John Patrick Ennis (born July 14, 1960), also known as Sollog, is an American numerologist, mystic, and self-proclaimed psychic. He is also a self-published author and a self-described artist, musician, poet, and filmmaker.

Ennis refers to himself by what he calls the "religious name" of Sollog Immanuel Adonai-Adoni (the first name is sometimes fully capitalized: SOLLOG). "Sollog" is widely thought to stand for "son of light, light of God", although the origin of this interpretation is not clear. Sollog himself states that the name is derived from "Sol" and "Logos", literally "the word of the sun" [1]. Sollog also provides an alternative explanation on page 29 of his e-book Jesus is Not God:

“L LOGOS or the word of God in Greek is a Greek PI or word jumble of the word SOLLOG! SOLLOG is a hidden name that means the word of God!”

Sollog prefers not to be called by his birth name, John P. Ennis, considering it an insult, and claims instead that "Sollog", "God" and "God Almighty" are his only legal names [2].

In early 1995, Sollog first came to public attention by buying large ads that promoted his e-books, prophecies, and religious views in several Philadelphia newspapers, including the Philadelphia Inquirer, Bucks County Courier Times, Camden County Courier Post, Philadelphia Weekly, and Philadelphia City Paper. Sollog first appeared on the Internet in 1996. He has gained some notoriety through posts about his prophecies on Usenet and on the dozens of websites that promote his writings. Subscribers to the Usenet newsgroup alt.usenet.kooks named him "Kook of the Month" for June 1998, and gave him the Victor von Frankenstein "Weird Science" Award for January 2001. Major newsmedia, however, have generally paid little attention and dismissed Sollog's predictions, though several individual reporters have portrayed him as a notable crank.

Activities

Ennis operates a business known as Adoni Publishing, which sells e-books of his writing, CDs of music composed by him, and video material about him. His e-books explore a number of paranormal themes, including the Bible codes, UFOs, and Nostradamus, as well as creationism, religion, and numerology. Adoni Publishing also operates subscription sites such as 1underground.com that are only indirectly related to Sollog, containing such material as celebrity gossip, pornography, and pictures and videos of unnatural deaths (akin to so-called "snuff movies").

Sollog is the founder of the Temple of Hayah, which believes that "all life is part of God and therefore God". Since the mid-1990s he has been very prolific, publishing his beliefs and predictions in great quantities on the web and Usenet.

Sollog's supporters

People acting as Sollog supporters have argued strenuously with his detractors on Usenet and other forums, but that he has any supporters at all is disputed. Many observers have raised allegations of sock puppet accounts being used to promote Sollog and his theories, based on perceived similarities in on-line behavior, writing style, and a general disbelief that anybody but Sollog himself would be moved to promote him or his views.

Many of these observers implicitly claim that Sollog-supporting Internet accounts are all used by Ennis himself, and nobody else, by directly addressing the poster as Sollog or Ennis. The person or persons using these accounts always claim to be separate individuals, and specifically deny being Sollog. ([3], [4], [5]).

Sollog's alleged supporters often post via open proxy servers located in many different countries around the world. The posting times of pro-Sollog posts have often been observed to correlate with Sollog's presumed waking hours, leading many to conclude that the posts are being generated by Sollog himself.

Predictions

Sollog claims to have predicted a large number of major events, including the crash of TWA flight 800, the Oklahoma City bombing, the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, the September 11 terrorist attacks, and the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, as well as a wide range of natural disasters in the U.S.

Critics claim that his predictions are so general and obscure that they admit an unreasonably large number of interpretations, and that his predictions are endlessly varied and in such quantities that an accidental hit is inevitable.

Methods

Sollog prominently uses numerology in attempted predictions of events, using numbers such as 103, 113, 116, 169, and 911 [6].

As an example, he may proclaim the number 113 to be of significance, and subsequently claim a hit for any disaster for which 113, or any permutation of the numbers 1, 1 and 3, can be found in the date or statistics. If the specified numbers cannot be attributed directly to the event, Sollog may use mathematical manipulations to obtain these numbers from data not directly mentioning them; he has claimed success for events that were off by one day or digit, and has also used preliminary casualty figures or differences between time zones as reasons for inclusion. Critics claim that Sollog is playing prediction roulette, covering enough dates and cities to hit by chance alone.

Sollog also uses a method whereby cities in the United States are linked by imaginary lines, claiming a successfully predicted disaster for any hurricane which passes over these lines. For example, in 2002, he predicted that 17 particular hurricanes would hit 17 particular cities [7]. However, over half of these hurricanes had already passed without destroying any cities, and the names will not be reused until 2010 at the earliest.

Sollog has also issued repeated predictions of specific events, without tying them to specific dates. These are subsequently assigned various dates by his (alleged) followers. A notable instance of such a claim is the death of Pope John Paul II, for which Sollog's claims had been interpreted as predictions for March 18 (without a year) [8], September 11 1997 [9], and October 15 1997 [10]. The alleged prophecies referred to in the links do not mention any specific dates. The Pope finally died on April 2 2005. Critics pointed out beforehand that any hits claimed on such grounds would have been mere cases of post-shadowing.

The 911 prediction

Perhaps the most notable prediction attributed to Sollog is a Usenet posting, dated 11 September 1998, in which Sollog was reported to have said that "on 911 there will be a great emergency in Washington, DC" [11]. Supporters interpret this as a specific prediction of the 11 September 2001 attacks, which, however, involved no specific emergency in Washington at all other than the general distress the attacks caused across the United States, and that the presumed target of Flight 93 was the Capitol or the White House. (The attack on The Pentagon took place in Arlington, Virginia, not Washington, DC, while the President was visiting an elementary school in Sarasota, Florida.)

Xinoehpoel

This is not the only posting referring to a 911 prediction purportedly made by Sollog. A notable Sollog follower, occasionally conjectured to be Ennis himself but generally believed not to be, is a Usenet poster who called himself "Leo Phoenix" or "Xinoehpoel" ("Leo Pheonix" [sic] written backwards). He gained brief notoriety for a posting with the subject "911" to alt.prophecies.nostradamus [12], in which he claimed "something" would happen "tomorrow" (the posting was made on August 31, 2001). When the September 11 terrorist attacks finally did happen, this apparent prediction received some attention, and was even covered by The New York Times [13].

Sollog was not mentioned in the thread itself, but in previous postings Xinoehpoel had established himself as a follower of Sollog, even proclaiming that Sollog was God. Though some were convinced by this claim alone that Xinoehpoel was an alias of Ennis, others have disputed the evidence and concluded that he was independent [14].

It is significant to note that there is no evidence to suggest that Sollog personally made either claimed posting, nor do the postings give any reference to where or when Sollog is supposed to have made the prophecies.

Sollog and his critics

Sollog and his followers have singled out a few individuals for personal attacks, including Howard Altman, an investigative reporter and former editor-in-chief of the Philadelphia City Paper; Robert Carroll, founder of the website The Skeptic's Dictionary; Los Angeles Times reporter Kenneth Reich; Washington Post reporter Victoria Shannon; and Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, claiming each of them to be responsible for supposed libellous remarks on Ennis's personality and achievements.

According to Altman, Ennis responded to irreverent articles by sending faxes warning him to handle his mail carefully in case it included explosives, which Altman interpreted as mailbomb threats. Ennis also reportedly threatened to sue Altman for $1 trillion in damages, though there is as yet no sign of any such suit being filed [15].

Both Altman and Reich contacted the FBI as a result of their harassment.

Legal problems

According to the Philadelphia City Paper (Altman 1996), Ennis has had various legal problems, culminating in his arrest by the United States Secret Service.

Ennis' legal problems, according to Altman, started in 1987, when he admitted selling obscene materials in Maricopa County, Arizona, and was put on probation. He reportedly violated his probation by committing an aggravated assault later that year, following which the authorities issued a warrant for his arrest. He left Arizona and moved to Pennsylvania.

On February 5, 1988, he was arrested in Philadelphia following a drunken high-speed vehicle chase which ended with police officer Sam D'Urso being seriously injured. He was charged with two counts of aggravated assault (including one charge of intentionally causing serious bodily injury to a police officer), one count of recklessly endangering another person, and one count of driving under the influence. He failed to appear in court when summoned. A second warrant for his arrest was issued, but the authorities failed to follow up on this and it remained unactioned for another seven years.

In September 1995, Ennis was arrested by the United States Secret Service on suspicion of making threats against the President of the United States (according to him, this was related to a prediction that a plane crash would occur if President Bill Clinton flew to Jackson Hole, Wyoming). It was discovered that he had two warrants outstanding against him, and he was committed for trial on the February 1988 vehicle offences. When the case came to court in May 1996, Ennis's defence invoked conspiracy theories involving the President, the Governor of Pennsylvania and the Mayor of Philadelphia. He dismissed his own defence attorney, calling him "part of the conspiracy", and represented himself from that point on. Judge Anthony DeFino described the case (which the press dubbed the "God Trial") as being "the most unusual case I have ever seen in my courtroom". Ennis was convicted on all four charges and imprisoned.

Ennis claims that the conviction was later overturned on technical and evidentiary grounds, although this claim has not been substantiated.

Since March 3rd, 2005 Ennis has been residing in Broward Country, Florida jail awaiting an extradition hearing set for May 31st, 2005. The outcome of this extradition may see him returned to Philadelphia on charges that have yet to be determined.

References

• A critical view of Sollog's prediction of the Columbia disaster (February 10, 2004). Skeptic News.
• Mathematical proof of God? Sollog's Creator Formula. scienceone.org. Retrieved January 13, 2005.
• Altman, Howard (May 9–16, 1996). "Heavenly Justice: SOLLOG might have had a case if he hadn't played God". Philadelphia City Paper.
• Altman, Howard (September 11–18, 1997). "Stern Warning" by ; Philadelphia City Paper.
• Altman, Howard (September 25–October 2, 1997). "Seer Vs. Scribes". Philadelphia City Paper.
• Altman, Howard (February 21–28, 2002). "Oy McVeigh". Philadelphia City Paper.
• FBI looks for terror's tracks online (September 15, 2001). St Petersburg Times (sourced from The New York Times).
• McDonald, Tom (July 23, 2001). Re: OT: My Time in Prison. alt.prophecies.nostradamus.
• Schwartz, John (September 17, 2001). Scouring the Internet in Search of the Tracks of Terrorists. The New York Times.
• Shannon, Victoria (September 8, 1997). "Diana's Death Brings Out the Good, Bad and Ugly on the Net". Washington Post. (on the best and worst reporting of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales)
• Sollog. Sollog on the meaning of Sollog. Retrieved January 13, 2005.
• Sollog controling (sic) Hurricane Juan to hit USA? (September 27, 2003). psychologytalk.org. Retrieved January 13, 2005.
• Patalong, Frank (September 14, 2001). Spiegel Online coverage on Xinoehpoel and Sollog. Spiegel Online. Retrieved January 13, 2004.
• The Great Sollog Challenge (April 27, 2002). alt.prophecies.nostradamus, sci.skeptic, alt.paranormal, alt.fan.art-bell.
• "Usenet Psychic Wars With Wikipedia" (December 14, 2004). Slashdot.
• Various authors. DisDain.tv Coverage on Sollog. Disdain.tv. Retrieved January 13, 2005.
• Who is Xinoehpoel?. Xinoehpoel Review. Retrieved January 13, 2005.
• A death foretold? - Sollog's Line of Death (April 1999). The Guardian. Retrieved January 16, 2005.
• Adonai-Adoni, Sollog Immanuel, Jesus Is Not God eBook (January 2002), Adoni Publishing.

External links

• Sollog's website
• The Temple of Hayah
• An uncritical Usenet post of some of Sollog's recent claims (September 2004)
• The Official Alt.Usenet.Kooks Funny Farm; Ennis has won multiple awards, including the "Kook of the Month" award.