The Mystery of the Crystal Skulls

Dorland suggests that this process will only occur, however, when a crystal has been ‘switched on’. Like any electronic instrument, it has to be activated by a source of electrical energy, which in this case is the human body and mind. Whilst a crystal can receive some energy through the air, he believes the most effective way to energize it is to touch it or hold it in the hand. Then the crystal reacts to the energies it receives by vibrating on a frequency compatible and in harmony with the body and the brain.

Dorland believes our body and subconscious mind can pick up a vast array of electro-magnetic messages from a piece of piezo-electric quartz, but we are not normally consciously aware of much of the information we actually receive, just as we are not normally aware of, say, micro-wave signals.

This is also the case with the radiant energy of the sun. Much of this we are unaware of, but it is known to be received by the cells of the body and to stimulate the pineal gland. Likewise, Dorland believes that in the case of the energies radiated by crystal the hypothalamus is the key gland involved. This gland, situated in the lower mid-brain, in one of the most protected spots inside our skulls, plays an important part in regulating the day-to-day functioning of the electrical and chemical processes of the body. It is known to be influenced by the tiniest electronic impulse and, according to Dorland, is capable of receiving and filtering the oscillating energies radiated by electronic quartz crystals. These messages are then sent throughout the body, but they are rarely, if ever, brought to the attention of our conscious minds.

This interaction with quartz, Dorland claims, can help balance the neuro-endocrine system of the body and keep us in good health. He also believes the natural amplifying qualities of crystal help to boost communication between the cells of the body. The theory is that this increased communication can also assist the conscious mind in making contact with various levels of the unconscious and help bring subconscious thoughts to full conscious awareness.

Certainly improved communications between the conscious and unconscious levels of the mind have recently been shown to have beneficial effects on health. In the not too distant past, many body functions such as heart rate were thought to be outside the control of the conscious mind. However, recent experiments in the use of ‘bio-feedback’, a technique of using electronic equipment to feed back information to patients about their internal physiology, have shown that people can modify their own autonomic nervous systems, helping to control conditions such as high blood pressure, which were previously thought to be under no conscious control.

Frank Dorland uses the term ‘bio-crystal feedback’ to describe the possibility of similar types of feedback between a natural quartz crystal and the human mind. He recognizes the mind as one of the keys to the health of our bodies and claims that piezo-electric quartz can boost communication between the different cells of the body and between body and mind. Dorland believes that these enhanced levels of communication are important for health in ways that we do not yet fully realize. According to him, a whole new science is being born of these studies, known as ‘bio-crystallography’, the study of the interchange of energies between quartz crystal and the human mind.

But, he claims, bio-crystal feedback can be used not only to heal the body but also to ‘make conscious many things an individual already knows and is capable of accomplishing while not consciously aware of this untapped knowledge’.

By improving communications between deeper levels of the human mind, piezo-electric quartz can release knowledge held deep within the subconscious and unconscious mind and bring it to full conscious awareness. As Dorland puts it:

‘The crystal cells transmit these radio-like waves through the nervous system to the cortex cells in the … brain. [There] they are unscrambled and composed into meaningful signals which may be recognizable as pictures, words or perhaps just a sense of knowing in the conscious mind. These messages may be received from many sources but, primarily, they seem to come from the subconscious memory bank and super-conscious sources. ‘

According to Dorland, this knowledge may come not only from a person’s own subconscious mind, but also from the ‘collective unconscious’. The collective unconscious was first identified by the eminent Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung. He pointed out that at the conscious level we are all separate, discrete, unique and individual human beings, but if you dig down a little deeper, what you find is a level of the unconscious at which we all share roughly the same set of thoughts, ideas and emotions. It is almost as if these archetypal concepts have a life of their own, an independent form of existence outside the mind of any individual. So this level is a ‘collective’ unconscious.

At first the idea that some thoughts and ideas might exist outside of the mind of any one particular individual struck me as rather odd, even illogical. After all, our thoughts always appear to be happening within our own minds and we certainly all need our individual brains in order to think. Therefore I had always assumed that our thoughts came from within our own brains, originating inside our own minds.

But it now occurred to me that this might be a bit like assuming that because we see pictures on and hear sounds coming from a television, and need the individual TV set in order to receive them, the pictures or sounds must originate within the television set itself. However, we all know that in fact these sounds and images are picked up from the mass of broadcast signals in the air that we are not normally consciously aware of or able to receive without the aid of the appropriate technology. I wondered whether some of our thoughts might come to us through a similar process.

Whilst there can be no denying that we do need the circuitry of our own individual brains in order to think, this does not necessarily mean that all our thoughts and ideas originate there. Perhaps we receive some, if not all of them, from some other source, some great body of thoughts and ideas that has its own independent form of existence somewhere outside ourselves as individuals, perhaps somewhere in the ether around us – just like TV signals. Just because we may not be consciously aware of this body of thought or always ‘receiving’ signals from it does not mean that it does not exist, any more than TV signals cease to exist when nobody happens to be receiving them.

The thought occurred to me that perhaps the crystal skull might be the most effective piece of equipment, just like a TV set, for picking up information from this source?

Certainly Dorland suggests that the crystal skulls may somehow enable us to tap into this collective unconscious more effectively. For he refers to something similar when he states that:

‘A universal communication network is believed to exist on the subconscious level of which few are aware … [and crystal may be used] to contact the memory banks of other individuals who may have the desired information in their files … which means that a tremendous store of information is available from this source.’

But this is not the only source of information that Frank Dorland believes piezo-electric quartz crystal can help us to tap into. He claims it can also help us to contact the ‘inherited subconscious memory bank’ of our species, containing genetically inherited information dating back even to our earliest ancestors. Dorland points out that dated fossil skulls from 500,000 years ago apparently indicate that there was a sudden increase in the size and capacity of the ‘brain box’, or skull, at this time, and this is what set the stage for the introduction of Homo sapiens. The implication is that this increase may well have had something to do with providing enough space in the brain for this inherited subconscious memory bank. Apparently we currently only use a tiny fraction of our mental capacities. Dorland suggests that the reason for this is that we are actually carrying around inherited memories of the past history of humanity, but because this is all neatly tucked away in our subconscious we are normally completely unaware of it.

As he points out, it is already widely accepted that our inherited DNA is responsible for determining our physical characteristics, but science has so far failed to recognize that our subconscious memories may also be inherited from our ancestors. In Dorland’s opinion, a piece of quartz crystal such as a crystal skull could play a key role in activating these genetic memories.

So perhaps the natural amplifying qualities of quartz crystal could be used not only for enhancing communication with our own memories, subconscious thoughts and the ‘collective unconscious’, but also with our ‘ancestral memories’.

Frank Dorland also suggests that it may somehow be possible to ‘programme’ a crystal skull with a set of thoughts, memories, messages or instructions. The mechanism involved here is unclear, though he suggests this may have been done in the past by the ancients. According to him:

‘Natural quartz crystal is believed to have been in use during the last 12,000 to 15,000 years by a great many of our leaders for this and other purposes …

‘The ancients secretly reserved the crystal for use by the religious hierarchy, royalty, military leaders and, of course, the secret brotherhoods.

‘Modern scientists have experimented with lasers and quartz crystals, adapting them as a permanent memory bank of factual data to be safely stored away inside a crystal and recovered at a later date on command …Since crystal is a permanent material which neither ages nor decays, [perhaps] the data fed into a crystal [skull in this way] could remain active for thousands of years?’

While Frank Dorland’s theories are open to debate, they certainly raised many fascinating possibilities. Could the piezo-electric properties of the crystal skulls really improve inner communication, not only helping to heal the body but also bringing to awareness unexplored information from the unconscious? Had we now discovered the reason why the crystal was fashioned into the shape of a skull? Was it to symbolize the ancestors, whose memories are stored deep within our own minds? Could the crystal skull help bring forth our own ‘ancestral memories’?

Whether the crystal skull could be used to access information actually stored within it, in the ether or deep within our own psyches, Dorland’s theory certainly implied that the crystal skulls might hold the key to accessing vast areas of ancient knowledge.

7. THE TALKING SKULL (#ulink_8bb19a76-6497-5696-bfa9-1b9ef0e0e993)

Just like the ancient legend, Dorland’s theory suggested that the crystal skull may really be able to provide us with important information from the past. Mayans today apparently also believe this to be the case. Even the scientists at Hewlett-Packard recognized that natural quartz crystal has information storage capacities and so were not entirely closed to the possibility that the crystal skull might have information programmed into it. But what sort of information might that be and how might we be able to access it?

When Chris and I were visiting Anna Mitchell-Hedges, we had already met a woman who said she knew how to access the information inside the skull. Like Frank Dorland, she claimed conventional scientists had failed because they were using the wrong approach. She said the secrets of the skull could only be uncovered using ‘the technology of the mind’. We were somewhat sceptical, but curious none the less. If this were really possible, what might we find? Perhaps secret knowledge that had been buried in this crystal store-house for thousands of years. Perhaps the hidden wisdom of esoteric societies that had long since vanished from the surface of the Earth, or some ancient formula, now long forgotten, left behind by the mathematical geniuses of Mesoamerica, or even the secrets of the Mayan cosmos, the knowledge of the ancients who understood the movements of the planets and the stars.

As we sat in Anna’s small living-room gazing at the skull, with its smooth transparent surface, it felt as if we were sitting in front of some strange computer but without the right password to log on. Would we ever be able to plug into this ancient Internet, let alone surf its multiple worlds? How could we extract the secrets said to lie hidden deep with-in its quartz crystalline structure? We awaited with interest the arrival of Carole Wilson, the woman who claimed to actually be able to do this. Then Anna revealed that Carole was in fact one of Canada’s best-known psychics.

Initially I was sceptical. I have always had grave reservations about psychics. The notion had always conjured up in me the image of an old woman dressed in gypsy-style clothing sitting in a small tent, gazing into a glass ball and making up any old rubbish. A stereotype, obviously, but it was my belief that all such people really did was to tell people what they wanted to hear and then charge them for the privilege of being so easily duped. I wondered whether we were about to meet such a charlatan.

When Carole arrived she turned out to be a quiet, well-dressed woman in her fifties with a very professional manner. I was somewhat surprised to find that she was accompanied by the former head of the Toronto police homicide department. It soon transpired that there had been many occasions when the local police had been investigating unsolved murder cases and where insufficient evidence or an absence of any leads had frustrated them. Once they had become so desperate that they had called on Carole. With the help of her psychic powers, in almost no time at all the case was solved and the murderer brought to justice. Since then the police had used Carole’s services many a time and had managed to successfully solve a whole string of murder and missing persons cases.

As Carole explained, ‘Dead people do a lot of talking,’ and she either hears them directly or can pick up information about them by working with objects which once belonged to them. This gives her psychic information about murder victims, which has almost without fail proved successful in explaining otherwise unsolved crimes.

Carole now works closely with police forces throughout the United States, Canada and Britain. Indeed, her work proved so invaluable to the Toronto police force that she was now married to the chief detective who had been responsible for homicide investigations and missing persons cases. This was John Gordon Wilson, the man who was now accompanying her.

Carole went on to describe her first encounter with the Mitchell-Hedges skull. She had first seen it during the 1980s while on a visit to Anna’s house with two friends who were planning to try to date the skull, although they were ultimately unsuccessful in their attempts. She had also heard some outlandish claims about the skull:

‘Before I first saw the skull, I was half expecting something amazing to happen. Yet when I actually saw it, nothing did, or at least nothing seemed to. It felt such a disappointment. All the people I was with were saying, “Look at the light, look at what’s inside it!” and I could see nothing. I thought it was a question of the emperor’s new clothes and that there was really nothing extraordinary about the skull at all. But as I sat there I found myself drifting off. My eyes were closing and I felt very sleepy. And the next thing I knew everyone was saying to me, “That was fantastic. How amazing!” Only afterwards did I discover that I had gone into a trance and had spent the last two hours conveying information from the skull, the message of the skull if you like, and I couldn’t remember a word of it.’

After that, Carole had continued to work with the skull on a regular basis. She was somehow able to access what Anna’s nephew Jimmy described as ‘incredible information’.

‘Once Carole had logged on to the system,’ he said, ‘the material seemed almost unending, reams and reams of data. But the information was of such a peculiar and awesome nature that we were pretty convinced that most people were probably not ready to hear such phenomenal material at that time.’

Carole explained that for several years she had not been willing to make any of her findings public, although much of the material had been carefully transcribed and recorded. She had felt most people would simply find it just too unusual, too hard to accept or too ‘out of this world’. Then she had started to make her work known by writing and self-publishing a book, The Skull Speaks.

Now she, Anna, Jimmy and her husband John all felt the time was right to start to share some of this information with a wider audience.

The work Carole was about to perform with the crystal skull is known as ‘channelling’. As she explained, this is a technique commonly used by psychics and mediums, whereby the psychic individual allows themselves to be used as a ‘channel’ for ‘spirit entities’ or ‘souls’ from ‘other dimensions’ to communicate.

Carole told us that these other dimensions are not physical in the same way as the dimension that we call ‘normal reality’, but exist in parallel to our everyday world. These other realms are usually invisible to us during normal waking consciousness, but in an altered state of consciousness, through meditation, hypnotism or a trance, a channel can gain access to them. Through this process the channel can communicate with the beings that exist in these other dimensions – the spirits, the ancestors and the dead. These spirit entities can be from the past or the future, for in the other dimensions our normal physical rules such as linear time do not apply.

The technique of channelling involves the channel or medium putting themselves into an altered state of consciousness or trance-like state in order to become a bridge between these worlds and our own. The channel has to suppress their own normal waking state of consciousness, their own ego, their own sense of identity or self, sufficiently to allow the consciousness of the non-physical being or spirit entity to enter their body and mind. The ‘visiting’ spirit entity is then able to use the channel’s body, movements and voice to communicate. Both during and after channelling, the channel is usually completely unaware of what they have said and done when they have been in this altered state, much like a person who has been under the influence of hypnotism. But Carole explained that there is nothing morbid about what she does: ‘What I do is not “paranormal” or “supernatural”. In fact, this whole process is actually quite natural and was used on an almost everyday basis by many societies prior to our own.’

As I sat listening to this extraordinary woman describing this strange process, I thought about the fact that police departments took her work so seriously that she was now working on cases on an international basis. It struck me as rather peculiar that those involved in solving criminal cases of the most distressing kind should act upon her advice. For this was a woman who believed she could communicate with a chunk of crystal! I couldn’t quite come to terms with it.

As these thoughts were going through my mind, Carole looked across at me and said, ‘Belief is a curious thing. Belief functions to maintain the status quo in your mind. It helps you to feel more secure. It’s the same for everybody. But belief can be very narrow. It likes the here and the now. It doesn’t like change.’ She added, ‘You don’t have to believe in what I do. Because whether you believe it or not, the crystal skull is a subtle and very powerful teacher.’

The plan was that Carole was going to channel the ‘entity’ of the crystal skull and we would be able to ask it questions. Carole requested that any questions we asked were very specific. She explained that the skull did behave a bit like a computer in that you had to give it very specific instructions and to be very clear about what you were asking, otherwise you might not get a very helpful answer. For example, someone once before had asked the skull what a skull was and had received the answer that it was ‘a bony structure’! She also warned that sometimes the skull anticipated the questions in advance and told us not to be put off by this.

Anna then placed the crystal skull on a small turntable so that Carole would be able to touch it from all angles and manipulate it as she wished during the channelling session. Carole sat down and the crystal skull was placed directly in front of her, where it glimmered softly in the lamplight (see plate no. 7 (#litres_trial_promo)).

Carole closed her eyes. She began altering her style of breathing and used a low hum to ease herself into the appropriate mental state. The whole room began to take on a somewhat eerie atmosphere of the kind you might expect during a séance, as Carole’s gestures and posture changed. Suddenly tense, she began to emit an incredibly high-pitched humming sound. Before I was even able to ask the first question she began speaking in a strange, somewhat staccato voice, with a very stilted use of the English language. I remember being struck by the fact that you could actually hear this new voice echoing strangely around the room.

‘You seek to know the origins of this receptacle which you call “the crystal skull”… I tell you that it was made many, many thousands of years ago by beings of a higher intelligence… It was formed by a civilization before those you call “the Maya”. Our level of civilization was, as you say, “at that time” far in advance of that which you now have by many factors…’

The speech was interrupted by high-pitched humming and then continued:

‘This receptacle contains the minds of many and the minds of one… It was not made using what you call the “physical”. It was moulded into its present form by thought. The thoughts and knowledge are crystallized into this receptacle … this receptacle is thought process crystallized … thus the information was crystallized into this receptacle…