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Magic Books by Talia Felix

Planetary Colors : Lists from Traditional Magical Practice

 


Modern discussions of color magic often devolve quickly into some scientific mumbo jumbo about "light frequencies." Study of color from such perspective did not exist meaningfully until the late 18th century. Yet color correspondences for magical workings are far older... but also unsteady.

We've talked previously about hoodoo style color magic on this blog and in my book The Conjure Cookbook, but for this post we are concerned solely with the planetary magic correspondences in historical sources.

Agrippa's De Occulta Philosophia (16th century) holds:

Now the colours of the Planets are these: of Saturn, blew and leaden, and shining with this: of Jupiter citrine neer to a paleness, and clear with this; of Mars, red, and fiery; of the Sun, yellow, and when it riseth red, afterward glittering: of Venus, white and shining; white with the morning, and reddish in the evening: of Mercury, glittering; of the Moon, fair.

The 17th century Clavicula Salomonis lists:

  • Of Saturn is black, and is made of the hair of a goat burned.
  • Of Jupiter is green, and is made of a noble green
  • Of Mars, is of vermillion or of saffron. [NB: "saffron" here may mean turmeric, which tends to turn red when combined with certain chemicals. More expensive saffron was often adulterated with it.]
  • Of Venus, is of Azure or of any colour like to violet.
  • Of Sol, is saffron, or of green.
  • Of Mercury, is of the yolks of eggs.
  • Of Luna, is of white lead.

In the 18th century Petit Albert one can infer the planetary colors from the colors of the wrappings prescribed for planetary talismans:
  • Sun: white or buff ("fine linen")
  • Moon: white
  • Mars: red
  • Mercury: purple
  • Jupiter: sky blue
  • Venus: green
  • Saturn: black
A 1732 Key of Solomon gives:
  • Saturn: black
  • Jupiter: blue
  • Mars: red
  • Sun: yellow
  • Venus: green
  • Mercury: purple or mixed colors
  • Moon: white
The Véritable Magie Noire of circa 1800 lists:
  • Saturn, black.
  • Mars, red.
  • Jupiter, celestial blue.
  • The Sun, yellow.
  • Venus, green.
  • Mercury, green and red.
  • The Moon, white.
Crowley's influential Liber 777 of 1909 offers these correspondences:
  • Saturn - indigo
  • Sol - orange
  • Luna - blue
  • Mars - scarlet
  • Mercury - yellow
  • Jupiter - violet
  • Venus - emerald green
The change from Saturn to indigo from black is likely reflective of new light-based color theory in which black is "not a color" (which is not the mindset people working with pigment in older sources would have had.) Such thinking is common in modern magical practice but as here depicted, is not from older tradition. 
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