From the Narrow Desert

Yesterday, as mentioned in "242, and crabs," seeing a reference to the eight points of the compass made me think that if there were eight directions in a two-dimensional space, the number of directions for any n-dimensional space would be the nth power of three minus one (because the center is not a direction). I calculated these in my head up to the fifth power of three.

Today I read the H. G. Wells short story "The Story of the Late Mr. Elvesham," which is about how the titular old man successfully switches bodies with a young man named Eden after making him his heir, the idea being that Elvesham's body will die, and Elvesham (in Eden's body) will inherit his own possessions and continue his life as a healthy young man.

The story is narrated by Eden. When he wakes up to find himself in Elvesham's body, he thinks it must be a dream and tries to go back to sleep. He has recourse to a curious alternative to counting sheep:

I shut my eyes, breathed regularly, and, finding myself wakeful, began to count slowly through the powers of three.

How often do people count through the powers of three? I'd say that's a pretty remarkable coincidence.

There's more, though. Yesterday I also participated in an email discussion with some of my Romantic Christian blogging associates about the advisability of speaking openly of miracles. Bruce Charlton expressed the opinion that, while telling miracle stories may have been helpful at most other times in history, it was usually net-harmful in the modern West because people assume atheistic materialism and reject miracles out of hand, so that a miracle story generally has no other effect than damaging the credibility of the person who tells it. I responded that, while assumptions are important, people do sometimes update them in response to experience, and that a materialist who never hears of any miracles is unlikely to question his axioms.

Continuing with Mr. Eden's reaction to the strange situation in which he finds himself:

Had I been a man of any other age, I might have given myself up to my fate as one enchanted. But in these sceptical days miracles do not pass current.

In the end, though, the evidence of his own experience forces him to update his assumptions:

I have been a materialist for all my thinking life, but here, suddenly, is a clear case of man's detachability from matter.

A specific instance of Bruce's opinion about sharing miracles, and how the advisability of doing so has changed over time, can be found in his post of the day before yesterday, "Contact with the (so-called) dead - past and present." In this post, he dismisses spiritualism as unlikely to be helpful but says contact with the resurrected dead is a different matter:

For some people, in some situations, contact with one or more of the resurrected dead may even be their primary spiritual task. 

For a start, it can be a vital source of spiritual guidance.

He goes on to say that this sort of contact has its potential pitfalls as well, but that many of these can be avoided by maintaining a policy of secrecy, "by not disclosing to others with whom we have contact, and keeping secret their information and guidance."

The day I read that post, I had also read H. G. Wells's story "The Moth," which is about an entomologist who is haunted by a mysterious moth which he believes to be the vengeful ghost of a rival entomologist with whom he had feuded. This, combined with Bruce's post, made me think of Whitley Strieber's book The Afterlife Revolution, detailing his ongoing relationship with his late wife, who he believes often appears in the form of a moth. So confident is Strieber of the reality of this ongoing relationship and communication that he lists his wife as a co-author of the book, even though it was written entirely after her death.

Last night, I was working in my study when I suddenly heard a loud thump behind me. Turning around, I saw that one of my books had spontaneously fallen off the shelf: an English translation of Oswald Wirth's Le Tarot des imagiers du Moyen Âge. -- The Tarot of the Medieval Image-makers, badly translated as The Tarot of the Magicians. I had read the book only once, four years ago, but I decided right then that I should read it again. I was about to turn to the first chapter but had a strong impression that I should instead go back and read the preface. I did so.

The preface is all about Stanislas de Guaita, the French poet and Rosicrucian. The two men met in 1887, when Wirth was 27 and de Gauita was 26. Wirth learned the Tarot and the French language from de Guaita and created his first Tarot deck under the Frenchman's guidance two years later. De Guaita died young, in 1897, and Le Tarot des imagiers du Moyen Âge was not published until 1927, three decades after de Guaita's untimely death. Nevertheless, Wirth presents the book as having been written in collaboration with his late friend.

I am convinced that the master for whom the veil of mystery was lifted, does not abandon his colleague who is straining to discern the truth. . . . Our true initiators often do not reveal themselves to our senses, and sometimes remain as silent as the symbolic compositions of the Tarot, but they keep watch on our efforts at deciphering, and as soon as we have found the first letter, they can mysteriously prompt the second to put us on the path of the third. Guaita certainly helped me, for my thought calls to him so that between us a telepathic connection is established. The relationship between one mind and another is in the nature of things, that has nothing in common with the classic or modernized necromancy in the form of spiritism. . . .

Like Raphael and Mozart, Guaita was to die young. It was granted to me to live on, but the incomparable friend, the inspiring master, has never died for me. His thought remains as mine; and with him and through him I aspire to initiate myself into the secret things. We collaborate secretly, for he who has gone encourages me to pursue his work . . . .

I am conscious of never having ceased to be the secretary of Stanislas de Guaita . . . whose acts continue, for nothing is lost in this sphere of strength.

May the reader be grateful to Stanislas de Guaita for the ideas which I express, and indulge his pupil who sets them forth here.

I am convinced that this kind of thing is far more common than most people imagine.

Last night I happened to listen to this haunting version of the Blue Öyster Cult classic "(Don't Fear) The Reaper," set to an instrumental track by P!nk.

Now, O now, in this brown land

Where Love did so sweet music make

We two shall wander, hand in hand,

Forbearing for old friendship’ sake,

Nor grieve because our love was gay

Which now is ended in this way.

A rogue in red and yellow dress

Is knocking, knocking at the tree;

And all around our loneliness

The wind is whistling merrily.

The leaves -- they do not sigh at all

When the year takes them in the fall.

Now, O now, we hear no more

The villanelle and roundelay!

Yet will we kiss, sweetheart, before

We take sad leave at close of day.

Grieve not, sweetheart, for anything --

The year, the year is gathering.

Gentle lady, do not sing

Sad songs about the end of love;

Lay aside sadness and sing

How love that passes is enough.

Sing about the long deep sleep

Of lovers that are dead, and how

In the grave all love shall sleep:

Love is aweary now.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wand'ring bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me prov'd,

I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body (1 Cor. 15:42-44). 

Knowest thou that old queen of the world who is on the march always and wearies never? Every uncurbed passion, every selfish pleasure, every licentious energy of humanity, and all its tyrannous weakness, go before the sordid mistress of our tearful valley, and, scythe in hand, these indefatigable labourers reap their eternal harvest. That queen is old as time, but her skeleton is concealed in the wreckage of women's beauty, which she abstracts from their youth and love. Her skull is adorned with lifeless tresses that are not her own. Spoliator of crowned heads, she is embellished with the plunder of queens, from the star-begemmed hair of Berenice to that -- white, but not with age -- which the executioner sheared from the brow of Marie Antoinette. . . . When she goes by, doors open of themselves; she passes through walls; she penetrates to the cabinets of kings; she surprises the extortioners of the poor in their most secret orgies; she sits down at their board, pours out their wine, . . . takes the place of the lecherous courtesan hidden behind their curtains.

ATTENTION. DUE TO A SCALE BACK IN COVERAGE, THE MORAL ARC OF THE UNIVERSE NO LONGER BENDS TOWARD JUSTICE. WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.

Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me. These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

Past the streams of Oceanus they went, past the rock Leucas, past the gates of the sun and the land of dreams, and quickly came to the mead of asphodel, where the spirits dwell, phantoms of men who have done with toils.

-- Odyssey XXIV, A. T. Murray trans.

"Oh . . . green. Shows me a park. I see my son. What's this got to do with him? Is this the devil? What the hell is this?"

"What about the green?"

"It's a beautiful, green expanse. Was immediately relaxing when I saw that. And my boy. My boy is in the park. My boy is there. And he's happy. That's what I saw. But--"

"Why are you so upset?"

"Because I think the park represents death, and he's there because he's dead. That's what I think."

"Why should the park represent death?"

"I don't know. That's just my impression."

"Now I see . . . a park. . . . My little boy is sitting there on the grass . . . he's all wobbly, and he's like he can't move his arms right. He's all wobbly and his eyes look funny." (They appeared entirely black, without any whites at all.) "I have to go over and pick him up and help him. If I don't help him, he's gonna die. [Long pause.]"

The next thing that happened was that my deck and pool dissolved into a magnificent vision. In this vision I was standing before a field of yellow flowers that rose up a low hill. The sky was black and full of stars so large and bright that it seemed as if I could reach up and touch them.

Even though the sky was dark the flowers were bathed in bright sunlight. As I watched I felt a wind blowing around me from behind. Suddenly children of all ages and sizes were running past me and out into the field, running and laughing through the sunlit flowers and up the low hill. They ran in a dense column, laughing and waving, and I felt an anguish to join them.

They ran up the hill and right into the sky, a glowing column of children, and when they reached the top of the sky they exploded into new stars.

A voice said to me, "This is the field where the sins of the world are buried." I wanted to go out to it but I could not, and that was painful, but I was filled with joy just to know that it was there. [. . .]

Later I told my brother about this experience, and he said "The odd thing is that I've had a private fantasy of a field of yellow flowers all of my life. When I'm relaxing I often imagine that field."

The following spring we were to make a lovely discovery at the house. After an absence of three or four weeks we returned to find that there actually was a field of yellow flowers where I had seen one the previous August.

It turned out that the landscape architect had planted the area with bulbs in October-without, of course, knowing of my vision. I had not even known that she had done the planting, let alone what kind of bulbs she had used.

By coincidence she had chosen yellow daffodils.

What would be my way of death? What if in another moment there was a great roar and I found myself disembodied but still alive, hanging in the air of another sky? Where would my judges be, where my guardian angels? I would wander as helplessly as a cloud. I would drift, waiting for something to happen. But what if it was intended that we create our own realities after death? A man who dies with no expectations would be in danger of oblivion.

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

She protested and ordered them to put her back to bed, but to no avail. In a trice, she found herself in a verdant park. The sun was setting. Although the surroundings were a joy to her eyes, no living things were visible, only the wind was soughing amidst the trees. It struck a note of desolation to her. She felt a sense of despair. The little blue man presented her with a blue silk flowing robe, which she happily put on because it was her favorite color. [. . .] After this episode, Mrs. Sharp's condition declined rapidly.

Upon reading this account, I remembered my hypnosis session covering the events that occurred on the night of October 4, 1985. During that session I had seen my son in a beautiful but strangely desolate park. I had thought him dead and had experienced emotional devastation.

Could there be an actual place somewhere, in some parallel reality, where the dead linger in sighing gardens?

St. Denis of Paris, noted cephalophore

In a recent post (qv), Bruce Charlton discusses Rudolf Steiner's statement that "hearts must begin to think."

My understanding is that Steiner meant that the divine destiny of modern Man is to become a thinker with 'the heart' primarily: that is, an intuitive thinker; and with the feeling that our thoughts are located in the chest.

And the 'must' comes in, because Steiner also predicted that 'Head thinking', intellect, the thinking that we feel is located behind the eyes - would decline.

Therefore, if Men failed to to be heart-thinkers, failed to embrace our destiny; then we would after a while hardly be able to think at all.

So we are driven to the interesting conception of an ultimate thinker who is learning to interpret what is presented to his notice, the educative process involved being his following, during the waking hours, with unremitting, three-dimensional attention, the facile, automatic action of that marvellous piece of associative machinery, the brain.

This, admittedly, is a complete reversal of the old-time animist's conception of the 'higher' observer as an individual of superlative intelligence producing the best effect he can with the aid of a clumsy material equipment. But it seems to me there is not getting away from the plain evidence afforded by the character of our dream thinking. Whatever capacities for eventually superior intelligence may be latent in the observer at infinity, they are capacities which await development. At the outset brain is the teacher and mind the pupil. Mind begins its struggle towards structure and individuality by moulding itself upon the brain. [. . .] the brain serves as a machine for teaching the embryonic soul to think.

Your [immortal soul] has plenty of intuitive knowledge: his ability to perceive what lies ahead in time-1 is an instance of that. Moreover, a study of dreams shows that he is thinking in a rudimentary fashion. [. . .] But the logic, usually, is little better than that of a very young child [. . .] He is not in the least surprised by any incongruity which he encounters: he accepts it without hesitation. [. . .] But there are times in dreaming when the more rational part of the mind rouses from its uncritical inspection of the fantasies presented to it by its half-witted partner, and you find definite though still rather feeble thinking going on. It has all the characteristics of brain thinking, incredulity, criticism, judgement, planning: and this is the thinking it has learned from brain during the earlier travels of the three-dimensional 'now'.

These are: (a) control of attention; (b) an ability to learn from experience; (c) foreknowledge of sense data lying ahead in time-1; (d) as a consequence of (c) and (b), purpose, expemplified in intervention to avoid, or ensure reaching, those foreseen sense data; and (e) a very limited amount of thinking (tutored by that mechanical thinker, the brain).

 Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life.

-- John 6:27 

For there is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool for ever; seeing that which now is in the days to come shall all be forgotten. And how dieth the wise man? as the fool.

-- Ecclesiastes 2:16 

All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man.
Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

-- every logic textbook ever written

The convention of using the name "Socrates" when giving an example of a logical syllogism is, of course, entirely arbitrary. Any other name would have done as well. So, for that matter, would predicates other than "is a man" and "is mortal." Nevertheless, allow me to proceed on the conceit that whoever first came up with that now-hackneyed example (not, as you might assume, Aristotle; perhaps Mill) was inspired.


Once there was a man who liked nothing better than the feeling of heroin coursing through his veins. So he shot himself up with gobs of the stuff, died in short order, and that was the end of him. Those few moments of inexpressibly intense pleasure he had enjoyed were gone as if they had never existed.


There was another man, wiser than the first. Realizing that the short-sighted hedonism of the junkie leads only to suffering and death, he pursued an enlightened hedonism of the sort advocated by the likes of Epicurus, Lucretius, and their many modern-day epigones. He led a measured, responsible life, ever mindful of his health, and enjoyed the civilized pleasures of gardening, long walks in the park, and the jovial (but not too jovial) company of good friends.

Then, like the junkie, he died. His friends mourned him briefly, as is fitting, but naturally not to excess, and in very little time normal life resumed just as if the enlightened hedonist had never been born -- or, come to think of it, just as if he had been a junkie.


A  third man, wiser still, understood that even a good life ends in death, and so he focused his efforts on those who would survive him. He had many children, loved them, raised and educated them well, and worked hard to leave them a generous inheritance. They, for their part, loved and honored him, as did the many grandchildren he lived to see.

He died, too, of course, but he lived on the hearts of his offspring, who would often tell stories of their father and grandfather -- what a good man he had been, how much he had taught them, how he had made them what they were. But eventually all those who had known him died as well, and then all those who had known them. The stories ceased to be told, his name was forgotten, and with each succeeding generation his influence for good became increasingly diluted and diffuse and hard to identify. A few short centuries later, it was as if he had never lived at all.


A fourth, even wiser man, strove to live on forever in the hearts of his people. A just and benevolent man, brave and determined and endowed with great charisma, he united the tribes into a great nation. He made laws, founded cities, made the wilderness blossom as a rose, subdued their belligerent neighbors, and ushered in a golden age of art, industry, learning, and peace. When he died, his people, his cities, his laws, all lived on and flourished. His likeness and memory were to be found throughout the country. He was venerated almost as a god. The dates of his birth and death became public holidays. His name passed into the language as the name of his country and people, and eventually even as a common noun meaning "king."

But now that people has vanished from the face of the earth, their cities have crumbled to dust, and their once-fruitful land is desert once more. Their laws and institutions have been forgotten, and the language in which the name of their king had been immortalized is extinct. As for the king himself, he is still known to a few archaeological specialists, who may recognize his name as one of those that survives on a fragmentary list of kings. Its etymology and pronunciation are a matter of conjecture. The birth and death dates given are obviously fanciful. He is generally assumed to be entirely mythical.


We come at last to the wisest of all, whose legacy -- being spiritual and intellectual in nature -- is of such universal significance as to have survived the fall of more than one civilization, and who may well be remembered for as long as the human race persists. He founded not a kingdom or a school of thought but philosophy itself -- to such an extent that all those who came before are lumped together in a sort of prologue to the subject. His influence on all subsequent thought has been incalculable, and some two and a half millenia after his death, his is still a household name the world over, and he is remembered for his wisdom and integrity. And when a logician needs a name, any name, to use as an example in a syllogism, it is his that springs most readily to mind.

But he, too, is mortal, and there will come a time when even his legacy -- enormous by human standards, minuscule by cosmic ones -- will have vanished without a trace. Perhaps it will be when the human species goes extinct, or evolve into something unrecognizable. Perhaps it will be when a sufficiently large asteroid finally smites the Earth, blasting its oceans and atmosphere out into space and leaving the solar system with a second Mars, or when the inner planets are swallowed up into an expanding Sun -- or perhaps, as much as we might like to think otherwise, it will be considerably sooner than any of that. But, be it sooner or later, come that day will, and death, the great leveler, will have made him the equal of the junkie.


People who believe in mortality -- truly believe in it -- but who deny that it makes their lives meaningless, haven't thought things through. Yes, mortality absolutely does make your life meaningless. If mortality is for real, it won't make the slightest difference in the end whether you were a saint or a serial killer or some schmuck who spent all his time playing video games. No difference at all.

So ask yourself, which are you more sure of: that it does matter how you live your life, or that mortality is the last word?

No one in the world ever gets what they want, and that is beautiful.
Everybody dies frustrated and sad, and that is beautiful.

-- They Might Be Giants, "Don't Let's Start"

When the green field comes off like a lid
Revealing what was much better hid:
Unpleasant.

-- W. H. Auden, The Two

Dogs! Would you live forever?

-- Frederick the Great

But oh, that magic feeling, nowhere to go

-- Paul McCartney, "You Never Give Me Your Money"

Others are posting messages of comfort, but I get the distinct feeling that what some people really need is a message of discomfort -- a swift kick in the seat of the pants. So, never being one to dismiss distinct feelings, here goes.

Ahem.

Listen. You were always going to suffer and die. Everyone in your family was always going to suffer and die. Everyone you know was always going to suffer and die. All your earthly efforts were going to come to nought, your country and culture -- and, least we forget, "the economy" -- were going to degenerate and disappear, and the sun was going to expand into a red giant and consume the earth as though it had never existed. All that was always going to happen, and you knew it all along, or would have if you had been paying attention.

If you are in despair now but weren't before, you're an idiot. You do realize this game you signed up for is called mortal life, right? Did someone not explain that to you? Were you expecting something different? I don't know anything about your situation, but I know it hasn't fundamentally changed. You were born on death row. Don't you think that should have made you a little tougher than this?

As for the all the dupes and caitiffs and hypocrites and quislings you suddenly find yourself surrounded by -- I hate to break it to you, but they were already like that. All you're seeing now is what their true colors were all along. That's what the word apocalypse actually means, you know: Revelation. Revealing. Uncovering. The green field coming off like a lid. For just a second, you get a glimpse of all the men behind all the curtains in the world. The whited sepulchers may have looked nicer before they were opened, but they were full of dead men's bones all along.


You should have come to terms with death and suffering and evil a hell of a long time ago, but if you somehow haven't gotten around to it yet, well, now's your chance to do so. (Or not. Distraction is always an option, of course. I hear porn sites are offering premium memberships for free.)

Suffering is nothing. Suffering is ephemeral. If you think it matters, you're not thinking clearly. Next question.

And death? Well, that's the big question, isn't it? If death is for real, if mortality is the last word, then nothing at all matters or could matter, and you have nothing in particular to do except enjoy "that magic feeling" and kill time until time kills you. Or cut to the chase and kill yourself. It doesn't really matter one way or the other.

Or perhaps there's something after death, in which case something very likely does matter, and you'd better figure out what. Don't expect me to hold your hand here. Do I look like some sort of spiritual guide? Do your own thinking. Get out there and figure things out. It's a pity you waited until you were scared, though. Now it's just going to be that much harder to trust your intuitions as anything other than wishful thinking. Still, better to trust them, as compromised a they are, than what some Random Internet Person says. Best get on it.


Shall I close by saying that God loves you and everything's going to be all right? Fine. God loves you, and everything's going to be all right. Just keep in mind that God has loved everyone who has ever lived on this earth, and that "everything being all right," by God's standards, is evidently consistent with every imaginable human tragedy. Go read Candide sometime. Or the Book of Job. Or any history book, really. God's love offers no assurance at all against the kinds of things you're probably scared of. In the end, I'm afraid there's just no substitute for learning not to be scared of them. And there are only two ways of doing that.

So, what's it going to be? Philosophy or distraction?

When the astral body is absent for a prolonged period, the physical body enters a state of deep catalepsy something like hibernation, in which its physical needs (for food, water, even oxygen) are minimal, and this state may easily be mistaken for death.

It is obvious that, during an extensive and prolonged projection [of the astral body] the material counterpart might assume the characteristics of a corpse, and the temperature drop exceedingly low -- even to such an extent that the misunderstanding people of the world would pronounce the subject "dead." I have concluded, as the result of a study of this subject, that the heart may actually cease beating for some time, and yet the astral cord may not be disconnected. . . .

Mr. Carrington has . . . summarized many cases of premature burial. "There can be no doubt," says this authority, "that many hundreds of persons have been buried alive, during the centuries which have preceded us. Societies for the Prevention of Premature Burial have actually been formed in England, America, etc. Cases of trance, catalepsy, suspended animation, etc., were mistaken for death, before our modern methods of diagnosis were introduced."

Muldoon cites many examples of people returning from deep, death-like trances (understood by him to be cases of astral projection, whether deliberate or spontaneous), of which the following -- apparently well attested by trustworthy witnesses -- is one of the most remarkable.

Some years ago, a celebrated fakir from the Province of Lahore, India, was buried for a period of thirty days, under the supervision of Prince Ranjeet Singh and Sir Claude Wade. The fakir was placed in a sack -- after entering the state of catalepsy -- which was securely tied. This sack was then placed in a box, which was locked -- the keys being kept by the British General.

The box was then deposited in a brick vault, the door of which was sealed with Ranjeet Singh's seal, and a guard of British soldiers was detailed to guard the vault day and night. At the end of the thirty days, the vault was opened, the box and sack unfastened, and the fakir -- very emaciated, but still alive -- was resuscitated by his friends!

Muldoon then goes on to draw parallels between such cases and biblical accounts of raising the dead.

In the Bible there are several accounts of individuals who were brought back to life. Take, for example, Christ's resurrection of his friend Lazarus [in John 11]. If Lazarus were actually dead and the astral cable disconnected, then Christ did perform a miracle; but it the cable was still engaged, it was an apparent miracle, and the resurrection was merely a resuscitation. 

Christ was a marvellous occultist and seer, the peer of mediums, and was a friend of Lazarus. Might it not be possible that Lazarus was an astral projector? There seems to have been some misunderstanding on the part of the disciples as to whether Lazarus was really dead or not. Christ first of all told his followers that Lazarus was not dead: "This sickness is not unto death." Next He told them that Lazarus was asleep: "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go now that I may awake him from sleep." 

Christ next went to the grave where Lazarus lay -- a cave with a stone upon it; He ordered the stone to be removed and with a loud voice cried, "Lazarus, come forth!" And he that was dead came forth. Could not a similar demonstration be given to-day -- by a hypnotist and an astral projector? 

Another Bible instance of resuscitation is the bringing to life of a certain ruler's daughter [the daughter of Jairus, in Mark 5]. "And he cometh to the house of a ruler of the synagogue, and seeth the tumult, and them that wept and wailed greatly. And when he was come in, he said unto them, 'Why make ye this ado, and weep? The damsel is not dead, but sleepeth.' And they laughed him to scorn. But when he had put them all out, he taketh the father and the mother of the damsel, and them that were with him, and entered in where the damsel was lying. And he took the damsel by the hand, and he said unto her, 'Talitha-cumi'; which is, being interpreted: 'Damsel, I say unto thee, arise!' And straightway the damsel arose and walked." 

For these few singular demonstrations Christ gained the reputation of being capable of resurrecting the dead; but in every case Jesus himself stated that the subjects were not dead, but sleeping. If the persons were literally dead -- if the line of force had actually been severed -- and still they were brought back to life, is it not a wonder that more were not likewise revived? Surely there were others, begging to be reunited with their loved ones -- innocent children crying for their mothers, lovers begging for their sweethearts who lay in death -- pathetic mourners all about -- and yet only a few were resurrected!

This line of speculation, with its implication that Jesus did not in fact have the power to resurrect the dead, strikes at the heart of Christianity, even suggesting that Jesus' own resurrection -- the Resurrection -- may not have been quite what it appeared to be. It also represents a somewhat unique challenge because it is not based on the assumptions of materialism or on dismissing the gospel accounts as fables. Muldoon accepts the accounts as factual and accepts a "supernatural" explanation of what took place -- but a different supernatural explanation, one that would make Jesus merely a "marvellous occultist and seer, the peer of mediums," able to rectify the occasional astral projection gone wrong, rather than someone who was fully divine and brought genuine salvation from death.


So, how plausible is the Muldoon theory?

In the case of the daughter of Jairus, I think Muldoon's theory makes perfect sense. Jesus actually says that "the damsel is not dead," and the miracle is not prefaced with any "I am the resurrection and the life" type claims about being able to raise the dead. Jairus had previously said, "My little daughter lieth at the point of death" -- possibly in the cataleptic state described by Muldoon -- and after her resuscitation he "commanded that something should be given her to eat," perhaps suggesting that like the Indian fakir, she was still alive but in a greatly weakened state and required careful nursing back to full health.

What about Lazarus? Muldoon makes much of Jesus' statement that Lazarus was asleep but rather misleadingly elides the two verses that follow this statement: "Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep. Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead." He had told the mourners of Jairus's daughter not to weep because she was not dead -- but when he saw Lazarus's grave, Jesus wept -- because he was dead. To Lazarus's sister, he says not, "Thy brother is not dead," but, "Thy brother shall rise again. . . . I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." If Lazarus was not actually dead, such talk can only be interpreted as deliberate dishonesty, as pretending to be able to raise the dead.

Finally, and most importantly, what about Jesus' own death and resurrection? Muldoon doesn't explicitly venture into such controversial waters, but his theory certainly implies that Jesus, too, may have been resuscitated from a cataleptic state rather than raised from the dead. There are, if one is looking for them, hints of this possibility in the Gospels. Mark reports that "Pilate marvelled if he were already dead" -- meaning that crucifixion would not normally have killed a man so quickly. Jesus' legs were not broken (which would have killed him if he were not already dead), and his body was never embalmed (ditto). After coming out of the tomb, he still had his crucifixion wounds, which on the face of it is more consistent with survival in a wounded body than with resurrection in a perfect, immortal body. Against this survival hypothesis we have the fact that Jesus looked different (was unrecognizable) after his resurrection and was also reportedly able to walk through walls and such -- and, of course, explicit claims by Jesus and his disciples that he had died and returned to life.

It is obvious that belief in, or rejection of, Jesus' resurrection must be based on something more substantial than speculations based on the rather sparse accounts that have come down to us all these centuries later. Opinions may differ about Lazarus and the others, but if Jesus himself was not resurrected, Christianity is pointless.


Traditional Christian opinion is that Jesus himself was the first to be properly resurrected and that those who preceded him -- Lazarus (John 11), the daughter of Jairus (Mark 5), and the son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7) -- were merely restored from death to ordinary mortal life (meaning that, unlike resurrected beings, they would still die again). I have slowly brought around (by Bruce Charlton) to the opinion that Lazarus was in fact resurrected in the fullest sense -- that he was the first, and Jesus himself the second -- but what of the others? Muldoon makes a good point: If Jesus had the power to restore the dead to life, why did he so seldom exercise it? He seems to have been willing to heal just about anyone who needed healing, so why are the accounts of his raising the dead so few and far between? Lazarus was Jesus' closest friend (and perhaps brother-in-law), but what was so special about the daughter of Jairus and the young man of Nain? Perhaps, as Muldoon suggests, what was special about them was that they were not actually dead but in the sort of cataleptic state he describes.