Magick Squares
An interesting yet often neglected area of study for those interested in esoteric subjects is that of 'Magick Squares", although not often used by many of those in the pagan community, in their magickal rituals today, magick squares have a long history going back to biblical times and beyond.
Magick Squares come in two varieties, number squares being more likely to be known from your early school years were smaller squares are used, whereby the numbers making up the square will all add up to the same summation in which ever direction the squares lines are added. Lesser known are the letter squares were magickal formula's may be used in invocations.
Some of the earliest recorded history about magic squares dates back to 650 BC, in China, which refers to the Lo Shu (scroll of the river Lo) legend were people were offering sacrifices to the river god to calm his anger and stop the flooding when a turtle emerged from the river with a strange pattern on its shell. The pattern was made up of circular dots forming numbers and were arranged in a 3x3 grid were all the numbers added up to 15 in every direction which correspondingly was equal to the number of days in each of the 24 cycles of the Chinese solar year.
Magick Squares have been a fascination throughout many societies, both in the West and East, recorded use of magick squares, most likely, came from Arabian mathematicians during the 7th century through China or India. 3x3 magick squares have been used in India from Vedic times and a 4x4 square can be seen in Khajuraho which dates back to the 10th century.
In Europe the noted magician and occultist Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa wrote De Occulta Philosophia were he elaborated upon the astrological attributes that connected magick squares, this book has had a profound influence from then till today and can still be found today.
The method for using these squares in magickal invocations are to convert the letters of the spirit, angel, demon or deity into numbers which are then converted into sigils which can often be found in magick grimoires. One of the most famous of these squares is that of the Sator square which can be found in the Key of Soloman, a square to overcome envy from the book of power, and also The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage upon whose work much of modern magick is based.
An interesting magick square is that known as the Square of the Sun. In the sacred teachings of the Hebrew Kabbalah it is taught that the sphere of the sun is the sixth emanation from the essence of god, Kabbalist's have long held an interest in mathematics and have expressed this using a 6x6 magick square were all the numbers in each line add to 111. Being a 6x6 square those summation's of the six lines then add up to 666. Most recently the notorious Aliester Crowley, much maligned during his lifetime mainly due to his own machinations, became known as "The Beast-666". A nickname imposed upon him, it is said, by his own mother, his family being strict members of the Exclusive Brethren, a radical wing of the Plymouth Brethren Christian faith, which he embraced and made his own.
Crowley made use of the 666 square in his rituals to raise contact with his "Holy Guardian Angel" which was adapted from the work of Abramelin the Mage and the writings of the Kabbalah.
Although 666 has long been associated with the Sun and used as such in the 
magick square the number has grown to be feared and loathed due to it's commonly held association with the book of Revelations from the bible, yet recently this unfounded fear of a number may have been long misconstrued due to a recent discovery of a 1500 year old papyrus which is the oldest copy of the old testament known which reads:
"Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man: and his number is 616".
Perhaps all those bikers and others with the 666 tattoo will now need to have it changed, lots of work for the laser tattoo removers ;)
Love and light
