The Image of Mercury

Planetary spirits

The first image confers knowledge, eloquence, diligence in merchandising and gain, and is said to beget peace and concord and to cure fevers. The second is for goodwill, wit and memory.

Tradition · Hermetic Western

A note on this entry

Unusually for this chapter, Agrippa names no stone at all for the Mercury images, and no metal either; agate and quicksilver are supplied here from the planet's correspondence, and the note is explicit so that the gap is not mistaken for a source. Quicksilver cannot be engraved, which may be why the recipes avoid naming a material. The serpent-twined rod is the caduceus, as Tyson notes, and he suggests the dart in the right hand may originally have been a flute. The peacock of the second image is Mercury's bird, not a separate correspondence.

Correspondences

Planet: Mercury
Chakra: Throat Chakra
Color: Orange
Rank: Talismanic image

Sacred timing

Day: Wednesday
Hour planet: Mercury

Symbols and forms

Alternate Names: Mercurii imago

Practice

Magical Uses: LearningCommunicationMemoryTradePeaceHealing

Nature and meaning

Kind: Image
Office: The first image confers knowledge, eloquence, diligence in merchandising and gain, and is said to beget peace and concord and to cure fevers. The second is for goodwill, wit and memory. Mercury's images are therefore the only ones in the set aimed squarely at the operator's own capacities rather than at fortune, health or love.

Details

Order of angels: Archangels in the received tables, Bene Elohim in Agrippa's scale of ten.
Metal: Mercury
Stone: Agate
Image: A handsome bearded young man with winged feet, a rod with a serpent twined about it in his left hand and a dart in his right, made in the hour of Mercury with Mercury ascending in Gemini; it confers knowledge, eloquence and diligence in merchandising and gain, begets peace and concord, and cures fevers. A second, for goodwill, wit and memory: a man seated in a chair or riding on a peacock, with eagle's feet and a crest on his head, holding a cock or fire in his left hand, made with Mercury ascending in Virgo.
Keywords: MercuryImageCaduceusPeacockEloquenceKnowledge

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