The Institute of Cosmological Economics recognizes George Bayer as one of the founding fathers in the development of Financial Astrology and Cosmological Economics.
Over the course of his life, Bayer dedicated his analytical and creative faculties to observing the mysteries that relate geometry with celestial occurrences and their manifestation as movements in the markets. As a market author, Bayer developed unique and idiosyncratic written approaches to sharing his hard-earned discoveries in books and courses. His highly creative, often humorous, and veiled exemplifications of complex planetary and geometric concepts provide a delightful voice to the library of any serious CosmoEconomic researcher. Bayer also achieved significant wealth and successes in his trading career.
Little is known about George Bayer’s life. He was born of Polish descent in Germany and moved to the USA just after 1900. He grew up in New York and developed an interest in the markets through trading Wheat on the speculative markets of New York and Chicago.
We know very little about Bayer’s life and the origins of his interest in astrology, markets and esoteric studies. The best information we have comes from his own semi-autobiographical novel – George Wollsten: Expert Stock and Grain Trader.
In the late 1930’s Bayer began producing his first set of financial treatises, introducing his geometrical, astronomical and astrological techniques for trading. These works were all quite short (under 100 pages), privately published in a mimeographed manuscript format, and are now extremely rare in their original editions. We have only seen one each of Bayer’s originals over the past 20 years.
Bayer’s initial output includes Money: Investing in Stocks, Trading in Commodities, or the Time Factors in the Stock Market (1937), which introduces his theory of ellipses and presents his first set of astronomical tools. He also wrote two pieces elaborating his research into astrology, the Complete Course of Astrology, and Bible Interpretation, both also released in 1937.
Through these works, Bayer developed a reputation as an esoteric market analyst and specialist in the field. There are very few traders from past times who managed to develop this unusual combination of esoteric and financial principles, with Gann and Bayer being the premier examples of the classic Esoteric Analyst and Forecaster, or Cosmoeconomist, as we call them.
In 1940, Bayer’s published his Stock & Commodity Traders Hand-Book of Trend Determination. This work provides an excellent introduction to the methods used by George Bayer, beginning with the ideas first presented in Money, and refining them into precise rules for an applied trading system. It lays the ground work and principles in fairly simple terms, which will assist in understanding his other more complex works.
During 1939-40, Bayer also published a newsletter called Preview of the Markets. He followed up with his Gold Nuggets for Stock & Commodity Traders (1941), an interesting collection of essays revealing more fascinating details of Bayer’s esoteric perspective on the markets.
Over the next years, Bayer continued his research into even deeper studies in the Ancient Wisdom, time cycles and astrology, leading to his 3 final and most important works:
The Egg of Columbus (1942), is Bayer’s most mysterious and esoteric work. It is said to encompass the Great Secret of the Science of Time Cycles as understood by the Ancients, presented in a mere 18 pages. There is an age-old tradition of encoding the universal system in as short a treatise as possible, and Bayer claims victory in this task. There was a period back in the 1970’s when people were offering $5000 for a rare copy of this book.
Turning Four Hundred Years of Astrology to Practical Use (1944), is Bayer’s most technical and challenging work, delving deeply into a new form of astrology he developed which is centered around his 5-Fold Horoscope. This work is considered one of the more unusual and important works in the field of Financial Astrology, providing a bridge between the systems of the ancients and the moderns with Bayer’s original astrological contribution to the financial markets.
In 1946, Bayer penned what would become his most popular and well known book, a unique and partially autobiographical work named George Wollsten: Expert Stock & Grain Trader. Much like his own life, it tells the story of an immigrant to the USA who found success in the markets through hard work and Astrological studies.
Through an entertaining story, Bayer presents a wide-ranging exploration of chart analysis enriched by a deep understanding of practical market operations and guided by astronomical and geometrical principles of order. His imaginative account leads the reader through Wollsten's fictional existence, examining, explaining and putting into context each of his character's investment decisions or financial commitments, with the reasons behind them.
As in the esoteric tradition, this book contains many veiled references to planetary phenomena such as his famous work on ellipses, in which he describes the “Polish Ellipse”. It weaves an interesting thread of esoteric content through the story, providing critical references to ancient and important literature, while guiding the seeker through a fascinating web of ideas that must ultimately be solved by the reader in order to access the deeper, hidden wisdom.
George Wollsten is one of the most interesting and entertaining reads in market literature. It is more of a novel than a technical book and is the most accessible and enjoyable of Bayer’s works. We recommend it first to anyone curious about Bayer and wanting to have a taste. It’s one of THE GREAT market classics.
Bayer’s highly original mind singles him out as one of the 20th-century's deepest financial thinkers, discovering tools from the natural and esoteric sciences which helped determine market activity. He was the first to apply other astronomical parameters in forecasting financial markets. He introduced a method of Horoscope analysis known as the Five-Fold Horoscope and claimed that astrological progression of the moon over the points of such a horoscope produced vibration in the price of a stock or commodity.
As mentioned, George Wollsten is the best place to start, and for those who want to study everything he wrote, we have a collected edition of his works bound in 2 volumes at a discounted price, The Collected Works of George Bayer.