An Absence of Astrolog

After years of running Astrolog under WINE on my Mac laptop, I suddenly find myself without it. The reason is that I installed Chrome OS Flex on the laptop and removed the Macintosh operating system. This OS is still in beta and there are numerous glitches. One of them is an inability to install Linux, after which I could install WINE and then run Astrolog.

On my granddaughter's laptop, I removed the Windows operating system that was capable of running astrolog.exe directly and replace it with Ubuntu. Again, I'm having trouble installing WINE, so the net result is that I can't run Astrolog on either laptop for the moment. I'll have to rely on online programs to keep track of my transits.

However, the Astrolog website links to openastro.org that has an Ubuntu repository that I'm keen to test out. Figure 1 shows a screenshot.

Figure 1

Unfortunately, I get the following error message:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:

openastro.org : Depends :  imagemagick

E: unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

Obviously this is something that I need to keep working on. Another promising link that the Astrolog website provides is to Morinus touted as a "Free Astrological Program Written in Python, Using The Swiss Ephemeris". Mind you, the site hasn't been modified since March 18th of 2017. Figure 2 shows a screenshot.

Figure 2

Again, this will take a little more research as I need to install Python from within Chrome OS Flex. Meanwhile, I always have Astrodienst to fall back on. Figure 3 shows a screenshot of my transits for today.

Figure 3

As can be seen, Venus and Mars are rapidly moving toward another conjunction. This upcoming conjunction of the two planets is the third that will occur within a space of about eight months. The dates of these conjunctions are:

• Tuesday, July 13th 2021
• Saturday, February 12th 2022
• Saturday, March 12th 2022

I wrote about the likely effects of these conjunctions in my previous post titled Mars-Venus Conjunction. 

The site astrowin.org is quite comprehensive and will display transits to a natal chart in two different forms as well as supplying many other features. See Figures 4 and 5.

Figure 4

Figure 5

2022: What Does The Year Ahead Hold?

I want to approach this question in terms of the chart I drew up for 8:10am in London on January 13th 2020. I feel this is the seed chart from which all the events of the past two years have sprung. See Figure 1.

Figure 1

This is a remarkable chart featuring as it does the conjunction of Sun, Ceres, Pluto, Saturn and Mercury. The interplay between Saturn and Pluto is key here because the former represents the force holding together existing structures and the latter is the force that is transforming their very foundations. When we look to the year ahead, we need to look at the current and upcoming angular relationship between these two planets. Yes, Pluto is a planet!

Figure 2

Figure 2 shows the transit picture as of today, December 30th 2021. At the moment it can be seen that Saturn is relatively inactive, not aspecting any natal planets significantly. However, there is a very active T-square involving transiting Ceres/North Node at the apex in square to natal Venus and natal Moon. Transiting Jupiter is passing over natal Venus which serves to amplify the energy of the T-square. With Ceres involved, it would seem that food shortages caused by supply chain disruptions will dominate the early part of the year.

By June 3rd 2022 however, transiting Saturn moving rapidly through Aquarius will station in 25°15' in rough semisextile to the natal stellium in Capricorn and closely opposite the natal Moon in 26°24' of Leo. I'm not emphasising house positions here because I arbitrarily chose sunrise on January 13th as the time of the chart. Transiting Ceres will have reached the natal North Node by this time. There's an interesting line up of Mars in 7° Aries, Venus in 7° Taurus and Ceres in 7° Cancer. This is just transient of course but it synchronised with the Saturn station. The suffering of the public (represented by the Moon) will reach its apex around this time and maybe subside a little as Saturn retrogrades. 

Saturn will retrograde to 18°35' Aquarius by October 22nd 2022 before moving on into Pisces in 2023. That's looking too far ahead. To my mind, the start of June should bring some interesting developments.

ALGOL

I've long known of the fixed star Algol's evil reputation but was reminded of it again only today when I watched the following video about the lunar eclipse on November 19th of the current year (2021). A transcript of the video can be found at the end of this post.

The author of the video points out that the Moon, at the time of the coming eclipse, will be conjunct Algol. Figure 1 shows a chart drawn up for the time of the eclipse in Jakarta:

Figure 1

As can be seen, the eclipse occurs in the fixed signs of Taurus and Scorpio with Jupiter located near the apex of a T-square in Aquarius. Mars is located earlier in Scorpio than the Moon but will pass over its position (and Algol) on December 9th, which the author of the video says may be the time when the full effects of the eclipse manifest.

I was surprised to find that Algol is not listed among the fixed stars whose positions can be displayed in Astrolog (which is may I had to manually insert it into Figure 1). I used Stellarium to locate the celestial latitude and longitude of Algol. See Figures 2 and 3.

Figure 2

Figure 3

Much has been written about Algol and its malign influence but astronomically the star is quite interesting as well:

Fixed star Algol, Beta Persei, is a 2.1 magnitude, rare triple star and eclipsing binary, located in the Medusa’s Head, carried in the left hand of the Hero, Perseus Constellation. The name Algol comes from Al Ghoul, an Arabic word رئيس الغول  meaning  Head of the Ogre. The English translation became Demon Star, with other names being Satan’s Head, the Spectre’s Head. Algol appears to blink ... every 69 hours, its magnitude dipping for about 10 hours before returning to full brightness again.

Algol, alias Caput Medusa, is the Demon herself. Indeed she is, without doubt, counted the most malefic of all stars in astrology ... Medusa’s Head, the meaning of the Latin title, is being held in Perseus’s hand, which is star β in his constellation. It causes misfortune, violence, decapitation, hanging, electrocution and mob violence.

Algol represents the head of the Gorgon Medusa who was slain by Perseus. Medusa, who was the only mortal one of the three Gorgon sisters, was originally a beautiful maiden, but her hair was changed into hissing serpents by Minerva in consequence of her having become by Neptune the mother of Chrysaor and Pegasus in one of Minerva’s temples. This gave her so fearful an appearance that everyone who looked at her was changed into stone. Source.

The final paragraph in the above quote has connotations of genetic modification that are quite relevant in today's era of "gain of function" research and release. It will be interesting to see how things play out over the next three weeks. I'm sure our psychopathic overlords are planning something special for Christmas.

In conclusion, it is to be noted that:

(The eclipse) will also be the longest lunar eclipse in 580 years, lasting about 3 hours, 28 minutes and 23 seconds, and also the longest this century ... (it) will fall just shy of being total; 97.4% of the moon's diameter will become immersed in the Earth's dark umbral shadow at maximum eclipse, leaving just the southernmost limb ever-so-slightly beyond the outer edge of the umbra. Source.

Transcript from video:

hi i'm Joni petrie today i want to talk

about the month of November and we have

some very significant events that are

about to happen in the month of November

one of the main features that i always

look to as an astrologer are eclipses

and we will be having the lunar eclipse

in November on November 19th

this will set up a whole array of

major emotional changes

around the world i've been talking a lot

about the grand

finale what do i mean by that really

what i mean is everything has been

mounting and building

over the past year of 2021

and now everything comes to the

combination point with a major

explosive

event

this will probably be more like in the

month of December and January that we're

going to feel it the most but let me

just tell you

November is the month you're going to

see the direction it's all going in

as we approach the eclipse season what

they are is actually when the sun and

the moon come together with Rahu and Ketu

Rahu being the north node of the moon

and Ketu being the south node of the moon

how powerful is that think about what

the sun and moon represent

they represent the male the female the

whole entire set up here on planet earth

mother father night day

positive negative forces

and i don't mean negative in a bad way i

mean this is the electric charges of

things we have to have this polarity

that makes the world go round

but considering what an eclipse is

eclipses are when you have the darkening

of the light of the light of the sun or

the light of the moon and in that

darkness always

something is revealed when we go into

that darkness think symbolically we

darken and we go into that quiet

darkness where all the secrets and

things can become uncovered

then we have the return of the light

comes back

so in that darkness things are revealed

that we did not know now this goes to

what's going on globally in the world

and it's about time we get some answers

here right

and

it also applies to your life personally

because

there will be something that will be

revealed to you

that you didn't know about in your life

that will give your life great

understanding and meaning so look to

these eclipses as something powerful so

the lunar eclipse that happens

the 19th of November

is

three degrees of taurus which is

extraordinarily meaningful

but then again two weeks following

December 4th we're going to have the

solar eclipse

and this is going to really between

those two week periods bring to light

something that will be

very surprising i might say shocking to

the world so watch how this all unfolds

but going back to this lunar eclipse

that happens on the 19th of November

what i think is going to really be

revealed

is

a lot

of

world leaders

are going to show their true colours

of their

losing their head

explosions of emotion why do i say that

three degrees of taurus where we will

have this

lunar eclipse full moon

is exactly conjunct the fixed star Algol

and this is considered to be the most

violent

and the most destructive

fixed star of the heavens this is

astrology the language of the stars this

star

is said to be

the most violent

they say it represents decapitation

this is huge that the lunar eclipse

happens on this star

so what does that mean decapitation it

means losing your head losing your

temper being out of control

you better watch in your own life don't

let this affect you

in such a negative way as it could

keep your cool keep your calm

and always ask

yourself do i have control over this

situation if you do do something about

it

but let me just say you're going to see

people in the news people that rule

countries

losing it

this is what this is going to bring

about and you know what always happens

out of that i must say

the truth comes out

once something is comes to an explosive

event

then the clearing reveals what it was

all about

this is what's finally happening

at this time

moving into December but as we move into

December let me just give you fair

warning

mars is going to be going into scorpio

triggering where the eclipses are

through December and January and this is

going to be

well let me just say it could be very

war-like

and i have been predicting that this

year of 2021

we'll have the remnants

of war

because people are losing it people are

angry people have been frustrated they

have not been told the truth in so many

instances and we know it now

it used to be that we didn't know

because

the media everything was preventing

things from coming out now people have

the freedom to really explore what's

happening

because we have the internet because we

have

all of these aspects of social media

that we can truly see what's been

happening behind the scenes under the

surface and now

well i gotta say a lot of people don't

have a lot of trust in their leaders

anymore based on what they are seeing

so throughout this month of November we

have one thing and another

occurring continually leading up to the

grand

finale as i've been calling it so we

have this new opening

an opening to truth and opening to

awareness and opening to awakening to

the truth been talking about this for a

while

what a time to be on planet earth to see

all the revelations and the changes

finally coming about

yes we had things a lot calmer before

but we were all asleep before

now we see the reality and the truth of

it all what's behind the scenes

and now

there is so much opportunity for

spiritual growth

and let me talk about what i feel the

month of November how you can use this

for your highest good

especially probably one of the most

meaningful holidays we celebrate in the

united states called thanksgiving it

will be November 25th

it's always on the fourth Thursday of

the month i think it's very meaningful

as well that it's on a Thursday

because Thursday is Jupiter's day

and Jupiter is the planet that deals

with spirituality deals with higher

mindedness truth and there's nothing

more higher mindedness than to come from

a place

of

gratitude

thanksgiving is a holiday that we

celebrate in the United States

it's actually

our birthday in

essence for the United States of America

but

here's what it's truly about this

holiday everyone comes together in a

family family and friends come together

and we celebrate

what we're thankful for

how beautiful is that

this empowers your life in ways beyond

comprehension you see when we come from

a place of gratitude what happens is

that energy that we put out in terms of

respecting

and telling people how grateful we are

and how much we love them

what you put out

is always what's returned back

this is the law of the universe that is

why we're here

we're not here to hate and be angry and

resentful we are here to love

be compassionate

and heal

Moon Out Of Bounds

There is actually a site titled OUT OF BOUNDS ASTROLOGY that discusses the topic of the Moon being "out of bounds", defining it to be when "the declination of the moon in a chart is greater than 23 degrees and 27 minutes north or south". Declination measures the angular distance of an object north or south of the Celestial Equator, the maximum declination of the Sun being ±23°27'. North declination is regarded as positive and south as negative. This is depicted in Figure 1.

Figure 1

The site gives this explanation of Moon out of bounds on the psychology of an individual:

If you or someone you know has a moon out of bounds–found predominantly in the signs of Gemini, Cancer, Sagittarius, and Capricorn–they are likely to exist emotionally in a realm outside of traditional expectations. The emotional outlaw, one with a moon out of bounds tends to make their own rules concerning how to feel about/react to a given stimulus. If living within the bounds of societal constructs, they often tire of dominant trends and experience a pull to escape to a new or remote place. In the city or the country, these are the people who live on society’s fringes in some way or another.

Another site, FORREST ASTROLOGY, notes that:

Earth’s angle of tilt varies over very long scales of time, but it is currently at about 23°28′ according to the Solar Fire Help files. Wikipedia gives 23°26′ ... This maximum limit of 23°28′ declination, south or north, applies rigidly to the Sun. But not to the Moon or the planets. They can go beyond it. Mercury and Mars can reach 27° and Venus can, occasionally, go a degree further. The rest tend to stay within the tropics.

Figure 2 illustrates the situation where the Moon is out of bounds and where it is not.

Figure 2

So interestingly, Mercury, Venus and Mars can also be out of bounds, not just the Moon. The author of the site then goes on to say this about the effects of this lunar phenomenon on an individual:

What does it mean astrologically for the Moon to be Out of Bounds? Start with one merrily anarchic notion: when the Moon’s declination exceeds 23°28′ North or 23°28′ South, it has escaped the physical space dominated by the gravitational “boss” of the solar system, the Sun.

Let the metaphors free-associate.

The Moon is then, in other words, out of the King’s sight. No longer under Daddy’s thumb. We might say that has moved beyond the Pale. Gone out of control. Or gone wild. It has broken the rules. It has shattered the boundaries, broken the mould, crossed the Rubicon. Bravely, or drunkenly, the Moon has said, “Roll the dice.”

The Out of Bounds Moon is spontaneous, emancipated, liberated, released in its own recognisance, and utterly on its own. It has loudly proclaimed, “You can take this job (. . . marriage, church, obligation, moral principle, town, duty . . .) and shove it.” The Moon has claimed its genius, its passion, and its right to be itself. No need to obfuscate, to be diplomatic, or to lie to anyone anymore—unless you feel like it. No more coprophagous grin. No need to worry about staying in anyone’s good graces. Out of Bounds, the Moon no longer plays the game. It rejects all rules that are not of its own making. “Free at last, free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are finally free at last!,” said Martin Luther King, Jr.

The words stir the blood. But we need to let them stir the mind as well.

Structure, discipline, and a world in which our actions have consequences—these are not purely negative things. Society and its values can have a steadying effect upon us, even when we feel frustrated by them. The Out of Bounds Moon, like everything else in astrology, has an unpleasant, dangerous side as well as a divine purpose. Its dark side is sociopathic, even criminal—or merely selfish and insensitive to others. It can be cold, even inhuman.

You may detect some of the underlying spirit of the planet Uranus and the sign Aquarius in these words. That is quite accurate. In my experience, an Out of Bounds Moon has distinctly Aquarian quality. We see the familiar Uranian “holy trinity” at work—the Genius, the Revolutionary and the Criminal. All three of them stand outside the normal structure of society, applying leverage to it—and meeting resistance, condemnation, and consequences for it.

As with Aquarian or Uranian influences, the Out of Bounds Moon often thrusts alienating circumstances upon a person from outside. This is of course the classic working of synchronicity—what we meet (or fail to face) in our inner world is encountered in the “random” realities of our outer lives.

Inwardly, the Out of Bounds Moon often correlates with feelings of being an outsider, of not fitting in, of not having a place in this world. This can be painful—and it can also lead to an attitude of not giving a damn. Or to passivity. Or to resentment. And to radical forms of existential creativity.

The site's author also discusses the frequency with which Moon out of bounds occurs: 

More broadly, there are some years in which many babies are born with Out of Bounds Moons, and some years in which none at all are. This is related to the 18.6 year retrograde cycle of the Moon’s orbital plane—what creates the lunar nodes. (9) We will spare you the details, but here is the bottom line. Every 18.6 years, the Moon reaches its maximum possible declination of 28.5E, a full five degrees outside the tropics. In the years halfway between, we get a kind of “low tide” effect, with the Moon never getting more than 18.5E from the celestial equator. Under those latter conditions the Out of Bounds Moon cannot exist at all. No one born in those years has one.

Thus, over the time-scale of 18.6 years, about half the people born might have an Out of Bounds Moon and about half them could not possibly have one. Furthermore, some of the “good” years for Out of Bounds Moons are more productive than others. That is because times when the Moon goes further Out of Bounds, it stays that way for longer as well. The odds improve.

Even in the “good” years, every couple of weeks the Moon’s monthly orbit brings it back “within bounds” as it passes through the neutral ground between maximum northern and maximum southern declination. It may, in other words, be wildly Out of Bounds in one person’s natal chart—but in the chart of a person born just a week later, the Moon is in 0E declination, as normal as vanilla ice cream. But then a week after that, it is wildly Out of Bounds again.

You really have to calculate it, is the bottom line.

Remembering all our caveats, here are the absolute peak years for Out of Bounds Moon births in living memory: 1913, 1931-32, 1950, 1969, 1987-88, 2006. We will have another one in 2024-25. Remember to give it at least a couple of years on either side. During those years a lot of kids were born with Out of Bounds Moons. But they were mixed in with a large population of more steady, conventional types. Looking at those years, note how the correlations with periods of social unrest and social creativity are rather unmistakable. As ever in astrology, what is “in the air” at given moment lives on for decades longer in holographic form in the children.

The author has a lot more to say on the topic so it's best to go the site and read it all. Another site of interest that I discovered is an Out of Bounds Planet Calculator. Once a date of birth is entered, the determination is made as to what planets were out of bounds at birth but also when progressed planets ceased to be out of bounds and became out of bounds. According to the calculator, it turns out that my Moon was out of bounds at the time of my birth. Here are the details:

Date of Birth: 04/03/49

Natal Out-of-Bounds Planets

Moon     24.59 N 

Progressed Out-of-Bounds Status

Age 5

Moon ceased to be out-of-bounds.

Age 13

Moon became out-of-bounds.

Age 18

Moon ceased to be out-of-bounds.

Age 27

Moon became out-of-bounds.

Age 32

Moon ceased to be out-of-bounds.

Mercury became out-of-bounds.

Age 40

Moon became out-of-bounds.

Age 45

Moon ceased to be out-of-bounds.

Age 51

Mercury ceased to be out-of-bounds.

Age 55

Moon became out-of-bounds.

Age 56

Venus became out-of-bounds.

Age 60

Moon ceased to be out-of-bounds.

Age 68

Moon became out-of-bounds.

Age 72

Moon ceased to be out-of-bounds.

Age 80

Venus ceased to be out-of-bounds.

Age 82

Moon became out-of-bounds.

Age 87

Moon ceased to be out-of-bounds.

Age 95

Moon became out-of-bounds.

Age 98

Mars became out-of-bounds.

Age 100

Moon ceased to be out-of-bounds.

Interesting stuff. However, astro.com provides additional tables for birth charts that show the declinations of natal planets. This reveals that my natal Moon is not out of bounds at all. See Figure 3.

Figure 3

As can be seen, the Moon is listed as being at a declination of 22°54'30'' N. This is close to the limit of 23°27' but not outside it. Only Uranus at 23°37'17"N and Pluto at 24°1'0''N are out of bounds. The problem with the Out of Bounds Planet Calculator can be seen in Figure 4:

Figure 4

As can be seen, there is no input for time or place, only the date. This is not good enough in the case of the Moon because it moves so swiftly. I was born at about 6:56am and I suspect that later in the day, the Moon did move out of bounds. However, when I was born, it was clearly within bounds. Thus all the other data from the Out of Bounds Planet Calculator is to be treated with suspicion.

Astrolog is the program that I use for my astrology calculations and I was curious to see if it would display the declinations of planets. At first sight it doesn't but there is a command line switch -sr0 that instructs the program to display declinations instead of latitudes (the default). The output is shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5

As can seen, the results are the same as those shown in Figure 3, when taken to the nearest minute. Further investigation, using Astrolog, shows that the Moon had a declination of 23°28' N at 10:40am on the day of my birth and only then was it out of bounds.

Once again, Astrolog has shown its capabilities, albeit latent in this case, which is all the more remarkable given that the program was developed in 1994 or possibly earlier.

Comparative Planetology

Figure 1 shows a screenshot of a cool animation depicting the rotation, tilt and relative sizes of the planets in the solar system. Click here for the animation.

Figure 1: source

What is doesn't depict of course are the orbits of the planets, their eccentricities and the angle that these orbits make the plane formed by the Earth's orbit. Figure 2 is shows a table of eccentricities along with perihelions and aphelions (closest and furthest approaches to the Sun).

Figure 2: source

Notice how the perihelion of Pluto takes it inside the orbit of Neptune. Ceres is not listed in the table but it has an eccentricity of 0.0758 with an angle of inclination to the plane of the Earth's orbit of 10.59°. Here is a YouTube video that explains these angles inclination and is fact part of a 33 episode series on comparative planetology.

Figure 3 displays the values of these planetary inclinations:

Figure 3: source

One could well ask what is the relevance to Astrology of all this astronomical detail? Let's use the planetary orbital inclinations to address this question. The angles correspond in an astrological chart to the maximum possible celestial latitudes, both North and South, that a planet can have. Figure 4 shows today's celestial longitudes.

Figure 4: from Astrolog

As can be seen, the celestial latitude of the Sun is 0°00' as it should be because the ecliptic plane from which the angles are measured is defined by the Earth's path around the Sun. Notice how all the absolute values of all the latitudes conform with the values shown in Figure 3. The North Node of the Moon is where the Moon's orbit intersects the Ecliptic and so its value, like that of the Sun, is always 0°00'. The orbit of the Moon itself has an inclination of 5.145°. The orbit of Chiron has an eccentricity of 0.3823 and an inclination of 6.93°. Like the Moon, all the planets, centaurs, asteroids and dwarf planets have north and south nodes where their orbits intersect the plane of the ecliptic. Some astrologers take these nodes into account but most don't.

The point is that these angles are commonly displayed in an astrological chart for a reason and that is that two coordinates (celestial latitude and longitude) are needed to define an astronomical body's position. Much attention is given to the longitude. For example in Figure 4, it can be seen that Mercury is in 27°37' of Virgo. Far less attention is given to the latitude but when planets are conjunct both in terms of latitude and longitude, this aspect can be particularly potent. One has only to look back to mid-January of 2020 to realise this. See Figure 5.

Figure 5: from Astrolog

It was the spectacular conjunction in Capricorn, occurring in January 13th/14th of 2020, that marked the onset of the Covid pandemic. Notice how the positions of the Sun and Pluto differ by only 0°01' of longitude and that Pluto's latitude is -0°40' (0°40' of south latitude). Remember that Pluto's latitude ranges between -17° and +17° but at this time it was almost zero. Similarly Saturn was not only a mere 0°04' away from an exact conjunction with the Sun but it was also only 0°02' away from the plane of the ecliptic. It is the closeness, in terms of both latitude and longitude of the planets involved in this conjunction, that made it so potent. Its effects will be felt for decades to come.

All the astronomical details concerning the planets are relevant in some way astrologically. To take another example, it has always struck me how Venus, the planet of harmony, and its higher octave Neptune, both have orbits that almost perfectly circular. This means that the eccentricities of their orbits are almost zero (0.007 and 0.009 respectively). Astrologers must know their astronomy, first and foremost before anything else.

Space, Time and Cosmic Cycles

I watched an interesting video by Randall Carlson titled Hidden Mathematics: Ancient Knowledge of Space, Time and Cosmic Cycles:

There was an interesting section of the video which I took a screenshot of and which I've displayed in Figure 1:

Figure 1

What struck me was that One Decan of the Great Year constitutes 720 solar years, equivalent to 10 days, 240 hours or 1440 minutes of a Sacred Year (the Great Year viewed in terms of 365.25 days). I was reminded of Meher Baba's words:

My next advent, after I drop this body, will be after 700 years, and that will mark the end and the beginning of a cycle of cycles. All cycles of time in illusion end and begin after 700 to 1400 years. There have been and will be millions and billions of such cycles in a cycle of cycles. Thus, there is no end to illusion, which always remains illusion. Lord Meher.

Baba's time span of 700 and 1400 years correspond closely to length of one and two decans of the Great Year. Three decans constitute an Astrological Age such as the Age of Pisces and the Age of Aquarius. The shape associated with the decan is the tetrahedron that has four triangular faces, each with 180°, making for a total of 720°. See Figure 2.

Figure 2

It's interesting how four of the five Platonic solids are linked to the Great Year, with the icosahedron being linked to the 3600 year Saros cycle. Most the major catastrophes over the past 150,000 years have occurred as the vernal equinox enters the constellation of Leo or Aquarius. The last one occurred about 12,900 years before the present era. See Figure 3.

Figure 3

The video also reminds us of the prominence of the number 108 in the dimensions of the Sun the Moon and their distances from Earth. See Figure 4.

Figure 4

Randall Carlson also makes the point that its important to retain awareness of the old systems of measurement. If we used only the metric system then a lot would be lost. We can thank the United States for retaining use of some of the old Imperial measurements.

Planetary Associations

In this post, I want to look at planetary associations, particularly those between Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn as well as the luminaries (Sun and Moon). The first association I'll examine is that of metals. What metals are associated with what planets. 

PLANETS AND METALS

To quote from "Letters and Numbers Book" by Zachary K. Hubbard:

To the Greeks, the word planet meant “wanderer”, and they earned this name because they were the only objects in the sky wandering to the naked eye. It is for these 7- heavenly bodies that we have the 7-days of the week, as we learned about in Chapter 5. In Alchemy, the sun is associated with gold, the moon with silver, Mars with iron, Mercury with quicksilver (what we commonly call mercury), Jupiter with tin, Venus with copper, and Saturn with lead. Above all, notice it is the sun representing gold, and Saturn

representing Lead. The moon representing silver is also fascinating and later you will learn about The Wizard of Oz and why Dorothy wore silver slippers on the yellow brick (gold) road in the book version of the story, which is entirely related. Dorothy and Toto aside, most commonly in Alchemy you will hear the reference of Lead into Gold, meaning from one end of the spectrum to the opposite, playing on the principle of Polarity. As we mentioned earlier, it is the sun that is 93-million-miles from earth, the true keeper of time, and it is ‘Saturn’, the most distant of the planets to the ancients and having Ordinal Gematria of 93 that is considered to be the keeper of time by the occult. Understand, it is no coincidence that these two heavenly objects, the bookends of time of the 7-Luminaries, represent Gold and Lead in this ancient study, and share overlap in letters and numbers. Instead, it is a reminder of duality, and how everything in this world has an equal and an opposite. 

Figure 1 summarises this information in a table:

Figure 1: source

In terms of atomic number (the number of protons in the nucleus), we have:

• ☉ Au Gold: 79 
• ☽ Ag Silver: 47
• ♂︎Fe Iron: 26
• ☿ Hg Mercury: 80
• ♃ Sn Tin: 50
• ♀︎Cu Copper: 29
• ♄ Pb Lead: 82

Figure 2 shows the position of these metals in the Periodic Table:

Figure 2: source

Of the atomic number of the planets is not related to their numbers as derived from Gematria, mentioned in the earlier quote. This brings us to our second association: what numbers are associated with the various planets when Gematria is applied to their English names? 

PLANETS AND GEMATRIA

There are various ciphers that can be applied and all of them are accessible via an Internet site called Germatrinator. I'm going to use Ordinal, Reduced Ordinal, Ordinal Reversed, Reduced Ordinal Reversed and English Extended. See the previous link for a detailed explanation of these ciphers. Figure 3 shows the results for the Sun.

Figure 3: source

Figures 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 shows the results for the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn.

Figure 4: source

Figure 5: source

Figure 6: source

Figure 7: source

Figure 8: source

Figure 9: source

The English Extended cipher is closest to the Greek and Hebrew system of assigning values to numbers. In this system, once ten is reached the progression is 20, 30 etc. until 100 is reached after which the progression is 200, 300 etc. The English Ordinal is probably the most straight forward cipher with numbers assigned as A=1, B=2 etc. until Z=26 is reached, after which the numbering returns to 1. In Full Reduction, 10 is treated as 1, 11 as 2 etc. For these three ciphers, the results are:

• Sun: 450 and 54 and 9 - common digital root of 9 with 450 being a reflection of 54
• Moon: 210 and 57 and 21 - common digital root of 3
• Mars: 231 and 51 and 15 - common digital root of 6 with 51 being a reflection of 15
• Mercury: 1228 and 103 and 40 - common digital root of 4
• Jupiter: 684 and 99 and 36 - common digital root of 9
• Venus: 855 and 81 and 18 - common digital root of 9 with 81 being a reflection of 18
• Saturn: 741 and 93 and 21 - common digital root of 3

The digital roots of all three numbers must always be the same. Reflections are important in gematria, hence my comments above. The Reverse Ordinal and Reverse Full Reduction are the same as their non-reverse counterparts except that counting starts from Z and proceeds toward A. Again, digital roots for both are the same. However, the results for the Moon (51 and 15) are the same for Mars listed earlier which is a bit confusing. It's probably better to ignore the Reverse ciphers when it comes to the planets.

PLANETS AND MAGIC SQUARES

Another association of interest are the magic squares and their associated magic constants. Figures 10 and 11 show the magic squares of the various planets and luminaries.

Figure 11: source

So to summarise, the magic constants for the planets and luminaries:

• Sun: 111
• Moon: 369
• Mars: 65
• Mercury: 260
• Jupiter: 34
• Venus: 175
• Saturn: 15

PLANETS AND THE DAYS AND HOURS OF THE WEEK

Another association is that between the planets and the days and hours of the week. As this Wikipedia article explains:

The planetary hours are an ancient system in which one of the seven classical planets is given rulership over each day and various parts of the day. Developed in Hellenistic astrology, it has possible roots in older Babylonian astrology, and it is the origin of the names of the days of the week as used in English and numerous other languages.

The classical planets are Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury and the Moon, and they take rulership over the hours in this sequence.

The sequence is from slowest- to fastest-moving as the planets appear in the night sky, and so is from furthest to nearest in the planetary spheres model. This order has come to be known as the "Chaldean order".

As each day is divided into 24 hours, the first hour of a day is ruled by the planet three places down in the Chaldean order from the planet ruling the first hour of the preceding day, that is a day with its first hour ruled by the Sun ("Sunday") is followed by a day with its first hour ruled by the Moon ("Monday"), followed by Mars ("Tuesday"), Mercury ("Wednesday"), Jupiter ("Thursday"), Venus ("Friday") and Saturn ("Saturday"), again followed by Sunday, yielding the familiar naming of the days of the week.

In other words:

Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, ...

This same system works for the hours of the day as shown in Figure 12:

Figure 12: source

PLANETS AND THE PARTS OF THE HUMAN BODY

Yet another association is that between the planets and the human body. Figure 13 summarises information about this:

Figure 13: source

There's are many other associations of course but this post is at least an introduction to the topic. I may add some additional information at a later date.