the psychic landscape of antiquity

To Hannah and to all those others who know in their hearts that the clockwork universe is an illusion.

Walter Falk

www.thehamiltonfiles.info

https://vimeo.com/63670484

Part 1

THE LANDSCAPE OF CONSCIOUSNESS SURVIVAL:

PHYSICAL AND METAPHYSICAL

The Psychic Landscape of Antiquity


You may not remember exactly when you first became aware that this life isgoing to end some day. But ever since that day you have at least occasionallywondered. And as you grew older and are approaching this time of the inevitableleave-taking you may find yourself wondering more and more often.

It has been said that there are only two things that are certain: death andtaxes. This is only about half-right. Sometimes people can escape taxes. No oneescapes death.

It is not something that most of us like to think about all that much; but if weare honest with ourselves we will admit that it is something that is never very farfrom our thoughts.

For most of us, when we contemplate a journey into a far country we deem itprudent that certain precautions be taken and information be gathered about thedestination.

These precautions are likely to include questions such as:

What are conditions like within the country? What documents are going to berequired? Are there immunizations needed? What is the language and the coinof the realm? What are travel conditions like within the destination country? Wemay even spend some time perusing little travel guides and language books orlooking at maps.

We try to find people who have been there recently. We question them andask them to give their impressions. We talk excitedly with our friends about thecoming trip. Friends gather around to wish us well and we have farewell parties.No one tells us that it is morbid to think about our coming adventure.

The situation is quite different when we contemplate our coming demise.Friends encourage us with statements like ’you’re going to live forever’, and’you’re looking good’. There is no talk about our coming journey. Everythingis done to take our attention from the coming changes. We are cautioned againstentertaining an unhealthy train of thought.

Most of us are happy to have our attention diverted in these ways. But maybeyou are different.

Maybe you have wondered: what is it going to be like on that day when youclose your eyes for the last time. Is it going to be like a long sleep, dreamless and

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Figure 1: Elmwood Cemetery Winnipeg - Cemetery where buried the Hamilton family

peaceful; are you going to be aware of what is going on around you in those lastmoments; are there any new experiences; will your consciousness persist or willthere be a blank nothingness?

If it is a blank nothingness, then of course, there is nothing more to be said.But what if your consciousness continues? What might your new state be like?

Will you remember those you have left behind? Will you meet loved ones whohave gone before? Will you meet those whom you have hurt in the past or whohave hurt you? Will the strained relationships continue? Will there be a possibilityof reconciliation?

Will there be Angels, or demons, a literal heaven or a literal hell, flames orcelestial harps?

What will it be like?

At this time we are not going to ponder the details of such possible futureconsciousness after death, rather we are going to look into how your questionsecho those of other humans, and other than humans, who have considered thisquestion of the possibility of after death consciousness, and what conclusions

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Figure 2: Neanderthals

they seem to have reached.

For one thing is certain, you are not alone when you wonder about thesequestions. All through recorded history these questions have continuallyoccupied the thoughts and emotions of humans. Kings and Queens, royalty andcommoners, rich and poor, saints and sinners, judges and pirates, all the beautifulpeople and all the ordinary people of history have wondered.

My favorite philosopher, Woody Allen, puts it this way: “I am not afraid of death,I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” Probably most of us could say thatwe feel the same way?

There is evidence that these questions go back to long before there was anywriting. Archaeologists have been busily digging up evidence that points tohuman preoccupation with questions about death.

And not only humans!

The first group we want to look at is the Neanderthals.

They are named for the Neander Thal in Germany. “Thal” is the German wordfor Valley. The first remains of the Neanderthals were found in this valley.

They roamed the earth, from about 600,000 B.C.E. to around 50 or 30,000B.C.E.

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They stood about 5’ 6" tall, and their brain sizes at birth were about the sameas the brain sizes of homo sapiens, that is, humans.

The adult Neanderthal had a brain size somewhat larger than the human,leaving us with the question “Were they more intelligent than the humans thatlived concurrently with them? If so, why did humans survive, and why did theNeanderthals die out?

The Neanderthal were cousins to humans. And they seem to have been hereon earth somewhat before we homo sapiens made our appearance.

There even seem to be some genetic linkages between Neanderthals andhumans. Possibly there was some interbreeding between the two strains ofbipeds.

When archaeologists dig up Neanderthal graves, they find that there aredefinite signs of intentional internment.

It took archaeologists more than 50 years after the discovery of the firstNeanderthals to reach the conclusion that the burials were deliberate andmeaningful to the Neanderthals. Anthropologist and archaeologist Louis Leakywas the first to reach this conclusion.

In both Europe and the near East, Neanderthal cadavers appear to be placedin dug-out graves in sleeping or fetal positions, as if they were being readied fora future rebirth. This seems to hint that there may have been some sort of beliefthat death was a kind of a sleep state, a rest before rebirth.

These ritualistic burials indicate very strongly that there was some sort ofa belief in survival or of a future life. Sometimes plants or flowers had beenplaced in the hands of the Neanderthals, giving the appearance of a deliberatearrangement. Sometimes there is a red pigment marking the graves, whichsuggests some kind of symbolic meaning.

Apparently family and friends gathered horsetails and other plants, carriedthem to the grave, and carefully placed them on the body.

Sometimes corn flowers and grape hyacinths were gathered along with otherflowers and plants with known curative and anti- inflammatory properties.

It is not known whether the Neanderthals were aware of the medicinalproperties of the plants or whether they were coincidental choices.

Some Neanderthals are buried in groups, suggesting some kind of familyrelationships. Occasionally there are stone slabs over the graves.

Some are buried with food and tools. This again strongly indicates some sortof an idea of an afterlife. It seems as if the expectation was that after- deathconditions were very much like those of life.

And there are indications that after the time of the latest Neanderthals, andbefore the earliest Greeks there was a continuing belief in human survival. These

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Figure 3: Burial Neanderthals

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are mostly not in the form of written records, but in the rituals that surroundedhuman burial, as evidenced by archaeology.

From the time of the earliest writings there are abundant indications that theearly civilizations had customs and performed rituals that indicated that there wassome sort of a belief in the continued consciousness of the departed individuals.

During the time of the pre-Socratic philosophers in Greece - among these werePermenides, Heraclitus, Empedocles and Pythagoras - from 520 B.C.E. to 430B.C.E. - people were thinking about what happens when they die, and there areeven records of attempts to contact those who had passed on.

Parmenides and many others had traveled to the Far-World and talked andwritten about it. And you can guess what they meant by the Far-World.

We are often told that the Greeks spent time in earnest cogitation, but werenot especially adept at experimenting to prove or disprove their thinking. Theywere not scientific in our modern view of such things.

They were content with a sort of wooly-headed mysticism far from the hard-headed practical and successful approach of modern scientists.

They actually experimented quite a lot; but most of their experimentation wasin the areas of the non-physical, what we might now call psychological or evenspiritual.

This sort of experimentation is reminiscent of Einstein’s ‘gedanken’ experi-ments, which could be translated as ‘thought experiments’, and which Einsteinused to derive both the special and general theories of relativity. Einstein wasfamous for arriving at some of his most far-reaching conclusions through thesethought experiments. There is, therefore, nothing strange or unusual or worthyof contempt about the Greek way of arriving at their conclusions.

Newton, for instance, derived his laws of gravity by the use of mathematicsand observations of the celestial objects made by others, without experimentingwith any physical objects to come to his conclusions. It was observations andconclusions.

It seems that they knew, on the basis of their Far-World travels, that thephysical world is an illusion anyhow. It was a temporary state of some use inthe growth of consciousness in experiencing itself; but it was not the be-all andend-all. Hence experimenting in the physical world was not the most essentialactivity.

In their view, if the higher, non-physical, world could be investigated andunderstood it would give adequate insights into the lower level physical worldwhere needed without the need for extraordinary playing around with physicalobjects.

It is interesting to note that most of the wonderful discoveries of the lastcenturies were already previsioned two millenia ago by the Greeks.

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Figure 4: The School of Athens, by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael

Sometimes our modern study of physics seems to corroborate their philosoph-ical views to a much greater extent than the earlier intellectual and experimentalgropings of physical science .

Quantum mechanics comes to mind here.

String theory, a modern way of viewing the world, has negligible experimentalbacking at present, but is taken seriously nevertheless by many physicists simplyon logical grounds.

Some physicists tend to discount it on this account.

The energies required to investigate matter at the very minute distances thatwould be required for such investigations are so large that it is doubtful whetherhuman technology will ever attain such power. So experimentation seems out ofthe question with our present technologies.

But the complete understanding of the universe requires that we know whathappens at these minute distances, and since there seems no way forward usingexperimental methods we are required to use our intelligence instead.

Mathematics is helpful, and can be used both as a crutch and a flashlight, butcould be misleading also.

There is, however, the hope that someday there may be some experimentalevidence found for string theory, perhaps in cosmology.

The Greek way of thinking of the ‘spiritual’ as being more basic to reality than

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the physical world has its reflection in the growing realization of modern physicsthat ‘consciousness’ is the basic stuff of the universe, and that the physical is acreation of consciousness, rather than the other way around.

Modern studies of the mind seem to be going in the same direction, becausesome major mind researchers are coming to the conclusion that it is not thephysical brain that creates consciousness, but that consciousness creates thephysical brain. More to be said about this in a later part of this series of videopresentations.

To return to Greece, Herodotus, the first known historian, writes aboutZalmoxis. Zalmoxis had been enslaved for some reason, and he was, in a sense,fortunate to become a slave of Pythagoras, who believed in the continuation oflife beyond death; and Pythagoras seems to have spent much time with Zalmoxisdiscussing human survival.

Apparently Zalmoxis was eventually freed, and he left Greece for a time; andwhen he returned he had become a wealthy man.

He was a strong believer in life after death, and he spent his fortune ineducating the Greeks about the meaning of death. Apparently he became verywell beloved by his Creek neighbors.

Herodotus tells how he had an underground cavern built, with food andprovisions for a long stay.

Then Zalmoxis talked to his fellow Greeks, telling them that death is nothing tobe feared; and that he would prove this to them.

He then went underground, disappearing for about three years, never showinghis face to anyone above ground; but reappearing at the end of the three years,to the joy of the Greeks.

In this way he hoped to show them that death was nothing more than aseparation, with an eventual reuniting.

As already stated, the Greeks mourned Zalmoxis when he went underground;they went through the well-known stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining,depression and acceptance and they were overjoyed when he reappeared.Zalmoxis believed that he had proved his point.

Whether this is a true story or not, (and we all know that not all history istrue), it indicates clearly that the Greeks believed in a life beyond the death ofthe physical body.

The Greeks accepted communication of the living with the dead. Dr. RaymondMoody tells of a visit to a psychomantium in Greece. He even gives precisedirections to prospective tourists, so they can visit an ancient psychomantiumeven today.

He tells us that Sotiris Dakaris, a modern-day archaeologist, has excavated anancient Greek psychomantium.

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Figure 5: Herodotus

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Figure 6: Psychomantium

Dr. Moody wonders whether the story of Plato’s cave, by which Plato hopedto illustrate how humans are unaware of the true reality of our existence, byshowing humans chained in a cave with their backs to the entrance, and able tosee only dancing shadows on the wall of the cave, may be based in part on suchpsychomantea.

The psychomanteum of which Dr. Moody writes seems to have been frequentedby a great many people in order to visit or communicate with their loved deadrelatives.

It was an underground cave in which there would have been a large metalcauldron, which Dr. Moody believes was used as the mirror in which the livingviewed the dead. Perhaps the dead appeared to come from out of the cauldron tocommunicate.

It is also possible that the cauldron was filled with some sort of liquid that wasused much as modern-day crystal balls to see images of the dead loved ones. Inthis way the psychomanteum served as a meeting point between the living andthe dead.

Homer gives a graphic description of a ceremony for summoning the deadthat didn’t require the elaborate facilities and rituals that were found atpsychomanteums.

He recounts that Odysseus sailed to an Oracle that was consecrated to thisactivity. Here he dug a shallow pit that he then filled with the blood from asacrificial ewe and ram, a pool of blood into which he gazed and communicatedwith the spirits. To quote Homer:

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Figure 7: Plato’s cave

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Figure 8: Dr. Moody

“Then the souls of the dead who had passed away came up in a crowd fromErobos: young men and brides, old men who had suffered much, and tendermaidens to whom sorrow was a new thing; others killed in battle, warriors clad inbloodstained armor. All this crowd gathered about the pit from every side, with adreadful great noise, which made me pale with fear.”

Following this encounter Odysseus has a conversation with his mother, who,unbeknownst to him, has died in a faraway land. Odysseus assumes that hismother’s death has been a violent one, or perhaps one brought about by lingeringillness, but she denies both of these possible causes. “It was no disease that mademe pine away,” says his mother. “But I missed you so much, and your clever witand your gay merry ways, and life was sweet no longer, so I died.”

“When I heard this, I longed to throw my arms around her neck,” saysOdysseus. “Three times I tried to embrace the ghost, three times it slippedthrough my hands like a shadow or a dream.”

The psychomanteum that Dr. Moody writes about was destroyed in 280 B.C.E.by the Romans. After that a Christian Byzantine chapel was built above it, mostlikely to hide it.

When Christianity made its debut, many such ancient sites were eitherdestroyed or hidden from view; and this also included the burning of booksand libraries, to erase all knowledge that might contradict the new Christian

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teachings. Christianity could not easily prosper if the truth were allowed tocontinue to be readily available.

For the Egyptians, there were always two worlds interconnecting or coexisting- the physical world and the far world. These two worlds intertwined, like thetwo snakes of the caduceus, or the double helix of genetics. You could not reallyspeak about one without also mentioning the other. This is very reminiscent of thedualities of physics, of which the wave particle duality is a well-known example.

These dualities are very common in physics, and probably also apply to thespiritual realms.

For the Egyptians the physical realm existed within time, and the far worldexisted outside of time. All the energies and vitalities of the physical world hadtheir source in the far world, what we would term the spiritual world. Life itselfcame from this far world.

The physically dead were understood to be the truly living ones.

Modern mystics, Swedenborg, claim to have visited this far world, and toldof some of its characteristics. Iamblichus, a philosopher from Syria, had agreat interest in the spiritual beliefs and practices of the Egyptians. He was aNeoplatonist. He lived in the third century A.D.

He was teaching theurgy, which is probably best translated as ‘working with thegods’, as contrasted with ‘theology’, which would be ‘talking or studying aboutthe gods’. He was much more interested in practical effects than in intellectualargument. He wanted his students to ‘know’ rather than just ‘believe’.

He was very open about the ability of the Egyptian priests to separate theirconsciousness from their body and enter the Far-World. And he did not just implythis. He was explicit. There was to be no possibility of misunderstanding ormisinterpretation.

He states that the priests did not have their knowledge of the divine realms -to quote him - ‘by mere reason alone’.

This is a direct challenge to the popular teaching of Aristotle, who believed thatintellect alone could reach the higher realms.

It is also very far removed from the latter day Christian teaching that beliefis the key to heaven. Iamblichus claimed that in the Egyptian teaching it waspossible for the spiritual part of the human being to separate from the physicalpart. He appears to have understood the spiritual and the physical to be twodistinct kinds of reality.

He says that in the Egyptian teaching, at the point of death, the individual soulgoes forth in an out of body experience in a spontaneous way.

As Iamblicus described it, this can also be done by a healthy individual, in theliving state. This projection requires some induction, some initiation, or some kindof a ritual.

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Figure 9: Emanuel Swedenborg

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Scholars are still puzzled about an interesting ritual that was performed by thepriests in the temples.

The ancient texts say that a priest would sit in a quiet place and use some sortof techniques that would induce something that could be translated as ‘sleep’. Itappears in this context to refer to something more like a ‘trance’ or a ‘meditative’state. Perhaps it was a hypnotic state of some kind.

This ritual state appeared to result in the priest moving into the world of thedead - the Far-World. On his return from this state he was able to describe hisexperiences as a ‘dead’ person.

This process is often referred to as an initiation.

There is an interesting aspect to the teachings of Iamblichus. Going deeperinto his teachings it seems that he meant for the masses of people to performrituals that were physical in nature, while the higher types, who were closest tothe divine (and whose numbers were few), could reach the divine realm throughcontemplation. It seems that he thought that there were different levels at whichhumans could approach the divine.

Iamblichus was said to have been a man of great culture and learning. He wasalso renowned for his charity and self-denial. Many students gathered aroundhim, and he lived with them in genial friendship. According to Fabricius, he diedduring the reign of Constantine, sometime before 333AD.

It was during the reign of Constantine that the Christian religion became thestate religion of the Roman empire. It was at this point that Christianity beganits ascendancy in numbers of ‘believers’ and decline in spiritual power. Soon itincluded ‘just war’ theories and other signs of retreat from the teachings of itspurported icon, Jesus.

At the Munro Institute in the States a form of out of body experience is taught,making use of some modern psychological knowledge. This seems to be a modernform of the Egyptian initiations.

In the intervening years between the time of the Greeks and the 1860s thereare many references in the literature to various forms of communication with thedeparted.

There are some early references in the old testament to various forms ofnecromancy: there is the story of Saul visiting the Witch of Endor, sometimescalled the medium of Endor, a woman who apparently called up the ghost of therecently deceased prophet Samuel, at the demand of King Saul of the Kingdom ofIsrael as related in the First Book of Samuel.

As the story goes, after Samuel had died, he was buried in Ramah. AfterSamuel’s death Saul received no more answers from God in dreams, throughprophets, or via the Urim and Thummim as to his best course of action againstthe assembled forces of the Philistines.

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Figure 10: She summons up the spirit of Samuel, at Saul’s request

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Consequently Saul, who had earlier driven out all necromancers and magiciansfrom Israel, seeks out a medium, anonymously, and in disguise.

Following the instruction of her visitor, the woman claims that she sees theghost of Samuel rising from the abode of the dead.

The voice of the prophet’s ghost, after some complaining about beingdisturbed, berates Saul for disobeying God, and predicts Saul’s downfall, alongwith his whole army, in battle the next day, then adds that Saul and his sons willjoin him, shortly, in the abode of the dead.

Saul is shocked and afraid, and in the following encounter he is defeated, andSaul throws himself on his sword after being wounded.

The Jewish historian Josephus, writing in the Antiquities of the Jews, quotes thisstory and appears to find it completely credible.

The story of King Saul and the Witch of Endor would appear to affirm that it ispossible for humans to summon the spirits of the dead, or at least to confirm thatsuch belief existed.

Medieval glosses to the Bible, catering to Catholic interpretation, suggestedthat what the witch actually summoned was not the ghost of Samuel, but a demontaking his shape or an illusion crafted by the witch.

There are many more cases cited in the Bible of divination and diviners.

Moses, Aaron, Joshua, Judge Samuel, King Saul, King David, Joseph, many highpriests, and the eleven apostles after the death of Jesus as recounted in the Acts,and John also, are presented as diviners

Joseph in Pharaoh’s service once instructed his steward to go and find the cupthat Joseph used to drink from and use for divination.

The cup was found in his visiting brother Benjamin’s sack. Joseph said to hisshamed brothers, "What is this you have done? Don’t you know that a man likeme can find things out by divination?" This is from Genesis 44.

The Israelites got their various areas to live in the holy land assigned by lot - ascommanded through Moses in Joshua 14.

Casting of lots is one form of divination. Moses instigated it among theIsraelites, and Joshua carried it on.

A garment-like "tool" called the ephod was designed to serve as a diviningobject. It served divination and was specified for Israelite priests and leaders inExodus 28. "This is to be a lasting ordinance for Aaron and his descendants.”

Judge Samuel wore the ephod when he served before the tabernacle at Shilohas in Sam 2. The ephod proper was worn outside the robe. It seems to have been"kept in place” by a girdle and by shoulder pieces, from which hung the breastplate (or pouch) containing the sacred lots, the divinatory objects, the Urim and

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Figure 11: Joseph’s dreams. When Joseph had a dream of wheats heaves.

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Figure 12: The divinatory objects, the Urim and Thummim

Thummim, whose precise function is now unknown. This description is found inthe Encyclopedia Britannica.

Thus, the ephod was part of the ceremonial dress of the high priest of ancientIsrael. The ephod was also used for oracular purposes, together with the twostones, Urim and Thummim.

The point of citing these references is not to show that divining was a commonpractice, the stories may all be apocryphal. For instance there is a question ofwhether there ever was a Moses. Most of the other characters, such as Joseph,may be mythical. The point is to show that there has been a belief that diviningwas practiced in ancient Israel.

Joseph’s cup was used in a form of communication often called mirror gazing.The Tungus natives used copper mirrors in their shamanic rituals.

There is a story of Aladdin’s lamp, clearly another form of mirror, becausewhen the lamp had been polished the genie appeared. This is not exactlycommunication with the dead, but somewhat in the same vein.

The Romans believed in water fairies, the Celts did their gazing, and inShakespeare’s Macbeth there is a calling up of apparitions.

Queen Elizabeth the first had her own mirror gazer. He was John Dee, who

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acted as a sleuth for her at various times, and he is very likely the man on whomagent 007 is modeled.

Around the 1860s, an American president, Abraham Lincoln, had a precognitivedream, in which he saw a vision in a mirror, which his wife interpreted aspresaging his death.

In the United States, Raymond Moody has created a psychomanteum whichmany people have visited, in a modern form of mirror gazing, in which they claimto be able to meet with and communicate with loved ones who have departedthis earth.

There is much evidence that since time immemorial death has been bothcelebrated and feared; giving us reason to think that there was a strong beliefin the continuation of some kind of soul or consciousness after the demise of thephysical body.

There are some practices as closing the eyes of the dead person, thus closingoff a window between the living world and the spirit world; or covering the face, oreven holding the mouth and nose of the dying person shut, which were to makesure that the soul could not escape, and therefore the death of the person wouldbe delayed.

Covering the face of the deceased comes from the pagan belief that the spiritof the deceased escapes through the mouth.

The homes of the deceased were sometimes burned, to keep the spirit fromreturning. At other times the doors and windows were opened, to allow the soulto escape, so that the deceased could not haunt the living who continued to livein the house.

The dead were carried out of the home feet first, so that they could not lookback into the house and beckon to those left behind to follow them.

Mirrors were covered in black crêpe, so that the souls of the deceased wouldnot be trapped on this side, making it impossible to proceed to the other side.

Family photographs were turned face down, so that other family memberswould not be possessed by the spirit of the dead.

Some Saxons cut the feet off their dead, so that they could not walk abroadand disturb the living.

Among some aborigines the practice was to cut off the heads of the deceased,so they would be kept too busy looking for their heads to give any trouble to thosestill in the living.

The use of tombstones may come from a belief that the dead could be weigheddown.

Occasionally mazes were constructed at the doors of mausoleums, apparentlyon the theory that the dead could only travel in straight lines. They could thus be

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kept at bay.

Sometimes funeral processions were arranged in such a way that the path tothe cemetery was different from the path back from the cemetery. This wasmeant to keep the deceased from being able to find their way to the homes ofthe living.

Some of the rituals which we now perform as a sign of respect for the dead hadtheir origin in fear of the dead.

Beating on the grave, the firing of guns, and other noisy or violent acts mayhave originated in an attempt to frighten away other spirits at the cemetery.

In many cemeteries most of the graves are oriented in such a way that the feetof the dead are to the east and the heads to the West. This may have originatedin ancient times with Sun worshipers, but at present it is most likely associatedwith the belief that the trumpets calling the dead to judgment will be coming fromthe East.

Mourning clothing comes from a practice designed to disguise the living, sothat the dead would be confused and leave the living in peace.

Feasting probably comes from the practice of early societies leaving foodofferings for their deceased.

Wakes originated in an ancient practice of keeping watch over the deceased,hoping that life would return.

The lighting of candles originates from the practice of using fire to protect theliving from the spirits of the dead.

The ringing of bells comes from the medieval belief that the ringing ofconsecrated bells will keep the spirits at bay.

The firing of guns mirrors the ancient practice of throwing spears into the air toward off spirits hovering over the deceased.

Holy water was sprinkled over the deceased to protect them from demons.

Floral offerings are often intended to gain favor with the spirit of the deceased.

Funeral music began with ancient chants designed to placate the spirits.

From these practices we can clearly see that there was a strong belief in thesurvival of the soul or spirit of the individual, and that there was a possibility ofinteraction between the dead and the living.

Often this possibility was a source of fear and dread for the living. There is nottoo much evidence for the attitude of the dead.

As we can see there has been a very long-term belief in the survival of thehuman spirit, but this is often seen as a one-sided intrusion of spirits into the landof the living, and often with fearful consequences for the living, if one is to believe

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the fearful propaganda.

Any weekend on television is replete with horrifying tales of the murder andmayhem perpetrated by spirits of the dead on the living. And of course, someof those who have died have left legacies that no doubt now keep them busilyturning over in their graves with regret.

But the living today are really the ones to be feared!

One has only to spend a little bit of time with the daily news to see how muchhorrific mayhem is being perpetrated in the name of all that is holy and just.

Even the icon of Christianity, Jesus, must be horrified when contemplating theendless follies of racism and the destruction of the lives of apparently innocentmen, women and children, especially children, that are perpetrated in his name,and putatively for the sake of propagating his good news.

And the Buddha, and the Hindu gods, and Zoroaster, and all the spirits of allthe ancient tribes and cultures through the ages, must be similarly agitated.

No wonder that an apparently impenetrable veil seems to have beeninterposed between the living and the dead. If there is indeed such a veil thenthis is no doubt more for the protection of the dead than of the living.

It is no wonder that we humans walk about, bowed under the weight of the guiltover the things that we have done, are doing, and will no doubt continue to do inthe foreseeable future. All in the name of everything that we hold to be noble andholy.

And in 1848 three sisters, Leah, Margaret and Kate, appeared on the scene,and the world has not been quite the same since.

This phenomenon has been debated for years, and there is no clear evidencefor either side. There are those who believe that the Fox sisters re-opened thedoor for us to enter the realm of the departed, and those who fervently debunkthis point of view.

Whatever the truth, there were rappings and table tippings, mysterious lights,and answers to human questions purporting to come from the “other side”.Before long most of American society, from the upper crust of Boston to the lowerEast side of New York, was tipping and bumping, and raising a riot of holy andoccasionally unholy psychical fun.

By 1888, the girls confessed publicly that the whole thing had started with ajoke meant to frighten their mother; that it was all fraudulent. They now said:

"When we went to bed at night we used to tie an apple to a string and move thestring up and down, causing the apple to bump on the floor, or we would drop theapple on the floor, making a strange noise every time it would rebound. Motherlistened to this for a time. She would not understand it and did not suspect us asbeing capable of a trick because we were so young."

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Figure 13: The Fox Sisters, Margaretta, Kate and Leah

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The account went on to say: During the night of March 31, Kate challengedthe invisible noise- maker, presumed to be a "spirit", to repeat the snaps of herfingers. "It" did. "It" was asked to rap out the ages of the girls. "It" did.

The neighbours were called in, and over the course of the next few days atype of code was developed where raps could signify yes or no in response to aquestion, or be used to indicate a letter of the alphabet.

The girls addressed the spirit as "Mr. Splitfoot" which is a nickname for theDevil. Later, the alleged "entity" creating the sounds claimed to be the spirit of apeddler named Charles B. Rosma, who had been murdered five years earlier andburied in the cellar.

Doyle claims the neighbors dug up the cellar and found a few pieces of bone,but it wasn’t until 1904 that a skeleton was found, buried in the cellar wall. Nomissing person named Charles B. Rosma was ever identified.

A year later, just to add to the fun, they denied their confession. This greatlyexcited the participants: the believers were taken aback, the pseudo-skepticswere delighted, and the skeptics were thoroughly confused after that.

But this is only one of many conflicting accounts. The arguments have beengoing pro and con ever since.

The girls fell out of favor with each other at various times and appear to havetold various stories, and the situation became more bizarre. At this distance andtime from the events, and considering the heat of the emotions generated, theredoes not appear to be any clear-cut indication as to the truth of the allegationsand counter- allegations.

One would think that these shenanigans would have made people shy awayfrom the phenomena, but such does not appear to be the case. If anything, thecontroversies added to the fun, and word-of- mouth advertising is always the mosteffective.

And since most people are either hoping to see the reality of psychicphenomena established, or are hoping for its opposite, with very few peoplesimply trying to establish the truth of the situation in an unbiased manner, thereis not likely to be an early end to the controversies.

At any rate the phenomenon blossomed and grew and the stories multiplied.

All manner of psychic abilities were now in evidence. The Fox sistersphenomenon seemed to have opened a gigantic floodgate. It was as if the worldhad been waiting for some kind of return to the earlier belief in spirits and spritesand demons and angels. The so- called scientific revolution had tended to tampdown the natural belief of human beings in another world. But the beliefs wereclearly never very far submerged.

And this avalanche of fascination with the doings of the spirit world also flowedover into Europe and England. Almost everyone, including people like Carl Jung,

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indulged in at least some experimentation with this new phenomenon.

The original Fox sisters, who started it all, did not fare too well. They had theirtime of fame and fortune, with many revering them, while others threw cabbagesand threatened to lynch them. At least one of them ended up eventually on thetipsy, poor and lonely side of life.

This was the beginning of modern spiritualism. In retrospect it has many ofthe more entertaining aspects of a good modern election campaign or religiousrevival.

But there was at the same time a new spirit in the modern world. Asalready mentioned, materialism had been on a very steady march since Newtonand the industrial revolution. But Isaac Newton’s insights and the advance oftechnology had also spurred a new spirit of adventure and experimentation alongpsychological lines.

And almost everyone was now aware that it was possible to acquire knowledgeabout one’s surroundings by careful observation and some cogitation. There wasa new sense of the power of the human mind to probe nature, and perhaps alsoto acquire knowledge in areas that had hitherto merely inspired belief.

Scientists now began to study the phenomenon and its phenomena, and somecame to the conclusion that there was something to the non-materialist side oflife. Something that needed serious investigation.

There was much controversy, but there also seemed to be some evidencecoming forward to confirm the ancient belief that there was indeed more to lifeand death than the new age of scientific materialism was willing to show aninterest in or able to accommodate.

It became evident that not all phenomena were visible to the naked eye, as themicroscope and the telescope and the advent of radio waves and their applicationto communication had by now made clear. What else might lie beyond the scopeof the ordinary five senses?

Although it was still rather dangerous to the reputation and career of anyscientific investigator to engage openly in such study, there were very reputableand trusted people who were willing to take the chance with their reputations,and who came forward and confirmed in undeniable language that there wassomething to the “psychic”.

Between 1860 and 1919, numerous other researchers joined the quest. Moreor less in order of their appearance we will look at the work of a few of them. Theyear in which each one of them began his work is shown in the accompanyingslide. I include mainly researchers who were known to Dr. Hamilton during theyears when he was doing his own psychic investigations.

In the next video we will take a brief look at the work of each of theseresearchers.

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Walter Falk

Figure 14: Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961)

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the psychic landscape of antiquity

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