The Lords of the Watchtowers
North, South, East and West

Who are these guys, anyway? And why do you need to call upon them when you cast a magick circle?

Magick relates to both time and space. Ancient peoples divided space into the four quarters: north, south, east and west. Sometimes they further subdivided it, but the four basic directions are the crucial ones.

They assigned deities to guard each of these quarters, deities to whom the power of each quarter accrued.

The Lords of the Watchtower can be male or female. By invoking them we call upon their spatial powers to guard and inform our magick circles.

Cultures represented in the invocation lists range from Asia through Europe and Africa to the Americas, illustrating the universality of the division of space into the cardinal points. You can invoke any gods or goddesses who appeal to you, but these are examples of mythological consistent invocations:

ANGELS

North: Uriel
South: Michael
East: Raphael
West: Gabriel

AZTEC

North: Mictlantecuhtli
South: Huitzilopochtli
East:  Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli
West:  Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl

BUDDHIST

North: Vajraghanta
South: Vajrapasi
East: Vajrosnisa
West: Vajrasphota

Buddhists count five directions, assigning each one to a member of the Buddha family:

North:
color: green
negative quality: envy and jealousy
positive quality: all-accomplishing wisdom
sacred to: Amoghasiddhi

South:
color: yellow
negative quality: pride
positive quality: wisdom of equanimity
sacred to: Ratnasambhava

East:
color: blue
negative quality: aggression
positive quality: mirrorlike wisdom
sacred to: Akshobhya

West:
color: red
negative quality: passion and longing
positive quality: wisdom of discriminating awareness
sacred to: Amitabha

Center:
color: white
negative quality: ignorance that causes the cycle of   reincarnation
positive quality: wisdom of ultimate reality
sacred to: Mahapratisara - Vairochana

EGYPTIAN

North:  Hapy - Neith - Osiris
South: Imset - Isis - Ra
East: Duamutef     Nephthys    Horus
West: Qebehsenuf Sekhmet      Thoth
(these are the four sons of Horus, who appear on canopic jars)

HINDU

North: Soma
South: Yama
East: Indra
West: Varuna

The eight Lokapala, Hindu Lords of the Watchtowers, are each assisted by an elephant:

East: Airavana
Southeast: Pundari-Ka
South: Vamana
Southwest: Kumuda
West: Anjana
Northwest: Pushpadanta
North: Sarvabhauma
Northeast: Supratika

Each direction corresponds to a color in India:

North: green
South: blue
East: white
West: red