International Association for the Preservation of Spiritualist and Occult Periodicals

   

Periodical: Urania (Merlinus Anglicus Jr.)

Summary:  From Pat Deveney's database:

Urania.
Or, the Astrologers’ Chronicle, and Mystical Magazine.
Other titles: The Mystical magazine; or, The Chronicle of the Heavens
1825 Monthly
London (Aldersgate), England.
Language: English.
Publisher: Cowie and Strange, 24 Fetter Lane.
Editor: Merlinus Anglicus, Jun., The Astrologer of the Nineteenth Century (Robert Cross Smith, "Raphael," 1795-1832), Assisted by The Metropolitan Society of Occult Philosophers.
Succeeds: Astrologer of the Nineteenth Century
Succeeded by: Raphael's Prophetic Almanac
Corporate author: Metropolitan Society of Occult Philosophers; Mercurii
1/1, 1825.
2s. 6d per issue, 72 pp.

Only one issue is known, which is probably the only issued. The Metropolitan Society of Occult Philosophers is the same as the Society of the Mercurii, first mentioned by Smith in the Straggling Astrologer the preceding August. The members almost certainly included the artist John Varley (1778-1842), a friend of William Blake, to whom is attributed the anonymous nativity of "William Blake, the Mystical Artist," in the surviving issue of this journal. The Introductory Address for the journal stressed that it was written to "attract the attention of those who are believers in the doctrines of siderial and occult influence, and to none others," and "in order to keep our work as select as possible, we have have adopted the most likely method of doing so, by making the price far above the common run of the periodicals which glut the literature of the present day. We have funds at our command . . . ." This ploy seems to have been misdirected and certainly did not succeed. The journal contained nativities, extracts from "celebrated authors," digressions on Noah and the Ark and the symbols of the dragon’s head and tail, articles on proper computing of an arc of direction in horoscopes, discussions of coincidences, predictions for the coming year, discussions of the casting of lots, etc. Listed in F. Leigh Gardner, Bibliotheca Astroligica, 121.

Other Sources:BL; Oxford University.
Issues:Urania V1 N1 1825
Claude-Generated Themes:   Urania; or, The Astrologer's Chronicle and Mystical Magazine (London, 1825) was a product of the Regency-era English astrological revival. Its pages are given over to technical natal astrology — genitures and nativities, the ascendant and planetary conjunctions, the zodiac, and the perennial quarrel over house systems (Placidus and its rivals) — illustrated with worked nativities of historical figures such as Charlemagne and Melanchthon. The 'Mystical Magazine' of the subtitle lends a light occult and adept coloring, but the magazine is an astrological organ first and last, predating Theosophy and modern occult revivalism, and its stray New Thought vocabulary is simply OCR noise against an 1825 text.

Generated by Claude from the periodical's digitized text; a thematic reading, not a bibliographic description.
Topics:Astrology