Pourquoi certaines personnes prétendent-elles communiquer avec les morts ? theconversation.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theconversation.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Jeremiah Johnson of Jeremiah Johnson Ministries | Facebook/Jeremiah Johnson Ministries
Before the 2020 presidential election, several evangelical self-styled prophets like Jeremiah Johnson predicted a win for former President Donald Trump after hearing what they thought was the voice of God.
After the real estate mogul’s stunning defeat in November, Johnson apologized to believers for whom he might have caused to doubt the voice of God because of his failed prophesy while assuring them that God still speaks and is “not a liar.”
“I was wrong, I am deeply sorry, and I ask for your forgiveness,” he wrote. “I specifically want to apologize to any believer in whom I have now caused potential doubt concerning the voice of God and His ability to speak to His people. As a human being, I missed what God was saying; however, rest assured, God Himself is NOT a liar and His written Word should always be the foundation and source of our lives as Christians.”
Two key factors facilitate the experience of spirits or gods
Human history has been shaped by vivid experiences of gods and spirits, from Augustine’s conversion to Christianity after hearing a disembodied voice to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s decision, after hearing God’s voice, to move ahead with the Montgomery bus boycotts.
Now Stanford University anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann, the Howard H. and Jessie T. Watkins University Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences, has identified two attributes, porosity and absorption, that make individuals more likely to have these kinds of experiences. Over the course of four studies of more than 2,000 participants from many different religious traditions in the United States, Ghana, Thailand, China and Vanuatu, Luhrmann and her team demonstrate the power of culture in combination with individual differences to shape something that we normally think of as a given – what feels real. Their findings are detailed in a study pub
It’s a blustery October night in 1841, and though Liverpool is sleeping, Mrs Bates is very much awake. Before her, shining brightly at the foot of her bed, is an “open vision” of her friend Elizabeth Morgan, “standing in full view before her, clothed in robes beautiful and white”. The shimmering vision lingers for “some considerable length of time” before fading away. When dawn arrives, and after a fitful sleep, Mrs Bates is informed by a messenger that Elizabeth Morgan is dead.
People have reported spooky, spiritual and extraordinary experiences for centuries. Like Mrs Bates, those who claim to have communed with the dead have found themselves ridiculed as well as revered. Our recent research has revealed that mediums, mystics and psychics are more prone to certain auditory phenomena than the general population – which may play a role in their reports of communicating with the dead.