3-3) Endo and Exothermic Reactions
The unifying factor in this category is the apparently paranormal ability of the human body in the transfer of heat energy, both in suppressing the transfer and in accelerating it. We shall examine several different aspects of this transfer: 1) firewalking, 2) kundalini fire and psychic heat, 3) spontaneous human combustion (SHC), 4) the ubiquitous "cold-wind" effect in hauntings and seances, and miscellaneous effects.
3.31) Firewalking
Despite the flagrantly spectacular nature of the phenomenon, and the large amount of energy in heat (as compared with mechanical or electrical energy) no other psychic effect (with the possible exception of dowsing) is more firmly documented than firewalking. It is found in all ages and cultures, and has been photographed and even participated in by a host of impeccable witnesses. Elsewhere (1975:142-3) in a table based largely on Gaddis (1967) we have noted over 30 different firewalks involving nearly one thousand participants in total. This table is reproduced here as Table III-2.
Dr. Bridgham's account of his walk across a red-hot lava flow in the
company of three kahunas is given in detail in Long (1954:31-7) from which
we quote:
When the flow started, related Dr. Brigham, I was in South Kona, at Napoopoo. I waited a few days to see whether it promised to be a long one. When it continued steadily, I sent a message to my three kahuna friends, who had promised to let me do some fire-walking under their protection; ...(page 149)When the rocks we threw on the lava surface showed that it had hardened enough to bear our weight, the kahunas arose and clambered down the side of the wall. It was far worse than a bake oven when we got to the bottom. The lava was blackening on the surface, .
The matter was settled at once by deciding that the oldest kahuna should go first, I second and the others side by side. Without a moment of hesitation the oldest man trotted out on that terrifically hot surface. I was watching him with my mouth open and he was nearly across - a distance of about a hundred and fifty feet - when someone gave me a shove that resulted in my having a choice of falling on my face on the lava or catching a running stride.I still do not know what madness seized me, but I ran. The heat was unbelievable. I held my breath and my mind seemed to stop functioning. I was young then and could do my hundred-yard dash with the best. Did I run! I flew! I would have broken all records, .
I looked down at my feet and found my socks burning at the edges of the curled leather uppers of my boots. I beat out the smouldering fire in the cotton fabric and looked up to find my three kahunas rocking with laughter as they pointed to the heel and sole of my left boot which lay smoking and burned to a crisp on the lava.
I laughed too, I was never so relieved in my life as I was to find that I was safe and that there was not a blister on my feet - not even where I had beaten out the fire in the socks.
There is a little more that I can tell of this experience. I had a sensation of intense heat on my face and body, but almost no sensation in my feet. When I touched them with my hands they were hot on the bottoms, but they did not feel so except to my hands. None of the kahunas had a blister, although the ti leaves which they had tied on their feet had burned away long since.
Long (1954:50ff) also describes another fire-walk in India:
What are the whips for? I asked. Are they to keep the firewalkers out of the water?(page150)You'll see in a moment, was the hurried answer. Seems that when they step out of the fire into the water, the priests have to beat them to keep their minds off their hot feet for a second. I asked the priest but didn't understand what he tried to tell me - something about an old custom.
Do neither the whips nor the fire hurt them? I demanded.
TABLE III GADDIS DOCUMENTATION (1967) OF "MASTERY OVER FIRE"
(page 151 -152)
The whips do lay their backs open sometimes. But keep your eyes on the picture. See? They are all praying now. Making a lot of funny gibberish. Praying to Agni to protect the pure and burn the impure.The camera flashed around and caught another candidate just as he stepped into the coals. He was a thin, middle-aged man. His face was turned to the waiting priests and his hands were clenched and swinging at his sides. With long rapid strides he began his ordeal.
Clasping his hands and lifting his face as if in appeal to Heaven, he walked calmly into the bed of fire. I caught my breath. With a firm, steady stride he went wading through the coals toward the priests who waited at the far end.
I scarcely breathed as I watched. His feet were leaving black tracks which closed over and were lost in a moment after he had passed. On and on he went, never changing his pace. Made slightly misty and unreal by the heat waves rising all about him, he seemed more an apparition than a man. As I stared, my amazement was tinged with doubt. What I was seeing was an impossibility. But the end of that dreadful pacing came at last. The old man stepped from the living fire into the water and was instantly taken by the arms on either side by two priests. Their cruel whips flashed three times, cutting into the bare brown back. The old man writhed with pain. Two more priests took him and hurried him off to a bench beside the wall. They examined a foot each, nodded, and hurried back to their places.
The sedulous reader who wishes more on fire walking will find an
excellent chapter on the subject by Long (1954:29-58) which includes five
cases. Finally we quote from work elsewhere (1975:137-44):
"One of the best documented paranormal properties of the trance state is imperviousness of the human body (especially the hands and feet) to fire. It appears to occur in every society of the world, and in all ages and cultures from the most ancient to modern times. Since the documentation is large and impressive, and the firm establishment of one paranormal property of trance or ASC makes more believable others less frequent and well documented, we devote a detailed analysis to this phenomenon. If we are to remain scientific, such analysis suggests that our present laws of physics are but special cases of more general laws,
(page 153)
and that we can begin to define the conditions (such as trance) under which the larger laws take over from the special laws of the ordinary state.
"Unlike some other paranormal effects, mastery over fire, especially as seen in fire-walking, has been vouched for by the most impeccable witnesses - in many cases western men of science, who often were not only eye-witnesses to the phenomenon, but in some cases were even tem- porarily granted the power to participate themselves. The list includes bishops, medical doctors, scholars like Joseph Campbell, and Gilbert Grosvenor of the National Geographic Society. Certainly an effect so well documented, and so much at variance with our usual concepts of physical reality, deserves careful consideration.
"Probably the best Western materials on fire-walking are the bulletins
by Price (1936) and Brown (1938) from the University of London on fire
walking conducted in England under scientific auspices in 1935 and 1937.
These reports contain extensive bibliographies, besides thorough accounts
of the firewalks supported by pictures. McDougall himself witnessed the
1935 tests where Kuda Bux walked a twenty-foot trench four times without
any hurt or blistering. (This reference is to Prof. Wm. McDougall of Harvard
and Duke.) Reports of this feat appeared in Nature (September 21,
28, 1935) and The Lancet (September 28, 1935).
1 ) Bishop Poppo of Hamburg walked through a bonfire dressed in a sheet of wax to prove to the heathen Danes of the power of God.2) Copres, an Egyptian Christian monk, was unharmed by fire, while his adversary, a Manichean, was burned. St. Francis of Assisi offered to undergo ordeal by fire before the Sultan of Egypt to prove Christianity superior to Mohammadism.
4) Petrus Igneus (Florence 1067) walked between burning pyres.
5) Petrus Bartholomeus (1098) did the same.
6) Queen Emma walked across nine red hot plowshares in Winchester cathedral in 1043.
7) Empress Kunegunde in a trance did the same in Bamberg in 1007.
"Godwin (1968:169-170) gives excellent accounts of fire
(page 154)
walking with pictures. Godwin (1968:165) states: 'There is no doubt fire-walking began as a religious rite.'
"Fire-walking occurs not only in widely diverse spots such as India, Micronesia, but also in the U.S.A. In 1935, Kuda Bux performed this feat at Rockefeller Center, New York. The only explanation for this mystifying phenomenon is that fire-walkers are either in religious trance, or have been able to achieve a mind concentration of 'onepointedness' during which extraordinary control over the environment can be achieved.
"Eliade (1964:372) notes that in Fiji, shamanistic powers such as walking on hot coals are transmitted by heredity in families. There are numerous western observations of this rite which on occasion includes other members of the tribe and even outsiders. Insensibility to fire has been documented in numerous Polynesian prophets.
"One of the earliest reliable accounts of fire-walking is given by Lang (1901:270ff) who devotes a chapter full of references to it in various localities in the Pacific.
"Fire walking in Ceylon has been the subject of magazine articles (Feinberg, L. Atlantic Monthly, May, 1959) and (Gilbert Grosvenor National Geographic, April, 1966). Each of these accounts is well authenticated by Westerners, with illustrations".
In NAC's New Zealand 2:1:p.8-9, (Dec. 1975), - (Ed. Note: This
is the complimentary house organ on the New Zealand National Aircraft Corporation's
domestic flights) -- There is an article by Joan Ellams on "The Firewalkers
of Beqa" from which we copy:
Without coming to any apparent harm members of the Sawau tribe have been walking across searing hot boulders for generations. And the scientific 'experts' are still scratching their heads. Any number of suggestions have been put forward as to how it's done, but up to now the whole thing remains as mysterious as ever.(page 155)The ceremony springs from a fable and has no religious significance. Those taking part do not spend their time before the
event either in prayer or in contemplation; they sit together in a small leafy hut and chat about their impending walk across the 'lovo' (oven).(page 156)The only rules laid down for success are that two weeks before the event those taking part segregate themselves completely from all females and leave any form of coconut out of their diet. They believe implicitly that failure to observe this taboo renders the culprit liable to severe burns.
Roughly, the ritual is divided into the following parts: first, the preparation of the pit. This is some three to four meters wide, and one to two deep. It is lined with large river stones and a huge log fire is built over them, not less than six to eight hours before the ceremony. It has been suggested that the stones quickly lose their heat, but examination has shown that this is not so. They are normal, fine-grained, igneous rock and retain heat for a considerable time.
Just before the heating time is up, the chief and tribal priest silently lead the 10 or 12 men around the circumference of the pit. They are very careful to keep their eyes averted as they are forbidden to look at the stones before they actually step on them. Their black fuzzy hair and dark skins glisten with coconut oil and around their waists are long, colourful skirts of dyed pandanus leaves. Their regalia is completed with garlands of flowers around their necks and coronets of leaves in their hair.
Then the chief gives final directions to the men of the village for the preparation of the firewalkers' arena. Armed with long poles, loops of strong green vines lashed to the ends, young men clear the burning logs from the stones. They chant in unison 'O-vulo-vulo' while they heave on the vines. A long tree-fern trunk called Waqa-bala-bala, said to contain the spirit god, is then laid across the pit, after which a large vine is dragged across the stones to level them in preparation for the walkers.
The chief takes a few trial steps on the stones to test their firmness and then calls for bundles of leaves and long swamp grass to be placed around the edge of the pit.
Those too close at hand step quickly back from the edge, for the air above the white stones shimmers with the intensity of the heat.
At last all is ready and as the chief gives a great shout of 'Vulo 0' the firewalkers burst from their place of concealment and trotting in single file approach the pit.They walk quickly but firmly across the stones. They show no signs of flinching or appear to be affected by the heat in any way. When the leader reaches the point at which he entered, a sudden shout goes up and the waiting attendants hurl bundles of leaves and grass on to the stones in the arena. The group huddle in the center of the pit with their arms around each other and amidst volumes of steam from smouldering leaves, chant a wild, passionate song.
Around the ankle of each of the walkers is a band of tinder dry tree-fern leaves and it is significant that although a handkerchief tossed on to the stones will burst into flames, this band of fern leaves does not ignite. These bands are carefully taken off and buried in the oven together with four special baskets of roots called visili. After four days have passed the roots are recovered from the oven by the firewalkers and are ground up and mixed with water. Dalo (taro) roots are then cooked in the liquid and eaten by those who took part. It is after this that the ceremony is finally considered complete.
Becla is on the New Zealand dependency of Fiji. The article contains
two photographs of the firewalk.
Godwin (1968:145-71) devotes a very complete chapter, including half-a-dozen photographs and his own eye-witness account to incidents of fire-walking on several continents.
Concerning the ability of the adept Home to control fire, Susy Smith
(1973:102-3) reports:
By any standard, Adare's account is fantastic. He declared that when controlled by spirits, the entranced Home went to the fireplace, poked up the coals, and putting his hand in, drew out a hot burning ember about twice the size of an orange. This he carried about the room to show off.(page 157)Adare continues: We all examined it. He then put it back in the fireplace and showed us his hands; they were not in the least blackened or scorched ... then kneeling down, he placed his face right among the burning coals, moving it about as though bathing it in water ... Presently, he took the same lump of coal he had previously handled and came over to us,
blowing upon it to make it brighter. He then walked slowly round the table, and said, 'I want to see which of you will be the best subject. Ah! Adare will be the easiest, because he has been most with Dan.' Mr. Jencken held out his hand, saying, 'Put it in mine.' Horne said, 'No, no, touch it and see.' He touched it with the tip of his finger and burnt himself. Home then held it within four or five inches of Mr. Saal's and Mr. Hurt's hands, and they could not endure the heat. He came to me and said, 'Now, if you are not afraid, hold out your hand.' I did so, and having made two rapid passes over my hand, he placed the coal in it. I must have held it for half a minute, long enough to have burned my hand fearfully but the coal felt scarcely warm. Home then took it away, laughed, and seemed much pleased.
A statement quoted from the Countess M. de Pomar said that another person present, Lady Comm, extended her hands, saying, 'I will take it without fear, for I have faith.' She held the coal for at least a minute without feeling any pain, and it was then placed on a sheet of paper which immediately began to blaze and had a great hole burned in it.
The ever careful Richet (1923:487) reports of Home:
The same astounding experiment was repeated on April 3d at Astley House. This seance was remarkable; it is corroborated by Mr. S. C. Hall. A lighted coal was placed on Mr. Hall's head, and his white hair was combed over the coal, and left four or five minutes: the hair was not burned: a few moments later this coal was so hot that one could not bear one's face near it.Puharich (1962:87-88) reports:
(page 158)
There are many contemporary instances of individuals who have gone through the ordeal of fire. Joseph Campbell, the eminent scholar, related to me that he experienced fire-walking in the great Shinto temple in Kyoto, Japan. He was observing monks performing the fire - walking ceremony, standing in his bare feet while the ceremony was going on. He relates that one of the monks took him by the hand and requested him to walk over the glowing coals. Following the monk and stepping quickly, and as he thought, lightly, over the coals, he was able to pass through the long pit without suffering any burns. In fact, he says that the sensation on the soles of his feet was one of coolness, rather than of heat.
For an up-to-date example of firewalking in America, we have the case of Vernon Craig of Wooster, Ohio, who in August 1979 walked a 25 foot firebed heated to 1,500 degrees in Hollywood, to break his previous record of 1,494 degrees in 1976. The Los Angeles Times (August 2, 1979) part 1, page 20, carries a photograph of this feat.
For a more naturalistic explanation of firewalking, we reproduce part
of a letter of one J. Walker, writing in the Scientific American:
237:2:131 (Aug. 1977):
Of all the demonstrations of the Leidenfrost effect, the most remarkable to me is when people walk on hot coals or lava. The Guinness Book of World Records describes a 25-foot walk over coals measured to be at 1,200 degrees F. Unverified stories of longer walks constantly emerge from the South Pacific and the Far East. In none of these cases is there any reason to invoke unusual powers. Although somehow shutting off pain information to the brain, having a deep-seated religious faith, or just being dumb enough to try the stunt might help, the primary protection to the walker's feet comes from the natural moisture on them. Each step places parts of a foot in contact with the coals, and moisture at those places partially vaporizes to give momentary protection. Sweating between footfalls can replenish some of the moisture, but eventually most of it is depleted and the foot begins to warm up perceptibly. The walk usually ends then unless the walker has an unusual tolerance for pain. A thick layer of ash and heavily calloused feet might also lengthen the walk somewhat, but running does not help because the feet are then slammed down into the coals.Having always been amazed by stories about people walking on hot coals, and having now become a firm believer in the Leidenfrost effect, I set up a five-foot bed of hot wood coals for such a walk.
I had to try it myself. Clutching my faded copy of Halliday and Resnick's Physics in one hand, I strode over the five feet of hot coals. Apparently I am a true believer in physics. I have to report, however, that my feet did get a bit hot. On well, I am almost a true believer.
Another naturalistic explanation of fire control comes from Puharich
(1962:88) who reports an article by Dr. M. R. Coe in
(page 159)
True for Aug. 1957 in which he was able (with suitable precautions) to handle very hot objects briefly, due, he claims to "microglobules" caused by sweat "on the surface of the skin" which serves as a heat barrier.
In The Odic Force, Reichenbach describes od (or pranic energy) as "feeling cool"; (cf. Sri Aurobindo's "cool wind" in Satprem). Now od, according to Reichenbach, is produced by any chemical reaction. Can it be that fire, which produces much od (pranic energy) can be the ultimate cause of cooling the feet of adepts in fire-walking?
Powell (1965:160) in accounting for firewalking, declares: "The feat of handling fire without injury may be performed by covering the hand with the thinnest layer of etheric substance, so manipulated as to be impervious to heat. . . "
He also accounts for psychic heat, thus: (ibid): "The production of fire is also within the resources of the astral plane... There are at least three ways in which this could be done: (1) to set up and maintain the requisite rate of vibration, when combustion must ensue. . .[no mention of the other two ways in the OIO book - JAG]
3.32) Psychic Heat
While those not in a state of grace may walk on fire, the production of psychic heat seems confined to true mystics and yogis; indeed, there is considerable reason for believing that it is a "siddhi." While the production of such heat is mentioned by Western mystics Richard Rolle, George Fox, and ascribed to Good King Wenceslas, it is in the East that it flourishes.
Gaddis (1967:165ff) devotes some time to psychic heat, citing Father Thurston on a number of saints who radiated so much heat that it was noticeable to others. This heat appeared to be generated near the heart. Padre Pio, the nearly contemporary Italian saint is said to have broken clinical thermometers in this manner.
Gaddis also points out that eastern mystics exhibit the same evidence, called tumo, whose development depends upon "visualization of fire and certain breathing exercises at high altitudes."
(page 160)
It is always helpful for western minds to have some explanation of rationale
and method, so, for what it is worth, we append the following quotations
from Evans-Wentz (1958:1 56ff):
The first of these is known as tummo signifying a peculiar bodily heat or warmth... generated by yogic means .... The word, tummo, refers to a secret practice of extracting prana from the inexhaustible store of pranic energy in Nature and storing it in the human body-battery, then employing it to transmute the generative fluid into a subtle fiery energy whereby a psycho-physical heat is produced... (p. 157) The yogin must employ every elaborate visualizations, meditations, postures, breathings, directing of thought, training of the psychic nerve system, and physical exercises... It is highly desirable .... to obtain initiation and guidance from a master of the art. A lengthy probationary period is usually necessary... The yogin must also observe the strictest sexual continence, for it is chiefly upon the yogically transmuted sex energy that proficiency in tummo depends.On pages 171-209 there are very detailed instructions for the practice of the psychic-heat yoga, which include posturing the body, calm and forced breathing, and meditative mental imagery. It is sufficient here to know that such accounts exist, and that they are compatible with the states intuitively attained by Western saints who possessed no such detailed instructions.
The specifics of the sheet-drying ceremonies are reported by Puharich
(1962:89):
The candidate is taken out on a frozen river, and several holes are cut in the ice at a distance one from another. The candidate is required to dive through one hole, pass under the ice, and come up at the next hole; come out, dive again, and come out the third hole, and so on, all together nine times. In Tibet the candidate for initiation undergoes a similar trial, sitting by a hole cut in a frozen lake. He sits absolutely naked and watersoaked sheets are thrown over his body. Because of the extreme cold, the sheets freeze immediately. The candidate must then generate enough body heat, called Tumo, to dry out the sheet. Success in this test is measured by the number of sheets which the candidate can dry. Some candidates have been reported to dry as many as nine or ten sheets under these frigid environmental conditions.(page 161)
The thermal powers of yogis are detailed by Swami Sivananada Radha (1971:155-6):
1) A yogi generates psychic heat in the body through the practice of Bhastrike Pranayama.2) He can bear extremes of climates without discomfort.
3) A yogi covers his body with a sheet dipped in very cold water, and dries it by the yoga heat given off by his body. A few adepts have dried as many as thirty sheets in a single night.
4) A perfect yogi cremates his body in the end by the yogic heat generated by his power of yoga.
Considering that the evaporation of 1 gram of water takes 540 gram
calories (to say nothing about any freezing or temperature elevation during
the process), and that wetting a sheet adds about 1 kilogram of water to
it, the drying of such a sheet would require 540 kilogram calories of heat
or an amount sufficient to raise 540 liters of water 1 degree centigrade.
This is about half a ton of water and, hence, represents a very considerable
amount of heat.
The Eastern explanation for this effect is that psychic heat is evolved from the kundalini fire as it ascends the chakras. Since there is a wide occult literature on kundalini, this is not the place to go further into such explanations. One might note in passing that such an explanation, if valid, would also account for the heat necessary to produce the mysterious "SHC" deaths to which we now turn.
3.33) Spontaneous Human Combustion (SHC)
Spontaneous Human Combustion is a rare and grisly experience in which the victim burns to death internally. Generally, the subject is female, over fifty, sedentary, often alcoholic or despondent, and alone. A puzzling aspect is that while the fire is hot enough to reduce most of the body, including large bones to ashes, typically the room including nearby objects is not set afire. In a typical case (Fate, Jan. 1978:69):
Of Mrs. Reeser all that remained were a few small pieces of charred backbone, a skull which, strangely, had shrunk uniformly to the size of an orange, and her wholly untouched left
(page 162)
foot still wearing its slipper. The heat necessary for such damage had to be incredible, yet the room was little affected. The ceiling, draperies and walls from a point exactly four feet above the floor were coated with smelly oily soot... The carpet where the chair had rested was not even burned through...
For another similar example see Fate Apr. 1977:66ff. In this
case, Dr. Bentley, an aged cripple, was completely incinerated, except
for his right leg. The bathrobe did not burn, and there was "a sweet odor,
like perfume" in the physician's room in place of the stench one would
expect. In Fate (Dec. 1978, p. 113) letters tell of the similar
end of Mr. Krook, a character in Dickens Bleak House, and
mention a book by Michael Harrison Fire from Heaven (Pan Books,
London, 1977), which details more modern English cases.
The Wallaces (1977:434) list the following cases of SHC: Countess Cornelia de Barde, Mr. H., Mrs. Patrick Rooney, Euspasia Johnson, Phyllis Newcombe, Mary Reiser, Anna Martin, and Billy T. Peterson.
Persinger and La Frieniere (1977:107) report:
This phenomenon not only challenges our assumptions concerning the combustion characteristics of human material, but evokes interesting problems concerning heat and matter. In classic cases of SHC, the victim generally is seen to 'burst into flames' and then quickly burn to ashes. It is claimed, in such episodes, that even the fires of the crematorium could not do the job as efficiently within the particular time interval involved. Correlative phenomena of SHC are also interesting and puzzling. While the body of the SHC victim can be severely charred or reduced to carbon, the bed sheets or clothes may be untouched or only mildly singed.Some cases designated as SHC instances were witnessed by groups of people while others are inferred following discovery of charred remains of the victim. Of the seventy-four cases of SHC included in this subcategory, the majority of victims were late middle-aged or older. In thirty of the reports which contained the specific age information of the subject, 90 percent were greater than fifty years of age. Sixty-five of the cases specified the sex of the victim, who was female 74 percent of the time. Severe burning episodes in which other factors could possibly be established or involved, were not included as SHCs.
(page 163)
Less than 5 percent of the cases involved poltergeist-like correlative events. The spatial distribution of SHC reports in the United States is shown in Figure 34. Sample cases involved:
1 .02 March, 1773/Coventry, England/fifty-year-old female; SHC.2. 01 August, 1869/Paris, France/SHC; floor burned around body; victim's bed clothes not burned.
3. 12 May, 1890/Ayer, Massachusetts/female SHC; clothes not scorched.
4. 16 December, 1906/London, England/widow, SHC; sitting in bedroom; clothes not burned.
5. January and February, 1905/parts of England/three SHCs within month.
6. 30 July, 1938/Norfolk Broads, England/SHC; woman on cruiser at time of incident; clothes burnt.
7. 18 September, 1952/(Algiers) New Orleans, Louisiana/SHC; man.
8. 18 May, 1957/Philadelphia, Pennsylvania/SHC, sixty-eight year old female.
9. - October, 1964/Dallas, Texas/woman, seventy-five years old; burns, car not touched.
10. - January, 1968/Ballinger, Texas/SHC; house with possible history of SHC.
Gaddis (1967:217-70) with his usual thoroughness devotes five chapters
to the SHC phenomenon. His material is far too extensive to incorporate
here. He quotes Dr. Jacobs (ibid:219) on some conclusions:
1 . SHC occurs only in living humans;2. Generally an older person;
3. More often a woman than a man;
4. Subject usually alone at time;
5. Subject has led an idle life;
6. Subject corpulent or intemperate.
7. Generally there was a light or inflammable substance in room.
8. The combustion was rapid, completed in seven hours.[?]
9. Room filled with thick vapor; walls covered with soot.
10. Trunk and torso destroyed; head and legs often remained.
11. SHC generally occurs in winter and in northern regions.
Gaddis gives an excellent description of the combustion process
(ibid:220), and estimates that there are 40 females to every male
victim; he also points out the presence of alcohol in practically all cases.
He also gives brief descriptions of over 20 SHC cases.
(page 164)
It seems evident that the SHC starts inside the body, perhaps in the vicinity of the lower spine. (Believers in kundalini fire will find this point of interest.) There are four times as many cases in December and January as in warmer months (Persinger and Lafreniere 1977:118). Sanderson (1978:71) believes this is due to overprotection against cold, causing sweating, which releases the vitamin B-10 (inositol), a phosphagen which is easily combustible.
Rama (1978:449ff) devoted a chapter to yogic methods of "casting off the body," which include a) allowing oneself to freeze to death while in samadhi, b) retaining the breath under water, c) consciously opening the fontanelle at top of head, d) taking the body of another (p. 454ff), and e) spontaneous human combustion, about which Rama (11978:452) remarks:
There is another very rare way of casting off the body. By meditating on the solar plexus, the actual internal flame of fire burns the body in a fraction of a second, and everything is reduced to ashes. This knowledge was imparted by Yama, the king of death to his beloved disciple Nachiketa, in the Kathopanishad. Now all over the world, instances of spontaneous combustion are often heard about, and people wonder about such occurrences. But the ancient scriptures, such as Mahakala Nidhi explain this method systematically.
3.34) The "Cold-Wind" Effect
Witnesses at seances and hauntings have often reported that just before the phenomena take place they feel a "cold-wind."
Elsewhere (1974:22) we report: "Tyrrell (1961:70) notes another fairly frequent characteristic of apparitions is that the percipient experiences a feeling of cold. He comments: 'One can see no reason for these cold feelings.' It is very surprising that a man of Tyrrell's scientific background could have missed the significance of this effect. Something is obviously drawing energy from the immediate environment, and this energy (heat) loss is immediately felt as cold."
If this is true, then we have an explanation of where the energy to produce the effect comes from. It is apparently taken out of the air (and perhaps the participants); and hence, they feel this energy loss as a temperature drop.
(page 165)
Schmeidler (1973) reported that when psychic Ingo Swann was asked to
change the temperature inside a distant thermos, significant continuous
changes on automatic temperature recorders were repeatedly produced. She
states (ibid:338):
A by-product of this hypothesis ... offers a ready explanation for the 'cold breeze' so often described in seances in which physical effects are produced. The coldness might represent an energy loss in one area which compensates for the extra energy at work in another.
Susy Smith (1975:28-9) discusses other aspects of the Swann test:
Ingo Swann is a gifted psychic and also a talented new-age artist. His extraordinary psi abilities include being able to go out of his body at will. He is very cognizant of the needs of the parapsychologists to evaluate phenomena statistically and has cooperated in a number of laboratory experiments. Dr. Schmeidler tells of laboratory experimentation with Ingo at City College where PK changes in continuous, automatic recordings of graphite become hotter or cooler from three to ten feet away - were repeatedly produced. Experimental controls included insulating the target thermistor in a thermos that was 25 feet from the subject, and counterbalancing 'hot' versus 'cold' instructions in a rigid preset design.Results of the testing were that seven of Ingo's ten scores are statistically significant, and five are highly significant. Each of the significant differences is in the direction specified by instructions; that is, the recordings show more change toward hotter temperatures in the test periods with 'make it hotter' instructions than in the test periods with 'make it colder' instructions.
Ingo's scores demonstrate a significant PK effect with the procedure used, although few of the changes were dramatic; the maximum temperature change within a single forty-five second test period only once was greater than one degree.
Smith (1975:224) says of the psychic Rudy Schneider who was then
being investigated by the psychic researcher, Price:
However, there was one manifestation he was sure they could not have produced - indeed, they would probably not have(page 166)
thought of trying to produce - and that was a recorded loss of temperature in the locked room filled with sitters. The thermometer went down eleven degrees, and this was very encouraging to Price as he had observed the same dramatic effect at other seances and knew it was a typical phenomenon.There are other rarer thermal effects of paranormal powers, but we wish to concentrate on the most documented. It is evident that in every chemical reaction, (and every biophysical function is a chemical reaction), there is either a net gain or loss in thermal energy; apparently this principle applies to paranormal effects as well as ordinary ones.
It is obvious that we are here in the presence of the same kind of "discrepancy" which led Einstein to abandon Newtonian physics and discover the theory of relativity. In short, present views about the reactive nature of mankind as a creature, are no more adequate to explain his relation to ultimate reality than was the ether theory of light able to explain the constancy of its speed. We have enough evidence in firewalking to attest that under special conditions man has the power to effect psychic transformation of energy, and this understanding is far more important in the long run than the quaint antics of playing with fire.
3.4) Stigmata
The Stigmata is a very rare but well documented phenomenon consisting of the marks of the crucified Jesus on the body of the pious respondent. St. Francis of Assisi was the first and greatest stigmatist, and we can do no better than listen to his biographer.
Bishop (1974:168-9) says:
(page 167)
He was granted his apotheosis an hour before dawn on 14 September 1224, a holy day in the Franciscan calendar. It was the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. Francis lay in one of the rocky interstices of the mountain caves. The spot is now the Chapel of the Stigmata. As Brother Leo reported, Francis prayed and was assured that God would permit him to share His Son's sufferings.
And the fervor of his devotion increased so much that he totally transformed himself into Him who let himself be crucified through abundance of love . . . Suddenly appeared to him a seraph with six wings, bearing enfolded in them a very beautiful image of a crucified man, his hands and feet outflung as on a cross, with features clearly resembling those of Lord Jesus. Two wings covered the seraph's head; two, descending to his feet, veiled the rest of his body; the other two were unfolded for flight.There have been a few other cases; those before Francis' time were doubtful; since however, there have been some validated instances.The vision faded; and Francis discovered on his hands and feet the marks of nails, and on his right side a blood-dripping wound, such as he had just seen in vision.
His hands and feet seemed to be pierced in the middle by nails, whose heads, protruding out of the flesh, were in the palms of the hands and on the upper part of the feet, while the points emerged from the back of the hands and the soles of the feet. They seemed to be bent back, clinched, so that one could easily have passed a finger, as in a ring, under the bent part, which came completely out of the flesh. The heads of the nails were black and round. Similarly, on his right side appeared the wound of a lance thrust, not scabbed but red and bloody. Afterwards blood often dripped from the holy breast of Saint Francis, staining his robe and his drawers. Thus when his comrades noticed - he had told them nothing - that he kept his hands and feet covered and that he could not put his feet to the ground, and that when they washed his gown and drawers for him they found them all bloody, they were certain that he had manifestly imprinted on his hands and feet and even on his side the image and resemblance of the crucified Christ.
Since the presence of the stigmata could hardly be dissembled, Francis decided to acknowledge them, for the edification of his close friends and followers. He exhibited them first to Leo, who acted as his nurse and bathed the oozing wound in the side. Saint Bonaventure says that more than fifty, among them Pope Alexander IV, were privileged to see and touch the holy imprints. But Francis was shy of revealing his sweet torture to the general. He kept his hands and feet bandaged, and hid himself to wash his wounds. When someone sought to kiss his hands he would extend only the tips of his fingers, or his sleeve.
(page 168)
Bishop (1974:171-2) notes:
We can hardly accept these cases - and some others less decisive - as establishing an 'influence,' or setting a precedent for Francis to follow consciously. They offer no traceable connection; they occurred at a great distance, and lack the Franciscan mystical spirit. All contemporary writers regarded Francis's stigmatization as something unique, unheard of. But the publicity attending his spiritual adventure inspired a swarm of imitators, created a vogue. A modern investigator turned up 31 cases by the end of the thirteenth century, 22 in the fourteenth, 25 in the fifteenth - 321 in all, before 1894. Of these 40 were men, 281 women. All modern critics agree that the investigator was too lenient in admitting doubtful or insufficiently documented examples; but on the other hand there were probably many obscure cases that were never documented at all.When Yogananda (1977:422) visited Theresa Neumann, she showed him healed nail-hole scars in both sides of both hands.There was Theresa Neumann of Konnersreuth in Bavaria, who first displayed the stigmata on Good Friday of 1926. She was a visionary, possessed of a dual or multiple personality. There is Padre Pic, a Capuchin friar of Foggia, who was apparently still living in 1955. The wound in his side is said to have yielded a cupful of blood daily. There was a case in Montreal, some fifty years ago. The eminent physician Jonathan Campbell Meakins, physician-in-chief of the Royal victoria Hospital and president of the American College of Physicians, told me that he examined the stigmatized woman in the hospital and could find no material explanation of her state. There were no doubt others, protected from reporters and photographers by families unwilling to divulge secrets, whether alarming or precious.
Susy Smith (1975:52ff) has a fine chapter on "Stigmatization" from which we reproduce the case of Louise Lateau:
(page 169)
One of the most exhaustively studied stigmatics in the history of this inexplicable phenomenon is Louise Lateau, a Belgian peasant girl whose case attracted more than one hundred doctors and many eminent Catholic churchmen to the tiny village of Bois d'Haine in the province of Hainault. She was born there in 1850 and lived a relatively ordinary life until she was 18. Then, after she suffered for a time from an ill-defined illness involving intense neuralgic pains, the stigmata first appeared on April 24, 1868. Bleeding wounds showed in the palms of her hands and on her feet, as if nails had been driven through them. Blood flowed from her side as from a spear wound and droplets of blood circled her brow. Her stigmata appeared between midnight and 1:00 a.m. every Friday morning and lasted for 24 hours. By every Saturday, the stigmata were dry and painless and remained so until the next Thursday midnight when they again began to bleed and hurt.Smith (1975:56) concludes:None of the doctors of churchmen who examined Louise ever had an explanation for the phenomena nor did they find any indication of trickery. Finally, at the request of religious authorities, she spent twenty weeks under the supervision of a Dr. Lefebvre, an eminent Louvain specialist in nervous diseases. During this time, the fall of 1868, many of his medical colleagues also examined the girl and witnessed the appearance of the stigmata at regular intervals.
A few years later a Dr. Warlomont, who believed Louise herself might be inducing the bleeding in some manner, conducted further experiments, sealing Louise's hands in gloves each Thursday. Nevertheless, when the seals were broken on Friday afternoon, her hands were found to have bled as usual. Dr. Warlomont then devised a glass cylinder in which her arm was sealed in such a way that it was impossible to get at her hand. When her hand was thus encased in the cylinder on Thursday, January 21, 1875, there was no sign of bleeding; but on Friday when the apparatus was examined in the presence of medical witnesses, some of them anti-clerical skeptics, the hand was found to have bled.
Father Thurston found certain similarities in nearly all the cases: first there is a background of illness, then a vivid realization and concentration on the wounds of Christ for some time before any bleeding appears. Some of the stigmatists have(page 170)
ardently desired them, feeling that it brought them closer to Christ to share his suffering. 'Whenever we have the opportunity of studying the subject's frame of mind,' Father Thurston says, 'we see the intensity of the mental impression. One would be such as is revealed to us in some of these stigmatics.'
Rawcliffe (1952:243ff) devotes a chapter to the stigmata. While
generally an unbeliever, his account is factual, and contains excellent
sources. He cannot either deny or account for some of the instances. He
follows this report with another fine chapter on possible psychosomatic
causes.
On the other side is Montague (1950:79) who gives 19 signs of the physical phenomena of mysticism, very prominent of which is the stigmata, to which this orthodox author gives much attention.
Smith (1975:56-7) also describes the case of a modern Protestant girl:
The most recent case, Cloretta Robertson - of the Easter bleeding syndrome - had stigmata just as many saints have had it; but she does not conform to the pattern at all. The 10-year-old Protestant daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Robertson of Oakland, experienced stigmata over a 19-day period before Easter in 1972, but as far as has been published, has not experienced it since; and, although she bled, she had no actual wounds.
In this case the girl had been much affected by watching a story
about the Crucifixion on television.
The Wallaces (1977:435) list the following as having the stigmata: St. Francis, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Peter de Casca, St. Veronica Juliana, Anna Emmerich, Maria von Morl, Louise Lateau, St. Gemma Calgani, Padre Pio, and Therese Neumann.
Smith (1975:56) reports:
Stigmatist St. Veronica Giuliani Of the Capuchin Order, who lived from 1660 to 1727, seemed to be the victim of a sadist because her stigmata always opened and bled at the command of Father Crivelli ...(page 171)
The best known modern stigmatist is the late Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, Italy, the only well-attested example of complete stigmatization in a male since the time of St. Francis.Father Thurston has accounts of him from eyewitnesses. One witness was Monsignor Kenealy, Archbishop of Simla, who visited him in 1920.
Certainly if proof is wanted that the mind affects the body, there
is no more dramatic illustration of it than stigmatization. That specific
and bloody images visualized by the mind can be realized on the body indicates
beyond doubt that it is the mind which produces anomalies such as disease
which are then externalized on the body.
It should be pointed out that the stigmata are exclusively a phenomenon of Christian mysticism, - the only effect which is not found in Oriental mysticism. We hazard the guess that this may be due, at least in part, to the unique personal love of Christian mystics for the body of Jesus.
One may point out that all of the powers so far considered from 3.0 to 3.3 involved some empery over time and space, - in essence the ability of the mind to dominate these variables at will. If consciousness breaks out of its space-time barrier, all of these remarkable effects are possible, and indeed most of them are obvious consequences. It may be useful, however, to indicate to those naive in physics that a speedup in chemical reaction time will support spontaneous combustion, as a slowing down of time will support greater heat dissipation.
By contrast, the next set of four powers relate to the developing independence of the body from that of being a reactive animal form, to that of being a temple of the spirit, and hence increasingly free of physical constraints.
(page 172)
3.5) Electromagnetic Properties: Prana
In Man, God and Universe I. K. Taimni
(1969:383) declares that "Prana is the material instrument of the Second
Logos or
Vishnu. It enables raw material created by the Third Logos to be worked
into living vehicles which have in them the capacity for growth." Prana,
therefore, is bioenergy, known under other names in the West, such as "od,"
"orgone," and "mana." It tends to give off electrons and photons in electrical
and chemical reactions, and this property accounts both for the healthful
"negative ions" and for the bioluminescence caused by photon emission in
living energy exchanges.
In section 2.3 we described the occult hypothesis about the etheric body. Prana is the substance constituting this body, which sometimes becomes visible or nearly so due to the emanation of pranic energy in the form of auras. Without necessarily adopting the eastern views of the etheric body, we will use the concept of prana as a useful stereotype for the bioenergy which has been given such diverse names in the West.
Odic or pranic energy seems to have some "big-brother" relationship with electromagnetic energy and ionization; in particular the former seems to produce the latter under favorable circumstances. There are four areas of interest: luminosity, auras, magnetic effects and electrical effects. We shall look into each in turn. A further area is Kirlian photography, but these phenomena have received so much attention in the literature, (Moss 1974, Krippner 1975, Krippner and Villoldo 1976, Krippner and Rubin, 1973), that we will merely incorporate this material by reference.
Wilson (1971:536ff) describes the early experiments of Baron von Reichenbach
and others:
He tried magnetising other substances; crystals were an obvious choice. These affected his patients in the same way. He then tried the effect of unmagnetized crystals, and to his surprise, these also worked. He bought a huge crystal, and drew it gently down the patient's arm; she felt a pleasant sensation like a cool breeze. Drawn upward, it produced a warmth that was not entirely pleasant. He tried it on a fellow experimental scientist, and to his surprise, this completely healthy man unmistakably felt the action of the crystal. The obvious inference was that magnets and crystals both conduct electromagnetic force; but this quickly proved incorrect. So what was the force they both seemed to possess? Reichenbach decided to call it 'odic force' or odyle. And as he went on to try more and more substances - zinc, sulphur,(page 173)
alum, salt, copper - he found that all seemed to have some degree of odic force, although the colors were often quite distinctive. His experiments with the 'odic force' of precious and semi-precious stones seemed to confirm the occult and alchemical tradition about their nature, although this aspect did not interest Reichenbach in the least, for there was nothing of the occultist about him.Human beings possess odic force in an unusual degree, he discovered; it can be seen as a kind of light streaming from the finger ends. And not only by 'sick sensitives;' Reichenbach discovered that about a third of all people seem to be more or less sensitive to the odic force.
Von Reichenbach (1851 r 1965:41) says of the odic manifestation:
Some sensitives, esp. sick persons, can see a flame issuing from the ends of a magnet; it emits a red light which acts upon photo negs; it may be concentrated by a lens, but is without heat; similarity to aurora is noticed.With regard to crystals and od (ibid:82) he declares:
Crystals also emit this force, mainly at the axes; it does not attract iron but will attract the hand of a sensitive, does not affect a magnet nor induce current; it may be charged by contact.He also notes, (ibid: 132)
The sun's rays also carry this odic power; affecting sensitives; the outer ends of the spectrum octave exert the most force, the higher wavelengths feel cool, the lower ones feel hot; the moon also possesses this power; heat is a source of it, so is friction and light.
Further he notes that odic light increases (like ionization) with
a decrease in atmospheric pressure (ibid:381).
We quote Wilson (1971:538ff) on the work of Reich:
In the year 1939 an eminent Freudian psychologist, Wilhelm Reich, startled and enraged his colleagues by announcing that he had discovered a new form of energy unknown to physics:(page 174)
the vital energy which regulates the health of living creatures. The case of Wilhelm Reich is so strange that it is worth considering at some length; it recalls Reichenbach in many ways.
Reich rediscovered the 'astral light' and called it orgone energy. This is a blue energy which permeates the whole universe, and which forms a field around living beings - Reichenbach's odyle, Pheobe Payne's 'aura.' The reason that the physical contact between child and mother relieves anxiety, for example, is that their orgone fields unite like two drops of water.In the sexual orgasm, orgone energy becomes concentrated in the genitals; it is the tingling feeling experienced in sexual excitement. Living matter is made up of 'bions,' which are tiny cells pulsating with orgone energy.
Objects could become charged with this blue energy, and would then influence an electroscope. He finally concluded that this new, unknown energy comes from the sun, and that organic substances have the power to absorb this energy and retain it.He constructed a box to prevent the energy escaping. It had to have metal walls - because organic matter absorbs orgone energy - and layers of organic matter outside, which would absorb any energy that managed to get through the metal. He observed bluish light around the dishes of the culture in this box. And then, to his amazement, he observed the same blue light in the box when the cultures had been removed.
But perhaps the most accessible work on Reich is that of his biographer
Mann (1973). Since this book is recent and available, we will incorporate
it by reference. Reich felt that this orgone energy could heal sickness,
including cancer, and ran into trouble with the U. S. government regarding
orgone energy as a cure for cancer, was imprisoned, and died there in 1957.
Summarizing the work of Reichenbach, Reich and others, Reich's biographer,
Mann (1973:116) says of the energy known as od or orgone, that it is non-electrical,
but
1) seems to be associated with magnets,
2) is polarized,
3) is released from the fingertips,
4) is related to breathing, and can be passed by touching,
(page 175)
5) comes originally from the sun, and
6) is absorbed by water and can affect plant life.
Another researcher who found that sensitives could see the pranic light associated with magnetic fields (as did those of von Reichenbach) was Coblenz (1954:59). He also reports (ibid.: 223), that there are instances of light emission from the fingers of automatic writers.
We guess that pranic energy is somehow associated with the oxygen atom, and this is why it is so easily stored in water, and in the human body (which is mostly water), and why it is inspired into the body with each breath.
Mann (1973:150ff) devotes a whole chapter to this bioplasmic energy, giving an excellent summary of human electromagnetic energies and auras. He reports (p. 150) on the work of Dr. W. W. Coblenz who in 1954 wrote Man's Place in a Superphysical World ,in which he studied the effects of magnets on the etheric body, reporting: "The magnets had an aura which operated to interfere with the tests on auric light emanating from my body." Another investigator, J.C. Maby in the 1966 book The Physical Properties of Radiesthesia, summarized the work of the masters Mesmer, Charcot, Reichenbach, as well as more recent investigators such as Albert Abrams, W. E. Boyd, Ruth Drown, and George de la Warr. He believed that the unknown energies studied by these people were physical and supernatural. He noted that the radiations from the human being are stronger when the person is emotionally aroused, and invented a machine to pick up this energy release.
Mann quotes Maby (p. 151) as follows:
I find that an imaginative person can project energy capable of affecting either the radio electrometer or a radioactive preparation in conjunction with a Geiger counter . . . by visual concentration alone ... in a way that suggests waves ... in the micro-Hertzian region of the spectrum ...
Krippner (1975:175) describes the research of Prof. H. S. Burr,
late of Yale University, who tried to understand electrodynamic biological
energy fields by measuring the difference in voltage between two points
on the surface of a living organism:
(page 176)
Burr referred to the electrodynamic fields identified by these measurements as 'life-fields' or 'L-fields.' Noting that L-fields could be used to assess drug effects and the depth of hypnosis, Burr stated: 'L-field measurements are not only useful in diagnosing local conditions; they can also be used to assess the general state of the body as a whole, for these pure voltage differences - independent of any current flow or changes in skin resistance - reveal the state of the whole human force field . . . And, as the force field extends beyond the surface of the skin, it is sometimes possible to measure field-voltages with the electrodes a short distance from the surface of the skin - not in contact with it.' This indicated to Burr that the L-field was a 'true' field that was measured.Burr maintained that L-fields help determine the growth of an organism, just as Andrade hypothesized that there was a 'biological organizing model' around each organism.
We have devoted some time to a discussion of pranic energy4
because it appears to be a very useful construct in energy transfers between
the psychic realm and ours. Indeed, we may guess that pranic energy is
the electricity and magnetism of the astral realm, and this is the reason
why it shares so many commonalities with our electromagnetic spectrum.
The operation of pranic energy of manifesting in the physical world in
living organisms appears to involve the emission of both electrons, (ionization),
and photons, (luminescence). We shall now turn our attention to some of
these applications.
3.5 1) Luminosity and Auras *
Energy exchanges are associated with chemical and/or electrical reactions, and these may produce free electrons, (ionization), or photons, (light). The more vigorously such a reaction proceeds, more electrons and higher energy photons will be produced. But the production of these two products in turn results in luminosity and auras. So whenever there is a heavy discharge of pranic energy, or any other kind of energy exchange between the etheric and physical bodies (as in illness) such effects may be seen. These phenomena include the auras surrounding saints, transfiguration phenomena, (as in the shining face of Moses and Jesus), and certain signs of morbidity and grave illness in some kinds of sickness.
(page 177)
Arbman (1963:316), a learned Swedish author, whose works are unfortunately rare in the U.S., devoted an entire section of his large work to "The origin and nature of ecstatic psychic light-phenomena," which includes a much fuller discussion of the subject than we have space for here.5
Mystic experience is commonly one of a vision of supernal light. Whiteman, (1961:27ff), commences his book on mystic experience with a chapter entitled "The Vision of Archetypal Light," with many examples of this occurrence. Leuba (1972:255) calls this apprehension of light or luminosity in the surround "photism" (for further details see chapter VI).
Bioluminescence is by no means exclusively a psychic phenomenon. Rare
cases of it are reported by Drs. G. M. Gould and E. L. Pyle in their Anomalies
and Curiosities of Medicine (New York: Sydenham Publ. Co. 1937) according
to Gaddis (1967:163):
(They) list the following examples: luminous perspiration, two cases of luminous breath, issuing from the mouths of patients shortly before death; two cases of phthisis in which the heads of the victims were surrounded by phosphorescent lights; and a victim of psoriasis who was enveloped in a luminous aura for several days. In another case a woman suffering from cancer of the breast showed a luminosity ...
Gaddis (ibid: 164) also reports an account in Annales
des Sciences Psychiques, (July 1905) by one Dr. Charles Fere, who tells
of two cases of auras about the heads and hands of two women patients who
were hysterical. He also tells of an asthma patient who had a bluish flow
emanate from her breasts.
He also notes Fodor's reference (Encyclopedia of Psychic Sciences, p. 209) to the research of Prof. Dubois of luminous wounds in "billious, nervous, red-haired and alcoholic patients." Luciferin and luciferase, constituents of ATP, and utilized by fireflies, were found in the supporations.
Tromp (1949) conducted an exhaustive investigation into electromagnetic effects in and around living organisms.' His chapter on this subject alone contains 286 pages, giving summary reports of many investigators. On pages 22-25 he discusses the
(page 178)
Gurwitsch effect - (mitogenic radiation in the ultra-violet at 2000 angstroms) in association with the growth of plant and animal tissue. It appears weak and intermittent, being given off at certain critical times in developmental process. He postulates three possible explanations for this radiation: a) oxidation, b) glycolysis (splitting of glucose into lactic acid), and c) proteolysis (breaking down of proteins), all suspected of contributing to the ensuing bioluminescence.
Dingwall (1 926b;1 95) reports of the medium Pallidino that on one occasion she materialized dancing lights like fireflies. "One of these lights actually settled in the palm of M. Omati, an engineer by profession, who was able to examine it carefully. He experienced no sensation of heat, and the surrounding skin was hardly illuminated."
On another occasion (ibid:206) lights appeared "twice over her head, once in her lap, and once at the side of the curtain furtherest from her. They were of three kinds, a steady blue-green light, a yellow light, and a small sparkling light."
Bayless (1973:73ff) devotes a chapter to luminous manifestations. The
most common of these are seen at or around the time of death. Also, not
rare, are luminous discs and lights during seances. He also discusses self
luminous apparitions of the dead. Another excellent source book on mysterious
lights is Gaddis (1967) which contains several chapters on this subject.
Hunt and Draper, (1964:184) quote Tesla as follows:
In some instances I have seen all the air around me filled with tongues of living flame. Their intensity, instead of diminishing, increased with time.(page 179)This luminous phenomena (sic) still manifest themselves from time to time as when a new idea opening up possibilities strikes me, but they are no longer exciting, being relatively of small intensity. When I close my eyes I invariably observe first a background of very dark uniform blue, not unlike the sky on a clear but starless night. In a few seconds this field becomes animated with innumerable scintillating flakes of green, arranged in several layers and advancing towards me. Then there appears to the right, a beautiful pattern of two systems of parallel and closely spaced lines at right angles to
one another in all sorts of colors with yellow-green and gold predominating. Immediately thereafter, the lines grow brighter and the whole thing is thickly sprinkled with dots of twinkling light. This picture moves slowly across the field of vision and in about ten seconds vanishes to the left leaving behind a ground of rather unpleasant and inert gray which quickly gives way to a billowing sea of clouds seemingly trying to mould themselves in living shapes.
Farges (1926:547) describes the official Catholic position on "luminous
effluvia:"
Ecstasy, occasionally ascensional, is perhaps still more often luminous. Benedict XIV states, in fact, that there would be no end to the enumeration of all the case of supernatural splendour with which the saints were irradiated, if such were desired.Varieties. - Sometimes it is the head or the face alone that gives forth a luminous aureole, but often the whole body also is surrounded with light. Ecstatics have been seen, although more rarely, to light up the whole church or cell during their nocturnal ecstasies; so much so as to suggest a fire, which others have run out to extinguish. Instances of fiery rays escaping from their eyes or hands are also cited.
He notes that prototypes of such irradiations are the shining face of Moses coming down from the mount (Exodus 34) and the transfiguration of Jesus of Mt. Tabor when his face shone like the sun (Matthew 17).
Mann (1973:143ff) in his work on Reich, devotes a chapter to the
human aura. He cites the work of Kilner (1911) who described the human
aura thus (Mann, 1973:145):
If someone was placed against a dark background in twilight a slightly luminous mist, oval in form, was seen around his body. It had three distinct zones. The first was a dark edging, half a centimeter wide, surrounding the body; this was the 'etheric double.' Outside this was the interior aura, dense and streaked perpendicularly to the body; this was from three to eight centimeters in width. Finally came the exterior aura which had no definite contour.Kilner claimed to find a link between the aura and the conscious mind, as it nearly disappeared in trance, and did so at
(page 180)
death. Though Kilner used dyed screens for perceiving the aura, Mann (1973:146) feels that his "success was probably attributable to his unwitting possession of clairvoyant powers." Other healers including Cayce, Garrett, and Worrall also see auras and use them to heal and diagnose disease; Cayce wrote a book on the subject.
The human aura, as well as the aura surrounding all living things (e.g., a leaf) has been photographed by Kirlian Photography (Moss, 1976:56). In one case described by Moss a leaf was cut, and then photographed; the missing piece showed in the photograph; hence, the aura showed the still intact etheric leaf.
On Sept. 15, 1979, the writer attended a workshop on the human aura by Dr. Valerie Hunt, of UCLA, Rev. Rosalyn Bruyere, a local aura reader, and Emelie Conrad, a shaman. The meeting was held in Beverly Hills. The following are notes gleaned from the proceedings, mostly from Rev. Bruyere. She conceives that the aura is an electromagnetic phenomenon - one is literally seeing ionization; and that high altitudes and dry weather conditions due to increase in negative ions, decrease the auric level and increase seratonin and melatonin discharge in the body. If your depth perception is accurate, it is easier to see auras, because you look at the person directly not his background. Most Westerners produce yellow aura when in the left hemisphere and blue in the right, while Easterners produce orange and purple. Shamans and schizophrenics, however, produce two white horned plumes of aura from the right and left frontal lobes: psychics and shamans, hence, are healed schizophrenics. The auric field is a transaction between the human system and the cosmos.
3.52) Electrical and Magnetic Properties
While electrical discharges from humans are rare, there have been instances. Persinger and Lafreniere (1977:108) in their catalog of Fortean events turned up twenty instances of humans having either electrical or magnetic properties including an 1877 case where a 17 year old girl showed high voltage discharge following illness, and a Washington, D.C. man gave out paralyzing electric shocks when touched. There was also the Maryland youth who became magnetized and attracted iron objects.
It may be remembered that the Pentecostal experience of the Disciples (Acts 3) was accompanied by "tongues of fire." But
(page 181)
this rare phenomenon can also happen on more secular occasions, as witness
Richet (1923:487) describing a seance with Home:
Other strange things were seen - a form like a bird flying and whistling in the room, tongues and jets of fire from Home's head; then as it were the blast of a strong wind, 'the most weird thing I ever heard.'It is possible that this is an example of "St. Elmo's fire" a heavy brush discharge of static electricity which glows like a fire. Moses' "burning bush" could also have been of this kind. These phenomena are akin to those of "ball lightning" whose causes are still poorly understood, and whose behavior is rather mysterious.
But heavy ionization of ordinary air during thunderstorms can cause
remarkable static-electric effects. Consider the following such description
from a Pike's Peak storm in Gaddis (1967:46-8):
The hair and whiskers of observers were electrified. When charged with the electrical fluid, parts of the bodies of the men became luminous... The observer on placing his hands... where the electrical excitement was abundant, did not discover the slightest sensation of heat, but his hands became instantly aflame . . . The flames issued from his fingers with a rushing noise... The hair on his head stood erect and the pricking sensation on his bareheaded scalp was extremely painful... The peculiar smell of electrical odor (ozone-JCG) was noted.All this, due to the rarefied air at the mountain top, is very similar to the electrical glow inside a neon tube.
Apparently luminosity is also produced in persons suffering from a serious disease under certain conditions. Gaddis (1967: 178ff) devotes several pages to accounts of this sort. Among others he notes the report of Ransom in Electrical Experimenter (June 1920) concerning victims of botulism who developed magnetic powers while ill. Fodor (Psychiatric Quarterly, April 1948) tells of PIK powers associated with cholera, and Coe adds that some other botulism patients glowed in the dark. Gaddis (1967:169) also tells of "human magnets, "- persons who attract metal objects. He (1967:169) also describes infants who seem to be born with an electric charge. A half-dozen cases of such infants or children are described; in some cases luminosity was also exhibited. Gaddis (1967:168) notes that some unusual persons seem to store up high
(page 182)
amounts of static electricity, and consequently frequently start fires by sparks.
Tiller in "Energy Fields and the Body" (White, 1974:277), says:
I propose that the manifesting of psychoenergetic phenomena is associated with taking the primary energies in the body and making them coherent. In my modeling, I suspect that if we took all the energy in a single human body and made it completely coherent, there would be at least enough energy to create our entire universe at the physical (incoherent) level. You see, the basic energy is already there; it is just that it is in an incoherent form, and our job is to make it coherent. This we do by developing atunement with nature through our meditation, our thoughts, and our actions - i.e., it takes work.
If this line of reasoning is plausible, the sudden increase in coherence
in a biological system caused by the possible infusion of cosmic energy
could have caused a "spillover" discharge of energy (much like synchrotron
radiation), as in the case of the "burning bush" of Moses.
After a careful examination of the biological effects of magnetic fields Barthnody (1964:277) concludes:
There remains no reasonable doubt that living systems are extraordinarily sensitive to magnetic fields. By extremely simple experiments it is possible to prove that highly diverse types of animals and plants may have their orientation modified by artificial fields of the order of strength of the geomagnetic field. This has already been established in our laboratory not only for the snails and flatworms, but also for the fruit fly Drosophila and the unicellular Paramecium. The colonial flagellate Volvox also is sensitive to very weak magnetic fields (personal communication from Dr. John D. Palmer). The nature of the organismic response is, however, far from simple. The systematic and periodic alterations in the strength and character of biological response suggest a highly differentiated response mechanism within the organism and belie any conclusion that the responsiveness is adventitious. To the contrary, the nature of the response properties suggest that the organism is normally integrated with its geomagnetic environment to a striking degree.(page183)
Concluding Remarks: It is quite obvious from the rather unorganized material in this section and the lack of an over-riding rationale, that we are not in possession of all the facts regarding the electromagnetic properties of pranic energy. (The singular behavior of "ball-lightning" is enough evidence of that.) Despite the work of Burr, Reich, and Tesla, we still are much in the dark regarding fundamental relationships in this area. One guess is that pranic energy is to electromagnetic energy as the etheric body is to the physical body.
3.6) Independence from Physical Functions
One of the most interesting signs of saintly development is that it gradually seems to free the body from the routine performance of animal functions. Such changes are not found in nonsaintly paragnosts. Of the five principal functions (breathing, eating, excretion, sleeping, and sex), enough has been written elsewhere about dimunition in breathing and sex activity so that these changes will not be pursued further here. There is no information on excretion, so we will be confined to reductions in eating (inedia) and in sleeping (non-somnia). It is well known that such reductions take place naturally as part of monastic life, but we are interested in rare cases where there is alleged to have been a cessation of such function altogether.
3.61) A Note on Chastity
We have deleted discussion on cessation of breathing, excretion, and sexual activity as unprofitable. But we would like to append a short note on continence.
It is fashionable in Western intellectual circles to decry the requirement of continence in monastic life, as an outmoded concept which modern psychology has exploded; indeed, chastity in secular life is far from the norm, as older sanctions against it disappear. The author confesses that he has long held these characteristic Western views. Yet, it may be time to take a second look.
Hindu tradition, unlike Christian, gives us some thoughtful reasons for such prohibitions in those who wish to follow the religious life. While the instructions are confined to males, it appears that for safe passage of the kundalini fire up the spine, a transmu-
(page 184)
tation of the seminal fluid is required in order to serve this higher use; and that subsequent to the ascent of the kundalini, any lower use of procreative powers may be not only deleterious but actually dangerous in a kind of "short-circuit" phenomenon. Storing of the prana in the body in enough quantity to produce healing and siddhis is not possible when activity in sexual life continues, according to these sources. And this is the real reason for asceticism in monastic life. It is true that storing up pranic energy may result in poltergeist-like spillovers, but as the Cure of Ars (who had such problems) would have said: "It is easier to face the Devil than a beautiful woman, and escape unscathed."
3.62) Inedia or Independence from Food and Drink
In some cases of devout persons, it appears that they are able to subsist without food or drink (in the case of Catholics, the Host is excepted). Some other method of obtaining energy is adopted (in the case of at least some mystics this appears to be from the sun). Inedia is a siddhi resulting from samyama on the trachea given by Patanjali's sutra 30 (Ayrana 1977:342).
Jung (Stern, 1976:50) described the enigma of a Swiss saint, Brother
Klaus, of whom it was said that for twenty years he had touched neither
food nor drink. Jung accepted this fact as "corroborated by reliable witnesses."
Yogananda (1977:422) devotes a chapter to the mystic, Therese Neumann,
who took no food except the Host. Concerning this matter of inedia, he
says (ibid:539):
The non-eating state attained by Giri Bala is a yogic power mentioned in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras III:31. She employs a certain breathing exercise that affects the visudda chakra, the fifth center of subtle energies located in the spine. The visudda chakra, opposite the throat, controls the fifth element, akash or ether, pervasive in the inter-atomic spaces of the physical cells. Concentration on this "wheel" chakra enables the devotee to live by etheric energy.
Farges (1926:560-1) describes the inedia of several saints:
Blessed Angela of Foligno remained for twelve years without taking any nourishment; St. Catherine of Siena about eight years; Blessed Elizabeth of Rente more than fifteen years; St. Lydwine twenty-eight years; Blessed Catherine of Racconigi(page 185)
ten years; Dominic of Paradiso twenty years; in our own day, Rosa Andriani twenty-eight years; Domenica Lazzari and Louise Lateau fourteen years.(page 186)In order to prove the authenticity of these facts Benedict XIV drew up very severe rules of criticism. But we must not think that before his time these marvels were accepted with naive credulity without previous inquiry. The more astonishment they raised, the more they provoked mistrust, suspicion, watchfulness, and often unbelief.
Pope Innocent VII, during his sojourn at Perugia, had a judicial inquiry made into the case of Blessed Colomba of Rieti, who had taken no nourishment other than the eucharistic bread for more than twenty years. In 1659 the famous shepherdess of Laus was taken to the Bishop's house at Embrun in order to be more easily submitted to an inquiry respecting her visions and abstinence; she was guarded day and night for a fortnight. In 1813 Catherine Emmerich, whose abstinence was no less remarkable, was watched and guarded day and night for ten days by order of ecclesiastical authority. The twenty burghers entrusted with this prepared a circumstantial report, which was also confirmed by her physician, the famous Dr. Overberg.
In 1868 the abstinence of Sister Esperance of Jesus was officially confirmed by the Bishop of Ottawa, assisted by two physicians, one, Dr. Baubien, a Catholic, and the other, Dr. Ellis, a Protestant. She was subjected to most rigorous supervision for six weeks, locked in a room and guarded and watched by sisters who never left her. At the beginning of the experiment she weighed 113 pounds; at the end, in the presence of the Bishop of Ottawa, her weight had reached 124 pounds. The venerable Dr. Landry, Professor at the Faculty of Medicine of Quebec, who came to Royau in 1880, also testified to this in the presence of Dr. Imbert.
From October 25 to December 7, 1877, the abstinence of Josephine Reverdy was examined in like manner, as related in detail in the Apparitions de Boulleret, chapter V. She was constantly watched by ten women or girls, five by day and five by night, and the authenticity of the fact was recognized.
Moreover, there is another kind of control which goes to confirm the first and does away with any doubt. Not only do these abstaining saints eat nothing secretly, but they can no longer eat anything without throwing it up again immediately. It is not merely that they are exempt from the hunger common to
all men, but also unable to sustain any earthly nourishment other than the Holy Eucharist.3.63) Non-SomniaHere, for instance, is the testimony of Blessed Raymond of Capua with regard to the inedia of St. Catherine of Siena, whose confessor and biographer he was. At first her extraordinary fasting had produced murmurings against her from her companions and from all who knew her. She was accused of wishing to surpass the fast of our Lord, of seeking after singularity, and so on. Raymond himself was alarmed at these murmurs, and feared lest he were mistaken in his direction of this soul. In order to cut short the scandal he desired to force her to eat. Through obedience she did so, but very soon threw up all that she had taken with atrocious suffering, even to the vomiting of blood.
While there are many examples in history and contemporary life of the reduced need for sleep in those of saintly or intellectual life, we know of very few instances where sleep has been entirely done away with. One is the account of Ram Gopal, the Hindu "sleepless saint" to which Yogananda (1977:157ff) devotes a whole chapter.
One of the effects of the practice of meditation is to reduce the hours needed for sleep. (See, for example, Satprem 1968 on Sri Aurobindo's practice.) And another effect seen in advanced meditators and others is the recurrence of lucid sleep, when the cosmic consciousness is found in the sleeping state as well as the waking.
Non-somnia, however, is not found among the siddhis resulting from Patanjali's sutras.
(page 187)
3.7) Post-Mortem and Trans-Mortem Effects
This is a recondite area, about which there is little information. We touch lightly on the following sub-categories: .71) transfiguration, .72) translation, .73) automatic disposal of body after death, .74) incorruptibility of the cadaver, and .75) knowing the hour of one's death. What we appear to have here is no less than the resurrection promised by Jesus, namely the ultimate translation of the ascended being into cosmic light (cf. John 1977:239). In this view, transfiguration is a prefiguration of this integration, a sighting of the etheric body in its glory. The others are lesser levels afforded to those who did not reach translation -"consolation prizes" -- as it were, in the road to nirvana.
3.71) Transfiguration
On Mt. Tabor, before Peter, James, and John (Matthew 17: 2), Jesus "was transfigured before them, and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light." At his side were Moses and Elijah; a voice spoke to the disciples out of a cloud, and they were afraid. This is the classic example. It is possible that the transfiguration experience is a sighting of one of the higher vehicles of man, perhaps the etheric. Other lesser instances of translation have been St. Seraphim of Sarov (John 1978:282) and possibly St. Francis of Assisi. There have been other examples of shining faces (e.g., Moses, Exodus 34). Patanjali's yoga sutras No. 40 ( Aranya 1977:351-2), says that by "conquering the vital force called samana .... the yogin can become effulgent and excite the radiance in the body."
3.72) Translation
Translation - "to convey or remove to heaven without death" is mentioned
in the Old Testament in connection with Elijah and Enoch. While Elijah
was purportedly carried to heaven in a chariot, the translation of Indian
saints seems to take place in a flash of light. John (1978:242-3) describes
the translation of Chaitanya, Jnanehwar, Tukarum, and Ramalingam. Mohammed
is believed by Muslims to have been translated. Some Christians believe
that the shroud of Turin was caused by the translation of Jesus' body into
a flash of light. We append the account of the translation of Tukarum as
typical (ibid:273):
Tukarum sang late into the night: 'I have seen my own death with my own eye. It was inconceivably holy.' At the peak of his ecstasy, a blinding blaze of light caused his followers to close their eyes. When they looked again, Tukaram was gone.
Skarin (1952:183,4), who according to the frontispiece in her book
was herself translated, tells of nine others who were translated. (The
author has had personal communication from a woman who claims her husband
was also translated following the
(page 188)
directions of Skarin. We state this information as a matter of record. Despite questioning, we were not able to shake the story, nor did the woman show other signs of mental instability.)
3.73) Automatic Disposal of Body after Death
It is stated that one power of Adepts is to be able to cremate their body after death. Other traditions have it that aged Hindu saints pen themselves up when nearing death, and food passed in is no longer consumed. When friends break in, no corpse is found (John, 1978:24). Krippner and Villoldo (1976:168) describe similar situations which might be either translation or automatic disposal in the case of Inca saints. It may be that some cases of "SHC" (see Section 3.33) should come under this heading.
3.74) Incorruptibility
A far more common phenomenon is incorruptibility of the body (non-decomposition), which has been attested to many times, usually in connection with disinterring of the corpses of saints. There are, of course, natural reasons why incorruptibility can occur, but they are rare.
3.75) Knowing the Hour of One's Death
This phenomenon is quite common, even in ordinary people, and there
are many examples of it in literature, history, and ordinary life.8
(page 189)
3.8) Levitation
Let us imagine that disincarnate intelligence wished to prove transcendental reality to us mortals; what means would be the most efficacious? Certainly the answer is levitation; for as others have noted, while reports of other types of miracles may be considered exaggeration, levitation is an either/or "experience." Either it occurs or it does not. There is no middle position. The reason most people cannot accept levitation is not because of the weakness of the testimony, but because its existence is such a flat contradiction to all they have believed about the nature of physical reality. Because of its egregious nature, we shall hence give levitation a considerable emphasis in this taxonomy. We ask the reader to suspend his judgment in an empirical inspection of the facts and data. If he be unwilling to assign a truth value at the 5% level of significance to any given datum, let him conduct in his mind a non-mathematical means test, and ask himself, what is the cumulative effect of such wealth of testimony, often from otherwise honest and even saintly persons, from every age and culture, from different religious persuasions (or from none at all). It is not a pleasant affect to have an empirical inspection overturn a deeply held prejudice, but paradigms exist to be supplanted, and even the most tenaciously held ones must finally yield to the simple data of experience.9
While there are many reports of levitation in every age and culture, we shall confine our attention to three categories where it has been especially well documented or reported. These are in order:
a) Levitation among Christian mystics,These three categories had their apices in Europe during the 12th, the 19th and the 20th centuries respectively. Doubtless, we show Western provincialism in this restriction. There are many accounts of levitation among Asian shamans, and as well among Hindu holy men, but space limitations force neglect of these.
b) Levitation among profane paragnosts, and
c) Levitation as a Transcendental Meditation siddhi.
3.81) Levitation Among Christian Mystics
While rare, levitation is by no means unique among Christian saints and mystics, usually occurring in ecstasy or mystic rapture. Farges (1926:537) chronicles it in St. Paul of the Cross,
(page 190)
St. Philip Neri, St. Stephen of Hungary, St. Peter of Alcantra, St.
Francis Xavier, St. Agnes, and St. Joseph of Cupertino. He states:
St. Peter of Alcantra was unable to hear the lofty words of St. John VERBUM CARO FACTUM EST pronounced without falling into ecstasy and being raised above the earth. The Franciscan Biago of Caltanisetta went into ecstasy simply at the names of Jesus and Mary and sprang into the air enraptured with their beauty. Blessed Giles of the Order of St. Dominic remained suspended in the air in ecstasy for whole nights without it being possible to bring him back to earth or even to give the least inclination to his body. After her communion Mary of Agreda became slightly raised above the ground and seemed to be so light that those who stood by her were able to rock her with the slightest breath. King Philip II experienced the same phenomenon with Fr. Dominic ... St. Thomas of Villanova while preaching one day in his cathedral went into ecstasy and remained suspended in the air twelve hours...Further, being sent to Rome to see Pope Urban V III(p. 13):The greatest flyer of them all was the famous St. Joseph of Cupertino to whose attested exploits Dingwall (1962a) devotes an entire chapter. A monk of notorious mortification (p. 12) while praying in chapel one day, was observed by a group of nuns: Suddenly he rose up into the air and with a cry flew in the upright position to the altar with his hands outstretched as on a cross, and alighted on it... The nuns ... cried out loudly, 'He will catch fire.' But his companion who was present, and accustomed to such sights, told the nuns not to lack faith, as he would not burn himself. Then with another cry Joseph flew back into the church in a kneeling position, and alighting on his knees began to whirl ... dancing and singing, being filled with joy and exultation...
On finding himself in the presence of the supreme pontiff, Joseph was seized by ecstatic rapture, and rose in the air, remaining suspended until recalled to his senses by the fathergeneral. The Pope was so much impressed by this surprising event, that he is said to have declared that if Joseph should die during his pontificate then he himself would testify at the canonization.Entering the basilica of Assisi (p. 14), he saw a picture of the Virgin on the ceiling. Uttering a cry, "Joseph rose into the air
(page 191)
and flew 18 paces in order to embrace it, crying out, 'Oh, my Mother. "'
During his years at Cupertino and in the monastery of Assisi, his flights
are too numerous to describe (p.14), though there are several recorded
accounts of his flying onto the altar or pulpit during Mass, when transported
in ecstasy. His flights never disturbed anything on the altar. Further
says Dingwall (1 972a:16):
It is recorded that one day a priest, who was walking with him in the kitchen garden, remarked how beautiful was the heaven which God had made. Thereupon. . Joseph, uttering a shriek, sprang from the ground, and flew into the air, only coming to rest on top of an olive tree where he remained in a kneeling position for half an hour. It was noticed with wonder that the branch on which he rested shook only slightly as if a bird had been sitting on it.
In these transports, Joseph was able to carry heavy crosses, and
in one instance a fellow priest (p.17), without difficulty. He is also
said (p.18) to have cured a mad knight by taking him on an aerial journey.
The Duke of Brunswick, visiting Assisi in 1651 was converted to Catholicism
after surreptitiously observing Joseph in chapel saying private Mass (p.
19):
There they heard him give a loud cry and saw him rise in the air in a kneeling position, passing backward five paces and then returning in the front of the altar, remaining in ecstasy for some time.
This shook up the Lutheran, and the next day he was present at Mass.
And this time he saw Joseph raise a palm high from the altar step and remain floating for a quarter of an hour. The Duke was so overcome by the sight that his doubts were resolved and he became a Catholic.
The great Leibnitz, the Duke's librarian, states that the Duke was
converted by the wonder-working friar (p. 20).
Another noble who vouched for the miraculous powers was the Infanta Maria, daughter of the Duke of Savoy, who witnessed
(page 192)
several levitations, (p.20). Still a third noble was the Admiral of Castile who, with his wife, witnessed a flight of twelve paces over his head in the chapel, (p. 22).
His physician several times observed him in rapturous flight, on one occasion when he was cauterizing Joseph's leg, (p. 26-7), the saint was completely insensible to the pain, and levitated. Joseph even rose from his death bed, (p. 28), and flew from his cell to the chapel. Three cardinals also testified that they had seen him levitated in the canonization process, (p. 23). Besides St. Joseph, (Dingwall, 1972a:166) tells briefly of other levitators, Sister Marie, and the Franciscan monk, Juan de Jesus.
Bishop (1973:166) tells about the levitation of St. Francis, and adds
an important footnote about the importance of levitation itself, and his
own bias about it:
Francis's escape into a private world naturally roused the curiosity of the five companions. Leo, presuming on old intimacy, spied on the Master, and was rewarded by seeing him frequently levitated to a height of about twenty feet, sometimes to the treetops, and once nearly out of sight.10
It is also easy to overlook the levitations of Jesus, in walking
on the waves, the Transfiguration, and the Ascension.
As Dingwall is careful to point out, Christian mystics are not the only ones who fly, (1962:30-1). "Holy men and ascetics in India and the Far East have many times been described as levitated" and even savage tribes have their flying shamans.
Rama, (1978:442), tells of an almost incredible experience with the
post mortem of a yogi who had predicted the time of leaving the body. After
trying to lift the corpse and finding that it had acquired supernatural
weight, he recalls what happened next:
I shall never forget the experience. A few minutes before sunrise I heard someone say: 'Now we will carry him.' There was no one around, so I thought: 'Perhaps I am imagining it.' My brother disciple also looked around. I asked, 'Did you hear something?' He said, 'Yes, I also heard it.' . . . Suddenly the man's body rose into the air, apparently of its own accord, and moved slowly toward the Ganges. It floated on the(page 193)
air, a few hundred yards, then lowered and sank into the Ganges.
Stace (1960:182) quotes St. Teresa's account of her levitation:
At other times, resistance has been impossible: my soul has been borne away, and indeed as a rule my head also, without my being able to prevent it: sometimes my whole body has been affected, to the point of being raised up from the ground.This has happened only rarely; but once, when we were together in choir, and I was on my knees and about to communicate, it caused me the greatest distress. It seemed to me a most extraordinary thing and I thought there would be a great deal of talk about it; so I ordered the nuns (for it happened after I was appointed Prioress) not to speak of it. On other occasions, when I have felt that the Lord was going to enrapture me (once it happened during a sermon, on our patronal festival, when some great ladies were present), I have lain on the ground and the sisters have come and held me down, but none the less the rapture has been observed.
I can testify that after a rapture my body often seemed as light as if all weight had left it: sometimes this was so noticeable that I could hardly tell when my feet were touching the ground. For, while the rapture lasts, the body often remains as if dead and unable of itself to do anything: it continues all the time as it was when the rapture came upon it - in a sitting position, for example, or with the hands open or shut. The subject rarely loses consciousness: I have sometimes lost it altogether, but only seldom and for but a short time.Pope Benedict XIV is quoted on the subject by Farges, (1926:547):
Ecstasy in fact is a participation, although imperfect, in the beatific vision of the elect in heaven, and levitation is a participation in the gift of agility which the bodies of these blessed ones possess in glory. Rapture of the transfigured body thus becomes the manifest sign and symbol of that of the soul, and the resemblance of our saints on earth to the blessed in heaven appears then to be more complete and more striking.(page 194)
3.82). Levitations of Non-Religious Paragnosts
While the medium Euspasia Palladino was detected in fraud, some of her feats defy it. (Dingwall, 1962b:204) reports an early eyewitness account of the levitation of a table under bright lights.
Probably the most celebrated levitator of modern times was the redoubtable Home who was accustomed to float around during seances, and often levitated objects including on one occasion, a piano, (1972:86): "While the Countess was seated at one of Erard's grand action pianos, it rose and balanced itself in the air during the whole time she was playing it." On another occasion, (1972:90) a table was lifted from the ground.
Here, (Home, 1972:177-8), is an interesting account of Home's levitation
by a seance witness:
Another hand now appeared and on Mr. Home being touched by it, he exclaimed, 'They are raising me; do not look at me 'til I am above the table, as it might have the effect of bringing me down.' Almost at the same time Mr. Home was raised up and floated in the air at a height of about five feet . . . but upon approaching the window, he came again gently to the ground. He remarked; 'Their strength is hardly great enough yet, though I feel it will come soon. . . . At the same moment the same hand that had before imparted such supernatural strength to Mr. Home was again seen grasping him. His arms were raised above his head, and he was again lifted about two feet off the ground and carried to the window where he was raised to within about 18 inches of the ceiling. After remaining floating for about two minutes he descended; but on coming near his chair, he was again elevated and placed in a standing position . . . his weight not resting on it, it had no effect, nor was there even a creak heard. In about a minute both Mr. Home and the small table were elevated for a fourth time in the air about a foot ...
As this passage shows, Home believed that spirits levitated him
and the objects he designated.
Dingwall, (1972a:) also reports some other levitations of Home not mentioned in Home's own book. On page 100, Reverend Davis reported "he saw D. D. Home float around Mr. Hall's drawing room." Dr. Harriet Clisby "was levitated along with
(page 195)
Home in her own lodgings, " (p. 101).
The description of a witness of a seance is quoted in Home (1972:38-9):
The table was actually lifted up from the floor, without the application of a human hand or foot! A table weighing, I should judge, one hundred pounds, was lifted up a foot from the floor, the legs touching nothing. I jumped upon it, and it came up again! It then commenced rocking, without, however, allowing me to slide off, although it canted at least to an angle of forty-five degrees! Finally, an almost perpendicular inclination slid me off, and another of the company tried it with the same results. These things all happened in a room which was light enough to allow of our seeing under and over, and all around the table, which was touched by no one except the two persons who respectively got upon it to keep it down!Home's own reactions follow: ibid.:39):Suddenly, and without any expectation on the part of the company, Mr. Home, was taken up in the air! I had hold of his hand at the time, and I and others felt his feet - they were lifted a foot from the floor! He palpitated from head to foot apparently with the contending emotions of joy and fear which choked his utterance. Again and again he was taken from the floor, and the third time he was carried to the lofty ceiling of the apartment, with which his hand and head came in gentle contact.
I omitted to state that these latter demonstrations were made in response to a request of mine that the spirits would give us something that would satisfy everyone in the room of their presence. The medium was much astonished, and more alarmed than any of the rest, who, I may add, took the matter calmly, though they were intensely interested.
During these elevations, or levitations, I usually experience in my body no particular sensations than what I can only describe as an electrical fullness about the feet. I feel no hands supporting me, and since the first time, above described, I have never felt fear, though should I have fallen from the ceiling of some rooms in which I have been raised, I could not have escaped serious injury. I am generally lifted up perpendicularly;0. my arms frequently become rigid and drawn above my head, as if I were grasping the unseen power which(page 196)
slowly raises me from the floor. At times when I reach the ceiling, my feet are brought on a level with my face, and I am as it were in a reclining position. I have frequently been kept so suspended four or five minutes, an instance of which will be seen in an account which is given of occurrences in the year 1857, at a chateau near Bordeaux. I have been lifted in the light of day upon only one occasion, and that was in America. I have been lifted in a room in Sloane Street, London, with four gas-lights brightly burning, with five gentlemen present, who are willing to testify to what they saw, if need be, beyond the many testimonies which I shall hereafter adduce. On some occasions the rigidity of my arms relaxes, and I have with a pencil made letters and signs on the ceiling, some of which now exist in London.
Further on Home's levitations, Doyle (1926:1:195-6) tells us:
Take this question of levitation as a test of Home's powers. It is claimed that more than a hundred times in good light before reputable witnesses he floated in the air. Consider the evidence. In 1857, in a chateau near Bordeaux, he was lifted to the ceiling of a lofty room in the presence of Madame(page 197)
Ducos, widow of the Minister of Marine, and of the Count and Countess de Beaumont. In 1860 Robert Bell wrote an article, 'Stranger than Fiction,' in the Cornhill. 'He rose from his chair,' says Bell, 'four or five feet from the ground . . . We saw his figure pass from one side of the window to the other, feet foremost, lying horizontally in the air.' Dr. Gully, of Malvern, a well-known medical man, and Robert Chambers, the author and publisher, were the other witnesses. Is it to be supposed that these men were lying confederates, or that they could not tell if a man were floating in the air or pre-
tending to do so? In the same year Home was raised at Mrs. Milner Gibson's house in the presence of Lord and Lady Clarence Paget, the former passing his hands underneath him to assure himself of the fact. A few months later Mr. Wason, a Liverpool solicitor, with seven others, saw the same phenomenon. 'Mr. Home,' he says, 'crossed the table over the heads of the persons sitting around it.' He added: 'I reached his hand seven feet from the floor, and moved along five or six paces as he floated above me in the air.' In 1861 Mrs. Parkes, of Cornwall Terrace, Regent's Park, tells how she was present with Bulwer-Lytton and Mr. Hall when Home in her own drawing-room was raised till his hand was on top of the door, and then floated horizontally forward. In 1866 Mr. and Mrs. Hall, Lady Dunsany, and Mrs. Senior, in Mr. Hall's house, saw
Home, his face transfigured and shining, twice rise to the ceiling, leaving a cross marked in pencil upon the second occasion, so as to assure the witnesses that they were not the victims of imagination.Zollner (1881:206) gives Lord Lindsay's account:In 1868 Lord Adare, Lord Lindsay, Captain Wynne, and Mr. Smith Barry saw Home levitate upon many occasions. A very minute account has been left by the first three witnesses of the occurrence of December 16, of this year, when at Ashley House, Home, in a state of trance, floated out of the bedroom and into the sitting room window, passing seventy feet above the street.
I was sitting with Mr. Home and Lord Adare, and a cousin of his. During the sitting Mr. Home went into a trance, and in that state was carried out of the window in the room next to where we were, and was brought in at our window. The distance between the windows was about 7 feet 6 inches, and there was not the slightest foothold between them, nor was there more than a 12-inch projection to each window, which served as a ledge to put flowers on.(page 198)We heard the window into the next room lifted up and almost immediately after we saw Home floating in the air outside our window.
The moon was shining full into the room; my back was to the light, and I saw the shadow on the wall of the window-sill, and Home's feet about six inches above it. He remained in this position for a few seconds, then raised the window and glided into the room, feet foremost, and sat down.
Lord Adare then went into the next room to look at the window from which he had been carried. It was raised about 18 inches, and he expressed his wonder how Mr. Home had been taken through, so narrow an aperture.
Home said, still entranced 'I will show you,' and then with his back to the window he leaned back, and was shot out of the aperture, head first, with the body rigid, and then returned quite quietly.
The window is about 70 feet from the ground. I very much doubt whether any skillful tight-rope dancer would like to
attempt a feat of this description, where the only means of crossing would be by a perilous leap, or being borne across in such a manner as I have described, placing the question of the light aside.There is some conflicting evidence about this feat, as noted by Dingwall (1962a: 114-116). For another account of this and other phenomena associated with Home, see the chapter in Brown (1972:245-68).
-- Lindsay, July 14th, 1871.
We have tabulated in Table III-3, the many levitations described by Home in his autobiography (1962), including the type of levitation, the light, the height, the time, the witnesses, the narrator, and other remarks.
We have given attention to the levitations of Home, as he was perhaps the most famous paragnost, and accounts of his levitation are especially explicit. He was also, on several occasions, levitated himself; while in most other mediums there was levitation of inanimate objects only, apparently a much more easily accomplished task (and also one more easily open to fraud). We have, therefore, avoided many examples of alleged levitation during dark seances of light objects, such as bells, books, candles, handkerchiefs, etc.
Zollner (1881:56, 80) reports levitations of tables, chairs, and other objects, some during daylight in the presence of a medium:
Mrs. Nichols was with them at table, and reports that, as they were conversing, loud raps responded, and the heavy table loaded with dishes, when no one touched it, rose up some inches from the floor, and so remained, while she stooped down to see that all its feet were in the air. This is common enough in the presence of mediums, but the very powerful action in the drawing-room, in the light of mid-day, with no person near, seems to me novel and remarkable.Moss (1974:384) has a section on levitation and notes the Cyril Scott book The Initiate in the New World which describes his eyewitness of a levitation performed by his guru.
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TABLE III-3 LEVITATIONS DESCRIBED BY HOME IN INCIDENTS IN MY LIFE
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The Wallaces (1977:438) list the following levitators: Colin Evans, Witch of Navarre, Don Juan, Daniel Home, Juan de Jesus, St. Joseph of Cupertino, Carlo Mirabelli, Stainton Moses, E. Pallidino, Willy Scheider. Photos exist in the cases of Evans and Mirabelli.
Eliade (1972:409) tells us: "Buddhist texts speak of four different magical powers of translation, the first being the ability to fly like a bird. Patanjali cites the power to fly through the air."
Richet, the French professor of physiology, was a famous and careful psychic researcher. His 1923 book devotes a chapter (p. 546-51) to levitations of the human body. He cites the French authority, Gorre (Mystique Divine, Paris: Poussielque, 1883), and the De Rochas sequel (Recueils de documents relatif a la levitation du corps humain, Paris: Leymarie, 1897), both of which cite many cases, including those of St. Peter of Alacantra, Christine, Agnes of Bohemia, Bernard de Courleon, Dalmacius of Gironne, St. Francis, St. Joseph of Cupertino (to whom Gorres assigns 12 pages), St. Paul de la Croix, St. Theresa, St. Philip de Neri, Dominique San Diego, Salvator de Horta, and more recently in the 19th century, Fornat, Dhiere and the Cure d'Ars. Partial levitations, in which there was a weight loss registered on scales, are also noted. Richet (1923:402-423) also gives details of dozens of levitations of tables and other objects in the presence of a medium. His explanation for these examples of PK in its most spectacular mode is that ectoplasmic rods or limbs usually invisible, expressed from the medium's body, accomplish the maneuver.
Here it should be observed, that if levitation of profane paragnosts is accomplished by pseudo-pods (psychic extensions of their bodies), it may have a different cause than levitation of saints, or persons in ecstasy or a state of grace, for which quantum mechanical rationales are advanced. It may be that all these different explanations are mere categorical components of a noncategorical truth which cannot be expressed in words. We are not in a position to judge, and so present the evidence and various theories to account for the phenomena, merely noting that there may be differences in them.
If levitation is accepted, it raises some very profound questions about gravitation, which is a far less well understood subject than most of us imagine. The possibility of gravitons, or
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gravitational corpuscles, and gravitational waves cannot at this time
be discounted.
3.83) Levitation in the Transcendental Meditation Siddhis Program
A great deal of modern interest has recently been centered on widely
reported accounts with pictures of TM practitioners levitating during meditation.
Special courses are apparently necessary for this phenomenon to take place;
a remarkable accompaniment of the levitation is a first attempt at scientific
investigation and explanation of the effect. We shall accordingly give
this development considerable attention.
Orme-Johnson and Farrow (1977:701-2) describe this in greater detail:
In their advanced training these teachers received specialized techniques known as the TM-Sidhi techniques, which are designed to elicit certain creative capabilities which in the past have been considered quite beyond the normal human repertoire of behavior. These abilities include knowledge of objects hidden from view, awareness of past and future, fully developed feelings of friendliness and compassion, enhancement of sensory thresholds to near the quantum mechanical level, invisibility, and levitation or "flying."
The basis of these abilities is the state of pure consciousness, the simplest form of awareness, and its associated state of highly coherent physiology. In principle the TM-Sidhi procedures simply make use of the insight that pure consciousness is the underlying field which structures not only the thought(page 202)
process but also the basic physical fields of gravitation and electromagnetism. By virtue of adopting specific procedures at the level of pure consciousness it is possible to make use of fundamental physical laws in such a way as to achieve the outstanding performance detailed in this research. The purpose of doing so is firstly to demonstrate to the student that he indeed possesses, in the form of the simplest state of his own awareness, the means to achieve all that is necessary or desirable in life, and secondly to strengthen the stability of pure consciousness by repeatedly subjecting it to procedures which integrate it with dynamic activity. Thus, the TM-Sidhi practices simultaneously test and strengthen pure consciousness in order to produce total integration of physiology.
Further to the specifics, Orme-Johnson and others say (Orme-Johnson
and Farrow 1977:708):
In a second study it was found that experiences of the siddhis develop in stages. Course participants were separately interviewed and were found to reach a consensus on the major stages of development of the experiences of several siddhis: Flying, Friendliness, Invisibility, Omniscience, and Strength. For example, the technique for "flying" (2, p. 349) has produced a variety of experiences that range from an awareness of the body becoming permeated by space and in some cases a mental and physical feeling of lightness, to an upward current of energy which may be accompanied by shaking of the body, fast breathing, and a spontaneous forward ballistic motion of two or three feet or "hop" from the sitting position; to "hopping" with an intense sense of transparency and lightness accompanied by increased control of direction; to more developed experiences such as feeling another upward impulse while still in the air; to a feeling of suspension in the air for a few seconds. An example of "hopping" is the following experience: 'I was sitting on a couch meditating at the time. I felt a tremendous amount of energy go through me and simultaneously I had a vision of my spine and my chest being just white light and a form in the air some place and then my body moved up and down on the couch two or three times. I thought, 'Oh, what is this?' and the next experience I had was hearing my body touch the floor. I say 'hearing' because I didn't feel it until after I heard it. It touched down, very, very softly. There was very little feeling of contact. I moved about a six-foot distance at that time.'
It is of interest that these stages correspond to stages of "flying" described in the Shiva Samhita (8, p. 30) of several(page 203)
thousand years of antiquity which states that first the body will shake, then hopping will occur, then the aspirant will "walk on air."
Levitation during meditation, while almost unknown among TM meditators
who have not had this special training, seems to be reasonably common among
the graduates of the special Siddhi course. The writer has talked with
several who admitted that this effect occurs with some regularity during
their meditations. They spoke of "bumping" as the most common experience,
necessitating a pillow or other soft substance on the floor. Sustained
flying appears rare, although personal report turned up at least one such
instance.
TM sources say that the levitation effect is produced by careful observance
of the injunctions in one of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. According to Singularities,
January 31, 1978:
The power of levitation comes about when the experimenter practices a three-fold form of concentration upon the relationship of the physical body to space. The three aspects ... are: fixing one's attention on a single object, continuing that attention without a break in concentration and with a particular intent in mind, and finally merging with the object of that concentration.
Orme-Johnson and others (1977:709) in a footnote explain the key
word sanyama as follows:
Sanyama is the basic technique for Performing the siddhis described by Patanjali. It entails the coming together of three elements: dhyana, the sequential flow of thought; and samadhi, transcendental consciousness of unbounded awareness. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali contain sutras of phrases containing ideas pertaining to specific siddhis upon which sanyama is performed.
Dharana (Evans-Wentz, 1958:177) is described as "yogic mastery
of the thought process" (ibid:329), a condition of unbounded awareness
and (in its highest state) of unmodified consciousness or boundless meditation.
3.84) Theories to Account for Levitation
Facts which should be taken into consideration:
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1. The levitated individual is not aware that he is about to be levitated; levitation comes as a surprise. St. Joseph of Cupertino seems always to have given a shriek.2. The individual, while in levitation, does not press upon places where he alights; he is apparently weightless during such periods.
3. The weightless effect can be communicated to those with whom the levitator holds hands, as in the case of St. Joseph and the mad knight, Home and his friend, and Jesus on the waves and St. Peter. (Notice what the Ghost of Christmas Past said to Scrooge in a similar context.)
4. The levitated individual seems always to be in trance or samadhi,
We may inquire how those who were levitated thought it was accomplished.
Home gives good testimony on this. He felt (being a Spiritualist) that
departed spirits summoned up enough strength from the sitters and himself
to materialize enough force to hold him up. Palladino appeared to believe
much the same. Doyle (1926) and other scientific investigators felt that
levitation was due to the action of an ectoplasmic psychic nimbus.
Levitating saints generally have believed that they were sustained by angels. One reason for this belief was that the vestments of the female levitators were never allowed to give onlookers immodest views.
Transcendental Meditation levitators have explained their levitation in terms of an ordered quantum mechanics state, as we have seen.
From this we gain the generalization that each levitator interpreted
the phenomenon in accordance with his belief system, and we may add the
corollary that since these differ and the phenomenon is the same, they
all may have been mistaken. Perhaps the force which sustains a levitator
is no more personal than the force which sustains a bridge, but is simply
an example of the different laws when paraphysics is contrasted with physics.
Puharich (1962:209) states:
It is a long-standing legend that Yogins in the state of samadhi
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are capable of physically floating off the ground. If this is true, it would mean that the psi-plasma envelope of the Yogin contains a shielded region of marked decrease in the value of the gravitational constant. Hence the pull of the earth would be shielded and the individual would float. This possibility should be included in the list of critical experiments. One would have to search the world for a few individuals who claim to be able to do levitation. We could then conduct experiments comparable to those done by Sr. William Crookes on D. D. Home. Here the levitating individual is placed on a platform scale which under the constant gravitational pull of the earth would register a given amount of mass. The individual would then attempt to decrease this mass by undergoing the necessary mental operations to achieve levitation. This would be reflected in a loss of mass on the scale. There are a number of experiments from the last hundred years which state that weight losses up to 10% have been registered. If one could find such individuals one would have the simplest of all possible tests of the psi-plasma hypothesis.
While Puharich (1962:183-5) attempts a complex explanation of levitation
in terms of diminution of gravitation due to peculiar reactions in the
human nervous system, we shall here reject all physical explanations in
favor of the theory that levitation constitutes clear evidence of the regnancy
of a transcendent reality of greater order (the reference beam in the hologram
paradigm), and that sensory reality is but the virtual image imprinted
on the brain, as discussed in the introductory chapter. Physical reality
as in levitation or in cases of spontaneous healing has to be altered to
fit the sudden, perceptual change in the receptive mind. This is essentially
what Castaneda meant by "seeing" a separate reality.
Looked at from a higher point of view, levitation and precognition are egregious assaults on the concept that life is confined to material sensory reality. Both are absolute, admitting no middle ground; both are flagrantly antithetical to materialistic philosophy; both offer spectacular possibilities for demonstration.
3.9) Invisibility
Outside of the Gyges parable by Socrates, there are very few, if any, accounts in the west of invisibility, though it is a Vedic siddhi (No. 21, Aranya 1977:327). "By practising samyama on the appearance of the body. . disappearance from view is
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effected." Besides Patanjali's Yoga sutras, it is rumored that this
siddhi is also being taught in the TM advanced program. We read in Orme-Johnson,
et al. (1977:708):
Invisibility has been described as ranging from a tingling sensation and/or a cool feeling in the body; to a feeling that 'the energy which is usually being sent out from the body is now falling back into itself' so that 'its radiations are collapsing inward'; to a feeling that the body is completely 'hiding itself' so that all that is left is the 'I-sense'; to becoming a white cloud, subjectively transparent.Because of its very nature, invisibility is a far more difficult effect to prove evidentially than levitation; and, consequently, it is not so much "showcased." According to Singularities (Jan. 31, 1978), it says of invisibility: "To become invisible, according to Patanjali, involves the same process as levitation except that the object of one's concentration is the form and color of one's body."
The Pribram-Bohm holographic model is helpful in a rationale for invisibility, since there could well be an angle at which an imprinted hologram does not illuminate a virtual image.
Rev. Rosalyn Bruyere said at a Beverly Hills workshop (9/15/79) that
bringing the aura inside the body can make one invisible.
3.X) Body Size and Weight Changes, Abnormal Strength
This category comprises a whole family of siddhis which relate to changes
in body function, more general than some of the specifics treated earlier.
in corroboration we read in Long (1954:213-4):
Many reports have included the appearance of materialized forms, which were either larger or smaller than it is to be supposed the living person had been. This is similar to the phenomena of elongation of a living medium at seances, in which the medium's body has been seen to become longer by as much as two feet. (The kahunas believed that the shadowy body of a thing could be made larger or smaller.)Let us consider "d," the distance between objects in 3-D
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space. For us this distance is a constant (the shortest distance between two objects is a straight line). But 4-space or in space under the influence of psychic force, "d" may be a variable with our "d" as its maximum. If "d" be reduced by delta "d" in flux under such influence, then points separated by "d" will be observed to be separated by "d" - delta "d" (somewhat less); and, hence, elongation may appear to take place.
3.Xl) Elongation
Bodily elongation is a very unusual power, but it is specifically referred to by Jesus (Matt. 6:27) in a cryptic utterance, "Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit to your stature." This is apparently not a rhetorical question, but a challenge to the audience that until this siddhi can be performed, amateurs should comport themselves as tyros. There are very few accounts of this power, but they are found in both holy and profane persons and in Hindu and Christian sources.
Palladino (Dingwall 1962b:182) "was able to increase her height by more than 10 centimeters."
Home (Richet, 1923:486) was another paragnost able to perform this feat.
Richet reports: "That day Home's body was elongated... His ordinary height
is five feet eight inches; he elongated to six feet five and one-half inches."
Again quoting the Adare source, Richet (ibid) reports of Home:
Levitations were frequent, and still more frequent the elongations, this latter a singular phenomenon very susceptible of mistake, for which we have no parallel. Home was placed against the wall, Adare being in front of him; then his arms seemed to lengthen and his breast to swell. Home said to me, 'Adare, you see the extension is from the chest.' He again placed himself against the wall and extended his arms to their ordinary stretch. I made a pencil mark on the wall at the ends of his fingers. He then lengthened his left arm and I made a fresh mark; then his right arm, which I also marked. The total elongation, measured in this way, was nine and one-half inches.
Patanjali sutra No. 45 (Aranya 1977:363) involved a number of bodily
changes, among which is "mahima, by which one can increase one's
size or stature."
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3 X2) Size and Weight Changes
There are some traditions of giantism and miniaturization from Eastern sources, but none in the Western world. We shall confine our notice to measured weight changes and instances of immoveability.
St. Mary Magdalene (Dingwall 1962b:124) was an ecstatic who after Mass passed into a trance state and became rigid as if glued to the floor. All efforts to get her unstuck failed. There are other examples of immoveability among the saints.
Size and weight changes are mentioned in siddhi 45 (Aranya 1977:363) which specifies 1) minification, b) weight decrease, and c) increase of stature among other powers.
Speaking of weight changes in experiments with Home, Doyle (1926:1:245-6)
remarks:
The most marked of these results was the alteration in the weight of objects, which was afterwards so completely confirmed by Dr. Crawford working with the Goligher circle, and also in the course of the 'Margery' investigation at Boston. Heavy objects could be made light, and light ones heavy, by the action of some unseen force which appeared to be under the influence of an independent intelligence.
Weight changes are among the most interesting phenomena connected
with these powers, particularly as they suggest hypotheses about that nature
of the powers. For example, Dingwall (1962b:199) tells us about an investigation
of the medium Palladino:
One result of the committee's inquiry was to establish without shadow of doubt that many of the phenomena were objective and not due to hallucination on the part of the observers. With the medium's chair placed on a balance, it was evident that when the table was completely levitated, an increase in her weight resulted, roughly corresponding to the weight of the table.
The medium, Home, was also able to produce weight changes. Said
Sir David Brewster, a participant at a Home seance (Home 1972:67): "The
table was made light and heavy at com-
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mand. - On another occasion nine witnesses signed a statement which read in part (ibid:24): "It was perceived on lifting one end of the table, that its weight would increase or diminish in accordance with our request." On a third occasion of seance (ibid:200), "The table was made excessively heavy; four of us stood up and tried to lift it with all our power; it would not stir, neither could we turn it around. Dingwall (1962a:1 87ff) in a valuable appendix contains an extensive bibliography of the prodigies of Home.
3.X3) Extraordinary Strength
That ordinary people may possess extraordinary strength in crises is proverbial; we should not, therefore, be too surprised if it accompanies trance in paragnosts and saints.
It is difficult to separate this power from that of levitation, since they often occur together. St. Joseph of Cupertino (Dingwall 1962a:17) manifested it when he levitated a very heavy cross.
Home also manifested this power (Home 1972:177):
A block of wood, from the large arm of the tree of great weight ... was taken up by Mr. Home, as if it were a straw, carried around the room under his arm... It seemed to be of no weight to him, yet when two gentlemen, essayed, they could hardly move it.As we have just mentioned, this power is a siddhi (No. 24, Aranya 1977:331), developed by samyama on physical strength.
This particular power does not seem so strange to Westerners, since there are many accounts of persons possessing enormous strength when confronted by a severe crisis wherein subconscious factors took over.
Dingwall (1962b:80) tells of the ecstatic Gabrielle who willingly suffered forty heavy blows on her stomach with a mallet without any apparent injury, and afterwards begged for more.
Dingwall (1962b:182-5) contains a valuable bibliography of citations on the spectacular somatic aspects of religious frenzy in the United States, many of which involve extraordinary somatic behavior.
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Patanjali sutra No. 24 (Aranya 1977:331) declares that "by practicing samyama on physical strength the strength of elephants can be obtained."
3.Y) Externalization of Sense Organs, Odors of Sanctity
This power is difficult to explain, but apparently what happens is that the senses become independent of the body, so that what we have is the apotheosis of the sensorium. Patanjali sutra No. 47 (Arayna 1977:365) says that "by samyama on the receptivity, essential character, 'I-sense,' inherent quality, and objectiveness of the five sense-organs, power over them can be acquired." On page 268, sutra No. 48 follows with, "Thence come powers of rapid movement as of mind, action of sense-organs independent of the body, and mastery over the primordial cause."
This last and ultimate physical power blends naturally into knowledge abilities (especially 4.3, 4.4 and 4.5), vision through opaque objects, miraculous touch, and miraculous hearing, all of which involve transcendence of physical sensory organs, and each of which will be discussed later in place.
The peculiar sweet, ethereal odor of some saints and Eastern holy men is well attested. While more or less of a curiosity, it seems to be connected with the exaltation of the sense of smell.
Yogananda (1977:481) reports that the etheric body has all the sensory organs; "but employs the intuitional sense to experience sensations through any part of the body."
Susy Smith catches a glimpse of the exterioration of the senses from
the physical body to the etheric energy body by quoting the following dialog
between Psychic magazine and the psychic Ingo Swann (Smith 1975:30):
PSYCHIC: Then perhaps you think a person exists in this dimension and in another one at the same time?SWANN: Oh, yes. This has been generally accepted in historical psychism, but not nearly enough research has been done on it. We are always prone to interpret a psychic event in terms that the five senses can appreciate. Yet we have to establish greater senses in order to establish a reality for these things that exist at other places.
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Conclusion
What shall be said in explanation of all these marvels, which represent,
(to be frank), a "cock-of-the-snoot" to scientific materialism, since every
conceivable liberty is taken with its laws. We can, of course, as many
do, simply deny that data, and try to sweep it under the rug. Being an
empiricist, and jealous of personal honesty, this is not for the writer.
One is then left, it seems, with three alternatives:
1) The data can be, according to the classical view, the work of spirits, both disincarnate and those who have passed over. But despite the immense number of saintly persons who have believed in this explanation, it somehow does not satisfy.2) A better explanation in these eyes is that of sensuous reality being a holographic (virtual) image of a hologram imprinted on the brain, so that the world of physical reality is, (as Khayyam and Hesse both said), like a motion picture projection capable of being instantaneously changed when new film is introduced. If all of the psychic effects in this chapter are reviewed, it will be seen that each of them is amenable to this explanation.
3) But a third and vague alternative is offered us. Is it possible that this whole answer is not only grander than we imagine, but grander than we can imagine? And if so the stumbling block is the "we," for is the personal individuality the last illusion to be surmounted? What does it suggest when in exalted states we find that the individual mind somehow has access to general knowledge? It suggests, it seems, that there is but one general mind, and individual minds are but shadowy and evanescent illusions of it.
1 Recent developments in physics, especially the "non-locality" principle (cf Zukav 1979: 302-316) indicate that even physical particles which are separated in space may be informationally connected in some higher manner. If everything is somehow connected to everything else, telepathy becomes a natural consequence.
(page 212)
2 We have confined our selective analysis of possession to the "highest"
examples of
it in mediumship; for more primitive accounts, the reader is referred
to Prince (1968).
3 C.R. = critical ratio. A C.R. of 2 places the possibility at the 5%
level, of 2.56 at the 1% level, of 3 at the .003 level.
Further to prana and air, see Puharich in Regush (1977:62-22).
5 Arbman (1963:295-309) details a number of "ecstatic light experiences" occurring to those in mystic ecstasy. In these the light seems immanent in the room, rather than proceeding from any given source; there is sometimes an afterglow in shining faces of participant(s). We have earlier stated our belief that in such cases the hologram illusion of physical reality is temporarily set aside, and the light represents interior illumination of the reference beam of cosmic Ground.
* Further to luminescence, auras, etc., see Tompkins, P. L., and Bird, C. The Secret Life of Plants, New York: Harper and Row, 1973.
6 Further to electrodynamics and life, see Burr in Regush (1977:233ff).
7 But see statement of Yoganada (1977:424) re Therese Neumann to whose inedia and stigmata he devotes an entire chapter.
8 For examples of exact premonitions of death see Richet 1923:350ff.
9 Leuba (1972:258), ever the skeptic, treats this subject as "impressions" of levitation, and dismisses them as OBE's or hallucinations.
10 "Most miracles can be explained away, as exaggerations or variations of familiar reality. But levitation is absolute; it must be exactly true or totally false. I do not believe Brother Leo's story;" (Bishop's footnote quoted exactly - JCG).
SPECIAL NOTE
As this book is in press, the author is chagrined to find that he has
overlooked a fine book by the Englishman Michael Harrison on SHC called
Fire From Heaven. (U.S. ed New York: Methuen Co, 1 ). The book
is very complete and contains a long bibliography.
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