Appendix 3: Planetary Hours19

The selection of an auspicious time for beginning a magickal working is an important matter. When a thing is begun, its existence takes on the nature of the conditions under which it was begun. Each hour of the day is ruled by a planet, and takes on the attributes of that planet. You will notice that planetary hours do not take into account Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, as they are considered here as higher octaves of Mercury, Venus, and Mars, respectively. For example, if something is ruled by Uranus, you can use the hour of Mercury. The only other factor you need to know to use the planetary hours is the time of your local sunrise and sunset for any given day, available from your local newspaper. Note: Your sunrise and sunset time may vary from the example if you live in a different location. Your latitude/longitude are already figured into your local paper’s sunrise and sunset times.

Step One. From your local paper, find the sunrise and sunset times for your location and your chosen day. We will use January 2, 1999, 10 degrees latitude, as an example. Sunrise for January 2, 1999, at 10 degrees latitude is at 6 hours and 16 minutes (or 6:16 a.m.) and sunset is at 17 hours and 49 minutes (or 5:49 p.m.).

Step Two. Subtract sunrise time (6 hours 16 minutes) from sunset time (17 hours 49 minutes) to get the number of astrological daylight hours. It is easier to do this if you convert the hours into minutes. For example, 6 hours and 16 minutes equals 376 minutes. 17 hours and 49 minutes equals 1,069 minutes. Now subtract: 1,069 minutes minus 376 minutes equals 693 minutes.

Step Three. Next you should determine how many minutes are in a daylight planetary hour for that particular day. To do this, divide 693 minutes (the number of daylight minutes) by 12. The answer is 58, rounded off. Therefore, a daylight planetary hour for January 2, 1999, at 10 degrees latitude has 58 minutes.

Step Four. Now you know that each daylight planetary hour is roughly 58 minutes. You also know, from step one, that sunrise is at 6:16 a.m. To determine the starting times of each planetary hour, simply add 58 minutes to the sunrise time for the first planetary hour, 58 minutes to that number for the second planetary hour, etc. Therefore, the first hour in our example is 6:16 a.m.–7:14 a.m. The second hour is 7:14 a.m.–8:12 a.m.; and so on. Note that because you rounded up the number of minutes in a sunrise hour, that the last hour doesn’t end exactly at sunset. This is a good reason to give yourself a little “fudge space” when using planetary hours. (You could also skip the rounding-up step.)

Step Five. Now, to determine which sign rules which daylight planetary hour, consult your calendar to determine which day of the week January 2 falls on. You’ll find it’s a Saturday in 1999. Next, turn to page 239 to find the sunrise planetary hour chart. If you follow down the column for Saturday, you will see that the first hour is ruled by Saturn, the second by Jupiter, the third by Mars, and so on.

Step Six. Now you’ve determined the daytime (sunrise) planetary hours. You can use the same formula to determine the night-time (sunset) planetary hours, using sunset as your beginning time and sunrise the next day as your end time. When you get to step 5, remember to consult the sunset table on page 240 rather than the sunrise one.

Planetary Hours
Sunrise

Hour	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
1	Sun	Moon	Mars	Mercury	Jupiter	Venus	Saturn
2	Venus	Saturn	Sun	Moon	Mars	Mercury	Jupiter
3	Mercury	Jupiter	Venus	Saturn	Sun	Moon	Mars
4	Moon	Mars	Mercury	Jupiter	Venus	Saturn	Sun
5	Saturn	Sun	Moon	Mars	Mercury	Jupiter	Venus
6	Jupiter	Venus	Saturn	Sun	Moon	Mars	Mercury
7	Mars	Mercury	Jupiter	Venus	Saturn	Sun	Moon
8	Sun	Moon	Mars	Mercury	Jupiter	Venus	Saturn
9	Venus	Saturn	Sun	Moon	Mars	Mercury	Jupiter
10	Mercury	Jupiter	Venus	Saturn	Sun	Moon	Mars
11	Moon	Mars	Mercury	Jupiter	Venus	Saturn	Sun
12	Saturn	Sun	Moon	Mars	Mercury	Jupiter	Venus

Planetary Hours
Sunset

Hour	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
1	Jupiter	Venus	Saturn	Sun	Moon	Mars	Mercury
2	Mars	Mercury	Jupiter	Venus	Saturn	Sun	Moon
3	Sun	Moon	Mars	Mercury	Jupiter	Venus	Saturn
4	Venus	Saturn	Sun	Moon	Mars	Mercury	Jupiter
5	Mercury	Jupiter	Venus	Saturn	Sun	Moon	Mars
6	Moon	Mars	Mercury	Jupiter	Venus	Saturn	Sun
7	Saturn	Sun	Moon	Mars	Mercury	Jupiter	Venus
8	Jupiter	Venus	Saturn	Sun	Moon	Mars	Mercury
9	Mars	Mercury	Jupiter	Venus	Saturn	Sun	Moon
10	Sun	Moon	Mars	Mercury	Jupiter	Venus	Saturn
11	Venus	Saturn	Sun	Moon	Mars	Mercury	Jupiter
12	Mercury	Jupiter	Venus	Saturn	Sun	Moon	Mars

19. Planetary hour information is condensed from Llewellyn’s 2000 Daily Planetary Guide, pp. 184–185.