Mar 8, 20195 min read

Planetary Magick

Updated: Mar 18, 2019

Planetary magick is an aspect of Western occultism that utilizes the planetary gods (or planetary spirits, or planetary energies) to aid and influence a spell or ritual. It focuses on the five planets that are visible to the naked eye, plus the sun and the moon. These energies are connected to these planetary bodies, but they are not the heavenly bodies themselves. They are symbolic for realms of influence and power within the Universe as it relates to humanity.

One of the most basic ways to include the energy of the planets in magickal work is to utilize the days of the week. This can be as simple as casting a spell on a certain day of the week that corresponds to you goal. You create more power with this as you include additional connections to that planet. For example, you use the corresponding colors, herbs, oil, incense, crystals, symbols, and seals to draw in that planetary energy. Some people will locate the planet in the sky and work with that planet when it is brightest, or directly overhead. Others will keep an eye on astrology and note when a planet is in a certain sign. Others will simply face the direction in the sky that the planet is at and evoke the planet's spirit into their work.

Planetary magick can be extremely complex, especially when you get into the areas of planetary hours and utilizing the cameas. This complexity can lead to a good deal of power if you put a lot of stock in making things difficult. I do not. I put a lot of stock into having a clear goal and including the energy I want into the magick I'm making. I do not go out of my way to frustrate myself in the process of creating magick. As such, I have my own way of going about things so that I can get down to the business of creating my reality.

I utilize the planetary days when it suits me which is often. I utilize planetary hours when it suits me, which is less often. Timing is funny. We ALL have busy lives and I'm good believing and knowing that all space and time in my ritual is here and NOW. When people in the occult world go on and on and on about how important it is to time your spells just right, I wonder if they've not figured out this truism of Universal Law.

Does it add power to time your spells? Again, adding complexity adds power, but not if it interferes with you actually getting things done, and not if if causes you so much stress of worrying if you're doing it right that you negate the confidence in your working. If I'm trying to rearrange reality, I will use every level of complexity that is within my grasp and I will take my time. If I'm just casting some spell to improve my life in ordinary ways, I will just keep it simple.

But for the sake of not fucking things up, I make sure that the planet I'm working with is not in retrograde unless I specifically am working with that retrograde energy. I make sure the moon isn't void of course if I am working with the moon. (Please see the references at the bottom of this article to see some handy apps for your phone to help you with planetary and moon magick.)

How to Make a Camea Sigil

A camea is a way of drawing a sigil when you want to boost your sigil making process with the energy of a planetary spirit. This is MY simplified version. If you would prefer to do it the classical way using numerology, then see the reference section of this article.

Create a statement of intent as you would when creating any sigil. You can remove the vowels if you like, but definitely remove the repeating letters.
Draw or print out the camea square for the planet you are working with.
In each square write the letters of the alphabet starting with A in the space for 1 and continue with the letters of the alphabet in the corresponding number.
When you run out of numbers in a square with fewer numbers than spaces, continue the alphabet starting again at 1 and repeat until you run out of letters. If you have a larger planetary square with more numbers than letters, start over at A and continue on the next number and do so until you run out of numbers. Some numbers or letters will repeat depending on the number of squares.
Create your sigil using the letters from your statement of intent. You can be a bit creative with this but draw it in the order of the letters of your statement of intent. I like to use curves rather than angles to create my sigils. Join the tails of the sigil with a straight line. I think this makes it look more finished.
Copy the shape of the sigil created on your petition or talisman, and add it to your spell. You can write this on a piece of paper and put it under a candle, a crystal, in a mojo bag, etc. I prefer to dress my sigil papers the same way I would a petition by using the fuzzy torn edges and anointing these edges with a magickal oil.

Planetary Hours

Here is a chart of the simplified version of the planetary hours within the week. If you are working with more than one planet, you can work with the more dominant planet using its day in the week, and then work your ritual during the hour of a secondary planet. Each day rotates through the 12 hour cycle twice and then begins on the next day with the corresponding planet in the first hour. I highly recommend using a planetary hours calculator. There are phone apps and websites that have a handy tool to calculate them. You can calculate this yourself, by figuring out the sunrise and sunset of each day and dividing that by 12 but that's an unnecessary headache for the truly masochistic and anal retentive practitioner. The hours themselves will not necessarily be 60 minutes long, which is why it is important to use a tool to calculate it for you if you don't want the bother of arithmetic. (See References)