In Astrology, and therefore in Geomancy, we distinguish between a friend and an acquaintance, the former being eleventh house matter, the latter seventh house. Obviously, the difference is not as clear cut as it may seem, especially in the age of social media, where all it takes to be someone’s friend is to click on the ‘add’ button.

In the old texts, both of Geomancy and Astrology, we often find examples of how to judge questions like “Will my friends be useful to me?” This may sound callous compared to our sentimental notions of friendship, but keep in mind that 1) the old notion of usefulness was broader back then, and it included everything concerned with the person’s well-being, both inner and outer 2) friends formed part of the person’s network of alliances in tackling the hardships of life 3) the eleventh house is the second from the tenth, which represents heaven, so it represents friends as wealth from heaven. Clearly friends were highly revered (just read Plato, Seneca, Xenophon or even Confucius for proofs).

As I mentioned somewhere else, my husband and I are in the process or moving, and as usual when moving, we suddenly discovered that we own three times more stuff than we thought. One friend volunteered to help us the following day, bringing us boxes and helping us with her car. In the evening though she said she didn’t know if she would make it. I cast a reading to see whether she would come:

Let us forget the Judge for a second and concentrate on the chart. If we take the girl as ‘our friend’ she should be eleventh house, and the eleventh house is occupied by Cauda, which also doesn’t move anywhere.

Now if my mom asked me who she is, I would say ‘a friend’. Yet she is more my husband’s friend. I am just on good terms with her, but I wouldn’t call her to spill my guts or even to ask for help, though it was of course very nice of her to volunteer.

If I take her to be my acquaintance, she is seventh house, and occupied by a more promising Conjunctio, which does spring to the second toward me. And she did end up coming.

The negative Judge, Amissio, possibly refers to the fact that we ended up losing a couple of objects due to recklessness (notice the Via Puncti reaching back to Puer in the fourth house). I also ended up losing a friend to gain an acquaintance, it seems.

MQS