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Mystery Chart No. 18 Revealed

1 by Tom
[Usual Caveat: If you don't want to know who the mystery native is, stop reading now]

Ours is an unsavory lot. Astrologers are lumped in with fortune tellers, vagrants, swindlers, charlatans, heretics, and screwballs in general. As bad as our collective reputation can get we rarely are associated with pirates, barroom brawlers, deserters from the military, serial marryers, lawyers and math professors, much less all of the above. Our mystery chart native is pretty much everything from pirates on down: Mr. W.H. Chaney astrologer and perhaps the father (denied) of famed American novelist Jack London.

What we know of Chaney comes from his teacher and one time friend, Luke Broughton, the father of American astrology, and from Chaney?s semi-autobiographical astrology text book Primer of Astrology and American Urania (1890).

Chaney, by his own admission, was not a man of sterling character. He makes an interesting remark in the beginning of his book:

?My horoscope teaches that Nature did much for me and I should have been above the average in goodness. But losing my father at nine, without a home, without friends, imposed upon tyrannized over and cruelly flogged, the good that was in me dwarfed and the evil so highly developed that when but sixteen, I enjoyed the reputation of being the worst boy in the county and all predicted that I would die in prison, or on the gallows.?

With all his planets below the horizon except the Moon, and she being in the 8th, it is difficult to see why Chaney thought his chart was so indicative of good. His ascendant ruler Venus is cadent and square her dispositor, Jupiter in Pisces, but Jupiter is in the 6th. There is a mutual reception with Jupiter making Venus a bit stronger than her peregrine position might be. The other benefic, Jupiter, is powerfully placed in Pisces, but he, too, is cadent

Chaney left home at age 16 wandering from place to place finally joining the Navy in order to learn enough seamanship to make himself valuable as a pirate, his main ambition. Nine months on a Navy vessel was enough. In July 1840 he deserted and headed west from Boston.

If there is a signature for self-pity is has to be in Chaney?s chart and it was activated when he wrote this book, if not sooner:

?A refugee, a price set up on my head, every man?s hand set against me, Ishmael was a model of gentleness in comparison.?

Chaney claimed he travelled only at night, sleeping by day. This was probably true as the military did not look kindly upon deserters, and at best he was looking at a long prison term if captured. He ended up in Ohio working on vessels that traversed the Great Lakes. However, broke and sick he hit bottom in late 1840. He had no money no prospects and he knew he was a wanted man.

At this point with the help of friends he went back to school beginning, he says, on his birthday Jan 13, 1841. Chaney would eventually practice law and teach advanced mathematics. In the 1860s he would make contact with Dr. Luke Broughton and from that point on he would practice, teach and write about astrology.

Broughton originally settled in Philadelphia, but moved to New York after Pennsylvania passed laws that could be used against Broughton to throw him in jail. Broughton was a practicing homeopath. He rented a hall on New York City?s Broadway where he lectured on various subjects including astrology. He claimed Chaney came to the lecture believing astrology to be false, but was persuaded otherwise by Broughton. Chaney became one of Broughton?s students and would be his most famous pupil, although, typical of Chaney, there would be a falling out.

Broughton was harassed terribly during this period in New York. People would disrupt his meetings and lectures. He was threatened with arrest and even sued by various individuals trying to get him to stop. Broughton even claimed his mail was tampered with. In 1866 according to Broughton, Chaney went to the local police precinct to complain about the harassment going on at the hall. Chaney was arrested and imprisoned for 6 months. Chaney?s account is slightly different. He claims Broughton was in jail with him! I don?t see any reason for Chaney to lie about this. Perhaps Broughton was embarrassed to admit he spent six months in a New York City Jail.

Chaney would move on and in the early 1870s met Flora Wellman, an occultist. They became intimately involved. It is unknown if they actually married. Chaney was no stranger to marriage, having taken the vows no less than six times in his life. If they did, the record would have been in San Francisco, where they settled for a while, but a fire destroyed the building containing the records of period. Chaney, by this time was about as anti-religion as one could be. He lectured on topics like ?The Bible as Fiction,? and claimed to be pro-Negro, pro labor, pro Grange and in favor of free love.

Flora became pregnant in 1875 and on Jan 12, one day before Chaney?s birthday, she gave birth to a son whom she named Jack. Chaney denied the child was hers claiming she had other lovers and that he was sterile. He lived in San Francisco for a while, but forever denied the child. Once shortly before his death, Chaney was allegedly contacted by Jack who by this time has taken his step father?s name, London. But once again Chaney denied the paternity.

Chaney would continue his wandering promoting astrology, railing against religion, particularly Christianity. On January 8, 1903 W.H. Chaney died. In the tradition of great astrologers everywhere, it was claimed he predicted his own death. He was buried in Chicago. He died penniless and whoever buried him did not pay for perpetual maintenance of the grave. After 25 years it was used again.

Contemporary admirers of Jack London would like the issue of paternity settled and have proposed DNA testing on Chaney?s remains, if it isn?t already too late. The problem is that Illinois law required that exhumation requests can only come from living relatives. The issue will probably never be settled, however it is highly unlikely that anyone but Chaney was London?s biological father.

His purported granddaughter, Joan London, an historian, did extensive research on her grandfather, but passed away before she could publish anything. Her thesis was that Chaney was not simply an itinerant, irresponsible vagrant. In fact he was typical of his age, the era of the greatest territorial expansion (by settlement) of the USA that produced many wanderers. That?s how those then far away areas were settled.

Regardless of that he was a tireless promoter of astrology, and a proponent of the use of primary directions, a predictive system losing favor due to its complexity and mathematical rigor. Broughton taught in New York until he died. Chaney was Broughton?s Johnny Appleseed, taking astrology with him wherever he went and leaving some of the subject behind. Broughton had other famous pupils: Catherine Thompson and John Hazelrigg among them. They in turn would teach people like Evangeline Adams and Llewellyn George as well as other contributors to American astrology. But none of them spread the gospel as far as Chaney and perhaps none, with the possible exception of Broughton himself, were as passionate about the subject. Whatever his faults, and I?m sure they were many, all of us owe him a little bit.


2 by yuzuru
I think that sometimes Steven must get tired of receiving the kudos and congratulations, but recognition must always comes with merit.
:-)

I thought he wasn?t a military man because of combusted mars and mercury as professional significator, but living and learning. :-?

But an interesting chart, the real peregrine man !

But enough with the astrologers, Tom, next time give us a chef or a lawyer!
:lala
Meu blog de astrologia (em portugues) http://yuzuru.wordpress.com
My blog of astrology (in english) http://episthemologie.wordpress.com

3 by Tom
I thought he wasn?t a military man because of combusted mars and mercury as professional significator, but living and learning
Mars is in the sign of his exaltation. It has been argued that a planet in great dignity (domicile or exaltation) cannot be combust because it disposits the Sun and therefore "rules" it. Mars is therefore not "powerless." The configuration is more like a mutual reception.

The other way to look at this is that he was a military man for less than one year and then he deserted. He was a lawyer for a while as well as a mathematics teacher at the college level.

Tom

5 by PFN
Yes, Steven is impressive, as always.

At least I kind of got the early father's death (but with so many indications, one would have to).

On the rest, I have to improve, a lot...

6 by Mark
Steven's analysis was awesome. :'

The final unveiling has also reaffirmed my confidence in the power of whole sign houses as the placement of the Moon in the 9th made the chart much easier to read IMHO.

I also note he did practise the law!

Here is some additional information on him:
Pioneer nineteenth-century American astrologer W. H. Chaney was born on January 13, 1821, in Chesterville, Maine. He was but nine when his father died and he left Maine when he was 16. He began a life of wandering that first led him to the sea. Nine months in the Navy drained him of visions of being a modern-day pirate, and he deserted and settled in Wheeling, West Virginia, where he studied law and eventually, in 1847, opened a legal practice. Little is known of his activity during the Civil War (1861-65), but in 1866 he was living in New York City and while there met Luke Broughton, the man largely responsible for the building of the astrological community in the United States.

Broughton introduced Chaney to astrology and led him in an intense study of the stars. Unfortunately, his new career ran into an immediate obstacle when in 1867 Chaney became a victim of an antiastrology crusade led by the New York Herald. He spent six months in jail and after his release, in 1869, he moved to the West Coast, where he resided for the next 17 years. After his move to California, his wife, who had remained in the East, obtained a divorce. In 1874 he married for what would be the fourth time, to Flora Wellman. As had his previous attempts at married life, this one would prove short-lived, but would have notable consequences. On January 12, 1876, his son Jack was born. After Chaney and Flora divorced, and Flora remarried, Jack would take the name of his stepfather and eventually grow up to write novels as Jack London.

Chaney continued to move about from town to town teaching astrology. By the end of the 1880s he had moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where he wrote and published a set of astrological texts including his most well-known, Chaney's Primer of Astrology and American Urania, published in 1890. He finally settled in Chicago, Illinois, and in 1897 married for the sixth and last time. He began a magazine which he named The Daisy-Chain, after his new bride.

Though he fell out with Broughton in his mature years, Chaney was his most famous and productive student and is remembered for helping create the profession of astrology on the West Coast and in the Midwest. He died in Chicago on January 6, 1903.
Maurice McCann has suggested Chaney was one of the major influences taking astrology away from the traditional use of moeity orbs to the modernist understanding of aspects.
Last edited by Mark on Fri Feb 20, 2009 7:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

10 by GR
MarkC wrote: I believe this is what Robert Zoller teaches?
As far as I know, and what his course attests to, yes, Robert Zoller would use both whole sign and Alchabitius Semiarc houses.
Gabe

11 by ###
The full impact of the circumstances is lost in simply saying that Chaney left home when young. When his father died the home was disbanded and the family dispersed. Here's an interesting account:
Chaney was born in a log cabin near present-day Chesterville, Maine, January 13, 1821. His father died when William was nine, and the fortunes of the family were radically changed. There was no one to farm his mother's land, and the family broke up, each going his own way. William was bound out to a harsh farmer in the area. He refused to submit to cruel treatment and ran away. By the time he was sixteen, seven farmers had used him as a "work beast."

www.jacklondons.net/Family/WilliamChaney.html

So death entered at an early age and pushed him out and onto his life path. There is the sense of ejection and being set on his trajectory. This fits well with the angular 4th house Mars-Sun conjunction in cardinal Capricorn with angular 7th house Saturn in cardinal Aries as dispositor. Saturn is linked to the Moon by sextile, the Moon's next applying aspect. And that leads to whether it's an 8th or 9th house Moon.

It looks quite possible that the quadrant charts with their use of the cross of the angles is more 'earthbound' or circumstantial, and Whole Sign houses are more 'essential'. I approached it in reverse. I should have considered how the 8th house Moon with Equal, Porphyry, and Placidus houses is drawn to being a 9th house Moon using Whole Signs. The 8th house state of death (of both father and family unit), fear (the poor kid) and lack of personal power (8th doesn't behold the ASC), could lead to a state of 9th house travel, quest and searching, astrology, and personal power by way of the 9th house trine to the ASC. The air and mutability of a Gemini Moon, helped by all the other cardinal, mutable and angular factors, was able to easily cut ties and move on.

12 by Tom
First I think the discussion of Chaney's chart is excellent and I hope more is to come.

Mark would you please give the source of your quote? I've picked up quotes about Chaney here and there, but I don't recall seeing that one. I'd like to add it to mine.

Tom
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