Robert Cross Smith (1795-1832) was an English

astrologer Astrology is a range of Divination, divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that propose that information about human affairs and terrestrial events may be discerned by studying the apparent positions ...

, writing under the pseudonym of "Raphael". Smith was born in Bristol on March 19, 1795. He married in 1820 and moved to London, where he became interested in astrology. Together with G. W. Graham, he published a book on

geomancy Geomancy, a compound of Greek roots denoting "earth divination", was originally used to mean methods of divination that interpret geographic features, markings on the ground, or the patterns formed by soil, rock (geology), rocks, or sand. Its d ...

in 1822. Smith began to edit a periodical entitled ''The Straggling Astrologer'' in 1824, but failed to receive enough subscribers and the periodical had to be discontinued after a few issues. He collected the issues of the failed periodical in a volume entitled ''The Astrologer Of The Nineteenth Century'' in the same year. The volume claimed to be the "sixth edition", but it is believed that editions one to five never existed. A substantially enlarged edition appeared in 1825 as the "seventh edition", with additional material attributed to "Merlinus Anglicus Junior" (''Merlinus Anglicus Junior: The English Merlin Revived'' was the title of a 1644 book by

William Lilly William Lilly (9 June 1681) was a seventeenth century English astrologer. He is described as having been a genius at something "that modern mainstream opinion has since decided cannot be done at all" having developed his stature as the most imp ...

). It was printed by Knight & Lacey of London. From 1827 until his death in 1832, he edited an astrological almanac, entitled ''The Prophetic Messenger''. Also published by Smith was ''The Familiar Astrologer'' and ''A Manual of Astrology'', both in 1828. Smith died on 26 February 1832 in London. His almanac continued to be edited as ''

Raphael’s Ephemeris ''Raphael's Ephemeris'' is an ephemeris, or set of tables, used in astrology to determine the position of the Sun, Moon and planets. Raphael was a pseudonym used by the original author of the ephemeris, Robert Cross Smith. History An ephemeri ...

'' and would become a standard work in British and US American astrology. ''Raphael's Ephemeris'' popularized the system of

Placidian system Most horoscopic traditions of astrology systems divide the horoscope into a number (usually twelve) of houses whose positions depend on time and location rather than on date. The houses of the horoscope represent different fields of experience ...

of astrological houses in the English-speaking world and in modern western astrology in general. A collection of articles on magic and divination from Smith's publications has been collected in "A Sorcerous Anthology, Magick and Occult Writings from the Publications of Robert Cross Smith", available from Topaz House Publications.

References

*Brau, Jean-Louis, Helean Weaver, and Allan Edwards. Larousse Encyclopedia of Astrology. New York: New American Library, 1982.

External links

google books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical charac ...

has a
online edition
of an 1831 reprint of ''The Familiar Astrologer''
A Sorcerous Anthology
can be found a
Topaz House Publications
{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Robert Cross English astrologers 19th-century astrologers 1795 births 1832 deaths