What the genii are for, and how they are invoked
Lenain does not describe the 72 genii for the pleasure of classifying them. He gives a purpose, a rule, a moment and two talismans. Here is what his text of 1823 says, with the page.
The purpose
Lenain writes it himself at the start of his last chapter: “My intention, in this work, is to instruct my BB∴, to open to them the way that leads to light and truth” (p. 141). The three dots are those of the Freemasons: the book is addressed to brethren of the lodge.
The genii in it are the bearers of the divine names: they are “clothed with the 72 attributes of God” (p. 146) and “govern the 72 quinaries of the sky” (p. 136), that is, the seventy-two slices of five degrees of the zodiac. Hence two uses, which the whole book develops:
- Knowing one’s own. Three genii are tied to every birth — by the five days, by the day, by the hour — and each gives a portrait. That is the test of the 72 genii.
- Addressing the right one. Each genius “rules” a domain and is invoked for a precise thing: against adversity, to rest well at night, to gain “all the treasures of heaven and earth”. Each genius’s page says which.
The rule: the name, the verse, twenty minutes
To address a genius, Lenain asks that its name, its attributes and the psalm verse that belongs to it be spoken during the twenty minutes of the day in which it reigns. Each one’s hour is on its page; for the hour of a dream, see the genius of your dream.
Silence
It is the plainest instruction in the text: whoever wishes to profit by the celestial influences “must never speak or write what he has conceived and decided in his mind”. The reason: “only God and the genius of the soul know your thought. The evil genius can know it only when we speak it” — and if he penetrates it, “he will provoke every possible incident to make you fail” (p. 141).
As for the great divine name, it must “never be pronounced uselessly” (p. 144).
The favourable moment
“The wise must observe the influences of the stars; and when a favourable circumstance occurs, one must prepare in advance to profit by it” (p. 141). For the Sun, Lenain names two (p. 138):
- the Moon “renews itself on a Sunday, the Sun making its entry into the 1st degree of Aries”; if there is an eclipse of the Sun, the instant is favourable for as long as it lasts;
- the Moon renews itself on a Sunday as the Sun enters Leo; the person born in those hours “will be a privileged being of nature”.
We computed these meetings from 1950 to 2100, taking a new moon falling on a Sunday within three days of the Sun’s entry into the sign (Universal Time). For Aries: 23 March 2031, and it is the only one. For Leo: 22 July 1990, 23 July 2017, 24 July 2044. The computation is ours; Lenain gives no date.
The talisman of the Sun
The ancient astrologers, Lenain says, composed it around 20 March. It holds six columns of six squares: thirty-six cells, for the thirty-six “faces of the sky”. Each cell bears a number; added “horizontally, vertically or diagonally” they always give 111, and the six columns make 666 — “here is wisdom”, he writes, quoting Revelation (pp. 135–136).
| 6 | 32 | 3 | 34 | 35 | 1 |
| 7 | 11 | 27 | 28 | 8 | 30 |
| 19 | 14 | 16 | 15 | 23 | 24 |
| 18 | 20 | 22 | 21 | 17 | 13 |
| 25 | 29 | 10 | 9 | 26 | 12 |
| 36 | 5 | 33 | 4 | 2 | 31 |
What Lenain promises of it: the person who wears it “will be very fortunate in all undertakings”, esteemed by all, and “no human power will be able to harm them” (p. 136). He then quotes the recipe of an Arab astrologer, after Kircher: six drachms of pure gold cast into a round plate, engraved on the day and hour when the Sun is in its exaltation, warmed “in the vapour of saffron”, washed in rose water with musk and camphor, then wrapped in saffron-coloured silk (pp. 136–137).
The general rule is on page 134: to work under a planet, “one must use the things that are in relation with it, otherwise you will obtain no result” — gold for the Sun, or a lamb’s skin, the perfumes and laurel wood. The parchment recipe has the operator kill the animal himself; we note it without reproducing it.
The talisman of invocations
The book ends on it. It is the second face of the talisman of Jehovah: the four Hebrew letters of the sign that Judas Maccabeus, by the legend, received from an angel. They come from a verse Lenain renders “who is strong like you among the strong”; reduced to number they give 72, “the number of the 72 genii”. They are set with the divine name in a cross, the cross in a circle, and around the circle the verse and the words in hoc signo vinces. Composed under the influence of the Sun, this talisman “serves to operate in invocations” (pp. 145–146).
Lenain also gives the twelve permutations of the divine name, which answer “to the 12 signs of the zodiac, to the 12 hours of the day and of the night” (p. 144).
What we do with it, and what we do not
We report a text of 1823. We promise no effect, we sell no talisman, and nothing here replaces medical, psychological or financial advice. Lenain writes as a man of his time: his science is that of Agrippa and Kircher, whom he often cites.
What we have not read: pages 139, 140 and 142 of the manuscript, which detail the influences of the other planets and the start of the chapter on the divine name.
Get the report of my three genii The 72 genii · The genius of your dream