Chart Information
Cast By: The Querent.
The Four Mothers: Puer · Caput Draconis · Fortuna Minor · Via.
Permalink: View This Chart on Geomancy.Tools.
Preface
A young man entered into a relationship with a divorced woman who already had several children. His mother strongly opposed the relationship. She wanted to choose a wife for him herself and forbade him from marrying the woman.
Several months later, the woman told him that she was pregnant with his child. She eventually gave birth to a girl. The man had doubts about his partner’s honesty, but he made a decision: if the child was truly his, he would defy his mother and remain with the woman.
The relationship later fell apart, and the two ended up living in different countries. Several years passed, but the question of paternity continued to trouble him. He knew that somewhere far away there was a girl who might be his daughter, yet he had no practical way to obtain a DNA test. The distance made it difficult, and his relationship with the girl’s mother had never recovered.
He therefore turned to geomancy and asked:
Is this girl my biological daughter?
The Querent and the Quesited
The querent is represented by Puer in the first house.
The quesited is the girl whose paternity he wishes to establish. Whether or not she is biologically related to him does not affect the choice of house: children belong to the fifth house in either case. The girl is therefore represented by Puella in the fifth house.
The symbolism is strikingly literal:
- Puer means “boy” and is the natural significator of a man.
- Puella means “girl” and is the natural significator of a woman or daughter.
In reception, Puer and Puella produce Conjunctio—the figure of connection, union, and the establishment of a bond. Reception shows the querent’s attitude toward the quesited: the man wants to establish a connection with the girl and determine whether a blood relationship exists between them.
The entire formula— Puer + Puella = Conjunctio—describes the situation precisely in the language of geomancy: a man seeks to establish his connection with a girl who may be his daughter.
It is the correspondence of all three figures—not Conjunctio alone—that confirms the radicality of the chart. The figures accurately reflect the people involved, the relationship between them, and the central purpose of the question.
This reception does not by itself prove paternity. It describes the relationship being sought. The actual answer is shown elsewhere in the chart.
Analysis
The querent’s figure, Puer, is repeated in the eighth house.
This placement carries two meanings, and both operate at the same time.
First, the eighth house describes the querent’s fear, anxiety, and mental anguish. William Lilly associates the eighth house with the fears and distress of the querent. When the querent’s significator appears there without the question directly concerning death or another person’s money, it can show deep inner anxiety.
Abraham ibn Ezra expressed a similar idea:
A planet in the eighth house is like a man seized by fear.
Abraham ibn Ezra, The Beginning of Wisdom, Chapter VIII, § 116
This meaning clearly applies. The uncertainty surrounding the girl’s paternity had troubled the querent for years.
But the eighth house has another, more decisive role in this chart.
The girl is represented by the fifth house. To find her father, we take the derived fourth house from the fifth:
- The fifth house is the child’s first house.
- The sixth is her second.
- The seventh is her third.
- The eighth is her fourth—the house of her father.
The radical eighth house therefore represents the girl’s father.
That house contains Puer—the same figure that represents the querent in the first house. Puer appears nowhere else among the twelve houses.
There is no need to introduce a hypothetical third party or search the chart for evidence of infidelity. The question is simpler: who is the girl’s father? The chart answers by placing the querent’s own figure in the derived house of her father.
The same Puer therefore signifies two things at once: the querent’s fear in the radical eighth house and the querent himself as the father in the fourth house derived from the child.
Judgment
Yes. According to the chart, the querent is the girl’s biological father.
The answer is direct: the figure representing the querent in the first house also occupies the derived fourth house of the child—the house of her father.
