One Who is Watching, Taylor Drake, and John P. Pratt - a Proposed Study

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endlessQuestions
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One Who is Watching, Taylor Drake, and John P. Pratt - a Proposed Study

Post by endlessQuestions »

I was recently introduced to Taylor Drake by several people at the same time.

I find his work fascinating, particularly because I have been led to many of the same conclusions as him, by using the same methodology (scriptural keyword searches and historical research).

For close to 15 years now I've also carefully studied the works of John P. Pratt, who I believe has the most convincing and accurate models of what he referred to as sacred calendars.

As I've worked through Drake's books (The Prophet Puzzle, written under his psuedonym, and Joseph in the Gap, written under his name), I've been struck by just how much of his work ties into chronology.

I've already found several ties between Drake's work and Pratt's work, the most important of which is the conference held at the Morley farm. Indeed, Pratt had an article from 2015 that talked about the calendrical importance of that event that was published in 2015 (which I discovered after doing a couple hours of personal research that had led me to believe John had missed this event - a humbling lesson to always check the chronology FIRST, not LAST). :)

I'm particularly interested in Chapter 25 of The Prophet Puzzle, which talks about a "prophetic time sequence" Drake feels he has identified.

I'm going to try to apply Pratt's findings to Drake's findings, and see what happens.

Over the years not many people have shown an interest in the sacred calendars, so I don't know that this thread will interest anyone. But just in case it does, here's where the work will be done...
Last edited by endlessQuestions on January 14th, 2023, 2:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Wondering Wendy
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Re: One Who is Watching (Taylor Drake) and John P. Pratt - a Proposed Study

Post by Wondering Wendy »

Taylor Drake and Watcher are 2 different people. Watcher has never used his real name. I listened to the Iron Rod Podcast back in the beginning when all 3 men interacted with each other: Watcher, Searcher, and MD. They are definitely different people.

I am interested in the calendars and have been following many Christian researchers who give their own ideas. Looking forward to what you might find. :D

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Re: One Who is Watching (Taylor Drake) and John P. Pratt - a Proposed Study

Post by endlessQuestions »

Wondering Wendy wrote: January 14th, 2023, 12:32 pm Taylor Drake and Watcher are 2 different people. Watcher has never used his real name. I listened to the Iron Rod Podcast back in the beginning when all 3 men interacted with each other: Watcher, Searcher, and MD. They are definitely different people.

I am interested in the calendars and have been following many Christian researchers who give their own ideas. Looking forward to what you might find. :D
If you read "Solving The Prophet Puzzle" by One Who Is Watching and "Joseph in the Gap" by Taylor Drake, I think it would be impossible to argue they're not the same person.

Unless I've completely missed the boat, and Drake extensively quotes Watcher, without using quotation marks.

For example, in both books, the authors talk about their 5 step journey of "Losing Their Innocence" and refer to their personal relationship with Claire Middlemiss as a key relationship.

Again, I could be wrong.

But I'm pretty sure I'm not.

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Luke
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Re: One Who is Watching (Taylor Drake) and John P. Pratt - a Proposed Study

Post by Luke »

Watcher has some brilliant stuff but he believes that Joseph was a fallen prophet.

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Re: One Who is Watching (Taylor Drake) and John P. Pratt - a Proposed Study

Post by endlessQuestions »

Luke wrote: January 14th, 2023, 1:48 pm Watcher has some brilliant stuff but he believes that Joseph was a fallen prophet.
Indeed he does.

And, as I'm sure you're aware, he believes that the one piece of evidence he was fallen was the introduction of sexual sin in the form of polygamy.

I'm not saying he's right about everything.

Or even anything.

We're all trying to piece it together.

I think looking at his arguments, which often rely on chronology, inside of the Pratt models, can help us understand whether he's on to something, or not.

Maybe I'm wrong, though. Just thought it would be an interesting way of testing two people who have interesting theories, but from what I can tell, didn't know of each other.

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Luke
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Re: One Who is Watching (Taylor Drake) and John P. Pratt - a Proposed Study

Post by Luke »

endlessQuestions wrote: January 14th, 2023, 1:52 pm
Luke wrote: January 14th, 2023, 1:48 pm Watcher has some brilliant stuff but he believes that Joseph was a fallen prophet.
Indeed he does.

And, as I'm sure you're aware, he believes that the one piece of evidence he was fallen was the introduction of sexual sin in the form of polygamy.

I'm not saying he's right about everything.

Or even anything.

We're all trying to piece it together.

I think looking at his arguments, which often rely on chronology, inside of the Pratt models, can help us understand whether he's on to something, or not.

Maybe I'm wrong, though. Just thought it would be an interesting way of testing two people who have interesting theories, but from what I can tell, didn't know of each other.
I agree that we should analyse any truth that we come across, come from whom it may. He has a lot of truth.

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Wondering Wendy
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Re: One Who is Watching (Taylor Drake) and John P. Pratt - a Proposed Study

Post by Wondering Wendy »

endlessQuestions wrote: January 14th, 2023, 1:21 pm
Wondering Wendy wrote: January 14th, 2023, 12:32 pm Taylor Drake and Watcher are 2 different people. Watcher has never used his real name. I listened to the Iron Rod Podcast back in the beginning when all 3 men interacted with each other: Watcher, Searcher, and MD. They are definitely different people.

I am interested in the calendars and have been following many Christian researchers who give their own ideas. Looking forward to what you might find. :D
If you read "Solving The Prophet Puzzle" by One Who Is Watching and "Joseph in the Gap" by Taylor Drake, I think it would be impossible to argue they're not the same person.

Unless I've completely missed the boat, and Drake extensively quotes Watcher, without using quotation marks.

For example, in both books, the authors talk about their 5 step journey of "Losing Their Innocence" and refer to their personal relationship with Claire Middlemiss as a key relationship.

Again, I could be wrong.

But I'm pretty sure I'm not.
Iron Rod Podcast 001

Searcher = Taylor Drake
MD (Measuring Doctrine) = Chris Hubbard
Watcher = still anon

They are 3 different people. :)

Edited to fix Chris Hubbard's name. Thank you CaptainM! :D
Last edited by Wondering Wendy on January 14th, 2023, 6:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: One Who is Watching (Taylor Drake) and John P. Pratt - a Proposed Study

Post by endlessQuestions »

Ok, here's the quick and dirty analysis:

Watcher gives us many dates to look at. He's up front about the fact that there is wiggle room on some of the dates, so I looked at the exact dates he gives, as well as the dates around them.

One interesting finding is that all but two of the dates are indeed "holy days" on what Pratt referred to as the Star calendar. Unfortunately, Pratt's work on the Star calendar is the area that I am least familiar with. Looks like I'm going to need to go study those articles and see if I can understand why that particular calendar would be important.

I would consider this a fairly significant "hit" for Watcher, though. To randomly choose a set of dates within a time period and have them all be "holy" on one calendar is, I would think, statistically significant.

The next part is a bit trickier, because you have to understand how the calendars work. I'll try to keep this very brief:

Different calendars start their day at different times. Some start at 6am, others at noon, some at 6pm, and others at midnight. This means that for each day you have to cycle through four settings to see all the possible alignments.

That being said, EVERY day Watcher proposes is a "holy day" on at least two calendars.

The three most important calendars for his chosen dates appear to be the Star calendar, the Priest calendar, and the Sacred Round.

The way Watcher structured his argument is kind of like a "hub and spoke" format. The hub would be April 3, 1836, which is the day the Lord and three other heavenly messengers appeared to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery according to D&C 110.

Another "hit" could be that April 3, 1836 is by far the "most holy" of the days in his chosen data set. It is holy on many, many of Pratt's calendar models (it looks like 7 to me, but I could be a bit off about that, because I'm reading it off his religious chronology, which is a bit hard to interpret sometimes).

All in all, I'd say the findings are interesting.

The next step would be to run a simulation and choose a similar number of random dates from another period of history and see what the results are. Then rinse and repeat that enough times to see if Watcher's "guesses" are better than those random samples.

Not sure if I'll do that or not.

It wouldn't be "scientific" even if I did, because I don't have the time to control all the variables and make sure I'm comparing apples to apples (for example, Watcher chooses dates that are documented in Church history, and I don't really want to spend the time going through Church history to choose my "random" samples).

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Re: One Who is Watching, Taylor Drake, and John P. Pratt - a Proposed Study

Post by endlessQuestions »

Wondering Wendy wrote: January 14th, 2023, 2:03 pm
endlessQuestions wrote: January 14th, 2023, 1:21 pm
Wondering Wendy wrote: January 14th, 2023, 12:32 pm Taylor Drake and Watcher are 2 different people. Watcher has never used his real name. I listened to the Iron Rod Podcast back in the beginning when all 3 men interacted with each other: Watcher, Searcher, and MD. They are definitely different people.

I am interested in the calendars and have been following many Christian researchers who give their own ideas. Looking forward to what you might find. :D
If you read "Solving The Prophet Puzzle" by One Who Is Watching and "Joseph in the Gap" by Taylor Drake, I think it would be impossible to argue they're not the same person.

Unless I've completely missed the boat, and Drake extensively quotes Watcher, without using quotation marks.

For example, in both books, the authors talk about their 5 step journey of "Losing Their Innocence" and refer to their personal relationship with Claire Middlemiss as a key relationship.

Again, I could be wrong.

But I'm pretty sure I'm not.
Iron Rod Podcast 001

Searcher = Taylor Drake
MD (Measuring Doctrine) = Chris Hubbel
Watcher = still anon

They are 3 different people. :)
Wow.

This is very weird.

I didn't get my copy of "Solving the Prophet Puzzle" until yesterday. As I read that intro, I had already seen these stories. I must have got them off Watcher's blog.

Thanks for setting me straight!

Changing the name of the thread to reflect reality. :)

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Re: One Who is Watching, Taylor Drake, and John P. Pratt - a Proposed Study

Post by endlessQuestions »

I just emailed Watcher to see if he's interested in digging into further "testing" of his dates using Pratt's calendar models.

I'll update the thread if I hear back from him.

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Re: One Who is Watching, Taylor Drake, and John P. Pratt - a Proposed Study

Post by CaptainM »

I have personally met with Watcher (I will not reveal his identity), and have had a discussion with Searcher (Taylor Drake). I can tell you they are definitely two different people. Watcher started it all over 30 years ago. Taylor is an understudy of Watcher.

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Re: One Who is Watching, Taylor Drake, and John P. Pratt - a Proposed Study

Post by endlessQuestions »

CaptainM wrote: January 14th, 2023, 2:59 pm I have personally met with Watcher (I will not reveal his identity), and have had a discussion with Searcher (Taylor Drake). I can tell you they are definitely two different people. Watcher started it all over 30 years ago. Taylor is an understudy of Watcher.
Yeah, Wendy straightened me out.

Thanks!

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CaptainM
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Re: One Who is Watching (Taylor Drake) and John P. Pratt - a Proposed Study

Post by CaptainM »

Wondering Wendy wrote: January 14th, 2023, 2:03 pm
endlessQuestions wrote: January 14th, 2023, 1:21 pm
Wondering Wendy wrote: January 14th, 2023, 12:32 pm Taylor Drake and Watcher are 2 different people. Watcher has never used his real name. I listened to the Iron Rod Podcast back in the beginning when all 3 men interacted with each other: Watcher, Searcher, and MD. They are definitely different people.

I am interested in the calendars and have been following many Christian researchers who give their own ideas. Looking forward to what you might find. :D
If you read "Solving The Prophet Puzzle" by One Who Is Watching and "Joseph in the Gap" by Taylor Drake, I think it would be impossible to argue they're not the same person.

Unless I've completely missed the boat, and Drake extensively quotes Watcher, without using quotation marks.

For example, in both books, the authors talk about their 5 step journey of "Losing Their Innocence" and refer to their personal relationship with Claire Middlemiss as a key relationship.

Again, I could be wrong.

But I'm pretty sure I'm not.
Iron Rod Podcast 001

Searcher = Taylor Drake
MD (Measuring Doctrine) = Chris Hubbel
Watcher = still anon

They are 3 different people. :)
Chris Hubbard (moved from AZ to UT)

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Re: One Who is Watching, Taylor Drake, and John P. Pratt - a Proposed Study

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Ok, looking into the Star Calendar again, and check this out:

https://johnpratt.com/items/docs/2016/star_cal.html

This is the "headline" for that article:

"Evidence is presented that the Lord is using the Star Calendar described herein to testify of his faithful servants. The witness of the Prophet Joseph Smith is provided in detail."

So clearly Pratt saw that the Star Calendar was critical as it related to Joseph Smith, Jr.

Another "hit" for Watcher.

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Re: One Who is Watching, Taylor Drake, and John P. Pratt - a Proposed Study

Post by endlessQuestions »

I'm just going to document this here, because I can:

"As the earth revolves around the sun, to us living on the planet it is the sun which appears to revolve around the earth one time each year (See Figure 1). We don't notice that in the daytime because the stars are not visible, but at night the stars rise about 4 minutes earlier each night. That adds up to about two hours per month and a full day every year. Thus, a calendar could be created which tracks which stars are located at their closest approach to the sun, even though they cannot be seen on that day. The Star Calendar is such a calendar."

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Re: One Who is Watching, Taylor Drake, and John P. Pratt - a Proposed Study

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"The Star Calendar tracks the actual average position of the sun against the background of stars. Each constellation is assigned a length in weeks that approximates its actual length. As the workings of the Star Calendar were being discovered, hints were taken from the Enoch Calendar. That calendar is based on the week: the year always begins on a Sunday and when it needs to be aligned with the true year of 365.24 days, an entire week is added. The same is true of the Star Calendar. Each zodiac constellation begins on a Saturday at noon. The "day" begins at noon because a star calendar is about seeing stars at night."

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Re: One Who is Watching, Taylor Drake, and John P. Pratt - a Proposed Study

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How are stars assigned to days? The circle in the sky around the earth on which the sun appears to move is called the ecliptic. It is shown in Figure 2 as the circle going through all of the zodiac constellations. Every star in the heavens can be assigned to a day by projecting an arc down from it perpendicular to the ecliptic. Each star is assigned a "celestial longitude", which is the length of the arc in degrees measured from a starting point, much like longitude on the earth is measured (see Figure 3). In this article and for the purposes of the Star Calendar, the longitude is measured from a zero point in the head of the Maiden (Virgo) and is called "sidereal longitude". In Figure 2, the sidereal longitude of any star on the map is simply the arc in degrees clockwise to the star starting from the "12 o'clock" line (between the labels of Leo and Virgo). The day on which the sun passes that point can be associated with that star. If the day falls on the same day as another star, one of them can be moved a day or so to fit into a nearby available slot.

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Re: One Who is Watching, Taylor Drake, and John P. Pratt - a Proposed Study

Post by endlessQuestions »

Similar to all of the sacred calendars, the Star Calendar has both major and minor holy days. The major holy days are associated with the brightest stars or with the days numbered 15 and 22 in each zodiac constellation. Those days correspond to the First and Last Days of the Feast of Passover (spring) or of the Feast of Tabernacles (autumn).

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Re: One Who is Watching, Taylor Drake, and John P. Pratt - a Proposed Study

Post by endlessQuestions »

The Enoch Calendar has two versions, as do all of the planetary calendars. One version tracts the actual average position of the object through the heavens. The second does not; it never adds any extra days to actually follow the object of interest but always has the same number of days. It is called the "Uniform" version. There is also a Uniform Star Calendar which always has exactly 364 days, the same as the Uniform Enoch Calendar. The use of this calendar is that it can provide information about an event independent of the time of year it occurs. One day in history is chosen to align this calendar with a known event. Because there are never any extra days inserted, every date in history is determined once that single date is selected.

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Re: One Who is Watching, Taylor Drake, and John P. Pratt - a Proposed Study

Post by endlessQuestions »

Watcher has a whole different chapter about 7 servants, and here's Pratt alluding to something along the same lines:

"In my earlier articles, evidence was presented which compelled me to propose that the Prophet Joseph Smith should be included in the list of the seven chief holy angels of God"

I want to point out again that I don't think Watcher and Pratt knew anything about each other.

I would consider this two independent streams of evidence, so correlations like this are rather fascinating.

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Re: One Who is Watching, Taylor Drake, and John P. Pratt - a Proposed Study

Post by endlessQuestions »

Well, it's interesting to be going back to this. I don't remember it from my previous study (Pratt really lost me at the Star Calendar, and it was at a time where he was drifting away from the corporate Church, which at the time made it harder for me to dig into his articles as sincerely as I previously had):

Notice that each of the 7 chief angels have 7 constellations associated with them. That fits Watchers narrative pretty well, I'd say, at this early stage of investigation:

"An earlier paper points out that each of the seven holy chief angels of God have seven constellations associated with them, for a total of forty-nine. As angel number 5 (Phanuel) Joseph Smith does also, meaning that several stars in several constellations are associated with him. That article compared many details from the myth of the constellation Perseus to the life of Joseph Smith which leave little doubt that his mission was symbolized by that detailed allegory.[8] For example, both Joseph and Perseus had their life quest begin in a sacred grove where heavenly messengers provided special gifts to them. Both were given a sword and a special breastplate which was like a mirror to see evil without being hurt by it. The quest was to destroy the abominable female monster (Medusa) who controlled people's lives. The quest involved getting more sacred gifts to fulfill this mission. A further ability to become a seer was received from three holy people. Both men were made invisible to fulfill their mission, Perseus with a helmet of invisibility and Joseph in death. In the end, the monstrous female who had prostituted herself was destroyed by them. Perseus is immortalized in the heavens as a constellation, where he is shown carrying the decapitated head of the female Medusa monster."

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Re: One Who is Watching, Taylor Drake, and John P. Pratt - a Proposed Study

Post by endlessQuestions »

The death date of Joseph Smith is more clearly symbolized in the constellations than that of his birth and provides a strong witness as to his identity. The Prophet was murdered on the afternoon of Thu 27 Jun 1844 about 5 p.m. On the Star Calendar that martyrdom day was the day of the brightest star in the sky, Sirius, in the Big Dog, which represents Joseph Smith! There is such a small probability that Sirius would fall exactly on the Prophet's death date by chance, that this is taken as strong evidence that his death date had been known from the beginning.

also...

Now consider the Star Calendar. The constellation of the Raven (Corvus) is just below the Maiden (Virgo). The brightest star in the Raven, which represents the entire constellation, has its star slot on the day 13 Vir. It turns out that the prophet's martyrdom occurred on the very day of the Raven on the Uniform Star Calendar! Thus there are two witnesses that Joseph Smith is the Raven because that was also the day on the Hebrew Calendar.

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Re: One Who is Watching

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endlessQuestions wrote: January 14th, 2023, 3:03 pm Ok, looking into the Star Calendar again, and check this out:

https://johnpratt.com/items/docs/2016/star_cal.html

This is the "headline" for that article:

"Evidence is presented that the Lord is using the Star Calendar described herein to testify of his faithful servants. The witness of the Prophet Joseph Smith is provided in detail."

So clearly Pratt saw that the Star Calendar was critical as it related to Joseph Smith, Jr.

Another "hit" for Watcher.
Truly the intelligence of the Creator is astounding to behold. There are so many levels of heavenly testimony of his servants and their great works. Our solar system and its placement among the stars was carefully chosen by an all knowing Creator. Truly the heavens declare the glory of God!
Whatever else is going on, God speaks to us in our own language and according to our accepted reckoning of time as evidenced by the alignment of two separate and distinct timing patterns shown at march8miracle.org.

3*8**
Last edited by BeNotDeceived on January 14th, 2023, 3:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: One Who is Watching, Taylor Drake, and John P. Pratt - a Proposed Study

Post by endlessQuestions »

A quick side note to establish that the Star Calendar isn't just about Joseph Smith (because who cares if it's significant in that regard, but doesn't line up with our Master and Savior):

"The date of the resurrection of Jesus Christ was not an obscure date, but was holy on nearly all of the sacred calendars known so far. It is no exception on the star calendars. It turns out that those two calendars were aligned for the three years of Christ's ministry, so every date in that interval was the same on both the Star Calendar and the Uniform Star Calendar. The star day for the Resurrection was the holy day 22 Ari, being that of the brightest star in the constellation. That day is holy both because it is on day 22 and also it is the star which represents the entire constellation and hence is called "the Ram" (Hamal, meaning "sheep"). That day was the equivalent of the Last Day of Passover on the Star Calendar, a major holy day."

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Re: One Who is Watching, Taylor Drake, and John P. Pratt - a Proposed Study

Post by BeNotDeceived »

endlessQuestions wrote: January 14th, 2023, 3:26 pm A quick side note to establish that the Star Calendar isn't just about Joseph Smith (because who cares if it's significant in that regard, but doesn't line up with our Master and Savior):

"The date of the resurrection of Jesus Christ was not an obscure date, but was holy on nearly all of the sacred calendars known so far. It is no exception on the star calendars. It turns out that those two calendars were aligned for the three years of Christ's ministry, so every date in that interval was the same on both the Star Calendar and the Uniform Star Calendar. The star day for the Resurrection was the holy day 22 Ari, being that of the brightest star in the constellation. That day is holy both because it is on day 22 and also it is the star which represents the entire constellation and hence is called "the Ram" (Hamal, meaning "sheep"). That day was the equivalent of the Last Day of Passover on the Star Calendar, a major holy day."
22 has stood out as unique among numbers as per search.php?keywords=22ii

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