Are Autopsies, Organ Transplants, and Hasty Disposal of Bodies Spiritually Contraindicated?
Posted on 14 May 2012, 8:07
In a recent episode of the popular NCIS TV series, a Marine, a young Muslim man, was murdered and the NCIS coroner was about to do an autopsy on his body when the dead man’s father showed up and begged the coroner not to disturb the body as his son’s spirit would be negatively affected if his body was cut into.
I didn’t follow the program long enough to know if there was a time limit on when the body could be sliced up, but it’s something that I have sometimes wondered about, not only relative to autopsies but also to organ removals and hasty burials or cremations, as there have been a number of spirit messages suggesting that the spirit body can take some time – a day or two or three – to loosen itself from the physical shell. If that is actually the case, then two questions present themselves: 1) Is physical pain experienced by whatever consciousness is still attached to the physical body when the body is so violated? 2) If there is no physical pain, per se, does the spirit who does not yet realize he/she is “dead” look on in horror and imagine the pain while observing his/her body being mutilated?
In his 1998 book, Light & Death, Dr. Michael Sabom, an Atlanta cardiologist, cites an article by Dr. Linda Emanuel, who comments that life and death are viewed as non-overlapping, dichotomous states, whereas in reality there is no threshold event that defines death. “Several scientific observations support Emanuel’s argument that loss of biologic life, including death of the brain, is a process and does not occur at a single, definite moment,” Sabom writes. He goes on to mention that 10 organ donors diagnosed as “brain dead” showed an average increase in blood pressure of 31 millimeters of mercury and in heart rate of 23 beats per minute in response to surgical removal of the organs. He also refers to a study at Loyola University Medical Center in which it was found that 20 percent of patients diagnosed as brain dead had persisting EEG activity up to seven days after the initial diagnosis.
There have been numerous accounts of people being pronounced dead and then coming back to “life.” The story of Dr. George Rodonaia, a psychologist in the Soviet Union, as related in several books on near-death experiences, is a particularly chilling one. Rodonaia was said to have been murdered by the KGB as he was preparing for a trip to the United States in 1976. As medical personnel began cutting into him during an autopsy nearly two days after his “death,” Rodonaia opened his eyes and returned to life. He reported a very vivid NDE, one that transformed him from an atheist to a believer.
Workers relocating cemeteries in Great Britain have reported finding scratch marks on the inside covers of many caskets, indicating that the body was not yet “dead” when the cover was closed. Of course, the cemetery victims were likely buried before embalming became commonplace, but that only leads one to wonder if embalming may now begin before bodies are actually “dead.”
In his 1916 book, Raymond or Life and Death, Sir Oliver Lodge, the esteemed British physicist and radio pioneer, in a séance with medium Gladys Osborne Leonard, discussed the subject with Raymond, his deceased son. Raymond (below) told him that the body doesn’t start mortifying until the spirit has left it. He went on to tell his father that he had witnessed a scene several days earlier in which a man was going to be cremated two days after the doctor pronounced him dead. “When his relatives on this side heard about it, they brought a certain doctor on our side, and when they saw that the spirit hadn’t got really out of the body, they magnetized it, and helped it out,” Raymond explained through Feda, Leonard’s control. “But there was still a cord, and it had to be severed rather quickly, and it gave a little shock to the spirit, like as if you had something amputated. But it had to be done.” Raymond suggested that there should be a seven-day waiting period before cremation. “People are so careless,” he said. “The idea seems to be ‘hurry up and get them out of the way now that they are dead.”
According to the mystic known as Abd-ru-Shin (1875-1941), the separation of the etheric body, or soul, from the physical body and the severing of the “silver cord” (sometimes referred to as the etheric umbilical cord), joining the two depends to a great extent on the spiritual development of the individual. Dr. Richard Steinpach, who wrote extensively on the teachings of Abd-ru-Shin, stated that the more materialistic the person, the more the silver cord is tightly knit, and the more difficult it is to sever the connection. “The severance may then take many days, during which time such a person, because of the density of the connection-cord, must still feel what happens to his physical body, so that, for example, he does not necessarily remain insensitive to cremation,” Steinpach wrote, adding that it is with good reason that some rites, especially among primitive races, provide for minimum intervals between death and burial or cremation.
Allan Kardec, the French psychical investigator, stated that the affinity which continues to exist between soul and body after death is sometimes extremely painful “for it causes the spirit to perceive all the horror of decomposition of the latter.”
In The Tibetan Book of the Dead, we read that it might take up to three-and-a-half days for the consciousness to leave the body. Sogyal Rinpoche, author of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, states that it is believed that if the body is touched in a certain place, as with an injection, for example, it may draw the consciousness to that spot. The consciousness of the dead person may then leave toward the nearest opening instead of through the fontanel, at the crown of the head, and make an unfortunate rebirth. But Rinpoche questioned several “masters” on the subject of organ donation. They all agreed that it is an extremely positive action. “So, as long as it is truly the wish of the dying person, it will not harm in any way the consciousness that is leaving the body,” Rinpoche summarized his interviews. “On the contrary, this final act of generosity accumulates good karma.” One master added that the pain and suffering that a person goes through in the process of having the organs removed turns into good karma.
“I know about transplants, and am aware that the motive is often a very good one,” said Silver Birch, the spirit who communicated through British trance medium Maurice Barbanell (below) for many year. “But I must say that I am opposed to transplanting any part of the human body to other people.” Although Silver Birch never fully identified himself, indications were that his Indian name was a convenient persona behind a very spiritually-evolved soul.
Until shortly before Barbanell’s death in 1981, Silver Birch delivered lectures and answered questions about every possible subject relating to the meaning of life and the evolution of the soul. Silver Birch added that doctors cannot judge when death takes place and that death is final only when the silver cord is severed and the spirit body leaves the physical one. “When that severance has taken place, no medical man can make that body live again,” Silver Birch said.
But Silver Birch often mentioned that although he came from a realm with a considerably higher vibration than earth, he had not evolved to the point where he had knowledge of all things. He frequently prefaced his remarks, including those on transplants, by saying it was simply his opinion. “I do not think, from my point of view, and I speak only for myself, that the sustaining of the physical body must be the be-all of every endeavor,” he offered at one sitting. “I maintain that man should be instructed how to live aright, spiritually, mentally and physically. If he thinks right, then he behaves right and his body will be right. The solution is not the transfer of bodily parts. The solution is for every man to order himself to live as the Great Spirit intended. Man must have compassion for other men and for all the creatures with whom he shares his planet. They were not placed here by the Great Spirit to be used as experiments, to prolong the physical life of man.”
I don’t know how difficult it would be to oppose an autopsy by a government agency based on such spiritual concerns. I suspect that most municipalities or whatever agency is involved would not respect those spiritual concerns.
As for organ transplants, the “gift of life,” is hard to oppose, unless, of course, we go to the very core of spirituality and view death as the great liberator, even if the person has not lived his or her allotted three score and ten or more. “I do not see that what you call death is a disaster,” said Silver Birch when asked about the divine justice involved with people who die prematurely. “To me it is the great hour of freedom for the soul.”
In his 2010 book, Consciousness beyond Life, Dr. Pim Van Lommel, a world-renowned cardiologist, devotes several interesting pages to the organ transplant issue, pointing out that when brain death has been diagnosed, 96 percent of the body is still alive. While not in principle opposed to organ transplants, van Lommel suggests that more consideration should be given to the nonphysical aspects of organ donation, including the fear of death.
Since not many people in this day and age of extreme materialism are prepared to appreciate the philosophy of Silver Birch, the case against early autopsies, organ transplants, and quick burials and cremations will likely never be widely heard.
Michael Tymn is the author of The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After we Die, Transcending the Titanic, and The Afterlife Explorers Volume 1., published by White
Crow Books and available from Amazon and all good online bookstores.
Before the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) was organized in 1882, some very distinguished scholars and scientists investigated the phenomena of what came to be called Spiritualism – communication with the spirit world.
Many of them were told by spirits about the difficulties they encountered in attempting to communicate with the physical world, but the researchers who formed the SPR apparently wanted to start from scratch and for the most part gave little recognition to the findings of the real pioneers.
My latest book, The Afterlife Explorers, published by White Crow Books, discusses the research of the real pioneers – Emanuel Swedenborg, Judge John Edmonds, Governor Nathaniel Tallmadge, Professor Robert Hare, Victor Hugo, Allen Kardec, Alfred Russel Wallace, and Sir William Crookes, as well as the mediumship of several of the best mediums of the era – Andrew Jackson Davis, Dr. George T. Dexter, Daniel Dunglas Home, and the Rev. William Stainton Moses.
In my last blog entry, I discussed some of the obstacles to spirit communication as set forth by the SPR researchers in their investigations of mediums. But the pioneers had already been told of various difficulties that must be overcome. “I know of no mode of spiritual intercourse that is exempt from a moral taint – no kind of mediumship where the communication may not be affected by the mind of the instrument,” Edmonds offered in an 1853 book. the “instrument” being the medium. .
Edmonds, (below) who served as Chief Justice of the New York State Supreme Court, is believed to have been the first true psychical researcher. Beginning in 1851, he spent 23 months investigating mediums, witnessing several hundred manifestations in various forms and keeping detailed records of them. “There are false communications which are not intentionally so,” Edmonds explained, “some arising from a mistake of the spirit who is communicating, and some from the error of the medium who has not yet so studied himself as to be able to distinguish the innate action of his own mind from the impress of spirit influence.” Edmonds went on to say that “sometimes timidity and diffidence will color and sometimes vanity and fanaticism distort the teachings of the spirits.”
The spirits who communicated, Edmonds pointed out, were not on equal footing. They varied significantly in advancement. “Some are more, and some less, ignorant than others; some more prudent and careful; some more zealous and inconsiderate; some impulsive and rapid, and some calm and deliberate; in fine, with every conceivable variety of attribute and faculty. Of necessity, the communication from each of these must be affected, as all human intercourse is, by the peculiar characteristics of each individual.” In effect, Edmonds stressed, those receiving the messages must discern the messages.
Hare, a renowned inventor and professor of chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania, set out to debunk mediums during the early 1850s, but soon became a believer. In fact, he developed mediumship abilities of his own. He came to understand that the spirits themselves did not understand the communication process and concluded that for the most part the communication was beyond human comprehension. “As there are no words in the human language in which spiritual ideas may be embodied so as to convey their literal and exact signification, we are obliged oftimes to have recourse to the use of analogisms and metaphorical modes of expression,” Hare was told by his discarnate father. “In our communication with you we have to comply with the peculiar structure and rules of your language; but the genius of our language is such that we can impart more ideas to each other in a single word than you can possibly convey in a hundred.”
Initially, Kardec, a French educator, was bothered by the conflicting answers he received from spirits, but, like Edmonds, he concluded that this was because spirits differ in knowledge as much as humans. “Spirits differing very widely from one another as regards their knowledge and morality, it is evident that the same question may receive from them very different answers, according to the rank at which they have arrived, exactly as would be the case if it were propounded alternately to a man of science, an ignoramus, and a mischievous wag.”
Kardec was further informed that spirits speak only by thought and have no articulate language. “The foreign spirit doubtless understands all languages, as languages are the expression of thought, and as the spirit understands by thought; but to render this thought he needs an instrument; this instrument is the medium,” Kardec recorded. “The soul of the medium who receives the foreign communication can transmit it only by the organs of his body; and these organs cannot have the same flexibility for an unknown language which they have for the one familiar to them. A medium who knows only French might, incidentally, give an answer in English, for instance, should it please the spirit to do so; but spirits, who already find the human language too slow, considering the rapidity of thought, though they abridge as much as they can, are impatient of the mechanical resistance they experience; this is why they don’t always do it. This is also the reason a novice medium, who writes laboriously and slowly, even in his own language, usually obtains but very brief and undeveloped answers; so the spirits recommend that only simple questions be asked through him. For those of higher bearing it needs a formed medium, who offers no mechanical difficulty to the spirit.”
Wallace, co-originator with Charles Darwin of the natural selection theory of evolution, concluded that harmony was a major factor in successful spirit communication. Other researchers have come to the same conclusion, understanding that antagonism or negativity on the part of the researcher often defeats any phenomenon, thus leading them to believe that it is all bunk.
Communicating through the trance mediumship of D. D. Home, (below) considered by some the greatest medium of the 19th Century, a spirit communicated: “You do not know the difficulties that have to be overcome in communicating with you. Supposing now we want to make manifestations, four spirits would perhaps take possession of the four corners of the room, and would begin, as it were, to throw across to each other, and weave together their harmonizing influence, so as to get everything equalized and prepared for the adoption of whatever they want to do. One spirit will remain in the midst who will manage and direct all that is to be said – of course, if one of the other spirits wishes to communicate he would let him do so, they are not selfish, but one must have the direction of the manifestations to ensure unity of purpose. That is why it is so bad to wish for the presence of any particular spirit; that spirit might come, and the others not being selfish would admit him into the circle, and he not being in harmony with the others, would destroy the whole thing.”
At a sitting at the home of Sir William Crookes, one of the world’s leading scientists of the era, Home went into a trance state and a voice began speaking through him. One of Crookes’ guests asked who was speaking. “It is not spirit in particular,” came the reply through Home. “It is a general influence. It requires two or three spirits to get complete control over Dan.
The conditions are not very good tonight.” This “general influence” then went on to explain there are comparatively few spirits who are able to communicate at all. The likened getting a message through the medium to trying to get a wayward child to do what one wishes and said that there was much experimentation taking place on their side of the veil.
“We can only dimly symbolize truths which one day your unclouded eye will see in their full splendor,” an apparently high spirit or “group soul” (a number of spirits or general spirit influence) called “Imperator” communicated through Stainton Moses. “We cannot speak with clearness when the spirit of our medium is troubled, when his body is racked with pain, or his mental state vitiated by disease. Nay, even a lowering atmosphere or electric disturbance, or the neighborhood of unsympathetic and unfavourable human influence, may colour a communication, or prevent it from being clear and complete.”
Michael Tymn is the author of The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After we Die, Transcending the Titanic, and The Afterlife Explorers Volume 1., published by White
Crow Books and available from Amazon and all good online bookstores.
No doubt one of the reasons why research into mediumship has not been more widely accepted has to do with the lack of clarity in most of the communication purportedly coming from spirits. Even with the best of mediums, there is much vagueness and ambiguity, even gibberish, in the communication. Skeptics see all this as evidence that the so-called mediums are charlatans, as they assume that if spirits really exist they should be able to communicate in a much more intelligent and effective manner.
But it is not all that easy to communicate, the spirits tell us. A month after pioneering psychical researcher Frederic W. H. Myers died in 1901, Professor Oliver Lodge heard from him though Rosalie Thompson, a trance medium. Lodge recorded that Myers struggled in his initial attempts to communicate. “Lodge, it is not as easy as I thought in my impatience,” Myers explained his difficulty after some delay. “Gurney says I am getting on first rate. But I am short of breath.” Gurney, who died in 1888, was a co-founder of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) with Myers. The “shortness of breath” apparently is a metaphorical shortness of breath. One spirit likened spirit communication to trying to hold one’s breath under water and communicate by hand signals with another underwater swimmer.
Myers was just beginning to better appreciate the obstacles that spirits face in their attempts to communicate. “Tell them I am more stupid than some of those I deal with,” he continued as he struggled to remember the last time he had seen Lodge. He mentioned that he could not remember many things, not even his mother’s name. He went on to say that he felt like he was looking at a misty picture and that he could hear himself using Thompson’s voice but that he didn’t feel as if he were actually speaking. “It is funny to hear myself talking when it is not myself talking,” he went on. “It is not my whole self talking. When I am awake I known where I am.”
After Dr. Richard Hodgson, another researcher, died in 1905, he began communicating through the mediumship of Leonora Piper, the Boston medium he had studied for 18 years. “I find now difficulties such as a blind man would experience in trying to find his hat,” the surviving consciousness of Hodgson told Professor William Newbold in a July 23, 1906 sitting. “And I am not wholly conscious of my own utterances because they come out automatically, impressed upon the machine (Piper’s body)…I impress my thoughts on the machine which registers them at random, and which are at times doubtless difficult to understand. I understand so much better the modus operandi than I did when I was in your world.”
Still another pioneering researcher who communicated after his death, in 1925, Sir William Barrett, a physicist, explained the difficulties of communication to his wife, Dr. Florence Barrett, through the mediumship of Gladys Osborne Leonard. “When I come into the conditions of a sitting I then know that I can carry with me – contain in me – a small portion of my consciousness,” he told Lady Barrett, going on to say that it was easier to communicate ideas than words. .He explained that simply saying “I am Will,” was more difficult than expressing an idea of scientific interest.
Communicating through Geraldine Cummins, a renowned automatic writing medium, Frederic Myers stated: “We communicate an impression through the inner mind of the medium. It receives the impression in a curious way. It has to contribute to the body of the message; we furnish the spirit of it. . In other words, we send the thoughts and the words usually in which they must be framed, but the actual letters or spelling of the words is drawn from the medium’s memory. Sometimes we only send the thoughts and the medium’s unconscious mind clothes them in words.”
Recently, White Crow Books, the publisher of my last two books, re-published an 1889 book titled Heaven Revised by Eliza B. Duffey. This very intriguing book goes into some of the difficulties of spirit communication. Like Geraldine Cummins, Duffey was an automatic writing medium. “During the entire period in which I was engaged in this writing – some three or four months – I lived and moved in sort of a dream,” she explained in the Introduction of the book. “Nothing seemed real to me. Personal troubles did not seem to pain me. I felt as though I had taken a mental anaesthetic.”
Duffey went on to say that the writing seemed to come through “unseen assistance,” though she realized that those who have not experienced it might have a hard time understanding it. The communicator is never named in the book, but simply referred to as a “traveler” in the spirit world. For those looking for evidential information, the book will not satisfy, but for those accepting Duffey’s explanation as to how it was received, there is much food for thought.
In the final chapter, the “traveler” – given the name Hester here for easy identification purposes – tells of observing four different mediums from her side of the veil. She was accompanied by a guide called Margaret.
Each of the sitters, Hester explained, attracted around him or her spirits whose moods and motives corresponded with his/her own. “There were idle, mischievous spirits, bent on having a good time; there were earnest spirit investigators, ready to second the efforts of the mortals; there were those who recently departed from the earth and were most eager to send back a word of comfort; there were high and pure spirits who sought an opportunity for impressing mortals with the grand truths…for those who truly desire them.”
With the first medium, the communications were for the most part brief and unsatisfactory, though several names were correctly given. As Hester perceived it, this was because the brain of the medium was dull and untrained.
“One of the higher band of spirits found opportunity to attempt to communicate through her, but what a look of dismay and discouragement came over him when he heard his brilliant thoughts dulled, the truths he would utter obscured, his meaning perverted, and his very language murdered, in passing through the channel of this woman’s intellect,” Hester offered.
After this more advanced spirit ceased his efforts, a degraded spirit stepped in and falsely identified himself as a famous American statesman, much to the delight of the sitters, while the mischievous spirits all around were even more delighted in the impostor’s success.
The second medium was no better. Hester could see good impulses in his heart but also impurity and a lack of high principle. “This instrument, like the other, gave forth only weak and discordant notes, even when played upon by master spirits, because it was imperfect and out of tune,” Hester explained. The third medium was “a woman of weakly good impulses, superstitious in her nature, and with a zeal for her faith which was only excelled by her ignorance.” Hester could see that she mistook her own impulses for genuine impressions from the spirit world, and what she offered was a medley or truth and falsehood, reality and delusion, yet she did not intentionally deceive.
“She was a victim of her own zeal and her own mental delusions, while other victims, enshrouded in the same mental and spiritual darkness as herself, listened intently and even reverently to what she said, and accepted her words without question.”
The fourth medium, Hester was able to judge, was a woman of quick perceptions, keen discernment, true to the heart’s core, and appreciative of her gift. She was surrounded only by bright spirits. As lower spirits tried to influence her, they were restrained by an invisible barrier. However, Hester became confused when words of wisdom were spoken through the medium by “a name illustrious in the annals of literature, whose possessor had passed to spirit life more than a generation ago.” What confused Hester was that the spirit thus named could not be seen. Margaret then told her to look upward. What Hester saw was “a succession of links extending from sphere to sphere, and from spirit to spirit, and on this chain of links the thought has been conveyed, originating far heavenward, and descending from spirit to spirit, until it had finally found utterance on earth.”
From observing these four mediums, Hester came to understand the difficulties involved in spirit communication with the earth. “Mortals themselves are very ignorant of the necessary conditions,” she concluded. “Then their imperfect natures draw around them more or less degraded spirits, who naturally interfere with, if they do not utterly thwart, the efforts of the higher and purer ones.”
Margaret likened it to looking through a dark glass in an attempt to behold the light, a glass too often obscured by ignorance, folly, and evil. Proper discernment and patience, Margaret told Hester, are the keys to effective spirit communication.
Michael Tymns books, The Afterlife Revealed & Transcending the Titanic are available from Amazon and all good online book stores.
Remembering Titanic Victim William T. Stead 100 Years Later
Posted on 02 April 2012, 10:01
With the 100th anniversary of the Titanic disaster coming up on April 15, it seems like an appropriate time to remember William T. Stead, one of the victims of the tragedy. A 62-year-old British journalist and pacifist, Stead was on his way to New York City to give a lecture on world peace at Carnegie Hall. President William Howard Taft was also one of the speakers.
Several survivors reported seeing Stead at various places in the 2 hours, 40 minutes that elapsed between the time the floating palace on its maiden voyage hit an iceberg and then made its plunge to the bottom of the North Atlantic. All told of a very composed and calm man, one prepared to meet his death with courage and hope. Frederick Seward, a 34-year-old New York lawyer, said that Stead was one of the few on deck when the iceberg was impacted. “I saw him soon after and was thoroughly scared, but he preserved the most beautiful composure,” Seward, who boarded lifeboat number 7, recalled. Andrew Cunningham, a 35-year-old English cabin steward serving Stead (below) and several other passengers, recalled that Stead had not been feeling well all day and had supper in his room. “I did not see him again until after the accident,” Cunningham related. “Then I went to see all my passengers. He had gone on deck but soon came back. I said, ‘Mr. Stead, you’ll have to put on your life-belt.’ He said, ‘Cunningham, what is that for?’ I said, ‘You may need it.’ I put the belt over his head. We bade each other good-bye, and that was the last I saw him.”
Racing through the first-class smoking room on his way to lifeboat no. 9, George Kemish, a 24-year-old ship’s fireman and stoker, observed Stead sitting alone there while reading, as if he had planned to stay there, whatever happened. Juanita Parrish Shelley, a 25-year-old second-class passenger from Montana who was traveling with her mother, saw Stead assisting women and children into the lifeboats. “Your beloved Chief,” Shelley later wrote to Edith Harper, Stead’s secretary and biographer, “together with Mr. and Mrs. (Isidor) Straus, attracted attention even in that awful hour, on account of their superhuman composure and divine work. When we, the last lifeboat left, and they could do no more, he stood alone, at the edge of the deck, near the stern, in silence and what seemed to me a prayerful attitude, or one of profound meditation. You ask if he wore a life-belt. Alas! No, they were too scarce. My last glimpse of the Titanic showed him standing in the same attitude and place.”
Though Stead had psychic abilities, including the gift of automatic writing, he apparently did not foresee his death on the Titanic, at least on a conscious level. Subconsciously, on the soul level, however, he seems to have known what was coming. In one of his many stories, From the Old World to the New, a novel published in 1892, Stead described the sinking of a ship after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic. A psychic on another ship, the Majestic, received a clairvoyant message of the sinking in time to warn the captain of the ship about the icebergs in the area. In Stead’s story, the Majestic, like the Titanic a White Star line ship, was captained by Edward J. Smith, the captain of the Titanic on that fatal maiden voyage. However, Smith did not take over the Majestic until 1895, three years after Stead’s article.
In an 1886 story for The Pall Mall Gazette, which he edited, Stead wrote about the sinking of an ocean liner and how lives were lost because there were too few lifeboats, and in a 1909 book, Stead, in explaining why he believed in life after death, wrote: “In order to form a definite idea of the problem which we are about to attack, let us imagine the grave as if it were the Atlantic Ocean…” In a speech delivered by Stead to members of the Cosmos Club that same year, he pictured himself as being shipwrecked and drowning in the sea, calling frantically for help.
While the Titanic was being built, the Rev. Venerable Archdeacon Colley printed a pamphlet entitled The Fore-Ordained Wreck of the Titanic and sent a copy to Stead, who replied: “Dear Sir, Thank you very much for your kind letter, which reaches me just as I am starting for America. I sincerely hope that none of the misfortunes which you seem to think may happen, will happen; but I will keep your letter and will write to you when I come back. Yours truly, W. T. Stead.”
Harper noted that before Stead departed Southampton he appeared very somber, unlike his numerous previous trips abroad. He told her that he felt “something was going to happen, somewhere, or somehow. And that it will be for good.” He also gave her directions as to arranging some of his business affairs.
Stead is not listed among the 334 victims whose bodies were recovered as they floated in their lifejackets, having frozen to death. The only record of what happened to his body came 15 days later, on April 27, when Stead communicated with Dr. John S. King, a Toronto physician, through a medium King had been studying. Stead had indeed survived, but it was his consciousness, not his body, that survived the calamity. “Even my plight was preferable to some, for I was hurt by something like a blow, and so I quickly sank below the surface of the sea,” Stead communicated to King. One might infer from that message that Stead was hit by one the ship’s funnels (smoke stacks) that broke loose.
Stead was to have accompanied Etta Wriedt, a Detroit, Michigan direct-voice medium, to England on his return trip so that she could be further studied and observed. Vice-Admiral William Usborne Moore, a retired British naval commander turned psychical researcher, had told Stead about Mrs. Wriedt two years earlier after visiting her in Detroit and being very much impressed by her mediumship. Mrs. Wriedt had visited England in 1911, and was being brought back for further study by Stead, Moore, and others.
Mrs. Wriedt was in New York City at the time the news came of the disaster, and according to her host, Stead communicated three days after his passing. “He was weak in articulation, but we quite understood him,” Moore quoted the host. “His stay was short. The next night, Thursday, Mr. Stead came again; his articulation and personality were much stronger, and he went into details of his passing. The following night, Friday, he came again very strong and clear, again giving us full details of his passing. He particularly desired that Mrs. Wriedt go over to London to fulfill her engagement, which she is now about doing.”
Back in England, Major-General Sir Alfred Turner, a retired British army officer, recorded his first experience in hearing from Stead, about ten days after the disaster. “We had hardly commenced when a voice, which came apparently from my behind my right shoulder, exclaimed, ‘I am so happy to be with you again!’ The voice was unmistakably that of Stead, who immediately (though not visible to anyone) commenced to tell us of the events of the dire moments when the huge leviathan settled down to her doom, and slowly sank to her grave two miles below the surface of the sea…There was, as regards himself, a short, sharp struggle to gain his breath, and immediately afterwards he came to his senses in another state of existence. He was surrounded by hundreds of being, who, like himself, had passed over the bourne, but who were utterly dazed, and being totally ignorant of the next stage of life to come, were groping about as in the dark, asking for light, and entirely unconscious that they were not still in the flesh. He set himself at once to do missionary work by enlightening these poor and unprepared creatures; and in such work, he told, us, he was still employed, with the assistance of numerous spirit inhabitants of the next plane, whose task and bounden duty is to help and enlighten those who pass over.”
Mrs. Wriedt made the trip to England and gave her first sitting on May 5, 20 days after Stead’s death, According to Moore, Stead manifested and “gave three admirable tests of his identity,” including some details about a conversation Stead and Moore had had at a bank building the last time they met. The following night Estelle Stead, Stead’s daughter, attended a sitting with Mrs. Wriedt. “A fortnight after the disaster I saw my father’s face, and heard his voice just as distinctly as I heard it when he bade me good-bye before embarking on the Titanic,” she recorded, estimating that her father talked for over 20 minutes. Admiral Moore, who was present, estimated that it was closer to 40 minutes and described it as the most painful but most realistic and convincing conversation he had heard during his investigations of mediumship.
The Reverend Charles Tweedale recorded that Stead was seen and heard on July 17, 1912 at the home of Professor James Coates of Rothesay, a well-known author and investigator, who had Mrs. Wriedt give a sitting with a number of witnesses. “Mr. Stead showed himself twice within a short time, the last appearance being clearly defined, and none will readily forget the clear, ringing tones of his voice,” Coates said. “There in our own home, and in the presence of fourteen sane and thoughtful people, Mr. Stead has manifested and proved in his own person that the dead do return.”
Stead later communicated with his daughter through another medium, He stressed that in transitioning to the spirit world one does not immediately become part of the “Godhead,” nor does the “spirit” have full knowledge on all subjects. “I cannot tell you when your grandson will next require shoes…nor can I tell you the settlement of the Irish question. I can only see a little farther than you, and I do not by any means possess the key to the door of All Knowledge and All Truth. That, we have each to work for…and as we pass through one door we find another in front of us to be unlocked….and another, and another.” He added that as progress is made and earth’s inclinations and habits put aside, other interests take their places and then comes the desire for true knowledge.
“Life here is a grander thing – a bolder thing, and a happier thing for all those who have led reasonable lives on earth,” Stead further communicated to his daughter, “but for the unreasonable there are many troubles and difficulties and sorrows to be encountered. There is a great truth in the saying that ‘as ye sow, so shall ye reap’.”
A more complete story of William Stead can be found in “Transcending the Titanic,” authored by Michael Tymn, published by White Crow Books, and available at Amazon.com
Author Greg Taylor reports that he is working on a book tentatively titled Stop Worrying…There Probably Is An Afterlife. Basically, the book offers Taylor’s own thoughts on the afterlife debate, pointing out the evidence that can lead a person to happily believe in an afterlife on a rational basis. Taylor has set up a crowd-funding project whereby he is giving people some exclusive pre-release book packages - from cheap eBook packs (e.g. $20 for 10 copies of the eBook to give away to friends and family), through to exclusive signed, limited edition hardcovers in which the funder is thanked personally). More information can be found at http://www.indiegogo.com/afterlife
Was D. D. Home like Babe Ruth, David Thompson like Nick Swisher?
Posted on 19 March 2012, 9:40
Daniel Dunglas Home (1833 –1886), a Scottish American, has gone down in the history books as perhaps the best physical medium ever. His feats included phantom forms, levitations, floating objects, luminous hands, materializations, strange luminous vapors, beautiful music from an accordion with no physical hands touching it, and voices talking and singing. And while in the trance state, he delivered a number of philosophical discourses. Home (pronounced Hoom in Scotland, Hume in England), was the subject of a thorough investigation by Sir William Crookes, a distinguished British scientist. Although Crookes apparently set out to debunk Home, he became convinced, over some 30 sittings with him, that Home was no charlatan and that some form of “psychic force” was taking place through him. Crookes took every possible precaution in ruling out trickery, even picking Home up at his apartment and watching him dress. “I am, therefore, enabled to state positively, that no machinery, apparatus, or contrivance or any sort was secreted about his person,” Crookes stated, stressing the fact that most of the séances were held in his (Crookes’) home under lighted conditions and that Home had no opportunity to rig anything in the séance room or smuggle anything into it.
“If Home was for real, why don’t we see that type of mediumship today?” the modern day skeptic asks. Applying the same type of reasoning, we might ask why, excluding steroids and a longer season, nobody has topped Babe Ruth’s 60 home run record of 85 years ago.
There have been a number of baseball players who have approached Ruth’s record and there have been many physical mediums nearly as good as D. D. Home. Although the quality of physical mediumship today does not seem to approach the quality of physical mediumship 100-150 years ago, for reasons too involved to go into here, there clearly are a number of genuine physical mediums around today. The evidence strongly suggests that David Thompson, an Englishman living in Australia, is one of them.
Thompson has been criticized by a number of observers, including some who believe in mediumship, because his séances are conducted in complete darkness. They point to the fact that D.D. Home produced phenomena in subdued light and could be seen by everyone in the room. They further point to the fact that other physical mediums have been able to operate under red light. They say that if Thompson is a genuine medium, he should be able to give séances in the light, like Home, or at least in red light, like Alec Harris and Minnie Harrison, two other famous mediums.
But let’s apply the baseball analogy here. If Ruth was to baseball what Home was to mediumship, both daylight “power” guys, then Willie Mays, Roger Maris, Mickey Mantle, and Ken Griffey, Jr. – ballplayers who hit 50 or more homers in a season and approached Ruth’s 60 homers in 154 games – might be likened to mediums who produced phenomena under red light. The great majority of baseball players, however, don’t hit even 30 homers a season, so we might liken them to mediums who require darkness. Those players simply don’t have the power that Ruth, Maris, Mantle, Mays and Griffey, Jr. had and no amount of physical training is going to help them achieve Ruthian numbers. But they are major league baseball players nonetheless. Players who make the majors, even those who hit only a few home runs a year, are gifted athletes. They are nearly as rare as people who are capable of producing ectoplasm, the key element in physical mediumship.
Nick Swisher, the man who now plays Ruth’s position for the New York Yankees, is a good, solid, journeyman ballplayer, even an all-star two years ago. He averages around 25 homers a year, but no one says he is a fake ballplayer because he can’t hit the ball as far or as often as Ruth. As I see it, David Thompson is to physical mediumship what Swisher is to baseball – gifted, but lacking the power of D. D. Home.
I have never seen Thompson, but I have never seen many things that scientists claim is true, and yet I accept them based on the credibility of the researchers. There are simply too many reports by credible people to believe that Thompson isn’t the real thing. One of those credible people is Dr. Jan Vandersande, a retired physics professor who had the opportunity to observe Thompson on three occasions during a recent visit by Thompson to the Los Angeles area. Vandersande witnessed various materializations, objects flying around the small darkened garage, some of them stopping in mid air, felt the hands of a child spirit, and listened to various spirit entities speak in different voices. “There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that David is a legitimate medium” Vandersande told me by phone recently. “Fraud is not a possibility, even though we had a few people there who simply refused to believe that the phenomena were real. They claimed that David must somehow have smuggled in night vision goggles, and they came up with other far-fetched theories as to how he might have done it. Their minds were made up beforehand and they simply refuse to believe.” (Vandersande & Thompson below)
Vandersande, the author of “Life After Death: Some of the Best Evidence,” observed much physical mediumship in South Africa when he was teaching at the University of Witwatersrand, so this was not a new experience for him. Under red light, he saw ectoplasm flowing from the nose of a South African medium named Kitty Gordon. He saw it stretch some four to six feet across the room while still attached to the medium’s nose. He noticed that it was slightly transparent and he saw it reabsorbed by the medium within a few seconds. Scientists have never been able to completely analyze ectoplasm because it must be reabsorbed by the medium, and attempts to capture it can result in serious injury to the medium. A few scientists were able to capture small amounts but it disappeared in their containers before they could analyze it. Observers are warned not to touch it, because of the possibility of injury to the medium.
“Ectoplasm can be very sensitive to unexpected touching or being exposed to white light,” Vandersande said, recalling the cases of Alec Harris and Helen Duncan, both mediums who were seriously injured – Harris when a person grabbed him and Duncan when the lights were turned on unexpectedly. Duncan died shortly thereafter and Harris never completely regained his strength. In fact, Home suffered from ill health most of his life and died of TB at age 53, but it has been speculated that his condition might have been exacerbated by having his ectoplasm exposed to too much light. (Coincidentally, Babe Ruth also died at age 53) Vandersande completely agrees with the baseball analogy, saying that the ability to produce ectoplasm is greater with some than with others and that some mediums never reach the point where they are strong enough for red light. Some can develop over time, just as a baseball player can get stronger over time. He adds, however, that Thompson has occasionally produced ectoplasm in red light and photographs have been taken showing sheets of ectoplasm stretching from his face across his chest down to his lap or even lower.” And Nick Swisher occasionally hits 400-foot home runs, but not nearly as often as Ruth and certainly not on demand. The conditions have to be just right in baseball and just right in mediumship. .
As early researchers came to understand, ectoplasm is used by the spirits to materialize. The spirits project an image of themselves into the ectoplasm and that thought image then takes form. They also use the ectoplasm to form an artificial voice box so that they can speak. At one of the three Los Angeles sittings, the grandfather of Vandersande’s wife, Marlene, materialized and spoke with her. Her mother then attempted to speak but the power was low at that point and the voice was very weak. “It appeared that there just wasn’t enough energy for her to materialize,” Vandersande explained, mentioning that the energy or power, whatever it is called, was low in the first sitting but much stronger in the second and third sittings.
The usual controls against fraud were taken. Thompson was searched by Vandersande and another man, and his arms and legs were secured to a chair with leather straps, while plastic zip ties were pulled through the holes of the straps to ensure that the straps could not be undone. Additionally, zip ties were put through his cardigan sweater to ensure that he could not get out of the sweater. “There is no way that he could have freed himself from those binds,” Vandersande said, “but then you get people who say that Houdini would have been able to get out of it, so why not Thompson. You get all kinds of wild theories from people who just refuse to believe it is real.”
After the lights were turned off and the garage sealed up from the inside, a short prayer was said and music turned on to increase the harmony and vibrations. All sitters were told to hold hands to increase the energy and ensure that no one tried to touch the ectoplasm without permission. After three songs, William, Thompson’s primary spirit control, started talking to the sitters while walking around. “He spoke quite loud, in a distinctive British accent that I found difficult to understand at time,” Vandersande said. “He then started to answer questions about the spirit world.” William’s full name was said to have been William Cadwell and he is said to have died in 1897. Vandersande asked William if his materialized body had a pulse. “He came over to me, took two of my fingers with his hand and put them up against what I assumed was the carotid artery in his jaw area,” Vandersande said. “It felt like rough skin I was touching and I could feel a very, very vague pulse.”
Other spirits communicated, one a young cockney youth named Timmy, who walked around among the sitters, allowing them to grasp his small hands. During each of the three sittings, a friend or relative of one of the sitters materialized and spoke briefly. During the third séance, a man materialized and called out to his mother and father, who recognized him as Jay-Jay, their deceased son. “He walked to them, touched them both and kissed them, then after saying a few words he left. During all three séances, Louis Armstrong, the famous musician, who died in 1971, materialized. “His voice sounded exactly like the very characteristic voice so often heard when alive on earth,” Vandersande said. “He played a harmonica for a few minutes and you could hear him take deep breaths occasionally while playing. After that he left. I always get nervous when famous people materialize but I now have a better understanding why they do it. To prove survival after death, it makes more sense that someone who has a characteristic voice and mannerisms that just about everyone can recognize materializes rather than a no name regular person.”
A trumpet and some drum sticks sometimes flew around the garage, as high as the roof of the garage, nine feet up. They would stop in mid air at times and resume flight. “I am a physicist, but I have no idea how all that happens,” Vandersande concluded. “But I know it happened and there were no tricks involved.”
If Thompson were a charlatan, he would have to be:
1. an expert escape artist, able to free himself in a very short period of time and then secure himself with the same binds before the lights are turned on;
2. an expert at doing different voices, to the extent of imitating the voices of deceased relatives and friends among the sitters;
3. an expert investigator, able to dig up the names of deceased relatives and friends in another country, even when it is unknown who those people will be;
4. an expert magician, able to make objects fly around the room and stop in mid air, even when seated in the corner of the garage against the walls, as Thompson was (skeptics have suggested that he uses a whirly bird of some kind on a stick, which would require him to be in the center of the room);
5. a very stealthy athlete, able to move around a dark, crowded room without tripping over someone and without being heard and to somehow smuggle things into the room after being strip searched, and then hide them before the lights are turned on;
6. able to somehow make sitters think they are holding the small hands of a child rather than adult hands.
7. Although apparently not experienced at Vandersande’s sittings, publisher Jon Beecher reported that when he sat with Thompson in New York a few years ago, his partner’s deceased grandfather materialized. Tatyana, Beecher’s partner, began speaking in English, but was encouraged by Timmy or Timothy, the spirit controlling things at the time, to speak in her native language. She then changed to Russian, after which the materialized spirit answered in Russian. So Thompson must also be a linguist.
Beecher also reported that he and others regularly checked the medium’s ties during the séance and he was always in his chair, appearing to be asleep. He and the others present also observed a trumpet, with luminous tape on it, fly across the room at great speed, stopping at the end of Tatyana’s nose, then touching her five times on her head without harming her. They further observed a harmonica flying around the room, sometimes 10 feet in the air while playing a tune. When it fell to the floor, it continued to play. So add an eighth ability to the seven above. Thompson must be able to play the harmonica in impossible positions.
As a last resort, the skeptic might claim that the medium is doing a mass hypnosis of all the sitters, suggesting that they believe things happened that didn’t really happen. There seems to be no end to the “could have” or “might have” theories for the person whose mind is made up that it is all fraud. As for me, I believe the evidence, if not absolute proof, at least meets the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard.
Michael Tymn’s latest book Transcending the Titanic: Beyond Death’s Door is published by White Crow Books and available from Amazon and all good online book stores, along with The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After we Die
Ever since reading Dr. Raymond Moody’s seminal book on near-death experiences in 1975, I have read at least 50 books dealing with the near-death experience (NDE). If I were to rank them by what I call the “4 INs” – Interesting, Informative, Intriguing, and Inspirational – I’m reasonably sure that Heaven is for Real, a father’s account of his four-year-old son’s NDE and three-minute trip to heaven, would be at the very bottom of my list. I struggled to read it and tossed it aside several times before finally finishing it, just to see if the best of it might be in the closing pages.
And yet the book has been atop the New York Times best seller list for 53 weeks (not consecutive) and has reportedly sold more than six million copies. I don’t get it….I take that back…I do get it. The book was written by a Christian minister and the boy saw Jesus during his NDE. Thus, it appeals to the Christians of the world, especially the evangelicals and fundamentalists. What I don’t get is how all the evangelicals and fundamentalists can be so enamored of this little boy’s NDE and so repulsed by nearly all other NDEs.
Is the NDE real only if the person sees Jesus and the experience is otherwise consistent with scripture? Or, could it be that that all other NDEs are real but demonic in nature?
Of course, the closed-minded skeptic would say they are all hallucinations of an oxygen-deprived brain.
There would be four or five books in contention for number one on my list, but I doubt that any of them sold even a small fraction of six million copies. One of the contenders for top spot would be The Truth in the Light by Dr. Peter Fenwick and Elizabeth Fenwick. This book was first published in 1995 and recently republished by White Crow Books. It offers dozens of NDE’s as intriguing, if not more so, than the best seller, and some of them involve the experiencer seeing Jesus.
“Then I was pulled up through the roof and I had this glorious sense of freedom,” the Fenwicks quote one experiencer, who had been blind since she was three months old and had an NDE at age 22 during a three-day coma after being in an auto accident. “I could move wherever I wanted to. I was above the street, above the hospital, and I was ecstatic about being able to move wherever I wanted to. Then that ended suddenly. I was sucked into a tunnel, and heard a sound like monstrous fans. It was not actually that, but it’s the closest way I can describe it. It was a beautiful sound. The tunnel was dark, with regular open spaces in the side, through which I could see other people traveling in other tunnels. There was one area I passed by where there was a group of drab, dull, unhappy people who were unable to move. Then I saw the distant light, and heard these hymns. The light got brighter, and I saw Him. I saw Christ. He was incredibly beautiful…There was light in and around his head, and coming out of his head like a star.”
Another NDEr, a Mrs. Holyoake, told of encountering Christ and feeling the warmth of his body. “All of a sudden my eyes were drawn to the corner of the bedroom door,” she related. “A brilliant light appeared – it was taking over my bedroom and as it did so I floated above my body. This place was amass with beautiful flowers – the perfumes from them was very strong – and then Jesus came walking up to me with arms outstretched. He was dressed in a long white robe, his hair to his shoulders, ginger-auburn, and he had a short beard. The nearer he got to me I could feel the warmth from his body and as his hands almost touched my face he said, ‘Come!’” However, Mrs. Holyoake struggled to tell Jesus that she couldn’t leave until she kissed her husband and three children goodbye. “Jesus heard me and understood, he smiled and started to walk backwards, taking his magnificent garden with him and the light.”
According to Dr. Fenwick, a renowned British neuropsychiatrist, about a quarter of the people who reported on their experiences were aware of some spiritual presence. “Although the ‘being of light’ always has spiritual significance, it is only seldom that people describe seeing a particular religious figure such as Christ,” he offers. “Even those people whose Christian faith is strong don’t always see Christ. Much more often there is a feeling of ‘coming before one’s maker’: the being is felt as ‘God’ in a very broad sense. Perhaps ‘neutrally spiritual’ is the nearest one can get to the feelings the being evokes.” He adds that most people, whether Christians or not, have an “identikit” image of Christ, and it is very similar to the one described by Mrs. Holyoake. “I think we have to make a distinction between the feeling of the presence of Christ in the experience, and the image which the perceiving brain creates to fit it, which is simply drawn from the picture-bank of memory.”
Fenwick also found that accounts of childhood NDEs were much more likely than those of adults “to include descriptions of a very concrete Heaven, peopled by angels, Jesus figures and golden gates.” He points out that the younger the child, the odder it is that he or she should have any conceptual awareness of death. “The ability to think in abstract terms (and one’s own death is a fairly abstract concept) does not usually develop until later in childhood,” he continues. “And yet, without the conceptual awareness, why should they have the experience at all – unless it has some sort of independent reality?”
So how are we to interpret all of this? On the one hand, we become very suspicious – and the pseudoskeptics laugh – at the idea of Jesus or another “being of light” who wears clothes and looks like we think he or she should. On the other hand, if Jesus appeared looking like Jim Caviezel, one of the movie actors who have portrayed him – short hair, no beard, and wearing modern clothes – we would suspect an impostor and the skeptics would laugh even harder. If he appeared as a ball of light, we wouldn’t recognize him and the evangelicals, at least, would call it a demonic entity. The pseudoskeptics would roar with laughter.
A number of spirit messages have indicated that deceased loved ones appear to us in a way that we will recognize them, not as they have become or are in the spirit world. A spirit entity who died as a child 20 years earlier might appear to his mother in a near-death experience or upon her arrival in the spirit world as the child she knew, just for recognition purposes. It is a matter of the spirit entity projecting a thought image onto the brain of the human or the newly transitioned spirit person. It’s all very mind boggling, especially when non-local time is factored into the equation.
Another very intriguing case offered by the Fenwicks involved a woman named Florence Nilsson, who claimed to have had an out-of-body experience just after she was born and was wasn’t breathing. “I know it may sound absurd that a newborn infant could remember an event when so young,” she testified, “but I know to this day that what I experienced actually did happen to me.”
As long as mainstream science assumes that celestial matters must meet terrestrial standards, the spirit world will never be accepted, and as long as evangelicals interpret the Bible literally the NDE will remain a mystery. “We set out to test the NDE for ‘reality’ in a scientific way,” Fenwick wraps up the book. “But I think we have to conclude that we haven’t managed to explain everything. There are aspects of the experience which simply don’t fit into our scientific paradigm and which seem inconsistent with a physical or even a psychological phenomenon. There remains the possibility…that the NDE is a mystical experience, and that it originates in a transcendental reality.”
Michael Tymn’s latest book Transcending the Titanic: Beyond Death’s Door is published by White Crow Books and available from Amazon and all good online book stores, along with The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After we Die
The Truth in the Light by Peter Fenwick & Elizabeth Fenwick is published by White Crow Books and available from Amazon and all good online book stores.
As the Titanic plunged to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean 100 years ago this April 15, Colonel Archibald Gracie, a New York resident, was sucked down with it. However, he somehow managed to surface and survive. Gracie could not judge how long he was under water, but it “seemed an interminable time until I could scarcely stand it any longer.” He concluded that the life preserver he wore prevented him from being drawn down by suction to a greater depth. In a book he wrote later that year about the experience, he recalled thinking that he wanted to convey the news of how he died to his loved ones at home. And he remembered praying and saying to his wife, “Good-bye until we meet again in heaven.”
Gracie was one of the last, if not the last, survivor to leave the ship. About 10 minutes before the ship went down, he and several others struggled to launch a collapsible life boat. Just as they broke it free, they were hit by a giant wave, apparently from one of the ship’s four funnels, i.e., smoke stacks, collapsing and falling. “The big wave carried the boat off,” Gracie related. When he finally surfaced, Gracie grabbed on to a piece of floating debris and noticed that the ship was gone. He then saw the collapsible life boat overturned and made his way to it, climbing onto it with a dozen or more men already on it. “The agonizing cries of death from over a thousand throats, the wails and groans of the suffering, the shrieks of the terror-stricken and the awful gaspings for breath of those in the last throes of drowning, none of us will ever forget to our dying days,” he recalled those moments. “‘Help! Help! Boat ahoy! Boat ahoy!’ and ‘My God! My God!’ were the heartrending cries and shrieks of men, which floated to us over the surface of the dark waters continuously for the next hour, but as the time went on, growing weaker and weaker until they died out entirely.”
Gracie recalled no stress during the time he was under water and felt “full of vigor” when he surfaced and as he made his way to the life boat. He credited his ability to undergo the ordeal to his physical, mental, and religious training. In all, 30 men, mostly crew members, ended up on the bottom-up boat. When it was fully occupied, those on board had to push away others who were trying to mount it. It was during this time that Gracie heard what he called a “transcendent piece of heroism that will remain fixed in my memory as the most sublime and coolest exhibition of courage and cheerful resignation to fate and fearlessness of death.” This was when one swimmer was refused assistance and turned away by others on the raft. In a “deep manly voice of a powerful man,” which Gracie did not recognize, Gracie heard the swimmer reply: “All right, boys; good luck and God bless you.” The man then swam away.
To my knowledge the brave swimmer was never identified. When I first read Gracie’s book many years ago, I wondered if that swimmer might have been William T. Stead, a British journalist who was observed by other passengers courageously facing up to his demise as the ship was sinking. But as I did research for my recently-released book, Transcending the Titanic I came upon information suggesting that Stead was hit by the falling funnel, and other information that leads me to believe that the brave swimmer was more likely Robert J. Bateman, (below) a 51-year-old Baptist minister and physician from Jacksonville, Florida. A second-class passenger, Bateman had been visiting relatives in Bristol, England and taking part in a revival. He was returning to Jacksonville with his sister-in-law, Ada Balls, and other members of the revival group. Ada Balls later recalled: “Brother forced me into the last boat, saying he would follow me later. I believe I was the last person to leave the ship. Brother threw his overcoat over my shoulders as the boat was being lowered away and as we neared the water, he took his black necktie and threw it to me with the words, ‘Goodbye, God bless you!’”
As Bateman reportedly said “God bless you!” to his sister-in-law before leaving her, and the rejected swimmer said “God bless you!” before swimming away, Bateman emerges as the best candidate for the heroic swimmer mentioned by Gracie. Moreover, Bateman was a second-class passenger and Gracie a first-class passenger, which could explain why Gracie did not recognize the man’s voice.
Ten days after the disaster, Bateman’s widow received a letter her husband had mailed to her when the Titanic had stopped for more passengers in Ireland. “I feel that my trip has not been in vain,” Bateman wrote. “God has singularly blessed me. We had a glorious revival… It was the Time of My Life.” His nephew, Tom, also received a letter mailed from Ireland. “Tom,” he wrote, “if this ship goes to the bottom, I shall not be there, I shall be up yonder. Think of it!”
Later, when the family opened up Bateman’s locked roll-top desk, a poem he had written was found on top of his papers. It read:
Do you shudder as you picture
All the horrors of that hour? Ah! But Jesus was beside me
To sustain me by His power.
And He came Himself to meet me
In that way so hard to tread
And with Jesus’ arm to cling to
Could I have one doubt or dread?
Bateman’s body was recovered three weeks later by a cable-laying vessel.
Michael Tymn’s latest book Transcending the Titanic: Beyond Death’s Door is published by White Crow Books and available from Amazon and all good online book stores, along with The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After we Die
109-year-old Scientist Continues to Pursue Illumination
Posted on 03 February 2012, 18:13
“Imagine for a moment how much human life would change if this question were answered in the positive,” Dr. Alexander Imich (below) writes in his 1995 book, Incredible Tales of the Paranormal, referring to the question of whether consciousness survives the death of the physical .body, “how much easier it would be to live through the pain and misery of our existence on this planet, if we were sure these were only temporary ills.”
Although Imich, who turns 109 this Saturday, February 4, is pretty much confined to his Manhattan apartment and somewhat limited in his research activities these days, he has spent a good part of the last 85 years, studying the evidence for the reality of a non-mechanistic universe and life after death.
“My goal in life has always been illumination,” Imich told me when I interviewed him in 2003 on the occasion of his 100th birthday. Although I haven’t had a chance to speak with Imich in a few years, I have exchanged a few e-mail with him and he still seems to be pursuing illumination, while also anxious to explore other dimensions of reality first hand. “I am very interested in finding out how things are on the ‘other side,’” he wrote to me in an e-mail before his 108th birthday.
In his 1995 book, Imich relates some of the best evidence for the reality of psychic phenomena, including his own investigation during the 1920s of the Polish medium referred to as Matylda S. He tells of rings vanishing from the fingers of one person and turning up on another, spirits materializing out of nowhere, large objects (apports) appearing in front of him in thin air. “I will never forget the kiss of a phantom,” he wrote. “An invisible face, whose breath I could distinctly hear and feel on my face, kissed mine. It was a strong and pleasant sensation.”
He was even more impressed with the phenomena he observed in recent years with physical mediums Joseph Nuzum and Dr. Safwat El Amin. He saw Nuzum levitate and move through the air in his (Imich’s) hotel room, and has observed many apports with El Amin, including one in which thousands of dollars in cash appeared in a big box near Imich’s laser printer but then disappeared within a few seconds. He also witnessed spirit photography in which his deceased wife appeared next to him in a photograph.
Imich’s interest in psychical research and parapsychology began during the 1920s. As a scientist, he approached his investigations with proper skepticism, but came away from his many sittings with Matylda convinced that there was no fraud or chicanery involved. “The shock was too strong,” Imich wrote of his first two sittings with Matylda. “It was now necessary to bring new order to my world view, to find a place for the discovery of this extraordinary reality. So many conceptions of my early years would have to be changed!” Imich began to wonder why his fellow scientists were interested in investigating things that paled in comparison with the question of life after death. He decided then to devote his life to parapsychology.
Born in Czestochowa, Poland, the third son of a corporate bank president and founder of a Jewish hospital, young “Alech” was educated at home until the age of 10 by a governess and several tutors. Although his town was under German occupation during WWI, Imich was able to continue his education. However, when the Russian attacked Poland in 1918, Imich, then 15, joined the army and became a truck driver. After the Bolsheviks were repelled, he returned to school, studying chemistry, mineralogy, botany, biology, astronomy, advanced optics, and mathematical logic. His Ph.D. thesis at the University of Krakow was on the digestive systems of microscopic worms.
Employed as a chemist before WWII, Imich, who speaks Polish, English, French, and German, was commissioned by the Russians to head up a soap-making factory during the war. When the Russians insisted that he become a Russian citizen, Imich refused. He and his wife Vela were then put on a cattle train and sent to a prison camp near the White Sea. “There were about 600 people – all Jews,” Imich said, recalling an incident in which the camp commander put a gun to his head and clicked it while demanding information about his fellow prisoners. When Imich told him that he did not speak Yiddish and therefore did not have the information, the commander sent him back to his barracks. He spent a year-and-a-half in the prison camp. Upon returning to Poland at the end of the war, he found that most of his relatives and friends had been murdered in concentration camps.\
Imich came to the United States with his wife shortly after World War II, initially living in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. After Vela transitioned in 1986, he moved to New York City and continued his research into psychic phenomena. Although he has found personal fulfillment in parapsychology, Imich is frustrated at the reluctance of mainstream science to accept the evidence for psychic phenomena and the afterlife. As he sees it, the religious superstitions of the medieval age continue to influence the scientific community while there is little funding for research.
Imich recognizes that the existence of ESP and other psychic phenomena, such as levitations, does not necessarily lead to a belief in an afterlife, but it clearly defies the mechanistic theory. He says that “communications from and appearances of deceased people” have been the major phenomena leading to his belief that consciousness survives death.
“All creators of the world’s great religions – Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha and Krishna – taught us that the final goal of all creation is the return to its Spiritual Source,” Imich says. Parapsychology, studying phenomena produced by a non-material, spiritual power, is the only one of all sciences that is recognizing the ontological existence of the spiritual world. Parapsychology, bridging the matter-energy-mind axis and speeding up the evolutionary fulfillment of humankind’s destiny, is therefore the most important scientific endeavor. Promoting parapsychological research is the right direction in the pursuit of truth.”
As for his longevity, Imich doubts that his beliefs have anything to do with it, although he does feel that maintaining a strong interest in something as one ages does have a positive effect on health and longevity. “I am eating less than people of my age and size,” he adds, “and this, besides good genes, might be the most important factor of my longevity.”
Michael Tymn’s book The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After we Die is published by White Crow Books and available from Amazon and all good online book stores. Michael’s forthcoming book Transcending the Titanic: Beyond Death’s Door is published in March 2012 by White Crow.
At the October 16 memorial service for Apple founder Steve Jobs, Mona Simpson, his sister, delivered a eulogy in which she told of her brother’s final words: “Oh Wow! Oh Wow! Oh Wow!” The initial reports did not include the exclamation points, but one might infer them.
While “believers” see Jobs’s dying words as some indication that Jobs was seeing through the veil separating the earth realm from a spiritual realm, the skeptics shrug it off as perhaps a reaction to pain or the ramblings of a dying man. However, such dying words are not unprecedented. Thomas Edison, the great inventor, is said to have uttered, “It’s very beautiful over there” just before taking his last breath. “Joy!” were the very last words of English author and philantropist Hannah More, who died in 1833. “Victory! Eternal Victory!” were the dying words of Eunice Cobb. “O glory! O glory! O glory!” were the parting words of Susan C. Kirland of Burr Oak, Michigan before she passed on April 3, 1864. “It is beautiful,” were the dying words of the famous English poet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
In his 1926 book, Deathbed Visions, Sir William Barrett, a professor of physics at the Royal College of Science in Dublin, reported on a case told to him by his wife, an obstretic surgeon. A dying woman who had just given birth commented that the room was getting darker and darker. “Suddenly, she looked eagerly toward one part of the room, a radiant smile illuminating her whole countenance,” Lady (Dr.) Barrett recalled. “Oh, lovely, lovely,” the dying woman said. Lady Barrett asked her to what she was referring. “What I see,” the dying woman replied. “Lovely brightness, wonderful things.”
“Earth recedes – Heaven opens before me,” Dwight L. Moody told his sons minutes before he died. “I’m in the midst of glory!” When one son asked Moody if he had been dreaming, Moody replied, “No, this is no dream, Will. It is beautiful! It is like a trance. If this is death, it is sweet! There is no valley here! God is calling me and I must go.”
May Wilcox of Marengo, Illinois died at the age of 21. Just before she gave up the ghost, she threw up her arms and exclaimed, “Oh! Do you hear the music?”
As 10-year-old Lillian Lee lay dying, she told her father that there were crowds of children waiting for her and were calling her by a new name, although she could not remember what it was. As she breathed her last, she whispered, “Yes, yes, I come, I come!”
In her book, They Walked Among Us, Louie Harris recalled the passing of her father. He whispered to his wife that it was time for him to leave and apologized for not being able to bid farewell to Ted, their son, who was serving in the British army in France. “Father was quiet for some time,” Harris wrote. “His eyes were closed. Then, quite unexpectedly, he sat up unaided, his eyes open, his face radiant. He stretched out his arms and joyfully exclaimed: ‘George! Austin!’ These were the names of his ‘dead’ brothers. A beautiful smile transformed his thin face. With a deep sigh of satisfaction he lay back on his pillow and passed peacefully to the spirit world.”
Just before Eleanor Herrick died of cancer in December, 1964, Arline Sexauer, her daughter, entered her hospital room. The patient in the bed next to Eleanor, told Arline that her mother had been talking to someone named Margaret all morning. Arline explained that Margaret was her mother’s sister who had died many years before. Just before Eleanor passed, she took her daughter’s hand and said, “Oh, Arline, it’s so strange here. I’m in a ‘never-never’ land. I’m halfway between two worlds. Ma and Pa are here and I can see them, but I can’t see you any more.”
Dr. W. T. O’Hara reported the case of a dying 10-year-old girl on a ship of which he was the medical officer. As he sat next to the girl, O’Hara sensed a presence in the room but was unable to see it. As he checked the girl’s pulse and determined that her heart was still beating, the room grew brighter and seemed to gather in waves of blue and white and gold over the child’s body. The girl looked up and murmured, “Oh, look! How beautiful!” at which time O’Hara saw a misty, luminous globe over her head. The girl then cried out, “Oh Mamma…I see…the way…and it is all bright and shining.” Then the light rose rapidly and disappeared at the ceiling, at which time the girl died. When the captain entered the cabin, he told O’Hara that he and four other officers, who came with him, had seen a ball of blue fire right over their heads in the smoking room. They observed it float to the door and turn toward the cabin occupied by O’Hara and the young girl.
Just this month, an Associated Press story by Tim Stonesifer told of a Hanover, Pennsylvania couple, Nancy and Richard Trimmer, who had died within 12 hours of each other after 61 years of marriage. Richard was in the hospital suffering from lung cancer when Nancy died in her sleep at home, at 12:25 a.m. Later that morning, family members went to the hospital to inform Richard of his wife’s passing. They noticed that the clock in his hospital room was stuck at 12:25. As one family member tried to give him ice with a spoon, Richard looked off toward the ceiling and whispered, “Pull me up.” He repeated the request, “Please pull me up.” after which there was a pause and he said, “Hold me tighter now,” a moment or so before he expired.
The skeptic would say that they were all hallucinating. That may be so, but a hallucination is simply something not detected by the five senses. It doesn’t mean it is not real.
In his 2010 book, Visions, Trips, and Crowded Rooms, David Kessler collected several dozen recent deathbed visions and utterances from various health-care workers, including physicians, nurses, and hospice volunteers. One social worker in hospice services reported that a patient named Maria who hadn’t said a word during the previous week suddenly became alert and began speaking in Czech, her native language. Maria’s daughters were present but didn’t understand what she was saying and beckoned their aunt, Maria’s sister. When Aunt Anna arrived, she explained that Maria was talking to people in their family who had alread died and was saying that she could also see them.
A doctor told of listening to his dying brother carry on a conversation with their deceased grandparents. “As a doctor, it’s very easy to dismiss this sort of thing until you see it firsthand,” he is quoted. “Could my brother’s vision have been a dream state? Was it a result of oxygen deprivation? A side effect of the medications? All were possible, but for my mother and me, none of those options felt right. It felt profound. Real. Neither one of us wanted to interfere, so we just observed.”
Author Kessler, himself a hospice volunteer, concludes the book with an interesting observation. “…I do know that the dying don’t say. ‘Here comes nothing. I now see nothing.’ And health-care professionals don’t report that the dying speak of entering a ‘nothingness.’ I’m going to believe the words of the dying over the beliefs and doubts of the living who haven’t lost a loved one or worked in a hospital or hospice setting.”
Michael Tymn’s book The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After we Die is published by White Crow Books and available from Amazon and all good online book stores. Michael’s forthcoming book Transcending the Titanic: Beyond Death’s Door is published in March 2012 by White Crow.
Every time I read about some survey relative to spiritual beliefs, I have to question its validity, primarily because very few of them have clear-cut “yes” or “no” answers and because so many of the words used by the researchers have different meanings for different people.
One recent survey indicated that 90 percent of all Americans believe in life after death. Another survey put it at around 82 percent, but I recall seeing one as low as 62 percent. In her recent book, The Afterlife Survey, Maureen Milliken, a Maine journalist, cites the Pew Forum U.S. Religion Landscape Survey results from 2008 indicating that 74 percent of Americans believe in an afterlife. up from 69 percent in 1973. That doesn’t necessarily mean that 26 percent are atheists or are non-believers, however.
Milliken also cites an AARP survey among people over 50 in which 73 percent believe in life after death, but 86 percent believe in heaven. And a recent survey in the UK had 53 percent believing in life after death but 55 percent believing in heaven. I can’t recall the exact numbers, but I recall a survey among physicians not long ago in which something like 68 percent of the physicians believe in God, but only 57 percent believe in life after death. In effect, a number of people believe in God but not in an afterlife, while some who don’t believe in an afterlife believe in heaven. I don’t get it.
The first question that comes to mind when I read these surveys has to do with the meaning of the word “believe.” My dictionary definition of the word offers a fairly wide range of choices – from “having an opinion” to “accepting trustfully on faith” to “having a firm conviction.” With those definitions in mind, I would have no problem responding with a “yes” to whether I believe in an afterlife. But, if believing means accepting it with “absolute certainty,” as in one survey cited by Milliken, then I would have to say “no.” Absolute certainty to me means 100-percent certain – no doubt about it. My certainty goes to about 98.8 percent, but that leaves a 1.2 percent doubt factor in there. I try not to trip over the 1.2 percent doubt, but it would prevent me from giving a firm “yes” to any such survey. Therefore, I might be counted as a non-believer. On the other hand, I suspect that most people who say they “believe” really just “hope” there is an afterlife. Few seem aware of the strong evidence supporting a belief in consciousness surviving the death of the physical body.
If I were a survey respondent and the survey asked if I believe in God, I would first need “God” defined. If God is defined to mean an anthropomorphic being, a man with a beard who sits on a throne, I’d have to answer “no” to the survey. If, however, God is defined to mean some form of cosmic consciousness or creative intelligence beyond human comprehension, then I would respond with a “yes.”
Most other questions in these surveys would not lend themselves to “yes” or “no” answers for me. For example: “Do you believe in heaven?” Here again, I could not answer the question without a definition of heaven. I certainly don’t believe in the heaven of orthodoxy, but if heaven is defined to mean the “Godhead” or the “highest plane” in the spirit world, I would be able to answer in the affirmative.
“Do you believe in hell?” No, I don’t believe in the hell of orthodoxy, but I do believe in a “fire of the mind” on the lower planes of the afterlife, which might be referred to as hell. If, however, I answer “yes” to the question, I might be counted among those who believe in a fire and brimstone with devil holding a pitchfork type hell.
“Do you believe in purgatory?” If purgatory is defined to mean all of the many afterlife realms between the lowest and highest, I believe in purgatory, but I doubt that is what the researchers have in mind.
“Are you an atheist?” Going back to the definition of God, I might be considered an atheist by orthodoxy, but I would not call myself an atheist, not even a pantheist.
“Do you have a special day of worship?” I really hate the word “worship” and think it does more damage to the orthodox cause than any other word, as it suggests a God who demands constant adoration and praise. I’d have to answer “no” to that question and put a note that I don’t believe in worship, unless it is defined simply to mean “honoring goodness” or something along that line, in which I case I could say that I worship every day of the week.
“Do you believe in ghosts?” If the researchers have in mind apparitions of the dead or communication from the dead, I’d answer a definite “yes,” but if they are referring to “spooks,” not really.
“Do you believe in angels?” I’d really have a hard time with this one. I believe in advanced spirits and spirit guides, but I am 50-50 on angels who have never served time as humans.
“Do you believe in reincarnation?” I believe in reincarnation, but I don’t think it plays out like most people who believe in it seem to think it does. My belief is in the group soul/higher self area and for the most part beyond human comprehension. But if I say “yes” to the question, the researchers will count me as believing in the kind of reincarnation that most people who believe in it subscribe to. If I say “no,” I’ll be counted among the non-believers. How can I possibly answer that question?
“Do you believe that Jesus is God?” Since God is beyond my comprehension, I can’t begin to answer that question, any more than if asked if we are all part of God or all sons of God, whatever that means. I do believe that Jesus is something akin to Chairman of the Board on the Other Side, and that is enough for me.
One of the few things I might give a definite “no” to is a belief in the atonement doctrine as taught by orthodox Christianity along with the belief that one must accept Jesus as his savior if he is to be “saved.” I feel certain that Jesus shakes his head in disgust and despair at such a teaching.
Milliken interviewed a “cross-section” of 23 people to get their views on the afterlife or, in the case of non-believers, on the “extinction” they face. The 23 range from hard-core “born again” religious fundamentalists at one extreme to equally hard-core scientific fundamentalist at the other extreme. In between are people with varying degrees of faith, hopefulness, uncertainty, and skepticism. The 23 interviewees included a newspaper editor, a college professor, an office manager, a sheet metal worker, an engineer, a rabbi, a college student, a minister turned atheist, a bookseller, and sundry other occupations.
What especially struck me was how much greater the certainty of belief of the atheist or non-believer was than that of the believer.. Those interviewed by Milliken seem to fit the profile of the confirmed atheists that I have encountered over the years. They are former believers who have been rescued from the follies, superstitions, dogmatisms; tyrannies, and illusions of religion by rational thinkers and science. And while science has become their god, they apply non-science to spiritual matters with a smug closed-mindedness that is the antithesis of the open and searching scientific mind. They see themselves as “enlightened” individuals stoically facing up to their eventual extinction by “living in the moment” while assuming that believers do nothing but think about the next life. For the most part they are ignorant of spiritual beliefs that fall outside the dogma and doctrine of their old religions and they are totally ignorant of the mass of evidence in favor or the survival of consciousness at death. However, they have read that their rational-thinking gurus have all studied the evidence and have dismissed it as nothing but pseudoscience, and that is enough for them. They echo the claims of their gurus by saying that there is no “proof” of life after death and don’t appear to grasp the difference between proof and evidence. They dare not give the least bit of credence to any spiritual idea lest they be revert to their old “backward thinking.”
For non-believers, the surveys are pretty easy and straight forward – just check “no” all the way down the page. For others, even the religious fundamentalists, the surveys are not so easy.
Michael Tymn’s book The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After we Die is published by White Crow Books and available from Amazon and all good online book stores. Michael’s forthcoming book Transcending the Titanic: Beyond Death’s Door is published in March 2011 by White Crow.
A friend and I recently discussed the latest media craze called “Tebowing.” For readers of this blog not familiar with the “Tebowing” phenomenon, if it can be called that, Tim Tebow is a quarterback for the Denver Broncos professional football team who makes it a point to go down on one knee with head bowed in a moment of prayerful thanks after a touchdown or victory, or perhaps even in thanks for the opportunity to learn from a defeat. This genuflect is what the media is calling “Tebowing.” In interviews, Tebow always begins by thanking “Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior.”
Ironically, my friend, an orthodox Christian though not of the evangelical type, frowns somewhat on Tebowing, while I, the non-orthodox person, favor it. In fact, Tebow has more or less renewed my interest in football, at least in watching games he plays in. I had for the most part lost interest in football because of end-zone dances and all the other flamboyance, showboating, and buffoonery, whatever name one wants to give to it. It is a breath of fresh air to see an athlete who is seemingly not self-absorbed and who has values.
I can remember the days when athletes celebrated victory with a smile and an appreciative nod or with a tip of the cap. Sandy Koufax, Floyd Patterson, and Joe Louis come to mind as athletes who knew how to win with modesty. The change toward bombastic celebrations of victory began with Muhammad Ali and the emergence of television during the 1960s. Before then, there were very few ostentatious displays of ego. As a sports fan since the 1940s, I can recall no surly displays of emotion, no menacing gestures, no pumping of the arm and fist, no pounding of the chest, no cupping of the ears and beckoning to the crowd for more applause, no punching the sky with a snarl on the person’s face, no shaking of the fist at the crowd, no idiotic end zone dances, no diatribe, before the 1960s.
Apparently assuming that the viewing audience had the mindset of professional wrestling fans, the media bought into Ali’s buffoonery, thereby encouraging younger athletes to emulate him. As I see it, Tebowing is the antithesis of Ali’s buffoonery. It is an egoless display of thanks rather than an arrogant or pompous display of one’s “self-made” physical skills.
Of course, there are those, like my friend, who feel that Tebow is overdoing it. They site a Bible passage in which Jesus says to beware of practicing piety before men and to not be like the Pharisees who pray openly on street corners. (Matthew 6:5-6). I can understand that point of view, and wish for a return of the Kofax and Patterson approach to it all, but, at the same time, if all our youth see on television is the self-absorbed buffoonery, what is going to inspire them to act otherwise than public displays of humility as in Tebowing?
My friend did say that he otherwise admires Tebow as a person and that if it were a matter of his daughter marrying Tim Tebow or some guy with tattoos all over his arms and neck while adorned in jewelry it would be no contest.
For those who claim that “religion” has no place in sports, why do we have to call it religion? Can’t it simply be called humility rather than religion? If pomposity is allowed on television, why not humility?
Recent books and articles have discussed the “top 10 places to see before you die,” and “top 100 things to do before you die.” I’ve been fortunate enough to have seen nine of my top 10 and to have done 99 of my top 100. I’ve cruised the Nile and the Rhine, the Caribbean, the Mexican Rivera, the Alaska inland passage, and even the Sea of Galilee. I’ve kissed the Blarney Stone, searched Loch Ness for Nessie, saw the Brooklyn Dodgers play at Ebbets Field, dined below Niagara Falls, gambled at Monte Carlo, prayed in Westminster Abbey, Notre Dame, and the Vatican, walked the Via Delorosa in Jerusalem, run the New York City Marathon, won the Maui Marathon, taken a mud bath in the Dead Sea, hiked the Grand Canyon, explored the Valley of the Kings, shopped in Hong Kong, Bangkok, and Singapore and peered out from Masada. But I have not yet experienced number one on my lists. .
That would be a visit to Abadiana, Brazil, described as “a scrap of a town in central Brazil.” More specifically, though, it is the Casa de Dom Inácio, a short walk from Abadiana, where John of God is the main attraction. John (Joao in Portuguese) is primarily a healing medium. He allows benevolent highly-evolved spirits to take over his body and perform healing through him. I’ve been told by friends who have visited there that it is the experience of a lifetime.
Last month, my friend, Dr. John L. Turner (above), a Hawaii brain surgeon and the author of Medicine, Miracles, & Manifestations, spent two weeks at the Casa, and was very much impressed with what he saw and experienced. In fact, he said that the experience was a hundredfold better than what he expected, and not only because of all the ripe mangoes he feasted on. A foot problem developed five years ago had become so painful that Turner could no longer wear shoes or walk barefooted. He could wear only “flip-flops.” Three different neurologists diagnosed the problem with his feet at “idiopathic small-fiber neuropathy,” for which there was no cure. And this past May, his blood sugar (diabetes) surfaced, requiring oral agents and insulin.
While there, Turner underwent “invisible surgery,” in which spirit doctors are said to heal through John of God. Though he felt nothing during the surgery, he was extremely fatigued after the surgery, “I was told to expect extreme fatigue up to 24 hours,” Turner told me. “It is mandatory that one takes a cab back the few blocks, or less to the pousada (motel/hotel-like lodging) and keep still and quiet, with meals delivered to the room. For 36 hours, it was like a recumbent (and pain-free) extended period of ‘current’ interlaced with periods of sleep, and dream snippets which in some strange way, seemed to be ‘instructive’ but impossible to recall upon awakening.” The “current,” he explained, is the psychic field generated by up to 100 or more people, all dressed in white garments sitting with arms and legs uncrossed, eyes closed, for periods of three or four hours during the time that Medium Joao, as he prefers to be called, is ‘incorporated’ by one of 35 spirit entities, some of whom are deceased doctors.
Turner said while he still has some foot discomfort, he can now walk barefoot and wear shoes, as he chooses. “Grass and sand were uncomfortable to walk upon,” he continued. “Now, to walk on grass is heavenly!” Nor has he required any medication for his diabetic or prostate conditions since the surgery. The only cost for all of that was about $50 for some herb capsules. John of God does not charge.
Being a physician, Turner was invited to observe and assist at a “physical surgery,” where, he observed Joao scraping the cornea of a man’s eye with a knife, something not thought to be possible in Western medicine. Moreover, the man was under “spiritual anesthesia” alone. He also observed Joao’s eyes turn different colors.
“If I could go again tomorrow, I would,” Turner added. “I can say for sure, that I returned home a much better person. All who go, their physical infirmities healed or not, experience the opening of the heart charka. This alone is worth the trip to a place where the theme is that we are ONE!”
I also had the opportunity just last week to talk to a woman who visited John of God 10 years ago. Her cardiologist gave her only three months to live and said that she would not be able to endure surgery. After visiting John of God, she came back with renewed vigor, underwent the surgery soon thereafter and is still living.
Emma Bragdon, Ph.D., a Woodstock,Vermont resident, has been observing John of God for the last 10 years and has led tour groups down there. Her latest book, Spiritism and Mental Health: Practices from Spirit Centers and Spiritist Psychiatric Hospitals in Brazil, provides much information on Spiritistic healing in Brazil, including the Casa. The book has 26 chapters with 30 psychiatrists, psychologists, physicians, and therapists contributing a wealth of information. Among the contributors well known to American readers are Linda Russek, Ph.D., Melvin Morse, M.D., Dean Radin, Ph.D., William Braud, Ph.D., and Stanley Krippner, Ph.D.
“From the Spiritist point of view, after ruling out physical brain damage or disabilities such as retardation, the cause of most mental illness is embedded in the perispirit, also known today as the ‘informational body’ or ‘subtle body,” Bragdon states, mentioning that Brazil has 12,000 Spiritist community centers and 50 Spiritist psychiatric hospitals. .
Spiritism, the philosophy developed by French educator Allan Kardec more than 150 years ago, is designed to bring together science, parapsychology, and healing, and is especially popular in Brazil,
“Spiritism does not deny the bio-psycho-social causes of mental disorders,” Alexander Moreira-Almeida, M.D., Ph.D., states in one of the two chapters he contributed. “It fully acknowledges them. Kardec always emphasized that Spiritism does not come to deny well-established scientific knowledge; it comes to complement it, adding something new – the spiritual element – to our understanding of nature. Several times he compared Spiritism with microbiology; both reveal and investigate dimensions of reality that are invisible to the naked eye but are part of the natural world and can affect our lives.”
Almeida explains that mental disturbance can result when “an obsessing spirit exacerbates negative feelings and thoughts in the patient through a kind of telepathy.” This obsessing spirit, he further states, is motivated most of the time by a vengeful feeling against the victim, but the person can choose to accept or reject the obsessing influence.
A number of case studies are offered, including one about “Ernesto,” a 32-year-old administrative clerk who attempted suicide after experiencing intense mood changes, aggressiveness, recurrent thoughts of murders and destruction, and self-destructive behavior. After being hospitalized, he became physically aggressive with other patients and was constantly threatening the medical team. He also threatened his mother. He resisted psychoactive drugs, psychosocial assistance and other therapy before electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) was prescribed and also failed. He was then observed by a spiritual guidance team, which consisted of five clairvoyants, two healing mediums, and five who are supportive of the mediums, along with three doctors. The clairvoyants found his energy centers (charkas) to be congested with dark, unruly energies and his brain dominated by a group of “spiritual villains.” Over the next five weeks, Ernesto received magnetic therapy (charka cleansing and energy transmission) and the negative entities were gradually detached from him. He was eventually discharged from the Spiritist hospital and ready to go back to work with continued psycho-social therapeutic support prescribed.
It is stressed by a number of the contributors that Brazilian Spirit hospitals attempt to see the patient from a more holistic view, not only focusing on the physical imbalance but giving full consideration to spiritual considerations. “Just as abusive verbal exchanges from parent to child can result in a lack of self-confidence in the child, lower disincarnate spirits may deeply affect anyone with their vibrations, helping form negative attitudes contributing to self-destructive tendencies,” Carlos Appel, M.D. and Tania Appel, M.A, offer in their chapter. “These influences may become manifest as obsession, fascination or subjugation.”
In a chapter on integrating spirituality into psychotherapy, Mario Sergio Silveira, Ph.D. tells of the inner turmoil he experienced in attempting to reconcile the Spiritist philosophy he had been indoctrinated with during his youth and what he had learned in university. He attempted to set aside his knowledge of Spiritism so that he could better grasp the major masters of psychology, but, after graduation, found vast holes in his knowledge – holes he was able to fill only by reincorporating his prior knowledge of spiritual influences into his practice.
It is very difficult to hear about and read the experiences and observations of so many professionals and not believe there is really something to this whole area of discarnate influence on human behavior and, concomitantly, on mental disorders. It was, of course, observed much earlier by Kardec, Carl Wickland, M.D., Edith Fiore, Ph.D., Louise Ireland-Frey, M.D., and others who had the courage to make their views known. It is disturbing to consider the probable reality of it and realize that mainstream medicine and psychology continue to scoff and sneer at it.
Michael Tymn’s latest book The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After we Die is published by White Crow Books and available from Amazon and all good online book stores.
When my friend Steve Sparks gave me a copy of his new book, Reconciliation: A Son’s Story, which is about post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) suffered by both his father and himself, I wondered if there might be a spiritual connection. From having interviewed Dr. Allan Botkin, who specialized in PTSD with military veterans, several years ago, I should have immediately realized that there is, or at least there is in many cases. Botkin discovered Induced After Death Communication (IADC) by accident in 1995 while working with psychologically traumatized combat veterans at a VA hospital.
Vernon Sparks, Steve’s father, was both physically and emotionally abusive when Steve and his siblings were growing up. He had served aboard the USS West Virginia when Pearl Harbor came under surprise attack on December 7, 1941 and witnessed all the horror of that event. He saw one of his fellow sailors have his head literally blown off his shoulders and he ended up swimming through oil-filled waters to safety. He then served throughout the war, often in the thick of it, including escorting Marines to their landings on Iwo Jima. Although he was treated briefly for “combat fatigue” (also called “battle fatigue”) at the end of the war, his abusive behavior was never linked to his war experiences. As Steve Sparks points out in the book, PTSD was never completely recognized until the Vietnam War or after it. Even less recognized, as Sparks discovered, is that the trauma of living with an abusive parent suffering from PTSD can result in PTSD for the child, as seems to have been the case with him and his siblings. “We never knew when our Dad would go off and start kicking us around for things we didn’t really understand at the time,” Sparks writes. “It happened more often when our mother was nagging him and he had an anxiety attack. Too bad medical research had not progressed enough to provide him with a calming medication.”
In IADC therapy, people grieving the death of someone or otherwise disturbed by someone’s death, are asked to focus directly on their sadness during eye movements. The typical IADC involves the patient reporting having seen a deceased person and that deceased person having told him or her that everything is OK and not to grieve. In a number of cases, the deceased person relates information previously unknown to the patient. I wondered if Vernon Sparks’ PTSD might have been the result of that single case of seeing a fellow sailor’s head blown off a few feet from him or from the cumulative effect of the war.
When Steve Sparks related his own problems and tied them to his father’s abuse and his mother’s indifference, I also wondered whether his problems both on the job and in relationships could be called PTSD. But when he wrote that there seemed to be a “sense of urgency about life ending at any moment and the need to experience everything life has to offer right now and without hesitation” as being at the root of his problem, I saw the spiritual connection.
As anthropologist Ernest Becker (below) saw it in his 1974 Pulitzer prize-winning book, The Denial of Death, man’s fear of death is at the very root of all our problems. Becker said that man’s deepest need is to be free of the anxiety of death and annihilation, and explained that to free oneself of death anxiety, nearly everyone chooses the path of repression. That is, we bury the anxiety deep in the subconscious while we busy ourselves with our lives and seek a mundane security that we expect to continue indefinitely. The repressed anxiety then gives rise to other problems, but the link with death anxiety is seldom recognized.
Becker called repression of death the enemy of mankind. The theme of his book is that the unrepressed life can bring into birth a new man. Robert Jay Lifton, a distinguished professor of psychiatry and psychology, said much the same thing in his 1979 book, The Broken Connection. He stated that we must “know death” in order to live with free imagination.
After taking issue with Freud’s libido concept as being at the root of mental disorders, Lifton says that “an approach to traumatic syndrome (the name then given to PTSD) should focus on death and related questions of meaning, rather than requiring us to invoke the idea of ‘neurosis.’ This death-centered approach suggests a moral dimension in all conflict and neurosis.”
As Lifton sees it, many of the symptoms in the traumatic syndrome have to do with impaired mourning, or “the inability to mourn.” It is the inability to reconstruct shattered personal forms in ways that reassert vitality and integrity. “The survivor retains an indelible image, a tendency to cling to the death imprint – not because of release of narcissistic libido as Freud claimed, but because of continuing struggles to master and assimilate the threat (as Freud also observed), and around larger questions of personal meaning.”
In effect, if I am properly interpreting Lifton, death anxiety is at the core of PTSD. As I am not academically qualified in the area of psychiatry, I am not in a position to agree or disagree, but with 75 years of life experience behind me I believe that Becker and Lifton are much closer to the truth than Freud and most of today’s mental health practitioners.
The key to living the unrepressed life, according to Becker and Lifton, is having a sense of immortality, a firm belief that our earthly life is part of a much larger and eternal life. Lifton points out that there are some who can derive satisfaction out of a biological sense of immortality, that there will be a “living on” through one’s progeny. There is also the creative mode, whereby one “lives on” through his or her works of art, literature, or science. However, when the “thinking person” begins to ask himself or herself to which generation full fruition or to what end the legacy, he/she can’t help question the degree of immortality in such myopic views.
Since it might have involved committing professional suicide, neither Becker nor Lifton could directly suggest that we must accept the survival of consciousness at death in order to free ourselves from the fetters that bind us to our culture’s negative view of death and give rise to death anxiety. But is there any other answer to the problem? Unfortunately, mainstream medicine and science simply won’t recognize it. There is too much self-serving ego involved.
Michael Tymn’s latest book The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After we Die is published by White Crow Books and available from Amazon and all good online book stores.
I believe in spirits and spirit communication through mediums. What I struggle with, however, is communication purportedly coming from famous people or more current celebrities of one kind or another. I am highly skeptical when the spirit communicator claims to be Jesus, St. Michael, Socrates, Plato, St. Augustine, or some other historical figure held in high regard by many.
Then again, I wonder if I am being too hasty in dismissing such communicators. Why wouldn’t they communicate? If the unknowns of the spirit world can communicate, why shouldn’t those well-known in their earth lives come through now and then as well? If we are to believe that Jesus was concerned with the welfare of humankind when alive, why wouldn’t he still be concerned and continue with his teachings? Of course, the religious skeptic would say that if Jesus wanted to communicate he would certainly be able to do a much better job and be more convincing than he has been in those cases in which he has supposedly communicated in recent years. But the student of mediumship comes to understand that inter-dimensional communication has many obstacles and that the obstacles for superior spirits are greater than those facing lower spirits.
If the seemingly credible spirits can be believed, the superior spirits have a much more difficult time communicating than those at lower levels because they are existing at such a high rate of vibration relative to the earth vibration. These superior spirits, we are told, have to use spirits at lower levels of vibration to relay their messages to humans and these messages are sometimes distorted in the process, especially when they are filtered through the medium’s mind.
During the early 1850s, Victor Hugo, the renowned French author, was supposedly receiving messages from Socrates, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Martin Luther, Galileo, and others. One communicating spirit identified “itself” to Hugo as “Death,” another as “Angel of Light,” and still another as the “Shadow of the Sepulcher.” It was the “Shadow” who first communicated by means of table raps after Léopoldine, Hugo’s deceased daughter, came through, informing Hugo and the others sitting in a circle with the medium that “death is the balloon that takes the soul to heaven,” “infinity is an emptiness packed full,” and “use your body to search out your soul.” Initially, Hugo was very skeptical, wondering if the table acted through their thoughts.
Although he soon came to believe that spirits of the dead were communicating, he then wondered if these were devious spirits posing as wise men, as religious leaders claimed, especially when what they had to say conflicted with established dogma and doctrine. But Hugo apparently had also heard that the “essence” of advanced souls can come down through lower spirits and that “group souls” can take on a fictitious identity for want of a specific identity. Whatever the explanation, Hugo was intrigued, impressed, and inspired by much of what the superior spirits had to say.
During the 1870s, William Stainton Moses, an Anglican priest, was said to be controlled by a band of 49 spirits under the direction of a spirit called Imperator. Some of Imperator’s subordinates had names like Rector, Mentor, and Doctor. Apparently, Imperator was too far advanced and had to relay messages through some of the 49, who were closer in vibration to the earth vibration. When Imperator was asked about his name and the other strange names in his band of 49 spirits, he replied: “These names are but convenient symbols for influences brought to bear upon you. In some cases the influence is not centralized; it is impersonal, as you would say.
In many cases the messages given you are not the product of any one mind, but are the collective influence of a number. Many who have been concerned with you are but the vehicles to you of a yet higher influence which is obliged to reach you in that way. We deliberate, we consult, and in many instances you receive the impression of our united thought.”
Allan Kardec, the pioneering French researcher, purportedly received messages from John the Evangelist, St. Augustine, St. Vincent De Paul, St. Louis, “The Spirit of Truth,” Socrates, Plato, Fénélon, Franklin, and Swedenborg. They answered questions on every conceivable subject, including God, pantheism, universal space, biblical accounts of creation, reincarnation, relationships beyond the grave, possession, the fate of children beyond the grave, spirit influence, war, capital punishment, slavery, dreams, free will, suicide, and fear of death, to name just some.
A few years before Hugo and Kardec began their investigations of mediumship, John Edmonds, Chief Justice of the New York State Supreme Court, and George T. Dexter, a New York physician, received numerous profound messages from Swedenborg, the brilliant 18th Century scientist, and Lord Francis Bacon, the 17th Century British philosopher.
As Kardec came to understand, superior spirits, while preserving their individuality, have no need to be identified with their teachings delivered while on earth, but because humans seem to need an identity in order to fix their ideas, superior spirits who identify with the teachings of the famous personage and belong to the same “family” or “collective whole” may take that famous name to appease us, as it is the teaching, not the signature, that is important.
“In proportion as spirits are purified and elevated in the hierarchy, the distinctive characters of their personalities are, in some sort, obliterated in the uniformity of perfection, and yet they do not the less preserve their individuality: this is the case with the superior and pure spirits,” Kardec related what he had come to understand. “In this condition, the name they had on earth, in one of their thousand ephemeral corporeal existences, is quite an insignificant thing. Let us remark again that spirits are attracted to each other by the similarity of their qualities, and that they thus form sympathetic groups or families…but as names are necessary to us to fix our ideas, they can take that of any known personage whose nature is best identified with their own…It thus follows that if a person’s guardian angel gives his name as St. Peter, for instance, there is no actual proof that it is the apostle of that name; it may be he, or it may be an entirely unknown spirit belonging to the family of spirits of which St. Peter makes a part; it also follows that under whatever name the guardian angel is invoked, he comes to the call that is made, because he is attracted by the thought, and the name is indifferent to him.”
Kardec asked if taking the name of a famous person would not be fraud. “It would be fraud on the part of a bad spirit who might want to deceive,” came the answer, “but when it is for good, God permits it to be so among spirits of the same order, because there is among them a solidarity and similarity of thought.”
Kardec had earlier been warned that inferior spirits frequently borrow respectable names in order to give credence to their words. Moreover, some spirits report themselves as fictional characters. “There is always a crowd of spirits ready to speak for anything,” Kardec wrote, mentioning that one day a person took a fancy to invoke Tartufe, a fictitious character from a French play. Tartufe came immediately and talked of Orgon, of Elmire, of Damis, and of Valire, other fictitious characters in the play. “As to himself, he counterfeited the hypocrite with as much art as if Tartufe had been a real personage. Afterward, he said he was the spirit of an actor who had played that character.”
The superior spirits, Kardec was informed, “have a language always worthy, noble, elevated, with not the least tincture of triviality. They say everything with simplicity and modesty, never boast, never make a parade of their knowledge or their position among others. That of the inferior or ordinary spirit has always some reflex human passion; every expression that savors of vulgarity, self-sufficiency, arrogance, boasting, acrimony, is a characteristic indication of inferiority, or of treachery if the spirit presents himself under a respected and venerated name.”
Kardec asked why inferior spirits were permitted to interfere in the first place. Couldn’t God or the superior spirits prevent it? “God permits it to be so to make trial of your perseverance and your judgment, and to teach you to distinguish truth from error; if you do not, it is that you are not sufficiently elevated, and still need the lessons of experience,” came the reply.
Robert Hare, a distinguished professor of chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania and one of the pioneers of psychical research, began his investigations assuming that he would debunk mediums, but after several months of investigation he became a believer and began recording messages from spirits. He asked them what the various mediumship phenomena were all about and was told that they were “a deliberate effort on the part of the inhabitants of the higher spheres to break through the partition which has interfered with the attainment, by mortals, of a correct idea of their destiny after death.” To carry out this intention, he was told, a delegation of advanced spirits has been appointed. He was further informed that lower spirits were allowed to take part in the undertaking because they were better able to make mechanical movements and loud rappings than those on the higher realms.
Imperator told Stainton Moses that they (the superior spirits) overestimated their ability to communicate. “It is true that Benjamin Franklin did discover means of communication by raps, and that he was greatly aided by Swedenborg in awakening interest among spirits in the subject,” Imperator communicated. “At the time of the discovery it was believed that all denizens of both worlds would be brought into ready communion. But, both on account of the obstinate ignorance of man, and of the extent to which the privilege was abused by spirits who assumed well-known names and personated them and so deceived men, that privilege has been greatly narrowed.”
Those who wonder why the mediumship of old was so much more dynamic and offered so much more wisdom than that of today may want to ponder on Imperator’s words.
Next blog post: November 28
Michael Tymn’s latest book The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After we Die is published by White Crow Books and available from Amazon and all good online book stores.
Knowing that I have read many reports and books by the esteemed psychical researchers of yesteryear and have authored two books dealing with mediums, a friend recently asked me for my opinion as to the best medium ever, at least the best medium studied by the researchers. My friend apparently assumed it would be a matter of choosing between Leonora Piper, the famous Boston medium studied for more than two decades by the American branch of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), and Gladys Osborne Leonard, the equally famous British medium of the early years of the 20th Century, also studied extensively by the English SPR. But, no, while those two rank in my top five, I opted for Henrietta “Etta” Wriedt (1859-1942) (below) of Detroit, Michigan as the best ever.
Wriedt was studied and validated by such esteemed researchers as Sir William Barrett, a physics professor who co-founded the SPR, Sir Oliver Lodge, a physicist remembered for his pioneering work in electricity and radio, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the physician who created Sherlock Holmes, Dr. John S. King, a physician who founded the Canadian branch of the SPR, and Vice-Admiral William Usborne Moore, a retired British naval commander turned researcher. Lady (Dr.) Florence Barrett, Sir William’s wife, who was dean of the London School of Medicine for Women, is said to have been skeptical of all mediums until she sat with Mrs. Wriedt and heard from deceased relatives in their own voices.
Unlike Piper and Leonard, Wriedt was not a trance medium. In the trance voice type of mediumship, the spirits use the medium’s vocal cords, but in the direct voice, the spirits are said to use the medium’s ectoplasm to form an artificial larynx, allowing them to speak independent of the medium’s vocal cords. Thus, it is sometimes referred to as the “independent voice” type of mediumship and often involves a floating trumpet to amplify the voices. While skeptics claimed that direct voice mediums were expert ventriloquists, Wriedt was observed by researchers talking to people sitting next to her at the same time as spirit voices came through. It was reported that as many as four spirit voices would be talking simultaneously to different sitters and, although Wriedt knew only English, spirits communicated in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Norwegian, Dutch, Arabic and other languages.
The best and most interesting accounts of Wriedt’s mediumship were reported by Admiral Moore in his two books, Glimpses of the Next State, published 100 years ago, in 1911, and recently reproduced by White Crow Books, and The Voices, published in 1913.
Moore, who had investigated a number of mediums in England before sailing to the United States, first visited Wriedt in Detroit in 1909 and then again in 1910 and 1911. He arranged for her to visit England in 1912. Moore (below) noted that the spirit voices came through in broad daylight or gaslight, but they were louder in the dark. Moreover, Wriedt was open to sitting anywhere in the room so that the investigator could watch her and rule out fraud.
Wriedt’s primary spirit control was Dr. John Sharp, who was born in Glasgow during the 18th Century, but was taken to the United States as an infant and died in Evansville, Indiana. “Dr. Sharp” sometimes spoke through the trumpet and at other times without the trumpet. He would usually open the séance in a loud, clear voice and then close it.
Moore further observed that Mrs. Wriedt spoke “Yankee,” yet the voices of his English relatives and friends came through in “pure English,” while discussing very personal and family matters. It is one thing for a ventriloquist to imitate a voice, quite another for the ventriloquist to bring through evidential information. Occasionally, phantom forms would appear. At a sitting on January 2, 1911, one such form appeared to be that of William E. Gladstone, former prime minister of England, who had died in 1898. “I could never identify any spirit by its face, but I could see that there were features,” Moore explained. “I very nearly recognized the face of Mr. Gladstone; his was a tall form, and remained some two minutes. After he had disappeared, he spoke through the trumpet. I need not say how surprised I was at this apparition and voice.”
Gladstone talked with Moore for about 20 minutes, discussing political matters in England, subjects of which Moore was reasonably certain that Mrs. Wriedt knew nothing of. Professor William James of Harvard, who had died the year before, also spoke and discussed an experiment that Professor James Hyslop was to undertake in a few days. Moore also heard from Sir Richard Burton, but then something strange happened. He heard from a friend in England, who was still alive. He concluded that it was 2 a.m. in England and that she was traveling out-of-body during sleep.
Moore recorded the first hand account of Count Chedo Miyatovich, a diplomat from Serbia, who sat with Mrs. Wriedt on May 16, 1912 in England. He was accompanied by his friend, Dr. Hinkovitch. Wriedt began by telling Miyatovich that a young woman, a spirit friend of his, stood in front of them and wondered if he could see her. “I did not,” Miyatovich wrote his account of the sitting for Moore, “but my friend saw an oblong piece of illuminated mist.”
Mrs. Wriedt then said that the woman whispered to her that her name was Adela or Ada Mayell. “I was astounded,” Miyatovich continued. “Only three weeks before died Miss Ada Mayell, a very dear friend of mine, to whom I was deeply attached. The next moment a light appeared behind Mrs. Wriedt and moved from left to right. There in that slowly moving light was, not the spirit, but the very person of my friend William T. Stead (a victim of the Titanic disaster a month earlier), not wrapped in white, but in his usual walking costume. Both I and Mrs. Wriedt exclaimed loudly for joy. Hinkovitch, who knew Stead only from photos, said: ‘Yes, that is Mr. Stead.’ Mr. Stead nodded to me and disappeared. Half-a-minute later he appeared again, looking at me and bowing; again he appeared, and was seen by all three of us more clearly than before. Then we all three distinctly heard these words: ‘Yes, I am Stead. William T. Stead. My dear friend, Miyatovich, I came here expressly to give you fresh proof that there is life after death. You always hesitated to accept that truth.’”
After Stead disappeared, Ada Mayell began speaking. “She then spoke to me in her affectionate and generous manner, trying to reassure me on certain questions which had sadly preoccupied my mind since her death,” Miyatovich continued, further mentioning that she referred to letters sent to him by her sisters and niece. “Mrs. Wriedt and Hinkovitch heard every word. Then, to my own and my Croatian friend’s astonishment, a loud voice began to talk to him in the Croatian language. It was an old friend, a physician by profession, who died suddenly from heart disease. They continued for some time the conversation in their native tongue, of which I heard and understood every word. Mrs. Wriedt, for the first time in her life, heard how the Croatian language sounds. I and my Croatian friend were deeply impressed by what we witnessed that day, May 16th. I spoke of it to my friends as the most wonderful experience of my life.”
Miyatovich then arranged for Professor Margarette Selenka, a friend of Stead’s who happened to be in London at the time, to sit with Mrs. Wriedt on May 24. He accompanied her, while two others were present. “After a short time from the beginning of the séance, we all saw Mr. Stead appear, but hardly for more than ten seconds,” Miyatovich recounted. “He disappeared, to reappear again somewhat more distinctly, but not so clearly as he appeared to me on May 16.” Stead then had a long conversation through the trumpet with Selenka and a short one with Miyatovich, reminding him of an incident two years earlier in his office at Mowbray House. Then, Ada Mayell again spoke, followed by Miyatovich’s mother, who spoke in her own Serbian language. Selenka then heard from her deceased husband, Professor Lorentz Selenka, and her mother, who died a year earlier, both speaking in German. A friend of Selenka’s came singing a German song, and asked her to join him, as they used to sing together in the old days, after which a number of spirits came for the other two sitters.
Sir William Barrett set forth his testimonial in Moore’s book. “I went to Mrs. Wriedt’s séances in a somewhat skeptical spirit, but I came to the conclusion that she is a genuine and remarkable medium, and has given abundant proof to others beside myself that the voices and the contents of the messages given are wholly beyond the range of trickery or collusion,” Barrett offered.
The Rev. Charles Tweedale told of his sitting with Mrs. Wriedt on June 3, 1912. “We had a marvelous experience,” he wrote. “The sitting commenced with our singing ‘Lead Kindly Light,’ then a deep and solemn voice, which we were informed was that of Cardinal Newman, gave me his benediction, and water was sprinkled over us. Now ensued a marvelously evidential series of happening which most profoundly impressed and convinced Mr. W. W. Baggally, one of the chief investigators for the Society for Psychical Research, who was present and which dealt with intimately private affairs concerning his deceased father and fiancée. During the course of this wonderful experience a voice announced itself as Frank Woodward and enquired for my wife, and spoke to her. This astounded her, for Frank Woodward was her former music master, of whom she had not heard for seventeen years, and who lived in the extreme north of England. Enquiry afterwards revealed the fact that he had died a year previously.”
Moore recorded that there were days when no phenomenon occurred with Wriedt. He blamed fatigue on her part, lack of harmony within the sitting circle, and also adverse weather conditions, but he concluded that he had never met anyone whose mediumship had brought him so close to the next state as Mrs. Wriedt.
Moore’s book, Glimpses of the Next State, also tells of many other mediums he encountered during his search for the truth.
Next blog post: November 14-15
Michael Tymn’s latest book The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After we Die is published by White Crow Books and available from Amazon and all good online book stores.
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Glimpses of the Next State by William Usborne Moore is now published by White Crow Books.
New Zealand Priest Tells of Mediumship Experiences in New Book
Posted on 18 October 2011, 20:19
Not all Christian clergymen believe that messages coming to us through modern mediums are the work of the devil. The Rev. Michael Cocks, an Anglican priest from Christchurch, New Zealand, is among the more open-minded clergyman.
During the 1970s, Cocks was one of a small group of religious friends who began gathering periodically at the modest home of Thomas and Olive Ashman in Christchurch to observe the trance mediumship of Thomas Ashman. After Ashman went into a trance, an entity calling himself “Stephen” began talking through him. This was not any old Stephen, but Saint Stephen, the first Christian martyr.
Stephen would dialogue with the group, which, in addition to Cocks and Ashman’s wife, Olive, also included a liberal Catholic priest, a Buddhist, and other curious observers. Cocks states that normally Stephen spoke through Ashman in a “rather curious English,” but that he twice spoke in an ancient Greek dialect, which apparently was for the purposes of confirming his identity.
“For myself, I do not speak [English] and I never have,” Stephen related in one of the sittings. “I activate these words that are in Thomas’s memory and are known to him. Occasionally there is a little ‘magic,’ when I join together sounds and symbols that are in Thomas’s mind so that words may be spoken that are not known to Thomas.”
At one sitting, Stephen said: “Think not that when you are without your body, you are going to be much different, for your needs are different. Except through feelings there is little association, for your tasks and your needs are no longer what they were, and the tasks and needs of them that are still in the body are different. These are the first things you learn.”
On another occasion, he was asked about reincarnation and said: “The answer is most difficult. The understanding of the phenomenon is sometimes beyond even myself, but hear me now. Even as I speak through this body, I am Stephen and reincarnate possibly a thousandfold. The confusion is not in the reality of this. It is on the concept of your conscious mind where it can but think of one body.”
Stephen was not the only communicator. On October 23, 1973, these words, apparently coming from Christ, flowed from Ashman’s vocal cords: “The task of your servant Stephen is that of messenger and he speaks with great authority. The task of yourselves is the decision as to which way you choose use those messages…”
Christ spoke through Ashman on several other occasions. “We believed it to be the voice of Christ, partly because Stephen agreed that it was, and partly from an awe-inspiring presence that had a very strong emotional and spiritual impact,” Cocks says. “The messages were of course very appropriate if they were from Christ.”
Cocks realizes that the story is difficult for most people to accept. At first, he had a hard time accepting it himself. Even after he came to believe that St. Stephen was actually communicating with the small group, he was reluctant to discuss it with many people outside of the group. “Part of it was fear of social ostracism for claiming to receive teachings from a saint,” he explains.
Cocks, who earned a master’s degree in philosophy at the University of New Zealand and a master’s in theology at Oxford University, wrote about his observations in a 2005 book titled “The Stephen Experience.” That book has now been revised, republished, and just recently released by White Crow Books as Afterlife Teaching From Stephen the Martyr. I recently put some questions to him by e-mail. Here are those questions and his responses:
Rev. Cocks, how did you become interested in mediumship?
“As a religious person I am primarily concerned with relationship to the God that is in all, through all, and above all. I have explored this relationship in many ways, through prayer, Bible study, reading the great mystics, such as Teilhard de Chardin and Evelyn Underhill, through consciousness studies, and through meditation. In all this I would include reading of great literature, listening to great music, and all of life’s experiences. When I was about 40 years old I had a burning desire to go deeper in my relationship with this God. While still acting as a priest, I joined a spiritual group called Subud, in order to free myself of previous conceptions of God, and encounter him afresh. After several months of participating in their spiritual exercises, I felt able to surrender to Christ at a deeper level, as a result of which I seemed able to receive guidance from Spirit in a new way. For example, on the very day I surrendered I attended a performance by a string quintet. While they played I found myself envying the abilities of each of the players, and scolded myself for it. By my envy I was spoiling a spiritual experience. When I returned home, I went to my study, where I received mental instructions to look for a book on the floor under one of the bookcases. I was to look up page 15. On this page was Thomas Gray’s Ode for Music, where it spoke of the folly of envying the musicians, thereby spoiling a spiritual experience. This clearly demonstrated an order of mind independent of my own head. From then on I experienced thousands of similar mind-blowing coincidences, and I was about to embark on a doctoral thesis on the phenomenon, when I received a book of prophecies about myself from a stranger in the North Island. I received these prophecies about the same day that Stephen the Martyr broke through the consciousness of Thomas Ashman.
“Shortly after that the Ashmans came from England to live in New Zealand. Three months later I met his wife, Olive, by chance. She invited me home to talk to Stephen as mediated by her husband. These conversations with Stephen continued between 1973 and 1980.”.
Isn’t mediumship frowned upon, even considered demonic, by the church you serve?
“Traditional churches like the Catholic, Episcopalian/Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran and so on, are composed of people of all ages, all levels of education and spiritual development. These churches on the whole, even if they so wished, are not successful in controlling the private lives of their congregations, who if asked, would express a bewildering variety of often conflicting beliefs. In short, in the Anglican/Episcopalian churches you will find people who would accept mediumship, and other people who would think it suspect, or even demonic. In 1937, in the UK, there was published a report on Doctrine in the Church of England. Apparently in preparation for this report, there was a committee of eminent churchmen considering the question of mediumship. The majority were of the opinion that mediums were sometimes genuine, and that one could obtain valid information about spirit through them. A minority disagreed. The report was however shelved for fear of a backlash from conservative Anglicans.”
Would you mind describing the modus operandi of Ashman’s mediumship?
“It seems that Ashman was initially taken over involuntarily by Stephen. On many subsequent occasions, it was sufficient for Tom to pray for protection, and then to allow himself to go into trance. After a few minutes Stephen would seem to take over, greet us, and the conversations would begin. More often than not, Thomas would be unaware that anything had happened. At the end of a session, he would drowsily ask to be told what had happened. Often he had to wait a week, until transcriptions of Stephen’s words had been made available. On the occasions when Tom was semi conscious, he would interrupt Stephen to ask a question. In 1980 Stephen indicated that he had finished his teaching. I understand that after that Tom couldn’t function as a medium.”
Did you ever suspect Ashman of being a charlatan?
“Not really. He acted as a medium only for Stephen, and only for a small private group. He was obviously moved by what he was experiencing, and also changed by it. His hearers did have critical minds, and we often discussed whether what we were hearing came from Tom or from Stephen. The personality of Stephen was very different from that of Tom; what Stephen said sometimes contradicted what Tom believed. Stephen’s teaching was of a high order, and we frequently experienced striking and complicated synchronicities that gave us experience of what Stephen was describing in words.
“In my book, many pages are given over to discussing the meaning and implications of words of Stephen spoken in a little known version of Attic Greek of 2000 years ago. The implications were complex and needed elucidation through study of certain Dead Sea Scrolls, and through study of relevant scholarly works. Nearly everything that Stephen said, usually in English, but three times in Greek, was consistent with what we learned through scholarly studies. Ashman was intelligent, but certainly not a learned man. Taking what Stephen said in either language as a whole, we would conclude that it would be impossible for Ashman, or any living person, to have produced the material.”
Do you really believe that St. Stephen and Jesus communicated through Ashman?
“Yes I do really believe that we were hearing from St Stephen and Jesus. And I say this for the same reasons that I conclude that neither Tom nor any living person could have fabricated the evidence that Stephen supplied in his communications. In saying this we need to be familiar with what Stephen says about the relation between spirit and the physical. Such a familiarity would prompt us to nuance our affirmation with reference to the oneness of Spirit, and the corporateness of apprehension of truth. The constant synchronicities that we were experiencing in relationship to the teaching of Stephen demand such nuancing.”
Why did you wait so long to write the book?
“We were trying to write such a book while our conversations with Stephen were continuing. And there have been subsequent attempts. The problem was to get the material into a form that readers could follow, and in a form that a publisher would be prepared to print. I was also fearful of my fellow clergy, imagining their reactions to my producing such a book. In 2001 an open-minded skeptic was impressed by the scholarship of my book, and offered to publish it.
Three hundred copies were sold of that edition. Now White Crow is publishing a much more readable version, thanks to many discussions with the publisher, Jon Beecher, and my philosopher son, Richard Cocks.”
How have your fellow clergymen reacted to your book?
“In fact a number of clergy have been supportive, both with regard to my book, and also to my journal The Ground of Faith, where Spirit is considered from the point of view of experience, and of science.”
What effect has Stephen had on your life?
“My life has been transformed.”
Next blog post: October 31.
Afterlife Teaching From Stephen the Martyr is published by White Crow books and available in October 2011 from Amazon and all good online book stores.
Life after Death and Super-psi do not conflict says physics professor
Posted on 03 October 2011, 9:44
When it comes to a belief in psychic phenomena (“psi”) and in life after death, there are believers, non-believers, and what might be called quasi-believers. The latter group accepts the existence of psychic phenomena, but they, for the most part, remain skeptical on the life after death issue and resist the idea that spirits of the dead can communicate through humans. They believe in what is called Super-psi or Super ESP. When it comes to mediumship, the quasi-believers seem to see it as the subconscious of the individual interacting with some cosmic computer while pretending to be the spirit of a “dead” person. Many parapsychologists favor Super-psi over the survival (of consciousness) hypothesis, viewing it as an “either/or” situation.
Dr. James E. Beichler, (below) a retired physics professor and author of To Die For, doesn’t believe that there is a conflict between Super-psi and Survival. “To me, it is not an issue because the source for Super-psi is the same as that thing that survives material death – the mind/consciousness complex,” Beichler explains. “While we are in our material bodies before death, our consciousness (through what we normally call intuition) acts as the source for our sixth sense and mediates between our mind/brain and the rest of the space-time cosmos, including other consciousnesses. This is the physical source of Super-psi. However, when we die the physical but non-material mind/consciousness complex survives and consciousness continues to act as a sensory mediator between physical space-time and our minds.”
From the parapsychological point of view, there are, Beichler says, three possible explanations for mediumship: 1) the medium is really passing on information from the spirit of a dead person; 2) the medium is telepathically getting the information from the deceased person before he died, using retrocognition; 3) the medium is telepathically tapping into the mind of some living person who has intimate knowledge of the dead person being channeled. Numbers two and three have been lumped together and called Super-psi.
Super-psi is nothing new. Although they didn’t call it by that name, the pioneers of psychical research recognized similar explanations. Initially, they wrote it all off as telepathy – a “secondary personality” in the subconscious of the medium being able to read the minds of the sitters. When information came through unknown to the sitters, the pioneers speculated that the medium could tap into the minds of anyone in the world. They called that teloteropathy. When that didn’t completely explain it, they further speculated that there is some kind of “cosmic reservoir” into which the medium’s subconscious could access information. Accepting it as spirit communication would have been much too “unscientific” in that early era of scientific materialism when “intelligent” men and women were trying to put religious superstition behind them. However, most of the pioneers came to accept the spirit hypothesis, which was totally consistent with the survival hypothesis. It was one thing, they reasoned, for the medium’s secondary personality to access information from minds around the world or from some cosmic computer, but quite another for the information coming from the alleged spirits to actually dialogue with the sitters. There was too much personality and too much volition to dismiss it as anything other than spirit communication. Moreover, the researchers could see no logical reason why the subconscious of so many mediums would pretend to be spirits of the dead.
As Beichler sees it, there is a more complex electromagnetic level of existence than that recognized by parapsychology or mainstream physics. “This complex electrical structure or pattern corresponds to a living organism and is essentially the mind of that organism, while the corresponding complex magnet pattern that accompanies the mind pattern is consciousness,” he explains. “Our matter/energy bodies, which include our brains, sense the external three dimensional world of matter and energy that we know from our experiences through our normal fives senses. However, our consciousness exists four-dimensionally in that it occupies all four dimensions of space while the matter/energy and electric portions of our organisms only occupy three dimensions. So our consciousness, even while we are living, can sense the external world of matter/energy outside of our normal five senses as well as anything else within all four dimensions of space, such as other consciousness.”
I told Beichler that I thought it was a very convoluted subject and one on which most people might struggle to wrap their brains around. “The term convoluted is absolutely correct and to the point,” he responded, “but then if I would give snappy one or two sentence explanations no one would understand. The journey is convoluted, but the goal is simple and straightforward. However, it’s always about the journey and never the goal or so says everyone having anything to do with enlightenment. Yes, four-dimensional spaces and five-dimensional space-times are difficult to comprehend and would be dismissed outright if they didn’t have such a rich history. Without that history (the journey), any person who suggested such a radical notion would be thrown in a loony bin. People were burned at the stake for making far less radical comments just a few hundred years ago, but then so were people who claimed to read minds, tell the future and survive death. Even today, they are minimalized within the scientific/academic community, which in the end isn’t much different from being burned at the stake.”
The bottom line here is that, Super-psi or not, consciousness does survive death, and that is the key message of Beichler’s book. “Science should soon be able to confirm this fact to some extent,” Beichler continues. “Or at least viable scientific theories on survival are now beginning to emerge. I wrote the book to inform people of our continuing existence after bodily death in the hope that it would help some to ‘evolve’ more easily to the next step in human existence and evolution – the afterlife. The second message is that religions and various other metaphysical disciplines have gotten part of the message correct, but have also garbled the message to some extent for political purposes.”
Many spirit messages suggest that failure to grasp the fact that we live on after death can result in an “earthbound” condition. “If the mind had no memories or even the slightest idea of its five-dimension existence during life, such that the person had attained only the minimum level of consciousness before death, the surviving mind might not accept its new reality and continue expecting input from the brain and the four-dimensional world,” is how Beichler explains it in his book. “Under these circumstances, the mind might be stuck in its four-dimensional reality even though it is materially cut off from that reality, and not realize that the body is dead. Or the mind might not accept the death of its host body and experience a total blackness or ‘nothingness’.”
In his discussion of near-death experiences (NDEs), Beichler further comments on the need to become “conscious” of survival in this lifetime rather than assume that there is no consciousness after death or assume that we will become suddenly enlightened in the next world. He points out that not all people who report NDEs have a life review. “This review is neither an absolute nor even a necessary event since some people have a greater experience with the five-dimensional extension of physical reality before they die and thus their minds do not need the orientation provided upon death through a past-life review,” he explains. “Others may not be advanced enough in their own personal paths of conscious evolution to warrant the past-life review, and still others may not mentally accept what has happened (they deny their death) and thus ‘sense’ nothing at all. In other words, people’s minds seize upon the most familiar surroundings when they enter the new environment of the five-dimensional universe, but can still reject the experience completely, depending upon their mind set and mental priorities at the time of death.”
I asked Beichler if he sees any change in the attitude of mainstream science toward the paranormal. “Yes, a few more people in science are taking the paranormal more seriously,” he replied, “but only a few. I think that there is also a huge ‘silent majority’ that has nothing against including the paranormal in science, but being silent and ‘passive’ they don’t help the situation very much. It’s funny but modern physics actually implies the paranormal. In quantum theory they say something like ‘consciousness collapses the wave packet’ to create our commonly perceived material reality. It is also commonly known that different parts of out material reality are ‘entangled’ together, meaning that what we do at one time and place immediately affects what happens elsewhere with no signal or knowledge of the original event ‘causing’ the corresponding event elsewhere to occur. If you put those two ideas together, modern quantum theory strongly implies that consciousness can collapse the ‘wave packet’ elsewhere in the universe, which is as good a definition of the paranormal as anyone has ever developed.”
Beichler has been writing about and giving presentations on the development of a new “Third Scientific Revolution” for a number of years now, but he says that it is slow in unfolding. “The new revolution will give mind and consciousness equal billing with physics and the other sciences,” he states. “Many distinctions between mind and matter in the Cartesian sense of the categories will just evaporate. Science will become subjective and objective rather than just objective. To a historian of science, such as myself, the past few decades of scientific accomplishments and events look a lot like a replay of the scientific changes and events that occurred in the final decades of the nineteenth century, just prior to the “Second Scientific Revolution.” It is just awaiting the acceptance of a new theoretical leap forward before it becomes apparent to everyone, and I am working toward that goal.”
Michael Tymn’s latest book The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After we Die is published by White Crow Books and available from Amazon and all good online book stores.
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To Die For by Dr. James E. Beichler is available from Amazon
The headline of a September 12 article at the Scientific American website reads, “Peace of Mind: Near-Death Experiences Now Found to Have Scientific Explanation.” The writer, Charles Q. Choi quotes neuroscientist Dean Mobbs of the University of Cambridge as saying that “many of the phenomena associated with near-death experiences can be biologically explained.” He also references an article by Caroline Watt, whose mission seems to be to “demystify” the NDE and other psychic phenomena.
I don’t think there is anything really new in Choi’s article. Scientific fundamentalists have been offering mechanistic explanations for various features of the NDE for years now. And while the headline of the article suggests that an important discovery has been made, leading the uninformed reader to infer that the spiritual aspect of NDEs has been totally debunked, the explanations given are of the “possible” and “might be” kind.
As examples of the “possible” and “might be” explanations, it is stated that that reliving moments of one’s life “might be” the result of a stress hormone being released in high levels during trauma. Meeting deceased loved ones might be similar to Parkinson’s disease patients seeing ghosts as a result of abnormal functioning of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that can evoke hallucinations. But let’s assume that there is a link between these things and the NDE. Does that debunk the spiritual implications of the NDE? It seems to me that it just explains the trigger of the NDE. If there is some intelligent design behind the spiritual component of the NDE, why wouldn’t it have a biological trigger? Shouldn’t we expect some kind of biological release mechanism in the separation of the physical body and the spirit body? A bullet becomes independent of the gun after the firing mechanism is effectuated, but the firing mechanism of the gun doesn’t explain the damage done by the bullet.
During the mid-1800s, when the early form of spirit communication was by means of raps coming through a table or from some mysterious place around the sitters (one rap for “no,” three for “yes,” one rap for each letter of the alphabet), Michael Faraday, a renowned scientist, concluded that the raps were simply the result of the “medium” being able to slip her toe joints and make cracking sounds. Apparently, many scientific fundamentalists of the era accepted Faraday’s explanation and had a good laugh. Yet, many astute observers of the raps said that the raps were so loud that they sometimes shook the house. Moreover, the “toe joint cracking” theory did not explain how the medium got the evidential information that was coming through to the sitters. Of course, the pseudoskeptical scientists concluded that the medium did a lot of research beforehand.
Faraday finally said that he had too many important things to do to waste his time in investigating such phenomena. Thomas Huxley, another famous scientist of the 1800s, said that even if it were all true, it would not interest him. Sir David Brewster, still another leading scientist of the era, claimed that various phenomena he had witnessed with medium D. D. Home, including levitations, were “impossible” and so they could only be the result of some imposture that he, not being a magician, could not understand. What might be called “Faraday-Huxley Syndrome” and “Brewster Syndrome” persist today in mainstream science.
In the September/October issue of Explore magazine, Mark Leary, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University, examines the current resistance of some scientists to paranormal phenomena The article is titled “Why are (Some) Scientists So Opposed to Parapsychology?” Leary begins by pointing out that many of the pioneers of psychical research were noted scientists of their time and that they all were professionally attacked and personally ridiculed by those who viewed their work as misguided and opposed to a progressive society.
Although Leary does not mention the pioneers, one such scientist was Dr. Charles Richet, professor of physiology at the University of Paris and winner of the 1913 Nobel Prize in Medicine. Richet had earlier criticized Sir William Crookes, a prominent British chemist, for validating the mediumship of D.D. Home, but after doing his own investigation of mediums, Richet apologized to Crookes. Dr. Julian Ochorowicz, professor of psychology and philosophy at the University of Warsaw, similarly apologized to Crookes. He wrote: “I found I had done a great wrong to men who had proclaimed new truths at the risk of their positions. When I remember that I branded as a fool that fearless investigator, Crookes, the inventor of the radiometer, because he had the courage to assert the reality of psychic phenomena and to subject them to scientific tests, and when I also recollect that I used to read his articles thereon in the same stupid style, regarding him as crazy, I am ashamed, both of myself and others, and I cry from the very bottom of my heart. ‘Father, I have sinned against the Light.’”
Richet was one of many scientists to observe ectoplasm, a substance that flows from some mediums and gives rise to physical phenomena. “If one reflects upon the many confirmations to which the ectoplasma of Eusapia (Paladino) have given place, one is astonished to see the doubts that they have provoked,” Richet wrote. “Scientists of all countries, France and Italy, the United States and England, Germany and Russia, Holland and Spain have turned her about, this poor Eusapia, in every manner, and they have all, finally, if they have prolonged their study at all, concluded that these phenomena were authentic.” Richet went on to say that to deny various psychic phenomena is “to lower oneself.” Yet, few mainstream scientists of today will admit to the reality of ectoplasm. They write it off as nothing more than cheesecloth regurgitated by some tricksters posing as mediums. No doubt there were such tricksters, but to jump to the conclusion that all ectoplasm was cheesecloth regurgitated is to view the subject with a very closed mind.
Although fully accepting such psychic phenomena, Richet was reluctant to admit that they were the result of spirit operation. He admitted that it was a possibility, but said, somewhat indirectly, that he feared for his reputation if he were to give support to the spirit hypothesis. Thus, Richet preferred to see it as the workings of the subconscious which science could not yet understand.
Not so fearful was Sir Oliver Lodge, a professor of physics and one of the pioneers of electricity and radio. Lodge fully supported the spirit hypothesis. “Science is incompetent to make comprehensive denials about anything,” Lodge wrote. “It should not deal in negatives. Denial is no more fallible than assertion. There are cheap and easy kinds of skepticism, just as there are cheap and easy kinds of dogmatism.”
As Leary sees it, not much has changed since the days of Crookes, Richet, Ochorowicz and Lodge. While a small group of researchers continue to investigate psychic matter, many other scientists remain disdainful. Much of the resistance, he says, “has a tenor that is rarely heard in other scientific circles, involving caustic, dismissive attacks on not only the research but also on the researchers themselves.” Leary believes the resistance and closed-mindedness is a result of parapsychology falling outside the scope of more strict and pure science, a failure by the critics to understand the mechanism, a tendency for the critics to associate psychical research and parapsychology with religion and occult beliefs, and fear and discomfort with uncertainty.
“Unfortunately, in the minds of many critics, the phenomena studied by parapsychologists are lumped together with ‘fringe’ and ‘occult’ topics, such as alien abduction, astral projection, astrology, crystal healing, ancient astronauts, nature spirits, Bigfoot, and Tarot – topics that they also dismiss,” Leary offers, adding that if they were to look at the evidence, “they would find that parapsychological phenomena have far more scientific support than most of these other topics.”
Leary states that the evidence in support of psi “is stronger than I had ever imagined.”
Next blog to be posted on Oct. 3
Michael Tymn’s new book The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After we Die is published by White Crow Books and available from Amazon and all good online book stores.
According to a recent Web report, Simon Cowell, (below) the popular American Idol and X-Factor judge, wants his body frozen by cryogenics upon his death. He was quoted as saying that he sees it “basically as an insurance policy” that might pay off in about 300 years when science figures out how to restore life to a human body.
I think it goes without saying that anyone who opts for cryogenics is a pure materialist and philistine, fearing death and not believing that he will “live on” in a greater reality.
As Cowell appears to see it, he has nothing to lose beyond the cost of the cryogenics, and since he is obviously a very rich man that is of little or no concern. In other words, if science doesn’t figure out how to restore bodies to life, he will, in his view, be no worse off than if he had chosen burial or cremation.
Since Cowell apparently has made up his mind that life is nothing but a march into an abyss of nothingness, it is unlikely that he is open to various messages purportedly coming to us from the spirit world which say that magnetic currents can hold the spirit body close to the physical body after death and that separation can be expedited somewhat by speedy disposal of the physical body, as with cremation. If these messages are credible, and I believe they are, Cowell’s “insurance policy” could turn out to be the worst investment of his life, as his frozen remains may keep him in an “earthbound” condition for a long time, however time is measured in that realm.
According to a number of esoteric teachings arising out of spirit communication, the magnetic currents hold the spirit body close to the physical body during earthly life and continue to some degree after death depending on the degree of spiritual consciousness achieved by the individual while alive in the flesh. That is, the more spiritual consciousness the person develops, the quicker the magnetic currents are destroyed. Conversely, the soul who has not developed much spiritual consciousness will be slow in breaking the magnetic bonds, thus lingering around his or her physical remains in the earthbound condition, indefinitely, not completely comprehending the fact that he/she is “dead.”
“The moral state of the soul is the condition which determines the ease, or the difficulty, with which the spirit disengages himself from his terrestrial envelope,” explained Allan Kardec, (below) a 19th Century French psychical researcher who communicated with many advanced spirits. “The strength of the affinity between the body and perispirit (spirit body) is in the exact ratio of the spirit’s attachment to materiality; it is, consequently, at the maximum in the case of those whose thoughts and interests are concentrated on the earthly life and the enjoyment of material pleasures; it is almost null in the case of those whose soul has identified itself before with the spirit life.”
Kardec likened the “earthbound” condition to somnambulism, as in sleepwalking, when the somnambulist who is thrown into a magnetic sleep cannot believe that he is not awake. “Sleep, according to their idea of it, is synonymous with suspension of the perceptive faculties, and as they think freely, and see, they appear to themselves not to be asleep,” he further explained.
If I am interpreting various metaphysical teachings correctly, the “magnetic currents” should not be confused with the so-called silver cord, the connecting link between the physical body and the spirit body. The silver cord will have been severed at the time of physical death, liberating the spirit body, but the magnetic currents can still keep the spirit body close to the physical body. Moreover, cremation does not undo the gravitational pull of a materialistic life, but it at least mitigates the pull.
Silver Birch, the eloquent and apparently “high” spirit who spoke through the entranced British medium Maurice Barbanell for some 50 years, was asked if cremation is the preferred method of disposal. “Yes, always, because essentially it has the effect of putting an end to the idea that the spirit is the physical body,” he replied.
“By the use of fire, all forms are dissolved; the quicker the human physical vehicle is destroyed, the quicker is its hold upon the withdrawing soul broken,” medium and mystic Alice A. Bailey recorded, adding that the etheric body is apt to linger for a long time on the ‘field of emanation’ when the physical body is interred, and it will frequently persist until the physical body has completely decayed. Since cryogenics prevents decay, one can only agonize at how long the spirit might be stuck in the earthbound condition, perhaps puzzled at why other frozen bodies are not speaking with him.
Of course, the skeptic and secular humanist will scoff at all this and argue that a non-believer in the survival of consciousness at death can live a very moral life without believing in anything spiritual. Certainly, there are many examples of this and there are countless examples of people with surface spiritual beliefs leading lives of low morality or depravity. As William James said, “If religion be a function by which either God’s cause or man’s cause is to be really advanced, then he who lives the life of it, however narrowly, is a better servant than he who merely knows about it, however much. Knowledge about life is one thing: effective occupation of a place in life with its dynamic currents passing through your being is another.”
So what then of the very moral person who is a non-believer in God or an afterlife (keeping in mind that one does not have to believe in God to believe that consciousness will survive death)? Should he be punished by remaining “earthbound” simply because he failed or refused to believe? Might he not be even a better person than he who led a moral life out of fear of punishment in an afterlife? The answer to this seems to be that it is not about “punishment” by a God or tribunal of any kind. It is about what we, through our free will, have allowed ourselves to believe. “A spirit attaches himself all the more strongly to the life of the body, in proportion to his inability to see anything beyond it,” Kardec offered. “He feels that the organic life is escaping him, and he does his utmost, but in vain, to retain it within his grasp. Instead of yielding himself up to the movement which is drawing him away, he resists it with all his might; and, in some instances, the struggle is thus prolonged for days, for weeks, or for months.”
As I discern the messages, the non-believer who rejects the idea of an afterlife out of intellectual pride or arrogance is much more likely to be earthbound than the person who is shut off from all enlightenment and does not have the opportunity to open his mind to it. The non-believer’s earthbound condition is not the result of an angry and jealous God (“How dare you not believe in Me! You are hereby assigned to the mezzanine level where you will suffer for not believing in Me.”), but a matter of how much “light” the person lets in during his lifetime. If he arrogantly permits his intellect and ego to block the light, then darkness is the result. We are who we make ourselves. We are beings of light to the extent that we absorb the light. We create our own reality.
“They suppose that their state will be forever the same,” a spirit named Clara told Kardec, referring to those who failed to believe when alive. “They still murmur the words which misled them during life; they are amazed and terrified at their utter solitude; darkness, in truth, it is, this region at once empty and peopled, this space in which, carried forward by a power they do not understand, they wander, pallid, and groaning, without consolation, without affections, without help of any kind…”
Hopefully, Simon Cowell will liberate his ego, open his mind, and let in some light before he transitions, thereby abandoning his plan to “live on” through cryogenics and “live on” in true reality.
Michael Tymn’s new book The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After we Die is published by White Crow Books and available from Amazon and all good online book stores.
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The Spirits Book by Allan Kardec is published by White Crow Books and available from Amazon and all good online book stores.
About 10 years ago, I met a woman I’ll call Hilda – the mother of an in-law – who told me that sometime around 1981, while watching television, she had the sudden urge to start writing a story – a story having to do with outer space. She had no real interest in the subject and had no prior interest in creative writing. “But I felt compelled to write,” Hilda told me. Words began flowing from Hilda’s pen, including many technical words that had no meaning to her. Her husband retired for the night and when he awoke the next morning Hilda was still writing. “I had lost track of time,” she explained. “I had no idea it was already morning.” She did not know what she had written, and when she read it she didn’t completely understand it.
When Hilda mentioned her strange experience to her fundamentalist pastor, she was informed that whatever was happening to her was demonic and that she should immediately desist, which she did. About 10 years later, when she was around 60, Hilda suddenly discovered that she had artistic ability. Although I am no judge of art, her paintings certainly indicate exceptional talent. Hilda decided to polish her painting skills by enrolling in some art classes. However, when she realized that the classes were negatively affecting her artistic ability, she discontinued them.
My guess is that Hilda is a natural medium and that the initial writing experience was automatic writing – a spirit using her hand while she was in an altered state of consciousness. Considering the fact that she had displayed no previous artistic ability, the paintings also seem to have been directed by a spirit. The fact that the classes negatively affected her ability seems to lend itself to this theory. That is, the artist in spirit did not want to change his style.
Marianne was her name
Very recently, Dr. Paul Biscop, (pictured below) a retired cultural anthropologist living in Nanaimo, Vancouver Island, told me a story that suggests spirit influence of some kind. When he was 17 in 1960, Paul felt compelled one day to do a portrait in pencil and pastel chalk. A portrait of a young woman emerged from his mind (also pictured below). ”I did not know why I seemed compelled to do this portrait – it was an unusual experience – nor did I know who she was,” Paul explained. “I knew only that I had a strong connection to the picture, and I called her ‘Marianne,’ after a Harry Belafonte song of the time (‘down by the sea side sifting sand…’) Over the years I assigned several mythical personae to her, depending on my interests of the time.”
Nine years later, during 1969, Paul was exploring mediumship in a spiritualist church in Montreal, Quebec and was given a personal demonstration by a medium who claimed to work with a group of spirits calling themselves “Tonancas.” The medium asked his spirit guide a number of questions about Biscop, including names of deceased relatives and the name by which Biscop was known in the spirit world. “Unfortunately neither the names of deceased relatives, nor the names by which I was supposedly also known in spirit, made any sense to me,” Paul continued the story. “One detail, though, was interesting. I was told that I was also known by a name, ‘that was held dear to my mother’s heart,’ the name ‘Andrew.’” When Paul later asked his mother about the name, it made no sense to her, either.
Paul sat with other mediums and a number told him that he had a sister in spirit. One medium told him that his sister had never fully touched the earth plane. Here again was something that made no sense to him, until some 17 years after that 1969 sitting. When he was 43 years old, Paul was informed by his parents that he had been adopted at age five months. After recovering from the shocking revelation, he began searching for his biological parents. Working with Parent Finders Canada, he discovered that his biological mother had died. However, he was able to track down the executor of his birth mother’s estate. “While I was speaking on the phone to her, she mentioned that I would have had a sister, a few years older than me, who had lived only seven days, and her name was, ‘Marianne,’” he continued the spine-tingling story. “At that point I also knew that my birth mother’s father, my grandfather, was ‘Andrew’. The other names in the Tonancas documents were deceased birth family members, as I later discovered, and so Tonancas was right after all. If you were to look at the photos of my birth mother and her husband, you would see a striking resemblance to the young woman in my portrait, as you would see the strong resemblance of my own to my mother. So I did indeed have a very important connection to both the name of Andrew, and to an unknown sister, whose name was Marianne.”
A case from the records of the Society for Psychical Research
Many years earlier, Dr. James H. Hyslop, the founder and director of the American Institute for Scientific Research, which was devoted to the study of abnormal psychology and psychical research, reported on a case in which a man named Frederic L. Thompson, a New York City goldsmith, sought help because visions and hallucinations were threatening his sanity. Thompson informed Hyslop that beginning in 1905 he was “suddenly and inexplicably seized with an impulse to sketch and paint pictures.” Prior to that, he had no real interest or experience in art beyond the engraving required in his occupation. The impulses were accompanied by “hallucinations or visions” of trees and landscapes. He explained that he sometimes felt like a man named Robert Swain Gifford At times he would remark to his wife that “Gifford wants to sketch.”
Thompson had met Gifford some years earlier in the marshes of New Bedford, Massachusetts, as he was hunting and Gifford was sketching. Thompson recalled talking to Gifford for a few minutes on one occasion and just seeing him on a couple of other occasions. Also, he once called on Gifford to show him some jewelry, but that was the extent of their contact. During the latter part of January, 1906, Thompson saw a notice of an exhibition of Gifford’s paintings at an art gallery and went to see them. While looking at one of the paintings on exhibition, Thompson heard a voice in his ear saying, “You see what I have done. Can you not take up and finish my work?” It was after that that he learned that Gifford had died on January 15, 1905, some six months before he developed the interest in painting.
“Whether genuine or not it had sufficient influence on the mind of Mr. Thompson to induce him to go on with his sketching and painting,” Hyslop said of the voice. “From this time on the impulse to paint was stronger, and between this date and the next year he produced a number of paintings of artistic merit sufficient to demand a fair price on their artistic qualities alone, his story being concealed from all but his wife.”
When Thompson showed one of his paintings to an art connoisseur, he was told that it resembled the work of Gifford, even though Thompson made no mention of the Gifford influence. One vision of some gnarled oak trees especially haunted Thompson. He felt he had to find the scene and paint it. It was at this point that he contacted Hyslop. He sketched the gnarled oak trees for Hyslop (below), stressing that the need to find the trees and paint them was overwhelming him and causing him to lose interest in his job.
Since Hyslop had been studying mediumistic phenomena, he arranged to have Thompson sit with three different mediums. All three described someone present who was said to be fond of painting, although none of the three could get his name. One of them did, however, get his initials, R.S.G., for Robert Swain Gifford. One of the mediums described a group of oak trees, which Thompson recognized as those that he had been visualizing for over a year. She could not give a location, but said that one had to take a boat to get there and that it was near the ocean. The second medium also described what she said looked like gnarled old trees near the ocean. A number of other facts suggesting Gifford were also communicated.
Thompson thought the scene might be at Nonquitt, Massachusetts, where Gifford had a summer home which was accessible only by boat. He went there and found several of the scenes he had seen in his visions but not the gnarled oak trees. Inquiring then of Mrs. Gifford, he was told that Gifford’s favorite place was one of the Elizabeth Islands. While Thompson was visiting Mrs. Gifford, he was shown around Gifford’s old studio and was shocked to see three paintings there which were almost mirror images of those he had sketched during his “hallucinations,” one of a man with an ox team.”
Thompson then went to the Elizabeth Islands and found the gnarled oak trees on the island of Nashawena, a place he had never been. He immediately painted the scene ( below). He also found several other scenes he had sketched or painted. While viewing one of them, he heard a voice similar to the one he had heard at the art gallery say, “Go and look on the other side of the tree.” There he found Gifford’s initials carved in the bark of a beach tree in 1902.
“On any theory we ought to recognize that the identity of Mr. Gifford is clear,” Hyslop concluded. “There are perhaps no single incidents that would force one to accept this view, but their collective force is overwhelming and constitutes a mass of relevant hints inapplicable to any one else.”
While skeptics might claim that Thompson made up the whole story and that he actually visited the scenes beforehand and made the sketches he claimed came from his visions, Hyslop saw no motive for such a charade, nor could fraud explain how Thompson suddenly became an accomplished artist with no prior experience or training. Most of all, though, Thompson had no control over the sittings with the mediums, which were arranged and observed by Hyslop. If Thompson had been faking it, how did the mediums come up with so many similar hits?
“Superficially, at least,” Hyslop ended his report, “all the facts point to the spiritistic hypothesis, whatever perplexities exist in regard to the modus operandi of the agencies effecting the result.”
Michael Tymn’s new book The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After we Die is published by White Crow Books and available from Amazon and all good online book stores.
One of the real curiosities of trance mediumship, especially that of yesteryear, is the abundance of Red Indians serving as guides, or, as they are more often referred to, “controls.” Red Cloud, Silver Birch, Red Jacket, Sunflower, Silver Belle, Shenandoah, White Eagle, Silver Star, Chloe, Kokum, Hawk Chief, Chlorine, and Big Horn are some of the guides or controls who come to mind. There were many “controls” without Red Indian names, but the Indians seemed to have a disproportionately high representation.
Recently, however, there have been many interesting reports coming from observers of a group in Montcabirol, France known as the Yellow Cloud Circle. The mediums are Tom Morris and Kevin Lawrenson. Isabelle Duchene of Belgium reported on her sitting with the Yellow Cloud Group at her web site. She states that she was allowed to take a psychic photo (meaning she takes a picture when she feels or sees that the energy of the subject is present) of Yellow Cloud. She further explains that when she took the picture, (with a normal small digital camera) the medium, (who in this case was Kevin Lawrenson) was sitting in the cabinet with the curtain open; the room was dark other than a red light was on. When she looked through the view finder on the camera she saw Kevin sitting in the chair, but when the picture was developed it was as below.
Essentially, the spirit “control” has two duties. The first is to protect the medium from earthbound spirits. There have been reports that many “earthbound” spirits are clamoring to communicate, even if they don’t know the people sitting with the medium. There is concern that the earthbound spirits will attach themselves to the medium’s aura or energy field and negatively influence her or him. It is the duty of the “control” to prevent this from happening, permitting only certain spirits access to the medium. In the protector role, the control is sometimes referred to as the “gatekeeper” or “doorkeeper.”
The second duty is to act as an intermediary on the spirit side, passing on messages from spirits who do not know how to communicate through a medium. In the intermediary role, the control is a medium on that side of the veil, interpreting messages from other spirits and passing them on through the earthly medium to the sitter. Just as few people on this side can communicate directly with spirits, few spirits can communicate directly with those on this side. In effect, the communicating spirit gives a message to the “control” who sends it through the earthly medium to the person sitting with the medium.
There are also some controls, although “guides” may be a better word for them, who are not so much intermediaries as they are teachers. They are more advanced spirits who come to teach higher truths. Silver Birch and Red Cloud were examples of this type, although Red Cloud seems to have functioned both as an intermediary and as a teacher.
Speaking through trance medium Anna Wickland on March 12, 1924, Silver Star, Anna Wickland’s primary “control,” told Dr. Carl Wickland, a Los Angeles psychiatrist and Anna’s husband, that mediums so often have Indians as controls, guides, or helpers because Indians have no beliefs or dogmas to overcome when they pass to the spirit world. So many “pale faces” are grounded in materialism and handicapped by religious dogma and doctrine that they do not know how to control “Nature’s forces.” Unfettered by materialistic attachments and religious dogma, the Indians are able to make a much better adjustment after they transition to “The Happy Hunting Ground” and to “tune in” to various vibrational levels because they have learned to be one with nature during their earth lives.
“Some people think Indians do not know anything because they have not had much schooling,” Silver Star added, “but they have true love for The Great Spirit and a true love for helping others.” Another of Mrs. Wickland’s controls was Movilia, who had been an Eskimo medicine man of high order with a profound knowledge of nature.
Big Horn, the control for Frederic Harding, communicated much the same thing, pointing out that because they grew up close to nature they were more attuned to the Infinite Spirit in all things and therefore they more easily adjusted to the vibrations of the spirit world. However, he went on to say that “the white man’s greed, his abuse of the earliest trust of the natives, his false trading, his loose moral code, his inconsistent religious life, and above all, his ‘fire water’ gradually and inevitably corrupted, embittered and ruined the spiritual life of the Red People.”
Silver Birch, the guide for British trance medium Maurice Barbanell, said that he was not a Red Indian. “I am using the astral body of a Red Indian because this particular one had many psychic gifts on earth and therefore became available for me when I was asked to return and engage on this mission,” he explained. “My life on earth goes back as an individual much further than the Red Indian I use to speak to you.”
The communicating entity further explained that Silver Birch was his medium on that side, just as Barbanell was the medium in the world of those in attendance at the séance. “I had to have what in your world would be a transformer, someone through whom the vibrations can be stepped up or slowed down so that I can achieve communication on your level,” the entity explained.
The entity using Silver Birch’s astral body, stressed that his identity in the earth life made no difference as no one would be able to prove it one way or the other anyway. He asked to be judged solely on what he had to say. He added that his knowledge comes from the infinite source and streams through countless beings, “each charged with particular tasks to ensure that as much of its purity and pristine beauty should be preserved. There is a great host of beings, ranging from what you might call the masters. They are beyond such descriptions.”
Still another mysterious entity was Red Cloud, the control of British medium Estelle Roberts. In addition to acting as a go-between for Roberts during sittings, he also, like Silver Birch, delivered many lectures on philosophical matters. In her autobiography, Roberts said than in her nearly 50 years of being controlled by Red Cloud, his true identity was never revealed. “He has never told us who he was on earth,” she wrote. “When asked, he has always answered: ‘Know me by my works.’ We know that he passed this way before us, when he probably dwelt in Egypt…We know that his identity as a Red Indian is a cloak which is assumed in order to make receptive by us the very high vibrations that are naturally his because of his advanced spiritual attainment.”
London Fleet Street journalist Hannen Swaffer sat with Roberts on numerous occasions during the 1930s. “Red Cloud cannot be described,” he wrote. “When you know him you love him, so full is he of wisdom, kindness and helpfulness. He never speaks ill of anybody and never condemns. Often he breaks into poetry, blank verse and rhyme mixed up, much of it perfect metre and rhythm and occasionally almost Shakespearean in its beauty…Often he uses language so beautiful that you find tears in your eyes, and you are glad it is dark. Sometimes he quotes modern poetry which the medium has never read. When asked where he obtains it, he tells you he has access to all the literature and poetry that has ever been written. He speaks of the ‘Council’ on the Other Side. He personifies a Plan. His knowledge of the Bible is amazing. Yet, although he prefers to be known as an Indian, I feel certain it is only a cloak that hides his real self.”
When they are not Indians, they are often young children. “When a spirit who has lived to an old age on earth acts as guide, through his contact with matter he is apt to sense his last physical condition and this often leaves an old and tired feeling with the medium, while children bring a youthful magnetism,” Dr. Wickland was told by a communicating spirit.
When scientists and scholars began investigating the mediumship of Leonora Piper, a Boston, Mass. trance medium, back in 1885, they jumped to the conclusion that her primary spirit control, identifying himself as “Dr. Phinuit,” a former French holistic physician, was a secondary personality buried in Mrs. Piper’s subconscious, as they could find no record of Phinuit having existed as a human (although many records which may have verified his existence were destroyed during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870). Somehow, they reasoned, this secondary personality could tap into the minds of sitters and feed information back to them. When information came through that was unknown to the sitters but later confirmed as fact, the researchers broadened the telepathy hypothesis by suggesting that the secondary personality could access minds anywhere in the world and even dip into some cosmic reservoir for information, then somehow organize all of the data and carry on a conversation with the sitters and the researchers. Any hypothesis, no matter how far-fetched, was preferable to spirits, as believing in spirits would have meant a return to religious superstition in an age of enlightenment.
But then a spirit named “George Pellew” started taking over from Dr. Phinuit. Pellew had just died in a fall a few months earlier and was known to Dr. Richard Hodgson, the chief researcher. He gave every indication of being the same George Pellew that Hodgson had known. Hodgson and many other researchers then abandoned the secondary personality hypothesis and moved to a belief that the spirit control was just what it claimed to be – the spirit of a dead person. .
But many modern parapsychologists see the secondary personality hypothesis as more acceptable because it “more scientific.” What none of them seems to be able to explain, though, is why all of these secondary personalities are liars. Why are all claiming to be spirits of the dead? Or to put it another way, why is the subconscious trying to trick the conscious and the sitters into believing it is the spirit of a dead person – Red Indian or otherwise. It is one thing to believe that a few minds are so warped as to play tricks on the conscious self and others, but it seems highly unlikely that all minds want to play the same game with the conscious self. If so, they must be in some way programmed to carry out the imposture. If that is the case, who programmed them all? If God did the programming, why is He, She, or It trying to trick everyone into believing in spirits? It simply doesn’t make sense.
After studying Mrs. Piper for nearly 18 years, Dr. Hodgson died on December 20, 1905 while playing handball. On May 6, 1906, M. A. De Wolfe Howe paid tribute to Hodgson at the annual meeting of the Tavern Club in Boston. In that tribute he read from a private letter written by Hodgson in 1901. Hodgson wrote: “I went through toils and turmoils and perplexities in ’97 and ’98 about the significance of this whole Imperator regime (a spirit called Imperator replaced Dr. Phinuit and George Pellew as Mrs. Piper’s control), but I have seemed to get on a rock after that – I seem to understand clearly the reasons for the incoherence and obscurity, etc., and I think that if for the rest of my life from now I should never see another trance or have another word from Imperator or his group, it would make no difference to my knowledge that all is well, that Imperator, etc., are all they claim to be and are indeed messengers that we may call divine.”
Michael Tymn’s new book The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After we Die is published by White Crow Books and available from Amazon and all good online books stores.
“Show me the proof!” the skeptic, or pseudoskeptic, demands when it comes to various paranormal phenomena, especially those suggesting spirits of the dead. But, as Arthur S. Berger, a retired lawyer, points out in his recent book, Evidence of Life After Death, “proof” is subjective. It is the “evidence” that must be weighed by the individual in arriving at his or her own estimate of “proof.”
Berger analyzes 30 cases reported to the Survival Research Foundation and other research organizations suggesting spirits and the survival of consciousness at death. He presents the arguments for survival, the counter-arguments, the arguments to the counter arguments and so on, leaving it to the reader to come to his or her own conclusion relative to proof. One of the more interesting cases examined by Berger is referred to as “The Paraffin Glove Case.” It is certainly one of the most intriguing cases in the annals of psychical research. It strongly suggests spirits, but, as with every case there is always room for doubt. Here is a summary of that case:
The experiments were conducted during the latter months of 1920 by Dr. Gustave Geley, a French physician who taught medicine at the University of Lyons before becoming the director of the Institut Metapsychique International in Paris, where he devoted full time to studying mediumship and other paranormal phenomena. The medium in this case was Franek Kluski, a 50-year-old Polish writer and poet who had discovered his mediumistic abilities just 18 months before Geley began studying him.
Charles Richet, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of medicine at the University of Paris and the 1913 Nobel Prize winner in medicine, assisted Geley in some of the 14 experiments with Kluski as did Camille Flammarion, a world-renowned astronomer. All of the experiments were conducted in Geley’s laboratory behind locked doors under strictly controlled conditions. There was no opportunity for the medium to smuggle anything into the room and the medium was always searched before entering the room. With some mediums, so careful was Geley that he went so far as to require gynecological and rectal examinations to be certain nothing was smuggled into the room in an orifice of the body. Because the ectoplasm produced by mediums is sensitive to bright lights, red lights were used, permitting adequate visibility, although it was inadequate for photography and there was concern that flash photography would injure the medium as it had reportedly done with other mediums (since the ectoplasm has to be reabsorbed by the medium).
Kluski’s mediumship was of the materialization type, although he apparently was not developed enough, or strong enough, to produce full materializations. Faces, arms, and hands were usually observed. “I saw a hand at the end of an arm form under my eyes, cross the circle in front of Mr. Kluski and touch Mme. Geley, who was facing me,” Geley recorded one of many observations. “It was a masculine hand, very well formed. The wrist was slender, the forearm and upper arm were enveloped in white tissue with regular longitudinal folds. Immediately after the contact felt by Mme. Geley the hand disappeared.”
Geley noted that Kluski’s ectoplasm was of the vaporous type rather than the more liquid form he had observed with other mediums. “The usual course of the phenomena,” Geley wrote, “is as follows: First a strong odor of ozone is perceptible…The smell of ozone comes and goes suddenly. Then, in weak light, slightly phosphorescent vapor floats around the medium, especially above his head, like light smoke, and in it there are gleams like foci of condensation. These lights were usually many, tenuous, and ephemeral, but sometimes they were larger and more lasting, and then gave the impression of being luminous parts of organs otherwise invisible, especially finger ends or parts of faces. When materialization was complete, fully formed hands and faces could be seen.”
Geley further noted that the lights represent the first stages of materialization. They would sometimes disappear at once and sometimes proceed to characteristic human forms.
As Geley, Richet, and other researchers came to see it, the fact that many of the materialized forms were incomplete or fragmentary, sometimes very hokey looking, did not suggest fraud, as many skeptics assumed. Rather, they were simply indications that the medium was not strong enough or developed enough to produce complete materializations. In fact, the incomplete and stranger manifestations seemed to run contrary to any fraud explanation as it is highly unlikely that a charlatan would have expected anyone to believe they were real in the first place.
Geley decided to see if he could get the “entities” – it would have been very “unscientific” for him to speak of them as “spirits” – to produce paraffin molds of their hands, feet, or even their faces. “The procedure is to set a bowl containing paraffin wax, kept at a melting point by being floated on warm water, near the medium,” he explained. “The materialized ‘entity’ is asked to plunge a hand, foot, or even part of a face into the paraffin several times. A closely fitting envelope is thus formed, which sets at once in air or by being dipped into another bowl of cold water. This envelope or ‘glove’ is then freed by demateriazation of the member. Plaster can be poured at leisure into the glove, thus giving a perfect cast of the hand.”
Communication from with the “entities” was carried out by loud raps, e.g., one rap for no, three for yes, and so many for each letter of the alphabet, and there was no question in Geley’s mind that there was some kind of intelligence operating. At one sitting, the entities asked those in the room to sing, apparently because more harmony was needed, and as they sang, Geley and the others heard hand clapping, apparently from several entities.
To completely rule out any sleight of hand by Kluski – although Geley and the others were certain he was not a trickster – Richet held one of Kluski’s hands while Geley held the other during the experiment. In their experiment of November 15, the hand of a child was produced in the paraffin. In a later experiment, on December 27, Geley and Richet added some bluish coloring matter to the paraffin. “This was done secretly, to be an absolute proof that the molds were made on the spot and not brought ready-made into the laboratory by Franek or any other person and passed off on us by legerdemain,” Geley further explained. Two very good hand molds were obtained, one a left and one a right hand, both the size of children five to seven years old.” He further noted that both had a blue tinge to them.
“In completing our investigations, we have verified that the lines of the hands have nothing in common with those of the medium” Geley wrote, mentioning that even though the hands were all smaller than Kluski’s he still had them examined by M. Bayle, a criminologist at the Paris police department, to confirm they had nothing in common. “The answer can scarcely leave room for doubt,” Geley concluded. “They present all the characters of human members – perfect form, lines of the hand, nails, crinkles of the skin, marks of bony protuberances, tendons, and sometimes even the small veins on the back of the hands. Nothing is wanting. We have shown these casts to artists, painters, sculptors, and molders, and to many medical men. The verdict of all has been unanimous – they are molds of human hands.” Geley also noted that traces of muscular contraction indicate that the hands were “alive.”
And so what is to be made of the paraffin hands? Is it evidence of spirits? Does the evidence add up to proof for those with open minds? As Berger points out, if a person is willing to accept the credibility of Geley, Richet, and the others conducting the experiments, it is very difficult to conclude that fraud was involved. Then again, there is a school of thought, one which Richet subscribed to, which holds that the subconscious mind is capable of producing such phenomena, even though science is incapable of understanding it. Publicly, Richet, while recognizing the reality of various phenomena, rejected the spirit hypothesis, perhaps out of concern for his high standing in the scientific community, although there were indications that privately he accepted it.
“There is ample proof that experimental materialization (ectoplasmic) should take definite rank as a scientific fact,” wrote Richet, who won the Nobel Prize for his research on anaphylaxis, the sensitivity of the body to alien protein substance. “Assuredly, we do not understand it. It is very absurd, if a truth can be absurd.”
Before he was killed in a 1924 plane crash, Geley concluded that the Self both pre-exists and survives the grouping which it directs during one’s earth life, “that it more particularly survives its lower objectification during this life. This may at least be admitted, if not as a mathematical certainty, at least as a high probability.”
And that “high probability” seems to equate to the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard which Berger holds to in his book. However, that is the standard in criminal law. The “preponderance of evidence” standard of civil law is much easier to meet than the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard, so even if there is reasonable doubt one can still conclude that there is a preponderance of evidence in favor of spirits. In effect, that means that the spirit hypothesis is more likely than the fraud, subconscious, or any other far-fetched explanation.
Still, the closed-minded “skeptic” insists that those esteemed men of science must have been duped somehow, because there is no spirit world and therefore fraud is the only explanation. The regurgitation theory was advanced by some “skeptics.” That is, the medium swallowed the material before going into the room and then regurgitated it after entering the room, the dim red light preventing the researchers from detecting it. However, Geley and other researchers were aware of this theory and took special precautions to rule it out. With another medium studied by Geley, a hard-core materialist, upon hearing of all the controls exercised by Geley, suggested that perhaps the medium had a false tooth in which she smuggled various things into the room. And so it goes, if there is a “will to disbelieve,” there is never enough “proof” for the “skeptic” and there apparently never will be.
Michael Tymn’s new book The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After we Die is published by White Crow Books and available from Amazon and all good online books stores.
Are Poltergeists Real? British Researcher Says Yes
Posted on 11 July 2011, 21:09
In a 1995 book titled Bizarre Beliefs, the authors emphatically stated that “there are no ghosts, no poltergeists, and no hauntings. They are all mistaken, imaginary or fakes.” Much of mainstream science shares this view, but Guy Lyon Playfair, a British journalist, author, and psychical researcher, knows better, as he has been involved in investigating a number of poltergeists, including the Enfield Poltergeist, one of the most intriguing cases in the annals of psychical research. He will agree with the “bizarre” part, but definitely not with the denial of such phenomena.
“Some take the easy way out of the dilemma and simply put their heads back in the sand,” Playfair writes in his book, This House is Haunted, which is about the Enfield Poltergeist, first published in 1980 and recently updated and republished by White Crow Books.
The Enfield case took place during 1977 and ’78 in the northern London suburb of Enfield. It involved a divorced mother, Peggy Harper, and her four children, Rose, 13, Janet, 11, Pete, 10, and Jimmy, 7. The phenomena included large pieces of furniture being overturned, objects flying through the air and floating through walls, dancing slippers, levitations, coins falling from the ceiling, strange voices that often responded to questions, people thrown from their beds and chairs, mysterious writing on the walls, electronic disturbances, a number of ghostly apparitions, stones seemingly falling from the sky, excreta appearing in the sink and on walls, inexplicable outbreaks of fire, and mysterious knocks and footsteps.
As a member of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), Playfair, a Cambridge graduate who spent many years as a freelance journalist for The Economist, Time, and the Associated Press, was, along with fellow SPR member Maurice Grosse, asked to investigate the anomalous activity at the Harper home. Beginning in September 1977, the two researchers devoted some 14 months to investigating the case, often spending nights at the Harpers’ home and observing first hand some of the bizarre phenomena, which gradually declined and ended in early 1979.
I recently had the opportunity to put some questions to Playfair by e-mail. Here is our exchange, with apologies to Playfair for converting the King’s English to the more crude American English.
Guy, your book gives a lot of detail relating to your observations in Enfield, but I am wondering if there is one thing among the many things you experienced and witnessed that stands out more than the others.
“Yes, indeed – what we call the passage of matter through matter, or if you prefer de- and rematerialization. I’ve observed this directly (on another case) and several times indirectly at Enfield – the book that turned up in the house next door and the cushion that appeared on the roof in full view of a tradesman who was walking towards the house, to name just two of the best witnessed incidents. This is a real challenge to science, and pretending the evidence isn’t there is not the way science
advances. I don’t just believe it happens, I know it does. I’ve seen it happen. It never seems to be discussed sensibly and it’s time it was. The scientific community has just ignored it.”
As you point out in the book, the two leading theories concerning poltergeists are that they are spirits of the dead or dissociated fragments of the personality of someone living in the home, in this case Janet, the 11-year-old. You concluded that the truth is probably a combination of the two. Would you mind elaborating on that a little?
“I’m a writer with a journalistic background, not a scientific one, so I concentrate on reporting the evidence as accurately as I can and leave the theorizing to the scientists. I definitely think there has to be what we might call a discarnate component. I mean – how can a dissociated fragment of a living person make a book go through a wall? There has to be another level of reality and another dimension of space involved. That’s what makes people uncomfortable and go to the lengths that they do to deny the evidence. (I like making scientists uncomfortable).”
I was most intrigued by the voice or voices. You describe them as being loud and guttural, nothing like Janet’s normal voice. Ventriloquism was considered and ruled out. Although different entities communicated, did they all sound the same?
“Yes, they were intriguing. The speech therapist we brought in was totally freaked out. We established that Janet was using her false vocal folds (plica ventricularis), which you can’t normally use for long without doing damage to your vocal cords.
That’s just one of the things we discovered that should be of scientific interest and it’s a pity the so-called expert wasn’t interested. She just wanted to get out of the house. She might have written an interesting journal paper, but no doubt was scared of losing her job if she had.
“The voices did vary, yes. Some were very convincing, giving the impression of a confused earthbound entity, and saying things that proved to be true although nobody in the family knew it at the time, such as the bit about going blind and dying in the armchair downstairs, as the previous owner did. That was only verified years after the case ended. How would Janet have known that? But yes, some of the Voices did seem to be coming from bits of her unconscious. This deep voice coming from a young girl phenomenon is well known. Oesterreich’s ‘Possession Demoniacal and Other’ gives several examples from the 19th century. It does take time for science to catch up with real life.”
So much of this sounds like the Fox sisters of early Spiritualism history – knocks and raps, a man who had died in the house communicating, and then the newspapers offering bribes for a confession from the girls. Why do you think the newspapers and so many of your research colleagues would prefer the fraud explanation?
“Yes, there were similarities, and I’m sure the family had never heard of the Fox sisters. They had never even heard of the word poltergeist. Janet called it the ‘polka dice’. As for fraud, it’s quite right to be suspicious. The girls did play some tricks later on, we knew that at the time and they knew we knew. It was no big deal. And as they have repeatedly admitted, we always caught them. The tricks were a sign that things were getting back to normal. But if you go for a fraud explanation, you have to account for every single one of the hundreds of incidents we witnessed, and no critic has attempted to do that. Easier to mutter something vague about ‘later, the girls confessed…’ as if that explained away the whole case. I often wonder just how much evidence you need to change people’s minds.”
You mentioned that just last year there was a breakthrough in poltergeist research, at least to the extent that the rapping sounds made by poltergeists are not the same as normal raps. Would you explain a little more about that research?
“Yes. This is very important, and it’s rather a sad story. I’ll try to keep it short. In 1973, on a poltergeist case in São Paulo (Brazil), I managed to record some very loud bangs on the floor that weren’t made by anybody living. Then my colleague Suzuko
Hashizume and I decided to do some banging ourselves for comparison. I’d hoped that somebody could study the sounds and see if ours were in any way different from those made by the Thing. We never managed to do this, and we didn’t know that several other people had recorded poltergeist raps including the BBC. In 2009 a colleague from the Society for Psychical Research named Barrie Colvin decided to look into the matter, and I helped him compile a collection of about 12 tapes from different cases. He ran them through his oscilloscope and saw at once that the poltergeist raps were quite unlike normal ones. You can find the details in the Journal of the SPR for April 2010. That was the good news. The bad news is that we sent out a press release to about 35 papers, magazines, radio and TV programs hoping that they would be interested in our instrumentally recorded and easily repeated hard evidence for an unexplained effect.
They weren’t. Only two mentioned Barrie’s work, and they were the two where I had a personal contact. Many of them devoted whole pages to a book by Richard Wiseman that came out a few months later and rubbished the whole psi research scene. That’s what I’ve come to expect from the media today, although back in 1977-78 we had massive coverage of the Enfield case, mostly very positive. But that was before the professional wreckers moved in.”
In 2010 there was a major breakthrough in poltergeist research when Dr Barrie Colvin published the results of his study of tape recordings from a dozen cases in five countries in which rapping sounds presumed to be of poltergeist origin were recorded on tape. Comparing these with raps made by normal means, he found that the acoustic signatures were quite different, as can be seen in the above charts of raps recorded at Enfield. The bottom chart shows what three raps made by Playfair on the living room ceiling look like. The top chart shows the signature of a rap from the bedroom above, recorded on the same tape shortly afterwards. In all of the normal raps Colvin studied when he tapped wineglasses, struck piano keys, or made any other kind of percussive sound, the signature began at full amplitude and rapidly declined. All of the poltergeist raps he examined, without exception, did not, and reminded experts of signatures recorded during earthquakes. This discrepancy awaits explanation. Colvin’s findings were published in the April 2010 issue of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research and are reproduced here with his permission.
You wrote that it was becoming apparent to you at some point in your investigation that paranormal events only take place in the presence of people who believe them to be possible. Why do you think that is?
“I have no idea, but it’s something I keep noticing. Parapsychologists like to talk about the ‘experimenter effect’ which I am sure is much stronger than they think. All the really successful experimenters I know began their careers not just believing in the possibility of psi (telepathy, etc.) but knowing it from their own or their parents’ experience. Maurice Grosse had considerable experience of anomalous phenomena before he went to Enfield, as I also had from my time in Brazil.”
I gather that you have investigated other poltergeist cases, especially in Brazil. Were they similar to the Enfield case?
“No two cases are identical, but there does seem to be a poltergeist syndrome with about 15-20 common symptoms. You don’t get all the same symptoms on all cases but the symptoms themselves don’t vary much from case to case. You do get national variations – Brazilian poltergeists are far more violent and destructive than ours. Nearly all the cases I was involved in there showed signs of black magic at work, which British poltergeists don’t as a rule.”
Do you really think that science will someday have a better answer for us as to what poltergeists really are?
“Not if scientists continue to ignore the evidence, as they did when Barrie Colvin published his findings, and when I published mine thirty years earlier. In fact there is more than a thousand years of it. You may have gathered by now that I’m not very impressed by scientists.”
And what do you feel about the case now, more than 30 years later?
“Huge gratitude to Peggy H. for letting me invade her home for more than a year, and equally huge admiration for her immense resilience at a time of prolonged and severe stress that would have left many weaker women in hospital with nervous
breakdowns, and equally grateful to Maurice Grosse for the way he managed to combine the roles of investigator, counsellor and friend of the family. Both are sadly missed. Disillusion with the scientific establishment for refusing even to examine instrumentally recorded and properly documented evidence for anomalous events, of which there is plenty from Enfield. The Greeks, of course, had a word for it - Misoneism (hatred of new ideas).”
This House is Haunted is published by White Crow Books and available in paperback and ebook formats from Amazon and all good online stores. This House Is Haunted
Try Shock Therapy To Protect Against Vagabond Spirits?
Posted on 27 June 2011, 22:36
The annual conference of the Spirit Release Foundation (SRF) took place this past weekend (June 25-26) at the Royal Agricultural College in the beautiful Cotswold countryside of England. Founded in July 1999, the SRF is a professional organization dedicated to Spirit Release Therapy. At its website (www.spiritrelease.com), there is a list of therapists who may be able to help with cases of spirit attachment.
Such an organization no doubt draws many guffaws from mainstream medicine and probably involves some degree of professional suicide for those who dare believe that many of our mental health problems are a result of some form of spirit possession. Brazil probably has the most believers and healers in this area of belief. According to Dr. Emma Bragdon, a North American who has spent the last 10 years studying the Spiritist healing methods in Brazil, there are now 50 Spiritist psychiatric hospitals in that country, some of them dating back to the 1930s, using some form of spirit release therapy alongside conventional care. The Spiritist philosophy traces its origin back to Allan Kardec, a French educator and psychical researcher. (www.emmabragdon.com/books-2/).
Apparently, there are many earthbound spirits floundering around in the vibrational vicinity of the earth plane looking for opportunities to attach themselves in some way to the auras of those of us still incarnate. In her 1999 book, Freeing Captives, the late Dr. Louise Ireland-Frey discussed various degrees of attachment, beginning with temptation and continuing on through shadowing, oppression, obsession, and possession.
Ireland-Frey, who earned her M.D. at Tulane University, said that it was not until late in her medical career, while studying hypnotherapy, that she came to recognize and understand spirit attachment.
One of the pioneers of spirit release therapy in the United States was Carl A. Wickland, M.D., a psychiatrist who specialized in cases of schizophrenia, paranoia, depression, addiction, manic-depression, criminal behavior and phobias of all kind. In his 1924 book, Thirty Years Among the Dead, which is now available from Whitecrow Books, Wickland stated that much of such mental illness is caused by intruding, or obsessing, spirits.
“Spirit obsession is a fact – a perversion of a natural law – and is amply demonstrable,” Wickland wrote. “This has been proven hundreds of times by causing the supposed insanity or aberration to be temporarily transferred from the victim to a psychic sensitive who is trained for the purpose, and by this method ascertain the cause of the psychosis to be an ignorant or mischievous spirit, whose identity may frequently be verified.”
Wickland’s wife, Anna, was a trance medium. (Carl & Anna Wickland below) Their method of combating the vagabond spirits attached to Wickland’s patients was to administer an electrical charge to the patient and drive the obsessing spirits from the patient to Mrs. Wickland. These obsessing spirits would then talk to Dr. Wickland using Anna Wickland’s body. Nearly all of them didn’t know they were “dead” and so Wickland explained their plight to them.
Mrs. Wickland was said to be protected from the vagabond spirits remaining with her by a group of strong intelligences known as “The Mercy Band.” As a representative of this Mercy band explained to Wickland, these earthbound entities become attracted to certain humans and attach themselves to the human aura, unwittingly conveying their thoughts to these individuals. It was further explained that the earthbound spirits could not be helped by spirits on their side until they recognized they were “dead.”
With one patient, Wickland related, he conversed with 21 different spirits through his wife. In all, they spoke six different languages even though Anna Wickland spoke only Swedish and English.
In Thirty Years, Wickland sets forth numerous cases of spirit release dislodgement, including the dialogue that went on between him and the vagabond spirits attached to his patients. As an example, with a patient identified only as “Miss R.F.” a spirit identified as Edward Sterling began speaking through Mrs. Wickland’s vocal cords. At first, he didn’t remember his last name and couldn’t remember what town he was from although he knew he was born in Iowa. When asked what year it was, Edward said it was 1901 (the year he had died). Wickland informed him that it was now 1920. Edward struggled to understand why his hair was now long and he had on women’s clothes. Wickland explained to him that he was now “dead” and occupying his wife’s body. “If I was dead I would go to the grave and stay there until the last day,” Edward responded. “You stay there until Gabriel blows the horn.”
At the end of a long conversation, Wickland seems to have convinced Sterling that his physical body had died, but that his spirit body was very much alive and that he should detach himself from Miss R.F. and let her get on with her own life. Wickland noted people take their beliefs with them when they die and that the false teachings of religion often keep them earthbound.
With a patient referrerd to as “Mrs. R.,” a spirit named Ralph Stevenson took over Mrs. Wickland’s body and began speaking to Dr. Wickland. Stevenson said he was “straggling along” when he saw a “light,” so he came in. However, he couldn’t figure out who he was or where he was. He thought it was 1902, when, in fact, it was 1919. When Wickland asked him how long he had been dead, Stevenson replied: “Dead, you say? Why I’m not dead; I wish I were.” Wickland asked him why he preferred to be dead and Stevenson said things had been very unpleasant for him. “If I am dead, then it is very hard to be dead,” he said. “I have tried and tried to die, but it seems every single time I come to life again. Why is it that I cannot die?”
Stevenson went on to say that he often thinks he is dead, but then he is alive again. “Sometimes I get in places (auras) but I am always pushed out in the dark again, and I go from place to place. I cannot find my home and I cannot die.” Wickland noted that Mrs. R., his patient, had often talked about killing herself. Further conversation with Stevenson revealed that he and a young woman named Alice were engaged to be married. However, when her parents objected to the marriage, he decided to kill Alice and himself. After killing Alice, he said he could not kill himself. In fact, he did succeed in killing himself after shooting Alice, but he assumed that he had failed and had been on the run ever since.
After Wickland convinced him that he, in fact, had succeeded in killing himself, Stevenson recognized his mother (in spirit). The mother then took over Mrs. Wickland’s body and explained that she had been trying to get through to her son for a long time, but he had built up a barrier that she could not penetrate until now. “He ran away from me whenever he saw me, and neither Alice nor I could come near him,” the mother communicated. “He thought he was alive and that he had not killed himself. Some time ago he came in contact with a sensitive person, a woman (Mrs. R), and has been obsessing her, but he thought he was in prison.”
Another of Wickland’s patients was a pharmacist with a drug addiction problem, especially addicted to morphine. After the patient was administered an electrical shock, the obsessing spirit jumped into Mrs. Wickland’s entranced body. Mrs. Wickland’s body then began violently coughing. Dr. Wickland asked what the problem was and the spirit replied that she was dying and needed some morphine. Wickland explained to her that she was already dead, but the spirit ignored his comments and continued to beg for morphine.
Wickland managed to calm her down enough to further explain the situation to her and ask her for a name. At first she couldn’t remember, but after several moments of searching gave her name as Elizabeth Noble. She said that she was 42 years old and was living in El Paso, Texas. After again begging for morphine, she noticed her husband, Frankie, standing there (in spirit). Frank Noble then took over Mrs. Wickland’s body and explained to Wickland that he had died before his wife and had been trying to get her to realize she had “passed out,” but had been unsuccessful. He thanked Wickland for explaining the situation to her and said that she would now understand and be better.
Dr. Wickland’s book reminded me of an experience concerning my father many years ago. Sometime around 1960, Dad bought an “electric shock box” at a second-hand store. He said they were very common during his younger years (early 1900s) and were “good for the nerves.” The box had two terminals with hand grips. After getting a good grip with each hand, you flipped a switch and got a continuous shock until the switch was turned off. Dad liked to challenge me, my brothers, and others to see who could take the electrical shock the longest. He would grit his teeth and take the shock for 15 or 20 seconds, his massive muscles twitching the whole time. Neither I nor the other challengers lasted more than a few seconds before yelling “Stop!” The possibility that the electrical shock was driving out obsessing spirits never really occurred to me and I don’t think it ever occurred to my father. (Egon Tymn below) In retrospect, however, it was about that time that my father changed from having a very volatile nature to a relatively mellow one. I always thought it was a result of aging, but now I am wondering if the shock box might have been responsible.
To my knowledge, the therapists practicing spirit release therapy today do not use electrical shock treatments, but perhaps they should. Maybe we should all keep an electric shock box around the house.
Michael Tymn’s new book The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After We Die is published this month in paperback and eBook formats by White Crow Books.
The key to a good death, the speaker on the subject of “compassion in dying,” told the audience is “making the most of each day.” She also expressed it as “living life to the fullest” and “living in the moment.” The audience, which included many hospice workers, nodded its assent, as if the speaker had provided new wisdom.
My reaction at the end of the presentation was one of bewilderment as the speaker never once touched upon the spiritual aspects of dying. She never even alluded to the possibility that consciousness survives physical death. I later found out that, even though it is the most important issue relating to a dying person, hospice policy discourages such discussions.
I wondered what a dying person should do to “make the most of each day.” Should he or she plan an around-the-world trip? What if the person does not have enough physical strength to leave his or her bedroom or house? What if the person is already doing pretty much everything he or she can to make the most of each day?
I began to daydream and envisioned myself as a hospice patient with just days or weeks to live. I was standing in the middle of the main room. There were seven other people in the room Four of them were sitting in front of a TV set, while two were playing checkers and one was reading. I wandered over to the TV group and noted that they were watching “Dr. Phil,” who was talking with members of a typical American family, the father being an alcoholic, the mother a hundred pounds overweight, their 19-year-old son unemployed and a drug addict, and their 15-year-old daughter seven months pregnant. I wondered how I might enjoy this program and was curious as to how the others were incorporating it into this wise philosophy of making the most of the moment. When I looked around, two of the four were sleeping, apparently feeling the effects of their pain medication. Of the two who were awake, one had her head hanging, eye lids at half mast and lip drooping while staring off into space. The one person watching the TV was a man. He was smiling and seemingly enjoying the program. I asked him if he found the program entertaining. He replied in the affirmative, explaining that seeing the world so screwed up makes it easier for him to accept death.
I asked the woman who was reading what the book was all about and she responded that it was a romance novel. Clearly, living in the moment, for her, meant an escape from reality, which is pretty much what all fictional stories are. Just then the hospice director walked into the room and yelled out, “Is everyone having fun?” There was a moan and a groan, to which the hospice director cheerfully reacted, “Great! Don’t forget bingo after dinner.”
I walked over to the two checker players, who were just finishing up a game. One of them was tired and needed to go to his room and give himself a shot, so the other one asked me if I wanted to join him for a game. I sat down and played a game, but all the while I played I kept wondering what difference does it make if I win or lose this game. If I win, so what? If I lose, so what? When I’m dead will it make any difference that I won a game of checkers? My checkers opponent mentioned that his daughter and grandson had paid him a visit the day before. I asked him if they had a good visit. He sort of shrugged and said his daughter brought her lap top and spent the whole time making a list of his assets while his grandson went off in a corner to play games on his iPod and hardly spoke to him.
I walked outside and saw one of the patients painting a landscape. She said she was going to give it to her son to hang in his house and hoped that he would pass it on to future generations as part of her legacy. I could envision the son hanging it in an out-of-the-way corner of a spare bedroom or in the laundry room, noticing it a few seconds every month, but then I had a vision of the son dying and the grandchildren, covered in tattoos and with their noses, tongues, and lips all pierced with jewelry, selling the painting at a garage sale. There also, in a box of frames, selling for 50 cents each, was a photo of old grandma. So much for her legacy?
I walked around to the other side of the house and met a middle-aged man who was puffing away on a cigarette and looking quite weary and nervous. I started up a conversation with him and found out that just before being admitted to hospice he had, after being told that he had only months to live, taken the trip of a lifetime to various foreign countries. He consorted with many women of easy virtue, got drunk every night, and had a ball. It was eat, drink, and be merry. But it was all over now and he had to face up to dying. I asked him about his spiritual beliefs and he said he had none. He didn’t believe that anything came after death, but reasoned that he would be extinct and wouldn’t know about it anyway. “So why worry about it?” he asked with a certain bravado, as he seemed to shake in his boots while stomping out his fourth or fifth cigarette and reaching for another one, fumbling it as he attempted to grasp it between his lips and light it.
I returned to the painter and asked her about her spiritual beliefs. She said that her pastor told her that she would sleep in her grave until some far off judgment day and thus she found the prospect of life after death of little comfort. Moreover, she figured that her deceased husband was burning in hell for the all the grief he gave her and so she wasn’t sure if there would be anyone there she knew.
My checkers opponent came out into the yard, and I asked him about his spiritual beliefs and whether they offered him any comfort. “We’re not supposed to think or talk about those things,” he gruffly replied. “We’ve got to finish living this life first.” The TV watcher and the book reader were also outside by then and both nodded that they agreed with the checkers player. “We’ll deal with that when the time comes,” one of them exclaimed.
When it was time for bingo, each of us was asked to contribute a prize and leave it on the table in front. I contributed copies of my two books, The Articulate Dead and The Afterlife Revealed, the latter being the Kindle version, hoping that they might give someone hope during his or her final days. The other contributions included a bottle of wine, a Lady Gaga recording, a murder mystery book, a pack of cigarettes, a painting of a vase, a used necktie, a certificate for three free dancing lessons, and a bar of soap.
One by one, the prizes went. The bottle of wine went first, followed by the free dancing lessons. I was the third to yell “Bingo!” and opted for the bar of soap. In the end, my two books remained on the table. When the last person went up to collect his prize, he looked at the books, curled his nose and walked back to his seat with nothing in hand.
As the hospice director saw it, we each made the most of that day. We were entertained by television, books, and games, were each able to win at bingo, and we were able to go outside and smell the roses. Can it get any more exciting?
As Professor William James of Harvard, one of the pioneers of psychology, saw it, “the luster of the present hour is always borrowed from the background of possibilities it goes with.” In other words, you can’t effectively “live in the present” without considering the future. “Every one knows how when a painful thing has to be undergone in the near future, the vague feeling that it is impending penetrates all our thought with uneasiness and subtly vitiates our mood even when it does not control our attention,” James added. “It keeps us from being at rest, at home in the given present.”
But we remain a nation of Philistines when it comes to dealing with death and talking about the afterlife. “We make rounds and talk about many trivialities or the wonderful weather outside and the sensitive patient will play the game and talk about next spring, even if he is quite aware there will be no next spring for him,” wrote Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, who attempted, with very limited success, to revolutionize our approach to dying and death. “These doctors then, will tell us that their patients do not want to know the truth, that they never ask for it, and that they believe all is well. The doctors are, in fact, greatly relieved that they are not confronted and are often quite unaware that they provoked this response in their patients.”
If some enlightened physician or hospice worker attempts to discuss what comes after death with a dying patient, he or she risks saying something that conflicts with Scripture – or rather with modern interpretations given to Scripture – and thereby invites sanctions by the hospice chaplain or the individual’s pastor. Thus, better to say nothing at all.
And so the only alternative is to “live in the moment” and not think about what might come later. We need to repress all thoughts of death, escape into as much fiction as possible, whether on television or in a book, and enjoy those bingo games.
Michael Tymn’s new book The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After We Die is published this month in paperback and eBook formats by White Crow Books.
PROFESSOR DARES TO DISCUSS ‘LIFE AFTER DEATH’ IN HIS CLASSES
Posted on 30 May 2011, 10:48
Dr. L. Stafford Betty is not your stereotypical religion professor. He has an open mind, is interested in Truth, and dares to examine academically taboo subjects like mediumship, near-death experiences, past-life studies, death-bed visions, and, most importantly, the subject they all lead to, life after death.
“The subject seems to be surrounded by an aura of disrepute,” Betty writes in his soon-to-be-released book, The Afterlife Unveiled. “We can talk about God, we can talk about ethics all day long, but the one subject that should most concern us – because everything else ultimately rests on it – is off limits among the smarter set where I work. I get the sense that faith in life after death is OK, but just don’t talk about it, don’t admit it. It’s unsavory! Why is this?”
Betty says he thinks he has the answer. “Among people who like to think of themselves as smart and well informed, such as you find among professors at a secular university, the materialist assumptions of the physical sciences color almost everything else,” he explains. “And since an afterlife is immaterial, at least in the way science understands matter, my colleagues are reluctant to admit they believe in it even if they do. Among them are two Catholics in the biology department, and one is a long-time friend. He deflects every attempt by prying students to learn if he is a man of faith, and in fact he implies that he is not. This is a man who loves his religion; but he is afraid to admit it. He doesn’t want to look like a fool. He doesn’t want to appear disreputable.”
Betty earned his BS in Math and English at Spring Hill College (1964), his MA in English from the University of Detroit (1966) and his Ph.D. in Theology from Fordham University (1975). I recently put some questions to him.
Professor Betty, what prompted you to write about the afterlife?
“As a teacher I enjoy making people aware of the important facts of their existence, especially when the facts are positive and tend to produce happiness. There are few facts more positive, both for me and most people I know, than our surviving death, followed by a positive afterlife experience. This is good news indeed, and I wrote my book to share it with the reader. This was my primary motivation.
“But there was a second reason. I look around me and see a society – especially our youth – lacking a sense of purpose. ‘Just drifting’ is a good word to describe countless Americans. It doesn’t occur to them that the correct question to ask themselves is not ‘What can I get out of life?’ but ‘What does life demand from me? What can I give to life?’ The habit of giving doesn’t come easy. To become a giver, you need special incentive. A single-life perspective supplies no such incentive. Instead it seduces us into thinking that we’d better get all we can now because this is the only chance we’ll ever get. Postpone gratification? Why should we? Lie and cheat to get ahead? Why not, since there is no cosmic accountability? What’s to stop us as long as we take care not to get caught? So we become hedonistic, sometimes ruthless selfniks.
“A plausible afterlife belief with an emphasis on accountability is one of the keys to rearranging our attitudes to life. And my research tells me that we are accountable for everything we do, say, and perhaps even think. So it was time I helped make this very good news public. Thus the book. There are other reasons, but these two are the main ones.”
How does what you write about the afterlife differ from that of orthodox religions?
“I scan the various afterlife beliefs – from the Ten Hells of the Chinese Yama Kings to the interrogation in the tomb by Islam’s angels of death to the Buddhist descriptions of paradise in Amida’s Pure Land – and know I am reading mythology. At the literal level they are implausible. But as metaphors they serve a useful purpose. They tell believers they are accountable for their actions; they are the carrot and the stick that inspire and goad them to virtuous action.
“But they sound like what they in fact are: works of imagination by men who have not been to the places they dare to describe. We are looking for something more reasonable, more just, more attractive, more bracing, more challenging – a place or environment where life is lived more intensely and freely, with our better angels in the vanguard, but where progress does not come cheap.
The Hell of conventional Christianity makes a monster of God, while the usual depiction of Heaven is either vague or medieval—not the sort of place most of us would like to spend more than a day or two.
Why do you think orthodox religions are so opposed to accepting the teachings that we get from mediumship, near-death experiences, past-life studies, and other phenomena?
“If the afterlife found in my book were to become generally accepted, scripture would be discredited. The heaven and hell of the Bible cannot compete with the well fleshed out, more plausible worlds described by spirits who know what they are talking about because they are there. Priests and rabbis worked hard for the right to speak of ultimate things and don’t want to be bested by unlicensed, invisible “authorities” with whom they can’t compete. Priests protect their turf just like the rest of us.”
Will you use the book in any of your classes?
“I’ve scheduled the book for my ‘Introduction to Religion’ class starting in September, and I’m using a section of the book this quarter in my ‘Meaning of Death’ class. I don’t know how well it will fly with freshmen and sophomores, but I’m about to find out. My guess is that they will love it. After all, they, like us, are curious about what follows death. When reminded, they have no trouble acknowledging, young though they are, that they, too, will die someday. And many of them have friends who have already died, some by suicide.”
I know you were using Helen Greaves’ Testimony of Light, which is the subject of Chapter 6 in your book, in your classes at one time. Do you still use it? If so, what has been the general reaction of your student to the messages?
“I”ve used it many times and with considerable success. I think it’s the single most fascinating and inspiring account of conditions on the Other Side I’ve come across. But I won’t use it anymore. The reason is that, as good as it is, it represents only one elderly woman’s experience. By contrast, my book represents seven different experiences, including those of a 20-year-old Texan, with whom many of my students will better relate.”
Do you get a lot of resistance from the university administration or colleagues for your unorthodox teachings?
“My former dean admitted to me, after I pushed him a little, that he and other administrators think some of my interests are pretty far out. As for my colleagues, most are embarrassed by my interests but cowed by my success as an author. Sometimes I even publish articles in journals they approve of.”
As I recall, your “Meaning of Death” class was fairly popular among students several years ago. Is it still popular?
“Yes. I’m teaching it now to over 50 students. The dean capped it at 55.”
In a nutshell, what is the “Meaning of Death” as you understand it?
“I’ve thought a lot about this question but will try to keep it short. I believe death was created by the Source (God, if you will) as a means, perhaps the very best means, of bringing forth noble character in us.
“Let’s begin with an analogy. What do we most want for our child? Good looks, smarts, popularity, wealth, power, fun, happiness? Nothing wrong with these, but are they what we most want? Not if we are wise. What we most want, or should want, is noble character, virtuous habits, plain old goodness. Another way to put it: What do we most admire in others? The answer would be, or should be, the same. Accordingly, what would God want in us, his earthly children? The same.
“But nobility of character does not come cheap. Unless morally challenged, we don’t grow – just as spoiled children don’t mature. So He (sorry) challenges us continually. And we experiment: We learn what works and what doesn’t, what brings us praise and what brings us censure, what counts as sensitivity and what counts as cruelty, what keeps us alive and what can kill us. God has designed our world to be a moral gymnasium. We are souls in training. Some athletes prefer to play teams they can beat, but others want stiffer competition. If we are wise, we will not wilt under the pressure of the ‘stiffer competition’ – the rejection by the one we love, the being passed over at work, the cancer that has become a death sentence – but will fight on. Trusting in God, we will bear in mind that the greater the suffering, the greater the potential for growth. God has given us a world full of physical danger and moral challenge lived out under the constant threat of death, and He hopes that we will use our freedom to choose the good over the bad, and do it habitually, in spite of tremendous temptation to capitulate and give up. To do so is to bring value, excellence, and ultimately joy into the universe, and that is what God wants. It’s what we should want too.
“The Protestant philosopher John Hick, whose masterly book Evil and the God of Love is our generation’s best expression of this point of view, wrote: ‘It would seem, then, that an environment intended to make possible the growth in free beings of the finest characteristics of personal life must have a good deal in common with our present world.’ And that would include death.
“As I see it, Death is a forcing house that pressures us to grow our souls. That is its meaning.”
Professor Betty’s book, The Afterlife Unveiled, can be pre-ordered at Amazon.com
Many of the people who have read my book, The Articulate Dead, and other books reporting on some of the great mediums of the past, such as Leonora Piper, Gladys Osborne Leonard, Eileen Garrett, and Estelle Roberts are inclined to be skeptical of the abilities of those mediums of yesteryear. They wonder why, if they were genuine, we don’t hear of such mediums today. Sure, there are clairvoyants and clairaudients demonstrating on TV, but their abilities seem very limited when compared with the trance-voice mediums like Piper, Leonard, Garrett, and Roberts.
With the clairvoyants, we get a word or two or an acknowledgement of some kind passed on to the sitter from the spirit world by the clairvoyant, but with the trance voice mediums we get actual dialogue, sometimes in the voice of the deceased, or at least in a voice resembling that of the deceased. Not to take anything away from the clairvoyants, but, generally, the trance-voice and the direct-voice forms of mediumship are much more convincing than the clairvoyant/clairaudient type.
There are two primary reasons, I believe, why we don’t hear much about trance mediums these days. For one, trance mediumship takes time to recognize and develop. A hundred years ago, before radio, television, and other distractions, people had more quiet time and therefore there was more opportunity for the person to be passive and for the ability to surface. A potential medium today might so wrapped up in watching American Idol or Dancing with the Stars that she never experiences the passive state required for the spirits to get through.
A second reason has to do with the fact that around 1930, the nature of the research changed. It was more or less felt that the survival of consciousness issue had reached the point of diminishing returns or was at an impasse, and so it became necessary to go back and start building all over again. Psychical research changed to parapsychology and researchers became more interested in psi or ESP, the building blocks leading to the survival issue. Interest in mediumship waned and research in this area became almost non-existent. Thus, while there were still trance voice mediums around, we didn’t hear about them because researchers didn’t observe them or report on them as they did with those famous names of the late 19th and early 20th Century. The parapsychologists are still working with the building blocks and the few scientists who have returned to studying mediums have focused on the clairvoyants, since they seem to be more abundant.
There are, however, still some trance mediums around. Once such medium is Suzanne Giesemann, who was featured in this blog last November. In that blog entry, which can be accessed by clicking on the November back issues, I discussed Suzanne’s automatic writing or inspirational writing ability, which she had discovered just a year or so earlier. Suzanne didn’t mention the fact that she was beginning to develop as a trance-voice medium then because she wasn’t quite sure it was real and was reluctant to expose herself to the ridicule that often accompanies such “weird” activity. While most of the renowned mediums of the past were for the most part uneducated, Suzanne has a master’s degree in National Security Affairs and taught political science at the Naval Academy. She retired from the U. S. Navy with the rank of commander and is married to a retired Navy captain. When one has made friends in that company it is not easy to tell them that you are now channeling spirits of the dead. “I have gotten beyond that, finally,” Suzanne told me by e-mail recently. “The spirit world is very patient with me.”
In an impromptu home circle with a neighbor and the neighbor’s visiting sister, Suzanne concentrated on breathing, allowing herself t relax into a light altered state as she had done each morning in meditation. “I felt the familiar swirliness of a presence blending with my energy, but the sensations in my head were accompanied by an unfamiliar fullness in my vocal cords,” Suzanne recalls that first experience as a trance-voice medium. She heard the command “Speak!” but didn’t know what she was supposed to speak about. The urge was so strong that she just opened her mouth and a deep voice with a Russian accent said, “Good evening.” The voice was far deeper than her own and very masculine. As she wondered what next to say, a thought materialized in her mind. and words began to flow. “You must take a back seat tonight,” the voice transmitted. “For this we have been coming to you. For this time. To answer questions. To give you knowledge of our world….” Suzanne’s friends sat in awe of what was happening, not sure how to react. They put questions to the entity using Suzanne’s vocal cords and the voice responded.
“As this male energy spoke through me, the left corner of my upper lip twitched several times without my consciously doing so,” Suzanne continued. “My head was drawn to a position 45 degrees to the left, held there as if by a magnet. The spirit answered several more questions then the pressure backed off and my head rocked slowly back and forth and from left to right.” Seconds later, she was drawn to the same position on her right side and a new voice came through. It was a woman’s voice, soft and sweet with a very proper accent. She gave her name as “Sally,” and also identified the male voice as “Boris,” but said that names mean nothing to those in the spirit world. They recognize each other by their personal vibration. “It is you humans who need to put a label on everything, and so we give you these names as a convenience,” Sally explained.
The three women sat again three days later and the spirits came through again. “We have sat weekly ever since, and the transmissions have gone from stilted and slow to what is shown on the videos.
It has been a process of learning to trust and surrender completely. The more I surrender, the deeper I go and the more clear their messages.”
While the messages coming from Boris and Sally fall into the category of what is called spiraling mediumship, i.e., teachings, they are not necessarily evidential in themselves. However, Suzanne does give evidential readings and Boris occasionally pops in. “When he does, the sitter has told me it was exactly what they needed to hear,” Suzanne explains. “He pinpoints the problem very well if they didn’t already say what it was: questions over money, a will, a family member’s struggles, whatever. Boris is the only guide who has ever come through in a reading. As far as I know he is my only control.”
Suzanne recalled a reading in which a client was sitting across from her. When her lip twitched, she knew that Boris was there and would tell her something critical the client needs to know. “He told me the woman wasn’t eating right and was tired. I told this to the client and she confirmed it. I then looked at her and saw black spots floating in front of her throat and chest. I KNEW she had cancer, but I couldn’t tell her that. Then Boris clearly said, ‘Tell her!’ He insisted again, so I said, ‘I have to tell you that I am seeing black spots in front of you here.’ And much to my shock, she said, ‘Yes, it has metastasized.’ And I said, ‘So you know you have cancer?’ And she said, ‘yes.” Then Boris went on to give her some advice.”
In another reading, Suzanne told her client that she sensed a man present and gave a description of him and his passing. However, the client did not recognize the man. “My lip was twitching like crazy – like it had never done, and my head was drawn to where I always sense Boris,” Suzanne continued. “I asked him what was going on. It turns out I had brought through a woman, not a man, and Boris had been trying to tell me that I was off track. When I told the client it was a woman and repeated the other evidence, she was able to identify who the spirit present with us was.
In a more recent reading, Suzanne was sitting with a woman and brought through her sister, brother, father, and mother. “Suddenly, I knew that the client was having thoughts of killing herself and I told her this. She didn’t deny it, and then Boris came through in a pure channeling session in which he gave her the spiritual repercussions of taking her own life.”
Suzanne also recalled a reading in which a woman’s son gave her the word “lollapalooza.” “Neither of us had any idea what he was talking about,” she said. “The woman went home and found out that the daughter-in-law (her son’s wife) had been watching a rock concert called Lollapalooza the night before the reading. This was a wonderful way of letting the family know he was still around.”
During the channeling sessions, Boris almost always comes through first. “Just last week I realized it may be because his vibration is lower than Sally’s and it is easier to attune to him and bring him through first, then raise myself higher to attune to Sally after I’m deeper, Suzanne continued. “Sally’s answers always seem softer, more loving, and wiser. Boris is more ‘earthly.’ When a person asks a question I never know which one is going to answer. My head is drawn right (Sally) or left (Boris) and off they go. Quite often Sally will add to something Boris says, but never the other way around. Sally always ends the sessions, and always with words that leave everyone hanging suspended in a cloud of loving energy, on a different plane, saying ‘Wow!’…an amazing feeling.”
Most psychologists would likely say it is all coming from Suzanne’s subconscious. The wisdom has all been stored away there over the years and is now surfacing when she is in an altered state. Of course, that doesn’t explain the evidential information that comes through. Some parapsychologists might say that Suzanne is telepathically reading the minds of the sitters. That was what many of the researchers of old said about mediums like Piper and Leonard. When information came through that was unknown to the sitter, they speculated that it is possible to read the minds of anyone in the world or to dip into some cosmic reservoir for information. Most of the pioneers of psychical research came to accept the spiritistic hypothesis, but there were a few holdouts and some parapsychologists today still subscribe to the subconscious explanation, even though they are unable to explain how an evidential word like lollapalooza can come through. As researcher Minot Savage once asked, why is the “secondary personality” pretending to be the spirit of some deceased person? What is its motive? What makes this secondary personality of so many people such a trickster?
What does Suzanne think? “The ‘science lesson’ that Boris gave us the other night puts a new twist on things,” she responded. “I’m not quite sure what to think now, but let’s try. They tell us there is only one Mind. All of us are aspects/focuses of that one Mind. In that regard, there is nothing but parts of our higher selves. But all of us, both in human form and spirit form have individuality, formed by taking on thoughts and emotions over the span of that particular ‘focus.’ There is no doubt that Boris and Sally are ‘individual’ souls, but perhaps part of the ‘oversoul’ to which I belong. As Boris mentioned, we are all on the same string, connected to the Center, all resonating perfectly. Is my Higher Consciousness ‘part’ of me, or is it them? I don’t know, and it can make one crazy trying to figure it out, so I just go with it and reap the wisdom they share. Are they part of me? Are they my higher consciousness? Are they my imagination? I don’t know, but I do know that I can’t hold a thought and express it so fluently, non-stop as they do, talking about esoteric subjects. That comes from Higher Consciousness that we normally don’t have access to in this waking state. If they are my Higher Consciousness, it has identified itself as a fellow with a Russian accent and an angelic female being who radiates pure love.”
Pondering a little more on the question, Suzanne added: “A woman once asked Thomas Edison to define electricity. He smiled at her and said, ‘Madame, electricity IS. Use it.’ Boris and Sally are there. I use them and allow them to use me to bring messages of hope to all who care to listen.”
Michael’s now book The Afterlife Revealed: What happens After We Die will be published by White Crow Books in June 2011 and will be available in all good online stores.
When Stanford University researchers attempted to calculate the IQ of history’s greatest minds by applying the Terman Standard Intelligence Test to a massive database of historical material, only three people scored above 200 – Emanuel Swedenborg, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and John Stuart Mill. Below them were such luminaries as Pascal, Galileo, Descartes, Kant, Kovalevskaya, Darwin, and Mozart.
If a survey were done today asking respondents to identify those luminaries of the past, it is likely that Swedenborg’s name would be one of the least recognizable, at least in the United States. So who was this great genius? And why isn’t he better remembered today?
Born on January 29, 1688, Swedenborg was a Swedish scientist, mathematician, inventor, statesman, author, and mystic. He is credited with making significant discoveries in astronomy, anatomy, magnetism, mechanics, chemistry, and geology. He invented a one-person submarine and a glider, the latter after calculating the weight-to-size ratio required for a “machine to fly in the air.” He designed an improved ear-trumpet, an airtight stove, a machine gun, a mercurial air pump, various mining machineries, and contributed plans for Europe’s largest drydock in southern Sweden. Fluent in six languages and conversant in nine, including Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, and Latin, he was also an accomplished musician and horticulturist. From about 1720 to 1745, he served on the national board that oversaw Sweden’s mining industry and published studies on metallurgy. And, he was an active member of Sweden’s House of Nobles.
At the age of 55, Swedenborg had a series of clairvoyant visions, which, he said, gave him the ability to experience the spiritual dimensions. In one of his visions, he saw a temple with the words Nunc Licet over the door, which he interpreted to mean “Now it is permitted to enter with understanding into the mysteries of faith.” A year or so after these initial visions, Swedenborg abandoned all other pursuits and devoted his time to spiritual meditation and mediumistic trances during which he explored the spirit world. He claimed to have conversed with biblical prophets, apostles, Aristotle, Socrates, and Caesar, as well as with numerous deceased friends and acquaintances and spirits from other planets.
“I must employ my remaining time in writing on higher subjects, and not on worldly things, which are far below…,” he wrote in a personal diary. “May God be so gracious as to enlighten me respecting my duty.”
Raised in the Lutheran Church, Swedenborg became interested in spiritual matters at an early age. In a letter to Dr. Barriel A. Beyer, written when he was 81, Swedenborg said that he had been engaged in thought upon God, salvation, and the spiritual diseases of men since his fourth year of life. “…several times I revealed things at which my father and mother wondered, saying that angels must be speaking through me. From my sixth to my twelfth year I used to delight in conversing with clergymen about faith, saying that the life of faith is love, and that love which imparts life is love the neighbor…”
Philosopher Immanuel Kant told the story of a fire in Stockholm which Swedenborg saw from 300 miles away in Gőteborg. While dining with others at the home of Mr. William Castel in Gőteborg, Swedenborg reported that a dangerous fire had just broken out in Stockholm and that it was spreading fast. He named a friend whose house had just burned and said that his own house was in danger. Two hours later, he said that the fire had been extinguished and extended to just two doors from his own house. All of the facts described by Swedenborg were later confirmed.
Another story attesting to Swedenborg’s clairvoyance involved Louis de Marteville, the Netherlands’ ambassador to Sweden. Several months after Marteville’s death in 1760, his widow could not locate a receipt verifying payment of some valuable silver for which payment was being demanded by a goldsmith. Having heard of Swedenborg’s clairvoyant abilities, the widow asked him if he could communicate with her deceased husband and determine the whereabouts of the receipt. Three days later, Swedenborg called upon Madame Marteville, who had company at her house, and told her that he had spoken with her husband and that the receipt was in a bureau in the room upstairs. Madame Marteville responded by saying she had already searched that bureau. Swedenborg then told her of a secret compartment in the bureau as described by her late husband. Accompanied by her guests, Madame Marteville went to the bureau, found the secret compartment, of which she had been unaware, and there, too, found the receipt.
Still another story involving Swedenborg’s clairvoyance, or clairaudience in this case, was reported by the Queen Dowager of Sweden, who decided to test Swedenborg by asking him what the last words of her deceased brother, the Prince Royal of Prussia, were to her. Some days later, Swedenborg returned, described the circumstances of the visit with her brother and then told her the exact words uttered by her brother.
In fact, Kant verified all three stories by speaking personally with witnesses to them. Some years later, in 1770, Swedenborg was reportedly being honored at a dinner given by the manufacturer Bolander of Gothenburg. During the dinner, Swedenborg turned to Mr. Bolander and told him that he should go to his cloth mills right away. Bolander did so and upon arriving there found that a large piece of cloth had fallen near the furnace and was just beginning to burn. He concluded that if he had arrived just minutes later that his property would have been in ashes.
During the last 27 years of his life, Swedenborg produced 30 books, all in Latin, reporting on his explorations of the spirit world, including his conversations with many souls on the other side of the veil. Early in his first great work, Arcana Caelestia, he addressed the issue of life after death by writing: “That I might know that man lives after death, it has been granted me to speak and converse with several persons with whom I had been acquainted during their life in the body, and this not merely for a day or a week, but for months, and in some instances for nearly a year, as I had been used to do here on earth. There were greatly surprised that they themselves, during their life in the body, had lived, and that many others still live, in such a state of unbelief concerning a future life, when nevertheless there intervenes but the space of a few days between the decease of the body and their entrance into another world – for death is a continuation of life.”
Of the Adam and Eve story, Swedenborg reported that everything in the story is symbolic, Adam representing the intellectual side of man and Eve the emotional. The great Flood, he said, was not a physical deluge, but a flood of monstrous evils that overwhelmed the people in ancient times. Noah and his family represented those who had not succumbed to the immoralities of the time. Many other stories in the Old Testament, at least before Abraham, were similarly allegorical, Swedenborg was informed during his trances.
Perhaps the most significant discovery by Swedenborg was the “world of spirits,” an intermediate region between the heaven and hell of Protestant theology, but unlike the purgatory of Catholicism, which was much like hell. The conditions of the spirit world that Swedenborg explored were very similar to earth, so similar that many newly arrived souls had to be told that they were no longer on the earth plane. It was in this world of spirits that newly arrived souls found themselves.
“When the soul thus separates himself, he is received by good spirits, who likewise do him all kind offices whilst he is in consort with them,” he wrote. “If, however, his life in the world was such that he cannot remain associated with the good, he seeks to be disunited from them also, and this separation is repeated again and again, until he associates himself with those whose state entirely agrees with that of his former life in the world, among whom he finds, as it were, his own life. They then, wonderful to relate, live together a life of similar quality to that which had constituted their ruling delight when in the body…”
Swedenborg, whose belief in the divinity of Christ remained steadfast, dismissed the atonement doctrine, saying there was no substitution of the innocent for the guilty. Man’s works, not his faith, governed his initial place in the spirit world. “The churchman today believes that anyone can be received into heaven and be eternally happy simply through [the Lord’s] mercy, no matter what his life has been like,” he wrote. “He thinks it is a simply a matter of admission. But he is wrong. No one is brought to heaven and admitted without spiritual life…”
Although modern Spiritualism did not begin to unfold until 1848, Swedenborg is sometimes referred to as the first Spiritualist. However, unlike many Spiritualists, Swedenborg did not think it wise for the average person to commune with spirits because of the risks involved in being negatively influenced by low-level spirits.
“The only light that has ever been cast on the other life is in Swedenborg’s philosophy,” wrote Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Apparently, Swedenborg continued his work after his earthly death at age 84. William Stainton Moses, one of the best known mediums of the 19th Century, was informed by spirit communicators that Swedenborg and Benjamin Franklin, working together on the other side, figured out how to communicate with the earth realm by the taps, raps, and table tiltings that kicked off the Spiritualism epidemic in 1848. Swedenborg is said to have appeared to Andrew Jackson Davis, known as the “Poughkeepsie Seer,” and contributed to his enlightenment, and to have communicated with French researcher Allan Kardec. He further collaborated with Francis Bacon in communicating much about the afterlife through the mediumship of Dr. George T. Dexter during the early 1850s.
Swedenborg’s writings are said to have influenced Goethe, Balzac, Coleridge, Carlyle, Lincoln, Tennyson, Emerson, Henry James, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Thoreau, both Brownings, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, George Macdonald, and Helen Keller to name just some.
And so why isn’t Swedenborg better remembered today? Perhaps Swedenborg was just too advanced and the world still hasn’t caught up with him. When communicating through Dr. Dexter in 1852, Swedenborg was asked why there was so much mystery connected with life and the afterlife, to which he responded: “What would be the benefit conferred on man by opening to his comprehension all the mysteries of spirit life and all the beauties of the spheres – revealing the truths belonging to his material and spiritual nature, if we were not able to teach him how that life on earth should be directed; how to govern his passions, how to progress, how to live that his death may be productive of life everlasting in happiness?”
Next blog May 16-17
A new abridged edition of the Swedenborg classic book Heaven & Hell edited by Simon Parke, is published by White Crow Books.
On August 23, 1853, a spirit identifying himself as having been Francis Bacon, the 17th Century English philosopher when in the material world, took control of the hand of Dr. George T. Dexter, (below) a New York physician, and wrote, “Now we will try and give you views of the true mission of Christ on earth.” Bacon reiterated a previous message that he was not at a level where he had access to all truth and believed it would many thousands of years in earth time before he reached that level. “We are giving our opinions – opinions formed from the circumstances existing in the spheres where we dwell, the facts which come under our observation, and the ideas gleaned from those spirits in advance of us, who occasionally have intercourse with us.” Moreover, Bacon said he had never seen Christ because Christ was in a sphere much more advanced than the one he found himself at.
Dexter and John W. Edmonds, Chief Justice of the New York Supreme Court, were the key figures in a circle that met regularly to receive messages from the spirit world, many of the messages purportedly coming from the spirits of Bacon and Emanuel Swedenborg, the 18th Century Swedish scientist turned mystic. Both Edmonds and Dexter began as skeptics out to debunk mediumship. However, they quickly became believers and both turned into mediums themselves. Both Bacon’s and Swedenborg’s handwriting differed from each other and differed from Dexter’s.
Bacon (below) pointed out that the Jewish nation had been agitated upon the fulfillment of certain prophesies about the birth of a man who would restore the glory of the Jewish kingdom and establish a dynasty which would exist forever. “They ascribed to this personage attributes at once both earthly and divine – a being who would subdue all the nations who had oppressed their race,” Bacon began his explanation”…”
Bacon’s further explanations are abridged below.
“[The Jewish priesthood] could not submit to a limitation of power which had been for ages universal, and it became a matter of serious import to them that the very nature of Christ’s mission should be misunderstood. Thus, when we are told that Christ was to be born, we are also told that he was to elevate the people, he was to institute laws which would restore the might and power of the nation, and he was to rule as king, possessing powers derived from and almost equal to God. It was the policy of the priests to inculcate the material mission of Christ, the establishment of a material kingdom, and the institution of laws which should affect the material condition of the nation alone.”
“It is not strange, therefore, that when Christ was born in the lowly manger, that he was not recognized by priest or noble, that he was insulted, reviled, and at last crucified. It is not strange either that his true mission was by the masses misunderstood, and that when he stood in the highways and byways, discoursing on the true nature of man, his duties to himself, to others, and to the world, he could not be comprehended by those who expected him in pomp, in glory, and with all the power and magnificence of a sovereign.”
“To ascertain what was the true mission of Christ, we should attentively consider the character of the man as given in sacred history, and also in profane, and view his daily life and action in reference to the great work he was called to perform. The earliest indication of any positive ministration was his teaching in the temple when yet a child, and when he confounded the Priest and the Pharisee. At this time he reasoned of life, death, and eternity, and the groundwork of all his teaching was, that the moral purity of man’s life on earth was the guarantee of his happiness after death. From this period until the time of his death, he sought out every opportunity to utter those sentiments; and were we take the sermon on the Mount as the solitary evidence in support of our argument, we should triumphantly claim that Christ’s mission was the reformation of the moral condition of the world; that he taught all that we teach; that love, purity, truth on earth, are the incipient steps of progression; that eternity develops no sentiments more consonant with the nature of God than progression from these principles.”
“But what was the effect of Christ’s teaching on earth? He says, I came not to destroy but to fulfill. Let us ask what this fulfilling means. Does it not mean the fulfillment of the great design for which man was created? Before his advent, the world’s conscience was pinned on the sleeve of the priesthood; their faith was the faith of all, and what they chose to inculcate as religion or truth was implicitly recognized by the people. What did Christ teach? He taught men to examine their own hearts, that by the fruits of a man’s life was his moral condition to be tested. He says, Can a good tree bring forth evil fruit? Can the association with evil develop good? No; he charges his disciples to be humble, and merciful, and truthful, to regard others in all the relations of life as they would be regarded when similarly circumstanced. He presents the spirit as a part of God, and says it was from God in the beginning, and he requires that spirit to be pure even as God is pure, that it might dwell with the father forever.”
“Christ taught the doctrine of forgiveness, and when asked when man should pray, and for what he should pray, he refers him to God. He does not associate himself in any with the adoration of the Father, but says, Our Father which art in heaven. In every act of Christ, in every reference made to his power, or to the power of God, he distinctly refuses to be regarded as any other than a man and the son of man.”
“True, he says, I and the Father are one, but he conclusively refers to the accomplishment of the object for which he came on earth; that in spirit they assimilated, he in the holy and intense desire to elevate his race, and God in the boundless benevolence by which he had permitted man this opportunity for progression. Even when arrested in the garden, he says, I could pray to my Father, and he would send legions of angels to my aid; emphatically here he admits no power belonging to himself – he refers everything to God.”
“Christ found a world buried in ignorance. No true idea had been given of their destiny; and not until he dispelled the darkness which shrouded his whole moral nature did man make the effort to understand his true relationship to himself, the world, or to God. Looking back to Christ, we see the light which has been poured through the vista of years till it has now illuminated the whole civilized world, flickering as a spark, and scarcely affording a ray to guide the benighted footsteps of man. Now we feel its genial influence; now we walk in the glorious beams which lighten up life and death, and send its rays into eternity.”
“Christ opened the portals of the dark grave, and exposed the life beyond as one of progress. He brought man near to God, and bid him understand his connection with the Father. His conditions were, Repent, and in this he sums up all of spiritual doctrines. Repentance is progress, and progress the eternal happiness of the spirit.”
“How profoundly he understood the human heart! And in the picture which he drew of man’s disposition he leaped over centuries of time, and identified the man of his own day and generation with man of the present age in all his attributes and properties.”
“To me, in the consideration of this whole subject, there is a most beautiful thought in this mingling of his own elevated nature with the grossness and ignorance and perverseness of the common people. Teaching them by trite and simple parables, he descended to their comprehension, and came to the very door of the hearts which were not closed against him.”
“But there is one feature of his mission which has not been apprehended, or even noticed, by all the divines of every sect who have pretended to explain his teachings since his death, and that is, he spoke, when on earth, to the very feelings and thoughts which could and would improve by the knowledge which he taught. He kindled a fire in the hearts of all men, slumbering though it has. While ages have passed and nations have been born, and have been buried, too, with the past; while laws have been established and temples have been built; while those laws have passed away, and those solid temples have crumbled into dust, still this fire has slumbered, but it has been the slumbering of the fires in the mighty volcano of time.”
“In the teachings of Christ we have the fundamental principles of every revolution which has succeeded in establishing the rights of man on earth. In this we have an illustration of the mission of the Savior as a Reformer, and the effect of the progress of man. And we have, too, the first point of earnest inquiry which his teachings elicited, What is man’s destiny after death, and for what was he created?”
Michael Tymn’s forthcoming book, The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After We Die? will be published in Summer 2011 by White Crow Books.
For those who have accepted the strong evidence that consciousness survives death and lives on in another realm of existence, there remains a major debate. It is the enigma of reincarnation. Outside of organized Western religions, most people accepting survival seem to believe in reincarnation. However, there is a fair percentage rejecting it.
Many spirit communicators – those speaking through mediums – have said that they have discovered that reincarnation is for real. Moreover, compelling evidence in favor of reincarnation has come to us through credible researchers, such as Dr. Ian Stevenson (Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation) and Dr. Brian Weiss (Many Lives, Many Masters).
On the other hand, intriguing books by Rosemary Brown (Unfinished Symphonies), Suzy Smith (The Book of James) and Betty Eadie (Embraced By The Light) further repudiate reincarnation, at least in the way most people think of it. “Reincarnation, as usually understood, does not really happen,” the spirit of the great composer Franz Liszt purportedly told Brown. “The truth is subtly different from the teachings of a reincarnationist on earth.”
In A Course in Miracles we read: “In the ultimate sense, reincarnation is impossible. There is no past or future, and the idea of rebirth into a body has no meaning either once or many times.”
Thus, there seems to be strong evidence for reincarnation but, at the same time, seemingly credible mystics and spirit communicators have said that it is not so. The conflict can easily lead one to reject all revelation coming to us through mediums, near-death experiencers, and past-life studies.
One possible explanation is that we do not become “all-knowing” when we cross over, and spirits in the lower spheres still believe as they believed when alive in the flesh. It is said that on the third sphere, often referred to as Summerland, many people still practice the religions they practiced on earth, and their beliefs remain the same. If they didn’t believe in reincarnation, they continue to disbelieve in it. If they believed in reincarnation, they continue to believe in it.
Most spirit communication apparently comes from the lower spheres because the spirits there are closer in vibration to those of us on the earth plane. The more one advances in the spirit world, the more difficult it is for him or her to communicate because of the difference in vibrational frequency.
When William Stainton Moses, one of the most credible mediums of the late 19th Century, asked Imperator, the name adopted by an apparently advanced spirit, about reincarnation, he was told that only the most advanced Intelligences are able to discourse on that subject and that it is not given to the lower ranks of the spiritual hierarchy to know. “There are still mysteries, we are fain to confess, into which it is not well that man should penetrate,” Imperator cautioned. “One of such mysteries is the ultimate development and destiny of spirits. Whether in the eternal counsels of the Supreme it may be deemed well that a particular spirit should or should not be again incarnated in a material form is a question than none can answer, for none can know, not even the spirit’s own guides. What is wise and well will be done…There are other aspects of the question which, in the exercise of our discretion, we withhold; the time is not yet come for them. Spirits cannot be expected to know all abstruse mysteries, and those who profess to do so give the best proof of their falsity.”
Imperator, who claimed to be on the seventh sphere, said that it was necessary for him to relay messages to Moses through spirits on lower spheres because of the difference in vibration.
Another possible explanation is one of definition or semantics. “You will find that the higher the ascent in the spiritual scale, the more recognition is there that there is reincarnation,” Silver Birch, another apparently advanced spirit communicated through the trance mediumship of Maurice Barbanell, “but not in the facile form that is so often propounded.”
Silver Birch explained that the individual personality on earth is a small part of the individuality to which he or she belongs. He likened it to a diamond with its many facets, pointing out that the personality on earth is but one facet of the diamond. “what you express on earth is but an infinitesimal fraction of the individuality to which you belong. Thus there are what you call ‘group souls,’ a single unity with facets which have spiritual relationships that incarnate at different times, at different places, for the purpose of equipping the larger soul for its work.”
Silver Birch also likened the soul to an iceberg in which one small portion is manifesting and the greater portion not manifesting. He apparently was referring to what others have called the “Higher Self,” the “Greater Self,” or the “Oversoul.” Trying to explain reincarnation to humans, Silver Birch added, is like trying to explain the color of the sky to someone who has been blind from birth.
The group-soul concept had earlier been advanced by the discarnate Frederic Myers through the mediumship of Geraldine Cummins. “When I was on earth, I belonged to a group-soul, but its branches and the spirit – which might be compared to the roots – were in the invisible,” Myers, one of the pioneers of psychical research before his death in 1901, communicated. “Now, if you would understand psychic evolution, this group-soul must be studied and understood. For instance, it explains many of the difficulties that people will assure you can be removed only by the doctrine of reincarnation. You may think my statement frivolous, but the fact that we do appear on earth to be paying for the sins of another life is, in a certain sense, true. It is our life and yet not our life. In other words, a soul belonging to the group of which I am a part lived that previous life which built up for me the framework of my earthly life, lived it before I had passed through the gates of birth.”
Myers further explained that the group soul might contain twenty souls, a hundred, or a thousand. “The number varies,” he said. “It is different for each man. But what the Buddhist would call the karma I had brought with me from a previous life is, very frequently, not that of my life, but of the life of a soul that preceded me by many years on earth and left for me the pattern which made my life. I, too, wove a pattern for another of my group during my earthly career.
Myers added that the Buddhist’s idea of rebirth, of man’s continual return to earth, is but a half-truth. “And often half a truth is more inaccurate than an entire misstatement. I shall not live again on earth, but a new soul, one who will join our group, will shortly enter into the pattern or karma I have woven for him on earth.”
Myers likened the soul to a spectator caught within the spell of some drama outside of its actual life, perceiving all the consequences of acts, moods, and thoughts of a kindred soul. He further pointed out that there are an infinite variety of conditions in the invisible world and that he made no claim to being infallible. He called it a “general rule” based on what he had learned and experienced on the Other Side.
In 1918, even before the communications by Myers, Liszt, and Silver Birch, a spirit entity identifying himself as Johannes of Glastonbury, a monk who had lived from 1497 to 1533, communicated by means of automatic writing a number of messages to Frederick Bligh Bond, the director of excavations at Glastonbury Abbey, concerning the layout of the abbey grounds in his day. Johannes alluded to a group soul when it was suggested by another spirit entity that Johannes might be “earthbound” and his recollection colored somewhat by “clinging to vanished dreams.” In fractured English, Johannes responded: “Why cling I to that which is not? It is I, and it is not I, butt parte of me which dwelleth in the past is bound to that which my carnal soul loved and called home these many years. Yet, I, Johannes, amm of many partes, and ye better parte doeth other things – Laus, Laus Deo – only that part which remembreth clingeth like memory to what it seeth yet.”
Communicating through Helen Greaves, Frances Banks, an Anglican nun when on the earth plane, said that she used to believe that there were souls with whom we had been in contact with in other incarnations and to whom we owed karmic debts or who owed us reparations for wrong inflicted. “What I believed may still be true in part, but now I realize that those souls who attract us are part of ourselves,” she communicated through Helen Greaves. “They belong to the same Group, the same Spiritual family, the same Group Soul. Their connection with us is deeper and far more permanent than mere earth contacts could make it. They may be part of the same Spirit as that Spirit is itself part of the Great Spirit, the great Company of Divinity, far beyond our comprehension, the Company of Heaven, the Co-Creators, the Divine and Beautiful Sons of God.”
In his 1939 book, Reincarnation for Everyman, author Shaw Desmond states that there are two approaches to reincarnation – the “terrestrial” and the “celestial.” The former view has the individual returning again and again as the same man, while the latter view has man “solely as spirit and his temporary inhabitancy of the physical body as but a tiny projection of the Greater Self, Thus, it may be that those mystics and spirits who have rejected reincarnation were rejecting it in the terrestrial sense but not in the celestial. “Think of an atom,” Liszt told Brown. “It is made up of protons and neutrons which all go to make up the nucleus surrounded by electrons. That is what a soul is like. These separate parts are held together in the nucleus, but the parts can be isolated. And it is the isolated parts of the nucleus of the soul so to speak which can manifest as various personalities in your world. These are what the reincarnationalist calls different incarnations – but they all belong to one soul which can choose which particular part of the soul it wishes to manifest.”
When Frederick Bligh Bond asked another of the Glastonbury spirits, a more fluent speaking one, about reincarnation, the spirit replied: “You understand not reincarnation, nor can we explain. What in you reincarnates, do you think? How can you find words? Blind gropers after immutable facts, which are not of your sphere of experience.”
Personally, I am content to view reincarnation as I view God – beyond my comprehension. It is enough to know that consciousness survives physical death and lives on in a progressive spirit world.
Michael Tymn’s new book The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After we Die is published by White Crow Books and available from Amazon and all good online book stores.
In her intriguing 2010 book, Messages, Bonnie McEneaney, the wife of one of the victims of 9/11, tells about her husband having some kind of premonitions, or precognition, that his days were numbered. “I’m going to die before you,” Eamon McEneaney told her in a somewhat matter-of-fact manner on September 4, 2001, a week before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, where Eamon worked in mortgage-backed securities. Bonnie McEneaney says that her husband always believed that he would die young and, in the weeks preceding the disaster, seemed to have a sense that something monumental was imminent.
Monica Iken, the wife of Michael Patrick Iken, another 9/11 victim, informed Bonnie McEneaney that her husband began acting a little strangely during the summer of 2001. When they received an invitation for a December wedding, Michael told Monica that he couldn’t see himself being there. Around September 1, Michael’s behavior became even more abnormal. When, on September 10, Monica told Michael that she was planning to visit a sick family member in New York City the following day, Michael became upset and told her not to come to the city that day.
McEneaney further tells of Welles Crowther, a 24-year-old equities trader who died in the attack. His friends and family noticed that he began acting very strangely during the summer of 2001. He was described by friends and family as being “depressed,” and “restless,” and, on Labor Day, his mother remembered that he seemed very “melancholy,” which was not characteristic of him.
A woman named Lorraine told McEneaney that she had a dream a week or so before 9/11 that seemed to suggest that her husband, Bill, would meet with a tragedy. She didn’t tell her husband about the dream, but she also observed that Bill’s behavior and attitude the weekend before 9/11 were very different from what they normally were.
A recent rerun of the Lisa Williams show on TV featured the parents of an 11-year-old boy who was killed in a boating accident off Waikiki in Hawaii. There was much evidential information passed on through Williams, a medium, to the parents, including the fact verified by his father that he did not want to go on the boat but was more or less talked into it by the parents. Williams told the parents that their son knew beforehand that he was going to die soon. When Williams mentioned this, the mother told her that after they returned home following their son’s death, they found that their son left a message for them on his computer that he expected to be dying soon and looked forward to seeing his parents after they crossed over.
A December 7, 2007 Associated Press story tells of a Minnesota man, Fidel Sanchez-Flores, who died accidentally on his job. A week before his death he told his niece “to pray really hard” because “something is approaching.” The day before his death he told his wife that he loved her and would continue to love her after his death. When his wife asked why he was saying that, he replied that he didn’t know.
In his 1974 book, On the Death of My Son, Jasper Swain, a Republic of South Africa lawyer, tells of the death of his son Mike in an auto accident and the communications he received from Mike through several mediums. “My death was okayed well ahead of the accident,” Mike told his father at one sitting. “To be exact, on the previous Monday, while I was watching the races at Kyalami, I suddenly knew that my life was coming to an end, even though I did not know the exact moment. I didn’t regret it, because I was also aware of the wonder, the love, and the beauty of the world that awaited me.” Mike also mentioned that he left his body an instant before the head-on impact with the other vehicle and was able to observe the collision from above.
The story of President Abraham Lincoln’s precognitive dream of his own death is well documented. One evening, about a month before his assassination, Lincoln sat in the White House with his wife Mary and several others when the subject of dreams came up. When Lincoln said something to the effect that there may be something to dreams, Mary asked him to elaborate on his beliefs. With some reluctance, Lincoln then related his prophetic dream. “About ten days ago, I retired late,” he began the story. “I had been up waiting for important dispatches from the front. I could not have been long in bed when I fell into a slumber, for I was weary. I soon began to dream. There seemed to be a deathlike stillness about me. Then I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and wandered downstairs.”
As Lincoln, in his dream, wandered around downstairs, he continued to hear sobbing, but he could see no mourners. In fact, he saw no one. Lincoln was puzzled and alarmed at hearing the sobbing, yet seeing nobody. He continued walking until he reached the East Room, where he saw a catafalque, one which rested a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were soldiers posted as guards. Lincoln then asked one of the soldiers who had died. “The President,” was his answer, “He was killed by an assassin.” A loud burst of grief from the crowd awakened Lincoln, who could not sleep the rest of the night.
After Lincoln told of his dream to his wife and the others, Mary Lincoln (below) was horrified, but Lincoln assured her that it was only a dream and suggested they forget about it.
Renowned French astronomer Camille Flammarion wrote about the dream of Edwin Reed, director of the Museum of Natural History in the city of Conception, Chile. Two months before his death, Reed had a dream in which he saw a tomb with a cross on it with the following inscription: “Reed, naturalist, November 7, 1910” Reed jokingly related the strange dream to several friends, all of whom apparently shared in the humor of it until Reed died on November 7, 1910.
All of the above cases involve people who died suddenly, accidentally, or prematurely. There are numerous accounts of people on their deathbeds reporting visions of deceased loved ones visiting them and predicting when they would die. One of the more intriguing cases on record was reported in the June 1918 issue of the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research. It involved 10-year-old Daisy Dryden of California, who was suffering from typhoid fever. When Daisy’s mother was sitting at her bedside, Daisy mentioned that Allie, her brother who had died of scarlet fever seven months earlier, was standing next to her. When the mother looked for Allie, Daisy told her that Allie said she could not see him because her spirit eyes were closed. When the mother asked Allie how she was communicating with Allie, since she did not observe Daisy talking, Daisy explained that “We just talk with our think.” When Daisy’s sister started talking about angels with “snowy wings,” Daisy told her that the ones she could see didn’t have any wings.
At 8:30 on the evening of her death, Daisy informed her mother that Allie would be coming for her at 11:30. At 11:15, Daisy asked her father to take her up as Allie had come. As they sang, Daisy breathed her last at exactly 11:30.
American doctors William Green, Stefan Goldstein and Alex Moss reportedly researched thousands of stories about patients who died suddenly and unexpectedly. They concluded that most people had anticipated their own death. While the majority of them may not have understood their premonitions, there was something at the deep soul level or in the subconscious that at least alerted them to the fact that death was approaching.
Thus, it would seem that whether the person is on his or her deathbed or about to die by unexpectedly, the soul knows beforehand that transition is about to take place. It may be that the more conscious, i.e., spiritually awakened, the person, the closer the awareness is to the conscious self.
Dr. Jane Katra discusses healing and other psychic gifts
Posted on 08 March 2011, 11:46
Now residing in Palo Alto, California, Dr. Jane Katra (below) offers higher vibration healings by phone and locally, and workshops in esoteric wisdom, psychic & spiritual development, forgiveness as transformation, facing death & meeting soul, and spiritual healing.
Growing up in a science-minded family with four brothers who played cards, young Jane learned how to play five-card draw before playing with dolls. “They taught me to assess the probabilities of my being dealt the card I needed for a royal flush before placing a bet, but I found my hunches and intuitions about which suits they were collecting to be much more reliable,” she recalls, adding that she often had a feeling of “excitedly just knowing” what the top card was, so much so that her brothers would accuse her of cheating and throw her out of the game.
Those early years of card playing showed Katra the validity of her inner knowing. Her first life-changing intuition occurred when she was a teen, riding in a car with friends. “I had a sudden urge to return home, so I asked to be dropped off at my house. An hour later a phone call informed me that my friends had crashed, killing my boyfriend and another friend. I have always wondered what caused me to change my mind and get out of that car.”
Katra’s psychic ability may have been in her genes, as her mother gave evidence of being highly psychic. “She knew when my brother was in a car accident an hour before receiving the phone call, and she also had an after-death communication from her own mother who died in hospital after being injured in a car crash,” Katra explains. “My grandmother visited my mom as a light being at three o’clock in the morning in mom’s hotel room, telling her that she was free of her pain, and saying goodbye,” she continues. “I believed my mother’s ADC, but when similar things happened to me as an adult, I at first found them unbelievable.”
After receiving her Master’s at the University of Oregon in 1987, Katra went on to earn her Ph.D. from the same institution in 1993 while mothering 3 children. She taught public health at the University of Oregon in Eugene for a number of years, taught therapeutic touch healing to over 700 nurses in the area, and learned how to apply her healing gift “by just trying and seeing what happened” in her off hours.
In 1993, parapsychologist and physicist Russell Targ asked her for spiritual healing for a metastasized cancer for which allopathic medicine had little to offer. When his tumors disappeared, she joined him in doing remote viewing and consciousness research, teaching workshops, and writing two books: Miracles of Mind: Exploring Nonlocal Consciousness and Spiritual Healing (1998) and Heart of the Mind: How to Experience God Without Belief (1999).
Over the years, Jane has participated in research carried out by many parapsychologists, including Helmut Schmidt (RNG PK with dots on a computer monitor), William Braud and Marilyn Schlitz (distant mental influence), Ed Cox (with an alleged spoon bender in Germany), Russell Targ (remote viewing), Steve Baumann (measuring photons, EM and infrared radiation correlated with healing), and Dean Radin (PK of photons in the double slit experiment.)
I recently put some questions to Dr. Katra by e-mail:
Dr. Katra, how did your keen intuition develop into healing, remote viewing, and other psychic gifts?
“My interest in the study of psychic phenomena intensified in January of 1974 when I experienced what I thought was some sort of hallucinatory nightmare resulting from overwhelming pain from an ongoing headache. I was in the Philippines at the time, by myself, locked-in in an old hotel turned into a youth hostel, because it was past the 7 p.m. curfew decreed under Ferdinand Marcos’ martial law. Many years later I learned that my experience that night was what is now called a near-death or fear-death experience, brought on by trauma. In any case, I experienced the bright light and a life review, as well as a life preview; encountered my deceased high school boyfriend, and I received instructions from a kind and patient Asian man who appeared as a cocoon of light and knew all about me and told me that I was not to die yet and that I was to be a spiritual healer when I returned to my life.
“I flatly refused, and told the man that he’d made a big mistake; that I was the wrong person. I didn’t know any Bible verses and I got Noah and Jonah all mixed up and my family believed in science and we didn’t do religion and I planned on contributing to the world by being respected for my intelligence. No way was I going to act like Kathryn Kuhlman, and he couldn’t make me do it. He told me that no one would make me do it, that I would do it on my own accord, and that I would do it the next day but that I wouldn’t remember that he had told me until after I had done it.”
So did anything happen the next day?
“Yes, surprisingly. I offered to help a total stranger who was crying out in pain. I was leaning over her with my hands extended over her head, intending to try to massage her neck if she would just quit writhing around in pain, when she suddenly stopped moaning and told me I had healed her. I told her I had done nothing of the sort, but she insisted, saying, ‘When you brought your hands near my head, it’s as if you opened a dam and all the pain flowed out.’ (This incident is told in more detail in the first of the two books mentioned above.)
“The next day, a backpacker gave me the book Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain. When I returned to the US I read books by the Rhines, and Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi. I feel I was guided to attend a lecture by clairvoyant healer Dora Kunz, who walked up and asked me if I knew I was a healer? I burst into tears! How could other people know something like that about me when I didn’t know it? She encouraged me to attend Theosophical Society meetings, and I also attended my first Parapsychology Association conference in 1975, where Puthoff and Targ gave their introductory slide show on remote viewing.”
As I understand it, you first sensed the presence of Dr. Elisabeth Targ, (below) your late friend, and then heard her distinctive voice. Would you mind elaborating on that a little?
“I was shocked when in late August, 2002, a month after Elisabeth died, I was eating lunch in a Duke University cafeteria with my physician friend who had just introduced me to two other faculty members. The nursing professor looked beyond me as she carried on talking, saying, ‘and I want you to understand that I am not a medium, but this has happened to me twice before and both times I spoke really fast and had no memory afterwards of what I said.’ Since I didn’t know this woman, I looked around to see to whom she was speaking. Seeing no one behind me, I asked, ‘Are you speaking to me?’ ‘Yes! There’s a spirit behind you who really wants to talk to you!’ I turned around to look. ‘No, dear, you can’t see her, but I can!’ Then the nurse started telling me how intensely the spirit woman was trying to communicate, repeating over and over again, ‘You, Jane! You, Jane! You, Jane!’ (“You, Jane!” was how Elisabeth always addressed me, after her second brain surgery. Her saying those words now was quite evidential for me.) The nurse said the female spirit was standing behind me and trying to stuff information into my head by repeatedly pushing her hands towards my ears with shoving motions. ‘She’s frustrated! She can’t do it. She says she has to go somewhere to learn how to communicate with you directly. You won’t be hearing from her for awhile. But she really wants you to know that she’ll be back. You WILL hear from her again!’
“That was the first of many communications from Elisabeth which occurred in the company of others and also to others without me, insuring that I was not the sole person imagining the surprising ADC phenomena. Mediums and non-mediums alike who sense her presence universally comment on her intensity and strong determination, which were characteristic of her when embodied, and which I interpret as a continuation of her lifetime determination to produce good psychical research data.”
Has any of it been particularly evidential?
“The most evidential aspects of Elisabeth’s communications are the number and the variety of ADCs she’s produced, which have often included her palpable signature vibrations that ordinary people are able to perceive. A few hours after she died, she silently awakened both her father and me independently, filling the room with pulsating pink light which we both perceived to be emanating from a field of vibrations eight feet above us and to our left. She communicated that she still existed out of her body, and vibed us up with intense blissful love as she said goodbye, leaving us in an orgasmic-like loving state of altered consciousness for many hours.
“In the weeks that followed, family members had the more common ADCs of lights flashing on and off in the house when they were discussing Elisabeth.
“But better evidence of survival from physician Elisabeth has been her giving medical information unknown to anyone at the time of her communication. In dream visitations, she’s diagnosed illnesses of her friend Kate and me. Kate had a dream in which she saw physician Elisabeth with a stethoscope around her neck, sitting at a hospital desk, busily filling out forms. Elisabeth looked up at Kate, pointed to the work at hand, and said clearly, “These papers are for you, Kate!” Kate had recently passed her medical check-up exam with flying colors, so she thought this dream was meaningless. That evening, however, as she was driving home from work, she felt a sudden onset of flu-like symptoms of dizziness and body aches. Ordinarily Kate would have driven straight home, taken some aspirin and gone to bed. Because of her dream of Elisabeth, she instead drove herself to the hospital where she was diagnosed with a heart problem, and the following day had stents inserted into her arteries.
“In my own case, in 2006 I had been diagnosed by three physicians as having multiple sclerosis, despite the fact that I had many symptoms that did not fit that diagnosis. During the night after the last doctor had told me that I needed to start MS medication immediately, I was awakened from a deep sleep by Elisabeth’s voice in my right ear, stating firmly, “You, Jane! You, Jane! (!) ... “You …Have …Lyme …Disease!” She was right!”
“More evidence from a dream visitation was Elisabeth’s compelling a woman to write down what the woman thought was a long list of nonsense syllables, all of which turned out to be a meaningful message in Russian, a language in which the living Elisabeth was fluent. So she’s gotten a living person to demonstrate an unusual skill that she had developed. She also foretold behavior she intended to carry out in the future that did, in fact, occur: An amateur medium (a computer program manager by day) phoned me one morning to say Elisabeth had contacted him in a dream, and predicted she would communicate her presence by touching and writing, and had told him to phone me and tell me. I got very excited, and asked, ‘What part of the body would she touch?’ The medium said she was communicating as we spoke: ‘Arm, upper arm, upper right arm; and head, on the top of the head.’ And ‘When would she do this?’ I asked. Her answer: ‘Oh, I’m not telling! It will be a surprise!’ I told my partner this by phone, and no one else.”
Did something happen?
“Yes. The following week I presented a high vibrational healing evening at the Rhine Research Center. One woman unknown to me, while driving to the event, felt fingertips tickling the top of her head and flicking her hair around. She looked into her rear-view mirror and saw a tuft of her top hair sticking straight up while it felt like her scalp was being tickled by fingers. She was so upset when she arrived at the event that she ran to tell the resident medium there about it. The medium told her it was a relative of mine, and that she should tell me what happened. Later in the evening, during a closed eye portion of the event, the woman felt the upper part of her right arm being squeezed repeatedly. She thought I was doing the squeezing, so she opened her eyes and saw me on the far side of the room. In the week following, a woman emailed me from Norway, apologizing for being intrusive, but explaining that she sensed the presence of Elisabeth beside her, squeezing her upper right arm, and dictating a message to me that she was to send to me by email. The content was specific and meaningful for me, referring to a situation that only Elisabeth and I had discussed when she was alive.”
As I understand it, you had the healing ability before Elisabeth communicated in 2002. I’m unclear, however as to how Elisabeth has changed that ability.
“Sometimes when I did healing (this no longer occurs), her extra-strong pulsating energy would spontaneously course through me so intensely that I’d have tears coming out my eyes. I felt temporarily blasted and assisted by her. Many mediums have independently told me that I was her research project. I interpreted that to mean that she intended not only to communicate with me without a medium, but also to increase the healing love power emanating from me.
What does Reading Vibrations from a Person Involve?
“We have to develop sensitivity to the vibrations before we can interpret them. It involves developing steady attention with specific intention. Indian mysticism is concerned with the laws of perception of subtle non-physical levels of reality, and the exchange of energies between different levels of being. I spend time every a day in silence, while I direct my attention inward and observe my awareness, which sensitizes me to subtle vibrations inside and outside myself.
I started doing this when I became aware of the teachings of Ramana Maharshi, an enlightened saint from India. He silently emitted an intensely vibrating energy that put people near him into a loving blissful state. His teachings changed my life, because he talked of how we are all naturally psychic, but seeking to be so doesn’t evolve anyone or lift the consciousness of the world. He said that the most powerful psychic ability of humans is to radiate a palpable power of peace, and that this was the primary purpose for which we came into a body. Since I radiate an energy that people find healing, and it mysteriously works over the phone, I figured Maharshi could help me understand what was going on.
“Reading people’s vibrations involves feeling distinctions and fluctuations in the quality (harsh, sharp, erratic, coherent, dense, gentle, airy, expansive, tight, prickling, short, etc.); and intensity (intense like Elisabeth, or tentative or weak) of what they radiate. Feelings, thoughts and intentions are of different densities and amplitudes. I now sometimes see colored light shining out of people’s heads and heart chakras, with varying colors and expansiveness. Sensitives interpret what they perceive in their own way, just as we interpret the images and words that appear in our minds when remote viewing. For interpretation, I change intention from being open and attuned to the person, and switch to the ‘analysis channel’ and ask my inner self, ‘What does this mean? and then wait for what I receive. Finding the right words to express my perceptions can be the hardest part. Analogies and metaphors are common.
“Reading vibrations is a different intention and more contracted mind state from doing healing, which is a state of no thinking or interpreting, just letting the energy of consciousness (love) flow through me. When I feel Elisabeth’s vibrations, it’s spontaneous. They are thrust upon me when I least expect it.”
Before Elisabeth communicated, I gather that you were more or less of what might be called the non-spiritistic parapsychology mindset. Am I correct in inferring that you now accept the spiritist hypothesis?
“I wouldn’t expect anyone to believe in the reality of ADCs unless they had experienced one. I never thought ADCs would happen to the likes of me. Before they did, I was never compelled to acknowledge the full implications of remote viewing. It shows that our true nature is nonlocal consciousness which still endures after the body dies. I had never before seriously investigated all the evidence we have for life after death. Because of the more than 30 ADCs I’ve experienced from Elisabeth, I was forced to come to a conclusion that most people think is crazy. I now do believe that some people, for some period of time after leaving their bodies, are able to initiate contact with us in this dimension of being. I think they are motivated by strong love, their desire to let us know that they continue to exist, their desire to help and comfort and protect us, and to carry out unfinished goals. In one of the readings I had with a medium, Elisabeth, who was a proficient remote viewer herself, asked me, ‘Can’t you see that the most important thing about the work you did with my father is that it shows that we don’t die?’ The startled medium jerked her head up and exclaimed, ‘Wow!! What kind of work was that?’
“For most of my life, I did not allow myself to believe in the power of the healing gift I’ve been given. I was waiting for parapsychologists to let me know what was OK to believe. Elisabeth was totally skeptical about her father’s healing. She was so irritated about the idea of spiritual healing that it motivated her to carry out the distant healing research she did with healers from all over the country and men in San Francisco with AIDS. Her own research results convinced her that distant healing was real, and that she wanted to be a spiritual healer, herself. I now believe she has become one.
“Elisabeth, herself, didn’t believe in any individual survival after death. Her great gifts to me, as well as great contribution to the field of parapsychology, have been her demonstrations that we do, indeed, live on.”
This interview by Michael Tymn appears in the March issue of The Searchlight, a publication of the Academy of Spirituality and Paranormal Studies. The Academy’s annual conference will be held June 2-5, 2011 at Kutztown University, Pennsylvania. For more information, go to http://www.aspsi.org
Journalist’s Book “Randi’s Prize” Exposes How ‘Skeptics’ Distort Evidence for Paranormal Activity.
Posted on 21 February 2011, 10:23
As long as works of fiction about girls with dragon tattoos and such things appeal to the masses, it is unlikely that a meaningful book like Randi’s Prize will ever make it to the best-seller list, but in my mind, at least, this book by British journalist Robert McLuhan (below) should be at the very top of the list.
Subtitled “What sceptics say about the paranormal, why they are wrong, and why it matters,” this book deals with things that go to the very core of our existence and which either give meaning to life or, in their absence, suggest that we live in a purely mechanistic universe with no meaning at all. This latter view appears to be that espoused by James “The Amazing” Randi, a Canadian stage magician known mostly as a debunker of paranormal claims. Since the 1960s, Randi has offered a million dollars to any person who can convince him that he or she possesses psychic powers, but the prize remains unclaimed.
An Oxford graduate and member of the Society for Psychical Research, McLuhan, who worked as a foreign correspondent for The Guardian in Spain and Portugal and now works as a freelance journalist, begins the book as a skeptic – an open-minded one – wondering why Randi’s Prize has not yet been won. He examines the evidence advanced by psychical researchers and parapsychologists favoring ESP or psi as well as the survival of consciousness at death and then looks at the counter arguments offered by the “skeptics,” (“Sceptics” in the King’s English). He carefully weighs the evidence for and against and in most cases concludes that the “skeptics” have ignored, twisted, distorted, misinterpreted, disregarded, or otherwise written off the evidence.
I recently interviewed McLuhan by e-mail.
Robert, how did you become interested in this subject?
“I studied literature at university, but then got interested in science, and read books by science writers like Isaac Asimov, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould, Paul Davis, that sort of thing. There just happened to be a New Age bookshop near where I worked, and I’d pop in there in spare moments to browse. So I ended up reading a lot of spiritualist-type literature as well. I got interested in such things as mediumistic channeling and near-death experiences. I became aware that science doesn’t accept that there is anything paranormal about them, and that made me curious.”
I gather that you initially found the arguments of the skeptics very persuasive.
“Yes, they had quite a hold on me for a while, they just seemed so authoritative, and their arguments seemed to be based on solid science. But at the same time, what they said didn’t seem to address what people actually say about their experiences, and it was a real struggle to try to work out where the truth lies. It was quite a while before I felt confident about making up my own mind – I didn’t want to feel I was succumbing to wishful thinking, or being superstitious, which is what sceptics always imply.”
So what swung you the other way?
“That started to happen when I realised that sceptics don’t really engage with the parapsychological research at all, but only with the idea that they have of it. They don’t read the literature, so they have only a very vague and general idea of what it is that people report. Not knowing the challenges makes it that much easier to explain it away.”
You obviously have dug deeply into both the old and the new research in both ESP and Survival.
“Yes, I spent a few months reading general books around consciousness and so on, and noticed several references to the Society for Psychical Research. So I decided to check it out, and found that it has a really good little library in central London, packed with useful books, and also its own quarterly publications going back to 1882. It’s a real treasure trove of research on kinds of paranormal topics. I hadn’t realised that so much scientific work has been done into things like ghosts, mediums and telepathy. It was a real eye-opener.”
And yet the skeptics continually insist that there is no evidence. Strange, isn’t it?
“I don’t blame people for feeling sceptical about paranormal claims. In fact I think we should approach the subject with a good deal of caution. But it really makes you wonder about the extent that some scientists are prepared to go to, for instance saying that there is ‘no evidence whatever’ for psychic functioning. That makes no sense to me at all, if you consider all the thousands of reports and studies and investigations that have been carried out over more than a century, and which are published in specialist peer-reviewed journals. There’s an enormous literature. If they wanted to say, there is no ‘scientific’ evidence, that’s something I’d contest, but at least we could have a conversation about it. Or that they aren’t convinced by the evidence, that would be fair enough too. But to say there isn’t any is just silly, and I think rather disqualifies them from being taken seriously.”
So, in a nutshell, what is your take on Randi and his Million Dollar Challenge?
“I actually don’t talk about Randi or the Challenge in the book very much, which I know might seem strange, since I’ve used them for the title. I just thought Randi’s prize was a useful metaphor for a certain kind of sceptical attitude, which is what I was critiquing in general terms. I would have liked to focus on this a bit more, particularly the question why no one has won the prize. This could be for some quite mundane reasons: for instance that the organizers make it really difficult for contestants, in terms of laying down conditions and taking them out of their comfort zone, which from their point of view I suppose is justified. I guess the high profile psychics who might have a chance of winning are already doing well for themselves as TV performers, and they’d have a lot to lose – and nothing much to gain – by risking their reputations. It would make no sense for them, considering how much James Randi himself would have to lose by endorsing anyone as genuine – his reputation, I mean, not the money, which I don’t think is actually his. But it’s still an interesting question.
“In the end, though, I don’t think you can answer it properly without understanding the whole background to the controversy, which is extremely complex. And that’s really what my book is all about.”
To me, the research carried out by pioneers of the SPR, such as Barrett, Myers, Lodge, Hodgson, and Hyslop is very impressive and as solid today as it was then. Yet, it is filed away in dust-covered cabinets. Do you agree?
“Yes I do, and I think it deserves to be better known. The work done with Leonora Piper, for instance – who so interested William James – is a landmark, and helped convince me, for one, that trance mediumship is a genuine phenomenon. Actually I think this could change quite a lot with the Internet. A lot of this material can be found online. The SPR has an excellent online library, where you can get just about any article from their publications within seconds, and hopefully soon it will be making some of the early out-of-copyright material available for free (I’ve published a few tasters on my book’s website http://www.randisprize.net including Richard Hodgson’s Piper papers).
“But it is strange the way the way that historians and biographers have such a distorted view of their work. I’ve recently been reading reviews of a new book by John Gray, a British political philosopher, which debunks people in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century who, he says, chased after dreams of immortality, among them people like Myers and Sidgwick, co-founders of the SPR. Typically, he presents them as odd-balls and eccentrics. No one ever questions why they reasoned the way they did, or relates it to their actual work. They’re just seen as crackpots.”
You discuss the supposed-debunking by C.E.M Hansel, a British psychologists, of the Raymond Lodge group photo. I think this is so typical of the way the skeptics conveniently slant the evidence. (note:Raymond communicated with his father and mother through two mediums after his death and referenced a military unit photo taken just before his death on the battlefield, mentioning that he was sitting with a walking stick across his legs and the officer behind him was leaning on him. At the time, the Lodges had not seen the photo, but it later arrived in the mail. Hansel dismissed the photo as coincidence and made no mention of the officer behind Raymond leaning on him.)
“Yes that’s something that sceptics do a lot, they misrepresent the original details and in so doing make it ripe for debunking. But I singled that instance out, because I think there’s an interesting mental process there. I used to think they did it deliberately, but actually I think that’s often not the case. When they read it, they unconsciously strip out the paranormal element, so that they literally can’t see what the fuss is about. It’s a sort of coping mechanism. Actually I think we all do it, and perhaps that’s a healthy thing – healthy scepticism, if you like. When we read about an allegedly paranormal incident our minds are working to try to provide a normal explanation. But where some of us stay true to the original, others alter it to make a normal explanation easier to identify.”
Raymond Lodge - bottom row, 2nd. from the right
And then the skeptics who know nothing of the case read Hansel’s words and accept what he has to say as gospel, although I’m not sure that word is in their vocabulary.
“Yes exactly. That’s what’s so interesting. The literature is full of alleged exposes, confessions and explanations which actually, when you scrutinize them, don’t amount to much at all, and may only have existed in the imaginations of the sceptics who described them. But in some cases, like this one concerning Hansel, you can actually see the process occurring, by comparing the original with the sceptic’s bowdlerized version.”
As you mention in the book, Randi’s attack on the research by Dr. Gary Schwartz is a good example of more modern research in the area of mediumship that has been twisted by the skeptics.
“Actually I do have some reservations about Schwartz’s work, and I think that some of the criticisms made by other sceptics such as Ray Hyman and Richard Wiseman are fair enough. James Randi’s critique of Schwartz really doesn’t amount to much. I don’t get the impression that he’s interested in the details of these studies, if he ever was. He just looses off a tirade of complaints and abuse. He’s really just acting up for his audience. Criticisms are fair enough, when they are cogent and address the issues. But Randi is more in the category of a propagandist. He’s already got his audience. They don’t care about the details either, they just want a champion to voice their own gut feelings.”
You devote a chapter to near-death experiences and frequently mention the debunking arguments of Susan Blackmore. How do you see her arguments and those of other materialistic scientists relative to the NDE?
“Blackmore is certainly one of the more thoughtful sceptics, although I gather she’s rather lost interest in the field now. Her ideas about the near-death experirence, the ‘dying brain’ model, are interesting, and have certainly been very influential. But in order to make it stick she has to be able to explain away the veridical perception reported by patients and accident victims, that they observed what was occurring at the scene – by the roadside or in the operating theatre, or whatever – and that these details corresponded to what they found later occurred. I think this phenomenon has been documented often enough, and with sufficient consistency and corroboration, to be taken seriously. So it’s telling that she has to resort to discrediting their testimony and credibility, even to the extent of impugning their motives. It doesn’t look like science at all, it looks like the bluffing of a courtroom barrister.”
It often seems to me that these so-called skeptics are unable to distinguish religion from general psychic phenomena. Would you agree?
“Up to a point. To be fair, psychic phenomena imply for many people the existence of a spiritual dimension to existence, so religious issues are naturally present. Particularly with regard to afterlife, which sceptics find impossible to believe. But I do think that scientists get onto the subject of religion they go quickly astray. They tend to see it purely in terms of belief, a sort of voluntary identification with the idea that there’s a God and an afterlife, involving faith, and a suspension of reason. They very rarely take account of religious experience, in for instance mystical visions which come unbidden, and which can have life-changing effects, especially in the context of the near-death experience.”
Doesn’t it seem to you like psychical researchers and parapsychologists are forced to continually reinvent the wheel?
“Well, that’s the nature of the game. As long as a substantial section of society disbelieves in what they report then they’ll struggle to even get a hearing. But yes, it’s amazing that the work that has been done is still so little known. As I say in my book, after a century and a half of investigations, if we talk about it all we are still like children asking each other after lights out ‘Do you believe in ghosts?’ The knowledge is there, however, inconclusive, but we have chosen to disregard it.”
Why do you think that is? That to me is the million dollar question.
“That’s perhaps not so strange when you consider how difficult it is to accept. Those of us who have become used to the idea of telepathy, for instance, and have the reading and even the personal experience to back it up, aren’t fazed by it. But it may actually scare some people. Sceptics talk about wishful thinking, but that works both ways: some people are clearly disturbed by the idea of their minds being open for others to read, or of existing for eternity in an sterile and static afterlife. It may also be that we have a natural disposition – some more than others, obviously – to explain it away. It’s the way our minds work, to tell us that what we saw yesterday that we thought was paranormal was actually a trick.
“There’s also the fact that psychic phenomena is so hard to pin down to the satisfaction of science. The claim is extraordinary, but the evidence isn’t extraordinary enough to make it stick. And then of course, if psychic phenomena is held to validate religious belief, that’s difficult in a world in which democracy and secularism are natural bedfellows. No one wants to go back to the old days of warfare between religious factions. Those of us who believe psychic phenomena to be real may not see the danger of that, but I think some sceptics do, and I also think those fears are not necessarily irrational. “
Thank you, Robert. Any final thoughts?
“Yes. I’m very struck by the absence of any serious comment about these things, at least here in Britain. Obviously the paranormal is a huge subject for novels, films and TV dramas, there are loads of books about it being published all the time, lots of websites following it, groups carrying out investigations, and so on. But it’s all on the level of popular culture. Here, it’s vanishingly rare to see anything relating to the paranormal to be discussed in an upmarket newspaper. Intellectuals and opinion-makers agonise about the role of religion in society, but almost always from the narrow faith perspective of the Christian or atheist. For them the paranormal is still unproven at best, or at worst a silly irrelevance.
“I’d like to see that change. That’s why I wrote Randi’s Prize, to try to draw their attention to something that ought to have a huge impact on our thinking, if it was better understood. I particularly want them to see through the myths and generalisations propagated by sceptics and encourage them to look at the scientific research.”
When an “Ape-Man” Materialized in a Scientist’s Lab
Posted on 07 February 2011, 13:36
It is difficult to find anything more bizarre or hokey-looking than various photos having to do with ectoplasm and materialization in books about the paranormal and psychical research. Some of them appear so ridiculous that it is difficult to believe that anyone in his right mind would take them seriously. And yet they were taken seriously by a number of very distinguished scientists, including a Nobel Prize winner in medicine and two British scientists knighted for their scientific work. Moreover, all of those who did take it seriously concluded that it was real. Only the “know-nothings” wrote it off as fraud.
“A materialization in process”
As various researchers came to understand it, “spirit scientists” on the other side of the veil would withdraw “magnetic fluids,” called ectoplasm, from the medium and sometimes from the sitters, and then discarnates would project thought images of themselves, or as they remembered themselves when alive, into the ectoplasm to create materialized likenesses of themselves. They would also sometimes create an artificial voice box so that they could speak. However, only a very small percentage of these materializations were good likenesses of the person when alive. It apparently took some practice or special focus by the spirit entity to carry out a good materialization. One spirit told Dr. Charles Richet, the 1913 Nobel Prize winner in medicine, that he could not materialize because he could not remember what he looked like when alive. Many of the older spirits lived before photography and had no fixed images of what they looked like. Think about it; if you had no photographs of yourself would you remember what you looked like as a child? The ability of spirits to materialize has been likened to asking a person in the flesh to draw a picture of him- or herself. Most people would fail badly at doing a self portrait, but some of the more artistic would no doubt succeed.
Many of the materializations were bizarre to say the least. Some looked like mannequins, some like plastic or rubber dolls, and some were not even three dimensional. They came out as flat drawings. Vice-Admiral W. Usborne Moore, a retired British naval commander turned psychical researcher, reported witnessing two failed materializations. “The figure of a woman tried to build up outside the cabinet, but collapsed before it was completed; and there was one brilliant etherialization outside that fell and dissipated after rising two feet,” he reported. However, Moore’s mother and father succeeded in materializing as did the mother of Dr. Cesare Lombroso, a world-renowned Italian neuropathologist who gave us the science of criminology. The purported mother of Professor C. J. Ducasse of Brown University materialized, but Ducasse said it did not look like her. Dr. John King, a Toronto physician and president of the Canadian Society for Psychical Research, observed a perfect duplicate of his wife, including form, features, voice, and mannerism, together with tangibility, power, and zeal. King reported that she stood and talked with him about personal matters before melting away into the floor.
King also witnessed an actual materialization process. “I noticed a light upon the carpet, phosphorescent in appearance, about the size of a 25-cent piece or English shilling, which soon became more extensive, and apparently rose as a vapor from which evolved curling flame-like white and purple light, until suddenly it took on tangible form, and developed what all the sitters agreed upon as being beyond doubt a beautiful young woman, clad in draperies of creamy white, bearing supported or suspended above her head a purple ball of light, which, however, seemed physically separate from any connection with the head; and which illumined the entire room and simultaneously the air was impregnated with odor of a most delicate and agreeable perfume, resembling nothing I had ever inhaled.”
The spirits who were successful in materializing were limited in how long they could hold on to the earth vibration. It was likened to a human trying to stay underwater.
But not all materializations were spirits of the dead. As reported by Dr. Arthur J. Wills, president of the U.S. College of Psychic Science and Research, a woman named Mary C. Viasek, an experienced astral traveler, conducted an experiment with Mrs. Z. J. Allyn, a materialization medium. While on a train in Utah, Viasek was able to project her etheric or astral body to Allyn’s home in Los Angeles during a séance and to materialize there. She reported encountering a “spirit chemist” who gave her instructions on how to materialize. “Think your features positively, just as you are! Think your hair! Your eyes! Think your form! Think your arms! Think your hands! Think your feet!” Then the chemist placed some substance over her to form her dress, a garment of white lace. This, Viasek explained, was a creation of the chemist, not of her thought. We also get some indication from this as to why some materializations involved only faces or torsos without legs. When one spirit was asked by the sitters why they could see only his face, he responded that he had only visualized his face.
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But there was also a third kind of materialization – the projection of the medium’s dream world into the ectoplasm. At least this seems to have been the case in some experiments conducted by Dr. Gustave Geley, a French physician and professor medicine, who gave up his practice of medicine in 1919 to become director of the newly organized Institut Metaphsychique International in Paris. He chronicled his experiments in a book titled Clairvoyance and Materialization: A Record of Experiments, which was published after his 1924 death in a plane crash.
“Gustav Geley”
In a sitting during 1919 with the Polish medium Franek Kluski, Geley reported the materialization of a “strange creature between ape and man.” It was described as having the stature of a man, with a simian face but a high, straight forehead, a large and soft tongue, with facial and body hair, with long arms and very strong hands, and smelling like a wet dog. It would take the hands of the sitters and lick them like a dog. Geley called the creature Pithecanthroupus. It manifested at several séances and at one séance rested its hairy head on the shoulder of one sitter while seizing the hand of another sitter and licking it.
In a sitting on August 30, 1919, Geley reported the “apparition” of apparently the same creature. “It was a creature as large as an adult man, very hairy, with a mane and bushy beard, resembling an animal or very primitive man; did not speak; but made hoarse noises, clicked his tongue, and ground his teeth,” Geley recorded. “When called, he approached, allowed his fur to be stroked, touched the hands of the sitters, and scratched them lightly with claws rather than nails. This was an improvement on previous sittings, when he was violent and rough.”
Four years later, during April 1923 in Geley’s Paris laboratory, Sir Oliver Lodge, the distinguished British physicist and pioneer in electricity, radio, and spark plugs, and his wife, Mary, were among the sitters for an experiment with another Polish medium, Jean Guzik. Due to the sensitivity of ectoplasm to light, darkness was required. (While some mediums, such as Kluski, were strong enough to withstand red light, not all could.) Geley’s protocol involved strip searching Guzik and dressing him in pajamas with no pockets, while sitters on each side of him would hold his hands. The doors were padlocked behind the sitters and sealed with gum paper signed by one of the experimenters. The sitters were then chained to each other and required to hold hands. “Under these conditions, control was absolute, in spite of the darkness, and the control of Guzik, which was extremely simple, gave entire satisfaction,” Geley wrote.
Sir Oliver and Lady Lodge had their second sitting in Geley’s laboratory on April 20. Also present were Professor Richet, Mme. Le Bert, Dr. Lassaliere, Mr. Sudre, and Geley. Sir Oliver recorded his observation that day for Geley: “I am touched on the back as by a fist. Then something passed over my head, slid over my face, and fell on my hands. It was Lady Lodge’s hat, coming from the sofa behind her and to her right. The hands of the medium were held all the time by the little fingers. Lady Lodge is touched as by a tame animal…and with the back of her hand she feels something like the hairy breast of a large dog standing on its hind legs, or a man of small stature. We hear the sound of steps, which were those of a man rather than those of a dog. The ladies thought it might be a large ape or orang-outang. Lady Lodge was the only one to feel it on this occasion. The sensation given by the touch of this fur, which seemed to cover a firm breast, was very peculiar. There was no light despite our wish for it.” Lodge added that Guzik appeared to be sleeping the whole time and they heard a voice from the entity, but no one understood what was said.
Lady Lodge recorded the experience: “We sat, connected by chains as at the former séance, but this time I took off my hat and placed it with my jacket on the sofa to my right, too far for me to reach it, and still farther from the medium, who was on my left. I felt myself stroked on the back as by a stump. This stump, or hand, or paw went to my hair and was entangled in the net which confined my hair. I then felt something pass over my head; it was my hat, carried towards Oliver.”
The red light was then turned on and there was no evidence of the fury creature. After it was turned off, Lady Lodge again felt touches on the back and her hair was ruffled. She lifted her hand in the shackles and touched something hairy behind her. “It was very astonishing to feel that creature behind me,” she added, but she further stated that the creature seemed “good natured.”
Another experiment took place four days later, but Lady Lodge opted not to attend. Geley and Sir Oliver were joined by Count A, de Gramont, Mme. de C., Mr. Ollivier, and Count du Bourg de Bozas. Geley recorded that there were the sounds of footsteps and the displacement of furniture. Three pieces of paper and three pencils were thrown to the floor. Sir Oliver noted that there was enough light to observe the medium next to him and he did not move the entire time. He then felt something touching his arm. “Is it Fango?” Sir Oliver asked. “The creature seemed pleased and touched me twice. I asked if that meant ‘yes’ and was again touched twice. I asked if he knew Raymond, and if the latter were present. (Raymond was Sir Oliver’s son, killed in 1915 on the battlefield). The answer was ‘yes.’ Is it Raymond who touches me? He answered ‘no’ by touching me once.” The entity or creature then whispered in Sir Oliver’s ear and he felt a breath. Sir Oliver thought he heard the creature ask for his name, but it seemed too banal to give it. With his hand shackled to Guzik’s, Sir Oliver reached back and touched a hairy head. “It was round and hard like that of a man whose hair was cut short,” he further recorded.
“Raymond Lodge”
Mme de C. also felt the creature touch her on the back and felt a hard head with short hair. Also, she felt a warm breath and her hat was disarranged. When the light was switched on, there was no evidence of the creature, but the displaced furniture was obvious.
Apparently, no one knew quite what to make of it. Lodge concluded that it was phenomena of low order. Between the second and third sittings, Sir Oliver and Lady Lodge sat with another medium and heard from Raymond, who said he was aware of what had happened at that second sitting. “He also told us that the creature we had touched was not an ape, but a primitive man of peaceable character, who answered to the name of Fango,” Sir Oliver wrote. “That was the reason why, when next he appeared, I addressed him by that name.”
Six years later, in 1929, Sir Oliver and Lady Lodge were sitting with Gladys Osborne Leonard, through whom Raymond often communicated over the years. The Paris experience came up and Raymond explained, “Strictly speaking, they had no individual existence as animals, they’re only temporary representation of animals, who have life for the time being.”
“Oliver and Mary Lodge”
Sir Oliver asked for clarification. “There’s life in them, but that manifestation is temporary, it crumbles and dwindles away,” Raymond responded. “If you were behind the scenes, Father, you would not see a discarnate animal withdrawing himself from the séance conditions and going back to his own spiritual home. You would see something disintegrating and being drawn back gradually, and absorbed again by one or more people on your side.”
Raymond added: “It mightn’t all get into them at once, it could hang about on the fringe of their etheric bodies until it could be absorbed again naturally. That may be very interesting on your side, Father, but we’re not very interested in it from ours. We always wish that the same power of projection which evidently exists in those mediums could be controlled and used by a sensible body of guides so that we could use it and use it intelligently. Instead of which, it’s bound to revert to a low type of elementary physical or animal life, if it controls on your side.”
Raymond went on to explain that it is a kind of phenomenon such as is produced automatically through hypnosis or nightmare or anesthetics.
Then again, perhaps Fango was the spirit of a former pseudoskeptic or debunker stuck in the muck and mire of his own non-belief.
Michael’s book The Articulate Dead is published by Galde Press and is available on Amazon.
In the Foreword of his recently released book with a lengthy title, Nondenominational Quantum Spirituality Lay Manual for Hospice Patients & Their Families: how sciences proves there is an afterlife, T. Lee Baumann, M.D. states that he was shocked when he attempted to volunteer his “science and spirituality” expertise to a hospice in his hometown in Birmingham, Alabama and was turned down. In effect, he was told that there was “no need.” Likewise, I was very surprised a few years ago when, while undergoing a weekend of hospice training, I was informed that spiritual matters were not to be discussed with patients unless they brought them up and then it was something that should be referred to the hospice chaplain.
I was further surprised when I attended a talk given by an experienced hospice worker on the subject of “compassion in dying.” She told the audience that the key is “making the most of each day.” Those in the audience, responding like a bunch of unthinking robots, nodded their approval, as if the speaker had provided sage advice. My reaction at the end of the presentation was one of bewilderment as the speaker never once touched upon the spiritual aspects of dying. She never even alluded to the possibility that consciousness survives physical death. It may be that she did not feel comfortable introducing spiritual matters to a secular audience, or it could be that she had no strong spiritual belief.
When I offered to give a talk about near-death experiences, a subject which I had become very familiar with and written extensively on, to two hospices in my home state of Hawaii, I didn’t even receive the courtesy of a reply from either of two hospice directors.
While hospice supposedly administers to the spiritual needs of the dying patients, the problem, as I see it, is that “spirituality” seems to be translated to “peace of mind” and otherwise left to the interpretation of hospice directors who must tippy-toe around specific belief systems and leave it to their chaplains to address. Unless one really relishes the idea of total extinction, true peace of mind can only result from a conviction that consciousness survives physical death. While the majority of hospice chaplains may accept survival, very few are – assuming they are representative of orthodox religions – prepared to go beyond the “blind faith” they espouse and offer the dying patient any real comfort in this respect.
Searching the Internet, I came across an article by Larry Beresford of Oakland, CA at http://growthhouse.typepad.com/larry_beresford/2006/07/the_spiritual_e.html. Beresford is a journalist who has been writing about hospice care for some 20 years and also wrote “The Hospice Handbook” for volunteers. In the article, Beresford mentioned that the spiritual aspect of hospice is being diluted. “If my hypothesis is correct, that this essential spiritual aspect of hospice is being diluted, what might be threatening hospice’s ability to normalize death, facilitate the search for meaning, and help dying patients get their affairs in order in the broadest and most spiritual sense?” he asks, going on to say that the rapid growth of hospice caseloads may be responsible.
I gave Beresford a call to discuss the matter with him. He pointed out that hospice now has 1.4-million patients a year and the fact that Medicare is now paying for part of the care has added to the administrative burden, especially since the Federal Government is now policing the bills. “When it comes to spirituality, there has been a real effort on the part of hospice not to impose any brand of spirituality on them,” Beresford explained. “Generally, the chaplains will ask about religious beliefs and ask if they can help the person, but they have to be really careful in that regard.” He also said that hospice directors are leery of the “born-again” types coming in and scaring the patients by telling them that they are going to burn in hell if they don’t accept their belief system.
Beresford’s comments certainly make sense. There is so much diversity in religious and spiritual views that someone who thinks he is privy to the truth of what follows death might only serve to further confuse the patient and lead the dying person astray. Certainly, most hospice directors or chaplains wouldn’t approve of any Tom, Dick, or Harriet coming in to a hospice and offering spiritual views that might upset or frighten the patient. And while some chaplains may remain objective and open to the lessons of the near-death experience and psychical research, I ‘m sure there are many who would see it being in conflict with their orthodox beliefs and thus discourage it. And so, the hospices seem to do the politically correct thing by avoiding the whole subject as much as possible. Indications are that many hospice volunteers are able to discuss spiritual matters with patients as long as it is informal and out of earshot of the administrators and chaplains who may not agree with what they have to say.
Beresford also mentioned that a visitor in a Massachusetts hospice overheard a volunteer say something to a patient about “going into the light” and found it offensive enough to file a law suit. Thus, he pointed out that such complaints and law suits are another concern. While realizing that he was defending hospice practice in our discussion, Beresford was quick to point out that he understood my concerns about the lack of spiritual counseling in hospice but wanted to be sure I understood the other side of the coin.
What could be more comforting to dying people than to know that they will live on in other dimensions of reality? There is an approach to this that falls outside the dogma and doctrine of organized religions, although many religious leaders are not prepared to accept it out of fear that there will be some conflict with their teachings. I’m referring to psychical research, including near-death studies, which suggests that we live on after death and further gives some indication as to the nature of the afterlife. In his short but concise book, Dr. Baumann, mentioned in the first paragraph, explains how an understanding of quantum physics can point one toward an acceptance of the survival of consciousness at death. He begins by discussing the nature of light and light waves and then goes on to discuss atomic decay and the laws of the solar system. He further discusses how the near-death experience contributes to an understanding of the laws of quantum physics. “Science demands that our souls have an existence beyond our worldly one,” writes Baumann, a former atheist. “We don’t yet have all the answers, but are certainly wiser. Science supports our spirituality. Our souls do not disperse into nothingness.”
By itself, this short book will not likely convince non-believers, but it offers a starting point or core belief that one might begin with before going on to further studying the rich scientific evidence suggesting that we do live on. No, there is no “absolute proof,” as the spiritually-challenged seem to demand, but the evidence at the very least meets the preponderance standard of the law and should offer much hope to dying people with no real conviction on the matter.
I’ve often heard the “making the most of each day” advice. It is sometimes expressed as “living in the present,” “living in the moment,” “living in the now” or “living life to the fullest.” Nice advice if one has a lot of money and can take an around-the-world cruise. But how many dying people are strong enough to do that? Most people with only a few months to live require constant care and perhaps pain medication. Many of them don’t have the strength to leave the bedroom or house. What exactly does that person do to make the most of each day? Watch more TV? Escape into a novel? Play crossword puzzles? Go out into the garden and smell the roses? Call up friends and engage in idle chit-chat? Discuss last night’s game?
When I put the question to a friend recently, he said he would spend more time with his grandchildren. But how much time can you really spend with your grandchildren? And what if you don’t have children or grandchildren or they don’t live near you? And what if the grandchildren would prefer to spend time hanging out with their friends at the local tattoo parlor than with you? Moreover, is it really comforting to spend time with the grandchildren, all the time realizing that it will be all over in a month or two? As the pioneering psychologist and philosopher William James put it:
“The luster of the present hour is always borrowed from the background of possibilities it goes with. Let our common experiences be enveloped in an eternal moral order; let our suffering have an immortal significance; let Heaven smile upon the earth, and deities pay their visits; let faith and hope be the atmosphere which man breathes in; and his days pass by with zest; they stir with prospects, they thrill with remoter values. Place around them on the contrary the curdling cold and gloom and absence of all permanent meaning which for pure naturalism and the popular-science evolutionism of our time are all that is visible ultimately, and the thrill stops short, or turns rather to an anxious trembling.”
The hard-core non-believers often put up a brave front and say they are prepared to walk into the abyss of nothingness since they won’t know it anyway, but as Professor James saw it that attitude is just so much bravado that melts away with age and as the moment of departure nears.
When contemplating a move to another state or planning a trip to another country, the smart person plans ahead and finds out as much about that state or country as he or she can. He checks out books from the library, buys books, picks up travel brochures, whatever, so he is fully prepared for the move. The person doesn’t depart without knowing something about where he or she is going. Shouldn’t it be that way with the transition called death?
One of the biggest problems we face in confronting death is that orthodox religion has offered nothing more than a humdrum heaven or horrific hell. If the person thinks she is going to the humdrum heaven, it is pretty hard to get excited about floating around on clouds all day, strumming harps, and praising God 24/7.
If I were running a hospice, I would make sure it was filled with plenty of reading material about what the Other Side is like. I would begin with the three Elsa Barker- authored books offered at this White Crow web site, as well as the Conan Doyle books.
I could make a list of at least 200 books which would go in the hospice library to either 1) help convince the patient that his or her consciousness will survive death, or 2) give the person a better idea as to what the afterlife environment is like.
I would invite speakers from various groups, such as the International Association of Near-Death Studies (IANDS) or the Academy of Spirituality and Paranormal Studies (ASPSI) to give talks to the patients as to what to their understanding of death is all about. I’d also make available a number of DVD’s about the Near-Death experience and make sure that all patients watch the new BIO channel special “I Survived: Beyond and Back” on Sundays.
Unless the chaplain had an open mind toward these things, I’d probably fire her or him.
Many people who have had near-death experiences (NDEs) report having out-of-body experiences (OBEs) – floating near the ceiling, even traveling some distances while they are clinically “dead” or just unconscious. What this out-of-body phenomenon suggests is that we do have a spirit body, energy body, etheric body, astral body, double, phantasm, parasomatic body, subtle body, whatever name be given to it, that leaves our physical body at death and lives on in another realm of existence or in another dimension. The NDE is seen as a mimic of the true death experience, the difference being that the so-called “silver cord,” the counterpart of the umbilical cord, connecting the two bodies is not severed in the NDE, and thus the spirit body is able to reunite with the physical body.
Some people undergoing surgery have reported watching the procedure from above. A number of them have given very veridical reports that are hard to discount, identifying unusual happenings while they are “dead” or unconscious, but there is always a “maybe” or two connected with it. Maybe she saw a similar procedure on TV. Maybe she was not completely unconscious and heard someone in the operating room make a remark of some kind. Maybe a nurse in ICU told her about it before she mentioned it to the physician. Maybe this, maybe that.
A study being conducted by Dr. Sam Parnia, the lead investigator in a research project coordinated by Southampton University’s School of Medicine in England is designed to see if the “maybe” factor can be eliminated. The study involves pictures, symbols, words, or numbers being placed face up near the ceiling in emergency-care areas of hospitals in both the U.S. and U.K., the objective being to determine if a person having a near-death experience or out-of-body experience will, upon regaining earthly consciousness, report seeing the target object. Less ambitious studies than that being carried out by Dr. Parnia have apparently yielded no positive results.
It is my understanding that the target is being placed only about six inches from the ceiling, which seems much too high if there is any similarity between normal vision and spirit vision. It assumes that the spirit body will hover right next to the ceiling and remain there, while having a very panoramic view of things.
Another problem I see is that of the NDEr seeing the target object but not recording it in his or her memory bank. We all see numerous things that have no special interest to us. When I walk to the coffee shop in the morning, I pass a gas station with a large sign displaying the cost of a gallon of gas that particular day. I usually see the sign but do not record the amount in my conscious brain. I pass many other signs, symbols, and objects which I see but don’t store away as I have no real use for the information. When I met my new neighbor recently, I heard his name but two minutes into our conversation I realized that I failed to record it and had to ask him to repeat it.
I know that there are people who are more attentive, more focused, and have sharper memories than I have and there are those who have trained their minds to remember names and numbers. Perhaps there are some who don’t need to train their minds in this respect and have some innate ability to remember names and numbers without making any effort. However, they are atypical.
Many of the NDE reports suggest that the person is in awe of finding himself out of body and more focused on what is happening to his body. Since the person is unaware of the test, he is not looking for the target object in the first place. He may see it in a panoramic view, but be more concerned about other things to really take note of it. It would seem that if the target object caught the individual’s attention, he might become curious as to why such an object is displayed in a place where nobody can see it, and zoom in on it. However, it is not really clear that consciousness in that state works that way.
Whatever it is about the brain mechanism that allows us to see and hear things and yet not record them will, I believe, likely contribute to the failure of Parnia’s study.
An even bigger obstacle to positive results may be remembering it when consciousness is restored. “As I have said, for some reason beyond my ken these memories of the discarnate experiences are peculiarly evanescent, even more fleeting than ordinary dreams,” said Oliver Fox, one of the pioneers of the out-of-body experience in his book, Astral Projection. Fox learned to leave his physical body and travel to other places, some quite distant from his physical body. He wrote that he had to make a record of what he saw as soon as he returned to his body, otherwise he would quickly forget what he observed. Even then, much of it was fragmented, blurred or fuzzy.
In his 1927 book, The Astral Body, Arthur Powell says much the same thing. “…the man in his astral body may succeed in making a momentary impression on the etheric double and the dense body, resulting in a vivid memory of the astral life,” he wrote. “This is sometimes done deliberately when something occurs which the man feels that he ought to remember on the physical plane (emphasis mine). Such a memory usually vanishes quickly and cannot be recovered.” Therefore, it may be that while the NDEr becomes curious as to the picture, symbol, or word appearing near the ceiling, he may not realize that he “ought to remember” it when he regains consciousness.
True, many NDErs have reported very vivid recollections of their out-of-body experience, but if we can equate these recollections to dreams, the recollections represent a very small percentage of what was really experienced. Most people don’t remember their dreams, but occasionally they will have seemingly meaningful dreams which stick with them for some time after awakening. These dreams are rare with most people and then only fragments of the dream are remembered, perhaps those which are really meaningful or stir some emotions.
There are mystical teachings that say we do a lot of out-of-body travel while we are sleeping. The sudden muscle/joint jerk we occasionally experience when awakened is the astral body jumping back into the physical body. If that is true, it may very well be that every person unconscious, whether “dead” or not, while undergoing surgery is out-of-body but simply doesn’t remember it when consciousness is regained. The small percentage who do remember it recall the experience to varying degrees, just as dreams are recalled to varying degrees. This does not mean that the NDE/OBE is a dream, only that the effect on the physical brain is much the same.
If the NDE/OBE is just a dream or an hallucination, one has to wonder why they aren’t as diverse as regular dreams. Why are they all so similar? Why do so many people meet deceased relatives and friends during their NDEs? Why do so many of them have life reviews?
Since mainstream science doesn’t even recognize a difference between mind and brain, it can hardly offer any guidance in this respect. Clearly, there is so much about consciousness that is not understood. For example, in the famous “book tests” conducted by C. Drayton Thomas, a British researcher, the communicating spirit was able to tell Thomas what was inside a number of randomly chosen closed books on a specific page. In one test, the communicating spirit said that on page 149, three-quarters down, Thomas would find a word conveying the meanings of falling back or stumbling. When Thomas opened the book to that page and place, he found the words, “to whom a crucified Messiah was an insuperable stumbling-block.” The spirit informed Thomas that he was able to get the appropriate spirit of the passage but not the exact words. He called it more “sensing” that “seeing.”
He further stated that objects on the earth plane are not as real to them as those on their own plane. “To us they appear misty and cloudy,” he explained. “You have heard of the aura. We can see your aura when we cannot see you, and we can see it before we see you. At times, I am only just able to see your chair, or perhaps a corner of something which I guess to be a table; things sometimes are very vague to our sight.”
Not long after his death in December 1905, Dr. Richard Hodgson, who had studied Boston medium Leonora Piper for some 18 years, began communicating through Piper. “I find now difficulties such as a blind man would experience in trying to find his hat,” the discarnate Richard Hodgson told Professor William Newbold in a July 23, 1906 sitting. When Newbold asked Hodgson if he could see him, Hodgson replied that he could but that he could feel his presence better. (emphasis mine)
Soon after he died in 1925, Sir William Barrett, a renowned British physicist, began communicating with his wife, Dr. Florence Barrett, through the mediumship of Gladys Osborne Leonard. He explained to his wife that when we die, the consciousness and subconsciousness join to make a complete mind, but that when he has to come back into the earth vibration to communicate with her the mind again separates and he has a difficult time remembering things. When he then withdraws from the earth vibrations, he immediately remembers things that he wanted to tell her but didn’t.
“When I am in my own sphere I am told a name and think I shall remember it,” Barrett related on another occasion. “When I come into the condition of a sitting I then know that I can only carry with me – contain in me – a small portion of my consciousness. The easiest things to lay hold of are what we may call ideas. A detached word, a proper name, has no link with a train of thought except in a detached sense; that is far more difficult than other feat of memory or association of ideas.”
Whether these same things apply to the spirit body still connected to its physical body as to a spirit body disconnected is a matter of speculation, but it does provide food for thought and make one wonder if Parnia is assuming too much in believing that celestial vision is the same as terrestrial vision.
The skeptics and debunkers are already claiming that lack of any results in such NDE studies proves that they are no more than hallucinations of one kind or another. They don’t consider the possibility that celestial vision and terrestrial vision are different. Since they don’t believe in a celestial world in the first place, how could they?
As time goes on with no results in the Parnia test, we can expect the skeptics, debunkers, and other spiritually-challenged people to wave their victory banners of doom and gloom. If, however, there is a positive result or two, they will still have reasons to dismiss it. The janitor dusted just before the surgery and told someone about the target picture, or one of the nurses got a ladder, found out the nature of the target, and told the patient as she wanted the test to be a success, or the symbol reflected off one of the machines. The debunkers will always find a reason to reject the results.
Michael Tymn is the author of The Articulate Dead, which is available on Amazon http://snipurl.com/1tb3c3
Scientific Research Suggests Contact with the “Dead”
Posted on 28 December 2010, 9:34
Co-founder and Director of Research at The Windbridge Institute for Applied Research in Human Potential in Tucson, Arizona, Julie Beischel, Ph.D, is one of the leading consciousness researchers in the world today. Her focus has been on communication purportedly coming from discarnates through mediums.
Dr. Beischel received her doctorate in pharmacology and toxicology with a minor in microbiology and immunology from the University of Arizona. She is currently a member of the Parapsychological Association and the Society for Scientific Exploration and a member of the scientific advisory boards of the Rhine Research Center and Forever Family Foundation. Her academic training in several interdisciplinary scientific fields allows her to design and apply traditional research methods to investigating more unconventional topics of study. Her peer-reviewed articles have been published in a number of scientific journals.
According to its website (http://www.windbridge.org), the Windbridge Institute “is concerned with asking: What can we do with the potential that exists within our bodies, minds, and spirits? Can we heal each other? Ourselves? Can we affect events and physical reality with our thoughts? Can we know things before they happen? Are we connected to each other? To the planet? Can we communicate with our loved ones who have passed?”
I recently had the opportunity to interview Dr. Beischel for the December issue of “The Searchlight,” a quarterly publication of the Academy of Spirituality and Paranormal Studies, Inc.
(http://www.aspsi.org) Here is that interview:
How did you become interested in psychical research and mediumship?
“Science has always been in my blood, but it was always the more traditional sciences. I didn’t even know what a medium was until questions about the afterlife showed up in my backyard. When my mother committed suicide when I was 24, I turned to science for the answers to my questions. Through a series of interesting “coincidences,” I was able to begin performing survival and mediumship research after I received my PhD in 2003 and I have been doing so ever since. I quickly discovered that there was something interesting going on and a lot of research questions that still needed answers.”
Where does the name Windbridge come from?
“When Mark Boccuzzi and I decided to start our own independent research institute almost three years ago, we wanted a name that referenced the dichotomy of human existence; one part intangible (mind, spirit, or soul) and one part material (body). Like spirit, one cannot hold, weigh, or see wind, but it is very powerful. And like the body, a bridge is quite substantial and allows us to connect with the rest of the world. ‘Bridge’ also makes reference to a medium’s role as a bridge between this world and the next.”
Your web site states that survival research is your primary focus. Would you mind summarizing your findings to date relative to survival?
“At this point, we can definitively state from the results of our proof-focused research that certain mediums are capable of what we call anomalous information reception (or AIR). That is, they can report accurate and specific information about deceased individuals (or discarnates) without any prior knowledge about the discarnates or sitters (the living people interested in hearing from the discarnates), without any feedback during the reading, and without using fraud or deception. The quintuple-blind protocol we use effectively eliminates all the explanations that a skeptic may claim are responsible for a medium’s apparent accuracy: fraud, experimenter cueing, information so general it could apply to anyone, rater bias, and ‘cold reading’ (a situation in which a medium uses cues from a present sitter to fabricate an ‘accurate’ reading). The readings take place on the phone between a medium and a blinded experimenter; sitters do not hear the readings as they take place and they later score blinded transcripts.
“Though we can demonstrate AIR, we cannot determine the anomalous source of the mediums’ information using proof-focused research. In addition to survival of consciousness, the super psi and psychic reservoir theories are also supported by the data. To address that issue, we use process-focused research in which we systematically investigate the mediums’ experiences. We have found that—though there are some similarities between mediums’ experiences when receiving psychic information about the living and when communicating with the deceased—they report being able to differentiate between the two varied experiences. We are still conducting studies on this process-focused research front.
“In addition, we are very interested in applied mediumship research and determining how mediumship readings may be beneficial in society. Currently, this involves a research program investigating the therapeutic effects of readings from credentialed mediums in the treatment of grief. From the initial data we have collected, it appears that mediumship readings may indeed have several advantages over both traditional grief therapy and spontaneous personal after-death communication experiences. I am excited to start a larger study on this topic once we can locate funding for such a project.”
The old researchers like Myers, Hodgson, Lodge, Hyslop, et al., at some point professed a belief in survival, but many of today’s researchers seem to think that they must forever remain on the fence if they are to be perceived as “scientific.” What is your position on that? If you find evidence strongly suggesting survival and publish that, do you suddenly become a propagandist rather than a scientist?
“It’s a fine line around which I continue to tip-toe. Back in my traditional science days, no one would ever refer to me as a “believer” in the effect of a drug or a virus on the body, but if I were to announce that mediums can report accurate information about the deceased under blinded conditions (which I regularly do), I run the risk of being labeled a proponent or believer and viewed as some kind of zealot even though I am simply drawing the appropriate conclusion from the statistics performed on data collected using a properly designed protocol. It is a strange position in which scientists in other fields do not find themselves.
“However, I would like to point out that the modern mediumship research era differs considerably from the early days of the Society for Psychical Research in its use of technology (for example, digital recording, e-mail scoring, three-way phone calls, etc.) as well as the characteristics of the medium participants (for example, the Windbridge Certified Research Mediums do not enter a trance state during readings and do not associate their mediumship with a specific religious belief system such as Spiritualism), so grouping all the data together may not be appropriate. Thus, the new era is still in its infancy and I truly don’t think enough data has been collected to make any firm conclusions about the source of mediums’ information. I will say that taking into account only the proof- and process-focused mediumship data I have collected myself, I am certainly leaning toward survival and away from the alternative psi hypotheses.”
What is the focus of your current research?
“Currently, to provide more evidence regarding anomalous information reception, we are collecting data to replicate and extend a previously published proof-focused study. We are also screening new prospective Windbridge Certified Research Mediums and collecting phenomenological data about mediums’ experiences during communication which will allow us to determine if any specific dimensions of consciousness correlate with reading accuracy. We also recently completed an instrumental transcommunication (ITC) study of real-time communication using EVPMaker software and presented research on animal psi as well as photographic orbic artifacts at academic conferences. Perhaps most importantly, we are finishing up a paper proposing the positive therapeutic potential of mediumship readings in the treatment of grief. (More information about our presentations and papers can be found here: http://www.windbridge.org/publications.htm.)”
Has there been one medium or one case that has been particularly evidential to you?
“One medium or one reading can always be dismissed as a fluke. Therefore, at the Windbridge Institute, we are interested in collecting data from numerous mediums. That way, it is more evidential of a widespread phenomenon or ability.
“Personally, I think it is the compilation of all the readings and data I’ve collected together that provides the most evidence. It is witnessing over and over numerous mediums able to report accurate and specific information about the deceased under effectively blinded conditions and observing what seems to be communication with a volitional entity rather than the acquisition of information stored in some kind of etheric database.”
What has been the biggest obstacle in your research?
“Without question: funding. Survival of consciousness is not an area of research funded by any government grants or by any but a handful of private foundations. I have noticed that the lay public sometimes assumes that scientists do the research that they want to do when the reality is that all but a few scientists simply do the research they can get funded to do. This is true everywhere—at universities, for example, research is paid for by grants (and sometimes by private donations), not by the university. I do not fit into that majority of scientists and my position out here in the fringe is both a blessing and a curse: I get to perform research that interests me and that I find monumentally important and socially relevant but, at the same time, I cannot afford luxuries like health insurance, a car manufactured during this century, or restaurant food. It is not surprising that more people aren’t working in this field and that it takes so long for us to accomplish anything: I can’t afford the necessary equipment and personnel to perform the types and number of studies I’d like to do.”
Based on history, mainstream science will never accept evidence for survival or even for ESP in general. Do you see your research as being able to make a dent in that mindset?
“We don’t worry about what the mainstream has to say about anything. Changes don’t come about in the mainstream; they happen at the edges. Our focus is on the practical social applications of survival research—how it can serve society—and a mediumship reading isn’t going to help heal a grieving parent or spouse any less based on what the currently accepted mainstream paradigm happens to be.”
How can people get involved with the Windbridge Institute?
Admiral tells of drowning and what happened after.
Posted on 13 December 2010, 9:53
Pseudoskeptics and debunkers claim that lack of oxygen to the brain explains the tunnel effect reported by many people who have had a near-death experience (NDE) and that the other things reported are a product of fantasy, imagination, hallucination, and expectations. Before Dr. Raymond Moody named the NDE and popularized it in his 1975 best-selling book Life After Life, very few people were aware of the phenomenon and so there was little, if any, expectation. Now that many books on the subject have been published the expectation factor is more of a consideration. That is, the pseudoskeptics can now claim that people have been “programmed” to imagine similar experiences. And so it is that some of the very old NDEs give credibility to the newer ones, since those experiencers were likely not expecting anything.
Three very intriguing NDEs have been reported in prior blog posts here and can be found in the “Features” section: They are titled “The Most Dynamic NDE You’ll Ever Read About,” “The Physician Who Watched Himself Die,” and “An Early Near-Death Experience.” I recently came across another very interesting NDE involving a very credible person, one not likely to have made up such a story. It was in an 1863 book, From Matter to Spirit, authored by Sophia Elizabeth De Morgan, the wife of the renowned British mathematician and logician Augustus De Morgan, who wrote a lengthy Preface to the book setting forth his 10 years of experience in investigating psychic phenomena.
The NDE was reported by British Rear Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort (1774 to 1857), (below) who is most remembered today for devising the Beaufort Wind Scales. After his retirement from the Royal Navy, Beaufort served as a council member of the Royal Society, the Royal Observatory, and the Royal Geographic Society, the latter of which he was a founding member. After telling his experience to his physician, a Dr. Wollaston, he was asked to provide a detailed account in writing.
The experience took place sometime around 1795, when he was a young sailor on one His Majesty’s ships in Portsmouth harbor. Beaufort wrote that he was sculling about in a small boat endeavoring to fasten the boat to a ship when he stepped upon the gunwale, lost his balance, and fell into the water. Not knowing how to swim, he splashed about before he began to sink below the surface. “All hope had fled, all exertion ceased, and I felt that I was drowning,” Beaufort related in the lengthy letter to Dr. Wollaston. While his plight came to the attention of others, it took a minute or two for them to reach him.
Beaufort went on to say that one would assume that a drowning person is too much occupied in the struggle or too much absorbed by alternate hope and despair to remember what happened. “Not so, however, with the fact which immediately ensured,” he wrote. “My mind had then undergone the sudden revolution which appeared to you (Wollaston) so remarkable, and all the circumstances of which are now so vividly fresh in my memory as if they had occurred but yesterday.”
He continued the story (emphasis mine): “From the moment that all exertion had ceased – which I imagine was the immediate consequence of complete suffocation – a calm feeling of the most perfect tranquility succeeded the most tumultuous sensation. It might be called apathy, certainly not resignation; for drowning no longer appeared an evil; I no longer thought of being rescued, nor was I in any bodily pain. On the contrary, my sensations were now of rather a pleasurable cast, partaking of that dull but contented sort of feeling which precedes the sleep produced by fatigue. Though the senses were thus deadened, not so the mind; its activity seemed to be invigorated in a ratio which defies all description; for thought rose after thought with a rapidity of succession that is not only indescribably, but probably inconceivable, by anyone who has been himself in a similar situation. The course of these thoughts I can even now in a great measure retrace: the event that had just taken place, the awkwardness which produced it – the bustle it must have occasioned, for I had observed two persons jump from the chains – the effect it would have on a most affectionate father, the manner in which he would disclose it to the rest of the family, and thousand other circumstances minutely associated with home, were the first series of reflections that occurred.”
His life then played back before him. “Our last cruise – a former voyage and shipwreck – my school, the progress I had made there, the time had misspent, and even all my boyish pursuits and adventures. Thus, traveling backwards, every incident of my past life seemed to me to glance across my recollection in retrograde procession; not, however, in mere outline as here stated, but the picture filled up with every minute and collateral feature; in short, the whole period of my existence seemed to be placed before me in a kind of panoramic view, and each act of it seemed to be accompanied by a consciousness of right or wrong, or by some reflection on its cause of consequence – indeed many trifling events, which had been long forgotten, then crowded into my imagination, and with the character of recent familiarity.”
Beaufort then speculated on the meaning of it all. “May not all this be some indication of the almost infinite power of memory with which we may awaken in another world, and be compelled to contemplate our past lives? Or might it not, in some degree, warrant the inference that death is only a change or modification or our existence, in which there is no real pause or interruption? But however that may be, one circumstance was highly remarkable, that the innumerable ideas which floated into my mind were all retrospective; yet I had been religiously brought up; my hopes and fears of the next world had lost nothing of their early strength, and at any other period intense interest and awful anxiety would have been excited by the mere idea that I was floating on the threshold of eternity; yet at that inexplicable moment, when I had full consciousness that I had already crossed that threshold, not a single thought wandered into the future; I was wrapped entirely in the past. The length of time that was occupied by this deluge of ideas, or rather the shortness of time into which they were condensed, I cannot now state with precision; yet, certainly, two minutes could not have elapsed from the moment of suffocation to the time of my being hauled up.”
Author De Morgan noted that such reports after sudden death are rare, but that there are many similar stories related by those dying from prolonged illness. “…the soul often returns to the scenes of childhood, and seems to wander with its first friends in the earliest home. But a few hours before death not only is the presence of already gone friends discerned, but perceptions of beautiful scenery, sounds of exquisite music, and sometimes even the objects required for a long journey, seem to be present to the mind of the departing traveler…It is as if the walls of the prison giving way, the captive before his escape looks sometimes through one, and sometimes another opening, into the region beyond, whence the friendly inhabitants some to guide him on his way.”
The experience of Horace Abraham Ackley, M.D., of Cleveland, Ohio reported by De Morgan was not a near-death experience. It was an actual experience as communicated through a medium. Ackley reported:
“I experienced but very little suffering during the last few days of my life, though at first there were struggles, and my features were distorted; but I learned, after my spirit had burst its barriers and was freed from its connection with the external body, that these were produced by it in an attempt to sever this connection, which in all cases is more or less difficult; the vital points of contact being suddenly broken by disease, the union in other portions of the system is necessarily severed with violence, but, as far as I have learned, without consciousness of pain. Like many others, I found that I was unable to leave the form at once. I could feel myself gradually raised from my body, and in a dreamy, half-conscious state. It seemed as through I was not a united being – that I was separated into parts, and yet despite of this there seemed to be an indissoluble connecting link. My spirit was freed a short time after the organs of my physical body had entirely ceased to perform their functions. My spiritual form was then united into one, and I was raised a short distance above the body, standing over it by what power I was unable to tell. I could see those who were in the room around me, and knew by what was going on that a considerable time must have elapsed since dissolution had taken place, and I presume I must have been for a time unconscious; and this I find is a common experience, not however, universal.
Ackley then reported his life review. “As consciousness returned to me, the scenes of my whole life seemed to move before me like a panorama; every act seemed as through it were drawn in life size and was really present; it was all there, down to the closing scenes. So rapidly did it pass, that I had little time for reflection. I seemed to be in a whirlpool of excitement; and then, just as suddenly as this panorama had been presented, it was withdrawn, and I was left without a thought of the past or future to contemplate my present condition. I looked around me, and I thought, if there is a possibility of spirits (for I seemed half-conscious now that I was a spirit) manifesting themselves to those still in the form, how gladly would I now do so, and thereby inform my friends and others of my condition, at least as far as I understood it myself, which I confess was not very far. Everything seemed to be in a whirl of motion; scarcely had one desire come, before another was presented. I said to myself, ‘Death is not so bad a thing after all, and I should like to see what the country is that I am going to, if I am a spirit.”
Ackley recalled hearing that guardian spirits are there to welcome the newly arrived soul, but he saw none. “Scarcely had this thought passed through my mind, when two, with whom I was unacquainted, but toward whom I was attracted, appeared before me. They were men of intelligence, but like myself, had given no special attention to the higher principles of spirituality; they knew my name, although I did not reveal it, and they shook hands with me in a hail-fellow-well-met sort of way, that was very pleasant to me.
The two spirits then conducted Ackley from the room in which he had died. “Everything around me seemed shadowy, yet through these shadows they conducted me to a place where there were a number of spirits assembled.; these had been in spirit life a longer time than I had….I remained in conversation with these spirits for some time, and then, without knowing why or how, I was attracted back to the place in which my spirit had separated itself from the form. I then found that I must have been in their company much longer than I supposed, as, contrary to the experience of many whom I have since met, I did not attend my own funeral; and I would here remark, that it is generally gratifying to a spirit to do this, and where the body can be kept for some time, they gladly embrace the opportunity of attending on this ceremony, and listening to and aiding those who officiate on such occasions.”
De Morgan cites another case in which a communicating spirit explained that the difficulty a spirit has in freeing itself from the physical body is in proportion to its “lower desires.”
Retired U.S. Navy Commander Experiences Mystical Writing
Posted on 29 November 2010, 10:24
The line separating inspirational writing from automatic writing is often difficult to identify. Generally, inspirational writing is said to be spirit-inspired and coming primarily from the subconscious of the person, while automatic writing is said to involve little of the person’s subconscious and to come primarily from a spirit communicator without too much interference by the automatist’s brain, conscious or subconscious. As pointed out in the last blog entry here, Brazilian Spiritists refer to what most others call automatic writing as “psychography” and what most others call inspirational writing as automatic writing. It is all very confusing, but there does seem to be a significant overlap between the two. Suzanne Giesemann, a retired U.S. Navy Commander, calls her brand of writing inspirational writing, although from her description of it, some would call it automatic writing or psychography. Perhaps they can be lumped together and called “mystical writing.”
“While meditating I ask my spirit guides to blend their energy with mine,” Giesemann explained to me by e-mail. “I sit quietly and very often my right index finger twitches upward, indicating that it is time to write, that the spirits have something to say. At other times I very clearly hear the words, ‘pick up your pen.’ (My strongest way of attuning to the spirit world is through clairaudience).”
Words then flow from her pen presenting words and ideas which do not seem to be coming from her own mind. “I am aware of each sentence or phrase as it comes through because I hear and write it, but it is immediately forgotten after writing it, for I am holding a passive mind focus to receive the words,” she further explains. “If I stop to think about what I’m hearing, the flow stops. My understanding of this is that the spirit writers (those who are giving me the words of the poetry or prose) blend their consciousness with mine, with my consent. I surrender my consciousness and they let their ideas, concepts, and phrases flow through mine.”
Although she has been meditating for years, Giesemann did not begin to experience this mystical writing until shortly after writing The Priest and the Medium, a book published in 2009 about Anne Gehman, a very gifted medium, and Wayne Knoll, a Jesuit priest and professor at Georgetown University. The book tells of Gehman’s interesting paranormal experiences, including an NDE, and of Knoll’s struggles to overcome his loneliness and find companionship, and then how the two met and reconciled their views of God and the spirit world.
After writing the book, Giesemann took several classes on mediumship and an intensive course on the subject at Arthur Findlay College in England, then began developing mediumistic abilities of her own.
“Check my homepage, http://www.SuzanneGiesemann.com and you’ll find I have a pretty straight-laced background: 20 years in the Navy, management consulting…You won’t find any incense burning in my home or catch me wearing any wrap-around tie-died skirts,” she writes at her website. “The fact is, even I still have trouble seeing myself as the kind of person who would author a blog about talking to spirits. And others agree.”
When a business client heard about her book about the medium and the priest, he was somewhat taken aback, wondering if Giesemann really believed in “that stuff.” Giesemann responded that she sure did. “If he’d asked me the same question a couple of weeks earlier, I might have waffled,” she continues telling of her introduction to mediumship. “That’s what I did when telling a former colleague that the spirit of his deceased daughter had come through in a reading I’d recently had with a medium. The man was a retired senior naval officer who knew me back when we were both still in uniform. I felt he would want to know that a medium who knew nothing about his family had brought up his deceased daughter’s not-so-common name in a highly-evidential context with no prompting from me. There was no doubt in my mind that there’d been some real spirit communication going on, but I found myself apologizing to the man, lest he think I’d lost a few marbles since I left the Navy.”
After the conversation, Giesemann decided she needed to make up her mind: either she believed in the spirit world or she didn’t. “The truth is,” she continues, “since the death of my own step-daughter, I no longer believe, hope, or wish that our spirit survives the transition we call death…I know. Others may think I’m a fruitcake or a New Age nut, but what others think no longer matters.”
Giesemann’s step-daughter, Susan, was struck and killed by lightning on June 8, 2006. She tells of the signs received from Susan at her blog entry of June 20, 2009 and explains that her search for more answers about life after death began with that experience. Her research led to meeting Anne Gehman and the book unfolded from hearing her story.
On July 12, 2009, Giesemann meditated and asked her guides to blend with her. Sitting in the aft cabin of her sailboat, she had placed a notebook and pen on the desk in front of her. “I felt very lightheaded and knew from recent experiences that there was a presence with me,” she recalls, adding that she then asked for guidance on a presentation she would be giving at a workshop that Saturday. “I suddenly felt the need to pick up the paper,” she continues. “I placed it in my lap and wrote a few words. Within seconds, words started flowing. After a few sentences, I noticed that the words were rhyming. I felt surprise and slight elation, for the lines had real rhythm and rhyme, yet there were coming to me without my thinking. They came so quickly that I didn’t have time to THINK - I just kept writing and realized, ‘They’ve sent me a poet!’” .
Giesemann filled page after page without opening her eyes. “I could tell as I wrote each line that it made sense and that it rhymed, but I had no sense of the words as a whole,” she further explains. “I intuitively knew when they had finished, so I laid down the pen. And then I sat there and cried. I hadn’t even read the words, yet I knew they were special. I knew I hadn’t written them from my conscious mind. It had taken no more than ten minutes to write all the words, and I could not have done that by myself.” The words flowed (partial here):
The world is ready for these your words.
They wait and listen with wings like birds.
For ours is yours and yours is ours.
Such is the greatness of the Great Spirit’s powers.
Blessed are all who know these truths.
Shout it, blast it, from the roofs.
Be our voice, we work with you.
We come to speak of beauty true.
Divine is the light of which we speak.
Beauty lies in the watch we keep.
Speak of love, speak of beauty …
This, my dear, is your great duty.
We love you and hold you in our keep.
Go forth and trust that you can speak.
With this we leave you this blessed day.
Come back to us and together we’ll pray.
For we are here; at your side we wait.
It’s with great hope we anticipate
The truths you’ll carry to those who listen
The truths of God on your words will glisten.
Go now and rest for there’s work to do.
We have great love and trust in you.
You have our blessing. In you we’re proud.
Take our wisdom and shout it loud.
We love you all. For this we’ve come.
There is no rest ‘til the Spirit’s work is done.
After 369 poems – all of which are posted at her website – Giesemann was told by spirit that it was time for a “new phase.” Beginning on August 1, 2010, she channeled a new energy. “The voice told me that they were the collective consciousness of all my guides and that we were to call them ‘Sanaya,” she relates. “I later discovered, to my delight, that Sanaya is a female Sanskrit name meaning ‘eminent, distinguished, and ‘of the gods.’ They told me that I should prepare to ‘write and write and write as Sanaya.’”
Sanaya has delivered nearly 100 messages of wit and wisdom to date, including this one:
The death of a loved one is a trying time for those on earth, no matter how enlightened you are. You share memories with the one who passes. You share love and concern. Concern yourself at this time with those who do not have the full understanding of this very natural transition. Concern yourself as well with yourself.
Share with others and remind yourself that death is a point of celebration for the one who will no longer have to bear the pain and darkness of life in the physical world. Know that they will be surrounded by love and loved ones who have preceded them. Life will be far easier now for them, and we do stress this word “life,” for life is indeed eternal.
Concern yourself far more with remembering the good times and know that you will share these again. Feel your grief, but do not become swallowed up in it. Allow yourself a period of sadness for the close contact you will miss, then pull yourself back to that place of love within yourself. Do this as a choice—for yourself—with your own thoughts. It is not necessary to suffer. Your loved one no longer suffers and would want you to know this. They look upon you with new eyes and wish you to know all is well. They are safe and loved in the arms of angels, and so are you, my friend, so are you.
The other messages can be viewed at her web site.
Giesemann is convinced that the words are coming from spirit, not from her own mind. “At first I thought I was making up what I was hearing until I noticed that the words were rhyming,” she stresses. “I might be able to rhyme one or two phrases on the spot, but not verse after verse non-stop with such beautiful messages. After a year of receiving poetry, the spirits now give me prose as well, for I finally know that I am not making this up.”
She also points out that after channeling a message from spirit, she frequently finds the exact words or new concepts in her spiritual reading later the same day. “This happens repeatedly—words such as “fear not the morrow,” which I would never use, and then within hours I come across the phrase in my reading,” she further explains by e-mail. “I always ask to be guided to what I should learn through the books I read, so when I pick up a book I’m drawn to read and find there what came through in the inspired writing earlier that day, this is always very evidential to me that these are non-physical minds working with my mind and guiding me. Additionally, I have had friends give me personal questions to ask of the spirit guides and poets. The poems that result have revealed childhood traumas and other circumstances which I knew nothing about. I recently sat with a friend who is going through difficulties. She asked for advice and I had no idea how to help her. I apologized for not knowing what to say, and we simply sat and prayed together. I went home and sat in meditation and asked my guides for advice. Their answer came in a full page of advice specific to her situation, stated in beautiful prose which I later shared with her. She told me the advice was spot-on and brought her the first true peace she’d found in weeks. I can take no credit whatsoever for that kind of writing.”
Giesemann has recently co-authored a how-to book of evidential mediumship with internationally acclaimed medium Janet Nohavec. That book, Where Two Worlds Meet, is due out next month.
If there is some kind of Guinness world record for the number of books authored in a lifetime, Francisco Candido “Chico” Xavier must certainly hold the record. A Brazilian who transitioned to the spirit world on June 30, 2002, Xavier produced 458 books with sales in excess of 50 million copies.
But the record may require an asterisk, because Xavier was not really the author. “…if I were to say these books belonged to me, I would be committing a fraud for which I would have to answer in a very serious way after I left this world,” Xavier is quoted in a recently-released book, Chico Xavier: Medium of the Century, authored by Guy Lyon Playfair, a long-time investigator of psychic phenomena. (The book is available at Amazon.com and Amazon.com.uk)
Xavier, who dropped out of school at age 13, gave credit for the words in his books to various spirit entities. His books, which included literature, history, science, and Spiritist doctrine, were published with the phrase “dictated by the spirit of…” on the title page. Moreover, Xavier donated the royalties to charity, living his entire life on a very modest government income and pension.
Most people familiar with mediumship would call it “automatic writing,” but Brazilian Spiritists call it “psychography.” As Playfair points out, Spiritists make a distinction between the two, holding that automatic writing comes from the subconscious and psychography from a separate entity.
So famous was Xavier in Brazil and the Portuguese-speaking world that he was honored with a stamp on April 2 of this year, the 100th anniversary of his birthday. In his home state of Minas Gerias, he was voted “person of the century” in 2000 by readers of a major newspaper there, beating out an aviation pioneer, a former president of the country, and the legendary soccer player, Pelé. More than 120,000 people lined up in a queue over two miles long to file past Xavier’s coffin and 30,000 joined in the funeral procession.
In 1932, when he was just 22, Xavier produced a 421-page book with 259 poems, signed by 56 poets, many of them famous when alive in the flesh. It became a best-seller and convinced many Brazilians that consciousness survives physical death. Playfair mentions that the poems were clearly in the individual styles of the deceased poets. “Moreover,” Playfair offers, “if you are thinking of faking a Shakespeare sonnet, you must do more than imitate the poet’s style. You must get across an idea, an image, that elusive ingredient that makes a poem something more than the sum of its words.” This was clearly the case with the Xavier-produced poems.
Xavier explained that he always felt an electrical sensation in his arm when he was taking dictation and that he felt his brain had been invaded by some indefinable vibrations. Interestingly, D.D. Home, the famous 19th century medium known for his levitations, wrote that he experienced an “electrical fullness” about his feet when the spirits were raising him from the ground.
“To produce automatic writing, the spirit simply makes contact with the medium’s frontal lobes and right hand, leaving the rest of the brain and body free,” Playfair sets forth his understanding of the phenomenon.
In addition to the books, Xavier also received many evidential messages. One of them was even accepted in a court of law and a couple of others influenced court decisions.
Patience Worth
A somewhat similar case of automatic writing began in the United States when Chico Xavier was only three years old. It involved a St. Louis, Missouri housewife, Pearl Curran. First from a friend’s Ouija board, then a pencil, then a typewriter, flowed the writings of a person identifying herself as Patience Worth, a 17th Century English woman. Over a period of 24 years, Patience Worth dictated approximately four million words, including seven books, some short stories, several plays, thousands of poems, and countless epigrams and aphorisms.
Like Chico Xavier, Pearl Curran had only an elementary school education. In some of her scripts, she used Anglo-Saxon words that are no longer part of the English vocabulary; yet, researchers were able to confirm that these words did exist at one time, although it would have been virtually impossible for Curran to have come upon them. Critics compared her works to those of Shakespeare, Chaucer, and Spencer.
W. T. Allison, professor of English literature at the University of Manitoba, observed that Patience Worth dictated words found only in Melton’s time and some of them had no meaning until researched in dialectic dictionaries and old books. Allison, who closely observed Curran, reported that in one evening 15 poems were produced in an hour and 15 minutes, an average of five minutes for each poem. “All were poured out with a speed that Tennyson or Browning could never have hoped to equal, and some of the 15 lyrics are so good that either of those great poets might be proud to have written them,” Allison offered. He went on to say that Patience Worth “must be regarded as the outstanding phenomenon of our age, and I cannot help thinking of all time.”
When a philologist asked Patience how and why she used the language of so many different periods, she responded: “I do plod a twist of a path and it hath run from then till now.” When asked to explain how she could dictate responses without a pause, she replied: “Ye see, man setteth up his cup and fillet it, but I be as the stream.”
According to Dr. Walter Franklin Prince, one of the scientists who studied the phenomena, Patience Worth’s writing “displayed original genius, enormous erudition, familiarity with literature and history of many ages, versatility of experience, philosophical depth, piercing wit, moral spirituality, swiftness of thought, and penetrating wisdom,” qualities and characteristics which were totally foreign to Pearl Curran. Moreover, Curran was witnessed talking to people as she took dictation from Patience.
(For a more complete story on Pearl Curran, see The Mystery of Patience Worth in the Features section of this blog.)
Many psychologists and parapsychologists are grounded in materialism and unable to consider a spiritual explanation for automatic writing. Thus, they contend that the automatic writing is coming from the medium’s subconscious mind. However, they don’t really address how the information got into the subconscious in the first place. Television was not yet a reality when Pear Curran lived nor for the first half of Chico Xavier’s life, so it is unlikely that the subconscious absorbed it from television programs. Radio was in its infancy when Pearl Curran lived and it is highly unlikely she listened to many radio programs or read many books with 17th Century English.
Those who believe in reincarnation might explain Patience Worth as memories from a past life existing in Pearl Curran’s subconscious, but past lives would not explain most of the material produced by Chico Xavier as many of the spirits communicating through Xavier were “living” when he was born.
No doubt the subconscious mind does produce things we are not consciously aware of or thinking about, but to write it all off as coming from the subconscious seems like a real stretch.
William T. Stead, a famous British journalist who was a victim of the Titanic disaster in 1912, developed the ability to do automatic writing. In one of his books, Letters from Julia, he wrote that he could not believe that any part of his unconscious self would deliberately practice a hoax upon his conscious self about the most serious of all subjects, and keep it up year after year with the most sincerity and consistency. “The simple explanation that my friend who has passed over can use my hand as her own seems much more natural and probable,” concluded Stead, who was observed by Titanic survivors serenely sitting in the smoking room and reading his Bible as pandemonium took place all around him.
More on automatic writing in next blog, November 29-30.
It is doubtful that there will be a sequel to the new Clint Eastwood directed movie, Hereafter, but just in case there is I would recommend more depth by having some scenes and dialogue to enlighten the viewer as to what mediumship is all about. The current movie doesn’t discuss this at all. Here are some suggestions for the sequel.
George (Matt Damon) doesn’t appear to really understand his gift of clairvoyance, clairaudience, and/or clairsentience. So in the sequel George should seek out a much older and wiser person, perhaps an experienced medium, one I’ll call Leonore Leonard. Here is how the scene might play out:
George: (shaking his head in frustration) Mrs. Leonard, I don’t understand what’s going on. Are these spirits I’m receiving messages from in heaven or hell? Are they good or bad? Some of my friends tell me that it is all the work of Satan. My doctor says I’m delusional.
LL: George, first of all, your doctor is obviously grounded in materialistic medicine, so forget him, and your religious friends are no doubt reacting to mistranslations and misunderstandings of their good books. You’ve got to begin by putting this religious idea of either heaven or hell out of your mind. The spirits tell us that that there are many realms, many planes, many states, many spheres, whatever you choose to call them. Jesus is quoted as saying there are ‘many mansions,’ but I’ve heard that the Greek word from which they got mansions could have better been translated to “abodes.”
George: I didn’t know that. How many planes or abodes are there?
LL: Many spirits have said that there are seven with the seventh one being true heaven. It sort of gives meaning to seventh heaven mythology, doesn’t it? But I don’t think they are really numbered. I believe the spirits just give them numbers to simplify things for us. It’s like people being classified as lower, middle, or upper class here on earth. There is no fine dividing line between the classes and it is not always clear when a person moves from one class to the other.
George: That makes sense, Mrs. Leonard. So, if we do number them, is the first one what religion calls hell?
LL: That is my understanding, George. They refer to those spirits on the first level as “earthbound” and tell us that often they don’t even know they have passed from the material world. It’s like they are having a bad dream or nightmare. It is a fire of the mind, so to speak. I think that is where we get the fire and brimstone associated with the hell of religions.
George: But how can a person not know that he is dead?
LL: My dear boy, do you know that you are alive when you dream as you sleep?
George: Hmm. Never thought about it that way. So what spirits do we find on the first plane?
LL: Well, I guess religions would call them the wicked, but the spirits usually refer to them as the depraved. They developed no spiritual consciousness at all while in the flesh, but it is important to understand that they are not there for eternity as religions would have you believe. They can be educated and enlightened and eventually work their way up into higher and higher realms.
George: Are they judged by God and sentenced to the first plane?
LL: Gracious, no, lad. The spirits tell us that everything we do out of love or lack of love generates an electrical impulse that is impressed on our energy field, what we commonly call the aura. The combined vibrations over a person’s lifetime determine his or her initial level in the afterlife. We just automatically gravitate to the level corresponding to the acts and thoughts we have compiled during our lives and we enter the spiritual world with precisely the same character, enlightenment and disposition as that with which we have left the material world.
George: [Smiling] Sounds like we have computer chips installed in our energy fields.
LL: [Laughing] I don’t know about those things, but maybe so.
George: What class of spirits end up on the second plane?
LL: I think we find there the very materialistic person who is not necessarily depraved. They have developed a little spiritual consciousness, but not enough to fully awaken in the spirit world. They are in something of a half-conscious stupor, I would say. They tell us that these days there are far more spirits on the first two planes than on the five planes above them.
George: And the third plane?
LL: It is my understanding that most decent people start from the third plane, which the Spiritualists call Summerland. They lived reasonably good lives, but were still materialistic and didn’t develop much of a spiritual consciousness. They say it is fairly pleasant and comfortable there and not too unlike those here on the earth plane.
George: And above the third plane?
LL: Again, George, it is a matter of consciousness developed during the earth life. Keep in mind that all consciousness at that point is only spiritual consciousness. All materialistic consciousness is a drag on the wheel of progress on that side. On the fourth plane, I believe we find spirits more spiritually developed than those on the third plane and less spiritually developed than those on the fifth plane. After all, we are not all either wicked or righteous as many religions suggest. There are many degrees of good and evil between the extremes.
George: The spirits I’m hearing from – are they on any particular plane?
LL: I suspect most of them are on the third plane. The spirits tell us that the lower the vibration the easier it is to communicate with those of us still fettered in the flesh.
George: In that case, it should be easier for spirits on the first and second planes to communicate with us than those on the third.
LL: [nodding] Quite true, my boy. That is why the Bible tells us to “test the spirits whether they are of God” and to “discern” the messages. The good spirits tell us that many low level spirits try to interfere in the communication and even take on the identity of those we are trying to communicate with. We call them impostor spirits.
George: So how can we know if the message is not from an impostor?
LL: Generally, you can tell by the nature of the message. The messages from the impostors are usually misleading, devious, or mean-spirited. Again, you must test and discern and examine the overall purity of the message.
George: Can spirits from the fourth plane and up communicate with us?
LL: I understand they can, but they must often relay the message though a spirit at a lower vibration – a well-meaning spirit of course, probably one on the third plane.
George: It sounds so complicated and difficult.
LL: It most certainly is. What you have to understand, young man, is that celestial matters don’t easily lend themselves to terrestrial methods or words. So much of this is beyond our understanding and that is why mainstream scientists scoff at it all. They think, in all their arrogance, that we should be able to understand everything.
Another scene
In a later scene, George, now more enlightened, is visited by a man named Justin, who wants a reading.
Justin: I have to warn you. I am very skeptical when it comes to this stuff, but I thought I would give it a try.
George: That’s fine, Justin. It’s good to be skeptical. But let me tell you from the outset that if your skepticism turns to negativity, I probably won’t get anything. There has to be a certain harmony existing among all of us in order for me to get something. That is why the debunkers rarely get anything. Their negativity defeats the whole process. Of course, in their ignorance, they jump to the conclusion that the medium is a fraud and see it as a victory for themselves.
Justin: I’m not sure I understand all that.
George: Let me put it this way. Let’s say you are making love to your wife. There is a certain harmony there and things just spontaneously happen as you expect them to. But let’s now put you on a stage in front of a bunch of observers who tell you that you must prove to them that you are able to make love to your wife. There is a good chance you might not be able to respond. The harder you try, the more difficult it becomes. It’s like that in mediumship. When we start trying, it often doesn’t happen.
Justin: I think I understand.
George: Good, Let me further explain how all of this works. It is not like I am on a telephone talking to someone. Because I am clairaudient, I do hear words now and then, but I am primarily clairvoyant and the messages come mostly by the pictographic method. The communicating spirit will project a thought to me and I’ll receive it as a picture. I’ve then got to interpret that picture and figure out what he or she is trying to tell me. I might not interpret the image correctly and give you something that doesn’t make sense to you. I’ll then try to reinterpret it. I might ask for your help in figuring out what it is I am seeing. The debunker would say I’m “fishing” for information, which is partially true. I’m fishing for the correct interpretation of the thought-image I’m seeing.
Justin: Wow! I didn’t realize it was that complicated.
George: It clearly is. Frequently, I can’t get the person’s name, and people wonder how I can get other information and not a simple name. Well, the problem is that most names don’t have a pictograph symbol for them. There are times when I’ll hear a name, but it will come through very faintly. I might catch that it starts with a “J” or a “G” but I can’t hear the whole name. There again, the debunker would say I am fishing for a name, which is in a sense true. It is so much easier for me to get ideas than actual names.
Justin: Do you go into a trance or anything like that?
George: Not really. I try to remain in a passive state. There are many varieties of mediumship. Some are trance mediums, some semi-trance, some no trance at all. There are physical mediums and mental mediums and various types within those two broad classifications. That’s another thing that confounds the debunkers. They seem to assume that we should all operate in the same way. It just doesn’t work that way.
Justin: Very interesting.
Closing scene of the movie
George is speaking to a group of grieving people and quoting the words of Silver Birch, an apparently advanced spirit or soul group able to communicate through the trance mediumship of Maurice Barbanell.
“No, death is a not a tragedy to those who die; it is only a tragedy to those who are left behind. To go from darkness to light is not something over which you should grieve.
“If you grieve, you are in reality grieving over your loss and not for one who has in truth become enfranchised. She is better off. She will no longer suffer all the ills of the human body. She will be no longer be subjected to the ravages of wasting disease. She will unfold all the gifts with which she has been endowed, and will express them free from any thwartings, and will be able to give a larger service to those who require it.
“Death cannot part you from the one you love, for love always claims its own. Your sorrow is based on ignorance. With knowledge you could be sure that the one you love is closer than ever he or she has been before. You could taste some of the joy that comes with the appreciation of an understanding of spiritual reality.
“Do not mourn because the caterpillar has become a beauteous butterfly. Do not weep because the cage has been opened and the bird has been set free. Rejoice, and know that the enfranchised soul has found liberty and that, if you would but unfold the powers of that the Great Spirit has given you, you could share some of the new beauty and joy which is theirs. You could understand the plan of death and realize that death is but a stepping stone, a door through which you enter into the larger freedom of the realms of spirit.”
Based on all the articles I’ve seen in newspapers and on the Internet lately, as well as all the books promoting atheism, it appears that organized atheism has declared war on organized religion. The latest attack appeared in the October 11, 2010 issue of USA Today. Authored by Jerry A. Coyne, a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at The University of Chicago, it is titled “Science and religion aren’t friends.”
“Evolution took a huge bite a while back, and recent work on the brain has shown no evidence for souls, spirits, or any part of our personality or behavior distinct from the lump of jelly in our head,” Coyne writes in championing the cause of atheism. He goes on to say that “science is no more compatible with religion than with other superstitions, such as leprechauns.”
There is nothing in the article to indicate that Coyne, who says he is a “former believer,” is even remotely aware of all of the scientific research suggesting that consciousness survives death – research in near-death experiences, mediumship, past-life regression, deathbed visions, apparitions, astral travel, and other paranormal phenomena. It was research carried out by a number of very distinguished scientists and scholars. My guess is, however, that if confronted with the volumes of research attesting to survival, Coyne would, as with other atheists I have encountered, say he knows all about such research and that it is just so much bunk. The scientists and scholars, as brilliant as they may have been, were simply duped by master magicians.
The atheists who call themselves “skeptics” sometimes have their own magicians show how the “trick” is performed. I was thinking about this recently when hitting some lobbed baseballs over a 200-foot fence in a Little League ball park. It occurred to me that my wife, if she were present, might think I am a good baseball player. Since she knows very little about baseball, she likely would not immediately recognize the difference between hitting a lobbed ball over a 200-foot fence and a 90-mph fast ball over a 340-foot fence. There is, of course, a world of a difference. The point is that the atheist’s tricks are usually performed on what amounts to a Little League field and the people who buy into their tricks don’t know enough about the real phenomena to know the difference.
In his 2009 book, The End of Materialism, Dr. Charles Tart, a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of California at Davis, states that the conflict is not between science, per se, and spirituality, but between scientism and spirituality. Scientism is, he says, a rigidified and dogmatic corruption of science. In effect, scientism is scientific fundamentalism and is to science what religious fundamentalism is to religion. While the religious fundamentalists are locked into the “letter” of whatever good book they adopt, the scientific fundamentalists are dogmatically locked into the scientific method.
It is difficult to generalize, but it has been my observation that many atheists are former religious fundamentalists. When their faith was tested and things didn’t work out in their favor, they blamed it on God and divorced “Him,” moving to the other extreme and vowing never again to be duped. First Santa Claus, then God, such a person does not want a third strike. But I have also encountered a number of atheists who had issues with their parents, who were fundamentalists. Atheism was a way to rebel against their parents. In effect, the move is often from religious fundamentalism to scientific fundamentalism without any real understanding of spirituality outside of religious fundamentalism. The smug atheists jump to the conclusion that religious fundamentalism is representative of all spiritual belief, and they end up not being able to see the forest for the trees.
Most of these scientific fundamentalists begin their ad hominem arguments by claiming that there is no scientific proof of God. They are in that respect much like the religious fundamentalists as they believe that God must be identified and validated before one can accept the survival of consciousness. If there is no “proof” of God, there must not be any “proof” of an afterlife seems to be the reasoning. When the evidence for survival is pointed out to them, they immediately start flying the science banner and claiming that research into psychic and spiritual matters has not been scientific because the phenomena can’t be replicated. They give their own narrow meaning to “science” and pretty much limit it to test tube science, ignorant of the fact that they are at the same time dismissing so many other areas that science has accepted.
The basic issue is not whether God exists, but whether consciousness survives physical death. If God, whatever He, She, or It happens to be, does exist, but survival does not, a belief in God doesn’t do much for us. On the other hand, if there is evidence for survival, as there most certainly is, that is what God is all about in the first place. Consider that Buddhists are able to accept survival in some form without a god.
Looking for God first is a deductive approach that leads nowhere. Taking the inductive approach of looking at the evidence for survival first and letting God unfold from there seems like a much more logical and intelligent approach.
The atheist or scientific fundamentalist also often assumes that accepting God and survival means rejecting biological evolution. That may very well be the case with many religious fundamentalists, but those accepting the evidence for survival generally find no conflict in accepting both survival and evolution. Certainly, Alfred Russel Wallace, co-originator with Charles Darwin of the natural selection theory of evolution, had no difficulty accepting both. He was a dedicated Spiritualist and said that the evidence for Spiritualism was as good as the evidence in any other area of science.
The atheists are quick to point out how religion has resulted in so many wars and so much terror. They say that they are able to lead a very moral life without God and without the hope of an afterlife. William James, the distinguished Harvard professor of psychology and philosophy, saw such an attitude as just so much bravado that melts away with age and approaching death. Moreover, it is highly unlikely that the masses – the uneducated and the poorer classes that make up the bulk of the world’s population – would be so morally restrained without the belief in an afterlife. Do the “enlightened” atheists really want to test the waters in this regard?
In his recent book, Mind Programming, Dr. Eldon Taylor, president and director of Progressive Awareness Research, Inc., points out that artifacts discovered in ancient burial sites suggest that people have always believed in life after death. Moreover, neuroscientists have demonstrated the existence of religious centers in the human brain. “In other words, we’re built to believe,” he offers. “It takes an act of society and an orchestrated effort by educators to produce an atheist. In this sense, atheism is a product of brainwashing.”
“Eyes are useless to a blind brain,” Camille Flammarion, the famous French astronomer, recalled an Arabian proverb. “[There are too many] men incapable of being convinced, despite the most evident proofs; worthy men, moreover, from other points of view, learned, agreeable, philanthropic, but whose mental eyes are constructed in such a way that they do not see straight before them,” Flammarion continued. “Their eyes have a prism before the retina in place of the normal lens, and this prism distorts the rays by a few degrees, with refractions, which differ according to type. This is not their fault. It is not only that they do not wish to perceive the sun at high noon, but they cannot…To have too much intellect is sometimes a hindrance to the simple comprehension of things as they are.”
Sir Oliver Lodge, the esteemed British physicist and radio pioneer, saw the problem being that “the aim of science has been for the most part a study of mechanism, the mechanism whereby results are achieved, an investigation into the physical processes which go on, and which appear to be coextensive with nature. Any theory which seems to involve the action of Higher Beings, or of any unknown entity controlling and working the mechanism, is apt to be extruded or discountenanced as a relic of primitive superstition, coming down from times when such infantile explanations were prevalent.”
Unfortunately, much of today’s atheism appears to originate in academia. In his 1999 book Passport to the Cosmos the late Dr. John Mack, a Pulitzer Prize winner and professor of psychiatry at Harvard, gives his thoughts on the materialistic “worldview” in which so many academicians are stuck. “A worldview functions at both individual and institutional levels,” Mack writes. “It is a source of security and a compass to guide us. For an individual it holds the psyche together. To destroy someone’s worldview is virtually to destroy that person. A complex network of institutions, an edifice of power and money, supports a worldview and gives it legitimacy.”
Mack goes on to say that “the findings of parapsychology challenge the idea of a mechanistic universe operating by established causal principles, suggesting a world in which unseen connections work mysteriously according to principles we do not yet understand and certainly do not control.” He admits that this was his own mindset – one devoid of consciousness and intelligence beyond the brain – until he began investigating the paranormal. He came to look back upon his former view of a secular universe as “quite absurd.”
In his recently-released book Glimpses of Eternity, Dr. Raymond Moody, (below) who is known primarily for his pioneering work in near-death experiences, explores the area of deathbed visions and shared-death experiences. In one chapter, Moody discusses a strange mist that is sometimes reported over a deathbed. “They describe it in various ways,” he writes. “Some say that it looks like smoke, while others say it is as subtle as steam. Sometimes it seems to have a human shape. Whatever the case, it usually drifts upward and always disappears fairly quickly.”
Moody and co-author Paul Perry quote a Georgia doctor who twice saw a mist coming up from deceased patients. The doctor explained that as the patients died they lit up with a bright glow, their eyes shining with a silvery light. The mist formed over the chest and hovered there, as the doctor observed closely and saw that the mist had depth and complex structure. He further said that it seemed to have layers with energetic motion in it. During the second occurrence, the doctor felt an unseen presence standing beside him and seemingly waiting for the patient to die.
A hospice psychologist is quoted by Moody as saying that the misty clouds which form above the head or chest seem to have an electrical component to them. A nurse reported seeing a mist rising from many patients as they die, including her father, with whom she saw the mist rise from his chest “as if off a still river,” and then hovering for a few seconds before dissipating.
The bright glow witnessed by the Georgia doctor has also been reported by many other deathbed observers. Moody quotes one man as saying that the room became “uncomfortably bright,” so bright that he couldn’t shut it out even when he closed his eyes. A hospice nurse reported seeing a “luminous presence floating near the bed, shaped somewhat like a person.” In the same case, the head nurse saw the light in the room and light coming from the dying person’s eyes but did not observe the presence.
Moody tells of his own experience as he and other family members gathered at the bed of his dying mother. Among some other strange things, they all saw an unusual light in the room. “It was like looking at light in a swimming pool at night,” Moody explains.
There are countless reports of dying people having visions of light and seeing loved ones gathering, but skeptics discount them as hallucinations. However, as Moody points out, it is one thing to claim that the dying person is hallucinating, quite another to claim that healthy people in the room are sharing in the hallucination with the dying person. He discusses a number of other shared experiences at deathbeds and opines that they tell us more about the afterlife than the NDE and that they are “the key to proving the existence of an afterlife.” (It should be kept in mind that calling something an “hallucination” does not mean it is not “real.” It is just not objectively real.)
Caregivers Often Witness
Such misty vapors and “lights” around the deathbed have been reported by other researchers, including Dr. Bernard Laubscher, (below) a South African psychiatrist. “I was told by different ‘Tant Sannies’ (caregivers) how while watching at the bedside of the dying one with one or two candles burning they had seen the formation of a faint vaporous body, an elongated whitish purplish-like cloud; parallel with the dying person and about two feet above the body,” Laubscher wrote in a 1975 book, Beyond Life’s Curtain. “Gradually this cloudlike appearance became denser and took on the form, first vaguely and then more definitely, of the person in the bed. This process continued until the phantom suspended above the body was an absolute replica of the person, especially the face.”
Laubscher further reported that these caregivers, some of whom were apparently clairvoyant, reported seeing a ribbon-like cord stretching from the back of the phantom’s head to the body below and that the phantom would begin to glow as it was fully formed. “They noticed that some were more luminous than others and there was a light all around the outline of the [phantom], which I could only compare to a neon tube,” Laubscher added, going on to say that as the phantom righted itself the connecting cord thinned out as if it was fraying away. Sometimes these clairvoyant caregivers would report joyous faces of other deceased gathering around to welcome the person to the spirit world before the “silver cord” was severed and the visions ceased.
As Laubscher came to understand it, the vaporous material has the same makeup as ectoplasm, the mysterious substance given off by physical mediums before materializations. It acts as sort of a “glue” in bonding the physical body with the spirit body, and the more materialistic a person the denser the ectoplasm and the more difficulty the person has in “giving up the ghost.”
In their excellent 2008 book, The Art of Dying, Dr. Peter Fenwick, a renowned British neuropsychiatrist, and Elizabeth Fenwick also discuss the “smoke,” “grey mist,” or “white mist” which leaves the body at death. “Sometimes it will hover above the body before rising to disappear through the ceiling, and it is often associated with love, light, compassion, purity, and occasionally with heavenly music,” they write, adding that not everyone who is in the room sees it.
The Fenwicks quote a woman named Penny Bilcliffe, who was present when her sister died: “I saw a fast-moving ‘Will ‘o the Wisp’ appear to leave her body by the side of her mouth on the right. The shock and the beauty of it made me gasp. It appeared like a fluid or gaseous diamond, pristine, sparkly, and pure, akin to the view from above of an eddy in the clearest pool you can imagine…It moved rapidly upwards and was gone.”
In his 1970 book, Out of the Body Experiences, Dr. Robert Crookall quotes Dr. R. B. Hout, a physician, who was present at the death of his aunt. “My attention was called…to something immediately above the physical body, suspended in the atmosphere about two feet above the bed. At first I could distinguish nothing more than a vague outline of a hazy, fog-like substance. There seemed to be only a mist held suspended, motionless. But, as I looked, very gradually there grew into my sight a denser, more solid, condensation of this inexplicable vapor. Then I was astonished to see definite outlines presenting themselves, and soon I saw this fog-like substance was a assuming a human form.”
Hout then saw that the form resembled the physical body of his aunt. The form hung suspended horizontally a few feet above the body. When the phantom form appeared complete, Hout saw his aunt’s features clearly. “They were very similar to the physical face, except that a glow of peace and vigor was expressed instead of age and pain. The eyes were closed as though in tranquil sleep, and a luminosity seemed to radiate from the spirit body.”
Hout then observed a “silverlike substance” streaming from the head of the physical body to the head of the spirit body. “The colour was a translucent luminous silver radiance. The cord seemed alive with vibrant energy. I could see the pulsations of light stream along the course of it, from the direction of the physical body to the spirit ‘double.’ With each pulsation the spirit body became more alive and denser, whereas the physical body became quieter and more nearly lifeless…”
When the pulsations of the cord stopped, Hout could see various strands of the cord snapping. When the last connecting strand snapped, the spirit body rose to a vertical position, the eyes opened, and a smile broke from the face before it vanished from his sight.
Ectoplasm on the Battlefield
“I have seen ectoplasm on the battlefield,” a young soldier was quoted in the January 25, 1945 issue of Psychic Observer by reporter Ed Bodin. “I have watched it emanate from a badly wounded soldier and then disappear as that soldier breathed his last. One hillbilly comrade from Kentucky called it ‘soul mist,’ revealing that many natives in his part of the country considered it quite a normal thing, although they seldom talked about it.”
Because his orthodox Christian family frowned on discussion of such occult matters, the young soldier asked not to be identified. However, he went on to tell how, after being wounded by shrapnel, another soldier lay badly wounded about 10 feet from him. “I looked at him with pity, forgetting my own pain. Then in the deepening twilight I saw strange smoke begin to curl above him as though coming from his stomach as he lay on his back moaning. The stump of his arm was in the thick mud congealing the blood to some extent and making death slower.
“Then I remembered what my friend had said about soul-mist, and I watched fascinated as the ectoplasm became denser and began to flow toward me. For a moment I thought I saw in it the face of a kindly old lady. Presently it reached me and for a second I was bewildered by the strange sensation that came over me. I felt stronger. With my left arm I raised myself and began to crawl to the dying soldier. I reached for my canteen of water. The mist was still around me, and with a sudden effort I was on my feet, and beside the soldier.”
The other soldier died and the young soldier telling the story rose and walked nearly a mile to the Red Cross representative. He remained unconscious for three days and medical attendants later told him that they could not understand how he had lived, to say nothing of walking the near mile to safety. “…to my dying day, I shall believe the ectoplasm from the body of that dying soldier had helped me in a mysterious way,” the young soldier added. “It had given me sufficient strength to save my life. That soul-mist of a sacrificed soldier was like the spiritual light of Jesus about whom it was said: ‘He could save others, but not Himself’.”
Sometime in 1892, Edward C. Randall, a prominent Buffalo, New York trial lawyer and businessman, was asked by a friend to accompany him on a visit to Emily S. French, a Rochester woman who, Randall (below) was told, had strange powers and received messages from spirits. “This was an unexplored world to me,” Randall wrote. “I went, and found there two others, both men of national reputation. We sat in a dark room for two hours, and heard what purported to be voices, though they were only faint whispers. We were not at all satisfied, but could not condemn, because we did not understand…We did not then believe that the whispers came from the great beyond, but, mystified, we determined to know what they were.”
Over the next 20 years, until Mrs. French’s death in 1912, at age 80, Randall would sit with her more than 700 times. “In my investigations, covering many years, in the room in my own home devoted to such work, thousands of men whom I have known personally have talked with me, using their own tongues. I have recognized their voices; they have recalled and related countless facts and incidents of their daily life and have proved beyond question their identity.”
Emily French (below) was primarily a direct-voice medium. Not to be confused with trance-voice mediumship, in which the spirit takes over the body of the medium and speaks through her vocal cords and mouth, the direct-voice method involves the spirit borrowing a psychic substance, usually referred to as ectoplasm, from the medium and sometimes from the sitters, to form vocal organs. They then use this artificial larynx to speak. The voices are usually soft and require a trumpet or cone for amplification, although the voices sometimes come through loud enough that a trumpet is not required. The voices usually emanate several feet above the medium. Skeptics claimed that such mediums were expert ventriloquists, but rigid testing ruled this out with Mrs. French and other credible direct-voice mediums.
“Each voice has individuality,” Randall explained. “When new spirits come for the first time and take on the condition of vocalization, there is often a similarity in tone quality, but this soon passes away, as they grow accustomed to using their voices in this way. The voices of those accustomed to speak never change, and are easily recognized. There is no similarity of thought or words.” Randall further mentioned that the strength of the voices varies greatly, much as they do in earth life.
After satisfying himself that Mrs. French was a genuine medium and that he was hearing from “spirit people,” including his mother and father, Randall turned to asking the spirit people questions about the afterlife. “Hundreds, at my invitation, have participated in the work and with me have heard different voices with different tones, different thoughts, different personalities, and at times different foreign languages,” Randall went on.
Randall was told that a spirit engineer must magnetize his room before he and the others present could hear their voices, and that it was easier for those more advanced to reach them (the communicating spirits) than it was for them to communicate with those on the earth plane.
Speaking with Dr. David Hossack, who had been in spirit life more than a century, Randall asked about the existence of a spirit body. In reply, Hossack said:
“There is an inner, etheric body, composed of minute particles, of such substance that it can, and does, pass into spirit life. Your outer bodies are too gross and material to effect the change. The inner body is but the mind, the thought, the soul of the person. It is in the semblance of the material body, but whether beautiful or ugly, strong or weak, depends upon the inner life of the person to whom belongs that particular spark of the great radiance called life, or God.
“Some there be who build a fair body, and some there be who come into this life with a body so mis-shapen and sickly it takes much effort to effect an upright, clean one. They all come with bodies naturally, as all things have minds, after one fashion or another; but the conditions of these bodies are very different. Naturally, the mind, being the reality of man, is that which lives on – beautiful or disfigured by good or evil thoughts, as the case may be. The only comfort is that every one has opportunity to work out the change in himself, and sometimes those changes are very rapid.”
Another spirit communicated that he was very particular about his wearing apparel when in earth life, but he found himself in “rags” when he arrived in the spirit world. Moreover, his body was distorted. It took him some time, as time goes in his realm, to realize that it was his spirit body and not his physical body, apparently not recognizing that he was “dead.” He further explained that it took him a long time to develop and restore his spirit body.
As Randall came to understand it, the physical body is simply the “housing” or “garment” worn by the etheric or spirit body, which is so refined, intense, and so high in vibration that physical eyes cannot see it. When physical death occurs, the etheric body leaves the physical body and inhabits one of the spiritual planes, depending on the type of moral life he or she has led.
Randall asked communicating spirits what took place at the time of death. His father, who died at age 76, told him that he felt a weakness come upon him as he was in his horse and buggy headed for a village some seven miles distant. As he arrived at his destination, the weakness increased but he was able to walk in the house and sit down. Then he saw his deceased wife standing there and smiling.
“Startled, I arose to my feet, and my last earthly sensation was falling – and as I now know, I did pitch forward on my face. I do not recall striking the floor, or pain in my death change. When the separation came, I was like one in sleep.
“The next I recall was awaking in the same room, with the leader of your spirit group holding my hand, helping me up. I had heard his wonderful voice many times when I was privileged to come into your work, but it took me some little time to realize what happened to me. I saw my body on the floor. This startled me, for the body I then had was to my sight and touch identical with the one lying so quiet. I saw people hurrying, and heard the anxious talk, not yet comprehending my separation from the physical body.”
Randall was told that in the afterlife everything in the physical world is a poor imitation of what is found in the spirit world, that all things exist first in the spirit world before they can be produced in the physical world. One spirit explained it:
“We have often told you, and tell you now, that your earth and all things of your earth have their exact counterparts in the spirit world, just as real, just as tangible, just as substantial, to the inhabitants of this world, as material things and forms are to the inhabitants in mortal form upon your earth.”
One spirit likened the difference between his plane and the earth plane as much like the difference between living on land and living in the sea, pointing out that people on land could move with greater freedom than life that exists in the oceans because the material conditions become higher in vibration as we ascend the scales of motion, or, to look at it from the other end, there is more resistance the lower we descend Numerous other spirits referred to the planes or spheres in the afterlife and said that there were seven of them. One had this to say:
“I know what we all know – that there are seven spheres. I have just reached the third. Sometimes a spirit can speak from his sphere to the next higher, as you do while in the body, but only in the same way. I mean that there is no mingling together. When a spirit goes from one sphere to another, it is quite unlike dissolution in earth life. He is warned that the change is near and has time to put his mind into a higher plane of thought so that he will be prepared to meet the new life. He says farewell to all his friends. They join in a general thanksgiving and celebration, all congratulating and helping him on his way by some strong uplifting thoughts. When the time comes, he is put quietly to sleep, with the thought dominant in his mind that he is to make the change. When he awakes, he is in his new home in the next higher sphere.”
The communicating spirit went on to say that each new change is more difficult to explain than the preceding one, but, as she understood it, each one is essentially a higher life in which one better prepares him- or herself for advancement. She (the spirit) added that she had not been to the fourth sphere and only knows of higher spheres based on what teachers from those spheres have told her.
“In the lower sphere, one sees such suffering among those still earth-bound. They, too, are busy working out past faults and they are often heavy-hearted. Generally speaking, the first sphere is the one where restitution must be made, and where the final wrenching away from earth conditions takes place. The second is one of instruction, a period of study, during which the spirit gains knowledge of self and natural laws. The third is one of teaching those in the lower spheres, as I have said. The fourth sphere is one of trial and temptation. The fifth is truth, where error and falsehood are unknown. In the sixth, all is harmony. In the seventh, the spirits reach the plane of exaltations and become one with the great spirit that rules the universe.”
But she was quick to add that she had been informed that in becoming one with the great spirit in the seventh sphere that we do not lose our individuality or personality. However, it was all well beyond her comprehension or appreciation and therefore she could add no more.
Randall wrote that he heard from many earthbound spirits, those in lowest plane or sphere, or the one nearest the earth plane. He came to understand that this sphere has various stages. “There are some in total darkness, others in something of a twilight zone between the spiritual and physical worlds. Some are in a condition of slumber, some in a deep sleep. The majority knows that they have left the body, but there are still many who are not conscious of the fact that they are “dead.” While missionary spirits from higher spheres attempt to enlighten spirits in the dark world, these lower spirits are no more open to truth and enlightenment than they were while in the flesh.
During one sitting, Randall heard from an old business acquaintance who had died at the age of 70 some five years earlier. While considered a good citizen, the man, referred to as Mr. W— by Randall, had the reputation of being a “pennypincher.” Both Mrs. French and a visiting clairvoyant could see the man and described his appearance, which fit Randall’s recollection of him. More evidential, however, was the man’s voice, which Randall clearly recognized. Mr. W— told Randall that he was trapped in a wall of money and that it shuts out the light.
Another spirit friend explained to Randall that each sphere is divided into six circles or societies in which congenial people live together based upon the law of attractions. While the members of the circles generally think alike, there are differences, much like there are in different societies on the earth plane. Each society has teachers from higher spheres who impart knowledge, which is in turn transmitted to those on lower spheres.
Still another spirit told Randall that they do not get their light from the sun, but rather it is radiated from the atoms. He explained that their light is very different from sun light and that sun light is grosser than theirs. Their light is soft, radiant and much more brilliant.
Many other spirit messages were recorded by Randall’s stenographer, including:
“At dissolution, each sense is quickened, and all that fills space is visible to the spiritual senses and tangible to spiritual touch and brain. Space must then take form, substance and reality – a world of thought, boundless and endless.”
“Dissolution is a step in evolution, and involves no mental change, adding nothing, subtracting nothing, but simply increasing the opportunities for other observation and learning.”
“The light we have is obtained from the action of our minds on the atmosphere. We think light, and there is light. That is why people who come over in evil conditions are in the dark; their minds are not competent to produce light enough for them to see.”
“There is greater intensity of light as we go up through the spheres, which comes from the blending of the more spiritual minds.”
“Our life is merely the condition of mind which each one has. We create images in thought, and have the reality before us, just as tangible as your houses and buildings are to you. You do not have any conception of the great power and force there is, or may be, in thought. It dominates all conditions and makes us what we are. One who realizes this may control his destiny.”
“Make yourself attened to the most harmonious vibrations, so that your impulses will be good, and then obey them. They are apt to be the suggestions of a fellow soul working out his salvation.”
“Life would e but a futile think, and all effort useless, if the future did not stretch before us, endless and unlimited in its possibilities.”
“The tendency of all life, wheresoever found or howsoever clothed, is to perfect, improve, increase and extend its sphere of usefulness. This is evolution. It is a fact, a law and not a theory, and its possibilities are as boundless as the imagination.”
“Power is born of desire; no man can earnestly desire to live upon a high plane and yet be compelled to live upon a low plane, since we live in that state of development that we create for ourselves.” (R2, 195)
“There are sounds that our ears have never heard; there is light that our physical eyes can never see; there is an invisible world filled with people that few have ever imagined.”
Photos courtesy of N. Riley Heagerty. See his website and information on how to order his book about the mediumship of Emily French at http://thefrenchrevelation.wordpress.com/
As Roy Dixon-Smith, a British career military officer serving in the Indian army, came to see it, the marriage vow, “till death do us part,” does not apply to everyone. After the death of his wife, Betty, he continued to hear from her, communicate with her, and even see her. He told of his continuing romance with Betty in his 1952 book, New Light on Survival.
Suffering from a condition called bacterial endocarditis, Betty passed into spirit in India on August 23, 1944, during her early 30s, after some five years of marriage to Roy. “Exhortations to prayer and faith and assurances of a future reunion in a vague sort of heaven, supported by biblical texts, were of no use whatever to me,” Dixon-Smith (Roy and Betty below) recorded his initial despair, adding that at the very most religion offered him nothing more than a gray tinge to his black despair.
After returning to Scotland and depositing their four-year-old daughter, Cherry, with her aunt in Falkirk, Dixon-Smith went to London and began exploring mediumship. Over the next five years, he had numerous evidential sittings in which Betty communicated. They came through clairvoyance, automatic writing, trance voice and even the direct voice, but as of July 1948 he had not yet experienced the materialization phenomenon he had read so much about. He therefore sent a letter to Psychic News requesting information on a genuine materialization medium.
The letter resulted in being invited to the home of a Mr. and Mrs. Patterson of Buckie (Scotland) for a July 31 sitting with a medium, who for privacy purposes, he refers to in his book as “Mrs. ‘D’.” Dixon-Smith took with him a dark red rose and Betty’s wedding ring. A minute or two after the members of the small circle took their seat and a red light was turned on, a male voice (the medium’s control) addressed the circle and began introducing materialized figures before they emerged from the materialization cabinet. “The first few visitors were for other sitters,” Dixon-Smith wrote. “They spoke clearly, naturally, and intelligently, and were apparently recognized; each only lasted for about a minute, sinking swiftly to the floor as he or she withdrew within the curtains.”
The male voice then announced that he had a lady present for the “gentleman by the door” and asked him to call her out. Dixon-Smith responded by asking her to come out. “A tall slim figure thereupon emerged from the left edge of the curtains, stretched out a hand, picked up my rose, crossed the floor to my chair, walking outside the curtains and in full view of the circle, and threw the rose in my lap,” Dixon-Smith continued the account. “I stood up to peer into the face dimly seen in the enveloping ‘cowl’ whereupon Mrs. Patterson exclaimed, ‘Don’t touch her!’”
The materialized figure stepped back toward the curtains and “said in a voice and accent exactly resembling Betty’s, ‘He won’t do that. He knows better.’” While the voice seemed like Betty’s and the shape of the head and face appeared to be hers, Dixon-Smith could not make out her features well enough to confirm that it was Betty. He was certain, however, that it was not “Mrs ‘D’ masquerading as Betty as she was a much shorter and stout woman. As the materialization lasted only about a minute, Dixon-Smith deemed it inconclusive.
It was pointed out that the heat of the evening made for less than ideal conditions. The group met again the following night when conditions were cooler. “After a few visitors had come and gone, the guide asked the sitters to sing, ‘I’ll walk beside you,’ [Betty’s favorite song],” Dixon-Smith wrote. “At the close of the song, the same slim figure as before emerged from the left edge of the curtain, groped for the ring (which he had placed on a sideboard), and in doing so, knocked the torch (i.e., flashlight) off the sideboard on to the floor.” Mrs. Patterson picked up the ring and gave it to the materialized figure, after which the materialized figure slipped it on Dixon-Smith’s little finger. “I felt the touch of her fingers as she put it on, and they were warm and seemed as normal in all respects as any physical ones.”
A torch was then permitted by the guide. “I was standing up within a few inches of Betty’s form, and I peered closely into her face which was on a level with my own,” Dixon-Smith continued. “My critical faculties dominated my emotion as I took in every detail of the features; yet it was not till the following day that the full wonder and joy of this experience came over me.”
Dixon-Smith further explained that the “ectoplasmic wrapping” made it difficult to clearly distinguish the features, but he was now certain that it was Betty. “Speech combined with materialization is very rarely possible, since the ‘power’ is generally used up in the forming of the figure,” he explained what he later came to understand. “That is why materialized people can say so little, and the more they talk the shorter the time their forms can last.”
Soon after the Buckie sittings, Dixon-Smith arranged a sitting with Minnie Harrison (below) at the home of Sydney and Gladys Shipman in Middlesbrough. “For evidential reasons I revealed no details of my private life before the séance was over, and for the same reason they would have refused to have listened to them, since they were just as anxious as I for genuine evidence,” he explained his approach to such sittings.
His first sitting with Mrs. Harrison took place on October 9, 1948 with 10 people, including himself and the medium, present. Tom Harrison, Minnie’s son,, was one of those present and confirms the Dixon-Smith sitting in his 2004 book, Life After Death – Living Proof.
The first phase of the sitting was the “direct voice” in which a trumpet hovered in front of the sitter to be addressed. Some voices came through loud and clear, while others were difficult to understand. When the trumpet settled in front of Dixon-Smith, the circle guide gave an “excellent description” of Betty and then allowed her to speak directly. “Betty then attempted to speak to me,” Dixon-Smith recorded. “After prolonged and seemingly painful effort and a few exclamations to the effect that she couldn’t do it, she managed to say, ‘I am your Betty’.”
At the conclusion of the direct-voice phase, the red light was turned on and the room was well illuminated, so that Dixon-Smith had no difficulty in observing forms and faces. Minnie Harrison, (below) who had been in the circle and not in trance during the direct-voice phase, then took her place behind the curtain.
Dixon-Smith observed a half-dozen materializations of friends and relatives of the other sitters. “I rose from my chair, walked up to them and shook them by the hand, and we made conventional remarks to each other just exactly as everyone does when first meeting a stranger,” he wrote. “They were swathed in white muslin-like draperies and cowls…They were solid, natural, and except for their apparel, exactly like ordinary living people. In fact, had everyone been dressed similarly, it would have been quite impossible to distinguish these materialized forms from the rest of the company. Their hands felt perfectly natural and life-like in every respect and their handgrips were very firm. They smiled, laughed, and chatted to me and the others; all their features, complexions, and expressions being perfectly clear in that ample light…There were mutual cheery good-byes as they departed, sinking apparently through the floor in precisely the same manner as the forms at Buckie.”
Then the guide announced the coming of Betty and asked them to sing, “I’ll walk beside you.” As they sang, Betty emerged from the curtain and stood silently in full view. “I rose from my chair and walked up to the figure, taking the extended hand in mine,” Dixon-Smith further recorded the experience. “I examined the hand, and it was just like Betty’s and quite unlike the medium’s. I stared into the face, and recognized my wife. We spoke to each other, though what we said I cannot remember, for I was deeply stirred and so was she and her voice was incoherent with emotion.”
One of the sitters asked if Dixon-Smith could kiss her and Betty responded in the affirmative. “I then kissed her on her lips which were warm, soft, and natural,” Dixon-Smith went on. “Thereupon she bent her head and commenced to weep, and in a moment or two she sank. I watched her form right down to the level of the floor at my feet where it dissolved, the last wisp of it being drawn within the cabinet.”
In concluding his book, Dixon-Smith wrote that he realizes that the reader will find it difficult to believe such amazing accounts of life after death as he has related. “Yet why should these accounts be so incredible when all professing Christians must believe in the similar materialization of Jesus to His mother and disciples, as I can now quite easily do?”
Early in 1974, a small group of religious friends began gathering periodically at the modest home of Thomas and Olive Ashman in Christchurch, New Zealand. “We would reverently pray for protection, and be silent,” says the Rev. Michael Cocks, an Anglican priest from Christchurch. (Rev. Cocks, below) “Tom would sit upright in a chair, relaxed. After two or three minutes he would begin to pale and to breathe deeply. Then his body would give a slight jerk as Stephen seemed to take over.”
In effect, Tom Ashman is, or was, a trance medium and was entering an altered state of consciousness as his body was being “taken over” by the entity called Stephen, who would then speak to the group using Ashman’s vocal cords. Stephen would dialogue with the group, which, in addition to Cocks and Ashman’s wife, Olive, also included a liberal Catholic priest, a Buddhist, and other curious observers. But this was not just any Stephen; it was Saint Stephen, the first Christian Martyr.
Cocks states that normally Stephen spoke through Ashman in a “rather curious English,” but that he twice spoke in an ancient Greek dialect, which apparently was for the purposes of confirming his identity.
“For myself, I do not speak [English] and I never have,” Stephen related in one of the sittings. “I activate these words that are in Thomas’s memory and are known to him. Occasionally there is a little ‘magic,’ when I join together sounds and symbols that are in Thomas’s mind so that words may be spoken that are not known to Thomas.”
Cocks realizes that the story is difficult for most people to accept. At first, he had a hard time accepting it himself. Even after he came to believe that St Stephen was actually communicating with the small group, he was reluctant to discuss it with many people outside of the group. “Part of it was fear of social ostracism for claiming to receive teaching from a saint,” he explains. “Part of it was my not having quite absorbed what Stephen was trying to communicate; part of it was that the meaningful coincidences came thick and fast, and I wrote a book about them called Into the Wider Dream. I thought at the time that such a book would be more acceptable to the public than a seemingly improbable story about communications from a Christian saint.”
After one of the early sittings in which Stephen spoke in Greek, Cocks consulted a lecturer in Greek at the University about Stephen’s Greek words. “She reported my request to the then bishop, who called me for a chat,” Cocks recalls. “To him, I denied being interested in spiritualism, as was definitely the case in those days.”
It was not until 2000, with the publication of a book titled The Stephen Experience or Teachings of Stephen the Martyr, that Cocks decided to tell the whole story. It seems to have begun in 1973 when Tom and Olive Ashman were living in Sevenoaks, Kent, England. One night, Olive heard Tom speaking in what sounded like Latin while he was sleeping. When this continued on subsequent nights, Olive began recording the words, which turned out to be profound spiritual teachings. About the same time, Cocks began receiving prophecies from a woman in the North Island of New Zealand. These prophecies covered many of the themes that would eventually come up in the Stephen dialogues.
The Ashmans moved to Christchurch in early 1974 (Tom Ashman, below) and Cocks met Olive at the Bycroft Psychic Library there. “I was brought up in a liberal but believing clergyman’s family, and was always religious,” Cocks explains his interest in psychic matters. “My father was interested in mystics and in direct communication from spirit. I was interested early in telepathy as a way of demonstrating the spirit realm. A loved great aunt spoke much about the revelations of Swedenborg, so I never had prejudices against mediumship.”
After meeting Olive, Cocks paid a visit to the Ashman’s home to learn more of their experiences. A few days later, Stephen spoke through Tom in a room at Cocks’s church. Over the next five to six years, there were, Cocks estimates, around 150 sessions in which Stephen spoke through Ashman.
Cocks, who earned a Master’s Degree in philosophy at the University of New Zealand and a Master’s in theology at Oxford University, is certain that the Ashmans were not attempting to pull off some kind of parlor trick. “Tom was deeply sincere, as was his wife, and he was plainly undergoing personal change as the result of what was being spoken through him,” Cocks states. “There was no desire to impress, no question of financial gain, and the communications were made in the presence of a group of about twelve friends.”
Moreover, Cocks points out, Tom Ashman’s personal views were somewhat at odds with the teachings coming through him. “He gradually became more and more frustrated because most of the time Stephen spoke through him, he was unconscious, and had to wait a week for transcripts of the session to be printed out,” Cocks continues. “He often felt out of it.”
While convinced that Ashman was not a charlatan, Cocks remained skeptical during those early sittings. He wondered if Tom had some kind of secondary or fragmented personality that was taking over his dominant personality, as has been reported in multiple personality cases. No doubt this would be the explanation provided by mainstream psychiatry, which is always looking for a reductionistic answer to such a phenomenon. But multiple personality disorder would not explain how or where that secondary personality obtained the knowledge and wisdom flowing from the entity calling himself Stephen. If the wisdom were flowing from Ashman’s subconscious, how did it get into his subconscious in the first place?
Ashman had a Catholic mother and Jewish father, and had always thought of himself as a Jew, although he had no strong belief system. Nothing in his history had exposed him to such profound teachings. What was most convincing to Cocks was the verification that the Greek spoken by Stephen in those early sittings was a version of Attic Greek of 2,000 years ago as spoken in Thrace where St Stephen’s parents had lived. Stephen himself was born near Ancyra, in Galatia. While familiar with Greek from his university days, Cocks did not know enough to rely on that alone. He consulted experts in the field and did extensive research into Stephen’s Koiné Greek, all of which he discusses in the appendix of his book.
But Stephen was not the only communicator. On October 23, 1973, these words, apparently coming from Christ, flowed from Ashman’s vocal cords: “The task of your servant Stephen is that of messenger and he speaks with great authority. The task of yourselves is the decision as to which way you choose use those messages…”
Christ spoke through Ashman on several other occasions. “We believed it to be the voice of Christ, partly because Stephen agreed that it was, and partly from an awe-inspiring presence that had a very strong emotional and spiritual impact,” Cocks says. “The messages were of course very appropriate if they were from Christ.”
In one of the early messages recorded by Olive Ashman, Christ said: “The way to your God is through two things alone, and these things are your witnesses. Love and sacrifice. For these are the lances of the Lord. For love to pierce your heart, and the sacrifice to come into your heart are what is needed; for you must sacrifice the lesser for the greater. At all times your ears, your mind and your eyes are assaulted with half-truths and blasphemies.”
Still, Stephen was by far the most frequent communicator. He told of his early life in Ancyra, now modern Turkey, mentioning that his actual name was “Stenen” and that he was 14 years old when Jesus was crucified. He further stated that his death by stoning is reported “quite accurately” in the Bible, but stressed that he was not communicating to tell about his life but rather to help them understand their own lives. He explained that he was no longer the Stephen of the Bible, that he had given up his separateness “to be one with the Whole,” but that to be of service to the Father and make those with whom he was communicating more comfortable he had to “put on again the clothes of Stephen.” When Cocks asked Stephen if he felt like “Stephen” or “The Whole,” or even a figment of Cocks’s imagination, Stephen replied: “For I speak that I am Stephen, I must first create Stephen, and be he. For I cannot be nothing. For once I decided I was nothingness, then I have learned nothing of nothing.”
Some of Stephen’s teachings were hard to grasp since he was seeing the group together in a whole, rather than as separated personalities. “Sometimes I think he communicated very effectively, but, yes, many of the messages are hard to understand and require thinking about again and again,” Cocks offers. “Often we needed to discover the concrete experience which makes things come clear. Often we had to wait for meaningful coincidences to illuminate his intention.”
In one sitting, Stephen explained that abstractness increases as we go inward. “But there is also the question of the nature of afterlife existence,” Cocks continues, pointing out that Stephen’s stories and illustrations are clearly from the Middle East of two-thousand years ago. “He is aware of the modern world, but the center of gravity, so to speak, of his mind seems to be back at that time and place. That in itself would make this thinking not so accessible.”
In one philosophical discussion during 1973, Stephen offered an analogy in explaining why humans do not fully comprehend the physical life. He likened God to a surgeon. “…think how a surgeon would act if, when he had to operate, he had to keep the patient conscious, adjust mirrors so the patient could see the operation that would be beyond his understanding in any case. Should he perhaps have each patient undertake advanced studies before an operation? Or would it perhaps not be better only to operate on a surgeon?” Stephen went on to say that the complexity is such that the patient must trust his surgeon.
At times Stephen joked with the group. On one occasion he observed that Tom’s feet did not touch the floor. “Verily, I must be spirit!” he quipped. “Stephen was always warm and friendly, yet spoke slowly as if declaiming his words,” Cocks relates. “Sometimes there were pauses while Stephen thought, but he never seemed to lose the thread of what he was saying. When a session was completed, after a while there would be a slight jerk as Tom resumed ownership of his own body, and then Tom would rather dazedly ask whether anything had happened. Sometimes it had not. Like me, I think Tom felt the responsibility of Stephen, and would joke to dispel the too serious atmosphere.”
Realizing that his book is not likely to make any “best seller” list, Cocks has often wondered why St Stephen bothered with the small Christchurch group. “Sometimes I wonder if it was just for the benefit of myself and a few friends,” he muses. “Were we worth all that effort over all those years? Wasn’t it meant for many others also? Wouldn’t it be nice if Stephen and other advanced souls could get things in motion more to help more of his teachings to be heard?”
But Cocks is reasonably certain that it was the Stephen he and his friends had dialoged with. “I did so much work on the Greek,” he ends the interview. “It is indeed very close to proof of Stephen’s authenticity. But because the proof is so complex and many-sided, people don’t really study it carefully. The study convinced me, but not many other people. I am sort of like Cassandra, the poor person of antiquity, fated to tell the truth, and not to be believed.”
Some of what Stephen had to say:
Purpose of life: “Remember, that in the beginning there was the coming away from the Source, for the correction of many disorders…Acquiring a physical body is only one stage in the corrections…It seems a contradiction in itself, unless you understand, that it is for this reason each and every one of you is in the position that you are, for the reason that you may develop; that disorder may be corrected. Each is in the situation where he must learn, develop and correct disorder.”
On truth: “Each of us knows that in the place where we are now, under the circumstances in which we are, that is the truth. It must be, for we are here. The place where we are, is the place that we have received. This is the direct communication. For it can only be the truth. You hear, touch, see and feel, direct. For what you see, what you hear, and what you touch is the direct communication, and is the language of the Father. Not words. For the Father speaks not with the tongue, nor with limited vocabulary. “
On Jesus, as Savior: “The saving is the saving of the slavery to your own minds, the release of bondage to imagined ills and wrongs, desires that are not within you, but are created by the environment, and by the desires or imagined desires…We often get an image that in some way the death of the body of Jesus in itself cleanses us, yet we fail to see how he showed that the body itself was meaningless.”
On being a spirit: “Perhaps if I told you this, that Thomas (Ashman) even now is in that state that we all will be, as I am, when I return to Thomas this, his body. What you feel is what you are. I will ask Thomas if he feels that he is without something that he should have. He said that he is not without. Then this the way that you would feel. As you feel now.”
On the afterlife: “Think not that when you are without your body, you are going to be much different, for your needs are different. Except through feelings there is little association, for your tasks and your needs are no longer what they were, and the tasks and needs of them that are still in the body are different. These are the first things you learn.”
On scientific proof of the afterlife: “The facts are there, if one would wish to see. The fact that he thinks, the fact that he has emotions, the fact that time is an exact science, are all there to be investigated. That is, if the investigation would be willingly undertaken. Look then at these results, that cannot be explained by using only limited facts or measurements: you might measure water with a jug or a similar small vessel, you cannot measure the ocean with the same vessel. If we confine what we wish to know to what we already know, we will have great difficulty. Be sure then, that the limitation that is being used, is not the limitation of want.”
On reincarnation: “The answer is most difficult. The understanding of the phenomenon is sometimes beyond even myself, but hear me now. Even as I speak through this body, I am Stephen and reincarnate possibly a thousandfold. The confusion is not in the reality of this. It is on the concept of your conscious mind where it can but think of one body.”
No, the roguish-looking person pictured below is not Billy the Kid, Jesse James, or some other legend of the American West. True, since his first name was William, he may have been called Billy as a kid, and his last name was James. But he was no outlaw.
Yes, it is Professor William James, the renowned American philosopher, psychologist, and psychical researcher. The picture was taken during his Amazon expedition in 1865, when he was 23.
Since August 26 will mark the 100th anniversary of James’ transition from the material world, I thought it a good time to remember him.
Reading about James and reading his works is a lot like reading about Wyatt Earp, the legendary US Marshal of the American West. One is never quite sure if Earp is an outlaw wearing a lawman’s badge or a real lawman who sometimes strayed outside the law. With James, one is never sure if he is scientist with a religious bent or a religionist posing as a scientist.
‘Tactically, it is far better to believe much too little than a little too much,’ James explained his fence-sitting position, adding ‘better a little belief tied fast, better a small investment salted down, than a mass of comparative insecurity.’
On another occasion, he stated: ‘I have myself been willfully taking the point of view of the so-called ‘rigorously scientific’ disbeliever, and making an ad hominem plea.’
Born in New York City on January 11, 1842, James, the son of prosperous parents and ancestors, was educated by tutors and at private schools in New York, Geneva, Paris, and Boulogne-sur-Mur. In 1861, he entered Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard and three years later entered the Harvard School of Medicine. However, he took time out from medical school to travel with a zoological expedition in the Amazon and to study physiology and philosophy at Berlin University. He received his MD degree in 1869, but never practiced medicine.
During his final years at Harvard and immediately thereafter, James is said to have suffered from fits of depression, what he called ‘soul sickness,’ and even considered suicide. Apparently, the ‘death of God’ and the increasingly materialistic world view of the times brought on by the Ages of Reason and Enlightenment and then Darwinism, seriously impacted him. However, he overcame his depression to some extent in 1872 when he accepted a position to teach physiology and anatomy at Harvard.
Soon thereafter, James integrated his physiology course with psychology and in 1876 founded the first laboratory for experimental psychology in the United States. Along with Wilhelm Wundt, John Dewey, and Sigmund Freud, James is considered one of the pioneers of modern psychology. He gradually moved from psychology to philosophy as he felt that psychology was too limited.
At the urging of Professor William Barrett, a British physicist who was instrumental in founding the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) in England during 1882, James organized the American branch of the SPR in 1885 after repeated observations of Leonora Piper (pictured above), a Boston medium, during which he received much evidential information.
James referred to Mrs Piper as his ‘white crow,’ the one who upset the ‘law’ that all crows are black – the one who proved that all mediums are not charlatans. ‘I cannot resist the conviction that knowledge appears which she has never gained by the waking use of her eyes and ears and wits,’ he wrote in his report for the American branch of the Society for Psychical Research (ASPR). ‘What the source of this knowledge may be I know not, and have not the glimmer of an explanatory suggestion to make; but from admitting the fact of such knowledge I can see no escape.’
Because of his academic duties and other interests, James was unable to devote much time to investigating Mrs Piper and other mediums. Thus, Dr Richard Hodgson, a hard-core skeptic, was imported from England in 1887 to serve as executive secretary of the ASPR, and his first task was a thorough investigation of Mrs Piper. In spite of his intentions to debunk Mrs Piper, Hodgson soon came to believe in her gift.
Initially, however, both Hodgson and James rejected the spirit hypothesis. They reasoned that Dr Phinuit, Piper’s spirit control, was a secondary personality buried in her subconscious and that this secondary personality somehow had the ability to read minds. When information came through that was unknown to the sitter, the theory was expanded from telepathy to teloteropathy. This theory held that it is possible to pick up thoughts from a person anywhere in the world. James also speculated that there is some kind of cosmic reservoir where every thought or utterance ever made is recorded and that the medium had the ability to draw information from that reservoir.
The emergence of George Pellew (Pelham in the research records) in 1892 won Hodgson over to the spirit hypothesis. Pellew had been a member of the ASPR and an acquaintance of Hodgson’s before dying in an accident at age 30. Soon after his death, he began communicating with Hodgson through Mrs Piper without the assistance of Dr Phinuit, offering much in the way of evidential information. As the ‘personality’ of Pellew came through clearly, Hodgson reasoned ruled out the secondary personality and telepathic theories.
While others members of the SPR and ASPR were gradually won over to the spirit hypothesis. James remained on the fence, sometimes, however, leaning toward an acceptance of the spirit hypothesis. ‘One who takes part in a good sitting has usually a far livelier sense, both of the reality and of the importance of the communication, than one who merely reads the records,’ he reported. ‘I am able, while still holding to all the lower principles of interpretation, to imagine the process as more complex, and to share the feelings with which Hodgson came at last to regard it after his many years of familiarity, the feeling which Professor Hyslop shares, and which most of those who have good sittings are promptly inspired with [i.e., the spirit hypothesis].’
In spite of his fence-sitting relative to the results of psychical research, James waged war against the materialistic mindset that had gripped the educated world after the acceptance of Darwinism, which was first announced in 1859. He rebuked the strictly scientific point of view relative to God and immortality. ‘I can, of course, put myself into the sectarian scientist’s attitude, and imagine vividly that the world of sensations and scientific laws and objects may be all. But whenever I do this, I hear that inward monitor which WK Clifford once wrote, whispering the word ‘bosh!’ Humbug is humbug, even though it bear the scientific name, and the total expression of human experience, as I view it objectively, invincibly urges me beyond the narrow ‘scientific’ bounds.’
He rejected the philosophy of Herbert Spencer, which had become very popular with the ‘intellectuals’ of the era. In effect, Spencer said we should be satisfied to realize that such things as God and Immortality are unknowable. James called it ‘agnostic substantialism’ and said it was philosophy designed to give Philistines a certain security.
He also rejected the philosophy of the ‘moralist,’ today’s humanist. ‘The moralist must hold his breath and keep his muscles tense; and so long as this athletic attitude is possible all goes well – morality suffices,’ he explained. ‘But the athletic attitude tends ever to break down and it inevitably does break down even in the most stalwart when the organism begins to decay, or when morbid fears invade the mind.’
To the simplistic advice of the moralist that one should ‘live in the moment’ and not concern himself with what comes after death, James responded:
‘The luster of the present hour is always borrowed from the background of possibilities it goes with. Let our common experiences be enveloped in an eternal moral order; let our suffering have an immortal significance; let Heaven smile upon the earth, and deities pay their visits; let faith and hope be the atmosphere which man breathes in; and his days pass by with zest; they stir with prospects, they thrill with remoter values. Place around them on the contrary the curdling cold and gloom and absence of all permanent meaning which for pure naturalism and the popular-science evolutionism of our time are all that is visible ultimately, and the thrill stops short, or turns rather to an anxious trembling.’
James believed that a true philosophy must eliminate uncertainty from the future and found it difficult to understand why most philosophers of his day ignored this aspect, the result being a ‘haunting sense of futurity.’ He cautioned against becoming anti-religious because of the mistakes of organized religion. ‘It does not follow, because our ancestors made so many errors of fact and mixed them with their religion, that we should therefore leave off being religious at all. By being religious we establish ourselves in possession of ultimate reality at the only points at which reality is given us to guard. Our responsible concern is with our private destiny, after all.’
In summarizing his belief system, James said: ‘The whole drift of my education goes to persuade me that the world of our present consciousness is only one out of many worlds of consciousness that exist, and that those other worlds must contain experiences which have a meaning for our life also; and that although in the main their experiences and those of this world keep discrete, yet the two become continuous as certain points, and higher energies filter in. By being faithful in my poor measure of this over-belief, I seem to myself to keep more sane and true.’
On March 6, 1889, Alice James (seen above), the wife of Professor William James, and Robertson James, William’s brother, sat with Leonora Piper, the Boston medium who was being studied by Dr Richard Hodgson of the ASPR. They were informed by Phinuit, Piper’s spirit control, that ‘Aunt Kate’ (Kate Walsh) had died early that morning and that a letter or telegram saying she was gone would be received later that day.
It was known to the two sitters that Aunt Kate had been seriously ill, but neither was aware that she had died. After leaving Mrs Piper’s home, Robertson James stopped by the ASPR office to report the sitting to Hodgson and Professor James. ‘On reaching home an hour later I found a telegram as follows,’ William James recorded: ‘Aunt Kate passed away a few minutes after midnight. – ER Walsh.’
Alice James recorded her version: ‘It may be worth while to add that early at this sitting I inquired, ‘How is Aunt Kate?’ The reply was, ‘She is poorly.’ This reply disappointed me, from its baldness. Nothing more was said about Aunt Kate till towards the close of the sitting, when I again said, ‘Can you tell me nothing more about Aunt Kate?’ The medium suddenly threw back her head and said in a startled way, ‘Why Aunt Kate’s here. All around me I hear voices saying, ‘Aunt Kate has come.’’ Then followed the announcement that she had died very early that morning, and on being pressed to give the time, shortly after two was named.’
On November 7, 1889, Hodgson sat with Mrs Piper and received some fragmented and confusing messages from Aunt Kate, which he passed on to William James. James replied: ‘The ‘Kate Walsh’ freak is very interesting. The first mention of her by Phinuit was when she was living, three years or more ago, when she had written to my wife imploring her not to sit for development [as a medium]. Phinuit knew this in some incomprehensible way. A year later [in a sitting] with Margaret Gibbens [sister of Mrs James], I present, Phinuit alluded jocosely to this fear of hers again, and made some derisive remarks about her unhappy marriage, calling her an ‘old crank,’ etc. Her death was announced last spring, as you remember. In September, sitting with me and my wife, Mrs Piper was suddenly ‘controlled’ by her spirit, who spoke directly with much impressiveness of manner, and great similarity of temperament to herself. Platitudes. She said Henry Wyckoff had experienced a change, and that Albert was coming over soon; nothing definite about either. Queer business!’
In a later report, James wrote: ‘The aunt who purported to ‘take control’ directly was a much better personation [than Phinuit], having a good deal of the cheery strenuousness of speech of the original. She spoke, by the way, on this occasion, of the condition of health of two members of the family [Henry and Albert] in New York, of which we knew nothing at the time, and which was afterwards corroborated by letter. We have repeatedly heard from Mrs Piper in trance things of which we were not at the moment aware. If the supernormal element in the phenomenon be thought-transference it is certainly not that of the sitter’s conscious thought.’
James went on to report that when his mother-in-law returned from Europe, she could not locate her bank book. ‘Mrs Piper, on being shortly afterwards asked where this book was,’ James continued, ‘described the place so exactly that it was instantly found.’
At that same sitting, James was told by Mrs Piper [or by Phinuit] that the spirit of a boy named Robert F. was the companion of his deceased child, Hermann, who had died as an infant in 1885. The F.’s were cousins of his wife and were living in a distant city. On his return home, James told his wife of the reading and asked for particulars on the baby lost by her cousin, as he did not recall the name, sex, and age of the child being as reported by Phinuit. However, his wife corrected him and confirmed Phinuit’s version. ‘I then learned that Mrs Piper had been quite right in all those particulars, and that mine was the wrong impression.’
Vietnam vets find closure with induced after death communication
Posted on 27 July 2010, 10:54
As a helicopter gunship pilot, Mark (not his real name) killed many people during his 18 months service in the Vietnam War. He was also shot down seven times and wounded twice. The confrontation that bothered him the most involved four boats filled with Vietnamese soldiers.
Unmarked and without flags, the boats had trespassed into a military canal. Mark and the four other gunships under his command attacked the boats and ‘blew them out of the water.’ He recalls seeing bodies flying in the air. Two weeks later, he was informed that they were friendly troops.
‘It stays in your mind and really weighs on you,’ Mark told me when I interviewed him for an article I wrote for NEXUS magazine a few years ago.
The memory of that mistake had continued to haunt him for more than three decades and in 2002 he sought treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) at a veteran’s hospital. While there he was offered the opportunity to undergo a relatively new therapy called Induced After Death Communication (IADC).
IADC is an offshoot of EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) therapy and was discovered accidentally in 1995 by Dr Allan L Botkin (pictured above), a clinical psychologist now practicing in Libertyville, Illinois, while experimenting with EMDR. In IADC therapy, people grieving the death of someone or otherwise disturbed by someone’s death, are asked to focus directly on their sadness during eye movements.
The typical IADC involves the patient reporting having seen a deceased person and that deceased person having told him or her that everything is OK and not to grieve. In a number of cases, the deceased person relates information previously unknown to the patient.
When the therapist explained the IADC procedure to Mark and asked him if he’d like to try it, he was more than willing. After the eye movements were administered, Mark focused on the boat mishap. ‘What happened then is that I saw a formation of Vietnamese coming at me,’ Mark related, the memory still very vivid in his mind several years later. ‘What was interesting is that they were in a Russian formation, not a US formation. Two of the commanders stepped forward and began talking to me in Vietnamese.’
Mark didn’t understand them until another eye movement was administered. They continued speaking in Vietnamese, but Mark somehow telepathically knew what they were saying. ‘They said that they understood that I did what I had to do and they had no grudge against me, that they are in a better place, and not to worry about it. Then they marched off. It was really cool and a big load off my shoulders.’
At another IADC session, Mark saw a woman holding his first son, who had died as an infant in 1978. As his focus was on the boy, he didn’t immediately recognize the woman as his deceased mother. In that session, the child did not speak, but in subsequent sessions, the boy appeared again, first as a teenagers and then as a young adult. ‘My son says to me, “Don’t worry, Dad, I’m okay. I’m going to see you soon.” I didn’t know what to make of that, if I’m going to die soon, or what, but it was very soothing.’
Mark also reviewed one of his helicopter crashes, including the intensity of the pain. He struggled to explain the images. ‘The quality and clarity of the images are much greater than in dreams,’ he said. ‘They are absolutely three dimensional and they stay with you. You have to experience it to know what it’s like. It’s not like hypnotism. It’ll spook you, but it is really something. The main thing is that it gives you closure and life has more meaning after you have experienced these things. There is a sense of continuity. It’s very comforting.’
Botkin states that the EMDR/IADC process does not involve hypnosis. ‘Hypnosis induces the patient into a relaxed and focused state of mind,’ he pointed out. ‘EMDR, on the other hand, increases information processing in the brain.’ He likened it to a movie projector, with the projector slowing down during hypnosis and speeding up during EMDR.
Botkin also put me in touch with Ivan Rupert, another veteran, who was bothered for many years by a memory of carnage in Vietnam. As a combat photographer, he was called upon early one morning to take photos of a Vietnamese bus that had been blown up. ‘There were bodies and body parts all over the place,’ he recalled, ‘but the one that really stuck in my mind was that of a young pregnant woman. You could see the baby and umbilical cord connecting them.’
The scene came back to Rupert over and over again in his dreams for many years until undergoing IADC with Botkin. What especially bothered him was that he was more intent on getting some good photos than feeling bad about what he was witnessing. During the IADC, the Vietnamese woman communicated with him. ‘She told me she was in a much better place and helped me understand that I was not the monster I thought I was. She said she didn’t blame me for any of it.’
Rupert can’t say for sure whether the woman spoke in Vietnamese or in English. ‘It was sort of mind to mind, heart to heart,’ he explained, adding that he no longer has the awful dreams relating to that scene.
There is no doubt in Rupert’s mind that he was actually communicating with the Vietnamese woman. ‘I was very skeptical when it was initially explained to me,’ he said. ‘It sounded like a lot of mumbo jumbo, hocus pocus, but it was the real thing. I’m certain that I was not hallucinating and I was not hypnotized.’
Botkin discovered IADC during a session with a patient to whom, for privacy purposes, he gives the pseudonym ‘Sam.’ While in Vietnam as a combat soldier, Sam befriended a young orphan girl named Le and had hoped to adopt her. One day, while Sam and other soldiers were helping Le and other orphaned children board a truck to take them to an orphanage, they came under enemy attack. When Sam discovered Le’s lifeless body in the mud behind the truck, he was devastated and the grief remained with him right up to that 1995 session with Botkin.
During the EMDR, Sam saw Le as a beautiful woman with long black hair in a white gown, surrounded in a radiant light. Le spoke to him and thanked him for taking care of her before her death. Sam was ecstatic and convinced that he had just communicated with Le, and that he felt her arms around him.
Initially, Botkin assumed that Sam had hallucinated and was concerned that Sam had compromised his ability to distinguish between reality and fantasy. But after similar experiences reported by several other patients, Botkin decided to experiment.
His first intentionally induced ADC was with a patient named Gary, whose daughter, Julie, had died at age 13. Because she had been severely oxygen deprived at birth, Julie had never developed mental abilities beyond those of a six-month old child. After suffering a heart attack and rushed to the hospital, she was placed on life supports. As she later showed some signs of being able to breathe on her own, she was taken off the respirator. She struggled to breathe and died in Gary’s arms.
‘Tears rolled down Gary’s cheeks as he told me his story,’ Botkin recalled. ‘I explained my new procedure to him and asked him if he wanted to give it a try. He said he was willing if I thought it might help, but he was convinced it wouldn’t work for him because he was an atheist and didn’t believe in such things.’
After Botkin took him through the entire procedure, Gary closed his eyes. “When he opened his eyes, he had a look of amazement,” Botkin continues the story. “He then said, ‘I saw my daughter. She was playing happily in a garden alive with rich and radiant bright colors. She looked healthy and seemed to move around without the physical problems she had when alive. She looked at me and I could feel her love for me.’ We then talked about his experience. Gary was convinced that his daughter was still alive, although in a very different place.”
But Gary’s look of amazement then shifted to one of sadness. When Botkin asked him what was wrong, Gary replied that he still felt sad because he missed his daughter. Botkin then administered another set of eye movements and asked him to keep that thought in mind. Gary closed his eyes and sat quietly for a few moments. “When Gary opened his eyes, he was smiling,” Botkin goes on. “He said, ‘I was in the garden again and I could see Julie looking at me. She said to me, ‘I’m still with you, Daddy.’”
Gary told Botkin that Julie couldn’t talk when alive. He left the session feeling happy and reconnected to his daughter. Botkin contacted Gary a year later and was informed that he still felt reconnected with his daughter. Gary’s new belief was that “people don’t really die; they just take on a different form and live in a different place, which is very beautiful.”
Since discovering the procedure, Botkin has trained a number of therapists in IADC, including Hania Stromberg of Albuquerque, NM (pictured above). In one experience, as she was administering the eye movements to a client, she felt a ‘presence’ entering the room and then saw a woman in a colorful dress and high heels. The woman, the client’s deceased mother, addressed the client by a special name of endearment and began discussing problems the client was having. After the session, Stromberg compared her notes with what the client related and all were confirmed – the special term of endearment being especially evidential since Stromberg had not been aware of it.
‘Occasionally I get visual impressions or pictures, but it is not always visual,’ Stromberg, who apparently has some clairvoyant and clairaudient abilities, told me. ‘I always have a strong sense of the presence of the deceased, often hear something they try to convey. It is either an auditory experience or sort of an auditory thought impression that I know is not mine.’
With co-author R Craig Hogan, PhD, Botkin wrote about IADC in his 2005 book, Induced After Death Communication (Hampton Roads). I recently re-contacted him to see if there have been any new developments.
‘Perhaps the most important development in IADC is that there are now trained IADC therapists in eight different countries,’ Botkin said. ‘In fact, after October 2010, when I train another large group in Heidelberg, there will likely be more IADC therapists in Europe than in the U.S.
‘On a more theoretical level, there have also been some advances,’ he continued. ‘In my book, I made the observation that IADC experiences were essentially identical to NDE experiences. The only exceptions, besides the obvious difference in perspective, were the ‘being of light’ and the ‘life review,’ which are two primary components of NDEs. While no one has yet described a being of light in an IADC, there have been some further developments regarding the life review in IADCs.
In 2005 I noted that the deceased consistently appeared in IADCs as though they had been through a life review, i.e., they were always very aware of the pain and suffering that they caused in other people. In more recent cases, there have been more direct experiences with life reviews. For example, in one case a woman experienced her WWII ‘German soldier’ uncle experiencing his own life review. Her uncle’s response to his life review had a profound meaning for my client. In another case, a man actually experienced his own life review during a session. These developments, of course, further support the idea that NDEs and IADCs are essentially the same phenomenon.
‘Also, I recently read Dr Jeffery Long’s new best-selling book, Evidence of the Afterlife. His descriptions of meeting deceased friends and relatives during an NDE are identical to my patients’ IADC reports. Dr Long does not provide any observation for which the meeting of the deceased in NDEs is different from IADC content. I can’t believe that this is just a coincidence.
The similarities include: a) A high percentage of experiences with the deceased involve family members; b) The deceased encountered in both experiences who were thought to be alive were later discovered to have previously died; c) Sometimes the experiencer encounters deceased family members he/she never met in life; d) Those who died old and sick are routinely experienced as younger and healthy; e) Those who die young are sometimes experienced as older.’
While IADC is receiving growing support from professional therapists around the world, Botkin is not especially disappointed that it has not been more readily accepted by the Veteran’s Administration and various mental health organizations. He feels that progress is necessarily slow as it takes time for independent research studies to validate it. ‘I am confident,’ he said, ‘that independent scientifically controlled studies will confirm what IADC therapists and patients have been saying now for some time.’
Latest research on near-death experience supports survival hypothesis
Posted on 12 July 2010, 9:12
Over the past 35 years, near-death experience (NDE) researchers like Drs. Raymond Moody, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, Kenneth Ring, Michael Sabom, Bruce Greyson, Melvin Morse, Barbara Rommer, Sam Parnia and others have built a very solid wheel, one that supports the idea that we have a spirit body as well as a physical body and that consciousness remains with the spirit body after physical death. Close-minded skeptics keep trying to make the wheel collapse by bending the spokes and throwing obstacles in the path of the rolling wheel.
Every now and then, as happened a month or two ago, the theory that the NDE is nothing more than abnormal brain activity resulting from oxygen deficiency gets resurrected and makes its way around the Internet and the print media as if it is news rather than something that goes back 25 or more years. The pseudoskeptics’ blogs make it out to be some sort of victory in their war on superstition and ignorance, and they seemingly take great pride in their ‘intellectualism.’
Fortunately, new researchers come on the scene to debunk the pseudoskeptics and keep the wheel rolling. In his recently released book, Consciousness Beyond Life, Dr. Pim van Lommel (pictured above), a world-renowned cardiologist practicing in The Netherlands, dismisses the oxygen-deprivation theory based on the fact that it is ‘accompanied by an enhanced and lucid consciousness with memories and because it can also be experienced under circumstances such as an imminent traffic accident or a depression, neither of which involves oxygen deficiency.’
Tunnel effect
Van Lommel also dismisses the theory that the tunnel effect experienced by many NDErs also results from a disruption of oxygen to the eye or the cerebral cortex. He points out that oxygen deficiency in these areas cannot explain meeting deceased relatives in the tunnel, as has often been reported, or hearing beautiful music. He explains why carbon dioxide overload, various chemicals, and other physiological theories do not account for the NDE. ‘When new ideas do not fit the generally accepted (materialist) paradigm, many scientists perceive them as a threat,’ van Lommel writes. ‘It is hardly surprising therefore that when empirical studies reveal new phenomena or facts that are inconsistent with the prevailing scientific paradigm, they are usually denied, suppressed, or even ridiculed.’
Having grown up in an academic environment, van Lommel was of a materialist/reductionist mindset before he began studying the NDE and the nature of consciousness. He has closely examined all the arguments made by the scientific fundamentalists and now has a more positive outlook. ‘That death is the end used to be my own belief,’ he states with conviction. ‘But after many years of critical research into the stories of the NDErs, and after a careful exploration of current knowledge about brain function, consciousness, and some basic principles of quantum physics, my views have undergone a complete transformation. As a doctor and researcher, I found the most significant finding to be the conclusion of one NDEr: ‘Dead turned out to be not dead.’ I now see the continuity of our consciousness after the death of our physical body as a very real possibility.’
In another 2010 book, Evidence of the Afterlife, Dr. Jeffrey Long, a radiation oncologist in Houma, Louisiana, comes to the same conclusions as van Lommel. ‘Near-death experiencers almost never have confused memories that are typical of the experience of hypoxia,’ he writes, (hypoxia being reduced oxygen levels in the blood and tissues). ‘The fact that highly lucid and organized near-death experiences occur at a time of severe hypoxia is further evidence of the extraordinary and inexplicable state of consciousness that typically occurs during NDEs.’
Many researchers, fearing professional sanctions and obloquy from their peers, beat around the bush when it comes to the life after death implications of the NDE, but, like van Lommel, Long does not cower in this respect. ‘By scientifically studying the more than 1,300 cases shared with [the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation],’ he writes, ‘I believe that the nine lines of evidence presented in this book all converge on one central point: There is life after death.’
One of the more convincing aspects of the NDE for Long is the ability of some blind people to ‘see’ during the NDE. ‘…blind people who have near-death experiences may immediately have full and clear vision,’ he offers. ‘This is further evidence that vision in NDEs, including near-death experiences in those who are not blind, is unlike ordinary, physical vision.’
Life review
Long reports many interesting NDEs, including one by a man named Roger who was in a head-on auto accident and immediately left his body. He told of seeing events from above. ‘I went into a dark place with nothing around me, but I wasn’t scared. It was really peaceful there. I then began to see my whole life unfolding before me like a film projected on a screen, from babyhood to adult life. It was so real! I was looking at myself, but better than a 3-D movie as I was also capable to sensing the feelings of the persons I had interacted with through the years. I could feel the good and bad emotions I made them go through…’
Skeptics seem to have a theory for every aspect of the NDE, including the life review which so many others have reported. The skeptical take on the life review is that it is a psychological defense mechanism permitting a retreat into pleasant memories. But Long points out that many memories are not pleasant and that such unpleasant memories would not be expected in a psychological escape.
But how can a person see every moment of his life flash before him in an instant? As van Lommel sees it, many aspects of the NDE correspond with or are analogous to some of the basic principles from quantum theory, which is non-local, i.e., timeless and placeless interconnectedness. ‘The findings of NDE research suggest the possibility that (nonlocal) consciousness is present at all time and will therefore last forever,’ van Lommel explains. ‘The content of a near-death experience suggests a continuity of consciousness that can be experienced independently of the body.’
Lost dentures
One of the more veridical and interesting NDEs reported by van Lommel involved a 44-year-old man brought into the hospital while in a deep coma. When a nurse started to intubate the patient, she discovered he had dentures. She removed the upper dentures and put them on a nearby cart. The patient remained comatose throughout the procedure and for a week after.
After regaining consciousness, he was returned to the coronary unit and as soon as he spotted the nurse, he asked about his dentures. ‘…you took my dentures out of my mouth and put them on that cart,’ he told her. ‘It had all these bottles on it, and there was a sliding drawer underneath, and you put my teeth there.’ The patient said that he watched from above as the doctors and nurses worked on him and that he unsuccessfully tried to let them all know that he was still alive, and that they should not stop. Possibly, he was not ‘unsuccessful,’ since they did continue to work on him and he did survive.
Interestingly, Long reports that it takes as long as seven years or more for a person to fully integrate the NDE into his or her life. This is consistent with the biological rule that we turn over every cell in the body every seven years. It is also consistent with the ‘seven-year itch’ idea, which holds that there is an inclination to become unfaithful after seven years of marriage. That idea has been broadened to suggest that there is an urge to move on from any situation after seven years, whether it is a hobby or some other passion.
Organ transplants
Something I have found particularly troubling over the years is the possibility that organs are being harvested before bodies are actually ‘dead,’ even though the person might be pronounced ‘clinically dead.’ Van Lommel devotes several interesting pages to the debate on this subject, pointing out that when brain death has been diagnosed, 96 percent of the body is still alive. While not in principle opposed to organ transplants, van Lommel suggests that more consideration should be given to the nonphysical aspects of organ donation, including the fear of death. As I interpret his comments, he is saying that perhaps that in many organ failure situations we should let nature take its course and not concern ourselves so much with surviving in this world.
Long quotes Sir John Eccles, a Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist who studied consciousness: ‘I maintain that the human mystery is incredibly demeaned by scientific reductionism, with its claim in promissory materialism to account eventually for all of the spiritual world in terms of patterns of neuronal activity. This belief must be classed as superstition…We have to recognize that we are spiritual beings with souls existing in a spiritual world as well as material beings with bodies and brains existing in a material world.’
Chess game offers strong evidence for life after death
Posted on 29 June 2010, 22:18
The Viktor Korchnoi vs. Géza Maróczy chess game, which began in 1985 and ended in 1993, lasting 7 years and 8 months, is without a doubt one of the most intriguing cases ever in the annals of psychical research. It was reported by Dr. Wolfgang Eisenbeiss and Dieter Hassler in the April 2006 issue of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research.
‘This case appears to be one of the most remarkable cases supporting evidence for survival of an intelligent component of human existence after bodily death,’ opines Dr. Vernon M. Neppe, director of the Pacific Neuropsychiatric Institute in Seattle, Washington, and professor in the department of neurology and psychiatry at St. Louis University in Missouri, himself a chess champion at a more modest level than Korchnoi and Maróczy, who were ranked 13th and 29th, respectively, all-time in a 1978 study.
The match was arranged by Eisenbeiss, a Swiss stockbroker and a doctor of economics with a long-standing interest in psychical research. Knowing that Eisenbeiss had considerable experience in studying mediums, a dentist named Waldhorn, suggested to Eisenbeiss that he attempt to initiate a chess game between a living person and a deceased person.
Intrigued by the idea, Eisenbeiss persuaded Korchnoi, known as Viktor the Terrible (pictured above), who had defected from the Soviet Union and was living in Switzerland, to take part in the experiment. He then asked Robert Rollans (1914-1993), a long-time acquaintance and an automatic-writing trance medium who was living in Germany, to participate. Rollans was a particularly good candidate as he did not know how to play chess and was willing to participate without remuneration. Moreover, Eisenbeiss had complete confidence in Rollans’ integrity.
Eisenbeiss then gave Rollans a list of deceased grandmasters and requested that he have his control spirits (Tata and Gabriel) attempt to locate one of them in the spirit world and agree to such a match. On June 15, 1985, Tata and Gabriel communicated and said that Maróczy (seen below) would accept the challenge. They then said that Maróczy would attempt to communicate directly.
‘I am Maróczy Géza,’ he wrote through Rollans’ hand. ‘I say hello to you [Continuing in German.]. I can talk German so first of all I can answer the identifying question. It was the opening with the king’s pawn and the French defence. I am unable to continue. I will finish writing. [Letters became untidy] I am going to tell everything to my friends. [Continuing in Hungarian.] Goodbye.’
Tata and Gabriel returned, explaining that because Maróczy was not accustomed to writing through an earthly arm, he tired quickly. However, he was able to convey the second move to them, d2-d4. It is not clear from the report, but these were apparently test questions which Eisenbeiss devised beforehand to be sure that a grandmaster was taking up the challenge and not some impostor spirit.
Before the game actually got underway, Maróczy expressed concerns about his ability to compete because he had gone so long without practice. ‘I was and will be at your disposal in this peculiar game of chess for two reasons,’ he communicated. ‘First because I also want to do something to aid mankind living on earth to become convinced that death does not end everything, but instead the mind is separated from the physical body and comes up in a new world, where individual life continues to manifest itself in a new unknown dimension.’ His second reason had to do with the glory of Hungary.
The game started with Maróczy making the first move, writing ‘e4’ through Rollans’ hand. Rollans sent the move to Eisenbeiss, who sent it on to Korchnoi. Korchnoi responded with ‘e6’ to Eisenbeiss, who forwarded it to Rollans. (It should be noted that Eisenbeiss gave Rollans some basic lessons so that he would know where to place the pieces.)
‘During the opening phase Maróczy showed weakness,’ Korchnoi commented after the 27th move. ‘His play is old-fashioned. But I must confess that my last moves have not been too convincing. I am not sure I will win. He has compensated the faults of the opening by a strong end-game. In the end-game the ability of a player shows up and my opponent plays very well.’
In his detailed analysis of the game, Dr. Neppe states that the alleged Maróczy ‘played at least at the Master level, and very debatably and less likely, at a rusty, lowish grandmaster level.’ He adds that this level could not have been achieved by Rollans even after much training, assuming that he was not a chess genius. He also points out that Maróczy’s slow start may have been the result of an opening theory that developed after his death.
‘Because of major stylistic differences, the computer could not have simulated the game, nor could many living chess players play at this high a level,’ Neppe further offers. ‘Early outside validators (news media, analysis by an expert player) militates against fraudulent collaboration.’
Because Korchnoi was frequently traveling and e-mail not yet available, the match proceeded slowly. According to Rollans, he would feel a tickle in his body when Maróczy was ready to communicate a move to him. It usually took about 10 days for Eisenbeiss to receive the next move from Maróczy/Rollans after receiving Korchnoi’s move and mailing it to Rollans.
As might be expected, the skeptics suspect that Rollans was consulting with live chess experts before communicating his move back to Eisenbeiss. Neppe believes this unlikely as the play was ‘stylistically compatible with Maróczy.’
‘It’s ridiculous to think that Rollans would have asked other grandmasters what he should give me as a move,’ Dr. Eisenbeiss writes. He adds that Rollans was as curious about the results as he was, and so was Korchnoi. He stresses that neither Rollans nor Korchnoi was paid for his participation and so there was no real motive to cheat.
‘Let them believe [what they want],’ Eisenbeiss says, pointing out that there will always be people unable to accept the truth of such phenomena.
It was more personal information coming from Maróczy that convinced Eisenbeiss that he was actually communicating with Maróczy and which Neppe cites as significantly reducing the potential for fraud.
During the match, Eisenbeiss put many questions to Maróczy in order to confirm his identity. While the answers to some of them might be found with limited research, most required extensive research and involved some private information. On July 31, 1986, Rollans received 38 handwritten pages from Maróczy in response to some questions. He also said that he was disappointed in his play, which he felt was due to his rustiness as well as difficulties in communication transmission.
In order to confirm the accuracy of Maróczy’s responses, Eisenbeiss contacted the Hungarian Chess Club and was put in touch with Laszlo Sebestyen, a historian and chess expert, who agreed to do some research and determine if the answers were correct. Sebestyen was led to believe that the information was for some kind of biographical work on Maróczy. Sebestyen, who was paid for his services, consulted several libraries in Hungary and Maróczy’s two surviving children, both over 80 at the time, and a cousin. He put in more than 70 hours in finding the answers to nearly all of Eisbenbeiss’ questions.
Out of 92 statements made by Maróczy, Sebestyén was able to confirm 85 of them as factual. The remaining seven may have been factual, but no records could be found to confirm them or the records were unclear.
One particularly evidential exchange between Eisenbeiss and Maróczy (through Rollans, of course) had to do with a match Maróczy had in 1930. Eisenbeiss, who had found a record of the match, asked Maróczy about the player he had defeated, an Italian named Romi. Maróczy replied that he never knew anyone by that name, but that he did defeat a man named ‘Romih.’ Even though the historical records showed the name as ‘Romi,’ Eisenbeiss found a program of the 1930 match in which the name was spelled ‘Romih.’
Because Korchnoi was frequently traveling and competing, the game was drawn out for those seven-plus years. Maróczy, who played in an ‘old fashioned’ style, resigned after 47 moves. Rollans died three weeks after the completion of the game.
Dr. Neppe also feels that the Super Psi theory advanced by some parapsychologists is less likely than the spirit hypothesis as Super Psi would have required the active cogitation of a master chess player or players while alive, extended over a prolonged period of time.
The bottom line here is that the Korchnoi vs. Maróczy chess game strongly suggests that consciousness survives physical death and lives on in a spirit world. At his website, author and researcher Miles Edward Allen ranks the case as the third most evidential among his top 40 cases.
Next blog entry approx. July 12
Michael Tymn’s book The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After we Die is published by White Crow Books and available from Amazon and all good online book stores. Paperback Kindle
‘If you could go back in time and interview anyone in history, who would it be?’
That question was put to me by a friend over a cup of coffee not long ago. When I first chose Jesus of Nazareth, my friend asked me to limit it to the last thousand years. It didn’t take me long to mull it over and choose Sir Oliver Lodge, the distinguished British physicist, inventor, and psychical researcher. He edged out Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and President Harry Truman as my first choice.
My friend was a bit taken aback as he didn’t even know who Lodge was. I provided him with a little history. Born in 1851, Lodge received his doctorate in 1877, going on to teach physics and mathematics at University College in both London and Liverpool. In 1900, he became principal of Birmingham University, remaining there until his retirement in 1919. Knighted in 1902 for his scientific work, Lodge was known primarily as a physicist, especially for his work in electricity, thermo-electricity, and thermal-conductivity. He perfected a radio wave detector known as a “coherer” and was the first person to transmit a radio signal, a year before Marconi. He later developed the Lodge spark plug. He authored more than 40 books on scientific subjects. He transitioned to the spirit world 70 years ago this August at the age of 89. His obituary in The Times read, in part:
Always an impressive figure, tall and slender with a pleasing voice and charming manner, he enjoyed the affection and respect of a very large circle…Lodge’s gift as an expounder of knowledge were of a high order, and few scientific men have been able to set forth abstruse facts in a more lucid or engaging form… Those who heard him on a great occasion, as when he gave his Romanes lecture at Oxford or his British Association presidential address at Birmingham, were charmed by his alluring personality as well as impressed by the orderly development of his thesis. But he was even better in informal debate, and when he rose, the audience, however perplexed or jaded, settled down in a pleased expectation that was never disappointed.
My interest in Sir Oliver is primarily a result of of his work in psychical research. He investigated many mediums, including Leonora Piper of Boston, Mass., Gladys Osborne Leonard of England, and Eusapia Paladino of Italy. Through his investigations, he came to accept the reality of mediumship and to believe in the survival of consciousness at death. Much to the dismay of many of his materialistic colleagues in science, Sir Oliver made his beliefs public. While many of his peers in the scientific world sneered at such a distinguished man taking an interest in what they saw as nothing more than fraud and superstition, Lodge was no wimp, as so many others have been when it comes to stating a belief in a non-mechanistic world. He courageously stood his ground and often reasserted his beliefs based on empirical evidence.
Although I couldn’t find a time machine in which to go back and visit Sir Oliver, I did manage to “interview” him. Taking his words from his books now in the public domain, I formulated some questions. Here is my “interview” with Sir Oliver:
Sir Oliver, how did a dedicated physicist become interested in studying mediums?
“For myself, I do not believe that physics and psychics are entirely detached. I think there is a link between them; neither is complete without the other. A study of the material world alone may be a narrowing influence. It leaves untouched the whole ‘universe of discourse’ apprehended by artist, philosopher, and theologian. To emphasize the importance of one part of the universe we need not decry or deny the remainder.”
Prior to getting into psychical research, what were your views of survival?
“It did not seem to me possible that a man could survive the death of the body. I did not think that we could ever know the truths about things of that kind, and was content with whatever destiny lay in store for us, without either inquisitiveness or rebellion. I felt that our knowledge would not make any difference, and that we had better leave questions of that kind to settle themselves in due course.”
So what changed your mind?
“The verification of the fact of telepathy, indicating obscurely a kind of dislocation between mind and body, was undoubtedly impressive, so that it began to seem probable, especially under (Frederic) Myers’s tuition, that the two –mind and body – were not inseparably connected, as I had been led by my previous studies under Clifford, Tyndall, and Huxley to believe they were. I began to feel that there was a possibility of the survival of personality.
“Then came the revelation, through the mediumship of Mrs. Piper, in the winter of 1889, not only that the personality of certain people could survive, but that they could communicate under certain conditions with us. The proof that they retained their individuality, their memory, and their affection, forced itself upon me, as it had done upon many others. So my eyes began to open to the fact that there really was a spiritual world, as well as a material world which hitherto had seemed all sufficient, that the things which appealed to the senses were by no means the whole of existence.”
But so many of your scientific colleagues have denied things paranormal.
“Science is incompetent to make comprehensive denials about anything. It should not deal in negatives. Denial is no more fallible than assertion. There are cheap and easy kinds of skepticism, just as there are cheap and easy kinds of dogmatism.”
How did you rule out telepathy with Mrs. Piper?
“That was not an easy matter, as is obvious when you come to think of it. But I decided to invite Mrs. Piper to my house at Liverpool, and make the attempt. Suffice it to say that the attempt was successful. I got into ostensible touch with old deceased relatives of whose early youth I knew nothing whatever, and was told of incidents which were subsequently verified by their surviving elderly contemporaries. I also investigated many other faculties that she possessed, such as the reading of an unopened letter applied to the top of her head, a phenomenon which had already been testified to by Kant and Hegel, though by them it was called ‘reading with the pit of the stomach.’ At any rate, it was reading without the use of the sense organs, and therefore represented another obscure human faculty commonly called ‘clairvoyance.’”
Would you mind summarizing your conclusions relative to death and the afterlife?
“I tell you with all my strength of the conviction which I can muster that we do persist…I say it on distinct scientific grounds. I say it because I know that certain friends of mine still exist, because I have talked with them.
“Death is not a word to fear, any more than birth is. We change our state at birth, and come into the world of air and sense and myriad existence; we change our state at death and enter a region of – what? Of ether, I think, and still more myriad existence; a region in which communion is more akin to what we here call telepathy, and where intercourse is not conducted by the accustomed indirect physical process; but a region in which beauty and knowledge are as vivid as they are here, a region in which progress is possible, and in which ‘admiration, hope, and love’ are even more real and dominant. It is in this sense that we can truly say, ‘The dead are not dead, but alive.’”
You say that with so much conviction.
“I am as convinced of continued existence on the other side of death as I am of existence here. It may be said, you cannot be as sure as you are of sensory experience. I say I can. A physicist is never limited to direct sensory impressions; he has to deal with a multitude of conceptions and things for which he has no physical organ – the dynamical theory of heat, for instance, and of gases, the theories of electricity, of magnetism, of chemical affinity, of cohesion, aye, and his apprehension of the ether itself, lead him into regions where sight and hearing and touch are impotent as direct witnesses, where they are no longer efficient guides.
“I shall go further and say that I am reasonably convinced of the existence of grades of being, not only lower in the scale than man but higher also, grades of every order of magnitude from zero to infinity. And I know by experience that among these beings are some who care for and help and guide humanity, not disdaining to enter even into what must seem petty details, if by so doing they can assist souls striving on their upward course. And further it is my faith – however humbly it may be held – that among those lofty beings, highest of those who concern themselves directly with this earth of all the myriads of worlds in infinite space, is One on whom the right instinct of Christianity has always lavished heartfelt reverence and devotion.”
Some have said that the death of your son, Raymond, during the war has affected your objectivity. What do you say to them?
“It must not be supposed that my outlook has changed, appreciably, since [Raymond’s death]. My conclusion has been gradually forming itself for years, though undoubtedly it is based on experiences of the same sort of thing. But this event has strengthened and liberated my testimony. It can now be associated with a private experience of my own, instead of with the private experience of others.”
You had the opportunity to observe many types of mediumship. Which type impressed you the most?
“The direct-voice seems the clearest intermediate phenomenon – a voice produced in the air independent of the medium’s normal mode of utterance, and saying things outside his or her normal knowledge. From one point of view it is physical – there are undoubtedly vibrations of the air that might be recorded on a gramophone; from another point of view it is psychic, as the if the utterances were produced by some person, dead or alive, but, anyway, not present in the flesh.”
It has been suggested that survival research is outside the scope of science, that there are things not explained by science and that never can be explained. What do you say to that?
“I should myself hesitate to promulgate such a markedly non-possumus and ignorabimus statement concerning the scope of physical science, even as narrowly and popularly understood; but it illuminates the position taken up by those savants who are commonly known as materialists, and explains their expressed though non-personal hostility to other scientific men who seek to exceed the boundaries laid down, and investigate things beyond the immediate range of senses.”
Why do you think mainstream science object so to psychical research?
“The aim of science has been for the most part a study of mechanism, the mechanism whereby results are achieved, an investigation into the physical processes which go on, and which appear to be coextensive with nature. Any theory which seems to involve the action of Higher Beings, or of any unknown entity controlling and working the mechanism, is apt to be extruded or discountenanced as a relic of primitive superstition, coming down from times when such infantile explanations were prevalent.”
Is there any way to overcome such a mindset?
“It is not easy to unsettle minds thus fortified against the intrusion of unwelcome facts; and their strong faith is probably a salutary safeguard against that unbalanced and comparatively dangerous condition called ‘open-mindedness,’ which is ready to learn and investigate anything not manifestly self-contradictory and absurd.”
What would you tell some materialistic but open-minded students?
“The material side of a picture is canvas and pigment, nothing else would be detected by a microscope; but to such an examination there is no ‘picture,’ the ‘soul’ or meaning – the reality – has evaporated when the material object is contemplated in that analytical manner. So it is with our bodies; dissected they are muscle and blood-vessel and nerves – a wonderful mechanism; but no such examination can detect the soul or mind.”
Considering the negative reaction of some your fellow scientists, do you have any second thoughts about having gone public with your views on spirit communication and survival?
“I should be willing to face the stake rather than be unfaithful to so vital and pregnant a truth – a conclusion so illuminating in our understanding of the meaning of existence, so instructive in relation to the scheme of the universe, and so vitally affecting the hopes and aspirations of man. I do not even feel tempted to succumb to either ecclesiastical or philosophical censure concerning the initial stages of what may be described as the scientific discovery of the soul, as a verified and persistent entity.”
Some have suggested that we can get too hung up on investigating and confirming survival to the detriment of fully living our lives now? Would you agree?
“It is no doubt possible, as always, to overstep the happy mean, and by absorption in and premature concerns with future interests to lose the benefit and training of this present life. But although we may rightly decide to live with full vigour in the present, and do our duty from moment to moment, yet in order to be full-flavoured and really intelligent beings – not merely with mechanical draft following the line of least resistance – we ought to be aware that there is a future, a future determined to some extent by action in the present; and it is only reasonable that we should seek to ascertain, roughly and approximately, what sort of future it is likely to be.
“Inquiry into survival, and into the kind of experience through which we shall all certainly have to go in a few years, is therefore eminently sane, and may be vitally significant. It may colour all our actions, and give a vivid meaning both to human history and to personal experience.”
The scientific world doesn’t seem to be any more accepting of the research done by you and other pioneers of psychical research now than it was 100 years ago. Do you see any point in continuing with it?
“Experience must be our guide. To shut the door on actual observation and experiment in this particular region, because of preconceived ideas and obstinate prejudices, is an attitude common enough, even among scientific men; but it is an attitude markedly unscientific. Certain people have decided that inquiry into the activities of discarnate mind is futile; some few consider it impious; many, perhaps wisely mistrusting their own powers, shrink from entering on such an inquiry. But if there are any facts to be ascertained, it must be the duty of some volunteers to try to ascertain them: and for people having any acquaintance with scientific history to shut their eyes to facts when definitely announced, and to forbid investigation or report concerning them on pain of ostracism, is to imitate a bygone theological attitude in a spirit of unintended flattery – a flattery from which every point of view is eccentric; and likewise to display an extraordinary lack of humour.”
Thank you, Sir Oliver, do you have any closing thoughts?
“I rejoice in the opportunity of service, and am thankful for the kindly help and guidance always forthcoming, though not always recognized at the time. Forward, then, into the unknown!”
As a very liberal Unitarian minister, Dr. Horace Westwood (pictured below) did not believe in any kind of afterlife. He was a humanist who believed that the objective of life was to make the world a better place for future generations. He did not stop to ask what future generations might strive for beyond comforts and pleasures once Utopia was attained. ‘The only immortality of which I was sure was the immortality of influence,’ he offered. ‘Beyond that, I had nothing to offer.’
Born in Yorkshire, England in 1884, Westwood emigrated to Canada in 1904, ministering in both the western and eastern parts of the country. As he explained in his 1949 book, There is a Psychic World, his philosophy relative to survival and the meaning of life began to slowly change in 1918 when he observed messages coming over a Ouija board at a friend’s house. Curious, he purchased a Ouija board and began experimenting in his own house with his wife and her cousin, who lived with them.
Their initial efforts were a failure. When Westwood’s four children and ‘Anna,’ the cousin’s 11-year-old daughter, asked what was going on, Westwood explained that it was kind of a toy. They asked to try it and he consented. Nothing happened with Westwood’s children, but when Anna tried it things did happen.
‘She had hardly touched it, when the indicator began to move with startling rapidity and with equally startling accuracy, spelling out words and sentences in complete and intelligent sequence,’ Westwood wrote. ‘But the subject matter of the sentence was extraordinary to say the least. Things were revealed which the child could not possibly have known. Circumstances and events were told concerning each adult that were not known to the other two. At times it was embarrassing, at least, to me.’
Westwood turned the board around and blindfolded Anna, but it made no difference. The indicator continued to deliver a wealth of information with swiftness and accuracy.
‘My immediate reaction was that the natural sensitivity of the child enabled her, by some process beyond my ken, to explore the subconscious levels of the minds of the adults and to bring forgotten and buried memories to light,’ Westwood explained.
The following day, Westwood made his own Ouija board with the letters in different places. He brought Anna to the board in his den while blindfolded and placed her hand on the tumbler over the board. ‘It was literally amazing,’ he recorded. ‘Her hand was not confused in the least. The tumbler found the letters with the same swiftness and accuracy as the day before. And to my great surprise the first message that came through was to the effect that I was a fool for my pains, the arrangements of the letters made not the slightest difference and that ‘they’ would prove that they were invisible entities seeking to communicate on the physical plane.’
Among the messages was one purporting to come from Fred, an old college friend who had died several years earlier. Still, Westwood refused to believe in spirits. ‘I positively refused to grant them any real existence,’ he continued, adding that he was certain it had to be some aspect of the subconscious mind that he did not understand.
Concerned about the effect of all this on Anna, Westwood discussed it with her, her mother, and his wife. As Anna seemed not to be affected in a negative way, he decided to continue with more experiments. Within a week, Anna developed the power of automatic writing. ‘It made no difference whether we blindfolded her or not, she wrote with the same perfect ease and accuracy. Her pencil never faltered and never was there the slightest hesitation in recording answers to questions that were asked.’
One message came from a child whose parents Westwood knew. For privacy concerns, he referred to her under the pseudonym ‘Charlotte Summers.’ She had been in the adjoining ward of the hospital Dr Westwood was in for surgery during 1913. She ‘passed over,’ at the age of six, before he left the hospital.
Charlotte began by giving her name and their mutual hospital experiences, as well as the circumstances of her death. ‘As the message continued, she revealed an intimate knowledge of her parents’ family life both during her earthly sojourn and since,’ Westwood documented. ‘She then made clear the purpose of her communication.’ She wanted Westwood to contact her mother, who had ceased to grieve, and let her know that she was still alive. ‘Give her to understand that I’m always near and that I am so happy over baby brother.’ Charlotte communicated in Anna’s hand.
Westwood was reluctant to contact the Summers and tell them of the communication, especially since he was still not sure that it was not all some kind of trick of the subconscious combined with mental telepathy. However, he proceeded to call them and received the reaction he had feared. Mr. Summers was shocked that Westwood would believe in such ‘nonsense’ and wanted nothing to do with it. However, about a month later, Mr Summers, apparently at the urging of Mrs. Summers, called Westwood and requested that Anna be brought to their home.
‘In response to the many questions asked through Anna of the alleged Charlotte [by the Summers], the replies indicated a wealth of detailed information entirely beyond any possible knowledge [Anna] might have possessed,’ Westwood wrote. ‘The parents were convinced that the communication were evidential and that through Anna they had come into touch with the daughter who had ‘passed over’ some five years before.’
Not long after the automatic writing began, Anna wrote messages from two apparently different sources. One signed her name ‘Ruth’ and the other ‘Ralph.’ They claimed to have been stenographers in Washington, D.C. in the employment of the U.S. Government and said they died together about two years earlier while in their late twenties. They provided some data about their life, but Westwood, still resisting the survival hypothesis, made no attempt to follow up and verify the information. ‘I was not interested in communing with the departed, and the problem of proving or disproving survival was not in my mind,’ Westwood explained as he wrote the book some three decades later.
While messages had come from other ‘entities’ earlier, they now came only from Ruth and Ralph. Anna suddenly became an expert typist while receiving messages from Ruth and Ralph. ‘Anna had never played with a typewriter,’ Westwood wrote. ‘But under control and blindfolded, she would operate the machine with perfect ease as though she possessed experienced hands. Yet, without control and without the blindfold, she had to pick out the letters, painfully, one by one.’
Westwood would place typed questions in the typewriter, blindfold Anna, who had no prior knowledge of the questions, and then receive swift replies from Ruth and Ralph. He even spoke with Anna about other matters as her fingers typed replies.
At one sitting, Ralph suggested a game. He instructed Westwood to take a ‘rook’ from his chess set and place a ping-pong ball on it, then to use his long briar tobacco pipe as a golf club and to hit the ball toward a certain object without knocking down the rook. ‘It was a task requiring the greatest delicacy in coordination and skill,’ Westwood related, mentioning that his four children and Anna all gave it a try. ‘Not once did any of us succeed. Usually, we knocked down the rook with ball. When we succeeded in hitting the ball without knocking down the rook, it went wild and we missed our object.’
Ralph then communicated that Westwood should blindfold Anna and place her in position. ‘Through Anna, Ralph assumed a stance, then swinging the pipe as a club, he struck,’ Westwood continued the story. ‘He did not miss, the rook did not fall, and the ball flew with precise aim and hit the object. We set ourselves up as targets around the room, and one by one, he caused the ball to hit us all.’ Anna remained blindfolded through it all.
Westwood then challenged Ralph to a game of chess. Westwood had previously taught Anna the game, although her skills were elementary. Nevertheless, as a precaution he again blindfolded her. ‘It was an extraordinary sight to watch her fingers move the pieces on the board,’ Westwood wrote. ‘But it was more marvelous still to realize that a genuine game was in process.’ Later, after Ralph had departed, Westwood tried to get Anna to play the game, but she could not see the pieces and therefore was unable to play.
There were times when Ruth and Ralph were absent. Westwood asked them what they were doing when they were not communicating with him. They informed him that they had duties and tasks, primarily that of welcoming to their side those who had just passed over. Ruth and Ralph explained that their time at the Westwood home was their recreation period. They further explained that their job of greeting new souls was very stressful, especially since many of them failed to realize that they were ‘dead.’ Some of those who had passed over from the battlefield continued to want to fight. It was as if they were men struggling in a nightmare.
Westwood pointed out that Anna never went into a trance. ‘Never, for one moment, was there even the suggestion of a lapse of consciousness,’ he explained. ‘While the alleged controls never ‘broke through’ or manifested in my absence, or without my expressed wish, when they did come through, Anna was always master of the situation. In almost every experiment, for example, she would at times throw off the control in order to make some personal comment or observation, thus showing that her own mind was watchful and fully alert.’
One evening, Westwood asked Ruth if she would play on the piano through Anna, who had taken a few lessons but was by no means an accomplished pianist. Ruth informed him that she was not musical, but that the following evening she would bring a friend named Kate, so gifted. The following evening, Westwood blindfolded Anna and sat her at the piano. ‘As long as I shall live, I shall never forget that night,’ Westwood reported. ‘She began with a slow melody, the like of which I had never heard before, for it was solemn in its majesty and almost unearthly in its beauty. As I watched the child play, the bodily action and the finger technique were entirely different from Anna’s own.’
Later, the alleged Kate (through Anna) took pencil and paper and began to write rapidly. She told Westwood that the scale structure on her side was different and thus it was difficult to express herself as she would have liked to. ‘Yet the whole performance was on an elevated plane, indicating a mental range and musical understanding far beyond the child’s normal power,’ Westwood wrote.
At another sitting, during which a number of family friends gathered, Ruth took charge and asked each person to write a question on a piece of paper, leave it unsigned, then fold the paper and put it into a container. Westwood then shook the container and gave it to Anna, who took out the pieces of paper one by one. In each case, Ruth identified the writer and answered the questions. In two or three cases, the answer was ‘I don’t know.’ One of the guests asked what the price of a certain stock would be on the stock exchange the following day. ‘Have you been imbibing too freely from the contents of your well-stocked cellar?’ Ruth responded to that question. This was during prohibition and the response was very embarrassing to the guest. Westwood pointed out that Anna, herself, could not possibly have known of the guest’s ‘well-stocked cellar.’
Still, Westwood remained a ‘doubting Thomas,’ not wanting to believe in the spirit hypothesis and thinking that Anna’s subconscious was somehow producing the phenomena. One night, Ruth and Ralph left and a nameless spirit who would only designate himself as ‘X’ began communicating. ‘I realized that we were in the presence of a decidedly superior intelligence, as far above Ruth or Ralph in intellectual grasp as a Ph.D. would be above a college freshman,’ Westwood documented. ‘X’ began discussing philosophical matters, some of which were beyond Westwood’s grasp. ‘The general point of view was that the underlying, in fact the all-permeating reality was consciousness, and that the universe by and large was designed for ‘being’ and ‘beings’ in an infinite series of gradations,’ Westwood further reported, admitting that his intelligence was no match for ‘X’.
Westwood then proposed an experiment. He would blindfold Anna and he would then walk backward into another room, the library. With his back to the bookcase, he would select a book at random. Without looking at the book, he would open it and place it on a buffet in the dining room with the open pages down. He would then return to Anna and ask ‘X’ to indicate the number of the right-hand page at which the book was opened and write the first 10-12 words. ‘X’ agreed to the experiment, which was carried out as Westwood requested, several other adults in attendance.
‘I do not hesitate in making the confession that I walked to the buffet with some trepidation,’ Westwood continued. ‘I did not believe that what I had proposed was within the realm of possibility. However, when I reached the buffet and compared the script (from ‘X’ through Anna), they corresponded. The script gave the correct number of the page. However, as to the writing, there was one slight variation. Instead of the words from the top of the page, they were the opening words of the first paragraph. Also, there was one slight discrepancy, the first word ‘Remember’ was spelled ‘Rember.’ Otherwise, the text was perfect.’
On Christmas Day, 1918, a young girl named Virginia, the niece of a member of Westwood’s congregation was killed in a tobogganing accident. Two days later, Ruth communicated that Virginia was there and she would allow her to communicate through Anna, even though Virginia was still dazed.
‘The first symptom was that of bewilderment bordering on fear,’ Westwood wrote. ‘In fact, the first words that came through were, ‘Where am I? I want my mother.’ This was repeated several times as she (Virginia through Anna) gazed around the room.’ Westwood told her that there was no need to be afraid, that she was in the study of the church. Virginia then settled down and asked how her mother and baby brother were. Westwood noted that neither he nor Anna knew that she had a baby brother. He asked other questions of Virginia and later confirmed the responses as fact with Virginia’s aunt.
While Westwood claimed to have no interest in survival, he wrote that he was forced to believe in it after his experiences with Anna, who lost her powers after about three years, upon the departure of Ruth and Ralph.
Indications are that we take our mistakes and unfinished business with us when we die and that they can continue to fester with us in the spirit world. Consider the sitting that Dr Minor Savage (below) had with Leonora Piper, the famous Boston medium. Savage was told that his son, who had died at age 31 three years earlier, was present. “Papa, I want you go at once to my room,” Savage recalled his son communicating with a great deal of earnestness. “Look in my drawer and you will find a lot of loose papers. Among them are some which I would like you to take and destroy at once.”
The son had lived with a personal friend in Boston and his personal effects remained there. Savage went to his son’s room and searched the drawer, gathering up all the loose papers. “There were things there which he had jotted down and trusted to the privacy of his drawer which he would not have made public for the world,” Savage ended the story, commenting that he would not violate his son’s privacy by disclosing the contents of the papers.
As further reported by Savage and also recorded in the records of the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR), the Rev. W. H. Savage, Minot’s brother, and a friend of Harvard Professor William James, the man who discovered Mrs. Piper, sat with Piper on Dec. 28, 1888. Phinuit told him that somebody named Robert West was there and wanted to send a message to Minot. The message was in the form of an apology for something West had written about Minot “in advance.” W. H. Savage did not understand the message but passed it on to Minot, who understood it and explained that West was editor of a publication called The Advance and had criticized his work in an editorial. During the sitting, W. H. Savage asked for a description of West. An accurate description was given along with the information that West had died of hemorrhage of the kidneys, a fact unknown to Savage but later verified.
In a sitting by W. H. Savage two weeks later, West again communicated, stating that his body was buried at Alton, Illinois. He gave the wording on his tombstone, “Fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.” Savage was unaware of either of these facts, but later confirmed them as true.
“Now the striking thing about this lies in the fact that my brother was not thinking of this matter and cared nothing about it,” Minot Savage ended the story, feeling that this ruled out mental telepathy on the part of the medium. “There was no reason for the [apology] unless it be found in simply human feeling on his [West’s] part that he had discovered that he had been guilty of an injustice, and wished, as far as possible, to make reparation, and this for peace of his own mind.”
A Mother’s Grief
There have been many messages from the spirit world suggesting that the grief of loved ones left behind weighs heavily on the departed soul. Such was the message communicated by Olive Thomas (below), a popular Hollywood actress of the silent-screen era, who died of a medication overdose during September 1920.
Communicating with J. Gay Stevens, a New York journalist and a member of the ASPR, through medium Chester Michael Grady, Thomas informed Stevens that she needed to get word to her mother that her death was accidental, not a “scandalous suicide” as had been reported by the press. She explained that when she couldn’t sleep she reached for a bottle of sleeping pills but took the wrong bottle, one very similar in appearance. It contained bichloride of mercury, which killed her.
When Stevens contacted Thomas’ mother, the mother wanted nothing to do with him, assuming that, as a journalist, he was just trying to add to the scandal. But Thomas pleaded for Stevens to make further efforts to convince her mother. Over a period of a dozen sittings, Thomas provided Stevens with personal information that had not been public knowledge, hoping that her mother would realize that she was in fact communicating. But the mother still resisted, concluding that as a journalist Stevens had special ways of gathering information. Moreover, her pastor told her that it must be the work of Satan.
Thomas insisted, however, that Stevens keep trying. She then provided some very evidential information that she felt certain would convince her mother that she was alive in the spirit world and communicating. She said that all of her jewelry had been returned to her mother after her death, except one item – her favorite brooch. She told Stevens that the brooch got caught up in the lining of a pocket in the steamer trunk now in her mother’s attic. She also told Stevens one of the pearls, the third from the top on the right, had come out of its setting and was loose in the tissue paper surrounding the brooch.
When Stevens brought this information to Thomas’ mother, the mother reluctantly agreed to go to the attic and search the steamer trunk. Finding the brooch with the loose pearl was enough to convince her that her daughter, not Satan, was actually communicating. She accepted the explanation that her daughter did not commit suicide and this apparently relieved much of her grief and also gave Olive a certain peace of mind.
Change in Will
One of the victims of the 1915 sinking of the Lusitania by a German U-boat was Sir Hugh Lane, an art connoisseur and director of the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin. He was transporting lead containers with paintings of Monet, Rembrandt, Rubens, and Titian, which were insured for $4 million and were to be displayed at the National Gallery. It was reported by survivors that Lane was seen on deck looking out to Ireland before going down to the dining saloon just before the torpedoes struck.
On the very night of the disaster, Hester Travers Smith (above) and Lennox Robinson were sitting at a Ouija board in Dublin, Ireland. As was their usual practice, Travers Smith, the oldest daughter of Professor Edward Dowden, a Shakespearian scholar, and Robinson, a world-renowned Irish playwright, sat blindfolded at the board, their fingers lightly touching the board’s “traveler,” a triangular piece of wood which flies from letter to letter under the direction of a spirit control.
They had experienced several controls over their years of operating the ouija board, but on this particular night the control was a spirit known to them as Peter Rooney. Rooney would be in touch with others on his side and deliver their messages for them if they lacked the experience to communicate on their own. Reverend Savell Hicks sat at the table between Travers Smith and Robinson, copying the letters indicated by the traveler.
“I am Hugh Lane, all is dark,” was spelled out by the traveler, although Travers Smith and Robinson were blindfolded and had no clue as to the message. In fact, they were conversing on other matters as their hands moved rapidly. After several minutes, Hicks told Travers Smith and Robinson that it was Sir Hugh Lane coming through and that he told them he was aboard the Lusitania and had drowned.
While they had heard of the disaster, none of the three was aware that Lane was a passenger on the ship. They continued receiving messages from Lane, who told them that there was panic, the life boats were lowered, and the women went first. He went on to say that he was the last to get in an overcrowded life boat, fell over, and lost all memory until he “saw a light” at their sitting. To establish his identity, Lane gave Travers Smith an evidential message about the last time they had met and talked.
“I did not suffer. I was drowned and felt nothing,” Lane further communicated through Peter Rooney that night. He also gave intimate messages for friends of his in Dublin.
Lane continued to communicate at subsequent sittings. As plans were underway to erect a memorial gallery to him, he begged that Travers Smith let those behind the movement know that he did not want such a memorial. However, he was more concerned that a codicil to his will would be honored. He had left his private collection of art to the National Gallery in London, but the codicil stated that they should go to the National Gallery in Dublin. Because he had not signed the codicil, the London gallery was reluctant to give them up. “Those pictures must be secured for Dublin,” Lane communicated on January 22, 1918, going on to say that he could not rest until they were.
At a sitting that September, Sir William Barrett, the distinguished British physicist and psychical researcher, was present. Prior to the sitting, Travers Smith and Barrett discussed how evidential the messages from Lane were to them, although they could understand why the public doubted. After the sitting started, a man who said he had died in Sheffield communicated first. Then, Travers Smith recalled, Robinson’s arm was seized and driven about so forcibly that the traveler fell off the table more than once. It was Lane, who was upset because of the doubts expressed relative to his communication.
More regrets over a will
On November 10, 1928, Mollie Ross sat with Geraldine Cummins (below), the renowned Irish automatic writing medium, in London. “Mo..Mo…Molly. I am here. I see you,” Molly’s deceased sister, Alice, communicated through Cummins’ hand. “It’s all true. I am alive. The pain went at once. I felt suffocating. Then, just after I got that awful chocking, I felt things were breaking up all about me. I heard crackling like fire and then dimness. I saw you bending down with such a white face and you were looking at me, and I wasn’t there.”
Alice said that she regretted not having treated her second son, who was living in East Africa, as an equal to Ronald. (Molly confirmed that Ronald was her sister’s favorite and that Ronald was favored in Alice’s will.)
Another deceased sister, Margaret, took control of the pencil and said that Alice was having a hard time “managing the words.” Margaret then communicated that Alice also regretted treating her husband badly. Molly noted that this was also very evidential as Alice “bullied her husband dreadfully.”
Margaret then mentioned that Alice still resented the fact that Margaret cut her out of her will and left her share to Charles, their brother, who had no need of the money. This was another very evidential fact to Molly, as it was clearly unknown to the medium. “She hasn’t forgotten yet the way I left my money,” Margaret wrote. “She feels it would have made a difference in her last days.”
Molly told Margaret that Alice’s family was managing financially. “Good,” Margaret replied. “I will tell her that, then she won’t bother about things. The fact of the matter is, she came out of the world with a dark cloud of years of troubled thought about money. It all accumulated and clung about her. But I think now it will be slowly dissipated…All that worrying before her death left her in a very scattered state of mind.”
Borrowed item not returned
Sometime around 1890, Henry Ward Beecher (below) told his friend, Dr. Isaac K. Funk, about a valuable coin, called “The Widow’s Mite,” owned by another friend, Professor Charles West, of Brooklyn, NY. During 1894, Funk, a partner in the American company, Funk & Wagnalls, borrowed the coin from West so that it could be illustrated in The Standard Dictionary, which the company published.
As Funk was to later recall, he gave the coin to his brother, Benjamin, the company’s business manager, and asked him to return it to Professor West after the photographic plate was made. Benjamin then gave the coin, along with another coin, both in a sealed envelope to H. L. Raymond, head cashier of the company. Raymond placed the envelope in the drawer of a large combination safe, where it would remain forgotten for some nine years.
It was in February of 1903 that Funk, also a member of the ASPR, was told about an apparently gifted medium in Brooklyn. On his third visit to this medium, the medium’s spirit control said that Beecher, who was unable to communicate directly, was concerned because of an ancient coin. “This coin is out of its place and should be returned,” the message came through. “It has long been away, and Mr. Beecher wishes it returned, and he looks to you, doctor, to return it.”
Funk pressed for more information and was told that it was in a large iron safe in a drawer under a lot of papers. At his office the next day, Funk had the bookkeeper check the company safe. There, they found the coin in a little drawer in the safe under a lot of papers. Since Professor West had also died, the coin was then returned to his son.
Although Beecher was not responsible for holding on to the coin, he apparently felt some responsibility for it or it may have been that West was unable to communicate and asked Beecher to remind Funk that it has not been returned.
The biggest regret
There are many other stories suggesting that we take our concerns, anxieties, mistakes, and regrets with us to the afterlife, but there have also been a number of communications saying that the biggest regret is not having found out more about the spirit world when alive.
Communicating with Allan Kardec, the distinguished French researcher of yesteryear, a spirit identified as Van Durst, who had been employed by the government before dying at age 88 in 1863, told Kardec that he very much regretted not paying any attention to spirit matters before his death. “If, before quitting the earth, I had known what you know, how much more easy and agreeable would have been my initiation into this other life,” Van Durst said. “I should have known, before dying, what I had to learn afterwards, at the moment of separation; and my soul would have accomplished its disengagement much more easily.”
An interview with psychotherapist and author ‘August Goforth’
Posted on 30 April 2010, 7:54
Outside of the actual evidence suggesting that consciousness survives physical death, the most important teaching coming through modern revelation is that we do not cross over into some humdrum heaven or horrific hell, as orthodox preachers would have us believe. We pretty much cross over as we are when we depart the material world spiritually.
That is the primary message conveyed by August Goforth and Timothy Gray in their 2009 book, The Risen. August Goforth is a pseudonym for a New York psychotherapist who for obvious professional reasons is reluctant to use his actual name. He is also an intuitive-mental and psychophysical spirit medium.
Timothy Gray was a New York City writer, editor, and photographer who transitioned to the spirit world during the early 1990s and then, about two years after his physical death, began communicating with ‘Goforth,’ his former partner in earth life, providing his own experiences in the afterlife as well as information given to him by ‘The Risen Collective,’ a group of more advanced spirit entities who use Timothy Gray to relay information to Goforth. The ‘Risen’ is the authors’ term for those who have transitioned to the spirit world and seen the light, i.e., excluding earthbound spirits.
‘Tim and I passionately want to share that there is no such thing as death,’ Goforth writes. ‘There is only Life – infinite varieties, forms, qualities, and expressions of it. What the majority of still-embodied people fear as ‘death’ is simply a transitional phase from one quality of life to another.’
The authors discuss everything from the initial experiences after death to dwelling places in the afterlife, the nature of the afterlife, and advancement in the afterlife. The authors discuss the nature of self, obstacles in communicating, materializations, the rescue of earthbound souls, dreams, out-of-body travel, mediumship, skeptical attitudes, dealing with grief, and misinterpretations relative to reincarnation, to name just some of the subject matter.
One especially interesting communiqué deals with skepticism in the afterlife realms. Apparently, there are scientists and others in the spirit realms who do not believe that the material world called earth exists. I recently put some questions to ‘August’ by e-mail.
August, when did you discover your mediumistic abilities? How did it develop?
They discovered me. The abilities were always there, and I experienced a wide range of phenomena as a child, but didn’t see any of it as unusual, including the moving musical lights, levitating toys, and laughing with ‘extra guests’ at my grandparents’ dinner table.
My earliest childhood was immensely happy due to all the spirit activity around me, and I can still remember the immense feelings of warmth, love, and safety while tucked into my big Victorian iron bed at night, listening to the gentle voices that spoke to me from just overhead. Often, and up into my early teens, an open book would appear over my head, face down and glowing in the dark, and I would read from it until I fell asleep; but I’ve no memory of what I read.
My grandmother transitioned when I was two, and thereafter often sat in my tiny rocking chair and silently watched me while I played. My parents never interfered, and if they did make negative suggestions, my ‘spirit family’ would counter those effects somehow, so I grew up not knowing that my experiences were not the norm. I was a solitary child, but never lonely, due to all the spirit company that was with me, and this remains so even now. It wasn’t until I was in my 40’s when Tim first materialized to me that I reached a new level of awareness – sort of the ‘quantum leap’ that hit me over the head that something funny was going on. Then all the pieces fell into place. Duh! You’re a medium!’
Will you briefly explain how you now communicate with Timothy and the spirit world?
There are several levels or ‘species’ of communication that occur – some separately, others collectively, making for a rich, multidimensional experience. One I call ‘teasing,’ which are little, sometimes not-so-subtle hints of Tim’s presence, like moving objects about in significant ways only I would understand, or influencing events and people to remind me he’s never far away. Kind of like slipping little love notes into my lunchbox. We are almost always in ‘psychospiritual mental’ contact, where we share an exceptional vibratory spiritual and mental space created by our affinity and love for one another.
I can internally hear his voice clearly, and feel him as well. While it’s not like a thought in my head, but ‘somewhere else,’ only I can hear him. It’s in this space that we commune, a most intimate experience, and are gabbing away to each other, making jokes, offering emotional support and validation, from the moment I wake up until I fall asleep and can then join him more completely in an astral geography. We’re working on direct voice now, which is still very rare for us.
Many books on mediumship point out that the messages can be colored by the medium’s own mind. Do you see this as a problem or concern with your mediumship? If so, how are you able to distinguish between what has come from spirit and what from your own mind?
My spirit colleagues taught me to distinguish between ‘me’ and ‘not me.’ Several chapters in the book are devoted to gaining awareness of the differences between one’s ego-mind and the voices of its criticizing simulate selves and that of one’s Authentic Self. To quote from it:
‘Until we can become familiar with these false inner gods and their agendas and methods, we will be unable to determine with confidence when a voice actually belongs to a Risen One. If we want to have conversations with the Risen, we must be able to at least temporarily silence the voices of the simulate selves. Second, until we become aware of the ego-mind’s lies about death, which keep us fettered to fear, and of our hidden beliefs that make us co-conspirators with it, we will have little chance of ever connecting with our Authentic Self, and then with the greater authentic reality of the Risen.’
A friend pointed out that he noticed that, rather than egotistically treating my abilities as unusual, or making me ‘special,’ I’ve integrated and normalized them in ways that easily fit into my life.
Skeptics and debunkers often point to the inability of mediums to get names as evidence that it is so much bunk. You talk about this in the book. Would you mind summarizing the problem as you now understand it?
I’ve lost track of the ‘St. Germains’ who claimed to have important messages for me, so I’m quite adamant about requiring proof and validation of a spirit’s identity. The Christ, Jesus set an example by commanding names and identities of spirits who made all kinds of claims and demands. A spirit can easily pick a name and identifying characteristics out of one’s mind and pretend to be that contact, and nobody’s the wiser.
A medium with little or no awareness of his simulate self voices may not be able to determine validity. Names would seem easiest, but light and sound move at a highly faster, finer rate in the spirit environment, so a medium may catch the sound as it zips past her spiritual ear—and not much more beyond that. ‘Mandy’ might sound like ‘M ee’ to her. It could be Mindy, Mandy, or Mikey. A great deal of time and ingenuity will be needed to continue to puzzle this out.
Experienced Risen Ones will forgo wasting time and energy on a name, hoping that other details and the feelings they evoke will be powerful enough to validate their identities. A medium must be exquisitely sensitive to intuitively understand where the Risen One is trying to lead. Skeptics will misinterpret this intelligent avoidance of names as lack of evidence, but their focus on what isn’t there disables them from being open to what’s actually there.
As I understand it, modern psychotherapy pretty much takes a materialistic/reductionist type approach to understanding and solving individual problems, thus ignoring possible spiritual causes. How are you able to deal with this conflict in your practice?
I avoid a reductionist approach, which breaks things down to supposedly identity causes and effects. It views the bits and pieces through a critical lens of pathology rather than one of health, so the finer, less apparent spiritual aspects of a patient’s wholistic being can’t be seen under such a delusional microscope. Looking at pieces instead of the whole will never give a complete picture towards a correct understanding and acceptance of a patient’s presenting situation.
My practice is psychodynamic, where the patient remains whole, and we develop a real and human relationship; our interactions reveal living energies and real-time aspects of our wholeness together. My stance as an accepting, nonjudgmental witness, and my self-awareness of this, give me access to those finer spiritual energies that reveal the hidden worlds all embodied people inhabit, as well as the spirit inhabitants of those worlds. My silent but conscious awareness is often all that’s needed to stimulate a patient’s previously inactive awareness of these dimensions and all they have to offer; and in time, they begin to draw on those supportive spiritual energies, and healing ensues. It’s not even necessary to talk about spirits or mediums or the afterlife with them, although, not surprisingly, these words or idea are often eventually brought up by the patient in some way.
Your book discusses the materialization of Timothy. I’d appreciate it if you would briefly explain this experience and your take on it.
While his materialization lowers him closer to my slower vibrating environment, they raise me up and closer to his space of higher vibrations. It’s largely an emotional experience, even though it’s also physical – but it’s beyond physical – it’s hyperspiritual. The experiences have permanently merged with my terrestrial body manifestation, transforming me on every level. Your question makes me cry, because it immediately evokes the events of his materializations, re-stimulating my vibrations to such an extent that they can still shake me to the core. The events were crisp, clear, stunning, and glowing; at the same time, they exuded such an immense feeling of love and safety that somehow, perhaps because of the lack of fear, enabled them not to feel strange or frightening, but rational, normal, appropriate, and sanely beautiful.
What are your conclusions on reincarnation?
They’re informed by Tim’s in-depth exploration about the subject, and so I refer to his current conclusions:
‘The evidence strongly indicates that we cannot be re individuated again…my observation is that there is never any need to go back to do it again, for the universe is infinite and never-ending and will provide me with unceasing opportunities, always new, fresh, and alive, to explore, learn, and expand my self-awareness on a continual basis. I don’t need to claim more than one life because my one life is enough. Because this one life is eternal it will always be more than enough, which is the core meaning of ‘abundance.’ Clearly, we are reborn upon our transition, but this rebirth is always into a new world and a unique state of existence, not back into the old one. The old one no longer exists—life is experienced in the continual now. We develop and carry forward the template for our new life. We are the template, and a new world will simultaneously arise from us as we arise from it, as a direct result of how we lived our lives on earth or from wherever we are continuously transitioning. The more brilliantly we live—that is, the more light-filled—the more spectacular will our lives manifest as we transmute ever onward. There are no limits to brilliance except as self-imposed. But even that is an illusion, for there is no real limit to anything.’
What do you see as the three most important messages coming from Timothy and ‘The Risen Collective’?
1. ‘Do not adjust your screens. This is not a test.’
2. ‘The very structure of the Intelligent Universe is light and music—singing, talking, and laughing. Life is real and death is not, so there is nothing to fear unless you fear life’s light-filled music. Death is not the end to life but another beginning, another birth. It is a door, a passage to more life, more than we could possibly imagine.’
3. ‘As beings of light we continue on endlessly—our immortal experience. This realization is of immense importance, for we are literally having our immortal experience in this very moment. Immortality doesn’t begin after we transition to Risen, but commenced when we first arose on this world, fired into life with a Divine Spark, to awaken and breathe and move up and out into this world, our earth.’
Birthdays are a good time to stop, pause, and figure out where we have been, where we are now, and where we are going. On the occasion of my 73rd birthday recently, I took time out to discuss this with my Higher Self. Below is a transcript of our discussion. (MT = me, my lower self; HS = my Higher Self)
MT: As you know, HS, I spend quite a bit of time thinking about, reading about, and writing about the evidence for an afterlife and what that afterlife is all about. My friends keep telling me that I am too obsessed with the subject and that I should focus more on this life. What do you think?
HS: Well, Michael, my boy, if you were half your age and still very much involved with raising a family and working a full-time job, I might agree with them, although I would still encourage you to have an interest in the subject. But since you are no longer working a full-time job or raising a family, what would you do with your time?
MT: That’s what I ask them, HS. I guess I could take up golf and idle away my time by hitting little white balls into holes, or I could escape life by reading novels or watching fiction on television, or maybe I could go down to the senior’s center and play cribbage or lawn bowling with others my age. I haven’t been able to come up with any really meaningful activities to focus on. Any suggestions?
HS: You could do more volunteer work than you are doing now.
MT: I know, but, as you know, I volunteered for hospice last year and even went through their training program, but they still haven’t called me and have ignored my calls to them.
HS: That’s strange. Any idea why?
MT: Probably because I made the mistake of discussing my interest in afterlife matters with the instructor. I didn’t know it then, but it is now my understanding that this is more or less a taboo subject in hospice. They don’t want volunteers to be discussing afterlife issues with patients. They want that left to the chaplains.
HS: I’m sure you see the reason for that.
MT: Yes, who is to say the volunteer knows what he is talking about? He or she might be a hell and damnation type of person and really do a disservice to the dying person. Of course, I don’t think there are very many chaplains or ministers who are very effective when it comes to talking about life after death. So it is a lose-lose situation.
HS: I can’t disagree with you there, but how do you know your interpretation of what comes after death is any more correct than the hell and damnation preachers?
MT: I don’t know for certain, but it appeals to reason and can be reconciled with a just and loving creative intelligence rather than an angry, vindictive one. And it just makes so much more sense than the humdrum heaven and horrific hell offered by orthodox religion.
HS: So you think everything must make sense?
MT: Well, not really, I don’t think we can really make sense of God or comprehend God, but ruling out nonsense is another issue and so much of what orthodox religion offers just seems like nonsense that discourages people from believing.
HS: Refresh my memory. What do you see as the biggest difference between what you believe and what is taught by orthodoxy?
MT: First of all, orthodox religion holds that blind faith is all that is necessary. All well and good for the Philistine who does not think deeply about such matters, but blind faith doesn’t do it for most thinking people. There is some pretty good evidence available to everyone which suggests that our consciousness survives bodily death. That evidence can really help people move from blind faith to true faith, or conviction. Once a person has that conviction, it is much easier for him or her to live a more spiritual and less materialistic life.
HS: Most of that evidence has been around for some time and has been for the most part ignored. Why do you think that is?
MT: It was rejected by the churches because they saw some of it conflicting with established dogma and doctrine and it would have usurped their authority. At the other extreme, the scientific fundamentalists rejected it because it couldn’t be tested by hard science and conflicted with what they had come to see as natural law.
HS: I agree with you there, too. You said, “first of all.” What else?
MT: Having a strong conviction that we live on in a larger life is just half the battle. You’ve got to be able to visualize the afterlife to some degree and realize that it is not that humdrum heaven and horrific hell taught by orthodoxy. It is pretty difficult to look forward to spending eternity floating around on clouds, strumming a harp, and praising God 24/7, which is about all that orthodoxy offers. To me, that is less appealing than extinction and nothingness. As a result, even those who believe in an afterlife, fear death.
HS: What do you visualize?
MT: There is an abundance of credible spirit testimony suggesting that we cross over pretty much as we are, that we build up a moral specific gravity by our actions and deeds in this life and that determines the plane, level, sphere, whatever you want to call it, that we end up in. However, we go on evolving and progressing from there. As Jesus said, there are “many mansions” on that side. In some ways our activities there are much the same as they are here. The thought world is the real life and all we are experiencing here in the material realm is just an illusory life.
HS: You mentioned Jesus. What is your take on him?
MT: I totally reject the atonement doctrine as one of those nonsensical and unjust things, and I don’t know if Jesus is God, per se, because, as I said, I think God is beyond comprehension. However, I do believe that Jesus was a highly evolved spirit who returned to earth to teach us or remind us that there is life after death. This message has come through in countless spirit messages. I see Jesus as the Chairman of the Board on the Other Side. If not that, at least on the Board of Directors.
HS: You know, Michael, I don’t want to inflate your ego, but I do think you are closer to the truth than those orthodox preachers. As you know, I’m not all that advanced myself, just a vibration above you, but from my standpoint it sure makes sense. But tell me, why not be content with what you think you know and let others discover it on their own?
MT: That’s what I have been wrestling with, HS. All I can say is that I feel impelled to share what I have found out with others. I’d like to think that you or some spirit guides above you are urging me to write about it and share it with others. I really believe that all the chaos and turmoil in the world today is a result of the failure of religion to offer the evidence for survival and to present an intelligent afterlife. Many people say they believe, but they really only hope. And the most they can hope for is to be spend eternity singing “Alleluia.” That’s not enough to deter them from striving to be one with their toys. The bottom line is that materialism prevails and has now regressed to hedonism.
HS: So you are going to continue writing a blog and writing articles for various publications?
MT: Unless you or someone higher tells me to cease and desist.
HS: It’s not like you have that big of an audience, Michael.
MT: Aren’t you the one who told me that seeds are being planted by many others and that those seeds take time to root and sprout? I think you also said something about little streams all coming together in one big lake.
Beyond and Back: A Documentary about the Afterlife – BEYOND AND BACK is a documentary filmed in 1978 about near-death-experiences, remote viewing, reincarnation, clairvoyance, and other psychic phenomena. The filming is a bit dated as you would expect from a program made more than thirty years ago, but the content is interesting, contemporary, and ahead of its time—well worth watching if you have and hour or so to spare. Read here
