OCCUPY IS A FAILURE

By Joseph J. Honick

“Occupy” is a failure!
…..and it needn’t have been

As a longtime supporter of strong public expression by demonstrations, marches and other means on major issues to the nation and the world, I can only conclude the so called “Occupy” movement is nothing more than a failure.
Worse, it is and was a necessary effort that turned into little more than a well publicized nuisance to most places.
I am not only disappointed that this has occurred, but, as with many others, I am offended to a great extent by what this may have done to the demonstration concept elsewhere.

So what is it that has been so counterproductive despite all the hype here and around the world? After all, in most of the so-called “liberal and progressive” media, we are daily treated to the trumpets of the spread of “Occupy”?
Here, in a few nutshells, is what has turned a potentially useful movement into a major combination bore and irritant:

1. No clear message: beyond a lot of yelling, screaming and complaining, hardly any, if any, participants could tell willing media what the message was or is;

2. No leadership: there is no central sense of identifiable leadership, if any, either locally or nationally and certainly not internationally. Result: neither the public nor media already occupied with political campaigns have anywhere to go for the message if one actually exists.

Actually, I raised the possibility of such displays of dissatisfaction some months ago in a column that asked essentially: WILL WE NOW FEAR PARADES?…the idea growing out of the problems of heavy unemployment, home foreclosures and all the rest of the obvious concerns. My expectation was that someone or some group would do as many have before and produce a coherent message in writing and some accepted and respected leader personalities.
Neither has occurred.
Had either of these efforts been pursued effectively, the situation could have been more productive, perhaps even a major success.

Instead, in many places, crowds supposedly the “occupy” crowd in each location have wound up leaving public spaces in a mess and causing the local taxpayers to have to clean it up. Along with such events have come conflicts with police and others that have often deteriorated to much damage and personal injury both to demonstrators and law enforcement.
Pardon the repetition, but having marched as a very young man in that historic parade of a million people when MLK made his
“Dream speech, we all could see what it was for and how this massive collection of humanity treated the nation’s Capitol respectfully.
When gays and others have similarly demonstrated, the groups knew the value of the impressions they wanted to make and the message they wanted to convey to be successful.
None of this has been the case with the “Occupy” effort. There are those who see my view as cynical. I choose to see it as sadly realistic.

On a potentially positive side, I am told it has galvanized the participation of heretofore apolitical young people to become involved in the political process. But there is little time to see this potential pay off.

Now that the nation is engulfed in a less than civilized presidential campaign that floods the media and international fiscal and physical conflict of major importance, the likelihood is most people couldn’t care less about moaning, groaning crowds who came too late to the party and without identities that could be deciphered.

As the nation and the world stand incoherently on the brink of still newer potential wars and major political debates, fewer and fewer of those who could have helped will pay much attention.

That reality is both realistic and costly to any movement that might have made a real difference.

* * *

Joseph J. Honick is an international consultant to business and government and writes for many publications.. Honick can be reached at joehonick@gmail.com.

Focus on the numbers 76 – 37 – 39 – 19 to help the O’s win!

With the Orioles nearing a chance in the play-offs, my mind has been drifting back to 1983, when I was still involved in my study of the synchronicity of lottery numbers and news headlines.

After they lost their first playoff game, I was asked by a fan to work some Orioles magic with this synchronicity system. It may have been a coincidence, but I like to think we contributed to changing that course of losing into an eventual World Series win.

Here’s an excerpt from my 1986 Warner Book, Your Personal Winning Lottery Numbers, that explains what we did. (BTW, I just found this book selling on Ebay for upwards of $120!)

WINNING TEAMS = WINNING NUMBERS?

Play-offs and World Series 1983

My interest in the theory that winning teams’ coordinates coincided with winning numbers in the state lotteries (such as the World Series and Super Bowl) was stimulated when I was approached by Cynthia Batterton (now Nadeline) a depressed Oriole fan, after the “Birds” lost their opening game in the 1983 play-offs. Cynthia asked what could be done to improve the Orioles’ chances, and I suggested concentrating on Baltimore’s longitude and latitude coordinates in hope that they would appear in the state lotteries, for I had noticed that cities in the news coincidentally had their numbers hit in the state lotteries.

Cards were made carrying Baltimore’s coordinates (longitude 76,37′, latitude 39,19′) and distributed by Cynthia’s cheering section in Memorial Stadium. I painted two 12-foot banners with the Orioles’ “magic numbers” on them. One was hung at Memorial Stadium and another was carried to Chicago’s stadium and put up by Eddie Murray. Brooks Robinson announced the numbers on national television during the Orioles’ play-offs, and Baltimore radio talk show host Alan Christian allowed me to present the idea and daily updates on his program.

The Orioles went on to win in the play-offs and World Series. The number results were the following: Baltimore’s numbers hit a total of 11 times while the opposition (Chicago and Philadelphia) hit only 3 times. Therefore, of the total number of hits (14), Baltimore had 78 percent (11 of 14)! Likewise of the 9 games in the play-offs and World Series, Baltimore won 7, or a total of 77 percent (7 of 9). Some coincidence!

(From pages 76-77 of Your Personal Winning Lottery Numbers)

I know it sounds crazy, but in addition to those mentioned above, I also remember others working with us to get these numbers out there to more people to concentrate on, like Al Bumbry, Vince Bagli, and Alan Christian, as well as the important roles played by Eddie Murray and Brooks Robinson.

I think if the O’s make it to the play-offs again this year, we should try this system again. In the meantime, check out the quarter of a century of Orioles Team Sets we’re offering for sale, in another attempt to get more people focusing on the Orioles to win!

For those of you wondering how I got into calculating lottery numbers, here’s a little back-story.

I have a life-long interest in systems like the theory of similars, synchronicity and seriality, and number codes in the Jewish and Greek Kabala, and that of Sir Francis Bacon, etc. I got especially into this research for my 1981 doctoral thesis, “A Historical Analysis of the Reverse of America’s Great Seal and its Relationship to the Ideology of Humanistic Psychology”, for Saybrook University.

In the early 1980s I grew curious about applying synchronicity to the lottery, and developed a system to study the connection. I called my system the T.O.P. system for Timing, Observation, and Practice. I was able to put this system to the test with hundreds of people after a weekly stint with Jerry Williams on WRKO Radio in Boston that went on for years, and some people won thousands of dollars following my system. Crown Books in 1985 and Warner Books in 1986 published my books on this subject, and the first one sold over 900,000 copies! I notice they are selling on Ebay today for as much as $120!

Well, this is a painstaking and time-consuming system, and it took me hours to come up with a list of numbers to predict. Needless to say, I soon grew tired of devoting my life to predicting lottery numbers, and especially to being hounded every hour of the day by people who didn’t give a hoot about the synchronicity theory, or investing their own time into the system to do it for themselves, but just barked at me “Gimme a number, Bob!” I still remember Baltimore’s quintessential crotchety old sportscaster, Charlie Eckman calling me up one night at 4 AM, “Gimme a number, Bob!”

Greed killed my desire to continue this line of research connecting longitude and latitude of news events with lottery hits.

But I’m ready to try this Orioles Magic spin-off from my lottery research if the Os make it to the playoffs again this year! Are ya’ with me?

In the meantime, start your own version of Orioles Magic by purchasing one of these Oriole Team sets! See you at the ballpark!

Believe in the Magic! Installment Number 2 of our Memorial Tributes to Paul H. Trattner, M.F.A., F.R.C.

By Dr. Bob Hieronimus

Decmber 2013

This is the second installment in our memorial tribute to our great friend, Paul H. Trattner, who passed into spirit on August 28, 2013. Because we are posting this in December 2013, we are focusing here on Paul’s alter ego known as “Santa Paul”. For many years, Paul was a beloved performer at holiday events and Christmas parades. Imagine visiting what you think is a standard department-store Santa only to see him captivate the crowds with his charming and innocent magic tricks. I’ll bet you all would have gone home that night believing in the magic of Santa Claus! Paul had a truly magical twinkle in his eye that came from his deep and passionate study of the esoteric mysteries of human potential, and he had a sparkling quick wit to match, always treating everyone around him with infectious chuckles.

We are very sad to miss him in the physical body, but we take comfort in knowing that he’ll be back again some day in a revised and expanded edition. Benjamin Franklin may have put it best when he wrote his own epitaph saying: “Like the cover of an old book, its contents torn out and stript of its lettering and gilding, lies here, food for worms, but the work shall not be lost; for it will, as he believed, appear once more in a new and more elegant edition revised and corrected by the author.”

As I noted in the first memorial to Brother Paul we posted here in September 2013, over 40 years ago Paul Trattner was the best student I ever had at the AUM Esoteric Study Center in Baltimore. He soon outpaced me and everyone else in the school with his mastery of the occult sciences, mystical arts and religious metaphysics. He was the only student in entire history of AUM to earn all three certificates in our curriculum.

Part of this Santa Paul memorial includes an 8-page assignment paper Paul prepared for my Symbology I course. It is a study of his astrological sun sign, Capricorn, and a quick glance will demonstrate his profound insights into the multiple levels of meanings for the goat-fish. All you Capricorns out there, consider this a present from Santa Paul. He has done your homework for you! Symbology I taught the multiple levels of meanings of your sun sign which is just a fraction of your unique being, reflecting only a segment of who you are and your multiple purposes in life. Symbols are a great journey into the adventure of your magical being!

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