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"When Time and Price square, Change is bound to happen"

W.D Gann

 

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The history of Financial Astrology dates back to Sumer according to some authors. At least this is what Jeanne Long inferred from some clay tablets found at Ur, one of the most powerful Sumerian cities of the third millennium BC, and exhibited at the British Museum. These tablets represented the movement of the planets, the Sun and Mercury in relation to the price of wheat and had apparently been of great interest for the famous W.D. Gann during his visit of the Museum.

 
In any case, a rather long interruption followed these attempts at predicting of the course of economic events. No doubt royal astrologers of the past must have tried crop forecasting. Some traces of cycle prediction are found in the Bible, for example the dream of Pharaoh interpreted by Joseph in Genesis is consistent with a 7-year cycle which is a quarter turn of Saturn. But they have not left many traces of their findings and they must have paid very dearly any failure. Humanity is more forgiving to economists and meteorologists, the first ones because they can at least come up with good ex ante explanations, the later ones because weather is seen as unpredictable. But when astrologers pretend to have understood laws of the universe to the extent they can forecast the future, any mistake is not forgiven, and usually casts a doubt on the whole art. Not to mention unhappy customers… Karl Ernst Krafft, Hitler astrologer’s,  predicted doom if the war was not won before 1942 , triggering the wrath of his irascible employer, who sent him to his death in Buchenwald. You need to be a bit picky about customers I guess.


The first published article of Financial Astrology is quite possibly found in the late nineteenth century with the  “Sugar Speculum” horoscope, used by Catherine Thompson, published in the Astrological magazine "The Sphinx " in September 1899. This horoscope is cast for August 17, 1887 in New York and planetary transits are used to attempt predicting sugar prices. The vocabulary quite dated, Mars, Saturn and Uranus (still called Hershel at the time), are called " Malefics" and it does not seem to me that anything can be retrieved for our understanding of the Sugar Market today from this first attempt (Sugar was seen as ruled by Scorpio). It was nevertheless selling for $ 25 at the time, about $ 1000 today!


Quoted by Graham Bates, L. Krohn published in "Modern Astrology Vol 9 No. 11, pp. 451-456 , " in 1912, an article (Market Fluctuations and Business Crises in the Light of Astrology , difficult to find today) , in which he establishes correlations between prices of non- ferrous metals and cycles of Jupiter / Saturn , Jupiter / Uranus , Mars / Saturn and Mars / Uranus between 1850 to 1906 .


 
Several booklets are then written by Sepharial (1864-1929) , whose real name was Walter Gorn Old , who published the first book of financial astrology , " The Law of Values" in 1912. He studied psychology, oriental languages , astrology and numerology. He was an important figure of the Theosophical Society, intimate friend of Madame Blavatsky. He thought he had discovered in 1918 a second Moon (black), which he called Lilith (nothing to do with the asteroid). It will be used in astrology under the name Lilith, but as an immaterial point, the location of the second focus of the ellipse of the lunar orbit (the first focus being the Earth). Among the published booklets : The law of values,  The arcana or stock & share key,  Key to sugar values,  The master key,  The golden key,  The eclipse key,  The solar lunar values, The solar apex method.


 
That’s a lot of keys, but not opening many doors. These books are not of great interest to modern markets, merging in the same analysis Economy and Financial markets, using 12 AM systematically for all charts and not offering any systematic validation study. That being said, at the time, there was nothing else and no way to make spreadsheet calculations. W.D. Gann recommended reading these books, nevertheless.


Catherine Thompson was one of the astrology teachers of Evangeline Adams (1868-1932) , the most famous American astrologer, advisor to the banker JP Morgan (who declared at the time: " Millionaires do not need an astrologer, billionaires do"). Mrs. Adams was very interested in the relationship between financial markets and astrology. She narrowly escaped jail, arrested three times in New York for fortune telling (1911, 1914 and 1923), which was illegal at the time. The practice of astrology was somewhat suspicious in those days (we better understand the veiled novel of W.D.  Gann), but his acquittal in May 1914 earned her a certain celebrity, the judge acknowledging that the description of his son’s character, made on the basis of his chart was accurate. Mrs. Adams associated among other people with the notorious Aleister Crowley, but did not leave much of her financial techniques in her few books published. We only know she used the charts of the NYSE, of the United States and that she saw the Moon as important to forecast daily market fluctuations. A book called " What Evangeline Adams Knew " (2004), give some ideas to the reader curious to know more , but less than is suggested by the 4th cover page. This page announces that the book will show "How Evangeline Adams Predicted the stock market crash of 1929". Indeed we learn that she announced the top of the market (making people flock to her counsel), she also predicted during a conference on 1 January 1927 that one should be careful in 1927/1929, but…


…the author writes on page 183 that he has no idea of her technique to predict the top of the market. We nevertheless understand that Ms. Adams looked very closely at the cycles of Saturn and Uranus, including their passage Gemini (hence opposite to Galactic Center) and was therefore expecting serious financial issues at this time. This interest into Uranus cycles is shared by both Mrs. Adams and Bradley Cowan. She also announced a war in the U.S. between 1942 and 1944 , which would become global (if that could console the French astrologer André Barbault ), but did not live to see it, she died in 1932 , having seemingly determined the exact year of her death. ... The library of Mrs. Adams, full of rare books of astrology and personal papers changed hands twice after her death, they have since 1977 been held by Norm Winski, another figure of financial astrology.


A mysterious book is then published on the subject of Financial Astrology, written in a veiled form by W.D. Gann in 1927, as a roman a clef under the apparently absurd title, "The Tunnel Thru the Air or Looking back from 1940 ". Initiates are said to hide secrets in the title of the book. An article is devoted to this book in the W.D. Gann section.
 
The door being now wide open, others authors quickly followed: the famous Belgian astrologer Gustave Lambert Brahy (1894-1989), certified accountant and advisor the crowned heads of the time published a book in 1932 , followed by Luther J. Jensen (1900-1981) in March 1935 and James Langham in 1936. Their works are briefly described in the "Precursors ".



Their successors will relentlessly explore the topic with ever greater resources and two sections are devoted to them :

 

Modern authors


Works deciphering W.D. Gann techniques

Ephemeris

Pisces
Sun in Pisces
26 degrees
Cancer
Moon in Cancer
25 degrees
Waxing Gibbous Moon
Waxing Gibbous Moon
9 days old
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