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Norman Shealy | John Elliotson
Norman Shealy, MD, Ph.D.,
is a neurosurgeon who invented the TENS Unit,
which conveys electrical impulses across the
skin to block pain. He also invented the Dorsal
Column Stimulator, a device that features an
electrode that is implanted next to the spinal
cord, which blocks severe pain. Both devices
are used around the world to help people manage
chronic pain. Dr. Shealy is also the author
of 21 books.
Dr. Shealy discovered a past lifetime, at
a time when he didn't even believe in reincarnation.
In the following excerpt from Return of the
Revolutionaries, Dr. Shealy tells his own story.
"In January 1972, I was sitting in a lecture at the Neuroelectric
Society in Snowmass at Aspen waiting for Dr. William Kroger to finish
his lecture. I was a bit annoyed because he was trying to convince us
that acupuncture was hypnosis and he suddenly said, 'In the last
century a British physician demonstrated that you could operate on patients
who were mesmerized. His name was John Elliotson.' When he said
that, I felt as if someone had thrust an iceberg down my back and I
said to myself, 'My God, that's me.
"I was neutral about reincarnation
at that time. I asked my medical librarian
if she could get me any information on John
Elliotson and she could not. So in the June
of that year, I went to London. I got in
a cab and asked the cab driver to take
me to
the Royal College of Surgeons, assuming that
John Elliotson must have been a surgeon.
As we turned down one corner to the right,
I was
sitting in the back of the cab and suddenly
was picked up physically and turned in the
opposite direction, again feeling as if there
were an iceberg down my back. A block down
to the left, instead of the right, was University
College Hospital of London, where my office
had been as John Elliotson. I walked in the
building and felt at home."
It turns out that John Elliotson was the
first Professor of Medicine at the University
College
Hospital of medicine. He made his reputation
in the 1830s giving public lectures on various
aspects of medicine. James Wakeley, editor
of the Lancet at that time, often published
his
lectures. During his career as an internist,
John introduced the stethoscope and the use
of narcotics, both from France where he had
studied.
He also introduced mesmerism and began to put
on public displays of mesmerism in the amphitheater.
He was a bosom buddy of Charles Dickens and
William Thackery. The taught Dickens how to
use mesmerism
on his hypochondriacal wife. Elliotson was
the first physician in London to give up wearing
knickers. He had striking black curly hair
and
walked with a congenital limp.
"He also demonstrated that some of his patients who were placed
in a mesmeric trace became clairvoyant and easily made diagnoses. Elliotson
also inspired James Esdaile to do a large number of operations upon
mesmerized patients. Esdaile later wrote a book called Natural and Mesmeric
Clairvoyance and mentioned Elliotson's use of hypnotic mesmerism for
inducing clairvoyance. Eventually, Elliotson was asked by the Board
of Trustees to stop putting on public displays of mesmerism. Elliotson
became angry and resigned.
"For twelve years he continued publishing The Zoist, in
which he recounted many aspects of mesmerism, including well over 300
patients who were operated on by another surgeon when Elliotson put
the patient into a trance. Eventually he was invited by the Royal College
of Physicians to give the annual Haverian Lecture because of his contributions
to medicine. He gave his lecture on the hypocrisy of science in accepting
new thoughts.
"Now to similarities in my own life. At age 9, everyone wore knickers
but me. My mother tried to get me to wear knickers and I would have
temper tantrums and tear them apart. As a young child, perhaps 4 or
5, I wanted black curly hair so badly that I once went up to an aunt
of mine and cut a lock of her black hair. When I was sixteen and just
leaving to go to college, I dyed my hair black but I never did it more
than once. It was just too much trouble. John was also a Latin scholar
and I won the Latin medal two years in high school. When I was 9 years
old I had a small stress fracture of the right tibial plateau. It became
infected with an abscess. This was before antibiotics and I was told
that I would always walk with a limp.
"Although from the age four I said was going to be a physician,
by age sixteen I always thought I was going to be a neurosurgeon. Between
my junior and senior years in medical school, I took a three-month trip
to visit various and sundry surgical internship possibilities. I went
back to Duke and decided to take an internship in internal medicine
instead of surgery, even though I still pursued neurosurgery after the
internship.
"Charles Dickens was one of my favorite authors as a child. In
1974, I visited Olga Worrall, the great healer. In a hypnotic trance,
I saw her walk across her living room, pick up a book on a table, and
put it back down. I later called Olga and asked her what was the book
lying on the table in her living room. She said it was Pendennis by
William Thakery. Thackery dedicated his novel, Pendennis (1850), to
Dr. Elliotson and modeled his character, Dr. Goodenough, in that novel,
after Elliotson.
"I have spent much of this life getting people off narcotics rather
than putting them on them. Six months before I heard Elliotson's name,
I published anonymously a novel based on the hypocrisy of medicine in
accepting new ideas. I used many of the examples that Elliotson did
in his Harverian lecture. In 1973, again a month before I heard John
Elliotson's name, I received a $50,000 grant from a Fortune 500 company,
which had asked to remain anonymous, to study psychic diagnosis.
"In 1973, I visited seventy-five individuals who were said to be
excellent clairvoyants, and I did a test of medical intuition, or the
ability of really untrained psychics or intuitives to do medical diagnosis.
We found five who were between 70 and 75% accurate. When I told the
seventy-five intuitives I visited that I had this personal feeling that
I had been John Elliotson, all seventy five concurred. For some seven
years in by life, I published a newsletter, Holos Practice Reports,
on alternative approaches to medicine.
"In summary, I have never had any question that I was John Elliotson
in my last life. John Elliotson was born October 24, 1791. At age 19
he graduated from medical school. Interestingly, I entered medical school
at age 19. He died July 29, 1868. Incidentally, John founded the Phrenology
Society in London and it is interesting that I went into neurosurgery,
which certainly has a lot to do with the skull."
Let us briefly review the key features
of the Elliotson/Shealy case. When Dr. Shealy
first
heard John Elliotson's name, he knew viscerally
that he was Elliotson in a past lifetime. This
occurred even though Dr. Shealy was neutral about
reincarnation, at that point in time. Dr. Shealy
had this inner knowing, which was accompanied
by a dramatic sensation of an 'iceberg' going
down his back, before studying Elliotson's
life and without seeing an image of Elliotson.
When Dr. Shealy went to London to research Elliotson,
he intuitively found Elliotson's office.
This event also was accompanied by the 'iceberg' sensation.
Dr. Shealy then learned that he and Elliotson
had much in common. Both share the trait of
being medical innovators, in that Elliotson
introduced
the use of the stethoscope in England and Norm
Shealy has invented the TENS unit and the Dorsal
Column Stimulator.
Both have demonstrated an interest in the
management of pain. Elliotson introduced
the use of narcotics
in England, while Dr. Shealy has become a world
expert on pain management. In his contemporary
career, Dr. Shealy has labored to find ways
to manage pain so that people can get off narcotics.
Elliotson was an internist, who later founded
phrenology, which involves study of the skull.
Dr. Shealy first choose to go into internal
medicine,
then switched fields and became a neurosurgeon.
 Elliotson was interested in mesmerism or
hypnosis, an interest shared by Dr. Shealy.
Elliotson
was interested in the observation that hypnosis
could
stimulate clairvoyance. Dr. Shealy has worked
with clairvoyants and medical intuitives, including
Caroline Myss. Both have been ridiculed by
conservative elements in the medical community
for their innovative
approaches. Elliotson gave his detractors a
piece of his mind when in a Harverian Lecture,
he delivered
a speech on the hypocrisy of science in accepting
new ideas. Dr. Shealy published a novel with
the identical message and utilized the same
examples that Elliotson used in his Harverian
Lecture.
Elliotson had striking black hair which Dr.
Shealy, in his youth, tried to recreate. Elliotson
gave
up wearing knickers, which were pants that
went down just below the knee. Dr. Shealy had
a tantrum
when his mom tried to get him to wear the same
dreaded piece of clothing.
Two interesting additional past life matches have evolved from Norman
Shealy's case. One involves Anton Mesmer, who significantly influenced
John Elliotson. Mesmer was an Austrian physician, who lived from 1734
to 1815. He developed a form of hypnosis, which came to be known as 'mesmerism.'
Mesmer found that certain patients received beneficial effects from this
meditative, trance state. Other physicians in the medical community, such
as John Elliotson/Norm Shealy, supported Mesmer's work. In 1785, the French
Government created a committee, which included Benjamin Franklin, to investigate
Mesmer's work. The committee's report was unfavorable to Mesmer and as
a result, he was relegated as a charlatan. Posterity, though, has vindicated
Mesmer, as hypnosis and its sister, meditation, were later found to be
helpful for a number of medical conditions.
In contemporary times, Anton Mesmer has
been identified, initially by me and then
by Ahtun
Re, as Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D., who has brought 'Mindfulness
Meditation' to the medical community. Mindfulness
Meditation is used to alleviate conditions aggravated
by stress, and it can be seen as a contemporary
version of mesmerism. A wonderful aspect of this
story is that in today's world, Anton
Mesmer has been acclaimed for his work, rather
than
being ridiculed.
Mindfulness Meditation is taught in many
medical institutions, including the world's
largest and best Health Maintenance Organization
(HMO),
Kaiser Permanente. Kaiser not only provides
Mindfulness Meditation training to its patients,
but also
to its physicians. In this lifetime, Dr. Kabat-Zinn
has been a member of medical academia, as he
is a retired Professor of Medicine at the University
of Massachusetts, Medical School. I love this
story as it demonstrates that individuals,
who are condemned by those with closed minds
in one
lifetime, do receive their just rewards in
the end.
The other past life case that emerged,
in relation to Norm Shealy, involves Charles
Dickens, who
was noted to be a good friend of John Elliotson.
In a session with Kevin Ryerson, I asked Ahtun
Re whether Dickens was incarnate today, and
I was told that he is. I was surprised to learn
who Dickens is in contemporary times, though
on further reflection, it made perfect sense.
Charles Dickens has reincarnated as J. K. Rowling,
the author of the Harry Potter series. Ahtun
Re pointed out that in this lifetime, as in
the
last, Dickens/Rowling is bringing magic into
children's lives through written works.
The physical resemblance between Dickens and
Rowling is impressive.
Cases related to the John Elliotson/Norm
Shealy Case that may be of interest to readers,
which
can be found in Return of the Revolutionaries,
include:
Charles Dickens/ J.K. Rowling
Deborah Franklin/ Caroline Myss
Peter van Musschenbrock/ Steve Wozniak
Thomas Bond/ Bernie Siegel
Sir John Pringle/ Richard Gerber, MD
Matthew Thornton/ Norman Shealy
Charles Dickens/ J. K. Rowling
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