Let us proceed with the justification of the old tradition. I have elsewhere shown that the planetary periods bear a direct relationship to their sign rulerships as determined by the ancients. It is seen that six bodies, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury and the Moon, embrace between them the circle of 360, each pair being divisors of one-third, or 120° or years.
The pairs are as follows—
Moon rules for 4 years, which divided into 120 equals 30. Saturn rules for 30 years, which divided into 120 equals 4. These two are opposites, Saturn ruling Capricorn and the Moon ruling Cancer.
Jupiter rules for 12 years, which divided into 120 gives 10. Mercury rules for 10 years, which divided into 120 gives 12. These two are opposites, for whereas Jupiter rules Sagittarius and Pisces, Mercury rules Gemini and Virgo, which are the opposite signs.
Venus rules for 8 years, which divided into 120 gives 15. Mars rules for 15 years, which divided into 120 gives 8. Venus rules the signs Taurus and Libra, whereas Mars rules the opposite signs Scorpio and Aries.
This may be allowed as a basis for what follows. The values and dominions are those traditionally received through Ptolemy. The periodic values of all the bodies of the ancient system are twice the square of seven. The square of seven is 49, and twice this is the value of the periods, namely 98 years. Students of numerology may pursue the subject to its legitimate conclusion. I may now proceed to establish this scheme by a series of numerical tests which have been communicated to me from India, and which I have remodelled for the purpose of this demonstration.
The harmony of the allotment of the numbers to the planets and signs is shown in the following scale, which, as will be seen, bear the numbers already ascribed to them by Godfridus and others.
Figure 10.
This arrangement is traditional among astrologers, and in very old works on the subject of planetary dominions we find the following suggestive glyph, which indicates that the mystery of the Pyramid may be solved by reference to the elements of the solar system.