Josef “Sepp” Dietrich
I perceive Hitler, Himmler, Eva Braun and others as warrior gangsters of the ancient and modern world.
I
don't see Dietrich as an old soul, but perceive he has left his mark
upon the ancient world, especially. There were indications that I would
be able to find him in Victorian England and remembered he looked a
little like the author William Makepeace Thackeray.
Thackeray
English
novelist, only son of Richmond and Anne Thackeray (whose maiden name
was Becher), was born at Calcutta on the 18th of July 1811. "He came to
school young", Venables wrote, "a pretty, gentle, and rather timid boy."
This accords with the fact that all through Thackeray's writings the
student may find traces of the sensitiveness which often belongs to the
creative mind, and which, in the boy who does not understand its meaning
and its possible power, is apt to assume the guise of a shrinking
disposition. To this very matter Venables tersely referred in a later
passage of the letter quoted by Trollope: "When I knew him better, in
later years, I thought I could recognize the sensitive nature which he
had as a boy."
In February 1829 Thackeray went to Trinity
College, Cambridge, and in that year contributed some engaging lines on
"Timbuctoo", the subject for the Prize Poem (the prize for which was won
in that year by Tennyson), to a little paper called The Snob, a title
which Thackeray afterwards utilized in the famous Book of Snobs. The
first stanza has become tolerably well known, but is worth quoting as an
early instance of the direct comic force afterwards employed by the
author in verse and prose burlesques:
In Africa -- a quarter of the world --
Men's skins are black; their hair is crisp and curled;
And somewhere there, unknown to public view,
A mighty city lies, called Timbuctoo.
One
other passage at least in The Snob, in the form of a skit on a
paragraph of fashionable intelligence, seems to bear traces of
Thackeray's handiwork. At Cambridge, James Spedding, Monckton Milnes
(Lord Houghton), Edward FitzGerald, W. H. Thompson (afterwards Master of
Trinity), and others who made their mark in later life, were among his
friends. In 1830 he left Cambridge without taking a degree, and went to
Weimar and to Paris. His visit to Weimar bore fruit in the keen sketches
of life at a small German court which appear in Fitz-Boodle's
Confessions and in Vanity Fair. In George Henry Lewes's Life of Goethe
is a letter containing Thackeray's impressions of the German poet. On
his return to England in 1831 he entered the Middle Temple. He did not
care to pursue the study of the law, but he found in his experience of
the Temple the material for some capital scenes in Pendennis. In 1832 he
came of age, and inherited a sum which, according to Trollope, "seems
to have amounted to about five hundred a year." The money was soon lost
-- some in an Indian bank, some at play and some in two newspapers, The
National Standard (with a long sub-title) and The Constitutional. In
Lovel the Widower these two papers are indicated under one name as The
Museum, in connection with which our friends Honeyman and Sherrick of
The Newcomes are briefly brought in. Thackeray's adventures and losses
at play were utilized in his literary work on three occasions, in "A
Caution to Travellers" (The Paris Sketch-Book), in the first of the
Deuceace narrations (The Memoirs of Mr. C. J. Yellowplush), and in
Pendennis in a story (wherein Deuceace reappears) told to Captain Strong
by "Colonel Altamont." As to Deuceace, Sir Theodore Martin has related
how once in the playrooms at Spa Thackeray called his attention to a
certain man and said presently, "That was the original of my Deuceace."
In
1834 or at the end of 1833 Thackeray established himself in Paris in
order to study art seriously. He had, like Clive in The Newcomes, shown
talent as a caricaturist from his early boyhood. His gift proved of
great value to him in illustrating much of his own literary work in a
fashion which, despite all incorrectness of draughtsmanship, conveyed
vivid suggestions that could not have been so well given by anyone but
himself. Perhaps his pencil was at its best technically in such
fantastic work as is found constantly in the initial letters which he
frequently used for chapters in his various kinds of work, and in those
drawings made for the amusement of some child friends which were the
origin of The Rose and the Ring.
In 1836 Thackeray married
Isabella, daughter of Colonel Matthew Shawe. There were three daughters
born of the marriage, one dying in infancy. The eldest daughter, Anne
Isabella (b. 1837), married in 1877 Mr. Richmond Ritchie, of the India
Office, who in 1907 was created a K.C.B. She inherited literary talent
from her father and wrote several charming works of fiction, notably
Miss Angel (1875), and subsequently edited Thackeray's works and
published some volumes of criticism and reminiscences. The younger
daughter, Harriet Marian (b. 1840), married (Sir) Leslie Stephen in 1867
and died in 1875. Thackeray's own family life was early broken, for
Mrs. Thackeray, to quote Trollope, "became ill and her mind failed her",
in 1840, and he "became as it were a widower to the end of his days";
Mrs. Thackeray did not die until 1892.
In 1837 Thackeray came to
London, worked at various kinds of journalism, and became a regular
contributor to Fraser's Magazine. In this in 1841 appeared The History
of Mr. Samuel Titmarsh and the Great Hoggarty Diamond, a work filled
with instances of the wit, humor, satire, pathos, which found a more
ordered if not a fresher expression in his later and longer works. For
freshness, indeed, and for a fine perception which enables the author to
perform among other feats that of keeping up throughout the story the
curious simplicity of its supposed narrator's character, The Great
Hoggarty Diamond can scarcely be surpassed. The characters, from Lady
Drum, Lady Fanny Rakes, Lady Jane and Edmund Preston, to Brough, Mrs.
and Miss Brough, Mrs. Roundhand, Gus Hoskins, and, by no means least,
Samuel Titmarsh's aunt, Mrs. Hoggarty, with her store of "Rosolio", are
full of life; the book is crammed with honest fun; and for pure pathos,
the death of the child, and the meeting of the husband and wife over the
empty cradle, stands, if not alone in its own line, at least in the
company of very few such scenes in English fiction. The Great Hoggarty
Diamond, oddly enough, met with the fate that afterwards befell one of
Charles James Lever's best stories which appeared in a periodical week
by week -- it had to be cut short at the bidding of the editor. In 1840
came out The Paris Sketch-Book, much of which had been written and
published at an earlier date. The book contains among other things some
curious divagations in criticism, along with some really fine critical
work, and a very powerful sketch called "A Gambler's Death." In 1838
Thackeray had begun, in Fraser, The Yellowplush Papers, with their
strange touches of humor, satire, tragedy (in one scene, the closing one
of the history of Mr. Deuceace), and their sublimation of fantastic bad
spelling (M'Arony for macaroni is one of the typical touches of this);
and this was followed by Catherine, a strong story, and too disagreeable
perhaps for its purpose, founded closely on the actual career of a
criminal named Catherine Hayes, and intended to counteract the then
growing practice of making ruffians and harlots prominent characters in
fiction. Now, when Pendennis was coming out in serial form (1850), Miss
Catherine Hayes, a singer of Irish birth and a famous prima donna (Sims
Reeves described her as "the sweetest Lucia [di Lammermoor] he had ever
sung with") was much before the public. A reflective passage in a number
of Pendennis referred indignantly and scornfully to Catherine Hayes,
the criminal of old time, coupling her name with that of a then recently
notorious murderer. It would appear that Thackeray had for the moment,
oddly enough, omitted to think of Miss Catherine Hayes, the justly famed
soprano, while certain Irish folk were obviously ignorant or oblivious
of the history of Catherine Hayes the murderess. Anyhow, there was a
great outcry in the Irish press, and Thackeray was beset by private
letters of indignation from enthusiastic compatriots of the prima donna.
In deference to susceptibilities innocently outraged Thackeray
afterwards suppressed the passage which had given offense.
However,
working with superficial facial similarities is mostly an
unsatisfactory business. Thackeray has too much hair and a much smaller
nose than Dietrich's.
Jay Leno
Thackeray's connection to Jay Leno can be found somewhere in the Akashic Records.
Attila the Hun
For me, Dietrich's aura seems to resonate at the same frequency as Attila the Hun's.
How
should we picture the appearance of Attila the Hun? Priskos was a
contemporary who travelled to the main encampment of the Huns as an
envoy of the Eastern Roman Empire. There he made the acquaintance of
Attila the Hun in person. Unfortunately, only fragments of his testimony
have survived. Luckily, in the sixth century ce the Ostrogothic
historian Jordanes could still consult the writings of Priskos (among
others) to give us a description of Attila the Hun. Jordanes describes
him as a small but broad man, with a large head, small eyes, a partly
grey, thin beard, a flat nose, and tanned skin. In addition, Priskos
himself reports that Attila's dress was comparatively moderate. What
these clothes looked like can only be derived from images of Scythians,
because contemporary images of Huns don't exist (anymore). Contemporary
writers frequently denote the Huns with “Scythians”, mainly because the
Huns inhabited the former Scythian area, but maybe also because they
resembled the Scythians. It's assumable that, as far as culture and
appearance are concerned, the Scythians and Huns didn't differ that
much. The appearance of the Scythians (who called themselves Skoloti;
among the Persians also known as Saka; among the Greeks as Skuthai) is
clearly represented on a Greek comb, two Greek–Scythian vessels, and a
Greek–Scythian plaque. If we may rely on these images, Attila the Hun
wore comfortable, long trousers, soft riding boots, a shirt with long
sleeves that was closed crosswise at the front, a girdle, and a conic
cap. The shirt and the trousers had been decorated with regular,
geometric patterns. Attila the Hun could arm himself, like the
Scythians, with bow and arrows in a quiver that was attached to his
girdle, a short sword, a shield, and a throwing spear. Finally, he must
have worn long hair and a long beard, similar to the Scythian fashion.
Strange Ideas
What
do you think of Hitler and Himmler's strange occult ideas? (they also
had strange ideas about their past lives). They had great respect for
the Norse gods and goddesses.
What is their connection to the Valkyrie in your opinion?
In your past life did you share any of the occult and pagan ideas of the gangsters running everything?
I've
had some strange and uncomfortable experiences with people at my Reiki
center who are apparently connected to this period of German History. No
doubt they have sought me out because of my own karmic links with this
soul group. I believe I met Hitler, but I died in 1932 just as he was
coming into power.
Of the 'unusual perceptual experiences'
reported by Hitler, he acknowledged that he heard voices like those
which inspired Joan of Arc: they told him to rescue the Fatherland from
the Jews. He also claimed that he had a vision of Wotan, the old German
war god, pointing to the East above the heads of the cheering Viennese
crowds at the time of Austrian Anschluss.
Drawn by Theodor Seuss Geisel
Henry the Fowler
And
Heinrich Himmler was a real nut about "spiritual" matters. Peter
Padfield notes that from late 1923 to early 1924, Heinrich Himmler's
reading included books on spiritualism, second sight, astrology,
telepathy, and the like. Heinrich Himmler fancied himself the
reincarnation of an ancient Bavarian king, King Heinrich, returned to
life to fulfill a grand destiny.
Fascinated by tales of King
Arthur and his knights, Himmler's "Camelot" for his own knightly Order
was the castle of Wewelsberg near Paderborn in Westphalia. Having
acquired it in 1934, Himmler had massive reconstruction work done (paid
for by his company "The Society for the Protection and Maintenance of
German Cultural Monuments") -- the labour came, of course, from the
concentration camps.
The focal point of the castle was a huge round oak table with seating for twelve of his senior Gruppenfuhrers:
"They
sat in high-backed chairs made out of pigskin, on each of which was a
silver disk on which the selected 'knight' had his name engraved. Here
the chiefs of the SS were compelled to sit in the company of their Grand
Master [Himmler] for hours of contemplation and meditation ... Each
'knight' had his own quarters in the castle..."[Graber]
Beneath
this room was a crypt containing pedestals where should one of the
"knights" die an urn containing his ashes [Graber] or his coat of arms
[Padfield] would be burnt. Vents in the ceiling would allow those in the
main hall to see the smoke rise or "the spirit ascend into a type of
Valhalla".
Himmler's own private rooms in the castle were
dedicated to the tenth-century Saxon King Heinrich the first (also known
as Henry the Fowler) decked out in period fashion. According to
Himmler's masseur, Himmler believed he was the reincarnation of the
king, although Padfield notes that this sits uneasily with Himmler's
ideas of life after death (by physical transmission of blood in the
clan). Himmler shared his Christian name with the king, and may have
felt he was an honorary member of a royal clan. His father had been
tutor to Prince Heinrich of Bavaria, and the young Himmler was not only
named for him but was the Prince's godson.[Padfield] Whatever the case,
at midnight each July 2nd (the anniversary of the Saxon king's death) he
would apparently commune in silence with King Heinrich.
Theodor
Seuss Geisel (March 2, 1904 – September 24, 1991), better known by his
pen name, Dr. Seuss, was a famous American writer and cartoonist. Best
known for his children's books such as The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs
and Ham, How the Grinch Stole Christmas and other classics, his books
have become staples for many children and their parents. Seuss'
trademark was his rhyming text and outlandish creatures. He also wrote
under the pen names Theo. LeSieg and Rosetta Stone.
As World War
II began, Dr. Seuss turned to political cartoons, drawing over 400 in
two years as editorial cartoonist for the left-wing New York City daily
newspaper, PM. Dr. Seuss's political cartoons opposed the viciousness of
Hitler and Mussolini and were highly critical of isolationists, most
notably Charles Lindbergh, who opposed American entry into the war. Some
cartoons depicted all Japanese Americans as latent traitors or
fifth-columnists, while at the same time other cartoons deplored the
racism at home against Jews and blacks that harmed the war effort. His
cartoons were strongly supportive of President Roosevelt's conduct of
the war, combining the usual exhortations to ration and contribute to
the war effort with frequent attacks on Congress (especially the
Republican Party), parts of the press (such as the New York Daily News
and Chicago Tribune), and others for criticism of Roosevelt, criticism
of aid to the Soviet Union, investigation of suspected Communists, and
other offenses that he depicted as leading to disunity and helping the
Nazis, intentionally or inadvertently. In 1942, Dr. Seuss turned his
energies to direct support of the U.S. war effort. First, he worked
drawing posters for the Treasury Department and the War Production
Board. Then, in 1943, he joined the Army and was commander of the
Animation Dept of the First Motion Picture Unit of the United States
Army Air Forces, where he wrote films that included "Your Job in
Germany," a 1945 propaganda film about peace in Europe after World War
II, "Design for Death," a study of Japanese culture that won the Academy
Award for Best Documentary in 1947, and the Private Snafu series of
adult army training films. While in the Army, he was awarded the Legion
of Merit. Dr. Seuss's non-military films from around this time were also
well-received; Gerald McBoing-Boing won the Academy Award for Best
Short Subject (Animated) in 1950.
Despite his numerous awards,
Dr. Seuss never won the Caldecott Medal nor the Newbery. Three of his
titles were chosen as Caldecott runners-up (now referred to as Caldecott
Honor books): McElligot's Pool (1947), Bartholomew and the Oobleck
(1949), and If I Ran the Zoo (1950).
After the war, Dr. Seuss and
his wife moved to La Jolla, California. Returning to children's books,
he wrote what many consider to be his finest works, including such
favorites as If I Ran the Zoo, (1950), Scrambled Eggs Super! (1953), On
Beyond Zebra! (1955), If I Ran the Circus (1956), and How the Grinch
Stole Christmas! (1957).
At the same time, an important
development occurred that influenced much of Seuss's later work. In May
1954, Life magazine published a report on illiteracy among school
children, which concluded that children were not learning to read
because their books were boring. Accordingly, Seuss's publisher made up a
list of 400 words he felt were important and asked Dr. Seuss to cut the
list to 250 words and write a book using only those words. Nine months
later, Seuss, using 220 of the words given to him, completed The Cat in
the Hat. This book was a tour de force—it retained the drawing style,
verse rhythms, and all the imaginative power of Seuss's earlier works,
but because of its simplified vocabulary could be read by beginning
readers. A rumor exists, that in 1960, Bennett Cerf bet Dr. Seuss $50
that he couldn't write an entire book using only fifty words. The result
was supposedly Green Eggs and Ham. The additional rumor that Cerf never
paid Seuss the $50 has never been proven and is most likely untrue.
These books achieved significant international success and remain very
popular.
Dr. Seuss went on to write many other children's books,
both in his new simplified-vocabulary manner (sold as "Beginner Books")
and in his older, more elaborate style. In 1982 Dr. Seuss wrote "Hunches
in Bunches". The Beginner Books were not easy for Seuss, and reportedly
he labored for months crafting them.
At various times Seuss also
wrote books for adults that used the same style of verse and pictures:
The Seven Lady Godivas; Oh, The Places You'll Go!; and his final book
You're Only Old Once, a satire of hospitals and the geriatric lifestyle.
During
a very difficult illness, Dr. Seuss' wife, Helen Palmer Geisel,
committed suicide on October 23, 1967. Seuss married Audrey Stone Dimond
on June 21, 1968. Seuss himself died, following several years of
illness, in La Jolla, California on September 24, 1991.
In 2002
the Dr. Seuss National Memorial Sculpture Garden opened in his
birthplace of Springfield, Massachusetts; it features sculptures of Dr.
Seuss and of many of his characters.
Dr Seuss seems to have a past life connection with Alexander Pope (Did you see the DaVinci Code?)
Pope
had been fascinated by Homer since childhood. In 1713, he announced his
plans to publish a translation of Homer's Iliad. The work would be
available by subscription, with one volume appearing every year over the
course of six years. Pope secured a revolutionary deal with the
publisher Bernard Lintot, which brought him two hundred guineas a
volume. The commercial success of his translation made Pope the first
English poet who could live off the sales of his work alone, "indebted
to no prince or peer alive", as he put it. His translation of the Iliad
duly appeared between 1715 and 1720. It was later acclaimed by Samuel
Johnson as "a performance which no age or nation could hope to equal".
The classical scholar Richard Bentley, less fulsomely, wrote: "It is a
pretty poem, Mr. Pope, but you must not call it Homer." The money he
made allowed Pope to move to a villa at Twickenham in 1719, where he
would create a famous grotto and gardens (destroyed by bombing in World
War Two). Encouraged by the very favourable reception of the Iliad, Pope
translated the Odyssey. The translation appeared in 1725–1726, but this
time, confronted with the arduousness of the task, he enlisted the help
of William Broome and Elijah Fenton. Pope attempted to conceal the
extent of the collaboration (he himself translated only twelve books,
Broome eight and Fenton four), but the secret leaked out. It did some
damage to Pope's reputation for a time, but not to his profits. In this
period Pope also brought out an edition of Shakespeare, which silently
"regularised" his metre and rewrote his verse in several places. Lewis
Theobald and other scholars attacked Pope's edition, incurring Pope's
wrath and inspiring the first version of his satire The Dunciad (1728),
the first of the moral and satiric poems of his last period.
John Gay
Around
1711, Pope made friends with the Tory writers, John Gay, Jonathan Swift
and John Arbuthnot, as well as the Whigs, Joseph Addison and Richard
Steele.
John Gay (30 June 1685 - 4 December 1732) was an English
poet and dramatist. He is best remembered for The Beggar's Opera (1728),
set to music by Johann Christoph Pepusch. The characters, including
Captain Macheath and Polly Peachum, became household names.
The
Beggar's Opera is a ballad opera, a satiric play using some of the
conventions of opera, but without the recitative. It is one of the
watershed plays in Augustan drama. The airs in the play are set to
popular broadsheet ballads, opera arias, church hymns, and folk tunes of
the time. It was written in 1728 by John Gay, and the music was
probably arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch (the overture, based on
two of the songs in Act II is written by him and so it is assumed that
the bass lines of the airs are by him, although there is actually no
evidence that this is true). The play took aim at the passionate
interest of the upper classes in Italian opera, and simultaneously set
out to lampoon the notable Whig statesman Robert Walpole and the
notorious criminals Jonathan Wild and Jack Sheppard.
Johann Christoph Pepusch
Johann
Christoph Pepusch (1667- July 20, 1752) was a German composer. At age
14, he was appointed to the Prussian court. About 1700, he settled in
England. Although he is best known for his arrangement of the music for
The Beggar's Opera (1728) - to the libretto of John Gay, he composed
many other works including stage and church music as well as a number of
concertos and trio sonatas for oboe, violin and basso continuo.
Akashic Records
If you check the Akashic Records we are back with Dwight D. Eisenhower.
The
demonstration of soul group connections gives greater validity to
individual past life readings in my opinion. Although many people quite
rightly choose to remain sceptical.
John Gay
John
Gay was born in Barnstaple, England and was educated at the town's
grammar school. On leaving school he was apprenticed to a silk mercer in
London, but being weary, according to Samuel Johnson, "of either the
restraint or the servility of his occupation," he soon returned to
Barnstaple, where he spent some time with his uncle, the Rev. John
Hanmer, the Nonconformist minister of the town. He then returned to
London.
The dedication of his Rural Sports (1713) to Alexander
Pope was the beginning of a lasting friendship. In 1714, Gay wrote The
Shepherd's Week, a series of six pastorals drawn from English rustic
life. Pope had urged him to undertake this task in order to ridicule the
Arcadian pastorals of Ambrose Philips, who had been praised by The
Guardian (1713), to the neglect of Pope's claims as the first pastoral
writer of the age and the true English Theocritus. Gay's pastorals
completely achieved this goal, but his ludicrous pictures of the English
country lads and their loves were found to be entertaining on their own
account.
Gay had just been appointed secretary to the British
ambassador to the court of Hanover through the influence of Jonathan
Swift when the death of Queen Anne three months later put an end to all
his hopes of official employment.
In 1715, probably with some
help from Pope, he produced What d'ye call it?, a dramatic skit on
contemporary tragedy, with special reference to Thomas Otway's Venice
Preserved. It left the public so ignorant of its real meaning that Lewis
Theobald and Benjamin Griffin published a Complete Key to what d'ye
call it to explain it. In 1716 appeared his Trivia, or the Art of
Walking the Streets of London, a poem in three books, for which he
acknowledged having received several hints from Swift. It contains
graphic and humorous descriptions of the London of that period. In
January 1717 he produced the comedy of Three Hours after Marriage, which
was grossly indecent without being amusing, and was a complete failure.
He had assistance from Pope and John Arbuthnot, but they allowed it to
be assumed that Gay was the sole author.
Gay had numerous
patrons, and in 1720 he published Poems on Several Occasions by
subscription, taking in £1000 or more. In that year James Craggs, the
secretary of state, presented him with some South Sea stock. Gay,
disregarding the advice of Pope and other of his friends, invested all
of his money in South Sea stock, and, holding on to the end of the South
Sea Bubble, he lost everything. The shock is said to have made him
dangerously ill. His friends did not fail him at this juncture. He had
patrons in William Pulteney, afterwards earl of Bath, in the third earl
of Burlington, who constantly entertained him at Chiswick or at
Burlington House, and in the third earl of Queensberry. He was a
frequent visitor with Pope, and received unvarying kindness from William
Congreve and Arbuthnot. In 1727 he wrote for Prince William, afterwards
duke of Cumberland, his famous Fifty-one Fables in Verse, for which he
naturally hoped to gain some preferment, although he has much to say in
them of the servility of courtiers and the vanity of court honours. He
was offered the situation of gentleman-usher to the Princess Louisa, who
was still a child. He refused this offer, which all his friends seem to
have regarded, for no very obvious reason, as an indignity. He had
never rendered any special services to the court.
He certainly
did nothing to conciliate the favour of the government by his next
production, The Beggar's Opera, a lyrical drama produced on the January
29, 1728 by John Rich, in which Sir Robert Walpole was caricatured. This
famous piece, which was said to have made "Rich gay and Gay rich," was
an innovation in many respects. The satire of the play has a double
allegory. The characters of Peachum and Macheath represent the famous
highwayman and gangster Jonathan Wild and the cockney housebreaker Jack
Sheppard. At the same time, Jonathan Wild was understood to represent
Robert Walpole, whose government had been tolerant of Wild's thievery
and the South Sea directors' escape from punishment. Under cover of the
thieves and highwaymen who figured in it was disguised a satire on
society, for Gay made it plain that in describing the moral code of his
characters he had in mind the corruptions of the governing class. Part
of the success of the Beggar's Opera may have been due to the acting of
Lavinia Fenton, afterwards duchess of Bolton, in the part of Polly
Peachum. The play ran for sixty-two nights. Swift is said to have
suggested the subject, and Pope and Arbuthnot were constantly consulted
while the work was in progress, but Gay must be regarded as the sole
author.
He wrote a sequel, Polly, relating the adventures of
Polly Peachum in the West Indies; its production was forbidden by the
Lord Chamberlain, no doubt through the influence of Walpole. This act of
"oppression" caused no loss to Gay. It proved an excellent
advertisement for Polly, which was published by subscription in 1729,
and brought its author several thousand pounds. The Duchess of
Queensberry was dismissed from court for enlisting subscribers in the
palace. The Duke of Queensberry gave Gay a home, and the duchess
continued her affectionate patronage until Gay's death, which took place
on December 4, 1732. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. The epitaph on
his tomb is by Pope, and is followed by Gay's own mocking couplet:
Life is a jest, and all things show it,
I thought so once, and now I know it.
So how does John Gay fit into my story?
Douglas MacArthur
John Gay became Douglas MacArthur.
Douglas
MacArthur (January 26, 1880 – April 5, 1964) was an American general
and Medal of Honor recipient, who was Supreme Commander of Allied forces
in the Southwest Pacific Area during World War II. He lost the
Philippines, but led the defense of Australia, and the recapture of New
Guinea, the Philippines, and Borneo. He was poised to command the
invasion of Japan in November 1945 but was instead instructed to accept
their surrender on September 2, 1945. MacArthur oversaw the occupation
of Japan from 1945 to 1951 and is credited for making far-ranging
democratic changes in that country. He led United Nations forces
defending South Korea in 1950-51 against North Korea's attempt to unify
Korea. MacArthur was relieved of command by President Harry S Truman in
April 1951 for public disagreements with Truman's policies.
MacArthur
fought in three major wars (World War I, World War II, Korean War) and
rose to the rank of General of the Army. MacArthur remains one of the
most controversial figures in American history. While greatly admired by
many for what they consider his strategic and tactical brilliance,
MacArthur was also considered by many to have had questionable military
judgment, and is criticized by many for his actions in command, and
especially his challenge to US President Truman in 1951.
Why?
Why did these military minded people team up in a past life to write a ballad opera about notorious criminals?
The answer lies in the Akashic Records and the past lives of Jack Sheppard.
Sheppard
was in many previous lives a great military man. Dwight D. Eisenhower
and Douglas MacArthur served many lifetimes under his command. Jack is
now trying to be a healer and a teacher and a more responsible citizen.
His views are not always popular, but please remember he's coming into
this life with his own unique perspective, just like the rest of us.
It's sometimes a struggle to make sense of it all.