Naked Eye Sightings of Mysterious Orbs (Part 6)

Below are some posts I have published about people reporting they saw mysterious orbs with the naked eye:

Naked-Eye Sightings of Mysterious Orbs (Part 1 of 4)

Naked-Eye Sightings of Mysterious Orbs (Part 2 of 4)

Naked-Eye Sightings of Mysterious Orbs (Part 3 of 4)

Naked-Eye Sightings of Mysterious Orbs (Part 4 of 4)

Naked Eye Sightings of Mysterious Orbs (Part 5)

Let us look at some more cases of this type. 

At the interesting thread here at www.citi-data.com, a user starts the thread with this comment

"My ex boyfriend passed away a little over four years ago. Four months after, I saw a gold/red colored orb in my bedroom. Without going into details, I just want to ask how many of you have received 'signs' after your loved one passed away?"

There are some very interesting answers in the nine pages of the thread.  For example, one user says, "My sister's broken grandfather clock started to chime when my grandmother passed away."

A user tells this interesting account:

"After my grandma died, she visited me in a dream, in her younger, healthier self, took me to this beautiful place that I remember describing as heaven (bright, pearly, just a lot of light and light feelings) and played games with me. She introduced me to her older brother who died when he was 7 (he still looked like a kid my age at the time) and we all played and she just made me feel...safe. She always had that ability. Anyways I woke up and my aunt who slept with me that night to comfort me told me that in my sleep I jumped up, raised my hands in the air and yelled, 'OH WHAT A BEAUTIFUL PLACE THIS IS!!!!!!!!!' And then laid back down. So I told her the dream. I told her about the little boy and my family looked shocked because they couldn't understand how I knew her older brother."

On another page of the thread a user says this:

"I smelled peonies in the dead of winter in my bedroom when my dads mom passed. It was her favorite flower and she grew them."

On another page a user reports asking his father for a sign after death, specifically mentioning playing the piano. He says that a while later his own son reported the piano in the house playing by itself. 

On another page a user says that soon after his mother died, "I did see an orange orb in my windowless dark basement." He says, "I then called my sister who explained that on her way home, she saw a ball of light in her SUV."  He also reports "a light shining up from the floor to the ceiling" in a house he had lived in for 20 years without seeing such a thing. 

When I was visiting the first of these pages, I got a spooky effect. The web page flickered like mad, very noticeably, on and on and on.

 The long and very fascinating work Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World by former US congressman Robert Dale Owen (which can be read online for free here) is a classic of literature about the paranormal. The 1872 book The Debatable Land Between This World and the Next by the same author is a worthy successor volume of equal length.  In that book on page 468 Owen reports on what we saw at a seance on October 26, 1860. To prevent any trickery, Owen was careful to make sure all the doors to the room were locked, and also made sure that throughout the session all of the four persons present joined each other's hands in the center of the table where they sat. Under such conditions, Owen reported seeing this: 

"After a few minutes, there appeared a luminous body of an irregularly circular form, about four inches in diameter, floating between us and the door which was back of Mrs. Underhill. It was somewhat brighter than when it first appeared on the previous occasion ; that is, on the twenty-first of October."

On the next page, Owen reports that at this session there appeared an illuminated mysterious figure, a kind of grayish cloud that eventually stated "God bless you." On the next page after that, Owen said he saw an outline of a head and face.

Owen recalls seeing in 1867 a luminous female apparition:

"It was a female figure, of medium height, veiled and draped, from head to foot, in white. The drapery did not resemble, in material, anything I have ever seen worn. It gave me, as on a previous occasion, the exact feeling of the Scriptural expression, 'shining raiment.' Its brilliancy was a good deal like that of new-fallen snow, in the sunshine ; recalling the text which declares the garments of Christ, during his transfiguration, to have been ' exceeding white as snow ; ' or, again, it was not unlike the finest and freshest Parian marble with a bright light on it, only more brilliant. It had not at all the glitter of spangles or any shining ornament ; the tone being as uniform as that of a newly-sculptured statue. It stood upright, in a graceful attitude, motionless."

On the next page Owen says, "Then it slowly receded, still facing us, to the center of the opposite wall... gradually diminishing in brightness ; and finally it vanished before my eyes."  Owen later says, "Certain it is, that I beheld the gradual formation of the figure ; that I witnessed its movements ; that I received from its hand an actual flower ;  that I saw the figure disappear."

On page 484 we have this account, mentioning Estelle, Mr. Livermore's late wife:

"Mr. L. sealed the windows, sealed and locked the doors, and placed heavy furniture against them ; then searched the room thoroughly and extinguished the gas. Soon came the words : ' I am here in form.' Then a globular light appeared, with crackling sounds. After a time it became a head, veiled : then, but for a single instant only, Mr. L. recognized the features of Estelle. Then a figure was seen : all this being visible by phosphorescent or electrical lights in various parts of the room. During all this time Mr. L. held both of the medium's hands. Then the mode of producing raps was shown : an orange-shaped luminous ball, with blunt point attached, bounding up and down on the table, and the sound, of each rap coinciding with the approach of the ball to the tabletop."

Mr. Livermore reported that a few months later there occurred an equally astonishing appearance of his late wife Estelle:

"The form remained in sight fully half an hour and each movement was distinctly visible. Then came the message : ' Now see me rise. '  And immediately, in full brightness, the figure rose to the ceiling, remained there a few moments suspended ; then gently descending, disappeared.  Afterward she showed herself between us and a mirror. The reflection of the figure in the glass was distinctly visible, the light being so bright as to show the veins in a marble slab beneath.  Here a heavy shower of rain fell, and there was spelled out: ' The atmosphere has changed. I cannot remain in form : ' whereupon both light and figure finally disappeared."

Later Mr. Livermore reports this:

" At last a luminous globe which had remained stationary some six feet to my left floated in front, and came within two feet of me. It was violently agitated, crackling sounds were heard, and a figure became visible by its light. Then there was revealed the full head and face of Estelle, every feature and lineament in perfection, spiritualized in shadowy beauty, such as no imagination can conceive or pen describe. In her hair, above the left temple, was a single white rose ; the hair being apparently arranged with great care. The entire head and face faded and then became visible again, at least twenty times ; the perfection of recognition, in each case, being in proportion to the brilliancy of the light."

On the 68th page of the document here, showing page 182 on the printed page, we have an account from the March 25, 1922 edition of the publication Light.  The account is pretty good from an evidence standpoint. It is an account of what was seen two months earlier. The author (Dorothy Monk) is named, and she tells us that there were eight witnesses of one of the reported anomalies (a spooky mist at a deathbed).  We read this account by the author of seeing her mother's death. 

"The sister who first saw it about this time also saw a large blue globe-like light resting on mother's head, but none of the rest of us could see it. She explained that the  inside appeared all moving and gradually it turned to deep purple and faded out. About seven o’clock that evening mother’s lips parted and from that time we gradually saw a thick white mist collect above her head and spread across the head of the bed. It came from the top of her head, but collected more thickly to the opposite side of the bed to which she was lying. It hung like a cloud of white steam, sometimes so thick we could scarcely see the bed rails, but continually it was varying although it moved so slowly as to be scarcely perceptible. I and my five sisters were still with her all saw it distinctly, also my brother and one brother-in-law. The blue lights continued about the room, also tiny flashes of yellow, like sparks, appeared sometimes. All this time mother’s lower jaw gradually fell a little. For some hours we saw little difference except that a halo of pale yellow light rays came round her head; there were about seven in number; they varied in length from twelve to twenty inches at different times. By midnight every-thing had cleared off, but she did not die until 7.17 on the morning of January 2nd."

Charlton Templeman Speer claims to have witnessed a variety of paranormal phenomena at seances of William Stainton Moses, a 19th-century figure greatly admired for his scholarship and moral character. One thing he claims to have witnessed is something resembling teleportation. He states this:

"The passage of matter through matter was sometimes strikingly demonstrated by the bringing of various articles from other rooms, though the doors were closed and bolted. Photographs, picture-frames, books, and other objects were frequently so brought, both from  rooms on the same floor and from those above. How they came through the closed doors I cannot say, except by some process of de-materialisation, but come they certainly did, apparently none the worse for the process, whatever it might have been."

Besides also describing numerous inexplicable scents and mysterious music, Speer tells us that orbs were seen rising up from the ground and apparently passing through a heavy table.  We read this:

"These lights were of two different kinds— objective and subjective. The former usually resembled small illuminated globes, which shone brightly and steadily, often moved rapidly about the room, and were visible to all the sitters. A curious fact in connection with these lights always struck me, viz., that looking on to the top of the table one could see a light slowly ascending from the floor, and to all appearance passing out through the top of the table — the table itself apparently not affording any obstacle to one’s view of the light. It is a little difficult to explain my meaning exactly, but had the top of the table been composed of plain glass, the effect of the ascending light, as it appealed to one’s organs of vision, would have been pretty much the same as it was, seen through the solid mahogany. Even then, to make the parallel complete, it would be necessary to have a hole in the glass top of the table, through which the light could emerge. The subjective lights were described as being large masses of luminous vapour floating round the room and assuming a variety of shapes. Dr. Speer and myself, being of entirely unmediumistic temperaments, were only able to see the objective lights, but Mr. Stainton Moses, Mrs. Speer, and other occasional sitters frequently saw and described those which were merely subjective. Another curious point in relation to the objective lights was that, however brightly they might shine, they never, unlike an ordinary lamp, threw any radiance around them, or illuminated the smallest portion of the surrounding darkness — when it was dark — in the slightest degree."

A researcher named Simon Young has done a survey of people reporting sightings of fairies or anything looking like a fairy. He has produced a 353-long document you can read online at the link here. I am surprised that so many people have provided reports to his survey. Maybe I should revise my previous opinion that there only rarely occurs claims to have sighted something like a fairy.  The accounts were gathered from responses to an online survey form here.

It would be too much work to summarize the more interesting accounts, so I will limit myself to accounts in the survey in which people claimed to have seen orbs.  Some are below:

• Page 20: "They looked like brightly coloured orbs that changed size sometimes. They were always smaller than my hand and the colours varied e.g. blue, red, yellow, green etc."
• Page 22: "We [Mexican and Belgian nationals] saw golden yellow orbs in Tintagel."
• Page 54: "I saw bright green orbs hanging in the air in the bedroom." 
• Page 125: "The orbs swirled about as I sat in the middle of the mattress with sheets wrapped around my lower half,... I found myself in the immediate company of hundreds of floating orbs that were doing wonderful impressions of soap bubbles."
• Page 126: "Moving again the orb passed by my ear and I heard a soft whirring sound that solicited goose bumps to rise on top of my clammy skin. I smiled and giggled aloud with the realization that this was an intelligent, living being, and it was responding in kind to my thoughts."
• Page 128: "I was around eleven years old when a friend and myself saw an orb of light floating above the trees in the back woods where I grew up."
• Page 138: " ‘I saw it flying in a circle like loop on way [sic] and then another through the kitchen window. It was really windy outside after a rainstorm and it moved against the wind. It had an organic movement to it....I want to say if I’m being very objective it was an orb."
• Page 155: "I’ve seen orbs and UFO type things."
• Page 165: "‘Fell asleep, woke up to the sound of bells tinkling. Looked around my room to see a small blue orb floating around for one to two minutes then it faded out."
• Page 175: "It was orb-shaped and looked to be about like one foot in circumference, and its color was a really bright pink....It was like a bright pink orb almost as big as a basketball."
• Page 182 "I have however, now in the last three to five years, begun seeing and experiencing light orbs, light beings, and even capturing them on the security cameras inside my home."
• Page 187: "I also have seen little light orbs floating around at sunset/nighttime." 
• Page 193: "I saw a winged creature in a golden orb playing with my aunt’s cat." 
• Page 199: "In my peripheral vision, I saw this beautiful, adorable, pink orb. It looked like it was fluttering in place, as if it had large butterfly wings. I looked directly at it, and it disappeared. I quickly looked away and it popped back out of nowhere still with fluttering pink wings. I did not see any face or body; it did not let me look directly at it."
• Page 211: "I also saw light orbs twinkling close to the wall and on the ceiling."
• Page 215: "We were on our front lawn at night, and we saw a small orb of orange light moving around in the forest, leaving a trail. It then hovered in one spot, maybe two hundred feet from us, for hours..... Then, night four, I saw several of these orbs, now bluish white, appear from a tree, then they flew, lit up, about one-hundred-and-fifty feet, and stopped directly in front of my house... A closer one appeared to be about three- to four-inches tall, fluttering goldish wings within a bluish orb."
• Page 217: " I walked across the backyard and just had that feeling that something was there and when I turned around, just a few inches above the ground was an orb. It was golden and full of light but inside it you could see swirls of colors such as blues, pinks and purples."
• Page 226: "They were blue orbs. And then they disappeared."
• Page 252: "The children were surrounded by thousands upon thousands of little lights. My youngest daughter had an orb with a visible baby’s face at her feet."
• Page 270: "At the end of my bed and to the right there was an orb, but almost like a sparkle. I would say it was white and yellow."
• Page 276: "A skyblue light, orb-like but with indistinct, fading boundaries flew slowly from behind me into my field of vision, about a foot or two from my face."
• Page 298: "I looked at my closet door and I saw many colorful orbs moving over its surface. There were at least five of them, each one of a different color. I remember the colors green, yellow and pink (and maybe blue and white). " 
• Page 321: "In 2005, an orb of light about six inches in diameter floating about six inches above the floor in our hallway one afternoon. It floated beside me and disappeared before passing near my husband’s shin. We were stunned and I wish I said or greeted this white light ball which seemed to have brighter light planes within it. My husband saw it also, but he only saw it glowing and didn’t notice the planes of brighter or denser light moving within."
• Page 328: " Coming by her side we witnessed the formation of orb-shaped lights of warm colours (red, yellow and green) hovering above my street, quite above the highest building in my neighbourhood but below the clouds. Maybe a hundred metres or lower. It’s hard to tell how big they were from that distance, but probably more than one metre in orb radius...There were six orbs that slowly changed colours, flying in the sky in a manner different from drones, planes or birds. At they were gliding slowly forming a ring, then suddenly they broke the pattern into three pairs circling each other playfully, something like chasing one another....The orbs felt more like living entities than devices or machines, their way of moving and changing colour felt playful and deliberate, like dancing or playing a game."

In a Buddhist work quoted by two UFO researchers, we have the following account of a mysterious orb:

"At midnight one of Japan's greatest saints, Nichiren Shonin (1222-1282), was being escorted to the beach to be executed. Just before the fatal moment, a brilliant sphere as large as the moon flew over, illuminating the landscape. The authorities were so frightened by the apparition that they changed their minds about putting Shonin to death. Instead, they exiled him to Sado Island, though this did not prevent his teachings from spreading. A branch of his teachings, the Sokka-Gakkei, has millions of adherents throughout the world today."

On page 3 of the March 12, 1875 edition of a newspaper, we have an account by Prince Emile De Sayn-Wittgenstein, who seems to be the same person described on the autobiographical page here.  Emile says, "I had, about a year and a half ago, tried in vain to convert a young lady to the belief that, under special conditions, her soul might quit her body and act independently of it." Eventually the woman give Emile one of her gloves, which Emile thought might help facilitate some experiment in which the two of them would test an ability to make a psychic contact with each other even though they were far separated.  Emile says that for weeks he intensely concentrated while holding the glove, thinking of the woman far away.  He reports this:

"I afterwards ascertained that she had often dreamt of me very clearly, and that she even remembered having once seen me writing at my table. Her description of my dress and of the room I occupied answered exactly to the reality. She also confirmed several facts and episodes of her private life, the particulars of which I had obtained in the way described."

Strangely, Emile reports that during what seemed like psychic contact between the two people far separated, he would see what could be described as a mysterious orb: "Every time her spirit answered my call, I felt a pleasant sort of shiver running down my back, while a sort of dim circular light, about as big as a plate, and of a pale, yellowish hue, appeared moving, to and fro near the ceiling."

A yellow mysterious orb? I've photographed 182 of those, as you can see by using the link here, and continuing to press Older Posts at the bottom right. Below is one of 100 photos I have taken of mysterious orbs that seemed to be traveling so fast they exhibited a kind of "string of pearls" effect in which we seem to see multiple position states of a single object. The photo is from my 2015 post here.  

 A similar photo is this photo is from my 2017 post here.

This Frankenstein Folly Would Be a Trail of Tears for Elephants

A recent interview with evolutionary biologist Beth Shapiro is an interview that may deserve some careful scrutiny given its controversial subject.  The interview is entitled "What ‘de-extinction’ of woolly mammoths can teach us: a Q&A with evolutionary biologist Beth Shapiro."  Shapiro is the chief science officer of a company that claims that it will attempt to revive from extinction some extinct species such as the wooly mammoth and the dodo. 

Early on Shapiro makes this strange statement: "I’ve really begun to appreciate how the technologies one would need in order to bring back something similar to a mammoth are exactly the types of technologies we need to be able to protect and preserve species that are still alive today but in danger of becoming extinct like the mammoth did."  No, preventing an endangered species from going extinct requires mainly low-tech methods such as stopping hunting of the species and carefully preserving existing members of the species, not high tech methods such as gene-splicing.  Shapiro here is trying to give a benevolent sound to an ethically troubling program of gene-fiddling that will probably be a trail of tears for elephants, for reasons I will explain later in this post. 

In the interview Shapiro eventually gives us a quote that lets us know that when scientists talk about performing a "de-extinction" of the wholly mammoth, they're not really talking about any such thing. She says this:

"What we actually mean when we talk about de-extinction now is using the tools of genome engineering to resurrect the core traits of these species that used to be there. We’re not creating a mammoth. We’re taking an Asian elephant and helping it to become something that is more similar to a mammoth by resurrecting the capacity to live in colder climates."

So evolutionary biologists such as Shapiro are using the word "de-extinction" in a misleading way. When they refer to "de-extinction" they are talking about something that isn't actually de-extinction, but instead the hubris of massive experimental gene fiddling. Getting an elephant to look more like a wooly mammoth sure isn't causing the de-extinction of the wooly mammoth. I guess such language abuse is just what we should expect from evolutionary biologists, who have a long history of using language in misleading ways. One of their main abuses of languages has been to use the phrase "natural selection" to refer to something that is not actually selection. Selection means a choice by a conscious agent. So-called "natural selection" is no such thing, but merely a kind of survival-of-the-fittest effect.  The people who have long been referring to selection that isn't really selection are now referring to a de-extinction that isn't really de-extinction.  I guess that's why the title of the interview uses "de-extinction" in quotation marks, as if trying to say, "Don't take me literally."

A bit later in the interview Shapiro seems to change her story, telling us, "Eriona [Hysolli]’s team — the mammoth team — they understand that we have all of the core technologies that we would need to create a mammoth, but what we need to do is, tune them, tweak them, and make them all apply to elephant cells." Huh? Previously Shapiro said, "we're not creating a mammoth" but now she says "we have all of the core technologies that we would need to create a mammoth." It sounds like she is having trouble getting her story straight. Similarly, Shapiro wrote a book entitled "How to Clone a Mammoth," but in the preface of the book she says "here's the truth, it is not possible to clone a mammoth." Wow, that sure sounds like a very glaring case of failing to get your story straight. 

In the recent interview Shapiro then mentions some work her company is doing on stem cells.  We should not be very impressed here, and we should remember that for twenty-five years we have been promised that some great bonanza of treatments would arise from work with stem cells, a bonanza that never appeared. A story last year in the MIT Technology Review describes 25 years of hype about stem cells, and tells us, "Yet today, more than two decades later, there are no treatments on the market based on these cells. Not one."  

Shapiro sounds as is she has not pondered the paltry results of stem-cell research on humans, because she tries to sell us on the idea  that stem cells are going to be some health bonanza for elephants. She states this:

" Elephant iPSCs [induced pluripotent stem cells] are not only good for mammoth de-extinction, they’re also good for work that people want to do with elephants. We want to be able to help elephants thrive in habitats of today and tomorrow, including habitats that include diseases that have been introduced by people. This provides the capacity to do that."

Despite 25 years of hype about stem cells, scientists have delivered almost nothing in the way of FDA-approved stem cell treatments for humans. The idea that stem cell treatments might play some substantial role in helping to preserve elephants from extinction is laughable. Doing stem-cell treatments on elephants is as impractical an idea as the idea of doing surgery on a great white shark. A visual depiction of the idea may cause you to giggle.  

Later on Shapiro states this:

"There are millions of evolutionary differences between an Asian elephant and a mammoth, and it’s unlikely that making one or two small changes is going to create the mammoth phenotype in an Asian elephant’s genetic background. We need tools for multiplex genome editing, for introducing large fragments of DNA, all of which will have application to using CRISPR gene editing technologies in humans and other species."

The use of "unlikely" here rather than "impossible" is strange, rather like saying, "My novel has a million text differences from yours, so it is unlikely that changing one sentence in my novel will make it into your novel." The quotation above seems to suggest that evolutionary biologists want to "play Frankenstein" doing massive gene-splicing with elephants so that they can get skills that may allow them to "play Frankenstein" doing massive gene-splicing with humans.  We get an ominous "eugenics" kind of vibe here, which has the sound of reckless hubris.  Until the origin of COVID has been proven to be natural, we should be very afraid of such gene-fiddling hubris.  

Shapiro then proceeds to teach one of the most outrageous myths of evolutionary biologists, what I call the Great DNA Myth. This is the false teaching that DNA is a specification for making a human body. For many decades following about 1950 evolutionary biologists have taught this false teaching, which is taught in various different ways:

There are various ways in which this false idea is stated, all equally false:

• Many described DNA or the genome as a blueprint for an organism.
• Many said DNA or the genome is a recipe for making an organism.
• Many said DNA or the genome is a program for building an organism, making an analogy to a computer program.
• Many claimed that DNA or genomes specify the anatomy of an organism. 
• Many claimed that genotypes (the DNA in organisms) specify phenotypes (the observable characteristics of an organism).
• Many claimed that genotypes (the DNA in organisms) "map"  phenotypes (the observable characteristics of an organism) or "map to" phenotypes.
• Many claimed that DNA contains "all the instructions needed to make an organism."
• Many claimed that there is a "genetic architecture" for an organism's body or some fraction of that body. 
• Using a little equation,  many claimed that a "genotype plus the environment equals the phenotype," a formulation as false  as the preceding statements, since we know of nothing in the environment that would cause phenotypes to arise from genotypes that do not specify such phenotypes. 

There was never any justification for making any such claims. The only coding system that has ever been discovered in DNA is a system allowing only low-level chemical information to be specified.  That coding system is known as the genetic code, and it is merely a system whereby certain combinations of nucleotide base pairs in DNA stand for amino acids.  So a section of DNA can specify the amino acids that make up a protein molecule. But no one has ever discovered any coding system by which DNA could specify anything larger than a protein molecule. 

The Genetic Code

No one ever discovered any coding system in DNA by which parts of DNA can specify high-level anatomy such as the arrangement of parts in an organ, or a skeletal structure, or an overall body appearance.  No one has even discovered any coding system in DNA by which the structure of cells can be specified.  The human body has at least 200 types of cells, and the structure of none of these cell types is specified by DNA. DNA does not even specify the structure of organelles that are the building blocks of cells.

If you ponder the simple fact that blueprints don't build things, you can start to get an idea of how nonsensical is the claim that a human arises because a DNA blueprint is read.  Blueprints have no power of construction.  When buildings are built with the help of blueprints, it is because intelligent agents read the blueprints to get an idea of what type of construction work to do, and because intelligent agents then follow such instructions. But there is nothing in the human body below the neck with the power to understand and carry out instructions for building a body if they happened to exist in DNA. 

Shapiro uses this language to teach the Great DNA Myth:

"One of the hardest problems in biology right now is understanding how the long stretches of A’s and C’s and G’s and T’s that make up the genome translate into the way a person or an organism looks and acts, and that includes disease manifestations. We have hundreds of thousands of human genomes, and we still can’t pinpoint with precision what gene means what phenotype. One of the ways that we’re going to get there is through comparative genomics, and that includes species outside of our own. So if we are building these resources where we have genomes from across the tree of life, and more complete understanding of how DNA translates into the way something looks or acts, we will be able to apply this to making more informed decisions or hypotheses that will drive future experiments to understand the link between genotype and disease."

We have here a statement that teaches the false doctrine that phenotypes (the appearance and behavior of an organism) are specified by DNA (the long stretches of A’s and C’s and G’s and T’s that make up the genome).  This myth that "DNA translates into the way something looks or acts" is the untruth that many evolutionary biologists have been teaching for seventy years. We also have a little bit of excuse-making for why no one has been able to find any specification of the human body or any of its cells in DNA.

The excuse does not hold water. If DNA contained a specification for how to build a body or if "DNA translates into the way something looks or acts," how that worked would have been discovered by about the year 2003, when the Human Genome Project was completed, and very probably long before that year.  The reason why no such thing was discovered is because genotypes do not map to phenotypes,  DNA does not specify how to make an organism or any of its cells, and DNA does not determine how something looks or acts, but merely influences such things. Containing only low-level chemical information and no high-level anatomy information, DNA merely influences how an organism looks or acts. Consequently all talk of "de-extinction" by fiddling with the genomes of existing species is nonsense. 

The promise in Shapiro's statement that we are going to get to some point where we understand "what gene means what phenotype" suggests a nonsensical assumption that there is a one-to-one relation between a gene and an observable characteristic of an organism.  Humans have something like 20,000 genes, and the observable characteristics of an organism are influenced by thousands of genes. But such genes don't specify how you get protein complexes made from combinations of different proteins, nor do they specify how you get the organelles of cells, nor do they specify how you get cells, nor do they specify how you get tissues, nor do they specify how you get organs, nor do they specify how you get organ systems, nor do they specify how you get the overall organization of an organism. 

A fact will help you realize how implausible is the idea expressed in the Shapiro quote above, the idea that we will somehow discover "how the long stretches of A’s and C’s and G’s and T’s that make up the genome translate into the way a person or an organism looks and acts" and "how DNA translates into the way something looks or acts" once we have cataloged more genomes "across the tree of life."  The fact is that the genomes of more than 3000 species have already been sequenced. This includes species of every major type, including humans, African elephants, Asian elephants and a vast variety of different species across many different phyla. You can see the full list here. If there was such a mapping between DNA and  "the way something looks or acts," it would have been discovered long ago, and we would know how it worked. 

Below are some quotes from biology authorities and scientists who told us the truth on this matter, contrary to what Shapiro stated:

• On page 26 of the recent book The Developing Genome, Professor David S. Moore states, "The common belief that there are things inside of us that constitute a set of instructions for building bodies and minds -- things that are analogous to 'blueprints' or 'recipes' -- is undoubtedly false."
• Biologist Rupert Sheldrake says this "DNA only codes for the materials from which the body is constructed: the enzymes, the structural proteins, and so forth," and "There is no evidence that it also codes for the plan, the form, the morphology of the body."
• Describing conclusions of biologist Brian Goodwin, the New York Times says, "While genes may help produce the proteins that make the skeleton or the glue, they do not determine the shape and form of an embryo or an organism." 
• Professor Massimo Pigliucci (mainstream author of numerous scientific papers on evolution) has stated  that "old-fashioned metaphors like genetic blueprint and genetic programme are not only woefully inadequate but positively misleading."
• Neuroscientist Romain Brette states, "The genome does not encode much except for amino acids."
• In a 2016 scientific paper, three scientists state the following: "It is now clear that the genome does not directly program the organism; the computer program metaphor has misled us...The genome does not function as a master plan or computer program for controlling the organism; the genome is the organism's servant, not its master.
• In the book Mind in Life by Evan Thompson (published by the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press) we read the following on page 180: "The plain truth is that DNA is not a program for building organisms, as several authors have shown in detail (Keller 2000, Lewontin 1993, Moss 2003)."
• Developmental biologist C/H. Waddington stated, "The DNA is not a program or sequentially accessed control over the behavior of the cell."
•  Scientists Walker and Davies state this in a scientific paper: "DNA is not a blueprint for an organism; no information is actively processed by DNA alone...DNA is a passive repository for transcription of stored data into RNA, some (but by no means all) of which goes on to be translated into proteins."
• Geneticist Adam Rutherford states that "DNA is not a blueprint," a statement also made by biochemistry professor Keith Fox.
• "The genome is not a blueprint," says Kevin Mitchell, a geneticist and neuroscientist at Trinity College Dublin, noting "it doesn't encode some specific outcome."
• "DNA cannot be seen as the 'blueprint' for life," says Antony Jose, associate professor of cell biology and molecular genetics at the University of Maryland, who says, "It is at best an overlapping and potentially scrambled list of ingredients that is used differently by different cells at different times."  
• Sergio Pistoi (a science writer with a PhD in molecular biology) tells us, "DNA is not a blueprint," and tells us, "We do not inherit specific instructions on how to build a cell or an organ." 
• Michael Levin (director of a large biology research lab) states that "genomes are not a blueprint for anatomy," and after referring to a "deep puzzle" of how biological forms arise, he gives this example: "Scientists really don’t know what determines the intricate shape and structure of the flatworm’s head."
• Ian Stevenson M.D. stated "Genes alone - which provide instructions for the production of amino acids and proteins -- cannot explain how the proteins produced by their instructions come to have the shape they develop and, ultimately, determine the form of the organisms where they are," and noted that "biologists who have drawn attention to this important gap in our knowledge of form have not been a grouping of mediocrities (Denton, 1986; Goldschmidt, 1952; B. C. Goodwin, 1985, 1988, 1989, 1994; Gottlieb, 1992; Grasse, 1973; E. S. Russell...Sheldrake, 1981; Tauber and Sarkar, 1992; Thompson, 1917/1942)."
• Biologist B.C. Goodwin stated this in 1989: "Since genes make molecules, genetics...does not tell us how the molecules are organized into the dynamic, organized process that is the living organism."
• An article in the journal Nature states this: "The manner in which bodies and tissues take form remains 'one of the most important, and still poorly understood, questions of our time', says developmental biologist Amy Shyer, who studies morphogenesis at the Rockefeller University in New York City."
• Timothy Saunders, a developmental biologist at the National University of Singapore, says, "Fundamentally, we have a poor understanding of how any internal organ forms.” 
• In an essay pointing out the vast complexities and interlocking dependencies of even simpler aspects of biology such as angiogenesis (the formation of new blood vessels),  Jonathan Bard of Oxford University states, "It is pushing the boundaries of belief too far to believe that it is helpful to see the genome as holding a program." 
• A paper by Stuart A. Newman (a professor of cell biology and anatomy) discussing at length the work of scientists trying to evoke "self-organization" as an explanation for morphogenesis states that "public lectures by principals of the field contain confidently asserted, but similarly oversimplified or misleading treatments," and says that "these analogies...give the false impression that there has been more progress in understanding embryonic development than there truly has been." Referring to scientists moving from one bunk explanation of morphogenesis to another bunk explanation for it, the paper concludes by stating, "It would be unfortunate if we find ourselves having emerged from a period of misconceived genetic program metaphors only to land in a brave new world captivated by equally misguided ones about self-organization."
• Referring to claims there is a program for building organisms in DNA, biochemist F. M. Harold stated "reflection on the findings with morphologically aberrant mutants suggests that the metaphor of a genetic program is misleading." Referring to  self-organization (a vague phrase sometimes used to try to explain morphogenesis), he says, "self-organization remains nearly as mysterious as it was a century ago, a subject in search of a paradigm." 
• Evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin stated, "DNA is not self-reproducing; second, it makes nothing; and third, organisms are not determined by it." Noting that "the more accurate description of the role of DNA is that it bears information that is read by the cell machinery," Lewontin lamented the "evangelical enthusiasm" of those who "fetishized DNA" and misspoke so that "DNA as information bearer is transmogrified into DNA as blueprint, as plan, as master plan, as master molecule." In another work he stated "the information in DNA sequences is insufficient to specify even a folded protein, not to speak of an entire organism." This was correct: DNA does not even specify the 3D shapes of proteins.
• Physician James Le Fanu states the following:

  
  

  "The genome projects were predicated on the reasonable assumption that spelling out the full sequence of genes would reveal the distinctive genetic instructions that determine the diverse forms of life. Biologists were thus understandably disconcerted to discover that precisely the reverse is the case. Contrary to all expectations, there is a near equivalence of 20,000 genes across the vast spectrum of organismic complexity, from a millimetre-long worm to ourselves. It was no less disconcerting to learn that the human genome is virtually interchangeable with that of both the mouse and our primate cousins...There is in short nothing in the genomes of fly and man to explain why the fly has six legs, a pair of wings and a dot-sized brain and that we should have two arms, two legs and a mind capable of comprehending the history of our universe."

The lie that evolutionary biologists have repeatedly told us about DNA (that it is some specification for making a human) is one of the most appalling lies humans have ever been told.  Once we recognize the truth about how limited is the information in DNA, and that DNA contains only low-level chemical information and not high-level anatomical information, we can start to realize the incredibly important truth that biologists do not understand and cannot credibly explain how any adult human body originates. The progression from a speck-sized zygote to the vast hierarchical organization of the human body is a miracle of organization a thousand miles over the heads of biologists.

In the light of the reality that biologists do not understand the origin of any human adult body, and also the reality that biologists have no credible explanation for the origin of any adult human mind  (because brains are not a credible explanation for human minds and human memory), we can see what a groundless boast it is when evolutionary biologists claim to understand the origin of the human species. The lack of a DNA or genomic specification for how to make an organism or any of its cells or organs is something that short-circuits the main boasts of evolutionary biologists, showing that they do not have any credible story to tell of how macroevolution could occur.  If DNA does not even give you 20% of the information needed to make a human (and it certainly does not), then all claims that humans evolved from ape-like or chimp-like ancestors mainly by a gradual change in DNA are claims that must be untrue. "DNA as body blueprint" is the lie that evolutionary biologists keep telling because it is very much the lie they needed to tell. 

The diagram below tells us the truth about the level of organization in the human body, and what DNA specifies. Even protein molecules are not fully specified by DNA, which merely specifies which amino acids make up particular proteins, not the complex three-dimensional shapes of such protein molecules. You can't gene-splice your way to de-extinction, because DNA and its genes don't even take you halfway through this organization pyramid. 

By claiming "the long stretches of A’s and C’s and G’s and T’s that make up the genome translate into the way a person or an organism looks and acts," Shapiro seems to have taught the Great DNA Myth in its most extreme and erroneous form, a belief that DNA gives rise not to just the physical body of an organism but also its behavior.  Nothing has come from attempts to explain human behavior by analyzing DNA, nor has anyone explained animal instincts by analyzing DNA. The A’s and C’s and G’s and T’s that make up the genome merely translate into low-level chemicals such as amino acids, not cells or the organelles that make up them, and not organs and not body structures and not behavior. The 20,000 genes in human DNA are each complex inventions mostly consisting of thousands of well-arranged atoms,  but evolutionary biologists have no credible explanation for most of them, because such genes consist of too many well-arranged parts and are only functional when most of those parts are in place and well-arranged.  Evolution does not explain DNA; DNA does not explain bodies; and bodies do not explain minds. 

The Great DNA Myth has also been repeatedly taught by George M.  Church, a founder of Shapiro's company (Colossus Biosciences). In a book he wrote (Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves), Church taught that myth when he incorrectly stated that DNA contains "recipes for making human beings."  On page 4 of the same book, Church taught the erroneous idea that living organisms are "governed by a program" in the genome, the untrue claim that "biological organisms are programmable manufacturing systems," and that "with appropriate changes in their genetic programming, they could be made to produce practically any imaginable artifact." Elsewhere Church referred erroneously to  "the entire instruction book for making and maintaining a human being contained within our DNA." No such instruction book exists in DNA, which contains no anatomy information and does not even have instructions on how to build cells. 

Some of the odd statements Shapiro has made can be understood as PR spin trying to make experimental gene fiddling seem noble. Shapiro has tried to give some benevolent sound to the senseless project of fiddling with the genes of elephants to try to make them more like the wooly mammoth.  Such a project will probably be a nightmare for most elephants involved in it.  This is because the process of experimental gene fiddling will probably produce far more birth defects and monstrosities than anything that might be an improvement. 

As I document in the "Fragility of Fine-Tuned Protein Molecules" section of my "Candid Confessions of the Scientists" post here, genes and proteins are incredibly sensitive to small changes, a reality that evolutionary biologists like to ignore because it tends to discredit their boasts of understanding biological origins.  The more sensitive genes and proteins are to small changes, the less credible are claims of the accidental origins of genes and proteins. The biochemistry in organisms is fantastically complex and fine-tuned, a reality that evolutionary biologists avoid discussing because the more you learn about such precise fine-tuning, the less likely you will be to believe the claims of evolutionary biologists. Because biochemistry is fantastically fine-tuned everywhere and biological systems are super-abundant in subtle interdependencies and because biological systems everywhere display the most stratospheric levels of fine-tuned organization and precise functional complexity (which makes gene-splicing enormously risky and hard to get right), the hubris vanity project of trying to fiddle with elephant genes so you can then lie about having reversed the extinction of wooly mammoths is a project that would almost certainly be a "trail of tears" for most of the elephants involved in it. There will probably be very many needless cases of sick elephants or elephants with birth defects.

But we won't hear about such horrors and misery from the spokespeople of the Frankenstein projects, who will always use their PR skills to make the work of their company sound benevolent, no matter how sinister its work may be.  Previously we got from one corporation or one of its chief investors the inaccurate claim that no monkey had died from one of its brain chip implants. The claim was not correct.  Those in charge of the Frankenstein follies will have various ways to keep their very dirty linen hidden from the public, like the imaginary way depicted below:

Shapiro's company Colossal has a plan for making these not-really-mammoths, one that is science fiction nonsense. In a previous interview, Shapiro says, "Colossal’s idea is that they will build an artificial womb that will be capable of growing a mammoth for the two years of gestation."  This is "beam me up, Scotty" fantasy. In the next 50 years  it will be impossible to build a machine that will recreate the miracle of mammalian body construction. There are nations or corporations that know how to make an aircraft carrier, but there is not a nation or corporation that could create a human or mammoth body from a cell or raw materials, without a mother -- because the bodies of mammals are so vastly organized and dynamically complex that the organizational complexity of creating a living body of a large mammal far surpasses the organizational complexity of creating an aircraft carrier and all its jets. 

We do not need evolutionary biologists to be fiddling with the genes of elephants, trying to make them look more like wooly mammoths. We do need evolutionary biologists to start being rigorously honest and candid and consistent in their speech, speaking with only the most stringent accuracy about things such as what is in DNA, and the vast levels of hierarchical organizational and fine-tuned functional complexity and component interdependence in large organisms.  

Oops, he didn't get his story straight

Rationalization is when someone gives some noble reasons for his actions that are not the real reasons. At the Colossal Biosciences website, we get what sounds like some very glaring examples of rationalization.  We are told some ludicrous story that the company wants to de-extinct wooly mammoths because it will be good for global warming. As part of their explanation of this, we are told that mammoths are good at knocking down trees and shrubs.  The story told is groundless speculation, but I guess it sounds better than saying, "We want to do this gene-splicing because it's fun to play God." 

The project of trying to bring back to life extinct wooly mammoths by gene-fiddling with elephants is as goofy as a plan to try to bring back to life George Washington by digging up his buried corpse and jolting it with electricity, Frankenstein-style.

Taboo Truth: The Reality of Hypnotic Clairvoyance and Hypnotic Telepathy

 It was documented by many nineteenth century writers and authorities that under hypnosis a person could show paranormal powers of clairvoyance or telepathy.  In the long posts here and here and here I discuss some of the abundant observational evidence for such a thing.  I may note that the reality of clairvoyance under hypnosis was firmly declared by a high-prestige French academic committee, a six-year investigation of the Royal Academy of Medicine that issued its report in 1831. 

During the nineteenth century hynotized people were often asked to engage in a kind of thought sharing or "mind meld" with another person, a state that was called being en rapport with that person. A nineteenth century work on hypnotism (written by Professor William Gregory) gives this summary, using the word "sleeper" for a hypnotized person: 

"Thought reading presents itself in every possible variety of form. The sleeper, being placed en rapport with any person, can often describe, with the greatest accuracy, the subject that occupies the thoughts of that person. It may be an absent friend, or his own house, or that of another, or his drawing-room, bed-room, study, &c. &c. All these things the sleeper perceives, as they pass through the mind of the experimenter, and describes with great minuteness and accuracy, so as to excite our astonishment. Or he goes further ; he not only perceives the present, but the past thoughts of the person en rapport with him ; he shares his memory. Thus he will mention facts, no longer so existing, but remembered by the experimenter. Nay, he goes still further even than this ; for he perceives things once known to, and now forgotten by, the experimenter, who very often contradicts the sleeper, and persists in maintaining his own opinion, until, on further enquiry, he not only finds him to be right, but himself is enabled to recall the fact, which had, as we say, escaped his memory."

Professor Gregory here makes a very remarkable claim: that under hypnosis a subject may display a mental power beyond mere telepathy: a power not just of mind-reading or thought-reading, but also of memory-reading. The same nineteenth century work (Letters to a Candid Inquirer, on Animal Magnetism) by Gregory gives some very specific numerical details relating to clairvoyance in hypnotic trances (referred to below as "mesmeric sleep"):

"Major Buckley has thus produced conscious clairvoyance in 89 persons, of whom 44 have been able to read mottoes contained in nut-shells, purchased by other parties for the experiment. The longest motto thus read, contained 98 words. Many subjects will read motto after motto without one mistake. In this way, the mottoes contained in 4860 nut-shells have been read, some of them, indeed, by persons in the mesmeric sleep, but most of them by persons in the conscious state, many of whom have never been put to sleep. In boxes, upwards of 86,000 words have been read; 'in one paper, 371 words. Including those who have read words contained in boxes when in the sleep, 148 persons have thus read. It is to be observed that, in a few cases, the words may have been read by thought-reading, as the persons who put them in the boxes were present; but in most cases, no one who knew the words has been present, and they must therefore have been read by direct clairvoyance. Every precaution has been taken. The nuts, inclosing mottoes, for example, have been purchased of 40 different confectioners, and have been sealed up until read. It may be added, that of the 44 persons who have read mottoes in nuts by waking or conscious clairvoyance, 42 belong to the higher class of society; and the experiments have been made in the presence of many other persons. These experiments appear to me admirably contrived, and I can per- ceive no reason whatever to doubt the entire accuracy of the facts."

Later in the same work we read many detailed descriptions of clairvoyance under hypnosis, one of which is the account below (which uses the term "magnetic sleep" to refer to a hypnotic trance):

 "E., in the magnetic sleep, as I saw more than once, could see perfectly what passed behind her, her eyes being closed ; or any thing placed in such a position, that, had her eyes been open, she could not have seen it ; she could also see very often all that passed outside of the door, and when I was there, told us how many of the servants of the hotel were listening at the door, in hopes of 

hearing wonders ; she would also often tell what was doing in the room above or below her. In short, she frequently exhibited direct clairvoyance in every form, not only in those just mentioned, but also in that of seeing prints or pictures shut up in boxes. Besides seeing various instances of direct clairvoyance, I was able to satisfy myself that Dr. Haddock's experiments were made with the greatest care and judgment ; that he was particularly well acquainted with the various causes of error and confusion, very careful to avoid these, and that in short his accounts of such experiments as I had not seen were entirely trustworthy."

On page 334 in the same work by Professor Gregory, we read this account of clairvoyance under hypnotism:

"We requested her to visit the house of Mrs. P., one of the ladies present. This house was in Greenock, distant from my cottage about a mile and a quarter. She saw her servant in the kitchen, but said that another woman was with her. On being pressed to look earnestly at the woman, she said it was C_____ M______. This, Mrs. P. declared to be true. We then asked her to see if any person was in Mrs. P.'s parlor, when she said that Miss Laing was there, a young lady from Edinburgh, who was boarding with Mrs. P. at the time ; that she was sitting on the sofa ; that she was crying, and that a letter was in her hand. On the party breaking up, I walked into Greenock with the ladies and gentlemen, in order to see if she was right about Miss L. It was true. Miss L. had received a letter by that evening's post from her father in Edinburgh, stating that her mother was not expected to live, and requesting her to come home by the first train in the morning." 

Many specific case examples of such a thing can be found in the three posts mentioned above (the posts here and here  and here).  

Although living mind researchers have usually displayed an appalling failure to research the topic of clairvoyance under hypnosis that was so well-documented in the nineteenth century, we occasionally get evidence of it even in recent years. A 2020 paper found that hypnosis increased success in remote viewing efforts, remote viewing being essentially a synonym for clairvoyance. Using RV for a non-hypotic "remote viewing" attempts, and OB-RV for a hypnotically aided "remote viewing" attempts, in which subjects were encouraged to mentally travel out of their bodies,  the paper states the following:

"The purpose of this study was to compare the ability to identify and describe physical targets, from a distance, in the RV and OB-RV states of consciousness.The results clearly demonstrate that in both conditions, the amount of correct information is clearly greater than wrong information, with a difference of around 20%. The only difference in performance between the two is in the number of correct information, which is slightly greater in the OB-RV condition."

The author Joseph Haddock reported that after hypnotizing a subject, the subject would respond to any pain inflicted on Joseph, just as if the hypnotized person had felt the pain: "I have got individuals to tread on my toes, pull my hair, or pinch different parts of the body ; and I invariably found that, with this subject, not many seconds would elapse before she would complain of exactly similar treatment, and refer the pain to the exact corresponding part; and sometimes I have experienced considerable difficulty in dispelling the illusion." 

An effect totally inexplicable under materialist assumptions is what is called "community of sensations" under hypnosis. It has been very frequently reported that a hypnotized person may instantly feel sensations felt by the person who hypnotized him. A set of experiments on this effect is reported in the "First Report of the Committee on Mesmerism" pages 225-229 of Volume 1 of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research (April, 1883), a committee including the illustrious names of Frederic Myers,  Edmund Gurney, Frank Podmore, George Wyld M.D. and the eventually knighted physicist W.F. Barrett.  We read this on page 226: "Thus out of a total of 24 experiments in transference of pains, the exact spot was correctly indicated by the subject no less than 20 times."  These were experiments in which the hypnotized subject was asked whether he felt anything, after the hypnotizer had been given some type of pain or sensation while in another room where the hypnotized person could not see him.  Similar results were obtained by Dr. Edmund Gurney and reported in his paper "An Account of Some Experiments in Mesmerism," published on page 201 of Volume II of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research ( June 1884). As reported on page 205, a hypnotized subject identified with high accuracy many tactile and taste sensations occurring in a hypnotizer sitting behind him. 

On pages 22-23 of one of his books, Professor William Gregory describes various forms of "community of sensation" between hypnotized subjects and hypnotists, or those who they have been put en rapport with:

"There is Community of Taste. If the operator [i.e. hypnotist], or any person, en rapport with the subject, takes any kind of food or drink into his mouth, the sleeper, in many cases, instantly begins going through the pantomime of eating or drinking ; and, if asked, he declares he is eating bread, or an orange, or sweetmeats, or drinking water, wine, milk, beer, syrup, or lemonade, or infusion of wormwood, or brandy, or whisky, according as the operator takes each of them, or any other substance. When the thing taken is bitter or disagreeable, the countenance of the sleeper at once indicates this, while his eyes, as usual, are closed, and the mesmerist or friend may stand behind him, so that he cannot see what is taken....The same thing occurs with regard to Smell. If the person en rapport with the sleeper, smell a rose, the latter at once begins to inhale the delightful perfume. If he smell assafoetida, the sleeper expresses disgust ; and if he place strong hartshorn under his own nostrils, the sleeper starts back, complaining of its pungency....There is Community of Touch. Whatever touches the person en rapport , is felt by the sleeper, in precisely the same part. If the former shake hands with any one, the latter instantly grasps a visionary hand. If a pin be driven into the back of the mesmerist’s hand, the sleeper hastily withdraws his hand, rubs the part, and complains loudly of the injury. This may be tried in all forms with perfect success in very many subjects."

In a discussion of twentieth century research we read this: 

"Summarizing the results of recent ESP research using hypnosis, Honorton points out that, out of 42 series of trials, slightly over half have provided positive results, as against a chance expectation of five per cent. 'I believe the conclusion is now inescapable that hypnotic induction procedure enhance psi receptivity.' "

Beginning on page 223 of the 1841 book Facts in mesmerism or animal magnetism : with reasons for a dispassionate inquiry into it by Chauncy-Hare Townshend, we have many pages of the author describing clairvoyance in a hypnotized subject Anna M.  We hear report after report of Anna identifying things with closed eyes, seemingly as if she had vision rising from her forehead rather than her eyes. On page 231 the same author states this about  another subject he studied under hypnosis: "His eyes being always firmly shut, (as far as the strictest observation could determine,) he was able to read any number of words in the minutest type with perfect ease, and to discern small or large objects, near or distant, with the same felicity of vision which is possessed by a waking person."  We read this:

"This power of perception, analogous to sight, seemed to reside principally in his forehead. Whatever objects he took up to examine he immediately carried there."

Later in the same book we have an account of the most varied and  careful tests consistently showing clairvoyance in a hypnotized subject (subject E. A.), tests involving conditions so stringent they seem to rule out any possibility of trickery:

"1st.  I  laid  the  patient  on  a  sofa,  in  bright  day- 

light, with  his  face  turned  towards  the  window,  and 

made  him  lean  his  head  back  until  I  could  see  com- 

pletely under  his  eyes.  When  he  was  so  placed,  I 

could  have  detected  the  slightest  gleam  of  the  eye 

through  the  smallest  opening  of  the  lids.  I  have 

then  given  him  a  book,  from  which  he  has  read  with 

ease,  (holding  it  nearly  parallel  to  his  forehead,) 

while  all  the  time  I  fixed  my  eyes  earnestly  on  his, 

and  yet  could  perceive  not  the  slightest  tendency  in 

them  to  unclose. 

2dly.  I  laid  the  palms  of  my  hands,  the  fingers 

pointing  upwards,  on  the  eyes  of  various  persons,  in 

such  a  manner  as  that  the  projecting  parts  of  each 

hand  should  exactly  fit  into  the  concavities  about  the 

eyes.  These  persons  assured  me  that,  with  their 

eyes  so  covered,  they  could  see  nothing  whatever.  I 

have  given  them  cards  or  books  in  their  hands,  but 

by  no  efforts  on  their  parts  could  they  distinguish 

these  objects.  I  have  repeated  the  same  experiment 

again  and  again  upon  E.  A.,  in  a  state  of  [hypnotized] sleepwalking,  and  never  found  that  the  palms  of  my  hands  in 

any  way  impeded  his  vision.  He  could  see  cards,  or 

read  in  books,  under  the  above  circumstances,  with 

perfect  ease.  I  never  felt  any  motion  beneath  my 

hand,  as  if  the  patient  were  trying  to  open  his  eyes  ; 

nor  did  he  evince  the  slightest  inclination  to  draw 

his  head  back  from  the  pressure  of  my  hands.

3dly.  Standing  behind  the  patient,  I  have  laid  my 

closed  fingers  over  his  eyes  horizontally,  or  I  have 

forcibly  pressed  down  his  lids  with  one  finger  of  each 

hand.  This,  which,  when  tried  on  others,  effectually 

impeded  their  sight,  made  no  alteration  in  the  visual 

perceptions  of the  [hypnotized] sleepwalker.

4thly.  Having  filled  a  couple  of  china  eye-glasses 

with  wadding,   I,  or  some  other  person,  held  them 

firmly  to  the  patient's  closed  eyes  when  in  sleepwalking.

This  also  made  no  difference  in  his  visual 

perceptions....

5thly.  I  have  tried  various  methods  of  bandaging 

the  patient's  eyes.  I  have  tied  a  broad  and  thick 

silk  handkerchief  over  them,  and  then  I  have  held 

down  with  my  fingers,  or  the  palms  of  my  hands, 

the  whole  of  the  bottom  part  of  the  bandage.  This 

method  seems  to  me  as  perfect  as  any.  It  did  not  at 

all  impede  the  sleepwalker's  vision.  In  addition  to 

this,  (the  same  result  always  ensuing,)  I  have  laid 

strips  of  wadding  over  the  eyes  before  applying  the 

handkerchief,  and  I  have  firmly  secured  every  possible

 interstice  between  it  and  the  cheek  with  cotton. 

In  the  presence  of  Dr.  Foissac,  strips  of  diachylum 

were  added  to  all  the  above  apparatus,  in  order  to 

fasten  down  the  edges  of  the  handkerchief  to  the 

cheek  ;  but  the  sleepwalker  saw  as  well  as  ever.  On 

several  occasions  I  bandaged  his  eyes,  adding  the 

cotton  and  the  wadding  before  beginning  to  mesmerise [hypnotize] him,  when  he  has  assured  me  that  he  could not  distinguish  day  from  night.  Then,  having  passed 

into  sleepwalking,  he  has  immediately  given  proofs  of 

perfect  vision  —  quite  as  perfect,  indeed,  as  that  enjoyed

by  persons  whose  eyes  are  open  and  unbound.

6thly.  I  threw  over  the  patient's  head  two  thick 

and  large  towels,  which  covered  him  in  front  down 

to  the  hips.  Through  these  he  has  read,  holding  the 

book  at  an  angle  with  his  forehead,  and  has  distin- 

guished cards  with  perfect  accuracy.  This  kind  of 

experiment  was  occasionally  varied.  Sometimes  the 

sleepwalker  has  been  bandaged,  and,  in  addition  to 

this,  a  towel  has  been  thrown  over  his  head  ;  but  the 

result  was  equally  satisfactory."

Can we imagine a more stringent series of tests? And the subject kept demonstrating clairvoyance, despite each and every thing impeding normal vision. You will never hear about such tests in the writing of materialists or skeptics. They will only tell you about some poorly designed test in which someone might have peeked by looking down at his chest through a blindfold that was not very tight. They will not tell you about the innumerable successful tests of clairvoyance in which there was no possibility of someone cheating. 

On page 84 to 88 of the September 22, 1876 edition of The Spiritualist, we have a long article by scientist William Barrett. Barrett describes witnessing people put under hypnosis who seemed to have powers of telepathy and clairvoyance that blossomed in such a state. First on page 86 we read this about telepathy between the hypnotized and the hypnotist (called the operator):

"I noticed that if the operator tasted, smelt, or touched anything, or experienced any sudden sensation of warmth or cold, a corresponding effect was instantly produced on the subject, though nothing was said, nor could the subject have seen what had taken place in the operator. To be assured of this, I bandaged the girl’s eyes with great care, and the operator having gone behind the girl to the other end of the room, I watched him and the girl, and repeatedly assured myself of this fact. If he placed his hand over the lighted lamp, the girl instantly withdrew hers, as if in pain; if he tasted salt or sugar, corresponding expressions of dislike and approval were indicated by the girl. If, however, any one else in the room other than the operator tried the experiment, I could perceive no indications on the part of the subject. Certainly, so far as my observations extended, there did seem to be a vast difference between the influence exerted on the subject by the operator, and that which would be exerted by anyone else."

Barrett then tells us on page 86 about witnessing clairvoyance or telepathy in a hypnotized subject:

"Having mesmerised [hypnotized] the girl myself, I took a card at random from a pack that was in a drawer in another room. Glancing at the card to see what it was, I placed it within a book, and in this state brought it to the girl. Giving her the closed book, I asked her to tell me what I had put within its leaves. She held the book close to the side of her head (a peculiar position always resorted to for information), and said 'I see something inside with red spots on it.'  'Count the spots,'  I told her; she did so, and said there were five red spots. The card was the five of diamonds. With another card, chosen in a similar way, the same result occurred; and when an Irish bank note was substituted she said, ' Oh now I see a number of heads; so many I can’t count them.'  She sometimes failed to guess correctly, asserting the things were dim, and invariably I found she could give me no information of what was within the book, unless I had previously known what it was myself. More remarkable still, I asked her to go in imagination to Regent-street, in London, and tell me what shops she saw. The girl had never been out of her remote Irish village, but she correctly described to me Mr. Ladd’s shop, of which I happened to be thinking, and mentioned the large clock that overhangs the entrance to Beak-street. In many other ways I convinced myself that the existence of a distinct idea in my own mind gave rise to an image of the idea in the subject’s mind ; not always a clear image, but one that could not fail to be recognised as a more or less distorted reflection of my own thought. The important point is that every care was taken to prevent any unconscious muscular action of the face, or otherwise giving any indication to the subject."

Barrett quotes another experimenter (W. E. Wilson) who said this:

"You are correct, as I remember several experiments of the same kind. I think we proved beyond all doubt that the subject is able to read the thoughts of the mesmeriser [hypnotist]. Also that they are able to see through things which are optically to us opaque, provided that they could touch them or hold them in their hand....Another instance I remember was with a country boy. He was mesmerised [hypnotized] in a room which we made perfectly dark. Cards were given to him at random from a pack. He told fourteen correctly without a mistake, and I have no doubt would have gone through the pack if we liked. Of coarse you know that they don’t try to use the eyes to see with. They always, without exception, put whatever is put in their hand to the side of their head, a little behind the ear, and about six inches from them."

On March 27, 1887 the New York Sun published this report by one of its correspondents who described a boy who dramatically demonstrated clairvoyance under hypnosis:

"The subject on this night was a boy of fourteen named Wally Andrus. He is what is termed a susceptible subject. Mr. Alderman can draw him across the street by a wave of the hand. He can look at the boy and say to himself, ' I want you to come to my house tomorrow night,' and the boy will come without any further understanding. The lad was placed in an easy chair, a few passes of the hand put him under the influence, and here is the colloquy and the result :

Mr. A. — 'Wally, I want you to go down to the hotel and 

go up one flight of stairs.'

Wally.— 'Yes, sir, I'm there.'

' Now turn to your left and go to the second door, on the left hand side. Is there a number on the door? '

'No, sir, there is a letter L. '

'Very well, go inside and tell me what you see.'

The mesmerized boy entered the room and described and accurately located every article of furniture, described every picture, told the time by the clock, and then gave the colors of the gas globes. Neither Mr. Alderman nor the boy had ever entered the hotel. Some of the articles described had been placed in the room only an hour before. He was sent into three different rooms in the same hotel and did not make one mistake. The hotel is a mile from the residence where the exhibition was given. He was brought out of the hotel and sent to a residence a mile further away, and the colloquy went on.

'Are you there?'

'Yes.'

'What kind of a house is it ? '

'A double brick.'

'Are the steps wood or stone? '

' Neither; they are iron.'

' Now go inside. Is there a carpet on the floor? '

'No; the floor is of tile.'

'Where is the parlor? '

'To the right.'

' Go in and tell me what you see? '

'There's a square piano, a sofa, chairs, etc.' (He described everything, even to photographs, and told the time by the parlor clock.)

' Now go upstairs. Anyone there? '

'Yes; an Irish woman.'

'Ask her name? '

'She won't give it. She wants to know what I am doing here.'

' But ask her name? '

'She says it's Mollie.'

Such, in truth, was and is the name of the Irish servant. He afterward located a girl reading at a table, and gave the name of the book in her hand, and the next' day we verified his statements."

It is important to understand the history of hypnosis. Although there is reason to suspect that it existed before the time of Mesmer, the modern practice of hypnosis began with the work of the physician Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815). Mesmer introduced a psychological medical practice he called animal magnetism. He thought that it involved some mysterious fluid that could be manipulated using magnets or rods.  Mesmer seemed to have produced mysterious new results of great importance, although he and his disciples seemed to have been too dogmatic in theorizing how the results were produced. The disciples of Mesmer made claims that his techniques could produce various mysterious and wonderful effects. A disciple of Mesmer (Amand-Marie-Jacques de Chastenet, the Marquis de Puységur) developed a technique called "artificial somnambulism" that was equivalent to hypnosis. 

For the first half of the nineteenth century, hypnotism was very widely practiced and studied, but was not yet recognized by most mainstream authorities. During this time it was very widely reported in print that clairvoyance could be produced under hypnosis.  Before 1850 hypnotism was called various things other than hypnosis, such as "Mesmerism," "animal magnetism" or "artificial somnambulism."

Around the middle of the nineteenth century, James Braid coined the term "hypnosis." Braid seemed to have had the goal of taking a fraction of the phenomena reported under the names of  "Mesmerism," "animal magnetism" or "artificial somnambulism" (a less remarkable and more easily explicable fraction) and positioning that as something that could be understood within the assumptions of mainstream science. Under the new name of "hypnosis," a fraction of the observational phenomena described before as "Mesmerism," "animal magnetism" or "artificial somnambulism" was then recognized by mainstream science professors as an observational fact.  But this was all a case of severe "reality filtering," in which half of the reported phenomena were still denied.  A rough analogy might be if someone who did not want to believe in very bad weather reluctantly confessed the reality of hurricanes, while still refusing to believe in the reality of tornadoes, denying the truth of all the observational reports of tornadoes.  

The diagram below illustrates the situation. Psychology textbooks and psychology professors will typically confess the reality of hypnosis, and describe various hypnotic phenomena (represented by the blue circle). But such textbooks and professors will discuss only the less impressive phenomena observed under hypnosis.  No mention will be made of the more impressive phenomena, even though the written evidence for such phenomena is very abundant.  

There are some ways to become familiar with the more spectacular phenomena that have been reported in hypnotic subjects, phenomena that today's professors typically avoid discussing. One way is to read my long post "Prevailing Brain Dogmas Cannot Explain Hypnotic Phenomena," which can be read here. Another way is to study the works I refer to above, and also the work "Animal Magnetism, or Mesmerism and Its Phenomena" by Professor William Gregory, which can be read online here. Being careful to sidestep the dubious theorizing that sometimes occurs in it, the book can be read for its wealth of fascinating observational reports. For example, on page 13 Gregory states this: "If the mesmerist [i.e. hypnotist] speaks German or Italian, languages perhaps quite unknown to the subject, and with the greatest rapidity, the sleeper will speak after him so exactly, that it is often impossible, when his ear is acute in catching the minute shades of the sound, to perceive the slightest difference." Such a feat would seem to be possible only by some vast increase in short-term memory.  An ordinary person could not repeat a twenty-word sentence spoken in a language he did not know. 

On page 18 Gregory states this, discussing a kind of "telepathic knockout": 

" After the operator [i.e. hypnotist] has succeeded in producing the sleep [i.e. hypnosis] easily and in a short time, he can, in many cases, produce it by the silent exertion of the will, without any passes, or other process of any kind. This I have myself done, and in one case, where the subject was deeply engaged in conversation without any idea that I intended any thing of the kind, as I had taken, up to that moment, an active share in the conversation, I put him into a sound mesmeric sleep in 25 seconds (his eyes having been directed to other persons present), by the silent power of the will. I sat about four or five feet from him, to one side."

This claim of a kind of "telepathic knockout" was also made by Emilie Boirac (as I discuss in my post here). On page 104 of the book "Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain" by Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder, we read a chapter discussing many examples of so-called "telepathic knockouts." During such events it would appear that a person was put into a state of deep sleep or unconsciousness solely because of the mental suggestion of some other person.  We read, "The ability to put people to sleep and wake them up telepathically from a distance of a few yards to over a thousand miles became the most thoroughly tested and perfected contribution of the Soviets to international parapsychology." After reading of countless successful experiments of such an effect, we read of such a test being successful at a distance of a thousand miles.  At a scheduled time, one scientist mentally commanded a subject a thousand miles away to fall asleep. We are told, "A thousand miles away Ivanova lost consciousness on schedule as she talked to Dr. Doubrovsky."   

On page 178 of the work here, Professor Gregory begins to describe very many specific cases of clairvoyance under hypnosis.  For example, we read this test:

"Case 29. — 1. Before I had seen E., I sent to Dr. Haddock the writing of a lady, without any details, requesting merely to know what E. should say of it. I did not even say it was a lady’s writing, and, indeed, as the hand is a strong hold one, Dr. H. supposed it was that of a man. E. took it in her hand, she being in the sleep, and soon said 'I see a lady. She is rather below middle height, dark-complexioned, pale, and looks ill.'  She then proceeded to describe the house, the drawing-room in which the lady was, her dress, and the furniture, all with perfect accuracy as far as she went. She said the lady was sitting at a long table close to the wall, something like a sideboard, writing a letter; that on this table were several beautiful glasses, such as she had never seen. (In fact, this lady writes at a long sofa-table at the wall, on which then stood several Bohemian glasses.) She further detailed, with strict accuracy, all the symptoms of the lady’s illness, mentioning several things, known to the lady alone. She also described the treatment which had been followed, and said, among other things, that the lady had gone over the water, to a place where she drank ' morning waters'  for her health ; that the waters had a strange taste, but had done her good. (The lady had been at a mineral water in Germany, and had derived benefit from it. The water was always taken in the morning.) I need not enter into all the details ; it is enough to state, that not only Dr. H. did not know the lady, nor even her name, but that he had had no means of knowing any one of the details specified."

This is only a small part of a very long narrative involving this hypnotized subject E., one in which we hear many similar accounts of her clairvoyant prowess. Here is an excerpt from another page, in which Professor Gregory describes giving E. some paper with writing from his son:

"She then put it on her head, and said that it was written by a little boy, whom she described very accurately, dwelling particularly on the peculiarities of his disposition, his old-fashioned ways, as she called them, his love of reading, and various other points all more or less characteristic. His dress astonished her very much, and she described it most minutely in every part. It was the Highland dress, and she gave the colours and pattern of the tartan, as well as every other detail of the boy’s dress and accoutrement. It appeared that she had never seen the Highland dress worn, and she thought it must be very cold. The boy was my own son, then in Edinburgh, and neither E. nor Dr. H. knew that I had a son, or that he wore the Highland dress."

On the next page Professor Gregory tells us this: "After I returned to Edinburgh, I had very frequent communication with Dr. H., and tried many experiments with this remarkable subject, sending specimens of writing, locks of hair, and other objects, the origin of which was perfectly unknown to Dr. H., and in every case, without exception, E. saw and described with accuracy the persons concerned." This occurred before the invention of the telephone and the internet, and cannot be accounted for without admitting the reality of clairvoyance or telepathy, except by appealing to some fantastically improbable set of coincidences.  In Case 31 discussed here, E. describes the exact details of a watch stolen very far away, merely referred to as a gold watch, and provides exact details (unknown to her) about the watch's owner and the place where it was stolen, and also provides information that leads to the recovery of the watch. 

On another page Professor Gregory states this:

"I have mentioned before, in this work, a remarkable case, in which this same clairvoyante, with the aid of handwriting, traced the progress of a gentleman, Mr. W. Willey, then in California, as well as of another person who accompanied Mr. W., and whose writing was also shown to her. In this case, which was published in the newspapers, E. gave a multitude of details in regard to the persons, their voyage, their occupations, and various occurrences, the whole of which details were, in so far as concerned the period subsequent to their embarking at Liverpool, entirely unknown to their families, but were afterwards fully confirmed in every point by Mr. W. on his return." 

On page 246 of the May 21, 1880 edition of The Spiritualist, Percy Wyndham tells of visiting a clairvoyant, unannounced. He asks the person to mentally travel to his son's school. We read this about what happened after Percy asked for details of a particular room:

"He described it as a very long room, wainscoted with oak ; I then said, ' Do you see anything else in it ?” He replied, ' I see a row of busts round the room, and the tops of the heads are covered with dust.' This was the feature which I wished to see whether he would notice or not, the peculiarity of the upper school at Eton being the row of busts of distinguished men who have been educated there placed round the room." 

Below is a 19th century diagram trying to express the complexity of the human mind and its relation to a hypothesized "world mind."