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Geomantic Figures

Acquisitio

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Origin 1100 to 1300

Acquisitio (Gain) is one of the sixteen geomantic figures, formed of double Fire, single Air, double Water, and single Earth. It is attributed to the element Fire, the planet Jupiter, and the sign Sagittarius. Its name means acquisition, and it is among the most favorable figures for anything material: profit, gain, success, the getting and keeping of wealth and desired things. Ruled by generous, expansive Jupiter, Acquisitio promises increase, good returns, and the achievement of practical aims. It is especially strong in questions of money, business, and possessions, and generally favorable for undertakings meant to prosper, counseling enterprise and the confident pursuit of gain, though it warns against overreach when it appears with grasping company.

Facts
Origins
Origin Period
1100 to 1300 3Tradition: Latin geomancy, translated from the Arabic
Origin PeriodSourced to the subject's own account
1533 4Tradition: Agrippa, Three Books of Occult Philosophy
Origin Period
800 to 1200 CE 1Tradition: Arabic ilm al-raml, the science of the sand
Origin PeriodSourced to the subject's own account
Acquisitio belongs to the sixteen figure system of geomantic divination whose figures took shape in the Arabic tradition of raml, attested there and in North Africa from the eighth to the twelfth century; the technique reached Latin Europe by the eleventh to thirteenth century, and Cornelius Agrippa set the figures into their now standard planetary and zodiacal correspondences in his Three Books of Occult Philosophy, published in 1533. 4
Place of Origin
North Africa and the wider Islamic world; carried into Latin Europe through the twelfth-century translation movement, chiefly in Spain. 1
Attributed Author / Compiler
No single author. The Latin geomantic corpus is anonymous and pseudonymous, circulating under the names of Hermes, Aristotle, Ptolemy and others, none of whom wrote any part of it. Having no author is itself the fact about this tradition worth recording. 3
Language
Classical Arabic 1
Language
Latin 3
Attributions
Mode (Stable / Mobile)
Stable 2
Modern mainstream Stable/Mobile classification; exact page locator not confirmed against the primary text this pass.
Ruling Planet
Jupiter 1
Zodiac Sign
Sagittarius 1
Figure Points
Fire double, Air single, Water double, Earth single 1
Identity
English Name
Gain 1
Element
Fire 1
Reading Keys
Keywords
Profit, gain, success 1
Partially Attested
Exaltation House (Attributed)
11th house (exaltation) 5
Sourced to the subject's own accountReported exaltation house, attributed to Pietro d'Abano, sourced only through a secondary blog summary. Not a ruling-house claim; see Via's note for the full caveat.
Learn More
The Figure Acquisitio and Its Attributions

Acquisitio, Gain, is one of the sixteen figures of Western geomancy, the divinatory art in which meaning is read from a figure of four rows, each row holding either one dot or two.

The figure and its reading

Its four rows are Fire (two dots), Air (one dot), Water (two dots), Earth (one dot). Geomantic figures are attributed to the elements, the planets and the signs of the zodiac; Acquisitio is assigned to the element of Fire, to Jupiter and the sign Sagittarius. Its traditional divinatory sense is one of profit, gain, success.

These attributions are those of the mature Western tradition set out by writers such as Christopher Cattan (1558) and Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (Book II of the Three Books of Occult Philosophy, 1533), and taken up in the modern revival by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn from 1888. The technique itself is older and reached Latin Europe through translations of the Arabic ilm al-raml, the science of the sand. The figure is described here as an element of that documented tradition.

Acquisitio: The Points, and What Flipping Them Gives

Four rows, each holding one point or two, describe a geomantic figure completely. Everything else is interpretation laid over that.

The pattern

Acquisitio is double, single, double, single, reading Fire, Air, Water and Earth from the top down, six points in all. It is one of the two figures in the set whose rows alternate, heavy and light in strict turn.

Flipping every row

Change each row from single to double and from double to single and Acquisitio becomes Amissio, the other alternating figure. Gain and loss are therefore partners under the operation, and the two are the only figures whose rows never repeat a state twice in succession.

Why the alternation matters

Because the rows alternate, both figures place an active and a passive element next to each other at every step, reading Fire against Air and Water against Earth. Handbooks that reason from the elements make something of this; handbooks that reason from the Latin names largely do not, and the atlas records the structure rather than adjudicating between them.

The attributions are a separate layer

The atlas records a planet, a sign and an element for this figure. Those were attached by the astrological tradition and the Latin sources do not agree in every case, so they are recorded as a tradition with variants. The point pattern above is intrinsic: anyone who draws the figure can count it, and it is the same in every source from the Arabic tradition onward.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Originates in Language

Classical Arabic, Languages
Source Islamic Geomancy and a Thirteenth-Century Divinatory DeviceEmilie Savage-Smith and Marion B. Smith
Latin, Languages
Source Recherches sur une technique divinatoire: la geomancie dans l'Occident medievalTherese Charmasson
Sources
1. Islamic Geomancy and a Thirteenth-Century Divinatory Device
Emilie Savage-Smith and Marion B. Smith, Undena Publications, 1980On ilm al-raml and the sixteen figures before their Latin transmission
2. John Michael Greer, The Art and Practice of Geomancy (2009)
John Michael Greer, 2009
3. Recherches sur une technique divinatoire: la geomancie dans l'Occident medieval
Therese Charmasson, Librairie Droz, 1980On the Latin figure names and the medieval tradition
4. Three Books of Occult Philosophy
Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, Llewellyn, 1533Book II, on the geomantic figures and their planetary and zodiacal attributionsView the Source
5. Nick Farrell, "Geomancy Aspects, Dignity, Occupation, Conjunction, Mutation and Translation" (nickfarrell.it)
Nick Farrell
The Geomancie of Maister Christopher Cattan, Gentleman
Christopher Cattan, John Wolfe, 1591On the figure Acquisitio and its significations
Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy: Of Geomancy
Pseudo-Agrippa; Robert Turner (trans.), J. C. for John Harrison, 1655On the planetary and zodiacal attribution of AcquisitioView the Source

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