Stories That Defy Science – Part Three
Elaine Wilson (pseudonym) was a science mistress at a school in Penzance, a seaside resort in Cornwall in southwestern England. Elaine had been undergoing medical treatment for more than four years for thyroid and pituitary glandular dystrophy.
She had, in addition, suffered from a curvature of the spine which left her round-shouldered. She had trouble walking as her legs tended to swell if she was on her feet too long. She also had rheumatism in her left thigh.
In February 1953, Elaine learned of a healing mission that was to be conducted in Penzance. Although she was highly sceptical of the claims made in the course of such missions, she felt she should attend so that she might undertake a critical evaluation of the methods used by these alleged healers.
It was during the second day of this mission that Elaine felt an impulse to join the crowd that was lining up in front of the altar rail. She did so, although she was not aware of any strong emotion at the time, nor did she experience any special stirring of faith.
She knelt at the altar rail and felt the healer place her hands on her neck. As she did so, Elaine felt a deep-seated burning sensation within her torso. She described the heat as “unexpected, uncomfortable, and slightly strangling.” She then returned to her seat.
Elaine remained in her seat while the congregation began singing various hymns. As the second hymn ended, she became aware of convulsive movements to her neck and shoulders. Her shoulders began to jerk back until they were upright and parallel to the back of the pew, but the lower part of her body did not move.
Her head and neck began stretching upwards. She felt as if a noose had been placed around her neck pulling her head up. Yet she felt no pressure on her skin. The pull on her neck caused a definite upward movement in the head. These movements seemed to be beyond her control.
At no time, however, did she feel any pain. She could feel her vertebrae creaking and thought that the person alongside must surely have heard them. Walking back home after the service, Elaine felt somewhat lightheaded.
She noticed that her feet were not as swollen as usual, as she had difficulty keeping her shoes on. Later that evening, she continued to feel a burning sensation throughout the thyroid region. Her throat felt as if she had been drinking strong brandy. This inner heat later spread to her tonsils and from there up the left Eustachian tube to the middle ear on her left side.
The next morning Elaine awoke feeling fresher than usual, although she had only retired late the previous night. Her head was much clearer, as if a load had been lifted from her brain. Throughout the day she was again aware of various jerking movements in her neck and spine.
Although she could control these movements mentally by concentrating on them, they started again whenever she relaxed. It was then that she realized that the rheumatism in her left leg had completely disappeared.
The stretching movements and sensations of heat continued sporadically for the next few days. Elaine noticed that she could now walk up to a mile (1.6 kilometers) without difficulty, and an old injury to her left leg no longer ached when she walked quickly.
One month later, she noted in her diary that she had taken no tablets for four weeks nor had she received any injections. Her blood pressure was normal. Her back was still upright at the neck and waist. Her feet were no longer swollen and the pain in her legs had not returned.
Her hair was softer, and her skin had become more sensitive. The flesh on her forehead seemed thinner and moved more easily over her scalp. She could walk quickly, even uphill, without difficulty. Her one problem, however, was that her clothes no longer fitted her owing to the change in shape of her figure.
Four months later, she wrote, “My own healing has been permanent, and my health has increased daily. I can now play tennis for over two hours as opposed to five minutes last year. I am continually finding more and more of my old limitations gone. This throws new light on the meaning of the word ‘miracle’. I don’t understand it, but it has happened”. 9
In the earlier part of the twentieth century, when the British were still lords of India, a Calcutta lawyer and his wife, Abhoya, started out on a visit to their Guru, Lahiri Mahasaya, who lived in Benares (now called Varanasi).
Their carriage was delayed by heavy traffic, and by the time they reached Howrah station in Calcutta, the train to Benares was whistling its departure. Abhoya, who was a devout disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya, prayed silently to her Guru and implored him to stop the train as she could not bear to suffer any further delay in seeing him.
As the couple reached the platform, they saw an amazing sight. The wheels of the train were moving round and round, but the train itself was making no forward progress. In consternation, the engineer and many of the passengers got off the train to take a closer look at this extraordinary phenomenon.
As Abhoya and her husband were waiting on the platform wondering what to do, they were approached by an English railway guard. Contrary to all precedent, the guard offered his services to them saying; “Give me the money. I will buy your tickets while you climb aboard.”
As soon as they were seated and had been given their tickets, the train began to move slowly forward. The engineer and those passengers who had disembarked rushed to the doors to climb aboard, having no idea how the train had started or why it had stopped in the first place.
The remainder of the journey passed uneventfully for Abhoya and her husband. In due course they reached Benares, where they made their way impatiently to the home of Lahiri Mahasaya.
Seeing her Guru at last, Abhoya was overcome by emotion and prostrated herself before her master. In the Indian manner of extreme devotion, she sought to touch his feet. “Control yourself, Abhoya,” said Lahiri, “how you love to bother me.” And then, with a twinkle in his eye, he added: “As if you could not have come here by the next train!” 10
In May 1974, a man bought a book to read to pass the time while he was travelling. He was sufficiently intrigued by its contents to extend a personal invitation to the author.
The Book was Supernature and its author Dr Lyall Watson. This man invited Watson to visit him at his home in Venice, Italy, to witness a peculiar trick that his daughter Claudia was able to perform.
Watson travelled to Venice and in due course met Claudia, who was then eight years old. Shortly after dinner that evening, while the adults talked among themselves, Claudia lay on the carpet paging through a magazine.
Her father reached for a tube of tennis balls from a corner table, and casually rolled one across the carpet. It came to rest in front of Claudia. She picked it up and held it affectionately to her cheek. Then, balancing the ball in her left hand, she gently stroked it with her right. What followed next left Watson stunned.
“One moment there was a tennis ball – the familiar off-white carpeted sphere marked only by its usual meandering seam. Then it was no longer so. There was a short implosive sound, very soft, like a cork being drawn in the dark, and Claudia held in her hand something completely different: a smooth, dark, rubbery globe with only a suggestion of the old pattern on its surface – a sort of negative through-the-looking-glass impression of a tennis ball.”
Watson examined the object closely. He found that the tennis ball had been turned inside out. Yet it still contained a volume of air under pressure. He squeezed the ball and it retained its former shape. He dropped it and it bounced.
Then he picked up a knife from the dining room table and pierced the rubber. The air inside came hissing out. He then cut right around the circumference and was able to recognize the familiar fur which normally covered the outside of the ball.
Later that evening, Claudia performed the trick again. This time Watson kept the ball and took it back to his hotel, where he placed it on the mantelpiece in his room. As Watson described it, the ball stared at him as a mocking symbol. This enigmatic sphere defied his reasoned world of logic. It seemed to him to undermine the very laws of nature.
“It still disturbed me” he wrote. “I know enough of physics to appreciate that you cannot turn an unbroken sphere inside out like a glove. Not in this reality.” 11
Berthold Schwarz graduated from Dartmouth Medical School and received his medical degree from the New York University College of Medicine. After interning at the Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital, Hanover, New Hampshire, Dr Schwarz became a Fellow in Psychiatry at the Mayo Foundation where he received an M.S. from the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine.
He is a member of numerous medical associations, including the American Psychiatric Association and the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. What stamps Dr Schwarz as an unusual man among his peers, is his penchant for investigating strange talents and even stranger stories, with a view to discovering their underlying meaning.
Throughout his career he has followed the advice of the celebrated physicist, John Wheeler, who is renowned for exhorting his students: “In any field, find the strangest thing, and then explore it.”
Since the spring of 1984, Dr Schwarz has studied a young Florida housewife whom he calls “Katie”, in deference to her wishes to remain anonymous. Katie is the tenth of twelve children born of her part Cherokee Indian mother. Katie was forced to discontinue her education in the third grade in order to care for her ailing mother.
Despite her lack of formal education, or perhaps because of it, Katie has demonstrated a spectacular array of psychic talents, including psychokinesis, stigmata, healing and telepathy. She seems to have passed on her talents to her son, who has demonstrated among other things the ability to bend and split metal spoons.
On one particular occasion, Katie’s son, who was then fifteen years old, asked his mother if it was possible to go back in time. She replied that she believed it was. With that the boy went immediately to her walk-in closet, closed the door, and lay down on the floor.
As he later told Dr Schwarz, “I wanted to see what it was like in the 1920’s.” The boy appeared to enter a trance-like condition for he suddenly became aware of being in a strange room. He noticed a Christmas tree in the room, and he could see an old bald-headed man and an oil lamp nearby.
He also spotted an interesting looking cardboard box. He moved towards it, but in doing so managed to knock over the oil lamp. In the ensuing confusion, he simply recalled grasping the cardboard box before the vision faded and he found himself once more back in the walk-in-closet.
Incredibly, the cardboard box was still in his possession. He opened it and found an ostrich-skin cigarette lighter enclosed in a gold leather pouch. Dr Schwarz was later able to examine this lighter. He found that it bore the following inscription: “Compliments Moragues. Bay City. Inc., Mobile, Ala., Christmas 1928.” 12
Several years ago, a Latin-American friend of mine called Jorge Lopehandia was living in Ecuador, in the little village of Baños. He happened to be walking one day down a narrow jungle path along the edge of a cliff. After having travelled down this path for a short distance, Jorge decided to return.
He headed back along the same narrow path. As he was making his way back, Jorge was astonished find the path blocked by an enormous spider web. The web extended from the branches of a bush which flanked the path across the cliff face. The web stretched from his chest down to his feet. In the centre of the web was a brilliant, silver, metallic spider.
What amazed Jorge was that he had walked down that same path only a few minutes earlier, and there had been no sign of any spider or its web. It seemed incredible that such a large web could have been spun in so short a time.
Yet he was now in a quandary, for his only way home was to follow the path that was now blocked by the web. It was impossible to get around the bush without falling down the cliff. Jorge looked at the extraordinary, shining spider, and wondered how he could pass by without having to destroy the creature’s magnificent web.
He closed his eyes and prayed that he might somehow be able to pass without damaging the gossamer threads. When he opened his eyes a few seconds later, Jorge was confronted by an amazing sight. In the middle of the web was an open archway, allowing him to walk easily through. The brilliant, metallic spider was nowhere to be seen. 13
All of the foregoing experiences serve, in one way or another, to challenge our traditional scientific view of reality. They seem to defy the very laws of nature. How then can we account for these anomalies?
The tough-minded realist may react by questioning the authenticity of these stories, branding them as anecdotal and unreliable, probably even the product of unsound minds. Yet for every case presented here, there remain a vast legion of others which might have been included in their place.
It is this wealth of material, coming from sources which are independent of culture, creed or sex, that become for the serious investigator a tide of evidence that simply cannot be ignored. As Jung himself recognized, they are facts which are in practice “uncommonly important and fraught with consequences.”
What strange vision did Sir Victor Goddard see on that stormy day in 1935? Perhaps it is significant that at the time he saw the hangars at the airfield at Drem, he noted that “the scene was lit with brilliant light” which seemed to him like sunshine. Yet within a few seconds he flew back into the pouring rain.
If we suppose that Sir Victor was blessed with a vision of the future, there remains the nagging point that he distinctly recalled seeing the hangar walls renovated in brick, whereas they actually were rebuilt in steel. His vision, if that is what it was, was not an accurate copy of the future airfield at Drem.
Carl Jung may equally well have had a vision, of a type generally referred to as hallucination. He too was aware of a “mild blue light that filled the room” which he did not question at the time. But if it was hallucination, it was also shared by his lady friend.
However, unlike the experience of Goddard, Jung and his friend did not see some entirely different scene replacing that of customary reality. Only the walls seemed to be superimposed with the magical mosaics, for the baptismal font remained unchanged, as Jung himself recorded.
Graham Conway was not aware of any change in awareness, yet for some ten minutes he watched two figures moving towards him along a snowy road. Although they seemed perfectly real, there were no tracks in the snow.
Did Conway then imagine these interlopers? If so, under what conditions might others also become aware of things and people that are not real? Or were they visitors from another realm, who could be seen but left no marks of their passing?
Strange creatures like the hairy hominid witnessed by David Buckley and John Fuller do leave evidence of their passing, as can be seen from physical traces reported in numerous other cases. Are they hoaxes, or instances of men disguising themselves in Halloween costumes? If so, this would seem to be a hazardous pursuit in a land where the constitution grants every citizen the right to carry arms.
And what of those creatures that seem stranger still, like the elves witnessed by Elizabeth Howard? Were they simply characters generated by the imagination of a childish mind? If so, what could have been the cause for such impromptu carnivals of thought?
Faith healing is a long-established phenomenon, although one that is still hotly debated within medical and scientific circles. Yet cases such as these continue to be reported from generation to generation.
Finally, there remain those experiences that seem to defy all logic and rationality. The inverted tennis ball that so bemused Lyall Watson is just one example of events that confound the accepted laws of physics. We dub them miracles.
These cases remain enigmatic anomalies of science. Many people doubt even the possibility of an event like the train that halted in its tracks to allow two late comers to climb aboard. Such stories are usually dismissed as after-dinner tales of fantasy. Yet cases such as these do occur, and they keep on recurring.
What these stories show is that our existing “laws of science” are seriously flawed. Not only are scientists unable to explain these events, but they simply ignore them and are content to relegate them to a category which they call the “paranormal”.
What these stories do prove, however, is what mystics have been saying for centuries, and that is that the universe is a manifestation of an unlimited principle that is fundamentally free. Because of this, it can never be bound by a pre-determined set of laws. So things that cannot be explained by science not only happen, but will continue to happen.
Furthermore, they claim that life holds out the possibility, for those who have the courage and the resolve, to chart anew their course in life, according to their own desires. And material obstacles like the web that confronted Jorge Lopehandia can be overcome in answer to a need.
For such people, truly nothing is written but the scroll they write themselves. They are free to write their will across the stars.
References
9 Elsie Salmon, “Christ Still Healing”, Arthur James, Worcester, 1956, pp. 61-67.
10 Paramahansa Yogananda, “Autobiography of a Yogi”, Self Realization Fellowship, Los Angeles, 1977, pp. 326-7.
11 Lyall Watson, “Lifetide”, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1979, pp. 17-19.
12 Berthold Schwarz, “Presumed physical mediumship and UFO’s“, in “Flying Saucer Review”, Vol. 31, No 6, p. 21.
13 Jorge Lopehandia, personal communication.
