Planetary Hours

PLAN-ih-tehr-ee owrz

Definition

Planetary hours split each day and each night into 12 unequal "seasonal" hours, every one ruled by one of the seven traditional planets in the descending Chaldean order — Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon. The first seasonal hour after sunrise belongs to the planet that rules that day of the week (Sunday to the Sun, Monday to the Moon, Tuesday to Mars, Wednesday to Mercury, Thursday to Jupiter, Friday to Venus, Saturday to Saturn). The hours after it run down through the Chaldean order and keep cycling, so the next sunrise lands again on that day's ruling planet.

In Tradition

Across several traditions — late Hellenistic, medieval Arabic, medieval Latin, and the modern Western magical revival — planetary hours are treated as a basic framework for electional and timing work. Crane describes them as a traditional time system: each day begins at sunrise, each of the twelve seasonal daylight hours is governed in turn by one of the seven planets, and that daily cycle is what gives the days of the week their planetary rulers.

In Practice

In horary astrology, planetary hours test whether a chart is fit to judge: the planet ruling the hour should agree with the Ascendant sign — by shared rulership, by triplicity, or simply by similar nature — and agreement marks the chart as radical, sound enough to read. In medical astrology, a remedy is best given during the hour ruled by that remedy's planet. In electional astrology, you match the planet ruling the chosen hour to the nature of the undertaking — a Venus hour for matters of love, a Mars hour for combat, a Mercury hour for communication. Modern Western magical practice — the renaissance-magic revival through Picatrix and Agrippa, set down today by Christopher Warnock — times talismans and magical operations to particular planetary hours, alongside the matching lunar mansions and planetary days.

Historical Origin

Holden traces the formal seven-zone assignment to an unnamed astrologer, possibly of the 2nd century BCE, with Paul of Alexandria the only Classical-period astrologer to treat it in detail. The system passed into the medieval Latin transmission through Bonatti, Sahl, and the Picatrix (Greer-Warnock translation, 2010-2011). It is treated systematically in Crane's Astrological Roots, Holden's A History of Horoscopic Astrology, and Lehman's Essential Dignities.

Etymology

Origin: Latin. Meaning: From planetarius + hora, "hour." The Chaldean order arranges planets by apparent orbital speed: Saturn (slowest) to Moon (fastest)..

Definition

In Tradition

In Practice

Historical Origin

Etymology

Further Reading