Planet · Certain
Mars
The classical planet Mars in historical correspondence systems.
Overview
Mars is the red classical planet of force, contest, severing, heat, and decisive motion. Ptolemy describes it as strongly hot and dry, classifies it as malefic, and assigns it Aries and Scorpio. Renaissance and Solomonic sources connect it with martial plants and stones, Tuesday, iron, and red.
Core Magical Themes
Historical and Astrological Context
Historical astrology reads Mars through its visible redness and forceful symbolism. Ptolemy’s planetary doctrine, Agrippa’s natural correspondences, Culpeper’s herb attributions, and Solomonic tables are separate witnesses within that broader martial tradition.
Traditional and Modern Rulerships
Ptolemy assigns Aries and Scorpio to Mars in Book I, Chapter XX. Modern Western astrology may add Pluto as a co-ruler of Scorpio, but that twentieth-century convention does not remove the older Mars relationship.
Traditional Qualities
Ptolemy gives Mars drying power and strong heat, and places it among the malefics. “Malefic” is retained as a technical historical term for difficult influence, not as a claim that the planet is morally evil.
Plants, Stones, Metals, and Ritual Materials
Agrippa associates Mars with fire, garlic, bay, dogwood, gum ammoniac, diamond, magnetite, bloodstone, and amethyst. Nettle has cross-source martial support. The Key of Solomon connects Mars with Tuesday, iron, and red.
Modern Practice
Martial work may emphasize courage, boundaries, defense, competition, cutting away, and disciplined action. Physical materials remain governed by their own safety records; a symbolic martial connection never authorizes ingestion or unsafe burning.
Identity Boundary
Mars the planet and Mars the Roman deity are separate records despite their shared name. The collision note protects identity without manufacturing a deity recommendation.
Safety and Physical Boundaries
Planetary records describe symbolic and historical relationships. They do not authorize ingestion, burning, topical use, or handling of connected materials. Each physical entity carries its own safety review, and hazardous records are excluded from default ritual candidates.
Sources
Claudius Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos; Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, Three Books of Occult Philosophy; Nicholas Culpeper, The Complete Herbal; S. L. MacGregor Mathers, The Key of Solomon.
Direct connections and evidence
Explicit Source
element under Mars
1 attestation · high confidence
Explicit Source
plant or tree under Mars
1 attestation · high confidence
Explicit Source
plant or tree under Mars
1 attestation · high confidence
Explicit Source
plant or tree under Mars
1 attestation · high confidence
Explicit Source
aromatic material under Mars
1 attestation · high confidence
Explicit Source
stone under Mars
1 attestation · high confidence
Explicit Source
stone under Mars
1 attestation · high confidence
Explicit Source
stone under Mars
1 attestation · high confidence
Explicit Source
stone under Mars
1 attestation · high confidence
Cross Source
plant associated with Mars
2 attestations · high confidence
Explicit Source
weekday of Mars
1 attestation · high confidence
Explicit Source
metal ruled by Mars
1 attestation · high confidence
Explicit Source
color ruled by Mars
1 attestation · high confidence
Explicit Source
traditional ruler of Aries
Classical domicile rulership recorded directly from Ptolemy; later and modern co-rulership layers remain separate.
1 attestation · high confidence
Explicit Source
traditional ruler of Scorpio
Classical domicile rulership recorded directly from Ptolemy; later and modern co-rulership layers remain separate.
1 attestation · high confidence
Reviewed sources
- Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, Three Books of Occult Philosophy, Book One (1898)Library of Congress
- Nicholas Culpeper, The Complete Herbal (1850)Project Gutenberg
- S. L. MacGregor Mathers, translator and editor, The Key of Solomon the King (Clavicula Salomonis) (1889)Wellcome Collection
- Claudius Ptolemy; J. M. Ashmand, translator, Tetrabiblos; or, Quadripartite (1900)Project Gutenberg