(1860 -1917). A highly successful British astrologer. He was born William Frederick Allen in Westminster, London on August 7, 1860. He adopted his ascending astrological sign as a pseudonym. At the approximate age of 25 he took up residence in London and developed an interest in astrology. He married Bessie Birch who was a member of the Theosophical Society (TS) and founder of the Astrological Lodge, London. In London he met Walter Richard Old, an astrologer who sometime later adopted the pseudonym of “Sepharial.” Old was a theosophist and introduced Leo to theosophy and the works of Helena P. Blavatsky. Leo twice made the journey to India and stayed for some time at the Adyar headquarters.

A prolific writer on astrology, Leo was twice arraigned on a charge of fortune telling. The first charge was dismissed, but he was fined £25 on the second. Leo was associated with the work of the TS; in 1912 making the sweeping statement to the Astrological Society, “Astrology without Theosophy has no meaning” (Quoted in The Theosophical Year Book, 1938). Leo gave Annie Besant her first automobile. He lived for a while at Adyar, headquarters of the TS near Madras (now called Chennai). Sepharial had predicted that Besant would die in 1907 and Leo told her that by failing to die on time she had knocked the bottom out of English astrology.

Leo died August 30, 1917, and according to his biography, The Life and Work of Alan Leo, his associates in astrology were unable to account for his death, astrologically, at the time it occurred.

Publications include: Astrology for All, Casting the Horoscope, Practical Astrology etc.

P.S.H.

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