[konanoileaski]

dear friends,

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homep...5/sacredpl.htm

be well, be love.

david

the twelve sacred planets

contents
1. ancient cultures
2. the sacred planets
3. mars/mercury controversy
4. planetary ages
5. planetary characteristics

appendices
1. the search for vulcan
2. lilith and the second moon
3. sounds from unseen planets
abbreviations

1. ancient cultures

the seven sacred planets of the ancients are: saturn, jupiter, mars, venus, mercury, and the sun and moon.1 the sun and moon are not, of course, planets in the usual sense of the term, but from a geocentric perspective all these seven bodies appear to revolve around the earth. theosophy explains that the sun and moon are really substitutes for two hidden planets, one between mercury and the sun, and the other near the moon.

uranus, neptune, and pluto were discovered in 1781, 1846, and 1930 respectively. in 2006 pluto was downgraded to the status of a ‘dwarf planet’.2 it is often said that ancient cultures did not refer to any of these planets because they are not readily visible to the naked eye and were therefore unknown. h.p. blavatsky comments:

the now universal error of attributing to the ancients the knowledge of only seven planets, simply because they mentioned no others, is based on the same general ignorance of their occult doctrines. the question is not whether they were, or were not, aware of the existence of the later discovered planets; but whether the reverence paid by them to the four exoteric and three secret great gods – the star-angels, had not some special reason. the writer ventures to say there was such a reason, and it is this. had they known of as many planets as we do now (and this question can hardly be decided at present, either way), they would have still connected with their religious worship only the seven, because these seven are directly and specially connected with our earth ...3

the seven planets are not limited to this number because the ancients knew of no others, but simply because they were the primitive or primordial houses of the seven logoi. there may be nine and ninety-nine other planets discovered – this does not alter the fact of these seven alone being sacred.4

like other writers, hpb says that earlier cultures did in fact know of more planets:

even with the sun and the moon thrown out of the calculation, the ancients seem to have known of seven planets. how many more are known to us, so far, if we throw out the earth and moon? seven, and no more: seven primary or principal planets, the rest planetoids rather than planets.5

another proof ... that the ancient initiates knew of more than seven planets is to be found in the vishnu purana, book ii., ch. xii., where, describing the chariots attached to dhruva (the pole star), parasara speaks of ‘the chariots of the nine planets,’ which are attached by aerial cords.6

the seven sacred planets and the earth form a particular hierarchy within the solar kingdom because they are closely united in origin and destiny. together they form the sacred ogdoad of the ancients.7 according to theosophy, there are really 12 sacred planets. the ancients, too, sometimes referred to 12 spiritual planetaries or rectors, known as the twelve counsel gods and called in the etrusco-roman language ‘consentes dii’ – ‘consenting or cooperating gods’.8

the ancients arranged the seven planets in the following order: saturn, jupiter, mars, sun, venus, mercury, moon. this order is defined by their geocentric radii, i.e. the relative time occupied by each in its apparent orbit of the earth: approx. 30 years, 12 years, 2 years, 1 year, 7 months, 3 months, and 1 month respectively.9

the order of the days of the week is determined as follows. imagine that the first hour of a particular day is under the governance of saturn. each subsequent hour is under the governance of the subsequent planet. the 8th, 15th, and 22nd hours are therefore governed by saturn. the 24th hour is governed by mars, and the first hour of the next day is governed by the sun: saturn-day (saturday) is therefore followed by sun-day (sunday). the same procedure is followed in determining the remaining five days of the week.10 the order and names of the days of our week are therefore based on ancient astrology. moreover,

[they] were the same in india and in northern europe, and in some parts of asia, a matter which has never yet been satisfactorily explained by our current calendarists and astronomers. the reason is found in the fundamentally identical astrological system common to the entire ancient world.11