According to Helena P. BLAVATSKY, there are seven sacred planets and she explains the conflict with the number of the observed nine planets as follows:

The seven planets are not limited to this number because the ancients knew of no others, but simply because they were the primitive or primordial houses of the seven Logoi. There may be nine and ninety-nine other planets discovered — this does not alter the fact of these seven alone being sacred. (SD II:602 fn.)

Blavatsky identifies the sacred planets as follows:

It is then the “Seven Sons of Light” — called after their planets (by the rabble) often identified with them — namely Saturn Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, Venus, and — presumably for the modern critic, who goes no deeper than the surface of old religions — the Sun and Moon, which are, according to the Occult teachings, our heavenly Parents, or “Father,” synthetically. (SD I:575)

The concept of the seven sacred planets is not confined to theosophical literature. Origen wrote of the Gnostic enumeration as, “Adonai equivalent to the Sun; Iaō, of the MOON; Eloi, of JUPITER; Sabao, of MARS; Orai, of VENUS; Astaphai, of MERCURY; Ildabaoth, of SATURN.” (Origen, Contra Celsum, Bk VI, XXIV-XXXVIII).

P.S.H.

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