Astrology is a range of divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of celestial objects. Different cultures have employed forms of astrology since at least the 2nd millennium BCE, these practices having originated in calendrical systems used to predict seasonal shifts and to interpret celestial cycles as signs of divine communications. Most, if not all, cultures have attached importance to what they observed in the sky, and some—such as the Hindus, Chinese, and the Maya—developed elaborate systems for predicting terrestrial events from celestial observations. Western astrology, one of the oldest astrological systems still in use, can trace its roots to 19th–17th century BCE Mesopotamia, from where it spread to Ancient Greece, Rome, the Islamic world, and eventually Central and Western Europe. Contemporary Western astrology is often associated with systems of horoscopes that purport to explain aspects of a person's personality and predict significant events in their lives based on the positions of celestial objects; the majority of professional astrologers rely on such systems.
William Lilly was a seventeenth century English astrologer. He is described as having been a genius at something "that modern mainstream opinion has since decided cannot be done at all" having developed his stature as the most important astrologer in England through his social and political connections as well as going on to have an indelible impact on the future course of Western astrological tradition.
Isaac Bickerstaff Esq was a pseudonym used by Jonathan Swift as part of a hoax to predict the death of then famous Almanac–maker and astrologer John Partridge.
John Partridge was an English astrologer, the author and publisher of a number of astrological almanacs and books.
Alan Leo, born William Frederick Allan, was an English astrologer, author, publisher, astrological data collector and theosophist. He is often referred to as "the father of modern astrology".
Richard James Morrison was an English astrologer, commonly known by his pen name Zadkiel and best known for the series known as Zadkiel's Almanac.
Dennis Elwell was a British astrologer, journalist, author and lecturer. He is the author of the book Cosmic Loom, and has contributed articles to the publications The Future of Astrology, the Astrological Association Journal, American Astrology, Prediction and Mountain Astrologer.
Walter Gorn Old was a 19th-century astrologer, who used the nom-de-plume "Sepharial", after an angel in the apocryphal Book of Enoch.
Robert Thomas Cross was a British astrologer.
Ebenezer Sibly was an English physician, astrologer and writer on the occult.
Astrology had support in early Christianity, but support declined during the Middle Ages. Support for it grew again in the West during the Renaissance.
John Booker (1603–1667) was an English astrologer, respected in that career for over 30 years. In the 1640s he was appointed licenser of mathematical publications, and so in effect a censor of astrological works, for the Stationers' Company.
Heliocentric astrology is a method of astrology based on birth charts cast using the heliocentric model of the Solar System, with the Sun at the center.
William Andrews was an astrologer, known mostly from his almanac. He published the Astrological Physician (1656), to which William Lilly contributed a preface. Among the Ashmolean Museum's manuscripts, there is preserved a letter, dated from Ashdown, Essex, 31 March 1656, in which Andrews thanks Lilly for writing the preface. In 1672 he published Annus Prodigiosus, or the Wonderful Year 1672, and More News from Heaven unto the World, or the Latter Part of the Wonderful Year 1672; being a further Account of the Portents and Signification of the Stars touching the United Netherlands. His almanac first appeared in 1655 as The Caelestiall Observator and appeared under various titles until 1672, when it appeared as News from the Stars, the title it would bear for the remainder of its run. He lived at Radwinter in Essex from 1668. The date of his death is unknown, but his will was proved in Radwinter in 1713.
George Dodd was an English journalist and writer. His best known work was The Food of London (1856).
Raphael's Ephemeris is an ephemeris, or set of tables, used in astrology to determine the position of the Sun, Moon and planets. Raphael was a pseudonym used by the original author of the ephemeris, Robert Cross Smith.
The Tatler was a British literary and society journal begun by Richard Steele in 1709 and published for two years. It represented a new approach to journalism, featuring cultivated essays on contemporary manners, and established the pattern that would be copied in such British classics as Addison and Steele's The Spectator, Samuel Johnson's The Rambler and The Idler, and Goldsmith's Citizen of the World. The Tatler would also influence essayists as late as Charles Lamb and William Hazlitt. Addison and Steele liquidated The Tatler in order to make a fresh start with the similar Spectator, and the collected issues of Tatler are usually published in the same volume as the collected Spectator.
Henry Coley was an astrologer and mathematician, and amanuensis of William Lilly.
Joseph Blagrave (1610–1682) was an English astrologer.
George Parker (1654–1743) was an English astrologer and almanac maker, known as a controversialist.
