Practical Astrological Magic

Practical Astrological Magic

Roland Matthews (2019)

What is astrological magic?  We could define it as using celestial influences in order to increase the potential success of altering our circumstances in accordance with our will.  Electional Astrology is probably the most commonly known example. But what does this mean?  For a deeper examination into what magic is and how Astrology works please refer to the article related to that topic.  But for the sake of brevity, we should examine some other examples of what we can do to actually put these concepts into practice.

Starting with Electional Astrology, we use certain criteria such as essential dignity of a planet to determine when to perform an act that is related to or governed by that planet.  We want to find the time when that particular planet is at its absolute best strength, power, and ability to aid us in achieving our goals.  Let’s say we have a friend with a cold making them ill and our goal is to assist them in becoming well.  First, we would need to look at their natal chart to find out what kind of weakness their body possesses.  Then we would need to look at the primary directions, also called transits, and see how the aspects relate to their natal chart.  This can give us clues as to what kind of illness they have, whether it is physical, emotional, or spiritual in nature, whether it is acute or chronic in nature, what parts of the body will be affected, and even when it starts and ends.  In astrological medicine, known as Iatromathematics, this is called a decumbiture.  Say this friend hypothetically has a poorly aspected and ill-dignified Jupiter in their natal chart that is being triggered by current transits affecting their lungs, which are considered by some to be governed by Jupiter.  We determine that an echinacea spagyric would be just the thing to help them.  This is determined by what is called the ‘doctrine of signatures’.  This is a magical concept describing the ontological relationships between a planet, a plant, a mineral, an animal, and parts of the body.    If we have not already done so, we will need to use Electional Astrology to determine the most effective time to harvest our echinacea.  As echinacea is governed by Jupiter, it will need to be done on the day and hour of the planet.  Thursday is the day, but what about the hour?  The magical hour can be determined by finding the time of sunrise and sunset in your local area according to your latitude.  After discovering the amount of time between sunrise and sunset, you can divide that by twelve.  This will give you the length of the planetary hour which can differ depending on the latitude as well as the time of year (the day time is longer during summer and shorter in winter in the Northern hemisphere).  The first hour of the day at sunrise is the same as the planet of the day and follows in Chaldean order which is the same as the Tree of Life in descending order.  For example, Thursday’s first hour would be Jupiter, then Mars, then Sun, then Venus, then Mercury, then Moon followed by Saturn before the cycle repeats again with Jupiter. 

  So now you have the best time to collect your plant.  The other processes involved in making the spagyric tincture should also be started and done during the day and hour of the ruling planet.  The phase of the Moon is also important depending on what step of the process is being performed, however it would best if it were completed while it is waxing and closest to being full as possible.  Now that you have extracted the Sulphur and processed the Salts and recombined all the constituents so they may cohabitate for at least a lunar cycle, they must be magically charged in order to be “reanimated” and seal in the power of the planet. This can be done by ‘summoning’ the astrological spirits related to the planet in question, which in our case here is Jupiter.  In Kabbalistic theurgy there are lists of god names, archangels, angels, intelligences, and spirits that are associated with the planets and zodiac signs.  A talisman can be created using the appropriate names, colors, and sigils associated with the planet.  This talisman or amulet can be compared to a magical battery which stores the planetary influence and is used to lock in its essence into our spagyric tincture.  A sigil is a magical symbol that is typically created by following the order of letters in a name on a set pattern called a Kamea.  In many magical systems, alphabets also have numerical equivalents.  Kameas take advantage of this by using magic squares which are mathematically interesting because the sum of each horizontal row, vertical column, and diagonal is the same.  One of the most famous of these is seen in Melancolia I by Albrecht Durer (see below).  In it, Durer switches places of the 14 and 15 to make the year 1514, when the art was done, and yet it still works.  This would be the Kamea we would use for Jupiter because it is a 4 x 4 square and in Kabbalah, Jupiter is related to Chesed which is the fourth sephirah on the Tree of Life.  The archangel for Jupiter is Tzadqiel and to make the sigil we would start by drawing a circle on the square with the number 9 because the Hebrew letter Tzaddi has the numerical value of 90 which reduces to 9.  (We do this because the highest number in the Jupiter square is 16, so in order for all the letters of the Hebrew alphabet to be represented in this Kamea they must be reduced to single digit numbers.)  We then draw a line from the circle to the number 4 square for Daleth, then toward then number 10 square for Qoph, a returning loop to the number 10 square for Yod, a line to the number 1 square for Aleph, and finally, a perpendicular bar to indicate the end at square number 3 for Lamed.  This odd symbol can then be painted orange on a blue square.  Blue is the receptive color of the previously mentioned sephirah Chesed and orange is its opposite or flashing color (see the article Sound and Vision).  A square shape is used because it has four sides, also related to the same sephirah. We could use the same method for determining the sigils for the other spirits and their names, which could include the decans.  To further enforce these impressions, we could also use key X of the major arcana in the Tarot, known as the ‘Wheel of Fortune’ which is correlated to Jupiter in addition to the pips of the minor arcana which are correlated to the decans. 

This was an example of how complex and involved the use of astrological magic can be. The purpose for doing all this is to become personally acquainted with the essence of a planet, so that your spagyric will be as potent as possible, thereby achieving your goal of healing your sick friend.  Of course, this did not take into account anything about doing a divination to see if your friend should be healed or not, or if you should even be the one doing it if they do.  But morals and ethical decisions aside, there are other things that one can do to become proficient with astrological magic.

You can wear clothing that is associated with the color of the planet on that planet’s day. For example, you could wear something blue on Thursday.  This simple act of acknowledgement can increase your attunement to the energy of a planet.  Soon you will see other people wearing the same color on the same day and wonder if it is a coincidence or if they are also participating.  In fact, a game that I like to play helped me to remember which color was associated with each planet.  I call it planetary slug bug.  Try to find a VW Bug that is blue on Thursday.  How many do you see that day?  What does it mean if you see four in a row?  Purple bugs on Monday and Orange ones on Wednesday are pretty rare.

As mentioned in my article on Antiscia, one could also use the planets as a pathway to overcome our negative qualities. This could be done by contacting the individual celestial spirits related to the 36 decans in which your personal antiscia are placed through skrying or by making talismans and sigils using the names of the Shemhamephoresh, the 72 angels formed by interlacing the name of God with certain biblical scriptures. In addition to these, one can always include specific stars and personal asteroids.                      

But perhaps before pursuing that course of action, you should determine the planetary nature of your own Holy Guardian Angel, Higher Self, or Daimon based on the Hellenistic technique of finding the rulers of life.  These three rulers as described by Porphry and Vettius Valens are the Predominator, the Domicile Lord, and the Lord of the Nativity.  The method for doing this is rather complex, but is mentioned here as a type of astrological magic.

Astrology is a holistic art / science and is a fine tool for determining what is going on around us and in our lives.  However, unless we do something to apply that information and make a difference, we are only merely passively observing and not participating in life.  Magic requires Astrology to be effective, and Astrological Magic is the practical solution for creating change.