The twenty-seventh day of Abib in the 2729th year of our dispersion.

Regarding a recent incident involving clairvoyance being used against one of our sisters here, I do not wish to say too much. However be aware that the eyes and ears of animals may at any time be used by men, servants of the adversary, to watch and listen to the children of light. At this point I have no reason to believe that Ecclesiastes 10:20 is not speaking literally. Do not be surprised if at some point you sense that the soul of an animal is being overpowered and possessed by another spirit.

Regarding a very simple matter of hermeneutics, a thing may be called by two words and still be the same thing. Hebrew poetry is absolutely famous for its chiasms. Parallel sentences such as those found in chiasms need synonyms in order to avoid being dry and pointless. Job 7:11, Isaiah 26:9, and Luke 1:46-47 are good examples of these chiasms. It is essentially the same thing being said twice. The authors are not speaking of a trichotomy of man. It probably never even occurred to them that these passages would be interpreted in that way. Without sane hermeneutics we will fall into many similar kinds of traps. This one is fairly innocuous. Others are not,

Matthew 25:14-30 records the parable of the talents. Two of the slaves "traded" with their money. They must have made wise investments. 100% returns are notable even after a "long time." The third slave hid the money in the ground. He was cast into outer darkness. Now, many today (notably, those who know that the world economy is going to fail as a result of יהוה's coming judgment; this would render paper currency, stocks, and bank accounts worthless) invest in precious metals. The value of gold in USD has risen almost fifteen percent in the past year. That is a pretty good investment, but someone buying and storing gold is essentially burying their money in the ground. Gold's value is only rising relative to the USD because the dollar is in a downward slide and has been for years. Gold will never multiply itself. It will never make more gold. The two good slaves doubled the amount of hard currency - that is, currency backed by or made of precious metals - they had. If I am reading the passage correctly and my conversions are accurate, the first slave turned 375 pounds of silver into 750 pounds. 375 avoirdupois pounds is around 308 troy pounds; at twelve troy ounces each and at a price of $14 per troy ounce, this is approximately the equivalent of getting $100,000 from $50,000. Not bad.

The principle, though, might lead to the opposite action in this economy (meaning that ownership of PM's would be wise stewardship) because of the vicissitudes of our fiat currency. It could be argued that investing in the stock market is a fiscally irresponsible choice compared to physical ownership of precious metals. Look at the numbers - gold and silver have outdone the DJIA by quite a bit in the past few years. So unless the value of one's stocks is increasing more rapidly than inflation devlaues the dollar, the investor is losing money regardless of what the charts appear to say. In this economy, certain commodities are doing better than the average stock portfolio for several reasons, one being the devaluation of our currency. You could hardly argue that someone who illegally hoarded $20 "Double Eagle" gold coins through the Great Depression and sold them today would have made a fiscally irresponsible choice, with a return of over 3,000%.

It is just a parable, but I still find it interesting that breaking even isn't enough. The slaves were expected to accumulate wealth on behalf of their master. I wish I had the insight to be able to work with money that well. I wonder if יהוה would grant me the wisdom. Then again, would it help me? What did it do for King Solomon?