The Christos Phenomenon

By Alistair Blennerhassett

The Christos phenomenon is a quick, simple and highly effective technique that enables ordinary people to experience their spirit travelling free from the confines of their body, and to experience lives set in times long gone. The clarity, vividness and reality of the sensations can cast everyday life into the shade. Anyone can induce this altered state of consciousness in a willing subject on the basis of a page of instructions. The technique is rapid; it normally requires 5 to 15 minutes to bring about the experience. It is efficient; it works on most people and generally works the first time it is tried. It works on skeptics and believers alike. It is legal; no drugs, illicit or otherwise, are required. It is memorable; the recollection of events can remain compellingly clear for decades.
There is only one catch. The method is so blazingly simple and effective that it is very hard to convince people that it exists, works and is worth taking seriously. This is a great pity, because the phenomenon is a unique and powerful tool for exploring the universe of spirituality and some of the more spectacular capabilities of the human mind. Skeptics and open-minded people are united in dismissing the phenomenon as being of no interest. This book may change their minds.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alistair Blennerhassett
• Release date: Mar 21, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476473093

Alistair Blennerhassett

Alistair Blennerhassett has degrees in mathematics and philosophy. He has spent most of his working life in the field of Information Technology and is now retired. This is his first book.

Book preview

The

Christos

Phenomenon

An Experiment

in Time, Space, Mind and Spirit

Alistair Blennerhassett

© 2012

Smashwords Edition

Dedication

To NKB;

for everything, and then some.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the Auckland University Department of Philosophy for their attempts to educate me. Errors in this book cannot be laid at their door. I’d like to express my gratitude to AHI and JMDM and my fellow thespians for the Batts tour, scene of a crucial experiment, and to the other (pseudonymous) friends who put themselves into my hands for the Christos experiments. Finally I would like to thank Nancy for very helpful criticisms and especially Dr Robert Leek for undertaking to edit my unpolished prose

Warning

The techniques and methods described or mentioned in this book are not known to be safe, and can result in some extremely unpleasant and disturbing experiences. Anyone who tries them does so entirely at their own risk and the author can take no responsibility for and cannot be held liable for any results.

Table of Contents

Preface

1 – The Christos Experiment

2 – Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On

3 – Moments of Lucidity

4 – The State of Hypnosis

5 – The Meaning of Lifetimes

6 – Time Out of Mind

7 – Have Dream, Will Travel

8 – The Plastic Plane Model

9 – The Spiritual Hitchhiker’s Guide

10 – Experimental Theology

Appendix – The Christos Technique

Bibliography

Preface

The Holy Grail for projectors and OBE researchers is a reliable key to planned and repeatable out-of-body experiences.

Robert Bruce – Astral Dynamics

Veridical; adj.; truthful, coinciding with reality.

The Christos phenomenon is a quick, simple and highly effective technique that allows ordinary people to experience their spirit travelling free from their body. They can roam where they will, and experience lifetimes from long ago. The clarity, vividness and reality of the experience can cast everyday life into the shade. Anyone can induce this altered state of consciousness (ASC) in a willing subject on the basis of a page of instructions. The technique is rapid; it normally requires 5 to 15 minutes to bring about the experience. It is efficient; it works on most people and generally works the first time it is tried. It works on skeptics and believers alike. It is legal; no drugs, illicit or otherwise, are required. It is memorable; the recollection of events can remain compellingly clear for decades. It is the Philosopher’s Stone of occult research.

For thousands of years humans have believed that there is a world beyond the commonplace, and have sought means to pierce the veil they believed separates the mundane from the divine. Hesitant paths to the unseen world have ranged from the mind-bending volcanic fumes that wreathed the Oracle’s cave at Delphi in ancient Greece, to the kaleidoscopic head-crashes induced by the natural hallucinogens peyote and mescaline. Along the way people have tried starvation, meditation, sleep-deprivation, repetitive chanting or dancing, LSD and sweat lodges. The efficacy of all these and other methods has been uncertain, sometimes dangerous and usually beyond the province of ordinary men; reserved for shamans, yogis, adepts and a few naturally gifted individuals. The Christos method provides mere mortals with the much-sought-after reliable technique to draw aside the draperies obscuring the world of the spirit.

There is only one problem. The technique is so simple and straightforward that it is very hard to convince people that it exists, works and is worth taking seriously. At the very least, people seem to feel that this type of exalted experience would be limited to those who have spent decades meditating in a Himalayan cave under the iron discipline of a cadre of Tibetan Masters, or something equally designed to sort the spiritually worthy from the common clay.

The Christos phenomenon is no secret. It seems to have been invented by Bill Swygard of Miami, Florida, in the second half of the twentieth century. He described it in a few self-published books of limited circulation. The technique was picked up by Joy and Nicolas Parkhurst of Western Australia and given slightly wider circulation in their privately published periodical "Open Mind." From there it came to the notice of the Australian novelist Gerald Marcus Glaskin, who wrote three books on the subject. That seems to have been largely the end of the systematic investigation of the topic.

There was a resurgence of interest in what are termed Out-of-Body Experiences (OBEs) amongst academic parapsychologists in the last few decades of the twentieth century. Researchers have generally had to rely on surveys, or a few naturally skilled individuals, or awkward electronic arrangements, in order to study OBEs. Few seem to have heard of the Christos phenomenon. If they have, it has not appeared in the literature alongside some of the strange methods used to induce ASCs, if only to be written off by researchers as a blind alley. The Christos phenomenon does not even turn up in the more exhaustive skeptics’ pages on the Internet, there to be disdained as unworldly fantasy.

There is more awareness of the Christos phenomenon amongst people with an interest in New Age or unconventional spirituality. But even there it has limited visibility. Consult any (printed) encyclopedia of the occult and you will not find a reference to the Christos experiment. It does not appear to form the basis of any recent mainstream books, although there are Internet references to the topic. In general it does not seem a subject considered worthy of serious attention among those who have heard of it. The limited New Age community use of the technique seems more for the purpose of personal growth rather than systematic investigations that might benefit others.

My particular interest in the Christos phenomenon was as both a psychological syndrome and an exploration of ASCs. However, I was not trained in psychology, so I attempted to interest more academically-minded friends and acquaintances. The general response I encountered was that the phenomenon was very likely a form of hypnosis, a kind of dream, or a type of lucid dream. The inference was that these types of ASC; hypnosis, dreams and lucid dreams, were well understood. Therefore the Christos phenomenon was of no particular interest, because it was a mere variation on thoroughly-researched and fully-understood topics. A less charitable explanation of their lack of excitement would be that they thought I was mad and hoped I would go away without making a public scene. But one cannot help speculating that skeptics, deep down, may feel that because psychic events cannot exist, psychic experiences cannot exist. If there are psychic experiences they can only be insipid fantasies produced by weak and gullible minds. Conceding that experiences of the Christos kind exist and are stunningly realistic might threaten the skeptic’s cherished worldview. In any case, I was on my own in my desire for methodical investigation.

I thought my mentors might have been unduly hasty in their dismissal of the phenomenon. It appeared to have some applications to dream research, at the very least. More importantly, even if it was a subcategory of conventional ASCs, perhaps those ASCs were not as well understood as people might think. The Christos phenomenon, as an experimental technique, might be used to shed some light on some ASCs. It was certainly a good tool to investigate whether OBEs could produce true reports of unseen distant events. The ability for almost anyone to easily explore what seem to be past lifetimes might present a challenge to materialist thinking. A demonstration that this type of ASC experiences is true, or veridical, would have tremendous ramifications for our understanding of the world. The existence of a non-material component to humans, be it the ability of the spirit to leave a living body and travel across the world, or even to survive bodily death, is not accommodated by the current scientific ethos. If ASCs induced by the Christos, or any other method, could be demonstrated to be veridical that would prove the universe is more interesting than the materialists would have us believe.

There are many published techniques for inducing ASCs for OBEs and the experience of past lives. The advantage of the Christos phenomenon is that it is simpler and much more reliable than other techniques. Psychic events are notoriously difficult to reproduce under stringent conditions, so the Christos technique would allow enough methodical experiments to verify the truth of the ASC experiences.

The prize for a successful demonstration of the reality of psychic events is immense. It would completely transform our understanding of the world and our place in it. It seemed worth spending a little time investigating the Christos phenomenon to see if it is wrong to scorn it as simply an uninteresting manifestation of well-understood states of consciousness.

The Christos Experiment

G. M. Glaskin conducted hundreds of Christos experiments and wrote about them in three books; Windows of the Mind, Worlds Within and A Door to Infinity. A friend of mine had bought and read Windows of the Mind. Like so many others, her reaction was This is very interesting, but it can’t possibly work and she hadn’t tried the techniques described. When I read the book, I thought it was ridiculous too, but we decided we’d try anyway and see what happened.

The process requires a subject and two helpers, one of whom will run the experiment, guiding the subject through the preparations and then asking them about their experiences as they happen. The subject lies down comfortably, and one person massages them while the other instructs them in the necessary mental exercises. Once the subject has mastered the simple visualizations, they are told to imagine their whole body blowing up like a balloon.

Can you do that?

"Yes." Kathryn’s voice is very quiet.

Now go and stand outside your front door.

"Which front door?"

The one here, at the flat.

"OK, I can see it!" Her voice remains quiet and almost expressionless throughout the session, but a small rill of excitement is running through it.

Describe it. There follows an accurate description of the flat’s front door.

Now turn around, and tell me what you can see.

"I can see the street outside. There are lots of cars parked out here, but I can’t see any people."

Now I want you to float up to the level of the rooftop, and tell me what you can see.

"I can see the roof tops all around, and lots of chimneys. I’m drifting higher now, and I can see further, over the trees into the park. Still not many people around though."

Do you feel comfortable? Are you happy that we should continue?

"Yes."

So that you know you are in complete control of the situation, I want you to see the same scene at night time. Can you do this?

"Yes."

Now turn night back into day. Can you do this?

"Yes."

Glaskin recommends this exercise to give the subject, and the experimenter, confidence that they have control over their experience.

Now float up to cloud level and head off in whichever direction feels comfortable.

"OK, I’m above the clouds now and I’m floating along quite fast."

Come down to land when you feel ready.

"OK, I’m coming down through the clouds now. I can see land below. I’ve landed. My feet! I can see my feet! They’re huge and black and I’ve got very rough and horny toenails!" Kathryn has small, dainty and Anglo-Saxon-colored feet in real life.

Look around you. Tell us what you can see.

"I can see desert all around me. I’m sitting in the shade of some rocks. I think I’m in Australia, it’s all red desert. I’ve got a spear. I’m a man! I think I’m an old Aboriginal man."

Do you know your name?

"No."

Do you know what year it is?

"No."

Do you know whereabouts in Australia you are?

"No."

Are there other people with you?

"No. I’ve been left here to die. The tribe have all gone off and left me by myself to die. I’m too old to keep up. I’ve got a little dried food and some water. They’ve left me in this patch of shade to die, because I’m too old."

And that was the sad story she told. There was more description of his group, its customs and food sources. The man had children, relatives and friends but they had all regretfully abandoned him, as was the custom of his tribe, with only a sere red-ochre landscape for company. The Australian outback is vast areas of harsh and pitiless desert. The only way of surviving there in pre-European times was to be nomadic; otherwise the local food supplies would soon be exhausted in the very fragile ecology. If a member of the tribe couldn’t keep up, they would put the whole tribe at risk. So, sometimes, old individuals would be left to die alone, for the greater good of the tribe.

Do you want to come back now?

"Yes."

OK, you can come back now.

I must admit to feeling a bit nervous at this point, because the experiment had been so startlingly successful that I was concerned that retrieving my friend from her mental excursion might not be easy. But it was.

I’m back! she said.

All our flatmates had witnessed the experiment. We gathered around, rather stunned.

How long have I been away?

About an hour and a half.

It seemed much shorter than that.

We questioned her about her experience, which she could recall in great detail; her surroundings and the spear and food that man had been left. There really wasn’t much more to add in the way of events, however. Kathryn could recall some details about his tribe, and the family that had gone away without him, but that was all. He had no sense of bitterness at the turn of events. He was alone with a little bit of food and water, waiting to die of starvation or thirst. This was the way of things in that part of the world, and it had to be accepted. Both Eyre and Dawson, writing in the 19th century, attested to this custom from their personal observations.

It was obvious that it had been an extraordinarily vivid and moving experience for Kathryn: It was more real than reality!

Glaskin’s books are a rich source of Christos cases. He encountered the technique reading Open Mind while visiting friends, Joy and Ray. They, too, had been intrigued by the idea of the Christos technique but had never got around to trying it. Glaskin agreed to be their first subject, and describes his experience in Windows of the Mind. After going through the preparatory exercises he found himself as a man in a small city, which he felt was in Egypt thousands of years ago. Glaskin didn’t know the man’s name, but knew that he was the elected leader of the city and about 28 years old. Joy asked him if he could describe his appearance and Glaskin was able to describe himself as extremely tall and slim, dark-skinned with coarse leg hairs. He was elaborately dressed and decorated, wearing a large gold finger ring with a huge sapphire, and ivory earrings and nose ornaments which he knows are richly carved; all badges of rank. He was standing in blazing desert sunlight outside a large stone building, made from roughly-hewn blocks, about to enter through a pair of doors. Glaskin was able to describe the door, doorway and building in remarkable detail, including the unusual opening arrangements of the doors, where one opened inwards and the other outwards. He went inside into almost total darkness. He had to wait until his eyes adjusted sufficiently to see by the daylight that poured in through the open doorway, as there were no windows in the walls. The building was a mausoleum. There were unornamented stone coffins in niches all around the walls, which he knew housed the mortal remains of previous leaders of the city. His own sarcophagus lay in its allotted place, patiently awaiting the time of his death. The spacious and peaceful sepulcher contained nothing but these modest resting places.

Having finished his inspection, Glaskin’s avatar leaves the building to stand surveying the surrounding flat and dry countryside, broken only by a dark river that flows out of sight and small clusters of palm-trees that mark scattered oases. He then walks to the nearby town, which he describes as a conglomeration of small, round, white huts made of mud and stone, with domed roofs. The houses are separated by narrow paths, too small for any wheeled traffic. There is only one larger building; his palace, which is simple of line and decoration, but twice the height of the other houses; a cool and comfortable domicile for a leader. His return is greeted by servants who offer food and water, which he declines with a gesture in favor of going to his office. There is his desk and chair, made of some kind of polished stone, and a stone slab covered in neat, colorful and beautifully inscribed hieroglyphics. The writings are part of a work he has been composing for several years, but he finds the limitations of the character-based language frustrating, as it lacks the symbols necessary to express the abstract ideas that occupy his thoughts.

Suddenly, at this point in the experience Glaskin become aware that his awareness has detached itself from the original host, and Glaskin can now see him continuing to stand by his desk, lost in contemplation. And then Glaskin returns to normal consciousness, lying on the floor of his Australian hosts.

As with most successful Christos experiments, the vividness and clarity of the experience greatly exceeded the details that might be expected from a conventional dream, or from deliberate imaginings made up on the spur of the moment. When outside the burial chamber Glaskin was able to describe the desert under blazing sun, the sluggish river, buildings in the town and some of the customs of the citizens who lived in it. He walked to his palace, into it, and was able to perceive remarkable detail in the furnishings, decoration and hieroglyphics belonging to him. I have given a poor summary of a rich description, but Glaskin was a novelist and words were his trade. However, there is one facet of his description that is worth reprising. He wrote, Inside [the tomb] it was pitch black. My eyes had to become accustomed to the dark after the bright sunshine outside. This is the kind of minute detail that dreams don’t have.

Glaskin’s hostess, Joy, tried the Christos technique a few weeks later. She passed through the preliminary exercises easily, and landed in a city she was sure was ancient Rome, as a young woman called Minna. One of the first things a Christos subject is asked to do when they become another person is to look at their feet and describe them. Joy looks down at Minna’s feet, and is surprised to see that her toenails are painted in shades of blue and green, and appear to have an enameled sheen like that found on polished opals. She described her hands as being beautiful, with tiny birds painted on the fingernails of her right hand and miniature jars on those of her left. Minna is very small and dainty, less than five feet tall, with red-brown hair in many plaits. She has a metallic headband, painted in opalescent colors. In contrast to her jeweled finery, she is dressed in a plain white shift made of delicate linen, belted at the waist. Joy describes Minna as being extraordinarily pleased with her own beauty, remarkably shallow and frivolous, rich and spoiled but still sweet and much beloved by all.

She finds herself standing at the top of some steps between tall white marble pillars on either side. She descends the steps, and walks towards a long red building feeling (as Minna) very strange, lost and alone. She is wearing no makeup, but remarks that her skin seems unnaturally pale, as if all her blood had been sapped from her body. The red building has a colonnade with an earthen floor where women and their children are sitting on benches, weeping. These people ignore her, seeming enmeshed in private grief. She returns to the building she came from, and there is a man she knows to be her father; a man of late middle age and distinguished appearance. She knows he is an important man in the city, but for the moment he, too, is sunk in sadness. Suddenly Joy realizes that Minna is dead, and that she – Joy – has invested her consciousness in a ghost. All the unhappiness is mourning for Minna, who has died only that morning, but the mourners cannot see or hear her shade as she moves among them. Minna despairs of human contact and mounts up a further step to a vast doorway in a side wall of a colorful vault. She turns right into a hallway, up more steps with tall pillars lining them to enter her own room. The room is suffused with sunlight flooding in the windows, illuminating a ceiling colored red and gilt, marble floors and a décor of grey with white inlays. On a table lies her dead body, clad and adorned as she found her disembodied self to be, but with a gold bar clasped in her crossed hands. Her dead body is as white as pure alabaster because her blood has all been drained, as she suspected.

As a result of this experience, Minna (and Joy) realize that death holds no terrors, and that it is merely as if a person has moved from one room to another, as Minna has done this day. Minna wants to stay and enjoy her glorious surroundings where she has been so happy, but somehow she knows that she cannot; she must move on to somewhere unknown. With this realization she flies high into the air over the sea and the Christos session ends.

Glaskin’s second experience as a Christos subject was as vivid as his first. He completed the preliminary exercises easily and, after floating into the sky above the cloud, found himself descending onto a bleak and spray-drenched coastline. The scene was foreboding and shrouded in night and heavy clouds. Joy, who was running the session, became concerned that Glaskin might be falling into danger and urged him to ascend again. But he could not rise from the beach. He found himself standing, cold and sodden with sea-spray, facing dark and damp cliffs with the sound of the crashing sea filling his senses. Joy asks him to check his feet. He is barefoot, and his feet are enormous with ragged toenails. His hands are huge, covered in hair and with fingernails so long and thick they are almost like talons. He is dressed only in the poorly-prepared and stinking skin of some animal, which has just enough fur to give some warmth against the bitter cold. Glaskin is conscious that he has become some kind of pre-historic human, but that his avatar has enough self-awareness of his brute nature to want to find a better existence. He has no name that comes to mind.

He had been stumbling along this bleak and hostile coast for some time. Tripping and slithering in the dark over the slimy rocks and slabs littering the beach, he suddenly notices a glow of light from one of several openings leading into the cliff face. He enters the lighted tunnel and, stumbling over its uneven floor and streambed, eventually emerges on the other side of the mountain range that guarded the coast. There he finds a village of small mud huts. The inhabitants of the village, although Glaskin’s avatar knew that they were very primitive, were still much more advanced on the human scale than the person he was overlooking. They made him welcome, gave him food that was properly cooked for the first time in his life and lent one of the huts to him to sleep in. He knew he had found the sanctuary he had long been seeking.

Richard was an acquaintance of Glaskin, who heard about the Christos phenomenon when he visited with another friend, and wished to try it for himself. He was very skeptical that the process would work, but was able to get through the preliminaries with ease. He then had some difficulty in rising above his rooftop, feeling that the dark clouds above were blocking him. Glaskin suggested that he should make a hole for himself in the cloud, which he was able to do. He broke through the murk into clear skies. Glaskin asked him to make another hole in the unbroken cloud layer beneath and Richard was able to do this. He could see a dreary landscape beneath, with a few bushes but no other signs of life. He descended into this unpromising setting, and found himself standing on the edge of a swamp. As usual, Glaskin tells him to look at his feet. After some initial confusion Richard reports that he is wearing leather sandals, with their straps encircling his legs to just below the knee. He is dressed in a tunic made of leather, with a Roman breastplate. He is wearing a crested helmet, and carrying a shield and spear. He has a