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Geomantic Figures

Rubeus

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Origin 1100 to 1300

Rubeus (Red) is one of the sixteen geomantic figures and the reverse of Albus, formed of double Fire, single Air, double Water, and double Earth. It is attributed to the element Water, the planet Mars, and the sign Scorpio. Its name means red, and it signifies passion, turbulence, danger, vice, and things hidden or corrupt, the heat of Mars turned inward and unruly. Rubeus is generally an unfavorable and ominous figure, associated with anger, lust, deceit, and destructive impulse, and it is ill for most honest undertakings; some geomancers count it, with Cauda Draconis, among the figures that spoil the house they fall in. It is favorable chiefly for matters that are themselves dark, hidden, or destructive, and otherwise counsels caution and self-restraint.

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
Rubeus 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
Scorpio 1
Figure Points
Fire double, Air single, Water double, Earth double 1
Identity
English Name
Red 1
Element
Water 1
Reading Keys
Keywords
Passion, danger, vice 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 Rubeus and Its Attributions

Rubeus, Red, 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 (two dots). Geomantic figures are attributed to the elements, the planets and the signs of the zodiac; Rubeus is assigned to the element of Water, to Mars and the sign Scorpio. Its traditional divinatory sense is one of passion, danger, vice.

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.

Rubeus: The Points, and What Flipping Them Gives

A geomantic figure is four rows of one or two points. That description is complete, checkable and identical across the tradition.

The pattern

Rubeus is double, single, double, double, reading Fire, Air, Water and Earth from the top down, seven points in all. One light row sits second from the top among three heavy ones.

Flipping every row

Change each row from single to double and from double to single and Rubeus becomes Puella. Its colour partner Albus pairs instead with Puer, so the two colour figures are not each other's partners under the operation. That is a genuine mismatch between the naming and the structure, and it is worth knowing about before reading any handbook that treats paired figures as commentaries on one another.

The reputation

Rubeus has the worst reputation of the sixteen in the Latin handbooks, glossed as passion, danger, deceit and vice, and several authors instruct the reader to discard a chart in which it falls in a particular position. That instruction varies between books and is a rule of practice rather than a property of the figure, so the atlas records that the rule exists and that its form is not consistent, rather than stating one version of it.

The attributions

The planet, sign and element recorded for Rubeus elsewhere in the atlas belong to the astrological layer, vary between sources, and were not derived from the points.

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 Rubeus 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 RubeusView the Source

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