Jyotish Star of The Month
Jyotish Star Copyright 2016 C. C. Collins – All Rights Reserved
http://www.jyotishstar.com/jyotish-star-barry-rosen-february-2016.html
Barry Rosen
By Vachaspati Christina Collins
Interview Date: 01/15/2016
Christina Collins: Hi Barry thank you for being our February Jyotish Star. Let’s begin by talking about how you got your start in Astrology and especially Jyotish?
Barry Rosen: I had my first reading with Chakrapani Ullal in 1985 during a very difficult part of my life. It filled me with light and hope for a shift in my life that happened when my malefic Venus period ended and was followed by a great Sun period in 1986. My Sun is lord of the 10th in the 5th in Pisces in Jupiter’s nakshatra and Jupiter is stationary in the 8th house with Ketu in Gemini. I suddenly started studying astrology with my friends in the TM movment and reading every book I could get my hands on. At that time, the TM community in Fairfield, IA had a great new age bookstore and they were getting in all of B.V. Raman’s books and I was studying and memorizing Pundit Ojha’s book, Predictive Astrology of the Hindus. . Then the Western Vedic authors starting publishing and Tom Hopke and James Braha had an early influence on me. At the same time I was fascinated by investments and commodity trading. I was fascinated watching the Financial New Network (the predecessor to CNBC) and was wondering why different markets went up and down every day and knew there had to be an astrological component. My Dad has 5 planets in his 5th house in Virgo and his only obsession was the stock market and he got me involved when I was 13 year also buying me stocks for my college fund and I would watch the prices go up and down every day in the paper.
Christina What got you started in your financial research some 29 years ago? How did you begin to merge that with astrology?
Barry: I had a good friend who was a mathematician and trader and he was W.D. Gann scholar and he knew that Gann used astrology and went to India. He taught me Gann and trading and I started teaching him astrology. I began by watching the daily transits of the markets and seeing how the stock market reacted every day. My sense is that if you get attuned to the planets and they start talking to you and that is what happened. One’s intuition starts to grow.
I learned a lot from the Western Financial Astrologers and went to early Financial Astrology conferences in Chicago in 1988 and later spoke at them. J.P. Morgan, the founder of the Morgan Bank, was fond of saying that millionaires do not use astrology, billionaires do. He had a private astrologer, Evangeline Adams, who helped him tremendously. I got to purchase rare books in Financial Astrology from the Evageline Adams library that was purchased by an early colleague of mine Norman Winski. One of the local investment companies had a Vedic astrologer who would call the markets for them and in 1990-1, I was hired to do research for them and was given a research budget and was able to collect a lot of rare books on Financial Astrology.
I knew Muhurtha and in 1992, I incorporated a Leo rising chart with Sun in Aries and Jupiter in the 1st and Leo and when my Sun period hit in 1993, my company took off. I have since used Muhurtha to support people in starting companies and using Vedic Astrology for marketing and supporting business growth. My company is still here 29 years later, www.fortucast.com.
Christina: Do you follow a specific spiritual path or guru? And how did that come about?
Barry: I began Transcendental Meditation when I was 18 at the University of Illinois and became obsessed with enlightenment, the Bhagavad Gita and went on to become a meditation teacher and work for the university and was able to study the Vedas as part of a graduate program at Maharishi International University. It was a golden time of my life. I have been fascinated by Vedic literature since I was 19 and studied the Bhagavad Gita in detail. Eventually after 1979, the politics of the TM movement turned down and while I taught at the university in 1983-4 and 1987, I started to get disenchanted and was feeling the need for something of greater depth for my spiritual development.
I met my current Guru, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar in 1990 in California and have been teaching his breath-work program through the Art of Living the last 26 years and have been to India 4-5 times with him. Last year, he invited me to get initiated into the Gayatri mantra in India and learn the Sandyavadanam practice and now I do a fire homa ever morning after going deeply into a Shiva Rudram meditation. As I have been studying the D-20 chart, I am fascinated that my Guru knew exactly what I needed for my spiritual life without ever looking at my chart. While I was in India, I got to teach introductory Jyotish to 160 students from 59 countries and got a directive from my Guru to develop an on-line Jyotish curriculum. I subsequently have tried to create a marriage between the Art of Living and ACVA which is still work in progress.
Christina: Now, here is a question from Willie, one of my Jyotish students. “Astrologically, when is a good time to press your luck, and what is a good time to be more reserved with financial investments”?
Barry: I think you have to trade from your chart or at least know the pitfalls of your psychology. If you are running a Rahu period or sub-period, you have to watch for gambling tendencies if Rahu is poorly placed. If you are running periods connected to the lords of the 8 and 12th, then you are also going to have to careful or if you have a lot of major 8th and 12th house transits going on. The challenge is that even when you know the pitfalls of your chart, you may be swayed by impulsive tendencies and make mistakes. It takes a lot of spiritual practice, tithing and discipline to overcome bad investment karma in your chart.
Christina You are currently presenting a series of very well received, live webinars on Financial Astrology. Could you tell us a little about these and how people can get involved?
Barry: I turned 60 this year and my Saturn return is pushing me to recreate my life. My Guru told me to retire from Financial Astrology in a few years and in preparation for more spiritual teaching and Jyotish teaching. To pass the baton, I founded the London Institute for Global Economic Forecasting last year to support fund managers and do long-term forecasting and started training a group of people to do Financial Astrology and become a father figure to the Institute. I also started an executive astrological coaching program to support corporate executives and professional traders. As a result, I have been teaching advanced classes to students around the world over Go to Meeting and videotaping them and now have 3 completed modules of about 12 weeks each and am starting a 4th module in a few weeks. I met a lot of these people when I was lecturing at BAVA in London and will be going back there in April for their Financial Astrology track this year. People can contact me at swfort@gmail.com to get information on my seminars and there is some of the older information is on my website at ww.fortuast.com/tools_astr.aspx. People with a lot of Vedic Astrology background and move through the material quickly and get to the more advanced material quickly.
Christina Tell us Barry, do you have other family members involved with finance or astrology or both? Children who are taking an interest in the field?
Barry: My Dad began investing in the stock market in the 1950’s when he ran a small grocery store in Chicago. He was a buy and hold trader and very savvy and would spend all his time reading stock analysis reports and still does at age 93. He took nothing and built it into an immense portfolio. My brother studied Western astrology in his early 20’s but when he shared it with me when I was 21, I told him it was nonsense. Ironically, I then became a great astrologer. My wife and I have no children but I have done the charts of my dogs when I knew their birth charts and times from the breeders. I predicted that my first Australian shepherd would have 3 boys, which she did.
Christina What is your opinion on the price of Gold with the Jupiter/Rahu conjunction now in Leo, and receiving the aspect of Saturn from Scorpio? Which do you think will be stronger the Rahu or the Saturn influence?
Barry: I used to be the number 1 gold trader in the world according to Timer Digest in January of 2011 and sold my gold when it was at 1880.00 close to the top of 1900 around 4-5 years ago. I researched this question carefully and decided that the Saturn’s aspect on Leo is enough of a negative that we will have to wait for it to end. In 1979, when Saturn went out of Leo into Virgo, gold started taking off. It was Mars/Rahu/Jupiter in Leo in the Nakshatra of Purva Phalguni that caused that huge move in 1979-80 that nakshatra is very key for gold. I think gold can rally this year $200-250.00 but still may hit 800.00 the first 6 months of 2017. I think it will take off thereafter. The Central Bankers are manipulating and they do want competition with their worthless paper money and bonds but China and Russia are hoarding to have gold-backed currencies when the US debt level implodes.
Christina: And what do you think the price of crude oil (liquid gold) will be similar to metallic gold, or do you think it will now continue to go back up in price as Saturn the karaka is still in a water sign and influencing Leo, the sign for gold, or do you think it’s going down? It does appear to be changing, for just at the last Friday of the year a 40 year ban on oil export was lifted (just as Rahu reached zero degrees on its transit into 29 degrees of Leo. Would you like to comment on that?
Barry: I think that the Neptune Square to Saturn has been rather deflationary and is still a big influence and will continue to be so into next year. Crude seasonally goes up in January but then usually goes down into March. Last time we had Rahu in Leo, crude was up the first few months of the transit but down the rest of the transit and may not be a factor. I do think the Sun is an important planet for timing oil. Saturn in Scorpio is not helping and it is a 12th house transit to the natal chart for heating oil that I use which goes back to Nov. 14, 1979 and it is a Sagittarius rising chart. The Saudi Arabia natal chart is not promising for a rise in crude and I suspect that crude will continue to be in trouble when Saudi Arabia goes into a Saturn major period in 2020. The world is waking up to alternative energy and I think the politics of oil will continue to crumble. Look how all the wars that the oligarchy have been stirring up have not been able to really budge the price of crude. I suspect we will be between $20-42 a barrel for a while and probably fall to $22-26.00 this year.
Christina As a CTA (Commodity Trading Advisor), do you focus on a particular area of interest, and how do you apply astrology to your trading? What general advice can you give our readers?
Barry: I cover 20 commodity markets have daily and monthly newsletters for forecasting and have a newsletter for ETF’s which are a popular trading vehicle for people who do not want to open a commodity trading account. You can buy a stock called SGOL and when you buy it, a Swiss firm takes that money and buys gold bullion.
The best advice I can give your readers is that you need to learn how to be a good trader, to manage your money well and to trade when your dashas are providing a tail wind. Astrology can give you a hidden edge but you have to know as much as the other traders also.
Christina: Do you have any books you have written or are you planning on a series?
Barry: With my Saturn return, I am going back to my spiritual roots and I have developed a class which combines Ayurveda, Hatha Yoga and Jyotish. I think they will were intimately connected 1000’s of years ago and have become separated. I studied with Ed Tarabilda, a radical astrologer, who worked with Dr. Vasant Lad and developed a class on prescribing yoga postures for emotional and psychological and physical problems. I have developed his work and am writing a book on Astro-Yoga. Today, young people will do yoga but many will not get involved in Vedic mantras and yagyas if their cultural heritage is different. I think that we can prescribe cures for afflicted planets using specific postures and having them done in the direction of the planet involved. It is fascinating that there are 108 core yoga poses and 108 padas and now Andrew Foss in his new book has a 108 mantras for each pada. Astro-Yoga has become my new passion and am writing a book on it with Gary O’Toole an astrologer from Ireland of Timeline Astrology.
Christina: What other projects are you involved in?
Barry: The last few years I have become obsessed with Jaimini astrology and spiritual astrology and spend all my spare time studying and going more deeply.
I have been attracting more spiritual people for readings and I like to focus my readings around the Karakamsha Rashi and Navmasha charts to support people in their life purpose and soul’s journeys and also the D-20 for supporting their specific spiritual path. I wish I had learned this material 20 years ago as figuring out the nuances is taking more time and experience. Robert has been a big help on my journey here.
Christina: Does Jaimini astrology have any potential influence for Financial Astrology?
Barry: I am just starting to explore this but I think that Rashi based dashas are more materially and concretely based and thus Jaimini Chara Dasha and a few others may be better for predicting material gains and losses than Vimshottari Dasha which may deal more with our subjective reactions to the material.
Christina: Any final thoughts?
Barry: The abundance of the universe is open to all that pursue it. You have to have good karma or create good karma by tithing and service work and helping others. I think we all have to dedicate our lives to more service and helping to make the planet a better place. I am very concerned that our new generation is losing its spiritual focus that we were blessed with growing up in the 60’s and 70’s. With the US entering a Rahu major period, we all have to do our best to bring spirituality and astrology to the new generations.