David Paladin

[jbseth]

Hi All,

According to Bing, today in history, December 16th, was Wassily Kandinsky's birthday. Wassily Kandinsky was a Russian artist who lived from 1866 to 1944. Here's a Wikipedia article about him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassily_Kandinsky


Many years ago, I came across the story of David Paladin. David Paladin was a Native American, who fought for the Americans behind the lines of Nazi Germany during WW2. During WW2, David was captured by the Germans, tortured and sent to a concentration camp. At some point after WW2, David started to "channel?" Wassily Kandinsky and as an artist, he started to paint like him as well.

I've always found David's story to be very interesting and somewhat "Seth like" in nature. In some ways he was like Jane, in his channeling, and in some ways he was like Rob, in his painting. If you aren't familiar with David Paladin's story, you might find his story in the following link interesting.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/native-american-awakes-from-war-trauma-speaking-russian-paints-like-dead-russian-artist_823538.html

I think it's interesting that Bing says that Wassily Kandinsky died on December 13, 1944, possibly around the same time that David started to channel him.

jbseth

[Deb]

Whoa, this just opened a whole new area for me. I'd not heard of Seth speak about possession and even remember him describing the process of a new personality entering a fetus (Session 557 in Seth Speaks) that was anything but possession.

But this story is fascinating and the "woke up speaking Russian" part—well, I've been learning Russian for a couple of years and I'd love to know more detail as to how well he spoke Russian because it's not a language you just "pick up." I never wake up speaking Russian, although I have taught it in my dreams. Also Caroline Myss is a medical intuitive (I found out about her in a book written by Norm Shealy (neurosurgeon and pain management specialist)), so interesting to see her name in the article. I'll check out her book (Anatomy of the Spirit) mentioned in the article. It seems Caroline and David were friends. I also followed the link to Adele McDowell's article.

The Paladin story reminded me of the case of the Watseka Wonder in 1865, where a young woman Lurancy Vennum became a different young girl for 4 months, her personality replaced by that of a young woman (Mary Roff) who had died 13 years earlier. She even moved in with the Roth family for a while. After 4 months Lurancy became herself again, went back home, married and had a normal life. It's been a much-studied case. The Booth Brothers made a documentary about it a few years ago. A little dramatic (their style) but there were a lot of details about the case and it left me scratching my head.

I did a search on the Seth search engine and this popped up:

Postscript to Session 454 from TES9, a Seth session with Tam Mossman and Eve Naudain of Prentice-Hall, NYC present. Tam asked questions about some dreams, past lives, his newly developing telepathic abilities:

"Don't bother now with thoughts of the origins of your abilities... Avoid cultism. Also don't let your imagination follow along the lines of possession... Fear of this creates a state in which a semblance of that can be caused. Most cases of possession are not caused by spirits... although it does exist in those terms... usually caused by those who request it or are too lazy to live their own lives within... Such people then issue a blank invite to control the body they no longer wish to control.

"If you are in control you need have no fears of possession. (Humorously:) I do not want you falling off any psychic ledges."

It seems Lurancy did invite Mary. I had a quick visual of a person driving a car, being exhausted and saying to someone else, "here, you take the wheel for a while." I suppose it's more practical to let another consciousness take the body for a spin than to simply die and waste an opportunity. Especially if the new consciousness only wants to experience something specific, and not an entire lifetime.

As Seth says there is no "evil," I'd say demon possession is out. I've heard of walk ins, soul swaps... but don't recall Seth talking about that in anything I've read so far. I'm having a hard time making possession fit into my sense of order with incarnations, entities, etc.

What do you think?

[jbseth]

Hi Deb,

Thanks for sharing your information on this. I've never heard of the "Waseka Wonder" story before; that's a new one for me.

I too have heard of walk-ins, I think from Ruth Montgomery, but I can't say that I recall Seth ever using that term.

I'm wonder whether Seth would have described this walk-in phenomena differently. Perhaps he would have described it as one of a subconscious past life selves coming forward to take over, as he describes in one of the Early Session books, I think where he talked about "The 3 Faces of Eve" phenomena.

I'm not sure that David Paladin was necessarily "possessed" by Kandinsky. Perhaps he was only tapping into his energy via his inner telepathic senses; maybe like Jane when she tapped into the world view of Paul Cezanne, or William James.

I'll reply to your question about possession and how it fits into everything in a day or so. I want to think about this some more and look into what Seth had to say on the matter.


-jbseth

[Deb]

I'm not sure that David Paladin was necessarily "possessed" by Kandinsky. Perhaps he was only tapping into his energy via his inner telepathic senses; maybe like Jane when she tapped into the world view of Paul Cezanne, or William James.

Yes, I agree. But speaking a foreign language that you don't know and painting in their style is pretty wild. I'd love to tap into Mary Cassatt's energy, I've done knockoffs of some of her paintings. And I bought myself Jane's Rembrandt World View last week, so now I have all three World View books.

Oh and I do like Kandinsky's style, had seen some of his stuff before. Funny, I always thought he was Polish.

[jbseth]

Hi Deb, Hi All,

Over the years, I have occasionally come across several stories where people have been said to have had some sort of brain injury or were in a coma and woke up speaking a foreign language. I found a couple of articles about this on the internet (see links below). I didn't know this, but I guess they give this situation a name, "Foreign Accent Syndrome".

https://www.cnn.com/2016/10/24/health/teen-spanish-new-language-trnd/index.html

https://metro.co.uk/2016/06/04/man-hits-his-head-wakes-up-reading-and-speaking-in-french-5923409/


jbseth

[jbseth]

Hi Deb, Hi All,

In regards to the concept of "possession", Seth doesn't actually say very much about this topic.  However, he does say much more about other topics that appear to be related to it. Here specifically I'm referring to: 1) the use of the inner senses, 2) the various ego personalities, especially in regards to his discussion of the book, "The Three Faces of Eve", 3) schizophrenia and 4) other types of mental health issues.


The Inner Senses:

In "The Seth Material" Chapter 19, we learn about the inner senses. In regards to the inner sense of "Inner Vibrational Touch" this book says that this inner sense would permit a person to feel the basic sensations of each of the trees about him. In regards to the inner sense of "Cognition of Knowledgeable Essence" this book says that this inner sense would permit a person to enter into a friend.

I believe that "maybe" what David Paladin was doing when he picked up the information on Mr. Kandinsky, was using these inner senses.



Multiple Personalities:

In "The Early Sessions, Book 6", Session 255, Seth talks about the book, "The Three Faces of Eve". In this session he talks about how these various faces of Eve, all represented various ego manifestations of one inner identity.  Seth talks about how in some situations, the basic identity can change the dominant ego, when such a change becomes necessary.


Schizophrenia:

In "The Early Sessions, Book 1", Session 15, pages 87 and 88, Seth talks about schizophrenia. In this session he says, "Schizophrenia is caused by a personality fragment that is broken off, so to speak, from the primary acting personality, operating often in direct opposition to the primary personality, but in any case, operating as a secondary personality."

Then, further down in this same session, he says, "Many so-called cases of possession can be laid to this alone. The dominant personality can be likened on your plane to the dominant entity."


Mental Disorder like Schizophrenia:

In "The Nature of Personal Reality", Chapter 6, Seth talks about a young man who contacted Jane. This man Seth referred to as "Augustus" seemed to have 2 personalities, one was rather meek while the other was very dominant. Seth said that he had 2 sets of opposing conflicting beliefs but he held each group separately. When this occurs, a battle begins within the conscious mind. Then, in this same chapter, in session 628, Seth said, "Now this is a split of a conscious mind. It does not originate with the inner self". Then in the next session, session 629, Seth says, "An analyst might consider Augustus as schizophrenic and label him neatly, but such terms are basically meaningless."


Voodoo and Santeria:

From what I've read, the priests and priestesses who practice Voodoo and Santeria, use music and dancing for long periods of time to put themselves into a trancelike state. Then, once this state, the deities that they believe in, supposedly come into their minds and bodies and take control of them. This activity is performed so that these deities can communicate with the crowd and give this crowd instructions and directions on what to do and how to live.


Channeling:

From what I understand, when a person channels, the person open themselves up and allows the channel to take over some control of their body. This is typically done so that the channel can communicate verbally with others.


Given all of these various scenarios, which, if any of these scenarios do you think that Seth was referring to, when he talked about possession?


jbseth

[Deb]

I've heard of Foreign Accent Syndrome, remember seeing an American woman in some show who suddenly had a British accent after a head injury. Since we're all exposed to the various accents that English speaking people can have, it didn't really seem all that extraordinary to me. I just figured a part of her brain was affected in a way that she was now speaking with a British accent that she'd been exposed to many times in her past.

But I feel that "suddenly fluent in a foreign language" is not so easily explained and I don't consider that FAS. Speaking with an accent, and speaking a completely unlearned language, are lightyears apart to me. The Atlanta boy who woke up speaking Spanish after a head injury was not so unbelievable for me. He had been learning Spanish and since I don't usually trust the news and even the general public to tell "the rest of the story" I had no way to know how much Spanish he'd already learned and what they were calling "fluent." Our brains are amazing things, and it's hard to say how much we retain despite our inability to instantly recall what we've learned.

I've mentioned I've been learning Russian for a couple of years. Among other learning aids, I've been doing the Pimsleur audio course, have been through Levels 1, 2 and 3 at least twice. There is so much more to learning a foreign language than straight vocabulary. By the time I start over again, I've already forgotten much of what I've learned since I'm not using what I've learned on a daily basis, but then begin to recall it when I tap into that part of my brain that's recorded the new the language. Even now I feel like I can barely communicate my needs in Russian, let alone have a conversation, and feel there is so much more that I don't know compared to what I do. But if the conditions were right I wonder if I would realize that I've retained more than I think I have?

That whole concept of possession regarding Seth is a curiosity for me. Of the examples you cited, channeling seemed to be the most plausibly related explanation to me. Possession would be a deeper, more long-term channeling situation, where a personality is not only opening itself to allow another consciousness to communicate through it temporarily, such as Jane with Seth. The communication that was held during the sessions had certain limitations. Possession to me means no limitations and a sense of permanency.

Possession may just be a scary word or concept from our perspective.

Wow, the complexities of the nature of reality continue.