The Metaphysics of The Silver/Gold Ratio

When average people think of "astrologers," they often conjure the same suspicious notions they do when they think of "gold miners." Just as they picture a grizzled prospector with pick and shovel chipping at some outcropping on a dusty hillside in the hot desert sun, they also visualize astrologers as flaky folk with halfmoons on their turbans gazing at the future through an incense haze.

Of course a tour of a Homestake Mining leach pad or mill grinding operation will quickly disabuse ordinary folk of their quaint notions about gold mining. And, doubtless, an in-depth consideration of the field of metaphysics, of which astrology is perhaps the most practical crown jewel, will quickly disclose that this is actually a study of pre-physics and a concern with the abstract concepts behind WHERE the visible, physical universe manifests from, HOW it does so, and, perhaps most important of all, WHY. In a sense, astrology is man's oldest form of technical analysis.

But what do such metaphysical concerns have to do with the price of gold, one might ask. And a valid question it is. The answer liesin the clues in nature as to relationships between cosmic laws, activities, entities, and elements. It's the job of the metaphysician to observe and connect all the dots in the universe and come up with some plausible theories about what the heck is actually going on here. It's the job of everyone else to boo and hiss and deride those theories, until they eventually give rise to some practical demonstration or other, and then become part of everyday "reality." Like the bible, or an H-Bomb, or a microwave oven. There are lots of people who still disagree with those things, but those things will be around long after them folks are gone.

Certainly, when it comes to observing universal relationships and principles, the Sun, Moon, and planets are features in nature that cannot be easily dismissed. Nor the starry spaces surrounding the focal point we call Earth. If we observe some of the relationships these celestial features have to each other, we find, over time, that certain numbers and mathematical relationships begin to emerge. These numbers are descriptive of the fundamental mathematics, and, indeed, pre-mathematics, of creation. All things proceed from a point, which is ONE, and become MANY. Ultimately, and magically, all becomes ONE again in the end. In that process, certain laws must be obeyed and structures repeated.

And then there are those astrologers and metaphysicians who look up from their studies of recondite doctrines one day as a light bulb goes on over their head. "And what if I applied this to the markets...?" W. D. Gann, and R. N. Eliott were such seekers. Any involvement with technical analysis in the markets will quickly bring these two giants to one's attention. Gann is reputed to have started with a paltry sum and eventually to have taken over 50 million out of the markets. Mind you, this is around the turn of the century, when 50 mil was 50 mil. In 1910, he had an advisory service that cost clients around $3,500 per year. To keep that in perspective, the average wage in those days was $15 per week. "Gann angles," and "squaring of time and price" are two techniques of his used by many traders today. Eliott's Wave theory, of course, is known to any and all involved in TA, and is actually a description of the components of a cycle wave on which is based the Octave, or 8 note scale in nature. Eliott just learned how to pipe the market's tune.

Fibonacci was another speculating mind who, though he couldn't foresee his discoveries being applied to soy oil and Chicago wheat, has had his formulas and observations appropriated by traders and technical analysts alike. And he never even got a chance to charge an advisory fee. So for those with open and visionary minds, the pronouncements of the ancients take on the magical promise of a rich ore body of potentially practical, if subtle, information. In the never ending search for just that one scrap of insight unavailable to the crowd, intelligent speculators simply cannot afford to dismiss any information. If anything, to the serious student of markets, or metaphysics, the problem is that information is overwhelmingly available. Sometimes it is best to return to the basics.

In astrology, the Sun and Moon are two of the fundamental horoscope basics. A horoscope is simply a "snapshot" of the positions of all the significant celestial features at the moment of birth. That birth may be of a person, corporation, nation, or institution. With computers, today's astrologer uses the same programmed ephemeris that NASA used to put men on the Moon. An ephemeris is a table of all the positions of the planets and zodiacal signs at any given moment. It extends into the past, and into the future, as well as telling us what is happening in the present. Everything mathematical is supplied instantly. It is in the interpretation of the mathematics, positions, and angles that time and energy must be invested. There is where the astrologer succeeds or fails. Like medicine, astrology is an ART based on science.

If we have any interest in silver and gold, we must inevitably cast our gaze to the Moon and Sun. From the dimly recorded past of mankind, metaphysicians (as well as poets and songwriters) have linked the element of gold with the Sun, and silver with the Moon. Traditional astrology has retained this teaching, and offers a standard of elemental relationships for each planet as well. So, for example, among other things, each planet has a metal to which it is related. With Saturn, for instance, it is lead. With Mercury, the answer is obvious. Mars relates to iron. With Neptune, it is platinum. And, classically, with the Sun it is gold and with the Moon it is silver.

A glance back into history will disclose that the traditional relationship between the metals, when employed in a monetary system, has generally worked out to this ratio. It is as though man instinctively honored the command of natural and cosmic law. Curiously, when the metals have diverged from that ratio, some sort of economic aberration was afoot in the land. In recent times, with every nation abandoning a specie, or precious metal, standard for their currency, the silver/gold ratio has reflected the straying from natural law with ratios varying anywhere from 50, to 70 to even 100 - 1! Indeed, one could postulate that the wider the ratio, the greater a long-term "buy" is silver. And the greater the monetary disease festering. If the ratio is a factor of natural law, then to the degree it is so aberrated, it must, at some juncture, snap back toward the natural ideal. And indeed it attempts to do so every so often when things get so out of hand that financial systems begin to shudder from the strain.

So, in 1980, at the last major price peak for precious metals, the price ratio closed to roughly 17 ounces of silver to 1 ounce of gold. This brief closing of the ratio gap toward the ideal was nature's expression of the need for a curative in a diseased condition. In this case, the disease was social and economic mismanagement and the inflation that flowed from it. In the future, when forces get out of control, and the mistakes accumulating once more as a result of abandoning the responsibility to natural monetary law emerge as a threat to the financial system, the silver/gold ratio will begin closing toward the 13-1 ideal. Obviously, the price of silver will, under such dire circumstances, RISE to complement the price of gold, which will also be RISING. Under duress, once it is perceived by the society at large that gold is true money, silver will not be far behind in desirability.

What those particular price levels for each metal might be in some future curative attempt by nature is anyone's guess. But it will become plain for all to see that cosmic law will not be mocked. The ratio will close toward that ideal of 13-1, and though it may not quite get there, the attempt to close the gap will be no different, nor any less awesome, in principle and effect, than any other magnificent and fearsome natural phenomenon. An earthquake or volcano come to mind.

It is said that Newton "discovered" gravity by having an apple fall on his head while sitting under a tree. Eliott conjured his wave theory, so the story goes, while relaxing at the shore, watching the tides roll in. And Mr. Fibonacci worked out his "ratio" by observing the whorling seed patterns in sunflowers. Perhaps the real message here is that we should be out enjoying nature more, and spending some of the lovely spring and summer nights to come in rapt contemplation under the light of the silvery Moon.