A pseudonymous Fortean—who almost disappeared.
Paul Councel’s name appeared in Doubt 12. He was selling an astrological map, and along with his name came his address. So it was possible to lock down who this guy was. Kind of. He had some astrological publications going back as early as 1930. He appeared in the 1940 census. He showed in in city directories. There’s a record of his death in 1956. And there was his birthdate and place—28 December 1884 in Danville, Virginia. Astrologers are diligent about leaving the details of their birth for later researchers.
So, where was he in the historical record before the mid-1930s? Virginia has good birth records, and there was nothing about his birth—or the birth of someone similarly named—in December 1884. Indeed, Councel is an exceedingly rare name when spelled that way. His mother’s maiden name was Betts, according to his death record, but there was no Betts-Councel marriage that I could find. Who was this guy?
Paul Councel’s name appeared in Doubt 12. He was selling an astrological map, and along with his name came his address. So it was possible to lock down who this guy was. Kind of. He had some astrological publications going back as early as 1930. He appeared in the 1940 census. He showed in in city directories. There’s a record of his death in 1956. And there was his birthdate and place—28 December 1884 in Danville, Virginia. Astrologers are diligent about leaving the details of their birth for later researchers.
So, where was he in the historical record before the mid-1930s? Virginia has good birth records, and there was nothing about his birth—or the birth of someone similarly named—in December 1884. Indeed, Councel is an exceedingly rare name when spelled that way. His mother’s maiden name was Betts, according to his death record, but there was no Betts-Councel marriage that I could find. Who was this guy?
The break came from his World War II draft registration. He was fifty-seven at the time and so not likely to be called upon, but still had to register. There was his name on the form, Paul Councel. There was something else, though, too. Scrawled across the top of the page was “Pseudonym of William Ferrell Thomas.” And with that one line, everything opened up.
William Ferrell Thomas was born in Danville, Virginia on 28 December 1884. His parents were William Ferrell Thomas and Nattie Betts Thomas. I still could not find them in the 1900 or 1910 census, and so his early life and its environment are not well known. But I could start to piece together the story from the mid-1910s, when Thomas was in his early 30s. He was working as a traveling salesmen, then, selling hosiery in Norway, Denmark, and Sweden for a time, working for a New Zealand-based outfit selling in Japan, China, Korea, and India at another time. On 16 June 1917, he married Elizabeth Evelyn Turner, at her family’s home, the wedding making the newspaper as they were, according to the Danville Bee, a “popular young couple.” She was 22, and from North Carolina.
Their marital life is difficult to understand from the available documents. Thomas continued traveling for a time, and registered for the Great War, but does not seem to have served. They had a son, Carlson, around 1919 and Thomas seems to have settled down in Danville, working as an accountant. They lived in a charmed house—123 Main Street—which they owned; they were comfortable enough to have a black servant living with them, too. Around 1923, Elizabeth gave birth to a daughter, Ann.
That was around the same time Thomas moved to New York City, where he continued to work as an accountant. A 1924 article from the Bee has Elizabeth and her two children returning to Roanoke from a visit with their father. The 1925 New York census has a listing that could certainly by the same William Thomas. A 1929 article in the Bee has Thomas, “of New York City,” visiting his in-laws in Danville. The 1930 census has Elizabeth and the children living with her parents in Virginia, while Thomas lived in Brooklyn, where he worked as an accountant. Both were listed as married.
Whatever the nature of the familial relationship, it became even more confused in the beginning years of that decade, when he moved to Los Angeles, became a writer on astrological topics, adopted the name Paul Councel, and, in 1933, established the “Astro-Guidance Educational Society,” which published his pamphlets and advertised in the local papers and Popular Science: “Discontented? Relocate with Geographic Astrology. Established 1933. Your localities calculated and discussed $25.00. Includes ‘X Marks My Place’. Book introductory, $1.00. Paul Councel, Founder, PS-1734, Garfield Place, Loa Angeles.” Today, the pamphlets are rare, and I have not made a complete study of them. I have read X Marks My Place: Showing the Right Locality for Health, Happiness, Success, According to Geographical Astrology (1935) and Cosmic Causation in Geophysics (1945). These offer insight into his thoughts, of course, and his relationship to Forteanism. And also to his life circumstances.
I won’t pretend to understand all the intricacies in Councel’s astrological theorizing. But the gist of the the first mentioned book is that the contemporary mess of society—meaning the 1930s—was caused by people not living in their optimal place: and that optimal place could only be discovered through astrology: by consulting the personal zodiac, the earth’s zodiac, and the sun’s zodiac. Only that way could the person be in proper alignment with the heavens to fully develop his or her genius, to find financial, familial, and every other kind of harmony. I tried his method, which consists of looking up details in a chart and cross-referencing the results with other charts, although the instructions could have been clearer. Turns out I’m good in living on the West Coast, but for financial success, health, and love I’d do better a bit further south.
As it happens, that was where the stars indicated William Thomas Ferrell should live, too, and he says in the book that he moved from New York to LA to prove his thesis. He noted that he’d lost thirty pounds since making the move, and hoped others would follow his system so that the world could be made more harmonious. One imagines his finances suffered after the move—going from an a NYC accountant to a publisher of astrological pamphlets, but perhaps it was simplified—if, for example, he ended whatever support he was providing his family in Virginia. He may also have found love: the name Elizabeth Frazer appeared on some of the Astro-Guidance’s publications starting in 1940.
I don’t know how Ferrell came to astrology, but it seems likely he was exposed while in New York City. Perhaps he was even encouraged to test out his own theories—Ferrell’s system of AstroGeography was a relatively new development in modern astrology. There were only a few others working along similar lines, from what I can tell. he himself figured it was the rediscovery of an ancient knowledge—the knowledge used to site the pyramid of Cheops, then forgotten. It may be that there were astrological (or numerological) reasons for him to change his name. But there could have been more mundane prompts, as well: publicity. And hiding from his family back East.
The 1940 census interestingly lists Paul Councel and Elizabeth Ferrell as married, but the “m” is crossed out in both cases. Elizabeth Frazer, living at the Hollywood Hotel and working as a waitress, is also listed as married in the census. But her husband, Fred, died in November 1940—the year she her name became associated with Astro-Guidance. She had come to California about a decade before Paul Councel, having immigrated from Canada via Michigan, where she met and married Fred. One source has her taking up astrology around 1930, that is to say, about the time that Councel/Ferrell arrived in the area. There are a couple of suggestive ways of interpreting this information, but nothing definitive. Leave it that Councel had a complicated live life.
Councel was a registered democrat. He was just shy of six-feet tall and, in 1942, weighed a slight 150 pounds. His hair was brown, and he had two scars: one on his knee, one left from the removal of his appendix. He publishedl published a second edition of “X Marks My Place” in 1935. His article “Geographic Astrology” appeared in the January 1939 issue of American Astrology. He and Elizabeth Frazer put out “Your Stars and Destiny” in 1940. He published a map to accompany his astrological theories titled “The Heavens and the Earth” in 1944. The following year, he copyrighted a 28-page pamphlet, “Cosmic Causation in Geophysics.” He published a series of articles, “America Under Ice,” in American Astrology magazine, July and August 1949. I have not seen these, but they suggest that Councel may have taken up the Drayson problem.
Support for that guess can be found in the the roof his pamphlet’s that I read, 1945’s Cosmic Causation. A jargon-heavy summation of his astrological thought, Cosmic Causation argues that the history of humankind—and its future evolution—can be plotted by astrological computation. There is a cycle of history, about 2,160 years long, he argues, these “cultural” epochs themselves divisible into recognizable events. If humans, he says—and specifically Western men—want to control the evolution of the earth, and bring it back into cosmic harmony, they need to apply his theories and prepare for the inevitable transitions.
There are, of course, some confounding factors, and the precession of the poles is one of them—which is how Drayson fits in. He argues that at one point in the not to distant past, making all the necessary corrections, the poles actually covered North America—America under ice—and this explains the evolution of Native Americans. As with the rest of his theory, these periods, and the people who inhabited them, are reified to such an extent that they lose all individuality. No more are there people who belong at a certain place on the globe. Now there are cultures, with dominant religions, declining at an appropriate rate. Events—the outbreak of the Great War, of World War II—are not the result of people out of place, less so politics, but the inevitable march of cosmic cycles.
After Councel published Cosmic Causation, he was quiet. I find no more evidence of his society, his pamphlets, his advertisements. There is only the articles on America under ice, which seem to have been excerpted from this earlier book. He wasn’t particularly old by this time, only in his early 60s. Perhaps he was sad. Elizabeth Frazer died in 1948. Council himself passed away 13 May 1956.
His name appeared only once in Doubt—issue 12 (Spring 1945). He had sent in the map that he had just published, which supposedly solved the problem of polar motion, at least as Thayer described it. Council was listed as an MFS, which means he likely paid dues, at least once.
The appearance in the Fortean Society’s magazine does not give very much indication of why Councel would have been a member. But guesses can be made based on his life story. Likely he became aware of the Society in light of DaCosta William’s appearance, which seems to have brought Doubt to the attention of astrologers. The Society’s dissent against the confining jacket of modern science, and its promotion of the Drayson problem would have been draws. And there were clearly those sympathetic with his attempt to reclaim ancient knowledge on the Society’s rosters.
But, as with the other astrologers, Councel would ultimately have been isolated from the Society because of Thayer’s (and Fort’s) disdain for the very notion of science. Council, as with other astrologers, was trying to make his work into a science—to be taken seriously as a way of understanding the universe’s mechanisms. He was not an arch-skeptic, only skeptical of the current science, and hoping to reclaim what had been lost—to make sense of a world that was ill-served by modern science, and its weapons of mass destruction. At the conclusion of Cosmic Causation he wrote,
“The entire history of humanity, from their beginnings, is written in the starry pattern of celestial energy that moulded their minute and magnitudes every step of the way. . . . Credit is du astrology for the preservation of the rudiments of the science, through fair weather and foul, for 3000 years or more. For this, and its solace to the natural hunger to penetrate the mysteries of life and futurity, its ridicule and persecution should cease. They are inconsistent with the tenets of Western Culture, for astrology is a personal religion—as old as mankind.”
William Ferrell Thomas was born in Danville, Virginia on 28 December 1884. His parents were William Ferrell Thomas and Nattie Betts Thomas. I still could not find them in the 1900 or 1910 census, and so his early life and its environment are not well known. But I could start to piece together the story from the mid-1910s, when Thomas was in his early 30s. He was working as a traveling salesmen, then, selling hosiery in Norway, Denmark, and Sweden for a time, working for a New Zealand-based outfit selling in Japan, China, Korea, and India at another time. On 16 June 1917, he married Elizabeth Evelyn Turner, at her family’s home, the wedding making the newspaper as they were, according to the Danville Bee, a “popular young couple.” She was 22, and from North Carolina.
Their marital life is difficult to understand from the available documents. Thomas continued traveling for a time, and registered for the Great War, but does not seem to have served. They had a son, Carlson, around 1919 and Thomas seems to have settled down in Danville, working as an accountant. They lived in a charmed house—123 Main Street—which they owned; they were comfortable enough to have a black servant living with them, too. Around 1923, Elizabeth gave birth to a daughter, Ann.
That was around the same time Thomas moved to New York City, where he continued to work as an accountant. A 1924 article from the Bee has Elizabeth and her two children returning to Roanoke from a visit with their father. The 1925 New York census has a listing that could certainly by the same William Thomas. A 1929 article in the Bee has Thomas, “of New York City,” visiting his in-laws in Danville. The 1930 census has Elizabeth and the children living with her parents in Virginia, while Thomas lived in Brooklyn, where he worked as an accountant. Both were listed as married.
Whatever the nature of the familial relationship, it became even more confused in the beginning years of that decade, when he moved to Los Angeles, became a writer on astrological topics, adopted the name Paul Councel, and, in 1933, established the “Astro-Guidance Educational Society,” which published his pamphlets and advertised in the local papers and Popular Science: “Discontented? Relocate with Geographic Astrology. Established 1933. Your localities calculated and discussed $25.00. Includes ‘X Marks My Place’. Book introductory, $1.00. Paul Councel, Founder, PS-1734, Garfield Place, Loa Angeles.” Today, the pamphlets are rare, and I have not made a complete study of them. I have read X Marks My Place: Showing the Right Locality for Health, Happiness, Success, According to Geographical Astrology (1935) and Cosmic Causation in Geophysics (1945). These offer insight into his thoughts, of course, and his relationship to Forteanism. And also to his life circumstances.
I won’t pretend to understand all the intricacies in Councel’s astrological theorizing. But the gist of the the first mentioned book is that the contemporary mess of society—meaning the 1930s—was caused by people not living in their optimal place: and that optimal place could only be discovered through astrology: by consulting the personal zodiac, the earth’s zodiac, and the sun’s zodiac. Only that way could the person be in proper alignment with the heavens to fully develop his or her genius, to find financial, familial, and every other kind of harmony. I tried his method, which consists of looking up details in a chart and cross-referencing the results with other charts, although the instructions could have been clearer. Turns out I’m good in living on the West Coast, but for financial success, health, and love I’d do better a bit further south.
As it happens, that was where the stars indicated William Thomas Ferrell should live, too, and he says in the book that he moved from New York to LA to prove his thesis. He noted that he’d lost thirty pounds since making the move, and hoped others would follow his system so that the world could be made more harmonious. One imagines his finances suffered after the move—going from an a NYC accountant to a publisher of astrological pamphlets, but perhaps it was simplified—if, for example, he ended whatever support he was providing his family in Virginia. He may also have found love: the name Elizabeth Frazer appeared on some of the Astro-Guidance’s publications starting in 1940.
I don’t know how Ferrell came to astrology, but it seems likely he was exposed while in New York City. Perhaps he was even encouraged to test out his own theories—Ferrell’s system of AstroGeography was a relatively new development in modern astrology. There were only a few others working along similar lines, from what I can tell. he himself figured it was the rediscovery of an ancient knowledge—the knowledge used to site the pyramid of Cheops, then forgotten. It may be that there were astrological (or numerological) reasons for him to change his name. But there could have been more mundane prompts, as well: publicity. And hiding from his family back East.
The 1940 census interestingly lists Paul Councel and Elizabeth Ferrell as married, but the “m” is crossed out in both cases. Elizabeth Frazer, living at the Hollywood Hotel and working as a waitress, is also listed as married in the census. But her husband, Fred, died in November 1940—the year she her name became associated with Astro-Guidance. She had come to California about a decade before Paul Councel, having immigrated from Canada via Michigan, where she met and married Fred. One source has her taking up astrology around 1930, that is to say, about the time that Councel/Ferrell arrived in the area. There are a couple of suggestive ways of interpreting this information, but nothing definitive. Leave it that Councel had a complicated live life.
Councel was a registered democrat. He was just shy of six-feet tall and, in 1942, weighed a slight 150 pounds. His hair was brown, and he had two scars: one on his knee, one left from the removal of his appendix. He publishedl published a second edition of “X Marks My Place” in 1935. His article “Geographic Astrology” appeared in the January 1939 issue of American Astrology. He and Elizabeth Frazer put out “Your Stars and Destiny” in 1940. He published a map to accompany his astrological theories titled “The Heavens and the Earth” in 1944. The following year, he copyrighted a 28-page pamphlet, “Cosmic Causation in Geophysics.” He published a series of articles, “America Under Ice,” in American Astrology magazine, July and August 1949. I have not seen these, but they suggest that Councel may have taken up the Drayson problem.
Support for that guess can be found in the the roof his pamphlet’s that I read, 1945’s Cosmic Causation. A jargon-heavy summation of his astrological thought, Cosmic Causation argues that the history of humankind—and its future evolution—can be plotted by astrological computation. There is a cycle of history, about 2,160 years long, he argues, these “cultural” epochs themselves divisible into recognizable events. If humans, he says—and specifically Western men—want to control the evolution of the earth, and bring it back into cosmic harmony, they need to apply his theories and prepare for the inevitable transitions.
There are, of course, some confounding factors, and the precession of the poles is one of them—which is how Drayson fits in. He argues that at one point in the not to distant past, making all the necessary corrections, the poles actually covered North America—America under ice—and this explains the evolution of Native Americans. As with the rest of his theory, these periods, and the people who inhabited them, are reified to such an extent that they lose all individuality. No more are there people who belong at a certain place on the globe. Now there are cultures, with dominant religions, declining at an appropriate rate. Events—the outbreak of the Great War, of World War II—are not the result of people out of place, less so politics, but the inevitable march of cosmic cycles.
After Councel published Cosmic Causation, he was quiet. I find no more evidence of his society, his pamphlets, his advertisements. There is only the articles on America under ice, which seem to have been excerpted from this earlier book. He wasn’t particularly old by this time, only in his early 60s. Perhaps he was sad. Elizabeth Frazer died in 1948. Council himself passed away 13 May 1956.
His name appeared only once in Doubt—issue 12 (Spring 1945). He had sent in the map that he had just published, which supposedly solved the problem of polar motion, at least as Thayer described it. Council was listed as an MFS, which means he likely paid dues, at least once.
The appearance in the Fortean Society’s magazine does not give very much indication of why Councel would have been a member. But guesses can be made based on his life story. Likely he became aware of the Society in light of DaCosta William’s appearance, which seems to have brought Doubt to the attention of astrologers. The Society’s dissent against the confining jacket of modern science, and its promotion of the Drayson problem would have been draws. And there were clearly those sympathetic with his attempt to reclaim ancient knowledge on the Society’s rosters.
But, as with the other astrologers, Councel would ultimately have been isolated from the Society because of Thayer’s (and Fort’s) disdain for the very notion of science. Council, as with other astrologers, was trying to make his work into a science—to be taken seriously as a way of understanding the universe’s mechanisms. He was not an arch-skeptic, only skeptical of the current science, and hoping to reclaim what had been lost—to make sense of a world that was ill-served by modern science, and its weapons of mass destruction. At the conclusion of Cosmic Causation he wrote,
“The entire history of humanity, from their beginnings, is written in the starry pattern of celestial energy that moulded their minute and magnitudes every step of the way. . . . Credit is du astrology for the preservation of the rudiments of the science, through fair weather and foul, for 3000 years or more. For this, and its solace to the natural hunger to penetrate the mysteries of life and futurity, its ridicule and persecution should cease. They are inconsistent with the tenets of Western Culture, for astrology is a personal religion—as old as mankind.”
