The Glyph of the Moon
Karl Spiesberger (1904 - 1992) was a key figure in publishing occult knowledge, techniques and exercises that became central to the tradition of ritual magic in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. His works - similar to the modern magic source-works of Franz Bardon, H.E. Douval or Gregor A. Gregorius - are often overlooked outside of German speaking countries as many of them haven’t been translated yet. However, similar to Israel Regardie who published the then secret documents of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, these authors had unique access to internal lodge materials. The two main lodges to be called out in light of this are the Ordo Templi Orientis and the Fraternitas Saturni.
“Try everything without bias or preconceived ideas, and hold on to whatever works best.”
This article is supposed to help overcome this language and cultural barrier in our occult lore and provide access to an advanced talismanic technique, called the Glyph of the Moon (German: Mondglyphe).
It was first alluded to in Gregor A. Gregorius’ 1928 publication Magia Cosmosophica: Without any textual explanation three hand-drawn sketches of the Glyph of the Moon - in various stages of completion - appeared as the appendix of the small booklet. 43 years later Karl Spiesberger published a thorough analysis of it in his 1971 book ‘Loadstones of Luck’ (Magneten des Glücks). While he provides everything that is needed to understand the underlying principles and apply the technique in practice, some elements remain obscure until today.
The effect of the Glyph of the Moon can best be described in two ways: Similar to other sigils it allows to create an astral fingerprint or sympathetic sigil of the person to whom it is applied. However, this sigil is not based on the name of the person, but on the influences and forces of their natal chart. Secondly - and more importantly in practice - it functions as an exponential charge of the subtle energies of that person or the talismanic structure it is applied to.
The Glyph of the Moon has also been described as a magickal power generator or a 2D charing device. But whatever we call it, the results it allows to achieve are the best testament to its significant value for any practicing magician.
LVX,
Frater Acher
May the serpent bite its tail.
1) Preamble
The basic idea of the Glyph of the Moon is to combine the astrological chart of a person or object with the Kamea of the Moon, thus delivering a graphical or sigil version of the natal chart of a person mapped onto the Kamea of the Moon.
The goal of this article is to enable you to construct the Glyph of the Moon for any astrological charts you wish and integrate it into any talisman you chose to work with, e.g. astrological, planetary, elementary, goetic, etc.
The context of the creation of the Glyph of the Moon is rather complex and most likely of interest for magicians with advanced talismanic experience only. That’s why I have simplified and summarized the basic steps to create the Glyph in the very last chapter. So in case you are not interest in the background, yet still want to work with this powerful talismanic method, just skip the following chapters and start at the end.
Finally, as some elements of this rather arcane method still remain obscure I appreciate any feedback or ideas to further understand the structure that is behind this talismanic approach. Just use the contact section on the left sidebar to get in touch.
2) The Double Natal Chart
Having experimented with this technique in various contexts himself, Spiesberger concludes that the effect of the Glyph is an exponential transformation of the Od or Prana or Mana related to the person or object designated by the Glyph (p.107).
What sets the Glyph apart from many other sigils is that it doesn’t relate to the name of the person it is designed for but rather for the individual astrological chart. So to start with you will need two things: the natal chart of the person in question as well as the kamea or magical square of the number nine, designated to the powers of the moon. In creating the Glyph of the moon for this person we will bring these two elements in relation with each other.
Once you have created your natal chart- e.g. at this free online resource - you will need to extract the exact degrees of each planet in its sign. I am following the example given by Spiesberger in his book:
Sun 24° Pisces
Moon 07° Aries
Mercury 09° Aries
Venus 14° Aquarius
Mars 24° Capricorn
Jupiter 16° Pisces
Saturn 26° Scorpio
Uranus 25° Aquarius
Neptune24° Leo
Ascendant 15° Capricorn
Minutes need to be rounded into full degrees for the purpose of the glyph; Pluto, Caput and Cauda Draconis as well as Zenith will remain unconsidered at this point.
We will then use this data to create chart drawing. However for the purpose of the Glyph we don’t need a single but a double drawing of the chart with its mirror image included in the same picture. This is achieved by laying a second zodiac circle around the first one, however, this time the sign of Aries will be mirrored and thus match onto the sign of Libra of the first circle. This is how the basic template will look like as a result:
And here is the example natal chart from above applied on the raw template:
As you can see from this graphic the positions of all planets are mirrored onto the second, outer zodiac (blue) and so is the position of the ascendant.
Note: Please note that if you want to work with the Glyph of the Moon the positions need to be marked as precisely as possible on the natal charts; the graphic above would be too vague to reflect the exact position by degree. It is simply used to illustrate the general approach.
Spiesberger remarks that the inner zodiac relates to physical destiny, whereas the mirrored outer zodiac refers to the spiritual structures of destiny. Thus the Glyph is a combination of two parts: the Glyph we will construct from the inner zodiac is the ‘magic-physical transient’ (German: magisch-körperliche Auspolungs-Glyphe) whereas the Glyph constructed from the outer zodiac will become the ‘magic-spiritual transient’ (German: magisch-seelische Einpolungs-Glyphe).
Before we can do that that, however, we have to finalize the Glyph of the Moon Template with an essential element that currently is still missing. This is derived from the magic square (Kamea) of the number nine or the Moon which will provide the sigil or ‘face’ of the Glyph.
3) The Circles of the Planets
In this chapter we could follow Spiesberger and delve into the depth of a numerical analysis of the following procedure. However, I will keep this short and only provide a summary of the method as well as a single example of Spiesberger’s numerical analysis. I’ll leave it to the meditations of anyone interested to reflect on the deeper implications and relations hidden in this approach.
As the next step we take the magical square of the Moon and draw twelve concentric circles over it. These circles need to be positioned on the Kamea in such a way that they create twelve sequences of numbers in a clockwise manner on the square. However, the goal is NOT to connect all numbers of the Kamea as it is e.g. in the method of the classic planetary sigils. In this case the focus is only on the sequence of numbers that allow to create the twelve concentric circles.
Note: If this sounds or looks complicated, don’t worry and skip to the 3rd Step below. I have done this for you and provided a template for download in the next chapter. The following simply serves to illustrate the underlying numerical principles of the Glyph of the Moon.
These are the twelve numerical sequences on the Kamea of the Moon:
1st Circle: 81 - 73 - 01 - 09
2nd Circle: 32 - 42 - 50 - 40
3rd Circle:31 - 33 - 51 - 49
4th Circle: 72 - 64 - 74 - 02 - 10 - 18 - 08 - 80
5th Circle: 23 - 43 - 59 - 39
6th Circle: 71 - 65 - 11 - 17
7th Circle: 22 - 24 - 34 - 52 - 60 - 58 - 48 - 30
8th Circle: 63 - 55 - 75 - 03 - 19 - 27 - 07 - 79
9th Circle: 21 - 25 - 61 - 57
10th Circle: 62 - 56 - 66 - 12 - 20 - 68 - 25 - 16 - 70
11th Circle: 14 - 44 - 68 - 38
12th Circle: 13 - 15 - 35 - 53 - 69 - 67 - 47 - 29
Here is how the sequences look if marked down directly on the Kamea:
At this point in his book Spiesberger dedicates three entire pages to the explanation of the numerical symmetries hidden in these sequences. His study is quite revealing and proofs to show that these twelve sequences are far from randomly chosen but follow patterns that even he himself could only detect but not explain.
For any German readers interested I can only recommend to buy the book second hand and read pages 110-112. For any non German speakers let me summarize that Spiesberger’s analysis is mainly focussed on adding the numerical values of circle cells arranged in opposite positions and creating the reduction of these sums - which seem to be 82 = 10 = 1 in all cases. Here is the example for the final 12th circle:
And here, finally, is the picture with the actual twelve concentric circles drawn into the Kamea of the Moon, following the patterns of the numerical sequences:
4) The Template of the Glyphe
The third step merges the circles drawn on the Kamea of the Moon with the double natal chart we created in earlier. This is done by simply placing the twelve circles in the middle of the figure of the double natal chart; you can do this and keep the Kamea in the background if you like, or just erase the Kamea and keep and scale the circles accordingly.
Applied to our example chart from above this will allow you to come up with the following template:
(for a free download of this template as JPG (1.3 MB) - click here)
Each circle is now assigned to a planet, starting with the Sun in the centre and working outwards towards Neptune and the Ascendant finally. Here is an overview of the planetary correlation to the twelve circles:
And here it is applied to the template:
As you can see we have added the Earth as an additional planet on the seventh circle. The position of Earth on the natal chart always is in opposition to the Sun. Thus we have landed at a model of our solar system surrounded by a double natal chart.
The three inner circles are all correlated to the Sun as they indicate its importance for the chart as well as its dominance over the other planets. The position of the Moon, however, was moved to the fourth rather than 8th circle following the Earth. Spiesberger doesn’t give a reason for this unfortunately. It would be easy to ‘correct’ this and move it in sequence with the other planets; yet the Glyph works in the given way and thus I chose to accept the position of the Moon as indicated.
Note: the fact that Pluto is excluded from this model might hint at the origin of this talismanic technique. As it includes Neptune yet misses Pluto the origin of the model could possibly be dated between 1846 and 1929. This would be in line with its first mentioning in Gregorius’ 1928 publication. However, Pluto might have been excluded for other reasons as Spiesberger published his book in 1971 and could have easily reworked the model to include it.
5) Shutting the Circuit
Now that we have created the template for any Glyph of the Moon the final steps are relatively easy. Here they are summarized in a short sequence of steps to be taken:
Transfer the natal chart positions of all planets onto the final template
Plumb the position of each planet from the two zodiacs on the according circle (see following figure)
Connect the Ascendants of the inner and outer zodiac by an axis
From the Neptune point of each zodiac draw a circle to the related Ascendant
Highlight the axis created by the positions of the two moons in an additional circle that includes the entire Glyph
The following figure explains step two in graphical form. Only the plumbing of the inner (red) zodiac has been indicated in order to keep the graphic clear. To create the full Glyph the same approach is taken for the planets on the outer (blue) zodiac.
Once you have taken steps one through five on your template, this is how your final Glyph will look like:
And here it is without the background of the template as it could be applied in a talisman:
6) Rough Guide to the Glyphe of the Moon
In order to create a Glyph of the Moon for yourself or a client simply follow these basic steps:
Download the free Glyph of the Moon Template here
Create the natal chart of the person in question
Copy the exact positions of all planets, plus the position of the Ascendant and the Earth (= opposition of Sun) on the inner zodiac of the Glyph of the Moon Template
Then also mark each planetary position on the second or outer zodiac of the template which is a mirror image of the first one
Plumb all planetary positions on the related circle in the inner sphere of the template(& remember that the first three inner circles are all aligned to the Sun, then follow the sequence as given in Step 3 of the article)
Connect all planetary positions of the inner zodiac as marked on the circles with a single line starting at the innermost circle of the Sun and ending on the outermost circle of Neptune
Join the positions of Neptune and the Ascendant with a circular line
Repeat 5. and 6. with a different color for the planetary positions of the second or outer zodiac as marked on the circles
Include both figures in an additional circle and mark the axis of the Moon on it
In case you are creating the Glyph by hand - what is highly recommended under all circumstances - just print the Glyph of the Moon Template and follow all steps as given above. Then copy the final Glyph lines only by use of carbon paper on your talismanic parchment.
This will give you a clean copy of your Glyph without any background images or marks on whatever type of paper or parchment you chose.
Selected Resources
Spiesberger, Karl, Magneten des Glücks - Die Magie der Amulette, Talismane und Edelsteine, Richard Schikowski 1971
Laarss, R.H., Das Buch der Amulette und Talismane, Richard Hummel 1932
Maack, Ferdinand, Talisman Turc - Liebes- und Krankheitsamulette, 1926
A.L. Soror, Die Magische Pforte - Die geheime Kraft von Tattwas, magischen Quadraten, Talismanen, Mandalas, Bauer 1996
Gregorius, Gregor A., Magische Briefe - Okkulte Praxis, 9.Brief ‘Magia Cosmosophica’, Okkulter Buch-Verlag 1928