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Geomancy · Figure 14 of 16

Rubeus, Red: Mars in his harsher face

Rubeus, Red, is the geomantic figure with a single point in its neck line and double points elsewhere: Albus upside down. The 1655 Of Geomancy makes it Mars in his harsher face, and the tradition reads it as passion, anger and heat.

The figure Rubeus drawn large: Fire at the head, two points; Air at the neck, one point; Water at the body, two points; Earth at the feet, two points. Below, the sixteen figures small in a row, the 14th marked. Rubeus · Red Fire, the head two Air, the neck one Water, the body two Earth, the feet two
Rubeus, figure 14 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 14 of 16; after the eight that can be Judge
Points, head to feet
2 · 1 · 2 · 2: one point in the Air line
Total
7 points, odd, so never the Judge
Planet (1655)
Mars in his harsher face
Sign (Gerard's scheme)
Gemini, in the Astronomical Geomancy attributed to Gerard of Cremona (1655 English)
Cattan's English (1591)
“red”
Agrippa's glosses (1651)
“Reddish”, “Red”
Turned over
Upside down: Albus. Every point swapped: Puella

Meaning

Rubeus is the 1655 text's "malevolent" Mars: heat, excess, temper and passion without restraint. Agrippa's glosses of 1651 are "Reddish" and "Red"; Hartmann's verdict is "passion, vice, fiery temper" and "a bad figure"; the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn's handbook puts it as a reversal, "evil in all that is good, and good in all that is evil". The tradition reads it as unfavourable in nearly every question about something good, and suited only to aims that are themselves about breaking something.

In the 1st house, and in the shield

The Golden Dawn paper says that a chart with Rubeus or Cauda Draconis in the 1st house is not fit to be judged and is to be set aside, and Crowley's handbook keeps the rule. Cattan, the older source, judges such charts with warnings. Our chart reports the rule, does not enforce it, and makes the next casting free. Rubeus has seven points, so it can never be Judge; it is the Reconciler of the sample casting on the Geomancy page. Its head line is double, so the Way of the Point never runs through it. Upside down it becomes Albus; with every point swapped it becomes Puella. Its partner under Mars is Puer.

Mars, Chaucer, and the signs

Cattan's table makes Rubeus Mars direct; Wikipedia's modern summary makes it Mars retrograde, the other way round. Chaucer sets it over the statue of Mars with Puella in The Knight's Tale; of the two, it is the one every handbook gives to Mars. In Gerard's scheme Rubeus is Gemini, as in Agrippa and Cattan's own table; the Golden Dawn and Cattan's page 63 give Scorpio, 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 every source checked (Cattan, Agrippa, the 1655 text, Hartmann, Crowley, Fludd) sourced
Direct or retrograde (Cattan, p. 54)
Mars direct sourced
Sign, Gerard's scheme (ours)
Gemini sourced
Sign, other schemes
Agrippa (1651): Gemini; Cattan's table (p. 56): Gemini; Cattan's “Gerard Cremon” (p. 63): Scorpio; the Golden Dawn (1909): Scorpio 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: Air (neck); double, passive: Fire (head), Water (body) and Earth (feet) sourced
In Chaucer
Over the statue of Mars with Puella (The Knight's Tale, lines 2043 to 2045 in Skeat) sourced
Our keywords
Passion, anger, heat our construction

How the schools read it

Cattan (1591)
Calls it “red”; “meane” (common) if the head line is weighed against the feet; going out in the modern table.
Agrippa (1651)
Glosses it “Reddish”, “Red”.
*Of Geomancy* (1655)
Mars malevolent (Mars in his harsher face).
Hartmann (1889)
“Rubeus, Redhead, passion, vice, fiery temper, is a bad figure.”
The Golden Dawn (Crowley, 1909)
“Evil in all that is good, and good in all that is evil”
Modern practice (Greer, as reported)
Calls it mobile, giving a direction even to a figure the old rule calls “meane”.
EsoTerrier
Passion, anger, heat (our one-line reading in the chart).

Claims about it

  • Rubeus 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.

  • Rubeus has one zodiac sign.

    disputed

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

  • Rubeus 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.

  • A chart with Rubeus in the 1st house must be destroyed.

    disputed

    What the record shows: The Golden Dawn paper's rule. Cattan judges such charts with warnings; our chart says the rule applies and leaves the choice to you.

Elsewhere on EsoTerrier

Sources

Primary texts (8)
  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. Geoffrey Chaucer, The Knight's Tale (about 1387), lines 2041 to 2045 in Walter W. Skeat's edition, The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, vol. 4, 1894. gutenberg.org/ebooks/22120
  8. 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 (4)
  1. “Geomantic figures”, Wikipedia, revision 1364761246 (cited only for the claims we correct). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomantic_figures
  2. 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
  3. John Michael Greer, The Art and Practice of Geomancy. San Francisco: Weiser, 2009. Facts only, known through reports.
  4. John North, Chaucer's Universe. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988.
Our own research (3)
  1. EsoTerrier, geomancy research and validation, 11 to 14 October 2026.
  2. EsoTerrier calculation engine, the geomancy service, its texts and documentation.
  3. EsoTerrier, the geomancy casting screen, catalog line and page brief, rewritten 11 October 2026.
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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.

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