It is always disappointing and disturbing when one’s own evaluation of a book is completely at odds with those of the plaudits. When I read the following reviews on Amazon for Mary Roach’s Six Feet Over: Adventures in the Afterlife (Canongate, 2007) (great title in an overcrowded market) I ordered a copy and eagerly anticipated a good read.
Mary Roach spent a year investigating the outer fringes of psychic phenomena and has written up her findings in Six Feet Over - a book full of healthy scepticism but also honest investigation. She seems to be a generous and open-minded investigator who does not belittle the enthusiasts she meets and writes entertainingly of what she finds.
"Dependably witty and populated by vividly evoked oddballs... thoroughly entertaining" New York Times "Mary Roach is warm, deliciously witty and has the happy knack of unearthing humour under the oddest tombstones... the ideal guide for a field trip into the otherworld." Chicago Sun-Times"
The book arrived promptly and I turned to a chapter entitled ‘Soul in a Dunce Cap. The author enrolls in medium school’, which described a weekend course on the ‘Fundamentals of Mediumship’ at the Arthur Findlay College at Stanstead in Surrey. The exercises described by Roach seemed to involve basic psychometry (trying to ‘read’ an object’s energies or vibrations) and generally enhancing one’s ability to sense of energetic fields.
"Dependably witty and populated by vividly evoked oddballs... thoroughly entertaining" New York Times "Mary Roach is warm, deliciously witty and has the happy knack of unearthing humour under the oddest tombstones... the ideal guide for a field trip into the otherworld." Chicago Sun-Times"
The book arrived promptly and I turned to a chapter entitled ‘Soul in a Dunce Cap. The author enrolls in medium school’, which described a weekend course on the ‘Fundamentals of Mediumship’ at the Arthur Findlay College at Stanstead in Surrey. The exercises described by Roach seemed to involve basic psychometry (trying to ‘read’ an object’s energies or vibrations) and generally enhancing one’s ability to sense of energetic fields.
The` word ‘psychometry’ (measuring the soul), was coined by Joseph Rodes Buchanan in 1842), and explined in detail in his Manual of Psychometry: the Dawn of a New Civilization (1885).
Roach spent a fairly fruitless weekend trying to imagine or make up what she was supposed to see or feel, based on cues from people’s appearance, background, the rather unsubtle hints from the course leader, and reactions of other participants. She felt isolated, sure that she was the only one who thought the whole thing was bunkum, delusion, a mix of cold-reading, wishful thinking and auto-suggestion – not deliberate but nonetheless clearly wrong. She concluded that this is all there is to be said on the subject – not exactly what I could call an open-minded investigation. The chapter struck me as crass, poorly researched and superficial, aiming at quick laughs, often at the expense of others. It depressed me and left a bad taste in the mouth – I tried to work out why.
First of all, my own readings and investigations do not point to a world in which dopy New Agers believe everything they see and hear. Many of those who spend a lot of their time around mediums and psychics are the most skeptical and critical of such phenomena – they are well aware that there is ample room for self-deception, fraud, poor practice and inflated claims. Gordon Smith describing his own development circles gives many examples of supposed mediumship which he regarded as nothing of the sort, and advocates a good sense of humour as essential. Raymond Brown similarly has tales of mediums who did not seem to be communicating anything more than their own egos, and others who were clearly exploitative. For a newcomer to the field this level of skepticism can be unsettling as one is warned that genuine, high quality mediumship and clairvoyance are rather rare, and that even the best have their off days.
Secondly, the extent to which we want to please, pick up cues and ‘learn the language’ of the environment we are in should be a factor in assessing the experience, not a reason for rejecting it. Thomas Csordas, using the work of Merleau Ponty, has written most interestingly of his experience of fieldwork among Roman Catholic charismatics, describing the ways in which they unconsciously learn the appropriate body language when responding to the workings of the Holy Spirit. Accomplished mediums and their discarnate interlocutors stress that they work with and through the thought processes of the medium. Where the line lies between unconscious conformity to expectations and any exterior spirit presence may be hard to determine, but evidential information can sometimes give us a hint, or may indeed be overwhelming. Brian Weiss was convinced that his patient ‘Catherine’ was channeling a genuine source of external knowledge when, under hypnosis, she revealed details of his son’s illness and his father that was specific, detailed and unknown to anyone outside the immediate family.
The third factor in my disappointment at Roach’s quick and easy dismissal of psi/mediumship was that her experience was contrary to my own encounter with the world of psychometry and energetic communication. This took the form of two one day workshops at the College of Psychic Studies in London and a one-day seminar with Brian Weiss. On all three occasions there were some simple exercises in which we tried to pick up information from a fellow participant using some sort of ESP and/or from an object. I consider myself to be sensitive to places – long before these recent excursions, in fact for as long as I remember, I have used the term ‘spirit of place’ when referring to my feelings about a physical location. I have never, however, seen a ghost, or wanted to. The many examples I can think of telepathy, déjà vu, lucid dreaming or dream encounters with loved ones – dead and alive, I do not necessarily class as psychic, so commonplace and open to varied interpretation are they. The first of the College of Psychic Studies workshops I attended on ‘Contacting your Spirit Guide’ was preceded by an evening of clairvoyance with one of the College’s top psychics. I was offered a reading which left me extremely unimpressed, in fact his hit rate that evening at least seemed little better than 50/50, if that, in terms of people being able to ‘own’ the information offered. Most of it was very general and no proper names were given. I was, if anything, in a more skeptical mood than I might otherwise have been when approaching the first workshop. Nevertheless, my experience of all three workshops has convinced me that we have and can use abilities beyond ordinary sensory perception, even if we don’t develop them consciously, or even block them out much of the time. I was taught to douse for water by a RC priest in Cameroon, and the experience at these workshops was comparable. If one stops trying to make something happen, and just relaxes and ‘tunes in’ with an open mind (and heart), the impressions begin to flow. For those who reply, as Roach did, that they have no idea what this tuning in might entail, I would liken it to those visual exercises in which you have to train your brain to see a flat picture in 3D and previously hidden objects appear. All you can do is follow the instructions and at a certain point you step into that previously invisible world, which for a while at least becomes quite solid and robust. Almost everyone can achieve the required result with persistence, although some of us are much better at it than others.
Magic Eye 3D
Don't blink.
Look at a point in the center.
Just enough to prevent you from focusing.
Try to look 'through' the image without focusing.
Do not blink as you stare, let your vision blur.
The image will then become three dimensional and jump off your screen.
Persist and it will work for you!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomitheos/3235983766/
First experiences with reading energies
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomitheos/3235983766/
First experiences with reading energies
One of the first and most memorable attempts to read another’s energy was at this first workshop. There were 16 participants, male and female, from their 20s to 70s I would guess, with half a dozen or more nationalities, manual labourers and a bankers, and a whole lot inbetween, and varied experience of things psychic. There was no perceptible typical type of person, so varied were we in every way. Most were beginners or relative beginners, this was after all an introductory workshop. We didn’t get much chance to chat to one another before the exercise, and most people were rather quiet and shy to start with. I didn’t know anyone present, although I recognized a couple of people from the audience at the previous evening’s demonstration of clairvoyance. We were divided into two groups of eight. One group stood facing the wall, and the other eight circulated for a moment then came to stand directly behind someone but not touching them. The idea was to be within their auric or energetic field. The person facing the wall had no way of knowing who it was. Those facing the wall were given a couple of minutes to see what impressions if any they picked up concerning the person behind them. We were not given much direction, simply asked to see if we could detect any colours, guess at their sex or age, height or anything else. The idea, we were told, was to be open to the person’s energy field. After a couple of minutes the instructor went down the line asking each one to say what they picked up, without turning round to see who they were describing. When each one had had their say, they turned round to swap notes with whoever it was and see how they reacted to what had been said. We then swapped roles and repeated the exercise with new partners. Everyone present seemed to pick up some impressions and could identify with at least some of the information that was offered concerning them. This was not a cold reading (guess work based on logical deductions from appearance and probability) as we did know who we were referring to. I was nervous that ‘nothing would come’ but tried just to stay quiet and open myself to whatever might come. After a few seconds did have quite vivid feelings and impressions.
I started off standing behind a young woman, who turned out to be Spanish. Her assessment of me (without knowing who was there or anything about me) was of someone who was intelligent and curious (well I am an academic and had set out to learn first-hand about psychic phenomena), compassionate and caring (we all like to think well of ourselves, so I like to own this too). She saw the color yellow round my head, and I know from reading Theosophical literature that this is associated with thought and intelligence. She then said something about seeing me with a squirrel, or being like a squirrel, not something I could own. I think of squirrels as rather annoying animals chattering outside my study window as they perform their acrobatics to get at the bird food hangers. I ‘owned’ the character information as pretty accurate but said that I could not relate to a squirrel. The woman then admitted that what she had actually ‘seen’ was not a squirrel but a ferret. Now that is significant. I keep ferrets, I love ferrets, and I had one (‘Ferris’) who was a particular favourite. Holding him always calmed me down whatever my mood. He was very affectionate, and there was something special about the way our vibrations seemed to sync. I have never had quite that relationship with another animal or being of any kind. I referred to Ferris as ‘my special little friend’. Sadly he died not so long ago – I forget whether this was before or after the workshop. When I told the woman about my special relationship with a ferret she gave a little gasp and scream. She had been afraid that I would be offended if she mentioned a ferret, so the stigma surrounding ferrets must extend to Spain. We were both quite struck by this unlikely coincidence, if that is what it was. It taught me that one should just try to be honest in these situations and not worry too much if the information seems way off or ridiculous.
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| Ferris |
This was just as well as when my turn came to stand in line facing the wall and extend my senses to whoever was behind me, I soon started feeling rather sick, heavy and ill, and saw the colours orange and red. I felt a great deal of distress and then thought of an abortion or miscarriage as the closest analogy when explaining it to myself. Again, from my reading on chakras and colours I gathered that the dark red/earth colours are associated with the sexual organs and lower or more earth-bound emotions and energies. I felt very hesitant about sharing this impression in public when the teacher went down the line, and missed out the bit about the miscarriage or abortion. When I turned round to see who was behind me there was a middle-aged Indian woman dressed in white. I had seen her at the evening of clairvoyance and she looked very calm and meditative. I would never have associated the image I had of her visually with the emotions I was picking up. I tried as simply and honestly as I could to repeat what I had felt and added tentatively the bit about the distress feeling rather like a miscarriage or abortion. She was clearly very moved and told me that she had been suffering considerable distress and depression for the past year following the death of an infant. Although the details were not quite right, we were both impressed that I had picked up this deep distress following the loss of a child. (In my own case similar feelings had related to miscarriage – I have not experienced the loss of a child).
An exercise in psychometry
There were several other significant exercises during my first workshop, all of which convinced me that we pick up far more from others than we realize. What we put down to ‘gut feeling’ may be literally that. Becky Sharpe, who ran the first workshop, described how we put out ‘feelers’ from our solar plexus when we meet someone and check out whether they are safe or hostile. She had the nice expression, ‘it is rude to frisk strangers’, in other words we should exercise some control as to how far our ‘frisking’ extends and under what circumstances. The second exercise I want to describe involves psychometry using an object rather than just extending our energy-sensing faculties towards others. It was during a workshop with the author and hypnotherapist Brian Weiss in a packed Westminster Central Library in London. After a morning of listening we needed some more active participation, and were asked to pair with the person sitting next to us and to exchange a small object. We sat in semi-darkness for a few minutes and cleared our minds to see whether we could pick up any information from this object. My partner was an Italian woman. I knew from exchanging pleasantries that she was married with a son and living in London. She gave me a gold ring and after a little hesitation I gave her a cornelian bracelet my sister had made me. I had only worn it once or twice so realized that it was unlikely to contain much of my energy.
When we came to exchange information this had proved to be the case. The woman said that she couldn’t pick up much from the bracelet, but had a sense of constriction in her throat and difficulty speaking. My sister has MS, which affects her speech, among other things, so it is just possible that she was picking up something of my sister. In my case I assumed that the woman had given me her wedding ring. As I sat holding it a scene had rapidly unfolded like a film in my mind. It started in an Italian hill town, something, like Orvieto, looking down toward the West Italian coast. There was a woman in black, widowed, in her 70s, who I took to be the woman’s grandmother – or maybe she somehow announced herself to me as her grandmother. The woman gave me a message, which was that she knew her grand-daughter missed her and her home, and that she thought of her often, and that she had seen her great-grandson and was very proud of him. They were always welcome there, or present there, and it would always be home. There was a lot more but this was the first part of the conversation and seemed the most emotionally charged.
When I shared this scene with my partner she was clearly impressed. I thought I was holding her wedding ring, but she said that it was her grandmother’s ring which she had carried with her since her grandmother’s death. She did indeed miss her grandmother and her home very much, and it was a hill-town with views of the sea. She was sorry that her grandmother had never seen her little boy, born after her death. She didn’t relate much to the rest of my mental movie-script, but we were left wondering whether this could indeed have been a message from her grandmother, precipitated by the energy present in her ring?
I would not elevate any of my brief first-hand experiences to the status of definitive proof of an afterlife, mediumship, clairvoyance or anything else in particular, but these experiences appear to be typical of those of my fellow participants. While some of the information was very general or wide of the mark it was also far more impressive than the cold reading or guesswork that Roach felt it necessary to indulge in. I think it is important to be totally honest with oneself and others, and my assessment so far is that we all probably all have more psychic abilities than we might suppose, and that the context in which we practice them and our expectations might well help or hinder their flow. I would not dream of automatically accepting all such experiences of my own or others at face-value without a degree of questioning and healthy skepticism, but I have seen, heard, read and experienced enough to tilt me firmly towards the view that there is probably something in it. By ‘it’, I refer to a view of the world in which we are interconnected energetically (vibrationally). By ‘we’ I would include all things ‘seen and unseen’, living, apparently inanimate and invisible but energetically present (discarnate beings of various types among other things).
References
Brown, Ray & Gillian, with Paul Dickson (2004) A Mere Grain of Sand, Tagman Press.
Csordas, Thomas (1995) Embodiment and Experience: The Existential Ground of Culture and Self (Cambridge Studies in Medical Anthropology), CUP.
Smith, Gordon (2000) Inner Visions: A Medium’s Life. Pembridge Publishing.
Weiss, Brian (1988) Many Lives, Many Masters. Simon & Schuster.
Csordas, Thomas (1995) Embodiment and Experience: The Existential Ground of Culture and Self (Cambridge Studies in Medical Anthropology), CUP.
Smith, Gordon (2000) Inner Visions: A Medium’s Life. Pembridge Publishing.
Weiss, Brian (1988) Many Lives, Many Masters. Simon & Schuster.
