A record regarding the healing work of Michael Chapman is long overdue. In view of what has been accomplished by the combined efforts of Michael and Basil Lang, a material record is now required to inform and encourage those who would benefit from this area of healing. I therefore hope by the following, this will be achieved.
My introduction to spirit healing arose when I first began to make a cautious enquiry into the subject of post-mortem survival nearly twenty-five years ago. While finding good evidence to support the concept of an afterlife, I was not able to arrive at any decision regarding spirit healing.
I would explain that I am not a Spiritualist but a survivalist; to arrive at any decision concerning a claim, I require adequate empirical data of various types that produce a situation in which the balance of probability is either in favour of the claim or hypothesis, or its opposite.
The general trend these days is to dismiss the idea that we survive physical death due to current scientific or philosophical opinions. However, when confronted with excellent investigative material that supports the hypothesis of survival, the best that sceptics may offer are accusations of fraud, misinterpretation or poor judgement. But in reality, this is not satisfactory: there is a positive wealth of material that details phenomena for which none of the 'explanations' can account. Of the amount of evidence that has been obtained, Dr Alan Gauld rightly remarks that if this had related to other matters, it would have been 'unhesitatingly and almost universally accepted', and:
Any rationalist who studies and thinks about these facts, dispassionately and in detail will, I should guess, find himself in deep and unsuspected waters from which no shore is clearly visible, and least of all to him.(1)But, as it would be considered almost heretical for a scientist to throw his weight behind the survival hypothesis, it is safer to ignore it or explain it, or rather attempt to explain it away with a variety of, often highly fanciful proposals.
Nonetheless, those academics who have had the integrity and desire to consider 'unorthodox' areas of human existence, and have gained first- hand experience, have often reported that the enquiry into the question of survival produces many aspects that cannot be accounted for by the usual list of supposed 'explanations'.
If we consider the actual question of survival, it is apparent that many religions that teach the existence of an afterlife do not actually believe in survival. More often than not, it is believed that on death there is a complete transformation: what is not realized is that by proposing this, the dead therefore have little or no connection with their earlier selves.
Thus, if people are wholly transformed and no longer possess the personality and behavioural traits that once determined their person, then clearly, it is difficult to envisage how they have survived as they no longer resemble the person they once were.
If we are to propose that the survival of physical death is a reality, we must therefore expect that those who die will continue to have certain distinctive personality traits and various other components that distinguish one person from another, e.g., memories, expectations, likes and dislikes, etc. In the next world, particularly in the initial stages, life will be much the same in a number of respects as this would be generated by the mind, with much of it being composed of memories and expectations. In the majority of cases, those who die will find readjustment is necessary as time progresses.
However, some will continue the activity that they pursued before their death and if this involved something wholly of this world, this will require continuing interaction with this world. It would seem from a variety of communications that the principal difficulty that emerges in this is the absence of the means by which to pursue certain goals. Communicators often bewail the lack of suitable mediums through whom they can make themselves known and effect a physical connection with this world.
Nonetheless, despite these difficulties, in a relatively small number of cases, a communicator who pursues a goal that is related to this world rather than the next, is able to find a person with whom it is possible to realize these wishes. Two such cases in which this has occurred are surely found in the William Lang-George Chapman and Basil Lang-Michael Chapman partnership. Here we can see an excellent example of survival evidence in which a person having died, has continued to possess the same interests and goals that existed before death, and with extraordinary perseverance has sought out a suitable person through whom it is possible to realize these goals.
In my own situation, I first encountered George Chapman in the early 1980s. Having had insulin-dependent diabetes for nearly twenty-five years at that time, diabetic retinopathy was beginning to appear. Personally, I cannot conceive anything worse than the diminishment or loss of sight; being aware that medical science is severely limited in what it can do in combating retinopathy, I ascertained the address of George Chapman, and wrote to him explaining the problem and my worries.
George Chapman |
George replied straightaway and healing commenced. All that was involved was sending him a brief monthly report and an s.a.e. After some time, Michael took over this particular healing, and as before, I simply sent a report every month and an s.a.e. which allowed him to acknowledge my writing.
Having had diabetes since the age of four in 1958, the reality is that retinopathy is inevitable. Many people who have had diabetes for far less time than myself have already had laser treatment that is said to deal with the problem: for what it is worth, it is my own personal opinion that laser treatment can hardly be deemed a solution to the onset of retinopathy. Moreover, since having my insulin type changed to human insulin in the early 1980s, as others, my control has become very brittle (unstable) having no warning of hypoglycaemias and finding that my blood-sugar levels are simply now very erratic. These are the primary causes for retinopathy.
Despite this, my eyesight has remained very good. Some four years ago, the opthalmic department that had been monitoring my eyes for over ten years discharged me as it was felt that I was not in any imminent danger of retinopathy. That is a rather amazing diagnosis for someone with long-term brittle diabetes.
I now have my eyes examined at regular appointments at a diabetic clinic and their good state are regularly confirmed. We now return to the law of probability mentioned earlier: is the situation that I have briefly just described what one should reasonably expect in the circumstances? The answer is no, and I can only look to the healing work of Michael Chapman and Basil Lang as the explanation for this anomaly.
Again, the law of probability was breached when my elderly mother became critically ill in July 1997. In reasonable health considering her age, she suddenly experienced severe abdominal pain one morning and the doctor was called out. On seeing her condition, an ambulance was summoned and my mother was rendered unconscious as by this time she was in agony. She was then whisked away to the local hospital. On arriving there, it was discovered that toxins had been released from her stomach area and she was critically ill. After an emergency operation, I visited her in the Intensive Care Ward and was overwhelmed to see what seemed to be miles of tubes and wires leading into her. She had been placed on a ventilator, and the workings of her vital organs were being observed and checked by an overhead monitor that resembled something from the flightdeck of the 'U.S.S. Enterprise'.
The next morning, I telephoned Intensive Care and was told that I should come in as a matter of urgency. It was clear that something had gone wrong during the night and I immediately left for the hospital. On arriving there, the surgeon said that he wanted to see me and then told me that my mother had deteriorated during the night due to the poison in her system. He then spoke the words that we all dread: I should 'expect the worst'.
That day it was obvious that she had indeed deteriorated. She only became conscious on a few occasions and was in such pain, she had to be sedated almost immediately each time. I spoke to her and not knowing whether she could understand me, tried to speak by eye-to-eye contact. Later that day, to my utter dismay, even her eyes had clouded over and I had then lost what I believed was the only means of communication left open to me. At this stage, I really did 'expect the worst'.
Frantic with worry, I spoke with George Cranley of the Noah's Ark Society and told him of the position. Without hesitation, he said that he would arrange for various groups to begin absent healing for my mother and I should contact Michael Chapman. I did this and from that time left a brief report for him every day which he later retrieved even though for some of the period he was not in Machynlleth.
The day after being told that I should 'expect the worst', the worse did manifest itself. On a ventilator, my mother began to swell up to a point where, to my further distress, she was beginning to be unrecognisable. On the few occasions that she regained consciousness, she had to be sedated because of the pain and distress. I acquainted myself with the different readings on the overhead monitor and was able to see that she was only just holding on. In view of poison being released into her system, while her heart and kidneys had fortunately escaped the onslaught, her lungs had been badly damaged. This was the day that I contacted Michael Chapman.
The next day I visited my mother and was told that no further relapse had occurred although she was most certainly still in very great danger. As stated, each day I left Michael a brief message updating him on the situation; and each day my mother improved. Occasionally, progress was hindered by something going amiss: for example, a short time after her operation, and still having immense difficulty in breathing, it was noted that a pocket of air had built up in her lower lung (caused by the force of the ventilator) necessitating 'a line' having to be inserted into that area to release the air.
After a while, she was able to have the ventilator removed although with so much difficulty breathing, a tracheotomy was inserted into her throat. Being advised of what the required reading should be on the monitor, over the course of days I could see that she was approaching the rates needed.
During the time that I was visiting her, I became familiar with curtains suddenly being drawn around patients, patients disappearing, tearful relatives and priests in their absurd garments chanting their no less absurd incantations. As my mother's health improved, there were unmistakable signs from the staff that my mother had achieved something that was not expected.
After returning home, obviously still very weak and bearing the result of intensive surgery, all the medical persons with whom I had contact expressed the view that my mother had achieved the unexpected. A short while after this, I was contacted by a gentleman in the Far East by internet e-mail. He was desperate to find someone able to assist in respect of spirit healing. He had spent many hours in his search and had finally heard of Michael Chapman from the Noah's Ark Website,(2) and asked whether he could have the relevant details by which he could contact Michael urgently. I did this although by the details he supplied, his mother sounded as if she might be past the point where any healing could effect a recovery.
A short time later, the gentleman contacted me saying:
'My mother still passed away on 28, Dec.,1997... The only remarkable note is the next day after I have contacted with Michael Chapman, my mother said she suddenly feel she has some vital force coming inside her, and she can intake some oatmeal. This made us very joyful because her nutrition state is very bad at that time'.What is often overlooked is that spirit healing, if unable to produce a physical recovery, can nevertheless be of tremendous assistance for people in making the transition from one sphere of existence to another.
And so we are confronted with the law of probability. John Beloff's description of a survivalist is more than adequate. He says, 'A survivalist could be defined as one who adopts survival as the most plausible working hypothesis'.(3)
I would assert that if one considers the work of Michael Chapman from an objective and detached perspective, there is overwhelming evidence that the 'most plausible working hypothesis' is that he is able to heal, and heal through the agency of Basil Lang who has departed this life but makes himself known through Michael's spirit healing.
