A practitioner behind the published name
Little securely documented information is available about Raphael’s early life, family or education, and his birth and death dates remain uncertain. The name is associated with Albert R. Borrill: Earthology’s copyright notice names Borrill in 1900, while its 1901 title page credits Albert Raphael. The astrology bibliographer Philip Graves also identifies the two names. The title page describes Raphael as president of the School of Science, but does not establish the institution’s history or the nature of his qualifications.
The book’s closing advertisement gives a more concrete glimpse of his work. Writing as Professor Raphael, he offered interviews by appointment and written horoscopes addressing business prospects, marriage and future events. Clients were asked to send their date, place and approximate time of birth, together with payment, to a Madison Square postal address in New York. The advertisement also promotes his palmistry book Cheirosophy.
Character, polarity and the heavens
Earthology begins from Raphael’s conviction that the interdependence of the solar system extends into individual temperament and destiny. His introduction develops a principle of polarity, applying paired forces to matter, spirit and relationships. The first set of character readings pairs the earth’s sign with the opposite solar sign: a reader born in late March, for example, is directed to the earth in Libra and the sun in Aries. These portraits address the reader personally, mixing praise, warnings, vocational suggestions and claims about psychic capacities.
