Alan Leo

Yes, the legal survival story.

To understand the real origin, we have to look at the career of a man named Alan Leo.

Alan Leo is such a fascinating figure.

He was essentially the grandfather of modern popular astrology.

He was operating in the UK in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Wait, like actually breaking rocks?

Literally breaking rocks.

Alan Leo was facing hard labor.

I think that's so important what you brought up is the consumerist aspect of astrology.

And that's a, a very distinct notion of Euro-American astrology where astrologers like Alan Leo, for example, he's who actually popularizes sun signs because he's looking for a way to sell newspapers about astrology.

And so he's like, "Okay, people can relate to the sun more, and so I don't have to do as much work to actually cast the horoscope.

I can mass produce these newspapers about astrology." But he actually doesn't even do the work of writing the horoscopes.

So I, I just, I love that you gave us a place to start with engaging as an intellectual tradition.

Yeah.

I think that's so important what you brought up, is the consumerist aspect of astrology, and that's a, a very distinct notion of Euro-American astrology, where astrologers like Alan Leo, for example.

He's who actually popularizes sun signs, because he's looking for a way to sell newspapers about astrology.

So it's a reconfigured version of the Space Fanfare.

And then the last movement, Neptune the Mystic, which borrows its title from the equivalent chapter in Alan Leo's Art of Synthesis, the book on astrology that inspired Holst.

it ends in this wordless female chorus that is offstage, which would have been a daring touch for, I forget what year The Planets was, was it 1915 or something?

Something like that, in the teens.

I was leading this.

This revolution was spearheaded by figures like Alan Leo in the early 20th century and later heavily influenced by the psychoanalytic work of Carl Jung.

Jung is everywhere in this.

He really is.

The dark moon is something used widely, or I would say more popularly in esoteric astrology.

Now esoteric astrology is rooted in that book, Esoteric Astrology by Alan Leo.

And Alan Leo was a pupil of Alice Bailey.

and esoteric astrology is really interesting at its time nobody had ever seen anything like it it emphasized this idea of choice free will it emphasized tendencies but it also talked about how the consciousness that you bring to the chart that you bring to the moment of a reading as the astrologer or as a person reading your own chart or even in consultation with an astrologer, your consciousness will determine what you're going to emphasize more of when you look at the chart.

And so according to Alan Leo, people who maybe didn't necessarily have a very high level of functioning of consciousness, they are going to get a lot more wrapped up in every little aspect that comes along.

And for those who are a little bit more evolved, it becomes a lot more about the planetary movements through the houses of the natal chart.

But if someone's operating from a very high level of consciousness, it becomes a lot more about the pure energies of the planets themselves.

Now that's according to Alan Leo.

What I want to tell you about is a magazine that is available.

stored on there that Philip has scanned and it's called Modern Astrology now the guy that started it and inverted commas owned it was called Alan Leo who you might have heard of if you've ever done any history research to astrology another blurb so the let me move that Modern Astrology, the astrologer's magazine, established in 1890, monthly magazine devoted to occult thought and the study of humanity.

I today was looking at volume XX1V, so that's two tens, which is 20.

1V is four, so it must be episode 204, my episode volume.

So these people that produced this were based in London.

They'd never be able to afford to do that now because the prices of properties in London are enormous.

And the editor of this edition that I'm looking at is Mrs. Alan Leo.

So she's, she's obviously her first name isn't Alan, but that's how people used to talk to you.