Taphthartharath

Planetary spirits

The spirit is Mercury's malevolent face: the planet worked unfortunate, which the chapter says does all things contrary to the fortunate table — loss instead of gain, dullness instead of understanding, and the failure of memory and speech. That is its office in Agrippa.

Tradition · Kabbalistic

A note on this entry

The spelling is the least stable in the set — Taphthartharath, Thaphthartharath and Taphthartharath-as-printed-in-Barrett all circulate, and the Hebrew of the name is four tavs among seven letters, which is why editions differ. The sum, 2080, is the total of Mercury's square and is the stable thing. planetary_talismans.json names Taphthartharath as Mercury's spirit. The long modern invocations of this spirit belong to the twentieth-century revival of planetary magic and not to Agrippa.

Correspondences

Planet: Mercury
Chakra: Throat Chakra
Color: Orange
Rank: Planetary spirit

Sacred timing

Day: Wednesday
Hour planet: Mercury

Symbols and forms

Alternate Names: Thaphthartharath

Practice

Magical Uses: BindingCurse workMaterializationIllusionConfusion

Nature and meaning

Kind: Spirit
Office: The spirit is Mercury's malevolent face: the planet worked unfortunate, which the chapter says does all things contrary to the fortunate table — loss instead of gain, dullness instead of understanding, and the failure of memory and speech. That is its office in Agrippa. The name has attracted a large modern literature, in which Taphthartharath is treated as a distinct and talkative spirit of Mercury with a personality and a preferred offering; none of that is in the chapter.

Details

Order of angels: Archangels in the received tables, Bene Elohim in Agrippa's scale of ten; the caveat recorded on the intelligence of this sphere applies here too.
Archangel: Raphael
Metal: Mercury
Stone: Agate
Sigil: Tav-Pe-Tav-Resh-Tav-Resh-Tav, 400 + 80 + 400 + 200 + 400 + 200 + 400, summing to 2080 — the total of Mercury's square. Seven letters, four of them tav, and the character is one of the sigils Tyson calls still quite difficult to draw once the spelling is settled, the four tavs making it easy to misplace a stroke.
Keywords: MercuryMaleficQuicksilverDeceptionLossThe material side

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