Evangeline Adams’ 1927 autobiography revealed her personal association with financiers like J. Pierpont Morgan and Thomas W. Lawson. She said she could forecast the swings of the market and advise when individuals should invest. In “Astrological Speculation on Wall Street,” Carrie Tirado Bramen explains how Adams shared similar messages with the financial forecasters of her day. Prediction involved both a logical analysis as well as metaphysical hunches or astrological insight.

Bramen presents a fascinating history. The word speculation was first used by Scottish economist Adam Smith in 1791, and like the word consider, “was originally about contemplating celestial matters.” Financial advice literature in Adams’ day sought to separate speculation from gambling by emphasizing rationality, analysis and calculations. They even used charts.

Aquarian Evangeline also tried to normalize her practice, stressing her knowledge, authority and skill. She, too, had great expertise, analyzed data, and presented it in chart form. And yet neither could escape the fact that both also relied on something beyond ordinary rationality: the intuition or impressions.

Bramen asks the question “Who has the authority to predict the future?” Adams agreed with a well-known literary magazine that the clergy, realtors, and stock and bond traders could do so with impunity, but not astrologers. With market forecasting unregulated and in its infancy, and the first female member of the New York Stock Exchange decades away, financiers benefited from Adams’ astrological advice and she from their patronage.

Carrie Tirado Bramen’s academically-written piece reflects a clear understanding of the literature and attitudes of the times, and is full of intriguing connections and historical facts. It’s thought-provoking reading for those interested in the history of astrology in the U.S., especially financial astrology.

“Astrological Speculation on Wall Street” from the Journal of Cultural Economy. (May present a pay-wall.)

More on my biography of Evangeline Adams, Foreseeing the Future.
And my book on Adams’ astrological techniques, What Evangeline Adams Knew.