Above:  Steve Beckow 
 

       Steve Beckow, a resident of Vancouver, B.C., has a very unusual pastime.  You might call him an afterlife cartographer.   A sociologist, historian, and a former member of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Beckow prefers to call himself a student of cross-cultural spirituality.   His primary interest now is in making sense of the afterlife from revelations that have come to us through various forms of mediumship, including the mediumship of the Bible and other sacred texts.   I recently had the opportunity to interview Beckow by e-mail.  Here are my questions and his answers:

Steve, what prompted your interest in charting the heavens?

       I followed what must have been a common path for my generation in the 1970s - through encounter groups, off to India, into spirituality.  At one point I spent time in a British-spiritualist development circle and at another time I had an out-of-body experience. It was these two latter influences that made me resolve to write a book on the conditions of life after death.
 

      Other spiritual experiences and the writing projects they inspired intervened, but a few years ago.  I returned to the original promise I had made myself and, drawing on my sociological training, began to piece together a picture of life beyond physical death.

What did you find?

     Well, first of all, working on the subject is a little like piecing together a gigantic jigsaw puzzle, all of whose pieces are in soft shades of blue.  It is only by nuances that one can tell the pieces apart.   For instance, the flora, buildings, and art of the Astral and Mental Planes are alike, both dazzling and indescribable. How is one to distinguish between them from an earthly standpoint?    Moreover, unlike earth, which is arranged geographically, the spirit planes are arranged hierarchically.  As Julia Ames said, "there are degrees in heaven."

       This has several impacts. First, examining the communicators themselves, I found that I was mostly reading accounts by the newly-arrived.  They occupied planes nearest to earth and knew the least about what they were describing. Second, the conditions of life become increasingly hard to describe as one mounts higher in the spiritual realms. Third, communicators lose their desire to communicate with us on this side the further up they mount the ladder of the planes.  All this biases communication in the direction of the least well-informed, speaking on the most familiar territory.

Have you succeeded in drawing a new map of heaven?

       Like all early explorers, I and other afterlife investigators so far have only mapped out known "continents," mostly the Borderlands or the Higher Summerlands.  Most spiritual communications, in earlier times, were primarily proving that we survive. Following them was a raft of spirit teachings. It is only rarely that a spirit communicator actually turns his or her attention to the conditions of life on the other side.

       Moreover, of the planes above the Astral (that is, above the Winterlands and Summerlands) and perhaps the Mental we know little at all. Theosophical commentators give only a general paragraph to what they called the Buddhic and Nirvanic Planes and confide that they are forbidden to say anything at all about higher planes.  All of this means that afterlife cartography is very much in its infancy.

What are the "Winterlands"?

      The Winterlands are the bottom planes of the astral - the Stony Plane and the Dark Plane. These are the equivalent of what Christians call "Hell."  The Stony Plane is described as resembling the American desert regions with much less heat and light. The Dark Plane is a quite miserable place to land in, cold, dark, and, in many respects, noxious.  Some people spend hundreds of years wallowing in self-pity before climbing their way back out of it.  Others work hard and make a mad dash to leave them behind.

      Nonetheless, they are not the same "Hell" as pictured in orthodox religion. In the first place, they are not everlasting; spirits are given the opportunity to mend themselves and leave. In the second, there is no hellfire in which souls are tormented.  The worst torment that occurs arises from the individual's own mind. An example of that would be a murderer condemned mentally to endlessly relive his or her crimes, which is what I understand occurs.

      Incidentally, one of the questions I had in the back of my mind that spurred this research was to discover what happened to the Nazis after death.  Almost all of them ended up in the Dark Planes, but I learned something else that startled me. I have encountered several spirits who say that the worst among evil spirits - Philip Gilbert even named one Nazi (google "Irma Grese") - have been, shall we say, re-assimilated back into the cosmic Spirit. They no longer exist as individuals. That was one of the sobering revelations from this work. Until then I thought not one sheep would be lost, but apparently this is not the case.

If there is a Hell, is there a Purgatory?

        Purgatory is a state rather than a place.  There are several purgatories. The Borderlands are a "place of purging," where we undergo a "full-life review" immediately after death. You probably already know that some people may undergo this review during an out-of-body experience.
 

       But there is a second place of purging, after one has become established in the "Mental Plane" or "Heaven" proper, which lies "above" the Astral Summerlands. Here one goes through a much more intensive review than the first, in concert with one's spirit teachers, which communicators call "the Judgment."  After this second review, there follows a time of making amends for one's errors and then what is called the "Second Death," when the remaining earthly traces fall away and one emerges in the mental body. I have heard that there are other purgations, or purgatories, as well.

Does your research confirm the existence of "earthbound spirits"?  If so, exactly what are they?  Do they know that they are dead?

      Yes, there are large numbers of earthbound spirits.  They share in common an unfinished longing for continued experience of mortal life.  Some may not know they are dead; some may know.
 

      Some may be malevolent spirits, spurring embodied people on to excesses and crimes so that the earthbound spirit can enjoy the sensations if even in a limited and vicarious fashion. Some may be loving spirits, unable to bear the pain of separation from loved ones. Others may simply miss their old castle or their old flat.
 

      Others can be mistaken for earthbound spirits, but are actually souls who remain near the earth for exalted purposes. The fascinating Nirmanakaya are one example.  The Nirmanakaya are incredibly-developed souls, who have renounced the right to enter Nirvana and agreed to remain more or less stationary in the spirit plane showering it and the earth with love.  Occasionally Theosophists would bump into one of these "stones in the guardian wall."

What is the highest plane from which we have communications?

      Again, spirits do not often say what plane they are communicating from. One who does is John Heslop, who communicates from an exalted region called the Christ Sphere.  This sphere is mentioned by others, but Heslop actually describes as many details of it as can be captured in our language.  Unfortunately these details are fewer than I would like, but listening to Heslop we can, from his words, get a sense of the caliber of inhabitants of that exalted sphere.

      Here I might add that two sources - John Heslop and Julia Ames - actually describe being taken up into heaven, Julia by an angel, meeting the Lord Jesus with a heavenly host behind him, and experiencing enlightenment at his hands. I mention this because some people - incarnate and discarnate - debunk Biblical descriptions like the "Rapture" these days, but I have found interesting examples bearing these descriptions out. They simply do not happen to most folks (and so are little known to, and sometimes denied by, the average spirit communicator).  They happen to more highly-developed beings.

      This raises the interesting question of the fallibility of spirits. Because most communicators are recently transitioned, they can be mistaken in their assessments of what does and does not happen on the other side. It was the newly-arrived Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson who said that there was no "rapture" and no "judgment."  But in fact he was in error on both points.

      The other source that is well worth studying is Stainton Moses' Spirit Teachings. His chief communicator, "Imperator," last incarnated as the prophet Malachi, who was one of those responsible for putting the Old Testament in the form it takes today. He is assisted by a band of 49 lofty souls and his teachings are fascinating.  Unfortunately Imperator does not talk about his own plane specifically, but still gives much valuable information on spirit life in general.

      I haven't read the Seth books again since long ago, but expect the same high-quality information from that source too.

 How many planes are there? Can you name them all?

        No, I cannot name them all. No classification scheme I have seen so far takes them all in - not those of the Theosophists or the Rosicrucians or anyone else.  A comprehensive map would have to include the Buddhic and Nirvanic Planes, the two planes above them that the Theosophists refuse to discuss, and the realms of the Dharmarajas, Elohim, Lipika, and nine orders of angels.  No cartographical scheme that I have seen shows where they all fit in or even names (or numbers) them in a consistent manner.
 

     Most schemes of description go no farther than the Third Heaven or third subplane of the Mental Plane.  There may very well be no words to describe them even if they were named or numbered. 

       Moreover, there are no maps that I am aware of that also include the life streams parallel to but independent of humans that exist alongside our planes, such as fairies, sylphs, etc. I have not concerned myself with these or, for that matter, with the spiritual planes that are associated with life forms on other planetary and star systems. (Yes, they exist too.)

      Not only can I not name all the planes, but I am faced with a plethora of names which appear to point to the same region while lacking spirit confirmation that they actually do.  Thus, the Borderlands are called the Near-Earth Plane, Kamaloka, Hades, Purgatory, the Vestibule, and the "Blue Island." That would be well and good if someone like Annie Besant did not come along and extend the word "Kamaloka" to the whole of the Astral Plane or someone else point out that there are many Purgatories, etc.  There is frighteningly little agreement on matters of prime importance in surveying the Heavens.

Your website mentions that there is a convalescence period in the Borderland realm.  Does the time spent there vary for different souls?  Do earthbound spirits undergo convalescence?  If so, why are they still earthbound?

        Spirits may or may not convalesce after their deaths. It depends on a number of factors. First, it depends on the degree of their familiarity with life after death. Those familiar may pass quickly through the Borderlands and take up their residence on the higher Astral Planes - Robert Hugh Benson, for instance.  Some will move quickly through the Astral Planes before taking their residence on the Mental Planes - W.T. Stead, for example. 
  

       It also depends on the nature of their death conditions. Those who have suffered a long illness or a sudden and violent death will generally need more time to convalesce than those who died, say, peacefully in their sleep.  Some people may need only a day's sleep and they are ready to function. Benson is an example of this too.   

       In Grace Rosher's The Travellers' Return, there is a wonderful description of the joyous reception Sir Winston Churchill received on the Astral Plane from former prime ministers and other historic figures. Prior to that reception, Sir Winston was convalescing. One detail that was interesting to hear was that he was awakened temporarily from his rest to hear the trumpets at St. Paul's cathedral and then sent back to bed. What a nice touch!

      Most earthbound spirits are surrounded by a mental wall of unconsciousness that spirits who help with transitions cannot penetrate.  Sometimes these earthbound spirits do and sometimes they do not know they have died. Others consciously choose to be earthbound and transition guides will not violate their freedom of choice.  Most of us are "earthbound" in a manner of speaking. Even Julia Ames sought permission to leave Jesus and return to tell her loved ones on earth the good news. We all spend a certain amount of time around those we have left behind.

      Again, certain spirits receive permission to work with their mediumistic relatives - Philip Gilbert, for instance, or "Sigwart" of The Bridge Across the River.  While we don't usually consider them "earthbound," they do account for some sustained spiritual activity around mortals.

Which have been your best or favorite resources for this information?

       I certainly have my favourites.  I have mentioned some already. I have found invaluable the books communicated by Philip Gilbert through his mother Alice (Philip in Two Worlds, Into the Everywhere, and Philip in the Spheres), Julia's letters in W.T. Stead's After Death, T.E Lawrence's Post-Mortem Journal, and Benson's Life in the World Unseen series. F.W.H. Myers is informative but idiosyncratic. It is difficult to know where to fit some of his information. Again I have not finished my reading for this project. 
 

      Among the books by incarnate scholars, my favourite is Paul Beard's Living On. The Theosophists are also wide-ranging and informative.  I should mention that there are a great number of primary and secondary texts available these days online.

 What does this research show us?

      Well, even more distinctly than research on earth life, research on spirit life shows us the Divine Plan: namely, spiritual evolution, from God to God.  (All of what follows is covered in clearly-marked sections of my website.) We have all of us come from God and are destined, at some distant future time, to return to God after we have experienced a very advanced stage of enlightenment.

      God's Will, as I understand it, is that, through Its created life forms, the Formless will enjoy the experience of Its own Bliss. And that moment of enjoyment occurs during enlightenment. The purpose of our lives therefore is enlightenment and our journey down and up the spirit planes, as depicted in Jacob's ladder, is to serve the Divine Plan of which our enlightenment forms a part. 

     Following spirit travel from plane to plane shows Jacob's ladder of spiritual evolution about as plainly as anything we could ever expect to see. The march from the Winterlands to the Summerlands to Heaven and beyond is a graphic illustration of the trajectory of our return to Divinity.  Revealing a picture of the Divine Plan at work is one of the major contributions of afterlife research.

 Is there anything else you are hoping to achieve by drawing new maps of heaven? 

        I know that spirits listen to us as much as we listen to them. While drawing maps, I am also trying to convey to them the message that we need them to tighten up the process of communication. One way would be to ensure that all communicators be required to tell us specifically from which plane (and subplane) they are communicating. Location on the other side is of critical importance to us who are trying to fit the pieces together.

       I also ask for the help of spirit teachers in correlating the different terminologies that spirits use. For example, I do not know what planes names like the "Christ Sphere" or "Empyrean Plane" refer to in general, but also how they correlate to numbering systems like "the seventh plane," etc.

      Even more importantly than that, I hope to persuade spirit and physical folks to get together on some really broad anthropological projects that would subject spirit planes to rigorous social-scientific study. Until recently, most accounts have resembled tourist guides.  We can do better than that and, I think, we are ready for intensive, scholarly examinations carried out by groups on this side co-operating with groups on "the other."  I still don't think this research should be affiliated with universities, though, who still appear to adhere to a paradigm of empirical materialism and can be influenced by the state.

      I think of the various interviews carried out by Robert Leichtman in the Seventies, collectively called From Heaven to Earth (unfortunately out of print now and hard to come by). Leichtman, through medium David Kendrick Johnson, interviewed Tesla, Churchill, Shakespeare, Cayce, Garrett, and many others. His work, while anecdotal, was still fascinating and showed the potential of organized, co-operative cross-border research, embodied spirits sitting down with disembodied.

       We are all of us interested in a small area of the total picture. Just because I don't mention something outside my own area of interest does not mean it is not important.  The same cross-border research that I request for anthropological purposes will be used by others to receive in-depth spiritual teachings that may help us end the tremendous difficulties we are falling into these days. Many of the chief problems of our era, and I mention the use of planet-threatening depleted-uranium weapons as just one example, are hardly mentioned in our press. We need spirit help with these problems too, even if I personally would not be prominent among the researchers carrying on that work.

        In my view it is time to pick up the pace and get serious about cross-border communication.  We have passed through the evidential phase quite some time ago, without having necessarily moved to much more intensive communication. I am saying that the time has now arrived to begin the next phase.

Most of Steve's research can be found at his website, http://www.angelfire.com/space2/light11/index.html

above:  Sir William Barrett
 

During a recent segment of the Lisa Williams show ("Talking with the Dead") on the Lifetime channel, two sisters and a brother appeared to be receiving a very evidential reading from Williams as their mother communicated through Williams' clairvoyance.    The three were affirming nearly everything Williams said and the two women were in tears.   When Williams said she was losing contact with their mother, one of the sisters asked if she had given her name.  Williams paused and then said she had not.

No doubt the skeptics watching the program had a good laugh, asking how Williams could get so much evidential information and not get a simple name.  Probably few of them stopped to think that the fact she didn't get the name works against both the fraud and telepathy theories.  Certainly if she or her staff had done some research beforehand, as the skeptics allege, she would at least have the mother's name.  And it is likely that the sister who asked the question had her mother's name in mind for Williams to telepathically receive, if that is the way she gets her information.

At times, Williams does get names; at other times she doesn't.   The problem with getting names was discussed in a previous blog (see "Why John Edward Struggles with Names" listed under at right; click on "popular").  However, I recently came upon another credible source.  It confirms and adds to the previous discussion.  

Beginning July 26, 1925, Lady Barrett, otherwise known as Dr. Florence Barrett, dean of the London School of Medicine for Women, began receiving messages from her late husband, Sir William Barrett, who had died on May 26, 1925 at age 80, through the mediumship of Gladys Osborne Leonard, the renowned London medium.   Sir William had spent nearly 40 years as a professor of physics in the Royal College of Science at Dublin and was knighted in 1912 for his scientific work, which included developing a silicon-iron alloy known as stalloy, used in the commercial development of the telephone and transformers, and also doing pioneering research on entoptic vision, leading to the invention of the entoptiscope and a new optometer.   Sir William was also a psychical researcher when alive and was instrumental in the formation of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) in 1882.

Lady Barrett was not a gullible grieving widow.  She went to see Mrs. Leonard only after a member of the SPR told her that her husband had communicated at a recent sitting with Mrs. Leonard.  While Lady Barrett was well aware of Mrs. Leonard's reputation as a credible medium, she proceeded cautiously.  As a respected obstetrician and Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, she had her own reputation to protect.   At that first sitting on July 26, Lady Barrett received some very evidential information - information which she was certain could not have been known to Mrs. Leonard or researched - including details of Sir William's last moments in his physical shell and mention of a leg problem he had been experiencing just before his death.  Over the next 11 years, Lady Barrett sat with Mrs. Leonard every few months, and in a 1937 book, Personality Survives Death, she published some of the transcripts of her sittings.

"Sometimes I lose some memory of things from coming here," Sir William told her in a February 8, 1927 sitting.  "I know it in my own state but not here."   He went on to liken it to having a dream in the physical state and to explain that when he goes back to the spirit world after a sitting he realizes that he did not get everything through that he wanted to.  He further explained that when we die, the subconscious and the conscious join up, making a complete mind that knows and remembers everything.  However, when he has to lower his vibration to communicate with her, he leaves the subconscious behind and must rely on what was his conscious memory.  He said the subconscious is housed within the etheric body.

"There are two lives here: one I can tell you about and you can understand, and one I cannot tell you about till you come over," Sir William told his widow.  She asked him which life was higher and he replied that it was the life he could not tell her about.  "I cannot come with and as my whole self, I cannot," he added, saying that he cannot make his fourth dimensional self the same as the third dimensional self.  "It is like measuring a third dimension by its square feet instead of by its cubic feet."

Lady Barrett occasionally visited mediums other than Mrs. Leonard.  At one sitting, apparently with a clairvoyant, Sir William identified himself as "William" rather than "Will," as she knew him.  This made her suspicious that it was not him. At a sitting with Mrs. Leonard on November 5, 1929 Lady Barrett asked him about this.  Sir William explained the problem.  "If you go to a medium that is new to us, I can make myself known by giving you through that medium an impression of my character and personality, my work on earth and so forth," he related. "Those can all be suggested by thought impressions, ideas; but if I want to say, ‘I am Will,' I find that is much more difficult than giving you a long comprehensive study of my personality.  ‘I am Will' sounds so simple, but you understand that in this case the word ‘Will' becomes a detached word.  If I wanted to express an idea of my scientific interests I could do it in twenty different ways.  I should probably begin by showing books, then giving impressions of the nature of the book and so on, till I had built up a character impression of myself, but ‘I am Will' presents difficulties."

The same problem presented itself with her name when he called her "Florrie" at one  sitting, whereas he had called her only "Flo" when alive.  Sir William explained that he couldn't get "Flo" through the medium's mind.

In a 1931 sitting, Sir William could get only the letter "B" through to describe her brother from Bristol who had recently passed over (his actual name is not stated in the book, so it is unclear as to whether "B" stands for his name, brother, or Bristol).  He told her that he was helping her brother adjust to his new reality, mentioning that her brother kept saying "But you are dead, you are dead, you are dead," and assumed he was dreaming.  It was not until several other "dead" relatives and friends greeted him that he began to realize that he had "died."

On another occasion, Sir William tried to explain that a message would reach his widow  from Leonora Piper of America.  However, he could only get "P" from "oversea" through the medium's mind. It was not until the message was delivered from Mrs. Piper in Boston that Lady Barrett understood the reference.  "The actual phrasing, therefore, in some places cannot be regarded word for word as that of the communicator himself, but as that of the control operating through the medium," Lady Barrett explained in the Introduction to the book.

 All the while, Sir William was able to get bits of personal information through to Lady Barrett so that she would know it was him   For example, at one sitting, he told her that he saw her take down a picture from the wall a few days earlier.  There was much personal information that came through, but Lady Barrett did not feel it should go in the book. 

Sir William explained that the ability to communicate between planes depended upon the ability of the spirit communicator to lower his vibration and for the "living" person on earth to raise her or his vibration.   Some people can raise their vibrations better than others and some of them are called mediums.   On the subject of vibration, Sir William said that he now understood the so-called physical resurrection of Christ.  "Through living in the most spiritual vibration, He was able to raise the vibrations of the physical so that there was no body to dispose of at His death - or as we prefer to say, at His transition," he explained.

Most of the communication came through Feda, Mrs. Leonard spirit control, as Sir William often struggled to lower his vibrations, and it was necessary for Feda to act as a go-between.  Occasionally, however, Sir William was able to lower his vibrations and directly control Mrs. Leonard.  At those time, Feda's high-pitched voice, which was  nothing like Mrs. Leonard's, gave way to Sir William's deeper voice.  On several occasions, when it appeared that Sir William was very emotional, he broke through in the direct voice (his actual voice emanating from outside the medium's body). On one such occasion, Lady Barrett recorded him as saying, "Life is far more wonderful than I can ever tell you, beyond anything I ever hoped for; it exceeds all my expectations."  

Debunkers and pseudo-skeptics claim that the phenomenon known as the near-death experience (NDE) is nothing more than an hallucination or some misfiring of the brain caused by chemicals or a lack of oxygen.  However, to those with an open mind, the NDE appears to be one type of out-of-body experience (OBE) --  an experience that suggests we have a spirit body or etheric body in addition to our physical body. The case of "Pam Reynolds" is often cited as one of the best, but skeptics have attempted to pick holes in that case.  Now, the "Sarah Gideon" case seems to plug those holes.    In The Scalpel and The Soul, a new release, Dr. Allan J. Hamilton, a Tucson, Arizona brain surgeon, tells about the Gideon case.  

 But back briefly to the Pam Reynolds case.  During August 1991, Reynolds was operated on for a giant basilar artery aneurysm.  Her body temperature was lowered to 60 degrees, her brain waves flattened, her heart stopped, her breathing stopped and the blood drained from her.   By medical standards, she was "dead."  And yet, she later recalled watching parts of the surgery from above.  She recalled seeing a particular kind of surgical instrument and hearing a comment that certain vessels were too small to handle the flow of blood.  She further remembered being met by some deceased relatives after going down a dark shaft.  An uncle took her back through the tunnel as it was not yet her time to cross over.

The skeptics and debunkers argue that she must have been hallucinating before or after she was clinically "dead."  As for seeing the surgical instrument (she had surgical patches over her eyes) she may have noticed it before the procedure started or have seen a similar one on a television program involving a surgical procedure on the brain and that picture was buried in her subconscious.  The comment about her blood vessels may have been overhead before she was clinically "dead."

Like Reynolds, Gideon also underwent surgery at the Barrows Neurological Institute in Phoenix.   According to Hamilton, Gideon was "as a corpse" for 17 minutes while a titanium aneurysm clip was positioned.   Some trivial conversations took place during this 17-minute period, including one of the nurses announcing that she had just gotten engaged, mentioning her one-and-a-half carat square cut-yellow diamond ring that her boyfriend had purchased at Johnston Fellows.  She also mentioned that the proposal came at Morton's, a restaurant, and that when her boyfriend got down on his knees and proposed, one of the waiters tripped over him and fell on the wine case.

After Gideon awoke in the intensive care unit, the surgeon, Dr. Thomas Reed, stopped into visit her.  Gideon told him that she remembered hearing something about a one-and-a-half carat yellow diamond from Johnston Fellows.  She also remembered something about Morton's restaurant and that someone fell into a wine case.  Reed was shocked and called the case to the attention of others, including Hamilton. 

Hamilton says there was no question that Gideon was brain dead at the time the conversation took place.   "...we also had here unequivocal, scientific evidence that not only was her brain not working, it specifically demonstrated the absence of all cortical electrical activity when these conversations actually took place," he writes, going on to say that ‘the notion that conscious awareness - something generated by and of each brain - could have a life (so to speak) independent from the brain itself is a baffling idea."

When Sarah Gideon was later questioned about what she might have seen while she was hearing, she was able to describe the nurse who talked about her engagement, including the color of her eyes and her hair.  Since the nurse had a surgical cap on, she was asked how she could know the color of her hair.  She recalled a curl of blonde hair sticking out of the cap  on her forehead.  She also described other surgical personnel in the room.

Hamilton tells of a debate between Sir Newton Pitcairn, a British anesthesiologist and an authority in the field of the application of quantum physics to the science of consciousness, and a neurophysiologist from the University of Arizona.   Sir Newton was certain that this was a case of the consciousness being separate and independent from the brain, while the neurosurgeon questioned whether Gideon's brain had been totally asleep during the surgery.  Hamilton then showed the EEG printouts to two colleagues who routinely read such printouts, not telling them whose printout it was, and both agreed that she was "brain dead" at the time the comments were made by the nurse.

Hamilton asks what those in the field of medicine are to make of such "unsettling disturbances" and then goes on to wonder:  "Can we not, as doctors, allow ourselves to entertain the possibility that the supernatural, the divine, and the magical may all underlie our imaginations?" 

Addendum (added March 28):  After posting this entry several days ago, I attempted contact with Dr. Hamilton in hopes of obtaining more information on the "Sarah Gideon" case.   I just heard from Dr. Hamilton and he explained that some of the stories in the book, including this one, are amalgams, or blended stories.  I had suspected that the names were pseudonyms for privacy reasons and recalled Dr. Hamilton mentioning this in the Introduction.  However, I had overlooked the fact that he also mentioned that some of the stories are amalgams.  It appears that the "Pam Reynolds" case is part of the amalgam.  I infer from Dr. Hamilton's comments that there is a case or two that  actually "plugs the holes" in the Pam Reynolds case, but for patient privacy reasons the name(s)  cannot be given.

 

While Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) have been reported for centuries, it was not until the 1970s when Drs. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and Raymond Moody, both American psychiatrists, brought it into the public view with books on the subject.   The implication of the NDE is that we do in fact have two bodies, as St. Paul told us - a physical one and a spiritual one.  Or to put it another way, the research strongly suggests that the mind is separate from the brain and is able to operate independently of the physical body.

 NDE researchers have identified six basic characteristics associated with the NDE:

1.  Seeing things from outside the body as in observing one's operations from above or viewing an accident scene from outside the accident.

2.  A feeling that one is in a tunnel and that he or she is proceeding through that     tunnel toward a light at the end of the tunnel.

3.  Being greeted by deceased relative or friends who act as a guide, by an angel,    or by a Being of Light, and then receiving some kind of orientation relative to the person's situation.

4.  A life review in which the person sees every instant of her or his life flash in front of her/him.

5.  Being told by the Being of Light, the "angel," guide or relative that he/she must return to the body, and usually protesting it.

6.  A complete transformation in the person's outlook, generally moving from a materialistic outlook to a spiritual one.  

Many of the NDE stories are impressive and convincing, but  the "debunkers" - those cynical scientific fundamentalists whose have made science their religion while claiming to be skeptics - have attempted to  come up with arguments opposing the idea that mind and brain are separate.  I've rarely, if ever, seen all the arguments advanced by skeptics and debunkers addressed at one time.  However, R. Craig Hogan, Ph.D. addresses all of them in Your Eternal Self, a comprehensive overview of all the evidence for the argument that we are eternal beings temporarily housed in a physical shell.  "... all have been demonstrated to be implausible," Hogan states, referring to the debunkers' theories on the NDE.   Here are the primary theories offered by the debunkers:  

    The Oxygen Deprivation Theory:  One of the debunker's favorite theories is that the NDE is nothing more than the hallucination of an oxygen-deprived brain.  "That  explanation was never given credence by anyone who knows anything about the brain's function," Hogan states, pointing out that people who undergo a NDE describe their senses as being more acutely aware than they had ever been, while the person suffering from loss of oxygen is stuperous or comatose, with very little brain function.

     The Dying Brain Theory:    Hogan points to research indicating that a dying brain has confusional and paranoid thinking, not the alert thinking and aware observations of the NDEr.  He also mentions research by Michael Sabom, M.D. showing that the NDE occurred after the brain had already passed the dying experience.

    The Medication Theory:  Of course, there are numerous NDEs not involving medication or drugs.  But where there is some drug or medication involved, Hogan cites the research of Michael Sabom, a Georgia cardiologist, and Melvin Morse, a professor of pediatrics, both demonstrating that the experiences are quite different from hallucinations caused by drugs.  "The reports are of sensations and consciousness that are more lucid than normal, an effect opposite to that of a brain clouded by drugs," Hogan states. 

  

    The Mental Instability Theory:  Some debunkers have suggested that NDEs are a result of mental instability.  Hogan cites research indicating that NDE subjects were actually significantly healthier than psychiatric inpatients and outpatients and somewhat healthier than college students.   He quotes Dr. Melvin Morse as saying that NDEs are predominantly positive and an acknowledgement of reality.

   The Defense Against Dying Theory:   Debunkers also claim that the NDE is simply a self-defense mechanism for the person who is confronted with extinction. "But this conflicts with the feeling of the enhanced self-identity that invariably occurs in an NDE," Hogan points out, going on to mention that this theory suggests a dream-like state, whereas NDEs are marked by absolute clarity.

   The Religious Expectation Theory:   "If it were fulfilling the experiencer's expectations of what dying is like, we would expect that only people who believed in and expected a near-death experience would have one, not suicides who anticipate annihilation, fundamentalists who expect only to see God, or agnostics and atheists who would not believe in an NDE phenomenon at all," Hogan writes, adding that this is definitely not the case.

   The Cultural Expectation Theory:   Hogan cites research demonstrating that different cultures have produced remarkably similar findings, thus showing that they're not dependent on expectations in any culture.

     The Hearsay Theory:  Some debunkers speculate that the NDE is pieced together after a trauma from bits and pieces of information gathered from medical personnel while the experiencer floated in and out of consciousness.   Here again, research has shown that experiencers have observed things outside their visual fields and what is going on in the emergency room or trauma scene.

      The Temporal Lobe Seizure Theory:  While temporal lobe seizures produce illusions, hallucinations, and feeling of despair, these negative experiences are clearly not consistent with positive NDEs.

Hogan mentions some interesting research by Carl Becker, Ph.D., professor of comparative thought at Kyoto University and a scholar in bioethics, death, and dying.  Becker determined that NDEs are real, verifiable, objective events, as 1) experiencers have clairvoyant or precognitive knowledge they could not have known that is later verified; 2) the NDE is the same across cultures and religions; 3) the NDE is different from religious expectations and are thus not fantasies; 4) in some cases, a third party has observed visionary figures seen by the experiencers, thus indicating that they are not subjective hallucinations.

"Today, humankind, especially in the West, is intellectually precocious and spiritually retarded," Hogan opines.  "The result is that those areas of our lives based in technology are advanced and those that rely on understanding the meaning of life are primitive.  People are engineering moon landings during their work days and going home to family conflicts, financial stress, and fear of death that leaves their lives full of tension, fear, and unhappiness." 

 For more about Dr. Hogan and his book, check  http://greaterreality.com/indextext.html

above:  Alfred Russel Wallace: 

July 1 of this year will mark the 150^th anniversary of the reading of the famous Darwin-Wallace paper to The Linnean Society of London, a forum for discussions on genetics, natural history, systematics, biology, and the history of plant and animal taxonomy.  It was this paper - or combination of papers prepared individually by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace - that announced the natural selection theory to the world.

While history has recorded that Wallace (1823-1913) was co-originator with Darwin of the theory of natural selection, usually referred to simply as evolution, most people seem to credit the whole idea to Darwin.  That may be because Darwin's book, On the Origin of Species, published in 1859, gave it more widespread recognition.  However, a secondary reason may be that Wallace's reputation among scientists was tainted somewhat by the fact that he became a champion of spiritualism.  

Wallace's conclusions concerning natural selection were arrived at after years of travel in wilderness areas, including the Amazon and the Malay Archipelago. According to one biographer, by the turn of the century, Wallace was very likely Britain's best known naturalist and one of the world's most recognized names, as he lectured extensively on Darwinism.   He was awarded honorary doctorates by the University of Dublin and Oxford University.

Below is my "interview" with Wallace.  This "interview"  is based on many of his papers, including those assembled in Miracles and Modern Spiritualism, published in 1896 by George Redway, London.  All responses below are verbatim from the various papers, except for the Americanization of such words as skeptic (sceptic) and color (colour).  The questions have been tailored and arranged to fit the answers.

Dr. Wallace, what were your early views relative to spiritual matters?

     "Up to the time when I first became acquainted with the facts of Spiritualism, I was a confirmed philosophical skeptic, rejoicing in the works of Voltaire, Strauss, and Carl Vogt, and an ardent admirer (as I still am) of Herbert Spencer.  I was so thorough and confirmed a materialist that I could not at that time find a place in my mind for the conception of spiritual existence, or for any other agencies in the universe than matter and force." 

So what changed your mind?

    "My curiosity was at first excited by some slight but inexplicable phenomena occurring in a friend's family, and my desire for knowledge and love of truth forced me to continue the inquiry.  The facts became more and more assured, more and more varied, more and more removed from anything that modern science taught or modern philosophy speculated on.  The facts beat me. They compelled me to accept them as facts long before I could accept the spiritual explanation of them; there was at that time no place in my fabric of thought into which it could be fitted. By slow degrees a place was made; but it was made, not by any preconceived or theoretical opinions, but by the continuous action of fact after fact, which could not be got rid of in any other way."

Would you mind elaborating on that occurrence with the friend's family?

   "It was in the summer of 1865 that I first witnessed any of the phenomena of what is called Spiritualism, in the house of a friend - a skeptic, a man of science, and a lawyer, with none but members of his own family present.  Sitting at a good-sized round table, with our hands placed upon it, after a short time slight movements would commence, and not often ‘turnings' or tiltings,' but a gentle intermittent movement like steps, which after a time would bring the table quite across the room. Slight but distinct tapping sounds were also heard.  They gradually increased; the taps became very distinct, and the table moved considerably, obliging us all to shift our chairs."

What did you make of that?

     "That there is an unknown power developed from the bodies of a number of persons placed in connection by sitting around a table with all their hands upon it.  And the fact that we often sat half an hour in one position without a single sound, and that the phenomena never progressed further than I have related, weighs I think very strongly against the supposition that a family of four highly intelligent and well-educated persons should occupy themselves for so many weary hours in carrying out what would be so poor and unmeaning a deception." 

Did you witness other phenomena after that?

     "In September 1865, I began a series of visits to Mrs. Marshall (a London medium), generally accompanied by a friend - a good chemist and mechanic, and of a thoroughly skeptical mind.  What we witnessed may be divided into two classes of phenomena - physical and mental.  Both were very numerous and varied."   

I gather from your various writings that you gradually came to accept the spirit hypothesis?  Would you mind explaining that?

     "Perhaps the most important characteristic of these phenomena [is that] they are from beginning to end essentially human.  They come to us with human ideas; they make use of human speech, of writing and drawing; they manifest wit and logic, humor, and pathos, that we can all appreciate and enjoy; the communications vary in character as those of human beings; some rank with the lowest, some with the highest, but all are essentially human.  When the spirits speak audibly, the voice is a human voice; when they appear visible, the hands and the faces are absolutely human; when we can touch the forms and examine them closely we find them human in character, not those of any other kind of being.  The photographs are always the photographs of our fellow creatures; never those of demons or angels and animals.  When hands, feet or faces are produced in paraffin moulds they are all in minutest details those of men and women, though not those of the medium.  All of these various phenomena are of this human character. 

     "The spiritual theory is the logical outcome of the whole of the facts.  Those who deny it, in every instance with which I am acquainted, either from ignorance or disbelief, leave half the facts out of view.  That theory is most scientific which best explains the whole series of phenomena; and I therefore claim that the spirit hypothesis is the most scientific, since even those who oppose it most strenuously often admit that it does explain all the facts, which cannot be said of any other hypothesis."

What about the theory holding that medium has a secondary personality which is somehow giving rise to all the phenomena?

     "But is this so-called explanation any real explanation, or anything more than a juggle of words which creates more difficulties than it solves?  The conception of such a double personality in each of us, a second-self, which in most cases remains unknown to us all our lives, which is said to live an independent mental life, to have means of acquiring knowledge our normal self does not possess, to exhibit all the characteristics of a distinct individuality with a different character from our own, is surely a conception more ponderously difficult, more truly supernatural than that of a spirit world, composed of beings who have lived, and learned, and suffered on earth, and whose mental nature still subsists after its separation from the earthly body.  On the second-self theory, we have to suppose that this recondite but worser half of ourselves, while possessing some knowledge we have not, does not know that it is part of us, or, if it knows, is a persistent liar, for in most cases it adopts a distinct name, and persists in speaking of us, its better half, in the third person.

       "There is yet another and I think a more fundamental objection to this view, in the impossibility of conceiving how or why this second-self was developed in us under the law of survival of the fittest.

      "This cumbrous and unintelligible hypothesis finds great favor with those who have always been accustomed to regard the belief in a spirit-world, and more particularly a belief that the spirits of our dead friends can and do sometimes communicate with us, as unscientific, unphilosophical, and superstitious." 

So you feel the spirit hypothesis is definitely a scientific one?

    "Why it should be unscientific more than any other hypothesis which alone serves to explain intelligibly a great body of facts has never been explained.  The antagonism which it excites seems to be mainly due to the fact that it is, and has long been in some form or other, the belief of the religious world and of the ignorant and superstitious of all ages, while a total disbelief in spiritual existence has been the distinctive badge of modern scientific skepticism." 

Do you feel there is as much evidence for survival as there is for biological evolution?

     "My position is that the phenomena of Spiritualism in their entirety do not require further confirmation.  They are proved quite as well as facts are proved in other sciences."

The skeptics often point to the trivial nature of mediumistic messages.  Do you have any thoughts on that?

    "The trivial and fantastic nature of the acts of some of these disembodied spirits is not to be wondered at when we consider the myriads of trivial and fantastic human beings who are daily becoming spirits, and who retain, for a time at least, their human natures in their new condition. So if we realize to ourselves the fact that spirits can in most cases only communicate with us in certain very limited modes, we shall see that the true ‘triviality' consists in objecting to any mode of mental converse as being trivial or undignified."

Materialists often say that you believe what you do simply because there is a will or need to believe.  Can you objectively say that is not the case with you?

    "For 25 years I had been an utter skeptic as to the existence of any preter-human or super-human intelligence, and that I never for a moment contemplated the possibility that the marvels related by Spiritualism could literally be true.  If I have now changed my opinion, it is simply by the force of evidence.  It is from no dread of annihilation that I have gone into this subject; it is from no inordinate longing for eternal existence that I have come to believe in facts which render this highly probable, if they do not actually prove it.  At least three times during my travels I have had to face death as imminent or probable within a few hours, and what I felt on those occasions was at most a gentle melancholy at the thought of quitting this wonderful and beautiful earth to enter on a sleep which might know no waking.  In a state of ordinary health I did not feel even this. I knew that the great problem of conscious existence was one beyond man's grasp, and this fact alone gave some hope that existence might be independent of the organized body.  I came to the inquiry, therefore, utterly unbiased by hopes or fears, because I knew that my belief could not affect the reality, and with an ingrained prejudice against even such a word as ‘spirit,' which I have hardly yet overcome." 

What do you say to those members of orthodox religion who seem to be satisfied with faith alone and ask what the use of spirit communication is?

     "It substitutes a definite, real, and practical conviction for a vague, theoretical, and unsatisfying faith.  It furnishes actual knowledge on a matter of vital importance to all men and most advanced thinkers have held, and still hold, that no knowledge was attainable." 

Thank you, Dr. Wallace.  Any parting thoughts?

     "If a man die shall he live again?  This is the question which in all ages has troubled the souls of men; the prophets and the wise men of antiquity were in doubt as to the answer to be given it.  Philosophy has always discussed it as one of the unsolved problems of humanity, while modern science instead of clearing up the difficulty and giving us renewed hope, either ignores the question altogether or advances powerful arguments against the affirmative reply.  Yet the ultimate decision arrived at, whether in the negative or affirmative, is not only of vital interest to each of us individually, but is calculated, I believe, to determine the future welfare or misery of mankind.

      "If the question should be finally decided in the negative, if all men without exception ever come to believe that there is no life beyond this life, if children were all brought up to believe that the only happiness they can ever enjoy will be upon earth, then it seems to me that the condition of man would be altogether hopeless, because there would cease to be any adequate motive for justice, for truth, for unselfishness, and no sufficient reason could be given to the poor man, to the bad man, or to the selfish man, why he should not seek his own personal welfare at the cost of others." 

For more on Wallace, read my article appearing in the March/April issue of Atlantis Rising Magazine.  See http://www.atlantisrising.com/index.shtml

I recently had the opportunity to interview Dr. Mitchell Gibson for “The Searchlight,” one of the two quarterly publications of the Academy of Spirituality and Paranormal Studies. Here is that interview. Incidentally, the Academy will be holding its annual conference May 30-June 2, 2008 at DeSales University, Center Valley, PA. The theme of the conference is “Beyond the Veil: Evidence for Life After Death.” For more information, go to the Academy’s website at http://aspsi.org/

Recently retired from the full-time practice of psychiatry, Dr. Mitchell Earl Gibson now works as a clairvoyant doctor. “During the last ten years of my medical practice, I began to receive very strong clairvoyant impressions about events in my client’s lives,” Gibson writes at his website, www.tybro.com “At first I ignored them, but over time I began to realize that many of these impressions were accurate. Science had trained me to think analytically and to dismiss any data that could not be examined with an objective skeptical eye. I quickly learned that the scientific method offered only one window into the universe.”

A resident of Summerfield, NC, Gibson explains that he developed the ability to see auras and attachments around people during his residency, but, for the most part, he did not share the information with others. He retired from orthodox medicine to focus on further developing his gift. He began to experience samadhi, (an early stage of spiritual enlightenment), several years prior to his retirement from medicine. The experience of samadhi radically changed his worldview.

A board-certified forensic psychiatrist, Gibson received his medical degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He then completed his residency training at the Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia. During his last year of residency he served as chief resident in psychiatry and received the Albert Einstein Foundation Research Award for his work in sleep disorders.

Dr. Gibson is a former chief of staff at the East Valley Camelback Hospital in Mesa Arizona and is currently a clinical professor of medicine and psychiatry at the Midwestern College of Medicine. A longtime member of Mensa, he has been listed among the top doctors in Arizona in Phoenix magazine on several occasions. He has also twice been named to the Woodward and White listing of the "Best Doctors in America". In 2003, 2004, and 2005 he was honored with listings in the Consumer Research Council of America’s compilation of the top psychiatrists in America. He is a Diplomat of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, the American College of Forensic Medicine, and the American Board of Forensic Examiners.

An accomplished contemporary artist, Gibson has displayed his works in New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Philadelphia, Scottsdale, San Francisco, and other cities around the world. He recently received the Jury Prize for Creativity awarded by the Museum of Fine Art in Paris. His work is published in the Encyclopedia of Living Artists and New Art International. He is the author of Your Immortal Body of Light, published in 2006 by Reality Press and has lectured extensively on various topics, including the soul, astrology, the spiritual causes of mental illness, human potential, cosmobiology, art, and creativity enhancement.

“We look at creation through the eyes of scientists, politicians, businessmen, athletes, journalists, singers, and even writers,” Gibson writes. “They are our Harry Potter priests that seek to bewitch us. University research facilities, sports arenas, movie theaters, shopping malls, concert halls, and luxury resort complexes have become our new place of worship. Research studies, television newscasts, magazine articles, newspapers, and Wall Street spin-doctors have dampened down our ability to think for ourselves. The illuminating ‘numinous’ experience has been consigned to holy men and philosophers – an age long ago – no longer a legitimate goal to seek for oneself in contemporary society. At least, many ‘fundamentalists’ would have us believe that is the case, but that is not what the Greeks taught in their temples. These priests chanted: ‘Know Thyself’.”

I recently put some questions to Dr. Gibson by e-mail.

Dr. Gibson, would you mind giving an example or two of the clairvoyant impressions you began receiving?
       “One client presented with marital problems and depression. I saw a large, portly man hovering over her…he was using foul language and berating her fiercely. The memory sticks out because his skin had very large discolored areas. The client stated that she had been having nightmares about her father, a large portly man who argued with her constantly and was verbally abusive. He suffered from a severe case of vitiligo, a rare skin disorder.
Another client had purchased a large plot of land in Mexico and wanted my opinion regarding the investment. I looked at the transaction clairvoyantly and saw that the seller had been dishonest with the client. In particular, the seller did not tell him about a lien on the property that would take effect in less than ten years, effectively negating the sale, nor did he tell him about the need to purchase separate water rights, both of which I saw clairvoyantly. The client did his own investigation and saw that the process was indeed as I said it was. He saved over $500,000 in the process.
        “Another client, an emergency medical technician, presented with intense suicidal thoughts and depression. I saw several entities around him that had died by suicide. The entities were entreating him to join him. I told him of my visions and he was shocked. He had hesitated to mention the entities because he did not want to lose his job. Depression was more acceptable a diagnosis than psychosis. We persuaded the entities to leave and he returned to work without the thoughts or depression.”

Did this clairvoyant ability manifest at a particular time or is it something that you had as a child?
         “The ability began to manifest when I was about five years old. The first memory that I have is that of seeing a ball of bright light float into my bedroom and hover over my bed. I still don’t know what that was.”

How has the ability developed over the years?
          “The ability was repressed for much of my adult life, especially during college and medical school. I did not want it to interfere with my training. The stress of residency however was intense and the visions began to come back. “In my book, Your Immortal Body of Light, I chronicled a number of incidents that helped to deepen and sharpen the ability. For a five year period, I communicated clairvoyantly with a being who identified himself as the Egyptian God Thoth. He explained the process by which my vision was developing and helped me to understand why it was coming through at this time. In one case in particular, I remember evaluating a young boy who had taken PCP, a powerful hallucinogen. The boy did not speak and he sat in a corner rocking. I saw a bright orange flare around his aura which quickly turned bright red. Instinctively, I left the room. Within seconds, the boy began to demolish the room and five nurses and nurse’s aides were required to quiet him. The ability to see auras is a fairly recent development, thanks mostly to Thoth’s teaching.”

In your book, you talk about “attaching spirits.” Is this a common cause of illness?
         “Attaching spirits are very common. I liken them to mankind’s discovery of bacteria. We can’t see them without special instrumentation, but they can still affect us. Most attaching spirits do not cause problems, but a few types are very problematic. The same is true of bacteria. In time, I believe that we will discover that disease may be caused by pathogens that are more energy than matter. In effect, they bridge the space between solid objects and thought consciousness. In my experience, when a person dies with an illness, the soul will carry the energy pattern of that pathogen. If the soul attaches to another living human, that human may then manifest the illness carried by the departed soul. I have seen a number of illnesses remit after the attaching spirit leaves the body. This is an ancient belief that is held by a number of cultures. I am hardly the first to report this phenomenon.”

What exactly is a fragmented soul? Are all attachments by fragmented souls or are some by complete souls?
         “The human soul is a gem shaped structure that has 617 facet like structures. These facets may break away from the main soul body during traumatic events, emotional trauma, surgery, drug abuse, etc. A living soul may be obsessed by a complete soul from a departed human being, or by one or more of these facets.”

Once you clairvoyantly diagnose a person with an attachment, how do you treat it?
           “Over time, I developed a number of techniques that allow me to remove the entities that attach to an individual. Oddly enough, talking to the entity and asking them to leave is one of the most effective methods of treatment. I have also discovered some very effective ancient Taoist treatments that remove entities. There are a number of prayers that have a positive effect on the condition of attaching spirits. The Ana B’Koach, an ancient Hebrew prayer, has a powerful effect on spirits, especially when said over time. The Usnisa Vijaya Dharani, an ancient Sanskrit Prayer, has an equally powerful effect on attaching entities. We only remove the entity if the client wants to have the entity removed. There are some cases where the client does not want the entity to be removed. This happens mostly when the entity is a loved one or relative.”

Would you mind summarizing your philosophy of life and death?
        “I believe that we live in a complex and wonderful universe that is bigger than we can possibly imagine. I believe that the universe is big enough to contain everything that we can hope or dream of…and then some.”

How have your colleagues reacted to your gift and your decision to leave mainstream medicine?
         “My colleagues have been some of my best customers. Doctors are much more intellectually curious and open minded than the media tends to give them credit for. There are of course skeptics and detractors, but I have had some rather interesting discussions with prominent doctors, businessmen, judges, politicians, military personnel, professional athletes and a host people from many walks of life that have had similar experiences. Most people prefer not to talk of these experiences for fear of ridicule.”

Do you any hope for modern medicine accepting the type of healing in which you are now involved?
        “Last year, we sold the rights to my story to a Hollywood production company…..they are shopping the script to a number of studios…..there is interest out there in this topic, it would appear.”

Dr. Gibson's book can be purchased from his website listed above or from Amazon.com at 
  http://www.amazon.com/Your-Immortal-Light-Mitchell-Gibson/dp/0977790452/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203548859&sr=1-1

above:  Frederic W. H. Myers
 

On September 19, 1903, Alice MacDonald Fleming, the sister of author Rudyard Kipling, began receiving automatic writing messages purportedly coming from Frederic W. H. Myers, a Cambridge University classics scholar as well as a pioneering psychical researcher, who had died on January 17, 1901.   Fleming, the wife of a British army officer, was living in India at the time.  Because members of her family disapproved of her "dabbling in the occult," she used the pseudonym, "Mrs. Holland."   The initial messages were short and apparently an attempt by Myers to convince her of his identity.  He told her that much of what he would write through her is not meant for her, that she was to be the reporter.  She was asked by Myers to send the messages to the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) in London, an organization which Myers had helped organize in 1882.

 On January 17, 1904, the third anniversary of Myers' death, Fleming recorded another message from Myers for the SPR.  Her hand, controlled by Myers, wrote:  "...I am unable to make your hand form Greek characters and so I cannot give the text as I wish - only the reference I Cor. 16:12.   Oh I am feeble with eagerness.  How can I best be identified!  It means so much apart from the mere personal love and longing...I am trying alone amid unspeakable difficulties." 

 On the very same day, January 17, thousands of miles away in England, Mrs. Margaret Verrall, an automatic writing medium who was a member of the SPR, wrote, "Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong," which is the wording of 1 Cor. 16:12.  (It is unclear as to whether she wrote it in English of Greek)  This biblical passage is inscribed over the gateway of Selwyn College, Cambridge, under which Myers frequently passed.  When alive, Myers knew Mrs. Verrall and  had pointed out a slight verbal error in the Greek lettering.  It was obviously Myers's way of attempting to confirm his identity - the same passage being delivered through two different mediums in different parts of the world. 

This was apparently the first and probably the most simple of what came to be known as the "cross-correspondences" - similar messages through different mediums around the world, or fragmentary messages sent through different mediums which in themselves had no meaning until the SPR linked them up and made complete coherent messages out of them.  Mrs. Fleming in India, Leonora Piper in the United States, Mrs. Verrall and Winifred Coombe-Tenant, both in England, were the four principal mediums used by Myers and other in delivering these messages.

Besides Myers, the primary communicators included Professor Henry S Sidgwick of Cambridge and Edmund Gurney, another Cambridge scholar.  Both died before Myers.  All three men were instrumental in forming the SPR, but Myers' has been referred to as  the "father of psychical research."    Harvard professor William James said that Myers "will always be remembered in psychology as the pioneer who staked out a vast tract of mental wilderness and planted the flag of genuine science upon [psychical research]."

As the story goes, these three men and several others continued their work after they crossed over to the Other Side, Myers taking the lead, finding gifted mediums in different parts of the world to communicate messages back to members of the society which they helped establish several decades earlier.  As Sir Oliver Lodge, the distinguished British physicist and electricity pioneer, saw it, the cross-correspondences were part of a scheme devised by the "other side" to get messages through in a way that cannot be attributed to any ordinarily recognized variety of subconscious activity on the part of the medium, nor to telepathy or mind-reading between the medium and the person receiving the messages.    

Whenever psychical researchers discuss the best evidence on record for the survival of consciousness after physical death, i.e., life after death, these so-called "Cross-Correspondences" are often listed as number one.  "...the Cross-Correspondences are considered by many knowledgeable judges to be among the very best - if not the very best - evidence we have for survival of death, and moreover for survival of death with memory and intellectual vigor apparently undimmed," says Professor David Fontana, a Fellow of the British Psychological Society. 

However, the researchers always point out that the Cross-Correspondences cases are so complex that they are beyond the comprehension of anyone who is not a classical scholar and not prepared to spend dozens of hours in studying the messages. "Whatever else they are, they are eminently communications from a man of letters, to be interpreted by scholars, and they are full of obscure classical allusions," Sir Oliver Lodge offered.    

Anyone interested in a more detailed account of the Cross-Correspondences should consider reading The Eager Dead, a book just released by Book Guild Publishing of the United Kingdom,  Archie E. Roy, professor emeritus of astronomy and honorary research fellow in the University of Glasgow, closely examines the Cross-Correspondences, including the spirit communicators, the researchers receiving the messages on this side of the veil, the various mediums through whom the messages came, and the messages themselves, putting together a fascinating story of love and intrigue during the Edwardian age.

As one reads this near-600 page book, the characters come alive.  Chief among the characters still in this realm of existence at the time are Arthur James Balfour, prime-minister of England from 1902-06,  Lord Gerald William Balfour, his brother, Winifred Coombe-Tennant, an affluent English woman (British delegate to the League of Nations) who used the pseudonym "Mrs. Willett" so that no one would know that she was a medium, and Henry Coombe-Tennant, her son, who was completely unaware for most of his life of his mother's mediumship or his own involvement in many of the Cross-Correspondences.

Three love stories unfold, two of them of frustrated love made manifest on the Other Side and the third a somewhat scandalous affair resulting in a love child.  One of first two is known as the The Palm Sunday Story.  "Many who have studied this case have accepted that it is a remarkable demonstration of undying love and devotion by people on both sides of that inevitable and inescapable appointment we call death," Professor Roy writes.

There are some interesting sidebar stories, such as Henry Coombe-Tennant's escape from a German prison camp during World War II and his trek across Germany and France with two other prisoners.  On his return to England, he was on his way to visit his mother with a brother officer when their car broke down. As they were walking up the road, they were offered a ride by a charming young woman - the current Queen of England. 

Even if one is not interested in the subject of life after death, the book offers much as a period piece.  "There are still many of the older members of the present population who have at least a vague knowledge of that era, though in this philistine age of dumbing-down, even more people, in their lack of an adequate and systematic education in history, might be excused in their ignorance, for confusing Victoria with the first Elizabeth and, if asked, hazard a guess that her first major war was fought against Hitler," Roy offers.

The entire story would make for a great movie, but a movie would no doubt fail to capture the intricacies of the people, their stories, and the messages so thoroughly researched by the author.

The Eager Dead is not available in the U.S. at this time, but it can be ordered from the publisher at http://www.bookguild.co.uk/ or through www.Amazon.co.uk   

   

  

  above: Allan Kardec, Esq.

Sometime in 1853 or 1854, Hippolyte Léon Dénizarth Rivail,  a French educator, decided to investigate the mediumship phenomena that had been breaking out in France.  He began sitting at the home of a friend, Emile Charles Baudin, whose daughters, Caroline, 16, and Julie, 13, were mediums.  While most of the messages coming through the two young girls were of a mundane nature, the messages became serious and profound when Rivail was present.  He was informed that spirits of a higher order were communicating when he was present because they knew he could comprehend the messages and get them to the public. Among those purportedly communicating with Rivail, who adopted the pseudonym Allan Kardec, were John the Evangelist, St. Augustine, St. Vincent De Paul, St. Louis,  Socrates, Plato, Fénélon, Benjamin Franklin, and Emanuel Swedenborg.

It was these advanced spirits who told him to adopt the pseudonym Allan Kardec for the books he would write "in the fulfillment of the mission" which they had for him.    In 1857, Kardec's book, Le Livre des Esprits (The Spirits' Book) was published, offering  answers to many questions which Kardec put to the spirits.  Here are a few of those questions and answers.

Why is it that reason is not always an infallible guide?

     "It would be infallible if it were not perverted by a false education, by pride, and by selfishness.  Instinct does not reason.  Reason leaves freedom to choice, and gives man free will."

Do all spirits pass by the road of evil to arrive at good?

     "Not by the road of evil, but by that of ignorance."

How is it that some spirits have followed the road of good, and others the road of evil?

     "Have they not their free-will?  God has not created any spirits bad; He has created them simple and ignorant, that is to say, possessing an equal aptitude for good and for evil.  Those who become bad become so of their own free-will."

How can spirits, at their origin, when they have not yet acquired self-consciousness, possess freedom of choice between good and evil?  Is there in them any principle, any tendency, which inclines them towards either road rather than towards the other?

      "Free-will is developed in proportion as the spirit acquires the consciousness of himself.  Freedom would not exist for the spirit if his choice were solicited by a cause independent of his will.  The cause which determines his choice is not in him, but is exterior to him, in the influence to which he voluntarily yields in virtue of the freedom of his will.  It is this choice that is represented under the grand figure of the fall of man and of original sin.  Some spirits have yielded to temptation; others have withstood it."

Whence come the influences that act upon him?

      "From the imperfect spirits, who seek to take possession of him and to dominate him, and who are happy to see him succumb.  It is this temptation that is allegorically pictured as Satan."

Does this influence act upon a spirit only at its origin?

     "It follows him through all the phases of his existence as a spirit, until he has acquired such thorough self-command that evil spirits renounce the attempt to obsess him."

Why has God permitted it to be possible for spirits to take the wrong road?  

     "The wisdom of God is shown in the freedom of choice which He leaves to every spirit, for each has thus the merit of his deeds."

Since there are spirits who, from the beginning, follow unswervingly the right path, and others who wander into the lowest depths of evil, there are no doubt, many degrees of deviation between these extremes?   

      "Yes, certainly; and these degrees constitute the paths of the great majority of spirits."

Does the remembrance of his corporeal existence present itself to a spirit, complete and spontaneously, immediately after his death?

     "No, it comes back to him little by little in proportion as he fixes his attention upon it, as objects gradually become visible out of a fog."   
 

 Do spirits of different orders mix together in the other life?

     "Yes and no; that is to say, they see each other, but they are none the less removed.  They shun or approach one another according to the antipathies or sympathies of their sentiments, just as is the case among yourselves.  The spirit-life is a whole world of varied conditions and relationships, of which the earthly life is only the obscured reflex.  Those of the same rank are drawn together by a sort of affinity and form groups or families of spirits united by sympathy and a common aim - the good, by the desire to do what is good, and the bad, by the desire to do evil, by the shame of their wrong-doing, and by the wish to find themselves among those whom they resemble."

 Are all spirits reciprocally accessible to one another?

       "The good go everywhere, as it is necessary that they should do, in order to bring their influence to bear upon the evil-minded.  But the regions inhabited by them are inaccessible to inferior spirits, so that the latter cannot trouble those happy abodes by the introduction of evil passions."

Do spirits retain any human passion?

       "Elevated spirits, on quitting their bodily envelope, leave behind them the evil passions of humanity, and retain only the love of goodness.  But inferior spirits retain their earthly imperfections.  Were it not for this retention, they would be of the highest order.

     How is it that spirits, on quitting the earth, do not leave behind them all their evil passions, since they are then able to perceive the disastrous consequences of those passions?

      "You have among you persons who are, for instance, excessively jealous; do you imagine that they lose this defect at once on quitting your world?  There remains with spirits, after their departure from the earthly life, and especially with those who have had strongly marked passions, a sort of atmosphere by which they are enveloped, and which kept up all their former evil qualities; for spirits are not entirely freed from the influence of materiality.  It is only occasionally that they obtain glimpses of the truth, showing them, as it were, the true path which they ought to follow."

Do spirits foresee the future?

     "That, again, depends on their degree of advancement.  Very often, they foresee it only partially; but, even when they foresee it more clearly, they are not always permitted to reveal it.  When they foresee it, it appears to them to be the present.  A spirit sees the future more clearly in proportion as he approaches God. After death, the soul sees and embraces at a glance all its past emigrations, but it cannot see what God has in store for it.  This foreknowledge is only possessed by the soul that has attained to entire union with God, after a long succession of existence."

When a soldier, after a battle, meets his general in the spirit-world, does he still acknowledge him as a superior?

    "Titles are nothing; intrinsic superiority is everything."

Why do not all spirits define the soul in the same way?

     "All spirits are not equally enlightened in regard to these matters.  Some spirits are still so little advanced intellectually as to be incapable of understanding abstract ideas; they are like children in your world.  Other spirits are full of false learning, and make a vain parade of words in order to impose their authority upon those who listen to them.  They, also, resemble too many in your world.  And besides, even spirits who are really enlightened may express themselves in terms which appear to be different, but which, at bottom, mean the same thing, especially in regard to matters which your languae is incapable of expressing clearly, and which can only be spoken of to you by means of figures and comparisons that you mistake for literal statements of fact."  

The works of Allan Kardec grew into a spiritual philosophy known as Spiritism.  Not a religion, but a way of life, Spiritism is very popular in Brazil and other parts of South America, especially for those in need of healing.    Emma Bragdon, Ph.D.  recently produced a 33-minute video titled "Spiritism: Bridging Spirituality and Health."  This excellent video summarizes what Spiritism is all about, including communing with spirits and releasing people from spirit obsession.  It is said that more than 20 million Brazilians use Spiritist Centers because the therapies are so effective.   The video can be purchased from http://www.createspace.com/243118, where a video clip is available.  It is also available at

Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001392Q54/ref=pe_snp_Q54

 

In her 2007 book, When Ghosts Speak, Mary Ann Winkowski, a Cleveland, Ohio medium who serves as a consultant to the popular television series, Ghost Whisperer, states that many earthbound spirits gather on the studio set for the program. "I've come to realize that they, just like some real life fans, have a hard time understanding that Jennifer Love Hewitt is not able to communicate with ghosts the way her character, Melinda, can," Winkowski writes.  "They have heard that there is someone on the set who can see and talk to earthbound spirits, so they go home with her and with other cast and crew members, hoping to attract notice.  When they realize that the people they've followed home can't see them after all, the ghosts return to the set with them, only to cause more problems."

Winkowski further explains that anyplace where there is high energy is usually a gathering place for earthbound spirits.  She mentions race tracks as being "loaded" with earthbound spirits, including dead jockeys, grooms, and trainers, as well as gamblers, all still trying to do their old thing.   Other places where earthbound spirits are most likely to be found are hospital emergency rooms, bars, sports arenas, and theaters.   But it is not always a place of high excitement.  Nursing homes are crowded with earthbound spirits.  Winkowski says that the spirits are mostly men waiting for their wives to pass and that she rarely sees women waiting for their husbands.

As Private Dowding communicated (see last blog entry), hell seems to be believing "the unreal to be the real."  It consists in the lure of the senses without the possibility of gratifying them."   Understanding what is real and not real all apparently begins in this realm of existence. 

As I see it, the unreal has become the real for most humans.  Not long ago, I was watching a game show on television and a man was winning a lot of money.  He said it was one of the two most exciting experiences of his life - the other one was meeting actor Harrison Ford on the set of Raiders of the Lost Ark.  He described it as if he had met God.  He apparently thought Ford is the exciting character he portrays and was completely in awe of meeting a man who is nothing more than an actor - a person who attempts to act like a real person.   It is this type of thinking - or non-thinking - that clearly has given rise to our celebrity-worshipping society.  As Winkowski suggests, many fans still in the flesh think actress Jennifer Love Hewitt is a real medium.

The same mind-set can be found in sports.  Considering the fact that athletics evolved from practice and conditioning for war, sports might be viewed as "play war."  Yet, play warriors are much more revered than our true warriors, the guys who are wearing military uniforms.  I recall a scene at the beginning of the Iraq war when baseball pitcher Roger Clemens visited the troops in Kuwait and the troops were lined up to get his autograph.  Think about it - the "real" warriors wanted the autograph of the "play" warrior.  If that is not a role reversal or the unreal becoming the real I don't know what is.

I observed a more recent example in my home state of Hawaii.  The University of Hawaii football team went undefeated until they made it to the Sugar Bowl and got creamed by Georgia.  Yet, the local fans seem to have been energized by the national television exposure in spite of the defeat.  Being on television made the players instant celebrities and they strated selling their autographs for as much as $20 each upon returning home.  Adoring and gawking adults, buying into the collective psyche, were lined up to  pay for these autographs.  Had the school's tennis team won a national championship, I'm certain that those same people would not have been clamoring for autographs.   They are like the earthbound spirits gathered around the movie studio, believing that the players are real warriors.  

   

While accompanying a granddaughter to Disney World a year or so ago, I noticed that there seemed to be many adults there without children.   I suspect they were just escaping reality. It is probably only a matter of time before the White House is moved to Disney World. 

As I see it, one comes to accept the unreal as being real and the real as being unreal as we become more materialistic and less spiritual. The entertainment industry has been the biggest culprit in this regard, brainwashing the general public with the idea that life is all about having fun.  A few years ago, I was asked to serve as a judge in a contest in which four high school girls were vying for the title of homecoming queen.  Each had to give a  10-minute talk on the subject of "heroes."  One of the young contestants said her heroes were all those people who helped her "have fun."  I don't know if the applause that followed was out of politeness or whether the audience actually agreed with her.  It seems obvious, however, that a majority of today's young people are more focused on "having fun" than on establishing meaningful goals, much more so than was the case with prior generations. 

Two of the other contestants selected movie stars as their heroes while the fourth selected a female soccer player. 
 

"We look at creation through the eyes of scientists, politicians, businessmen, athletes, journalists, singers, and even writers," writes psychiatrist Mitchell Earl Gibson in his recent book, Your Immortal Body of Light.   "They are our Harry Potter priests that seek to bewitch us.  University research facilities, sports arenas, movie theaters, shopping malls, concert halls, and luxury resort complexes have become our new place of worship.  Research studies, television newscasts, magazine articles, newspapers, and Wall Street spin-doctors have dampened down our ability to think for ourselves. The illuminating ‘numinous' experience has been consigned to holy men and philosophers - an age long ago - no longer a legitimate goal to seek for oneself in contemporary society.  At least, many ‘fundamentalists' would have us believe that is the case, but that is not what the Greeks taught in their temples.  These priests chanted: ‘Know Thyself'."  

In his 1988 commencement address to Cornell University graduates, Dr. Frank Rhodes, then president of Cornell, addressed the problem, pointing out that the reductionist thinking promoted by science has been adopted by academia and has resulted in abstraction, detachment, moral abstention, and depersonalization.  Consequently, he told graduating seniors, setting meaningful goals has become more difficult. 

More recently, in a 2003 keynote address at a University of Buffalo conference on "Fostering Ultimate Meaning," Dr. Alexander Astin, Director of the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles, said that developing a meaningful philosophy of life was the top value for college students in the 1970s, but that students today are more focused on material gain. He attributed the value shift to the growing influence of television.

Popular Christian author Philip Yancey states that the seven deadly sins might be renamed the seven seductive virtues, at least in the United States. The truth of his statement is evident when we stop to recognize how greed and envy drive our economy, how anger fuels terrorism, how lust is openly celebrated on television, how athletes and other entertainers go far beyond pride, arrogantly flaunting their prowess with various forms of exhibitionism.  One has to have his head buried in the sand to not see how gluttony and sloth are rampant in our country.   

   

As I watched NASA scientists celebrating the Mars landing on television a few years ago, I began pondering the purpose of such space exploration, asking myself whether its benefits are worth the risks and the cost.  When a NASA spokesman jubilantly commented that it was a big step toward the ultimate goal of finding other life in the universe I wondered if science is unwittingly hoping to find a distant intelligence to enlighten us and give us new meaning, purpose, hope, and direction - a substitute for the God it has done its "best" to eliminate.  In effect, science is searching for an "unreal" god.

Clearly, we live in an era of moral decadence, a time of egocentricity, intolerance, hatred, hypocrisy, disorder, flux, strife, chaos, and fear. We have become hedonistic materialists, consumed with the pursuit of pleasure and sensory gratification, making merry with intoxicants and drugs, and reveling in the "Playboy" philosophy. In fact, Playboy magazine founder Hugh Heffner is often portrayed in the media as a great success story, even a hero to many.

Can any thinking person doubt that today's hedonistic materialism is a result of a loss of spiritual values, especially a lack of belief in the survival of consciousness at death? 

There can be only one purpose in life - divine purpose.  All else is human desire. Concomitant with that divine purpose is a belief in an afterlife.  Without such a belief, life can be nothing other than purposeless, even though a humanist approach to living it would have us make the best of what little time we have in an ethical and moral manner.  While the humanist may not be a hedonistic materialist, she or he is a materialist nonetheless.  Moreover, the supposed "courage" of the stoic humanist usually turns to despair, bitterness, and indifference with age.  "It inevitably does break down even in the most stalwart when the organism begins to decay, or when morbid fears invade the mind," wrote Harvard professor William James, referring to the attitude of what he called the "moralist" - today's humanist.

 Nearly everyone represses thoughts of death, burying it deep in the subconscious.         "They come and they go and they trot and they dance, and never a word about death," wrote the 16^th Century French philosopher Michel de Montaigne. "All well and good.  Yet, when death does come - to them, their wives, their children, their friends - catching them unawares and unprepared, then what storms of passion overwhelm them, what cries, what fury, what despair!"

The key to living the unrepressed life is having a sense of immortality, a firm belief that our earthly life is part of a much larger and eternal life.  Some pretend to find a sense of immortality in their works of art or in their progeny, but then when they ask, "to which generation full fruition?" or "to what end the progeny?" they begin to realize how short-sighted their approach is.

It is impossible for a thinking person to find true purpose in life without a belief in survival.  Limited, restricted, and temporal purpose, perhaps, but not true purpose.  This belief must go beyond the blind or pseudo-faith of most religious practitioners.  It must take the form of conviction. "Too many indeed hold the solemn verities concerning the hereafter in a sort of half consciousness, believing in them, yet nevertheless not fully realizing them," wrote Dr. Madison Peters, a Christian author of a century ago.  "They must flame within us, setting our whole moral and intellectual nature on fire, sending a life current of energy though every part of our being, arousing us to impetuous action and to sustained effort born of strong conviction." 

And that need is what this blog is all about. 

 

As reported in the last blog entry, Private Thomas Dowding, a 37-year-old British soldier, was killed on the battlefield in WWI. On March 12, 1917, he began communicating through the mediumship of Wellesley Tudor Pole. After floundering in the ethers, not even realizing he was dead for a time, as time goes on that side, he was met by his brother, William, who had died three years earlier, and began his orientation.

“Hell is a thought region,” Thomas Dowding communicated on March 17, 1917. “Evil dwells there and works out its purposes. The forces used to hold mankind down in the darkness of ignorance are generated in hell! It is not a place; it is a condition. The human race has created the condition.”

Dowding explained that his brother needed help on a rescue mission in what humans call hell. It involved a very depraved soldier who had been killed – a degenerate, a murderer, a sensualist, who died cursing God and man. He was drawn towards hell by the law of attraction. “My brother had been told to rescue him,” Dowding wrote through Pole’s hand. “He took me with him. At first I refused to go. Then I went…An angel of light came to protect us; otherwise, we should have been lost in the blackness of the pit. This sounds sensational, even grotesque. It is the truth.”

To be safe, Dowding was instructed to empty himself of “self” before undertaking the project. However, he failed to completely empty himself of self and felt a “strange allurement” about the atmosphere and hoped they might stay there. He “felt the giant lust of the human race. They thrilled through me. I could not keep them out…I cannot understand it. Something sensual within me leaped and burned.”

Seeing his attraction to the area, the angel and his brother refused to let him continue. “I waited for their return in what seemed to be a deep dark forest,” Dowding recorded. “There was no life, no light there. One felt stagnation everywhere. The angel said that was the most insidious kind of hell, stagnation, because no one recognized it as such.”

Dowding waited for his brother and the angel to return. “The darkness of the deep forests appals, the loneliness is intense,” he continued. “At last, light is seen ahead. It is not the light of heaven; it is the lure of hell. These poor souls hasten onwards, though not toward destruction; there is no such thing. They hasten down into conditions that are the counterpart of their own interior condition. The Law is at work. This hell is the hell of the illusions and is itself an illusion. I find this hard to credit. Those who enter it are led to believe that the only realities are the sense passions and the beliefs of the human ‘I’. This hell consists in believing the unreal to be real. It consists in the lure of the senses without the possibility of gratifying them…Hell, apparently, or that part of it we are speaking about, depends for its existence on human thoughts and feelings.”

Purgatory and hell, Dowding learned, are different states. He was in purgatory. “We all must needs pass through a purging, purifying process after leaving the earth life. I am still in purgatory. Some day I shall rise above it. The majority who come over here rise above or rather through purgatory into higher conditions. A minornity refuse to relinquish their thoughts and beliefs in the pleasures of sin and the reality of the sense life. They sink by the weight of their own thoughts. No outside power can attract a man against his own will. A man sinks or rises through the action of a spiritual law of gravity.”

And so it was that his brother and the angel failed in their rescue mission. “He would not come away,” Dowding communicated. “They had to leave him there. Fear held him. He said his existence was awful, but he was afraid to move for fear worse conditions befell. Fear chained him. No outside power can unchain that man. Release will come from within some day.”

Dowding returned to the Hall of Silence to ponder what he had just witnessed, determined not to return.