Secret Key to Invocation and Evocation in Ritual Magick - Part 2

This is part two of a three part series on the art and practice of invocation and evocation as taught and executed within the Order of the Gnostic Star.

Quintedecim Complex and the Gate of Revealing

The Quintedecim complex consists of an outer four-fold elemental vortex established through the artifice of the Power Octagon conjoined with an inner circle that contains a septagramic trigon, and this is used to invoke all seven planetary intelligences associated with the target spirit. These two structures, one residing on the periphery and the other residing in the center of the circle, are joined through the employment of a magnetic vortex and a tetrahedral gateway aligned to the West, which is the underworld. To thoroughly understand these structures, it would be prudent for the reader to examine the nature of the Power Octagon and the Activated Septagram. The third element is the magical gateway, so that article should also be reviewed if needed.

As it was written in the Mystery Gateway article where I revealed how this technique of invocation could be performed, I stated that the groundwork for these processes had already been covered in still previously posted articles. I was, in fact, following a plan to reveal each of these ritual elements and expound on them before continuing with the topic that would pull all of them together into a single invocative working. Here is a quote from that article on the Mystery Gateway that pretty much lays out the various elements and how they would work together to form the layers of the octagon, septagram and the tetrahedral gateway. 

“We have already recently covered the ritual mechanisms used for the specialized Power Octagon and the Activated Septagram. I have indicated that through these two rituals alone, a magician might be able to fully invoke a spirit into manifestation in some manner. Yet the third step in this process performs two amazing and very necessary tasks. The Mystery Gate functions as a typical gateway in that it joins together into a unified field all of the previous ritual energy structures and it unlocks and reveals a distinct spiritual domain, which is essentially based on the prior symbolic configuration of octagon and septagram. The Gate of Revealing thus fuses the octagon and septagram to produce a fifteen pointed structure with a triangle in its center. I call this fifteen pointed ritual structure device, the Quintedecim Complex.”

I then proceeded to expound on the ritual that I call the Gate of Revealing, which is where all of these elements are fused into a single ritual structure. Here is another quote from that article which establishes the foundation for the functionality of that rite.

“The ritual Gate of Revealing has a basic preliminary operation that is done every time it is used. That operation is the drawing of an inner circle, placing the Quintedecim Complex trigon on top of the stack representing the Power Octagon and the Activated Septagram and then charging it with an invoking spiral and a violet colored energy. Twenty-two Trumps of the Tarot are placed around the periphery of that inner circle, representing the specific pattern of initiation that the magician is following. This pattern is then charged using the control crystal that normally is attached to a necklace that circles the magician’s neck. The magician projects the power of the crystal into each card, following the pattern of the four stages (of the Cycle of Initiation) in a widdershins vector. Upon the Q-Complex trigon, the magician places the consecrated sigil of the target spirit, where it will reside until the invocation is to be performed. In this manner, the core of the inner magick circle is set with the empowered invocation process, encircled by the pattern of one’s personal symbols of transformation.”

Continuing with quotations that describe the ritual pattern of the Gate of Revealing, I discussed the trapezoidal vortex that is one of the more critical parts of this working. The trapezoidal cross that is used to charge the cross-roads structure of this rite produces a prismatic structure called the trapezohedron, and this structure produces an overall effect that I call the para-reality or astral domain of the invoked spirit.

“Overlaying the central circle, the magician builds a powerful central pylon based vortex, where the four Watchtowers are each set with a trapezoidal cross in such a manner that a cross roads is formed (West to East, then South to North), with a trapezoidal cross also set in the Ultra-point. The four Watchtower devices are drawn to the center of the circle in the Infra-point (where the trigon stack is set) using the sword, after that, the magician draws an invoking spiral to connect the Ultra-point with the Infra-point, and then a widdershins spiral is used to generate the vortex proper.”

Once these structures are completed and fully realized, then he or she can continue to perform either an invocation (first summoning), evocation (exteriorization of the spirit), or skrying, astral projection into that spirit’s domain or even summoning the spiritual servitors. This multi-track option made the Gate of Revealing a modular ritual with several possibilities, as I succinctly stated in the article.

“From this point in the Gate of Revealing ritual, there are four possible tracks that the magician may follow. These tracks are independent from each other, but the track that completes the invocation process must be performed first, then through the use of a macro-ritual (which allows the magician to re-enter the domain of the already invoked spirit without having to redo all of the previous steps), the other three tracks may be subsequently followed. These four tracks are:

• Invocation through the media of manifestation (always performed the first time),
• Evocation through the artifice of Exteriorization (to be followed by the Iron Cross Vortex rite),
• Projection of the astral body or skrying into the spirit’s domain,
• Summoning of the spiritual servitors of the target spirit.”

These steps allow for a comprehensive working engaging any spirit so targeted, but such a regimen includes the custom researching and writing of the rituals that establish the Power Octagon and the Planetary Septagram. The Gate of Revealing is a modular ritual that can be used for any of the four tracks, so there is no need to customize that rite. However, the other layers would need to be unique to the individual spirit invoked, and the Octagon and Septagram are together referred to as the Invoking Vortex of the specific spirit. As of today, there are only a dozen or so custom invoking vortex rituals used for spirits that are integral to the Order because they function as sponsors, allies and patrons of the spiritual hierarchy.

Invocation Through a Symbolic Matrix

What inspired me to develop a different methodology for performing an invocation was the discovery and inspiration of a new system of magick, which I called Archeomancy. There were two different systems of this kind of magick from the very start, but the first one that I developed was called the Archeomancy of the 40 Worlds. The matrix in this case was one of the four Qabalistic Worlds and one of the 10 Sephiroth, combined together they emulated the primary spiritual hierarchy that I had developed, which was based on the Qabalah. This would include all of the angels of the 10 Sephiroth within the four Worlds.

In order to magically define these two dimensions of the matrix, I had to write two new rituals, which were based on the four Qabalistic Worlds (entitled the Qabalistic Pyramid of Powers) and at least nine of the ten Sephiroth (incorporated into a ritual entitled the Eneagram Invocation rite). Initially, these two rituals were to be performed in addition to the Quintedecim Complex to set the Qabalistic domain of the archeomantic spirit. Later on, the Quintedecim Complex was dropped for a more simplistic one; but the whole process began to make me realize that invoking through a matrix was an important directive for invocative magick.

What really tipped the balance for me was attempting to write custom invocation rites for the 36 angelic rulers of the astrological decans. I had basically determined that these spirits were very important, particularly since they were also the angels associated with the 36 Naib or Pip cards of the Lesser Arcana of the Tarot and appeared to co-rule (along with the zodiacal archangels) the famous 72 angels of the ha-Shem as well as the 72 Goetic demons. I had come to that conclusion by carefully reading what Crowley had written in his master-work on the Tarot called the Book of Thoth. I wanted to be able to invoke any of the 36 angelic rulers, but I didn’t want to have to write custom invocation rituals for each angelic spirit. How I resolved that problem was to build up the symbolic correspondences and spiritual hierarchy for each spirit and fashion that into a modular ritual which would emulate the Quintedecim complex.

This new rite would consist of an octagon base (creating an energy vortex), a spiritual gateway associated with the spiritual hierarchy of the astrological sign, a Rose-Ankh invoking vortex, and then in the center (defined by its own inner circle) the magician would perform a summoning rite which would work through the associated spiritual hierarchy. These four steps would create an alternative invoking structure that would be followed by the Gate of Revealing rite. However, I would only need to write one ritual that would have specific variables chosen at each point to set any of the elements of the symbolic matrix in order to realize the domain and spiritual intelligence of that angelic ruler of the decan within the Gate of Revealing. So this was the very first step that I took departing from previous standard of having to write unique custom invocation rituals for each spirit.

For the purpose of presenting this new technique, I would like to elaborate on the ritual process of invoking through a matrix to show how I managed to build an array of ritual structures that would do the same thing as the Quintedecim complex. I would like to cover each step in a bit more detail than the list of steps above so you can get a better idea of how I evolved these basic steps to produce a whole new methodology.

I began this rite by building a four-fold Elemental spirit base set to the four Watchtowers. What I did was erect a pylon structure to each of these four points, where the base of the pylon was qualified by the base element and the apex, with the qualifying element. I did this through setting an invoking pentagram at both points and then fusing them with an invoking spiral. I would choose the four Enochian Elemental spirits for the given astrological base element of the specific astrological decan. I would then intone the Enochian call for that specific Elemental spirit when the pylon was erected. In the center of the circle I would draw an invoking pentagram of spirit in the ultra-point (masculine or feminine, depending on the gender of the element) and summon the Enochian King of that element to the base.

So, the foundation of the ritual had four active Enochian elemental spirits and the Enochian element king, and when all four were drawn together into a square and aligned to the center, it would create a unified power base for the whole working. I was able extend this foundational structure by drawing the four cross devices representing the tetrasacramentary (although any kind of device would do) to the four angles, and these would be joined to themselves along with a great Rose Ankh drawn in the center of the circle at the infra-point. The combined structures would form another overlapping square device, and thereby the power octagon would be fully erected. I would then draw together the Ultra-point and Infrapoint to form a pylon in the center of the circle, then I would draw an inner circle widdershins, intone the Enochian call of Spirit, and perform the first invocation of the ruling planet. All of these steps would help to generate the overall energy field for this working, and to do this there is only one pattern with multiple choices depending on the qualities associated with that cell of the symbolic matrix.

Once the power octagon is established, upon these layers of ritual structures I would erect the astrological gateway. This gateway would be considered a definitive invocative structure itself, and would later be used as such. However, it was the mechanism that I decided I could use to define the spiritual quality of the astrological sign, which consists of the three spirits of the spiritual intelligence, the active principle and the ruling force. I invoked each of these specific spirits associated with the astrological sign at the three points of a western aligned gateway of the underworld. So, there would be a distinct gateway for each of the 12 zodiacal signs. Proceeding through the gateway, I would then express the unified concept of the zodiacal gate, and then proceeding through I would generate an invoking vortex by drawing Rose-Ankhs to the four watchtowers within a widdershins arc. I would then erect the septagram trigon in the center of the circle, which is the final preparation for the singular rite of summoning the Angel of the Decan.

I then would perform the summoning rite of the decan with the invoking vortex, and it would consist of me performing the following operations in sequence: summoning the angelic decan ruler and also Egyptian god of decan, summoning planetary ruler as Olympian spirit, intoning the Enochian planetary call (three times), tracing the planetary angle on the Septagram, charging the sigil of angelic decan ruler and expressing its image or imago (as taken from the Sabian House visions), and finally, intoning the generic Enochian call of the angelic ruler of the decan.

After these three major steps are followed, then the Gate of Revealing rite is performed to complete the invocation process. However, as you can see, there are aspects of the astrological gateway that might be construed as a potential invocation gateway, thus making the Gate of Revealing slightly, although not completely, redundant. I would, over the intervening years, ponder over this structure, and it would lead me to the next method that I would incorporate, which is the Archetypal Gate ritual.

Also, when I performed the custom invocation of Lilith in the very early 1990's, I was instructed by her during the aftermath of the invocation to develop a new methodology for performing a quick invocation on a spirit that had already been invoked by a custom invocation rite. This ritual was called the Enochian Planetary Vortex, which incorporated the 4 Watchtowers and the 3 gate nodes to produce a seven-fold planetary invocation of a given spirit. This method would not only establish the element and the planet, but also the specific astrological sign by using three of the Lesser Hexagram devices. These seven points represented a kind of magical invoking spiral that culminated in a powerful gateway device called the Grand Gate Threshold.

This ritual structure allowed me to re-invoke an important spiritual patron without having to use the Gate of Revealing rite. Instead, I was able to use a single rite to materialize all of the important attributes and structures of the more elaborate custom invocation ritual process. All I needed to work this rite was the consecrated sigil of the spirit. Of course, this new ritual helped to plant the seed in my fertile imagination for a whole new approach to performing an invocation, even though I still had to perform the original custom methodology in order to take advantage of this new ritual technology. Additionally, the Enochian Planetary Vortex itself was a custom written ritual, even though it was a lot shorter and succinct than the Quintedecim Complex. However, developing this new method had inspired me to look at other possibilities, and that openness to experimentation would evolve into a completely new technique. 

(Continued...)

Frater Barrabbas 

Pantheacon 2011 - Preparations and Research

 Pantheacon 2011

I have completed my class notes and handouts for the upcoming Pantheacon 2011, which is scheduled to occur next month, from Feb 18 through Feb 21. I have been slated to present two workshops at this gathering. This event is now less than a month away, and I have to say that I am really looking forward to it, particularly since the wintry weather here is getting a bit bleak and difficult to deal with. Sunny San Jose will be a welcome distraction to the cold tundra-like climate of the Twin Cities in the midst of deep winter.

Anyway, these two presentations are new to my slowly building collection of workshops and lectures. What I usually do for Pantheacon is to propose up to four workshops or lectures, all of them untried but based on previous articles and research. When one or more gets approved, then I will assemble my research and writings to build up the workshop or lecture. The two workshops that the Pantheacon staff selected were “Astrological Decans - Key to Evocation” and “Lunar Magick.” The first one is based on three or four articles that I have already written and researched, and despite that assembled information, I still found that I had some holes in my presentation that had to be researched and filled. The second one was based on a rather lengthy article that I have written but never published entitled “Lunar Mysteries and Moon Magick.” This article will be part of the book that I am assembling on Elemental and Talismanic Magick, using the lore of the Order of the Gnostic Star for that work.

If you have been faithfully reading my blog articles, you will note a recent article that I penned which dealt with the issues of the Goetic daemons and whether or not there were 72 daemons, 69 or perhaps even 73. You can find that article here, just in case you missed it. That was a bit of a hair pulling conundrum that I had to resolve before writing my presentation on the Astrological Decans. As I resolved that issue, I also wrote up an article to support that research, adding to the total articles needed to back up the presentation.

One issue was still outstanding, and I ran smack into it when I attempted to start pulling and assembling all of the writings and data that I had collected or written together. I discovered that there appears to be two schools of thought when it comes to assigning the spirits (both angels of the ha-Shem and the Goetic daemons) to the specific decans and their associated quinarians. This issue was discovered when I was working on retrieving the seals for the 72 angels of the ha-Shem and attempting to show how the decan could be more aptly used to define the qualities of the spirits. I wanted to see if other authors had given the decans that much power in defining the qualities of the associated spirits.

What I discovered is that the two schools seem to be the Golden Dawn and other European occultists, with Carroll “Poke” Runyan and his system giving weight to the European methodology. The whole issue revolves around where to start the decan and spirit association, in other words, which decan would be considered the first decan in this set, and this might also determine when in the season one could access that decan. The Golden Dawn system starts their decan list with first decan face of Leo, the other methodology starts in the most obvious place, in the first decan face of Aries. Starting in Aries would make sense if one were using Tropical Astrology, which is what I use in all my occult works. This is because it's considered the starting point for that system of astrology, which naturally starts at the Vernal Equinox (zero degrees Aries). The Golden Dawn preference for starting in Leo was both unexpected and also poorly documented. Very few authors have given any explanation as to why this choice was made, but many, including Thelemites like Lon Milo DuQuette (and Aleister Crowley) used this system, seemingly without question.

As you recall, we stated previously that each decan appears at the ascendent at dusk (or some say dawn) for approximately 10 days, which would leave five intercalated days. So if one has a methodology that determines the first decan and the start of the astrological wheel, it could also impact not only the spirits associated with quinarians, but also their qualities and astrologically based definitions. I decided that this issue warranted a massive search that would include the internet as well as any and all books in my library. I also consulted with a friend of mine (Ananael Qaa) who is probably a lot more knowledgeable about these obscure issues than me. What I uncovered was that other occultists had different opinions on how this should be resolved.

“Poke” Runyan decided that the traditional tropical astrological paradigm required that the first decan face in the set should be the first decan of Aries. Another individual, French occulitst Robert Ambelain, who wrote the book “La Kabbale Pratique,” also favored the Aries first solution. I found a translation of chapter five of his book on the Shemhamphorash in a PDF file associated with a certain Golden Dawn group. Still, despite all of that weighty evidence pointing to the starting point at the first decan of Aries, I was unfortunately wedded to the Golden Dawn version that proposed Leo as it’s starting point. The rational for this choice is explained in Book T with a rather terse and unhelpful explanation. I was vaguely informed by this brief explanation that the reason for this odd starting place has to do with determining that point using the star Cor Leonis (Heart of the Lion, also Regulus), which represents the beginning of the zodiacal sign of Leo. No reason for this choice is discussed or why it was used. This lack of explanation could be considered a small mystery, or just something that was assumed everyone would know.

Other authors have done little to illuminate this choice. Aleister Crowley accepted it without any comment, which was odd. If it were an arbitrary choice, then I am sure that Crowley would have researched it and replaced it with something more “Thelemic.” Even Lon Milo Duquette, in his book “Angels, Demons & Gods of the New Millennium” accepts this starting point. Lon explains it as having something to do with Chaldean astrology, but doesn’t go any deeper into the issue than that. He did produce a beautiful color table that shows how the spirits of the ha-Shem and the Goetic daemons fit together into a tight system, all associated with the decans and their associated Tarot cards, and all starting in the first decan face of Leo.

A comprehensive search of the internet turned up the interesting revelation that this issue has been discussed and pondered over by a number of individuals, and the various explanations for it were all very weak. No one seemed to know why this difference existed. And it got even more interesting when I attempted to compare either of these associations with what Dr. Rudd had done in his version of the Goetia. Dr. Rudd’s system was unique and appeared to use the sequence of spirits associated with the Goetia, where the first daemon in that work would be coupled with the first angel of the ha-Shem, needless to say, that made yet a third methodology that one could follow. I found Dr. Rudd’s version to be awkward and not very meaningful, but that could be easily explained by the fact that he lived in the first half of the 17th century when such a comprehensive system didn't yet exist.

Consulting the other experts in the Golden Dawn tradition didn’t yield any additional information. Pat Zelewski discusses the fact that there are other methodologies in his book “Kabbalah of the Golden Dawn.”  He doesn't explain why this is so, or why the Golden Dawn uses Leo first. He does refer the reader to Franz Bardon and his system. So I consulted  the material written by Franz Bardon, examining his book “Practice of Magical Evocation,” but Franz uses the Aries first sequence, so it was surprising that Pat Zelewski recommended that book to his readers.

Perhaps the only one who has actually managed to explain this issue in a manner that actually makes sense is David Griffin in his book “Ritual Magick Manual.” David talks about how the Golden Dawn, from Mather’s time, sought to use a system of astrology that was more based on Sidereal astrology than Tropical astrology. That would make a lot of sense, because the Golden Dawn Book T says that the choice for the decan starting point was to place it in the first decan of Leo, so as to be aligned with the star Regulus. This might seem to be still rather vague and inexplicable, and indeed it was, until I examined the mythology and background of the fixed stars, particularly Regulus.

I consulted a favorite book of mine, entitled “The Fixed Stars and Constellations in Astrology” written by Vivian E. Robson, which is a veritable goldmine of interesting occult facts for the fixed stars, lunar mansions, nebulae, clusters and even how they are used in magick. I decided just for the sake of thoroughness, I would examine this book to see what it said about Regulus. Low and behold, I believe that I found the answer to the enigma, but it was not in any of the books about the Golden Dawn. Here’s what that book had to say about Regulus.

“A triple star, flushed white and ultramarine, situated on the body of the Lion. From Regulus, a Little King, and often called Cor Leonis, the Lion’s Heart, and symbolically the crushing Foot. It was one of the four Royal Stars of the Persians in 3,000 B.C., when, as Watcher of the North, it marked the summer solstice.”

We can throw away the reference to 3,000 BC (this book was first published in 1923 and has a decided Theosophical bias), but the rest is quite interesting.

If also consider that the helical rising of Sirius also occurred during the early part of Leo, and coincided with the ancient Egyptian new year, when the calendar changed over to the first month, then the choice for this starting point begins to make a lot of sense. It would seem that Mathers had some very good reasons for choosing the first decan of Leo as his starting point, based on a desire to determine it through a sidereal approach, and to begin this set with the annual cycle as the ancient Egyptians would have understood it. The argument for this approach is that the Egyptians used the decan system exclusively as their variation of astrology, calendric determination and even the means of telling the hour at night. How they used the decans would be an appropriate consideration for a magickal tradition and organization that saw the ancient Egyptians as their predecessors.

So I believe that the mystery is pretty well solved, although the devil is in the details, of course. Still, because I have invested so much already in the Golden Dawn variant, I think that I will keep using that version, not the least because I would then be able to continue to use Lon’s beautiful color table. Anyway, this bit of detective work ate up nearly four or five days of my spare time, but I think that it’s worth it. At least if anyone asks me why I have adopted this system I won’t just say because its part of the Golden Dawn tradition and not to be questioned. I now can give at least a sensible explanation as to why it’s different, and feel confident in using it. This is not to say that the Golden Dawn method is in any way superior; in fact, intuitively I would have chosen the Aries first method instead, and there seems to be little need to explain that approach.

One other little item I found out is that the proper spelling for the word Shemhamphorash is actually Shem ha-Mephorash. That little point was made known to me in my research, and I have adjusted my notes and handouts accordingly. 

The assembling of the Lunar Magick workshop was actually quite straightforward. In fact I had more material than I could conceivably present in a 90 minute maximum class time period. I will have to zip through the material I did include since there is so much of it, but I think that when I have gotten through it all, that the attendees will know the value of tying their magickal and liturgical work to the cycles of the moon. This is particularly important for important ro strategic magickal workings that seek to dramatically change one’s material situation. I will be posting some additional articles on that topic in this blog on or after the workshop has been presented - so stay tuned.

If you are thinking about attending Pantheacon 2011 this year, I would like to let you know that I will be there, too, and also to give you the times and locations of my two presentations. The program book has not yet been made available to the public, so the schedule at this point is tentative but fairly certain. Here’s some information about the two classes that you can use - but don’t forget to examine the program book to make certain nothing has been changed. I hope to see you there. I will be bringing my laptop with me, so I might even make a remark or two in my blog while I am attending. There are some very interesting programs and presentations being given during that period, so I am hoping to get to attend some of them. I will also get to see some really good friends that I haven't seen since the last time I was there. Hopefully, I will get to make some new ones, too, so if you are there, drop into my class or say hello if you happen to bump into me. I will have autographed copies of my books for sale, just in case you might be interested.

Here are the workshop classes and the times and locations where they will meet. You will notice that both of them are scheduled for Friday. Interestingly enough, the workshop on Lunar Magick will be held during the Full Moon for February. How cool is that occurrence?!   


Title: Astrological Decans - Key to Evocation

When & Where: Friday - 01:30 PM - Santa Clara

Description: This workshop will examine all of the elements, including correspondences and materials from other authors that will show how the astrological decans, also known as the Faces, are the key to categorizing and mastering the invocation of the Ha-Shem Angels, Goetic Demons and the Angelic Rulers.


Title: Lunar Magick

When & Where: Friday - 07:00 PM - Santa Clara

Description: This workshop examines how the cycle of the moon can be used to powerfully effect practical magick. We will examine the seasonal full moons, the eight phases of the lunation cycle and the 28 mansions of the moon.

Frater Barrabbas

Key to Evocation: Zodiacal Decans

I have previously published this article on the e-zine, Rending the Veil, and I thought that it would be useful to post it here for my readers to examine, just in case they didn’t catch it. This article represents the core principle that I use in establishing the hierarchical structure and methodology of performing theurgy and goetic evocation.


Matrix of Possibilities

There are many ways to perform the operation of theurgy and the evocation of spirits. Most of those who practice this kind of magickal operation work through one or more of the many available grimoires. However, there are other ways to perform this operation that have little to do with the old grimoires; yet these other methods require the invention of a completely alternative magickal technology to make use of them. A practitioner is generally stuck between using existing information and available materials or creating something entirely new. The path that I took was to create a new methodology for invocation and evocation, but the clues on how to proceed were already well documented, even though they were subtle and obscure.

Ever since I first examined the Goetia of the Lemegeton, or Lesser Key of Solomon, I have been fascinated by those entities called Goetic Demons, but found the methodologies for invoking them to be too abbreviated and incomplete to be entirely useful to me. Others have made use of this grimoire, but I found it beyond my ability to produce an effective methodology for evocation. I also found the 72 angels of the Shemhemphorasch (ha-Shem) in this same category, even though they were not specifically listed in any grimoire that I had at the time. To me there seemed to be a lot of pieces of occult lore without the ability to pull them all together. So I tended to work with the spirits and powers that I was able to access through my developed ritual systems, and ignore all of the other spirits that didn’t fit into those structures.

However, when I first read Aleister Crowley’s Book of Thoth and also studied Israel Regardie’s The Golden Dawn (specifically, Book T) there seemed to be a new structure implied that might associate the Tarot, Astrology, Qabbalah and the hierarchy of Spirits into one unified system. That structure was found in the 36 Naib cards of the Minor Arcana of the Tarot and the 36 Astrological Decans.

Aleister Crowley discusses that there is an associated spiritual hierarchy with each of the Naib cards, stating it as such: “ It is governed from the angelic world by two Beings, one during the hours of Light, the other during the hours of Darkness. Therefore, in order to use the properties of this card, one way is to get into communication with the Intelligence concerned, and to induce him to execute his function.” (See “Book of Thoth”, p. 43) Crowley goes on to write that these two spirits are the Angels of the Shehemphorash and that there are a total of 72 of them, corresponding to the five degree astrological segment of the “quinaries” or what I refer to as the quinarians. Crowley omits relating the astrological decans to these 36 Naib cards, but he does use the old style planetary rulers that are associated with them in assigning the planets to these Tarot cards. One can see this illustrated in a table on page 283 of the Book of Thoth.

Book T goes further than Crowley by not only showing that the astrological decans correspond to the 36 Naib cards of the Tarot, but also that there is a larger matrix consisting of the 16 Court cards and the four Aces. (This association was first documented in the Golden Dawn material, particularly Book “T” - Tarot. See Golden Dawn by Israel Regardie, 6th edition, p. 551. )

So it would seem that there is a very tight tabular system consisting of all of the 56 cards of the Lesser Arcana. This tabular system can also be used to represent a spiritual hierarchy of the four Elements, the ten Sephiroth of the Tree of Life and the twelve signs of the Zodiac. The one association that is missing is where the decans are shown to be hierarchically related to the quinarians, since the former would represent a ten degree segment of the zodiacal wheel and the latter, a five degree segment. A decan would therefore be the higher order structure of two corresponding quinarians. What this means is that the decan and its associated spirit correspondences rules over the associated quinarian and its spirit correspondences. If the angels of the ha-Shem and the demons of the Goetia are associated with the quinarians, then the angelic ruler of the decanate would be their hierarchical lord, and the decan would be the key to the quinarian.

Clues to the nature of the astrological structure of these spirits is found in the lore from the Golden Dawn, Alesiter Crowley, and they were used by Carrol Runyon in his work. In the book 777 (cols. CXXIX - CXXXII, CXLV - CLXVI), the angels of the Ha-Shem, Angelic Rulers of the Decans and Daemons of the Goetia are organized by the Zodiac, using the ascendant, cadent and succeedent parts of the wheel of the Zodiac, by day and night. (Actually, the Angels of the ha-Shem correspond to nine of the ten Sephiroth of the Tree of Life for the four suits of the Tarot, paired by day and night. Pulling the various pieces together requires a correspondence between the Decans and the Naib cards of the Lesser Arcana of the Tarot.)

It would seem that the number 72 would lend itself to being a multiple of six times twelve, both very sacred numbers in Judaism. Also, there already was an astrological structure for the quinarians as lesser aspects of the decans, so I think that it would fit into a neat hierarchy. I don't know where this idea originally came from, but I was using existing schemes for all of this, as well as hints from Aleister Crowley in the appendices of the Book of Thoth - so I didn't invent it. (The Goetia of Dr. Rudd has paired the angels of the ha-Shem with the Goetic demons. The relationship of the 72 spirits to the quinarians is quite old, and may be a part of the ancient system of astrological magick, such as that proposed in the Picatrix (11th century). However, there is no prior precedence for grouping the decans and the quinarians together, and organizing the associated spirits into a hierarchy.) As a system it fits really well together, and is better than using the Shemhemphorash as a unique and separate set of spirits without any correspondences. As I have stated above, determining a context for spiritual entities so that they may be defined and highly qualified is important if the magician seeks to invoke that spirit.

When I carefully researched the clues, I found where the angels of the Shemhemphorash were given their astrological correspondences - it was in Agrippa's Book III of Occult Philosophy, Chapter XXV, paragraph 6. Agrippa writes: "And these are those [angels of ha-Shem] that are set over the seventy-two celestial quinaries,.." So if the angels of ha-Shem are set over the seventy-two celestial quinarians, then their hierarchy would naturally be associated with the 36 decans and the twelve signs of the Zodiac, and also with their associated archangels and angelic rulers. This relation between decan and quinarian is not spoken of by either Agrippa or anyone else, but is alluded to in Aleister Crowley's Book of Thoth, (Part I - Theory - p. 40 - 44, and Appendix B, p. 283) and also Book T of the Golden Dawn (p. 550). If you put what he says together with the tables in 777, you come up with the system that I am using. To my knowledge, no else quite makes all of the combinations that I have made - but it seems to be functionally elegant.

There is some dispute in occult circles as to whether there actually were 72 goetic demons, since the earlier forms of this list of spirits have only a total 67 demons. I am, of course, referring to the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum of Johann Weyer (1563). Earlier versions of this list show an even smaller number of demons, so some purists have stated that the number 72 must be later and not valid. Of course, the same argument could be used for the twenty-two trumps of the Tarot. Earlier versions of the Tarot do not agree on the total number of trumps, and the correspondence between them and the Qabbalistic pathways wasn’t made until the 19th century. Would purists insist on using the older variations of the Tarot and omit comparing the trumps to the paths because it was a later adaptation? Of course not! Yet because of the elegance and the tight manner that three different angelic hierarchies fit together under the aegis of the Lesser Arcana of the Tarot, and how they represent a holistic astrological hierarchy, I feel compelled to disagree with the purists and instead propose the system that I have found to be most useful and quite powerful. Some may disagree with what I have pulled together, but I believe that this system represents a greater truth, just like the current knowledge and insights associated with the Tarot.

Needless to say, I was quite thrilled at how neat and tidy all of these various elements were pulled together through the cards of the Lesser Arcana of the Tarot. I speculated that if one could identify the various correspondences associated with each of these cards, that one could put together a system to invoke and evoke all of the associated spirits. So, after basking in this wondrous revelation for a moment or two, I set to work to build a system of magick that would do just that.

To recap, the angelic ruler of the decan and Tarot Naib card has the following hierarchy:

• Element Godhead
• Qabbalistic Sephirah
• Zodiacal Base Element
• Zodiacal Triple Spiritual Intelligences (Archangel, Angel, House Ruler) - these qualify the specific Zodiacal Sign
• Planetary Ruler of the Decan
• Angelic Ruler of the Decanate
• ha-Shem Angel of Day and Night
• Goetic Demon of Day and Night (from Lemegeton - Goetia)
• Angel of the Zodiacal Degree (From Lemegeton - Ars Paulina - Part 2)

Obviously, if one were to perform an invocation of the angelic ruler of the decanate, or one of the angels of the ha-Shem, or one of the Goetic demons, then one would establish or invoke the associated spiritual hierarchy, beginning with the Element Godhead. Tools used to assist in the establishment of these qualities would be the pentragram (Element), lesser hexagram (astrological triplicities), hexagram or septagram (planetary ruler) and the eneagram (sephirah).

My methodology uses a technique that defines a spirit through a matrix of correspondences, and then generates the elemental body and planetary intelligences of the spirit from them. I will defer that explanation to a future article, but I think the above information is enough to get occultists thinking of an alternative method to performing invocation and evocation. 


Importance of the Astrological Decans

So, what is the importance and significance of the astrological decan? Even if it seems to fit into a nice tidy structure that defines a hierarchy of spirits, why is it such a compelling structure by itself? These are good questions, but in order to answer them, we will need to share some historical information about the decans. Once that is done, I am sure it will be obvious why they are significant.

The decans have a long history in the annals of magickal religion - the Egyptians had minor deities associated with each of them, and these play an important part in the Book of Gates. The decans are used in Horary (predictive) astrology to determine the dignity of planets in the divinatory chart, and they have been represented in both the Egyptian and Mesopotamian theological systems as sidereal gods of time and destiny. Thus the magician contacts the Angelic Ruler in order to realize and control his/her destiny, and to affect the general causality of the world. The decans were also used by the Egyptians to indicate the hour of the night.

What gave me a clue to the importance of the decans is when I came across a passage  in the book "Magic, Mystery, and Science - The Occult in Western Civilization" by Dan Barton and David Grandy, (Indiana University Press 2004). That passage said that the Egyptians used the decans (and their associated godheads and marking stars) to determine and qualify the hours of the night sky. During the night, the decan that appeared at the ascendant would tell the Egyptians what time it was. A decan would last approximately 40 minutes, so for each night approximately 18 of the 36 decans would be revealed, and during the changing of the seasons, the evening would potentially begin with a different decan over time, passing through the whole zodiacal wheel during an annual period.

So the decans were possibly used as magical hours during the night, but these hours would have lasted 40 minutes instead of 60, and each decan would have been accorded a different minor godhead and quality, not to mention the 12 gates of the diurnal solar boat transit through the underworld.

It would also seem that the Egyptians used a system of reckoning when attempting to determine the hours at night, using the decans passing over the horizon as a kind of clock. Since twilight would have made this reckoning impossible, there would have been 12 hours of night associated with the decans, since making this measurement would have required complete darkness. Dawning light would have also potentially interfered, so there would have been an hour and a half both before full night and before dawn when such reckoning would have been impossible.

A device called a merkhet (plumb line) was discovered in an Egyptian tomb. This tool, whose invention was late, probably around 600 BCE, was used to determine the north-south axis. Two of these devices were set up in a specific measured line from each other, and the subject would observe the rising of the decan star between the line of these two devices. It’s likely that this late tool was based on more primitive technology that was used to perform the same kind of sighting for untold centuries in the past.

Another interesting thing about the decans is that every 10 days a new decan would appear at the horizon at the first observable hour of the night. It’s from this array of 36 decans, each lasting 10 days, that the Egyptians determined their solar based calendar, where the last decan coincided with the annual inundation of the Nile river. They had a yearly calendar of 36 decans with five days added to the end to make 365 days in all. The five additional days would represent a 73rd quinarian in the Egyptian astrological system, but that is another interesting item to discuss in another article.

As you can see, the decans were used to measure time during the night. They also represented the hours of the domain of the underworld, where the solar boat and its occupants fought the threatening chthonic foes in order to gain passage to the gate of the dawn in the east. This underworld passage occurred every evening, but to the Egyptians it represented the mythic passage from death and mortality to the immortality of the gods - an initiation cycle of profound consequences.

If we now observe that the decans and the Naib cards of the Lesser Arcana of the Tarot are analogous, then not only do we have an elegant system of occult correspondences, but we also have a map for an aspect of the Inner planes, governed by various spirits and representing the underworld passage of occult initiation.

Frater Barrabbas

Egyptian Planetary Hours and Oddities of Time Keeping

Anyone who has worked planetary or astrological magick has faced the difficult task of attempting to use the archaic and peculiar planetary hours. Many modern books have tables of the planetary hours, and the sources for these tables are the older grimoires and books, such as Agrippa’s Occult Philosophy. Needless to say, the typical system of planetary hours uses the seven planets of the ancients (actually five planets, the Sun and Moon) and divides the day into 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of night, with the planet associated with the day of the week beginning the list. The order of planets is always some variation of Moon, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus and Mercury (called the Chaldean sequence). The planetary association of the days of the week are Monday = Moon, Tuesday = Mars, Wednesday = Mercury, Thursday = Jupiter, Friday = Venus, Saturday = Saturn and Sunday = Sun. At dawn of each of these days of the week, the planetary hour is always the same as the day. Interestingly enough, if you overlay these seven planets on the grid of 24 hours, starting with the planetary hour of that day, then the 25th hour will be exactly the planetary hour of the next day of the week.

Many magicians who bother to use the planetary hours employ the mechanism of variable length hours to accommodate the actual length of the day or night. Obviously, around the Winter Solstice, the hours during the day will be shorter than the hours of the night, and correspondingly, around the Summer Solstice, the duration of the hours of the day will be longer than the hours of night. This is an age old conundrum that was fixed by the Greeks, most notably Hipparchus (190 - 120 BCE), who proposed establishing hours of equal duration despite the time of the season, which became known as equinoctial hours, a system that we use today.

Equinoctial hours were also used earlier by the ancient Akkadians, and this system was based on the duration of the hour at the time of the vernal or autumnal equinoxes, when the period of day and night were equal. However, it was not until the advent of clocks that the equinoctial hour became the standard. I have chosen to use the equinoctial hour system in how I work with the planetary hours, establishing the first hour of the day by the exact moment of the sun rising locally over the horizon, and then proceeding to assign the planetary hours for the next 23 hours from that point in time, ignoring the need to divide the day and night into 12 variable hours. Some would dispute this methodology as not being traditional, and I would agree, but it is a simple and tidy approach to assigning planetary hours.

Thinking about this topic leads one to puzzle over other questions as well. Such as, how the ancients come up with 12 hour days if they didn’t have an accurate method of measuring time? Where did the number 12 come from, and how did they determine that there were 24 hours in the day? If the clock was not invented until the early 14th century, then there would not have been a mechanical methodology to measure time. Even the earliest clocks that first showed a dial (although they only had one hand to measure the hour) had a numbering system that showed 12 hours. Where did that come from and how was it developed? An interesting question, and one that I decided to examine for myself.

What started me on this track of research is when I came across a passage  in the book "Magic, Mystery, and Science - The Occult in Western Civilization" by Dan Barton and David Grandy, (Indiana University Press 2004). That passage said that the Egyptians used the decans (and their associated godheads and marking stars) to determine and qualify the hours of the night sky. During the night, the decan that appeared at the ascendant would tell the Egyptians what time it was. A decan would last approximately 40 minutes, so for each night (since Egypt experiences nearly year round 12 hour days and night) 18 of the 36 decans would be revealed, and during the changing of the seasons, the evening would potentially begin with a different decan over time, passing through the whole zodiacal wheel during an annual period. So there were magical hours used during the night, but these would have lasted 40 minutes instead of 60, and each decan would have been accorded a different minor godhead and quality, not to mention the 12 gates of the diurnal solar boat transit through the underworld. Of course this discovery sort of threw a monkey wrench into the whole concept of measuring hours, particularly planetary hours. So I must admit that I was quite intrigued.

Further study helped me clarify my thoughts about the astrological decans. So maybe we should take a quick trip down the allegorical time line and see how the measurement of time evolved.

Human beings, like most animals, function in what is called a diurnal cycle of night and day, sleep and wakefulness. The apparent motion of the sun makes it appear that it rises in the morning until it reaches a point nearly directly overhead, and then slowly moves lower in the sky until it sets below the horizon. Night time seems nearly seamless, with only the stars and the moon to determine the changing time. There would seem to be naturally four periods to the entire cycle of the day - dawn, noon, sunset and night. Some time around 3,000 BCE the Egyptians began making obelisks that would capture the variations of the daily and seasonal positions of the sun. Some of the obelisks had markings for the position of the sun at the two solstices. Later on, the Egyptians developed sun dials that used a “gnomon”, stylus or pointer to produce a shadow that indicated the time against a dial that marked the hours. Interestingly enough, there were 12 divisions or hours in the day, with the first and last hour being determined by sight alone, since the sun would not likely produce a sharp shadow against the dial during twilight. So the Egyptians had somehow decided on dividing the day into 12 hours using a sun dial to aid in that measurement.

It would also seem that the Egyptians used a system of reckoning when attempting to determine the hours at night, using the decans passing over the horizon as a kind of clock. Since twilight would have made this reckoning impossible, there would have been 12 hours of night associated with the decans, since making this measurement would have required complete darkness. Dawning light would have also potentially interfered, so there would have been an hour and a half both before full night and before dawn when such reckoning would have been impossible.

A device called a merkhet (plumb line) was discovered, whose invention was late, probably around 600 BCE, which was used to determine the north-south axis. Two of these devices were set up in a specific measured line from each other, and the subject would observe the rising of the decan star between these two devices. It’s likely that this late tool was based on more primitive technology that was used to perform the same kind of siting.

“The Egyptians improved upon the sundial with a merkhet, the oldest known astronomical tool. It was developed around 600 B.C. and uses a string with a weight on the end to accurately measure a straight vertical line (much like a carpenter uses a plumb bob today). A pair of merkhets were used to establish a North-South line by lining them up with the Pole Star. This allowed for the measurement of nighttime hours as it measured when certain stars crossed a marked meridian on the sundial.”

The Egyptians also had a primitive water clock as early as 1,500 BCE, since one was buried with the pharaoh Amenhotep I.  However, the accuracy of such a device and how it was set up to measure hourly duration at night has not been determined. We might assume that it either measured the 40 minute hour of the decans, or maybe it divided the night up into 12 hours just like the day.

Another interesting thing about the decans is that every 10 days a new decan would appear at the horizon at the first observable hour of the night. It’s from this array of 36 decans, each lasting 10 days, that the Egyptians determined their solar based calendar, where the last decan coincided with the annual inundation of the Nile river. They had a yearly calendar of 36 decans with five days added to the end to make 365 days in all.

We seem to have answered most of our questions except the one about how the 12 hours of the day were determined. While the mathematical numbering system of 12, 60 and 360 was the invention of the Sumarians, and that their cultural heirs, the Akkadians, determined the 60 minute hour and the 60 second minute, they didn’t have the technology to measure these divisions of time. However, if we accept that the Sumerians came up with the use of the number 12 for the hours of day and night, then how did the Egyptians come up with this number? We would either have to propose a form of diffusion, where these ideas were transported to the Egyptians from Mesopotamia, or maybe there is a simpler reason.  I believe I found the answer on the internet and this is what it says:

“Until the arrival of clockwork, in the 14th century AD, an hour is a variable concept. It is a practical division of the day into 12 segments (12 being the most convenient number for dividing into fractions, since it is divisible by 2, 3 and 4). For the same reason 60, divisible by 2, 3, 4 and 5, has been a larger framework of measurement ever since Babylonian times.”

So it would seem that dividing the day into 12 hours facilitates the use of fractions, allowing for the day to be divided into segments and the hour itself to be stated in fractions. We still use this methodology when we talk about half hours and quarter hours. One could use the same fractions to divide the day up into half days, quarter days, and even the use of thirds. Using any other number would have made such divisions more cumbersome. What this means is that the hour is actually an arbitrary division of time, used because of its simplicity and efficiency. Later on clocks made the hour a fixed quantity, just like the minute and the second. I believe that this realization is a simple explanation as to the nature of time keeping and how it evolved. The Egyptians, who were not as good at mathematics or astronomy as the Sumerians and Akkadians, independently came up with a system of dividing the day into 12 hours. The whole system is quite arbitrary - a human invention.

However we, as occultists and magicians, choose to divide up the day and determine the planetary hours can be variable and even arbitrary, so long as the methods we use are employed consistently and competently. It also helps to explain how we use these divisions so others will know what we are talking about when discussing planetary hours.

Frater Barrabbas