Tag: script

Joseph Interprets Pharaoh's Dream, c. 1896-1902, by James Jacques Joseph Tissot. Public Domain.

Coincidences for Starters

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Suspicious van

Now comes a selection of coincidences that occurred during my psychosis following the discovery of Natural Money in 2008. These incidents made me think there was more afoot than just me having a psychotic episode, and that God was pulling pranks on me. There is a link between Natural Money and the Bible. Ancient Egypt used money backed by grain stored in the state’s granaries. It had a storage fee like Natural Money. The biblical story of Joseph in Genesis recounts how these granaries came into existence, allegedly that is, for it is unlikely the truth. Only, the Bible being full of shit doesn’t mean that there is no God, or so I had just found out. Just after the discovery of Natural Money, an advertising campaign for the Dutch version of the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, based on the story of Joseph in Egypt, began. There was a fuss about it in the media, including television episodes in the Autumn of 2008 to select the leading player, so the musical’s start didn’t go unnoticed, not even by me, who doesn’t care about musicals.

The Joseph story gave Natural Money a biblical connection. And it was a usury-free financial system. The Bible, and the Quran even more, oppose usury, which was very suspicious indeed, not to mention that I lived in a town called Sneek, pronounced like ‘snake’, while there was allegedly a snake in Eden. It happens that A******* lived in a suburb of Eindhoven, which means Final Gardens, while the story goes that our journey is from the Garden of Eden to our final destination, the New Eden. And as a cherry on the proverbial pie, the Dutch capital Amsterdam often gets abbreviated to Adam, making it seem that I had been caught up in A*******’s fantasy world. Think of the preparation that has gone into making this happen. Sneek is over 1,000 years old. She could be God. And that was what the psychosis suggested.

Around that same time, a shabby old van with lettering De Windroos (The Windflower) had been parked in front of our home on the other side of the road. It had never been there before and had been there for several weeks. The lettering said it belonged to a furniture company from a nearby village. There seemed to be no reason for the van to be parked there for so long, so it began to attract my attention. Then, my sister-in-law noted that De Windroos is the name of a foundation helping people with psychosis. Not that she knew. And what was happening to me was precisely that: a psychosis. So, that was a most mysterious coincidence, almost spooky even.

It made me ask myself, ‘Are there mind control devices hidden inside that van causing my condition?’ One evening, I checked it out with my son Rob, who had also become curious. We took a flashlight to peek inside. It was nearly empty. There was only a suitcase, an ordinary suitcase, so not one with flashing lights and the like. There were no signs of suspicious activity. I later found out that the furniture company was in liquidation. The lawyer next door executed the liquidation. He held the van in custody and had parked it there. Nothing was worrying about that at least.

It was early December, the time of the Dutch festival of Saint Nicholas, a tradition giving presents and prank poems, which was, together with 1 April Fool’s Day, Ingrid’s favourite time of the year, as she was quite a prankster herself, but no match for the AlmighAlmightyy Eternal Prankster who had disguised Herself as A******* this time, after having been, among others, Mary Magdalene, to prank Jesus, or so I could surmise from the evidence, or so I could surmise from the evidence. We all know what happened to Jesus, so that explained my lack of enthusiasm. So Ingrid’s being a prankster was just part of the preparation for this, it suddenly seemed. We all know what happened to Jesus, so that explained my lack of enthusiasm. So Ingrid’s being a prankster was just part of the preparation for this, it suddenly seemed. In any case, Ingrid made me a present and added a poem, which was meant as a prank. It goes like so (it rhymes in Dutch),

The van that didn’t come,
but was already there

Whose van is that?
That van in front of the door.
It’s been there for a week
and gives off a strange smell.

That weird little van
is in complete control of you.
It comes from an upholstery company from Heeg,
and that is very suspicious.

You have already felt the door handle
But the door was locked
Today, you walked around it with your son
And you discovered something… oh my God!

A suitcase!
Just a suitcase, lying in that van.
What if that thing explodes?
What a disgrace to the street.

Be prepared
and stop whining.
Put this on your head,
then nothing can happen anymore.

The Merciful Saint

A most fitting present to go by that poem would have been a tin foil hat, but it was something else I don’t recall. The poem did not accurately depict the events: the van had been there for more than a week and didn’t smell. The title refers to a song named Het Busje Komt Zo (The Van Is Coming Soon) by Höllenboer, about two drug addicts waiting for the methadone bus that didn’t show up. It is also a well-known phrase in Twente, where I came from, meaning that they will take you to the loony bin soon. That didn’t happen, for I was aware of having a psychosis, making me cautious to act on the suggestions it gave. Among others, I didn’t leave Ingrid, thinking that if A******* wanted me for Herself, She could make Her intentions clear by coming over and taking me. That didn’t happen.

Curing memory loss

In the weeks leading up to the psychosis, Ingrid had added massive doses of curcumin to our food because she feared having dementia. Curcumin is an agent found in turmeric and used in curry powders. In early 2009, the gossip magazines had a windfall when Dutch celebrity Adam Curry left his much older wife, Patricia Paay, for a woman his own age. The furious left-behind Paay filled the tabloids for years to come. Among the noteworthy incidents is Paay pressing a hot bitterball on the head of a gossip journalist and threatening him with a more serious attack involving a much larger croquette. Ingrid is nine years older than I am, while A******* is my age. His first name was Adam, and his last name was Curry. Curry powders contain curcumin. Curcumin supposedly prevents memory loss, and suddenly, after being stuffed with that agent, I ‘remembered’ being the biblical Adam. It was the psychosis, of course, but this coincidence made it all the more remarkable. Ingrid believed that the curcumin had caused my condition.

My neighbour was a real estate agent. We discussed the credit crisis and the real estate market. Then he suddenly said, ‘This is quite strange. Two weeks ago, someone asked if your house was for sale.’ There had never been any interest in my house before. And it happened during the credit crisis, which made it all the more remarkable. As the psychosis had suggested that I might have to leave home soon, selling the house made sense. Ingrid and I decided to sell if there was a high bid. We had discussed moving to a smaller home earlier, so it was not an erratic move in itself. Even a second potential buyer turned up, but no one made a bid, so we kept on living there.

After, as part of the psychosis, discovering hidden messages in pop music, I set out to buy a portable CD player to listen to my old CDs and look for more. I went to an electronics shop and asked for such a device. The man behind the counter said it was an obsolete product. MP3 and MP4 players were in vogue. Then I tried my luck at another shop. The man behind the counter looked at me, flabbergasted, and said, ‘A portable CD player? Are you serious? Someone had just ordered one. The thing arrived a few just days ago, but now that guy doesn’t want it anymore.’ Well, if that isn’t coming in handy, then what is?

A few weeks later, the CD player’s earplugs had gone into hiding in a place I couldn’t think of. After a prolonged search that involved checking the usual places, I still hadn’t found them. It could be that God was making fun of me, once again, making me think, ‘Do You want me to kneel for You?’ I knelt then and saw an MP3 player lying on the ground, along with earplugs I could use. You get the picture. God was making fun of me.

My fortieth birthday was on 26 November 2008. At breakfast, Ingrid lit several candles and said there was a Christmas atmosphere. Afterwards, she blew out the candles and said they smelled like Christmas. Ingrid had never said this on my birthday before, so it contributed to the suggestion that I was the reincarnation of Jesus. That day, the terrorist attacks in Mumbai took place. I found out days later. What happened to me occupied my mind, keeping me from paying attention to the news. It seemed like A*******’s birthday present for me. It is not up to me to criticise God. I had never thought of God being a prankster murdering a few people here and there as a token of Her love. And it seemed better not to say no to this love, as I could be next in line for culling.

That same day, I met Bobby from Romania, who was selling the Street Magazine. He consistently called me lord instead of mister. The Dutch words for lord and mister are similar, so a foreigner can easily make such a mistake. Bobby lived in a holiday cottage on a campsite named De Blauwe Lantaarn (The Blue Lantern) with his wife and two children. He invited me there. When I arrived, he was waiting for me with a blue flashlight. The Dutch word for ‘flashlight’ is ‘zak lantaarn,’ which literally means ‘pocket lantern’. Hence, he showed up with a blue lantern. Strange. I gave him some money to start a new life in Romania.

Natural Money is a reform proposal for the financial system. Someone had copied it and published it on the conspiracy website Niburu.nl. Niburu.nl featured articles about NESARA, another reform proposal for the financial system. NESARA was a cult promoted by a woman calling herself the Dove of Oneness. At the time, I surmised it could be a cover for A*******. On 6 December 2008, I signed up for the email list. In the text body of the signup email, I placed ‘xxx’, just in case the Dove of Oneness was A*******. After signing up, the site displayed the following message: ‘Please note that it will take three days to process your request.’

Three days later, I came across a billboard advertising women’s underwear featuring a woman in her underwear. Next to her was the face of a man resembling Adolf Hitler. The advertisement’s text was, ‘Don’t make up, just break up.’ That was noteworthy as I supposedly was the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler, and A******* had claimed me for Herself. Had She broken up with P*****, and did She want me to leave Ingrid? That same day, Ingrid’s golden necklace, which I once gave her, broke. Ingrid felt that was a bad omen. She saw it as a symbol of our relationship. Also, that same day, I was in the swimming pool and saw the clock reading 13:13:13, which seemed like a bad omen. Yet, a psychosis is weak evidence, making me think that A******* had to make Her intentions clearer for me to leave Ingrid.

The next week, as I was leaving the swimming pool, the door malfunctioned. More precisely, I went out, and the door opened. Then I realised I had left something inside, and the door opened again. Then I wanted to go out again, but it suddenly wouldn’t open. No one had passed that door in the meantime, so it seemed to have something to do with me, and it looked like an invisible psi-force. The door stayed closed as more people gathered at the entrance, trying to get in or out. It took about 15 to 30 minutes for an employee to resolve the issue. By then, I had started resisting the psychosis and had decided not to act upon the suggestions it gave and to wait for more evidence, which didn’t come. The NESARA newsletter was crap, not suggestive of knowledge of monetary matters, so I discontinued the subscription a few months later.

The trumpets blow

On my father’s birthday, 12 December 2008, we visited him in Nijverdal. It was the day I learned about the new hobby of my parents’ neighbours: midwinter horn-blowing. They were blowing Midwinter horns all day. They had been doing that for several years at the start of winter, but it was the first time I heard them do it. The prediction that the blowing of trumpets would herald the End of Times made it seem eerie. By then, the psychosis had receded, and the telepathic connection with A******* had vanished, but I was still open to suggestion. When hearing these same horns blowing years later, they didn’t sound like trumpets at all. So, that is what suggestions can do with you.

The interior of the Catholic Church in Sneek perfectly aligned with my taste. I had been inside at the funeral of Ingrid’s mother a few years before. It was the most beautiful interior, even better than cathedrals. Could God have done this on purpose? So, I said to Ingrid, ‘Perhaps, we should visit the Church one more time and attend a mass.’ Ingrid was fine with the proposal, so we went there on 21 December. There weren’t many people. Most were ageing, so the prospects of this parish seemed bleak. And yet, the Church interior was as I had imagined, perfectly matching my taste. So perhaps God made it especially for me, or fiddled with my taste to make me appreciate that Church’s interior.

That evening, a few days before Christmas, there was a bright star in the sky. It was Venus, but it was unusually bright, much brighter than any star I had ever seen. Now, I had never paid much attention to the stars, so that doesn’t say much. Yet, the so-called Christmas Star became a topic on a few message boards. A spiritual guru from Bilthoven, the village A******* came from, had predicted its coming, which makes it a noteworthy coincidence. The guru further claimed that a Messiah would come soon. She had claimed that several times before, and those predictions had all failed, but this time there indeed was a Christmas Star. Perhaps God tried to make me believe I am the Messiah. There were indeed signs, if you can call these events that, but there was no further evidence, so plenty of reason to remain cautious about what they meant.

Ingrid tried to rent a cottage on Ameland. After a series of miscommunications with people offering cottages, she rented a cottage named Jutter, which added some juice to the coincidence. But there were two cottages named Jutter on Ameland, and Ingrid had rented one while believing she had rented the other. Later, the owner cancelled the booking because he had sold the cottage. Ameland was the island where A******* spent her holidays with her fancy man, P***** in 1989, in 1989, who might be the son of the former presenter of a famous Dutch pop music programme.

And it runs deeper. God might have interfered with my final exams at secondary school. Despite being the worst performer in the literature explanation, I received the best grade after praying that it wouldn’t be terrible. The teacher’s name was Amelink, suggesting a link with Ameland. A******* was often busy with cryptic crosswords. These are about hidden messages, while the explanation of literature is about the hidden messages in literature.

Next to the beach at De Banjaard in Zeeland, where we usually went when we stayed there, and where my parents had gone with my sister and me before, was a hotel. They refurbished it and renamed it Amadore. As AM were the initials of A*******’s first and middle name, and Her last name began with Dor. My parents went to that particular hotel once. Amadore is a hotel chain with multiple hotels in Zeeland. Yet Amadore ran a television advertising campaign featuring the De Banjaard hotel. Strange, but true.

In December 2008, my son Rob watched an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants. In this particular episode, someone lit a fire. SpongeBob takes place underwater. And so, I told Rob that we see water burning, a Dutch saying for seeing something extraordinary or impossible. A few seconds later, a siren began to wail, and a fire engine passed.

A few days later, we made a trip to Groningen. Ingrid noticed a damaged car by the side of the road. A few moments later, the vehicle in front of us broke down. It went on and on. A total of eight cars broke down on the road or stood broken down at the side of the road. The weather wasn’t unusual, but it was noteworthy, as you hardly ever see broken cars, and definitely not more than one during a single trip of that length. Well, well, those were the days. Strange things were happening nearly every day.

Meanwhile at work

Once, I bicycled to the office like I did every day. Next to it was the municipal health service, GGD. When looking at the lettering on the GGD building, perhaps because of the other peculiar events, a thought came up that GGD might stand for ‘Great God’. I then tried to convince myself that it was a stretch to believe that God was showing off Her powers and had put such a sign there. Then, I noticed a car in front of the GGD building with licence plate number 99-GRG-9 (the nines being numbers I don’t recall). GRG could also refer to ‘Great God’. A few days later, when cycling in the same spot near the GGD building, I thought, ‘Now that I have discovered that God exists, what could happen to me?’ Within a second, I ran into a flat tyre. Religious people have to keep the faith on far fewer signs or none at all, and they keep on praying. So, how could I not believe?

On my last day at work in 2008, I updated the agenda with my holidays, so my colleagues would know I wasn’t in. The programme malfunctioned and left out the end date. I checked whether I had specified the end date correctly, and I had. Then I tried again, verifying the end date, but the same error occurred. It could have been a software bug. Only, no one else had that same problem, which, in the light of all that had transpired, made the incident peculiar. It was God’s way of suggesting that it might be my last day at work, and that something might happen during the holidays. Nothing happened, as expected, so it was yet another prank. So God’s plans with me remained obscure.

The following transpired in March 2009. There were two colleagues named Rene in my team. One had a last name starting with an E. The other’s a last name that begins with an H. On that fateful day, an urgent situation required us to access a new system. Rene H knew the password but had not yet arrived. I asked another colleague for his number, and he gave it to me. I called Rene H on his mobile phone. After dialling the number, the phone rang. Suddenly, there was a switching sound, and then a woman with the same last name as Rene E. answered the phone. I excused myself to her. It was the wrong connection.

Then I told the colleague who had given me the number, ‘You have given me the number of the wrong Rene. Please give me the correct number.’ He told me the number was correct. I checked it with a few other colleagues, who confirmed the number. I redialled it, and the same kind of switching occurred again. I put down the phone before someone answered. Then Rene H arrived at the office. The number was correct. His phone was working, and he hadn’t forwarded calls to another number. It made some colleagues make funny remarks about Rene H messing with Rene E’s wife. A technical glitch was out of the question, so it must have been one of God’s pranks.

On 30 January 2009, there was a quiet hour at work. I browsed the Internet and discovered the website Waarmaarraar.nl (true, but strange), which features unusual news items. A particular story caught my attention. It was about a man sexually assaulting a woman who, at the same time, sexually assaulted him during her wet dream. The man’s name was Paul Kut. Kut is the Dutch word for vagina. The following day, I discovered I had had a wet dream that night, but I did not remember it. That is for the better, as I would otherwise have to report on that as well, as you would have been desperate to know.

As I work at the government agency responsible for traffic fines, the following sequence of incidents is noteworthy as well. Around 1995, I lived in Groningen and received a fine for riding my bicycle on the wrong side of the road. That shortcut could make you skip four traffic lights and save up to five minutes. So many people did that. Once, a police officer had positioned himself on that stretch to fine passing bicyclists. He asked me for an ID, which I presented. It was the day before my birthday, so I said, ‘This is a great birthday present.’ The police officer said, ‘Had it been your birthday, I would have let it pass.’

Many years later, probably in 2007, I received a parking ticket for parking in a forbidden spot in the forest near Nijverdal. There were other cars, making me think it was allowed. Had I read the signs, I could have known it wasn’t. We went for a walk, and all the cars had tickets when we returned. That happened to be precisely on my birthday. That made it a remarkable coincidence, since it was my second ticket, and there had been none between them. You could complain, so I wrote a joking complaint letter about a promise a police officer made over a decade earlier. Perhaps it was time to make good on the promise and let it pass, I suggested. As expected, the ‘complaint’ was dismissed.

That story did get a sequel, as I was to get a pass. A few years later, there was road work. One lane was closed, and a traffic light handled the traffic. Just before I passed, it turned red. Also, the car behind me drove on. A police officer stopped me and issued me a fine. I said jokingly to the officer, ‘I am going to save for that one.’ It would have been my third ticket, but it never came. Perhaps the police officer had shredded it because I was driving an old vehicle and appeared poor. When I discussed it at a birthday party, someone suggested I had destroyed that fine, since I worked for the office processing these fines. You must be careful with what you say. People gossip, and even when they are joking, these rumours spread, and your enemies will take advantage.

That third ticket came in nonetheless. In 2017, my sister had moved. The first time I visited her at her new home in Arnhem, I missed a sign saying the speed limit was 50 kilometres per hour. There was a speed camera on that stretch. I drove 63 kilometres per hour. The fine was €111, a remarkable amount.

Featured image: Joseph Interprets Pharaoh’s Dream, c. 1896-1902, by James Jacques Joseph Tissot. Public Domain.

1919 Cover of The Natural Economic Order

Discovery of Interest-Free Money

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It was September 2008. The banking crisis was getting out of hand. Things were falling apart. It seemed as if the financial system could collapse at any moment and that civilisation, as we know it, could end. Today, the 2008 financial crisis is a distant memory, but at the time, the financial press was worried, or more precisely, panic was setting in, as the jobs of suit-wearers in finance were at stake. It was like 1929, but modern people are not as resilient as in the early 1900s, so the crisis had apocalyptic potential. I had long feared an apocalyptic financial collapse and believed that usury, or charging interest on money and debts, would be the underlying cause. On the surface, the reason may seem irresponsible lending, but interest is a reward for bearing the risk of default. So, without interest charges on debts, there would be far less irresponsible lending.

The unfolding financial crisis led me to watch the animated film ‘Money as Debt’ on YouTube and to reflect once again on Silvio Gesell’s idea of charging a holding fee on money to eliminate interest. I jotted down my thoughts and tried to make an ordered, coherent whole out of them. The idea had never seemed workable. Why should you lend out money interest-free if you can receive interest elsewhere? It is why interest-free money had remained a fringe idea, mainly attracting eccentrics like me.

Then, in the first days of October, I made a startling discovery. Banning interest promotes financial stability by preventing usurious, irresponsible, and unproductive financial schemes. That would improve the economy. Think of it like so. When credit card debt and high-interest payday lending disappear, people will have more disposable income, and there will be no usurers living off others’ work. That would be more efficient. It also reduces the need for government and central bank interventions to manage the interest-bearing debt. Usury requires government deficits and central bank money creation.

That is because most of our money is debt-backed. If you go to a bank and take out a loan, the bank creates money out of thin air, but you must pay back the loan with interest. You repay the loan with money borrowed by someone else. And the money you need to pay the interest doesn’t exist. Someone else must borrow that as well. On a larger scale, due to interest charges, we need to take on additional debt to repay existing debt with interest. To prevent the usury scheme from collapsing, governments run deficits and central banks print money, which leads to inflation. The inflation rate is often higher than the interest rate you get on a bank account. The profits are for the usurers.

Now comes the skinny. The economy would do better without usury. If the economy performs better, investment yields would be higher, so investors would receive higher returns despite the negative interest rates. The difference comes from inflation. Without interest charges, there is no need for government deficits and money printing. The economy can thrive without more debt, so there would be no inflation. During the Great Depression, the Austrian town of Wörgl issued a currency with a holding fee. Those holding the money had to pay a 1% monthly fee to keep it valid, thereby encouraging them to spend it rather than save it. The existing money continued to circulate, and Wörgl’s economy boomed without money issuance, while Austria suffered from the depression.

If the money is interest-free, the currency’s value may rise more than the interest you would receive on an interest-bearing currency. Think of it like so. You can have 2% interest with 5% inflation or -2% interest with 0% inflation. The latter would be a better deal. The question then becomes: why lend money at interest when interest-free money offers higher returns? If the idea is that good, and the ‘Miracle of Wörgl’ suggests so, investors would bring their money to the interest-free economy, and the usury economy would end. If this became more widely known, the idea would spread and change the world.

And so I figured that if the money is interest-free, the currency’s value rises more than the interest you would receive on an interest-bearing currency. Think of it like so. You can have 2% interest with 5% inflation or -2% interest with 0% inflation. The latter would be a better deal. The question then becomes, why lend out money with interest when interest-free money offers better returns? If the idea is that good, and the ‘Miracle of Wörgl’ suggests so, investors would bring their money to the interest-free economy, and the usury economy would collapse. If this became more widely known, the idea would spread and terminate the usury financial system forever.

Until then, I had believed that interest-free money was sound in theory but impossible in practice. Force, rather than good intentions, drives change in this world. It is a constant in history: the strong dominate the weak. But this money could be the terminator of usury, and a better future for humankind seemed possible. Making this knowledge public, I speculated, could unleash an unspeakable force. The Austrian central bank banned the Wörgl money, so we don’t know how it would have ended if it had continued. Perhaps, we would have lived in an entirely different world. A similar money lasted for over a thousand years in ancient Egypt. Had I discovered the secret that explains these successes? That seemed doubtful. How could an amateur have found what the experts have missed?

Amateurs who think they know better than the experts have become quite a plague recently. ‘Think for yourself and do your own research,’ has become the motto of an ever-expanding squad of nutters that the Dutch call Wappies. Often, there is something afoot, but there is little or no evidence, so people speculate and go crazy. I was anxious about having it wrong, which made me doubt the discovery’s greatness. It might be a good idea, but it can’t be that good. And that is correct, a decade of research has confirmed, but it is possible. And the proof came when Europe saw negative interest rates in the next decade.

Then, on a website promoting Gesell’s ideas, I found the following quotes,

‘The creation of money that cannot be hoarded will lead to a different and more real kind of property.’

– Albert Einstein

‘Gesell’s name will be a leading name in history once it has been disentangled.’

– H.G. Wells

‘The application of Gesell’s principle of circulation of money will lead the nation out of the depression within two to three weeks. I am a humble student of this German-Argentine businessman.’

– Irving Fisher

‘The future will learn more from the spirit of Gesell than from that of Marx.’

– John Maynard Keynes

‘Gesell’s work will initiate a new epoch in the history of mankind.’

– Prof. Dr. B. Uhlemayr

‘Gesell’s discoveries and proposals are of the greatest importance for centuries to come.’

– Dr. Theophil Christen

These brilliant minds agreed that something epic lay beneath the surface and that it could change the future forever. John Maynard Keynes and Irving Fisher were among the greatest economists of their time. If Keynes believed Gesell would make us forget Marx, I might have found out why. And so, the Miracle of Wörgl and the grain money in ancient Egypt may not have been freak accidents but a sign of something more. Ending usury, the scourge that had haunted humankind for thousands of years, seemed within reach. While considering the implications, the following song played on the radio,

Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
Wake me up when September ends
Like my father’s come to pass
Twenty years have gone so fast
Wake me up when September ends

– Green Day, Wake me up when September ends

September had just ended. Silvio Gesell first proposed money with a holding fee in his book ‘Natural Economic Order,’ which he first published in German in 1916 as ‘Natürliche Wirtschaftsordnung.’ I figured that its abbreviation could be NWO, which stands for New World Order, not knowing that the German ‘Wirtschaftsordnung’ was, unlike in English and Dutch, one word. So, was my discovery meant to happen? Was it part of something bigger? These thoughts arose, ironically, because I didn’t see ‘Wirtschaftsordnung’ as a single word. It made me feel small and insignificant. Paranoia was creeping in.

What is less known, but definitely worth noting, is that the German Nazis also aimed to abolish interest and contemplated Gesell’s ideas. Gesell himself was not a Nazi, but a liberal and an internationalist. Adolf Hitler was more impressed by the ideas of Gottfried Feder, who had the same kind of moustache Hitler had. Feder had written ‘The Manifesto for the Abolition of Interest-Slavery’ around the same time Gesell wrote ‘The Natural Economic Order’ and proposed nationalising all banks and abolishing interest. Gesell argued for charging a holding fee on currency and not interfering with markets and banks.

I named the discovery Natural Money as a reference to the Natural Economic Order. Strange things began to happen. When I woke up at night, the clock always showed times like 2:22, 4:44 or 5:55, with no exception. That was creepy. Something seemed seriously off with reality. Then, my wife told me she was seeing those time prompts as well. Until then, I hadn’t told her that I was seeing them. Once you enter the Twilight Zone, it begins to affect you. Meaningful coincidences started to occur, making me open to suggestions. What happened around me and in the world seemed to interact with my thoughts. Even the covers and titles of the books in the bookshop at the train station in Leeuwarden radiated a sense of spookiness, with references to my situation. They call it synchronicity.

The animated picture Money as Debt started with a list of assassinated US Presidents who supposedly opposed the banking system, suggesting evil bankers were behind these assassinations, making me fear death under suspicious circumstances if Natural Money would get serious attention. Still, if a repetition of the miracle of Wörgl were to occur, the news would spread fast, and if it were that good, it would be impossible to stop. Killing me wouldn’t help. The Secret Service would be too late. Of course, I had worried far too much. I posted the idea on several message boards. Most people didn’t get it. I mailed the findings to 200 Dutch economic researchers. None of them was interested.

Natural Money had a more favourable reception on the message board of Opednews.com. It generated some discussion as some visitors saw the potential. Still, it didn’t lead to a further propagation of the idea. I also went to Strohalm’s office in Utrecht. They had been working on interest-free currencies for decades. The people of Strohalm received me politely, but they had other priorities. They had a promising project in Uruguay. Doubt crept in again. I didn’t know enough about monetary economics and the financial system to see whether it was an idea worth pursuing. And even if I was right, no one would listen, so I planned to give up and resume my life.

It was disappointing, but not as bad as being evicted from the dormitory by A* nineteen years earlier. To remind myself of that and make me feel better, I played the Sleepwalking album by Gerry Rafferty, the album I had come to associate with the events at the dormitory because of the lyrics of the first song, ‘Sleepwalking.’ And then I wondered whether A* had something to do with the discovery of Natural Money. Over the years, several incidents had occurred, suggesting that She was still interfering with my life. It didn’t take long before clues came up. There is a thin line between paranoia and psychosis. The lyrics of the fourth song of the album ‘On The Way’ were noteworthy,

Drifting along with the wind, telling yourself you can’t win
It’s over, and now we begin, oh yeah, we are on the way
…
Only one woman, one man, just doing the best that we can
There’s so much we don’t understand,
Oh yeah, but we’re on the way
Light shining down from the east,
bringing a love that won’t cease

– Gerry Raffery, On The Way

In my bed, I was imagining again. By giving up, I had just told myself I couldn’t win. Was this just the beginning? The beginning of what? What did I not understand? What was this love that won’t cease? Was my destiny connected with that of A*? I had loved Her in secret all that time, but never thought, or even hoped, that we could be together. The distinction between my make-believe world and reality, which had been there since I was a child, began to blur. The lyric wasn’t specific, so the suggestion came from me linking the album to the events in the dormitory. And I might still have ignored it if it weren’t for the fifth song,

People come and people go, friends, they disappear
There’s only one thing that I wanna know, tell me where do we go from here
Everybody’s on the make, everybody’s trying to get ahead
In a world like this, you just exist to feed the walking dead.
…
Lookin’ out on a world gone crazy, waitin’ for the fun to begin
The race is on, yeah, they’re gettin’ ready, Jesus, what a state we’re in
Meanwhile, down in my backyard, I’m sitting doing solitary
Now that I’ve milked the sacred cow, I just worry ’bout the military.
…
Get ready
Get ready

– Gerry Raffery, Sleepwalking

It is a strange lyric, and it made me think. Is the world about to go crazy, and is something about to start? We exist to feed the walking dead, which could be the defunct banking system, I reasoned. The phrase probably refers to what Karl Marx once wrote, ‘Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks.’ I didn’t know that, so I made up my own interpretation. The sacred cow made me think of Joseph explaining the Pharaoh’s dreams, which is also not so obvious. Now, the story originates from a holy book, and one of the Pharaoh’s dreams involved cows, so that was the connection. Joseph introduced the granaries in Egypt, the story goes. Grain stored in these granaries became the basis of the Egyptian grain money, which, like Natural Money, had a holding fee to cover the storage costs.

These are some incredible leaps of thought that you wouldn’t make if you aren’t psychotic, so by then, I had crossed that line. Sleepwalking was the only album Gerry Rafferty had recorded outside the United Kingdom, and it was in the Netherlands, where I was living at the time. That was not a coincidence, I supposed, and I was right about that at least as it turned out. I had grown open to suggestions. Natural Money could change the world, some of the most brilliant minds had agreed on, and it was something epic, and it had to do with A*. And so, I was well on my way towards the shadow world where I was about to meet A* again after nineteen years. That evening, I felt A * trying to do a mind melt with me, like the Vulcans do in Star Trek, once again. This time, I didn’t resist. And there She was, on the other side. It seemed like a telepathic connection. By then, it was 11 November 2008.

Latest revision: 25 September 2025

Featured image: 1919 Cover of The Natural Economic Order. Wikimedia Commons.

Grades

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Unemployment in the early 1980s was high, especially among young people. And so, I asked my mother, ‘What is the point of studying if you end up unemployed?’ She said that there will always be room for the best. My parents had lived in poverty and had learned that you must work hard to earn your place under the sun. Not counting on luck, thinking I had none whatsoever, made me work very hard at secondary school, thinking I had to be in the top. Occasionally, I knew more than my teachers. My father later told me about a mayor, Kobes, he knew, who had been my history teacher before he became a politician for the Christian Democrats. Mr Kobes told my father that I once corrected him during the lessons. It annoyed him, so he checked his books during the break to discover that I was right. He was not the only one. A geography teacher admitted that I knew more about Russia than he did.

On the final exams, my average grade was the highest (8.6 out of 10). These scores were good but not outstanding. And they were the result of very hard work, so hard that you didn’t have to doubt that I was not a genius. Some pupils had stellar degrees in mathematics without doing much for them, but not me. My grades in mathematics were good but not stellar. If I didn’t prepare for a test, which happened only once in those six years, the grade dropped dramatically to 3.5. And so, for once, my mathematics teacher, Mr Blaak, had a field day, making silly jokes about me spending too much time on the school newspaper. And I never solved the Rubik’s Cube, despite spending a lot of time on it, so there was no reason to doubt that I was intelligent but not brilliant.

My weak spot was explaining literature. It is about guessing the supposed motives of book authors. My scores were consistently poor, the poorest of the class. I considered guessing other people’s motives and decoding hidden messages in texts a waste of time. The authors themselves often marvelled at what the literature experts found out about their intentions from the books they had written. Art and literature were a lot of fluff about feelings, quite often imagined. And I did poorly at it, and it probably has to do with my Asperger’s Syndrome. With the final exams nearing, I began to fret and asked my teacher, Mr. Amelink, to give me additional practice exams. A teacher could only dream of such a fanatic pupil, so he was helpful, but the grades remained as poor as before.

Before the final exam, I prayed that the grade wouldn’t be too bad. Not only to my surprise, my result was the best of everyone, only equalled by Geraldine, a girl with a striking hairdo, a bit alternative, who dressed outspokenly and flaunted her interest in art and literature. Mr. Amelink was also amazed and suggested the extra lessons had made a difference. Another girl became curious about this feat. She said, ‘You have a mysterious way of winning in the end.’ I was too embarrassed to tell about the prayer. It was selfish to pray for a higher grade. People in Africa needed God’s help much more. And it could not be that God granted that wish, or could it? While doing the test, the questions appeared more concrete than usual, making it easier to answer them.

There is a subtle difference between speculating about hidden motives and understanding the meaning of texts. I was good at the latter. It inflated my grades, as explaining texts comprised 50% of the scores in English and French. If a particular English or French word was unfamiliar to me, I could still infer its meaning from the subject of the text, the author’s opinions and the purpose of the paragraph or sentence. By connecting the dots, you often arrive at the correct answers. I hardly made errors in these questions.

At the time, there was no reason to suspect God had anything to do with it. Still, later developments added a peculiar twist to this incident, as I may have uncovered messages from God in pop music lyrics. The teacher’s name, Amelink, suggests a possible link to the isle of Ameland, and Ameland was to become part of a set of peculiar coincidences. A song named The Foundling of Ameland refers to this island. It includes a scene with the foundling walking over the water. But that was still over twenty years into the future. And I disappointed my economics teacher. Had my grade for economics been slightly higher, I would have received a 10, and an economist would have come to the school to give me the diploma. My teacher had hoped for that.

Perhaps You Can See the Irony of It

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On a road to nowhere

After the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, a populist politician, Pim Fortuyn, gained popularity because traditional politicians had failed to address the growing unease of the Dutch about Muslim immigrants. Fortuyn promoted a messianic personality cult. He called himself the Son of the People of the Netherlands. About the leader the Netherlands needed, Fortuyn wrote in his book De Verweesde Samenleving (The Orphaned Society), ‘A leader of stature is Father and Mother in one. He dictates the law and oversees the herd’s cohesion. The skilful leader is the Biblical Good Shepherd.’ Fortuyn anticipated the coming of the Great Leader of the Netherlands as he wrote, ‘Towards a Father and a Mother, on the way to the Promised Land,’ and, ‘Let us prepare for his arrival so that we can receive him.’ He posed himself as the Messiah. It was one of the reasons I didn’t like him. Perhaps you can see the irony of that.

Fortuyn called Islam a backward religion and claimed that Western civilisation was superior. He valued the achievements of Western civilisation, such as the separation of church and state, LGBTQ rights and freedom of opinion. Many Muslims hold on to a medieval worldview. Still, Islam opposes interest charges on money and debts, and I believed that interest was one of the gravest threats to civilisation, so my views of Islam were more favourable. We could learn something from Islam. Even more so, out-of-control technology might end human civilisation, either through an apocalyptic event or by altering humans to the point that they cease to exist. You can’t blame Islam for that. It is Western civilisation that has brought us to the brink. And if you can only choose between doom and women wearing body covering garments and honour killings, the choice is not that difficult, for a rational individual at least. We are on a road to nowhere,

We’re on a road to nowhere
Come on inside
Taking that ride to nowhere
We’ll take that ride
I’m feeling okay this morning
And you know
We’re on the road to paradise
Here we go, here we go

Talking Heads, Road To Nowhere

The song says that the road to nowhere is to paradise. That is the duplicity of it. Everywhere Fortuyn went, there was chaos and conflict. He seemed to enjoy it. Establishment politicians didn’t like him because they feared he would undermine society. The Netherlands has had a consensus-building tradition known as the Polder model for over a century. Fortuyn broke with that tradition.

False Messiah

Fortuyn saw himself as the coming Great Leader of the Netherlands. History took an unexpected turn. On 6 May 2002, a left-wing loner assassinated him, an event that shocked the Netherlands. ‘The bullet came from the left,’ Fortuyn’s supporters claimed. Exactly 911 days later, an Islamic fanatic murdered the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh. Fortuyn’s sudden popularity was closely linked to 9/11, while Theo van Gogh had just finished 06/05, a motion picture about the assassination of Fortuyn. Van Gogh was killed on 2 November 2004 (11/2 in American notation), while 112 is the European emergency services telephone number. That points to the hand of God. The Bible has warned us of false messiahs like Fortuyn. I hope you can see the irony of that as well.

Jan-Peter Balkenende
Jan-Peter Balkenende

Fortuyn aspired to become Prime Minister. Instead, Jan-Peter Balkenende got that job. He looked like an apprentice from the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry Potter became his nickname. And that was not a coincidence, as the Netherlands was in for a massive bout of magic. Captain Decker, a song by Boudewijn de Groot, has the following lines,

Captain Decker, Flying Dutchman,
climbs above the timeless
space machine you’re living in,
starts to turn you inside out,
he needs you to know
what he was really all about

Captain Decker, Boudewijn de Groot

The timeless space machine could refer to the place where God is living. A Dutchman may need God to know what he is about. The animated picture Kroamschudd’n in Mariaparochie by Herman Finkers explores the possibility of Christ being born in Twente. My birthplace is Eibergen, just over the border in Achterhoek. In the 1980s, there were plans to create an independent province of Twente. It was to include Eibergen and Nijverdal. Finkers came from Almelo, like Ilse DeLange. DeLange’s fourth studio album, The Great Escape, plays a central role in God’s messages in pop music.

World peace

In December 2008, there were many strange incidents. One of them was that the candy vending machine at the office delivered a particular message. Often, I went there to fetch a Twix bar. This time, the machine malfunctioned and failed to produce a Twix. It repeatedly misfired. That had never happened before, and to my knowledge, no one else had trouble with the machine that day. After trying three different options, it finally worked when I chose option 22: a Nuts bar. That was nuts, even more so because 22 = 11 + 11.

It was about to get even nuttier. To me, 11:11 represents a strange coincidence with two parts. The next day, I bought a bag of potato crisps from the same machine. This time, it worked fine, but after opening the bag, I found a small piece of paper with the crisps. It was a temporary tattoo with the following Chinese text:

世界和平

One of my colleagues knew a Chinese man who translated it for me. The characters stand for world peace. No one else got a temporary tattoo with a bag of crisps. It was a production glitch. The paper had slipped into the bag, perhaps from another product line, and it ended up in my hands. Remarkably, my colleague Ronald Oorlog was absent that day. He had fallen ill. His last name, Oorlog, is the Dutch word for war. Now, that is a funny coincidence. Another colleague, Rene H, joked about the text, saying, ‘World peace is what Miss World would say she wanted after winning the prize.’

Linking it to Sneek

A nursing home in Sneek is named Nij Nazareth (New Nazareth). The nickname is The Banana because the building is banana-shaped. A former neighbour of Allard and Geke, nicknamed The Hedgehog because of his hairdo, has taken residence there. If the name New Nazareth means anything, it could mean that the Second Coming comes from this particular town, which was, by some miraculous accident, my town of residence. It could be that there were other places and buildings with the same name. And so, I used a search engine to look for them, but nothing else came up. Perhaps I was making too much of this coincidence. In the song Het Sneker Café, the unrivalled poet of the Dutch language, Drs. P mocks the making of outlandish connections to a pub in Sneek,

There once was a girl of seventeen years of age,
the only child of a wine merchant,
who sought shelter in the Jura,
because she was lost on a trip.
She found an unoccupied house at the edge of the forest,
and felt from the outset that this is not right.
She took a glance at the window and what appeared:
Inside was the skeleton of a salesman in toiletries,
who had been missing for years
and had once stayed with his uncle and aunt in Bordeaux when he was young.
And there, they had almost exactly the same type of lampshades
as a small pub in Sneek.

Drs. P, Sneker café

There is a nursing home in Sneek named Nij Nazareth (New Nazareth). Its nickname is The Banana because the building is banana-shaped. A former neighbour of Allard and Geke, nicknamed The Hedgehog because of his hairdo, has taken residence there. If the name New Nazareth means anything, it could mean that the Second Coming comes from this particular town, which happens to be my town of residence, perhaps for the same reason that the building is there. To rule out the possibility that there were other places or buildings with the same name, I used a search engine, but nothing else came up, which made it more noteworthy, though perhaps I was making too much of this coincidence. In the song Het Sneker Café, the unrivalled poet of the Dutch language, Drs P, mocks the making of outlandish connections to a pub in Sneek,

You see now how the pub again and again
affects the social interaction.
How here and there, and yes, even overseas
one stumbles upon this pub from Sneek.
It’s inexplicable and almost occult,
something that fills the world with trepidation.

Drs. P, Sneker café

As a prophecy, it is slightly off the mark by focusing on a pub, of which Drs P did not disclose the name, so that it remains a subject of speculation, and not on Sneek itself. Prophesies somehow tend to be off. That seems to come with predestination. If we knew our predestined future, it wouldn’t materialise. Yet there are inexplicable, occult connections that fill the world with trepidation. And that nursing home, New Nazareth, is not the only thing that justifies the trepidation. You pronounce Sneek like ‘snake,’ and there was allegedly a serpent in Paradise. In scripted reality, there is no coincidence, so we can safely argue that there might be more to it.

Pope end times prophecy

In January 2013, an Australian poster on the message board Godlikeproductions.com started a thread titled ‘112 Keeps Coming Up In The Media.’ Others joined in with their own selective biases and found many 112s popping up in the media. That same number is the European Emergency Services telephone number, and since I had lived in room 112 in that fateful dormitory, the thread caught my attention. The discussion remained active for several weeks. During that time, Pope Benedict XVI resigned on 11 February 2013, a highly unusual move. He was the first pope to step down in almost 600 years.

That became material for this thread. 11 February is also the 112 European Day, which celebrates the emergency services telephone number. 11 February is 11/2 in European notation, and 112 is the European emergency services telephone number, so that is why. You must admit the European bureaucrats have found a most peculiar occasion to throw a party. In any case, the Pope’s resignation came unexpectedly, like a bolt from the blue. And lightning struck the Vatican a few hours after the Pope had resigned.1 It made several people wonder, so the thread came back alive.

Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation on European 112 Day is also noteworthy because of the 112th Pope End Times Prophecy attributed to Saint Malachy. The prophecy alleges 112 popes would reign, starting with Celestine II, until the End of Times. Benedict XVI was the 111th Pope. His resignation prepared the way for the 112th Pope, Pope Francis, who, according to the prophecy, would become the last Pope before the End of Times and Jesus’ return. That made me curious, so I investigated the matter and discovered that Saint Malachy had died on 2 November (11/2 in American notation) 1148, and I added that noteworthy item to the thread.

The prophecy raves about the 112th Pope, ‘In the final persecution of the Holy Roman Church, there will reign Peter the Roman, who will feed his flock amid many tribulations, after which the seven-hilled city will be destroyed, and the dreadful Judge will judge the people.’ Some claim it refers to Judgement Day or the second coming of Jesus Christ. It requires quite a stretch of the imagination to make it fit Francis’s tenure, but humans are imaginative beings. Pope Francis died on Easter Monday, 21 April 2025, at the age of 88, and the 113th Pope, Leo XIV, came. My preparations weren’t yet complete, but had progressed far enough to think that the End Time could commence within a few years.

If so, that century-old prediction could be remarkably close in time, even though it doesn’t match the described events. It seems too accurate to be a coincidence, yet not entirely on the mark. The same holds for Finkers’ animated picture of Christ’s birth in Twente. My birthplace, Eibergen, is a few kilometres outside Twente. Likewise, the 9 February 2009 superstorm prediction was too accurate to be a coincidence. The date was correct, but the location was off by about 400 kilometres. Route N666 didn’t precisely end in Borssele, the location of the only remaining Dutch nuclear power plant, but in nearby Heerenhoek within the Borssele municipality. The other Dutch atomic plant, which had been closed, was in Doodewaard (Death Holm), a remarkable name. The former Doodewaard municipality had been 66.5 square kilometres in size, so close to 66.6 that it is noteworthy.


Jesus’ ministry occurred sometime between 26 and 30 AD, a period that will soon mark 2,000 years, which is worth noting. We might find out soon whether or not God finally means business this time. After 2,000 years of waiting, you wouldn’t expect that anymore, and most people live as if Judgment Day will not occur during their lifetimes. And as you might know, the hour will come as a thief in the night. The Day of the Lord will come unexpectedly, suddenly, and without warning. That is to say, if that day ever comes. Likewise, you wouldn’t expect an autistic individual like me to be the messiah. Okay, men with Asperger’s Syndrome tend to be faithful, and God might prefer a man with ‘a heart of gold’, but maybe there is more to it. So, what makes autistic people special?

Latest revision: 11 February 2026

1. Lightning strikes St Peter’s Basilica as Pope resigns. BBC (12 February 2013).

Another Whiff of Coincidence

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The aftermath of the superstorm prediction

A whiff of coincidence was in the air. Perhaps it was more than that. And I took notice. In the Autumn of 2008, the time-prompt phenomenon haunted me for weeks. On the Internet, people wrote about similar experiences. As a result, I became preoccupied with numbers for a while, most notably double-digit numbers and multiples of eleven. For instance, in December 2008, we passed a gas station in Sneek. There was a billboard indicating prices. One number was flashing, indicating a price of 1.199. 11 and 99 were both multiples of 11. And I noticed it because of my preoccupation. And so, eleven and some other numbers, for instance, the emergency services telephone numbers 112 and 911, play a significant role in the following report. Some of these stories might be lame, while others could make you wonder.

Also in December 2008, I predicted that a superstorm would strike the Netherlands on 9 February 2009, the birthday of the Lady from the dormitory. The storm came, but it was less severe and hit Northern France rather than the Netherlands. Charles de Gaulle International Airport of Paris had to be closed that day. You can read more about that here:

Psychics, mediums, and premonition

Like psychics and mediums, we can sometimes have accurate premonitions. My personal experience may tell a lot about why that is so.

Read More

The superstorm prediction story came with a peculiar sequel. On 1 June 2009, Air France flight 447 disappeared above the Atlantic Ocean. The incident involved an Airbus 330 with manufacturer serial number 660.1 Both are multiples of 11, referring to 11:11. Flight AF447 and the 9 February 2009 superstorm relate to the Charles de Gaulle International Airport in Paris. It happened 112 days after 9 February 2009, while 112 is the European emergency services telephone number.

At first, I did not consider a relationship between the Air France AF447 flight disappearance and the superstorm. The next day, a helicopter crashed on Ameland.2 We were about to spend our holidays there, and there already had been a few coincidences related to Ameland. That attracted my attention, but I did not think much of it. The next day, my son Rob was watching the news. Suddenly he came to me yelling: ‘Guess what, the plane that crashed was due to arrive at 11:11 AM in Paris.’ That was incorrect. The plane was due to arrive at 11:10 AM. But Rob’s remark made me investigate the incident.

On 30 June 2009, Flight IY626 crashed in the Indian Ocean near Comoros,3 29 days after Flight AF447 disappeared above the Atlantic Ocean. AF447 was destined for the Charles de Gaulle International Airport in Paris. IY626 had departed from this airport. There are 29 days between 1 June 2009, the day flight AF447 disappeared and 30 June 2009, the day flight IY626 crashed, while 2/9 refers to 9 February (American notation).

The church tower in the pond at the university campus of Enschede played a central role in the circumstances that made me make the superstorm prediction. And university campus of Enschede was where I met the Lady. The artwork refers to flooded land. Enschede has area code 53. The last major flooding disaster in the Netherlands happened in 1953. This event is known as the February Storm of 53. The Dutch film De Storm about the 1953 flooding disaster came out in 2009.4

The premiere of the film, which lasts 110 minutes, was on 11 September 2009 (9/11, while 9+1+1=11 and 2+0+0+9 =11, making a reference to 11:11) at the 11th Festival Film by the Sea in Vlissingen.4 Vlissingen was the destination of our summer holidays in the four previous years. Enschede turns up in several spooky coincidences, so it is noteworthy that Enschede has a sorority named Spooky.5

Exactly three years after a blogger from Sargasso.nl posted the story about the fictional superstorm with a flooding disaster hitting the Netherlands on 9 February 2009, the presentation of the World Risk Index of the United Nations University was held on 2 September 2011. The Netherlands had the highest risk of flooding disasters in the European Union. The Netherlands is ranked number 69 worldwide,6 a peculiar ‘position’.

FC Twente becoming Dutch soccer champion

In 2010, FC Twente from Enschede became champion of the Dutch soccer Premier League for the first time ever. In 2009, AZ from Alkmaar had been champion. A is the first letter of the alphabet, while Z is the last. In Greek, that is Alpha Omega. On 21 December 2012, the day the Mayan calendar supposedly ended, there was one match in the Dutch soccer Premier League: AZ – FC Twente. In the years before 2009, PSV Eindhoven was the champion. Eindhoven means Final Gardens, a reference to Paradise. It is where the Lady from the dormitory currently lives.

On 2 May 2010, we went with my parents, my sister and brother-in-law and their children to an indoor playground in Almelo to celebrate my mother’s 65th birthday. It was the day FC Twente became champion. A screen played Disney XD channel for children. I was watching it. Three American football players appeared. One of them had shirt number 19, and another had 53. Then, the football players with numbers 19 and 53 stood side by side and began jumping, making the number 1953 noticed. It was the year of the flooding disaster, and it linked to Enschede because of the area code 53 and the church tower in the pond, and it happened on the day FC Twente from Enschede became champion.

In the years that followed, Ajax Amsterdam became champion. The Ajax team is nicknamed Sons of God, and Amsterdam is often abbreviated to Adam. Adam is the Son of God (Luke 3:38). Johan Cruijff, the most famous Ajax football player in history, has the initials JC like Jesus Christ. His nicknames were Number 14, The Skinny One and The Oracle. Number 14 was his shirt number. And that number refers to the initials of the Lady. I was a skinny person employed as an Oracle developer and database administrator. Cruijff also became the trainer for FC Barcelona in Spain. According to persistent rumours in the Dutch press, people in Barcelona called him The Saviour.

2 September 2011 is a curious date (2/9/11 or 2/9/2011 while 20=9+11), making multiple combinations of elevens. That day, the Dutch national soccer team, nicknamed the Dutch Eleven, won their Euro 2012 qualifying match against San Marino in Eindhoven. The score was 11-0, surpassing their previous 9-0 record score.7 This is a 9:11 reference. Soccer is played by two teams of 11 players, and 11:11-reference.

And on 2 September 2011 was the farewell party of star soccer player Ruiz of FC Twente, who played a crucial role in the championship of FC Twente in 2010.8 In his new team Fulham, Ruiz had number 11. His first match for his new team was on 11 September 2011. Remarkably, FC Twente played its next contest in group K of the Europa League on 15 September 2011 against Fulham, Ruiz’s new team. K is the eleventh letter of the alphabet, while the match result was 1-1. The return match was on 1 December 2011. 1 December is 1/12 (European notation), while 112 is the European emergency telephone number.

A peculiar set of plane crashes

On 15 September 2012, a small plane crashed in a field near Den Helder in the Netherlands. At the same time, there was an air show in Den Helder, but the accident was not related to the air show.9 That evening, another small plane crashed in the Netherlands in a field in Valkenswaard near Eindhoven. This plane had taken part in the Den Helder airshow earlier that day.10

On the same date, a small plane flying for the Dutch KLM Flight Academy was found crashed in a canyon in the mountains east of Phoenix, Arizona. Three people died on the crash site.11 Three weeks later, on 6 October 2012, another small aircraft flying for the KLM Flight Academy crashed into another small plane. Both managed to make an emergency landing, and nobody was injured.12 There had never been any accidents involving the KLM Flight Academy before.

The following related incident pairs can be identified: two planes crashing on the same day in the Netherlands and two aircraft of the KLM Flight Academy crashing, linked by the Netherlands and the date 15 September 2012. The number three occurred three times. Three planes were in the news on 15 September 2012, and three people were killed. And there were three weeks between the accidents.

And so, I pondered on 10 October 2012 whether or not the number three was part of this scheme. A few hours later, the news reported that three people had killed themselves in a rare triple suicide in Utrecht. Among the dead were two twin brothers aged 33.13 That made it even more bizarre. According to the report, police entered the apartment after the family had received farewell letters.

On 17 July 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) was shot down in Ukrainian airspace. The plane was a Boeing 777-200. The incident happened four months after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (MH370) went missing on 8 March 2014. The aircraft is still missing, which makes its disappearance particularly mysterious. That plane also was a Boeing 777-200, and the 404th plane of that type produced while 404 is the number associated with missing (not found) web pages.

The Flight 17 plane first flew on 17 July 1997, exactly 17 years before the accident.14 That was exactly one year after the crash of Trans World Airlines Flight 800 on 17 July 1996.15 It crashed 777 days before Swissair Flight 111.16 That is peculiar because of the numbers 777 and 111. Exactly 7 years, 7 months, and 7 days after Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) was shot down in Ukrainian airspace, Putin started the Ukraine war. Did he count the days? Probably not.

Looking at the numbers

Again in December 2008, we took a trip to Amsterdam by train. Rob and I had been noticing 11 related coincidences all day. In the evening, we were on the train destined for Sneek and sat down. Rob then said: ‘The number of this train unit has nothing to do with eleven.’ He was mistaken. The number was 242 or 2 * 11 * 11. And I took notice.

In January 2009 after work, I sat down in train unit 306. I realised that 306 is not a multiple of 11. My calculation was 330 – 306 = 14. It demonstrated that 306 was not divisible by 11. So this was not spooky. Then I looked to the left. On the track next to me was train unit 234. This number was not a multiple of 11 either as 234 – 220 = 14 also. Then I found myself contemplating whether or not the number 14 turning up was a coincidence. I looked to the right just when bus 14 was entering the bus station. 14 translated into letters is AD, the initials of the Lady. If you turn that number upside down, you get ‘hi’.

My lucky number was 26 because I was born on 26 November. As I remember it, the Lady was born on 9 February (9/2 European notation). That links the number 92 to Her. Now it happens to be that 92 is 26 upside down. And probably we were both born in 1968. We crossed each other’s path in 1989, while 89 is 68 upside down. That makes it a pair of related coincidences like 11:11. Also, 1968 and 1989 were revolutionary years. If this is not a mere coincidence, then some thinking has gone into this.

Numbers do not have any meaning except their value, and coincidences can happen by chance. Thinking of myself as rational, I once tried to debunk these suggestions as irrational. When commuting home from work on the train, I tried to convince myself that number coincidences are selective remembrance. If you focus on something, for instance, a specific number, you notice it more often. Upon nearing train station Sneek North, I told myself, ‘Let’s focus on 86, a number that has no meaning to me, and I will start to see it.’ And indeed, the following number I saw was 86 on the licence plate of a car parked at the station. Did that prove my point, or was Someone poking fun at me?

At the time, most Dutch licence plates had the following formats: AA-AA-99, 99-AA-AA, and 99-AAA-9 (A is a letter, and 9 is a number). The chance of a two-digit number like 86 on the first licence plate was close to one per cent. One year later, this incident came to my mind again. When parking my bike at work, I thought of it for no apparent reason. Then I walked down the parking lot and noticed the licence plates. Among the eight licence plates I saw, three had an 86, one had a 68, two had an 11, which might refer to 11:11, and two were unrelated to the incident, a pretty impressive score.

On 17 March 2012, the number 26 popped up conspicuously often. It never happened like that. As it is my lucky number, I would have noticed that. That afternoon Ingrid, Rob, and I were biking. The number 26 kept coming up, for instance, on licence plates. I began wondering what kind of luck was waiting for us. Rob wanted to go to the restaurant named Het Paviljoen near the lake. It was closed in March, so I warned him it would be closed. Rob wanted to go there anyway. The restaurant turned out to be open unofficially. The owner was waiting for a supply truck. It was late, and it arrived when we were there. After we left, the restaurant closed.

I also noticed the number 92. For a while, it appeared that when I left a building, the first car to pass often had the number 92 on its licence plate, perhaps, about one in three to five times, while once in a hundred was to be expected. Once, I tried to cross a road. The first car passing had a licence plate number with a 92. The second car also had 92 in its licence plate number. And so did the third. Only these three cars passed before I could cross. It was a temporary phase, and selective remembrance played a role, but it did not seem entirely coincidental.

A small white car with licence plate number 9-GXD-2 was parked in Leeuwarden on a parking lot near the train station nearly every morning for years. The letter O is not on Dutch car licence plates, so I imagined the X could represent an O linking God to 9 February (9-GOD-2). I also found this car parked 100 metres from my home in Sneek a few times. That may seem insignificant, but a related incident makes it noteworthy.

I own a green Opel Astra with licence plate TZ-GT-18. Once when we were on holiday in Zeeland, I noticed another green Opel Astra with licence plate TZ-GT-54. That attracted my attention. Later, I found it parked in Sneek near my home several times. It was in the same parking place where the car with licence plate 09-GXD-2 had also been. The distance between Zeeland and Sneek is 300 kilometres. That combination of peculiar events is like seeing 11:11.

Featured image: Poster for the film The Storm. Universal Studios (2009). [copyright info]

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