On Astrological and Geomantic Houses

[sdi]

Geomancy borrows houses from astrology, but I think there's an interesting and important difference between them. Astrology is, in some sense, objective: the stars are the same for everyone, and there is one (and presumably only one) correct way to read them. Consequently, it is essential to understand and apply houses in an objective way. Geomancy, by contrast, is subjective: it isn't about understanding the cosmos, it is about communication with another being. Anything goes, as long as you and they agree on it.

So I think it is okay to have an idiosyncratic understanding of the geomantic houses, as long as you and your geomantic spirit share that idiosyncratic understanding. Before I do any geomantic reading, I always negotiate my house assignments with my geomantic spirit in prayer: perhaps three-quarters of the time, they accept my proposal; but the rest of the time they recommend I use a different house, and I think my readings are the stronger for it.

Comments

[sdi]

I've been meditating on this, and hit upon two things.

First, there's another way that this duality can be resolved, and that's that both astrology and geomancy are purely subjective. Subjectivity doesn't necessarily imply that results aren't repeatable. If an artist paints the same scenes over again or uses the same techniques over again, does that imply that their art is objective? Of course not, it simply shows their preferences. Perhaps our world simply enjoys astrology (or any other set of physical systems) working the ways it does, and so expresses it in matter and personalities and so on over and over to explore how it plays out in all its many combinations.

Second, we are taught that there are objective phenomena (natural "laws", physics, chemical processes, etc.) and subjective phenomena (the mind, personalities, the arts, etc.); but this need not be so. We can't readily dismiss subjectivity, but if the universe is a Being and simply repeats itself for the fun and interest of it (and not because "that's the way it works"), then we can (and, by Occam's razor, should) dismiss objectivity as being part of our model of the universe.