Olympic Planetary Spirits

A certain class of entities known as the Olympic Planetary Spirits seem to capture the interest of many students of the occult. The Olympic Planetary Spirits were first introduced in the Arbatel de magic veterum. They are described in detail and are said to have some remarkable powers. From their appearance in that text, the Spirits were then included on many texts on the subject of planetary magick.

In fact, in many grimoires the Olympic Spirits are listed, along with grandiose powers. There is rarely an exposition to accompany the text. It is assumed the practitioner will be familiar with rituals before attempting to contact these entities. If not, they’ll have to rely quite heavily on intuition to guide them in constructing their ritual, because very little has been written about the Olympic Planetary Spirits over the years, especially as it pertains to making use of them in an effective ritual.

Black Magick practitioners added the Olympic Planetary Spirits to many of their recipe style grimoires, so they’ve been called for centuries for all manner of ritual and use

When someone is beginning to research these entities, I think it’s important to ask yourself a few simple questions. One, in particular, that stands out to me is: how, exactly, are the Olympic Planetary Spirits different than that of the Planetary Spirit, which is always considered to be a “blind” or even dangerous force? Are these spirits dangerous, and what exact precautions need to be taken to assure my operation is successful?

The Olympic Spirits are ruled thus:

1) Saturn - Aratron
2) Luna - Phul
3) Mars - Phaleg
4) Sol - Och
5) Venus - Hagith
6) Mercury - Ophiel
7) Jupiter - Bethor

“The Golden Dawn” by Israel Regardie didn’t do much to clear up the matter of the origin and nature of these entities. The Olympic Planetary Spirits don’t show up until “Volume IV: Book Seven” and then only as a name and a sigil with absolutely no explanation of how to use them.

I have a simple theory on why the knowledge of these sigils has been transmitted this way: because it is unlawful to do so in any other manner. That would mean the use of this sigils can’t be taught, but depend rather heavily on use of intuition in order to figure out what purpose they have.

I have read a number of accounts where magicians have attempted to contact the entities directly, and I’m not sure this is the best way to go. If you draw out the sigils as meditative aids, their use might become more clear.

There is no advantage to calling an Olympic Planetary Spirit over a Planetary Intelligences. The Good Intelligences tend to do their work faithfully and without much deceit.

In any event, it is doubtless that many magicians do indeed use the Olympic Spirits for rituals. As usual, you would call them in their hour and on their day for best results. One way we can deduce that these entities operate at least somewhat differently from other Planetary entities, is the warning in the Arbatel by the unknown author. He explains that knowing the Sigil of an Olympic Spirit is not enough to control it, which is the opposite of most extant literature on the subject. Generally knowing the “name” of something is all the magician needs to retain control. Not so here, so forewarned is forearmed.

Further, the text states that these spirits can only be conjured by having God send them. This would seem to extend the theory that these entities cannot be safely and directly called. This ends this brief introduction on the Olympic Planetary Spirits.