Ophiel
Governs the 14 provinces of Mercury and rules the things attributed to Mercury: he gives familiar spirits, teaches all arts, and enables the bearer of his character to change quicksilver at once into the philosophers' stone.
Source: Arbatel de Magia Veterum (Basel, 1575); English in Turner (1655), printed with the spurious Fourth Book, hence the common misattribution to Agrippa. Disputed: the promise that quicksilver becomes the philosophers' stone 'in a moment' is alchemical hyperbole the text does not explain, and the identification with Mercury's intelligence Tiriel or spirit Taphthartharath is a modern conflation of separate Agrippan tables. Modern elemental magic also gives him an air correspondence that the Arbatel does not; the element here is the element of Mercury in this corpus. Mercury the metal is toxic, and the corpus records the traditional use without recommending its handling.
Correspondences
- Planet
- Mercury
- Element
- Air
- Chakra
- Throat Chakra
- Color
- Orange
Sacred timing
- Day
- Wednesday
- Hour
- Mercury
Practice
- Magical Uses
- LearningArtsCommunicationFamiliar spiritsAlchemyQuick wittedness
Nature and meaning
- Office
Governs the 14 provinces of Mercury and rules the things attributed to Mercury: he gives familiar spirits, teaches all arts, and enables the bearer of his character to change quicksilver at once into the philosophers' stone.
Details
- Order
- 6
- Metal
- Mercury
- Stone
- Agate
- Herb
- Clover
- Sigil
His character: an abstract glyph rather than a figure, printed in the Arbatel and assigned to the metal of Mercury — quicksilver, which cannot in fact be cut, so the seal is written or drawn rather than engraved. The strokes are among the most divergent between copies.
- Keywords
- MercuryArtsLearningCommunicationQuicksilverAlchemyFamiliars
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