Malkah be-Tarshishim

The planetary magic of Moon gathers the names, seals and number-square attached to that planet in the Western magical tradition. Its magic square, or kamea, is of order 9, a grid of 9 by 9 cells holding the numbers 1 to 81 so that every row, column and diagonal sums to 369.

Square, intelligence and spirit

From that square are derived, by gematria, the names of the planet's two governing powers: the Intelligence Malkah be-Tarshishim, the ordering and benevolent aspect, and the Spirit Chasmodai, the raw and unmediated force. This apparatus was set out by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa in the Three Books of Occult Philosophy (1533), drawing on earlier Hebrew and Arabic number-magic. To the same planet is also joined an Olympic Spirit, here Phul, one of the seven planetary governors named in the Arbatel of Magic (1575).

These names, squares and hierarchies are described here as an element of the documented tradition of Renaissance ceremonial magic, studied historically; the spirits are not reified.

The lunar table is a nine by nine square of the numbers one to eighty one, adding to three hundred and sixty nine in every row, column and diagonal, and to three thousand three hundred and twenty one in total. It is the largest of the seven and, being odd ordered, one of the most stable across copies.

The Moon is also the planet with the longest names in the set. Agrippa gives the spirit as Chasmodai and the intelligence not as a single name but as a compound phrase, Malkah be-Tarshishim ve-ad Ruachoth Schechalim, which the atlas records in its shortened form. The length is a function of the method. The lunar square yields large numbers, and reaching a large number by Hebrew letter values requires many letters, so the naming scheme produces a phrase rather than a word. Where the Saturn names are short because forty five is small, the lunar names are long for exactly the reason the lunar square is big.

That relationship between the size of a square and the length of its spirit names holds across all seven tables and is the most economical evidence that the names were derived rather than received. It is also the detail most often lost when the names are reprinted as a bare list of lunar spirits.

The seven tables reached print together in Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy in 1533, drawing on an older Arabic and Latin manuscript tradition, and they have been copied in that grouping ever since.