Introduction
The following article was published in the Fall 2004 issue of Traders World Magazine:
Many of you are unaware that at the present moment we stand at the brink of a new Renaissance in Gann research, and a radical breakthrough into the science of the Law of Vibration. Over the last 20 years, we have seen a progressive advancement of research into the theories of W.D. Gann, through the contributions of a number of modern authors and researchers, giving us a deeper insight into some of Gann’s most complex and esoteric tools, such as the Square of Nine, financial astrology, market geometry, cycle theory, and the like, but we have not yet seen a thorough and complete reformulation of Gann’s cosmological system, the Law of Vibration.
However, we feel that we are about to witness a quantum leap in this field of exploration due to a number of projects currently in development which I would like to share with you in this article, and to invite everyone interested to participate in. As any serious Gann researcher is well aware, the greatest difficulty in deciphering Gann is that an understanding of his theories necessitates a radical paradigm shift away from modern scientific and financial theory into the realm of the more esoteric sciences, which fall outside the field of socialized scholarship. This is primarily due to the fact that the necessary evidence to definitively substantiate these theories, while extant, has never been accessible to general public or scholarly community, primarily as a result of language barriers, as the relevant source material is not to be found in English, but in German, Latin, Arabic, Greek and Sanskrit.
Hans Kayser's Textbook of Harmonics
This leads to our first and most exciting project, the translation of Hans Kayser’s magnum opus on Pythagorean harmonics, Lehrbuch Der Harmonik, or Textboook of Harmonics. Some of you are probably familiar with the only work of Kayser’s that has been translated into English, Akroasis: A Theory of World Harmonics, which is an expansion of the introduction of Lehrbuch giving a non-technical, philosophical presentation of Kayser’s theories of harmonics, but almost no one has seen the 800 page technical presentation, which includes 500 diagrams, many of which are almost exact replicas of Gann’s various calculators and tools.
After 10 years of seeking a way to have this work properly translated, we were extremely fortunate to find an angel contributor who offered to bankroll the first phase of the translation of this masterpiece, and a further fortunate windfall led us to arrange to have Joscelyn Godwin, Professor of Musicology at Colgate University, author of The Harmony of the Spheres: A Sourcebook of the Pythagorean Tradition in Music, and respected translator of numerous works in the fields of Musicology, Hermetics, Alchemy, and the Esoteric Tradition, in collaboration with his son Ariel, translate the text. Ariel is handling the details of the translation under the guidance and oversight of his father, and the quality and accuracy of the work thus far is superlative. We were also fortunate to connect with Kayser’s only living student, Dr. Sigmund Levarie, who has agreed to review the work and to assure that the translation adheres to the highest standards of Kayser’s school.
In order to give a quick example of the applicability of this work to the field of Gann research, I have included several samples from the 500 diagrams which will look quite familiar to Gann students.
Figure 1 shows a circular diagram with “Angles by Frequencies” replicating Gann’s 360 Degree Calculator extracted from a dozen page presentation on the process of converting rectilinear coordinates to polar coordinates and designating the various qualitative harmonic values of the locations within the circular matrix.
Figure 1: Angles By Frequencies
Figure 1: Angles By Frequencies
Figure 2 is our familiar Square of Nine, including the cardinal and fixed crosses, about which Gann only ever wrote one paragraph, but which is explained in dozens of pages of detail in Kayser’s work. Since Kayser is developing the science of the relationship of universal harmonics to physical and psychical manifestation, his presentation gives the only explanation we have ever seen as to how and why the Square of Nine operates on a cosmological level.
Figure 2: The Square of 9 as Harmonic Grid
Figure 2: The Square of 9 as Harmonic Grid
Figure 3 illustrates some of the process whereby which Kayser begins to break down and analyze the Square of Nine into its psychical elements showing how the axes determine qualitative values within the harmonic grid.
Figure 3: Square of 9 Axis Values
Figure 3: Square of 9 Axis Values
Figure 4 should be familiar to analysts who use ellipses to measure market phenomena, yet this ellipse cross-correlates with the science of the harmonics as presented in the other calculators, allowing us, for the first time, to piece together the scientific logic interconnecting Gann’s abstract mathematical calculators.
Figure 4: The Primordial Leaf/Ellipse
Figure 4: The Primordial Leaf/Ellipse
Project Hindsight
Another extraordinary project which is finally nearing completion is Project Hindsight, the unveiling of the complete Greek system of astrology by Robert Schmidt of the Phaser Foundation. Schmidt has spent the last 15 years painstakingly translating the entire corpus of over 50 volumes of works on Hellenistic Astrology, and has essentially cracked the mathematical astrological system of the Ancient World, the distant source of all the Western astrology known today, and the origin of modern financial astrology. What was not developed by the Greeks themselves is likely to have come from Egypt and Babylonia, as it is well known that most Greek wisdom was passed to them through their initiates in the Egyptian Temple, such as Pythagoras. The Greek system was then passed on in part through the Arabs, to the Medieval and Renaissance astrologers, and finally, again only in part, to the modern world through astrologers well known to traders, like Alan Leo, Sepharial and the community of turn of the century astrologers to which Gann belonged.
However, what has been passed down to us over the past two millennia was altered at every step due to linguistic and conceptual errors, leaving us with merely a vague shadow of what existed in the distant past. The primary tenets of modern astrology all originated in the Hellenistic system, as Schmidt says:
“These included such basic matters as aspects, the concept of rulership, the meanings of the houses, transits to the natal chart, and synastry, all of which have remained defining for Western astrology to this day, as well as an abundance of other concepts and techniques that did not make it into the twentieth century.”
It is this “abundance of other concepts and techniques that did NOT make it into the 20th century” which will be of interest to financial astrologers and Gann researchers.
General consensus within the Gann community traces the primary development of financial astrology back to the 1920’s, the first time Gann mentions a planet is in a 1921 Forecasting Course, Professor Weston’s fascinating work also dates from 1921, and in the 1920’s Sepharial produced most of his Arcana or Keys to the markets. Gann’s Ticker Interview posits the Law of Vibration and natural philosophy as the basis of his system, but there has been considerable speculation as to whether Gann developed his astrological methods later in his career, or whether the Law of Vibration was a veil for the more esoteric and astrological work that he and his circle were practicing from the outset. Until recently, there was no evidence to clearly confirm either position.
New Gann Revelations
In the last few years, however, we have discovered a number of pieces of information which will bring about a serious reconsideration of this question. We’ve learned that Gann did study astrology before ever arriving on the East coast, and we discovered that there was an advanced and active circle of financial astrologers operating at the turn of the century. The first piece of evidence which brought this fact to our attention was the discovery of a unique and unknown set of onion-skin manuscripts on financial astrology written in 1902, 1914 and 1929. We are about to release these manuscripts along with the astro-finance writings of Gann, Sepharial, Weston, White and others in a new book called, The Earliest Financial Astrology Manuscripts. Most surprisingly, it is the 1902 manuscript that is the most advanced and important document on astro-finance that we have ever seen. There is no mention of an author of these documents, though they are marked “CONFIDENTIAL”, but the immediate impression one receives upon reading them is that they are written in the style and feeling of W. D. Gann, both in layout and word usage.
We immediately wondered whether these could possibly be Gann’s missing astrological courses which everyone has long dreamt might exist. The earliest manuscript explains many concepts that only the most advanced financial astrologers today even consider, such as: planetary days & hours, elevations, transits, directions, the parallel aspect, right ascension, the nodes of the moon and planets, the integration of geocentric and heliocentric astrology, orbs of aspects, mundane astrology, along with clear and precise rules of application for forecasting the markets with examples from the wheat and sugar markets. The other manuscripts outline systems using indicators, significators, the radix, transition points, a complete system of reading market trends according to the New Moon, and a section on price and volume trading pointers and the Volume Rule.
We have still been unable to determine whether or not these manuscripts were possibly written by Gann, but more recent discoveries have confirmed that they definitely come from someone within Gann’s immediate circle. Recently we uncovered another cache of the rarest of materials including a set of ellipses from Gann’s personal collection, with replicas of Bayer’s two ellipses, along with a third which is an integration of the prior two creating an analytical tool that takes ellipse research into another dimension.
New Acquisitions from Gann's Recommended Reading List
Along with these Gann Ellipses, we acquired a collection of the rarest books from Gann’s Recommended List, for which we had been searching for 20 years, and others for 30 years before us. Most of you are aware that there have been about 15 books from Gann’s famous list which have remained undiscovered, but with our recent release, 10 of them are now available, leaving only about 5 more elusive titles to dig up. We would like to put some serious attention upon finding these last 5 books, so that the Gann List is finally complete, and we encourage anyone with any of the rarest titles (email us if you’re not sure what they are), to contact us and help us complete this list, which we’ll make available to everyone. Hopefully this will inspire some new thought and insights within the Gann community as it has done for our research teams who have had a first look at this material.
Contained within this new find were clues to some of the questions asked above. First, regarding the manuscripts, we discovered in Fred White’s Guide To Astrology, one of the Gann List books written in 1901, a section on the conjoined use of heliocentric and geocentric astrology in the markets, which was directly copied into the 1902 manuscript. This implies either that White could be the author of the manuscripts, or that the author copied this one page section from White. In the 1914 document the author makes reference to his correspondences with Sepharial, so we know that the author and Sepharial were in contact. In another work edited by White, The Adept: Journal of American Astrology, there are articles by both Johndro and Professor Weston, so we know that White also knew them. We are further aware that Gann worked with Johndro, knew Sepharial, and used to fly his plane around the country to meet up with Elbert Benjamin, better known as C.C. Zain. It is not unlikely that he also knew Alan Leo, Fred White, and others from that very small circle in the early part of the century, since their books are included on his recommended reading list.
Another author from the Gann list, Gregorius' book The Master Key of Destiny we also uncovered, we’ve now learned was another financial astrologer, for in his 1924 book it mentions that “his service includes: Semi-Annual Stock, Bond and General Market Forecasts $250; Grain & Wheat Futures: A Reliable Guide to Fluctuations Of the Domestic Grain Market $250; Mundane Forecasts Giving Accurate Outlines of the Fluctuations to be Expected in International Trade, Finance & Events $250.” And $250 is a pretty weighty price tag for 1924, reminding me of Gann’s $5000 price tag for his courses in the 1940’s. Would it be any surprise if these two knew each other as well?
The conclusion we’re beginning to draw from this network of connections is that the financial forecasting community of the early 1900s was a tight knit community of individuals well known to each other and to some degree working together. This is not unlike today, where most everyone publicly participating in Gann research is somewhat aware of the other players, with many in personal contact, except that today there are considerably more players in the game. The difficulty in confirming and tracking these connections is that many of them were kept secret even in their day, and the documentation that proves it, if not altogether lost or destroyed, for the most part remains in private hands and is, sadly, unlikely to reach the public forum.
W.D. Gann & George Bayer
Another interesting connection, which is continually discussed, is that between Gann and George Bayer. With our discovery of the set of ellipses in Gann’s collection including the two Bayer ellipses, we uncovered a first thread of evidence that they certainly at least knew of each other. Since releasing the ellipses, one of our sources confirmed to us that he had seen evidence that Gann and Bayer simultaneously held anonymous memberships on the CBOT in 1936. The secretary of the exchange in 1936 possessed a log of memberships which included the hand-written names, addresses and phone numbers of both Gann and Bayer, and he remembered their meeting on the exchange. Sadly, with the death of this individual, these records have been lost, so we are unable to obtain any physical proof of these facts, so this information remains hearsay, but it is still worth consideration.
Interestingly, Figure 4 above, from Kayser’s Textbook, directly correlates with the third ellipse from the Gann collection, which further leads us to believe that the Kayser work outlines an interconnectedness between Gann’s spiral calculators, Law of Vibration, and numerical squares, as well as demonstrating that the ellipse theories are an inherent and essential part of this same harmonic ordering system. Gann himself never mentioned ellipses, yet Dr. Baumring was convinced that they were an integral key to his system, both from the perspective of elliptical cycles and their astronomical correspondences, and as geometric instruments measuring the market’s rotation into the z-plane of three-dimensional space. Kayser, we feel, provides the key to the correlation of these complex theories, and the extension of their application to the third-dimension, and beyond to the fourth and fifth dimensions.
Schmidt’s work, we think, will provide the mathematical elaboration of the astronomical and astrological system which is most closely aligned with Gann and his circle, and will provide the system of correspondences to understand the interrelation between cosmic order and living systems, like individuals, societies or markets. Schmidt states that, “the central Hellenistic hypothesis is that celestial events are expressions of the inner workings of the cosmic soul.” Schmidt’s elaboration of the science of the celestial events as expressions of the cosmic soul provides us not only with quantitative measurements of a physical universe, but with qualitative correlations to human consciousness, that element which translates cycles and planetary relationships to qualitative experiences like hope and fear. Similarly, Kayser’s elaboration of harmonics sees not only a system of physical or energetic vibration as a backdrop to physical manifestation, but also shows a psychical correlation demonstrating harmonic frequencies as qualitative elements of consciousness.
Kayser’s penetration into the subtle field of harmonics, equivalent to Faraday’s “mathematical points of force”, provides us with the keys to the dimensional transformations from the 3-dimensional world, to the deeper dimensions of the cosmic soul. Kayser was a neo-Pythagorean and the sources of his work lead us directly to the same origins that have inspired Schmidt. Pythagorean cosmology designates four primary categories, called the Quadrivium: Arithmetic, Music, Geometry and Astronomy. Kayser reveals the intricacies of the first three, Schmidt brings mastery to the last… and the first… and much in between, but together, these two systems should allow us to access the universal system of the Ancient World, which some would argue was more advanced than the scientific systems of modern academia. Besides the greater simplicity and universal integration of these ancient systems, they include the one essential element which has been almost altogether ignored by modern science: CONSCIOUSNESS! This ancient cosmology presents a unified field theory or superstring theory in which the strings themselves are consciousness, and wherein the mathematical relationships are actual psychical qualities of consciousness. This is the first time in two millennia that such access to the deepest secrets and technologies of the Ancient World has been available to anyone but initiates of the most esoteric mystery schools.
When I consider that many people pay thousands of dollars for college courses which teach them nothing they can’t find in any one of dozens of books in any library in the world, but balk at investing the equivalent to learn something that has never been available through academia for 2000 years, and which goes beyond the level of most modern PhDs, I can only think that it is simply due to not knowing that these wonderful alternatives are available. I hope this article will find interested ears amongst the Gann and market forecasting community, for in my experience, Gann researchers are amongst the largest majority of truly sincere scientists and seekers of universal truth. Our experience at Sacred Science Institute is that 80% of our sales, including all of our scientific and metaphysical books are from Gann students, without whom none of these materials would remain available to the rest world at all, due to complete lack of interest. My intention has been to express to you what is of incredibly significant interest and importance in these projects, and to hopefully elicit some support for their continuance.
Robert Schmidt’s Phaser Foundation is a non-profit organization, that has primarily been supported by a very small handful of contributors allowing him to just scrape along while completing his work. Now, with the completion of their projects, they hope and need to build a significant subscription list to support their publication and distribution. Their materials comprise two parts, first a 60 hour course on tape of Schmidt’s lectures, elaborating step by step and in precise detail the entire science of Hellenistic Astrology, to be followed up by two further more advanced tape series. I’m told this system will teach one to forecast specific events in an individual’s life down to the day, the process which also directly applies to the markets.
New Translations of Hellenistic Astrological Works
Project Hindsight will be releasing a 40 volume collection containing Schmidt’s new complete translations of the entire corpus of Hellenistic Astrological works, in exact order of necessary study, including explanatory footnotes and appendices, elaborating and interconnecting all of the source works into one unified system which correlates with the lecture series. These will be offered one volume at a time on a subscription basis, each volume being released every 4-6 weeks, at the very meager price of $35.00. Since they need to know how many copies to produce, they need those interested to subscribe ASAP so they are sure to print enough copies for everyone from the outset. I felt there would be many people in the Gann community who would jump to support this work, and I encourage all of you to visit their websites and sign up for the course and the subscription series. (www.projecthindsight.com and www.phaser.org) Their ultimate dream is to find an angel donor who would purchase and donate their estate to the Phaser Foundation, which they would like to turn into a research institute and learning center where conferences could be held, and where Schmidt would give public lectures. All donations to them are tax deductible, and traders can write off the costs of the courses and books as investment research and education. (I hope everyone realizes that you can do this with all of your market books and materials.)
We are currently about 2/3 the way through the translation of Kayser’s Textbook, and are in need of finding further funding to complete this project. We have discussed the most sensible way to complete this translation and make it available to the public and have several ideas which we would like to share. An idea suggested to us by our angel contributor was to form a translation club which would fund the completion of this book, as well as a number of further translations. Besides Lehrbuch, there are about a dozen further superb works written by Kayser going into more detailed specifics, such as architectural proportions, plant morphology, and the philosophy of harmonics, all which we feel would be of great value to Gann, cosmological and musical research. We also have access to a collection of Arabic astrological works, a number of which pertain specifically to commodity forecasting, and Schmidt agrees that with the completion of the Greek translations, the next step would be to translate the Arabic works, which he would be willing to oversee. We also have another collection of works in German by Eberhard Wortmann delineating the arithmetical, geometrical and harmonic code of the Platonic Academy as presented in Plato’s Timaeus and Republic, which would fill another gap in cosmological research and market analysis. All of these works are in our possession, and we have contacts with translators who would be able to complete these works quickly and accurately, if we can find the funding.
In order to further inspire the development of this Translation Club, our angel investor has offered to equally match funds with every dollar we are able to raise for the club. He suggests that if we could find just 20 people who would be willing to contribute $1000 a year to these projects, with his matching $20,000 we would be able to have all these translations complete and publicly available within the next couple years. Another suggestion is to have a lesser contribution for each specific book, possibly $500 which would allow each contributor have access to the translations electronically immediately as they are completed, and we would also create online research forums for each work, where all the supporters could communicate and work together in studying and applying the research. I know some will consider this expensive for access to one book, but considering the importance and rarity of the information, and the depth of the material, particularly compared to what standard college course cost, we feel it is not unreasonable. We do intend to release all these works in high quality, sown, signature editions when completed, but it may be 2-3 years before each book is edited into the final format needed for publication, so those who support the translation project will have access to this material years before the public community. Anyone interested in becoming a member of the Translation Club should email us for further details.
A New Trading Course from Daniel T. Ferrera
Finally, from a less theoretical and more applied perspective, Daniel T. Ferrera has just completed a new trading course new which we feel will be of the greatest interest to every individual seeking to trade the markets successfully, even with a small amount of capital, which probably includes just about everyone reading this magazine. Over the last 10 years, the most common question I’m asked by market students is, “What one book can I read that will teach me to trade successfully?” This is always a difficult question, for the truth is that there isn’t one, as most traders are sadly aware, so the best response I can give is to outline a study course of the best works that are available, which the researcher must then integrate into a trading strategy for himself. However, this situation is finally about to change with the release of Dan newest course, The Keys To Successful Speculation. Dan’s prior works have primarily focused upon uncovering the deeper and more complex, esoteric elements of Gann analysis, cycle theory, and the like. Yet Dan recognized that many students of this deeper analysis were blocked and confused when it came to developing successful applications of the more complex material. His new book, what he calls his “put up or shut up work”, takes a radically different approach than anything he has produced before.
The Keys to Successful Speculation presents the first fully intact trading manual, of which I’m aware, that will clearly teach anyone, including those with absolutely no prior knowledge of the markets, Gann, or forecasting in general, to successfully trade in any market, from stocks, to futures, to options, in any time frame, from day trading to long term trading, beginning with very limited capital, as little as a few thousand dollars. This book is not esoteric, and is not focused on abstract analytical and theoretical principles, but is totally application orientated, specifically outlining a clear trading strategy incorporating all necessary principles of money management, charting, risk management, swing trading, signal generation, the use of options and much more. For the first time ever I feel I can say with confidence that this course will provide all the necessary tools for any speculator to make consistent high percentage returns from the markets, without the need for any further material. At the same time it provides a consistent strategic logic upon which more advanced analysts can overlay their deeper market research to produce even more successful return streams.
Dan’s new course, The Keys To Successful Speculation, as well the above mentioned Earliest Financial Astrology Manuscripts, will both be available through Sacred Science Institute and Trader’s World by the time this magazine reaches readers. I do forewarn you that Dan has suggested that he may only release a limited number of these courses outside of his current students, so they may not be available forever. We truly hope that these new materials and projects will inspire a Renaissance within the Gann community, and will help bridge the gap between theoretical research and market application in a way that has not been done in the past.
William Bradstreet Stewart
