Michael Prescott's Blog

Testing the consistency

My earlier post "The desert and the sea" attracted a lot of comments. I admit that I was basically thinking aloud when I wrote that post, and in retrospect I shouldn't have said that desert and ocean environments never show up in NDEs and channeled accounts of the afterlife. Several readers provided examples of seascapes appearing in afterlife reports, though I continue to think that descriptions of such environments are pretty rare.

One puckish reader rewrote my own words in the post, as follows:

If the various accounts of the afterlife were purely the product of fantasy, one might reasonably expect some of those fantasies to include bananas or hot pants. As far as I can tell, none of them do. Perhaps this argues that there is an underlying reality to these reports.

Then he added archly:

Or perhaps such ruminations are as silly as they sound.

I see his point, but as I replied in the comments:

From my perspective, though, it's something of a mystery that such a popular locale as the beach doesn't show up in NDEs, channeled communications, or deathbed visions very often, if at all. Given the thousands of reports, we might expect to see more of a variety of environments.

A garden seems to be the overwhelming favorite, showing up far more often than other settings. Why should this be? Is there something hardwired into the human psyche that makes us imagine a garden paradise as opposed to some other environment? Is it purely the result of childhood exposure to stories about the Garden of Eden? I don't know.

It's also interesting that the cliches of pearly gates, angel choruses, clouds, etc. are very seldom mentioned in NDE accounts, channeling, or deathbed visions. If hallucinations and fantasies account for these experiences, why do they run contrary to so many people's expectations?

A commenter named Aftrbrnr contributed this thought:

One thing I wonder about NDEs is if they are hallucinations, why does everyone dream about dying and going to the afterlife? I'm actually expecting to hear accounts where people experience near death but don't report going to the afterlife but just dream as if they were asleep, which is where I think you should be seeing things like the beach, ocean, etc. that we're discussing here.

I also recall a study I can't remember off the top of my head that found that NDEs didn't conform to any religious beliefs. The study did Christians and Hindus, and with Hindus you have to remember a core part of their beliefs is reincarnation. Working on that, if NDEs are a result of expectations, one would imagine a Hindu NDE may consist of dreaming of living in your next life on Earth. However, the study found that Hindu experiencers went through the similar spiritual world scenario that most people go through, which in the light of Hindu beliefs of reincarnation doesn't make sense.

Not using this is evidence or proof, but just something to think about.

To which I replied:

That's a good observation, Aftrbrnr, and brings out a serious point made (perhaps inadvertently) by the commenter I quoted. Namely, if NDEs are hallucinations, why don't they include "bananas and hot pants"?

A hallucination, like a dream, can have pretty much any content imaginable. So why aren't there NDEs where the person sees himself playing piano at Carnegie Hall, or winning the Super Bowl, or seducing a supermodel, or hang-gliding in Hawaii, or ...?

Considering the possible range of human fantasies, which is at least as broad as the range of things we dream about, it's surprising (to say the least) that NDEs tend to reproduce the same patterns and environments over and over again.

Skeptics try to explain this by saying either a) there are variations in NDEs, or b) the commonalities can be explained as reactions to specific kinds of brain trauma. (E.g., the "tunnel" is a reaction to the brain's visual center shutting down.) The trouble is that a) the variations are minor compared with the repetitive patterns, and much less significant than would be expected in hallucinations; and b) NDEs occur in all sorts of circumstances in which the brain is traumatized in very different ways. (And sometimes in cases where the brain has not been physically traumatized at all - for instance, cases of mountaineers who had an NDE while falling, but landed safely.)

Though I didn't mention it in the comments thread, this issue is addressed at some length by Keith Augustine in his essay "Hallucinatory Near-Death Experiences." Much of his article is devoted to showing that NDEs are not as consistent in their contents as some people maintain. In contrasting Western and non-Western NDEs, he writes:

Of the 8 prototypical Western NDE elements, only 'meeting others' is truly universal in non-Western cultures. Landscapes are nearly universal, but quite variable in their details. Even the OBE does not appear to be a universal NDE element, though it is more common than many of the other elements sought in non-Western NDEs. Encountering a barrier that one cannot cross was equally prevalent. Perhaps most surprising of all is the absence of feelings of peace, a clear tunnel experience, an experience of light, and a life review in almost all of the non-Western NDE reports, given their prominence in the prototypical Western NDE....

Simply reviewing the existing cross-cultural literature on NDEs led Kellehear to the surprisingly modest conclusion that "the major cross-cultural features of the NDE appear to include encountering other beings and other realms on the brink of death" (34). No other features identified with the prototypical Western NDE appear to be universal....

Since far more differences than similarities have been found between Western and non-Western accounts, the commonalities between different Western NDEs require a special explanation. What could possibly explain consistency between Western accounts but not cross-cultural consistency?

He notes that the explanation sometimes offered - that Raymond Moody's 1975 book Life After Life popularized NDEs in Western society and led to imitative reports - doesn't hold water, because many Western NDEs reported prior to the publication of Moody's book contain some of the same elements.  What, then, is the explanation?

With Keith's permission, I'm reproducing a more extended excerpt from his essay, which grapples with this question.

With that caveat [that a given NDE typically does not contain all the elements identified by Moody] duly noted, we must return to our original question: How do we explain the consistency between Western NDE accounts? Perhaps Western NDE motifs are found in some part of the Western cultural background other than the NDE literature since Moody. But then one is nagged by a poignant issue raised by Fox:

[I]n the cases where NDEs with classic features such as tunnels and lights are reported, we might wish to question where NDErs actually derive their cultural-linguistic NDE pattern from.... For it is clear that such experiences, complete with recurring motifs such as traversing a period of darkness towards a light, do not represent part of any of the religious traditions of the West (Fox 117).

Specific NDE motifs certainly are absent from the standard depictions of the afterlife provided by Western religious traditions. But Irwin carried out a systematic survey of Western stereotypes of the afterlife to test the hypothesis that NDE motifs derive from social conditioning (Irwin, "Images" 2). Irwin puts that hypothesis as follows: "[I]n a situation of sudden confrontation with death people might draw upon their common cultural heritage to generate comparatively uniform hallucinatory images about a state of existence that is independent of the physical body" (1). Irwin first considers the biblical depiction of Heaven offered in Revelation 21, but quickly notes that biblical sources not only fail to account for the uniformity of Western NDE motifs, but are actually at variance with such motifs:

The difficulty here is that the biblical account is somewhat at odds with the descriptions of the afterlife realm given by subjects of the NDE.... [T]he general public would be well aware of [the biblical] representation of heaven as a city of buildings and streets of pure gold and a surrounding high wall with [pearly] gates. In the NDE on the other hand, the post-mortem realm commonly is reported to comprise a pastoral setting, one with rolling green hills, trees, flowers, perhaps a stream and a blue sky above (Irwin, "Images" 1-2).

As Irwin notes, prima facie "this disparity does not sit well with the view that the near-death experient's image of the afterlife springs largely from social conditioning" (2). However, he cautions that such biblical imagery does indeed feature in some NDE reports, but more importantly, it is questionable "that the portrayal of heaven in Revelation 21 forms the popular stereotypical image [of the afterlife] in our culture" (2).

Consequently, Irwin set out to determine the most common Western visions of the afterlife by administering a questionnaire survey to 96 introductory psychology students at the rural University of New England in Australia. The survey concerned such variables as the appearance, inhabitants, and means of travel of the afterlife, as well as its auditory features (2). He found that (of each questionnaire item) the most common Western images of the afterlife included a cosmic existence simultaneously everywhere and nowhere in the universe (40%), a pastoral scene of "lush green hills, trees, flowers and streams" (30%), and a formless void of pure being (29%) (2, 3). A mere 7% of respondents selected the biblical image, and 9% expected large gardens to figure prominently in the afterlife (3).

Irwin draws three key conclusions on the basis of this data. First, there are several different Western visions of the afterlife, not just one. Second, the biblical image of Heaven—though widely known—is not widely held, and thus sociological sources of NDE motifs "can not be denied on the grounds that the account of the afterlife in NDEs fails to correspond to the biblical representation" (3). Finally, the image of the afterlife as a pastoral scene—an image often represented in NDEs—is quite commonplace, even though respondents' questionnaire answers indicate that "the pastoral stereotype generally is not based on familiarity with NDEs" [emphasis mine] (3).

Like the image of looking down upon the Earth from the clouds in the afterlife, a pastoral scene appears to have an obscure but clearly Western cultural source independent of NDE reports themselves. And in turn this image—like that of a garden or the pearly gates—appears to have influenced the content of some Western NDE reports. As Irwin notes, religious indoctrination is one possible source for the pastoral image: "the Bible frequently appeals to pastoral metaphors ... [and] Sunday School classes often include exposure to pictures of Christ standing in a grassy, sunlit field" (3-4). And the 'cosmic' image of the afterlife, which Irwin suggests is "rooted in diverse mystical and non-Christian traditions," appears to have been represented in a 'meaningless void' experience in which a 28-year-old woman reported encountering a small group of jeering circles 'clicking' back and forth from black to white, and vice versa, which she later discovered were Taoist yin-yang symbols—a symbol she likely was subconsciously aware of but had consciously forgotten about (Greyson and Bush 102).

One prototypical Western NDE element may be represented by two items in Irwin's questionnaire (#6 and #7), which combined indicate that a full 57% of respondents anticipated some sort of illuminating light in the afterlife (3). If we combine being "bathed in perpetual sunshine" with being "illuminated by a soft, diffuse light with no apparent source," respondents anticipated illuminating light more than any other particular item concerning the appearance of the afterlife, and this was the only feature anticipated by a majority of the respondents. Though 'illuminating light' may be too vague to be identified with it, an experience of light is a major Western NDE motif—perhaps the most prominent feature of NDEs in the popular imagination.

Though no other NDE elements are evident in Irwin's survey, OBEs appear to represent the most natural way to imagine what will happen to your soul immediately after the death of the body (as noted in Veridical Paranormal Perception During OBEs? above). Moreover, Heaven—which polls indicate is where the vast majority of people expect to end up after death (Gallup 5)—is explicitly conceived of as a place of bliss and peace. Tunnels might be the most natural representation of transition for Westerners, as Kellehear has argued. And, as is evident in one of the creation accounts in Genesis, light is often associated with what is good in Judeo-Christian tradition, and God is conceived of as perfectly good. It is not much of a leap to associate God with light, and to think that God would be found on the other side of a transition between life and death. Individuals universally expect to meet others in the afterlife, and most contemporary religious traditions posit some sort of postmortem accounting or judgment of one's actions during earthly life. Consequently, it is possible that NDErs are interpreting their experiences of specific physiological events in terms of their cultural expectations.

So there's a well-thought-out, skeptical appraisal of the relative consistency of Western NDEs.

Comments?

Fan mail!

Longtime readers of this blog may find some humor in an email message I received today. Here it is in its entirety, with one expletive deleted:

how dare you criticize zammit
you f----ing crack pot.

Pithy, no? I think it's haiku.

:-)

(The reference is to a feud I had some time ago - now thankfully ended - with Victor Zammit. Interested readers can Google "Zammit" in the search box on the left side of this page.)

Guest blog: Stacy Horn

I don't often do this, but today I'm turning over my blog to Stacy Horn, author of the newly released book Unbelievable:  Investigations into Ghosts, Poltergeists, Telepathy and Other Unseen Phenomena from the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory. 

Stacy maintains her own blog. Check it out.

And now ... heeeeeere's Stacy!

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A New Experiment for Telepathy?

I spent a few years researching the work of Duke Parapsychology Laboratory, the most famous of which were the ESP cards experiments.  The scientists at the lab developed a deck of cards with pictures of a circle, square, cross, wavy lines, and a star.  Then they conducted experiments to see if people could tell them what symbols were on the cards without seeing them.  The scientists found that they could.  I investigated all the various claims that have been made to dismiss their experiments and found that the claims were not valid.  I summed up my findings with this:

 “In the end, parapsychology’s critics couldn’t come up with convincing evidence to reject the Lab’s work and neither could I.  But I did take away two ideas: There might be an unidentified source of information out there, along with unknown methods of transmission and processing.  Also, we have a lot more to learn about consciousness.”

I’m open to telepathy as an explanation for the results of the Lab’s experiments, but I’m also open to other explanations.  I now keep my eye out for any recent scientific  findings which might also account for the lab’s results.  If nothing else, my research into parapsychology has greatly amplified my interest in science.

I’d read a brief mention about the recent Alex Tsakiris/Skeptiko interview with Dr. Michael Persinger, a neuroscience researcher and professor at Canada’s Laurentian University. Persinger is probably best know for what the media dubbed the “god helmet.”  He developed a helmet that generates very weak magnetic fields that are similar in intensity to those that he measured in areas said to be haunted.  When people put the helmet on in experiments they see things.  Subjects said things like, “I see shadows along my left side ... there is someone touching my left side ... I see a visual ... it’s an apparition.”  One woman who felt a presence said, “I started to cry when I felt it slowly fade away.” 

There are two quotes from the Skeptiko interview which give a good sense of where Persinger is coming from:

“Our research starts on the basic premise that all experience is generated by brain activity. Now, the critical thing is that all experience means your experience of love, or memories, or having a mystical experience, must be associated with specific patterns of brain activity. That brain activity in large part is determined by the brain structure.”

“The ultimate measure is going to be 1) can you reproduce it in the laboratory and 2) can you actually product the same phenomena by experimental techniques?”

I read the Skeptiko interview with interest because in it Persinger claims to have conducted an experiment which provides evidence of telepathy.  From the interview:

“What we have found is that if you place two different people at a distance and put a circular magnetic field around both, and you make sure they are connected to the same computer so they get the same stimulation, then if you flash a light in one person’s eye the person in the other room receiving just the magnetic field will show changes in their brain as if they saw the flash of light. We think that’s tremendous because it may be the first macro demonstration of a quantum connection, or so-called quantum entanglement. If true, then there’s another way of potential communication that may have physical applications, for example, in space travel.”

I looked around and wasn’t surprised to see people immediately denouncing his experiment.  Here’s the thing—until he publishes and someone attempts to replicate this experiment, there is nothing really yet to either accept or condemn. And I’m pretty sure Persinger would agree. Get ready to pounce if you must, but  any declarations at this point are premature.

I should amend that to “carefully replicates” this experiment. Persinger’s helmet experiment has been dismissed too, because someone tried to replicate it and couldn’t. But Persinger pointed out how the researcher hadn’t actually replicated the experiment and listed which parameters weren’t followed. I was surprised the results of the claimed replication were published at all. It was like someone saying, “Hey, I lowered the temperature of the water to 42 degrees and nothing happened. I don’t believe in ice!”

Because of my research into the Duke Parapsychology Lab, I’m now accustomed to this rush to condemn.  But it makes me wonder what else is out there that’s been dismissed or not even examined or explored due to not just a healthy skepticism, but this outright hostility.  I was at a lecture a few months ago and I learned that outside of psychology the science of emotion was not even a valid area of study until recently, but apparent now it’s all the rage.  (Which is great.)  I’ve written many times that had the scientists of Dr. Louisa Rhine’s day paid attention to her papers the recent “discoveries” being made in the area of audio hallucinations—that people hear voices more than we knew, and that it isn’t necessarily a sign of mental illness—would have begun fifty years ago and we would be that much further along in understanding what is happening and why.  (Louisa Rhine was the wife of the director of the Parapsychology Lab and a researcher herself.)

Persinger addresses this same point in the Skeptiko interview:

“Now to address the issue of things at a distance, that of course, is totally acceptable and expected. Right now you and I are being inundated by cosmic rays, by signals from cell phones, from just literally billions of events but we’re only aware of a couple of them or a few of them per unit time that we call stimuli. So what would happen if you changed the organization of the brain and you became aware of events that were taking place at a distance? It could be anything from, for example, picking up radio signals or something equivalent. If you change the structure of the brain, and that’s what happens in altered states, then of course, you can pick up information at a distance.

“The classic example would be when you’re dreaming. All right, the environment, stimuli that you’re not even aware of at quite a distance, for example, a sound from a bell or the temperature of the room can be incorporated into your dream content. So what makes the near-death experience so exciting is that - and indeed, altered states in general - is it opens up a more objective way of trying to understand what has been rejected, sadly, so many years, called parapsychological phenomena, which is simply information obtained from a distance or time through mechanisms not known to date. And if you keep the definition that way it becomes much less mystical.”

I wanted to end with two more quotes from the Skeptiko interview.

“ ... we’re trying to understand the nature of consciousness itself. And of course, consciousness is probably more like an over-inclusive term. It’s probably not consciousness but a variety of complicated processes and we just slam this word on it that are involved with individuals have these unique skills, like the Shawn Haribands and the Ingo Swanns who seem to have access to information that others do not have. So we’re trying to understand the neurophysical basis to it and to try to integrate it in terms of the known energies around us so that someday we can also replicate it. That really is the real test of a hypothesis or an idea. Can you replicate it with an experiment?”

“... the brain, of course,  is a source of all experiences ... it can serve as a substrate for electromagnetic patterns ... And those electromagnetic patterns are the behaviors and the experiences, which means technically they could exist somewhere else.  That means that if indeed there is an electromagnetic pattern, a complex one though it may be, associated with consciousness, if you recreated a substructure in another kind of setting, for example, a computer or in rocks or in trees, could you have some simulation of that? That, of course, is a hypothesis that definitely deserves testing.”

I said that there might be an unidentified source of information out there, along with unknown methods of transmission and processing.  Persinger seems to be saying we may be able access information from a distance via some mechanism of the brain.  If this is true, I like it because while it may not be the explanation Rhine went with for their results, it allows that their results could have been real, valid, and not the product of fraud or sloppy experimental controls.

Or, it could be that Persinger’s experiments shed light on a different effect entirely.  There might also be valid objections to Persinger’s explanation for his results as well, but the evidence, whatever the final explanation, is intriguing and worth investigating.

I emailed Dr. Persinger and asked if he was going to publish the results of the experiment he talked about in the Skeptiko interview and he answered, “Our revisions are being reviewed by Neuroscience Letters.”

The desert and the sea

We often think of the afterlife as consisting of every possible environment. Yet in fact the range of habitats seems to be somewhat limited. If we can judge by reports -- both from near-death experiencers and mediums -- the most common environment, overwhelmingly, is a garden. Meadows and fields are also frequently reported. Houses are usually described as occupying large plots, rather than being built close together. Cities do make an appearance, but they are encountered far less often than rustic environments.

Completely absent, as far as I can tell, is the desert. I know of no NDEs or channeled information suggesting that discarnate souls live in desert conditions -- despite the fact that, on earth, there are many people who love the desert and wouldn't live anywhere else.

Perhaps a more surprising omission is the ocean. Certainly for living people, the ocean exerts an undeniable fascination. Herman Melville took note of this in the famous opening pages of Moby-Dick.

If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.

There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs -- commerce surrounds it with her surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its extreme down-town is the battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of land. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there.

Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall northward. What do you see? -- Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads; some looking over the bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But these are all landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster -- tied to counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then is this? Are the green fields gone? What do they here?

But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the water as they possibly can without falling in. And there they stand -- miles of them -- leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets and avenues, -- north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite. Tell me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses of all those ships attract them thither?

Many relaxation exercises ask you to imagine yourself lying on a beach and listening to the gentle rhythm of the surf. It's clear that in many people's minds the seashore is closely associated with bliss. Personally, if I were asked to describe an ideal paradise environment, I would think of an unspoiled stretch of tropical shoreline, the kind of spot that might be found in Hawaii or Tahiti.

Yet I know of no NDEs that take place on the beach or near an ocean. The same is true of channeled communications. In fact, in Helen Greaves' channeled book Testimony of Light, the communicator explicitly says at one point that while she has found a variety of delightful locales in the afterlife, she has not seen the sea. At that point her guide allows her to visit the ocean on earth -- which seems to suggest that this particular environment cannot be found in the afterlife. Lakes and streams are not infrequently reported, but as far as I know, the ocean never is.

If the various accounts of the afterlife were purely the product of fantasy, one might reasonably expect some of those fantasies to include the desert or the ocean. As far as I can tell, none of them do. Perhaps this argues that there is an underlying reality to these reports.

This still leaves the question of why the desert and the sea have been omitted from the geography of the next world. The only tentative answer I can suggest is that both environments involve wide open spaces, and perhaps in a world consisting of consensual thought forms, it is simply not possible to have a great deal of open, essentially undeveloped space. Perhaps the natural tendency is for people's imaginative projections to fill up that space with life and activity, so that a vast expanse of sparsely vegetated land or a huge stretch of open water cannot be established, or at least cannot be maintained for long.

Whatever the reason, it's surprising to think that there could be any limitations on environments constructed out of the raw material of thought.

To OBE or not to OBE?

Currently I'm reading Adventures Beyond the Body, by William Buhlman, an interesting look at the author's many out-of-body experiences. With a book like this, you are asked to take the author at his word; he says he has had hundreds of OBEs and has taught other people how to do it. I have no reason to doubt him, but as far as I know, he has not been tested by parapsychologists, so there is no independent confirmation. He maintains a Web site and offers seminars on OBEs.

Reading his book, I was reminded of two experiences of my own that had possible features of an OBE.

Some years ago I tried using a relaxation tape made with Hemi-Sync technology. The tape was very effective; I was aware of being more relaxed than I could ever remember. Suddenly I began to notice this strange vibrating, buzzing feeling throughout my body. Perhaps it was the prelude to an OBE. Many people, including Buhlman, report that an OBE often starts with a humming, buzzing, or vibrating sensation. They also say that if you are alarmed by the sensation, the OBE will stop. In my case, I was sufficiently unnerved by the feeling that I slipped out of my state of relaxation. Nothing further happened, so if an OBE was about to commence, I must have aborted it.

I've listened to the same tape several times since then, but I've never become relaxed to the same degree. Subconsciously, I may be wary of doing so.

On another occasion, also several years ago, I had what might have been an OBE, though it may also have been simply a vivid dream. I had fallen asleep on the sofa in my living room. In the dream (if it was a dream), I floated out of my body, then floated over to the stairs and proceeded to float up the stairway to the second story of my home where, for some reason, I detoured into the walk-in closet in my den. I don't recall if I opened the closet door or simply passed through it.

I remember three things very clearly about this dream: first, my progress up the stairs was very exciting, because I could feel that I wasn't actually touching the steps but was sort of "treading water" in the air; second, there was a continuous electric tingle that I felt all over my body throughout the time when I was floating around; and third, a strange yellowish-golden light seemed to travel with me wherever I went, illuminating my immediate environment. (I also remember being in contact with a spiritual presence who gave me some meaningful personal information, and that the electric tingling sensation increased noticeably during this communication, creating a kind of euphoria or mystical, transcendent feeling, the equivalent of thinking "it suddenly all makes sense.")

Usually I forget my dreams almost immediately, but I've never forgotten this one. Was it a dream, or was it an OBE? I don't know. But from what I've read, an actual OBE can have some of these features.

Of course, the mere fact that I cannot be sure if it was a dream or an OBE points up the difficulty inherent in this subject. Could all OBEs be nothing more than dreams? Conversely, could some so-called dreams actually be OBEs?

Many of the experiences described by Buhlman (and by fellow OBEr Robert Monroe) sound a lot like lucid dreams. Indeed, at one point in his book, Buhlman speculates that lucid dreams might be OBEs. He notes, "Physicist and author Fred Alan Wolfe postulates that lucid dreams are actually visits to parallel universes. He has repeatedly stated that lucid dreams might better be called 'parallel universe adventures.'" (p. 114) But one might just as easily argue that OBEs, or at least some of them, are lucid dreams misinterpreted as metaphysical explorations.  

Perhaps this is an area where the boundary between subjective experience and objective reality blurs or even breaks down altogether. If so, it would hardly be the only realm of psi phenomena to challenge our basic conceptions of how reality works.

Graham Holderness clarifies his position

Some time ago, I put up a post about Professor Graham Holderness, a Shakespearean scholar who, at a seminar, made a comment that seemed to imply that the Earl of Oxford's biography is reflected in Shakespeare's plays.

Oxfordians like myself made much of this. But today I received an email from Prof. Holderness, which I gather he is circulating to all interested parties, and which he gave me permission to make public. In his statement, he disavows any belief that Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, wrote the works attributed to Shakespeare.

The statement is long, but in fairness I think I should quote all of it. (Ellipses are in the original.)

=======

The Road to Oxford

Graham Holderness

Nearly twenty years ago I launched, together with my colleague Bryan Loughrey, a series of Shakespeare Quarto texts under the title Shakespearean Originals. The texts were presented in an unusual way, and claims were made for them that seemed, at the time, quite radical. But they were essentially just the same old Quartos that everyone had known about since the 16th century ...

A couple of journalists got the idea that these texts were hitherto unknown and newly discovered: mouldy books dug up from Shakespeare’s grave perhaps, or crumbling texts located by some Professor Robert Langdon in the Vatican archives. The consequent publicity was both extensive and embarrassing. I remember feeling, as I sat down in front of my Amstrad, ready to put the record straight, a distinct sense of impending deflation. After all, here beckoned celebrity, here was the clarion-call of fame, here was Indiana Jones’s ‘fortune and glory’, just within my grasp. Did it matter that it was all based on inaccurate and unsustainable claims that we’d never even made? You just can’t buy publicity like that ...

So I proceeded to set out the banal truth, that there is nothing new under the sun. I’m not aware that it did me any good, though I certainly learned that all is vanity and vexation of spirit. So what to do when another opportunity for fame, another shot at fortune and glory, presents itself? I was informed by various internet sources that during the ‘Rowe to Shapiro’ conference at Shakespeare’s Globe, a light flashed around me, and I fell to the ground, and blurted out that the true author of Shakespeare’s plays was: Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford.

Headlines can’t lie: ‘Holderness: Shakespeare’s biography is that of the earl of Oxford’, blogs Roger Stritmatter. And here is Julia Cleave of the Shakespearean Authorship Trust:

From an Oxfordian point of view, most startling of all was the declaration made by Professor Graham Holderness, University of Herefordshire (sic).  In the middle of a discussion re the questionable facticity of tales of deer-poaching, calf-killing and horse-holding, he stated baldly - without further comment:

If you were to construct a biography which ticked all the boxes - if you were to read Shakespeare’s plays and infer a biography from it - it wouldn’t be Rowe’s, it would actually be the Earl of Oxford’s.

Clearly the earth moved for somebody. The comments flow thick and fast: ‘The very foundation of Stratfordian biography is on the verge of breaking apart’. The centre cannot hold. ‘The quote from Holderness is a swinging gate through which Oxfordians ought to immediately drive their full coach and horses’. 

One of the great things about conversion narratives is that your pre-conversion life gets revised until it precisely parallels your new one. St Paul was never so zealous a persecutor of Christians as he appeared, retrospectively, to be, after he had became one himself. In the same way, it wasn’t until I blindly stumbled upon the road to Oxford that I became quite so definitively ‘a major Shakespearean scholar’ of ‘considerable reputation and standing’: indeed ‘one of the foremost "orthodox" Shakespeare scholars in the world’.

Now before I was suspected of falling out of the Oxfordian closet, no-one ever called me ‘major’ or ‘foremost’, and certainly not ‘orthodox’. I sort of like it in a way. Could I have this all the time, I think to myself, if I just keep dropping suggestive pericopes into the conversation? Could I really retain this reputation as ‘one of the foremost orthodox Shakespeare scholars in the world’, if I just occasionally blurted out mysterious soundbites on the Shakespeare Authorship Question: ‘I’m an Oxford man, you know’; or ‘I’m only here for de Vere’.

Tempting as it is, I’m going to have to pass. My eyesight is a lot better now, and though in my temporary visual impairment things might have appeared brighter, much more shiny and new, the hard grey light of another common day gives light enough to read the truth by:

‘My name is Graham Holderness, and my position on the Shakespeare Authorship Question is that I am interested in reasonable doubt, but not in alternative certainty’.

I don’t think Edward de Vere wrote Shakespeare’s plays and poems. I wouldn’t especially care if he did, or if the real author was proven to be a wandering Kentish tinker, or Queen Elizabeth I, or the Pope. I don’t have any strong personal investment in ‘the Stratfordian hypothesis’, but it does seem to me a reasonable one. Of course there are lacunae, and doubts and questions about ‘the man from Stratford’ (who is not in these circles permitted even to enjoy his own name). But they are nothing compared with the lacunae and doubts and questions that would apply to any other candidature. There may well be ‘reasonable doubt’ about Shakespeare. But how much reasonable doubt would one have to countenance to explain that someone else wrote those works? How much historical evidence would we have to dispel, how many conspiracy theories would we have to swallow? 

Nicholas Rowe’s 1709 biography of Shakespeare, whose tercentenary was celebrated at the Globe conference, depicts Shakespeare as a young man from a peasant farming and agricultural trading background; who received little formal education; worked in his father’s business; got into trouble with a local landowner by poaching deer from his estate; fled from Stratford, and turned up outside a theatre in London seeking work as a ‘serviture’. Rowe’s biography has been widely regarded as inaccurate and fanciful, but recent scholarship has offered to revise this view, demonstrating that Rowe’s narrative is historically sourced,  independently corroborated and not in itself improbable. 

Of course this raises issues for Stratfordians, since it depicts a life of some deprivation that seems unlikely to have flourished into that of the world’s greatest dramatist. Biographers of Shakespeare have looked for better explanations, scenarios that put the author of the plays into an environment of literacy and learning, and provide him with access to the cultural and entertainment industries, to the worlds of aristocratic patronage and court favour.

Anti-Stratfordians would rather believe Rowe, since it is their contention that the subject of his biography could not possibly have been the man who wrote the works: quod erat demonstrandum. The more authentic and credible Rowe becomes, the less likely it is that this Stratford man is the true author.

I think, with René Weis and the late Eric Sams, that Rowe should be trusted. His historical sources were sound and verifiable; his claims are corroborated by other early traditions; and most importantly, there is nothing in his account that should seem in any way improbable as a life of the author of the plays of William Shakespeare. A young man from a trading family in a provincial town, who acquired there a rich and varied education in both life and learning, who worked in his father’s business, ran wild and got into trouble, left home and entered the theatre as a menial, became an actor and then a writer. None of that seems incredible to me. To assert, as Oxfordians invariably assert, that only an aristocrat could have mastered such learning, acquired such favour and displayed such genius is surely to underestimate the lower orders, and to overestimate the upper class. Let’s list on our fingers all the great writers produced by the British hereditary aristocracy ... all right, then, just use one hand ...

Now it is true that the facts of the Shakespeare life as depicted in Rowe do not necessarily quite match up with the works. It would be very odd if they did, since the works are dramatic poems in which every word is spoken by a character on stage, and no space at all is provided for confessional material (would the same were true of modern literature). Even the Sonnets are not as clearly autobiographical as they have often been received. But for me the problem lies deeper than this. In this blogging, twittering world we have lost all sense of any relationship between the self and writing that does not invest heavily in autobiographical narcissism and the refraction of personal experience. We have no equipment for tracing the complex and subtle connectivities between the self and more impersonal forms of writing. Shakespeare might have become an actor, as in Jorge Luis Borges’ great story ‘Everyone and No-one’, because he had no sense of identity at all; and he may have written so many lives, because he never felt that he had lived even one.

And so if you tried to infer a life from Shakespeare’s works you might not, it is true, arrive at the man from Stratford. But that is not because he did not write them: but because the relationship between the life and the works is far more complex and devious than you imagine, and may consist in discrepancy and discontinuity rather than in coherence. You might think that some other life-story would fit the works better: the Earl of Oxford, or Christopher Marlowe, or the Holy Roman Emperor.  But you would be whistling in the dark, because these works will never give up the identity of their author in anything like so definitive a way.

Insofar as Shakespeare Authorship inquiry is interested in pursuing these profound questions about life and writing, the self and identity, personal expression and impersonal artistry (and I know that some authorship doubters are interested in such matters), then there is common ground for debate. Insofar as such inquiries are obsessively concerned to lobby for alternative candidates, and to discredit ‘the man from Stratford’, there really won’t be all that much to talk about.   

None so blind ...

A couple of people emailed me links to Gerald Woerlee's review of Jeffrey Long's new book about near-death experiences, Evidence of the Afterlife. I haven't read Long's book, but the review itself makes interesting reading. It shows clearly how the prison of a particular paradigm can box in a person's thoughts, rendering even the most intelligent critic rather silly.

A prime example is found in Woerlee's analysis of veridical perceptions of NDErs. After noting that NDErs who report out-of-body experiences sometimes give accurate accounts of what people around them were doing, wearing, saying, etc., he writes:

Observers see with physical light waves, and hear with physical sound waves. But the supposedly disembodied consciousness of a person undergoing an out of body experience is immaterial, and this has major provable consequences.

The immaterial disembodied consciousness of a person undergoing an out of body experience does not interact with physical matter at all, because it can depart from the body, actually passing through the solid matter of the body, and even pass through solid walls. Accordingly, the disembodied consciousness cannot possibly hear, because it would also have no interaction with sound waves in air...

The disembodied consciousness of a person undergoing an out of body experience is invisible and has no interaction with physical matter. These things mean it cannot be seen, and cannot be photographed or imaged at any wavelength of the electromagnetic spectrum. Accordingly, the disembodied consciousness of a person undergoing an out of body experience does not interact with light at all, which means it cannot possibly see anything...

So how can [the] consciousness of a person undergoing an out of body experience hear and see? The answer is evident. The very fact that people do report observing verifiable things during out of body experiences, means that the apparently disembodied consciousness of a person undergoing an out of body experience sees with physical light waves, and hears with physical sound waves. After all, if this were not the case, these same observations could not be confirmed by observers present near the person at the time of the out of body experience. But an immaterial consciousness cannot see and hear, which means that people undergoing out of body experiences hear with their ears, see with their eyes, and build images of all that occurs within their minds.

This somewhat repetitious passage seems designed to drill one point into our heads: that because NDErs and OBErs report visual and auditory experiences, they must be using their physical senses.

But this merely begs the question. The whole issue is whether some form of consciousness, which includes perception, can operate independent of the physical body (and the physical senses). Nothing Woerlee has written can establish that such perception does not take place, since, clearly, if it does take place, it will function according to some mechanism that is not yet understood.

Woerlee's materialistic outlook leads him to assume that the only possible form of perception is via the physical senses, which collect data from a physical world. But if so, how to explain the many well-documented cases of remote viewing, in which a clairvoyant is able to accurately describe a location many miles - even thousands of miles - away?

Presumably, Woerlee would reject all evidence for remote viewing out of hand, on the basis that (according to his materialistic presumptions) such a phenomenon is impossible. Again, however, this is begging the question.

Far be it from me to explain how remote viewing and NDEs work, but I can offer a suggestion: maybe the physical universe consists ultimately of information. If so, then possibly consciousness, when disembodied, can decode this information directly, translating it into the familiar terms of pictures and sounds. Something like this is implied by Robert Lanza's book Biocentrism and by Brian Whitworth's theory of the universe as a virtual reality environment (PDF).  (I discuss both Lanza and Whitworth here.)

One interesting quirk of remote viewing is that sometimes the target location is accurately described according to its appearance many years ago, or even its appearance at some point in the future (later confirmed), rather than its present appearance. This can happen even when the remote viewer is not consciously attempting to access a different time period. Some remote viewers have even specialized in retrocognition - seeing the past - in order to assist archaeologists in finding new places to dig. Stephan A. Schwartz's books detail his successful experiments in this area.

It would appear that what the remote viewer perceives is a data set connected with that location, but it can be a data set linked to just about any time period. The time period is just one more coordinate, along with the geographical coordinates of the site. If the universe is akin to a virtual reality simulation, then the remote viewer apparently is accessing the data files directly; consciousness itself renders the images out of these data.

I'm not saying that this hypothesis is correct, only that it is one way of looking at it. The simplistic view that the ultimate nature of reality must be physical, and therefore accessible only through the physical senses, is a metaphysical assumption, not a statement of "provable" fact.

In addition to begging the question, Woerlee also engages in rather crude equivocation on the meaning of the words "conscious" and "unconscious." He argues:

An out of body experience is indisputably a conscious experience. After all, an unconscious person has no experiences. An unconscious person hears nothing, sees nothing, and experiences nothing. So even though the physical body of a person undergoing an out of body experience is seemingly unconscious, they are nonetheless very conscious, and only appear unconscious... Accordingly, veridical perceptions of seeing things, people and events, as well as hearing sounds and speech during out of body experiences are due to the apparently unconscious person actually seeing and hearing these things.

Get that? A person who is in cardiac arrest, or in a coma, or clinically dead, is nevertheless conscious if he has an NDE. He must be - because he is having a conscious experience.  QED!

Clearly this argument depends on shifting the meaning of the term "consciousness." No one denies that NDErs are conscious in the sense that their consciousness is still operating. Indeed, this is the whole point of the massive NDE literature. The contention of survivalists, however, is that the NDEr's mind (or spirit) remains conscious even though his body is inert and unconscious. In other words, a distinction is drawn between being physically unconscious (or dead) and being mentally unconscious (or dead).

You might think that no one could make such a poor argument innocently, and that Woerlee is deliberately trying to confuse his readers. But I don't think so. I think he sincerely believes this is a knockdown, slam-dunk argument. From the point of view of strident materialism, there simply cannot be a distinction between mental and physical awareness.

The same attitude surfaces in Woerlee's rejection of other evidence for NDEs. He dismisses Kenneth Ring's investigation of visual experiences in blind NDErs by saying that even the ones who were blind from birth might not have been completely blind, or might have been able to distinguish light and dark. But how could the simple ability to sense light and dark lead to elaborate visual perceptions, including (in one case) the accurate description of the colors and pattern of a necktie? Woerlee says the tie must have been described to the patient, but the patient has no recollection of this, so Woerlee's explanation is pure conjecture. But for Woerlee it has to be true, because the contrary - that the blind patient actually perceived the tie in some nonphysical way - is literally unthinkable for him.

I don't want to leave the impression that Woerlee's review is entirely without interest. As an anesthesiologist, he has extensive experience in the operating room, and provides some interesting perspectives on cases where anesthetized patients report veridical perceptions. Here the million-dollar question is whether the presumably minimal, sketchy, and disorganized level of brain activity possible under anesthesia (or, for that matter, during cardiac arrest, even with heart massage) can adequately explain the vivid perceptions and complex narratives of NDEs. I've been told that Woerlee will be interviewed by Skeptiko in the near future. Hopefully he can expand on this issue in that forum.

Overall, however, it seems that Woerlee is so committed to his materialistic outlook that he honestly cannot imagine any other way of interpreting the evidence. Perhaps he would benefit from taking another look at visual perceptions of NDErs who were blind from birth ... and to keep in mind the old adage, "None so blind as those who will not see."

Abraham Lincoln, spiritualist?

A question that comes up fairly often in discussions of the history of spiritualism is the attitude of Abraham Lincoln toward the subject. It is known that Lincoln's wife, Mary, hosted séances at the White House, and that Lincoln attended some of them. But did he take the events seriously, or was he merely humoring his wife or having a bit of fun?

In her magisterial biography Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin downplays Lincoln's interest in the occult. As she tells it, he enjoyed the séances as performances, nothing more, and he was eager to uncover the trickery that lay behind the sometimes astonishing effects.

A very different perspective is offered by an 1891 publication titled Was Abraham Lincoln a Spiritualist?, which can be read in its entirety on Google Books.  The book, written by medium Nettie Colburn Maynard, recounts Nettie's experiences in mediumship, with an emphasis on her visits to the White House. I find the author's account quite convincing in its detail and generally levelheaded tone, but of course it may be asking too much to take the medium at her word.

Fortunately, the publisher - a certain Rufus C. Hartranft - anticipated the skepticism of his readers. In a prologue, he offers a number of testimonials to Nettie Colburn Maynard's abilities and honesty. What is more interesting is that he also includes statements from people who knew Abraham Lincoln and, in some cases, were present with him at White House séances.

He begins:

In February of this year, the writer had the good fortune to meet a gentleman who related that he knew from personal experience and contact, that Abraham Lincoln was a Spiritualist, and implicitly believed in the guidance and teachings of that science or religion, whichever it may be. He further stated that he attended a séance where the President with several other persons had sat upon a piano, and that the instrument had been bodily lifted from the floor by means of spirit power, while the President and his friends remained seated upon it ! He further stated that he knew from personal knowledge that the President had been instructed and guided by spirits in times of particular stress in affairs of state, and that at a period when the nation's future was uncertain, and while the States were in the midst of the throes of a great civil war. He also stated that he knew of his own personal knowledge and experience, that numerous Spiritualistic séances were held in the White House, and that they were frequented by many of the leading men of the time, who were then located in Washington.

This gentleman's statement, being of such peculiar significance, the writer did not believe it. This recitation, however, caused the writer to become greatly interested in the subject from a purely historical standpoint, and, therefore, he immediately started an investigation regarding the matter ...

The investigation led him to discover Mrs. Maynard and to gather encomiums on her behalf, but it also led to some of Lincoln's associates:

Mrs. Daniel E. Somes, of Washington, wife of the late Hon. Daniel E. Somes, Representative from Maine, in the Thirty-sixth Congress, informs the writer that she attended séances at the White House during the war when Miss Colburn (Maynard) was the medium there, and upon one occasion met Major-General Daniel Sickles, and that the circumstances recorded as to that séance are fully described in this volume. This statement she fully and completely indorses; and further adds that her husband was closely and intimately connected with President Lincoln, and had repeatedly informed her of interesting and remarkable incidents which occurred at the White House at séances as herein described and mentioned. She also states that she knows Miss Colburn did not give séances in the White House for money.

Col. Simon P. Kase, of Philadelphia, states that he was present at a séance with Mr. Lincoln, and that he, with several other gentlemen, the President included, sat upon the piano, while it was lifted bodily from the floor by spirit power, and that Mr. Lincoln was not only interested in this physical phenomenon, but was also intensely interested in the statements which the medium made to President Lincoln while in a trance condition.

Mrs. Elvira M. Depuy, of Washington, stated to the writer: "My husband was a visitor to séances where Mr. Lincoln was present, and he has told me of many interesting occurrences which happened thereat. In the winter of 1862-3 I attended a séance at Mrs. Laurie's, at Georgetown, where Mrs. Lincoln was present. She was accompanied by Mr. Newton, Commissioner of Agriculture. At this séance remarkable statements were made by Miss Colburn (Maynard) which surprised Mrs. Lincoln to such a degree that she asked that a séance might be given to Mr. Lincoln. I have always known from my husband and others that Mr. Lincoln attended circles and séances, and was greatly interested in Spiritualism."

Hartranft also includes a statement from Francis Bicknell Carpenter, the artist who painted the "First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation" that is still displayed in the Capitol, and who wrote a biography of Lincoln. According to Wikipedia, "Carpenter resided with President Lincoln at the White House and in 1866 published his one volume memoir Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln."

In his statement, Carpenter vigorously disputes the account of William H. Herndon, Lincoln's law partner, who had depicted Lincoln as lacking any interest in spirituality or religion. This may well have been true of Lincoln in his earlier years, when he was something of a "freethinker," but according to Carpenter, the president's attitude changed late in life. Wrote Carpenter:

"I know that Mr. Herndon knew Mr. Lincoln better than any other man, up to the time of his election in 1861; after his election Mr. Herndon knew but little of him, and absolutely nothing of his mental or spiritual condition before the sickness of his son Willie, nor after Willie's death, and I must say that Mr. Lincoln's mind underwent a vast change after that event. Just what Mr. Lincoln's religious views were, I do not know, but it is a fact that he was known to pray, and his condition was much more in accordance with the statement found in [Carpenter's biography] 'The Inner Life of Abraham Lincoln' than that stated by other biographers, and you may quote me, that Herndon's statements have neither weight nor value, after the connection between the two men ceased. I am not prepared to state that Mr. Lincoln was a Spiritualist. I do know that he had faith in spiritual comfort and believed that we were, in a measure, directed by spiritual teachers and guidance."

It should be noted that Carpenter became interested in spiritualism in his later years, so possibly his interpretation of Lincoln's outlook is colored by his own beliefs. Nevertheless it seems clear enough from the various testimonies that Lincoln did have a genuine interest in spiritualism and séances, even if he may have balanced his interest with some healthy skepticism about the details (especially regarding the physical phenomena, as Doris Kearns Goodwin points out).

Those who've read Lincoln's speeches and other writings are usually struck by the increasingly religious or spiritual tone of his later remarks. It is likely that the huge tragedy of the Civil War, combined with the intense grief arising from the death of his young son, opened Lincoln's mind to possibilities that he had dismissed in his earlier days. Séances with Nettie Colburn and others seem to have played a role in his spiritual development also. Indeed, if Mrs. Maynard's account can be trusted, her channeled advice may have helped Lincoln to withstand considerable pressure and publish the Emancipation Proclamation.

Here is how Nettie Colburn Maynard herself described the scene (with the first very long paragraph broken up for easier reading):

Mrs. Lincoln received us graciously, and introduced us to a gentleman and lady present whose names I have forgotten. Mr. Lincoln was not then present. While all were conversing pleasantly on general subjects, Mrs. Miller (Mr. Laurie's daughter) seated herself, under control, at the double grand piano at one side of the room, seemingly awaiting some one. Mrs. Lincoln was talking with us in a pleasant strain when suddenly Mrs. Miller's hands fell upon the keys with a force that betokened a master hand, and the strains of a grand march filled the room. As the measured notes rose and fell we became silent. The heavy end of the piano began rising and falling in perfect time to the music. All at once it ceased, and Mr. Lincoln stood upon the threshold of the room. (He afterwards informed us that the first notes of the music fell upon his ears as he reached the head of the grand staircase to descend, and that he kept step to the music until he reached the doorway).

Mr. and Mrs. Laurie and Mrs. Miller were duly presented. Then I was led forward and presented. He stood before me, tall and kindly, with a smile on his face. Dropping his hand upon my head, he said, in a humorous tone, "So this is our ' little Nettie' is it, that we have heard so much about ?" I could only smile and say, "Yes, sir," like any school-girl; when he kindly led me to an ottoman. Sitting down in a chair, the ottoman at his feet, he began asking me questions in a kindly way about my mediumship; and I think he must have thought me stupid, as my answers were little beyond a "Yes" and "No." His manner, however, was genial and kind, and it was then suggested we form in a circle. He said, "Well, how do you do it ?" looking at me.

Mr. Laurie came to the rescue, and said we had been accustomed to sit in a circle and to join hands; but he did not think it would be necessary in this instance. While he was yet speaking, I lost all consciousness of my surroundings and passed under control.

For more than an hour I was made to talk to him, and I learned from my friends afterward that it was upon matters that he seemed fully to understand, while they comprehended very little until that portion was reached that related to the forthcoming Emancipation Proclamation. He was charged with the utmost solemnity and force of manner not to abate the terms of its issue, and not to delay its enforcement as a law beyond the opening of the year; and he was assured that it was to be the crowning event of his administration and his life; and that while he was being counseled by strong parties to defer the enforcement of it, hoping to supplant it by other measures and to delay action, he must in no wise heed such counsel, but stand firm to his convictions and fearlessly perform the work and fulfil the mission for which he had been raised up by an overruling Providence.

Those present declared that they lost sight of the timid girl in the majesty of the utterance, the strength and force of the language, and the importance of that which was conveyed, and seemed to realize that some strong masculine spirit force was giving speech to almost divine commands.

I shall never forget the scene around me when I regained consciousness. I was standing in front of Mr. Lincoln, and he was sitting back in his chair, with his arms folded upon his breast, looking intently at me. I stepped back, naturally confused at the situation—not remembering at once where I was; and glancing around the group, where perfect silence reigned. It took me a moment to remember my whereabouts.

A gentleman present then said in a low tone, "Mr. President, did you notice anything peculiar in the method of address?" Mr. Lincoln raised himself, as if shaking off his spell. He glanced quickly at the full-length portrait of Daniel Webster, that hung above the piano, and replied, "Yes, and it is very singular, very!" with a marked emphasis.

Mr. Somes said: "Mr. President, would it be improper for me to inquire whether there has been any pressure brought to bear upon you to defer the enforcement of the Proclamation?" To which the President replied: "Under these circumstances that question is perfectly proper, as we are all friends [smiling upon the company]. It is taking all my nerve and strength to withstand such a pressure." At this point the gentlemen drew around him, and spoke together in low tones, Mr. Lincoln saying least of all. At last he turned to me, and laying his hand upon my head, uttered these words in a manner that I shall never forget: "My child, you possess a very singular gift; but that it is of God, I have no doubt. I thank you for coming here to-night. It is more important than perhaps any one present can understand. I must leave you all now; but I hope I shall see you again." He shook me kindly by the hand, bowed to the rest of the company, and was gone. We remained an hour longer, talking with Mrs. Lincoln and her friends, and then returned to Georgetown. Such was my first interview with Abraham Lincoln, and the memory of it is as clear and vivid as the evening on which it occurred.