Book Review: Kabbalistic Cycles

Joseph C. Lisiewski, Ph.D. has three books that together make a valuable addition to the bookshelf of anyone interested in the hermetic path. In this post I will talk about Kabbalistic Cycles & the Mastery of Life. This book describes the planetary hours and how to use them in your daily life. I should warn you up front that this book is not only not for beginners, but that it also needs to be studied in depth to be of any practical use.

The basic premise of the book is that there are cycles that affect everything that goes on. The cycles used in the book are daily and hourly, and correspond to the seven "planets" as known to the ancients: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury and the Moon. Each planet is given a day, and the 24 hours in each day are divided among the planets. The influence of each planet favors certain endeavors, and makes others more difficult. Some of the combinations of the planets governing each hour and day have attributions to the Major Arcana cards of the Tarot, and these attributions are more powerful than the hourly and daily influences. The idea is that if you schedule your activities to an appropriate day and hour, your chances for success are greatly improved.

Does it work? I honestly don't know yet. I'm still learning the attributions, but I have noticed some positive correlation. If you want to try it, there's a program that will help you calculate the hours. Unfortunately, it doesn't have the Tarot attributions, which, according to the book, are the most important factor. I'll post again about this topic when I have more data.