Postboox: Practical Planetary Magick

I noticed the appearance of Practical Planetary Magick last week, about a month and a half since Everyday Abundance appeared on the postbox. It seems like a large gap (especially given that there was only an interval of two weeks between the first two books) which makes me worry that I might have missed some, and that someone else has be picking books up!

Practical Planetary Magick is the only book of the three now in my collection that was clearly bought as new. In fact when I picked it up it barely looked read at all. There are no marks to suggest it was bought in a charity shop, no signs of wear and no hand-written notes. My assumption from the title was that it would be a book on astrology, and it in a sense it is, but Practical Planetary Magick is much more serious on the subject of worship of the stars than anything I've ever read on astrology. It doesn't concentrate on casual relationships between events and constellations but amounts to a detailed religious text, a how-to of planetary worship, presented in such earnest language that it resists both reason and mockery.

The book

Practical Planetary Magick opens with very little concession for the uninitiated and assumes from the outset that readers are familiar with magical ceremonies. It takes a moment to establish its terms, the book will be concerned with the seven 'wandering stars', Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the Moon and the Sun. Profiles of each of these 'stars' follow and, of course, resist any attempt at logic. The Sun, we learn, is "the centre of our universe" but even as our minds reel from the factual inaccuracy of this statement the authors are quoting that :

"The massive size of the Sun means it comprises more than 99% of the mass of our solar system, giving justification to the heliocentric nature of so many world religions."

Although I appreciate the ability of the authors to paraphrase the second sentence on the Wikipedia page about the Sun I do not believe that size alone justifies religious belief. If it were why aren't we all worshipping Betelgeuse?

Similarly the Moon is described as:

"the fifth largest planetary satellite in our solar system, though it is much larger in comparison to the Earth than any other moons to their planets"

This time the authors paraphrase the first sentence of the Wikipedia page on the Moon. You get the point. The factual snippets on these pages are only seasoning to lend the book an air of factual authority, the real purpose of these profiles is to describe the positive and negative qualities of each of the planets to help the reader to chose which 'planetary influence' to use when performing spells. The spells themselves aren't explained, only named. The authors assume the reader already has knowledge of witchcraft, and thanks to The Grimoire of Lady Sheba, this reader certainly does.

Next the gods associated with each of these planetary bodies are described in turn. Each deity profile comes complete with an image of the god and a hymn to the god. These hymns are the first indication that the book is a religious text rather than a guide or a history book. The hymns are not attributed to anyone and therefore I can only assume they are the work of the authors. The hymns are all poorly written poems on the subject of the god in question. Here is a particularly mind-melting example

"Mercury draw near and to my words incline
Master of magick and psychopomp divine
Celestial messenger of awesome skill
Whose skills and humour does all mortals thrill"

Don't worry, I promise not to quote any more of these.

Next we learn how to meditate on the gods, to visualise them and learn from them. Each meditation is quite similar, beginning with a white mist which recedes and leaves you in the company of the god and ending with the god giving you an ambiguous concept to contemplate on (for example Luna tells you to consider the role of cycles in your life). This is probably my favourite section of the book as it's quite light-hearted and vague, making it very readable. If only I could say the book carried on in this vein.

Next follows a bizarre series of chapters on Olympic and Qabalistic Spirits, entities which the authors seem to have leaned about by reading the works of fifteenth century magicians and alchemists. The spirits are assigned to the planets and also to orders of angels and demons. These lists and tables are at once tedious and troubling. Written in earnest and articulate language (such a world away from the distracted ramblings of Karen Hood-Caddy) these pages show casual disregard for the religious traditions from which the 'facts' are plucked. As a non-religious person I find it hard to understand how the authors are happy to talk about the Archangel Micheal as appearing "in Revelations as the leader of the celestial host that defeats the antichrist" but also as "the prayer-leader in the Heavens in Islam". Should I take from this that the planetary religion espoused by this book accepts truth in all religions? If so how can believers reconcile the enormous differences in such belief systems?

As the book goes on the authors explain how to use the information they provide for rituals, detailing how to create magic circles, consecrate a talisman and how to chant to the gods in a 'pyramid of power'. When chanting to the sun we are told to use the word 'Thelema', Greek for 'will'. When chanting to Mercury we should use the word 'Azoth', a term invented by alchemists. When chanting to Mars we should use the word 'Madim', Hebrew for Mars. It's frankly bewildering to consider the range of religious and cultural material that these rituals are comprised of.

The book ends with yet more facts, figures, diagrams and tables. Plants, animals, fragrances and body parts are all divided up among the planets, each 'planetary intelligence' is listed in both English and Hebrew. I'm still not sure what a Kamea is, but there are lots of them and they all look like doodles.

Best bits

As I mentioned earlier the meditations to the gods are probably the best bit of the book. I suspect that the reason these guided visions of the planetary gods are so specific about measurements is that numbers appear to have ritual significance to the authors, influenced as they are by the Qabala. Nevertheless I find the following section from 'Journey to The God Mercury' hilarious in its specificity.

"About 20m ahead there is a doorway into a vault. Entering the vault, you see it is about 20m square and has roughly hewn walls. The ceiling is 3m above you [...] Approaching the throne you see that there is a golden casket sitting on the floor in front of Mercury. The casket is 30cm by 20cm by 10cm deep."

I for one had no idea that the classical pantheon was so metric. Can anyone explain it to me again, but in feet and inches?

In the section on making your own talismans for the gods is a table of recommended metals. For Saturn lead, for Mars brass and for Mercury aluminium, The footnote on this explains:

"Brass is used for the creation of charms instead of the planetary metal for Mars which is Iron due to the belief that spiritual beings dislike Iron"

As for Aluminium:

"As Mercury is a liquid a[sic] room temperature and extrememly toxic it is for obvious reasons unsuitable for creating charms. Aluminium is a light metal used in the construction of aircraft and hence movement between realms (Air & Earth) makes it a suitable metal for use"

No mention whatsoever of the toxic nature of lead but never mind, we all learned that the gods hate iron, but they love alluminium. Did I mention that I might have gone slightly mad by this point?

The owner

I don't think it's a coincidence that in many ways Practical Planetary Magick assumes a background knowledge of witchcraft and that I had already been provided with one in the form of the Grimoire of Lady Sheba. My concern is that both the Grimoire and Everyday Abundance were light introductory works and that from here on out the books on magic will be weighty, bewildering and mildly unnerving. This one certainly has been.

As a final note, does this look at all familiar?