Part Three

Some Christian churches practice a euphoric ritual which they call 'speaking in tongues'. It is a trance-like phenomenon which has its authority in the New Testament, (Acts 2.) and is commented upon at length in Acts 14. It is known as the Pentecostal experience. Many churches celebrate the event on the 15th day after Easter. The Pentecostal Church takes its name from the New Testament story.

Worshippers usually experience the phenomena of 'speaking in tongues' as a result of listening to a charismatic religious leader. Not only may he or she encourage the experience, but the worshipper will be influenced by seeing others entering the trance. The trance state itself can include shaking, shivering and twisting, and is an emotional experience causing a temporarily altered state of consciousness. After the experience, the worshippers slowly return to full consciousness. They may feel themselves divinely inspired and credit every esoteric feeling and subconscious projection as a proof of contact with supernatural forces. They feel euphoria and are told and believe that they have been filled with the Holy Spirit. Some one else interprets the meaning of the 'tongues'. What to the casual listener sounds like rhythmic gibberish has been tape recorded and played to others of the same religion. The interpretations have been found to be totally inconsistent.

My experience suggests that there is a strong group hypnotic atmosphere created by the charismatic preacher and an equally strong and emotionally expectant congregation which joins in enthusiastically with loud and repeated "halleluiah!" and "praise the lord!". The stage is thereby surely set for an auditory and visual phenomenon which takes the form of a trance expressed by 'speaking in tongues'. It is interesting that glossolalia takes place only in groups and only in religious services.

The Apostle Paul claimed to speak in tongues and advocated its use. Let us have a look at his first hallucinatory experience on the road to Damascus. He had been a fanatical persecutor of the early Christian church. Carl Jung, the famous psychologist, tells us: "fanaticism exists chiefly in individuals who are compensating for secret doubt." In other words they are trying desperately, by placing the supposed truth of an absolute dogma ahead of personal experience, to convince themselves of the rightness of their actions or belief. Jung suggests that Paul had been struggling with a growing internal disquiet and was unconsciously being convinced of the validity of the Christian faith. As a Jew, Paul was also looking for the promised Messiah. The Christian message would seem to him to be a possible fulfilment of that promise. We see Paul's deductive thinking ability later in his epistles. Undoubtedly this same mental agility was characteristic of him and would have influenced him at the time of his conversion. So the stage was set for the auditory phenomenon. There had been a period of unconscious incubation. He heard a voice saying, "I am Jesus whom thou persecutest, it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks" (Acts 9:5). Perhaps that last Statement summed up his inner conflicts. Right there is an acknowledgment that he was suffering inner conflict or division; his doubts were likened to kicking against pricks. Paul fell to the ground where he experienced psychosomatic blindness. A blindness which could only be cured by the touch of a Christian hand. The experience could indicate an excitatory synaptic transmission setting the stage for an hallucination.

Rebirthing

There is a fairly new kind of induced trance which has become popular and is known as re-birthing. There is even a song about rebirthing. It is not officially connected with religious movements. The participating person lies down comfortably and starts a certain regular pattern of deep breathing. After a short while the extremities may start to tingle and the mind loses all awareness of the surroundings. A person becomes fully occupied with the feeling and vision of the drama unfolding. One experiences what could be called a mental regression into an early time of life or the birth trauma. There is a letting go, a certain abandonment of control, a placing of trust and an intimacy of experience. What happens may be enjoyable, but not always;

some unpleasant trauma can arise. After perhaps an hour or more, one awakens as from a sleep. To many, rebirthing is an adjustment to traumatic incidents of early life. Many claim benefit and go back again and again to reinforce the benefit.

Drugs

Drugs also cause hallucinations. Schlesinger and Groves give a list of drugs which can cause the users to see and hear things. Addicts can escape into a vivid fantasy world which is seemingly real during the trance state. In many respects the process is similar to the visions and voices experienced by so-called spiritual people.

Like glossolalia and rebirthing, hallucinations due to drugs occur in particular circumstances and are consciously induced to gain the euphoric experience. Could it be that each of them is caused by the build up of "excitatory synaptic transmissions" across the anterior commissure from one hemisphere of the brain to the other, and that in the case of glossolalia, it is mistaken for a demonstration of the "holy spirit"? It does happen, as we have seen, during brain surgery. It can also happen under hypnosis, whether self induced or not.

Dreams

Dreams used to be thought to convey a message from the nether world, the voice of dead relatives or a spirit or god. The psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung changed all that for educated people. They taught that dreams were a symbolic replay of the deep emotional state of the dreamer. Some dreams are pleasant, some are frightening, yet all images are part of ourselves. We give them form and expression. They are our creation. Freud called dreams, "the royal road to the unconscious". For instance, someone who repeatedly dreams of being chased may in fact be afraid of being caught out in some way in real life. I remember an occasion when my family invited a thirty-year old single woman to spend a weekend with us at our seaside cottage. At breakfast the next morning she said "I had a vivid dream last night. I dreamed I was outside the cottage in the dark. The cottage was brightly lit, everyone was laughing and happy inside, and I was feeling very desperate because I couldn't find the door and I couldn't get in." The dream, of course, was expressing her deep anxiety, perhaps unexpressed in other ways, to experience family life and children. She wanted the companionship and warmth found in marriage.

I have included dreams in the study because they have been thought to be the vehicle of god's directions. Dreams can be very vivid. One finds oneself completely immersed in the situation, f am sure almost everyone has had dreams which have been tense enough to wake one up. Dreams are different from trances in that they are a constant part of our existence. We do not consciously initiate them and cannot control them; they just happen, yet they have something in common with the induced trance states we looked at. In all of them, mental awareness of sight and voice are involved. Jaynes tells us that "the right hemisphere is considered to be more creative, spatial and responsible for vivid imagery than the left." Could dream material be created in the right hemisphere of the brain from the storehouse of deep emotional material?

Comments

There is ample proof that the human animal is capable of having dramatic auditory and visual experiences which appear to come from a place outside their person. In fact they occur completely within the individual's own brain structure. But to a devout person, this could be understood as the voice of god. A trance may take several forms of expression. It may appear suddenly, be purposefully induced or occur quietly without dramatics. But on each occasion, the stage has consciously or unconsciously already been set. Persons who have strong underlying guilt feelings may hear condemning voices. Hebrew prophets musing on the state of the nation and worried about military reverses would hear voices condemning the sinfulness of the people. Speaking in tongues occurs only in church company. The united ritual of the group together with the personal desire of the participating worshipper will be enough to trigger the euphoria. For some, the need to be part of a warm family of like minded-people could be the driving force.

In conversion, Paul needed a dramatic turnaround to give himself peace from his inner conflict. He also needed a convincing incident to persuade his former enemies that he had now changed sides. In keeping with his character, Paul became totally immersed in building a faith he had formerly sought to destroy.

The person undergoing rebirthing has already heard about the experience from others and been encouraged to participate in the hope of personal gain. Perhaps it is a desire to experience something intriguing. Who can tell what private reasons each person may have. Rebirthing is not usually a religiously motivated experience any more than is the taking of hallucinatory drugs. Yet something happens within the brain to cause an altered state of consciousness.

Hypnotism

It all began with an Austrian physician Franz Anton Mesmer in the 18th century. He was eventually discredited by his peers and died in 1815. Mes-rner believed he had discovered a healing power which was of occult origin. He called it animal magnetism. Later it was called Mesmerism until the middle of the 19th century when Dr. James Braid gave it the name of hypnotism. Hypnotism calls for co-operation and trust in the operator and obedience to his voice. The phenomenon differs from subject to subject according to the depth of the trance. Dr. Julian Jaynes tells us that the effects of hypnotism have changed over the years. Mesmer created physical responses of convulsive movements in his patients when curing them of hysteria. A few decades later, subjects began to speak and reply to questions. Some years further on, subjects began to forget what had happened during the trance. When the mistaken theory of phrenology (character reading from the shape of the head) was popular, some subjects sank to their knees in prayer when the portion of their head supposedly responsible for veneration was pressed. Some time later the French psychiatrist Charcot induced three stages of trance: catalepsy, lethargy, and somnambulism.

Today there is a wide-spread practice of self hypnotism which does not involve a deep trance. My wife regularly uses self hypnosis before sitting a university examination. She says that it allows her to relax, concentrate and cut out extraneous noises. I was introduced to self hypnosis when sharing a room with an American friend. I left the room for less than a minute. When I came back he was not only in bed, he was fast asleep. He told me later that he learned to fall asleep immediately by the use of self hypnosis.

Changes over the years in the practice of hypnotism show that it does not produce a consistent response. It is affected by the belief and expectations of the subject and to an extent also by that of public concept. Suggestibility and belief constitute the central phenomena of hypnosis. The subject responds in conformity to the suggestions of the hypnotist. The subject can become psychologically deaf, blind, amnesic and anaesthetised. Indeed the control of pain can be achieved successfully by a professional operator or a person using self hypnosis.

The Rise of Spiritualism

Attempts to communicate with spirits, including the spirits of departed ancestors, date back into prehistory. Such efforts are found in a great many primitive cultures. Examples are the Haitians and the North American Indians. In Europe during the middle ages, spirit mediums were called witches. They were severely persecuted so that the practice become virtually unknown until March 1848. Then, two sisters, Margaret and Kate Fox of Hydesville U.S.A. reported hearing rappings said to be the work of invisible spirits. The girls, aged 12 and 9 years old, claimed to have established communication with those spirits.

Despite considerable scepticism, lack of authentic evidence and even suggestions of deception, a wave of spiritualism swept around the world. The Fox sisters were examined in 1849 in an effort to find the truth. It was concluded that the sounds were created by the sisters manipulating their joints.

Lack of scientific evidence of the spirits did not deter the believers. The new religion provided something which many people longed for. It gave encouragement to those who wanted some evidence of life after death and comfort to those who wished to communicate with deceased relatives.

The Fox sisters devoted a great deal of their later lives to the practice of spirit mediumship in America and England. The truth of their experiences came out in 1888. Margaret made a public confession on the 21st of October at the New York Academy of Music, which was reported in the New York World the following day. She stated that her older sister Leah had persuaded them to commercialise their tricks of making clicking noises with their big toes and fingers. Kate also stated in print that "Spiritualism is a humbug from beginning to end. It is the greatest humbug of the century." Refer to "Divided Consciousness" Ernest R. Hilgard.

Spirit mediumship is perhaps the oldest religious practice in the world. The witches of old England, the medicine men and shamans of many races were all manipulators, in different ways, of what is believed to be the spirit world. In conformity to the law of averages, sometimes it seems to work, sometimes it does not. Like prayer, only the successes are remembered and then shouted from the house tops.

It seems to me that the present notion that god is the universal mind, universal energy, first principle or whatever else you wish to call it, got a great lift from the world-wide spiritualist movement. The idea constitutes a rejection of the Biblical understanding of god. The Bible's definition of god is of a person; the omnipotent, omnipresent creator of the universe who cannot look on sin; the god who demanded the worship of his creatures by the sacrifice of blood and later the death of Jesus.

The doctrine of the universal mind is nearer in outlook to witchcraft and spiritualism than to Christianity. The notion suggests that we all are part of the "all spirit or energy" and can manipulate superior forces to serve our private desires. Such practices constitute another form of magic without the formal ritual of the witchdoctor.

Clairvoyance

Clairvoyance has been defined as supernatural knowledge of events. There have been tests devised to prove the validity of the claims. Mostly these have been some form of card, dice or picture tests where the subject has been asked to read material being displayed in another room. Like telepathy, the results are unreliable from a scientific viewpoint. Clairvoyance is open to so many uncertainties. It is only proved in the mind of the believer and can play on a person's fascination with mysticism. Who does not enjoy watching a clever conjurer at work.

Paranormal Phenomena

A Society for Psychical Research was formed in England in 1882 and was followed by a similar society in America in 1888. Other organisations appeared later in most European countries. In 1927, at the Duke University of America, Dr.J.B. Rhine established a parapsychological laboratory. Other universities followed. Between these organisations, a great deal of time and research has gone into investigating paranormal ideas and experiences, including the notion of life after death.

The leading physicist of Cambridge University, Professor Stephen Hawking investigated the extrasensory programme at Duke University in 1950. He concluded

"Whenever the experiments got results, the experimental technique was faulty. Whenever the experimental techniques were sound,-the results were no good".

Dr. Susan Blackmore is a Visiting Fellow of the Brain and Perception Laboratory of the University of Bristol Medical School. She obtained her Ph.D in parapsychology and taught the subject at the University of Surrey for ten years. She tells us in her interesting book "The Adventures of a Parapsychologist" published in 1986,

"One hundred years ago, Myers was asking essentially the same questions parapsychology is tackling now. The methods have changed, but the questions are just the same: Does information travel from one place to another independently of space and time? Can people communicate without using the recognized senses? And after one hundred years we still don't have answers to even these most preliminary questions. We haven't progressed at all. Parapsychology has a Stagnant research program......So of course my research led to skepticism and even disbelief. I could sympathize with myself for becoming so aggressively disbelieving!"

Life after Life

An early researcher. Sir Oliver Lodge, hoping to prove life after death, left a sealed package with the intention of communicating its contents to a medium after his death. The experiment was not a success.

After an in-depth study of this subject, in the final chapter of "Mind Out of Time", Wilson says,

"Long hours spent attending regressions and listening to recordings of them, persuades me to no more charitable view than that if there is any genuine past life material.... it is so rare that I have yet to find an example that remains convincing once investigated in depth."

After all these years, no undeniable proof has appeared; nothing to prove beyond reasonable doubt that there is life after death. I have never heard of any undeniable evidence or even a reasonable theory to explain the process by which the essence of the belief or thinking of a person can be preserved or transferred to another existence after that person has died. There is plenty of wishful thinking and belief in a nether world. Millions of people spend time and tremendous effort in support of their hopes and faith in an after-life. But belief is not proof. Modern people need more than belief. We cannot afford to base our whole way of life on an unproven belief.

There has been more evidence of precognition and telepathy than of other paranormal experiences. But none of them has proved to be more than spasmodically and mildly successful; in other words, with little or no more than average chance results. No important contribution has been made to psychical research by the study of these phenomena. Humans have a great ability to believe in what they would like to be a reality. With hindsight, it is easy to believe that a chance happening was the result of a projected wish. By the chance of averages, sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Every time we win, we can by the use of very little mental agility convince ourselves that the winning was the result of previous intention.

Haunted houses, poltergeists and flying objects: how and from where do they come, and what do they mean? One feature that seems to be common to nearly all poltergeist phenomena is the presence of young people between 12 and 20 years old. I do not know the significance of this. Like flying saucers, people believe in them or they do not. Most likely such belief will make very little difference to how they live their lives.

We need not be too negative about paranormal phenomena. After all, hypnosis was once thought to be a paranormal experience, but is now regarded as fitting into the scientific picture of the human realization. Some animals have abilities far outstripping human awareness. Some dogs can distinguish smells and retain the memory for something like seventy hours. Bats and dolphins have an in-built radar system to guide them: migratory birds and pigeons seem to have navigation abilities: snakes are super-sensitive to vibration. We ask ourselves, have modern people become so dependent on their deductive brains that they have lost some of their earlier instinctive senses? Are they developing new abilities which are only just beginning to appear? Or are both these ideas flights of imagination? There seems to me to be no absolute answer to these questions. Perhaps science will one day find an answer acceptable to thinking people. In the meantime we cannot afford to place weight or dependence on such uncertain foundations.

My copy of The Encyclopaedia Britannica has this to say:

"The more securely clairvoyance and telepathy are established as natural phenomena, the more difficult it is to produce a near decisive proof of human survival after death."

Comments

In part one we saw how the bicameral mind can be a vehicle of hallucinatory experiences; seeing visions and hearing voices which arise within its own structure. The physiological machinery is there which makes the experience seem to occur. Under certain conditions, this may appear to the patient as an independent, other person, communicating with them. Part two showed how the subconscious memory can be activated and recall experiences of many years previous which have been totally forgotten by the conscious mind. We saw also that in hypnosis, persons can be induced to create new images within their own heads which appear totally convincing to them, but in fact are no more than imagination. In part three we talked about several hallucinatory experiences which have been taken as evidence of supernatural beings or life after death. All of these experiences are explained as occurring within the subject's own head. The phenomena are brought about by the subject's own belief and expectation very similar to the effects of hypnosis. When talking about god, Martin Luther said: "As you think and believe so you have him."

The magic of the human brain is that it does have imagination, can conceive ideas, can play with probabilities and fantasies and can visualize structures of thought and matter. These are some of the ingredients which have contributed to the development of modern human beings. But we can also convincingly deceive ourselves when our emotional needs demand it.

Belief in an after-life is dependent on the notion that there is something eternal dwelling within each of us. The idea cuts right across the structural principle of the world we live in. There is nothing on this earth or in the universe which blossoms into being, that does not eventually change or destruct. We know that our thoughts and emotions are centred in our physical brain. How then can anything pertaining to thought or belief remain active after the body and brain are dead? How can we persist in the notion that human beings have an exemption from total death and that some part of them can have an eternal, conscious experience. How can we do this in the face of absolutely no scientific reason or proof?

Surely the notions of a god and an after-life are myths; unrealities which arose from the ancient fears of our progenitors and persist to this day in the form of religion. Discarding the god concept is a mental and emotional process which involves accepting personal responsibility for this life. Many will not feel strong enough to do this. If you can do it, you will find your own sense of person and your independence greatly strengthened.