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Personality, Telepathy and Spirits
Introduction
Supernatural events recorded in the
Bible such as appearances of angels, and
prophetic and apocalyptic visions, can
be interpreted as instruments of divine
purpose and revelation. But today
perhaps people need a more rational
understanding of how such things could
happen. What ideas within a framework of
Christian faith, that meet the
requirements of experience and reason,
will help us understand the paranormal?
There are three well known general
hypotheses accounting for psychic
events. Firstly, there is the notion
that they are due to projection of
aspects of
personality; for example, poltergeist
phenomena are usually considered to be
produced by a particular person, such as
a frustrated child around the age of
puberty. Secondly, there is the idea of
telepathy: for example, the findings of
experiments in thought transference
without physical means. Thirdly, there
is the concept of disembodied spirits;
mediums usually claim their
communications come from spirits on the
‘other side’. Is it possible that all
three hypotheses – personality,
telepathy and spirits – are implicated
in all parapsychological phenomena?
Personality
Hypothesis
From the perspective of Sigmund Freud’s
psychoanalysis, it is thought that parts
of the personality of the individual
that are too uncomfortable to be
directly experienced, nevertheless
emerge, albeit in disguise, into
conscious awareness.
Dreams, for example, are said to arise
from repressed desires expressed in
symbolic form. The personalities who
appear to speak through a medium are
therefore claimed to be projected
repressed sub-selves of the medium. This
idea can also be applied to the
experience of UFOs, hauntings, messages
heard in states of trance, automatic
writing, and the near death experience.
Others have suggested that it is not
just repressed material that is
projected
in imagery but rather all the inner
world of the individual. Psychologist
Wilson Van Dusen described what he
called an ‘auto-symbolic process’
whereby the inclinations and values of a
person are naturally revealed in imagery
experienced in conscious awareness. This
material is said to correspond to and
illustrate the inner state of the person
For example the imagery in one’s dreams
is said to be fashioned out of one’s
life and speaks of one’s life. In other
words there is a spontaneous and natural
process in which the central life
concerns of an individual are presented
in a dramatic language.
Van Dusen wrote that the appearance of
imagery is facilitated during times of
self-reflection and the quietening of
the ego. Projection of the inner state
of the person, it is said, is not just
apparent in dreams but also found in
meditative, trance, hypnagogic and
hallucinatory states. Two well known
mediums Eileen Garrett and Geraldine
Cummins accepted that some of their
communicators may have been aspects of
their own psyche.
Telepathy Hypothesis
The philosopher H.H. Price, noted for
his study of perception and thinking,
has suggested that various types of
psychic occurrence, such as thought
transference, clairvoyance or
precognition, are all forms of telepathy
that is time independent. Research has
not yet discovered the limits of
extrasensory perception. Until these
limits are known, those sceptical of any
human survival following death try to
explain away evidence from mediums
concerning spirits by evoking the notion
of extrasensory perception. In other
words they claim that information
ostensibly received from spirits
actually comes telepathically from
living people. There would have to be a
very considerable power of supernormal
cognition required to transfer
information that is beyond the medium’s
ordinary level of knowledge and so this
is known as super ESP. Commentators have
pointed out that super ESP appears to be
something quite as supernatural as the
idea of spirits from beyond the grave.
Spirit Hypothesis
In addition to being responsible for
messages to sitters at séances,
disembodied spirits of the dead have
been claimed as the cause of visual
apparitions and automatic writing. The
New Testament speaks of the spirits whom
we are to test before believing them. It
is often thought that psychics and
people in altered states of
consciousness have special sensitivity
to receiving impressions from spirits.
The trouble is it is difficult to have a
clear idea of what a disembodied
human life might be like. If lacking
bodily senses, how could a spirit entity
have emotion and thought? Both of these
are normally conceived as human
reactions to things sensed in the world
or as responses to bodily sensations.
Yet Price made a case for saying that
whether or not there actually is a
spirit world, the concept is an
intelligible one. He argued that we all
experience visual and other types of
image whilst dreaming because we have
visual-image, auditory-image,
tactile-image and smell-image producing
abilities. Finding it difficult to
realise that one is dead is quite often
reported in mediumistic communications.
Perhaps this is not surprising if we
assume that experiencing an
‘image-world’ would seem just as ‘real’
as experiencing the material world. It
might also be asked, if there is a
spirit world, where is it? Arguably,
mental images, including dream images,
are in a space of their own. Price’s
position was that although visual images
may have spatial properties such as
extension and shape, they only have so
in relation to other visual images and
not to any seen objects in our material
universe. We can note that these
arguments do not address the scientist’s
basic
objection that there can be no
perception of mind without a living
brain. To acknowledge the possibility of
spirits one must accept that mind might
persist without the material body.
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The Golden
Dawn
For several
years we had been working to improve our
200 year old cottage and as the work on
the house was more or less finished we
had turned our attention to the garden.
A wonderful plan had been drawn up,
partly my own design with additional
ideas from a professional designer, and
from this we were gradually creating a
large country cottage garden. Included
in the plan were ornamental raised beds
for vegetables with little gravel paths
running in-between, a rose arbour, a
little picket fence, curvy lawns, an
ancient wrought iron gate entwined with
sweet peas and a large natural looking
pond, surrounded by reeds and native
marginal plants, many of which were in
flower.
It was June,
and the abundance of summer growth was
everywhere. Plants grown from tiny seeds
sown indoors in March, and hardened off
in May were now covered in exuberant
blooms bursting from the many pots and
baskets around the cottage. The once
miniature vegetables which had hung on
through the cold windy wetness of April
were now standing solid and erect, their
heads following the sun through her
daily arc of bountiful light and warmth,
their edible fruits already evident and
swelling rapidly!
During the
years of house restoration and garden
planning I had been studying traditional
and creative embroidery, exploring new
directions in textiles and art. These
explorations had borne fruit and my work
was being sold in shops around the
country. Part of the restorations
involved an old barn next to the house,
and this had become my studio where I
worked and could display my colourful
creations. This June was to be the
first time I was opening the studio to
the public, in conjunction with other
local artists, and although I was
looking forward to welcoming people, I
also felt quite nervous about the
prospect!
Throughout the
years of repairing and extending the
cottage, and the planning of the garden
we gradually became aware of a greater
purpose behind our efforts. We discussed
ways of sharing the peace and beauty
which we sensed around us as we tended
the plants or painted the window frames.
People who came to visit us talked of
the tranquillity here and the feeling of
sanctuary. There was a harmony in all we
did, so that things ‘turned up’ at the
right time, and the ‘right’ craftsmen
and women seemed to appear to help us,
always in tune with our aims, and
through the work, and tea-breaks,
relationships of depth emerged.
When June 2002
arrived the garden was more or less
complete, although it was in its
infancy, with young trees and some of
the flower beds not yet cut from the
bright newly seeded lawn areas, but it
was a garden, and the tranquil pond lay
at its heart. A pair of mallards arrived
and spent each day swimming, bathing,
preening or resting until leaving at
dusk, to return every morning to resume
their routines.
The Studio was
to have an official ‘opening party’ to
which we would invite local friends and
neighbours, as well as some of the
people who had worked on the house and
garden in various ways. A close friend
who was a well-known actress was to cut
the ribbon and say a few words. The
local press would be there to help to
promote my art.
I was feeling
very nervous about the party as I find
it difficult to mingle with lots of
people, whilst trying to ‘look after
them’ with food and wine etc. I am a
background person, more than happy to be
washing up, preparing food, or setting
out the chairs! On this occasion I knew
I would be the focus of the party and
would have to chat to people and be a
‘live wire’ throughout the evening.
I could not
sleep the night before the big day. I
lay in bed and heard the clocks strike
twelve, then one, then two and then
three. At about 3.15am I looked across
to the curtained window which looks out
over the garden and noticed a bright
golden frame of light around it,
brighter than I sensed it should be, for
that time. At that moment the words
‘Jocund day is standing tiptoe on the
misty mountain tops’ came into my head.
It is from Shakespeare – a favourite
line of my father’s who had died the
year before, only it was not quite
right. It should be ‘Jocund day
stands tiptoe on the misty mountain
tops’ and as I realised this I
understood at once the message I was
being given: it is happening now,
this very moment, and I must be there to
be a part of it. Jocund Day is waiting
for me, now! No time to lose! Go, go
now! It was an urgent call to get up,
get out of bed, and go out into the
garden, with haste. I just knew, with
absolute certainty that I was being
urged to do this. I threw on my dressing
gown and made my way out of the house
and into the garden.
It was silent
and still, but not cold. There was
enough light to see where to go and I
wandered about slowly aware of a
peculiar sense of heightened reality. I
tiptoed along, wondering what I might
see; the transformation was almost
frightening; this was a different place
to the garden with which I was so
familiar.
I made my way
to the little wooden arbour, where I
sat, remembering that this was a special
day for my great niece, who would be one
year old today. I waited. I knew I was
about to be shown something. I was in
the front row, an audience of one,
summoned to attend I knew not what. I
heard a small bird begin to twitter
somewhere behind me, and then another,
and another. A blackbird started up,
loud and strong, a melody of warbles and
fluty notes rising and falling, all the
time being joined by more sweet sounds.
I couldn’t see the birds and there were
not many places they could be hiding,
but the sound built up until it was very
loud indeed, and then the garden became
suffused with a golden light. I began to
wonder why the light was so strange, was
there dust in the air being lit up by
the sun’s rays, or was the light
bouncing off something golden? Nothing
seemed to add up; I just couldn’t make
sense of what I was seeing. It wasn’t
just light either, it was golden, but
more than that, it was a brightness that
went through me, into me, into
everything, every leaf, every flower,
even the stones under my feet. The
light was warm, it was love, it was the
most joyous light there could ever be,
and it was everywhere, soaking into
every crack and crevice of the garden. I
could hardly bear to be in it, and I
closed my eyes, although they were not
in any way hurt by the brightness. I
sat there, transfixed, knowing that
every second was precious and wondering
what would happen next. If fairies had
started dancing in front of me I would
not have been the least bit surprised.
The garden was another place, in another
time, and I was there with it; I had
been called there.
Then
everything began to subside. The
birdsong became quieter, and the light
faded. The golden ‘love feeling’ ebbed
away, and I knew I could not prevent it
slipping farther and farther from me.
Within a few minutes the garden was as I
had always known it. The sun was up now,
and everything was light, but it was
just sunlight, plain old ordinary
sunlight! The show was over. I knew I
had to sleep to prepare for the big day;
I was very tired. Back in my bed I lay
down and immediately drifted off to
sleep. Saturday unfolded with the usual
preliminaries for a party. The studio
was officially opened and there was much
celebration and happiness.
I am left
with memories of my Golden Dawn which
was not just a sunrise with a dawn
chorus; it was a glimpse of heaven.
Through restoring the old cottage and
creating a garden we seem to be creating
a haven where people find rest. The
peaceful garden eases a troubled heart
and provides sanctuary for flora and
fauna. It all seems to be part of a
greater plan, and as we travel along,
this place, with God’s help, and our
gifts will become whatever it is to
become. I believe the Golden Dawn was
God’s blessing on our labours.
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