WASHINGTON – The Beatles meteoric rise, unprecedented in popular culture and unrivaled nearly four decades after the band broke up, is at least partly explained, says a new book, by a pact John Lennon made with the Devil.
In "The Lennon Prophecy," author Joseph Niezgoda reveals that Lennon himself, obsessed with the occult, magic, numerology and being bigger than Elvis Presley, confided in his friend Tony Sheridan that he made such a deal.
The book also makes the case that the "death clues" long associated with Paul McCartney were actually subliminal messages hinting at Lennon's fate.
Written by a lifelong Beatles fan and musician, the book hypothesizes the pact was made just before the band experienced its first major successes and ended 20 years later with Lennon's assassination in New York by Mark David Chapman, who later claimed to have demons exorcized from him while serving his sentence for murder in Attica State Prison.
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"Chapman said that as the last demon left his body he was given the reason for his possession," Niezgoda told WND. "It was to make a show of Satan's great power in the world using John Lennon's murder as the vehicle. I've always held an intuitive belief … that the true author of this story is Satan and that I am only the messenger."
Of course, many will reject the notion that there is a real spirit called Satan. Others will scoff at the notion that people can make pacts with him that can result in real-world results.
So Niezgoda devotes a chapter to what may surprise many readers as fairly well-documented historical Satanic pacts – including the case of Johann Faust, who, in his Renaissance Age period, achieved fame and fortune perhaps equal to Lennon and the Beatles four centuries later. He, too, met an untimely, mysterious and grotesquely inexplicable death 20 years later.
While Faust boasted of performing more miracles than Jesus Christ, Lennon created controversy by boasting that his band was more famous than Jesus Christ.
"If John had entered into a 20-year pact with the Devil for wealth and world fame, that contract ended on December 8, 1980, with his violent death," said Niezgoda. "Counting back 20 years, did anything unusual in Beatles history occur in December 1960?"
In fact, it did, Niezgoda recalls. On Dec. 27, 1960, the Beatles played the Town Hall Ball Room in Litherland, England.
"It was said that following this single night's performance, the Beatles never looked back," recalls Niezgoda. "Each of the Beatles remembers this night as the turning point in their careers."
Immediately following this memorable performance, the Beatles began playing in Liverpool's Cavern Club, where they became a local phenomenon. Then they moved on to Hamburg, where German audiences went wild.
That gig also marked the beginning of Lennon's avowedly anti-Christian behavior.
In the book "The Love You Make" by Peter Brown, he recounts how Lennon donned a dog collar made of paper, cut out a paper cross and began preaching to the Hamburg audience – drawing a mocking picture of Jesus hanging on the cross wearing a pair of bedroom slippers.
Later, also in Germany, on Good Friday, Lennon targeted a group of nuns with a life-size effigy of Jesus on the cross hanging from his balcony.
"As the sisters gazed in astonishment at this sacrilegious display, John started pelting them with Durex condoms filled with water," wrote biographer Albert Goldman.
Pete Best, the original drummer with the group, also witnessed such behavior and wrote about it in his own book describing how Lennon urinated on another group of nuns from his balcony while proclaiming, "Raindrops from heaven!"
These were just some of the ways Lennon confronted and antagonized Christian worshippers – for seemingly no reason other than his own amusement.
The book devotes a full chapter to Lennon's childhood of tragedy, disappointment and sadness. His mother, Julia, and his father, Freddie, fought over custody of young John. At 5 years old, he was forced to decide which parent he would choose. He first chose his father. But when his mother asked him if he was sure, he ran to her.
"John never forgot the horror of that incident," writes Niezgoda. "It left a permanent scar and great feelings of insecurity, and nearly 20 years would pass before he would see his father again."
Life with Julia Lennon was no bargain. He was often left home alone and found it difficult to sleep. Lennon later recalled that she was "not prostituting for money but rather for silk stockings."
At age 6, Lennon began running away from home to stay with his Aunt Mimi. He learned which trolleys to take by the quality of the black leather seats, he explained.
"To this day, I'm fond of black leather," he would say later. "I find it comforting."
Sometimes he would be picked up by adults concerned for his welfare and taken to a local police station.
"I could never find the right words to explain my situation," he would say.
Lennon's troubles continued through schooling – taking little interest in classroom learning, showing contempt for teachers, skipping class, smoking and swearing, cheating on exams, stealing candy from other children and pilfering cigarettes to make money.
He was thrown out of religious chorus for substituting obscene words in hymns.
Another biographer wrote: "John regularly poked fun at church dignitaries, parodied hymns and drew blasphemous cartoons of Christ on the cross in a way that only the once-faithful can."
Perhaps to compensate for his tough childhood, Lennon became consumed with becoming both rich and famous.
Pete Best recalled how Lennon would say he was going to get to the top – one way or another.
"If we have to be bent or con people, then that's what we'll have to do to get there," Best quoted Lennon as saying. "It doesn't matter what it takes to get to the top. It might cause some heartache, but once I'm up there, it'll be a different kettle of fish. Yes, he did say, 'I' and not 'we.' That was the real John Lennon, brilliant, amusing but ruthless."
Niezgoda cites the unprecedented and unsurpassed "mania" that surrounded the Beatles as one of the most intriguing clues suggesting something supernatural about their career.
"John, Paul, George and Ringo were highly talented writers and musicians – as all too well evidenced by their solo careers," Niezgoda told WND. "But what was it at the beginning that set them apart from their contemporaries? What was it that lifted them in a few short years from utter obscurity to become the greatest show on Earth. When they traveled to Australia in 1964, what earthly power caused 400,000 fans to gather outside their hotel to merely catch a glimpse of the four young boys from Liverpool? How does one logically account for 20 number one hit records in a brief period of six years?
"Nothing before or since has come close to equaling the rapid and widespread emotional pandemic frenzy surrounding the Beatles. I can go on indefinitely listing their unearthly accomplishments but that is not providing an explanation for it. Trying to explain the source of the Beatles fame and fortune is like trying to define magic."
At the peak of their popularity, Beatles fans became obsessed with what appeared to be clues in their music about a death within the band. At the time, the focus was on speculation that McCartney had been killed in a car crash and replaced with a lookalike.
Not even a press conference by Paul could persuade devotees of the clues that he was, in fact, the real deal. It all seemed silly after McCartney's long and illustrious solo career took off.
"The suspicion, however, was not without merit," explains Niezgoda. "The clues were there, and too numerous to be ignored. They just needed to be viewed through a different lens to create not a picture of a past conspiracy, but a future tragedy. When examined as a possible prophecy, the clues appear to be quite clearly not about Paul, but about John Lennon."
Niezgoda is convinced the Beatles had supernatural help – not only with their rise to the top, but with these "clues" that seemed so persuasive that something was not right within the Beatles. He's not happy about his conclusion. In fact, as a lifelong Beatles fan, he seems deeply conflicted.
"I have always had to deal with the constant conflict of my love for their music and the evil that I perceive surrounds it," he told WND. "The only difference is that I have tried to define or make sense of it with the help of this book."
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