Thoughts on the Second Pentacle of Mercury

The description of the Second Pentacle of Mercury has one of the most enigmatic descriptions among the pentacles of the Key of Solomon.

“The Spirits herein written serve to bring to effect and to grant things which are contrary unto the order of Nature; and which are not contained under any other head. They easily give answer, but they can with difficulty be seen.”

I’ll admit that when I made my first one years ago, I was initially unsure how to test it, even though I had already made and tested a number of other pentacles. As a person who has always been fond of fantasy and science fiction I can imagine a lot of wild things ‘contrary unto the order of Nature’ but I needed a petition that would be a good test. After communicating with the spirits, I decided to ask for something very unlikely that I badly wanted- the return of another pentacle I had lost while doing yard work the previous year. A few weeks passed and I heard a knock at my door. I looked out and there was no one there, so I did not open the door. However when I did go outside, I saw my formerly missing pentacle right on my doorstep.

Sara Mastros calls this pentacle “The Seal of Lost Causes” in The Sorcery of Solomon: A Guide to the 44 Planetary Pentacles of the Magician King, which I have reviewed in another article. I found that to be an extremely apt name, as I had been considering it as the pentacle of impossible things. It is my go to when things have no likelihood of happening on their own, or when I otherwise think to myself “I am so fucked.”

In another notable example of the latter, I had the misfortune to knock a very full glass of water right onto my laptop, which immediately shorted out. It was bad. Water was pouring out of all the ports. I flipped it over, disassembled it, and tried to dry it as best as I could before putting it back together. However, when it dried I could not get it to boot up. The flashing lights indicated a CPU failure according to the manufacturer’s website. When speaking to the spirit of the computer did not get it to turn on, I petitioned the spirits of Mercury via the Second of Mercury and left the pentacle to do its job overnight. The next day I was able to boot it up. A couple of blue screens later, and making sure the components were properly seated and it was back to working fine.

These days I often petition the spirits of the Second of Mercury in conjunction with other pentacle spirits when circumstances make the result of the petition extremely unlikely- perhaps because it is a big ask or is something that would normally take time but now needs to happen immediately. I hold the pentacle and call “spirits of the second pentacle of Mercury…” and then state my request. Sometimes I light a candle, a stick of sandalwood, and offer them a glass of water.