Mathers presents this scorpion figure as frightening and coercive toward demons.
- Planetary group
- ♂ Mars
- Mathers figure
- 29
- Printed plate
- VI
- Text anchor
- Psalm 91:13
Mathers assigns red and iron to this planetary group. The crop documents his printed linework; it does not reproduce the color or material described elsewhere in the edition.
What Mathers’s caption claims
Mathers presents this scorpion figure as frightening and coercive toward demons.
Within the Mars collection, this places figure 29 among themes of conflict, healing, defense, coercion, and weather.
Inscription, names, and script
Psalm 91:13: Thou shalt go upon the lion and adder; the young lion and the dragon shalt thou tread under thy feet.
The word HVL repeats around the scorpion.
How the diagram is organized
The visible core is a naturalistic scorpion. Around it, repeated letter groups bind the animal to the circular field. At the edge, the beast-trampling verse encloses both.
Mathers plate and witness differences
The animal makes this figure unusually pictorial, but Mathers still treats the surrounding letters as essential. A crop that keeps only the scorpion would turn a textual pentacle into a zodiac-style emblem.
Plate VI is an artifact of Mathers’s 1889 arrangement. His preface and final note say that he compared differing manuscripts and restored difficult Hebrew and magical characters. Sloane 2731 and Lansdowne 1203 remain distinct manuscript objects; this printed crop should not stand in for either one.
WORKED EXAMPLE
A diagram reading of figure 29
Compare the creature at center with the four dangerous animals named at the edge. The scorpion is not listed in the verse, so the image does more than illustrate scripture: it inserts a Mars-associated threat inside a broader language of trampling danger.
View this figure in sequence
The Mars collection contains 7 figures, numbered 25–31 in the 1889 edition.