Another song said, “How high the moon? Does a full moon stir feelings of doom, or does it make lovers swoon? If riches were discovered there, would NASA’s budget zoom?” And what about Clementine’s discovery of ice water on the Moon? One small step for man, one giant step for…the Dow Jones? Insurance companies have done studies that suggest that there’s a correlation between accidents and the full moon. Car accidents occur 14 percent more often during a full moon than during a new moon, according to an analysis of 3 million car policies by the U.K.’s Churchill Insurance Group. Women menstruate on the full moon, ovulate on the new moon, and use lunaception as a form of contraception.
Is there any connection between solar activity and the phases of the Moon and behavior on Earth, including acts of aggression and the prices of wheat, cotton, gold and silver? I believe there is, but I don’t subscribe to astrology. There is a saying on Wall Street: “A rising market following a full moon and a falling market after a new moon.” What are the odds that eight of the greatest market crashes in history would fall within a time period of six days before to three days after a full moon that occurs within six weeks of a solar eclipse?
The University of Michigan Business School did a study that examined 100 years of the stock market trends and lunar phases. Returns in the 15 days around the new moon dates are about double the returns in the 15 days around full moon dates. “In an experiment conducted on an arbitrary set of commodities for the year 1972, it was shown that short-term movements of prices react with some uniformity with respect to the phases of the Moon. In fact, the commodities chosen for observation — silver, wheat, cattle, cocoa, and sugar — showed an uncanny ability to form a rising market following a full moon and a falling market after a new moon” (P. J. Kaufman, Commodity Trading Systems and Methods, p. 205).
Solar eclipses have also had a marked circumstantial place in financial history because they seem to coincide with the rapid transformation of investor psychology from bullishness to paranoia, or conversely, from pessimism to hope. Sentiment, better known as public opinion, clearly has a role in politics, religion and sociology, as well.
Faith and the Moon
For generations, Passover has fallen on the first full moon after the Northern Hemisphere vernal (March) equinox, although occasionally (seven times every 19 years), it will occur on the second full moon. Churches celebrate Easter on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the March equinox. The official church date for the equinox is March 21, but as the Eastern Orthodox use the Julian calendar while Western churches use the Gregorian, both of which designate March 21 as the equinox, the actual date of Easter ranges from March 22 to April 15. In the year 325 it was decreed by the council of Nicea that “Easter is to fall upon the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox; and if said full moon fell on a Sunday, then Easter should be the Sunday after.” Christianity was in ascendancy, and its power was secured when Constantine made it the official state religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century. Thus, all subjects of the empire observed the holiday. (Note that the founders of the American republic did not institute an official state religion, a theme I will return to.) The name “Easter” comes from the Saxon Eostre (Phoenician Astarte), goddess of the Moon and measurer of time. The word “moon” comes from the Sanskrit mas, from ma, “to measure.”
The Moon revolves 360 degrees counterclockwise (from the North) around the Earth in 27.3 days. This is the sidereal month. At the same time, the Earth spins counterclockwise a little bit faster underneath the Moon as it to revolves around the Sun. The Moon must then travel more than 360 degrees around its ellipse to reach any starting point in relation to Earth. This is the synodic month of 29.5 days. As the Earth and the Moon hug each other in a tango-step to the rhythm of the Sun’s gravity, the lunar months speed up and slow down by up to 12 hours.
Each month the lunar cycle begins with a new moon that is sometimes a partial eclipse, and on rare occasions, a total solar eclipse. What begins in total darkness when the new moon is hidden (we can’t see the illuminated side of the Moon from Earth) becomes a crescent and grows until it shines as the full moon. This crescent is significant to Islam and is borne on the state flags and official marquees of Muslim countries from Algeria to Indonesia.
The Age of Aquarius
The Greek astronomer Hipparchus discovered the precession of the equinoxes. That is, the apparent position of the Sun in the sky changes over time with respect to the background provided by the fixed stars and constellations. He discovered that the Sun’s position on the vernal equinox, the first day of spring, had shifted fr
