Finding Spirit Names From Your Natal Chart?, A question about a method in Agrippa's Occult Philosophy Book III Options

In Book III, of Agrippa's Books of Occult Philosophy, in Chapter 26-27, there is a method to discover (supposedly) the name of a good, and a bad spirit, that has been "assigned" to you at birth.

I'm trying to do this, but I can't quite make sense of it, I'm going to be buying another translation before Christmas, and hopefully that will help clear it up, but I thought I'd try here first.

From what I can understand (which may be all wrong), the method in Chapter 26, is to take your birth chart, and starting at your Ascendant, assign in order the letters of the Hebrew Alphabet, and wherever a planet rests, that letter is part of the Spirit name. But how do you order the letters to get the name? I've figured out my seven letters, but from there, I don't know how to arrange them to find the name.

I've also read two different explanations on getting the name of the bad spirit, one is you label the letters backwards from the Ascendant, the other is you use the letters (degrees) opposite of wherever a planet rests in your chart.

Can anyone clear this up for me?

As for chapter 27, I'm just lost, so any help there would be much appreciated.

Thanks for the latter advice (sorry I didn't respond to it before).

Anyways, I got a new translation, and according to the footnotes, you just follow the order they appear in your chart, counterclockwise from the Ascendant. Reading that, and rereading the old english it actually made a lot of sense.

I've figured out the names, but not worked with them yet, but I'll put up my results when I do.

This is a fascinating subject, I have been divining names of intelligences by using the mystical associations of the individual hebrew letters for sometime, however I'm curious about this method as well, and how they compare. In chapter 26, Agrippa suggests that a useful genius may be divined based on what the magician wishes to accomplish and by composing (as far as I can tell from the text) a starchart beneficial to that purpose and then taking the spirit's name from that.

What I'm wondering though is exactly what he means we he talks about assigning letters - there are only 12 hebrew letters that are associated with the signs/houses; is that saying that only these 12 letters will be used to determine the name of said spirit, or am I missing something critical here?

peace

This post has been edited by Vagrant Dreamer: Jan 23 2008, 12:39 AM

In chapter 26, Agrippa suggests that a useful genius may be divined based on what the magician wishes to accomplish and by composing (as far as I can tell from the text) a starchart beneficial to that purpose and then taking the spirit's name from that.

What I'm wondering though is exactly what he means we he talks about assigning letters - there are only 12 hebrew letters that are associated with the signs/houses; is that saying that only these 12 letters will be used to determine the name of said spirit, or am I missing something critical here?

peace

I haven't figured out what is intended when divining the useful Genius from a chart. I have two ideas, which both differ from yours.

The first, is it is treated like Horary astrology. In horary astrology, if I lost my car keys, I wouldn't make a chart of when I thought I lost them. I'd sit down at the computer, draw up a chart, and the chart, from that moment I asked and looked, would hold the answer. So I thought perhaps when you have decided "I want to do a love spell" then you go, and get a chart for that minute, and use it.

The other is "I want to do a love spell at 1633, January 30th, 2008" so you draw up the chart for that time, and use it.

Personally I think the first is more likely, but I haven't experimented to see what I get from it.

Assigning the letters means all of them. Not just the 12 associated with the signs. What you do is start at the ascendant (let's say 0 Aries, just for ease of use) as assign it Aleph, then go to Aries 1, and that is Beth, 2, Gimel. Etc etc.

But, the only letters you record, and the the letters that fall on a degree with a planet. So if you had Venus at 6 Aries and not other planet from 0-6, then Zain, would be the letter you use in the angel name. You go around the Wheel, and in that order, however they fall, you write down those letters, to divine the name. When doing your Angel/Demon (or however you want to term them), you use every planet. Or at least, I would, otherwise it would be unbalanced.

When writing out a Genius name for a specific intention he says "then those letters which fall into the places of the stars the air whereof thou wouldest use", which I understand as, only use the letters that are on planets beneficial to the working. So for the love spell, you might only use Venus (duh), Mercury (communication) and Jupiter (increase, joy, oversimplified I know), as those relate to love and a happy relationship, but tossing in Saturn and Mars might add more stress to it.

Okay, I understand so far.

When the degrees of the house total more than 22, which is typical, at least 30 degrees if you are using a system that divides the houses equally, do you just start over from aleph again?

Your interpretation of using the names of the genius sounds accurate, now that I have read it again. Thanks for that clarification.

peace

Okay, I understand so far.

When the degrees of the house total more than 22, which is typical, at least 30 degrees if you are using a system that divides the houses equally, do you just start over from aleph again?

Your interpretation of using the names of the genius sounds accurate, now that I have read it again. Thanks for that clarification.

peace

Yeah, sorry, I forgot that. So in the example I gave 0-21 would be the 22 Hebrew letters, then 22 Aries would be Aleph, and it would start all over again, going through the alphabet as needed.

That was fast, thanks! I was about to log off and do my nightlies, now I can put this one in there as well. If I have some significant results, I'll bring them back to share.

peace