“The image of Mercury, according to the wise Mercurius, is the shape of a man with a cock on his head, standing on a throne; his feet are similar to the feet of an eagle; he is holding fire in the palm of his left hand…” Picatrix Book II, Chapter 10, Paragraph 32. (Attrell and Porecca, 2019)
Behold, friends! My latest astrological image, and one of my favorites to date: Mercury according to Mercurius. The imagery doesn’t particularly call to me (I’m surprisingly un-mercurial), but I’m just SO FUCKING PLEASED with how this turned out. And, for a rarity, I’m equally happy with both the pencil sketch and the digital inks!
Like all of what I describe as the primary planetary images (the big block of descriptions in Book Two, Chapter Ten), it is my understanding that this image is good for all Mercurial purposes.
The picatrix says this of Mercury:
“The benevolence of Mercury is appropriate to messengers and scribes…” – Bk II Ch 3 Para 6
“Mercury is the source of intellectual power. He governs an aspect toward learning knowledge and wisdom, dialectic, grammar, philosophy, geometry, astronomy with its processes, geomancy, notarial science, the augury of birds according to tradition, and the interpretation of Turkish and other languages.” – Bk III Ch1 Para 8
“Mercury is the author of eloquence, rational intellect, and sense perception; from him proceeds the understanding of subtle and profound things.” – Bk III Ch 3 Para 33
“Seek from Mercury petitions appropriate to notaries, scribes, arithmeticians, geometricians, astrologers, grammarians, public speakers, philosophers, rhetoricians, poets, sons of kings and their secretaries, toll keepers, merchants, ministers, lawyers, slaves, boys, girls, younger brothers, painters, designers, and the like.” – Bk III Ch 7 Para 7
“Use Mercury when you wish to know, understand, and expel distraction; then your request will be fulfilled and flourish more easily.” – Bk IV Ch 4 Para 26
I am delighted to present you, at last, with my latest astrological image: the Moon according to Apollonius, again from the Picatrix: “… a woman standing upon two bulls; the head of one is next to the tail of the other.” (Picatrix Bk II Ch10 Para 36, trans. Attrell & Porreca)
I first drew penciled this image at the end of May, and I’m frustrated that it took me until the first weeks of September to get it inked, but do I think that the final product really benefited from the extra weeks of ruminating until I was really ready to re-engage with the image.
Whereas most of my other images are much more recognizably in my usual style, from my first vision, this piece very consciously drew on the shape and style language of ancient Minoan bull-jumping frescoes. In the final execution, I also found myself thinking very much about the linework of Rachamim (@hydeangelus.bsky.social and https://iliothermia.tumblr.com/ ) whose work I have been following for years. I don’t know
I have practiced many kinds of magic over the decades of my magical career. Astrological images in metal are what I am (probably) best known for, at this point, because that is the most marketable combination of my artistic talents and magical aspirations. But talismans of metal and stone are not the only such combination. In the past, I have dabbled in sigil magic, and masks, and talismans made from mixed media and witchcraft, and portraits of spirits – both conjured and constructed. Most recently, I have been experimenting in talismanic images of ink and paint and paper.
My first elected talismans were paper. Back in the fall semester of 2013, as I was fighting with the registrar over what classes and credits from my associate’s degree would and would not count toward my bachelors, I combined what I had managed to learn of spirit conjuration (mostly from Rufus Opus’ blog) with a Jupiter in Pisces election and talismanic image from Christopher Warnock on his then-Yahoo mailing list. I assembled the talisman from a pair of 5×7 note cards, one bearing Warnock’s image (probably by Nigel Jackson), the other bearing seals and sigils of Jupiter, glued together with dandelions and other Jovial maeteria in between them, and suffumigated in the smoke of the same.
That talisman steamrolled over the registrar and her objections to my insignificant (in her eyes) urban community college credits. It, and the other similar talismans that I made that year – Sol, Venus, Mercury Cazimi, maybe one or two others – lasted not the weeks or months generally expected of paper talismans, but for years.
When I had my first chance at a decanic election – Sol in Aries I, back in 2020 – I went that same route. Aradia and I were taking Jack Grayle’s PGM Praxis course, and I believe that we consecrated them using a PGM solar rite. But I used the Picatrix image, and I made it available for others to use on my blog.
I got this election, in fact, who had just discovered Nina Gryphon’s monthly election newsletter, and I suddenly had enough advance notice on most elections to begin planning for them. My two-sided Venus talisman (and my personal Venusian familiar spirit) is the result of these experiments, and ultimately served as the template for the rest of my Picatrix planetary image talismans.
I returned to paper talismans toward the end of 2021, with my first fixed star election: Jupiter on Deneb Algedi. I was up to my eyeballs in burnout, and had neither time nor money to prototype and prep a metal talisman. The results were swift and phenomenal. Likewise, a Solar election early in 2022.
After years of such experiments, frankly, both my home altar and my prosperity altar were getting a little crowded. So, when the opportunity for a pair of Libra decanic talismans (Venus ascending in the first and second face of Cancer) and I wanted to do something less than a metal talisman (which I couldn’t afford to prototype, or fit onto my altar) but more than the paper talismans I had done so far, I turned to my personal grimoire.
Now, flashing back to the beforetimes, I bought myself one of those big leather-bound “journals” for my birthday in 2019. I divided it up into likely sections and started drawing planetary circles of conjuration in it, which became the centerpiece of my first few months of daily rituals. Then it quickly served as a prop in a couple photo shoots (first with Cailin, then with Vanessa). Then became a repository for my favorite pieces from Jack Grayle’s PGM course, and the object of several such rituals, including a Solar consecration aimed at increasing the effecacy of magic done with the book. Then I did a series of portraits of my familiar spirits in it.
It occurred to me to combine the theory behind conjuration circles and the practice of the spirit portraits. I selected a page, drew the image, inked the outlines and colored the scene of the image with water-color pencils, and sigilized my petition. During the window of the election, I wet and blended the watercolors, painted and detailed the figure and the seals and sigils, and consecrated it with the Picatrix Venus prayer and suffumigated it.
It went so well that I repeated it with the second face of Cancer. And then with Regulus. And now, most recently, with Aldebaran. (The images below are, obviously, not photos of the paintings in my personal grimoire. As public as my practice is, that feels like … too much. Instead, they are the practice drawings I did to perfect my design and layout, and then refined to share with my coven, in case they wanted to catch the elections, and now with you for your benefit.)
Cancer IIRegulus
The images are all still hot to the touch. Each day, after my ritual honoring my household gods and familiar spirits, I turn to one of these images and let it emanate into the world. They all seem to be always active, but whichever is currently visible seems to be most active.
It’s still very early days to speak about material results or longevity, but I think that I’ve sufficiently demonstrated that it’s a technique worth speaking about so that others can try their own experiments with it.
So, if you have a magic book that you work with – a Wiccan Book of Shadows, or a personal grimoire, something that lives in or around your altar and participates in your rites, and you want to fuck around with astrological image magic but aren’t prepared to financially commit to metal talismans, I strongly recommend experimenting with talismanic images in your personal magic book.
