Dr. Baumring taught using a methodology unlike those of our modern educational systems. He believed that in order for knowledge to take root and reside in the mind as inherent knowing, an individual cannot just have information told to him, but must actually recreate the process of discovery within himself. Jerry would regularly comment, “I am merely the Sherpa (guide, way-shower), you must walk the path yourself”. This attitude is based upon the Christic principle he often quoted of “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”.
He made it very clear that even if he were to explain the entire process outright, it would be of no avail, for without the catalyzing power of insight attained through personal discovery, the student would be unable to digest and integrate the principles. Now this does not mean, as many students and Gann seekers fear, that it takes some form of “Divine Grace” or “Mystical Revelation” to perceive the true workings of the market. Rather the process of study and research develops an insight into the necessary principles of cause and effect, natural law and its manifestation in reality, which are absolute prerequisites for an integrated understanding and application.
Baumring’s educational methodology focused upon a principle that he called circular teaching, wherein the fundamental principles of the entire theory were presented in skeletal form at the outset of the curriculum, whether in the seminar series or with his private students. Each progressive seminar would then continue to fill in pieces of the skeleton, providing further details, elaborations progressed.
In this way, the entire vision or perspective was presented at the outset, so that a particularly adept or intelligent student could follow that initial lead, seeing the full context and direction that he needed to pursue, right from the start. Each progressive level of teaching continuously circled back through similar material, expanding the level of understanding and application until the student had mastered the every element of the collection of principles required for a full understanding of the system. Eventually, when the student has sufficiently mastered these specific technical components that Baumring directed them to study through his Course Manuals and explanations, the pieces would progressively interconnect until the mechanics of the entire system was fully revealed.
There were a number of students of Dr. Baumring’s who have continued on to become well known traders, teachers or writes themselves, such as Bradley Cowan, whose interesting works are primarily a regurgitation of Baumring’s theories, though often reframed or redirected to improper conclusions from those Baumring would have made. Or Robert Miner, who has developed excellent trading material and software, and wrote many years ago:
“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.”
Brad Swancoat and Ed Kasanjian, who developed Nature’s Pulse cycle software back in the 1980’s were both Baumring students, along with others who have made significant breakthroughs in financial research, but who choose to remain anonymous. Catalin Plapcianu is one of the younger generation who did not have the opportunity to meet Baumring, but who followed his guidance through his Gann Harmony Seminars leading him to rediscover some of Baumring’s most foundational theories of multi-dimensional, space-time phenomena.
Dr. Lorrie V. Bennett is one of the best examples of someone who stood on the shoulders of Gann and Baumring, cracked the code of Gann's system, and is no creating a 4 Volume Series on the Law of Vibration, covering the Patterns behind caused by the wave mechanics, then the Numbers hidden in Gann's text, to be followed by her master work, Planets, on Gann's System on astrology in Tunnel Through the Air, and to be closed by her work on Geometry which will pull all the wide pieces together.
There are hundreds more who have studied Baumring’s course series over the last 30 years since his passing, some who have rediscovered Ganns’ system as a result, and whom we continually encourage to share their insights and technology with our clientele.
On a personal note, no mention of Jerry Baumring, known as Jerry to his students and friends, is complete without a few comments about his delightfully eccentric character. Jerry was the type of person who naturally used words such as “happenstance”, “prestidigitation” and “isness”. He was a master mechanic, and it would not be uncommon for a student to arrive for a lesson only to find him elbow and undershirt deep in grease with his car disassembled with the pieces spread across the parking lot. He drove an old Cougar and an old Mustang, and when asked why he didn’t buy himself a decent car, he guffawed saying that the older cars were built with much greater quality than the newer ones, which contained unfixable computers and plastic parts, whereas he had built his cars with his own hands.
He had a similar mechanical fetish for his photocopy machines. In 1986 copy machines did not have simple components like today, and had to be taken apart in dozens of pieces to be cleaned. Many a night Jerry could be found past midnight with the copy machine in pieces all over the room. When suggested that he was wasting his time performing tasks any technician could do, he would reply with unexpected responses such as that by doing this work himself he had discovered that the gold wire used in the copy mechanism was based upon a similar principle used in the sarcophagus of the Great Pyramid to perform teleportation by the projection of plasma energy through the crystalline capstone.
Jerry’s primary form of R&R was “book hunting” all over the world. He would climb ladders and crawl on filthy floors digging into the deepest, darkest, spider-infested corners, and would almost miraculously always come up with some jewel everyone else had missed, as if he had 6th sense leading him to these hidden treasures. He was a spontaneous rather than a methodical book collector. He would stop at a garage sale and find some amazing first edition for a dollar while also buying the broken toaster for ten cents because the power cord was worth two dollars. As he toted his booty, toaster under one arm, book open in the other hand, upon mention that buying the toaster seemed silly, he would reply that it was a 2,000% return on his investment, and that didn’t include the book.
From the last anecdote it is not difficult to understand the continual state of disarray within his house and office. One would pull out a chair from his book-piled dining room table, looking for a seat, only to find the chair laden with too many books to inconspicuously move so as to sit down. He hid his best books in his dresser with the rarest beneath his underwear. In the corner next to his side of the bed was a 3 foot high by 3 foot deep waterfall of books deposited there after his bedtime reading. His office was in a continual state of disheveled flux due to the massive amount of books and information continually being processed through it.
Dr. Baumring’s work hours ranged between the hours of 8:00 AM to 4:00 AM Monday through Sunday, structured according to a completely spontaneous and unpredictable schedule. As a private student one could expect regular phone calls between 1-4 AM, and lessons scheduled for 8:00 AM would often not begin until past midnight, or after being postponed for days would occur in a distant hotel room while on a book hunting expedition. Strangely enough, the best lessons and deepest insights often occurred on the most unlikely of such occasions. Private students generally chewed through about 100 books a year, always finding or being given better and better material as they were ready for it. There is no student of Dr. Baumring’s who does not acknowledge the profound impact he has had upon their understanding of the universe.