For those of you unable to attend Geoffrey Cornelius’ funeral, you can watch the recording of the service here:
Geoffrey’s funeral service from St Alphege church
Also, please find below the order of service and eulogy.
Geoffrey Eulogy from family & friends
(Read by William Rowlandson)
Geoffrey’s wife, Maggie, wants to thank you all for coming. Geoffrey was an only child and has no close family, only one distant second cousin, so it’s remarkable to see so many friends. Maggie was with him for over 40 years and is very grateful for the many tributes to him, often using the same words over and over again to describe him – kind, wise, inspiring, generous, good-humoured. Yet so many people also say that he profoundly changed their lives with his wisdom, knowledge and teaching. At times of indecision, sometimes through astrology or the I Ching, sometimes just by talking, he helped them to find what he called the ‘line of good fortune’. Not through his reading of the symbols, but enabling them to find the best way forward for themselves.
For Pat Blackett, Geoffrey was the absolute best of Capricorn – considered, ethical, practical, an old soul. He was her astrological moral compass and she loved him for his tolerance of her Aries’ idiocy and naivety. She says, “If I had a profound question concerning life’s crossroads then he would be my go-to person. I will miss that profoundly.” Another friend wrote, “His comments when we talked set in motion one of the most important journeys of my life. Everything flowed from that moment.” With his “sharp and deep intellect”, as a friend said, “he would put a bomb under me and shake my very foundations. “
So although Geoffrey with his book The Moment of Astrology is like Capricorn and its planet Saturn, symbol of time and tradition, he was actually very innovative and revolutionary and his thinking over-turned basic assumptions about time and tradition. All his life as an educator, he developed vehicles for a radical type of philosophical and symbolic thinking. In the 70’s in adult education evening classes he pioneered New Philosophy courses in astrology, the I Ching and dreams. Later, he freed the Astrological Lodge from the Theosophical Society, creating the Astrological Lodge of London with a clever Capricorn so-called ‘bi-furcated constitution’. Out of this came the Company of Astrologers, through which he finally had a means to explore and teach the philosophy and practice of divination. For 12 years, the Company had premises at the Art Workers Guild in Queen Square, London, and these were very creative and fruitful years for Geoffrey. In the last decade, he developed academic courses on these themes at the University of Kent and Christ Church University. A colleague comments, “His link to spirit, to the mystical, to the magical, to the unknowable was ever present – he was always in respectful awe of it, and that’s what he communicated to his students.”
Finally, Geoffrey was often able to express complex ideas with a catchy turn of phrase. For example, he was influenced by the 17th century astrologer William Lilly who showed in his work Christian Astrology that astrology was ‘non cogunt’, that is, not fated. Geoffrey taught this, but as he put it, ‘Destiny is negotiable’. A lot of us are still trying to work that one out.
