Geomancy (地占術 / Ilm al-Raml)
Geomancy (literally 'earth divination') is one of the most widespread divination systems in history, practiced across medieval Europe, the Islamic world, and Africa. It uses 16 figures, each a pattern of single or double dots in four rows.
Shield Chart Derivation
- Four Mothers (四母): Randomly generated by marking dots in sand (or modern random generation)
- Four Daughters (四子): Derived by transposing the Mothers' rows
- Four Nieces (四侄): Derived by adding adjacent Mothers/Daughters
- Two Witnesses (二證人): Derived from adjacent Nieces
- Judge (法官): The primary answer, derived from the two Witnesses
- Reconciler (調解者): Judge combined with Mother 1 for final synthesis
I Ching Parallel
The derivation process mirrors trigram-to-hexagram construction in the I Ching. Both systems use binary generation (odd/even, yin/yang) to build complex symbolic structures from simple random inputs.