Back to Index / Next

Fludd discusses how we may know that geomancy works, and why we should consider it a science of the soul.

1. The Science of Geomancy is the True Act of the Intellectual Soul

Before we speak of the properties of geomancy and of divination from the east (to be discussed later in a separate book), we think that it is appropriate to deal with its essence here, which we will clearly illustrate with sufficiently probable reasons.¹

If we consider the origin of this science, we will certainly perceive that it is a very occult and internal science,² wherefore it is that common men, paying attention only to their senses, habitually blather that this art is merely accidental, foolish, and empty, and has nothing of value to it. In reality, men endowed with a strong imagination are able to grasp the reason of this secret knowledge, and to behold or perceive it with their spiritual eyes, since its consideration passes the limits of ordinary reason.³

In fact, if we try to account for the effects in this science, the work will surely be arduous and painful. Indeed, who, even among the commoners, would not regard him as a foolish man, who, upon seeing a servant carrying out the commands of his master, would wish to inquire about the master’s secret plan and intention and, wanting to know and explore them from that servant, he would directly answer thus: “My Lord usually commands this or that; so, however, that he does not in the same way indicate the account of the mandate to his executors or servants.”⁴

Thus we receive the feeling of life in a wonderful manner from the higher planes,⁵ while, however, as to its source, vehicle, and reason, men usually only reason from the effect by conjectures, and do not know or have anything certain. Similarly the divine mind produces wonderful effects in man and acts marvelously, while, however, the obstacle of the flesh and the mind prevents us from correctly knowing the reason of these actions. The mind therefore acts upon the intellect, and the intellect patiently fulfills the acts of its ruler, and yet the principal cause is hidden in the center of the mind, that is, in the divine word.⁶

Similarly a Lord hands his money to his servant, that he may take it to such and such a city: yet the servant does not understand what his Lord intends to do with such money, since the reason is hidden in the heart of the Lord. that is, of the mind. Thus the intellect and reason impel the imagination to bear and carry the impressions of its king, that is, the mind.

In a similar manner the servant puts his master’s money into the cart, so that he may carry the master’s burdens into the visible world; and in this way also the horses draw the cart to the city. Yet in the meantime reason or imagination or sense do not understand the intention of the mind any more than a servant or a cart, or the horses perceive the secret and hidden will of their Lord. However, human reason can conjecture better than imagination or sense,⁷ just as even a servant may in a certain way imagine and conjecture to reach the conception of his master, if he wishes to have nothing certain.

From these considerations it is evident, therefore, that just as we cannot know God except a posteriori,⁸ so also we do not perceive or understand the mind or the reason of its actions, except from the effect. Moreover, from its effect, the Artists⁹ understood that this knowledge was true and admirable, inasmuch as by means of it the future and the present, even the unknown things of the past, were discovered in a wonderful divine manner.

But if fools wish to penetrate to the center of this act, that is, to the unity and the point of the mind itself, they will indeed waste their time, since there is a level beyond reason and understanding, to which no one can ever reach, unless he takes off his bodily abode: it is sufficient, therefore, that we know the monk by his tunic, and the art by its effect.

And so this knowledge is divine, because it allows one to divine, which is close to prophecy, because through it the mind, by its own power, performs, although weakly, that which it is accustomed to perform at other times (but more powerfully and clearly because of the multitude of higher rays coming to us at the same time) united and conjoined with the divine mind.¹⁰

And hence, considering it in the proper manner, we see that the human mind is of the same essence of which the divine mind is, since it usually performs the same to a lesser degree as it performs in a greater one: for a greater power produces a greater effect, and consequently a smaller one also a smaller effect.¹¹

Man’s mind, being at the receiving end of the divine rays, if only it is preserved from the harm of the body and flesh, and is not clouded by darkness, or is not affected by the allurement of the senses,¹² can pour out its prophetic power into a sensible effect, and perform miracles, the effects of which are indeed unaccounted for. It is no more possible to account for this, than it is possible to recognize the nature of prophecy itself.

2. Why Geomancy Is Considered an Absurd and Silly Science Among the Ignorant

Those who are ignorant are wont to esteem this knowledge of the soul absurd and ridiculous, since they think that it flows out and proceeds from points made by the movement of the hand.¹³

But the wise and the learned could answer them easily that there is nothing certain, nor any constant resolution in the mind of man, to execute this or that thing, or to set out to seek this or that place on such a day, and yet that the mind of man is somehow made up, and man accomplishes this regardless of all hindrance.¹⁴

Therefore, even though the movement of the hand, constituting points corresponding to the disposition of the mind in its certain number and proportion, appears to accomplish nothing in the projection of the points,¹⁵ yet many things are concealed under the multitude of points: namely, the prediction of the soul itself, driven by the ethereal and elemental vehicles of the Microcosm, as far as the twelve signs, the seven planets, and the four elements,¹⁶ and their powers are hidden under such points.

For as the mind and intellect could not descend into man without the aforesaid vehicles of the Macrocosm, so also nothing real and essential proceeds from the mind, as from its origin, except through these means.

This movement is therefore not accidental, inasmuch as it proceeds from the human soul, which is the complete essence of man,¹⁷ and acts essentially and by itself, unless it is hindered by the accidents of the flesh and the senses.

In this way we also say that the mineral nature of lead and iron tends in its essence to the nature of gold: but by accidents, that is, it is hindered by impure sulphur, so that it cannot reach the goal set by nature.¹⁸

But the ignorant will reply that such impediments always happen to the body, because of the impurity of the flesh and the error of ignorance. This, then, should at least be granted: That the more the rays of the mind are impeded in their motion by the pollutions of the body, the more the effect of its action is weakened, just as when a cloud is interposed between our eye and the solar rays, so that the rays cannot penetrate to our sight, and hence their manifest effects are removed.

MQS

Footnotes

1. As will be seen shortly, Fludd says his reasonings are “sufficiently probable” because there cannot be true certainty in this science, though this is not, for him, a negative thing, but rather a feature of its mystical origin. ↩︎
2. “scientiam valde occultam et internam.” The word ‘occult’ here is probably to be simply understood as ‘hidden’. ↩︎
3. The word ‘imagination’ here is not to be mistaken as ‘fancy’. Imagination is treated as a valid aid to understanding. ↩︎
4. This sentence, like many in Fludd’s writings, is exceedingly convoluted. The metaphor of the servant carrying out the master’s order runs through this section. In this first instance, the general sense (provided my translation is correct) seems to be that asking for proofs about something too mysterious in the same way one would ask for them in everyday matters is useless. ↩︎
5. literally “from the superior things”. The translation “from the superior planes” probably sounds a touch too modern, but it clarifies the idea. ↩︎
6. This sentence cannot be understood without reference to Fludd’s Neoplatonic view of the world, which, like all forms of Neoplatonisms, sees the universe as a series of spheres of emanation which find their correspondence in the microcosm of man. The universe, like humans, finds its center in the divine. ↩︎
7. That is, we can arrive at probable conjectures, even though we cannot be sure. ↩︎
8. ‘a posteriori’ is a philosophical term which means, broadly speaking, that we know something from its effects in our concrete experience, rather than from abstract logical reasoning (‘a priori’) ↩︎
9. Probably in reference to the ancient geomancers. ↩︎
10. Divination, therefore, is but a step down from prophecy. The reference to ‘rays’ is Fludd’s way of conceptualizing our relationship with the Divine, as if the divine world sent rays to us, and the more we receive of these rays, the more we approach God in his power and ability (such as seeing the future). ↩︎
11. Again, this is to be seen within the context of Fludd’s Neoplatonism, whereby the Microcosm of man is like a small replica of the Macrocosm and, indirectly, of God. ↩︎
12. Neoplatonism’s relationship to the material world of senses is ambivalent. Generally speaking, the material world is seen as the last emanation, and therefore as a final concretization of the divine worlds above it. Therefore, it is good in so far as it comes from a divine source, but it is seen as corrupt because, being the last stretch of being before the abyss of nothingness, in it the perfection of the divine plane is obscured, both in nature and within humanity (through bad behavior). ↩︎
13. That is, the ignorants believe that geomancy’s powers reside in its exterior signs rather than in the inner chain that links those signs to the divine source. ↩︎
14. This metaphor seems a bit obscure. Possibly, its meaning is that, just like our external behavior is inconstant and unpredictable, and yet the mind manages to force us to accomplish clear results, so the inner mechanism that makes geomancy work can create meaning in a bunch of hand gestures and lines and points. ↩︎
15. The points are those traced during the ‘inspired’ section of a geomancy session. ↩︎
16. All these are the universal symbols that allow us to derive meanings from the geomantic figures. ↩︎
17. The human soul is not a random fragment of life animating a body. It is a universal power which is found whole within each of us, and is impeded in its manifestation by our imperfect nature to various degrees. ↩︎
18. This paragraph is a reference to the alchemical and chemical beliefs of the time, and similar statements can be found in many alchemical texts. ↩︎