Orphic Hymn to Saturn: Empower Your Saturnine Prayers & Magic

Although Saturn may have a fearsome reputation, building a relationship with Saturn can be approached the same way one would build a relationship with any spirit. Invocations, prayers, and offerings to a planetary spirit can help you attune to and come into rhythm with that planet. There are many ways to pray to or invoke a planetary spirit, including simply speaking from the heart, but a natural place to start is one of the most common and accessible prayers to Saturn: The Orphic Hymn to Saturn.

The Orphic Hymn to Saturn

The Orphic Hymns are a collection of Hellenistic religious poems that were involved in the practices of Orphism, a mystery religion centered around the mythical figure Orpheus. The infamous magician Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa wrote that “nothing is more effective in natural magic” than the hymns of Orpheus.

The Orphic Hymn to Saturn exemplifies one approach to planetary prayer, which is to regale the spirit with praise, listing many noble qualities, powers, accomplishments, and superlatives associated with that spirit.

Ethereal father, mighty Titan, hear,
great fire of Gods and men, whom all revere:
Endued with various council, pure and strong,
to whom perfection and decrease belong.
Consumed by thee all forms that hourly die,
by thee restored, their former place supply;
The world immense in everlasting chains,
strong and ineffable thy power contains
Father of vast eternity, divine,
O mighty Saturn, various speech is thine:
Blossom of earth and of the starry skies,
husband of Rhea, and Prometheus wise.
Obstetric Nature, venerable root,
from which the various forms of being shoot;
No parts peculiar can thy power enclose,
diffused thro’ all, from which the world arose,
O, best of beings, of a subtle mind,
propitious hear to holy prayers inclined;
The sacred rites benevolent attend,
and grant a blameless life, a blessed end.
—Orphic Hymn to Saturn, tr. Thomas Taylor

The Orphic Hymn to Saturn can be recited on Saturdays, particularly during the planetary hours of Saturn. We recommend lighting a candle and burning incense with any prayer or invocation. Myrrh is an incense commonly associated with Saturn, and you could light a single candle or if you were performing a more involved ritual or petition you might use three (the number associated with Saturn).

If the aesthetics of 18th century poetic verse do not appeal to you, then be aware that other more modern translations of the Orphic Hymns exist, such as in the Orphic Hymns Grimoire by Sara Mastros.

The Hygromanteia Prayer to Saturn

Another prayer to Saturn comes from the Hygromanteia, also known as the Magical Treatise of Solomon, a group of Byzantine-era grimoires focused on astrological and planetary magic. The Hygromanteia prayer of Saturn is somewhat more commanding than the Orphic Hymn to Saturn, and you may wish to use it when you have more experience invoking and petitioning Saturn. This prayer, like the Orphic Hymn, lists some of the qualities and powers of the spirit. In contrast, though, the Hygromanteia prayer appeals to the spirit by a list of names associated with Saturn. Different versions appear in the text, one of which is as follows:

Lord our God, the great and supreme, who created and fashioned man, the abyss saw you and feared, the living saw you and became lifeless. In His name and by His great and mighty power I conjure you, Saturn. By the height of the heaven and by the depth of the sea, I conjure you, Saturn, do not disobey me. By your antiquity, and by your preeminence I conjure you, O cold Saturn, who has authority over every harm, who gives treasures and who offers everything. I conjure you again, O Saturn, in your following names: Arphin, Orkip, Ouliob, Berik, Ouraphon, Sarok, Taimon, Odel, Sigep, Sotad. Grant your grace and your virtue to every work I want to accomplish.
—Hygromanteia, MS Harleianus 5596, tr. Ioannis Marathakis

The Heptameron Conjuration of Saturn

Another somewhat more involved prayer can be adapted from the Heptameron, a grimoire of spirit invocation attributed to Peter de Abano. A translation of the Heptameron by Joseph H. Peterson is available at Esoteric Archives. The Heptameron takes a very different approach than the Orphic Hymns or the Hygromanteia prayers. Rather than appealing to Saturn himself, this invocation approaches the spirit by appealing to other spirits in the same cosmic hierarchy. The Heptameron also involves facing and calling upon spirits of the different directions. You can think of this type of prayer as locating yourself within the Great Chain of Being so as to best position yourself to appeal to a particular spirit.

This particular invocation focuses on the planetary archangel of Saturn, known as Cassiel or Caphriel. The Heptameron planetary invocations are prefaced by invocations of angels of the relevant level of heaven in the four directions. Above the fifth heaven (the sphere of Mars) there are no angels of the air, so the prayers to Saturn have more general prayers to a higher God rather than to a specific retinue of angels. An abbreviated ritual for appealing to the angel of Saturn could go as follows:

[Facing East:] O great and most high God, honored world without end.
[Facing West:] O wise, pure and just God, of divine clemency, I beseech thee most holy father, that this day I may perfectly understand and accomplish my petition, work, and labor; Thou who livest and reignest world without end, Amen.
[Facing North:] O God strong and mighty from everlasting.
[Facing South:] O mighty and merciful God.
[Facing Southwest:] I conjure and confirm upon you, Caphriel, Machatori, and Seraquiel, strong and powerful Angels; and by the name Adonay, Adonay, Adonay, Eie, Eie, Eie, Acim, Acim, Acim, Cados, Cados, Ina, Ima, Saday, Ia, Sar, Lord and maker of the world, who rested on the seventh day: And by him who of his good pleasure gave the same to be observed by the Children of Israel throughout their Generations, that they should thoroughly keep and sanctify the same, to have thereby a good reward in the world to come, and by the names of the Angels serving in the seventh host, before Boel, a great angel and powerful prince; and by the name of his star, which is Saturn; and by his holy seal; and by the names before spoken, I conjure upon thee, Caphriel, who art chief ruler of the seventh day, which is the Sabbath day, that for me thou [speak your own petition or request here].
—Heptameron, XXIV. Considerations for Saturday, tr. Joseph H. Peterson

Note that the Heptameron is a highly complex grimoire and the above prayer is a simplified adaptation of a much more extensive rite of conjuration. You may wish to further research the text before delving into this prayer.

Picatrix Prayer to Saturn

A more extensive prayer to Saturn can be found in the premiere grimoire of astrological magic, the Picatrix or Ghayat al Hakim. This prayer can be used on its own, but was originally intended as part of a more extensive rite of petition involving complex suffumigations and other ritual trappings. The full version of the Picatrix prayer involves all three approaches we have seen so far: listing epithets and qualities, appealing to different names of the spirit, and appealing to associated spirits in the relevant cosmic hierarchy. A partial selection of the Picatrix prayers to Saturn that shows some of the similarities and differences to the other prayers follows:

In the name of God and in the name of Heylil, who is the angel to whom God has assigned the powers and potencies of Saturn in all things accomplished by cold; you who are in the seventh heaven; I invoke you by all your names, which are, in Arabic Zohal, in Latin Saturnus, in the Persian language Keyhven, in Roman Coronez, in Greek Hacoronoz, in Indian Sanasara; by all these names of yours I invoke you and call to you. I likewise conjure you by the name of God the exalted, who gives power and spirit to you, that you will listen to me and accept my prayer with the obedience by which you obey God and His dominion, and accomplish [speak your own petition or request here] for me.
—Picatrix, tr. John Michael Greer & Christopher Warnock, Book III, Chapter 7

For the full Picatrix prayers to Saturn, consult the full version of the Picatrix, available from Christopher Warnock.

Composing Your Own Prayer to Saturn

The above prayers from the Orphic Hymns, the Hygromanteia, and the Heptameron are excellent general-purpose texts for coming into relationship with Saturn. If you intend to pray to or petition Saturn for a very specific purpose, such as making an astrological talisman with a particular intention or keyword, you may wish to write your own prayer.

As we saw above, there are generally three main approaches to praying to a particular spirit that are exemplified in the prayers listed above. These are:

Listing noble qualities, powers, or deeds of the spirit;
Calling upon the spirit by their various different names and epithets;
Situating oneself in the relevant cosmic hierarchy by invoking or appealing to other spirits associated with or ruled by the spirit.

Prayers in astrological and planetary magic can serve as double duty for a request or petition: that is, one can appeal to what the spirit does effectively and downplaying what is not in line with the spirit’s influences. As Agrippa writes:

“[C]omposing [prayers] for attracting the virtue of any star or god…is accomplished by praising, extolling, amplifying, and adorning that which the star typically brings about and influences, while suppressing and rejecting that which the star typically destroys and impedes. Pray and implore for that which the star typically destroys and impedes; reprimand and detest that which one desires to destroy and impede.”
—Three Books of Occult Philosophy, Book I, Chapter 71, tr. Eric Purdue

A good place to start with all this is primary sources about the spirit. The Orphic Hymn to Saturn and Picatrix prayer to Saturn have some great epithets, names, and descriptions of Saturn. The Hygromanteia and Heptameron likewise have associated names, spirits, and effects of Saturn. Agrippa also lists a number of epithets and descriptions of Saturn that you may wish to draw upon:

Saturn is called Coelius, the scythe-bearer, father of the gods, lord of time, the lofty lord, the great, the wise, the intelligent, the ingenious, the orbiter of a long space, old man of great profundity, author of secret contemplation, impressing or suppressing great thoughts in the hearts of men, destroying and preserving all, subverting and establishing strength and power, guard and revealer of the hidden, causer of loss and discovery, and author of life and death.
—Three Books of Occult Philosophy, Book II, Chapter 59, tr. Eric Purdue

Research into the mythology of Saturn can also help provide perspectives from which to approach the planetary spirit. Although the Hellenistic god and the planetary spirit are not identical, it can help provide an inroad into the aspect of the spirit you wish to invoke.

Other Resources

Other resource posts in this series:
Diana Rose Harper‘s primer on planetary prayers is an excellent place to start for beginners.
Christopher Warnock’s book The Celestial Way provides a more extensive resource for planetary devotion.
For a more recently translated prayer to Saturn, check out Marco Ponzi’s translation from the Liber Orationum Planetarum Septem, a collection of orations to the seven planets.

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