This is a modest but true story. Make of it what you wish.
My mother was terminally ill from heart disease and was very near death. She was quite afraid of dying. The mother of my brother's girlfriend at the time (now his wife) allegedly had some psychic ability and was asked by my brother if she could offer our mother any consolation. She told him to tell her Alice would be there waiting for her.
When my brother told me that, I didn't get it because the only Alice I could remember was a neighbor who lived in the house behind my mother for a few years, but while they were friendly, they were hardly close. But then my brother said no, there was another Alice, and suddenly that made perfect sense. This Alice had died so many years before that I had completely forgotten about her, but they had been very close. They had grown up together and gone to the same schools, and Alice later moved to the same town about a mile away. Parenthetically, Alice had died quite suddenly from a cerebral hemorrhage, and was found on the kitchen floor by her young son when he came home from school.
I met this psychic woman only once briefly. She seemed quite shy and unassuming. From what I understand she communicated through some Catholic saint although to my knowledge she was not particularly devout. She did not have these revelations or whatever you choose to call them very often, and she did not accept anything in return for them according to my brother. As I understand it, the whole thing was rather a private matter within the family. I regret that I do not have any statistics on the accuracy of her predictions.
I cannot say whether I really believe in her abilities or not. She never volunteered anything of interest to me, nor did I ask. The only thing she said to my mother was what I described above, and I think even a hardened skeptic would have to admit that it was an extraordinary coincidence to randomly pick the one name that in my opinion would be the most appropriate person in this case. When I went through my mother's personal belongings after she died I did find materials relating to a number of other people I recalled, but Alice was in my mind the closest person to her throughout her life, except for her own mother. Let's admit it, Alice is not that common a name, and I have no reason to believe this person would have acquired any detailed knowledge of my mother's life by any method.
I was not at the hospital when my brother conveyed this information to my mother, but he said it was a great comfort to her, as I would expect under the circumstances. My brother did not recall having mentioned Alice to the woman, and given that he had been dating her daughter very briefly at that time, there is no reason that her name would have come up. He told me himself he had forgotten about Alice, as I had, until her name was mentioned.
As for myself, I am in a very nominal sense Christian, but in reality somewhere between agnostic and atheistic. I think you only have to open your eyes or watch 5 minutes of the news to see that there is no such thing as a benevolent god. I think religion is just a psychological crutch to help man deal with the uncertainties of life, and especially of death. The Bible says God made man in His image, but to me it seems just the other way around. And if there is one true god, why are there so many different competing religions? And why does the Bible supposedly have internal inconsistencies among the Gospels? Seems hard to explain.
I do like the idea of the near-death experience, but that is not to say I believe it. I found Kenneth Ring's book 'Life at Death' (title?) intriguing, but don't know what to make of it in the final analysis. I have no idea what happens to us after we die, and no strong opinions on the question either.
By training I have degrees in biology and computer information systems. I consider myself a scientist.
I did see Randi a number of years ago in a PBS Nova program debunking the various fraudulent psychics like Yuri Geller and exposing their techniques. John Edward and the rest of them are obvious frauds, no doubt about it, but that is not necessarily to dismiss the phenomenon altogether. Ultimately we believe what we choose to believe.
My mother was terminally ill from heart disease and was very near death. She was quite afraid of dying. The mother of my brother's girlfriend at the time (now his wife) allegedly had some psychic ability and was asked by my brother if she could offer our mother any consolation. She told him to tell her Alice would be there waiting for her.
When my brother told me that, I didn't get it because the only Alice I could remember was a neighbor who lived in the house behind my mother for a few years, but while they were friendly, they were hardly close. But then my brother said no, there was another Alice, and suddenly that made perfect sense. This Alice had died so many years before that I had completely forgotten about her, but they had been very close. They had grown up together and gone to the same schools, and Alice later moved to the same town about a mile away. Parenthetically, Alice had died quite suddenly from a cerebral hemorrhage, and was found on the kitchen floor by her young son when he came home from school.
I met this psychic woman only once briefly. She seemed quite shy and unassuming. From what I understand she communicated through some Catholic saint although to my knowledge she was not particularly devout. She did not have these revelations or whatever you choose to call them very often, and she did not accept anything in return for them according to my brother. As I understand it, the whole thing was rather a private matter within the family. I regret that I do not have any statistics on the accuracy of her predictions.
I cannot say whether I really believe in her abilities or not. She never volunteered anything of interest to me, nor did I ask. The only thing she said to my mother was what I described above, and I think even a hardened skeptic would have to admit that it was an extraordinary coincidence to randomly pick the one name that in my opinion would be the most appropriate person in this case. When I went through my mother's personal belongings after she died I did find materials relating to a number of other people I recalled, but Alice was in my mind the closest person to her throughout her life, except for her own mother. Let's admit it, Alice is not that common a name, and I have no reason to believe this person would have acquired any detailed knowledge of my mother's life by any method.
I was not at the hospital when my brother conveyed this information to my mother, but he said it was a great comfort to her, as I would expect under the circumstances. My brother did not recall having mentioned Alice to the woman, and given that he had been dating her daughter very briefly at that time, there is no reason that her name would have come up. He told me himself he had forgotten about Alice, as I had, until her name was mentioned.
As for myself, I am in a very nominal sense Christian, but in reality somewhere between agnostic and atheistic. I think you only have to open your eyes or watch 5 minutes of the news to see that there is no such thing as a benevolent god. I think religion is just a psychological crutch to help man deal with the uncertainties of life, and especially of death. The Bible says God made man in His image, but to me it seems just the other way around. And if there is one true god, why are there so many different competing religions? And why does the Bible supposedly have internal inconsistencies among the Gospels? Seems hard to explain.
I do like the idea of the near-death experience, but that is not to say I believe it. I found Kenneth Ring's book 'Life at Death' (title?) intriguing, but don't know what to make of it in the final analysis. I have no idea what happens to us after we die, and no strong opinions on the question either.
By training I have degrees in biology and computer information systems. I consider myself a scientist.
I did see Randi a number of years ago in a PBS Nova program debunking the various fraudulent psychics like Yuri Geller and exposing their techniques. John Edward and the rest of them are obvious frauds, no doubt about it, but that is not necessarily to dismiss the phenomenon altogether. Ultimately we believe what we choose to believe.
