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Underground > Temple >

Ye Olde Lunar Mansions

18:17 / 31.01.06

Friends,

I've been doing some preliminary work with the 28 Arabic Lunar Mansions and I need to compose the sigils of the Angels associated with each one. I plan on doing this with the Magic Square of Luna. I could work out all the Arabic for the names of the angels [and thus the gematria] and being armed with that could proceed to draw the said sigils, but I thought I might avoid this if someone knows where I might find the Arabic of the angels in question.

Anybody know off hand where I can find this information?

Thanks!

trouser the trouserian

07:04 / 01.02.06

The only text which comes to mind which deals extensively with the Lunar Mansions is the Picatrix. There is a good website dealing with the Picatrix here

07:36 / 01.02.06

Thanks TtT,

Sure, I know Christopher's site well - and its a good one - and although it is unsurpassed for the astrological information, my needs are more ritualistically oriented. I made the chart posted above for the publisher of the Picatrix - unfortunately the angel names do not appear in the book so I am fishing around other waters. I'll probably have to hire a translator since my bait is not catching any big fish.

16:13 / 01.02.06

That al-Biruni list on that page isn't good enough?

Could someone explain what this system is?

I've found this essay and (more usefully for the original request) a book containing maps that seems like it would have the original Arabic, as well as reference to another book containing a reproduction of a Lunar Mansion chart.

18:26 / 01.02.06

Brief Explaination of the Theory of the Lunar Mansions.

The Lunar Mansions are arcs of 12 degrees, 51 minutes, which divide the ecliptic up into 28 stations and mark the motions of the moon during a lunar month.

These mansions comprise the Lunar Zodiac used in ancient times by the Arabs, the Chinese and astologers in India. Each of these systems had their own names for the mansions which are; Manzils [Arabic] - Nakshatras [Indian] - Sieu [Chinese].

There are very slight variations between these 3 systems, and these are cleared up by the use of fiducials [from the latin faith - fixed points in the sky, often fixed stars, which are used as a basis of comparative measurement].

It was the Arabic system which had the greatest influence on the West via the Spanish - Moorish connection and the Hermeticism of Giordano Bruno and Marsilio Ficino. Of course one may find these mansions among the Three Books of Occult Philosophy of Agrippa, which is where Francis Barrett took them for use in his Magus.

Each mansion has it's individual influence which is transmitted to sublunar creatures by the Moon. Magical images, angels, metals or stones, suffumigations or incenses and sometimes colors were among the correspondences applied to them.

In astrological magic the idea was to invoke the angel of the mansion when the moon was in correct station while burning the incense and visualizing the magical image in order to create various talismans or add specific lunar influence to other magical workings.

Some Bibliographic Resources.

The Arkana Dictionary of Astrology - Gettings
The Fixed Stars in Astrology - Robson
Picatrix: The Goal of the Wise - trans. Hashem Atallah
Celestial Magic - Nigel Jackson
Islamicate Celestial Globes - Savage-Smith
Mystical Astrology According to Ibn 'Arabi - Burckhardt
Three Books of Occult Philosophy - Agrippa
The Magus - Barrett

18:31 / 01.02.06

Grant,

Thanks for the links - some of those are quite interesting.

I need the actual Arabic names - not the transliterations. I want the correct Arabic letters of each of the angel names so that I can look at the numerical values. The English equivalents cannot provide me with that information since I cannot translate the English into Arabic.

I will probably have to find a translator to help me with this - but I thought I'd just put my request out there in case someone had come across this in their reading.

All Acting Regiment

06:24 / 02.02.06

Well, if you have a transliteration that reads as, say, "Dad Sad Ngoeh", you can open the program Character Map in windows (Start>Programs>Accesories>System Tools>Character Map) and look at the arabic letters you can get in the Times New roman font. Search out the ones that fit the transliteration, in this case ﺹﺼﮛ, and voila.

07:43 / 02.02.06

Perhaps I errored in using the term transliterations . . .

Here is an example of what I have:

Geliel [the angel of the 22nd mansion]

I need to know the actual Arabic [or Hebrew would work] letters in order to derive the correct numbers for each individual letter.

[heh, I'm on a mac by the way]

trouser the trouserian

07:54 / 02.02.06

Recalling that W.B Yeats was known to have done some work on the mansions, I dug out this link which contains a useful overview for those unfamiliar with this subject.

Another thought for you Sebastian, is you might consider approaching an old mate of mine - David Rankine (contact details) who's done some fine work over the years on Renaissance magic and Enochian and might well be able to suggest a source on the Arabic names for you.

All Acting Regiment

11:00 / 02.02.06

Have you looked in character map? It's not an Arabic font, the Arabic sounds have their own separate letters within Times New Roman. If you want the arabic for geliel, it's simply a case of finding "Gel" and "iel" or however it gets divvied up.

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

11:32 / 02.02.06

WIll have a look in Hulse's 'Eastern Mysteries' tonight, might be able to help.

17:48 / 17.02.06

My work continues on the Lunar Mansions . . .

I have been working on the translations of the Angel names, converting them into Hebrew so that I can compose their sigils. There are five Angels of the Manazil in the image above. I have been collaborating with another occultist on a grimoire for the invocation of the 28 Angels of the Lunar Mansions using traditional methods. After the practical work has been done, [i.e., invoking all 28 Angels] the book will be published for the benefit of others.