The Unfortunate Tale of Dr. John Dee

I was watching the movie Elizabeth: The Golden Age and I was pleased to see that the English court magician Dr. John Dee was featured in the film. In real life, the man was remarkable. He was a scientist, an astrologer, occultist, navigator and even a spy (his codename was 007 thus making him a prototype for James Bond) for Queen Elizabeth I back in the Renaissance Age. He was the founder of Enochian Magic. He was a man who was ahead of his time.

Well, that is until religious bigotry stepped in and ruined his life. When Queen Elizabeth I died, troubles started piling up for poor John. His library and laboratory was ransacked by vandals and thieves. He was made Warden of Christ's College in Manchester but there he was hated and even cheated. When he returned to London, Elizabeth I died and the new ruler James I refused to help Dee due to his supernatural reputation. Dee spent the rest of his life in poverty.

Despite his unfortunate tale, John Dee's legacy lives on among the modern magicians. If the real world has a Merlin, Dr. Dee was the closest.

Egypt is Free. Now What?

Recent news has it that the dictatorial Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has finally stepped down after all those years. The 2011 Egyptian Protests were a success. I bet the nationwide celebrations over there aren't finished yet.


However, forgive me for being a naysayer but I feel that something is not right.


The day of the fall of Mubarak was also the day of the Iranian Revolution Anniversary. Just in case you don't know your history, after the overthrow of the dictatorial Iranian monarchy, Islamic extremism took power and many people suffered throughout the years since then. I find it a bit (okay so it's kind of a HUGE bit) ominous about the synchronicity. Will Egypt fall into the hands of religious radicals? I hope not. I just hope it's just a plain coincidence and not an omen. I surely, truly hope so.

Charles Darwin's Birthday and Stalin's Ape-Men Soldiers

Guess what? Today is Charles Darwin's birthday! It was the day when the man behind the Theory of Evolution came into this world. The Theory of Evolution states that humans and apes may have a common ancestor. However, what happens when man and ape are fused together? It may sound like something out of a science fiction novel but Russian dictator Josef Stalin seriously expressed interest in producing an army of ape-men soldiers back in the mid-1920's!

Say whaaaaat?

Russia's top animal breeding scientist Ilya Ivanov was ordered to produce Stalin's super soldiers. The ape hybrids were supposed to be raised in Georgia, Stalin's birthplace. Unfortunately (and fortunately for the rest of the world), the very expensive experiments were a failure. Ivanov was disgraced and he was sentenced to a 5 year exile in Kazakhstan in 1931 before dying from sickness a year later.

"In Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, we have ape-man soldiers!"

There is another way to create ape-human hybrids and it involves transplanting a human head to a body of an ape.

We're screwed!

It sounds crazy but it's so close to reality. In 2009, MonsterQuest interviewed Dr. Robert White, a neurosurgeon who experimented on the possibility of transferring the heads of paraplegic patients to the bodies of brain-dead patients. His experiments involved the use of monkeys due to their genetic similarity to humans. Below is a shocking video showing a clip of a successful experiment in transplanting a monkey's head to a body of another monkey.



The monkey was able to function normally after the surgery. The experiments were abandoned due to ethical issues. Dr. White also points out that a human to ape transferal would never work due to huge chance of transplant rejection. For now, the world is safe from attacks of ape-men.

Uh, right?

Sources:

http://news.scotsman.com/world/Stalins-halfman-halfape-superwarriors.2688011.jp

http://themonstersite.com/other-manape-creatures/14-almasty-abanu/18-stalins-ape-man