The Pleiades – Fixed Star Alcyone: Vision & Insight

These Vision & Insight talismans were designed to capture the general significations of Pleiades/Alcyone (the fixed star significator within the constellation) talismans, which are to safeguard vision, provide secret and hidden knowledge, to allow the bearer the speak with the spirits of the dead and to raise the winds.

All of these meanings constellate around spirit contact: while all talismans in some sense bring us into contact with specific spirits or spirit hierarchies of the heavens, Pleiades talismans cast a wider net, bringing us into greater contact with the spirit world in general. 

From the perspective of the Summit collection, these talismans represent the rarefied air of the peaks of the world, past the clouds and away from the lights of the towns and cities that would blot out the stark light of the stars. It should not be lost upon us that in stories, our sages, ascetics, and mystics archetypally retreat to reclusive mountaintops to establish their more intimate connections with the divine.

These Vision & Insight talismans bring these spirit connections down to earth.

Followers of Idola Stellarum will be familiar with our foundational commitment to spirit relationship. Relationship requires communication, and communication is not always easy. Particularly when we are trying to communicate with beings very other than our ourselves, whether cross-species or cross-embodiment, we need all the help we can get to hear messages more readily and transmit ours with greater wisdom, kindness, and clarity.

To that end, one could to a first approximation think of these Vision & Insight talismans as signal boosters. Whereas the Ancestral Agape talismans from the Sanctuary collection were tamed and tempered with a venusian focus on healing connection to specific spirits, these Vision & Insight talismans are, for lack of a better term, more witchy. They simply widen the wild channels of the mind to the spirit realm, augmenting our mystical bandwidth—to the dead, the aerial spirits, the stars, and more—neither for good nor for ill, but as an untamed fact that just is. 

The lights in the darkness signified by the lamp are hard to magically capture. With Algol so close to the Pleiades in the ecliptic projection, and with Alcyone right on the sign boundary of Taurus and Gemini (thereby making the mage consider two possible rising signs), it can be hard to thread the needle. In this election we sacrificed quantity for quality: with Taurus rising entailing a combust Lord of the Ascendant, we opted to wait until Gemini was rising, giving us a mere nine minutes for the whole working.

These Vision & Insight talismans also highlight the role of the Moon in magical elections. Picatrix notes in Book II, Chapter 3 (an extensive an arcane repository of electional instructions) that a waning moon is appropriate, among other things, “for wisdom and seeking and inquiring after truth.”

Rain, one of the mages of Idola Stellarum, adds the following personal note about their Vision & Insight talisman: “I am not someone who naturally has a keen spirit sense: this is why I lean so heavily on the textual tradition of astrological magic and the technical foundations of the art. While my Vision & Insight talisman doesn’t have me literally seeing ghosts, it has sharpened my intuition, brought more ready glimpses of foresight, and rendered spirit contact with my ancestors much more easeful and ready-to-hand.”

Technical Details

These fixed star Alcyone talismans were ensouled the evening of Wednesday, October 12, 2022 between 8:01pm and 8:10pm EDT.

Essential Features of the Election

For fixed star astromagical elections, we require that the relevant fixed star either rises on the Ascendant or culminates on the Midheaven. In this election, the stars of the Pleiades rose on the Ascendant. Specifically, the fixed star Alcyone, at 0^◦18’ Gemini, was rising and the working took place while Alcyone was within 2^◦30’ of the Ascendant.

Fixed star elections also require the Moon to be in sufficiently good condition and applying to the relevant fixed star. Idola Stellarum only uses lunar conjunctions to fixed stars. In this election, the Moon had recently cleared her monthly pass by the ominous fixed star Algol and was applying to Alcyone within about four degrees. Her next planetary aspect was a sextile to Jupiter in Aries.

Although we consider the condition of the Lord of the Ascendant to be a lesser factor in fixed star elections due to their austere nature and remoteness from the sublunary realm, we always examine the Ascendant Lord for all elections since the first house represents the bearer of the talisman. The window for this election was incredibly brief in part because any earlier and the rising sign would have been Taurus. Although Venus was in domicile, she was also applying to a trine to Saturn and was combust: afflictions of the ruler of the AC can impact the wearer of talismans negatively, and so we waited until Gemini was rising to begin the working. Mercury, the Lord of the Ascendant, was essentially dignified by triplicity in Libra in the fifth house.

Note that for fixed star talismans, planetary hour and day are not essential considerations.

Further Magical Factors of the Election

The Moon in Taurus was dignified by exaltation and triplicity, adding potency to her translation of light from Alcyone down to the sublunary realm.

As mentioned above, the Moon was applying to Jupiter, who was dignified by triplicity and term but retrograde. Jupiter was also in a very close sextile to the Ascendant and Alcyone, adding a nice benefic flavor to the working. Additionally, Mercury was in trine aspect to the Ascendant. Jupiter and Mercury both honing in on the Pleiades by supportive aspect certainly add to the visionary and insightful nature of the these talismans. 

The main extra factor to notice about this election is the waning of the Moon. In astrological magic, matters are not as simple as they appear; it is not as if a waxing Moon is good and a waning Moon is bad. Rather, in this tradition, waxing and waning Moons have different qualities and can accentuate certain meanings of magical elections. In particular, Picatrix notes that a waning Moon is good “for wisdom and seeking and inquiring after truth” (Book II, Chapter 3), making a waning Moon particularly strong for these Pleiades Vision & Insight talismans.

Reflection on Weaknesses of the Election

The Moon was on the slower side in this election, which may lend a muted quality to these talismans, although this may be mitigated somewhat by the Moon’s substantial essential dignity.

Notably, both malefic planets are angular (Mars in the first house and Saturn in the tenth). Although they are very far away from the Ascendant and Midheaven, their influence cannot be denied. Our sense has been that this influence manifests into greater insights about danger and threat. Consider that if you were to expand the consciousness and perception of a deer far beyond its normal limits so that it could detect wolves miles away, that deer might be spooked all the time. Discernment and prudence may be necessary for bearers of this talismans to discriminate which among the knowledge and insights that come to them should perhaps not be given undue consideration.

Finally, we note for completeness that some mages consider the Moon on the Ascendant to be an affliction. However, we emphasize that both Picatrix and De Quindecim Stellis list copious electional recipes that include the Moon rising on the Ascendant, and we therefore conclude that the tradition clearly licenses proceeding with astromagical elections that include this condition when divination supports doing so.

Recommendations

Because of the considerations about the malefic planets noted above in ‘Reflection on Weaknesses of the Election,’ we gently recommend that people vulnerable to paranoia, disorganized thinking, or clinically serious anxiety consider taking a pass on these talismans. For anyone who has had a fraught history with spirit contact, or who has become unstable (internally or externally) as a result of exploring the occult or the supernatural, we recommend careful divination before pursuing a relationship with one of these talisman. 

Ceremonial Details

Gemstone & Talismanic Image

The stone traditionally associated with Alcyone is crystal, which is to say quartz. These 20mm quartz cabochons were engraved with the image of a lamp, one of the talismanic image associated with the Pleiades in Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy. On the back of the stones, the name ALCYONE as well as the sigil of the Pleiades were engraved. Since quartz is transparent, a very small amount of ground fennel seed was glued to the edges of the stones so that the herbs would be hidden by the silver settings and not detract from the aesthetics of the stone.

Ritual Setup

An altar with a clean, white cloth and fresh white cottage roses was established prior to the working. The foremost offering and centerpiece of the altar was a brass oil lamp filled with organic olive oil and burning for the duration of the working and beyond. This lamp stood for Alcyone, and six white soy wax candles were lit surrounding the lamp in recognition of her sisters: seven flames for seven stars. Offerings of food and spirits featuring fennel, the herb associated with Alcyone, were offered in abundance.

Suffumigation

Initial incense offering consisted of the highest quality royal Hojari frankincense and fennel seeds. A mixture of frankincense tears and fennel seeds was consecrated and suffumigated during the election, and this talismanic incense was then used to suffumigate the talismans. A petition crafted specifically for this election, inspired by ancient and modern sources, called upon Alcyone and her Pleiadean sisters to grant the gifts attested to be associated with Pleiades talismans to their bearers.