Jack Heald

St. John the Divine (Not Actual Size)

A buddy and I were discussing the sorry state of the world, and he mentioned that he’s pretty pessimistic about the future of our species. I asked him the reason for his pessimism, and he replied, “The Book of Revelation”. He then asked me what I thought, and this is what I wrote to him:

There’s likely no book in the entire Bible as controversial as Revelation. When I was a kid, I read it literally and believed it was a literal prophecy of stuff that was literally gonna happen. As I got older and a little more experienced and a little wiser, I began to see  it differently. It’s pretty hard to read it now with an unjaundiced eye because of all the “interpretations” I was exposed to as a kid, but I try.

I have little doubt that John is writing what he experienced. I believe he had an ecstatic experience, like Teresa of Avila, like various mystics throughout time, like many people who seem to be more spiritually “tuned-in” than the normal person. (And – if I may say so – unlike me.)

The “vision”, as it were, appears to be in 3 or 4 major parts. (Four if you count the intro.) At the intro, John has his vision of the Risen Christ standing amidst the  candlesticks. There’s a brief conversation where John is told to write what he sees and hears, and then it dives straight into the first of the 3 major parts: the message to the 7 churches.

If any part of Revelation was ever intended to be taken literally, it is perhaps this section. The seven churches named in those first few chapters are churches that actually existed in that time. Apparently, John was given a particular message to pass along to each of the leaders of these individual churches. My suspicion is that the churches – when they heard the message addressed to them in particular – understood exactly what was meant. I likewise suspect that anyone who takes those messages and applies them to different places and times than those to which they were are addressed are just plain getting it wrong. Not that the messages are not timeless, but they were clearly addressed to a specific set of people in a specific place at a specific time.

The middle section of the book is the freaky part: the “Whore of Babylon”, a beast with ten horns, dragons spitting out floods to drown babies, swarms of deadly locusts, stars falling from the sky, rivers turning to blood, seven angels sounding seven trumpets, The Book of Life! The biggest clue that this part should be read symbolically rather than literally is the beast and dragon stuff. If that part is symbolic, then the stuff about  stars falling and rivers turning to blood is also intended as metaphor. Although I can barely speculate what the bit about the beast and the dragon means, the bit about stars falling from the sky is a fairly common piece of imagery in Oriental literature – it is a way of talking about rulers being deposed and kingdoms being overthrown. The “beast with ten horns” can be interpreted as the Roman Empire with some degree of consistency. What is not at all clear is whether the one horn that grew and ruled the others refers to a particular ruler or a particular kingdom. I suspect again that readers familiar with Oriental imagery understood it much better than we do.

The end of the second part is the truly freaky apocalyptic stuff – the opening of the two scrolls, the appearance of The Lamb, the judgment of the Beast and the Whore of Babylon. Frankly, I haven’t a clue what to make of it. The only conclusion I can draw is that John had a mind-blowing vision. (An excess of pain-killers, maybe? Tradition has it that he survived being boiled in oil and ultimately died of natural causes at a ripe old age.)

The last major section is the description of the New Heavens and the New Earth. Pretty cool stuff, but a lot of it completely defies physics, so if we are to read it literally as a prophecy about what is to come, then we must of necessity also read it as a prophecy that the fundamental laws of the physical universe are going to be altered. What should we think of that? Well, if Death – the final enemy – is truly to be overcome, then the fundamental laws of the universe MUST be overcome. The whole universe is dying – entropy dictates the end state of everything, and there is nothing to prevent that from being the final state of all matter – nothing within the physical universe anyway.

A striking part of this book is the repetition of the number 7. Such repetition is a fairly common literary device that gives structure and cohesion to the work. Early oral literature made use of such devices to insure that the structure of the tale held together as it was passed on from generation to generation. Revelation shows many of the same influences. (And that’s kinda cool, because the Apostle John was certainly not a highly educated man – but this is clearly a work of genius or divine inspiration – take your pick.)

I think it is a freaky, amazing, disturbing and comforting vision of a realm that most of us never suspect exists, let alone have the opportunity to see. Are there lessons we are to learn from it? That I honestly cannot say. There are some really wise things said in the book, and some really cryptic things, and some really downright silly things. (A city that is a CUBE? Really? C’mon, man!) It contains some of the most famous literary imagery and phrases in all of western literature, so it is certainly worth reading, studying even. But is it a reliable, trustworthy description of actual events that are yet to take place? To be honest, I doubt it.

Nostradamus had a series of similarly fantastic ecstatic experiences, and his “prophecies” are ambiguous enough to be interpreted as being accurate – but only in hindsight. Teresa of Avila had ecstatic experiences that were clearly life-altering, and that make for worthwhile contemplation, but aren’t remotely prophetic. I think the quality of John’s vision falls somewhere in between those two.

The Revelation of St. John the Divine is an extraordinary work. Like all works of great art, it bears the marks of a divine touch. But I think interpreting any of it literally is a mistake.

For those of you asking yourselves, “should I buy gold”, the answer is pretty simple – YES. For those of you wondering, “should I buy gold now that it is over $1900, or should I wait?”, the answer is – THAT DEPENDS. Gold continues to push higher because of fundamentals – it is a commodity and all commodities are going to be rising in dollar terms for as long as central banks try to inflate their way out of debt.

If you want a little “better” price on your gold purchases, (and gold is technically overbought at the moment, which implies a coming correction), a good entry point is on any pullback to a prior support level. At this date, we had a brief pullback two weeks ago to the mid $1700′s before rocketing back up to near $1900. If you want to find a good entry point, select price levels that appear to provide support.

There are two kinds of support – absolute price support and relative chart support. Absolute price support means that a particular price point – say for example $1700 – has historically provided support. The simplest way to identify absolute price support is to look at a chart. Wherever you see the price chart fall down to a particular point and then reverse back up – that’s support. The support is stronger if the reversal has happened on more than one occasion.

The other kind of support – chart support – is more ambiguous. This kind of support can be seen with technical indicators like moving averages or price bands. (Here’s an example from 2008.) There is no “right” moving average and no “right” price band – these are purely subjective indicators, but – in spite of their subjective nature, can still provide fairly reliable entry points. If you look at a chart of gold over the last ten years, you’ll see it’s general trend is up, but that it is marked by pullbacks. Often, those “support” levels you see on the chart will coincide with moving averages. Try looking at a 20day, 50day and 200 day moving average of Gold’s price and you’ll like see support. (There is nothing magic about these levels, by the way. You can pick any number you want – try a 14 day, 37 day and 83 day moving average just for grins and giggles.)

Whatever your entry point, you should find a way to buy gold because the fundamentals support it: central banks are destroying the value of their currencies, and that action in turn means that all commodities will rise in value relative to those currencies.

Finally, a word about the various ways to own gold.  Buy physical gold, not an ETF such as GLD. If you buy futures contracts, take physical delivery. Buy one ounce coins or tenth-ounce coins or even kilo bars, but buy physical.

From the very beginning of the financial crisis, the source of the problem has been evident: big banks committed systemic fraud to cover up their stupid business decisions, and made stupid business decisions to cover up their systemic fraud. (That puts the phrase “circle jerk” in a whole new light, doesn’t it?) When the government gave money to JPMorgan to buy Bear Stearns, (so that Bear Stearns didn’t have to go through the indignity of a bankruptcy), and then gave money to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, so that they didn’t go bankrupt, and then gave money to AIG so that they didn’t go bankrupt, and then gave hundreds of billions to various international banks so that they didn’t have to go bankrupt, We The People should have gotten the picture. The federal government exists to serve the banks.

The banks have to be stopped. The government won’t do it, so we will have to.

Here’s a modest proposal – a thought experiment if you will.

Suppose everyone who had a credit card with BofA, Chase, Citi or JPMorgan just quit paying their credit card bills – and deposited the money they save into a locally owned and operated bank? What would be the effect? Well, to start with, you’d deprive these companies of cash. They are already teetering on the brink – and they need to be pushed over the brink.

But if the Too Big To Fail banks fail, won’t that bring the global financial system crashing down?

Uhm, no. It will bring the insolvent banks crashing down. It will expose for all the world to see which banks are insolvent and which aren’t, and when that is done, the solvent banks will be standing and able to service the legitimate needs of business and consumers.

This idea that the world NEEDS these big banks is just stupid. The world needs trustworthy, solvent banks, not banks that – in spite of their great corruption and egregious insolvency – are just Too Big To Fail. We need insolvent banks to fail.

Suppose everyone who has money in one of those TBTF banks withdrew it and bought physical gold instead? Wouldn’t that apply even more pressure to the bad banks and make the good banks more obvious? Many of the TBTF banks have leased out the gold they claim to have in reserve. Such a move would drive the dollar-price of gold even higher because the liars would be forced to buy gold on the open market in order to meet their obligations. Of course, they couldn’t actually do it and would be driven into bankruptcy – which is what we want. No government oversight required – just consumers and businesses exercising their power of choice.

As it is, the bad banks who have engaged in rampant fraud, deceit and corruption, have been propped up with taxpayer money, and the good banks that are run by honest, competent and ethical people are being forced to compete in an arena where the BAD GUYS get bonuses instead of prison terms. Since the government won’t punish them, we will have to.

If you want to make a lot of money, pitch God to fundamentalists and don’t try to write good books. Instead, try to write books that [fundamentalists] are going to like. And those two things don’t go together.

Frank Schaeffer in his interview with Kirkus Review of Books.

I was listening to some of the kids at church talk about various other faiths, and was struck by how unimpressed they are with their own faith. The overwhelming impression I got from these kids is that faith is a matter of consumer options, like the choice between an iPhone or an Android phone – and about as important.

Many of my fellow believers have no awareness that their beliefs are fundamentally identical to most other religions. They like to tell themselves they are unique, but in practice, they prove their beliefs are very common.

If that is true – if Christianity has the same basic common foundational beliefs as any other religions – then choosing to be a Christian or a Muslim or a Mormon is the same type of choice as deciding what brand of car to drive. All cars are fundamentally built the same way and do the same thing – some better, some worse – but at the end of the day, what makes them unique is the details – all cars are fundamentally just a machine to move you around.

So what is that most Christians really believe? Here it is in a nutshell:

If you follow the rules, God will reward you. If you ignore the rules, He will punish you.

This is essentially what Muslims believe, Hindus believe, Mormons believe, Jehovah’s Witnesses believe or for that matter Zoroastrians, Pagans and Baal worshipers. The only difference between the various religions is in the rules. Muslims must worship on Fridays. JWs must not celebrate holidays. Mormons must wear holy underwear. Pagans must  be kind. Baal worshipers must sacrifice a child now and then. I have no idea what Zoroastrians believe, but I suspect it is something equally stupid.

Christians don’t believe their faith is fundamentally different, they just think their rules are better.

Urgh.

If that’s the case, I have zero interest in teaching anyone to be a Christian, because frankly, a lot of the Christian rules are just stupid. If the only thing Christianity has to recommend it is “better rules”, then I think people should be Buddhists instead.

But I contend that Christianity is not just a faith differentiated by better rules; Christianity is different at its very core. To return to my transportation analogy: Whereas all the other faiths are automobiles, Christianity is a Star Trek Transporter.

What is it that makes the Christian faith utterly completely totally unique – unlike any other? I am not talking about the story of its beginnings, because every faith has a unique story. I am talking about the claims Christianity makes about God and Man and how that affects believers in their everyday lives.

There is One Thing that makes the Christian story utterly unlike any other. Do you know what it is? Please comment.

This post comes under the heading of “Not Exactly Scientific but Darned-Reliable Nonetheless”.

I was driving home the other day amidst the normal horrors of the southbound 101 at rush hour, and was irritated to see that traffic was stalled and slowed much farther along my route than normal. As I approached my exit, I saw the reason.

On the side of the road was a single traffic cop with his pretty blue and red flashing lights, and a single driver receiving a citation from said cop. As soon as traffic got past the cop by the side of the road, the traffic jam ceased and I was able to resume normal highway speeds.

Ordinarily, I would have forgotten this incident as it doesn’t seem particularly meaningful. We’ve all cursed the stupidity of people who seem to insist on slowing down to look at something on the side of the road, and this experience was no different. But the next day something happened that put the incident in a whole new light.

The next day I drove home the same time, same route, but traffic was moving at normal highway speeds the whole trip. At almost precisely the same point near my exit, I saw a car stalled on the side of the road. The only difference between this day’s trip and the previous day’s is that there was no cop with pretty flashing lights next to the stalled car.

And suddenly it hit me: cops cause traffic jams.

I’ve since noticed that this is almost ALWAYS the cause of traffic jams: whenever traffic on my commute is clogged up, the source of the bottleneck is almost always a cop on the side of the road writing a traffic tickets. I challenge you to start observing whether or not this is true in your community as well.

I hate traffic jams, especially unnecessary ones, and have been pondering the problem for years. I’ve always blamed the general stupidity of the populace for most traffic jams, but this observation has changed my opinion. Rather than condemn the populace for slowing down in the presence of flashing red and blue lights, why not just accept such behavior as a given in human behavior, and figure out a way to manage around it? And the way to manage around it is simple: prohibit the police from stopping anyone for traffic violations during rush hour.

I have proof-positive that if the cops would leave us alone to manage ourselves, we’d do just fine. (I know cops don’t believe this, but cops don’t believe anything.)

I propose that the cops stay off the road altogether during rush hour, and only show up in the event of a traffic accident. I’m sure some faint-hearted limp-wristed milqutoast will protest that the presence of traffic cops keep us safer, but my experience says otherwise. My experience says that the presence of cops – especially with their flashing lights – is the cause of the type of traffic snarl-ups which inevitably lead to multiple car rear-end collisions. I’d be willing to bet that those are the main sort of traffic accident that occurs during rush hour.

Want to have a faster, safer commute?

Get rid of the traffic cops.

…it only makes sense that the next one should be an actual clown.

Seriously.

But I’m not writing about that yet. I’m just making myself a note to read as much literature in the field of behavioural economics as I can. Found a good list to start with, though I suspect Mises’s Human Action is still better than any others.

Thanks to all of you who read and commented on my Earth Day post.

What would you do if the world were already exactly as it should be? How would you spend your time?

I’m an employee again. Trading wasn’t paying the bills.

Just thought you should know.