"WISDOM"

But where can wisdom be found?And where is the source of understanding?No man knows the way to it;It is not found in the land of living men.The depths of ocean say, 'It is not in us',And the sea says, 'It is not with me.1

Red gold cannot buy it,Nor can its price be weighed out in silver;It cannot be set in scales against gold of Ophir,Against precious cornelian or lapis lazuli;Gold and crystal are not to be matched with it,No work in fine gold can be bartered for it;Black coral and alabaster are not worth mention,And a parcel of wisdom fetches more than red coral;Topaz from Ethiopia is not to be matched with it,It cannot be set in the scales against pure gold.Where then does wisdom come from?And where is the source of understanding?No creature on earth can see it,And it is hidden from the birds of the air.Destruction and death say,'We know of it only by report.1

But God understands the way to it,He alone knows its source;For he can see to the ends of the earthAnd he surveys everything under heaven.When he made a counterpose for the windAnd measured out the waters in proportion,When he laid down a limit for the rainAnd a path for the thunderstorm,Even then he saw wisdom and took stock of it,He considered it and fathomed its very depths.And he said to man:The reverence of the Lord is wisdom,And to turn from evil is understanding.

(JOB 28)

DEDICATED

To Mr. Gann, a truly remarkable man, Thanks. You were right. "If you seek, you will find."

I wonder if you ever knew what your work would do. I wish we could have met. I believe we would have liked each other. We were just in different circles. Oh, well, as you said-"big circles and little circles, old circles and young circles, past circles and future circles, will all come together and 'square out' in time".

UNTIL THAT TIME,

RESPECTFULLY, "THE

SEEKER"

PREFACE

This story is a true story of a strange and curious search for a strange and curious secret of a strange and curious man who died almost 30 years ago.

I have simply called myself "The Seeker" because we are all seekers. The final "THAT WHICH IS SOUGHT" of all our seeking is the same. However, we have many paths available to us. Some of us seek this "THAT WHICH IS SOUGHT" in material things of different kinds. Some of us seek "IT" in mysteries and secrets. My search was in both areas simultaneously in the commodity mar-kets and the W.D. Gann trading philosophy. It is my hope that you can benefit from my search and that I can show you a proper path to take that will allow you both profitable and enriching experiences in both the markets and in life.

As I said, "MY STORY" is a strange, curious one. When I try to recall it and write it for you, I keep running into a problem. The problem is-that the end of the story was the beginning and beginning of the story was the ending-except it was before the beginning. I know that I am not making myself very clear, but that is as well as I can say it for now. Perhaps it will clear up somewhat as I tell it.

The real beginning of "MY STORY11 was when I paid my "trusted friend" for the Master Time Factor, which he did not have. He just took my money and gave me nothing in return but a se-ries of practically meaningless numbers and rules, which were devastating if used in the markets.

One of the reasons that made the story curious and strange was that I already had the key to find the Master Time Fac-tor, but I hadn't looked at it or read it in years. I paid "my friend" for something he didn't give me, but I GAVE him the real thing that I PAID him for, which he didn't give me. Very strange! You understand-I bought something from him but at the same time I gave him the thing that I was try-ing to buy from him-the thing that he did not have; but which I already had and gave to him. Neither of us knew it at time. Even today, two years later, he will not know the value of the thing that I gave him, unless he happens to read these words. EVEN THEN, HE WILL HAVE TO TAKE THAT THING AND LIVE IT, rather than read it. That thing was more useful than the Master Time Factor, and in fact, it is what we are all looking for when we desire the knowledge of the Master Time Factor.

It is a strange, curious fact- the living of this thing makes it comes alive. The reading of it is just words.

The thing that I am talking about is "The Seeker's Creed". It is in Appendix V in the Appendices.

Until this very day "my friend" was the only person I had ever given My Creed to. Now, I give it to you. I hope you will PROVE IT-HOLD FAST TO IT-THEN GIVE IT TO YOUR FAMILY, CHILDREN, and AND FRIENDS. IT IS MORE VALUABLE THAN SILVER OR GOLDOR THE MASTER TIME FACTOR!

"THE SEEKER" August

8, 1983

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1 - Introduction - My Story Begins ............................. 1

Chapter 2 - Disaster For An April Fool................................. 8

Chapter 3 - What Next? Or More Aptly Where Now? ........................ 13

Chapter 4 - "You Must Destruct Before You Can Construct". 16

Chapter 5 - 1 Begin Again .......................................... 19

Chapter 6 - Stock Market, Astrology, Mindset, Mr. Gann & Me. 24

Chapter 7 - 1 Discover the Legendary Master Time Factor!. 35

Chapter 8 - Here Is A Path. You Could Try This One ... 63

Chapter 9 - "The Seeker's Creed"............................................................ 67

Chapter 10 - For Me - The Closing Of A Circle .......................... 69

Appendix I - Forecasting By Time Cycles ....................................

Appendix II - Fragments of Gann Monograph ..................................

Appendix III - "Learn Before You Lose" Sales Brochure .... Appendix IV - "Forecast-

ing" (The Master Time Factor Lesson) .

Appendix V - "The Seeker's Creed".................................................................

Appendix VI - Master Time Factor Charts Of The DJIA .........................

Appendix VII - Weekly Charts Showing Master Time Factor . . .

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION -MY

STORY BEGINS-

The first time I ever heard of W.D. Gann was in the late spring of 1979- Looking back, I was in a transitional pe-riod of my life. For the previous eight years I had made my living in real estate brokerage and buying and selling for my own account. I started with houses and then became mostly Involved with buying and selling farms and farmland for myself. I always have enjoyed dealing with farms and land and I still enjoy it today. There is some undefinable satisfaction for me in the process of buying and selling land.

I had several good years financially in my real estate business, but in 1978, I began to become concerned about the economy in general and the real estate market in par-ticular. Farmland prices were climbing sharply in my area and most of the buying was by large farmers and profession-als who kept bidding up the price of any farm that came on the market.

In my opinion, one of the primary reasons for this was that the agricultural lenders were encouraging farmers to "get bigger", bigger machinery and bigger farms, because bigger was supposed to mean the same thing as efficient. The fi-nancing was done primarily by the local farm lending agen-cies and in many cases the lenders were loaning 100% of the then inflated values. I did not see how this ever escalating cycle could continue. I began disposing of my inventory of farms and land and shedding myself of debt. I simply felt uncomfortable and could no longer bring myself to buy except on options- which I would sell the farm by the time the option expired or, if I hadn't been able to do so, I would simply forfeit my option money. At this same time I began looking around for something to do which would allow me to buy and sell even in down markets. I had not been able to figure out a way to do this in the real estate market that I was used to operating in. Also, I wanted something that would require no inventories to be financed, no employees to be responsible to, and as little overhead as possible.

Someone, I have forgotten whom, mentioned to me one day that I should consider the stock market, or even better, the commod-ity markets. I had purchased some stocks several years earlier but they did not turn out to be that successful in regards to the return on my money. I decided then that I could do more with my money than putting it into stocks. So I had not been interested from that time in the stock mar-ket.

I did begin thinking about the commodity markets, though, and I thought, here is an ideal' business for me. I like buy-ing and selling and I can operate in up times or down

times. I began following the commodity quotes in the Wall Street Journal. Then

I sent off for some information about commodity trading from an advertisement. This led to my opening a trading account some few weeks later. My first trade was in corn. I knew ab-solutely nothing about commodities. I didnt even know to figure out the price fluctuations. I asked my-broker what should I start trading and he said corn because it was easy to trade and the moves were not that big. So, I bought corn, I lost $4000 on that trade before I learned that the moves might not be big, but I had lost more on that one trade than I had on any of my real estate transactions. Obviously, I needed to learn something more about this com-modity trading before I put out more money. So, I pur-chased my first book on commodity trading through a mail order ad-vertisement. Will you believe that the first book I ever purchased about commodity trading was a book by the name of "How To Make Profits In Commodities" by W.D. Gann?

So, here I was- a man who knew nothing about the markets at all, getting my introduction by W.D. Gann. I was "hooked" on Gann from the very beginning. I remember, I received my copy of "How To Make Profits-" on my birthday in June 1979 and I took it with me on a vacation that my family and I were em-barking on. The whole vacation I read that book. And read it. And read it. The vacation passed and I came home and or-dered the W.D. Gann Commodities Course.

The material in the book and the course seemed difficult for me to understand at times and in places; but, I thought that it was just the fact that I had not had any experience or knowledge about trading and that once I learned the "language of the market" I would no longer have trouble understanding. Later, I learned that others had that same difficulty too.

During the Summer of 1979 I studied my Gann book and Gann Com-modities Course. I began spending more time studying it than I did in my real estate business. This may have been a good thing because the farm real estate market topped out in the fall of 1979 and has been down every since. Our av-erage sales have gone from approximately $1900 per acre down to the present average of approximately $1000 per acre. This fall has indications of being even lower due to the number of properties needing to be sold.

Going back to the summer of 1979, I read the commodity course over and over. I tried to trade occasionally, but my results were not satisfactory at all. I thought I un-derstood most of Mr. Ganns rules and ideas but when I tried to put them into practice they just did not work out that well. I couldn't tell which top or which bottom to trade by. So I just kept studying and at the same time I started buying other commodity books and was studying them too. By this time I thought that I had learned that the most important thing in the market was to trade by follow-ing the trend of the market. The problem was I could not de-termine the trend or by the time I did determine it, it seemed to be going the other way.

I was trying to trade all the markets. When I saw something that looked like a good trade, I would trade that mar-ket. I really had no set of rules. I traded mostly by what I "felt" was a good trade. My trading was not profitable by any means, especially, if you consider the time and effort I was putting into it.

I spent the fall and winter of 1979 studying Gann, occasion-ally trading, never too successfully, but not losing any real money. By this time I had ordered charts and advisory services of all kinds. I had purchased many books about the market. I had more money Invested In advisory services and books than I had made in the market. They were all interesting but none of them seemed to provide me with the necessary knowledge to trade the markets successfully.

I had begun studying Mr. Gann's angles and squaring of price and time. I had many problems deciding what was valid and not valid with both the angles and the squaring of price and time. I had a "Hewlett-Packard 38C" calculator which had a date func-tion on it that I found invaluable in calculating the number of days between dates.

I decided to take the May Soybean Contract and learn all that I could about it. I reconstructed a monthly and weekly chart back to the time it first started trading. I calculated the squares in monthly, weekly, and daily time periods from the extreme low and high and from the opening of the contract in 1936. I could see some inter-esting relationships but always in hindsight. I was not able to trade profitably or consistently using the squaring of price and time. I spent many weeks trying to find some method of using squaring of price and time that I could make into a trading rule in line with Mr. Gann's rules about price and time as I understood them. I could not come up with anything. Then I looked at his rules on angles. I ran angles on all the bean charts. I ran angles on monthly charts back to 1936, weekly charts, and dally charts as far back as I could get them. I spent consid-erable time and money trying to get data that I could use and then making dally charts by hand. Again, I saw some In-teresting correlations in hindsight, but nothing that I could "trade off of" in a consistent manner. I wondered if the scale were distorted by time and the difference in the range of prices today relative to the time that Mr. Gann wrote his rules.

This led to my investigation of scales of price and their relationship to Mr. Gann's rules. On a farm near town I had a barn with a sixteen foot ceiling in it. I ordered Mr. Gann/s original charts (weekly) that he had sold, then Mr. Lambert had kept up to date and sold until Mr. Jones purchased the material and which had been kept to the current time. These charts were on the same scale on which Mr. Gann had based his rules. I built a wall in my barn to accommodate these charts because it was necessary for me to see what they looked like. It required a wall 14 feet high for me to incorporate the May, July, and November contracts. It was 53 feet long. The end result of

this was the same- interesting, but difficult to util-ize.

Next I tried trading by Mr. Ganns rules based on his "mechani-cal method and trend indicator". Again I had the same problem-unsatisfactory results. Either I was using stops too close or did not understand his rules properly. I must con-fess that I was trying to mix all his other rules in at the same time.

Then I looked at his rules and comments on time. I had al-ways been intrigued by time and its meanings. Over the years I had always had an interest in natural things and na-ture. History and philosophy were of particular interest to me. Of course, I found time periods everywhere. Too many of them in fact. I knew that Mr. Gann said that the time fac-tor was the most important to observe and that when time was up look for the other yardsticks to confirm time. My problem was that I could not tell which time "was up" and which yardstick to look to confirm the time. There were just too many times and too many yardsticks for me.

Then I got into calendar time and market time. I concluded from my reading of his material that he put greater emphasis on market time than he did on calendar time because of his descriptions about how to make charts. I went into great detail and study of market time. I arrived at the same dead-end path here. Then I studied calendar time. I did find that trend changes of some nature were likely to take place approximately every 45 days or so on the daily charts. The problem was that they were usually a swing of some proportion and again difficult for me to trade success-fully.

Then I got into the squares and calculators and master charts. They were like puzzles. I would work for days and weeks trying to fit together one piece of knowledge from them. I worked on them so much that I actually would see them in my sleep. End result? Same old story!

Then in the summer of 1980 I attended a Gann trading seminar in Florida. I took my wife and son with me. The seminar was well-planned and it consisted of two parts. The first part was an analysis of Mr. Ganns time rules as applied to the markets today. The second part was a presentation on as-trology. It was an interesting and useful seminar to me, especially the first part on time analysis. I listened to the part on astrology, but, I Just could not believe that it provided any answers on how to trade the markets in a consistent and profitable manner. I could not believe that converting a price to the longitude of a planet could possibly determine whether that particular price as based on the longitude of a planet would make top or bottom or meet resistance of any kind. (I still cant believe it today.) This presentation on astrology probably turned me off on astrology more than any other one thing. I could not bring myself to study something so ridiculous. I knew that there were valid tenets and observations in all old and ancient beliefs but I just would not believe that the prices of beans and other commodities could be judged by these "signs and houses".

The most useful and important benefit to me of this semi-nar was the people I met there. Three or four of those people have turned out to be very good friends and I would never have met them had I not attended the seminar.

While attending this seminar I heard several "day-traders" talking about how they used Gann successfully in their day trading activities. And I heard someone say that a ticker or quote machine allowed one to acquire years of experience in a few weeks by watching all of the trades and quotes every day. When I came back home the first thing I did was to order a "ticker" so that I could acquire that "experience" and learn in weeks what was to have taken years. I got one that gave me hardcopy so that if I had to be out during part of the day I would be able to study each trade at the end of the day. I chose to follow May Soybeans and December T-Bonds. They were both on the C.B.O.T. and I would only need one Western Union line to get both of them.

I chose the beans because Mr. Gann had recommended them and I had his rules available on them. I chose the bonds be-cause I had made some profits trading them (more than on anything else).

For several months I day traded beans and bonds. I at-tempted to use all the angles and time periods and rules. My success was marginal. I made some profits on balance, but after deducting the cost of the quote equipment I could have made more money working some job paying minimum wages. I did get a great deal of market experience in a short time though. Again I found that Mr. Gann's rules as applied by me just did not produce outstanding results. I really knew all the time though that Mr. Gann cau-tioned against short term in and out trading and that it was not fair to apply his rules to day trading.

One thing that I definitely learned was that for me day trading was not the thing that I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I enjoyed it enough. Really, too much. I spent all my time at the ticker. I even had lunch at the ticker. I ignored my family, my business, my friends. Af-ter looking back, I believe that day trading as I was doing is the biggest waste of time and money that I can imagine. I have a friend that still day trades. He has for seven years. He has not made any large amount of money but he continues to day trade every day that the markets are open. After the market closes he studies the charts and the markets until midnight and the wakes up the next morning and is at his ticker by 8:00 a.m..He has no time at all to spend with his family. I did this same thing when I had my ticker and I tell you IT IS NOT WORTH IT! Another thing that I learned about having a ticker is that I had the urge to try to trade too of-ten. Even when I was not day trading but using the ticker to time position trades, I found that watching the ticker gave me the urge to try to trade every swing. I got to the point that I just wanted to trade all the time. I am sure that there must be someone who

has been consistently successful as a day trader, but I have never found that person. If you are the average per-son, I urge you to learn from my experience and save your time. Your

time is one of your most valuable possessions.

During the time that I was day trading and watching the ticker I kept studying all of Mr. Gann's books and courses. By this time I had purchased every book and course of his that I could find. I was trying to find someone who actually knew him and that had taken personal instruction from him. I was able to find a man that worked for him at one time. But that gentleman did not want to talk. I have always desired my own privacy so I understood. I was able to locate Mr. Ganns son. I made a trip to see him. He was a very nice and distinguished looking gentleman. You could tell that he was a man of quality and character. He was courteous and gave me thirty or forty minutes of his time and he was a very busy man. In his office he had a large picture of his father hanging on the wall. That picture dominated the entire office. For some reason I could not bring myself to ask Mr. Gann about his father's master time factor, but I can tell you that it was very difficult not to ask him. I did ask him what he thought was the most useful part of his fathers work. He told me that he thought that his fa-ther's research and work on time cycles was the most im-portant work that his father had done. He also told me several other things about his father. He felt that his father's work and life had been commercialized. I also did not feel inclined to ask him about any per-sonal details of his fathers life. I did ask him as I was leaving if he could give me any advice about the markets or the use of the master time factor that Mr. Gann used. He told me that his advice to me was invest in the stock and securities market, under good competent coun-sel^ and to refrain from speculating in the commodity markets at all. He also told me that "there was no such thing in science or nature called a perpetual motion ma-chine", that people had looked for one throughout his-tory, but that it Just didnt exist.

I made several trips around the country trying to locate various things and various people that could help me un-derstand more about Mr. Gann and his trading philosophy. I tried to reproduce what I could of the books that Mr. Gann had on his reading list and the ones that he sold. I searched all over the country for certain books and publications. With great effort I was able to find the books that I wanted. During my search for Mr. Ganns mas-ter time factor, I purchased and perused over 2000 books and manuscripts. I purchased as near as complete set of C.B.O.T. annuals as I could find. My set had most years from 1887 through 1950. I wanted to verify everything that I could about Mr. Ganns references to the various markets and the situations he was discussing. I made a special trip to Hew York to a well known astrology book-store and I purchased $1800 worth of books on that one trip alone. Most of them were out of print and were written during or before Mr. Ganns early writings. I also pur-chased every market classic that I could find about the market. I studied Elliott waves, Wyckoff, the Andrews material, Hurst, Gartley, Drew, Edwards & Magee, Moore, and

others.

Also during this time I heard of this person and that person that

was supposed to understand the Gann method very well. They were in fact said to be experts and were making their clients lots of money. Since my trading was not remarkable by any sense of the word, I opened trading accounts sepa-rately and let two of these so-called experts trade at their discretion. This experience taught me that the experts that I had chosen lost money for me more quickly and in greater amounts than I had ever been able to do on my own. As a matter of fact, I had opened a trading account with one of these experts in November of 1980 (you remember, the top of the bean market) and the first day that he had received my funds he started buying beans as the market was going limit down for the preceding three days. The rule he used was if three days limit down, buy for an upturn. The upturn did not come so he bought more as it continued limit down. I asked him if we shouldn't just take my loss and get out and what kind of stops did he plan to use. He said the market was too wild to use a stop and that it certainly had to recover and we would get back some of the losses and stand aside. I did not learn then that he had in fact bought even another con-tract of beans after another limit down move. He sold all my contracts of beans on the opening on the day of Decem-ber 12, 1980 at which time they opened limit down and then immediately after moved up for the secondary rally at the top. He said he was sorry. In five days of trading for me this expert had lost more money for me than I had lost in my entire time of trading commodities. Since I some-times learn slowly I tried a third expert. This one was not a day trader but one who traded in and out of the mar-kets quickly and seldom held a position for more than three days. He had been in the markets for years and really knew how to trade. He lost several thousand dol-lars for me in less than two weeks. The trades made no sense at all and he could not tell me why he made them. He didn't even say he was sorry! These experiences led me to my current trading rule #1-NEVER ALLOW ANYONE ELSE TO TRADE FOR ME.

Since none of my experiences in learning to trade the mar-kets by using Mr. Gann's trading philosophy had worked out very well for me, I, had begun a concerted effort to learn what the master time factor was and how it was to be used. I thought that if I could only acquire the master time factor then everything else would fall into place. Unthinkingly, I am sure that I expected it to be a magic formula that would allow me to conquer the markets and tell exactly when each and every top and bottom would oc-cur. I had become that "wrapped-up" in my effort to find it. This intense desire for something that I did not even know what it was led me to lose touch with the pru-dence that I had been blessed with in every other area of my life. I had actually hypnotized myself into be-lieving that this master time factor was the greatest and most desired formula in the world.

Well, it was the spring of 1981, and April 1st was ap-proaching. April 1st used to be called April Fool's day and I will always remember April 1, 1981, as my special

day, because I believe that it was named just for me.

CHAPTER 2 DISASTER FOR AN

APRIL FOOL!

During the late winter and early spring of 1981 I was rid-ing out the real estate recession and pursuing with great zeal Mr. Gann's master time factor. As I told you ear-lier, I was becoming obsessed with the idea that if I could just acquire the master time factor that it would solve all my trading problems. I had quit day trading, although I still had my ticker and I still spent many hours watching the markets trade. I continued to buy old books, read, experiment with the various calculators and master charts. I notice how frequently during the day that prices would trade against one of these critical points on a calculator, then back off and sometimes the price would hold, but as often as not it would not hold. I was no longer day trading but I had the constant urge to be in the market. I felt guilty if a move started and I missed it. I felt angry at times if trades did-n't go my way. I never had this problem in my real estate business. I simply decided the best price that I could offer a person and made that offer. If I got the prop-erty, fine, if not, I never thought about it with any remorse. If I offered to sell a property to a person, I gave them my lowest and best price and if it were good for them to buy, fine, if not, I didn't want them to buy something that would not be beneficial to them. I knew that my mental attitude was not correct and I tried to compen-sate by leaving the house during the day and avoiding watching the ticker, but leaving the ticker on and coming home after the market closed; then studying the tape at night and making a trading decision to buy or sell based on that days tape action. This worked better and my monthly statements began looking better.

I knew that Mr. Gann had used astrology in trading but I could not bring myself to get into the study of astrology with any fervor. However, I had begun reading the many books on astrology that I had acquired in New York and other places around the country. I knew that somehow the master time factor must be associated with astrology but I could not find a verifiable clue. I kept reading all kinds or market books and studying astrology-but never in any depth. I had started studying all I could find on cy-cles. Cycles of any and all kinds. I knew that the master time factor had to be a cycle of some nature because Mr. Gann said it indicated to him when certain cycles would re-peat. My trading was Improving because I was trading less often and staying in a profitable trade slightly longer.

In March of 1981 I received a phone call from a man that had come to be a close friend as a result of meeting him at different Gann seminars around the country. We had never been to each other's home, but we had many phone conversations over those months. This man was a very knowledgeable man about Mr. Gann's works and this man like myself had spent many hours and weeks studying Gann. We had shared information and in-sight with each other on several

8

occasions. In this story I will simply call him "my friend" because I have no desire to mention his name and cause embarrassment to him; although I can assure you that it was not easy for me to come to this state of forgive-ness. By daily practicing my creed, which you will find in the Appendices, I was able to finally get to this state of mind where I am oblivious to past injustices of this type. I look to the present and the future- not the past, (except when I am forecasting the trend of the mar-ket.)

Now, getting back to the phone call from "my friend". He called me that March night and he was very excited. He said that he had the most wonderful news! He said that he had fi-nally found what Mr. Gann used to trade the markets and what he had used to make his predictions and that he was sure it would call any market of any type; he had proved it in one particular market. Although, I had shared all of my find-ings with him, he did not offer to share this knowledge with me. He called to tell me that this was the most valu-able Information that he had ever encountered and that he had decided to sell this to only four people. He further said that he had carefully chosen these four people. He said that his criteria for choosing these four prospects were that they must have really studied Gann for many long and hard hours and that they must be honest and promise not to reveal this information to anyone outside their immediate families. Also, these four persons would have to sign a legally prepared agreement which imposed monetary penalties on them if they should ever reveal this information. He then went on to tell me how much he wanted for this Informa-tion. IT WAS STAGGERING! SUBSTANTIAL! He assured me that it would work in all the markets but that he had proved it in the one particular market and that if I followed this formula and information exactly as he taught it to me and if I would save a copy of my brokerage statements so that he could verify that I had properly followed it, he would guarantee my money back. I told him that was more money than I had ever dreamed of paying for anything. He told me to think about it for a few days and to discuss it with the other three people to whom he had offered it. He told me who they were and two of them I knew well, because I had become very good friends with them too. I had met them at my first seminar in Florida and we had attended other ones to-gether. These two people were (and are) fine people of out-standing character and quality. The three of us had spent many many hours studying Mr. Gann works and we had shared all the different insights that we each had. We had promised each other without saying it that if any one of us ever found the master time factor we would let the other two know what it was. I want to thank each one of these two people for the help they gave me in my search for the master timefactor and also during the aftermath of my April Fools Day fiasco. They were the only two people that I could talk to after the disastrous episode took place.

Up until I began trading the commodity markets and studying the Gann material, I had always been a prudent common-sense type man. I know that my story so far does lead you to

question that

statement but it is true. I dont know what it is about the commodity markets that allow ordinarily prudent suppos-edly intelligent people to make some of the blunders that they make when it comes to the commodity market. I think we sometimes lose touch with reality when we become obsessed with anything. Our balance is destroyed and we end up mesmerizing ourselves into a false condition where we see our world as reflecting this mesmerized version of what we want to be-lieve. Mr. Gann described something similar to this condition in his book, "The Tunnel Through The Air11.

At any rate, I believe now, in looking back that I had set myself up for something like this to happen to me because I had become overbalanced. I had searched so long and so hard for this master time factor that I had lost touch with re-ality and common sense. I will say that if any other man other than the man whom I call "my friend" had made this offer to me, I would not have even thought about the offer twice. I would have immediately said no. But, as I told you earlier I was "primed" because I wanted the master time factor so bad and then I really trusted "my friend" and although I thought that he would have offered it to me for nothing as I would have done for him; the fact that he didnt still did not make me realize that if he had really been my friend he would not have tried to sell me something that we both had worked so hard to find.

I thought about this phone call and offer for several days. I called these other two friends of mine that were being offered this same information. They were excited too about the prospects of having the master time factor re-vealed to them. "My friend11 did not actually call this for-mula the master time factor but he implied that it was it. None of us who had been offered the material really knew what to do. We did not want to put out the kind of money that "my friend" wanted, but we all wanted the master time factor and we all believed in the Integrity of "my friend". We trusted him completely. We were planning to go to a seminar being held in Chicago during the first week in April. This seminar was being held by Mr. Billy Jones of Lambert-Gann Pub-lishing Co. I have always enjoyed Billys. seminars more than anyone else's. Anyway, the three of us decided that we would get together in Chicago and then decide what we would do about this offer.

I have had many blessings in life. I live in the greatest country in the world. This country may be the last hope for mankind. I have always had good health. I have always been able to make a living for my family and have plenty of time to read and pursue the things in life that I enjoy doing. I have a fine son of whom I am very proud. But my greatest blessing has been my wonderful wife. She is a remark-able woman. She has always left the business decisions to me and never questioned my judgment. She, of course, had sacri-ficed many hours of her time so that I could spend all of my days and many nights studying Gann when I should have spent that time with my family. I talked with her about this of-fer and asked what she thought about it. I could tell that she was not

10

impressed at all. I had promised "my friend" that I would meet him in Chicago where we would both be attending the Lambert-Gann Seminar. I was to meet "my friend" on April 1st and the seminar was going to start the next day. When I asked my wife what she thought I should do about the offer, she would only remind me that April 1st, the day I was to meet my friend and accept or reject his offer was APRIL FOOL'S DAY. I had not thought about April Fool's Day since I was a child. But my wife's mentioning of it was forecasting a coming event for me.

I left for Chicago to meet my friend and unfortunately for me, I had already made up my mind that I was going to pay this SUBSTANTIAL amount of money for this information that "my friend" led me to believe would be the elusive, legendary master time factor. I met "my friend" in Chicago as agreed on APRIL Fools DAY. He had me sign the agreement that he had pre-pared by an attorney near his home. He assured me that if I wanted my money back at anytime I could ask him for it and he would return it to me if I felt that the formula did not work as he said that it would. He said again that it would work on any market, but since he had only proved it on one market that would be the market that we would need to trade. I gave him this SUBSTANTIAL amount of money that we agreed on and he again promised me my money back if I were not satisfied. This was the opening of the door to the most foolish and most painful room of experience that I have ever entered In my lifetime. The door was ajar before I en-tered. I could have looked in and seen what was IN there. I didn't look. I just pushed open the door and ran into the "room" because I wanted the promised contents with a desire that squelched all reason. I accept the responsibility of this very poor judgment on my part. I blame no one other than myself. One of the reasons that I am writing this story for you, is so that you will be able to profit from my mistakes and if I can save just one of you, my readers, from trying the same path I took, then this whole effort of writing this story will have been worthwhile.

Even though I accept the full responsibility for my ac-tions in regards this most strange and sad transaction, natural law says that "my friend11 has sown the wind and must reap the whirlwind, either now or later. That part is not something that I can do anything about.

In order to bring this part of my story to as rapid conclu-sion as possible, but yet allowing you to have the full story that I promised you, I can simply say that "my friend" took my money and gave me a formula of gibberish in return. To make it worse, the agreement called for me to actually trade this thing according to his recommendations, in order to ever get my refund; although he promised outside of the written agreement to give me my money back any time I requested it. His trades were constantly losing trades in his one market that he had proved. As a matter of fact I lost more money following his trades until at the end before I really ac-cepted how stupid the whole thing was, I began taking the exact opposite of what he told me and then I recovered some of the money I had lost following the trades.

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I cannot tell you the pain and frustration that this experience caused me. I am trying to speed over this part of my story as fast as I can and I am really ashamed that I ever fell for something this ridiculous. I promised you the true story of my search and I have to relate this part of it to you; but it is not easy for me write this.

Well, I laboured on with this whole affair and made every effort that I could to get "my friend" to give me my SUBSTANTIAL amount of money back. He just promised and promised that he was going to do it. He told me all kinds of stories about how he was working on it. Fi-nally he told me that he had donated my SUBSTANTIAL amount of money to a children's hos-pital near his home. But that he had done it with the understanding that he might have to recall the donation if he had to refund the money to a "client" that had given him the money. "My friend" told me that he was arranging to get the money back and that a local bank was acting as the director of fund raising for this hospital. He even gave me the name of the bank. After this drug on for several weeks, one day I called the bank and learned that they had never heard of "my friend". Yes, dear reader, my search for Mr. Gann's Master Time Factor had brought me to this point, where I still believed all the lies that "my friend" told me, until the bank said that they had never heard of him. Well, I had been asleep for a long time, and dreaming,-.no having a nightmare; but, thank God, I had at last awakened. I finally realized at that exact time that I would never get one penny of my SUBSTANTIAL amount of money back from "my friend". I had made the biggest single mis-take of my lifetime. I have never heard anymore from "my friend" until one of my real friends (one of the other three prospects-they were all too well-balanced and too smart to fall for the APRIL FOOL'S disaster) sent me a copy of a newsletter he had seen. This newsletter sold for $16.67 per issue. In two Issues of this newsletter the entire formula that "my friend" had sold me (and promised in writing In my agreement not to sell to anyone else other than his children) was printed in this newsletter that I could have purchased for $3333.(There are some numbers for you, Gann fans!). Apparently "my friend" had sold his formula to the newsletter too. This was the "final blow" to my ego and was the one thing that seemed to show me just how much time and money I had wasted on my search for Mr. Ganns Master Time Factor. Well, let's end this chapter here, while you ponder on how you would feel if you had been so foolish as me (I'm sure none of you will ever have to worry about that! Will you?)

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CHAPTER 3 WHAT NEXT? OR MORE APTLY

WHERE NOW?

Have you been thinking about how you would feel if you had been so foolish as I? Would you be pretty well fed up with the search for the master time factor? Would you ever want to hear of the commodity markets or the name Gann? You, being an unemotional passive observer to what I have related to you so far, are probably saying, "serves him right-anyone that foolish". You would also point out, being the astute observer that you are, that the problem lay not with the commodity markets, nor with the name Gann, nor with the master time factor, but SOLELY with the author of this booklet and his attitude towards something which had distorted his per-spective towards reality about the markets, the master time factor, and in fact, life in general. Well, if you came to these conclusions, you would be precisely correct. You have come to the same conclusions that I reached in the fall of 1981 about myself. But you have also hit on some-thing else. Those same conclusions that you have reached about my behavior thus far in my search for the master time factor are the very ones that I believe that keep us from making profits in the markets. If we continually incur losses in the market it is BECAUSE OF OUR ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE MARKETS WHICH HAVE DISTORTED OUR PERSPECTIVE OF THE MARKETS, OF REALITY, AND OF LIFE IN GENERAL.

And ho w have we gotten to this point where our attitude has turned into our perspective and messed us up? We got there the same way I did- day by day, degree by degree, bad habit by bad habit, misplaced striving by misplaced striving, wrong desire for the wrong thing by wrong desire for the wrong thing, mistake by mistake. Have you noticed the language that I have used in the preceding sentence? What have we done? We have SQUARED our bad habits and mistakes in time. How? In using the word "by" which means times in between the same two words or phrases we are multiplying these bad habits or mistakes by themselves, which is the mathematical defini tion of squaring a numb er, element, set, or anything. What 's worse we are do-ing it day by day, and degree by degree, which means that we are squaring these bad habits and erroneous ways of attitudes, thinking, and perspectives by time too. And what are squares? They are building blocks (even on charts) of equal height and equal width and equal length. They are also the base or foundation for the next square up. Now if our base or foundation is built out of bad habits, mistakes, wrong thinking, and wrong action- how can we ever hope to accom-plish anything (in the markets or life) other than what we have created already?

There is only one way that I have found. It is the ti-tle and subject of the next chapter in this booklet. It is what I had to do with myself. It is what I had to do with the Gann work. It is what I had to do with ray at-titude, habits, and perspective. I had to tear everything out- tear it all down and clear the base

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and foundation. I had to destruct it all. And most dif-ficult of all, by far (that "by" means distance multi-plied by itself), I had to tear down my emotions, feel-ings, ego, and intangibles that came closest to what I thought that I WAS. My essence- as close as I could.

If I had stopped to think after a short time in the mar-ket when the profits were not coming in the way they should have been in any successful business, I would have real-ized the above mentioned truths many months and many thou-sands of dollars ago. I tell you now, if you have not made profits, but instead have had losses in the market for at least six months running, YOU MUST STOP TRADING. That's all! Just stop trading. What makes you think the next six months will be any different? Hasn't my story proved this to you yet? WPROVE ALL THINGS AND HOLD FAST TO THAT WHICH IS GOOD", (for your in-formation at this point, "prove" also means to square). Now, I didn't say quit trading, I said STOP TRADING. If you are not making profits, why are you trading? Why was I trading, if I were not making profits? If I had STOPPED TRADING months earlier, look at how much better off I would have been.

So if you haven't been making profits for the last six months you will promise me that you will STOP trading. You un-derstand don't you? The longer you continue trading and losing, the larger building (you), you are going to have to tear down and destroy, because you have built your squares on a bad base or foundation. The sooner you STOP building your squares the smaller your area of destruction will have to be. You will have to do the same thing that I had to do. You will have to tear down back to the foundation or base and clear up the debris and lay a good new foundation and then build again- build a good building on a good founda-tion- one that will allow you to scale new heights!

At this point I need to digress again for three or four paragraphs. When I left you at the end of the previ-ous chapter I had arrived at a pretty low emotional state, mental state, and financial state. My wrong habits, mental attitudes, and stupidity along with the aid and assistance, of "my friend" had left me pretty well devas-tated. On top of that I developed a health problem in the late summer of 198l-all at the same time that I had fi-nally realized the enormity of my erroneous ways. I may not have made myself clear to you up to this point, but when I have been writing SUBSTANTIAL money every time I referred to the money that I had given "my friend", I have been putting all capital letters to emphasize that SUBSTANTIAL is Indeed what I mean to say. Needless to say, the health problem that I had developed (a kidney problem) did not leave me too secure with the long term financial security of my family. I had plenty of life insurance but I had not made at that time the necessary provisions for any unforeseen long term illness. So I had this whole situation to contend with in the middle of the most severe real estate downturn that I had ever lived through. Most of my remaining assets were In real estate. I hope that I have given you a clear enough picture of the things I was thinking about at

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this time.

What I really needed at this particular time of my life in the late summer of 1981 was some type of sustenance for my spirit or soul. Our spirit is what vitalizes us and my vitality was low at this time, low physically, mentally, and spiritually. Then I thought of my creed.

"The Seeker's Creed" is an article of declaration of be-liefs that I compiled over ten years ago. None of these beliefs are products of my mind, but they were compiled by me for me at another low point of my life when I was searching for direction in my life. They were the result of my lifetime of reading and experience. "The Seeker's Creed" was what I had used as the FOUNDATION or BASE for my real es-tate business and I realized at this point that what I, needed was a new strong foundation based on common sense and proven natural laws If I were going to survive this situation I had "built" for myself. I had forgotten about "The Seeker's Creed" in my search for the master time fac-tor. In fact, it seemed that I had forgotten everything in my search for the master time factor. I have also called my creed "The Seekers Creed" so that you can adopt it for yourself should you so desire. I will tell you more about later. It is in the Appendices.

Now, one of the strange parts of this story again. I never had intended that my creed be anything other than a per-sonal declaration of my beliefs that I had proved would work. For a period of my life I had consciously tried to live by them and I had read them faithfully every day and practiced them in ray real estate business. But I had for-gotten my creed during the last few years and from the time that I had begun my "Gann Voyage" in 1979 until the time I pulled it out in the fall of 1981 I certainly never read it nor did I practice it. But for some strange reason, I took it out of the drawer of my desk in my li-brary in May of 1981 and had a copy of it made just as it was (I had typed it for myself on my typewriter when I originally wrote it and I had spelling errors and type-overs in it). I had to go down town to get a copy made and then bought my sheets back and put them in my three ring binder and put my notebook (my creed) back in my desk drawer. I then sent the copy I had made to "my friend" as a token of appreciation for his selling me what I thought was the master time factor. I had never given this to any-one else outside my immediate family before nor since until this very day when I am including it in this booklet. Isnt that the strangest thing? Its almost like an opening and closing of a cycle or circle and its almost like the creed and the master time factor go together. Who knows? Perhaps, they do?

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CHAPTER 4

"YOU MUST OBSTRUCT" "BEFORE YOU CAN CONSTRUCT"

In my earlier years when I first started out in business and in ray real estate activities I started out buying and improving and reselling residential properties. Then I grew into buying and Improving farms and land and subdividing farms into tracts and reselling. When my health problem that I told you about in the last chapter improved and I began studying my creed again I decided to start all over with what I had proved in the past. In other words I planned to hold fast to that which was good. This was in the fall of 1981 and we were still in the worst real estate market that I had encountered during my business life.

I decided first of all that I would lay aside for the time being any study of the markets, of Gann material, and any trading in the commodity markets. I was liter-ally "sick of it". I gave notice to terminate the lease on my ticker, packed it up, and sent it back. I closed out my commodity trading accounts and had all funds sent home. I determined to return to those things which had worked for me in the past. I read my creed every day- once in the morning and the last thing at night. I tried to practice it where I could every day. I went back to the real estate business with new vigor. I passed on the farms because there just wasnt that much market. And I did not want to take the risk necessary to buy and subdivide -a farm. If I could work off an option, I would. I went right back to the beginning-residential properties. This time I was faced with a new problem that I didn't have several years ago when I was dealing with houses. That problem was 17% and 18% interest rates. People were just not moving around very much. (I live in a small town). I realized that people wanted to acquire better housing but it was extremely dif-ficult for first time buyers and young people and slightly less difficult for those who already had equity built up. So I started trading. I started with the lower priced range and all the older, lower assumable rates prop-erties that I could find. I practiced my creed in my busi-ness every day just as I had done several years ago. I would try to satisfy any real estate need as well as I could. If the person in need needed to sell, I tried to be the buyer; if the person in need needed to buy, I tried to be the seller; my creed said that to get supply you must open a channel and to open a channel you must do what? You create a need or find a need. So I looked for needs in the only place I knew to look-the real estate market. Even in the so-called tough housing market of late 1981 and first part of 1982 by the practicing of my creed I had a good period financially. Then I got back into farms as well as houses and from January 1, 1982 through March 30, 1982 I had sold a little better than one million dollars worth of real estate on commissions. (This is a good place to ask you a question that I have often wondered about. What is it that makes a man ignore what he is successful at and suited for-pursue something else that appears more golden, but yet causes

him

16

losses and misery, when he could do so well Just performing his useful function? A personal example-me and the real estate market and me and the commodity markets.) I felt good again and hoped that I had learned something about life and the markets and most of all something about myself. I was back at a good foundation or base-My Creed. (Yours too, now, if you want it.)

Now, through pain, frustration, and not knowing what else to do, I had begun to destroy the wrong attitudes and per-spectives that I had allowed to develop in me. But I was doing this tearing down without knowing it. One day in early 1982, I had purchased a property that I intended to remodel and then sell. I went to talk with this contractor that spe-cialized in remodeling. He was working on a job when I found him; and the lady that he was working for was com-plaining about how much of her house he had torn out and how bad it looked. This contractor said "yes ma'm, it shor looks terrible but you must fust dee-struct fo you can con-struct.1' This statement almost floored me. YOU MUST FIRST OBSTRUCT BEFORE YOU CAN CONSTRUCT. All the things that I said to you in the last chapter about tearing out, tearing down, ripping out these bad habits and attitudes and thinking and perspectives did not just come to me then. It came to me as the sudden revelation when this contractor told the lady who was wor-ried about her home falling in on her; and seeing her and him standing in the awful looking mess that was her home and all the rubble that looked like it could never be put back into anything useful again. It came to me then that this was like the squares or building blocks that I men-tioned in the last chapter. Our lives and market habits and living habits are the same as the home needing remod-eling. I saw clearly for the first time that if I needed remodeling-AND I DIDI-then I would have to tear myself down the way I described to you in the last chapter. I saw then too that I had already made the proper start by getting back to the useful part of my experience and life that had worked for me in the past, namely trying to live and conduct my business by my creed. I had proved that my creed was good and sound and so I would hold fast to it and use it for the basis (base or foundation) of my life in the conduct of my affairs (the building of my squares of living blocks). I had also proved that my real estate activities were sound and useful and that I would use them as my base or foundation for providing a living for ray family and a service for my community. I resolved to always In the future to conduct my real estate activities and my personal life as nearly as I could on the natural laws in my creed. I had proved my creed for ten years, left it, and came back to it, and found that it still proved itself to be true. I also resolved not to ignore my real function; and not to go out on any wild searches for "master anything". I knew now that I had something so valuable that everything I needed could be supplied by the practice of what I already had right here within me (my creed-learned and lived-inside of me. Precisely where the ancients had always said it would be found.) I also knew at this precise time that I would some day find the master time factor of Mr. Ganns and this is when I resolved that when I did find it I would make an effort to reveal it to others that may have searched long and hard for it.

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But I contemplated that I would only reveal it i f it turned out to be worthwhile to others.

My course now was clear for the first time since 1979, no, even further back. No longer, would I allow myself to fear the future about the economy or good times or bad times. Now through living my creed I had the confidence to know that I would do the same things in bad times that I would do in good times. I would meet the demand of others by being sup-ply. Also, I would go back to the commodity markets but this time with a different perspective and attitude. I would go back to studying Mr. Ganns works, but with a different per-spective and attitude. I would go back to my search for the master time factor, but with a different attitude and per-spective. I would do exactly what the contractor had done with the ladies house. I would establish my base or founda-tion as I Indicated above. I had proved it. I knew it was sound. I would take the commodity markets, the Gann material and the search for the master time factor, and I would tear down everything that I could not prove good. I would only do this in my spare time when it WOULD NOT DISRUPT OR HARM MY GOOD SOLID FOUNDATION OR BASE. I would work out a methodical plan of action that would allow me to do these things by depending on myself from within myself. I would not pay any attention to what this person thought about the markets or what that person thought about the markets. I would try to Isolate myself from discussion of the markets and discussion of Gann ma-terial. I would work as the ancients would say "In Silence, By Silence, Through Silence." I would "PROVE ALL THINGS, AND HOLD FAST TO THAT WHICH WAS GOOD."

CHAPTER 5 I

BEGIN AGAIN

I had not understood Mr. Gann's rules or they simply did not work for me. In fact they had not worked much better than the pathetic formula that "my friend" had sold me. The angles hadnt helped me, the squares hadn't helped me, the calcu-lators and master charts hadn't helped me, the trend indi-cators as I had understood and tried to use them hadn't helped me, and the time periods that I had tried to use hadn't helped me. I didn't really know anyone including the Gann experts or maybe I should say particularly the Gann ex-perts that I had met or heard of that the Gann material had really made successful. The only people that I knew that had made any money on the Gann material were people who were selling information or seminars or advisory letters about his ma-terial. (Me too, now, huh?)

At any rate, if I were going to prove all things, and hold fast to that which was good, at this point I would have to throw away the entire Gann trading method. I knew that if the Gann material was ever going to provide a basis for a successful trading system for me, I would have to have a better understanding of it than I had previously had or I couldn't use it. I had always felt that the missing element which would provide the "key" to unlocking the usefulness of his material was that same old master time factor. Until I had that key I knew that the rest of his material was useless to me in trading the markets. I HAD ALREADY PROVED THAT. I also knew that if I were ever going to find the master time factor, I would have to do it my-self. No one was going to give it to me or sell it to me. I HAD ALREADY PROVED THAT TOO.

Circumstances related to you earlier had already caused me to tear down and destroy those things In myself that I had to eliminate. Now I needed to do the same thing with the Gann material. I have indicated to you in the dedi-cation of this booklet how I felt about Mr. Gann. Neverthe-less, common sense (yes, I had it back now) dictated that if I were going to use only those parts of his work that I had proved useful, then I would have to THROW THE WHOLE THING OUT! Now, dear reader, what do you think I did this time? You know me pretty well by now, dont you? No, you are wrong this time. I DID EXACTLY THAT-I THREW THE WHOLE THING OUT. I told you that I had learned my lessons. I learned them well. I learned them the hard way, the painful way. Now my lessons had taught me that if it wasn't good, I wouldn't build on a bad foundation. The bible says that you will know a tree by its fruit. In the commodity markets "good" means profits. I hadn't made any before, using the Gann material, why should I expect to make them now doing the same things that I did then.

Actually, I did retain one single item of the Gann mate-rial. The M5 day calendar period. I incorporated it into my rules. I was determined to acquire the ability to trade the markets. I opened

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a trading account In the spring of 1982. I traded this account based on some simple common sense rules. I made every effort to incorporate into these rules the opposite attitudes and perspectives that I had earlier. I don't propose at this point to go into my trading rules, but, you "know what some of them would be just by reading my story up to this point. For example, I practiced patience by having a rule that I could only enter the market on a new position on one certain day of the week and only under certain condi-tions. I quit keeping up with quotes during the day and would only update my charts the next morning. I would save up the news during the week and only read it on the week-ends. I quit discussing the markets with people. I limited myself to a situation where if I reached a certain profit that was three times the loss that I had allowed myself for a given month then I would quit trading for the month; which ever was reached first the profit or the loss. I had a rule that I would be in no more than two different positions at the same time. I also had a rule that if an account had losses for two straight months I would close the account out. All of my rules were just simple common sense rules that would help me be with a trend and get me out soon if I were wrong. Most of the rules kept me from trading during the time that the markets were opened. I was trading now not to make a living, a killing, or for my ego, but simply to make profits of a good return on my In-vestment, and secondarily to learn more about attitude of myself and to find useful things that would work in the markets. I was gathering materials that I could use in building my successful trading program. When I found some-thing useful I kept it. At the end of 1982, for the first time since I had been trading I had a net profit for the entire year. I had spent very little time trading the markets that year. In other words the less time I spent trading the more money I made.

Since I had so much more free time now that I wasn't looking up squares and time periods and divisional points of price and angles and calculators and getting quotes every hour. I decided to spend that free time looking for one thing. Yes, you know me. The master time factor. I knew that without it and maybe even with it that the rest of the Gann material was worthless to me as far as trading the markets. I had not wasted my time in studying the Gann ma-terial though, because I had re-discovered the value of my creed, and you remember that this was the most valuable knowledge that I ever found.

I had copies of every piece of material that I had been able toacquire about Mr. Gann. I had every piece of all of the pub-lished material that Mr. Gann had ever written except for a small copyrighted booklet entitled "Senator Warren Harding of Ohio Will Be Our Next President". You may not have ever heard of this booklet. I had never heard of it either. But I found it listed in the copyright section in Washing-ton D.G. It was supposed to be in the Library Of Congress but they could not find it. Yes I went to Washington to see what I could find out about Mr. Gann and his work. I told you I had looked hard. Well, as I said, I had all his pub-lished materials and several pieces of documents, letters,

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and unpublished materials. I had notes that I had made in interviews with different people that knew Mr. Gann. I even went to Miami once to interview the people in the neighborhood that Mr. Gann lived in his latter years. Also, I had talked with a man that knew who Mr. Ganns personal as-trologer was. I never knew until then that Mr. Gann would have a personal astrologer. I guess its like thinking that a physician would not have a physician. I will tell you about Mr. Gann's astrologer in a later chapter. Anyway, what I am trying to say is that I had a pretty fair col-lection of material written by Mr. Gann. I decided to use what I had and analyze it in ever way that I could.

First I analyzed every word that he used when he talked about time. I looked the different words up in the dic-tionary and compiled a glossary of sorts. I checked to see if he used different words at different places to say the same things. For example, I found that when he used "or" between two words those two words meant the same thing to him. But they would not have necessarily meant the same thing to me. I would have ordinarily understood them differently. I made a list of words that were different, but meant the same to him. This process began to give me a sort of mindset to the language and expressions of Mr. Gann and I began to see some new meanings to things that he said that I had earlier un-derstood differently.

The next thing that I did was to analyze his quotations and see how many of them that I could find. I also wanted to see why he used them where he did and were they used for any other reason than what they appeared to be on the surface. I knew that my grandparents had expressions that were quaint to our expressions today. I wanted to see if any of those old expressions had different meanings than they do today. So, I checked on all these language aspects. I found that dic-tionaries, encyclopedias, and vocabularies were areas of great potential for learning about anything. They give you concise brief accurate descriptions about any specific word idea or concept. Frequently I found that my understanding of a word or concept was much more vague and ambiguous than I had realized. By looking up important words and even simple words I began to have a clearer mental picture of concepts. By un-derstanding the precise meaning of words and concepts and the various shades of meanings I began to understand better and I began to sense some subtle things that I had not earlier comprehended.

Another thing also came to my attention about this time (Spring and Summer of 1982). That thing was the introduction of the Stock Index Futures to the commodity markets. I told you earlier that I had never been interested in buying and selling stocks themselves. Because of my lack of in-terest in the stock market I had never spent much time study-ing Mr. Ganns stock market books and his stock market course. Oh, I had read "Truth of The Stock Tape" and M45 Years In Wall Street" about 30 times each and I had pretty well memorized certain parts of them. And I had read and studied the Stock Market Course some 20 or 30 times. But I had always read and studied them looking for clues regarding time and

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trying to apply this information to the commodity markets. I was not interested in the information about the Stock Market. I simply rejected this without thinking about it. I wasnt interested in what he had to say about the Dow-Jones or the Stock Market.

If I may digress again this brings up another curious part about life to me. I have noticed and I am sure that you have, that the very thing that we reject as being of no value to us frequently turns out to be the most valuable of all-THE BUILDER'S STONE-lf you will. I have noticed it over and over in my life, that person whom I thought wouldn't amount to anything, that piece of real estate that I thought would never be worth anything, that book or idea that wasn't worth pursuing, they all too often turned out to be the true thing of VALUE. And we have the tendency to reject them because we think that they have no value. Why is this? I think that the answer lies in the area of what I call "mindset". If we learn through habit to look at something positively or negatively, then continue to practice that way of looking at something, then after a pe-riod of time, our understanding and our comprehension of these things tends to take on the nature of the way we viewed them over time. If we viewed them positively our under-standing would reflect to us our viewing rather than the truth. In other words our understanding or comprehension is a reflection of the way we look at something rather than the truth about something. OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORLD AROUND US IS A REFLECTION OF THE WAY WE HAVE LOOKED AT THE WORLD. If we have problems seeing things as they really are, it means that we have built on a FOUNDATION OF KNOWLEDGE that is wrong. Therefore, we must tear out that foundation and replace it with a good one. Otherwise, we stay in a vicious cycle that grows worse with time. The way to avoid this jaundiced view of reality is be AWARE. Be aware that we have this tendency. Reading and living by my creed will make you aware.

Now, it is obvious that Mr. Gann wrote more books and mate-rial on the Stock Market than he did on the commodity markets. But I had rejected the stock market material except as I could apply it to the commodity markets. Again the reason I had rejected it was not that it wasn't important, but sim-ply that I VIEWED it as not important or useful. By doing this, I had rejected the BUILDER!S STONE. Because this would be where I would find the master time factor. To show you how our view of things change and why they do, I have to tell you that when the stock index futures started trading, I realized one day that I had the opportunity to study Ganns stock market books and material and that I could trade that information if it proved useful by trading the index futures. Now, do you see why I was willing to look at it now and saw value to it where I didn't see it before. The reason was that now it was acceptable to me because it wasn't the stock market anymore but it was now the commodity market. I was BLIND to its value until it ap-peared in a form that I could see through the "filters" that I had put on myself. This filter of course fil-tered my vision but as I said above my vision turns out to be my understanding or comprehension or knowledge.

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Now I went after the rejected "builder's stone" with great energy. The same material now had new meaning to me. There were many things to study and learn. (This is the same material, it hadnt changed, I had, or my ATTITUDE to-wards it had). My "mindset" or attitude or vision now al-lowed me the freedom to search for the truth. Remember seeing and finding the TRUTH will make you FREE. If you dont get anything else out of my material, it will be worthwhile to you, if you can just understand what I am trying to say. It is our attitude that gives us our vision and it is our vision that allows us to see (know) what we do and we can only profit in the markets and in life as we react to our knowledge which is based on our vision which is based on our attitude. Tills previous sentence is the most important truth that I will be able to offer you in this booklet. Perhaps you have already realized this and it doesn't see-m important to you. If you have already seen this then it doesn't mean as much to you as it does to me. I guess truths learned mean more than truths known already and I learned this one with much difficulty.

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CHAPTER 6

THE STOCK MARKET, ASTROLOGY,MINDSET,MR. GANN, AND ME.

In ray renewed pursuit of the master time factor via study of Mr. Ganns stock market material which I had previously re-jected as related in the last chapter, I happened across two items in particular that were sudden bursts of revela-tion to me. I guess I am a strange person but when I re-ceive insight of a clear nature about something that has troubled or perplexed me for a long period of time, this sudden dawning of inspiration almost overwhelms me. This is the feeling I had when I received the first revela-tion. It is difficult for me to put this into words be-cause there was no logical reason for me to be excited about seeing this for the first time, it really didn't mean that much but for some subjective reason lights flashed all over Inside me. You will think I have taken leave of my common sense again when I tell you what it was that caused this feeling. I still am not able to describe this feeling to you appropriately, so I will just drop it here. Maybe you understand what I am trying to say.

The thing that caused this feeling was a quotation that Mr. Gann used in his book, "Truth Of The-Stock Tape". I told you that I had been looking up and studying the quotations that he had used in his books and courses. I have a li-brary and study downstairs on a semi-basement level in my home. I am able to get away from all distractions down there. One day I went downstairs and picked up the above mentioned book and just absent-mindedly opened it to page 1. Under the title there were headings of BOOK I and then PREPARATION FOR TRADING. Under this was a quotation from Emerson. It read, "No man can learn what he has not preparation for learning, how-ever near to his eyes is the object. A chemist may tell his most precious secrets to a carpenter, and he shall be never the wiser-the secrets he would not utter to a chem-ist for an estate."-Emerson.

I tell you, truthfully, I felt like I had been knocked down. It floored me. It overwhelmed me. This simple quotation that I read many times, but had never seen, almost took my breath away. For the first time I knew that all Mr. Gann's "time periods, time cycles, time was up, time was not up, time had run out, time had not run out, the time factor, and yes, the MASTER TIME FACTOR"-all his references to time were astronomical cycles and divisions of them. You notice I said astronomical-not astrological. I knew this in a "di-rect-way" that gives me problems describing. The seeing of this and the feeling that it gave me to see this clearly was overpowering.

Now, I knew all the time that Mr. Ganns work was based on astrology, and I knew that his time cycles were based on it too. But I could not bring or did not bring myself to look at his time cycles from an astrological viewpoint for several reasons. The most important reason I didn't, we have already discussed and it

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is most important that you and I always remember this and be aware of this tendency in our make-up as human beings. Of course, the primary reason I couldn't look at the time cy-cles from an astrological standpoint was that I had re-jected astrology because I saw no value to it. It was out-side my experience. Just like in the previous examples my way of viewing an object or concept by putting value to it or not putting value to it with my viewing caused me not to see what was there even though it was there. You understand? Mr. Gann said plain enough in the quotation by Emerson that he had laid his secrets out clear enough but if we did not have the preparation (or FOUNDATION or BASE) then we would not comprehend what those secrets meant. In another way this principle is demonstrated by something as simple as an "Easter Egg Hunt". Dont you remember how sometimes those eggs that were hardest to find were laid out on the ground with nothing hiding them. They were in plain sight. But, because we were looking for them to be hidden, we sometimes had trouble seeing them. Now, I am not telling you that all of Mr. Ganns material was laid out well enough for us to see it. If you had only one of his books and did-n't have his courses you wouldn't understand what I mean. But I had all of his books and courses and some unpub-lished material that had circulated around over time.

Another reason that it had been hard for me to look at his time cycles from an astrological standpoint is that I thought present day astrologers had not been able to take his material and make profits with it. I should amend the previous statement to read that I had not been able to find or hear of an astrologer that had deciphered Mr. Ganns work. The only profits I had heard of being made by as-trologers were those selling seminars or books on using as-trology trading Mr. Gann. But I knew no one that had been able to trade it. So, I just discarded the possibility of my finding out how to use the time cycles by studying astrol-ogy. I guess I thought that if the professional astrolo-gers who knew much more than I did couldnt find it or hadn't found it then it was useless for me to try to use astrology to find the master time factor. My error again, IMPROPER THINKING, as always. You and I have all that we need to do anything. We Just need to realize where our source of supply comes from and then allow it to work. You can read about this source of supply in "The Seeker's Creed". Reading doesn't do it though, you have to practice whats in there.

I know that it is hard to follow me in this chapter. The title of it, alone, is enough to make you run the other way. Its just that I'm not a writer (I'm a seeker) and I have difficulty saying the things I want to say to you. For the rest of this chapter please try to bear with me and realize that I am talking about how the stock market which I had previously rejected, led me to the astrology part which I had previously rejected, because of a "mind-set" that I had built out of my attitude and habits of associating or disassociating value with whatever I had been led by myself or others to think that value should represent. This is a common problem, I believe, and I hope that I have been able to

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correct it somewhat in myself.

Another problem in writing this chapter is that I have two or three things to tell you about; but they didn't happen sequentially, they occurred simultaneously. So I may jump from one to the other in telling you about these different things.

In the beginning of this chapter, I told you that there were two revelations. I have related the one about the quota-tion. On the very same day that the first occurred, the second occurred too. As I was thinking about the above I went to the stock market course to look at the chapter in the course on page 90. The one entitled "FORECASTING BY TIME CYCLES11. For those of you who do not have the stock course, you will find a complete copy of the chapter "FORECASTING BY TIME CYCLES" in Appendix I of my booklet. Please read only the first page of that appendix at this time.

I am quoting the second paragraph of Mr. Gann's "FORECASTING BYTIME CYCLES"------- "The ancient hunters had a rule that when theywere searching to locate an animal in his den, they al-ways followed his tracks backward, figuring that it was the shortest route to his lair. The quickest way for you to learn how to determine future market movements is to study the past."

So what, huh? Well that quotation after the first one I men-tioned above gave me precisely the directions to the path that would lead me to the master time factor! I saw from that quotation that I needed to get into astrology some more and that further I needed to trace back in time the things Mr. Gann had said about time and see if I could track him back to his lair. I had documents and frag-ments of unpublished materials and his books and courses. So I could date most of the things he had written. I would take the latest material first and then go back into time to his earliest material and see if he always said the same things in the same way. Furthermore, I had all kinds of old astrology books that I had purchased earlier but had not really gotten into; so I would look at astrological cycles and let the signs and houses go.

Excuse me for jumping around again, but here's another side trip, and we will come right back. .1 have been on many many paths searching for the master time factor. They have all been dead-end. Now I "know" that the path which ends in "master time factor" is nearby and I promise you that It will not be long before we will get on. Anyway, this side trip. I had talked with an elderly gentleman one time and he said that he had known Mr. Gann by reputation but had never met Mr. Gann. He did say though that Mr. Gann had an astrologer by the name of Edward Johndro who helped him in his work on the markets. Well, you know me, I began to see what I could find out about Mr. Johndro. It was my intention to see if I could find him and if he had already died, I intended to try to find his family and see if he had left any papers. I called the American Federation of Astrologers and had them send me the rest of Mr. Johndro's books that I didn't already have. Then I learned from them of a man that had

studied

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Johndro work as much as any other living person. I then contacted that gentleman in New York and I learned that Mr. Johndro had died in approximately 1955 at about the same time as Mr. Gann. The death was apparently "sudden" and because this Mr. Johndro was a famous astrologer and had clients that were high officials of the Canadian government, his papers were burned by his family at the request of these offi-cials. I did not pursue the matter further from here. The gentleman in New York said that he was not interested in talking about financial astrology except to say that Mr. Johndro had some very Interesting ideas on it. I tried reading Mr. Johndro's work several times but I did not have a good enough foundation (preparation) to understand it very well. I noticed that the cover on his booklet "A New Concept Of Sign Ruler ship" appeared to resemble some of Mr. Ganns circular calculators, but I just assumed that it was be-cause Mr. Gann's calculators were all related to something from astrology. The important thing that I learned from this was that Mr. Johndro was a mundane astrologer. So I be-gan a study of mundane astrology. Furthermore I wanted to look only at the writings from 1920 back in time because I knew that Mr. Gann had begun trading by 1902.

So, my approach now, was going to be threefold. One-I would study to see what mundane astrologers thought at the turn of the century and earlier; two-I would try to identify each one of Mr. Gann's Important time cycles by an astro-logical time cycle; and, three-I would try to relate the first two approaches together and see if there were any parities or disparities between them. At the same time I was going to track the writings that he had made back in time from those nearest his death to those earliest in his life. I was excited now because I "knew" that I was get-ting somewhere.

In my searching through astrology books for old mundane astrological precepts I came to the conclusion that the useful part of astrology for me at that particular time would be something similar to the following. I had read where some people said that they did not believe in as-trology, but that they did believe that the planets In the solar system caused magnetic and electric fields in our earth's atmosphere and certainly we must respond to them in different ways at different times. Some of these distur-bances could cause waves of optimism and pessimism and weather disturbances. Certainly I could believe that and I was now willing to look at ideas and concepts that I would not earlier have looked at with sincerity. Now, you under-stand, I was FREE; free to look at things that I would have earlier not been able to see, even if I had looked at it, because, now I had my filters and blinders off. Also, to me I was studying astronomy, a science; where astrology is merely an Interpretation of events and conditions that may in fact have been caused by astronomical relationships. Also, I knew that earlier generations were more practical than we give them credit for today. They knew more than we think they knew. In fact, I believe that they knew more than we do to-day about some things. I knew from my real estate activi-ties that if I found an old ditch on a farm and someone said that I needed to put a new ditch on the farm, the best

place

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for me to put that ditch would be exactly where that old ditch had been dug. Old-timers had to dig a ditch by hand. They were not about to dig one where it was not needed. Over the years, I have learned to acquire a great respect for the ancients and what they thought. I knew that their fables and myths all had some important truths behind them. I had also learned from HARD experience not to reject anything as having no value just because my edu-cational background and Social circle saw no value in it.

I have mentioned to you earlier about the great value I had found in using dictionaries and encyclopedias. One of the best sources of general and specific information about astrology that I have found Is a book, "Encyclopedia Of Astrology" by Nicholas deVore. Even though I had glanced through this book several times in the past I had my blinders on and therefore could not see. Now that I was free I was almost blinded again by the light that came from looking at this and other books. Everywhere I looked, one book after the other the following messages came through over and over.

Major conjunctions (of the planets, where two superior to earth orbit planets appear to be in the same spot in the sky) are very important in the consideration of world events, and in all mundane affairs. Used in connection with the solar ingress charts, they serve as focal points of the greatest influence, and reveal the cosmic forces radiating Upon the earth. "The old astrologers placed GREAT importance upon the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, and rightly since this conjunction involves the two largest bodies of our solar system. It has always seemed that the conjunction of these two planets has had the greatest influence and significance upon the course of world affairs. The 'life1 of the Influence of these great conjunctions upon world affairs and Individuals re-mains in force until the next conjunction of the same pair of planets. THE TIME FROM ONE CONJUNCTION TO THE NEXT CONJUNCTION OF THE SAME PAIR OF PLANETS MAY BE CONSIDERED AS A 'CYCLE1. Major conjunctions when considered in the light of Cycles1 MEASURE periodical his-torical events, or the epochs in the changing world condi-tions, and even the rise and fall of civilizations.

Again, more"To the ancients the longest orbits ( the tim