Magic Square Talisman – Luck, Mojo or Karma

Magic squares have fascinated humanity throughout the ages, and have been around for over 4,120 years. They are found in a number of cultures, including Egypt and India, engraved on stone or metal and worn as talismans, the belief being that magic squares had astrological and divinatory qualities, their usage ensuring longevity and prevention of diseases.
The Kubera-Kolam is a floor painting used in India which is in the form of a magic square of order three. It is essentially the same as the Lo Shu Square, but with 19 added to each number, giving a magic constant of 72.
23 28 21
22 24 26
27 20 25

Talismans are psychic batteries. They store psychic energy and can render it to the owner of the talisman, to whichever purpose he/she deems..

The above has been the subject of more modern interpretation than almost any other print, including a two-volume book by Peter-Klaus Schuster, and a very influential discussion in his Dürer monograph by Erwin Panofsky.

Suggestions that a series of engravings on the subject was planned are not generally accepted. Instead it seems more likely that the “I” refers to the first of the three types of melancholia defined by the German humanist writer Cornelius Agrippa. In this type, Melencholia Imaginativa, which he held artists to be subject to, ‘imagination’ predominates over ‘mind’ or ‘reason’.