Blog |
7/9/24
I already wrote an entry early this morning, but it was a very short one. This may not be much longer.* I was photographing my physical archive, and I ran across something I want to share. I want to make a particular point with it.
I spend a lot of time--perhaps, waste a lot of time, I don't know--trying to prove things to nameless people who don't respect me. Oh, they may like me, or they may not, but if they like me, they are patronizing me. You can't do anything else but patronize someone, if you don't really, deep down, believe them.
So, I attempt to prove things to them, with good evidence and good logic. If people were really as devoted to the truth as they imagine they are, it would work. You'd show people the inconvenient truth, it would speak for itself, and the truth would transform them. It would take them from State A to State B.
This almost never happens. I've seen it happen with the clients of psychic mediums, but then, these people are in grief, and they are strongly motivated to change. It is clearly in their best interest to believe; because the alternative is that their loved one's face is smashed in and he or she is being eaten by worms. That's what their materialistic beliefs have led them to, when the truth is that their loved one has merely shed his or her outer covering, and is now shining and happpy and more fully alive than they have ever been--except that they happen to be imperceptible.
Well, I don't know how I got into that. The point I want to make is that I get tired of trying to prove things, with good evidence and good logic, to people who go into la-la land to avoid having to experience a transformative process. Because to a man or woman, everybody hates change, and everybody hates to admit they are wrong.
What should be happening, is that I should be able to share things that don't, necessarily, lend themselves to being proved outright. I should be believed because I am an expert, and I know what I'm talking about. Are there, indeed, experts whom nobody else on the planet will acknowledge as being an expert? Yes, there are. That is entirely possible if the expert is significantly ahead of his time. But, how would you know?
I don't think that's so difficult. A mad-man and a pioneer are really rather easily discerned, one from the other. It's just an excuse.
So I'm going to share something with you I'm absolutely certain about, based on 15 years of intensely studying Mathew Franklin Whittier's literary legacy; and based on being his reincarnation. If the latter makes you want to throw the whole thing out before I even share it with you, that's not my fault. Reincarnation has already been proved as a real phenomenon many times over. If you have cherry-picked the evidence to such an extent that you haven't exposed yourself to the proof, that's not my fault. I'm just being honest.
Here is the front page of the December 16, 1825 Boston "New-England Galaxy." You will be reading the very first item. I actually have a physical, antiquarian original of this newspaper, but mine is not in such good condition, so here I am using a copy from a historical library (their camera is better than mine, too). The first essay, with its accompanying cover letter to the editor, signed "Philospoietria," was written by Mathew Franklin Whittier at age 13. He is defending Lord Byron. The back-story for this is that Mathew had run away from home in the spring of that year. He had had arguments with his judgmental brother, poet John Greenleaf Whittier, who was five years older. John Greenleaf disapproved of Byron, and his poetry, as immoral. So Mathew is, basically, still arguing with his brother through the pages of the "Galaxy." There is, by the way, evidence of John Greenleaf's take on Byron. Here, I'll give you the copy-and-paste URL:
http://www.qhpress.org/quakerpages/qwhp/jgwc038.htm
The essay, entitled, simply, "Lord Byron," is cited from the Essex Gazette (the local newspaper), Haverhill, Mass., May 8, 1830. Which you will note means that Mathew was publishing in a large, respected Boston literary newspaper in 1825 as a lad of 13 (actually, 12); while his older brother was publishing in the local paper five years later. But here you will see that Mathew's brother has called Byron, his literary hero, a "wretched infidel."
The official Whittier myth, which unfairly favors John Greenleaf Whittier, desperately needs updating.
Note that in the cover letter, the author hints at his age:
Sir, The following is an attempt, not to persuade any one, but perhaps to induce a reader of your Galaxy, now and then, by recurring to facts to make out his own persuasion. If you should think that the zeal and good intent compensate for the various defects of style and expression, you will oblige me by inserting this copy. If, however, you should condemn it, my feelings will be but slightly injured, and no great wrong will be done the rising generation.
We thus see that whoever you might want to attribute this essay to, it will have to be someone young. In the editor's memoirs, published in 1852, he talks about the group of young men who were "lightening his editorial duties" during this time, and all but identifies Mathew as one of them. But now I am trying to prove this to you, again. It's become a habit.
Okay, so at age 13 we have Mathew defending Lord Byron. Throughout the course of his career, Mathew quotes Byron probably more than any other poet, especially from "Childe Harold" and "Don Juan." But now we come to what I just photographed, today. This is from the July 27, 1850 edition of the Boston "Weekly Museum." Mathew contributed very heavily to this literary newspaper throughout its run, from mid-1848 to mid-1852. I've definitely got my work cut out for me photographing all this material! And it's physically a big volume, being old and unwieldy. But here is another defense of Byron, entitled "Byron's Love of Flowers." This is also Mathew. He has just recently run across someone's absurd criticism of the poet, and he comes to his defense, just as he did when his brother dissed him.
I know this is Mathew Franklin Whittier. I don't have to prove it to anyone. It is absolutely obvious, given everything I know about his writing, and over 3,000 of his works that I've personally typed and archived. Frankly, I should be believed because I'm the expert, and I say so. But in any case, if you take the time to read this piece, you will see that it's nothing short of eloquent. Incidentally, my point-and-shoot is just barely up to the task with a large page and small type like this--but then, I am forced to compress the file so that it doesn't take so long for you to download, and that degrades the image further. So please bear with me.
Mathew is now in his late 30's. There are a couple of very interesting things, here. Firstly, you will see that he is also trying to prove something with good evidence and logic. In other words, the reincarnational apple didn't fall very far from the tree, and I evidently inherited this tendency from him. Secondly, if you compare the two pieces, it's true that you can discern a little more maturity, perhaps, in the second piece. But there isn't much difference. That's because Mathew hatched out of the literary egg fully grown. He was a natural--he was born with this ability. Like me, he was a "little adult" as a child. That's because this was hardly his first lifetime as a writer. In order to reach this level of natural genius, you have to have pursued a particular skill, I would guess, for the past 10 lifetimes or so. Guitarist Eric Johnson was like that; tennis great Carlos Alcaraz was another.** You have, perhaps, seen other prodigies on YouTube. They aren't too terribly uncommon, once you have the internet. Which is to say, they are quite uncommon in the general population, but now that the internet can bring together 25 such rarities with the click of a button, in that particular sense they aren't uncommon.
The reporter who is interested in pitching a story about me to a major magazine, asked me, as an example, "How do you know that Mathew Franklin Whittier was a child prodigy?" It's a fair question, since young Mathew didn't sign any of his works with his real name. Well, this is just one example. I could explain it to you, but here's what it would take--we would have to spend the morning together for three weeks, pouring over these samples. I would have to teach you; and you would have to respect me enough to let me teach you. Really-speaking, it would be a full semester course. But I could do a quick job within three weeks--enough to give you a pretty good idea of how I analyzed this body of Mathew's early work.
Do you know who wrote poetry on the level that Byron was writing it? Little Abby Poyen, Mathew's tutor and future wife. She was writing with that power at age 14, in 1830. That poetry, signed and published under the signature, "A.P.," was not written by Albert Pike (the ass). But in order to understand it, you'd have to get his bushy face out of your mind. Put him in a corner somewhere, forget him, and now imagine that a brilliant, other-worldly, beautiful young lady is speaking to you. Now you might be receptive. If you have the capacity to "grok" this poetry, it will transport you to another world.
But if you go looking for it, don't read the adulterated poems that Pike revised late in his life. Some of Abby's brilliance is still in there, but who wants to read adulterated work? You can find the real poetry in my book, "Soul-mate Songs," which is listed in my books page.
That's an advertisement, folks. I never advertise my books--but here, I just did it. Of course, if you aren't willing to spend $17.50 on poetry as intensely powerful as Lord Byron's, but written by a 14-year-old prodigy, that's fine, too. We all have our priorities.
Sincerely,
Stephen Sakellarios, M.S.
*On re-read: "Hah!"
**But how could Carlos Alcaraz have improved his tennis skills over 10 lifetimes? Ah, you have no idea how long this process of reincarnation has been going on--cycling up and down through eons of time, and a series of "earths" which are replaced when one wears out. In other words, I'm guessing that tennis, or something very much like it, has been reinvented many times in many different ages.
