Michael Prescott's Blog

Hmm. Just what do I believe?

In the comments section of my blog post about Stratfordian arguments, Bruce Siegel asked an interesting question: Which am I more certain of–that Oxford wrote the works of Shakespeare, or that there is life after death?

I ended up giving this question a lot more thought than I would have expected, and I've already changed my mind once about the answer. The interesting thing, to me, is not so much the issue of Oxford's authorship of the Shakespearean canon, but my degree of certainty–or uncertainty–about an afterlife.

I know people who are absolutely certain of life after death, either because they had a near-death experience or because they've witnessed phenomena that convince them beyond any doubt. I also know people who regard the whole idea of life after death as transparently ridiculous and not even worth discussing. When the brain dies, the mind goes out of existence, and that's that.

But how about my own view? It turns out, when I really think about it, that I'm sure of only one thing: whatever is going on, it's a lot more complicated then the materialist worldview would suggest.

I definitely do not believe that all the evidence for life after death can be explained away as hallucinations, delusions, mistaken observations, hoaxes, urban legends, and trickery. These explanations no doubt account for some of the purported evidence, but I'm convinced they cannot account for all of it. Something is happening–something real, something that millions of people have experienced, something that has actually shaped the course of human history by providing the impetus to art, architecture, science, literature, music, in fact culture in general. Without a belief in a spirit world, it's safe to say there would have been no cave paintings, no pyramids and ziggurats, no astrology and alchemy (which laid the basis for astronomy and chemistry), no psalms or epic poetry along the lines of Gilgamesh or the Iliad, and no ritual banging of drums or playing of flutes. As strange as it may seem in this predominantly materialistic era, a belief in spirits–in some kind of supernatural dimension that can interact with our own–is one of the great driving forces of history, and I don't buy the idea that it was all just a lot of hokum foisted on the gullible by a self-serving cadre of shamans and priests.

No, something sure as heck is going on … but what?

The simplest explanation, of course, is that the spirit survives physical death and continues to exist in another realm. And for the most part, I accept that explanation, at least intellectually. But when somebody I know passes on, I have to admit that I don't assume they still exist in an afterlife realm. It's more of an intellectual concept to me than a gut-level belief. On a gut level, I really don't know.

Similarly, I think that near-death experiences are not just hallucinations of a dying or traumatized brain; and yet, when  I heard about the AWARE  study, which will see if NDE patients report noticing hidden images in the hospital room during their out-of-body phase, my gut feeling was that no such sightings would be reported. And that is still my expectation. There may be design flaws in the experiment that make it unlikely that a hovering spirit would notice or remember these images, but even if that were not the case, I'm not sure I would expect a positive result.

But why not? If I really think the spirit does leave the body and has enhanced vision, why wouldn't it see the targets, at least in some cases? Or is it that I really don't believe?

No, I think it's something little more complicated than that. What I believe is that obtaining evidence of life after death is like trying to catch lightning in a bottle. The evidence seems to be inherently elusive, ambiguous, frustrating. And therefore any protocol that attempts to gather this evidence on demand--to collect dozens of authenticated cases of target sightings or what-have-you--will likely end in either negative or bewilderingly ambiguous results. 

And this is true of afterlife evidence in general. The same medium can produce high-quality evidence on one day and gibberish on the next. Or a medium can produce evidence in conditions that seem to preclude any possibility of cheating, and yet under less stringent conditions the same medium may very easily be caught cheating.

Some channeled material from allegedly higher spirits seems to convey profound philosophical and moral truths, but other material from the very same source can be just plain goofy.

Near-death experiences have common elements that stretch across the centuries and bridge very distinct cultures, and NDEs can have a profound impact not only on the NDErs themselves but even on those who merely read about the subject; and yet there are other elements of NDE's that seem ridiculous–for instance, in many NDE's reported in India, the person finds he was called to the afterlife because of a bureaucratic mixup involving a similarity of names with another individual. (Bureaucratic snafus in the afterlife?)

The same kind of problem pertains to out-of-body experiences, as explored (for instance) by Robert A. Monroe. Monroe was by all accounts was a dedicated and serious researcher, and he does appear to have had legitimate OBE abilities, yet some of his accounts of the bizarre realms that he visited seem more like vivid dreams or nightmares than like anything real.

There is a tricksterish quality to the evidence for life after death; it's almost as if the universe is teasing us, giving us just enough information to justify a belief in an afterlife if we are so inclined, but not enough evidence to cement that belief, at least for most people. The whole field of Forteana encompasses just this kind of bizarre, inexplicable evidence which doesn't fit neatly into our standard picture of reality and doesn't seem to fit into any particular alternative worldview either, unless perhaps it's the view that the world is inherently insane. And yet the overall regularity of the physical world seems to rule out that viewpoint also. 

So ... how much do I really believe in life after death?

I believe that something happens to us after we die. I believe that reality is multifaceted and multilayered and that we experience only a small part of it–the tip of the iceberg–during our physical incarnation. But exactly what it's all about, how it works, and what our deceased friends and relatives might be experiencing, or what sort of beings they might be at this point, or even whether they retain their individuality or their humanness–all of that is beyond me.

Oxford was Shakespeare, though. That much I'm sure of. Hey, at least it's something. 

Three silly arguments

Regular readers know I'm of the opinion that the works of Shakespeare were actually written by Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. This position is, to put it mildly, controversial, and among the academic community it has not found many takers. Some of the arguments put forth by Shakespearean scholars are quite complicated and interesting; these arguments involve such things as the dating of the plays, factual errors in the plays that suggest the author was not too well-educated or worldly wise, and the testimony of the First Folio linking the plays to William Shakespeare of Stratford.

I think there are effective counter-arguments to all these positions. For instance, in my opinion, the dating of the plays, if done properly, argues very strongly in favor of dates of composition that would be too early for the Stratford man;  the so-called errors of fact, particularly pertaining to geography, turn out not to be errors at all on closer inspection (see The Shakespeare Guide to Italy by the late Richard Paul Roe); and the the testimony of the First Folio is far more ambiguous and problematic than it might appear (see Shakespeare's Unorthodox Biography, by Diana Price). A very long–in fact, endless–argument can ensue in fleshing out any of these points.

But there are some other arguments made by the academics that aren't complex or interesting at all. They're just silly. Threw of the most common are examined below.

1. “The idea that Oxford wrote the plays of the works of Shakespeare originated with a fellow named J. Thomas Looney. His name was Looney; therefore his ideas are obviously loony.”

Actually, this position doesn't even rise to the level of an argument, not even a fallacious argument. It's just childish name-calling. Are we supposed to think that if the Oxfordian argument had originated with someone named J. Thomas Wise or J. Thomas Brilliant, the academics would regard the argument as wise or brilliant? It should be obvious that the man's name, even if it strikes us as funny, has absolutely nothing to do with the merits of his ideas.

For what it's worth, the name Looney is actually pronounced LOH-nee, and is a name of some distinction on the Isle of Man.

2. “Those who doubt that William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the plays and poems that bear his name are simply snobs.”

Here, at least, we do have an argument that rises to the level of a formal fallacy. The fallacy in question is the ad hominem–which means disputing the value of someone's ideas by pointing to some personal defect he allegedly possesses. In this case, the defect is snobbishness; we are supposed to believe that the anti-Stratfordian position is rooted in elitism and high-handedness. But even if this were true, it would not say anything about the facts and arguments made by anti-Stratfordians. It speaks only to their personal motives, which are irrelevant.

The clue that we're dealing with a fallacy here is that the position is buttressed with emotional language–that is to say, rhetoric. (The appeal to emotion by means of rhetoric is itself a logical fallacy.) The academics typically go on to say that those who are interested in the authorship question don't believe in egalitarianism or understand the genius of democracy. They don't realize that greatness can crop up anywhere, in any social class, in any conditions, at any time, in any place. They are out of step with modern, democratic society; they represent a backward-looking, retrogressive, rearguard action. Etc.

All of this, as you can see, is just a lot of handwaving meant to inspire an emotional response. It's a collection of populist platitudes, akin to a campaign speech. And it's all irrelevant. As far as I know, nobody who questions the authorship of Shakespeare's works has ever said that genius is confined to the upper classes. It's obvious that a very large number of artistic, musical, and literary geniuses have originated in the middle-class, at least in relatively modern times. (If you go back far enough in history, there's not much of a middle class to speak of.) No one doubts that as the middle class has become proportionately larger, and has grown progressively more affluent and educated, the number of creative geniuses produced by that class has risen.

The question, however, is whether the works of Shakespeare are the sort of literary products one would expect from a member of the middle class. This is a very different issue from the strawman position that a middle-class writer cannot possibly be a genius.

Suppose that the works of Tolstoy had been published anonymously, and we were left to figure out who authored them. We would certainly look first at the Russian aristocracy of the period, because it is obvious that the author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina was intimately familiar with the lives of aristocrats, viewed social issues from the standpoint of a (reform-minded) aristocrat, and chose aristocrats as the leading characters in his major works. Conversely, if the works of Charles Dickens had been published anonymously, no one would think to look for the author among the British aristocracy, as it would be obvious that the author was intimately familiar with the conditions of the poor, that he had almost certainly suffered severe hardship himself, that he was sympathetic to the struggling underclass and the upwardly mobile middle class, and that he was unsympathetic to the very wealthy and the privileged elites.

If we look at the works attributed to Shakespeare, we find (I think) both the point of view and the constellation of interests typical of an aristocrat of his day -- and not a very forward-looking aristocrat, at that. Even by the standards of his time, Shakespeare was feudalistic in his thinking, placing immense emphasis on the importance of “blood” or pedigree, and insisting that everybody should know his place or his station in life (see Ulysses' famous speech about “degree” in Troilus and Cressida).

Shakespeare knew a great deal about the sport of hawking or falconry, which was practiced exclusively by nobles, and the music and dance in his plays were the types found at court, not in public taverns. The main characters in nearly all of his works are members of the aristocracy or royalty. His sympathy lies with courtiers and princes. His view of the common man varies between condescending amusement and dread; commoners, when viewed singly or in small groups, are a source of humor, with their malapropisms and uncultured ways, but if they gather together into a large crowd, they can threaten to become a mob and destabilize the social order. Shakespeare shows no sympathy for social uprisings such as Jack Cade's rebellion, which he mercilessly satirizes in Henry VI, Part Two, reducing the historical Cade's justifiable grievances to such idiocies as a making it a felony to drink small beer.

We also find that Shakespeare appears to have traveled extensively throughout Europe, particularly in Italy, at a time when foreign travel was largely limited to wealthy aristocrats (and some traveling merchants, but there is no indication that the man from Stratford ever engaged in foreign trade or travel). Shakespeare seems to been fluent in several languages, including Latin, Greek, Italian,  French, and possibly Spanish, which would not be unusual for a leading nobleman of Queen Elizabeth's court but would be almost unheard of for a commoner, especially one with no university training. Shakespeare was clearly educated in the law, as aristocrats routinely were (they were expected to attend the Inns of Court so they could administer their states), while there is no indication the man from Stratford ever studied law. And so forth.

In other words, the belief that the Shakespearean works were written by a nobleman is not grounded in some obstinate snobbery but in a close and sensitive reading of the works themselves. Love's Labour's Lost alone should be enough to establish that the author was a courtier. The play, which is incomprehensible to modern readers without extensive annotations, consists of topical allusions and in-jokes about the goings-on in Queen Elizabeth's court circa the early 1580s. Not only is this date too early to plausibly ascribe the play to the Stratford man (born in 1564), but how could the son of a glove-maker who grew up in a provincial town three days' ride from London in an age without newspapers or other mass media possibly know any of these private jokes about the foreign ambassadors and their quirky personalities? It should be obvious that the play was written by a gifted courtier for the amusement of Queen Elizabeth and her entourage.

If snobbishness is the root of skepticism about the authorship of Shakespeare's works, it's hard to understand how such figures as Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, and Charles Chaplin have all entertained deep suspicions on this score. I don't think any of them is generally regarded as an anti-democratic elitist. Whitman, in particular, was distressed at the prospect that the great plays had been written by “one of the wolfish earls” of British history; as a vigorous champion of egalitarianism and democracy, he was dismayed to think that the world's greatest writer could have been his intellectual and social opposite, but his close study of the works led him to that strong suspicion.

3. Finally we have the oddest of these three silly arguments: “Those who suggest that the man from Stratford didn't write Shakespeare's works are simply jealous of Shakespeare and are trying to demean him, belittle him, and undermine his reputation.”

This again is a logical fallacy, though it may not be quite as obvious as the last one. The fallacy  is begging the question–that is, beginning  by assuming the point at issue. In this case, the open question is whether or not the author William Shakespeare is the man from Stratford. The academics who make this particular argument are saying, “We already know that the author William Shakespeare is the man from Stratford. Therefore any attempt to deprive the man from Stratford of credit for his works is an attack on the author.”

The conclusion does follow from the premise, but the problem is that the premise is question-begging. The anti-Stratfordian argument would go this way: “We believe that the author William Shakespeare is not the man from Stratford. Therefore our attempt to deprive the man from Stratford of credit for Shakespeare's works is an attempt to right a long-standing injustice by giving proper credit to the actual author.”

There's no doubt that many anti-Stratfordians do belittle and demean William Shakespeare of Stratford, and I would say this is one of the less attractive aspects of the movement. There's really no reason to put down the Stratford man, who appears to been a very successful moneylender, grain dealer, and theatrical impresario, and who was able to raise himself up to a position of some prominence in his hometown, eventually purchasing the second most expensive house in Stratford. He must have been a real go-getter, an aggressively upwardly mobile individual who pursued various avenues to wealth and eventually gained the title of a gentleman by purchasing a coat of arms for his family. I don't think he was the author of Hamlet, or any sort of author of all, but that's no reason to characterize him as a sneaking lowlife, as some anti-Stratfordians unfortunately do.

That said, from the anti-Stratfordian position, any discussion of the personality, character, or talents of the Stratford man is quite irrelevant to a discussion of the author William Shakespeare, because the author was someone entirely different.

Moreover, those who are skeptical of Shakespearean authorship often seem to hold the author William Shakespeare in higher regard than the academics do. The academics, because they have to fit Shakespeare's works into the timeline of the Stratford man's life, are led to believe that Shakespeare was an incorrigible plagiarist, borrowing turns of phrase, characters, and even whole plots and genres from authors who'd come before. The Oxfordians, by contrast, fit the works into the timeline of Oxford's life, which allows them to be dated much earlier and to be viewed as original–indeed, highly innovative–creations. The academics believe that Shakespeare was careless and sloppy when it came to details of foreign geography and customs, while the Oxfordians have gone to some lengths to show how accurate Shakespeare really was on such details. The academics say Shakespeare was writing only for money, grinding out potboilers as fast as he could with an eye to the box office returns, and trying to appeal to the unsophisticated tastes of the general public; Oxfordians, by contrast, believe the author wrote from the heart, dramatizing complex emotional and personal issues from his own life, and attempting to sway the Queen's position on a number of controversial topics, and that he was unconcerned with money or popularity.

Academics, of necessity, are inclined to say that Shakespeare, as a man, was a bit of a cipher, a nonentity, a Walter Mitty type who lived almost entirely within his own head and made so little impact on the people around him that no one recognized his genius or lamented his passing until years later. Oxfordians, on the other hand, see the author as a vibrant, larger-than-life figure who was closely involved in the major political and social upheavals of his day and lived a life of drama, color, action, and emotional intensity; moreover, they hold that his genius was certainly recognized by educated people of his day, but that few comments were made about it in print because he was writing politically sensitive material and was using a rather transparent pseudonym.

Now, which portrait of Shakespeare the artist is really more flattering to him? The conventional view sees him as a not-very-well educated hack writer who stole prolifically from inferior playwrights and poets, made up key details because he couldn't be bothered to get his facts straight, pandered to his audience for money, and made little or no impression on his colleagues or on educated readers and playgoers of his day. The Oxfordian view sees him as a highly educated and strikingly original writer who wrote from deeply felt personal experience, a world traveler who remembered and accurately reproduced even the smallest details of his wanderings, a political activist who tried to influence the great events of his day by speaking directly to his queen, and an influential genius who was heavily imitated by inferior writers but rarely acknowledged because of the cloak of secrecy that surrounded his persona.

I think the second view is the one that honors Shakespeare, while the first is the one that actually demeans and belittles him–that is, demeans and belittles the author of the Shakespearean canon by making him out to be much less than he was.

As I said at the beginning, there are other arguments made by Stratfordian academics that deserve to be taken seriously and considered in depth. By no means am I trying to suggest that all of their argumentation consists of fallacies, name-calling, or childish psychologizing.

These particular arguments, however, which show up over and over again in both popular and scholarly treatments of the controversy, really don't do credit to the academic community. They're not true arguments at all, but merely cheap debating tactics intended to cloud the issue and engender a knee-jerk emotional response. I hope to see less of them in the future. 

:-)

Recently I got an email from Ben, a commenter on this blog, asking if I ever worried that the Light experienced in NDEs is not what it appears to be. Ben made reference to loosh, a term I'd never encountered before, and suggested (maybe not quite seriously) that the Light might simply be a supernatural being's way of preparing us for harvest. That is, perhaps the feelings of peace and oneness that NDErs report are merely a prelude to being sucked dry by the vampire-like creatures that feed on loosh. 

As I said, I'd never heard of loosh, which sounded like something Dr. Seuess might have made up. A little Googling (which, by the way, also sounds like something from Dr. Seuss) revealed that loosh is a term coined by OBE pioneer Robert Monroe to describe energy radiated by all life forms. According to Monroe, there are nonphysical beings that feed on loosh. This leads to the disturbingly paranoid idea that the human race has been cultivated by these parasitical creatures more or less as dairy cows are bred by farmers, and that we are subjected to distressing and painful events in order to maximize loosh production! 

As is the case with many of Monroe's statements, I find this whole notion more in line with the imagery of dreams (or nightmares) than with anything likely to be "real." But of course there's no way to either prove or disprove the existence of loosh or its feeders. There's no way to prove that the Light is benevolent, since it might simply be fooling us. 

In the end, it really does come down to faith. After his wife Linda died, Paul McCartney said that the two of them had shared an abiding faith "in the deep okayness of the universe." Or at least I seem to recall him saying that, or some words to that effect; I've never been able to verify the quote. Anyway, whether or not Sir Paul said it, the words ring true to me. Ultimately we can't know all the answers, so either we embrace despair or we believe that ultimately all is well. 

Julian of Norwich, a 14th century Christian mystic, captured the latter viewpoint in words that have become famous: 

And the beholding of this, with all the pains that ever were or ever will be... was shown to me in an instant, and quickly turned into consolation. For our good Lord would not have the soul frightened by this ugly sight. But I did not see sin, for I believe that it has no kind of substance, no share in being, nor can it be recognized except by the pains which it causes.

And it seemed to me that this pain is something for a time, for it purges us and makes us know ourselves and ask for mercy; for the Passion of our Lord is comfort to us against all this, and that is his blessed will for all who will be saved. He comforts readily and sweetly with his words, and says: "But all will be well, and every kind of thing will be well."

Julian lived during a period of recurrent attacks of the Black Death, which killed millions. Many preachers of the time blamed the plague on sin, saying that God was punishing his wayward flock. Julian's more optimistic and comforting perspective was unique in its day. 

We may not have the Black Death to contend with nowadays, but there is never any shortage of worries -- not primarily because of external events, but because of an internal process. It's the ego that gets us all worked up, no matter how safe and comfortable we may be. The ego just loves to torment us with hellish and nightmarish scenarios. "What if the plane crashes? What if my 401(k) is wiped out? What if I get cancer? What if my spouse is cheating on me? What if the 'wrong' party wins the election? What if the icecaps melt? What if there's a new Ice Age? What if ...?"

And of course: "What if the Light is a demon in disguise? What if communicators who speak through mediums are devils impersonating our loved ones? What if everyrthing is a lie, and the universe is insane, and God is a monster?" 

But it's the ego -- at least when it gets out of control -- that is insane, dishonest, and a kind of demon or monster. The unchecked ego is a liar and a subverter, a tyrant and a fiend. It's not looking for the truth, and it's not looking out for our best interests. It can be useful -- even vital --  in certain situations, when properly trained and restrained, but it is not our friend. It is more like a vicious animal that can either protect us or tear us to pieces, depending on our relationship to it, a relationship that is never set in stone.

Or maybe this is giving the ego too much power, and it would be better to say it's like a small yapping dog that can either please us or drive us crazy. A well-trained lapdog can be a good companion and even a protector, but a poorly trained, hyperactive, noisy and frantic little dog will make you nuts!

If we gently nudge the ego aside for a while and relax into mindfulness, all our ego-based worries go away, and we can say with Julian, "All will be well, and every kind of thing will be well." 

Or to quote a modern philosopher: "Don't worry, be happy." 

Chris Carter's outstanding book Parapsychology and the Skeptics has been reissued with a new title by a new publisher. The new edition, Science and Psychic Phenomena: The Fall of the House of Skeptics, is substantially the same as the original book, but does contain some new material.

The book's website is here:

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It can also be ordered from Amazon.com and Amazon UK. The Amazon.com sales page is:

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The book is available in both paperback and Kindle editions.

When the original edition went out of print because the publisher ran into financial trouble, used copies were bid up to $100 or more. Here's your chance to get hold of this great book for a whole lot less!

Book review: Transcending the Titanic

Michael Tymn, quite possibly today's foremost writer on 19th century and early 20th century Spiritualism, has a new book out called Transcending the Titanic. It's a brief book, only about 90 pages of text, but it covers a lot of ground. 

The book begins by asking why the Titanic tragedy continues to hold our interest when other disasters like the great San Francisco earthquake have been largely forgotten. One answer may be that the ship was something of a microcosm of humanity, bringing together people from all walks of life and all social stations. Another is the variety of responses from the passengers, ranging from panic to disciplined action to calm resignation. Perhaps another is that the slow foundering of the vessel gave the passengers ample time to face the inevitability of their demise.

Next we are treated to an impressive recreation of the event. Unlike the 1997 movie, which presented relatively few heroic characters and concentrated on the chaos and desperate struggle to survive at any cost, Tymn shows us that many of the passengers behaved courageously, even nobly. Many men gallantly escorted their wives to the lifeboats but would not board even when permitted to do so, considering it wrong to leave the ship while any women or children were yet to be rescued. The fact that many of the boats were only half full is also explained in a reasonable, nonjudgmental way: at first, many passengers simply refused to embark on the lifeboats, either because they believed the ship would not really sink or because the boats themselves looked too dangerous. As a result, the crew was forced to drop some of the boats into the water with only a handful of people aboard. 

But the book's real focus is not the tragedy itself but the paranormal, spiritual, or transcendent elements of the story. In later chapters we read of possible premonitions of the sinking; some of these are poorly documented or can be explained by coincidence, while others are more intriguing. And we learn of evidence that a few of the deceased passengers were able to communicate via mediums with the living. Among these communicators, perhaps the most illustrious was William T. Stead, the real hero of Tymn's story.

Stead was a larger-than-life journalist and social activist who was converted to Spiritualism after studying the evidence, and who became a channeler (via automatic writing) himself. Stead, who never did anything halfway, endangered his reputation by championing the cause of Spiritualism and even publishing his channeled scripts under the title Letters from Julia (later retitled After Death: Letters from Julia, and still available in print and ebook form). During the last hours of the doomed voyage, Stead was reported as appearing utterly calm, unfazed by the prospect of death, which he regarded as merely a transition to a better world. 

Very soon after his death, Stead began communicating through mediums, even purportedly materializing in some seances and speaking via direct voice in others. At times Stead apparently brought through other victims of the shipwreck, notably the multimillionaire John Jacob Astor, who had conducted himself with dignity and courage during the crisis, but who (if the communication can be trusted) came to regret his earthly materialistic ambitions when immersed in a higher spiritual reality. "Why are not these things taught in the world?" he is said to have cried out through a medium. "Why did no one ever tell me these things?" 

Despite its brevity, Transcending the Titanic is a remarkably complete book that covers the whole story of the doomed liner and the paranormal activity surrounding its destruction. More than just a recital of facts and claims, it's a thoughtful meditation on life and death, and on the modern tendency to deny and avoid the whole subject of mortality unless it is placed in a safely fictional context. It's well worth a read.

Transcending the Titanic can be purchased on Amazon (US) in both paperback and Kindle editions.