Michael Prescott's Blog

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."

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*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. 

Going through channels

Reading Jon Klimo's well-known book Channeling, I came across this interesting passage:

The clairvoyant and precognitive material of the later fifteenth-century semi-mythical English medium Mother Shipton also appears to have come true. Like a number of other prophetic mediums before and after her, she chose to record what she received in poetic form:

Carriages without horses shall go,
And accidents fill the world with woe.
Around the world thoughts shall fly
In the twinkling of an eye ...
In the air men shall be seen,
In white, in black, in green;
Iron in the water shall float,
As easily as a wooden boat.

Two things struck me about this. First, if Mother Shipton is "semi-mythical," how can we be  sure of the provenance of her alleged prophecies? Second, the excerpt of the prophecy seems almost too accurate; I wondered what had been omitted.

Luckily, the Internet came to the rescue. Google easily turned up some answers. Here is the modern-day introduction to an 1881 book about Shipton by William H. Harrison, the complete text of which is online. (The intro, written in 2004, is by John Bruno Hare; links are in the original.)

Mother Shipton (1488-1561) is a traditional English character with a reputation as a prophet. Among the most startling predictions attributed to her is a short poem which predicts that

Carriages without horses shall go,
And accidents fill the world with woe.
Around the world thoughts shall fly
In the twinkling of an eye.
The world upside down shall be
And gold be found at the root of a tree.
Through hills man shall ride,
And no horse be at his side.
Under water men shall walk,
Shall ride, shall sleep, shall talk.
In the air men shall be seen,
In white, in black, in green;
Iron in the water shall float,
As easily as a wooden boat.
Gold shall be found and shown
In a land that's now not known.
Fire and water shall wonders do,
England shall at last admit a foe.
The world to an end shall come,
In eighteen hundred and eighty one.

Alas, this is a forgery written in 1862. In the 20th century an expanded version of this was circulated (revised to exclude the 1881 apocalypse, and include world wars I and II). Today, variations of this are uncritically posted at various websites, just as bogus Nostradamus prophecies circulated in the wake of the events of 9/11/2001.

This essay about Mother Shipton was written in the year 1881; it gives the text of the earliest Mother Shipton prophecies, which primarily concern events from the reign of Henry the Eighth. As it turns out, these were also spawned after the fact, penned by a notorious plagiarist. The three earliest texts mention nothing about horseless carriages, submarines, the telegraph, iron boats, let alone predict the year the world will end.

So if there is any kernel of truth to the Mother Shipton legend, it can't be determined from any verifiable documentation. Mother Shipton belongs in the same category as Robin Hood or King Arthur: a legendary figure, possibly based on a real person, whose narrative has been enhanced by time and retelling.

An online resource called the Museum of Hoaxes agrees:

Mother Shipton’s prophecies are hoaxes, because it now appears that almost all of them were written by others after the events they described had already happened. For instance, the first record of her prophecy about Cardinal Wolsey dates from 1641, long after the man had died. Her prophecies about future technology, and about the world coming to an end in 1881, first appeared in print in the 1862 edition of her sayings, and Charles Hindley, the editor of that edition, later admitted that he had composed them.

The existence of Mother Shipton herself is uncertain. Her 1684 biographer, Richard Head, apparently invented most of the details of her life. In fact, she may never have existed outside of Yorkshire legend.

This matter, trivial in itself, raises questions about the general accuracy of Klimo's book, at least in its historical section. Note especially that he did not quote the lines of prophecy stating that the world would end in 1881 - a rather significant omission!

I noticed some other doubtful accounts in the same chapter. For instance, in recounting the story of the Fox sisters, Klimo reports that the rapping spirit in their Hydesville farmhouse identified himself as Charles B. Rosma, a peddler, who was murdered in the house and buried under it. This is correct, but he goes on to say,

When digging was undertaken, human bones were found. Fifty-six years later, another excavation unearthed the peddler's tin box and other bones and belongings. Today, the Fox house, along with Rosma's remains, are displayed in nearby Lily Dale, New York, headquarters for the Spiritualist movement.

This gives the impression that the remains were positively ID'd as Rosma's. In fact, however, all attempts to verify the earthly existence of a Charles B. Rosma failed, even though the story was very widely circulated. There may never have been any such person. The bones first discovered under the house may or may not have been human. The remains found half a century after the fact may have been planted in the house in order to revive local interest in the story.

Klimo also reports the medium Nettie Colburn's meeting with President Lincoln - in which she supposedly convinced him to sign the Emancipation Proclamation - as if it were an established fact, when actually there is much doubt as to whether Lincoln gave any credence to mediums. (Doris Kearns Goodwin's bio of Lincoln acknowledges that he sat in on a few séances arranged by his wife, but says he was mainly interested in finding out how the mediums faked their effects.)

To give a final example, Klimo mentions the case of Helene Smith, who claimed to channel information from a race of beings on Mars. She was extensively studied by Theodore Flournoy, who wrote a book about her called From India to the Planet Mars: A Study of a Case of Somnambulism with Glossolalia. But Klimo does not tell us the conclusion of the affair: Flournoy determined that the alleged Martian words spoken by Helene Smith were derived from French, probably unconsciously, and that her channeling was primarily a psychological phenomenon.

As one online source summarizes:

By the late 1890s, Smith was being investigated by many researchers. The most notable was Theodore Flournoy, a Swiss professor of psychology. Flournoy, using psychoanalytic techniques, spent five years sitting in on séances, researching Smith's personal history, and corroborating historical information that she provided during her séances.

Flournoy's conclusions were the Smith had a fantastic imagination, perhaps complemented with telepathy and psychokinesis. The Martian language that she produced was a childish imitation of French ...

After Flournoy published his findings in From India to Planet Mars (1900) Smith's supporters stood by her, and Flournoy was banished from her life. The expose only served to increase her popularity as she enjoyed comfortable wealth and fame.

No doubt there is much valuable information in Channeling, a book that continues to enjoy a positive reputation in psi circles, but my advice when reading it would be to  follow Ronald Reagan's dictum: "Trust, but verify."

P.S. I should note that my comments are based on reading the first edition of the book. There is now a second edition, updated and expanded. Possibly the defects I found have been remedied in the newer edition; I don't know. For those who are interested, the revised edition is sold by Amazon.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Bessie Beals

It's considered one of skepticism's great moments. To discredit the medium Leonora Piper, the investigator Stanley Hall asked her about his dead niece, Bessie Beals. The entranced Piper's spirit control, "Hodgson," dutifully produced information about Bessie ... only to be informed that there was no Bessie, after all! The niece had never existed; she was a fictional invention.

From Hall's notes:

Hall: Well, what do you say to this, Hodgson. I asked you to call Bessie Beals, and there is no such person. How do you explain that?

Hodgson-persona: Bessie Beals is here, and not the -

(At this point we laughed and I made some remark to the effect that that was just what we had said Hodgson would do, and the hand continued thus,)

Hodgson-persona: I know a Bessie Beals. Her mother asked about her before. Mother asked about her before.

Hall: I don't know about that, Hodgson. Bessie Beals is a pure fiction.*

Game, set, and match!

But now Greg Taylor of The Daily Grail has learned that Bessie Beals was a real person after all. True, she was not Hall's niece, but a friend of one of his relatives, and she was not dead. Nevertheless, she was not "pure fiction," as Hall made her out to be.

Presented as an afterthought in Amy Tanner's book Studies in Spiritualism is Hall's admission:

To complete the confusion, a relative within three days mentioned to me incidentally one Bessie Beals, still living, as a friend, whom I may have heard her speak of before.

It would be interesting to know if the information Piper provided about this allegedly fictional character matched up with the real-life Bessie Beals. Naturally, Hall appears to have made no effort to find out.

Let's suppose the information was accurate. There would be a couple of possibilities. One is that Piper was obtaining the info through some form of ESP. The other is that she was reading the spirit body of the living Bessie. In his book The Supreme Adventure, a compendium of channeled material, Robert Crookall notes that mediums can have trouble distinguishing between a discarnate personality and one that is still embodied, but asleep.

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*It should be noted that immediately after this, the Hodgson-persona tried to rescue itself by the desperate expedient of saying, "Yes, I am mistaken in her. I am mistaken. Her name was not Bessie, but Jessie Beals." This seems like reaching, but then, as Greg Taylor notes, the control personality had been known to exercise "creativity" of this sort from time to time. 

The Open Door

The Open Door by Theon Wright was published in 1970. It's the detailed record of experiments in automatic writing carried out by Wright's parents, Nella and George, and later by Theon's brother Stowell and by Theon himself. The unusual thing about these experiments is that little effort was made to obtain verifiable evidence of identity, the usual procedure in mediumship, particularly in the days when Wright's parents were at work. Instead, the focus was on obtaining wisdom, what the Wrights called the Philosophy of Self, essentially a version of nondualistic mysticism in which the development of one's higher Self contributes to the overall development of Cosmic Consciousness.

Most of the messages were attributed to a nameless entity whom the Wrights called the Master.* These were collected by the Wrights over a period of many years and later incorporated into a long autobiographical account written by Nella Wright in the last decades of her life. Her son Theon has augmented this account with additional background information and with his own experiments, as well as with opening and closing essays intended to place the work in a historical and philosophical context.

The book seems to have been almost entirely forgotten today. A Google search turns up only a handful of references, a couple of which come from this blog, courtesy of our frequent commenter William, who recommended the book. In a way, it's easy to see why the book didn't make more of a splash. There is no hard evidence for postmortem survival here -- at least nothing that would persuade anyone who is skeptical -- and the channeled material is considerably less detailed than than, say, the messages of Seth as received by Jane Roberts, or the writings of Stewart Edward White.

But there are good reasons to seek out a copy of The Open Door, which, though out of print, remains available through online retailers. For one thing, the sincerity of the Wrights shines through on every page. It would take a cynical soul indeed to imagine that this series of experiments, encompassing nearly a century, was carried out as some kind of elaborate hoax. Self-delusion, of course, is always a possibility, but it's impressive to see how the Wrights themselves frequently doubted the source of the information they were receiving and were constantly asking themselves if it simply bubbled up from their own subconscious. (Jane Roberts went through similar periods of self-doubt.) The Wrights, evidently a highly intelligent and intellectually curious couple, never took the messages at face value and were determined to maintain some objectivity about the process throughout. If anything, their doubts and reservations may strike the reader as a bit excessive.

Another interesting feature of the book is the way it weaves together the family's experiments in channeling with the other developments in their lives. The book serves as a fascinating memoir of life from the late 19th century to the middle of the 20th century, and leaves one wondering how many other private communications are being attempted along these lines, even today.

Then there are the messages themselves. The material here may strike some readers as profound; others may dismiss it as puerile. This kind of extreme simplicity, which may seem wise or foolish depending on one's attitude, is a feature of many mystical writings. As an example, here's an excerpt from one message:

... you should value each experience for itself, and endeavor to feel the real and actual joy and pleasure that should be the accompanying factor in each day's experience. Do not look for the seemingly disagreeable facts of life, but emphasize the pleasant ones. So adjust your viewpoint that you will derive a maximum of happiness from every experience. Be ever patient, and strive for Peace and Contentment that is the sure test of a right adjustment and a proper outlook.

It is, after all, the big things that count for happiness, while only trifles and petty inconveniences give rise to the feeling of discontent, worry and annoyance.

Is this profoundly helpful advice or just an inconsequential bromide? From one point of view, "enjoy the moment" is a pretty obvious teaching. But whole books have been written about "being in the now," and the practice of mindfulness meditative exercises is intended to help us achieve this state of mind.

In another excerpt, the Master summarizes the metaphysics of the new philosophy:

My Children, Long ago I taught you to distinguish the Reality from the Appearance -- to look for the Cause back of all manifestational activity. But in no sense did I bid you separate them, for there can be no differences except of state or condition.

The Underlying Reality is that all pervading spiritual Essence that exists, of itself, without cause, containing within itself the possibilities of all experience. In action it gives rise to the phenomenon of Appearance, which is the corresponding entity in the physical or material plane being.

So to your ordinary senses as well as to your conscious mental processes, the phenomenon of Appearance seems to be the Reality, when it is in fact only the representation or concrete and specific expression of that which is back of everything, the Universal Self, the Oversoul, the Spiritual Presence that runs like the thread of a wonderful design through the fabric of the Cosmic Universe.

If, then, the material universe is this representation of a deeper and more fundamental Reality, it is not to be regarded as something in itself, apart from this Reality, and attempting to do so, you fall into error.

The things you see and hear and feel, all that you touch through the senses, have an actual existence in the physical plane, and therefore they must exist, not perhaps as you now know them, but still in reality they must exist on the other plane, as attributes, qualities or functions of the Spirit. This is the Law of their Correspondence.

Then when you shall cease to have a material body and be [word undecipherable] in your expression by the limitations of the physical and the boundaries of sense, the real Ego, or Soul, will be able to perceive more directly the Reality that lies behind all physical phenomena and to see with the eyes of the Spirit, hear with the ears of the Spirit, and to feel and know directly, apart from ordinary sense channels of communication.

It is difficult to convey to your minds any idea of the conditions on the other plane, simply because there are no conditions as you know them. You will see and hear and feel, only in the abstract, as we may now, while in the physical, see and hear and touch and smell mentally. For after all, the functions you call sensations are more psychic than physical, and serve to bring our soul in touch with and make it cognizant of this material environment.

So, Dear Friend, be assured that in ceasing to see material things you will only gain the reality to perceive more clearly the Reality that is before me.

Again, whether or not this is profound or trivial is a judgment that readers must reach on their own. One thing that struck me is the passing similarity to the Platonic idea of Forms (or Ideas) as spiritual equivalents of concrete, physical entities. Plato's theory was that every category of physical things has a perfect archetype existing in the realm of Forms. The idea here seems to be that each individual physical thing has some kind of corresponding spiritual analogue. One might also compare this teaching to the theory of a holographic universe, in which physical things are projections of an underlying nonphysical reality.

Regardless of the value that any particular reader assigns to the messages, there is no doubt that these communications were of great value to the Wrights themselves, assisting them in overcoming many tribulations and giving them courage in the face of considerable adversity. And this perhaps is the greatest lesson of The Open Door. It teaches us that getting in touch with higher powers -- whether they are untapped powers of our own subconscious or higher spiritual entities outside ourselves (and maybe this is a distinction without a difference, as Theon Wright seems to believe) -- can assist in our personal development and help us to find meaning and purpose in the otherwise baffling events of our lives.

The book concludes with the author's own experiments in automatic writing and with his firmly stated opinion that anyone, given patience and discipline and practice, can hone his intuition and obtain valuable insights. My own informal experiments in meditation have tended to bear this out. Rather than seeking the services of professional mediums and psychics, we might be better off developing our own latent abilities in these areas. That would certainly be one way to open the door.

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*I originally wrote that the entity called itself the Master. Thanks to William for pointing out this mistake.