Hello sue,

Academic as of for philosphical and discussion purposes (when explaining houses and the reason Culpeper places certain planets as "dignified" in certain houses e.g. Culpeper puts Saturn and Mercury as "dignified" in the first) and not for practical uses...

Okay, that makes sense. I think you can tell a lot about the various authors and the systems they use by the emphasis that is placed on order of the planets. As a philosophical system there is so much more revealed than the mere planets themselves. One of the difficulties with fully understanding the Mithraic religion has been an unusual ordering of the planets. The order of the planets ? Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Moon, Sun and Saturn ? does not correspond to any known order but is believed to be a compromise between the days of the week and the old Chaldean order of planets. Like many groups, they had a philosophy that believed in the descent of the soul through the various levels and then their ascent again when they die. They also had the seven levels of initiation that members had, the highest being Pater or Saturn.