Michael Prescott's Blog

Book excerpt, part four

The fourth and last excerpt from a chapter of my book, currently in progress.

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A natural question at this point would be: How do we know that the experiences of Mrs. Crans and Dr. Wiltse are not hallucinations? In fact, if it’s true that consciousness processes our perceptions according to mental categories, how can we be sure that any of our experiences are not hallucinations? How can we trust our perceptions at all?

A thoroughgoing skeptic would say we can’t, but not one actually tries to live by this dictum. In practice, we do accept our perceptions as accurate — or at least accurate enough — most of the time. Yet we’re aware that we can be fooled by optical illusions or by mental changes brought on by drugs, illness, or injury. Our practical method of determining what’s true is mainly based on consensus. If you’re the only one who sees an elephant galloping down the freeway, you may be imagining it. If other people see it too, you’re on safer ground. This is the value of what is known in parapsychology as veridical experiences — experiences that can be independently confirmed by the reports of others.

In the case of Mrs. Crans, we have two veridical components. One is her accurate description of Charley’s room, 1500 miles from where she rested, as confirmed by Charley himself. The other is her description of her late daughter’s appearance and actions, again seconded by Charley. Adding credibility to the account is that Charley reported the spiritual visitation even before receiving Mrs. Crans’s letter.

In the case of Dr. Wiltse, we have the statements of his doctor and other witnesses, which Wiltse took the trouble to collect after the fact, verifying his description of the people present in the room and their behavior. He even obtained sworn depositions from some of them. An additional factor is Wiltse’s medical condition; the attending physician reported that Wiltse was so deeply comatose, he showed no response to a needle thrust deeply into his flesh at various points throughout the lower part of his body. Even ordinary mental processes should not be possible in such a condition, let alone the detailed observations that Wiltse reported.

Finally, there’s the issue of commonality between his report and many others. If one explorer returns from an unknown continent and makes a report, we may be skeptical; if dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of other explorers unconnected with each other deliver similar reports, we are entitled to accept the basic truth of what they’re saying, even if there are some discrepancies and variations among their separate experiences.

If Wiltse were the only person ever to report leaving his body when critically ill, closely observing the deathbed scene, or finding himself in a spirit world, we might chalk up his account to mere fancy. But his is only one of countless reports, some of which are even better attested. Despite differences in the experiences that have been related, enough common elements have emerged to form a recognizable pattern. These elements include:

• Disconnecting both emotionally and literally from the body, often with the parallel development of a “soul body” that can hover in air and pass through solid objects, and which may be connected to the physical body by a cord.
• Observations of one’s environment, typically with greatly enhanced perception.
• A frustrating inability to communicate with the living.
• A feeling of health, relief, and “exuberance.”
• Transition to a different plane of reality, accomplished by rapid flight.
• An earthlike quality to this other reality (a road, flowers, trees).
• A barrier blocking further progress.
• A cloud or a bright light that somehow embodies a higher intelligence, which communicates telepathically with the experiencer.
• A choice to remain or return, based on whether or not one’s work on earth is complete.
• The sudden resumption of life in the physical body, often accompanied by surprise and disappointment.
• A compelling need to relate the experience.

All these elements are present in Wiltse’s account. Other common elements in NDEs, not seen in the Wiltse case, include:

• A transition through a tunnel or other passageway.
• A reunion with departed loved ones, who communicate telepathically.
• An encounter with a religious figure (or more than one), usually consistent with the experiencer’s personal belief system or background.
• A comprehensive review of one’s life, in which the experiencer feels the direct impact his actions had on other people, for better or worse.
• Sometimes, a temporary merging with the higher intelligence (which may or may not be identified as God), in which the meaning of life and the purpose of existence are grasped in a way that is instantly clear but, later, almost impossible to communicate.
• Lasting changes in one's personality, behavior, and philosophy. 

Some patterns seem to be cultural in nature. Western NDEs often involve a choice, as in the Wiltse case. NDEs in India typically exclude the idea of choice or a personal mission that must be completed on earth, and instead present the person’s brush with the afterlife as a kind of clerical mistake, a bureaucratic mishap. Often a different person of the same name was scheduled to die that day, and some angelic bumbler picked up the wrong person!

Do I think clerical mistakes of that sort really happen? No. Nor am I convinced that the experiencer has a genuine choice about whether or not to resume earthly life. (Dr. Wiltse’s choice proved illusory; his choice to remain was not respected, and he was required to go back anyway. This is not uncommon.) And I’m dubious of encounters with iconic religious figures like Jesus or the Virgin Mary, which constitute a minority of NDE reports.

In all these cases, I think a narrative is constructed that can make sense of the situation in terms the person can understand. The experiencer, temporarily caught between “frequencies,” having made only a partial transition from one level of consciousness to the next, lacks the ability to fully process and interpret what’s happening to him. Any familiar-seeming and superficially logical interpretation may be sufficient to get him safely through the experience and back on firmer ground. (Think of the invisible hands that Dr. Wiltse imagined carrying him through space. The “hands” helped make the experience intelligible to him.)

Moreover, I suspect that interpretive issues like this are extremely common when dealing with the liminal state — a state in which we’re tuned in to more than one frequency at a time. In that condition, we’re receiving new and unfamiliar input, but we have yet to develop the mental categories and concepts to process it. In such cases, we inevitably fall back on familiar narratives and familiar (even comforting) imagery to fill in the gaps. This point will become more important as we go along.

Book excerpt, part three

Part three of the excerpts from a chapter of my book (in progress). Originally I planned to break up the chapter into three parts, but the last part of the chapter proved rather long, so I'm going to extend this series of posts with a fourth excerpt. 

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Here’s a case of a different kind, also covered by F.W.H. Myers in the same book [Human Personality ...]. The case was reported by a medical doctor, A.S. Wiltse of Skiddy, Kansas, who in 1889 contracted typhoid fever and entered a coma. Though close to death, he ultimately recovered. When he awakened, he startled those who were attending him by insisting on relating an unusual experience “despite all injunctions to be quiet.”

Eight weeks after “the day [he] died,” Wiltse wrote a lengthy paper about it, which was published in the St. Louis Medical and Surgical Journal, November, 1889, and in the Mid-Continental Review, February, 1890. [The case is also covered in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, volume 8, page 180.]

At the end of his paper, Wiltse wrote, “There are plenty of witnesses to the truth of the above statements, in so far as my physical condition was concerned. Also to the fact that just as I described the conditions about my body and in the room, so they actually were. I must, therefore, have seen things by some means.” Later, he obtained sworn depositions from some witnesses.

So what is it exactly that happened to Dr. Wiltse? Let him tell us:

I passed about four hours in all without pulse or perceptible heartbeat, as I am informed by Dr. S.H. Raynes, who was the only physician present. During a portion of this time several of the bystanders thought I was dead, and such a report being carried outside, the village church bell was tolled. Dr. Raynes informs me, however, that by bringing his eyes close to my face, he could perceive an occasional short gasp, so very light as to be barely perceptible, and that he was upon the point, several times of saying, “He is dead,” when a gasp would occur in time to check him …

I lost, I believe, all power of thought or knowledge of existence in absolute unconsciousness. I came again into a state of conscious existence and discovered that I was still in the body, but the body and I had no longer any interest in common. I looked in astonishment and joy for the first time upon myself – the me, the real Ego, while the not-me closed it up on all sides like a sepulcher of clay.

With all the interest of a physician, I beheld the wonders of my bodily anatomy, intimately interwoven with which, even tissue for tissue, was I, the living soul of that dead body … I watched the interesting process of the separation of soul and body. By some power, apparently not my own, the Ego was rocked to and fro, laterally, as a cradle is rocked, by which process its connection with the tissues of the body was broken up. After a little time the lateral motion ceased, and along the soles of the feet beginning at the toes, passing rapidly to the heels, I felt and heard, as it seemed, the snapping of innumerable small cords. When this was accomplished, I began slowly to retreat from the feet, toward the head, as a rubber cord shortens …

As I emerged from the head, I floated up and down and laterally like a soap bubble attached to the bowl of a pipe until I at last broke loose from the body and fell lightly to the floor, where I slowly arose and expanded into the full stature of a man. I seemed to be translucent, of a bluish cast and perfectly naked. With a painful sense of embarrassment, I fled toward the partially opened door to escape the eyes of the two ladies whom I was facing, as well as others who I knew were about me, but upon reaching the door I found myself clothed, and satisfied upon that point, I turned and faced the company. As I turned, my left elbow came in contact with the arm of one of two gentlemen, who were standing at the door. To my surprise, his arm passed through mine without apparent resistance, the severed parts closing again without pain, as air re-unites. I looked quickly up at his face to see if he had noticed the contact, but he gave no sign, only stood and gazed toward the couch I just left. I directed my gaze in the direction of his, and saw my own dead body. It was lying just as I had taken so much pains to place it, partially upon the right side, the feet close together and the hands clasped across the breast. I was surprised at the paleness of the face. I had not looked in a glass for some days and had imagined that I was not as pale as most very sick people are …

I now attempted to gain the attention of the people [in the room] with the object of comforting them as well as assuring them of their own immortality. I bowed to them playfully and saluted with my right hand. I passed about among them also, but found that they gave me no heed. Then the situation struck be as humorous and I laughed outright.

They certainly must have heard that, I thought, but it seemed otherwise, for not one lifted their eyes from my body. It did not once occur to me to speak and I concluded the matter by saying to myself: “They see only with the eyes of the body. They cannot see spirits. They are watching what they think is I, but they are mistaken. That is not I. This is I and I am as much alive as ever.”

I turned and passed out at the open door, inclining my head and watching where I set my feet as I stepped down on to the porch.

I crossed the porch, descended the steps, walked down the path and into the street. Then I stopped and looked about me. I never saw that street more distinctly than I saw it then. I took note of the redness of the soil and of the washes the rain had made. I took a rather pathetic look about me, like one who is about to leave his home for a long time. Then I discovered that I had become larger than I was in earth life and congratulated myself thereupon. I was somewhat smaller in the body than I just liked to be, but in the next life, I thought, I am to be as I desired …

“How well I feel,” I thought. “Only a few minutes ago I was horribly sick and distressed. Then came that change, called death, which I have so much dreaded. It is past now, and here I am still a man, alive and thinking, yes, thinking as clearly as ever, and how well I feel; I shall never be sick again. I have no more to die.”… I discovered then a small cord, like a spider’s web, running from my shoulders back to my body and attaching to it at the base of the neck in front …

[After losing consciousness for a second time] I again awoke [and] found myself in the air, where I was upheld by a pair of hands, which I could feel pressing lightly against my sides. The owner of the hands, if they had one, was behind me, and shoving me through the air at a swift but a pleasant rate of speed. By the time I fairly realized the situation I was pitched away and floated easily down a few feet, alighting gently upon the beginning of a narrow, but well-built roadway, inclined upward at an angle of something less than 45 degrees …

[After a walk up the road] I saw at some distance ahead of me three prodigious rocks blocking the road, at which sight I stopped, wondering why so fair a road should be thus blockaded, and while I considered what I was to do, a great and dark cloud, which I compared to a cubic acre in size, stood over my head. Quickly it became filled with living, moving bolts of fire, which darted hither and thither through the cloud. They were not extinguished by contact with the cloud. I could see them as one sees fish in deep water.

I was aware of a presence, which I could not see, but which I knew was entering into the cloud from the southern side. The presence did not seem, to my mind, as a form, because it filled the cloud like some vast intelligence… Then from the right side and from the left of the cloud a tongue of black vapor shot forth and rested lightly upon either side of my head, and as they touched me thoughts not my own entered into my brain …

The following is as near as I can render [these thoughts]:

“This is the road to the internal world. Yonder rocks are the boundary between the two worlds and the two lives. Once you pass them, you can no more return into the body. If your work is complete on earth, you may pass beyond the rocks. If, however, upon consideration you conclude that … it is not done, you can return into the body.” …

[After reasoning it out, I decided] “now that I am so near I will cross the line and stay.” So determining I moved cautiously along the rocks [and] advanced [my] left foot across the line. As I did so, a small, densely black cloud appeared in front of me and advanced toward my face. I knew that I was to be stopped. I felt the power to move or to think leaving me. My hands felt powerless at my side, my head dropped forward, the cloud touched my face and I knew no more.

Without previous thought and without apparent effort on my part, my eyes opened. I looked at my hands and then at the little white cot upon which I was lying, and realizing that I was in the body, in astonishment and disappointment, I exclaimed: “What in the world has happened to me? Must I die again?”

This 1889 case has much in common with recent NDEs, showing that the phenomenon is by no means a new development, although advances in medical technology have made it more common. If we look at Dr. Wiltse’s account from the standpoint of changes in frequency, we can say that, as his body failed, he experienced a shift of consciousness following a period of blackout. In his altered state, he no longer identified with the physical body (“I was still in the body, but the body and I had no longer any interest in common”). As he became accustomed to this new condition, his altered perceptions generated a new reality for him – a spirit body, one that suited his mental image of himself by being healthier (and taller!) than the body he’d left, and even being appropriately dressed to spare him embarrassment.

Like Mrs. Crans, or like any earthbound spirit, he could still see the living people around him, even though they could not see him. His perception of physical reality appears to have been enhanced (“I never saw that street more distinctly than I saw it then. I took note of the redness of the soil and of the washes the rain had made“). He also saw a threadlike cord running from his spirit body to his physical body. This feature is pretty frequently observed in both NDEs and OBEs; it seems to be the mind’s way of representing a continued, as-yet-unbroken connection between the two levels of consciousness and reality.

Dr. Wiltse was not through with his shifts in consciousness. He again suffered a blackout, and awoke to an impression of traveling at speed, as we saw with Mrs. Crans. It is noteworthy that he conceived of being held by hands but didn’t see any. The impression of being carried in that way was presumably his mind’s interpretation, a holdover from his habitual state of consciousness, in which gravity cannot be defied without some explanation. This second shift of consciousness brought him to a still higher level, visualized as being high in the sky, and allowed him to perceive a spiritual realm with many features in common with those reported in more recent NDEs — a path, a barricade, a being of light that communicates telepathically and presents the experiencer with a choice.

Also as is frequently the case in other NDEs, the choice does not seem to have been entirely genuine, because even after Dr. Wiltse chose to remain in the afterlife, he was still impelled back into the body.

I would argue that this entire experience of a spiritual realm, barricade, and “vast intelligence” is every bit as real as your experience of reading this book right now. It is simply a different level of reality accessed by a different level of consciousness. It is a different set of perceptions, which allows for a different experience of reality, and which is made possible by a different “fine-tuning” of your mental state. The elements are both familiar and unfamiliar. There are a road and boulders and a cloud, all of which we might experience on earth, but there are also strange flashes of light and a telepathic communication from a seemingly divine intelligence. We are still at some halfway point between familiar reality and a higher, unfamiliar reality. The barricade or boundary represents the threshold to a further adjustment of consciousness that would allow for a different and presumably less familiar experience.

Note also that Dr. Wiltse experienced yet another blackout at the conclusion of his adventure. When he came to, he was back in the body – in other words, his consciousness had reverted to its familiar frequency, and his reality had similarly reverted to the set of perceptions and mental categories he was accustomed to. His reaction was not at all unusual in such cases; he was disappointed, even distressed, at having enjoyed a glimpse of an expanded consciousness (and a wider reality), only to be “dialed back” to the limitations and imperfections of ordinary subjective existence. ...

Book excerpt, part two

This is the second of a three-part series of excerpts from one (first-draft) chapter of the book I'm working on.

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You’ll notice that many of the cases I cite (though by no means all of them) are pretty old, dating back to the early 20th century or even to the 19th century. There are two reasons for this. One is that I simply find these old cases interesting. The other is that modern cases can be dismissed by skeptics on the grounds that people today have been influenced by paranormal TV shows and movies. For instance, if someone today reports a near-death experience, a skeptic may say that near-death experiences are so widely known in popular culture that the person probably just picked up the idea and imagined the whole thing. This objection carries less force if the near-death experience took place more than a hundred years ago, long before the term “near-death experience” had even been coined, and long before medical resuscitation had become as common as it is now. We will look at just such a case shortly.

First, let’s look at an out of body experience that took place in April 1880. It is reported by F.W.H. Myers in his book Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death (pages 200-201, abridged edition). The narrator is a Mrs. Crans, whose daughter had died a few months earlier, leaving her son-in-law a widower. She tells us:

After lying down to rest, I remember feeling a drifting sensation, of seeming almost as if I was going out of the body. My eyes were closed; soon I realized that I was, or seemed to be, going fast somewhere. All seemed dark to me; suddenly I realized that I was in the room; then I saw Charley [the son-in-law] lying in a bed asleep; then I took a look at the furniture of the room, and distinctly saw every article – even to a chair at the head of the bed, which had one of the pieces broken in the back … In a moment the door opened and my spirit-daughter Allie came into the room and stepped up to the bed and stooped down and kissed Charley. He seemed to at once realize her presence, and tried to hold her, but she passed right out of the room about like a feather blown by the wind … I told [several people] my experience, and the following Sunday I wrote, as was always my custom, to my son-in-law, Charley, telling him of all my experience, describing the room as I saw it finished.

It took a letter six days to go from here to Dakota, and the same length of time, of course, to come from there [to] here; and at the end of six days judge of my surprise to receive a letter from Charley telling me thus: “Oh, my darling mamma Crans! My God! I dreamed I saw Allie last Friday night!” He then described just as I saw her; how she came into the room and he cried and tried to hold her, but she vanished. Then at the end of six days, when my letter reached him, and he read of my similar experience, he at once wrote me that all I had seen was correct, even to every article of furniture in the room, also as his dream had appeared to him.

Mrs. Crans lived in New York, while Charley Kernochan lived in Central City, Dakota. (The Dakota Territory was not split into the states of North and South Dakota until 1889.) Her out-of-body experience therefore involved a visitation to a place approximately 1500 miles away. But again, distance seems to be one of those mental categories that are not found when tuning in to an altered state of consciousness.

What can we say happened here? In her restful state, Mrs. Crans seems to have undergone a change in the level of her consciousness, which she perceived as “a drifting sensation … almost as if I was going out of the body.” (Remember that changes in perception, and therefore in the kind of reality we perceive, accompany changes of consciousness.) She experienced a sensation of speed, which is very common in such cases; think of the well-known “tunnel phenomenon” in near-death experiences. It’s not necessary to believe that she was literally flying like Superman, only that with her mind temporarily cleared of the limiting concepts of gravity, distance, and physical laws and constants, she was able to follow her thoughts without obstruction. Her thoughts led her to her son-in-law’s room, which she perceived accurately – in fact, it seems that she perceived it with supernormal clarity, noting every detail of the furniture in what was presumably a dark environment. This kind of heightened perception is another feature often reported in out-of-body experiences and near-death experiences, and again probably relates to the alteration of consciousness that dispenses with limiting mental categories. Some people who’ve reported a near-death experience have said that they experienced 360° vision, and a few persons who were born blind have even reported visual perceptions during an NDE. As their consciousness shifts to a higher “frequency,” the nature and method of their perceptions necessarily will shift also.

It may seem odd that Mrs. Crans could see the room so clearly and yet could also see her “spirit-daughter.” How could she see entities from two different realities – physical reality and spiritual reality – at the same time? Again, the frequency idea (with an analog tuner) comes in handy. Remember “ghosting”? It’s possible to hover between two frequencies, picking up both signals simultaneously. In this case, it appears that Mrs. Crans was in just that state of mind. She could perceive physical reality – in fact, more clearly than usual – but she could also perceive the spirit form of her daughter. Or think of the movie crossfade. At or near the halfway point, elements of both scenes will be visible together.

Such a state of mind may actually be pretty commonplace. There are many reports of so-called earthbound spirits who have not made a full transition to the spiritual plane. They are said to wander the earth, able to perceive living persons and also some spirits. Like Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense, they may not even know they are dead until some helpful spirit or medium communicates this fact to them. And even after hearing it, they may not believe it. These are people who really have gotten “stuck” between frequencies and are hovering in a kind of limbo, a confused state from which they emerge only with difficulty.

As far-fetched as all this may sound, it’s not inconsistent with what we might expect if something like the frequency idea, in combination with Kantian epistemology, is true. We would expect any shift in consciousness to be accompanied by a shift in the nature of our physical reality; and we would expect that there could be an overlap between different levels of consciousness and therefore different planes of reality. We might also expect that physical death would initiate such a shift, and that some of those shifts could be temporarily incomplete. ...

Book excerpt, part one

With the blazing speed and singleminded determination of a roving garden slug, I'm moving forward with my nonfiction book on the afterlife. I don't expect it to be a long or especially challenging book, but it's taking time to organize the material and think it through. This post is the first of three excerpts that make up an early chapter. Parts two and three will follow at intervals. 

This isn't a final draft, but it gives you some idea of what I'm working on. I'm sure there are typos and other mistakes. 

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There are many possible models and analogies that can be used to interpret these [afterlife-related] phenomena. I’m going to use several, but the one I’ll emphasize is the frequency model.

Imagine a radio with an analog tuner — a dial that moves smoothly through a spectrum of frequencies. You can set the dial at a certain frequency, and that becomes the “reality” channeled by your radio. If you move the dial to another frequency, you “channel” a different reality. Some frequencies will come in strong and clear, while others will be faint and distorted. If the tuner is stuck between frequencies, you may get overlapping signals. You may hear jazz with a faint background of rap.

If it were a television instead of a radio, picking up analog signals via an antenna, you might encounter the phenomenon of ”ghosting.” This happens when faint ”ghost images” from one station are superimposed over clearer images from another station.

To me, the idea of a spectrum of frequencies, which we can tune in to, which can overlap, and which can be imperfectly received, is a pretty good analogy for the paranormal phenomena we’ll be looking at. I’m not saying that this model is literally true, only that it serves as a helpful illustration.

The radio tuner is not the only analogy we can use. Another is a motion-picture dissolve or crossfade. This type of scene transition involves fading out on one scene while fading in on another. The tail end of the first overlaps the opening frames of the second. Examining the frames individually, you can see two sets of images occupying the same space with varying degrees of clarity. At the exact midpoint of the transition, the images from each scene are equally bright and clear. At other points, one scene or the other will dominate, with the less visible scene reduced to a kind of ghost image. Moving from one “frequency” to another is similar to making a scene transition in which the old, familiar scene gradually fades away while a new, unfamiliar scene takes over.

We need a name for this transitional state — the series of frames that make up the crossfade, or the series of intermediate frequencies that make up the space between broadcast stations. It is neither entirely physical or spiritual (in the colloquial meaning of each term). It’s the borderland between two distinct kinds of experience, incorporating elements of each in varying degrees. Some people have used the term “imaginal” to designate this ambiguous territory. Rod Serling called it the Twilight Zone.

I think of it as the liminal realm. Liminal means “relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process.” The liminal realm is the world of dreams, apparitions, out-of-body experiences, and past-life memories. It’s also the space in which psi operates — telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition and retrocognition, and psychokinesis. It’s closely bound up with our subconscious (or superconscious) mind, the nine-tenths of the iceberg submerged below the level of consciousness at any given time. F.W.H. Myers called this larger consciousness “the subliminal self,” meaning it’s just below our threshold of awareness, but to keep our terms consistent, I’ll call it the liminal self.

More important than terminology is the nature of the relationship between the liminal realm and the liminal self. I suggest they’re two halves of the same coin, or two aspects of the same experimental reality. To move from the physical world toward the spiritual world requires an adjustment of consciousness and an adjustment of the things that consciousness perceives. The “frequencies” of matter and of consciousness are ultimately one and the same.

This viewpoint isn’t as radical as it may sound. It has a long pedigree, going back to ancient mystical traditions and, more recently, to the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Kant thought deeply about the nature of reality and the mind’s ability to access it. He concluded that there are two kinds of reality: the noumenal realm, the true reality, which exists beyond time and space; and the phenomenal realm, our perception of reality, which is bounded by mental categories (including time and space) that create an internally consistent logic and order. We cannot perceive the noumenal realm directly; we can only infer its existence intellectually.

Some modern thinkers dispense with the noumenal realm and focus only on the phenomenal realm. Like Kant, they doubt the human ability to perceive reality; but unlike Kant, they doubt there is any true reality underlying our distorted perceptions. But it's hard to see how our perceptions can be distorted unless they are distortions of something. Kant's bisection of the world into the noumenal and phenomenal realms is probably as close as we can get to understanding what reality is all about.

In more modern terms, the noumenal realm may be conceived of as a realm of pure information, roughly equivalent to the binary code that runs a computer, while the phenomenal realm is a realm of images, equivalent to the graphics that appear on a computer screen. To the naive computer user, the graphics are the computer’s reality, while a more sophisticated user understands that the graphics are only iconic representations of an underlying information processing system. We see and manipulate the icons on the screen, while largely unaware of the algorithms operating behind the screen to create and control those icons.

From a Kantian perspective, the mind-body problem is largely resolved, because everything physical that we observe, experiment, and interact with is an interpretation or reconstruction of the mind. The mind imposes categories of time, space, mass, energy, color, size, etc. on a noumenal reality that has none of these properties. The physical world (including the body) is a series of perceptions processed by consciousness. It is impossible to receive any impression outside of consciousness — impossible, that is, to access an unprocessed, unfiltered reality.

This does not mean that reality is entirely subjective, random, and arbitrary. Here is where the importance of the noumenal realm comes in. Like the binary code running a computer, the noumenal realm establishes the ground rules for the images (icons) that we perceive. Imagine many different people playing a computer game on different terminals all hooked up to the same CPU. The images on each screen would be created just for that screen and for that user, and might vary according to the screen resolution and dimensions, the color and brightness settings, and any special individuating factors (e.g., the point of view would be different for each user playing a first-person shooter game); but the binary code would be the same for all.

We each look at reality from inside our own mindset, our own particular (and subjective) set of assumptions and predispositions, and yet our perceptions have their ultimate origins outside of us, as information in the noumenal realm. Moreover, our consciousness itself at any given level has built-in categories that ensure that the perceptions we generate will be broadly similar and will follow the same general rules.

Shifting from one frequency to another would involve a change in consciousness, and that this change, in itself, would entail changes in the world as we perceive it. Since all perception is bound by Kantian categories of consciousness, any change in consciousness, with a change in the associated categories, will change our perceptions. And since we know reality only as “what we perceive,” reality itself will inevitably change as our consciousness changes.

In short, our consciousness and our reality (in the phenomenal sense) go hand in hand, and a change in one necessarily involves a change in the other. As we tune in to a different frequency, we're adjusting our consciousness and simultaneously adjusting our perceptions in order to receive a different kind of reality.

To be clear, I don't think that as we transition out of the physical world, we go into Kant’s noumenal realm. Noumenal reality is the ultimate mystery, comparable to Nirvana in Buddhism or the Godhead in the Christian mystical tradition. Merging with the noumenal marks an end to all transitions and evolution, an end to the phenomenal world (the world of appearances, incarnations, and struggle) altogether. The shifts in mind and being that we’ll focus on here typically involve much more modest changes — a shift from one level of phenomenal reality to another. Think of it as advancing to the next level of a video game. The rules may be different, the images new, the rewards greater, but you’re still playing the game. 

I’ve used words like world, realm, and plane to describe these different realities, but this language may imply a dualistic view of an unchanged consciousness moving through various environments like a sightseer on a bus tour. It would be better to spotlight the fact that consciousness itself is constantly changing along with the environment it perceives. For that reason, I prefer thinking in terms of a state or condition: a person moves from the physical state into the liminal state. In each case, it is a state of mind as well as a state of being.

Suppose you have an out-of-body experience. You perceive yourself leaving your own body and hovering over it. You may perceive yourself now making use of a different body, one not restricted by gravity or distance. This ”spiritual body” or “etheric body” or “astral body” — I'd call it the liminal body — may be younger and healthier than the physical body you’re accustomed to. And it can travel wherever your thoughts take you, in virtually no time at all.

Now, have you actually, physically left your body? Has some sort of spirit body really floated out of your physical form? Or are you only visualizing this experience?

I would say that your consciousness has found a way to tune in to a different frequency. As it does, you lose your emotional and intellectual connection with the body you perceive in your ordinary state of consciousness, and become aware of, or manifest, a new body better suited to the state of consciousness you’re occupying right now. This “new” (liminal) body is not really new; it has been available to you all along; but you were not aware of it because your consciousness was restricted by certain mental categories (like gravity and distance) that it has now at least temporarily cast off. As long as you are in this altered state of consciousness with its altered categories of perception, you will perceive and identify with this less-familiar body. The liminal body will be your reality, just as your physical body is your reality when your consciousness is in its physical mode.

The tuning from one frequency to another, then, is a matter of changing your level of consciousness and your concomitant level of perception, which directly alters the reality that is real for you in that moment. You ease out of the physical state (of both mind and being), into the liminal state, an ambiguous condition that offers both familiar and unfamiliar perceptions and experiences.

As we go forward, we’ll see how useful it can be to think of paranormal things in this way. It’s by no means a complete explanation, nor is it the only helpful “model” we can use, but it will serve to clarify many points that might otherwise seem obscure.

Let’s apply this approach to some specific cases ...

Puppet show, part two

In the comments thread on the last post, Amos Oliver Doyle includes a link to an issue of Psypioneer Journal that offers an exhaustive look at the puppet-photos controversy. The article, titled "Helen Duncan, Esson Maule and Harry Price," was written by Paul J. Gaunt.

I can't add anything to this comprehensive overview, so I'll just quote part of the conclusion. Gaunt decides that "the simplest solution" is as follows:

At some point later than 1928, after [Harvey] Metcalfe had sat with Duncan in August 1930, he took the said images as he states: “I screened about fifty glass positives for Mrs Duncan ...” There was no issue of any copyright or payment as Metcalfe was a “amateur photographer”. Metcalfe had stated in his séance report: “I consider that photographs and evidence of equal value might possibly be obtained.”

The images were in Duncan’s possession, when Duncan met Esson Maule ... By some means Maule obtained four images from Duncan, maybe by payment, and later after January 5th 1933 when she seized Peggy she used a Press Agent W. M. Scott who gained the copyright of at least two of the images ...

The other so-called papier-mâché image ... was used by Harry Price’s Literary Agent Frank C. Betts Ltd, and published.

As the Metcalfe photographs were not professional the Agents may not have been aware who the actual photographer was; the press gave no photographers name to the images. It was not until [Alan] Crossley published his book [The Story of Helen Duncan] in 1975 that the photographer’s name was revealed.

"When she seized Peggy" refers to the well-known incident, recounted at length in the article, when Maule interrupted a seance to grab the "materialized spirit guide," which turned out to be Duncan's undervest. The episode led to Duncan's arrest, trial, and conviction for fraud; she was fined ten pounds.

Since the photos were never properly dated or labeled, it is probably impossible to conclusively determine their origin.

One thing I can say of my own knowledge is that two of the photos appear in Harry Price's 1933 book Leaves from a Psychist's Case-Book, a copy of which I received recently. Below are some photos I took of the book and its contents. The full chapter on Helen Duncan from Price's book is reproduced on the Harry Price website. 

 

 

 

The puppet photos are listed as plate XV, bottom of this page.

 

The undervest photo is Plate XVI, top of this page.

 

Price discusses taking photos of Duncan and her "spirit guide," Peggy. These should not be confused with the puppet photos. They are different photos taken at Price's lab, viewable on the official Harry Price website. Plates 19 and 20 on the site show "Peggy" as she appeared at the lab ("a picture of a girl's head cut from a magazine cover and stuck on the cheese-cloth"). 

 

Price's reproduction of two of the puppet photos, published unfortunately without attribution or explanation. He may have wanted his readers to assume that these photos were the ones he'd earlier referenced as his own pictures of "Peggy," or he may have just been careless about attribution.

Price's reproduction of the photo of Duncan's undervest, which became an item of incriminating evidence at her trial.

Nothing in the book's text sheds any further light on l'affaire des marionnettes.