The Astrologer of <iapsop_date canonical="1800/1899" date_type="century">the Nineteenth Century</iapsop

Periodical:	*The Astrologer of the Nineteenth Century*

Summary:	From Pat Deveney's database: Astrologer of the Nineteenth Century, The. Other titles: Straggling Astrologer of the Nineteenth Century 1824-1824 Weekly Language: English. Publisher: Members of the Mercurii. Editor: Members of the Mercurii; Robert Cross Smith ("Raphael, the Metropolitan Astrologer"). Succeeded by: The Prophetic Messenger 1/1-22, June 5 to October 30, 1824. This was a weekly astrological and magical journal issued for 22 weeks in 1824, with beautiful plates and color plates. It was published by the "Members of the Mercurii," an astrological and occult group, more familiar to legend than to history, and after the first 12 issues was edited by "Raphael" (Robert Cross Smith, 1795-1832), the first and foremost of those to bear that name. After the journal expired it was reprinted in 1825 as The Astrologer of the Nineteenth Century, or the Master Key of Futurity, a Complete System of Geomancy & Occult Science (London and Dublin), with a preface to this (spurious) "seventh edition" by Merlinus Anglicus, Junior, Gent., praising the antiquity of astrology and the great success of the previous editions. The book was divided into 10 "Circles," each dealing with a hodgepodge of the occult arts, especially geomancy, necromancy, ceremonial magic, charms, talismans, incantations, "the Ancient Practice of Raising Spirits and Invocating the Dead," astral influence, omens, mythology, prophecies, remarkable nativities, ghost stories, "Descriptions of the Ancient Danish Calendar," etc. The journal revealed the learning of the period but, other than in astrology, did not pretend to great originality, regularly citing to curious German and French works, Charles Maturin, Dom Calmet, Jeremy Bentham, Francis Barrett, etc. The journal also published certain "Astrological Fragments by Her Royal Highness Princess Olive of Cumberland," presumably the painter Olivia Serres who claimed the dubious distinction of being the daughter of Henry, Duke of Cumberland. The painter and astrologer John Varley contributed nativities to the journal, including his own. Generally, The Astrologer of the Ninteenth Century should be thought of as a continuation of The Straggling Astrologer.
Other Sources:	BL; NYPL; Brown University; Syracuse University; Cleveland Public Library; Northwestern University; Harvard University; BL.
Issues:	Astrologer of the Nineteenth Century, "Seventh Edition", 1825
Claude-Generated Themes:	The Astrologer of the Nineteenth Century (1825) is the archetypal Regency compendium of the 'occult sciences,' associated with 'Raphael' (Robert Cross Smith). It is above all a working manual of judicial astrology — nativities, ascendants, zodiacal aspects and transits — bound together with talismanic and ceremonial magic and a layer of physiognomy in the older sense. Its 'success' language belongs to the practitioner's art, not to any later mind-cure movement, and its date places it well before both New Thought and Modern Spiritualism. As one of the founding texts of the nineteenth-century Anglophone occult revival, it belongs squarely to astrology-as-occult-science rather than to spirit phenomena. Generated by Claude from the periodical's digitized text; a thematic reading, not a bibliographic description.
Topics:	Astrology \| Ceremonial Magic and Thelema \| Occult Science and Esoteric Philosophy