Michael Prescott's Blog

Movie review: Astral City

 

In a recent comments thread, Ray G. suggested I check out the Brazilian film Astral City: A Spiritual Journey (Brazilian title: Nosso Lar, meaning Our Home). I’d heard of the movie, which boasted an unusually large budget for a Brazilian project ($12 million, according to IMDB.com) and went on to become one of the biggest commercial hits in that country's history, earning an estimated $25 million. But having read something about it when it came out in 2010, I promptly forgot all about it until Ray G.’s comment reminded me.

Happily, Astral City is available on DVD from Netflix. It can also be viewed online via Amazon and other services, for a price. Last night, I took a look at the DVD.

Other films have tried to depict the afterlife in terms that are more or less consistent with spiritualist teachings. They include the 1946 British production A Matter of Life and Death (aka Stairway to Heaven), Albert Brooks' 1991 comedy Defending Your Life, and, perhaps most famously, the 1998 screen version of Richard Matheson's novel What Dreams May Come, starring Robin Williams. All of these movies have their strengths and weaknesses. Astral City, likewise, is not a perfect film; but I think it's probably the best of the bunch.

The movie is based on the channeled writings of the famed Brazilian medium Chico Xavier, who passed on in 2002. I haven't read Xavier's work and know little about him, but if Astral City is any guide, his interpretation of the afterlife is consistent with many other accounts.

The protagonist is Xavier's communicant, Dr. Andre Luiz, played by Renato Prieto in a well modulated, understated performance. The plot is simple and straightforward: Luiz, having died of complications from a gastrointestinal illness around 1930, finds himself in a frightening, misty purgatory known as the Umbral (shadowy) region, from which he escapes only when he summons true repentance and religious feeling. At that point he is transported to the beautiful astral city of the title, where he regains his strength, makes friends, and gradually learns to shed his ego and take joy in the service of others. Eventually he progresses enough to be permitted to undertake a mission to earth, where – in ghostly form – he observes his family and intervenes to restore his widow's new husband to health.

Basically, it's the story of a man who learns to love and, in doing so, redeems himself and comes to a deeper understanding of the meaning and purpose of existence.

All of this is pretty standard spiritualist teaching (or spiritist teaching, to use the term favored in Brazil, where Allan Kardec's 19th century work The Spirits' Book has had wide influence). The general narrative, and even many of the details, will be familiar to those who have read other purportedly channeled books, such as Anthony Borgia's Life in the World Unseen (1954), Oliver Lodge's Raymond, or Life and Deathb (1926), or Emanuel Swedenborg's Heaven and Hell (1758).

There are couple of new wrinkles. Dr. Luiz is told that he's initially relegated to the Umbral plane because he committed suicide. It turns out that he didn't actually kill himself in the usual sense, but that the accumulated negative thoughts and emotions of his life wore away his physical health and eventually resulted in his death. This is a pretty expansive reading of the term "suicide," one that I'm not too comfortable with. For one thing, it would seem to suggest that people suffering serious illnesses have only themselves to blame, which doesn't strike me as a particularly helpful message.

Actually, the whole notion that people are punished for suicide (however it is defined) is a bit problematic to me. The same idea crops up, even more prominently, in What Dreams May Come, where Robin Williams' wife, played by Annabella Sciorra, is sentenced to an eternity in limbo because she took her own life. The most comprehensive book on suicide from a spiritualist perspective that I've read is Suicide: What Really Happens in the Afterlife?, by Pamela Rae Heath and Jon Klimo. Making use of a variety of mediumistic sources, Heath and Klimo come to the conclusion that everything depends on the motive and circumstances; some acts of suicide are understandable (seeking relief from incurable pain) and even heroic (throwing oneself on a hand grenade to save one's comrades), while others are motivated by less admirable intentions. The gist of the book is that there is no simple answer and one size doesn't fit all, which seems like a sensible viewpoint to me.

Getting back to the movie, it must be said that the astral city is awfully bureaucratic. We are told there are 72 (!) ministries governing every aspect of life in the hereafter. People work in order to earn "merits," which are used to obtain permission to live in a house or go on a mission to earth. It all seems a bit dreary and utilitarian, and apparently you have to get used to asking your superiors for permission to do just about anything. This aspect of the film made me feel a little bit like the main character in the Netflix original series Lilyhammer – a mafiosa from New York who relocates to Norway under the witness protection program and finds himself facing an array of perfectly nice, impeccably polite, humanitarian-minded bureaucrats. Unlike Lilyhammer, however, Astral City doesn't side with the outsider and the rebel. Quite the opposite: Dr. Luiz must learn to submit in order to grow as a person.

We are told the good doctor "threw away his life" because of pride, vanity, and egotism. But in flashbacks to his earthly life, we see little sign of this. The film might have packed more of a punch if the earthly Dr. Luiz' faults were more vividly on display. On the other hand, he does exhibit pride and egotism, impatience and frustration, after arriving in the astral city, so we get to see this side of his personality eventually.

The film's pace is best described as deliberate. Some scenes moved too slowly for my taste, but as a whole, Astral City proceeds in a pleasantly stately and unhurried fashion, which is probably appropriate for a film that teaches us to learn the value of patience. By the way, the film is in Portuguese, with English subtitles. I did not find the subtitles distracting, though the English translation is sometimes clumsy. (The translations in the DVD's bonus materials are much worse.) 

Astral City has been made with obvious sincerity and not even a hint of tongue-in-cheek derision. All the performances are good, with Prieto the standout. The Umbral realm is depicted with harrowing realism – probably the most effective dramatization of a hellish, fog-shrouded limbo I've seen. The astral city is very beautifully realized, largely through digital matte paintings. These are not always altogether realistic, but I actually liked the artificiality of certain shots; the unreality somehow translated into a sense of hyperreality, at least for me. The set design is imaginative and pleasingly varied, from the musty windowless chambers where badly disturbed persons must be purged of their traumas, to the stylish interior of a private home that mixes period detail with modernistic touches. I particularly liked the hospital setting, which looked very much the way I would imagine a spiritual center devoted to health and rejuvenation to look.

In some respects, the layout and design of the astral city are reminiscent of modern-day theme parks. No doubt this approach could be fodder for skeptics, but I liked it. When I was a small child, I was fascinated by Disneyland and Disney World, not so much because of the rides and attractions, but because they represented a perfectly manicured, clean, beautiful environment. I used to do my best to sketch my own theme parks and other idealized communities, which always featured a lot of water and greenery and stylized architecture. These days I wonder if I was dimly recalling, and feeling nostalgic for, an afterlife environment along those lines. So the fact that the astral city in the film looks a lot like the kind of thing I did my best to visualize as a child is a plus for me.

 

Incidentally, the designs were based on drawings produced by Heigorina Cunha, a medium who showed her work to Chico Xavier and was told she had represented Our Home accurately.

Although it's barely mentioned in the bonus features on the DVD, the film boasts an original score by famed postmodern composer Philip Glass. I found this symphonic score generally effective, though occasionally a bit monotonous.

For its seriousness of purpose, its splendid art design, and its obvious concern with fidelity to Chico Xavier's writings, Astral City is well worth visiting. But be warned: once you get there, you may not want to leave!

 

Seth again

Here's some more interesting stuff from Seth Speaks, by Jane Roberts. All of these excerpts are from Chapter 10.

Seth on our physical reality: 

It is as if your present situation and all its physical phenomena were projected from within yourself outward, giving you a continuous running a motion picture, forcing you to perceive only those images that were being transposed. These seem so real that you find yourself in the position of reacting to them constantly…

They serve to mask other quite valid realities that exist at the same time, however, and actually from these other realities you gain the power and the knowledge to operate the material projections…

The inner senses are equipped to perceive data that is not physical. They are not deceived by the images that you project in three-dimensional reality…

Anything of which you are aware in three-dimensional existence is only a projection of a greater reality into that dimension. 

This matches up pretty well with the ideas of N-space and M-space that we've discussed earlier. Of course, the fact that the Seth material – or some of it – can be understood in terms roughly equivalent to the N-space idea doesn't mean that the N-space idea is correct. But it is at least intriguing to note the parallels.

Seth on apparitions: 

I have explained to some degree the way images are constructed out of an available field of energy. You perceive only your own constructions. If a "ghost" wants to contact you, therefore, he can do so through telepathy, and you can yourself construct the corresponding image if you desire. Or the individual might send you a thought-form at the same time that he telepathically communicates with you.

In our terms, the apparition's form is rendered in the M-space of the particular individual. Two or more individuals may render the equivalent form, each in his or her own subjective M-space. Another individual, whose consciousness is not telepathically in tune with that of the consciousness behind the apparition, may not render the apparition's form in his M-space at all. 

This might account for cases where two or three people see an apparition, while a fourth person in the room with them sees nothing. It might also account for the peculiar fact that an apparition (contrary to most movie ghosts) usually appears just as solid and three-dimensional as any other physical object, and is seen from the appropriate perspective by each observer– that is, one observer may view the apparition head-on, while an observer who is standing off on the side will see the apparition in profile. Light and shadow are also rendered appropriately. 

All of this is about what we would expect if the apparition is modeled in M-space like any other "real" thing. But since the rules (in the N-space program) governing the apparition are different from those governing other objects, the apparition can appear and vanish instantaneously, walk through walls, etc.

Seth has some interesting things to say about the experience of souls when they are between incarnations. Much of this dovetails nicely with the purported "between-lives memories" recovered by hypnotherapist Michael Newton and discussed in books like Journey of Souls. Note that Newton's books came out considerably later than the Seth books.

In discussing the planning stage of the soul's next incarnation, Seth says: 

Now in this time of choosing all of these matters are considered, and suitable preparations made, but the planning itself is all a part of experience and of development. The in-between existence, therefore, is every bit as important as the period that is chosen. You learn to plan your existences, in other words. You also make friends and acquaintances in these rest periods who you meet again and again – and only, perhaps, during in-between existences…

This agrees very well with Michael Newton's books, in which reunions between souls are enacted by his patients with considerable displays of emotion. His deeply hypnotized subjects often are reduced to tears as they "meet" their between-lives friends (or soul mates), who seem to be part of a closely intertwined group soul. The need to plan the next incarnation is also stressed by patients in Newton's hypnosis sessions. 

Seth says that an individual can choose to relive parts of his earthly life with different scenarios, in order to learn from alternative versions of his life. In these experiments the individual creates thought-forms of people to interact with. Seth says: 

He is told the nature of those who participate with him. He realizes they are thought-forms, for example, and his own; but again, thought-forms do possess a certain reality and consciousness. They are not cardboard actors for him to simply push around at will. He must, therefore, take them into consideration, and he has a certain responsibility toward them.

They will grow in consciousness and continue their own lines of development on different levels. In one way, we are all thought-forms…

Again, I find this interesting in respect to Michael Newton's work. I recall a passage in one of his books – probably the first one – in which a patient is remembering a past life as a woman. Though I don't have the reference handy, the patient, while hypnotized, says something like, "The incarnation was useful to me, and I believe it was good for her, also." This always puzzled me, since it seemed to imply that the soul was somehow different from the human being who served as the soul's vehicle. It is, however, perhaps more understandable if we view the human being as a thought-form projected by the soul, which nevertheless has a degree of autonomy – an ever-increasing autonomy, inasmuch as the thought-form grows and develops on its own, eventually establishing independence. Whether or not there is any truth in this, I can't say; but it's an intriguing notion, perhaps worth exploring further.

A common objection to reincarnation is that many mediumistic reports make no mention of it. Seth addresses this problem:

The in-between period itself, however, has many dimensions of activity and divisions of experience. As you can see, to put it as simply as possible, everyone does not "know" everyone else.

Instead of countries or physical divisions, you have psychological states. To an individual in one, another might seem quite foreign. In many communications with those in these transitional states, messages through mediums can appear as highly contradictory. The experience of the "dead" is not the same. The conditions and situations vary. An individual explaining his reality can only explain what he knows. Again, such material often offends the intellect that demands simple, neat answers and descriptions that tally.

Most individuals from these stages who communicate with "living" relatives have not reached the time of choosing as yet, and have not completed their training.

They may still be perceiving reality in terms of their old beliefs. Almost all communications come from this level, particularly when there is a bond of relationship in an immediately previous life.

So it could simply be the case that many mediumistic reports are made by spirits who have not yet progressed to the training stage of their experience. Newton's patients seem to go directly to this experience, bypassing the earlier stages. This may be because Newton's deep hypnosis is accessing the higher self, rather than the incarnational self.

Of course, it's also possible that "between-lives" accounts recovered by hypnosis are simply confabulations. The tendency of the mind to confabulate – to make things up – while hypnotized is well established. Personally, I find the accounts presented in Newton's books pretty compelling, but I admit that my reaction is subjective and that little in the way of objective, testable evidence is provided.

Before signing off on this post, I want to mention a relevant web essay to which I was directed by a Facebook friend. Although the linked essay doesn't entirely align with my own speculations, there's a large degree of overlap. Moreover, the quotations from a different Seth book that appear at the end of the essay are very well chosen.

Seth and NDEs

Here are some thoughts on Chapter 9 of Seth Speaks, by Jane Roberts. The book was originally published in 1972, three years before Raymond Moody's groundbreaking Life After Life popularized near-death experiences. Nevertheless, much of what Seth says about the death experience seems to dovetail with Moody's data on NDEs. It also fits in well with other sources of information on this subject, though admittedly some of that information predates Seth Speaks and therefore could have been obtained by Jane Roberts in the normal way.

Seth begins by stressing a particular issue:

Basically there is not any particular point of death in those terms, even in the case of a sudden accident.

He goes into some detail about this, emphasizing that the process of death may be drawn out over a long period, and that the spirit can depart gradually or suddenly, at any time. This ties in pretty closely with resuscitation expert Sam Parnia's recent observations, as well as with Lyall Watson's The Romeo Error (published in 1975, three years after Seth Speaks). 

Seth then discusses the essentially subjective nature of the early part of the death experience:

A belief in hell fires can cause you to hallucinate Hades' conditions. A belief in a stereotyped heaven can result in a hallucination of heavenly conditions. You always form your own reality according to your ideas and expectations. This is the nature of consciousness in whatever reality it finds itself. Such hallucinations, I assure you, are temporary.

This fits in perfectly well with a number of NDE reports, such as Don Piper's 90 Minutes in Heaven, in which Piper, a traditionalist Christian, found himself in a stereotyped heaven complete with pearly gates and a choir of angels. There have also been "hellish" NDE's, of course. 

Furthermore, cultural differences in NDEs have been observed: Hindus raised in India, for instance, generally find the early stages of the afterlife to be bureaucratic; they are taken by spirit messengers (Hindu gods) to stand before a clerk, who discovers that the dead person was taken too early, on account of a clerical error. This kind of thing admittedly sounds rather absurd to those of us who do not share those "ideas and expectations." But Seth informs us that similar charades are carried out routinely in order to serve the belief system of the dying or newly dead person. Chapter 9 includes an account of an elaborate charade performed by Seth and another spirit guide, who impersonated the iconic figures of Moses and Allah in order to soothe the fears of an Arab. As far-fetched as Seth's story might seem, it is not really much different from the idea that spirit guides might masquerade as bureaucratic clerks and Hindu deities in order to meet the expectations of the dying. 

Seth goes on:

Your true feelings toward relatives who are also dead will be known to you and to them. There is no hypocrisy. You do not pretend to love a parent who did little to earn your respect or love. Telepathy operates without distortion in this after-death period, so you must deal with the true relationships that exist between yourself and all relatives and friends who await you.

Communication by thought, rather than by spoken words, is a common theme of NDEs. The idea that you cannot hide who you truly are is also a regular feature of NDEs and mediumistic reports.

You examine the fabric of the existence you have left, and you learn to understand how your experiences were the result of your own thoughts and emotions and how these affected others. 

Clearly this description corresponds to the famed "life review" in the NDE, in which you relive your life and experience it not only from your own perspective, but from the perspectives of the people who were affected by your behavior.

Until this examination is through, you are not yet aware of the larger portions of your own identity. When you realize the significance and meaning of the life you have just left, then you are ready for conscious knowledge of your other existences.

You become aware, then, of an expanded awareness. What you are begins to include what you have been in other lives, and you begin to make plans for your next physical existence, if you decide upon one. You can instead enter another level of reality, and then return to a physical existence if you choose.

This portion of the channeled material seems to correspond with reports of "between lives" memories recovered by hypnosis. Though it is always dicey to rely on hypnosis, because of the known tendency of hypnotized subjects to confabulate, it is interesting to note that hypnotherapist Michael Newton's books go into detail about exactly this kind of reunion with one's soul mates, and about the process of choosing another incarnation. As far as I know, all of these "between lives" reports postdate Seth Speaks. 

The Road to Immortality, by Geraldine Cummins, which purportedly channels the words of pioneering psychical researcher F.W.H. Myers, also tells us that the deceased can reincarnate or proceed to other levels of reality, as Seth claims. Cummins' book, however, was published in 1932, well before Seth Speaks, so in this case Jane Roberts may have come upon the idea in her reading. 

Seth then describes the earliest stage of the dying process in terms familiar to anyone who is read about veridical out-of-body experiences in NDE':

In many cases, immediately upon leaving the body there is, of course, amazement and a recognition of the situation. The body itself may be viewed, for example, and many funerals have a guest of honor amidst the company …

The deceased visiting his own funeral is a common feature of mediumistic reports. Of greater interest is the description of leaving the body and viewing it with "amazement and a recognition of the situation," which closely parallels NDE accounts.

In recounting different types of after-death experiences, Seth seems to agree with a good deal of channeled material about the need for "rest homes" and "hospitals" on the other side:

It should be obvious from what I have said so far that there is no one after-death reality, but each experience is different. Generally speaking, however, there are dimensions into which these individual experiences will fall. For example, there is an initial stage for those who are still focused strongly in physical reality, and for those who need a period of recuperation and rest. On this level there will be hospitals and rest homes. The patients do not yet realize that there is nothing wrong with them at all.

In some cases, the idea of illness is so strong that they have built their earthly years about this psychological center. They project ill conditions upon the new body as they did upon the old one.  

Another part of the after-death experience is learning how to manipulate one's environment by the power of thought:

There are also training centers. In these the nature of reality is explained in accordance with an individual's ability to understand and perceive it ...

They are taught, in other words, the methods that allow them to translate emotions and thoughts into physical actuality.

This, too, corresponds well with much other channeled material and with some NDEs.

You may after death utterly refuse to believe that you are dead, and continue to focus your emotional energy toward those you have known in life.

The above is a description of so-called earthbound spirits, which have been discussed throughout the history of mediumship. Nothing new here, but at least it does correlate with other sources. 

You may die at eighty, and after death think of the youth and vitality that you had that twenty, and find then that your form changes to correspond with this inner image.

Most individuals after death choose a more mature image that usually corresponds to the peak physical abilities, regardless of the age when the physical peak was reached.

It is typical for an NDEr to perceive his loved ones as looking youthful and vigorous, even if they were infirm or aged when they passed on.

Seth adds that if you, as a deceased person, wish to appear to a living person, "you may instead adopt the form you had when you were known to the individual you want to contact." 

This detail also dovetails with a great deal of channeled material, with many apparitions, and with those NDEs where the person sees his loved ones as they were last known to him.

Finally, Seth makes a comment about space that I found interesting in light of our discussions of M-space and N-space:

As your perceptive mechanisms insist that objects are solid, for example, so they insist that such a thing as space exists. Now what your senses tell you about the nature of matter is entirely erroneous, and what they tell you about space is equally wrong – wrong in terms of basic reality, but quite in keeping of course with three-dimensional concepts.

Remember that, according to the idea of M-space and N-space, there is actually no such thing as physical "space" at all. There is only a matrix of pure information (N-space) and a mental projection (M-space) rendered as multidimensional images.

He also reiterates a point made in a previous chapter – that the so-called physical world flickers in and out of existence constantly, adding that consciousness itself also flickers on and off at the same rate, though it never ceases to exist; in the apparently "off" phases, it is focusing on another dimension of reality. (In my terms, this other dimension might be N-space ...) 

Seth speaks some more

Here's more Seth stuff, and its possible interpretation in terms of some of the notions I've advanced in earlier posts. But before I get into that, I want to clarify what I'm doing when I play around with ideas like these.

It's not that I think I can come up with The Answer, the absolute truth about the nature of reality. I doubt that any human mind is capable of conceiving such a thing, and I'm sure mine isn't. And I'm suspicious of those who claim to have worked out a Theory Of Everything, no matter how elaborate it may be. I also recognize that any model based on present-day technology is likely to appear antiquated in the future, when that technology is obsolete.

Nonetheless, I do find it useful to come up with a model – however flawed – that allows me to make sense both of a variety of phenomena (psi, the paradoxes of quantum physics, and other things) and of testimonies from purportedly channeled entities, especially those that seem intellectually serious. If a given model allows me to integrate this material in a way that is fairly coherent, then it helps me to understand these phenomena and these claims. That doesn't mean I've actually penetrated to the real truth of the matter, only that I've found a way to have it make sense for me. 

Moreover, if it makes sense, I'm much likely to treat it seriously. For instance, I'd never thought much about the Seth material before, because I just couldn't make head or tail of it. I had read parts of it, but it didn't mean much to me. Seth might have been speaking, but it didn't feel like he was speaking to me. However, now that I can interpret these communications in terms of the model I've been sketching out, they are starting to seem more meaningful. And this is personally valauable to me, though it may not be valuable to other people who are not enamored of this model or who already feel they understand Seth perfectly well without it.

With that in mind, here are some selective quotations from chapter 7 of Seth Speaks. The quotations are selective because a good deal of what he says either is irrelevant to what we've been talking about, or might possibly contradict it. (It's hard to say.)

Your physical form is the result of great emotional focus. The fantastic energy of your psyche not only created your physical body, but maintains it. It is not one continuous thing, although to you it seems permanent enough while it lasts. It is nevertheless in a constant state of pulsation, and because of the nature of energy and its construction, the body is actually blinking off and on.

Now: This is difficult to explain, and for our present purposes it is not entirely necessary that you understand the reasons for this pulsing; but even physically, you are "not here" as often as you are here. 

For my part, I would understand this as follows: The physical body, like any other physical thing, is rendered as a multisensory, multidimensional image by a render engine, using the data that exists in N-space. The resulting images exist in our own personal M-space. The rendering capability is (perhaps) a feature of consciousness itself – "the fantastic energy of your psyche." As such it is distinct from the "cosmic CPU" (Thomas Campbell's term) that handles the information processing problems in N-space. 

This is not very different from an actual computer, which uses a CPU to run the program but uses a GPU, or graphs processing unit, to do the rendering. Admittedly, I'm simplifying, since there's more involved in computer rendering, but the point is that the equations necessary to work out the position, momentum, etc., of an object are different from those used to render it, and the work can be performed by different processors. 

Note that the "constant state of pulsation" of the physical body, and presumably of all other physical things, is consistent with our idea of the "virtual-reality screen" that is constantly refreshing. Remember that, in our model, the screen is M-space, a mental projection personal to each individual. What I render in my M-space may not be what you render in yours, because you may not be looking at the same things I'm looking at. However, if we're both looking at the same thing, then that thing will be rendered in the same way (or at least, more or less the same way) for both of us, because the underlying calculations in N-space are the same for everyone. This is equivalent to two computer gamers at separate terminals, each seeing his own rendered version of the VR world in which their avatars are interacting. 

There are also realities that are "relatively more valid" than your own … Yours is not a system of reality formed by the most intense concentration of energy, therefore. It is simply the one you are tuned in to, part and parcel of. You perceive it simply for this reason.

Other portions of yourself, therefore, of which you are not consciously aware, do inhabit what you could call a supersystem of reality in which consciousness learns to handle and perceive much stronger concentrations of energy, and to construct "forms" of a different nature indeed.

These other levels of the system would correspond, in our model, to the levels of a computer game. The entire game is run by a single program, but a user can advance from level to level, and the rules and possibilities change from one level to the next.

You are, using an analogy again, sent out by a superself who strongly desired existence in physical form. You are no puppet of this superself. You will follow your own lines of development, and through means far too difficult to explain here, you add to the experience of the superself and also then extend the nature of its reality. You also insure your own development, and you are able to draw upon the abilities of the superself.

Nor will you ever be swallowed by the self that in these terms seems so superior … There is no end to the reality of consciousness, nor the means of its materialization. Nor is there any end to the developments possible for each identity.

This passage ties in with my earlier blog post "Slices of Life." The different "portions of yourself" would correspond to the different slices in the cone indicated in the diagram. All of them exist simultaneously, since the total system exists outside of time as we understand it. The higher self consists of all the various incarnations of the self, which nevertheless have their own personal, unique identities. 

Similar ideas are found later in Chapter 7 of Seth Speaks:

While you continue to exist and develop as an individual, your whole self, or soul, has such vast potential, that it can never be expressed fully through one personality ...

You are presently focused not only in your physical body, but within a particular frequency of events that you interpret as time. Other historical periods exist simultaneously, in forms quite as valid; and other reincarnation selves else. Again, you simply are not tuned to those frequencies ...

You are as actively and vividly concerned in those realities as you are in the one in which your main attention is now focused. Now, as you are merely concerned with your physical body and physical self as a rule, you give your attention to the stream of consciousness that seems to deal with it. These other streams of consciousness, however, are connected with other self-forms that you do not perceive. The body, in other words, is simply one manifestation of what you are in one reality, but in these other realities you have other forms.

All of this also seems to fit pretty well with another post of mine, "The Diamond," which stressed the complexity, power, and – for want of a better word – sheer magnificence of the higher self when viewed as a totality. As Seth says in Chapter 6:

Your soul therefore – the soul that you are – the soul that you are part of – that soul is a far more creative and miraculous phenomenon then you previously supposed.

Birth and rebirth

Update, June 25: I mistakenly attributed quotes from Testimony of Light to a different book by a different author. The error is corrected now. Thanks to Robert McLuhan for noticing the mistake. 

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I've often commented on the biggest inconsistency in ostensibly channeled communications about the afterlife — the question of whether or not spirits reincarnate. The same concern shows up in Stafford Betty's worthwhile book The Afterlife Unveiled, which consists largely of excerpts from channeled material.

Betty, a PhD in Theology, teaches religuous studies at California State University and has a special intetest in mediumship. In his concluding chapter, Prof. Betty writes: 

I wish I could report that there was unanimity on this very important subject [of reincarnation], but the facts don't permit it. This lack is the main reason I leave open the possibility, however slight, that this entire literature could be coming from the subconscious beliefs of mediums rather than from spirits. There are many reasons for thinking otherwise, and they impress me far more than this lone thorn among so many flowers growing together harmoniously, but there is no denying the prick.

Still, Betty's own book showed me that explicit references to reincarnation are found in some of the oldest modern mediumistic accounts. It does not appear to be the case, as I'd previously believed, that reincarnation scarcely makes an appearance in the older messages but starts appearing regularly in the more recent ones. Instead, there seems to have been a certain tension over this issue right from the start. 

I was already somewhat aware of this, having read The Spirits' Book (free PDF here). This well-known volume was compiled by Allan Kardec and originally published in 1857, not too long after the modern Spiritualist movement began. Kardec's communicating spirits make no bones, so to speak, about reincarnation, which they view as a natural part of any spirit's evolution. 

Asked, "How can the soul that has not attained to perfection during the corporeal life complete the work of its purification?", the spirits answer: "By undergoing the trial of a new existence…" Additional questioning brings out the clarification that the new existence must be a physical one:

The soul, in purifying itself, undoubtedly undergoes a transformation; but, in order to effect this transformation, it needs the trial of corporeal life… we all have many such existences. Those who maintain the contrary wish to keep you in the same ignorance in which they are themselves… In each new existence, a spirit takes a step forwards in the path of progress; when he has stripped himself of all his impurities, he has no further need of the trials of corporeal life.… he who advances quickly spares himself many trials. Nevertheless, these successive incarnations are always very numerous, for progress is almost infinite. 

Returning to Stafford Betty's book, we find a discussion of reincarnation in his chapter on the 1914 book Letters from the Afterlife, in which Elsa Barker channeled Judge David Hatch. The discarnate Hatch tells us: 

You should get away from the mental habit of regarding your present life as the only one, get rid of the idea that the life you expect to lead on this side, after your death, is to be an endless existence in one state. You could no more endure such an endless existence in the subtle matter [of Hatch's world] then you could endure to live forever in the gross matter in which you are now encased. You would weary of it. You could not support it…

I could probably force the coming back [to earth], but that would be unwise, for I should then come back with less power than I want… it is better for me to rest in the condition of light matter until I have accumulated energy enough to come back with power. I shall not do, however, as many souls do; they stay out here until they are as tired of this world as they formerly were tired of the earth, and then are driven back half unconsciously by the irresistible force of the tide of rhythm. I want to guide to that rhythm…

When the soul enters matter, preparing for rebirth, it enters potentiality, if we may use such a term, and all its strength is needed in the herculean effort to form the new body and adjust to it.

Hatch goes on to explain that “the tendencies of any given life, the unexplained impulses and desires, are in nearly all cases brought over" to the new incarnation, though specific memories are usually forgotten. 

Another thing I noticed when reading The Afterlife Unveiled is the sharp similarity between some channeled accounts and the accounts given by the hypnotically regressed patients of Michael Newton and other therapists interested in between-lives memories. Typically, these patients describe an afterlife environment that is more abstract and unearthly than "Summerland" accounts, while saying that their own bodily forms are essentially patterns of light and color. 

As I wrote in an older post, 

There also is very little discussion [in Newton's accounts] of what has been called Paradise or Summerland -- the earthlike environment of the afterlife, featuring gardens, meadows, houses, birds, etc. Some of Newton's subjects do recall studying in a beautiful library, but for the most part the afterlife environment, as they depict it, seems to consist of blobs of color (which are souls) zipping around in a rather abstract geometric setting. It reminds me a little of the old sci-fi movie Tron.

Newton's patients also report being part of a group soul — an organizational unit that allows spirits to learn from each other and make progress together. 

Compare all this with the discussion of reincarnation in another of Betty's sources — The Road to Immortality, channeled by Geraldine Cummins and published in 1932. (Complete text online here.) The communicating spirit, allegedly famed psychical researcher F.W.H. Myers, tells us that on the fourth spiritual plane the spirit acquires

a body entirely dissimilar from the human body. As regards appearance, it can only be described as being apparently a compound of light and colors unimaginable. The shape of this form is influenced by all the ego's past acts so far as they have impressed themselves on his deeper consciousness. This colored compound may be grotesque, bizarre in form, may be lovely beyond words, may possess strange absurdities of outline, or may transcend the loftiest dream of earthly beauty… 

Within the subtle world of which I speak you will perceive a variety of forms which are not known on earth and therefore may not be expressed in words. Yet there is a certain similarity, a correspondence between the appearances on this luminiferous plane. Flowers are there; but these are in shapes unknown to you, exquisite in color, radiant with light. Such colors, such lights are not contained within any earthly octave, are expressed by us in thoughts and not in words…

Betty summarizes the book's presentation of the group soul concept: 

Myers introduces us to the Group Soul, one of the hallmarks of the Fourth Plane. A Group Soul is “a number of souls all bound together by one spirit.” There are countless Group Souls, each headed and inspired by a single spirit of uncommon power. Each Group Soul might contain as few as 20 souls or as many as a thousand. And there is some unifying interest, for example music, that acts as the thread that binds the group together.… Most Group Souls significantly quicken progress. Myers is himself a member of one: “The interesting feature of my state here is that I am within a larger mind, and many of my affinities are contained in it.” He tells us we will “realize how fine and beautiful is this brotherhood within the one being; how it deepens and intensifies existence; how it destroys the cold selfishness so necessary to an earth life.”

Of special interest is the economy of the Group Soul. Each soul is so privy to the experiences of its fellows that the lessons normally learned only by a succession of many reincarnations can be speeded up. It works like this:

“… what the Buddhists would call the karma I had brought with me from a previous life is, very frequently, not that of my life, but of the life of the soul [in my group] that preceded me by many years on earth and left for me a pattern which made my life. I, too, wove a pattern for another of my group during my earthly career. We are all of us distinct, though we are influenced by others of our community on the various planes of being.”

Myers tells us he will not reincarnate. The surrogate experiences of his brothers and sisters, which he feels with as much intensity as if he were the actor, are teaching him all the remaining lessons of earth needed for his advancement.

Another point made by Newton's patients is that they plan out their earthly lives before birth, even choosing their parents. Yet the vicissitudes of life and the vagaries of free will mean that the plan — mostly forgotten by the conscious mind while incarnated — is often not carried out successfully. This idea is paralleled in Betty's excerpts from Testimony of Light (1980), by Helen Greaves, a book of material purportedly originating with a deceased nun, Frances Banks. Note that Greaves' book was published 14 years earlier than Newton's first book, Journey of Souls. 

Here is how the life plan is described by "Frances Banks":

Somewhere in the deeps of my mind two ‘blueprints’ are brought forward into my consciousness. These are so clear that I can (literally) take them out, materialize them and study them. One is the Perfect Idea with which my spirit went bravely into incarnation. The other is the resultant of only a partially-understood Plan… in fact my life as it was actually lived… First of all the mind looks at the whole comparison, and sets the blueprints side-by-side. This is the first shock; a true humbling of yourself to find that you did so little when you would have done so much; that you went wrong so often when you were sure that you were right. During this experience the whole cycle of your life-term unfolds before you in a kaleidoscopic series of pictures. During the crisis one seems to be entirely alone. Yours is the judgment. You stand at your own bar of judgment. You make your own decisions. You take the blame.… You are the accused, the judge and jury.

Readers of Newton's accounts obtained from hypnosis sessions will find this description strikingly familiar.

And here is Frances on the group soul: 

Whilst I was meditating in my golden garden, I found myself ‘transported’ to… a cluster of entities about a Teacher. Immediately I experienced a rise of consciousness, an upsurge of joy, a mingling of unity and harmony which colored my hole being. I cannot explain this in any of the terms, though I doubt whether they will have the same connotation for you. I knew this was right for me. I had come into my own. There was no definite acceptance, the entire operation was unobtrusive and simple, yet I had the conviction that all was well, that I was amidst my fellow-travelers on the Way.

This "upsurge of joy"and sense of belonging are typical of the reactions of Newton's hypnotized patients, often expressed in highly emotional terms. 

Finally, it's worth mentioning a little-known channeled book called The Afterlife of Leslie Stringfellow, which Betty discusses in one of his early chapters. Stringfellow died in 1886. Thereafter, his mother obtained fifteen years of mediumistic communication allegedly from him. Eventually she wrote up the best of these and published just one hundred copies of the resulting book, which she called Leslie's Letter to His Mother. Betty writes, "Leslie's Letter to His Mother was lost to the world until a librarian at the University of Arkansas, Stephen Chism, stumbled across a copy and was so intrigued by it that he undertook to bring it out in a new edition (2005) with the title The Afterlife of Leslie Stringfellow." 

What does Leslie say about reincarnation? I'm not sure. I did not see it mentioned in Betty's overview, but in his last chapter, Betty reports, "One of our seven sources (Benson/Borgia) says nothing about [reincarnation] and even implies that it doesn't occur. The other six do mention it, and five of those six endorse it."

"Benson/Borgia" refers to the famous book by Anthony Borgia, Life in the World Unseen* (1956). Presumably, then, the Stringfellow book does contain some discussion of reincarnation — and given its early date and near-total obscurity, I'd be interested to know what it says. So I've ordered it. (Amazon sells only used copies, starting at $95, but the book is available from the publisher for $14.95.) 

It should be noted that even some contemporary channeled material throws cold water on reincarnation. The Risen, by August Goforth and Timothy Gray, quotes its discarnate coauthor as stating emphatically that reincarnation does not occur. 

So what can we conclude from all this? First, reincarnation has been part of Spiritualist literature from early days, and is not a later accretion inspired by the Theosophy and similar movements. Second, there has never been unanimity on this issue. Third, there are interesting parallels between some channeled material and the accounts of between-lives hypnotic regressions. 

If reincarnation is a fact, it would seem most likely that the group soul concept is intimately connected with it, and that the whole process is more subtle and complex than it might appear. The channeled material attributed to Seth and to Silver Birch tends in this direction also.

Voltaire may yet be proved correct in his observation: "It is not more surprising to be born twice than once; everything in nature is resurrection."

---

*By the way, I should note that Borgia's book, Life in the World Unseen, has always read like fiction to me. Prof. Betty's summary of the book does nothing to change my impression. 

A far country

Currently I'm reading a 1969 book by Jane Sherwood, titled The Country Beyond: The Doctrine of Re-Birth, which I saw mentioned in a recent post on Robert McLuhan's excellent blog Paranormalia. (McLuhan, by the way, is the author of the outstanding book Randi's Prize, reviewed here.) 

The Country Beyond consists of Sherwood's automatic writings, which are said to convey messages from several spirit advisers. As with any “channeled” material of this type, there is no way to verify the claims independently. It is always possible that the ideas are coming from the writer's subconscious mind. This is especially true in the case of somebody like Sherwood who, by her own account, spent a good deal of time investigating Spiritualism, visiting mediums, and reading esoteric literature. In the end, all you can do is read the messages and see if they make sense to you and conform with other, similar communications.

Without attempting to summarize the book–or even the first half of it, which is all I've read so far–I'd like to present a few excerpts that particularly interested me. In the quotes that follow, I've Americanized the spelling and punctuation.

A frequent objection raised against some mediums, especially mediums of the past, is that they describe their spirit guides as rather exotic figures–often Native American chieftains or ancient Egyptian priests. Jane Sherwood encountered a number of such mediums in her early exploration of Spiritualism and was highly skeptical of the idea that such colorful characters would predominate in the spirit world. Later, after developing a facility for automatic writing, she obtained an explanation for this, purportedly from a deceased person who had tried to contact her at one of those séances and who had been described as an Egyptian in a white robe. The communication was as follows:

With all my might I willed myself into her [i.e. the medium's] mind, tried hard to give her a mental picture of myself and implored her to speak of me. Can you place all this? Do you remember the “Egyptian” who offered to guide and help you? This was the fantastic guise in which the medium dressed me and not my doing at all though, funnily enough, there was a foundation in my past history for the thought of the white robe. Her description of my face amused me as she told you, but the whole thing was distorted by her notion of Egyptian local coloring. Hieroglyphics, indeed! [P. 37]

We might dismiss this material as the product of Sherwood's own mind, since she was already skeptical of Egyptian (and other) spirit figures. Still, it's intriguing to consider the possibility that mediums in contact with legitimate but rather “ordinary”spirit guides have interpreted them in a somewhat fantastic light, perhaps in conformity with the popular thinking of the day.

The book also contains an interesting snippet of psychological analysis on the part of a deceased communicator.

“I wonder why some people are so anxious to prove that death is the end?” I [Sherwood] said. “They will go to any lengths to show that survival is impossible and faith in it simply wishful thinking.”

“I also have sinned, don't forget,” said Scott [a communicator]. “Perhaps psychology can help us to understand this tendency. It is surely a kind of masochism, a stoic resolve to punish the wishful thinking one suspects is behind any belief in immortality. It feels very stern, strong and noble to deny the thing one secretly longs for, and so to prove that one is quite able to do without it. It is easy to find arguments to support this denial and see how superior it makes one feel to say “I, at least, do not need to believe in such things”.” [Pp. 48, 49]

Again, it is entirely possible that this message originated in Sherwood's own subconscious, but wherever it came from, it's very neatly stated.

Another book I'm currently reading is Dancing Past the Dark by Nancy Evans Bush, a treatment of negative or “hellish” near-death experiences (this book has also been discussed in Paranormalia, and I plan to review it in an upcoming post). Some of the material in The Country Beyond casts an interesting light on the whole issue of negative afterlife accounts. One of Sherwood's communicators, who died in a car crash and had an initially unpleasant postmortem experience, explains:

I think the experience of death must vary considerably because it is governed by the state of mind in which one passes over. Also, there is a vast difference between a sudden passing and a quiet and prepared one. The shock of an unnatural death sets the invisible being in a mad turmoil and makes adjustment to a new environment impossible for a while. One finds oneself in a fantastic dream world with no continuity of experience. Flashes of vivid awareness burn themselves out into unconsciousness and the chaos of unconnected states of mind have [sic] no proper framework of space and time.

Out of the sleep of death there comes first the mere sense of identity, a point of self-awareness growing out of nothingness. From this I judge that the higher activity of the ego-being is the first to assert itself. One wakes next to a tumult of emotions and hurried, anxious thought. Somewhere in this part of the experience comes the unrolling of memories. Your mind helps me to find a simile; it is like a speeded-up run through of a film shown backwards, a swiftly moving vision of life from end to beginning, flickering rapidly past the mind's eye until it ends in the unconsciousness of one's beginning. More unconsciousness follows and in my case the rest was a phantasmagoria. Glimpses of the world seen, clutched at and blotted out, dreamlike awareness of people and events on earth at which one grasped because of their dear familiarity only to realize that one could not make one's presence known. In the effort to do so the scene would melt and change into another. Then the final fading of earth and a long sojourn in what I think of as Hades, the place of the shade, a dim and formless world which I believe is peopled by the miasma of earth emotions and the unconscious projections of its inhabitants. Finally comes the stabilization of the new body and a growing awareness of the real world again; light, clear outlines and real people moving about in a glorious world.

Much of this earlier nightmare could have been avoided if I had known how to avail myself of the help that is freely offered. But I suppose the adjustment could not have been easy for me. I took over a very difficult make-up full of powerful repressions and tangled complexes all of which caused me much suffering before they were straightened out. My own obstinacy and pride were largely to blame for my plight. This was purgatory, if you like, but unavoidable unless one has done the job beforehand. I think I really had the maximum difficulties: an attitude of blank unbelief in any future life, a repressed and powerful emotional state, and the shock of a violent death. So this was not the normal passing but just a difficult and painful personal experience. I am satisfied that it was a just necessity and that I had made it inevitable by my willful ignorance and skepticism. “Whatsoever a man sows” you know. [Pp. 58, 59]

 One of the most famous nightmarish near-death experiences, discussed in Bush's book and many other places, is the one recounted by Howard Storm. What struck me about Storm's account is how completely secular his outlook on life must have been at the time. Finding himself at the mercy of demonic beings that tormented him in a dark hellish place, and believing himself to be dead, he desperately tried to summon up a prayer, but initially had no idea how to do it. He writes, 

From inside of me I felt a voice, my voice, say: "Pray to God."  My mind responded to that: "I don’t pray. I don’t know how to pray." This is a guy lying on the ground in the darkness surrounded by what appeared to be dozens if not hundreds and hundreds of vicious creatures who had just torn him up. The situation seemed utterly hopeless, and I seemed beyond any possible help whether I believed in God or not. The voice again told me to pray to God. It was a dilemma since I didn’t know how. The voice told me a third time to pray to God.  

I started saying things like: "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want ... God bless America ..." and anything else that seemed to have a religious connotation. 

Clearly, Storm was innocent of any religious background or training and had spent no time whatsoever pondering the possibility of a spiritual dimension or an afterlife. He says so himself: "I had absolute certainty that there was nothing beyond this life – because that was how really smart people understood it.... While I was undergoing this stress [of dying], prayer or anything like that never occurred to me. I never once thought about it. If I mentioned God’s name at all it was only as a profanity."

His lack of preparedness, coupled with his own mental state (fear and confusion) and his unexpected and agonizing medical crisis, may account for the “hellish” aspects of his experience, just as Sherwood's communicator suggests.

Incidentally, it's also interesting to notice how reliably the idea of a past-life review comes up in Sherwood's accounts and in many other accounts channeled through mediums. Of course, it's an old cliché that one's life flashes before one's eyes at the moment of death, but I'm not sure the cliché ever involved a life review after one has actually died. It's thought provoking at the very least to notice how one of the key aspects of near-death experiences–a subject not popularized until 1975, six years after Sherwood's book was published–is reflected in these earlier channeled communications.

Another of Sherwood's communicators, who died peacefully and had a much more pleasant passing, discusses his transition:

Where death comes gradually and naturally like this one wakes quietly in the new conditions after an interval of a few days. One is fully through, as we say, and although the newcomer has to be cared for and kept quiet until the new rhythms of his body are fully established, he soon becomes strong and vigorous and ready to begin his new life. The transition, like all natural processes, should not be interfered with by violence or haste. Death is a kind of birth and it should proceed with a quiet inevitableness and not be accompanied by pain or distress. Much of the apparent suffering of a death-bed is not consciously felt by the sufferer. His real life is already half retired from the mortal body and neither experiences nor records its pangs. Shakespeare is very near the literal facts when he speaks of “shuffling off this mortal coil”. Comparison of various accounts of the death-change make it clear that there are at least two stages, separated by intervals of unconsciousness. Actual death is followed by a period of unconsciousness which lasts for some time; this gives way to a kind of awareness but not a consciousness of one's environment. The new senses have not yet begun to function so there is nothing, or at best a misty, unreal setting, fantastic and dreamlike. During this interval, the memory appears to be stimulated so that one lives through a resume of a lifetime just past. Then one sinks into a second period of unconsciousness which should give place to a full awakening in the new world. We might with justice speak of a first and second death because not only the physical body has to be shared but the next body also. [P. 61]

 The reference to the line from Hamlet's soliloquy is interesting. The metaphor is frequently misunderstood; modern readers picture somebody shuffling–dragging his feet–as he walks off stage. The actual image is of a snake shedding its skin. To "shuffle off this mortal coil” is to slough off the coil of snakeskin that the snake leaves behind. Sherwood's communicator is saying that Shakespeare is “very near the literal facts” in describing death as sloughing off an unneeded part of the body, with the body understood as a compound entity of physical, etheric, astral, and spiritual forms.

Asked to elaborate, the communicator begins with the first stage of awareness he described, the one in which there is “a kind of awareness but not a consciousness of one's environment.”

I found myself awake in the transition state of which we have spoken. I thought myself still weak and ill, but I rose from my rest feeling marvelously refreshed and happy and I wandered for a while in the something-nothing surroundings of this queer world and was unable to make any sense of it. The brooding silence drug me into unconsciousness for a long time, because when next I woke my body felt quite different, no longer frail and weak as I had supposed, but vigorous and ready for anything as though I had suddenly stepped back into youth. This delighted me although I was daunted by my condition. There was a feeling of expectation, of waiting for something to happen. I was wide awake, quietly comprehending my state and content to sink into myself. Thought turned inward and it moved at a surprising rate. It raced over the record of a long lifetime which it lit up with a searchlight that spared no blunders, sins or weaknesses, but impartially illumined it all, as one holds up an old, finished garment to the light and notes with dismay its rents and stains. This clear blaze of recollection showed me the honest shape and cut of the thing too. I reviewed it as though I had no longer a special responsibility for it but had to understand clearly in what it had failed and in what succeed. I was saddened enough and humbled by what I saw, and then, with a sigh of acceptance I was able to turn to other thoughts.

My whole religious outlook had to be rethought in the light of this unexpected experience. [Pp. 62, 63]

Later, there is a rather technical discussion of differences between earthly and heavenly perceptions of time and space, which may or may not have any mathematical validity; I have no idea. One thing that interested me was a little digression on human nature, as expressed by one communicator:

You have, of course, to take another dimension into account and it is probably the coefficient of the new dimension which is upsetting your time comparisons. The fourth dimension, i.e. time, has been modified for us by a fifth dimension, that of degree of being. This last must vary as the measurement of frequency alters. It applies to organisms and is the scale by which their development is measured. Its sign is a differing quality of consciousness which runs up the scale from the lowest organism to man. In man each one of the degrees of being is represented because of his possession of all the grades of being from the etheric, which we agreed was the first remove from the physical, to the astral, up to the ego-being which is at present his highest element. But in man on earth, the consciousness that belongs by right to this highest degree cannot function fully because all the higher degrees have to be timed down to the physical and cannot free themselves to work independently until the physical body is shed. That accounts for the perplexing difference in your mode of consciousness and ours, and is one of the clues to this troublesome contradiction between your time and ours. [P. 94]

Leaving aside the issue of extra dimensions or the subjective nature of space-time, I was interested in the idea that a human being's higher consciousness rarely functions on earth because “all the higher degrees have to be timed down to the physical and cannot free themselves to work independently.” This is somewhat consistent with the so-called filter theory, which claims that the brain serves as a filtering mechanism to screen out most input from higher consciousness, allowing us to focus on our “lower” physical needs.

Despite inevitable discrepancies and dissonances, there is an interesting continuity in much of the channeled material from various mediums. This might be explained in terms of all the mediums dipping into the same esoteric sourcebooks or acquiring the same trendy ideas from mentors or clients. On the other hand, one could also see it as evidence of a degree of objectivity in the mediums' messages. This was the approach taken by British researcher Robert Crookall. 

A point in favor of the latter interpretation is that similar ideas crop up across the globe, even in remote societies whose traditions are unlikely to have been influenced by Western spiritualist trends. Almost everywhere, it seems, we find shamans going on vision quests and reporting experiences and observations very much like those described by Jane Sherwood's communicators. It's enough to make some of us think that these messages really do come from a country beyond.

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Clarification, May 22: Looking more closely at the copyright page, I now see that The Country Beyond is an older book than I'd realized. The edition I'm reading was printed in 1991, but is a reissue of an earlier, 1969 edition. I assumed 1969 was the original publication date. However, I missed some text lower down on the page: "'The Country Beyond' was first published in 1944. The present edition contains the original work together with additional material from an earlier book, 'The Psychic Bridge'." 

So the material in the book cannot be later than 1944, which is 31 years before the publication of Raymond Moody's Life After Life. 

Incidentally, all page numbers cited in this post refer to the 1991 edition put out by The C.W. Daniel Company Limited, a British publisher. 

The wheat and the chaff

Recently I received a free copy of a new small-press book about the afterlife, which arrived charmingly gift-wrapped -- sort of an early Christmas present. I don't know the principal author, but he has a blog on this subject which contains a lot of interesting posts. I guess he came across my blog and thought I might be interested.

The book, which is clearly a longtime labor of love, is The Risen: Dialogues of Love, Grief, and Survival beyond Death, by August Goforth and Timothy Gray (2009), with a foreword by longtime NDE researcher Melvin Morse. August Goforth is the pseudonym of a psychotherapist in New York City. Timothy Gray is the actual name of a New York City writer and photographer who passed away in the early 1990s and whose insights are ostensibly channeled in this book.

The "Risen" of the title is the book's term for people who have passed on -- an expression that provides a nice spin on the more traditional way of referring to the deceased as "the fallen" (as in "a roll call of the fallen" or "our fallen heroes").

One of the major issues addressed by the book is what part of us actually "rises." Do we survive with all our neuroses and fears and likes and dislikes, or are we transformed into something greater? The Risen answers this question in an extended discussion of the "ego-mind" and "Authentic Self," an approach that blends elements of nondualistic mysticism (Eckhart Tolle, e.g.) with the teachings of Spiritualism. It's a combination that intrigues me, because I've found value in both approaches but have not seen how to integrate them. Tolle seems to regard the personality as an illusion that will dissolve when the body dies, while Spiritualism attempts to demonstrate that the personality survives death. Both outlooks, it seems to me, have something worthwhile to offer. On the one hand, the evidence for continuity of personality is, in my opinion, very strong; thousands of mediumistic communications attest to it, and I find many of these communications persuasive. On the other hand, who wants to survive as a bundle of quirks and worries and petty grudges? Wouldn't it be hell to be trapped with your chattering "ego-mind" forever? Sweet oblivion would be preferable.

The Risen

states that the ego-mind and its accompanying personas do not survive, or at least don't survive for long, but that the true self -- what the book calls Authentic Self -- does continue, and that it makes use of the memories and experiences of the ego-mind as needed.

It is, of course, always difficult to evaluate channeled material, especially when it consists of philosophical insights rather than verifiable factual claims. I don't know of any objective way to assess this kind of thing, so my personal approach is to see if it subjectively rings true to me.

Though I don't pretend to understand all of what The Risen has to say on this topic, enough of it feels right to me that I want to present it here, in highly condensed form. What follows are selected excerpts from a much longer presentation spread over two chapters of the book.

If you find these ideas interesting, I suggest ordering the book so you can follow the whole presentation in unabridged form. Sadly, your copy, unlike mine, will be neither free nor gift-wrapped. Who says blogging has no perks?

From Chapter 10, "Ego-Mind & the Simulate Selves"

The ego-mind is an obsessively opinionated, decision-making psychological component of the earthly mind-body. All thought arises from its mentality, generated to manifest physical forms and experiences on the physical plane. Simultaneously, it outwardly projects judgments about our mind-body's perceptions and its environment into our inner space, and onto the bodies and environments of others. This projection is the simulate self. When the feeling of Authentic Self has awakened, all thoughts can be observed, accepted, shelved, or dissolved from a consciously aware stance. But until then, the ego-mind is in complete control of any rising thoughts.

The language of a malfunctioning ego-mind is tribal and therefore fear-based. It subscribes to judgmental concepts that use words and phrases such as "exclusive," "special," "restricted," "fashionable," [etc.] ... Gossip, complaint, and criticism are its food and drink. It is motivated by fame and recognition, and fueled by envy and competition. Insatiably seeking entertainment, "gleeful" and "gloating" best describe its sense of humor, which is delivered with jealousy, sarcasm, and resentment. The ego-mind loves competitive contests. It enjoys attracting and manifesting disasters.

The ego-mind is future-oriented -- it cannot wait, and it worries. It worries about worry. Its language, couched in suggestions, generates anxiety attacks. The ego-mind will seize upon the body's minor aches and escalate them into mental terrors and fantasies about disease and death....

Few earth-embodied Authentic Selves are consciously aware of the psychological component of their mind-body-spirit, also called the psyche or soul. The vast majority of people are moving about in the world with the ego-mind in the driving seat while they sleep in the back, occasionally and briefly waking to look at the scenery passing them by, but then quickly falling back into hibernation....

Because of the unlimited energy permitted to the ego-mind, the simulate self is able to present and maintain the semblance of a self-aware consciousness. In effect, this simulacrum or imitation manifests its own kind of form, and simultaneously, a projected, perceived environment for this form. This environment arises from the multitude of anxious thoughts we allow the ego-mind to generate and amplify, drawing from the vast expanses of energy circumscribed by our fear and trembling....

The simulate self fabricates, presents, and maintains a "personality" or "character" in order to appear real and to appeal to others. It assigns the greatest importance to itself regarding the affairs of the world. It is extremely valuable to keep in mind that our personality is an illusion and not who we are at the core of our immortal existence....

The simulate self resides in our material body's mental areas. The core, true self, or Authentic Self, dwells within the non-mental areas of our interpenetrating material, etheric, and astral bodies....

Authentic Self does not think or have thoughts. It observes them as they arise from the ego-mind, which is contained within the infinite space of Mind....

Connecting with true Reality, or even the beginning awareness of a projected edge against Reality [i.e., the awareness of a perimeter beyond which there is a greater reality - MP], would initiate a weakening of the simulate self's structure, contributing to its possible dissolution and reintegration into something larger, even while Authentic Self is still earth-embodied. The dissolution of the ego-mind and its simulate selves is inevitable, which the ego-mind correctly understands and greatly dreads as its own kind of death....

While survival is the ego-mind's prime directive for the simulate self, it is really meant for the physical cells of our temporary mortal bodies, and on a limited basis. It is not intended for the ego-mind's dreams of immortality for the personality of the simulate self. The ego-mind's true function is to serve us while Authentic Self is spiritually embodied....

The experiences of unawakened human beings are multi-layered, consisting of complex and dynamic sets of simulate selves, interacting with one another and with Authentic Self....

This complexity of selves, of many personalities, means there is not just one simulate self, but that the ego-mind has fractured into many simulate selves -- into many "-I'-s". If we closely watch our thoughts and speech, especially when responding to another person's thoughts or speech -- whether or not they are inside or outside our head -- it becomes clear that we carry within us many "-I'-s" of an indeterminate number, each with its own traits and opinions.... There is the -I- of one's career role, the -I- of one's parenting role, the -I- of one's role as lover, friend, enemy, expert, and so on. These could be typed as major -I's-.

There are also countless minor -I's-. These include the sarcastic, the reactive, the self-entitled ones; the opinionated, the resentful, the gossiping and worrying ones. Some are stronger and are leaders which others follow. Some prefer to remain undetected, while others compete for dominance. There are also the "nice" -I's-. We all know the over-cheerful, the do-gooder, the ever-apologetic, the chronic volunteer, the self-denigrater. Seemingly benign, these -I's- are just slipcovers hiding the shabbiness of the ego-mind's own agenda....

If you've ever "come to" and realized you've been mumbling under your breath, or arguing with yourself, or smiling about a delicious put-down you made earlier, or replaying the boss's congratulations, the next step is to consciously realize that a simulate self was using your brain and body while you, as Authentic Self, slept....

From Chapter 12, "Authentic Self"

Authentic Self is beyond language and increasingly revealed as it is "uncovered." This self-revelation happens as we regain control of the ego-mind and its simulate selves....

One can learn to observe an experience beyond an experience. This observation leads to the empowering question: "Who is it that observes?" Some refer to this who as the "Hidden Observer."

Stilling the incessant criticism of the ego-mind will eventually result in an awakening to the Hidden Observer, who is already very awake but just seems hidden, simply because it is much quieter than the ego-mind.

When no longer hidden from us, it becomes clear that this Observer is Authentic Self. It is a direct channel to Original Creator Source, from which all individualities are rise. While remaining individual and unique, all Authentic Selves -- or Higher Individualities -- are interconnected and collectively joined as our One Source. Individually and collectively, we expand our Source while being our Source....

What are the qualities of Authentic Self? If such labels could be found and described here, the ego-mind would attempt to simulate them into personality traits, which the unaware reader would then pretend to have.

Personality is not individuality, yet most modern people seem to equate them. "Personality" comes from the Latin persona, meaning "mask," referring to the masks that Ancient Greek actors once used onstage to personalize a character. The actors used masks to portray something previously unseen, rendering it visible to others. When they left the stage the masks came off, and they knew that the persona did not continue on as their individuality -- "impersonal" means "unmasked."

Like any good actor, a simulate self needs memories to draw on for its character. These memories are supplied by the ego-mind. Actors also know that the success of their persona depends largely on their own belief in it. The basic nature of belief is that it is temporary. But modern humans actually try to maintain a permanent belief that our persona is some kind of externalized result of the bridging between our inner and outer selves. This is yet another misconception of the ego-mind, because there is but one real self, Authentic Self, which only seems to be hidden....

Individuality, not image, is you. The word "individual" comes from the Latin individuos, "not divided." Contrasted with the image of the personality, our individuality is invisible and indivisible, and therefore indestructible. Individuality survives death when we transition to a Risen stage. It has no dimensions, so it cannot be measured, contained, nor defined. Any effort to do so is to try to personalize Authentic Self. One can cover up Authentic Self with masks, but sooner or later all the disguises come off, and then what remains? The Individualized Authentic Self that is you, which not only exists now, but always will exist, without end. When we leave the theatrical stage of earth, the temporary personality will eventually dissolve and be reabsorbed as informative energy into a Risen Authentic Self -- this usually occurs after we leave the material body, but there are exceptions. Any work that remains to be done in dealing with personality issues will be accomplished after Rising.

Psychologists analyze externalized thought forms as they are expressed and presented through our personalities. But they can't measure the quantity or quality of the dimensionless individual. Earthly science tends to see its presumed authority as reliable knowledge, but such authority is largely a competitive matter of fight-or-flight posturing, to ensure the survival of separate ego-minded personalities.

Most people identify with their personality to the extent that it crystallizes. It retains some semi-substantial but still earthly materiality, so the crystallized form can be quite problematic to dissolve, even on the astral planes. Although it is not intelligent, the free-floating, discarnate personality can display a kind of clever mimicry of the memories with which still resonates. The resultant form will linger on in a kind of quasi-existence on the lowest astral levels that are closest to the earth plane. Recall that the ego-mind eventually ceases to exist when we discard the body, an inevitable ending or death which it fears and does all it can to avoid, while allowed to run out of control with that fear. The disembodied, crystallized form of the simulate self no longer has an earthly ego-mind regulated by what we call a "conscience," or inner critic or judge....

These forms present themselves as apparent semi-intelligences, and are often responsible for the nonsensical, crude, and even cruel communications to sensitives during a mediumistic reading.... They are most successful at making their presences known through an Ouija board, and sometimes through automatic handwriting, table tipping, and rappings. People with traumatized psyches, whose brains are disabled by organic disease, by various substances, or by conditions labeled as mental illness may also be susceptible to the invasive efforts of these discarded constructs, for short- and long-term periods....

To communicate with someone on a higher plane, we must raise our vibrations from that of the earth plane. To do this we make a conscious connection with Authentic Self. In turn, those on the higher plane, who are very likely more familiar with and identified as their Authentic Selves, often must lower their own vibrations. This experience has been reported by them as very uncomfortable, like "sinking into thick, muddy water"...

When the earthly material body falls away, Authentic Self then stands revealed. This Self is the bridge. When I say that I am the bridge or the door to other states of consciousness, I mean to where other individuals exist in similar states of consciousness. I am the door to Tim. In the early stages of communication with the Risen, the door is experienced intuitively.

[Excerpts from The Risen, pp. 70-95 and 112-117]

P.S. It occurs to me that the distinction between the ego-mind and Authentic Self might be what the Gnostics were thinking of when they developed the myth of the demiurge.

Gnosticism claimed that the true God is mostly unknown to people, who mistakenly worship a sort of middleman, the demiurge. The demiurge is a lesser deity that thinks of itself as the one and only God. This fanciful story could be seen as a metaphor for the tendency to see the ego-mind as our one and only self, when in fact it is sort of an imposter, and our true self is something higher and more mysterious.

Hot stuff

Lately I've been preoccupied by current events (the bailout, the election), but this Daily Grail post is worth commenting on.

Are stars sentient? That Solaris-like idea isn't just science fiction speculation - it's one of the topics touched on in an upcoming book edited by David Skrbina, [titled] Mind That Abides: Panpsychism in the New Millennium.

There follows a quote from this book, dealing with the basic idea of panpsychism -  that mind is distributed throughout the cosmos:

[Physicist Roger] Penrose observed that interiors of neutron stars may have huge quantum superpositions which would reach OR with very large E, brief t and high intensity. By Orch OR criteria such events would indeed be conscious. But because the conditions are presumably random, such conscious moments would lack cognitive information processing: OR without Orch. Similarly, OR conscious moments without cognition may be occurring in various crystal-like, large scale quantum materials throughout the universe.

Astrophysicist Paola Zizzi has applied Penrose OR to the problem of inflation in the early universe. During the Big Bang, the universe expanded (inflated) rapidly—for about 10-33 seconds. But rapid inflation then stopped abruptly, and expansion has been slow ever since. Zizzi (2002) considered that during inflation the universe was in quantum superposition of multiple possible universes. Using E=h/t and setting E to the mass of the universe, Zizzi calculated that OR threshold would be met, surprisingly, at 10-33 seconds into the Big Bang, and conjectured that the end of inflation coincided with the universe undergoing a cosmic conscious moment (the ‘Big Wow’). She further suggested our individual consciousnesses are literal microcosms related to the initial cosmic conscious moment.

What is "Orch OR? According to Wikipedia,

Penrose and Stuart Hameroff have speculated that human consciousness is the result of quantum gravity effects in microtubules, which they dubbed Orch-OR (orchestrated objective reduction).

So I guess the idea is that stars can achieve some form of nonhuman consciousness, at least on brief time scales.  

I have no idea if this is in any way a plausible conceit. But it did remind me of a passage from The Road to Immortality, a book supposedly channeled by the medium Geraldine Cummins from the discarnate psychical researcher F.W.H. Myers. In Chapter 17, "Myers" reports:

Try and think of the mind as a web: in it are numerous centers about which radiate thoughts and memories. Any one of these centers can direct its attention towards the earth. We are all fundamentally one, but when we concentrate upon some special operation of thought we become divided. In order that we may become one again we have to travel far from you. We must be fused in the spirit again. I do not, by the word "far," wish to indicate distance as you know it, I merely wish to indicate that the very fineness of our composition leads us, when we are one, to be remote from you. You possibly will not believe me when I tell you that each star has its own personality. It is one and yet it is many. In the same way you, even when in the body, are, in the same material sense, one yet many. There are myriads of little entities within you but there is only one mind or one channel for the mind. The interesting feature of my state here is that I am within a larger mind which is not a collective one but is rounded off from many others. Many of my affinities are contained in it. All those phases in my earth life are represented by these various centers.

In another of Cummins' books, Beyond Human Personality, "Myers" tells us that there is life on the stars. The communicator's grasp of physics seems questionable, at least if we can judge by the conventional wisdom in physics today. But, speaking of brief time scales, there is this:

Solar atoms are of a different type from earthly atoms - they perish with an inconceivable rapidity. But when the soul assumes the third disguise on the Fifth plane the pilgrim lives in a rhythm and time different from terrestrial time and exists in a kind of flux or flow.

The atomic structure of the star which he has chosen for his abode is of so unusual a character it would astonish the earthly physicist. These atoms should be divided into two classes. Those in the first which I will name "radiant atoms," differ from those in the second order in the apparent span of their solar life. They quickly disintegrate, whereas the atoms of the earth alter very slowly under the corroding feet of the years. Nevertheless, in the heart of the star, the physicist will find a condition analogous to water. This center of stability - for when compared with the outer or radiant part it may be regarded as steady though fluidic - is composed of a far heavier type of atom than those I have called radiant. It is not for me to discuss them in detail. If the human eye could exist in such conditions and register what it perceived, the core of this star would seem to represent a vast sea of boiling or bubbling water, a sea in inconceivable tumult.

However, we are at present concerned with the individual life of the traveller. He assumes a fiery body, that is to say a body consisting of radiant atoms. Necessarily it bears no resemblance to the human shape. On Eidos he learnt how to alter and yet to control his outward appearance, that lovely body which is the apotheosis of form as conceived in the human mind. So now, when in stellar life, he has developed and extended his imaginative and intellectual faculties to such an extent that he passes beyond human perceptive existence. With incredible speed his outward appearance changes, its astonishing transitions flowing rhythmically from design to exquisite design. In swift lightning flashes of ecstasy he vibrates in these successive bodies, thrilling and throbbing in a tremendous and brilliant world. Swept by solar tempest to the farthest limits of feeling he becomes so vividly perceptive he may be said to have reached a culminating plane of exalted stellar experience.

The man who has thus been transformed dwells for a while on one of the fixed stars; he is limited to that particular sun in his knowledge and in his experiences. Necessarily, when taking on a solar incarnation, the major self must abide without his stellar consciousness and the details of his past journey remain temporarily hidden from him during active life within that zone of fire.

This sounds at least a little bit similar to the quote about panpsychism above.  Compare:

huge quantum superpositions which would reach OR with very large [energy], brief [time] and high intensity.

the pilgrim ... exists in a  kind of flux or flow. With incredible speed his outward appearance changes ... flowing ... in swift lightning flashes of ecstasy [through] successive bodies.

Large energy = lightning flashes?

Brief time = incredible speed, inconceivable rapidity?

High intensity = ecstasy, astonishing transitions, exquisite design[s], imaginative and intellectual faculties ... developed and extended ... beyond human perceptive existence?

Kind of interesting, anyway. And a welcome relief from the economic and political hullabaloo.

-------

Hat tip: Greg Taylor of The Daily Grail.

Spiritualism and the early Christian Church

Here's some interesting material from Arthur Conan Doyle's History of Spiritualism, Vol. II. All the excerpts are taken from Chapter  10, "The Religious Aspect of Spiritualism." I have added a few pertinent links and omitted a couple of minor digressions (marked with ellipses).

Everything that follows is from Doyle's book.

----

[Start of excerpts]

It is quite amazing when we read the early documents of the Church, and
especially the writings of the so-called "Fathers," to find out the
psychic knowledge and the psychic practice which were in vogue in those
days. The early Christians lived in close and familiar touch with the
unseen, and their absolute faith and constancy were founded upon the
positive personal knowledge which each of them had acquired. They were
aware, not as a speculation but as an absolute fact, that death meant no
more than a translation to a wider life, and might more properly be
called birth. Therefore they feared it not at all, and regarded it rather
as Dr. Hodgson did when he cried, "Oh, I can hardly bear to wait!" Such
an attitude did not affect their industry and value in this world, which
have been attested even by their enemies. If converts in far-off lands
have in these days been shown to deteriorate when they become Christians,
it is because the Christianity which they have embraced has lost all the
direct compelling power which existed of old.

Apart from the early Fathers, we have evidence of early Christian
sentiment in the inscriptions of the Catacombs. An interesting book on
early Christian remains in Rome, by the Rev. Spence Jones, Dean of
Gloucester, deals in part with these strange and pathetic records. These
inscriptions have the advantage over all our documentary evidence that
they have certainly not been forged, and that there has been no
possibility of interpolation.

Dr. Jones, after having read many hundreds of them, says: "The early
Christians speak of the dead as though they were still living. They talk
to their dead." That is the point of view of the present-day
Spiritualists-one which the Churches have so long lost. The early
Christian graves present a strange contrast to those of the heathen which
surround them. The latter always refer to death as a final, terrible and
irrevocable thing. "Fuisti Vale" sums up their sentiment. The Christians,
on the other hand, dwelt always upon the happy continuance of life.
"Agape, thou shalt live for ever," "Victorina is in peace and in Christ,"
"May God refresh thy spirit," "Mayest thou live in God." These
inscriptions alone are enough to show that a new and infinitely consoling
view of death had come to the human race....

It is not possible, however, to draw any psychic inferences from the
inscriptions or drawings in the Catacombs. For these we must turn to the
pre-Nicene Fathers, and there we find so many references that a small
book which would contain nothing else might easily be compiled. We have,
however, to tune-in our thoughts and phrases to theirs in order to get
the full meaning. Prophecy, for example, we now call mediumship, and an
Angel has become a high spirit or a Guide. Let us take a few typical
quotations at random.

Saint Augustine, in his "De cura pro Mortuis," says: "The spirits of the
dead can be sent to the living and can unveil to them the future which
they them selves have learned either from other spirits or from angels"
(i.e. spiritual guides) "or by divine revelation." This is pure
Spiritualism exactly as we know and define it. Augustine would not have
spoken so surely of it and with such an accuracy of definition if he had
not been quite familiar with it. There is no hint of its being illicit.

He comes back to the subject in his "The City of God," where he refers to
practices which enable the ethereal body of a person to communicate with
the spirits and higher guides and to receive visions. These persons were,
of course, mediums -- the name simply meaning the intermediate between the
carnate and discarnate organism.

Saint Clement of Alexandria makes similar allusions, and so does Saint
Jerome in his controversy with Vigilantius the Gaul. This, however, is,
of course, at a later date-after the Council of Nicaea.

Hermas, a somewhat shadowy person, who was said to have been a friend of
St. Paul's, and to have been the direct disciple of the Apostles, is
credited with being the author of a book "The Pastor." Whether this
authorship is apocryphal or not, the book is certainly written by someone
in the early centuries of Christianity, and it therefore represents the
ideas which then prevailed. He says: "The spirit does not answer all who
question nor any particular person, for the spirit that comes from God
does not speak to man when man wills but when God permits. Therefore,
when a man who has a spirit from God" (i.e. a control) "comes into an
assembly of the faithful, and when prayer has been offered, the spirit
fills this man who speaks as God wills."

This exactly describes our own psychic experience, when séances are
properly conducted. We do not invoke spirits, as ignorant critics
continually assert, and we do not know what is coming. But we pray -- using
the "Our Father," as a rule -- and we await events. Then such spirit as is
chosen and permitted comes to us and speaks or writes through the medium.
Hermas, like Augustine, would not have spoken so accurately had he not
had personal experience of the procedure.

Origen has many allusions to psychic knowledge. It is curious to compare
the crass ignorance of our present spiritual chiefs with the wisdom of
the ancients. Very many quotations could be given, but a short one may be
taken from his controversy with Celsus.

Many people have embraced the Christian faith in spite of themselves,
their hearts having been suddenly changed by some spirit, either in an
apparition or in a dream.

In exactly this way leaders among the materialists, from Dr. Elliotson
onwards, have been brought back to a belief in the life to come and its
relation to this life by the study of psychic evidence.

It is the earlier Fathers who are the most definite upon this matter, for
they were nearer to the great psychic source. Thus Irenaeus and
Tertullian, who lived about the end of the second century, are full of
allusions to psychic signs, while Eusebius, writing later, mourns their
scarcity and complains that the Church had become unworthy of them.

Irenaeus wrote: "We hear of many brethren in the Church possessing
prophetic" (i.e. mediumistic) "gifts, and speaking through the spirit in
all kinds of tongues and bringing to light for the general advantage the
hidden things of men, and setting forth the mysteries of God." No passage
could better describe the functions of a high-class medium.

When Tertullian had his great controversy with Marcion, he made the
Spiritualistic gifts the test of truth between the two parties. He
claimed that these were forthcoming in greater profusion upon his own
side, and includes among them trance-utterance, prophecy, and revelation
of secret things. Thus the things, which are now sneered at or condemned
by so many clergymen, were in the year 200 the actual touchstones of
Christianity. Tertullian also in his De Anima says: "We have to-day
among us a sister who has received gifts on the nature of revelations
which she undergoes in spirit in the church amid the rites of the Lord's
Day, falling into ecstasy. She converses with angels" -- that is, high
spirits -- "sees and hears mysteries, and reads the hearts of certain people
and brings healings to those who ask. 'Among other things,' she said, 'a
soul was shown to me in bodily form, and it seemed to be a spirit, but
not empty nor a thing of vacuity. On the contrary, it seemed as if it
might be touched, soft, lucid, of the colour of air, and of the human
form in every detail.'"

One mine of information as to the views of the primitive Christians is to
be found in the "Apostolic Constitutions." It is true that they are not
Apostolic, but Whiston, Krabbe and Bunsen are all agreed that at least
seven out of the eight books are genuine ante-Nicene documents, probably
of the early third century. A study of them reveals some curious facts....

It is, however, in discussing the "gifts," or varied forms of mediumship,
that these ancient documents throw a light upon psychic subjects. Then,
as now, mediumship took different forms, the gift of tongues, of healing,
of prophecy and the like. Harnack says that in each early Christian
Church there were three discreet women, one for healing and two for
prophecy. The whole subject is freely discussed in the "Constitutions."

It appears that those who had gifts became conceited over them, and they
are earnestly adjured to remember that a man may have gifts and yet have
no great virtue, so that he is really the spiritual inferior of many who
have no gifts.

The object of phenomena is shown, as in Modern Spiritualism, to be the
conversion of the unbeliever, rather than the entertainment of the
orthodox. They are "not for the advantage of those who perform them, but
for the conviction of the unbelievers, that those whom the word did not
persuade the power of signs might put to shame, for signs are not for us
who believe, but for the unbelievers, both Jews and Gentiles"
(Constitutions, Book VIII, Sec. I).

Later the various gifts, which roughly correspond with our different
forms of mediumship, are given as follows. "Let not therefore anyone that
works signs and wonders judge anyone of the faithful who is not
vouchsafed the same. For the gifts of God which are bestowed through
Christ are various, and one man receives one gift and another another.
For perhaps one has the word of wisdom" (trance-speaking), "and another
the word of knowledge" (inspiration), "another discerning of spirits"
(clairvoyance), "another foreknowledge of things to come, another the
word of teaching" (spirit addresses), "another long-suffering," -- all our
mediums need that gift.

One may well ask oneself where, outside the ranks of the Spiritualists,
are these gifts or these observances to be found in any of those Churches
which profess to be the branches of this early root?

[End of excerpts]

A soldier's tale

In his book The History of Spiritualism, Vol. II, Arthur Conan Doyle relates the following story. (This material appears in Chapter 9, "Spiritualism and the War.")

Of the many cases recorded of the return of dead soldiers, the following stands out because the particulars were received from two independent sources. It is related by Mr. W. T. Waters, of Tunbridge Wells, who says that he is only a novice in the study of Spiritualism:

In July last I had a sitting with Mr. J. J. Vango, in the course of which the control suddenly told me that there was standing by me a young soldier who was most anxious that I should take a message to his mother and sister who live in this town. I replied that I did not know any soldier near to me who had passed over. However, the lad would not be put off, and as my own friends seemed to stand aside to enable him to speak, I promised to endeavour to carry out his wishes.

At once came an exact description which enabled me instantly to recognize in this soldier lad the son of an acquaintance of my family. He told me certain things by which I was made doubly certain that it was he and no other, and he then gave me his message of comfort and assurance to his mother and sister (his father had died when he was a baby), who, for over two years, had been uncertain as to his fate, as he had been posted as "missing." He described how he had been badly wounded and captured by the Germans in a retreat, and that he had died about a week afterwards, and he implored me to tell his dear ones that he was often with them, and that the only bar to his complete happiness was the witnessing of his mother's great grief and his inability to make himself known.

I fully intended to keep my promise, but knowing that the lad's people favoured the High Church party and would most likely be absolutely sceptical, I was puzzled how to convey the message, as I felt they would only think that my own loss had affected my brain. I ventured to approach his aunt, but what I told her only called forth the remark: "It cannot be," and I therefore decided to await an opportunity of speaking to his mother direct.

Before this looked-for opportunity came, a young lady of this town, having lost her mother about two years ago, and hearing from my daughter that I was investigating these matters, called to see me, and I lent her my books. One of these books is "Rupert Lives," with which she was particularly struck, and she eventually arranged a sitting with Miss McCreadie, through whom she received such convincing testimony that she is now a firm believer. During this sitting, the soldier boy who came to me came to her also. He repeated the same description that I had received, mentioned in addition his name -- Charlie -- and begged her to give a message to his mother and sister-the selfsame message which I had failed to give. So anxious was he in the matter, that at the close of the sitting he came again and implored her not to fail him.

Now, these events happened at different dates -- July and September -- the same message exactly being given through different mediums to different persons, and yet people tell us it is all a myth and that mediums simply read our thoughts.

When my friend told me of her experience I at once asked her to go with me to the lad's mother, and I am pleased to state that this double message convinced both his mother and his sister, and that his aunt is almost brought to the truth if not quite.

Now, at first glance this seems like quite a strong case, but when we look more closely, its evidential value is harder to establish.

For one thing, apparently no one in the soldier's family actually knew how (or even if) he had died, so the detailed report of his capture by the Germans and subsequent death cannot be verified.

Second, the soldier had been missing for two years, so it was probably safe to assume he was dead.

Third, in a relatively small town, word of the family's predicament would have spread to strangers. (Tunbridge Wells today has a population of 56,000; probably it was even smaller in Doyle's day.)

Fourth, the two mediums could have been in collusion. In his book The Psychic Mafia, M. Lamar Keene (a reformed fake medium) reports that unscrupulous mediums routinely exchange information.

On the other hand, the case does have its interesting features. Note that the dead soldier was "the son of an acquaintance of [the sitter's] family." This connection is close enough to explain why the spirit chose to come to this particular sitter, yet distant enough to make it unlikely that the medium could have known about it.

Also, the second sitter had no obvious connection to the narrator (unless of course she mentioned him to the medium), yet she got the same message.

It's also perhaps of interest that the soldier's name was not given in the first séance but was supplied in the second. If the first medium had already researched the family, why hold back this piece of evidence? But if genuine communication was going on, the absence of the name makes more sense, since names are often the most difficult facts to receive (and some mediums are better with names than others).

Overall, the case shows both the strengths and weaknesses of reports of this kind. It helps us see why spiritualism became so very popular during the First World War, but also why the doubts of skeptical critics were never quite assuaged.

Doyle also makes some interesting points about reports of mediumship by the early Fathers of the Christian Church. We'll cover that next time.