Three Histories of Uranus - Astrology in the Year Zero

Three Histories of Uranus Page 24
the lower.
Type of Death 56
Herschel by machine accidents, as on railways, drinking, bathing,
shipwreck; by the mob.”
A pattern for Uranus has been set by this time.
The most important development which followed was initiated by Madame
Blavatsky. The starting up of the Theosophical Society in 1875 in New York
was to have an impact on the development of astrology as a whole but this is
a broad topic and one not covered here. What is important for Uranus is her
ideas about it and in particular the input of Alan Leo who was part of the
Theosophical movement. Leo is often thought of as the father of modern
astrology. His prolific production of books early in the 20th century certainly
attracted the attention of many more people. He is sometimes thought to
have added to the popularistic ideas about astrology and is therefore not
always appreciated by astrologers but what he was attempting to do was to
use astrology in a completely different way and that is to use the horoscope
as guide for a better life. He introduced personal astrology which was a more
psychological and esoteric form of astrology in the place of predictive work.
Blavatsky’s ideas are easily seen in his work and because he was such a
prolific writer his ideas have entered into the mainstream of astrology
presumably, to use Sheldrake’s idea, because they have reached a wide
audience and have been repeated often. It is impossible to summarise
Blavatsky’s ideas in a concise manner – her book The Secret Doctrine
contains many ideas associated with the nature of God and the universe.
What is important is the fact that the seven planets (i.e. one assumes pre
Uranus although this is not entirely clear) have a special place:
“The now universal error of attributing to the ancients the knowledge
of only seven planets, simply because they mentioned no others, is
based on the same general ignorance of their occult doctrines. The
question is not whether they were, or were not, aware of the
existence of the later discovered planets; but whether the reverence
paid by them to the four exoteric and three secret great gods -- the
star-angels, had not some special reason. The writer ventures to say
there was such a reason, and it is this. Had they known of as many
planets as we do now (and this question can hardly be decided at
present, either way), they would have still connected with their
religious worship only the seven, because these seven are directly
and specially connected with our earth, or, using esoteric
56 Simmonite, Complete Arcana of Astral Philosophy, p.135.