A Great Tool for the Serious Scholar of the "Spookiest Years"

"The first fact capable of proof is this: that during the last 18 years, while physical science has been progressing with rapid strides...a continually increasing number of persons maintain their belief in the existence of beings of the nature of those we have hitherto postulated as a bare possibility. All these persons declare that they have re­ceived direct and oft-repeated proofs of the existence of such beings. Most of them tell us they have been convinced against all their previous notions and prepossessions. Very many have previously been materialists, not believing in the existence of any intelligences disconnected from a visible, tangible form, nor in the continued existence of the mind of man after death. At the present moment there are at least three millions of persons in the United States of America, who have received to them satisfactory proofs of the existence of invisible intelligences ; and in this country [England] there are many thousands who declare the same thing. A large number of these persons continually receive fresh proofs in the privacy of their own homes, and so much interest is felt in the subject that two periodicals are supported in this city, several on the continent, and a very large number in America, which are exclusively devoted to disseminating information relating to the existence of these invisible intelligences and the means of communicating with them. A little enquiry into the literature of the subject, which is already very ex­tensive, reveals the startling fact, that this revival of so-called supernaturalism is not confined to the ignorant or superstitious, or to the lower classes of society. On the contrary, it is rather among the middle and upper classes that the larger proportion of its adherents are to be found; and among those who have declared themselves convinced of the reality of facts such as have been always classed as miracles, are numbers of literary, scientific, and professional men, who always have borne and still continue to bear high characters, are above the imputation either of falsehood or trickery, and have never manifested indications of insanity." -- Alfred Russel Wallace,  co-founder of the theory of evolution by natural selection, "The Scientific Aspect of the Supernatural," 1866, page 10 (link).

The evidence for paranormal phenomena is extremely deep and diverse, consisting of reports of a wide variety of phenomena 

In my first 17 installments of my previous series of "Spookiest Years" posts, I gave a history of the astonishing spiritual manifestations reported between 1848 and 1889, which you can read in my posts here, here, here, here, here, here, here, 

here, here, here, here,  here, here, here, here, here and here . The whole series can be read in a single free online book here, which allows the convenience of reading the whole series by finger-swiping, after you have pressed the [] icon at the bottom. One minor disadvantage of reading the online book is that it is in reverse chronological order. 

In general I followed a rigorous standard in writing that series: the standard of always searching for the earliest publication reporting some particular event. So, for example, if it was reported that some astonishing paranormal event occurred in a particular city on one particular day, I would make every effort to get the earliest available report claiming such a thing.  

There is no substitute for studying the earliest available observational report of some occurrence. If you are repeating second-hand or third-hand or fourth-hand accounts, there is too much of an opportunity for error.  Second-hand or third-hand or fourth-hand accounts are particularly prone to error when they involve summaries of observational reports rather than full direct quotations of such reports.  There might be embellishments of the original report which grow with each retelling. 

After writing the posts above, I discovered a very valuable resource for serious students of the spooky phenomena reported in the nineteenth century.  The resource is the SSOC page here, which is part of the site at www.iapsop.com. We have a link to hundreds of books and documents, most of which pertain to paranormal phenomena. Each of the books and documents can be directly read for free from this page, without any paywalls or sign-ins. One great thing about the page is its chronological sorting. All of the books and documents are in chronological order. So, for example, if I want to see exactly what was being written about paranormal phenomena in the year 1850, I need merely scroll to the books in the list with a publication date of 1850. The page includes links to almost every English-language book written about the paranormal during the years 1800 to 1920, including many books written by skeptics. 

One of the advantage of a resource such as this page is that the serious scholar can discover the utter enormity of the written testimony in favor of the reality of paranormal events between the years 1848 and 1880. We have links to very many books describing such manifestations, and these books make up a total of very many thousands of pages. And such testimony is only a fraction of the written testimony that appeared at this time, because most of the testimony is contained in periodicals and newspapers that you can read at www.iapsop.com. Such newspapers often offer the best type of first-hand eyewitness testimony, such as testimony signed by multiple named witnesses who describe in the greatest detail events they saw at a particular named location on a particular named day, with the day typically being a few weeks prior to the date of publication, and the account very often written on the same day the events were seen.  

Using the site I have been able to find some publications I was hoping to find, but unable to find on www.archive.org.  For example, while researching my post on the year 1850, I found a quotation of a very interesting statement by C. W. Hammond reporting the most astonishing phenomena. But I declined to quote the statement, because I had not found the original document. So all I said about the statement was this:

"On page 39 we have a long 1850 statement by a Charles Hammond quoted 'from a pamphlet by D. M. Dewey.' I have not been able to find the original document. "

But now using the SSOC page on www.iapsop.com (http://iapsop.com/ssoc/) I am able to find the original 1850 document by Dewey. So let me quote the very interesting account by C. W. Hammond. He describes getting communications under a tedious system in which the alphabet is recited, and mysterious raps are heard after particular letters were recited, with the corresponding letter being written down. When he refers to "the family" he means the three Fox sisters and their mother. On page 27 of the document, C. W. Hammond states this in a letter to Dewey:

"In compliance with your solicitation, I will proceed to lay before you a brief statement of  what has fallen under my observation, in regard to the 'mysterious sounds' and 'demonstrations,'  purporting to be made by intelligent spirits, who once inhabited an earthly tabernacle....On my next visit I was much-more successful. During the interval I had prepared my mind with certain questions, touching events unknown to the family, and of a remote date. The  sounds told me my age precisely, though my appearance is such as to indicate a difference· of eight or ten years. The names of six of my nearest deceased relatives were given me.  I then inquired, ' Will the spirit, who now makes these sounds, give me its name?' Five sounds directed me to the alphabet, which I repeated until the name of 'Charles' appeared, which answered to an infant child whom we consigned to the grave in March, 1843. To my inquiries, it gave me a true answer in regard to the time it had been in the spirit-land, and also the period since my eldest sister's death, which was nearly eighteen years, the latter fact ·not being recollected then, I found true by dates on my return home. Many other test questions were correctly answered; and yet, notwithstanding . the origin of these sounds seemed inexplicable, I was inclined to impute them to mesmerism or clairvoyance. However, as the spirit promised to satisfy me by other demonstrations when I came again, I patiently awaited the opportunity.

On the third visit, I was selected from a halfdozen gentlemen, and directed by these sounds to retire to another room, in company with the ' three sisters' and their aged mother. It was about eight o'clock in the evening. A lighted candle was placed on a large table, and we seated ourselves around it. I occupied one side of the table, the mother and the youngest daughter the right, and two of the sisters the left, leaving the opposite side of the table vacant. On taking our positions the sounds were heard, and continued to multiply and become more violent until every part of the room trembled with their demonstrations. They were unlike any 1 had heard before. Suddenly, as we were all resting on the table, I felt the side next to me move upward. I pressed upon it heavily, but soon it passed out of the reach of us all, full six feet from me, and at least four from the nearest person to it. I saw distinctly its position ; not a thread could have connected it with any of the company without my notice, for I had come to detect imposition, if it could be found. In this position we were situated, when the question was asked, ' Will the spirit move the table back where it was before ? — and back it came, as though it were carried on the head of some one, who had not suited his position to a perfect equipoise, the balance being sometimes in favor of one side and then the other. But it regained its first position. In the meantime the ' demonstrations' grew louder and louder. The family commenced and sung the ' Spirit's song,' and several other pieces of sacred music, during which, accurate time was marked on the table, causing it to vibrate; a transparent hand, resembling a shadow, presented itself before my face ; I felt fingers taking hold of a lock of my hair on the left side of my head, causing an inclination of several inches; then a cold, death-like hand was drawn designedly over my face ; three gentle raps on my left knee ; my right limb forcibly pulled up, against strong resistance, under the table ; a violent shaking, as though two hands were applied to my shoulders ; myself and chair uplifted and moved back a few inches ; and several slaps, as with a hand, on the side of my head, which were repeated on each one of the company, more rapidly than I could count. During these manifestations, a piece of pasteboard, nearly a foot square, was swung with such velocity before us as to throw a strong current of air in our faces ; a paper curtain attached to one of the windows was rolled up and unrolled twice ; a lounge, immediately behind me, was shaken violently ; two small drawers in a bureau played back and forth with inconceivable rapidity ; a sound resembling a man sawing boards, and planing them, was heard under the table ; a common spinning-wheel seemed to be in motion, making a very natural buzz of the spindle ; a reel articulated each knot wound upon it ; while the sound of a rocking cradle indicated maternal care for the infant's slumbers  These were among many other demonstrations which I witnessed that evening, amid which I felt a perfect self-possession, and in no instance the slightest embarrassment, except a momentary chill when the cold hand was applied to my face, similar to a sensation I have realized when touching a dead body. That any of the company could have performed these things, under the circumstances in which we were situated, would require a greater stretch of credulity on my part than it would be to believe it was the work of spirits. It could not, by any possibility, have been done by them, nor even attempted, without detection. And I may add, that, near the close of the demonstrations at this visit, there was a vibration of the floor, as though several tons in weight had been uplifted, and suddenly fallen again upon it. This caused everything in the room to shake most violently for several minutes, when the force was withdrawn.

I have also tested the intelligence of these spirits in every way my ingenuity could invent. On one occasion, I wrote a word on a slip of paper privately, placed it in my wallet, went there, and the sounds, through the alphabet, spelled that word correctly as I had written it. That word was ' Sybil.'

 On the 29th of February, inst., the two youngest sisters made my family a visit. Here the sounds were heard — questions involving subjects wholly unknown to them were answered — a large, heavy dining-table was moved several times — and, on expressing thanks at the table to the Giver of all Good, some six or eight sounds responded to every sentence I uttered, by making loud and distinct sounds in various parts of the room. 

Yours, truly,

 C. Hammond. 

Rochester, Feb. '22, 1850."

Below is another example of some of the evidence of the paranormal that can be discovered at the SSOC page here,  We have a diagram showing an example of a levitation of a table that was witnessed by the author W. J. Crawford:

You can see the diagram on page 8 of the book here. The next page gives us the diagram below, illustrating a change in position of the table the author observed:

You can ponder the type of engineering that would be needed to cause a table to move in such a way.  The starting position (1) could conceivably be produced by having the table suspended by some incredibly thin nylon wire of a type that had not yet been invented in 1919 when the book was published: a wire so thin it would not be noticed by a careful observer. To achieve the transition from position (1) to position (5) you would need to have a mechanically operating trolley system, like the trolleys used to move cameras when filming some types of movie shots. Such a trolley could drag the suspended wire across the room. The problem is that such a trolley would be a mechanical device observable from the ceiling, where anyone could notice it; and no such thing was observed.  

Exhibit A Hinting That Evolutionary Biologists May Be Worshipful Devotees

At the Undark web site (www.undark.org) we sometimes get first-rate examples of science journalism. But a recent article at that site is just an insight as to how bad is the malfunction in a certain branch of academia. It is an article by an evolutionary biologist (C. Brandon Ogbunu), one entitled "What I Learned From Teaching Darwin." 

Throughout the article Ogbunu makes clear that he is a devotee of his 19th century overlord.  The impression of ardent devotion is created very quickly, as we see a photo of a set of six books on a shelf. Instead of being varied, diverse books that would give us broad knowledge, each one of the books on the shelf is "The Origin of Species" by Darwin. It's kind of like what we might expect to see when visiting a fundamentalist, who had a shelf containing nothing but copies of the Bible. 

A properly thinking biologist might write an essay with a title such as "What I Learned From Studying Organisms" or "What I Learned From Studying Cells" or "What I Learned From Studying Anatomy." But evolutionary biologists instead write articles with worshipful titles such as "What I Learned From Teaching Darwin." 

Ogbunu makes these very laughable speculations about what Darwin would say and do if he were living today:

"He would care about the misinformation crisis, climate science, and have opinions about how to live in a world being upended by artificial intelligence and threats to democracy....His computer desktop would have dozens of folders, some with machine-learning papers, others full of ornithology monographs. And he'd read them all."

This is hilarious. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are examples of engineering, being products of software engineering. Darwin had zero interest in engineering. His complete failure to consider matters of engineering are part of the reason he went so badly wrong in his attempt to explain the wonders of the biological world. What we see in the world of biology is endless examples of purposeful engineering. 

A very important principle is that accidents don't engineer things. But Darwin maintained that all of the stupendous wonders of the biological world were the result of accumulations of accidents (unguided random mutations). His deceptively titled book "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life" did not actually postulate a theory of selection, because "selection" means conscious choice, and Darwin did not postulate conscious choice as an explanation for the wonders of biology.  If Darwin had honestly titled his main work, he would have given it a title such as "On the Origin of Species by Means of Accident Accumulations." That would have correctly described his theory. "The Origin of Species" used the words "accumulation," "accumulate" or "accumulating" 35 times. 

The problem, of course, is that an accumulation of accidents cannot credibly explain stunning engineering results with a great coordinated wealth of fine-tuned interdependent components, such as we see so very abundantly in the world of living organisms. Darwin swept under the rug this problem by never paying any attention at all to the topic of engineering. So it is  absurd to suggest that Darwin would be interested in today's wonders of technological engineering. 

Ogbunu errs in his attempt to persuade us (in the quote above) that Darwin was an eager scholar of everything relevant to his claims. Darwin seemed to spend zero time studying probability mathematics (so relevant to the credibility of his claims). And he also seemed to pay zero attention to all of the very many reports of paranormal or supernatural  phenomena happening in England while he lived, reports also very relevant to the credibility of his claims. The British scientists of his time who paid attention to such reports included Alfred Russel Wallace and Sir William Crookes, both asserting the authenticity of some of these phenomena. 

Near the end of the article, Ogbunu says, "What I aspire to be, more than anything, is an intellectual child of Charles Darwin."  What an unhealthy-sounding statement that is. You can compare it to healthy-sounding statements a person might make, statements such as these: 

• "What I aspire to be, more than anything, is someone who correctly describes reality and someone who speaks the truth and advises wisely."
• "What I aspire to be, more than anything, is a good person who helps others." 
• "What I aspire to be, more than anything, is someone who teaches the facts of nature correctly, and someone who informs people about the most important facts scientists have learned." 

Guys like Ogbunu think they are walking in the path of Darwin, but they are not really doing that. Darwin was no parroting devotee of any authority. Darwin made conclusions based solely on what he had learned about nature and his own analysis and reasoning, instead of appealing to the authority of any previous thinker.  Those who keep  parroting Darwin's outdated conclusions are not following such a path of independent analysis of nature, but are instead following the "devotion to an old authority" path that is antithetical to the true spirit of science. 

Well-functioning science ends whenever fervent Darwinism begins. 

Trump's "Sleeping" During Official Events May Be Cardiogenic Syncope Involving Cerebral Hypoperfusion

Recently there have been quite a few different days in which the press reported US president Donald Trump "falling asleep" during televised events in the White House. In the typical event that has occurred, Trump will be seen sitting at a desk, and behind him will be various people talking. As someone else talks, Trump will close his eyes for quite a few consecutive seconds.  Incidents of this type have reportedly occurred quite a few times.  The March 24 article here claims that there have been 13 such events. There have been multiple reports of Trump falling asleep at official events in the weeks since March 24.The latest report has a headline of "Trump, 79, Falls Asleep Seconds After Speaking in White House Event."

The press seems to have been uniform in its coverage of these events, describing them as cases of Trump "napping" or "falling asleep." But let me suggest a novel hypothesis about the cause of these events, one I have not read anyone else suggest. These events may be something more serious. Rather than mere napping, these events may be short events of fainting, caused by a drop in blood pressure. Syncope is the medical term for fainting. There is a type of problem called cardiogenic syncope, and the older a person is, the more likely it is to occur. When cardiogenic syncope occurs, blood pressure may undergo a sharp temporary drop because of some malfunction in the heart, often a heart arrythmia or a temporary deviation from the heart's normal sinus rhythm, or some heart pumping problem. The drop in blood flowing to the brain results in a state called cerebral hypoperfusion, which results in fainting or loss of consciousness. 

The infographic visual below (modified from one generated by Google Gemini) explains how cardiogenic syncope involves a short-lasting dip in the flow of blood to the brain. 

If a person is standing and has an episode of cardiogenic syncope, the result may be a very noticeable collapse. But a person sitting and having such an episode may merely appear to be napping for a short time. I asked Google this: "Can cardiogenic syncope look like napping?" I get this answer from an AI overview: "Yes, cardiogenic syncope (fainting caused by a heart condition) can sometimes look like someone is 'napping,' dazed, or in a deep sleep, particularly if the episode is very brief or occurs while they are already sitting or lying down."

By itself a tendency towards cardiogenic syncope does not have any very grave short-term prognosis. Typically the fainting episodes are brief, and do not cause any permanent brain damage. An old person with such a tendency may well continue to live for years, and may function well. But his chance of sudden cardiac death or heart failure death during those years will tend to be much higher. Whether such a person can continue to do a job well depends on the frequency of the episodes, and what type of job the person does. 

If a very old president were to be having occasional episodes of cardiogenic syncope (fainting uncontrollably now and then), he might well be able to get by without people noticing, particularly if he was careful to avoid events involving prolonged standing, and instead mainly did Oval Office events while seated. Such a president might be  able to do his job well on most days. The problem would be that the cardiogenic syncope would tend to create rare days in which the president was pretty much incapacitated, and incapable of doing his job well.

In Caucasian people cardiogenic syncope involving cerebral hypoperfusion tends to temporarily create a rather white-looking face, a pale face color.  The word for that is pallor. If you do a Google image search for photos of Trump sleeping in the Oval Office, you will not typically see a pale-looking face. But that does not discredit the possibility discussed here, simply because it is widely believed that Trump applies colored makeup all over his face, often leaving his face with a rather orange-looking or bronze-looking appearance. If Trump ever fails to apply that makeup, and there arises TV footage of him "napping" in the Oval Office while having a pale-looking face, that will tend to corroborate the hypothesis suggested in this post. 

Quite a few articles claim to show pictures in which Trump appears to have swollen ankles. Swollen ankles involving edema are a symptom of heart failure, and cardiogenic syncope and heart failure are strongly associated. I asked Google this: "Is cardiogenic syncope associated with heart failure?" I get this answer from an AI overview: 

"Yes, cardiogenic syncope is strongly associated with heart failure. It is a dangerous form of fainting caused by heart-related issues, such as severe arrhythmias or impaired pumping function, and is a major, independent predictor of sudden death in patients with advanced heart failure."

The latest report with a headline of "Trump, 79, Falls Asleep Seconds After Speaking in White House Event" may be particularly suggestive of the hypothesis I here propose. The likelihood of falling asleep is inversely related to a person's alertness and state of mental interest or engagement, with the act of falling asleep much more likely to occur in someone bored or not doing anything important.  So it seems very unlikely that a person would ever fall asleep "seconds after" publicly speaking. Conversely, cardiogenic syncope occurs unpredictably, with its timing having no connection to a person's level of alertness or how socially engaged he was in the past minute. 

They Said They Left Their Bodies

 In general professors are extremely poor about studying reports of paranormal phenomena, reports of extraordinary human abilities and reports of extraordinary human experiences. In the rare cases when a professor attempts to research such matters, he or she will typically use some incompetent search strategy.  A professor will typically search for some topic using only a search of published scientific papers. That is not a very good strategy when searching for reports of the three types of things mentioned above, because most reports of such things do not end up in scientific papers, but appear in publications such as newspapers, books and periodicals. 

It is not true that reports published in scientific papers are in general more reliable than reports published in newspapers, books and periodicals. I can think of endless reports I have read in newspapers and periodicals that met very good standards of evidence, by giving first-person accounts of experiences that occurred a short time ago, with named witnesses, named dates of observations and named places of observations. Conversely, scientific papers typically fail to follow good standards for reporting observations, because they tend to use a passive voice without mentioning specific observers, and they usually fail to specify exactly where and when an observation occurred. When reading some scientific paper, you may ask: who was the person who made some crucial hard-to-get-right observation that an entire paper hinges upon -- some professor who has used some fancy piece of equipment many times, or merely some newly admitted graduate student who may have been fumbling around when using the equipment the first time? We can't tell, because scientific papers are always using the passive voice, in a way that no specific observer is mentioned. For example, in scientific papers we do not read sentences such as,  "On July 18, 2024 in Room 203 of the Cornell Neuroscience Lab, John Jacobsen tested the mice using a Morris water maze."  Instead we read passive voice sentence such as "The mice were tested using the Morris water maze."

Let us look at some periodical accounts of out-of-body experiences, reports that were obtained using the search phrase "out-of-the-body experience." Before about 1975, this phrase was more popular than the term "out-of-body experience," which has become the more common phrase in the past several decades. 

In the 1965 newspaper account here, TV personality Hughie Green says this about his experience in a car crash:

In the 1963 account here, a baron (Lord Ogmore) recalls an out-of-body experience:

The 1971 newspaper account below (which you can read here) discusses research by a South African researcher named J. C. Poynton. The terms "astral travel" and "astral projection" are terms for out-of-body experiences. Click on the image to read it better. 

On page 62 of the January 26, 1934 edition of the periodical Light, which you can read here, we have the account below of an out-of-body experience:

"A correspondent, Mrs. F. Shepherd, sends us an account of the following out-of-the-body experience. ' I had had a severe shock,' she writes, ' when I suddenly noticed that I was breathing in a strange way, and with the last conscious breath I found myself slipping out of the top of my head. I was an exact counterpart of the body that lay upon the bed. I could see that it had its eyes and mouth closed, and that I was connected with it by some kind of cord. I tried in vain to make myself known to the people in the room, who took no notice of me whatever. My mind was very active; I wished to recover the use of my body, and knew that in order to enter it again I must get round to the foot end of the figure. Movement was difficult in what appeared to be a very heavy atmosphere, but eventually I reached the right position ; whereupon I seemed to dissolve into a quick-silver-like fluid and slipped into my body by the toes. I advanced until I reached the centre of the body where the cord was fixed, after which I was my corporeal self once more.' "

In the 1977 article here, Joan Kron reports on research into out-of-body experiences. She states that she had several herself, stating this:

In the 1968 article here, we read of a large study of many people who had out-of-body experiences. 

At the link here, we have a speaker claiming that when she asks her audience how many have had an out-of-body experience, she gets about one third of the audience raising their hands. 

In 1968 there appeared the book Out-of-the-Body Experiences by Celia Green, the Director of the Institute of Psychophysical Research at Oxford University. Registered users at www.archive.org can read the book here. In 1966 an appeal had been made by radio for accounts of people who had such experiences. About 400 responses were received. Two questionnaires were sent to these people, and 326 replied to the first, with 251 to the second. 

On page 22 we have these statistics: about 70% reported only one out-of-body experience, about 9 percent reported 2 such experiences, about 5%  reported three such experiences, about 2% reported four such experiences, and about 21% reporting six or more such experiences. On page 24 we have a striking account by someone put in a glass cubicle in a hospital while suffering from a high fever. She reports being out of her body for 8 or 9 days, feeling no pain. She says, "I was no longer in my body but up in the corner of the cubicle watching the nurses flitting about." 

On page 39 Green says, "Many subjects comment on their feelings of well-being and reality in their new position apart from their physical body, and there are no counter-instances, that is to say, no subjects remark on having felt incomplete, unsubstantial or unreal in their new position."