Man Who Saw the Future – A Biography of William Lilly: The 17th–Century Astrologer Who Changed the Course of the English Civil War : A Biography of William Lilly: the 17th-Century Astrologer Who Changed the Course of the English Civil War

Winter, 1643. Astrologer William Lilly is gazing at a pot of piss. Parliament has asked him to help: will leader John Pym live or die? Using an ancient technique called horary, Lilly predicts Pym will die in eight days' time. He is correct.

The Man Who Saw The Future is not just required reading for every would-be astrologer. It stands alone as an amazing tale full of insight into pivotal history. It is fascinating and wonderfully well written.' Jonathan CainerIn the 17th century, William Lilly enthralled a civil war-torn nation with his uncannily accurate forecasts of who would win the key battles and when Charles I would die. Lauded as England's Merlin, both the king and Oliver Cromwell sought his stellar counsel. He was famed in his day, result of Lilly forecasting correctly in his best-selling pamphlets who would triumph in combat in the Civil War. Courtesy of this charismatic trailblazer, astrology is today an unstoppable mass phenomenon, and Lilly is becoming increasingly recognized as one of England's true luminaries. Lilly wanted everyone, not just the intelligentsia, to know astrology's power, and to this end he wrote the first ever guide to astrology in English and formed the Society of Astrologers. But when Lilly's visions of the future threatened public order, he had to fight to save his profession and his life, even using his astonishing gift for divination to help him. With a cast of stargazers, soldiers and scryers; politicians, priests and piss-prophets, The Man Who Saw the Future – written by acclaimed author Catherine Blackledge – reveals for the first time the enormous extent to which the occult leader Lilly influenced the course of war, politics and freedom of speech in England.