12/25/25
Christmas Day evening, before dinner, and Christmas 2025 is fading into memory. For me it was very quiet. My big promotions push is done, now. The next step will be donating hardcover copies of my book to certain libraries--probably fruitless, but it has to be done.

If I were Jeremy Wade, the extreme angler, I would have had two fairly large fish on the line, today, both of which got off. The first was a reincarnation researcher, who has very, very gradually warmed to me over the years, at least enough to exchange Christmas greetings. He was actually interested in learning about my new line of research, until he found that it concerns proving that Charles Dickens plagiarized "A Christmas Carol" (knowing, as I suppose, that I claim to be the reincarnation of one of the 19th-century original authors). He was nice enough, but now he was too busy, and I could see that I had lost him. Not really a surprise.

The other was a writer who, as I gather from the various names he dropped in his reply, has been fairly well-connected in the world of Hollywood filmmaking. He side-tracked into the safe territory of "plagiarism" as an amorphous thing which anyone can charge, but nobody can ever prove. He's dead wrong where my evidence is concerned, but here again, I can tell when someone has already hit the escape hatch button. Nothing I could tell him will wake him up to the fact that this isn't that kind of plagiarism, or that kind of evidence. This is a devastating tsumani which utterly destroys Charles Dickens as it proceeds, from chapter to chapter.

All day, I fielded essays and Facebook posts wherein people are emotionally attached to "A Christmas Carol," and who sing its praises. There's something mean about disillusioning them. If they ever followed through and understood my research, they would never be able to see it the same way. I certainly can't. And I revered it from childhood.

But here's the thing. I am trying to wake them up before the disaster hits. Because it's coming. Dickens has already been exposed by certain academic scholars as a very unpleasant man. This is not a case of a genius having a dark side. This is a true, full-blown sociopath who glombed on to the work of two inspired geniuses, did his best to shit on it for quick cash, wasn't entirely successful, and when people praised its inspirational power, reversed course and started pretending to be a saint, i.e., the kind of person who could have written it. Even though he really didn't understand what all the fuss was about. He couldn't perceive it--he was tone-deaf to any kind of spirituality. He just had to "go with it." It's as clear as the nose on your face, in his surviving correspondence.

I am trying to do these naive fans a big favor, by preparing them for the shock that's coming. Wait until they understand that when Dickens lied and said he composed this story "walking the black streets of London," in actuality he was probably lying to his family that he was going for a walk, but was actually visiting prostitutes. I kid you not. This is coming. I give it ten years, no more.

What will they do? How will they work through the confusion? Their beloved story, composed while humping a prostitute? Impossible.

It will cause an incredible crisis in the hearts and minds of millions of fans. So it would be much, much less painful for them to transfer their mistaken feelings for plagiarist Charles Dickens, to two worthy people of integrity, the original co-authors Mathew and Abby Whittier. They would not be disappointed. Never mind whether they understand that I was once Mathew. That can come later.

But can I actually do this? Will anyone ever listen to me?

I fear not. Not from what I'm seeing, now, after this month-long promotional push.

Sincerely,

Stephen Sakellarios, M.S.