No one has yet come up with a satisfying answer to the question of why certain planetary patterns coincide with certain conditions here on planet Earth. “As above, so below” is an ancient adage that best fits this phenomenon.

So what was happening “up there” when “down here” the late, great bull market of the 1990s took off? As we’ve seen from a planetary search of those periods when the U.S. has experienced the worst of times, whenever Saturn is in mid-Capricorn square another “heavy” planet in mid-Aries, it forms a grand cross to the United States’ natal Sun-square-Saturn. This pattern has never failed to coincide with great depressions. (Editor’s note: for a further explanation of this phenomenon, see Saturn and Great Depressions Part One and Part Two.)

Saturn’s Rhythm

It takes Saturn 28–30 years to circle the zodiac. Many economists, noting the 30- and/or 60-year cyclical rhythm of great depressions expected another to occur during the 1990s.

But when Saturn arrived opposite the United States’ Sun-square-Saturn in 1989, Neptune and Uranus were with Saturn in Capricorn, and all three were sextile (60 degrees) Pluto in Scorpio.

The biwheel chart showing the transits in relation to the U.S. birth chart is informative. On April Fool's Day of 1989, Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus were together in Capricorn opposite the U.S. Sun, which squares its natal Saturn in Libra. So this time, transiting Saturn could not form a grand cross with Pluto, Neptune or Uranus in Aries.

No grand cross, no great depression.

A Mania of Buying

What we had instead was a record-shattering bull market. Stock prices rose so dramatically that a mania of buying resulted. Day after day during the 1990s, financial newscasters chortled happily, beaming out at viewers from CNN and MSNBC. Economists and fund managers made guest appearances to explain this phenomenon, often concluding that Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan’s management of the economy was a feat of genius.

Greenspan, however, was not laughing, for he knew a speculative bubble when he saw one, and the 1990s created the biggest in known history. He also knew that no past speculative bubble had gone unpricked.

Concurrently, it was noticed that the working class was no better off for this record-breaking runup of stocks than they were before. In fact, the wages of labor, adjusted for inflation, were trending downward. Those who believed “the market” was a force of nature concluded this was as it must be—if wages had gone up, stocks would have tanked. That’s how it had always happened in the past.

New Record Bubble and Gap

Another historic fact is that a record gap between rich and poor has never failed to lead us into another great depression. This record bubble and gap was a boozy party that would inevitably lead to a hangover. Eventually, pension funds would evaporate, fund managers would fly to Rio, and fingers of blame would point in all directions.

Conjunctions of Uranus and Neptune have historically brought the unprecedented accompanied by the mysterious and/or delusional. With Pluto in Scorpio trine the U.S. Sun in Cancer and sextile the Uranus-Neptune-Saturn conjunction in Capricorn, the financial markets were in a state of unprecedented self-delusion, leading to some kind of major transformation (Pluto).

Around 1993, after a brief lull, stock prices rocketed up, up and away. The biwheel chart showing the U.S. transits for February 1, 1993, shows Uranus and Neptune within a degree of an exact conjunction and opposite the U.S. Sun-square-Saturn, plus another interesting pattern: Saturn (briefly conjunct Mercury and the Sun) at 19 Aquarius, forming a beneficent 120 degree trine to the U.S. natal Mars in Gemini, which squares its Neptune in Virgo. It’s this Mars-square-Neptune pattern that has proven so sensitive in previous stock market booms and busts.

Neptunian Delusions

With transiting Saturn trine the U.S. Mars, and the Uranus-Neptune conjunction trine the U.S. Neptune, “up there” was aligned with “down here” for the record bull market of the 1990s. Given that the Uranus-Neptune conjunction traditionally brings unprecedented self-delusions, the mood was right for the new record bubble and gap.

Among market watchers during this time, the wise old gray-hairs were on the sidelines muttering doom and gloom, because they knew the 1990s bull was an aberration. What no one knew was when the bubble would be pricked and the bears would come out.

History repeats itself but never the same way twice. You’d have to go back many centuries to find the last time Saturn, Uranus and Neptune had come conjunct in Capricorn, simultaneously trine Pluto in Scorpio, and this time would be long before stock markets existed.

Uranus, the Unpredictable

Using astrology, the one thing we could know for sure was that this unprecedented situation would not play out as it had in the past, because Uranus brings the unpredictable. Together with the delusions of Neptune and the death-and-rebirth effects of Pluto, we were living in what the Chinese I Ching calls, ominously, “interesting times.”