The Gates of hell. At least that’s what it feels like right now. I talked to a friend in London, and she’s talking about stocking up on food, in preparation for the Covid-19 disaster. I got off the phone, and my wife was wondering whether we should stock up on face masks before it’s too late. And then I see the Dow Jones is down yet another 1000 points. In fact everything is down: stocks, gold, silver, Bitcoin.
My friend wanted to know about the astrology of the situation. Well, I did know that 2020 was going to be a bad year, though I wasn’t thinking any particular scenario. On January 1, at the stroke of midnight, the hypothetical planet Hades was conjunct the North Node, conjunct the Midheaven. And because New Years always start at midnight, the conjunction was on the Midheaven across the globe. Hades is the planet of death and garbage, the nodes are to do with social connections, so with 20-20 hindsight, one cab can connect this signature with an epidemic.
In my blog posts I do want to discuss the stock market and the unfolding crisis. As I will argue over the cominng weeks and months, what really matters is the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction, which happens in December. We’re already in the run up to this conjunction, and I think we’re seeing the first effects. However in this post, I want to say a few words about Jupiter, and how it relates to global events.
Jupiter is the planet of expansion, and it is always looking for new horizons. So when we study a horoscope, we can look at Jupiter to see where someone seeks to expand. However, some placements are better than others. The best signs for Jupiter are probably Cancer, Sagittarius and Pisces. Jupiter is exalted in Cancer, and it rules Sagittarius and Pisces. On the other hand, Jupiter is weak in Capricorn, the sign of its fall, and also in Gemini and Virgo, the signs of its detriment.
It makes sense for Jupiter not to work in Capricorn. The expansive, optimistic energy of Jupiter is channelled into the materialistic, pessimistic sign of Capricorn. Of course I understand that that is a generalization, and not everyone with Jupiter in Capricorn is mean-minded and obsessed with acquistion for the sake of it. However, it should be noted that both Adolf Hiter and Margaret Thatcher had Capricorn Jupiters.
In terms of society, Jupiter’s movement into Capricorn is not healthy. It is a time when people’s expansive energy goes into dead matter, and at the same time there can be worries about money. On December 18 2007 Jupter entered Capricorn, and it stayed there until January 5 2009. Below is a chart of the Standard and Poor stock market index, mapped against these dates:
If you had gone short the market the moment Jupiter went into Capricorn on December 18 2007, and stayed short until January 5 2009, you would have made a lot of money. As you can see, the market carried on going down as Jupiter moved through the early degrees of Aquarius, but you would have caught around 80% of the downward movement.
Jupiter has a twelve year cycle, and the next time it went into Capricorn was on December 2 2020. Here’s the chart so far:
Shorting the market on December 2 2020 would not have been a good idea, though with the falls over the last few days your short position would almost be breaking even. The question now is what happens next. If we follow the 2008 pattern, we might expect the market to fall until December, when Jupiter enters Aquarius. But I am not saying it is going to work like that. For example, here’s the graph when Jupiter was in Capricorn between January 3 1996 and January 21 1997:
This underlines the point that you can’t rely on a single astrological significator. You also have to consider that 1996, like 2000, was an election year. Clinton was doing what he could to win re-election, like Trump is now doing in 2020. Trump is frantic to win in November, and he’ll be pulling out all the stops to get the votes. Maybe with a few more cuts in interest rates he can push the stock market back into positive territory. However, Covid-19 doesn’t take its orders from the White House.
Anyway, I have laid down a declaration of intent. In future posts I will be going into further detail about Covid-19, Donald Trump and the stock market. The gates of hell are certainly opening, and we should remember that however bad things are, they can always get worse. Have a nice Friday!