Posted on 10 March 2025, 7:59

While recently watching one of the many UFO (now UAP) documentaries on television, Gina, my wife, commented that it is going to take a good photograph of one of the alien occupants of those UFOs for most people to believe they are genuine and not optical illusions of some kind. I took issue with her and pointed out that a number of photographs have been obtained of materialized spirits and yet few people are aware of them and most of them dismiss them as bogus. 

Gina quickly added that the alien photos would have to be taken by someone very credible for anyone to believe they are not fakes, to which I pointed out that Sir William Crookes (bottom left photo), who took photos of the spirit entity called Katie King, was one of the most renowned scientists in the world during the latter part of the nineteenth century. He was credited with discovering the element thallium and inventing the radiometer, the spinthariscope, and the Crookes tube, a high-vacuum tube which contributed to the discovery of the X-ray. He was knighted for his scientific work and was the founder and editor of the publication, Chemical News and also served as editor of the Quarterly Journal of Science. He was awarded the Order of Merit in 1910 and received honorary degrees in law and science from Birmingham, Oxford, Cambridge, Ireland, Cape of Good Hope, Sheffield, and Durham universities. He was highly respected and not someone to be easily duped or to fabricate strange stories. 

From December 1873 to late March 1874, Crookes studied Florence Cook, a teen-aged girl whose mediumship involved the materialization of a “spirit” calling herself Katie King, although saying her name had been Annie Owens Morgan in her earth life and that she was the daughter of buccaneer Sir Henry Morgan. She claimed that her appearances were part of her assignment from the other side to convince the world of the truth of Spiritualism.

Due to darkness and a materialization cabinet being required for condensation of the ectoplasm exuded by Florence Cook, the actual materialization of Katie King was not witnessed. What was seen was Florence Cook going into the cabinet and Katie King emerging while Cook remained in an altered state of consciousness in the cabinet. Debunkers claimed that Florence Cook was simply changing costumes in the cabinet. However, King and Cook were seen and photographed separately and although somewhat similar in appearance, there were distinct differences in height, hair color, and facial characteristics.

Rumors then circulated that Cook had arranged for her sister to wait outside and sneak in the house at an opportune time, playing the role of Katie King. A later rumor had it that Crookes was having an affair with the young medium and therefore collaborated with her in the hoax.

Among those observing Katie King was popular author and editor Florence Marryat (bottom right photo), who reported that even though Katie King warned Crookes that light could harm her and the medium, the sitters asked Katie at one sitting if they could turn up the gas light to better observe.  Katie consented but later said that it had caused much pain.  “She took up her station against the drawing-room wall, with her arms extended as if she were crucified,” Marryat wrote. “Then the gas-burners were turned on to their full extent in a room about sixteen feet square. The effect upon ‘Katie King’ was marvelous.  She looked like herself for the space of a second only, then she began gradually to melt away.  I can compare the dematerialization of her form to nothing but a wax doll melting before a hot fire.  First, the features became blurred and indistinct; they seemed to run into each other. The eyes sunk in the sockets, the nose disappeared, the frontal bone fell in.  Next the limbs appeared to give way under her, and she sank lower and lower on the carpet like a crumbling edifice.  At last there was nothing but her head left above the ground – then a heap of white drapery only, which disappeared with a whisk, as if a hand had pulled it after her – and we were left staring by the light of three gas burners at the spot on which ‘Katie King’ had stood.”

More than fleeting appearances 

It is not entirely clear how many experiments Crookes carried out with the young medium, but indications are that it was in the dozens over those four months and that that they were all not fleeting appearance. In one experiment, Crookes said that Katie King walked about the room for two hours. Marryat reported that Katie sat on her lap and talked with her. “…to imagine, I say, the Katie King of the last three years to be the result of imposture does more violence to one’s reason and common sense than to believe her to be what she herself affirms,” Crookes stated.

Photographs were taken by Crookes and others, but photography was still in its early stages at the time and they are not as sharp as one might expect today.  (Top right photo shows Florence Cook in trance on the floor while Katie King materialized; top left photo show Crookes with Katie King on the left and with Florence Cook on the right).

Marryat asked Katie if blood ran through her body and if she had a heart and lungs.  Katie responded that she had everything that Florrie (Cook) had.  On that same evening, Marryat observed Katie naked before her as Florrie Cook lay beside her on the floor.  When Marryat asked where her dress was, Katie said she had sent it on before her (to the other side)..  At another sitting Marryat and other sitters were given pieces of Katie’s dress, but when they got home they had all disappeared.

Wearied by the attacks and rumors from skeptical colleagues, while other witnesses cowered from testifying in his support, Crookes gave up psychical research and returned to orthodox science.  Although he maintained a private interest in psychical research, he spoke very little of the subject in public, often very guarded and occasionally indicating that the “psychic force” he had witnessed may not have been the work of spirits.  However, in a speech before the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1898, he said he had nothing to retract.  His writings in subsequent years indicate that he returned to a belief in spirits and, concomitantly, the survival of consciousness at death.  In a letter dated February 6, 1915 to physicist Sir Oliver Lodge, Crookes addressed a question by Lodge about a statement made years earlier.  “Respecting my alleged statement that I had never had a satisfactory proof that the dead can return and communicate you must bear in mind that the quotation is from a letter said to be written by me in 1874.  I do not remember much of my opinions at that date, but I have no doubt the statement was true at that early date.”
 

In 1916, Crookes stated that the phenomena he had observed during the early 1870s, “point to the existence of another order of human life continuous with this, and demonstrate the possibility in certain circumstances of communication between this world and the next.” In 1917, a year after his wife’s death, Crookes is said to have had a lively conversation with her at a London séance. He died in 1919 at age 86. 

One of the scientists who lambasted Crookes for not debunking Cook and medium D. D. Home was Dr. Julian Ochorowicz, professor of psychology and philosophy at the University of Warsaw and one of the founders of the Polish Psychological Institute in Warsaw.  After he began investigating psychical phenomena and photographed materializations coming from the medium Stanislawa Tomczyk, he changed his views. “I found I had done a great wrong to men who had proclaimed new truths at the risk of their positions,” he confessed. “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.’”

Photographing Phantoms

Dr. Charles Richet, the 1913 Nobel Prize winner in medicine, dedicated his 1923 book, Thirty Years of Psychical Research, to Crookes and Frederic W. H. Myers, another pioneer of psychical research.  Like Ochorowicz, Richet initially scoffed at Crookes’ findings.  “…the idolatry of current ideas was so dominant at that time that no pains were taken either to verify or to refute Crookes’s statements,” Richet wrote.  “Men were content to ridicule them, and I avow with shame that I was among the willfully blind.  Instead of admiring the heroism of a recognized man of science who dare then in 1872 to say that there really are phantoms that can be photographed and whose heartbeats can be heard, I laughed.  This courage had, however, no immediate or considerable effect; it is only today that Crookes’s work is really understood.  It is still the foundation of objective metapsychics, a block of granite that no criticism has been able to touch.”  Richet observed and photographed a “spirit” known at Bien Boa.

Nevertheless, the debunkers stick tightly to the stories about Cook’s sister sneaking into and out of the house – not just once but many times – and Crookes having a romantic interest in Cook.  As for Marryat seeing Katie King dematerialize and sink into the floor, the debunkers ignore her since she was not a scientist. The photos taken by Crookes, though a seemingly honorable and reputable scientist, are not convincing. Moreover, the fact that Richet also saw and photographed Bien Boa, must, they claim, also be bogus.

Wikipedia praises Crookes’ career in science, even mentioning that his discovery of the Crookes Tube “changed the whole of chemistry and physics.” However, Wikipedia also offers that he had poor eyesight and therefore cannot be trusted in what he claims to have seen among the spiritualists.  They say nothing about the others who reported seeing the same thing as Crookes.  Wikipedia relies on a psychologist who wasn’t even born when Crookes died, to say that he was gullible when it came to so-called spiritual matters.  They further point out that he had grieved the loss of a brother a few years earlier and this probably added to his “will to believe” in such an obvious hoax.   

I asked AI (ChatGPT) what Katie King was.  The reply, in part: “Katie King was a spirit who allegedly materialized during séances in the 19th Century…[Crookes] conducted extensive experiments with Florence Cook in 1874 and took a series of photographs that, at the time, were said to show the materialization of Katie King….Crookes himself seemed convinced that what he observed and photographed was genuine…He stated that he had seen Katie King in full physical form and believe her to be a materialized spirit..  However, skeptics have argued that the materialization of Katie King was likely a trick, possibly involving clever use of the medium’s clothing or a hidden assistant…….Despite the controversies, the story of Katie King remains one of the most famous cases of spirit materialization in the history of spiritualism, with debates still ongoing about whether the events were genuine or the result of deception.”

But AI makes no mention of the experiments by Richet, Ochorowicz, and a dozen or more other credible scientists who reported much the same thing as Crookes. Shouldn’t the cumulative evidence be factored in?  Were each and every one of those esteemed scientists duped over and over again? 

And so I maintain that photos of alien beings, even if taken by credible people, will be dismissed as likely fakes.  It all exceeds the boggle threshold of the vast majority of people.

Michael Tymn is the author of The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After We Die, Resurrecting Leonora Piper: How Science Discovered the Afterlife, and Dead Men Talking: Afterlife Communication from World War I.
His latest book, No One Really Dies: 25 Reasons to Believe in an Afterlife is published by White Crow books.

Amos,

Thank you for your kind comments and for all of them over the years.  No need to apologize for anything. Speaking of apologies, I got one from Artificial Intelligence (ChapGPT) a few days ago.  It had nothing to do with the subjects of this blog. It was a fun question dealing with the difference between walking, jogging, and running.  Where does one start and the other end.  I have my own ideas, but i wanted to see how AI would respond to it.  In its first response, AI said that running started at 5 minutes per mile, which equated to 6 mph.  I told AI that it was wrong, that 5 minutes per mile figured to be 12 mph.  AI admitted its mistake and apologized, but held that 6 mph is where jogging becomes running, while walking becomes jogging at 4 mph.  It got me to thinking that the scale for walking, jogging, running is much like that of believing and that it supports my 98.8% belief. Another friend recently told me he is at 90%, although he was once at 100%.  There is a wide range of running ability between 6 mph and Olympians who run 15 miles per hour and faster, and so I think it is with believing and doubting. For me, 98.8% is total conviction and I am content to remain there.
Mike

Michael,
I would like to add this:

A Dutch eyewitness of ‘ Katie King ’
Sir, — As supplementary evidence and a contribution to the further documentation of the Crookes- Florence Cook-‘Katie King’ case, I would like to place on record the experience of the only Dutch eye-witness of that so controversial phenomenon: the materialization of ‘Katie King’, an eye-witness who also had the rare privilege of perceiving medium and phantom together.

The eye-witness was Mr A. J. Riko, a prominent Dutch psychical researcher who flourished during the latter half of the 19th century. He experimented with a number of well-known physical mediums (e.g. Williams) whom he invited to come over to Holland and demonstrate spiritual intercourse with the dead, and he enjoyed a good reputation as an objective and critical researcher — of course according to the standards of the spiritualistic seventies. In his last book (Riko, A. J., Het onderzoek van spiritualistische verschijnselen en vreemde feiten. ’s-Gravenhage, 1906.)

Riko tells us about a sitting he had with Florrie Cook as the medium, presumably at the London house of Florrie’s parents. ‘In England I attended a very important seance with Florence Cook. Of course, every conceivable precaution against fraud had been taken. Only three strangers were present, i.e. my wife, our well-known compatriot, Mr Mathezer Tiedeman, [a prominent Spiritualist who had induced D. D. Home to give a series of sittings in the Netherlands attended by a number of sceptical scientists (1858)], and myself. ‘Katie’ showed herself several times in the room with a good light burning. In the meantime the medium moved about and sighed behind the curtain. Finally I was invited to come to the medium. I stood next to her chair and just in front of me stood the materialization. The latter took hold of my hand and requested me to convince myself that Florence Cook was wearing ornaments in her ears, while she, Katie, had nothing in her ears. Which I did to my complete satisfaction.
Nobody could enter the smaller apartment where the medium was seated. The doors of the room and of the cupboards were properly locked and pasted over at the inside so that if they had been opened it would have been discovered when the sitting came to an end. Well, everything was found perfectly in order. It was during this visit to England that I made the acquaintance of the learned Mr Crookes.
Let me add that later on I was in the position to perceive this same materialization several times when Florence Cook’s sister, Kate, who was also a medium of the greatest importance, visited The Netherlands’, (pp. 230-31).

It is a pity that I have not been able to find any printed report of Katie Cook’s seances in Holland. It is probable that some at least of these were held in Riko’s house. The lack of printed reports is probably due to the fact that in those days (1875-1880) no Dutch periodicals existed entirely devoted to Spiritualism as was the case in England. The controversies in this field were generally fought out in pamphlets.

It is a remarkable fact that Riko seems to be convinced that Kate’s phantom was the same one he saw at Florrie Cook’s sitting he attended in London. As far as I am aware of — but I may be mistaken — no such a conviction was felt in England at the time, though the manifestations at Florrie’s and Kate’s seances were similar in many ways.
Finally, I would like to point out that Mr Riko was in all probability the only Dutchman to whom Crookes forwarded copies of Katie King’s photographs. There were six different photos. Riko described them as follows:
1. ‘Katie’ standing up, with hands and arms crossed over her chest. [This one Riko reproduces on p. 228 of his book.]
2. The same figure stepping out of the cabinet.
3. ‘Katie’ en buste, somewhat larger and more en profile,
4. Larger photo en buste , down to the knees. ‘Katie’ with her hands on Crookes’ head. The latter sitting in front of ‘Katie’ in a crouching position.
5. ‘Katie’ walking in the room arm in arm with Crookes.
6. The same but larger and more distinct. In a somewhat different position.
What became of these photos I do not know.
G. Zorab

Thanks,
Bruce

Hi Michael,
I went back and re-read your blog of March 29, 2021.  I have to say that it reminded me how good your blogs actually are—-and for so many years, one year after another, over and over again.  That was an excellent Easter message.

I think I need to apologize for writing so many comments on that blog.  When I read my comments today, they don’t even seem to be something I could possibly write.  It is almost like they were written by someone else who was a lot smarter than I am today. But I have to say that my belief system hasn’t changed much since then, I am just having a more difficult time expressing it. It surprises me to see the seeds of a belief system in those old comments that has sprouted into what I firmly believe today. 

Thank you, Michael for all the years of thought-provoking ideas and discussions with intelligent thoughtful people from many parts of the world.  I respect, admire and thank every one of them.  - AOD

Andrew,

When one asks questions about the afterlife I think it is easy to make assumptions about it when asking those questions.  Those assumptions are usually based upon what one has read, opinions or reports of other people, and/or what they themselves think might be reasonable conditions for an afterlife based on their own expectations or desires.  All of that may reflect reality or it may not.  It may all be opinion.
I think the biggest assumption about the afterlife is that those consciousnesses in the afterlife still care about people on Earth.  That is to say, that at times ‘spirits’ may check in for a while on others they had some association with while embodied as a personality on Earth but for the most part,  a spirit unencumbered by a physical form moves on.

My personal view is that those recent personalities eventually recognize that they are part of a larger soul consciousness that is composed of many other personalities that have been embodied on Earth or other places, a kind of ‘Group Soul,’ and that the Group Soul is more likely to be considering new physical embodiments rather than remaining attached to a previous physical experience on Earth.  There is no desire to enlighten others who for an instant in time experience a physical life and who, within the blink of an eye, will experience for themselves an afterlife.
There is a fine line here in that the recently departed personality actually IS the ‘soul consciousness’ but it is difficult to put into words to adequately explain the difference between the consciousness of a personality or a physical form and what is perceived as a larger ‘soul consciousness’—- in actuality there is no difference.  It is just like when a child becomes an adult.  The child has just grown through experience.  It is the same with a ‘soul consciousness’ it has grown with the experience of the recently departed consciousness of the personality as it was embodied on Earth or elsewhere.

I think one should not generalize however and perhaps some personalities, for whatever reason, do remain attached to a previous physical existence and are slow to recognize that they are part of a Group Soul, finding it difficult to move on.
 
The second assumption is that those afterlife consciousnesses want to help Earth people to understand the afterlife.  Once a consciousness departs the Earth sphere they go on to better things, either to experience a different more perfect environment, re-experience their past lives or to consider a return to an embodiment in other physical spheres.

It may be difficult to accept but those people with whom one was associated in life, who perhaps were loved, eventually shed their emotional attachments and free themselves to attend to their own destiny and soul advancement.  -AOD

Thanks to all for the comments and links.  in response to Andrew, I would suggest rereading my blog of March 29, 2021,  which deals with adversity, including the following quote of Imperator.
“It is necessary that afflictions come.  Jesus knew and taught that. It is necessary for the training of the soul.  It is as necessary as physical discipline for the body.  No deep knowledge is to be had without it.  None is permitted to scale the glorious heights but after discipline of sorrow.  The key of knowledge is in spirit hands, and none may wrest it to himself but the earnest soul which is disciplined by trial.  Bear that in mind.”
Bottom line, as I see it.  “Disparity,” as Andrew calls it, is one form of adversity.  The more “disparity,” the more adversity, the greater the challenges, and the more we learn. Without adversity, life would become an “Epicurean’s Delight,” as it seems to have been for Nero when Rome burned.
Michael

Hi Mike, just wanted to convey special thanks to you, Paul and Stafford for responding to my query on disparity. The answers are appreciated because the reasons are so abstruse and almost impossible to fathom. Seems like you can only proceed from a position of faith as our minds are not capable of comprehending the entire possibilities. Yes who knows the mind of God??? I’d also like to raise another mystery. If according to info. from a number of blogs the spirits want us to be certain of Life after death why don’t they provide the evidence in a more convincing way. As a thought why not include a parade of famous dead people in a public venue open to scientists, magicians, skeptics where we have for example Hawking, Hitchens , John Wayne etc who can move around the crowd and speak of their current beliefs and status. I know this has been done in smaller settings with people’s own relatives but why not try upping the scale?  I understand that some people will never believe as recent blogs have revealed with photo evidence but surely with the Scientific progress not just on earth but surely in the Spirit world as well can we not try this or am I being truly naive and hopelessly unrealistic.  Thanks again for all opinions.
Andrew Simpson

Michael,
I have in my garage a book on Crookes detailing his experiments. I think it is a photocopy of CROOKES AND THE SPIRIT WORLD - investigations in to field of psychic research. I read it many years ago and was amazed at his sophisticated experimental apparatus. He was very practical and very smart. Crookes had Le Beau Coeur.
Sir Oliver Lodge had a nice comment:
Hence there is nothing surprising in the fact that the investigations of Sir William Crookes into psychic phenomena were looked at askance, disbelieved, and left wholly outside the domain of science. To this day they are not admitted; and there is certainly some excuse for scepticism, inasmuch as they were of a character which seemed frankly incredible. He went on, however, to devise some few simple experiments of a mechanical kind, exhibiting either an apparent alteration in the weight of bodies or else the exertion of a mysterious force, which he did hope at one time that the officials of the Royal Society could be induced to examine. Again, however, without gaining their consent to be present at what seemed like an impossibility.
It is perhaps instructive, though nowadays rather difficult, to realize that the experimental method itself, the method of direct unfettered examination of phenomena, is not many centuries old. It had to be advocated by Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam; and when put into practice by Galileo it seems to have struck people as almost an impious novelty. The results obtained were often out of accord with ancient teaching, which had the authority of centuries or even millennia behind it. Some of the opposition no doubt came not only from Aristotelian philosophers but also from ecclesiastics and other literary scholars, who took their stand upon ancient sacred writings, with which the facts of Astronomy and Geology were, or seemed to be, inconsistent. Indeed, clerical opposition to Geology comes almost within living memory.
Why I Believe in Personal Immortality   Sir Oliver Lodge 1929 page 64
Thanks,
Bruce

Here is a very informative 12-minute video on critical thinking and stupidity; very worthwhile! -—AOD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqelpONZvpw

How convincing are photos of the “dead”?

A comment by Michael (not Tymn) states that “No photograph will ever be seen as absolute proof of something.” This is true of any evidence presented as “proof”, which arguably only exists in mathematics and alcohol. Despite the rise of AI, photos will continue to be taken by distant spacecraft and accepted as valid, photos will be submitted to juries with proof of the provenance of same, photos will be published in scientific journals, and photos will be shared by media sources, who will need to exercise increased vigilance to insure the provenance of the photo.

As Michael said, photos have “always been subject to manipulation. “ At the same time, billions of people have the direct experience of taking photos and being able to personally verify the accuracy of their camera as a faithful record of what they witnessed. Photos can be made to lie, and even “enhanced” in camera by the manufacturer, but we expect images of our children, life, and vacation to be accurate in the essential details.

Newton makes the optimistic assertion that “When photographs of spirits are reproducible in the laboratory, by any scientist who wishes to conduct the experiment, then and only then will science admit the fact of the photographs“ If only. The problem isn’t one of credible witnesses or replication by scientists in a laboratory. There is an excellent article on “The Attitude of Incredulity” https://www.spr.ac.uk/news/attitude-incredulity that refers to the cognitive pathologies which filter out facts that contradict deeply held beliefs.

There is an additional problem with “photos of the dead” in that the materializations themselves are facsimiles of the spirit’s human form, and in many cases photographs of them appear incomplete, artificial, at reduced size, etc.

A good example of the difficulty of obtaining photos of realistic appearing materializations in a controlled environment is in Dr. von Schrenk-Notzing’s Phenomena of Materialization https://chilstrom.space/2025/03/11/phenomena-of-materialization/ Presumably with today’s highly sensitive digital camera’s low light photos of ectoplasmic phenomena should yield better results, but there is still the problem of “The Attitude of Incredulity”, which no amount of facts piled one atop the other will ever overcome.

Hi, Andrew.

The inequality etc. seems to be of our, human, origin, with a little help perhaps from “the other guy” whose domain are “the powers and principalities” that Jesus talks about.

Maybe this life is a test of sorts or a school we need to attend before coming back home, which is “on the other side.”

When photographs of spirits are reproducible in the laboratory, by any scientist who wishes to conduct the experiment, then and only then will science admit the fact of the photographs. The meaning of them, of course, will remain in dispute due to the naturalist explanations to which science is ideologically wedded. The mere fact that spiritualist phenomena occur in this world does not require that one postulate another world or an afterlife. Rather, it requires only that one acknowledge that this world and this life are much more interesting, much more complex and mysterious, than previously thought.

Newton

Mike – good article. I agree with you. No photograph will ever be seen as absolute proof of something. From inception as a technique, it is always been subject to manipulation. Today no photograph of any kind can be accepted ultimately as proof of anything. Advances made in Photoshop and AI have demonstrated that you can fake anything in a photograph. They are no longer trustworthy.

Michael

Dear Andrew,

What you are asking is, of course, an exceedingly difficult matter.  In some ultimate sense, the very fact of multiplicity, inherent in creation itself, implies differentiation – hot and cold, light and darkness, etc… – and such differentiation extends to the matters you have raised.

But of course, taking the measure of material wealth or material comfort as one’s guide is itself mistaken. Rather, the consistent testimony of the literature is that what ultimately matters is, in a word, character. Great wealth can lead to the corruption of character, but so can great poverty. Further, poverty or other extreme circumstances of earthly life can crush the spirit and render any kind of spiritual progress or maturation of soul extremely difficult or limited.

I had cause to mention in a comment several posts back the book communicated by the discarnate Arthur Conan Doyle (published in turn under three titles), the relevant title of which I have is ‘The Return of Arthur Conan Doyle’. I was reading in the beginning of the second section of that book over the weekend and a passage there seems relevant here:

“So far as the earth life is concerned we have always to remember that we come back into incarnation by our own volition. By right of the power of choice inherent in us, we volunteer for, we accept earthly conditions such as the ego, the true inner man, knows will yield the most valuable experiences during an incarnation. Do not imagine that any man’s time of birth, or place of birth, or condition or environment of birth, happens by accident. The whole of his earth life, which is meant as a focal point from which a succeeding life in the beyond will evolve, must eventually fall into accord with a definite and divine Plan. With what precise knowledge of this plan did the Master Jesus speak when he said: ‘…a sparrow shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.’ Such is very truth. The whole Plan lies in the Mind of God; and He holds you ever in the cup of His Hand.” (p.101)

In other words, the old idea that, when viewed ‘sub specie aeternitatis’ (under the aspect of eternity), all may be seen to have a rightness to it, would seem to be justified in Conan Doyle’s statement above.

The section of the literature informed by hypnotic regression to pre-birth conditions – which I personally consider an insecure methodology given (among other points) the unreliability of hypnotic regression in other contexts (including its legal inadmissibility as evidence) – speaks quite frequently of pre-birth planning.  Further, there is a book by Robert Schwartz, ‘Your Soul’s Plan’ – informed by mediumistic communication rather than hypnotic regression – that similarly speaks at length regarding pre-birth planning. I can’t comment on it further as I haven’t yet read it properly.

None of the above will satisfy the cri de coeur of one in immediacy of want, suffering or anguish but may nevertheless provide some broader perspective. Still, when I think of some of the many horrors that have even only very recently visited upon the world – the image of a girl, half shredded, hanging like a piece of meat from a wall where some bomb has flung her, or the image of a man holding a bag filled with the body parts of his child, dismembered by some other bomb – it is difficult to reconcile the above considerations with the abject, horrific rawness of such human experiences. I can only be silent in shame at the inadequacy of any such response and myself lament at the evils of the world.

Best,

Paul

Andrew, I’ve written a lot about the theological “problem of evil.” The Free Will Defense is the one preferred by most Chrrstian theologians. I think it works. Here is a short presentation of it. (My Ph.D. is in theology.)

Why does God let us suffer?
by Stafford Betty

I’m going to share with you today some ideas about why God lets us suffer.  Let’s consider why God has created the very world we have – one in which there is so little evidence of Him (please excuse the conventional He) or the heavenly world we believe awaits us.  Deus absconditus (God is in hiding), as the saying goes.

If you were God, would you have created a world like ours?  Can’t you imagine doing a better job of it?  How can you justify God’s creating the messed up planet we live on?
We’re going to look at the classic Christian answer, the so-called Free Will Defense.  But first a word about the classic wrong answer, Adam’s fall.

Almost all Jewish and Christian theologians coming out of our nation’s best seminaries consider the story of Adam’s fall unhistorical.  They label it an ancient Jewish parable.  The most obvious problem with the story is that all Adam’s children are punished for his sin.  If God thinks like this, we’re in big trouble.  These days, only fundamentalists take the story literally - that Adam and Eve were real people, that Eve came from Adam’s rib, and so forth.

Now the Free Will Defense.  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 how does one go about creating goodness?  Can God snap his fingers and, poof!, out pops a good person?  No, says the theist.  That’s a logical impossibility, like a square circle.  As C. S. Lewis put it, God can do all possible things, and a square circle is not a possible thing to do.  Neither is a “good person who’s never been tested or challenged.”  Not even God can crank out such a person.  Goodness has meaning only in a world where beings can freely choose something that demands a sacrifice from them – such as being patient with someone who irritates us.  By contrast, when we choose to do something we’re already inclined to do – such as playing tennis with our friends – there is no nobility in that; for there is no sacrifice.  Think about it.  When raising our children, don’t we (when we have the energy) tell them to tackle the difficult duty rather than drift into meaningless activity?  To clean their room instead of vegging out in front of the TV?  Why do we do this?  Because we want them to grow up into dutiful, thoughtful, compassionate human beings rather than narcissistic selfniks.

According to the Free Will Defense, that’s what God wants too.  But nobility of character does not come cheap.  Unless morally challenged, we don’t grow – just as spoiled children don’t mature.  So, since God desires nothing so much as for us to become noble beings, He 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 can make us flourish 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 prefer 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 tumor – 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 and moral challenge, 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.

Does this explanation of suffering work for you?  There are several objections.  First, what about all the people who fail to compete successfully?  Are they rejected by their Creator?  Second, what about the glaring differences in starting positions – with some of us blessed from birth and others cursed?  Is God arbitrary?  And third, what about prayer?  If God wants us to be challenged, if He sees the need for us to suffer for our own eventual good, does it make sense for us to ask Him to remove the challenge, as Jesus did in his agony in the garden?

Also, when it comes to particulars, mysteries remain.  A child suffering from Tay-Sachs Disease - why?  A wonderful grandma slowly dying of protracted Alzheimers – why?  A daughter killed in a car crash by a drunk driver - why?
On the other hand, the general drift of the Defense makes good sense.  The philosopher John Hick, whose book Evil and the God of Love is our generation’s best expression of the Defense, put it this way:  “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.”

The University of Pittsburg philosopher Nicholas Rescher goes even further.  He argues that our world, despite all its injustices and undeserved suffering, is an optimal world, the best of all possible. He takes the line that “physical evil represents the price of an entry ticket into the best arrangement possible within the limits of inevitable consequences.”

A final objection asks why God, if He exists, doesn’t jump in from time to time and remove undeserved evil.  Why didn’t He “take out” Hitler or Stalin, for example?  The San Francisco State University philosopher Jacob Needleman takes a dim view of a supernatural deity who jumps in to solve our dilemmas whenever we ask Him to.  It would demean and enfeeble us.  We need to take responsibility for the mess we’ve made on our planet and in our own individual lives.  If God gets us out of all our scrapes, we’ll never be motivated to do our best.  And we’ll never evolve into better beings. Needleman writes: “What, after all, is the meaning of my own human life if I live without yearning for what the religions call God? What is the meaning of our lives if we cannot love, cannot be just, cannot hate only what is evil and cannot love only what is good?” But for us to hate evil, there first must be evil.  And in hating it and resisting it and doing our best to remove it, we become good.  There is no other way.

As Rescher puts it, being born on earth is a package deal.  It’s not a perfect deal, but it is the best that God—supremely wise, good, and powerful–could imagine or bring forth.  And we would be wise to play our part.

Stafford

I think we are used to seeing pictures of William Crookes as an old man, but when he was first involved with Florence Cook he was a 39 year-old relatively young man. - AOD

Hi Mike,  Thank you again for the last few blogs to do with ‘’ The return to God’,’’ Victor and Wendy Zammit’’ and numerous letters from the very erudite subscribers who offer so many observations and answers on the whole subject matter of Spirituality. I find the nuances interesting and certainly thought provoking but at times confusing. I’m grateful for the education and sometimes wish for simple answers. For me it’s not the belief in an Afterlife that I have an issue with . I’m a believer. What I’d really like to understand is the whole business of disparity. Why do some have so much and others zilch. To clarify I’m not just talking of wealth. I’m a capitalist and believe in Meritocracy. I’m more concerned with why some people are born and just exist with no future and others have the proverbial silver spoon and go thro’ life unaffected by the afflictions of the poor and wretched.  Is this a divine punishment ?  It just seems that we are taught that God is merciful , Compassionate and just and yet thro’ no fault we can perceive so many people have very punishing lives of continual tragedy,. illness and heartbreak.  I’ve just bought Jordan Peterson’s latest tome’’ We who wrestle with God’’ Perhaps I’ll get some answers. However if any of your faithful have some thoughts I’ll be happy to receive them .Jordan’s book looks intimidating.
Andrew