The direct pentagram invoking and banishing patterns come are understood from its emergence from of the five elements from the four through the descent of fire discussed previously.
The Air/Water path stands in its original relationship as a pair of opposites, movement from air to water invokes water and movement from water to air invokes air. The Movement along the fire and earth paths follows this same pattern, but the displacement of fire leaves spirit acting as the opposite source of both.
When invoking the path should be drawn with a total of six strokes. Begin as indicated below, moving along the path toward the element, tracing out the pentagram and ending by repeating the first path to end on element invoked. In banishing we use five strokes, we reverse the initial direction and stop upon returning to the element, returning it to its proper place.
The averse pentagram Is the next step beyond the direct. Through the movement of spirit into incarnation the pentagram appears as from behind and below. The emergence of these paths is discussed further here: https://covn.tumblr.com/post/160141036627/emergent-qabalah
In the averse configuration the paths of elemental invoking and banishing no longer stand in pairs of opposites. The process of invoking with six strokes and ending on the element after the sixth and banishing with five in reverse remains the same. The bottom point is elation of spirit bound in manifestation.
The averse configuration is best for working towards manifestation while the direct pentagram is best working in a more detached, “spiritual”, spirit oriented manner.
“The Pentagram signifies the domination of the mind over the Elements, and the demons of Air, the spirits of Fire, the phantoms of Water, and the ghosts of Earth; all are enchained by this sign. Equipped therewith, and suitably disposed, you may then behold the Infinite through the medium of that faculty which is like the soul’s eye, and you will be ministered onto by legions of angels and hosts of fiends…. It follows that, by means of the imagination, demons and spirits can be beheldd, really and in truth; but the imagination of the Adept is diaphanous, whislt that of the crowd is opaque…. The Pentagram is called in Cabbalah the Sign of the Microcosm…. By the Pentagram also is measured the exact proportions of the great and unique Athanor necessary to the confection of the Philosopher’s Stone and to the accomplishment of the [alchemical] Great Work.” – Transcendental Magic: It’s Doctrine and Ritual by Eliphas Levi
Many people mistake this for a symbol of evil, the pentagram says otherwise, this is a symbol of light, education, and growth. It is the reflection of the One in visible form. To truly understand this symbol one must hit the books, meditate, and look within.
Liber O vel Manus et Sagittae: the Signs of the Grades
1. Earth: the god Set fighting. 2. Air: the god Shu supporting the Sky. 3. Water: the goddess Auramoth. 4. Fire: the goddess Thoum-aesh-neith. 5. Spirit: the rending of the veil. 6. Spirit: the closing of the veil.
The LVX signs
7. Osiris slain — the cross. 8. Isis mourning — the Svastika. 9. Typhon — the Trident. 10. Osiris risen — the Pentagram.
A Guide to Different Planetary Geometric Arrangements
Pretty much everyone in magic is familiar with the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, the ritual used by the Golden Dawn as a standard banishing ritual, which involves drawing the pentagrams in the air on the four corners and so on. As each point of the pentagram is connected to an element, a different but similar ritual, the Greater Ritual of the Pentagram, may be used to tune your ritual space for elemental invocation. The same may be done for planetary forces, but in GD logic the pentagram is a sign of the microcosm (elements), while for macrocosmic forces (planets) the hexagram is used instead, which is the figure 1 in the image above.
In the Greater Invoking Ritual of the Hexagram, thus, you draw the hexagrams in the air according to the planet assigned to each corner, clockwise (anti-clockwise banishes). This neatly arranges them in a way that mimics the distribution of planetary correspondences in the Hermetic-Qabbalistic Tree of Life system used by the GD (in which Binah = Saturn, Chesed = Jupiter etc).
You’ll notice though that only the sun has no corner because it’s treated as the sum (no pun intended) of all planets, so a GIRH for the sun involves drawing ALL 6 other hexagrams. This literally hurts.
There are other systems, though, which, in a more practical fashion use a heptagram (7 corners, 7 planets). Figure number 2 is the one used in Sorita D’Este and David Rankine’s version of the planetary ritual explained in their book Practical Planetary Magick (Sorita also explains how it works on her blog). It features the chubbier variation of the heptagram (called a 7/2 heptagram) and the planets are arranged in a week-day cycle order. Number 3 is the skinnier heptagram (7/3) used by the Aurum Solis order (source: Melita Dennings and Philip Osbourne’s Planetary Magick: The Heart of Western Magick). Starting from Saturn at the top, as you follow the line you’ll get the same order as from the GD hexagram (Saturn-Jupiter-Mars-(Sun)-Venus-Mercury-Moon), also mimicking the descent from the 3rd sephirah, Binah, all the way down to Yesod.
The bottom three figures are purely theoretical and, as far as I know, are yet to be actually used in ritual, though they might be useful for me as I’m searching for a more Babylonian-centric system. Numbers 4 and 5 are derived from an academic paper by Peter James and Marinus Anthony van der Sluijs called “Ziggurats, Colors, and Planets: Rawlinson Revisited”, which aims at understanding what planetary order ancient Babylonians used, as well as their color correspondences, based on archeological evidence. Thrillingly for the occultist, they arrive at a pentagram and heptagram distribution: “As it happens, the Ecbatana ziggurat order can be correlated with the standard Neo-Babylonian sequence by means of a pentagram, by plotting either on the corners and reading along the diagonal lines. Such a result is not a mere curiosity. It is well known that, in imperial Roman times, the sequence of the weekdays (by their tutelary deities) was derived from the quasi-heliocentric (“Chaldaean”) planet order then in vogue (Cassius Dio 37.18–19; Boll 1911: 372–75; Neugebauer 1957: 169; 1975: 691) by taking leaps of two.” The pentagram layout excludes the two luminaries, however, though I suppose the Sun could be conflated with Saturn and the Moon with Jupiter due to some weird Babylonian logic that would take too long to explain here (see Ulla Koch-Westenholz’s Mesopotamian Astrology for more info). Their heptagram layout, though, is shockingly similar to Sorita and Rankine’s version, as it also follows the week-day order cycle, though with a different starting point (its top corner is the moon, for Monday, while Sorita and Rankine’s starts with Saturn).
The final figure, number 6, is another scholarly supposition, drawn by Sara de Rose in a paper called “Is CBS 1766 a Tone-Circle?” which attempts to interpret a 7/3 hexagram drawing on a clay tablet as a musical pattern. Its corner attribution also follows the week-day order cycle. I can’t comment on it further, however, due to my lack of musical knowledge.
I have decided to put all of these figures together for my own studies, but I share them here with whomever might be reading this because I think it might be interesting to other magicians who work with planetary magick.
i. A magical miscellany, early 17th century. (MS. e Mus. 173, folios 61v – 62r) ii. The Rawlinson necromantic manuscript, 15th century. (MS. Rawl. D. 252, fol. 28v) iii. The Rawlinson necromantic manuscript, 15th century. (MS. Rawl. D. 252, fol. 29r)
Although many seventeenth-century magical manuscripts were no longer written in Latin, their authoritative mystique was preserved in the use of complex occult alphabets and mystical symbols. This miscellany contains relatively straightforward instructions of how ‘to see by thy selfe … in a crystall stone’ or ‘get treasure out of the sea’, but it also includes these elaborate magical charms. The circle bottom right wards off violent death ‘by sword and poison’. It is sealed with the spell-word ‘Abracalabra’ [sic] and promises the user ‘Verum est’ (It is true!). (x)
Occult Aspects 