The Power of Three

I have heard it said many times, celebrities always die in threes. I don't know if this is true or it is just our perception that makes it so. When I heard of the passing of Farrah Fawcett, my mind immediately connected her with Ed McMahon and David Carradine, but when Michael Jackson died later that same day, the number became 4. My wife is predicting 2 more celebrity deaths will come shortly.


In the bible, three wise men travelled far to bring gifts to the newborn king. The three gifts were gold, incense, and myrrh. I know what gold and incense are, but I wasn't sure about myrrh so I checked out it's Wiki page. Myrrh is a tree resin that has many uses, and one of them was as an embalming ointment. At first I thought it was a strange gift for a baby, but when I thought about it, it kind of made sense. Jesus was sent to Earth to die for the sins of man.

I first noticed Farrah Fawcett during the first season of the seventies television show "Charlie's Angels".


The angels were three police women who were originally given menial tasks within the force, such as switchboard operator and meter maid. The never seen Charlie hires them to work for his detective agency, and every episode the angels would go undercover to solve a mystery and catch the bad guys. Each episode would begin with Charlie talking through an intercom to the angels, telling them their assignment for that particular episode. Symbolically, it was a disembodied male voice which gave orders for his angels to carry out.

The original Charlie's Angels were Farrah Fawcett, Kate Jackson, and Jaclyn Smith. Farrah Fawcett died on the same day as pop singer Micheal Jackson, and in her most remembered role she co-starred with Kate Jackson. Kate Jackson and Michael Jackson are both featured on the cover of Mad Magazine #251 from Dec 1984, along with Andrew, Reggie, and Jesse Jackson. Reggie Jackson is even wearing an Angels jersey, even though he is best remembered as a Yankee. Today, Alex Rodriguez just passed Jackson on the all time home run list.



Charlies Angels reminds me of the Moirae, the Greek fates who spun, measured, and cut the thread of life.

Clotho (English pronunciation: /ˈkloʊθoʊ/, Greek Κλωθώ [klɔːˈtʰɔː] – "spinner") spun the thread of life from her distaff onto her spindle. Her Roman equivalent was Nona, (the 'Ninth'), who was originally a goddess called upon in the ninth month of pregnancy.

Lachesis (/ˈlækɨsɪs/, Greek Λάχεσις [ˈlakʰesis] – "allotter" or drawer of lots) measured the thread of life allotted to each person with her measuring rod. Her Roman equivalent was Decima (the 'Tenth').
Atropos (/ˈætrəpɒs/, Greek Ἄτροπος [ˈatropos] – "inexorable" or "inevitable", literally "unturning",[7] sometimes called Aisa) was the cutter of the thread of life. She chose the manner and timing of each person's death. When she cut the thread with "her abhorrèd shears", someone on Earth died. Her Roman equivalent was Morta ('Death').

The Moirae were portrayed in the comic book "the Sandman" as the Kindly Ones.



Stephen King writes of three demons who cut life strings in the novel "Insomnia", and the hero of the novel names the demons after the Moirae. King also has a character named Jack Mort in his novel "The Dark Tower II; The Drawing of the Three." Jack is the sir name of Jackson, and of course Morta is the Roman equivalent of Atropos, the Moirae who cuts the String. In this novel, Jack Mort is a sociopathic serial killer. In the Third installment of the Dark Tower, we are introduced to a sadistic super intelligent train named Blaine the Mono, AKA Charlie the Choo Choo. The hero of the Dark Tower novels that the word char means death in his language.