The first Venus figure is a general control and invocation figure for the spirits named around it.
- Planetary group
- ♀ Venus
- Mathers figure
- 39
- Printed plate
- IX
- Text anchor
- No biblical verse is identified
Mathers assigns green and copper 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 first Venus figure is a general control and invocation figure for the spirits named around it.
Within the Venus collection, this places figure 39 among themes of Venus spirits, favor, desire, attraction, and compelled presence.
Inscription, names, and script
No biblical verse is identified: No separate verse is printed around this figure.
The perimeter names Nogahiel, Acheliah, Socodiah or Socohiah, and Nangariel.
How the diagram is organized
The visible core is an open central hub. Around it, eight spokes end in Venus characters. At the edge, four angel names form the circular border.
Mathers plate and witness differences
Mathers offers an alternative reading, Socodiah or Socohiah, within the note itself. The variant is evidence that even a single printed edition can preserve uncertainty rather than one final spelling.
Plate IX 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 39
Read the uncertain name as part of the analysis instead of choosing one form. The regular eight-spoke wheel contrasts with an unstable letter sequence at the rim, showing why clean geometry does not guarantee certain transcription.
View this figure in sequence
The Venus collection contains 5 figures, numbered 39–43 in the 1889 edition.