Astrological History

Contents, comment.

AFA, 375 pages, paper.

Part 1. "Astrology in the ancient world": 1. Introduction, overview; 2. Mesopotamia, Greece, early horary & electional charts; 3. Roman emperors & their fated horoscopes, Ptolemy, Firmicus & others; 4. Islam, Charlemagne, Masha'alla, Abu Ma'shar, Al Biruni; 5. The Star of Bethlehem, Astrology & the Church, Moorish Spain, Astrology in Byzantium, St. Augustine, Comets, Eclipses, Michael Scot, Guido Bonatti, Early astrology in England, Chaucer & the Canterbury Tales.

Part 2. "Astrology in the late middle ages": 6. Astrology in the Renaissance, Marsilio Ficino, Predicted death, Jerome Cardan & medical astrology, John Dee; 7. Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler; 8. 17th century England: Astrology in Shakespeare, Astrology's silver age, Dr. Simon Foreman; 9. Nicholas Culpeper, William Lilly, the Great Fire of 1666; 10. Elias Ashmole, Samuel Butler & skeptics, Jean-Baptiste Morin, Astrology & science in the 17th & 18th centuries, John Gadbury, John Partridge, Isaac Newton.

Part 3. "Astrology in modern times": 11. Astrology under siege, The Bickerstaff / Partridge affair, John Worsdale, Ebenezer Sibley, The Declaration of Independence, The Masonic & early astrology in the US, Astrology in late 18th century Europe, Raphael, Zadkiel, Luke Broughton, W.H. Chaney & his son, Jack London; 12. Alan Leo, Walter Gorn-Old (Sepharial), Evangeline Adams & Judge John J. Freschi, Adams's many notable clients, Early 20th century newspaper astrology, Marc Edmund Jones, Dane Rudhyar, C.G. Jung, Psychological astrology, Mundane astrology in the 20th century, Astrology in World War II, Karl Ernst Krafft & Louis de Wohl, Astrology & statistics, Michel & Francoise Gauquelin, the "tremendous efflorescence of astrology" in the late 20th century resulting in chaos, John Frawley's interpretation of Hitler's chart; 13. The conjunction of Jupiter & Saturn on May 21, 2000, September 11, 2001, An Ptolemaic analysis of the chart of George W. Bush; A forecast, made in March 2004, for the election's outcome; The 1975 Humanist Manifesto; Two sets of "astral twins", their common lives & fates; Modern uses of astrology in weather forecasting, space flight, economics; W.D. Gann; Conclusion.

Glossary; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

Comment: This book describes the practical uses that have been made of astrology by western society, since the time of the Romans. Ie, how Roman emperors, popes, kings, queens, presidents & astrologers themselves have used - and abused - the art. To some extent, the book also tells us of the results. What is unmistakable is that until the early 1700's, astrology was the choice of the most intelligent individuals living in the most advanced civilizations. Roman emperors, for example, commonly knew their ultimate fate, in other words, how & when they would die. They also knew who their likely successors would be & took the usual steps to encourage their favorites & murder their opponents. For his part, Columbus, using astrometeorology, successfully avoided storms while sailing to the New World.

On page 21, Bobrick says:

The irreverent scorn in which astrology is sometimes held is ultimately based on a superstition, one all the more dangerous, as Theodore Roosevelt once remarked (in an essay entitled, The Search for Truth in a Reverent Spirit), because those suffering from it are profoundly convinced that they are freeing themselves from superstition itself. No medieval superstition.... could be more intolerant.... than that.... which not merely calls itself scientific but arrogates to itself the sole right to use the term. (Read the original here.)

The unanswered question in Bobrick's book is, can there be true civilization that does not have astrology at its core? Bobrick's book says that astrology & civilization are inseparable. This gives me hope the goal that Raphael, Leo, Carter, Hindsight, Arhat, I & many others all share, must inevitably be realized.

A refreshing, rewarding book. The New York Times gave it a full page review on February 5, 2006.

The glossary, notes, bibliography & index are all excellent.

Simon & Schuster, 369 pages. Now in paper.

Contents:

Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction

1. Distant echoes: Origins of astrology
2. Prehistory: Myths & megaliths
3. The Mesopotamian cosmos: The marriage of heaven & earth
4. Mesopotamian astrology: The writing of heaven
5. The Assyrians & Persians: Revolution & reformation
6. Egypt: The kingdom of the sun
7. Egypt: The stars & the soul
8. The Hebrews: Prophets & planets
9. Greece: Homer, Hesoid & the heavens
10. Greece: The Platonic revolution
11. The Hellenistic world: The zodiac
12. The Hellenistic world: Scepticism & salvation
13. Hellenistic astrology: Signs & influences
14. Rome: The state, the stars & subversion
15. Christianity: A star out of Jacob
16. Rome: The imperial heaven
17. Christianity: The triumph of the sun

Afterword: Decline & survival

Comment: On the front cover there is this bold claim:

"The Dawn of Astrology will quickly become recognized as the standard reference for the history of Western astrology" - J. Edward Wright (Professor of Early Judiasm, University of Arizona)

This is not a Who What Why Where When book. This is an academic study of ideas & where they came from, which goes far beyond the mere astrological. Astrology is seen as an integral part of religion, myth, philosophy and culture in general. This is an amusing premise, as there are virtually no actual astrologers, anywhere in history, who can be made to fit this format. Astrologer/scientist, yes, there have been many of those. Here is a sample, I have literally opened the book at random:

The Greek philosophers were theorists. This does not mean that they were not practitioners. They quite clearly were, and the development of their idea of the philosophical lifestyle, lived in harmony with the cosmos, was central to their work. They were also concerned as the Babylonian astrologers with abstract models, with what David Brown called the 'EAE paradigm', but they differed in that they were moving from models which depended on many gods, to one which required only a single creator. In their own way, too, the Babylonians had to adjust to the Zoroastrianism of their Persian rulers, and the emerging Greek philosophical monotheism should be seen as a part of an international trend. When Babylonian astrology was imported into the Greek world in the third and second centuries [AD or BC, Mr. Campion? Which?] it was incorporated into theoretical foundations laid down by the Presocratics. However, the observational imperative was maintained. For some, astrology had to be based on empirical observation and seasonal cycles. We have just a few hints that the pragmatic, naturalistic astrology of Works and Days, Brown's 'PCP Paradigm' - the reliance on the empirical prediction of celestial phenomena and related events - was continuing. (pg. 146)

This is the sort of work which pleases academics, like Mr. Campion himself. It also impresses laymen. I am neither. But it has nothing to do with astrology per se, as Robert Schmidt's work with Hindsight brilliantly proves. Hellenistic astrology from this same period goes far, far beyond anything that can be developed by means of observation. As does Vedic astrology.

And the question is, where did it come from, if not from observation? Answer: What do the following books have in common?

Tetrabiblos, by Ptolemy: Written, c.140 AD, for Syrus, his patron. Unknown for more than a century.
Carmen Astrologicum, by Dortheus of Sidon, first century AD. Unknown to Vettius Valens, a century later.
Mathesoes Libri VIII, by Julius Firmicus Maternus. Written, c. 340 AD for his patron, Mavortius. It was largely unknown before the 12th century.

So if these early books, these masterpieces of the genre, were not intended as teaching manuals, were not, in fact, eagerly snatched up by aspiring students, then how, and with what, were early astrologers taught?

Here's another set of "what do these have in common?"

Carmen Astrologicum, and,
Astronomica, by Manilius

So what do poems have that ordinary prose does not? Meter. What is meter? Meter is a form of rhythm based on syllabic order. What can meter & rhythm do that ordinary prose cannot?

Quickly: How many verses of The Star Spangled Banner, the US national anthem, do you know? Only the first? See all four here. How many stanzas of Poe's The Raven?

Now for the hard question: WHY do you know these verses? Why do you know them better than, say, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address? Many of us had to memorize and recite it in front of class. Why do you remember the song but not the Address?

What can meter and rhythm do that ordinary prose cannot? Meter can be memorized and recited, word for word, years, even decades later. How much can be memorized?

The Iliad is a Greek epic poem, dating to the 9th century BC. Written in dactylic hexameter, it comprises 15,693 lines of verse. It is known to have been transmitted orally for centuries. The only reason we know the age of the poem is because we know the approximate date of the events it records, the Trojan War: Around the 12th century BC.

So could astrology have been orally transmitted? Yes. It could have. For how long? We do not know, but the Indian Vedas give hints of staggering age.

Next question: Why oral transmission? Why not read a book?

Answer: Books were written by hand. Which meant there were not very many of them. It also meant they were expensive. Students, then and now, are poor. Individual leaves were glued or stitched together to form long scrolls. Long term storage, or mere casual use would risk leaves separating from other leaves. Which would result in a book (scroll, remember) in fragments. Once in pieces, it would not necessarily be clear which piece went where. Individual pieces were easily damaged, and just as easily lost altogether. Early inks were subject to fading over time, and not just from exposure to sun and air. This is quite apart from accidental loss due to rain or fire, or deliberate destruction, as with the sack of the library at Alexandria. Remember, before the printing press, there were very few copies of any book.

Now think of oral transmission. I presume the author started with words on paper, an outline at least, and gradually found the meter, the rhythm, the poetry, to express his ideas. Gradually his poem got longer & longer, more & more complete. Until finally he was finished and was happy, and began to recite it.

He did not recite his poem for idle amusement. Homer recited his to entertain a crowd & make a living. Astrologers recited theirs in order to answer questions & make a living. What did these books amount to, in actual practice?

In actual practice, an astrologer would search through the verses until he came to one that described the situation as he understood it. He would then repeat it verbatim, orally. This is where proverbs come from: Fragments of a forgotten whole. I regret the following are not astrological. (If anyone knows where I can find pithy astrological proverbs, in English, I would be grateful.)

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
A stitch in time saves nine.
One bad apple spoils the bunch.
etc., etc.

I spent some time with the Introduction in G.P. Gould's translation of Manilius's Astronomica. In his Preface, Gould complains that Manilius is virtually untranslatable: Moreover, he frequently embarks on an audacious plan of rendering diagrams, tables, and maps in hexameter form; and in these places even the best of translations would need visual aids to be readily comprehensible. (pg. vii) You can almost hear his complaint: If only Manilius had written in Plain English, it would be so much easier to translate! But this gives the game away. Astronomica was intended to be memorized and recited. Tables in meter, however clumsy, could be recited and therefore remembered. Those in prose would be forgotten and lost. The author's challenge was to set his entire text not only in meter, but in the same meter, from first to last. The fate of Manilius's book was unlike that of Ptolemy's, or for that matter, Firmicus'.

At several places in his Introduction, Gould draws parallels between Manilius and Firmicus Maternus, at one point remarking that Firmicus "had Manilius open in front of him" as he wrote. Why did Firmicus favor Manilius, but not Ptolemy or Dorotheus?

Because Manilius was, by 340 AD, in oral transmission. Firmicus did not "have a book open" in front of him. Firmicus was reciting Manilius from memory. Which also accounts for the variations in early written copies of Astronomica. Different people, when they came to set the book down in writing, had been reciting it differently.

Early Islam was a religion of the Book, in this case, the Koran. Islam quickly became a religion of scholars. These scholars, having no previous oral tradition, started with a few physical books, salvaged from here & there. These they carefully copied and preserved. They then added many new works of their own. They transmitted the lot to the monks of Europe & the early scholars of Spain & Italy, with a little assistance from returning Crusaders. These then became the basis of the first printed books. By the time of William Lilly (17th century), all memory of oral transmission had long been lost.

By these means, I establish the existence of an astrological oral transmission. I looked in Campion's index. I did not find oral transmission in it. And while it is true that oral transmission has long been forgotten, it's also true that it is a glaring omission.

Academics will say that, well, oral books were not written down & are therefore lost & what is lost cannot be known and so cannot be studied, so what we have is the best we can do, so, please, dear Dave, get over yourself. But this is merely an excuse. Textural analysis will prove that many early written books were transcriptions of oral books. Firmicus may well be Manilius embroidered - missing pieces of Manilius were actually found in Firmicus's text. Or, more recently, my analysis of Richard Saunders' Astrological Judgement & Practice of Physick. I discovered it to have been written at least 50 years prior to its first publication, which was 1677. Many early printed books were in fact centuries old hand-me-downs, but that's another story for another time.

The conclusion, so far as this book & Mr. Campion are concerned, is that while the author has many nice ideas & fine observations, he misses the forest for the trees, to cite another hoary proverb. A book that strives to be definitive, as this book does, must have a proper foundation. Mr. Campion in some ways reminds me of Peter Tchaikovsky: Both men are talents of the first rank, but the harder they work, the prouder they are of the finished piece, the more those works seem stiff & formal. For some people, first drafts are best.

Continuum, 388 pages, hardcover with dustjacket.

Contents:

Acknowledgments
Introduction

1. Matthew: The Gospel to the Hebrews
2. Jerusalem's debt to the Persians
3. The Magi in history
4. Empire of the soul
5. The Magi & astrology
6. Which star was it?
7. The legacy of the Magi
8. The millennium & the Messiah
9. Pisces & procession
10. The Magi's Messiah

Chapter notes
Bibliography
Index

Comment: As is well-known, Matthew's is the only Gospel that mentions the fabled Star of Bethlehem, for which there seems scant historical evidence. So what does Courtney think? Jupiter by itself? Triple conjunction of Saturn & Jupiter? In chapter 6, she suggests a nova & says there are Chinese & Korean arguments to support the idea. It's as good an idea as anyone has come up with yet.

The book is, overall, a survey - a very good one - of the very many individual details that went into the story, such as Who were the Magi, what sort of astrology did they practice, what was their prior connection to the Hebrews, what does the key Greek phrase, en te anatole ("the star in the east") really mean & why is it not gramatically correct, etc.

In the process she easily demolishes the work of many other pretenders, such as the 1999 book by Michael Molnar, though without ever quite producing her own solution. Of critical importance, I think, is her discovery of links between the Persians & the Hebrews. I myself once proposed a solution, and with Courney's observation, and my own work on the Ages, I think I might now have a complete, sensible solution. Which I will write as soon as I can find the time. Meanwhile, get this book & learn more about this most mysterious event.

New Page, 223 pages.

1. This is his animal - the ancient world
2. Glad hearts - the dark ages
3. Mark of a worm - the middle ages
4. The shephard's calendar
5. Going natural - the sixteenth century
6. Wind & fruit - almanacs
7. Astrology's golden age
8. The Enlightenment & early 19th century
9. The ninteeth century revival
10. No less an exact science - the Theosophists
11. Hated virtues - Solar biology
12. Alan Leo
13. Evangeline Adams
14. Fencers & Bearwards - astrology & the law
15. Popular astrology in the 1920's
16. Cheiro
17. Popular astrology in the 1930's
18. Eary sun sign columns
19. The 1930's boom in sun sign astrology
20. The big fight - Naylor versus Barbanell
21. Astrology & popular culture in the 1930's
22. Entering the Age of Aquarius - the 1960's
23. The Queen of sun sign astrology - Linda Goodman
24. Scientists fight back
25. Thirteen signs?
26. Hall of fame

Bibliography; Index.

Comment: The title comes from a comment by D.H. Lawrence:

We need not feel ashamed of flirting with the zodiac. The zodiac is well-worth flirting with.

Like their Chinese cousins, the animals of the year, sun-signs are the ultimate astrological reduction. One of the amazing things about astrology is that it will give good, worth-while results regardless of the level of sophistication & technique employed. In this, as in so many other ways, astrology is unique in the world.

Much to my surprise (much to everybody's), the history of sun-sign astrology far predates the 20th century. As popular fortune-telling, Farnell can trace sun-sign astrology back to the Romans, if not before. Always, it seems, there were the rich sophisticates who demanded state-of-the-art astrological counsel (see Benson Bobrick, above), and then there were the masses of the unwashed, who simply wanted their fortune told. Since history is the story of the rich, we only know of the condition of the common people by inference. Sun-signs are just another one of them. Written records of popular astrology are, of course, sparse before Gutenberg & are to be found mostly in the form of complaints brought by crown or Church authorities. So far as the early days of printing are concerned, preservation of the many hundreds of early "catch-pennies" is spotty at best. While formal astrology declined in the 18th century, sales of almanacs & sun-sign guide continued strongly.

Modern astrology began with the famous Prophetic Messenger of Robert Cross Smith, aka Raphael, in 1826. Much of Farnell's book is taken up with a detailed account of 19th & 20th century popular astrology. In 1930, the famous Cheiro was asked to write a newspaper column, but passed it off to his assistant, R.H. Naylor. What Naylor wrote has come down to us as the daily horoscope, but despite his own beliefs, he in fact did not invent it.

Farnell recounts Leo's and Adams's famous legal battles, but also includes, for the first time that I know of, accounts of UK anti-astrology legal cases from as late as the 1940's, charges of fortune-telling, witchcraft & vagrancy. Not for nothing did many of the most famous English astrologers take up assumed names (Leo, Raphael, Cheiro, Sepharial, Charubel & numerous others).

The final chapter contains brief biographies of famous sun-sign astrologers. The bibliography is extensive & includes a very long list of internet sources. This book is an excellent companion to Mr. Bobrick's, above.

Wessex Astrologer, 228 pages.

Comment: From the back cover: Girolamo Cardano (aka Cardan) (1501 - 1576) was an Italian doctor, natural philosopher & mathematician who became a best-selling author in Renaissance Europe. He was also a leading astrologer of his day. In Cardano's Cosmos Anthony Grafton invites readers to follow this astrologer's extraordinary career & explore the art & discipline of astrology in the hands of a brilliant practitioner. Grafton also maps the context of market & human forces that shaped Cardano's practices - and the maneuvering that kept him at the top of a world rife with patronage, politics & vengeful rivals.

I had a copy of this book on the shelf one day when Rob Hand came to visit (he lives in the area, this happens from time to time). He opened it & pointed out a passage in it. He remarked how impressed he was with the book.

Harvard University Press, 284 pages.

Comment: Geoffrey Cornelius's celebrated book is back in print.

How are astrologers able to go about their craft, how are horary astrologers, in particular, able to give precise locations of missing persons & objects, and yet astrology, as a whole, remains incapable of scientific proof? (Did you ever wonder about that?) Using strict astrological symbolism, Cornelius demonstrates two axioms:

The same-time coming together of OBJECTIVE EVENT and OBJECTIVE HEAVENS is not a necessary condition for the astrological effect to come to pass, and the very similar

The same-time coming together of OBJECTIVE EVENT and OBJECTIVE HEAVENS is not a sufficient condition for the astrological effect to come to pass. (Both from pg. 83, emphasis in the originals.)

What Cornelius means by this is that the existence of an object or event, and the astrological chart that may describe it, do not necessarily have any strictly defined linkage in time or space. The event & its astrological chart are linked because, at some other instant in time, an astrologer (or diviner) found the symbolisms that linked them. This is most obvious in horary astrology. If you lost your watch at 11:37 pm EST on Thursday in New York, but only phoned your horary astrologer in Los Angeles at 2:34 pm PST the following day, the critical link between these two seemingly unrelated moments in time is that of the astrologer who linked them. This despite the fact that neither the time nor general location where the watch was lost was of interest to the astrologer.

Cornelius demonstrates this brilliantly. In the September/October 1975 issue of the Humanist was the famous Objections to Astrology, signed by 186 scientists, among them 18 Nobel Prize winners. It was a bold attempt to shatter astrology once & for all. Along with the broadside, the authors, Bok, Kurtz & Jerome, included an astrological chart picked at random, set for November 23, 1907, 4 am EST, New York. Bok found this chart in an unrelated article by Margaret W. Mayall from 1941, which Mayall, again, said was picked at random. So far as is known, this is not the chart of any person or thing. Its only stated purpose was to demonstrate chart construction (Cornelius notes it was not even calculated correctly, he reads it as is).

Cornelius discovered this chart precisely described the Humanist attack that occurred 68 years later. Progressions taken from this chart precisely timed not only the Humanist attack, but also its previous use in 1941. The 1907 chart was, in astrological terms, radical, even though it should not have been. Cornelius writes, From these considerations I conclude that the 1907 horoscope, arbitrarily derived decades before its star turn, not only symbolizes the 1975 attack, it also times it. (pg. 31)

In this second edition, the author has revised chapters 4 & 7, chapter 11 expands the discussion of Graeme Tobyn's orange-omen, which concerns a chart in one of Culpeper's books that diagnosed two pregnancies 337 years apart. Chapter 13 is wholly new, chapter 16 was completely reworked. Chapter 12, on Princess Diana & her two charts (both work, both exactly time events in her life, though they differ by more than five hours) is extended to her death in 1997. In the appendices, the notes on the famous US Sibley horoscope, are new.

One of the great astrology books of the 20th century, one to be read & reread. It will change how you think about astrology.

Wessex Astrologer, 386 pages.

Comment: As is well-known among astrologers, Evangeline Adams was perhaps the most famous American astrologer to date. By the time of her death in 1932, she was a national media star with a thrice-weekly radio show, offices in New York's Carnegie Hall (they're at the back of the building) & some 25 assistants handling thousands of letters a week, all this & more among her many accomplishments. She was intensely talented right from the start & made no effort to hide her astrological work. As a result, she was unsuccessfully prosecuted several times while in New York City. The transcript of the most famous trial, in 1914, concludes with the famous words of Judge Freschi: "The defendant raises astrology to the level of an exact science..." Reading the transcript, I was struck by the similarity to William Lilly's famous trial of the 1660's: On the witness stand, both defendants weaseled their way out of trouble, in my view. But aside from that, Christino's biography is excellent in all respects, one that repays close study. One Reed Publications, 217 pages.

Part 1: Who Evangeline Knew: 1. An astrological education; 2. A life in Astrology: The magician, A marriage made in heaven?, Friends & associates

Part 2: What Evangeline Knew: 3. Adams' famous fortune-telling trial; 4. An astrologer's toolkit: Electional & event charts, General forecasting (Dr. Smith's reading, Adams' new horary, Natal readings, Decumbitures & death, Outcomes of political elections, Mundane forecasting)

Conclusions

Appendix 1: Evangeline Adams' birth chart
Appendix 2: Dr. Broughton's essential dignities
Appendix 3: In her own words
Appendix 4: Writings of Adams' teachers & friends

Bibliography
Index

Comment: Essentially, this book continues & deepens the biography, above. After a couple of introductory chapters, the famous 1914 trial for fortunetelling is used as a springboard to an examination of Adams's astrological techniques. Many of these techniques were derived from Dr. Luke Broughton (1828-1898) & Dr. J. Heber Smith (1842-1913?), both of them familiar to students of Adams. Some of these will be familiar to the experienced astrologer, but there are many surprises as well. Christino shows how Adams read specific charts, then applies the same principles to more recent charts. Aside from underlying training & talent, the reason Adams was as good as she was, was that she saw upwards of 8 clients a day, for decades. Endless practice hones a fine skill.

This book also includes details of Adams's "new horary" technique for reading natal charts. Adams would take the degree rising at the time the client walked in the door, find it on the natal, and use its position & the conjunction of any transiting and/or natal planets to it, to determine the client's question, as well as her own response. She would apply the same technique to any other charts that came up during the session, such as those of spouses, children, parents, business partners, etc. Adams claims this simple technique never failed.

Stella Mira Books, 241 pages.

Translator's preface
By way of a preface

Looking for a vocation
Initiation into the phenomena of spiritualism
First contacts with magic & the science of the stars
An astrological vocation
Campaign for the rehabilitation of a repudiated murder
About the "commercialization" of astrology
Conflicts between astrology & occultism
Fifteen years of professionalism
Astrology at the bank of proof of the stock exchange
About some international conventions; Under the shadow of the Swastika
A trip to the United States; The phantom of Mrs. Elizabeth
The international convention at Paris, The end of a dream
A critique of the modern astrological movement; Conflicts & polemics
The public such as it is
The speculation in images
Can one speak of an astrological "science"?
From the invasison of Belgium to the reappearance of the periodical Domain
The periodical Domain under the occupation
Bill & statement of profits & losses
Postface & P.P.C.

Index of persons

Comment: Here is the AFA's blurb for this book:

"This is the autobiography of an occultist & pioneer astrologer from 1894 to 1946. Brahy founded the Belgian Institute of Astrology & its astrological journal, Demain [Tomorrow], and he also founded the Belgian branch of the Rosicrucian Fellowship. From the late 1920's on, he published stock market advisory letters & a book explaining the astrological methods that he used. He gives an account of the development of astrology in the 1920's & 1930's, culminating with the three International Congresses of Astrologers in Europe & his visits to the US in 1937 & 1939. And he tells how astrology managed to thrive during the Nazi occupation of Belgium, 1940-1944.

"He also gives a valuable assessment of the difficulties encountered in managing both an astrological consulting business & a magazine & book publishing business. And throughout the book he discusses the problems of astrology & its place in modern society. Readers interested in Astrology & Rosicrucianism will find many fascinating details of Brahy's experiences & associations with leading figures in those fields."

The translator, James Holden, has long had an interest in the history of European astrology. For those of us in the English speaking world, knowledge of continental astrology is essential.

AFA, 217 pages.

Contents:

Preface
Preface to the published edition
Abbreviations

The biographical dictionary

Comment:

This book was based on the earlier Astrological Pioneers of America (see immediately below) and is an expansion on it. The earlier geographical restrictions have been removed. This book now also extends backwards in time. You will find in its pages William Lilly, Firmicus Maternus, Claudius Ptolemy, Vettius Valens and many more. You will also find many, many unjustly forgotten foreign names. This is now as a complete and comprehensive reference as is possible for a single man to produce, remembering always that teams of researchers are generally required to produce a book of this size.

The book includes some 2200 astrologers. Whenever possible, it includes birth and death data, date, time and place. As Holden himself says, History is made by people, so biography is the basis of history.

In the English speaking world, we sometimes think astrology originated in Greece and then magically appeared in England and America. This, I am happy to say, is not true, and this book will provide a rich sampling of international astrologers through the ages. Of more recent astrologers, the previous cut-off of births in or prior to 1923 has now been raised to 1936, or, in a few cases, later, although deceased. This book is intended to supplement the author's History of Horoscopic Astrology, which you will find, above.

It is long past time that astrologers themselves took the lead in preserving our own history. The days of begging academics to give us a look-see I suppose will never end, but we can and will write our own histories, even if Wiki's express policy is to prohibit all mention that we have done so.

This book was intended for use by libraries. I might pick at it and find a great many trivial faults, chief among them the inclusion of many minor American astrologers, but it is better to err on the side of completeness. I only wish astrologers who were active in, say, the 1980's and who are still alive and noteworthy, had been included as well.

Though the author hopes his books will be the start of an on-going series of astrological reference works, they are more likely to be orphans. In this regard, the AFA itself will be critical. When the day comes that Mr. Holden resigns his post as its Research Director, I am hopeful the AFA will speedily appoint another, and assign him the task of keeping Mr. Holden's works up to date. I cannot stress enough how important the American Federation of Astrologers is, and will remain, to the future of astrology in the US, as well as to the world as a whole.

I regret this book, which weighs nearly five pounds and is two inches thick, will be extraordinarily expensive to ship. There is the possibility that I will ask the AFA to drop ship, and that they will ask the printer, Lightning Source, to drop ship in their stead. If so, delivery would be about two weeks.

AFA, 777 pages, hardcover, oversize.

AFA, 237 pages, paper.