The Manual of Astrology First published in 1898, Sepharial revised and enlarged the book in 1903. After his death in 1929, the publisher added delineations for Pluto, which was discovered in 1930.This book has long been a classic.
Introductions:
In an experimental subject like Astrology there is always some- thing fresh to be said, and much that needs to be told anew in the light of a more catholic experience than that enjoyed by astrological authors of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The discovery of the planet Pluto in 1930 has enlarged the field of our researches, and much has been added to what is already known in regard to the nature and dominions of the planets.
The present exposition of the predictive art will find more favour with students of Astrology than with the lay reader, though, in the choice of a guide to the celestial science, the present Manual may recommend itself to the lay reader, as containing the fullest possible information under the several heads of our subject, and being, at the same time, devoid of those abstruse calculations and technicalities which have beclouded some of the most learned and brilliant expositions.
The treatment of that portion of our subject which deals with prenatal influences, the intra-uterine period, and the law of sex, has the merit of originally, and truth. The section dealing with Hindu Astrology, after Par shara, is properly dissociated from the body of the Manual by the difference of zodiacal measurement observed in the East, as well as by the interpretation of planetary influences in relation to the conditions of Oriental life; yet it is deemed of sufficient interest and merit to introduce in these pages.
In effect, then, the characteristics of fullness and simplicity have been considered in the preparation of this work, and it is believed that the Manual will give the average student a better grip of the key to celestial science, and a wider view of the ground-plan of Astrology than has hitherto been afforded.
The author desires to recognize to the fullest extent the merits of al former writers whose works have opened up and illustrated the subject of planetary influence to many thousands of intelligent minds, Lily, Coley, Sibley, Ashmand, Simmonite, whose works have been consulted for the purpose of this Manual.
The law of life is a low of progress, and we, who from our temporal standpoint take note of the passage of events, can, if we will, see therein the working out of this law by means of the cyclic recurrence of those events in successive generations and ages.
The astronomer realises this in the return of the planets and comets in their orbits, and the succession of phenomena attaching thereto is found to be continually repeating itself, but always in relation to the experience of new and successive generations. Thus all humanity is taught the same lesson, and the same book is repeatedly studied by each succeeding age.
The astronomer, by his science, is able to predict the return of the comets, the con- junctions, occultations, and other phenomena of the planets, together with the eclipses of the Sun and Moon, centuries in advance of their occurrence.
The astrologer, taking note of the cyclic repetition of events in conjunction with concurrent celestial phenomena, is enabled, by similar methods, to predict when such and such events, shall occur again. There is nothing supernatural in this when once we come to know the laws of planetary influence, the impressibility of Nature, and the power of man to read such impressions.
Perhaps the reader will think that in saying this we go too far without appeal to common experience, but as far as Astrology is concerned, we go no further than the reader himself can prove by an application of the rules contained in this Manual to his own life and that of others.
It is not to be supposed that a scientific structure, such as Astrology purports to be, can have been in building through the ages upon the basis of a mere conceit of the imagination, or similar insecure foundation which could not stand the test of the plumb-line and level of science. On the contrary, we claim that the predictive art is set firmly in the immovable foundations of Nature, and that the whole plan and superstructure is but a presentation of certain well-defined laws operating in and from the archetypal world.
Pythagoras held it as a truth that all things were formed after a type existing in the Universal Mind, and that all forms were but the expression of certain numbers or quantities existing in the soul of things. It is in the imperishable rock of numbers that the fadeless footprint of astral science was first set.
It is because of this mathematical basis in Astrology that the science is rendered so easy of proof, in contradistinction to many other less scientific modes of divination.
Contents:
Book 1, The Language of the Heavens, introduces the Zodiac, the planets, the houses, and aspects. Many of the delineations deal directly with the ascendant, including delineations of the decanates, which are 10 degree slices of the signs.
Book 2, The Reading of a Horoscope, delineates the natal chart for specific traits, among them, Physical Constitution, Physical Infirmities, Mental Qualities, Financial Fortune, Rank or Position, Marriage, Children, Friends and Enemies, Sympathy and Antipathy, etc.
Book 3, The Measure of Time, introduces the Prenatal Epoch, which is to say, the moment of conception. This was Sepharial s unique invention. The book continues with Primary and Secondary Directions.
Book 4, Hindu Astrology, explains the Tropical and Sidereal zodiacs, Nakshatras, Planetary Periods and sub-periods (Vimshottari dasas), and the houses and aspects in Hindu astrology.
