s
thought to be due to the genie of this planet--a talisman, was, in fact,
a silent evocation of an astral spirit. Examples of the belief that a
genie can be bound up in an amulet in some way are afforded by the story
of ALADDIN'S lamp and ring and other stories in the _Thousand and
One Nights_. Sometimes the talismanic signs were engraved on precious
stones, sometimes they were inscribed on parchment; in both cases the
same principle held good, the nature of the stone chosen, or the colour
of the ink employed, being that in correspondence with the planet under
whose auspices the talisman was prepared.

(1) In this connection a rather surprising discovery made by Mr W.
GORNOLD (see his _A Manual of Occultism_, 1911, pp. 7 and 8) must be
mentioned. The ancient Chaldeans appear invariably to have enumerated
the planets in the following order: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus,
Mercury, Moon--which order was adopted by the mediaeval astrologers.
Let us commence with the Sun in the above sequence, and write down every
third planet; we then have-- Sun . . . . Sunday.
Moon. . . . Monday.
Mars. . . . Tuesday.
Mercury. . . . Wednesday.
Jupiter.. . . Thursday.
Venus. . . . Friday.
Saturn. . . . Saturday.

That is to say, we have the planets in the order in which they were
supposed to rule over the days of the week. This is perhaps, not so
surprising, because it seems probable that, each day being first divided
into twenty-four hours, it was assumed that the planets ruled for one
hour in turn, in the order first mentioned above. Each day was then
named after the planet which ruled during its first hour. It will be
found that if we start with the Sun and write down every twenty-fourth
planet, the result is exactly the same as if we write down every third.
But Mr OLD points out further, doing so by means of a diagram which
seems to be rather cumbersome that if we start with Saturn in the first
place, and write down every fifth planet, and then for each planet
substitute the metal over which it was supposed to rule, we then have
these metals arranged in descending order of atomic weights, thus:--

Saturn . . . Lead (=207).
Mercury . . . Mercury (=200).
Sun. . . . Gold (=197).
Jupiter . . . Tin (=119).
Moon. . . . Silver (=108).
Venus . . Copper (=64).