Going through channels

Reading Jon Klimo's well-known book Channeling, I came across this interesting passage:

The clairvoyant and precognitive material of the later fifteenth-century semi-mythical English medium Mother Shipton also appears to have come true. Like a number of other prophetic mediums before and after her, she chose to record what she received in poetic form:

Carriages without horses shall go,
And accidents fill the world with woe.
Around the world thoughts shall fly
In the twinkling of an eye ...
In the air men shall be seen,
In white, in black, in green;
Iron in the water shall float,
As easily as a wooden boat.

Two things struck me about this. First, if Mother Shipton is "semi-mythical," how can we be  sure of the provenance of her alleged prophecies? Second, the excerpt of the prophecy seems almost too accurate; I wondered what had been omitted.

Luckily, the Internet came to the rescue. Google easily turned up some answers. Here is the modern-day introduction to an 1881 book about Shipton by William H. Harrison, the complete text of which is online. (The intro, written in 2004, is by John Bruno Hare; links are in the original.)

Mother Shipton (1488-1561) is a traditional English character with a reputation as a prophet. Among the most startling predictions attributed to her is a short poem which predicts that

Carriages without horses shall go,
And accidents fill the world with woe.
Around the world thoughts shall fly
In the twinkling of an eye.
The world upside down shall be
And gold be found at the root of a tree.
Through hills man shall ride,
And no horse be at his side.
Under water men shall walk,
Shall ride, shall sleep, shall talk.
In the air men shall be seen,
In white, in black, in green;
Iron in the water shall float,
As easily as a wooden boat.
Gold shall be found and shown
In a land that's now not known.
Fire and water shall wonders do,
England shall at last admit a foe.
The world to an end shall come,
In eighteen hundred and eighty one.

Alas, this is a forgery written in 1862. In the 20th century an expanded version of this was circulated (revised to exclude the 1881 apocalypse, and include world wars I and II). Today, variations of this are uncritically posted at various websites, just as bogus Nostradamus prophecies circulated in the wake of the events of 9/11/2001.

This essay about Mother Shipton was written in the year 1881; it gives the text of the earliest Mother Shipton prophecies, which primarily concern events from the reign of Henry the Eighth. As it turns out, these were also spawned after the fact, penned by a notorious plagiarist. The three earliest texts mention nothing about horseless carriages, submarines, the telegraph, iron boats, let alone predict the year the world will end.

So if there is any kernel of truth to the Mother Shipton legend, it can't be determined from any verifiable documentation. Mother Shipton belongs in the same category as Robin Hood or King Arthur: a legendary figure, possibly based on a real person, whose narrative has been enhanced by time and retelling.

An online resource called the Museum of Hoaxes agrees:

Mother Shipton’s prophecies are hoaxes, because it now appears that almost all of them were written by others after the events they described had already happened. For instance, the first record of her prophecy about Cardinal Wolsey dates from 1641, long after the man had died. Her prophecies about future technology, and about the world coming to an end in 1881, first appeared in print in the 1862 edition of her sayings, and Charles Hindley, the editor of that edition, later admitted that he had composed them.

The existence of Mother Shipton herself is uncertain. Her 1684 biographer, Richard Head, apparently invented most of the details of her life. In fact, she may never have existed outside of Yorkshire legend.

This matter, trivial in itself, raises questions about the general accuracy of Klimo's book, at least in its historical section. Note especially that he did not quote the lines of prophecy stating that the world would end in 1881 - a rather significant omission!

I noticed some other doubtful accounts in the same chapter. For instance, in recounting the story of the Fox sisters, Klimo reports that the rapping spirit in their Hydesville farmhouse identified himself as Charles B. Rosma, a peddler, who was murdered in the house and buried under it. This is correct, but he goes on to say,

When digging was undertaken, human bones were found. Fifty-six years later, another excavation unearthed the peddler's tin box and other bones and belongings. Today, the Fox house, along with Rosma's remains, are displayed in nearby Lily Dale, New York, headquarters for the Spiritualist movement.

This gives the impression that the remains were positively ID'd as Rosma's. In fact, however, all attempts to verify the earthly existence of a Charles B. Rosma failed, even though the story was very widely circulated. There may never have been any such person. The bones first discovered under the house may or may not have been human. The remains found half a century after the fact may have been planted in the house in order to revive local interest in the story.

Klimo also reports the medium Nettie Colburn's meeting with President Lincoln - in which she supposedly convinced him to sign the Emancipation Proclamation - as if it were an established fact, when actually there is much doubt as to whether Lincoln gave any credence to mediums. (Doris Kearns Goodwin's bio of Lincoln acknowledges that he sat in on a few séances arranged by his wife, but says he was mainly interested in finding out how the mediums faked their effects.)

To give a final example, Klimo mentions the case of Helene Smith, who claimed to channel information from a race of beings on Mars. She was extensively studied by Theodore Flournoy, who wrote a book about her called From India to the Planet Mars: A Study of a Case of Somnambulism with Glossolalia. But Klimo does not tell us the conclusion of the affair: Flournoy determined that the alleged Martian words spoken by Helene Smith were derived from French, probably unconsciously, and that her channeling was primarily a psychological phenomenon.

As one online source summarizes:

By the late 1890s, Smith was being investigated by many researchers. The most notable was Theodore Flournoy, a Swiss professor of psychology. Flournoy, using psychoanalytic techniques, spent five years sitting in on séances, researching Smith's personal history, and corroborating historical information that she provided during her séances.

Flournoy's conclusions were the Smith had a fantastic imagination, perhaps complemented with telepathy and psychokinesis. The Martian language that she produced was a childish imitation of French ...

After Flournoy published his findings in From India to Planet Mars (1900) Smith's supporters stood by her, and Flournoy was banished from her life. The expose only served to increase her popularity as she enjoyed comfortable wealth and fame.

No doubt there is much valuable information in Channeling, a book that continues to enjoy a positive reputation in psi circles, but my advice when reading it would be to  follow Ronald Reagan's dictum: "Trust, but verify."

P.S. I should note that my comments are based on reading the first edition of the book. There is now a second edition, updated and expanded. Possibly the defects I found have been remedied in the newer edition; I don't know. For those who are interested, the revised edition is sold by Amazon.

Comments

[Leo MacDonald]

Michael I don't know if you read Michael E Tymn lastest post on his blog it's case that is stronger then the Pam Reyold's nde

http://metgat.gaia.com/blog

[Ronnie]

I'm sorry for going off the opening post's topic here but that particular NDE amazed me. It was also addressed recently in Dean Radin's blog in his post "Flat line memories".

[Ross W]

That's a very nice piece of research, Michael. It's fascinating to wonder how much of what we regard as history is in fact myth or story. The same applies even to Jesus Christ, of course, for whom there is no reliable "hard" historical evidence.

[Mickey D]

The Shipton stuff isn't even in the English of the period it's supposed to come from. There would be no need to change it as it would still be comprehensible and it would have a greater ring of authenticity to it in its original form, if that ever existed.

[Roger K]

Michael, I saw you quote a mainstream biography on Lincoln's attitudes towards spiritism and seances. Thre is a specialized biography dealing with just that: http://www.amazon.com/Psychic-Life-Abraham-Lincoln/dp/1564149668/ref=pd_sim_b_img_2/104-7107899-6916753
The Psychic Life of Abraham Lincoln by Susan B. Martinez.

Quote from Michael E. Tymn's review at amazon: "A number of people who knew Lincoln or came in contact with him are quoted attesting to his association with "spiritualists" and the influence they had on him and his important decisions during the Civil War. Others who knew him denied such an association. Martinez dissects the testimony and leaves the reader with evidence strongly favoring spirit communication and influence. She says that Lincoln moved from being an agnostic to a believer. But a believer in what? "No earthly power, no organized religion, no man-made God," she concludes, "but faith - a new faith - in the outworkings of the Unseen world of intelligent design." "

[Tim]

Re: the NDE referenced by Tymn and Radin...if you check out the addendum on Tymn's blog, you'll see that in contacting Dr. Hamilton, whose book the story comes from, he found that the Gideon NDE was not a single case but a hybrid constructed from at least two cases, one of which may have been Pam Reynolds. Having just ghostwritten a book with two physicians, I can attest that they do this often for reasons of complying with the legal obligation to protect patient confidentiality.

This doesn't change the amazing nature of Hamilton's story, nor make it untrue, but it does make it less skeptic-proof if the details are not all from a single case. There would be no way to know unless you could somehow sign an NDA and get access to the confidential medical files and conduct a thorough investigation.

[william]

“The Psychic Life of Abraham Lincoln by Susan B. Martinez.”

Speaking of Lincoln has anyone every done any research into the similarities between Lincoln and John F Kennedy? It is fascinating to read how much their lives seem to be parallel in the names of the people and incidents in their lives.

One being both were shot in the back of the head. Of course unless you believe in the shots coming from the grassy knolls.

Of course, there is this famous Mother Shipton prophecy:
When the web spans the world,
banner of truth shall be unfurled,
writings of the one Prescott,
knowledge true and very hot,
but doubters there shall always be,
ignoring what all plainly see.
:-)

[Michael Prescott]

Well, at least that prophecy must be genuine!

[Ronnie]

Tim, I noticed that too, and emailed Hamilton just to make sure if these events happened. Here's his reply:

"It is a fusion of more than two patients who experienced recall despite
documentation of EEG-proven electrocerebral silence. As such, none of them
qualify as NDEs. They are illustrations of how memory storage can occur in a
brain without electrical activity and raises the question of how the
perception of auditory signals and understanding the spoken word can happen
without electrical activity in the cortex. These are not NDEs in my opinion."

[Michael Prescott]

I guess Dr. Hamilton does not classify these events as NDEs because there was no tunnel, life review, meeting with departed loved ones, encounter with a being of light, etc?

And yet the Pam Reynolds case, which is part of the blended case, does contain these features.

So I'm confused.

In any event, if the patients are unidentified and their case histories are scrambled together to create an entirely new story, then I don't see that this material has much (if any) evidential value.

Regardless of the blended state of the cases, if the individual cases show the signs of memory and possibly conscious experience despite a brain dead state, regardless of the "blend," it can be taken as evidence that these things occur. Proper records would have to be shown rather than relying on the popular story, though.

[Michael Prescott]

Yes, you're right. I just meant that the account in its present form is not very valuable. We would need to know the details - including whether the patients' brains were actually flat-lining when the recollected events took place. (In the Pam Reynolds case, she was anesthetized but not flat-lining when the veridical part of her NDE occurred. This crucial detail is often glossed over in accounts of the case.)

[Leo MacDonald]

Dr. Allan talks about the case here in a short video http://www.allanhamilton.com/scalpelsoul.html

apparently she had no electrical activity in her brain but was able to hear the conversation of the nurses talking to eachother one of nurses mention that she was getting engaged and where she got her engagement ring during her successful operation he says as we are talking to the patient she talks about the conversation but word for word right down to the jewelry store where they bought this ring.

[Leo MacDonald]

A woman who was "dead" by every clinical criterion used in medicine - her was heart stopped and brain waves disappeared. Yet, she later related conversations that went on among the operating room personnel while she was clinically dead. It is much like the famous "Pam Reynolds" case, but in some respects more evidential of a separation of mind from brain. "In fact, this particular patient's consciousness seemed to thrive despite substantial evidence that her brain was concurrently dead, incapable of generating a single electrical impulse," Hamilton states.

I wonder who the "Sir Newton Pitcairn" is that Michael Tymn mentions. Maybe a pseudonym, since the other stuff is. It almost sounds like he's describing Stuart Hameroff, doesn't it?

Might I add that the reason I say that is because a Google search for "Newton Pitcairn" comes up just Tymn's blog post and something criticizing said blog post. As I said though, Hameroff isn't British but he is an anaesthesiologist and interested in quantum consciousness.

Or maybe it's just a made up story, which would be unfortunate.

[Bill I.]

Michael: "Flournoy determined that the alleged Martian words spoken by Helene Smith were derived from French, probably unconsciously, and that her channeling was primarily a psychological phenomenon."

When is channelling not a "psychological phenomenon?"

This doesn't mean that it has no validity, ever, while of course some channelling is superior, just as some paintings are; clarity will vary tremendously from one channeller to another and also from one moment to another with the same person.

Nearly anyone can easily enter a mild trance and play with some form of this; they might use their computer keyboard instead of their voice -- no deep trance or extensive training is required.

(This activity isn't recommended for those who hold fearful beliefs about it, however, as "you get what you concentrate on.")

There's nothing quite like obtaining firsthand, personal data when it comes to such explorations, while relatively few are conscious of that which (or those who) lurk in their psyche, often very close to their surface mind, but here's one way to find out.

Is it only imagination? Artful creation? A blend of these and something more genuine?

The answers to this often aren't quite as simple -- or as logical -- as we would prefer, as the greater reality of our psyche lies within an expanded region possessing ground rules quite distinct from those of the waking world and our waking selves.

Bill I.
http://www.realitytest.com