Ocellus Lucanus On the Nature of the Universe and Extracts

The group of brief translations and extracts which Thomas Taylor combined in the present volume may be considered as dealing with astrotheology. The work was issued in a very small edition and has eluded reprinting until now.

Occelus Lucanus and Taurus have survived principally in the writings of later authors. What little is known of them in summarized in Mr. Taylor’s preface.

Julius Firmicus Maternus was one of the most famous early astrologers and is second in authority only to Ptolemy of Alexandria. He wrote in the fourth century A.D., but it was not until 1975 that his principal text, Libri Matheseos, appeared in English. The horoscope of the world which is included herewith is from the 1533 edition of the Libri Matheseos.

The writings of Proclus are available in the translations of Thomas Taylor, and he has long been regarded as indispensable to the interpretations of the writings of Plato and Socrates. It is appropriate that his opinions should be included herewith, as they deal with the mystery of time as explained in Neoplatonism. This 1976 PRS Edition features an Introductory Preface by Manly P. Hall.

*Please note: the text appears in the original 18th century typeface, with spelling indicative of the period.

Thomas Taylor (1758-1835), was an 18th century translator whose writings influenced the likes of William Blake, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Wordsworth, G. R. S. Mead, & Mme. Helena Blavatsky.  Manly P. Hall deeply admired Taylor for the Herculean and often thankless task of translating previously untranslated Greek philosophy.