The Bull with gryphon’s wings is a composite creature that fuses the solid, chthonic power of the bull with the soaring, solar nature of the gryphon. In this hybrid, the bull’s body retains its earthy mass, while the gryphon’s wings—traditionally those of an eagle—sprout from its shoulders, suggesting a being capable of both rooted stability and transcendent flight. The image does not derive from a single classical myth but rather from the syncretic tradition of magical images that Crowley compiled in Liber 777, where it serves as the visual focus for a specific path on the Tree of Life.

Position on the Tree of Life

This image is assigned to Path 18, the eighteenth path of the Sepher Yetzirah, which connects the sephiroth Chokmah (Wisdom) and Binah (Understanding) on the Tree of Life. In the Hebrew alphabet, Path 18 corresponds to the letter Tzaddi, and in the zodiac it is linked to Aquarius. The path is also associated with the Tarot trump The Star (Atu XVII) in Crowley’s Thoth deck, though the magical image here is distinct from the Tarot symbolism.

Astrological and Planetary Correspondence

While the bull is the natural symbol of Taurus (fixed earth), the gryphon’s wings introduce an air‑fire element, reflecting the Aquarian nature of the path. The combination thus embodies a tension between the fixed, material world and the fluid, intellectual currents of Aquarius. In the planetary scheme of 777, Path 18 is not ruled by a single planet but by the sign Aquarius, whose ruler is Saturn (traditional) or Uranus (modern). The bull‑gryphon therefore mediates between the heavy, structuring force of Saturn and the sudden, liberating energy of Uranus.

Historical Context

The bull with gryphon’s wings does not appear in any single ancient source as a named entity, but it belongs to a widespread family of hybrid guardian creatures. The most famous antecedent is the lamassu of Assyrian and Babylonian palaces—a winged bull with a human head, placed at gateways to ward off evil. The gryphon itself, a lion‑eagle hybrid, was a solar guardian in Greek and Persian art, often associated with Apollo and the griffin of the Hyperboreans. The specific substitution of a gryphon’s wings for the lamassu’s bird‑like wings (and the omission of the human head) creates a more purely theriomorphic image, one that appears in medieval bestiaries and Renaissance magical texts.

In the Hermetic and Qabalistic traditions that influenced Liber 777, such composites were used as magical images—visual keys to the forces of a given path. Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy describes similar figures for the decans and planetary spirits, and later occultists like Eliphas Levi and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn adapted them for the 22 paths. Crowley’s 777 table draws directly from these sources, and the Bull with gryphon’s wings is one of the more obscure entries, likely derived from a manuscript of the Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage or from the Golden Dawn’s Book of Correspondences.

The image also resonates with alchemical symbolism: the bull represents the prima materia or the fixed salt, while the gryphon’s wings signify the volatile spirit. Their union mirrors the coniunctio of opposites necessary for the Great Work. In the context of Path 18, this alchemical marriage points to the transformative journey from the wisdom of Chokmah to the understanding of Binah, a passage that requires both grounded discipline and inspired intuition.

In Liber 777

In the table of Liber 777, at the intersection of Column CLXV (Magical Images of Col. CLXV) and Row 18 (Path 18), the entry reads simply “Bull with gryphon’s wings.” It stands alongside other hybrid images for adjacent paths—such as the Lion on a black horse carrying a viper (Path 17) and the Lion with gryphon’s wings (Path 25)—forming a menagerie of symbolic beasts that map the Qabalistic paths. No further description is given in the table; the image is left to the practitioner’s meditation.