Here's an odd little story recounted by Robert S. Bobrow, M.D., in his fascinating new book The Witch in the Waiting Room: A Physician Investigates Paranormal Phenomena in Medicine.
The story was originally reported in the British Medical Journal by Dr. I.O. Azuonye in 1997.* It involves a British housewife known in the case history only as A.B., who was about 40 years old and had no history of serious illness or psychiatric disorders.
While reading quietly one evening, A.B. heard a distinctive voice inside her head. The voice politely said: "Please don't be afraid. I know it must be shocking for you to hear me speaking to you like this, but this is the easiest way I could think of. My friend and I used to work at the Children's Hospital, Great Ormond Street, and we would like to help you." While A.B. knew of this hospital, she had never been there and didn't know where it was.
The voices assured her of their sincerity, even supplying some factual tidbits for A.B. to confirm (she did).
Despite this confirmation, A.B. understandably feared that she had developed some form of mental illness. She promptly saw a psychiatrist, the aforementioned Dr. Azuonye, who diagnosed the episode as "hallucinatory psychosis." When A.B. started taking a prescription antipsychotic medicine, the voices went away for a while. But when she was on vacation abroad, they came back.
This time, they told her that she needed immediate medical care, and should return to England right away. She returned, and the voices gave her an address to go to; her husband was good enough to humor her, and actually took her to the address just for reassurance. It may not have been that reassuring when it turned out to be the CAT-scanning department of a large London hospital, and that as she arrived, the voices told her to go in and have a brain CAT scan.... [The voices] informed A.B. that she had a brain tumor.
Again consulting with Dr. Azuonye, she was advised to get the brain scan simply in order to set her fears to rest. Since she had no symptoms of a brain tumor, both she and the doctor expected nothing to be found. After some squabbling with the government-run health-care system, the CAT scan was eventually carried out.
The result? A brain tumor, which doctors thought to be a meningioma.
Meningiomas are neither the rarest nor the most common of cranial growths. Their cells, which arise from the brain's coverings, generally grow slowly without eating through the brain and only rarely float off to start new colonies elsewhere in the body (called metastasizing). But the space they take up squashes good brain. Removal, as soon as possible, is usually recommended. So while there were no headaches or specific neurological abnormalities, A.B.'s neurosurgeons opted for immediate surgery. The voices told her they agreed.
Surgeons found and removed a meningioma that measured two and half by one and a half inches -- about the size of an egg. When A.B. awoke from the anesthesia, the voices spoke once more: "We are pleased to have helped you. Goodbye." They never returned. [Pp. 43-45]
In his discussion of the case in the British Medical Journal, Azuonye notes:
It is well known that intracranial lesions can be associated with psychiatric symptomatology. But this is the first and only instance I have come across in which hallucinatory voices sought to reassure the patient of their genuine interest in her welfare, offered her a specific diagnosis (there were no clinical signs that would have alerted anyone to the tumour),directed her to the type of hospital best equipped to deal with her problem, expressed pleasure that she had at last received the treatment they desired for her, bid her farewell, and thereafter disappeared.
Azuonye reports that while some doctors accept the case as genuinely paranormal, others have suggested either fraud or a subconscious motive. Those who allege fraud speculate that the patient
had been given the diagnosis of a brain tumour in her original country and wanted to be treated free under the NHS. Hence, they surmised, she had made up the convoluted tale about voices telling her this and that.
Azuonye objects:
But AB had lived in Britain for 15 years and was entitled to NHS treatment. Besides, she had been so relieved when the voices first disappeared on thioridazine that she had gone on holiday to celebrate the recovery of her sanity.
As for those who think something was going on in A.B.'s subconscious:
Their view was that, the total lack of physical signs notwithstanding, it was unlikely that a tumour of that size had had absolutely no effect on the patient. "She must have felt something," they argued. They suggested that a funny feeling in her head had led her to fear that she had a brain tumour. That fear had led to her experience of hallucinatory voices. She may have unconsciously taken in more information about various hospitals than she realised, and this information was reproduced by her mind as part of the auditory hallucinatory experience.
I think it's more likely that A.B. tapped into some channel of higher consciousness - whether that of "spirit guides" or deceased well-wishers or God - and obtained the information that way. Conceivably the tumor itself brought about changes in the brain that made her nervous system more receptive to such extracerebral influences.
One other interesting aspect of Azuonye's write-up is that apparently quite a large number of the doctors who heard his presentation were entirely comfortable with the paranormal interpretation. I doubt this would have been true a generation ago. Despite skeptical resistance, minds are changing -- slowly but surely.
Or as the old Arabian proverb has it: The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.
-----
*Azuonye, I.O. "Diagnosis Made by Hallucinatory Voices." British Medical Journal. 1997; 315:1685-86.
A couple of years ago I was in our kitchen washing dishes. Just sort of staring out the window, zoning out, while washing dishes. Not thinking of anything in particular. All of a sudden a voice "popped" into my head, a "not me" voice, and said "Bonnie's going to walk in here and say 'thanks for going with me.'" About a minute later my wife walked into the kitchen and said those exact same words. I had gone to town (45 minutes away) and attended a meeting with her. She could've thanked me anytime between the time we left till we got home, but instead she chose to thank me less than a minute after that voice inside my head said she would. I don't think it was telepathy because I heard an actual voice inside my head, a voice that wasn't the normal voice in my head. It really was strange. It had never happened before, and hasn't happened again since, but that one time in my life it happened. It was an amazing mystical experience. So, I accept and believe that woman's story for what it was. I remember reading a story about a boy who was told to get down in his car as his mother was approaching an intersection, they had a crash, and his sliding down had saved his life.
Posted by: Art | December 15, 2006 at 10:21 PM
These voices are a lot more common than people think. I know a woman who suspected she was reading people's minds becaue she'd hear what they were thinking. Sometimes she'd says things before they said them, just to watch the expression on their faces.
It's happened to me, too, a few times. I have no explanation about any of it.
Posted by: Bob Wallace | December 16, 2006 at 09:27 AM
Okay, one more story then I promise I'll quit. I guess this would be classed as a synchronicity. A few years ago I was having quite a bit of dental work done. The dental tech who worked on my teeth and I were having a discussion and she asked me "are you afraid of a terrorist attack?" I replied to her, "Why worry?, God is in control." So, a few months later as I was driving back to the dentist I was going over that conversation in my head. Just when I got to the point where I was thinking "Why worry? God is in control," a silver car pulled in front of me and it had a bumper sticker on the back that said, "Why worry? God is in control!" It was so amazing, because right as I was thinking those words, a car with that exact same thought pulled in front of me. It drove down road in front of me for a couple of miles then turned off. I had never seen that bumper sticker before, and I haven't seen again since. What was so amazing about it was the timing. Right after I had that thought, it appeared. "Why worry? God is in control." I've had a few other "mystical experiences" but those two were the most profound, a voice telling me what my wife was fixing to say, and an amazing synchronicity.
Posted by: Art | December 16, 2006 at 11:28 AM
Transpersonal psychology describes the interpenetration of all minds through the "mind field" as opposed to the current view that "conciousness and the feeling of identity are an epiphenomenon of brain function, nothing more".
In terms of describing and including anamolous phenomena in a view of how things are, the contemporary view of our established institutions falls way short in attempting to describe what is. For instance, to write off conciousness and all of it's ramifications as a "side effect" of brain function is not doing any good to understanding who we are, what we are, where we come from and where we are going.
We need to not carelessly throw out the baby with the bath water. Kudos to this author.
Posted by: Patidape | December 16, 2006 at 09:10 PM
If you guys like, we can all do a conference call on Skype, and I would be glad to demonstrate and explain how I experience consciousness to consciousness communication. I will do a free reading for everyone on here as long as Michael Prescott participates. See, this is my ploy to get him to sample another medium other than Laurie Cambell. :-)
Most people erroneously assume that as a medium, I see grieving survivors. Ther truth is that less than 2% of my clients are grieving family members. Most people whom I see are either curious, skeptical or needing some kind of connection with the afterlife to give the "now" greater meaning and purpose. Not that it matters, but I have seen several psychologists, professors, engineers, producers, documentarians, writers, doctors and even a couple of Grammy winning pop stars. All I do is sit there and repeat what I am told by those communicating with me. To me, there's nothing paranormal about it.
Anyway, I encourage all to attempt communication with those on the other side. I am sure you will be presently surprised.
Posted by: Marcel Cairo | December 17, 2006 at 04:26 AM
This is awesome! I tried to read that book but it was "lost" from the University of Minnesota biomedicine library -- shortly after it was in the computer listed as "on the shelf."
Looks like an awesome book. That's an amazing case study. I study tons of paranormal research and have never seen such a clear instance of spirit communication as this.
Still I have seen spirits going to visit a Chinese yoga master -- Chunyi Lin. I saw them but I had been practicing intensive qigong -- sitting in full-lotus and practicing the "small universe." I had even gone for a week without food and water!
Anyway so when I saw these yellow spirit orbs visiting Master Chunyi Lin I had already read of the same thing happening to the most famous Forest Monk Master of Thailand. That was a rare biography I had ordered through interlibrary loan -- it's the inspiration for all the monks of Thailand. You can get the title by reading my online article "The Rotten Root" on my qigong training for my masters degree.
So I knew that dead spirits come to hear Masters teach -- just like us "living" spirits go to see a master teach and get the energy.
Anyway I didn't say anything about these yellow orbs -- but then Master Chunyi Lin explained them to everyone else -- about 200 people -- because he said someone had asked him about them!
It was awesome. Too bad western culture states all this is "hallucinations" -- on the contrary you can't fake the full-lotus!
Master Chunyi Lin sat in full-lotus in a cave without food and water for a month in China. http://springforestqigong.com
Posted by: drew hempel | December 17, 2006 at 09:30 AM
Marcel, I'm on Skype almost all of the time, I would be very interested in everyone here holding a Skype Conferance together. I LOVE to talk about the Paranormal, Spirituality, and everything related.
Sorry, I haven't been posting much on this Blog much recently, it's when the Universal Conspiracy Theorists towards everything Spiritual and Paranormal Related (Blind-Sided James Randi Worshippers) invaded this Blog to defend their Pope and throw senseless insults that they think will somehow mind-bogglingly erase objective evidence from reality (the pesky little things called "Veridical Perception" and "Veridical Evidence" obtained during NDEs/OBEs/ADCs/DBVs that they, like Ostriches with their head in the sand, say doesn't prove or suggest in the slightest that we continue on, oh, especially people born blind gaining Veridical Perception during OBE, that certainly doesn't prove anything, *eye roll*), and when Michael Prescott said he wouldn't even read OUR (his positive fans) comments here anymore, I stopped posting, as what's the point if the Blogger himself will not read our (his positive readers and fans) good positive input here? The JREF Clowns ruined it for us, I guess.
Posted by: Eteponge | December 17, 2006 at 01:46 PM
>when Michael Prescott said he wouldn't even read OUR (his positive fans) comments here anymore, I stopped posting,
Sometimes curiosity gets the best of me and I do read the comments - like now! I think what I may do is change my policy and say I'll read the comments but will not get drawn into debates. The debates are just too time-consuming and pointless. I discussed this in detail in the comments thread on my "New Comments Policy" post. (Yes, I'm aware of the irony of posting comments about why I won't post comments.)
>If you guys like, we can all do a conference call on Skype,
I don't know what Skype is. I'll have to look it up and see if I can do it, whatever it is.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | December 17, 2006 at 06:32 PM
I went to the grocery store to pick up a few things (a few years ago). While I was walking down the aisle, I suddenly heard my wife's voice inside of my head! The voice said "Get eggs! Get eggs!", which I did, although I thought we had plenty of them at home. When I got home, my wife said "By any chance did you hear me calling to you to pick up eggs?". I was staggered. She said that she had concentrated very hard on the words "Get eggs!" as she had suddenly decided to make a quiche!
Posted by: Jimbo | December 19, 2006 at 05:31 PM
I happened on this site as a referral from another. Anyhoo, I have an interesting story regarding synchronicity. I was riding thru town looking for a particular store when I saw a lady in a chevy racing up behind me. I happened to be at a stop light so she had to stop or slam into me. One the light turned green she sped around me only to be slowed down by another car. I vocalized the following words, "geez lady, you sure are in a damn hurry." Well at the very instance the words left my lips she whipped her head around and stared straight at me as if I had shouted those words into her ear at close range. Even though she couldn't possibly have heard me, I got the distinct feeling that she heard me loud and clear. It left me feeling quite amazed.
Posted by: Greg | January 02, 2007 at 02:36 PM