Churchill’s Daemon March 5, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary , trackback
Strange History has noted before the belief in daemons, individual spirit guides, a Mediterranean tradition that matures into the guardian angel with the assistance of Christianity. The most striking example is certainly that of Socrates who had regular conversations with his daemon. Then there is Joan of Arc and St Michael (or whoever)… Beach today came across, instead, some evidence that Winston Churchill also benefited from a supernatural guide: Churchill was a bit of a drama queen and it is difficult to know what to make of this incident. The source is Walter H. Thompson, Churchill’s longstanding and long suffering ‘security specialist’ who had the unenviable task of keeping the Prime Minister, who had a blind spot where danger was concerned, safe. Thompson greatly admired Churchill – he had been, meanwhile, disgusted by Lloyd George, who he had guarded twenty years before – and was particularly intrigued by Churchill’s sense of destiny. Churchill had shared, on two occasions, with Thompson, his belief that he had a special duty to perform in the WW2 that he referred to as ‘the mission’ and for which he had been specially chosen (Churchill implied by God): this belief might explain Churchill’s almost infantile attempts to court peril, as he felt he would be saved come what may. Poor Thompson, in fact, had a thankless task…
During my years with him Winston had always travelled in the seat on the near side of the car, sitting behind me. He has never shut or opened a car door. On this occasion I went ahead of him as he left the guns and moved the car round the near side where I waited with the door open for him. To my surprise when he reached the off side of the car he stopped, looked at me then turned and opened the door on the offside and got in and sat down shutting the door as he did so. Our next stop was some distance away and as usual we had to travel fast. A number of explosions occurred and suddenly the offside of our car was lifted into the air, but except for shake no serious damage was done. I feel that our speed probably prevented the car from turning over on its near side. Winston was not disturbed in the slightest and leaning forward he said ‘that was a near one Thompson it must have been my beef on this side that pulled the car down.’ Talking to him about the incident on our return to the annex I asked why he had sat on the offside that was something he never did. His reply surprised me. ‘I saw you with the door open, but when I reached the other side something seemed to say ‘stop’, then it appeared to me that I was to get into the other side which I did.’ His hand went up as he said ‘the mission has to be carried out, Thompson’.
Did Churchill often hear these voices? Other famous men and women with Daemons. Drbeachcombing At yahoo DOT com
