TRANSCEND
December 2013
TRANSCEND
TRANSCEND
1
December 2013
Table of Contents
01 10 14 20 30
TRANSCEND
How Near-Death Experiences Work Has Science Explained What Happens After Death? Astral Projections How To Do It
Celebrities Unearthed The real stories behind the supposesed death of celebrities
Stories of Reincarnation
2
December 2013
Salvador Dali, photographed here by Philippe Halsman, is known for his surrealist style which is well characterized here in this photograph titled, Salvidor Dali A.
TRANSCEND
3
December 2013
(NDE)s & How They Work ED GRABIANOWSKI
Near Death Experiences (NDEs) are common enough that they have enter足ed our everyday language. Phrases like "my whole life flashed before my eyes" and "go to the light" come from decades of research into these strange, seemingly supernatural experiences that some people have when they're at the brink of death. But what exactly are NDEs? Are they hallucinations? Spiritual experiences? Proof of life
TRANSCEND
4
December 2013
after death? Or are they simply chemical changes in the brain and sensory organs in the moments prior to death? In this article, we'll discuss what makes an experience an NDE and who typically has them. We'll also explore supernatural and scientific theories and explanations for why they happen.
TRANSCEND
5
December 2013
NDE
T R A I T S
01. Out-of-body experiences (OBE)
The subject feels that he has left his body. He can look down and see it, often describing the sight of doctors working on him. In some cases, the subject's "spirit" then flies out of the room, into the sky and sometimes into space.
02. Intense, pure bright light
Sometimes this intense (but not painful) light fills the room. In other cases, the subject sees a light that they feel represents either Heaven or God.
Entering another dimension
Depending on the subject's religious beliefs and the nature of the experience, he may perceive this realm as Heaven or, in rare cases, as Hell.
TRANSCEND
6
December 2013
Renée, Munn “Diaphanous.” 2013.The Looking Glass Self. www. Renée Munn.com. Gelain Silver prints & Beeswax.
03.
Life review
This trait is also called "the panoramic life review." The subject sees his entire life in a flashback. These can be very detailed or very brief. The subject may also perceive some form of judgment by nearby spirit entities.
Near-death experiences and out-of-body experiences are sometimes grouped together, but there are key differences. An OBE can be a component of an NDE, but some people experience OBEs in circumstances that have nothing to do with death or dying. They may still have spiritual elements or feelings of calm. OBEs can happen spontaneously, or drugs or meditation can induce them.
06.
05. Communication with spirits
04.
Before the NDE ends, many subjects report some form of communication with a spirit being. This is often expressed a "strong male voice" telling them that it is not their time and to go back to their body. Some subjects report being told to choose between going into the light or returning to their earthly body. Others feel they have been compelled to return to their body by a voiceless command, possibly coming from God.
The tunnel
Many NDE subjects find themselves in a tunnel with a light at its end. They may encounter spirit beings as they pass through the tunnel.
TRANSCEND
7
December 2013
NEAR T h e o Supernatural approach
The most basic supernatural explanation is that someone who goes through an NDE is actually experiencing and remembering things that happen to their disembodied consciousness. When they are near death, their soul leaves their body and they begin to perceive things that they normally cannot. The soul goes through the border between our world and the afterlife, usually represented by a tunnel with a light at the end. While on this journey, the soul encounters other spiritual entities (souls), and may even encounter a divine entity, which many subjects perceive as God. They are offered a glimpse into another realm of being, often thought to be Heaven, but they are then pulled back, or choose to go back, into their earthly body. Belief in astral projection connects NDEs with other forms of out-of-body experiences. Astral projection is the ability of an "astral self" to travel outside the body. In an NDE, this astral self, or soul, spontaneously leaves the body and travels freely to other places. A few cases of NDEs seem to offer proof that people actually experienced events from a point of view different from that of their earthly body. People who were unconscious, non-responsive, had their eyes closed or had been declared clinically dead have reported details of procedures done to them and people who were present in the room [ref ]. Some NDE subjects who suffered from per-
TRANSCEND
8
Renée, Munn “Ophelia.” 2013.Shakespear’s Heroines. www.Renée Munn.com. RC prints, Gel Medium manent blindness have reportedly been able to identify the color of a doctor's shirt, for example [ref ]. For those with a strong belief in Judeo-Christian theology, NDEs represent proof that we have souls, that they continue to exist after we die and that Heaven and Hell are real places. Some believe that NDEs are the work of Satan, who seeks to exploit people's vulnerability at the time by appearing as "an angel of light." Satan's ultimate reason for this deception is unclear. Other NDE theories are a bit more esoteric. Some believe that an NDE represents a psychic connection to higher-level intelligent beings from another dimension. These beings may be humans who have evolved their souls beyond the birth-death-reincarnation cycle, thus offering a glimpse of humanity's future as high-order spiritual beings. Sometimes, an NDE can even offer a literal view into the future, as in the apocalypse prophecy NDEs mentioned earlier. It is interesting to note that non-Judeo-Christian religions have stories and descriptions of death that seem to explain many of the common NDE traits. Bud-
December 2013
dhism, for example, describes "the clear light of death," as well as demonic embodiments of moral failure. The soul's goal is to recognize both the light and the apparitions as projections of the soul's own nature, not something objectively real. If that happens, the soul may escape the birth-death-reincarnation cycle and reach nirvana.Renée, Munn “Ophelia.”
Sample, Taylor. “Aqueous Astral Body.” 2013.
Theories explaining near-death experiences fall into two basic categories: scientificexplanations (including medical, physiological and psychological) and supernatural explanations (including spiritual and religious). Of course, these explanations can be neither proven nor disproven. Acceptance of supernatural explanations is based on faith and spiritual and cultural background.
DEATH r i e s Theories
Science cannot ultimately explain why some people have near-death experiences. That's not to say that current scientific explanations are incorrect, but NDEs are complex, subjective and emotionally charged. Further, many aspects of NDEs cannot be tested. We can't run a test to determine if someone actually visited Heaven and met God or purposely take someone to the brink of death and then resuscitate them in a lab to test their out-of-body perception. Nevertheless, medical science offers compelling evidence that many aspects of NDEs are physiological and psychological in nature. Scientists have found that the drugs ketamine and PCP can create sensations in users that are nearly identical to many NDEs. In fact, some users think they are actually dying while on the drug. The mechanism behind some of these strange experiences is in the way our brains process sensory information. What we see as "reality" around us is only the sum of all the sensory information our brain is receiving at any given moment. When you look at a computer screen, the light from the screen hits your retinas, and information is sent to the appropriate areas of the brain to interpret the light patterns into something meaningful -- in this case, the words you are currently reading. An even more complex system of nerves and muscle fibers allows your brain to know where your body is in relation to the space around it. Close your eyes and raise your right hand until it is level with the top of your head. How do you know where your hand is without looking at it? This sensory system allows you to know where your hand is even when your eyes are closed.
Now imagine that all your senses are malfunctioning. Instead of real sensory input from the world around you, your brain is receiving faulty information, possibly because of drugs, or some form of trauma that is causing your brain to shut down. What you perceive as a real experience is actually your brain trying to interpret this information. Some have theorized that "neural noise," or an overload of information sent to the brain's visual cortex, creates an image of a bright light that gradually grows larger [ref ]. The brain may interpret this as moving down a dark tunnel. The body's spatial sense is prone to malfunction during a near-death experience as well. Again, your brain interprets faulty information about where the body is in relation to the space around it. The result is the sensation of leaving the body and flying around the room. Combined with other effects of trauma and oxygen deprivation in the brain (a symptom in many near-death situations), this leads to the overall experience of floating into space while looking down at your own body, and then leaving to float down a tunnel.
The experiences of people whose out-ofbody adventures allow them to see and hear events that their unconscious body shouldn't be able to perceive are more difficult to explain. However, it is plausible that unconscious people can still register sensory cues and prior knowledge and incorporate them into their NDE. Whether this is more plausible than the subject's soul floating out of their body is a matter of personal opinion. Of course, this only scratches the surface of all the possible explanations for an NDE. NDEs seem to offer some hope that death is not necessarily something to be feared, nor is it the end of consciousness. Even science has a difficult time grasping death -- the medical community has struggled with specific definitions for clinical death, organ death and brain death for decades. For every aspect of an NDE, there is at least one scientific explanation for it. And for every scientific explanation, there seem to be five NDE cases that defy it.
Owen, Mark. “Brain.” ©Blackout Concepts/Alamy. 2013.
Scientific
Trauma affecting functional areas of the brain, such as the somatosensory and visual cortexes, could cause hallucinations that get interpreted as NDEs.
The peaceful, calm sensation felt during NDEs may be a coping mechanism triggered by increased levels of endorphins produced in the brain during trauma. Many people experience a strange sense of detachment and a lack of emotional response during traumatic events (whether or not they were related to a near-death experience). This is the same effect. NDEs that include visits to Heaven or meetings with God could involve a combination of several factors. Faulty sensory input, oxygen deprivation and endorphin-induced euphoria create a surreal, though realistic, experience. When the subject recalls the encounter later, it has passed through the filter of his conscious mind. Bizarre experiences that seem unexplainable become spirit beings, other dimensions and conversations with God.
TRANSCEND
9
December 2013
Kane, Danni. “Earth and Eye”. 2013.
Has science explained what happens after death?
by Josh Clark
A brain
dead person should not be able to make new memories. In 1991, Atlanta, Ga. resident Pam Reynolds had a near-death experience, ndes. Reynolds underwent surgery for a brain aneurysm, and the procedure required doctors to drain all the blood from her brain. Reynolds was kept literally brain-dead by the surgical team for a full 45 minutes. Despite being clinically dead, when Reynolds was resuscitated, she described some amazing things. She recounted experiences she had while dead—like interacting with deceased relatives. Even more amazing is that Reynolds was able to describe aspects of the surgical procedure, down to the bone saw that was used to remove part of her skull.
TRANSCEND
12
December 2013
www.wikimedia.org
What’s remarkable (although not unique) about Reynolds’ experience is that it is the combination of an nde and an out-ofbody-experience, obe. HowStuffWorks has braved this territory on the edge of reality, explaining how near-death experiences work and how a person can have an outof-body experience. Science, too, has made its own headway toward explaining these weird phenomena. Two studies on the separate aspects of Reynolds’ experience were conducted in 2007. Each seems to explain how a person can have an obe or a nde, but do they hold up in explaining experiences like Reynolds’? As many as 18 percent of people brought back from death after a heart attack said they’d had a nde. While many religious adherents might not be surprised by these accounts, the idea that human consciousness and the body exist distinctly from each other flies in the face of science. A brain-dead person should not be able to form new memories—he shouldn’t have any consciousness at all, really. So how can anything but a metaphysical explanation cover ndes? A study from the University of Kentucky has quickly gained ground among scientists as possibly the best explanation for ndes. Researchers there theorize that the mysterious phenomenon is really an instance of the sleep disorder rapid eye movement, rem, intrusion. In this disorder, a person’s mind can wake up before his body, and hallucinations and the feeling of being physically detached from his body can occur. The Kentucky researchers believe that ndes are actually rem intrusions triggered in the brain by traumatic events like cardiac arrest. If this is true, then this means the experiences of some people following neardeath are confusion from suddenly and unexpectedly entering a dream-like state. This theory helps explain what has always been a tantalizing aspect of the mystery of ndes: how people can experience sights and sounds after confirmed brain death. The area where rem intrusion is triggered
is found in the brain stem—the region that controls the most basic functions of the body—and it can operate virtually independent from the higher brain. So even after the higher regions of the brain are dead, the brain stem can conceivably continue to function, and rem intrusion could still occur.
and its situation in space. Blanke believes that a misfiring of this region is responsible for obes. If any of the information being sorted by the temporal parietal junction becomes crossed, like where we are in space, then we could seemingly be released from the confines of our body—even if only for a moment.
This sounds like a good explanation for ndes, but what about obes? Are they the same thing?
Both Blanke’s and the University of Kentucky theories explain obes and ndes. But what about when you put the two together as an explanation for experiences like that of Pam Reynolds? This still does not resolve how Pam Reynolds and others like her view themselves outside of their bodies while they were brain-dead.
The Temporal Parietal Junction and OBEs While the rem intrusion theory forneardeath experiences explains the apparent hallucinations that accompany ndes, another aspect remains a mystery. How can a person watch his body after he dies? Though out-ofbody experiences are sometimes reported as part of the near-death experience, they can also stand alone, indicating that they are a different animal than ndes. This is supported by a bit of accidental research. To find the cause of a 43-year-old epilepticpatient’s seizures, Swissneurologist Dr. Olaf Blanke conducted a brain mapping test using electrodes planted on the brain to determine which area controls what function. As one region was being stimulated, the woman had a sudden outof-body experience. She told Blanke that she could see herself from above. Blanke determined that by electrically stimulating the woman’s angular gyrus, a part of the temporal parietal junction, he could induce her obes. What’s remarkable is that the patient experienced an obe each time her angular gyrus was arbitrarily stimulated. At any given time, the brain is assaulted with information. As a result, we become desensitized to the sights and sounds around us, such as the buzz of a fluorescent light. The temporal parietal junction (tpj) is responsible for sorting through this disparate information and putting it together into a coherent package.
ndes may be a result of rem intrusion, triggered in the brain stem. But obes are controlled by a region of the higher brain, which is clinically dead when ndes occur. What’s more, it seems logical to believe that the higher brain must still function in order to interpret the sensations produced by the rem intrusion triggered in the brain stem. Even though combining the University of Kentucky and Blanke theories does not produce an explanation for ndes, it does not mean that either theory is wrong. Research in one area often leads to a breakthrough in another. Perhaps we will find out that an organic function is indeed behind ndes. If neurology does come up with the definitive explanation for ndes, the mystery may still remain. Science could explain the “how,” while leaving the “why” unanswered. Discovering an explanation for ndes may reveal a door to the metaphysical world, which could possibly be unlocked—and explored—by science. As physician Dr. Melvin Morse wrote, “Simply because religious experiences are brain-based does not automatically lessen or demean their spiritual significance. Indeed, the findings of neurological substrates to religious experiences can be argued to provide evidence for their objective reality.”
The tpj also happens to be the region that controls our comprehension of our own body
TRANSCEND
Josh Clark
13
December 2013
ASTRAL PROJECTION Just a Mind Trip Rodrigo Medeiros Benjamin Radford
The idea that humans can leave their bodies during dream states is an ancient one. Countless people — from New Agers to shamen around the world to 19th-century occult philosopher Madame Blavatsky believe that it is possible to commune with cosmic intelligence through visions and vivid dreams experienced during astral projection, also known as out-of-body experiences. Surveys suggest that between 8 and 20 percent of people claim to have had something like an out-of-body experience at some point in their lives — a sensation of the consciousness, spirit, or "astral body" leaving the physical body. While most experiences occur during sleep or under hypnosis, some people claim to do it while merely relaxing. According to one popular theory, the astral body remains connected through a metaphorical silver cord (akin to an umbilical cord) that tethers the Though practiced for millennia, these days astral travel can be big business; a man named Mark Pritchard (who goes by the more evocative moniker V.M. Beelzebub) offers an online course and book on how to learn astral travel in eight weeks. As he explains, "the Astral is one of two planes on the fifth dimension; it is where dreams occur, where mystical teachings are given and where the deceased go.... you can meet spiritual beings in the Astral, discover secret knowledge, learn about yourself, see where your spiritual obstacles and inner defects are, learn hidden wisdom about death, the process of awakening, get premonitions of the future, receive guidance, discover the purpose of life, discover what happens with death, and much more... it is something that really happens to you. You actually find yourself in another dimension, existing outside the physical world. You will be able to fly, go through walls and objects, meet people and travel to distant places. It is a profound experience."
The Orion Nebula, mosaiced from 520 Hubble photo December 2013
TRANSCEND
14
December 2013
TRANSCEND
15
December 2013
ASTRAL Experience for Beginners in 3 Steps Rodrigo Medeiros Rodrigo Medeiros, BSc in Electrical Engineering, has 18 years of training experience in OBE and other parapsychic abilities. He authored the book "Clairvoyance: Theory and Practice", and workshops on Clairvoyance, Renewing Mindsets, and Scientific Approach towards Parapsychic research. Rodrigo has presented classes in several countries and participated in debates and scientific events related to consciousness studies.
The Process While the amount of effort to reach a lucid out-of-body experience can change from person to person, a bit of theory and selecting the right approach can make a world of difference. This article is divided in 3 sections: the process, tips to help you get started and an overall look at the benefits that the OBE entails.
When trying to explain how to astral project for beginners, I usually summarize the process in three steps:
1
You Need To Take Off
If you are trying to figure out how to astral project easily, the first thing you need to understand is how to produce the takeoff. In other words, you need to learn how to relax the physical body to the point your psychosoma (astral body) is free to take off. Aside from the relaxation of the physical body, you will need to have the equivalent “relaxation” of your energosoma (energy body). Knowing how to unblock your chakras and achieve a better distribution of energies throughout the energosoma can be a great help in this process. Ideally, you should achieve a state with your energies that will produce a slight expansion of your energosoma. Since the energosoma is the “glue” between the physical body and the psychosoma (astral body), you will be in a better condition to take off. Unblocking chakras and expanding the energies are not absolutely necessary conditions to produce a lucid OBE,
The Orion Nebula, mosaiced from 520 Hubble photo December 2013
TRANSCEND
16
December 2013
however, working on it can greatly increase your chances for take-off. Blocked areas in your energosoma can keep your astral body “glued” to the physical body. For example, you could get to the point of relaxation where you feel your legs and arms floating, and even get the head of the psychosoma to move around a bit, but feel as if there was a weight on top of the chest that keeps you inside the body.
2
Staying Lucid During Take Off
On the process of learning how to achieve astral projection, lucidity is paramount. Being lucid means to be aware, cognizant, making sense of the information we receive from the environment around us consistently with how we do it in the waking state. We can say that lucidity means to be “awake” however we do not use that word in order to avoid confusion with the state of our physical body. Our physical body can be awake or asleep. We, as consciousness, can be lucid or not. So the trick to astral project is to put the physical body to sleep but to stay lucid. The consciousness is not the physical body and therefore does not need to sleep.
3
Recalling your Out-of-Body Experience
The third element needed while learning how to do astral projection is to remember the experience after it happens. This is usually not the part that requires the most amount of information and training.
The sentence should be simple and direct, something like “I will get out of my body with lucidity and remember everything when I come back”. It is important to pay attention to what you are saying and say it “with energy” and with confidence.
When you are outside the body, everything you experience is captured by you “extra-physical brain” (or para-brain) in your astral body (or psychosoma). Because of that, when you go back to the physical body a transfer of information needs to happen from this para-brain to the physical brain. This is the essence of the recall process.
During the OBE you can try to repeat names of people and places that you learn, and also tell yourself that you will remember those names after you wake up. Coming back to the physical body by your own decision usually helps with a more controlled reconnection and with the overall transfer of information to the physical brain.
There are things you can do before the projection to help with the recall. Self-suggestion is one technique you can use before your OBE attempt. This recall technique consists in repeating a phrase to yourself a few times. Repeating it five or ten times is typically effective. If you can say it out loud and do it after you have achieved some relaxation, even better.
An important factor on remembering your astral projection experience is to wake up slowly and to keep your attention on the recall process as you reconnect. If you wake up abruptly, after a loud alarm goes off, and quickly move to switch it off, you would reduce your chances of recall. The ideal scenario for recall is based on a slow reconnection process. Those kinds of alarms that increase the volume slowly can help in this regard. You should ask yourself if you recall anything from the period your physical body was asleep before making any movements. In summary: put your physical body to sleep, stay lucid, and try to manage the reconnection process to remember the experience.
TRANSCEND
17
December 2013
The REAL stories of famous celebrities supposed deaths TRANSCEND
18
December 2013
TRANSCEND
19
December 2013
Michael Jackson
Cloned?
T
his story/event happened back in 2005, it was never refuted or denied by ANY of the persons mentioned or involved But was hidden by the FBI and other “higher forces” in the United States Government.
Im sure we’ll remember how after his Thriller hit release, stories and rumours of cloning and live preservation started flying around with Michael right in the middle of the whole thing, and after a few months we saw a different Michael Jackson, new face, new this, new that. I think a lot happend pretty quickly.
“We positively identified the body as Jackson by his dental records and DNA,” Holbrooke said. “But even before we conducted a single forensic test, we began to suspect that we’d uncovered the real Michael, and that the disturbing figure claiming to be Jackson was a fake.”
SANTA BARBARA, CA—During a search for evidence at the Neverland Valley Ranch, investigators discovered a corpse that has been identified as that of Michael Jackson, Santa Barbara police officials announced Tuesday “Coroners have officially pronounced Michael Jackson dead. From what we can tell, he died between 18 and 20 years ago,” forensic investigator Tim Holbrooke said. “We are not certain, at this time, who—or what—has been standing trial in that Santa Maria courthouse.”
Holbrooke said that, although the corpse was in an advanced stage of decomposition, when investigators compared the body to early-career publicity photos of Jackson, they saw a striking resemblance in bone structure and facial features. But when they compared the body to photos taken after 1987, the resemblance was negligible. “This discovery raises a lot of questions, but it also sheds light on a number of disturbing incidents,” Holbrooke said. “Frankly, Jackson had been acting pretty strange.”
According to Holbrooke, Jackson’s corpse was buried just inches below a stretch of the miniature-train tracks that run throughout Neverland. The largely desiccated corpse wore the remains of a red, zippercovered leather jacket and a single glove.
Forensic experts and music critics are postulating that Jackson was dead before the release of the multi-platinum album Bad. Detectives are currently analyzing the lyrics to “Man In The Mirror” for any clues relating to a look-alike entity that many suspect mur-
TRANSCEND
20
December 2013
dered the youngest member of the Jackson 5 and assumed his identity. “We believe that Neverland served as some sort of freakishly whimsical tomb constructed by Jackson’s killer,” Holbrooke said. “We also suspect that all of the iniquities that occurred on that ranch were the work of the imposter. I wouldn’t have ever thought it possible, but we are looking at a situation where the intimate abuse of a 13-year-old cancer patient is the tip of the iceberg.” Holbrooke said that, while the living Jackson is the leading suspect in the murder investigation, he “could be another victim of some sort.” “Basically, we have no idea what type of creature we are dealing with,” Holbrooke said. A member of the investigative team that discovered Jackson’s body described the experience as “otherworldly.” “As we neared the perimeter of Neverland, the dogs started whining and howling like crazy,” Santa Barbara County detective Frank Poeller said. “We had to pull them into the house. When we got to Jackson’s bedroom, one of them almost choked himself to death on his
leash trying to get out through the window. Minutes later, the same dog led us to the corpse.” A representative from Jackson’s self-created label, MJJ Productions, said he was not surprised to find out that the current Jackson is an imposter. “When we were recording ‘Heal The World’ for Dangerous, I could tell something was terribly, terribly wrong,” MJJ manager Luke Allard said. “Michael didn’t seem like himself anymore. He’d demand bizarre food and sit for hours in a hyperbaric chamber. His appearance began to become more and more peculiar. Soon afterwards, he started wearing a mask and confiding in a chimpanzee.” “I remember thinking, ‘This man has become a monster,’” Allard said. “If only I’d known how right I was.” Allard said he thinks that the imposter broke ties with Jackson’s former friends and surrounded himself with children who were too young to notice the radical change. Vanity Fair reporter Beth Pither visited Neverland in 1994. “A strangely fearful staff member led me to Jackson, but ran off before
I opened the door,” Pither said. “Standing there with my hand on an ice-cold doorknob, I heard strange, unnatural sounds—leathery wings flapping, a sorrowful wail, and loud hissing. A wave of dread passed through me as I opened the door, but all I found was Michael and some kids in pajamas eating ice cream and watching 101 Dalmatians.” While their claims have not been corroborated, other Neverland visitors have reported that when when Jackson entered a room, lights flickered, faucets ran blood-red, and screams escaped from the walls. To aid in the investigation, the FBI enlisted Dr. Richard Weingarden, a noted expert on the paranormal from UC Santa Barbara. After only two hours, Weingarden abandoned the project. “The smell of sulfur, the decaying facial features, the bizarrely high-pitched voice—it sounds exactly like, “ Weingarden said, trailing off. “I’m sure it’s nothing. Not a big deal. Nothing to be terrified about, certainly. I have to go. I’ve got a family.”
Thomas Sneddon, the prosecutor in Jackson’s child-molestation lawsuit, said it remains to be seen how the shocking discovery will affect the trial. Megan Gustafson, who left her post as president of the Akron, OH Michael Jackson Fan Club after the singer was accused of molestation, offered a positive view of the grisly revelation. “This is very disturbing news,” Gustafson said. “But to be honest, it’s kind of a relief too. Thriller and Off The Wall are really amazing records. Now I can pull them out of my ‘ruined by child abuse’ storage bin and start listening to them again.”
Photography by: Left- Thesource.com Below- Dolly the first cloned sheep-Paul Sturgess Written by: Nairaland Forum
TRANSCEND
21
December 2013
TUPAC SHAKUR
LIVING IN TRANSCEND
22
December 2013
PENNSYLVANIA?
By: Frank Lake Photograph by: Imagezone.com
P
BS reported that the rapper Tupac Shakur was sighted in Tasmania this weekend.
PBS is reporting that Tupac Shakur was sighted and photographed having drinks at a bar in Snug, Tasmania. Soon thereafter the internet was ablaze with speculation if this was real and Tupac was really alive. Tupac Shakur was allegedly gunned down September 7th 1996 after leaving a boxing match. However reporters have discovered that Tupac actually survived the shooting, but he and record label executives paid off medical examiners to claim he had died. His apparent death allowed him to escape his assailants and his constant legal battles. Since then Tupac had lived in hiding under an assumed name in rural Pennsylvania. Weekly World News reporters tracked down the beloved rap star to his new home. With regards to going into hiding he said, “At first it was life or death. I’d just been shot at and I knew it wasn’t going to stop. Once I was out of the game, a fresh start looked too good. All the baggage from the old life, I could let it go and walk away.”Since then, “I mostly keep my head low. Don’t draw attention. Staying out of trouble.”
When asked about how he spends his time, he said, “Ya know, same old same old. Shop at the Farmer’s Market. Keep my bees, get some honey. Flirt with the girls at Dairy Queen. Nothin’ big.” For creative exploits, Tupac says, “I like to knit.” His house was covered with hand knit pieces celebrating his former celebrity and sweaters with ‘Thug Life’ stitched on them. Above the couch was a large tapestry depicting a scene from his California Love video. He went on: “I do a lot of writing. Jewel’s book of poetry, that was mine. I also ghost wrote the screenplay for ‘The Lake House’.” Tupac said he has no plans to return to the public eye. “I’m a keep it straight chillin’ here. Keep them bees, work the strawberry patch. End of the day, play on with some World of Warcraft. It’s a good life.”
TRANSCEND
23
December 2013
N
ew information gives a clearer picture of what happened 75 years ago to Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan, where they came down and how they likely survived – for a while, at least – as castaways on a remote island.
For decades, pioneer aviator Amelia Earhart was said to have “disappeared” over the Pacific on her quest to circle the globe along a 29,000-mile equatorial route. Now, new information gives a clearer picture of what happened 75 years ago to Ms. Earhart and her nav-
In addition, several artifacts found years ago – some of it discovered by Pacific islanders who later inhabited the island – seem to confirm TIGHAR’s conclusion.
igator Fred Noonan, where they came down and how they likely survived – for a while, at least – as castaways on a remote island, catching rainwater and eating fish, shellfish, and turtles to survive.
These include broken glass artifacts showing evidence of secondary use as tools for cutting or scraping; large numbers of fish and bird bones collected in, or associated with, ash and charcoal deposits; several hundred mollusk shells, as well as bones from at least one turtle; bone fragments and dried fecal matter that might be of human origin.
The tale hints at lost opportunities to locate and rescue the pair in the first crucial days after they went down, vital information dismissed as inconsequential or a hoax, the failure to connect important dots regarding physical evidence. The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), a non-profit foundation promoting aviation archaeology and historic aircraft preservation, reported new details Friday leading researchers to this conclusion: Earhart and Noonan, low on fuel and unable to find their next scheduled stopping point –Howland Island – radioed their position, then landed on a reef at uninhabited Gardner Island, a small coral atoll now known as Nikumaroro Island. Using what fuel remained to turn up the engines to recharge the batteries, they continued to radio distress signals for several days until Earhart’s twin-engine Lockheed Electra aircraft was swept off the reef by rising tides and surf. Using equipment not available in 1937 – digitized information management systems, antenna modeling software, and radio wave propagation analysis programs, TIGHAR concluded that 57 of the 120 signals reported at the time are credible, triangulating Earhart’s position to have been Nikumaroro Island.
A photo taken three months after Earhart’s flight shows what could be the landing gear of her aircraft in the waters off the toll. “Analyses of the artifacts, faunals and data collected during the expedition are on-going but, at this point, everything supports the hypothesis that the remains found at the site in 1940 were those of Amelia Earhart,” according to TIGHAR. Other artifacts (some of them reported in 1940 but then lost) include a bone-handled pocket knife of the type known to have been carried by Earhart, part of a man’s shoe, part of a woman’s shoe, a zipper of the kind manufactured in the 1930s, a woman’s compact, and broken pieces of a jar appearing to be the same size and unusual shape as one holding “Dr. Berry’s Freckle Ointment.” (Earhart was known to dislike her freckles.) In July, TIGHAR researchers will return to the area where Earhart and Noonan are thought to have spent their last days, using submersibles to try and detect the famous aircraft they believe to have been swept off a Pacific reef in 1937.
“Amelia Earhart did not simply vanish on July 2, 1937,” Richard Gillespie, executive director of TIGHAR, told Discovery News. “Radio distress calls believed to have been sent from the missing plane dominated the headlines and drove much of the US Coast Guard and Navy search.” “When the search failed, all of the reported post-loss radio signals were categorically dismissed as bogus and have been largely ignored ever since,” Mr. Gillespie said. But the results of the study, he said, “suggest that the aircraft was on land and on its wheels for several days following the disappearance.”
TRANSCEND
24
December 2013
By: Brad Knickerbocker Photograph by: © FPG/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Amelia Earhart
Lived on a Remote Island?
TRANSCEND
26
December 2013
Paul McCartney A Fake?
In October of 1969, three weeks after the Beatles’ celebrated Abbey Road album was released; WKNR-FM’s Russ Gibb took a call from a man who identified himself only as “Tom.” The Detroit deejay listened as the caller carefully laid out clues hidden in Beatles’ songs and album art, which he said indicated Paul McCartney, had died on November 9, 1966, in an automobile accident. Listeners began deluging New York City radio stations with “evidence” and soon the rumor spread around the world. Was this a Beatles’ publicity stunt, a fan feeding-frenzy fueled by clues left as an inside joke by John Lennon— or was Paul really dead?
On the cover of the last album that the Beatles recorded, Abbey Road, the band is photographed crossing Abby Road in London, outside of British music company EMI’s Abbey Road Recording Studios. Paul is out of step with the other Beatles, barefoot and with is eyes closed. In many countries, including England, bodies are buried shoeless. Also, the way that the Beatles are dressed on the cover said to have this meaning: Lennon in white – the preacher Starr in black – the undertaker “McCartney” in a suit and barefoot – the corpse Harrison in blue jeans and work shirt – the grave digger Macmillan, Iain. “Abbey Road”. 1969
in e r ocat stories of reincarnation
TRANSCEND
28
December 2013
TRANSCEND
29
December 2013
My Life as a Nurse When I was about 14 or 15 I had a vivid past life recall. I was a man, probably in the early 18th century in America. I remember being an herbal doctor who learned my skills from the native people. I lived in a small one-room cabin in the woods and didn’t own a horse. I walked everywhere. I remember walking down worn paths through the woods and knowing all the plants. In my memory, I walked up to another small house in the woods where I visited an older woman who had heart problems. Her daughters lived with her, one of whom I was in love with, but it wasn’t like it is now; we couldn’t just go around together. I felt like people didn’t like me very much and I didn’t know why. But I knew that, eventually, that girl and I were going to get married and I was very happy. This is where it becomes more clear to me why people didn’t like me. I was loyal to England and we were about to go to war. I was walking down a road and some men who were hiding in the trees shot me from behind. I had known them, and they killed me because they knew I was loyal to England. After having this vision, I enrolled in a class on herbal medicine and enjoyed it, and invited my best friend to come with me. About ten years later I had a regression done, during which I realized she was the girl I was supposed to marry in that life. We are still best friends and, thankfully, she believed me when I told her about all of this. Erica Nicksin
TRANSCEND
30
December 2013
www.wikimedia.org
Memories of the Holocaust When I was about six or seven, my family was eating dinner one night. The television was playing a program about the Holocaust. I remember seeing a man running to hide behind a bin. At that exact moment I became very uncomfortable and started getting very agitated. My parents had no idea what was wrong with me as I had never been like that before. From then on, whenever something like that was on tv or the radio, I’d get uncomfortable and even to this day it is hard for me to watch.
of it, like I had experienced it and didn’t want it to happen again. As a child I had always been scared of the prospect of war and I knew that this was because I had experienced it before and I had died.
My dad’s side of the family are Jewish but up until I was five or six I didn’t really know what the Holocaust was. But when I watched this program at that age, I felt as if I had been there, and that was why I was so agitated. The uncomfortable feeling was like I was scared
I’ve always believed in reincarnation and this proves to me that I lived before.
When I was sixteen, I did a past life regression and I remember being a soldier around the Roman era. I think this is a factor contributing to my fear of war. When I saw this clip on the Holocaust, I was reliving many of those experiences.
H.G.
TRANSCEND
31
December 2013
www.wikimedia.org
My Daughter-Several Times A year ago I visited a medium for the first time. I have always had a very close relationship with my youngest daughter. She has been like my shadow, always clinging to me and wanting to know where I am. I in turn feel very protective of her, even more so than for my other children. When I visited the psychic she immediately asked me about my daughter. This is what the psychic said: that we have had at least two previous lives in which she has been my daughter.
to be separated from one another for fear of losing each other again. During this present life time I married the same man (her biological father) who had been my husband in the past life when he killed me. We went through a bad divorce and I worried during our divorce proceedings that he was going to kill me.
During the first of those lifetimes, my current daughter was born to me but was drowned while a toddler in a river that ran through the property. My daughter is petrified of canals. I could never explain her behavior. I could not drive on a road that had a canal along side of it because she would have a panic attack.
At that time I still had not visited the psychic. When the psychic pointed out all this to me, I remembered an incident with my daughter in this lifetime. When she was four years old, I had a bad argument with her dad, and the three of us took a drive to calm me down so I could confront him. As we were driving to his business, my daughter asked, “Where are we going, Mommy?” And I said, “To Daddy’s office.”
During my second lifetime with her, her current father was also her father. The psychic described my husband to a “T” -- his personality, jealous and controlling. She said that during a jealous argument he shot me with a pistol under my chin, and my daughter witnessed the killing. I have a birthmark under the left side of my chin. I am petrified of guns. I panic if one is pointed at a person, even if it is not loaded.
At that, she went out of control in the car and started shouting and crying. “No, Mom...he is going to kill you again!” I turned and asked her, “What?” And she looked at me with terror in her eyes and said, “He is going to kill you again.” I was taken aback by her remark and, in order to calm her down, did not go to his office. Now I realize she was reliving that fear from another life.
She said that since these two incidents happened to both of us during past lives, now during our third and present life time we are afraid
Fglz
TRANSCEND
32
December 2013
www.farm4.staticflickr.com
My Son, My Brother When I was pregnant with my son, who is now nine, my fifteen- year-old brother asked me to name my son after him. Two days later he was killed by a fellow classmate. My son was born three months after my brother’s death. He has the same first and middle name. I never believed in reincarnation until my son began to talk as a toddler. I met my second husband when my son was about two years old. One day, he was babysitting for me. He took my son out to lunch and then returned home on a road my son had never seen before. As my husband passed an old saw mill that had been closed for years, my son got very excited. My husband pulled the truck over and asked him what was wrong. He said, “That’s where I died!” My husband called me at work, very upset, wanting to know why my two-year-old son would say something like that. I hadn’t known him long at that time and had not told him the specifics about my brother’s death. But my brother had died at a saw mill, since that was where his classmate lived. When my son was about four years old, I picked him up from daycare one day and we were driving home. He was sitting up front with me and suddenly began to tell me what to do when I die. He said, “Mommy, when you die, listen up. Don’t listen down. They will be talking to you from both places. But you just have to listen up. That’s how to get to heaven.” A few weeks ago, another strange incident happened. My son was visiting his dad for the weekend. He was talking to my mother and father on the phone. My son began telling my mom that he had been with his grandpa (my dad) when he had put a horse down because
of a broken leg. My mom couldn’t figure out what he was talking about. The last horse with a broken leg had been many years ago. My son described the white horse with small red spots, and recalled that he and grandpa had to walk through the woods to get to him. That horse had died about two years before my son was born, and it had been my brother and my dad who had put him down. We all had an unbreakable bond with my brother. He was a good kid who lost his life long before he deserved to. I know a lot of people think that I’m crazy or that I want my brother back and that’s why I feel this way. But my oldest daughter, who was 2-1/2 when my brother died, talked about him coming to see her at night for those three months before my son was born. This kind of thing continued to happen until my son was born. I never believed in reincarnation, but I now believe that my brother has a second chance at life! Beckie Branham
That horse
had died two years before my son was born... TRANSCEND
www.wikimedia.org
33
December 2013
TRANSCEND
34
Unknown Author. “Plant With Raising Sun”. D e 2010. c e m bhttp://www.psdgraphics.com/ er 2013