Meaning
Carcer is enclosure: a wall, a bond, a delay. The 1655 Of Geomancy counts it and Tristitia as Saturn's two ill figures, Carcer the heavier, and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn's handbook sums it up as "general evil, delay, binding, stay, bar, restriction". Hartmann gives the more useful rule: "good or bad, according to the nature of the question". In our own words, it is hard on freedom, travel and change, and welcome where the asker wants to hold something fast, keep a confidence or make a thing secure. As the Judge, the tradition reads delay, or matters staying shut.
In the shield
Carcer has six points and can be Judge, for one casting in eight. By Cattan's rule a figure with as many points above as below is "meane", neither good nor bad, but he names Carcer as the exception: an ill figure. It reads the same upside down, and with every point swapped it becomes Coniunctio, so the Prison and the crossing are each other's opposite. Its partner under Saturn is Tristitia. Its head line is single, so a Judge Carcer always has a Way of the Point under the modern rule.
Saturn, and the signs
Every source gives Carcer to Saturn. Cattan's table of the planets makes it Saturn direct and Tristitia Saturn retrograde, and Fludd agrees; Wikipedia's modern summary makes Carcer the retrograde one, and the 1655 text speaks of greater and lesser harm rather than of direction. In Gerard's scheme Carcer is Pisces, as in Agrippa and Cattan's own table; the Golden Dawn gives it Capricorn, a sign of Saturn, and the scheme Cattan prints under Gerard's name gives Aquarius, the other.
Correspondences
Each item with how it stands: “sourced” is in the work cited, “our construction” is EsoTerrier’s own, and “disputed” means the sources disagree.
- Planet
- Saturn, in every source checked (Cattan, Agrippa, the 1655 text, Hartmann, Crowley, Fludd) sourced
- Direct or retrograde (Cattan, p. 54)
- Saturn direct sourced
- Sign, Gerard's scheme (ours)
- Pisces sourced
- Sign, other schemes
- Agrippa (1651): Pisces; Cattan's table (p. 56): Pisces; Cattan's “Gerard Cremon” (p. 63): Aquarius; the Golden Dawn (1909): Capricorn disputed
- Quality (Cattan's rule)
- As many points above as below, yet named by Cattan as an ill figure (p. 62) sourced
- Lines
- Single, active: Fire (head) and Earth (feet); double, passive: Air (neck) and Water (body) sourced
- Our keywords
- Binding, delay, a closed space our construction
How the schools read it
- Cattan (1591)
- Calls it “prison”; as many points above as below, yet named by Cattan as an ill figure (p. 62).
- Agrippa (1651)
- Glosses it “A prison”, “Bound”.
- *Of Geomancy* (1655)
- Saturn, the heavier of his two figures (Carcer and Tristitia are both evil, Carcer of the greater detriment).
- Hartmann (1889)
- “Carcer, prison, or to be bound, is good or bad, according to the nature of the question.”
- The Golden Dawn (Crowley, 1909)
- “General evil, delay, binding, stay, bar, restriction”
- Modern practice (Greer, as reported)
- Calls it stable, the modern word for an entering figure.
- EsoTerrier
- Binding, delay, a closed space (our one-line reading in the chart).
Claims about it
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Carcer is a figure a person is born under, worked out from a name and a birth date.
falseWhat the record shows: No source makes a geomantic figure from birth data; every casting is for a question. Our own app did this until October 2026, and the method was retired.
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Carcer has one zodiac sign.
disputedWhat the record shows: Gerard's scheme gives Pisces, the Golden Dawn Capricorn, Cattan's page 63 Aquarius. At least six schemes exist; we always name the one we use.
-
Carcer has an element of its own.
disputedWhat the record shows: The sources give the figures at least six different sets of elements. We show only the four line elements, never an element for the whole figure.
-
Carcer is Saturn retrograde and Rubeus Mars retrograde.
disputedWhat the record shows: Cattan's table makes Carcer and Rubeus direct, Tristitia and Puer retrograde; the 1655 text speaks of greater and lesser harm, not of direction.
