The Astrologer's Guide (Cosimo Classics Paranormal)

[T]o judge of things to come is no easy task nor indeed can it always be exactly performed; but we may come near the truth and differ from it only in some small time or circumstance; which difficulty should not at all discourage us from studying and endeavouring to obtain as great a knowledge therein as Human minds are capable of... -from Henry Coleys Address to the Reader The provenance of this charming little book is as delightfully convoluted as the discipline it offers guidance in. In the 13th century Italian mystic Guido Bonatus set down in writing his 146 considerations or guides for interpreting astrological signs. In 1675 British astrologers Henry Coley and William Lilly published a translated version of Bonatus along with a selection of oracular advice from Jerom Cardan of Milan in the same volume. And then in 1886 William C. Eldon Serjeant fellow of the British Theosophical Society republished that 1675 work and added his own notes and preface. The layers of history in this work-which is still used by astrologers today-makes it a particularly curious document of the medieval Renaissance and Victorian eras all at once.