Astromancy

Millions of years old, from ancient Babylon to modern times, the planets have always symbolized the essential forces of the universe. Equated with the gods, endowed with magickal attributes, and viewed as lights of influence, then and now the planets affect all aspects of daily life.

The sun and the moon, which dominated the daylight hours and night skies, were the first “planets” to be associated with the life-giving forces of the elements, seasons, and man’s day-to-day struggle to survive. These two luminaries were credited with the power to control the cyclic process and deified as the source of life itself.

As mythology and storytelling evolved, so did the godlike qualities of the celestial bodies, and their ability to control human existence. Besides the sun and moon, the father and mother of the universe, other planetary gods and goddesses began to emerge, each with his or her own individual identity and domain of influence.

The sun, moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn (the sun and moon are regarded as planets in this sense) formed the original pantheon of heavenly powers that ruled over the affairs of humans. Each planet was assigned an area of influence that controlled the human endeavours within that realm. For example, the Sun was equated with the Greek god Apollo, and governed strength, self-expression, and vitality, which were associated with leadership, royalty, and government.

Learning to use planetary energy makes magickal work easier, since each planet relates to everyday life in some way. Basically, just about everything we do or seek to achieve is subordinate to a planetary force. Magickally, this means that everything in creation responds to a specific planetary energy. Therefore, if you know which energy rules or governs a certain object or event, then you can use the corresponding planetary power to influence it. The more you know about the planets and their corresponding attributes and symbols, the more precise you can be in designing magickal rites.

## Sun

**Symbols**: Hexagram, diadem, alchemical crucible

**Deities**: Apollo, Sol, Dionysos, Helios, Bridget, Aine, Macha

**Qualities**: Rulership, integration, creativity, personality, will Power, nature, the conscious ego, the self and its expression, personal power, pride and authority, leadership qualities and the principles of creativity, spontaneity, health and vitality

**Ruling Planet of:** Leo

**Exalted in**: Aries

**Archangel**: Michael

**Day**: Sunday

**Body**: Heart, spine, general vitality

**Colours**: Gold, yellow

**Numbers**: One or six

**Metal**: Gold

**Stones**: Diamond, amber, clear quartz, topaz

**Incense**: Frankincense, sandalwood

**Plant**: Bay, cinnamon, heliotrope, marigold, orange

**Trees**: Oak, pine

**Animals**: Lion, hawk, bull

A Symbol of the active, volatile masculine principle. The Sun represents enlightenment, illumination, and gold. In Alchemy, it is sometimes depicted as the king who enters into a union of opposites with the queen to create the Philosopher's Stone. The Sun also is sometimes itself a symbol of the stone.

The sun is authoritative, creative, courageous, and healing. With its life-giving warmth, the sun is at the centre of existence, and whatever exists at the centre will activate what is at the perimeter. It is primarily associated with will power, activity, authority, and leadership. The sun should be used to acquire self-esteem, attract fame and material success, encourage physical strength and courage, aid physical healing, and assist with political ambition.

## Moon

**Symbols**: Crescent, cup, silver sickle

**Deities**: Hecate, Selene, Diana, Thoth

**Qualities**: Responsive, reflective, instinctive, intuitive, emotional, receptive, a person's intuition, emotional make-up, unconscious habits, rhythms, memories, moods and their ability to react and adapt to those around them

**Ruling Planet of**: Cancer

**Exalted in**: Taurus

**Archangel**: Gabriel

**Day**: Monday

**Body**: Stomach, digestive system, female organs, lymphatic system

**Colours**: Silver, white,

**Number**: Two

**Metal**: Silver

**Stones**: Moonstone, pearl, chalcedony, mother of pearl

**Incense**: Jasmine, lotus, ylang-ylang

**Plants**: Lily, hyacinth, iris, narcissus

**Trees**: Willow, hawthorn

**Animals**: Crab, owl, vulture, horse

There are more myths and legends about the moon than any other planetary body. The moon just seems to ignite the imagination and quicken the mystical senses. Lighting the night sky, the moon allows us to see past reality and into the shadows of night. The moon is receptive, reflects the light of the sun, and governs our physical and emotional responses. Lunar magick works best when it is used to learn control over emotions, create passion, assist with glamour-magick, and increase intuition and psychic abilities.

## Mars

**Aspect**: Force

**Symbols**: Pentagram, lance, scourge

**Deities**: Mars, Volcanus, Durga, Sekhmet

**Qualities**: Discrimination, bravery, drive, energy, anger, destruction, confidence and self-assertion, aggression, confrontation, sexuality, energy, strength, ambition and impulsiveness, sports, competitions and physical activities in general.

**Ruling Planet of**: Aries and Scorpio

**Exalted in**: Capricorn

**Archangel**: Samael

**Solar Rotation**: 687 days

**Time in each Zodiac**: 57.25 days

**Day**: Tuesday

**Body**: Muscles, head, adrenal glands, sense of smell and taste

**Colours**: Red, burgundy

**Number**: Five

**Metal**: Iron

**Stones**: Bloodstone, flint, onyx, garnet, ruby

**Incense**: Dragonsblood, galangal, tobacco

**Plants**: Bloodroot, ginger, snapdragon, nettle

**Trees**: Rowan, ash, pepper tree

**Animals**: Ram, wolf, scorpion, salamander

**Chinese element**: Fire

Mars is dynamic energy, enthusiasm, and resolution. It rules personal expression, character, and bodily strength. Mars represents action and it induces humans to take risks and to rush into things before thinking. The key image of Mars is force—pushing and shoving to fit with little regard for right or wrong. Under the rulership of this planet we find an instinctive need to lead, to survive, and to clear the path of all obstacles that stand in the way of personal accomplishment. Mars energy should be used to build strength of character, reinforce determination, confront enemies, and win battles.

## Venus

**Aspect**: Creation

**Symbols:** Mirror, girdle, shell

**Deity**: Venus, Aphrodite, Ishtar, Lakshmi, Bast

**Qualities**: Harmony, art, beauty, possessions, love, affection, lust, principles of harmony, refinement, affections, and the urge to sympathize and unite with others. It is involved with the desire for pleasure, comfort and ease. It governs romantic relations, marriage and business partnerships, sex (the origin of the words 'venery' and 'venereal'), the arts, fashion and social life.

**Ruling Planet of**: Libra and Taurus

**Exalted in**: Pisces

**Solar Rotation**: 225 days

**Time in each Zodiac**: 18.75 days

**Archangel**: Anael

**Day**: Friday

**Body**: Throat, kidneys, thymus gland, sense of touch, ovaries, veins, parathyroids

**Colours**: Green, turquoise, luminescent greenish white

**Number**: Seven

**Metal**: Copper

**Stone**: Emerald, jade, lapis lazuli, chrysocolla, coral

**Incense**: Rose, lilac, violet

**Plants**: Rose, iris, orchid, orris, passionflower, vanilla

**Trees**: Apple, cherry, avocado, fig

**Animals**: Lynx, cat, rabbit, dove, sparrow

**Chinese element**: Metal

Venus is the epitome of the feminine mystique, the queen of love and beauty. Venus offers what others cannot, the quality of simple abundance. All of nature responds to Venus and the pleasures she affords. Passion, peace, affection, money, success, and friendships all come under the rule of Venus. Use Venus to arouse the passions of a loved one, create a peaceful environment, acquire money, become successful, and gain new friendships.

## Jupiter

**Aspect:** Miracles

**Symbols**: Thunderbolt, trident, crown

**Deities**: Zeus, Athena, Jupiter, Minerva, Tinia, Marduk, Maat

**Qualities**: Leadership, generosity, opportunity, experience, luck, optimism, growth, expansion, healing, prosperity, good fortune, and miracles, long-distance and foreign travel, big business and wealth, higher education, religion, and the law. It is also associated with the urge for freedom and exploration, as well with gambling and merrymaking.

**Ruling Planet of**: Sagittarius and Pisces

**Exalted in**: Cancer

**Solar Rotation**: 11.9 years

**Time in each Zodiac**: 1 year

**Archangel**: Sachiel

**Day**: Thursday

**Body**: Liver, thighs, feet, growth, pituitary gland

**Colours**: Purple, dark blue

**Number**: Four

**Metal**: Tin

**Stones**: Amethyst, lepidolite, sugilite

**Incense**: Pine, sandalwood, clove

**Plants**: Borage, sage, betony, nutmeg

**Tree**: Juniper, cedar, pine, sycamore

**Animals**: Whale, swan, eagle

**Chinese element**: Wood

Jupiter corresponds to knowledge, understanding, good judgment, and prosperity. It rules the concepts of expansion, opportunity, and good fortune. Jupiter is a joyful planet that promotes abundance through realistic effort and hard work. One thing that Jupiter helps people do is to change their attitudes from a negative to positive. Once the attitude changes, so does everything else, because if you have a positive frame of mind you can accomplish just about anything.

Use Jupiter to attract wealth and great riches, build dignity, acquire wisdom and make good judgments, improve moral values, increase financial health, and expand knowledge and understanding of religious and philosophical concepts.

## Saturn

**Aspect**: Judgement

**Symbols**: Scythe, key, double axe

**Deities**: Saturn, Kronos, Hera, Kali, Net

**Qualities**: Slowness, responsibility, hard Work, pessimism, research, endurance, focus, precision, nobility, ethics, civility, lofty goals, career, great achievements, dedication, authority figures, ordered hierarchy, stability, virtues, productiveness, valuable hard lessons learned, destiny, traditions, structures, protective roles, balance, and karma but with limitations, restrictions, boundaries, anxiety, tests, practicality, reality, and time. It concerns a person's sense of duty, commitment, responsibility, including their physical and emotional endurance in times of hardships. Saturn also represents the part of a person's concern with long-term planning or foresight.

**Ruling Planet of**: Capricorn and Aquarius

**Exalted in**: Libra

**Solar Rotation**: 29.5 years

**Time in each Zodiac**: 2.46 years

**Archangel**: Cassiel

**Day**: Saturday

**Body**: Skinn, hair, teeth, bones, the body's defences, spleen

**Colour**: Black

**Number**: Three

**Metal**: Lead

**Stones**: Onyx, obsidian, jet, hematite, apache tear

**Incense**: Patchouli, Myrrh

**Plants**: Belladonna, hemlock, ladyslipper, yew

**Trees**: Beech, yew, elm, ebony, cypress

**Animals**: Goat, spider, goose, bat

Saturn is the planet of stability and restriction. Its energies test our balance and endurance. In some ways Saturn symbolizes time, which, with its ravenous appetite for life, devours all its creations. Saturn, like time, brings restlessness, the sense of duration lasting from the moment of stimulus up to the peak of satisfaction. Saturn is slow, deliberate, disciplined success. Use Saturn to improve concentration, discipline a
lazy mind, become better at work, and motivate yourself.

Each one of the seven planets produces a different energy field or vibration that can be used to enhance magickal operations. By incorporating this energy into your magickal works, you increase their effectiveness. For example, a love-drawing ritual would have tremendous impact if it were timed to coincide with the vibrations of Venus. Likewise, you would greatly reinforce a personal success spell by doing it on a Sunday and taking advantage of solar energy.

In addition to timing, try to include some planetary symbolism in your magickal rite. Want to give that protection spell a big boost? Plan to do your spell on a Saturday night. Use three black candles and patchouli incense, and include three pieces of jet in the work. If time permits, make a black bag in the shape of bat to carry your protection symbols in. The more refined your spells are, the better, and faster, they will work.

## Mercury

**Aspect**: Wisdom

**Qualities**: Communication, Intellect, Reason, Adaptive, Perception, Expression, communication, mentality, thinking patterns, rationality and reasoning, and adaptability and variability, schooling and education, the immediate environment of neighbours, siblings and cousins, transport over short distances, messages and forms of communication such as post, email and telephone, newspapers, journalism and writing, information gathering skills and physical dexterity

**Ruling Planet of**: Gemini

**Exalted in**: Virgo and Aquarius

**Solar Rotation**: 88 days

**Time in each Zodiac**: 7.33 days

**Date**: Wednesday

**Archangel**: Raphael

**Body**: Brain, central nervous system, thyroid gland, five senses, hands

**Chinese Element**: Water

## Uranus

**Aspect**: Entropy, genius, sudden and unexpected changes

**Qualities**: Hidden depths, originality, inspiration, science, change, the principles of ingenuity, new or unconventional ideas, individuality, discoveries, electricity, inventions, democracy, and revolutions, societies, clubs, and any group based on humanitarian or progressive ideals, freedom, radical ideas and people, as well as revolutionary events that upset established structures.

**Ruling Planet of**: Aquarius

**Exalted in**: Scorpio

**Solar Rotation**: 84 years

**Time in each Zodiac**: 7 years

**Date**: Wednesday

**Body**: Parathyroid gland, neural activity, aura

## Neptune

**Qualities**: Occult, mysticism, psychism. hallucinations, visions, delusion, collective consciousness, idealism, dreams/fantasy, projections, undoing/dissolution of the status quo, artistry, empathy, and illusion/confusion/vagueness on the way to discovering universal truths.

**Ruling Planet of**: Pisces

**Exalted in**: Leo

**Solar Rotation**: 165 years

**Time in each Zodiac**: 14 years

**Date**: Friday

**Body**: Pineal gland, psychic healing

## Pluto

**Qualities**: Mysteries, secrets, transformations, regeneration, obsessions, wealth, absolutes, power, extremities, transformations/evolutions, incredible feats, personal mastery, and the need to cooperate or share with another if each is not to be destroyed, major business and enormous wealth, mining, surgery and detective work, and any enterprise that involves digging under the surface to bring the truth to light.

**Ruling Planet of**: Scorpio

**Exalted in**: Virgo

**Solar Rotation**: 248 years

**Time in each Zodiac**: 15 to 26 years

**Day**: Tuesday

**Body**: Pancreas, metabolism, elimination

## Zodiac

The cardinal signs – Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn – are so-called because when the Sun moved into these signs, it marked the beginning of a new season – spring, summer, autumn and winter. People born under a cardinal sign manifest this as a desire to initiate and to take command of people and situations. The fixed signs – Leo, Taurus, Aquarius and Scorpio – are signs entered by the Sun in the middle of a season. People born under them exhibit stability and a tendency to continue in a predetermined path. The mutable signs -Sagittarius, Gemini, Virgo and Pisces – mark the time when the seasons are about to change. Those born under them are correspondingly versatile and ready to compromise.

## Aries, the Ram

    **Date**: 21 March to 20 April

**Ruling Celestial Body**: Mars

**Colour**: Red, white, pink

**Status**: Cardinal

**Element**: Fire

**Qualities**: Energy, love of action and perseverance. Impetuous, yearning to lead and conquest. Loyal and Quick-tempered.

**Use**: For all matters of the self and of identity, for rituals of innovation, courage assertiveness and action

## Taurus, the Bull

**Date**: 21 April to 21 May

**Ruling Celestial Body**: Earth

**Colour**: Green, pink, red, yellow, turquoise

**Status**: Fixed

**Element**: Earth

**Qualities**: Steadfast, reliable, practical. Limited outlook and interests, prone to stubbornness. Honest, but won't take advice.

**Use**: For rituals concerning all kinds of material matters and security, also for patience and caution if the way ahead seems hazardous.

## Gemini, the Heavenly Twins

**Date**: 22 May to 21 June

**Ruling Celestial Body**: Mercury

**Colour**: Yellow, silver, green, red, blue

**Status**: Mutable

**Element**: Air

**Qualities**: Agile, versatile and adaptable. Easily bored, can’t concentrate for long. Friendly, but doesn’t pay attention.

**Use**: For spells concerning communication, learning, choices, adaptability and short-distance travel.

## Cancer, the Crab

**Date**: 22 June to 22 July

**Ruling Celestial Body**: Moon

**Colour**: White, green, brown, silver

**Status**: Cardinal

**Element**: Water

**Qualities**: Sensitive and protective, and homely. Easily hurt and moody, also clingy. Imaginative, but jealous.

**Use**: For spells concerning the home and family, especially for protection and for gentle love and friendship.

## Leo, the Lion

**Date**: 23 July to 23 August

**Ruling Celestial Body**: Sun

**Colour**: Gold, orange, red, green

**Status**: Fixed

**Element**: Fire

**Qualities**: Extrovert, magnetic and born leaders. Impulsive, dramatic and opinionated. Reliable, but outspoken.

**Use**: For rituals for courage and leadership, sensual pleasures and love affairs.

## Virgo, the Maiden

**Date**: 24 August to 22 September

**Ruling Celestial Body**: Mercury

**Colour**: Grey, green, pale blue.

**Status**: Mutable

**Element** Earth

**Qualities**: Perfectionists, efficient and methodical. Discriminative, hypochondriac and shy. Generous, but also critical.

**Use**: For spells to increase efficiency, for bringing order to a chaotic situation, for self-improvement and for healing.

## Libra, the Scales

**Date**: 23 September to 23 October

**Ruling Celestial Body**: Venus

**Colour**: Royal blue, light brown, black, blue or violet, turquoise

**Status**: Cardinal

**Element**: Air

**Qualities**: Balanced, loyal and artistic. Indecisive, restless and afraid of the new. At best patient, at worst hate arguing.

**Use**: For rituals concerning justice and the law, for balancing options and priorities relationships, harmony and reconciliation.

## Scorpio, the Scorpion

**Date**: 24 October to 22 November

**Ruling Celestial Body**: Pluto

**Colour**: Black, red, brown, burgundy, scarlet

**Status**: Fixed

**Element**: Water

**Qualities**: Passionate, Analytic, and intuitive. Hypersensitive and broody. Determined but overdramatic.

**Use**: For increasing second sight, for passion and sex, secrets, inheritance and for claiming what is rightfully yours in any area of life

## Sagittarius, the Archer

**Date**: 23 November to 21 December

**Ruling Celestial Body**: Jupiter

**Colour**: Dark blue, purple, gold, red, orange, yellow, amethyst

**Status**: Mutable

**Element**: Fire

**Qualities**: Adventurous, generous and confident. Impatient, boastful and impulsive. Humorous, but untidy.

**Use**: for optimism, fresh perspectives, long-distance travel and house moves, creative ventures and expanding horizons.

## Capricorn, the Goat

**Date**: 22 December to 20 January

**Ruling Celestial Body**: Saturn

**Colour**: Red, black, dark brown, brown

**Status**: Cardinal

**Element**: Earth

**Qualities**: Ambitious, hardworking and thrifty. Reserved, worry and can appear cold. Efficient, but moody.

**Use**: For ambitions, perseverance, matters concerning officialdom, loyalty and for the acquisition of money.

## Aquarius, the Water Carrier

**Date**: 21 January to 18 February

**Ruling Celestial Body**: Uranus

**Colour**: Light blue, dark blue, green, indigo, electric blue

**Status**: Fixed

**Element**: Air

**Qualities**: Humanistic, broad and progressive. Eccentric, impartial and outrageous. Sincere, but impatient.

**Use**: For independence, friendship, creativity and for detachment from emotional blackmail.

## Pisces, the Fish

**Date**: 19 February to 20 March

**Ruling Celestial Body**: Neptune

**Colour**: Aquamarine, royal blue, white, green, mauve, sea green

**Status**: Mutable

**Element**: Water

**Qualities**: Romantic, intuitive and imaginative. Hypersensitive, dependent and dreamers. Compassionate, but delusional.

**Use**: for spells to develop spiritual awareness and intuition, and for divination, especially involving water and the fulfilment of hidden dreams. In magick, it tends to be the old rulerships that are used in spells

## Information Source

A Solitary Pagan

Ohio Astrology