

In the name of the Nous, this circle is consecrated for our defense.
By the power of the Logos, this circle is defended for our perfection.
For the sake of the Sophia, this circle is perfected for our work.
Through the might of the Aiōn, may all that is baneful be cast out, that only Good may here remain.

But there are those who would still take issue with this dechristianized version of DSIC because to them it’d still read as “too Christian”. Despite this not being Christian at all anymore, it is still theistic in the Abrahamic sense, and that’s much harder to avoid because the prayers of DSIC are fundamentally Solomonic, and Solomonic texts are absolutely Abrahamic coming from a long tradition of Jewish magic, whether or not Hellenistic, Babylonian, Neoplatonic, or qabbalistic elements are involved or not. To remove God from DSIC would mean completely detaching DSIC not only from its Solomonic tradition, but from the entirety of the Solomonic hierarchial worldview with God at the top of it and all things being accomplished by it under the authority and with the license of God. And that’s very difficult to accomplish, because doing so means we need to rethink the entire cosmological underpinnings of DSIC that allows it to work at all.

It’s a lot like petitioning Christian saints, like (especially) St. Cyprian of Antioch, without being Christian: sure, you can do so, and it’s not like the saints themselves will (typically) spurn you, because they recognize that the same divinity that made them holy is within you, too. But you can’t petition the saints or approach them without recognizing that it’s quite literally Jesus Christ that made them a saint to begin with. If you accept the validity of the power and presence of Christian saints but deny the fundamental divinity that gives them that power and presence, then you’re basically trying to ascribe power to the saints themselves apart and away from Jesus, which isn’t how it works at all. Not only that, but you also end up insulting the saints by disparaging and denying the God and savior they themselves worship. It doesn’t end prettily. You don’t have to be Christian to work with the saints (even if it does help immensely to be so), but you do need to recognize and honor Jesus Christ in your work with them because that’s the fundamental source of their own power.

Likewise, I know (and have personally encountered) some people who want to work with angels but who don’t like the idea of God and end up ignoring God entirely in their works. That’s honestly a contradiction, because no matter how you cut it, the angels are the functionaries, emissaries, and servants of God; it’s right in their names (Michael ← “Who is like God?”, Raphael ← “Healing of God”, Gabriel ← “Strength of God”, etc.). To take entities like this and completely remove them from their cosmological, theological, and mythological origins really doesn’t leave you with a lot to work with, because accepting the power of the angels necessitates accepting the power of God. God and the angels come together as part of a package deal; you can’t really take one and leave the other without leaving yourself in the dust. You don’t have to be Christian or Jewish or Muslim or partake in any kind of Abrahamic faith, but you do have to recognize the power and sovereignty of God in order to enter into the hierarchy that allows the angels themselves to work as well as to allow DSIC, as a ritual that’s fundamentally based on the angels and Solomonic hierarchies, to function.

So is that it, then? If you don’t believe in God, you’re screwed as far as DSIC is concerned? Well…yes and no. “Yes” because DSIC fundamentally relies on a notion of a Divine Sovereign at the top of a cosmological hierarchy to which all things in the cosmos must necessarily obey when presented by an authority licensed by that Sovereign, to whom we can petition that we receive such authority and license to perform spiritual works to direct and summon spiritual entities as we desire within the boundaries of the permission of that Sovereign, under whom are particular planetary and worldly powers that facilitate creation, manifestation, and materialization in the world we live in that ultimately is made by and ruled by that Sovereign. That is my understanding of the bare-bones cosmology under which the DSIC ritual operates, apart and away from its Solomonic vocabulary and structure. That notion of Divine Sovereign is the “God” in which you must believe in order to use DSIC, so if you can’t buy that, then yes, you’re screwed.

That being said, the Divine Sovereign of DSIC is not necessarily identical to the God of the Jews, the God of the Christians, or the God of the Muslims, or any one particular cosmocrator, all-ruling deity or divinity of any particular tradition or faith. If you can look behind some of the classically-used terms that people (who happen to be Jewish or Christian or Muslim, or some variant thereof that includes traditional, indigenous, or otherwise pagan influences without being classified as outright heretical or apostate) used to refer to this Divine Sovereign and see the fundamental divinity behind any particular religious approach and see something that you can understand and work with, then no, you’re not screwed, and can use DSIC just fine. You might have hang-ups with some of the language used, and that can be resolved or worked with, finding appropriate substitutions as necessary, but once you understand why some of those very same terms and names are used, you can begin to appreciate what purpose they fulfill in the grander cosmological scheme of things and can still apply them without necessarily having to buy into any individual religious tradition that you don’t like or agree with. In that light, you could consider this Divine Sovereign as YHVH of Judaism, as the Triune God of Christianity, as ‘Allāh of Islam, as Zeus Pantokrator of the Hellenes, Iupiter Optimus Maximus of the Romans, the Good of the Platonists, the Nous of the Hermeticists, Viṣṇu of Vaishnavaite Hindus or Śiva of Shaivite Hindus, and so on. (This is one of the mysteries, as I see it, of Hermeticism as a spiritual practice: being able to see through the different interpretations to get to that which is interpreted directly.)

That’s where we need to be careful when changing the language and divine names used in DSIC—or, for that matter, any Solomonic or Hermetic ritual—because they typically fulfill some spiritual function at least as often as they fulfill some poetic or literary function. While the phrases I replaced in my simple dechristianized DSIC alternative above were pretty easy, they also filled more-or-less the exact same role as the original Christian language, but I didn’t touch the divine names used on the tools because there was no need to and fit just as cleanly with the adapted ritual text as it did the original. As Fr. AC says in GTSC, at least where it comes to the prayers themselves, that if the Christian language of the prayers used in DSIC “are too much of an aversion to your spiritual nature”, then you should make alternative prayers that—and he emphasizes this strongly and in no uncertain terms—”match [the original prayers] as closely as possible“. This is most easily accomplished by simply changing some of the language, but you would need to do so in a way that matches the function of the original language as well as maintaining the underlying cosmological framework, as well.

I’m suddenly reminded that, back in February 2009, Fr. RO put up a post on his blog (a single post, unlike…what, is this the 21st post in this series?) that was basically a synopsis of how to conjure spirits using a very pared-down, fast-and-loose version of DSIC. In it, he describes some non-Christian, and even non-Abrahamic things one might use for a combined lamen-cum-Table of Practice and some of the prayers:

You’ll need to draw the spirit’s symbol inside a hexagram, underneath it’s name. A Hexagram is a Star of David, made of two triangles, one pointing up and one pointing down. Each little triangle formed by the points should be the same size.

Around this hexagram, draw FIVE Pentragrams (five-pointed stars). Four of these stars represent the four Angels of the Corners of the Earth. The Fifth represents the Spirit you are conjuring.

Next write the spirit’s name above these stars. In the Fourth Book, you write them in Hebrew.

Next, draw an equilateral triangle around everything you’ve drawn so far.

Next, draw a circle around the Triangle. It should touch the three points of the triangle.

Draw another circle around that circle, about a half-inch or so out from the first circle. In the border you have created, write the Names of God. These Names will vary depending on your source. If you’ve studied the Golden Dawn version of the Tree of Life, and have performed the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram a time or two, and the Middle Pillar on occasion, then you should probably use the Names of God that are assigned to the ten Sephiroth.

In my opinion, you can write IAO, LOGOS, Chronos, Zeus, Apollo, Aries, Aphrodite, Hermes, Artemis, and Hephaestus. You can throw in Hecate instead of Hepaestus too, but I’d keep Hephaestus in there anyhow. Now these are Greek manifestations of the faces of God that were revealed to a set of people that were not given the Law the way God gave it to the Jews. Instead, they were given the Logos in the form of Philosophy and other weirdness.*

Either way, or any other way, you’re representing in the outermost circle the manifestations of God that represent the different phases He went through in his emanation of the physical world. By listing these secret names, you the magician are pointing out to the servants of the Most High that you’re in on the secret, you understand the way things work, and that you’re an initiate. It’s like a badge that a sheriff wears. There’s no magic in the star of the cop, it’s what it represents that makes a criminal have to listen.

…

When I trace a Circle, I say, “In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I consecrate this ground for our defense!” You can say, IAO, LOGOS, and Spiritus Mundi/Spiritus Sancti if you’re not feeling particularly comfortable with the names of God from the Christian tradition. I strongly urge you to stick with the neoplatonic system though. You’ll need a representative of the Monad, the Intercessor, and the Spirit that maintains everything in your world, like the name of your Nativity Angel, Genius, Agathadaimon, or HGA. By touching on these three things, you’re retracing your path up through the spheres, and acknowledging who you are and what your status is. You’re affirming that you are indeed the magician in the center square of the Circle of the Goetia with these simple words.

In some ways, I agree with his logic, and as a result, I’m reminded of some of Satyr Magos’ old work from a few years back in a custom Table of Practice to conjure the spirit of the plant cannabis, as well as a unique lamen-based pentacle incorporating PGM elements of the spirits of Saturn and Venus, all taking the fundamental techniques and technology of DSIC (based on Agrippa’s Fourth Book as well as fundamentally Solomonic ideas) and applying them in his own way. These are by no means pure implementations of DSIC, Agrippa, or Solomonica, but they don’t have to be, because Satyr Magos (definitely not Christian or Abrahamic) took the fundamental notions of what was going on, went past the Abrahamic language, adapted DSIC to work within a Hellenistic pagan and magical method using the same fundamental underlying cosmology, and made something great with it.

But at the same time, I also know that Fr. RO took care in specifying what was being done, as did Satyr Magos. You can’t just slap the names of the Twelve Olympians on top of the seven planetary angels, because they don’t fulfill the same function…unless you know to approach and conceive of them in that way: that the Olympians preside over the celestial and heavenly forces that produce creation. (This is the same reasoning, by the way, that allows some people to successfully adapt DSIC tools to forego the use of the four kings and use the four archangels instead, because for them, in their manner of working and cosmological need, the four angels fill the same purpose as the four kings, and depending on how far back you want to reach, as we touched on before, can be considered interchangeable or identical with them.)

Basically, if you want to adapt DSIC not just in how you design the tools but how you construct and recite the very prayers of the ritual, you need to be careful that you don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Yes, in order to use DSIC, you do need to buy into the fundamental cosmological framework upon which DSIC is founded and within which DSIC operates. So long as you can do that, and recognize what the individual components of the ritual (prayers, divine names, sigils, symbols, arrangements, etc.) are doing, then you are entirely and absolutely able to adapt DSIC to your own personal religious or spiritual needs; thus, you could come up with a Neoplatonic Hellenic DSIC, a PGM-style DSIC, an Islamic DSIC, and any number of other variants that both click with the underlying framework of DSIC as well as being adjusted to the needs of specific spiritual or religious traditions. However, even though this boils down to just a change in aesthetics, extreme caution is still needed that you keep all the things that need to be kept. Otherwise, you end up either jeopardizing the functionality or safety of DSIC, or end up with something so completely different that it cannot be considered DSIC anymore.

So, for example, let’s say we wanted to come up with an adaptation of DSIC in the style of the Greek Magical Papyri (PGM). Honestly, given how some of the texts are phrased in the PGM itself, the general theist adaptation of the prayers given above would suffice just fine for them; the only thing it really lacks are strings of barbarous words of power or other humanely-unintelligible divine names, which we could put in when referring to “the ever-blessed and righteous Trinity” or “swear upon the blood and righteousness of Christ” or wherever, as necessary. However, the generic dechristianized prayer adaptation above would work fine. The real issue in getting DSIC to fall more in line with PGM stuff would be the design of the tools and implements…sorta.

I mean, if you consider the divine names used on the pedestal and wand to just be a type of generalized barbarous word of power that happens to have Hebrew or Greek origins (much as the popular barbarous word ΣΕΜΕΣΕΙΛΑΜ comes from Hebrew for “eternal sun”, shemesh `olam), and the three symbols on the pedestal/wand to just be forms of characters generally. I mean, wherever “Tetragrammaton” occurs, you could just keep that but written in Greek (which wouldn’t be utterly uncommon), or substitute it with ΙΑΩ (which is a Greek rendition of YHVH, the actual Tetragrammaton). Alternatively, instead of referring to Jesus, one might call upon Abrasax (whose name, ΑΒΡΑΣΑΞ, adds up to 365) as another divine figure, especially considering that they’re both solar entities at heart.
The only thing that you might want to consider changing would be the names of the four angels, four kings, and seven planetary angels. But would that even really be necessary, either? I mean, there are references to the angels in the PGM, as well, so their inclusion—at least for the four archangels on the pedestal—in a PGM device would fall within the realm of plausibility.
The four kings, likewise, even though they’re not purely part of PGM, could be included all the same, or we might substitute them with e.g. my four Solar Guardians of the Directions.
The seven planetary angels could be substituted with the seven planetary titans (e.g. Hēlios, Mēnē, Stilbōn) or their corresponding deities (e.g. Apollōn, Artemis, Hermēs), or (using an alternative interpretation of the DSIC instructions) we could omit the planetary angels entirely and just use the seals and characters of the planets without making reference to angels at all.
Or, if you wanted to stick with the seven planets, or something related to them, there are the names of the Fates of Heaven (PGM IV.662—674), the Pole Lords of Heaven (PGM IV.674—692), and the Images of God (PGM XIII.880—887) we put together when we discussed the seven stars of both Ursa Minor and Ursa Maior, and the seven planets and how they might relate to each other in a structure of high-cosmic rulership. No characters for these, it’d seem, but PGM stuff always focused far more by far on names and words of power than characters generally.
Instead of using seven planets on the outer ring, depending on whether you consider the planets the primary celestial generators of the cosmos or the stars, you could use the twelve signs of the Zodiac instead, perhaps replacing their names and glyphs with those from Demokritos’ Dream Divination ritual from PGM VII.795—845.
For the lamen, the general form could remain the same, perhaps just replacing the string of divine names on the ring if you wanted something less Abrahamic, even if they still qualified as barbarous words of power on their own, some of them appearing in the PGM itself—perhaps using the divine names in the PGM that add up to 9999 (ΦΡΗ ΑΝΩΙ ΦΩΡΧΩ ΦΥΥΥΥ ΡΟΡΨΙΣ ΟΡΟΧΩΩΙ and ΧΑΒΡΑΧ ΦΝΕΣΧΗΡ ΦΙΧΡΟ ΦΝΥΡΩ ΦΩΧΩ ΒΩΧ, respectively), the “six names” from the Headless Rite (ΑΩΘ ΑΒΡΑΘΩ ΒΑΣΥΜ ΙΣΑΚ ΣΑΒΑΩΘ ΙΑΩ, but remember that ΙΑΩ is a Greek rendition of YHVH, i.e. the Tetragrammaton itself, ΣΑΒΑΩΘ a rendition of Tzabaoth, and ΒΑΣΥΜ ΙΣΑΚ can be interpreted as Aramaic or Hebrew for “in the name [of] Isaac”), or other divine names as desired, especially if they have planetary connections for the planet of the spirit being conjured. Another good set of names to use here are those from the Royal Ring of Abrasax: ΦΝΩ ΕΑΙ ΙΑΒΩΚ, ΑΔΩΝΑΙΕ ΣΑΒΑΩΘ, Ο ΠΑΝΤΩΝ ΜΟΝΑΡΧΟΣ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ, ΚΡΥΠΤΕ ΑΟΡΑΤΕ ΠΑΝΤΑΣ ΕΦΟΡΩΝ, ΟΥΕΡΤΩ ΠΑΝΤΟΔΥΝΑΣΤΑ.
As for general ritual process, I would (of course) recommend my PGM-Style Framing Rite as a way to “do the usual” for such a PGM-style DSIC, or parts of it could be used to hack up a PGM-style DSIC process.

What about if we were to come up with a more Islamic variant?

Again, although the prayer variation given above works fine, more epithets could be used from the 99 Names of ‘Allāh, or similar invocations of jinn or spirits from a variety of Islamic texts on magic could be used.
Although the Picatrix has two sets of angels for the planets (one used in the lengthy and beautiful prayers that doesn’t match up with any other system commonly known or used, another used for the Mirror of the Seven Winds which do match up with what we later find in sources like Liber Juratus Honorii or the Heptameron), I might recommend instead using the Shams al-Ma`ārif instead, which uses a set of angels that’s more well-attested in Islamic and Arabic planetary magic. In my estimation, the seals of the angels could reasonably be kept the same, changing the names out to be Arabic instead of Latin or Hebrew (or, realistically, pseudo-Hebrew or Hebrew-derived).
Jinn lore (cf. this website on these topics), but also Tewfik Canaan, “The Decipherment of Arabic Talismans” in The Formation of the Classical Islamic World (vol. 42), Magic and Divination in Early Islam, ed. Savage-Smith, 2004 Ashgate Publishing Ltd.) describes “four Heads” or “four Helpers”, spiritual entities who preside over the four directions: Māzar in the East, Qasūrah in the South, Kamṭam in the West, and Ṭaykal in the North (though properly “the sea”). These four serve under (or are served by), respectively, the jinn lords El-Aḥmar, Shamhūrish, Mudhhib, and Murrah. I’m not sure whether the four Helpers are better than using the four jinn lords here, because the jinn lords count among their number the jinn Maymūn—who would later become the Western Amaymon. Within an Islamic or Arabic context, however, perhaps the four Helpers would be better.
Canaan above gives four angels for the four directions: Daniā’īl for the East, Ḥazqiā’īl for the South, Dardiā’īl for the West, and ‘Asiā’īl for the North. However, I’ve also seen it attributed that the four main angels in Islamic lore are given such that Azrael (`Azrā’īl) is given to the East, Gabriel to the South, Raphael (Isrāfīl) to the West, and Michael (Mīkā’īl) to the North. And, to offer another variation, we could use the angels of the planets that rule over the jinn lords above when connected to the four Helpers, leading to Samsamā’īl (Mars/Tuesday) for the East, Ṣarfyā’īl (Jupiter/Thursday) for the South, Rūqayā’īl (Sun/Sunday) for the West, and Jibraīl (Moon/Monday) for the North. Any one of these sets could be used for the pedestal, though I like using the four main angels, myself, perhaps replacing Azrael with Uriel (‘Ūriāl).
I’m not sure what good replacements would be for the divine names used on the wand, pedestal, or lamen. We know that some of the famous 99 Names of ‘Allāh in Islam have planetary uses or associations (see the link to the Shams al-Ma`ārif above), but perhaps other texts such as the Berhatiah might contain other divine names for consideration.

I don’t mean to say that these are the only possible ways to vary DSIC, or even for these specific traditions, but they should give some food for thought to those who would want to change DSIC up a bit to suit other traditions and spiritual practices, without using a fundamentally different conjuration ritual that involves other or different tools. DSIC, as has been shown in the past 15 years or so, can prove to be a highly flexible system, especially if you play more fast-and-loose with it as Fr. RO likes to do, because the fundamental technology and approach works to conjure spirits into crystals. That’s all we’re trying to do; everything else is aesthetics and design choices.

The Two Sons of `Iyān: Bird-Based Origins and Other Ideas for Geomancy

April 24, 2019 By polyphanes in geomancy, link, occult Tags: arabian polytheism, arabic, arabic language, archery, arlechina verdigris, arrow, augury, belomancy, biology, bird, birds, divination, edward rehatsek, edward william lane, etymology, even, geography, golden oriole, hubal, islam, iyan, ka`bah, muhammad, nick farrell, numerology, odd, omen, ornithomancy, polytheism, proto-geomancy, robert hoyland, stephen skinner, symbolism 4 Comments

In yesterday’s post, we began looking into this funny little thing that the good Dr. Stephen Skinner mentioned in his 1980 book Terrestrial Astrology: Divination by Geomancy, which was more recently updated and republished in 2011 as Geomancy in Theory & Practice. When describing the Arabian origins of the art of geomancy, he mentioned a peculiar chant: “Ye two sons of ‘Iyan hasten with the explanation!” It’s the identity and nature of the entities these were referring to that’ve puzzled me for going on ten years now, and unfortunately, Skinner never cited this statement anywhere. After doing a bit of Arabic language hacking, we ended up with a proper spelling of the big name here to be `Iyān with the triliteral root `-Y-N (`ayn yā’ nūn), which ties it into the letter `ayn, the sixteenth letter of the Arabic script according to the Phoenician order (potential geomancy connection!), and thus to notions of eyes, sight, and vision (possible divination connection!). We continued to dig a bit further, and we found several sources that talk about what Skinner did in his own books, though with about as much specificity, which wasn’t much. However, we did begin to make some headway into understanding some of the first swirlings of geomantic practice and how it developed from earlier proto-geomantic practices in Arabaian and related cultures. Today, we’ll pick up where we left off and keep investigating what `Iyān might refer to.

Though our discussion yesterday focused on the lines produced for geomantic (or proto-geomantic) divination, there were a few other references that we should investigate. Going back to Lane for a moment, the entry for `Iyān mentions something about arrows. Let’s bring that up again:

… اِبْنَا عيَانٍ means Two birds, (Ḳ, TA,) from the flight or alighting-places, or cries, &c., of which, the Arabs augur: (TA:) or two lines which are marked upon the ground (Ṣ, Ḳ) by the عَائِف [or augurer], by means of which one augurs, from the flight, &c., of birds; (Ṣ;) or which are made for the purpose of auguring; (TA;) then the augurer says, اِبْنَى عيَانْ اًسْرِعَا البَيَانْ [O two sons of `Iyán, hasten ye the manifestation]: (Ḳ,* TA: [see 1 in art. خط :]) in the copies of the Ḳ, اِبْنَا is here erroneously put for اِبْنَى : or, as some say ابْنَا عِيانٍ means two well-known divining arrows: (TA:) and when it is known that the gaming arrow of him who plays therewith wins, one says جَرىَ اِبْنَا عِيَانٍ [app. meaning The two sons of ‘Iyán have hastened; i.e. the two arrows so termed; as seems to be indicated by a verse cited in the L (in which it is followed by the words بِالشِّواء المُضَهُّبِ with the roast meat not thoroughly cooked), and also by what here follows]: (Ṣ, L, Ḳ, TA:) these [arrows] being called ابْنَا عِيانٍ because by means of them the people [playing at the game called المَيْسِر] see the winning and the food [i.e. the hastily-cooked flesh of the slaughtered camel]. (L, TA.)

Lane says that abnā `Iyān could refer to “two well-known divining arrows”, i.e. belomancy, which was known and practiced throughout Mesopotamia, Arabia, and the Near East dating back to ancient biblical times. In this style of divination, the arrows used for divination were required to be fletched with feathers, at least for the sake of distinguishing them. This also brings up the memory of the pre-Islamic god Hubal worshiped by the Quraysh tribe (the tribe of the Prophet Muḥammad himself) in the Ka`bah in Mecca (when it was still a pagan shrine) who performed acts of divination with arrows for his devotees. However, what little is known of that method of divination was that Hubal used seven arrows, not two as Lane suggests. Plus, from what I can find (especially from Robert Hoyland’s 2002 work Arabia and the Arabs: From the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam), there were several methods of belomancy:

Using three arrows (one marked for “God commands it” or just as “do it”, one for “God forbids it” or as “don’t do it”, and one that was either left blank or marked as “not clear”), one would put them in a quiver on the back, and one would be randomly drawn. The one that was drawn indicates the course to take; if the blank one was drawn, it was put back and another arrow was randomly drawn until an answer was obtained, or it was interpreted as “wait”.
Using the same three arrows, they would be fired off, and the one that flew the furthest (or got closest to its target) indicated the answer.
The arrows (perhaps the same three, or different ones?) were tossed or thrown in a certain way, and then interpreted based on the ways or the directions they fell.
The seven arrows of Hubal:
1. “Blood price”: When several people fought over who should pay blood-price, they drew lots and whoever drew this one would have to pay it.
2. “Yes” and “No”: When they had a simple binary question, they drew lots until one of these two came up.
3. “Water”: If someone wanted to dig for water, they cast lots containing this arrow and wherever it came forth they set to work. (This seems unclear to me; perhaps onto a map, or into a field?)
4. “Of you”, “Affiliated”, and “Not of You”: Whenever they wanted to circumcise a boy, make a marriage, bury a body, or make some sort of alliance or contract wit, or if someone had doubts about someone’s genealogy, they used these arrows to determine the specific relationship to someone. “Of you” indicates that they belonged to the same tribe; “affiliated” that they were not of the same tribe but an ally of it; “not of you” that they were unrelated and unaffiliated.

None of this really comports with what we know about geomantic or proto-geomantic practice, whether from the sources Lane quotes or from Skinner’s research, unless we were to focus on the “Yes”/”No” style of Hubal-directed belomancy (which, well, it is a binary answer at least, which can be seen to tie into geomancy or proto-geomantic divination). Plus, connections to Hubal and his divination cult seem to be a stretch; after all, Islam came about in Arabia around in the first half of the 600s ce, by which point the cult center of Hubal was effectively destroyed with the harrowing of the Ka`bah. Even if we admit the likely possibility that there were proto-geomantic practices in Arabia at the time of the Prophet Muḥammad (and who’s to say that the earliest geomantic diviners didn’t use arrows to mark sand instead of using a simple staff?), an argument could be made that we’re looking at the wrong place for such a connection to geomancy.

Perhaps, instead, we should be looking towards the pre-Islamic gods of the sands of the Sahara rather than towards pre-Islamic gods of the Arabian peninsula. After all, `Iyān doesn’t really seem to appear in the names of Arabian pagan religion, but it might in a Saharan one, perhaps even one with Egyptian, Canaanite, Hellenic, or Roman origins. This is getting into some really weird and extraordinarily vague and far territory, though, and we don’t have a strong enough reason to get deep into any of it; there’s far too much variability if we widen our scope to all those other cultures, and it could well be a wild goose chase.

If not that, though, it could also be the result of the name of a spirit who wasn’t a god that was propitiated and propagated for calling upon in divination, much as how the Lemegeton duke Bune is now goetically synonymous with wealth magic, and whose name either happened to be close enough to `Iyān to be interpreted as such. This is one possibility that my colleague and resident North African and Mediterranean traditions expert Arlechina Verdigris suggested, perhaps even a reuse of the name “John” as heard by Arabic ears (think how “John” is spoken by modern Spanish speakers, almost like “yohn” or “zhohn”), but in this context, that explanation seems a to stretch a bit too far, as “John” is usually rendered as يَـحـيٰى Yaḥyā (especially by Arabic-speaking Muslims) or as يُوحَنَّا Yūḥanna (especially by Arabic-speaking Jews and Christians), neither of which share much in common with the name `Iyān, Plus, the name “John” as pronounced as such by English speakers would have been introduced only far too recently compared to the sources we’re looking at from before, considering the old origins of the chant in question. That `Iyān could be the name of a spirit (jinn? ancestor?) or a pre-Islamic or otherwise pagan god from the Sahara or from Arabia is a possibility, but considering the variability of such names and spirits, and how so many spirit names are isolated to maybe a handful of magicians at most, I don’t know how likely this idea might be; my hunch is that it’s not, but at any rate, it’s not something that’s within my power to research, given my dearth of Arabic knowledge and Arabic materials to consult.

Okay, this line of questioning doesn’t seem to be getting us anywhere without further resources that may or may not be available, so let’s backtrack a bit. There’s one more thing we’ve yet to discuss when it comes to `Iyān and its two sons, and that’s the topic of birds. According to Lane’s entry on `Iyān, the “two sons” ابْنَا عِيانٍ (abnā `Iyān) refers first to the practice of augury, and specifically the interpretation of omens that result from hearing or watching birds. Lane goes on to say that the phrase “two sons of `Iyān” refers to the “two lines which are marked upon the ground by the augurer, by means of which one augurs, from the flight, &c., of birds”. Consider what that actually means here, especially in the light of Lane’s entry for khaṭṭ: the abnā `Iyān, the “two lines or marks” that were made when engaging in geomantic or proto-geomantic divination, were produced by the tracks of birds, specifically “two birds…from the flight/alighting-places/cries of which the Arabs augur”. That would explain why birds are mentioned alongside geomancy; rather than using augury or ornithomancy (divination by birds) generally, such as in ways that would focus on what the birds were or how they fly or in what direction, these proto-geomancers would focus instead on how birds land upon and walk across the sand. In this way, proto-geomancers would inspect the tracks left by birds on the ground and tally them up two-by-two until one or two footprints, or sets of tracks, were left.

If that’s what’s really being suggested or reported by Lane here, then that could mean that the practice of making marks in the sand with a staff or wand would be a way to produce such omens on demand for augury-on-the-fly, no birds required. And when you look at such tracks left in sand…

…it’s actually pretty believable as an origin for the original geomantic method of making figures. And, tracing the development a bit further: from inspecting the marks left behind from birds, we began to make our own to inspect anytime we wanted; from tallying up two lines of marks, we went to four, and from four to sixteen; by clustering them together, we got the Mothers; by transposing them, we got the Daughters; by adding them together and using the same basic tallying technique, we got the rest of the figures of the chart. With a bit of mathematical finagling, we can ensure that the Judge is always an even number, which, as we discussed in the previous post, would be significant to ensure a fair judgment to be produced, even if not strictly favorable for the querent and query. (Image below from Dawat-e-Rohaniat.)

We may well be looking at the ultimate historical origin of geomancy here: a human-innovated practice of replicating bird tracks on sand and using fundamentally Arabian ornithomantic methods to interpret them. If that’s the case, then geomancy, ultimately, is from birds. Birds, little divine messengers from the skies coming down to Earth, instructing us in their language, then flying back off returning to Heaven once we don’t need to directly rely on them anymore. It’s like we can hear echoes of this in the story of how the archangel Gabriel taught the art of geomancy to the prophets, the founders of geomancy—Adam, Daniel, Hermēs Trismegistus, or Enoch, according to the different historiolas we find in geomantic texts.

Birds.

Huh.

As intoxicating as it is to think that I figured out what the ultimate origin of geomancy might be, I have to admit that this is all really interpretive and hypothetical. There’s not a lot going on here besides chaining some circumstantial evidence, unclear etymologies and definitions, and a good amount of interpretation on my part. No matter how likely it might be that geomancy was derived from inspecting the tracks of birds on sand (which I think is pretty likely given all the above), we shouldn’t consider it verified fact. Unfortunately, geomancy is sufficiently old and the evidence sufficiently sparse that the origins may well be lost in the sands of time, so to speak, and while the evidence is pointing towards an Arabian origin instead of a Saharan one, there’s still nothing here that conclusively shows its actual geographic origins in either Arabia or the Sahara; still, though I’ve favored the Saharan origin up until now, I’m starting to be more inclined towards the Arabian origin. Even so, even if we want to accept this ornithomantic Arabian origin for geomancy, there’s a little more for us to consider to get a deeper insight into what could be going on here, so let’s continue.

What we’re missing now is a more solid connection between `Iyān and birds. Taking specific birds a little bit further into consideration, I came across this massive list of Arabic names for birds, and I found the name العين al`ayn (I think?) which appears to share the same root as `Iyān, and which refers to Oriolus oriolus, the Eurasian golden oriole. Lane does in fact discuss it in a related entry to our main topic on page 2269: “a certain bird yellow in the belly, [dingy, dark, ash-color, or dust-color] on the back, of the size of a [species of turtle-dove]”. The golden oriole largely fits the bill for this. There’s also the fact that it forms pair-bonds that last between breeding seasons, which would be a symbol of life and creativity, and would tie into the notion of even numbers being positive and odd numbers (a single, lone bird without a mate, or whose mate was lost) being negative. So if we were looking for a…I guess, a patron/tutelary animal for geomancy, then based on all the above, this would be it:

Perhaps above any other kind of bird, it’d be the golden oriole that would be best-suited for making tracks in the sand for divination, and the lines of its tracks it left behind would be its “sons”. In watching such a bird to cross tracks, we’d urge it to hurry up to make a sufficient number for our proto-geomancer to interpret it: “ye two sons of `Iyān, hasten with the explanation”.

The only problem with assigning the golden oriole to be an entity marked by `Iyān is that this bird isn’t really common to Arabic-speaking areas; its distribution is largely across almost all of continental Europe south of Scandinavia in the winter, and across central and southern Africa from Cameroon and points south in the summer. As pretty of a bird and as appropriate though it might be based on the description in Lane, I’m not wholly pinning this as being what `Iyān is referring to. However, birds know no borders, and it’s also pretty true that they’d certainly have to pass through the Arabian peninsula and northern Africa during their migrations, and it does have its non-migratory homes in some Arabic-speaking areas that are just on the edge of the expected range of locations for the origin of geomancy, from the northwest edges of the Maghreb in the west to Mesopotamia in the east. It’s nothing I’ll wage a bet on, but it’s certainly not nothing.

Regardless of whether the golden oriole is specifically tied to `Iyān, there’s definitely some connection between birds and either `Iyān specifically or divination generally. I mean, that there should be one wouldn’t be terribly surprising, since the word for bird is طير ṭayur, and the classical term for augury or orthithomancy is تطير taṭayyir, which was extended to divination in general, just as we might use “augury” in a wide sense to refer to all divination. Both of these words come from the same root of Ṭ-Y-R, referring to flying or taking off. This recalls the notion of divining arrows from above being set loose to fly; as noted, they were required to be fletched with feathers, giving them a bird-like connection and, thus, giving them a distant or alluded-to tie-in to augury by birds. And, further, fletching would also be needed to make them “fly”, which would tie them symbolically into the Ṭ-Y-R root. Plus, as noted above, who’s to say that they wouldn’t use fletched arrows instead of a simple staff to make marks in the sand? Divining arrows are divining arrows, no matter how you use them, after all, and it would give these proto-geomancers a stronger connection to deeper cultural practices of divination. Perhaps we modern geomancers might consider using fletched arrows for marking sand, if we wanted to use wands at all for ritual divination!

While mulling this over, the wonderful Nick Farrell dug up an interesting article for me, “Some Beliefs and Usages among the Pre-Islamic Arabs, with Notes on their Polytheism, Judaism, Christianity, and the Mythic Period of their History” by Edward Rehatsek (The Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, volume XII, 1876, pp. 163-212). This article mentions the same thing we’ve seen before in Skinner, Lane, and Abu Dāwūd, but Rehatsek specifically considers it alongside and mixed in with ornithomantic omens. Consider specifically pp.172ff, emphasis mine:

Many things were believed to be unpropitious by the Arabs, whilst certain birds were also considered to portend evil, and others good. When an Arab augur, who was called Zâjar (literally meaning ‘a driver away’, because by doing so the direction of the flight of a bird, from which nearly everything appears to depend, is ascertained), began his soothsaying operation, he drew two lines called eyes, as if he could by means of them observe anything he liked; and when he had through these perceived something unpleasant he used to say, “The sons of vision have manifested the explanation.”* It is natural that birds which were known to settle on the backs of wounded camels and to hurt them should have been considered unlucky; such were the crow, and a kind of woodpecker, but the former was also considered so for another reason—namely, because it implied separation. When a tribe strikes its tents and departs to new pastures, the crows alight on the spot of the abandoned encampment in search of food, and there is nothing passing in front, or crossing over from the right side to the left, and no beast with a broken horn or any other object more unlucky than a crow, but the omen was increased when it happened to sit on a Bán tree and pulled out its own feathers. As the Bán tree also implies separation, the omen is taken from this signification, and applicable not only when a crow, but also when a dove, a bird of good luck, is perched on it; but poets like plays on words, and hence the lapwing, whose name is Hudhud, also indicates the direction Huda; whilst the eagle called U’káb, being nearly homophonous with U’kb, “the end”, and the dove Ḥamám with Humma, “it was decreed”, are on these accounts respectively considered to put an end to separation, and to imply that the meeting of friends is decreed.

* Arab. Prov. [Arabum Proverbia], tome i., p. 695, ابنا عيان اظهر البيان In the beginning of the operation they were also in the habit of addressing an invocation to these two lines, or eyes:— ابنا عيان اظهرا البيان “O sons of vision, manifest the explanation?”

We’re starting to tap into some of the symbolism behind even and odd here, and we can see that we were on the right track from before, but this time it’s made a bit more explicit; we might have considered that, perhaps, birds seen in pairs was considered a good omen in general, while a lone bird was considered bad, and that could still be the case especially for birds like the golden oriole that forms long-term pair-bonds, but now we’re tapping into deeper cultural lore about separation and number. When the result of divination is even, then things are in pairs, considered fortunate because it suggests coming together or staying together (remember that the origin of the Arabic word for “even” ultimately comes from Greek for “yoked together”, as in marriage); when the result is odd, then it implies separation and being left alone (literally “wholly one”). For a migratory, nomadic people living in a harsh environment, survival often depended on your tribe and not being left alone or being cast out, for which separation could truly mean an ill fate up to and including death by dehydration, starving, heat, or exposure; the same would go for humans from their tribes as it would for animals from their herds. To consider it another way, if the marks being made in the sand are “eyes”, then in order to see clearly, we need to have two of them, since eyes naturally come in pairs (at least for us humans and many other animals). If we end up with an odd number, then we’ve lost an eye, and cannot see clearly.

Up until this point, we’ve been largely been assuming `Iyān as the name for a distinct entity and the “two sons of `Iyān” to be lesser entities under it or the productions made by the entity, as if we’re supplicating spirits or asking for aid from them. However, there’s the distinct and possibly likely chance that we’re on the wrong track entirely. Given that “poets like plays on words”, Iyān (which Rehatsek translates as “vision” though “inspection” is a better term, but cf. the Greek suffix -manteia to mean both) isn’t really an entity at all, but just a poetic turn of phrase, a personification of the concept of divinatory investigation rather than a deification of it (which might be just a little too animist/polytheistic for observant Muslims). Thus, rather than thinking of the “sons of `Iyān” to represent entities under a bigger entity like how the phrase “sons of God” refers to angels under the Divine, it might be better to think of “sons of `Iyān” to represent the extensions or productions of divinatory “eyes” through a process of divination so as to perform an “inspection” or investigation of a matter. This would be like another Arabic turn of phrase seen in poetry, the “two sons of time” relating to the day and night, and how the “daughters of time” could represent the vicissitudes or afflictions that time imposes on us. So, saying “sons of `Iyān” is basically saying “results of the inspection”, i.e. the outcome of the divination, which we would realistically want to hasten so as to get a proper answer. In the context in which Skinner et alia are describing this chant used by an assistant towards the diviner, it could be a way to spur the diviner on into a sense of frenzy and frenetic urgency, helping them lose themselves in the striking of the earth to produce a truly divine result, which would afterwards then be tallied up, reduced down, and accounted for.

Yet…well, I want there to be some sort of spiritual entity behind `Iyān and their two sons. It’s kinda one of the things I was hoping to find, but what evidence that I can find doesn’t really support that premise. Is the possibility ruled out? No, and far from it! As mentioned above, there is a possibility (though a faint one, as I’d reckon it) that `Iyān may be a holdover deity from some pre-Islamic, tribal, or pagan religion or some other jinn, angel, or other spiritual entity, but opening up that research…well, my gut feeling is that there’s probably not a lot to find along those lines, especially considering the scope of that sort of research. But, at any rate, there’s not enough evidence to support the idea that the chant “Ye two sons of `Iyān, hasten with the explanation” is an invocation of a spirit, but more of a metaphorical exhortation to the diviner. If `Iyān is considered to be an entity at all, it’d likely fall in the same category as all the minor divinities in Greek religion, divinized concepts of things like health or fruit-bearing trees or the like that might have stories told about them but never actually received cult, worship, or ritual. That seems to be the most likely result to me, as much as I find it a disappointment. But, hey, we’ve learned quite a bit along the way all the same, and that’s still a great result for all of us!

…well. I think we’re at the end of this discussion and line of research, honestly. To summarize this little garden-path effort of mine:

Stephen Skinner, in his 1980 work Terrestrial Astrology, mentioned in passing a practice of some of the earliest geomancers (or proto-geomancers) where they would use the chant “O two sons of ‘Iyan, hasten with the explanation!”, though this comment was not backed up with a source or reference, and left me befuddled for ten years until recently.
By looking at rules of Arabic word derivation, we were able to deduce the proper spelling of this word, `Iyān, and link it to the letter `ayn, the sixteenth letter of the Phoenician script and all scripts that derived from it, including the Arabic script. This word has the root `-Y-N which links it to notions of the eye, sight, and vision, and thus has connotations of divination, along with a numerological link to the 16 figures of geomancy and any 4×4 combination of the elements. That the numerological value of `ayn is 70, and that its reduction from 16 → 1 + 6 = 7 is also a nice bonus, tying it to seven planets and all other things with the number seven.
`Iyān, as a word, means “inspection”, “a witnessing of events”, “a coming into sight/light”. This word is a verbal noun of the verb ʿāyana, meaning “to inspect” or “to witness”, but also more broadly as “to investigate” or “to behold”.
While investigating the word `Iyān, we were able to find a text that discusses what Skinner did with a bit more depth, as well as comparing it to other sources that describe the same fundamental practice which is likely proto-geomantic rather than geomantic as we’d recognize it.
This proto-geomantic practice, with origins that are attested to be either pre-Islamic or early-Islamic, involves making two lines of marks in the sand, then reducing them two-by-two until either one or two points are left. If two points, an even number, the result is considered favorable and good; if one point, an odd number, the result is considered unlucky and bad.
The word `Iyān is commonly mentioned in other texts as relating not to geomancy or proto-geomancy, or at least not just those things, but to augury and ornithomancy as well. In addition to Arabian augurs interpreting the position, direction, motion, types, and actions of birds, they would also observe the tracks they produced on the sandy ground as meaningful for omens.
It was from using the tracks left behind by birds and counting them for an even or odd number of marks that likely formed the ultimate origin for the (proto-)geomantic practice of making marks in the sand to produce the same.
The (proto-)geomancers would make marks in the sand while in a frenzy or other kind of trance state so as to obtain the same divinatory virtue through their manmade marks as might be given more purely from the cosmos through the tracks of birds.
The (proto-)geomancers would consider the “two sons” to be the two lines of marks they made as “eyes” (`uyūn) that “witnessed” (yu`āyinūna) the events, circumstances, and actors involved in the query put to divination, and the whole matter would be considered an investigatory “inspection” of the matter (`iyān).
Even numbers, by virtue of coming in or being arranged as pairs, culturally connoted being together or holding fast, a sign of good fortune, livability, viability, survivability, meeting, and support, and thus were seen as fortunate, positive, or affirmative answers in proto-geomantic divination. Conversely, odd numbers, by virtue of standing alone, connoted loss, exile, abandonment, absconding, maiming, and other notions of separation, which ere considered to be unfavorable, negative, or denying answers.
Given the symbolism behind even and odd in Arabian (nomadic) culture, later geomantic practices may have innovated a specific use of not just bundling lines into figures, but processing the resulting figures in a certain way as to always end up with an even figure in the end (the Judge) so as to ensure that the total reading may be good in some light, even if not favorable, so as to ensure a fair and valid judgment.
`Iyān is likely not being referred to in the chant as a spiritual entity unto itself, but in a personified way as a figure of speech, commanding “the two sons of `Iyān” to be speedy in giving an answer, said to encourage the diviner to engage in the process of frenetic/ecstatic/trance-based divination speedily without delay or delaying.
There is a potential connection between (proto)-geomantic divination as `Iyān and the Eurasian golden oriole (al`ayn) based on their shared word roots, as well as the role birds played in providing the initial marks for this divination to be performed with, which could provide a preferred bird by which one can perform land-based proto-geomantic augury, or which provides a kind of tutelary animal for the practice, especially through the use of its feathers, which may be used and appended to the end of a divining staff/stick to form “arrows”, tying it into an older practice of Arabian and Mesopotamian belomancy. The “arrows”, then, would take the role of the “two sons of `Iyān”, though this might be a reuse or repurposing of the chant for a more general divinatory purpose rather than one relegated to (proto-)geomancy.
There is a small possibility that `Iyān may well be the name of a pagan god or another spirit of divination and that the “two sons of `Iyān” are its facilitators or emissaries that bear out the message of divination from `Iyān, but this is more likely a misreading the chant from a animist or polytheist perspective that wasn’t historically used.

This post turned out a fair bit longer (almost four times the average length!) than I expected, so much so that I had to break it up into two already-long posts, so if you managed to get this far, then I thank you for sticking with me. Honestly, though this little bit of research didn’t end up where I wanted it to (I was kinda hoping for an old, extant, and commonly-cited spirit to appeal to for divination within a geomantic milieu), I’m honestly glad because I’ve been able to piece together plenty of information that actually clarifies an academic problem I’ve been on-and-off dealing with for ten years. Even if there’s no historical “who” behind `Iyān and their two sons, at least we now know the “what”, and that’s still immensely important and advances the state of geomantic research, at least a tiny bit. And, hey, we’ve left the door open for further opportunities and exploration, both academic and spiritual, too:

If all that was desired was an odd or even result from marking tracks off two-by-two, then why were two sets of tracks inspected at a time instead of just one? Two sets of tracks would get you two results; does this have a connection with geomantic dice that split up a single figure of four rows into two sub-figures of two rows?
Are there any specific birds besides the Eurasian golden oriole that might be especially important in making tracks on the sand which were used for (proto-)geomantic divination?
Does the Eurasian golden oriole play a role in any of the spiritualities, superstitions, or symbolisms of Near Eastern, Middle Eastern, or African traditions that we might ply for more information?
What New World birds might take the same ecological or spiritual role as the Eurasian golden oriole?
How, exactly, were just two lines of marks read by birds, or where did the custom come from of making/marking two lines instead of just one?
Are there any other animals that we might associate with geomancy through the name `Iyān or the root `-Y-N, whether birds or otherwise?
What other geomantic mysteries might be hidden within `ayn, the sixteenth letter of the Phoenician script which has a root numerological value of 7 (either through reduction from its normal value of 70 or by reducing its ordinal number 16 into 1 + 6 = 7)? We noted an alphabetical connection with a handful of divine epithets of Allāh, including the famous one Al-`Alīm (“The All-Knowing One”), but what other roots that start with `Ayn might be significant, if any?
Unlikely though it is,`Iyān could still be the name of a spirit or non-/pre-Arabian deity. If so, where does this entity come from, from what culture, what tribe, what area, and what would a more native interpretation of the name be? What does this entity do, and who are its two sons?
Just because there hasn’t been a specific spirit-based use for the original chant “O ye two sons of `Iyān, hasten ye with the explanation!” doesn’t mean that there can’t be one ever.

Once more, my thanks to Dr. Amina Inloes, Nick Farrell, and Arlechina Verdigris for helping me with organizing my thoughts, refining my ideas, providing me with useful materials, and in general being wonderful people in my life. May God and the gods bless you all.

The Two Sons of `Iyān: Obscure Chants and Proto-Geomantic Divination

April 23, 2019 By polyphanes in geomancy, link, occult Tags: abu dawud, amina inloes, arabic, arabic language, augury, divination, edward william lane, egyptian hieroglyphs, etymology, even, hans wehr, islam, iyan, language, numerology, odd, ornithomancy, proto-geomancy, semitic roots, stephen skinner 4 Comments

When it comes to the geomantic scholars of the Western world, there’s few who can touch the research of Dr. Stephen Skinner. Internationally acclaimed for his work and practice involving feng shui as well as his doctorate-level research and publications on various grimoires and magical texts from the west, he’s also an expert in the practice and history of geomancy. I first encountered him back in college, probably around 2008 or 2009, through his older, now out-of-print book Terrestrial Astrology: Divination by Geomancy, which has more recently been updated and published under the title Geomancy in Theory & Practice (and, more importantly, with a title that Skinner doesn’t hate, as Terrestrial Astrology was a title he regretted but which his editor insisted on). This is a simply wonderful text that, although I consider it to be a bit light on the actual practice of geomancy, its true value shines in delving into the evidence, history, lineage, and contextual development of geomancy as a divinatory art in Africa, the Middle East, and Europe from its beginnings around a thousand years ago until today. (There’s also his older work, The Oracle of Geomancy: Techniques of Earth Divination, which is also long out-of-print and…well, I wasn’t particularly enthused by it, but it’s a solid work of geomancy for its time before other research and experimentation was being done.)

In Terrestrial Astrology as well as Geomancy in Theory & Practice, Skinner opens up the book after the introduction by talking about geomancy and its Arabic origins as `ilm ar-raml, “the science of the sand”, also called khaṭṭ ar-raml, “marking the sand” After clarifying some of the language about it, he describes some of the basic processes used early on in the very nascent stages of geomancy:

For the purpose of divining by khatt al-raml, the diviner, accompanied by an assistant or acolyte, drew with the utmost haste a quantity of lines or ripples in the sand, allowing himself to be carried away, so that he did not know how many lines he had drawn. Then he slowly wiped out groups of two ripples at a time, whilst his assistant often recited an incantation in Arabic, such as the words: “Ye two sons of ‘Iyan hasten with the explanation!”

The marks they made were joined by other marks (khutut) in order to complete a figure (shakl). When these figures became stylized, a board was used, which was covered with sand or even flour, and the finger was drawn over it at random; the shapes formed in this way were then examined. If in the end two lines were left (i.e, there was an even number of lines drawn) then this foretold success. If however only one line remained (an odd number of lines drawn) then disappointment was certain. Here can be seen the germ of the later and more complex practice, where each line is reduced to odd (only one left) or even (two remaining). In this, the simple form of khatt al-raml, only one set of marks were made, leading straight to a lucky/unlucky prediction.

It’s that reference to “Ye two sons of ‘Iyan” that’s always mystified me. I could never figure out what or who “‘Iyan” is or was, much less their “two sons”, and Skinner says no more about it in his works, nor is any reference provided for this statement. Worse, when I emailed the good doctor, he unfortunately said that it’s been so long since this was written (Terrestrial Astrology was published almost 40 years ago!) that he was unable to recall where it might have come from. Such mysterious figures, perhaps mythological, maybe angelic or even demonic, hailed in a diviner’s chant to induce a trance or stronger, more truthful connection to the art in order to obtain knowledge? This struck me as being something that should be investigated, but unfortunately, Skinner’s text, identical in both Terrestrial Astrology as well as Geomancy in Theory & Practice, is the only reference to ‘Iyan or their two sons I’ve ever found. It could be that this was entirely a highly localized or individual practice that Skinner was reporting on, or an extremely esoteric one that was limited and bound up in particular occult practices.

Lately, I’ve been taking another look at this, and I’ve been doing some thinking about it. What follows is basically extrapolating from very scant knowledge and information here, coupled with a bare-bones knowledge of Arabic grammar and word derivational systems, but I suppose, if we take a look at the name ‘Iyan a bit closer, we might be able to get something. What follows could well be a wild goose chase which might put me on par with Athanasius Kircher’s attempt to translate Egyptian hieroglyphs (surprise, it didn’t go well). But, well, what might we find if we look? Let’s see where we end up.

First, it’s important to note that when Skinner brings up Arabic words or glosses, he’s not always faithful in his transliteration from Arabic to Roman script. Although the tables at the end of the book have the names of the figures in Arabic written in both Arabic script and in good transliteration, and a number of Arabic names in the endnotes are transliterated with diacritics for long vowels and the like, it’s in the text itself that long vowels aren’t indicated, there’s no standardization of how ‘alif and `ayn are transliterated, and other such problems that make it hard to understand what the original Arabic might have been based on the names given to us. So, with ‘Iyan, we have several problems:

Is the mark before the I supposed to represent an ‘alif or an `ayn?
Which vowels are long or short?

It’s impossible to tell what these might be since we have no other information, and I’m no expert in Arabic. But…well, consider that names typically have meaning of some sort, and the way Arabic works—and Semitic languages generally—is on a delightfully productive system of what’s called “roots” and “patterns”. There’s this notion of a consonantal root in Semitic languages, usually of three letters but sometimes two and sometimes four, and the root has a general concept associated with it, much like the semantic radical of a Chinese character. By filling in the consonantal root with particular vowels and appending prefixes, suffixes, and other infixes, a variety of words that give variations on the underlying can be obtained from a single root. Consider the triliteral (three letter) consonantal root K-T-B, which refers to writing generally:

kitab (book)
kutub (books)
kataba (he wrote)
katabat (she wrote)
katabtu (I wrote)
kutiba (it [m] was written)
yaktubna (they [f] write)
yatakātabūn (they write to each other)
kātib (writer [m])
kuttāb (writers)
katabat (clerks)
maktab (office)
makātib (offices)
maktabat (library)
istaktaba (to cause someone to write something)

The number of derivations goes on and on. Note how all the words in that list share the root K-T-B, sometimes with one of the consonants doubled (as in kuttāb), sometimes with extra consonants added (as in maktabat). All these words have something semantically related to the act of writing or something written, which is grounded in the K-T-B root. Likewise, not just nouns or verbs or adjectives can be derived from roots, but names can, as well. Consider that the name Muḥammad is derived from the root Ḥ-M-D, generally relating to notions of “praise” or “thanks”; thus, Muḥammad literally means “praiseworthy”, and is related to the commonly-heard phrase “Alḥamdulillāh”, meaning “praise be to God” or “thank God”; this phrase is referred to as ḥamdala, and the recitation of it (like one might for reciting the prayer bead devotion Tasbīḥ Fāṭimah) is taḥmīd. Again, same triliteral root, but endless words that can be derived from it, all tying to the same thing.

So…what if we were to interpret ‘Iyan as a word that was derived from a consonantal root? Given how short it is, it’s not like we have a lot of options to choose from. If we take out the two vowels, I and A, we end up with three consonants, with the first one being unclear between two choices:

‘-Y-N (‘alif yā’ nūn)
`-Y-N (`ayn yā’ nūn)

As it turns out, the first option (starting with ‘alif) isn’t attested as a triliteral root in Arabic, nor in any Semitic language, but the second one (starting with `ayn) is in every one of them. `-Y-N is a root used in Ugaritic, Arabic, Hebrew, Akkadian, Amharic, Syriac, and Aramaic, and is most notable for being the letter `Ayn or `Ayin itself in all the writing systems that derive from the original Phoenician script, and thus is also the origin of the Roman letter O and Greek omikron. Originally, the Phoenician letter `ayn had the form of a simple circle, much as the Roman letter O is, though its form shifted in the various Semitic languages that used it. The shape of the letter, and the name and meaning of the letter itself, connote an eye, which ultimately derives from the Egyptian hieroglyph 𓁹 (Gardiner D4), perhaps most famously used for the spelling of the god Osiris. You can see the evolution of the letter below from its Egyptian origin to its Phoenician (also Greek and Latin) form, its traditional Square Hebrew form, and in its Arabic forms (with all its position variants shown below, with position variant images taken from Arabic Reading Course).

I also note that `ayn is the sixteenth letter of the Phoenician, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Syriac scripts, as well as the sixteenth letter of the traditional Arabic (abjadi) order. Which…come on, now. Of all possible letters that we’d end up with, we’d end up with the sixteenth one? Sixteen, the number of geomantic figures? And on top of that, it also has the numerical value of 70, and if we were to reduce 16, then we get 16 → 1 + 6 = 7. Which ties it into all the other mysteries of the number seven: seven planets, seven angels, and so forth. I think we may well be onto something with our idea that this mysterious name could be a derivation from something else.

And, because I was curious, I wanted to look at which of the 99 traditional names of Allāh (really, more like epithets or attributes) in the Islamic tradition, began with the Arabic letter `Ayn. There are six such names:

Al-`Azīz (الْعَزِيزُ), “The Mighty”
Al-`Alīm (اَلْعَلِيْمُ), “The All-Knowing”
Al-`Adl (الْعَدْلُ), “The Just”
Al-`Aẓīm (الْعَظِيمُ), “The Magnificent”
Al-`Alīy (الْعَلِيُّ), “The Sublime”
Al-`Afūw (العَفُوُّ), “The Pardoner”

It’s name #2, Al-`Alīm, that’s important for us as geomancers. Along with Al-Khabīr (ٱلْخَبِيرُ), “the All-Aware”, Al-`Alīm is one of the most common names of Allāh used in Arabic geomancy when making invocations and prayers to God for the sake of divination. It comes from the root `-L-M, which refers to knowing, teaching, and learning; note that the Arabic term for geomancy, `ilm ar-raml, begins with a word from this same root meaning “science”. This specific name of Allāh encompasses such meanings as the Knower, the All-Knowing, the All-Knowledgable, the Omniscient, and the Possessor of Knowing Everything about Everything. Fittingly enough, I recently spotted over on Chris Warnock’s Renaissance Astrology website a new Arabic-style Jupiter talisman specifically for the name Al-`Alīm, where he gives this description of the power of the name from the 13th century grimoire Shams al-Ma’arif (and note how it talks about knowing things that are unseen and seen, tying back into the eye and seeing imagery of the `-Y-N root):

Whoever undertakes the dhikr of this Name of sublime essence, Allāh (exalted be He) brings him to knowledge of the subtlest aspects of the sciences and their most hidden secrets. To the one who engraves it…when Mercury is highly dignified, Allāh makes him express himself with wisdom and teaches him the sapiential subtleties of mystical knowledge…when Jupiter is highly dignified, obtains an understanding of what the mystic sciences contain. … His control in the universe is strengthened and Allāh (exalted be He), frees him from all misfortunes and avoids everything that displeases him. And whoever uses his dhikr, learns what he did not know and wisdom becomes manifest in his words.

The Name has the number 150, and adding its divisors totals 222, and this number alludes to His Name Mālik al-Mulk “Lord of Sovereignty”. Hence, the wise are the kings in reality, indeed, they are the lords of the sovereignty of kings. And this is the number that makes manifest the secret of the letter yā’ in the three orders, since it is a bond, it is a coercive word and it entails a formal representation and an approach, while none of these three degrees takes place without Knowledge, which is only attributable to Him, meditate on that.

And since the manifestation of Science belongs to the sanctified spirits, the spirit of the angel Gabriel is destined to instruct the prophets, being one of the noblest our prophet Muḥammad (Allāh bless and save him) who was inspired by humility, for Allāh said: “He has taught an angel of great power and strength, since he appeared in his true form” (Qur’ān 56:5-6).

And since the holy spirit that corresponded to Jesus (peace be upon him) was a vestige of the revealing breath of Gabriel to Adam, for Jesus was the wisest of the prophets to know the details of the sciences and the subtleties of Wisdom. And among the noblest of his knowledge was the science of the letters, and hence its name comes to him, because in it resides his divine gift by indicating by the letter `ayn, science, by the letter yā’, the grace of the descended revelation, by the letter sín, the points of union of what is divided and by the letter alif, absolute knowledge. And the name Jesus has the number 141, which is precisely the value of the name `ālim (scholar), but since He has knowledge of the hidden things, and that is `alīm then his name is written with the letter yā’ and thus its number equals 150, which is the value of `alīm. Meditate on that, for Allāh speaks the Truth and He leads the way.

The names of the letters of His Name `Alīm add up to 302, alluding to His Name Basīr “the Seer”. And since science (`ilm) is an inherent sign of the external appearance of the object of knowledge, and that the acquisition of a concept involves the totality of its visible aspect, that is, it is the acquisition of the external image of the object in the mind, the meaning of `Alīm as the Knower of All is necessarily the one before whom the essence of each thing manifests itself in the totality its hidden essence as well as its external form. That is one of the secrets of `Alīm for intensification is not possible through the letter wāw, due to its importance and its height that reaches the end of the limits and reaches the totality of existence. So intensification is possible by one of these two options: either with the reduplication of a consonant, as in saying `allām, which refers to the one who has acquired a large amount of knowledge or with the letter yā’ which refers to the revelation of the most subtle details of a notion and the perception of its hidden aspects. For this reason only Al-`Alīm knows the details of a concept in the same way that He knows its most general aspects, and knows its hidden aspects in the same way that its aspects are visible. That is why Allāh said (exalted be He) “above all, possessor of science there is a knower” (Qur’ān 12:76), so the possessor of science ū-l-‘ilm is the one who knows the general aspects of things and the knower `alīm is the one who knows its particular aspects. The possessor of science is the one who knows the external aspects of things and the knower is the one who knows their internal aspects; the possessor of science is the one who knows the evident aspects of things and the knower is the one who also knows their hidden aspects. The meaning of this yā’ has been indecipherable for many sensible people, because the most unknown of His Science are the most particular aspects, and this is evident in His words, “over every possessor of knowledge is one more knowledgeable” (Qur’ān 12:76).

And you should know that the superiority of some of the wise over others is not the result of acquiring a greater amount of knowledge, since if so, He would have said “above all possessing knowledge there is a wise man (‘allām) who knows more.” Rather it has to do with the acquisition of the particular notions of the intelligibles and the hidden parts of their secrets. Now, the multitude of knowledge together with the detailed inner knowledge results in sapiential superiority, but without this last type of knowledge superiority does not take place. This is the meaning from the words of Allāh when he said to His prophet Moses (peace be upon him): “We have a servant at the intersection of two great rivers, whom they call Khiḍr , who is wiser than you.” Khiḍr was not wiser than Moses because he had more knowledge as Allāh said about Moses “And we wrote for him in the Tables an exhortation for everything and an explanation for everything” (Qur’ān 7:145), so the greater wisdom of Khiḍr refers to his understanding the hidden aspects of things in the same way that he knew their visible aspects. This is why his place was at the point of confluence of two great rivers, which were the river of the apparent and the river of the unapparent, so Moses knew that Khiḍr was in possession of a gnosis that he did not have.

You who study these words, focus your effort on expanding your knowledge 3, for this is what Allāh (praised and exalted be He), ordered His prophet to ask with His saying: “my Lord, increase me in knowledge” (Qur’ān 20:114). Meditate on these spiritual words and dispose of these divine subtleties, of these gifts of faith and of these sources of light, for you will find immense happiness in those knowledge that contains the allusions, and Allāh is the wisest!

Anyway, back to the main topic at hand. So we have this root, `-Y-N, the meaning of which is semantically related to eyes and sight (and also, apparently, springs and flowing, perhaps with an origin of a notion of crying?), which is well-attested in the Qur’ān, and could well be a derivation from the same root as the sixteenth letter of the script, and which can be given some strong connections to knowing things generally if we also consider the root `-L-M and its connections to science and God. This is a bit too strong to be mere coincidence to me, so let’s run with it some more. This means that we can go with the `ayn instead of ‘alif, yielding us `Iyan and not ‘Iyan. Good! But, now, what about the vowels themselves? With these two vowels, we can end up with both short, one short and the other long, or both long:

`Iyan
`Īyan
`Iyān
`Īyān

However, we know from rules of Arabic that any “i” sound followed by yā’ is almost always going to be inherently long, so we could write this name as either `Iyan (with or without a long A) or as `Īan (again with or without a long A). So we can ignore the long I choices above, which whittles it down further, down to either `Iyan or `Iyān. The former just doesn’t seem to come up in any dictionary or grammar as a form of anything. `Iyān (or `Iyaan, عِيَان), however, is a legitimate word which means “weak” or “sick”, especially in Egyptian Arabic, but only when interpreted as coming from the root `-Y-Y and, even then, only properly with the vowels `ayyān, so that’s not what we’re going with. But, when derived from `-Y-N, we get the verbal noun of عَايَنَ `āyana, the verb which means “to inspect”; note how it’s still related to the semantic field of eyes, looking, seeing, watching, etc. Thus, `Iyān would mean “an inspecting” or “inspection”, but it can also mean “seeing with one’s own eyes”, “to come to light/be revealed before one’s eyes”, “clear, evident, plain, manifest” in the sense of “being seen clearly with the eyes”, as well as “witnessing” as in “eye-witnessing”. (The notion of a witness here is appealing, given the fact that we have two Witnesses in a geomantic chart. A possible connection to the “two sons”, perhaps?)

I got that list of meanings for `Iyān from an online version of the fourth edition of the Arabic-English Dictionary by the venerable Hans Wehr. However, that website looks up glosses in several texts simultaneously (a wonderful study resource!), and while looking at Wehr’s dictionary, there’s something interesting I noticed in another text. On the website that I was able to access that entry, the single page also shows entries from other texts about Arabic language and vocabulary, including the Arabic-English Lexicon compiled by Edward William Lane (aka Lane’s Lexicon) in the 19th century, itself compiled from earlier dictionaries and lexicons of Arabic in Arabic. The entry for `Iyān in Lane’s Lexicon is…shockingly, miraculously, exactly what we were looking for all along here, and includes a reference that’s exactly what was in Skinner! From page 2270 (forgive any errors in my copying and trying to type the Arabic):

… اِبْنَا عيَانٍ means Two birds, (Ḳ, TA,) from the flight or alighting-places, or cries, &c., of which, the Arabs augur: (TA:) or two lines which are marked upon the ground (Ṣ, Ḳ) by the عَائِف [or augurer], by means of which one augurs, from the flight, &c., of birds; (Ṣ;) or which are made for the purpose of auguring; (TA;) then the augurer says, اِبْنَى عيَانْ اًسْرِعَا البَيَانْ [O two sons of `Iyán, hasten ye the manifestation]: (Ḳ,* TA: [see 1 in art. خط :]) in the copies of the Ḳ, اِبْنَا is here erroneously put for اِبْنَى : or, as some say ابْنَا عِيانٍ means two well-known divining arrows: (TA:) and when it is known that the gaming arrow of him who plays therewith wins, one says جَرىَ اِبْنَا عِيَانٍ [app. meaning The two sons of ‘Iyán have hastened; i.e. the two arrows so termed; as seems to be indicated by a verse cited in the L (in which it is followed by the words بِالشِّواء المُضَهُّبِ with the roast meat not thoroughly cooked), and also by what here follows]: (Ṣ, L, Ḳ, TA:) these [arrows] being called ابْنَا عِيانٍ because by means of them the people [playing at the game called المَيْسِر] see the winning and the food [i.e. the hastily-cooked flesh of the slaughtered camel]. (L, TA.)

This entry references خط, khaṭṭ, which is another of the terms for geomancy. Turning to that entry in Lane’s Lexicon, page 762 (again please forgive any errors):

خَطَّ aor. -ُ , inf. n. خَطٌّ, He made [a line, or lines, or] a mark, عَلَى الأَرْضِ , upon the ground. (Mṣb.) You say, خَطَّ الزَّاجِرُ فِى الأَرْضِ , aor. and inf. n. as above, The diviner made a line, or a mark, or lines, or marks, upon the ground, and then divined. (TA.) And الزَّاجِلٌ يَحُطُّ بِإٍصْبَعِهِ فِى الرَّمْلِ وَيَزْجُرُ [The diviner makes, lines, or marks, with his finger upon the sand, and divines.] (Ṣ.) Th says, on the authority of IAar, that عِلْمُ الخَطِّ is عِلْمُ الرَّمْلِ [or geomancy]: I’Ab says that it is an ancient science, which men have relinquished, but Lth says that it is practised to the present time; [to which I may add, that it has not even now ceased; being still practised on sand and the line, and also on paper;] and they have conventional terms which they employ in it, and they elicit thereby the secret thoughts &c., and often hit upon the right therein: the diviner comes to a piece of soft ground, and he has a boy, with whom is a style; and the master makes many lines, or marks, in haste, that they may not be counted; then he returns, and obliterates leisurely lines, or marks, two by two; and if there remain two lines, or marks, they are a sign of success, and of the attainment of the thing wanted: while he obliterates, his boy says, for the sake of auguring well, اِبْنَى عيَانْ اًسْرِعَا البَيَانْ [O two sons of ‘Iyán (meaning two lines or marks), hasten ye the manifestation]: I’Ab says that when he has obliterated the lines, or marks, an done remains, it is the sign of disappointment: and AZ and Lth relate the like of this. (TA.) It is said in a trad. of Mo’áwiyeh Ibn-El-Ḥakam Es-Sulamee, traced up by him to its author, كَانَ نَبِىّْ مبَ الأَنْبِيَآءِ يَخُطُّ فَمَنْ وَافَقَ خَطَّهُ عَلِمَ مِثْلَ عِلْمِهِ [A prophet of the prophets used to practise geomancy; and he who matches his geomancy knows the like of his knowledge]. (TA.) You say also, when a man is meditating upon his affair, and considering what may be its issue, or result, ‡ [Such a one makes lines, or marks, upon the ground]. (TA.) [See also نَكَتَ: and see St. John’s Gospel, ch. viii verses 6 and 8.] And خَطَّ بِرِجْلِهِ الأَرْضَ means ‡ He walked, or went along. (TA.)

It’s clear that we’re arriving at basically the same source, or a highly similar source with the same origins, as Skinner himself was using. For the sake of further scholarship by any who come across this post, the abbreviations in Lane’s Lexicon come from page xxxi of the preface refer to the following authors and authorities in Arabic lexicology (in their original transliterations as Lane gives them, a more modern list and transcriptions given on this page):

TA: the “Táj el-‘Aroos”
Mṣb: The “Miṣbáḥ” of el-Feiyoomee, full title “El-Miṣbáḥ el-Muneer fee Ghareeb esh-Sharḥ el-Kebeer”
Ḳ: The “Kámoos” of El-Feyroozábádee
Ṣ: The “Ṣiḥáḥ” of El-Jowharee
I’Ab: Ibn-Abbás
L: The “Lisán el-‘Arab” of Ibn-Mukarram
Lth: El-Leyth Ibn-Naṣr Ibn-Seiyár, held by El-Azheree to be the author of the “‘Eyn”, which he calls “Kitáb Leyth”
AZ: Aboo-Zeyd

These are all Arabic sources, so it seems like that line of research comes to an end there, until and unless I ever learn classical Arabic. Still, all the same, at least we found a (likely) source for Skinner’s claim about this strange chant, which I’ll gladly take as a win! Still, even if we have a (likely) point of origin for this strange chant that Skinner describes, what exactly does it mean? Well, unfortunately, there’s no real solid information about the identity of `Iyān or their two sons in Lane, but at least we know we were on the right track tracing it down by considering what its likely Arabic spelling was, and giving that a consideration. I strongly doubt that `Iyān is merely a name without meaning or that it doesn’t have some notion of watchfulness, witnessing, accounting, or observing; I think its relationship with the letter `Ayn and, by extension, eyes and sight really is important in some way.

Lane first says that the “two sons” of `Iyān refer to “two birds…from the flight/alighting-places/cries/&c. of which the Arabs augur”, but…birds? That seems a little out of left field, so let’s set that aside for now and return to what we know. (We’ll return to it, I promise.) Based on the rest of Lane’s entries, even this same one on `Iyān when we consider what the two lines of marks in the sand would entail, it seems reasonable to assume that the “two sons” of `Iyān refer to either the numerical concepts of odd (فرد fard, literally “alone”) and even (زَوْجِيّ zawjiyy, from زوج zawj meaning “pair”, ultimately from Greek ζεῦγος meaning “yoke” in reference to marriage), or to the two units that make up the first even whole number; it’s this latter that might well have the better argument going for it. Note that, interestingly, it’s even numbers that are considered good and affirmative, while odd numbers are bad and negative; this seems to be a general inversion of what we usually encounter in numerology, where it’s the odd numbers (being relatively masculine) that cause change while even numbers (being relatively feminine) maintain stasis. And yet, looking back at Skinner:

Figures which contain a total number of even points are said to be Helu, sweet or a good omen, whilst those which contain odd numbers of total points Murr, bitter, or ill-omened.

Courtesy of the good Dr. Amina Inloes, whom I occasionally harass for help with topics involving Arabic and Islam and who generously and amply provides it, I was directed to the Sunan Abu Dāwūd, a massive compilation and commentary on the ʼaḥādīth (the extra-scriptural traditions of Islam) written sometime in the 800s ce, which would be a little before we start seeing geomancy proper arise. At the bottom of page 147, footnote 3 confirms all the above (which you can put through Google Translate or get an actual Arabic speaker to translate it for you):

قال الشيخ : صورة الخط : ما قاله ابن الأعرابي، ذكره أبو عمر عن أبي العباس أحمد بن يحيى عنه ، قال : يقعد المحازي : [المحازي والحزاء : الذي يحزر الأشياء ويقدرها بظنه] ، ويأمر غلاماً له بين يديه فيخط خطوطاً على رمل أو تراب، ويكون ذلك منه في خفة وعجلة، كي لا يدركها العدّ والإحصاء، ثم يأمره فيمحوها خطين خطين، وهو يقول : ابني عيان أسرعا البيان، فإن كان آخر ما يبقى منها: خطين فهو آية النجاح، وإن بقي خط واحد فهو الخيبة والحرمان

The bold bits are what we’re looking for. The first bold line basically gives the same chant as found elsewhere: “sons of `Iyān, hasten the statement” (ibnay `iyān ‘asra`ā al-bayan), and the last bit the same fundamental rule that “two lines is the sign of success, and if one line remains, it is disappointment and deprivation”. The important thing we get from this is that, when Abu Dāwūd was writing this in the 800s ce, he was likely reporting on proto-geomantic practices that provided for the foundation of geomancy proper as we’d recognize it, and which were most likely in use for quite some time beforehand, especially if references to divination by making marks in the sand in other texts operated on these same principles going back at least to early-Islamic, if not into pre-Islamic, times. Granted, we don’t have a lot of references to this kind of proto-geomantic divination in pre-Islamic times; most of the time it’s just said in passing, and when they do mention some specifics, they just don’t get more specific than just this.

However, even with what little we have, we kinda start to see a potential explanation for why a geomantic chart is created in such a way that the Judge must be an even figure, and why we use such a recursive structure that takes in four figures and then manipulates them to always get an even figure as a distillation of the whole chart, whether or not it’s favorable to the specific query. Related entries to `Iyān in Lane’s Lexicon, specifically عِينَةُ `iynah (pg. 2269), refer to “an inclining in the balance” or set of scales, “the case in which one of two scales thereof outweighs the other”, as in “in the balance is an unevenness”. In this light, even numbers would indicate that things are in balance, and odd numbers out of balance; this idea strikes me as similar to some results used in Yòrubá obi divination or Congolese chamalongo divination or other African systems of divination that make use of a four-piece set of kola nuts, coconut meat, coconut shells, cowries, or some other flippable objects, where the best possible answer is where two pieces face-up and two fall face-down, while there being three of side and one of the other either indicates “no” or a generally weak answer. For the sake of the Judge, then, we need it to be impartial (literally from Latin for “not odd”) in order for it to speak strongly enough to answer the question put to the chart. Heck, in Arabic terms, the word that I’ve seen used for the Judge is میزان mīzān, literally “balance” or “scales” (the same word, I might add, that’s used to refer to the zodiac sign Libra).

And, to look at it another way, how is an even figure formed? An even geomantic figure is formed from the addition of either two odd parents or two even parents; in either case, the parity of one figure must be the same as the other figure in order for their child figure to be even. Thus, for the Judge, the Witnesses must either both be even or they must both be odd. “Brothers”, indeed; as that old Bedouin saying goes, “I against my brothers; I and my brothers against my cousins; I and my brothers and my cousins against the world”. Brothers implies a similarity, a kinship, and even if they fight against each other, they must still be similar enough to come to terms with each other. And consider the mathematical and arithmetic implications of what “coming to terms” can suggest! Thus, the two Witnesses must be alike in parity in order for the scale of the Judge to work itself out, and perhaps, the figure with more points would “outweigh” the other and thus be of more value. For example, if we have a Right Witness of Laetitia and a Left Witness of Puella, both odd figures, then the Judge would be Fortuna Maior, but Laetitia, having more points, would “outweigh” Puella, favoring the Right Witness representing the querent. Thus, perhaps the Judge might be taking on the role of `Iyān and the Witnesses its two “sons”? After all, you need both the Witnesses in order to arrive at the Judge, so telling them to hurry up would naturally speed up the calculation of the Judge.

However, what we’re seeing from Skinner, Lane, and Abu Dāwūd is clearly proto-geomantic and isn’t really about figures as much as it is about lines, so this is probably an anachronistic imposition of `Iyān and their two sons onto later developments. As fitting as it might be, and as fascinating as all this is, it doesn’t do anything for us as far as showing what `Iyān itself might originally refer to. But there are other leads we can take; after all, wasn’t there something about birds? We’ll pick up on that tomorrow.

The Digital Ambler

Always Forward Between Heaven and Earth

Tag Archives: arabic

Another System of Elemental Affinities for the Geomantic Figures

Reviewing the Trithemian Conjuration: Dechristianizing DSIC

The Two Sons of `Iyān: Bird-Based Origins and Other Ideas for Geomancy

The Two Sons of `Iyān: Obscure Chants and Proto-Geomantic Divination