Various Apocalyptic Scenes from the Prophetic Messenger (ca. 1827–61)

“These colored lithographs, labelled as apocalyptic scenes by the Wellcome Collection, were printed in conjunction with the astrological magazine the Prophetic Messenger, aka Raphael’s Almanac, which ran from 1827 to 1861. Raphael, a pen name, was intended to invoke the power of the archangel Raphael — traditionally linked to Mercury, the messenger of the gods. It was used by several British astrologers in the first half of the nineteenth century, who together contributed to the revival of astrology. While the lithographs are difficult to interpret on their own, they do give us a sense of how Raphael’s astrological predictions differed from the ones generally found in newspapers today. ...”

Public Domain Review