Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Mark Twain Writing From Beyond The Grave

Mark Twain has been busy since he died in 1910.

In October 2006, “From the Shadows” brought you the story of Emily Grant Hutchings, a struggling novelist, teacher and writer for St. Louis newspapers, and Spiritualist medium Lola V. Hays. The women claimed Twain dictated a novel, “The Coming of Jap Herron,” and two short stories, “Daughter of Mars” and “Up the Furrow to Fortune,” to them one letter at a time between 1915 and 1917 through a Ouija board.

Through an out-of-court settlement with the publisher Harper & Brothers, owners of the copyright on the pen name “Mark Twain,” the copies of “Jap Herron” were destroyed.*

But in the late 1960s in Independence, Mo., Twain paid the living another visit. Marcene Boothe remembers those visits – they were in her neighborhood.

“We had a next door neighbor that talked to Mark Twain with a ‘Nona Board,’” she said. The “Nona Board” was a type of Ouija board created by her neighbors, John and Mildred Swanson.

Mildred Swanson once wrote she and John created the board since the word Ouija means “yes-yes” (Oui: French, Ja: German) and “there is also need for a ‘no-no’ reaction.” The word “Nona,” she explained, came from an Egyptian seeress from “an earlier time.” And with it, they, and other members of the Swanson’s Midwest Society of Psychic Research, conducted séances.

“They regularly talked to Mark Twain and other deceased people,” Boothe said. “She eventually wrote a book regarding these conversations (with Twain) and entitled it ‘God Bless U, Daughter**,’ as that is how Twain ended each conversation with her.”

But Boothe, a conservative Missouri housewife, was never invited into the Swanson home for one of these séances.

“Present? No. Oh, no,” she said. “I was never asked to join in. I think that they knew we probably wouldn’t have gone along with it. She would talk about it.”

Mildred liked to talk. A full lot stretched between the Swanson and Boothe homes, and that’s where Mildred kept her garden, a garden sectioned off by a fence the Boothe children were afraid to hop to retrieve baseballs.

“I wouldn’t call them normal neighbors,” Boothe said. “They didn’t socialize with people around the neighborhood. The only time we talked was because she’d be out working in the garden.”

But the Boothes became close enough to the Swansons they received a copy of “God Bless U, Daughter.” Because the name Mark Twain was on the cover, the Swansons found the book hard to publish.

“It was by Mildred Burris Swanson and Mark Twain,” Boothe said. “She could not get a publisher to publish a book that was written by a deceased person as she claimed the authors to be her and Mark Twain, so she published it herself.”

Only the Swansons, who are now deceased, know the number of copies sold. However, Mildred Swanson left behind a reason for seeking out Twain and writing the book.

“I spent years asking a question that no living person could answer. ‘Where do we go when we die?’ It was important that I know because a controversy, created for me at an early age, has never been resolved,” she wrote. “Mark Twain, from his home on the astral plane, with love and patience, finally restored my ordered world so that I came full circle to the origin of my problems.”

The book, unlike “The Coming of Jap Herron,” is not a novel; it is a diary of the conversations the Swansons claim they had with Twain. Swanson claimed Twain told her of incidents before they happened, such as her mother being injured in a fall, and that other famous authors were watching her, such as Robert Louis Stevenson and Edgar Rice Burroughs.

A medium from Independence, Mo., Margie Kay, said both cases are legitimate.

“Emily and Lola are telling the truth,” she said of the Jap Herron readings. “They did communicate via the Ouija board. I think this one is real … and I’d take the writings seriously.”

The Swanson case, Kay said, is a bit more complicated.

“I see them talking about the previous case – they read about it, and may even have the book in hand,” Kay said. “They were talking about how they could attract more people to join their group and thought about trying to contact Twain themselves using the same method. At first, they are not in contact with him – it may have been another spirit or no spirit at all, but later on he does come in and he is angry and amused at their shenanigans.”

Despite the 1920 Supreme Court ruling on Ouija boards, in some circles these boards aren’t toys. According to Dawn Newlan, a medium with the Ozark Paranormal Society, these boards are a dangerous gateway to the spirit world.

“A Ouija board, until you experience it, is a fascination,” Newlan said. “Your common sense tells you you really shouldn’t be doing it, but your curiosity pushes you. Once it scares the hell out of you, you’ll quit.”

So beware, you may conjure something a little more dangerous than a humorist from Hannibal.

*Not all copies were destroyed. One is in the Mark Twain Museum in Hannibal. You can also find “Jap Herron” online at www.spiritwritings.com/JapHerronTwain.pdf#search=’jap%20herron’.
** A copy of “God Bless U, Daughter,” outside of a private collection, can be found for sale at www.rogercoybooks.com.


Copyright 2008 by Jason Offutt

Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, UFO or a creature you couldn’t identify? Let Jason know about it: Jason Offutt c/o The Examiner, 410 S. Liberty, Independence, Mo. 64050, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”

Jason’s book of ghost stories, “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” is here. Order online at: tsup.truman.edu, www.amazon.com, or visit Jason’s Web site at www.jasonoffutt.com.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Life After Death -- Part 2

Author’s note: This is the second of a two-part story of Chris Brethwaite who runs the Kansas City chapter for the International Association for Near-Death Studies.

Unexplainable experiences Chris Brethwaite of Raytown first encountered in the early 1970s showed him there was life after death. Today he helps people who’ve had similar experiences.

“It’s one thing to read about an near-death experience in a book or a magazine,” he said. “But when you sit down with an experiencer and they share their experience firsthand, you can hear the sincerity in their voice. You can see the emotion of the experience in their eyes.”

Chris contacted the International Association for Near-Death Studies, Inc., a support organization for people who’ve had a near-death experience, and offered to start a local chapter.

“They have chapters in most major cities,” Chris said. “They didn’t have a chapter here in KC, so a couple of years ago I asked about starting a chapter and they were interested.”

The international group has been around since the early 1980s and not only offers experiencer support, but provides information on near-death experiences to the public and researches incidents of near-death experience.

Near-death experience is a term coined by Dr. Raymond Moody who in 1975 wrote one of the first books on the topic, “Life after Life: The Investigation of a Phenomenon – Survival of Bodily Death.” This experience is when a person dies and is brought back to life, but reports that while dead they communicated with dead relatives or angelic beings.

Ken Prather of the International Association for Near-Death Studies shared his own near-death experience with Chris at the group’s 2007 leadership conference in St. Louis.

“Ten years ago he was walking home from work and a carload of guys leaped out and beat him – I’m sure killed him – with baseball bats,” Chris said. “He was in a coma.”

While Ken was unconscious, he saw and communicated with angelic entities.

“One minute he saw a baseball bat coming at his head and the next minute he was talking to celestial beings,” Chris said. “He had a very profound near-death experience.”

Ken has mobility issues as a result of the attack, but doesn’t regret what happened to him.

“When I was talking to him, he said they’d never found the five guys who did this,” Chris said. “He said if he’d ever see them on the streets one day, ‘I would buy them a beer. What happened to me was such an incredible experience that what they did to me was a small price to pay for it.’”

Chris believes Ken because he’s heard the same results from so many people who’ve had a near-death experience.

“These people are changed. They become more loving, caring, altruistic, non-judgmental. Sometimes their spouse thinks someone else came back,” Chris said. “If it was just the brain manufacturing stuff they would be able to put it in human language. There are not words to adequately use to express what they experience.”

Each person who has had this experience, Chris said, is adamant it was real.

“The experience was more real than this world,” he said. “These people have lost their fear of death. I think for that to happen it has to be a profound experience. If all of us were 100 percent convinced there was something beyond this lifetime, I think we would get more joy out of life.”

The Kansas City chapter for the International Association for Near-Death Studies meets the third Sunday of every other month at the Unity Temple on the Plaza. The meetings are free and open to the public, but there is a love offering for the church.

“Me or somebody else will talk for the first hour on one given topic,” Chris said. “And for the second hour we talk about what anybody wants to talk about. Usually people will share paranormal experience with the rest of the group.”

These experiences range from after-death communication to deathbed visions, ghosts and reincarnation.

“Any topic that has any connection with life after death we explore,” Chris said.

Copyright 2009 by Jason Offutt

Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, UFO or a creature you couldn’t identify? Let Jason know about it: Jason Offutt c/o The Examiner, 410 S. Liberty, Independence, Mo. 64050, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”

Jason’s book of ghost stories, “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” is here. Order online at: tsup.truman.edu, www.amazon.com, or visit Jason’s Web site at www.jasonoffutt.com.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Life After Death -- Part 1

Author’s note: This is the first of a two-part story of Chris Brethwaite who runs the Kansas City chapter for the International Association for Near-Death Studies.

Chris Brethwaite of Raytown realized there was something more to life than just life when he was in high school in the early 1970s.

Chris walked into his kitchen one night; it was late. He’d just returned home from his job at a local pizza parlor in his hometown of Phoenix and ate a bowl of cereal. When he finished, he sat the bowl on the kitchen table and his view of the universe changed forever.

“I saw and I heard that cereal bowl move about four inches across the table,” he said. “I was dumbfounded by the experience.”

He mentioned the incident to his father a few days later and was shocked at his father’s response.

“He had a co-worker who had dropped dead of a massive heart attack that week,” Chris said. “My dad had seen his friend in the doorway of his bedroom. I believe the two experiences were related. I believe it was that man’s soul who moved that cereal bowl and he chose to make his presence known in a non-threatening manner.”

These incidents convinced Chris human consciousness continued after death. Years later, in 1976, his father died and gave him further proof of this.

“Several months after he died my sister woke up in her apartment and was convinced she saw my dad standing at the end of her bed,” he said. “Then she left the lights on in her apartment the next few nights.”

Chris picked up a copy of Dr. Raymond Moody’s 1975 book, “Life after Life: The Investigation of a Phenomenon – Survival of Bodily Death,” and began his search for answers.

“There’s more to life than what we realize,” he said. “In 1975, Moody came out with his book and I have followed the literature trail ever since.”

Chris’s mother died from cancer in 2006 and has helped fuel his search.

“We’ve had things happen that we’re convinced it was my mom communicating with us,” he said.

In November 2007, Chris’s sister called him at work (Chris is a humor writer for Hallmark Cards in Kansas City), which was unusual for her.

“My sister never calls me at work,” he said. “She was getting ready for work that morning and opened a compartment on her dresser to take out a piece of jewelry that belonged to Mom and all of a sudden she smelled Mom’s perfume.”

As soon as she smelled the perfume, the picture on the television in her bedroom went gray. Her first thought was the cable went out, but she could still hear the television on in the living room. She couldn’t think of anything in her room that would have a scent of her mother’s perfume and, if it did, why she hadn’t smelled it before that day.

“She was baffled by this experience,” Chris said. “One of the things she couldn’t figure out was the significance of the date.”

Chris telephoned their brother in Phoenix and asked if the date meant anything to him. It did. His brother and sister-in-law had gone to court that day to get legal custody of their younger brother who has Down Syndrome.

“That was the last piece of business that was unfinished from Mom,” he said, but his mother has made her presence known in other ways. “My sister and I have had experiences where we’ve smelled votive candles in the house when we have no reason to. We assign that to Mom who was a devout Catholic. Not only have we had these unexplained experiences but these unexplained experiences have been on very significant days.”

Such as an occurrence with a clock in Chris’s home.

“The only habit my mom had was collecting clocks,” he said. “I only have one clock similar to what she would have collected. At the one-month anniversary of her passing it stopped at the time of her death. If there is no life after death you would not have ghost stories or psychic dreams and vision, I don’t think those things would exist.”

Next week: The International Association for Near-Death Studies.

Copyright 2009 by Jason Offutt

Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, UFO or a creature you couldn’t identify? Let Jason know about it: Jason Offutt c/o The Examiner, 410 S. Liberty, Independence, Mo. 64050, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”

Jason’s book of ghost stories, “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” is here. Order online at: tsup.truman.edu, www.amazon.com, or visit Jason’s Web site at www.jasonoffutt.com.

Monday, January 05, 2009

Shadow People Stalk a Dying Man

Leslie Robert’s husband was diagnosed with end stage liver cancer in September 2007. The cancer progressed rapidly and by the end of November, he was close to death. During this time he started talking about people no one else could see.

“He claimed to see shadow people standing at the edge of the room watching him,” Leslie said. “He said that there were at least 12 to 20 of them and they were always present listening to our conversations and watching as we nursed him through his illness.”

Although Leslie’s husband was weak, he insisted they take a trip to Redding, Calif., 150 miles away.

“I did not want to go because I was extremely worried about him, but because he insisted, we went,” she said.

They spent the first night of their trip in a motel, but Leslie soon found they were not alone.

“He and I were laying on the bed with the TV off just holding each other and talking,” she said. “He told me not to be alarmed but that the shadow people were in the room with us paying very close attention to everything we were saying.”

Fear poured over Leslie as she scanned the room, the hair rising on her arms and neck, but she saw no one.

“He told me the reason he wanted to go so badly was he thought he might be able to hide from them at least for awhile,” she said. “This really upset me.”

The couple spent the next night at a nearby relative’s house.

“It was a very bad night both because he was so sick and also because they were getting clearer and more present,” Leslie said.

The next day, Leslie took her husband home, but the visits from shadow people grew more intense.

“I, being raised by a Pentecostal minister, felt I had to do something to relieve his fears,” she said. “I sat with him and asked him one simple question. Did he think the shadow people were good or bad?”

He did not know the answer, but he knew he was afraid of them.

“From my experience with (the) church I did know that when something of the spirit world is good you knew it,” she said. “There only seemed to be doubt and fear if the spirits were evil.”

She slid her hands into her husband’s hands and prayed for the shadows to go away.

“I addressed the spirits that he was seeing and let them know that my husband was a child of the light, and a child of the almighty God in heaven,” she said. “I claimed my home a home of light and a dwelling of peace and love. I rebuked the spirits and told them that there was no place for them there and that in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost they could not remain.”

The moment the prayer was over, her husband jerked violently.

“My husband … looked at me with wide open eyes and said ‘you just took what I was using to keep me here,’” she said. “I was shocked; he said they were gone.”

The next morning her husband said he was leaving and an hour later he went into a coma. He died two weeks later. Leslie thinks she helped him in his last moments.

“I do not know exactly what was tormenting him,” she said. “But I do believe they were not good forces because otherwise I could not have sent them out.”

Copyright 2009 by Jason Offutt

Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, UFO or a creature you couldn’t identify? Let Jason know about it: Jason Offutt c/o The Examiner, 410 S. Liberty, Independence, Mo. 64050, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”

Jason’s book of ghost stories, “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” is here. Order online at: tsup.truman.edu, www.amazon.com, or visit Jason’s Web site at www.jasonoffutt.com.