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Unlocking the Observatory: Summary and Recap

June 17, 2022 By in occult Tags: , , , , , 1 Comment

Where were we? We’re in the middle of…or, rather, we finally finished discussing the obscure Telescope of Zoroaster (ZT), a manual of divination and spirituality originally published in French in 1796 (FZT) at the close of the French Revolution, which was later translated into German in 1797 (GZT) and then again in an abridged form as part of Johann Scheible’s 1846 Das Kloster (vol. 3, part II, chapter VII) (KZT), with Scheible’s work then translated into English in 2013 as released by Ouroboros Press (OZT).  Although OZT is how most people nowadays tend to encounter this system, I put out my own English translation of FZT out a bit ago as part of my research, and while that translation was just part of the work I’ve been up to, there’s so much more to review, consider, and discover when it comes to this fascinating form of divination.  This whole time, I’ve been reviewing the various mechanical processes and theoretical underpinnings of this unique form of numerological sortilege with an astrological flair, and although it’s historically been super obscure to the point of nearly being forgotten, it shows an insightful approach to not just divination but to spirituality as a whole.  The only thing left to do now, I suppose, is to give a summary of what we’ve discussed in these past 17(ish) posts with some 70k words (maybe like 55k or 60k if you ignore quotes) between them all (though that doesn’t count the 92-page translation I put out as well).

Although I started this whole series off by introducing my own translation of FZT (which is a good read in and of itself, I claim, especially since I don’t think anyone else has translated it into English yet), I’ve tried in these ensuing posts to go over and offer my analysis and commentary on not just the text but the system as a whole.  I could have done this as part of my translation itself or moved all of this to its own ebook, but…well, let’s be honest, all my own unanswered questions would necessarily render such a thing distastefully incomplete, and I don’t like putting out incomplete works like that.  Plus, given how rare it is to find anything about this system anywhere, I figured that just putting my analysis and commentary online for all to read was the better choice to actually explore (and get others to explore) this neat system that gives us a lot more than just what it seems.  Reading and translating FZT was just the start of such a research project, but there was so much more to say than just what could be communicated in a translation.

First, an index to all the posts in the series for ease of access.

  1. A literary overview of ZT, the few texts that touch on it, and the different versions of ZT out there
  2. How and why ZT gets attributed to the French erotica author André-Robert Andréa de Nerciat
  3. The story behind and the characters of ZT’s “Great Cabala”
  4. The symbolism of the seven Planets, the nine Planetary Intelligences, and the 99 Numbers
  5. The tiles and tools used for divination
  6. The various figures used for divination, and the Great Mirror itself
  7. Discovering and looking at the ideal triangles in the Great Mirror
  8. The Great Dial and how to use “option-whittling” to determine times or other details
  9. The 28 natal stars, their angels, and the confusion of how they fit into the system of ZT
  10. Likely origins for and methods of attributing the lunar mansions, their angels, and planetary numerological symbolism into ZT
  11. The approach, method, and concerns of divination
  12. The case study of from Karl Kern’s 1933 book on ZT
  13. More techniques and notes Kern’s 1933 book on ZT
  14. The six periods of life of humanity and how we come to be
  15. The spiritual theory, cosmology, and theology of ZT
  16. The spiritual practices and purposes of ZT

So, what did we learn from this blog project of mine?

  • The “Telescope of Zoroaster, or, Key to the Great Divinatory Cabala of the Magi” is a form of divination that can be described as sortilege performed with hexagonal tiles making use of a mix of planetary, zodiacal, and (especially) numerological symbolism.
  • The earliest version of ZT was published in French in 1796, but was only popularized several decades later in a slightly abridged (and somewhat incomplete) German version included in Johann Scheible’s 1846 Das Kloster as part of a compilation of other magical,  divinatory, and spiritual works.
  • This book, in whatever format, has never been particularly popular, and there is very little information about it out there.  The most publicity this book has likely ever gotten was with Ouroboros Press’ 2013 translation of the Das Kloster version.
  • Even then, however, its historical obscurity is only one factor leading to its overall unpopularity, the other being its seeming obfuscated nature.  Many people say that the system feels incomplete while also being super complex, which is partially a result of how ZT itself frames and teaches its own system, but also partially a result of how ZT got transmitted through several translations with some parts getting abridged and other parts getting omitted.
  • What the ZT text does, however, is provide a handful of principles that allows one to build up a system of divination. Given that each digit has a meaning, each compound number that makes use of those digits has a meaning built upon them; given that each corner of a hexagon has a planetary meaning and vibe associated with it, breaking down a larger hexagon into a smaller one allows for sub-planetary meanings and vibes.
  • By extrapolating from simple principles, ZT allows for a profoundly detailed approach of divination while relying on just a handful of basic notions.  The real work in learning ZT doesn’t lie in memorization of a large number of symbols or elaborate methods of construction, but just in putting 2 and 2 together to get 4.
  • However, although ZT presents itself primarily as an introductory manual of divination, it couches this in an overall spiritual and mystical practice of coming to commune with spirits to uncover more profound secrets in the cosmos.  For however important learning matters of the future might be, this is just the hook to get one started.
  • Although the text goes on about the “Great Cabala”, it has very little in common with the actual Jewish, Christian, or Hermetic styles of mysticism and spiritual practice normally associated with that word.  Indeed, there’s really nothing Jewish or Hermetic about ZT besides it participating in the overall genre of Western esotericism.

Of course, despite all that we’ve covered, there’s still a handful of unanswered questions I have regarding ZT, or at least things I’m still unsure of or not wholly convinced about:

  1. Obviously, the ascription of ZT to André-Robert Andréa de Nerciat is a long-standing one that has some historical backing, and while I’m inclined to accept it, it still all feels based on a lot of evidence that I can only find to be circumstantial at best and which is otherwise uncritically repeated by so many others.  Despite all her other theories, Susan Audrey Grundy’s theory that if we can connect the text to Nerciat at all, it’s likelier to my mind (given the stark difference in topics normally associated with Nerciat), that he picked up the book and polished it up, republishing it in one way or another rather than him being the one to write it.  Still, it’s something I personally have questionable feelings about either way.
  2. Even if the text was written by Nerciat, to whom might the Epistle be addressed?  Abbé Baruel in his Memoirs says that it was addressed to “one of those Princes whom the author does not name, but whose zealous pursuits in these mysteries are sufficiently known by public report”.  Is this just Barruel dramatizing something, or is this an actual reference to an actual French royal?
  3. The order of the planets in the Great Mirror (Sun in the middle, then Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Moon, Saturn counterclockwise, or alternatively Moon, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Mars, Saturn clockwise) suggests a working knowledge of some basic astrological principles, (what the malefics and benefics are, what the planetary rulerships are of the signs that are in opposition to each other, etc.) but it only suggests it.  Is this an actual pattern or arrangement from some other system or book?
  4. Likewise, when ZT mentions “Sol in medio” is some maxim from occult sciences, exactly which is it referring to?
  5. The way the primary digits are associated with the planets (1/9 for the Sun, 2/8 for the Moon, 3 for Venus, 4 for Mercury, 5 for Saturn, 6 for Jupiter, 7 for Mars) may be based on that given in Das Große Planeten-Buch with some changes for a more balanced system, but is this really the case?  Or is there some other system of numerology that was available to the inventor of ZT that shows this more clearly?
  6. Likewise, the way the lunar mansions natal stars work in ZT seems to be indebted to the same (or similar) astrological tradition as Das Große Planeten-Buch, though of course there are some differences.  Is it really the case that ZT based its system on DGPB and adjusted it to fit with the geometry of the Great Mirror, or did it have another source/tradition in mind?
  7. Following up on the angels of the lunar mansions natal stars, what the heck is up with ZT throwing in the three archangels Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael and replacing three of the traditional lunar mansion angels?  Similarly, why are some of the angels out of order compared to what we’d normally expect?
  8. Although we can pick up on a trend of how the compound Number tiles are assigned to the non-Intelligence houses (or angels) of the Great Mirror, I can’t say that we have an actual pattern that says specifically why certain tiles get put into certain houses, and there are even a few assignments of tiles to houses/angels that just seems outright incorrect (like a Venus tile given to Raphael in the orbit of Mars or Kiriel in the orbits of Mars and Saturn lacking a Saturn tile).  What’s the deal with those?  Surely they could be swapped with other tiles that make more sense.
  9. On top of the actual technique and content of ZT, there’s also a number of literary or historical references in ZT that I haven’t yet been able to pin down from the text itself:
    1. Sixth Step: the whole bit about Ferval seeing his mistress at midnight
    2. First Supplement:
      1. The historical event regarding the accident of grave bodily harm suffered by a member of the French royal family in 1792 (maybe, as the Alexandre de Danánn book says, is just a reference to Louis XVI?)
      2. The prophecy of the popes mentioned, which may or may not be the Prophecy of the Popes
    3. Second Supplement: the bit about Fortunatus

Maybe the answers to those questions lie in some forgotten French or German book on numerology or astrology, or maybe they could be found in some arcane French Revolutionary tome on the spirituality of its time.  Maybe they’re indicative of some system I’m not smart enough to figure out whose principles aren’t as clearly indicated as some of the others in ZT, or maybe it’s just a matter of leaving things to arbitrary choice in the mind of the designer and inventor of ZT.  Either way, they’re not things I have an answer to as yet, but maybe—despite all the other maybes—we might have an answer to them one day.

On top of all of those doubts and questions, I also have a few musings of my own that I couldn’t really fit into any of the earlier discussions, and would be good for further implementation and practice to sort out and sift through:

  1. It’s clear that the author of ZT tries to stretch its numerology out as far as it will go: consider how the number 5 is associated with Saturn/Lethophoro “the only essentially evil Intelligence”, and also that Senamira (the Evil Principle) is depicted as a five-pointed star, and Sokak (the Evil Spirit) as a five-pointed shooting star or a pentagon.  What, then, should we make of the number 3, given that Sisamoro and Sallak (the Good Principle and Good Spirit) are depicted as triangles?  Personally, I’d be inclined to think that the number 6 should be the opposite of 5, given how Jupiter is positioned directly opposite of Saturn in the Great Mirror and how all the tiles have a hexagonal shape, and how 3 is given to Venus/Erosia which…I guess?  Maybe 3 represents the Good Principle and Good Spirit as some sort of descent from the Christian Trinity, and yet, it’s spirit-Sun/Psykomena (9) that’s described explicitly as a rival and counterbalance to Lethophoro, so it’s an interesting play of numbers here.  How far should such number symbolism regarding good and evil be taken, and how else might that play 0ut in the system of ZT, both from a divinatory approach and a grander spiritual approach?  Is it reasonable to “correct” the glyphs used for Sisamoro and Sallak to use six-pointed stars (or even nine-pointed stars) instead of a triangle in this light?
  2. The notion of the Great Mirror being an instrument for scrying and spirit communication is a tantalizing one, though one only barely mentioned or hinted at in ZT.  It’s clear from the Epilogue that this is a thing, but the text doesn’t say in any way how it might be a thing.  Is it a matter of contemplation and gazing, letting the mind frazzle out on seeing a pattern of numbers to get enmeshed in the deeper connections between them?  Is it a matter of performing an invocation or plea to the angels associated with the numbers in turn and asking for their help in coming to understand the tile specifically and mirror as a whole?
  3. Likewise, what do we do with the knowledge that we have the two Spirits per person of Sallak and Sokak in addition to one’s natal angel provided by their natal star?  Is there a corresponding Sallak and Sokak per angel, leading to a total of 56 total Spirits (2 × 28)?  Or, conversely, are the directives and guidances of Sallak and Sokak delegated to one’s natal angel, who directs them accordingly?  It seems like the Spirits are on the same ontological level as the Intelligences, and given that the angels seem to be subservient to the Intelligences, this should suggest that the Spirits are above the angels, so that first option seems wrong.  So what’s the specific interplay between our individual Good and Bad Spirits and our natal angel?  Do we approach and petition Sallak and Sokak for communion as we would with our natal angel?  For that matter, do we call upon Sisamoro for assistance?  How do we factor in the Supreme Being or Pure Spirit into all of this, into a whole sort of ZT “religious practice”?
  4. Being someone generally inclined to all the corrupted, corrupting “so-called arts” that ZT loves to hate so much, it annoys me that ZT decided to double up on the Sun and Moon to make a set of nine planets instead of making use of the North and South Nodes of the Moon, which would be the more logical pair of things to pick up on to make a set of nine (and which are still used to this day heavily in jyotish astrology).  Heck, even the arrangement of the Intelligences in Plate VI (the one for all the angels on the Great Mirror) puts Genhelia and Psykomena as the odd ones out, making a natural suggestion that Genhelia/matter-Sun/digit 1 could be given to the North Node, and Psykomena/spirit-Moon/digit 8 could be given to the South Node.  Of course, the whole basis of symbolism and everything is based on these being solar and lunar entities, so could the system be amended to include these astrological entities, or could they just be slid in as-is?
  5. Given how the Epistle is written to some noble by some admirer (e.g. Nerciat), the suggestion is strong that at least this part (as well as a few clues in the ZT text itself) was written towards the end of the French Revolution, the dissolution of the monarchy, and the abolition of the nobility.  Given the strange times that we can presume that ZT was written in, how much of what we find in ZT regarding its spirituality and cosmology can we find in then-current beliefs?  Is this all stuff that comes from the ancien régime, or was there a subtle Revolutionary spirituality within it, as well?  I’m far from educated on the history generally or nuances of spirituality specifically in that troubled time, but it’d be cool to compare and contrast what we find in ZT with other texts from the same time period.
  6. I wonder about the actual process and sequence of ZT’s development, because some parts of the system seem tacked on.  Like, the whole bit about the angels feels slapped onto the system as a way to expand it without it actually being necessary for the system itself, as do the 90 compound Number tiles being associated to the houses, but I don’t think this was done at the same time.  Rather, my feeling from the text (which I can’t really substantiate) is that the angels were given (or fitted) to the houses to determine their planetary rulerships based on their orbits first, then the tiles to the angels second.  Things like this intrigue me, because if I were to develop a system based on similar principles, there are a whole bunch of ways to go about such a thing in a other manners, so why did the inventor of ZT pick this approach?  Likewise, if they were tacked on and weren’t intended to belong to the system as originally envisioned, why would they have been included: for the sake of seeming completeness by an audience they were trying to market to, or because some student reminded them to include it?

These would be great things to consider for future research, at least from the active use, consideration, and development of ZT, and if not by me then by someone else.  (Don’t forget Calyxa’s excellent ZT toolset available for purchase from The Game Crafter for your convenience!)  After all, even if ZT doesn’t give us a treatise, it does give us a key, so maybe we just have to actually start using it to unlock the answers to some of these questions.  Maybe, if this post series helps get people more familiar and comfortable with ZT as a divinatory system and a spiritual system, it might get other people in on the game of this, as well.  That’d be my hope, at any rate—maybe not one so grand as the Epistle’s “restoration of this ancient moral gold in new crucibles”, but hey, it did anticipate this to be the work of centuries, after all, and it’s already been two.

But, at least for now, I’m going to put my copy of the Ouroboros Press translation back on the shelf, nestled amongst the other Nice Books or fine or rare editions I have.  In the nine years since I bought it, this has been the longest amount of time it’s spent off the shelf and on my desk or in my hands, but with this little project of mine coming to a close, it’s time to return it to its snug spot back up with the rest of the books—albeit with a few more friends that it picked up along the way it didn’t have before.  This time, however, I’m not putting the book back with the promise to actually read it and learn the system one day; I’m putting the book back having finally fulfilled such a promise, and having done so to such an extent that I’d never have imagined when I got the book back in 2013, not only having absorbed everything such a book can give, but also to have surpassed the book, dug into its own sources, and produced other work to keep up with it.  It feels pretty good, not gonna lie.

Of course, learning about a thing is one thing, but learning from a thing is quite another.  We might have learned plenty about the book and its system, but I hope that this little blog series of mine has also helped us learn from it, as well—not just as a method of divination, but about the methods and goals of spirituality itself.

(PS: Having learned from my readers with my Reviewing the Trithemian Conjuration blog project a few years back, yes, I plan on putting out a free PDF compilation of all these posts to allow for easier offline/printable reading.  I’m working on it as this post goes up, but I’m letting the posts get published and stabilize first to let the typos shake out and to give people a chance to comment on them first to incorporate any feedback.  Stay tuned for such a PDF coming out soon!)

Index of Hymns, Historiolae, and Poems in the Greek Magical Papyri

May 31, 2020 By in link, pgm Tags: , , , , 3 Comments

Like any good researcher, I like things that are free, because academic, scholarly, and other research-oriented texts can be pricey, especially when you get into niche topics, and even more so when you start getting into out-of-print works.  That’s why sites like Google Books and Archive.org are invaluable for someone like me, because we have whole libraries available at our fingertips, at the press of a button, all for free.  But, alas, not everything is; due to (sometimes very reasonable) copyright laws and (sometimes very unreasonable) publisher policies, not all such books are able to be put online for free without getting into piracy (which is an entirely different topic that is neither here nor there).

When it comes to researching the Greek Magical Papyri, although Hans Dieter Betz’ version is the de facto translation of what’s available into English, Karl Preisendanz’ version is legendary, and in many cases forms a “critical edition” for the Greek along with his German translation.  The original version of the texts were put out in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and as such, are out of copyright and considered works in the public domain.  For that, I would recommend people check out the University of Heidelberg’s online resource for them:

  1. Volume One: PGM I through PGM VI
  2. Volume Two: PGM VII through PGM LX, including Christian magical papyri and ostraka

However, there was another, more recent version of Preisendanz’ books put out in the 1970s, which has some extra supplemental information, one of which is a list of hymns and historiolae given as an appendix to volume two with the help of Albert Henrichs.  Because of how recent this work is, it’s not in the public domain, which means you still need to buy a copy of it (or pirate it).  This is somewhat unfortunate, because I couldn’t easily find a list of what Preisendanz listed as hymns and historiolae otherwise, even though Betz himself refers to it (e.g. footnote 56 to PGM I) and other authors, like Ljuba Merlina Bortolani in her Magical Hymns from Roman Egypt, also make use of such an organization system.  Knowing exactly what these references are would be incredibly helpful, but without having access to this more recent version of Preisendanz’ volume 2, I appeared otherwise out of luck.

So I kept an eye on used book lists—new, the book costs upwards of $150 on Amazon—and, happily enough, I did find a relatively cheap copy of the text over on AbeBooks, which I’m happy to present.  The bulk of the book seems otherwise identical to the original version, but again, it’s that extra supplemental material I’m interested in.  To that end, what follows is a list of Preisendanz’ and Henrich’s entries for the hymns, historiolae, and poems—all called Hymns in other texts—given in the PGM using their number system.  Although Preisendanz and Henrichs also give a copy of the original Greek with some notes on other references, both academic and original, pertaining to the content of the entries listed above, the Greek is otherwise basically the same as what’s in the rest of Preisendanz’ original stuff, albeit with fewer marks regarding suggestions or hypothesized text where possible, although for the hymnic and poetic entries, he does mark where some metrical and prosodic information would fall when necessary.  However, importantly, Preisendanz and Henrich exclude any instances of barbarous words from their hymns, so bear that in mind when making comparisons.

List of hymns:

  1. To the All-Creator: PGM XII.244—252
  2. To the All-Creator: PGM III.550—558
  3. To Hēlios: PGM IV.939—948
  4. To Hēlios:
    1. PGM IV.436—461 (except lines 18, 19, and 21)
    2. PGM IV.1957—1989 (except lines 26 and 27)
    3. PGM VIII 74—81 (except lines 7 through 10)
    4. PGM I.315—325 (except lines 1 through 6, 9 through 11, 18, 21, 22, 26, and 27)
  5. To Hēlios and the All-God: PGM III.198—229
  6. To Typhōn: PGM IV.179—201
  7. To Typhōn: PGM IV.291—273
  8. To Apollōn: PGM I.296
  9. To Apollōn: PGM II.2—7
  10. To Apollōn: PGM VI.22—38
  11. To Apollōn and Apollōn-Hēlios: PGM II.81—101, 133—140, 163—166
  12. To Apollōn and Daphnē: PGM III.234—258
  13. To Daphnē: PGM VI.6—21
  14. To Daphnē: PGM VI.40—47
  15. To Hermēs:
    1. PGM V.400—420
    2. PGM VII.668—680
    3. PGM XVII.b (entire)
  16. To Hekatē-Selēnē-Artemis: PGM IV.2242—2417
  17. To Hekatē-Selēnē-Artemis: PGM IV.2786—2870
  18. To Hekatē-Selēnē-Artemis: PGM IV.2574—2610, 2643—2674
  19. To Hekatē-Selēnē-Artemis: PGM IV.2522—2567
  20. To Hekatē-Selēnē-Artemis: PGM IV.2714—2783
  21. To Aphroditē: PGM IV.2902—2939
  22. To the All-God: PGM I.297—314, 342—345
  23. To the All-God: PGM XXIII (entire)
  24. To the Chthonic Ones: PGM IV.1399—1434
  25. To the Chthonic Ones: PGM IV.1459—1469

Notes on the list of hymns above:

  • Hymn 4 is composed of four different overlapping entries which mostly appear continuous when some lines are omitted or shuffled around from the original entries.  Preisendanz and Henrich list the bits that didn’t fall in as an addendum to this hymn.
  • The hymn to Hermēs is marked as Hymn 15/16 in Preisendanz and Henrich, so no separate Hymn 16 is listed here.
  • Hymn 15/16 is also composed of overlapping text from several PGM sources, although (the entirety of) PGM XXIIb is the longest and forms the base for this.
  • Hymns 11, 19, and 23 are taken from several sections of particular entries of the PGM, which Preisendanz and Henrich interpret to be a single hymn each, each broken up by ritual directions or other non-hymnic text in those entries.

List of magical historiolae:

  1. PGM IV.1471—1479
  2. PGM XX.6—20
  3. PGM XXIX (entire)

And one last interesting poem, the “Evocation of Wrath”:

  1. PGM IX.12—13

As another note, I mentioned Bortolani’s book as well.  That book is a wonderful reference for some but not all of the hymns and references made in Preisendanz and Henrich; of the thirty entries given total, Bortolani only discusses fifteen.  Because I also picked up a copy of her excellent book—an amazing resource detailing the specific connotations, structure, usage, and purposes of these various hymns from the PGM—I’ll also go ahead and give a correspondence between her numbering and that of Preisendanz and Henrich (noted as “PH Hymn”), along with the specific PGM entry numbers for that particular hymn:

  1. PH Hymn 8, 23b: PGM I.296—327, 341—347
  2. PH Hymn 4 (excluding 4d): PGM IV.436—461, 1957—1989; PGM VIII.74—81
  3. PH Hymn 5: PGM III.198—230
  4. PH Hymn 2: PGM III.549—558
  5. PH Hymn 3: PGM IV.939—948
  6. PH Hymn 9: PGM II.2—7
  7. PH Hymn 11a: PGM II.81—102
  8. PH Hymn 13, 14: PGM VI.6—44
  9. PH Hymn 1: PGM XII.244—52
  10. PH Hymn 25: PGM IV.1399—1434
  11. PH Hymn 17: PGM IV.2242—2347
  12. PH Hymn 20: PGM IV.2522—2267
  13. PH Hymn 19: PGM IV 2574—2610, 2643—2674
  14. PH Hymn 21: PGM IV.2714—2783
  15. PH Hymn 18: PGM IV.2786—2870

I should also note that Bortolani breaks up these hymns into two overall sections: her Hymns 1 through 9 are those “to the male deity”, and Hymns 10 through 15 are “to the female chthonic/lunar deity”, as both have definite differences in purpose, tone, and style.  Unlike Preisendanz and Henrich, Bortolani retains the barbarous words where they appear.

With that, perhaps this can give researchers of the PGM a little extra nudge when encountering references to particular hymns by number when people refer to Preisendanz and Henrich, or Bortolani as well.

On the Geomantic Parts of Fortune and Spirit

December 6, 2017 By in geomancy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 7 Comments

Whether it’s Tarot, geomancy, runes, or any other kind of art, I consider divination in general to be a process of three basic steps:

  1. Hash out, refine, and formally ask the query.
  2. Perform the divination to manipulate the symbols into a readable format.
  3. Interpret the reading.

In geomancy, that second step is the whole process of developing the four Mothers and the rest of the chart from them.  After the querent and I refine the query sufficiently and settle on the final form of the question to be asked, and once I manipulate my tools (cards, dice, or whatever) to come up with the four Mother figures, I then proceed to draw out the entire geomantic chart with all the relevant information I’d need to start with.  Once that’s done, this is what my scribbling and scratching typically ends up like:

The exact process I follow to arrive at this mess of lines and symbols from which I divine the fates and facts of the world is this:

  1. Draw out the four Mothers, then the Daughters, Nieces, and Court.
  2. Label the terminals for the Via Puncti with the elemental glyphs above the Mothers and Daughters, where possible.
  3. Draw out a simple square house chart, and populate it with the first twelve figures of the Shield Chart.
  4. Count the number of odd points in the House Chart to find the Part of Spirit, and label it (I use a circle with two diagonal lines coming out of the bottom like legs, for which I can’t find a compatible Unicode glyph that looks similar enough, but Chris Brennan suggests using an uppercase Greek letter phi Φ, for which I like using the specific glyph U+233D “APL Functional Symbol Circle Style” ⌽).
  5. Based on the Part of Spirit, label the coordinating house for the Part of Fortune (⊕).
  6. Based on the sum of odd points from calculating the Part of Spirit, add the odd points of the Court to find the odd point sum of the Shield Chart.
  7. Find the difference between the odd point sum of the Shield Chart and 64, double it, and add that to the odd point sum to find the Sum of the Chart.

You can see the different steps I took broken down by the above list fairly clearly as I did them (orange, red, green, yellow, pink, blue, cyan):

Making the Shield and House Charts is nothing special for us at this point, and I’ve discussed the Via Puncti before on my blog.  The Sum of the Chart is also fairly common knowledge, whereby you sum up all the points of the sixteen figures in the Shield Chart and compare it to 96 to determine how fast or slow the situation will resolve; again, it’s something I’ve discussed before.  Still, it might surprise you that I don’t actually calculate it directly, but base it on my calculations of the Part of Spirit (due to the mathematics of geomancy, the method works out to the same result).  Likewise, I don’t calculate the Part of Fortune directly, but also base it on the Part of Spirit.  So what gives?  What are these Parts, how are they calculated, and how are they used in geomancy?

First, let’s go with the more well-known of the two Parts, the Part of Fortune.  How do we find this indication?  From Christopher Cattan’s book The Geomancie (book III, chapter 21):

The question being made, after that we have judged by the houses, figures, angles, companions, aspects, the way of point, and by all the other sorts and manners before said, now resteth it to judge by the Part of Fortune.  The Part of Fortune figures, which afterwards ye must divide into twelve parts, and that which remaineth give unto the figures.  As if there rest two ye must give into unto the second figure, if there do remain four to the fourth figure, if there be six to the sixth figure, if there be eight to the eighth figure, if there be ten to the tenth figure, if there be twelve to the twelfth figure.  As by example, if the figure be of 72 points, or 84 or 96 or 108 points, then the part of fortune shall go into the twelfth.  But if the said points of the figure made, being divided by twelve, there do remain but two, as if there remain seventy and four where there remaineth but two, then (as before we have said) ye must give that unto the second house, and there shall be the Part of Fortune.  The which if the figure and house be good (for both the one and the other must be looked upon) you shall judge good, and if it be evil ye shall also judge evil; and so likewise shall ye do of all the other figures.  But if the figure be good, and the house ill, or contrary, the house good and the figure ill, you shall judge the said Part of Fortune to be mean.  And, to end ye may the more easier know the place where the figure falleth, which is called the Part of Fortune, ye shall mark it with this mark, 🌞, and thereafter ye shall judge all the question by the example that followeth. …

Many do use another manner to find Part of Fortune, in taking all the points as well of the twelve houses as the two Witnesses, and the Judge, which they do part by twelve (as is aforesaid) but because I have found no truth therein I will speak no more thereof.

If the mark Cattan proposes shows up as an embarrassingly incongruous sun emoji (like it does for me), then that’s just how it appears on your browser.  I’m using the Unicode character U+1F31E “Sun with Face” glyph as the closest approximation without overlapping with the usual glyph for the Sun (☉) for the symbol from the original text (fourth line, first character):

From Robert Fludd’s Fasciculus Geomanticus (book II, chapter 2):

Of the discovery of the part of fortune, and its placement in schemata.

Now the part of fortune ⊕ is to be discussed.  The part of fortune is of great importance in the view of the Geomancers just as in the view of the Astrologers, and is of great consideration: for in their view the sign of ⊕ and the steps to discover the Hyleg are chiefly considered, and through them the house, into which [the part of fortune] falls into as a result of the projection, truly seizes great life and energy by itself.  …

This part of fortune is to be considered with the utmost exactness, for if it falls into a good house and figure, it is of no small weight for bringing about judgment; if truly in an evil [house and figure], it brings about no meager impediment to judging [the schema].

Fludd then goes on to give other methods of calculating similar things “if the above method is seen to be obscure”, but the phrase “Part of Fortune” doesn’t appear, and he mostly focuses on ways of constructing entirely new charts for the purpose of a clearer judgment.

Lastly, the description of the Part of Fortune from John Michael Greer in his Art and Practice of Geomancy (chapter 6) on the Part of Fortune:

… The Part of Fortune, as the name implies, indicates a house from which the querent can expect good fortune to come in the situation.  In financial divinations it usually refers to a source of ready cash.

What about the Part of Spirit?  To start with, calling it that is my own innovation.  In the extant geomantic literature, it’s more commonly called the Index.  JMG discusses it since it appears in Fludd and Cattan, and though I’m unsure if it appears any earlier, Cattan is the one who (as far as I’m aware) introduced it (book III, chapter 18) by calling it one of the ways to find “the point of instruction”:

Another rule [to know for what intent a chart was made for] is to take all the uneven points of all the twelve figures, and give one to the first, one to the second, one to the third, and so consequently unto all the others, until that all the points be bestowed, and then if the last point remain on the first house, it signifieth thereby that the person hath desired to have that figured be made upon some of the demands which be of the first house; if it rest upon the second, it signifieth that the question or demand of the movable goods, or other things contained in the second house; and so shall you judge of the other houses where the point doth stay.  And if it do happen that the point of the intent do stay in the house of the thing demanded, or in the fifth, ye must judge according to the significations that the Judge doth show unto you; and when ye will judge by the same Judge, you must also take the uneven points of the Witness and the Judge, and bestow them amongst them; but that rule which is only by the 12 houses, is the better, more sure and certain. …

Fludd basically says the same thing (book II, chapter 3) and even with the same name in the chapter header (“De punctis instructionis…”), so I won’t translate it here.  As for JMG, he calls it the method the “projection of points”  and the resulting figure the “Index” (chapter 6):

… This can ferret out hidden factors in the chart.  Projection of points is done by counting up the number of single points in the first twelve figures of the chart, leaving the double points uncounted.  Take the total number of single points and subtract 12; if the result is more than 12, subtract 12 again, and repeat until you have a number less than 12.  If the final number is 0, this stands for the twelfth house.

The house identified by the projection of points is called the Index, and represents the hidden factor at work in the situation. …

Okay, enough reciting from resources.  Based on all the above, the methodology for finding the Part of Fortune goes like this:

  1. Add up the number of all points in the twelve houses of the House Chart.
  2. Divide by twelve.
  3. The remainder points to the house of the Part of Fortune.  If the remainder is 0, then it points to the twelfth house.

The Part of Spirit’s method is nearly identical, except instead of counting all the points, we count just the single points.  For example, given the figure Acquisitio, if we’re counting all the points in it, we have six points, but if we’re just counting single points, then we only have two.  Thus, if (for either sum) we get 88, we divide that by 12.  That gets us 7.333…, so our remainder is 4 because 12 × (7.333… – 7) = 4; phrased another way, 88 ÷ 12 = 7 + 4/12.  Thus, we look at the fourth house for the given Part for which we’re doing a calculation.

Before continuing on with how we use these indications in geomancy, it’s probably best to talk about what a Part even is.  The Parts (also sometimes called Arabic Parts or Lots) are an old doctrine in astrology, dating back to at least the time of Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos and seen in both Arabic and European astrological treatises since.  At least 97 were in use in the ninth century according to the Arabic astrologer Albumassar, over a hundred listed by the Italian astrologer Bonatti in his works, and more were developed since then, even in our modern era incorporating the outer planets past Saturn.   The Parts are constructed points in a horoscope based on the sums and differences of other observable points (e.g. Ascendant or Midheaven) or physical objects (e.g. planets or luminaries).  In essence, a Part is a mathematical harmonic between different astrological notes that describes certain in-depth areas in a querent’s life or situation that could, in theory, be sussed out by looking at the planets and their aspects alone, but are more explicitly specified by their corresponding Part.

For instance, if we’re looking at indications of someone’s mother, we could look at the ruler of the fourth house in a chart, or we could look at the Part of the Mother, which is calculated as follows:

Mother = Asc + Moon – Saturn

In other words, we start from the Ascendant, add the ecliptic longitude (the position in the Zodiac) of the Moon, then subtract the ecliptic longitude of Saturn.  Thus, in a horoscope where we have the Ascendant at 25° Scorpio, the Moon at 19° Gemini, and Saturn at 3° Taurus, then our calculation would look like this:

(25° Sco) + (19° Gem) – (3° Tau)
205° + 79° – 33°
251°
(11° Cap)

With those points as above, we end up with 251° on the ecliptic, which in zodiacal notation is 11° Capricorn, which is the degree of the Part of the Mother.  This is strictly a mathematical point, much like midpoints are in modern astrology, but used specifically to determine the presence, state, and effects of one’s mother (or all mothers) in a horoscope, and can then be interpreted like any other planet in the horoscope, except that they only receive aspects instead of making them.

While the technique isn’t as popular as it once was, even today many modern astrologers take note of the Part of Fortune.  From Bonatti’s Liber astronomiae (translated by Robert Zoller in The Arabic Parts in Astrology):

This part signifies the life, the body, and also its soul, its strength, fortune, substance, and profit, i.e. wealth and poverty, gold and silver, heaviness or lightness of things bought in the marketplace, praise and good reputation, and honors and recognition, good and evil, present and future, hidden and manifest, and it has signification over everything.  It serves more for rich men and magnates than for others.  Nevertheless, it signifies for every man according to the condition of each of those things.  And if this part and the luminaries are well disposed in nativities or revolutions, it will be notably good.  This part is called the part of the Moon or the ascendant of the Moon, and it signifies good fortune.

The Part of Fortune is a weird part, because it actually has two formulas to calculate it, only one of which is used depending on whether the horoscope is that of a day chart (Sun above the horizon) or a night chart (Sun below the horizon):

Day Fortune: Ascendant + Moon – Sun
Night Fortune: Ascendant + Sun – Moon

Later in Liber astronomiae, Bonatti describes the Part of Spirit, which he also calls the Part of the Sun or the Part of Things to Come, as follows:

The pars futurorum signifies the soul and the body after the pars fortunae and the quality of these, and faith, prophecy, religion, and the culture of God and secrets, cogitations, intentions, hidden things and everything which is absent, and courtesy and liberality, praise, good reputation, heat, and cold. …

In other words, if the Part of Fortune describes the material well-being (or lack thereof) of a horoscope, then the Part of Spirit describes the spiritual well-being; just as the Part of Fortune describes our connections to the world outside us, the Part of Spirit describes the connections of the world inside us.  Fittingly enough, the calculation for the Part of Spirit is the reverse of the Part of Fortune: while the Part of Spirit also uses two formulas, one for day and one for night, the formulas themselves are switched from the Part of Fortune:

Day Spirit: Ascendant + Sun – Moon
Night Spirit: Ascendant + Moon – Sun

Thus, the Part of Fortune and Part of Spirit are intimately connected by how they’re calculated; if you know the location of one, you know the location of the other.

Bringing the notion of the Part of Fortune into geomancy from astrology necessitated an obvious conceptual change in how it’s calculated; without degrees or the ability for certain things to fall among them, it would normally have been impossible to calculate any Part.  However, Cattan either invented or learned a way to find an equally-significant sign in geomancy by adapting the methods available to us in geomancy by counting the points and divvying the sum of the House Chart among the houses.  What none of the older geomancers seem to have noticed is that there’s an intimate relationship between the Part of Fortune and the Index in geomancy: if you know the location of one, you know the location of the other.

First, note that the Part of Fortune and the Index can only fall in even-numbered houses (e.g. house II, house IV, house VI, etc.) due to the mathematical intricacies of geomancy; this is true for similar reasons and with similar logic for why the Judge of a geomantic chart must always be an even figure.  (Why Cattan makes this explicit for the Part of Fortune but suggests wrongly that the Index can be in odd houses is a mystery to me; perhaps he simply didn’t anticipate that a calculation based on odd points could result in only even numbers.)  Thus, by performing the calculations of the Part of Fortune and Index, we can get only one of six numerical results: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 0 (with 0 signifying that the sum in the calculation was evenly divisible by 12, and thus indicates the twelfth house).

After many charts of calculating the Part of Fortune and Index separately, I noticed a pattern emerging: the sums of the two separate calculations for the Part of Fortune and Index always add up to 12 (2 + 10, 4 + 8, 6 + 6, 8 + 4, or 10 + 2) or 24 (12 + 12).  Thus, if the Part of Fortune were in the eighth house, then because 12 – 8 = 4, I knew immediately that the Index would be in the fourth house; if the Index were in the sixth house, then the Part of Fortune would also need to be in the sixth house; if either indication was in the twelfth house, so would the other indication.  Again, if you know the location of one, you know the location of the other.

The mathematics behind this relationship can be described like this: if there are four rows in each figure and we’re looking at a collection of twelve figures, then there are 4 × 12 = 48 total rows.  Each row must be odd or even, and the number of odd rows plus the number of even rows must equal 48.  Plus, we know that since the houses of the Part of Fortune and Part of Spirit must both add up to 12 or 24, both of which are evenly divisible by 12, then we know that the sum of all the odd points plus all the points total must also be evenly divisible by 12.  We can check this mathematically as follows.  First, in mathematical notation, let us use the % sign to represent the modulo function, which is “the remainder after dividing by a number”.  Thus,

x = number of odd rows in the House Chart
x = number of points in the odd rows of the House Chart
x % 12 = remainder of x divided by 12 = Part of Spirit

y = number of even rows in the House Chart
y + x = 48
y = 48 – x

2y = number of points in the even rows of the House Chart
2y + x = number of all points in the House Chart
2 × (48 – x) + x
96 – 2x + x
96 – x
(96 – x) % 12 = Part of Fortune

((2y + x) + x) % 12
(96 – 2x + x + x) % 12
96 % 12
0
Q.E.D.

It was this interesting relationship between these two indications that reminded me of the relationship between the astrological Parts of Fortune and Spirit, and thus what led me to start calling the Index the Part of Spirit and reanalyzing it in that light.  Even though there’s a huge difference between how the astrologers calculate these two Parts in astrology versus how we would in geomancy and where they might be found in their separate House Charts, I find that the relationship between them is identical and, for that purpose, hugely useful in geomantic interpretation.

To briefly describe my own personal view of these Parts based on all the foregoing, the geomantic Part of Fortune indicates the source, manner, and condition of the material life of the querent: bodily health, material wealth, worldly means, and so forth.  Likewise, the geomantic Part of Spirit indicates the same but for the spiritual life of the querent: mental and spiritual well-being, divine gifts, aid from spirits or gods, and so on.  I also read notions of resources and capabilities for the querent (to answer “what can I count on to accomplish it?”) in the Part of Fortune and notions of fate and destiny of the querent (“what should I be focusing on or having faith in?”) into the Part of Spirit.

Going beyond the basic interpretation of the Parts themselves, I’ve also found a trend in charts when the two Parts are both in the sixth house or both in the twelfth house:

  • If the Part of Fortune and Part of Spirit are both in house VI, then the matter is completely in the hands of the querent.  The querent has the ultimate say and ability to determine how the situation will proceed, and can change the reality of it as they need to depending on the course of action they take.  Their actions or lack thereof will be the crucial determiner in whether and how the situation will proceed.
  • If the Part of Fortune and Part of Spirit are both in house XII, then the matter is completely out of the querent’s hands.  All the querent can do in the situation is react accordingly and adjust their conceptions and perceptions of the situation, because the reality of the situation will proceed without their input regardless of their attempts.  No matter what the querent might attempt, the situation will continue unfolding as it will.

Also, as one other use, I often use the Part of Spirit in readings about magical, occult, or divine ritual for the sake of figuring out what particular courses of action might be best, or determining what path one ought to take, whether in a specific ritual or in a general direction.  It’s a small extra thing, but for a practicing magician like myself who consults with and is consulted by other magicians, it’s a useful thing to know.  I touched on this very briefly in my old post on geomancy and magic, but now the reasoning behind it all becomes clear.

All that said, remember that the Parts can only fall in even-numbered houses.  In a sense, this is similar to the idea that figures that are even can be considered objective because only even figures can be Judges (as I wrote at length before).  In this case, the even-numbered houses deal with, in order: material goods, land and family, health and servants, death and spirits, work and office, mystery and restriction.  We exclude the odd-numbered houses, which deal with: the querent themselves, communication, creation/procreation/recreation, relationships and rivalries, religion and faith, friendships and patronage.  There’s a similar “inherent to my personal life and relationships” versus “external to my personal life and relationships” difference between the even and odd houses as there is between the objective versus subjective qualities between the even and odd figures.  It is because these things are more external to us that they can be things pointed to help us or focus on, because they’re things that we’re not necessarily in full control or knowledge of.

As a side note, I only read the Parts in a radical (unrotated) chart.  When the chart is rotated for a third-party reading, I don’t bother looking at or interpreting the Parts of Fortune and Spirit, because they’re house-based calculations and not figure-based, so they don’t get rotated with the chart and (to my mind) have no importance or meaning in such a rotated chart.  I find that the Parts work best (if at all) when applied to the querent themselves in a situation, and I haven’t found it useful to rotate the Parts with the rest of the chart for a third party.

Similarly, I don’t swap my calculations of the Parts of Fortune and Spirit around based on whether it’s daytime or nighttime, because the notion of a diurnal or nocturnal geomantic chart doesn’t make sense; after all, a solar figure might never even appear in a given chart, or it might appear both above and below the horizon in a geomantic House Chart.  Instead, it makes more sense for the Part of Spirit to only rely on odd points (the points that represent active elements, excised and above the world of passive matter) and the Part of Fortune to rely on both odd and even points (the co-mingling of active Spirit and passive Matter that results in the world around us).

Further, although there are over a hundred possible Arabic Parts (depending on tradition, era, and author you’re looking at), I’m disinclined to say that there are more than these two Parts in geomancy.  After all, the logic for the Parts in astrology is easily extensible, but in geomancy we’re far more limited based on the techniques and tools that we use, but at the same time, we have other techniques that can fill in just as easily (such as adding the figures of two houses together, the triads in the Shield Chart, and so forth).  That we call them “Parts” in geomancy is more due to conceptual parallel in what they mean more than how they’re calculated than anything else.

The only other way I can think of to extend the technique of geomantic Parts would be to calculate a new Part based on tallying only the even points in a House Chart and taking the remainder after dividing by 12, which could be worth exploring, but I’m unsure what it might indicate; perhaps using my own tripartite view of the world, if the Part of Spirit (odd points only) indicates the influence of the spiritual Cosmos and the Part of Fortune (odd and even points) indicates the influence of the humane World, then this third unnamed Part (even points only) might indicate the influence of the material Universe.  Who knows?  It might show something of good use in divination, if a pattern can be detected.

Ah, and one final thing, just to finish off the intro to the post regarding the Sum of the Chart.  Instead of tallying up all the individual points of the 16 figures in the Shield Chart, I take a shortcut method: find the odd sum of the chart (odd sum of the House Chart, already calculated for the Part of Spirit, plus the number of odd rows in the four Court figures), find the difference between that and 64, double it, and add it to the odd sum to come up with the total Sum of the Chart.  The reason why this works is much like some of the logic in why the Parts of Fortune and Spirit have to add up to 12 or 24: because each figure has four rows and there are 16 figures, then there are 4 × 16 = 64 total rows of points in the Shield Chart.  Since every row must be even or odd, the number of odd rows added to the number of even rows must add to 64.  Since it’s easiest to find the number of odd rows in the chart after we calculate the Part of Spirit (we just need to take into account four more figures), once we have that number we just subtract it from 64 to get the number of even rows.  Remembering that an even row has two points in it, we double that to get the number of points in the even rows, add to it the number of odd rows (which have only one point in each), and voilà, the Sum of the Chart is yours.