Rank: Marquis · Legions: 30 · Element: Air · Direction: West · Enn: Anay secore on ca Andrealphus
Andrealphus is the sixty-fifth spirit of the Ars Goetia, a Mighty Marquis who governs thirty legions of spirits. He appears at first in the form of a peacock, with great noises, and after a time he puts on a human shape. His office is to teach geometry perfectly, and to make men very subtle in it and in all things pertaining to mensuration and to astronomy; and he can transform a man into the likeness of a bird, and a great and knowing one at that. Gather his offices and one theme runs through them all: measure. Geometry is the measure of the earth, the science of shape and proportion; mensuration is the measure of quantity and dimension, the reckoning of how much and how far and how large; and astronomy is the measure of the heavens, the ordering of the stars in their courses. Andrealphus is the master of measure — of number, proportion, and the ordered pattern by which the world and the sky alike may be understood — and his peacock form is the perfect emblem of it, for the peacock's tail is spangled with a hundred watching eyes like the stars of an ordered heaven, and its beauty is the beauty of proportion itself. And his strangest gift, the transforming of a man into a great and knowing bird, is the crown of the rest: for to be lifted into the bird's high flight is to gain the view from above, the perspective from which the measured pattern of things, invisible from the ground, is at last seen whole. Andrealphus is the master of measure and the giver of the bird's-eye view.
He is Andrealphus in the grimoires, a consistent name. He appears in Johann Weyer's Pseudomonarchia Daemonum of 1577, passed into the Ars Goetia as it was gathered into the Lemegeton in the seventeenth century, and was set into modern English by Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers and Aleister Crowley in their 1904 edition. The texts agree on his account: the peacock with its great noises, the teaching of geometry and mensuration and astronomy, the making of men subtle therein, and the transformation of a man into a great and knowing bird — the Mighty Marquis of thirty legions.
Andrealphus comes as a peacock, and the peacock is a rich and fitting emblem for him. Its great fanned tail is spangled with a hundred eyes — the eyes, in the old myth, of hundred-eyed Argus, set there by Juno whose sacred bird the peacock is — and those many watching eyes have always been read as the stars of the night sky, the ordered and innumerable lights of the measured heavens; the peacock's tail is a little cosmos, a chart of the starry order. And the peacock is beauty itself, but a beauty that is entirely a matter of pattern and proportion, of the exact and ordered arrangement of colour and form — the beauty, that is, of geometry made visible. Yet the grimoire is careful to add that the peacock comes with great noises, and this too is apt, for the peacock's cry is famously harsh, a jarring scream utterly at odds with the splendour of its plumage. In that contrast is a truth of him: the beautiful ordered pattern and the harsh loud voice together, the serene measure of the science and the great noise of its announcing. The peacock is the star-spangled emblem of the measured heavens, crying its arrival aloud.
The heart of Andrealphus is geometry, which he teaches perfectly, making men subtle and refined in it, and with it all things of mensuration — the whole art of measure. Geometry is, at root, the measure of the earth, the science of shape, line, angle, and proportion, the hidden order of form; and mensuration is its practical extension, the reckoning of length and area and volume, of how much and how far and how large. Together they are the mastery of quantity and proportion, the reduction of the shapes and sizes of the world to exact and ordered number. From Andrealphus one learns to see the measure in things — the proportion beneath the form, the number beneath the shape, the exact order that the untrained eye passes over. This office might, on its own, be read as Mercurial or as Saturnine, for the mathematical sciences belong to the quick mind and the measure to the lord of bounds alike; but in Andrealphus the measure reaches upward, to the heavens, and there it becomes something more.
...and of Astronomy, the Measure of the Heavens
For Andrealphus teaches also astronomy, and this is where his measure completes itself. Astronomy is the measure of the heavens — the mapping of the stars in their courses, the reckoning of the vast ordered clock of the sky. The same art of measure that on earth is geometry becomes, lifted to the heavens, the science of the stars; and the peacock's hundred-eyed tail, the little chart of the starry order, is its emblem. Andrealphus is not merely a teacher of earthly shapes but of the great measured order of the whole, from the proportions of a figure drawn in the sand to the courses of the stars overhead. His is the measure that runs unbroken from the earth to the sky, the single ordered pattern that geometry and astronomy read at their two ends.
Set his sciences together and Andrealphus stands revealed as the master of measure entire — of number, proportion, and the ordered pattern by which all things, earthly and heavenly, may be understood. This is a deep and beautiful office, for measure is the hidden order of the world: the proportion in the growing shell and the falling wave, the ratio the old builders read as the architecture of the cosmos, the number the ancients held to be the very substance of reality. To master measure is to see the order beneath the surface of things, the exact and beautiful pattern that holds from the smallest figure to the greatest sky. Andrealphus teaches that seeing. His peacock, beautiful by pure proportion and starry with its hundred eyes, is the emblem of it: the beauty that is measure, and the order that is the cosmos.
Andrealphus's strangest and most wonderful gift is the transformation of a man into a bird — and not any bird, but a great and knowing one. This is not, in this Vault's reading, a literal turning into feathers, but the lifting of a person into the bird's own gift: the view from above. For what the bird has that the earthbound do not is the high perspective, the sight of the whole pattern spread out below, the measured order of the land seen at a single glance from the air. And this is the crown of all his measure, for the pattern that geometry maps and astronomy charts is best seen not from within it but from above it. To be made a great and knowing bird is to be lifted to that height — to gain the perspective from which the order of things becomes visible, the overview that reveals the shape of the whole. Turned inward, this is among his most valuable gifts: the power to rise above one's own situation and see it whole, to gain the bird's-eye view of one's life and its pattern, the high and measured perspective from which what was a confusion on the ground resolves, from above, into an ordered and legible shape. Andrealphus lifts the mind to the height from which the pattern can be seen.
Andrealphus is placed in the element of Air and the quarter of the West — Air for the flight and the height that are so much his nature, the aerial perspective of the bird and the airy reach of the measured heavens. For the planetary correspondence this Vault reads him under Jupiter. His office of geometry and measure might, taken alone, be read as Mercurial or Saturnine, and a practitioner who read him so would not be wrong; but his deeper register is celestial and elevated, and there Jupiter rules. Jupiter is the planet of the heavens and of astronomy, the great sky whose measure Andrealphus teaches; Jupiter is the planet of elevation and expansion, of the high and wide view, exactly the bird's-eye overview he gives; Jupiter governs the higher learning and the great ordered vision of the whole. And the peacock itself belongs to the Jovian household, for it is the bird of Juno, the queen of the heavens beside Jove the king. The measure of the earth may be Saturn's or Mercury's, but the measure lifted to the heavens and seen from the bird's great height is Jupiter's own. Set his metal as tin, his day as Thursday, and his colours the peacock-blue of his splendid form and the celestial gold of the ordered heavens he reads. These correspondences are read as symbolic rather than handed down as documented tradition; the grimoires give only his element, his form, and his offices, and the Jovian reading follows from the astronomy, the elevation, and the peacock of the queen of heaven at the heart of them.
In the old demonology Andrealphus is a well-regarded spirit, valued for his teaching of the exact sciences of measure and noted for his striking peacock form and its harsh cry. Weyer and the Ars Goetia give the same account — the peacock with its great noises, the geometry and mensuration and astronomy, the subtlety he grants, the transformation into a great knowing bird. Commentators have remarked on the aptness of the many-eyed peacock to a teacher of the starry heavens, and on the curiosity of the bird-transformation, so much gentler and stranger than the fierce shape-changes of other spirits. He is a Marquis regarded with respect, for the precision and the elevation of what he teaches.
Carried into the modern revival through the 1904 Mathers and Crowley edition, Andrealphus is worked today chiefly by students of geometry, mathematics, and astronomy, and by those seeking the elevated perspective his bird-transformation gives. Modern practitioners prize his teaching of the exact sciences of measure and, increasingly, read his bird's-eye view inwardly, as the gift of rising above one's situation to see its whole pattern — the high perspective from which confusion resolves into order. His peacock, starry-tailed and proud, is cherished as one of the loveliest emblems in the book. He remains a precise, elevated, and rewarding Marquis, sought for measure and for the view from above.
Andrealphus is precise, elevated, and clear — the star-tailed peacock and master of measure, who teaches the ordered number and proportion of all things from the figure in the sand to the courses of the stars, and who lifts the one who works with him to the bird's high view of the whole. He gives the seeing of the pattern: the measure beneath the shapes of the world, the order beneath the sky, and the elevated perspective from which both become visible. Met with a genuine wish to learn the exact art of measure and to gain the high, clear view of things, he is among the most precise and most quietly uplifting of all the spirits of the Goetia, the peacock who charts the heavens and lends the seeker the wings to see the pattern whole.
The grimoires give Andrealphus a lovely and distinctive form: a peacock -- its great tail fanned and spangled with a hundred watching eyes, the bird of Juno and the little chart of the starry heavens -- and it comes, the texts note, with great noises, the peacock's famously harsh cry sounding beneath its splendour. After a time he puts on a human shape. Those who work with him describe a bright, precise, elevated presence, clear and ordered rather than fierce, often with a quality of height and perspective about it -- the felt sense of a spirit who sees the pattern of things from above and can lift the mind to that view. It is among the more refined and uplifting manifestations in the book, the bearing of a spirit at home in the exact measure of the earth and the great ordered courses of the sky alike.
Enn: Anay secore on ca Andrealphus
Working with Andrealphus is working with the master of measure -- the star-tailed peacock who teaches the exact sciences of geometry, mensuration, and astronomy, and who lifts the one who works with him to the bird's high view of the whole. His gift is the seeing of the ordered pattern: the number and proportion beneath the shapes of the world, the order of the stars overhead, and the elevated perspective from which both become visible. This Vault comes to him to learn the art of measure and to gain the high, clear view of things. What follows is a guide built around that measure and that elevation.
Come to Andrealphus with a clear and orderly mind and a genuine wish to learn measure or to gain perspective, for he is a precise and elevated spirit and answers clarity in kind. Cleanse yourself and the space, and set his seal at the centre of the working. Where the correspondences are followed, the Jovian suits him: peacock-blue and celestial gold, the metal tin, the hours of Jupiter and of Thursday -- and, fittingly for a teacher of the stars, a working under a clear night sky honours his nature. Then open the way by reciting his Enn -- Anay secore on ca Andrealphus -- steadily until a bright, precise, elevated presence gathers, and greet the star-tailed peacock as the emblem of the measured heavens.
For his central teaching, bring Andrealphus the science of measure you would master. For geometry, ask him to teach you the exact order of shape and proportion, and to make you subtle in it -- to see the measure beneath the form. For mensuration, ask his instruction in the reckoning of quantity and dimension. For astronomy, ask him to teach the measure of the heavens, the ordered courses of the stars -- and study, if you can, beneath the real night sky his peacock-tail depicts. Take his teaching as the beginning of an exact discipline, and practise the measure he shows you, for his is a precise art learned by careful attention.
The particular and inward gift of Andrealphus is the view from above, and it is asked of him directly. When you are lost in the confusion of a situation -- too close to it, tangled in its detail, unable to see its shape -- come to him and ask to be lifted to the bird's-eye view: to rise above it in the mind and see it whole, to gain the high perspective from which its pattern becomes visible. Name the situation you cannot see clearly, and ask him for the overview -- the elevated, measured perspective from which the confusion on the ground resolves into an ordered and legible shape. This is among his most valuable gifts, for many troubles are not solved so much as re-seen from a height, and Andrealphus lends the wings for that rising.
More broadly, ask Andrealphus to teach you to see the measure and the pattern in things -- the proportion beneath the surface, the order beneath the apparent confusion, the number and shape that hold the world together. This is the deeper fruit of his measure: not only the mastering of a science but the habit of perceiving the ordered pattern everywhere, in the growing and the falling, the near and the far, the earth and the sky. Ask him to open that seeing in you, and let it become a way of looking at the whole world.
Practitioners describe Andrealphus's presence as bright, precise, and elevated, clear and ordered, often with a felt quality of height and perspective. When he has heard, his help in the sciences tends to arrive as a sudden clarity of measure -- a proportion grasped, a geometry made subtle and plain, an ordered pattern seen where there was none. In the matter of perspective, it arrives as a rising -- a situation abruptly seen whole from above, a confusion resolving into a legible shape, the relief of the high clear view. Look for the sense of the pattern coming clear and the ground falling into order beneath a higher gaze. Keep a written record, with diagrams where they serve, for his gifts are exact and reward precise attention.
Work with Andrealphus in the clear and orderly spirit his nature asks. Take his teaching of measure as an exact discipline to be practised, not a mastery handed over. When you seek his bird's-eye view, remember to come back down and act, for the high perspective is given to clarify the ground, not to abandon it -- the bird sees the pattern in order to fly the truer course, not to stay forever aloft. And let the measure he teaches serve the seeing of the world's true order, not a cold reduction of everything to mere number that misses its life. He is the master of measure and the giver of the bird's-eye view, among the most precise and quietly uplifting of all the spirits of the Goetia, and to the seeker who would learn the ordered pattern of things and rise to see it whole, he lends the peacock's starry sight and the great bird's clarifying height.