Beyond Heaven and Earth

by Steven H. Propp

  “Well, I think it now might be prudent to get the hell out of here,” said Jobran, and he pushed Ted out of the way, and tried the deadbolt; it opened easily. They all quickly stepped outside, and saw that the sun was starting to rise.

  Ted, his cockiness restored by the beginnings of daylight, laughed and said, “Now, a true supernatural rat wouldn’t have been killed by a mere gun.”

  Jobran added, “Well, I can certainly see how something like that would scare the daylights out of anyone who tried to stay here overnight.”

  Abraham put the safety catch back on his pistol, and put it back in his pocket. Putting an arm around the necks of both men, he said, “Gentlemen, it would appear that we have survived the night in the Halloway Haunted House—with the only casualties being a few rats.”

  Ted said, “This calls for a drink! Oh, but first…” and he removed his cell phone from his pocket, and dialed. “Rogers? You’re still awake? Surprised to see you in the office this late—or is it this early?…That must have been real comfortable. Anyway, we can report that there is nary a ghost in the House—so, sorry for the effect that will have on your ‘marketing’ campaign. You’ve got one hell of a pest problem, though; no wonder the property values have been declining! Anyway, I need to call the newspapers and TV stations, so tune in if you get a chance, and you can watch the value of your property dropping while you wait…,” and he chuckled. “Oh, one last thing: Thanks so much for referring this case to the Skeptics’ Society; we hope you choose to utilize our services again.” There was an inarticulate noise on the other end, and the conversation ended, with Ted laughing heartily.

  After waiting on the porch for it to become fully light, the three friends quickly retrieved their belongings (leaving the remaining sandwiches as a “peace offering” to the rats), and bid a fond farewell to the Halloway House…

  Formerly known as “Haunted” Halloway House.

  * * *

  As Abraham and Jobran had dropped Ted off at the local newspaper office, and were driving away, Abraham asked, “Say, Jobe; I was wondering—that crash of the cabinet in the next room: what do you think caused it?”

  Jobran thought for a moment before replying, “The rats, I’ve been assuming. You think there’s something else?”

  “How would the rats have broken the glass?”

  Jobran shrugged. “I don’t know; over the years, they’ve probably long since eaten through the wall behind the cabinet. Maybe they were crowding on top of each other, excited by our voices, and the weight was too much for the glass to take—there were some awfully big rats, as you saw.”

  “Hmm. Maybe…” said Abraham, softly.

  Jobran said, insistently, “Come on, out with it: You think there really was something supernatural in that house that caused the crash?”

  “I don’t know…but still, it’s kind of an interesting coincidence that the door got stuck right when we were being attacked by the rats,” Abraham said, thoughtfully.

  “I think Ted was just too scared to unlock the door the first time; it opened fine for me,” Jobran said, calmly.

  “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

  “Abe, usually you’re the skeptical one, and I’m the one that is willing to be a believer. Why the switch?”

  Abraham thought for a while, then said, “I don’t think it’s exactly a ‘switch’; but I have to admit that I find it somewhat easier to believe in malevolent spirits existing, than that there are guardian angels, and such. It just seems like there is so much more evidence for—for lack of a better word—demonic influence in the world, like the Dybbuk or possessing spirit of Jewish tradition.” He turned and looked directly at Jobran, and said, “Haven’t you ever felt like there was some sort of ‘outside’ influence on you, an evil influence? Something urging you on, to do things you know you shouldn’t?”

  “Sure, but I don’t know that I believe it’s a literal demon doing the urging.” He looked back at Abraham, and asked, “You’ve have that kind of experience?”

  Abraham shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe I’ve still just got the ‘creeps’ from our stay in the haunted house,” and he laughed, as they pulled up in front of Jobran’s home.

  “You want to come in for a cup of coffee or some breakfast?”

  Abraham shook his head. “Can’t; I forgot to tell you, I’m going out of town for a conference for a few days.”

  “What kind of conference?”

  “Jewish stuff. You goyim wouldn’t understand.”

  Jobran laughed. “Make sure you’re back in time to prepare for the Sabbath Friday evening; your congregation needs you, too.”

  “Count on it,” Abraham replied, as he drove away.

  26

  MESSAGE FROM BEYOND

  Jobran and Ted were walking down the street, side-by-side. Jobran observed, dryly, “One thing I definitely miss about Abraham not being here: I have to walk everywhere.”

  Ted nodded, and said, “I guess I could have taken my old car out of mothballs for the occasion, except that I wouldn’t have been able to drink if I was driving; and between you and me, if it’s a choice between walking, and staying cold stone sober, I’ll take walking any day.” They were silent for a moment as they continued walking, until Ted asked, “So tell me again why Abraham couldn’t make it?”

  “He has some Sabbath duties with his congregation until sundown, but he’ll be able to join us for coffee afterwards,” Jobran said, “To help debrief us.”

  “Not that there will be anything to tell,” Ted said, in a cynical tone.

  “Abraham and I have a cardinal rule, when we’re doing these investigations,” Jobran reminded Ted. “We’re here to learn, and also to critically analyze, but we’re also supposed to be courteous and considerate with everyone.” He looked over at Ted, as they continued walking, “You think you can handle that, in Abraham’s absence?”

  “Who? Me?” Ted asked, in mock surprise. “I’m the very soul of tact and discretion. You forget that I am a college professor, and am therefore routinely used to lying with a straight face.”

  Jobran continued to look at Ted, then said, “It still amazes me how much you and Abraham look alike,” Jobran said. “You don’t suppose that he’s a long-lost son, or something like that?” he added, in a gently teasing voice.

  “I don’t have any kids—at all,” Ted said, with finality. “I had a ‘vas’ as soon as the operations were commonly-available, which I’ve never regretted; why would I have wanted a kid with that bitch ex-wife of mine, anyway?”

  Changing the subject, Jobran said, “So did you listen to Candara’s radio program?”

  “Yep.”

  When no more information was forthcoming, Jobran asked, “And…?”

  “I thought it was a bunch of crap. It cracked me up when she went off on that tirade criticizing people that call those ‘so-much-bullshit-per-minute’ Psychic Hotlines; isn’t she doing the same thing as them?”

  Smiling slightly, Jobran said, “Her call-in radio show is free to the caller, as far as I know, so it’s not like one of those toll call numbers.” In a serious tone, he added, “But didn’t you think she had anything valuable to say? The way she gave advice to some of her callers, for example; she seems like she has some genuine insights about people’s personalities, and problems. At any rate, a lot of people call her for advice.”

  “I didn’t think she had anything at all valuable to say,” Ted said, his voice ringing with disgust. “She gets a bunch of sickos that call in, and they believe anything she tells her, because they think that the answers are coming straight from Buddha, or an ‘Ascended Mistress,’ or some bullshit like that.”

  Jobran shook his head, and said, “I keep telling you, she’s a medium, not a channel; a channel is someone who supposedly allows him- or herself to be taken over by the spirit and personality
of some non-physical personality. Mediums retain their own self and usually their intelligence and personality throughout the entire process.”

  “Both ‘channels’ and ‘mediums’ claim to be talking to stiffs, right?” Ted interjected.

  “Um…to people or beings that have supposedly died previously, yes,” Jobran admitted. “I guess there is a lot of ‘overlap’ between the two; it’s probably more a cultural difference, than anything else.”

  “From my perspective, bullshit is bullshit,” Ted replied, firmly.

  “Anyway,” Jobran tried to continue, “Candara isn’t a ‘physical’ medium at all—she’s a ‘mental’ medium, who only uses her mind, not her body, during the séance. She isn’t even a ‘trance medium,’ because she’s conscious the entire time. For that matter, she doesn’t even like the word ‘medium,’ which she calls an old-fashioned way of referring to someone that is an intermediary between the physical world, and the psychic world. She prefers to call herself a ‘Sensitive,’ or ‘Psychic Intuitive,’ which is a person who uses natural insight or intuition—the ‘Sixth Sense,’ if you will—to communicate with the spiritual realm.”

  Ted stopped suddenly, and gave him a strange look. “Boy, you’ve really fallen for this stuff, haven’t you?” With a frown, he added, “You’re as crazy as those people in the CIA who seriously tried to study ‘remote viewing,’ or those police detectives who are so anxious to solve a notorious crime that they actually consult supposed ‘psychics.’ You’re so desperate to believe something, that you’ll fall for anything.”

  Shaking his head firmly, Jobran said, “No, I’ve just been studying it in detail these past weeks.” As if he were giving a lecture to a reluctant student, he began, “Candara claims to possess clairaudience, which means ‘clear hearing,’ and means being able to hear sounds, names, voices, and such; she compares her ability to dogs, who can hear a higher frequency range than humans can. She also claims to possess clairsentience, or ‘clear feeling,’ which means that she can sense when spirits are in the room, and can empathetically feel their emotions.” Pulling a small plastic bag from his pocket, he said, “She also practices Psychometry, which means that she claims she can hold an object that belonged to someone, and receive feelings and impressions about its owner.”

  Ted looked at him as if he were crazy. “If she has all these powers, why doesn’t she tell us which stocks are about to jump up in price, so that we can make a killing?” He thought for a moment, then added, “Or why doesn’t she buy the stocks herself, so she can make a fortune and retire early?”

  Jobran shook his head, and said, “She doesn’t make predictions of the future; she doesn’t claim to have a prophetic gift.”

  “Well, then, can she even tell me the name of my ideal woman or ‘soul mate,’ or at least tell me what she looks like, so I’ll know her when I see her?” Ted asked, pretending seriousness.

  Jobran shook his head again, and said, “No, that would be clairvoyance, or ‘clear seeing’; that is, being able to see visions, pictures, people, symbols, and such. She says that she isn’t generally clairvoyant. In fact, she doesn’t even do automatic writing—she’s strictly auditory, and verbal.”

  “Can she at least make a big pile of money appear?” Ted said, stroking his beard as if this were a serious and reasonable proposal. “I mean, surely some of the spirits she speaks with had scads of money that they stashed away somewhere.”

  Grinning, Jobran said, “If she could do that, she wouldn’t need to charge us $300 for this session, would she?” Seriously, he continued, “Actually, hardly any mediums do ‘materializations’ or apports these days; that is, either creating something physical, or else moving it here from some other location.” He thought for a moment, then added, “In fact, hardly any modern mediums even claim to be able to produce ectoplasm, which is a thin, translucent substance that supposedly emanates from the bodies of some mediums, and is said to be extremely sensitive to light.”

  “Meaning of course that it wouldn’t appear in photographs, so that we can’t use a camera to prove its existence,” Ted said. “Why am I not surprised? Or why do the only photographs that people claim to be ‘ectoplasm’ look like plain old cheesecloth?”

  “Well, there are some supposed photographs of ectoplasm, just like there are photos that are claimed to be of ghosts,” Jobran said, “But of course, they raise the same kinds of questions of authenticity.”

  “Speaking of authenticity,” Ted replied, “Didn’t the 19th century pretty much explode this whole notion of spirit mediums, anyway? I mean, didn’t those sisters who started the whole thing admit they made the whole thing up?”

  “As with everything in life, it’s more complicated than that,” Jobran replied. “Two of the three Fox sisters—the younger two, Kate and Margaret, who were the ones who started the whole thing, when they were just adolescents—eventually confessed in 1888 that the whole thing was a fraud, and that they produced ‘rapping’ noises by cracking the joints of their toes. However, they were probably alcoholics, as well as almost destitute at the time when they made the recantations, so supporters of Spiritualism—including their older sister Leah Underhill—have suggested they made the confession simply in order to obtain some fast money. In fact, Margaret returned to Spritualism in her later years—by her own admission—purely in order to make money. So let’s just say that there is a lot of both ‘pro’ and ‘con’ argument about the Fox sisters. At any rate, modern Spiritualists still refer to them as the originators of the movement.”

  “To me, if they admitted they were frauds, then they were frauds,” Ted said, with an air of finality. “Besides, Houdini exposed all of those so-called ‘mediums’ of his time.”

  Jobran replied, “He certainly exposed a number of famous mediums as frauds, including Eusapia Palladino, who was probably the most famous of them all. But even in Houdini’s book, A Magician Among the Spirits, he didn’t come up with any real ‘proof’ of fraud on the part of the other most famous medium, Daniel Dunglas Home—although he offered suggestions for how Home might have pulled off some of his most famous feats. Mostly he attacked Home’s character, accusing him of fleecing rich elderly widows of their money, and so on.”

  “But there is no scientific evidence for any of this crap,” Ted continued, unwilling to budge an inch.

  “Well, there are certainly extremely eminent scientists and other intellectuals who were staunch believers in Spiritualism—such as Alfred Russell Wallace, codiscoverer with Darwin of Natural Selection; William James, philosopher and psychologist; Sir William Crookes, the famous British chemist who discovered the X-ray; English physicist Sir Oliver Lodge; Camille Flammarion, the French astronomer—not to mention people such as Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes stories,” Jobran replied. “In fact, Doyle, in his History of Spiritualism, traced the whole movement back earlier to the 18th century Swedish scientist Emanuel Swedenborg, who was an engineer, as well as an authority on astronomy, physics, zoology, metallurgy and anatomy. Anyway, at age 55, Swedenborg started having visions, which told him that God had chosen him to explain to men the ‘spiritual sense’ of the Bible.”

  “He sounds like a chosen nut-case to me,” Ted replied shortly. “Someone intelligent that flipped out later in life.”

  “The famous German Philosopher Immanuel Kant didn’t think so,” Jobran replied, quickly. “Kant wrote an entire essay, ‘Dreams of a Spirit Seer’ on Swedenborg’s visions; he was particularly impressed by Swedenborg’s apparent knowledge of a fire that took place 300 miles away, in Stockholm—there were twelve dinner guests who heard Swedenborg’s description of the fire while it was taking place. Swedenborg even proposed a version of the nebular theory for the origin of the solar system before Kant and Laplace did. Anyway, Swedenborg’s theological books were incredibly long expositions of the Bible, but they were also filled with his accounts of what he claimed were his
actual travels to Heaven and Hell, his conversations with people such as the Apostle Paul and Martin Luther, and other visionary experiences. Now, I’m not convinced that he had such experiences in actuality; perhaps he was engaged in what modern researchers would call ‘lucid dreaming’—it’s kind of curious that it was seemingly so easy for him to go back and forth between the physical world and the spiritual, after all. Anyway, theologically he denied the resurrection of the body, rejected the notion that upbaptized babies go to Hell—or that God ‘sent’ anyone to Hell, for that matter. He said that heavenly life was a life filled with activity, and that friendships and even conjugal love continued in Heaven. He even founded a church— the Church of the New Jerusalem, or just the ‘New Church’—that still exists to this day.” Looking directly at Ted, Jobran said, “So you see, there are some famous scientists who have accepted Spiritualism.”

  “I mean modern scientists,” Ted snapped back, testily. “18th and 19th century scientists still believed all kinds of metaphysical nonsense, like ether and phlogiston. But can you name any modern scientists of any stature who still believe this stuff?”

  Jobran thought for a moment, then replied, “No; not really.”

  With a triumphant look, Ted said, “There! I rest my case, your honor.” He shook his head, and said, “To me, it’s just amazing that this nonsense can continue to go on for as long as it has.”

  “Well, for many people, Spiritualism is actually their religion,” Jobran replied, “Some even refer to psychic Andrew Jackson Davis as the ‘John the Baptist of Spiritualism.’ And one of the points that seems to be very important to the Spiritualists themselves is that they claim that—unlike most other religions— their claims can be verified. They say they are willing to have their claims investigated scientifically, and believe that reason and common sense confirm their beliefs. In fact, most creeds or statements of principles of Spiritualist churches include one about Spiritualism being ‘scientific proven’ or at least provable.”