There are many who have followed in the footsteps of the great W.D. Gann, but a meager few have truly penetrated the depths of his complex and veiled teachings to construct a comprehensive market based embodiment of his “Universal Law of Causation and Harmony”. The Institute of Cosmological Economics considers Dr Jerome Baumring of the Investment Centre to be only true Gann proponent to completely crack the Gann code, by demonstrating the phenomenal trading accuracy and dependability that was previously achieved by only the master himself.
Upon proving Gann’s Laws to beyond the shadow of a doubt, Dr Jerome Baumring shared his gifts of knowledge by meticulously crafting an expansive and groundbreaking Financial Forecasting curriculum – The Gann Harmony Investment Seminar Series. Baumring’s exhaustive expositions in the field of Cosmological Economics continue to be a fundamental foundation of the ICE Pedagogy.
Dr. Jerome Baumring was introduced to the works of W D. Gann while recovering from a spinal injury induced by a car accident. While condemned to a hospitalized recovery in-traction, a friend gave him a copy of Perry Kaufman’s “Commodity Trading Systems and Methods” in which is presented a copy of Gann’s famous May Soy Beans Chart. The chart caught his interest and Dr. Baumring noticed that within the chart was a tiny, almost indistinguishable “point and arc” drawn with compass by the Author’s hand. This seemingly insignificant mark ignited a flame of interest in Baumring that would lead him to commit the next three years of his life relentlessly researching 16 hours a day, 7 days a week to uncover Gann’s teachings to the fullest extent.
It was evident to Dr. Baumring that Gann was using veiled techniques which were not explicitly presented in his courses, and that the key to deciphering his cryptic writings lay in gaining a an deeper understanding of "how Gann used words". He realized that he would have to study everything that Gann himself had studied in his time in order to obtain a frame of reference coincident with that of the Master. In addition to accumulating his own extensive personal library of old scientific, metaphysical and market works, Baumring enlisted the assistance of Donald Mack and requested access to his massive investment library. In those years Dr. Baumring read over 5,000 books; a feat only accomplished through utilizing his photographic memory and an ability to read 1,800 words a minute.
Despite his expertise in Pharmacology and Mathematics, his gift as a mechanic, and a background in Zen and Martial arts, after three years of indefatigable research Dr Baumring had hit an unassailable wall. Faced with the prospect of failure, he awoke late one night to hear an inner voice direct him to his charts. As he sat down at his chart table, this voice walked him step by step through the final barriers to a complete understanding of the Universal Law. This breakthrough led to the subsequent development of a comprehensive analysis system which he called "Gann Harmony". Dr. Baumring then turned to the markets with a $25,000 to exemplify its validity beyond a shadow of doubt.
In less than two years of trading he had successfully compounded his investment into over a $3,000,000. Having proven that the system was capable of producing the promised returns, he then verified that it was applicable to all markets by conducting fully applied trading analyses of 18 futures markets and a selection of stocks. In order to prove Gann’s theories on a larger scale, Dr. Baumring traded for a silver hedging company. In a time when the gold and silver markets exploded to their all-time highs, Dr. Baumring successfully forecast the top of the silver market to within a three minute time window, and implemented a sophisticated strategy allowing him to transition from a position 200 contracts long to a position of 200 contracts short in a screaming exponential market. As the timing point for the top approached with the market moving as only commodities do at all-time highs, a gentleman he was advising was hesitant to sell at the timing point and asked if he could wait another minute. His hesitation cost him $60,000.
In an interview in the Herald Examiner on February 4, 1986, Dr. Baumring stated:
"From now to the end of the third quarter, the market will be sideways or down, perhaps some 200 points (on the Dow). Then we expect a rally like 1927 to 1929, to 3000 or more by 1988 or 1989. There will be 400 million-share days on the market."
At that time such high volume and volatility were unheard of, but a year and a half later when Black Monday scared the pants off of Wall Street, Dr. Baumring just smiled as he had been short five S&P options from the last high and had just made $120,000.
With his understanding of the markets now complete, Dr. Baumring sought to repay what he often referred to as a "karmic debt", and, as Gann said “pass on the enlightenment that had been heaped on himself in abundance”. This conviction led to the development of a series of Courses called “The Investment Centre Stock & Commodity Courses – A Distillation of the Insights and Wisdom of W. D. Gann”. The following is an excerpt from the complete course announcement:
"We unequivocally state that to the best of our knowledge nobody to date has ever dealt with, or has been able to even accurately explain The Law of Vibration which Mr. Gann with great authority said was the key to explain all phases of market action. Without properly understanding the basic laws relating to Vibration, of what value could any or all of the propagated so-called Gann concepts possess?".
Dr. Baumring’s pedagogical approach was founded upon a belief that in order for knowledge to reside as “inherent knowing”, an individual must recreate the process of discovery within himself. He would regularly comment: "I am merely the Sherpa (guide, way-shower), you must walk the path yourself." Making it clear that even if he were to explain the entire process outright, it would be to no avail, for without the catalyzing power of insight attained only through personal discovery, the student would be unable to digest and integrate the necessary principles of Cause and Effect – the fundamental prerequisites for an integrated understanding and application of the theory. He facilitated this education by personally selecting from over 5,000 books the clearest and most easily accessible presentations of the exact concepts needed for an understanding of Gann’s methods. These presentations were collected together into a which Dr. Baumring presented to his students along with required necessary to elaborate the concepts into a complete understanding.
In his lectures, Dr. Baumring presented a plethora of perspectives and concepts which, though previously unconsidered, were fundamental to Gann. One such concept was the markets being, at minimum, a three-dimensional phenomenon. Dr. Baumring espoused the opinion that without understanding the market is 3-D, all measurements taken on a 2-D chart become misleading. He translated the "mystic" terms of the esoteric tradition into modern counterparts: ”astrology" becoming "numerical astrophysics, celestial mechanics, or optics", "numerology" becoming "number set theory", "mystic symbolism" becoming "symbolic logic", "sacred geometry" becoming "lattice and matrix theory or the projective geometry of light".
To Dr. Baumring these different branches of knowledge were merely various manifestations of One Phenomenon in differing forms of Symbolic Logic.
In the Winter of 1992, continuing health issues and the self-imposed pressures of both maintaining private students and perfecting his seminar series lead to an untimely passing at the age of 47. By this time Dr. Baumring had been successful in completing nine of the proposed twelve seminars. Although this may be considered an incomplete legacy, Dr Baumring was adamant that Gann’s entire theory was contained within his first notebook from Seminar #1. Everything beyond that point was reinforcement and repetition towards enabling a quantum discovery from within his students.
In the wake of Dr Baumring’s passing, his widow, Dr. Wendy Baumring, was determined to assure that her late husband’s work and materials would remain available for future generations. The Sacred Science Institute (and its Market extension as The Institute of Cosmological Economics) were formed in cooperation with Mrs. Baumring for the purpose of preserving the accessibility of his teachings and research materials.
The Institute of Cosmological Economics continues in support of the Baumring legacy manifest through his notebooks, reading lists, Gann’s recommended reading list, and the most complete collection of writings of the great Market Masters.
In the years since his passing we have continued to expand upon his legacy through the promotion of our living Market Forecasting contemporaries and the unearthing of ten volumes of Lecture Notes of two of his private students; Julius Nirenstein and Alfred Friedman.
There is no student of Dr. Baumring who does not acknowledge the profound impact he has had upon their understanding of the Universe. One such student Robert Miner wrote:
"I have been lucky. Over a decade ago my most influential teacher of market analysis and trading, Dr Jerome Baumring who has since passed away, taught me to not only look at the market from radical new perspectives, but to prove everything out myself."
Donald Mack, the highly respected market historian and scholar, founder of the Investment Centre Bookstore stated:
"In our capacity as book suppliers to the world in our specialist area of stock and commodity books, we have met many who have been trying to fit together the pieces of the puzzle that is Gann. However, no one to our knowledge has come close to solving the mysteries inherent to the Gann methodology except for Dr. Baumring, whom we saw evolve from his initial introduction to Gann to a complete mastery some years later. So much so that we unequivocally state that he is the only person we know of that has solved every aspect that Gann wrote about."