The most ambitious attempt to prove the existence of life after death began 66 years ago and ended 41 years ago. They rarely write about her because … But about everything in order.
Today, for many, it has become undeniable that there is life after death. At the same time, they refer to the resuscitator Raymond Moody, who has studied thousands of descriptions of travel to another world of patients who have experienced clinical death.
Either Stanislav Grof's works on holotropic therapy, or Elena Wambach's past life therapy, which “immersed” people in altered states of consciousness and thus opened the doors of their previous incarnations for them, or John Mishlav's experiments on studying the travels of the astral bodies of living people (astral projection).
However, all the authors bypass one essential question: can at least one of the "guinea pigs" or the scientist who conducted the research say: "This is what this person from the other world said"? Alas, no one can say this.
Even past life therapists do not insist that their patients' excursions are really re-experiences. Perhaps, they say, this information is received from the subconscious or genetic memory, or even from the collective unconscious of humanity (some kind of world information bank).
This obstacle to the study of life after death was seen by parapsychologists who worked even before World War II. Since in the period between the world wars, research on anomalous phenomena was most developed in Great Britain, it is natural that it was there that a unique experience was delivered.
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A few years before his death, in August 1940, Oliver Lodge, one of the leaders of British parapsychology, gave the London Society for Parapsychological Research (OPR) a package containing seven sealed envelopes enclosed in each other. Another similar set of five envelopes was presented to the London Spiritualist Union (LSS).
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According to Sir Oliver, the last (inner) envelope of each set contained his posthumous message. When he dies, Lodge explained, mediums will have to contact his spirit and read a message, the content of which is known only to him. Then an authoritative commission will compare the text of the medium with the original, written by the still living Lodge.
The successful outcome of the experiment will make it possible to assert with confidence that there is life after death. Well, and failure … Failure will force you to look for other irrefutable evidence. Agree, the idea is very original.
Why were external envelopes needed? All of them contained clues that the specialists conducting the sessions had to consistently disclose to mediums if things went wrong. In addition to the two main sets, the OPI kept a couple of spare sets - two envelopes each.
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What is the essence of messages from the other world? Sir Oliver's message contained a description of a musical exercise that he was in the habit of tapping on tables and armrests. The musical notation of the exercise, the letter designation of the notes, indicated how many strokes and in what order each finger of the five had to do it.
And here is the result reported by the Journal of the Society for Parapsychological Research and the Journal of Light in 1955.
Jordan Gill achieved the most success: he was able to name a number of key points of the letter without using a single clue. Its supervisors were the chairman of a specially elected commission J. Tyrell and its member M. Fillmore.
The first session took place on May 8, 1951. By this time, Tyrell and Fillmore knew from reports on the work of other mediums, who had opened several outer envelopes, that Sir Oliver's message was related to music and numbers. And that we are talking about some kind of obsession, not a fact or event.
When Gill picked up the package from the LSS, he had the feeling that the lyrics had something to do with Italian music. A vision arose before him: he was sitting at the piano and strumming with one hand a certain musical phrase. The medium, in essence, could not say anything more. Controllers noted that Lodge traveled to Rome several months before handing over the LSS package.
A second session with Gill was held on June 15 of the same year. It was directed by Miss Fillmore. By that time, no new envelope had been opened, therefore, the medium could not use any new clue.
This time, Gill said that he felt that the message contained symbols that he associated with the alphabet. Also, he added, it seems to him that there are Roman numerals lined up in a row, giving the key to decrypting something. Then the medium mentioned a book (it was indicated in one of the still unopened envelopes), connected in some way with Roman numerals and containing a key to the text of the message.
The commission limited itself to a brief commentary on this session: as it turned out, the packet stored in the LSS did not contain the message itself. Although Sir Oliver insisted that it was in both main sets of envelopes, in reality he only put it in the thickest bag. Thus, Gill partially solved the mystery of the text, unknown to a single living creature.
Another medium, Miss Geraldine Cummings, from May 12, 1954 (a week before the opening of the last envelope), wrote two letters by automatic letter (this means that it was not the woman herself who drove her with the pen, but the spirit that had taken over her).
Cummings was the only one among her colleagues who definitely stated that this was a musical phrase that Lodge played, left alone, from early childhood. However, she associated it with one of Chopin's works, apparently confused by the fact that this work was indicated in one of the clues.
The third medium - Miss Tyrza Smith - was able to give a partial description of Lodge's text only after all the envelopes with prompts were opened. She even sang a ten-note musical phrase, but only the first three were correct.
Summing up the results of the commission's work in the magazine "Light", M. Fillmore admitted that none of the mediums could guess the content of the message, let alone its textual or musical reproduction.
Despite this, she believes that Sir Oliver was trying to get them on the trail, give them information. Often his efforts were in vain, but sometimes he was able to "reach out" to mediums in a direct or roundabout way. Otherwise, how to explain the fact that they came so close to the solution and quite correctly indicated some of the details of the message?
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You can, of course, join Miss Fillmore's optimistic conclusion, or you can wonder what the skeptics thought on this score. And they offered as many as three possible explanations for the "successes" of mediums without any connection with the other world.
Their first conclusion was prompted by the members of the commission themselves, constantly reporting which envelopes had already been opened and which tips they contained. Although none of the mediums knew about them, this does not mean at all that they could not get the necessary information. If the gift of mediums is akin to telepathy, then they simply could
"Read" everything they wanted in the minds of the commission members. And then build your answers on this basis, striking your judges with super-knowledge.
But suppose there was no telepathy. Couldn't it be admitted that, knowing the clues, using Sherlock Holmes's deductive method and their unusual abilities, Cummings and Smith managed to come to certain conclusions about the content of the letter, without referring to the spirit of the deceased? But Gill didn't know the clues. Yes it is. I would like to believe that he had nowhere to get information, except from the other world.
But still, there is a vulnerability in this version. It seems strange that such an innocent habit had been hidden by Lodge since childhood, like a secret vice. It is human nature to forget: maybe Sir Oliver did not always start drumming his fingers on the table, only being alone. This means that someone else from his entourage could have known about his habit.
This someone, watching Lodge, when he was sure that there was no one else in the room, could pay attention to the automatism with which the fingers were tapping out the melody. And to understand that this is not a random fraction, consonant with momentary thoughts, but something repeated from time to time. More than one person could be a witness - we all know that a person immersed in meditation does not control the movements of arms, legs, etc., and they automatically carry out the usual program.
The fame of an outstanding medium and the money he could have made before he was exposed was an impressive prize that would make many challenge Sherlock Holmes's laurels. How everything was in reality, we will probably never know - over the years that have passed since the experiment, this wise guy would probably have made itself felt. Why take such a sensation to the grave?
Although modern mediums and researchers of life after death are in no hurry to repeat the experiment of Oliver Lodge, the problem of the lack of stable contact with the other world continues to worry people who believe in an afterlife.
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There are also new hypotheses about why the contact is so unstable. Here is one of them. Some scientists who have devoted years to studying all sorts of manifestations of the activity of the other world, despite the differences in their points of view, often agree on one thing: for some reason only known to them, the inhabitants of the subtle world, the astral, block access to information when scientists penetrate the veil of secrecy a little further than they were allowed to. The flow of information stops, and as if hastily turned off the transmitter that broadcast it.
“What conclusions can be drawn from this? So far, only two: it only seems to us that we are studying the subtle world, in fact it is he who studies us
I wonder for what purpose?..