The Olympic Spirits

The Olympic Spirits are seven planetary intelligences first described in the “Arbatel of Magic” (Arbatel De Magia Veterum), a Latin grimoire published in 1575 in Basel. Unlike the seventy-two demons of the Goetia, who are bound and compelled, the Olympic Spirits are approached through respectful petition and are presented as willing cooperators with the sincere practitioner. Each governs one of the seven classical planets and oversees that planet’s domains of influence across the material and spiritual worlds.

The Olympic Spirits occupy a unique position in the landscape of Western magical entities. They are neither the angelic hierarchy of the Catholic-Kabbalistic tradition nor the compelled demonic spirits of the Solomonic grimoires. They are something closer to divine governors, planetary princes who serve a universal order and who grant specific gifts to those who approach them in the correct spirit. The “Arbatel” presents them as accessible to the ordinary devout practitioner, not only to initiated magicians with elaborate ritual setups.

History and origins

The “Arbatel of Magic” was published in Basel in 1575, though its authorship and earlier manuscript history are unclear. The work presents itself as part of a larger corpus of nine volumes, of which only the first, the Isagoge (introduction), survives. Its Latin text shows the influence of Renaissance Christian humanism, Neoplatonism, and the Protestant Reformation milieu of sixteenth-century Swiss publishing. The Arbatel does not draw on Arabic astrological magic in the same way as the Picatrix; it has a distinctly Christian devotional character.

The text was reprinted and translated several times in the early modern period and has experienced a significant revival in contemporary practice, partly because its approach, based on respectful invitation rather than compulsion, appeals to practitioners who find the Goetic tradition”s commanding tone at odds with their own cosmological and ethical sensibilities.

Modern translations and editions by Joseph Peterson, Robert Turner, and others have made the Arbatel widely accessible.

The seven Olympic Spirits

Aratron governs Saturn and rules 49 Olympic provinces (a measure of cosmic governance in the Arbatel”s system). He can convert any substance into a stone, teach alchemy and magic, reconcile the underworld spirits, give familiars, and heal both body and mind. He governs matters of time, age, endurance, transformation through difficulty, and the deep structural forces of the material world.

Bethor governs Jupiter and rules 42 provinces. He can elevate the fortunate to great dignities, give riches and benevolence, subjugate air spirits, and extend life to 700 years with perfect health if he chooses. He governs expansion, abundance, judicial matters, and the principle of divine grace expressed in material form.

Phaleg governs Mars and rules 35 provinces. He makes the operator an honored warrior and commander and is invoked for courage, decisive action, victory in conflict, and the cutting through of obstacles.

Och governs the Sun and rules 28 provinces. He can make a person live 600 years in perfect health, teach all wisdom, give gold and perfect medicine, and convert anything into gold. In practical terms, Och is the spirit of solar healing, illumination, recognition, and the full flowering of the practitioner”s creative and vital power.

Hagith governs Venus and rules 21 provinces. She can convert copper into gold or gold into copper, give familiars, and make the operator “most beautiful.” She governs love, beauty, desire, creative inspiration, and the aesthetic and relational domain.

Ophiel governs Mercury and rules 14 provinces. He can teach all arts and give familiars, make Mercurial spirits familiar to the operator, and transform everything except gold into quicksilver. He governs skill, communication, trade, learning, and the precise transmission of knowledge.

Phul governs the Moon and rules 7 provinces. He can convert water into wine, heal all manner of dropsy (fluid disorders), give familiar spirits of the water element, and extend life to 300 years. He governs psychic sensitivity, dreams, the emotional body, and the cyclical wisdom of the Moon.

How to approach the Olympic Spirits

The Arbatel”s approach is markedly different from the Goetic tradition. The text instructs the practitioner to prepare through prayer, fasting, and sincere devotion, then to call the spirit on its appropriate day and hour by invoking the divine power above it and petitioning the spirit with clear and honest intention. The operator does not bind the spirit or stand within a protective circle as a commanding authority; the relationship is that of a respectful supplicant approaching a powerful and benevolent governor.

The Arbatel provides a model prayer to the spirit that acknowledges the divine source of the spirit”s power, states the practitioner”s purpose honestly, and requests the spirit”s assistance without demanding or compelling it.

This approach makes the Olympic Spirits particularly accessible for practitioners who work within a devotional framework, who pray as a regular part of their practice, and who prefer a relationship of respectful collaboration with spiritual powers to the commanding stance of Solomonic magic.

The Olympic Spirits in contemporary practice

Many contemporary practitioners find the Olympic Spirits a more comfortable entry point into planetary spirit work than the Goetic tradition, both because of the Arbatel”s more accessible ritual requirements and because its ethical framework, based on honest petition to willing governors, sits more easily with modern sensibilities. The seven spirits are invoked during the appropriate planetary times for goals matching their governance, approached through prayer and clear intention rather than elaborate ceremonial binding.

The Arbatel also emphasizes that the practitioner must be worthy of what they request: asking Och for healing is appropriate; asking Bethor to make you rich while doing nothing constructive toward that goal is not the spirit the text endorses. The Olympic Spirits work best in cooperation with a practitioner who is actively engaged with the domain in question, not as substitutes for personal effort.

In myth and popular culture

The Arbatel’s Olympic Spirits occupy a curious position in the history of Western magical literature: they are presented in a distinctly Protestant Christian context, in contrast to the Catholic-inflected Solomonic tradition, and their model of respectful petition to willing divine governors has made them appealing to a wide range of contemporary practitioners who find the commanding posture of the Goetic tradition philosophically uncomfortable.

The planetary spirit system of which the Olympic Spirits are a part has roots older than the Arbatel. Medieval Islamic and Arabic magical texts, transmitted to Europe through the Picatrix, described planetary spirits and intelligences as powers governing the qualities associated with each celestial body. Renaissance Neoplatonism, through figures like Marsilio Ficino, developed a sophisticated system for drawing down planetary influences through music, image, and ritual that the Arbatel’s Olympic Spirits further systematize within a more specifically spirit-contact framework.

The name “Olympic” in the Arbatel is not a reference to the Greek gods of Olympus but to a cosmological system in the text that describes 196 “Olympic provinces” divided among the seven spirits. This is sometimes confused with a connection to classical Greek mythology, but the text’s Olympic Spirits are not the Olympian gods and have a distinct identity.

In the twentieth century, the Arbatel received renewed scholarly attention through the translations of Joseph Peterson, whose work made the text accessible to English-speaking practitioners and contributed to its revival in contemporary planetary spirit work. The Olympic Spirits have since appeared in a range of practical ceremonial magical publications and online communities as a relatively accessible entry point into planetary spirit contact.

Myths and facts

The Olympic Spirits are less widely known than the Goetic demons and attract fewer popular misconceptions, but several misunderstandings persist among practitioners encountering them for the first time.

• A common belief holds that the Olympic Spirits are simply the Goetic demons by another name, organized by planet. The two traditions are genuinely distinct: the Goetia deals with demons bound by Solomonic authority; the Arbatel addresses planetary governors who cooperate willingly with sincere practitioners. The difference in approach reflects a fundamental difference in the cosmological model.
• Some practitioners assume that the Olympic Spirits are pre-Christian figures with roots in classical Greek religion. The Arbatel is a sixteenth-century Protestant-inflected text, and its Olympic Spirits are not identified with any classical deity or mythological figure.
• It is sometimes assumed that the Arbatel’s extraordinary powers attributed to each spirit, Och making someone live 600 years, Bethor extending life to 700 years, are meant as literal promises. These claims should be read in the context of Renaissance magical rhetoric, which regularly described the powers of spirits in terms that were partly literal, partly symbolic, and partly conventional to the genre.
• Many practitioners treat the seven Olympic Spirits as interchangeable with the planetary archangels of other traditions. While both sets of beings are associated with the seven classical planets, they have distinct identities, approaches, and bodies of lore and should not be casually substituted for one another.
• The Arbatel’s description of needing to be “worthy” of requests is sometimes interpreted as a moral judgment. More precisely, the text describes alignment: a practitioner whose life and activity are genuinely oriented toward the domain in question is positioned to receive the spirit’s assistance in a way that someone whose request is disconnected from their actual situation is not.