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Geomantic Figures

Puer

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Origin 1100 to 1300

Puer (the Boy) is one of the sixteen geomantic figures, formed of single Fire, single Air, double Water, and single Earth, sometimes pictured as a man with a raised weapon. It is attributed to the element Fire, the planet Mars, and the sign Aries. Its name means boy or youth, and it signifies rash energy, drive, passion, aggression, and headlong action. Ruled by martial Mars, Puer is favorable for matters requiring courage, force, initiative, and swift attack, such as war, competition, and ardent love, but unfavorable where calm, patience, tact, or stability is needed. It counsels bold and direct action while warning of impulsiveness, conflict, and the recklessness of unripe strength.

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
Puer 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)
Mobile 2
Modern mainstream Stable/Mobile classification; exact page locator not confirmed against the primary text this pass.
Ruling Planet
Mars 1
Zodiac Sign
Aries 1
Figure Points
Fire single, Air single, Water double, Earth single 1
Identity
English Name
The Boy 1
Element
Fire 1
Reading Keys
Keywords
Energy, conflict, drive 1
Partially Attested
Exaltation House (Attributed)
6th 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 Puer and Its Attributions

Puer, the Boy, 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 (one dot), Air (one dot), Water (two dots), Earth (one dot). Geomantic figures are attributed to the elements, the planets and the signs of the zodiac; Puer is assigned to the element of Fire, to Mars and the sign Aries. Its traditional divinatory sense is one of energy, conflict, drive.

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.

Puer: The Points, and What Flipping Them Gives

A geomantic figure is four rows, each holding one point or two, and that is the whole of what the figure is before anyone interprets it.

The pattern

Puer is single, single, double, single, reading Fire, Air, Water and Earth from the top down, five points in all. A single heavy row sits third from the top, with light rows above it and one below.

Flipping every row

Change each row from single to double and from double to single and Puer becomes Albus. The traditional readings of the two, drive and conflict against peace and clarity, look like opposites, but the atlas records the pairing as a fact about the points and not as a claim that the tradition intends the two to be read together.

The name and its framing

Puer means boy. The handbooks read the figure as energy without judgement, initiative, and a readiness for conflict, often in explicitly martial terms. As with Puella, the early modern glosses carry the assumptions of their period in their wording. The atlas records what the tradition says and where it says it, and does not reproduce the framing as though it were the atlas's own reading.

The attributions

The planet, sign and element recorded for Puer elsewhere in the atlas come from the astrological tradition laid over geomancy after it reached Latin Europe. Those assignments differ between sources. The point structure is intrinsic, identical in every handbook that carries the figure, and can be checked by counting.

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 Puer 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 PuerView the Source

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