Is Invisibility Possible for Humans?

In the paranormal world, the impossible is often possible.  We just need explanations for the underlying mechanisms.  In college, I had a good friend who claimed that his mother snapped a photo of him when he was only about seven years old while kneeling on the sofa.  When the photo was developed, it revealed only two indents in the sofa pillow where his knees would have been.  He was entirely invisible!  I concluded there had to be something wrong with the story. However, years later, while exploring the world of psychics and the paranormal, I was privvy to a number of photographs of people - very often psychic mediums - which showed them in partial states of invisibility.  I recall a series of photos of a woman dancing with a man.  She was fully visible in the first photo but progressively the photos showed her arms simply becoming invisible!  Other photos showed people in various states of transparency or with limbs disappearing.  Suddenly, it occurred to me that this was not an isolated phenomenon.

What if we could really make ourselves invisible?  How would that work?

It never dawned on me that I too might have that capability - but I learned I too have shown up as partially invisible in photographs!  One such photo is posted on my website.  My head is partially transparent.  You can see the panes of the window behind me running through the area where my head ought to have been.  There is also - if you look carefully - the image of a woman's head and shoulders seemingly attached to the righthand base of my neck!  On that evening, I was operating in my capacity as a spiritual medium in a haunted location.  Is this result of the medium elevating their body's light vibration beyond the normal optical range?  Or is it the result of a certain shielding acquired by some strange condition in the environment?  I don't have the answer.

Shamans talk about shapeshifting.  This is really another way of saying that you can become invisible by altering the fundamental nature of your spirit.  John Perkins describes such events in his book "Shapeshifting" where he was unable to recognize one of his South American colleagues who literally disappeared when he camouflaged his naked body as a bush near a park bench.  The way Perkins describes it, the man was literally invisible.

Then it occurred to me. I had learned how to be invisible a long time ago while I was still an attorney practicing securities litigation in New York.  The law firm had only four attorneys - two senior partners, one of-counsel attorney, and one associate (me!).  It was a cold, highly intellectual environment.  My only real friend and confidante was the of-counsel attorney, Harold.  I generally felt very inadequate and unappreciated.  The attorneys generally kept their doors shut all day as they worked.  It was the firm's unwelcoming culture.  I would occasionally wander into Harold's office across the hall and we would discuss legal theories.  I didn't really talk to anyone else.  I worked at the firm every day for seven years.

About 15 years later, I needed to find an attorney for a friend.  I decided to reach out to my old friend Harold.  He was now a solo practitioner in New York since the old firm had dissolved.  I called him up and it was as if we had just spoken yesterday.  Same voice, same friendly banter - until Harold interrupted me and politely asked me who I was because he couldn't remember me at all!  I quickly explained I had worked there for seven years as an associate.  He remained confused.  Harold named every associate and intern who had ever worked there - both prior to my employment and afterward -but still couldn't remember ever meeting me!  I found this preposterous.  I identified dates, locations, cases, and even my physical description - I even emailed him a photo of me -  but he still couldn't recall who I was.  Apparently, I had been invisible at this law firm!  Invisible - literally!  What a concept!

Perhaps I shapeshifted unwittingly, like a chameleon, one of my first and only pets as a child.  Perhaps I altered my actual visual appearance because I did not truly want to be there.  In fact, it occurred to me afterwards, that ever since I was a child - for some unknown reason - it was not uncommon for my friends to not recognize me while passing me in the school hallway!  Indeed, once my own father once failed to recognize me when I was 26 years old.  I ran into him unexpectedly at a medical convention in New York.  I bounded up to him and greeted him warmly, to which he responded, "You will have to excuse me, Miss, but who are you?"  Neither my physical appearance nor my voice had changed since our last meeting.  I was faced with the strange task of advising him that I was his (only) daughter.   Another form of invisibility or shape shifting.

Today, scientists are just beginning to understand the technology of making objects invisible by bending the rays of light so they travel around the periphery of small objects instead of landing on the direct surface.  But I have witnessed, with my own eyes, a UFO the size of a football field that instantly became "invisible" in the sky (it did not fly away at a high speed - it simply disappeared in the blink of an eye!).  Clearly, someone has already mastered this technology and they are giving it practical applications.  It's time we put some more effort into understanding invisibility.  It's not magic...

Cherry Trees Are Like Fancy Pillows!

 

Now that it is springtime, most of us are enjoying the early flowering trees and bushes - in particular, the cherry and plum trees, dogwoods and magnolias, at least in the Northeast part of the U.S.  If I mention "cherry trees" most of you will smile sweetly with love.

I, the other hand, have grown to hate them!

The problem is that no one plants "real" shade trees anymore.  We plant these cute little ornamental flowering trees.  They are cheap, small and plentiful.  They look good and don't take up too much space in a property.  But they are really just glorified bushes.  They are not trees and our planet desparately needs to replace its trees which provide shade and oxygen in an increasingly warm and toxic planet.  The latest trend in industrial parks, parking lots, municipal streets, store properties and residential properties is to plant one or two ornamental trees.  This is, in my opinion, a huge mistake and, I predict, most urban and suburban areas will soon only have these tiny ornamental flowering trees and all the other larger trees will disappear.  Our urban and suburban areas will begin to bake in our growing planetary heat.  We will have less oxygen to breathe without our giant shade trees like the oak, beech, maple, elm, chestnut, and so on.  Ornamental trees are virtually the ONLY trees being planted these days.  They are the tree of choice for homeowners, shopping mall parking lots, industrial parks, gas stations, small shops, and tree-lined streets. Everywhere you look the large trees are being cut down and if they are replaced at all, they are replaced by these little flowering trees.  Why?  They are pretty for two weeks in the spring, and, unlike those other pesky big shade trees, ornamental fruit trees are small and don't block the view of the magnificent home or shopping mall store signs we wish to show off.  They do not block the view of the corporate building or stores.  Trees are annoying because they interfere with our ability to make more money!  That's the bottom line. 

Ornamental trees are like pretty, little pillows.  They look nice for interior decoration, but they have little real value.  If you want to sit down some place, you need a real sofa, not a tiny pillow!  Shade trees are like a sofa.  You can plant little ornamental trees all around the big shade tree and it will make for very pretty decoration, but don't replace the shade trees with ornamental trees.  We need our shade and oxygen in the world of global warming!

The Value of Mediumship

I recently attended an event held by a medium, Sylvia Rossi, a new friend of mine.  She gave readings to her audience of roughly 50 people for an astounding five hours!  She was charming, sincere, humble and very thorough.  Some of her readings were startlingly accurate and others were more general.  She did not try to force the information for the sake of performance.  I liked that about her.

After she had given readings to almost everyone in the room, toward the end of the fifth hour, Sylvia said,  "I'm getting a Virginia? Vincent?  Uh.... Virgil?"   I raised my hand, a bit uncertainly.  The odds of picking the name "Virgil" while standing next to me were pretty slim.  Yes, I knew a Virgil who had passed into the Spirit World.  But he wasn't human.

"Yes," I said.  "He was my dog."

"I'm getting the sense he was a fun-loving kind of a dog, right? Very mischievous."

"Yes," I confirmed,  "Virgil was a goofball of a dog."

"I'm seeing him flying around with little wings.. like little angel wings!" 

I laughed skeptically.  "I doubt that!" I said.

Sylvia reconsidered. "Yes... perhaps due to his size.  Was he large?"

"Large" would have been an understatement.  Virgil was enormous!  He was perhaps the largest Irish Wolfhound who ever walked the planet!  Seriously!   People used to mistake him for a small horse.  I loved Virgil.  I was very sad when my ex-husband (who has since died and who apparently did not feel the need to communicate with me via Sylvia), who kept Virgil after the divorce, simply neglected him.  One day, Virgil just up and ran away and never came back.  That was the last we ever heard of him.  It was perhaps strange to be contacted by an animal from the Spirit World, but for me, it was perfect.  No other animals attempted to communicate that evening!  Do I believe animals have spirits?  Yes. I have seen the ghosts of animals before and was able to confirm their existence by objective means later.  Do they have "souls" like humans?  I believe animals have souls - I have seen how animals have the capacity to express love and that is the essence of soul.

Then Sylvia did another reading for a person in audiience and then asked, "Is there anyone here who had a college friend who passed away?"

No one raised their hand and so I realized this was probably for me.

I said, "Yes." 

Sylvia did not give much information on this reading.  She simply said, "Well, she wants you to know that she really appreciated what you did for her before she passed on."

These seemed awfully generic, but I have learned that even generic information in a psychic reading can mean something incredibly personal and promote healing!   As I have often said, information belongs to the listener, not the teller - one of those strange truths which rattle the nerves of scientists and empiricists.

One of my closest friends in college was an extraordinarily beautiful, exotic and intelligent woman named Susan Hurley.  Sue was truly brilliant.  I remember being mesmerized by her.  She graduated summa cum laude as the Salutatorian of her class, a year ahead of me, at Princeton University with a prize for best thesis in philosophy, and later went on to get her JD from Harvard Law School.  The New York Times later wrote an article about Sue when she became the first female fellow ever to be admitted at the All Souls College at Oxford University in England.  Clearly, she was a superstar on a pathway to international fame.  We lost touch with each other after college.

Roughly 30 years later, I decided to see if I could look her up and find out where she was in the world.  In May, 2007, as luck would have it, I found her living in England.  She was a professor of philosophy at Bristol University in England.  Sue had already made a reputation for herself in the academic world through her writings on the nature of Consciousness.  I sent her an email, hoping she would remember me.  We spent the next month catching up on 30 years worth of news.  But soon her emails stopped coming.  I received an email from her secretary one day who advised me that Sue was suffering from breast cancer and was too weak to respond to emails. 

In August, Sue died.  I had managed to contact her - after 30 years of silence - just 3 months before her death!  Life is sometimes very strange.  I wondered whether I had somehow been psychically prompted to get in touch with her for a final farewell before her death.  I saved various obituaries about her from the papers and tucked them away.  But I never cried. 

When Sylvia said that my friend had appreciated what I had "done for her" just prior to her passing, I did not believe her.  I knew I hadn't "done" anything for Sue!  I simply reached out to her just before her death and said hello.

But two days later, while driving on the highway, I suddenly burst into tears.  I realized that I was finally grieving for the loss of my college friend, Sue Hurley, who had so delighted and captivated me many, many years ago.  I couldn't believe she was dead - and at such a young age - whereas she would always remain young and beautiful in my mind like the last time I had seen her.  Perhaps, in spirit terms, I had actually "done" something for her after all, and managed to locate her - at the eleventh hour - so we could say our farewells to each other, and perhaps that created some sort of peace for her as a dying woman. 

So, Sylvia's words ended up meaning something very specific for me after all.  Even though I didn't get a message from my dead relatives, I got a message from my dead dog and dead college friend.  And so I ended up, like all those other teary-eyed people in the audience, weeping privately later for someone who was dear to me and came through, very unexpectedly, with a message I could never have anticipated...

The War of the Words (Worlds)

Rush Limbaugh's "slut" and "prostitute" references to describe Georgetown law school student Sandra Fluke as she testified before Congress about her belief that women need birth control coverage helped us to reach a new low point in poisonous national debate about political issues. 

Why did Rush, as one of nation's best beloved Republican commentators feel a need to engage in such low blows [pardon me!] and to attack a student?   I guess he was right:  even though he lost a few advertisers, he gained priceless national news coverage.  

And just like when British up-and-coming [pardon me again] actor Hugh Grant got caught by police engaged in blow job with a Los Angeles prostitute Divine Brown and the details of their sex act were splashed across newspapers all over the world, Hugh Grant's acting career as a sex symbol sky-rocketed after his arrest, and Divine earned more than $1.5 million from media interviews and guest-show appearances afterwards. I guess illegal sex is okay after all - and pornographic language is okay too. 

And then of course there was left-wing commedian Bill Maher who decided to jump into the Rush Limbaugh fray.  Bill Maher defended Rush's characterizations of the young law student.  After all, why crucify the guy?  I guess Bill should  know.  He tweeted gleefully: "Hate to defend #Rush Limbaugh but he apologized, liberals looking bad not accepting. Also hate intimidation by sponsor pullout." [ouch! pardon him!]. 

But then the Republicans had a new whipping boy to pay for all the Democrats' verbal brow-beating of Rush.  So, Bill was now accused of using similar bad language in past episodes of his HBO Show and of being a mysongyist for calling former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin a long list of nasty names involving female parts.  The Democrats responded by saying at least Bill is a comedian as opposed to Rush who is a serious political commentator.  Hmmmm.  As if that were truly an excuse for ANYONE using nasty language! 

So here's the problem with all this:  Using nasty sexual language against women pays.  And here's the worse problem:  We are becoming a nation incapable of having a civil discussion (Ew! Boring!!).  If you have been watching television recently you should have noticed that almost all of our television shows are based on nasty, condescending, hurtful competitions, brutal confrontations, and people yelling obscenties at each other.  It makes for excellent drama. We love it.  The problem is that we no longer feel it is necessary or even VALUABLE to have a decent conversation.  Everyone's a whore, slut, cunt, bitch, bastard, mo-fo, or whatever.  Frankly, it just doesn't pay.  It pays to fight.  And so we do.  Our Democrat and Republican leaders have taken their cue from us.  They can no longer have a civil discussion.  They don't know how to listen.  They get more sound bytes and air-time when they say nasty things. 

Compromise is for suckers.  Right?  Nice guys finish last.  Right?  This nation will have to relearn civility in order to avoid Civil War - which is looking like a viable answer to all our problems right now!

We Live in a Brain World

Above are three photos - two are computer circuit boards and one is an arial map of Vatican City.  If you squint, you won't know which is which.  They look strangely similar to one another.  Which leads me to my main point: we humans have ceased to understand the degree to which we manifest our inner world of thoughts and ideas on our environment.  We no longer see how much we impose our brain concepts on our world.  The circuit boards look like arial views of our cities because our cities reflect how we build our environment:  we operate on a human system of connections, energy transfer and storage.  We move information.  The earth is beginning to look like a strangely human fantasy.

I recently flew from Florida to New Jersey.  As usual, I sat by the window, utterly fascinated by the shapes and forms of our cities, towns, and rural areas as seen from the air.  I have watched these areas transform over my lifetime.  Today I see that we are running out of space and we live our American Dream on little postage-sized square plots of land with a house on top.  Millions of little stamp-like properties side by side attached like soldered connections on a circuit board.  It is clear, from the air, that trees are disappearing. There is not enough room on each little property to permit a few trees, let alone woodlands, to flourish.  We think it is not important.  We prefer a big, flat, green lawn in front of our home.  It makes our house look big and requires little maintenance other than lots of precious watering.

Which brings me to my next point.  Since we live in our brains, we no longer understand that we actually share this planet with animals, insects, dirt, germs, and plants.  We think we have the right to permanently exterminate them from our tidy little lives.  After all, in our minds, the environment belongs to us!  We seem to think that plants, like domesticated cattle, should be controlled, groomed and used exclusively for our seasonal pleasure.  The average suburban yard is actually rather like a modest version of the gardens at the Versailles Palace.  Our trees and plants are manicured so that they no longer resemble nature.

We need to step back a moment.  Look at this world we have "created" from our brains.  Ask ourselves if we can surrender control to the natural forms of Nature and permit the plants, animals, and insects to create their own habitats to coincide with and inside ours.  Give up the suburban fantasy dream of a clipped, manicured yard with fences to keep those pesky birds and animals out.  Share the dream with non-humans.

Sinister Games with a "Free Market"

During my lifetime, there have been world events that I never fully understood.  Why were these things happening?  No one ever seemed to have a good explanation.  Some of these "unrelated" events have begun to create a pattern.  Take a look and let me know what you think:

The Sudden Disappearance of the Rain Forest

I never understood why, over the past two or three decades, has the Amazon rainforest, the so-called "Lungs of the Planet Earth" has suddenly been disappearing at an alarming rate.  Did  cattle ranchers suddenly come into alot of cash to clear their lands of trees? Why would South American governments fail to protect their most valuable asset?  Why is this happening so fast despite international outcry?  For example, in only six years (2000-2006) Brazil alone deforested an area of its rainforests the size of the country of Greece!  Since 1970, it has lost 232,000 square miles of forest.  That's like a goddam disappearing act!  What the heck is going on?

Presidents Dying in Airplane Crashes

Isn't it odd how many presidents of countries have died in airplane crashes?  Equadorian president Jaime Roldós Aguilera (1981), the Panamanian leader Omar Efraín Torrijos (1981), Polish President Lech Kaczinsky (2010), Philipine President Ramón del Fierro Magsaysay  (1957), Rwanda President President Juvenal Habyarimana (1994), Macedonian president Boris Trajkovski (2004), Pakistani president General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq (1988), Mozambique President Samora Machel (1986), Iraqi President Abdul Salam Arif (1966), to name only a few.  I thought air travel was supposed to be the safest method of travel - especially if you are a national leader!

Corporations Have the Rights of "Natural Persons"

As an attorney, I was shocked to read about a U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. The Federal Election Commission in 2010.  That decision extended "corporate personhood" into a realm of nightmares.  Corporations now have the rights of real "natural persons" (just like you and me) under the First Amendment of the U.S. Consititution.  As a result, they are now free to lobby and pump as much money as they want into our "democratic" presidential elections!  Last year alone, the Fortune 100 corporations had $13 trillion of combined revenues (roughly equal to the size of our national debt).  Many of them, including oil drilling companies, are controlled by foreign nationals with interests not the same as ours.  We are no longer living in a democracy of "one man, one vote."  We live in a "more money, more votes" democracy now.  Our "national interest" is now a corporate interest.

$5 Million Gift and Estate Tax Exemptions Created

Another bizarre development:  In 2010, Congress passed tax legislation that raised the estate tax exemption to $5 million per person ($10 million per couple) and created a $5 million lifetime gift tax exclusion per person.  They are both much higher than they ever been historically.  Why now?  Aren't we in a recession?  In 2002, the estate tax exemption was only $1 million.  Now the wealthy are entitled to keep even more of their money than ever before in our American history.  Why?  So they can avoid paying taxes on their estates when they die and can gift millions of dollars to others during their lifetime tax-free.  The net effect of this legislation:  the rich get richer and the United States gets poorer.

The Global Collapse Caused by Bankers and Bailed Out by Governments

None of us will soon forget the worldwide financial crisis from 2007-2010. The stock markets around the world collapsed due to the totally strangely unregulated sale of mortgage derivatives; then the U.S. government bailed out banks to the tune of $700 billion in 2008 (more recent estimates suggest it was closer to $1.2 trillion); then we watched in total disbelief as Obama's Administration failed to attach any strings to the use of our money and the recipient banks gleefully showered their employees with more than $14 billion in year-end bonuses; mortgage lenders engaged in shady subprime lending practices resulting in the collapse of the housing market; and investment bankers share a revolving door with our government (see http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20001981-10391695.html for a shockingly long list of former Goldman Sachs employees making policy decisions in our highest ranking Democratic- and Republican-run administrations).  Former NASDAQ stock market chairman, Bernie Madoff, "made off" with $65 million in private client funds without detection by the SEC.   How is that possible?  Are only the foxes guarding the hen house now?

Corporations Buying Up Water Resources

Our world is running out of water.  Want to see the future?  Soon you will pay corporations, not governments, for bottled water.  Look at the Ukraine. I was told by a highly-successful Ukrainian businessman there is no more free water in the Ukraine. All water must be purchased in bottles.  That is our future also.  The state governments of Utah, Colorado and Washington have now made it illegal for you to collect the rainwater that falls on your own property!  Do you see the handwriting on the wall?  Meanwhile, many major oil companies are now shifting their investments into water resources and ownership of tracts of land containing underground water tables.  Texas oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens has begun his quest to purchase as much land as possible above the huge Ogallala Aquifur, which stretches across 8 states and is one of the world's largest underground water tables, so he can begin deep drilling for water.  In 2006, he gave Texas legislators $1.2 million in campaign contributions and the next year he was able to turn his tract of land into an independent municipality with the power to take over neighboring (water-rich) lands using the governmental power of eminant domain.  Oh!  So, this is how it works...

These little examples may seem kind of disjointed and unrelated to you, but to me they are deeply related.  I recently read a book, first pulished in 2004, entitled "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man," written by John Perkins.  It is one of the most disturbing books I have ever read and suddenly the mysterious events of my lifetime began to fall into place and make sense to me.  As Perkins, a former insider, explains it,  the world is being run and organized by a handful of multinational corporations, mostly banking, oil, construction and engineering consortiums, who through their distribution of money control governments (including the U.S.) and the CIA. 

Mega-corporations have forced entire developing nations into forced servitude by convincing them to accept sky-rocketing debt for infrastructure improvements that they cannot possibly pay back.  According to Perkins, corporations obtain "rights" to foreign drilling and resources by bribing a few top officials and making them fabulously wealthy in order to get them to steal land from the poor and give it to these corporations.  If they refuse to be bribed, they are assassinated.  Hmmm ... seems to explain some of those unfortunate airplane accidents and the sudden disappearance of the Amazonian rain forest not to mention all those fantastic tax benefits for the wealthy...

If you think this is just happening in "Third World" countries - think again.  Corporatocracy has arrived to enslave the Developed World as well.  We live in a "free market" society gone wild.  It is no longer "free" - that is an old myth.  We are slaves, even here in the United States.  We are all in danger.  Our environment is being raped.  We have lost our democratic voice in government.  The rich are indeed getting richer because they have implemented, step by step, the tools to keep themselves that way...

Predictions Past & Future: The End of 2011 and the Dawn of 2012

In my December psychic development and mediumship workshop in New York City, I decided I wanted to honor the ending of the year 2011 and the beginning of the year 2012.  Both years were loaded with meaning for most of the planet.  At the beginning of last year, I had asked my students to make predictions about the Year 2011.  They were told to make a prediction about something political/economic, pop culture and the environment.  So, in this month's class, the last month of the Year 2011, I decided to research their predictions - at least those ones that were specific enough - and let my students know how they had done with their forecasting skills.

As I have repeatedly stated, I believe psychic skills are trainable.  Predictions are a form of clairvoyance.  Clairvoyance can be trained, although like any other skill, some people are more talented than others and can acquire the skill more easily. Feedback and confirmation are key to this type of training.  That is why I took the time to match my students' predictions with actual data.  It is very important in this field not to fear being wrong.  This fear of being wrong is the ego speaking.  Once the ego controls the process, psychic ability is lost.  So, my goal here is to show how most of my students were able to make highly accurate and verifiable predictions.  Even when they failed, it was often attributable to vagueness or failure to properly interpret their data.  But failure in prediction is inevitable and should never be feared.

Some of their predictions did not lend themselves to obvious verification, such as a shift in consciousness or attitudes toward healing techniques, increased love and peace, a desire to live simpler lives, a year of emotional crisis, something joyous will happen with the sky above water at the end of August, miracles involving the spiritual dimension.  And yet, many of these "vague" predictions still "feel" right to us.  But other predictions could easily be "matched" to factual data.

Correct Predictions:

1. Rumbles of war, could erupt, new fighting, month of May involves China or Middle East.

(2011 was the year of the "Arab Spring" revolutions)

2. Movement away from movie theatres, some closing.

(Only 1.27 billion movie ticket sales in U.S. in 2011, compared to 1.33 billion in 2010)

3. Key words for 2011 acute awareness and accountability.

(With Tea Party momentum to cut spending and the federal deficit, the $14 billion deficit in August, 2011 put a glaring spot light on the U.S. government's failure to be accountable for its mounting debt)

4. A major breakthrough with the cure of some kind of cancer.

(On August 12, 2011, a new treatment for leukemia was announced using "killer" white blood cells)

5. Snow, hurricane

(While this prediction was vague since it gave no location, it turned out to be highly accurate for the East Coast of the U.S., where the class is located, with a massive hurricane in August and record snow in October, 2011)

6. Sun flare, alot of flooding around the globe

(On June 7, 2011, a solar flare sparked the biggest eruption ever recorded on the sun, and more massive solar flare on November 4, 2011.  In addition, 2011 saw extreme flooding in several countries around the world including the U.S., Colombia, Italy, Pakistan, Thailand, Eastern Africa, and others)

7. Some kind of large major demonstration against the government, like the 1960's.

(The Occupy Wall Street movement, comprised of demonstrations reminescent of the 1960's Civil Rights and Anti-Vietnam War movements, began on September 17, 2011)

8. "Euro calamity" with the Euro itself or a European entity like France or Germany.

(The French and German governments have been the primary architects of a bailout of EU countries failing to pay back their debt, notably  Greece, Portugal and Italy, this year, and the EU countries are meeting the week of December 5, 2011, to decide the future of the EU currency)

9. There will be something with math and how it is taught to children.

(The national organization Common Core State Standards in Math created new standards in 2010 that were adopted in all but five states in the U.S. in 2011)



10.  There will be a surge of homebuying in the U.S.

(Sales of existing homes increased from 4.3 million in October, 2010, to 4.9 million in October 2011)

11. Civil liberties will be further eroded but people won't care because they will be distracted over a victory with the TSA

(December 6, 2011, Congress is scheduled to vote on the controversial National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which has been called the greatest threat to American civil liberties, and three elderly women came forward December 6 to accuse the TSA of strip searching them at the airport)



As you can clearly see from these predictions, many of them were eerily accurate and could not have been easily "guessed" by data existing in December, 2010. 

Incorrect or "Less Correct" Predictions:

1. Mel Gibson will have a major breakdown, suicide or drug overdose

(On December 1, 2011, the judge in Gibson's misdemeanor battery case for attacking his former girlfriend praised Gibson for faithfully following his 12-step program)

2.  The U.S. economy will manifest a positive turnaround and an increase in Obama's popularity.

(There has been no economic turnaroun and only 43% of Americans approve of the job Obama is doing in December, 2011, as opposed to 46% who approved in December, 2010)

3.  The Israeli government will change soon.

(Didn't change during 2011 and Prime Minister Netenyahu appears to be trying to solidify his candidacy early with the Likud party, indicated in December, 2011)

4. Market improving in late spring, May-June, with a surge of homebuying.

(The Dow Jones dropped from May 6, 2011 when it was at 12,638 to June 24, 2011 when it was at 11,934)

5. Bill Clinton has a heart attack and survives.

(Nope and he turned vegetarian to improve his chances at not getting a heart attack)

6.  Something will happen in China - explosion?

(Coal mine explosion kills 29 workers on December 6, 2011, gas leak explosion in coal mine kills 19 miners on November 10, 2011, and rock explosion in coal mine kills 4 workers on November 4, 2011 - but China's coal mines are the most dangerous in the world and thousands of coal miners are killed in such accidents every year in China)

7. Miley Cyrus has big hit this year.

(On November 11, Miley released a remix of "Liberty Walk" dedicated to the Occupy Wall Street movement, the only soundtrack released by her in 2011)

Once we were done reviewing the year 2011, I asked my students to make predictions about 2012.  Yet, for all its doomsday implications, not a single one of my students predicted the end of the world on December 21, 2012, the end of the Mayan Calendar.  In fact, there was remarkable little focus on that date, other than to predict a Shift in Global Consciousness.  Most frequently predicted: Obama will be re-elected by a small margin and global weather will continue to intensify in its extreme behavior.  There were also some interesting predictions about the emergence of a new US political party, assassination of a Russian politician, a plane crash in Alaska, a religious politician achieving popularity, the extinction of an important species, a cure for herpes and AIDS viruses, the illness or death of a few major Hollywood celebrities, a major mudslide in California, a new genre of music, and many other fascinating predictions.

Send me your predictions for 2012 and I will add them to the analysis at the end of the year.  Stay tuned for 2012!