How accurate is afterlife knowledge that is obtained through hypnosis?

A friend told me that she read that P.M.H. Atwater stopped using hypnosis because it really troubled her that the people she hypnotized would experience according to her expectations.

Perhaps it is more than what a hypnotist says. If a person is in a hypnotic state, perhaps he or she is more capable of receiving the thoughts, beliefs and intentions of a hypnotist, even if this hypnotist doesn't say anything.

Going by his book "Life Between Lives" Michael Newton provides a lot of suggestions when he hypnotizes people.  Here are his instructions for Soul departure:

"You are now fully in a soul sate, directly connected to the highest consciousness of your mind, which is like a vast computer holding all the stored knowledge of your entire existence. As an eternal, timeless being, you will remember incredible details about your immortal life between lives, and thus you will be able to respond to my questions about your life as a soul quite easily.

We are now going to a place of expanded awareness as you move upward into the loving realm of an all-knowing spiritual power. Even though you are only at the gateway to this beautiful realm, your soul can feel the joy of being released. Everything will become very familiar to you as we progress further because this peaceful realm embodies an all-knowing acceptance.

You are now going to move away from your body in perfect comfort. Soon you will receive divine help in releasing all negative energy from your physical life.  You will be entering your eternal home where we can talk about your immortal life and all the lives you have lived before with objectivity and understanding because this is the spiritual realm of planning and harmony."

Perhaps Michael Newton came up with this script after finding what many people have found without a script. I don't know.

I would think one's higher self/guidance would take part in such a session, but perhaps they can't if there are too many suggestions and expectations that come from the hypnotherapist who has been put in the position to influence the person hypnotized.

Thank you, recoverer.

I've meditated on these points you bring up and basically agree with you.
Also I got some input from my OverSoul/ HigherSelf that yes, hypnosis does block information from spiritual sources, and that is why they don't advise hypnosis as a method of treatment.

Some of the phrases used in these examples do leave some room for interpretation. so I've been wonderring what ever happened to pearly gates to heaven, and everlasting life on a cloud?  :)

Bets

Dave's not here, but he could talk about this intelligently, as he does, or did, regressions as his occupation.
it's possible there are some regressionists more competent than others, and therefore less likely to influence what comes through.

It is more rewarding to see your own visions and other lives without help from the outside. I think if you've had many lives, you are apt to feel more at one with most anybody u meet, because you've been there, done that. I think the word hynotizing and regression are two different concepts. one was used for show purposes, like a demonstration. the other, regressionist, is not used for show purposes, and so the intentions are to get to the truth and reject what is not coming up that has not the ring of truth to it.

a good regressionist is not fooled.

Dave_a_mbs in some of his posts was sceptical about Newton, as the latter had been suggesting too much in his sessions.

I suggest :-) everyone who goes to a hypnosis regression session, and to whom it is something really important, should make a record of the session, so that afterwards one can recapitulate what informations may have been provoked by something the session leader said. But as Recoverer said, it might even be that someone picks up thoughts, or something which has been said before the session.

Now, when we think about this "suggestability" or "front loading"- bias, is there any method which doesn't carry this problem? I don't think so. In all ancient meditation techniques, as far as I know, there is massive front loading. Or think of TMI, let's imagine there is a participant who never has heard about anything of RAM or similar authors, would get no advices, and the HemiSync wouldn't contain any verbal guidance. Would the results be the same? I don't think so.

So, we might go along with Bruce and take it from the practical side: Priming the pump with active imaginery, imagination as a tool, or way of perception. You then have to decide what part of your experiences is actively made up by yourself, and which is not. The most things we get aren't easily to verify, but it happens that what we experience on a mind-journey is so unexpected, foreign, and far out that we must at least conclude, there has not been our usual kind of imagination at work, but something different.

Spooky

Thank you for your higher self feedback Betson. If we have a set opinion of how things are, how much can be revealed to us?

In line with what Spooky wrote, I make a point of not believing anything I read completely, even when a source seems trustworthy, so I can figure things out myself, rather than following the script of what I read.

Albert-

Several years ago Bruce said that he questioned the validity of the information obtained via hypnosis, precisely because of leading questions by the hypnotist and by clients' desire to please by giving answers they know the hypnotist wants.

I've read Newtons' books and initially was impressed, but like so many other things re the afterlife, learned that skepticism is always the best approach pending independent verifications.

Rondelle:

Good point about a client wanting to please.

Attached is an article that talks about creating false memories through hypnosis. I remember Don spoke about this in the past.

http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/sciam.htm

despite the wanting to please idea, which I can say does happen, there's a little thing we study here called intention.

when two or more are joined in intention to create good, as in a healing situation, which is generally why one would go to see a regressionist, not a hypnotist, is to enact some sort of healing in the mind.

they might wish to uncover other lives associated with this one. unfinished business so to speak. If the person doing the session is the perfect guide, he or she knows exactly that this relationship must have the highest intention; for healing of what's bothering the client. closure.

the intention is what determines the result. a joining of minds occurs wherever love is. where love is, truth is the certain outcome.

this is spoken of in the bible, "whenever two or more are gathered, there I am in the midst."

but you don't have to be religious to discover the spiritual principle behind this saying. discernment of practitioners must be done when meeting them in person. do not trust the media to tell you the truth.
you must enter their energy field in person. we are each guided to the perfect person to help us.

Well, I still want to be hypnotized.

With a camcorder running through the whole session.

I am curious to see 'who' I was before hand.
Most importantly my most recent incarnation.
I do not think I was a very 'Nice Guy'.

I've no direct experience of hypnosis or regression, but I've had the same thought about psychic readings passed to me about deceased persons I had relationships with which while incredibly accurate seemed to draw on memories of them which in some cases were very specifically mine. i.e. trivia which were meaningful to me, but not necessarily to anybody else.

It's hard not to conclude that the psychic was not at least in part accessing my mind and memories.

Perhaps hypnotism enables something similar albeit by an apparently different method in that the subject talks out loud rather than sending at a more subtle level -  so that when the subject is too heavily front end loaded the hypnotist in effect gets back his/her suggestions.

Put another way. I've several times suggested that what we interpret as accessing past lives may in fact simply be our partially accessing in higher states of consciousness other lives lived out by members of our disc/collective - whether past, future or concurrent. That the presumption that what we perceive was a past life of ours may simply be an artefact of our tendency to see everything in personal/me/individual self terms.

It's maybe possible to simplify by saying that higher states of consciousness as Alysia says inevitably involve ever higher levels of integration/more seamless communication between apparently individual minds.

Meaning perhaps that all methods of accessing information by extra normal means (whether by hypnosis, regression, psychic readings or whatever) may draw on this basic phenomenon.

If that's the case then it's perhaps the ego driven delusion of physical individuality/selfhood which seems so real at C1 level that is the peculiarity and the barrier to this seamless communication.

That all of the above methods are simply means of getting above/beyond the resulting highly restrictive C1 belief system. e.g. that we can only communicate using the physical senses, but that this is only because duality/the dream of separation is only so pervasive at this level of existence....

PS A further consequence of this would be that information accessed by these means are the contents/beliefs of the mind(s) involved, by whatever means and whether living or deceased - no more, no less, whether correct or not; and certainly not deserving of being treated as some sort of higher truth. (as we're often inclined to do out of some sort of reverence/assumption of knowledge/assumption that the afterlife is a heaven)

Which if true gels rather well with the often made observation to the effect that the afterlife generally doesn't hold the answers to the big questions. i.e. absolute truths. What's accessible there may be a more evolved view than here (if you look in the right places that is), but only incrementally so since it's based on the life experience of deceased beings presumably assisted by the Holy Spirit much as is the case here.

Vajra brought up mediums. I figure that just as you can get mixed results from mediums, you can get mixed results from hypnosis.

About four years ago I went to a new age fair. Free psychic readings were provided. I got readings from four different mediums. None of them found the same thing. There were a couple where if I took what they said too seriously, I could've freaked myself out. Fortunately, the four I sat with unsubstantiated each other.

If one goes to a medium or hyponotist, there is always the chance one will be provided with false information. How will one know if this is the case? Perhaps it is better if one tries to make contact with one's higher self. Perhaps the time has come for people to be more self reliant, rather than relying on other people so much. How many people have been fed false beliefs from the preachers, gurus, hypnotists and mediums that are a part of this World? Once a person learns to make contact with his or her higher self/spirit guidance, or just simply listens to one's intuition and heart which is related to listening to one's higher self, will one need to be reliant on others? Will our higher self be able to reach us if we insist on clinging to false ideas? What would be the point of our higher self doing so if we choose to cling?

Albert-

Several years ago a close friend of mine (former Catholic priest!) who was very interested in past life regressions.  There was a guy at work who we knew who was experienced in doing regressions and in fact had a contract with the Navy for hypnosis work (not involving past life stuff).

He offered to put my friend under and to regress him to a past life or lives.

My friend went into a deep hypnotic state and while under, he gave a stirring account of being a civil war soldier who lost his life during a battle at Gettysburg.  He said he was a private named Bruce Watson.

When he came out of hypnosis, he told us that he could hear the sounds of the battlefield and could see fierce battles all around him.  He was convinced that it was genuine.

To make a long story short, years later he was re-reading a book about the civil war (of which he was always fascinated) and came across an account of a battle along with the name of Bruce Watson!

Turned out, of course, he had read that book years prior to his hypnosis session and the name of BW had been buried in his subconscious only to re-emerge while he was hypnotized.

Bottom line is that we have to very careful before jumping to conclusions.  In his case he was initially convinced he had been a soldier during the civil war with the name of BW.  Now he realizes he simply regurgitated a long lost memory of something he had read.

R

Roger,

I don't think there is a single case of valid hypnotic regression to a past life memory.  Recently top Harvard experts on hypnotic regression studied several "retrieved" memories of "alien abduction."  
The best research on hypnotic regression suggests that early memories are "created" rather than "recalled" through hypnotic regression.  The victims of alleged  alien abduction consistently demonstrated a unique tendency to confabulate in other areas through an overactive imagination.  The same inference should be drawn about most past life regressions.

The best evidence for past life recall was collected by the late Dr. Ian Stevenson.  He sought out young children who provided verifiable details in their past life memories.  But two of his cases involved recollections of prior personalities who were still alive at the time of the child's birth!  Therefore, temporary possession seems a more likely explanation of past life recall.  

In my view, Emanuel Swedenborg's self-correction about astral past life recall effectively refutes  modern "recoveries" of reincarnation memories, say, through alleged encounters with a "Soul Disk."  When ES travels to the higher heavens, he learns that his reincarnational memories are in fact unconscious temporary spirit mergers of which he is unaware.  The memories of the merging spirits mistakenly seem like his own.  The advanced spirits offer to "descend" with ES to "reincarnational" hollow heavens and demonstrate this error to the denizens of these realms.  But these denizens are too doctrinaire to tolerate such a demonstration.

Don

Rondele:

That's a good example. Thank you.


Don:

Do you know of a link for the Harvard study?

Do you really think possession is a more reasonable explanation for what happened for the Stevenson cases than reincarnation? Do you believe we live in a universe where the divine powers that be have set things up so that just about any spirit can come along and possess a child? Even if one believes in a being such as Satan, the book of Job seems to state that Satan can cause trouble only when God allows him to do so. Would God allow former human spirits to possess children? The cases Stevenson speaks of don't show any indication of maliciousness. Perhaps an explanation other than possession and other than reincarnation as usually thought of is in order.


Since we are talking about suggestion, perhaps Scott Peck caused Jersey to believe she was demonically possessed. Consider some of the factors:

1. Scott Peck hypnotized Jersey early on during the process.
2. Jersey wasn't mentally stable. Psychologists have found that mentally unstable people are in the top five percent when it comes to suggestibility.
3. Consider Peck's explanations for why Jersey became open to demonic possession. When Jersey was 12 years old her father examined her private area. She told herself this was okay because her father wore a doctor's coat when he did so and even though he wasn't a medical doctor he was a psychologist. I believe it is very understandible why a young girl would make excuses for her father, a person she should be able to trust. Yet Peck stated that because of her dishonesty demons were allowed to mess with her. Give me a break! Would beings who represent the light allow this to happen?  Is every young girl who gets molested by her father and makes excuses for him allowed to be influenced by demons?
4. Peck also wrote that demons were able to influence Jersey because she had an interest in the teachings of Edgar Cayce. Once again, give me a break! Without getting into what Edgar Cayce is about, would the divine powers that be really allow a girl to be influenced by demons because she doesn't have the supposed "right" belief system? Going by this way of thinking, just about any of us including you Don are open territory for demonic possession, because certainly hardly any of us have the supposed "right" belief system. Not because we are people of evil intent, but because we are exposed to different external influences. Too bad Malachi Martin isn't still around, so we can ask him what the "right" belief system is.
5. Supposedly Peck eventually got Satan to speak through Jersey. This seems strange since the actual existence of a being named Satan is very questionable.
6. After the supposed exorcism process was over, Jersey could still hear demonic voices in the background. Peck wrote that Jersey stated that before the exorcism the voices were right here (I don't remember the exact words). If the exorcism was successful, wouldn't the voices be completely gone? Why would the divine beings that helped Jersey allow demons to hang "partly" around? Because they considered it evil for her to apologize for her father as she did, and because she became interested in the teachings of Edgar Cayce?
7. Peck wrote that he filmed the exorcisms so Jersey could watch them. I find this puzzling. If she was aware enough of what was going on so she could differentiate between when demons were right here rather than in the background, why was it necessary to see a film?
8. Peck wrote that he could tell that Jersey was possessed because of the evil facial expressions she made. Our bodies are wired so that our body language will reveal our state of mind. Our minds are able to create all kinds of thoughts and feelings. People have an experience of evil while watching horror movies not because demons jump off of a movie or television screen and influence them, but because their own minds are able to create the feeling of evil. Certainly it is possible that Peck caused Jersey to believe that she was demonically possessed, and this caused her to have a state of mind that led to evil expressions.
9. None of the people around Jersey, including her controlling husband and including Scott Peck, were messed with by demons.  Why wouldn't demons mess with the people that were around Jersey?
10. What motive would Satan and his demons have for possessing a girl who doesn't play a key part in the grand scheme of things? Doesn't this seem like an odd way to try to defeat God's will?
11. Between exorcism attempts Peck was able to go out and share a smoke with Jersey, and at one point invited her to have cocktails with her and the exorcism party. Doesn't this seem odd?
12. The connection between Malachi Martin and Peck.  Mark Cuneo wrote in his book "American Exorcism" that Father Nicola (spelling?) and Father Benedict Groeschel, were highly skepticle of Martin's five exorcism stories in "Hostage to the Devil." They stated that if cases of this nature happened in the New York City area, they would've become aware of them.  It seems odd that the people who were involved in these cases were able to network to an extent where they made contact with Martin, yet no information was leaked so that beyond Martin's word, anything could be proven.  

 

Just in case it was missed, I added a couple of points to my last post.

Albert-

Facial expressions are one thing, but there are credible accounts of exorcisms where the possessed person has not only extraordinary strength but where objects fly across the room.

I also wonder, if evil entities can seemingly possess children with such ease, why there aren't far more cases than those relatively few we read about.

One would think vulnerable, young children would be easy prey.

That's a question I posed to Don years ago, perhaps he'll tackle it again.

R

Rondelle:

Various people have found that poltergeist like activity can be caused by a pre pubescent child or a child going through emotional difficulty.  I remember reading an article which stated that Carl Jung and another psychologist I can't remember the name of have found that people with psychological problems are fifty times more likely to have supernatural ability than other people. Even when we inhabit bodies we are spirit beings. Perhaps people with pyschological problems find a way to tap into supernatural abilities. Why would an evil spirit have abilities human spirits don't have?

I read up on the true story of the Exorcist. One source I read was Thomas Allen's book "Possessed."  It didn't convince me that a demon was involved. Later on I read Mark Opsasnik's investigation of the case and he found a lot of informatin that didn't match Allen's book.

Attached is a link to a five part article he wrote:

http://www.strangemag.com/exorcistpage1.html

Some of the things Opsasnik found:

1. Father Halloran told him that Robbie, the boy alleged to be possessed, contrary to what Allen's book contends, didn't exhibit supernatural strength, didn't urinate, didn't throw up, and probably mimicked the priests when he said Latin phrases.
2. Allen wrote that Robbie displayed super strength when he pulled a bed spring from under his bed and used it to slash Father Hughes' arm. He also wrote that Father Hughes wasn't able to raise his arm in a normal way after this event, became deeply disturbed, and went away for a while. Read what I posted below to see what Opsasnick found out about Father Hughes.
3. Opsasnik found that long before the supposed his supposed possession happened Robbie was a neighborhood bully who would do things like sick his dog on the neighborhood kids.
4. Allen wrote that Robbie could spit with great accuracy. Opsasnik found that Robbie and his best friend used to practice spitting. They found a way to do so through their teeth so they could spit with great accuracy ten feet away.

It's a long article, but if you want to find a viewpoint other than Allen's perhaps it is worth reading.

"Truth and Consequences

After talking with so many people who had personally known Rob Doe it was disheartening to review the published material on the case from a new perspective and observe the various discrepancies between what has been written by others and what was told to me by individuals close to the family in question.

In Possessed Thomas Allen bases much of his investigation on a series of alleged events culled from the mysterious diary kept by Father Bishop during the St. Louis exorcism.

This diary, which also inspired William Peter Blatty’s novel and movie, began chronicling events on January 15, 1949 and ended on April 19, 1949, and was designed to act as a guide for future exorcisms. As a surviving case artifact it is shrouded in mystery. No one really knows for sure how many copies are circulating or even its actual page count (as previously mentioned, Steve Erdmann says 16 pages, Thomas Allen puts the number at 26). Passages from this case study have been published by both of the aforementioned writers and from their examples one discovers: the keeper of the diary, Father Bishop, did not arrive on the scene or meet any family members until Wednesday, March 9, 1949—almost two months after the initial symptoms occurred—rendering much of his reported background information as hearsay; Bishop does not always make it clear who actually witnessed the events being described—he often fails to mention when the priests are in the room, when they are absent, and when the information comes secondhand from the boy’s mother; the possibility of fraudulent activity is neither considered nor investigated (for example, no control experiment was set up where an individual could observe the boy’s actions when no one else was in the room); no mention is made whatsoever of the alleged first exorcism attempt by Father Hughes at Georgetown University Hospital; nothing is written of the boy’s father’s feelings or level of involvement (sources close to the family told me he did not believe the boy was possessed); and the possible presence of psychosomatic illness within the boy is never discussed.

In addition to the diary, an array of places and persons play critical roles in his story told by author Thomas Allen: the family’s alleged Mount Rainier homesite; the plight of the first exorcist, Father Hughes; information supplied by local expert Father Bober; and interviews with eyewitness Father Halloran. With so much questionable material being culled from the diary, I felt it was imperative to study these miscellaneous factors and sources with a critical eye.

I called Thomas Allen. After identifying myself and explaining what I was doing, he declined to comment for this article. I had planned to offer help in correcting the errors in Possessed (free of charge) for any revised edition he might be planning. I also planned to ask him a number of questions. Why, for example, does he have a mindset about the boy having lived in Mount Rainier? Did he ever consider the possibility that the priests involved in the case could have used Mount Rainier as a front to discourage the discovery of the boy’s true identity? How come he never checked the Cottage City address that Father Bishop’s diary listed with phone directory listings for the family in question from 1939 to 1958? Why had he never looked for former friends of Rob Doe in Cottage City (or talked with long-standing community members like the town chairman, fire chief, or residents of 40th Avenue—all of whom could have provided him with valuable facts)? Why did he never verify any of the information he wrote regarding Father Hughes’s involvement with the family and post-exorcism-attempt activities? And, finally, if he was really so concerned about keeping Rob Doe’s identity a secret, then why was he a writer of the video production In The Grip Of Evil in which the boy’s home at 3807 40th Avenue in Cottage City was shown, knowing full well that it would then be possible for anybody to locate the house and identify its occupants in local city directories from that period? Only Thomas Allen knows the answers.

Possessed is based on the widespread misconception that the family had resided in Mount Rainier. The book’s first four chapters are filled with references to this erroneous location: Allen claims neighbors knew something odd was happening at 3210 Bunker Hill Road; he claims neighbors heard maniacal cries and saw lights radiating around the house; and he claims the family moved to a similar house about a half-mile away. In reality, none of these things happened, as I have demonstrated. In fact, sources close to this case have verified that the diary kept by Father Bishop never once mentions 3210 Bunker Hill Road, Mount Rainier as the family’s home—but it does identify the site as 3807 40th Avenue. Allen does not mention this in Possessed.

Regarding the first exorcism attempt at Georgetown University Hospital by Father Hughes, Allen makes several bold presumptions: Hughes “apparently” visited the boy at his house, further claiming that there is some question about this action stemming from the priest’s own “confusion”; Hughes decided the boy belonged in a hospital, under restraints, and that “on Hughes’s orders” the boy was strapped down; when Hughes’s arm was allegedly slashed by the boy, the priest “screamed” and struggled to his feet while his arm hung limp; Hughes subsequently “disappeared” from St. James, suffered a nervous breakdown, and during later masses could only hold the consecrated host aloft with one hand.

The suppositions regarding Father Hughes seemed so absurd I decided to do some in-depth research into the actions of this mysterious priest from St. James Church in Mount Rainier, Maryland. Born Edward Albert Hughes on August 28, 1918, he was assigned as assistant pastor of St. James (the pastor at the time was Rev. William M. Canning) on Wednesday, June 16, 1948 and served without a break until Saturday, June 18, 1960. Despite what is written in Possessed, there is absolutely no written record of the alleged exorcism attempt by Father Hughes at Georgetown University Hospital. A source close to the case verified for me that Rob Doe was admitted to Georgetown University Hospital under his real name on the morning of Monday, February 28, 1949 and released at 12 noon on Thursday, March 3, 1949. The facts surrounding this Georgetown stay are: Father Hughes never initially visited the boy at his Cottage City home (Mrs. Doe took her son to the St. James parish for their one and only consultation); there is no evidence that Father Hughes was ever confused at all about this entire situation; there is no evidence whatsoever that Father Hughes had the boy admitted to Georgetown University Hospital or held under restraints—Thomas Allen himself gives no reference in Possessed regarding these alleged actions; there is no evidence that while hospitalized Rob Doe ever slashed Father Hughes’s arm or what the priest’s reaction to the attack may have been—Allen even mentions that while Father Hughes mentioned this exorcism attempt during a lecture at Georgetown University, he made no reference to the alleged attack at all. Of further significance is that the St. Louis contingency, Father Bowdern and Father Bishop, were never informed of the alleged first exorcism attempt and their diary makes no mention of the event.

Even if Rob Doe had slashed the arm of Father Hughes, would it really cause the priest to have a breakdown and disappear from St. James Parish? I easily located several individuals who were in daily contact with Father Hughes throughout the spring of 1949, the time period that immediately followed his alleged exorcism attempt on Rob Doe. I wondered if the priest showed any signs of injury, any change in behavior, or if any evidence existed of a breakdown or personal hiatus from his busy job. I found just the opposite.

Thomas Kearney, an eighth-grader at St. James during the 1948-49 school year revealed that Father Hughes was the parish’s CYO junior boys baseball coach that spring: “I saw Father Hughes every day at St. James that school year and I don’t remember him being missed and I don’t remember him being beat up or hurt or anything like that. He coached baseball that spring and would pitch us the ball and there was nothing wrong with him.”

Another eighth-grade classmate that year was Joan Flanagan, who recalled: “The recent story going around now was that Father Hughes’s arm was slashed back then. I never heard that at the time. I never noticed a slash or an injury and he was the P. E. teacher for our class. He never missed a class and I remember him pitching us softballs in the spring. Something like that would have been a big story at the time. I just don’t believe it happened.”

The prefect for the Ladies Sodality of St. James for all of 1949 and 1950 was Gloria Nowak, who today is 74 years old and is still a Mount Rainier resident. She told me, “I knew Father Hughes very well because he was director of the Sodality and would come to each meeting and start it off with a prayer. I never knew that he had any kind of arm wound. I had heard about the possessed boy but it was something we didn’t ask about. Father Hughes was a very nice person, very outgoing and friendly and a very holy priest. I never noticed any change in behavior or any absence while I was prefect. He was always there and always in a good mood.”

Furthermore, the neighborhood columns for Brentwood and Mount Rainier in The Prince George’s Post throughout the spring of 1949 seemed to go out of their way to document the activities of the very popular young priest. In their pages they document that Father Hughes, among other activities: attended a dinner given for Father William E. Kelly of St. Martin’s Church on Sunday, February 27, 1949; missed a social given by the Mother’s Club of St. James on Tuesday, March 1, 1949 (possibly the night he was visiting Rob Doe at Georgetown University Hospital); spoke at the “Communism in Religion” seminar sponsored by the Washington General Assembly Fourth Degree Knights of Columbus held at the Hyattsville Town Hall on Monday, March 7, 1949; said mass at the “KCs To Inaugurate Day Of Recollection,” an annual Day of Recollection inaugurated by the Prince George’s Council of the Knights of Columbus on Sunday, March 20, 1949 at St. John de Matha Monastery in Hyattsville; presided over a wedding between Mildred O’Dea and Edward A. Williams on Saturday, April 30, 1949 at St. Jerome’s Church; performed a wedding on Saturday, June 4, 1949 for Francis Wersick and Sam Morina at St. James Church; addressed Commencement Exercises for St. Jerome’s first graduating class on Sunday, June 12, 1949; and according to the June 16, 1949 Brentwood column, hosted an outing and picnic for the St. James graduating class at Chapel Point. Coverage of the dynamic Father Hughes in the pages of The Prince George’s Post continued throughout 1949, all the way up to his departure in 1960 without any noticeable break in the action. In the June 16, 1960 edition of The Prince George’s Post, Joseph Bianchini writes in the Mount Rainier column that Father Hughes had performed 2,712 baptisms, 486 marriages, 251 baptisms of converts, and 247 burial masses during his assignment. Not bad for a priest who “disappeared.” (Hughes was later reassigned to St. James in 1973 and remained there until his death in October 1980.)

The one local clergyman that Father Hughes confided in before his death was his assistant pastor Frank Bober, who has since figured prominently in this scenario, mainly because of his accessibility to journalists and general congeniality. Bober has appeared in literally dozens of television specials, news broadcasts, and printed articles on the subject. In Possessed Allen cites him as one of his “extremely reliable” sources for the first exorcism attempt that Hughes was involved in. However, despite the accolades, it was my opinion that over time the comments that these journalists attributed to Bober began to take on a more dramatic tone with each retelling."

HERE'S THE PART WHERE OPSASNIK WROTE ABOUT FATHER HALLORAN:

"When I contacted Halloran by phone, he sounded tired and clearly was not interested in discussing the incident with me. Still, to his credit, he thoughtfully answered every one of my questions. I first asked Halloran if he would go on record as saying whether he thought the boy was possessed or not. “No, I can’t go on record,” he told me. “I never made an absolute statement about the things because I didn’t feel I was qualified. I hadn’t studied the phenomena and that sort of thing. All I did was report the things that I saw and whether I would make a statement one way or another wouldn’t make any difference because I just don’t think I was qualified to do so.”

My questions to Halloran a were met with brief, direct responses.

“Did the boy speak in any languages other than English?”
“Just Latin.”

“Did it appear he understood the Latin he was speaking?”
“I think he mimicked us.”

“Was there any change in the boy’s voice?”
“Not really.”

“When the boy struck you in the nose, did he exhibit extraordinary strength?”
“I don’t know, I never even thought very much about it. It certainly wasn’t [former world boxing champion Mike] Tyson hitting me in the nose or something like that (laughs).”



I asked Halloran to elaborate and describe to me some of the things he witnessed that he could not explain. He paused and slowly said, “I saw a bottle slide from a dresser across the room—there was no one near it. The bed moving....” I interrupted and asked if the bed was stationary or on rollers. He said, “It was on rollers like any bed, but I was leaning on it when it moved one time.”

I inquired about the boy’s spitting, urinating and vomiting, all activities that he was said to have indulged in with great vigor during various points of the exorcism. Halloran responded, “Well, spitting was frequent...it wasn’t significant...there wasn’t any vomiting or urinating that I recall.”

I wanted to know about the boy’s father’s level of involvement. Had Halloran even met the father? Had the father been present during all of this? “I met him once, I think. I think that he was back home in Maryland working most of the time. He wasn’t really a part of this.”

I asked about the markings or brandings that were said to have appeared on the boy’s body out of nowhere. Did Halloran actually see them materialize on his skin? Did he feel the boy or someone else was responsible? “I saw them...well, right on the skin...yeah, I did. It wasn’t the boy doing it himself, you know, as far as I could see.” I wanted to know if the markings ever formed numbers or letters or words, as other writers had reported. “It was kind of hard to really tell.” Was there blood dripping from the marks? “It looked more like lipstick. There were just some very clear marks like that.” Continuing on this subject I asked if the priests had ever bothered to check the boy’s fingernails for flesh or blood deposits. Halloran was taken aback. After a long pause he said, “When I was there his hands were nowhere near the markings. No, we didn’t check.”

And of course, I inquired about the famous diary of Father Bishop. “I don’t have it any more,” Father Halloran reported. “I burned it.”"


HERE'S THE PART ABOUT THE SPITTING:

"I asked J. C. if he knew any specifics about the possession that was allegedly taking place to their friend up the street. He responded:

I knew something was going on before the first article ever came out. It was developing over a period of time and you could see this condition building up. You could say I was in the house and witnessed these things. I attended the local premier of that video [In the Grip Of Evil] and they exaggerated so many things that happened. One of the things that they tried to emphasize in that show was the thing about the boy spitting. Well, with this pair, I noticed that one of the common bonds between them, they found this very clever way of doing it, they could spit with great accuracy up to ten feet. It was a common thing. They’d keep their mouths closed and raise their lips and spit through their teeth and they somehow developed a way to do that. I saw them do that all the time. Another thing was with the bed moving about. In those days the beds had wire springs and were on wheels and it was not too hard at all to make the bed bounce and move about—it was harder to keep it in one place and his bed was like that. A lot of these things can be exaggerated to make a story and that is exactly what happened."

Roger,

Children get possessed when they are enticed by imaginary playmates, who are actual spirits.  I have recounted my 2-year-old cousin's battle to stave off possession after a spirit was exorcised from a nearby woman.  Robert Bruce has confronted several cases of child possession.  No doubt there are other factors contributing to such possessions that are poorly understood.  I don't know why this phonomena is not more common.  Good question!

Albert,

I suspect that your debunker is confused because he is not asking the primary eyewitnesses present at some of these manifestations. When I was still teaching at St. Bonaventure University, my office was next door to that of Father Alphonse Trabold, one of the most famous exorcists on the east coast.  Alphonse discussed the possession case in question with the priest who was the major eyewitness and confirms the authenticity of the possession.  This confirmation is striking because Alphonse almost always debunked the possession cases assigned to him, even when water would supernaturally materialize out of thin air and bomb spectators from above, and carpets would suddenly burst into flame simply because the victim got very emotional.  Alphonse explained such spectacular phenemena as psychokinetic eruptions triggered by paranormal powers manifested by disturbed youngsters who had just reached puberty!  There were several eyewitnesses to these phenomena.

Don

Maybe we all have the ability to mind-meld, but we just don't know it yet.

Exactly Lucy. Minds seem to merge to varying degrees once we move out of C1 anyway, while the appearance of individuality/separation here seems likely to be an ego made illusion.

(it's often taught that ego projects an external reality including the body and the thinking intellect, perceives it as a separate 'me in an uncaring world' from a seemingly objective viewpoint, and as a result interprets it as fact when in practice it's all only a mind made dream anyway)

It's hard to know when dealing with this territory how much of it is the result of an almost medieval tendency to superstitiously rationalise almost anything extra-normal as a manifestation of 'evil'.

I can't claim to set carpets on fire, but for sure I seem to influence sensitive electric stuff when highly emotional - I posted before about more than once triggering a touch switched lamp. It fluttered wildly on and off simultaneously with my experiencing a fluttering sensation in the area of the heart chakra.

There was certainly no inkling of possession in my case, both times I'd simply experienced deep insights into stuff I was worried about while in a meditative/almost sleeping state.

It's very possible though (given the creative nature of mind) that if I (or another in a similar state) believed firmly that this was an unmistakable sign of possession, and in some spurious signs of possession that they could easily have manifested.

If so we'd be back into the circular scenario of beliefs (albeit based on no absolute reality) manifesting in our dream as a result of our creative abilities. (apparent reality leading to an inaccurate rationalisation of events creating belief creating reality creating belief ad infinitum - this is the cycle the spiritual path seeks to break free of)

I can't rule out the often reported possibility of possession by entities seeking survival at the physical level, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that this whole area (given our ego driven tendency to rationalise  explanations to events and turn them into beliefs (we really struggle to stay open), the (despite appearances) essentially collective nature of mind and the ability of creative mind to manifest what we believe)  is essentially a hall of mirrors.

This is the reason why Buddhism and more recently ACIM teach non-duality, non attachment/forgiveness/selflessness/love and assistance from Spirit/higher mind as the means of escape from circling in this maze - we can otherwise wander almost for ever... ..

Don:

Do you remember Robert Bruce's Sai Baba story? Robert claims that while he was working on some notes, Sai Baba materialized before him. Robert claims that high level silver spirit light energy appeared in his room as this occurred. Sai Baba claimed to be an avatar, which means he was God himself incarnated. Problem is Sai Baba did negative things such as molest the male children of his followers. First Robert Bruce denied these accounts as nothing but accusations. Eventually things reached the point where he could no longer deny them.  He stated that for some curious reasons Avatars sometimes do the sort of things Sai Baba did. Does that make sense? That God incarnated as a person would molest the children of his followers? Robert defended Sai Baba's actions in various ways. Stated that the children approved of the molestations. Would a good person, especially if this person was supposedly God incarnate, molest the children of his followers? Is a child ever in the position to allow molestation to occur? Plus if you read the accounts of the molestations, the children didn't have a chance to say yes or no. As soon as they entered Sai Baba's room he would start molesting them. Perhaps Robert Bruce got caught with egg on his face. He told a story about how a supposed avatar chose to materialize before him, he later on found out that Sai Baba was responsible for the molestations, and either he had to admit he made up the story, a person who wasn't an advance being was able to materialize to people and for some reason chose Robert to materialize to, or he had to stick to his story and defend Sai Baba as he did.

For the above and other reasons I do not consider Robert a credible source.

I've read various explanations of the Exorcist story, and I don't recall any of them mentioning a name of Alphonse. The names Bishop, Hughes, Bowdern and Halloran always appear.

What I find odd about Allen's account is what happened at the end. He wrote that Robbie had a dream where Satan and his demons were in a fire filled cave, Satan came towards Archangel Michael, Michael smiled at Robbie, turned towards Satan and said dominus, Satan retreated to the cave, and the cave was sealed off with a gate that had a sign that read "spite." I figure one of several explanations are possible:

1.      Allen's account isn't true.
2.      Robbie's higher self created the dream in order to make the priests believe that the exorcism had been successful so that Robbie's illusion of being possessed could come to an end. When it comes to this possibility, it is important to remember that Robbie's mom and grandmother were people who saw evil everywhere, and that the priests Robbie worked with said a lot of things to him that could've gotten him to believe that he was possessed.
3.      A former human earthbound spirit bugged Robbie during the evening (he didn't have problems in the daytime), and because the priests that helped Robbie believed in Satan and his demons, the spirit or spirits who helped Robbie had no choice but to go along with their way of thinking.
4.      Even though there is nothing that proves the existence of a being named Satan, Satan and his demons for whatever reason chose to pick on a boy, and were allowed to do so.  If this is so, and therefore we take the symbology of Robbie's dream literally, there is no reason to be concerned about Satan and his demons again, because Michael caused them to become prisoners within a burning cave.

If Robbie actually had this dream, it is interesting that a sign that said "spite" was on the gate that sealed the cave. Perhaps this was a way of Robbie's higher self/guidance saying that Robbie's own maliciousness caused Robbie's problems. Opsanick's research found that Robbie was a malicious kid.

Lucy, Vajra and others, when it comes to what is possible, here are some possible factors:

What precisely would an invading spirit attack and with what? Our minds are a mixture of often contradictory thought patterns. An invading spirit would also have a mixture of thought patterns. I've found that any thought pattern operates according to its own programming. You often can't get it to operate another way. What you can do is get yourself to the point where you no longer live according to an unwanted thought pattern, by seeing that it is unnecessary.  Sometimes this takes a lot of work. The part of you that enables you to gain freedom is a part of you that is free of your overall psychological conditioning, even though, people often allow this part of themselves to be entangled by their psychological conditioning to varying degrees. There are three key ways to get free of our conditioning. One way is to admit that we allow ourselves to be limited by psychological conditioning that doesn't represent the truth. Another way is to let go of the emotional attachments that allow our psychological conditioning to stay alive. For example, fear might cause us to cling to a particular way of thinking. Another way is to find that we can be free of our conditioning, by acknowledging the freedom of our inner spiritual self.  

If the above is considered, how difficult would it be for an invading spirit to take over the thought patterns of the person it invades? If an invading spirit isn't even in control of its own thought patterns, how is it going to control the thought patterns of a person? There would at least have to be some similarity between the thought patterns.

Another factor to consider is the decision making center/will center of a person's mind. I've been paying attention to this factor, and it sure seems as if there is a part of my mind which has freedom from my psychological conditioning. If a conditioned pattern comes to life, I don't have to choose it.  Does it make sense that the will center of an invading spirit could take over the will center of a person? I would think that the divine powers that be would design our will centers so that an invading spirit can take advantage of us against our will. If an invading spirit could do so, what would be the point of Jesus teaching as you sow so you reap? It would simply be a matter of a spirit taking over a person whenever it wants to do so.  Even people who believe in demonic possession often speak in a way which shows that they believe in free will, because they state that a person's decisions play a role in demonic possession. When it comes to Robbie's story, according to Allen, he had to make the choice to say dominus. Why would this be a factor if his free will wasn't intact?

I do believe unfriendly influences exist. Some of these influences are former human spirits and some might be alien. I haven't found anything which supports Satan based demonology. Spiritual experiences and messages I've received have shown that Satan and his demons don't exist.  If a kid like Robbie gets afflicted by a negative minded spirit, perhaps there is a better approach than repeating Latin phrases. Perhaps a better approach would be to tell a kid to tune into his or her spiritual power, and not allow an unfriendly spirit to influence his or her self. One of the secrets to empowering a kid would be to get this kid to understand that there aren't evil spirits who are so powerful, there is nothing he or she can do to resist such a spirit. I have received a number of spiritual experiences and messages that made the point that each of us has a choice when it comes to being influenced in a negative way. I also believe it is good to pray for help. When one does so, one chooses light over darkness.

Perhaps an unfriendly spirit could try to influence a person in a negative way by connecting to a person energetically and sending a person negative thoughts, but a person is always free to choose. Just like people are free to choose when they receive negative suggestions from people.

I really believe it is important to give beings who represent God's light more credit than people sometimes give them. Would they really just sit on their hands if an unfriendly being tries to take over a person who has good intentions? Wouldn't light beings have the ability to help in some way? I've found out that they do.

Don:

Regarding your two year old cousin, I notice that this event was short lived. It seems like divine help became available right away. This demonstrates the ability to receive such help. Why wouldn't help become available sooner than some people contend?

When it comes to spirits who end up earthbound for a while rather than going to the realm they belong in, going by the messages I've received, this number is few.

Another factor:

The cases of spirit merger I've read about involved consenting spirits and they would have a very pleasant experience of oneness.  If two spirits merged with each other, could they do so with one having hostile intentions? Even if they did, wouldn't the oneness factor cause the unfriendly spirit to change its mind? You can't be one and oppossed at the same time.

I believe this possession matter is an important issue to iron out. Our minds can create all kinds of things. There are a lot of people who buy into the possession thing to an extent where they end up creating an aspect of mind that causes them to believe they are possessed. People who won't consider this matter outside of the parameters of a Satan based belief system, probably do more to harm people than help people. I've watched videos of people going through exoricisms, and when it came to group exorcisms, it seemed as people were buying into a mass form of hypnosis.

Consider the case or Jersey I wrote about on an earlier post. It is very possible that her own mind with the aid of Scott Peck's suggestions caused her to experience what she experienced. I believe it is down right low to lead a lady who has already had a difficult life to believe that she was possessed by Satan and his demons. Scott Peck has passed away. The odds are that he'll find out how much he hurt people with his unwilligness to consider alternatives beyond what Mallachi Martin had to say.

Even if a person is troubled by a spirit, the last thing you want to do is disempower this person by causing he or she to believe that he or she is possessed by powerful satanic beings. It is so irresponsible for people to do so, simply because they won't consider explanations beyond their interpretation of what the Bible might say.

When it comes to dealing with a spirit who might be troubling a person, how can you help this spirit move towards the light if you start accusing it of it being a Satan based demon or Satan himself? When I've encountered unfriendly spirits I've dealt with them in a loving way, and never ran into problems. I'd tell them they are a divine spirit just like everbody else, and they can receive help if they move towards the light. I believe that beings who represent the light have a U.S. Marine Corps attitude. Nobody is left behind, rather than: "Go to hell for all of eternity."

I've found that Satan based belief systems can cause you to have blocks in your heart chakra. When you clear these uneccessary fears away, the blocks go away, you experience more love, and you have a more positive effect on the World. People who spread demon stories without considering the matter with an open mind, do more to increase the fear level in this World, than they do to increase the love level.  

You don't have to be afraid of the boogie man appearing around every corner in order to be alert. If you go through life without unnecessary fears, you'll be much more able to discriminate things accurately. Consider Bruce Moen's hounds of hell story. Bruce had a hard time helping a lady get free of beings her own mind created, because due to her beliefs she kept mistaking Bruce for the hounds of hell.

If you can hypnotize people to experience imaginary past lives, why can't you influence them to believe that they are possessed?

I'll end by sharing an out of body experience out of body explorer Steve Magnus  experienced (not certain about his first name).  He went out of body and he was taken hostage by Lucifer. Suddenly it occurred to him that he doesn't believe in the devil, and the experience ended.

Here's another possibility.

I've found that when I tune into love, especially during meditation, I can tune into higher levels of being.

Perhaps Robbie, because he was a mean kid and because he messed around with an Ouija board, tuned into a vibrational rate that includes hate, anger, and maliciousness; and this wavelength is shared by various people and spirits who live according to traits such as hate, anger and maliciousness.

Hi Recoverer, please pardon my slow response.

I find myself agreeing with most of what you have said on this topic. Possession is the obvious explanation when we see individuals and other beings that might be players as separate entities, as discrete minds.

As I was trying to say above this doesn't seem to be the way it is though. My instinct is that individuality/selfhood is mostly a local C1 perspective - the result of the tendency of the ego (in order to lock us into the belief in existence of a physical self separate from God in an external universe) to project those aspects of itself it fears as our physical body and mind, plus the external beings and realities they interact with - and to perceive these as external from an apparently independent and objective mental viewpoint. i.e. the whole lot is all an artefact of mind.

So those external beings and events that appear to influence us (for good or ill) from the outside are actually creations of our own split mind.

Add the possibility of our accessing all sorts of archetypes and views from other or other's lives through multiple connections at higher levels of mind and these creations need not just be drawn from suggestions in our own (this) life experience but from heaven knows where and when.

I'm not sure how this sort of rationale lies with you, but I think we end up at the same place in feeling that this creative power of mind combined with belief and suggestion may play a big part in apparent possessions...

Vajra:

If a person tunes into the frequency rate Robbie tuned into, it might not be necessary for any one particular being to mess with a person.  Any negative thoughts that come from that frequency rate might effect a person.  It might be possible for a part of a person's mind to become a part of that frequency rate.