Sources & Tradition

The 72 Names

Derived by the boustrophedon method from Exodus 14:19–21 (three verses of 72 Hebrew letters each), read against the Masoretic text. Phonetically critical letter distinctions are verified against the Masoretic pointing.

Psalms & verse attributions

From the Kabbalistic tradition systematised in Sefer Raziel HaMalakh and codified by Athanasius Kircher (Oedipus Aegyptiacus, 1652); verse attributions follow the manuscripts of Dr. Thomas Rudd (Harley MSS 6479–6482; Skinner & Rankine, The Goetia of Dr Rudd, 2007). Psalm texts are KJV (1611).

Kameas & seals

The seven planetary squares and the seal-tracing method follow Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, De Occulta Philosophia Libri Tres (Cologne, 1533), Books II–III — including the Agrippan Latin cipher and digital-root reduction. Angel seals use the three-letter root only, never the full divine name.

On the nine choirs

The assignment of the seventy-two to the nine choirs is not found in Agrippa, who gives the names only their zodiacal quinaries. Its earliest attestation is Lazare Lenain, La Science Cabalistique (1823), transmitted into modern practice by Robert Ambelain, La Kabbale Pratique (1951). This site adopts Lenain's order of the choirs, with Powers fifth and Virtues sixth. Readers will encounter sources that reverse that pair; those follow the Dionysian order rather than the Gregorian one Lenain adopted.

The uniform blocks of eight used here are an editorial emendation, and are presented as one. The Lenain text in general circulation is a 1909 “revised and corrected” reprint, and its boundary notes past the fifth choir are defective: the Virtues are mislabelled as the fifth choir, the Archangels are given only 57–63, and the Angels are made to begin at 64 — which leaves the seventy-two unable to divide evenly among the nine. Ambelain reproduces the same defects. Regularising the boundaries to eight angels per choir is the smallest change that makes the scheme self-consistent, but it is a change, and it is not what either printed source says.

Each choir in turn corresponds to a planetary sphere, and that correspondence determines the Kamea on which the angel's seal is traced: Seraphim and Principalities upon Sol, Cherubim and Dominions upon Jupiter, Thrones upon Saturn, Powers upon Luna, Virtues upon Mars, Archangels upon Mercury, and Angels upon Venus. That second correspondence is this work's own construction, not a traditional attribution. Neither Lenain nor Ambelain assigns choirs to planetary squares — both attribute planets per angel — and Agrippa's Scale of Nine places two of its nine spheres, the primum mobile and the fixed stars, above the seven planets, so they have no Kamea. This mapping brings all nine choirs within the seven classical squares.

The Goetia

The spirit catalogue follows the Lemegeton tradition through Weyer's Pseudomonarchia Daemonum (1577) and the 1904 Mathers/Crowley edition (whose public-domain seals are shown). The angel–spirit pairing is Rudd's. Presented for study and contemplative shadow-work — not a manual of evocation. Spirit names carry many attested spellings; variant spellings redirect to the spelling used here, which follows the 1904 edition.

Bibliography

Primary: Agrippa, De Occulta Philosophia Libri Tres (1533) · Mathers, The Key of Solomon the King (1889) · Regardie, The Golden Dawn (1937) · Paracelsus, Selected Writings (ed. Jacobi).

Commentaries: Fortune, The Mystical Qabalah (1935) · Regardie, The Middle Pillar (1938) · Zalewski, Inner Order Teachings (1988) · Crowley, 777 (1909) · Greer, Circles of Power (1997).

Angelic studies: Davidson, A Dictionary of Angels (1967) · Levi, Transcendental Magic (1896) · Ambelain, La Kabbale Pratique (1951).

Goetic: Weyer, Pseudomonarchia Daemonum (1577) · Crowley & Mathers, The Goetia (1904) · Skinner & Rankine, The Goetia of Dr Rudd (2007).

A note on tradition

This is the Hermetic Qabalah — the Renaissance and Golden Dawn synthesis, a distinct Western tradition with a documented lineage — not a claim on living Jewish practice. Where sources disagree, the disagreement is noted rather than resolved silently.

Ai Drafted, Human Reviewed.