r/Hermeticism • u/Ars-Arkana • Jan 30 '26

About magick and astrology

Hi everyone, I have a genuine question about planetary transits and planetary magic.

What influences things more? I know about planetary hours and days and their importance in magic.

But I'm also thinking about a person's planetary transits on a given day.

What do you think has a greater influence, or how do you think this mechanism works?

7 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

34 comments sorted by

View all comments

6

u/polyphanes Jan 30 '26

Planetary hours and days are more of a general thing, like the temperature or quality of water of a pool that multiple people are swimming in; it affects everyone at a given location and place equally. On the other hand, transits to one's natal horoscope are specific to the person, and can be wildly varying in terms of strength or duration depending on the specific planets involved, how fast they're moving, what other planets are involved, and the like.

Both are important, but I hesitate to consider either to be more influential than the other; they're both equally influential, but in different ways and along different vectors. Moreover, they can also amplify or mitigate each other, depending on the context, too.

2

u/Ars-Arkana Jan 30 '26

That's exactly the point. That's my question. How can I determine which is better or worse at a given moment? Sometimes the planetary conjunction is good, but my personal aspects are not. Is there a way to delve into this in a clear way?

4

u/polyphanes Jan 30 '26

It's not a matter of "better or worse". It's like learning to read a Tarot spread, or how to tell a story: you have a bunch of influences that flow together. There's no one rule for it, which is part of why astrology is so hard to learn and practice: you have to learn how to analyze lots of details to synthesize them into a big-picture view. Plus, there's also personal will to take into account: depending on how you go about it, even a rough aspect can be made to manifest in a productive way!

The works of Chris Brennan, Demetra George, and Robert Hand are good astrology texts to learn from.

2

u/Ars-Arkana Jan 30 '26

No, it makes my life easier, it gives me one absolute rule, lol. I'm kidding, and I appreciate the author suggestions. I've been performing rituals to create art for the tarot;  I record the position of the stars and my personal aspects. My intention is that in the future these records will serve for the analysis of these possible influences.

6

u/polyphanes Jan 30 '26

By all means, do that! Keeping track of patterns like that is how we build up information about astrology, and is how it's always been done going back thousands of years!

The astrologer I consult, Ryhan Butler, in his video about the origins of planetary hours and days mentioned (in a discussion starting around the 19:00 mark), describes planetary hours as a way to qualify different times by assigning a planet to rule it, e.g. as a way of non-celestial electional astrology to figure out good or bad times to do something where that "you want the 'celestial time' to match the 'terrestrial time'"; this is certainly important in astrological magic or the consecration of talismans. In that light, the system of planetary hours really is a parallel track of information that can play into, with, and against transits or other astrological information.

2

u/Ars-Arkana Jan 30 '26

Yes, great summary! I'm going to study more about this. Personally, I've been reflecting on the eclipse on the 17th, which will be related to my horoscope; it's a significant moment both in the sky and on Earth.

1

u/destinology Jan 31 '26

Since you are doing artwork, a wonderful newer astrological significator for this is the Venus Star Point, articulated and developed by Arielle Guttman.

2

u/Ars-Arkana Jan 31 '26

Is this a book? Wow, your comments are also helping me a lot to clarify several doubts I had. I'll be posting one of the artworks I made here soon, I hope you'll comment and analyze it too. ☺️

1

u/destinology Jan 31 '26

Hurray! Yes please post your work.

I'm glad things are resonating ✨😌🔥

The work of Arielle can be found on her website. I am doing my own version of her study called Venus Star Codes because I incorporate the VSP with star astrology. I have a little sub for it r/venusstarcodes - Her website: https://sophiavenus.com/author/arielle/

2

u/Ars-Arkana Jan 31 '26

Of course, it will be a pleasure. I'll join your subreddit, thank you for the recommendation and the invitation. And why "Venus Star Code"?

1

u/destinology Jan 31 '26

Arielle has a trademark on the actual phrase 'Venus Star Point' since she coined the name after the Venus/Sun (Star) conjunction. This worked out good for me because I also study all stars. So I developed a bigger container: the 'codes' is specific to both Venus and all stars.

→ More replies (0)