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2/25/22
In my most-recent video blog entry of February 19, I presented some of Abby Poyen Whittier's and Mathew Franklin Whittier's poetry. At the end of the video, I briefly showed the cover page of an e-book, entitled "Soul-mate Songs," which contains some of the best poetry by both of them. Ten persons so far have watched the video, and none have purchased the book.

This gives me an idea of who I am reaching, now, in 2022. These people may think they understand, but they do not understand with their head and heart working in unison. They do not deeply understand anything I say here, or in my video blog. The poetry is good enough, that if they did understand it in that way, at least some of them would buy this inexpensive book. It's not that I care so much about the sales--it's just a handy gauge for me.

Therefore, today--while it is snowing outside, perhaps the last snow-storm of the season here in Maine--I am of a mind to simply summarize my work, as briefly as possible. I want to leave, pinned to the top, something that any new person can see which will inform him or her of what's going on here.

I began studying Eastern mysticism from the best sources--God-Realized spiritual masters, and saints (saints being people who can see God directly, but have not yet merged in Union with Him), around 1973.* I became a follower of Meher Baba in 1974. That means I have been studying these subjects--including reincarnation--for almost 50 years. This is far better credentials, in this particular field, than most academicians have.

I obtained a master's degree in Counseling and Human Systems from FSU's Education Dept., in 1982. At that point I attempted to synthesize what I had learned from both sources.

In 1997 I launched a video production company, called "Gold Thread Video Productions"; and at the same time, I began work on a private project, a documentary entitled "In Another Life: Reincarnation in America." The company eventually folded in 2007, but the documentary was completed in 2003. It aired on one PBS affiliate, and was accepted for distribution to universities by Films Media Group. It sells very rarely. Viral versions of it, online, were seen by approximately half a million people, until I requested that YouTube take them down. My own posting has been seen by roughly 12,500, which of course means that they have viewed some portion of the film, not necessarily all.

In 2005, I stumbled upon a proposed past life of my own as Mathew Franklin Whittier, younger brother of famous 19th-century poet John Greenleaf Whittier. I obtained a few sources at that time, but began researching his life and work in earnest in 2009. My research was two-pronged: I was attempting to validate the past-life match, and to re-establish Mathew's hidden literary legacy, at the same time.

Over the next 12 years, I made some amazing discoveries. First of all the match was indeed genuine. It's an unusual case with some profound implications, inasmuch as I am in a position to compare my present incarnation with a past one in great depth and detail. Furthermore, there is zero possibility that I could have obtained this information through ordinary exposure to media, because it was so deeply buried in the historical record. I am thus in a position to demonstrate, with objective evidence, exactly what portion of a person remains the same in a subsequent incarnation, and what part changes. In fact, to my knowledge, this is the most deeply that a past life has ever been explored, because of the autobiographical nature of so much of Mathew's writing. It comprises a unique opportunity to understand this phenomenon--but so far I can interest no researchers in the case. Therefore, I am attempting to leave a vast amount of informaton for posterity, so it can be examined after I pass on. Insuring its survival into the future will require funding--and that kind of funding will require either sufficiently impressing a great many people of ordinary means, or one very wealthy person, before I die. Given that I am now in my late 60's, and that it has taken me some 25 years to get to this point, the clock is ticking and the race is on.

Secondly, whereas historians considered Mathew a second-rate author, ascribing only one series to his pen, I learned that he was a child prodigy who began publishing in major newspapers by 1825, at age 12. I have identified--and archived**--well over 2,500 of his published works, including more than 10 novels. Mathew was a mystic, a philosopher, and a social reformer. As an author, he wrote exceptionally well in several different genres. As near as I can determine, it was Mathew, as a boy of 12, who originated the use of Yankee dialect in American written humor. And these were not, as you might imagine, amateurish efforts, but meticulously-crafted comic works which achieved widespread recognition despite their anonymous authorship. They sparked a vast number of imitations which spread and multiplied for the remainder of the century.

Because almost all of Mathew's work in various genres was published anonymously, under a great many different pseudonyms, it was often falsely attributed to, or claimed by, other authors. This work was so good, that when plagiarized it made a number of people world-famous. The existence of this 19th-century literary "dark horse" up-ends our traditional understanding of the entire 19th-century literary landscape. And, unfortunately, it makes academia look profoundly foolish, because of the thousands of erudite treatises that have been written over the past century and a half, not to mention the august careers, reputations, associations, yearly seminars and scholarly journals, all based on fatally-flawed assumptions of authorship.

This embarrassment is not my fault. It is the fault of the literary criminals, themselves. "Shooting the messenger" is irrational and is, itself, unethical behavior. It is not my fault, for example, that Charles Dickens hurriedly re-worked someone else's manuscript of "A Christmas Carol" to get himself out of impending debt--only to find he had a world hit on his hands, so that he never admitted he was not the originator. Any more than it is Prof. John Bowen's fault that he found proof that Dickens attempted to have his faithful--and quite sane--wife Catherine committed to an insane asylum. Dickens was a man of poor moral character, who fooled generations of scholars. It's his fault.

I also learned of Mathew's first wife and true love, Abby Poyen Whittier. Although four years younger, she, too, was a child prodigy, and became his tutor. Whereas he had wished to attend college and was unable to do so, she stepped in and passed on to him her own tutored education. I was able to find a considerable amount of Abby's own work, including her poetry plagiarized by her classroom teacher, Albert Pike.

I learned--and was able to prove well beyond a reasonable doubt--that it was Mathew and Abby who had been the original co-authors of "A Christmas Carol." Mathew was the real author of the poems, "The Raven" and "Annabel Lee," as well as the author of "Some Words with a Mummy." He was the real author of five poems plagiarized by the future Elizabeth Barrett Browning: "The Cry of the Children," "A Child Asleep," "The Lost Bower," "Lady Geraldine's Courtship," and "Cyprus Wine." Mathew, not Margaret Fuller, was the real author of the "F."-signed reviews and essays printed in "The Dial"; as well as all but a handful of the "star"-signed reviews and essays in the 1844-46 New York "Tribune."

This doesn't touch upon a great deal of work which was falsely claimed by, or attributed by scholars to, other lesser-lights of the 19th century. Mathew's work provided brief fame, or cushy editorial jobs, to several of them, including Ossian Dodge, Francis A. Durivage, and Charles P. Burnham. Others, like Charles Farrar Browne, built their fame on imitating Mathew's work.*** But all of this, as I am fond of saying, is an interconnected tapestry. Even the evidence for the less-well-known plagiarists sometimes has direct bearing on the more famous cases. For example, Mathew and Abby's template for "A Christmas Carol" may be found deeply buried at the back of a book of Mathew's stolen works, published by Durivage.

I know full-well that when I report that Mathew Frankln Whittier was the co-author of "A Christmas Carol" and the author of "The Raven," this double-claim violates people's "boggle threshold" to such an extent, that they feel they are left with no other alternative than to doubt my sanity. It is the easy solution to the problem. I think that, so far, not a single person has gotten past this oh-so-tempting conclusion. So far as I am aware, the "wow response" has been withheld by everyone who has ever encountered my results--whereas logically, if it were taken seriously, it would have to elicit that response. "That's nice, dear" doesn't cut it in this case. It means that even when people aren't inclined to hurt my feelings, they are patronizing me. But my results make perfect sense if you look at the rampant plagiarism of the era; at the real dynamics behind fame; and at the supposed authors, themselves. You will find that flagrant plagiarism was frequently practiced (although not universally accepted, as some historians would have it); that the people who become famous very often were not the creative minds behind the scenes (creative genius and promotion being two very different skill sets); and that Dickens and Poe could not possibly have been the original authors of these works. Furthermore, if you take the time to look carefully and objectively at my research results, you will find that I have indeed been able to logically prove them.

In order to get this information out to the public, I have pursued every available outlet, given my lack of funding and that I am unaffiliated with any academic institution. My work is universally dismissed, if not secretly ridiculed. But again, I have strong evidence. Most of this evidence is of the cumulative variety, and requires immersing oneself in the totality--admittedly, a formidable time commitment--in order to see its strength. However, there are "smoking guns" which I can point to, and which I have presented in my papers. One only needs to look closely at the implausible explanations given by Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Albert Pike and Edgar Allan Poe, as to how they supposedly wrote these works. These were liars and literary imposters. Most of what you think you admire them for, was not, actually, their writing at all, and certainly not their ideas.

If my research, in both reincarnation studies and 19th-century literature, is taken seriously, it is well-worth respectful attention by both academia and the public. I know there are a great many pseudo-scientific people indulging in magical thinking. I am not one of them. Take a close look at my documentary, "In Another Life: Reincarnation in America," which is offered to universities by the same organization that distributes Bill Moyers' films. I applied the same rigor that you see in that film, to my subsequent work concerning Mathew Franklin Whittier. My work deserves to be taken seriously because, however much it may challenge the status quo, my methods have been rigorous and the evidence is sound.

I should not be put in the position of having to apologize for the quality of my research results in this lifetime, nor the quality of my literary work in my 19th-century lifetime. It is what it is, and I report it fully and accurately. It should speak for itself to all truly objective persons.

Best regards,

Stephen Sakellarios, M.S.

*Chiefly Sri Ramakrishna and disciples, Rumi, and Meher Baba. Under the circumstances, I was more concerned about quality than quantity. This is the opposite of the approach I took as Mathew Franklin Whittier in the 19th-century, when my goal was to study the works of as many intellectual and artistic geniuses as possible.

**"Archived" means that I have keyed in all of these works, being organized by publication and date; I have photographed a great many of them from the original sources; and I have an extensive, if not complete, physical archive of antiquarian volumes, periodicals and other papers.

***Browne got his start by re-working one of Mathew's own humorous sketches, previously plagiarized by Francis Durivage, and--as a printer's apprentice--inserting it into the "Carpet-Bag" without the editor's permission.

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