Up to this point, the evidence I have cited for the existence of these extraterrestrial and extradimensional beings has consisted of reports from peoples of the distant past, or from peoples of today who are not totally integrated into modern developed society. In this chapter, our sources will be mostly observations from persons representative of modern developed society, from the dawn of modern science to the present. This evidence adds credibility to traditional accounts of extraterrestrial and extradimensional beings, who, I propose, are responsible for producing the bodily forms of the living things within our normal experience. In chapter 9, we will see that it is in fact possible to produce changes in biological organisms by the action of mind and consciousness on matter. In chapter 10, we will consider the cosmological anthropic principle, some versions of which entail the idea that the entire universe has been designed with human existence in mind. And in chapter 11, I will bring together all the elements of the human devolution concept—the concept that we have not evolved up from matter, but have devolved from pure consciousness, or spirit, in a process guided by intelligent agents. I will relate various parts of this argument to their sources in the ancient Vedic writings of India, which inspired and guided my research.
In this chapter’s review of various categories of observational and experimental evidence demonstrating the existence of extradimensional, conscious, humanlike personalities, we will begin with examples of communications from departed humans now apparently existing in some other part of the multilevel cosmos. We shall then consider apparitions of departed human personalities and possessions of terrestrial humans by departed human personalities. Reports like these reinforce the evidence presented in chapter 6 for the existence of an embodied conscious self that is distinct from mind and ordinary matter. But the cases in this chapter particularly focus on the continued existence of this conscious self long after the death of its body composed of gross matter. We shall go on to consider another category of apparition and possession cases, involving beings of apparently superhuman type. We shall then consider the modern scientific search for extraterrestrial intelligence, which will lead us into the realm of extraterrestrial and extradimensional beings revealed in the modern UFO and alien abduction reports, particularly those with a paranormal element. In this manner, I plan to show that the idea of extraterrestrial and extradimensional conscious beings is not something entirely alien to modern scientific thought.
Communications from Departed Humans
Several prominent scientists have investigated communications from departed humans. If their reports are accepted, we find ourselves in possession of evidence for some part of the multilevel cosmos and cosmic hierarchy of beings described in the last chapter.
Evidence of departed human intelligences continuing to have contact with terrestrial humans comes from a variety of sources, including mediums. William James, a prominent American scientist of the early twentieth century, and one of the founders of modern psychology, was especially impressed by the mediumship of Mrs. Piper.
During her trances, Mrs. Piper’s normal personality was apparently replaced by that of her “control,” a long departed spirit called Phinuit, who spoke through her, revealing paranormal knowledge of living persons. However, not everyone was convinced that Phinuit either existed or was the source of Mrs. Piper’s revelations about the living. For example, Richard Hodgson, of the American Society for Psychical Research, at first favored the hypothesis that Mrs. Piper was obtaining her knowledge telepathically from living persons. But in March 1892, Mrs. Piper’s communicator Phinuit was replaced by George Pellew, a young man who had died in a riding accident a short time before. One hundred fifty living subjects were introduced to Mrs. Piper when, in trance, she was under the control of Pellew. Out of these subjects, Pellew, speaking through Mrs. Piper, recognized thirty, and these thirty happened to be only those who had known Pellew when he was alive. Pellew conversed with them in a familiar fashion, demonstrating extraordinary knowledge about them. This convinced Hodgson that Mrs.Piper was indeed in communication with a departed spirit, George Pellew (Gauld 1968, pp. 254–261).
Hodgson himself died on December 20, 1905. By December 28, messages from him were supposedly coming to Mrs. Piper. William James believed that the evidence suggested Hodgson, or perhaps some remnant of him (in what we might call a cosmic memory bank), was communicating with Piper. The messages communicated by Piper from Hodgson, and others, were sometimes garbled, observed James. He nevertheless said that “there would still appear a balance of probability
. . . that certain parts of the Piper communications really emanate from personal centers of memory and will, connected with lives that have passed away” (Murphy and Ballou 1960, p. 140). More specifically, he said, “Most of us felt during the sittings that we were in some way, more or less remote, conversing with . . . a real Hodgson” (Murphy and Ballou1960, p. 143).
James said about the Piper communications: “When I connect the Piper case with all the other cases I know of automatic writing and mediumship, and with the whole record of spirit-possession in human history, the notion that such an immense current of experience, complex in so many ways, should spell out nothing but the word ‘humbug’ acquires a character of unlikeliness. The notion that so many men and women, in all other respects honest enough, should have this preposterous monkeying self annexed to their personality seems to me so weird that the spirit theory immediately takes on a more probable appearance” (Murphy and Ballou 1960, p. 147).
Frederick Myers, a leading member of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), died in 1901. In that same year, Mrs. Margaret Verrall, the wife of the English classical scholar A. W. Verrall, took up automatic writing to let Myers communicate through her. In automatic writing, a medium allows her hand to form letters and words spontaneously. After some months Mrs. Verrall began getting cryptic messages signed by Myers, some with quotations from obscure Latin and Greek works. In
1902, Mrs. Piper, in Boston, also began producing similar writings signed “Myers.” These contained allusions to Mrs. Verrall’s writings. Mrs. Verrall’s daughter, Helen Verrall, also began receiving writings, without seeing her mother’s.Helen’s writings contained allusions to the same topics. Piper and the Verralls began sending their writings to Alice Johnson, secretary of the SPR. In 1903, Mrs. Alice Kipling Fleming, a sister of Rudyard Kipling, also began receiving messages from Myers through automatic writing. She began sending them to Johnson, under the name “Mrs. Holland.” Johnson filed them away, but in 1905 she began comparing the messages from all the writers and noticed some interesting correlations among them. Johnson and other investigators concluded that these “cross correspondences” were deliberate attempts by Myers to demonstrate his survival (Griffin 1997, pp. 162–163).