Xenoglossy: Mishlove excerpt #10

Psychologist Jeffrey Mishlove in “Beyond the Brain: The Survival of Human Consciousness After Permanent Bodily Death,” argues that xenoglossy, which is the ability to understand, and even converse, in a language one has never learned (sometimes an archaic language), constitutes evidence favoring reincarnation or possession. 

The Hensen Jacoby case

Walter Semkiw, MD, describes a Philadelphia woman of Russian-Jewish descent. Upon being hypnotized by her husband, a medical doctor, she began speaking an old form of Swedish, claiming to be a Swedish man named Jensen Jacoby.

He said he was a Christian farmer who owned livestock and who lived near the coast. He expressed great fear of Russians, saying he had died when he was forced into a body of water – and then hit on the head (the implication being Russian soldiers had killed him).

Swedish scholars examined recordings and determined the speech was middle Swedish, as used in the seventeenth century. Ian Stevenson who investigated this case even subjected the family members to lie detector tests and had them sign affidavits testifying none of them spoke Swedish. Also, Jensen Jacoby could accurately name objects in Swedish.

For example, when shown a Swedish seventeenth century sailing ship model, Jenson correctly called it a “skuta” or “skute.

The Uttara/Sharada case

Semkiw also describes a well-known xenoglossy case involving intermittent, temporary possession. Here, the replacing personality, Sharada, spoke only the Bengali language – a language unknown to Uttara and her family.

Uttara was an educated woman with two master’s degrees. She was a university lecturer. At one point in her life, she was hospitalized for medical problems. While she was in the hospital, a guru came there and taught meditation. Uttara started to meditate.

One day, unexpectedly, a Bengali personality, called Sharada, emerged from her. Uttara only spoke the Marathi Indian language. Sharada could only speak Bengali. This was strange for the family, because they could not communicate with their daughter. Nobody in the family knew Bengali. The Sharada personality completely took over the body for as long as 43 continuous days, during which the family had to bring in translators, so they could interact with their daughter. 

Sharada still thought she was alive, in the 1820s, in Bengal. She expressed disdain for the people who spoke Marathi, and she didn’t know how to use modern appliances. She was unable, for example, to cook on a gas stove, being familiar only with wood-burning stoves. Multiple Bengali academics, and outside researchers, studied the case over nine years, making tape recordings of their Bengali conversations.

While the Sharada case has attracted much criticism, the critics have all failed to account for (a) Sharada’s Bengali was what one would expect from the 1820s; (b) lengthy conversations Sharada had in Bengali with scholars; and (c) Sharada’s ability to identify, by name, ancestors in her family tree.

 

Jeffrey Mishlove’s essay, “Beyond the Brain: The Survival of Human Consciousness After Permanent Bodily Death,” received first prize in the 2021 Bigelow Institute’s challenge to provide proof for the survival of human consciousness after death. Footnotes in Mishlove’s essay and videos he refers have been removed in this presentation but are available in his essay, which may be downloaded at https://bigelowinstitute.org/contest_winners3.php. Mishlove is a licensed clinical psychologist, author, and host on YouTube of “New Thinking Allowed.”