Transcript
← Back to Undated – Part Two – Inglewood Unit 15
Undated Inglewood Unit 15 Of Understanding Lee Yates Introduces Dr Gina Cerminara Talks On Reincarnation
Recording structure
- [00:00] Opening and introduction
- [19:43] First major segment
- [49:18] Second major segment
- [01:16:54] Questions and closing discussion
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[00:00] Opening and introduction
May I have your attention, ladies and gentlemen? Good evening and welcome to another meeting of the Englewood Unit 15 of Understanding. For those of you who are here for the first time, I realize it's quite warm this evening.
So, if you can find a chair, we'll wait perhaps a minute and then proceed.
Before we introduce our guest speaker, we have several announcements, but first I'd like to ask, of those here, how many are from the Englewood area? And besides those that are on our mailing list, how many saw the notice in the local papers?
Of those here, how many are from the outside area? And of those that saw the notice from the newspapers, will they raise their hand?
The others are on our mailing list or by word of mouth. Thank you. Now, our registration. The regular announcements are as follows. We first have the regular 10-minute intermission following our speaker's talk. This is followed by a drawing for a door prize. So, hold on to the ticket you received as you entered this clubhouse. Then we'll have a written question and answer period. And for those of you who would like to write a question, pencil and paper will be provided you during the intermission for about our Understanding books and magazines. They are offered. They are offered as an Approach to Understanding. This subject is so large that no club or organization or person or individuals can claim it as their own. We're all in the learning stage and we're all trying to help. The opinions expressed by the various authors, writers, and yes, even our speakers, do not necessarily mean that we are in agreement with every word and idea they say.
But we leave that to you. To weigh and evaluate and to come to your own conclusion about what you hear and read and to form your own opinion. Now, about our Understanding magazine, we do have the June issue here. It's a final publication of a non-profit California organization that is edited each month by the founder and national president of Understanding, Dan Fry, who is one of the, I think, one of the outstanding individuals, doing what he can to help further Understanding. And there are many people in this field. In this magazine, there are articles on flying saucer sightings, news of the various units. Incidentally, we now have 53 throughout the country and a few outside of the continental United States. There are a few inactive ones because of the workload. It isn't difficult to get people to work and put on these meetings. But in the main, the majority are active from coast to coast and from north to south
and a few units outside. I would like to say that this magazine, above all, has a most thought-provoking article each month by our editor, Dan Fry. It's worth the price of the magazine itself just for the information and what it does to you. You think. And, after all, that is a purpose in coming here, to help us to think.
I would like to mention that the two books of our author, speaker, this evening, The World Within and Many Mansions, I believe possibly are all sold now. And either you can get them at Divorce or Pickwick or your local bookstore or you could, if you like,
leave the cost of the book here with us and we'll take the responsibility with your name and address and see that you get a copy of it. We don't normally do this because it entails more work, but we are taking a two-month rest, no meeting in July or August. And we will have time for that if anyone so desires. You can also get these two books in the public libraries because we are not trying to sell books. Books, from the standpoint of making money, that isn't the idea. It's to get the information out and to help people who are ready to think about these things that are before the public. The two books, Many Mansions and The World Within, are two of the finest books in the country and internationally because of the research, the quality of the written word, and the information that it contains of a helpful nature to people who are interested in this subject. There's always reason for questioning, and people should question.
That's their right, because you don't want to believe everything you hear on just word of mouth. But you have a little timer within your own self, I believe, that can distinguish and tell you if you will go within to find what is truth and what is not truth,
at least to you. We are having an understanding. The planning convention, it started today and it ends tomorrow down at Harmony Grove near Escondido. We had already scheduled our meeting, or else there probably would have been another arrangement. But that is the way things go sometimes. And for those of you who are interested in the subject of flying saucers, you now have an announcement of the various speakers that are speaking down there tomorrow. And so if... If any of you are interested, there are directions on how to get there. There have been a flying saucer convention in that area for the last three years. This is the third year. And they always have fine speakers that can give you food for thought.
Those who are going up north, you can, if you go to Seattle, take in the World's Fair. And also there is a saucerama, a spacerama. We have a notice on the bulletin board with various speakers. And if you are interested, you can read on the bulletin board to that effect. And also I think there are a few copies of the announcement of the Seattle convention.
Now to our guest speaker. This lady has a background with a university education, a B.A., M.A., and Ph. degrees.
And shortly after she... Received her doctorate in psychology. She went to Virginia Beach, Virginia, to do research for enlightenment. And started to make a study, a research, of the 50-year file of Edgar Cayce, the most widely known American psychic of this period. What had been intended for a few days developed into several years. And what came forth was many mansions, now in its twelfth printing and for which Dr. Sermonera is known internationally. Later she wrote a sequel to many mansions and called it The World Within. And some say it is even a fuller and deeper study of the subject of reincarnation. Besides this background, she holds a teacher's certificate, piano and voice, from the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music.
She's also done study at the Institute of General Semantics in Lakeville, Connecticut.
She is currently giving seminars in general semantics to various professional and lay groups.
She has written for Italian for students of singing, a grammar in Italian specially designed for music students.
Besides this, she has done extensive travel abroad. She has visited Italy, the Mediterranean, Mexico, Cuba, and Hawaii.
Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me a great deal of pleasure and an honor to present our guest speaker this evening, who will speak to us on reincarnation and what it can mean to us. Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Sermonera.
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I'm always happy to speak to an understanding group. I'm always happy to speak to an understanding group. Because I find them to be extremely open-minded, like the religious science groups, who are likewise very open-minded.
And it really makes quite a difference. I can see it shining out in some of your faces. I have a friend who is a minister in a liberal church. And after a good deal of study and thought, he finally came to the conclusion that reincarnation was true.
And I asked him one day whether he ever dared to mention this from his pulpit. He said, frankly, that he didn't have the courage to speak of it very often. But that one time he did. And that he spoke of it in these terms. He spoke about the theory of hell and the theory of reincarnation. And let them draw their own conclusions. And I thought this was a very interesting statement. And took a good deal of courage even at that. Because it indicates a great step forward in the thinking of mankind when we can approach one of the dogmas of our theological heritage with a scientific attitude and regard it as a theory rather than as an accepted absolute truth. That is a step forward. And it seems to me that when we think of the theory of hell and compare it to the theory of reincarnation, we must inevitably come to the conclusion that the theory of reincarnation is infinitely more sensible for a number of reasons.
One of them is simply this. According to the theory of hell and heaven, we live a lifespan about this long, 60 or 70 years. And then we spend all eternity in heaven or in hell, which doesn't make too much sense, really, if you stop and think about it. And another reason why it doesn't make too much sense, much sense, is psychologically. And I think the best way I can illustrate that is by telling you a story about a very rich man that had done a great deal of philanthropic work in
his life, made a lot of donations, that is. And when he died, he found himself up at the pearly gates, and St. Peter asked him if he had ever given any money to anybody when nobody
knew anything about it. Well, the man had to think quite a long time, and finally he remembered that one spring morning he had given ten cents to a beggar on the street. And then St. Peter was a little puzzled as to what to do, so he stepped inside for a moment, he said, excuse me, and he went inside and he consulted with his assistant, Noah, and he told him the facts of the case and said that the man had given millions away to charity, but only ten cents once when nobody saw him. So Noah gave it some thought, and then he put his hand in his pocket. And he pulled out a dime and he said, here, give him his ten cents and tell him to go to hell. And it's kind of a silly story, of course, but makes it, there's a point here
that strikes me. Like most stories about heaven and hell, it points up a certain psychological
absurdity that is involved in the theory. Now let's just take it seriously for a moment and analyze it. Okay, here was a man that had never really done a charitable act in his life. But is this the only criterion for entrance into heaven? I mean, maybe he had other virtues. Maybe he wasn't very generous, but he might have been very patient. He might have been
very persevering. He might have had a great deal of courage. He might have been very inventive.
He might have had, he might have refrained strictly. He might have had strictly all his life from malicious gossip. He might have had a very high code of honor otherwise. And he might have through his business enterprises provided work for millions of people. Now are all these virtues to count as nothing? And merely because he lacks in generosity of spirit, he is therefore to be eternally outlawed into the lower regions of hell? This doesn't make too much sense. To be sure, kindness of heart does seem to be a very important virtue. But is this the only criterion for entrance into heaven? Is this the only criterion for entrance into heaven? Is this the only criterion for entrance into heaven? And yet it can hardly be the only one. And by way of illustrating this, let me relate to you a very brief Hindu fable about a monkey who was very devoted to his
master. And one day the master was lying asleep in the sun and the flies were buzzing around his face and causing the man to twitch in his sleep. So that finally the monkey said Oh, I must kill these flies. They're bothering my master's sleep. So he looked around for a big branch of a tree and he picked it up and he slammed down on the flies on his master's forehead, flies, and killing his master too. And when I have heard Dr. Tin, the Hindu teacher,
tell this story, he has said, Oh, how sincere this monkey was. How sincere. And his point usually was that, Sincerity is not enough. Because unless you have good judgment along with sincerity, you can get into a lot of trouble. And my point is parallel to that. Namely, you can have a very great kindness of heart, as this monkey did. But you can be very stupid. You can use
very poor judgment. And I personally have known people of this type, and maybe if you will think hard enough and long enough, you too can think of people of this type. Now, ethically speaking, I mean, first I would like to make the point that psychologically speaking, the idea of heaven and hell is implausible. And ethically speaking, it is also implausible.
For this reason, suppose you were St. Peter. And suppose you had to decide whether or not to admit this little monkey, or any person who acts like the monkey did, doing a very kind deed, yet with very poor judgment. What are you going to do? Are you going to kill him? Are you going to allow him to enter into heaven on the strength of his good motive? Or are you going to deny him entrance to heaven on the strength of the evil consequences that it caused? Now, this is a serious ethical dilemma. And my point is that the heaven-hell
theory cannot accommodate these dilemmas. Whereas the reincarnation theory does. Now, if there'd be anyone here who doesn't know what we mean by reincarnation, I'm going to say that reincarnation, perhaps I should define it. By reincarnation, we mean evolution, really. It means that the soul cannot learn all things that are to be learned in the short span of sixty years, so that it comes back again and again like a student to a school. And that this process takes place under certain very definite laws. So, if re- I mean, if evolution seems reasonable to you, reincarnation should not seem unreasonable to you. And so, it's unreasonable to you. Because it means evolution in a psychological and a spiritual sense and on a cosmic scale. So, my point is that the theory is reasonable. And it's
a strange thing that in our particular civilization, those of us who believe in it, are regarded to be members of the lunacy fringe, you know. Whereas, actually, if you really consider it seriously, Christian's theology is a lunacy. Christian's theology is the most lunatic thing on the face of the globe. I wouldn't dare say that everywhere, but I think I can say it here without being scorned. And really, from the point of view of a man coming from outer space, from a civilization infinitely superior to ours, looking upon the idiocies that are done in the name of Christian theology, it must seem really astounding. Now, the reasonability of reincarnation, and the reasonability of
reincarnation, has commended itself to many thousands of people. Reasonability. In fact,
[19:43] First major segment
I like to say to my skeptical, materialistic-minded friends who think there is no explanation for human life, I like to tell them that reincarnation is rather like alcohol. It has been said
that alcohol may not cure a cold, but at least it is the cure that fails most agreeably. And so, to my materialist friends who tell me there is no explanation for human life, I tell them, well, very well, you may be right. But in that case, reincarnation is the theory that fails most reasonably. And as long as we really don't know, we might just as well live by a reasonable faith as by an unreasonable one. Now, this reasonability, then, has commended itself to thousands. I do not refer now to the millions in the Orient who have believed it on the strength of their religion. The Buddhists and the Hindus. But I mean in the West, too. Now, actually, in Western
civilization, we have a rather long tradition of acquaintance with the idea. That is to
say, as far back as Plato in our own Western culture, we have the teaching of reincarnation. Plato believed in it, and he wrote about it. Of course, this is dismissed as a point of poetical fancy by the most professors of philosophy, but nonetheless, there it is. So this has sort of trickled down through the ages. And then, among the early Christian fathers, the early Catholic priests, if you will, there was a great deal of belief in it also. Who were in these also wrote about it. So this little tradition trickled down also. But it was overwhelmed by the dogma of the official church. So that only those
few who believed in it, who believed in it, who believed in it, who believed in it, who believed in it, who believed in it, who believed in it, who believed in it, who believed in it, who believed in it, would seek these things out and accept it. But in the middle
of the 19th century, two things happened, which brought a definitely new stream or current of knowledge about these things. One was, beginning around the middle of the century,
the translation of the sacred books of the East. Now, this might sound to you as an
an unimportant thing. Actually, I think it was a very important thing. It probably wasn't even mentioned in the newspapers. You know, Oscar Levant once said something rather cute on his television show. He said that a newsreel was a series of calamities followed by a fashion show. And I've often thought of that. I've often thought of how sometimes the most significant events in history never appear in the newspapers. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if this was true of this tremendous event, this tremendous intellectual and spiritual event, the translation of these books. It was an event that was comparable to the discovery of the ancient Greek manuscripts which initiated the Renaissance. Because for the first time in Western history, Western man was made acquainted with the tremendous riches, intellectually
and spiritually and philosophically, of the East. So is the book. A series of 50 books, sacred books of the East, were published, was published, under the direction of the great Orientalist Max Muller. And if ever you're in the library and have some time, it would be worth your while to browse in those books. Because now for the first time, the idea of reincarnation appeared in a philosophical setting. And it commended itself to the most brilliant minds of our Western world. Including, notably, Carlyle, Emerson, Thoreau, Walt Whitman, and so forth. Bronson Alcott,
the father of Louisa May Alcott, who wrote Little Men and Little Women, which I guess many of you remember. Anyway, this had an effect, not only on these men's minds, but on their writings. And if you make a careful study of the writings of the men whose names I have mentioned, you will find permeating it. Permeating it, permeating it, permeating it, permeating it, permeating them. The ideas of reincarnation and karma. Emerson's essay in Compensation, for example.
Throughout Emerson, there breathes this spirit of the, of the Orient. And he has a beautiful analogy somewhere, going something like this, I'm not quoting it exactly, but he says, we awake and we find ourselves on a stair. There are steps beneath us and there are steps above us going on forward. Now this, I think, is a rather beautiful statement of the idea of how we are born at a certain point on the ladder of evolution and there are steps below us and steps above us. And Schopenhauer was profoundly affected by Oriental thought. And in fact, he made this astounding statement, which many students of philosophy in our universities never are told about or never come across. Schopenhauer said, if I were asked for a definition of Europe, I would say that it was that place where people are given over to the incredible delusion. That a man's birth is his first entry into life. Now, what could be clearer
than that? Now this from Schopenhauer. Walt Whitman, whose book, Leaves of Grass, I commend it to you if you've never read it, was very outspoken also in his acceptance of the idea of reincarnation. And if you will look in his poem called Faces, you will find a very eloquent statement of this, which I think I will quote.
He said, I saw the face of the most smeared and slobbering idiot they had in the asylum.
And I knew for my consolation what they knew not. I knew of the agents that emptied and broke, my brother, the same weight to clear the rubbish from the fallen tenement.
And I shall look again in a score or two of ages, and I shall see the real landlord, perfect and unharmed, and every inch as good as myself.
Which, again, is a beautiful statement, I think, of the idea that the soul is the landlord. The landlord dwelling within the body who undergoes many vicissitudes, but who ultimately reaches perfection. And so forth and so on. One could quote endlessly. There was another current of influence in the 19th century, which began in 1875 with the founding of the Theosophical Society.
I don't know how many of you are acquainted with this society, but you should be. Because in 1875, Madame Blavatsky and her friend Colonel Alcott together founded this society. Which became one of the principal sources of teachings on reincarnation and karma in the West. And they, too, had many streams of influence affecting many thinkers and writers throughout the world.
Including, for example, Luther Burbank, who was, if not a member, at least a follower. Edison, Thomas Edison, who was a member. Robert Browning, who was exposed to their teachings, and so forth and so on. So then, my point here so far is this. That here, all of these people became interested in the reincarnation theory, not on the strength of any evidence.
Not on the strength of any scientific proof. Merely on the strength of its philosophical, its spiritual, reasonability. And as a matter of fact, I would like to show you here two things. Which I also commend to you to look into if you are seriously interested. If you are interested in this subject. One of them is a chart, which you can look at when we have the break. You probably can't see it too closely from where you are. This is a chart gotten up by a young man near Washington, D.C. By the name of Keziah. And it's about reincarnation, as I guess you can probably tell. He has a chart in the center indicating the progress of a soul through ten lifetimes. And then up in this corner, he has a list of all the famous people. People that we know of who have believed in reincarnation. And you will find almost 500 names there. And then he has biblical quotations which seem to support it. And then he has classical quotations from the classical authors that seem to support it.
And then he has the usual arguments against it with some of the answers to it. And so forth and so on. And actually, this is a very interesting thing to use as a nucleus for a class on the subject. And I mention it in this connection here merely because of all these names of people whom you would never think of it. But they were believers in reincarnation. And also in this connection, I would like to bring to your attention a fabulous new book, which I am not trying to sell, but which I do think you should be acquainted with. It is a new anthology on reincarnation. It came out last December, edited by two men, Head and Cranston. And it is simply a goldmine of information from all sources, from every country, from every religion, from philosophers, psychologists, scientists, almost every professional group. And it is really one of the most fascinating books you would ever want to see. So you can take a look at this also during the break.
Reincarnation, an East-West Anthology by Head and Cranston. H-E-A-D-C-R-A-N-S-T-O-N. For those of us who believe in reincarnation, we may be nuts, but we are in good company.
And I think this is reassuring. The point is... That in the last 20 or 30 years, there has been appearing in many places all over the world, all sorts of evidences which seem to put underpinnings underneath it. Which seem to confirm this reasoned faith that so many minds have had.
I'd like to relate to you here a story that was told to me by a lawyer concerning a gentleman here in Los Angeles, who woke up one rainy morning and went out to start his car and found out that it wouldn't start because the battery was dead. So he dashed back into the house and asked his wife for an umbrella because he was going to have to take the bus. So his wife scurried around the house and she found six umbrellas, but they were all broken. So with some embarrassment, she handed him the six umbrellas and told him they were all broken. And he, with a few well-chosen swear words, accepted them and said that he'd... ...be fixed on his way to work. And so in a flurry of hurry, he left, burying the umbrellas with him. Well, he stopped off on his way to work at an umbrella shop and left them to be repaired. And that noon, when it had cleared up, rather, he went out to lunch and he went to a restaurant and he sat next to a lady who had an umbrella.
And when he left, he absentmindedly picked up her umbrella and had gotten to the door before she realized it. Well, she was a rather excitable type and she called after him and followed him, in fact, and made quite a scene right there in the restaurant. And covered with confusion, he had to explain to her that he begged her pardon, that he thought it was his umbrella, it looked just like his umbrella, would she please forgive him, etc., etc. And finally, after much embarrassment, he left. Well, that evening, he stopped at the umbrella shop and picked up the six umbrellas and then he got on the bus and who should be sitting next to him? On the bus, but the lady whose umbrella he had picked up that noon. So, she looked at him and she looked at the six umbrellas and she said, well, I see you have had a very good day.
And I like to quote this story in connection to what I'm talking about because we reincarnationists have also had a very good day. We have six umbrellas. And even though people might look at us, with suspicion, we came by the umbrellas honestly. This is my point. And to be more specific about it, the first umbrella, so to speak, in our times was the work of Edgar Cayce. Now, I'm not going to go into any great detail on this. I dare say most of you are acquainted with it. Just very briefly, I will say that Edgar Cayce was a very famous psychic whose work has been investigated and reinvestigated and it has been very carefully documented. It has been documented. It's been overwrought. It's been over 40 years of his life giving readings, mostly medical readings, lying on a couch in Virginia Beach for people who were many thousands of miles away frequently. And although they were not always 100% correct, the percentage of accuracy was phenomenally high.
And there are literally hundreds of people still alive who will testify to this. Anyway, he gave readings. He began giving readings in 1925 in which... he began to account for a person's present life problem whether physical or psychological in nature in terms of what they had done in the past to cause this. And he himself was as shocked as anybody because he was an orthodox Christian. But little by little, he came to believe in them himself and they turned out to be quite helpful. Now, I won't go into all of this in detail. If you wish to ask further questions, you may later. Anyhow, I felt as I studied these readings that there was sufficient validity to them for them to be of some scientific importance. And so, in the research that I did and the writing that I did about them, I tried to do several things. I tried, one, to indicate what evidence they did contribute. And notice I say evidence, I do not say proof.
It is evidence. It is indirect, inferential evidence. I tried to point out what evidence it does contribute. Then I tried to integrate what he said in these readings. With modern psychology. And then I also tried to show how this philosophy, the structure of this philosophy, which we ordinarily consider as Eastern, nonetheless can be beautifully synthesized with the dynamics of the teachings of Christ. Because Cayce made this integration himself. Now, this book reached a number of people, among them, a young man named Maury Bernstein in Pueblo, Colorado, who was interested in hypnosis and who was given this book, And There is a River, by a friend. He read them with a great deal of interest because of his interest in hypnosis, but when he came to the part about reincarnation, he became furious. And he felt it was a lot of poppycock. And since he had to go east anyway on a business trip, he decided to go down to Virginia Beach
and expose the fraud at the source, so with quite a belligerent attitude, he went down there and he met Hugh Lynn Cayce, Edgar Cayce's son, and he met all the people involved, and he saw some of the readings, and little by little, Mr. Bernstein came to realize that whatever it was, it was not a fraud. That at least these people were honest. They might be self-deceived, but they were honest. And he was sufficiently impressed to want to go back to Pueblo and experiment, which he did, with a very fine subject named Ruth Simmons, at least he gave her that name to protect her identity. And I guess you know the rest. He came up with this story of Bridie Murphy, which surprised him more than anybody when it became the runaway bestseller that it did. There are people who think that Maury Bernstein was an opportunist and that he wanted to make money. Nobody can answer for another soul, I guess, but as far as anybody can know anybody else,
I can assure you that this was not the case. I mean, Maury was in correspondence with me for close to a year before that book came out, and I can assure you that everything he said in the book was just the way it happened. I have my own letters in my files to prove it. And he was astounded and excited like a schoolboy, which, of course, his critics thought was dreadful. I made fun of him for this. And maybe he did go to press too soon. But it was not with any crass motivation, I can assure you this. And I can also assure you of something else, that all those attacks that you read, like in Life magazine and in the Chicago newspaper and in a book called A Scientific Report on the Search for Bridie Murphy, which is probably the most unscientific book ever written in the history of man, in all of those books there were distortions, there were falsities, and there were biases. And, in fact, it will interest you to know, I think,
that Doubleday is planning to bring out a new edition of Bridie Murphy which will contain rebuttals from a number of eminent scientists to all the nonsense that was thrown against Bridie Murphy at the time in 1956. And if this happens, this can cause another minor revolution. And by way of showing you, because it is so widespread, the feeling that Bridie Murphy was a hoax, that it was all exposed and so forth, by way of showing you the type of reasoning that the opponents of Bridie Murphy used, let me give you just one little example, and then I won't take any more time with it, because there are other things I want to say. Let me give you one example. In this book, by a battery of psychoanalysts and psychiatrists and professors called The Scientific Report on the Search for Bridie Murphy, they resorted to a very cheap political trick, which is, when you cannot come to grips with your opponent's arguments, attack your opponent's character.
In other words, sling a little mud. And this is what they did to Maury, so much so that he could have sued for libel if he had wanted to. I'll give you one example to show you how careless, how superficial they were. On page 24, or maybe it's 28, of The Search for Bridie Murphy, Maury Bernstein says something like this, that, after all, hypnosis is a skill like any other, it is easy to learn, it requires practice, it's rather like dancing. The more you do it, the more skillful you become. One of these learned psychiatrists picks up this phrase and says, Mr. Bernstein says that hypnosis is like dancing. Dancing is obviously a sexual symbol, so it is clear that Mr. Bernstein is using hypnosis as a form of sexual sublimation. Now, in the first place, I would say to you, so what? I mean, some of the greatest works of art and music in our culture has been produced out of sexual sublimation too, and nobody despises it on that account.
In the second place, I would like to point out that when Mr. Bernstein wrote the book, he's a businessman, as you know, he thought in terms of business, he said in his original manuscript, after all, hypnosis is a skill like any other, it requires practice, it is rather like typing. The editor in New York didn't think that typing was a vivid enough analogy, so the editor changed typing to dancing. So I ask you, who was the psychiatrist analyzing anyway? I think he was revealing more his own preoccupations than anything else. And this one instance, out of thousands that one could take, is the whole tenor of that ridiculous book. Believe me. And it shows you to what emotional lengths people will go to when their own theoretical position is assailed. Because if reincarnation is true, there will have to be a very drastic revision of a whole lot of presuppositions on the part of a lot of professions. So, so much for that.
The Bridie Murphy case still stands. There have been others similar to them. None of them prove reincarnation. Don't misunderstand me. But they do provide a kind of an evidence. Because Mrs. Simmons, Mrs. Simmons did, definitely, bring up facts, obscure facts, about Ireland that you cannot explain away. Because even the experts at first thought she was wrong, and then finally, on further study, they discovered that she was absolutely right. And you can't tell me that she would have gotten this from an illiterate neighbor in Chicago, which is what they were trying to make out in the newspapers. All right, so much for that. But now, recently, there has come out a new type of evidence, which I think may prove to be the most significant of all. I mean, first, we have the evidence from Casey, the clairvoyant evidence. Second, we have the evidence from age regression experiments, in which people regressed, go back to a lifetime,
and bring up facts which you can then check on. Now, third, we have the type of evidence which comes from a person's actual memory of the past. Now, this may surprise you, because you may think, like most people do, that nobody remembers his past life. Well, this isn't true. There are people who do. And there is a psychiatrist in the East who has been interested in this for a long, long time. His name is Dr. Jan Stevenson, and he has a mouth-filling title. I'll tell you what it is. He is the head of the Department of Neuropsychiatry of the School of Medicine of the University of Virginia, no less. And he is seriously interested in reincarnation, and as I say, he has for a long time been collecting cases of people who remember their past lives. But not only do they remember them, but they bring up details which are checkable. And not only are they checkable, but they have been checked, and they have been found to be true.
Now, the classic instance of this, there is a case which I'm sure you, most of you have heard about, but I'll repeat it if you haven't. It's the case of Shanti Devi. How many of you have heard of the case of Shanti Devi? Well, a number of you, but not all of you. This has been reported on many times. This is the story. It sounds like an old wives' tale. I can assure you it is carefully documented. I've seen pictures. Shanti Devi was a young girl in India, about six or seven years old. She kept talking about her former husband, about her children, and about her home in Mudra. Now, in India, of course, this is nothing too surprising. I mean, in India, they accept the idea of reincarnation anyhow. So this is nothing too surprising. But she was so insistent and she was so precise that the school teacher of the little school where she went felt that this was worth investigating. So he went to the editor of the big newspaper there,
and he went to the parents, and he went to a local lawyer, and a group of them, the parents, Shanti Devi, the lawyer, the editor, and the school teacher, all of them made a little group and went to the other town, which was about a hundred miles away. As they approached the town, little Shanti began directing them. She directed them to the house where she said she had lived before. When she arrived there, she recognized the man who was supposed to have been her husband and her two oldest children. She found the place on the floor of the house where they had kept their valuables, and in a conversation with her presumed former husband, she was able to relate many intimate details of their life together. Which he confirmed. Now, this is a rather extraordinary case, you must admit. Now, this is the type that Stevenson is interested in. In 1961, he had written an article about it, which appeared in two parts in the American bulletin
of the American Journal of the Society for Psychical Research. This is available in a reprint form for 50 cents from Virginia Beach. I don't have copies, but you can get it. In this article, he analyzed 50 cents from Virginia Beach in 56 cases of this type. 56, mind you. Of which he felt the 28 were pretty convincing, because they included six details or more which were checked, and found to be true, as in the case of Shanti Devi. Since this time, he has also gone to India. He went to India last summer. In fact, it made headlines all over the country. It surprised me, for once they printed some real news. He went to India for the purpose of exploring further cases. Before he went, he ran an ad in the newspaper in Calcutta, I believe it was, for people who remembered something of their past life. Seventy-five people turned up when he arrived. He stayed there, I think, two or three months and investigated as many of these as he could.
And let me tell you, only one, which to me seems the most fantastic, namely the case of a boy who, like Shanti, remembered the previous family, home, town, etc. They brought him there. When he got to the previous family, the previous family was so convinced that this was their young son's return that they didn't want to give him up to the parents of the present lifetime. So, and the present parents didn't want to give him up to the previous ones. So, they were about to go to court about it. And in fact, I think they did go to court about it. I haven't heard the latest report on it, which seems utterly fantastic, does it not? In fact, it rather reminds me, when these things get to the point of going to law about them, it rather reminds me of... Is this working? It reminds me of this cartoon. It came out a long time ago. You may have seen it. Showing a group of very unhappy-looking people in the lawyer's office.
And the lawyer was reading the will of somebody. And it went like this. In view of my firm belief in reincarnation, I do hereby direct that my entire estate be held in trust for me until my next return to Earth. So, it may really come to that.
[49:18] Second major segment
It may come to that. A way of summing up what I've said so far,
and then by way of... I want to conclude with some of the implications of this. I'd like to sum up first, though, what I've tried to say so far. Namely, that the reincarnation theory, if you want to call it that, or hypothesis, is very reasonable. And recently, there have been all sorts of evidences popping up in different quarters of the world to substantiate it. In my opinion, this evidence will become more and more convincing in the next decades. I think it was Victor Hugo who said that there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come. And I suspect that reincarnation is such an idea. Now, I am not saying to any of you that I can prove it to you in any absolute sense, because I cannot. I mean, to prove this rigorously, to satisfy a materialist and a skeptic, is very difficult at this point. The most we can say is that there's a lot of inferential evidence. And after all, inferential evidence isn't too bad.
Because, after all, we know of the existence of an atom only on the strength of inferential evidence. Nobody has really seen an atom. And there are a lot of things that we know of only inferentially. So, do not despise inferential evidence. Anyhow, I am not saying to you that you should accept this, if it seems alien to you or if it seems impossible to you. Very well. I mean, it is perfectly well to live, it's perfectly possible to live an intelligent and a reasoned and a noble life by other philosophies. But if you can accept this, even tentatively, you will find that it has a very great effect upon you. Upon your outlook and upon your behavior. In fact, I have known of many cases of people who have been saved from suicide through the contact with the idea of reincarnation. Now, the implications are, of course, so vast that one could spend a whole semester discussing them. I will only select one or two or three
by way of not tiring you. Just pick one. Psychological effect of this. If you believe that all of us are, as it were, students in school, all of us progressing at our own rate of speed, according to definite cosmic laws, then you begin to get a sense that the universe is just, even though it seems unjust. And you begin to get a sense also that it is folly to be envious of anybody. Now, many people are envious of other people. I don't know if you've ever observed this, but I think they are. And in fact, I think that envy is at the root of much malicious talk, at the root of much gossip, at the root of much slander, at the root of much evil activity generally. It is also the source of much dissatisfaction. I wouldn't be a bit surprised with the fact that, Sophia Loren has been hailed into court in Italy because she is supposed to be a bigamist, is due to the fact that somebody is envious of the fact that she just won the Academy Award.
Actually, in our civilization, we are confronted with so many success stories in the daily press, that if we ourselves are in the slightest frustrated, it is very easy for us to be envious of those who seem materially successful. For example, Bruce Kennedy. Now here is a woman who I think is much admired all over the world. Just think of what this woman has. I mean, she has wealth, she has position, she has fame, she has youth, she has beauty, she has children, she has a home, she has fascinating parties, she has clothes designed by Paris designers. You name it, she has it. She has charm, she has intelligence, she has education. The list is endless. And as I say, I am sure that many people admire her profoundly. I am also sure that there are many people who are envious of her, who think, why should she have all that and I don't? Now my point is that if you believe in reincarnation, then you know that Mrs. Kennedy has what she has
because she deserves it. Because in other lifetimes, she has struggled, probably in very obscure places, in very difficult lifetimes, to be of service, to have beautiful things, to have all the things she has. And maybe she has been frustrated many times. But now, as the reward of all these efforts, she finds herself in a position where she has all of those things. Emerson once said that there comes a time in every man's education when he realizes that envy is ignorance. This is a very wise saying. And so, reincarnation helps then to decrease the sense of envy and to decrease the sense of frustration because you realize that no matter what you want to achieve, you can achieve, no matter how old you are. Because what we consider to be birth and death, what we consider to be absolute final boundaries, are not final boundaries. They are merely punctuation marks, so to speak, of a longer sentence. So that even if you are 60 or 70 years old,
and you think, well, what's the use of studying? What for? I'll never be a great singer. I'll never be a great actress. Why should I bother? But if you realize that every effort that you make to cultivate any talent or any interest whatsoever is like putting money in the bank. And that when you come back again, you will have it in your bank account. And I have seen people for whom this idea had a very fructifying effect. I won't take time to go into the case histories because it's getting late. But anyhow, I think you can see how this would have an effect on people. Now, another tendency that, another thing that reincarnation, the theory of reincarnation tends to do for people is to help to make them less critical and less intolerant. I don't know whether you've noticed this or not, but I have found people to be rather critical. In fact, Mark Twain once said, there's a lot to be said in her favor, but the rest is so much more interesting.
. And if you observe yourself, you will find that the more frustrated you feel, the more critical you become of other people. Watch it. Just watch it. And how happy you are when you can find something that's wrong with somebody. Because it is a salve to our own ego when we can find something wrong with somebody else. Well, this tendency to be critical and this tendency to be intolerant is not very healthful, really. And when we realize that every human being is what he is because of what he has been and because he is learning a lesson, a lesson that either we have learned ourselves before or that we still have to learn in the future, we begin to be a little more mellow and a little less intolerant. Say nothing of the fact that if you accept the works of Cayce, Cayce warned people very, very strongly against being critical because if you are critical of somebody, especially verbally, you may find yourself, sooner or later,
in the exact same position that you were critical of. And one of the case histories in the Cayce files that illustrates this is a young man in the court of France who was very satirical and very cruel in his ridicule of the homosexuals in the French court. And lo and behold, this time he comes back and he is a homosexual himself. Purely as a karmic consequence because he had to understand what it is like to be like that. So, that's another effect. Now, one other effect here and then conclude, and that is this. All of us have to go through every religion,
so to speak. I don't mean that. I mean to say every religion is putting it rather broadly, but I mean we have to go through many religions is what I mean. And many races, in order to become perfect, we have to be both male and female, we have to have all the experiences. Then it suddenly becomes apparent that to have an attitude of superiority on the basis of one's religion or one's color or one's nationality is a little idiotic. Because we may have been that ourselves before or we may be that ourselves in the future. And then we realize that it is the spirit which is of importance and not the out externals. So, this too is really one of the most fundamental approaches to a true democracy of the spirit and to a true sense of human brotherhood and a human solidarity to realize that we could have been Jewish, Catholic, what have you, Mohammedan in the past life, or we could have been black, white, yellow, or what have you,
and maybe again. And one other thing too, is this, that contrary to what many people think, namely that the reincarnation idea tends to make people lazy, it has been my observation that the proper approach to this subject, namely a psychological approach, makes you aware of the fact that you might just as well work on yourself now because if you don't do it now you're going to have to do it sometime or other. We're reading a story about a man
who got a... A man got a notice from the income tax department. It was his second notice that his income tax was overdue. So he hurried up to the bank and hurried down to the income tax office and paid his tax and was a little embarrassed and he said, I'm awfully sorry about this. To tell you the truth, I didn't realize that it was this much overdue and besides, I don't remember ever getting a first notice about it. So the clerk said, Oh, that's all right. We ran out of first notices and besides, we found out that the second notice is more effective. And I think of that in connection with what we're talking about because life is giving us notices, you know, all the time. And when we realize that we're going to have to pay sooner or later, I have observed that the tendency is to make us a little more dynamic about it than passive and the contention that, Oh, look at the Hindus. They just sit down and take it. True, this is true,
but there are many factors to be taken into consideration with this. One, the heat of India, the climate, which is very oppressive. And two, the fact that the idea of reincarnation in India is mixed up with so much priestly superstition that you cannot fairly judge of the effect that the idea of reincarnation might have otherwise. Just as in Christian religions, you have all sorts of hypocrites, but this doesn't prove that Christ was a hypocrite or that Christianity is necessarily conducive to hypocrisy. So similarly, reincarnation is not necessarily conducive to laziness. And if it is properly understood with a psychological orientation, it leads rather to a sense of responsibility and to a sense of urgency as to do something about oneself. Now in conclusion, then let me say this, that it leads also to, not only to these psychological attitudes that I have spoken of so far, but also to a kind of a serenity. A serenity that knows
that all of the frustrations and all of the sufferings of life have a purpose. That life is purposive and life is meaningful. And that whatever we do is significant. And that in reality, each one of us is a sculptor, as it were, of the statue which is ourself. So that we are, in the very truest sense of the word, the creator of our future. Thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, just one word before we have a ten-minute intermission. This is the best opportunity to give you this information about some publications that we had that we didn't mention before. Since this is a talk on reincarnation, we sent back to the research, the Association for the Research Enlightenment at Virginia Beach and asked to be sent a number of separate copies of studies that were made by separate individuals like our speaker this evening, which pertain to certain subjects like here is one, Your Karma is Your Opportunity, by Jessica Madigan, a speaker we had approximately a year ago. And also one here, The Candid Camera of the Cosmos, by our speaker, Dr. Gina Cermonero. There is one on child training. There is one pertaining to education and a Project X. These are particular subjects that pertain to reincarnation as were given by Edgar Cayce. And I'd like to mention those two. They're on the front table.
And also this book list compiled by our guest speaker, a descriptive booklet compiled on articles and books on the subject of reincarnation. She has gone to the extent of having this mimeographed. And it is for sale. For those who are definitely interested, the cost is 50 cents. So I just wanted to bring those to your attention. And also the fact that there is a river, the story of Edgar Cayce, by Thomas DeGruy. Its minimum price is 78 cents, which includes tax. We have a number of those. Now there's one other. How many received the Fate magazine or read the Fate magazine? Many of you people here are interested in flying saucers. And you'll find that they are mentioned in time back into the thousand years. Now this article, this booklet here for July, has two articles. One about those lost Soviet astronauts. That's the title. And the other one is The Golden Fireflies of Space. And The Golden Fireflies of Space pertains to Colonel Glenn
and also his mention of the fireflies, previously mentioned by Adamski in his book Inside the Spaceships back in I think 1956 or was it 55. Now those two articles for those who are interested in flying saucers are especially worthwhile in your library. I thought so much about them that I got five of them. Now the hope of the idea of making any money because they're only 40 cents. But there are three of them there and anyone that wants to buy them why Mrs. Brown will be happy to sell them to you. If you can get them any bookstore why I would suggest that you get them because they're most interesting and thought provoking. The one about the Russian astronauts, they saw something out there and then they were cut off by the Russian radio station. And what they saw just leaves it to your imagination to think that they saw something unusual perhaps something of a human standpoint. The possibility of spaceships out there I don't know.
But leaves that possibility. We'll now have a ten minute intermission and then we'll call you back and we'll have a drawing to the door prize and then the question and answer period. And those who want paper will be, if you put up your hand during the intermission we'll get pencil and paper to you. Thank you. Second half of the written question and answer period. And I'll now call upon our guest speaker Dr. Seminer who will read the question and then give the answer to the rest of our body. I can't guarantee that I will
answer all these questions. There's quite a sheaf of them here. I'll try to answer most of them anyway. Here's one that says do the records of Edgar Cayce show the presence of past civilization? Well, it shows the absence of past civilizations, I guess. I mean, there were past civilizations, yes. There were, according to Cayce and according to many other esoteric sources, Atlantis was a reality, and so was a continent called Lemuria in the Pacific.
There's a good deal of influential evidence, of course, to support this, too, but I won't go into that here. Do you live in Pasadena? No. No? I live in Eagle Land, which is what my friend calls Hollywood. How about joining the Society for Research and Enlightenment in Virginia Beach?
This is very simple. We just write to the ARE, Association for Research and Enlightenment, of Virginia Beach, Virginia. They are now having a conference there. They have a wonderful library. They are advantageous to joining this association because they have a fabulous library of occult books, which are available to anybody who becomes a member. And not only that, but they do have conferences and lectures and study groups all over the country. And while it is not a perfect organization, very few organizations are, nonetheless, it is an organization which I can guarantee to you is not a mercenary one. I mean, it is not one that is out to exploit people, as you will notice if you become acquainted with it. It is a very sincere organization, really dedicated to research and enlightenment, really. Of course, when I was down there, I remember there was a mailman. He was quite a character. His name was David. I will never forget David.
He used to come around, and he took a dear view of the goings-on at the association. And, in fact, he used to call us the Association for Research, Enlightenment, and Confusion. And sometimes he called us the Assassination of Research and Enlightenment. But, by and large, though, this is really a very fine organization. Have you any further information on Laipis Lungua? Well, Laipis Lungua is a stone that Cayce used, to say, was helpful in heightening extrasensory faculties. He said that all stones have their own atomic radiation, and that if you kept the Laipis Lungua over, if you taped it on your forehead, that this would heighten your capacity to receive and send telepathically. There have been a few experiments done with this. A young man down in Virginia Beach experimented with it, and he found, in a series of runs, that there did seem to be a significant difference with using the Laipis Lungua than there were not.
But this is only one study, and it is certainly not sufficient to establish this in any scientific sense. There is a man in... Oh, dear, he's moved. He used to be in Bayfield, Colorado. I think he's in New Mexico now. Stephen Green. Anybody know him? He has gone into this thing quite a bit, and he sells these Laipis Lungua stones in a very beautiful setting. You can get them from him, and he has some information that I don't know about. But he says that, you know, you can buy them at the store, and you can buy them at the store, and you can buy them at the store, and you can buy them at the store, and you can buy them at the store, and he has some information, but apart from this, I don't have any further information on him. What determines how soon we return? About how many years between each life? This is an interesting question. Many theosophists have the impression that we must stay over there for thousands of years.
But according to Cayce and according to the Age Regression Material and the material of any other psychic that I know of, this varies very much very widely. Some people come back almost immediately, some people stay over on the other side for a long period of time. Sometimes it's a year, sometimes it's 30 years, sometimes it's 100 years, maybe it's 1,000 years. This depends on many factors. Now, it seems reasonable to me that a person who has been cut off in the height of youth, like a soldier in battle, for example, who had much to live for, who felt that the purpose of his life was cut short, might want to come back very quickly. And this might account for the fact that after every war, as you know, we have a great upsurge of population. Maybe this is why. Maybe the egos are pressing back as soon as possible. But it seems that there is a great variation on this. Can reincarnation be reconciled with the philosophy of Zen? Yes, I believe it can.
Now, I am not a great student of Zen, and so there may be some of you here who know much more about it than I do. I do know that in Zen, however, the emphasis is placed upon
the present moment, upon heightening the awareness of now, the realization that now is the accepted time, now is the moment of salvation, so to speak. So Zen students are not about to dwell very much upon the past or upon the future. And in a sense, this is a very healthy emphasis. I have a friend who is studying karate. You
know, it's one of those systems of Japanese, what would you call it, self-defense? Yeah, fighting anyway. And his teacher told him something very interesting. It's one of those typically Zen statements. It goes like this. I fall down seven times. I get up eight times.
Life begins right now. Which I think is a very interesting statement, and I think in a sense, this expresses part of the essence of Zen, namely to be fully aware of the present moment. So even though in Buddhism they do believe in reincarnation, I am quite certain in Zen they do not stress it. Can a dream reveal a past life experience? Yes, I believe it can. I know people who have recurring dreams. Now, if any of you have a recurrent dream, one that repeats constantly. This doesn't necessarily mean a past life, of course. It could mean a lot of things. But I have known instances where I am convinced it is a past life. For example, I have a relative of mine who, whenever she has a nightmare, it is of drowning. And she
had a reading from a psychic who told her that she had drowned in a previous life as a Portuguese or a Spanish sailor, rather. And to me it made a great deal of sense because she has had a fear of water all of her life, fear of crossing water, and the nightmare which is always of drowning. So in this case, I think it could be a past life. Is the Earth, are Earth conditions getting better or are we going down into chaos? Look at the daily papers. I think you're inclined to believe that we're not getting any better. And in fact, I think George Bernard Shaw wasn't far from the truth when he said that this planet was the lunatic asylum of the solar system. It's very hard to know about this. Now, of course, the Hindus believe that there are
certain ages in the history of mankind and that we are now in what they call the Kali Yuga, which means the age of iron or the deepest age of materialism. And I believe that the
idea is that when the cycle turns, finally, we come out of the iron age. And I don't know whether the next age we go into is the golden age or what it is. I think it is. But at any rate, as long as this happens, we're going to be in the golden age. And I think it is. If the age persists, we will have these conditions. And here is a suggestion that might help a unified hypnotist in his quest towards helping people. No, I don't have any particular suggestions. I am not a hypnotist myself. I know very little about it. The only thing that I would say in this regard is that hypnosis can be dangerous and that you must scrutinize your own motives very, very carefully. I mean, too many people
use hypnosis as a power stunt, you know, just for the sake of having fun, just for amusement.
And I do believe, and I don't really imply that the person who asked this question is that way,
[01:16:54] Questions and closing discussion
but I'm just stating this in general, that there are some people who find hypnosis a way of holding
or rather having power over somebody else. You can see how this would be so. And let me warn you that you should analyze your mind. You should analyze your mind. You should analyze your mind. You should analyze your mind. You should analyze your mind. You should analyze your mind. You should analyze your motives. Anybody who has any notion of being a hypnotist, analyze your motives. Because this can have terrible karmic repercussions. I mean, anybody who cultivates any faculty for the sake of wielding power over somebody else is making for himself a very serious situation. So I'm afraid this may not be helpful to the person who asked this question, but since I'm not a hypnotist, I cannot be too specific or too helpful. In the case of automatic writing under hypnosis about reincarnation, how would be the best way to verify it? I assume that you mean that under automatic writing, somebody has talked
about a past life. Want to speak up, whoever asked the question? Oh, somebody has been writing
automatically and giving material about a past life. Yes. Well, now, is any name given? Any names or places? No name, but dates. Well, it's a little bit difficult to track something down unless you have a name. You know, have you tried to get the name? Yeah. Well, if you have a name,
well, as you can imagine, finding somebody without a name is like finding John Smith in New York City. I mean, it's even worse than finding John Smith in New York City. You know, you must have something to tie it down to and try to get as many specific details as you can and then write to the places, you know, which are involved and see if you can verify it. It can be a very fascinating project, and I have known people who have been able to verify some of these things. Can anyone be hypnotized? What they were before.
And in the second place, even though some people can be hypnotized, I mean, even with the people who can be hypnotized, they cannot always be regressed to a past life. Anyhow, as a friend of mine once put
it, hypnosis may reveal a history that better should remain a mystery. And so, if you're a person, you know, you can't always be hypnotized. And you've got to have a history that's better. It is not only that. You've got to have a history that's better. And if you don't believe in that history, you can be hypnotized. It's not an un-litigated blessing to know what you were. And the fact that we don't remember, I think, is a blessing.
It's not without reason that nature has protected us from knowing too much. Really. There appeared a book by Sholem Asch called The Nazarene.
Do any of you remember that book? It was a bestseller. And this book, which was a story of the life of Christ, was written from three points of view.
It was a man who remembered his life at the time of Jesus when he was one of the men responsible for Jesus' crucifixion.
And he was tormented by this memory. It was horrible. He couldn't live. I mean, he could live, but it was with the greatest of agony to remember all this. And then he told his story to a young Jew, and as the young man was recording it, he began to remember his life at that time too. And then he told his story as he remembered it. And then the two of them together translated an old yellow document, which happened to be the Gospel according to Judas. So there you have three points of view about the life of Christ. An interesting device, but anyhow, I mention this just because at the very beginning of this book, Sholem Asch begins the first sentence by saying, not the power to remember, but its opposite, the power to forget. Is a necessary condition of our existence. And then he goes on to point out that usually the angel of forgetfulness causes us to forget,
but sometimes the angel of forgetfulness himself forgets to draw the veil over our eyes, and then we are haunted by memories of a former world. And then of course he goes into his third. Well now the point is that it is better perhaps that we don't remember everything. It is better not to remember what your mother-in-law and your husband have done to you in this life without remembering what they did to you in their other lives too.
...of one's past lives, similar to the Edgar Cayce readings. This is a question that I invariably get and always hesitate to answer.
I wonder if you can guess why I hesitate to answer it. Well, it is quite a responsibility. Now it is true, I do know of some psychics. I know of quite a few psychics as a matter of fact. And the reason I hesitate to recommend them is this primarily.
Psychics vary in their capacities. I mean in the first place, no psychic is 100% accurate, even Edgar Cayce.
Now this shocks some people, but he was not 100%. If I had to guess a percentage, I would say that he was about 85 to 90% accurate. Peter Herkes, who is a famous psychic detective, who works with police forces, who has been on the staff of the Miami Police Department for a number of years, who has solved I don't know how many crimes, and about whom a book has been recently written called Psychic. Have any of you seen it? Fascinating book. Peter Herkes. H-U-R-K-O-S. He was on the Alcoa Hour twice. You may have seen it last year. I understand that Glenn Ford is interested in doing a movie about it. Anyhow, Peter Herkes had a batting average of about 85%, according to Dr. Puharich, who worked with him very closely. Now you see, if this is true of a very, very good clairvoyant, imagine then how much less the percentage would be of a clairvoyant who isn't quite as good. So in other words, if I recommend a clairvoyant to you,
I don't know how accurate he's going to be with you. You see, I think of the fact that their gifts fluctuate from day to day, from hour to hour. I mean, even a cook doesn't make... her pumpkin pie is not always as good as it was, you know what I mean? Or your roast doesn't always turn out right. And even a person who gives a lecture or tries a case in court or what have you, I mean, you know, we all fluctuate. And this is true of psychics too. And a woman or a man who is psychic can be terrific on Monday and lousy on Tuesday. And so, it's dangerous, you see. Now, if anybody really wants to know the names of a few psychics, you can come up to me here afterwards and I will tell you the names of them. But I want you to very clearly bear in mind that I don't know how they will perform for you. There is another consideration also. And that has to do with the chemistry, so to speak, of rapport. You know what I mean?
I mean, some people you hit it off with and some people you do not hit it off with. Yeah, if you want to call it vibrations, call it vibrations. Now, I'll give you an example. I have a friend in Hollywood who is, in my opinion, a very fine clairvoyant. Very fine. She's honest. She has integrity. And she's on a spiritual level. I mean, she doesn't deal with material things. And I send a lot of people to her. She doesn't charge too much. She doesn't charge too much either. And I would say that about 90% of the people that I send to her are pleased. But then 10%, I didn't get a thing from it. Anyhow, the other night I referred a friend of mine who was visiting here from Milwaukee. Referred a friend of mine to her. And he took with him his sister-in-law. And I happened to see them both the next day. And I said, well, how were the readings? Well, my friend Peter was glowing with excitement. It was marvelous. It was excellent.
He told me things she'd said. And they were accurate. And they were helpful. And the sister-in-law, well, didn't get much from it. And so then I was curious about this. And I called my friend, the psychic, the next day to ask her how she felt the evening had gone. And she said, well, I got along beautifully with the young man. He was so eager. And he was so responsive. And he asked such intelligent questions that there was a flow. But the girl, she somehow didn't seem too interested in the first place. And she didn't have very many questions. And I didn't feel a rapport between us. And I don't feel that I did very well for her. So you see, there you have it. And I think, therefore, you can understand why I hate to recommend psychics.
Because some of them are expensive. And you might, you know, feel that you haven't gotten your money's worth. And if you really are interested, come up afterwards and I'll tell you. Okay, will Jews accept reincarnation through the Talmud? Well, I don't know too much about the Talmud. But I do know that the Zohar, which is also a Jewish book, and the Kibalean, or, yeah, the Kabbalah, I mean, the Kabbalah, which is a Jewish book, and which is supposed to represent the esoteric teachings of Israel, do specifically teach reincarnation. Very specifically. And not only that, but there is a Jewish mystical movement called the Hasidic movement, which began, I think, in the 19th century, and which is still quite active. And the Hasidic Jews definitely believe in reincarnation. Now, of course, the Orthodox Jews do not. But it seems interesting to see that in most esoteric traditions of the religions, you have this belief in reincarnation, even among Mohammedans.
Now, the Mohammedans do not believe in reincarnation. The Sufis, who are the mystical group among the Mohammedans, do seem to believe in reincarnation. So there you are. Another question about where to get a reading. Don't you think that even though Christianity doesn't generally accept reincarnation, that it certainly isn't stupid, and that it is still a good hedge against communism? Oh dear, this... It isn't stupid. Well, yes and no. I mean, of course the teachings of Christ are anything but stupid. I hope I didn't give any false impressions when I said what I did earlier. I have the greatest respect for the teachings of Christ. But the trouble is that Christianity as we know it is pretty darn far from the teachings of Christ. And there are some forms of Christianity which I frankly think are rather stupid. Some forms of it. Some forms of Orthodox theology. Is what I mean. Now, as far as being a hedge against communism, there again I would say yes and no.
Because I do not think that communism would have had the influence that it has had all over the world if Christians had actually behaved like Christians. Now, I heard Frank Laubach speak about this not long ago.
You all know who Frank Laubach is. He is a Methodist, I believe. And you know, I heard him at a Methodist church. He's an Orthodox Christian. And he is a wonderful man. And he has started this campaign of Each One Teach One. A campaign for literacy all over the world. And I heard him give a very, very eloquent speech on this very theme. That Christians have not behaved like Christians. And that moreover, he made an interesting analogy. He said, it's really like foreign cars. He said foreign cars are more economical than ours. They're smaller. You know. You know all about foreign cars. They have caused Detroit manufacturers to sit up and take over. And to bring about a few reforms in their own manufacture of cars. Because what they were doing was not meeting the needs of the American public. So, his analogy was this. Similarly, what Russia has been doing with Communism is the same kind of a stimulus to us. Because we have not been meeting the needs of people.
And here comes along somebody else from overseas who is meeting the needs of people. And we'd better sit up and take notice and do something about it. And I think his analogy was very good. You ought to read the book, The Ugly American. By way of seeing how America has failed overseas. In our attitude, and you know this stems back very largely to our attitudes of complacency and superiority. I mean superiority on the basis of race and religion. Because most Americans go overseas with a very, a very, patronizing attitude towards the people among whom they live. Now, the Russians do not do this. You have to give them credit. When the Russians go into a country, they learn the language. They take the trouble at least to learn the language. And the customs of the people. And we haven't done this. So, in answer to this question, does Christianity hedge against Communism? Not very much. Not until and unless it is really practiced.
The theory of reincarnation. Each soul comes back again and again. How do you account for the tremendous increase in population in the world? How many times have you heard this question, I wonder? Mr. Dean, how many times have you heard that question? About 400 times. 400 times, yeah, I think so. I don't know why this bothers people. I really don't. I think that, in answer to this question, I don't know where to begin.
In the first place, the assumption usually is that the population of the world has increased in an absolute sense. Now, this is an assumption. If it is true that Atlantis and Lemuria existed, and all sorts of other civilizations existed, which I think they did, there could have been millions and billions and billions of people on those continents which have disappeared. And now they're coming back. So that we have cycles of vast population and then less and less and then more and more. What's the difference, you know? And then not only that, but according to Cayce, the souls come back to the planet at a time which is favorable to what they need to do and what they need to learn.
So that this period, which is comparable to Atlantis at its height, millions of beings are coming back who need to meet this kind of a situation which is similar to the one in which they created their karma before in Atlantis.
Now, obviously, they could not come back into a primitive civilization, even as primitive as the 19th century. Because how could those people who misused the titanic power of atomic energy, who misused airplanes and submarines and electricity and atomic power and so on, who misused those things, how could they be tested in the 19th century when there were nothing to test them with, so to speak? They have to come back now. So all of us here may be on trial, so to speak, as to how will we react to the situation that we're in. This is an opportunity for us to make a contribution, a constructive contribution to civilization. What is the ultimate end? Well, the ultimate end, I suppose, is perfection.
Except that might be awfully boring. According to Cayce, the purpose of all of this is that we all become companions and co-creators with God,
which is a beautiful thought. Companions and co-creators. Companions and co-creators, so that ultimately each one of us becomes the lord of the universe, the director of planets, and so forth. Makes sense to me. But actually, here is the point where I go along with the Zen people. I really don't much care what the ultimate is. I go along here precisely with what Buddha used to say. Now, I don't know whether you're much acquainted with Buddhism. If you have never studied it, you ought to. Because it is one of the most rational, one of the most intelligent of religions. Buddha was a profound psychologist. And many of the things that he said read like the notebooks of a 20th century physicist. Believe it or not. Anyway, whenever he was asked questions about the ultimate, like why was the universe created? Who created God? What is the ultimate end of it all? Questions of this type. He had an answer. In fact, he had several answers.
But basically, it was the same point. One of the answers was this. Suppose you're sitting in a house and suddenly you discover that it is on fire. Would it be a good idea for you to sit there in the middle of the floor and say, Now, I wonder who started this fire. I wonder what he started it with. I wonder what the ultimate end of it all will be. Or would it be a little more sensible to try to get the heck out of there. And then when you are out, maybe you will be in a position really to find out the answers to those questions. Now, I cannot think of a more sensible approach.
I don't know what the ultimate is going to be. And to tell you the truth, I don't much care. Because, look, you and I and all of us are in a heck of a mess right now. I mean globally and personally. All of us. I think that's an all in a statement, Mr. Dean. It covers a lot of territory, general semantically speaking. You have to be careful when you say all anything. But I think it is pretty safe to say that all of us, or almost all of us, are in a little mess of our own creating. And the most sensible thing to do is to get out of it by improving our behavior.
By living a righteous life. By being of service to other human beings. By sitting down and meditating. By controlling our thinking. By behaving in a truly Christian, by which I mean a truly brotherly manner. And when we have done all of these things and perfected ourselves and purified ourselves and therefore clarified our vision, then we will be in a better position to know why and how come and what we are all going into. And I think, although there are one or two other questions here, I think that I will end on this note. Good evening. Unit 15, I want to thank our speaker, Dr. Cermonello. I know you've all enjoyed it and you've stayed late. We hope to see you in September. We will notify all of you who wish to receive our notice. Thank you and good night.