Testing Douglas's Ability in Trance

The following is an unpublished article by a Canadian-based author, who has followed Douglas' career for three decades. Anyone interested in scientific research of Deep Trance Meditation (DTM) will find this article illuminating. Note that the opinions expressed are those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect those of Douglas Cottrell.

1. The Media: The Harry Houdini Experiment
On October 31, 1978, the publicity-shy Douglas accepted an open challenge from the media to prove his ability. Fifty-two years to the day after the death of Harry Houdini, Douglas demonstrated the live DTM to a group of reporters at a rented theatre in downtown Toronto. It was an extraordinary performance, made even more extraordinary by the fact that Douglas, who has spent some 99% of his career doing readings of people who are alive and presently on the planet (although not necessarily in the same room as himself), was sent "back in time" to the death-bed of Houdini himself (the exact coordinates for which a reporter kindly provided). And then, reminiscent of a Star Trek episode, Douglas was asked to read the body of Houdini, in "real time," as though Houdini were right there in front of him, still alive (on the hospital bed where Houdini would, in fact, die several hours later).

Douglas opened his mouth and began speaking in that dry, steady, sotto voce tone which, over the years, his clients have come to know so well. "There would be conditions of difficulty to the kidney and to the bladder itself. Lack of oxygen in the blood because of the poisoning of the body by the kidney. One kidney is badly damaged, as well as pancreas and bladder. There was a blow to the chest. Fluid has accumulated in the heart also, as we see it."

It was unnerving to hear then - as it is every single time he does a trance session, up to and including the present. This is, of course, Douglas speaking, but at the same time, it is "much more" than Douglas. Arguably, in fact, this is one of the most complex phenomena in all the pseudo-scientific literature.

Return to October 31, 1978. Slowly, patiently, as if he had all the time in the world, Douglas began to talk about Houdini's body as if he had it on a table in front of him, and he was using an X-ray machine, or MRI to dissect it, system by system, organ by organ, cell by cell. Note also that Douglas didn't just jump right to Houdini's so-called abdominal infection - information readily available from any newspaper account of the day. That would have been beneath him. Instead, he focussed, as he always does, on what it was that, according to his own unique vision, was causing Houdini the most damage at the time - failing kidneys, and a malfunctioning heart. Also interesting was that, from Douglas' unique "minds-eye-view," the infamous blow reported in the press was (as Douglas saw it) delivered to the chest more so than the abdomen, an interesting variation from the published media reports as well as the accounts in all the biographies of Houdini.

The whole reading, organ by organ, system by system, took about 15 minutes. The reporters took notes, but were clearly not happy. Whatever they had expected was clearly not what they were getting. It was awkward for all parties. With Douglas still in trance (most last about an hour) the frustrated reporters, still looking for a good Halloween story, took one last, desperate shot. They asked Douglas to contact the "spirit" of Harry Houdini so that they could ask it questions about some of the "mysteries" Houdini had left behind.

This was an extraordinary question, especially for the times. It would be almost another quarter century, in fact, before the notion of "talking to the dead" became sufficiently mainstream to serve as the focus of a world-wide best-seller and merit regular airtime on Larry King Live!

"This entity," said Douglas, "is currently completing a growth experience in the dimension that you would associate with the planet Venus, where it is learning about Love. It would be presumptuous for us to intrude."
Planet Venus? Love? Growth experience? Presumptuous?!
While this was clearly too much for most of the so-called "paranormal" reporters in the room, who were in way over their heads with Douglas, in fact the notion of "planetary sojourns" was a bona fide part of the entire Cayce cosmology of life and death. If you accepted, as millions do, the accuracy of the Cayce health-specific readings, then you pretty much had to at least be open-minded on planetary sojourns also.

Unfortunately, the reporters left the room in a state of shock. But this bizarre turn of events was, to Douglas, just business as usual. A week later, Douglas received a courtesy call from one of the reporters who had taken the most notes. The man had gone to the trouble of contacting the medical archives of the hospital in which Houdini had passed on. Not only did Douglas' reading seem to match the medical records, we were told, but, in fact, they went into much more detail than the official records ever indicated. This made it impossible to determine how accurate the reading may have been, since, ironically, the source being tested appeared more complete than the source being used for verification!

2. Medicine: Hidden Cause and Effect
In the early 1990s, a senior MD from a major North American hospital - head of the Juvenile Diabetes section at the time - kindly consented to "test" Douglas' skills in a manner similar to the way Cayce's own skills were once tested during his own lifetime (i.e. the malpractice hearing for Dr Hank Ketchum).

Having passed the test given to him, and correctly "read" five of this doctor's private patients who were not actually present in the room at the time, the MD decided to throw Douglas a "curve." He asked a question about a major medical study in progress at the time, a transplant process involving two different surgical protocols for the pancreas. After describing each, he asked Douglas, still in the DTM, which would offer the best results? Douglas answered the question, and several weeks later, the MD (who now practices in the US) phoned to report that the reading was correct, the protocol selected in the reading was much more successful. What if Douglas had been consulted before such a study was even initiated? How many hours could have been saved? How many lives? In the 1990s, a licensed MD, Dr Hulda Clark, wrote a book about her views on cancer and health. A former pathologist, Dr Clark noticed that, in doing autopsies on those who had died of cancer, the proliferation of parasites in major organs was many times the norm. What if, she wondered, we treated cancer patients for parasites first, to give the immune system a chance to refresh itself?

Dr Clark opened a clinic to treat patients in this way. Two things happened shortly thereafter. First, she began to report phenomenal results with her unique, non-invasive, anti-parasite programs. Second, the establishment put her in jail. Most interesting to me was a DTM reading that Douglas did during the Clark controversy. At that point, we already knew Dr Clark's theory, and we already knew that she was getting results. So we asked Douglas to comment.

"Not parasites themselves that cause the outrageous cell growth or cancer," offered Douglas, with the stark clarity that only the DTM can provide. "But rather, as individual organs succumb to the disease process and blood flow stagnates, blood becomes thicker and darker, oxygen levels decrease; this creates an ideal environment for parasites," said Douglas. This short answer was staggering in its implications. While validating the Clark therapeutic approach - removing parasites to give the immune system a chance to heal - Douglas had, in no more than an eye-blink, suggested that we look to another hidden chain of causation for this dreaded disease that was, in fact, a precursor to the parasites; a process that ultimately causes the organs to attract parasites as they break down, as opposed to vice-versa. Staggering!

The bottom line is that independent testing and verification both of Cayce in his day, and Douglas today, suggest that the health/medical information is accurate to approximate the 99 percentile; and may, in many cases, be contemplating a link between cause and effect (as it relates to particular conditions) that even modern science is currently unaware of. Speaking of modern practice, the number of medical professionals willing to stand up and vouch for Douglas' readings is small (but significant). That is, of course a great pity. Most unfortunately are put off by bizarre connections between cause and effect the readings posit; the bulk of which are completely outside the ambit of anything taught in medical school.

Cancer, the result of a weak immune system (a system which cannot repress the growth of cancer cells which occur naturally and normally even in most health people)? Arthritis, the failure of the body to master its own eliminations? Epilepsy, an electrical balance aggravated by spinal subluxations and misalignments? Migraine caused by intestinal disturbances? Chronic Fatigue, the result of excessive exposure to invisible telecommunications signals and satellite traffic? These thoughts are so heretical that, were Douglas a Medical Doctor, he would lose his license in a heartbeat, and in the process there would probably be a tub of hot tar and a bag of feathers waiting somewhere nearby. But just because an explanation is different does not mean it is wrong.

- R.A.