By the 1600's, William Lilly, the last of the great European astrologers, predicted the Great Fire of London fourteen years before the event, and drew up war charts for the Royalists and the Parliamentarians. In his heyday, Lilly was seeing 2000 clients a year.
But eventually, astrologers like William Lilly, were persecuted by government officials. Their talents and capabilities proved to be, too great a threat, to the 'establishment'.
With these turn of events, astrologers in England were forced into hiding and were shrouded in secrecy, and marked the decline of astrology in the West. It was preserved by Brotherhoods such as the Freemasons, and the Rosicrucian’s (founded in 1614).
Famous scientists of this period who were also astrologers were Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler and Galileo.
Astrology was finally removed from all the universities in 1776, resulting in a decline of intellectual strength. However, certain names do stand out from the crowd in Victorian England.
For example, Richard Cross Smith(Raphael) and Commander Richard James Morrison(Zadkiel), W.J. Simmonite and Walter Old(Sepharial).
Astrology found a revival in the 1800's, thanks to the efforts of William Allan, also known as Alan Leo.
He was an outstanding astrologer, but much more than that, he was an organizer and proselytizer for the art. He took the many existing pieces and coherently brought them together.
To him, do we owe the revival of astrology in the 20th century, in the west.
Leo was famous in his day for his bold nature, and his incredible accuracy in predicting events.
Twice he attracted the attention of the British authorities, for making public predictions about them. He was accused and acquitted in court in 1914. He was again accused in 1917, losing in July of that year, and was fined 25 pound sterling (about $2500 in current money).
Weeks later he was dead from a stroke. Some think the strain of the second legal case brought on his death. The young Charles Carter became his successor.
The impacts of Carter’s court cases were even more far-reaching. Advised by his counsel, that predicting vague generalities would spare him further legal harassment, in the last years of his life he turned from Predictive & Event oriented Astrology, to Character Description and Psychological Tendencies, which comprises modern Western Astrology as we know it today.
