Michael Cremo - Human Devolution - A Vedic Alternative To Darwin's Theory

The name “Norman,” of no apparent significance to Lodge and his wife when they heard it, turned out to be a name that Raymond used in a general way to refer to his brothers, especially when they were playing field hockey. This information was supplied to Lodge later by his surviving sons, who had not been present at the sitting (Lodge 1916, p. 147). The practice is believable to me, because I, and children in my neighborhood, jokingly used to do the same thing when I was young, using names such as “Holmes” to refer to almost anyone.

Some of the communications from Raymond gave interesting information about the spirit world. The following descriptions were obtained during a sitting Mrs. Lodge had with Mrs. Leonard on February 4, 1916. Raymond, speaking through the control Feda, indicated that the spirit world was divided into different spheres. For example, he said his sister (Lily) had “gone right on to a very high sphere, as near celestial as could possibly be” (Lodge 1916, p. 229). In the spirit world, like spirits gravitated towards each other. Raymond said, “I’ve seen some boys pass on who had nasty ideas and vices. They go to a place I’m very glad I didn’t have to go to, but it’s not hell exactly. More like a reformatory— it’s a place where you’re given a chance, and when you want to look for something better, you’re given a chance to have it” (Lodge 1916, p. 230). Raymond himself was on a middle level, the third, called Summerland, or Homeland. Beings from higher realms could visit there, and the persons on Summerland could come to the earth. He called it a “happy medium” (Lodge 1916, p. 230).

Raymond told his mother he was once taken up to another level: “I was permitted, so that I might see what was going on in the Highest Sphere. . . . He [Christ] didn’t come near me, and I didn’t feel I wanted to go near him. Didn’t feel I ought. The Voice was like a bell. I can’t tell you what he was dressed or robed in. All seemed a mixture of shining colours” (Lodge 1916, pp. 230–231). Raymond explained that he was somehow transported back to Summerland, with a sense that he was to be engaged in a spiritual mission, “helping near the earth plane” (Lodge 1916, p. 232). He said, “I was told Christ was always in spirit on earth—a sort of projection, something like those rays, something of him in every one” (Lodge 1916, p. 232). Raymond said, “Some people ask me, are you pleased with where your body lies? I tell them I don’t care a bit, I’ve no curiosity about my body now. It’s like an old coat that I’ve done with, and hope some one will dispose of it. I don’t want flowers on my body” (Lodge 1916, p. 235).

Lodge was concerned that many scientists would never take seriously any evidence for survival and other psychical phenomena. To such scientists, Lodge (1916, p. 379) addressed the following remarks: “They pride themselves on their hard-headed scepticism and robust common sense; while the truth is that they have bound themselves into a narrow cell by walls of sentiment, and have thus excluded whole regions of human experience from their purview.”

In the case of Lodge and Raymond, the communicator, Raymond, was of course known to Lodge and others in the presence of the medium. There are, however, some cases in which communicators not known to the sitters or the medium “drop in” to séances. These are of interest because one cannot easily propose that the medium has obtained the knowledge revealed by the drop-in communicator from the other persons at the séance. Nor would the medium have much reason to manufacture such a personage, given that the sitters have come to her specifically to communicate with some departed friend or relative, well known to them, not some unknown person.

Ian Stevenson and Erlendur Haraldsson (1975a) report an interesting case from Iceland. The medium was Hafsteinn Bjornsson. In 1937, a group of people began having séances with Bjornsson at a private home in Reykjavik. In the course of the sittings, a drop-in began to communicate through Bjornsson. He refused to identify himself, giving obviously false names such as Jon Jonsson, the Icelandic equivalent of John Doe. When asked what he wanted, the communicator said, “I am looking for my leg,” adding that it was “in the sea” (Haraldsson and Stevenson 1975a, p. 37). In the fall of 1938, the same communicator appeared in another series of sittings. He still asked for his leg and still refused to properly identify himself. In January 1939, Ludvik Gudmundsson started coming to the sittings. He owned a house in the village of Sandgerdi, near Reykjavik. The communicator seemed pleased that Gudmundsson was present, but Gudmundsson could not understand why this should be so. When asked about this, the communicator said that Gudmundsson had his leg in his house at Sandgerdi.

After Gudmundsson became impatient with the communicator’s refusal to identify himself, the communicator finally said in one sitting: “Well, it is best for me to tell you who I am. My name is Runolfur Runolfsson, and I was 52 years old when I died. I lived with my wife at Kolga or Klappakot, near Sandgerdi. I was on a journey from Keflavik in the latter part of the day and I was drunk. I stopped at the house of Sveinbjorn Thordarsson in Sandgerdi and accepted some refreshments there. When I wanted to go, the weather was so bad that they did not wish me to leave unless accompanied by someone else. I became angry and said I would not go at all if I could not go alone. My house was only about 15 minutes’ walk away. So I left by myself, but I was wet and tired. I walked over the kambinn [beach pebbles] and reached the rock known as Flankastadaklettur which has almost disappeared now. There I sat down, took my bottle [of alcoholic spirits], and drank some more. Then I fell asleep. The tide came in and carried me away. This happened in October, 1879. I was not found until January 1880. I was carried in by the tide, but then dogs and ravens came and tore me to pieces. The remnants [of my body] were found and buried in Utskalar graveyard. But then the thigh bone was missing. It was carried out again to sea, but was later washed up again at Sandgerdi. There it was passed around and now it is in Ludvik’s house” (Larusdottir, 1946, pp. 203–204; in Haraldsson and Stevenson

1975a, p. 39).

Runolfsson said that his account could be verified by looking at the records of the church in Utskalar. These records confirmed that a person bearing his name had in fact died on the date he had given, and also that the person was of the age given by him (Haraldsson and Stevenson 1975a, p. 40). Other records confirmed that he had lived at Klopp and later at another place near the Flankastadaklettur rock. And a report by a church clergyman said that the dismembered bones were found much later, apart from his clothes, which also washed up on the beach. But there was no mention of the missing leg bone. Gudmundsson asked old men in the village of Sandgerdi if they knew anything about any leg bones. Some of them recalled hearing something about a thigh bone being passed around. One of them said that he recalled something about a carpenter who put a leg bone in one of the walls of Gudmundsson’s house. Gudmundsson and others looked around the house, trying to guess what wall might be concealing the bone. Someone made a suggestion, but the bone was not found. Later, the carpenter himself was located and he pointed out the place where he had put the bone, and the bone was found there (Haraldsson and Stevenson 1975a, p. 41). The femur was long, consistent with Runolfsson’s statements in his communications that he was tall. The bone was found in 1940, three year’s after Runolfsson first mentioned it. If this bone can be relocated, it may be possible to compare it genetically to the other buried bones of Runolfsson.