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with Vietnamese soldiers. Unmarked and | SLOW ACCEPTANCE OF IADC THERAPY without flags, the boats had trespassed into You'd think that something with such profound implications as Induced After-Death a military canal. Mark and the four other | Communication would receive widespread attention from the mental health field as well gunships under his command attacked the __ | as from the mainstream media and the public in general. Even if it falls a little short of boats and "blew them out of the water". He | absolute proof, the evidence strongly suggests that grieving patients are in touch with the recalls seeing bodies flying through the air. | deceased during IADCs. What could possibly be more earthshaking and newsworthy Two weeks later, he was informed that they _ | than that? were friendly troops. "It stays in your mind But acceptance has been slow, no doubt because communication with the dead is a and really weighs on you," Mark laments, | phenomenon that exceeds the "boggle threshold" of most people, especially those who adding that he was shot down seven times | have been programmed to believe that everything must meet strict scientific criteria and wounded twice. before it is seriously considered as truth. The term boggle threshold was coined by In 2002, Mark sought treatment for PTSD Renée Haynes, a British psychical researcher and author, to define the point at which we are unwilling to accept something as fact and allow scepticism to take over. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, some distinguished scientists thoroughly investigated the phenomenon of mediumship. They uncovered some fraud, but eventually came to the conclusion that "the dead" were speaking through the true mediums. In spite of their high standings in the scientific community, these researchers boat mishap came under attack by their colleagues, who believed they had all been duped. Sir “What ha d then is that I saw ¢ William Crookes, a distinguished British chemist and physicist, was one of those . at appenec then is that 1 saw a | jambasted by his colleagues. Crookes responded by saying, "! never said it was possible; formation of Vietnamese coming at me, | only said it was true." Mark relates, the memory still very vivid in | Any open-minded person taking the time to examine closely the research done by his mind. "What was interesting is that they | Crookes, Sir William Barrett, Dr Richard Hodgson, Sir Oliver Lodge, Dr James H. Hyslop were in a Russian formation, not a US | and others will realise that there is a preponderance of evidence—if not evidence formation. Two of the commanders stepped | beyond reasonable doubt—for the survival of consciousness at death and, forward and began talking to me in | concomitantly, for a spirit world in which spirits dwell at various levels of advancement. Vietnamese." Mark didn't understand them | Dr Alfred Russel Wallace, co-originator with Charles Darwin of the theory of evolution until another eye movement was _|by natural selection, said that the evidence for spirit communication is as great as the administered. They continued speaking in _ | evidence supporting other areas of science—including, apparently, evolution. Vietnamese, but Mark somehow More recently, mainstream science has ignored evidence which strongly suggests that telepathically knew what they were saying. | the near-death experience and electronic voice phenomena relate to an afterlife. The "They said that they understood that I did _| sceptics often point out that these phenomena can't be replicated, and therefore they what I had to do and they had no grudge conclude that they are unworthy of scientific examination. , against me, that they are in a better place, "What it comes down to is that so much of it cannot be controlled or measured in a and not to worry about it. Then they _ | Scientific way," says R. Craig Hogan, PhD, co-author with Allan L. Botkin, PsyD, of Induced After- Death Communication (Hampton Roads, 2005). "As a result, it [[ADC] hasn't been given much attention." As Hogan sees it, the people who resist it the most are stuck in a mechanistic paradigm in which the physical world is fundamental. He traces it back to the early 19th century and the "Age of Reason", when scientists proclaimed that the only knowledge of value came from control and measurement, which only scientists could understand. "People simply accepted that," Hogan states. "After all, the common folk had believed up to that . aaa point that knowledge belonged only to the Church, so they really had no ownership of it __ In that session the child did not speak, but | anyway. The inner person, the Church taught, was sinful, depraved, naive and given to in subsequent sessions the boy appeared | influence by the Devil. When science told people that the inner person was also prone again, first as a teenager and then as a | tg misperception, superstition and childlike ignorance of the facts of the universe, they young adult. "My son says to me, ‘Don't just nodded in agreement." worry, Dad, I'm okay. I'm going to see you The media have contributed to the problem, Hogan believes. "They're always looking soon.' I didn't know what to make of that, if | for confrontation, the medium against the sceptic," he says. "And so there is no I'm going to die soon or what, but it was resolution." very soothing." While apparently convinced that the [ADC involves actual contact with the spirit Mark also reviewed one of his helicopter | world, Hogan explains that the therapist must take a neutral position, leaving the crashes, including the pain and the intensity _| interpretation up to the patient. "The therapist's role isn't to judge the source of the of the pain. He struggles to explain the _ | experience, or any part of the patient's belief system for that matter," he offers. "I think images. "The quality and clarity of the _ | any therapist frames the discussion in terms with which the patient is comfortable." at a veterans’ hospital. When the therapist explained the [ADC procedure to him and asked him if he'd like to try it, he was more than willing. After the eye movements were administered, Mark focused on the marched off. It was really cool and a big load off my shoulders." At another IADC session, Mark saw a woman holding his first son, who had died as an infant in 1978. As his focus was on the boy, he didn't immediately recognise the woman as his deceased mother. images are much greater than in dreams. But Hogan feels that at some point in time, truth-seekers must forget about the They are absolutely three-dimensional and scientific fundamentalists. "We need to stop trying to fit our methods and study into the they stay with you. narrow paradigm of things that can be controlled and measured," he asserts. "We shouldn't bow to the demands of those people who insist on control and measurement. After all, the vast majority of reality is not in that realm." The focus of IADC therapy is on overcoming grief, but Hogan sees something much bigger coming from it. "The therapy is valuable because it alleviates grief, but that is much less important than what it will lead to," he suggests. "Al [Botkin] has discovered sparks of electricity, but lighting up whole cities will be the important result." — Michael E. Tymn You have to experience it to know what it's like. It's not like hypnotism. It'll spook you, but it is really something. The main thing is that it gives you closure, and life has more meaning after you have experienced these things. There is a sense of continuity. It's very comforting." NEXUS = 43 AUGUST - SEPTEMBER 2006 www.nexusmagazine.com