Remember, remember the 9th of November

Of 1888. Not exactly gunpowder and treason stuff, but perhaps a plot? Or the end of the crazed murder spree? Anyhoo, it's the day for those who call themselves ripperologists- who'd have thought?..

Did the man known as Jack the Ripper ever think he'd be that famous? I sincerely doubt that. Whatever his core motivation was, he did what he did - slashed, ripped and tore, until the 9th of November, when his last victim was found.

For him, it sure was the crown jewel, that one. The peak of glory. The last bloody gem in his crown, and by far the largest and the most impressive. To this day, it is unsurpassed- and there's been many killers since then. Everybody needs a muse, they say - if that is indeed so, Jack would have made the top as the gruesomest inspiration ever.

How twisted a mind must be, I wonder, to take a feather from Jack's cap? Twisted indeed, to come up with this - for want of the better word- bloodbath. Some still argue though - could there be more than one killer? Judging by the victims, aye. But there could have been just one, as well. One deranged soul, losing his marbles from murder to murder due to an illness, mixed with hate for women, slashing his way through Whitechapel.

It might sound strange, but in retrospective, Jack did pretty much for those who tried investigating his crimes. Without him, criminology, profiling and investigation wouldn't evolve that fast, and perhaps, the social reforms would never happen at this rate. In retrospect, Jack, whatever his real name might have been - and it's not even as important- was the catalyst for change, and in human history, the change never comes peacefully and quietly overnight. Society always needs a violent outburst of energy to evolve, and that's what happened in 1888.

To some point, professional profilers, detectives and policemen owe much to Jack, even if they never admit it.

Mind you, I'm not calling him a hero or anything like that. These five lives he took were bad enough without him, and they shouldn't have ended in this way. But I bet this case was the one that got many of us into psychology, criminology and neighbours fields.

Were Jack familiar with the phrase ‘Every contact leaves a trace ‘ he'd think twice before hunting down those women. Then again, the godfather of forensics, Edmond Locate, formulated his famous principle in 1920, and we can, indeed, see how profound some traces are, when we look at Jack ‘s case. An endless case. A cold case. A case still pulsating with morbidly fascinating energy. Did you know, Jack even made it into tarot?

That's him, appropriately placed on the Death card in the deck by Travis Mchenry. With all my warm feelings towards tarot, I'd never dare use this in a reading.

If you think of the Death card as the ending phase, this interpretation is surely on point. But…casting a wider net of thought…it's a very correct character on many levels. Especially in terms of change and realignment of systems.

Just as Death in tarot teaches us to step boldly into the shadows, Jack's case can help us to navigate our deepest fears and nightmares to become more sound and stable. When the emotional perspective shifts into logical, when you look at it through different points of view, you suddenly realise that you cannot choose sides. You can be objective, analytical, and, above all - unprejudiced.

I've noticed in some ripperologists this weird excitement, that glint in the eye when they spoke on the subject. For a while decade of documentaries, they used same words to describe the case. And those words were gory and bloody, as were the descriptors. Perhaps, that's how the mind operates- and we gradually turn into fans after years of being analytical pros?

To my mind, we cannot allow ourselves such luxury. To reach the conclusion, to find the center of the case - any case- we must be distanced enough in our emotions to connect all dots. Otherwise it cannot be even called an investigation.

So I leave you with one simple question.

What was the most meaningful contact in your life? The one that left traces so deep it still echoes?