The Qliphothic order Satariel (Hebrew: סאטריאל, Satari'el) is the name of the 3rd Qlipha, corresponding to the sephirah Binah and the planet Saturn. The name is generally translated as “the Concealing Ones” or “the Veiling Powers,” deriving from the Hebrew root s-t-r (סתר), meaning “to hide” or “to cover.” Unlike the more overtly violent or aggressive Qliphoth, Satariel represents a passive, absorptive darkness—the subtle concealment of spirit by form, the dense veil of material existence that obscures the divine light.

Position on the Tree of Life
Satariel holds the position of the third Qlipha, the dark counterpart of Binah (Understanding) on the Tree of Life. In the Hermetic Qabalah, Binah is the first fully receptive sephirah, the Great Mother and the source of form and limitation. Satariel is the distortion of this principle: instead of the wise containment that gives structure to creation, it manifests as a suffocating, formless oppression that traps consciousness in the material world. The path associated with Satariel is the 32nd Path, linking the Qliphothic triad to the rest of the infernal tree.

Astrological and Planetary Correspondence
Satariel is assigned to Saturn (שבתי, Shabbathai). Saturn’s symbolism—restriction, time, cold, distance, and the barrenness of old age—mirrors the Qlipha’s nature exactly. In the Qliphoth, the Saturnine force manifests not as the wise discipline of the lawgiver but as an implacable, crushing inertia, the “weight” of matter that buries the spirit under layers of physical and psychic density. The astrological link reinforces Satariel’s identity as the hidden, obstructive face of limitation.

Historical Context
The earliest explicit listing of Satariel as a Qliphic order appears in Mathers’s transcription of the Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage (1898), a grimoire that provides a hierarchy of evil spirits, each governed by a demonic king. However, the systematic table of Qliphoth—ten evil sephiroth with their demonic orders—is largely a product of 19th- and early 20th-century Hermetic Qabalah, particularly in the work of S. L. MacGregor Mathers and, later, Aleister Crowley’s Liber 777 (1909). In Crowley’s schema, Satariel sits in the third row of Column VIII (Orders of Qliphoth), corresponding to Binah.

Earlier sources that influenced the Western occult Qliphoth include the Zohar (13th century), where the “other side” (sitra achra) is described as a realm of uncleanness and shells, though the specific name Satariel does not appear there. The name itself likely derives from a combination of the Hebrew root s-t-r and the suffix -el (God), giving “God hides” or “the hidden God”—a direct reversal of the revelation (Galgalim) associated with the sphere of Binah in the holy side. By the time of Dion Fortune’s The Mystical Qabalah (1935), Satariel was firmly established in the Western magical tradition as the Qlipha of “those who conceal,” the root of materialism and the denial of spirit.

In Liber 777
In Crowley’s table, at the third row of Column VIII (Orders of Qliphoth, step 32, Path 32), the entry reads **Satariel". No other correspondences (such as colors, perfumes, or magical images) are given in the primary table for this Qlipha; the cell stands as a single, stark title. This isolation emphasizes that, in the 777 schema, Satariel’s primary function is to mark the third station on the infernal descent, a place of pure concealment and Saturnine stillness without further elaboration.