Planetary Hours is the story of the Sun’s relationship with the planets
They divide the natural day (sunrise to sunset) and night (sunset to sunrise) into 12 unequal hours each, following the Chaldean order of planetary speeds (Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon).
The ruling planet of the first daylight hour governs the entire day, explaining the origins of the days of the week.
practical uses in astrological magic, elections, and talismans—such as timing rituals, invocations, or daily practices
Based on the natural day (sunrise to sunset) divided into 12 unequal hours, varying by location and season (longer daylight hours in summer). They follow the Chaldean order (slowest to fastest planets: Saturn → Jupiter → Mars → Sun → Venus → Mercury → Moon). The first daylight hour's ruler governs the day, linking to the seven-day week.
The interaction of 7 planets and 24 hours creates inherent patterns via modular arithmetic (remainders in cycles). This explains the shift from Chaldean order to days of the week (steps of 3) and reveals a "third planetary order" (Mercury → Saturn → Mars → Venus → Moon → Jupiter → Sun), which aligns with Dorothean triplicities (elemental rulerships) and even atomic numbers. These demonstrate cosmic unity, refuting claims of arbitrariness
deeper cycles show how the interaction of 7 planets and 24 hours creates patterns like the Chaldean order, days of the week order, and a "third planetary order" (Mercury, Saturn, Mars, Venus, Moon, Jupiter, Sun), revealed through modular arithmetic. This highlights inherent mathematical-spiritual structures in the cosmos, refuting 17th-century criticisms that planetary hours are arbitrary.
Wednesday is mercury day - Saturday night is mercury night (4 days later)
Take actions in align with the planetary day ruler and hour ruler
iPhone app “Hours”
“In astrology, there are a lot of examples of “archons currently in charge”, and “archons”, and “sub-archons” and “magistrates”. This is one of those. So, today is Friday. Venus rules from dawn on Friday to dawn on Saturday. She’s the “archon presently in charge”. But from dusk to dawn, Mars is the sub-archon or archon or magistrate — Venus needs her beauty sleep. Mars will wake her if it’s important enough for her to take full command of the situation, but otherwise he does what she’s left in her standing orders: promote sex, connection, diplomacy, creativity, networking. He’s doing Venus’ will, but in a Mars-like way. So the planetary hours of Venus-Day are like duty-officers, under Venus’s direct command: they’re doing Venus’s bidding, in as Venus like a way as they can manage. At night, they’re doing Venus’s bidding under Mars’s direction: might be a little hotter, a little heavier, a little more aggressive and assertive.”
The “hour” in traditional cosmology is not a neutral slice of time but an aperture through which defined intelligences operate. Day and night are each divided into twelve unequal hours (sunrise–sunset and sunset–sunrise), varying in length with the season; the first hour of a day belongs to its planetary ruler (Sunday begins with the Sun, Monday with the Moon), with the rest cycling in the Chaldean order—Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon. Each hour thus concentrates a planetary quality, making timing essential for rites of consecration, healing, oath-taking, or funerary work. Because angels and archangels were mapped onto planets in Jewish, Byzantine, and Islamic systems, the hour also corresponded to an angelic agent and an archangelic overseer, giving three layers: planetary tone, angelic operator, archangelic authority. Skilled practice therefore combined the planetary lord (essence), the zodiacal or decanic nuance (precision), and the angelic hierarchy (authorization). Beyond ritual, physicians timed bloodletting and remedies, artisans their metallurgical work, and rulers their oaths according to these hours. For the premodern world, time itself was charged, and mastery meant calculation of sunrise and sunset, fluency in planetary rulerships, and knowledge of angelic taxonomy: the right hour, the right operation, and the right intermediary producing results considered reproducible rather than miraculous. —Mystic E.B.