Seals on the Planetary Squares

How a square seal is made

Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy (1533) gives each of the seven planets a magic square, a grid of numbers in which every row, column, and diagonal adds up to the same total. Saturn's is three by three, and each planet after it in the old order has one more row and column, down to the Moon at nine by nine. The old seals of the planetary names were drawn by joining, in order, the boxes that hold the numbers of their letters.

The same can be done with your own word. Count A as 1, B as 2, and so on to Z as 26. If a number is bigger than the largest number on the square, take away the square's largest number until it fits. If the same number comes twice in a row, use it once. Then draw a line from box to box through the numbers in order, with a small circle where it starts and a short bar where it ends.

The example is GROWTH on the square of Jupiter, which runs from 1 to 16. G is 7, R is 18 and comes down to 2, O is 15, W is 23 and comes down to 7, T is 20 and comes down to 4, and H is 8. The line runs 7, 2, 15, 7, 4, 8.

Why draw it by hand?

The counting is a fixed rule, and a machine can do it. The drawing is where your attention goes into the seal, and the old writers held that a figure works through the person who makes it. Use this page to check your numbers and the shape of the line, then draw the seal yourself, in the planet's hour if you can.

What about letters with accents?

They count as the plain letter, so É is E. Spaces, numbers, and punctuation are ignored.

When is the planet's hour?

The planetary hours calculator shows whose day and hour it is where you live, and when your planet's next hour begins.