I recently devoured a book that arrived on Wednesday called Secrets of Planetary Magic by Christopher Warnock and thought I would share a little review of it for you all. I ordered two of his titles recently, the other is Fixed Star, Sign and Constellation Magic that I’ll most likely review as well since I’m about to dive into that next!
Book Blurb: The Secrets of Planetary Magic is an excellent introduction to traditional planetary magic by Christopher Warnock, the leading astrological magician and a master traditional astrologer.
It contains insights gleaned from a decade of practice and study of traditional planetary magic and is an excellent introduction to traditional astrological magic.
The Secrets of Planetary Magic explains the theory of planetary magic, the planetary hours and planetary hour elections, advanced planetary magic and contains a complete set of seven planetary images for talismans and planetary talisman consecration instructions.
Being a fairly new practitioner of planetary magick, at least finally putting it to praxis I should say, this book had been on my wish list for quite some time now. It’s a very quick read with it being under 100 pages but it packed a punch and I found it quite fascinating!
The book first talks about traditional astrology (pre-1700’s) and references the Picatrix, Agrippa, Marsilio Ficino and William Lilly. Warnock explains how the planetary hours and days works in conjunction with your desire or intention, he even briefly notes more advanced election timing that utilizes dignities, nodes and other more detailed aspects but doesn’t go into a huge amount of detail when it comes to this. I believe he has an online course regarding the more advanced stuff and it may also be covered in another one of his books if I remember correctly.
For me, I like to keep things simple and focus mainly on the planetary day and planetary hours, though I do keep in mind what that planet is doing… I personally wouldn’t want to do any workings with certain planets if they aren’t in a good position such as a retrograde or in detriment or fall.
Warnock discusses planetary talismans and what to consider when creating these (which are in the form of altars or paper, but can be really created how you wish in general). The main heart of this book that I enjoyed and will return to often is the planetary rituals themselves. He invites the user to utilize these as a guideline and change it up if desired. The rituals each include short instructions and the translated orphic hymns to each planet for invocation, which is what I actually prefer to use in my own praxis rather than create my own words… nothing beats these rich texts in my opinion.
There are also four appendices based on original esoteric text in the back of the book. Keep in mind that these are referencing very old texts and seems to be mostly shared here for historical reference, though there are a few things to glean especially in appendix C.
The appendices are as follows:
Appendix A: Book of Instruction in the Elements of the Art of Astrology by Al-Biruni (A.D. 1029)
There were a few things I found interesting in this appendix that can be used in creating a talisman for a planet.
Appendix B: Christian Astrology by William Lilly (London, 1647)
There seems to be a editing error on these pages, so disregard anything that reads “Begin Page 57 (etc)”. I also found some things useful in this appendix as well.
Appendix C: The Greater Key of Solomon translated by S. Liddell Macgregor Mathers (1889)
I loved this appendix the most, it really gives you some things to consider for your workings and it shares what each planets are best suited for.
Appendix D: Picatrix - Book III, chapter 7 (between the 10th and 11th century, it’s still up for debate)
While I found this appendix fascinating, I would say you’ve been warned when it comes to its contents and I would highly recommend that you don’t utilize some things that are listed such as a black cat’s head or rooster (to name just a few). I found this appendix more interesting than anything coming from a historical aspect.
All in all, I absolutely loved this read and glad to have added it to my collection. It’s a good foundation on traditional planetary magick and how it is utilized, I also love how quick it was to read and some parts of the book I’ll be using for future reference as well.
You can find this book on Amazon HERE
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