National Astrological Journal, The.
Astrology's Official Magazine
1933--1935
Hollywood, CA.
Publisher: The Wagners; Wagners Publishers.
Editor: Edward A. Wagner. 5/1, January 1933-7/11, November 1935.
32 pp., 25 cents an issue.

The volume numbering according to the note in the learned Astrolearn website, was apparently an effort by Wagner to link this journal with the earlier Journal of the National Astrological Association (q.v.) which had been quiescent but was revived about July 1933. Wagner (1906-1982) claimed to have begun his career as an assistant to Harry Houdini in debunking spiritualism. After Houdini's death in 1926, according to his narrative, Wagner decided to expose astrologers for the Cleveland Press, for which he worked, but in doing so became convinced to the truth of astrology and promptly moved to Oceanside, California, where he became became assistant superintendent of Max Heindel's Rosicrucian Fellowship. In 1931 he married Rita del Mar, who went on to become an assistant editor of Horoscope under Wagner's editorship and to write an astrology column for the Hearst papers. Wagner attempted to revive this journal in 1940 in the short-lived(August to November) Illustrated Astrology: The National Astrological Journal, said to have been the most expensive astrology journal ever, and also published a nationally syndicated "Your Daily Forecast" beginning in 1936. After World War II Wagner became the editor in chief for Dell Publishing and for Horoscope, which it published. The journal strove for a popular tone, featuring national forecasts, international affairs, financial astrology markets, Cheiro on Moses's hidden life in Egypt, Rita Del Mar on "Fall Style Forecast for Women," a Daily Color Guide to appropriate colors for threatening astrological periods, methods for finding the birth data on the reader's home town, the horoscopes of Pancho Villa (which included photographs of Wallace Beery from the recent movie about Villa), John D. Rockefeller, John Dillinger, et al., etc. It included contributions by Manley P. Hall, L. Edward Johndro (the science editor of the journal), Elbert Benjamine (C.C. Zain), Count Louis Hamon ("Cheiro"), Rita Del Mar, Llewellyn George, and others, and voluminous ads for the First Temple and College of Astrology in Los Angeles, Max Heindel's works, the Carey-Perry School of the Chemistry of Life (also Los Angeles), Leo Dowling's Aquarian Gospel, and other occult and astrological notables of the time. A compilation of material from the journal was published in 1978 as The Best of the Illustrated National Astrological Journal. LOC; NYPL.

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