The British Journal Of Astrology

The year before he wrote his famous book on fixed stars, Vivian Robson (1890-1942) wrote this one. In it, he put the distillation of four years intense work, spent in the British Museum Reading Room, where he studied very nearly every astrology book ever written, in English and Latin. To this day, he is virtually the only man to have ever undertaken a study of this magnitude. What makes the Student's Text-Book of Astrology unique is its unparalleled wealth of detail. Topics include Personal Appearance, Character and Mind, Health and Accidents, Finance, Occupation, and much more. For each, Robson gives specific rules of judgment and then supplies aphorisms collected from many ancient sources. The result is one of the most comprehensive astrology books ever written. ". . . [I]n private conversation he would talk for hours on the science of which he was a master. Indeed, his knowledge, not only of astrology but of many other sciences, was phenomenal; and few who enjoyed his conversation could fail to go away with an enhanced knowledge of whatever subject had been under discussion. He will be remembered best by his two chief books, A Student's Text-book of Astrology and The Fixed Stars and Constellations in Astrology. Of these the former is deservedly popular and the latter is a classic, containing as it does a mass of information dating from the days of Greek mythology up to modern times." - C.E.O. Carter "I have heard him converse knowledgeably on a dozen and one different subjects. I really believe he knew something about everything, but so far as astrology was concerned his versatility showed forth in a phenomenal knowledge of his subject. To converse on astrology with him, even if only for one short hour, was inevitably to gain something new and valuable in the way of experience and information." - Dorothy Ryan In this Memorial Edition, Obituaries by Charles Carter and George H. Bailey; Prof. Hugh S. Torrens' monograph, Curator Turned Astrologer; an Appreciation, by Dorothy Ryan; an Afterword by the publisher, David R. Roell, a newly prepared index, Robson's Death Certificate, and more. The finest of all of Vivian Robson's books, back in print at last.

This book has been written mainly for beginners who can learn Hindu astrology without having to learn anything by rote. They must do the exercises given at the end of each chapter systematically, again and again. There are many who have read many books on astrology and developed an incurable astrological constipation. It will be difficult for them to start with a clean slate as they cannot unlearn what they have. Yet, this book may help them remove some of the cobwebs in their minds. They have their minds cluttered with dogmas which they mistake for astrology.

Despite its popular association today with magic, astrology was once a complex and sophisticated practice, grounded in technical training provided by a university education. The Crown and the Cosmos examines the complex ways that political practice and astrological discourse interacted at the Habsburg court, a key center of political and cultural power in early modern Europe. Like other monarchs, Maximilian I used astrology to help guide political actions, turning to astrologers and their predictions to find the most propitious times to sign treaties or arrange marriage contracts. Perhaps more significantly, the emperor employed astrology as a political tool to gain support for his reforms and to reinforce his own legitimacy as well as that of the Habsburg dynasty. Darin Hayton analyzes the various rhetorical tools astrologers used to argue for the nobility, antiquity, and utility of their discipline, and how they strove to justify their "science" on the grounds that through its rigorous interpretation of the natural world, astrology could offer more reliable predictions. This book draws on extensive printed and manuscript sources from archives across northern and central Europe, including Poland, Germany, France, and England.