The Lennon Prophecy: A New Examination of the Death Clues of The Beatles [Paperback]

Joseph Niezgoda (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 2008

Offering a new interpretation of the hidden messages and symbols that have ornamented Beatles mythology for years, this examination of the Beatles' recordings and album artwork theorizes that John Lennon's murder was eerily foretold. Following a fascinating and unique trail of sorcery, mysticism, numerology, backwards masking, anagrams, and literary and theological writings, the book posits that John Lennon sold his soul in order to achieve international fame and fortune and subsequently paid the ultimate price for his success.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This is one of the most unbelievable books I have ever read. . . . I am a huge Beatles fan but this is stuff I have never heard before."  —WKRS Radio, Chicago

"A well-researched analysis of the predictions of Lennon's death."  —Celebrity News Service

"A strange, intriguing, yet fascinating book that no doubt is set to face much analysis . . . Niezgoda's way of thinking [is] so intriguing and fascinating, I was compelled to read on."  —Bookpleasures.com

About the Author

Joseph Niezgoda is a life-long Beatles fan, collector, and scholar, who has researched John Lennon and the band for more than 25 years. He works in analog and digital music recording with an extensive background in music theory.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: New Chapter Press; First Edition edition (December 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0942257456
• ISBN-13: 978-0942257458
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #489,289 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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34 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Stuff and Nonsense., November 10, 2009

By 

Brian Jay Jones (Damascus, MD USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Lennon Prophecy: A New Examination of the Death Clues of The Beatles (Paperback)

One of the more fun and fascinating bits of Beatles lore has always been the whole "Paul Is Dead" hoax. The story spun by that particular hoax is that Paul McCartney allegedly died in an automobile accident in 1966 - a "stupid bloody Tuesday" - and the heartbroken Beatles decided to soldier on without him, replacing McCartney with a lookalike, but planting clues of Paul's demise in Beatles songs and on album covers. Books could be written about the hoax - and, in fact, a few have - but now comes Joseph Niezgoda, in The Lennon Prophecy: A New Examination of the Death Clues of The Beatles to tell us that everyone's got it wrong. The clues aren't there to detail Paul's demise, Niezgoda says, but rather to foreshadow John Lennon's violent death in 1980, payment to the Devil for a 20-year pact Lennon made with Satan in 1960.

Yes, really.

According to Niezgoda, at some point in December 1960 -- likely between the Beatles' anticlimactic return from Germany on December 10, when the group seemed on the verge of breaking up, and their triumphant appearance at the Litherland Town Hall concert on December 27, the night it is generally accepted that Beatlemania was born - John Lennon traded his soul to the Devil in exchange for rock and roll fame and fortune. Twenty years later, in December 1980, the Devil called in the debt, using a demonically-possessed Mark David Chapman as his instrument of death.

On that wacky premise, Niezgoda devotes 186 pages to analyzing John Lennon's behavior, scrutinizing album covers, scrubbing lyrics for hidden meanings, and generally working way too hard to come up with spooky numeric coincidences to support his theory. Like the Paul is Dead theory, I don't buy one word of it; unlike the Paul is Dead theory, however, this one is neither fascinating nor even all that convincing. Niezgoda's theories and his interpretations of events, lyrics, and images, are almost always eye-rollingly dopey, and ultimately require enormous leaps in logic or imagination to make lyrics, album covers, or anything else fit his theory.

Part of the problem is that Niezgoda is completely humorless. Sarcasm, satire, puns and plays on words are completely lost on him. Lennon's wit--one of his most enduring traits--baffles Niezgoda, as does Lennon's use of metaphor and delight in wordplay. And Niezgoda--who calls himself a "life-long Beatles fan, collector, and scholar"--doesn't seem to be able to put Lennon or his quotes in context. He can't tell when Lennon is joking, bragging, or being dismissive. He's absolutely tone deaf.

Anyway, to spare you from ever having to read this thing, I'm going to give you a rundown of some of Niezgoda's claims to give you an idea of just how loopy, and how spurious, Niezgoda and his claims can be.

Early on, in a chapter titled "Bewitchery of the Masses," Niezgoda asks how to explain the enormous effect the Beatles had on their fans. How does one account for the swooning, the fainting, the screaming? Could it perhaps be their undeniable charisma or talent? Ridiculous, Niezgoda says; those are exactly the kinds of "intangible" and "indescribable" qualities that manager Brian Epstein and producer George Martin ascribed to the band--and they're indescribable, Niezgoda says, because they were a gift from the Devil. So, Niezgoda's first "evidence" of demonic influence is Beatlemania itself, in all its inexplicable, unexplainable wonder.

It's not enough to sell one's sell to the Devil, though--as Niezgoda explains earnestly, one must also do all he can to actively deride God and religion. Therefore, any time Lennon mentions God, religion, Christ, or his soul, Niezgoda pounces. While he naturally makes hay of the "bigger than Jesus" statement--though not as much as one might expect, giving it only eight pages--any other reference to God is dissected looking for hidden meaning. For example, when John Lennon, following the massive Shea Stadium concert in 1965, remarked that it was "louder than God," Niezgoda arches an eyebrow curtly. "Why did he chose that analogy?" Niezgoda demands. And when an exhausted Lennon tells childhood friend Pete Shotton at the height of Beatlemania that he often feels he's sold his soul, the nonplussed Niezgoda can only take the most literate Beatle literally.

Niezgoda is at his most bizarre, though, when analyzing music, lyrics and album covers. The intricate, interwoven images on the cover of Revolver don't trouble him all that much--but he's convinced that the album's name has to be a foreshadowing of the kind of gun that would be used to kill Lennon fourteen years later. Certainly, the name Revolver has nothing to do with the fact that vinyl records were played by placing them on a turntable that revolved at a certain speed--thus making any record, in a sense, a "revolver," right? Again, that sort of word play is lost on Niezgoda.

He's more fascinated by the infamous "butcher cover" for the Yesterday ... And Today album--with the Beatles in butcher smocks covered with dismembered dolls and raw meat--which Niezgoda is all but certain is Lennon's nod to "the most reviling sacrifice to Satan . . . the killing of young innocent children--infanticide." Niezgoda quotes Lennon's enthusiasm for the project ("I would say I was a lot of the force behind it going out," Lennon once said) as the final word on the impetus behind the photo--but either doesn't seem to realize or completely ignores the fact that both Paul McCartney and photographer Robert Whitaker have claimed credit for the idea, too. Whitaker's version, in fact, holds up to the most scrutiny, as the photo was actually part of a series of artsy photos Whitaker staged, including one in which George Harrison appears to be driving nails into Lennon's head. Lord knows how Niezgoda would have interpreted THAT photo.

The real stretch, however, comes in his scouring of the cover of A Collection of Beatles Oldies -- a relatively obscure album released in the UK and Australia in late 1966. While the Paul is Dead crowd point to the drawing of the car getting ready to crash into the lounging figure's head as a "death clue" for Paul's alleged death by automobile, Niezgoda's got something much more clever in mind: "[The figure's] right crossed leg, with only slight imagination, can be seen as the letter `J,' and it rests aside the word `OLDIES' . . . [t]ogether, they spell `JOLDIES'" -- or, as Niezgoda explains, "JOL (John Ono Lennon) DIES." Cue the thunderclap and opening notes of Toccata and Fugue. And don't try to tell Niezgoda that Lennon was 16 months away from changing his middle name from Winston to Ono when the album was released -- he's already ahead of you: it's a "craftily constructed prophecy," don't you know?

Sgt. Pepper also falls under a similar scrutiny -- although, unlike the Paul Is Dead gang, Niezgoda isn't as much interested in the front cover as he is the back, where the Beatles, with the album's lyrics superimposed over them, appear against a blood red background (nothing is ever red in Niezgoda's book; it's always blood red!). McCartney famously stands with his back to the camera--"turning his back on John and what he knew of the fatal pact," Niezgoda says solemnly--but the real clue lies in the layout of the lyrics from George's "Within You, Without You": the words "lose their soul" are perfectly centered on John's waistline. Pretty sinister, huh?

Even sillier is Niezgoda's discussion of the drumhead on the cover of Pepper, an image already overanalyzed by the Paul Is Dead aficionados. Niezgoda relies on the same parlor trick as the Paul Is Dead gang, using a mirror to bisect the words LONELY HEARTS (which, he points out sinisterly, are in a different font from the rest of the drum!) to reveal a messy I ONE IX HE DIE. For the Paul Is Dead people, this convoluted hidden message means that Paul died on November 9th (with "I ONE" meaning eleven, and IX meaning 9, for 11/9). Not for Niezgoda. Instead, he reads this as a taunt from Satan to John Lennon: "I won! Nine, he die!" Nine, Niezgoda explains, is the day Lennon died--because it was already December 9th in Liverpool, you see, when John died in New York on December 8th.

That kind of convoluted numerology, in fact, is where Niezgoda becomes wearying. Lennon himself made much of the number 9 in his life--he was born on the ninth and included the number in the title of several songs--but Niezgoda comes up with some truly inane readings and sleights-of-hand to arrive at his nines. For example, he points out that if you dial the name JOHNONOLENNON on a push button phone, you get 564666536666 - and wow, look at all those sixes, which are really just nines standing on their heads. And only Niezgoda could read "One After 909" as an omen--it's waaay too confusing to explain how it predicts Lennon's death down to the day--all the way down to a reference to Yoko as a his "bag."

The punch my ticket moment, though--the moment I knew Niezgoda was in way over his head--arrives on page 122, as Niezgoda does some headscratching over the band's name:

"'The Beatles' was a curious choice of name for a band, especially because it's spelled wrong. In 1961, John wistfully explained to Mersey Beat where he got the idea: `It came in a vision--a man appeared on a flaming pie and said unto them, `From this day on, you are Beatles with an A'"

With an absolutely straight face, Niezgoda explains that Lennon had to spell "beetles" incorrectly so he could use the letters to make an anagram of "seal bet," hiding in plain sight his pact with the Devil. As for the man on a flaming pie, Niezgoda points out, his gears churning, that "man on a flaming pie" scrambles as "pagan flame minion."

Apparently, the pun on "beat" in the word "Beatles" seems... Read more ›

112 of 143 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars But what about those Country Stars who've bested Satan, May 17, 2009

By 

Gen. JC Christian, patriot (Tremonton, UT United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Lennon Prophecy: A New Examination of the Death Clues of The Beatles (Paperback)

There is no longer any question that John Lennon sold his soul to Satan? The case Joseph Niezgoda makes in "The Lennon Prophecy" is about as airtight as it gets. I mean, hey, we're talking creation science levels of proof here. Niezgoda's conclusions are unassailable.

Each proof--whether it's the missing "The" on the back of the "Abbey Road" album or the fact that Charles Manson believed the title of the song "Revolution #9" sounded a lot like the Bible's Revelations Chapter 9--is incontrovertible. Yes, it's as incontrovertible as the fact that Adam loved to feed carrots to his pet stegosaurus, Pokey.

But as good as this book is, the addition of a chapter about all the country musicians who've bested Satan would have made it even better. That's a story that doesn't often get told in the libumetrocialist media. They'd rather we believed that Lucifer has domain over all music, when in fact Beelzebub only digs rock and the blues. That's why there's never been a book written about how Charlie Daniels out-fiddled The Deceiver or how the second most heterosexual American (I'm the first), Horatio Lee Jenkins, kicked Satan's puking butt in a drinking contest Drunker Than Satan Ep. The libumetrocialists don't want us to know.

There's also the question about whether John Lennon, Nancy Pelosi, Mia Farrow, Dan Rather, and Satan all participated in a ceremony that resulted in Obama's conception. It's not covered in this book at all. I mean, sure, we've all seen Obama's Hawaiian birth certificate--so maybe he was born there--but does anyone really know how and where he was conceived? Was Lennon's Satanic seed involved? Was it in a foreign place like San Francisco? We don't know, because Niezgoda fails to address it. But then maybe that's another book.

49 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A bad book filled with manufactured evidence that even reaches the point where it appeals to the darkest of ethnic hatreds, January 21, 2009

By 

Charles Ashbacher (Marion, Iowa United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Lennon Prophecy: A New Examination of the Death Clues of The Beatles (Paperback)

While there is some interesting historical data about the Beatles in this book, I totally reject the premise of the author that their success was due to a pact John Lennon made with the devil. It is certainly true that Lennon had a hard childhood and in his early years often mocked the Christian religion. It is also true that the rise of the Beatles was phenomenal; it is hard to explain to anyone not conscious at the time (I was) how extensive their celebrity was. However, it is absurd to claim that all this is evidence that Lennon made a Faustian bargain.
Many if not most successful people had a very difficult upbringing; in fact the successful people argue that it was those early problems that instilled in them their drive to succeed. The sixties was a time of enormous social change, the number of dramatic alterations, from the civil rights movement to the development of the birth control pill is so numerous that not all of them can be mentioned. In the early sixties, the social change cauldron was in a superheated state and the arrival of the Beatles simply tapped into that tremendous potential energy. Therefore, one does not have to conjure up mystical explanations for the success of the Beatles.
As a co-editor of "Journal of Recreational Mathematics" I regularly encounter material based on numeric coincidences using arithmetic operations. Given the number of ways in which computations can be done, there are always many ways in which numbers can be "massaged" to return whatever values you desire. On page 117 there begins a list titled "The Number Nine in John's Life." Some of the entries are:

*) John Lennon was born on October 9.
*) During Chapman's first trip to New York, he stayed in the YMCA on West 63rd (6+3 = 9) Street. He checked in on December 6 (inverted 9).
*) His early band, Quarry Men, has nine letters.

Note that in one case the 6 must be inverted in order to get the desired nine.
Given that nine is a single digit, any person who understands how ubiquitous numbers are and how they can be manipulated will never be impressed by a list of numeric coincidences involving 9, no matter how long.
The most appalling statement appears on page 88 and is reproduced here in its entirety.

"The timing of Epstein's death is notable. Once John's rise to the top was complete, his manager was gone. That fact is feasibly coincidence, but could also be attributed to the idea that when one deals with the devil, sometimes an intermediary is used either to arrange the pact or to carry out the deeds that fulfill it. In fact, Maximilian Rudwin writes that historically Jews have acted as such intermediaries for Christians, not because the former have any sort of sinister leanings, but simply because `the zealot in one religion prefers a zealot to a liberal, even in an opposing religion.'"

Since Brian Epstein was Jewish and was the manager of the Beatles when they rose to stardom, the implication here is obvious. What is appalling is that over history the allegation that Jews are agents of Satan has been used as a justification for their persecution. That claim is repeated here with no justification whatsoever. This is a bad book full of nonsense and outlandish and manufactured claims.