Religious
folk are more inclined to expect life after death; going to heaven or hell, depending on
how you've behaved on earth. There's a
burgeoning industry in Britain
, with psychics
and clairvoyants offering contact with the dead. If you're interested, just 'Ask Jeeves' via
the internet, only don't expect all the sites to be genuine!
Is there any real evidence that we survive bodily death, even a
shred? This is a huge subject and I offer just three interesting perspectives. You might like to follow them up when you've logged off
laterlife.
Fred Myers was a
Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge
. In 1882 he helped found the Society
for Psychical Research (SPR) and he investigated survival after death for twenty years. It
seemed to him that when a medium appeared to be talking to someone who'd been dead for
some time and was the able to answer detailed questions about his or her life, then that
dead person might still be living 'on the other side'.
As a test on
this theory, sitters were sent to mediums, concentrating on entirely fictitious
personalities, only to receive communications from those personalities from beyond the
grave! To add to the
problem, mediums could at times pick up accurate information telepathically.
Myers never solved
this issue in his lifetime, but he did appear to solve it after he died!
Within a few weeks of
his death in 1901, communications were received in England , the USA and India through the automatic writing of a dozen
different psychics. More than three
thousand scripts were transmitted over a period of thirty years, most signed
‘Myers’. None of these in themselves made any sense.
Although the messages
seemed indecipherable, the instructions accompanying them said the script should be sent
to a particular person, or to the SPR. Typically, Myers might write ‘Record the bits
and when fitted they will make the whole.’ And
when the fragments sent from different parts of the globe were fitted together,
investigators found coherent, continuous communications!
Was it mere
coincidence, wishful thinking, or was the deceased Myers making his scripts obscure to the
psychics themselves, for some reason? These scripts
were called the Cross-Correspondences. Myers,
if that was he, said he struggled to 'get through' and likened the process to
‘standing behind a sheet of frosted glass, which blurs sight and deadens sound,
dictating feebly to a reluctant and somewhat obtuse secretary’.
 The scripts seemed to say that when we die, most of
us pass immediately to the first normal after-death plane of existence, which could be
supremely beautiful. But, according to Myers, there were realms beyond it, and once he had
'developed' enough to dwell elsewhere, he defined this first state of existence
negatively, as ‘the plane of illusion.’
Does this
provide evidence of life after death? Check
on the internet and decide for yourself.
Psychical research has
attracted many students. Famous names include Sir Alfred Russel Wallace the co-discoverer
with Darwin of the principles of evolution; Lord Arthur Balfour, British Prime Minister
1902-1905; John Logie Baird, the first man to demonstrate television in 1925; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, physician and writer,
Thomas Edison, physicist and inventor of the phonograph and light bulb; and Sir Oliver
Lodge, pioneer of radio telegraphy who sent a radio message a year before Marconi.
Some of the most
interesting research relates to the materialisation of spirits under scientific test
conditions. Sir William Crookes, Professor Richet
(Nobel prize winner), Professor Geley, Professor von Schrenck-Notzing, and Professor
Alexander Aksakof each took photographs of ‘spirits’ manifested by trance
mediums. If you want to
see some remarkable photos, go to the web site of the International Survivalist Society, and click on 'photographic evidence'. The
whole site is fascinating, and includes free online books on this topic.
Perhaps the most
famous 'spirit' of all time was Katie King. She claimed to be the daughter of the
buccaneer, Henry Morgan and was created through the trance mediumship of a fifteen year
old, Florence Cook, who was rigorously investigated by Sir William Crookes for three
years. Katie could only exist in low light, and could talk and walk around the room. She even,
allegedly, had her pulse taken by a doctor! One witness described what happened to
Katie when, before an invited group, she agreed to dematerialise:
‘She (Katie) took
up her station against the drawing-room wall, with her arms extended as if she were
crucified. Then three gas-burners were turned on to their full extent in a room about
sixteen feet square. The effect upon Katie was marvellous. She looked like herself for the
space of a second only, then she began gradually to melt away. I can compare
the dematerialisation of her form to nothing but a wax doll melting before a hot fire. First the features became blurred and
indistinct; they seemed to run into each other. The eyes sank in the sockets, the nose
disappeared, the frontal bone fell in. Next the limbs appeared to give way under her, and
she sank lower and lower on the carpet, like a crumbling edifice. At last there was
nothing but her head left above the ground - then a heap of white drapery only, which
disappeared with a whisk, as if a hand had pulled it after her - and we were left staring
by the light of three gas burners at the spot on which Katie had stood.’
Perhaps the most
recent psychic sensation in the UK was known as 'The Scole Experiments'. (Scole
is in Norfolk ). These began in 1993, lasted five years,
and were monitored by the SPR. During seances,
a team of 'spirit' scientists on 'the other side' cooperated with the Scole group to create dancing lights that could travel
through solid objects, warm hands that caressed the sitters. In addition, 1200 hours of
voices and noises were recorded.
The 'other side' also
placed photos, supposedly of the spirit world, directly onto unexposed factory-wrapped 35
mm film stock left in a locked box on the seance table; without a camera being used! Some
of these single photographs take up the whole length of the film. The mystery
visitors also made 'spirit' videos and provided a design for a gadget to
enable spirits to speak from far dimensions, without involving mediums at all.
The photographs can be
seen on the web site:
http://www.kellysearch.co.uk
Look for 'Blue' from a
seance in 1998, where you will see an 'alien' face that looks like what ufologists would
call a 'grey'. There's also a
picture where a man's face is clearly visible inside a bubble, while all the rest is abstract. On the
face of it (to use an appropriate expression) inexplicable.
If this interests you,
look on Amazon for the book, 'The Scole Experiment', or you could get it from the library.
The Scole Group made no money from their activities and had hundreds of witnesses.
Whether you believe or not, the subject is fascinating and
quirky. Definitely worth a browse through the
internet – though beware, you could be hooked.
Keith
Parsons, a former BBC radio producer, has written a novel about the afterlife 'Shakespeare
was wrong' and is looking for a publisher. Anyone out there who can help?
If you would like to find out more, Keith has provided the following
selection of good websites associated with life after death:
The Society for Psychical Research www.spr.ac.uk
The Campaign for Philosophical Freedom www.cfpf.org.uk |
