The Picatrix — known in its original Arabic as Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm, “The Goal of the Wise” — is a medieval grimoire of astrological magic, compiled around the tenth or eleventh century and translated into Latin in the thirteenth. It is one of the most comprehensive and influential magical texts to survive from the medieval Islamic world, drawing on Hermetic philosophy, Neoplatonism, and the older traditions of Babylonian and Hellenistic astrology. For centuries it circulated in manuscript, quietly shaping the magical thinking of the Renaissance and beyond. It is, to put it plainly, one of the great source texts of Western practical magic.
Among its contents are invocations to each of the seven classical planets — the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. These prayers are remarkable things: dense with epithets, rich in planetary theology, and deeply practical in intent. They are not devotional hymns in the conventional sense. They are workings. Each one addresses its planet directly, names it across multiple languages and traditions, catalogues its qualities and domains, and makes a petition. The structure is consistent enough across all seven to feel like a system — which is exactly what it is.
Before each invocation, the Picatrix also prescribes ritual preparations: specific clothing in the planet’s colours, a ring of the appropriate metal worn on the finger, an incense compounded from a list of ingredients associated with that planet’s nature, and a censer made of the correct material. Timing matters too — the planet should be astrologically dignified and well-aspected before you begin. The Sun calls for gold and saffron; Saturn for black clothing and iron; Venus for silk, gold, a mirror and a comb. These preparations are worth knowing about even if you don’t follow them to the letter, because they point toward the sensory and symbolic logic underlying each working. They tell you what the planet feels like, what it responds to, what puts you in right relationship with it before you speak.
The prayers collected here are not direct reproductions of any existing translation. They are new renderings — freely composed in the same style and structure, faithful to the planetary theology of the original but written fresh, in my own voice. The seven classical planets follow the Picatrix closely in their epithets and their four-movement structure: opening address and naming, catalogue of attributes and domains, personal petition, and closing invocation by cosmic authority. The three outer planets — Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, unknown to the medieval world — are composed entirely in the same style, drawing on their established astrological meanings rather than any ancient source text. They are offered in the same spirit: as working prayers, not academic reconstructions.
These invocations are designed to be adaptable. The planet is named and addressed directly, but the prayers are written to work equally well as addresses to any deity who rules that planet’s concerns. If you are working within the Zodiac Magick Temple system on this site — where each sign has its own pathworking and a threshold of deity figures to choose from — you can use these prayers as the verbal component of your working, substituting the deity’s name for the planetary name, or simply holding the deity in mind as you speak the planet’s epithets. Apollo for the Sun. Bastet for the Moon. Hermes or Mercury interchangeably. Jupiter as himself. The energy being addressed is the same; the face you choose to give it is yours to decide.
Speak them aloud if you can. They are written for the voice.
A Solar Invocation
Freely rendered from the Picatrix (Book III, Chapter 8). The names and epithets given here are those of the Sun; adapt them as suits your working and your tradition.
O First Cause, you who are sanctified in eternal and unending sovereignty — hear me. I ask of you recognition, welcome, and favour: from kings, from rulers, from all those who hold power upon the earth.
Hail to you, bringer of light, giver of life to the world. I call you by all your names: in the Arabic tongue, Shams; in the Persian, Mihr; in the Greek, Helios; in the Hindi, Aras — O radiance, O splendour, O living light at the centre of all things. You who sustain the world of generation and dissolution, who preside over its growth and its decay, who stand upon the highest places and hold the most exalted station — I ask that you lift me up before those who hold authority, that I may attain high rank, recognition, and kind reception. For you are lord and king among the planets; it is from you that they receive their light, and by your grace alone that they shine.
O guide of the all, take pity on me and upon my prayer.
Hail to you, O Sun — lord of happiness, hot and dry, radiant, ray-giving, brilliant, wise, and noble. O king who gathers all beauty into yourself: pure, knowing, gatherer of good things, you who hold the reins of the six noble planets so that they follow your lead and submit to your rule. When they move away from you they turn back; when they draw near they are consumed by your rays and humbled, and it is from your shining that they receive their light and their power. You stand above them all — you are the king and they are your servants. You bring good fortune when you form aspects; you bring adversity when you stand in conjunction. None can fully comprehend your excellence, none fully grasp your nobility.
Fountain of power, foundation of strength, joy of life, pillar of exaltation, source of all worthy deeds — I take refuge with you in my weakness, in the fading of my own light, threatened by those who would do me harm. By him who moves you while himself remaining still, who strengthens you through his power; by your obligation to render obedience to the one who holds your keys and offers you his honest devotion; by the reins of the planets that are placed in your hands — I ask that you free me, remove my suffering, restore my radiance, and grant me a share of what is most desired in this world. Bestow upon me something of your majesty and your beauty.
By predestined fortune and hidden goodness; by the image that guides and the judgment by which all things move; by your mediation on the path of becoming; by your tenderness toward the young and your gifts to those who have grown; by your power to firmly establish those you choose to preserve in their high station; and by your celestial decrees against which nothing earthly can prevail — hear my prayer and answer my call.
Praise to all who honour you, who bow before you and before God in sincerity.
A Lunar Invocation
Freely rendered and expanded from the Picatrix (Book III, Chapter 8). The names and epithets given here are those of the Moon; adapt them as suits your working and your tradition.
O Lady of the nearest sphere, you who stand closest of all the planets to this world of change and consequence — hear me. You whose influence reaches most swiftly and most powerfully into the affairs of mortal life, who can bring fortune or misfortune with equal ease — I ask of you your favour, your mercy, and your aid in that which I now desire.
Hail to you, O Moon — fortunate lady, blessed, cool and moist, beautiful and constant. I call you by all your names: in the Arabic tongue, Qamar; in the Persian, Mah; in the Greek, Selene; in the Hindi, Soma — O wanderer, O far-shining one, key and crown of the stars.
You who move with grace through all the heavens, possessor of far-reaching light and brilliant shining, of joy and praise and generous reward. You who are learned and thoughtful, who govern with subtlety and knowing. You who love music and play and the elegance of fine speech. You who are lord of messengers and messages, keeper and revealer of secrets, noble, mild, and forceful all at once.
You it is who establish the bonds between the planets, who transmit their light downward and turn what is unfavourable toward good. Through your benevolence all things are made good; through your displeasure all things are made difficult. You are first and last in every working, and to you belongs nobility and preeminence among all the wandering stars, for your sphere is the gateway between the heavens and the earth.
O beautiful wanderer, whose face changes and yet whose nature remains — I take refuge with you in the shifting of my own fortunes, in the ebbing of my light. As the tide answers you and the sap in growing things rises and falls at your bidding, so I ask that you turn your face toward me in favour. By the bond you hold between the high and the low, by your power to carry the intentions of the stars into the world of becoming — I ask that you carry my petition upward and return to me with grace.
Free me from what opposes me. Restore what has ebbed. Grant me a share of your beauty and your subtlety, your eloquence and your ease, and bestow upon me something of the far-reaching light that is yours alone to give.
By the cycles that govern all things below; by your dominion over flux and return, over growth and dissolution and growth again; by your power to bind and to loosen; by your tenderness toward those who come to you with honest hearts — hear my prayer and answer my call.
Praise to all who honour you, who turn their faces toward you with sincerity and devotion.
A Mercurial Invocation
Freely rendered from the Picatrix (Book III, Chapter 8). The names and epithets given here are those of Mercury; adapt them as suits your working and your tradition.
Hail to you, O Mercury — excellent lord, trustworthy and full of understanding, speaker of truth, master of every science. You who know all that passes in heaven and upon earth, noble and of beautiful custom, lord of cunning and cleverness, of patience and skillful hand. You who govern revelation and prophecy, belief and discernment, philosophy and fine teaching, rhetoric and versifying, eloquence and sweet speech. You who preside over mathematics and the science of the stars, over augury and the casting of lots, over the book and the divan, over trade and its quick movements, over dignity and self-control and the proper veneration of the divine.
I call you by all your names: in the Arabic tongue, Utarid; in the Persian, Tir; in the Greek, Hermes; in the Hindi, Buddha — O hidden one, so subtle that no nature fully knows you, so fine that no description can contain you.
You who are fortune with the fortunate, masculine with the masculine, feminine with the feminine, diurnal with the day stars and nocturnal with the night stars — you who take on the nature of whatever you approach and reflect back the quality of all you touch. Chameleon of the heavens, messenger between all states and conditions, you who move between worlds without belonging wholly to any of them.
You are lord of lies as well as truth, of impenetrability as well as revelation, of wandering as well as guidance — for you hold all contraries within yourself and resolve them in the movement of your swift intelligence.
O swift and subtle one, I take refuge with you in my ignorance and my limitation. Send the power of your breath into me, that my understanding may be sharpened and my arm strengthened. Guide me in the study of all sciences; open in me the capacity to understand what I do not yet understand, to know what I do not yet know, to see what remains hidden from me. Ward off the harms that dwell in forgetfulness, in crudity, in mental weakness — and lead me toward the clarity that dwelt in the hearts of the ancient wise.
Let there dwell in my heart something of your noble spirit that does not depart from me — a light by which I may be rightly guided in all my affairs. Grant me eloquence, discernment, and the favour of those in authority. Bring me close to those who hold power by the grace of your wisdom, and support me with your swiftness and your skill.
By the highest rulership and the most exalted authority; by your dominion over all that is written, spoken, transmitted, and understood; by your governance of every path along which knowledge travels from mind to mind — hear my prayer and answer my call.
Praise to all who honour you, who come to you with clear intent and open minds.
A Venusian Invocation
Freely rendered from the Picatrix (Book III, Chapter 8). The names and epithets given here are those of Venus; adapt them as suits your working and your tradition.
Hail to you, O Venus — happy mistress, cold and moist, constant, clean, and beautiful. You who are sweet-smelling and generous, joyful and receptive, awakener of affection, lover of wine and comfort and the pleasures of union. I call you by all your names: in the Arabic tongue, Zuhara; in the Persian, Anahid; in the Greek, Aphrodite; in the Hindi, Surfa — O Astarte, O bright and wandering star of evening and of dawn.
You who are mistress of ornament and of gold, of gaiety and of dance, of joyful arousal and of finery. You who govern song and the listening to songs, the playing of flutes, the beautiful melody drawn from the movement of strings. You who preside over play and jest and companionship and the pleasures of leisure, over all the arts that make life sweet and the senses glad.
You it is who kindle affection between those who had been strangers, who soften what is hard and warm what is cold, who make the heart generous and the hand open. Yours is the beauty that moves the world — not the cold beauty of distance, but the living beauty that invites, that draws near, that binds heart to heart. Through you all things that are separate are drawn toward one another; through you the world remembers its own delight.
O wandering dancer of the heavens, whose light is the first and last grace of the night sky — I come to you with an open heart. Breathe into me something of your sweetness and your ease. Loosen in me what is tight and fearful. Awaken in me the capacity for joy, for beauty, for the generous giving and receiving of affection. Where I have been cold, warm me; where I have been closed, open me; where I have forgotten how to play, remind me.
Grant me your favour in all matters that fall within your domain — in love and in friendship, in beauty and in art, in the pleasures of the body and the delights of the senses. Let me be pleasing to those I wish to please, and let what I create carry something of your grace.
By the cycles of your wandering dance through the heavens; by your sovereignty over all that is beautiful, all that is desired, and all that binds one living heart to another — hear my prayer and answer my call. Come, fill me with the sweet breath of your life, now and again and always.
Praise to all who honour you, who come to you with joy and with sincerity.
A Martial Invocation
Freely rendered from the Picatrix (Book III, Chapter 8). The names and epithets given here are those of Mars; adapt them as suits your working and your tradition.
Hail to you, O Mars — excellent lord, hot and dry, brave-hearted and powerful. I call you by all your names: in the Arabic tongue, Mirrih; in the Persian, Bahram; in the Greek, Ares; in the Hindi, Angara — O red one, O burning one, O lord of iron and of blood.
You who are arouser of the masses and spiller of blood, virile and forceful, you who overcome all opposition. You who are inconstant as the fortunes of war, violent as the storm of battle, lord of punishment and of blows, of captivity and of hard necessity. You who govern lies told under pressure and words spoken in anger, who preside over all the ruthless and necessary cruelties by which the world is sometimes set right.
You are the bearer of weapons and the begetter of war, powerful in planning the attack and relentless in pressing the advantage. And yet you are also the one who springs to the side of the weak, who makes good what ill has been done, who requires of wrongdoers that they answer for their deeds. You are the avenger as much as the destroyer — the sword that cuts, and the sword that protects.
O fierce and burning one, I come to you not in weakness but in need of strength. Lend me something of your courage — the courage that does not flinch, that does not turn aside, that meets what must be met with a steady hand and an undivided heart. Where I have hesitated, make me decisive. Where I have been overpowered, restore my force. Where enemies press against me, stand at my side.
By your force and your accountability, by the paths of your sphere and the power that was placed in you — hear me. Grant me the strength to press through what opposes me, the endurance to outlast what would wear me down, and the courage to act when action is required without flinching and without regret.
By the fire that drives all things to their conclusion; by your dominion over conflict and resolution, over the breaking down of what must fall and the defense of what must stand; by your power to make the unjust answer and to arm the righteous — hear my prayer and answer my call.
Praise to all who honour you, who come to you with honest courage and clear purpose.
A Jovial Invocation
Freely rendered from the Picatrix (Book III, Chapter 8). The names and epithets given here are those of Jupiter; adapt them as suits your working and your tradition.
Hail to you, O Jupiter — blessed and serene, happy and complete. I call you by all your names: in the Arabic tongue, Mustari; in the Persian, Birgis; in the Iranian, Hurmuz; in the Greek, Zeus; in the Hindi, Wihasfati — O great and fortunate star, exalted in nature, magnificent in power, highest of the visible heavens.
You who are lord of right and justice, of fairness and conscientiousness, of truth and certainty and honest promise. You who are wise in religion and learned in the ways of the divine, ascetic and god-fearing, pious and pure, far from all that is filthy and far from vulgar speech. You who are warm and moist and airy and moderate, beautiful and knowing, upright in love and noble in nature.
You who govern counsel and dignity, understanding and wisdom, the interpretation of dreams and the fear of God. You who preside over patience and reconciliation, over victory and accomplished rulership, over the force of just governance and the honour of kings. You who love the inhabited and cultured places of the earth, who show mercy to those in need, who keep agreements and establish what has been entrusted. You who command what is right and forbid what is not right — lord of gaiety and of pomp, of generous giving and of gifts, of laughter and of joy and of all that makes life abundant and good.
O father, O source of good deeds and fulfiller of wishes — I come before you with humility and with hope. Let flow upon me the light of your noble spirit. Watch over my affairs and increase what is good in them. Take from me the anxious care for earthly sustenance and let my life be blessed, comfortable, and full. Keep my body strong with the powers of your breath; lengthen my years and keep far from me illness, pain, and sorrow both great and small.
Throw over me the power of your lordly and excellent spirit, that I may gain dignity, honour, and the goodwill of those around me. Ward off from me the harm of ill-wishers — their grasping hands, their wounding tongues, their envious eyes — and draw those I encounter toward me with love and with trust. Wrap me safely in the abundance of your grace.
By your sovereignty over all that is just and all that is generous; by your dominion over wisdom and right governance, over mercy and the keeping of sacred bonds; by your power to guide the pure of heart and to free those who call out from the depths — hear my prayer and answer my call.
Praise to all who honour you, who come to you with piety, with patience, and with sincere devotion.
A Saturnine Invocation
Freely rendered from the Picatrix (Book III, Chapter 8). The names and epithets given here are those of Saturn; adapt them as suits your working and your tradition.
Hail to you, O Saturn — ancient lord, whose name is mighty, whose presence is great, whose spirit is elevated beyond easy comprehension. I call you by all your names: in the Arabic tongue, Zuhal; in the Persian, Kewan; in the Greek, Kronos; in the Hindi, Sanasara — O cold one, O dark one, O lord of the seventh and outermost sphere, most remote of all the wandering stars.
You who are cold and dry and dark, doer of both good and ill, upright in love and keeper of oaths. You who are unique and incomparable, rich in understanding and impenetrable to those who have not earned your trust. You who are tired and indolent as deep time itself, who keep to yourself in trouble and in sorrow, who remove yourself from friends and from gaiety and endure alone what must be endured.
You who are old in years and rich in cunning, experienced and wily, deceitful when it serves your purpose, and wise beyond the understanding of those who have not yet suffered enough to see clearly. You who bring increase and who destroy with equal indifference, whose disfavour brings misery and whose favour — rarely given, slowly earned — brings a happiness that nothing can easily undo.
You who govern all that is hidden and slow and deep; who preside over endings and over the long labour that precedes them; who rule over solitude and age and the cold wisdom that comes only through loss. You who are lord of what endures when everything ornamental has fallen away.
O primal father, O ancient one — I do not come to you lightly or without understanding of what I ask. I come with patience, knowing you do not answer those who hurry. I come with honesty, knowing you see through all pretence. I come with humility before the weight of time that you embody.
Lend me something of your endurance — the capacity to bear what must be borne without being broken by it. Grant me your depth of understanding, your knowledge of what is truly permanent and what merely appears so. Where I have been deceived by surfaces, show me the structure beneath. Where I have feared the cold and the dark, help me find what is clarifying and necessary in them.
By your great good deeds and your noble attributes, by the oaths you keep and the promises you honour across the long span of years — hear me. Do for me what I ask of you.
By the outermost sphere and the silence that surrounds it; by your dominion over time and limitation, over the slow ripening of what is real and the slow decay of what is not; by your power to strip away all that is false and leave only what can truly last — hear my prayer and answer my call.
Praise to all who honour you, who come to you with patience, with honesty, and with the courage to face what endures.
A Uranian Invocation
Freely composed in the style of the Picatrix planetary invocations. The names and epithets given here are those of Uranus; adapt them as suits your working and your tradition.
Hail to you, O Uranus — awakener, revolutionary, lord of the sudden and the unforeseen. I call you by all your names: in the Greek tongue, Ouranos, the sky itself, the vault of heaven; in the modern tongue, Uranus, the disruptor, the liberator, the bearer of lightning that arrives without warning and leaves nothing unchanged.
You who are cold and electric, remote and impersonal, whose nature is change itself rather than any particular outcome of change. You who govern revolution and rupture, invention and revelation, the sudden seeing-through of what had seemed solid and permanent. You who preside over genius and eccentricity, over the brilliant mind that cannot be contained by convention, over the reformer and the iconoclast and the one who simply cannot conform to what the world expects of them.
You who rule electricity and magnetism, the nervous system and its lightning, technology and its consequences, the future arriving before anyone was ready for it. You who govern all that is unconventional, all that is ahead of its time, all that breaks the pattern so that a new and better pattern may emerge. You who are lord of freedom — not the comfortable freedom of those who have never been caged, but the hard-won freedom of those who have broken their own chains.
O awakener, O great disruptor — I come to you in the places where my life has grown rigid, where habit has hardened into prison, where I mistake the familiar for the necessary. Strike through what no longer serves me. Illuminate what I have been too comfortable or too fearful to see. Grant me the courage to embrace the change that is already coming whether I welcome it or not.
Lend me something of your lightning clarity — the sudden perception that cuts through years of confusion in a single moment. Open in me the capacity for genuine originality, for thinking beyond the boundaries I have inherited, for seeing the world as it might be rather than only as it has been. Where I have been held back by the expectations of others, loosen those bonds. Where I have held myself back through fear of my own strangeness, give me the freedom to be precisely what I am.
By the vault of heaven and the electricity that moves through all things; by your dominion over awakening and liberation, over the breaking of outworn forms and the sudden arrival of the new; by your power to shatter what must be shattered so that what is genuine may finally breathe — hear my prayer and answer my call.
Praise to all who honour you, who come to you with openness, with courage, and with the willingness to be changed.
A Neptunian Invocation
Freely composed in the style of the Picatrix planetary invocations. The names and epithets given here are those of Neptune; adapt them as suits your working and your tradition.
Hail to you, O Neptune — dreamer, dissolver, lord of the boundless deep. I call you by all your names: in the Greek tongue, Poseidon, shaker of the earth and sovereign of the sea; in the Latin, Neptunus, god of all waters and of all that lies beneath the surface of the visible world.
You who are cool and fluid, vast and unfathomable, whose nature resists all fixed definition as water resists all fixed form. You who govern dreams and visions, inspiration and illusion, the mystical dissolution of the boundaries between self and world. You who preside over imagination and creative ecstasy, over music that bypasses the mind and speaks directly to the soul, over all the arts that draw their power from the depths below conscious thought.
You who rule the ocean and the tide, the unconscious and its hidden currents, the vast collective dreaming of all humanity. You who govern compassion without boundaries, love that does not distinguish between self and other, the longing for union with something greater than the isolated self. You who preside over sacrifice and transcendence, over the mystic and the visionary and the one who glimpses, however briefly, the face of the infinite.
And yet you are also lord of fog and confusion, of glamour and deception, of the beautiful illusion that leads the unwary astray — for your gifts and your dangers are drawn from the same unfathomable source, and only the sincere of heart may navigate your waters safely.
O great dissolver, O lord of the deep — I come to you at the shoreline of what I know, where the solid ground of reason gives way to the moving waters of mystery. Carry me deeper than I can go by my own effort. Open in me the capacity for genuine vision, for the kind of imagination that does not merely rearrange the known but touches something truly beyond it.
Where I have been too armoured to feel, soften me. Where I have been too literal to dream, dissolve the boundaries that keep the deeper waters out. Grant me access to the wellspring of inspiration that flows beneath all creative work, and help me bring back from the depths something true and luminous that I could not have found by daylight alone.
By the boundless ocean and the depths no light has ever reached; by your dominion over dream and vision, over compassion and creative mystery, over all that flows and changes and cannot be held in the hand; by your power to dissolve what separates us from the sacred and to carry us, willing or not, into the presence of what is greater than ourselves — hear my prayer and answer my call.
Praise to all who honour you, who come to you with openness, with surrender, and with the humility of those who know the limits of what they can see.
A Plutonian Invocation
Freely composed in the style of the Picatrix planetary invocations. The names and epithets given here are those of Pluto; adapt them as suits your working and your tradition.
Hail to you, O Pluto — transformer, lord of the underworld, sovereign of all that lies beneath and all that must die before it can be reborn. I call you by all your names: in the Greek tongue, Hades, the unseen one, lord of the realm of the dead; Plouton, the rich one, for all wealth rises from the earth; in the Latin, Pluto, ruler of what is hidden, of what is buried, of what waits in darkness for its hour of return.
You who are cold and dense and inexorable, whose power operates far beneath the surface of visible events, whose transformations are total and cannot be undone. You who govern death and rebirth, decay and regeneration, the descent into the underworld and the return — changed beyond recognition — into the light. You who preside over all that is hidden and taboo, over the shadow and what it conceals, over the buried truth that will not stay buried and the repressed force that accumulates power in its confinement.
You who rule obsession and compulsion, the volcanic force of the unconscious when it can no longer be contained, the crisis that strips away every comfortable illusion and forces the confrontation with what is most essentially true. You who govern power in its most primal form — not the power of kings or institutions, but the power of life and death itself, the power of transformation that no human authority can ultimately resist or control.
You who preside over the alchemical fire that burns away all dross; over the phoenix and its necessary burning; over every ending that carries within it the seed of a beginning that could not otherwise have come to be.
O lord of the deep places, O sovereign of what is hidden — I do not come to you lightly, for I know that what you give cannot be returned, and that the transformation you offer is never comfortable and never partial. I come to you at the threshold of what must end in me, at the edge of what must be surrendered so that something more essential may survive.
Take from me what is already dying. Do not let me cling to what has served its purpose and must now be released. Grant me the courage to descend fully into what must be faced rather than circling its edges in perpetual dread. And when the burning is complete, when the descent has reached its lowest point, guide me back upward — not as I was, but as I am capable of becoming.
Lend me something of your inexorable patience, your knowledge that nothing which is truly essential can be permanently destroyed, and your understanding that the darkest passages are also the most transformative.
By the depths beneath all depths and the darkness that precedes all light; by your dominion over transformation and regeneration, over the ending of what must end and the arising of what could not arise without that ending; by your power to reach into the very roots of a life and remake them — hear my prayer and answer my call.
Praise to all who honour you, who come to you with honesty, with courage, and with the willingness to be unmade and remade in the fire of what is true.