Luther James Jensen was born in 1900 and raised in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where he graduated in 1922. After entering the financial sector in New York, he worked for George E. Liggett and Associates until approximately 1930. Jensen then moved to Kansas and opened the Kansas City Bureau of Economic Research in 1931, which he operated for over 25 years. During the Roosevelt administration, he authored various economic forecasts, such as Major Trends in American Economics from 1492 to 1950: An Analysis and a Forecast, while also writing on war and peace cycles, radio communication technology, and migratory locusts in The Locust Years After 1940.
During
this period, W.D. Gann became one of his major private clients.
Although Jensen himself was apparently never an active trader, he
published a booklet in 1935 titled Astro-Economic Interpretation: A
Mundane Astrology Notebook; Fundamentals of Economic Forecasting. This
work primarily relied upon transiting aspects and corporate horoscopes;
today, this dense volume is considered one of the bona fide classics and
finest "how-to" guidelines on financial astrology ever written.
Throughout the 1940s, Jensen also authored the astro-financial column
Market Perspective for American Astrology magazine.
Following the
death of W.D. Gann in 1955, Jensen closed the Kansas City Bureau of
Economic Research to work for B.C. Christopher and Co. in New York from
1957 until his retirement in 1971. In 1978, at the age of 77, he
summarized his life’s work in a new, updated, and expanded edition of
Astro Cycles and Speculative Markets. Over 50 years of study, research,
and the practical application of his concepts in the stock and commodity
markets have proven Jensen to be one of the preeminent astro-economic
analysts of all time.
His approach utilized standard aspect
qualities, such as favorable trines and negative squares, alongside
standard planetary qualities, such as Jupiter increasing prices and
Saturn depressing them. While a common critique of this early work is
that it provides astrological indicators with little verification, his
methods continue to be applied by successful private traders and large
companies around the globe. Jensen passed away in 1981 in Shawnee,
Kansas, though hard copies and e-copies of his seminal work remain
available today.
The following is Jensen's introduction to financial
astrology:
Chapter One: The Problem of Economic Causation
The
habit of popular thinking lies along the vein that all economic
problems are merely debatable theories. All economic affairs are viewed
from much the same perspective as religious or political opinions; as
something entirely dependent on the particular prejudice which happens
to fit the environmental or geographical viewpoint. So it seems strange
to suggest that there may be immutable laws that motivate the psychology
of masses of people, and that imponderable forces operate in economic
affairs without respect for the hopes and ambitions of men. At first
glance it might appear that such a postulate should be the source of
considerable popular derision, but perhaps only because the field of
observation has been studiously ignored in modern times. At any rate,
there appear to be several definite forces underlying the ebb and flow
of the economic indices.
It is the purpose, in this brochure and
the companion volumes of the series, to examine considerable evidence
bearing on economic causation. The observations contained in this
brochure will deal entirely with the longer or major trends in American
economic history. In the search for causes the prime interest will be,
not to align the historical events with the coincident statistical
business record and dovetail technical results with psychological
effects; but to go deeper and attempt to trace those natural causes
which appear to motivate the changes in mass psychology and result in
given effects. After locating the source or cause we shall then examine
the manner in which natural psychological cycles coincide with the
cycles of statistical business activity.
In confining popular
economic observations to a few of the generalities like supply and
demand, costs, available markets and distribution, labor, et cetera, the
subject of economics is principally concerned with statistical results
and psychological effects. Underlying causes of such phenomena as the
business cycle have only been studied in a superficial manner. This will
probably continue to be the situation until the search for causes is
taken out of the field of statistics and placed in the field of
psychology. At present, causes of economic fluctuation are either
considered so remote and intangible that they cannot be defined, or else
they are discarded as impractical. Economic effects, or rather
statistical results, are paramount. We see economic effects all about
us; we deal daily in effects, read of them in the news, see them in
moving pictures, and hear them from others. Yet in confining all of our
economic thinking to effects we are much like the remaining few who
believe that the entire place of medicine is to be strictly curative and
disregard efforts of anything preventive. Obviously, some approach
toward analyzing economic causes is in order, if an economy is to be
planned or any estimates are to be taken of the future.
The
debatable method of approach to economics, or the study of effects,
might be excused by saying the average mind is so confined to narrow
habit that a co-ordination of vast principles is impossible. It might be
explained from the viewpoint of the doctrine of free-will, which
teaches that man is supreme, the source of both his success and his
failure, and therefore the complete master of his fate. We might even
offer the excuse that mankind is still in that stage of a blundering
evolution where economic causes cannot be co-ordinated. But to present
such explanations tie up with effects, again ignoring causes.
Basic
causes of economic effects are as intangible as life itself. They
cannot be located with any of the senses, such as hearing, seeing or
tasting. They cannot be weighed by political votes, or religious
followers. They cannot be found in laboratory test tubes, the
statistical reviews of business activity, security prices, or in the
opinions of celebrities. When we search for causes in these sources, we
are simply dealing with another phase of economic effects.
We
cannot feel, see or taste the radio-frequency power that blankets the
earth's atmosphere. Yet its presence can be proven with a radio
receiver. It is impossible to sense the force that shifts the ocean,
effecting the tides. We have never been able to measure a mother's love
for her child, and the attraction and repulsion that occurs between
people. The effects are usually obvious to the senses, but never the
causes.
Dealing almost exclusively with effects is the human
habit. Probably ninety-five per cent of the people spend all of their
time trying to change the effects about them. They attempt to change one
situation only to meet another. It is often a case of leaving one
discomfort or distress for another. Perhaps a scant five per cent of the
people realize that to make any constructive change they must first
locate a cause. It is in this search for causes that the minority find
the seat of power; by locating causes and then applying the power for
desired effects.
The basis of all causation in human affairs lies
in the laws of vibration in nature. When we step aside from these
natural laws we leave the field of causation and turn back to the
analysis of effects, or the reflectors of causes. The modern
developments in therapy; radio and electronics; sound, both music and
noise; light and heat; indicate that all of us are entirely bound up in
the laws of vibration. Feelings, and all action are vibrations. The key
to our individual psychology, our mass psychology as a nation, and our
entire economic life, is bound up with vibration. It is in this field of
vibration that we are directing our observation of economic causation,
to try and locate the coincident effects which might be generated.
Chapter Two: The Vibration Spectrum
Sound,
light and heat are all forms of vibration. Each field has its own
spectrum or scale of vibration. Sound is an impulse of air striking the
organs of hearing with a perceptible effect. Light is that action
wherein objects are made visible. Heat is another force, similar to
sound and light, in that it has a rate of vibration also. Each of these
natural actions have their spectra occupying niches in the huge
vibrational spectrum of nature.
Modern science indicates that all
bodies, unless at the absolute zero of temperature—assigned by
physicists as minus 273 degrees Centigrade—emit vibrations. Most of
these vibrations are not visible to the eye, sensitive to the touch or
audible to the ear. The frequencies, or rates of vibration, vary from a
few cycles per second to millions of cycles per second and include
everything from sound waves to gamma and cosmic rays.
A crude
illustration of the huge vibration spectrum may be made by drawing a
pencil line about a foot long. At the left end of this line mark an (X).
This point illustrates the rate of vibration of the musical note "B,"
four octaves below middle "C" on the piano scale, or thirty cycles per
second. Move to the right on the pencil line about a half inch from (X)
and mark (Y). This point represents a frequency of 5,120 cycles per
second, the high musical note "E," four octaves above middle "C." As the
rate of vibration rises above approximately 16,000 cycles per
second—the pitch of some squeaks—it ceases to be audible to the human
ear. We take this approximate half inch section on the pencil line to
represent the sound spectrum niche of the major vibrational scale.
From
the point (Y) move to the right on the pencil line—to establish the
beginning of the electro-magnetic spectrum—about three inches, marking
the point as (Z). This point represents the beginning of the modern
radio spectrum. Moving to the right on the pencil line another three
inches will approximate the radio spectrum, this right hand point
representing frequencies of about sixty thousand kilocycles and
wavelengths of five meters or less.
Again move to the right on
the pencil line, after leaving a gap of about an inch to represent the
lapping of the short wave radio band and the frequencies of the
infra-red and heat rays, the center of which represents the rate of
vibration of the color yellow, or approximately a rate of vibration of
500,000,000,000,000 cycles per second. In this spectrum is the frequency
range where the human eye is able to directly detect the
electro-magnetic vibrations we know as light and color. The eye
continues this ability until the rate of vibration increases above that
of the color violet.
Move to the right on the pencil line another
quarter inch and mark the point (A). This quarter inch section
represents the ultra-violet ray spectrum on the edge of the x-ray
division. From this point (A) to the extreme right hand end of the
pencil line represents the several segments of; first, the x-rays; then
the gamma rays; and finally, the cosmic rays. In the spectra of gamma
and cosmic rays the frequency is so tremendous that a huge line of
figures would be necessary to represent the rate. The wave length at
these frequencies is of the order of one ten thousandth of one ten
millionth of a millimeter or less.
Observations indicate that the
earth's atmosphere is permeated with high frequency radiation of
tremendous penetrating power. Although this force is more intense at
great heights than at the earth's surface, it is just as intense at
night as during the day. At sea level this radiation breaks up about 1.4
atoms in every cubic centimeter of air per second, so it cannot be
denied that millions of atoms are broken up in every human body every
second. This is the source of distinct biological and in turn,
psychological, changes in people. Far more penetrating than any other
type of vibration it has been found that the most penetrating portion of
these rays will pass through sixteen feet of lead.
It is only
very recently that an analysis of the biological and psychological
effects of these rays has been attempted by exact science. However, the
effect of this energy has been observed by man for centuries.
Simple
physics illustrates with a prism how a small segment of sunlight can be
separated into the seven primary colors. On the angle of refraction of
the sun-rays through the prism depends the particular color in the
spectrum. Experiments indicate that a similar type of refraction process
occurs through the planets in their relation to the Sun and Earth.
Radiation on the surface of the Earth is composed of: first, the rays of
the Sun which are refracted by the Earth's magnetism and atmosphere;
second, the refracted rays of the Sun, each changed in a particular
manner through the angle in which they are reflected from the planets;
and, the radiation of each planet. This condition indicates that the
frequency of solar radiation is much broader than just the light and
heat spectra, covering the entire electro-magnetic spectrum from radio
waves to cosmic rays.
We shall now proceed to examine the effects of this radiation in the light of economics and mass psychology.
Chapter Three: The Sun Spot Cycle
The
Sun, as the center of the Earth's little niche in the Universe, is
credited with being the source of all of our energy. The Sun is a star,
although it is not the largest, or the brightest, or the hottest star,
in the Universe. But it is the ruler of the solar system of which the
Earth is one unit; and controls the motion of the Earth and all the
other planets.
On the surface of the Sun, or its photosphere,
often are seen dark spots, some of which are many times larger than the
Earth. The occurrence of these spots was noted by the Chinese long
before Galileo used his telescope in 1610. Hale found that at its center
a Sun-spot has the properties of a huge bar magnet. Researches by
Schwabe and then Wolf, which were followed by very systematic
observations, show there is an increase and then a decrease in Sun-spot
totality with a "regular irregularity" of about 11.2 years. (Handwritten
note: "7 + 5 = 12") The interval varies in a range of about four years.
The movement from maximum to minimum averages about 6.5 years, and the
rise from minimum to maximum about 4.6 years.
In the extensive
researches involving the business cycle, as indicated in the charted
tabulation of the statistics of business activity over a long term of
years, there is a distinct relation between the periods of prosperity
and depression and the Sun-spot cycle. The work financed by the Harvard
committee on research in social sciences has resulted in tracing this
correlation from the 17th century South Sea Bubble down to the present
year. The last Sun-spot cycle began with a minimum of...
