Taking inventory of what I don't know

Needless to say, it dwarfs what I do know.  It would seem prideful even to suggest the question, but I think it a good exercise for anyone to routinely ask simply to restore some acceptable level of humility.

The 'specific exercise' I'd intuitively set upon was self prompted but became an issue when a particularly 'noxious commenter' unconsciously reissued the challenge.  The 'specific exercise' was to look at every letter of the acrostics and telestics of "The Tunnel Thru the Air" and determine whether the letters, already sequentially ordered in the book, spell a proper noun…a person's name…that was equal to or exceeds four letters.  My intent was to find out if there were person's names of any frequency that are the length of or greater than the length of my name 'Jimi ross' that appears in TTTTA.  I wanted to know that before I capstoned the '7th prophecy' series wherein I found my name in TTTTA.  I wanted to know that first, for myself, because I wanted this simple test to let me know, yes or no, whether this simple test of improbability was favorable or unfavorable to the '7th prophecy.'

The 'noxious commenter' had alleged a person could create any words he wanted to create out of an infinite population of letters.  Duh.  There are 15304 lines in TTTTA and, hence, there are 15304 acrostic letters (first letter of a line) and 15304 telestic last letters in the entire book.  A total of 30608 letters in total.  And those letters are not re arrangeable.  They are in a sequential and fixed order.  It is a good idea, here, to give an example.

Here is one page of TTTTA as an example.  I picked it for several purposes.  The page I chose is not random, but has a purpose.  HERE is the  first edition, first printing copy of page 209 of TTTTA as it appears on archive.org.  Translated into the Excel worksheet I have created, and which has an acrostic and telestic word finder, are those same words with the same words, line spacing and line breaks.

Compare the two versions for yourself because the implications are otherwise difficult to deny.  You will have to live with the implications such as you may find.

Look vertically top to bottom at column (f), the telestic letters, do you see any words?  Why yes, I see "hen" and "net:"

That wasn't so tough.  But you might have puzzled over the four contiguous/consecutive letters, 's':

How odd.  What is the probability?  If this occurs a lot in TTTTA which is exactly 15304 lines long, might they represent time markers in a map of a cycle…a line for a day, perhaps?  Ahh, context for a future essay.  

Back to the recognizable words on page 209.  Now let's look at the acrostic column, (e).  How about imagining the word "TOA," doesn't that sound familiar?

Google search "TOA" and we find in Wikipedia a good 20 or so possibilities….goodness, TOA, a mnemonic in trigonometry.  Didn't Mr. Gann say something about geometry, math, science?  Wasn't Robert Gordon's 7 days all about a Pythagorean theorem application, DesCartean coordinate trip around the world?  Might Mr. Gann be referencing "SOH-CAH-TOA."  Of course, if you failed high school trig you'd fail to recognize "tangent = opposite / adjacent" or "TOA."  But, maybe this is just a random word.  Since I have looked at every line in TTTTA and I know how many times and where "TOA" appears, I can say it is not random.  I know that because I have done the work.  You don't know so you can say EITHER "I don't know" or "I'll test your knowledge."  You are NOT entitled to say "You are wrong" or "I doubt it."  Both are forms of the same untruth.  Think about it.

Thinking done, two more acrostic words and three consecutive letter i's:

'TAE,' a Scottish word for 'to' or 'too'….and 'was,' well, you know that one and 'I-I-I' perhaps another cycle marker in the supposed map.

This is what I go through with every one of the 432 pages of TTTTA and 'I know' what is there to the extent of my human capability.  But I do miss words, I don't know all the Latin, Tai, Scottish…. words Mr. Gann may or may have not thrown at me, and it is simply hard to concentrate on every page, 100%.  Human error.

Speaking of error, perhaps the first several times I've looked at the 432 this way, I missed a very important word.  Its easier to pick out the 3 and 4-letter words.  You get patterned in that thought process.  Might you miss this 5-letter word:

'YAHwa' - Yahweh…. Let that sink in for a moment.  In the first several acrostic telestic reading, I missed Mr. Gann's spelling of God.  He does it only once in TTTTA and I know that because I immediately went to my acrostic/telestic word finder and confirmed it.  Only once.  'God' is spelled exactly 3 times found HERE.  'Jehovah' is not spelled as a whole acrostic/telestic word, but 'I know' Mr. Gann will have constructed it somewhere, somehow in TTTTA.  'I know' because I have faith that I understand the intent and contrivances of this man…this great man.  It's only a matter of time as to when and who will find 'Jehovah.'

Having found the word 'YAHwa' on page 209, I re-read that page' full narrative with reflection.  Mr. Gann wanted me to see stuff there would be my suspicion.

So, this lengthy post has me dealing with a noxious commenter who claimed that I can, quite dishonestly, construct words out of an infinity of letters.  Well, this one page has exactly 40 lines on it and exactly 40 acrostic and 40 telestic "opportunities" on it.  Not an infinity.  And there are 432 pages with various numbers of lines on them all adding up to 15304 lines; 15304 acrostic opportunities and 15304 telestic opportunities.  Not an infinity.  And the letters are ordered.  I can't reorder them…they are Mr. Gann's ordering which he created with "forethought," purposeful contrivance and planning.  I "know" this because I have done the work and continue doing so.  You can't say otherwise because you have not done the work.

But there is more to deal with in this post than a refutation of a claim.  It's new knowledge for the noxious one and new knowledge and, dare I say, wisdom learned of the "getteth" for myself.  In bullet form to make it more rememberable:

• A person who contradicts you wrongfully may be doing so out of ignorance or dishonesty.  If he leaves you with, "this is why" then it is ignorance and up to you to help him.  It's a duty of response.  If he leaves you with simply "I doubt it" or "you are wrong" or "you are dishonestly using an infinite population" they are lying.  They may not know they are lying so it remains necessary to correct them for your integrity and to eliminate their dishonesty from infecting others.  

• Correction need not be couched in "…cast not pearls before swine…" but, as a good friend reminds me, a gentler version of that same analogy found in Hebrews 5:12-14 that we feed milk for those unable for meat and meat for those capable of meat.  I am guilty and I will change.

• Always give a response to others of "I don't know" if I haven't studied it, or "I doubt it because…." or "I wish I could study it now but…."  A response of "I doubt it but don't have time to study and I might change my mind later" is as wrong as the dispositive statement "You are wrong" without giving the rationale to help the respondent understand.

• And, at some point, a person is so bigoted that you cannot communicate with them on an intellectual level.  That's when you simply walk away.

So in re-reading page 209, I find it incredibly, if not a near epiphany, that I find these first words:

I did not plan that I would find those words.  I did plan that 'YAHwa' be revealed.  But I cannot prove to you what I intended.  Its up to you to judge the truth.

I haven't taking an inventory as promised.  I do know what I don't know is infinite…but I do know what I do know now is greater than when I began this essay.  I guess, in that, I'm less worse off than before.  "Inch by inch, step by step…"

Jim Ross