The Lincoln and John Kennedy puzzle

Several people who have concerned themselves with the life and times of John F. Kennedy have found certain aspects of his engaging life and his death confounding. Lincoln and John Kennedy were two outstanding United States Presidents. Abraham Lincoln was the 16th U.S. President while Kennedy was the 35th. But there were very striking, indeed astounding similarities in certain aspects of their lives and their deaths. Lincoln made abolition of slavery prevalent in the South a presidential campaign issue. He stood for his country’s union which angered the confederates at the time. It was indeed one of the confederates that assassinated him. The assassination of Kennedy was totally unexpected. He was one of the most-loved presidents in American history and his death reverberated around the world. I recall that Adeolu Akinsanya, one of Nigeria’s music maestros, composed a moving song paying glowing tribute to John F. Kennedy’s human rights struggle for emancipation of the Blacks and all victims of human rights abuses.

At the weekend, I received a posting drawing attention to the enigmatic similarities in crucial aspects of the lives of the two awesome American heroes. The posting was expressly directed at a history teacher. I am neither a historian nor a history teacher. That I discussed the history of Lagos, the land of the Aworis, last week is not sufficient to make me a historian or a history teacher.
The posting I received reads as follows: “Please, can a history teacher explain this:
Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846;
John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.
Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860;
John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960.
Both were particularly concerned with civil rights.
Both their wives lost a child while living in the White House.
Both Presidents were shot in the head.

Now, it gets really weird:
Lincoln’s secretary was named Kennedy;
Kennedy’s secretary was named Lincoln.
Both were assassinated by Southerners.
Both were succeeded by Southerners named Johnson.
Andrew Johnson who succeeded Lincoln was born in 1808;
Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908.
John Wikes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln, was born in 1839;
Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy, was born in 1939.
Both assassins were known by their three names.
Both names were composed of fifteen letters.

Now hang on to your seats:
Lincoln was shot at the theatre named ‘Ford’.
Kennedy was shot in a car called ‘Lincoln’ made by Ford’.
Booth and Oswald were assassinated before their trials.
And here is the ‘kicker’:
A week before Lincoln was shot, he was in Monroe, Maryland.
A week before Kennedy was shot, he was with Marilyn Monroe.
AND
Lincoln was shot in a theatre and the assassin ran into a warehouse;
Kennedy was shot in a warehouse and the assassin ran to a theatre.”

The subject matter is not so much a historical matter but spiritual. To solve the riddle we must have the basic knowledge of who we are as human beings; the mechanism with which the Almighty Creator governs His Creation; His Love, Mercy and Justice and the correlation between Love and Justice. We must have a thorough knowledge of the phenomenon called Reincarnation, and the structure of Creation featuring different and vast planes and Realms which the Lord Christ described as Mansions in His Father’s House, the House being Creation. The Creation in reference is inconceivably vast that only the Lord Christ and the Holy Spirit can survey it by virtue of Who they are and who can overlook it from the height of their Throne. Take as an example, the material world. This alone consists of seven universes referred to in the Book of Revelations as Churches in Asia, namely: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. Our own universe is Ephesus. The ethereal part of it alone is again so vast that the earth is, as revealed in very high knowledge on earth today, to be no more than the tip of a fountain pen!

Who, indeed, are we? Where have we come from? What is the purpose of our sojourn here on earth, a sojourn that is so crucial in our entire existence which necessitated the sending of Prophets, Teachers of mankind all bringing enlightenment in varying degrees consistent with the level of our development; and then the Son of God, the Most High Himself, the Lord Christ.

To the question of who we are: We are spirits from the Spiritual Realm but encased in different substances as garments to be able to manifest on the different planes we traversed, even if unconsciously until we reached the earth, our field of development towards spiritual maturity and perfection so we can live consciously back home, the land of everlasting bliss and splendor. Getting back to Paradise without maturity and purity is utterly impossible. As we are told, we must wash our linen clean. While we are in the encasement we are identified as souls and on earth as earthmen! Man is used as a generic; it is by no means to put down the women who in fact are higher spiritually because of the superiority and abundance of their intuitive capacity! Our incarnation which is what many people grapple with is as defined by The Webster Encyclopedic Dictionary of the English Language “the act of assuming flesh or taking a human body and the nature of man.” Our body picked in our mothers’ wombs when pregnancy has gone halfway is the last of the many garments that we bear. We discard it in what is generally referred to as death. In this occurrence it is only the body that is thrown off, but the wearer of it as garment is still living. He has departed only to the Beyond where development continues or where descent and torment ensue as the case may be.

Since this earth is a veritable school of life, after which our familiar school is patterned, we move from one class, from one level to the other until we reach the highest class, the summit of education and a certificate is issued that the one has satisfied the authorities in character and learning. Thus, the purport of life is knowledge and character. Character, therefore, is destiny, helped by humble knowledge. It charts our path to joy and happiness, and makes us light for ascent. If as in modern times there are carry-overs, the papers are retaken. In primary and secondary schools, the classes are repeated in case of failure, which is the meaning of Reincarnation.

Out of the Love, Mercy and Justice of the Almighty fresh opportunities are offered to us human beings through reincarnation to settle account and mend our ways. We are to taste the fruits of our conduct in previous earth lives and the present—if sour we move away from them and learn the right lessons; if good and beneficial, we make progress. Every experience is geared towards our being better persons, out of His incomprehensible Love and mercy. Reincarnation is ancient knowledge, a belief and indeed, a fact of life that is widespread in several cultures and societies, in the developed and the developing worlds. Chambers 21st Century Dictionary (Revised Edition) defines reincarnation as “the rebirth of the soul in a different body after death.” The re-embodiment should then suggest to us one continuous existence.

When relatives in exceeding anxiety rush in to the theatre, they ask: “How is it doctor?’’ The doctor announces mournfully, ”Oh, I am sorry, we have just lost him!” The body is lying on the bed; who then is the ‘him’ that they have lost? It is the real man without his cloak, his body. It is the soul, the animating core. The body is carried away and is buried. It goes back to dust, for “dust thou art, and to dust thou shall return.” To prove that life goes on in the beyond, in some ancient cultures when a king died, some of his servants would be expected to go with him to serve him in the beyond. Up till the present day there is masquerade festival, the original aim being to demonstrate that life continues beyond earthly death and the departed remember their relations. The masqueraders have come back to rejoice with them and to warn. The masqueraders are thus called the inhabitants of Heaven who cannot be seen on earth but who can see those still on earth. The masquerader covers its face and speaks language that is not understood.

Certain names in our own society prove the fact of belief in reincarnation, such names as Babatunde, (the father is back); Yetunde (mother is back again); Iyatunde (the grandmother is back); Nnene (maternal grandmother is back); Nnena (paternal grandmother is back)—to mention just a few. That there is an English word like reincarnation is itself proof that the knowledge of reincarnation has existed in the British people’s beliefs. There is a lot of literature now on the subject. A priceless one is by Dr. Stephen Lampe who has done an extensive work on the subject titled Christian and Reincarnation. He says in the monumental work: “To millions of Christians, reincarnation is a familiar word. This is not at all surprising, since reincarnation is the belief of literally billions (thousands of millions) of human beings on earth today…surely, the belief of such a huge number of people of all races, poor and rich, illiterate and erudite, low and high, oriental and western and belonging to various religions, including some Christian sects, deserve serious study and reflection.”

Related to the literature on reincarnation are several publications on life in the Beyond from the account of people pronounced clinically dead but who came back to life. The one that came to our widespread attention in 1986 is Life after Life by an American doctor, Raymond Moody. On the occasion of his birthday which turned out to be his last publicly celebrated, Chief Awolowo asked if anyone could get him a copy of Life after Life. He had read the review of the publication in a British newspaper and he longed ardently to have a copy and read. There is On Death and Dying by Dr. Elizabeth Kubler Ross and there is More about Life in the World Unseen by Anthony Borgia. There is the well documented case of Therese Neumann in Germany, a reincarnation of one of those who reviled the Lord while he was hanging in unspeakable agony on the crucifixion cross because mankind for whom He brought Holy Peace rejected Him and violently at that. Therese was born in 1898 and her problem began in 1926. She bore the wound marks of the Lord, flogging wounds, nail wounds, spear wounds and thorn wounds in the head and for 30 years she bled continually, particularly about two weeks to Easter and experienced flogging, the same physical agony Christ went through. Unsuspecting throngs gathered, church priests ministered unto her; generals visited her after the World War11, erroneously believing that she was special. She died in 1962. There was one such case in Nigeria in mid-80s, but whose relations and priests would not allow The Guardian to interview.

Reincarnation enables human beings to have absolute conviction in the justice of the Creator –why some outwardly good people suffer, and why proven bad people or even villains prosper. It enables us to know why some could be born blind or without hands or suffer from chronic diseases. The knowledge afforded with these is not to make those without such afflictions to be judgmental or mock, but to learn from the experiences and for them to demonstrate compassion and love. Every act of compassion is a seed which must bear multiple fruits, for every condition is the outworking of the law of sowing and reaping and the complementary laws of homogeneity—like attracting like to form communities, friendship, a people and families so that everyone will be at home among his own kind. There is also the law of spiritual gravitation which enables what is light to soar and what is heavy through dross acquired and placed on the soul to drag it down. The Laws are immutable, incorruptible and self-acting, making pronouncement on the Power of the Most High. We humans beings supply them the materials with which they weave our carpet of fate. Each person, as we learn in higher knowledge available on earth today spreading in several languages and in several countries, is the architect of his own fortune!

The Hebrews passage that is often quoted by some is correct only to the extent that it applies strictly to spiritual death. It says: “And it is appointed for men to die once, and after that comes judgment…” If the spirit dies, there is nothing left in a man to die. Such a human being is consigned into eternal damnation! In other words, the body can be laid aside several times, but not the spirit that has lost all life, all animation. How do you for example judge a baby that dies an hour or a day or even after three years when every child is said to be “innocent”. As it is now revealed, there is no single person on earth today who has not lived here several times. There are several passages that show that the belief in reincarnation was widespread in Biblical times, whether in the Old Testament and New Testament. The reincarnation can be in the same family, it can be in some other town, region or country. A Nigerian today may have been a Briton yesterday or Jamaican. It was once reported of a child who spoke in German just as he began to learn to speak. He calmed the bewildered father that he was a German General during the World War11. An oppressor of yesterday must necessarily, upon seeing his error in the Beyond, if permitted reincarnation, assume responsibility to restore the dignity of man in order to be free of the burden he had previously heaped upon himself.

Who then was Abraham Lincoln and who was John F. Kennedy? Are they one and the same persons? What about their secretaries, their assassins, Ford and all? The dates? All of these are governed by the laws of sowing and reaping. The germination and maturation process of any seed is subject to its nature and the soil. The same is true of reincarnation, the seed sown and the environment and opportunities, the completion of the weaving of radiation threads that are to bind the dramatis personae. If Lincoln and Kennedy have not been shown to us in dreams, the furtherest we can and should go to unravel their identities, applying the laws, is to put two and two together and arrive at four!! Only a few that can be counted on our finger tips are mercifully blessed and granted that Grace to have their spiritual eyes open to trace the earth lives of their fellow men. It is they alone who can make categorical pronouncements and with exactitude on a person’s journey through this world and the Beyond.