also available as an eBook

Do the spirits of the dead influence the living? Could some cases of mental illness be caused by spirit obsession or so-called possession?

For years, psychiatrists and parapsychologists have grappled with the bizarre hallucinations and delusions of the mentally disturbed and some have wondered if there might lurk some level of paranormal perception—A reality that goes far beyond the five senses.

The possibility first came to light early in the twentieth century, when Frederic Thompson a Massachusetts jeweller, claimed he was possessed by the recently deceased spirit of R. Swain Gifford, a celebrated landscape painter. One day

Thompson suddenly began painting oils and drawing sketches in the style of Gifford, even though he claimed he had no formal training.

Thompson’s paintings and sketches matched unfinished and never before exhibited work left by Gifford when he died, while others represented Gifford’s remote island home.

Professor James Hyslop, a psychologist at Columbia who had recently resigned his faculty position to run the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR) took on the case and spent years establishing that possession might be the root cause in some cases of both madness and multiple personality.

Others followed in Hyslop’s footsteps: Dr Titus Bull, a neurologist claimed he cured patients by exorcizing them with the help of a Spiritualist medium; Dr Elwood Worcester, a social pioneer whose attempts to unite religion with psychology led him to confront cases of spirit possession; and Dr Walter Prince, a clergyman-turned-psychologist who cured paranoia by treating patients with exorcism.
This is their story.

About the author

D. Scott Rogo (1950-1990) was an authority on the history of psychical research and authored many books and articles on many aspects of paranormal phenomena. His work has been cited in parapsychology journals including the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, Journal of Religion and Psychical Research and the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research.

He was researcher for the Psychical Research Foundation in Durham, North Carolina, and the Division of Parapsychology at the Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York.

On August 18, 1990 he was found dead at his home in Northridge, Los Angeles, having been fatally stabbed. His murder remains unsolved.

Publisher: White Crow Books
Published October 11, 2022
336 pages
Size: 5.45 x 8.00 inches
ISBN 978-1-78677-198-8

What the Nuns Forgot to Teach about the Spirit World

Posted ~29 August 2022

While attending Catholic school during the 1940s, I became familiar with several of the stories about apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as she was referred to by good Catholics, the most notable at that time being those at Lourdes in France, Fatima in Portugal, and Guadalupe in Mexico, (below) A few years later, while in high school, I visited the Guadalupe church and observed the cloak revered by millions of Catholics – one in which an image of Mary is said to have mysteriously materialized from roses carried within the cloak.  In spite of the fact that I parted ways with the Catholic Church more than 50 years ago, I suspect that those stories subconsciously triggered my interest in psychic phenomena some decades later. It was one thing to leave the church, quite another to completely erase those psychic stories with varying degrees of credibility from my memory bank at times when I was pondering on existential matters. 

Until I read Don Porteous’s recently released book, Spiritual Reality and the Afterlife, I had no idea that there were hundreds of reported apparitions of Mary over the centuries, not to mention countless other unexplained religious phenomena not directly related to Mary. I recall reading about and even seeing photos of the apparition that took place in Zeitun, Egypt in 1968 and not too many years ago reading extensively about the Medjugorje apparitions, which began in 1981 and apparently continue to this day.  I even wrote an article about the Medjugorje apparitions for a national magazine and reported on them at an earlier blog, which can be found in the archives for October 3, 2016.  I also recall reading about tears or blood flowing from statues of the Blessed Virgin in various places, but they were mostly tabloid-type stories with no follow-up reports and seemingly little credibility. 

The first section of the book explores the empirical evidence for the actual existence of a spiritual part of our human nature, distinct and separate from the physical body and brain, and what Porteous classifies as “Extraordinary Knowing,” “Extraordinary Knowers,” and “Extraordinary Events.” A key part of the evidence relates to people “knowing things that by all known laws of science they shouldn’t know.” He discusses psychic healing, spiritual healing, remote viewing, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, telepathy, ganzfeld tests, xenoglossy, and even spoon bending and psychic ping pong.

The second section deals with the voluminous evidence for the actual survival of that spiritual part of us after the death and dissolution of the physical body and brain.  It includes near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences, deathbed apparitions, mediumship, and instrumental transcommunication.

“Is it purely by coincidence that the deepest form of ‘trance mediumship’ – the source of such profound evidence for the continuity of life after ‘death’ – should have emerged in force at precisely that period when militant materialism was most active in the its denial of all things spiritual?” Porteous asks of the mediumship from 100-160 years ago.  “The emergence of this particular form of mediumship was relatively brief, and appears to have been largely limited to the period of greatest need. Mediumship today, by and large, is just a pale reflection of such giants as Mrs. Leonard and Mrs. Piper.”

In discussing the case of “Patience Worth,” said to be the spirit of a seventeenth century English woman who communicated through the mediumship of Pearl Curran, an American housewife who had never traveled more than a few hundred miles from her St. Louis, Missouri home and had no formal schooling beyond the eighth grade, Porteous summarizes a very interesting language study.  He notes that since the 1300s, other than the Bible, no English author of note has gone beyond 64 percent usage of Anglo-Saxon in his or her writings.  From 1600 to 1878, 28 percent was the average found in English literature over that time period.  Yet, in one of the books, Telka, dictated by Patience Worth through Mrs. Curran, the percentage of Anglo-Saxon words approaches 90 percent.  And it should be kept in mind that much of what came through Curran was spontaneous and in response to requests or questions.

“No matter how one chooses to approach it,” Porteous analyzes it, “it’s difficult to fathom how an absolutely undistinguished American housewife, who had never been outside the American Midwest, had absolutely no literary or historical interests and only an eighth grade education – could generate a linguistic production, a purity of Anglo-Saxon usage, that had not occurred in the English language in over 700 years.”  Porteous wonders how anyone can possibly reconcile this with the known laws of science.

Much of the second half of Porteous’s book deals with what he calls “The Great Convergence,” the sudden appearance in the mid-1800s of two separate streams of communication – one by spirits through mediums, and one by the Virgin Mary in her many apparitions – both at the same time that materialism swept over the world, as predicted by Mary some 300 years earlier.  “The primary thrust of the ‘spiritualistic’ line of communication was the survival message – the demonstration of our continuing existence,” he explains. “The primary thrust of the ‘Marian’ line of communication, was to put our present ‘physical existence,’ as well as our continuing ‘spiritual’ existence, into their larger perspective, with the successful beginnings and further development of our afterlife being very much dependent upon the nature of our approach to our present life.” 

It is the second “thrust” that makes Porteous’s book more comprehensive and more compelling than any other book I have read dealing with the overall subject of God and immortality.  He makes a strong case for the convergence.  He further suggests that the spirit world was “intentionally mobilized for this intensive communication effort at this point in time.” (Emphasis his)  Paradoxically, the biggest skeptics on the Church phenomena have been the Catholic clergy, while secular scientists have provided much of the best evidence validating some of that phenomena.

Porteous notes that a number of medical teams, some of them hostile to any form of organized religion, have failed to discredit the six young Medjugorje visionaries. The studies have involved neurological and psychological testing, including polygraph and hypnosis, and some have taken place during their visions while in a state of ecstasy.  One of the most intriguing observations at Medjugorje to me is that of the visionaries ascending a thorn-bush and stone covered hillside (Mt. Podbrdo) in about two minutes (to observe an apparition), whereas even an athletic adult would take about 10 minutes.  One of the witnesses was Jozo Ostovic, the regional sprint champion.  “I am running as fast as I can, but falling further and further behind, and so are the grown men running with me,” he is quoted. “We are gasping for breath, almost in tears, unable to believe what is happening.” A priest, Father Viktor Kozir, also an athlete, confirmed Ostovic’s report, saying the children seemed to be flying.

Porteous states that the same thing was reported at Garabandal in Spain with a series of apparitions of St. Michael and the Virgin Mary between 1961 and 1965. It was said that four young girls, ages 11 and 12, covered ground at three time their normal rate and that they often ran backward on their knees at an incredible speed.

One of the intriguing stories related by Porteous but not by the nuns at my Catholic school, at least to my recollection, is ”The Wonderful Crucifix of Limpias.” It involves a wooden cross with a carving of Jesus in his final agony, located in a church in Limpias, (below) a village in northern Spain.  In 1919, many people reported seeing the upturned eyes of Jesus and his mouth open and close, and the gaze moving from side to side or at times even staring directly at the viewer. Some reported seeing tears and blood dripping and even perspiration, which was felt as well as seen.  The witnesses numbered in the hundreds, including some medical and scientific men.  Dr. Armando Penamaria Alvarez described his experience: “His glassy, pain-filled eyes…His lead-coloured lips..the muscles of the neck and breast were contracted and made breathing forced and laboured…then a frightful spasm, as with one who is suffocating and struggling for air, at which the mouth and nose were opened wide.”  An outpouring of blood followed, Alvarez continued, after which his head sunk limply to his breast.

“Attitudes towards these events were divided,” Porteous observes, “with firmly entrenched camps of both believers and disbelievers. The sceptics quite naturally attributed the entire affair to anything from fraudulently implanted mechanical devices to optical effects caused by an electric light bulb, to the usual litany of delusions, hallucinations or mass hysteria.”  He adds that not everyone saw what others saw and that those who came to the church with the specific intent of the seeing the phenomenon, saw nothing at all. Porteous further notes that in a book about the events, the Rev. Baron Paul von Kleist provided the personal testimonies of several dozen witnesses, including a number of pure sceptics, some of whom attended with the intention of debunking the events. 
In the final chapters (Part 4) of his book, Porteous categorizes and summarizes the “teachings” of 145 different spirits, including Mary, quoting their actual words as coming through mediums or as passed on by the visionaries from Mary, noting their many similarities and occasional differences.  Summarizing the main message, Survival, Porteous states: “In combatting the negative forces rampant in our world at this time, the spirits’ primary weapon is a very special piece of information: Our bodies may die – but life goes on.”

But I liked Porteous’s comment on the importance of humor as much as those of the spirits:  “The impression prevalent in some quarters (mainly churchly) of a heavenly afterworld marked by an unending state of pious solemnity, is enthusiastically laid to rest…”

Where have you gone, Sister Anastasia Marie? I hope you know all this by now.

Michael Tymn is the author of The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After We Die, Resurrecting Leonora Piper: How Science Discovered the Afterlife, and Dead Men Talking: Afterlife Communication from World War I.
His latest book, No One Really Dies: 25 Reasons to Believe in an Afterlife is published by White Crow books.

Worlds Within Worlds 01- Our Connection to the Source

Of all the vast knowledge gathered by humanity across the millennia, I believe the information in this short article is the most fundamental and most important… and it has remained forever unchanged… maybe just said in different words. It’s stated below in a few different ways, which may sound repetitive, but each version has different nuances so that (hopefully) there are few unanswered questions. – MM

Basic premise. There’s a simple, elegant way to enjoy lasting peace and happiness during a lifetime on this turbulent Earth…

• and there’s both a simple and a comprehensive explanation of how and why it works. First the simple explanation.

Simply put…

The two most important things in the entire universe are you and the source.

That sounds like a massive ego problem, but it’s really the opposite.

You refers to your complete self… the integrated, multilevel, real self. Your body, spirit (mind), and soul comprise the complete you. (The outer “you,” the physical body and brain with its ego, is insignificant in the universe, but at the innermost level you’re one with the omnipotent source, as the article explains.)

The entire universe is an infinitely vast omniverse, which contains many physical and spiritual universes, all flourishing with life.

The source is what religions call God or Allah or Brahman. It’s at the center of everything, and it creates and sustains the omniverse.

 

This simplified diagram portrays physical humans on physical Earth, each with its respective soul… which is a piece of the source.

Even though your carnal body has weaknesses and limitations, the real-you is just as important and brilliant and eternal as the brightest archangel. By fostering your connection to the source, the carnal-you can start to find unlimited power, peace, happiness, and understanding. For us humans, that oneness is a state of mind and a way of living and thinking which involves a big transformation… but in a moment we’ll look at a simple, effective technique that can help a bit in that transformation.

Comprehensive explanation…

At the center of everything is the source that creates and sustains it all. There are many material and spiritual universes, and there are countless entities inhabiting them… and at the center of every universe and at the center of every entity is a piece of the source… an eternal spark. Getting familiar with that inner spark through the outer mind brings an entity peace and oneness with all.

 

This simplified diagram shows physical humans on physical Earth, their astral bodies on an astral earth, their ethereal bodies associated with an ethereal earth… all leading to the source (which is also the soul of each entity).

In other words, 1) there is a source (sometimes called God, Allah, Brahman… ) that creates and sustains everything, 2) everything has a spark of the source within it and in that way is connected to everything else, and 3) greater peace and oneness await anyone or anything that consciously acknowledges and fosters that connection between its outer self and its innermost self… the soul.

Like the story of the head monk at a Buddhist monastery who retired to open a vegie hot dog stand / enlightenment center… and all of his students lined up every day to ask for the same thing, “Make me one with everything”…

… this simple technique can help to connect the conscious mind with the soul, so that we may achieve oneness with everything. For centuries mystics in India have called the heart “the seat of the soul.” So if we had the vision or the technology to look inside ourselves to see our spirit and our soul, we’d probably find the soul shining brightly in the center of our chest.

Connecting to the source: a simple technique

That’s a misleading subtitle. The fact is, we’re already connected to the source. To exist is to be connected. However, our dense, carnal brain and conscious mind have forgotten that connection because of the overwhelming distractions of the material world that flood our five senses. They’ve overpowered our finer senses that are associated with the connection.

Normally it’s a huge job, involving years of devoted meditative practice, to transcend the noisy distractions and illusions of the material world and to begin fostering the oneness.

On the other hand, heart meditation done frequently as a simple routine can make the job easier (again, because the heart is the seat of the soul). This technique (below) is a rather easy way to refine and to strengthen that connection by opening communication channels between our conscious mind and our soul. It’s a simple mantra that I introduced in another recent article and describe briefly below.

The mantra: “Focus from the heart, gratitude for the lifetime, God’s will be done.”

You simply relax, recite the mantra slowly in your mind, and synchronize it with your breathing, as I show in this short video:

With the first few words, you move your awareness from the head to the heart. That’s the most important part of the exercise… moving your awareness so that it feels like you’re thinking from the chest, not the head.

I’ve gotten in the habit of doing this several times a day. I can do it while lying down or sitting up, while driving, and even when enjoying a game of craps two or three times a year… (you don’t have to be a monk to do this. https://s0.wp.com/wp-content/mu-plugins/wpcom-smileys/twemoji/2/svg/1f642.svg )

Whether it’s to help me get back to sleep, or to relax in moments of stress, or to stay anchored in times of drama, or simply to get closer to the source, it works very well for me. It’s polished away most of my fear, anger, and other troubled emotions.  I think it makes me a better person (if not a better craps player; I think while I’m rolling the dice, my spirit helpers and supporters are probably rolling their eyes and wondering, Are we done yet?)

[I mention this somewhat embarrassing pastime of mine mostly to illustrate that we all have dramas in our lives that we get caught up in, and we can overcome those dramas by fostering our connection with (by turning our lives over to) the higher power at the center of our being.]

Anyway, I hope it works for you.

For a deeper understanding of the vast spirit realms, this might be a good place to start.

 

Worlds Within Worlds Within Worlds (00 – Intro)

Life can be complicated, tangled, and frustrating… until you embrace its essence. Then there’s a simple elegance to it.

This series of articles digs into life and tries to sort it all out and to put it into perspective.

By “sort it all out” I mean politics, economics, society, science, history, spirituality, afterlife, parallel universes, the omniverse, angels, ghosts, demons, God… well, everything. Or at least a big chunk of the “everything.”

Or, more likely, a basic outline of a big chunk of everything, with the hopes of putting it into some kind of order that makes good sense. So with the next article I’ll start with the simple and elegant before digging into the tangled totality.

Plan of Attack

Here’s a basic strategy of the project:

Complicated and tangled. Up until around 1990, I saw the living universe as a mind-boggling array of nested chains that overlap and crosscut and coexist with each other. Our own human chain, for example, might look something like this:

• The vast material universe, containing our Milky Way galaxy, containing our solar system, containing Earth…
  • containing the global ecosystem, containing humanity, containing nations, containing states and provinces, containing cities and farms and communities…
    • containing individual human beings, containing organs and tissues, containing cells and molecules, containing organelles and atoms…
      • … and downward, inward (theoretically) forever.

That’s what I tried to capture in the first book I started writing nearly a half-century ago… how we and our political and economic systems, our sciences, and other worldly institutions all fit into that nested chain.

Simple and elegant. Then, once I got involved in afterlife research around 1990, I began to see a bigger picture… and that entire nested chain of physical life became just a tiny, tiny part of the big picture, which was…

• A vast omniverse consisting of countless physical and spiritual universes, all superimposed over each other in the same space and time (or maybe “beyond time and space” is more accurate)… all created and sustained by a central source… each universe remaining distinct by its vibration.

That’s the simple elegance I mentioned in the opening: At the center of the vast omniverse is the source, which creates and sustains all of the many entities and worlds and universes throughout the omniverse. Everything in the omniverse has, at the center of its being, a direct connection to the source. Through that connection we can all find peace and understanding and oneness.

Beyond that basic connection to the source, things start to get complicated, as each entity, world, and universe also has its own set of laws, compulsions, and realities that can seem hopelessly complex to their inhabitants. But all of these fragmented realities that spin off the source are illusory… imperfect. The only truth is in the source and in our own, personal connection to the source.

Simply acknowledging our oneness with the source is the first step toward an elegant understanding and acceptance of life with all of its seeming complexities. Fostering that oneness, then, lets us relax into a peaceful existence, amid any chaos and confusion and suffering that may be going on around us.

Now, to tie all of that stuff together….

That’s what I’ll try to do in this series of articles.

It’s a daunting, nearly impossible task (that’s the downside) that might keep my mind active and clear for the rest of my life (and that’s the upside).

Previews

Just a few of examples of how I plan to sculpt articles for the series:

Regulation. Discuss a few basic principles of regulation that could apply equally well to human relationships, social systems, body cells, jungles, spirit communities, and spiritual hierarchies. Such principles (if they exist) might help to quell the angry debate that always goes on about human rights, women’s rights, employees’ rights, state and provincial rights, nations’ autonomies, religious freedoms, multinational responsibilities, and planetary concerns (that is, the rights of brutally balanced ecosystems and of systematically spreading social systems to be protected from each other). That way, we might find certain parallels that work well for group leadership, national governance, corporate management, school and hospital administration, environmental policy, job supervision, parenting, self-discipline… and other such human affairs that are all really many names for the same thing: regulation. (Maybe a tighter focus on and elaboration of some of the ideas found here… )

Economics. Boil down the economic principles of the Vitality Ratio into a short article… and broaden it to take into account the vast worlds of spirit.

Central source in the omniverse. Put our human lives on Earth into perspective of the bigger picture of all life throughout the countless physical and spiritual universes that are all connected to a central source that religions call God, Allah, Brahman…. (This  is where the ‘simple elegance’ really ties it altogether, and it will be the first article after this introduction, probably based on some of the ideas found here…)

.

The plan is to post the articles on both websites..

• keeping the original of each article, unchanged, on the noblesavageworld website, and then
• polishing and fine-tuning each article on the macyafterlife website in the coming years.

That way, as the series evolves we’ll have an original version and a polished version.

Next up: Our connection to the source

"Wisdom is the application of understanding, as is the concept in the light of that which is the ideal of the individual who applies knowledge and wisdom."



ECRL 262-104

"Each day is an opportunity. As you do the first step, the next is shown to you."



ECRL 2600-2

"One thing I have found necessary to learn to enjoy myself more fully on the next dimension is an attitude of generosity and positivity. On that dimension, such characteristics enhance our capacity for enjoyment exponentially, while mean-spiritedness and negativity will hinder us to reach this level".

Jurgen Ziewe Multidimensional Man.

This week's Friday Afterlife Report is now online at http://www.victorzammit.com/September2nd2022

Life After Life Blog Digest

 September 2022 

Every month we seek out the best research, stories, and other thought-provoking writing to enlighten, inspire, and entertain. We hope you LOVE this month's selections as much as we do!

Mark Antony Interview Preview

In our final post previewing some of our upcoming interviews, we talk to Mark Anthony, a fourth-generation psychic, about his understanding of psychic phenomena, what his experiences have taught him, and why he believes there is proof of a life after death.

He also explores these concepts in his book The Afterlife Frequency: The Scientific Proof of Spiritual Contact and How That Awareness Will Change Your Life.

                                                          Mas Sajady's Near-Death Experience

The following is an account by Mas Sajady, a computer programmer and father of six children from Minnesota, who had two near-death experiences and found his life profoundly changed. He experienced new abilities and understanding and decided to devote himself to helping others unlock their potential through meditation.

You can also watch the short video here from his podcast in which he talks about his NDE.
 

Soul Plans and World Peace

By Alicia Young

I’ve read that thousands (if not millions?) of souls are seeking to attain the same thing, such as progress on peace or the environment. Why does the same goal take on so many forms? Wouldn’t we get further, faster, if we choose one thing to work on together? 

We design individual Soul Plans, but you’re right that we often work on overlapping goals.  Peace is a great example, because it presents itself in so many ways and with such varied  intensity.

READ MORE

NEW BOOKS OF INTEREST

This is Ken Ring's last book, and though he claims to spend most of his days whimpering, his farewell to writing, as his final essays will demonstrate, certainly goes out with a bang. As he veers unsteadily toward eighty-seven, Ring has lost none of his verve or literary panache. As always, his essays sparkle with his usual wit, but mainly reflect Ring's more serious concern to address some of the topics that have engaged him during this last phase of his life.

Still, the book begins in a more lighthearted way with his reminiscing about his early life with his absent father ("my father, once removed," he calls him) and about some of the other things that shaped his character, such as the greatest movie ever made that few people have heard of. He also devotes several essays to largely unknown facets of Helen Keller's extraordinary career, including "The Sex Life of a Saint." But most of the rest of the book is devoted to Ring's careful study of the lives of animals and considerations of animal welfare and the movement for animal rights. And it concludes, fittingly enough, with a number of essays that distill what Ring believes are the most important lessons that people should take from his many years of researching near-death experiences—all of which was foreshadowed by that film he saw as a youth that changed his life and foretold his destiny.

Blogging Toward Infinity: Last Notes from the Ringdom is available on Amazon. For more information, click HERE.

Kenneth Ring, PhD is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Connecticut, the author of five books on near-death experiences (NDEs), including his bestselling Lessons from the Light, and cofounder and first president of the International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS).

In his new book, Dr. Raymond Moody looks at God and how his personal understanding of the Creator has changed over the course of his life and research into near-death experiences.  

Dr. Moody organizes his insights about God into 12 simple but profound ideas and walks us through them using stories and examples from his own life and from accounts of encounters with God in the hereafter. 

He looks at our society's beliefs about God, how religion can both help and hinder our relationships with the Divine, and how we can bring Source into our lives with a new understanding that transcends all limits. 

God Is Bigger Than the Bible is available on Amazon in Kindle and Paperback formats. For more information, click HERE

3,797 views2 May 2017 Marcello Bacci has been listening to the voices of the deceased that magically arise from his old Valves radio for more than 40 years. voices of spirit beings

All back issues can be downloaded at: 

www.snu.org.uk/the-pioneer-journal

"Learn, or teach, or train the body - not only to be good, but be good for something. Let there be known there is a duty to self, and hope in service - for without service to another, one may gain little in this experience in life's forces, for Life itself is a service."



ECRL 53-1

FREE AFTERLIFE ZOOM GROUPS - ALL WELCOME  

Preview videos of our past meetings.
See A List of videos of our meetings.

If you wish to receive the Zoom mailout each week, then feel free to contact me on karynjarvie@ozemail.com.au alternatively if not subscribed to them subscribe to the Friday Report.  I am happy to arrange both for all.

"I am absolutely convinced of the fact that those who once lived on earth can and do communicate with us. It is hardly possible to convey to the inexperienced an adequate idea of the strength and cumulative force of the evidence".

Sir William F. Barrett, F.R.S.

This week's Friday Afterlife Report is now online at https://www.victorzammit.com/August26th2022

oops my apologies no 7 should be 6.  My apologies.  There is nothing after no 6, and I am reading 1-3 across so 4,5,6 is the bottom line.

I will correct that error by an edit.

No 2, no 3, no 4 and 6 I can pick some words.

I actually heard some English  in 4 quite strongly and distinct...

while some of the language in 6 is unknown to me there does appear to be distinct voices (what I hear only small part in English is "and I am making some..."

"To bring hope, to bring cheer, to bring joy, yes to bring a smile again to those whose face and heart are bathed in tears and in woe, is but making that divine love shine - shine - in your own soul!"



ECRL 987-4

"...healing of the physical without the change in the mental and spiritual aspects brings little real help to the individuals in the end."



Edgar Cayce reading 4016-1

Hi Kevin,

It took me awhile to work it out but you go to SETTINGS WHEEL click on SUBTITLES then select AUTO-TRANSLATE (I think that German is ticked but change that to auto translate.  You will then get a drop down list of languages select LANGUAGE.
Blessings

Karyn

English sub titles are available through the settings, thank you for posting this Rosamina.

A Spirit Explains Ectoplasm

Posted on 15 August 2022, 8:01

In the February 1905 issue of “The Annals of Psychical Science,” Ernest Bozzano, an Italian psychical researcher, offers an article titled “A Defence of William Stainton Moses.” It is in response to comments made by Frank Podmore, the resident skeptic of the Society for Psychical Research, relative to the mediumship of Moses. Podmore’s theory was that the “spirit lights” frequently reported around Moses were produced with bottles of phosphorized oil hidden on or about him.  He claimed that Moses (below) had pretty much indicted himself by writing about a mishap that occurred during September 1873, as it suggested that a bottle had accidentally been broken.

The charges against Moses were made by Podmore in his book Modern Spiritualism, published in 1904, some 12 years after Moses’s death. He draws from Moses’s own written account of the incident, which reads, “Suddenly there arose from below me, apparently under the table, or near the floor, right under my own nose, a cloud of luminous smoke, just like phosphorus. It fumed up in great clouds, until I seemed to be on fire, and rushed from the room in a panic. I was fairly frightened, and could not tell what was happening. I rushed to the door and opened it, and so to the front door. My hands seemed to be ablaze and left their impress on the door and handles. It blazed for a while after I had touched it, but soon went out, and no smell or trace remained. … There seemed to be no end of smoke. It smelled distinctly phosphoric, but the smell evaporated as soon as I got out of the room into the air.”

The “clouds of luminous smoke” were likely what later came to be called ectoplasm.  Researchers reported it coming in various forms from vaporish to a thick milky-like substance.  Around the same time, Sir William Crookes, a renowned chemist, observed it with medium D. D. Home and referred to it as “psychic force,” a name given to it by lawyer Serjeant Cox, a fellow psychical researcher. 

Podmore was not present, only Dr. Stanhope Speer, Moses’s friend, but Podmore jumped to the conclusion that Moses mishandled a bottle of phosphorus, causing it to break. “Now this is what Mr. Podmore does,” Bozzano explains, “... he makes extracts of phrases where the phenomenon is insufficiently described, detaches the case, thus presenting it to the reader in a state of isolation, and makes a few brief comments on it – which, as usual, resolve themselves into cutting insinuations.” Bozzano further wondered why Moses bothered to write about it if it was a trick gone astray or why Dr. Speer made no mention of broken glass, etc.

Moses mentioned it because he was given an explanation the next day by a spirit communicator. It is not clear which spirit was communicating, but apparently it was Rector or Mentor from the Imperator group of 49 spirits. By means of automatic writing, Moses asked the spirit what the phosphoric smoke the previous day was all about. Here is part of the dialogue that took place:

Spirit: “We are scarcely able to write. The shock has destroyed your passivity. It was an accident. The envelope in which is contained the substance which we gather from the bodies of the sitters was accidentally destroyed, and hence the escape into outer air, and the smoke which terrified you. It was owing to a new operator (spirit operator) being engaged on the experiment. We regret the shock to you.”

Moses: “I was extremely alarmed. It was just like phosphorus.”

Spirit: “No, but similar. We told you when first we began to make the lights that they were attended with some risk; and that with unfavourable conditions they would be smoky and of a reddish yellow hue.”

Moses: “Yes, I know. But not that they would make a smoke and scene like that.”

Spirit: “Nor would they, save by accident. The envelope was destroyed by mischance, and the substance which we had gathered escaped.”

Moses: “What substance?”

Spirit: “That which we draw from the bodily organisms of the sitters. We had a large supply, seeing that neither of you had sustained any drain of late.”

Moses: “You draw it from our bodies – from all?”

Spirit: “From both of you. You are both helpful in this, both. But not from all people. From some the substance cannot be safely drawn, lest we diminish the life principle too much.”

Moses: “Robust men give it off?”

Spirit: “Yes, in greater proportion. It is the sudden loss of it and the shock that so startled you that caused the feeling of weakness and depression.”

Moses: “It seemed to come from the side of the table.”

Spirit: “From the darkened space between the sitters. We gathered it between you in the midst. Could you have seen with spirit eyes you would have discovered threads of light, joined to your bodies and leading to the space where the substance was being collected. These lines of light were ducts leading to our receptacle.”

Moses: “From what part of my body?”

Spirit: “From many; from the nerve centers and from the spine.”

Moses: “What is this substance?”

Spirit: “In simple words, it is that which give to your bodies vitality and energy. It is the life principle.”

Moses: Very like sublimated phosphorus?

Spirit: “No body that does not contain a large portion of what you call phosphorus is serviceable to us for objective manifestations. This is invariable. There are other qualities of which you do not know, and which not all spirits can tell, but this is invariable in mediums for physical manifestations.”

On another occasion, Imperator, the chief of the band of 49, which included Rector and Mentor, communicated:

“We have a higher form of what is known to you as electricity, and it is by that means we are enabled to manifest, and that Mentor shows his globe of light. He bring with him the nucleus, as we told you.”

At a sitting on September 11, 1873, Maria Speer, the wife of Dr. Speer, recorded: “... the next evening we sat again in perfect darkness, which Mentor took advantage of, as he showed lights almost as soon as we were seated. He then controlled the medium (Moses), talking to us about the lights as he showed them. At first they were very small. This, he said, was the nucleus of light he had brought with him, a small amount of what we should call electricity. This nucleus lasted all the time, and from the circle he gathered more light around it, and kept it alive by contact with the medium. At one time, the light was as bright as a torch. Mentor moved it about all over the table and above our heads with the greatest rapidity.”

On August 10, 1873, Dr. Speer recorded that Mentor said he would show his hand. “A large, very bright light then came up as before, casting a great reflection on the oilcloth, came up as before in front of me; inside of it appeared the hand of Mentor, as distinct as it can well be conceived. ‘You see! You see!’ said he, ‘that is my hand; now I move my fingers,’ and he continued to move his fingers about freely, just in front of my face. I thanked him for his consideration.”

Everyone who knew Moses, an Anglican priest, spoke of his honesty and integrity, especially Frederic Myers. Moreover, it seems highly unlikely that Moses would have carried on such imposture with his friends for over ten years. Podmore implied that all of Moses’ seances were in the dark, but Bozzano pointed out that many of them were in lighted conditions. This was confirmed by Dr. and Mrs. Speer and others.

Bozzano’s article also refers to other phenomena observed by Dr. and Mrs. Speer, as well as their adult son, Charlton Speer, a professional musician. Charlton reported on strange music about them with no visible instruments.  He described it as something like “the soft tone of a clarinet gradually increasing in intensity until it rivaled the sound of a trumpet, and then by degrees diminishing to the original subdued note of the clarinet, until it eventually died away in a long drawn-out melancholy wail. This is a very inefficient description of this really extraordinary sound, but as I have in the whole course of my experience never heard anything at all like it, it is impossible to give to those who have not heard it a more accurate idea of what it was like.” 

On July 13, 1874, Dr. Speer reported: We had last night an admirable specimen of zither playing, for a length of time. The performer (we don’t know his name yet) actually performed what is called a free prelude; that is to say, a short unbarred composition. The whole thing was most marvelous, for there is no zither in our house, and it is an instrument that cannot be mistaken.” Dr. Speer further stated that they “ascertained that the sounds were in truth evidence of the presence of individuals purporting to have long since departed from earth life.”

Michael Tymn is the author of The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After We Die, Resurrecting Leonora Piper: How Science Discovered the Afterlife, and Dead Men Talking: Afterlife Communication from World War I.
His latest book, No One Really Dies: 25 Reasons to Believe in an Afterlife is published by White Crow books.

William J. Peters, share his research into Shared Death Experiences. William is a practicing grief and bereavement therapist, the founder of the Shared Crossings Project and director of its Research Initiative. He has spent decades studying end-of-life experiences and is recognized as a global leader in the field of shared death studies. He has recently released "At Heaven’s Door" filled with powerful tales of people who share their spouses' or children’s entry into the afterlife. He can be contacted through his webpage https://www.sharedcrossing.com/contact

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ITC Gem 17: Avoiding Dark Forces in Spirit Work

Macy Afterlife: The Beacon

ITC Gem 16: Life on the Other Side