August 20, 2026 • 44 mins
Back in seventeenth century England, William Lilly was a big deal. As the preeminent astrologer of his day, pretty much everyone followed his research, predictions, and writing. Yet as Ben, Noel and Max discover in today's episode, Lilly was also an occasional detective -- and when he learned a precious shipment of fish and Portugese onions had been stolen, he used the wisdom of the heavens to nail the culprit.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
much for tuning in. That's our super producer, Max the
big Fish Williams. We've got something really exciting today, Noel Brown,
I'm Ben Bolin. We are Yes, Yes, we are introducing
our brand new research associate, Ames Doyle. Ah.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Yes, welcome Ames, if only in spirit. And indeed we
have talked to Ames about possibly jumping on as a
guest for a future topic. But yeah, this is their
inaugural research brief for Ridiculous History, and it's quite a doozy.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Yeah, it's a story that you and I had never
heard of before. This is very much a tale involving astrology.
It's very much a tale involving a little bit of
mystery and intrigue and solving of aforementioned mysteries. As Ames
(01:30):
tells us, before there were TikTok astrologers and apps to
warn you of an impending mercury retrograde, there was a
guy named William Lily, not to be confused with Eli Lily.
William is a seventeenth century English astrologer and no, I
gotta tell you in the interest in transparency. I'm not
(01:54):
on TikTok. I know it's similar to Reddit or other
social media in that there are all these niche communities,
but it makes sense to me that there would be
TikTok astrologers.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
It sure does.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
I mean, do you uh do do you mess with
the talk?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
I know I'm not a talker. I'm a talker, but
I'm not a tickety talker, and it's it's I don't know.
I see things reposted elsewhere, so I feel like I'm
more or less up to date. But I tried it
a couple of times, and I've found the algorithm aggressive,
let's just put it that way. I didn't like how
much it knew about me so quickly, and how much
(02:35):
it kind of played to my basest, least admirable instincts.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yeah, and as long time listeners of ridiculous history or
indeed stuff they don't want you to know or already
well aware, my paranoia disallows me from engaging with TikTok.
But aimes, we believe you, and we can't wait to
hear over on our Facebook page Ridiculous Historians, which makes
(03:02):
us sound super old. We can't wait to hear your
takes on TikTok astrologers, astrology in general. Our guy Lily
is a big deal in his time in the seventeenth century.
Because we always use this idiom in modern English, we
say someone wrote the book on insert topic. Here turns
(03:24):
out that our guy Willie literally did write the book
on astrology in his area, and he was famous in
his field for a certain type or sect of astrology
called horrory hrry.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Yeah, and I think we're going to get into it
with this interests both of us because it was a
type of astrology that was pioneered by ancient Islamic folks,
and both of us. When we were in Doha, Kutthar
went to the Islamic Museum of Culture and there were
quite a few astrological exhibits there, includingstrological charts, various implements
(04:08):
and texts and things like that. I think that was
both of our favorite part of that museum, with so
many of the illuminated texts and all that, but lots
of astrology in that place.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Absolutely. Yeah, And our guy Lily uses this specific sect
of astrology, which, as you said, Noel, we'll get into
in a moment to not just divine hidden truths about
personalities or predilections, the way you would be, the way
(04:37):
you would see your son's sign described in a newspaper today. Instead,
he was doing a kind of divination that allowed him,
in theory, to find lost items and then to also
narrow down where to look for these items or these
hidden or lost things, and to figure out predict we
(05:00):
could say, whether the thing would be found at all.
And this is this is a new story to us, folks.
One of the most memorable cases of William Lily's career
involves the mysterious disappearance of fish ed onions that he
ordered from London, which already sounds like a Guy Ritchie film.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Right, I know, it really does fishing onions in it. Yeah. No,
it's also a delightful breakfast. But you got to add
some eggs in there. Go to Barney green Grass on
the Upper West Side of New York, get their famous
sturgeon and onions and eggs, and it's fantastic. I believe
it was one of Anthony Bourdain's favorite breakfasts.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're very indeficient eggs over at parties.
And you know, William was clearly in deficient onions at
some point in his life. He started out not as
like a Francis scott Key silver spoon dude. He started
(06:05):
out the child of a modest farming family in England
in sixteen o two. And this is an inspiring story
because his parents, you know, and they're not aristocrats, they're
not the one percenters of their time, but they do
really support their kids and despite the fact that they
(06:26):
have to save every penny they can, just like just
like Charlie's family in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, they
do save up money and they send them off to
get what Encyclopedia Britannica calls a quote tolerably good classic
education end quote. And he hopes to continue into hire
(06:52):
education right after his classic education, but unfortunately his family
just doesn't have the cheddar for it. They don't have
fishing onions for it, which is a phrase we're making
up to use as money and William Lily would have
as well. He took a job as a secretary in
London for a fellow named Gilbert Wright, the master of
(07:15):
the Assalter's Company. His father was in debtors prison at
the time, but was still happy to see him gone,
calling him a.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Quote good for nothing. I think we need to bring
that back as harsh as it made me. I do
love a good for nothing? No, a lay about a
shiftless lout, Yeah, harsh man. Lily worked for Wright for
seven years until Wright passed away in sixteen twenty seven,
after which he almost immediately proposed marriage to his freshly
(07:42):
widowed widow Ellen.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Hey, Ellen, No, it's a weird time, but we've been
through a lot other than gesturing around at the funeral.
What's your weekend looking like?
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Mm hmm. Yeah. It seems like she went for it, though.
Six years later, Ellen passed away herself and left all
of her fortune to Lily. Property didn't get married.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
He didn't get it was the Robinson thing, because Willie
is twenty five at this.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Where have you gone, Joe Demaggio? Indeed, this property was
valued roughly one thousand pounds or a boop? Is what
we need? Calculator tells us, Yes, the inflation calculation Nation
Station tells us that that's around two hundred thousand pounds
sterling in today's money. I'm not sure what that equates
(08:35):
you in euros, but where that's that's a bridge too
far with his newly acquired fortune, William Lilly was able
to live the life of luxury that he's so well
believed he deserves. He had plenty of idle time, which obviously,
as we know, is the devil's playground. He used it
to study astrology, which some at the time may have
(08:56):
called the devil's work.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Yes, and I don't know whether we have a been
with the facts sound que here we must we did
the math, folks, and two hundred thousand pounds sterling is
the equivalent of two hundred and thirty four thousand and
forty nine euros.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
That seeking in the fun bad and he's fallen knowledge.
It's just for you right now here, tead the fact.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
So this is a life changing amount of money, right
And I love that you're saying this could have been
seen as heretical to study astrology. We have to remember
that at this time in history it is far more
common to be a self educated expert who is accepted
(09:54):
in your field. So he's not at Cambridge right reading
law or some like that. Instead, he is snagging every
single text he can get on every concept or approach
to astrology, and then he attempts to become a practicing astrologer.
(10:17):
So he's not just ingesting this knowledge, he's synthesizing it.
He's putting his own spin on it, he's adding to it,
he's revising all the stuff he reads. He strikes us
as kind of a actually guy, you know what I mean?
Like he reads a book and says, actually, this other
book I read earlier, says this other thing. And he's
(10:39):
putting it within the context of his time, especially within
political events. So if something crazy happens with the monarchy
of his day, he looks to the heavens and he says,
does this corarely with movements of the planet? And can
if I can plain what's happening now through the discipline
(11:03):
of astrology, which I'm increasingly making my own, could I
begin to cultivate a predictive ability?
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Right?
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Could I? Could I go from saying, oh, this bad
thing happened with this duke here while these planets were
doing this, and from there, can I say, I know
these planets will do certain things, and therefore I know
what the duke will do in the future.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Bit nonlinear, don't you think?
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (11:33):
A bit a bit, there's there's I'm sorry, bet it
just really it brings to mind this fantastic Brian eno
lyric from the song Backwater. And it's also just a
great turner phrase here, a great rhyme scheme, but it's
if it's But if you study the logistics and heuristics
of the mystics, you will find that their minds rarely
move in a line. So it's much more realistic to
(11:55):
abandon such ballistics and resign to be trapped on a
leak in the vine.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
And we persist in loving internal rhyme right.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Anyway, Sorry to drop a reference.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Absolutely, and thanks for tuning in Brian. So once his
astrological practices evolve, Lily begins to uh begins to believe
that his divination is creating reliable results, so much so
(12:33):
that he starts publishing almanacs with his predictions, similar to
the way that much later Benjamin Franklin will start publishing
the Farmer's Almanac. And if we go to sources like
Explore Astrology, we will see this confirmed. Lily began publishing
these almanacs, which were predictive every single year. They became
(12:57):
very very popular. His first had a banger name. In
sixteen forty four, he published mon Than This Agnoicus junior,
which I think is cool and humble that he had
a junior.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Oh yeah, just as a little humbling diminutive, you know.
Caveat there at the end.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
And the readers. Part of the reason this became so
famous is because the readers were certain that this almanac
foretold the defeat of the king at the Battle of
Naseby in sixteen forty five. So a year before that
defeat occurred, this book said that it would happen. And
(13:41):
now he starts becoming known as England's leading astrologer, and
people from every imaginable demographic of the weird archipelago that
we call England started saying, man, this guy is super
Dupe's accurate. We see people who are high profile members
(14:03):
of aristocratic society, like John Selden, becoming Lily fans. We
see members of Parliament like William Lenthall becoming Lily fans.
And the thing is, as a lot of us know
from unfortunate personal experience, when you become an expert in
a very specific given field, and when very important, powerful
(14:27):
people start paying attention to your expertise.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Oh they very illiterative, ben Well, no, thank you, sir.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Those powerful people start pulling you into their orbit. We're
doing astrology jokes, So Lily Lily inevitably gets wrapped up
in the politics of a revolutionary England.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Merlinus Anglicus Junior. It's a cool, It's really dope. No,
I like that a lot. Lily, however, was pretty staunchly
ant high monarchists, which could have ruffled some feathers, right,
and was known to work with clients from every walk
of life. He was not an elitist, and who he
decided to do readings for his clientele's background did show
(15:14):
This is according to astro dot Com that Astrology's social
reach was relatively wide. Around twenty percent of his customers
is a direct quote from that piece were of noble birth.
Another twenty percent worked in traditional trades and crafts, fifteen
percent were seafarers, less than one percent were paupers, military men,
and professionals such as lawyers and physicians. Interesting. I would
(15:37):
imagine lawyers and physicians might be more likely to essue
the you know, the astrological arts.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Yeah, that's an interesting note, nol, because we have to
remember at this time we're still in very much in
the age of like alchemy, right, we're still very much
in the age of the Bible, for instance, at being
treated as a scientific text. So we have these very
(16:05):
learned folks who are also it's paradoxical because they're very
closed minded, right in pursuit of religious beliefs, but in
pursuit of things that don't seem opposed to religion specifically,
they're pretty open minded. So, and also, people love to
(16:26):
hear more about themselves. People love predictability, they love the future.
He had a huge list of clients. His biggest demographic
from our source astro dot com here was probably female servants.
So he was kind of an everyman in this case.
(16:46):
I don't care who you are, just reach out to me.
This is my vocation and I will help you figure
out what the heavens mean. This leads to further fame
for him, right, he's a man of the people, an
astrologer of the people. He publishes Christian Astrology. It's a
(17:06):
three part anthology. It's a three part collection. He publishes
it in sixteen forty seven. And no, I think this
is very clever because he's nipping these accusations of heresy
off in the butt, or he's nipping them at the butt. Weirdly,
we're talked about the right way to say that off air, like.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Three, I think we got there. But no, you're right,
he's ascribing a certain connection to but you know, one
could also argue that certain clergy might take issue with
him even connecting these types of pursuits with Christianity as well. Well,
you see what he's doing for their feathers begetting ruffled.
(17:46):
It's true. It was the first substantial astrological text written
in the English language rather than Latin, making the study
of the stars accessible to everyone as opposed to just
these small, highly educated elites groups of elites. Rather, it
was incredibly popular, as it remains to this day and
it has not gone out of print. Yeah, this is cool.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
This is like the Vulgate Bible, you know. Now it's
power to the people. We're kind of democratizing the analysis
of the Heavens and Lily's book along with his you know,
yearly predictive pamphlets, they make him more and more popular.
He's becoming kind of like a Neil deGrasse Tyson figure.
(18:31):
You know, he is a go to expert when people
are looking for an authoritative voice about the subject. They're
inevitably quoting William Lily and he you know, it makes
sense because in a time where where books are way
less common, he is selling thirty thousand copies a year
(18:52):
of these pamphlets. And he also, as we mentioned, he
specializes in horrory astrology. This this is what fuels his
client work because this is nuts, right, So imagine this
path to success. You've got you've got a book which
(19:12):
is like a master work, and then you've got an
annual zine essentially that anybody can buy, right if they
can afford it. And then if they have more money
and more interest, you can commission this guy to specifically
work for you. You can become his client, and that
(19:32):
ultimately leads to the case we're going to discuss today.
But no what see, we return to what we set
up at the top. We talked about horory astrology as
a sect, and you talked about the Islamic Golden Age.
(19:53):
Can we break that down a little?
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Yeah, we sure can. Horrari which is a Latin term
that means of the hour. It's a type of astrology
involving ancient divination techniques. As far as we can tell,
these were largely developed in the eighth and ninth centuries
by Persian and Arab astrologers and what is called the
Islamic Golden Age, which again is the kind of stuff
that's fully on display at that Museum of Islamic Culture,
(20:18):
a fascinating place if you ever get a chance to visit.
The technique of horrory. By the way, horology is the
study of time or like if you're talking about watches
and stuff, that's the term that gets used, so that
makes sense. This particular technique is used in a very
functional and practical manner to answer questions such as should
I marry this person, will I get this job? Or
(20:39):
where's my dear sweet lost dog Fido. There are meant
to be tangible answers that present themselves relatively quickly, which
makes this a method that the average person can kind
of wrap their head around. It's pretty impressive and easily
accessible form of astrology for those reasons.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Yeah, yeah, This practicality of predictability is a huge win
for the audience, right, especially when you feel that the
results are coming true. Right, you get an answer to
your question, should I marry this person? Will I get
this job? What the heck? What is philo up? To.
(21:19):
When you get those immediate answers, it further galvanizes you
toward that belief. So this is good for business. This
is also good for the defense of this type of
astrology as a pursuit. It has a ton of rules,
which a lot of these disciplines do. So these rules
(21:41):
include like specific conditions that you have to meet before
you can cast an astrological chart and get a real answer.
You have to have guidelines for what makes a chart
or reading readable. And sometimes if you don't obey these rules, you,
(22:01):
as the astrologer or the diviner, get what Ames calls
a magic eight ball message, wherein you're told to try
another day. William Lilly, to his credit, breaks this down
in a very understandable, step by step series of instructions.
He says, here's how you choose what is significant. Here's
(22:25):
how you evaluate what he calls dignity. Here's how you
judge your outcomes. How do we interpret the data that
we are driving And it's from his mind. As far
as we can tell, he is not a stake oil salesman.
This is crucial. He is not trying to grift people.
(22:46):
He wants to pay, be paid honestly for his work,
but he believes in what he's doing as well.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
I mean, yeah, so he is.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Not thinking of his clients or his reading audience as
a bunch of marks and roobs. He is being truthful
and sincere, and he's prizing his own integrity unlike a
lot of practitioners of the spiritual movement, you know, of
the I believe early what.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Is it eighteen hundreds, I want to say, we did
an episode on every Osophist Theosophus, and a lot of
it was smoking literal smoke, and mirrors, Pepper's ghost type
effects and all, you know, in an effort to grift
people who were in mourning potentially out of their money.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Which was one of my favorite episodes or series that
we had with our nemesis, Jonathan Strickland aka the Quiz Your.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
That is what that call.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Yeah, he hates those guys. I feel like he must
have gotten he must have been taken in by a
seos at some point earlier in life, because he's like
Harry Hodini in his approbrium towards those people. So as
he could tell from all this all this characterization, our
(24:01):
guy will lily, which is a fun phrase to say,
was Willie Lil's perfectly. He was quite accomplished. He was
considered very very good at this, and he was also
considered more importantly, very very accurate. Now we've established this guy,
a lot of people are pinning their future hopes and
(24:23):
fears on his system and his take on the passage
of the planets and the stars. But what happens when
he starts applying his discipline to his own life, to
his own personal problems. You know, this is, by the way,
a shout out to everybody who has been desperately waiting
(24:48):
for a FedEx or Amazon or USPS delivery. I gotta
tell you, guys, Noel Max. Nothing quite screws up your
day like having a package delivered.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
That you have to sign for. Oh, and you just
miss it. You've been planning around it. They come in
that exact ten minutes that you rushed off to go,
you know, grab some milk at the store or something
like that. Happens every time. Happens every time, Yeah, it
happens every time.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
You know, you'll do your best to get your tracking number,
You're maybe arranging to stay at home for that day,
and then you get these cryptic messages like out for delivery.
Will it be today and will it be six pm?
You'll have to wait and see. Get a sleeping bag
lay out by the door, listen for the bell. Yeah exactly.
(25:41):
Or maybe my FedEx guy is like a magic riddle gobblets.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
You talk like that. That's just pretty spooky. Man.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
He's got a lot of allure.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
You know, you got to meet him.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
He's a good hang. You just never know when he's
going to show up.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Now, that's fair. Well. In February of sixteen thirty eight,
old Willy Lil's was awaiting a ship of fish and
very specific type of onions ben Portuguese onions, the finest
of onions, to be delivered to his home. However, instead
of being greeted by a smiling delivery person bearing fish
(26:15):
and onions, he was instead greeted by an apologetic warehouse
employee who informed him that the warehouse had in fact
been burgled. His stresses fish were gone. Yeah, we love
a good heist, right for anyone else, it wouldn't have
been that big a deal. He would have moved on
with his life, you know, knowing that he could probably
(26:35):
acquire these fish and onions another time. But no, he
would not be swayed with the power of the cosmo,
set his beck and call. He did what any astrological
master would do. He cast a chart in order to
locate his missing items and catch the thief in the act. Well,
(26:57):
I guess the act had been done, so he would
have the very least catch him at hand.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Yeah, yeah, like you saying, kind of a nonlinear approach.
Not just let me figure out what will happen, but
what did happen. So now I'm knowing not just the future,
but the past and the present. And this is this
is fascinating because often we don't think of astrology, at
least us filthy casuals. We don't think of astrology in
(27:22):
this manner.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Well, it does remind me though of you know, some
programs that the CIA has done astral projection and things
like that Psychic Stargate and all of that. A shout
out to Russell targ and the training psychic Spies. What
was it called Third Eye Spies I believe was the
name of that man's book. Fascinating dude, excellent synthesis of
(27:44):
the mystical and the scientific. But this really does have
the feel of that, like using sort of mystical pursuits
to solve a crime.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Yeah, yeah, which is exciting stuff. And we'll see how
this becomes increasingly cinematic if we go to sources like
four Faces number four Faces dot Com. Will see that
this type of astrology that William Lily is practicing tells
us that to find the fish and onion thief, you
(28:14):
have to find what we call the right significator. A
significator is the planet that represents the guilty party. And
this is like when we talk about dignity in this discipline,
we're not using dignity the same way you would and
commonplace parlance. We're talking about the nature characteristics of these planets.
(28:38):
So this guy is saying, how do I He's essentially saying,
how do I profile this thief whom I don't know.
I don't know anything about this person other than that
they were in a warehouse that they robbed at some point.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
And may smell of onions and fish.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
They probably have, yeah, some aromatic indicators. So what he
finds in his reading it is investigation, is the planet
Jupiter without strength sits in what we call an angular
position in scorpio, which is a water sign. Meanwhile, concurrently,
(29:21):
the moon which you know the moon from earlier. It
is in the ascendant in its own dignity, which to
him suggests that this is a worthwhile investigation, that the
thief will be discovered. Now, for a lot of us
non astrology experts, this does sound like a lot of
(29:46):
very specific nomenclature. So how do we break this down?
Noll for we the average, Yes, the average, the unwashed,
the unlearned. This isn't the moon really kind of insane
upon itself a little bit, ben It's always there, you know,
they're shining brightly. I like it's early work.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
I do too, I do too, And I like the
way it changes, you know, it's it's fun, it's changeable.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
It's way better than the sun.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
I don't got don't even get me started about the sun.
Talk about.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
So, Jupiter naturally rules the wealthy and noble classes, and
Lily wasn't naive. A fella burgling warehouses to steal fish
was unlikely a member of the upper crust. So he
took a deeper look at what Jupiter's position may have
actually been hinting at. And here's where Lily's genius, at
least interpreting interpreting this stuff comes in, and I don't
(30:44):
think we make any secrets. Ben, You and I are
a little skeptical about this type of thing, so just
come right out and say it. But I do think
both of us find these sorts of patterns and the
intuition involved in sussing out those kinds of patterns fascinating.
And I think sometimes being accurate quote unquote says more
about the interpreter than it does about the methods.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Yeah, that's very well put, Noel, and I think I
would agree with that. Of course, where'd I hear to
yuck anybody's yo? But Lily, through his you could anthropologists
might even call it a cultural framework. Right through his
framework and his perspective, he encounters what he interprets as
(31:30):
an unmistakable pattern. He says, okay, Jupiter might be the
significator of our thief. It is in scorpio again, that's
a water sign. And he says, I'm looking at something
I call the part of fortune, and the part of
fortune is occurring at seventeen degrees of cancer. And he says, oh, well, cancer,
(31:53):
like scorpio, is another water sign. So in this chart
I'm making, this means that the part of fortune is
representing my missing fish and Portuguese onions. You know, that's
my treasure. And he goes well, also in my chart,
in my divination, here I see Mercury, the ruler of
(32:15):
the second house, and he says, the ruler of the
second this means my possessions, and that Mercury is in
Pisces at this point, and boom, boom boom, I've got
three water sign So everything I'm seeing in this pattern
(32:40):
leads me to think of water and these goods, these
fish and these fancy Portuguese onions. They're transported to me
by river.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
So the thief has to be.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Connected somehow to the water, right some probably not a
rich dude.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Again, I'm leaning on intuition here and also kind of
somewhat obvious factors, right, like the water is how these
goods would have been transported. I don't know that having
the water signs necessarily is the one thing alone that
made him make that connection.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Yeah, it is interesting because he also says, Okay, he's
a believer, right, He's a believing He's not a grifter.
He genuinely, he genuinely is a practitioner this discipline. So
everything that he again is the national expert is finding
is telling him, whomever this thief is, they are not wealthy,
(33:43):
They're somehow connected to the river. They probably have a job,
so therefore they probably work around the river. And the fish,
he reasons, must be stored somewhere associated with water.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
And then I'm sorry, the actual quote from the piece
of the fish he reasoned must be in some place moist.
You think, Yeah, they definitely start. I know, I'm coming
down on this guy a little bit. But again, I
keep HARKing back to the fact that dude is a
believer in this methodology, and he also does appear to
(34:21):
just kind of be a pretty good little detective.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Yeah. Yeah, we always talk about that too. You know,
it's so easy for it's easy, and it's incorrect for
people in the modern day to dismiss the intelligence of
people from the past just because they're explaining something through
a different framework does not invalidate their intelligence or their
(34:46):
deductive abilities. And this is where it gets even more
interesting because in this reading where you know, I agree
with you here, Noel, in this reading, the wave characterized
it so far, it sounds like he's just saying basic stuff,
you know, fish and water. But he gets he gets
(35:08):
more specific, he gets into what Corporate America would call
it granular details. He's reading. His reading, based on his interpretation,
tells him more about the thief in question. He says, Okay,
this is probably a bigger guy, a robust figure. He
probably has fair skin. He probably has skin reddish blonde
(35:31):
of ham Yes, And he says, bigger dude because of Jupiter.
And he says fair skin and reddish blonde hair because
of a combination of Jupiter and Mars. And then he
says he probably whomever this thief may be has recently
(35:52):
moved house.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
That's pretty cool, man. I don't know it's it's definitely
it's some jinkies type stuff. So the downside here is
the chart indicated sadly that Lily would indeed find his goods,
but they would not be in an appropriate condition for
him to enjoy them. So whether he decided that a
little was better than none, or simply thought that it
would be just a good exercise, you know, a good
(36:16):
proof of concept, We're not one hundred percent sure what
his intentions there were, but done the last the hunt,
the game was a foot fish fish.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Yeah, the game was a fish. And also shout out
to William Lily for being such a fancy boy. We
know there were regular onions. Dude, you didn't have to
get Portuguese.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
No, no, you know, if he's gonna have funky breath,
it's gonna be in style. Right, do you speak Portuguese?
Speaker 1 (36:48):
No, but after lunch, I'll breathe it. So on the
broad strokes are mapped out in this chart. Lily goes
to the streets like a like a good old fashioned
gulb shoe detective, even though gum shoe wasn't a term
for centuries.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Yeah, no, exactly, he's putting shoe to pavement. He is
out there, you know, rattling cages.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he is. Uh, he's got his boots
on the ground, as as we would later say, So.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
What would they have been? What would he have been
likely wearing? What sort of footwear? Some sort of boot?
I imagine a sandal? Yeah, what do they hows those
long pointy pointless shoes. Yeah, yeah, all right, I'm trying
to I'm just trying to set the scene here. I
got to know what kind of footwear we're talking.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Exactly, and he uh so he does whatevery smart investigative
journalist or detective would do. He says, I gotta go
meet the people, you know what I mean, kiss the
hands and shake the babies and so on. So he
starts asking around, and he goes down to the river right,
(37:57):
goes down to where people are working in the markets
and what have you, and he starts asking for He's going, hey,
it's me William Lily. And they're like, what the famous
astrologer William Lily. And he goes the very same look
upon my sand bills. Tell me, do you know anybody
in the area that you would describe as burly, redheaded,
(38:19):
good at fishing, who recently moved? And sure enough, eventually
several people tell him that there was a matching suspect,
somebody who fit the description, who had just moved into
the area and had a reputation for sticky fingers.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Oh no, he was in No, he was. He was
a usual suspect. He was gosh, okay, I'm not gonna
poopoo any further, Lily approached the local magistrate in order
to attain a search warrant. I didn't know an individual
could just get a search warrants. That's pretty The rules
are a little different back then, it was granted without hesitation,
(38:58):
of course, to your point, band thanks to his profile
and social cachet. Along with they provided him a bailiff
in order to you know, protect him and potentially strong
arm the suspect, who was apparently quite robust.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
Ah, yes, yes, chunky boy. So from Willie's perspective, his
chart was one hundred percent accurate. His reading held true.
They go and find this alleged thief, and in the
thief's possession they find the fish, and they ask the
(39:36):
thief about this, and the guy says, okay, all right,
you got me, you got me. I'm handsome, I'm robust,
I'm reddish, blonde, I stole the fish.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Where handsome come from?
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Well, he's you know, always be closing right, fair, fair face.
I like picturing that too, Like he's not pitching himself
as he's getting arrested, ravishing. Yes, he the thief unnamed
says that I ate most of the fish already. Look,
(40:12):
I've got my family here with me. This is my wife,
and the wife is probably like, he's not that ravish,
and so Lily says, what happened to my Portuguese onions?
And the spouse says, well, we made a soup out
of them. But you know what, we'll let you keep
(40:34):
because you are such a good astrologer, because you were
such a talented detective. Please don't arrest us. We'll give
you the rest of the fish.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Yeah, yeah, or the rest of everything. I guess there
was a little bit remaining of the onions too, potentially,
And I love the idea that, like, she just didn't
know that these were not the kind of onions you
would just boil into a soup, you know, No, these
are meant to be consumed in other ways. I'm sure why.
I mean, it was such a red flag. That's a
faux pot to use Portuguese onions. How about you could
(41:05):
make a dope French onion or Portuguese onion soup. Yeah,
like I bet.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
Yeah. Also, you know, we have to exercise empathy. Stealing
is wrong, But I feel kind of bad for the
thief to your point about his spouse not knowing where
he got the onions and the fish. It's kind of
like when kids get in trouble. This happens often in
(41:31):
the United States.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
Still, when.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
Underage kids get in trouble or high school kids, you
know they're they're not old enough to I guess drink
or you know, they get caught trespassing, raising cane and
so on. Local law enforcement will often say, look, man,
we can book you, or we can call your parents,
and not to not to tell tales out of school.
(41:58):
This sounds like a situation where Lily and the bailiff
were like, hey, man, your wife is gonna punish you
way more than we ever could. So it seems sleeping
on the couch, who knows how long think you in
the doghouse, indeed in the fish house, in the Onion mansion.
(42:21):
This case proved too astrology believers to be a lasting
example on how to correctly read horrory charts, and if
you are an astrology student you will probably learn about
this case in your studies. Thanks so much for tuning in, folks,
Big big thanks to our super producer, mister Max Williams,
(42:44):
Big big thanks to our brand new research associate Ames Doyle.
Look for more of their work on the way in
the future, and as my pal Noll said, maybe Ames
will grace us with their appearance.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
On air Away. Huge thanks to Ames for me as well,
Huge thanks to Jonathan strickland Ish. These are sort of
a fish and onion in human form. That's too harsh.
He's a good for nothing, too harsh. He's a roth Jonathan,
He's a bit of a He's a scamp. He's a
bit of a scamp. A j Bahamas Jacobs, the Puzzler
and of course that was Jonathan Strickland aka the quiz Turn.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
And chout out to our rude dudes over a Ridiculous crime.
If you dig us, you will love them. You can
also hear our pal, one of the creators and co
hosts of Ridiculous Crime, Zeron Burnett, showing up on Behind
the Bastards not to be missed and the Big Big
Things to you, Man. I know that you and I
(43:42):
are not are not learned astrologers ourselves, but these stories
are always so interesting and as you said, we love
a heist.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
Ah who doesn't. We'll see you next time, folks. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
much for tuning in. That's our super producer, Max the
big Fish Williams. We've got something really exciting today, Noel Brown,
I'm Ben Bolin. We are Yes, Yes, we are introducing
our brand new research associate, Ames Doyle. Ah.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Yes, welcome Ames, if only in spirit. And indeed we
have talked to Ames about possibly jumping on as a
guest for a future topic. But yeah, this is their
inaugural research brief for Ridiculous History, and it's quite a doozy.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Yeah, it's a story that you and I had never
heard of before. This is very much a tale involving astrology.
It's very much a tale involving a little bit of
mystery and intrigue and solving of aforementioned mysteries. As Ames
(01:30):
tells us, before there were TikTok astrologers and apps to
warn you of an impending mercury retrograde, there was a
guy named William Lily, not to be confused with Eli Lily.
William is a seventeenth century English astrologer and no, I
gotta tell you in the interest in transparency. I'm not
(01:54):
on TikTok. I know it's similar to Reddit or other
social media in that there are all these niche communities,
but it makes sense to me that there would be
TikTok astrologers.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
It sure does.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
I mean, do you uh do do you mess with
the talk?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
I know I'm not a talker. I'm a talker, but
I'm not a tickety talker, and it's it's I don't know.
I see things reposted elsewhere, so I feel like I'm
more or less up to date. But I tried it
a couple of times, and I've found the algorithm aggressive,
let's just put it that way. I didn't like how
much it knew about me so quickly, and how much
(02:35):
it kind of played to my basest, least admirable instincts.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yeah, and as long time listeners of ridiculous history or
indeed stuff they don't want you to know or already
well aware, my paranoia disallows me from engaging with TikTok.
But aimes, we believe you, and we can't wait to
hear over on our Facebook page Ridiculous Historians, which makes
(03:02):
us sound super old. We can't wait to hear your
takes on TikTok astrologers, astrology in general. Our guy Lily
is a big deal in his time in the seventeenth century.
Because we always use this idiom in modern English, we
say someone wrote the book on insert topic. Here turns
(03:24):
out that our guy Willie literally did write the book
on astrology in his area, and he was famous in
his field for a certain type or sect of astrology
called horrory hrry.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Yeah, and I think we're going to get into it
with this interests both of us because it was a
type of astrology that was pioneered by ancient Islamic folks,
and both of us. When we were in Doha, Kutthar
went to the Islamic Museum of Culture and there were
quite a few astrological exhibits there, includingstrological charts, various implements
(04:08):
and texts and things like that. I think that was
both of our favorite part of that museum, with so
many of the illuminated texts and all that, but lots
of astrology in that place.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Absolutely. Yeah, And our guy Lily uses this specific sect
of astrology, which, as you said, Noel, we'll get into
in a moment to not just divine hidden truths about
personalities or predilections, the way you would be, the way
(04:37):
you would see your son's sign described in a newspaper today. Instead,
he was doing a kind of divination that allowed him,
in theory, to find lost items and then to also
narrow down where to look for these items or these
hidden or lost things, and to figure out predict we
(05:00):
could say, whether the thing would be found at all.
And this is this is a new story to us, folks.
One of the most memorable cases of William Lily's career
involves the mysterious disappearance of fish ed onions that he
ordered from London, which already sounds like a Guy Ritchie film.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Right, I know, it really does fishing onions in it. Yeah. No,
it's also a delightful breakfast. But you got to add
some eggs in there. Go to Barney green Grass on
the Upper West Side of New York, get their famous
sturgeon and onions and eggs, and it's fantastic. I believe
it was one of Anthony Bourdain's favorite breakfasts.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're very indeficient eggs over at parties.
And you know, William was clearly in deficient onions at
some point in his life. He started out not as
like a Francis scott Key silver spoon dude. He started
(06:05):
out the child of a modest farming family in England
in sixteen o two. And this is an inspiring story
because his parents, you know, and they're not aristocrats, they're
not the one percenters of their time, but they do
really support their kids and despite the fact that they
(06:26):
have to save every penny they can, just like just
like Charlie's family in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, they
do save up money and they send them off to
get what Encyclopedia Britannica calls a quote tolerably good classic
education end quote. And he hopes to continue into hire
(06:52):
education right after his classic education, but unfortunately his family
just doesn't have the cheddar for it. They don't have
fishing onions for it, which is a phrase we're making
up to use as money and William Lily would have
as well. He took a job as a secretary in
London for a fellow named Gilbert Wright, the master of
(07:15):
the Assalter's Company. His father was in debtors prison at
the time, but was still happy to see him gone,
calling him a.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Quote good for nothing. I think we need to bring
that back as harsh as it made me. I do
love a good for nothing? No, a lay about a
shiftless lout, Yeah, harsh man. Lily worked for Wright for
seven years until Wright passed away in sixteen twenty seven,
after which he almost immediately proposed marriage to his freshly
(07:42):
widowed widow Ellen.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Hey, Ellen, No, it's a weird time, but we've been
through a lot other than gesturing around at the funeral.
What's your weekend looking like?
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Mm hmm. Yeah. It seems like she went for it, though.
Six years later, Ellen passed away herself and left all
of her fortune to Lily. Property didn't get married.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
He didn't get it was the Robinson thing, because Willie
is twenty five at this.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Where have you gone, Joe Demaggio? Indeed, this property was
valued roughly one thousand pounds or a boop? Is what
we need? Calculator tells us, Yes, the inflation calculation Nation
Station tells us that that's around two hundred thousand pounds
sterling in today's money. I'm not sure what that equates
(08:35):
you in euros, but where that's that's a bridge too
far with his newly acquired fortune, William Lilly was able
to live the life of luxury that he's so well
believed he deserves. He had plenty of idle time, which obviously,
as we know, is the devil's playground. He used it
to study astrology, which some at the time may have
(08:56):
called the devil's work.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Yes, and I don't know whether we have a been
with the facts sound que here we must we did
the math, folks, and two hundred thousand pounds sterling is
the equivalent of two hundred and thirty four thousand and
forty nine euros.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
That seeking in the fun bad and he's fallen knowledge.
It's just for you right now here, tead the fact.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
So this is a life changing amount of money, right
And I love that you're saying this could have been
seen as heretical to study astrology. We have to remember
that at this time in history it is far more
common to be a self educated expert who is accepted
(09:54):
in your field. So he's not at Cambridge right reading
law or some like that. Instead, he is snagging every
single text he can get on every concept or approach
to astrology, and then he attempts to become a practicing astrologer.
(10:17):
So he's not just ingesting this knowledge, he's synthesizing it.
He's putting his own spin on it, he's adding to it,
he's revising all the stuff he reads. He strikes us
as kind of a actually guy, you know what I mean?
Like he reads a book and says, actually, this other
book I read earlier, says this other thing. And he's
(10:39):
putting it within the context of his time, especially within
political events. So if something crazy happens with the monarchy
of his day, he looks to the heavens and he says,
does this corarely with movements of the planet? And can
if I can plain what's happening now through the discipline
(11:03):
of astrology, which I'm increasingly making my own, could I
begin to cultivate a predictive ability?
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Right?
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Could I? Could I go from saying, oh, this bad
thing happened with this duke here while these planets were
doing this, and from there, can I say, I know
these planets will do certain things, and therefore I know
what the duke will do in the future.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Bit nonlinear, don't you think?
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (11:33):
A bit a bit, there's there's I'm sorry, bet it
just really it brings to mind this fantastic Brian eno
lyric from the song Backwater. And it's also just a
great turner phrase here, a great rhyme scheme, but it's
if it's But if you study the logistics and heuristics
of the mystics, you will find that their minds rarely
move in a line. So it's much more realistic to
(11:55):
abandon such ballistics and resign to be trapped on a
leak in the vine.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
And we persist in loving internal rhyme right.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Anyway, Sorry to drop a reference.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Absolutely, and thanks for tuning in Brian. So once his
astrological practices evolve, Lily begins to uh begins to believe
that his divination is creating reliable results, so much so
(12:33):
that he starts publishing almanacs with his predictions, similar to
the way that much later Benjamin Franklin will start publishing
the Farmer's Almanac. And if we go to sources like
Explore Astrology, we will see this confirmed. Lily began publishing
these almanacs, which were predictive every single year. They became
(12:57):
very very popular. His first had a banger name. In
sixteen forty four, he published mon Than This Agnoicus junior,
which I think is cool and humble that he had
a junior.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Oh yeah, just as a little humbling diminutive, you know.
Caveat there at the end.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
And the readers. Part of the reason this became so
famous is because the readers were certain that this almanac
foretold the defeat of the king at the Battle of
Naseby in sixteen forty five. So a year before that
defeat occurred, this book said that it would happen. And
(13:41):
now he starts becoming known as England's leading astrologer, and
people from every imaginable demographic of the weird archipelago that
we call England started saying, man, this guy is super
Dupe's accurate. We see people who are high profile members
(14:03):
of aristocratic society, like John Selden, becoming Lily fans. We
see members of Parliament like William Lenthall becoming Lily fans.
And the thing is, as a lot of us know
from unfortunate personal experience, when you become an expert in
a very specific given field, and when very important, powerful
(14:27):
people start paying attention to your expertise.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Oh they very illiterative, ben Well, no, thank you, sir.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Those powerful people start pulling you into their orbit. We're
doing astrology jokes, So Lily Lily inevitably gets wrapped up
in the politics of a revolutionary England.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Merlinus Anglicus Junior. It's a cool, It's really dope. No,
I like that a lot. Lily, however, was pretty staunchly
ant high monarchists, which could have ruffled some feathers, right,
and was known to work with clients from every walk
of life. He was not an elitist, and who he
decided to do readings for his clientele's background did show
(15:14):
This is according to astro dot Com that Astrology's social
reach was relatively wide. Around twenty percent of his customers
is a direct quote from that piece were of noble birth.
Another twenty percent worked in traditional trades and crafts, fifteen
percent were seafarers, less than one percent were paupers, military men,
and professionals such as lawyers and physicians. Interesting. I would
(15:37):
imagine lawyers and physicians might be more likely to essue
the you know, the astrological arts.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Yeah, that's an interesting note, nol, because we have to
remember at this time we're still in very much in
the age of like alchemy, right, we're still very much
in the age of the Bible, for instance, at being
treated as a scientific text. So we have these very
(16:05):
learned folks who are also it's paradoxical because they're very
closed minded, right in pursuit of religious beliefs, but in
pursuit of things that don't seem opposed to religion specifically,
they're pretty open minded. So, and also, people love to
(16:26):
hear more about themselves. People love predictability, they love the future.
He had a huge list of clients. His biggest demographic
from our source astro dot com here was probably female servants.
So he was kind of an everyman in this case.
(16:46):
I don't care who you are, just reach out to me.
This is my vocation and I will help you figure
out what the heavens mean. This leads to further fame
for him, right, he's a man of the people, an
astrologer of the people. He publishes Christian Astrology. It's a
(17:06):
three part anthology. It's a three part collection. He publishes
it in sixteen forty seven. And no, I think this
is very clever because he's nipping these accusations of heresy
off in the butt, or he's nipping them at the butt. Weirdly,
we're talked about the right way to say that off air, like.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Three, I think we got there. But no, you're right,
he's ascribing a certain connection to but you know, one
could also argue that certain clergy might take issue with
him even connecting these types of pursuits with Christianity as well. Well,
you see what he's doing for their feathers begetting ruffled.
(17:46):
It's true. It was the first substantial astrological text written
in the English language rather than Latin, making the study
of the stars accessible to everyone as opposed to just
these small, highly educated elites groups of elites. Rather, it
was incredibly popular, as it remains to this day and
it has not gone out of print. Yeah, this is cool.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
This is like the Vulgate Bible, you know. Now it's
power to the people. We're kind of democratizing the analysis
of the Heavens and Lily's book along with his you know,
yearly predictive pamphlets, they make him more and more popular.
He's becoming kind of like a Neil deGrasse Tyson figure.
(18:31):
You know, he is a go to expert when people
are looking for an authoritative voice about the subject. They're
inevitably quoting William Lily and he you know, it makes
sense because in a time where where books are way
less common, he is selling thirty thousand copies a year
(18:52):
of these pamphlets. And he also, as we mentioned, he
specializes in horrory astrology. This this is what fuels his
client work because this is nuts, right, So imagine this
path to success. You've got you've got a book which
(19:12):
is like a master work, and then you've got an
annual zine essentially that anybody can buy, right if they
can afford it. And then if they have more money
and more interest, you can commission this guy to specifically
work for you. You can become his client, and that
(19:32):
ultimately leads to the case we're going to discuss today.
But no what see, we return to what we set
up at the top. We talked about horory astrology as
a sect, and you talked about the Islamic Golden Age.
(19:53):
Can we break that down a little?
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Yeah, we sure can. Horrari which is a Latin term
that means of the hour. It's a type of astrology
involving ancient divination techniques. As far as we can tell,
these were largely developed in the eighth and ninth centuries
by Persian and Arab astrologers and what is called the
Islamic Golden Age, which again is the kind of stuff
that's fully on display at that Museum of Islamic Culture,
(20:18):
a fascinating place if you ever get a chance to visit.
The technique of horrory. By the way, horology is the
study of time or like if you're talking about watches
and stuff, that's the term that gets used, so that
makes sense. This particular technique is used in a very
functional and practical manner to answer questions such as should
I marry this person, will I get this job? Or
(20:39):
where's my dear sweet lost dog Fido. There are meant
to be tangible answers that present themselves relatively quickly, which
makes this a method that the average person can kind
of wrap their head around. It's pretty impressive and easily
accessible form of astrology for those reasons.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Yeah, yeah, This practicality of predictability is a huge win
for the audience, right, especially when you feel that the
results are coming true. Right, you get an answer to
your question, should I marry this person? Will I get
this job? What the heck? What is philo up? To.
(21:19):
When you get those immediate answers, it further galvanizes you
toward that belief. So this is good for business. This
is also good for the defense of this type of
astrology as a pursuit. It has a ton of rules,
which a lot of these disciplines do. So these rules
(21:41):
include like specific conditions that you have to meet before
you can cast an astrological chart and get a real answer.
You have to have guidelines for what makes a chart
or reading readable. And sometimes if you don't obey these rules, you,
(22:01):
as the astrologer or the diviner, get what Ames calls
a magic eight ball message, wherein you're told to try
another day. William Lilly, to his credit, breaks this down
in a very understandable, step by step series of instructions.
He says, here's how you choose what is significant. Here's
(22:25):
how you evaluate what he calls dignity. Here's how you
judge your outcomes. How do we interpret the data that
we are driving And it's from his mind. As far
as we can tell, he is not a stake oil salesman.
This is crucial. He is not trying to grift people.
(22:46):
He wants to pay, be paid honestly for his work,
but he believes in what he's doing as well.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
I mean, yeah, so he is.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Not thinking of his clients or his reading audience as
a bunch of marks and roobs. He is being truthful
and sincere, and he's prizing his own integrity unlike a
lot of practitioners of the spiritual movement, you know, of
the I believe early what.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Is it eighteen hundreds, I want to say, we did
an episode on every Osophist Theosophus, and a lot of
it was smoking literal smoke, and mirrors, Pepper's ghost type
effects and all, you know, in an effort to grift
people who were in mourning potentially out of their money.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Which was one of my favorite episodes or series that
we had with our nemesis, Jonathan Strickland aka the Quiz Your.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
That is what that call.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Yeah, he hates those guys. I feel like he must
have gotten he must have been taken in by a
seos at some point earlier in life, because he's like
Harry Hodini in his approbrium towards those people. So as
he could tell from all this all this characterization, our
(24:01):
guy will lily, which is a fun phrase to say,
was Willie Lil's perfectly. He was quite accomplished. He was
considered very very good at this, and he was also
considered more importantly, very very accurate. Now we've established this guy,
a lot of people are pinning their future hopes and
(24:23):
fears on his system and his take on the passage
of the planets and the stars. But what happens when
he starts applying his discipline to his own life, to
his own personal problems. You know, this is, by the way,
a shout out to everybody who has been desperately waiting
(24:48):
for a FedEx or Amazon or USPS delivery. I gotta
tell you, guys, Noel Max. Nothing quite screws up your
day like having a package delivered.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
That you have to sign for. Oh, and you just
miss it. You've been planning around it. They come in
that exact ten minutes that you rushed off to go,
you know, grab some milk at the store or something
like that. Happens every time. Happens every time, Yeah, it
happens every time.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
You know, you'll do your best to get your tracking number,
You're maybe arranging to stay at home for that day,
and then you get these cryptic messages like out for delivery.
Will it be today and will it be six pm?
You'll have to wait and see. Get a sleeping bag
lay out by the door, listen for the bell. Yeah exactly.
(25:41):
Or maybe my FedEx guy is like a magic riddle gobblets.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
You talk like that. That's just pretty spooky. Man.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
He's got a lot of allure.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
You know, you got to meet him.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
He's a good hang. You just never know when he's
going to show up.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Now, that's fair. Well. In February of sixteen thirty eight,
old Willy Lil's was awaiting a ship of fish and
very specific type of onions ben Portuguese onions, the finest
of onions, to be delivered to his home. However, instead
of being greeted by a smiling delivery person bearing fish
(26:15):
and onions, he was instead greeted by an apologetic warehouse
employee who informed him that the warehouse had in fact
been burgled. His stresses fish were gone. Yeah, we love
a good heist, right for anyone else, it wouldn't have
been that big a deal. He would have moved on
with his life, you know, knowing that he could probably
(26:35):
acquire these fish and onions another time. But no, he
would not be swayed with the power of the cosmo,
set his beck and call. He did what any astrological
master would do. He cast a chart in order to
locate his missing items and catch the thief in the act. Well,
(26:57):
I guess the act had been done, so he would
have the very least catch him at hand.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Yeah, yeah, like you saying, kind of a nonlinear approach.
Not just let me figure out what will happen, but
what did happen. So now I'm knowing not just the future,
but the past and the present. And this is this
is fascinating because often we don't think of astrology, at
least us filthy casuals. We don't think of astrology in
(27:22):
this manner.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Well, it does remind me though of you know, some
programs that the CIA has done astral projection and things
like that Psychic Stargate and all of that. A shout
out to Russell targ and the training psychic Spies. What
was it called Third Eye Spies I believe was the
name of that man's book. Fascinating dude, excellent synthesis of
(27:44):
the mystical and the scientific. But this really does have
the feel of that, like using sort of mystical pursuits
to solve a crime.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Yeah, yeah, which is exciting stuff. And we'll see how
this becomes increasingly cinematic if we go to sources like
four Faces number four Faces dot Com. Will see that
this type of astrology that William Lily is practicing tells
us that to find the fish and onion thief, you
(28:14):
have to find what we call the right significator. A
significator is the planet that represents the guilty party. And
this is like when we talk about dignity in this discipline,
we're not using dignity the same way you would and
commonplace parlance. We're talking about the nature characteristics of these planets.
(28:38):
So this guy is saying, how do I He's essentially saying,
how do I profile this thief whom I don't know.
I don't know anything about this person other than that
they were in a warehouse that they robbed at some point.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
And may smell of onions and fish.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
They probably have, yeah, some aromatic indicators. So what he
finds in his reading it is investigation, is the planet
Jupiter without strength sits in what we call an angular
position in scorpio, which is a water sign. Meanwhile, concurrently,
(29:21):
the moon which you know the moon from earlier. It
is in the ascendant in its own dignity, which to
him suggests that this is a worthwhile investigation, that the
thief will be discovered. Now, for a lot of us
non astrology experts, this does sound like a lot of
(29:46):
very specific nomenclature. So how do we break this down?
Noll for we the average, Yes, the average, the unwashed,
the unlearned. This isn't the moon really kind of insane
upon itself a little bit, ben It's always there, you know,
they're shining brightly. I like it's early work.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
I do too, I do too, And I like the
way it changes, you know, it's it's fun, it's changeable.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
It's way better than the sun.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
I don't got don't even get me started about the sun.
Talk about.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
So, Jupiter naturally rules the wealthy and noble classes, and
Lily wasn't naive. A fella burgling warehouses to steal fish
was unlikely a member of the upper crust. So he
took a deeper look at what Jupiter's position may have
actually been hinting at. And here's where Lily's genius, at
least interpreting interpreting this stuff comes in, and I don't
(30:44):
think we make any secrets. Ben, You and I are
a little skeptical about this type of thing, so just
come right out and say it. But I do think
both of us find these sorts of patterns and the
intuition involved in sussing out those kinds of patterns fascinating.
And I think sometimes being accurate quote unquote says more
about the interpreter than it does about the methods.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Yeah, that's very well put, Noel, and I think I
would agree with that. Of course, where'd I hear to
yuck anybody's yo? But Lily, through his you could anthropologists
might even call it a cultural framework. Right through his
framework and his perspective, he encounters what he interprets as
(31:30):
an unmistakable pattern. He says, okay, Jupiter might be the
significator of our thief. It is in scorpio again, that's
a water sign. And he says, I'm looking at something
I call the part of fortune, and the part of
fortune is occurring at seventeen degrees of cancer. And he says, oh, well, cancer,
(31:53):
like scorpio, is another water sign. So in this chart
I'm making, this means that the part of fortune is
representing my missing fish and Portuguese onions. You know, that's
my treasure. And he goes well, also in my chart,
in my divination, here I see Mercury, the ruler of
(32:15):
the second house, and he says, the ruler of the
second this means my possessions, and that Mercury is in
Pisces at this point, and boom, boom boom, I've got
three water sign So everything I'm seeing in this pattern
(32:40):
leads me to think of water and these goods, these
fish and these fancy Portuguese onions. They're transported to me
by river.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
So the thief has to be.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Connected somehow to the water, right some probably not a
rich dude.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Again, I'm leaning on intuition here and also kind of
somewhat obvious factors, right, like the water is how these
goods would have been transported. I don't know that having
the water signs necessarily is the one thing alone that
made him make that connection.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Yeah, it is interesting because he also says, Okay, he's
a believer, right, He's a believing He's not a grifter.
He genuinely, he genuinely is a practitioner this discipline. So
everything that he again is the national expert is finding
is telling him, whomever this thief is, they are not wealthy,
(33:43):
They're somehow connected to the river. They probably have a job,
so therefore they probably work around the river. And the fish,
he reasons, must be stored somewhere associated with water.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
And then I'm sorry, the actual quote from the piece
of the fish he reasoned must be in some place moist.
You think, Yeah, they definitely start. I know, I'm coming
down on this guy a little bit. But again, I
keep HARKing back to the fact that dude is a
believer in this methodology, and he also does appear to
(34:21):
just kind of be a pretty good little detective.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Yeah. Yeah, we always talk about that too. You know,
it's so easy for it's easy, and it's incorrect for
people in the modern day to dismiss the intelligence of
people from the past just because they're explaining something through
a different framework does not invalidate their intelligence or their
(34:46):
deductive abilities. And this is where it gets even more
interesting because in this reading where you know, I agree
with you here, Noel, in this reading, the wave characterized
it so far, it sounds like he's just saying basic stuff,
you know, fish and water. But he gets he gets
(35:08):
more specific, he gets into what Corporate America would call
it granular details. He's reading. His reading, based on his interpretation,
tells him more about the thief in question. He says, Okay,
this is probably a bigger guy, a robust figure. He
probably has fair skin. He probably has skin reddish blonde
(35:31):
of ham Yes, And he says, bigger dude because of Jupiter.
And he says fair skin and reddish blonde hair because
of a combination of Jupiter and Mars. And then he
says he probably whomever this thief may be has recently
(35:52):
moved house.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
That's pretty cool, man. I don't know it's it's definitely
it's some jinkies type stuff. So the downside here is
the chart indicated sadly that Lily would indeed find his goods,
but they would not be in an appropriate condition for
him to enjoy them. So whether he decided that a
little was better than none, or simply thought that it
would be just a good exercise, you know, a good
(36:16):
proof of concept, We're not one hundred percent sure what
his intentions there were, but done the last the hunt,
the game was a foot fish fish.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Yeah, the game was a fish. And also shout out
to William Lily for being such a fancy boy. We
know there were regular onions. Dude, you didn't have to
get Portuguese.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
No, no, you know, if he's gonna have funky breath,
it's gonna be in style. Right, do you speak Portuguese?
Speaker 1 (36:48):
No, but after lunch, I'll breathe it. So on the
broad strokes are mapped out in this chart. Lily goes
to the streets like a like a good old fashioned
gulb shoe detective, even though gum shoe wasn't a term
for centuries.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Yeah, no, exactly, he's putting shoe to pavement. He is
out there, you know, rattling cages.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he is. Uh, he's got his boots
on the ground, as as we would later say, So.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
What would they have been? What would he have been
likely wearing? What sort of footwear? Some sort of boot?
I imagine a sandal? Yeah, what do they hows those
long pointy pointless shoes. Yeah, yeah, all right, I'm trying
to I'm just trying to set the scene here. I
got to know what kind of footwear we're talking.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Exactly, and he uh so he does whatevery smart investigative
journalist or detective would do. He says, I gotta go
meet the people, you know what I mean, kiss the
hands and shake the babies and so on. So he
starts asking around, and he goes down to the river right,
(37:57):
goes down to where people are working in the markets
and what have you, and he starts asking for He's going, hey,
it's me William Lily. And they're like, what the famous
astrologer William Lily. And he goes the very same look
upon my sand bills. Tell me, do you know anybody
in the area that you would describe as burly, redheaded,
(38:19):
good at fishing, who recently moved? And sure enough, eventually
several people tell him that there was a matching suspect,
somebody who fit the description, who had just moved into
the area and had a reputation for sticky fingers.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Oh no, he was in No, he was. He was
a usual suspect. He was gosh, okay, I'm not gonna
poopoo any further, Lily approached the local magistrate in order
to attain a search warrant. I didn't know an individual
could just get a search warrants. That's pretty The rules
are a little different back then, it was granted without hesitation,
(38:58):
of course, to your point, band thanks to his profile
and social cachet. Along with they provided him a bailiff
in order to you know, protect him and potentially strong
arm the suspect, who was apparently quite robust.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
Ah, yes, yes, chunky boy. So from Willie's perspective, his
chart was one hundred percent accurate. His reading held true.
They go and find this alleged thief, and in the
thief's possession they find the fish, and they ask the
(39:36):
thief about this, and the guy says, okay, all right,
you got me, you got me. I'm handsome, I'm robust,
I'm reddish, blonde, I stole the fish.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Where handsome come from?
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Well, he's you know, always be closing right, fair, fair face.
I like picturing that too, Like he's not pitching himself
as he's getting arrested, ravishing. Yes, he the thief unnamed
says that I ate most of the fish already. Look,
(40:12):
I've got my family here with me. This is my wife,
and the wife is probably like, he's not that ravish,
and so Lily says, what happened to my Portuguese onions?
And the spouse says, well, we made a soup out
of them. But you know what, we'll let you keep
(40:34):
because you are such a good astrologer, because you were
such a talented detective. Please don't arrest us. We'll give
you the rest of the fish.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Yeah, yeah, or the rest of everything. I guess there
was a little bit remaining of the onions too, potentially,
And I love the idea that, like, she just didn't
know that these were not the kind of onions you
would just boil into a soup, you know, No, these
are meant to be consumed in other ways. I'm sure why.
I mean, it was such a red flag. That's a
faux pot to use Portuguese onions. How about you could
(41:05):
make a dope French onion or Portuguese onion soup. Yeah,
like I bet.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
Yeah. Also, you know, we have to exercise empathy. Stealing
is wrong, But I feel kind of bad for the
thief to your point about his spouse not knowing where
he got the onions and the fish. It's kind of
like when kids get in trouble. This happens often in
(41:31):
the United States.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
Still, when.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
Underage kids get in trouble or high school kids, you
know they're they're not old enough to I guess drink
or you know, they get caught trespassing, raising cane and
so on. Local law enforcement will often say, look, man,
we can book you, or we can call your parents,
and not to not to tell tales out of school.
(41:58):
This sounds like a situation where Lily and the bailiff
were like, hey, man, your wife is gonna punish you
way more than we ever could. So it seems sleeping
on the couch, who knows how long think you in
the doghouse, indeed in the fish house, in the Onion mansion.
(42:21):
This case proved too astrology believers to be a lasting
example on how to correctly read horrory charts, and if
you are an astrology student you will probably learn about
this case in your studies. Thanks so much for tuning in, folks,
Big big thanks to our super producer, mister Max Williams,
(42:44):
Big big thanks to our brand new research associate Ames Doyle.
Look for more of their work on the way in
the future, and as my pal Noll said, maybe Ames
will grace us with their appearance.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
On air Away. Huge thanks to Ames for me as well,
Huge thanks to Jonathan strickland Ish. These are sort of
a fish and onion in human form. That's too harsh.
He's a good for nothing, too harsh. He's a roth Jonathan,
He's a bit of a He's a scamp. He's a
bit of a scamp. A j Bahamas Jacobs, the Puzzler
and of course that was Jonathan Strickland aka the quiz Turn.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
And chout out to our rude dudes over a Ridiculous crime.
If you dig us, you will love them. You can
also hear our pal, one of the creators and co
hosts of Ridiculous Crime, Zeron Burnett, showing up on Behind
the Bastards not to be missed and the Big Big
Things to you, Man. I know that you and I
(43:42):
are not are not learned astrologers ourselves, but these stories
are always so interesting and as you said, we love
a heist.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
Ah who doesn't. We'll see you next time, folks. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by Audiochuck Media Company.
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.