Nepal’s top astrologer can uncannily predict your fiscal future
Investors are always trying to read the tea leaves, but Nepal’s Santosh Vashistha can help them see how the stars will align
At Dwarika’s Resort, a holistic wellness retreat in the Eastern Kathmandu Valley in Nepal, I sat in a wooden library across from famed astrologer Santosh Vashistha, a distinguished 42-year-old in a plaid sports jacket with remnants of festive red tika adorning his forehead. His piercing eyes are almost as captivating as the view of the distant Himalayas through the wide picture window behind him.
Suddenly his phone rang, but after a glance, he hit mute. Nepal’s Finance Minister Gyanendra Bahadur Karki was calling for advice. With Nepal on the precipice of becoming a major hydroelectric energy powerhouse, this hasn’t been an unusual occurrence; Vashistha predicted that any conversation with Karki would be a long one (he would know) and decided to focus on my own financial destiny instead.
Though he hails from a little-known town in southeastern Nepal called Jhapa, Vashistha has gained international recognition for his ability to read the stars. In 2017, he was named the best astrologer in Asia by the Asian Astrologer Congress and the World Astrology Federation. His readings focus more on substantive geopolitical predictions and personal fortunes than hokey horoscope drivel, and his regular clients include Nepal’s Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, Bollywood actress Manisha Koirala, and American celebrities whose names he wouldn’t reveal. All treat his readings as gospel, so seldom is he wrong.
Vashistha is among the latest in a long string of high-profile prognosticators to work in the financial world: Though the practice has ancient roots, it took off during the scientific revolution and has guided certain fiscal luminaries ever since. W.D. Gann, a financial astrologer born in Texas in 1875, became a legendary trader; even J.P. Morgan and Charles Schwab consulted astrologers, notably Evangeline Adams, throughout the early 20th century. “Millionaires don’t need astrology – billionaires do,” Morgan supposedly quipped.
At Dwarika’s Resort, sessions with Vashistha are sold to guests for $125 an hour, and billed as another cultural experience to collect – like a chakra meditation or ayurvedic consultation. Even for those inclined to take his predictions with a grain of (pink Himalayan) salt, it’s a transformative adventure.
Where finance and fortune-telling collide
Vashistha’s technique is simple. Working through a translator named Anup, I gave him my place of birth (Princeton, New Jersey) and the date and time (down to the minute: June 5, 1986, 8.13am) before he put the information into a Nepali app called SkyVision to see what was happening in the skies at that moment. Then he mapped the planetary configurations on paper, forming a grid-like schema that represented various areas of my destiny: health, wealth, love and longevity.
Being a renowned astrologer is a bit like being a chess grandmaster: Lesser practitioners know how the pieces move, but virtuosos see the interconnectedness of each piece in solving the larger puzzle. That is to say that most astrologers can read natal charts and tick off a laundry list of future possibilities based on a set of rote rules related to planetary positioning, but Vashistha incorporates peerless astrology knowledge gained in formal academic training and experience with thousands of clients: He got his master’s in astrology at Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi, India, and a doctorate in raja yoga, a part of Hindu astrology focused on planetary situations that indicate wealth and power. He sees the whole board, as it were.
It’s difficult to quantify Vashistha’s – or any astrologer’s – success rate since they don’t necessarily get client feedback on how predictions pan out. That hasn’t prevented skilled financial advisers and money managers from seeing the practice as a way to apply big-picture logic to unpredictable markets. Especially in a secular bull market that some argue is overbought, investors are eager to integrate any data that may help them protect their money by foretelling a correction, even if the information has celestial origins.