In our continuing effort to add books to our Paranormal Library, we have placed new books on our shelves for your use. We have added five books in PDF format for you to download and use freely for your paranormal studies.

The first author we added is an obscure one. His name is A.J. Ashdown and this work is a rare tome focusing upon early forms of spirit communication. This work, The Ashkir-Jobson Trianion, was found by Paranormal Study content creator Jeremy Michael Bloxsom. If you have never heard of the Communigraph or the Reflectograph, then you will be pleasantly surprised.

We have also included four books by the former President of the Theosophical Society, Annie Besant. These books traverse a few different topics. In typical Theosophist fashion, these books borrow from Hinduism, Buddhism and Spiritualism while blending them together with some channeled messages. If you are interested in the Theosophical views on what happens to the soul after death, or how thoughtful intent can influence your environment and future outlook (published 12 years before the first breakthrough book on the same topic, Think and Grow Rich, burst into public consciousness in 1937) then these uploads have you covered.

Hopefully these books will help you in your paranormal studies. As a reminder, if you have any PDF’s of copyright-free books, white papers, or articles that you have published (or want to publish) that you think may be of use to other paranormal enthusiasts, please let us know via our email account, Learn@ParanormalStudy.com, and we will endeavor to publish them in our Paranormal Library for others to use.

This is republished via the work of Anabela Cardoso and Gesa Dröge. The original PDF is available through Cardoso’s ITC Journal.

For those who are not aware, it is the eminent physicist Ernst Senkowski who coined the term Instrumental Transcommunication (ITC). ITC has had a fluid definition based upon the researcher using the term. I have tried to refine the definition of ITC over the years via ITC Voices articles and public lectures. Currently, my working definition of ITC is the following:

ITC, Instrumental Transcommunication, is the use of an instrument to record communication with disincarnate intelligences of an unknown origin. Any instrument used for ITC must be independent, impartial, and most importantly, provide a mechanism for any recorded communication to be independently reviewed.
– Tim Woolworth

Under this definition, forms of communication that are not independent such as mediumship, ouija boards, automatic writing and the like cannot be considered forms of ITC. Some forms of ITC, such as ghost boxes, direct radio voice, steam, water images, etc. which do not have innate recording mechanisms can be reviewed due to the output of these methodologies being recorded via video and/or audio.

The brilliant words written below by Senkowski reflect his decades of experience observing and writing about ITC. He aptly sums up these observations over a series of brief points. If you are interested in reading more of Dr. Senkowski’s work, we have his book available for you to read in our library. This version of the book was translated chapter by chapter by Heidemarie Hallmann and posted as HTML files; these files were assembled into a full document PDF by Tim Woolworth in 2015.

We cannot thank Anabela and Gesa enough for their work on this document. It is a very important piece of ITC history.

And now, on to the words of Anabela Cardoso:

Forward:

It is a real pleasure and an honour to publish in our website one of Professor Ernst Senkowski’s last written documents on the fascinating issue of EVP/ITC.

As our readers well know, Professor Senkowski, together with Dr. Eng. Carlo Trajna, was the scientist who most thoroughly researched our field of interest and study, ITC.A physicist and a successful EVP operator himself, he closely accompanied the work of the most remarkable ever ITC operators, namely Adolf Homes and the couple Harsch-Fischbach, among others.

When I started my own ITC work at the end of the 1990s, I was privileged to count on his knowledge, support and friendship. His help during that time of confusion and doubts was invaluable. From then on Ernst Senkowski was my permanent counsellor and skilled guide. His encyclopaedic knowledge andinformation never failed me until the last months of his life among us.

I will be forever grateful to this wise, intelligent and kind man for all he generously gave me. My work would not have been the same without his enlightened guidance and assistance.

Anabela Cardoso

EVP/DRV/ITC – A statement by an Old-Timer

Dr. Ernst Senkowski

The interactions of complex systems are determined by their constitution. Dogmatic structures inhibit development.

It is not sufficiently known that ‘science’ is a human belief system that has been artificially constructed on a questionable basis. ‘Objectivity’ is agreed upon an epochal combination of subjective experiences conditioned by language and culture. Exact replication of an effect is impossible. Anomalies challenge the current convictions. Their existence is denied, their protagonists are denigrated. EVP/ITC (Electronic Voice Phenomena – Instrumental Transcommunication) is a special case of this attitude: its existence is not accepted by the scientific establishment. Sixty years of fruitless discussion of the (intersubjective) ‘reality’ and correct interpretation of the ‘extraordinary voices’ can be illuminated by a few remarks derived from long-time direct and indirect personal observation.

Like any sensory perception the EVP/ITC phenomena must be decoded or interpreted by the human receiver to be ‘understood’. This is primarily a subjective process. In the case of acoustic signals the net result depends upon several conditions including the inherent time depending psycho-acoustic faculties of the listener and the ‘quality’ of the signals. It is completely normal that disturbed signals with a poor signal-to-noise ratio overstrain the complex process and trigger different interpretations by different listeners and even by the same listener at different times.

1 At least three experimenters found a group of characteristic properties of the EVP independent from the languages- English (Mac Rae), Italian (Carlo Trajna), German (Ernst Senkowski). This shows a ‘hard core’ of the phenomena.

2 Many voices have been documented which were completely understandable and could be successfully identified subjectively and by sophisticated computer software with the lifetime voice of a named deceased person.

3 EVP examples show a mean duration of around 1,5 sec which differentiates them from normal sentences. The longer a presumed paranormal passage the smaller becomes the probability of its misinterpretation. Most EVP appear spontaneously, but some are immediate intelligent reactions answering a request of the experimenter. They render the impression of autonomous ‘speakers’. This effect excludes the chance hypothesis in the case of radio background. Misinterpretation of terrestrial speech signals is avoided by using ‘white noise’.

4 A continuous changeover from EVP to DRV (Direct Radio Voices) has been observed: During EVP experiments some voices could be immediately understood from the loudspeaker and confirmed in replay of the tape. Fluent dialogues with DRV may last several minutes and completely exclude illusion, hallucination or perceptual restoration.

5 The genuineness and paranormality of the voices is supported by the documentation of visual anomalies showing recognizable faces of deceased humans on TV and monitor-screens, as well as by extraordinary computer texts appearing practically without errors, allowing no reasonable discussion of subjective misinterpretation. Some images and texts stood in connection with voices.

6 A sub-group of extraordinary voices comprises those on telephones. Studying the work of Rogo and Bayless ‘Phone Calls from the Dead´(1979) is strongly recommended. More recently voices of a dead youngster on his former mobile phone have been observed.

7 The phenomenon of the ‘Independent Direct Voice’ radiated from a ‘materialized voice-box’ in free air (f.i. at Leslie Flint: ‘Voices in the Dark’ 1971) should be seriously considered – as well as OBE, NDE, hearing ‘internal voices’ and the unsolved mystery of ‘creativity’.

8 EVP are not singular in suggesting the existence of other levels of consciousness. Disregarding the complete ITC complexity and its importance for the life-after-death question because of the possible misinterpretation of EVP is not a scientific attitude.

December 2011

This lecture was originally published by Sir Oliver Lodge in The Queen’s Hospital Annual in 1933.

Lodge had a brilliant mind and was a highly regarded physicist. He was the first to demonstrate wireless transmission of waves through telegraphy – a year before Marconi – but he didn’t believe that there was enough demand for the technology to refine it. Although Marconi is known as the father of radio, Lodge is the one who discovered the mechanism. He applied Hertz to EMF waves and also created the first spark plug for ignitions.

Sir Oliver Lodge was also a spiritualist and served as the President of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR). This lecture references another pillar of the SPR, F.W.H. Myers and his early research into telepathy. Moreover, this lecture attempts to reconcile what is known of particle physics with the notion spirit. His arguments against the reductive materialism of science is still being echoed today by the likes of Sheldrake, Chalmers, Lanza and so many other scientists who realize that mind/consciousness/spirit cannot be reduced to constituent material pieces.

Because of his background, Lodge was uniquely qualified to lecture on this topic with authority.

The Mode of Future Existence

When we consider the question of Survival from the physical point of view we are up against the ancient problem of the connection between mind and body. The body is certainly made of matter, but matter is inert, it never does anything, it is completely controlled by the forces acting upon it, which forces exist in the empty space surrounding the atoms. Left to itself, matter merely continues in whatever state it was last made to accept. If it was spinning, it continues to spin with constant angular momentum. It has no power of changing its state or of stopping. If it was in a state of locomotion, that motion also continues unaltered. This is called the law of inertia, and to it all material atoms are absolutely obedient, whether they form part of an engine or of a clockwork mechanism or of an animated body. There is no exception. All matter is inert.

If any change is observed in atomic or material behaviour, it is a sign of some activity, some energy apart from matter, demonstrating its existence by acting upon matter, and causing some acceleration or retardation proportionate to the force exerted. This is called the second law of motion. Furthermore, every kind of energy known to us exists in the empty space between the atoms and exerts equal force upon the boundary atoms at either end of that space, so that every action is accompanied by an equal opposite reaction. This is called the third law of motion, or it might be called the law of energy. Energy only makes itself manifest by its effect on material bodies, but its main existence is in space. We have no sense organ for perceiving energy itself, our senses tell us of nothing but matter. We can see the results of energy as expended upon matter, but we have no direct apprehension of the energy. We are not acquainted with anything in the Universe save by its effect upon matter, and that is the origin of our tendency to philosophic materialism; we are liable to doubt whether things not apparent to the senses can have a real existence, though there is no justification for such a doubt.

The physical Universe does not consist of matter alone. If it did, it would be absolutely inert, no change would ever occur. Experience shows us constant change, constant activity, and, when analysed, the source of this activity is always found in the field or space between the atoms. That is where the energy exists, that is where it is stored; and we can gradually realise that it is through interaction between the void and the material particles that every change or activity is accomplished. A field of force always exists in what we call vacuum or Ether, what the Ancients called ‘void’; never does it exist in matter. Yet force is only made manifest by matter. It is only by observing the behaviour of material bodies that we can become aware of the existence of a field of force or of a seat of energy. Energy is constant in amount, but it takes various forms. The form with which we are best acquainted is the form of motion, and that is the only form ever associated with matter. All the other forms are hidden and make no impression upon us, save when they encounter material particles and thus display their existence. No one, for instance, could experience a magnetic field without a bit of iron to test it with. No one has any knowledge of the broadcast waves which now surround us unless he has a suitable detecting apparatus in the form of a wireless set and a telephone. And, strange to say, we can only appreciate light when it impinges upon some piece of matter and thence is deflected into the eyes. When we see a lighthouse or searchlight beam tracking its way across space, it is not the beam that we observe, but the dust particles which are illuminated by it. We can only see material objects: we have no sense for radiation itself, nor for an electric current, only for its activity in affecting various kinds of matter. These are only instances of a quite general law.

We cannot understand the activity of the material Universe without taking energy into account, and this energy exists in the space between the particles. Matter is discontinuous, consisting of isolated particles, they are connected only through space. But inasmuch as this space is impregnated with energy, it must be something more than mere emptiness. It makes no impression on our senses, and yet it is full of energy, and is the reservoir of all activity; hence we have agreed to call it the Ether. A magnetic field exists wholly in the Ether, iron filings are only used to demonstrate it and map it out. An electric, a gravitational, field is in the same predicament. Cohesion, too, and indeed every action between material particles, is an affair of the Ether. In no other way can one piece of matter act on another. Every kind of physical action is really transmitted across space – that is, through the Ether – just as really, though not so obviously, as electric and magnetic attraction, gravitation, and light. Atoms and their constituents are never in contact. Ether forces or Ether strains have to be appealed to, when we try really to understand the most ordinary activities in daily life. Even a simple push is exerted through an infinitesimal layer of Ether. Every variety of potential energy exists in the Ether: matter has no energy except kinetic; and recently an ethereal explanation of even that kind of energy shows signs of emerging from the theory of relativity.

Animated matter differs in no respect from every other kind of matter, except that it is subject to animation.

So when we say that life only exists in a material organism, we ought to say that life only manifests itself in association with such an organism, and that when it is dissociated from matter we know nothing of its existence. We have no right to say that it is extinct. All that we know is that it is no longer manifest it has gone out of our ken. But the same may be said of every form of energy in itself, it has no power of becoming known to us but by its effect on material bodies. A body under the action of life can do many things, can initiate spontaneous movements, can build up an organism, can operate on the physical Universe, and leave structures behind it of interest and beauty, but it is not the material body that does these things; they are due to the life or animation of the body.

If, then, we can adduce any evidence that life or mental activity exists in space, and only sporadically makes itself evident by some material activity, the state of our present knowledge of physics renders our acceptance of the fact entirely harmonious. We have to do no violence to our physical conceptions if we admit the fact of survival. Life and mind never were functions of the material body, they only displayed themselves by means of the material organism. The organism was not essential to their existence, but only to their display – that is, to our apprehension of them. If they ever find means of operating in a novel or unusual manner on a physical organism, then they may still manifest their continued existence; and that is exactly what they do. Why should we decline to receive the evidence?

Telepathy shows that mind can act on mind without the use of any bodily organs, hence certain people may have a faculty of apprehending a spiritual world direct; and this may account for genius and inspiration. This has been well argued by F.W.H. Myers, and I shall not labour it now.

If you have evidence of the existence of a spiritual world, a world of help and guidance and sympathy, then you can hold to it in spite of every denial of the materialists, who can only base their denial on the absence of any sensory stimulus to their material organism. Such a world may exist all round us, and yet can only be spiritually discerned. The faculty of discernment does exist in some people, and their positive evidence overweighs a wilderness of negation from people whose perceptions are limited to the bodily senses. One of the most elementary forms of discernment is (rather absurdly) called Psychometry. An object put into their hands may convey more information than the senses can give: a psychometrist can tell something of its history, something of its association, something of its possessor. By special faculty they can tell far more than could be arrived at by chemical tests. They can tell, for instance, that a bit of stone has formed part of a pyramid, or that a ring has taken part in a scene of slaughter, or that a piece of writing or drawing has been done by a certain person normally quite unknown to them, and can even tell what the circumstances of that person were at the time, and what they were doing.

The existence of a spiritual world throughout the depths of space is becoming to me a great and fundamental, even a physical, reality. The manifestation of that world in connection with material organisms on one or other of the planets is a comparatively trifling and temporary episode, of great importance doubtless in the history of evolutionary development, but our real existence is not dependent on a material organism. Our spiritual and real home is in the Ether of space.

Chemists and biochemists are liable to limit themselves unduly to the purely material aspect of things. A chemist’s business is to deal with matter in its various forms; that is his job, and he need not be expected to go beyond it. A physicist takes into account the Ether as well, though he may, for a time, prefer to call it space. He is not limited to material particles, but studies the fields of force which connect them and make them active. The psychologist goes further still, and studies the action of the mind. I would I could say that the biologist is a student of life, but at present the tendency is for him only to study animated organisms and their behaviour, limiting his attention to what is manifested by the material processes brought about by life, and not thinking that life has any existence apart from its instrument of manifestation. We shall never understand the Universe by attending to matter alone and ignoring everything which makes it active and interesting. We cannot even understand the bending of a steel spring or the fall of a raised weight without implicitly taking the Ether into account. We are continually making experiments on the Ether and realising the consequences of its abundant qualities. If we make the assumption that it is a physical vehicle of life and mind too, we are only extending our generalisation in the same direction.

A supplementary and semi-physical treatment of Survival is now becoming possible; a treatment which is well calculated to replace the old materialistic view that man had only a material body, and that when that body died and decayed, the animation, the personality, and the individual, necessarily ceased to exist. It is also well calculated to replace the popular idealistic notion that any spirit which survives the death of the material body must survive in an entirely disembodied condition, and be out of relationship with the physical Universe. Many people suppose that it then belongs to another order of existence, or, as some would say, of non-existence; that it is likely to be free from any relationship even with Space and Time, and must have departed entirely out of our ken; so that communication or intercourse with it is no longer possible, until perhaps at some future day when the material body shall have been somehow resuscitated and restored to its old function, in glorified form, so that the spirit can resume its active control. That this superstitious idea has been prevalent is testified to by popular modes of expression, such as:

‘On the Resurrection morning, all their dead the graves restore. Father, mother, sister, brother meet once more.’

This depressing notion of future existence – if it can be called existence in the interim – is not a scientific or psychological view at all; but it has been the religious, or at least the ecclesiastical, view through medieval times; hymns and liturgies are saturated with it, and it continues to this day the chief representation of what, by strictly orthodox people, is meant by Survival.

A modern theory which seeks to provide the emancipated spirit with any kind of organism related to the physical world might thus be ranked as a return to a modified form of materialism. For though, when properly understood, the view I advocate ought to emancipate us from materialistic bugbears, and although it wholly condemns the idea that flesh and blood or any particles of terrestrial matter are revivified and inherit Eternal Life, yet popular ignorance of what is meant by the Ether, and of the certain fact that the Ether is a part of the physical Universe and has definite properties which can be experimented on and ascertained, may well suggest all manner of difficulties in understanding the hypothesis I am trying to expound. Wherefore it will probably be considered unsatisfactory, both by the scientific materialist and by the theologian; possibly also by some spiritualists.

The necessity for some kind of organ or instrument or habitation for an emancipated spirit has been intuitively felt by many inspired writers. The most ancient classical idea was that of a condition rather melancholy – unhouseled, wistful, shadowy and sad – but this notion was improved upon even in later classical times. And towards the end, ‘Not unclothed, but clothed upon,’ ‘God giveth it a body,’ are modes of expression very familiar to modern ears.

The existence of a spiritual body is an idea, in one form or another, at least as old as St. Paul. It has been upheld by some of the Greek Fathers of the Church; it has been vaguely in the mind of many modern investigators; sundry obscure and super-normal facts seem to lend it strong support. And recently an etheric version of such a body has been approved – and if not inculcated, at any rate, regarded as a step in the right direction – by some of the more thoughtful and philosophically minded communicators ‘on the other side’.

What they know by experience is that, though discarnate, they are certainly not disembodied; they feel no more disembodied than we do. They tell us that they still have substantial instruments of manifestation which serve for intercourse among each other, and that it is through this permanent instrument that they are able, occasionally and under certain conditions, to operate indirectly, through our organisms, on the matter of this planet. They operate with more difficulty than in the old days, partly because they have to make use of other people’s mechanism; but still, subject to many restrictions, they exert influence in a somewhat similar way, and thereby are able occasionally to know what we are doing; and they claim sometimes to succeed in helping and stimulating us, not only mentally but physically.

Now, although the departed may not understand fully and completely of what their present body is composed, or how they operate on it so as to produce the results they desire and aim at, they are still only in the same predicament as they were when here, and as we are now. For we do not know how we control our bodies of matter, nor what the nature of the connection between mind and matter is. We know that we have muscles and nerves and brain centres. We can dissect and describe this part of the mechanism. But how a physiological instrument – how any kind of mechanism – can think and feel and plan and will and remember and hope and love, we certainly cannot explain. And probably we shall never be able to explain how such a thing can happen; for the thing to be explained does not happen, it is only imagined to happen through a misapprehension. The truth is that it is we ourselves who really do all the psychical things; we employ our bodies only as instruments for recording and transmitting our thoughts and for exercising muscular action on matter. The body itself neither thinks nor wills nor sees nor feels. It is an instrument, a channel, a medium.

Although full explanations about our method of controlling of a body are not yet forthcoming – either on this side or on that – yet those ‘on the other side’ are quite willing to accept the suggestion that their bodies, which to them feel so substantial, and all the surroundings in which they exist, are related to the thing which we here call the Ether, very much in the same way as they used to be related to the familiar thing known as Matter.

That Ether is a very substantial entity, far denser than any form of matter, has been gradually becoming clear to physicists. At first, we only said that it must be denser than lead or gold or platinum, but now we find that it must be out of all proportion denser. I have made an estimate of its density, in the light of electromagnetic theory, and it comes out inevitably huge. Every cubic millimetre contains as much substance as what, if it were matter, we should call a thousand tons. As the Ether is not matter in the ordinary sense of the term, our ordinary units of measurement are inappropriate; but on the analogy of matter, the Ether is of the order a million million times as dense as water. All its properties are of supernormal magnitude. Its rate of vibration which enables us to see any ordinary object is five hundred million million per second: a number so great that to try to conceive such a number of vibrations per second simply dizzies us. The number of seconds which have passed since ancient geological periods of twenty million years ago is about this number. Yet we familiarly make use of these vibrations. Our wonderful organ, the eye, is constructed so as to cope with them, in the easiest possible manner. And most people are ignorant – as ignorant as are the animals – of the strange ethereal environment amid which we all live, and of which the vibrations convey to us so much information, and awaken so keenly our sense of beauty.

Until instructed, we can hardly help thinking of matter as dense, and of Ether as tenuous, but that is a poetic illusion associated with the term ‘ethereal’. It is an illusion based on the testimony of our senses, which, as so often happens, have to be corrected by deeper insight into the real nature of things. Matter appeals to us so strongly, not because it is anything but a gossamer-like or milky-way existence in the vast continuity of Ether, but because our obvious bodies are made of matter, and because our animal sense organs are specially adapted to existence in association with matter, and give us information about nothing else. Even light, which we know is an Ether vibration, tells us nothing about itself without study; what it tells us familiarly is – not about light, but – about the material objects which have emitted or scattered or differentially absorbed it. We get this information by lifelong, indeed age-long, inherited and instinctive experience. We interpret the luminous indications without difficulty, and we forget the strangely complex nature of the processes which underlie all our channels of information; we only find their true nature out when phenomena are fundamentally analysed and seriously cross-questioned. When we have pursued this line of investigation for many years, we find that the important thing in the physical Universe is Ether, and that matter is trivial in comparison. Yet we can freely admit that matter takes such splendid and beautiful forms that it is worthy of the continued study of generations of scientific men; and we need not wonder that they become so enthusiastic over its properties that they are able to imagine it the sole reality in existence. That, however, is a mistake; it constitutes a mechanism actuated and wielded by mental and spiritual power, which is dominant and supreme.

In our continuing effort to add books to our Paranormal Library, we have placed new books on our shelves for your use. Over the last two weeks, we have made three classics available that you may want to read to further your paranormal studies.

First, we added one of the touchstone cases of parapsychology. Leonora Piper was a very gifted medium who was studied by founding members of both the SPR and the ASPR. The conclusions that were reached pointed towards positive evidence of mediumship. The write-up, courtesy of Clark Bell, was entitled Spiritism, Hypnotism And Telepathy As Involved In The Case Of Mrs. Leonora E. Piper And The Society Of Psychical Research. This book provides a glimpse into the early investigative procedures of the SPR.

Second, we added a pair of books by celebrated spiritualist Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: The Case for Spirit Photography (1924) and Wanderings of a Spiritualist (1921). Coyle is well known as an author, especially for the creation of his character Sherlock Holmes. What many do not know is that Doyle was also a spiritualist who actively participated in table tipping sessions, seances and was a huge proponent of spirit photography. He eventually joined the SPR and conducted telepathy experiments with a Mrs. Ball. After realizing that there was something to parapsychological research, he continued to research various phenomena until the end of his life. Due to his celebrity and how he embraced parapsychologial research, in 1925 he was named as the honorary president of the International Spiritistualist Congress in Paris, and he also served as the president of the London Spiritualist Alliance.

Hopefully these books will help you in your paranormal studies. As a reminder, if you have any PDF’s of copyright-free books, white papers, or articles that you have published that you think may be of use to other paranormal enthusiasts, please let us know via our email account, Learn@ParanormalStudy.com, and we will endeavor to publish them in our Paranormal Library for others to use.

Much more than a website

Paranormal Study is much more than this website. Although we put up an article or two and a library book or three on the site monthly, we put a lot more information out there and it might not be reaching you.

Our social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter are chock full of information, videos and articles that never make it to this website. The world is full of information about various paranormal studies and we try to bring as much to you as we can via social media. Each month we try to select the best articles monthly for our monthly news roundup.

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October, as to be expected, brought us a lot of paranormal news. Typically paranormal stories and news articles hit a yearly high in September and October, and this year was no exception. Here are some of the articles and videos that have we have come across this last month which may be of use for your paranormal studies. We included material on UFO’s, science, surveys, the history of Halloween, NDE’s, faeries and so much more. You can see prior monthly news roundups by clicking here.

Scientists Call for Post-Materialism Studies to Include Consciousness, NDE’s and Psi

*This article was originally published on our sister site, ITC Voices. We are republishing it here because it has fallen under the radar and needs to be revisited.

The following manifesto defines precisely the viewpoints of ITC Voices & Paranormal Study when it comes to the study of consciousness. In order to understand our place world, science has relied upon reductionist materialism to understand the finite minutiae of the inner workings of physical science. This type of science is exceptionally important and the following manifesto is a very important step in the right direction.

Lacking thus far has been a concerted effort on the part of science to understand consciousness – how to define it, where it exists, how it influences our world and others sentient beings, how to access it, and whether it persists on the other side among other possible disciplines. As followers of ITC Voices, you are probably aware that the study of the persistence of consciousness is what this site is all about. We speak with consciousesses of unknown origin via our ITC devices. Hopefully one day soon, there will be adequate funding for the pursuit of consciousness studies. Consciousness is the most important thing to being a human. It shapes our thoughts, our emotions, our interactions with everything and everyone in the physical, and non-physical world, in this life and the next.

The following manifesto is printed, verbatim, from the site Open Sciences where it was originally published and has had 300 leading scientists sign off on this manifesto as being necessary to push past the limits of materialism and reductionism that inform current scientific methodology.

We are a group of internationally known scientists, from a variety of scientific fields (biology, neuroscience, psychology, medicine, psychiatry), who participated in an international summit on post-materialist science, spirituality and society. The summit was co-organized by Gary E. Schwartz, PhD and Mario Beauregard, PhD, the University of Arizona, and Lisa Miller, PhD, Columbia University. This summit was held at Canyon Ranch in Tucson, Arizona, on February 7-9, 2014. Our purpose was to discuss the impact of the materialist ideology on science and the emergence of a post-materialist paradigm for science, spirituality, and society. We have come to the following conclusions:

1. The modern scientific worldview is predominantly predicated on assumptions that are closely associated with classical physics. Materialism—the idea that matter is the only reality—is one of these assumptions. A related assumption is reductionism, the notion that complex things can be understood by reducing them to the interactions of their parts, or to simpler or more fundamental things such as tiny material particles.

2. During the 19th century, these assumptions narrowed, turned into dogmas, and coalesced into an ideological belief system that came to be known as “scientific materialism.” This belief system implies that the mind is nothing but the physical activity of the brain, and that our thoughts cannot have any effect upon our brains and bodies, our actions, and the physical world.

3. The ideology of scientific materialism became dominant in academia during the 20th century. So dominant that a majority of scientists started to believe that it was based on established empirical evidence, and represented the only rational view of the world.

4. Scientific methods based upon materialistic philosophy have been highly successful in not only increasing our understanding of nature but also in bringing greater control and freedom through advances in technology.

5. However, the nearly absolute dominance of materialism in the academic world has seriously constricted the sciences and hampered the development of the scientific study of mind and spirituality. Faith in this ideology, as an exclusive explanatory framework for reality, has compelled scientists to neglect the subjective dimension of human experience. This has led to a severely distorted and impoverished understanding of ourselves and our place in nature.

6. Science is first and foremost a non-dogmatic, open-minded method of acquiring knowledge about nature through the observation, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena. Its methodology is not synonymous with materialism and should not be committed to any particular beliefs, dogmas, or ideologies.

7. At the end of the nineteenth century, physicists discovered empirical phenomena that could not be explained by classical physics. This led to the development, during the 1920s and early 1930s, of a revolutionary new branch of physics called quantum mechanics (QM). QM has questioned the material foundations of the world by showing that atoms and subatomic particles are not really solid objects—they do not exist with certainty at definite spatial locations and definite times. Most importantly, QM explicitly introduced the mind into its basic conceptual structure since it was found that particles being observed and the observer—the physicist and the method used for observation—are linked. According to one interpretation of QM, this phenomenon implies that the consciousness of the observer is vital to the existence of the physical events being observed, and that mental events can affect the physical world. The results of recent experiments support this interpretation. These results suggest that the physical world is no longer the primary or sole component of reality, and that it cannot be fully understood without making reference to the mind.

8. Psychological studies have shown that conscious mental activity can causally influence behavior, and that the explanatory and predictive value of agentic factors (e.g. beliefs, goals, desires and expectations) is very high. Moreover, research in psychoneuroimmunology indicates that our thoughts and emotions can markedly affect the activity of the physiological systems (e.g., immune, endocrine, cardiovascular) connected to the brain. In other respects, neuroimaging studies of emotional self-regulation, psychotherapy, and the placebo effect demonstrate that mental events significantly influence the activity of the brain.

9. Studies of the so-called “psi phenomena” indicate that we can sometimes receive meaningful information without the use of ordinary senses, and in ways that transcend the habitual space and time constraints. Furthermore, psi research demonstrates that we can mentally influence—at a distance—physical devices and living organisms (including other human beings). Psi research also shows that distant minds may behave in ways that are nonlocally correlated, i.e. the correlations between distant minds are hypothesized to be unmediated (they are not linked to any known energetic signal), unmitigated (they do not degrade with increasing distance), and immediate (they appear to be simultaneous). These events are so common that they cannot be viewed as anomalous nor as exceptions to natural laws, but as indications of the need for a broader explanatory framework that cannot be predicated exclusively on materialism.

10. Conscious mental activity can be experienced in clinical death during a cardiac arrest (this is what has been called a “near-death experience” [NDE]). Some near-death experiencers (NDErs) have reported veridical out-of-body perceptions (i.e. perceptions that can be proven to coincide with reality) that occurred during cardiac arrest. NDErs also report profound spiritual experiences during NDEs triggered by cardiac arrest. It is noteworthy that the electrical activity of the brain ceases within a few seconds following a cardiac arrest.

11. Controlled laboratory experiments have documented that skilled research mediums (people who claim that they can communicate with the minds of people who have physically died) can sometimes obtain highly accurate information about deceased individuals. This further supports the conclusion that mind can exist separate from the brain.

12. Some materialistically inclined scientists and philosophers refuse to acknowledge these phenomena because they are not consistent with their exclusive conception of the world. Rejection of post-materialist investigation of nature or refusal to publish strong science findings supporting a post-materialist framework are antithetical to the true spirit of scientific inquiry, which is that empirical data must always be adequately dealt with. Data which do not fit favored theories and beliefs cannot be dismissed a priori. Such dismissal is the realm of ideology, not science.

13. It is important to realize that psi phenomena, NDEs in cardiac arrest, and replicable evidence from credible research mediums, appear anomalous only when seen through the lens of materialism.

14. Moreover, materialist theories fail to elucidate how brain could generate the mind, and they are unable to account for the empirical evidence alluded to in this manifesto. This failure tells us that it is now time to free ourselves from the shackles and blinders of the old materialist ideology, to enlarge our concept of the natural world, and to embrace a post-materialist paradigm.

15. According to the post-materialist paradigm:

a) Mind represents an aspect of reality as primordial as the physical world. Mind is fundamental in the universe, i.e. it cannot be derived from matter and reduced to anything more basic.

b) There is a deep interconnectedness between mind and the physical world.

c) Mind (will/intention) can influence the state of the physical world, and operate in a nonlocal (or extended) fashion, i.e. it is not confined to specific points in space, such as brains and bodies, nor to specific points in time, such as the present. Since the mind may nonlocally influence the physical world, the intentions, emotions, and desires of an experimenter may not be completely isolated from experimental outcomes, even in controlled and blinded experimental designs.

d) Minds are apparently unbounded, and may unite in ways suggesting a unitary, One Mind that includes all individual, single minds.

e) NDEs in cardiac arrest suggest that the brain acts as a transceiver of mental activity, i.e. the mind can work through the brain, but is not produced by it. NDEs occurring in cardiac arrest, coupled with evidence from research mediums, further suggest the survival of consciousness, following bodily death, and the existence of other levels of reality that are non-physical.

f) Scientists should not be afraid to investigate spirituality and spiritual experiences since they represent a central aspect of human existence.

16. Post-materialist science does not reject the empirical observations and great value of scientific achievements realized up until now. It seeks to expand the human capacity to better understand the wonders of nature, and in the process rediscover the importance of mind and spirit as being part of the core fabric of the universe. Post-materialism is inclusive of matter, which is seen as a basic constituent of the universe.

17. The post-materialist paradigm has far-reaching implications. It fundamentally alters the vision we have of ourselves, giving us back our dignity and power, as humans and as scientists. This paradigm fosters positive values such as compassion, respect, and peace. By emphasizing a deep connection between ourselves and nature at large, the post-materialist paradigm also promotes environmental awareness and the preservation of our biosphere. In addition, it is not new, but only forgotten for four hundred years, that a lived transmaterial understanding may be the cornerstone of health and wellness, as it has been held and preserved in ancient mind-body-spirit practices, religious traditions, and contemplative approaches.

18. The shift from materialist science to post-materialist science may be of vital importance to the evolution of the human civilization. It may be even more pivotal than the transition from geocentrism to heliocentrism.

* The Manifesto for a Post-Materialist Science was prepared by Mario Beauregard, PhD (University of Arizona), Gary E. Schwartz, PhD (University of Arizona), and Lisa Miller, PhD (Columbia University), in collaboration with Larry Dossey, MD, Alexander Moreira-Almeida, MD, PhD, Marilyn Schlitz, PhD, Rupert Sheldrake, PhD, and Charles Tart, PhD.

** For further information, please contact Dr Mario Beauregard, Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health, Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, Tucson, USA. Email: mariobeauregard@email.arizona.edu

*** We considered two ways of referring to the emerging paradigm presented in this Manifesto: the hyphenated version (post-materialism) and the non-hyphenated version (postmaterialism). The hyphenated form was selected for the sake of clarity for both scientists and lay people.

**** The Summary Report of the International Summit on Post-Materialist Science, Spirituality and Society can be downloaded here: International Summit on Post-Materialist Science: Summary Report (PDF).

Manifesto Authors

Mario Beauregard, PhD, Neuroscience of Consciousness
Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health, Dept of Psychology, University of Arizona, USA
Author of The Spiritual Brain and Brain Wars

Larry Dossey, MD, Internal Medicine
Independent Scholar and Executive Editor, Explore
Author of Recovering the Soul, USA

Lisa Jane Miller, PhD, Clinical Psychology
Editor, Oxford Handbook of Psychology & Spirituality, Editor-in-Chief, Spirituality in Clinical Practice
Professor & Director, Spirituality & Mind Body Institute, Columbia University, USA

Alexander Moreira-Almeida, MD, PhD, Psychiatry
Associate Professor, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora
Founder & Director, Research Center in Spirituality and Health, Brazil

Marilyn Schlitz, PhD, Social Anthropology
Founder & CEO, Worldview Enterprises
President Emeritus & Senior Fellow, Institute of Noetic Sciences, USA

Gary Schwartz, PhD, Psychology, Neurology, Psychiatry & Surgery
Professor, University of Arizona
Director, Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health, USA

Rupert Sheldrake, PhD, Biochemistry, Developmental Biology, Consciousness Studies
Fellow, Institute of Noetic Sciences; Fellow, Schumacher College
Author of A New Science of Life, UK

Charles T Tart, PhD, Transpersonal Psychology
Core Faculty Member, Sofia University
Professor Emeritus of Psychology, University of California, USA

Paranormal Study Reference Articles:

September brought us a lot of news. Typically paranormal stories and news articles hit a yearly high in September and October, and this year was no exception. Here are some of the articles and videos that have we have come across this last month which may be of use for your paranormal studies. We included material on UFO’s, science, consciousness, mediumship and much, much more. You can see prior monthly news roundups by clicking here.

Paranormal Study Reference Articles:

We missed July 2018 in our news roundup and we’re sorry for that. There was a lot going on and not enough manpower to create the monthly news roundup. The next couple months are very, very busy for us as well due to the heightened interest in the paranormal that happens every fall. We are busy doing radio shows and conferences almost every week but we will endeavor to try to get you a list of the interesting articles that made their way through our feeds in a timely fashion.

August gave us some great paranormal news articles. Here are some of the articles and videos that have we have come across this last month which may be of use for your paranormal studies. We included material on ghosts, poltergeists, panpsychism, mediumship and much, much more. You can see prior monthly news roundups by clicking here.

Read more, always.

Soldier Diaries Tell Of Ghosts Intervening In First World War: Canadian Historian (National Post): Historian David Cook examined World War I diaries and discovered that there were several paranormal reports of both specters and premonitions. Those who reported these occurences in their diaries only had these encounters on the battelfield and they did not occur again during the remainder of their lives. He also noted that these occurences only happened to people who were on the battlefield as they were not reported during training nor to military persons who did not serve on the battelfields themselves. This is a fantastic historical account and an underserved section of paranormal study.

Panpsychism: 3 Reasons Why Our World Is Brimming With Sentience: The author examines three arguments in support of panpsychism, the belief that everything – even molecules – have sentience. Through documented sources, the author argues that sentience did not emerge spontaneously but has always been present; that recognizing an object by its external properties belies the internal properties contained within; and that as humans we infer that all humans and some animals have consciousness due to similar biology but we ignore other flora and fauna with dissimilar biology which have shown signs of consciousness. This is an interesting article which challenges the reader to think about the definition of life from a different viewpoint.

A New Method For Having Lucid Dreams Has Been Discovered by Scientists (Science Alert): The MILD method is the best known way to induce lucid dreaming; this technique involves cognition training and scheduled wakefulness. Researchers have taken MILD a step further by utilizing Galantamine, a drug used to prevent memory decay in Alzheimer’s patients. A startling number of participants, 57%, were able to induce LD through MILD with the use of placebo, and doses of either 4mg or 8mg of Galantamine.

Smoke ITC Located in Random Photo: ITC Voices and Paranormal Study founder, Tim Woolworth, was at a casino on 25aug18 speaking at a large conference in Northern Michigan. At the end of the night he posed with several friends for a single photo. Everyone had a lit cigar to celebrate the end to another paranormal conference. When he reviewed the photo, he found a wonderful smoke ITC impression: his initials in the smoke right above his head.

The Moffitt Family Poltergeist Case 1987-1992 (Metaphysical Articles): This article profiles a well known poltergeist case from California in which a family was terrrorized by a purported poltergeist. The incidences were attributed to an entity, Prince, and included destruction of property, mirror writing, and violence. It is a fascinating story that has begun to receive new interest due to the 2015 book, Unwelcomed: The True Story of the Moffitt Family Haunting. Deborah Moffitt has been featured on many podcasts in the last two years and her story is fascinating from a paranormalist’s perspective.

DMT Models the Near-Death Experience (Frontiers in Psychology): An interesting correlation between the effects of a drug, DMT, and the experiences of the NDE state have been found. DMT is thought to be produced by the pineal gland. This raises the question if some NDE’s are caused by a DMT release upon death. Granted, the work into NDE’s by Dr. Pim van Lommel, Dr. Raymond Moody and countless others shows than there is much more to the NDE experience that a tunnel with a light at the end. We here at Paranormal Study still think the NDE is a unique event experienced by those who’ve died due to countless reports for millennia and communications from the other side. But, this correlation does open up wonderful lines of enquiry.

Search For The Mothman: “Search For The Mothman” is a documentary that explores the unusual disturbances, odd sightings, bizarre occurrences, and surreal eyewitness reports connected to a large, winged, red-eyed creature known as the “Mothman” (first sighted in the Point Pleasant, West Virginia area in the 1960s). These events transpired over the span of 13 months. Strangely, the sightings and disturbances seemed to reach a peak with several area residents sharing the same collective nightmare of a river disaster. John Keel published the lauded book The Mothman Prophecies: A True Story which went into great depth regarding the Point Pleasant events and the bridge collapse; this book is highly recommended reading. As a reminder, the Mothman Festival is happening in just a couple short weeks in Point Pleasant, so read the book and watch this documentary to get up to speed on the topic:

Non-Verbal Austistic Children Demonstrating Telepathy: Dr. Diane Powell, M.D., reported some jaw-dropping results working with children who were autistic and non-verbal. In her experiments, she found that a group of children she worked with displayed a 90% accuracy rate on telepathic tests. One child, featured in the video below, demonstrated a 100% accuracy rate. The test was a simple design where a researcher, who works with these children, attempts to test the children’s telepathic ability with the researcher. The researcher views a card hidden from the subject with information on it and the subject pecks out the answer on a board. This test has profound results that demonstrate a telepathic ability present in at least one segment of the population.

Are We Being Supernaturally “Fed” On? (MU): Nick Redfern is a prolific author of over forty books and numerous articles. In this brief article, Redfern outlines several types of supernatural experiences that have left the victims exhausted. He raises the question of whether or not these experiences are much more than the physical phenomenon they are typically perceived to be. We highly recommend checking out Nick’s vast array of books to broaden your understanding of the paranormal.

Strange Case Of Norfolk Life After Death Experiment That Could Become A Hollywood Film (Eastern Daily Press): There are few cases of paranormal study in modern history that have truly captured the attention of the world and have stood the test of time. One of these studies was The Scole Experiment. A small group conducted mediumship sessions in Norfolk, UK, in the 1990’s. During these experiments which took place in the basement of a 17th century farmhouse, the standard mediumship protocols were followed. The room was painted black, there was no light. Over the sessions, glowing hands appeared, spirit trumpets moved and voices were heard from them, several apports appeared and undeveloped film had images imprinted upon it. The results were astounding and were well documented in The Scole Experiment: Scientific Evidence for Life After Death by Scole attendee, Grant Solomon. It now appears that there is a movie in the works based upon the Scole Experiment.

Deathbed Vision of Angels (Thought Co): This article briefly recounts several sources regarding the appearance of angels right before death occurs. Angels are often regarded as harbingers of the afterlife and appear to those dying to reassure them that everything is as it should be. They have been reported for millenia and have become part of the ideology of death in most cultures around the globe. While it is unknown who, or what these angels are, they appear regardless of race, sex, religion, politics, country, et cetera. If you would like to brush up on Angelology, Rosemary Ellen Guiley has a fantastic work entitled The Encyclopedia of Angels that is a wonderful reference guide.

From Hades To Out Yonder: The Soul’s Journey Through The Seven Planes According To Frederic W.H. Myers (The Search For Life After Death): F.W.H. Myers was one of the founding members of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) in the late 19th century. He is well known for his work on apparitions and mediumship having published three books during his life and what is often referred to as the Bible of British Psychical Researchers, Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death, was published posthumously. All of Myer’s works are available in the Paranormal Study Library as free PDF downloads. The article referenced a work by famed automatic writer, Geraldine Cummins, who was able to transcribe communications from the other side into several books. The book that is referenced, The Road to Immortality, is a Cummins classic in which she purports to have communicated with Myers after his death. Myers relates that there are seven planes of existence that the soul passes through and they are explored in a few pages of this book. The idea of planes has been around since time immemorial and has also been referenced through mediumship by numerous persons and groups such as the Theosophists and ITC researcher George Meek.

“The astounding thing I found as I progressed with my research was that once subjects were regressed back into their soul state, they all displayed a remarkable consistency in responding to questions about the spirit world. People even use the same words and graphic descriptions in colloquial language when discussing their lives as souls.” ~~ Dr. Michael Newton in his transformative book Journey of Souls

Journey of Souls by Dr. Michael Newtong gives an inside view of the experiences of those who have glimpsed the afterlife. Dr. Newton was a lifelong atheist whose views were converted shortly after a couple of experiences relayed by his hypnotherapy patients changed his entire world view. Over the course of his career, he worked with thousands of patients in an effort to map out the progressions of the afterlife.

This book is a fascinating read and we hope you will find these excerpts as scintillating as we do.

Key Excerpts from Journey of Souls

Introduction

When Dr. Michael Newton, a certified Master Hypnotherapist, began regressing his clients back in time to access their memories of former lives, he stumbled onto a discovery of enormous proportions: that it is possible to “see” into the spirit world through the mind’s eye of subjects who are in a hypnotized or superconscious state; and that clients in this altered state were able to tell him what their soul was doing between lives on Earth.

Journey of Souls represents ten years of his research and insights to help you understand the purpose behind your life choices, and how and why your soul—and the souls of those you love—lives eternally. This remarkable, fast-moving book uncovers some of the mysteries of life in the spirit world.

This book is an intimate journal about the spirit world. It provides a series of actual case histories which reveal in explicit detail what happens to us when life on Earth is over. You will be taken beyond the spiritual tunnel and enter the spirit world itself to learn what transpires for souls before they finally return to Earth in another life.

Michael Duff Newton holds a doctorate in Counseling Psychology, is a certified Master Hypnotherapist and a member of the American Counseling Association.

The Death Experience

In my practice … I stumbled on to a discovery of enormous proportions. I found it was possible to see into the spirit world through the mind’s eye of a hypnotized subject who could report back to me of life between lives on Earth.

The astounding thing I found as I progressed with my research was that once subjects were regressed back into their soul state, they all displayed a remarkable consistency in responding to questions about the spirit world. People even use the same words and graphic descriptions in colloquial language when discussing their lives as souls.

I am not a religious person, but [through this research] I found the place where we go after death to be one of order and direction. I have come to appreciate that there is a grand design to life and afterlife.

My clients say after recalling former death experiences they are so filled with rediscovered freedom from their earthbound bodies that they are anxious to get started on their spiritual journey to a place of peace and familiarity.

All these people report a euphoric sense of freedom and brightness around them. Some of my subjects see brilliant whiteness totally surrounding them at the moment of death, while others observe the brightness is farther away from an area of darker space through which they are being pulled. This is often referred to as the tunnel effect, and has become well known with the public.

Dr. N: And what does the process of moving out of your body actually feel like to you?
S: Well, it’s as if I shed my skin … peeling a banana. I just lose my body in one swoosh!
Dr. N: Is the feeling unpleasant?
S: Oh no! It’s wonderful to feel so free with no more pain, but … I am … disoriented … I didn’t expect to die…

The location of the tunnel in relation to the Earth has some variations between the accounts of my subjects. Some newly dead people see it opening up … right over their bodies, while others say they move high above the Earth before they enter the tunnel.

S: I’m not scared. When I was in the tunnel, I was more … disoriented. Yes, I feel secure … I’m aware of thoughts reaching out to me… of caring … nurturing. It is strange, but there is also the understanding around me of just who I am and why I am here now.
Dr. N: Do you see any evidence of this around you?
S: (in a hushed tone) No, I sense it—a harmony of thought everywhere.

I enjoy hearing from subjects about their first images of the spirit world. People may see fields of wildflowers, castle towers rising in the distance, or rainbows under an open sky when returning to this place of adoration after an absence. The most common type of reaction I hear is a relieved sigh followed by something on the order of, “Oh, wonderful, I’m home in this beautiful place again.”

When the soul sees images in the spirit world which relate to places they have lived or visited on Earth, there is a reason. An unforgotten home, school, garden, mountain, or seashore are seen by souls because a benevolent spiritual force allows for terrestrial mirages to comfort us by their familiarity. Our planetary memories never die—they whisper forever into the soul-mind on the winds of mythical dreams, just as images of the spirit world do so within the human mind.

Guides and the Reception Committee

New arrivals in the spirit world have little time to float around wondering where they are or what is going to happen to them next. Our guides and a number of soulmates and friends wait for us close to the gateway to provide recognition, affection, and the assurance we are all right.

Our reception committee is planned in advance for us as we enter the spirit world. Most of my subjects report the first person they see in the spirit world is their personal guide. However, after any life we can be met by a soulmate. The size of welcoming parties not only changes for everyone after each life, but is drastically reduced to almost nothing for more advanced souls where spiritual comfort becomes less necessary.

The emotional meetings which take place between souls at this interval in a spiritual passage are only a prelude to our eventual placement within a specific group of entities at our own maturity level.

My subjects say to me no soul is inherently evil, although it may acquire this label in human life. There are two types of displaced souls: those who do not accept the fact their physical body is dead and fight returning to the spirit world for reasons of personal anguish, and those souls who have been subverted by, or had complicity with, criminal abnormalities in a human body.

The first type we call ghosts. These spirits refuse to go home after physical death and often have unpleasant influences on those of us who would like to finish out our own human lives in peace. [The second type are] souls who have been so severely damaged they are detached from the mainstream of souls going back to a spiritual home base. Compared to all returning entities, the number of these abnormal souls is not large. However, what has happened to them on Earth is significant because of the serious effect they have on other incarnated souls.

The concept of souls having fallibility comes as a surprise to some people. The statements of [my] clients indicate most of us are still far from perfect beings in the spirit world. The essential purpose of reincarnation is self-improvement. [And] we still have free will, even in death.

Does hell exist to permanently separate good souls from bad ones? All my case work with the spirits of my subjects has convinced me there is no residence of terrible suffering for souls, except on Earth. I am told all souls go to one spirit world after death where everyone is treated with patience and love.

The Space of Healing and Life Evaluation

After those entities who meet us during our homecoming have dispersed, we are ready to be taken to a space of healing. In this place we are often examined by our guide. I think of the healing station as a field hospital, or MASH unit, for damaged souls coming off Earth’s battlefields.

Dr. N: Give me as much detail as possible about what you experience here.
S: I’m propelled in and I see a bright warm beam. It reaches out to me as a stream of liquid energy. There is a … vapor-like … steam swirling around me at first … then gently touching my soul as if it were alive. Then it is absorbed into me as fire and I am bathed and cleansed from my hurts. My essence is being bathed … restoring me after my exposure to Earth.

This place I have come to call the shower of healing is only a prelude for the rehabilitation of returning souls. The orientation stage which immediately follows (especially with younger souls), involves a substantial counseling session with one’s guide. The newly refreshed soul arrives at this station to undergo a debriefing of the life just ended.

People in hypnosis who discuss the type of counseling which goes on during orientation say their guides are gentle but probing. There is no such thing here as punishment—that’s an Earth condition. Imagine your favorite elementary school teacher and you have the idea. And no subterfuge or deception exists in [this] telepathic world. Yet the stupid things we did in life hit us hard in orientation.

Dr. N: Now that you are near [your guide] Clodees, do you think he is as upset as you are over this past life?
S: No, I’m more upset with myself over what I did and didn’t do, and he knows that. Advisors can be displeased but they don’t humiliate us. They are too superior for that.

[So] at the end of every life, rather than having a monster waiting to devour our souls, we serve as our most severe critic in front of teacher-guides. Perpetrators of harm to others will do penance by setting themselves up as future victims in a karmic cycle of justice. [And] from what I have seen, no negative karma remains attached to a soul who is willing to work during their many lives on this planet.

Both positive and negative emotions are valued. If a soul only knew love and peace, it would gain no insight and never truly appreciate the value of these positive feelings. A soul grows by trying to overcome all negative emotions connected to fear through perseverance in many lifetimes, often returning to the spirit world bruised or hurt. Some of this negativity can be retained, even in the spirit world, and may reappear in another life with a new body. The test of reincarnation for a soul coming to Earth is the conquering of fear in a human body.

Our eternal identity never leaves us alone. In reflection, meditation, or prayer, the memories of who we really are do filter down to us in selective thought each day. In small, intuitive ways—through the cloud of amnesia—we are given clues for the justification of our being.

Soul Groups

All souls, regardless of experience, eventually arrive at a central port in the spirit world which I call the staging area. One of my clients described the staging area as resembling “the hub of a great wagon wheel, where we are transported from a center along the spokes to our designated places.”

Dr. N: Explain to me how this pulling process works which will take you to your destination?
S: I am riding on a wave … a beam of light.
Dr. N: Is this beam electromagnetic, or what?
S: Well … it’s similar to the bands of a radio with someone turning the dial and finding the right frequency for me.
Dr. N: Are you saying you are being guided by an invisible force without much voluntary control and that you can’t speed things up as you did right after death?
S: Yes. I must go with the wave bands of light … the waves have direction and I’m flowing with it. It’s easy. They do it all for you.

It is at this vantage point in their return that souls begin to anticipate meeting others who wait for them. Souls consider themselves having finally arrived home when they rejoin familiar classmates in group settings. The souls represented in these cluster groups are intimate old friends who have about the same awareness level. Peer members have a sensitivity to each other which is far beyond our conception on Earth.

S: Here no one is a stranger. There is a total lack of hostility toward anyone.
Dr. N: You mean every spirit is friendly to every other spirit, regardless of prior associations in many settings?
S: That’s right, and it’s more than just being friendly.
Dr. N: In what way?
S: We recognize a universal bond between us which makes us all the same. There is no suspicion toward each other.

The smaller sub-group primary clusters vary in number, containing anywhere from three to twenty-five souls. I am told the average assemblage is around fifteen, which is called the Inner Circle.

Attendance here with certain other souls resembles an educational placement system in form and function. Group placement is determined by soul level. The criteria for group admission is based upon knowledge and a given developmental level. As in any classroom situation, some students connect well with teachers and others less so. The analogy of spiritual schools directed by teacher-guides is used so often by people under hypnosis that it has become a habit for me to use the same terminology.

Dr. N: Now would you explain to me what you and your friends actually do in this library setting?
S: I go to my table and we all look at the books.
Dr. N: Books? What sort of books?
S: The life books.
Dr. N: Describe them as best you can for me.
S: They are picture books—thick white edges—two or three inches thick—quite large …
Dr. N: Open one of the life books for me and explain what you and your friends at the table see.
S: (pause, while the subject’s hands come together and move apart as though she were opening a book) There is no writing. Everything we see is in live pictures.
Dr. N: Action pictures—different than photographs?
S: Yes, they are multi-dimensional. They move … shift … from a center of … crystal … which changes with reflected light.
Dr. N: So, the pictures are not flat, the moving light waves have depth?
S: That’s right, they are alive.
Dr. N: Tell me how you and your friends use the books?
S: Well, at first it’s always out of focus when the book is opened. Then we think of what we want, the crystal turns from dark to light and … gets into alignment. Then we can see … in miniature … our past lives and the alternatives.
Dr. N: How is time treated in these books?
S: By frames … pages … time is condensed by the life books.

The Council of Elders

After souls arrive back into their soul groups, they are summoned to appear before a Council of Elders. My subjects report that the initial orientation session with their guides prepares them to go before [this] panel of superior beings. A number of my cases have called these wise beings, directors and even judges, but most refer to them as a Council of Masters or Elders. This board of review is generally composed of between three and seven members.

While the Council is not prosecutorial, they do engage in direct examination of a soul’s activities. It is not unusual for my subjects to have some difficulty providing me with full details of what transpires at these hearings, and I am sure these blocks are intentional.

All soul evaluation conferences, be they with our guides, peers, or a panel of masters have one thing in common. The feedback and past life analysis we receive in terms of judgment is based upon the original intent of our choices as much as the actions of a lifetime. Our motivations are questioned and criticized, but not condemned in such a way as to make us suffer.

Our spiritual masters constantly remind us that because the human brain does not have an innate moral sense of ethics, conscience is the soul’s responsibility. Nevertheless, there is overwhelming forgiveness in the spirit world. This world is ageless and so too are our learning tasks. We will be given other chances in our struggle for growth.

Soul Creation, Growth, Guides, and Other Worlds

Learning begins with our creation as a soul and then accelerates with the first physical life assignment. With each incarnation, we grow in understanding, although we may slip back in certain lives before regaining our footing and advancing again. I have had many cases where a client has been incarnating for up to 30,000 years on Earth and is still in the lower levels of I and II.

All beginner souls are assigned to a new group of souls at their level of understanding. There appears to be a systematic selection procedure for homogeneous groupings of souls. Similarities of ego, cognitive awareness, expression, and desire are all considerations.

Cluster members [eventually work] together for such a long time in earth years that entities become accountable to each other and the group as a whole. This fosters a great sense of belonging in all spiritual groups. The important thing is to recognize our faults, avoid self-denial, and have the courage and self-sufficiency to make constant adjustments in our lives.

It is important to understand that while we may suffer the consequences of bad choices in our educational tasks, we are always protected, supported, and directed … by master souls. I have never worked with a subject in trance who did not have a personal guide. The recognition of these spiritual teachers brings people into the company of a warm, loving creative power. Through our guides, we become more acutely aware of the continuity of life and our identity as a soul.

All guides have compassion for their students, but teaching approaches vary. I find some guides constantly helping their students on Earth, while others demand their charges work out lessons with little overt encouragement.

My clients express all sorts of sentiments about their guides, but fear is not among them. On the contrary, people are more worried about being abandoned by spiritual advisors during difficult periods in their lives. Our relationship with guides is one of students and teachers rather than defendants and judges.

Dr. N: (To the client’s guide) Begin by telling me in what way a company member on Earth can signal to get your attention.
S: (after a long pause) First, they have to calm their minds and focus attention away from their immediate surroundings.
Dr. N: How would they do this?
S: By silence … reaching inward … to fasten on their inner voice. The energy of directed thought must override human emotion.

Every soul has a spiritual higher power linked to its existence. All souls are part of the same divine essence generated from one oversoul. This intelligent energy is universal in scope and so we all share in divine status.

Without addressing and overcoming pain you can never really connect with who you are and build on that. I must tell you, the more pain and adversity which come to you as a child, the more opportunity to expand your potential.

Dr. N: Earth is considered severe?
S: Yes. On some worlds you must overcome physical discomforts—even suffering. Others lean toward mental contests. Earth has both. We get kudos for doing well on the hard worlds. (smiling) We are called the adventurous ones by those who don’t travel much.
S: Humans are egocentric but vulnerable. They can make their character mean and yet have a great capacity for kindness. There is weak and courageous behavior on Earth. It’s always a push-me pull-you tug-of-war going on with human values.
Dr. N: Do animals have souls?
S: Yes, all living things do—but they have very simple fragments of mind energy.

I am repeatedly told that the soul itself is androgynous, and yet, in the same breath, clients declare sex is not an unimportant factor. Most of my subjects select the bodies of one gender over another 75 percent of the time. This pattern is true of all but the advanced souls, who maintain more of a balance in choosing to be men and women. A gender preference by a majority of earthbound souls does not mean they are unhappy the other 25 percent of the time as males or females.

Dr. N: [What about] advanced souls who keep coming back to life on Earth when they could stay in the spirit world.
S: Oh, you mean the Sages?
Dr. N: Yes, the Sages—tell me about them.
S: (with admiration) They are the true watchers of Earth, you know … to be here and keep watch over what is going on. They choose to stay and help people directly because they are dedicated to Earth. (wistfully) They live simple lives. I first came to know some of them thousands of years ago. Today it’s hard to see them … they don’t like cities much.
Dr. N: Perhaps the word Sage could also be applied to souls like [your master guide] Kumara, or even with the entities to whom she turns for knowledge?
S: (pause) No, they are different … they are beyond the Sages. We call them the Old Ones.
Dr. N: Are there many Old Ones working with souls at Kumara’s level and above?
S: I don’t think so … but we feel their influence.
Dr. N: What do you feel in their presence?
S: (pensive) A … concentrated power of enlightenment … and guidance …
Dr. N: Could the Old Ones be embodiments of the source itself?
S: It is not for me to say, but I don’t think so yet. They must be close to the source. The Old Ones represent the purest elements of thought.

Learning rates are different between souls because of character and integrity. Each soul is driven by its integrity.

S: Intensity of desire is part of character.
Dr. N: If character is the identity of a soul, where does desire come in?
S: The drive to excel is internal to each soul, but this too can fluctuate between lives.
Dr. N: So where does a soul’s integrity fit into this?
S: The extension of desire. Integrity is the desire to be honest about Self and motives to such an extent that full awareness of the path to the source is possible.
Dr. N: If all basic intelligent energy is the same, why are souls different in their character and integrity?
S: Because their experiences with physical life change them. This is intentional. By that change new ingredients are added to the collective intelligence of every soul.
Dr. N: And this is what incarnation on Earth is all about?
S: Incarnation is an important tool, yes. Some souls are driven more than others to expand and achieve their potential, but all of us will do so in the end. Being in many physical bodies and different settings expands the nature of our real self.
Dr. N: And this sort of self-actualization of the soul identity is the purpose of life on our world?
S: On any world.

A small percentage of my subjects, usually the older, advanced souls, are able to recall being in strange, non-human intelligent life-forms on other worlds. Their memories are rather fleeting and clouded about the circumstances of these lives.

S: The Earth school is insecure, still. It is filled with resentment of many people over being led and antagonism of the leaders toward each other. There is so much fear to overcome here. It is a world in conflict because there is too much diversity among too many people. Earth’s population has outpaced its mental development. Other worlds have low populations with more harmony.

While speaking of a “paradise planet” with few people and a quieter, simpler version of Earth, he added this world was not far from Earth. “Oh,” I interrupted, “then it must only be a few light years from Earth?” He patiently explained that the planet was not in our universe, but closer to Earth than many planets in our own galaxy.

[And] when a world dies, those entities with unfinished business move on to another world which has a suitable life form for the kind of work they have been doing. Cycles of incarnation for the eternal soul seem to be regulated more by the internal desires of a particular soul, than by the urgency of host bodies evolving in a universe of planets.

For all Earth’s quarreling and cruelty, there is passion and bravery here. I like working in crisis situations. To bring order out of disorder. We all know Earth is a difficult school.

The Source/Creator

Most people who are in deep hypnosis are able to see beyond an Earth reality of three-dimensional space, into alternate realities of timelessness. In the subconscious state, my subjects experience a chronology of time with their past and present lives which resembles what they perceive when conscious. [Yet] there is a change when I take them into superconsciousness and the spirit world. Here they see the now of time as one homogeneous unit of past, present, and future.

Dr. N: Can you describe the creator in more human terms?
S: As the ultimate selfless being which we strive to be.
Dr. N: If the source represents all the spirit world, how does this mental place differ from physical universes with stars, planets, and living things?
S: Universes are created—to live and die—for the use of the source.

In the beginning there is an outward migration of our soul energy from the source. Afterward, our lives are spent moving inward … toward cohesion and the uniting

S: … There is an explosive release … then a returning … yes, the source pulsates.
Dr. N: And you are moving toward the center of this energy source?
S: There really is no center. The source is all around us, as if we were … inside a beating heart.

S: Nothing is collapsing … the source is endless. As souls we will never die—we know that, somehow. As we coalesce, our increasing wisdom makes the source stronger.
Dr. N: So the source starts out by deliberately creating imperfect souls and imperfect life forms for these souls and watches what happens in order to extend itself?
S: Yes, and we have to have faith in this decision and trust the process of returning to the origin of life. One has to be starving to appreciate food, to be cold to understand the blessings of warmth, and to be children to see the value of the parent. The transformation gives us purpose.

When I study the incarnation chronology of a client, I find there is usually a long span of hundreds, even thousands, of years between their lives in Paleolithic nomadic cultures. With the introduction of agriculture and domesticated animals in the Neolithic Age, from 7,000 to 5,000 years ago, my subjects report living more frequent lives. Still, their lives are often spaced as much as 500 years apart.

With the rise of cities, trade, and more available food, I see the incarnation schedules of souls increasing with a growing population. Between 1000 and 1500 AD, my clients live an average of once in two centuries. After 1700, this changes to once in a century. By the 1900s, living more than one life in a century is common among my cases.

Return to Earth

The rejuvenation of our energy and personal assessment of one’s Self takes longer for some souls than others, but eventually the soul is motivated to start the process of incarnation. While our spiritual environment is hard to leave, as souls we also remember the physical pleasures of life on Earth with fondness and even nostalgia.

Once a soul has decided to incarnate again, the next stage in the return process is to be directed to the place of life selection. Souls consider when and where they want to go on Earth before making a decision on who they will be in their new life. We start by having the opportunity of viewing how we might fit into certain environments in future time segments. Then our attention is directed to people living in these places.

The space of orientation for incoming souls could be contrasted to the space of life selection for those who are leaving. Both involve life evaluations for souls in transit which include scenes from Earth, but there the resemblance ends. Orientation spaces are said to be small, intimate conference areas designed to make a newly arrived soul comfortable, but our mental attitude in this space can be somewhat defensive. This is because there is the feeling we might have done better with life. [And] a guide is always directly interacting with us.

On the other hand, when we enter the space of life selection, we are full of hope, promise, and lofty expectations. Here souls are virtually alone, with their guides out of sight, while evaluating new life options. This hectic, stimulating place is described as being much larger than other spiritual study areas. [One client] considered it a world unto itself, where transcendent energy alters time to allow for planetary study.

While some spiritual locales are difficult for my subjects to describe, most love to talk about the place of life selection. They use remarkably similar descriptions. I am told it resembles a movie theater which allows souls to see themselves in the future playing different roles in various settings. Before leaving, souls will have selected one scenario for themselves. Imagine being given a dress rehearsal before the actual performance of a new life.

Dr. N: Doesn’t your trainer-guide handle all the arrangements for incarnation?
S: Not exactly. He talks to the coordinators, who actually assist us in previewing our life possibilities at the Ring.
Dr. N: What is the Ring?
S: That’s where I’m going. We call it the Ring of Destiny.

S: The Ring is surrounded by banks of screens—I am looking at them.
Dr. N: Screens on walls?
S: They appear as walls themselves, but nothing is really solid … it’s all … elastic … the screens curve around me … moving …
Dr. N: Tell me more about the screens.
S: They are blank … not reflecting anything yet … they shimmer as sheets of glass … mirrors.
Dr. N: What happens next?
S: I feel a moment of quietness—it’s always like this—then it’s as if someone flipped a switch on the projector in a panorama movie theater. The screens come alive with images and there is color … action … full of light and sound.
Dr. N: Keep reporting to me. Where is your soul in relation to the screens?
S: I am hovering in the middle, watching the panorama of life all around me … places … people. My mind connects with the scanner to control the movement of the scenes I am watching. I suspend the scene on the screens so I can enter it.
Dr. N: What? Are you saying you become part of the scene yourself?
S: Yes, now I have direct access to the action.
Dr. N: In what way? Do you become a person in the scene, or does your soul hover overhead while people move around?
S: Both. I can experience what life is like with anyone in the scene, or just watch them from any vantage point.
Dr. N: If one’s future destiny is not fully preordained, as you say, why call this space the Ring of Destiny?
S: Oh, there is destiny, all right. The life cycles are in place. It’s just that there are so many alternatives which are unclear.

Blueprints for the next life vary in the degree of difficulty the soul-mind sets for itself. If we have just come off an easy life, making little interpersonal progress, our soul might want to choose a person in the next time cycle who will face heartache and perhaps tragedy. It is not out of the ordinary for me to see someone who has skated through an unchallenging life overloading themselves with turmoil in the next one to catch up with their learning goals.

By surviving different challenges our soul identity is strengthened. The word strength should not be misunderstood. My subjects say the real lessons of life are learned by recognizing and coming to terms with being human. Even as victims, we are beneficiaries because it is how we stand up to failure and duress which really marks our progress in life. We don’t need to change who we are in relation to life’s experiences, only our negative reactions to these events.

Souls returning from the place of life selection must not only sort out the best choice of who they are going to be in their next life, but coordinate this decision with other players in the coming drama. The space souls go to for this in the spirit world is commonly called the place of recognition, or recognition class.

Relationships between people are the most vital part of our lives. The lesson we must learn from human relationships is accepting people for who they are without expecting our happiness to be totally dependent upon anyone.

One of the last requirements before embarkation for many souls is to go before the Council of Elders for the second time. While some of my subjects see the Council only once between lives, most see them right after death and just before rebirth. The Elders want to reinforce the significance of a soul’s goals for the next life.

Apparently, everyone in a soul group respects the intensely private nature of these proceedings. They all see their individual Council of Elders as godly. Even senior guides are thought to be a couple of steps below the developmental level of the omnipotent beings who make up their councils. The Elders are bathed in bright light and the whole setting has an aura of divinity. A subject put it this way, “when we are taken into the presence of these superior beings who exist in such a high spiritual realm, it validates our feelings about the source of creation.”

Sometimes my clients tell me they return to their spirit group after this meeting to say goodbye while others say they leave immediately for reincarnation. The latter procedure was used by a subject who described this exit meeting in the following manner.

“My guide, Magra, escorts me to a soft, white space which is like being in a cloud-filled enclosure. The Elders and Magra give me inspiration, hope and encouragement to trust myself more in bad situations and not let things get out of hand. And then, as a final act to bolster my confidence when I am about to leave, they raise their arms and send a power bolt of positive energy into my mind to take with me.”

Dr. N: So you have mixed emotions about leaving the spirit world?
S: Most of us do, as our time draws near. I have second thoughts before some lives … but Pomar knows when I am lagging behind my schedule—you can’t hide anything here, you know.

All my subjects tell me the transition of their souls from the spirit world to the mind of a baby is relatively more rapid than the passage back [after death]. As souls who enter babies, we come from a state of all-knowing and thus are mentally able to adjust more quickly to our surroundings than at the end of a physical life. [Yet] my subjects say if they were to compare the moment of birth with that of death, the physical shock of being born is much greater.

At the moment of first entry, chronological time begins for the soul. Depending upon the inclinations of the particular soul involved, the connection may be early or late in the mother’s pregnancy. I have had cases where souls timed their arrival at the last minute during delivery, but this is unusual. My findings indicate [that] those souls who join the baby early seem to do a lot of traveling outside the mother’s womb during her term.

Dr. N: All right, let’s take this current situation inside your mother and allow some time to pass. What do you do when you are not with the unborn baby?
S: (laughs with delight) You want the truth? I’ll tell you. Me—I play! It’s a fine time to leave and purely goof off … when the baby is less active. I have fun with my friends who are doing the same thing. We bounce around Earth to visit with each other … and go to interesting places … where we have once lived together in former lives.

S: Once I attach to a child it is necessary to bring my mind into synchronization with the brain. We have to get used to each other as partners. I disrupt nothing, though …while I learn the brain wave patterns of the baby. It’s a melding. There is an … emptiness before my arrival which I fill to make the baby whole. She recognizes me as a friend … a twin … who is going to be part of her.
Dr. N: How far along in age is the body by the time your soul stops leaving the child altogether?
S: At about five or six years of age. Usually we get fully operational when the child starts school.
Dr. N: So, will you have fleeting thoughts of other lives as a child?
S: Yes … we daydream … the way we play as children … creating stories … having imaginary friends who are real …but it fades. In the first few years of life babies know more than they are given credit for.

Final Thoughts

The information contained in this book about the existence of souls after physical death represents the most meaningful explanation I have found in my life as to why we are here. All my years of searching to discover the purpose of life hardly prepared me for that moment when a subject in hypnosis finally opened the door to an eternal world.

Looking back, I suppose it was no accident in my own life that people would eventually come to me for hypnosis—a medium of truth I could believe in—to tell me about guides, heavenly gateways, spiritual study groups, and creation itself. Even now, I sometimes feel like an intruder in the minds of those who describe the spirit world and their place in it, but their knowledge has given me direction. Still, I wonder why I am the messenger for the spiritual knowledge contained in this book, when someone with less original cynicism and doubt would surely have been much better suited.

Everything I have learned about who we are and where we come from, I owe to those who were drawn to me for help. They have taught me that a major aspect of our mission on Earth as souls is to mentally survive being cut off from our real home. While in a human body, the soul is essentially alone. A soul’s relative isolation on Earth during a temporary physical life is made more difficult on a conscious level by thoughts that nothing exists beyond this life. Our doubts tempt us into finding attachments solely in a physical world we can see.

From my work I have come to believe that we live in an imperfect world by design. Earth is one of countless worlds with intelligent beings, each with its own set of imperfections to bring into harmony.

When I ask my subjects how a loving God could permit suffering, surprisingly there are few variations in their responses. My cases report our souls are born of a creator which places a totally peaceful state deliberately out of reach so we will strive harder. We learn from wrongdoing. That which is not good is testing us, otherwise we would have no motivation to better the world through ourselves, and no way to measure advancement.

At a wat temple in the mountains of Northern Thailand, a Buddhist teacher once reminded me of a simple truth. “Life,” he said, “is offered as a means of self-expression, only giving us what we seek when we listen to the heart.” The highest forms of this expression are acts of kindness.

Our soul may be traveling away from a permanent home, but we are not just tourists. We bear responsibility in the evolution of a higher consciousness for ourselves and others in life. Thus, our journey is a collective one. We are divine but imperfect beings who exist in two worlds, material and spiritual. It is our destiny to shuttle back and forth between these universes through space and time while we learn to master ourselves and acquire knowledge.

Perhaps the most gratifying feature of my work in uncovering the existence of a spirit world in the minds of my subjects is the effect this conscious knowledge has on them. The most significant benefit which comes from knowing we have a home of everlasting love waiting for us, is being receptive to the higher spiritual power within our minds. The awareness that we do belong somewhere is reassuring and offers us peace, not merely as a haven from conflict, but to unify ourselves with a universal mind.

Final Note: For the website of The Newton Institute that he founded and more information on life between life hypnotherapy sessions, see https://www.newtoninstitute.org.