Prayer in Astrological Magic: Part III – The Astromagical Functions of Prayer

In Part I of this post series, we established the historical evidence for prayer playing an important role in astrological magic. In Part II, we deepened this point by using traditional sources to show that the theurgical, devotional aspects of astromagical ritual play a central operational function, and thus that prayer and invocation may play a critical role in the talismanic ceremony.

In this post, we take a more detailed look at the functions of prayer in astrological magic. Specifically, we consider how prayer serves in three interrelated functions: (1) invoking the correct celestial power; (2) inducing the devotional-theurgic state in the mage; and (3) directing and enhancing the magical intention of the working.

Prayers as Specific Invocations

Every moment constellates spirits of every celestial sphere. There is not one moment that exists free from a teeming multitude of spirits, some more active and some less, some more powerful and some weak, some well-disposed and some ill-disposed. The condition and placements of the planets and stars affords the astrologer insight into the nature of the spirits of any given moment.

Like the morphing shapes and colors of a kaleidoscope, the fluid motion of time continually shifts the quality, prominence, power, and constitution of the ever-interacting and interflowing vital and whirling commotion of beings. It might be more correct to say that time itself simply comprises this kaleidoscopic dance of multitudinous spirits.

A question therefore arises: what determines which spirit among the many present in any given moment winds up ensouling a given talisman?

To make the question less abstract, suppose you found a magical election for a Venus talisman with Venus on the Ascendant but with another planet—say, Jupiter—on the Midheaven. What ensures that a talisman made during this election becomes ensouled with a spirit of the sphere of Venus rather than the sphere of Jupiter, or even of whatever lunar mansion or fixed star the Moon happens to be activating in that moment?

Our answer to this question is: everything. That is, any given factor in the ceremony can have a selective function. The talismanic image, the type of stone used for the talisman, the herbs, the suffumigation, the offerings—all of these factors and more serve to narrow the range of spirits attracted to the ritual. By using stones, herbs, suffumigations, and offerings attributed to Venus and not to Jupiter, for example, the mage increases their certitude that one spirit and not another will be invited into the talisman.

The elements of ritual therefore serve not merely as aesthetic or perfunctory choices, but actually serve as the spiritual invitation to the ritual, helping to determine which spirits get the message and thus contributing to which spirit ends up RSVPing in the end.

Invocatory prayer serves as one factor among many that selects for certain spirits and not others. The Picatrix notes: “words in images are as the spirit in a body, moving spirits and powers toward such a work, insofar as the words of the magus are joined with his will and certitude, because out of these latter factors is made noble that which completes the images and the words we say” (Book I, Chapter 5). By invoking Venus and not Jupiter (or a particular lunar mansion or star), the mage helps draw into prominent certain spirits and not others.

The various factors of an election can be more or less specific. Many stones and herbs, for example, fall under various different celestial hierarchies. To take one example, lapis lazuli is attested as Lunar by Picatrix, as Venusian by Picatrix and William Lilly, as Solar by Al-Biruni, and as Saturnine by William Lilly. Modern magicians have also attested success with lapis lazuli in Jupiter elections. Thus, the choice of lapis lazuli serves as only a weakly selective factor from the perspective of spiritual invocation.

Words and prayers, however, function much more precisely. If you begin your ritual invocation with the name of Venus or one of her epithets, your stated intention unambiguously selects and invokes Venus and not any other hierarchy. Thus, the combination of lapis lazuli and an invocation to Venus serves as a much more specific selective function. When many factors all converge, directed under the laser precision with which spoken prayer can invoke, under the guidance and knowledge of an experienced mage, there is little room for error that would allow an unintended spirit to show up and inhabit the stone.

In essence, our magical choices and actions function as moves in relational space, drawing us closer to some spirits and further from others. The stones, herbs, suffumigations, prayers, intentions, images, and understanding we bring to the astromagical ritual situate us within a complex and ever-shifting ecology, locating us in spiritual-relational space. Prayer serves an integral part in not simply locating us in this space but emplacing us within it, body and mind, passion and intellect, whole person to entire spirit realm.

Prayers as Theurgic Elevation

The above quotation from Picatrix implicates “the will and certitude” of the magus as part of the process of completing the image (i.e., the talisman) and securing its intention. As we established in Part II of this post series, the mage’s will, belief, and enlivened consciousness and intention serve a critical role in astromagical ritual.

The previous post lays out the case for this function of prayer, so we will only additionally share what Agrippa says about incantations:

“[T]he instrument of the incantation is a certain pure spirit: harmonious, warm, breathing, and living; it brings with it movement, affection, and signification. Its parts are composed and endowed with sense, and finally conceived with reason. Therefore, from this spiritual quality, and by celestial similarity (besides what has been said) and also from the appropriate time, songs receive from the heavens excellent virtues–indeed, more sublime and efficacious than spirits and vapors evaporating from vegetable life, from herbs, roots, gums, aromatics, fumigations, and the like. Therefore, when magicians enchant things, they often blow and breathe onto them words of song, as if breathing the virtue of the spirit, so that the entire virtue of the soul is directed into the thing enchanted, disposing it for accepting said virtues.”
—Agrippa, Three Books of Occult Philosophy, Book I, Chapter 71, tr. Eric Purdue

We would only add—or rather, perhaps, highlight—that prayer is not simply the expression or instrument of the “harmonious, warm, breathing, and living” spirit of the mage, but is usually the process or embodied mechanism for raising one’s spirit. The harmonious, breathing spirit of the mage does not typically exist apart from the lived participation in the ritual space. In a certain sense, it would not be inaccurate to say that the prayer is the spirit of which Agrippa speaks.

On this point, Marsilio Ficino notes that invocatory song or prayer “is undoubtedly nothing else but another spirit received conceived in [the mage] in the power of [their] spirit” (Three Books on Life, Book III, Chapter XXI). Ficino’s claim merits deep and extensive consideration: within it resides an entire relational metaphysics.

Prayer as Magical Direction and Enhancement

Agrippa, quoted above, notes that song and prayer direct “the entire virtue of the soul…into the thing enchanted, disposing it for accepting said virtues.” Building upon this idea and the notion of selection discussed above, we can further explore the way prayer functions to direct the intention of magical working and enhance its efficacy.

As a starting point, we introduce Marsilio Ficino’s “seven steps through which something from on high can be attracted to the lower things” (Three Books on Life, Book III, Chapter XXI). In his chapter on songs, Ficino lays out these seven steps, each one of which corresponds to the seven traditional planets. From these steps, we add our interpretation, adapting each step to the process of talismanic creation:

To the Moon belongs “harder materials, stones and metals.” This would correspond to the body of the talisman.
To Mercury, “things composed of plants, fruits of trees, their gums, and the members of animals.” This would correspond to the herbs affixed to the talisman.
To Venus belongs those “very fine powders and their vapors selected from among the materials I have already mentioned and the odors of plants and flowers used as simples, and of ointment.” Naturally, this would be the talismanic suffumigation.
To the Sun, “words, song, and sounds, all of which are rightly dedicated to Apollo whose greatest invention is music.” Under this heading we would put the prayers and invocations intoned during the talismanic ritual.
To Mars, Ficino gives “the strong concepts of the imagination–forms, motions, passions.” This would probably involve the affective-theurgic state of the mage but also and most importantly the talismanic image itself, particularly since this requires (martial) force to carve or imprint.
To Jupiter belongs “the sequential arguments and deliberations of the human reason.” This would would presumably subsume the intention, plan, and purpose of the talisman.
Finally, to Saturn go “the more remote and simple operations of the understanding, almost now disjoined from motion and conjoined to the divine.” These we could consider as the mage’s connection to the celestial divinities, and the unified will and complete understanding of the talismanic working.

Ficino does not explicitly make the following argument, but it is not hard to elaborate this model in the following way. Much as one cannot skip a step when climbing a ladder without risking falling, and one cannot ignore an ingredient in a baking recipe without risking the baked goods coming out incorrectly and possibly ruined, we should also consider the possibility that skipping a step in connecting our talismanic workings to the heavens might also carry a corresponding risk of weakening or corrupting the talismans we create.

From an alternative perspective, by including every step in Ficino’s ladder for attracting the higher things to the lower we are modeling our operation on the unity and harmonious, holistic functioning of the heavens that we are aiming to draw down and embody. By abiding by each step, rather than picking and choosing, the talismanic operation thus conforms to the alchemical-hermetic maxim of the Emerald Tablet: that which is above is like to that which is below, and that which is below is like to that which is above.

The analogy with baking may be helpful, but it is not entirely accurate. In baking, one needs certain essential ingredients in order to allow for certain necessary chemical operations to take place. In astrological magic, the ingredients are necessary and also add to the power and virtue of the operation. Traditional texts speak of collecting, combining, and compounding various ingredients all of which add to a certain celestial virtue. As the Picatrix notes, these magnify the outcome: “The greatest strength is achieved when several strengths are joined together to overcome, and this is the perfect virtue in magic” (Book I, Chapter I).

The presence and quality of our ingredients selects, directs, and augments the working. The mage’s mental state, induced by preparation and prayer, serves as an essential and magnifying ingredient in the operation:

“Therefore, it is greatly conducive in any work for receiving the benefit of the heavens, if, in our thoughts, dispositions, imaginations, elections, deliberations, contemplations, and the like, we excel in being harmonious with the heavens. Indeed, passions of this sort vehemently excite our spirit toward their like and suddenly expose us to our superiors, which signify those kinds of passions. Then, because of their dignity and closeness with the superiors, our thoughts capture the power of the celestials much more, and do so to a much greater extent than any material thing can.”
—Agrippa, Three Books of Occult Philosophy, Book I, Chapter 66, tr. Eric Purdue

According to Agrippa, then, the mental state, intentions, and passions of the mage, inflamed and induced via prayer, function to collect, refine, and empower the virtues of the working.

Closing Thoughts on Prayer in Astrological Magic

In Part I, Part II, and now Part III of this post series, we have laid out our case for why invocatory prayer serves an essential function in astrological magic. Through prayer, the mage participates in the co-creation of the heavens. By inflaming themselves with prayer, the mage serves as a conduit, calling force the proper and powerful celestial intelligences, closing a living, embodied circuit that draws down the spirits into the sublunary realm.

Much more remains to be said, namely, how to pray. Agrippa noted that “nothing is more effective in natural magic” than the “hymns of Orpheus” (Book I, Chapter 71). One option would be to simply use the Orphic Hymns as invocations, whether the old school Taylor translations (which you can find on the Idola Stellarum website for the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn!) or the newer translations such as in the Orphic Hymns Grimoire by Sara Mastros.

However, the context of this Agrippa quotation suggests that he brings them up as examples of how to invoke, not as formulas that work as all-purpose invocations. In future resources for our Inner Sanctum members, we will lay out in detail the principles of construction for astromagical prayers.

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