Hi Tom,
I have been re-reading
The Sun and The Aspects by Maurice McCann where he discusses the development of modern aspect theory by nineteenth century astrologers such as Chaney, Leo, Raphael, Sepharial etc. In regards Chaney McCann appears to be more complementary to him than I previously recalled.
Very rarely in astrological literature do we find any questioning of techniques or beliefs . One of the few writers to do so was the Irish American astrologer W.H Chaney. He was obviously a man who didn?t accept the teachings that were handed down but scrutinized them for better understanding.
After discussing Chaney?s disputes with the English astrologers Raphael and A.J. Pearce McCann discusses his approach to aspects:
Other areas of astrology that fascinated Chaney were aspects and orbs of planets. He was not one to accept theories without question. It is obvious from his comments that he had given a lot of thought to the aspects and planetary orbs and was keen to learn more about them. In this respect he was one of a rare breed of astrologers. In the meantime , Leo had become aware of Chaney because of his comments regarding Raphael and Pearce. Leo?s magazine Modern Astrology had reviwed Chaney?s Primer of Astrology ( 1890) so Leo must have been aware of Chaney?s doubts concerning aspects and the orbs of planets. In 1892 he had commented ?there are many astrologers who express themselves dissatisfied with the orbs, and advocate a uniform distance of about 5 degrees for each planet. I do not profess to know for certain where the truth lies , but in my opinion is that the orbs vary considerably for each aspect?.
In fact , Chaney had instructed his students to use a 5-degree orb for aspects. ?
Did Leo in fact get his idea for orbs of aspects from Chaney? ?.Was Chaney the true originator of the orbs of aspects or did he get the idea from someone else? At least we can say that in 1890 Chaney published orbs of aspects for the first time. As we shall see later he was the kind of mind that could conceive such an innovation wheras Leo did not appear to have those qualities. ?Until futher research proves otherwise we can for the moment claim that Chaney was the first to publish the orbs of aspects.
In a later chapter in his book McCann returns to Chaney and spends more time discussing his contribution to modern aspect theory. Here is a short selection from McCann?s chapter:
There is a belief among astrologers today that orbs of aspects of planets were replaced with the orbs of aspects because of the supposed overlapping that would occur between the major and minor aspects. The case of this overlapping was thought to be the planets?s moiety of orbs. It seems that these minor aspects had grown in number and popularity around the end of the 19th century, Astrologers were concerned how to distinguish between them since the planets?s wider orbs would cause one to overlap with the another. In 1890 W.H. Chaney had discussed overlapping in his book Chaney?s Primer of astrology. It may well have been the first and perhaps the only ever to discuss this problem
In particular Chaney gives an example chart in page 20 of his Primer of Astrology (1890) which demonstrated a separating square and an applying quintle, all within moeities. The dilemma occurs McCann points out due to the abandonment of traditional ptolemaic aspect theory and trying to incorporate Kepler's aspect theory derived from geometry and mathematics into astrology.
If McCann is right Chaney is the single most important thinker on aspect theory since Kepler and the intellectual catalyst for other nineteenth astrologers like Leo and Raphael who popularised abandoning traditional moiety orbs with orbs for aspect. McCann suggests that there is a difference between Leo and Chaney as the former seemed to advocate a standarised orbs for all planets while Leo took this further into the modern notion of variable aspect orbs depending on aspect type. Leo's 'solution' was first set out in his magazine
Modern Astrology (1892) was to shift the focus away entirely from planets to the varying
strengths of different aspect types themselves. This is of course the position adopted by modern astrology.
