@database "PI1.Guide" @$VER: PI1.Guide 39.1 (13/04/94) @width 80 @node Main "Paranormal Investigations Volume 1" Paranormal Investigations Volume 1 ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ @{" The Editor Speaks " link editor} @{" The UFO Paradox " link paradox} @{" Spinning Through Space " link spinspace} @{" Other Voices, Other Lives " link ovol} @{" Monsters of the Deep " link monsters} @{" A Nightmare Comes True " link anct} @endnode @node editor "The Editor Speaks" Hello and welcome to Paranormal Investigations - Volume 1. Paranormal Investigations at present is a three month trial disk based magazine. During the next three months we will be looking at quite a few strange and spooky stories. As a follower of Paranormal Investigations you will also be invited to submit your own stories and if you have any, your own personal experiences of the paranormal, in ether case the submission must be factual to the best of your knowledge as Paranormal Investigations does not deal with fictional stories no matter how good! This volume of Paranormal Investigations is public domain and may be distributed free to any one who wishes to read it. To receive the next three volumes of Paranormal Investigations you must subscribe for the three month trial period as outlined below. Paranormal Investigations Volume 2....................£2.00 P&P inc. Paranormal Investigations Volume 3....................£2.00 P&P inc. Paranormal Investigations Volume 4....................£2.00 P&P inc. Total Subscription for three months................£6.00 inclusive. Paranormal Investigations Boot Disk...................£1.50 P&P inc. (disk 1 of volume one, also available via PD) Please make sure your name and address is printed clearly. Please make your order payable to... D J Pell 58 Ash Road Newport Isle of Wight P030 2AG. Tel. 0983 826006. Important: Keep your Paranormal Investigations Boot Disk safe as you will need it for all fourth coming volumes. The next volume will be released on the 1st of June and will be mailed directly to you within one week of the release date depending on the volume of orders I receive. Following volumes will be released on the first day of each month. If the trial period of Paranormal Investigations proves to be a success I will be releasing further volumes on the first day of every month to follow, and I have enough paranormal material to keep the series going for a long long time. Details for renewed subscription will be given on the fourth volume, and its likely that the subscriptions will continue to be on a three monthly bases meaning you would subscribe four times a year if you chose to keep receiving Paranormal Investigations. Each disk will have as much paranormal information as I can fit on it. Remember I have to keep to a whole number of articles so it is likely that some volumes will not be 100% full, please note I am power packing all pictures and in some cases the text as well if it means I can squeeze one more article on the disk. If you have any submissions for Paranormal Investigation you should send it to the above address, I do not guarantee that all submissions will be published, but all will be considered for publishing and any out standing stories will be included in future volumes. I would like to able to include at least one submission each month, particularly personal encounters and experiences. submissions should be supplied typed or photocopied together with any pictures which may accompany them. Paranormal Investigations is looking and giving priority to the following.. The Philadelphia Experiment. (Not the Film!) UFO sightings, cover ups, close encounters, abductions and crash- retrievals. If you have any information on the above I would like to hear from you as these subjects are a favourite of mine. Its now time for me to let you read and view the contents of this volume. I hope you enjoy this first volume and if you do, please subscribe and support the magazine with submissions as the future of Paranormal Investigations depends on your response. Bye for now. Derek Pell. @endnode @node spinspace "Spinning Through Space" Spinning Through Space ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ Reports of UFOs describe a disc-shaped, highly manoeuvrable, immensely fast flying machine capable of feats that defy all known physical laws. TONY OSMAN believes that their existence should not be dismissed by conventional science. Here he describes how UFOs Might work and the kind of civilisation that could produce them....... @{" The Planet Venus " link spinpic1} @{" An Artist's Impression of Venus " link spinpic2} @{" Apollo 8 Blast Off " link spinpic3} @{" Professor Freeman Dyson " link spinpic4} @{" Why Saucers? " link spinpic5} THE WORD UFO unidentified flying object officially means simply something that has not been, or cannot be, accounted for by any of the known laws of physics. But the seemlngly rational behaviour reported in many UFO sightings, as well as the accounts of meetings with humanoids, has led to the speculation that UFOs are, in fact, spacecraft bringing creatures from outer space. If this is so, the spaceships must be able to coyer immense distances. People who claim to have had contact with extra-terrestrials often say they have spoken with Venusians. But Venus is highly unlikely to be inhabited. Any intelligent life forms must be coming from still further away, and, even assuming that life spans of creatures from other planets may be much longer than our own, it is clear that UFOs must be able to travel very fast indeed if they are not to take hundreds of years to travel between inhabited planets. Reports of the movement of UFOs are remarkably consistent. Most people describe them as hovering and then taking off at very high speed, often executing manoeuvres that would be impossible in conventional aircraft. Even allowing for exaggeration by excited witnesses, the consistency of the reports suggests the UFOs use a very powerful force to produce dramatic accelerations. None of the rocket fuels we use at present can produce either the speed or acceleration observed in the UFOs, because they store only a small amount of energy for a given mass. Right from the beginning, rocket travel has been faced with the problem of enabling the rocket to carry enough fuel for its journey it must lift the fuel, which can be very heavy if the journey is long, as well as itself and its occupants. The solution has been the multistage rocket: the initial acceleration is given by a rocket that is jettisoned when its fuel is used up and a second rocket takes over. Space flights have always stretched our rocket technology to its limits and, as everyone knows, our rockets and spacecraft do not accelerate very briskly away from the Earth. Although they eventually reach quite high speeds, they are nowhere near fast enough to reach planets outside our Solar system within a Hunan lifetime. If we assume UFOs are subject to the same laws of physics as we are, then, to operate on and near the Earth with the rapid accelerations and manoeuvres at high speeds that are often reported, they must be using a different source of energy from conventional chemical fuels. Their fuel must be highly compact, with a high energy yield for a small mass, the obvious source is nuclear fuel. As long ago as 1958 just after Yuri Gagarin had become the first man ever to orbit the Earth in space a brilliant theoretical physicist called Freeman Dyson embarked on a plan for a nuclear-powered spaceship. He had previously worked on the development of the atom bomb and had a comprehensive understanding of nuclear power. ) I.e. assembled a group of scientists at La Jolla, southern California, to work with him. He called his scheme 'Project Orion'. Project Orion was a serious attempt to build a spacecraft powered by nuclear explosions, and was intended as an alternative to the multi-stage rockets that Werner von Braun was proposing for space travel. Freeman Dyson's ultimate aim was to build a spacecraft the size of a small city that would take a group of people to a distant comet on the edge of the solar system, where they would settle. This may have been only a pipe-dream, but the design was real enough. The spacecraft was to be powered by hydrogen bombs. Essentially his idea was to carry a number of hydrogen bombs aboard the spacecraft, these would be moved, one by one, to a position underneath the craft where they would be exploded. The base of the spacecraft would absorb the shock and the craft would be driven along. Obviously the spacecraft and the bomb system would have to be designed so that the craft was propelled along and not simply blown apart, but in principle, at least this was straightforward. However, Dyson was never able to test his ideas, he was prevented by public concern about the pollution of the atmosphere by radioactive fallout. UFOs are often reported as disappearing rapidly going off like a television set and reappearing just as quickly. This aspect of the phenomenon has puzzled scientists for a long time and has led to suggestions that UFOs use some kind of 'anti-optic device' to prevent them being seen. There are, however, some simpler explanations that account for the majority of reports. UFOs 'disappearing' in the darkness of night could do so by simply switching off their lights. Daytime discs could appear to vanish by turning themselves sideways on to the observer, it would be very difficult to pick out the thin edge of a disc against the sky. These explanations do not, of course, account for radarvisual sightings that suddenly vanish. But if a UFO disappeared behind a patch of disturbed air, a mirage-like effect could easily screen it both from sight and from radar detectors. There are, however, case on file for which none of these explanations seems credible. It seems that the phenomena involved can only be explained as products of a technology much further advanced than our own. @endnode @node spinpic1 "The Planet Venus" The Planet Venus ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ @{" The planet Venus " system pi1:patch1}, 26 million miles (48 million kilometres) from Earth. @endnode @node spinpic2 "An Artist's Impression of Venus" An Artist's Impression of Venus ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ @{" An Artist's Impression " system pi1:patch2} of the surface of Venus, based on television pictures. With a surface temperature reaching 900'F (480'C) it is highly unlikely that anything could live on the planet. @endnode @node spinpic3 "Apollo 8 Blastoff" Apollo 8 Blastoff ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ @{" Apollo 8 Blasting Off " system pi1:patch3} for the Moon. To reach planets beyond our Solar System would require a spacecraft powered by a vastly more efficient fuel. @endnode @node spinpic4 "Professor Freeman Dyson" Professor Freeman Dyson ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ @{" Professor Freeman Dyson " system pi1:patch4}, the American physicist who designed a nuclear-powered spacecraft as long ago as 1958. @endnode @node spinpic5 "Why Saucers?" Why Saucers? ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ By far the majority of UFO reports des- cribe the strange objects as disc- or cigar-shaped and it could be that most UFOs reported as cigar-shaped are in fact discs. Whether or not this is actually the case, the number of reports of @{" Saucer-Shaped UFOs " system pi1:patch5} is overwhelming. There has been a great deal of speculation as to why this should be so some people have suggested the mystical significance of the circle may have something to do with it but there is a simple explanation. On long inter-stellar voyages, a spacecraft will pass through vast regions of empty space far from the regions of gravitational attraction of any major objects where there is no wind resistance, no up or down, no east or west, nothing. The most logical shape for a vessel travelling in these circumstances is circular, for a circle is symmetrical about an infinite number of axes. The fact that most UFOs are disc-shaped rather than spherical can be explained as a design feature that allows spacecraft to operate at high speeds once they have entered the atmosphere of planets: by flying with their edges into the wind, they can cut down the effect of air resistance almost to zero. @endnode @node paradox "The UFO Paradox" The UFO Paradox ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ Only the most hardened sceptic can still pretend that UFOs do not exist. But in what way are they real? Hilary Evans examines this vexed question - and finds that there may be more than one answer....... @{" The COMING of the SAUCERS " link parapic6} @{" Skylab III 1973 " link parapic7} @{" Taormina, Sicily 1954 " link parapic8} 'THE FLEW LIKE A SAUCER would if you skipped it across the water.' This is how, on 24 June 1947, American airman Kenneth Arnold, an experienced pilot, described some unusual flying craft he had seen over the mountains of America's west coast. News paper men applied his phrase to the craft themselves, and the misleading label 'flying saucer' has followed the UFO ever since, like a tin can tied to a cat's tail. This fanciful name has deepened the reluctance of professional scientists to take the UFO seriously. Only a few have taken the trouble to investigate this bizarre pheno menon, which surely qualifies as the strangest of our time. Even that phrase, 'of our time', is a subject of controversy: many people claim that the UFO has been with mankind throughout history. But the evidence they offer is meagre and their case far from proven. There seems little doubt that our earliest ancestors were considerably more advanced than has generally been supposed, but that is a long way from the theory that our planet was long ago visited by extraterrestrial voyagers. Whether or not UFOs existed in the past, there is no doubt that UFO sightings have proliferated in astonishing numbers over the past 40 years. This fact seems to be in some way linked with man's first steps towards exploring space, and this connection is undoubtedly an important clue in trying to explain the UFO. Estimates of the total number of UFO sightings vary so widely as to be meaningless, more helpful figures are provided by the catalogues of reported sightings prepared by individual investigative organisations. Recently a French team catalogued more than 600 encounter cases in France alone, each vouched for by responsible investigators, how many more were not reported or investigated? In the early 1970s UFO investigators made lists of all reported landing cases for particular countries, 923 were recorded in the United States, 200 in Spain. Are UFOs real in the sense that, say, spacecraft are real? The surest proof would be actually to get hold of one, and there are persistent rumours that certain governments, notably that of the United States, have indeed obtained a UFO, which is kept in total secrecy. However this remains mere conjecture, despite the sworn affidavits of alleged witnesses. Indeed, the whole matter of governmental involvement-or the lack of it is a further and fascinating aspect of the UFO controversy. In the absence of a real UFO that we can touch and examine, there is a great deal of evidence of the phenomenon in the form of a mass of photographs and a handful of movies. The majority are undoubtedly fakes. Those with good credentials are so blurred, so distant or so ambiguous that they simply add a further dimension to the problem. Why, if UFOs exist, and in an age when many people carry cameras with them most of the time, have we not obtained better photographic evidence? Perhaps the strongest evidence we have is from the effects caused by UFOs on surrounding objects, particularly machinery. In November 1967 a truck and a car approaching each other on a Hampshire road in the early hours of the morning simultaneously suffered engine failure when a large eggshaped object crossed the road between them. The police, and subsequently the Ministry of Defence, investigated the incident, but no official explanation was ever issued. Such a case may leave investigators puzzled, but it makes one thing certain, if they can cause physical effects, UFOs must be physically real. If they are physical objects, UFOs must originate from somewhere. When the first UFOs of the current era were seen, back in the 1940s, it was assumed they came from somewhere on Earth. The Americans suspected they were a Russian secret device, perhaps developed using the expertise of German scientists captured at the end of the Second World War. But as more reports came in, it became clear that no nation on Earth could be responsible. Nor was there sufficient evidence to support other ingenious theories that they came from the Himalayas, long a favoured source of secret wisdom, or Antarctica, where unexplored tracts of land and climatic anomalies provide a shaky foundation for speculation. Instead, ufologists began to look beyond the Earth, encouraged by the fact that our own space exploration programme was just beginning. We were starting to take an active interest in worlds beyond, and it seemed reasonable that other civilisations might have a similar interest in us. However, although the number of potential sources of life in the Universe is virtually infinite, the probability of any civilisation being at a stage of development appropriate for space travel is very small. The fact that no solid evidence has been found for the extraterrestrial hypothesis is discouraging. Although it is the best available explanation, it remains no more than speculation. Messages from outer space? ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ Today it is recognised that the UFO poses a problem not only for the astronomer and the engineer, but also for the behavioural scientist. The psychologist confirms that an individual's response to a sighting is conditioned by his psychological make-up, while the sociologist places such responses in a wider social context and relates them to cultural patterns. The anthropologist detects parallels with myth and traditional belief, while the parapsychologist notes how frequently sightings are accompanied by such psychic manifestations as precognition and poltergeist phenomena. This is particularly true of 'encounter' cases in which the observer claims to have had actual meetings with UFO occupants. The entities are generally described as extraterrestrial aliens, often ambassadors from an inter-galactic power, their purpose is to examine human beings, to warn us of misuse. of resources and to bring reassuring messages from some cosmic brotherhood. With only one or two such cases on record they could be dismissed as fantasy, but there are hundreds of such cases on file. If a single one of these cases could be shown to be based on fact, the UFO problem would be established on solid foundations and serious scientific interest assured. But in every instance it remains an open question .whether the incident actually occurred or is simply a fabrication, deliberate, unconscious, or perhaps induced by some external force. Hypotheses range from brainwashing by extraterrestrial invaders, to deliberate invention by the CIA. Almost certainly, UFOs exist on both the physical and the psychological level. Somehow we have got to recognise that, although they are real, they are not what they seem. This is the paradox that lies at the heart of the UFO mystery, which we be examine in the classic UFO case histories that follow throughout the many issues of Paranormal Investigations to come. @endnode @node parapic6 "The COMING of the SAUCERS" The COMING of the SAUCERS ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ @{" Kenneth Arnold's book " system pi1:patch6}, first published in 1952, was the first full study of UFOs. Arnold began collecting accounts of UFO sightings after he saw several disc-shaped objects in the sky in June 1947. @endnode @node parapic7 "Skylab III 1973" Skylab III 1973 ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ A shot taken from Skylab III in 1973. @{" The Object " system pi1:patch7} rotated for several minutes before disappearing. UFOs have been reported by almost all astronauts. @endnode @node parapic8 "Taormina, Sicily 1954" Taormina, Sicily 1954 ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ This @{" photograph " system pi1:patch8} was taken at Taormina, Sicily, in 1954. Sceptics claim the 'objects' are nothing more than lenticular clouds, or even the result of lens flare. @endnode @node ovol "Other Voices, Other Lives Other Voices, Other Lives ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ It has long been known that under hypnosis some people regress to what appears to be a previous life. They not only assume another personality, but, as DAVID CHRISTIE-MURRAY shows, they can describe details from the past that are completely unknown to them outside of the trance state........ @{" Hypnotherapist Joe Keeton " link smallpictxt} @{" The Belief in Reincarnation " link tbir} @{" Franz Anton Mesmer " link fam} @{" Ten More Lives to Remember " link ten} HYPNOTIC REGRESSION into alleged previous lives is one of the most exciting and fascinating of psychic phenomena and one of the most fascinating. During the past 20 years it has been brought to the attention of the general public every so often by programmes on radio and television, articles in the press and books written either by hypnotists themselves or by collaborators working with them. Morey Bernstein's 'The search for Bridey Murphy', published in 1965, is still remembered if the small talk veers towards the occult, Arnall Bloxham's tapes, featured on radio and television programmes, and given a longer life by Jeffrey Iverson's More lives than one?, are widely known. Recently, Peter Moss has collaborated with Joe Keeton, prodigious in his expenditure of hypnotic man-hours, in the book Encounters with the past, which describes recordings of extracts from sessions with chosen subjects. It is not generally realised that hypnotic regression into previous lives is not a recent discovery and has, in fact, been studded for nearly a century. The work of pioneers in this field, much of it lost because it was done long before the advent of the tape-recorder, is nevertheless valuable to students of reincarnation, whether they believe in it or not. Travelling back in time ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ Part of the fascination of hypnotic regression lies in the very frustration that it engenders. Its revelations are both positive and negative, some bolstering the faith of reincarnationists and puzzling sceptics, others bewildering believers and encouraging doubt. Regression is positive in that the dramatisations of former existences are vividly portrayed far beyond the acting abilitics of subjects in their waking condition, so that observers repeatedly say, 'If this be acting, neither an Olivier or a Rernhardt could better it.' Positive, too, is the consistcncy with which many subjects, regressed repeatedly to the same historical perind, take up the previous life, so that the same personality, outlook and intonatioll of speech appear without effort or hesitation. The same incidents and facts are remembered even when trick questions are introduced to try to trap the speakers. This happens even when years separate the sessions. Regression is positive in two further ways. The first is that obscure historical facts, apparently completely unknown beforehand to either hypnotist or subject and confirmed only after considerable research are revealed in reply to general questions, an example of this is shown by one of Joe Keeton's subjects, Ann Dowling, an ordinary housewife who, during over 60 hours of regression, became Sarah Williams, an orphan living a life of utter squalor in a Liverpool slum in the first half of the 19th century. When asked what was happening in Liverpool in 1850, Ann Dowling mentioned the visit of a foreign singer whose name had 'summat to do wi' a bird'. Research showed that Jenny Lind, the 'Swedish Nightingale', on her way from Sweden to America, sang for two nights in Liverpool's Philharmonic Hall in August 1850. The second positive aspect of hypnotic regression is found in the tiny details of past usage that slip naturally into the subject's conversation while reliving the past life. These details might have been picked up by the subject in his present lifetime and held in his subconscious memory, but they are unlikely to have been formally taught or known to people of ordinary education. David Lowe, a member of the Society for Psychical Research, lectures about a woman whom he has regressed into a number of lives, some of them in different generations of the same family (an unusual feature), illustrating his talks with copious tape recordings of her conversations in previous existences. During a 17th-century regression, David Lowe asked the woman how a certain word containing a 'w' was spelt. Her spontaneous answer was 'double v', the common pronunciation of the letter at that time. This trivial detail was more telling to some listeners than all the researched dates and genealogies that substantiated the woman's story, remarkable as these were. When asked if she were engaged (to be married), the subject failed to understand the modern expression, but later talked happily of her recent betrothal. Fact or fiction ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ The negative side of hypnotic regression is nevertheless considerable. There are many anachronisms, occasional historical howlers, instances of extraordinary ignorance and, with some subjects, inconsistencies (although much rarer than, and more balanced by, the consistencies). One 19th-century character mentioned her 'boyfriend' in the modern sense of someone with a sexual love-interest in her. Another, regressed to the early 1830s and asked who ruled England, replied 'Queen Victoria', although four years of William IV's reign had still to run and Victoria's accession could not have been known for certain. A common difficulty in substantiating historical facts is the scarcity of records of ordinary folk before the 19th century. Even when subjects mention landowners and comparatively important people, there is often no record of their existence in local archives. It is therefore sometimes extremely difficult to separate fact from fiction, especially as there may be a great deal of 'role-playing', the incubation in the subconscious mind of an imaginary personality around a nucleus of fact read in a history book or a novel. Origins of modern hypnosis ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ Hypnosis is still so misunderstood and thought of as occult in the minds of many that it is as well to describe its place in modern thought. Modern hypnosis began with Franz Mesmer, an Austrian physician who became a fashionable figure of Parisian society in the 18th century. He mistakenly believed that human beings emitted a force that could be transferred to objects such as iron rods. He 'magnetised' the rods by stroking them, then placed them in tubs filled with water in which his patients immersed their lags. Many and various were the ills allegedly cured by this method. The extravagance of Mesmeric theory and its claims, together with the undertones of occultism that went with them, aroused intense opposition and throughout the 19th century, serious investigators into hypnosis and the few medical men bold enough to experiment with its use met the kind of hostility once reserved for witches. The Society for Physical Research, which was founded in Britain in 1882, Set up a committee to investigate hypnosis that continued to exist until a few years ago. Its findings, however, were not easily communicated to the general public and the phenom to have been a Spaniard, Fernando Colavida, in 1987. Further discoveries led to the investigation of pre-birth experiences in the womb and within a few years Dr Mortis Stark was studying the possibility of actually regressing subjects to a life before the present. At about the same time, in 1911, a Frenchman, Colonel Albert de Rochas, published an account of regressions that he had collected over several years. A therapeutic role ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ The method employed in hypnotic regression is simple. After hypnotising the subject, the operator takes him back step by step to the beginning of his present life, then into the womb, and then instructs him to go back and back until he comes to some experience that he can describe. This is sometimes all 'existence' in the intermission between death ending a former life and birth beginning the present, sometimes experience of the former life itself, the period and circumstances of which the hypnotist can elicit by careful questioning. The process is not merely used for interest's sake or to prove reincarnation, it can be therapeutic. Neuroses and other psy chological disorders may be caused by traumas, the existence of which has been caused by shocks or other experiences in childhood or youth apparently too horrible for the conscious mind to face. To cure the neurosis, the trauma must be discovered and faced by the patient, and hypnosis is one technique able to dig it out. By an extension of the process, neuroses and phobias may be caused by traumas experienced in alleged former lives that are revealed under hypnosis. Thus, one woman's terrible fear of water was caused by her having been bound with chains as a galley-slave in a previous existence, thrown into a river and eaten alive by crocodiles. A man terrified of descending in lifts had been a Chinese general who had accidentally fallen to his death from a great height. A young American girl about to dive from a high board was suddenly paralysed with fear after a moving bystander had been reflected in the water. Hypnosis revealed the hideous end of a former life in which she had been a girl in Florida who, just as she was jumping into the water, had seen the shadow of the alligator that was to devour her moving below the surface. Whether or not these are memories of genuine previous experiences, they are convincing to many who have them. Much of the investigation into this particular aspect of hypnosis challenges the sceptics to find an explanation other than that of reincarnation. There are alternative explanations, which will be presented in future articles. @endnode @node smallpictxt "Hypnotherapist Joe Keeton" Hypnotherapist Joe Keeton ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ Hypnotherapist @{" Joe keeton " system pi1:patch9} has conducted more than 8000 regressions. One of his subjects, @{" Ann Dowling " system pi1:patch10} went back over 100 years and became Sarah Williams, who lived in @{" Liverpool " system pi1:patch12} in the 1850s. Among the facts recalled by Mrs Dowling was the visit of Swedish singer @{" Jenny Lind " system pi1:patch11}. @endnode @node tbir "The Belief in Reincarnation" The Belief in Reincarnation ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ @{" What Tibetans Believed " link tibs} The belief in reincarnation, that man's soul is reborn over an over again in another body or form stretches far back into the past. The doctrine appears in primitive religions such as those of the Indian tribes of Assam, Nagas and Lushais, who believed that after death the soul took the form of an insect. The Bakongs of Borneo believed that their dead were reincarnated into the bearcats that frequented their raised coffins. The Kikuyu women of Kenya often worship at a place 'inhabited' by their ancestral souls in the belief that to become pregnant they must be entered by an ancestral soul. According to Buddhist and Hindu thought man or the soul is reborn in accordance with merits acquired during his previous lifetime. But some sects of Hinduism hold that a man does not necessarily assume a human form in the next life. If he has been involved with vice or crime it is possible he may return as a cactus, toad, lizard, or even as poison ivy! The Buddhists believe that man is made up of elements, body, sensation, perception, impulse, emotion and consciousness, which fall apart at death. The individual, as such, ceases to exist and a new individual life begins according to the quality of the previous life, until at last achieving perfection and nirvana-eternal bliss. Although reincarnation is not mentioned in Western texts until the late Greek and Latin writers, the idea dates back to at least the 6th century BC. It appears in the Orphic writings, which appear to have played a great part in the thought of Pythagorus. He believed that the soul had 'fallen' into a bodily exist ence and would have to reincarnate itself through other forms to be set free. He himself claimed to have had previous existences including one as a soldier in a Trojan war. Plato was greatly influenced by the Orphico-Pythagorean views and mentions reincarnation in his concluding part of the Republic. The soul, according to Plato, is immortal, the number of souls fixed, and reincarnation regularly occurs. Although discarded by Aristotle and other Stoic views, Plato's derivation was taken up by later schools of thought such as the Neoplatonists. Within the Christian church the belief was held by certain Gnostic sects during the first century AD and by the Manichaeans in the fourth and fifth centuries. But the idea was repudiated by eminent theologians at the time, and in AD 553, the Emperor Justinian condemned reincarnation, at the Second Council of Constantinople, as heresy. Today the Westerner does have some difficulty in identifying with the Eastern idea of reincarnation. Most Western religious denominations share the view that the individual retains individuality after death, and finds the idea of returning as an animal or plant distinctly foreign. In 1917 the Roman Catholic Church denounced the idea as heresy. Most adherents of reincarnation are now claiming the evidence from regressive hypnosis as proof for their case. @endnode @node tibs "What Tibetans Believed" What Tibetans Believed ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ Tibetans believe that their spiritual leader, the @{" Dalai Lama " system pi1:patch13}, is the reincarnation of a previous Dalai Lama whose soul enters the body of a child born at the precise moment of his death. @endnode @node fam "Franz Anton Mesmer" Franz Anton Mesmer ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ The founder of modern hypnosis, Franz Anton Mesmer. believed that people emitted a force that could be transferred to iron rods. Parisians of all classes flocked to his salon in the 18th century where they sat round a large wooden tub called a @{" Baquet " system pi1:patch14}. This was filled with water, iron fillings and bottles of 'magnetised' water. Projecting from the tub were iron rods, which patients held against their afflicted parts. @endnode @node ten "Ten More Lives to Remember" Ten More Lives to Remember ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ Madame J, a soldier's wife and mother of one child, was delicate in health and as a girl had 'hated history'. She was regressed by @{" Colonel de Rochas " system pi1:patch15} to 10 previous s lives, some extremely detailed. In the first she died at eight months. She then lived as a girl named Irisee in the country of the Imondo near Treitse. She next became a man, Esius, aged 40, who was planning to kill @{" Emperor Probus " system pi1:patch16} in revenge for taking his daughter, Florina. The fourth life was that of Carlomee, a Frankish warrior chieftain captured by Attila at Chalons-sur-Marne in AD, 449. Abbess Martha followed, born in AD 923, who tyrannised young girls in a Vincennes convent as, late as 1010. The Abbess was succeeded by Mariette Martin, aged 18 in 1300, daughter of a man who worked for the king-'le beau Philippe'. Madame J. then became Michel Berry, who was killed at the age of 22 in 1515 at the @{" Battle of Marignano " system pi1:patch17}. This life was extremely detailed, Michel's career developing from his learning the art of fencing at 10, through his life as a page at the courts at Versailles and the Sorbonne and sundry love affairs to his presence aged 20 at the Battle of Guinegattc in Normandy. After an eighth life as a wife and mother aged 30 in 1702, Madame J again became a man, Jules Robert. Jules was aged 38 in 1776 and a 'bad' worker in marble. Nevertheless one of his sculptures reached the Vatican. Jules Robert reincarnated as Marguerite Duchesne, born in 1835, daughter of a grocer in the rue de la Caserne, Briancon. She went to school in the rue de la Gargouille. Research showed that the school existed, but there had never been a grocer Duchesne in the rue de la Caserne. Otherwise Madame J's description of places was accuratc. @endnode @node monsters "Monsters of the Deep" Monsters of the Deep ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ For thousands of years, sightings of strange sea monsters have been reported around the world. Here, JANET and COLIN BORD argue that the ocean depths contain many creatures as yet unknown to science, and that these reports should not be discounted as wild imaginings...... @{" British Naturalist 1743-1820 " link natur} @{" A Frightful Monster " link afm} @{" Thomas Huxley " link th} @{" Captains M'Quhae 60 foot Serpent " link serpent} @{" Archbishop Olaus Magnus's Monster " link aomm} @{" Massachusetts Sea Monster " link msm} @{" An Ocean Giant " link aog} WITH MORE THAN 60 percent of the Earth's surface covered with water, it is hardly surprising that sightings of giant underwater monsters have been reported since antiquity. Even today, marine biologists, who have long been aware of the vast unexplored depths of the Earth's oceans, cautiously accept that the numerous reports of sea monster sightings seem to provide evidence that many creatures, at present unknown and unclassified, may be living in the dark and hidden waters. The Biblical beast of evil, the leviathan ('the twisting serpent.... the dragon that is in the sea') is mentioned in the Old Testament five times, and from the Norsemen to the Aborigines in Australia, from the Chinese to the American Indians, ancient mythologies speak or giant sea serpents. Many of the early reports of sea monsters were collected by Scandinavian ecclesiastics. Archbishop Olaf Mansson, now better known as Olaus Magnus, who was exiled to Rome after the Swedish Reformation in the early 16th century, published a natural history of the northern lands in 1555 that contained reports of sea serpents. He described a sea serpent 200 feet (60 metres) long and 20 feet (6 metres thick that would eat calves, lambs and hogs, and would even pluck men from boats. Archbishop Magnus also stated that the monster's appearance foretold disasters such as wars. Interestingly, Magnus described the sea serpent as being black, having hair hanging from its neck (or mane), shining eyes, and putting its 'head on high like a pillar'. These characteristics also appear in recent sighting reports, suggesting that Olaus Magnus was writing about originally factual reports that had become distorted and embroidered with much retelling. Two hundred years later historians were still recording sightings of sea serpents, though the clergy still maintained that these were sightings of the beast of evil. On 6 July 1734 a sea monster appeared off the coast of Greenland, and was reported by a Norwegian missionary, Hans Egede. In 1741 he wrote that its body was as bulky as a ship and was three or four times as long, and that it leapt from the water and plunged back again. Another 18th-century writer on the mystery of the sea serpent was the Bishop of Bergen, Erik Pontoppidan. After detailed enquiry he found that hardly a year went by without some sea serpent sightings along the Scandinavian coastline and he published his findings in 1752. A year earlier Bishop Pontoppidan had arranged for a letter from Captain Lorenz von Ferry to be read to the Bergen Court of Justice, in which was described a sea serpent that the Captain and his crew had seen in 1746 while rowing ashore to Molde in Norway. He said it had a grey head like a horse, large black eyes, a black mouth and a long white mane. Behind the head seven or eight coils could be seen above the water. Captain von Ferry fired at it and it sank below the water and did not reappear. Two of his seamen, who had also been witnesses, swore on oath that the contents of the report were true. During the 18th century, the increasing importance attached to rational scientific analysis resulted in mariners reports of monstrous sea beasts being discounted, then openly derided. A Norwegian scientist, Peter Ascanius, stated that sailors who saw a line of humps in the water were not viewing a huge water beast, but were in fact seeing a line of leaping dolphins. This doubtful explanation has since become a favourite standby for debunkers of sea monster reports. However, perhaps surprisingly, naturallists who took the time to study the reports almost invariably pronounced in favour of the sea serpent's existence. These included Sir Joseph Banks, a leading British scientist in the early 19th century who sailed round the world with Captain Cook, and Thomas Huxley, who in 1893 wrote that there was no reason why snake-like reptiles 50 feet (15 metres) or more in length should not be found in the sea. American marine biologists of repute at this time agreed that the sea could very well contain unknown species of monstrous creatures and a curator of the London Zoological Gardens, A. D. Bartlett, wrote in 1877 that it was unwise to disregard the evidence from so many different sources. Constantin Samuel Rafinesque was a brilliant and controversial naturalist, who made a tremendous contribution to the knowledge of American flora and fauna. Born in 1783, he emigrated to America from Europe in 1815 where he became Professor of Natural Sciences at Transylvania University, in Kentucky. Among his wide range of interests was the sea serpent, of whose existence he was fully convinced. During the first half of the 19th century there were a great many sightings of sea serpents along the north-east American coast, centred on the fishing port of Gloucester, in Massachusetts. Rafinesque examined the reports and decided that they fell into four groups, to which he gave the generic name of Megopias, or 'big snake'. However, there were many opponents of scientists who were investigating the unexplained phenomenon of sea monsters. Among the more vociferous was Sir Richard Owen, an influential but conservative scientist of the 19th century. whom Darwin called 'one of my chief enemies'. In 1948 Owen conducted a correspondence of some acerbity with Captain Peter M'Quhae, through the columns of The Times. Their debate concerned the 60-foot (18-metre) sea serpent that the Captain and his crew had seen in the southern Atlantic from the deck of HMS Daedalus on 6th August that year. Although Owen used the sceptic's customary ploy of interpreting the report to fit his own preconceptions (in this case his identification was a sealion), Captain M'Quhae would have none of it and firmly maintained that he had seen a sea serpent. Antoon Cornelis Oudemans was a Dutch biologist who came from a family of scientists. Born in 1858, he studied biology at Utrecht and became an authority on mites and ticks. He also brought his scientific skills to bear on the problem of the sea monster. Throughout his long life (he died in 1943) Oudemans collected many sighting reports and continued to speculate on the place of the sea monster in nature. His book, The great sea serpent, published in 1892, is based on 187 sighting reports and was a courageous work in the contemporary sceptical climate, but it is marred by his preconception that there is only one kind of unknown sea monster, closely related to the seal family. As one would expect, sea monsters have long been a part of mariners tales. Some reports have undoubtedly been exaggerated, but many others that made their way into ships logs are strangely consistent. In May 1901, when the officers on the bridge of the steamer Grangense in the western Atlantic saw a monstrous crocodile-like creature with 6-inch (15-centimetre) long teeth, splashing about on the surface, the Captain refused to note the encounter in the ship's log, saying: They will say we were all drunk, and I'll thank you, Mister, not to mention it to our agents at Para or Manaus.' But there were others who were perhaps less careful of their reputation, such as Lieutenant George Sandford who, as captain of the merchant ship Lady Combermere, in 1820 reported seeing in mid-Atlantic a serpent 60 to 100 feet (18 to 30 metres) long, spouting water like a whale. On 15th May 1833 four British Army officers and a military store-keeper were out for 3 day's fishing when they saw an 80-foot (24-metre) long serpent swim by, not more than 200 yards (180 metres) away. This was at Mahone Bay, 40 miles (65 kilometres) west of Halifax, Nova Scotia, and so convinced were they of the importance of their sighting that they all signed a statement and added: There could be no mistake, no delusion, and we were all perfectly satisfied that we had been favoured with a view of the 'true and veritable sea-serpent', which had been generally considered to have existed only in the brain of some Yankee skipper, and treated as a tale not much entitled to belief. Another sighting of the crocodile-like type of sea monster was made by the captain and crew of the Eagle on 23 March 1830, a few hours before they docked at Charleston, South Carolina. Captain Deland sailed his schooner to within 25 yards (22 metres) of the basking creature and fired a musket al its head. When the bullet hit, the monster dived beneath the ship and struck it several times with its tail, blows strong enough to damage the craft if not to sink her. Another military man who had a close-up view of an unknown monster from the depths was Major H. W. J. Senior of the Bengal Staff Corps. He was travelling on the City of Baltimore in the Gulf of Aden on 28th January 1879 and saw 500 yards (450 metres) from the ship, a head with a 2-foot (60-centimetre) diameter neck protrude from the water to a height of 20 or 30 feet (6 or 9 metres). The creature was moving so rapidly he was unable to focus his field glasses upon it as it rose up, opened its mouth wide and closed it again before submerging, only to reappear a few moments later. No body was visible, but Major Senior described the head as of a bull dog-like appearance. His report was also signed by other witnesses. In the 100 years since this sighting, sea monsters have continued to surface before startled onlookers. The intrepid trans-Atlantic rower Captain John Ridgway saw a monster just before midnight on 25th July 1966. His companion, Sergeant Chay Blithe, who has since became a world-famous yachtsman, was asleep. As Ridgway rowed he heard a swishing noise and a 35-foot (10 metre) long sea serpent outlined in phosphorescence, 'as if a string of neon lights were hanging from it', came swimming towards the boat. It dived underneath and did not reappear on the other side. @endnode @node natur "British Naturalist 1743-1820" British Naturalist 1743-1820 ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ The eminent British naturalist, @{" Sir Joseph Banks " system pi1:patch18} (1743-1820). In 1820 he affirmed his 'full faith in the existence of our Serpent in the Sea'. @endnode @node afm "A Frightful Monster" A Frightful Monster ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ When the crew of a French ship were saved from death at the hands of a frightful monster, they gave a @{" painting " system pi1:patch19} of the event, in thanksgiving for their deliverance, to a church in St Malo. The original disappeared. but the French naturalist, Denys de Montfort, had a copy made in the 1790s (shown here), as he felt it confirmed the existence of giant sea monsters. @endnode @node th "Thomas Huxley" Thomas Huxley ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ @{" Thomas Huxley " system pi1:patch20} (1825-1895) was another noted British scientist who pronounced in favour of giant sea serpents. @endnode @node serpent "Captains M'Quhae 60 foot Serpent" Captains M'Quhae 60 foot Serpent ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ On 6th August 1848, Captain M'Ouhae and six members of the crew of HMS Daedalus sighted a 60-foot (18-metre) @{" serpent " system pi1:patch21} in the southern-Atlantic. When an illustrated report of the encounter appeared in the British press, if caused a fierce controversy. @endnode @node aomm "Archbishop Olaus Magnus's Monster" Archbishop Olaus Magnus's Monster ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ @{" One of the sea monsters " system pi1:patch22} described by Archbishop Olaus Magnus and illustrated in his history of Scandinavia, which was published in 1555. @endnode @node msm "Massachusetts Sea Monster" Massachusetts Sea Monster ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ Despite scathing criticism from 19th-Century scientists, sightings of sea monsters continued to be reported. This @{" painting " system pi1:patch23} shows a monster sinking a ship off the coast of Massachusetts in 1819, an area where giant sea creatures seemed to thrive. @endnode @node aog "An Ocean Giant" An Ocean Giant ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ Many zoologists believe the kraken the legendary Norwegian sea monster probably refers to the giant squids of the genus Architeuthis. These creatures inhabit the depths of the ocean and can grow to lengths of over 60 feet /18 metres). The sperm whale is the only animal brave enough to tackle these monsters and fierce battles take place between them. This @{" giant squid " system pi1:patch24} shown here was stranded at Ranheim , Norway, in 1954. Though not the largest specimen known to science, its overall length was 30 feet (10 metres). @endnode @node anct "A Nightmare Comes True" A Nightmare Comes True ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ On the evening of Friday, 26 May 1979 the world was shocked to learn that an American Airlines DC-10 airliner had crashed - a mass of flames and twisted wreckage on take-off from Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. The lives of 273 people were lost in the worst disaster in the history of flying in the United States. In Cincinnati, Ohio, 23-Year-old office manager David Booth sat slumped in horrified disbelief in front of his television. For 10 consecutive nights before the disaster he had had the same terrible nightmare. First, he heard the sound of engines failing, then Looked on helplessly as a huge American Airlines aeroplane swerved sharply, rolled over and crashed to the ground in a mass of red and @{" orange flames. " system pi1:patch25} Not only did he see the crash and hear the explosion, he also felt the heat of the flames. Each time he awoke in terror and was obsessed all day by the memory of the hideous dream. He was sure it was a premonition: 'There was never any doubt to me that something was going to happen,' he said. 'It wasn't like a dream. lt was like I was standing there watching the whole thing like watching television.' After several nights he could no longer keep his terrible premonition to himself and, on Tuesday, 22 May 1979, he telephoned the Federal Aviation Authority at the Greater Cincinnati Airport. Then he called American Airlines and a psychiatrist at the University of Cincinnati. They listened sympathetically, but that didn't make David Booth feel any better. Three days later, almost out of his mind with worry, he heard the news of the DC-10 crash. The Federal Aviation Authority had taken David Booth's call seriously enough to attempt, in vain to match up the details of his nightmare with some known airport or aeroplane somewhere in the country. When they heard the news of the crash, the details tallied all too well. 'It was uncanny,' said Jack Barker, public affairs officer for the southern region of the FAA. 'There were differences, but there were many similarities. The greatest similarity was his calling, naming the airline and the aeroplane . . . and that [the plane] came in inverted . ' Booth had mentioned a 'three engine aircraft' resembling a DC-10, and the crash site he described was similar to the airport at Chicago. David Booth stopped having nightmares once the disaster had happened, but he continued to feel disturbed by the whole affair. 'How can you make sense of something like that?' he asked. 'There's no explanation for it. No meaning. No conclusion. It just doesn't make sense.' @endnode