Showing posts with label Luther James Jensen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Luther James Jensen. Show all posts

Saturday, March 24, 2018

Astro Cycles and Speculative Markets | Luther James Jensen

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...