Some Further Thoughts About the 40 Qualified Powers

A while back I wrote an article about the 40 Qualified Powers, which are a useful set of energies and they have a comparative utility to the 16 Elementals. You can find that article here, but I have had further thoughts about these energies and I wanted to put them into an article that would work along with what I have already written. The ritual pattern that is used to generate the 40 Qualified Powers is called the “Pyramid of Powers” rite can be found in my book entitled “Mastering the Art of Ritual Magick - Omnibus Edition.” The rituals is examined in chapter 7 of Book 2, and the Qualified Powers are defined in chapter 8 of Book 2. I would recommend getting this book and adding it to your collection because there a quite a number of useful ritual patterns and open-source rituals in that work.


There are a number of different ways that one can utilize the Tarot as a magical tool, since it is a repository of quite a large number of magical and occult correspondences. The Tarot and the Qabalah are intertwined, particularly in the 19th and 20th century European occult versions of those disciplines. A magician can take a certain specific point of reference and look at the Tarot in that manner to discover all sorts of useful symbologies and practical referential correspondences. One such perspective is to look at the Tarot through the perspective of magical energy. What one would find would be three groups of magical powers. The first would be the sixteen elementals based on the court cards, the second would be the forty qualified powers, and the last would be the transformative powers of the twenty-two trumps of the major arcana. One could also split off the four aces to produce the foundational structure of the spiritual dimension of the four Elements.

Similarly, one could also look at the Tarot through the perspective of spirits, and with this perspective a whole array of a spiritual hierarchy would be revealed. There would be the hierarchy of the 36 astrological decans, the sixteen elementals spirits (as found in either the angelic or Enochian systems of magic), and the interaction of the various spirits associated with both the cycle of initiation and the cosmogonic creation/dissolution cycles of the trumps. Either approach, energy or spirit, will reveal the powerful magical underpinnings of the Tarot. The energy perspective reveals the magical powers that are available to the magician using the energy model of magic, and the spirit perspective reveals the spiritual hierarchy that is available for the magician to conjure. Additionally, the 36 decan based number or Naib cards, represent an actual spiritual domain that is grounded in the zodiacal hierarchy that permeates the three spherical levels of celestial, earth and underworld. The Tree of Life can also be mapped to this structure, although not in a very clean and concise manner unless the four Qabalistic Worlds are employed.

Therefore, the Tarot is a very powerful repository of all things occult and magical, and it could be considered the preeminent magical grimoire. I have also written about this concept in one of my articles, and you can find it here. While quite a number of magicians are examining and studying the latest in published grimoires and expounding about the latest developments in the arena of evocation and spirit conjuring, one book is typically ignored. That book is the redoubtable Tarot, which was fashioned to be the basis for all forms of magic in the Western Mystery tradition. If a student were to study the Tarot in a great deal of depth and intensity then I believe that such a person would be able to expand their magical perspective to achieve all magical objectives using both magical energies and spirits embedded within the symbolic correspondences of the humble Tarot cards. It is the most important grimoire and magical treatise of all time, and it is the source for all of the magical and occultic systems in the West. And, it can be used for divination, either to passively receive or actively project the patterns thereby randomly derived. Perhaps one of the greatest exponents of the Tarot is Aleister Crowley’s book “The Book of Thoth.” It was one the last books that he wrote, and it is one of the best, in my opinion. 


Getting back to our topic about the Qualified Powers, I have been seeking to encapsulate these magical energies in such a manner that other practitioners of magic would see their utility and usefulness. I had assumed that the Qualified Powers were called such because they were the product of a base element qualified by an attribute of Deity. However, there is more to them than that, or at least that is what I have discovered by pondering them in greater depth. Allow me to explain what I mean by this statement.

Energy magic is typically reduced to working, in some manner, with the four elements. You can readily extend this model to include a number of different qualities of energy, but they are all based on the four elements - Fire, Air, Water and Earth. You can define these four elements in many different ways, including physical, occult and spiritual qualities. In extending the definitions of the four elements you can make their utility more refined and useful. However, you can also do this by combining with other things to create hybrid energy structures. This is the basic concept regarding the energy model of magic that I have employed in my magical system. I don’t know if others have also used this mechanism, but this is what I have found to be quite efficient and useful. The occult and magical symbol for the four elements is the pentagram, which represents the four elements tied to a fifth, which is spirit. In this manner, spirit is said to be the synergetic fusion of all four of the elements - it is the quintessential element. A magician can use the pentagram to generate/invoke or dissolve/banish any of the four elements and spirit. The basic magical technique for generating element powers using a pentagram was first employed in the Golden Dawn rite of the Superior Pentagram.

Now whether these energized elements or their hybrids are seen as being generated through the vital force of the magician’s body or through some symbolic artifice is not particularly important to the energy model. In the version of the energy model of magic that I work, it would seem to me that this energy source has its origin both within my body (as a trigger) and also outside of it. One of the reasons that I believe this is that however much energy I can raise through the artifice of magic, I don’t seem to be draining my own essential energy. Once triggered, it seems as if the magical energy that I have generated for a magical working has an endless supply. I can feel this energy pass through my body, for certain, but the ecstatic results of this energy flow seems beyond what would normally just reside in my body. When using the energy magical techniques and projecting what feels like a considerable force into the material world, I feel highly charged and energized after the working instead of feeling depleted or tired. I always have to ground off the excess in order to keep myself balanced and not emotionally keyed up. Working with the energy based system of magic can make one feel “high” or even drunk because of the emotional impact of the ungrounded energies.

As far as energy hybrids are concerned, I have incorporated three different energy structures, and these can both engage magical energies and energy based spirits. The most basic structure is to be found in the sixteen elementals. These powers consist of the hybrid pair of a qualifying base element combined with the same or another element. The permutation of four produces the number sixteen, so there are sixteen elementals. These energy based entities correspond to the sixteen court cards in the Tarot. You could use just one of these cards as the focus for generating an elemental. The other two are the 28 Lunar Mansions (Talismanic Elemental), which are represented as the hybrid combination of an element and a planet, and the 40 Qualified Powers, which are represented as the hybrid of an element and a Deity attribute.

To generate an elemental I employ the pentagram device and the eight node circle octagram (consisting of a double pyramid) as the ritual pattern used to generate what I call an elemental vortex. I can further qualify this energy by using the Enochian spirit name pair and the Enochian call for a specific elemental. However, an elemental force, even when summoned using a spirit name, has to have some kind of specific magical device to link it to some external objective - known as the magical link. The energy is focused into the center of the magic circle using a deosil circumambulation spiral from the outer periphery of the magic circle to the center. The power is released through the artifice of a widdershins circumambulation spiral from the center to the outer periphery of the magic circle, where the energy is projected outside of the circle as a kind of magical “bolt.” In order for the magical energy to find its target it must first be imprinted with the link, which is usually in the form of a charged or consecrated sigil. I consider an elemental magical power to be “unqualified” because it requires a sigil to imprint and direct it to its objective. As a joke, I often say to my students that elementals are kind of dumb and need to be qualified in order to work.

While the generated elemental is considered an unqualified power, both the Lunar Mansions and the Qualified Powers are qualified powers. What this means is that these magical energies also contain archetypal qualifiers that further define the energy (with a spiritual intelligence) so that it has a specific function and objective already determined. Both of these energy systems don't require the imprint of a magical link in order to set them to a specific objective. By definition, these kinds of magical energies already have an objective, and that is why I refer to them as qualified powers. You can use a sigil to imprint and further refine their innate function, but it is not required. Once generated and released, qualified energies will automatically empower the magician’s intention to fulfill the working’s magical objective. Thus qualified powers are also intelligent magical energies, since they are imbued with an archetypal intelligence. The 28 Lunar Mansions are actually a subset of the 40 Qualified Powers, since the seven planetary archetypes are included in the 10 attributes of the Deity.

The structure used to generate one of the Qualified Power is the magical pyramid vortex, and the device is the pentagram. The focusing and exteriorizing spirals are used just as they are in the Elemental Octagram, but the focused element energy field is imprinted with a symbol and quality of attribute of the Deity. This causes a fusion, within the vortex field, of the element and attribute, thereby qualifying the magical energy. One could also further qualify it by performing an invocation of a specific polytheistic Deity, vibrating a Qabalistic Sephirah Godname, or even just using the Tarot card itself. The magician should make certain that the energy is fully imprinted so that there appears to be a kind of energized Godform in the center of the circle. Then when this qualified energy is released in the same manner as an elemental, it will intelligently and automatically proceed outward from the circle to fulfill its objective. The ritual to generate a Qualified Power is more simple than the ritual used to generate an elemental, and since there are 40 different powers, one can have a greater variety from which to choose. As I said, you can also use a sigil to give a qualified power even more of a precise focus, but it is not required. All that is required is to develop a mechanism for symbolically defining one of the ten Deity attributes.

Coincidentally, the technique for using the 40 Qualified Powers was something that I learned using a very simple cone of power augmented by setting an invoking pentagram of a specific element to the four watchtowers and then imprinting that energy using one of the 10 Qabalistic Godnames. It was a very simple version of the Pyramid of Power rite, but it was amazingly effective. I was taught this simple technique in the old Alexandrian coven in which I first learned how to work real magic. Sometimes I wonder if any other Witches perform this kind of simple but effective magic.

Frater Barrabbas

A Brief Overview of Sigil Magick

Sigil - pronounced like “sidjel.”

Sigil Magick is defined as a magickal system that makes use of occult characters, diagrams, condensed verbal intentions, geometric symbols, mystical alphabets, angular signatures of spirits and other kinds of symbolic or hieroglyphic representations. The word sigil comes from the Latin word sigilum, which means “seal.” Of additional significance is the Hebrew word SGULH or sagulah, which means “some kind of word or action” that has a specific spiritual or magickal impact. The use of sigils in magick has its roots in antiquity, possibly from Hebrew sources, since sigils often accompanied magickal squares, which were used extensively in the Jewish tradition of ceremonial magick.

Most often, sigils, or specialized characters, were incorporated into grimoires and had a traditional use, requiring the wielder to copy them exactly as depicted, even though they had to have been invented by someone at some point in history. These kinds of sigils were carefully crafted using very specific techniques (and not derived from either imagination or revelation), but the methodology used for their creation is typically missing from those same works. (A good example that shows how these sigils were developed can be found in Donald Tyson’s version of “Three Books of Occult Philosophy” originally written by Agrippa - particularly Appendix V on Magick Squares (Llewellyn 1997).)

Some believe that magickal sigils or characters have a power and potency all to themselves, others believe that a sigil has to be activated, at the very least, by the imagination and will of a trained and competent magician. Some grimoires are notorious for the sigils and characters that they contain, lending weight to the superstition that sigils have an independent volition quite separate from whoever invented or wields them. Most often, sigils are reputed to be the specialized symbolic names of angels, demons or various spirits, and the sigil is used to summon and evoke them. This makes a sigil similar in some ways to the “Veve” as found in Haitian Vodoun. Still, sigils used as the symbolic name of a spirit assumes that the sigil is a more pure and direct representation of that spirit’s true nature, and of course, whoever knows the “true” name or nature of a spirit has direct power over it.

When I perform an invocation or an evocation, I will employ a sigil crafted from the name of the target spirit. That sigil can be derived from a number of sources, but I generally use the Rose diagram from the Golden Dawn Rose Cross, which has the Hebrew letters drawn on the three concentric circles of petals, representing the triple division of those same letters (3 mother letters, 7 double letters and 12 single letters). One could also derive a spirit sigil from one of the appropriate magickal planetary squares, depending on the spirit’s hierarchical association, since there are different squares for each of the seven planets. There is also the Aiq Bkr magickal square that can be used to craft a sigil from a spirit’s name.

Essentially, a sigil is a visual magickal sign of some sort, whether it’s taken from some traditional body of magickal lore (grimoire or tradition), or created by the magician to represent the name of a spirit or to encapsulate a specific intention or desire. Manufacturing sigils became the hallmark of the famous British witch and sorcerer, Austin Osman Spare, who proposed a system of creating sigils by condensing and extracting the forms of the letters from a phrase that stated the magician’s intent. Spare called this methodology “sigilization,” and it was later adopted by Chaos magicians and others who use it as an independent system of magick. Sigilization is employed for casting spells, organizing and deploying an “alphabet of desire” for the same, or building up thought forms. However, it is probably one of the most direct and useful methods for creating a magickal link that I ever seen or experienced.

First, let me define what a magickal link is, and why it’s important in certain kinds of ritual magick. A link is employed whenever a magician seeks to make something happen in the material world. It is usually tangible in some manner and it should model or symbolize the magician’s intention. A link is a symbolic quality that establishes a connection between the magician, his desire, the magickal power raised and the intended target, whatever that happens to be.

In archaic forms of magick, the link was usually something that was directly “linked” or attached at some point to the target, such as hair, finger nail parings, blood, jewelry or clothing, if the target was to be a person. If the target was more general, then the link consisted of herbs, power objects (stones, crystals, odd shaped pieces of wood), bird or animal parts (or even human parts), bits of metal (magnets, nails) or other curious odds and ends collected while on the hunt for internal occult connections. A table of correspondences would also help the magician sort out and select analogous items consisting of colors, incense, herbs, gem stones, precious and semi-precious metals - the list is nearly endless.

These various objects would be put together in an artistic manner to symbolize the intent, such as piercing an apple with rusty nails, piercing dried organs or herbs with thorns, or creating a poppet or miniature human shape out of wax or some tuber, adorning it with bits of hair, finger nails or cloth, and then baptizing and naming it for the intended target. The objects would be blessed, charged, assembled, and the final product would be used in a spell to make something happen. The completed link object could be put in a metal container or a bottle, a leather or cloth pouch, and either kept, buried or burned. In some cases words could be printed on the object, or perhaps even a scrap of cloth or paper could be used to contain drawings and words or names. In antiquity, curses were drawn and written out on lead sheets, folded and dropped into a well or stuck between the stones of the victim’s home.

Organic or inorganic links are called “gross links” because they are made from organic or inorganic materials, where the actual physical form and structure determines its use and intended purpose. Writing something down on a parchment, paper, cloth or a thin sheet of metal is a very different kind of link. A drawing or writing represents a transitional kind of magickal object, becoming more of what I call a symbolic link, since it uses symbolic forms to depict and establish the link.

A symbolic link is more versatile than a gross link, which is normally used just once. A symbolic link often caries no trace of any previous spell on it, so it can be reused for other purposes. A link that could be fashioned to be used multiple times would require that the original intent was the same. For instance, you could fashion a symbolic link for acquiring money, use it for yourself, and then at another time, use it for a friend. So long as there were no identifying factors or names, a general symbolic link can serve multiple purposes.

In the energy model or theory of magick, a link is used to imprint the raised energy before it’s exteriorized to fulfill the magician’s intention. The raised energy can be highly qualified, or not, but it still has to be imprinted with the magician’s desire. In the system of magick that I use, a sigil is employed to facilitate the instrumentation of a link. The act of imprinting the energy is where the magician wills the link, in the form of a sigil, and the raised energy into a unified field. (This technique will be discussed in more detail later in another section.)

Crafting a sigil to be used as a link doesn’t usually trigger it’s inherent effect or cause the desire to become manifest by itself. This is because one needs to charge or consecrate the sigil after fashioning it, and then apply it as a link within a magickal working where the energy is raised. Others may perform sigil magick as an independent magickal mechanism, so in that situation it’s possible that the act of crafting it might actually trigger the spell.

Since it is my habit to always craft a sigil just prior to performing a working (and I have never, to my knowledge, crafted one without it being used in a working), it would be difficult for me to judge whether the act of crafting the sigil prematurely triggered a working. I just know that in order for a ritual working to be successful, a link must be fashioned and used to imprint the energy. The two magickal operations performed sequentially are being blended together, but it’s possible to fulfill a working with just the internalized application of the link. Now that I have explained how I use sigilization in my magickal workings, I should probably describe how to actually craft a sigil.

The general rule for crafting a sigil is to start out by writing a phrase that encapsulates the intention of the rite. It should be written in upper case, then the phrase is reduced to a simple pictographic diagram through a process of reduction and simplification, where the curves, lines, and intersected forms of those actual letters are reduced to a unique set and reassembled into a kind of logo.

Let’s go through the steps that one would typically follow to produce a sigil, keeping in mind that there are a lot of variations and methods used in this technique. How I do it may not be exactly the same as how others do it, but each practitioner will ultimately find a technique that works for them.

1. Write out a phrase of your intent; make it as simple and specific as possible. You can also eliminate words like “I” or “desire” or “will” from the phrase since that would be redundant. Just state what you intend or seek to make happen.

To make things easier, you will want to print this phrase out in all capital letters, but actually, I prefer to add the nuance of having larger and smaller letters in the mix. Using all caps actually helps to reduce the number of linear forms in the sample of extracted letters.

The act of succinctly stating one’s intention also helps to simplify and refine the intention of a work. It’s better to reduce the intention down to one thing. If you are seeking to make more than one thing happen, then you should employ more than one phrase and then build multiple sigils from them. (It might also be necessary to perform separate workings for each sigil link as well.)

2.  Looking over the phrase, from left to right, eliminate all redundant letters - or letters that occur more than once. Now the phrase should just have all of the unique letters in the order that they first occur.

3. Next, eliminate letters that are variations of each other, for instance, “M” and “W” are analogous to each other. Break out of the letters the various analogous structures, like the cross bar in the “E”, “R”, “F”, “A”, “H” or “G”, the curve in the “B”, ‘C”, “D”, “G”, “J”, “P”, “R”, “S” or “U”, and the vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines that are found in the remaining letters. All of the these forms are reduced down to a single form, or dual forms facing left or right. The “O” can become a small circle or it can be fused with the rest of the curves, being a left and right curve joined together. What you have now are just single incidences of multiple structures (essential forms) arrayed in a line, like letters.

4. Assemble the line of essential structural forms together again to create a condensed linear form, which should look something like a pictographic representation or logo of the original phrase. This last step may require several attempts to find a final structure that “looks” elegant and interesting to the eye. You can fashion a single sigil form, or multiple sigils. Using multiple iterations to build a sigil makes for a less cluttered final sigil structure. If you are going to use a name in your sigil, then I would recommend making that a separate sigil form from the actual intention.

The point of this exercise is to produce a final structure that is simplistic, looks something like a pictograph of the intention, and the letters used in the original phrase can still be perceived in the final shape, although this last condition is not as important as creating a memorable pictograph.

I usually have to make four or five passes using this process before I am able to condense the form down to something that is esthetically pleasing and interesting to look at. Austin Spare was something of a graphic genius when it came to this kind representation (he could probably do it automatically and in one pass), but you don’t have to measure your results by that very high standard.

While working out the sigil, I will use a pencil on a scrap of paper, but the final form will be rendered on parchment with a special water-proof ink. It could also be painted on a piece of board, cloth, etched on metal, or even drawn on the floor or wall of your temple. However it is finally done, it will become an important magickal instrument, so the act itself should be executed as if it were a magickal rite, with the intention of the sigil and its associated desire strongly fixated in the mind of the magician.

Once the sigil is crafted, it will need to be consecrated if it’s to be used in a magickal working. This step is not followed by many who use sigilization magick, but this is how I do it, and it keeps the sigil from being too active until its intended use. I will consecrate the sigil with just a spot of lustral water (carefully applied with a wand) and then fumigated over an incense burner just before performing the working. For the sigil of a spirit, I would use consecrated wine, leaving a small stain on the corner as a sign that the sigil parchment has been activated.

Although I don’t actually work sigil magick without also performing a working of some kind, the basic idea behind it is to fill the mind with an emotional charge associated with the desire or intention so that no other thoughts or feelings are possible. This is a type of powerful obsession, often accompanied with a deep focused trance. This mind state is gradually built up through the process of crafting the sigil and then it’s elevated once the sigil is committed to its final form, executed in ink on parchment, or in whatever media is elected. The magician holds the sigil before his sight, focusing on the image of the design (not the words that were used to build it), while the emotional sentiments associated with the spell are worked to a climax. Then the sigil is either destroyed or set aside and promptly forgotten, allowing the image of the sigil to work in one’s unconscious mind. The magician can generate an intensely focused climax in a number of different ways, such as an orgasmic release through sex magick, masturbation, or even assuming Spare’s Death Posture. Yet often just intensely focusing the mind for a period of time and then quickly releasing it, is sufficient to obtain a good result. 

I should probably mention two other methods that are used to create a sigil device. These are the methods of fashioning a mantra or using condensed pictures. The mantra technique is similar to the word based sigil, except the reduced set of letters and vowels are arranged to spell out a magickal word or formula. It will most likely (though not always) be a nonsense word, but it will symbolize a specific intent. It will function as a barbarous magickal word of power, which can be used in a chant or as a mantra. A sigil derived from a picture or symbolic images (such as the symbols for the elements, planets, astrological signs, alchemical symbols, or even international traffic signs) uses the same methodology as stated in steps 3 and 4 for building a word sigil, where the forms are broken apart, condensed and reassembled.

That’s briefly how to formulate and use sigils as links in the discipline of ritual magick. This is based completely on how I do it, so of course, there will be a lot of possible variations. I doubt that two magicians who use this technique do it exactly in the same manner, but I believe that I have revealed the basic steps that most would follow. A more thorough resource on the art of sigil magick is to be found in the book “Practical Sigil Magic” by Frater U.D. (Llewellyn, 1990), which I heartily recommend.

Frater Barrabbas