Mystery Chart No. 18 Revealed
Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2009 1:27 am
[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.
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.
Steven nailed it though, no surprise 
