Planetary magic · Overview
Planetary magic
Older books on magic often work with seven planets: the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Writers used them to choose times, make images and numerical squares, and name the beings they thought governed each planet.
This section follows what those books say, especially Agrippa's Occult Philosophy. It is separate from reading a birth chart. The Ars Goetia, with its seventy-two spirits, belongs under Solomonic magic.
Other books organize the material differently. The Picatrix discusses astral images; the Heptameron arranges angels by day and hour. A name or instruction in one book should not be treated as if it came from another.
How the books use the planets
-
Time
Agrippa pays attention to a planet's position and hour. The Heptameron uses days and planetary hours to organize its ceremonies.
-
Squares and images
Agrippa prints a numerical square for each planet and describes images made at selected times. The squares can be checked, and they do add up; that says nothing about whether the images had the effects he claimed.
-
Names
Agrippa names an intelligence for each square and gives two lists of angels over the planets. The Heptameron has its own weekday angels. The lists do not always agree.
Explore
- Choose a planet See its square, intelligence, angel and the uses Agrippa describes.
- Square intelligences The seven names printed with Agrippa's squares.
- Planetary angels Compare Agrippa's two lists and the Heptameron's weekday angels.
- The seven squares All seven grids together, with their sums checked.
- The Picatrix An earlier work on astral images and talismans.
- Agrippa's Occult Philosophy The main source for the planet pages in this section.
- The Heptameron Angels and ceremonies arranged by day and hour.
Read the sources
- The Latin Picatrix edition ↗The Warburg Institute's introduction identifies its Arabic source and Latin transmission.
- Agrippa, Book II, chapter 22 ↗The seven planetary tables in the early English translation.
- Agrippa, Book I, chapters 22–29 ↗The planetary dispositions and catalogues of natural things.
- Agrippa, Book III, chapter 24 ↗His first and alternative lists of the angels over the seven planets.
- Agrippa, Book II, chapters 29 and 38–44 ↗Celestial observation and the planetary images, in the same book but different chapters.
- Heptameron, days and hours ↗The weekday angels and successive planetary hours, with manuscript variants documented by the editor.
- Lemegeton, its five parts ↗The source for keeping the Ars Goetia within Solomonic magic.
About this section
This is a guide to historical sources rather than a set of instructions. The seals are not reproduced. Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are not part of the seven-planet scheme these books use.