Olympic Spirits
Phul
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Origin 1575
Phul is one of the seven Olympic spirits of the Arbatel de magia veterum, first printed in Latin at Basel in 1575 and rendered into English by Robert Turner in 1655. He is the governor set over the sphere of the Moon. The Arbatel gives each Olympic spirit 196 provinces of the world and a successive age of the world lasting 490 years, a structure distinct from Dee's later Heptarchia and from the Goetic hierarchy of the Ars Goetia.
Facts
Origins
Origin PeriodSourced to the subject's own account Origin PeriodSourced to the subject's own account1575 is the date of the first printing. The book itself records neither when it was written nor by whom. 1 Place of OriginSourced to the subject's own accountBasel, where the Latin text was first printed 1 Attributed Author / CompilerSourced to the subject's own accountPrinted anonymously. The Arbatel names no author. 1 Attributed Author / CompilerSourced to the subject's own accountRobert Turner made the 1655 English translation by which the seven are known in English 1 LanguageSourced to the subject's own account LanguageSourced to the subject's own account Rival Systems
A Rival System's AttributionSourced to the subject's own accountAgrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy sets its own intelligence and its own spirit over the sphere of the Moon, under names the Arbatel does not use 2 A Rival System's AttributionJohn Dee's Heptarchia Mystica sets King Carmara over Monday and the Moon, a separate system with a separate cast of names 3 Sources
Primary SourceSourced to the subject's own accountArbatel de magia veterum, 1575, English translation by Robert Turner, 1655. 1 Attributions
Ruling PlanetSourced to the subject's own account GovernsSourced to the subject's own accountTurning any metal into silver; the healing of dropsy; water spirits that serve in visible bodily form; life extended to three hundred years. 1 Status
Standing as a Comparative CategorySourced to the subject's own accountA modern system making claims scholarship never entertained; it never held scholarly standing 1 Learn More
Powers and Office in the Arbatel
In the Arbatel de magia veterum, Phul is the Olympic spirit given governance over the sphere of the Moon, and the text credits him with the power to convert any metal into silver, described as working both in word and in deed. He is also credited with healing dropsy, a form of bodily swelling from fluid retention that earlier medicine associated with excess moisture and so with lunar influence, and with granting water spirits that serve those he favors in a visible, bodily form rather than only as an unseen presence. The Arbatel further credits him with extending life to three hundred years for those who bear his character, a shorter span than the Arbatel promises under some of the other six spirits but still far beyond an ordinary lifetime.
Phul's offices follow the Moon's traditional astrological association with water, the body's fluids and changeable states, matching the pattern the Arbatel keeps across all seven Olympic spirits of tying each one's powers to their planet's established character. His reign closes the sequence as the seventh of the seven successive 490 year ages the text assigns to the group. The Arbatel does not describe the appearance of the familiar spirits Ophiel is said to grant, leaving that detail, like several others across the seven Olympic spirit entries, unspecified in the surviving text.
History and Later Influence
Phul reached English readers through Robert Turner's 1655 translation of the Arbatel de magia veterum, first printed in Latin at Basel in 1575 and bound by Turner with his own edition of the pseudo Agrippa Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy. As the spirit assigned to the Moon, the planet nearest Earth in the classical ordering the Arbatel follows, Phul is often placed last in later summaries of the seven Olympic spirits, closing the sequence that opens with Aratron and Saturn at the far end of that same classical order. His association with healing and with water spirits in visible form gave him a narrower, more specifically medical profile in later popular writing on the Arbatel than the broader promises of wealth, dignity or beauty attached to several of the other six. This atlas keeps Phul and the rest of the Arbatel's seven Olympic spirits as a system distinct from John Dee's Heptarchia Mystica and the Ars Goetia, two other grimoire traditions from a similar period with independent names, structures and manuscript histories.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Named as the Olympic spirit of this planetary sphere.
Attributed To
One of the seven Olympic Spirits the Arbatel assigns to the seven classical planets.
Disciplines That Use This
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