Astrology scientifically proven to influence personality

Once again, science may be catching up with ancient knowledge. It seems that some enterprising, open-minded scientists took a new look at astrology and discovered that, indeed, there may very well be a biological imprint that accompanies you from your birth date forward and has a definite, measurable effect on your life!

Check out the article below, reprinted from the Natural News website.
















Principle of astrology proven to be scientific: planetary position imprints biological clocks of mammals

Saturday, December 11, 2010
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com

http://www.naturalnews.com/030698_astrology_scientific_basis.html

(NaturalNews) Mention the word "astrology" and skeptics go into an epileptic fit. The idea that someone's personality could be imprinted at birth according to the position of the sun, moon and planets has long been derided as "quackery" by the so-called "scientific" community which resists any notion based on holistic connections between individuals and the cosmos.

According to the conventional view, your genes and your parenting determine your personality, and the position of planet Earth at the time of your birth has nothing to do with it.

Then again, conventional scientists don't believe the position of the moon has anything to do with life on Earth, either. They dismiss the wisdom that farmers have known for ages -- that planting seeds or transplanting living plants in harmony with the moon cycles results in higher crop yields. Even the seeds inside humans are strongly influenced by the moon, as menstruation cycles and moon cycles are closely synchronized (28 days, roughly).


Researchers demonstrate scientific principle of astrology

Skeptics must be further bewildered by the new research published in Nature Neuroscience and conducted at Vanderbilt University which unintentionally provides scientific support for the fundamental principle of astrology -- namely, that the position of the planets at your time of birth influences your personality.

In this study, not only did the birth month impact personality; it also resulted in measurable functional changes in the brain.

This study, conducted on mice, showed that mice born in the winter showed a "consistent slowing" of their daytime activity. They were also more susceptible to symptoms that we might call "Seasonal Affective Disorder."

The study was carried out by Professor of Biological Sciences Douglas McMahon, graduate student Chris Ciarleglio, post-doctoral fellow Karen Gamble and two additional undergraduate students, none of whom believe in astrology, apparently. They do, of course, believe in science, which is why all their study findings have been draped in the language of science even though the findings are essentially supporting principles of astrology.

"What is particularly striking about our results is the fact that the imprinting affects both the animal's behavior and the cycling of the neurons in the master biological clock in their brains," said Ciarleglio. This is one of the core principles of astrology: That the position of the planets at the time of your birth (which might be called the "season" of your birth) can actually result in changes in your brain physiology which impact lifelong behavior.

Once again, such an idea sounds preposterous to the scientifically trained, unless of course they discover it for themselves, at which point it's all suddenly very "scientific." Instead of calling it "astrology," they're now referring to it as "seasonal biology."


How to discredit real science

It all reminds me of the discovery of cold fusion in 1989 by Fleishmann and Pons, who were widely ridiculed by the arrogant hot fusion researchers who tried to destroy the credibility (and careers) of cold fusion researchers (http://www.naturalnews.com/025925_c...). After the very idea of "cold fusion" was attacked and demolished by these arrogant scientists, it soon returned under a new name: Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR).

LENR has now been verified as true by none other than the U.S. Navy -- along with hundreds of other researchers around the world (see link above). And yet, even today, the conventional scientific community still insists cold fusion doesn't exist and cold fusion researchers are frauds.

Just as there is a solid scientific basis for LENR, there is a scientific basis for astrology, too. The relationship between the Earth, Moon and Sun naturally alter light exposure, temperature, gravitational pull and other conditions that may be sensed by living organisms. To believe in astrology, all that's really required is to grasp the basic concepts of the interrelationships between all living things. Does the position of the sun or moon influence life on Earth? Of course it does: Life as we know it wouldn't even exist without the moon tugging on Earth and preventing its rotational axis from shifting around to the point where radical changes in seasonal temperatures would make life far more challenging. (The moon, in other words, is one of the key "stabilizers" of life on planet Earth because it tends to stabilize the seasons and keep the Earth on a steady rotational plane.)

None of this, of course, means that the position of Saturn today is going to make you win the lottery or find a new love. That's the tabloid version of astrology, not real astrology.


Don't confuse tabloid astrology with real astrology

Even astronomy has its tabloid versions, too, which are entirely non-scientific. For example, every model of our solar system that I've ever seen is a wildly inaccurate tabloid version of reality, with planet sizes ridiculously exaggerated and planet distances not depicted to scale. These silly, non-scientific solar system models imprint a kind of solar system mythology into the minds of schoolchildren and even school teachers. Virtually no one outside the communities of astrophysics and astronomy has any real grasp of the enormity of not merely our solar system, but of our galaxy and the space between neighboring galaxies.

To show a giant sun the size of a basketball, with a depiction of the Earth as a marble-sized planet three inches away is the astronomical equivalent of a gimmicky horoscope claiming you're going to win the lottery today because you were born under the sign of Pisces. Both are fictions. And both are an insult to real science.

In fact, even the whole idea that an "electron" is a piece of physical matter, made up of other "particles" is an insult to real science. The sobering truth of the matter is that "particle physics" doesn't have much to do with actual particles at all. It's all about energies that might, on occasion, vibrate in just the right way so that they momentarily appear to take on the illusion of a particle as measured by our observers -- observers who inevitably alter the outcome of the entire experiment, by the way, once again proving the interrelated nature of things in our universe, including observer and experiment.

The horoscope predictions in the Sunday paper -- as well as much of the hilarious mythology found in the modern description of an atom -- are both simplified, comic-book versions of a larger truth -- the truth that we live in a holistic universe where every bit of physical matter, every bit of energy and every conscious mind impacts the rest of the universe in subtle ways. There is no such thing as an individual who is isolated from the cosmos, because we are of the cosmos and we exist as the physical manifestations of energies that, for our lifetimes, are momentarily organized as beings.

We are made of star stuff, says Carl Sagan. He he's right: We are not only made of star stuff, we are influenced by that stuff, too. And finally, modern science is beginning to catch up to this greater truth that astrologers have known since the dawn of human existence on our tiny planet.

When Is A Moon Really Blue?

We all know the rule that states the Blue Moon is the second Full Moon in any given calendar month.

Well, turns out that was not the case a bout 80 years ago!

Here is a fun and interesting story not only on the origins of the Blue Moon, but how a mistake or misunderstanding can lead to a change in global knowledge!











The Really Strange Story Behind Sunday's Blue Moon

by Joe Rao
SPACE.com Skywatching Columnist
posted 19 November 2010
12:26 pm ET

http://www.space.com/spacewatch/november-full-moon-blue-moon-101119.html

The full moon of November [2010] arrives on Sunday and will bring with it a cosmic addition: It will also be a so-called "blue moon."

"But wait a minute," you might ask. "Isn't a 'blue moon' defined as the second full moon that occurs during a calendar month? Sunday's full moon falls on Nov. 21 and it will be the only full moon in November 2010. So how can it be a 'blue' moon?"

Indeed, November's full moon is blue moon – but only if we follow a rule that's now somewhat obscure.

In fact, the current "two- full moons in one month" rule has superseded an older rule that would allow us to call Sunday's moon "blue." To be clear, the moon does not actually appear a blue color during a blue moon, it has to do with lunar mechanics.

Confused yet?

Well, as the late Paul Harvey used to say — here now, is the rest of the story:


The blue moon rule

Back in the July 1943 issue of Sky & Telescope magazine, in a question and answer column written by Lawrence J. Lafleur, there was a reference made to the term "blue moon."

Lafleur cited the unusual term from a copy of the 1937 edition of the now-defunct Maine Farmers' Almanac (NOT to be confused with The Farmers' Almanac of Lewiston, Maine, which is still in business).

On the almanac page for August 1937, the calendrical meaning for the term "blue moon" was given.
That explanation said that the moon "... usually comes full twelve times in a year, three times for each season."

Occasionally, however, there will come a year when there are 13 full moons during a year, not the usual 12. The almanac explanation continued:

"This was considered a very unfortunate circumstance, especially by the monks who had charge of the calendar of thirteen months for that year, and it upset the regular arrangement of church festivals. For this reason thirteen came to be considered an unlucky number."

And with that extra full moon, it also meant that one of the four seasons would contain four full moons instead of the usual three.

"There are seven Blue Moons in a Lunar Cycle of nineteen years," continued the almanac, ending on the comment that, "In olden times the almanac makers had much difficulty calculating the occurrence of the Blue Moon and this uncertainty gave rise to the expression 'Once in a Blue Moon.'"


An unfortunate oversight

But while LaFleur quoted the almanac's account, he made one very important omission: He never specified the date for this particular blue moon.

As it turned out, in 1937, it occurred on Aug. 21. That was the third full moon in the summer of 1937, a summer season that would see a total of four full moons.

Names were assigned to each moon in a season: For example, the first moon of summer was called the early summer moon, the second was the midsummer moon, and the last was called the late summer moon.

But when a particular season has four moons, the third was apparently called a blue moon so that the fourth and final one can continue to be called the late moon.

So where did we get the "two full moons in a month rule" that is so popular today?


A moon mistake

Once again, we must turn to the pages of Sky & Telescope.

This time, on page 3 of the March 1946 issue, James Hugh Pruett wrote an article, "Once in a Blue Moon," in which he made a reference to the term "blue moon" and referenced LaFleur's article from 1943.

But because Pruett had no specific full moon date for 1937 to fall back on, his interpretation of the ruling given by the Maine Farmers' Almanac was highly subjective. Pruett ultimately came to this conclusion:
"Seven times in 19 years there were – and still are – 13 full moons in a year. This gives 11 months with one full moon each and one with two. This second in a month, so I interpret it, was called Blue Moon."

How unfortunate that Pruett did not have a copy of that 1937 almanac at hand, or else he would have almost certainly noticed that his "two full moons in a single month assumption" would have been totally wrong.

For the blue moon date of Aug. 21 was most definitely not the second full moon that month!


Blue moon myth runs wild

Pruett's 1946 explanation was, of course, the wrong interpretation and it might have been completely forgotten were it not for Deborah Byrd who used it on her popular National Public Radio program, "StarDate" on Jan. 31, 1980.

We could almost say that in the aftermath of her radio show, the incorrect blue moon rule "went viral" — or at least the '80s equivalent of it.

Over the next decade, this new blue moon definition started appearing in diverse places, such as the World Almanac for Kids and the board game Trivial Pursuit.

I must confess here, that even I was involved in helping to perpetuate the new version of the blue moon phenomenon. Nearly 30 years ago, in the Dec. 1, 1982 edition of The New York Times, I made reference to it in that newspaper's "New York Day by Day" column.

And by 1988, the new definition started receiving international press coverage.

Today, Pruett's misinterpreted "two full moons in a month rule" is recognized worldwide. Indeed, Sky & Telescope turned a literary lemon into lemonade, proclaiming later that – however unintentional – it changed pop culture and the English language in unexpected ways.

Meanwhile, the original Maine Farmers' Almanac rule had been all but forgotten.


Playing by the (old) rules

Now, let's come back to this Sunday's full moon.

Under the old Almanac rule, this would technically be a blue moon. In the autumn season of 2010, there are four full moons:
Sept. 23
Oct. 22
Nov. 21
Dec. 21

"But wait," you might say. "Dec. 21 is the first day of winter."

And you would be correct, but only if you live north of the equator in the Northern Hemisphere. South of the equator it's the first day of summer.

In 2010, the solstice comes at 6:38 p.m. EST (2338 UT).

But the moon turns full at 3:13 a.m. EST (0813 UT). That's 15 hours and 25 minutes before the solstice occurs. So the Dec. 21 full moon occurs during the waning hours of fall and qualifies as the fourth full moon of the season.

This means that under the original Maine Almanac rule – the one promoted by Lafleur and later misinterpreted by Pruett – the third full moon of the 2010 fall season on Nov. 21 would be a blue moon.


Choose your blue moon

So what Blue Moon definition tickles your fancy? Is it the second full moon in a calendar month, or (as is the case on Sunday) the third full moon in a season with four?

Maybe it's both. The final decision is solely up to you.

Sunday's full moon will look no different than any other full moon. But the moon can change color in certain conditions.

After forest fires or volcanic eruptions, the moon can appear to take on a bluish or even lavender hue. Soot and ash particles, deposited high in the Earth's atmosphere, can sometimes make the moon appear bluish.

In the aftermath of the massive eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in June 1991, there were reports of blue moons (and even blue suns) worldwide.

We could even call the next full moon (on Dec. 21) a "red moon," but for a different reason: On that day there will be a total eclipse of the moon and, for a short while, the moon will actually glow with a ruddy reddish hue.

.
.
[The "red moon" must belong to us phoenixes :-) ]

Sunspot activity influences telepathic and telekinetic activity

Below are a few excerpts from the book The Intention Experiment by Lynne McTaggart, Free Press, New York, 2007, ISBN 0743276957.

In the chapter titled "The Right Time," she reports on studies and experiments done at times of both low and high geomagnetic activity, particularly sunspot activity. To begin, on page 104, after talking about human heart rate variability and activity, it points out:

"It is not surprising that biological systems like human beings are sensitive to external signals, such as geomagnetic disturbances. Magnetic fields are caused by the flow of electrons and atoms with charge, known as ions, and whenever magnetic forces change, they alter the direction of the flow of these atoms and particles. Ultimately, since living organisms are also composed of particles like electrons, any profound change of magnetic direction may markedly alter their biological processes.

"Once [scientist Franz] Halberg understood the effect of the Earth's geomagnetic field on living things, he renamed his life's work "chronoastrobiology" – the rhythms of biology as affected by astral bodies. The sun was the giant metronome setting the pace for all life."

Further down the road, quite a few scientists did studies and experiments on the geomagnetic influence on brain functioning. I'll share a few of the best. These are just snapshots of the info; if you are interested in all the details, read the book! I highly recommend it!

P. 104: "They discovered that geomagnetic activity has a strong influence on brain functioning. During magnetically stormy days, EEG readings get destabilized. Geomagnetic turbulence also disturbs the balance between certain parts of the brain and profoundly disrupts communication within the nervous system, overactivating certain aspects of the autonomic nervous system and lowering others."

P. 106: "Contact with geomagnetic fields may play a primary role in maintaining the equilibrium of the nervous system, Indeed, the Earth's tiny geomagnetic fluctuations have the most profound effect on the two major engines of the body: the heart and the brain."

P. 107: "Our 'sense of self' and our sense of 'the other' are housed in both temporal loves, but primarily in the left hemisphere, where the language centers are located. To function normally, the left and right temporal lobes must work in harmony. If something upsets this balance, the brain will sense another 'self' and create a hallucination. As Persinger discovered in his experiments, stimulating the right temporal lobe portion of the brain geneates the sense, presence, or feeling of spiritual visions, both good and bad."

P. 107-8: "It would have been tempting for Persinger to conclude that all spiritual experience is simply geomagnetically induced hallucination, except for one unsettling fact: extrasensory perception and other psychic abilities appear to be more acute during particular types of geomagnetic activity. When the Earth is 'calm' and geomagnetic flux at an ebb, telepathic and extrasensory perceptions increase. Even minor environmental changes – from slight variations in the weather to solar patterns – appear to have a profound effect on extrasensory perception or the ability to view things remotely. The reverse occurs with psychokinesis – mental attempts to change physical matter. The power of intention increases when the Earth's energy is agitated."

P. 109-10: "But do geomagnetic fields also affect the strength of our [mental/psychic] transmissions and their effect on the physical world? Research by Stanley Krippner offers a few clues. Krippner wished to rest the hypothesis that psychokinesis is likely to occur on days when the Earth is 'noisy.' He and his team visited Brazilian sensitive Amyr Amiden, known for his extraordinary psychokinetic ability, and set about comparing the time of Amiden's psychokinetic activities with geomagnetic fluctuations in the Brasilia area, where the sessions were taking place."

P. 110: "The team found a significant correlation between Amiden's psychic feats and the daily geomagnetic index for the entire southern hemisphere. For instance, Amiden performed the most feats on March 10 and March 15, which were the days that month with the greatest geomagnetic activity. He produced nothing out of the ordinary on March 20, the geomagnetically quietest day of the month."

P. 110: "Psychologist William Braud carried out some intriguing studies of the effect of geomagnetic fields on intention by examining whether high levels of geomagnetic activity were correlated with powers of remote influence. Braud examined the effect of sending intention to human blood cells and to another person. Like Krippner, he discovered that the success of intention was linked to a 'noisy' sun producing high geomagnetic activity."

P. 110 Besides solar activity, other environmental factors should be considered in working out the best times to send information. A number of scientists, including Persinger, found that certain days and certain times of day influence the success of ESP and psychokinesis . The best results occur around 1 P.M. local sidereal time, which is time measured by our relation to the stars, not the sun. Local sidereal time is worked out as the hour angle of the vernal equinox, where the plane of the Earth's equator would intersect with that of its orbit, if measured out in the heavens. Psychokinetic effects also seem to be greater about every thirteen days, at times when solar wind is modulated."

To enable you to use this information in planning your own telepathic/telekinetic education and experiences, I've included a table of predicted sunspot activity so that you may choose the best times for your activities.

The table below is from the link below. I copied only from 2008, where it appears that the current cycle began since the numbers for November and December of 2008 are the lowest, to the end of the table.

Sunspot prediction by month 1997 to 2019

http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/ssn_predict.txt 

Cycle 24 Sunspot Number Prediction (November 2009)

Year Mon  95%   50%    5%

2008   1   8.0   2.6   0.0

2008   2   7.6   2.4   0.0

2008   3   7.2   2.2   0.0

2008   4   6.8   2.0   0.0

2008   5   6.4   1.9   0.0

2008   6   6.0   1.7   0.0

2008   7   5.7   1.6   0.0

2008   8   5.4   1.4   0.0

2008   9   5.1   1.3   0.0

2008  10   4.8   1.2   0.0

2008  11   4.6   1.1   0.0

2008  12   4.6   1.1   0.0

2009   1   4.7   1.2   0.0

2009   2   5.1   1.3   0.0

2009   3   5.7   1.6   0.0

2009   4   6.5   1.9   0.0

2009   5   7.6   2.5   0.0

2009   6   9.0   3.1   0.0

2009   7  10.5   4.0   0.0

2009   8  12.3   5.0   0.0

2009   9  14.2   6.1   0.0

2009  10  16.4   7.4   0.0

2009  11  18.7   8.8   0.0

2009  12  21.1  10.4   0.0

2010   1  23.7  12.2   0.7

2010   2  26.4  14.0   1.7

2010   3  29.2  16.0   2.8

2010   4  32.1  18.1   4.1

2010   5  35.1  20.3   5.4

2010   6  38.2  22.5   6.9

2010   7  41.3  24.8   8.4

2010   8  44.4  27.2  10.0

2010   9  47.6  29.6  11.7

2010  10  50.7  32.1  13.4

2010  11  53.9  34.5  15.1

2010  12  57.0  37.0  16.9

2011   1  60.1  39.4  18.7

2011   2  63.2  41.8  20.5

2011   3  66.2  44.3  22.3

2011   4  69.2  46.6  24.1

2011   5  72.0  48.9  25.9

2011   6  74.8  51.2  27.6

2011   7  77.5  53.4  29.3

2011   8  80.2  55.6  31.0

2011   9  82.7  57.6  32.6

2011  10  85.1  59.6  34.1

2011  11  87.4  61.5  35.6

2011  12  89.6  63.3  37.1

2012   1  91.6  65.0  38.4

2012   2  93.6  66.6  39.7

2012   3  95.4  68.2  40.9

2012   4  97.1  69.6  42.1

2012   5  98.7  70.9  43.1

2012   6 100.1  72.1  44.1

2012   7 101.4  73.2  44.9

2012   8 102.6  74.2  45.7

2012   9 103.6  75.0  46.4

2012  10 104.5  75.8  47.1

2012  11 105.3  76.4  47.6

2012  12 106.0  77.0  48.0

2013   1 106.5  77.4  48.4

2013   2 106.9  77.8  48.7

2013   3 107.1  78.0  48.8

2013   4 107.3  78.1  48.9

2013   5 107.3  78.1  49.0

2013   6 107.2  78.0  48.9

2013   7 107.0  77.9  48.7

2013   8 106.6  77.6  48.5

2013   9 106.2  77.2  48.2

2013  10 105.6  76.7  47.8

2013  11 105.0  76.2  47.4

2013  12 104.2  75.6  46.9

2014   1 103.4  74.8  46.3

2014   2 102.5  74.1  45.7

2014   3 101.4  73.2  45.0

2014   4 100.3  72.3  44.2

2014   5  99.1  71.3  43.4

2014   6  97.8  70.2  42.6

2014   7  96.5  69.1  41.7

2014   8  95.1  67.9  40.7

2014   9  93.6  66.7  39.7

2014  10  92.1  65.4  38.7

2014  11  90.5  64.1  37.7

2014  12  88.9  62.7  36.6

2015   1  87.2  61.3  35.5

2015   2  85.5  59.9  34.4

2015   3  83.7  58.5  33.2

2015   4  81.9  57.0  32.1

2015   5  80.1  55.5  30.9

2015   6  78.3  54.0  29.8

2015   7  76.4  52.5  28.6

2015   8  74.5  51.0  27.4

2015   9  72.7  49.4  26.2

2015  10  70.8  47.9  25.1

2015  11  68.9  46.4  23.9

2015  12  67.0  44.9  22.8

2016   1  65.1  43.3  21.6

2016   2  63.2  41.8  20.5

2016   3  61.3  40.3  19.4

2016   4  59.4  38.8  18.3

2016   5  57.6  37.4  17.2

2016   6  55.7  35.9  16.2

2016   7  53.9  34.5  15.1

2016   8  52.1  33.1  14.1

2016   9  50.3  31.7  13.2

2016  10  48.6  30.4  12.2

2016  11  46.9  29.1  11.3

2016  12  45.2  27.8  10.4

2017   1  43.5  26.5   9.5

2017   2  41.9  25.3   8.7

2017   3  40.3  24.1   7.9

2017   4  38.8  23.0   7.2

2017   5  37.3  21.8   6.4

2017   6  35.8  20.8   5.7

2017   7  34.4  19.7   5.1

2017   8  33.0  18.7   4.4

2017   9  31.6  17.7   3.8

2017  10  30.3  16.8   3.2

2017  11  29.0  15.8   2.7

2017  12  27.7  15.0   2.2

2018   1  26.5  14.1   1.7

2018   2  25.4  13.3   1.3

2018   3  24.2  12.6   0.9

2018   4  23.2  11.8   0.5

2018   5  22.1  11.1   0.1

2018   6  21.1  10.4   0.0

2018   7  20.1   9.8   0.0

2018   8  19.2   9.2   0.0

2018   9  18.3   8.6   0.0

2018  10  17.4   8.0   0.0

2018  11  16.6   7.5   0.0

2018  12  15.8   7.0   0.0

2019   1  15.0   6.6   0.0

2019   2  14.3   6.1   0.0

2019   3  13.6   5.7   0.0

2019   4  12.9   5.3   0.0

2019   5  12.3   4.9   0.0

2019   6  11.6   4.6   0.0

2019   7  11.0   4.2   0.0

2019   8  10.5   3.9   0.0

2019   9  10.0   3.6   0.0

2019  10   9.4   3.4   0.0

2019  11   9.0   3.1   0.0

2019  12   8.5   2.9   0.0

Connection via String Theory

The new advances into string theory may explain how we all are connected. Perhaps we live on the surface of the cube, and are connected inter-dimensionally via these strings which have end-points in our dimension. This could explain how we "know" when someone is going to contact us, and how we are able to communicate telepathically, and also how we are able to send healing energy to other people.

See the news article below that goes into more detail on how this works:

"Strings link the ultracold with the superhot: perfect liquids suggest theory's math mirrors something real."

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Strings+link+the+ultracold+with+the+superhot:+perfect+liquids+suggest...-a0198714390

Shadows live in a simple world. They glide effortlessly across any sort of surface, oblivious to the higher dimension of space in which 3-D bodies move, collide and sometimes block the paths of rays of light.

Shadows have no idea how important that third dimension is, and how objects in it endow those very shadows with their quasi-physical existence. Indeed, the laws of shadow physics all depend on the third dimension's presence. And just as the clueless inhabitants of the shadow world require an extra dimension to explain how they exist and interact, reality for humans may also depend on an invisible dimension or dimensions unknown.

Physicists, in fact, have long pondered possible higher dimensions beyond the familiar four--three of space and one of time--that describe ordinary experience. Such extra dimensions have emerged as essential features in a sophisticated mathematical pastime known as superstring theory. Believed by some theorists to be the ultimate building blocks of all physical reality, superstrings are supposedly inaccessible to experimental study. If they exist, they would be far too small to detect directly--enlarging a superstring to the size of an amoeba would be the equivalent of making an ant as big as the visible universe. Similarly, the extra dimensions that strings require would probably be far too small to detect by available methods.

So string theory has long remained in the physics version of The Twilight Zone, disconnected from the ordinary world of sight and sound. But now the extra-dimensional math has begun to audition for Reality TV. For the first time, superstring theorists can point to a place where their formulas help other physicists understand something they can see in their experiments.

One such experiment generates matter in its most fiery form--simulating the temperatures of the Big Bang itself. Another probes matter most frigid--atoms vastly colder than even the depths of outer space. At both extremes, matter behaves surprisingly like a liquid, contrary to all expectations. More surprising still, explaining this behavior apparently requires an extra dimension of space, something that superstring theory conveniently provides. And so the scientists who study hot matter, cold matter and string matter have found themselves sharing common ground in an extra-dimensional world.

"It surprised the heck out of us two years ago when we started realizing that this was the case," says physicist Peter Steinberg of Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, N.Y. "It's a once-in-a-generation convergence of scientific communities. None of us really saw this coming."

Cosmic soup

Steinberg and other scientists discussed the new developments recently in Chicago at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Speakers at a session there described the surprising confluence of different physics fields as a sort of perfect storm, with the eye centered on the esoteric idea of a "perfect liquid."

Liquids are usually the Goldilocks state of matter, the not-too-hot, not-too-cold, cohesive yet shapeless assemblages of molecules that exist only in a relatively narrow range of temperatures. Colder, and matter typically becomes solid--rigid and crystalline. Hotter, and matter turns gaseous, with molecules flying about freely and occasionally colliding. Hotter still, and a gas should become plasma, with electrons torn from atoms to form an electromagnetic mélange of charged particles, a gas with flash.

When the universe was very young, and still superhot from the aftermath of the Big Bang, plasma should have been the only state of matter around. And that's what scientists at Brookhaven expected to see when they smashed gold ions together at 99.99 percent of the speed of light using a machine called RHIC (for Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider) RHIC physicists thought the ion collisions would melt the gold's protons and neutrons into a hot plasma of quarks and gluons at a temperature of a trillion kelvins, replicating conditions similar to those a microsecond after the birth of the universe. But instead of a gaslike plasma, the physicists reported in 2005, RHIC served up a hot quark soup, behaving more like a liquid than a plasma or gas.

"It's given us a certain amount of consternation about what to call this stuff," says Barbara Jacak of the RHIC team. "It certainly shows liquidlike properties."

An ordinary plasma's electrically charged particles should block the path of light, for example, just as a thick fog dampens the beams of a car's headlights. But light passes right through RHIC's quark-gluon soup, says Jacak. And free-flying quarks would easily be able to zip through the rarefied molecules of a gas, like a bowling ball scattering any pins in its way. But even the heaviest quarks get stuck in the soup.

"That is really astounding," Jacak says. "It's as if these bowling pins stopped the big giant bowling ball, and the only way they could do that is if they are somehow tied together with strings."

Soon after the RHIC experiments, string theorists realized that their strings might be tying the bowling pins together, explaining the odd liquid like behavior of the quark-gluon plasma. That was a spectacular realization in itself. But around the same time, another branch of physics found itself dipping into a perfect liquid, this time made from cold lithium atoms.

Very cool

In 2002, physicists at Duke University first created what they called a stable, strongly interacting gas of cold atoms, using the isotope lithium-6. Using laser beams to confine and cool the lithium atoms, researchers produced an atomic cloud with a temperature lower than a tenth of a millionth kelvins--barely above absolute zero.

Curiously, when researchers released the cigar-shaped cloud from its laser prison, it expanded at its sides, but not at the tips. Such an odd "elliptical flow" also described the expanding cloud of quarks and gluons produced at RHIC.

"It's quite remarkable that we have such different systems, yet we have this common behavior," says Duke's John E. Thomas, who also spoke at the Chicago meeting.

Such similar flow seemed especially surprising given the wide disparity of the two systems, with a temperature difference of 19 orders of magnitude separating them. In both cases, the flow seemed to signal the features of a liquid--and a liquid with extremely low resistance to flow. Both cases constituted what physicists call a "strongly coupled" system, in which the particles exhibit collective behavior.

Strongly coupled systems are like a baseball stadium with a big crowd, where the fans can perform the wave, rather than a poorly attended game with the crowd so "weakly coupled" that nobody else notices if one fan stands up. In strongly coupled systems, string theory-based calculations suggest, there is a limit to how low the resistance to flow, or viscosity, can go. A liquid with that lowest possible viscosity earns the label "perfect," and both the hot RHIC soup and the cold lithium cloud turn out to be nearly as close to perfect as possible.

This formula for perfection is actually a ratio of viscosity to entropy--a measure of disorder that depends on the system's temperature. For a perfect liquid, the viscosity-entropy ratio is a very small number (about 0.08 in units derived from certain fundamental constants). For ordinary water, the ratio is 380 times higher than that theoretical minimum; liquid helium's ratio is only 0.7, still about nine times higher than perfection. But both RHIC's soup and the lithium atoms approach the theoretical limit even more closely. Cold lithium's ratio is less than 0.5, and the quark-gluon soup is in the neighborhood of 0.2.

Not only does string theory predict the perfect liquid limit for the viscosity-entropy ratio, string math also offers an explanation for how the cold and hot worlds can be so similar. Both systems can be described as something like a shadow world sitting in a higher dimension. Strongly coupled particles are linked by ripples traveling through the extra dimension, says Steinberg, of Brookhaven.

String math describing such ripples stems from an idea called the holographic principle used by string theorists to describe certain kinds of black holes. A black hole's entropy depends on its surface area--as though all the information in its three-dimensional interior is stored on its two-dimensional surface. (The "holographic" label is an allusion to ordinary holograms, where 3-D images are coated on a 2-D surface, like an emblem on a credit card.) The holographic principle has value because in some cases the math for a complex 3-D system (neglecting time) can be too hard to solve, but the equivalent 4-D math provides simpler equations to describe the same phenomena.

"The point is that we have two different kinds of systems capturing the same kind of physics," says string theorist Clifford Johnson of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. "String theory provides us with a dictionary that translates between these two systems."

One of the two systems is a realm of four spatial dimensions where the string math describes gravity and quantum theory; the other is the 3-D world of quarks and gluons. Usually the math for describing each of these systems looks very different. But string theory's extra dimension allows the math to be transformed in ways that show the two systems to actually be equivalent--in technical terms, the systems are "dual" to each other.

"The bottom line is we can exploit all this, because we can use ... easy computations in the gravity system to compute hard-to-compute things in the dual system," Johnson said at the Chicago meeting.

So just as shadow physics is hard to explain without knowing about objects in the third dimension, quark physics makes more sense using the 4-D math. Quarks can be viewed, for instance, as the endpoints of strings that vibrate in an extra dimension, and that explains how they can be so strongly coupled. Precisely the same math can then also describe the collective behavior of the cold lithium atoms. As Johnson points out, viscosity is all about how neighboring pieces of a fluid communicate with each other. With an extra dimension, that communication can take place as disturbances in the higher dimensional space, explaining the perfect liquid behavior.

[Phoenix here. . . It was explained to me like this: our energetic or conscious (or telepathic, or healing, or any other) connection is able to be established between people because we are connected at the end points of the strings while the rest of the string is in another dimension. When we activate the connection through intention – or however it is made – our intention, consciousness, or energy is sent to the other person across the string that resides in the other dimension. Imagine it like this: we are all connected as end points on a telephone system (the edge of the circle) the "strings" or wires of which are "in another dimension" (inside the circle). When we use our conscious intention to communicate with another person, we pick up the phone and call them, sending the signal over the wires that reside in that other dimension.]

Strings strike back

In recent years it has become popular to criticize string theory as out of touch with reality. Popular books have been written by scientists, some prominent and others not so prominent, arguing that string theory makes no predictions that experiment can test, that its fundamental objects can't be observed, that physicists have wasted their time on an enterprise that isn't even scientific to begin with.

Such arguments leave an impression of utter unfamiliarity with the history of science. In times past, the same kinds of aspersions were cast against quarks, neutrinos, even the very existence of atoms. Superstrings are in good company. And string theory's limit on how low viscosity can go now seems to have established that string math does indeed mirror something real in nature. "This may well be the first prediction from string theory to be validated by experiment," Steinberg writes in a recent paper (arxiv.org/abs/0903.1474).

Superstrings' success with perfect liquids does not, of course, establish that the whole theory is the correct description of the universe. Much work remains to figure out how much of reality string theory actually captures beyond the realm of perfect liquids. But the usefulness of superstring math in these instances argues strongly that those equations capture something true. Establishing that truth for certain will still not be easy.

It's not surprising, of course, that such groundbreaking science should be difficult and controversial. Advances in physics today are naturally much tougher to achieve than they used to be--because the problems remaining to be solved are precisely those that have resisted solution for so long.

"A new truth always has to contend with many difficulties," the German physicist Max Planck said decades ago. "If it were not so, it would have been discovered much sooner."



* View slides from the AAAS (AAAS American Association for the Advancement of Science) session "Quest for the Perfect Liquid" at www.bnl.gov/aaas09/perfectliquid.asp

Listen to Heaven and Nature Sing

Here is a Winter Solstice gift for you!


NASA video of the planetary sounds





Outback Australia - Nature sounds of nature




Happy Holidays!

Are you the Empty Vessel or the Hollow Bamboo?

Imagine that the water pouring through the bamboo and into the pot is Love, Light, Source, or Universal Consciousness….God if you will. Take a moment to consider how the bamboo and the pot function, and what happens to each as the water of Consciousness continuously flows.

Many traditions around the world embrace the core concept of the Empty Vessel. The foundation of the practice is that as you become full with ideas, knowledge, or ego, you must give up or give away that which has filled you so that you may attain innocence and egolessness and therefore experience Oneness.

In the Daoist tradition that I follow, there is much talk about being an Empty Vessel. There are even books and magazines and CDs about it. This idea comes from many sources, but one of the originals is Verse 11 of the Dao De Jing (Derek Lin translation) which says:

Thirty spokes join in one hub
In its emptiness, there is the function of a vehicle

Mix clay to create a container
In its emptiness, there is the function of a container

Cut open doors and windows to create a room
In its emptiness, there is the function of a room

Therefore, that which exists is used to create benefit

That which is empty is used to create functionality

This teaching shows that only when it is empty can a cup function to hold the liquid you want to drink; only when it is empty can a room contain the furniture for your comfort. Carried into the realm of spirituality, only when it is empty can your mind contain universal consciousness and be filled with Divine Oneness.

Eventually, however, the vessel becomes full again, and either spills over uncontrollably or must be emptied by revisiting the same methods (or trying some new methods) that you used to empty it the last time.

However, if you embrace the paradox of diversity within oneness and are interested in helping others as well as being filled with divine consciousness yourself, the Hollow Bamboo is the way to go. Take a look at the bamboo again: as a channel for universal energies and divine consciousness, it is always full, as well as always sharing this fullness with others.

Here is a lovely metaphor for it, found again in Derek Lin's translation of the Dao De Jing. In the chapter below, the Valley Spirit represents the receptivity of earth. When the heavenly energies settle onto the earth, like the water through the bamboo, they flow to the lowest places. The valley, being the lowest place, collects the most heavenly energies.

Chapter 6

The valley spirit, undying
Is called the Mystic Female

The gateway of the Mystic Female
Is called the root of Heaven and Earth

It flows continuously, barely perceptible
When utilized, it is never exhausted

Just ponder the profound truth of that for a moment: It [heavenly energy and consciousness] flows continuously……When utilized, it is never exhausted.

Isn't the same true of Light, Love, Divine Consciousness? As it pours into you from the universe, and as you allow yourself to be a channel that it may flow through you to provide the same for others, do you not participate in the paradox of diversity while at the same time being always and completely filled with Light, Love, and participating in Universal Oneness?

Of course you do!

So, maybe it's better to be a piece of Hollow Bamboo and to remain full of Light and Love, and leave the Empty Vessel to others.

Derek Lin's online translation of the Dao De Jing may be viewed on his True Tao website Follow the links to the translation of the Tao Te Ching (Dao De Jing).

The Galaxies at the end of the universe!

Here is a Summer Solstice gift for you!

The Hubble Deep Field.

"In 2003, the Hubble Space Telescope took the image of a millenium, an image that shows our place in the universe. Anyone who understands what this image represents, is forever changed by it."

If you have ever wondered why, for eons and eons, the sky along with all its heavenly bodies has been considered the abode of Crator, Spirit, God, watch this breathtaking six and a half minute video. Turn off the lights, let it fill your screen and your senses.....be One with the awesome body of the universe!

Karma – it may not be what you think

Karma isn't mentioned in the oldest Hindu book, the Rig Veda, which was written before 1000 BCE; some say as early as 1400 BCE, others a more conservative 1200 BCE. (Please note that all dates are approximate.) Since it is not mentioned there, the idea of karma and its effect on recurring lifetimes is probably a later development.

Karma is first mentioned in the Upanishads, though I suppose it's impossible to tell which Upanishad came first. As a group, they were written between 800 and 500 BCE.

The Bhagavad-Gita follows the Upanishads and was written between 500 and 200 BCE.

As far as I have found in the books, the idea that everything you do earns karma, good or bad, or that karma is the reason you have multiple lifetimes, or that karma follows you from one lifetime to another, is not a universal idea.

Too many people today use the concept of karma as a warning: if you eat meat, if you kill a bug, if you shoplift, if you do something bad, they will tell you, "it's your karma," warning you of dire the consequences of your actions.

Karma was never meant to predict your fate, rather it was an explanation for the action/reaction cycle that determines a future. It wasn't a look at the future, it was an explanation of the past.

Karma is, basically, a way to look at cause and effect of your actions. A bad action accumulates bad karma; a good action accumulates good karma. Apparently, according to modern thought, you must accumulate more good karma than bad, and that will somehow release you from the birth-death-rebirth cycle.

That is not the way the books describe it!

Instead, it is a "doing," but release comes only when your actions are completely selfless.

All actions done with purpose, either good or bad, accumulate karma, they "bind the soul" to the cycle of death-rebirth. As it says in the Isa Upanishad, "Only actions done in God bind not the soul of man." (1) In other words, actions performed in selfless service do not accumulate karma.

Performing acts for good are still acts done with a self-centered purpose…..to do good! They accumulate karma just as harmful acts do.

The Isa Upanishad goes on to say, "He who knows both knowledge and action, with action overcomes death, and with knowledge reaches immortality." (1) (Knowledge and action are two types of Yoga (Union with the Divine), Jnana (Knowledge) and Karma (Action). The other types are Hatha (physical), Bhakti (Love), and Rajah (Mystical Experience).)

According to Soumen De in his essay on "The Historical Context of the Bhagavad-Gita and Its Relation to Indian Religious Doctrines," Karma is "The law of universal causality, which connects man with the cosmos and condemns him to transmigrate -- to move from one body to another after death -- indefinitely. In the Gita, Krishna makes an allusion to the eternal soul that moves from body to body as it ascends or descends the ladder of a given hierarchy, conditioned on the nature of one's own karma -- work of life or life deeds." (2)

Also in the Gita is the information needed to overcome this cycle of transmigration.

Aarjuna, the compassionate warrior in the Gita who doesn’t want to go to war, is told: 2.03 "Do not become a coward, O Arjuna, because it does not befit you. Shake off this weakness of your heart and get up (for the battle), O Arjuna." (3) (Chapter 2 line 3.)

Arjuna doesn’t know what to do. He doesn't want to accumulate bad karma, and usually killing would do that, but here is Krishna telling him to go to battle. In modern terms, "this does not compute!"

He is assured that a body is supposed to be born, live, and die. He is doing nothing more than fulfilling a natural cycle by going to war and killing his enemy.

He is assured that if he is performing this action in the name of Deity, no bad karma will be accumulated: "2.40 In Karma-yoga no effort is ever lost, and there is no harm. Even a little practice of this discipline protects one from great fear (of birth and death).

"Translator's note: Karma-yoga is also referred to as Nishkaama Karma-yoga, Seva, selfless service, Buddhi yoga, yoga of work, science of proper action, and yoga of equanimity. A Karma-yogi works for the Lord as a matter of duty without a selfish desire for the fruits of work, or any attachment to results. The word Karma also means duty, action, deeds, work, or the results of past deeds." (3) (Chapter 2 line 40.)

Arjuna is further assured:

"2.49 Work done with selfish motives is inferior by far to the selfless service or Karma-yoga. Therefore be a Karma-yogi, O Arjuna. Those who seek (to enjoy) the fruits of their work are verily unhappy (because one has no control over the results).

"2.50 A Karma-yogi gets freedom from both vice and virtue in this life itself. Therefore, strive for Karma-yoga. Working to the best of one's abilities without getting attached to the fruits of work is called (Nishkaama) Karma-yoga.

"2.51 Wise Karma-yogis, possessed with mental poise by renouncing the attachment to the fruits of work, are indeed freed from the bondage of rebirth and attain the blissful divine state." (3)

The interrelationship and the exemption from rebirth due to the combination of knowledge (janan) and work (karma) is explained in chapter 3, lines 2 through 9:

"3.02 [Arjuna] You seem to confuse my mind by apparently conflicting words. Tell me, decisively, one thing by which I may attain the Supreme.

"3.03 The Supreme Lord said: In this world, O Arjuna, a twofold path of Sadhana (or the spiritual practice) has been stated by Me in the past. The path of Self-knowledge (or Jnana-yoga) for the contemplative, and the path of unselfish work (or Karma-yoga) for the active.

Translator's note: Jnana-yoga is also called Saamkhya-yoga, Samnyasa-yoga, and yoga of knowledge. A Jnana-yogi does not consider oneself the doer of any action, but only an instrument in the hands of divine for His use. The word Jnana means metaphysical or transcendental knowledge.

"3.04 One does not attain freedom from the bondage of Karma by merely abstaining from work. No one attains perfection by merely giving up work.

"3.05 Because no one can remain actionless even for a moment. Everyone is driven to action, helplessly indeed, by the Gunas of nature.

"3.06 The deluded ones, who restrain their organs of action but mentally dwell upon the sense enjoyment, are called hypocrites.

"3.07 The one who controls the senses by the (trained and purified) mind and intellect, and engages the organs of action to Nishkaama Karma-yoga, is superior, O Arjuna.

"3.08 Perform your obligatory duty, because action is indeed better than inaction. Even the maintenance of your body would not be possible by inaction.

"3.09 Human beings are bound by Karma (or works) other than those done as Yajna. Therefore, O Arjuna, do your duty efficiently as a service or Seva to Me, free from attachment to the fruits of work.

Translator's note: Yajna means sacrifice, selfless service, unselfish work, Seva, meritorious deeds, giving away something to others, and a religious rite in which oblation is offered to gods through the mouth of fire." (3)

And, finally, this:

"3.19 Therefore, always perform your duty efficiently and without attachment to the results, because by doing work without attachment one attains the Supreme."

There it is, in a nutshell: "doing work without attachment one attains the Supreme"

Karma is not accumulated without attachment to the outcome.

The way to accumulate karma is to remain attached to the outcome; good or bad, attachment accumulates karmic debt.

To be free of karma, to escape the death-rebirth cycle, is to act selflessly, only in the name of Service, only in the name of God, Creator, Spirit, or any other name you wish to apply.

(1) Mascaro, Juan translator, The Upanishads, Penguin Classics, New York, 1965

(2) De, Soumen: The Historical Context of The Bhagavad Gita and Its Relation to Indian Religious Doctrines; Exploring Ancient World Cultures http://eawc.evansville.edu/essays/de.htm

(3) Prasad, Ramanand translator, The Bhagavad Gita, Realization.org

http://www.realization.org/page/namedoc0/gita/gita0.htm

God's Eye II

A few months ago, I posted about a picture that had been sent to me that the writer claimed was a rare astronomical event called the Eye Of God.

See God's Eye for further information on that.

Today I was looking at recent entries on the Astronomy Picture Of The Day website and found another possibility for the Eye of God.

Here is the original Eye of God photo that was sent to me.























Here is a photo of the Cat's Eye Nebula, the APOD website's entry for March 22, 2008:
















Here is the info posted along with the photo:

Staring across interstellar space, the alluring Cat's Eye Nebula lies three thousand light-years from Earth. One of the most famous planetary nebulae in the sky, the Cat's Eye (NGC 6543) is over half a light-year across and represents a final, brief yet glorious phase in the life of a sun-like star. This nebula's dying central star may have produced the simple, outer pattern of dusty concentric shells by shrugging off outer layers in a series of regular convulsions. But the formation of the beautiful, more complex inner structures is not well understood. Here, Hubble Space Telescope archival image data has been reprocessed to create another look the cosmic cat's eye. Compared to well-known Hubble pictures, the alternative processing strives to sharpen and improve the visiblility of details in light and dark areas of the nebula and also applies a more complex color palette. Of course, gazing into the Cat's Eye, astronomers may well be seeing the fate of our Sun, destined to enter its own planetary nebula phase of evolution ... in about 5 billion years.


Update July 3, 2009:

As the anonymous commenter on the first "Gods's Eye" post said (see link at top), the first picture is of the Helix Nebula, NGC7293!

Here is an article on it at wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helix_Nebula

And, another from Astronomy Picture of the Day that was not available at the time I first posted this article: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090303.html

Yarrow Stalk Method of Generating an I Ching (Yijing) Hexagram

Begin with 50 stalks/sticks. Set one stalk off to the side in an upright (vertical) position. This is symbolic of the connection between Earth and Sky. Set a second stalk across the first one in a horizontal position, forming an equal-armed cross. This is symbolic of Man between Earth and Sky.

1 Take the remaining 48 stalks and divide them into two roughly equal piles in front of you, one on the left, the other on the right.

2 Take one stalk from the pile on the right side and hold it between the small finger and ring finger of your left hand (you may use your right hand for holding stalks if you are left-handed).

3 From the pile on the left side, count off the stalks in groups of four, setting these aside, until you have 4 or fewer stalks remaining. Hold this group of four or fewer between the ring finger and the middle finger of your hand.

4 Turn to the pile of stalks on the right, and count off until you have four or fewer left. Hold this group of four or fewer between the middle and index finger of your hand.

5 How many stalks are you holding in your hand? Counting in this way can have only two results: you will be holding a total of 4 or 8 stalks between the fingers of your hand. If you have a value other than four or eight, you've made a mistake and need to recount.

6 Set aside this batch of four or eight stalks. You will come back to them soon.

Pick up your pile of discarded stalks and repeat steps 1 through 6 two more times. You will have three small piles of either 4 or 8 stalks each.

Give the numeric value 3 to piles of four stalks.

Give the numeric value 2 to piles of eight stalks.

Add together the values for the piles of stalks (you will notice that even totals generate a Yin line, odd totals generate a Yang line):

If you have a value of six (2+2+2, or three piles of eight stalks), draw a Changing Yin (broken) line. - -c

If you have a value of seven (2+2+3, or two piles of eight stalks, one pile of four stalks), draw a Yang (unbroken) line. ---

If you have a value of eight (2+3+3, or one pile of eight stalks, two piles of four stalks), draw a Yin (broken) line. - -

If you have a value of nine (3+3+3, or three piles of four stalks), draw a Changing Yang (unbroken) line. ---c

This completes the first line (the bottom line) of your hexagram.

Beginning at number 1 above, repeat all the above steps until you have completed six lines. (At that time, you may gather together all fifty stalks and return them to their container.)

When finished, you will have a figure that looks something like this:

Line 6 - - Yin line

Line 5 --- Yang line

Line 4 ---c Yang line Changing to Yin

Line 3 --- Yang line

Line 2 --- Yang line

Line 1 - -c Yin line Changing to Yang

Look up your hexagram in your favorite book; read the advice section that discusses the hexagram as a whole and the section(s) that correspond to any changing lines. If you have changing lines, redraw the figure with the lines changed (Yin to Yang or Yang to Yin), and look up the second hexagram. Read the advice section, but not the changing line sections. In the above example, you would read the advice for hexagram 28 and lines 1 and 4, and hexagram 5.

Line 6 - - to - -

Line 5 --- to ---

Line 4 ---c to - -

Line 3 --- to ---

Line 2 --- to ---

Line 1 - -c to ---

Hexagram 28 to 5

Planetary Hours and Days

Many people are familiar with the fact that the days of the week are named after the Anglo-Saxon or Teutonic gods and goddesses: Sunday for Sunna, Monday for the Moon, Tuesday for Tiw, Wednesday for Woden, Thursday for Thor, Friday for Frigg or Freya, and Saturday for the Roman god Saturn.

However, how those days were chosen in the order we have today may be somewhat of a mystery. The article below will, no doubt, clear up a good part of that mystery!

Planetary Hours and Days by Christopher Warnock, Esq.

The planetary hours use the Chaldean order to divide time. Each planetary hour of the planetary day is ruled by a different planet. The planet that rules the first hour of the day is also the ruler of the whole day and gives the day its name. Thus the first hour of Sunday is ruled by the Sun, the first hour of Monday is ruled by the Moon and so on.

Planetary Hours of the Day
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 of the Night
Hours	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

However, the planetary hours are not the same as the sixty minute hours beginning at midnight that we use for normal timekeeping. The planetary days are divided into twenty four planetary hours with the first hour of the day beginning at sunrise and the last hour of the day ending at sunrise of the next planetary day. The period that extends from sunrise to sunset (daylight) is divided into twelve hours and the period extending from sunset to sunrise of the next day (nighttime) is also divided into twelve hours giving the twenty four hours of the planetary day.

Accordingly, as the duration of daylight and darkness varies except at the Vernal and Autumnal Equinoxes, on a particular planetary day the length of the hours of the day will differ from the length of the hours of the night. Thus another name for the planetary hours, says William Lilly, the renowned English astrologer, is the unequal hours. Christian Astrology, [London, 1647] page 482.

The Planetary Hours and the Names and Sequence of the Days of the Week

As Lilly notes there are seven days of the week and seven planets and each planet rules or is lord of, one day: Sunday, the Sun; Monday, the Moon; Tuesday, Mars; Wednesday, Mercury; Thursday, Jupiter; Friday, Venus; and Saturday, Saturn. William Lilly, Christian Astrology, p. 482. The origin of the names of the days are explicitly planetary in medieval Latin: dies dominici (Sunday, the lord's day), die Lune, die Martis, die Mercuri, die Jovis, die Veneris, die Saturni. In English the Teutonic equivalents of the Greek and Latin gods have been used for some of the names of the days, i.e. Tuesday is Tiw's day, the Teutonic god of war; Wednesday is Wotan's day; Thursday is Thor's day; Friday is Frigg's day.

As we can see the sequence and names of the days of the week are not in the Chaldean order, but nevertheless the sequence and names of the days of the week are closely connected to the Chaldean order. Two processes interact to produce the sequence of the days of the week: (1) the fact that the planetary hours follow the Chaldean order and; (2) the fact that the planet that rules the first hour of each day rules the whole day and gives the day its name.

Figure One [at the top of this article] is the standard diagram of the planets arranged in a circle in the Chaldean order. Starting with the Sun and then following the order of the days of the week and their planetary rulers, i.e. Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, produces a seven pointed star, the heptagram of the week.