We are now Time Travelling back to a time 165 years ago.
Back in this day people communicated by sending paper with writing on it across the lands by way of horses pulling wagons. Not red radio flyer wagons, that was a more advanced age. These were canvas covered carts that carried people and postal packages to destinations that took days, weeks or months to arrive at. In our advanced era it would take hours to arrive at similar destinations, ...if we had a high speed rail system.
People also subscribed to publications by mail, such as this one.
This monthly journal could be purchased for 4 cents a copy and was availble by mail subscription for 50 cents per year. The Broughton behind the scenes of this journal was L.D. Broughton. Luke Dennis was born to a family of astrologers.
...those who know that Dr. Broughton's father and grandfather were firm believers in astrology: and that he himself has been studying it all his life. It is doubtful if there is anyman living now who has cast more horoscopes than he has, or is more skilled in this fascinating science. In the present work, Dr. Broughton not only lays down clear and simple rules for the guidance of students, but he also gives us some notable horoscopes of prominent persons, and some interesting reminiscences of his career as a teacher and champion of astrology. Altogether this is an admirable book, and one which deserves to be welcomed by all those who are interested in this curious, old, predictive science. - from New York Herald November 13 1898 A book review for the Elements of Astrology published 1898
He was esteemed as a notable astrologer of his day. He was born in Leeds England and moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania U.S., early in the 1840's. His father was a physician in England and Luke became one as well.
In 1860 while living in Philadelphia he revived the publication which had been started by his brother Mark Broughton. The purpose for bringing life back to the journal:
ThIs work is intended to be a Miscellany of Astrology, Astronomy, Phrenology, Astro-Phrenology, Physiogomy and Zodiacal Physiogomy .... It will also contain historical facts, proving the truth of some of the less popular but sublime departments of physical principles.
It will contain Essays and Diagrams, to illustrate and teach the Astral Sciences on simple and plain but efficient principles, so as to render it a useful miscellany and companion to the farmer, gardner, traveler, merchant, and the youthful inquirer after truth. -Broughton's Monthly Planet Reader April 1860
A few years later he moved to New York due to the Pennsylvania anti-astrology laws being passed banning astrology and other "fortune telling". Interestingly This law may still be in place and/or is being challenged as of 2025.
Broughton began to teach astrology in New York and advocate for study of the science as opposed to blind condemnation while completely ignorant of the ancient wisdom. He produced the book Elements of Astrology which was published in 1898. Interest and understanding of astrology grew during this era and Broughton was key in both defending astrology from the attacks coming by media and those pushing the attacks, and also exposing those practitioners who were outright false or simply applied the science with insufficient training in the field.
Broughton viewed attackers as ignorant of the long substantiated history and study of the stars and the connection of all planets.
What are those subjects, Phrenology and Astro-Phrenology?
"Phrenology (derived from (pgnv, phren, mind, and Aoyo;, logos, discourse) treats of the faculties of the Human Mind, and of the organs by means of which they are manifested ; but it does not enable us to predict actions." -Elements of Phrenology George Combe 1788-1858
"Dr Gall, a physician of Vienna, ... was the discoverer of the mental organs. He was born... 1757, and died in Paris .. 1828. From an early age he was given to observation, and was struck with the fact that his brothers and sisters, companions in play, and schoolfellows, were distinguished from each other by some peculiarity of talent or disposition. Some of his schoolmates were remarkable for the beauty of their penmanship, some for their success in arithmetic, and others for their talent for acquiring a knowledge of natural history or languages. The compositions of one were elegant, the style of another was stiff and dry, while a third connected his reasonings in the closest manner, and clothed his arguments in the most forcible". -Elements of Phrenology George Combe 1788-1858
In 2025 one online resource discusses phrenology as
"... a theory which claims to be able to determine character, personality traits, and criminality on the basis of the shape of the head (by reading "bumps" and "fissures"). Developed by German physician Franz Joseph Gall around 1800, phrenology was based on the concept that the brain is the organ of the mind, and that certain brain areas have localized, specific functions (such as Brodmann's areas) or modules. These areas were said to be proportional to a given individual's propensities and the importance of a given mental faculty, as well as the overall conformation of the cranial bone to reflect differences among individuals. The discipline was very popular in the nineteenth century, influencing early psychiatry and modern neuroscience. " "However, phrenology was soon found to be too simplistic...." -New World Encyclopedia
There are many many publications on this single subject over the past 400 years, and prior. Even traced back to Aristotle 384 BC-322 BC. But simplistic is not for the modern age of the 21st century. Now we can understand human behaviours without using an actual human, and phrenology, we are now told, is a pseudoscience.
"As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to evolve, its potential for understanding complex human behaviours expands. Beyond simply processing vast amounts of data, AI can unearth non-obvious patterns, revealing fresh insights into human psychology and sociology. " -Artificial Intelligence: Unveiling Hidden Patterns in Human Behaviour. Douglas C. Youvan 1955-
I wonder what we will learn, or be told, in the next 400 years about our new articifical sciences of intelligence.
And what about the subject of Physiogomy?
Physiogomy is pretty common amongst humans. It is said to date back to 1500 BC. However, this science of study of character analysis in the face and the form was outlined in the 1870's in an encyclopedic format by Mary Olmstead Stanton and published in San Francisco in 1881. She wrote in her published work, The Encyclopedia of Face and Form Reading -A Complete Summary of Character Analysis
" ...my desire to benefit the masses of mankind in a manner which I believe they very much need. Man's knowledge of himself seems not to have kept pace with the knowledge of his surroundings. It is time, therefore, that there should be an accordance of intelligence between the two, in order that, through Man's comprehension of his powers and possibilities, he may by scientific methods assist in improving his own life, and in perpetuating a race which shall be an improvement on the present one. This can come only through a knowledge of Anatomy, Physiology, Physiognomy, and Hygienic Law, practically applied." -
There appears to have clearly been keen interests in these subjects in the 19th century. So much so that it was important at the time to educate nonscientific populations on this interesting subject. Mary continued to express her intentions,
"I have endeavored to put this science in as plain and simple language as possible, so that the non-scientific reader should not be confused by terms whose meanings might be ambiguous. The method of classification used in this system of science is in accord with that observed by all naturalists in their classifications of the lower animals, and is based on the forms of the human organism which are produced by the intermingling of the Vegetative, Thoracic, Muscular, Osseous, and Brain and Nerve systems. These are treated in the order of evolution—from the first evolved to the latest acquired, the true and perfected cerebral system. " Scientific Physiognomy" gives the most comprehensive
theory of the Mind of any work hitherto presented to the world. It takes the position that mind inheres in the entire organism, and that the brain is only one source of the mind.
Mary Olmstead Stanton's work was at the time published as The Only Modern and Comprehensive Textbook Showing "The logical method of character analysis, with answers to every question on the subject carefully grouped and arranced for quick reference."
Intelligent minds seek to explore the teachings of the past and to understand why humans of the past worlds believed or understood these teachings. In this quest is the evolving of intelligence. We work with Meneleyev's Periodic Table of Elements now because of his quest. We know the term quantum physics, even if we do not grasp the science, because of the quest of those as Bohr, Pauli, Fermi, Heisenberg, and the many physicists who put their minds together in order to see into the unseen.
We still to this day have the study of cycles established and followed in the fields of economics and geopolitics even though the followers in these fields may not refer to cycles as astrology or even know of astrology.
Edward R Dewey, founder of the Foundation for the Study of Cycles was quoted as saying "Cycles outside the earth are related to cycles on earth." And then revealed that "This was a conclusion that he [Dewey] came to reluctantly because it sounds like astrology."
"Do not be misled by your nursery stories and grandmother's dogmas, that Astrology is all false, and you will then discover that there is no mysticism in the pure doctrines of Claudius Ptolemy, who, in his day, (which is now near two thousand years ago) declared that "it was a common practice with the vulgar to slander everything which is difficult of attainment." -Broughton's Monthly Planet Reader
"We grant that it is difficult for those persons who have not given attention to the subject, to conceive how the heavenly bodies can influence the minds and bodies of men, when we take into account the small size of a man's body and the great distance that the planets are from our earth; but every one must admit that attraction and gravitation, or the common tendency of bodies towards the earth's centre, is equally difticult to comprehend." -Broughton's Monthly Planet Reader
"That the stars* have an effect upon the earth and its inhabitants, is as self-evident a truth as that they have an existence--the ebbing and flowing of the tides prove this, as well as the periodical returns of heat and cold, light and darkness. -Broughton's Monthly Planet Reader
Are these not repeating cycles?
"...These are the most prominent parts of Judicial Astrology, for in these, planetary influence is universally felt and admitted, and its periods are accurately known. Thus far, at least, all men are astrologers, though most of them have not sense sufficient to discover it." -Broughton's Monthly Planet Reade
Luke Dennis Broughton said when he revived his brother's journal with the April 1860 edition of Broughton's Monthly Planet Reader
"We shall make it our business to present Facts, and leave the common sense and common honesty of our readers to decide, whether they do or do not demonstrate the reality of those celestial influences, for which we are contending."
EXPLORE MORE
Read Elements of Astrology published 1898
Take a look at Broughton's 1860 Monthly Planetary Readea with Astrological observations on the nativity of Abraham Lincoln and the fate of the nation. Lincoln became president in 1861 and was killed in1865
various book by Broughton
