In the European practice of Geomancy, the next step is to generate a house chart. The house chart is a chart taken from Astrology. This is often the reason why Geomancy was called the “Daughter of Astrology” in European works describing Geomancy.

This process is also where you will see some variation of methods. While the shield chart method is old and pretty consistent, the house chart was an innovation with various authors using various methods.

The House chart uses twelve houses. These houses loosely correspond with the 12 signs of the zodiac, but don’t confuse the houses with the signs. They are not the same. While in astrology, the houses can be smaller or greater than 30 degrees, but the order of the houses and their general location never change. In geomancy, there are no degrees, just a format that uses a 12 part division. You can literally use any structure you want to display this division, but most geomancers that I have come across use a classic house chart structure that was used in the middle ages and renaissance. Such as the image in this article.

THE BASIC METHOD

This method is the easiest and most straightforward of methods. Take the shield chart you have already generated. Starting with the 1st mother, that becomes house one, the 2nd mother is house two, the 3rd mother is house three, etc. Continue this until you fill all the houses, ending with the last niece as house twelve. The witnesses and judge and sentence are not placed into the house chart.

AGRIPPA’S METHOD

In the 4th Book of Occult Philosophy, Agrippa lays out a method of placing the figures into the house chart.
The mothers are placed in the cardinal houses, that is houses 1 house 10, house 7, and house 4. These houses are associated with the cardinal directions (house 1 is east, house 10 is south, house 7 is west, and house 4 is north) and so the 1st mother goes into house 1, the 2nd mother into House 10, the 3rd Mother into house 7, and the 4th mother into House 4.

The Daughters are then placed into the Succedent houses.  The 1st Daughter goes into House 2, the 2nd Daughter goes into House 11, the 3rd Daughter goes into House 8, and the 4th Daughter goes into House 5.

It is the Cadent houses where Agrippa diverges from the shield chart, having you generate new figures for the cadent houses. Agrippa indicates that the remaining houses should be derived from their triplicity rulers, that is in Astrology, there are 4 triplicities, based around the elements. The fiery signs of Aries, Leo, and Sagitarrius, The Earth Signs of Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn, the Airy signs of Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius, and the Watery signs of Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces. He applies this to the houses as well. Which Aries, being the first sign, is aligned with the first house, Taurus, the 2nd house, Gemini the third house, etc… This makes an alignment between the houses that the 1st, 5th, and 9th house are the fiery triplicity, the 2nd, 6th, and 10th house are the Earthly triplicity, the 3rd, 7th, and 11th houses are the Airy Triplicity, and the 4th, 8th, and 12th houses are the water triplicity. Agrippa’s reasoning is that this should remain consistent, so to populate the last four houses in the chart using Agrippa’s method as follows::

To fill the 3rd house, you would add together the figures in the 11th house and the 7th house.

To fill the 12th house, you would add together the figures in the 4th house and the 8th house.

To fill the 9th house, you would add together the figures in the 1st house and the 5th house.

To fill the 6th house, you would add together the figures in the 2nd house and the 10th house.

Basically look at the houses that have been filled as part of the triplicity and those two added together create the figure for the remaining triplicity house.
This will create new figures for the cadent houses, which will be different from the figures in the shield chart. There is more that Agrippa does relating to the house chart, but his method is unique in this area, and not commonly found in generating house charts.

MY METHOD

My method is a variation on the Agrippa method. I like the harmony of the Mothers equating the cardinal houses, the daughters being the succedent houses, but creating new figures for the last houses seems awkward to me, especially when you already have 4 figures ready to fill that role from the shield chart, i.e. the nieces. I place the 1st niece into the 3rd house, the 2nd niece into the 12th house, the 3rd niece into the 9th house, and the 4th niece into the 6th house. I feel that this connects the shield and house chart more fully, and I personally find the answers are more accurate, but this is my personal innovation as I didn’t care for the basic method as much. It worked, but it made it easy to predict exactly what figure would go in what house, whereas applying the mothers, daughters and nieces to respective positions in the house chart of cardinal, succedent, and cadent houses just seems very elegant to me.

Additional methods

Just as in the shield chart you could get the sentence, there are some additional methods that you can do with the house chart. These are taken from astrology as well, but are different from their astrological source.

The Index – The Index is an indicator of hidden things in the house chart. Depending upon where in the house chart it is located, or the nature of the question being answered, what the hidden thing indicates will vary. To determine the house location for the Index, you need to take all the single dots in all the figures in the houses and add them together. Once you have that sum, divide it by 12. Whatever the remainder is, that is the house where the index is located. If there is no remainder, then the index is located in the 12th house.

Point of Fortune – This is an indicator of good luck and fortune in the house chart. Similar to the index what that means exactly depends upon the question and where in the chart it is located. To determine this location, you need to add all the points of the figures in the house chart. Take that number and divide it by 12. Whatever is the remainder indicates the house where the point of fortune is located. If there is no remainder, then the point of fortune is in the 12th house.

There is an interesting relationship I discovered between the Index and the Point of Fortune (PoF). They will also be in houses that when added together, make twelve. So, if you have calculated the Index and it is in the 2nd house, the point of fortune will be in the 10th house. This also means that if the Index is in the 6th house, the Point of Fortune will also be in the 6th house, and both will also occupy the 12th house as well. There is also a great tendency for these indicators to usually be in even numbered houses, but I have had an odd numbered house show up on occasion.