As I said, if you accept that a big part of his secret equation dealt with 8.6 years, it is easy to convince yourself of its truth by simply overlaying vertical lines every 8.6 years on a long term plot of Gold or markets and see if it coincides at all with any major turning points in the last several decades since he has been away. I would highly doubt it.
I know a lot of followers get offended by casting doubts, but again, he left enough evidence to test that major premise, IMO.
Regarding his success, I can't say about him personally, but I've seen a lot of people ascribing success to Pretcher, who had many false calls that were easily falsifiable.