Geomancy

1. Introduction

Version followed: geomancy as described in the European Hermetic revival literature (John Michael Greer, The Art and Practice of Geomancy, Weiser 2009; Stephen Skinner, Geomancy in Theory and Practice, Llewellyn/Golden Hoard, 2nd ed. 2011, which grew out of his Terrestrial Astrology: Divination by Geomancy, Routledge & Kegan Paul 1980) and by the online Collegium Geomanticum course, with the history taken from current academic work on Arabic ʿilm al-raml. The therapist's procedures are clinical practice applied to this material, not a geomantic method. [source: Red Wheel/Weiser; Skyscript review; Llewellyn publisher's description; Cambridge Medical History review record; Collegium Geomanticum Lesson One]

What it is. Geomancy ("earth divination") is a divination system built on sixteen figures. Each figure has four lines, and each line holds one or two dots. Its Arabic name, ʿilm al-raml, means "the science of the sand", because figures were traditionally marked in sand, though paper was also widely used. The practitioner makes four figures by a chance process (the "mothers"). Fixed rules then derive the remaining positions of a fifteen- or sixteen-position chart, and the practitioner interprets the finished chart. [source: Villuendas Sabaté, Cambridge Genizah blog]

History. The technique was first codified in Arabic between the tenth and twelfth centuries. Latin treatises followed from the twelfth century, and current researchers describe geomancy as the only divinatory discipline originally codified in Arabic that passed into medieval and early modern Europe. Hugh of Santalla is credited with using the Latin name in this period. Manuals in Judaeo-Arabic, Hebrew and Arabic survive in the Cairo Genizah, and the Mamluk-era author Ibn al-Maḥfūf is presented as the first author of a standardised geomancy. The manuals answered questions about missing persons, marriage, pregnancy, travel, inheritance, business and politics. The practice has continued without a break among Muslims and Jews in North Africa and the Near East. Related figure-based systems appear in religious ritual on the West African coast and in Madagascar. [source: Villuendas Sabaté, Cambridge Genizah blog; Tübingen DFG project "The Triads of Ibn al-Maḥfūf"; Collegium Geomanticum]

• Madagascar. Sikidy is a sixteen-figure system worked with seeds by a diviner (ombiasa). Its name is traced to an Arabic word meaning "figure". See Domain XI 074. [source: Anona & Rakotondramavonirina 2023]
• West Africa. For Ifá, a living Yoruba religious tradition, see Domain XI 055. Any line of descent between Ifá and Arabic geomancy is beyond this guide [uncertain: not verified].

Current European-revival practice. Skinner's publisher describes geomancy's use in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and its recent revival, including "astro-geomancy", which combines it with astrology [source: Llewellyn publisher's description]. In Greer's version:

• the first twelve figures are placed in the houses of an astrological-style chart;
• the last three figures summarise the answer;
• each figure carries planetary, zodiacal and elemental associations;
• the book adds timing techniques, geomantic meditation, talismans and ritual magic. [source: Skyscript review; Red Wheel/Weiser]

The Collegium Geomanticum teaches students to learn the figures' meanings directly rather than look up "canned answers" in tables. [source: Collegium Geomanticum Lesson One]

The word "geomancy". Practitioners point out that the nineteenth century also used "geomancy" for feng shui and earth mysteries (see XIV 198). This guide covers only sixteen-figure divination. [source: Collegium Geomanticum]

How change happens (therapist's frame). Geomancy claims to answer questions; it is not a theory of psychological change. In therapy, change comes from:

• the client's own reflection on the question they chose, the figures they drew and the meanings they assign;
• the meaning the practice holds in the client's life and community, explored with cultural respect;
• reducing harm where consulting has become compulsive, has replaced the client's own decision-making, or is being exploited by a paid reader. [synthesis]

Evidence status (one line). No published controlled test or systematic review of geomantic prediction is cited here, so its predictive claims rest on tradition and practitioner report and remain unconfirmed by research [uncertain: not verified].

2. Framework

Geomancy has no clinical protocol, and no source gives a session count or format for therapy that involves it. The phases below are a clinical structure for working with a client who uses geomancy. They are [synthesis] throughout.

Phase A: Engagement and cultural assessment

• Goal: learn what geomancy is for this client, in their own words.
• Content:
  • which tradition they follow: a revival-literature practitioner, someone from a North African or Middle Eastern family where raml is practised, a member of a Malagasy or West African tradition, or an online learner;
  • who casts the charts: the client, a relative or a paid reader;
  • how often they consult, and about what.
• Tools: the DSM-5-TR Cultural Formulation Interview (CFI), with its Spirituality, Religion and Moral Traditions module where the practice is part of a religious or moral tradition. [source: APA CFI and Supplementary Modules]
• Move on when: the client feels their practice has been understood without judgement, and you know whether it is a resource, neutral, or a source of distress, compulsion or financial loss.

Phase B: Formulation and differential assessment

• Goal: place the practice in the presenting problem.
• Questions to settle:
  • Is it a coping resource or reflective tool?
  • Is it a way of avoiding decisions?
  • Is it reassurance-seeking within OCD or an anxiety disorder?
  • Is it the doorway through which a paid reader is exploiting the client?
  • Is it entangled with grief, or with psychotic, manic or dissociative experience?
• Move on when: you and the client agree a focus. If the practice is not part of the problem, it may simply be acknowledged and left alone.

Phase C: Focused work

Use one or more of the interventions in section 4:

• reflective use of the client's own charts;
• decision review;
• an ERP-informed plan for compulsive casting, with referral where needed;
• consumer-protection steps;
• grief work.

Move on when the agreed targets are met. For example, decisions are made with values-based reasoning, casting is no longer driven by anxiety, or payments to a reader have stopped.

Phase D: Consolidation

• Goal: the client keeps whatever role geomancy holds for them, now on their own terms.
• Content: relapse signs, such as escalating casting, renewed payments, or letting the chart overrule major decisions.
• Endpoint: therapy ends when the client can name these signs and has a plan for each.

Format: individual sessions. Include family only with the client's consent, for example where relatives run consultations or pressure the client to follow them.

3. Guiding principles

• Describe the practice as its tradition holds it. Use the client's terms (figure, mother, house) with a short gloss, and neither assert nor dismiss geomancy's claims. In practice: ask "what does this figure mean to you?" rather than offering your own view of whether divination works. [synthesis]
• The client's chart is the client's material. Work with readings the client brings, as you would with a dream or a journal entry. In practice: invite associations; do not interpret figures yourself. [synthesis]
• The therapist never casts or reads. You do not generate figures, interpret charts or suggest questions to put to the figures, even if you know the system or are asked. In practice: decline warmly and redirect to the client's own meaning-making. [synthesis]
• Respect living traditions. For many families raml is ordinary religious or cultural practice, and sikidy and Ifá are part of living religious systems. In practice: use the CFI, ask about community norms and authorities, and never treat a culturally normative practice as a symptom. [source: APA CFI; Villuendas Sabaté; synthesis]
• Assess function, not belief. What matters clinically is what consulting does: soothing, deciding, avoiding, compulsion, dependence, loss of money. In practice: map the antecedents and consequences of each consultation. [source: Osborne & Williams 2013 for reassurance cycles; synthesis]
• Keep decisions with the client. In practice: when a chart has decided something important, help the client set out their own reasons alongside it, and let the client remain the author of the choice. [synthesis]
• Watch for money and fear. Claims that someone is cursed, in danger or needs costly ceremonies are recognised scam patterns. In practice: ask routinely who is paid, how much, and for what. [source: Consumer Protection WA; Fraud.org]
• Do not stray into medicine. Neither you nor a reader decides about health care. In practice: route health questions that come up in readings to the client's doctor, and never advise on medication. [source: Fraud.org; synthesis]
• Public outline only for magical components. Revival manuals add talismans, meditation and ritual magic. In practice: discuss what such practices mean to the client, not how they are done, and refer the client to their own teachers or community for practice questions. [source: Red Wheel/Weiser; synthesis]
• Competence and humility. Draw on the 16 spiritual and religious competencies proposed for psychologists (attitudes, knowledge, skills). In practice: seek consultation when the tradition is unfamiliar. [source: Vieten et al. 2013]
• Keep roles separate. A therapist who practises geomancy privately keeps it out of therapy entirely: no readings for clients, no referrals to one's own readings, no self-disclosure that invites them. [synthesis; the APA Ethics Code (https://www.apa.org/ethics/code), Standard 3.05, asks psychologists to refrain from a multiple relationship that could reasonably be expected to impair their objectivity, competence or effectiveness, or that risks exploitation or harm]

4. Intervention inventory

No source gives a published therapeutic use of geomancy, so every intervention below is a clinical procedure applied to geomantic material [synthesis] unless a source is named. None of them involves the therapist casting or interpreting a chart. A full table of figure meanings is not given here; consult the client's own manual and the client's own understanding of it.

4.1 Cultural and personal meaning inquiry (CFI-guided)

• Purpose / when:
  • when a client first mentions geomancy, raml, sikidy or "the figures";
  • when consultations seem to bear on the presenting problem.
  • The aim is to understand the practice as the client lives it before forming any clinical view. [source: APA CFI and Supplementary Modules; synthesis]
• Steps:
  1. Ask permission to talk about the practice, and say plainly that you are asking in order to understand, not to judge.
  2. Use the core CFI domains in your own words: the client's own definition of the problem, perceived causes and supports, cultural identity, coping and past help-seeking, current preferences, and concerns about you as clinician.
  3. Where geomancy belongs to a religious or moral tradition (for example family raml in a North African or Middle Eastern Muslim or Jewish setting, or Malagasy or West African practice), use the Spirituality, Religion and Moral Traditions module. It covers:
     • affiliation and family tradition;
     • how the tradition shapes daily life and decisions such as marriage or schooling;
     • how it has helped the client cope;
     • stresses or conflicts linked to it.
  4. Map the practice:
     • who casts the chart (the client, a relative, a community specialist, a paid reader online or in person);
     • which version (revival manual, family method, traditional specialist);
     • how often, about which questions, at what cost;
     • what happens before and after each consultation.
  5. Summarise back in the client's words and check that your summary is accurate.
• Example language (illustrative):
  • "You mentioned you cast a chart before deciding. Would you be willing to tell me how geomancy fits into your life, and what it gives you?"
  • "In your family, who usually does the reading, and what happens if someone doesn't follow it?"
• Watch for:
  • shame or guardedness, which is a sign to slow down and re-state that you are not judging;
  • your own urge to correct or explain the practice.
  • It's working when: the client explains the practice in their own language, and you can tell whether it is a resource, neutral, or part of the difficulty.

4.2 Reflective use of the client's own chart

• Purpose / when: the client brings a chart they cast themselves, or one cast by a reader they consult, and wants to explore it. The chart is treated as reflective or projective material, like a dream or a journal entry. You draw out the client's associations and do not interpret the figures. [synthesis]
• Steps:
  1. Ask the client to tell you the question they asked and why it mattered now. The Collegium Geomanticum itself advises defining the question and what each answer would mean, and that framing is useful clinically. [source: Collegium Geomanticum Lesson One]
  2. Ask which figure or position stood out, and what it means to the client. The course explains figures through the image in their names, for example Acquisitio with gaining and Carcer with restriction [source: Collegium Geomanticum]. Let the client supply the meaning.
  3. Explore the feelings the chart brought up: relief, dread, permission, disappointment.
  4. Ask how the reading connects to what the client already knew or feared. ("If the figure was pointing at something in you, what would it be?")
  5. Bring the reflection back to the client's own values and next steps, separate from what the chart said.
  6. Optionally, the client can journal the question, the felt response and what actually happened. Practitioners themselves recommend a journal comparing readings with outcomes [source: Collegium Geomanticum]. Use it as self-observation, not as a test of geomancy.
• Example language (illustrative):
  • "You said the figure in that position felt like a door closing. What door?"
  • "Setting aside what the figures say should happen, what do you notice you were hoping they'd say?"
• Watch for:
  • the client asking you to say what the figures mean, which is a cue for 4.9;
  • reflection turning into a fresh round of consulting within the session;
  • readings that predict harm or death, which can frighten a client.
  • It's working when: the client speaks more about their own wishes and fears than about the figures.

4.3 Decision review: when the chart decides

• Purpose / when: a significant choice (relationship, job, travel, money, medical care) has been or is about to be made on a geomantic answer, especially a yes/no one; or the client feels unable to act without consulting. [synthesis]
• Steps:
  1. Name the decision and how the chart was used: as one input, a tie-breaker, or the sole authority.
  2. Ask the client to set out their own reasons for and against, separately from the reading.
  3. Clarify values: what matters most in this choice, and what they would choose if no reading were available.
  4. Compare the reading with the values. Where they agree, the client can own the decision. Where they conflict, explore what the conflict means, including family or community expectations if others cast the chart.
  5. For decisions about health, money given to others, or safety, be explicit: these go to doctors, financial advisers and safety planning, not to readers. [source: Fraud.org on not taking medical or financial advice from fortune tellers; synthesis]
  6. Agree a decision rule for the future that the client chooses. Examples: "read for reflection only on big choices", or "decide first, then cast if I want to".
• Example language (illustrative):
  • "If the chart had come out the other way, would you have been relieved or disappointed? That might tell us something about what you want."
  • "Let's write your own reasons in one column and what the reading said in another, and look at both."
• Watch for:
  • the client hearing your inquiry as an attack on their tradition: re-state your respect;
  • family coercion presented as a reading;
  • urgent health decisions being deferred.
  • It's working when: the client can say why they are choosing, in their own terms.

4.4 Functional assessment of casting frequency

• Purpose / when: the client casts repeatedly, re-casts the same question, or feels compelled to check before ordinary actions. This intervention tells reassurance-seeking within OCD or an anxiety disorder apart from ordinary devotional or reflective use. [source: Osborne & Williams 2013; synthesis]
• Steps:
  1. Ask for a week's log: the trigger, the thought or worry, the question asked, the number of castings or re-castings, the relief felt and how long it lasted, and anything avoided.
  2. Draw the cycle with the client: worry, then casting, then brief relief, then the worry returning. Repeated relief strengthens the belief that the feared outcome or the anxiety would otherwise have occurred, and the client never gathers evidence against it. [source: Osborne & Williams 2013]
  3. Check for related compulsions: other divination, online searching, asking others, mental reviewing.
  4. Screen for OCD and anxiety disorders with your usual clinical assessment, and assess impairment and distress.
  5. Label helpful versus unhelpful consulting together. Unhelpful consulting is frequent, driven by anxiety, gives short-lived relief, and is hard to stop.
• Example language (illustrative):
  • "When you cast the same question a third time, what were you hoping would happen to the worry?"
  • "Let's track it for a week, just observing, no need to change anything yet."
• Watch for:
  • shame about the frequency;
  • concealment of paid consultations;
  • the log itself becoming a ritual.
  • It's working when: the client can describe the cycle and sees its cost.

4.5 ERP-informed plan for compulsive casting (or referral)

• Purpose / when: the assessment in 4.4 points to compulsive reassurance-seeking, within OCD or an anxiety disorder. The International OCD Foundation (IOCDF) names exposure and response prevention (ERP) as an effective treatment, alongside medication. Refer to an ERP-trained clinician if you are not trained. [source: IOCDF fact sheet; Osborne & Williams 2013]
• Contraindications and safety:
  • Defer the plan, or refer first, during active psychosis or mania, high suicide risk, or a current crisis.
  • Do not set exposure tasks that require a client to break a religious obligation. Where geomancy is part of the client's faith, agree targets that the client and, if the client wishes, their community see as excess, not observance. [synthesis]
  • Medication questions go to the prescriber. [synthesis]
• Steps:
  1. Obtain informed consent after explaining the rationale: resisting the compulsion lets anxiety fall by itself and lets the client learn that the feared outcome does not follow. [source: Osborne & Williams 2013, "label it, leave it, stand up to it"]
  2. Build a graded list of situations, from easiest to hardest. Examples: making a minor choice without casting; delaying a casting; not re-casting a question already asked; making a moderate choice without consulting.
  3. Start low and pace slowly so anxiety has time to fall. Agree each step with the client, with no surprises. [source: Osborne & Williams 2013]
  4. Response prevention: the client agrees not to cast, re-cast, ask others or mentally review during and after the exposure. Name all the substitutes, including apps and online readers.
  5. Debrief each exposure: what the client predicted, what happened to the anxiety, and what they learned.
  6. With consent, involve family members who answer reassurance requests, agreeing a consistent, kind response. [synthesis; the source names others' behaviour as a maintaining factor]
• Example language (illustrative):
  • "This week's step is choosing the route to work without a reading, and noticing the worry rise and fall. If it's too much, we'll go smaller."
  • "The urge to cast again is part of the cycle we mapped. You don't have to argue with it, just let it be there."
• Watch for:
  • covert substitutes (mental casting, other divination);
  • rising depression;
  • the client experiencing ERP as an attack on their faith.
  • If stuck, review maintaining factors: other people's behaviour, medication, low mood. [source: Osborne & Williams 2013]
  • It's working when: casting frequency falls, anxiety settles faster, and the client makes everyday choices without it.

4.6 Costs and exploitation screen with paid readers

• Purpose / when: the client pays a reader, in person, by phone or online, or reports being told they are cursed, in danger or in need of ceremonies.
• Recognised patterns [source: Consumer Protection WA; Fraud.org]:
  • a low-cost first reading;
  • curse or "bad energy" claims requiring payment;
  • reports that a removal attempt failed, followed by demands for more money;
  • pressure, and predictions that set up later "investment" pitches;
  • targeting of people who appear troubled, and of particular ethnic, national or religious communities.
• Steps:
  1. Ask routinely: who reads for you, what does it cost, how much this month and this year, and have you been told anything is wrong with you, your family or your luck?
  2. Ask about secrecy, deadlines, fear-based predictions and requests for valuables or large sums.
  3. Reflect the pattern without shaming the client.
  4. Support practical steps:
     • stopping payments;
     • keeping records;
     • involving a trusted person;
     • contacting the bank;
     • reporting to the appropriate consumer-protection body. Examples: WA ScamNet in Western Australia; Fraud.org's complaint form in the US; the FTC, or UK Action Fraud and Trading Standards [uncertain: not verified].
  5. Where cognitive impairment or coercion is suspected, follow your adult-safeguarding procedures. [synthesis]
  6. Keep the client's own relationship to geomancy separate from the fraud: the problem is the exploitation, not the practice.
• Example language (illustrative):
  • "Many people who see readers never have a problem, but some are told they're cursed and asked for more and more money. Has anything like that happened?"
  • "Feeling frightened enough to pay isn't foolish. That fear is exactly what these schemes use."
• Watch for:
  • shame and minimising;
  • fear that stopping payment will bring harm;
  • pressure from the reader;
  • the client being told to stop medical treatment. Route this straight to their doctor. [source: Fraud.org]
  • It's working when: payments stop and the client's fear eases.

4.7 Grief and readings

• Purpose / when: the client casts or commissions readings about a dead person, or about loss ("will they come back", "was it my fault"). [synthesis]
• Steps:
  1. Explore what the client hopes the reading gives them: contact, permission, absolution, certainty.
  2. Validate the grief and the wish to know.
  3. Gently assess guilt, complicated grief and suicidal thinking, using standard risk assessment.
  4. Screen for exploitation, as in 4.6.
  5. Move toward grief work the client chooses, which may include their own religious mourning practices.
• Example language (illustrative): "When you asked the figures about him, what were you most hoping to hear?"
• Watch for:
  • readings used to avoid the reality of the loss;
  • escalating paid consultations;
  • hopelessness.
  • It's working when: the client can talk about the person and the loss directly.

4.8 Differential assessment without pathologising

• Purpose / when: the client reports unusual experiences linked to geomancy: messages from the figures, felt presences, or effects of the meditation, talisman or ritual-magic material in revival manuals. Or consulting coincides with marked changes in mood, sleep or functioning. [source: Red Wheel/Weiser for the manual content; synthesis]
• Steps:
  1. Establish what is normative in the client's tradition, using the CFI and, with consent, community informants.
  2. Assess:
     • psychotic features (fixed beliefs beyond the tradition, hallucinations, functional decline);
     • mania (rapid escalation, grandiosity, little need for sleep);
     • dissociation;
     • OCD and scrupulosity;
     • complicated grief.
  3. Discuss ritual or magical components only at the level of meaning and context. Refer practice questions to the client's teachers or community.
  4. Where a religious or spiritual problem is the focus without a mental disorder, it can be recorded under ICD-10-CM Z65.8, Other specified problems related to psychosocial circumstances (includes 'Religious or spiritual problem') [source: ICD-10-CM Z65.8, Unbound Medicine]; DSM-5-TR's own wording for this category is [uncertain: not verified].
  5. Refer urgently for psychiatric assessment where psychosis, mania or risk is present.
• Example language (illustrative): "In your tradition, is it usual for the figures to feel as if they're speaking to you, or is this new?"
• Watch for: in yourself, a bias toward pathologising unfamiliar practice, or dismissing real symptoms as "just cultural".
  • It's working when: you have a formulation the client recognises.

4.9 Declining to read: holding the boundary

• Purpose / when: the client asks you to cast, read or check their chart, or learns that you know geomancy. [synthesis]
• Steps:
  1. Acknowledge the request as meaningful.
  2. Decline clearly and briefly, explaining that your role is to help them think, not to answer through divination.
  3. Explore what the request is about: certainty, reassurance, wanting you on their side.
  4. If you practise geomancy personally, do not disclose it as a credential. Never read for current or former clients, and do not refer clients to your own readings or courses.
  5. Seek consultation about any dual role. [synthesis; see APA Ethics Code Standard 3.05 on multiple relationships, https://www.apa.org/ethics/code]
• Example language (illustrative): "I'm not going to read the figures for you. That's not my role here, and I think your own sense of this matters more. What would it settle for you if I did?"
• Watch for:
  • the client feeling rejected: repair warmly;
  • repeated requests, which may be reassurance-seeking (4.4).
  • It's working when: the client turns back to their own reflection.

4.10 Community and specialist liaison

• Purpose / when: the client wishes to involve a religious leader, family elder or traditional specialist, for example a Malagasy ombiasa (Domain XI 074) or an Ifá priest (Domain XI 055). This may be to resolve distress, to separate observance from excess, or for support. [source: Anona & Rakotondramavonirina 2023 for the role of ombiasa; synthesis]
• Steps:
  1. Act only with the client's explicit, written consent, agreeing what will be shared.
  2. Clarify the purpose of the contact.
  3. Respect the community's authority on religious questions, and keep clinical judgement on risk and safeguarding.
• Example language (illustrative): "Would it help to have someone from your community you trust help us think about which parts of this are your tradition and which parts are the worry?"
• Watch for:
  • pressure the client feels from the community;
  • safeguarding concerns that override confidentiality.
  • It's working when: the client feels supported by both sources of help.

4.11 Family-cast readings and relationship conflict

• Purpose / when: a relative, elder or partner casts charts, or commissions a reader, about the client's marriage, travel, schooling, work or health and expects the result to be followed; or the client and their family disagree about geomancy itself. The medieval manuals answered questions about marriage, pregnancy, travel, inheritance and business [source: Villuendas Sabaté, Cambridge Genizah blog]; where such questions are still put to the figures today, family authority can be involved [synthesis].
• Steps:
  1. Explore the client's own position: whether they share the practice, what they want, and what following or not following the chart would cost them in their family. The CFI Spirituality, Religion and Moral Traditions module covers how traditions shape family events and whether they have contributed to conflict [source: APA CFI Supplementary Modules].
  2. Use the Social Network module topics: whom the client trusts, what others believe about the problem, how they respond, and whether they should take part in care [source: APA CFI Supplementary Modules].
  3. Separate the reading from the decision-making structure: who in the family normally has a say in this kind of decision, quite apart from the chart. [synthesis]
  4. With the client's consent, offer a family session focused on a shared goal, such as the client's wellbeing, not on whether geomancy is valid. [synthesis]
  5. Assess for coercive control: threats, financial control, isolation, or pressure towards a marriage the client does not want. Where these are present, put safety first and follow local safeguarding and legal routes. [synthesis]
  6. If the client wishes, involve a respected religious or community figure (4.10).
• Example language (illustrative): "It sounds as if you respect your aunt's readings, and you also don't want this marriage. Could we look at both of those, rather than choosing between them?"
• Watch for:
  • being drawn into taking sides against the family;
  • risk to the client at home if what they say in therapy becomes known;
  • pressure from a relative presented as "what the figures say".
  • It's working when: the client can state their own wishes and has a plan for the family conversation that keeps them safe.

4.12 Children and young people

• Purpose / when: a young person casts charts anxiously or compulsively, is frightened by a reading about them, or adults are using readings to decide a child's health care, schooling or safety.
• Steps:
  1. Obtain the carers' consent and the young person's assent, in line with their age and local law. [synthesis]
  2. The CFI has a supplementary module for school-age children and adolescents; use it alongside the core interview [source: APA CFI Supplementary Modules].
  3. Ask the young person directly what the figures mean to them and how they learned the practice: from family, a community specialist, an online course or social media.
  4. Where anxiety or OCD drives the casting, work on family accommodation, for example parents casting again or answering the same question on request. SPACE (Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions), developed by Eli Lebowitz at the Yale Child Study Center for anxiety disorders and OCD, teaches parents supportive statements and how to chart and gradually reduce accommodation; the child does not need to attend [source: Katz 2018, CHADD Attention]. Karr also recommends SPACE for young people's reassurance-seeking [source: Karr, IOCDF blog].
  5. A reading never replaces assessment for developmental or mental-health concerns. Refer for assessment where needed. [synthesis]
  6. Follow child-protection procedures where care is refused or delayed because of a reading, where a child is frightened by curse claims, or where a child is treated harshly because of a chart. [synthesis]
• Example language (illustrative): to a young person: "Some people your age find a reading helps them think, and some find it makes them more worried. Which has it been for you lately?" / to a parent: "When he asks you to cast again, you might say, 'I can see you're really worried, and I know you can handle not knowing,' and then leave it there."
• Watch for:
  • parents' shame or defensiveness about family practice;
  • a young person's secrecy and fear that everything will be passed on (agree confidentiality limits at the start);
  • accommodation returning under a new form.
  • It's working when: the young person has been assessed where needed, accommodation is falling, and decisions about the child are made on welfare grounds.

4.13 Online courses, apps and digital consulting

• Purpose / when: the client learns or consults geomancy online, for example through an online course (the Collegium Geomanticum teaches one [source: Collegium Geomanticum Lesson One]), chart-generating apps or websites, online readers, forums, or AI chatbots asked to interpret charts. Karr describes digital reassurance-seeking through searching, apps, AI chatbots, forums and social media; chatbots are always available and keep reassuring, and online anonymity makes it easier to seek reassurance about shameful fears [source: Karr, IOCDF blog].
• Steps:
  1. Map every digital channel, and its cost: course fees, subscriptions, per-reading charges.
  2. Note whether a tool makes instant re-casting possible, and compare its use with the log from 4.4. [synthesis]
  3. If use is compulsive, add the digital routes to the hierarchy in 4.5. Karr's practical steps include delaying the urge with a timer and lengthening the delay gradually, walks without the phone, breaks from social media that start short and build up, and writing out the worst case without seeking reassurance [source: Karr, IOCDF blog].
  4. Treat pressure or curse claims from an online reader as in 4.6.
  5. If the client feels a close, one-sided bond with an online teacher or reader, explore what that person represents for them, without mocking the attachment. [synthesis]
• Example language (illustrative): "With the app on your phone, how many charts would you say you cast on a hard day?"
• Watch for:
  • switching between apps, websites and chatbots as one route is limited;
  • late-night use and lost sleep;
  • private messages offering paid personal readings or curse removal.
  • It's working when: digital consulting is something the client chooses, and they know what it costs.

4.14 When the client reads for others

• Purpose / when: the client casts charts for friends, family or paying clients and feels responsible for their outcomes, is distressed by frightening charts cast for others, or is pulled into other people's crises. [synthesis throughout]
• Steps:
  1. Explore the role: a hobby, a recognised role in the family or community, or a paid business.
  2. Explore the emotional load: guilt after bad outcomes, being contacted at all hours, people asking about health, legal or money matters.
  3. Help the client set limits they choose: which questions they will not take (health, for example), when they are available, and how they point people to doctors or other services.
  4. Plan with the client how to direct a person in crisis (suicidal, bereaved or being exploited) to proper help.
  5. If the client fears they have caused harm through a reading and cannot let go of the fear, assess for OCD (4.4).
  6. If they read for payment, suggest they check the consumer law that applies where they work.
• Example language (illustrative): "When a chart you cast for a friend comes out badly, what happens for you afterwards?"
• Watch for:
  • guilt about others' misfortunes that has the repetitive, unshakeable quality of OCD;
  • no limits on availability;
  • the client bringing other people's charts to therapy for your view (4.9).
  • It's working when: the client can describe their limits and feels less responsible for outcomes they do not control.

4.15 Referral and collaboration

• Purpose / when: the client's needs go beyond your competence or remit, or another service holds information or authority you need.
• Steps:
  1. Map the routes: a clinician trained in ERP, which the IOCDF names as an effective OCD treatment [source: IOCDF fact sheet]; psychiatry for psychosis, mania or medication questions; grief services (4.7); banks, debt advice and consumer-protection bodies (4.6); adult or child safeguarding (4.11, 4.12); religious or community figures the client chooses (4.10).
  2. Explain the reason for referral in terms of what consulting is doing in the client's life, not in terms of their beliefs. [synthesis]
  3. With written consent, share only what the receiving service needs, and describe the practice in neutral terms in any letter. [synthesis]
  4. Where a religious or spiritual problem is the focus without a mental disorder, record it as in 4.8.
  5. Follow up that the referral was taken up. [synthesis]
• Example language (illustrative): "I'd like you to see a colleague who specialises in this kind of worry cycle. It's not about your tradition; it's about the casting that feels out of your control."
• Watch for:
  • the client hearing referral as rejection or as a verdict on their tradition;
  • referral letters that pathologise belief.
  • It's working when: the client takes up the referral and understands why it was made.

4.16 Ending and relapse planning

• Purpose / when: the focused work is complete (Phase D). [synthesis throughout]
• Steps:
  1. Review with the client what has changed: casting frequency, decisions, spending, family relationships.
  2. List the client's own warning signs, for example escalating casting, re-casting one question, renewed payments, letting the chart overrule major decisions, or a new reader claiming a curse.
  3. Agree a first step for each sign, such as returning to the log (4.4), a planned exposure (4.5), or stopping payments (4.6).
  4. Agree the client's chosen relationship to geomancy from now on, whether reflective study, family observance, a pause or stopping, and respect it.
  5. Tell the client how to come back if the signs return.
• Example language (illustrative): "Looking back, what would tell you that the casting was starting to run things again? And what would you do first?"
• Watch for:
  • ending while payments to a reader or family coercion are unresolved;
  • a plan written in your words rather than the client's.
  • It's working when: the client can name their warning signs and the first step for each.

5. Handling problems

No geomantic source addresses therapy problems. The guidance below is [synthesis] unless a source is named.

• The client wants you to confirm or refute geomancy. Say you are not there to judge whether divination works, and that you are interested in what it means and does for them. Then return to function (4.4) or meaning (4.1).
• The client is stuck: every decision waits on a chart. Shift from discussing readings to discussing the decision itself (4.3). Set small, low-stakes choices made without consulting as a behavioural experiment, framed by the client's goals, not as a challenge to their belief.
• Resistance to ERP framed as faith.
  • Separate observance from excess with the client and, if they wish, their community (4.10).
  • Never target required religious practice.
  • If the client cannot draw the line, slow down, revisit the cycle map, and target only the casting the client experiences as unwanted.
• Non-adherence: covert casting during response prevention.
  • Treat this as information, not failure.
  • Review the urge, the substitute behaviour and what made the step too hard.
  • Lower the step on the hierarchy and agree on substitutes in advance. [source: Osborne & Williams 2013 on pacing and maintaining factors]
• Overwhelm after a frightening reading (death, illness, betrayal, a curse).
  • Ground first; assess risk and any health action needed.
  • Explore the client's own understanding of how certain the reading is within their tradition.
  • Check whether a paid reader is using fear (4.6). Route any health concern to a doctor.
• Rupture after you decline to read (4.9). Acknowledge the disappointment, explain that the boundary protects their own judgement and your role, and invite them to say how it felt. Do not reverse the boundary.
• Your own reactions. Notice dismissiveness, fascination or unease. Seek supervision, particularly if you practise divination yourself. Draw on the spiritual and religious competencies framework. [source: Vieten et al. 2013]
• Shame and secrecy about money lost. Normalise: these schemes target distressed people and specific communities [source: Fraud.org]. Give practical reporting routes (4.6) and pace disclosure.
• Family pressure. Relatives may cast charts about the client's marriage, travel or schooling and insist they be followed. Use the CFI module topics on family decisions and conflict. Explore the client's own wishes. Offer family sessions only with consent, and assess for coercive control. [source: APA CFI Supplementary Modules; synthesis]
• Children and young people. If a child's medical care, schooling or safety is being decided by readings in ways that cause harm, or a child is being frightened by readings, follow safeguarding procedures. A reading never replaces assessment for developmental or mental-health concerns. Seek the child's assent and the carers' consent for any assessment.
• The client uses the revival manuals' magical practices (talismans, ritual magic) and reports distress. Discuss meaning and effects only, do not advise on practice, assess as in 4.8, and suggest they consult their own teachers or community. [source: Red Wheel/Weiser for the manual content]
• Confusion with feng shui or "earth energies". Clarify which practice the client means. Sixteen-figure divination is distinct from the nineteenth-century use of "geomancy" for earth mysteries [source: Collegium Geomanticum]. For feng shui see XIV 198.
• Psychosis, mania or high risk emerges. Pause reflective work and arrange psychiatric assessment and safety planning. Return to the practice's meaning once the client is stable.
• The family insists the client follow a chart against their wishes. Work through 4.11. Assess safety before any family session, and do not arrange one if the client would be at risk.
• A young person's casting worsens when parents try to stop it. Coach parents to neither accommodate nor antagonise, using supportive statements and gradual reduction of accommodation [source: Katz 2018, CHADD Attention; Karr, IOCDF blog] (4.12).
• The client is distressed by a chart they cast for someone else. Separate the client's responsibility from the other person's outcome, and assess for OCD if the guilt will not settle (4.14).
• Relapse after ending. Treat a return of compulsive casting or payments as information, not failure. Return to the client's plan (4.16) and to the last step of the hierarchy that worked (4.5).

Sources

• The Triads of Ibn al-Maḥfūf: tracing the origin of Arabic geomancy and its reception in Europe and beyond (University of Tübingen, DFG project)
• Throwback Thursday: What does the future hold? (B. Villuendas Sabaté, Cambridge University Library Genizah Fragments blog, 2022 repost of a 2014 article)
• Lesson One: Introducing Geomancy (Collegium Geomanticum)
• The Art and Practice of Geomancy (Red Wheel/Weiser publisher page)
• Review of Greer, The Art and Practice of Geomancy (N. Gryphon, Skyscript)
• Review of Skinner, Terrestrial Astrology (M. Winder, Medical History 26(1), 1982, record only)
• Skinner, S. Geomancy in Theory & Practice, Llewellyn edition (publisher's description).
• Anona, M. & Rakotondramavonirina, J. (2023). Mathematical Aspects and Beliefs about Divination by Sikidy in Madagascar. Revista Latinoamericana de Etnomatemática 16, 45–56
• IOCDF Fact Sheet (International OCD Foundation)
• Osborne, D. W. S. & Williams, C. J. (2013). Excessive reassurance-seeking. Advances in Psychiatric Treatment 19(6), 420–421
• Commissioner's blog: Beware the misfortune tellers (Consumer Protection WA)
• 'Blessings' scams preying on vulnerable guidance-seekers (Fraud.org, National Consumers League, 2017)
• DSM-5-TR Cultural Formulation Interview (American Psychiatric Association)
• DSM-5 Cultural Formulation Interview Supplementary Modules (American Psychiatric Association)
• Vieten, C. et al. (2013). Spiritual and religious competencies for psychologists. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality 5(3), 129–144 (Institute of Noetic Sciences page)
• Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (APA)
• ICD-10-CM Z65.8, Other specified problems related to psychosocial circumstances (includes 'Religious or spiritual problem')
• Digital reassurance seeking in OCD (J. Karr, IOCDF blog)
• SPACE: A parent-based intervention for reducing childhood anxiety (M. Katz, CHADD Attention, June 2018)

Books cited:

• Greer, J. M. (2009). The Art and Practice of Geomancy: Divination, Magic, and Earth Wisdom of the Renaissance. Weiser Books.
• Skinner, S. (1980). Terrestrial Astrology: Divination by Geomancy. Routledge & Kegan Paul.
• Skinner, S. (2011). Geomancy in Theory & Practice (2nd ed.). Llewellyn / Golden Hoard Press.

Cross-references: Domain XI 074 (sikidy), Domain XI 055 (Ifá), XIV 198 (feng shui).