Reversing the Polarity of Financial Flow

By Dr. Equals, E.; Mr. Chomondly-Squared, M.; Prof. Theory, B. B.; Dr. Matter, A. T.;
Prof. Ventor, I. N.;

at the Geometrical Pataphysical Laboratory, England

Introduction

IT HAS LONG been noticed that there is a simple principle that underlies the age-old problem of financial stability. This is summed up by the proverb by Charles Dickens:

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds, nineteen shillings and sixpence, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds and sixpence, result misery."

Credit notwithstanding and the fact that nobody understands old British money anymore this illustrates the principle of polarity of cash flow.

By the principle expressed in Dickens' statement the immediate solution seems to be to either increase income or decrease expenditure. However, for the purposes of this procedure the assumption was taken that it would be sufficient to reverse polarity and leave things like income and expenditure to sort themselves out.

It is worth noting at this point that one member of the group decided not to undergo the procedure. One conclusion of that individual's decision was that the individual may have been happy with the direction of their polarity and decided to leave well alone in case money was seen to start flowing out faster than it was flowing in.

Rationale

An experimental area was set up is a suitable location with overtones of Frankenstein's Castle. This was a move away from the usual medieval trappings of ritual magic towards a more scientific look and feel. The atmosphere of a 20th century laboratory was deemed to be lacking in any suitable atmosphere and so the dark and slightly sinister look of Shelley's laboratory was chosen. Besides, we had access to a Frankenstein's laboratory and thought what the hell.

With the assumption of a gothic Victorian scientific look-and-feel it became apparent that the whole paraphernalia of a normal ritual would have to be changed. It was decided to keep the standard symbolic items that might adorn any magical altar but to substitute scientific instruments for the normal magical weapons and equipment. At the same time it was also decided that the normal ritual dress of participants, robes and hoods etc., would also have to go.

With the same line of thinking it was decided that the names of the participants, usually adopted purely for ritual practices and derived from folklore or medieval history, would have to be changed to more scientific flavoured names.

Other aspects of the standard medieval ritual were also abandoned in favour of the pseudo scientific approach. This included finding a substitute for the standard Pentagram Ritual that is normally used as the opening part of a ritual, and elements like conjurations would have to be substituted for some more modern techniques. Other aspects of the ritual had to be completely rewritten.

Theoretical Standpoint (Prof. Bertrand B. Theory)

The principle of polarity.

• Polarity dictates whether something is a net transmitter or net receiver of a particular phenomenon, be that matter, energy or in this case money.
• Polarity is never neutral. There is always a flow, however small, in one direction or another.
• We know ourselves to be net transmitters of money when we find ourselves to be running out of it.

The principle of expansion and contraction.

• Contraction is the experience of being on a low income and finding that no matter how hard one tries financial resources are constantly depleted.
• Expansion is the phenomena often described by the statement that 'it is easier to make money once you have money'. So theoretically spending money, perhaps with a degree of wisdom, attracts more money.

The relationship between expansion and financial interest.

• When monetary polarity reverses from contraction to expansion the amount of spending that can be absorbed by our financial capacity expands in a way analogous to a heatsink as used in electronics, i.e. the heat causes the metal to expand.
• Having expanded there is greater financial capacity (as is the case with financial interest) and so, perhaps like financial super conductors we become infinitely more efficient as the cycle of expansion (interest) and increased capacity continues.

Reversal of polarity

It has been observed, gods knows where, that applying a sharp shock to an object could, in the right circumstances, cause it to change its state. This is a very tenuous idea because none of us can even remember remotely where it comes from. (This isn't meant to be real science after all.) Anyway, it was decided that we would simulate a sharp shock to our financial polarities with the intention that the desired reversal would occur.

Some years before a member of the team (Prof. B. B. Theory) had been in the audience of the West End play 'Return to the Forbidden Planet'. In this play the audience were considered passengers on an interplanetary spacecraft. Half way through the performance some terrible technological disaster occurred and the Klyston Generator on the ship required the drastic measure of reversing its polarity.

This procedure is described in the Polarity Reversal Drill in the Pre Flight Checks pages on the Return to the Forbidden Planet web site here. This technique was adapted, or perhaps misremembered, leaving us with the procedure described in the Method below.

Materials and Equipment

The four standard magical weapons; athame, cup, disk and wand were substituted for the following:

• Athame - No 3 Swann Morton scalpel with a brand new (just out of the wrapper) No 11 blade. The symbolism here is of the classic scientific idea of Occam's Razor.
• Cup - Conical flask symbolising the same as in normal magic except it looked more scientific. In fact we couldn't get hold of a proper conical flask and settled for some suitably technological looking glassware in the shape of a teardrop. This was labelled D20 (heavy water) as we thought it might sound good. The water was coloured with green food dye and placed above a light source to give it that eerie gothic appearance. It would have been preferred to organise some dry ice for the water but this proved problematic to obtain and might be equally problematic to drink.
• Disk - A piece of computer hardware in this case a laptop computer that was used in the ritual. This was the symbol of earth as normally applied to a disk transferred to the more substantial side of high technology. OK we were stretching it a bit here, but it's our universe so we don't care!
• Wand - A sort of wand shaped device made from an old electronics project and a TV remote control. This doesn't really have any connection to a wand except that it was roughly the right shape and had cool flickering LEDs at one end and it had wires and micro processors all over it so we thought it looked remotely scientific.

Other paraphernalia used to adorn the laboratory/temple included the following:

All participants were dressed in white lab coats instead of robes. Clothing was otherwise normal for the twentieth century except for one feature. It had been noticed that people in laboratories often wear some kind of foot covering. Naturally taking the proceedings seriously everybody present wore a white plastic bag on each foot over their normal footwear. The plastic bags were secured with copious amounts of sticky tape.

A UV bulb was hung in the centre of the room. This was used as a substitute for candles and looked really great with everybody dressed in white laboratory coats.

Other suitable incidental scientific trinkets were used to adorn the room to give it the desired visual effect.

Note on all equipment and paraphernalia: Remember this is still magic and we were not trying to land on the moon.

Method

The running order was as follows:

1. Opening
2. Statement of intent
3. Evocation of the spirit of Ariel
4. Statement defining the principles of attraction
5. Pulsing
6. Drink sacrament
7. Return Ariel to his point of origin
8. End

Opening

This is a standard component for the group of magicians working on this project. All their rituals are normally opened with some sort of standard opener that marks the threshold between the mundane world and the world created within the magical circle. The standard opener used by this group is often, but not always, the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram as can be found in Aleister Crowley's Magic.

In this instance it was decided to dump convention. Instead a distinguished member of the team Mr Marion Chomondly-Squared gave us all a splendid rendition of "The Elements" (otherwise known as The Periodic Table) with words by Mr Tom Lehrer to the tune of "I am the Very Model of a Modern Major General" by Sir Arthur Sullivan.

Statement of intent

This is another standard feature of the vast majority of rituals performed by this group. Simply put this is merely a clear statement of the intention of the experimental group to ensure all present have a clear understanding of what is to be achieved. The renowned Prof. I. N. Ventor delivered this address. There is no record of the Professor's exact words however it included references to creating a metaphorical taurus with the intention of generating an enfumbalism. (Or something.)

Evocation of the spirit of Ariel

This basically consisted of the process of distilling or extracting the essence of Ariel from the universe about us. The learned Dr. Ann Tiberius Matter conducted this procedure by calling upon Ariel with the aid of some sound effects borrowed from the early Star Trek transporters generated by the computer.

The task given to Ariel was to witness the act of reversal of polarity that was to follow, and transmit the fact that this had taken place to all relevant authorities of a supernatural or financial nature. There is no exact record of Dr Matter's exact words.

Statement defining the principles of polarity, expansion and contraction and financial interest

Having called Ariel's presence to the laboratory the frail Prof. Bertrand B. Theory presented us with a short presentation of the principles of Attraction, Expansion as related to Interest and the Principle of Expansion & Contraction in financial matters. Professor Theory's words were based upon the ideas described in the Theoretical Standpoint described above.

Pulsing

The group stood in the centre of the room, joined hands in a circle (the taurus) and began pulsing in an anticlockwise direction.

Pulsing is a method whereby a group of people join hands in a circle and pass a pulse around the circle. An individual, in this case chosen in advance, squeezes the hand of the person to one side of them. The next individual, feeling this squeeze on their left hand, squeezes the left hand of the next person in the circle and so on. The pulse continues round the circle with each person passing on the pulse as received. The only rule is if an individual feels their left hand squeezed then they should squeeze their right hand and vice versa. Pulsing should be performed in silence.

With this system it is possible to end up with multiple pulses, strong or weak pulses, fast, slow or varying speeds or even pulses going in opposite directions at the same time. To try this the optimum number seems to be about five or six but groups can experiment with the technique to find out directly.

For the reversal of polarity the pulsing took four distinct stages.

1. Pulsing in an anticlockwise direction building up to a high speed.
2. At a predefined signal all present placed their hands upon their heads and pressed down hard for a descending count from five.
3. On reaching zero fling hands into the air waving vigorously while making 'bleaaahhggg' sounds. (Well a room full of people in white coats with plastic bags on their was never meant to be serious.)
4. Rejoin hands and commence pulsing in a clockwise direction, build up speed and allow pulsing to slow to nothing.
5. End of pulsing.

Drink sacrament

At this point the bottle of weird green water was opened and passed round in celebration as a group photo was taken.

Return Ariel to his point of origin

Ariel was dismissed to do our bidding by a simple statement from Dr. Ann T. Matter accompanied by the sound of the transporter as in the evocation. Again there is no exact record of Dr. Matters' exact words.

End

The experiment was finished with a simple buzzer sound generated from the computer.

Results

Statistical analysis of the results was not a requirement, suffice to say that:

In the weeks that followed, two of the participants landed excellent new jobs, both earning higher salaries than they had earned before. These positions proved to be exceptional career moves. Another participant managed to get a much-needed change of job to one earning more money with better conditions. The other two participants noticed varying results over the months that followed including an ability to commence projects freely spending where necessary without experiencing cash flow shortages at any point.

The other aspect of the experiment that was considered successful was that a great time was had by all involved. The evening that followed included much partying and celebration into the early hours.

Appendix - Names of Participants

Geometrical Pataphysical Laboratory, England

Top of Page xx References

Copyright © 2001-2004 Winged Feet Limited