ravenest
I have a question that some of you here might be able to throw some light on.
When reading a book on spiritual hierarchies by Rudolf Steiner I noticed he stated that that the names of the planets Mercury and Venus have been swapped around. An appendix to the book (purported to deal with this ‘problem’) and some observations of The Tree of Life got my curiosity up.
It appears Steiner is suggesting that the order of the planets is; Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon and Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. His obscure reasons (and hints that he is revealing an occult secret here???) seem to be summarized by his suggestion that in earlier times Venus was named Mercury and visa versa. An appendix in the book suggests that this has something to do with shifting the ancient understanding of the Solar System from a geocentric to a heliocentric view point and something to do with Ptolemy (sorry Re. lack of references, I had borrowed the book and have now returned it). I think the idea suggested is something like this; the Earth (and Moon) was seen as the centre of the system, the next circle out was Venus, then Mercury, the Sun, Mars, and so on. In a simplified attempt to correct this to a heliocentric system the positions of Earth / Moon was swapped with the Sun making; Sun, Venus, Mercury, Earth / Moon, Mars, etc.
I notice that this is the order of the planets on the Tree of Life. E.g. going up from Malkuth / Earth, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, etc and conversely back down.
Now, I realize the order of the planets in their orbits out from the Sun and their order on the Tree of Life can be seen as totally separate issues and perhaps one was never meant to represent the other, but there may have been some past connection in peoples understanding of the order of the planets and this Tree of Life arrangement.
I assumed that this order in the Tree of Life came about from observations on the relative momentum of the planets (and Sun and Moon) to each other and from the perspective of Earth observations?
So far all I have managed to find is that this is the “Magical order of the planets”, which doesn’t help much. There is a diagram in Liber Abba (Book IV – A.C.) annoted by the editor (H.B.) which shows this order of planets about the points of a heptagon and inside the heptagon is a heptagram and by following these lines to each point in turn we get the order of the days of the week (by their planetary attribution). H.B. mentions that this has something to do with the Greek system of assigning hours of the day to planets (hence predating G.D.), cycling through this magical order and the first hour of each day being attributed to a different planet, lent it’s name to that day of the week. But this doesn’t help me to understand where this original order came from. {Althoug the order is quiet ‘neat’ as demonstrated by the diagram and also the note that H.B. makes in that; “A striking modern confirmation of the integrity of the alchemical attributions may be made by attributing their traditional metals to the planets (in this figure) by tracing a heptangle, they appear in the order of their atomic weights.”}
Any thoughts or info on this? Either this supposed re-naming of the planets, Ptolemy’s system, how the order of the planets on the Tree of Life came about, or any other relevant insights?
When reading a book on spiritual hierarchies by Rudolf Steiner I noticed he stated that that the names of the planets Mercury and Venus have been swapped around. An appendix to the book (purported to deal with this ‘problem’) and some observations of The Tree of Life got my curiosity up.
It appears Steiner is suggesting that the order of the planets is; Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon and Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. His obscure reasons (and hints that he is revealing an occult secret here???) seem to be summarized by his suggestion that in earlier times Venus was named Mercury and visa versa. An appendix in the book suggests that this has something to do with shifting the ancient understanding of the Solar System from a geocentric to a heliocentric view point and something to do with Ptolemy (sorry Re. lack of references, I had borrowed the book and have now returned it). I think the idea suggested is something like this; the Earth (and Moon) was seen as the centre of the system, the next circle out was Venus, then Mercury, the Sun, Mars, and so on. In a simplified attempt to correct this to a heliocentric system the positions of Earth / Moon was swapped with the Sun making; Sun, Venus, Mercury, Earth / Moon, Mars, etc.
I notice that this is the order of the planets on the Tree of Life. E.g. going up from Malkuth / Earth, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, etc and conversely back down.
Now, I realize the order of the planets in their orbits out from the Sun and their order on the Tree of Life can be seen as totally separate issues and perhaps one was never meant to represent the other, but there may have been some past connection in peoples understanding of the order of the planets and this Tree of Life arrangement.
I assumed that this order in the Tree of Life came about from observations on the relative momentum of the planets (and Sun and Moon) to each other and from the perspective of Earth observations?
So far all I have managed to find is that this is the “Magical order of the planets”, which doesn’t help much. There is a diagram in Liber Abba (Book IV – A.C.) annoted by the editor (H.B.) which shows this order of planets about the points of a heptagon and inside the heptagon is a heptagram and by following these lines to each point in turn we get the order of the days of the week (by their planetary attribution). H.B. mentions that this has something to do with the Greek system of assigning hours of the day to planets (hence predating G.D.), cycling through this magical order and the first hour of each day being attributed to a different planet, lent it’s name to that day of the week. But this doesn’t help me to understand where this original order came from. {Althoug the order is quiet ‘neat’ as demonstrated by the diagram and also the note that H.B. makes in that; “A striking modern confirmation of the integrity of the alchemical attributions may be made by attributing their traditional metals to the planets (in this figure) by tracing a heptangle, they appear in the order of their atomic weights.”}
Any thoughts or info on this? Either this supposed re-naming of the planets, Ptolemy’s system, how the order of the planets on the Tree of Life came about, or any other relevant insights?