Time Traveller -ASTROLOGY 2025 - 1860's

A glorious full moon is shining splendidly in the night sky   It is a full moon in Aquarius in August of 2025.  L.D. Broughton, of BROUGHTON'S MONTHLY PLANET READER from the year 1860  is not among us now to expound on the harmony of this night but the team at Astrodienst is.  And they say in the newsletter emailed out for this month,

"...The trine to Uranus in Gemini becomes exact on the 8th, the opposition to Saturn and Neptune in Aries on the 9th, and the trine to Pluto in Aquarius on August 10. During the same period, on August 9, there is also a Full Moon in Aquarius, which lends additional weight to this rare constellation.
The quality of time during these days offers many excellent opportunities, but you must seize them actively and consciously. The harmonious connection between Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto indicates that completely new possibilities exist in the collective field. Mars, Pluto, and Uranus form a grand trine in the air signs. There is hardly a better time to start manifesting new visions and ideas.  - the Astrodienst Team 

In the era of Broughton, 165 years ago, astrology forcasting was banned in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania where he was living.  Of course there were not internet platforms in his time period, his publications were sent via postal service to subscribers or purchased, I presume, at shops.  Why astrology was banned?, I am not sure.   Plato gave us his angle on the matter when he said

    God  always geometrizes  -Plato

And Jung told us

 Astrology and other methods of divintion may certainly be called the science of antiquity   -Carl Jung

What would Galileo say? . In the year 1616, an Inquisitorial commission declared heliocentrism to be "foolish and absurd " perhaps you know the story...  Galileo died in 1642 and it wasn't until 1835 that "all traces of official opposition to heliocentrism by the church finally went away.  Sure, the opposition went away after  two centuries but what ever happened to the original work of his that was banned during those 200 plus years?   

So after 200 years Galileo is fully acquitted, but then a mere 26 years later in 1861, some other court bans astrology? 

I think with your friend that it has been of late too much the mode to slight  the learning of the ancients.   -Benjamin Franklin,  1774

Of course many along the way have not accepted astrology, Descartes, Kant, Volatire, all had their say, but the use of intelligence to debate intelligence moves thinkers and philosophers and astrologers to refine their craft.  It is difficult for all of humanity to be enlightened and for each individual to refine their own thinking if our resources are filtered.  

Maybe an astrologer could chart the course for astrology to help us understand the cycles of the science from the ancients to the moderns.  It could start with ancient Egypt, or the Greeks who gave us the term Astrology from thef two Greek words,

Astron, a star, and Logos, discourse or reason

Discourse and reason are essential to science.  This must be why the sciences are named this way, biology, geology, criminology, psychology, astrology....

" .., of all sciences, whether true or false, which have at any time engaged the attention of the world, there is not one of which the real or assumed principles are less generally known than those of Astrology. The whole doctrine of this science is commonly understood to have been completely overthrown, and of late, people seem to have satisfied themselves with merely knowing the import of its name. - Broughton's Monthly Planet Reader 1860 issue

During the same time period as Broughton's Monthly Planet Reader another  book was published in 1856  titled  Astrology As It Is, Not As It Has Been Represented .  This amusing paragraph is from the Prefatory Address of the beginning pages

But perhaps, reader, you may be inclined to ridicule the notion of Celestial influence as altogether absurd, and have come so far merely for the sake of laughing at us: pray go on, only do but listen while you laugh: many have begun by ridicule, and ended in belief. The Reverend Doctor Butler sat down to expose the ridiculous absurdities of Astrology; but as in order more effectually to show up the absurdities of the science it was expedient to read a little on the subject, he proceeded to do so, and thus not only became a convert, but wrote an Apology for Astrology, even as Bishop Watson wrote an Apology for the Christian Religion.

Who was it that wrote the Apology for Galileo?

What is Astrology?  If you are curious you can view this very fine modern website

According Broughton  Astrology consists of three parts or branches, and these being,

Genethliacal Astrology, which teaches according to certain mathematical rules, to judge from the figurere or chart of the heavens at the moment of birth, the form, temperature, and character of the individual, and more.

Mundane, or State Astrology, or the art of foreseeing, from the position of the heavenly bodies at the time of eclipses, great conjunctions, and other periods, the fate and circumstances of nations as to war, pestilence, famine, earthquakes, and so on.

Predictory Astronomy or Horary Astrology, or the art of foreseeing events from the position of the heavens, at the moment a question is put forth, or when an individual may be anxious about any matter, the result of any business or circumstances whatever. 

I came across L.D. Broughton's work through an old book containing his writings.  But you if are interested you can read for yourself even more of his work.  The International Association for the Preservation of Spiritualist and Occult Periodicals offers the archive of these old publications on the organization's website.   I am not actually familiar with the website, I just came across it while exploring some of the aspects in the 1860 era of writings . 

I will wrap up the writing of this August full moon of the year 2025 just as the cycle moves on to another period of 24 hours.  Lets see what the next day, period, cycle, full moon, or era will bring as we continue to ponder the vast space filled with distance light.

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