The caption says this figure makes otherwise invisible spirits visible.
- Planetary group
- ☉ Sun
- Mathers figure
- 35
- Printed plate
- VIII
- Text anchor
- Psalm 13:3–4
Mathers assigns yellow or gold and gold 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
The caption says this figure makes otherwise invisible spirits visible.
Within the Sun collection, this places figure 35 among themes of authority, visibility, movement, concealment, and release.
Inscription, names, and script
Psalm 13:3–4: Lighten mine eyes, that I sleep not in death; lest mine enemy say, I have prevailed against him.
IHVH and Adonai are written at the center.
How the diagram is organized
The visible core is paired divine names in a small central field. Around it, eight rays carry characters in the Passing of the River script. At the edge, the appeal for illuminated eyes surrounds the wheel.
Mathers plate and witness differences
Mathers can transcribe the center but classifies the radial signs by script rather than giving a full reading. The plate therefore contains two degrees of legibility by design.
Plate VIII 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 35
Read the familiar center first, then encounter the less legible rays, and finally the verse asking that eyes be lightened. The sequence makes visibility a formal problem for the reader as well as the caption’s stated theme.
View this figure in sequence
The Sun collection contains 7 figures, numbered 32–38 in the 1889 edition.