Geomancy

More than any other object of historical and anthropological study, Islamicate occult science cuts to the quick of what it means to be modern, to be Western, to be scientific. Yet nowhere else are 19th-century colonialist metaphysics and materialist cosmology more firmly entrenched. The piecemeal, truncated study of “Magic in Islam” to date has thus of-ten been pursued in service of either scientistic or religionist agendas, whereby magic can only ever be failed science or apolitical religion, and Islam can never be the West; Islamic Magic as simply Western and often imperial Science-and-Religion is thereby utterly disappeared from historiographical purview. And even those Islamicist historians of science and historians of religion who eschew ideology in favor of rigorously empirical philology, the majority, have tended to favor outsider, polemical discourses over insider, practitioner ones, and “classical” sources over “postclassical,” resulting in bizarre historiographical distortions and the disenchanting sanitization of Islamicate societies past and present. This manifesto therefore proposes a way out of this dire epistemological and ethical bind. To re-store Islamic Magic to its rightful place in Western intellectual and cultural history, especially history of science, we must take far more seriously the panpsychist cosmology on which it is predicated, and realize that our own reflexive materialism commits us willynilly to a colonialist agenda that is, ironically, both antireligious and antiscientific.

La géomancie est une technique divinatoire par la terre pratiquée quotidiennement par un très grand nombre d'ethnies d'Asie mineure, d'Afrique du Nord, d'Afrique noire de l'Ouest et du Nord-Est, de Madagascar et des Comores. Chacune de ces ethnies réengendre pour son compte, selon des normes anthropologiques et sociales spécifiques, économiques, historiques, rituelles, mythiques, gestuelles, sémantiques,

Ms. Dar al-kutub 193 est-il une source des impressions d'Al fasl fi usul 'ilm al raml réalisées au Caire ? Oui, elle l'est partiellement. Dans la mesure où, par une collation sur la page de titre, celles-ci disent s’appuyer sur plusieurs manuscrits anciens et où le manuscrit examiné ici semble être une copie égyptienne relativement récente, on peut raisonnablement formuler l’hypothèse de l’existence d’autres copies égyptiennes non encore signalées. Les différences entre les manuscrits soulèvent le problème de l’identification du véritable texte de Zanati et montrent la nécessité d’une édition critique de son ouvrage, qui constitue une référence majeure en géomancie dans le monde arabe, de même qu’en Afrique subsaharienne. Ce qu’assurent en tous les cas ces impressions, c’est bien la transmission d’une géomancie classique à nos contemporains.

This paper reexamines the cultivation legends that currently exists in Liuk Tui Hakka settlements and attempts to discuss the fengshui practices involved. This paper also explores how the Chinese traditional fengshui culture is emphasized through the discursive practice of the cultivation legends and how the fengshui culture constructs the context and content of the community’s locality. Specifically, according to the narrative of the Liuk Tui cultivation legends, it’s obvious that the formation and development of the settlement’s spaces are not merely changed according to its environmental landscape. The spatial development is also influenced by the inspiration, recognition, and interpretation of fengshui culture, the actual practices of the fengshui masters, and the acknowledgment and reaction to fengshui culture among the general public. The interaction between settlement spaces and geomancy fengshui, in particular, reflected that the environmental knowledge of local residents has gradually developed into a multiple and complex spatial practice. Therefore, it is important to examine how the fengshui culture was acknowledged and practiced among different settlements of Liuk Tui under its social-geometrical-historical context. Through the distinctive literature genre of “legends”, how was the discursive practices of the fengshui culture which is identifiable, understandable, and applicable been developed is an essential prerequisite. Lastly, this paper also inquires what “locality” meaning does the fengshui practices based on cultivation legends produced and constructed. These observation and inquiries will help highlight the fengshui culture in Liuk Tui settlement and demonstrate the continuing changes and transformation of the application of the cultivation legends according to the local demands, which greatly influenced the settlement’s development.

Losbücher, in denen der Leser durch Würfeln oder über ein Losrad zu einem bestimmten Losspruch geleitet wird, wurden in der germanistischen Forschung bislang vor allem als mantische Wahrsagetexte wahrgenommen. Die wesentliche Leistung dieser handschriftenzentrierten kulturhistorischen Studie ist es, dieses Verständnis als Fortschreiben des christlich-theologischen Magiediskurses des Mittelalters zu dekonstruieren. Der Blick in die Handschriften zeigt vielmehr, dass Losbücher nur selten als magisch-mantische Texte ausgegrenzt wurden, sondern als astrologische oder unterhaltende Texte gelesen werden konnten, in die christliche Glaubenspraxis integriert wurden und sogar im Sinn einer Mahnung vor der Wechselhaftigkeit des irdischen Glücks zu einer christlichen, jenseitsorientierten Lebensführung anleiten sollten. Das Buch bietet neben einer Textsortenanalyse die Edition des Würfellosbuchs ‚der morgen stern‘ und einen Katalog der 53 Losbuchtexte des Manuskriptzeitalters sowie der 50 bekannten deutschsprachigen Losbuchhandschriften.

Geomancy – divination by earth – ranks alongside the tarot, astrology and the I Ching as a major form of divination. Since the Renaissance it has largely fallen out of favour for want of generally available information on its practice. This is the first and most comprehensive book in English to cover the full historical background and practice of divinatory geomancy, and will therefore be invaluable to all those interested in divination, magic and astrology. It is the only complete history in any language, covering geomancy's various manifestations in different cultures, as well as being a practical manual showing how to cast and interpret geomantic figures. Drawing on material from Latin, French, German and Arabic manuscript sources, Stephen Skinner explores the roots of geomancy in the Islamic raml divination of northern Africa, which lead to Fa, Ifa and voodoo divinatory practices on the West Coast and sikidy in Madagascar. He examines the impact Islamic geomancy had on medieval Europe, where it rose to prominence and became, after astrology, the prime method of divination. The part it played in Renaissance thinking and in the great astrological revival of the nineteenth century is followed by an examination of its use in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and its declining influence in the twentieth century only to be revived again in the last decade. Western geomancy, by the way, is not, and never has anything to do with, feng shui. The second section of the book is concerned with the practice, manipulation and generation of geomantic figures as standardized in Europe, and gives practical examples as a guide to the interpretation and practice of the art.

This is a book about "sites of power" in the historical region of Franconia, in southern Germany. The sacred or "energetic" sites are described from various perspectives, comprising history of religion, church history, cultural history, geomancy and ritual theory, with an occasional view to paranormal phenomena at the sites.
The book is designated to be a guide for visits and further exploration of these sites. 
Körner, Wolfgang (editor); Murr, Wolfram (photographer), co-authors: Andreas Busse; Hans Georg Ernst; Haringke  Fugmann; Sieglinde Hicke; Alfons Lamprecht; Ana María López; Dunja Schütz; Katharina Marga Seyfferth; Herbert Stahl; Werner Stirnweiß.
Schesslitz, 2017: Vivita Verlag (2. rev. ed.)

Everyone knows to what extent language depends on norms agreed upon by men in a given linguistic community. It is also recognised that languages are highly influenced by exchange between different linguistic communities. But language also depends on its ability to translate into words life-sustaining information it receives from its natural environment. To find out how this happens, this paper takes an “ethnoecological” look at glossopoiesis in ancient Ireland. It focuses in particular on Poetic “nature study” arguing that this specialised ecological knowledge had the effect of synchronising the Gaelic tongue to the rhythms of the land the gaelophone community lived upon. But the influence of Poetic wisdom on ordinary language wasn’t direct. It operated via a special, extra-lexical speech (bérla fortchuide na filidh). This paper explores the ways this speech influenced and even constitutes the Gaelic language.

Feng-shui konsep worldview vernacular terbukti dapat bertahan ribuan tahun hingga sekarang. Tulisan ini bertujuan menelusuri awal konsep fengshui, sehingga dapat dipahami falsafah dasarnya. Analisis ditelusuri secara hermeneutik mengacu pada naskah kuno Zang shu; 葬書; 葬书; Kitab Penguburan, dikatakan sebagai karya Guo-pu 郭璞 (276-324 CE), dari masa dinasti Jin Timur; Dong Jin; 东 晉;(317-420). Buku ini diyakini merupakan awal pertama kali sejarah istilah feng -shui 风水 diuraikan secara tertulis (merupakan sourcebook). Hasil penelitian ini mengungkap bahwa feng-shui sekarang telah bertransformasi menjadi sangat beragam aliran. Manfaat dari penelitian ini agar para praktisi dapat memiliki pembanding dalam penerapan masa kini. Melengkapi tulisan ini dilampirkan terjemahan Zang shu; dalam bahasa Inggris.

Di e ti betisc h e Geomanti e beruht im Wesentlichen darauf, topographische merkmale eines Geländes zu deuten. Dabei spielen die eigenschaften und der nutzen von Wasser naturgemäß eine zentrale Rolle. beeinflusst von chinesischem und indischem Gedankengut hat sich auf dem Dach der Welt eine eigene Form der Landschaftsinterpretation entwickelt. Einer der bedeutendsten Texte zur tibetischen Geomantie, das Vaidurya dkar po aus dem 17. Jahrhundert, beschäftigt sich auch mit dem Wasser. Oben: Wasser in Windungen und aus einem verschmutztem Tümpel (2. und 3. Bild v. l.), Wasser aus einer Quellen in Form einer Scheidenöffnung und eines Afters (die beiden letzten v.r.). Unten: Wasser aus einer Quelle, die wie ein Mund aussieht (2. v. r.). Abb.: bSb, Cod. tibet. 897 und Cod. tibet. 896 DiE AUTOriN Prof. Dr. Petra Maurer ist wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin der Kommission für zentral-und ostasiatische Studien, wo sie das Wörterbuch der tibetischen Schriftsprache betreut. Sie ist Professorin für Tibetologie an der LMU München. Ihre Forschungsschwerpunkte sind sino-tibetische Divinationskalkulationen, Medizin und Pferdeheilkunde, tibetische Lexikographie sowie die Kulturgeschichte Tibets. beide Abb.: bSb, Cod. tibet 897 und Cod. tibet. 89

Un viaggio iniziatico attraverso l’antica saggezza degli Oracoli e la loro storia. Dalla geomanzia, ovvero la Grande Madre dell’Astrologia, fino ai misteriosi Orixà della tradizione afro-brasiliana, e il lancio delle conchiglie. Viene trattata anche la Tasseomanzia, ovvero la lettura delle foglie del tè e dei fondi di caffè. Il tutto unito da prove pratiche che guidano all’interno di questo misterioso e affascinante viaggio nel mondo degli Oracoli.

Divination by dropping shells is addressed in this paper through the analysis of the case of a female practitioner working in S.an‘a’, the capital of Yemen. This divinatory practice is also found elsewhere in the country, particularly in Rada‘, Ma'rib, in the Tihama, and probably in Hadramawt. It generally goes by the name of wad‘—a metonymy, as a wad‘a is either a porcelain shell or a cowrie shell and, by extension, refers to other kinds of seashells, particularly those with the shiny appearance of cowries, such as olive and marginella shells. When commenting on the casts, there is a ‘‘language’’ one needs to master to interpret the items from the basket containing the seashells, understood
as signs. It is important to emphasize the traces of anthropomorphization of
the cowrie that are not related to the vulva.

In the Persianate world, the formative fourteenth to sixteenth centuries witnessed an occultist arms race, as it were, for messianic and sacral forms of political legitimacy, which reached a crescendo with the approach of the Islamic millennium (1592 CE). As in any arms race, ruling dynasts eagerly cultivated professional specialists in the relevant field-to wit, the art and science of walāya, 'sacral power'. The Mongol destruction of the reigning, but brittle, caliphal-sultanic-jurisprudential model of Islamicate societies in the mid-thirteenth century had created a vacuum of legitimacy into which rushed this Shi'i-sufi quicksilver category, far more flexible and adaptable than the model it replaced, and it soon became hegemonic throughout the Persianate world. Securing access to this sacral power became a driving concern of ruling and scholarly elites, whether by way of sufism, occultism or Alidism, and often eclectic combinations of all three.

D'origine discutée, la géomancie est un art divinatoire pratiqué en Afrique subsaharienne depuis des siècles. S'exprimant sans voix, mais à l'aide de signes tracés sur le sable -d'où son appellation fréquente de science du sable- et sur des surfaces planes, cet art vise à indiquer les voies à suivre en cas de dilemmes socio-religieux. En s'adaptant en Afrique, la géomancie s'est débarrassée de tout carcan scripturaire, trouvant comme modes d'expression uniques sable, cailloux et plateau de divination. Ce dernier, véritable objet de culte du prêtre devin et symbole d'oracle, est devenu de nos jours un objet de convoitise en raison de sa valeur artistique conférée par la demande européenne. Ainsi déplacé, l'objet géomantique devient d'abord un objet de curiosité puis un objet d'art, professant d'autres prophéties.
Il s'agit essentiellement de poser la question du déplacement du sens (prophétique) à travers ces œuvres et leur réception. Par là, la question du langage et de l'herméneutique de l'objet de divination devient centrale. Les plateaux de divination, sortis de leur milieu, tels des prophètes hors de leur pays, peuvent-ils livrer des messages ? A quels genres de prédictions s'attendre ?
On commencera d'abord par présenter la géomancie africaine (origine, forme et usages), puis on procédera à l'examen des plateaux de divination comme lieux d'expression prophétique avant de s'interroger sur la réception de ces objets géomantiques en Europe.

D'origine discutée, la géomancie est un art divinatoire pratiqué en Afrique subsaharienne depuis des siècles. S'exprimant sans voix, mais à l'aide de signes tracés sur le sable -d'où son appellation fréquente de science du sable- et sur des surfaces planes, cet art vise à indiquer les voies à suivre en cas de dilemmes socio-religieux. En s'adaptant en Afrique, la géomancie s'est débarrassée de tout carcan scripturaire, trouvant comme modes d'expression uniques sable, cailloux et plateau de divination. Ce dernier, véritable objet de culte du prêtre devin et symbole d'oracle, est devenu de nos jours un objet de convoitise en raison de sa valeur artistique conférée par la demande européenne. Ainsi déplacé, l'objet géomantique devient d'abord un objet de curiosité puis un objet d'art, professant d'autres prophéties.
Il s'agit essentiellement de poser la question du déplacement du sens (prophétique) à travers ces œuvres et leur réception. Par là, la question du langage et de l'herméneutique de l'objet de divination devient centrale. Les plateaux de divination, sortis de leur milieu, tels des prophètes hors de leur pays, peuvent-ils livrer des messages ? A quels genres de prédictions s'attendre ?
On commencera d'abord par présenter la géomancie africaine (origine, forme et usages), puis on procédera à l'examen des plateaux de divination comme lieux d'expression prophétique avant de s'interroger sur la réception de ces objets géomantiques en Europe.

The divinatory art of geomancy (ʿilm al-raml), Arabic answer to the I Ching, was third in popularity only to astrology and oneiromancy throughout the premodern Islamo-Christianate world, and is still widely practiced today from Iran and Yemen to west Africa and Madagascar. Despite its ubiquity among scholarly and ruling elites, however, the reflexive scholarly elision of occultism from Islamicate intellectual and cultural history means that this science has been very poorly studied beyond its reception by Europe. This holds especially true for the early modern Persianate world: in the wake of the occultist renaissance that swept the Islamicate heartlands from the late 8th/14th century onward, geomancers emerged as influential fixtures at Mughal, Safavid and Ottoman courts, and geomancy, offering detailed knowledge of past, present and future, was widely lionized as a means for controlling history—yet the subject remains almost untouched. And despite its status as a mathematical occult science predicated on a neoplatonic-neopythagorean system and animated by the twin principles of correspondence and secondary causation, its importance to the history of science has likewise only been recognized in its European context. Extending the work of Emilie Savage-Smith, Marion B. Smith and others, I therefore provide the first survey, necessarily tentative, of the development of geomantic theory and practice in the persophone world from the 7th/13th century onward, when Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī (d. 672/1274) inaugurated a specifically Persianate geomantic tradition for the benefit of his Mongol patron Hülegü. With Ṭūsī as precedent, geomancy went on to exercise some of the best minds of the early modern Persianate world as a mainstream occult-scientific tradition, and enjoyed a crescendo of popularity in the 10th/16th century with the approach of the Islamic millennium. After sketching the development of the eastern geomantic tradition, then, I identify the philosophical-scientific reasons for its great vitality and cultural prestige down to the present, with particular attention to authors on geomancy like Luṭf Allāh Nīshāpūrī Samarqandī (fl. 812/1409), Sharaf al-Dīn Yazdī (d. 858/1454), Shams al-Dīn Khafrī (d. 942/1535) and Hidāyat Allāh Munajjim-i Shīrāzī (fl. 1001/1593), court geomancer to Emperor Akbar at the turn of the millennium.

This book aims at contributing to better understand a divination technique, Geomancy, that enjoyed great popularity during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The volume focuses on the complexity of this science and the mysteries of its origins, noting the great scope of its expansion and the richness of its texts as a source for the social history. The volume offers the transcription of unpublished manuscripts both in Hebrew and Arabic script, with a Spanish translation. A description of other Arabic Geomancy treaties in Hebrew script that have survived in several collections of Judaeo-Arabic manuscripts is also available in this book.

The late 8th/14th century saw a renaissance of high occultism throughout Islamdom—a development alarming to puritan scholars. This includes Ibn Ḫaldūn, whose anti-occultist position in the Muqaddima is often assumed to be an example of his visionary empiricism; yet his goal is simply the recategorization of all occult sciences under the twin rubrics of magic and divination, and his veto persuades more on religious and social grounds than natural-philosophical. Restoring the historian’s argument to its original state of debate with the burgeoning occultist movement reveals it to be not forward-thinking but rather conservative, fideist and indeed reactionary, as such closely allied with Ibn Qayyim al-Ǧawziyya’s puritanical project in particular; and in any event, the eager patronage and pursuit of the occult sciences by early modern elites suggests that his appeal could only fall on deaf ears. That it also flatly opposed the forms of millennial sovereignty that would define the post-Mongol era was equally disqualifying. I here take Šaraf al Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī, Ibn Ḫaldūn’s younger colleague and fellow resident in Cairo, as his sparring partner from the opposing camp: the Timurid historian was a card-carrying occultist and member of the Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ network of neopythagorean-neoplatonic-monist thinkers then gaining prominence from India to Anatolia via Egypt. I further take geomancy (ʿilm al-raml) as a test case, since Yazdī wrote a tract in defense of the popular divinatory science that directly rebuts Ibn Ḫaldūn’s arguments in the Muqaddima. To set the stage for their debate, I briefly introduce contemporary geomantic theory and practice, then discuss Ibn Ḫaldūn’s and Yazdī’s respective theories of occultism with a view toward establishing points of agreement and disagreement; I also append a translation of Yazdī’s tract as a basis for this comparison.

In Matthew Melvin-Koushki and Noah Gardiner, eds., Islamicate Occultism: New Perspectives, special double issue of Arabica, 64/3-4 (2017), 287-693: 346-403

Historic documents indicate that during the Yarlung dynasty (AD 620–AD 842), Tibetan emperors employed geomantic and magical practices in the design and siting of important religious structures. Geomantic magic was used to control indigenous demons that inhabited the land thereby obstructing the introduction of Buddhism and the building of Buddhist temples and monasteries.
In the present article the Jokhang and Tradruk temples and Samye monastery are assessed from a landscape archaeology perspective with the aim of identifying geomantic and magical practices in their design and layout. New findings are presented. to include sitings relative to dragon veins, the use of deadly feng shui arrows, and the suppression of demons using ritual phurbas, vajras, and magical mandalas. The demon suppressing methods discussed represent a blend of indigenous Tibetan magic combined with beliefs and practices from China and India. The result was a unique and powerful magico-religious tradition that endures even today.

La ragion di Pitagora: un calcolo onomantico in un codice fiorentino del sec. XIII 1 Per una descrizione del codice cfr. Bertelli 2002, pp. 134-5 (n° 79). V. anche la nuova ed. esiste una grave incoerenza tra la partizione dello zodiaco in 28 mansioni, adottata nell'apparecchio onomantico, e il successivo indifferenziato ritratto dei nati in Ariete, che risponde alla più consueta divisione in 12 segni; (2) se la trattazione proseguiva col medesimo passo, e se la copia non rimase in tronco, [il ms.] doveva contare almeno altre sei carte». 12 Cfr. Bertelli 1999, pp. 28-32, con la tav. IV 13 È probabile che i numeri arabi abbiano messo un po' in difficoltà il copista: così p. es. la cifra 8 è tracciata con il ductus di una g minuscola. 14 Doppia abbreviazione: p con l'asta discendente tagliata e sormontata da un titulus ondulato. 15 e corretta su a. 16 Da notare la forma plurale dell'agg., che in tutto il Corpus TLIO trova un unico confronto: «E le sperule adunque, e li calami di quello, erano ogni cosa lavorate d'oro purissimo» (Negroni 1882, p. 441, r. 7). CDP XX = Codice diplomatico pugliese. 20, Le pergamene di Conversano I (901-1265), a cura di G. Conoglio, Bari, Società di Storia Patria per la Puglia, 1975. Ceccoli-Lorenzi-Pollidori 1991 = U. Ceccoli-F. Lorenzi-V. Pollidori, Un programma per la redazione del Vocabolario Storico assistita dal calcolatore, in Cazalé Bérard 1991, pp. 107-30. Cella 2003 = R. Cella, I gallicismi nei testi dell'italiano antico (dalle Origini alla fine del sec. XIV), Firenze, Accademia della Crusca. Cella 2008 = R. Cella, L'epistola sulla morte di Tesauro Beccaria attribuita a Brunetto Latini e il suo volgarizzamento, in A scuola con ser Brunetto: indagini sulla ricezione di Brunetto Latini dal Medioevo al Rinascimento. Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi (Basilea, 8-10 giugno 2006), a cura di I. Maffia Scariati, Firenze, SISMEL-Edizioni del Galluzzo, pp. 181-206. Cella-Giuliani 2008 = R. Cella-M. Giuliani, Polirematiche nell'italiano antico: strutture e trattamento lessicografico, in Prospettive nello studio del lessico italiano. Atti del IX Congresso SILFI (Firenze 14-17 giugno 2006), a cura di E. Cresti, Firenze, Firenze University Press, pp. 547-54. Charmasson 1980 = T. Charmasson, Recherches sur une technique divinatoire: la géomancie dans l'Occident médiéval, Genève-Paris, Droz-Champion. Cherubini 1839-43 = F. Cherubini, Vocabolario milanese-italiano, Milano, dall'Imp. Regia Stamperia, 4 voll. Chiappelli 1925 = L. Chiappelli, Un Carteggio di parte nera, «Bullettino dell'Istituto Storico Italiano», 43, pp. 1-74. Chiari-Ghisalberti 1957 = A. Manzoni, Tutte le opere. Poesie e tragedie, a cura di A. Chiari e F. Ghisalberti, Milano, Mondadori, pp. 129-62. Chiesa 2012 = P. Chiesa, E codicibus. Un archivio elettronico di testi latini medievali inediti, «Filologia mediolatina», 19, pp. 435-8. Ciasca 1927 = R. Ciasca, L'Arte dei Medici e Speziali nella storia e nel commercio fiorentino dal secolo XII al XV, Firenze, Olschki. Ciavarini 1896 = Statuti anconitani del mare, del terzenale e della dogana, a cura di C. Ciavarini, Ancona, Morelli. Cifuentes 2006 = Ll. Cifuentes i Comamala, La ciència en català a l'Edat Mitjana i el Renaixement,

Les Touaregs pratiquent un type de géomancie qui, bien que présentant quelques analogies formelles avec la géomancie arabe traditionnelle, semble avoir évolué selon une logique différente. Le travail du devin consiste à faire apparaître, à six reprises, un couple de nombre dont il détermine la parité. Quatre combinaisons peuvent apparaître : pair-pair, pair-impair, impair-pair, impair-impair. Il consigne le résultat en traçant une figure à côté de lui, chacune de ces combinaisons étant représentée par une figure donnée. Il renouvelle six fois cette opération, obtenant ainsi une séquence de six figures qui doit se lire de droite à gauche. Son travail consiste à interpréter ce qu'il « lit ». On a essayé, dans cet article, de déterminer les principes qu'il utilise pour cette lecture. Il semble que la séquence se lise comme une sorte de phrase. L'une des figures (impair-impair) a un statut spécifique, puisqu'elle représente toujours une action ou un processus, tandis que la signification des autres dépend de leur position dans la séquence: selon cette position, elles représenteront le sujet, l'objet, ou les circonstances de cette action.
Ce chapitre, sous une forme développée, a été intégré à mon livre Le hasard mode d'emploi (https://www.academia.edu/67412091)

While preparing a descrip!on of a thirteenth-century Psalter manuscript from Sinai, Codex Sinai!cus gr. 66 (Ra 1831), I encountered an unusual commentary on sixteen prognos!c figures, formed by dots, in the ini!al folios of the codex.[i] These folios were probably added to the manuscript during the sixteenth century along with the prognos!c figures, which are found on the verso of every folio in the Psalter. The func!on of these figures is to provide a kind of oracular knowledge to readers who may access it by selec!ng at random a specific folio of the Psalter. The commentary and the figures are part of a man!c apparatus applied to the whole manuscript by a prac!!oner who must have been well acquainted with the medieval method of divina!on called geomancy. In geomancy, sixteen pa"erns of dots (called σχήματα in the Greek tradi!on) were inscribed on a surface such as sand, the ground, or the pages a book. These pa"erns were considered heavenly signs that offered predic!ons and advice to those who were seeking for an answer to a personal issue. Each of the figures has a special meaning, offering either a posi!ve or a nega!ve predic!on for the life of the individual who consults them. For instance, a person who would like to know whether he is going to conquer his enemies could obtain a predic!on for either victory or defeat, depending on the figure that is found on any par!cular folio of the Psalter. This method was especially popular in the Arabic world and was likely transmi"ed to the Greeks and to the West through the Arabs. It is therefore not accidental that the applica!on of such a man!c method appears in a Sinai!c manuscript, since the Sinai monastery always had a close rela!onship with Arabs. The Arabic scribal notes that are o*en found in the margins of Sinai!c manuscripts a"est this close rela!onship. An interes!ng ques!on that s!ll needs to be explored is why this method was found in a monas!c context? Since the official church condemned the prac!ce of magic, did the monks prac!ce it secretly?[ii]

The studies of prehistoric settlements, submerged in the Varna’s lakes have began in 1921 year with the trenching of the channel between the Varna and Beloslav lake. Then Shkorpil brothers have discovered the first submerged settlement. They have defined it as a pile-dwelling. During the second half of the XX century in the construction of the coal pier of TPP- Varna, of Transtroy Company and other construction activities for industrial sites along the south and north shore of the lakes, near them or into them, have been found numerous remains of similar settlements.  So far, 13 settlements under the waters of the Varna Lake are known. There is no similar complex elsewhere upon the earth. Much more data on the sunken settlements are available from the region of the Shipyard, the channel between the Devnya and the Varna Lake, the western edge of the sandy line of the island, under the new (Asparuhov) bridge, etc. Discovered until now submerged settlements along with their controversial dating are:
1 - south side of the channel to the old bridge - Eneolithic and Bronze Age
2 - before the current factory “Hristo Botev” - Bronze Age (?)
etc...

This contains the Table of Contents and the Bibliography from the Purple Mountain edition of vol. 0 of the Vision and the Voice.  These are historical and technical essays regarding the reception of the Vision and the Voice and its contents.

For an animal that is not widespread on the Tibetan Plateau, and has never lived in large numbers at high altitudes, tigers make a surprisingly large and diverse number of appearances in Tibetan divination and especially geomancy. This article looks at the various roles these animals play and tries to explain how they ended up in Tibetan
divinatory texts. The article begins with a brief introduction to Tibetan Geomancy (sa dpyad) and the culturally complex and ambivalent terminology used to describe it. It will explain the relationship between Chinese geomancy or fengshui 風水 and Tibetan geomancy, describing the elements of the Chinese tradition that are essential to understanding the Tibetan concept of sa dpyad. Some of these findings are not new, but will be presented in a new light and for the sake of completeness. The second part of the article will deal with the various contexts in which the tiger is introduced in the Tibetan tradition and look at the Tibetan adaptation of the Chinese geomantic theories associated with it. These theories include the spatiotemporal model of contrasting or  complementary forces related to four animals that are the dragon, bird,
tiger and turtle. The topographical forces specifically significant in geomancy are called “dragon and tiger”. The main part of the study refers to chapter 32 of the White Beryl (Vaiḍūrya dkar po) written by Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho (1653-1705), the Fifth Dalai Lama’s regent. The article also refers to other traditions such as the writings of Kong sprul blo gros mtha’ yas (1813-1899). This extraordinarily learned Tibetan scholar transmitted a tradition of Tibetan geomancy, which focused on “dragon and tiger” to distinguish topographical characteristics. After these explanations, the article will describe the tiger’s astrological
and divinatory functions more broadly and the symbolism of the tiger more generally. It will show the tiger’s descriptive or metaphorical use in topographical explanations, and its application and function in rituals related to Tibetan geomancy.

"Centerquest throughout the traditional Chinese cultural
realm was and is characterized bv its unique system of
divination through skilled surveying and Interpretation
of landform. It is this surveying system and its underlying
theory that Western writers often refer to as "'Feng-shui,'
or 'Chinese geomancy .... 'Topomancy' and 'terrestrial
astrology' are less commonly encountered English-language
terms for Feng-shul. Geomantic surveyors in China and
Korea, ideally scholar-technicians educated in the Confucian
classics, are termed 'geomancers' by Western writers.
Chatley's (1917:175) succinct and accurate definition
for Chinese geomancy is: 'The art of adapting the residences
of the living and the dead so as to co-operate and harmonize
with the local currents of the cosmic breath.' In practice,
geomantic surveying attempts to 'center' human residences
exactly where "cosmic breath" concentrates. For this
reason, geomancy is regarded here as 'centerquest' … ."

I examine how modern cartography may support the traditional perception of the Chinese landscape by studying the rendition of that environment as far away from China as geographically possible. I discuss the ways in which map-readers can combine the metaphors of geomancy and modernity when they compare the maps that Chinese scientists have compiled on King George Island, Antarctica. Connotations, suggestions and discrepancies in the naming of the island features play a crucial role in my construction of a coherent system for the ancient interpretation of a newly built landscape. I can therefore explain how the metaphorical cartography of a site has assisted in creating a cultural environment that has subjectively displaced the physical environment of insular Antarctica.