The Hexagram Rituals

The Hexagram Rituals are planetary working tools developed within the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in the late nineteenth century, designed to invoke or banish the seven classical planets through the ritual tracing of six-pointed stars at each cardinal quarter. While pentagram rituals address the elemental layer of reality associated with the human sphere, hexagram rituals reach into the macrocosmic layer of planetary and celestial influence. They are among the most powerful formal tools available to the ceremonial practitioner for targeted planetary work.

The hexagram is a natural symbol for planetary force because it is composed of two interlocking triangles, one pointing upward (the Fire triangle, ascending toward the divine) and one pointing downward (the Water triangle, descending into matter). Together they represent the union of above and below, the very mechanism by which celestial influence flows into the material world. Each of the seven classical planets is associated with a specific tracing sequence within those two triangles.

History and origins

The hexagram rituals were formalized by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which was founded in London in 1888. The system draws on earlier Qabalistic and astrological frameworks, particularly the assignment of planets to the Sephiroth of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, a structure that predates the Golden Dawn by several centuries in both Jewish mysticism and Renaissance Hermeticism.

The rituals were intended for the degree of Theoricus Adeptus Minor and above, meaning they were not taught to beginning initiates. Israel Regardie published the full Golden Dawn corpus in the 1930s and 1940s, making these rituals available outside the initiatory structure for the first time. They subsequently entered the wider ceremonial tradition and are now found in numerous independent systems and study groups.

Aleister Crowley modified the hexagram rituals significantly in his A.A. system, creating what he called the Star Ruby and the Star Sapphire as Thelemic counterparts. Contemporary practitioners may encounter both the original Golden Dawn forms and Crowley’s adaptations.

In practice

The Lesser Ritual of the Hexagram (LRH) is the introductory form. It does not target a specific planet but instead works with all seven planets simultaneously, using a simplified unicursal hexagram (a six-pointed star traced in one continuous line) to clear or open the planetary layer of the space. The LRH is typically performed after the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram in a complete opening sequence.

The Greater Ritual of the Hexagram is the targeted form, used when a practitioner wishes to invoke or banish a specific planetary influence. It employs the seven distinct hexagram forms, each beginning at a different point corresponding to its planet’s Sephirothic position.

A method you can use

The following outlines the Lesser Ritual of the Hexagram as published by Israel Regardie. This version works with all seven planets together.

Preparation: Have already performed the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram. Stand in the center of your space facing east.

Step 1 — The Analysis of the Keyword. Perform the signs and vibrations of the LVX formula. In brief: spread your arms to form a cross and vibrate the letters L, V, X in turn, making the associated signs; then draw the arms in and vibrate the word LVX itself. This process varies in detail depending on your source material; follow one consistent version.

Step 2 — The four hexagrams. Beginning in the east, trace the unicursal hexagram in blue or gold light. For a banishing working, begin at the top; for an invoking working, begin at a point that draws the star inward. In the center of each hexagram, trace the symbol of the Sun (a circle with a central point) and vibrate the divine name ARARITA (a notariqon summarizing a Hebrew phrase meaning “One is His beginning; One is His individuality; His permutation is One”). Turn to the south, west, and north, repeating the tracing and vibration at each quarter.

Step 3 — Closing. Return to the east. Repeat the Analysis of the Keyword. The ritual is complete.

Working with specific planets

For targeted planetary work using the Greater Ritual, the practitioner must know which hexagram form corresponds to the desired planet. The seven forms correspond as follows to the classical planets:

Saturn uses a specific tracing that begins at the top left triangle and descends. Jupiter uses a form that begins at the lower triangle. Mars, Sol (the Sun), Venus, Mercury, and Luna each have their own sequences. Each form has both an invoking and banishing direction. The divine name ARARITA is vibrated in the center of each, along with the appropriate Sephirothic divine name for the planet being worked.

Serious study of a Qabalistic correspondence table, such as those found in Aleister Crowley’s “777” or Israel Regardie’s “The Golden Dawn,” is necessary before attempting the Greater Ritual with any confidence. The work rewards patience: a practitioner who knows the seven hexagrams fluently has access to a precise and powerful system for shaping the planetary character of any working space or magical operation.

Integration with broader ritual practice

The hexagram rituals occupy the middle tier of a three-tiered system in Golden Dawn practice. The pentagram rituals address the elemental level; the hexagram rituals address the planetary level; and the supreme rituals (the Supreme Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram and related forms) address the divine names and spiritual hierarchies above both. A practitioner who works all three levels together is engaging the full vertical stack of Golden Dawn cosmology in a single ritual session.

For most independent practitioners, the Lesser Ritual of the Hexagram is the practical daily or weekly tool, and the Greater Ritual is reserved for specific planetary operations: Jupiter for abundance and expansion, Mars for courage and protection, Saturn for binding and limitation, Mercury for communication and study, Venus for love and art, Luna for psychic work and emotional flow, and the Sun for healing, integration, and central power.

In myth and popular culture

The hexagram as a ritual symbol in Western occultism is most directly associated with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and its published descendants, but the underlying symbolic logic, the union of ascending and descending triangles as an image of the meeting of divine and human, celestial and terrestrial, is considerably older. The Seal of Solomon, frequently depicted as a hexagram in medieval and Renaissance grimoire illustration, appears in the Key of Solomon and related texts as a protective and commanding symbol; the magician stands within or near its form to assert authority over spirits. This usage directly informed the Golden Dawn’s systematization of the hexagram rituals.

Aleister Crowley, who passed through the Golden Dawn before founding his own A.A. system, reworked the hexagram rituals significantly. His Star Ruby and Star Sapphire, published in The Book of Lies and the Liber ABA respectively, replace some of the Golden Dawn’s Qabalistic language with Thelemic formulae while retaining the underlying structure of invoking and banishing through geometrical tracings. Practitioners of Thelema continue to use these forms alongside or in place of the original Golden Dawn versions.

In fiction, the hexagram and the rituals associated with it appear regularly in occult literature and popular media. Dennis Wheatley’s novels of the mid-twentieth century, including The Devil Rides Out, popularized the hexagram circle as a protective device in fiction that drew on real Golden Dawn sources; the 1968 Hammer film adaptation brought these images to a wider audience. In more recent media, the use of magical hexagrams as protective and summoning diagrams in games such as Dungeons and Dragons and various role-playing systems reflects a genuine inheritance from the Golden Dawn tradition, mediated through popular occult publishing.

Israel Regardie’s publication of the complete Golden Dawn curriculum, beginning with The Tree of Life in 1932 and culminating in the four-volume The Golden Dawn in 1937, made the hexagram rituals available to independent practitioners for the first time. This publication decision was controversial within initiatory circles at the time but had the long-term effect of anchoring the rituals as a standard part of the Western ceremonial practitioner’s toolkit regardless of formal initiation.

Myths and facts

Several misunderstandings about the hexagram rituals are common among practitioners at all levels of experience.

• A common belief holds that the Lesser Ritual of the Hexagram can substitute for the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram as an opening working. The two rituals address different layers of the magical space: the pentagram works with elemental and personal forces, the hexagram with planetary forces. Most traditions use both in sequence rather than treating them as interchangeable.
• Many practitioners assume that any six-pointed star traced in the air constitutes a valid hexagram in the ritual sense. The Golden Dawn system uses specific tracing sequences for each planet, beginning at different points of the two interlocking triangles; the sequence matters to the planetary attribution.
• It is sometimes assumed that the hexagram rituals require initiatory transmission to be effective. Israel Regardie, who published the rituals, believed that the techniques were self-transmitting for sincere practitioners willing to study and practice them; however, working within a functioning study group or lineage does provide practical advantages.
• A persistent assumption treats the ARARITA vibration as a meaningless formula. ARARITA is a notariqon, an acronym in which each letter stands for a word in a Hebrew phrase meaning “One is His beginning; One is His individuality; His permutation is One”; the vibration carries specific theological content about divine unity that is relevant to the solar centering of the planetary work.
• The unicursal hexagram used in the Lesser Ritual is sometimes confused with the two-triangle hexagram used in the Greater Ritual. The unicursal form, a six-pointed star traced in one continuous line, was developed by Crowley and is distinct from the classic two-triangle form; some practitioners use one, some the other, and some use both in different contexts.