Saturn has just been in the air for me lately. Someone on the Solomonic Magic group posted that he would be making some Saturn talismans, since there was a good time coming up this month. I emailed to say I’d be interested, but he had already gotten all the interest he could handle with them. But I was inspired and decided to make my own. A while ago I bought some kidskin to make talismans and have been practicing with paper and kidskin scraps with the nice inks I’ve got, both modern acrylic types and medieval walnut gall type (this goes on gray and darkens as it dries). I also got a piece of software for calculating the best times to make planetary talismans: Christopher Warnock’s Planetary Magic Program. Chris’s site is not only informative but beautiful, with art by Nigel Jackson as well as images from medieval and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts. At any rate, I asked the software for good times in November to make a Saturn talisman, and it found several of them, two when the Moon is waxing and two when it is waning (yes, a couple are in the middle of the night, but that seems like an especially Saturn time, no?). I thought with this kind of bounty, I ought to really go for it and make a number of Saturn talismans. There are several depicted in Veritable Key of Solomon. The author recommends making them out of lead, the Saturn metal, or “if you make them from Virgin Parchment, you will need to pay attention using sympathetic colours with them or better yet, colours appropriate to the Planet of Saturn” (p. 207). He gives black, leaden, and earthy brown as Saturn colors. So immediately of course I figured I would have a use for black goatskin and ordered some. I have some ink that is colored to look like lead.

For the perfume of Saturn, he lists black poppy seed, henbane seed, root of mandrake, powdered lodestone, and good quality myrrh. Fine, but then he adds the blood of a bat and the brain of a black cat. Nope. Agrippa, however, comes to the rescue, as recently I made the suffumigations of the seven known planets according to his alternate recipes in Three Books of Occult Philosophy. These include no animal parts but are instead organized by which part of the plant is used; in the case of Saturn, it is roots. The talismans are “For the Good of the Earth, against Hail and Storm,” “To uncover hidden mines & treasures,” “Against Spells, Charms & Possession by Evil Spirits,” “To have Revelations,” “Against Storms, Lightning bolts, Hail & Floods,” “Against sudden Death & Accidents which can cause it,” a seal to protect a knight’s horse, and a couple pentacles for “gaining the favours of the Familiar Spirits of the Planet of Saturn.” The Mathers translation has a neat Hebrew version of the SATOR square for protection also. I’ve got four possible dates to work with, so I will have to pick four of these (or draw really fast!). If possible, I will make multiples. I’ll post pictures when I have them done. There are all sorts of theories about what the Sator square comes from. What strikes me is the similarity between Sator and Saturn and Opera and Opis, Saturn’s wife. Both Saturn and Opis (Ops) were gods of the earth, riches, and abundance. Saturn is older than the Olympian gods and does have his scary side, not only in terms of his scythe and thus connection to death (but also the harvest), but also in terms of the Titan, Kronos (time), a version of Saturn who, having been told his children would overthrow them, ate them. To me this sounds like planting seeds (the earth “eats” them only to return them, as Kronos does with his children). It was Zeus who was saved from this fate by his mother, Rhea, who gave Kronos a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes instead of the baby god. Zeus survives to overthrow Kronos, who vomits up all the children he swallowed. In a way, Zeus is able with his mother’s help to evade time itself. This reminds me of the story of Adam and Eve; time began when Eve tasted the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Kronos tried stopping time by eating his children, but it didn’t work. One of the interpretations of the meaning of the Sator square is “‘The Great Sower holds in his hand all works; all works the Great Sower holds in his hand.” Sounds like Saturn to me. Of course, some have also interpreted this as a secret Christian thing, but then, practically everything in the history of humankind can be (and is) interpreted that way, lol!