Speaker 1: Hmm. You're listening to the Paranormal UK Radio Network and
now it's time for the Paranormal Peep Show.
Speaker 2: Hi, folks, you're listening to the Paranormal Peep Show on
the Paranormal UK Paceday Network. It's been a while since
I've been doing this, folks. I've been very busy for
Halloway and so I've not been doing this for a
couple of months now. But we're in the November edition.
The Orange Man has one, as you can tell by
the hat. And Hello Neil and Hello Ben.
Speaker 1: How you been. We are fine.
Speaker 3: We are fine. We're absolutely good and stunning, aren't we Ben?
Speaker 4: Yes, absolutely. It's great to be back on the Paranormal
Peep Show with Andy and Neil and our guest Matt Arnold.
So I'm looking forward very much to this show.
Speaker 3: So, Matt Arnold, thank you very much for joining us.
So just to give a little bit of background for
our audience that are listening or viewing, we met you
at the end of August. You was kind of one
of the participants in the Seriously Strange conference which was
run by the Association of FROMA I can't remember what
they called now, scientist. Thank you eight sapp or something
like that, and you also kind of co hosted a
dialogue between members of the panel and the audience as well,
so you kind of hosted it. So welcome to the
Parallel Beach Show. Thanks for taking the time out to
come and chat to us. Now, you did a presentation
there on hauntings, which I thought was a very interesting thing.
Is one that hadn't been covered before to your knowledge,
and you actually went back and looked through the diaries
of the people that the original haunting was affected by.
So what was that haunting? Can you tell us a
bit about it?
Speaker 1: So this is about the Epworth Rectory poltergeist case, which
comes from the seventeen hundreds. We're talking of four weeks
over December to January of I remember the date exactly.
I think it's seventeen sixteen to seventeen seventeen, something like that.
And interestingly, it's incredibly well documented, not because of people
going and investigating it themselves, but by the actual people
that were experiencing this particular phenomena or the phenomena that
were taking plates. So the people that the house itself
would Worth. The rectory was the residence of Samuel and
Samuel Wesley and his family, and essentially John Wesley is
the guy who invented methodism really, and John Wesley was
a bit of a paranormal investigator. He was really wanted
to know what was going on with this, and about
seventy years later he wrote a story or the accounts
of the hauntings and the apparitions and the things like
that that went on in his father's house. And I thought, well,
that's great, lovely. It was during lockdown when I was
doing this research. Really, I got nothing else to do.
I was furlough, so I took this case and I thought, right,
what can I do from an armchair slothing perspective? And
the materials that I had access to were the letters
between the family members and the recollections that he had
in his memoir seventy years later. But also managed to
find the layout of the house as well from an
English heritage tree ring analysis that was being done on
the property, so they had the layout of the property
at the time the analysis was done, so nobody that
I'd know had done this previously. I wanted to go
back and walk through the haunting day by day, week
by week, where things happen in certain places when they happened,
and who was where, who was living, who was sleeping
in what rooms at the time, who was moving around
in what rooms, And you can do all of that
from the letters themselves. They can tell you who was
where at those locations, so you can even see other
people coming in from outside the family. You've got the
local vicar from up the road was basically called in
to try and help out at one point towards the end,
and that was actually the last time that they had
any major stuff happen. But we've got things that are
bangings in and around the house. We've got groans, you've
got sounds like chains rattling and metal work rattling, things
like bottles being smashed under staircases, all sorts of stuff,
rustling of clothing as it's going past people. Even a
headless badger going up a girl's skirt, which was the
one thing that seemed to raise a lot of smiles
at us up. I don't know why. Headless badger. Yes,
that was what the mother recalled, but it's not in
any of the other letters from any of the other witnesses,
so it's fairly subjective to that one. So yeah, I
decided I'd go and plant out work it out, and
then about a year later I was able to go
and see the different places himselves. One of the interesting
things was, according to the accounts, if you timeline and
dove tailor altogether, you can see where there should be
a particular doorway between two rooms. And it's not on
the plan that the English heritage you've gotten. It's not
there in terms of the doorway itself has been blocked up,
but there is there was a doorway there in that
that's been blocked up. But I've discovered that through the
through the letters themselves, you could work that out. Then
things like where was the paper room the paper chamber
because pet wall paper was expensive and it wouldn't have
been used in the nursery. It was used somewhere else instead.
So we've got some of the rooms being swapped around.
So and other people have used the letters to work
out where people were residing, what rooms there were. The
interesting thing is that all of the family, you've got
the male and female parents, but then you've got six
girls and two boys. The two sorry, three lads. Three
lads were away from the house at the time. They
were being schooled in London and this is Atworth in Lincolnshire,
so it was only gos that were in the house
at the time, ranging from twenty twenty one down to
something like six. And you've also got a servant, the
male servant of mister Samuel Wesley, and you've got sort
of a made type character. And the male servant was
sleeping in the loft area on the second floor sort
of third fourth for American listeners, and that was his residence.
And I kind of think from looking at some of
the analysis of the drainage that was taking place in
the historical records, they were draining that particular area of
the land around the Lincolnship, the flats and the Isle
of Axon, and I think that there was some land
settlement going on that was making the stuff creek. The
house itself was reason new because the previous one had
burnt down. Disgruntled villagers they think were the ones that
caused that. So I'm thinking that there initially was some
phenomena that happened in terms of creeks and banks. Some
one person reckons they saw a floating grinding corn mill
milf grinding corn. They saw that floating through the air.
But that's the one thing that appears, and it appears
in the later recollections seventy years later. It doesn't appear
in any of the original documentation. So I think, as
Tolkien Gandalf said, or maybe fran Walsh's version of Gandalf
and then Peter Clark's Peter Jackson's version of GAMBALKI, all
good stories deserve embellishment, and I think that's what was
going on with the poltergeist. I think it's the same
as East Drive Ease Drive as well. Originally something was happening,
it died off very quickly, and in order to continue
the excitement, some of the family members carried it on,
and maybe even one of them used it to their
advantage to cover up a potential affair or even a
relationship they were having with one of the with the
man servant that.
Speaker 3: Might explain they had dispadger. So you think there was
any kind of psychic activity or do you think it
was just some sort of land movement that was causing
the noises.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm fairly skeptical. From what I can see, I
don't think there was anything. I think there was a
lot of suggestion going on. I believe I'm a believer
this sort of stuff, but I think there was a
lot of suggestion a lot of bored girls wanted some
excitement in their lives being having an oppressive father over them.
Speaker 3: It does have the kind of qualities though that a
reminiscent of other poltergeist.
Speaker 2: The ape Viel vaulting was exactly that. So those the
girls there, Janet and Margaret, I think from memory the
allegations there were they were making things up to get attention. However,
there were some odd things that were seen by police
officers and magicians and illusionists and press people. So there's
a weird mix between the girls having a laugh and
having fun and funny enough, Maurice Gross actually caught the
girls tanking around and he knew what was going on.
He wasn't stupid, and the girls kind of later admitted
that they were pranking around. However, layered on top of
that was the actual genuine stuff as well.
Speaker 1: So I think there could potentially have been something going
on at the beginning, but I don't know what. But
I think the majority of stuff can be counted for
by pranking.
Speaker 4: These kinds of blusof some double bluffs occur all the time,
in this field, and you could if you're looking at
big football ghosts or UFOs or anything like that, you're
you're generally find that there is some kind of genuine phenomenon.
A lot of attention is brought towards it, and then
it kind of grows legs. And I mean, I know
that people were accusing Janet and Margaret, as you mentioned Andrew,
they they because of course they they did. Deborah Hyde
made this point. I think, I don't think he's quite fair,
but she made the point that these girls were being
brought up by a single mother. They had very little
contact with their father because he that the parents split
up when they were very young. And you know, having
having Morris Gross in the house, he became a kind
of father figure to the girls. It's and then therefore
there was this psychological need to keep him there, essentially
why there was all these things happening. But the television
wasn't affected because in those days, you know, the TV
was the sense of the kids entertainment.
Speaker 2: It's so I've never really thought of it that way. Actually, Ben,
it's a good point.
Speaker 4: And I don't agree with that, but that's it's very
often said that that is the case.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Morris Grows are kind of like a father figure. Interesting,
I will say, and this is this is very anecdotal
and it cannot be proven. I will say that there's
a landlady that I know of a pub. She reckons
that she is friends with the lollipop lady that was
helping kids across the road outside the Enfield Poltergeist House
when it was happening in the seventies. The lollipop lady
claims that she could see through the window, the window
of the bedroom, and she could see the kids actually levitating.
That's anecdotal, but that's that's what I was talking.
Speaker 4: It's independent witness, which she's really really great. As far
as the case that Matt's brought up, we're dealing with
a much older case from much further, long long ago.
I mean, I don't know enough about this particular incident
and have enough knowledge about the history of the family
and the instance. And indeed the man himself, John Wesley,
who's essentially found as a religion there's Wesleyans. Now ever,
there I mean my where where my my mother comes
from in the Netherlands, there's like she was she was
from Limburg in the southeast for the Roman Catholic, but
there's lots of different Protestant denominations, you know, Nonconformist Protestantism
is a big thing in the Netherlands, as it is
in Wales where I put him with a father, you
know where I lived in.
Speaker 1: What's Wesley is in Breathdadism if you've outread this same
thing pretty much. Yeah, The interesting thing is that the
phenomena took a break on December twenty fifth.
Speaker 3: That's interesting.
Speaker 4: Special about the September twenty fifth, Sorry, I don't know
only about this case. Then December Christmas, December, so I thought, yeah, September,
all right, he took time off for Christmas, very handy.
Speaker 1: And then they had the investigated visual on the twenty eighth,
where they actually got somebody else to look into this.
That was the last time anything happened. And my thinking
is basically that the couple that their daughter and the
man servant, that the ones that were utilizing and creating
some of the phenomena as a distraction in order to
cover up their relationship, and it all got a little
bit too hot. And what you'll find as well is
that this particular daughter goes incredibly off the rails in
terms of with men and stuff, ends up becoming pregnant
and married off very quickly to a plumber, local plumber,
and because she's seen as intellectually more superior to him,
that relationship never carried on, and she ended up writing
your whole part of poetry which is very much against
marriage and get against some of the stuff that her
father was. So I think you know this, this whole
This was a girl who is incredibly hormonal, and you know,
you've got a brand new guy that's just come in
a month before to the to the family, and then
all these phenomenas start taking off.
Speaker 4: Well there's two questions.
Speaker 2: Sorry, and I'll just go this is a very quick
point with the hormones thing, and this might be relevant,
it might not. Poltergeist activity and paranormal activity tends to
kind of happen when when people are prebu vesterent all
going into kind of hormonal changes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there is that that that's one of the fear
is of poltergeist. So you know John Fraser, so he's
got some good stuff on pultidize and there's one big
box of paranormal tricks, which is in the latest book,
is one that is worth reading because it kind of
lumps a lot of this stuff together. And I think
hormones do act maybe maybe as a magnet for some
sort of stuff to start happening. I don't know, I don't.
I don't think necessarily it's our hormones itself, but who knows.
I mean, great stuff than dreams are made of.
Speaker 4: Well, it's like we It's just that the horn the
hormones of the body changes called psychological changes, which is
said to be a part of this. I mean the film,
the film The Exorcist, which of course the main that
the target of this paran all this demonic possession is
a is a young girl who's just entering puberty. And
it's there there were saying that boys make worse babies
and girls make worse teenagersn't I've been the father of
a thirty year old, which is now its now long
in the past. I can attest to that. But it's
it's it could be that whatever if in terms of
genuine when they are genuine phenomena, and some of the
phenomena are genuine, they say they're attracted to certain kinds
of people because polter guys tend to center around person
rather than the place and are attracted to certain kinds
of people. Very often it is a young a young person,
usually girl in early adolescents, who's experienced it. It could be
just an energy, it could be like an energetic psychological thing.
I mean, it could be someone like that. But it's
two There's two main questions I want to bring up, Matt,
the first being the idea of distraction and now the
idea that certain esoteric phenomena are essentially conjured up as
some kind of neo mythology to launder more earthly secrets,
such as illicit affairs. It's not very original today, is
actually quite trendy, usually related to UFOs and their relationship
between the government and the people. I do have a
criticism of that, I mean talking generally, I mean, I
don't know. Maybe in this specific case it could be
an exception. My general criticism of this idea is it
can backfire so easily and so badly that I'm surprised,
as you so often, because it could end up drawing
more attention towards what you're trying to hide.
Speaker 1: In modern day terms, yes, but this wasn't the phenomenon really.
I mean, you've got the tedworth drummer which had just happened.
So I'm thinking that potentially that's on the grapevine, as
were of gossip between village to village to village. But
I think the reason why it's it stopped on the
twenty eighth was because this is getting too hot to handle.
We're getting other people that are going to catch us
out at this point. I think that's that's my own
thinking on this. However, there were some other bits and
pieces that happened, dancing knives on tables, that sort of stuff,
which happened a few months later, but then it kind
of that was it. There was nothing else.
Speaker 4: It was kind of research like this that happened with Enfield.
There was a minor resurge in a few months after
the main phenomenon died down.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Weirdly, these things do happen in waves, and I've heard
this that they kind of build it. They built it,
builds up quietly and then you get a massive peak
and then for some reason, bafflingly, it just kind of
drops away again.
Speaker 1: Yesterday. What happened to this case?
Speaker 3: Yeah, they saybe that ties in though like that that's
talked about the silence on the twenty fifth of December
and maybe with other cases as well, there could be
social things happening around their village or around the family,
and obviously their attention is diverted to deal with that
social whatever it may be a significant date the twenty
fifth of December or someone's birthday, someone is coming to visit,
and things the focus whether it's a you know, they're
they're they're deliberately stopping their activities because of that they're distracted,
or the power if there's a psychic palan's causing it
subsides because the attention is focused on some other thing
to take their mind. But it, I don't know, it's an.
Speaker 4: Interesting is because simply but yeah, just too many people
in the house in unusual people.
Speaker 1: In the house. Yeah, and I know that did Sorry
before you carry on. Second, I'm conscious you've got it
in the second. But the mother did ask whatever it was,
not to disturb the during the prayers between five and six,
and it allered that.
Speaker 4: Wow, nice, that's a very, that's a very. Ghosts are
going to be that convenient. You know, maybe they could
like do some housework as well.
Speaker 1: Well. There is that, but what also is the father?
I think she was a Jacobite and the father was
very much for William of Borrange being the king, so
there was some political tension, and in fact the father
had walked out for a year before this kicked off
as well, and it had come back. So there's you've
got a very fractured, fragile family dynamic going on there
as well.
Speaker 4: There's the idea that's sorry, there you get like a
phenomenon which is then a hoax which then gets out
of hand. This has happened before. I mean there were
there were several real examples employed too many to mention,
the alien autopsy hoax and things like that. Sorry, Colin Wolter,
but it is. And there's also the in the case
of the Fox sisters, the invention of inventors of perspiracialism,
and about forty years after they've first launched the movement,
they then made a confession. Now I think that confession
was fabricated because basically their lives were falling apart as
a result of their their celebrity status, and their barriages
were breaking down, things like this. But nevertheless, there was
a they did Conford and say, look this none of
this is real. Can we just roll this back? Can
we just please stop this.
Speaker 2: You think they were pressured to buy their husbands or
their family.
Speaker 4: They I think they probably agreed. I mean my view,
I haven't looked at the case. I think they probably
agreed between themselves to make a false confession.
Speaker 1: The third sister actually was wanting them to carry on
with it.
Speaker 4: Oh, my third sister. But I've got another point I
want to raise, but you go in. Sorry, Okay.
Speaker 3: I'll just say this about the Fox Sisters because I
actually cover them in my book, which is true Tales
of the Paranoral out there a commercial break, So basically
I covered the Fox sisters. And although it appears that
this anonymous start with the Fox sisters the house where
they were, there was actually activity in that house before
they had moved in, and it occurred to the previous
family that lived in the house.
Speaker 1: And then when the.
Speaker 3: Fox Sisters were taking away to like other neighboring houses
away from the farmer, all the villagers assembled in the
house and they were still getting the farm up in
there without the Fox Sisters being present, and they were
asking questions of whatever was causing the disturbance that they said,
what is the age of my wife? And it would
click thirty six times for you know, years, thirty six years,
and they managed to work out a kind of code
and sort of get some sort of communication gone. And
the Fox sisters weren't even present, So for them to
confess it was all fake, I think was some sort
of thing they did under duress.
Speaker 1: That's interesting.
Speaker 4: I thoughtunly the house has gone now. I mean I
know somebody who actually went to the location, you can
they know where it used to be. But I'm fortunately
that the oxs this house has now gone.
Speaker 2: The Americans or English American.
Speaker 4: There's another wish you'll want to bring up, and I
mean Matt's already touched on this, is we're talking about
a very very different kind of culture in those days,
and politically a very difficult, a very different political landscape
because the secularism we have in our current world didn't exist.
Politics and the church were intimately connected. And you've already
touched on this. Matt John Wesley presumably, as you say,
he was a founder of a new faith as supposed
in those days, you know, before it took off. He
may well have been dubbed a cult leader.
Speaker 1: What he wasn't so much a cult leader or a
new faith it's just a tradition within the nonconformism.
Speaker 4: All right, But how did this phenomena aid or hinder
his religious career?
Speaker 1: Didn't It didn't. It had nothing to do with his
religious career. It just didn't have any impact in that sense.
He he was already a believer in spirits and the
afterlife anyway, so this this whole thing that it was
interested in, and he was kept on writing back and forth.
We've got the letters, but it didn't really impact on
his breaking away from the Church of England, right.
Speaker 4: I see that's interesting because I mean, of course, maybe
again it's a sign of the times. But if you
go to if you go to a church today and
you ask the vicar about this, I mean there are exceptions.
I mean, of course Asseps President Father Lionel Fanthorpe is
an exception. But generally the clergy, it's not that they
reject it, they just generally have no interest in. Some
outly say you can't contact the spirits of the dead.
They belong to God until the day of judgment or
when you die, you won't have any contact with them.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 4: Of course, like I said, it depends on the individual
beliefs or the beliefs of the particular church. But generally speaking,
I found that the priesthood is not very open to
this kind of scene.
Speaker 1: I think, to be perfectly honest, the priesthood has been
embarrassed by it, and it's either tried to pathologize it
or psychologize it, or demonize it one of the three,
rather than try and understand it. I mean, this is
why after World War two and World War One, when
people were having their apparitions of their loved ones visiting
them and their loved one had died in Flanders Fields
or you know, far fields, and they were getting on
that night messages and apparitions and visitations, the church by
and large either pathologized that you're ill as some mental illness,
psychologized it while it was just all in your head,
or demonized it while it was just an impersonation. It
really wasn't your thing. It was just a demon. And
as a result of that, a lot of people just
went well, No, the conversation that I had led to
an increasing peace and joy and love, and these if
you know your listeners well might have heard of something
all thri to the spirit love, joy, peace, patients, kindness, goodness,
gentle as, faithfulness and self control, and they were going, well,
this doesn't make sense because this was real. I know
it was my husband, it wasn't an in firstination, and
I'm sorry, but I'm going to go elsewhere for answers.
And so they went to the Spiritualist Church, which said, yeah,
of course it was your husband, it was your son.
And as a result, the church lost a lot of
people after that, which is why the organization I belonged to,
the Church's Fellowship for Psychical and Spiritual Studies actually began
in nineteen fifty three to address this paucity of knowledge
about the afterlife and about though loved ones going into
the afterlife and how do we deal with these particular
phenomena that are coming about. So I mean, now we've
got one of our patrons is Rowan Williams, who was
the previous Archbishop of Canterbury. So you know we have
got there are a few good men, as it were,
and women out there who really do accept in the
church that this stuff is real. And you know, you
test these things, you make sure that you don't just
leave the door open for anybody to come in sort
of stuff, and we kind of don't advocate going running
around trying to communicate with them. But where there are issues,
where there's disturbances, where there is what we call the
unquiet dead, where there's unresolved stuff, then we can we
help people to understand this and reach out to clergy
who are also sympathetic and can deal with this stuff
in a way that is not just I'm going to
cast it to a pit of hell type of American style.
I mean, I'm myself am a member of the Midlands
Deliverance for them, So every year we get together a
bunch of deliverance ministers. Now you know, they don't come
in with their trench coats and their you know, their
hats and their bag, with their crucifixes and all that.
It's nothing like the ex system and deliverance ministry itself
is just it's not what American style evangelicalism portrays it
as shout it out and make a big station of it.
It's quite peaceful. It's something that is taken seriously and
there's a an intention to bring peace to both sides
rather than just cast it out and leave it to
flit about as it were. I mean, yeah, you will
get something that they work as a multi disciplinary team anyway,
so that you've got psychologists, you've got social workers, you've
got medical professionals, all of those. Each diocese, each region
has got one team associated with it and one person
is authorized and they eliminate everything that they can do
on the scientific and the physical and the mental level.
And if there's a decision at the very end that
says some of the phenomena here are really not able
to be explained scientifically, then we might be looking at
a paranormal explanation for this. And that's only that that's
the last limit, that's the last step when an exoricism
would take place at the person. But you can get
exorcism at plates as well, and you can have minor
and major exorcisms of both.
Speaker 2: So all of this minor and a major one.
Speaker 1: We think of the difference between a minor illness and
a major illness and how you treat them. Yeah, so
a major infestation of zermin as it were, and you
kind of can treat this as an infestation where you've
got a lot of spirits that have come in and
type taken the opportunity to take advantage of some of
somebody who's opened and vulnerable to this sort of stuff
who's opened themselves up. I don't believe that they kind
of just go, oh, I'm going to walk through this
place and suddenly I'm going to get possessed. I don't
think that happens at all. I think you have to
open yourself up to this stuff to be able to
for a vector, So you have to you know, you're
a tech surfaces have to be exposed for this stuff
to come in.
Speaker 2: Sort of ways would people opening up? I mean your visits,
a weed, you board? Are there any other way?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean if you intentionally try and open yourself
up to something possessing you in order to be able
to make contact, so you're giving your body over for
something else to come in. I would say that is
an open and open goal, as it were, because for me,
I wouldn't leave my front door open with a big
sign saying all welcome on it, So that would be stupid.
And then if it's that's if that's what I would
do with people that I can physically see, why would
I not? You know, why would I do that for
somebody or something that I can't physically see? M See
what I'm saying? Yeah, I agree with that. So so
stuff like that, I think a session as well. I'm
I'm not just talking stamp collecting and that sort of malarkey,
but and and help, the obsession with something or someone
can open you up to be like magnet for something
to feed off that. So it can be an obsession
for all sorts of stuff. But I'm in trouble. There
we go.
Speaker 4: But it's what I'm what I'm obsessed with is what
we're talking about now.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean there's obsession, and there's obsession, and I
mean an unhealthy obsession. There's an interesting hobby, yeah, and
you know, a hobby can get really really intense. But
when when it's taking up all of your all of
your time and it's degrading other parts of your life
flourishing as a result, I would say that the big
border line on obsessiveness that is it's not healthy. And
I'm not saying all of that is has a spiritual origin,
but what I'm saying is it can open you up
if it's certain obsession on certain things.
Speaker 2: You mentioned the archbishop being Yeah, Ryan Williams. I think
he's also a druid.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so he's a fraternal druid. So he is Welsh.
He came from the Church of Wales. So the Druids
were holy people and they have the eyes dead for it,
and he is a druid in that sense. I'm a
member of OBOT.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think where I'm going with this and
what I'd ask him is how how does he balance
and manage his Christian views and their version of things?
And then the Druidic and the spiritualist.
Speaker 1: Esque, Well, Druidism is not a religion. Druidism is a
way of thinking and a way of approaching life. So
you've got three types of druidry. You've got the druidry
that's the ancient Druids, which we know very little about
apart from Tacitus. We've got the fraternal Druids, which are
basically not religious. It's literally just things like the icetedvod
and we are holy people, you know of that level.
And then you've got modern neopaganistic druidry. So that's more
to do with the umbrella of paganism with a capital P,
not lowercase P from ancient paganists at times. So yeah,
he is, He's not a pagan druid. He's not an
ancient druid. He is a paternal druid. Part of his group.
Sorry though, he's a cultural droid. That was it, the
cultural druids, the paternal druids and the pagan druids, and
he is a cultural druid.
Speaker 4: H It was fascinating that the church I didn't notice
actually that the church is now that is actually opening
up itself up to this kind of thing. I mean,
the whole idea of exorcisms and things like this. I mean,
in the film, the Karen character, and the film actually
advises Reagan's mother that he can't actually do this until
he meets Maxwell Sidau's character, the Priest, because he says, well,
I'd have to take you back in four hundred years
and a time machine to get this done. He says,
because we don't do this sort of thing nowadays. That
I mean. I've noticed that the Muslim community has its
own version because they believe very much in the Gin
and that they the ideas are possessioned by I noticed
because I was a hospital porter. I've known many Muslims.
I was a hospital porter for twenty three years, and
they talk quite openly when you get when you usually
the hospital poring thing is like we tend to have
very intimate discussions together. And while they do describe the
presence of the gin, which are not demons, I mean
they they're actually they're said to be existing in a
parallel world made from smokelers fire that created along with
humans and things like this, and they're very often contained
in some kind of container. In the of course, Aladdin
is a lamb, but it can be it can be
any It's usually a bottle of some kind, but they
can actually, under certain circumstances, possess and again there's there
are psychological and mental conditions and indeed sometimes physical conditions
that can make you more susceptible to this. And Matt's
already mentioned obsession. It can also drug addiction and things
like this can also affect you, which and which could
be why many pubs are horned, because there are people
under the influence of alcohol in those locations. And it's
it fascinates me that there may be through through pressure
because I mean we mentioned earlier on about the people
who went to spiritualism. Have Spiritualism says they filled a
hole which the church couldn't. But there must be many,
many people who when they had these these contact experiences
with spirit, would have just suppressed them for the sake
of going along to get along. I mean, I know it.
I know a young woman from Alabama, USA, and in
her community it's actually considered anti social not to go
to church, and she goes to church, and I know
that she has a lot of thoughts and feelings and
says a lot of things to me that she wouldn't
say to her family or people are friends of people
around it. I mean, she's not a Christian believer. She's
i'd say she's an agnostic, and she's says she a
deist or agnostic, and she's quite skeptical a lot of things.
But there must be many counterpass to her, and especially
in the past.
Speaker 1: No, I mean, I now know several vicars that see
the dead well interesting and one of them used to
be a paramedic, so he was first unseene and this
couple were needing their husband to be taken in to
hospital and as they're getting ready, he said, well, what
a you're going to do about your son? And they went,
we haven't got a son at the top. He's at
the top of the stairs. And they went, but I've also,
I mean I know one also another church vicar that
is able to ask for travel, which would completely freak
out a lot of certain types of Christians. You think
it's will be.
Speaker 3: Molly when you're as a victor a traveling as a vicar.
I'll just say this, they're not going to the national
travel thing?
Speaker 1: Is that?
Speaker 3: Back in we talked about the Archbishop of Canty back
in the nineteen thirties, and I can't remember the exact year.
There was Archbishop Cosmo Lang I think was the guy
at Church of England one at the time. He actually
launched an investigation. He ordered an investigation. You would know
about this, mat but I'll just tell the benefit of
the audience. He actually launched an investigation into spiritualism, wondering
why it was gaining popularity, and this committee of six
or eight people I can't remember looked into it over
about three to four years or something like that, and
they actually sort of I think they came out in
favor of basically extending the hand of friendship so to
speak too spiritualists and saying that we could probably work
with them under certain conditions and they've perhaps got something
there that we should kind of look at seriously, but
he suppressed the report for about fifty odd years. And yeah,
I mean, yeah, I was gonna say, but there's another
end to that piece is that he actually came through
if you believe it. Of course, the mediumship of a
guy called Leslie Flint who was a direct voice media
and he, along with many other people, over a period
of like thirty years, basically came through this ectoplasmic voice
box to talk about life on the other side, as
it were. And the original report that was suppressed by
him eventually made its way to Psychic News newspaper or
magazine and they published it some years later, and that's
how it's become known today. But aside from that, I
was just interested. I was gonna ask a question, but
obviously come back to me on whatever. But I was
just really curious about the vicar that Astral travels and
what kind of things does he see over there.
Speaker 1: Well, he saw as recently past dog for one thing.
That was the conversation that opened up for it. I
don't know much about anything else that he's seen, but
I know that when we were talking about it, just
lost his dog. He said, I was able to visit
my dog on the other side. Wow. So yeah, in
terms of the Spiritualism Report, that took about three years
to create. It was commissioned November thirty sixth but it
was put in to the sort of the Big Bishop's
Council as it were, for nineteen thirty nine. But the
problem is it wasn't suppressed so much. There was a
bit of suppression because what happened was the report split
into two. There was a major report and the minority report.
One of the people that was involved in it originally
was a person called the Evil in Underhill, who is
quite a famous Anglican Christian mystic. She started off on
the report and then pulled out afterwards saying that people
were just too gullible with certain things. But incidentally, Evelin
Underhill was a good friend of Tolkien and we reckon that.
It's probably the reason why mister Underhill is called mister
Underhill for the throw Baggins because of easily and Underhill. Yeah.
But anyway, but it wasn't so much suppressed as what
happened is World War II came along and they've got
bigger fish to fry at that point. But then it
was kind of like slowly buried and left and other
stuff came and it took about forty years. But then
they allowed the full text to be published in the
Christian Parapsychologist Journal, which I had just happened to be
the editor for back in June to nineteen seventy nine.
So they reprinted the report, but they reprinted both reports
because only one report was leaked, the major report, the minority. Sorry,
the Minority report was leaked. The major report wasn't leaked.
So the bit that the psychic magazine I think like
news only got part of the report. They didn't get
the major report side of things. So as a result
of that, what we did is we brought together both
reports with a foreword talking about the origin as well.
And I mean you can get that off the church's
fellowship website. It's it's available, and I did all of
the type setting and the printing for it. Yeah, that
was another of my lockdown.
Speaker 4: Projects to be good for something.
Speaker 1: It's a blessing. It was absolute blessing.
Speaker 4: You see Richard Dawkins run something he calls the Clergy Project,
which because he apparently has met many vicars who, when
speaking privately, will say, look, I don't really believe this anymore.
But it's my job now. They go through the motion
of being the priesthood without actually having any real faith. However, yes, exactly,
get the vicarage and exactly. And but you know, Dawkins
is very in his usual sort of like very narrow
minded way. He's he's very clear that he wouldn't He's
this is a very binary thing for him. He's dealing
with priests who have become athomterialists, not priests who astral travel.
I think his I think.
Speaker 1: Reject there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he would reject priests who's who believe in ghosts
and actual travel. But yeah, it's it's a sign though
that there is this corner. There's this kind of like
facade that goes on in religion these days. And whenever
religion you're talking about has an orthodoxy, and outside that
there is and even within it there's a there is
a dart. There is like a shadow of individuals who
operate very much outside that. And it probably has always
been the case. And there's always been cunning folk in
every community, even even during the time the witch hunts
and things like that.
Speaker 1: I mean, they would.
Speaker 4: Be every village would have a person like this. It
was someone who lived on the periphery of the community,
usually elderly, usually female, who would be liked by the
community but not accepted, and people go to her for healing,
for advice, and for divination and for fortune telling and
things like this. This is where, of course, the idea
of witches comes from, which which simply comes from wicker,
which is an Old English word for a wise woman.
Nothing to do with with the neopagan wicker as such,
although it was inspired very much.
Speaker 1: Point that.
Speaker 4: So we're dealing with an undervalue that's always already always existed.
There's always existed in our culture, with our society. Every
every country must have this at some point. It is
in some part of their life. So it's a really
interesting subject, it really really is.
Speaker 1: I mean, I was researching for my book was Ancient Witchcraft,
so ancient magic. So you know, I've been doing a
ton of reading some really interesting materials, including Acadian stuff
on how to summon the dead. Thank you Evan Thinkle
for that.
Speaker 3: One, right, I'll think of that note being to say, Neil,
I wonder what caused the priests and the vickers to
doubt their faith or was it?
Speaker 2: Was it a sudden thing was it a gradual thing
or wonder what was going on there? And wortter, how
many out there actually don't believe what they're doing and
have a crisis of conscience?
Speaker 1: You know, How can.
Speaker 2: I purport all of these beliefs, you know, in my
congregation and not believe it myself?
Speaker 1: Yeah, there is a guy.
Speaker 3: I read his book some years ago, that he wrote
a book. He plays a piano. He's an American. He
used to be evangelical guy, but he plays a piano.
He used to write religious songs and things like that,
but all the time he was having doubts and things,
and now he's an absolute skeptic on the side of
the debates with these American religious people and stuff on
the platform. I forget his name now. So it's very
interesting to see those debates, right, I think we better
have a break here on the Paranormal Peep Show, we've
been changed just over an hour and out. We're talking
to Matt Arnold about ghosts and goodies and the Christian Faith,
which would be covering more of in part two. So
stay tuned for the Paranormal Peep Show on the Paranormal
UK Radio Network. The Day's the best day made life
listening to the parent Normal UK Readio network.
Speaker 6: Join Andrew o'leil every month on the Paranoral peep Show,
part of the Paranoral UK Radio Network, for fun that
frolics and lots of information about weird stuff, UFOs, ghosts
and things that go bump in the night and everything
associated with them. Fascinating guests, fascinating talk, fascinating information.
Speaker 3: Hi, welcome back to the Paranormal Peep Show on the
Paranormal UK Radio Network. We're out on YouTube and also
speaker on the Paranormal UK Radio Network and you can
also listen to us on the website there as well.
Now we've been discussing all sorts of things that in
Part one, from ghosts, haunting houses and Christians and that
kind of stuff, and we're still on that subject. We're
going to expand into that area a little bit and
I thought I'll just plug my book here for anyone
that's interested. This is true Tales of the Paranormal, published
in October this year, twenty twenty four. And I wrote
this initially at the beginning of Lockdown, but it was
kind of a ten year kind of story and that
happening really so lockdown provided the excuse for me to
actually put pen to paper, as it were. And Matt,
we were just talking in the break there about your
own book that you've been writing.
Speaker 1: You said it was actually part of a the longer project. Yeah,
so I'm just going to bring up mine as well,
the invisible dimension spirit Being's ghost in the Afterlife. Yeah.
So this was a project that came out of my
master's thesis, which was at a Methodist college funnily enough
in Derbyshire call Cliff College, and my MA tutor time
fairly evangelical guy. He looked at my proposal, looked at
my chapter headings and went, well, it's either going to
be a first or a fail Matt. So I thought, right, okay,
your challenge accepted. So that was back in probably January
twenty nineteen when I gave him the chapter headings and
that we had that conversation and I had to submit
it in September twenty nineteen. So there was a lot
of work went into that and I ended up with
eighty two percent, which got me a distinction overall, and
it did college because of the high nature of the mark,
they actually awarded the first ever master's dissertation prize, so
I collected that, thank you very much, don't and then,
having been made redundant from the Church of England in
August twenty nineteen, I was in a bit of a limbo.
Speaker 4: I took it.
Speaker 1: I took the month out in September to finish off
the dissertation. Then October came along and I ended up
going into supply teaching, which I am still a supply teacher.
I am a physics teacher by background. But and then
lockdown hit in March twenty twenty and I got all
this time on my hands, and so I thought, well,
what can I do with this time? I've been blessed
with excellent weather and I'm getting paid for sitting at home.
I can't do a lot else. What do I do?
So I thought, well, I really enjoyed doing the master's
research for this and it would be a shame to
just let that go, especially when it was eighty two percent.
They said roughly, if it's eighty percent or above this thing,
you need to sort of look at doing a book
about So I started my website ghost Schools and Good
dot co dot uk, which was a series of articles
on looking at the paranormal in the Bible, in the
Biblical texts, and taking it back to basics approach, what
did the original writers mean when they wrote the words
not does a post Reformation fifteen hundred years after sort
of that that Jesus was around. What did the original
writers mean by the words that they used for ghost
And there's different words for ghosts and spirits in the Bible.
And then the research went further with some a couple
of instances of even C. S. Lewis of Narnia fame,
he had himself in visitation by his wife his departing
by joy and he's a Christian. And then a Bible
translator called JB. Phillips had the visitation twice from C. S.
Lewis after he passed away within a few weeks, encouraging
him to carry on with his Bible translation. Now this
is before the internet, so this is before sort of
people could swap store his dead quick And also one
on the Epworth Rectory pult geist, as we said previously,
and one on the exorcism of Gottally bindittas by this
nineteenth century Luther and pastor called Johann Blumhart who really
his story inspired me to research this stuff because he
deals with spirits not as evil demons, but as people.
He discovers that some of these people are possessing one
of his parishioners, and of course there are non human
spirits as well involved, but there are a lot of
human spirits, and the way he deals with them, well,
he tries to send I mean, he does send one
to his church so she can listen to his sermons,
which is a bit of a noble am broach. He
sends them to go in the garden, and he takes
my more pastoral approach with those that are possessing because
he sees them as actually being under influence of something
that is more and nefarious and non human, which he
also eventually manages to get out of this girl. So
I did all of that research, put it online, carried
on developing other bits and pieces, and then I was
having a walk through fountains Abbi in I think it's
North Yorkshire and was chatting away with this guy, this
American couple who'd come over and he was an author,
and he got loads of questions about the afterlife from
a Christian perspective because he's a Christian. And I was
able to sort of like answer them and give him
sensible answers, not kneeja or its whole demons or things
like that that he'd been used to. And he said, man,
you need to put this into a book. I'll have
a word with my publisher. So he did it and
contract came along and eighteen months after that the book
was handed over. Sorry, I handed the book over and
it took eighteen months of editing and then it was
released in March this year. I think so. Yeah, so
the Invisible Dimension, great book. Brilliantly.
Speaker 2: You mentioned you worked with the Church of England. I
think I missed that bit, or maybe didn't. It might
not have covered it. What was your role within the
Church of England.
Speaker 1: I was on called a lay pioneer minister, so I
didn't have a collar. I didn't go to theological college
to train to be a vicar or anything like that.
What happened was that I used to do something called
Forest Church, which was, I think the best way to
describe it is a pagan style in Christ centered church
that met in the woods. Sounds good, celebrated the wheel
of the year when we would have lots of pagans
coming along as well as Christians, and it was it
was a a new style of church that we were
It was an experimental thing that we're trying. And they said, right, well,
we want to headhunt you. We'll bring you in, put
you in an next mining village and see what you
can come up with. So I'm in an next mining
village in Nottinghamshire as a lay pioneer minister. And what
we ended up coming up with because of the listening process.
Rather than doing a top down approach, which is what
most churches do, I was doing a bottom up approach.
Where is God already a work in your community? Rather
than I'm bringing God to you, I'm oh, I think
God's already there because I believe God's in everybody. So
how is he manifesting? How is God manifesting in your
life in the things that you do? And we discerned that.
We discerned that the factors that were controlling the village
were oppression, division and worthlessness. These are the main things
that were controlling the dynamics within the village. So we
worked in opposition completely to that. We wanted to give
people worth, we wanted to bring people together, we wanted
to make them not oppressed but rise up and be
able to take control of things themselves. And so we
ended up created something called pleasantly Community Orchard. So we
took a third of an acre of dog toilets with
one wall that the kids could kick a ball at,
and that was what you've got kids, Wow. And we
turned it into a fully working orchard with seventy odd trees,
a big outdoor classroom. We had wassailing in there where
people were told how we showed people to bless the
land and how the land would bless them in return.
We had carols singing with the kids making willow lanterns
that would come down into the orchard from their school
that sing carols the houses. We did Apple Day where
the kids would bring apples. The mums had chopped them up,
the mums and the mans had choped them up, the
kids had mash them up, and then the dads would
and the granddads would twist the stuff around and it
would create a community. And yeah, it was fantastic. Makee
ball dancing. I went and learned how to do it
and then taught the kids at school and then we
had the lads and dads and the mums all joining
in it. Was great fun. So yeah, I was not
what I was doing. I was actually in the community,
bringing the community, bringing the God's flavors out, the things
that are already good in the community, enhancing them. That
was my philosophy.
Speaker 2: And this was like I don't know if this is
the right word, either ordained or given permission to buy
the Church of England, given permission to the Church of
just So my question would be given there because that's
very kind of like open and free and liberal and
almost kind of like nature loving. Did you clash with
anybody within the CV in terms of how you present
this and what you're doing.
Speaker 1: Of course, not everybody loved it, but I thought it
was fantastic, you know, I mean.
Speaker 2: Really, I no, I thought there might be some old
school traditionalist like, no, we don't do that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: It's good. I just called the Pagan Vicar. It's kind
of like one of the one of the big cheeses
in the in the Deanery, which is a group of
churches in the area. So I was called the Pagan Vicar,
which I thought was interesting because I wasn't a pagan
and I wasn't a vicar.
Speaker 2: I mean, my my background I'm into the psychic and
mediumship side of things, and my philosophy is akin to spiritualism,
but I wouldn't tack my colors onto spiritualism.
Speaker 1: But that's kind of what I said. That's exactly what
I said to my.
Speaker 2: Earlier Yeah, I'm kind of like the closest thing I
would find would be kind of spiritualism as into what
I meant. So most I don't know about most, but
a lot of people on the Christian side, or the
Church of England side, or certainly the Catholic side would
view what I'm doing as either working with the devil
or working with demons, and blah blah blah. Now I
I think there's both. I think there's all. I think
there's angels, there's God, there's there's demons. There's humans as well.
And I don't like it when everyone's all love and
light and it's all fluffy and angels and all like that.
But I also don't like it when you get the
ghost hunting shows it's all demons and it's all dark.
It's not, it's it's layers of different things going up.
So what what would you say that the Bible says
in terms of working with spirits and what spirits are
and what's out there, And that's this huge question you
want to do.
Speaker 1: You want me to go, Matthew Hopkins suffer because I'm
not going to do that. So it gives you have
to know the context of what various words mean in
order to be able to understand what is forbidden. The
first thing they would say, though, is you wouldn't forbid
something that's not possible to do. Right, Okay, yeah, I
get God wouldn't forbid us walking one hundred foot in
the air if it wasn't possible to do. We can't
do it, so God doesn't forbid it. I mean the
laws of them for gravity will get you down there,
but that one anyway, so you've got you've got the
In the ancient times, at the time that these laws
were being developed about things like communication with the dead,
the idea of the Israelites was we are to only
look to Yahweh our God as being the one that
we have knowledge about the future. Necromancy is what's forbidden
in the Bible, rather than just talking to the dead,
so deliberate summoning up of the dead via spirit possession. Right,
So you basically what you've got, And the biggest example
of this is a whole chapter dedicated to it called
one Samuel chap to twenty eight, which is Saul and
the often called Witch of end Or. But she wasn't
a witch as such, not in the modern day meaning
of the word witch anyway. She was in the In
the Hebrew, it's barlett ei chef o, which is a
listress of the ov. The ove is a ghost. So
oh biddy with a little b o has got a
little circumflex on it. It's an it's an ancestral spirit.
If you look at the academic materials. A brilliant book
is the Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible.
It's nearly a thousand pages thick, and it is not
Llewellen publishing. It is It's brill publishing, and brill are
in the academics type you know of this stuff. So
it's a load of academic material on it. So what
was being forbidden was having a spirit enter you, a
spirit of the dead. Now, the reason why is because
ritually the dead, anything to do with the dead would
make you unclean, and being unclean meant you couldn't do
the sacrifices and the various bits and pieces at the temple,
you weren't allowed to go in. So by having some
spirit within you, you wouldn't be able to be part
of the national religion that was taking place, so you
would be cast out. Plus also it was seen as
again you've got the archetypal which type stuff, black magic
and all that sort of It was seen as deviant
at the time. So there's a lot of polemic against
talking necromancy, and that's and the reasons why is because
you know, we've got one spirit within us, which is ours,
and having another one in there at the same time
can cause mental issues for one thing, and we've seen
we see that where we've got a guy called the
Demoniac in Book of Mark chapter five, where you've got
the Legion, which is the band of spirits that are
called Legion. It has a mouth piece as it were,
that's called Legion. Appears in lots of modern literature, including
Red Dwarf has an episodial Legion in it.
Speaker 2: I was just going to say, because you mentioned that
the over of end Or is an end Or the
ewalk planet, it.
Speaker 1: Certainly is, yes, a different kind of different planet, and
that one's a long long time ago in the galaxy
far far away. But this, this end or is we
know where Endoor is in the Middle East now, and
there's a well. There's a well there. And if you
put yourself in the mindset of an ancient the mountains
were where the gods live, you couldn't climb. I mean
we're took not talking like ben Nevis or something like that.
We're talking ten thousand foot and plus mountains, very rarefied there.
The gods lived in the mountains, humans lived on this
Middle Earth. Tolkien didn't invent this. And then the valleys
were seen as the opposite to the entrances, the cave's
entrances to the underworld. And so you've got well as
well that is also seen going down into the ground.
It would have been seen as an entrance to the underworld.
So we think we know where this woman was residing,
and basically she would have used her as ancestral spirit
to go down into the underworld to collect the spirit
of the person that you were supposed to be trying
to contact, and then the two would come up together
as you would do the dialogue. We kind of have
a similar idea of what we've got an idea of
what she did from an Akkadian tablet that talks about
using Shamesh, which is the Samaria. One of the Samerian
gods is the big cheese god, and he would be
the one that would be able to to facilitate the
whole affair of going down bringing up the dead again.
And she was using psychotropic materials, so you'd make her self.
You put it on your eyelids and you would be
able to see into the other realm. And that's how
they were using. That's another way of being able to
enhance their psychic vision as well.
Speaker 2: So they're not actually saying that you can't speak to
the dead, They're just saying that you can't allow them
to possess with the axe.
Speaker 1: It's more about possessing, and it's more about initiating deliberate
contact to know about the future. Right, that's the specifics
of it. It would be wrong, it would be hypocritical
because Jesus in Matthew seventeen speaks to the deceased Moses
and the amount of transfiguration. So Jesus talks to the
dead when he talks to a little girl who's died
and then raises her back to life again. And the
various places in the I will wear talking to the
dead and bringing them back to life occurs. So you know,
talking to the dead is a thing. But it's about
testing this, not just accepting anything that comes through to you.
It's about what is coming through. Is it true to
what we know? And does it increase in us those
freaks of the spirit that we talked about, and or
does it sort of like lead me more on a
path of dependency on a particular person for more information,
And of course we've seen that that happens in more
I'm going to be uncharitable Charlatan type mediumship. You're on
the if you understand what I mean. There are genuine
mediums and there are Charlatans, And I would say, just
where is your dependency coming on? If you've found peace
and then you don't need to keep going back. There's
a different thing too. I need to keep going back.
I need to keep going back.
Speaker 2: More and more and more interesting. Yeah, I would agree
with the discernment thing as well. I would very much
advise people against just opening with the door. Just allowing
anything in discernment is absolutely key. What's really interesting when
you when you talk about kind of looking at the
different words and and the meanings of them. Have you
have you heard of Jordan Maxwell in your way? Of
Jordan Maxwell's work, he's very He's very into kind of
like the the Ancients and depictions and things of of
kind of how how the ancients view spirituality and Christianity.
He basically says that the original Hebrew word for God
was actually the guards, which is really interesting. Plural the
guards possibly possibly, I don't know. I don't speak Hebrew,
I don't quite know. But he seemed to think that
over time it's been changed, and it's been kind of
the language has been changed, and he's basically saying the
Guards created mankind plural is interesting.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, what do you do? I was gonna say, sorry,
just to sort of touch in on there.
Speaker 3: And it does talk about in Genesis God says we
shall create mankind in our own image.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a plural, there isn't it all him? The
im bit is plural.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because Jordan Maxwell that he didn't just kind of
come to this lf out of nowhere. Jordan Maxwell, he's
passed on now, bless him, but he spoke a lot
of rabbis, and he spoke to them kind of behind
closed doors when they're away from their synagogues, and he said, what,
what do you really believe? What do you think is
really going on? And they opened up to him and
they had dialogue and a conversation, and it turns out
that what they really meant in the very very first
editions of the Old Testament was the gods or the gods?
Speaker 1: And I think with the gods, I go with not
the gods.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he seemed to think the gods, but it could
be either. So why have we got this plural the different?
Speaker 1: Yeah? So, so what you've got within in within the
biblical text if you look at Psalm eighty two, it
actually if you look at the Hebrew, and you could
do this on Bible pub So biblehub dot com has
an interlinear so you can see the English and you
can see the Hebrew or the Greek if you go
for the New Testament, and you'll see in there Elohim
takes his seat amongst the ylo Him. So you've got
there Elohim being used twice. One is used for the
uncreated Elohim and one is used for the created elo Him.
Then what what we've got to understand is the word
Elohim doesn't actually just refer to one being. It's it's
basically the Hebrew for spirits. I mean, you've got rhuak
as well, which is another word for spirit, but elo
him is like an umbrella term for spirits. Now you
have one in the In the Judeo Christian, you've got
one uncreated.
Speaker 7: Elohim, and we normally put that with a capitally, and
then you have created Elohim, which are with a lower case,
and those little lowercase elohim as is God's.
Speaker 1: So you've got God taking his seat amongst the gods.
You have this concept called the Divine council. And the
divine council is not a pantheon as such like the
but it's where pantheon type ideas come from Canaan. The
Canaanites also had L and L was the l. L
was the god most high, and then you would have
El Shaddai L. I can't remember any of the others.
Speaker 2: Where does Jahweh fit in?
Speaker 1: Well, Yahweh is is the Hebrew name for.
Speaker 5: L.
Speaker 1: Basically kind of like almost the same entity, same same
understanding ideas, kind of got these ideas, but they're given
different names. So we the Israelites would go, we believe
in Yahweh, but we also recognize that it is God
knows high l Ellon, So you're el el Yon Canaanites.
Your God knows height, we would call Yahweh. And then
you've got things for Yahweh coming from Medianite times, from
I think storm god type things as well. I'm God
of metalworking. That was so. So when you've got that
thing in Genesis where it says, let us make man
in our own image, and you know women as well,
male and female. He created that. What's going on in
there is a bit like me saying, right, Neil Ben Andrew,
let's get some pizza. Okay, heperony, I'll do the ordering,
but we'll you know, we'll get some pizza. Yeah. So
it's let us make men in our image, let us
make humans in our image. But l the l him,
the uncreated one, is the one that creates them, whereas
these are the ones, these divine council members. It's God
runs a bureaucracy, basically hierarchical. Yeah. Yeah, and so these
these ones are kind of like Tolkien zine linderlay At
the beginning of the Summarillion very much. Tolkien riffs off
this whole Divine Council idea with the Valor and the
Maya and that and Louvertar being the the the creator God.
And then you've got Melchor being the rebellious spirit as
it were. That's the second figure. So so that's what's
going on there. You've got you have got other gods
within these within the Jewish well it's not Jewish by
that point that he break understanding, but they were the
gods of the nation. So I think if you go
to Judoonomy thirty two eights, hang nine and seventeen, you
will see there that God and points over the different nations,
the seventeen nations, these members of the Divine Council, and
Israel is Jahweh's portion, So Israel, the god of Israel
is Jahweh. And what happens is you get these gods
rebelling against Yahweh. And if you read the Book of
one Enoch. I don't know if you guys have ever
heard of the Book of One Enoch. So the Book
of One Enoch basically is fanfic apocalyptic sci fi from
about the second to first century BC, where they're trying
to explain what was going on with these fall of
the rebellion creatures, the rebellious gods, and what's what's happening
is that you get these ideas that they were given
tasks to give to humans, to lead humans in, like agriculture,
metallogy and things like that, but they twisted their ways
to become worshiped themselves, and so Metallogy turns into weapons manufacturer.
So all of this kind of stuff takes place just
before the no Ach Flood, where you then end up
with this hybridization going on where some of these are
wanting to mate with human beings and have their own children,
their own sons of them as it were. And so yeah,
all of that really gets mad. If you really want
to get into this. There's a book called The Unseen
Realm by Michael Heiser and he's so he's a Hebrew
a scholar, is a PhD. Of Semitic languages, and he's
gone through the Acadian and the Sumerian and the Hebraic
materials and pulled all of the academic works together and said, well, actually,
this is what was going on at that point in time.
And he deals with the things like the annarchy and
all of that sort of stuff, rather than do it
as a Ancient Aliens approach, where you know, we just
see a pattern and then we extrapolate massively from it.
He says, well, let's see what the actual materials themselves
say in their original languages. And its a very different
thing to George t Off ancient Aliens.
Speaker 2: I was going to ask you about the Nephiline and the.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean on my website, I look at
the Nephiline and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2: Do you think they're coming back?
Speaker 1: Well, so here's a pet of theory. I mean, if
you look at one Enoch, so this is me speculating them.
If you look at one Enoch, one eenochs the Jews,
because it was at the time the Jews trying to
explain why there was this no Aic flood and what
they say is and this is possibly for moral tradition.
These beings were the offspring of this hybridization, were giants
that were consuming vast amounts of resources of the earth,
and the earth was crying out as a result, the
earth itself was suffering in the physical els was suffering
as also. We're human beings, we were also suffering, and
so this is why the Noek flood happened to kind
of wipe out that region where these hybrids were taking
place and destroying a lot of you know, the animals.
Everything was just a complete mess. It was all twisted
and supposedly a real myth. Now, if you look at today,
are there gods of the nations today? And what is
consuming vast amounts of the Earth's resources in order to
accomplish a lot for a very few people. So if
you see the news today, AI people are buying these
AI companies are buying nuclear power stations to be able
to power these energy hungry material computer systems. So things
like this, maybe the gods of today are that which
are taking over all of our lives and consuming vast
amounts of resources in the process.
Speaker 2: There's something that I there's a friend of mine who
she does writing and she kind of like she channels
she believes she channels angels and higher b beings, and
a lot of the information comes to is quite positive.
Have you heard of the name gonell before? And we're okay,
just that I might ask that one. And have you
heard of anything mentioned to do with colors? And I
don't mean the chatrisystem, the new age chatrisystem, putting that aside.
Colours to do with white and wet, red and green,
and basically the essence of our souls being associated with colors.
Is that anything you've come across before, I've.
Speaker 1: Heard of color symbolism in dreams and how we can
interpret dreams in color symbolism. I mean there's a lot
of young and stuff in that, okay, and archetypal things
like But that is really interesting because red in Western
culture tends to mean death and blood shed and things.
But if you go to Eastern culture, like China, red
you have a red letter day, it's a really good thing.
Whereas white in the West is holly and purity. White
in China and Japan is death. Yeah, so there are
very subjective things on what these colors mean. Do you
ask anything?
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is really interesting stuff. I mean you mentioned
earlier on C. S. Lewis, and this is somebody's it's
almost some very obvious individuals should I should have thought
of earlier. Really, I didn't know that about how he
sought joy Davidman after she died.
Speaker 1: I mean it said to the pres.
Speaker 4: He says the presence.
Speaker 1: You see.
Speaker 4: This is this is very very common with with people
who bereaved. I mean, skeptics and psychologists will put it
down to the grief process. They'll say, well, it's a phantom.
It's a it's a it's a mental phantom, you imagine.
But it's sometimes involves other objective phenomena, such as the
instrumental transcommunication, which is very common. Things like that, you know,
the E v P Phone Calls from the Dead kind
of thing. You know, by the way, the book Phone
Calls from Dead is It is a PDF on the
Internet's archive. You'd be glad to get it where you can.
Speaker 1: Cooper has just released it this year, new addition edition,
just down the road from it on the show. Yeah, yeah, so.
Speaker 4: I think maybe thinking of a different there's a there's
another one by two authors that came out in the
seventies movie Yeah, Robo and the other guy. That's one
come with the but I come with both. There's two authors,
but that on internet archive. It's out of print and
there's very expensive copies going around. But it's a fascinating read.
But in terms of Cis Lewis, I mean, this is
the story that it's told in the shadow Lands movie
with Ansley Hopkins is a good film. That he met
this woman from this American lady who he married, but
I mean I didn't know that. And indeed, the fact
that he came back he died instantly in the twenty
second and November nineteen sixty three, Yeah, the same day
as the Ken This is why it wasn't really good
much in the news interally frondly enough for what's his
name died the same day, a vitly the same day,
which is a bit weird, a very strange thing, very
spooky that. But he came back and appeared as a spirit.
I mean he he was open to this sort of thing.
I mean, he was an open minded guy and his
Christian devotion didn't stop him being open minded. I mean,
this is I think one of the lessons of this
discussion is that, I mean, I think, yeah, one even
people on the new age side, on the in the
near pagan side, who actually seemed to be far more
closed minded than a lot of Christians. One lady I knew,
you know she was. She was the kind of near
pagan type character. She yeah, she said she if someone
she knew she found out someone had gone to church.
She says, I want nothing to do with that. But
that's ridiculous, isn't it.
Speaker 1: It's ridiculous.
Speaker 4: Well, she was always one who's complaining about about the
other lack of open mindedness in society to her beliefs,
so that she should have looked in the mirror as
a project projection there, Jeff.
Speaker 1: The Nottingham Pagan Network I've been a member of since
twy thirteen, twenty forty, so ten years. I've spoken at
their things. I've spoken at Pagan Pride UK, which so
the openness and the welcome that I've had has been fantastic.
Speaker 3: They had the Into Faith Network sensor. Yea, yeah, I've
heard that through various Pagans things.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Could you say more about the appearance of C. S.
Speaker 1: Lewis Okay, yeah, after his death. So JB. Phillips is
a Bible translator. He's translating from the King Is. Before JB.
Phillips came along, all we had was the King James,
these hours, thou shalt not thou shalt, and this that
and the other Old English. You have to be fairly
Shakespearean to understand what the words meant, and a lot
of the words were dead by this point or false friends.
So he's working on a modern translation into moder English
of the New Testament, and he's struggling and finding it
really quite difficult. So he sat there one day watching
the telling. And this is corroborated by his wife, who
was later some decades later, confirmed that to somebody that
this definitely did happen. She said, he said, I was
sitting there, and then suddenly Lewis appeared to me, you know, radiance,
full of life, and he just said, it's not as
difficult as you think it's going to I think it is,
And that encouraged him to keep going, and he had
a second visitation some time later from Lewis, again again
encouraging him. Now a lot of my friends will go, oh, wow,
you know that it's demons, isn't it. Well, this a
bit of an own goal, isn't it. If they had
been creating a Bible translation that you know, going to
put them out of a job. As it were.
Speaker 4: This is a thing that this might be the motivation
for some of the hostility you might get from some quarters.
It's because they, you know, the heaven is you know.
The Orthodox Orthodox religions have a particular vision of the
art life and usually these in certain individuals who are invested,
shall we say, institutionally in people believing in it, which
includes obviously the it's I don't want to sound cynical,
but also there's a lot of money involved in these things,
quite a lot.
Speaker 2: Has anyone heard that the American original bit of rights
was not exactly channeled but they had was inspired I
suppose by a spiritual communication of such as anyone heard
that that.
Speaker 1: Wasn't a thing?
Speaker 4: No, I know that.
Speaker 2: One of the inspires is probably the better word.
Speaker 4: The flag was actually the US flag, the original flag
which actually had an eye, had a panalticon eye on it,
that was actually delivered to I forgot who was who
designed it one of the founding fathers, by what he
describes as a as a as a sort of shadow being.
It actually appeared in his garden.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a new flag or the old flag.
Speaker 4: It's not the current US flag. It's there was an
original flag that was designed before the revolution that actually
had a panopticon on it that and it does appear.
It's this symbol that appears on the dollar bill.
Speaker 2: Essentially, So you talked about the illuminati pyramid.
Speaker 4: Although they didn't use that, they didn't call it that
when it was created, but it's often used as symbol
for the illuminality. But that was actually on the on
the first design, the first draft design for the American flag.
Speaker 2: I think it's also on the French either, either the
French Constitution. I've seen something that's French, because of course
there's there's a lot of linking between France and America.
For whatever is like the French French Freemason's center of
the Statue of Liberty. Something else, something was pointed out
to me recently that really concerned with the American Statue
of Liberty that was given by French free Masons to America.
The ankle has got a chain on it.
Speaker 4: Did you know that, no, that this this sort of
thing just of course, I mean there's no doubt that
the John, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, all these point board
involved a secret society network. Franklin was a member of
the hell Fire Club that used to meet in some
caves not far from where I live actually, And I
do know that the the eye you see this, the
eye is a symbol. I mean, you've used going back
to Tolkien. Tolkien used the eye of sour on this
this eye that's on the top of the tower that
sees all through through through walls, through land, through flesh
and things like this, and can and through the ring.
It has the ability to like control Frodo. And then yeah,
the Palatiner, of course is it appears in the Paneteer.
It's and you find it's in fiction. You find it
everywhere because the the there's this phrase of the eye
is the window on the soul. We know that we
if if you're communicating with someone you'ren't looking and you
don't make eye contacts, it's uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: I know that.
Speaker 4: When I was interviewed by the police after I was arrested,
I was very careful not to make eye contact with
them because I wasn't in trouble. I mean, they let
me go.
Speaker 1: But the mummy what you arrested for.
Speaker 4: I was held in suspicion of violent disorder, which I
was innocent of. But I mean, while I was being interviewed,
I was careful not look into their eyes because you
can give information now just very micro expressions in your
iris and things like this. So it's interesting that that
one's actually appeared in that way. It appeared on the
flag in that way.
Speaker 2: I mean, doctors to make sense, because the whole of
American or establishment is very, very based on symbolism. If
you have a look at they're obsessed with thirteen for
some reason. When you've got the eagle and it's clutching
thirteen arrows and you've got you know, thirteen strikes or
whatever it is, there's everything's got symbolism behind it.
Speaker 4: Ington, DC, yourself is an incredible it's almost it's an
incredible thing. I mean, you could say the same for
Paris Pariser example, when Baron Holstman redesigned Paris, it has
a lot of that same this strange thing, these strange
picture features in the architecture and things like that. I
don't know how we've got onto this subject from the system,
but you're talking about I think it was from the
totals and the dead and and the fact that the
the segway back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't remember where I heard it from, but
some people talking about the the original Constitution and the
idea for the amendments was either sort of channeled or
inspired in some kind of spiritual way, whether it came
in a dream, or whether it was kind of like
a thought process that was downloaded. But I suppose I'm
going with this. It's like there are some occasions where
positive things can kind of come through and channel through people,
whereas like darker things. I can't remember what we're talking about,
the shadow being with it, Aye, I'd see that's more
in the dark side. Personally, good and.
Speaker 4: Bad things can can come from channel information, indeed neutral things.
I mean, the story we told about the US Constitution
is not unusual. There's other examples as well. And we
know very well that some Jews and Muslims have their
own law, which is like the Jews have the beth Dean,
which is actually their court, and they and the Kadi,
the Muslims have the Caddy, the councils of the Sharia.
These are legal systems that are gifts from God. Therefore,
but people believe in that. People use them.
Speaker 5: They have no they.
Speaker 4: They're completely unofficial. They have no except perhaps in some
countries like maybe in Saudi Arabia or in Israel or
placelet not even in Israel. Israel has a secular constitution,
but I know there were theocracies of various kinds. But
these things that have described as channel. And we know
that Mohammad himself was shown a golden book or a
book full of information, and Graham hank Bo says that
this and this became the Holy Koran. And Graham Hancock
said in his book Supernatural that is another common feature
where someone who is showing information in like a book,
usually with pages made of gold. Another one is yeah,
I was just thinking, yeah, are you You took the
words around my mouth. Joseph Smith, he dug He reports
that he was on a farm and he dug a
hole in the ground and there was this golden book
which there was an angel that showed him little the
fact that he was but bankrupt and his house, his
farms about to be mortgage. You know, he influenced him slightly.
But I don't want to sound too cynical, but I
mean this, this is it's a recurring theme throughout history.
That's the world we live in. It has this background
to which is which is spiritual. Whichever country you're in,
whichever whether it's a religion, whether it's a state, you
find this background to them which are spiritual dimension.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's I mean, since the Enlightenment, we've
had this disenfranchising disenchantment of the world with scientism taking
over like Dawkins and that. But actually, when you look
at the data from research from polling, we are actually
one going back to a re enchanted, magical world where
people have had enough of oh well, we're just a
collection of atoms, meaningless collection of atoms. But actually we
have got purpose and meaning beyond that the physical nature
that we are.
Speaker 4: I can attest to that, actually because I've always taken
strong interest in skeptics on the skeptic movement. Actually went
to a skeptic conference a couple of weeks ago. They
are there is something in a sense they believe they've
broken free from all belief systems. Yeah, they have a belief.
Speaker 2: System, they've created their own.
Speaker 1: They've got a highest absolutely, although I mean skepticism them itself,
genuine skepticism is a thing to be applauded. You don't
believe the thing that you're told you. What I found
is that skepticism has more now become cynicism.
Speaker 4: I should I should clarify by my meaning of using
the word actually because of course the way and it's
actually the skeptics themselves who don't understand this because they
don't have the interest. They seem to like the introspective
abilities to understand themselves. They will say, well, we will.
It's about evidence. It's a portioning claims to valid logic
so as not to be fooled by ourselves or others.
It's in the Constitution of Oxford Skeptics in the pub
I'm defining people who call themselves skeptics, who more accurate
term would a more accurate description would be people who
have an igeological commitment to certain things such as paranormal,
conspiratorial matters, euphological not being true. But yeah, that's that
which whatever term, whatever word we use, that's what I'm
actually with into.
Speaker 1: Yeah, physic physicalism.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's another good one. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think I think that the best course of action
is objectivism. That is, to say, you don't necessarily believe
something or disbelieve something. You're open to all options. But
I think you might ben I think there's a mindset
like if if you're if you if you don't want
something to be true, you have confirmation biased towards everything
proving that it's not true kind of thing. So it's
it's it's this kind of thing. I mean, if you
take like a shot, like a haunted show, like a
most haunted type thing you've got. You've got some people
and I won't name that, some people who believe everything
is spirit. Oh my god, something crushes and bangs, that's
a spirit. You know, a feather floating, that's a spirit.
I think I don't think that's helpful. I think because
it can just be rational explanations. But I also think
is not helpful is people say, oh, it's all load
of rubbish. No, this is just this, This is just that.
Everything's provable, everything is explainable. You know, we live in
a three D world and that's it. I think I
think a better approach is to be objective and to say, okay,
I'm starting from a neutral position, and I want to
see what evidence there is, and and you know, go
where the evidence is. Basically, now, Matt, this is really
really interesting.
Speaker 4: Do you want if I just make a point pedantic
use the term objectivism. Some people might not understand because
objectivism is the name given to a philosophy of Iran
who was Ironrand was was a radical American kind of
liberty Russian American libertarian who wrote a number of novels
which will philosophical at bast Yeah, which is a huge that.
Speaker 2: What what what am I looking for in terms of
words being objective?
Speaker 4: But with just sorry to interrupt, but that's just yeah,
you could use the word objectivism for your own ideas
as well. I mean, there's there's no copyright on that name.
It's just that she called her own philosophy, which is
actually nothing of the sort.
Speaker 2: What would be a better, be better term.
Speaker 4: With physicalism motually all material just eighth, I say materialism,
skeptico materialism. I mean it's it's it's kind of like
a linguistic debate really, rather than because we understand. We
all understand what we're talking about, don't we. Yeah, the
four of us you understand except me.
Speaker 2: But no, I forget my point. I'm gonna I'm going
to bring in something that's absolutely fascinating. So, Matt, you
mentioned John Fraser earlier on, didn't you? And if we're
talking about the right guys, that's the Scottish guy Glasses off.
This guy Glass, very very intelligent guy, fantastic guy. How
I know him, is going on ghost walks in London.
So there's a collective of people that go on ghost
walks and we go. We used to go all over
the place before COVID. COVID came along kind of killed it.
But I spoke to John Fraser a few times, and
he's a fascinating guy. This is this is where it
gets really interesting.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: The ancient ram in in I believe it's Gloucestershire, is
reputedly one of the most haunted, paranormally active places, probably
on Earth, certainly in England. It's a very old place,
reputedly extremely hart did. It's got stories of devil worship
and I guess should close the window because it's bringing
at me. It's got devil worship, it's got kind of witchcraft,
has got lots of dark things going on, very poltergeist activity,
kind of related things, even to the point where there
were some doctors and nurses that did a sleepover and
apparently they were so scared by what went on they
actually climbed out of the windows to actually get away
from it. This is the story because the doctors and
nurses were complete skeptics. Oh yeah, it's just a load
of old rubbish, you know, And I think it was
like a charity sleepover type thing. But they couldn't wait
to get the hell out of it. Now, this is
where it gets interesting. John Fraser, I think I were
describing as a skeptic but open minded. He said he
had one of the best night's sleep in the in
the room, the haunted bedroom of the ancient ram In.
What is going on there? Is his reality? Has he
brought in in that? I don't believe that this is
real and manifested a reality that nothing happens around him,
that's of a parallel nature.
Speaker 1: What do you reckon?
Speaker 2: Because I don't know. I can't answer it. Why did
you get anything? It's just comment on something that I wasn't.
I wasn't the party to.
Speaker 4: Observe, the nurses, the skeptical, weren't they and yes, this
is it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I have no idea. It's a bit perfectly honest.
This stuff doesn't. This stuff doesn't jump when we shout jump.
You know. It's like when you've got field going. We're
not tellingybody. I'm just thinking, really, you know, if I
was on the other side, I'd be going get lost.
I'm busy that sort of stuff. We kind of treat
the dead as a toy. That's why I don't personally
like the term ghost hunting because you know, you wouldn't
hunt a human being alive. This is on the line.
Why would you hunt? Well, you so you know what
I mean? Why would somebody who was passed over? My
approach to all of this is it's a pastoral thing.
It's to bring healing and help, wholeness and peace. She's
from spirit guide saying the same thing.
Speaker 3: You know, you get ghost hunters of goa at these places,
take the temperatures of the room and listen for knox
or anything like that, and atmospheres. But they say then
the ghost researchers leave the place, but they don't give
any consideration to where the soul is at there or you.
Speaker 1: Know absolutely I mean, so I'm going to pull this
out again. Last chapter talks about when I went to
a place called Saint Bebel's Castle if you don't know,
if you've ever heard of it. So I first came
across Saint Rebel's Castle on Great British ghosts.
Speaker 2: Oh I love that, good, Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1: So she went through a place called St Brebel's Castle
and I was watching it and saw this Youth Hostel
Association sign on the door and thought, well, I'm a
member of the youth hostel. Weird because it was a
cheap holiday for me to take three lads and my
wife too, so I looked it up. Brilliant, excellently. They've
got some you know, they're still taking people in. This
was just before lockdown, so between Christmas and New Year
twenty nineteen, I took the family down to Saint Rebel's Castle.
The lads didn't know what we were going to, only
my wife did. And we're climbing up the hill because
it's you know, we came in on the not through
the right road. We came on the river road and
we were climbing up this hill. Get to the top
and it's completely misty and just backle it with this
castle and it's fantastic. But we spent three nights there
over Christmas and loved it. No spooking has happened at all.
Went back again in.
Speaker 4: There.
Speaker 1: It was October twenty ninety, twenty twenty two, nineteen twenty two. Yeah,
that looked stupid. Went back in October twenty two at
the half term and we were there from the Monday
to the Thursday, so three nights and on. Nothing happened.
And I was just listening in on what was going
on at the same time. On the Monday, arrived a
walking group with women, elderly women, elderly men, and they
had two dormitories, two of the big dormitoriates. So when
I'm talking to the manager at the place, it was
that we packed up the things. It was everything was
in the boot with the car except I just we
were having breakfast and I had a word with the
manager and having a chat. How do you know, do
you have any have you got any spooky stories to tell?
You said, well, no, not really, but we do go
and knock on the door before we enter and stay
you know, luckwid just coming in. However, she said on
Monday nights. On Monday there was a really dark presence.
She said, I've never felt it before. There was an
atmosphere in the prison and just done the landing outside.
I'm like, oh, interesting, what had happened before then? And
she said, well, we had a paranormal investigation team in
for the weekend. I thought, ah, So we had a
conversation much like I've just described about the fact that
I don't think that it's good to stir stuff up
just because you want to capture something on evidence. Why
are you disturbing the dead in that way? You know,
treat them with respect, And she was really thankful that
we had that approach. She said that. My son then
relayed that on the Monday nights, the women's dormitory had
all their windows blow open in the early hours. And
I mean, we've been in that dormitory and they're lock
handles like that, so it clinked and they're really stiff.
So all of these things opened on the Monday night
and something blew out, which was a bit weird. So
I thought, well, okay, something's obviously been messed about with,
and my family were just getting the last bits together
and I went up onto the landing and present and
I couldn't sense anything, but I just just had a
conversation and just with whatever was there, just to say,
you know, look, if there's anything that's been disturbed now
you can find your peace in Christ et cetera, et cetera,
and just doing a pastoral thing with whatever might be there. Now.
There wasn't anything that was there, wasn't anything like my
head span round or doors went banging or anything like that.
It was just nothing, nothing sensed. So I went got
to the clean my teeth in my washed bag. My
family were in the car. I went to the boot
of the car. Now, this is a fifty seven plate
with a a Bluetooth stereo that I bought from LD
about ten years previous. So my phone didn't automatically connect
to the stereo. It wasn't one of those auto connecting
ones at the time. And as I got my hand
up in the air to pull the boot lid down,
this is this incredibly loud electronic noise coming from the speakers.
What on earth is that? My family? What's going on? Now?
What's going on? So got all of this electronic dirgy noise,
and I'm thinking, okay, get into the cars playing along,
and I'm going through my phone. It's an S seven seven,
going through the phone, trying to find the app that
was making any music if it was playing. And I
opened up the LC player because that's what I used
for my music, and I close that close all apps.
It's still playing this music. And the music that came
out was had the words peace will come to me,
Peace will come to me. I'm leaving bitterness behind this time.
I'm cleaning out my mind. There is no space for
the regrets I will remember to Forget, which is the
opening the words from Depeche Modes track called Peace. Now.
I've got three thousand tracks on my phone and just
randomly it picked that one, which I didn't know what
it was, which is why I was like, well, what
is playing the I've got the album. I downloaded a
load of albums but not got around to listening to
them all at this point. So I've had a conversation
with something that has been disturbed, I believe by investigators Previously.
I've you know, attempted to broke a peace, bring peace
to the area, don't get any response. The very very
last thing that my feet are just about to leave
the ground before I jet off with the family. And
it was only when we got to Monoloth that I
found the album what it was, because we drove off
and we stopped off at Monloth Because only then I
found it was Depeche Modes Peace track, And I'm like, oh, hey,
So that to me suggests confirmation that what was there
had found peace just or it could just be, as
Chris Finch says, a massive coincidence.
Speaker 2: We never know.
Speaker 1: This is the weird thing we know, Yeah, exactly. So
there you go. I mean that's how I operate anyway.
Speaker 3: That reminds me of the story that you've told Ben,
of the Michael Shermer thing. Yeah, he's on his wedding day.
Do you want to recount that? For sure, he would
talk to the skeptics.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's a skeptic, but there was according to his
own words, this made him. This made him rock back
on his heels and shook his skepticism to his core.
It's well, it's quite a long story. I'll cut it. Oh,
I'll cut it short. He got married to a lady
in his home because you could do that where he
lives in California, USA. And during the during this wedding, NOI,
he heard music playing from a from a little portable
radio that belonged to his wife. Now that this was
very important. It had a lot of sentimental value. This
was the nineteen seventies Phillips transistor radio and worked in years.
If he didn't even know the batteries, well there was
any batteries in it. But there were batteries in it,
but they were but he he put he had batteries in.
Speaker 1: But he'd been.
Speaker 4: Trying to get it to fix it, and it wouldn't work,
and she said, don't worry about it. And it doesn't
marry it doesn't work, and he probably wouldn't pick up
stations digital stations anyway. But then music starts playing from
it and it's a song her granddad lies and and
share my wow, he's I remember these words. I don't
remember all the details, but I remember the words.
Speaker 1: He said.
Speaker 4: If I had heard this story from someone else, I
wouldn't have believed it. And I said, well, he has
heard this story from other people and he hasn't believed it.
Now it's happened to him. I was interested to see
where he goes from there because I watched his debates
with Graham Hankoll that started very very vitriolic. Then after
a couple of after doing a number of short Joe
Rogan spots, they kind of became friends. And Graham's trying
to persuade him to go to the jungle and take Myahuaska.
That's that's what will happened there.
Speaker 1: It's that big great episode.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So just changing the tone slightly as a struggle
debate I had online with someone over YouTube, and it
was basically, there's no such thing as life after death.
No such thing as medium or they're all Charlatan's blah
blah blah blah, no such thing as ghosts. And I
basically had a quick debate with someone and he said
my reasoning, Well, he said, a proper Baseian reasoning mandates
gives proper baits and values to a claim, and it
just accordingly when evidence arises to revive conclusions you had
of Baseian Ben, is that something you might have known?
Speaker 4: Yes, I have.
Speaker 1: There was this.
Speaker 4: What happened was a guy called Darryl Bem did a
psychic prediction study, or it was a quite I think
it was precognitative dreams. I can't remember or are kind
of the details. But he published a paper which said
there was something that was beyond chance that certain people
are getting certain dreams at a certain times or certain experiences.
Speaker 1: And there was a reply.
Speaker 4: A skeptic responded by saying that he hadn't used Bayesian inference,
which is a form of statistic statistical analyst analysis of data.
And I don't remember any more details than that, except
I did read I did read both papers years ago,
and I know that the skeptics didn't buy Bem's conclusions.
Speaker 3: In the end, Yeah, it's only because this skeptic that
I was debating with online, and I always picked skeptics.
Speaker 1: Good fun to have a punch up with.
Speaker 3: So he was basically saying there's no such thing a ghosts,
and he said that, you know, these people were deluded,
And I said, well, what happens when he got like
he is used an example of people with schizophrenia. He says,
homeless people, they've had schizophrenia, and they hear voices and
blah blah blah blah. I said, yeah, but what happens
when you've got two people that have claimed to see
a ghosts at the same time, you know, they've real quiet.
And he was saying, oh, but you've got to use
this basian analysis or something, and I was thinking, I've
never heard of this term, but I looked into it,
and you've got to give way and consideration to the
proper analysis of it all and things like that. But
I thought, well, even if that these people are still
not taking that data on board, the fact that there's
quite a few people that are seen the same ghost
exactly the same time it's been verified, then they're not
hearing voices. They're not schizophrenic, they're normal people. I mean,
I've met a policeman who was with his wife walking
at some stately home and they saw of ghost walking
towards them, and in fact, it followed them twice. This
goes apparently, so they claimed, and uh, yeah, it's just
an interesting thing that you know. You can't dismiss ghosts
just as some schizophrenic bloody hallucination can you.
Speaker 4: Well, the problem is if you if you say something's
a coincidence, you're essentially positing an unfalsifiable hypothesis because you're saying, well,
this is something that is physically possible, and no matter
how unlikely it is, I'm going to accept this rather
than a paranormal phenomena. If you some principle I'm not
going to detail, but just I'm gonna I say, you
have to accept every physically possible, every physical possible explanation
before you accept a paranormal solution. I don't know, I
don't know why, but they'll just say, well, that's our principle,
that's a that's a standard we're going to set. In
which case, then then debunking just becomes an exercise of
the imagination. You could just say, well, maybe with a
clown with a day off from the circus, hence my
term the day off fallacy, because you said there's no
response to that, I think because you can't say, well
that what clown, They'll say I don't know. But which
is more? You know what did it? It doesn't involve
late monsters or UFOs or ghosts. Therefore we you know,
I've come up with this. I pulled this out of
my bottom, this entire theoretical model, and we have to
you have to accept it as real because it's physically
possible and doesn't involve ghosts. So there, Well, well, why
is the answer to that?
Speaker 1: And Andrew mentioned about white feathers and things like that.
Previously I used to be a massive skeptic on white
feather I really did you know? I had smiled and
nod and do the pastoral thing, and that's lovely. When
my mum died in April twenty twenty three, I didn't
know because it was on the late bank holiday, so
it was on the start of April. I didn't know
about it until the first of May and that was
the bank holiday Monday, and I went back straight away
to school the next day because what do you do
your brother's policeman. He sorted out all of the various
bits and pieces. So, having gone down to the house
on the Monday, I you know, just said what I
needed to do, what I felt what I needed to do,
and then went back home. Going out to the car
on the Monday. On the Tuesday morning, smack bang in
the dead center if you get a corner to corner
of the main panel, not the window, but the main
panel of the driver's door, was a white feather stuck
to it. Now, I thought, it's April, you know, it's
May fledgling birds, all that sort of stuff. Fair enough,
but I'll keep it just in case, you know, I'll
put it on the desk. You know. I took it
as an opportunity to give thanks for Mum. Then my
wife was later telling this story to my eldest son
and they noticed a white feather was attached on the
cop web between her passenger window and the top of
the pillar front windscreen pillar on that side, there's a
white feather on it. She said, well, okay, if there's
something in this, then tomorrow something major will happen with
the house sale is selling your house, And the very
next day something major happened with the house sale that
was really positive and we thought, okay. Now, I'm then
relaying both these stories to my brother over the phone,
who's down in the West Midlands. It is a copper,
as I said before, and it's always got a skeptical
head on it. And I just told him that last
bit about the my wife and west son. He goes, huh.
I went what and he said, I've just opened my
laptop and there on the people and you can fill
in the rest.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a white feather.
Speaker 1: And I was thinking, okay, so that's the confirmation through. Now,
how did that feather get in there? Well, it could
have just floated in there, as feathers do. But all
these three things am I just reading meaning into it?
I could think. But also I'm actually open minded to
the fact that maybe there is more things in heaven
at birth than in our Philosophy's the ratio m hm
Shakespeare of pended Hamlet.
Speaker 2: Yes, this is this is the problem. How, how, and
why things to do with the paranormal spiritual nature can
never be fully proven because although you know, it does
look like spirits have placed it or loved ones have
placed it in very unusual positions. The fall out position,
the fall back position of like a skeptic could just
be will it just coincidentally happen to land here, land
here and land here, so we can't prove it? And
this is the this is the annoying thing. But maybe
this adds the mystery to it. Maybe we need this
to be like this, so there is some degree of
mystery still.
Speaker 1: In it, a little mystery. I'll just say this.
Speaker 3: I go because we've got to wrap up now. When
my mum passed away, she passed away very suddenly. I
was there at the house when it happened, and about
ten months later we happened to find ourselves, my wife
and I in a kind of bums on seats filler
people for a kind of an Ouigi board session with
some people in the local area who ran this Ouigi
board thing. Her good stories about the whole thing. I know,
people go Wigi bows, scary, scary, but it was actually
very interesting. And I remember the vicar at her funeral
saying because my mum wasn't religious at all, although she
was brought up as a kind of Church of Scotland thing,
that was just a label that's tagged around her from
where her background was, but she wasn't at all. She
was more interested in the spiritualism unofficial, unofficially sort of thing.
So I was kind of annoyed when the vicar said,
I'm sure that when Margaret passed on the first thing
she did when she opened her eyes, she saw Jesus
waiting for her. And I was just really silently be
peed off.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: When I heard that, I thought, really, grace me, and
so I was kind of tough to hear. When she
came through Luigi Board ten months later. I wasn't expecting
her to come through, but she came through and said hi, son,
and tested the thing.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: She gave out a name, gave up her address, gave
my date of birth, and all these things that were
totally just you need to her she knew. So I
started to then ask scientific questions, and I said, so.
Speaker 1: What happened when you died? What did you do?
Speaker 3: Go through a tunnel of light or something like that,
and she said no, sorry. I asked, have you met
your mom and dad on the other side? I said,
granny and granddad Bob was what I called them, Granny
and grandapop, And she said, yes, I have. She goes
my mum came and met me, and I thought that
was really interested. So in another follow up session about
a year after that, I said, could you tell me
more about the fact when you said your mom came
and met you? And she said yes, when I went
out of my body, she says, my mum was already
waiting in the corner of the room to collect her,
which I thought was really interesting. She made no mention
of Jesus or God or anything like that. She just
went on to the other side, whatever that may be.
Not saying there isn't a Jesus, there isn't a God.
I'm just saying that she never met him, she never
spoke about them. But I just kind of I just
had a bit of a problem with the Vicker, I think,
and that's my axe to grind, and that he knows.
But I'm thinking, no, you don't, because you haven't explored
the side of things like you have, Matt. You've taken
this ball by the horns that a lot of Christians
and a lot of religious people that have hammered people
like me and Andy for exploring. You've taken him by
and you try to set the record straight, I think,
which is really really appable.
Speaker 1: I mean that that thing with your mom would be
Colin Wilson's done a book on deathbed visitations or visions.
I can't remember what it is, but that is a
very common thing. Even Steve Jobs his last words were wow,
oh wow, oh wow. So some and the hospice workers
say that people who are passing through see these things.
So you know, I'm expecting to be welcomed by my mum.
Although I dreamt I had a visitation in a dream
a few weeks ago from her, and then following that
the next week it was basically I've moved to a
new house, so she's moved on in the afterlife in
some way left me in a dress, but I can't
remember what it was.
Speaker 3: Right, Do you want to give us the name of
your book once more?
Speaker 1: Matt? Okay? The book is The Invisible Dimension, Spirit Beans
Ghosts in the Afterlife by Matthew d Arnol and available
on all good publishing sites including the Big A.
Speaker 3: Okay, and you've also got your website, God's Ghost.
Speaker 1: Ghost Schools and good dot co dot UK. And I
also edit the Christian Parapsychologist Journal as well. Brilliant, which
is a publication of the Churchy Scholarship.
Speaker 3: Now I know by the time this goes out, you
would have done this. But you're due to go to
the Ghost Clu.
Speaker 1: This Saturday coming, which will be November the sixteenth, RBS
doing the Boltergeist talks at the Ghost Club. Yeah, with
the extra bits. Because I prepared an hour's talk for
the ass app and on the Friday morning it was
only half an hour.
Speaker 3: So oh yeah, yeah, I was kind of disappointed each
talk was only half an hour.
Speaker 1: I was a big gutted about that. Lastly once half
an hour. Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: But anyway, well done to do that talk, and well
done for the ASSEPP conference, which we me and Ben
thoroughly enjoyed. I've never had time to get there next year.
Any fine awards words Wards, that's my surname, and if
I find a words Andy or Ben.
Speaker 4: Well I'll go first. Yeah, I really, I've really enjoyed this.
It's been great fun and it's been good to talk
to to Man. Could to soon Neil and Andy again.
And if we're we're we're all in the process of
plugging books. Don't forget Rosweld Rising, a novel of disclosure.
Ten pounds all outlets now that's a that's my book,
and there's sequels. There's two sequels to that, so please
do check that out. And in the New World Order, I.
Speaker 2: Think my book will be called Screw Karstar's a fascinating
talk today. Really enjoyed, really enjoyed this, and it's interesting
hearing things from a Christian perspective as well. That's not
completely disparaging, so that that's quite because the thing is,
I mean, as humans, no matter what philosophy or what
religion you're part of, we're all after the same thing,
which is the truth. Whatever that truth may be. It's
just different variations of different takes from it. We'll want
to know is there something out there? What is that thing?
It's just how we get there.
Speaker 3: So yeah, excellent, all right, but thank you very much,
indeed once again to Matt On for joining us on
the Paranormal peep Show. So this is Neil, Andy and
Ben and Matt saying good night from the Paranormal Peep
Show on the Paranormal UK Radio Network and we'll catch
you next month.
Speaker 5: Good night, take care. Didn't much mass