Decan Images

Definition

Decan images are symbolic pictures — one for each decan — describing a human, animal, or hybrid figure ("a man holding a spear," "a woman with a serpent") used to give each of the 36 decans a character for interpretation and talismanic magic. They grow out of the Egyptian decan-deity tradition, in which the decan-stars were pictured as Egyptian gods. They were drawn together in the Hellenistic-Hermetic Liber Hermetis Trismegisti Chapter I and carried, by way of the Arabic Picatrix Book II, into Renaissance Latin practice.

In Tradition

In the medieval magical astrology brought together by Picatrix Book II and Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy, the set of decan images is the standard picture-catalogue for decan-talisman work. Liber Hermetis Chapter I preserves the fullest surviving Hellenistic-Hermetic catalogue of these images, and Gundel's 1936 Dekane und Dekansternbilder traced their development in exhaustive detail. Hand notes that the per-image descriptions read almost as short works in their own right, each on the nature of one decan.

In Practice

A practitioner working in the Hermetic-Renaissance image-magic tradition looks up the image for a planet's decan-position in Liber Hermetis Chapter I, the Picatrix Book II catalogue, or Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy Book II Chapters 37-44. The image then anchors a talismanic election: you wait for the planet (or a benefic) to occupy or favourably aspect the right decan-degrees, then engrave the image onto a suitable metal plate, ring, or stone — following Agrippa Book I Chapter 47, which pairs stone, herb, character, and suffumigation (a ritual smoke) under a fortunate moment. In character description and birth-chart reading, decan images add a layer of pictorial colour to what the decan-ruler signifies, especially in modern Hermetic-revival practice (Coppock, Warnock, Greer).

Historical Origin

Egyptian decan-deities are attested from around 2000 BCE on the Senenmut tomb TT 353 ceiling (18th Dynasty) and Seti I cenotaph. The picture-catalogue was gathered in Liber Hermetis Trismegisti Chapter I — a Latin redaction of a lost Greek Hermetic original; Project Hindsight Zoller 2007. Arabic codification: Picatrix Book II (Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm, 11th century; Latin 13th century); Renaissance: Cornelius Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy Book II (1531-1533); modern synthesis: Gundel's Dekane und Dekansternbilder (1936/1969).

Definition

In Tradition

In Practice

Historical Origin

Further Reading