Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Did DreamingOfMashiach Predict Fannie Mae's Woes?

This is the problem of allowing rather broad interpretations of predictions to be fulfillment. This is why many people think their horoscopes are accurate.

Shirat Devorah thinks that DreamingOfMoshiach was "on the money" with her prediction of the present financial woes. As she writes,
On 23 October 07, Dreaming of Moshiach predicted the current situation: Analysts predict more US Banks will fail
The problem is that this is not what DreamingOfMoshiach predicted at all. Even if she had merely predicted financial woes, she explicitly did it with no set time. Thus,
Many have emailed me asking me if I was told when bankruptcy of the banks will happen? The answer is that I don't recall that a date was given but I was told to quickly withdraw the donation money for building the Tzion for Devorah HaNevia, a'h.
That kept the urgency but left it with no fixed time, so that this dream prophecy remained unfalsifiable -- no one could say "Aha! Date X passed and nothing happened." And since financial markets fluctuate up and down, anyone could point to a downturn and claim it as the fulfillment of the prophecy.

At any rate, what was her actual prediction? I quote, bolding specific sections:
11 Cheshvan, Shamayim told me to quickly begin withdrawing the donation money that was collected for Devorah HaNevia, a'h, from the bank because very soon, all banks will be bankrupt.
I was shown what will happen when the banks will go bankrupt; there is going to be such a mess... No one will be able to withdraw from any bank even a nickel... All previously written checks that were not yet cashed will not be honored... People will get charged for returned checks, although it's not their fault... There will be so much havoc, confusion, and anger....

People were feeling very frustrated and confused, crying, 'I never saw it coming...". Everyone became so money-crazed.... People were banging on banks' doors to be let in... The workers in the bank were also petrified because they also lost all their money and the only reason they came to 'work' was not to work, but to try to save their money. Everything seemed so chaotic...
There may be an increase in failing banks, but as the article makes clear, these were, and will be, covered by the FDIC. Typically, bank accounts are insured by the FDIC up to $100,000.
The FDIC has $53 billion set aside to reimburse consumers for deposits lost at failed banks. IndyMac will eat up $4 billion to $8 billion of that fund, the agency estimates, and that could force it to raise more money from the banks that it insures.
Thus, it does not seem like all banks are failing, and that customers are out any money, assuming they had under $100,000 in the account. There was no reason to take my money out of the bank, where it is earning me interest, and put it under my mattress while inflation and the fall of the dollar would make it worth less money.

I've seen enough of these dubious predictions claimed to have been fulfilled, in rather dubious ways. Until I actually see a prediction actually come true, without kvetch -- and perhaps several, since if you make a bunch of wild predictions, one might randomly come true -- I will continue to view DreamingOfMoshiach as merely a delusional person.

Indeed, she made another prediction, with more or less a fixed date. She claimed that the Zohar claims that President "Gog" (oy!) Bush is going to cancel the US elections. (Perhaps an analysis of this claim, and its purported partial fulfillment, in a subsequent post.) So if November comes and goes and we get to elect a President Obama or a President McCain, DreamingOfMoshiach will have some egg on her face.

Except of course she won't. Either because people will ignore the failed predictions (and she has had failed predictions in the past, for example in this post from 2006 where she more or less predicted a nuclear war of Gog and Magog in 40 days from the date of the post). Or because people will give extremely charitable explanations such that almost any prediction can be made true. Or they will claim that the actions of the faithful somehow prevented the disaster.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

She is not the only one to predict that (Gog) Bush will announce martial law and there will be something that will delay the elections. The Book of Daniel speaks of "a time, time and a half" during this period of (Gog) - to hear the radio broadcast about this go to http://redemption5768.com - Dowload #5

joshwaxman said...

Bli neder, I will try to find time to listen to that audio file, to be able to respond intelligently.

But off the cuff, if the US elections are not canceled, I will think no less of Daniel, and my opinion on the Zohar will not be changed. Because I've read enough Karaitic derashot, and enough Sabbatean derashot, to realize that false derashot of true sources are easy to produce. I have seen the shoddy interpretations of Zohar to "predict" September 11th, and was not persuaded. As such, I realize that these are *interpretations* of Daniel, and Zohar, rather than necessarily what these extremely ambiguous sources actually say.

I would guess that there are various assumptions built in or interpreted -- e.g. that the US is Edom, that Bush is Gog. The fact that from the description of the audio file, Torah Codes are used, does not inspire me with confidence. With wiggle room built in, all sorts of fake results are possible. (And the scientists who do promote it do so under very specific scientific setup.) Christians also have started doing their own Bible codes,
http://www.revelation13.net/KingJames.html

All the best,
Josh

joshwaxman said...

OK, I listened to the audio (download 5) and I was unimpressed.

This stuff is no different than gematrios one hears at some bar mitzvas. It is possible to do anything with gematrias (and Torah codes), especially when you are free to bring in atbash and albam, and you can come to any conclusions you want. Here are Jesus codes in sefer Yeshaya.
http://www.biblecodedigest.com/page.php/536

My favorite from the audio so far: "vekaraas is same as gematria as HaShabbos (707), telling us desecration of Shabbos is what need to fix."
Why HaShabbos rather than Shabbos? Because otherwise the gematria wouldn't work.

hit rock twice = 9/11. great, but what about the Pentagon that was also hit that same day?

It is free association under the guise of Torah. In all likelihood, one should not say birchas haTorah on this stuff. It reminds me of the sequence in the movie "A Beautiful Mind" about the life of John Nash, where he found secret messages encoded in newspapers from the communists, where these codes were in fact not deliberate. But the mind likes to draw connections. (In actual life, his delusions were about space aliens, not communists, if I understand correctly.)

As such, I do not believe Daniel predicted anything of the sort. I do think that this fellow has utilized Torah codes to reinforce his delusions, so as to *claim* that Daniel has predicted this.

But we will see. What will you say if the elections are not canceled? (Bli neder, I'll send you a reminder if they are not.) Will you say that Daniel's prediction was false? Though this is jumping ahead of ourselves.

All the best,
Josh

joshwaxman said...

Running with haShabbat, because that was my example, I would point out that the following webpage has a bunch of other words which add up to 707.
http://www.c2kb.com/gematria/index.php?word=707&submit=+-+%E7%F9%E1+-+

Thus, הסוכריות, the candies, have 707. So does רופא שיניים. Thus, the problem is not Shabbos violation, but people rotting their teeth and then having to go to the dentist. Or it is להתערב, because people are making improper bets. Off-track gambling is holding back mashiach. Or people being too nosy and interrupting! This just mildly shows the wiggle room one has in making conclusions based on gematrias.

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