Your cart is currently empty!
Materials Matter: Why We Consider Our Attention to Ingredients as Prayer
Not too long ago, we were in a retail outlet browsing the kitchen and home aisles, and beside the myriad discount scented candles sat a shelf of amethyst chunks, unnamed geodes the size of your palm, and a bundle of selenite wands. Divorced from all historical context and subjected to the violence of corporate supply chains, these poor fruits of the earth somehow wound up for sale as little more than trinkets, at risk of decorating some short-term rental property rather than treated with grounded respect from within a rooted cultural perspective.
Magical and occult imagery has fallen prey, as do all things, to commodity fetishism. Any ‘metaphysical’ store, and probably any chain bookstore for that matter, will sell you tumbled rocks wreathed with vague and undocumented claims about their spiritual powers. Given the context of no context that is late capitalism, it can be hard to invest in the use of specific, high-quality materials for magical workings without feeling somehow embarrassed, as if one has become party to disagreeable cultural forces that cannibalize rather than exalt spiritual meanings.
Anyone selling magical goods should be able to explain the choices they make in their practice. We emphasize that our interest in using natural gemstones, silver and gold jewelry findings, and high quality botanicals in our talismans does not arise from some vague new age aesthetic, but from our attention to the historical tradition of astrological magic and our devotional practice.
At Idola Stellarum, our attention to ingredients is nothing less than prayer.
Materials Matter in Magic
All magic, whether goal-oriented or focused on devotion and theurgy, aims to be effective. Why do it if it doesn’t work? In some ways magic is no different than mundane activities. When you’re baking or building a house, you have to use the right ingredients in the right proportions: otherwise, your muffins turn out mushy or your carpentry crumbles. Likewise, in astrological magic, your materials need to be suited to the rite at hand.
The idea that specific materials correspond to specific planets and stars is hardly groundbreaking. It is a very old idea. Within occult circles, these sorts of correspondences are commonplace, even foundational. Just as a symbol means one thing and not another, different beings have affinities for some things and not others, and certain materials share in the nature of some celestial entities and not others.
These practical facts derive from mystical truths. For the Syrian neoplatonic philosopher Iamblichus, there was not a separation of matter from the divine. Iamblichus viewed matter as a cosmic instrument that when properly used (through theurgy, a form of devotional practice that literally translates as god-working) allows the theurgist to become closer to the divine and participate in the ongoing creation of the world. In a passage that could very well be describing in very general terms the principles behind creating astrological talismans, Iamblichus wrote:
“Since it was necessary that earthly things not be deprived of participation in the divine, the earth received a certain divine proportion capable of receiving the Gods. The theurgic art, therefore, recognizing this principle in general, and having discovered the proper receptacles, in particular, as being appropriate to each one of the Gods, often brings together stones, herbs, animals, aromatics, and other sacred, perfect, and deiform objects of a similar kind. Then, from all these it produces a perfect and pure receptacle.”
—Iamblichus, On the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians, emphasis added
This passage makes clear that divine qualities are not distributed generally and equally, but specifically, with particular items of creation being appropriate to particular gods. Agrippa also confirms that talismans increase in efficacy when mages use the proper materials:
“Yet [the animated celestial bodies] grant more effective virtues in [talismanic] images if they are not fabricated from anything but certain materials—that is whose natural and specific virtues likewise agree with the operation and the figure of the image is similar to the celestial figure.”
—Agrippa, Three Books of Occult Philosophy, Book II, Ch. 35, tr. Eric Purdue
Agrippa clearly lays it out: maybe you can make a talisman out of anything, but there are better and worse talismans from the perspective of what works. A similar sentiment can be found in the Picatrix:
“When you wish to make and consecrate a magical [talisman], consider the purpose and shape in which you wish to make the image, as well as the material of which you intend to make and consecrate it. Let the aforesaid things be in correspondence to one another, and let them reflect the powers and influences of the planet that rules the working.
When it is fashioned in this way, the image will be powerful and complete, and its effects will follow and be manifest, and the spirit that has been placed in the magical image will be apparent in its effects. Those who fashion magical images but are ignorant of the foregoing make them badly.”
—Picatrix, Book II, Ch. 6, tr. John Michael Green & Christopher Warnock
When it comes to the relationship between materials and astrological talismans, the tradition unmistakably shows that the principle is: treasure in, treasure out.
Matter as Accompaniment in a Chorus of Celestial Prayer
The materials-as-effective perspective is fine so far as it goes, but it does not go far enough. Our attention to the material foundation of astrological talismans does not simply come from utilitarian focus on what works. It is crucial to understand why things work, and to link that to holistic practice.
Our talismanic workings are foundationally devotional. Through making talismans, we express our appreciation, respect, and veneration of the celestial hierarchy. From that perspective, using materials documented in traditional sources or otherwise chosen with spiritual discernment could be seen as an offering.
Thinking of materials-as-offering does not go quite far enough either, however. Within a relational spirit model, we are not simply using materials: we are collaborating with them. The gemstone, the herb, the incense, the candles, the offerings of food and alcohol—not one co-participant in the rites of astrological magic is dead or inert. We join with their spirits in devotion to the ranks of the celestials whom we supplicate. In a short work sometimes translated as “On the Priestly Art,” Proclus puts this beautifully:
“What other reason can we give for the fact that the heliotrope follows in its movement the movement of the sun and the selenotrope the movement of the moon, forming a procession within the limits of their power, behind the torches of the universe?
For, in truth, each thing prays according to the rank it occupies in nature, and sings the praise of the leader of the divine series to which it belongs, a spiritual or rational or physical or sensuous praise; for the heliotrope moves to the extent that it is free to move, and in its rotation, if we could hear the sound of the air buffeted by its movement, we should be aware that it is a hymn to its king [i.e., the Sun in the case of heliotrope, the Moon in the case of selenotrope], such as it is within the power of a plant to sing.”
—Proclus, de Sacrificio et Magia, 148.1-10, tr. Copenhaver; for a modern translation, see Martiana’s work from the Sartrix project
“Such as it is within the power of a plant to sing.” What a beautiful way to express the agency, joy, and devotion in which all matter participates.
When we create an astrological talisman and “gather [various planetary] similarities and reduce them into one form,” as Agrippa puts it (Three Books of Occult Philosophy, Book I, Ch. 35), we are doing something like assembling a celestial chorus in prayer. That chorus continues to sing for a long time in the magical jewelry that arises from the rite.
We do not use materials: they accompany us and we accompany them. We do not use talismans: we embody a prayer with them. To riff on Proclus, when we, with great intention, attend to traditional sources to craft talismans from the most carefully chosen materials, we are joining a procession and expanding the limits of our power behind the torches of the universe.
As stewards of the tradition of astrological magic, it is our privilege to bring the wonder of astrological talismans to others. Sign up to our mailing list for word of our upcoming talismanic collections and workings:
By clicking ‘subscribe’, I consent to Idola Stellarum storing my email and information solely for the purpose of communicating upcoming offerings and content, and I am able to unsubscribe at anytime.
