In podcast episode 502, astrologer and historian Philip Graves talks with me about his work as an astrological librarian and the publication of his new book. Technical and planetary changes in astrology.
This is the first volume in a new series, Graves’ Studies in the History of Astrologyit represents the fruition of his decades-long project to build one of the largest and most comprehensive private astrological libraries in the world.
Technical and planetary changes in astrology and is now available from Amazon and other booksellers.
The life of an astrological librarian
We begin the episode by discussing Philip’s journey into astrology and how he began to assemble his vast collection of astrological texts. Its library contains not only modern books, but also rare original publications of the 16th century, as well as an extensive collection of astrological journals, periodicals and almanacs.
We delve into the wonderful world of antiquarian book collecting and cover the following topics:
- The importance of first editions.
- Storage problems, including foxing, worming, and rebinding.
- How to handle very old books.
- The limitations of old, poor quality digital scans and abridged reprints and the value of comparing them with the original source texts.
Research from the library
A central theme of our discussion is how access to a wide range of primary sources allows for a clearer and more nuanced understanding of the history of astrology. Philip’s collection serves as a large research database, allowing him to trace the development of astrological concepts over time.
His new book is a collection of essays that demonstrate the value of this approach. Some of the historical questions we learn from his research include:
- Development of Uranus: How did astrologers determine the meaning of Uranus in the early 19th century? We examine the surprisingly early and precise boundaries from journals of the 1820s and 1830s, showing the empirical process that astrologers used to determine its meaning.
- Outer Planets: We contrast the empirical approach used for Uranus and Neptune with the mythological approach used for Pluto shortly after its discovery in the 20th century.
- Meaning of houses: Philip’s book explores the significance of the 12 houses in detail, tracing their continuity and evolution from the Hellenistic tradition through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
- History of Minor Aspects: We discuss a timeline of how harmonic aspects were developed, beginning with Kepler and gradually adopted and expanded upon by later astrologers.
- Origins of Sun Sign Astrology: Research by Philip et al pushed the origins of the newspaper’s sun sign columns back much earlier than the general date of the 1930s.
Ultimately, our conversation focused on how astrology was never a single, fixed system, but rather a dynamic tradition that is always growing and evolving.
learn more
You can find Philip’s work, including high-quality scans of rare texts and a second-hand bookstore, on his website:
His new book is called Technical and planetary changes in astrology and is now available on Amazon and other booksellers.
Time signs
00:00:00 Login
00:00:34 Philip’s library and background
00:10:13 Condition and handling of old books
00:17:03 Early signs of Uranus
00:28:08 Uranus in Gemini and USA
00:34:50 Did astrology die in the 17th century?
00:37:50 More early Uranus signs
00:45:16 Assigning names of gods to planets
00:57:05 Neptune and Pluto preliminary treatments
01:06:32 The difference between modern and traditional astrology
01:12:07 Studying houses
01:32:47 Lilith
01:36:09 12 letter alphabet
01:49:28 Alan Leo
02:00:59 laws against fortune telling
02:03:03 Development of minor aspects
02:19:51 History of astrological magazines
02:20:46 Astrological traditions in different languages
02:23:28 Scans and secondhand books on Philip’s website
02:37:14 Academia and astrology
02:43:20 Graves birth chart
02:52:10 Summary
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