Science versus Miracles: Planchette / Ouija Board

B. Premanand


Effect: Working of the planchette board.

Four persons, one among them is the spirit medium, touch the planchette (ouija board) lightly on four sides and concentrate on the spirit to come and give an answer to the question. Suddenly the planchette starts moving and it gives an answer.

Planchette / Ouja Board

Props: Planchette

Method: While concentrating, the medium assists the volunteers to concentrate and the more intensely the thought-process is directed towards a specific idea or physical part, the involuntary muscular movements make the planchette move and give you the answer to your problem.

Explanation: Whatever action we perform is controlled by the brain. If we have any thought or idea in the subconscious mind, when we concentrate on the same, it manifests as a physical activity without any conscious attempt by the person. This is called idiomotor response. The minute electrical charges in the brain transmit to the muscles through the nerves.

The persons who create motivating force through idiomotor response do not have any idea that they are the cause. It is these involuntary muscle movements, which cause the water divining stick to revolve and the planchette to work.

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Abraham Kovoor’s Case Diary: Do We Survive Death?

Abraham Kovoor

“If Mr. Kovoor s materialistic theory of the mind is accepted, all possibility of survival after death has to be ruled out, which means that all religious teachings that postu­late a life after death are false”. (G.G. Munidasa - Times of Ceylon - 30-4-67).

“What Mr. Kovoor thinks will happen to his own spirit after his death?” (A. Wickramasinghe - Times of Ceylon).

I do not hold the view that my life is located in a particular spot in my body. Life is generated in all living cells in my body, and is sustained by the oxidatory chemical action which goes on in them. This chemical action is maintained by my breathing and blood circulation. It is not in any way different from the production of heat and light energies during the combustion of the hydrocarbon in a burning candle. Heat and light do not depart from a burning candle when it is put out, and return to it when relit.

Courtesy: Wikipedia

It is just a case of cessation of chemical activity and production of energy. Similarly there is nothing to get out from my body when it dies as a result of termination of breathing and blood-circulation. If by any chance my dead body is resuscitated by some of the modem techniques, it will be wrong to think that the ‘departed life or soul’ re-entered the revived body.

My death will not be taking place abruptly at a particular moment in time. I began to die some 70 years ago. I started my life as a parasite on my mother. About one-eighth of my body died in the form of the umbilical cord and placenta on the day I terminated my parasitic mode of life. From that day onward I have been dying as well as growing. While numerous cells in my body died daily, numerous new ones were born. Large quantities of dead tissues have escaped my body by way of cropped and shaved hair, peeled off skin, cut nails, dropped teeth, and the millions of internal cells dead and discarded as waste during urination and perspiration.

Accidental cuts and bruises, bacterial and virus infections, physical and mental work, exposure to ultra-violet and infra-red rays of the sun, action of caustic and corrosive chemicals I have come in contact with while working in science laborato­ries, consumption of highly spiced pungent curries etc., have been responsible for killing the major part of my seventy-year-old body.

Once, a part of my body was removed by surgical operation. Forty years ago a minute cell separated from my body, merged with a foreign cell, and continued to grow out of my body. It is still growing, dying and proliferating in Paris as Dr. Aries Kovoor.

During my youth the rate of birth of new cells in my body was far greater than the rate of death. Hence, I began to grow and put on weight, reaching a maximum of 185 pounds in my 40th year. I maintained this maximum weight for a few years more when the rate of birth and death of cells in the body was equal. Thereafter the rate of death steadily kept ahead of birth, so much so, that my present weight is only 125 pounds. The total weight of the dead tissues which have escaped from my body all these years would amount to lakhs of pounds.

This process of continued death will go on till the day when there will be no more cells left behind to multiply. Even after the death of all the cells in my body, the cornea of my eyes will continue to live in the eyes of a lucky stranger.

The death of the 125 pounds of my present body will be a major event in my life of continued birth and death, because my brain - the seat of my mind - would cease to function, bringing to an end my individuality and ego.

My last breath will not be in any way different from the present ones. Then, as well as now, I shall be breathing out carbon dioxide and water vapour.

I do not believe that I have a soul or spirit to survive my death and go to heaven or hell, or to roam about as my ghost, or even to be reborn.

Abraham Kovoor (right) with MC Joseph

If at all there is a soul, the major part of it should have escaped from me long ago with the large mass of dead tissues which have left me already; and even after the death of the present 125 pounds of tissues, a fraction of that soul should remain in the body of the stranger who would be receiving the corneal graft.

I am an individual because, as a highly evolved animal, I have a set of centralized nervous, respiratory, circulatory and alimentary systems. But during the early stage of my development in my mother's womb, before the centralized biological functions started, I too had a dividual stage like many lower animals and most plants. While I was in my mother's womb, had the foetal tissue or the fertilized egg divided and separated into two or three parts, I would have had one or two identical (congenital) brothers born with me sharing fractions of my original soul or reborn personality.

Though sound and logical, these postulations will be rejected by people who are indoctrinated or brainwashed .about souls and rebirths, because they are not in line with the ‘teachings of religions’ .

Thus, though all religious teachings 'postulate a life after death' I have not found any valid reason or evidence to believe it. 

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Abraham Kovoor’s Case Diary: Rebirth and Prodigies

Abraham Kovoor

“Mr. Kovoor’s sound arguments to prove the absence of a life after death are, no doubt, very convincing. Yet, 1 like to ask Mr. Kovoor what he has to say about the numerous cases of rebirths investigated scientifically and confirmed by persons of high integrity and learning like Dr. Ian Stevenson, Prof HN Banerji, Prof K.N Jayatilleke, Mr. V.F. Gunaratne, and many others.

“How will Mr. Kovoor explain child prodigies, and inequalities in children born to the same parents?” (A. Wickramasinghe. Times of Ceylon - 29-5-1967).

Explanations for congenital variations are better sought in the science of genet­ics and the Mendalian laws of heredity than in karma and Rebirth.

Man has succeeded in producing prodigies among domesticated animals by se­lective breeding making use of his knowledge in the science of genetics. The prodi­gious egg-layers like the ‘High Line’hens, and the prodigious milk-yielders like the Jersey and Cape cows are the products of such selective breeding. The prodigious characteristics of the high-yielding hens, cows, cultivated plants etc., are governed by their genes and DNA molecules, and not by their Karma and 'previous births'.

Time will not be long before man will be using his advanced knowledge of genetics to improve the congenital qualities of his own species - Homo sapiens. Fu­ture man will surely find the need for discarding religious taboos, and to put into practice the knowledge he has gained by scientific researches to improve the quality of his own offspring. I visualize a future when the State will be interfering with the freedom of the individual in the field of procreation. By this I did not mean that individuals will be deprived by legislation their freedom to quench their sexual thirst by legitimate means.

Human procreation may become one of the most important nationalized con­cerns guided and controlled by expert geneticists and far-sighted statesmen.

It may be that semen banks, like blood banks, will be established at state ex­pense for preserving specially selected semen for artificially inseminating specially selected women possessing desired qualities. Thus, if man adopts selective breeding for improving his own species, it will be possible to plan the births of more and more child prodigies than at present. Today such prodigies are few and far between, being the product of mere chance.

It will not be too long before science works out a safe and satisfactory method of sex determination with chemicals. When such a possibility is available, man may be determining not only the quality of his offspring but also the sex.

 

Abraham Kovoor with his wife investigating a case

To say that child prodigies are born with the knowledge they had acquired in their ‘previous lives’ is as absurd as the assertion of some investigators of rebirth in Ceylon that acquired physical characteristics like wounds can reappear as scars on the bodies in subsequent births. If it is so, it will be a death-blow to the Eye Donation Society of Ceylon. The fear of being reborn blind will prevent people from donating their eyes!

A protagonist of rebirth goes about in this country proving the genuineness of an alleged case of rebirth at Balangoda on the basis of his pet theory that acquired physical characteristics, like wounds, could reappear on ‘reborn’ body. Another cham­pion of rebirth - a university don, and a close friend of mine - says, “Human birth is accountable in terms of the deaths of human beings, animals and non-human beings in this world or on other planets in this vast universe          The experimental evidence in rebirth is derived by using the age regression technique to regress a subject to ante­natal period. The subject is deeply hypnotized and taken back in time by suggestion. At any point in time in his past, the subject may be made to recount his experiences as well as to re-live them”.

Indeed, this is the first time a claim is made that rebirth can occur with both the body and mind of the previous birth intact. If this claim is correct, then there is no foundation for the don's theory that one organism can be reborn as a member of another species. If organisms retain the same bodies with all the congenital and ac­quired characteristics when reborn, how is it that the genital organs of a woman changed into male organs when she was reborn as a boy? If the pet theories of these exponents of rebirth are true, tigers and zebras should retain their stripes when they are reborn as human beings! Mathematical prodigies should be able to retain their mathematical knowledge even when they are reborn as donkeys or monkeys! We can then look forward for the wonderful day when a donkey - a mathematical prodigy­ will be occupying the Chair of Mathematics in one of our universities!

The three-pound mass of human brain built of 10 billions or so of nerve cells known as neurons, together with a mass of supporting glia cells is an organ crammed with much physicochemical activity. A great deal of physical and chemical activities takes place in its tissues. In short, it is a physicochemical laboratory where work goes on day and night throughout the period of its life. The force that makes the brain work is electricity. An adult brain works on 20 watts of electricity. Each neuron is in effect a tiny dynamo. All mental activities such as thought, will, cognition, volition, memory, reasoning, emotion etc., result from physicochemical activities which go on in the brain tissue. Mind does not exist apart from the brain. Damage to one's brain affects ones mental processes. With the death of the brain, consciousness and indi­viduality (ego) also end.

Just as there cannot be fire without a substance to burn, there cannot be life and mind without a body to respire. Mind cannot survive the death and decomposition of the brain. To say that mental faculties can remain intact after the death of the person is as absurd as saying that the body-less and brain-less spirit can appear in physical form (often dressed in white) as ghosts, and perform volitional acts.

Stories about children recalling the memories of their ‘previous births’ have to be discarded as myths, like the numerous ghost stories appearing in weekend newspapers.

  

Courtesy: Abraham Kovoor: Soul, Spirit, Rebirth and Possession; Published by B Premanand, Indian CSICOP, Podannur, Tamil Nadu; Date of Publication: 17-02-2000

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Possession and Trance

William Sargant

States of Trance and so-called possession form the core of many experiences which seem spiritual, mysterious and Supernatural. All through history men have thought that in trance contact could be made with an order of reality lying behind the everyday world, an order of reality with which we are not in touch in our everyday condition of mind and body.'

A dictionary definition of the word trance is “a morbid sleep, differing from natural repose in duration, in profound sensibility, etc., - the concomitant or symp­tom of diseases of the nervous system, particularly hysteria: catalepsy”. This defini­tion points us straight to the connection between the 'morbid sleep' of trance in which contact with supernatural truth is thought to be made, and disorders of the human mental and physical system.

William Sargant

In many trance states the subject is mentally absorbed apparently unaware of the external world around him, perhaps in a condition of exultation or ecstasy; but he may continue to talk and behave in ways which make sense, though after wards he cannot remember what he said and did. It is this combination of a frightening and abnormal state of mind with comprehensible speech and behaviour that has impressed men with the notion that someone in trance is the mouthpiece of the Gods.

The same thing can happen to someone who is kicked on the head while playing football or who suffers from loss of memory after a violent shock. Some drugs, hash­ish, L.S.D., mescaline and the like, induce a trance state, or ecstatic state not neces­sarily involving loss of memory. Trance states can also occur as a result of tumours of the brain or other brain injuries.

But there are also trances which are not induced by a sudden blow or shock, and although it is perfectly possible to fake a trance and people have done so, there is no doubt that genuine trance states of this sort do occur. They occur III the ecstasies of mystics or magicians, when the mind is concentrated on a powerful idea or image, of a god perhaps, and the link between the mind and the normal world seems to snap. They occur in clairvoyants and fortune tellers. And quite frequently in mediums.

Speaking In Tongues

There is also the phenomenon called possession, in which a god or spirit, which may be good or evil, is thought to have taken control of the person in trance, to speak through his mouth and act through his limbs; the person afterwards remembering nothing of what happened during the trance. The words and actions of someone possessed by a god or a spirit naturally carry considerable weight with an audience which believes them to be the words and actions of the god or spirit itself.

All over the world and at all times, including the present day, trances have served to inculcate or fortify a variety of beliefs. In Tibet, before the coming of the Communists, important decisions of policy were generally taken by the Dalai Lama and his advisers only after they had consulted the state oracle. The oracle was a young man who went into a trance and spoke strange words, which the priests interpreted. Hundreds of years before, the oracle of the temple of Apollo at Delphi was a woman who went into trance. Through her mouth, it was believed, the god himself answered the questions put to him. Although the answers were famous for being riddling, obscure and frequently misleading, many important decisions were made by Greek politicians only after consulting the oracle and in an attempt to follow its advice.

Some of the early Christians, including St. Paul, experienced ecstatic trance states and the Church festival of Pentecost (Whitsun) still commemorates the descent of the Holy Ghost to the apostles. There was the sound of great rushing wind, they saw what appeared to be cloven tongues of fire and they began to speak in foreign languages which they had never learned. This 'speaking in tongues' is a valued experience today among some groups of Christians who believe that it is a sign of contact with God.

Trance states are seen very commonly in Africa. During initiation ceremonies at puberty, states of trance are induced in boys and girls who experience a collapse or 'little death' after being exposed to rhythmic drumming, exhausting dancing, the pain of circumcision and the display to them of masks of the supposed tribal spirits. These spirits may talk to them through the mouths of witch-doctors who are themselves in states of trance and who wear the grotesque and frightening masks of the spirits they represent.

Real Healing Value

It is an old belief, still prevalent in some parts of the world that illness is caused by possession. Either the disease is itself an evil spirit which has seized the unfortunate patient in its grip, or it has been brought by an evil being which has taken hold of him. To cure him, the evil spirit must be cast out. The patient if often put into a trance, again through rhythmic dancing and singing, and the healer may also go into trance. Unknown to the patient, the evil spirit talks through his mouth telling the medicine-man why it has possessed the patient - perhaps because of some moral lapse on his part or as the result of a spell which an enemy has put on him. The medicine man then tries' to expel the spirit from the patient and, If he is successful, the patient emerges from his ~ mentally or physically healed.

Cures of this type do work in practice. From a psychiatrist's point of view, what happens is that in trance the patient is able to confess his sins and pour out his anxi­eties and problems in the same way as a patient on a Western psychotherapist's couch, though because he is in trance the African patient is not conscious of what he is saying and does not remember it afterwards. This process has real value for a variety of reasons, one of which is the patient's responding to suggestion and fully believing that the spirit which possessed him has been driven out.

Most of us in the West do not experience full-scale trance or possession at firsthand but we sometimes come close to it. Many people who went to hear Hitler speak - the effects of his hypnotic ranting reinforced by music, ceremonial, the response of a great crowd - were carried out of themselves into an uncritical state of mind in which they felt that he was almost a divine being. Enthusiastic listeners to the Beatles have been known to go into states akin to trance, with or without temporary loss of consciousness, when the music seems to take on a richness of significance of which the listener is powerfully aware though he cannot describe it in words. Lovers of classical music are not immune from the same effect. The state which we commonly call' being 'entranced', held in the grip of an experience of immeasurable beauty, immeasurable meaning, induced by works of art or by splendours of landscape, is the nearest approach to the true trance state which most of us ever make.

The Validity of Trance

There will always be arguments about trance. Some people believe that the medium in trance, the person possessed by a spirit, the speaker in tongues, the mystic in ecstasy, the art-lover entranced, may be truly in touch with a reality beyond the normal world, Others believe that trance is a splitting of the field of consciousness and . that the subject is not in touch with any mysterious or greater reality but is expressing beliefs, ideas, hopes or fears which he himself unconsciously holds or which are part of the general currency of his society.

The person in trance generally retains some vague awareness of his surroundings.  He rarely falls and hurts himself and he generally talks of things which he knows about. He may in fact exhibit a sharper perception and awareness of what is going on around him than in his normal conscious state, so that in trance he gives the impression of having an enhanced power to read other men's minds, to anaylse their present actions and prophesy their future ones. Strange tongues are spoken in trance but there is no completely proven instance of a language being spoken in trance by someone who was totally unacquainted with it before-hand. Subconscious forgotten memories can rise to the surface in trance: facts once known and languages once learned can be brought back by an individual who has little or no recollection of them in his normal state.

I do not myself believe that in states of trance gods ever speak to men. Trance is usually a state of self- hypnosis, through which all sorts of dubious beliefs can be implanted and maintained. Fortunes are not made because the subject of a trance is able to predict something readily checkable and profitable, the movements of prices on the Stock Exchange or the winners of horse-races. But trance states have been used through the ages, and will continue to be used, to prop up belief in a great variety of gods, spirits, ghosts and the rest. Those who have experienced trance themselves can rarely be convinced that something supernatural has not happened to them, because autosuggestibility tends to become so greatly enhanced in the Trance State.

We shall know much more about trance when we know better how the human brain really works. Readers of this encyclopedia will find states of trance mentioned in connection with gods' demons, ghosts, telepathy, witches, spirit possessions, and supernatural powers of all sorts. The reader is best left to his own final judgement as to whether man is deceived or elevated to high realms of the spirit by this fascinating but complicated mechanism of the human mind.

  

William Sargant was a controversial physician in Charge of the Department of Psychological Medi­cine at St. Thomas's Hospital, London, and a pioneer of physical methods of treatment in psychiatry. Author of Battle for the Mind, a work on brainwashing and conversion, and the Unquiet Mind, an autobiography, Dr. Sargant is a member of the Editorial Board of Man, Myth, and Magic, inwhich the above essay was published. 

Courtesy: Abraham Kovoor: Soul, Spirit, Rebirth and Possession; Published by B Premanand, Indian CSICOP, Podannur, Tamil Nadu; Date of Publication: 17-02-2000

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Bridey Murphy and Simandini: Hypnotic Regression and Rebirth

Abraham Kovoor

Believers in reincarnation often try to prove that their belief is neither blind nor silly by citing certain so-called scientific evidences. On such evidence, they say, is through hypnotic regression. They put great emphasis on certain alleged rebirth stories re­vealed through hypnotic regression. Two such "authentic" cases often cited by them are those of Bridey Murphy and Simandini. 

We reproduce below what the distinguished researcher and author Sprague de Camp and his wife Catherine deCamp have written about these two cases:-

I

“In the 1950s Morey Bernstein of Colorado, dabbled in hypnotism, undertook to hypnotise the wife of an acquaintance. The name of the woman was Virginia Tighe, although in his report, Bernstein called her "Ruth Simmons". When Bernstein hyp­notised Mrs. Tighe, he told her to "regress"; that is to go back to her childhood and describe the scenes. Then he urged her to go back to a time before her birth.

 

''You will find”, he told her, "that there are other scenes in your memory. There are other scenes from far away lands and distant places in your memory". (Bernstein, P.124).

 

Sure enough - as anybody who knows about hypnotism could have foreseen - Mrs. Tighe just did that. The scene, albeit “thin”, were said to be those of nineteenth century Ireland. The personality speaking through the body of Mrs. Tighe claimed to be Bridget ("Bridey") Murphy, an Irishwoman who had flourished more than a cen­tury previously, married one Brian McCarthy, and died in the fullness of her years.

 

All this resulted in a best-seller by Bernstein, The Search for Bridey Murphy; a national reincarnation fad; Bridey Murphy clubs and amateur hypnosis circles; a mass of articles in magazines and newspapers about the case; and two or three suicides by people impatient to get on with their next incarnation.

 

Investigation of Bridey Murphy in Ireland failed to establish her existence. How­ever, investigation of Mrs. Tighe accounted for a great deal. For one thing, her speech, both in grammar and vocabulary, was solidly North American English except for a few artificial additions like "colleen". Gaelic words were consistently mispronounced in the manner typical of one who has read them but never heard them spoken, since the rules for pronunciation of Irish are very different from those of English.

 

The various elements in Virginia Tighe's description of herself as Bridey were all sooner or later accounted for in terms of Mrs. Tighe's own childhood memories. The climax came when a reporter discovered in Chicago a real Bridey Murphy: a woman of Irish birth who had lived across the street during Virginia's childhood, and who was now a youthful-looking grandmother, very much alive".

II

“In the 1890s, there lived in Geneva, a young woman known to the literature by the pseudonym" Helena Smith" (real name, Elise Muller). Mile Smith had a good job in a local company and practised mediumship on the side. She had been a dreamy child whose habit of reverie had strengthened into trance mediumship. Despite health, good looks and a respectable background, she disliked and despised her environment. She affected an air of regal hauteur and snubbed her suitors as mere bourgeois.

 

Mile Smith's romantic leanings appeared in the list of spirits who spoke through her. These included Victor Hugo, Marie Antoniette, and the famous eighteenth-century charlatan Cagliostro, who strangely enough did not understand his native Italian.

 

The most remarkable spirits, however were those from India and the planet Mars. It transpired that in an earlier life, in the fourteenth century, Helene had been the daughter of an Arab Sheikh. Under the name of Simandini, she became the elev­enth wife of an Indian Prince Sivrouka. When Sivrouka died, she dutifully burned herself up on his pyre. 

Catherine Crook de Camp with her husband, L. Sprague de Camp

In her Martian incarnation Helena appeared as a Martian princess. The princess's aggressive young boy friend also put in an appearance, describing and drawing pictures of the landscape of his native Mars. This landscape was lush tropical scene, even less probable than the Mars of Edgar Rice Burroughs. (Much less probable than the revelations of Mariner pictures!)

 

Helene came to the notice of the French astronomer Theodore Flournoy, who was dabbling in psychic research. At first Flournoy was impressed. When Helene was taxed with the fact that Simandini did not seem to know any Arabic, she wrote a sentence in perfectly good Arabic. Sacred name! Said Flournoy to himself; how could this ordinary, middle-class Swiss girl come by all this learned matter?

 

His puzzlement deepened when he learned that there had been a real prince Sivrouka, who had died when Helene said he did. Then Flournoy took a second look at the matter - the long critical scrutiny that slays so many beautiful theories. Helene, it seemed had been browsing in the stacks of the Geneva Public Library. What she saw, she retained - not on the conscious level, but in her unconscious, whence it could be raised in trance states. He found that the Arabic sentence was a motto on the flyleaf of one of the books in this library. Helene wrote it not from right to left as a real Arab would do, but mechanically, left to right. Her Martian language she had invented by using made-up words along with French sounds, grammar and word order.

 

However absurd, Helene's impersonations were a smashing success. Despite Flournoy's exposure of her sources, an American woman, with more money than sense, gave the reincarnated princess a life income. Helene quit her job, devoted her life to inspirational psychic painting, and spent her last years tottering on the verge of insanity" ...

 

"A hypnotic subject, in a genuine trance, tries to please his hypnotist. If the hypnotist tells him to conjure up a former incarnation, the subject strives to invent one. Moreover, Bernstein does not seem to have known that multiple personality is a mental disorder, which can become serious if encouraged. A prudent person would not let an. amateur remove his appendix. Such an operation is tricky enough even when done by a professional". 

(Spirits, Stars, and Spells, P.245-52  by L. Sprague de Camp And Catherine C, de Camp)

Courtesy: Abraham Kovoor: Soul, Spirit, Rebirth and Possession; Published by B Premanand, Indian CSICOP, Podannur, Tamil Nadu; Date of Publication: 17-02-2000

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Witchcraft: A Panel Discussion

Abraham Kovoor

This is the transcript of a panel discussion on Witchcraft - Fact or Fiction broadcast by CBC (Ceylon Broadcasting Corporation) on March 23,­1971 in its feature "Forum of the Air". 

Participants:

Dr. Nandasena Ratnapala (Moderator), Lecturer, Vidyodaya University. 

Mr. Abraham Kovoor - President, Ceylon Rationalist Association.

Mr. George Ondaatjie - Member, Ceylon Rationalist Association.

Prof. C.E.C. Bulathsinghala - an astrologer and palmist.

Rev. Fr. Matthew Peries - a demonologist and exorcist.

In the Ceylonese context, witchcraft has to be taken along with demonology, because witchcraft in Ceylon means the employment of a spirit as an agent to inflict harm or injuries, or to gain success or security. It is slightly different from what is found in western countries. Let us ask Rev. Fr. Mathew Peries his idea of witchcraft.

Peries: it is a popular belief that is not confined only to Ceylon. It is believed all over the world among people who accept spirits as discarnate personalities who can cause harm to human beings. They believe that by rituals these spirits can be used for ulterior purposes, as you said in the ritual of witchcraft.

Moderator: In Ceylon there are so many people who believe in witchcraft. Hardly a day passes without some notice appearing in the newspapers about actions of spir­its. Mr. Kovoor, what are your ideas about the subject?

Kovoor: Well, I do not know what this spirit is! We have bodies, we have life, the vital energy produced as the result of respiration, and we have minds, the working of the brain. Apart from these there is no scientific evidence to say that man has a spirit or soul to survive the death of his body. When we stop breathing there will be no more oxidatory work going on in the protoplasmic tissue producing any more life. There cannot be any life without there being a body to breathe. A discarnate spirit cannot have life because it cannot breathe. Of course, as Fr. Peries said, it is universally believed that there are spirits which are discarnate souls capable of appearing as apparitions, capable of talking or throwing stones or doing conscious acts. To be conscious, a spirit must have brain. A spirit has no body and muscles to throw stones. It has no vocal cord and lungs to speak. It is a sort of blind belief among many persons that spirits exist. But there is no scientific evidence to support it. If people see or hear spirits in the dark, it must be due to their hallucinations resulting from their delusional beliefs.

Image Courtesy: http://www.indg.in

Moderator: Now Mr. Kovoor, in the course of my research work I have come across not only villagers but even the sophisticated educated persons in towns and cities having beliefs in spirits, and their ability to bring about harm or benefit to the people. How can you account for this?

Kovoor: Education has nothing to do with blind beliefs. If you are brainwashed or indoctrinated from childhood in a belief, it is difficult to get rid of those ideas even with your education. These delusional beliefs get rooted in the sub-conscious mind. For example, I myself was brought up with the idea that man has a soul which be­comes a spirit after the death capable of going to heaven or hell. As a child I was mortally afraid of ghosts. It was an uphill task to remove such false beliefs. Although I have go~ rid of all such foolish beliefs, still it may linger in my unconscious mind. Recently I was recording a broadcast talk about ghosts at the Kanatta cemetery at night. Although I did not see any ghost there, if some one had made some strange sound, I would have got frightened because of my sub-conscious fear of them. But on the other hand if Dr. Aries Kovoor, my son, is frightened in a cemetery, he is not likely to experience such fears because as a child he was not indoctrinated about spirits, demons gods and similar nonsensical ideas.

Peries: Some persons believe that there is nothing beyond death to survive. For them demonology is a fiction. To 1110se who believe that men live beyond death, demonology and witchcraft becomes acceptable understanding.

Kovoor: I accept that Demonology and witchcraft become acceptable only to those who blindly believe in survival without any evidence!

Peries: There are so many things we cannot see, but we cannot say tlley do not exist. I have not seen the back of my head.

Kovoor: With a mirror in hand you can!

Peries: I have not seen my heart.

Kovoor: Before the invention of the microscope we never knew there were bacteria. Now we know. Science is broadening the horizon of our knowledge. There is no scientific evidence about a soul surviving the death of the body. If a mosquito does not leave a soul after its death, man too does not.

Peries: We who have examined patients afflicted by spirits have found that they are able to transcend time and space. I have read about girls who were so afflicted speak in foreign language which can baffle hearers. It is only for a short time, and that is the time when they are afflicted. Those are the convincing facts.

I have not seen the wind, but I know it blows. I know it blows when I see the wind ruffling. Therefore I say there is a thing called wind. I cannot say here is the wind, neither can I bottle it. But I know it can harm. In that way we believe that the end of man is not death. Man continues beyond death. For those who believe that, then the rest of sequence follows.

Kovoor: According to Fr. Mathew Peries the evidence for survival is that some persons speak like a dead person, or speak a so-called foreign language. This phenomenon can be explained in psychological terms. It is pure glossolalia. Glossolalia is a mental derangement or neurosis in which a person who has delusional belief in spirits, act and talk like a dead person often in changed voice. I have come across many cases of glossolalia, and even cured them. Similarly, people may behave like a dead person, and even claim clairvoyant powers. This type of neurosis is known as cryptesthesia. There are remedies for such mental afflictions.

Peries: Glossolalia would be only babbling of words without any meaning. There are transcendent states when they can tell about things in another room. That is why I am able to tell you that it is not the same individual, but a different person which came in. This condition stops when the spirit is addressed to by me. I do this accord­ing to the Christian right.

Ondaatjie: Of course, we have got to question whether this has been on a scien­tific basis. Because there is another phenomenon called ESP. Various claims have been made, and very close and exacting tests made. But they have nIl fallen short of any scientific standard.

Modem psychology can give alternative explanations for those phenomena such as a person seeing a spirit, or possession by spirit or demon. The explanation for a person seeing a demon like Kalukumaraya or a spirit is that it is pure hallucination. Psychologists say that hallucination is very often caused by excitement, fear or ecstasy. It is closely related to a person's beliefs, and is coloured by his childhood experiences and fears. In fact our culture is richly laid with many medieval beliefs in various demons and spirits. It is surprising that people see only spirits and demons about which they have heard so much. In this connection it is relevant to say that rationalists, for instance, do not see spirits, nor do they fear spirits!

Bulathsinhala: I do not believe in death. I believe in reincarnation. Death is only a passing phase. Belief in demonology is not mere hallucination. Often people come and say that a woman had died with some attachment. And then what happens? Stones are being thrown into the house, pictures on the wall are being broken. Cow dung and other dirty things are thrown at people. But no person is visible. I was taken there. Paid add taken there. They said a woman who had some attachment to the family had died and that person is creating the troubles. So that is not a hallucination. So, I said there are demons knocking about the place. I believe in witchcraft. I believe in soonyams. I believe in charms. If I am given time I can give colossal evidence to prove that demons are about the place.

Moderator: So you mean to say that persons who die are bom again, and at the same time you say that their spirits could be re-employed through witchcraft to inflict harm on others?

Bulathsinghala: Yes. If they leave this world with bad attachment they corme back to create trouble. They can be harnessed by us.

Moderator: By charms and manthrams, and by certain rituals?

Bulathsinghala: Yes, they can be harnessed by them.

Moderator: What do you think about it Mr. Kovoor?

Kovoor: Well, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. On three occasions I have challenged all types of occultists in this country through the English, Sinhalese and Tamil newspapers to kill me by their charms, soonyams, vas kavi etc., during speci­fied periods. During these periods I received through the post about 49 charms from allover the island. I have got them with me. The very fact that I am still alive proves that these charms and rituals are of no use. Of course, if I was a blind believer in these myths, there would have been some psychological effect on me.

Again, Prof. Bulathsinghala was trying to establish the reality of spirits through mysterious happenings like the throwing of stones, cow dung etc. Mr. Bulathsinghala, I have Investigated hundreds of cases of poltergeistism where similar mysterious happenings occur. In every case I have succeeded in finding out the person who was respon­SIble for all such acts. They are all done not by spirits, but by mentally sick persons.

Moderator: Excuse me Mr. Kovoor. We have come to the last minute. I am very thankful to all of you for coming and taking part in today's discussion.

We have been discussing "witchcraft" as our second subject, and Mr. Kovoor has said that spirits, from a rationalistic point of view, do not exist. Mr. Ondaatjie too has taken that view. Prof. Bulathsinghala, on the other hand, connects his belief in the existence of spirits with the popular belief people have in rebirth. Rev. Fr. Mathew Peiris has represented the Christian point of view and gave some information about certain singular happenings he has come across.

As a scientist I feel that many of these things have to be scientifically investigated. Prof. Bulathsinghala and Fr. Peries would do well to bring these things before Scientists for thorough investigations. Such investigations are bound to bring good dividends. 

Courtesy: Abraham Kovoor: Soul, Spirit, Rebirth and Possession; Published by B Premanand, Indian CSICOP, Podannur, Tamil Nadu; Date of Publication: 17-02-2000

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