user posted image rAnthony North: The ability to see into the future is one of the most enigmatic areas of paranormality. To accept that it occurs we have to abandon our sense of ‘now’, and to accept a merging of all time, including the future, which rationally has not yet happened. This, however, has not stopped a whole host of theories regarding the subject. From pseudoscholars, to philosophers, to scientists, the existence of a ‘future’ has fascinated some of our cleverest minds. Philosophising time: To French philosopher Henri Bergson time is not in the world. Rather, it is a subjective quality, needed for us to place order upon the world. English author J B Priestley went further, arguing that we had to be taught to appreciate time; and once taught, we were imprisoned by it. But these ideas actually tell us little of the mechanics of time. One theory to explain precognition is the ‘bow wave’ effects. As a boat ploughs through water, it leaves ripples which dissipate with the passing of time. Could time be similar, causing ripples that go back to the past from the future? Ripples of knowledge that we can intuit? The time scientists: Prof Paul Davies suggests there are an infinite number of universes. Could we cross into other universes? And if so, could we re-enter the same universe at a different point in time? Cosmologist Thomas Gold suggested that the direction of time is a product of the universe expanding. But what if it is really contracting? If so, it is an illusion that time goes forward. It is really going backwards. Hence, we experience things that haven’t yet happened.
A further idea is the block-universe hypothesis. Here, the four dimensions, including time, are really static. Movement is really consciousness moving through it, rather like a beam of light, illuminating and making it real. But if the unconscious is more like a searchlight, it will pierce deeper and wider, the unconscious appreciating events before they happen. An experiment with time: British engineer J W Dunne was fascinated by the subject, keeping a ‘dream diary’ for many years.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Friday, January 11, 2008
Ramblings
A lot of things happening in the news as of late
- Briteny Spears get's to put in an ambulance
- An Asteroid may hit Mars
- Gas prices are going up more
- the next president of the united states looks like to be a woman or a black man
I went to the mall a couple of days ago to just look around i want a ps3 so bad 80gb one they are still at $499.99 dollars here plus tax.
I am planning on saving my money up for one
- Briteny Spears get's to put in an ambulance
- An Asteroid may hit Mars
- Gas prices are going up more
- the next president of the united states looks like to be a woman or a black man
I went to the mall a couple of days ago to just look around i want a ps3 so bad 80gb one they are still at $499.99 dollars here plus tax.
I am planning on saving my money up for one
The virtual reality universe
The virtual reality universe
Those of us who are more conspiracy oriented have long believed that the global elites have lied to us about things like the Federal Reserve, the Kennedy assassination, Oklahoma City, 9/11, and so on. But suppose that these are just their smallest lies, and that above these is the ultimate lie. Suppose that they have lied to us about the basic nature of reality itself, about that and about who and what we really are, and what are our true origins. Suppose that what we call the "real world" is more like virtual reality, a world composed entirely of data, of information.
Subtly and not so subtly the elites for decades have pushed the idea of philosophical materialism and atheism, using the schools and universities and the controlled media to indoctrinate people in the belief that the prime reality is matter, or, in the parlance of modern physics, mass/energy/space/time, the observable, measurable physical universe so beloved by our logical positivist scientists, or what passes for scientists these days. They believe that consciousness is a mere secondary manifestation of matter, with the brain being a sort of electro chemical computer. Of course, in such a universe, there is no place for God, so they also promote atheism and attack religion at every opportunity, conducting, these days, a virtual war against Christianity and Judaism, and promoting the insidious doctrine of moral relativism. Of course, the schools exclusively teach the Darwinian view of evolution, and exclude all mention of intelligent design, which, after all, requires a Designer.
This doctrine, until the time of the French Revolution, was rarely accepted, an early exception being the Epicurean poet Lucretius, who wrote De Rerum Natura. It is important to note that, ultimately, the materialists cannot define matter, but only describe it, and that they are a bit hazy on the details of consciousness.
All along, however, there has been an opposing view, philosophical idealism, which claims that the prime reality is mind/spirit/soul/consciousness/thought, which, ultimately idealists cannot define. In this philosophy the physical universe (and much more) consists of the mind's thoughts .If this view seems unrealistic to most people, it is because we have all been programmed to think it so. Actually, simple logic can show that the idealist view is almost certainly the correct one.
Suppose that a materialist has before him a table. How does he really, truly know beyond all doubt that the table has a reality independent of his mind? This is no mere sophistry; it is vitally important that we understand what the real certainties are. The materialist will say that he sees the table. Asked how, he will say that light is reflected from it and is focused by the lenses of his eyes upon his retinas, causing the optic nerves to send a signal to his brain. But how does he know with absolute certainty that light exists, or his eyes, or that his consciousness is composed of a physical brain? The materialist may argue that he can touch and feel the table, but, again, how does he know for sure that he has physical hands? All he knows with certainty is that he thinks he sees and feels the table, and he thinks that light exists, and he thinks that he has eyes, hands, and a brain. In other words, all that any of us can be sure of is that we think, in other words, we are minds and consciousness exists. The physical universe out there may or may not have an independent existence.
And yet materialists insist that the physical universe, whose very existence is unproven, is the prime reality, and that thought, the only thing we can be sure of, is secondary. Isn't this backward reasoning? Isn't it vastly more likely that the reverse is true?
The implications of idealism are far reaching. For us all to more or less perceive the same reality around us, to see the same objects, for example, our minds must be interconnected at some level. But if we are all connected, we are all part of a vast, universal mind, which means that there is some kind of supreme being. In other words, as Jews and Christians insist, God is a being, not just a concept. But, as Eastern mystics insist, we are all part of God. Understand that there is also a Christian mystical tradition, and that I am not advocating here the kind of perverted pantheism that leads to nature worship. As to the true nature of God, that remains a mystery. Also, if our minds are the prime reality, there must be some kind of afterlife, either reincarnation or existence in a spiritual realm. And if there is a supreme being, it is likely that there are moral absolutes.
And, if the universe is a great mind, a consensus reality or virtual reality of which we are all components, thought and symbol matter. In other words, we live in a magical universe. When the elites do their monstrous acts on certain dates and on certain parallels of latitude, this enhances their power. They at least partly understand the nature of things and use the magic against us.
And the one thing that they fear above all else is that we will awaken to the true nature of reality, remember who and what we are, and send the elites and their henchmen back down into the darkness from whence they came.
Those of us who are more conspiracy oriented have long believed that the global elites have lied to us about things like the Federal Reserve, the Kennedy assassination, Oklahoma City, 9/11, and so on. But suppose that these are just their smallest lies, and that above these is the ultimate lie. Suppose that they have lied to us about the basic nature of reality itself, about that and about who and what we really are, and what are our true origins. Suppose that what we call the "real world" is more like virtual reality, a world composed entirely of data, of information.
Subtly and not so subtly the elites for decades have pushed the idea of philosophical materialism and atheism, using the schools and universities and the controlled media to indoctrinate people in the belief that the prime reality is matter, or, in the parlance of modern physics, mass/energy/space/time, the observable, measurable physical universe so beloved by our logical positivist scientists, or what passes for scientists these days. They believe that consciousness is a mere secondary manifestation of matter, with the brain being a sort of electro chemical computer. Of course, in such a universe, there is no place for God, so they also promote atheism and attack religion at every opportunity, conducting, these days, a virtual war against Christianity and Judaism, and promoting the insidious doctrine of moral relativism. Of course, the schools exclusively teach the Darwinian view of evolution, and exclude all mention of intelligent design, which, after all, requires a Designer.
This doctrine, until the time of the French Revolution, was rarely accepted, an early exception being the Epicurean poet Lucretius, who wrote De Rerum Natura. It is important to note that, ultimately, the materialists cannot define matter, but only describe it, and that they are a bit hazy on the details of consciousness.
All along, however, there has been an opposing view, philosophical idealism, which claims that the prime reality is mind/spirit/soul/consciousness/thought, which, ultimately idealists cannot define. In this philosophy the physical universe (and much more) consists of the mind's thoughts .If this view seems unrealistic to most people, it is because we have all been programmed to think it so. Actually, simple logic can show that the idealist view is almost certainly the correct one.
Suppose that a materialist has before him a table. How does he really, truly know beyond all doubt that the table has a reality independent of his mind? This is no mere sophistry; it is vitally important that we understand what the real certainties are. The materialist will say that he sees the table. Asked how, he will say that light is reflected from it and is focused by the lenses of his eyes upon his retinas, causing the optic nerves to send a signal to his brain. But how does he know with absolute certainty that light exists, or his eyes, or that his consciousness is composed of a physical brain? The materialist may argue that he can touch and feel the table, but, again, how does he know for sure that he has physical hands? All he knows with certainty is that he thinks he sees and feels the table, and he thinks that light exists, and he thinks that he has eyes, hands, and a brain. In other words, all that any of us can be sure of is that we think, in other words, we are minds and consciousness exists. The physical universe out there may or may not have an independent existence.
And yet materialists insist that the physical universe, whose very existence is unproven, is the prime reality, and that thought, the only thing we can be sure of, is secondary. Isn't this backward reasoning? Isn't it vastly more likely that the reverse is true?
The implications of idealism are far reaching. For us all to more or less perceive the same reality around us, to see the same objects, for example, our minds must be interconnected at some level. But if we are all connected, we are all part of a vast, universal mind, which means that there is some kind of supreme being. In other words, as Jews and Christians insist, God is a being, not just a concept. But, as Eastern mystics insist, we are all part of God. Understand that there is also a Christian mystical tradition, and that I am not advocating here the kind of perverted pantheism that leads to nature worship. As to the true nature of God, that remains a mystery. Also, if our minds are the prime reality, there must be some kind of afterlife, either reincarnation or existence in a spiritual realm. And if there is a supreme being, it is likely that there are moral absolutes.
And, if the universe is a great mind, a consensus reality or virtual reality of which we are all components, thought and symbol matter. In other words, we live in a magical universe. When the elites do their monstrous acts on certain dates and on certain parallels of latitude, this enhances their power. They at least partly understand the nature of things and use the magic against us.
And the one thing that they fear above all else is that we will awaken to the true nature of reality, remember who and what we are, and send the elites and their henchmen back down into the darkness from whence they came.
Friday, December 7, 2007
Ghost hunters uncover old murder
Ghost hunters uncover old murder
A team of paranormal investigators from Lancashire got more than they bargained for on their second visit to an Inn in Leyland.
During the investigation the team undertook an experiment where they asked the spirits to move a table.
The table moved suddenly and violently, then spun around several times, nearly knocking one team member off her feet.
Other strange phenomena included all of the group hearing a low pitch groan at exactly the same time, lights flickering, and unexplained sensations felt by a member of the group.
Team member Andy Proctor, from Blackburn, describes events on the night of the visit as "the most amazing night of phenomena we have ever witnessed".
The Ley Inn, in Chorley, is subject to many rumours of a hanging in the late 18th century.
During the Ouija experiment a former Inn owner Robert O'Neil and his employee James Silcock came forward.
Andy said: "Robert informed us that he once owned the land which the Ley Inn now stands on, and that he accidentally killed James Silcock, who it seems was making advances towards Robert's daughter.
"We were informed, that Robert tied up a rope and wrapped it around James' neck, in order to scare him in to leaving his daughter alone
, however, these actions resulted in James' death.
"Whether or not these stories are connected to the original claims of the hanging which took place here, we are not sure."
Fellow team member Victoria Taylor said: "We made contact with a spirit called Arabelle, who we think was Robert O'Neil's daughter.
"She was born in 1746 and died at the age of 17. She said she'd been strangled by James Silcock, which would explain her father's actions.
"We think we've solved a mystery dating back nearly 250 years."
A team of paranormal investigators from Lancashire got more than they bargained for on their second visit to an Inn in Leyland.
During the investigation the team undertook an experiment where they asked the spirits to move a table.
The table moved suddenly and violently, then spun around several times, nearly knocking one team member off her feet.
Other strange phenomena included all of the group hearing a low pitch groan at exactly the same time, lights flickering, and unexplained sensations felt by a member of the group.
Team member Andy Proctor, from Blackburn, describes events on the night of the visit as "the most amazing night of phenomena we have ever witnessed".
The Ley Inn, in Chorley, is subject to many rumours of a hanging in the late 18th century.
During the Ouija experiment a former Inn owner Robert O'Neil and his employee James Silcock came forward.
Andy said: "Robert informed us that he once owned the land which the Ley Inn now stands on, and that he accidentally killed James Silcock, who it seems was making advances towards Robert's daughter.
"We were informed, that Robert tied up a rope and wrapped it around James' neck, in order to scare him in to leaving his daughter alone
, however, these actions resulted in James' death.
"Whether or not these stories are connected to the original claims of the hanging which took place here, we are not sure."
Fellow team member Victoria Taylor said: "We made contact with a spirit called Arabelle, who we think was Robert O'Neil's daughter.
"She was born in 1746 and died at the age of 17. She said she'd been strangled by James Silcock, which would explain her father's actions.
"We think we've solved a mystery dating back nearly 250 years."
Monday, December 3, 2007
LIFE BEFORE THIS
LIFE BEFORE THIS
A CASE STUDY
To understand the subject in western terms, we need to know just what ‘evidence’ there is for it. Well, very little really. But we do have case studies. Here is a typical one.
Nicola Peart shocked her mother when, as a little girl, she was given a dog. Calling it Muff, she said it was the name of her other dog, yet Nicola had never had a dog before. Questioning her about this, Nicola suddenly wanted to know why she was a girl this time. It seems Nicola used to be a boy, whose mother, Elsie Benson, lived in a grey stone house in nearby Howarth and her father had worked on the railways .
Nicola was later taken to Howarth, where she recognised the house, and parish records showed that a John Benson had been born there in 1875 to a railwayman and his family.
WHAT IS REINCARNATION?
The above is a classic case of supposed reincarnation – the idea that when we die our soul is reborn into another body. As old as history, the idea is fundamental to many religions, most notably Hinduism, which is steeped in the Samsara, or wheel of rebirth. Whether a person is reborn to a lower or higher form is dependent upon karma, a principle which states that deeds in this life decide your place in the next.
It is easy to dismiss reincarnation as impossible, but recent polls in the west show that between 25 and 40% of people believe they have been born before. One of the most famous believers is the Dalai Lama of Tibet. He has to believe for he is the thirteenth incarnation of the original Dalai Lama who came to the Lion Throne in 1391.
MORE REINCARNATED CHILDREN
A typical case of reincarnation is that of twins, Jennifer and Gillian Pollock, born in 1958 in Hexham, England. The previous year, their mother’s two children had been killed in a car crash.
Moving to Whitley Bay in the early sixties, Mrs Pollock re-visited Hexham and the twins seemed to recognise the place. Later, sorting out some old toys, the twins recognised and named their dead sister’s dolls . It wasn’t long before they began discussing the crash – an event they supposedly knew nothing about.
Equally puzzling is the case of Jonathan Pike, who, at the age of three, began talking about his wife, Angela, following a family move from Hull to Southend. On a bus in the town, he pointed to a house he lived in with Angela, and also the garage where he used to work .
On a later trip he burst into tears, recognising the location where his daughter had been killed in a car crash. A long serving policeman remembered the case of the little girl being knocked down at that very location.
Sometimes such remembrances can have life changing effects. Consider the case of Dorothy Eady. When she was three she was knocked unconscious. Following this she began to have dreams featuring a temple and gardens in ancient Egypt.
She eventually became convinced she was the lover of the Pharoah, Sety. So all consuming was the feeling that Dorothy moved to Egypt, spending her life, right up to her death in 1981, in a primitive village close to Sety’s temple.
One of the most convincing cases of supposed reincarnation concerned Mary Lurancy Vennum, a thirteen year old girl who lived in Watseka, Illinois in 1877. Having an epileptic fit she became unconscious for five days.
Coming round, she claimed to have met her dead sister. Describing her, a family friend recognised the girl as his dead daughter Mary Roff. Soon after this, Mary was hypnotised by a Dr Stevens. The day following, Mary became Mary Roff, and remained so for four months.
DR IAN STEVENSON
Several researchers have studied reincarnation in minute detail. Principal among them is Dr Ian Stevenson, whose 1966 book ‘Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation’ is a classic. Researching some fascinating cases, he noted that often, any addiction such as alcoholism in a past life could reflect itself in the present.
In some two hundred cases he noted birthmarks in the same place as wounds in previous lives. Such evidence led Stevenson to conclude that human personality may go ‘… much further back in time than conception and birth.’
FROM INDIA WITH LOVE
Many cases came from the east, such as Kumari Shanti Devi, born in Delhi in 1926. At four she claimed to be the wife of Kedar Nath Chaubey from Muttra, one hundred miles away, who had died ten years ago.
Eventually, Kedar Nath visited her. She flung her arms around him. On a visit to Muttra she knew other relations, even knowing where his wife had kept her precious things.
Jasbir Lal Jat, a three year old Indian boy, offers similar evidence. Nearly dying of smallpox, when he came round from unconsciousness his personality had changed, claiming to have previously lived in Vehedi.
He had died when he fell off a cart and fractured his skull. In 1957 a Brahmin lady from the town visited his village. He recognised her as his aunt. Knowledge of his past life came out, including his name, Sobha Ram.
GETTING TO GRIPS
The most convincing cases come from the east, except for one damning problem. Steeped in belief in reincarnation, such cases come from societies which practice the caste system, where a person is condemned to always remain in their class.
Interestingly, most cases of reincarnation, here, involve a past life from a higher caste, offering incentive for collusion.
Should we accept the above cases as proof of reincarnation, or could other factors be involved? Perhaps, rather than speak of reincarnation per se we should think in terms of the person being somehow possessed.
PSYCHOLOGICAL MECHANISMS
If we do so, we can place psychological ‘mechanisms’ upon the phenomenon. I won’t go into great detail of these mechanisms, here, as I’ve written about them elsewhere on this blog. But basically, they are thus:
There is an ability of the mind to retrieve information of books and other media from the unconscious that the person has forgotten. It is known as cryptomnesia. Often including historical detail, it can be mistakenly seen as coming from a previous life.
A further phenomenon is multiple personality, where the mind can seem to fragment into many separate characters, taking it in turn to ‘occupy’ the host. If such a phenomenon attaches to the idea of reincarnation, characters can appear to come from a previous life.
BIRTH OF THE SOUL
I have quickly skirted over these ‘mechanisms’ because they are not the central purpose of this essay. Rather, bearing in mind that these mind-functions can occur, I want to analyse past culture and mind anomalies to try to grasp where the idea of reincarnation came from.
Early spiritual expression seemed to revolve around two central ideas. The first was animism, where the world was perceived as being split into a physical world, and a spiritual world existing parallel to it. Through the spiritual world, everything in the world had a ‘spirit’, thus animating the physical.
The most likely cause of this belief was the ability of the prehistoric human mind to easily hallucinate, literally living their dreams as technology had not yet occupied the mind to an extent it later did. But regardless of this, the idea gave our early ancestors the idea that supernatural spirits existed, including the existence of a spirit reflection of man in the soul.
MYTHS OF ANCESTORS
The second thread of spiritual expression was that of ancestor worship. For instance, we can imagine that, if early man experienced his dreams more easily, and mistook them for evidence of the supernatural, then he would easily dream, and possibly see, his dead ancestors about him.
In this way, a specific form of ancestor worship was birthed. In effect, the dead became early gods to ancient peoples. But they also became much more than this.
The residue of ancestor worship is with us today, in the way we remember, and try to emulate, figures from the past. So we can imagine that, in early times, this reverence for the ancestors would give the impression that those ancestors lived on in those alive.
From here, it is a small step for an acceptance that the soul survived death, and was reborn in another person, confirming that the ancestors are with us still.
SHARED PSYCHOLOGY
We must now turn to the human mind.
We like to think of ourselves as individuals, yet the more I look into human behaviour, the more it becomes obvious that we are not. Rather, we seem to be an amalgam of three types of influence. These are the archetypal, emotional and situational.
Jung was one of the central theorizers of the archetypal. He noted that we seemed to have a collective unconscious which held within it universal shared symbols. In terms of personality, these included the child, sage, trickster, hero, mother and various other character archetypes.
In effect, these are the various stages and character influences of the human mind. We can therefore argue that ‘personality’ is not specific to the individual, but is an inevitability of shared psychology.
Emotions work in a similar way. We can exhibit various emotions by degrees and to specific responses, but the emotion, once exhibited, is not so much personal as shared by all. It is as if we exhibit emotion as individuals, but in doing so, we dip into a communal pool of exact emotions.
The situations we find ourselves in can also have a communality about them, rather than individuality. This can be understood by reading a great storyteller such as Shakespeare.
The beauty of the Shakespearean tale is that it outs the ideosyncracies of the human mind, rather than place. His plays can, quite literally, apply equally to any culture at any time. This is because there are only a certain number of situations a person can find himself in. The individual or cultural expression may vary, but the basic influence of a situation does not.
A NEW MODEL OF THE INDIVIDUAL
The crux of what I am saying is that what we call individuality is not personal, as such, but a specific mix of particular archetypal, emotional and situational influences that are inherently communal.
A classic case is falling in love. The situation is boy meets girl. The emotion is love. The archetypes involved will invariably revolve around the hero and seductress. This situation is common to most people in all times. It is only personal to the individuals involved. The actual amalgam of influences is communal to the species.
VALIDATING REINCARNATION
If the above model of the individual can be seen as possible, then we can look to reincarnation in a new way. We can argue that an ‘individual’ is a basically false concept, and people through all time have reflected the influences you have in your life today.
The attractiveness of the idea is that you are, therefore, not that much different from a person from the past, so in effect, just a small change in your psychology could, metaphorically speaking, turn you into that person from the past.
If this is so, all that is needed is a tiny snippet of information, had through cryptomnesia, to turn even a child into an ‘entity’ from another time – in a psychological sense, at least.
So okay, this isn’t reincarnation as popularly believed, but if the amalgam of influences is correct, then it can be seen as a universal soul within everyone. And a vehicle through which ‘characterisations’ from the past can find expression in the present.
So tell me, who do you want to be today?
A CASE STUDY
To understand the subject in western terms, we need to know just what ‘evidence’ there is for it. Well, very little really. But we do have case studies. Here is a typical one.
Nicola Peart shocked her mother when, as a little girl, she was given a dog. Calling it Muff, she said it was the name of her other dog, yet Nicola had never had a dog before. Questioning her about this, Nicola suddenly wanted to know why she was a girl this time. It seems Nicola used to be a boy, whose mother, Elsie Benson, lived in a grey stone house in nearby Howarth and her father had worked on the railways .
Nicola was later taken to Howarth, where she recognised the house, and parish records showed that a John Benson had been born there in 1875 to a railwayman and his family.
WHAT IS REINCARNATION?
The above is a classic case of supposed reincarnation – the idea that when we die our soul is reborn into another body. As old as history, the idea is fundamental to many religions, most notably Hinduism, which is steeped in the Samsara, or wheel of rebirth. Whether a person is reborn to a lower or higher form is dependent upon karma, a principle which states that deeds in this life decide your place in the next.
It is easy to dismiss reincarnation as impossible, but recent polls in the west show that between 25 and 40% of people believe they have been born before. One of the most famous believers is the Dalai Lama of Tibet. He has to believe for he is the thirteenth incarnation of the original Dalai Lama who came to the Lion Throne in 1391.
MORE REINCARNATED CHILDREN
A typical case of reincarnation is that of twins, Jennifer and Gillian Pollock, born in 1958 in Hexham, England. The previous year, their mother’s two children had been killed in a car crash.
Moving to Whitley Bay in the early sixties, Mrs Pollock re-visited Hexham and the twins seemed to recognise the place. Later, sorting out some old toys, the twins recognised and named their dead sister’s dolls . It wasn’t long before they began discussing the crash – an event they supposedly knew nothing about.
Equally puzzling is the case of Jonathan Pike, who, at the age of three, began talking about his wife, Angela, following a family move from Hull to Southend. On a bus in the town, he pointed to a house he lived in with Angela, and also the garage where he used to work .
On a later trip he burst into tears, recognising the location where his daughter had been killed in a car crash. A long serving policeman remembered the case of the little girl being knocked down at that very location.
Sometimes such remembrances can have life changing effects. Consider the case of Dorothy Eady. When she was three she was knocked unconscious. Following this she began to have dreams featuring a temple and gardens in ancient Egypt.
She eventually became convinced she was the lover of the Pharoah, Sety. So all consuming was the feeling that Dorothy moved to Egypt, spending her life, right up to her death in 1981, in a primitive village close to Sety’s temple.
One of the most convincing cases of supposed reincarnation concerned Mary Lurancy Vennum, a thirteen year old girl who lived in Watseka, Illinois in 1877. Having an epileptic fit she became unconscious for five days.
Coming round, she claimed to have met her dead sister. Describing her, a family friend recognised the girl as his dead daughter Mary Roff. Soon after this, Mary was hypnotised by a Dr Stevens. The day following, Mary became Mary Roff, and remained so for four months.
DR IAN STEVENSON
Several researchers have studied reincarnation in minute detail. Principal among them is Dr Ian Stevenson, whose 1966 book ‘Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation’ is a classic. Researching some fascinating cases, he noted that often, any addiction such as alcoholism in a past life could reflect itself in the present.
In some two hundred cases he noted birthmarks in the same place as wounds in previous lives. Such evidence led Stevenson to conclude that human personality may go ‘… much further back in time than conception and birth.’
FROM INDIA WITH LOVE
Many cases came from the east, such as Kumari Shanti Devi, born in Delhi in 1926. At four she claimed to be the wife of Kedar Nath Chaubey from Muttra, one hundred miles away, who had died ten years ago.
Eventually, Kedar Nath visited her. She flung her arms around him. On a visit to Muttra she knew other relations, even knowing where his wife had kept her precious things.
Jasbir Lal Jat, a three year old Indian boy, offers similar evidence. Nearly dying of smallpox, when he came round from unconsciousness his personality had changed, claiming to have previously lived in Vehedi.
He had died when he fell off a cart and fractured his skull. In 1957 a Brahmin lady from the town visited his village. He recognised her as his aunt. Knowledge of his past life came out, including his name, Sobha Ram.
GETTING TO GRIPS
The most convincing cases come from the east, except for one damning problem. Steeped in belief in reincarnation, such cases come from societies which practice the caste system, where a person is condemned to always remain in their class.
Interestingly, most cases of reincarnation, here, involve a past life from a higher caste, offering incentive for collusion.
Should we accept the above cases as proof of reincarnation, or could other factors be involved? Perhaps, rather than speak of reincarnation per se we should think in terms of the person being somehow possessed.
PSYCHOLOGICAL MECHANISMS
If we do so, we can place psychological ‘mechanisms’ upon the phenomenon. I won’t go into great detail of these mechanisms, here, as I’ve written about them elsewhere on this blog. But basically, they are thus:
There is an ability of the mind to retrieve information of books and other media from the unconscious that the person has forgotten. It is known as cryptomnesia. Often including historical detail, it can be mistakenly seen as coming from a previous life.
A further phenomenon is multiple personality, where the mind can seem to fragment into many separate characters, taking it in turn to ‘occupy’ the host. If such a phenomenon attaches to the idea of reincarnation, characters can appear to come from a previous life.
BIRTH OF THE SOUL
I have quickly skirted over these ‘mechanisms’ because they are not the central purpose of this essay. Rather, bearing in mind that these mind-functions can occur, I want to analyse past culture and mind anomalies to try to grasp where the idea of reincarnation came from.
Early spiritual expression seemed to revolve around two central ideas. The first was animism, where the world was perceived as being split into a physical world, and a spiritual world existing parallel to it. Through the spiritual world, everything in the world had a ‘spirit’, thus animating the physical.
The most likely cause of this belief was the ability of the prehistoric human mind to easily hallucinate, literally living their dreams as technology had not yet occupied the mind to an extent it later did. But regardless of this, the idea gave our early ancestors the idea that supernatural spirits existed, including the existence of a spirit reflection of man in the soul.
MYTHS OF ANCESTORS
The second thread of spiritual expression was that of ancestor worship. For instance, we can imagine that, if early man experienced his dreams more easily, and mistook them for evidence of the supernatural, then he would easily dream, and possibly see, his dead ancestors about him.
In this way, a specific form of ancestor worship was birthed. In effect, the dead became early gods to ancient peoples. But they also became much more than this.
The residue of ancestor worship is with us today, in the way we remember, and try to emulate, figures from the past. So we can imagine that, in early times, this reverence for the ancestors would give the impression that those ancestors lived on in those alive.
From here, it is a small step for an acceptance that the soul survived death, and was reborn in another person, confirming that the ancestors are with us still.
SHARED PSYCHOLOGY
We must now turn to the human mind.
We like to think of ourselves as individuals, yet the more I look into human behaviour, the more it becomes obvious that we are not. Rather, we seem to be an amalgam of three types of influence. These are the archetypal, emotional and situational.
Jung was one of the central theorizers of the archetypal. He noted that we seemed to have a collective unconscious which held within it universal shared symbols. In terms of personality, these included the child, sage, trickster, hero, mother and various other character archetypes.
In effect, these are the various stages and character influences of the human mind. We can therefore argue that ‘personality’ is not specific to the individual, but is an inevitability of shared psychology.
Emotions work in a similar way. We can exhibit various emotions by degrees and to specific responses, but the emotion, once exhibited, is not so much personal as shared by all. It is as if we exhibit emotion as individuals, but in doing so, we dip into a communal pool of exact emotions.
The situations we find ourselves in can also have a communality about them, rather than individuality. This can be understood by reading a great storyteller such as Shakespeare.
The beauty of the Shakespearean tale is that it outs the ideosyncracies of the human mind, rather than place. His plays can, quite literally, apply equally to any culture at any time. This is because there are only a certain number of situations a person can find himself in. The individual or cultural expression may vary, but the basic influence of a situation does not.
A NEW MODEL OF THE INDIVIDUAL
The crux of what I am saying is that what we call individuality is not personal, as such, but a specific mix of particular archetypal, emotional and situational influences that are inherently communal.
A classic case is falling in love. The situation is boy meets girl. The emotion is love. The archetypes involved will invariably revolve around the hero and seductress. This situation is common to most people in all times. It is only personal to the individuals involved. The actual amalgam of influences is communal to the species.
VALIDATING REINCARNATION
If the above model of the individual can be seen as possible, then we can look to reincarnation in a new way. We can argue that an ‘individual’ is a basically false concept, and people through all time have reflected the influences you have in your life today.
The attractiveness of the idea is that you are, therefore, not that much different from a person from the past, so in effect, just a small change in your psychology could, metaphorically speaking, turn you into that person from the past.
If this is so, all that is needed is a tiny snippet of information, had through cryptomnesia, to turn even a child into an ‘entity’ from another time – in a psychological sense, at least.
So okay, this isn’t reincarnation as popularly believed, but if the amalgam of influences is correct, then it can be seen as a universal soul within everyone. And a vehicle through which ‘characterisations’ from the past can find expression in the present.
So tell me, who do you want to be today?
Saturday, December 1, 2007
The Geraldo Show Attack On Professor Gary Schwartz Mediumship Experiments
It looks like this will get ugly Laurie Campell a medium who used to work with Professor Gary Schwartz. Laurie Campbell says that Professor Gary Schwartz has shown unethical behavior towards her.
More here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drrciHKm7TU
and here
http://michaelprescott.typepad.com/michael_prescotts_blog/2007/10/geraldomania.html
Here's Professor Gary Schwartz response to this character assassination
http://www.drgaryschwartz.com/response.htm
More here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drrciHKm7TU
and here
http://michaelprescott.typepad.com/michael_prescotts_blog/2007/10/geraldomania.html
Here's Professor Gary Schwartz response to this character assassination
http://www.drgaryschwartz.com/response.htm
Thursday, November 29, 2007
The ghosts come calling at the Tower of London
TOWER OF LONDON, England — Ghosts don't come when they're called.
That's what I thought.
Then my new pen suddenly stopped working ...
I had come to the Tower of London to hear the stories of uneasy spirits that are said to share the landmark's 18 acres with 35 yeoman warders (sometimes called Beefeaters), a governor and two deputies, a pastor, a doctor and their families.
Secretly, I hoped to encounter one of the specters.
Phil Wilson, a sergeant among the men and one woman who are guardians of the 900-year-old fortress, met me as shadows oozed across the grounds and seeped over stones worn by history and its players.
Only a corporate group on a special tour and I invaded the nighttime privacy of the 100 or so year-round residents, soldiers on guard duty and those wraiths that piqued my curiosity. If I were ever to see a ghost, this could be the place.
Storied, historic and bloody, this mass of 21 towers beside the chilly River Thames has seen lives anointed, destroyed and redeemed. Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard died here, victims of King Henry VIII's obsessive quest for a son. Among others who gave up their heads in the tower's sloping courtyard were Baron Hastings, an adviser to Edward IV who was executed by Edward's successor; Lady Jane Grey, queen for nine days; and the Earl of Essex, a traitorous favorite of the first Queen Elizabeth.
It was considered a benevolence to be dispatched within the fortress's confines, away from the baying crowds on Tower Hill, about 200 yards from the entrance at Middle Tower. And imprisonment in the tower's dungeons was reserved for nobles and educated people who ran afoul of the monarch's favor or agenda. Common criminals had their own jails and their own execution grounds elsewhere.
Although many dozens died on Tower Hill after being held in the fortress, only seven people were dispatched on Tower Green. It's some of these who are said to be among the wraiths that reside and occasionally roam in the tower.
"I won't believe until I see them," Wilson told me as we began a walk among the darkening passageways.
But he doesn't dismiss or belittle experiences reported by fellow yeomen, their kin, soldiers, workers or visitors.
Most occurred after dark. "There's too many people about" in the daytime, he says, suggesting perhaps that phantoms prefer privacy.
We pass through the black-painted gates of the Byward Tower and Wilson describes a watchman's experience. He was reading a newspaper when the lights dimmed and the hiss of his gas fire turned into crackling. He looked up to see two men dressed in red, with spindly legs, smoking long clay pipes on either side of a fireplace. One turned and looked at the watchman, Wilson says, then the pair vanished.
What intrigued the watchman, the warder says, was the question, "Was the past seeing the future or the future seeing the past?"
We walk beside the Bell Tower, where defender of Catholicism Thomas More was imprisoned before his beheading. The fragrance of incense has been reported near the doomed man's chamber, Wilson says.
By the scaffold site on Tower Green, he tells me that terrifying shrieks have been heard here on the anniversary of the death of the Countess of Salisbury, who was hacked to death May 27, 1541, by an executioner who chased her down. Also in May, a headless Queen Anne Boleyn is said to walk the area on the 19th, the date of her death in 1536.
Some of the most convincing reports of encounters with spectral beings are those from yeoman warders, all of them former military with long service and good conduct medals, and active military on duty at the landmark.
During World War II, a sentry reported seeing a procession in 14th-century clothes descending Tower Hill while bearing a headless body on a stretcher.
In recent years, a yeoman and his family moved into an apartment near the Bloody Tower, where the young princes Edward V and his younger brother, Richard, were held captive then, tradition holds, murdered. Shortly after the family settled in, the warder asked his young son whether he liked his new room. The child, who had been told nothing of possible ghosts at the tower, replied, "Yes, but the two boys that play outside at the back are really noisy and wear funny clothes."
Other yeomen have reported a feeling of being followed when no one was behind them, or the approach of people who vanish when challenged. Their wives talk of tendrils of smoke swirling purposefully, of items moved seemingly without human intervention, and of noises that have no apparent cause.
However frightening or inexplicable the tower's ghosts may be, they've harmed no one, although a guard in 1815 died two days after confronting a bear he said had materialized from a wisp of smoke. People also have reported feeling pushed on stairs (especially at the White Tower, where the original dungeon was) and sensing their chests being pressed toward suffocation.
The day before my walk with Wilson, yeoman warder Ken McGrath told me that a week earlier, a yeoman had heard prayers in Latin issuing from Beauchamp Tower. The warder entered, and the supplications stopped. He searched for a source, even asked others whether sounds were being piped in for effect. But no origin for the entreaties was found.
Just that week, a guard reported groaning coming from a small window at the Wakefield Tower, McGrath said.
But yeomen and military guards aren't the only ones to experience oddities. Visitors have reported cold spots and touches by unseen hands. A tour member once asked a warder as her group left the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula, "Who was that woman in black standing behind you as you spoke?"
The chapel figures in numerous sightings, and the decapitated queens are among remains buried under its stone floor.
In one of the strangest reports by a visitor, an American tourist's photo of Traitors' Gate, taken when no one was near, contained a silk-cuffed hand. Kodak representatives assured her the image hadn't been doctored, Wilson says.
"Who knows?" he adds.
Two of his wife's friends, recently visiting the Wilsons' apartment in the Beauchamp Tower for the evening, went briefly to the unoccupied roof. "You know, we're not alone," one woman said. "There's a soldier on guard up here." She said she could see the man in boots and cape. He was waiting for someone, she said. The second woman said she saw nothing. As the pair descended stairs to the Wilsons' rooms, the first woman, suddenly trembling, said someone "ran through her." She told her friend, "It's you in another life."
Still, Wilson says there may be rational explanations for some occurrences.
Quite a few reports date to Victorian times, when the English were "besotted with death," he says. It was a time of spiritualists and people who wrote about the unseen of other worlds. Ghosts were rock stars of the macabre.
Also, electrification came slowly to the tower; for centuries the dark was held at bay only by flickering firelight or gaslights.
Sometimes, it isn't ghosts but commerce that creates a scare. Wilson and a colleague were on duty after dark years ago when screaming shattered the evening. The two, a distance apart, began to run toward each other, when a Thames tour boat outside the walls resumed a calmer narrative after its scary segment.
Also, warders have been known to play pranks, trying to scare one another, Wilson says, suggesting a very human source for unnatural phenomena.
Nonetheless, "When I get up (during the night), I always look at Tower Green. I always hope to see something, and I never do."
Thoughts of unearthly encounters aren't his alone. Moira Cameron, the first female yeoman warder in the tower's history, moved into quarters in July.
"I'm not a huge believer, but I'm not a disbeliever," she says. "Too many people see too many things." Because she lives in an apartment on the tower's interior street, and "the closest execution was spies from World Wars I and II," she doubts she'll encounter a wraith.
Says McGrath, "I don't know if I believe or not, but there must be some semblance of truth somewhere."
Perhaps, for me, a glimpse of that truth was in the Beauchamp Tower room where some time before a girl visiting with her mother had seemed to receive messages from the prisoners who had been held there.
Some inmates had carved tombstonelike tablets into the soft limestone walls. The girl was looking at one when she repeated, "So much suffering, so much suffering."
Reassured by the warder on duty that prisoners had left long ago, she responded, pointing to a space beside her, "He's still here."
Could the man invisible to others have been one of the prisoners lingering from long ago?
Wilson can't say, but he wants to show me a particularly handsome carving in a locked room next to this one.
He reaches into the pocket of his dark blue yeoman warder's uniform with its red applique of the queen's initials. No key. That's odd, he says, but reassures me that he knows where he left it. He asks me to wait here while he retrieves it.
In the quiet, I inspect other inscriptions left by men clearly educated and amazingly artistic, considering the fearsome straits they were in.
A puzzled Wilson re-enters the room. He can't find the key. "That really is strange," he says.
And just at that instant, as I'm copying words from the wall, the ink in my pen stops.
One beat, two beats, three. Nothing.
Then the blue flows again.
Was it an exclamation point from beyond? A signal for attention? A message as only spirits can send?
I am left to wonder.
TOWER OF LONDON, England — Ghosts don't come when they're called.
That's what I thought.
Then my new pen suddenly stopped working ...
I had come to the Tower of London to hear the stories of uneasy spirits that are said to share the landmark's 18 acres with 35 yeoman warders (sometimes called Beefeaters), a governor and two deputies, a pastor, a doctor and their families.
Secretly, I hoped to encounter one of the specters.
Phil Wilson, a sergeant among the men and one woman who are guardians of the 900-year-old fortress, met me as shadows oozed across the grounds and seeped over stones worn by history and its players.
Only a corporate group on a special tour and I invaded the nighttime privacy of the 100 or so year-round residents, soldiers on guard duty and those wraiths that piqued my curiosity. If I were ever to see a ghost, this could be the place.
Storied, historic and bloody, this mass of 21 towers beside the chilly River Thames has seen lives anointed, destroyed and redeemed. Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard died here, victims of King Henry VIII's obsessive quest for a son. Among others who gave up their heads in the tower's sloping courtyard were Baron Hastings, an adviser to Edward IV who was executed by Edward's successor; Lady Jane Grey, queen for nine days; and the Earl of Essex, a traitorous favorite of the first Queen Elizabeth.
It was considered a benevolence to be dispatched within the fortress's confines, away from the baying crowds on Tower Hill, about 200 yards from the entrance at Middle Tower. And imprisonment in the tower's dungeons was reserved for nobles and educated people who ran afoul of the monarch's favor or agenda. Common criminals had their own jails and their own execution grounds elsewhere.
Although many dozens died on Tower Hill after being held in the fortress, only seven people were dispatched on Tower Green. It's some of these who are said to be among the wraiths that reside and occasionally roam in the tower.
"I won't believe until I see them," Wilson told me as we began a walk among the darkening passageways.
But he doesn't dismiss or belittle experiences reported by fellow yeomen, their kin, soldiers, workers or visitors.
Most occurred after dark. "There's too many people about" in the daytime, he says, suggesting perhaps that phantoms prefer privacy.
We pass through the black-painted gates of the Byward Tower and Wilson describes a watchman's experience. He was reading a newspaper when the lights dimmed and the hiss of his gas fire turned into crackling. He looked up to see two men dressed in red, with spindly legs, smoking long clay pipes on either side of a fireplace. One turned and looked at the watchman, Wilson says, then the pair vanished.
What intrigued the watchman, the warder says, was the question, "Was the past seeing the future or the future seeing the past?"
We walk beside the Bell Tower, where defender of Catholicism Thomas More was imprisoned before his beheading. The fragrance of incense has been reported near the doomed man's chamber, Wilson says.
By the scaffold site on Tower Green, he tells me that terrifying shrieks have been heard here on the anniversary of the death of the Countess of Salisbury, who was hacked to death May 27, 1541, by an executioner who chased her down. Also in May, a headless Queen Anne Boleyn is said to walk the area on the 19th, the date of her death in 1536.
Some of the most convincing reports of encounters with spectral beings are those from yeoman warders, all of them former military with long service and good conduct medals, and active military on duty at the landmark.
During World War II, a sentry reported seeing a procession in 14th-century clothes descending Tower Hill while bearing a headless body on a stretcher.
In recent years, a yeoman and his family moved into an apartment near the Bloody Tower, where the young princes Edward V and his younger brother, Richard, were held captive then, tradition holds, murdered. Shortly after the family settled in, the warder asked his young son whether he liked his new room. The child, who had been told nothing of possible ghosts at the tower, replied, "Yes, but the two boys that play outside at the back are really noisy and wear funny clothes."
Other yeomen have reported a feeling of being followed when no one was behind them, or the approach of people who vanish when challenged. Their wives talk of tendrils of smoke swirling purposefully, of items moved seemingly without human intervention, and of noises that have no apparent cause.
However frightening or inexplicable the tower's ghosts may be, they've harmed no one, although a guard in 1815 died two days after confronting a bear he said had materialized from a wisp of smoke. People also have reported feeling pushed on stairs (especially at the White Tower, where the original dungeon was) and sensing their chests being pressed toward suffocation.
The day before my walk with Wilson, yeoman warder Ken McGrath told me that a week earlier, a yeoman had heard prayers in Latin issuing from Beauchamp Tower. The warder entered, and the supplications stopped. He searched for a source, even asked others whether sounds were being piped in for effect. But no origin for the entreaties was found.
Just that week, a guard reported groaning coming from a small window at the Wakefield Tower, McGrath said.
But yeomen and military guards aren't the only ones to experience oddities. Visitors have reported cold spots and touches by unseen hands. A tour member once asked a warder as her group left the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula, "Who was that woman in black standing behind you as you spoke?"
The chapel figures in numerous sightings, and the decapitated queens are among remains buried under its stone floor.
In one of the strangest reports by a visitor, an American tourist's photo of Traitors' Gate, taken when no one was near, contained a silk-cuffed hand. Kodak representatives assured her the image hadn't been doctored, Wilson says.
"Who knows?" he adds.
Two of his wife's friends, recently visiting the Wilsons' apartment in the Beauchamp Tower for the evening, went briefly to the unoccupied roof. "You know, we're not alone," one woman said. "There's a soldier on guard up here." She said she could see the man in boots and cape. He was waiting for someone, she said. The second woman said she saw nothing. As the pair descended stairs to the Wilsons' rooms, the first woman, suddenly trembling, said someone "ran through her." She told her friend, "It's you in another life."
Still, Wilson says there may be rational explanations for some occurrences.
Quite a few reports date to Victorian times, when the English were "besotted with death," he says. It was a time of spiritualists and people who wrote about the unseen of other worlds. Ghosts were rock stars of the macabre.
Also, electrification came slowly to the tower; for centuries the dark was held at bay only by flickering firelight or gaslights.
Sometimes, it isn't ghosts but commerce that creates a scare. Wilson and a colleague were on duty after dark years ago when screaming shattered the evening. The two, a distance apart, began to run toward each other, when a Thames tour boat outside the walls resumed a calmer narrative after its scary segment.
Also, warders have been known to play pranks, trying to scare one another, Wilson says, suggesting a very human source for unnatural phenomena.
Nonetheless, "When I get up (during the night), I always look at Tower Green. I always hope to see something, and I never do."
Thoughts of unearthly encounters aren't his alone. Moira Cameron, the first female yeoman warder in the tower's history, moved into quarters in July.
"I'm not a huge believer, but I'm not a disbeliever," she says. "Too many people see too many things." Because she lives in an apartment on the tower's interior street, and "the closest execution was spies from World Wars I and II," she doubts she'll encounter a wraith.
Says McGrath, "I don't know if I believe or not, but there must be some semblance of truth somewhere."
Perhaps, for me, a glimpse of that truth was in the Beauchamp Tower room where some time before a girl visiting with her mother had seemed to receive messages from the prisoners who had been held there.
Some inmates had carved tombstonelike tablets into the soft limestone walls. The girl was looking at one when she repeated, "So much suffering, so much suffering."
Reassured by the warder on duty that prisoners had left long ago, she responded, pointing to a space beside her, "He's still here."
Could the man invisible to others have been one of the prisoners lingering from long ago?
Wilson can't say, but he wants to show me a particularly handsome carving in a locked room next to this one.
He reaches into the pocket of his dark blue yeoman warder's uniform with its red applique of the queen's initials. No key. That's odd, he says, but reassures me that he knows where he left it. He asks me to wait here while he retrieves it.
In the quiet, I inspect other inscriptions left by men clearly educated and amazingly artistic, considering the fearsome straits they were in.
A puzzled Wilson re-enters the room. He can't find the key. "That really is strange," he says.
And just at that instant, as I'm copying words from the wall, the ink in my pen stops.
One beat, two beats, three. Nothing.
Then the blue flows again.
Was it an exclamation point from beyond? A signal for attention? A message as only spirits can send?
I am left to wonder.
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