Posted on 18 November 2024, 7:29

I wouldn’t call the detailed “vision” of a Christian pastor of the assassination attempt on former United States President Donald Trump a few months before it took place as “religious madness,” as a friend termed it. I can accept the likelihood that many people subscribing to religions have psychic abilities, even though most of them seem to assume that their abilities should be suppressed, because, they are told, that is all the work of the devil.

A brother-in-law once told me of the strange thing that happened to his mother. As she is still in this realm of existence, I’ll call her Harriet. When I saw Harriet at a Christmas dinner, I asked her about it. She said that sometime around 1981, while watching television, she had a sudden urge to start writing a story – one having to do with outer space. She had no real interest in the subject and no prior interest in creative writing. “But I felt compelled to write,” she explained.

Words began flowing from Harriet’s pen, including many technical words that had no meaning to her, including “black hole.” Her husband retired for the night and when he awoke the next morning Harriet was still writing. “I had lost track of time,” she continued. “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.

Over the next few months, the urge to write would continue to come upon her. She would resist until it became too strong. “It was frightening,” Harriet recalled. She had written hundreds of pages when one day she felt compelled to visit an observatory in the Tucson, Arizona area. There, she encountered many of the terms in her book, terms which previously had no meaning to her, including “black hole.”

When Harriet mentioned her strange experiences to her fundamentalist pastor, she was informed that whatever was happening to her was demonic and that she should immediately cease and desist, which she did. I suspect that a spirit communicator, perhaps a deceased astronomer, was left frustrated. I recall reading somewhere that the supply of good mediums is far short of the demand on the Other Side and I recall the case of author Frank R. Stockton and medium Etta De Camp as discussed in my blog of September 13, 2021, which sounds much like Harriet’s experience.

Harriet’s “mediumship,” if that’s what it is, did not end there. Around 25 years ago, at about age 60, she suddenly discovered that she had artistic ability. Although I am no judge of art, her paintings certainly indicate talent. Harriet 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. Could it be that a discarnate artist was using her hand and did not like the changes?

I suspect there are many other good religious people who have similar abilities but suppress them and say nothing of them because of the stigma imposed by religious authorities and their “sane” friends. On the other hand, there are exceptions. If the religious person says the messages came from God or Jesus, they are sometimes accepted by more open-minded religious people. Consider Brandon Dale Biggs, an Oklahoma pastor, who appeared on a March 15 podcast saying that the “Lord” told him it is a “time of acceleration” and would include, among other things, 1) strong tornadoes with microbursts reaching 150 miles per hour; 2) An assassination attempt on the life of Donald Trump – “The bullet flew by his ear and came so close to his head that it busted his ear drum, and I saw him fall to his knees,” Biggs said in that March podcast. 3) Trump would win the election; 4) there would then be a great economic crash and dark times, but Trump and the rest of the country will turn to Jesus and be revived. View the video from 8-13 minutes at (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ey0qVzG8_vU).

Religious madness? Perhaps on the revival aspect.  Good guesses?  I don’t think so on number 2.  Seeing the bullet “grazing” Trump’s ear, even if it didn’t result in a “busted ear drum,” and going to his knees, seems to go beyond guessing or coincidence. If he had simply predicted an assassination attempt before the election, the odds might be 20 to 1 or so, but, as I see it, the odds on that much more specific forecast, including going to his knees after the bullet grazed his ears, are off the charts, about what they would be in a football game for a team overcoming a 35-0 deficit with two minutes left in the game.

A tornado is not quite the same thing as a hurricane, but both involve strong winds and the destruction is much the same. I can understand that mistake. Based on past years, predicting a hurricane or two could very well be a safe guess, but I recall a news report in which it was said that the winds from Hurricane Milton were reaching 180 miles per hour and that there was no record of anything exceeding 150 mph.  I wonder how Biggs got the number 150 in his vision.  If he sees strong winds blowing things down, does it come with a wind gauge?  Does he hear it?

Humbug or Bosh

The skeptics point out that Biggs has been wrong many times.  My search for his other predictions or premonitions was brief and I was unable to find any wrong ones, only comments by skeptics that he was often wrong. I assume that Biggs is giving his own interpretations to visions, just as mediums and the spirit controls of mediums were often wrong in their interpretations of mediumistic phenomena. William James often made mention of the “humbug,” “bosh,” and other wrong or confusing information coming through the mediumship of Leonora Piper and other mediums, apparently assuming, as religions had assumed, that spirits of the dead are all-knowing or have complete access to truth.  It was researcher James Hyslop who concluded that much of confusion was a result of the medium’s spirit control having difficulty interpreting the messages from the communicating spirit and then struggling to relay it on through the medium, sometimes giving misinterpreted messages.

It further became clear that spirits are at many levels of advancement and that the lower level spirits were closer to the earth vibration and thus had an easier time of communicating with those on earth. Spirits at a higher vibration often had to relay their messages through lower-level spirits and this often resulted in distortion of the messages. It could be that Bigg was not hearing from God or Jesus, but from some intelligent but spiritually unadvanced low-level spirit pretending to be God or Jesus, not realizing how little he really knows.  On the other hand, few communicating spirits have offered such prognostication. 

I don’t know whether to call Biggs a visionary, prophet, seer, medium, clairvoyant, clairaudient, psychic, remote viewer, or religious crank, nor do I know how much overlap there is between all those abilities. I have no doubt that something paranormal was going on with Harriet, that she was not attempting to fool anyone.  And surely, many people called saints by the Catholic Church had one or more of those abilities and were not charlatans.

Trusting Spirits?

Keith Parsons has just released his latest video, titled “Spirits Talking: Can They Be Trusted?”  I asked Keith for his thoughts on Biggs.  “I agree with you that all [his]  predictions coming true is startling and really uncanny,” he responded “…..
Where these predictions come from is pretty much a mystery since my own understanding is that a personal God capable of communicating with humans is a mistaken idea, even though Biggs asserts that is where his information is coming from. My own interpretation is that there is probably an incomprehensible intelligent agency, or cosmic mind, that does not need to be worshipped or talked to but which is involved in the design of life on this planet but not with sending personal messages to Biggs. You are right to raise the question of whether his predictions might have come from some other spirit, possibly wishing to pass themselves off as ‘a God person’. But while my doc does not dispute that in the afterlife there are spirits who communicate with this side, let’s not forget - as mentioned in my previous video Why Was Willie Weird? - that on multiple occasions mediums in contact with communicators on the Other Side also asserted before it began, that there would be no World War 2. This is partly what encouraged MacKenzie King to visit Hitler for such an assurance just before the war actually started. And yet these medium’s messages were incorrect.” (Keith’s video can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-eaqftiCQs)

Hurricane season will be over on December 1, but I’ll predict that there will at least be a hurricane or two somewhere next hurricane season, beginning June 1.  I wouldn’t be surprised by an assassination attempt, and I feel we are in the early stages of an economic depression right now, one that I foresee getting much worse over the next three to six months due to what I interpret as a crisis in the insurance industry that doesn’t seem to be fully recognized by politicians or the media.  I won’t be shocked if it is worse than the Great Depression of 1929-32.  My wife has started a vegetable garden just in case. But to predict a failed assassination attempt before the person is elected and seeing the bullet graze the intended victim’s ear and also seeing him go to his knees, is beyond anything I might predict. I don’t know what to make of it. I do hope that the prediction of an economic crisis is pure humbug, bosh, or religious madness.

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.
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Brian,

I’m in full agreement with you, although I prefer to call myself an “Unorthodox Christian.”  As for the word, “graze,” I did not mean to imply that Biggs used that word.  It was my choice of words to describe how I interpreted it. Since DT apparently did not lose any part of his ear and yet was bleeding, I thought “graze” was the proper word to use there, not “hit,” as the media continually used. In my use of the words, a “hit” would have involved the point of the bullet striking his ear and probably more than that, taking part of his ear with him. while a “graze” suggests the side of the bullet came in contact with his ear. Without viewing the video again, I recall that Biggs motioned a “graze” when he ran his hand by his ear in explaining his vision. 

Many thanks for your participation in this and other discussions.

Thank you for the explanations of intuition, James Paul, but I must confess my ignorance in not seeing the link to precognition or premonitions. I can see some overlap in there, but the time element seems to be missing. As you know, I am well aware of your research and writings on the Medjugorje phenomena and two of your books are a valuable part of my library. The Medjugorje children had many “visions” of the future, as I recall.  I will have to refresh my memory on them.

Dear Mike,  I have to add a few more comments in your blog regarding the coincidence of Mr Trump’s assassination attempt on July 13th 2024 falling on the date of 13th July 1917.Both days are recognized as Fatima Days. I am also sending two of my papers on Fatima apparitional experience published in the website of RCPSYCH. . Kindly find the email attachments.

Regards, Dr James Paul Pandaraklam

Hi Mike,

Humans have spirits with access to information from the spirit world in various ways.

Directly or indirectly while awake, or people can receive knowledge of the future, when they sleep. Their spirit enters the spirit world and it is in contact with all types of spirits, situations, and can receive all manner of information.

Many if us seek information out.

Knowledge acquired of future events then can be spontaneously recalled once one is in the material world.

Also, Kardec speaks of prophetic mediums where this happens more frequently to those individuals.

I have found it happens to many regular people with great specificity, but most people don’t generally talk about it.

It has happened to me with very specific information spontaneously, and also by way of very vivid dreams.

Like most people it usually pertains to family,  friends or personal matters, much rarer having to do with specific societal or world events.

Respectfully,
Yvonne Limoges

Ron, thanks for your comment.  I fully agree on the McEneaney book.  I discussed it in Appendix A of my 2011 book, “The Afterlife Revealed.” I was going to mention it in this blog, but it got too long.

Michael,

I suspect this man, Brandon Biggs, was able to “see” a future event, in this case the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. He interpreted what he “saw” in a way that was different from the reports. Brandon did not say that the bullet grazed Trump’s ear, but does say that the bullet burst Trump’s eardrum. I don’t think Trump has claimed damage to his eardrum.

I’m not trying to dismiss the impressive visual of a near assassination of the former President, but only point out that oftentimes when a “seer” or clairvoyant observes something, s/he adds some interpretation to it as well as what s/he sees.

Going on, Brandon says the president fell to his knees in worship of God. There isn’t any evidence that he did any worshiping of God, but the visual is certainly accurate that he fell to his knees.

I personally don’t think any of this is evidence that we need to become Christians so we can “be saved” and “go to heaven” or avoid “hell.” I think it is more evidence that some people are able to access information available in the universe before it happens and this is a rich and wonderful detail about the universe in which we live.

I also think he is correct in seeing a major financial meltdown, but this is not because of any clairvoyant abilities I might have, but simply my own following of the stock market daily for many years and watching the development of a major market bubble of terribly overpriced equities.

I hope he’s correct that Donald Trump has some major spiritual awakening, but I doubt this and I also find it ironic that he and the pastor and the female “prophetess” interpret Trump’s four indictments and multiple felony charges to be persecution of “God’s man” rather than our justice system trying to prove what we’ve always said to our children that “no one is above the law,” that “we are all equal before the law.” I think we’ve pretty well done away with that ideal.

Michael, your articles are always fascinating. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I have shared it with a minister friend of mine. I do not personally call myself a Christian anymore and do not intend to ever do so. I identified as a “born again” Christian for many years and then was capable of looking at all these ideas much more objectively and with much more delight and fascination with reality rather than be offered some other man’s idea of reality.

I start with the simple statement, “There are at least a hundred billion galaxies. This is considered a minimum estimate. There are at least a hundred billion galaxies.” If someone comes to you and says, “I have some good news. If you believe what I’m about to tell you, you will live forever in infinite bliss, but if you refuse to believe what I tell you, you will suffer an eternal damnation in a fiery place of torment.” I would recommend you walk away. Instead, hug a tree or follow a small bird hopping across a fallen tree trunk.

There are at least a hundred billion galaxies…

Gratefully,

Brian Anthony Kraemer
1310 Arbutus Ave. Unit 2
Chico, CA 95926-2632

Dear Mike, Your discussion on intuition has been interesting. Humans are basically intuitive creatures, rational mind is a development of evolutionary process. Ervin Laszlo introduced ‘spontaneous apprehension’ as intuition, described by the Oxford Dictionary as the immediate apprehension of an object by the mind without the intervention of any reasoning process. It represents a direct-intuitive-nonlocal mode of perception that is physically real and experimentally demonstrable.

Although classical physics assumes locality, implying that measurements at one point in space cannot influence events at another beyond a fairly short distance, photon experiments reveal that the universe is not locally real.

For intuition to occur, the brain must access information present in a nonphysical space.  Laszlo’s hypothesis posits that the unified field, a fundamental physical domain, contains not only universal fields and zero-point energies but also information. Laszlo argues that the object’s presence excites the field’s ground state, deforming it and creating information. The radiation emitted by objects forms expanding wave fronts, also containing information. When these wave fronts meet, they produce interference patterns, similar to those in ordinary holograms. Holograms contain information at nodes on these entities and events that created waves that constitute the interference pattern. However, these patterns in the unified field are quantum holograms, carrying information on events from the quantum domain. Whether human brains can access this information at the nodes of these interference patterns in the unified field is a captivating question. Laszlo proposes that recent exploration in quantum physics, quantum biology, and quantum brain research indicates the possibility of spontaneous access to interior information.

Laszlo asserts that sustained research on the spontaneous nonlocal mode of perceiving the world beyond the brain and body is both defensible and evocative. Positive results would confirm that the human brain can directly access information from beyond the physical realm. Laszlo emphasises that sustained exploration of this nonlocal mode of apprehension would hold significance, reinforcing the belief in subtle interconnectedness among human beings and nature, beyond sensory stimulation.

However, the   mysteries of the unconscious cannot be explained fully by quantum physics, especially given our limited understanding regarding the subject.

Although there is no consensus on the definition of intuition, it is typically considered as unconscious information processing distinct from rational thinking (i.e. conscious, critical, and deliberate) rooted in reason, logic, and substantiated facts. As per the dual process model of human cognition, these two thinking modes are complementary and vital in clinical decision-making. Intuitive thinking is rapid and may improve with experience. This mental state is often observed upon waking when the mind is highly pliable. Practices such as relaxation techniques or mind-altering substances can enhance intuitive thinking when the brain is in a less active state. Some individuals inherently possess higher intuition levels. Drawing from particle physics, Klauber argues “Something in these peoples’ physiologies may be somehow coupled, in presumably delicate fashion, to one or more other worldly force fields” (Klauber D.Robert: Modern physics and subtle realms: not mutually exclusive. Journal of scientific exploration 2000; 14:275-279).I personally think that Klauber makes great sense.
William Myers described intuition as a tacit and experiential capacity for immediate insight based on subjective reality, whereas the rational mind is linked with objective actuality. Hogarth shares a similar view, emphasising that intuition or intuitive responses are characterised by their effortless nature, typically occurring without conscious awareness or deliberation. However, strong intuition requires both wisdom and guidance from the rational mind. The feeling of déjà vu, often triggered by various sensations, such as sights, smells, sounds, and tastes, is universally experienced in a similar manner by everyone. 

People who think intuitively possess minds that remain constantly vigilant and focused, allowing them to notice details that others may miss. Although this one is a beneficial trait, it is suppressed in cultures focusing on scientific facts and logical reasoning. However, we all possess capacity for intuitive thinking in all its different forms, including mental, emotional, psychic, and spiritual, which is posited to occur in the right brain because it is more visual and creative.

Intuitive thinking is pragmatic, objective, ingenious, parallel, analytical, and independent of general intelligence. Emotional intuition refers to the capacity to rapidly discern someone’s personality traits and emotional state. Conversely, psychic intuitive thinking involves extrasensory perception and mainly deals with crisis-driven or challenging problem-solving, all achieved without deliberate mental exertion. It has been argued that human beings have one brain but two minds, analytical and intuitive. Science has overlooked the significance of intuition and underexploited the possibilities of intuitive mind. In reality, intuitions can facilitate swift decisions in complex, uncertain, and time-sensitive situations.

Empaths can absorb the emotions, energy, and pain of those around them, directly sharing and experiencing others’ feelings. Spiritual intuition is the ability to connect with the spiritual realm. Intuition and insight are two distinct phenomena. Intuition refers to the ability to immediately comprehend without requiring conscious reasoning, often described as the ‘gut feeling’ regarding the wrongness or rightness of a place, person, situation, object or temporal episode. Insight can be understood as the capacity to obtain precise and profound insights into a problem, frequently associated with movements beyond the existing paradigm.
            -Dr James Paul Pandarakalam

I remember some time after 9/11, being told by a coworker that his sister had had a very vivid dream of the Twin Towers being destroyed the night before it happened.  I didn’t know what to make of it, but not being a believer in any of this stuff I essentially disregarded it.

Fast Forward a few short years later, after having afterlife experiences with my father and grandfather, and other experiences, I slowly came to accept all of this as being possible.

During that transitional period I also read a pretty incredible book:

“Messages: Signs, Visits, and Premonitions from Loved Ones Lost on 9/11”, by Bonnie McEneaney.

Mike

Well, done, balanced, interesting blog. Meanwhile, if your prediction of an eminent economic crisis in the next six months out to be true. I will truly view you as a psychic. My rational, non-psychic self says that it will certainly not happen.  How about the loser owes the winner a lunch at CPK? 😄🍷

Michael and Paul,

I suffer from precognition and ask myself God’s work or a glitch in the universe? Seer or prophet - an occupation with high risk. Get it wrong and people in power have adverse reactions. I know that finding a good medium by the other side is hard.  Getting a good prophet is even harder.

I might relate Arthur Fords words from the book “Arthur Ford, the man who talked with the dead”.by Allen Spraggett 1973
https://archive.org/details/arthurfordmanwho00spra/page/47/mode/1up
Page 47

None of Ford’s friends or associates, it seems, ever communicated with Fletcher’s family. When asked about the family’s whereabouts Ford usually replied that they lived somewhere in Quebec.
Ford had what he said was a photograph of Fletcher sent to him by the family; it shows a handsome, boyish individual of serious mien. Wherever Ford was living, this picture hung in his room.
Why had Fletcher chosen Ford as his medium?
Presumably, the fact that they were said once to have been friends had something to do with it. But apparently, a more important element was the matter, as they say, of vibrations. Ford’s energy pattern meshed nicely with Fletcher’s, is how the medium often put it. The astral chemistry was right. Fletcher’s choice, then, was not arbitrary, since a control can only manifest through a medium whose energy pitch, to express it a little differently, is on the same frequency as his own. (Even Ford admitted that the whole business remained pretty esoteric to him.)

By and large, once a control picks a medium he sticks with him, or her, until death does them part. Occasionally, however, a control may manifest through mediums other than his primary one. These spirit peregrinations are a curious phenomenon. “Walter,” the guide of Boston’s celebrated medium, Margery, often popped in on the Winnipeg seances of Dr. Glen Hamilton and his circle, as also did “Feda,” the child control of England’s grande dame of mediumship, Mrs. Osborne Leonard.1 Sometimes a medium will borrow, so to speak, another’s guide, as the English Mrs. Guppy is said to have borrowed the famous phantom “Katie King” from a medium named Frank Herne.2 There also have been cases wherein, on a medium’s death, another inherited his spirit guide.

On at least one occasion, which occurred in October, 1927, and was reported by Nandor Fodor, Fletcher communicated through a medium other than Arthur Ford. Fletcher acted as spirit master-of-ceremonies at a “direct voice” seance in Ford’s New York apartment, featuring a trumpet medium named William Cartheuser. Fodor related that Fletcher’s disembodied tones were heard in the darkness with several other purported spirit voices. Though Ford was present, he was not in trance; Cartheuser, described as a cadaverous Hungarian with a harelip, per- formed as the medium.3

(This seance had a humorous sequel. Author Fulton Oursler, then editor of Liberty magazine, was among the sitters and, writing under the name Samri Frikell, one of his many unlikely pseudonyms, he stated that the seance had been held at Arthur Ford’s apartment, and that the medium had a harelip and was a fake. The one thing Oursler didn’t mention was that Ford was not the medium. When Ford read Oursler’s account he wrote him with mock anger: “I don’t mind being called a fake but I do not happen to have a harelip.”)

Paul,
I trust the document arrived by our mediums Jon and Michael. I had sent it a few times but you know that sending and receiving are two different things. I more than suspect that your insights are appreciated by the Other Side. The above quote is based on your interest in vibration. 
Thanks,

Bruce