RASA School of Astrology Learn The Language of the Stars!
Axel Harvey: Astrologer (February 6, 1940 – February 20, 2016)
I first met Axel in the early seventies. He was involved in the organization of the ISAR Astrology Conference in Montreal. He was organizing a history of chart forms. Axel was a well-informed historical astrologer with the added benefit of being perfectly bilingual in French and English.
Axel knew deeply the history of French and English astrologers especially the Canadian ones and his practice took the best of both languages and coming from Quebec he had a unique cultural identity.
At the time I was president of the Canadian Independent Astrologers Order (CAIO) and the IAO Research Library of Divine Sciences and the Healing Arts. Throughout the eighties, Axel would continuously inform me about old Canadian Astrologers and their works. This included astrologers such as: Paul Clancy Founder of American Astrology magazine, L. Edward Johndro, Manly Palmer Hall, Cedric w. Lemont, and Brigadier Roy C. Firebrace who was prominent in England. We both went about trying to accumulate more information while maintaining our astrological practices. Because I was also born in Quebec, Axel and I had a special empathy.
In the nineties the IAO Research Library had accumulation about 200 boxes of astrological magazines and we were trying to complete our collection of Dell Horoscope, American Astrology and others. Axel was trying to do the same. He would not give his collection away but instead he lent it to the IAO Research Library. His collection was about 53 boxes of magazines. I promised to organize and make a database of his collection. I also promised to improve both collections. If he was missing an issue and we had a duplicate, it would be added to his collection, and vice versa. If there was only one copy of an issue, it would be photocopied and added to the collections. So for about 3 years using many volunteers thousands of hours of photocopying was done and both collections were filled. This was done before there were scanners and optical character recognition. In the end there were two almost complete collections of astrology magazines: one in Quebec and one in Ontario.
Over the years Axel and I discussed the works of many astrologers and we tried to find their birthdates. Some of these were published in brief articles in “New By Degrees” from the now defunct Toronto chapter of the NCGR.
Axel Harvey founded the Hirsig Society in Montreal, a registered non-profit organization dedicated to disseminating astrological knowledge and preserving astrological texts. When the IAO Research Library ended Axel tried to acquire the collection but to no avail! In retrospect it was a good thing that two copies of the magazine collections were made.
Axel knew about and used the Osler Medical Library of McGill University which houses some special medical astrological journals. Axel loved music and was very supportive of the Celestial Harp, a 72 stringed instrument designed to play a person’s horoscope. (www.thecelestialharp.com). Over the years I would meet Axel at astrology conferences in the USA and Canada. His talks were always well informed and well presented. Axel was an ambassador for astrology.
Axel kept active in astrology right to the end of his life. After he got ill he maintained a very active presence on Facebook where many more people came to know and respect him. Like a plant after harvest, Axel gave away as many seeds (of astrological information) as he could before he died. He passed on much of what he knew and pointed people in the right direction to do further research.
Axel was a humble mild mannered person and a good friend. He lived well and died well. I am grateful to him and I cherish our memories. A good man has come and gone. He is free now!
Farewell Axel!
Robin Armstrong