The Most Spectacular Psychic Phenomenon

Amid all the fake and frankly depressing news that swamps us daily, there is a category I’d like to call hidden or repressed news.   I mean news that may grab headlines for a day but is quickly forgotten; news that is extraordinary and mysterious but never fully confronted intellectually as it deserves to be.

           

Consider, for example, what may be the most spectacular case of paranormality on record: the story of the Zeitoun appearances (1968-1971) of what witnesses believed was the Virgin Mary.  The story appeared in the New York Times and became news all over the world at first, but except for Egypt it faded from public awareness.  But this is still news, extraordinary news but hidden.  So let me summarize the main points on the Zeitoun phenomenon.

The Key to a Possible Afterlife

Before modern science, most people assumed there was an afterlife.  But that belief was soon to decline among the educated classes.  With the new 17^th century mechanistic science, it suddenly seemed to many of the “brights” that there was no afterlife, no soul, and no God. Science was about what can be measured exactly.  There is no way to measure and manipulate soul, God, or afterlife; therefore, they do not exist!

Immortality and Higher Education

 

Apart from the bromides of faith, the idea of life after death has little purchase in our techno-materialist culture.  And yet, anyone with an open mind who does a little research might be surprised.  The fact is that rational, scientific claims sometimes appear to confirm or certainly suggest the afterlife hypothesis. The research has been conducted by competent, scientifically trained individuals. There are case histories of mediumship, apparitions, near-death experiences, and reincarnation memories, behaviors and physical markings.

When God Died and Psychical Research Was Born

1882 was the year that Friedrich Nietzsche announced that God was dead and added that “we” had killed him.  At Cambridge University during the same year, Frederic Myers with several colleagues officially launched a new scientific discipline called psychical research.  If ever there was a “meaningful” historical coincidence, this one certainly qualifies.What’s so meaningful about this coincidence?  In brief, it speaks loudly to what we may call the most important crisis in the history of Western consciousness. It also points to a possible way of coping with that crisis.  In Nietzsche’s pronouncement, it is “we” who have killed God.  What does that mean?