Colors of the Planets

December 4, 2019 By polyphanes in link, occult, pgm Tags: astrology, color, planet, tony mierzwicki, twitter 6 Comments

The core components of much of the ritual I do is simple: a candle lit for God and prayer. Everything else is, strictly speaking, optional. Yes, even incense, especially when simply performing prayer and adoration of the Divine, as Hermēs tells his students towards the end of the Perfect Sermon:

[Asclepius said:] “Let us suggest to father, Tat,—what he did bid us do,—that we should say our prayer to God with added incense and with unguents.”

Whom when Thrice-greatest heard, he grew distressed and said: “Nay, nay, Asclepius; speak more propitious words! For this is like to profanation of [our] sacred rites, when thou dost pray to God, to offer incense and the rest. For naught is there of which He stands in need, in that He is all things, or all are in Him. But let us worship, pouring forth our thanks. For this is the best incense in God’s sight, when thanks are given to Him by men.”

So, really, even perhaps my candle lit for God, a sacred flame I have burning at my main shrine whenever I do any sort of temple work, could be considered extraneous; I prefer, following usual ancient practices, to always have a sacred lamp lit with a sacred fire, so that I never pray or work in darkness. But, when performing pure theurgy, Hermēs suggests that prayer is the only required element—indeed, the only element that should be used.

But that’s really only applicable for God and the highest-of-the-high practices I engage in. And there are a lot of other gods and practices I engage in, and other components, like incense, are pretty damn useful.

I don’t think I’m making a controversial claim for when I say that everything present in a ritual should be present to further that ritual’s application and efficacy; having extra elements or components there that either aren’t used or aren’t related to the ritual shouldn’t be there in the ritual itself. This is far from encouraging minimalism, of course; with this maxim, you can get as complex and as complicated, as embellished and exaggerated as you like, by throwing in element after component or tool after supply into a ritual. Sometimes, that can be extremely helpful; other times, not so much. But this goes far beyond simply the choice or variety of incense and libation; everything in a ritual, down to the thread used to hem your robes (or sweatpants), can be engineered towards a particular ritual. After all, if you want to take a more psychological or semantic approach to ritual, everything in a ritual is a symbol, and all symbols have meaning. And color symbolism is huge in many kinds of occult and spiritual work.

With my renewed Hermetic practice I’ve been working on since the beginning of the year, I’ve been mulling over how I would want to make a new set of planetary talismans. I have an old set from when I was doing Fr. Rufus Opus’ Red Work course, which I’ve used ever since, and have been solid tools in their own right. Materially, they’re just halves of wooden craft yo-yos that I took apart; taking them apart left a hole in the underside of them, which I filled with the appropriate planetary metal, and after I did that, I woodburned the name and seal of the planetary angel and used the planetary characters from the Magical Calendar (originally(?) used for the Table of Practice from the Ars Paulina of the Lemegeton) around the sides. The effect was pretty nifty, if I do say so myself.

For these talismans, I painted each talisman in an appropriate planetary color: purple for the Moon, orange for Mercury, green for VEnus, yellow for the Sun, red for Mars, blue for Jupiter, and black for Saturn. Of course, “appropriate” here could be debated; the source for these colors is largely taken from Golden Dawn practice using their Queen scale of colors for the sephiroth of the Hermetic Tree of Life. Of course, the Queen scale—perhaps the most commonly known and used—is just one of four scales; there’s also the King scale (indigo, violet purple, amber, clear pink rose, orange, deep violet, crimson), the Prince scale (very dark purple, russet red, bright yellowish green, rich salmon, bright scarlet, deep purple, dark brown), and the Princess scale (citrine flecked azure, yellowish brown flecked gold, olive flecked gold, golden amber, red flecked black, deep azure flecked yellow, grey flecked pink). The link above gives an appreciable examples of all these colors (which, rather than being vague suggestions, were actually meant to be quite exact and specific), as well as for the other sephiroth and each of the paths on the Tree of Life. Complicated, to be sure, but if nothing else, the Golden Dawn takes complication and turns it into an art form. Plus, those who have ever read Alan Moore’s comic series Promethea (still a great primer on popular modern Western Hermetic mystery cosmology from a Golden Dawn/Thelemic standpoint) will find these colors for the planets incredibly familiar, as the artist specifically used these color scales for the sephiroth as Sophie Bangs (and Promethea) ascends through them from Earth/Malkuth to God/Kether.

But…well, I’m not a Golden Dawn magician. Like, I’ve never done the LBRP, or any [LG][IB]R[PH] type of ritual, or a Middle Pillar, or whatever. While these colors (or at least the Queen scale colors) are incredibly common, and incredibly useful, this surely can’t be the only magical color system for the planets, and while I don’t want to fix what’s not broken, I do want to try distancing myself from Golden Dawn stuff and see if other systems work, hopefully as well if not better. To that end, I’ve been looking into what other options there might be in the usual magical literature we typically consult from the pre-Golden Dawn days, like Agrippa et al., and seeing what such color symbolism might already have been present in classical or antique times.

For the usual grimoires we might turn to, we can find color lists in the following texts:

Key of Solomon (book I, chapter 18)
Key of Knowledge (book II, chapter 22)
Multiple sets of colors from Cornelius Agrippa:
- book I, chapter 49 for proper colors
- book II, chapter 31 for the colors of the visible appearances of the planets
- book IV, chapter 5 for the colors of clothes of planetary spirits

Plotting them out and comparing them, we can get a color table like the following:

Planet	Key of Solomon	Key of Knowledge	Agrippa Colors	Agrippa Planets	Agrippa Clothes
Saturn	black	black	black, earthy, leaden, brown	dull blue	black
Jupiter	celestial blue	green	sapphire, “airy colors”, green, clear, purple, darkish, golden, mixed with silver	pale citrine	blue
Mars	red	red (“vermilion”)	red, burning/fiery/flaming colors, violet, purple, bloody/iron colors	fiery red	red
Sun	gold, yellow, citron	rich yellow (“saffron”), green	gold, saffron, purple, bright colors	yellow or glittering red	yellow, gold
Venus	green	azure, violet	white, pale colors, eye-catching colors, ruddy between saffron and purple	white and shining, or red	white, green
Mercury	mixed colors	yellow-orange (“eggyolk”)		glittering	mixed and changing
Moon	silver or argentine earth	white (“white lead”)		“fair” (pale white)	green, silver

I’m sure there are plenty of other Western Renaissance and medieval sources for attributing magical colors to the planets, but this is already lining up to be kinda uniform, and we can see how such a color system informed the Golden Dawn set—at least as far as the Queen scale is confirmed. But the use of color symbolism for the planets is much older than this; it’s not like colors are a new thing for magicians or people generally. As many of my readers know, using rituals and information from the Greek Magical Papyri (PGM) is one of my favorite things to do, so I thought about looking back to classical and pre-modern sources in the West for more information. Happily and fortuitously, Tony Mierzwicki in his Graeco-Egyptian Magick has basically already done the work for us there. I’ll summarize his findings and sources:

PGM CX.1—12, some sort of astrological divination that uses mineral or metallic objects: Sun, gold; Moon, silver; Saturn, obsidian; Mars, yellow-green onyx; Venus, lapis lazuli streaked with “gold” (pyrite); Mercury, turquoise (καλλάϊνος, literally “like a precious stone of a greenish blue”, turquoise or chrysolite, or even the famous blue-green Egyptian faïence); Jupiter, “a dark blue stone, but underneath of crystal” (“ὁ δὲ Ζεὺς ᾔτῳ κυάνου λίθου ὑπὸ δὲ κρυστάλλου”, possibly amethyst). Mierzwicki gives the “apparent colors” for these planets then as: Sun, gold; Moon, silver; Saturn, black; Mars, yellow-green; Venus, blue; Mercury, blue-green; Jupiter, dark blue and clear (or indigo/dark puple and white).
Mierzwicki also matches PGM CX.1—12 with evidence from the seven-stepped zigurrats of Ecbatana and Khorsabad, according to Herodotus and archaeological evidence, respectively: gold/gold, silver/silver-grey, orange/orange, blue/blue, red/reddish-purple, black/black, white/white. Mierzwicki gives these the planets Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter, respectively.

It’s important to note that red is generally a taboo color in PGM and Egyptian stuff generally, as it’s considered to be a color associated with Set, and thus Typhōn. This is why so many PGM rituals call for “lamps that are not colored red”, and might explain the lack of red in the above PGM text, which appears to be currently the only one known that links particular colors (well, stones and minerals) to the planets. However, scanning through the rest of the PGM for bits and pieces that are color-related, we can also get the following:

PGM XII.270ff: heliotrope (green chalcedony with small spots of red jasper) for the Sun
PGM V.213ff: “costly green stone” (“σμάραγδον πολυτελῆ”, “expensive emerald”) for a scarab ring to speak with the Sun
PGM VI.2622ff: purple used to color a skin that encloses a phylactery for calling upon the Moon
PGM V.370ff: purple used for a cord to wrap up hair as a sacrifice to the Moon (well, really, Hermēs, but here meaning Thoth as a lunar god)
PGM IV.2891ff: white used for a dove as an offering to Venus
PGM IV.3209ff: white used for a saucer and wax for a saucer divination under Venus
PGM VII.478ff: white used for a dove, the droppings of which are used in a ritual to Eros, connected to Venus
PDM xiv.920ff and 933ff: white is the color of a stone called “foam of the moon”, like galbanum or glass

So, not a lot, as it turns out. But at least we have something we can plot out in another table:

Planet	PGM CX.1—12	Babylonian	Other PGM
Saturn	black	black	—
Jupiter	dark blue/purple and white	white	—
Mars	yellow green (or red)	red	—
Sun	yellow, gold	yellow, gold	green
Venus	rich blue	blue	white
Mercury	light blue-green	orange	—
Moon	white, grey, silver	silver	purple, white

Funnily enough, in the process of writing this post, one of my mutual followers on Astrology Twitter, @jaysunkei, posted a surprised tweet about planetary colors, especially that for the planet Mercury, which started off a whole bunch of conversations about different texts and traditions of colors, including those listed above:

Mercury's color is silver? Where did I hear also orange? Am I making that up?

— Uncle Jason ◑ (@jaysunkei) December 3, 2019

The stuff posted in that Twitter thread gives us even more options to work with based on a variety of astrological sources as well as cultural ones (cf. David McCann’s article The Astrology of Color on Skyscript.co.uk and this article about colors and planets through different cultures and time periods):

Planet	Picatrix	Al-Biruni	Ibn Ezra	Lilly	Sepharial
Saturn	black, dark	black, dark	black, dark	white, pale, ashy, black, dark	black, dark
Jupiter	green	brown, white	—	green	purple
Mars	red	red	red	red	red
Sun	yellow	orange	red	yellow, red, purple	orange
Venus	light blue, light green	white, yellow	light green	light blue, light green, white	light blue, light green
Mercury	blue	purple, mixed colors	—	blue, grey, mixed colors	blue, grey, pink, yellow
Moon	orange, yellow	blue, orange, yellow	green, white	green, orange, yellow, white	green, orange, yellow, white

In the end, it looks like we have a lot of options to pick from, all based on different authors and time periods and cultures and styles of working, some more astrological than magical, others more magical than astrological, some more grounded in the Earth and some more grounded in Heaven. There are a few commonalities, sure, and if I were to summarize some of the most common colors to make a “general” color scheme for the seven planets, I’d go with the following:

Saturn: black. Everyone seems to be in agreement with this one, although this could be expanded to any super dark, dull color, more like a hue.
Jupiter: blue or purple. Blue seems to be more common than purple, but both are considered “royal” colors, which fits in nicely with Jupiter’s significations. Still, blue seems to be more common.
Mars: red. This is pretty common across everyone, shockingly enough.
Sun: gold or yellow. Gold, of course, is ideal for the Sun, but that’s more a metal rather than a color; a rich yellow, tending slightly more towards orange than green, would be better if a simple color is preferred.
Venus: primarily green, secondarily white. Green seems to be more common than white (though “green” here is probably best described as a “light blue-green”, like teal, aquamarine, spring green, cyan, Persian green, jade green, or turquoise), though white is also a common option. However, white can also be used for the Moon, so be careful here (more on this below).
Mercury: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Mercury’s colors are all over the map, and I think the best way to describe Mercury’s color is “plaid”, meaning any set of mixed, changeable, shifting, or interwoven colors. Barring that, however, orange seems to not be a bad choice, as this is sometimes considered to be a “muddled” or “mixed” color itself, compared to the more pure yellow or red.
Moon: silver or white. Silver is preferred, but this is more a metal than a color, so the best way to describe this in terms of simple colors is just white. However, white is also an option for Venus; if white is chosen for Venus, use silver for the Moon, and if white is used for the Moon, use green for Venus.

Lots of options, indeed, and of course the above isn’t exhaustive; there’re also Mesoamerican and Native American traditions, Chinese and Indian/Vedic systems, and other systems of astrology and magic out there that have their own color associations with the planets and stars, too. But, even with this much, at least we can make things look nice for ourselves and our works.

A PGM-Style Framing Rite for Pretty Much Any Purpose

July 10, 2018 By polyphanes in link, mathesis, occult, pgm Tags: angels of the hours, book, calling the sevenths, circle, Corpus Hermeticum, eighth book of moses, empowerment, framing ritual, gordon white, grand heptagram rite, guardian, headless rite, heptasphere, hymn, invocation, jason miller, khernips, michael cecchetelli, moon, orphic hymn, pgm, preparation, purification, ritual, stephen flowers, stephen skinner, sun, tony mierzwicki, unequal hours, words of power, zodiac 7 Comments

This past quarter, the splendid ~~Gordon White of Rune Soup~~ held another of his classes, this time on the Greek Magical Papyri, otherwise known famously as the PGM. It was a great course; rather than being focused on simply presenting rituals and implementations thereof, Gordon went all out on giving the context, development, influences, cosmology, and theory that really fleshes out the PGM. No, the PGM cannot be considered a single body of texts, because they’re inherently not: they’re a jumble of papyri from multiple authors across multiple centuries. However, Gordon’s class really pulls so much of it together into something that could, honestly, feel like it could be presented as part of a single text, or at least a single tradition with more-or-less a single mindset. It’s a tall order, but it’s a great thing to take if you’re a member of his class stuff. That said, and to be candid about it, I’m kinda left a little hungry by the course: knowing that Gordon’s been doing PGM magic for…quite some time (probably longer than I’ve been a magician at all), I’d’ve liked to see more implementations and descriptions of ritual rather than just the cosmological backgrounds behind what we have in the PGM. Still, I also know that I’m often left a little (or a lot) disappointed by other books on PGM-style magic that mostly or only list rituals with only a smattering of cosmology behind them; some of them are worthwhile, at least for a while, but I tire of them easily, probably because I’m a spoiled brat and like to chew on things myself rather than simply have them presented to me, so perhaps it’s really for the best that Gordon focused on the background and theory of the PGM rather than the contents themselves. Of the other well-known books about the PGM, Stephen Skinner’s Techniques of Graeco-Egyptian Magic is a great analysis of the content of the PGM, and is a helpful index and guide to looking at and investigating parts of the PGM (though I differ with him on some accounts as well).

Flatteringly, Gordon referenced me and my work on my blog and website several times throughout his course. (I admit, I was caught off-guard each time he did so, and it felt like I was being called out in the middle of a college lecture hall each time I listened into his class, and so promptly spat out my wine and/or energy drink of choice at that moment.) To my credit, I have done quite a bit of PGM work; not as much as I’d like, but I do write about it quite a bit, and have whole groups of pages up both for PGM and PGM-like rituals as well as prayers from the Hermetic and PGM traditions, and about a tenth of the posts and pages on this website reference the PGM in one way or another. For other splendid websites and bloggers on PGM stuff, I might also recommend Voces Magicae as well as Sublunar Space, who both appear to do quite excellent stuff on their own.

One of the most hilariously common things one might see in the PGM texts is the phrase “add the usual” (even to the point where Gordon was considering naming parts of his course that phrase). Bear in mind that the PGM is basically a collection of the notes of working, jobbing magicians who kept track of their observations, rituals, recipes, and the like. Just like how someone wouldn’t write down something in their journal that they did each and every time they got themselves ready in the morning but merely obliquely referenced it, so too did the PGM authors do the same for their own texts; if they had a particular MO, they wouldn’t waste the ink and papyrus on it, but simply said “add the usual”. What that “usual” might have been, we don’t often know or have the means to find out, but it does indicate that certain rituals took place within a broader framework or ceremonial practice. A modern term for this is a “framing rite”, where a particular ritual procedure is established to attune, protect, and generally set things up for a magician to do something specific within the overall ritual. Examples of framing rites abound in modern systems of magic, and for those who have a daily magical practice, those same rituals can often be used both generally each day as well as immediately before/after a ritual to prepare or wind down the magician for the ritual. With all the instances of “add the usual”, we have evidence that similar practices were done in the era of the PGM authors, as well.

With that in mind, and bringing my own Mathēsis practices and my other temple procedures into the mix, I was wondering if I could codify and establish a PGM-style framing rite for myself. I adore the PGM stuff, after all, and I definitely incorporate many of its techniques in much that I do, whether it’s whole rituals or just parts I pick and extrapolate from. Plus, given all the PGM resources I’ve put out on my blog, including implementations of rituals for which we only have the bare bones from the original source, it’s not like I lack for sources of inspiration. So, I decided to pluck bits and pieces from a variety of PGM, Hermetic, Neoplatonic, and similar sources of magical praxis and slap them together into an overall procedure that works as a framing ritual for…well, anything, honestly, but with a focus on PGM-style magic (though not necessarily the PGM rituals themselves, especially those that provided inspiration for this framing ritual). Between the lists of names of spirits, invocations for a variety of purposes, implementations of ritual designs, and the other practices I’ve developed in the meantime, it wasn’t hard to form a synthesis of PGM-inspired ritual. Is it a mish-mash? Absolutely, and I make no denial or complaint against that! Is it effective? As far as I’ve noted, it definitely is, which is why I have no complaints about it (besides my own quibbles in refining it over time). I don’t mean to say that the PGM can be treated as a single, coherent text, because it’s absolutely not; that said, it’s not hard to pick the individual techniques that can be separated from particular parts of the PGM and synthesize them together into its own more-or-less coherent whole.

What follows is my attempt at such a generalized magical procedure. Admittedly, this is still an experimental framework, and I’m still in the process of making minor tweaks and edits to it; however, the bulk of it is stable, and any further changes to be made would be minor indeed. The framing rite, as the ritual proper itself, will benefit from being done in a previously established or consecrated space, but the framing rite itself suffices to establish a working temple in any space or location. Further, with minor modifications, anything before the ritual proper according to the framing rite schema given here may also be used as a format for a regimen for daily magical practice. Not all parts are required, but may be done at the magician’s discretion; when something is optional, I’ve said as much. The general outline of the framing ritual, in full, is as follows:

Send out any non-initiates. (optional)
Ablute with lustral water.
Illumine the temple and call on the Lord of the Hour.
Call on the Lord of the Day. (optional)
Call on the Lord of the Stars. (optional)
Consecrate the Light.
Call on the Guardians of the Directions.
Opening prayer. (optional)
Cast the circle. (optional)
Empowerment and fortification.
Initial offering of incense to the spirits. (optional)
The ritual proper.
Closing prayer. (optional)
Dismissal offering to the spirits.
Uncasting the circle. (only if a circle was previously cast)
Extinguishing the Light.

The following materials are required for the framing rite itself, in addition to whatever other materials the ritual proper calls for:

A head covering, such as a shawl or scarf
A clean basin or bowl
A clean towel (optional, if desired)
Fresh water
Salt or natron
Bay leaves, or cotton balls along with a tincture of bay laurel and frankincense
A lamp or candle, not colored red or black
Incendiary tool, such as matches or a lighter
Incense, most preferably frankincense
White chalk, a wand, or a knife to draw a circle (optional, only if desired)

In the future, once I make any further refinements and hammer out any other inconsistencies in the framing rite, I’ll eventually add it to the Rituals section of pages on my website. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy, and if you’re interested, give it a whirl and see how you feel applying the following framing rite, both around a ritual itself as well as a basis for daily practice!

Note that in the following ritual text, except for the few short Greek phrases used and the names of spirits listed in the tables below, I’ve left what few barbarous words of power are used in the framing rite in Greek. I tried to use selected portions of the PGM that didn’t rely too heavily on barbarous words of power, but their use is still essential to PGM-style magic in general. None of what are used below are particularly long or complicated strings of words of power as some parts of the PGM are known for, but are rather some of the shorter and most common ones; I’ve left them in Greek to prevent formatting clutter. If you’re unsure on how to read them, consult the listed PGM sections in the Betz translation or learn how to read basic Greek. I might also recommend to check out this page on the phonetic and esoteric associations of the Greek.alphabet as well as this post on a primer on how to meditate on them to get used to their sound and power.

If desired, especially if this is done in a group setting, recite Porphyry’s command from On Images to give a general call to dismiss all unwanted or uninitiated entities, incarnate and otherwise, to leave the space in which the ritual is to be performed:

I speak only to those who lawfully may hear:
Depart all ye profane, and close the doors.

If there is a door to the space in which the ritual is performed, now is the time to close it, unless safety concerns mandate it being open; some sort of barrier should be used instead, such as a bar, board, or stone put across or symbolically blocking the entry to the space.

Prepare the lustral water and ablute with it so as to purify yourself and the temple space. This is essentially the process of making khernips for khernimma:

Fill a basin with clean, fresh water.
Pour or sprinkle a small amount of sea salt or natron into the water. I recommend doing this in a cross formation above the basin.
Light a whole dried bay leaf or a cotton ball soaked in a tincture of frankincense and bay laurel. Hold it above the basin, and say:

For the sake of purity and becoming pure…

Quench the fire into the water, and say:

…be purified!
Mix the water thoroughly with the right hand.
Wash the left hand with the right, then the right hand with the left, then the face with both hands, reciting:

Χερνίπτομαι (Kherníptomai)! In purity, I cleanse myself and free myself from defilement.
With the right hand or a bundle of bay leaves, sprinkle the khernips around you in a counterclockwise direction, reciting:

Begone, begone, you polluting spirits, you evil spirits, begone, begone!
May all that is profane be cast out, that only holiness may here remain.
If desired, pat the face and hands dry with a clean towel or cloth.
Cover your head with a loose-fitting shawl, scarf, stole, hood, or other headcovering.

If more than one person is present, the lead magician prepares the khernips, washes themselves, and asperges the temple space first. After that, the other ritual participants wash themselves only (reciting only the “Χερνίπτομαι! In purity…” part).

Illumine the temple with sacred fire that shines forth with the light of Divinity. This is a combination of both a conjuration of the flame of the lamp or candle to be used in the ritual as well as an invocation to the temporal Lord of the Hour. This lamp or candle should not be colored red or black, given the general proscriptions against it in the PGM for most types of work, and should be kept separate from other lights used in the ritual proper unless it’s a lamp divination or theophany that uses such a light. Light the lamp or candle, ideally while standing to the west of the lamp and facing east towards it, and recite the following conjuration of the flame based on the spell for fires to continue from PGM XIII.1—343 (the Eighth Book of Moses) and the invocation to the lamp of PDM xiv.1—92 and PDM xiv.489—515, depending on whether the ritual is done during the daytime or the nighttime.

Diurnal conjuration of the flame:

I conjure you, Fire, o daimon of holy Love, the invisible and manifold, the one and everywhere, to remain in this light at this time, shining and not dying out, by the command of Aiōn!
Be great, o light! Come forth, o light! Rise up, o light! Be high, o light!
Come forth, o light of God!
O bright face of Hēlios, …, servant of God, you whose hand is this moment, who belongs to this Xth hour of the day, bring your light to me!
Nocturnal conjuration of the flame:

I conjure you, Fire, o daimon of holy Love, the invisible and manifold, the one and everywhere, to remain in this light at this time, shining and not dying out, by the command of Aiōn!
Be great, o light! Come forth, o light! Rise up, o light! Be high, o light!
Come forth, o light of God!
O bright angel of Selēnē, …, servant of God, you whose hand is this moment, who belongs to this Xth hour of the night, bring your light to me!

The rulers of the unequal hours of the day and the night, taken from PGM IV.1596—1715 (Consecration of the Twelve Faces of Hēlios) and PGM VII.862—918 (Lunar Spell of Klaudianos):

Hour	Diurnal (PGM IV.1596—1715)	Nocturnal (PGM VII.862—918)
I	ΦΑΡΑΚΟΥΝΗΘ PHARAKŪNĒTH	ΜΕΝΕΒΑΙΝ MENEBAIN
II	ΣΟΥΦΙ SŪPHI	ΝΕΒΟΥΝ NEBŪN
III	ΑΜΕΚΡΑΝΕΒΕΧΕΟ ΘΩΥΘ AMEKRANEBEKHEO THŌUTH	ΛΗΜΝΕΙ LĒMNEI
IV	ΣΕΝΘΕΝΙΨ SENTHENIPS	ΜΟΡΜΟΘ MORMOTH
V	ΕΝΦΑΝΧΟΥΦ ENPHANKHŪPH	ΝΟΥΦΙΗΡ NŪPHIĒR
VI	ΒΑΙ ΣΟΛΒΑΙ BAI SOLBAI	ΧΟΡΒΟΡΒΑΘ KHORBORBATH
VII	ΟΥΜΕΣΘΩΘ ŪMESTHŌTH	ΟΡΒΕΗΘ ORBEĒTH
VIII	ΔΙΑΤΙΦΗ DIATIPHĒ	ΠΑΝΜΩΘ PANMŌTH
IX	ΦΗΟΥΣ ΦΩΟΥΘ PHĒŪS PHŌŪTH	ΘΥΜΕΝΦΡΙ THYMENPHRI
X	ΒΕΣΒΥΚΙ BESBYKI	ΣΑΡΝΟΧΟΙΒΑΛ SARNOKHOIBAL
XI	ΜΟΥ ΡΩΦ MŪ RŌPH	ΒΑΘΙΑΒΗΛ BATHIABĒL
XII	ΑΕΡΘΟΗ AERTHOĒ	ΑΡΒΡΑΘΙΑΒΡΙ ARBRATHIABRI

Similarly, though not necessarily required, an invocation to the ruling god of the day may also be made at this time. This may be done in one of two ways: either by the ruler of the day according to the planet, or according to the ruler of the Pole using the Seven-Zoned method from PGM XIII.1—343/XIII.646—734.

Using the same section from PDM xiv.489—515 as before, invoke the planetary ruler:

Using the day ruler method:

O blessed god, …, servant of God, you whose hand is this moment, who rules over this day, bring your light to me!
Using the Seven-Zoned (Pole ruler) method:

O blessed god, …, servant of God, you whose hand is this moment, who rules over the Pole on this day, bring your light to me!

Alternatively, another invocation to the appropriate planet may also be used, such as praying the Orphic Hymn to that planet.

Weekday	Ruling Planet
Weekday	By Day	Pole Ruler
Sunday	Hēlios	Selēnē
Monday	Selēnē	Hermēs
Tuesday	Arēs	Aphroditē
Wednesday	Hermēs	Hēlios
Thursday	Zeus	Arēs
Friday	Aphroditē	Zeus
Saturday	Kronos	Kronos

If further desired, though again not required, an invocation may be made to the Zodiac sign that rules the present time, based on PGM VII.795—845 (Pythagoras’ request for a dream oracle and Demokritos’ dream divination). Given the lunar and nighttime connections of that ritual, it may be best to call upon the sign of the Zodiac in which the Moon is currently found; however, for more solar-oriented rituals, using the Zodiac sign in which the Sun is currently found may be used instead. A combined method, which I would recommend, calls upon the two signs of both the Sun and the Moon together:

O blessed heavens, solar … and lunar …, you two asterisms that watch over all the works of the world, bring your light to me!

If, however, the Sun and Moon are in the same sign:

O blessed heaven, …, you great asterism who watches over all the works of the world, bring your light to me!

Zodiac Sign	Name
Aries	ΑΡΜΟΝΘΑΡΘΩΧΕ HARMONTHARTHŌKHE
Taurus	ΝΕΟΦΟΞΩΘΑ ΘΟΨ NEOPHOKSŌTHA THOPS
Gemini	ΑΡΙΣΤΑΝΑΒΑ ΖΑΩ ARISTANABA ZAŌ
Cancer	ΠΧΟΡΒΑΖΑΝΑΧΟΥ PKHORBAZANAKHŪ
Leo	ΖΑΛΑΜΟΙΡΛΑΛΙΘ ZALAMOIRLALITH
Virgo	ΕΙΛΕΣΙΛΑΡΜΟΥ ΦΑΙ EILESILARMŪ PHAI
Libra	ΤΑΝΤΙΝΟΥΡΑΧΘ TANTINŪRAKHTH
Scorpio	ΧΟΡΧΟΡΝΑΘΙ KHORKHORNATHI
Sagittarius	ΦΑΝΘΕΝΦΥΦΛΙΑ ΞΥΥ PHANTHENPHYPHLIA KSUHU
Capricorn	ΑΖΑΖΑΕΙΣΘΑΙΛΙΧ AZAZAEISTHAILIKH
Aquarius	ΜΕΝΝΥΘΥΘ ΙΑΩ MENNYTHYTH IAŌ
Pisces	ΣΕΡΥΧΑΡΡΑΛΜΙΩ SERYKHARRALMIŌ

With the sacred light lit and the appropriate powers of the present time invoked, uncover your head and recite the Light-Retaining Charm based on PGM IV.930—1114 (Conjuration of Light under Darkness):

I conjure you, holy Light, breadth, depth, length, height, brightness,
by ΙΑΩ ΣΑΒΑΩΘ ΑΡΒΑΘΙΑΩ ΣΕΣΕΓΓΕΝΒΑΡΦΑΡΑΓΓΗΣ ΑΒΛΑΝΑΘΑΝΑΛΒΑ ΑΚΡΑΜΜΑΧΑΜΑΡΕΙ ΑΙ ΑΙ ΙΑΩ ΑΞ ΑΞ ΙΝΑΞ
remain by me in the present hour, until I have accomplished all I have set out to do!
Now, now, immediately, immediately, quickly, quickly!

Call upon the Guardians of the Directions. This is essentially using my Invocation of the Solar Guardians, based on PGM II.64—183 and PGM.XII.14—95, to recognize the four spiritual entities who stand guard of the stations of the Sun at sunrise, noon, sunset, and midnight, as well as the realms and rulers of the heights and the depths, so as to orient and protect both the temple and the magician. The first guardian to be invoked is the one who controls the quarter of the sky where the Sun currently is: between sunrise and noon, the Guardian of the East should begin the invocations; between noon and sunset, the Guardian of the South; and so forth.

First, face the East or, if preferred, whatever quarter of the sky the Sun happens to be in at the moment of the invocation.
Take a half-step forward with the right foot, raise the right hand forward and out, and raise the hand up and out towards that direction. Give the salutation to the guardian, lower the hand, bring the right foot back, then turn 90° clockwise to salute the next guardian. The four salutations for these guardians are, with the order to be changed according to the direction first started with:

ΙΩ ΕΡΒΗΘ, take thy place in the East!
ΙΩ ΛΕΡΘΕΞΑΝΑΞ, take thy place in the South!
ΙΩ ΑΒΛΑΝΑΘΑΝΑΛΒΑ, take thy place in the West!
ΙΩ ΣΕΣΕΓΓΕΝΒΑΡΦΑΡΑΓΓΗΣ, take thy place in the North!
Once all four guardians of the cardinal directions have been saluted, return to the original direction, and stand with both feet together.
Look directly up and extend the right palm outwards and upwards to salute the guardian of the heights:

ΙΩ ΑΚΡΑΜΜΑΧΑΜΑΡΕΙ, take thy place in the Heights!
Look directly down, and extend the right palm outwards and downwards to salute the guardian of the depths:

ΙΩ ΔΑΜΝΑΜΕΝΕΥΣ, take thy place in the Depths!
Extend both arms outward with the right hand turned up and the left hand turned down, and give the concluding call:

For I am ΜΑΛΠΑΡΤΑΛΧΩ standing in the midst of the All!

At this point, if desired, the magician may enter into a phase of prayer before any further work. This is not required, but those who take a more liturgical or Hermetic priestly approach may consider reciting such prayers as the Prayer of Hermes Trismegistus from the Corpus Hermeticum, the Stele of Aiōn from PGM IV.1167—1226, the Hymn of the Hidden Stele from PVM IV.1115—1166, or other such prayers. This would be to focus the mind of the magician as well as to further sanctify the temple, but these are not strictly required to be performed.

Before further work, some magicians may feel more comfortable working within a cast circle. Given the purification, illumination, and warding of the temple in the previous steps, a circle may be deemed superfluous and unnecessary, and though researchers like Stephen Skinner suggest that circle-working could have been a common aspect of PGM-style magic, very few rituals in the PGM and similar works explicitly call for a circle, and most have no need for one. However, should a circle be desired for further working, one may be cast at this point. Starting from the same direction that the Guardians of the Directions began and proceeding clockwise, trace a circle on the ground (either drawn out in white chalk or natron, or traced with the fingertips of the dominant hand, a wand, or a knife) while reciting the following (adapted from my older preparatory/framing rite the Q.D.Sh. Ritual). As there are four lines in the chant that follows, draw the circle slowly and thoughtfully enough such that each line can be recited within the tracing of one quarter of the circle.

In the name of the Nous, this circle is consecrated for our defense.
By the power of the Logos, this circle is defended for our perfection.
For the sake of the Sophia, this circle is perfected for our work.
Through the might of the Aiōn, may all that is baneful be cast out, that only Good may here remain.

Empower yourself. This is a three-step process, combined from one popularly-known modern one and two adapted from the PGM. The first part is what I call the “Ray of Heaven and Earth”, which is a variant of the first part of Jason Miller’s “Pillar and Spheres” energy work method from The Sorcerer’s Secrets; the visualization is largely the same, but I’ve replaced the chants from Latin/English with appropriate Greek ones. The second part is a shorter form of the Heptagram Rite from PGM XIII.734—1077; it’s more involved than a simple Calling the Sevenths (which is fine on its own and may be substituted here instead for time), but it’s also not the entire Heptagram Rite, either; this middle-form is what I call the Minor Heptagram Rite. This is finished with the final declaration of power and protection from the Headless Rite from PGM V.96—172, using the Crowley form of the ritual (though substitutes may be made here as well).

Perform the Ray of Heaven and Earth.
1. Stand upright with the back straight. Center yourself.
2. Visualize an infinite, infinitely white light shining directly above you, infinitely distant in the highest heavens.
3. Intone: Κατάβαινε, ὦ πέλεια! (Katábaine, ō péleia! or, in English, “Descend, o Dove!”) As you intone this, inhale deeply and visualize a ray of white light shining down from the heavens directly into the crown of the head, down through the spine, through the sacrum, and downwards infinitely below you. Exhale slowly, feeling purifying, soothing, straightening power radiate from the ray into the rest of your body.
4. Maintain the above visualization. In addition to that, Visualize an infinite, infinitely red light shining directly below you, infinitely distant in the lowest reaches of the earth.
5. Intone: Ἀνάβαινε, ὦ ὄφϊ! (Anábaine, ō óphï! or, in English, “Ascend, o Serpent!”). As you intone this, inhale deeply and visualize a ray of red light shining up from the earth directly into the sacrum, up through the spine, through the crown, and upwards infinitely above you. Exhale slowly, feeling vivifying, heating, hardening power radiate from the ray into the rest of your body.
6. Visualize both rays, the white descending from heaven though you into the earth and the red ascending from earth through you into heaven, and mixing in your body, connecting it with all the heavens and all the earth with you in the direct center channel between them.
7. Intone: Ἅφθητι, ὦ πυρ! (Háphthēti, ō pur! or, in English, “Be kindled, o Fire!”) As you intone this, inhale deeply and let both powers suffuse your body in an infinitely bright light, feeling all the powers of heaven and earth connect within you. Exhale slowly, letting the power radiate through you and from you, having connected with heaven and hell equally.
Perform the Minor Heptagram Rite. If desired, the shorter Calling the Sevenths may be done instead, but for full rituals, the Minor Heptagram Rite is preferred.
1. Recite the invocation to Aiōn:
  
  I call on you, eternal and unbegotten Aiōn, who are One, who alone hold together the whole creation of all things, whom none understands, whom the gods worship, whose name not even the gods can utter. Inspire from your breath, o ruler of the Pole, the one who calls on you who is under you! I call on you as the gods call you! I call on you as the goddesses call you! I call on you as the winds call you!
2. Face the sunrise in the east with arms raised in the orans gesture.
  
  I call on you as the east: Α ΕΕ ΗΗΗ ΙΙΙΙ ΟΟΟΟΟ ΥΥΥΥΥΥ ΩΩΩΩΩΩΩ
3. Face north with arms raised in the orans gesture.
  
  I call on you as the north: Ε ΗΗ ΙΙΙ ΟΟΟΟ ΥΥΥΥΥ ΩΩΩΩΩΩ ΑΑΑΑΑΑΑ
4. Face west with arms raised in the orans gesture.
  
  I call on you as the west: Η ΙΙ ΟΟΟ ΥΥΥΥ ΩΩΩΩΩ ΑΑΑΑΑΑ ΕΕΕΕΕΕΕ
5. Face south with arms raised in the orans gesture.
  
  I call on you as the south: Ι ΟΟ ΥΥΥ ΩΩΩΩ ΑΑΑΑΑ ΕΕΕΕΕΕ ΗΗΗΗΗΗΗ
6. Face down with arms raised in the orans gesture.
  
  I call on you as the earth: Ο ΥΥ ΩΩΩ ΑΑΑΑ ΕΕΕΕΕ ΗΗΗΗΗΗ ΙΙΙΙΙΙΙ
7. Face forward with arms raised in the orans gesture.
  
  I call on you as the sky: Υ ΩΩ ΑΑΑ ΕΕΕΕ ΗΗΗΗΗ ΙΙΙΙΙΙ ΟΟΟΟΟΟΟ
8. Face up with arms raised in the orans gesture.
  
  I call on you as the cosmos: Ω ΑΑ ΕΕΕ ΗΗΗΗ ΙΙΙΙΙ ΟΟΟΟΟΟ ΥΥΥΥΥΥΥ
9. Recite the second invocation to Aiōn, based on the Eighth Book of Moses (PGM XIII.1—343) and the Headless Rite (PGM V.96—172):
  
  I call on you, who are greater than all, the creator of all, the self-begotten who see all and are not seen! For you gave to Hēlios glory and all power, and to Selēnē the privilege to wax and wane and have fixed courses, yet you took nothing from the earlier-born darkness, but apportioned all things so that they should be equal! For when you appeared, both Order and Light arose! All things are subject to you, whose true form none of the gods can see, who change into all forms! You are invisible, o Aiōn of Aiōns, and through you arose the celestial pole from the earth! Hear me and help me, o lord, faultless and unflawed, who pollute no place, for I bear witness to your glory! Lord, King, Master, Helper, empower my soul!
Recite the final empowerment of the Headless Rite:

ΑΩΘ ΑΒΡΑΩΘ ΒΑΣΥΜ ΙΣΑΚ ΣΑΒΑΩΘ ΙΑΩ
Come forth and follow, so that every spirit, whether heavenly or ethereal, upon the earth or under the earth, on dry land or in the water, of whirling air or rushing fire, and every spell and scourge of God may be obedient unto me.

Alternatively or additionally, if another phylactery is to be used for a given ritual, this is the proper time to don it and recite any accompanying prayers or invocations that go along with it. These include rings, pendants, headwear, anointing with oils, or the use of other charms, spoken or otherwise.

Now, complete the empowerment and establishment of the temple by reciting the following, again from the Crowley version of the Headless Rite:

Thus have I spoken; thus are the words!
ΙΑΩ ΣΑΒΑΩΘ

At this point, the temple has been prepared and established as a sacred space, and you as the magician have become empowered and placed yourself under the powers of the cosmos and of those who watch over the temple. If desired, incense may now be lit for its own sake as a means to further purify the temple, as well as an offering for the powers that watch over and already inhabit it, though it is not necessary to do so at this time and is better reserved for the ritual proper that follows.

With all the above done, the ritual proper may then begin in earnest. Whatever happens here depends on the magician and the ritual itself.

After the ritual proper, prayers of thanksgiving and communion (such as the Prayer of Thanksgiving of Hermes Trismegistus from the Corpus Hermeticum) may be made at this point, especially after purely theurgic or truly divine rituals, but are not required.

Once the ritual proper has come to a close, the temple must also be closed with a general dismissal of spirits and a formal extinguishing of the light:

Light a small amount of incense as a final thanks, general dismissal, and banishing, reciting the following based on the final prayers from PGM I.262—347, PGM IV.154—285, and PGM VII.930—1114. Frankincense is the best general choice for this, but other types of incense may also be offered based on the nature of the ritual done before.

I have been attached to your holy form;
I have been given power by your holy name;
I have been blessed with your holy emanation of the Good;
Be gracious unto me, Lord, god of gods, master, daimōn, primal, elder-born one!

I give thanks to you, o great gods, elder-born, mighty powers!
Depart, lords, depart into your heavens, into your places, into your courses.
I adjure by the fire which first shone in the void,
I adjure by the power which is greatest over all,
I adjure by him who destroys even in Hadēs
That all now depart from this place, returning to your abodes,
And harm me not, but be forever kind.
Keep me healthy, unharmed, untroubled by ghosts, free from calamity, and without terror.
Hear me for all the days of my life!

Thus have I spoken; thus are the words!
ΙΑΩ ΣΑΒΑΩΘ
If the optional circle was cast earlier, it should be traced counterclockwise starting at the same direction from which it was drawn prior to such prayers. If the circle was merely traced, e.g. with the fingertips or a wand, trace it in reverse using the same means; if it was drawn in e.g. chalk or natron, make four openings in the circle aligned to the four directions as the circle is otherwise traced with the fingertips. No invocation or chant is required for this, but a short thanksgiving prayer may be said, such as the following from my own simple thanksgiving practice:

Nous, Logos, Sophia, Aiōn,
Thank you very much for everything.
I have no complaints whatsoever.
Extinguish the light. With the eyes closed, recite the following over the flame of the lamp or candle using the Dismissal of Light from PGM VII.930—1114 as well as a short form of the method for quenching fire from PGM XIII.1—343, the first to send away the holiness in the flame and the second to put out the physical flame itself:

ΧΩΩ ΧΩΩ ΩΧΩΩΧ, holy brightness!
Depart, holy brightness!
Depart, beautiful and holy light of the highest God Aiōn!

Hear, o Fire, o work of the works of God, o glory of the Sun!
Be quenched, become cold, and let your flame be scattered that it may touch no one and nothing!

Cover your head once more, open your eyes, then put out the fire in one swift motion.

The temple space has now been closed, and the ritual has now come to a complete end. Follow-up meditation or prayers may be made or a meal may be served, and any clean-up of the temple may now be done.

A Small Note on the Modern Use of the Calling of the Sevenths

September 6, 2015 By polyphanes in occult, pgm, whining Tags: calling the sevenths, citation, heptagram, michael cecchetelli, pgm, stephen flowers, tony mierzwicki 2 Comments

(Update 1/9/2018: Interested in more about this ritual? Check out my more polished, fleshed-out writeup over on this page!)

A good friend and colleague of mine pointed out to me that the modern usage of the Calling of the Sevenths rite, otherwise known as the Heptagram Rite (as I’m sure you’re familiar with by now, dear reader) isn’t exactly old. We don’t see it used past twenty years ago, really, and…well, part of that is that the craze with Greco-Egyptian magic (from the Greek Magical Papyri to the Demotic Magical Papyri to Hebrew bowl magic and so forth) wasn’t nearly before then as it’s gotten in recent years. That it’s gotten as big as it has is amazing, and is definitely fueling a new push in magical techniques, but there’s a danger in that that’s evident from the PGM itself: reckless synthesis without clear attribution of sources.

So, my friend Julio Cesar Ody pointed out that the ritual we know as the Calling of the Sevenths has an origin. I’m not talking about the ancient origin of PGM XIII.824-841, either, but a much more recent origin. Let’s trace it back through three books:

Michael Cecchetelli’s Book of Abrasax, published 2012
Tony Mierzwicki’s Graeco-Egyptian Magic: Everyday Empowerment, published 2006
Stephen Flowers’ Hermetic Magic: The Postmodern Magical Papyrus of Abaris, originally published 1995 and republished 2009

Of the three, I got my hands on Cecchetelli’s book last. One of my biggest gripes about Cecchetelli’s book is that he doesn’t cite a damn thing. While synthesis and personal innovation is awesome, I would have loved to have references to the PGM, PDM, and other texts that Cecchetelli got his stuff from, and I end up having to dig through a variety of texts to get the original Greek or Coptic spellings out or to see how Cecchetelli may have innovated or adapted the ritual from its original. Happily, both Mierzwicki and Flowers provide those references, and they largely share the same core texts, and I’ve read over the PGM enough times to have a good feeling of where I might find a particular incantation.

Flowers is…well, it’s Flowers. He does a lot of straight lifting from the PGM (and only from the PGM, not even the PDM), and as much explanation of the magico-philosophical milieu that the PGM came from. Likewise, he combines as much actual extant theory with made-up fantasy, which makes his book not exactly a great one from an academic’s perspective. Still, there’s some good information in there nestled amongst the crazy bits, and I certainly wouldn’t be where I am today without having come across it.

I got my hands on Mierzwicki’s books around the same time as Cecchetelli, and…well, it’s a good book, but I wasn’t impressed by it, and that fault is entirely mine; by the time I read Mierzwicki, I was already conversant with the PGM as a whole, and seeing his adaptation of the PGM was boring at that point. Still, it’s a text I highly, highly recommend to those who are getting started with PGM-style magic.

So, back to the Heptagram rite. My point here is that of the three texts, Flowers should probably be credited with bringing it back from the dusty pages of the PGM into modern usage. However, he also called it the Ritual of the Heptagram, which is basically the name the PGM gives this same ritual. Mierzwicki, on the other hand, calls it “Calling of the Sevenths”, which is also appropriate, and a name that Cecchetelli and other authors have lifted without attribution. It’s important to give credit where it’s due, and I’m glad my friend Mr. Ody told me about this; it’s given me a reason to take another good look at Mierzwicki’s work, and also to clarify a bit about our modern practice in our occulture.

Cite your work, my friends.

The Digital Ambler

Always Forward Between Heaven and Earth

Tag Archives: tony mierzwicki

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A Small Note on the Modern Use of the Calling of the Sevenths