When Apparitions, Dreams or Visions Seem to Help or Save People

The stereotypical idea of a sighting of an apparition is the idea of some terrifying experience. This idea does not match reality very well. A large fraction of apparition sightings seem to occur near the time of death, when an apparition may seem to comfort a dying person, beckoning him to the next life. This very large class of apparitions is known as deathbed apparitions, and is discussed in my posts here. 

Then there are apparitions that seem to help or save people. Below is a newspaper account of one such apparition:

You can read the account below:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86058242/1907-12-12/ed-1/seq-5/

In the 1874 narrative below by Bourchier Wrey Savile, we read the first-hand account of someone who was threatened by a robber, and seemed to be saved by the mysterious appearance of an apparition:

"At this juncture my horse, growing impatient at the delay, started off : I clutched the reins, which I had let fall on his neck, for the purpose of checking him, when happening to turn my eyes, I saw to my utter astonishment that I was no longer alone. There, by my side, I beheld a horseman in a dark dress, mounted on a white steed. In intense amazement I gazed upon him ; where could he have come from?  He appeared as suddenly as if he had sprung from the earth. He must have been riding behind and have overtaken me. And yet I had not heard the slightest sound : it was mysterious, inexplicable. But the joy of being released from my perilous position soon overcame my feelings of wonder, and I began at once to address my companion. I asked him if he had seen any one, and then described to him 

what had taken place, and how relieved I felt by his sudden appearance, which now removed all cause of fear. He made no reply, and on looking at his face, he seemed paying hut slight attention to my words, but continued intently gazing in the direction of the gate, now about a quarter of a mile ahead. I followed his gaze, and saw the reaper emerge from his concealment and cut across a field to our left, resheathing his sickle as he hurried along. He had evidently seen that I was no longer alone, and had relinquished his intended attempt.

All cause for alarm being gone, I once more sought to enter into conversation with my deliverer, but again without the slightest success. Not a word did he deign to give me in reply. I continued talking, however, as we rode on our way towards the gate, though I confess feeling both surprised and hurt at my companion’s mysterious silence. Once, however, and only once did I hear his voice. Having watched the figure of the reaper disappear over the brow of a neighbouring hill, I turned to my companion and said, ' Can it for a moment be doubted that my prayer was heard, and that you were sent for my deliverance by the Lord ? ’ ’ Then it was that I thought I heard the horseman speak, and that he uttered the single word, ' Amen.'  Not another word did he give utterance to, though I tried to elicit from him replies to my questions, both in English and Welsh.

We were now approaching the gate, which I hastened to open, and having done so with my stick, I waited at the side of the road for him to pass through; but he came not; I turned my head to look — the mysterious horseman was gone ! I was dumbfounded ; I looked back in the direction from which we had just been riding, but though I could command a view of the road for a considerable distance, he was not to be seen. He had disappeared as mysteriously as he had come."

Below is an account of someone whose painting career seemed to be helped by the appearance of apparitions:

You can read the account here:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1947-12-05/ed-1/seq-9/

Below we have a vivid account of a man claiming that an apparition appeared with a mission of scaring him into giving up drinking.  (Click on the image to read it more clearly.) 

You can read the account here:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn87062268/1913-11-19/ed-1/seq-4/

The account below is from page 101 of the periodical here. We read of a man who seemed to have seen a strange vision of an event occurring to his wife. The vision ends up being of great help to a needy family. We read this:

"Mr. C. G. Sander told of a vision he had while at Matlock, of a destitute man calling at his house in London, wishing to sweep away the snow. He was so impressed by his vision that he wrote to his wife, telling her about it, and saying she must find out all about the man and help him. When he got home he discovered that the man of his vision had actually called at the very moment he had seen the vision, and his wife had allowed him to sweep away the snow. On receiving his letter next morning, she made enquiries and went to the man’s house, where she found his wife and three children absolutely without bed, food, or fire. She gave them suitable help in their extremity, and found work for him  as a milkman, in which occupation he continued for two or three years, though he was really a painter."

The account below is from page 197 of the publication here.  We read of a man who has a vision that seems to prevent a disaster:

"One evening, while I was living in the Manse at Margate, I was feeling tired, and as twilight was setting in, I thought I would have a little rest before lighting the gas, and lay down on a couch. My eves were closed for about two minutes, when I suddenly saw in vision the gas-ring of the geyser in the bathroom turned full on. I at once felt it was a strange vision, and had a meaning. Accordingly I rushed upstairs to the bathroom and when I opened the door I was nearly knocked down by an overpowering smell of gas. The gasring was full on. I turned it off at once, opened the window and door, and let the gas go free. If I had not acted at once on receiving that warning, a maid would have gone into that bathroom with a lighted taper to light the gas. She would probably have been killed and the window and roof would have been shattered. But we were saved from such a calamity because I was sufficiently psychic and sensitive to have received from some ministering one a picture of the open geyser gas-ring, and I thank God for it. "

Next we have an account of a dream that seems to have saved a woman's life:

You can read the account here:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn92070146/1911-12-22/ed-1/seq-6/

Below is an account of a man who seemed to be saved by a dream figure giving very specific instructions:

You can read the account here:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85053109/1916-07-28/ed-1/seq-3/

Below is a newspaper account of a  wife who was still alive being incorrectly buried.  Her husband had dreams that seemed to alert him that she was still living.  This led to the wife being rescued from her premature burial. 

You can read the account here:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84037890/1908-11-11/ed-1/seq-6/

The newspaper account below is rather hard to read, but reading it is worth the effort. We have an account of two men with matching dreams, dreams that end up saving both of them.

You can read the account here:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86071158/1891-10-19/ed-1/seq-6/

Below we have an account of an apparition that seems to save four people from a boating peril:

You can read the account here:

https://digitalcollections.lib.umanitoba.ca/islandora/object/uofm%3A2966938

Dogma-Doling Professors Discard or Ignore All Clues That Annoy Them

Shackled by the iron chains of custom, today's professors of science tend to be People of Dogma. They keep promulgating various dogmas that arose centuries ago, such as the dogma that the brain is the source of the human mind, and the dogma that the human species is an accident of blind, purposeless forces of nature. These claims are dogmas because there is no evidence proving them, no sound argument for their likely truth, and also very much evidence suggesting that they are untrue. Today's dogma-doling professor follows senseless rules such as "nothing spooky allowed" and  "discard or ignore all clues that annoy me." 

An intelligent way to analyze observations is to weigh evidence like a jury weighs evidence, kind of keeping in your mind a scale in which items of evidence supporting opposite conclusions are placed on opposite sides of the scale. 

But today's dogma-doling professor does not use such a scale. What such a professor should be doing is keeping in his mind a scale like the one shown below, with two sides, one marked "We are just brains," and the other marked "We are souls." Whenever the professor gets an observation that belongs on the "we are souls" side, he should be placing that evidence on the "we are souls" side of the scale, keeping it there. Whenever the professor gets an observation that belongs on the "we are just brains" side, he should be placing that evidence on the "we are just brains" side of the scale, keeping it there if the observation holds up to scrutiny as robust, replicated evidence produced by best scientific practices (which almost all neuroscience research fails to do). And if the weight of evidence ever tilts things to the "we are souls" conclusion, the scientist should prefer that conclusion, or at least say something like "currently the evidence suggests we are more than just brains, but it's too early to declare a final verdict." 

But dogma-doling professors do not keep such a scale. Instead of placing new observation reports on the appropriate side of such a scale, such professors simply follow the rule: throw away any report belonging on the "we are souls" side of the scale. Such professors also place on the "we are just brains" side of the scale endless examples of poor research following bad research practices, such as experiments with study group sizes way too small for a reliable result. 

You can compare this policy to a wife who acts like this:

January 1: The wife reads a letter on her table from a woman discussing all the sex she recently had with the wife's husband. The wife says, "Those must be lies, because I know my husband is faithful."

January 3: The wife notices under her bed some panties she does not recognize. She says, "I must have bought these panties before, and forgot about buying them."

January 5: The wife hears her husband behind a closed door, telling his mistress that he enjoyed all the exciting sex they had yesterday. Instead of opening the door, the wife says, "That must not be my husband talking, but merely a voice on the television, one that coincidentally matches my husband's voice."

January 7: The wife arrives home unexpected, and sees her husband having sexual intercourse with his mistress. The wife says, "I must just be hallucinating, because I am sure my husband is faithful to me." 

Here the wife is following a rule of "discard all clues that annoy me." And that is just the rule that is followed by today's dogma-doling professor. 

Reality has provided a constant stream of clues that defy the dogmas of such professors. They include the following:

• The accounts of very many thousands of reliable witnesses who had near-death experiences, often reporting the most vivid and life-changing experiences at a time when their heart had stopped and their brain waves had shut down, something that should have prevented any experience according to "brains make minds" dogmas. 
• The accounts of very many people reporting out-of-body experiences in which they observed their own bodies from a position meters away (discussed here, here, and here). 

• The many cases in which medical personnel who did not have such experiences verified the medical resuscitation details recalled by people who had near-death experiences, who recalled medical details that occurred when such people should have been completely unconscious because their hearts had stopped.
• Very many cases of people who saw an apparition of someone they did not know had died, with the witness soon learning the person did die at about the time the apparition was seen (discussed in the 18 posts here). 
• Very many cases when multiple witnesses reported seeing the same apparition (discussed in my series of posts here). 
• A great abundance of reports in the nineteenth century of spiritual manifestations such as mysterious raps that spelled out messages, tables moving when no one touched them, tables half-levitating when no one touched them, and tables fully levitating when no  one touched them (discussed in the series of posts here).  
• Spectacular cases in the history of mediums, with paranormal phenomena often being carefully documented by observing scientists, as in the cases of Daniel Dunglas Home, Eusapia Palladino, Leonora Piper, and Indridi Indridason.
• Two hundred years of evidence for clairvoyance in which people could observe things far away or observe things when they were blindfolded or observe things in closed containers such as locked boxes. 
• Abundant photographic evidence for mysterious orbs, including 800 photos of mysterious striped orbs, orbs appearing with dramatically repeating patterns, and orbs appearing with dramatically repeating patterns while falling water was being photographed.
• Abundant reports of mysterious orbs being seen with the naked eye, described in the 120+ posts here.  
• A great abundance of anecdotal evidence for telepathy, with large fractions of the human population reporting telepathic experiences. 
• More than a century of solid laboratory evidence for telepathy, including cases discussed here, here, and here.  
• Very much evidence for a phenomenon of materialization, involving the mysterious appearance of tangible forms resembling human forms, sometimes a form with mobility, closely resembling a human body, with multiple simultaneous witnesses reporting seeing such a wonder.  
• An extremely common "deathbed vision" phenomenon in which people report seeing deceased relatives nearby, with the phenomenon occurring to as many as 10 percent to 20 percent of dying people. 
• Extremely numerous cases in which living people report hard-to-explain events and synchronicity suggesting interaction with survivors of death.

What do our dogma-doling professors do with such clues, clues which in one way or another defy the dogmas such professors cherish? They throw away such clues. Such professors ignore such clues, and censor them, so that you do not read about such clues in the papers, lectures and books of such professors, or only hear about such clues in misleading depictions of such evidence. It is just as if their rule is "discard or ignore all clues that annoy me." In this regard, they are just like the evidence-ignoring wife described earlier in this post. 

We don't literally see scenes like the one below, but what goes on is equivalent from an evidence-suppression standpoint.  Every time a professor says there is no evidence for paranormal phenomena which are documented by hundreds of years of scientific evidence, it is an evidence-suppression attempt as bad as the one depicted in the visual below. 

When people point out to scientists their very unscientific tendency to ignore or discard all evidence conflicting with their beliefs, some scientists may defensively state absurd falsehoods to try to justify their indolence in studying observations they should have studied.  So, for example, I read today a scientist who is trying to convince us there is no real data on a topic for which there has been a wealth of data for decades, while also making the very absurd claim that eyewitness testimony is the worst type of evidence (a claim which, if believed, would cause us to free most of the murderers in prison, and also retract almost all experimental scientific papers ever published, since they rely on eyewitness testimony by their authors). 

Additional Dreams or Visions or Apparitions That Seemed to Foretell a Death or Disaster

 In the series of posts below, I discussed dreams, visions or mysterious voices that seemed to foretell a death or disaster:

When Dreams or Visions Foretell a Death

More Dreams or Visions That Seemed to Foretell a Death

Still More Dreams or Visions That Seemed to Foretell a Death

Still More Dreams, Visions or Voices That Seemed to Foretell a Death

Even More Dreams and Visions That Seemed to Foretell a Death

Some More Dreams or Visions That Seemed to Foretell a Death or Disaster

When the Future Whispers to the Present

When Dreams or Premonitions Seem to Act Prophetically

Dreams, Visions or Premonitions That Seemed to Correctly Predict a Death

Sometimes Dreams, Visions or Premonitions Seem to Foretell a Death

Dreams, Visions or Premonitions That Seemed to Foretell a Death

Let us look at some more cases of this type.

Below is a newspaper account of sightings of a spooky Lady in Black who seems to be an apparition that heralds a death in a royal family:

You can read the account here:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026749/1907-09-01/ed-1/seq-41/

Another source tells us of how different families have different types of death omen accounts.

The following newspaper account is from 1911:

"SAVED BY HIS DREAM BALLOONIST TAKES STRANGE VISION AS A WARNING. Gives Up His Vocation and His Successor Is Killed Within Two Weeks.

A dream in Buffalo five years ago, following an exhibition in a local park, caused Carl McManus to give up ballooning for a less dangerous vocation, and, as he believes, probably saved his life. Mr. McManus is now a traveling salesman for a New York house and was in Buffalo recently on business. At the Lafayette hotel he told his story. 'I am only slightly superstitious,' said McManus, 'but that dream proved too much for me. I’m mighty glad that it did, too.  I had gone to bed rather early on the night of the dream, following my exhibition at the park. Things had gone rather badly and I was tired out. A couple of narrow escapee had slightly unnerved me.' 

'It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes after I had fallen asleep before I started to dream. I was up in the air sailing along beautifully. There was no wind and the balloon rose slowly and gracefully. I went higher and remained up longer than usual and then made ready to descend. I threw out the ballast and held tight to the parachute, but the balloon failed to shoot up. That was strange, I thought. I pulled the cord and let out the gas. Instead of falling the big bag remained stationary. It was most unusual and inexplicable.'

'Thoroughly alarmed and mystified by this time, I cut the cords of the parachute. There was nothing doing. The balloon and the parachute seemed anchored in the air to stay there. Then I awoke. A cold sweat covered my body. The more I thought about the dream the more convinced I became that it was an ominous warning. It means, I told myself, that some day I will go up and never come down again alive. The next day I gave up ballooning. My friends protested, but I told them I knew what was best for me. I left for New York that evening.'

'A couple of weeks later I was reading a paper when I came across an item telling about an accident at an Ohio county fair in which a balloonist was killed when his parachute failed to work. The man who was killed was the one who had stepped into my shoes when I quit. The date was one I had been scheduled to fill. If I had kept my job I would probably have been killed, I told myself. I am not very religious, but you can just bet that I got busy right then and offered up thanks. And the following Sunday I attended church, too. ' ”

You can read the account here:

https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=SSTR19110930.2.25&srpos=22&e=-------en--20--21--txt-txIN-%22strange+vision%22-------

The account below is one of the most remarkable in this series of posts. It is reported in an 1888 edition of a California newspaper, which says it comes from the New York Times. We read of a man who left his family to seek his fortune in the American West of the late nineteenth century. Suddenly the man has a psychic vision in which he seems to be transported back to his home. There he sees his brother who he has not seen in 14 years, seemingly in great illness or close to death. In the vision the younger brother has a prominent mustache the older brother has never seen him have.  Here is the first part of the account (click on the image to read it better):

Here is the conclusion of the account.  The man soon gets a telegram telling him his brother died about when the vision occurred. The man sees a photograph of the brother, who has a mustache matching the one the man saw in the vision.

The news account can be read here:

https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DAC18880304.2.69&srpos=43&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN--------

Here is a news account of a woman who seemed to have a vision that foretold a death:

You can read the account here:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83025294/1903-03-23/ed-1/seq-10/

The account below tells a tragic tale of a mother who had a dream of her son disappearing in a "phantom sea," very shortly before her son was crushed to death by a street car. 

You can read the account here:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86063952/1921-04-30/ed-1/seq-1/

Below we have an account of a death foretold by a dream:

You can read the account here:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn89053684/1902-12-18/ed-1/seq-9/

The riveting account below by Frank C. Dana appeared in 1912, and you will not regret taking the time to carefully read it. We read of a vision that seemed to foretell or inform Frank of either the death or great peril of his beloved on a voyage of a ship that hit an iceberg.  The ship is not named, but from the details given you can safely assume it was the Titanic.  We read this:

"I have come to be forty years old without marrying. Recently I met in Venice an American lady, the first woman to cause me to feel that I  wished her to become one with me. I was introduced to her by a mutual friend and from the moment I first saw her I felt strangely drawn to her. This feeling grew as we enjoyed that unique city in each other's company. Together we threaded the winding narrow passageways—they cannot be called streets—on which are displayed trinkets to tempt tourists. We strolled about St. Mark's square and fed the pigeons there... It was one evening at Lido, a resort near Venice, on the shore of the Adriatic, that we agreed to pass what remained of our natural lives together. Miss Margaret Lawrence—she was ten years my Junior—admitted that she, as I, experienced her first love, a soul love rather than a physical love, for neither of us was in the first flush of youth. We spent a part of the winter together in Florence, Rome and Naples, each and all places overflowing with that which appeals to persons who love art and, above art, to dwell where dwelt 2.000 years ago living, sentient beings of whom we know much. 

At the coming of the new year I was obliged to return to America. I sailed from Naples one afternoon when the sun stood low over the beautiful bay and with a glass could see my love standing on the sea wall gazing after me till distance caused her to fade from my eyes. Several months must pass before she would join me, but in the meanwhile I would be interested in preparing our future borne. As soon as I reached America I commenced these preparations, but even they could not take away a loneliness that 1 had never experienced before. I counted the weeks till I should be united to one I could not but esteem a companion of the soul as well as of the flesh. Why I felt so toward my Margaret I was at a loss to know. I only knew that I so regarded her. The spring opened, and with it I received a letter from England giving me the sailing date of the woman whose coming meant so much to me. I marked off each day on my calendar to intervene between the present and her arrival. I read of the sailing of her ship and was looking forward to our reunion when— one night I went to bed very early, having been up the night before working on the furnishing of our home. I had not been asleep more than an hour before I was awakened by a chilly feeling. I drew more blankets over me, but I could not get warm. I lay shivering, but, being sleepy, passed into a condition that can only be described as half asleep and half awake. 

I was again on the Grand Canal at Venice with Margaret. But instead of the season being summer it was winter. The stars were shining above, but, oh. how cold! My teeth chattered; Margaret's teeth chattered. But despite the fact that we were locked in each other’s arms we could not get warm. St. Mark's square was lighted, as it always is at night, and as I gazed the lights seemed to be slowly sinking. There was a strange look about them, a ghostly look. But they were too far distant for me to see them plainly. They did not light the palace or the lion of St. Mark's or the campanile. They seemed stretched along a huge, dark surface. Then suddenly I heard a boom. It seemed to me the doges’ palace, that had stood for centuries reflecting the grandeur of a people who had long ago passed away, had been blown up, and the explosion was followed by a wail I shall never forget—a wall unlike any I had ever heard before, a wail of horrible despair. The cold continued, and then for the first time I noticed that the canal in which we were floating was filled with ice. I had never thought of this sheet of water, fitted especially for summer, as being frozen. Huge cakes towered about us, rubbing against us, and it seemed at times that they would crush us or overturn us into the cold, black water. There were other craft, too, with wild looking persons in them, pulling at huge oars, trying to keep free of the ice or to go somewhere. And I saw persons struggling in the water, all with agonized expressions on their faces. Some of them tried to cling to our frail craft, but our gondolier pushed them off. All was confusion in my brain, for, while I was on the Grand Canal in Venice, I was at the same time out at sea. 

But the most frightful part of this experience was yet to come. The lights that 1 had been watching and which stood on the water's very edge slowly changed their position. Those at one end disappeared, and those at the other were elevated. Then the latter slid down and went out. There were shrieks that froze me with horror. I shook myself in my bed and by an effort succeeded in throwing off my trance. 1 knew that while my body had been in a warm bed my soul had been elsewhere. Some great catastrophe had occurred, and from the first I connected Margaret with it. I lay shivering, shuddering, till I could lie no longer, then got up and, putting on a warm double gown, walked the floor. I was in an agony of fear about Margaret. She was out on the ocean, and as I thought over the vision in which 1 bad taken part 1 felt sure that some marine disaster had happened to the ship in which she had sailed. 

There was no more sleep for me that night, and when morning came I was unable to arise from my bed. Fearing that some disease had at tacked me in the night, I sent for a doctor, who came and said that I was threatened with pneumonia. He treated me, and when be came again in the afternoon he found me out of bed. The physical strain had left me, but the mental strain remained. If there had been a catastrophe I had surely been in it. and the shock had remained. When in the afternoon 1 took up an evening paper and saw that the ocean liner on which Margaret was coming to me had struck an iceberg, but was being towed to land, all of her passengers and crew having been saved, 1 knew that the announcement was not correct. 1 knew that an ocean tragedy had occurred. What concerned me was whether Margaret had been saved. 

Then came a brief period during which the extent of the disaster was not known, followed by the news that the ship had gone down, and but a third of those aboard her had been taken from the boats into which they had been hurried to a steamer and were being brought to port. The names of those persons were being telegraphed. I saw among them the name of my beloved. What did my vision mean? Not that she had died and exercised a supernatural power to take me over miles of space to witness that terrible scene. I waited eagerly, not only to be reunited with her after her terrible experience, but for an explanation of my strange vision. 

When the steamer bearing the rescued arrived 1 was at the dock. One by one I saw them come ashore, but not Margaret. Then upon inquiry came the blow. She had been removed with others to one of the boats, had been taken from it into the rescuing steamer in a serious condition and had died on the inward trip. I will not dwell on my loss. That is one of the constantly recurring bereavements that concern us as individuals. The other part of my story concerns us as human beings. Each is welcome to draw his own inference. 

The only conclusion I have arrived at is that Margaret was gifted with the power while living and in the face of death to draw me to her that I might take part with her in what she was enduring. But back of this is another inference, though I admit it is entirely my own—that this desire, made good by a power to bring me over hundreds of miles to her, was an expression of the fact that two individuals may become one in soul by the power of love. Be that as it may, I am living out the remainder of my life impatiently waiting for a reunion with my other soul part. Since the events I have described I am as one detained in a foreign land."

You can read the full account here:

https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=VDP19121206.2.28&srpos=68&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN--------

How Academia's Echo Chamber Problem Could Be Reduced

There is a gigantic problem in today's universities and colleges: the fact that the classes of such institutions often act like echo chambers that repeat endlessly the dubious dogmas and "old wives' tales" of academia, which are often groundless triumphal boasts.  Consider a typical lecture hall in a large university. We have many students gathered together in front of some professor, who maybe has a giant screen to make his dubious truth claims. Typically there will be no student comments allowed until a brief "Question Period" at the end of the lecture. In such a "question period" students are supposed to merely ask questions, not dispute claims that the professor has made. The lecture hall may look like this:

Dumb dogma taught at a college

In such an environment, there is no real opportunity for a student to challenge dubious claims of a professor. If the student stands up and says something of substantial length, he will probably be told to "keep it short" so that other students can ask their questions. Moreover, the student will fear that if he stands up and disputes the professor's teaching, that this will negatively impact his grade. 

We have in such an environment an "echo chamber" effect. The students are all being conditioned to think that good students accept whatever the professor teaches. A student may fear very much standing up and making some point or discussing some experience that may cause him to be ridiculed as an oddball or an outcast. Imagine the professor is claiming that people who report psychic experiences are all liars or mentally disturbed.  Will a student dare stand up and make a statement like this:

"No, professor, you are engaging in a shameful gaslighting of  witnesses of the paranormal. Many millions of respectable people are such witnesses, and they tend to be regular, good-thinking people just like me. I myself once saw the apparition of my dead father, before I learned that he died. And very many other people have had the same type of experience." 

Will a student dare stand and say such a thing, knowing that the professor will probably make some facial expression that serves as a "laugh, students, laugh" signal, leading to a cascade of ridicule and scorn? Probably not. In such an environment an echo chamber will be preserved. 

But I can imagine some ways in which the echo chambers in academia could be busted, so that real debate could occur. One way would be to have a two-screen system. Any professor giving a lecture could use the large screen shown on the left in the visual below. The large screen on the right would be reserved for student comments, which would be displayed as soon as the comments were typed and submitted. It would be an anonymous system, so that any student could type a comment without anyone knowing that he had sent the comment. Since all the students would be taking notes on their laptops or digital pad devices, no one could know which student had sent the comment. 

We would then have healthy situations like the one depicted below, in which the comment on the right is an anonymous comment by one of the students in the class. 

Academia's "echo chamber" problem could also be reduced by having all-electronic college textbooks, textbooks that allow any student to anonymously insert a comment at any point in the textbook, causing all other students to read his or her comment when they read from that page. So if page 233 of a textbook teaches some silly old legend of academia, and student John Smith recognizes why the page is making a dubious claim, John Smith will have the power to insert a comment into page 233 of that textbook, causing all of his fellow students to see his comment when they come to that page. 

Academia's "echo chamber" problem could also be reduced by encouraging online student newspapers that include anonymous essays. In such essays students could make negative commentaries on any college lectures they received that had shortcomings of credibility.  A typical essay might have a title such as "Why Professor Smith's Biology Lecture This Week Was Largely Unbelievable Nonsense." 

Another idea for reducing the "echo chamber" problem of academia would be to phase out or sharply reduce the moldy old custom of requiring students to attend professor lectures. The custom of educating students by having students assemble for lectures in front of some teacher is a custom that made sense before the invention of the printing press. In the age of the Internet and very powerful and affordable digital devices, the custom no longer makes much sense. Almost anything you want to learn you can learn by reading information online and by watching free online videos; so professors giving in-person lectures are no longer needed for most fields of study. Advances in AI do very much to make conventional classroom habits outdated and unnecessary.  It is becoming less and less necessary to even have professors to grade papers, as such routine work can be largely automated by AI systems. 

Having people listen to lectures is not even a very efficient way for above-average students to learn. For anyone with good reading skills, reading tends to be a faster way to learn things than listening. Reading also has the advantage that you can go back and re-read some passage, and vary your reading pace, reading more slowly the more important and hard-to-understand parts, and skimming over  "boilerplate" material of less importance. You can't do that while listening to a professor lecture. 

So in an age when people can educate themselves very well at low cost through independent study without going to college lectures, why do universities still teach students as they were taught thousands of years ago at Plato's Academy, by having a group of about 30 students gathered around taking notes while some expert talks? It is partially for profit reasons, to justify exorbitant tuition fees. A college or university may try to maintain the no-longer-true idea that you need to learn by listening to some highly paid professor, as a justification for some $40,000 annual tuition it charges. 

Another reason is that the old outdated tradition of having students listen to endless in-person lectures from authorities is one that helps with the ideological indoctrination that is a huge factor in the business of today's universities. We must always remember that colleges and universities are ideological enclaves, belief communities dedicated to the propagation of old belief traditions such as Darwinism and materialism. If you are someone trying to preserve some old belief tradition, the last thing you want is for people to study a topic by independent inquiry involving seeking out information and opinions equally from very many diverse sources. Instead, what you want is to preserve some old authoritarian teaching tradition that helps to enforce a conformist echo chamber, and that encourages a semi-mindless kneeling to authority. So we continue to have endless college and university lectures in biology and psychology that can be schematically depicted like this, with the "blah blah blah" parts representing cherry-picked facts or dubious boasts:

The authoritarian "mind-kneel to your master" dynamics in such a conformist lecture hall are exactly the same as in the conformist lecture halls of seminaries training preachers or priests, with the "suppression of dissent" effect and the "follow the herd" effect being ruthlessly effective. It's a crappy way for people to learn about topics such as biology and psychology, but great for enforcing old socially-constructed belief customs.