The Fourth Pentacle of Saturn: Meaning, Origins & How to Use This Pentacle of Solomon
The Fourth Pentacle of Saturn is documented to execute ruin, destruction, and death — and in its state of full perfection, to serve spirits from the South who bring news. That dual nature, both destructive and informational, makes it one of the most complex seals under Saturn's governance. This Pentacle of Solomon doesn't traffic in subtlety. Its office is explicitly baneful, its verse drawn from one of the most cursing passages in the entire Hebrew Psalter, and its central symbol — the mystic letter Yod — ties it to the very source of divine power in Kabbalistic tradition.
Saturn in magic governs endings, limitation, binding, karmic consequence, and the slow inexorable weight of time. Those currents run through all the Saturnine seals, but the Fourth takes them further than any of its siblings. Where the others restrain, repel, or protect, this one destroys. If you want to understand the full range of what Saturn can do in a working, this pentacle is the outer edge of that range.
Before working with any of the seals under this planet, it helps to have a solid footing in the broader tradition. The complete guide to all 44 Pentacles of Solomon gives you that foundation, including how the planetary organization works and what distinguishes one seal from another.
Construction and Symbolism of the Fourth Pentacle of Saturn
The central element of this pentacle is the mystic letter Yod. In Hebrew, Yod is the smallest letter in the alphabet — a single point or stroke — yet in Kabbalistic tradition it carries enormous weight. Yod is the first letter of the Tetragrammaton (IHVH), and it represents the primordial divine spark, the very origin of the creative impulse. Its presence at the center of a pentacle associated with destruction is intentional and theologically precise: what the divine creates, divine power can also unmake. The same Yod that seeds creation anchors a working of annihilation.
The triangle surrounding that central Yod carries its own inscription: the opening of Deuteronomy 6:4, the Shema — "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD." This is one of the most foundational declarations in the Hebrew scriptural tradition, an assertion of divine unity and singular authority. Its placement encircling the Yod is not coincidental. The Shema frames the destructive working within the absolute sovereignty of the one divine source, reinforcing that the force being called through this seal originates from and answers to that same singular power. Destruction, in this theological frame, is not chaos. It is an act of unified divine will.
Unlike several of the other Saturn pentacles — which populate their figures with multiple angelic names, divine name groupings, or the names of specific Saturnine intelligences — the Fourth's construction is spare. The Yod stands at the center, and the surrounding figure is built from the mystical characters associated with Saturn rather than from named angels. Compare this to the Third Pentacle of Saturn, which names four specific angelic officers — Omeliel, Anachiel, Arauchiah, and Anazachia — each functioning as a defined intermediary the operator can address directly. The Fourth has none of that scaffolding. No individual angelic officers are listed for this seal. That absence matters. Without named intermediaries, the Fourth works through the raw Saturnine current directly, unmediated and undiluted.
The verse assigned to this pentacle is from Psalm 109:18, and it is worth quoting in full: "As he clothed himself with cursing like as with his garment, so let it come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones." Psalm 109 is classified in biblical scholarship as a devotional psalm, a prayer calling down divine judgment on an enemy. The specific verse chosen for this pentacle goes beyond general condemnation. It describes a curse that penetrates — entering like water, saturating like oil — something that soaks through to the deepest interior of a person. The imagery is of something that cannot be resisted or shed. Choosing this verse for a pentacle whose office includes the execution of destruction is not incidental. The text actively teaches the pentacle's function. The curse described in the verse mirrors the working the seal is meant to perform.
The secondary office noted in the source — that in its full perfection this seal also serves spirits from the South who bring news — adds a less obvious dimension. South in traditional elemental-directional mapping corresponds to fire, and spirits of the South are associated with active, sharp intelligence. The fact that a destructive seal can, under the right conditions, function as a channel for received information suggests that the Fourth is not purely a weapon. It also carries a quality of revelation: things hidden become known, often because what concealed them has been removed.
The Spiritual Office of the Fourth Pentacle of Saturn
This pentacle's documented office is unambiguous: it executes ruin, destruction, and death. That is not a metaphor or a gentle Saturn-flavored nudge. The tradition means it literally, and anyone approaching this seal should start there rather than softening the language into something more comfortable. Set against its siblings, the difference is stark. The First Pentacle strikes terror into spirits and compels their submission — authority asserted over spiritual entities, not destruction of a situation. The Second represses the pride of spirits and holds against adversity — endurance, not annihilation. The Third is invitational, not destructive at all: it opens a channel to Saturn's spirits within the Magic Circle. The Fifth turns its force inward, defending the operator rather than destroying anything external. The Sixth binds a named person to sustained demonic obsession — a working of attachment and constraint. The Seventh aims even larger than the Fourth, shaking entire structures and foundations rather than ending one specific thing. Where the Sixth clings and the Seventh shakes, the Fourth cuts cleanly through — ending, not haunting or toppling.
What does "destruction" look like in practical magical terms? The tradition doesn't specify a particular domain — this isn't a pentacle for destroying a career, or a reputation, or a relationship in isolation. The office is broader than that. It points toward the dismantling of something that has structure and persistence: a long-standing situation, a deeply rooted harm, a pattern that has resisted lesser workings. When practitioners have used destructive Saturnine force historically, they have applied it at endings that needed to be final, not provisional.
The inclusion of death in the documented office raises a point that needs to be addressed plainly. In classical grimoire tradition, death as a magical aim was taken seriously. Modern practitioners working in an ethical framework tend to apply this office symbolically — the death of a situation, a relationship, a harmful pattern — rather than literally. Neither interpretation is illegitimate. What matters is that you're honest with yourself about what you're intending and what you're calling in when you take up a seal this specifically charged.
The secondary function — receiving news through spirits of the South in the seal's state of full perfection — speaks to a condition the tradition names but doesn't fully elaborate. "Full perfection" likely refers to a state of complete construction and consecration, where every element is correctly executed, the timing is precise, and the operator is properly prepared. Under those conditions, the seal isn't just a weapon. It becomes a channel for information, particularly around things that have been concealed, denied, or kept from you by the same force or person the working targets. Destruction and revelation can operate together here: what collapses also exposes what was underneath it.
Saturn Correspondences for This Working
Saturn's traditional correspondences are consistent across the grimoire tradition and Western magical herbalism. The planet's metal is lead, its color is black, its day is Saturday, and its element is earth. Crystals associated with Saturn include black obsidian, jet, black onyx, hematite, smoky quartz, and black tourmaline. Herbs traditionally ruled by Saturn include myrrh, cypress, mullein, comfrey, Solomon's seal, yew, patchouli, and wormwood. Incenses associated with Saturn include myrrh, cypress, and asafoetida.
For the Fourth Pentacle specifically, black obsidian is the crystal that best matches this working's office. Obsidian forms through violent volcanic action — rapid cooling that gives the material no time to develop a crystalline structure. It cuts cleanly and leaves no residue, which aligns directly with the Fourth's function of final, penetrating destruction rather than gradual wearing-down. Among the herbs, myrrh is the natural complement. Myrrh resin carries Saturn's quality of preservation-through-death: it was used in ancient funerary rites precisely because it arrests decay and marks the threshold of ending. As incense in this working, its smoke signals the boundary between what was and what will no longer be.
Work this pentacle on Saturday, Saturn's day. For timing within the day, the Saturn hour gives you maximum alignment with the planet's current. You can find your exact window using a planetary hour almanac for your location and date. The candle color is black, consistent with Saturn's planetary color and with the nature of this working.
Who Should Work With the Fourth Pentacle of Saturn
This pentacle is the right tool when something needs to end completely — not be weakened, not be redirected, not be bound into inactivity — but fully dismantled. The person who reaches for the Fourth is dealing with a situation that has resisted everything lighter: a harm that keeps regenerating, a pattern that's survived multiple attempts to shift it, a relationship or arrangement that continues to inflict damage regardless of what's been tried. You've already done the work of trying to repair or redirect, and it hasn't held. What's called for is a surgical, deliberate ending.
The secondary information-bearing function — spirits from the South bringing news — makes this pentacle secondarily useful for situations where you need to uncover something that's being concealed. If deception is part of the problem, the Fourth can simultaneously dismantle the situation and reveal what was hidden beneath it. That is a narrower use case, and it requires the seal to be in its full working condition, but it's worth knowing the possibility exists.
Approach this pentacle with clarity about intention and a willingness to sit with what a final ending actually means. Saturn doesn't do provisional. If you call in this current and direct it toward something, that something ends. Make sure you've thought through what you want to exist in the space that opens up afterward.
A Modern Ritual for the Fourth Pentacle of Saturn
Timing
Perform this ritual on a Saturday during a Saturn hour — ideally the first Saturn hour after sunset, when the night has fully settled and the day's forward energy has given way to something more final. Use a planetary hour almanac set to your exact location before you begin. Do not approximate the timing. This working calls for precision.
Materials
- Black candle — Saturn's color, used here to mark the boundary of what ends: the flame consumes as the working proceeds.
- Black obsidian — placed beside the pentacle to amplify the cutting, final quality of this seal's destructive office rather than simply lending general Saturnine weight.
- Myrrh incense — burned throughout to mark the threshold between what exists and what is being ended; its funerary resonance is specific to this working, not just a Saturn placeholder.
- The Fourth Pentacle of Saturn — drawn by hand or printed clearly; place it at the center of your working space as the focal point through which intention flows.
Setup
Clear and clean your space first. This isn't about elaborate ceremonial preparations — it's about giving the working room to move. Set the pentacle flat at the center, the black candle behind it, and the obsidian directly in front of the pentacle, between it and you. Light the myrrh and let the smoke build before you do anything else. Sit quietly for a few minutes and let your mind settle on what is being ended. Not why, not what comes after — just what is ending. Hold that image clearly.
The Working
Light the candle. Place your hands flat on the table, palms down, on either side of the pentacle without touching it. Look at the Yod at the center of the figure and let your attention rest there. When the image of what you're ending is fully present in your mind — specific, concrete, not abstract — speak the intention aloud:
By the letter at the center of all beginning, by the fire that unmakes what cannot be reformed, by the office of this seal and the authority of Saturn's final hour — let this end. Let it dissolve into what no longer exists. Let what was hidden beneath it become known. It is done.
After speaking, sit in silence for several minutes. Don't rush the closing. Let the candle burn. If the obsidian grows warm under the room's stillness, that's the working settling. When you feel the energy of the working complete — not forced, but finished — move to closing.
Closing
Snuff the candle rather than blowing it out. Snuffing closes. Blowing scatters. Set the obsidian aside to be cleansed after the working — running water, salt, or moonlight will reset it. The pentacle can remain on your altar through the night or be stored face-down. Do not repeat the spoken intention after closing. State it once and trust it. Saturn does not respond to doubt or repetition — it responds to will that does not waver.
How to Work With the Fourth Pentacle of Saturn Today
What makes this pentacle distinct from a generic Saturn working is the Yod at its center. That letter is not decorative. In Kabbalistic cosmology, Yod is the point from which all of creation extends — it is the first letter of the divine name, and its presence in a figure whose office is destruction creates a specific theological claim: that what is being unmade is being returned to the primordial point, released from form. When you're drawing or printing this seal, the Yod deserves deliberate attention. It's not background geometry. It is the working's core.
Traditional practice called for Solomonic pentacles to be engraved in the planetary metal — in Saturn's case, lead — during the appropriate planetary day and hour. That level of precision and craftsmanship is not accessible to most modern practitioners, and the tradition itself provides sufficient grounding for adapted practice. What's typically preserved in modern work is the documented office, the planetary correspondence, and the symbolic integrity of the figure. What's adapted is the medium: hand-drawn versions on black paper, printed reproductions, or carefully traced copies on parchment all fall within the functional range of contemporary use.
Because this pentacle's office is explicitly coercive and destructive, the question of adaptation has an ethical dimension that softer seals don't. You can use this pentacle in cleaner form — precise drawing, correct timing, full concentration — and it functions. You cannot, however, make it into something other than what it is. Some practitioners add consecration steps: anointing the figure with Saturn-associated oil (myrrh, cypress, or patchouli), speaking the Psalm verse over it before the working begins, or passing it through incense smoke. These additions reinforce the seal's charge without changing its direction.
Beyond single ritual use, this pentacle can be employed as a sustained working tool. Some practitioners keep it active on an altar for a set period — three Saturdays, for instance — returning to it each week to restate or reinforce the intention. Saturn's energy tends toward slow, inevitable force rather than sudden shock, so sustained application often produces more thorough results than a single working. If you take this approach, keep the space around the pentacle consistent. Same candle color, same stone, same incense. Change signals uncertainty, and Saturn rewards certainty.
One more thing worth naming: after a working with the Fourth, pay attention to what information surfaces in the days that follow. The secondary office — spirits of the South bearing news — doesn't always announce itself dramatically. More often it shows up as a piece of information that arrives unexpectedly, a conversation that reveals what was being concealed, or a sudden clarity about why the situation took the shape it did. That's the seal doing the second part of its work. Receive it plainly and act on it accordingly.