Planetary day, hour and...minute?

1
Hello all,

I remember reading a book on Numerology (I think written by Cheiro) that outlined the Planetary day Ruler, Planetary Hour Ruler and a further division of Planetary Sub-Rulers (for lack of a better term, it's not minute ruler because it is in effect for about 4 minutes).

The planetary day and hour rulers are identical to what we are accustomed to in traditional astrology but the sub-rulers...?

The idea is to divide the hours into 15 units of approximately 4 minutes each. I say approximately because when we calculate the hour rulers we divide the day/night into 12 "hours" which are not equal to the clock hours (i.e. long and short hours - we end up with long hours in summer and short hours in winter in the northern hemisphere) as the 12 "hours" are calculated from sunrise to sunset and vice versa.

Why 15 subdivisions? Well, probably because the movement of 1 deg on the MC = 4 minutes (sidereal) and 15 x 4 = 60 minutes (sidereal) = 1 hour (sidereal). There is no further subdivision as 1 deg is considered the space/time that fate "works" (moiria in Greek, which happens to mean both degree aand fate, translated in the arabic qisma which also means degree and fate which then somehow enters English as kismet).

So, with this scheme we have day ruler, hour ruler and "degree" ruler (which covers about 4 minutes of clock time - give and take...).

I have not seen this particular subdivisions in the ancient/medieval texts, what are your comments?

Does anyone here even use this subdivision? Yes, not easy to use something that's in effect for only about 4 minutes.

2
I'm not totally sure that this is relevant but...

Hours weren't always divided into minutes and seconds, so you may be looking at a different hour division. The Roman system was used in some places until quite late - (We still use the word "moment" although people often use it as a synyom for minute now.)

5 points to the hour, 1 point = 12 minutes
8 moments to the point, 40 moments to the hour, 1 moment = 90 seconds
12 ounces to the moment, 1 ounce = 7.5 seconds
1 atom = 1/376 part of a minute

1 ostent = 8 ounces = 1 modern minute
1 minute = 1/10 of an hour or 6 modern minutes

Perhaps there's a 1/15 division of an hour that falls into this set?

Kim
www.kimfarnell.co.uk

3
I thought there was an article for Planetary Hours on Skyscript, but I'm having difficulty finding one? am I mistaken ? if someone knows of a nice, concise article on the subject would love to re-read it... thanks, Granny the forgetful today

4
To Kim,

Thank you for your post.

To granny_skot the forgetful (!):-

In the sequence of planetary days, we know that Saturday is ruled by Saturn, Sunday is ruled by Sun, Monday is ruled by Moon, Tuesday is ruled by Mars, Wednesday is ruled by Mercury, Thursday is ruled by Jupiter and Friday is ruled by Venus. We have 7 planets, hence 7 days in one cycle which we happen to call one week.

The sequence is determined from the Chaldean order of the planets (the planets are ordered in their spherical hierarchy, from highest to lowest: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon which happens to be the order of the relative speeds as well from slowest to fastest). If you put the seven planets on a heptagram (a seven pointed star that can be drawn without lifting your pen), in the Chaldean order from Saturn to Moon around the heptagram, the day rulers can be determined by tracing the lines that make up the heptagram itself.

So, we have our day rulers. But day ruler governs whole day period. The ancients also required a shorter ruler period. What then is more appropriate than using the sun as the marker? When sun is above horizon we have day and when sun is below the horizon we have night. This twofold division is still too long for the ancients. So, they divided the day (and the night) into 12 equal temporal divisions which we call hours (not clock hours but long and short hours depending on the season). Why 12? Most of the ancients who were astrologers were also mathematicians - and in those times they didn't have decimal system (they didn't yet know how to handle decimal points). They could handle whole numbers (naturally) and those "unwholistic" numbers are handled via fractions. When you have to divide using fractions you naturally would divide so that you get simple fractions to handle with. 12 is the natural division as 12 can be divided easily with 2, 3, 4 and 6 (even with 8, 9 and 10 are easy to handle as 8/12 = 2/3, 9/12 = 3/4, 10/12 = 5/6...).

So, 12 hours of day and 12 hours of night give 24 hours of day and night. If you start (let say) Saturn as the ruler of Saturday and count 24 following the Chaldean order you'll end up with Sun on the 25th which happens to be the day ruler for the following day. The symmetry of the day rulers is preserved even with this addition of 24 hourly division (which by itself also follows the Chaldean order!).

When I first saw this, I thought wow! this is really good (well I have this obsession with symmetery!).

Now, there existed a modern/ancient astrologer (I don't know, I am guessing) who must have thought that we need a further smaller division (we call this sub-hour ruler, for lack of a better term) than the hourly division. So as not to break the symmetry of the hour ruler, the astrologer would have to divide the hour into a number that when you start with the hour ruler as the first sub-hour ruler, it should end with the same hour ruler... an example is better.

Let say that we need to divide Saturn's hour into a further division of sub-hour rulers. We start the first sub-hour ruler as Saturn (equals hour ruler itself), then the next sub-hour ruler = Jupiter, then Mars (again the Chaldean order) and it must end with the same hour ruler i.e. Saturn because the next hour ruler is Jupiter which is after Saturn. Hence, the addition of the sub-hour rulers does not break the symmetry outlined by the hour rulers. Logic dictates that we need to divide the hour into multiple of 7 plus one i.e. we have to divide the hour into 7+1=8 or 7x2+1=15, or 7x3+1=22, or...So, we have an option of sub-division of 8, 15, 22, 29, ...

So why 15? Probably because when we divide an hour by 15, we get 4 minutes of time which is the time required for a degree of change on the MC (which I mentioned in an the earlier post).

To wrap up we then get for Saturday:-
Start at sunrise.
Day ruler = Saturn
Hour rulers:-
1 Saturn (same as day ruler)
2 Jupiter
3 Mars
...
24 Mars
25 Sun (same as day ruler of the following day i.e. Sunday)

Within hour ruler of Saturn:-
Sub-hour ruler:-
1) 0-4 minutes Saturn (same as hour ruler)
2) 4-8 minutes Jupiter
3) 8-12 minutes Mars
...
14) 52-56 Moon
15) 56-60 Saturn

After 15 sub-hour rulers = 60 minutes = 1 hour the next sub-hour ruler in this case would be Jupiter (after Saturn) which is also the next hour ruler!