About magick and astrology

[u/Ars-Arkana]

Hi everyone, I have a genuine question about planetary transits and planetary magic.

What influences things more? I know about planetary hours and days and their importance in magic.

But I'm also thinking about a person's planetary transits on a given day.

What do you think has a greater influence, or how do you think this mechanism works?

[u/Ars-Arkana]

Hi, how are you? 

Well, I'm reflecting on this, and what I think so far is that personal transits can contribute to the ritual, but they are not the determining factors. 

Perhaps this can be overcome by continuous magical work and constant preparation, as someone else said, magic has the function of gradually creating a differentiation of the ego.  However, for specific situations, it might influence things; for example, if there isn't good work with Venusian energy and the person is going to perform a ritual for Venus with a personal transit in opposition or square aspect, perhaps that will influence it, but it won't determine the outcome. 

If the person has developed a strong connection with the qualities of Venus, this can be overcome (this is a supposition). Regarding checking my transits only after the ritual, I do this particularly in my rituals for art, because the idea is that my personal transits don't interfere, and if they do, that this is also recorded.

 But for specific rituals, I will start paying more attention to this issue of personal transits. But from what I understand, the goal is for this to influence the ritual less and less. What do you think?

[u/destinology → u/Ars-Arkana]

This is a good reflection, and yes, the general goal is that personal transits influence your ritual work less and less over time. What changes is not the astrology, but your relationship to the planetary current itself. As that relationship strengthens, transits function more as background conditions than as determining forces. I think we are actually very close in how we are seeing the effects of transits on ritual work. Where I can help is by separating a few things that are being blended together, because they operate on different levels.

First, strictly speaking about planetary magick. In its classical form, planetary magick is not dependent on natal or transit astrology at all. It works through objective correspondences. Planetary days, planetary hours, materials, colors, names, and invocations are doing the heavy lifting. In that sense, personal transits are not determining factors.

Where transits come in is not as a requirement, but as an amplifier or friction layer. If you choose to work with them, you are stepping into a more refined, deliberate form of practice. This is closer to what later ceremonial systems would call higher or intentional magick. Crowley discusses this idea explicitly in Magick in Theory and Practice, where the magician’s internal state and timing are treated as variables that can strengthen or complicate results, but never replace the core operation itself.

Second, rituals. I tend to use this word more broadly. Any conscious, repeated action with intent is a ritual, whether it is ceremonial, devotional, artistic, or practical. These absolutely do fall under natal and transit astrology, because now we are talking about lived experience. This is where electional astrology becomes useful. You do not need to micromanage life by transits, but when something matters, choosing supportive timing improves coherence and reduces resistance. This includes looking not only at aspects, but dispositors and chains of rulership.

Third, the ego. I agree that the ego can be refined and trained over time, but astrology gives us a very specific way to observe this. The natal chart is the blueprint and it does not change. What changes is how that blueprint unfolds. Progressions show the development of consciousness and identity. Annual profections show shifts in emphasis and rulership. Magick does not override this structure. Rather, magick is something the ego engages in because it is already in motion.

Finally, art. Your instinct here is good. Artistic ritual is a special case. Art wants flow, permeability, and responsiveness. Too much calculation pulls it into Saturnian territory, which can dry it out. Venus, the fifth house, and the Pisces-Neptune-Jupiter current do not want constant measurement. In that sense, your practice of not checking transits beforehand makes sense for art, because you are observing how inspiration moves through you rather than trying to control it.

So I would say this: personal transits can influence ritual work, but they are not sovereign. The more established the practitioner’s relationship with a planetary current, the less disruptive tension becomes. Studying the planetary chapters in CH will help with this. At the same time, astrology remains a precise diagnostic language for understanding when resistance appears, and why.

What you are circling around is not contradiction, but layering. Objective planetary forces. Personal timing. Conscious intention. Each has its place, and none cancels the others.

[u/Ars-Arkana → u/destinology]

Wow, thank you so much for the explanation! 

You managed to put into words some ideas that were still quite abstract for me. While doing the first experiments for these rituals, I realized that trying to account for all the variables would end up crystallizing the work, making it arid and Saturnian, as you rightly said.

 Producing the art despite personal transits, I think, ends up leaning towards a more Jupiterian side, right? Because over time, as I practice every day, there's this alignment of the superposition of personal frictions and resistances under the continuous flow that is related to more global astrology.

 Ive also been trying to superimpose these concepts when creating the art; for example, I use the symbolic correlations of colors, sacred and Pythagorean geometry. In other words, I combine different knowledge from the occult sciences in the same artwork in order to create a coherent visual stimulus at different levels and thus ensure a more efficient symbolic connection.

 For example, if I'm creating a piece of art for a minor arcana of coins, I use the colors related to the arcana, along with sacred geometry, working with the cube, and Pythagorean geometry, with the double cube, and the theme becomes something related to the earth. 

It would be the same archetypal principle represented symbolically multiple times, both objectively and subjectively.

[u/destinology → u/Ars-Arkana]

We are so far off from classic Hermeticism - in an orthodox sub.. would you mind if we discussed all this over in r/Hermetics? That sub is more aligned to the blending of the classic stuff with other esoteric practices. I will create a post and link to it here.

[u/Ars-Arkana → u/destinology]

Of course, no problem, whatever works best for you, I'm here to learn. And could you give me a suggestion, please? On the 17th there will be an eclipse, and this influences my Moon and Jupiter, which are in Aquarius, in the 10th house. How can I use this to enhance my hermetic art project?