Planetary Hours; Do you calculate them?

[Aidron]

Who here calculates the planetary hours? A sudden spark of curiosity overcame me as I was sitting here calculating the moonlight hours to discern when the hour of Saturn would take place, and thankfully, I'll be awake then. :lol:

I calculate them for every magical working, and even outside of that, if the information is readily available, such as when we purchase a paper or I'm not too lazy to go online. I have in the past calculated the planetary hours before and after dates, again out of curiosity. Most, if not all of my dates have occured during the hour of Mars, sunlight or moonlight hours. Now if you know your stuff, I'm sure you're about ready to slap me and say "Oh yeah, that's a real prime time to set up a date!" Which I admit it honestly could, since I concern Mars with lust, but that's not what I'm out for on a date so it that is probably one reason why they turned out so horribly and every one of them were so combative. :eek: I'll do it for appointments and other things too, just for the heck of it. It's actually one of the few times I enjoy math (eww!).

So if anyone calculates them, share your experiences, especially if you're as anal or curious as I am as to calculate them for mundane purposes. :hehehehe:

For those who don't know what they are, it's using simple math (truly it is simple if I can understand it as I am totally inept when it comes to mathematics) after finding the time the sun rises and sets (sunlight hours) or the moon rises and sets (moonlight hours), which can be found in your local paper or online; click here for an online source (http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneDay.html) and discerning when a planetary hour occurs to help influence things. I was trying to discern when the hour of Saturn occurs for when I cleanse and bless my new altar tonight as Saturn (for me) relates to banishing negativity, among other things. Of course, that's just a very brief definition which doesn't do it justice, so if it intrigues like it did me when I started out, research it.

[Morr]

you totally lost me half way through the post LOL
i SUCK at this type of stuff.. Even though i have a computer thing that tells me exactly when and which planetary hour the moon & sun are at, I'm the biggest spaz when it comes to this stuff...
The only corrospondences I use are: Waxing/Full/Wanning/Dark Moon, Colors, Days, Herbs & Sometimes the time of day.. Even though I like doing my rituals on Midnight (my fave time of the night, and the hour I most connect to..)..

I applaud anyone who sits down and takes the time to calculate this planetary times & the whole astrological dealio that I have no clue in..

[Aidron]

you totally lost me half way through the post LOL
i SUCK at this type of stuff.. Even though i have a computer thing that tells me exactly when and which planetary hour the moon & sun are at, I'm the biggest spaz when it comes to this stuff...
The only corrospondences I use are: Waxing/Full/Wanning/Dark Moon, Colors, Days, Herbs & Sometimes the time of day.. Even though I like doing my rituals on Midnight (my fave time of the night, and the hour I most connect to..)..

I applaud anyone who sits down and takes the time to calculate this planetary times & the whole astrological dealio that I have no clue in..


:lol:

It's really quite simple, and I'll show you. The below took me only ten minutes, from the time I discovered when the moon rose till I discovered when the hour of Saturn would take place.

First, since we didn't get a newspaper today, I simply went to the site above, entered the information it asked for and it gave me the information in a simple format. I wrote down what time the moon rose and what time it set, which is:

6:19 p.m. (moonrise) 7:25 a.m. (moonset on Sunday morning)

All right, then I converted the moonset time to military time (just to make the calculation more smooth and easy to do for me personally) which would make it 1700 hours. Add the minutes on (25) and you get 1725.

After that you need to know how many minutes are in a hour on this night. Multiply 6 (for 6:19 p.m., moonrise) by 60 (how many minutes are in a hour) which equals 360. Good, now just write that down. Then I moved on to do the same for the moonset time, which we converted to 1725. Multiply 17 (the hour in military time) by 60 (again, how many minutes are in a hour) which equals 1020. Add on the minutes (25) and you get 1045.

Now here comes the part where it may get tricky for some people. Subtract 360 from 1045 and you will wind up with 685. Simply divide that by 12 (how many planetary hours there are) and you wind up with 57.083333, etc. Now, ignore decimals as they're not important. Simply round down (since it's 57.0) and you wind up with 56, if I didn't forget how to round up and down, which I seem to always do. I'd only be off a minute or two, which is no big deal to be honest. So there are a total of 56 minutes in each hour for this night. Why is that important? It lets you know when the hours begin and end.

Now remember, moonrise occurs at 6:19 p.m. as we found out in the beginning. Simply add on 56 minutes to that, which gives you 7:15 p.m. The first hour (ruled by Mercury, if I recall correctly) takes place between 6:19 p.m. and 7:15 p.m. and what you'd want to do is if you wanted to add Mercury's energies to your working, begin within that hour. Finishing in that hour is not required. If Mercury isn't an hour that works for you, simply keep adding 56 minutes (again, how many minutes are in an hour on this night) until you wind up with a planetary hour that fits you. I had to do this three times until Saturn came up as beginning at 8:11 p.m. and ending at 9:07 p.m. so tonight I will begin my ritual after 8:11 p.m. to gain the influences of Saturn in my work.

One last note, you have to do this for both day and night, beginning at sunrise and ending at sunset for planetary hours during the day, and beginning at moonrise and ending at moonset for planetary hours during the night (which I chose since I wanted to perform this close to dusk, the time of the element water for me as water relates to purification). You also can't keep the same calculations for more than one day, as the sun and moon never rise or set the same time each day. Once you get the hang of it though it's all of 10 minutes out of your time (minus the cost for a paper or the time it spent to go online) and the results are well worth the effort if you ask me.

Hope I didn't confuse you (or anyone else) further, but knowing me I probably did, so I apologize in advance. :lol:

[Sylvan]

I understand the concept, but it's too complicated for me. Honestly, other than Venus & Mars, I don't know what planet goes with what. I'm happy just coordinating with the moon phase, myself...

[Aidron]

I understand the concept, but it's too complicated for me. Honestly, other than Venus & Mars, I don't know what planet goes with what. I'm happy just coordinating with the moon phase, myself...


I can understand that. I infact did not calculate them until I was 6-8 years into the my craft. For many people I think, including me, it takes time to work up to a degree of complexity I now utilize. Otherwise I'd just become overwhelmed, lost, and completely ruin anything I attempted as I would have a massive headache. :lol: For example five years ago whenever I picked up a book by Silver RavenWolf (accuracy on what she spoke of aside) the sheer volume of information and the size of the books intimidated me to no end, and at the same time served to infuriate me because I felt overwhelmed. Her latest book "The Ultimate Book of Shadows" however I bought and realized after reading it in four days I had moved on from being overwhelmed and infuriated, which of course made me feel good.

If you want though, here are a few planets and associations I fixate to them:

Mercury (day: Wednesday) - The mind in all aspects (wisdom, memory, intelligence), communication, travel, legal issues, justice.

Jupiter (day: Thursday) - Abundance, prosperity, careers, success, bringing things to you, dreams.

Saturn (day: Saturday) - Banishing, cleansings, karmic issues, removal of obstacles, death and rebirth (metaphorical and literal), change.

[Theres]

i used to do this, and still do for really big workings (which aren't as often as they used to be).
all i'd do is check the almanac for the hours of daylight, convert that to minutes and divide by 12. that gives you the length of each hour (which is NOT 60 minutes, except on the equinoxes), and you just start counting them off from sunrise.

if my scanner was working i'd post the chart i use. it really is easier than it sounds.

[Aidron]

i used to do this, and still do for really big workings (which aren't as often as they used to be).
all i'd do is check the almanac for the hours of daylight, convert that to minutes and divide by 12. that gives you the length of each hour (which is NOT 60 minutes, except on the equinoxes), and you just start counting them off from sunrise.

if my scanner was working i'd post the chart i use. it really is easier than it sounds.


I picked up a Llewellyn Alamanac this year, figuring I'd give it a try. Big mistake. Not only does it not provide any information you are speaking of, but it doesn't tell when the moon is void of course, and only denotes one day for full moon. I'm not sure if it even denotes a date for the dark moon at all. Pft.

If I had an alamanac like yours I'd probably cut my calculating time in half (to about five minutes), but oh well. I rarely do calculate it for anything outside of an actual ritual, but in hindsight do often calculate it just for my own curiosity.

Soon as your scanner gets fixed you owe us a picture. ;)

[Anahita]

There is a great book by Maria Kay Simms called A Time for Magick. It not only tells you how to calculate planetary hours for yourself, but it has a whole section of handy tables in the back so you can be lazy and look it up. I personally never have used them. I'm still on the most basic of spells and timing issues.

- Anahita