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Geomancy · Figure 12 of 16

Puer, the Boy: Mars in his kinder face

Puer, the Boy, is the geomantic figure with single points at the head, neck and feet and a double body: Puella upside down. The 1655 Of Geomancy makes it Mars in his kinder face, and the tradition reads it as drive, boldness and the young fighter.

The figure Puer drawn large: Fire at the head, one point; Air at the neck, one point; Water at the body, two points; Earth at the feet, one point. Below, the sixteen figures small in a row, the 12th marked. Puer · the Boy Fire, the head one Air, the neck one Water, the body two Earth, the feet one
Puer, figure 12 of 16: its points head to feet, with the element and part of each line. Below, the sixteen in our order, the eight that can be Judge first.

Facts

Number
Figure 12 of 16; after the eight that can be Judge
Points, head to feet
1 · 1 · 2 · 1: one point in the Fire, Air and Earth lines
Total
5 points, odd, so never the Judge
Planet (1655)
Mars in his kinder face
Sign (Gerard's scheme)
Gemini, in the Astronomical Geomancy attributed to Gerard of Cremona (1655 English)
Cattan's English (1591)
“boy”
Agrippa's glosses (1651)
“A Boy”, “Yellow”, “Beardless”
Turned over
Upside down: Puella. Every point swapped: Albus

Meaning

Puer is Mars in his kinder face, the 1655 text's "benevolent" Mars: the young fighter, rash and brave. Agrippa's glosses of 1651 are "A Boy", "Yellow" and "Beardless"; Hartmann reads it as "rash and inconsiderate" yet "rather good than bad"; the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn's handbook finds it ill in most questions except those of war and love. The two verdicts meet in practice, as the tradition reads it: it favours action, contests and courage, and works against whatever needs patience, tact or peace.

In the shield

Puer has five points, so it can never be Judge. Its quality is disputed: "meane" by Cattan's rule read as head against feet, going out in the modern table. Its head line is single, so the Way of the Point can pass through it. Turned upside down it becomes Puella; with every point swapped it becomes Albus, so heat and calm, impulse and thought, sit at opposite corners. Its partner under Mars is Rubeus. In the sample casting on the Geomancy page it is the Second Mother, so it stands in the 2nd house beside Puella in the 1st; since each is the other upside down, the two houses are in what the Golden Dawn paper calls compound company, and the same pair returns in the 7th and 8th.

Mars, and the sign

Every source but one gives Puer to Mars; Fludd's table of 1624 gives it to Venus, and Puella to Mars. Cattan's table of the planets makes Puer Mars retrograde, though the figure printed beside that entry is a misprint, and Rubeus Mars direct. Gerard's scheme gives it Gemini, and Fludd agrees; Agrippa, Cattan's own table, his page 63, Hartmann and the Golden Dawn all give Aries, a sign of Mars.

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
Mars in Cattan, Agrippa, the 1655 text, Hartmann and Crowley; Venus in Fludd (1624) disputed
Direct or retrograde (Cattan, p. 54)
Mars retrograde sourced
Sign, Gerard's scheme (ours)
Gemini sourced
Sign, other schemes
Agrippa (1651): Aries; Cattan's table (p. 56): Aries; Cattan's “Gerard Cremon” (p. 63): Aries; the Golden Dawn (1909): Aries disputed
Quality (Cattan's rule)
“meane” (common) if the head line is weighed against the feet; going out in the modern table disputed
Lines
Single, active: Fire (head), Air (neck) and Earth (feet); double, passive: Water (body) sourced
Our keywords
Drive, boldness, a fight our construction

How the schools read it

Cattan (1591)
Calls it “boy”; “meane” (common) if the head line is weighed against the feet; going out in the modern table.
Agrippa (1651)
Glosses it “A Boy”, “Yellow”, “Beardless”.
*Of Geomancy* (1655)
Mars benevolent (Mars in his kinder face).
Hartmann (1889)
“Puer, Boy, rash and inconsiderate, is rather good than bad.”
The Golden Dawn (Crowley, 1909)
“Evil in most demands, except those relating to war and love”
Modern practice (Greer, as reported)
Calls it mobile, giving a direction even to a figure the old rule calls “meane”.
EsoTerrier
Drive, boldness, a fight (our one-line reading in the chart).

Claims about it

  • Puer is a figure a person is born under, worked out from a name and a birth date.

    false

    What 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.

  • Puer has one zodiac sign.

    disputed

    What the record shows: Gerard's scheme gives Gemini, the Golden Dawn Aries, Cattan's page 63 Aries. At least six schemes exist; we always name the one we use.

  • Puer has an element of its own.

    disputed

    What 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.

    disputed

    What 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.

Elsewhere on EsoTerrier

Sources

Primary texts (7)
  1. Christopher Cattan, The Geomancie of Maister Christopher Cattan Gentleman, translated by Francis Sparry. London: John Wolfe, 1591 (French original, Paris, 1558). wellcomecollection.org/works/gk8r8xpn
  2. Of Geomancy (attributed to Agrippa) and Astronomical Geomancy (attributed to Gerard of Cremona), in Henry Cornelius Agrippa his Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy, translated by Robert Turner. London, 1655. github.com/textcreationpartnership/A26563
  3. Henry Cornelius Agrippa, Three Books of Occult Philosophy, translated by J. F. London, 1651; Book II, chapter 48. github.com/textcreationpartnership/A26565
  4. Franz Hartmann, The Principles of Astrological Geomancy. London: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1889. archive.org/details/b24884145
  5. [Aleister Crowley], “A Handbook of Geomancy”, The Equinox I(2), 1909, pp. 137 to 161. keepsilence.org/the-equinox/1.2/a-handbook-of-geomancy_low.pdf
  6. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn's paper on geomancy (S. L. MacGregor Mathers, 1890s), as transcribed with later commentary. Facts only.
  7. Robert Fludd, De naturae simia, second edition. Frankfurt, 1624; De geomantia II.1, pp. 724 to 725. archive.org/details/bub_gb_zINwyYhcsp8C
Studies and other sources (2)
  1. Sam Block, The Digital Ambler, posts on the shield, the Way of the Point, perfection, the elements and the signs, 2012 to 2020. digitalambler.com/2020/05/08/how-to-construct-the-shield-chart-of-geomancy
  2. John Michael Greer, The Art and Practice of Geomancy. San Francisco: Weiser, 2009. Facts only, known through reports.
Our own research (2)
  1. EsoTerrier, geomancy research and validation, 11 to 14 October 2026.
  2. EsoTerrier calculation engine, the geomancy service, its texts and documentation.
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By EsoTerrier. Written with AI assistance from our research and checked against its sources; last revised 19 October 2026. How we write these pages.

First published ; last revised . Corrections: support@esoterrier.com.