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Shem Angels
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Origin 1517
The seventy-two Shem angels take their names from the Shem HaMephorash, a seventy-two letter divine name derived in Kabbalistic tradition from three verses of Exodus 14 read in a particular pattern. Each name is given the suffix -el or -yah to form an angel's name, and each angel governs five degrees of the zodiac and a period of the year. The scheme was elaborated in the Christian Kabbalah of the Renaissance and given its familiar modern form in later French sources.
Facts
Origins
Origin Period1517 1Tradition: Christian Kabbalah: Reuchlin's list of seventy-two angels Place of OriginGermany: Reuchlin's De Arte Cabalistica was printed in 1517. 1 Origin of the NameFrom Shem ha-Meforash, Hebrew for the explicit or distinguished Name. The angels are named after the Name, not the Name after the angels. 1 Whose Classification This IsThe seventy-two-letter divine Name is a Jewish exegetical device: Exodus 14:19-21, three verses of seventy-two letters each, read together in a fixed pattern to yield seventy-two three-letter groups. That much is Jewish, and it is a Name, not an angel list. 2Tradition: Jewish exegesis Whose Classification This IsTreating the seventy-two groups as ANGELS, by suffixing -el or -yah to each, is Christian Kabbalah: Johann Reuchlin sets the list out in De Arte Cabalistica in 1517. The zodiacal degrees and psalm verses attached to the angels are later still. 1Tradition: Christian Kabbalah (Reuchlin, 1517) Structure
StructureSeventy-two three-letter groups drawn from Exodus 14:19-21 and made pronounceable by the suffix -el or -yah. Each angel is given five degrees of the zodiac, which is how seventy-two angels cover a circle of three hundred and sixty. 1 Overview
Size of the Traditional SetSeventy-two angels, one for each three-letter group of the seventy-two-letter Name 1 Learn More
The seventy-two angels of the divine name
The seventy-two Shem angels take their names from the Shem HaMephorash, a seventy-two-letter name of God derived in Kabbalistic tradition from three verses of Exodus 14, read together in a particular pattern to yield seventy-two three-letter groups. To each is added the suffix -el or -yah to form an angelic name, giving the seventy-two angels of the Shem.
Each angel governs a range of degrees of the zodiac and a sphere of influence, and is invoked for particular purposes; the scheme was elaborated in Christian Kabbalah and in the Western magical tradition, notably by writers such as Athanasius Kircher and later the occultists of the nineteenth century.
Mirror of the Goetia
The seventy-two Shem angels are often set as the benign counterpart to the seventy-two demons of the Goetia, the two lists mirroring one another across the divide of good and evil, and some magical traditions pair each Shem angel with a goetic spirit it governs or balances. Each angel has its psalm verse, its degrees of the zodiac, and its attributed virtues.
The atlas gives each Shem angel its name, its zodiacal degrees, and its associations. The divine name they derive from, and the goetic spirits they are paired against, are treated in their own categories under Angels, Spirits & the Shadow.
Cross-Tradition Connections
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