The Mystery of the Shemitah (13 page)

Crashes of 2000 and 2007 Seven-Year Cycle

The Crash Cycles

According to the ancient mystery, in the seventh year there is to occur a cessation in the nation’s economic and financial realms.

In the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath to the LORD. You shall neither sow your field nor prune your vineyard.

—L
EVITICUS
25:4

If we go back to our theoretical graph charting ancient Israel’s Year of the Shemitah, we would find peaking and plunging lines. The lines charting Israel’s Shemitah in economic turns would represent an economic downturn or recession. The lines charting the Shemitah on a financial graph would represent a financial collapse. If we now take this into the modern world and look at the graphs representing the American and global economic and financial realms, what do we find? We find the same phenomenon. The one line represents financial collapse and the other represents economic recession.

If we go back again to our theoretical graph of ancient Israel and expand it to cover a period of several decades, what will we find? We find that the Shemitah years have produced several of these peaking and plunging lines more or less evenly distributed throughout the time covered in the graph. More specifically we find that these peaks and slopes are connected to the other peaks and slopes by a cycle of seven years.

What happens if we now do the same thing with our graphs covering the actual financial and economic fortunes of the modern world of the last four decades? We find the same ancient phenomenon reappears. The greatest peaks and downturns are distributed more or less evenly over the period. More specifically, we find that the five greatest peaks and crashes are connected to the preceding or succeeding peaks and downturns by a cycle of seven years.

The Sacred Cycles and the Five Collapses

We have witnessed an amazing correlation. In the past four decades of modern history the economic and financial realms of America and the world have followed the ancient mystery that ordains economic cessation and financial collapse
taking place according to a seven-year cycle.

But could there be more to the mystery? Is it possible that any of these collapses could be joined to the Shemitah in a still more specific way? The Shemitah is based not just on a seven-year cycle but on a
specific
seven-year cycle ordained in the Bible. Only
one out of seven years
can be the actual appointed Year of the Shemitah. Could any of the five great peaks, apogees, downturns, and collapses of the last four decades bear a more specific connection to the
once-in-seven-years
Shemitah of ancient times?

The Test: We will now take one more look at the five peaks and the five collapses of modern times. But this time we will have one specific focus—that of timing. Do any of these peaks and collapses bear any connection to the timing ordained in the ancient mystery?

The Mystery of the First Turning Point

The sequence begins in the winter of 1973, January 11, when the S&P 500 reached its peak of 120 and then began a long descent. The first Shemitah of this period began in September 1972 and continued to September 1973. Four months after the Shemitah began, the stock market collapsed. Thus the peak and the crash took place entirely within the biblical Shemitah

The First Collapse and the Biblical Shemitah

The financial collapse then coincided with a global economic recession. The recession began in the Shemitah’s wake, autumn 1973.

The Mystery of the Second Turning Point

Seven years later the American economy fell into a recession that constituted one of the most severe downturns of modern times. The first phase of a double-dip economic collapse began in January 1980. Is there any connection between this and the ancient mystery?

Again, the answer is yes. The Shemitah began in 1979—the same year that the economic crisis began—a year that saw a dramatic surge of inflation, an energy crisis, and a steady decline of growth output. Four months after the Shemitah began, the economy began its descent.

The Second Collapse and the Biblical Shemitah

Thus the recession of 1980 began in the midst of the Shemitah. The financial realm followed with a collapse beginning in the Shemitah’s wake, the autumn of 1980.

The Mystery of the Third Turning Point

Seven years later the stock market reached its next apogee as the S&P 500 peaked at 336 on August 25, 1987. It then began its collapse, a collapse that involved the greatest single-day percentage crash in Wall Street history. Is there any connection between these events and the ancient mystery?

The answer is, again, yes. From the end of the recession in the early 1980s onward the American economy had been in a phase of rapid expansion. But in the latter part of 1986 came the third Shemitah of the forty-year period. That same year a shift took place. In 1986 the period of rapid economic growth came to an end and was replaced by an economic slowdown. The Shemitah then coincided with most of 1987, ending in September of that year.

Only one month of Elul in seven years can complete the Shemitah and begin the buildup to the end of the seven-year cycle. The Elul of the seventh year began on August 26, 1987.

That same day the stock market changed its momentum and began to collapse. As the Hebrew month progressed, the stock market grew increasingly unstable.

On October 19, 1987, came the greatest stock market percentage crash in Wall Street history—Black Monday.

The Third Collapse and the Biblical Shemitah

The crash took place in the one month of Tishri in seven years that begins at the Shemitah’s moment of financial nullification and manifests its repercussions.

The 1990s: The Exception—or Not Quite

Even though the decade of the 1990s is not of special note in view of stock market collapses, it is noteworthy to mention here. It was stated at the outset that we should not expect the phenomenon of the Shemitah to be formulaic or simplistic, or that it would always happen according to a set and regular schedule. Thus we would not expect that
every
Shemitah be linked to an economic or financial collapse, or that every economic or financial collapse be linked to the Shemitah. The 1990s would be a case against the idea that one can put the phenomenon onto a systematic schedule. There was no major stock mark collapse at the time of the Shemitah or in that decade.

On the other hand, something striking did take place. Once a Shemitah and its repercussions are finished, the next phase of buildup or recovery begins. Take a look at the following financial graph charting the stock market of the 1990s. You’ll observe a striking change. In view of what would come next, the growth at the beginning of the decade appeared mild, if not strained. But then came a noticeable turning point. Suddenly the stock market began a markedly upward turn. The expansion was dramatic and remarkable. It continued until the time of the next crash. The Shemitah of the 1990s concluded in September of 1994. When did this turning point and upward boom, which would end in the next crash, begin? It began at the end of 1994 and the beginning of 1995, right at the end of the Shemitah’s wake.

The Other Turning Point and the Post-Shemitah Boom

Even without a crash the subsequent phase of buildup in the financial world still followed the same cycle of the Shemitah. The buildup would continue until the next crash, which would take place seven years from the Shemitah of the 1990s.

The Mystery of the Fourth Turning Point

In the year 2000 the stock market boom reached its peak and began a long descent that would last over two and a half years. In March 2001 the economy changed direction and fell into recession. In September came the attack of 9/11, which paralyzed the world’s financial markets.

The year 2000 is also the year the Shemitah began. As it did, the stock market was in descent, and the recession, in the spring of 2001, commenced at its center point. In the middle of that Shemitah year the two collapses combined. The convergence concluded in the Shemitah’s autumn wake.