Page 20 - Talented Astrologer • Volume 2 Number 1 • Winter 2019

Dignities, which include Rulership, Exaltation, Triplicity, Term, and Face, are the heart of astrology, and the system of Essential Dignities is described in the Tetrabiblos. But only the seven visible planets are included in this system.
Raphael I (R.C. Smith) was the first astrologer to attempt to integrate Uranus into the dignity system. He assigned Rulership and Exaltation to Uranus, but did not attempt to address Triplicity, Term, or Face.
the most fundamental difference that separates traditional astrology from modern astrology.
Alan Leo: The Grandfather of Modern Astrology
The first “New Age” occurred in England in the late 19th century. Along with a renewed interest in Spiritualism,
Theosophy, and (after all, this was England) the existence of fairies, came
a renewed fascination with astrology. Alan Leo began to sell astrology lessons and became quite well known.
There was one small catch. Astrology was mainly a predictive tool used for answering questions and looking into
the future, and fortune telling was illegal
in England. Leo was prosecuted for
trafficking in illegal information, and to
defend himself, he asserted that he wasn’t
teaching fortune telling; instead, he was
teaching how to use astrology for personal development—you know, like that nice Viennese fellow, Freud, has been touting recently.
This defense only worked for a few years, and Leo was ultimately arrested and convicted of fortune telling in 1917. But between his first arrest in 1914, and his death in 1917, shortly after the second trial, he had revised his extensive
writings about astrology, moving from what he called “event-oriented” astrology to a descriptive astrology of character analysis.
This is how natal astrology—and astrology as most of us know it today—was born.
The progressive abandonment In 1915, Leo founded the Astrological Lodge of
of the Essential Dignities, coupled with the attempts to redefine Rulership to include the newly-
discovered outer planets is perhaps
London. Upon his death, Charles E. O. Carter took over, both as president of the Lodge and as the leading light of astrology in England. Leo and Carter’s books laid the groundwork for the
20 Talented Astrologer