Free ‘divine gallery’ art sample – OldWorldGods
(5) GEOMANCY
O sweet spontaneous
earth… how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy knees
squeezing and
buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods…
thou answerest
them only with
spring”
Standing stones, ley lines and feng shui (although technically the latter translates as wind-water)
“Geomancy is a method of divination that interprets markings on the ground or the patterns formed by tossed handfuls of soil, rocks, or sand” – which prompts me to speculate if it had origins in prehistoric tracking.
It might also extend to lithomancy, or divination by stones – or crystals, including scrying into crystals or crystal balls. Or to spelunking for visions in caves – or climbing for them on mountains (oromancy or divination by mountains). Shoutout also to topomancy or divination by geography or geological formations.
As a method of divination, geomancy seems somewhat, well, meh – lacking the versatility, potency or intensity of the other methods of divination in our top ten so far, which begs the question of its ranking above them.
To be honest, part of its top ten ranking was to complete the set of four classical elements – although that still begs the question of why it is ranked over pyromancy, hydromancy and aeromancy. However, the major part of its ranking is more as a school of magic or mysticism – channeling or harnessing the magical or mystical energy of the earth itself.
Of course, there is something of an overlap with divination, but what might be considered a more proactive form of divination – not passively attempting to divine good fortune from physical features, but actively attempting to channel or harness their energy to make good fortune, literally grounding the expression that you make your own luck.
The archetype of this active creation of good fortune is the Chinese tradition of feng shui – “manipulating the flow and direction of energy based on aesthetics, location, and position of objects and buildings”.
At its widest, that archetype of geomancy is extended to things that are broadly dubbed “Earth mysteries” in Western popular culture – including those projected back to megalithic or monumental history or prehistory. The megaliths or standing stones of Europe, pyramids in general and particularly in Egypt, so-called ley lines, and so on.
As a school of magic harnessing the power of the earth itself, geomancy ranks high in potency, even more so if one combines it with actual geology – not to mention such things as earthquakes, volcanoes, lava or earth’s molten core, geological time, tectonic plates, earth’s electromagnetic field, and gravity. Or the metaphorical or symbolic meanings of earth and ground.
RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)