The Influence of the Stars: A Book of Old World Lore

Baughan, RosaProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.7
Word count
280K words
Chapters
28

Tags

English Originals Divination AestheticismIntellectual EnlightenmentTraditional AestheticsAstrological TraditionAncient FaithCultural ChangeAstrological CultureFolk CustomsFolk LegendCross-Cultural View

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Influence of the Stars: A book of old world lore by Rosa BaughanAuthor: Baughan, Rosa,Language: English, Class: BF: Philosophy, Psychology, Religion: Psychology, Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, Release Date: Jun 7, 2013

Editor's review

This book is Rosa Baughan's systematic compilation of old-world astrological tradition, an early popular work on astrology and folklore. Its value lies not in precise modern astronomy but in preserving the concepts, terminology, and narrative modes of Western folk beliefs about stellar influence on human affairs around the nineteenth century, making it a source for understanding how astrological culture circulated at the popular level. The content addresses traditional topics such as celestial bodies and personality, fate, and choosing auspicious days, and the language carries the unhurried quality of old-fashioned exposition; it is suitable as corroborating reading for cultural history and folklore studies. Readers who take it as an astrology manual may find its knowledge system disconnected from modern astronomy, but those who read it with an eye for observing a kind of "old-world knowledge" can instead see how humans used the stars to understand their own circumstances. Read it against the background of intellectual history, distinguish folk narrative from scientific knowledge, and view it within the evolving context of astrological culture.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Read the table of contents first to survey the topics, then read selected chapters closely according to interest.
  2. Record astrological terms and concepts that recur throughout the book as you read.
  3. Read alongside works on intellectual history or folklore to avoid understanding it in isolation.
  4. Treat it as cultural-historical material rather than a predictive tool, and maintain a critical distance.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28

FAQ

Is this book about modern astronomy? No. It compiles old-world folk lore about stellar influence, belonging to popular astrological tradition and folk belief rather than modern astronomy. Read it within the context of cultural history and do not use it as scientific knowledge.
Can I read this book if my English is not good? This is the original English edition, and the language has the style of old popular exposition. If your English reading ability is limited, comprehension will be difficult; you can first read some chapters with a dictionary, or consult Chinese materials on astrological folklore for background.
Is this book suitable for learning astrology? It is better as a historical reader on astrological culture than as a systematic astrology tutorial. What it preserves are old concepts and modes of expression, lacking the step-by-step system of modern instruction. Those who want to learn practical astrology should find dedicated textbooks and treat this as background material.

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About the author

Baughan, Rosa Author · British

Rosa Baughan was a British popular writer known for books on palmistry and character analysis. Public information about her is limited: her birth and death dates, education, and full writing career are not clearly recorded. Only one of her works is held in the collection, The Influence of the Stars: A Book of Old World Lore. Judging from the title and her known subject matter, she was concerned with traditional links among the stars, palmistry, and character, introducing to general readers the folk knowledge and divinatory ideas current in earlier ages. Such subjects were common in British popular publishing in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when authors often gathered older lore and customs in accessible form for ordinary readers. Baughan's work belongs to this tradition, combining popular appeal with a compilatory quality, and may serve as a reference for understanding the popular astrological and character-analysis writing of her time.