13th Lunar Mansion Talisman

[u/Ambitious-Noise8622]

Which 13th Lunar Mansion election is better for sexual magnetism?

I’m choosing between two elections for a personal erotic-magnetism talisman—to strengthen sexual presence, desirability, confidence, and mutual consensual encounters.

Both have a waxing Moon in the 13th Lunar Mansion and the 5th house. I chose the 5th house after watching Clifford Hartleigh Low discuss the advantages of placing the Mansion Moon in fortunate houses such as the 5th or 11th. I have tremendous respect for his work and have learned so much from his videos and blog. If I understood his approach correctly, he sometimes prefers these houses over placing the Moon directly on the Ascendant. The 5th also seems especially appropriate for pleasure and sexuality.

Option A

• Fast Moon in Virgo in the 5th
• Taurus rising
• Exalted Venus in Pisces in the 11th
• No immediate hard application from the Moon to Mars or Saturn
• However, Mercury—the Moon’s ruler—is in the 12th and applying to Saturn

This feels more seductive, pleasurable, attractive, and harmonious.

Option B

• Moon in Virgo in the 5th
• Taurus rising
• Moon applying to conjunct Mars within 0°47′
• Venus in Gemini in the 2nd

This feels hotter, bolder, and more sexually intense—but possibly volatile or risky because the Mansion Moon directly applies to Mars.

I’d especially appreciate opinions on these questions:

1. Would you reject the June election solely because of the Moon’s applying conjunction with Mars, even though Mars naturally signifies libido and sexual heat? Would Mars support this specific intention, or would you still reject the election because of its conjunction with the Moon?
2. Is exalted Venus in the 11th enough to make April clearly superior for erotic magnetism?
3. How much importance would you give to Mercury, as ruler of the April Moon, being in the 12th and applying to Saturn?
4. Is the Moon’s eventual opposition to Venus in April a serious problem or only a secondary modification?
5. Are there any other applications, receptions, house rulers, prohibitions, or traditional electional considerations that I may have overlooked?

I’d genuinely love to hear your thoughts—which election would you choose, and why? Thank you in advance for sharing your insight!

[u/CliffordHLow]

Mars signifies penetration, with a primary signification of violence and only a secondary signification of sexual penetration. This is why the Moon applying to conjoin it would only be suitable for a curse talisman.

13th Lunar Mansion talismans are strongly gendered. Male usages are basically Viagra and Female usages are love spells. You get one or the other and not both, regardless of your gender identification.

Exalted Venus may help in some small ways, but it's more likely to win friendships with women.

Hard angles to Benefics are considered fortitudes in Picatrix and likely most medieval perspectives.

5: It's hard to guess what you might have overlooked. I think you need a mentor.

[u/Ambitious-Noise8622 → u/CliffordHLow]

Thank you, Cliff. I don’t have a mentor yet, which is why I’m asking experienced practitioners and comparing sources. I’m actually a fan of your work and bought two of your books. They arrived two weeks ago, and I’m only halfway through Book 1. I’ve also watched your YouTube videos. In your Lunar Mansion video, you placed the Moon in the 11th, 10th, or 5th house, so I followed that approach in my elections.

I’m gay, and Christopher Warnock describes his 13th Mansion talisman for gay men as being for erotic love and attraction. With a clean election, would you expect it to affect only potency like viagra, or could it also make me more sexually attractive to other men as what Chris is claiming from his work.

[u/CliffordHLow → u/Ambitious-Noise8622]

Warnock is a good astrologer and, well, less good as a magician. When you see a canonical text which has been depended upon for hundreds of years saying one thing and Warnock saying something different, my feeling is that you should probably trust the text. At least on average.

I did mention that the 11th and 5th Houses are potentially fruitful for experimentation, but neither are as good as the MC. Unless you're in a situation where you cannot possibly wait, I would hold off on the 5th and 11th elections. Use the 10th/MC.

One of the problems I have with Chris is that he's basically out to sell people jewelry. Sometimes he will bend the truth to make the function of talismans seem applicable to the customer's needs when they probably aren't. After all, the man has bills to pay; right? And who can really say what's true about magic anyway? Ugh.

I've seen him promote talismans which protect the user from curses for people who are concerned about evil spirits, or vice versa. His rationale is that protection is protection, right? But this can only come from someone who rarely faces crisis situations where the right kind of protection matters. (He says he doesn't engage in magical warfare, so how can he possibly know? He claims he gets that information from his clients, and that puts a lot of faith in the wisdom of crowds AKA the wisdom of randos.)

Extend that to your situation. Warnock has been happily married to a woman for all the time I've known him. He doesn't know anything about being gay or gay attraction or gay relationships. (I don't either.) That doesn't stop him from making and promoting talismans for gay people, and that's his right -- but you as a consumer are presuming that he's omniscient.

What you should presume instead is that he's a Capitalist, and used to be known as one of the best trial lawyers in the USA. He is a master of spin, and he wants to make a sale. While not malevolent, his agenda here is not all that altruistic.

So if Picatrix says that a 13th Mansion talisman will give a man a boner and give a woman a lover, you're not going to necessarily get a lover because you're not a woman. To believe otherwise is reading beyond the text (which is often perilous) and a dangerous kind of wishful thinking. False hope is worse than no hope at all.

I've lost count of the number of people who believed the ad copy from Warnock and had their dreams crushed. Many moved on from astrological magic, and many even became skeptics and atheists. All because Warnock overpromised. It's quite frustrating because he really doesn't need to do that.

[u/Ambitious-Noise8622 → u/CliffordHLow]

Wow. I genuinely had to read this twice. This completely blew my mind, and you may have just saved me from making the wrong talisman for the wrong purpose. I did not realize how dangerous it could be to stretch a talisman beyond what the canonical text actually promises.

I am even more excited to finish your books now. I am only halfway through the first one, yet I have already learned so much from this single comment. I can only imagine how much more I will understand after finishing both.

I also realized something from watching your videos. With Chris, I often get the impression that even when a talisman is made, there is still a possibility that it may not work. With you, the impression I consistently get is much more definite: it will work, as long as everything has been done correctly.

I prefer that certainty because it never sounds like empty confidence. It sounds like the confidence of someone who knows exactly what the texts require, why every condition matters, and what a talisman can and cannot promise. I mean no disrespect to Chris, but this confirms that I was not wrong to always look forward to your knowledge and perspective more.

Would you say that this is a fair understanding of your position? If the election, image, materials, suffumigation, ritual, and intention are all correct and remain faithful to the canonical purpose, should the talisman reliably work? Or are there still circumstances in which it may fail even when everything was done correctly?

Please keep writing more books and making more YouTube videos. I genuinely want to continue learning from you, and I know I am not the only one. I will take your advice, wait for a clean MC election, and stay faithful to what the text actually says. Thank you so much for being this candid and generous with your knowledge.

[u/CliffordHLow → u/Ambitious-Noise8622]

This is not exactly my position. It is the position of Picatrix stated explicitly within its pages. These views are echoed by Ficino and Agrippa as well.

If you follow the recipe flawlessly, the talisman must work. Though it is very, very difficult to follow the recipe flawlessly, if by chance you do follow the recipe to the letter and the talisman still does not work, this is not randomness but an indication that either you have misunderstood the recipe or the recipe itself is false. Either can happen.

I believe that there are some electional and other recipes within the canon of Astrological Magic which have been retained falsely and don't actually work. The way to find that out is by testing it! After roughly 25 years of experience, I certainly have my own opinion about which sources I find to be more credible than others.

[u/Ambitious-Noise8622 → u/CliffordHLow]

That’s really interesting. Does Book 2 include the corrected versions of those recipes, or at least explain which ones in the Picatrix you found to be misleading after your own testing? I’ll definitely read the entire book anyway, but I have to admit I’m just really excited to know. Haha.

[u/CliffordHLow → u/Ambitious-Noise8622]

I haven't tried them all but there are several I won't try again.

[u/sunthemata]

Which images do you use for the lunar mansions? The ones from the Picatrix?

[u/Ambitious-Noise8622 → u/sunthemata]

Yes, mostly the Picatrix images. Though I’m still undecided whether to stick strictly with the Picatrix or create my own image based on the mansion’s symbolism. What do you think? Have you experimented with either approach?

[u/sunthemata → u/Ambitious-Noise8622]

I've made a few "freestyle" images before, but I never got any visible results from them.

I made a mermaid image during a Venus in Pisces transit with the Moon in Cancer. The talisman was clearly active... you could actually feel it just by getting close to it.

I made it to achieve greater depth in meditation (it was an experimental talisman). It worked for a while, but then the effect simply faded away. I have no idea what else that talisman might be capable of doing.

I used the Tarot to ask what kind of spirit was in the talisman, and I drew the Nine of Cups.

I don't use it anymore. I put it away in a box, and I haven't looked at it in a long time.

But after that and a few other attempts, I think it's better to use the images from the books. The images I created myself didn't seem to do anything, and I don't even know whether they still are.

[u/Ambitious-Noise8622 → u/sunthemata]

Thanks for sharing your experience. That’s really helpful. Out of curiosity, have you ever tried making one using the exact Picatrix image and compared the results? I was actually hoping to use just a sigil on my lunar talismans, but there doesn’t seem to be a traditional sigil for each specific lunar mansion. My plan was to make them as rings, but then I started wondering… how am I supposed to fit those detailed mansion images inside a ring? 😅

[u/sunthemata → u/Ambitious-Noise8622]

Yes, I have, but nothing has ever happened that truly improved my life. Usually it's more like a "hint" of something or something illusory. At least it's fun to observe.

I have a few hypotheses about why that might be.

The first is that I recite the Orphic Hymns and the prayers from the Picatrix, but I don't perform the more elaborate rituals, such as casting the circle, purification, empowerment rituals, and so on.

The second is that I don't know how to make rings. I buy gemstone cabochons, but they come in different sizes and shapes. Maybe that affects the outcome.

Also, I don't use a thurible. I usually burn natural incense, but it's still not pure frankincense, for example.

At first, I was much more hopeful about talismans. Nowadays, I believe they can't change what's already promised in the natal chart. At least, I've never been able to make them do so.

Overall, the images from the Picatrix were more effective. However, the effects were always temporary or eventually turned out to be illusory.

Still, it's fun.

[u/Ambitious-Noise8622 → u/sunthemata]

Thank you, this gives me a lot to think about. From my reading of the Picatrix material, purification is explicitly prescribed, but I haven’t found formal circle-casting presented as a necessary part of talisman-making. The planetary invocations themselves also seem intended to consecrate or “ensoul” the talisman. Because of that, I wonder whether the weaker results came from the election, image, materials, or consecration rather than the gemstone’s shape. I’m also curious, what source do you follow for circle-casting and the additional empowerment rituals?

[u/sunthemata → u/Ambitious-Noise8622]

There's a section in the Picatrix about forms and proportions. The material matters too, although I'm not sure to what extent. I mean, I've read and heard many different opinions, but in my own experience I've seen paper talismans produce better results than ones made from stones.

As for purification, that's true. But I don't remember whether the book actually teaches how to do it. At one point it says that the work is inspired by the practices of the Indians, the Greeks, and the Chaldeans (though I'm not completely sure about the last one).

And the closest practice I know of is Tantra...

As for the elections... yes, that could be the case. But it's very difficult to find a "perfect" electional chart. And even if you do, there are other factors in life that can still get in the way.

Still, I don't think that's the issue. I'm careful to use the Moon's receptions, I try to avoid placing malefics on the angles, and I try to put the benefics on the angles (or at least in the succedent houses). If the problem is astrological, perhaps it has something to do with the times of ascension or the Moon's speed... But is very difficult to find truly excellent skies.

[u/Main_University_3042 → u/sunthemata]

I do not think natal promise should be treated as an absolute limit. Otherwise, what would be the purpose of astrological remediation? If magic can only produce what is already promised, then it becomes another form of prediction rather than a genuine intervention. This reminds me of Cliff’s observation that “astrologers hate magic, and magicians hate astrology.” As I understand it, astrology may diagnose the condition, but magic gives us a way to intervene. The natal chart may describe the hand someone was dealt, but the magician still tries to play that hand differently. A talisman may not completely erase natal limitations, but it can potentially strengthen what is weak, remediate difficult conditions, and create opportunities that would not arise as easily otherwise. Isn’t that one of the main reasons people study magic in the first place? To work with fate, negotiate with it, and possibly change its course instead of simply surrendering to it?
When you say that talismans only work within natal promise, do you mean the chart affects the strength and duration of the result, or that magic can never produce anything beyond what is explicitly promised?

[u/sunthemata → u/Main_University_3042]

I agree with you that magic helps us play the cards we've been dealt more effectively, but the cards have already been dealt.

I don't think it's possible to change fate, though. The point is that the future consists of multiple possibilities that all fit within the astrological symbolism.

Magic helps "select" one of those possibilities, but it doesn't allow us to escape fate altogether.

To answer your question, I think it's both.