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Magickal Hours in Short
Different planets rule different hours in a day. This in itself is convenient as it gives practitioners the ability to use the planets that are visible to the eye on any day of the week. While the break down may seem a bit difficult, it isn't really. After I wrote this all out, I realized it was easier to understand when I learned it as a kid with a person hoping backward to teach me.
There are 24 hours in a day that are broken into 7 planetary hours for the day light hours and 7 planetary hours for night time.
Each day begins at sunrise and the first hour is always the hour of the ruling planet. Take for example Sunday. Sunday is ruled by the sun; therefore the sun is given the first hour. If it was Monday, the moon rules Monday making the first light hour the hour of the moon.
The hop back, in Irish dance, this is a hop and step back or two moves in one. Again kind of easier having some show you when you're a kid.
The second hour of light goes to the next planet which can be a bit tricky. When determining the hour of the next planet, we have to do a hop back (go backwards and skip a day). So using our Sunday example, the next day behind Sunday is Saturday which is hoped back over making Friday the next planetary hour. The third hour would hop back another day skipping Thursday and going to Wednesday, the fourth hour hops back skipping over Tuesday going to Monday, the fifth hour hops back to Saturday (skipping Sunday), the sixth hour belongs to Thursday (hoping over Friday), and the seventh hour is Tuesday (hoping over Wednesday). After this, your back to the day you started on which is Sunday in this example. Using this example, Sunday would correspond to night hours that begin at sun set. This means the first hour after sun set will belong to the planet ruling Sunday, which would be the sun.
Now, in order to find the exact times, we have always used the farmer's almanac, but feel free to use what you will. The on line version goes to the Naval station and can be found at the below link. You can place in your information and it will calculate the rise and set time of the sun in your area for one year. If you live in a no name rural town chose the closest town you can get and make sure your within 5-10 minutes of using the planet.
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneYear.php
How to Calculate the Planetary Hours.
We are currently in august so lets say its august 1st. on august 1st the sun rose at 4:48 am (04:48 military time) and set at 7:12 pm (military time 19:12). This means the day light is 14 hours and 24 minutes long. In order to figure out how long each night and day phases is, simply divide 14 hours and 24 minutes by 7 as there are 7 planets. O, so it may help to multiply the 14 hours by 60 as there are 60 minutes in an hour, then ad the extra 24 minutes to it.
14 hours X 60 = 840 minutes. Plus the extra 24 minutes =864 minutes of light for that day.