Richard Hoagland | Rudolph Tafel
In 2004, in an effort to present objective evidence of reincarnation to a broader audience, I began participating in expositions. In February 2004, I was scheduled to speak at the Conscious Living Expo in Los Angeles. I formulated a strategy to get other expo speakers interested in the reincarnation project by identifying past lifetimes for these speakers. I utilized the demonstrated abilities of Ahtun Re, the spirit guide channeled by Kevin Ryerson, to establish these past life matches. Richard Hoagland, author of Monuments of Mars, which recently enjoyed its fifth printing, was scheduled to appear at the Conscious Living Expo as a keynote speaker. Indeed, his presentation turned out to be one of the major draws of the conference.
Prior to the expo, I asked Ahtun Re for a past life identity for Mr. Hoagland that could be historically validated. Ahtun Re told me that Mr. Haogland had been one of the primary biographers of Emanuel Swedenborg, the famous Swedish astronomer, physician and mystic. After investigating potential candidates, Ahtun Re confirmed that Mr. Haogland had been Rudolph Tafel, who wrote the encyclopedic work, Documents Concerning Swedenborg.
Let me present a brief synopsis of Tafel’s life, which is drawn from a paper written by Patrick Johnson, Editor of Things Heard and Seen, a newsletter of the Swedenborg Society. Tafel was born in Germany in 1831 and at age 15, he immigrated to Cincinnati, Ohio. After he completed his schooling, Tafel became a partner in a pharmaceutical firm. Once he became established in this profession, he turned over business responsibilities to his partners and relatives, so that he could pursue an academic life. Tafel first became a librarian. In a short time, Tafel’s scholarly efforts catapulted him to become, by the age of 31, the Chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Comparative Philology at Washington University, in St. Louis. Pursuing his strong interest in Swedenborg, Tafel also became an ordained minister in the Swedenborgian Church.
In his paper, Patrick Johnson makes the observation that Tafel was “an exceptionally gifted scholar.” Due to these abilities, he was commissioned by the church to collect and make photolithographs of Swedenborg’s writings, to preserve them for posterity. Tafel traveled to Sweden to execute this task. In 1875, the fruits of his labor were published as the “colossal” work, as described by Mr. Johnson, Documents Concerning Swedenborg. Mr. Johnson points out that there exist a hundred biographies of Swedenborg, and that the authors of these works uniformly acknowledge that their writings are largely based on Tafel’s Documents Concerning Swedenborg.
In summarizing the impact that Tafel had on the Swedenborgian Church, Mr. Johnson made the following conclusions. Tafel played two star roles. One, Tafel was “the scholar who rescued much of our knowledge of Swedenborg from oblivion.” Two, Tafel was “the controversialist,” who led the Swedenborgians through a “revolution of ideas.”
Let us now examine similarities between Rudolph Tafel and Richard Hoagland.
- Like Tafel, Hoagland is a natural scholar. Hoagland became the space-science curator of a small, New England museum/planetarium, much like Tafel became a librarian. Just as Tafel quickly advanced to become the chair of a university department by age 31, Hoagland catapulted to become a science advisor to CBS News and the legendary news anchor, Walter Cronkite.
- Tafel and Hoagland have the common trait of revering science. Tafel made a point to translate Swedenborg’s scientific works, including Swedenborg’s study of the central nervous system, which was entitled, The Brain. Swedenborg also had a passion for astronomy and he was the first to forward the nebular hypothesis of the universe’s creation. This is consistent with Mr. Hoagland’s interest in space exploration.
- Patrick Johnson, in his analysis of Rudolph Tafel, noted of Tafel: “He often makes guesses and assumptions too confidently and presents them as if they are facts.” Richard Hoagland has the same tendency, which I have sympathy for, since I can demonstrate this same trait. Let us examine a passage from Monuments of Mars, which illustrates this tendency. One of Mr. Hoagland’s primary tenets is that NASA has refused to acknowledge clear evidence of physical structures on Mars, which must have been created by extraterrestrial intelligence. In the forward of his book, Mr. Hoagland makes the following statements regarding his book, Monuments of Mars.
“It is also the story of formally organized, independent scientific investigations that I have been privileged to lead over the past two decades, regarding all the odysseys of NASA—beginning with the Viking journeys to the planet Mars in 1976. For on these missions, as the evidence in this volume will confirm, NASA found—and then apparently systematically suppressed—our first bonafide evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence (maybe…more than one) that somehow came before us in the solar system. This is fact, not fiction, as unbelievable as that may seem.”
I am sympathetic to Mr. Hoagland’s work, but it is true, that he is aggressive in asserting his hypotheses to be factual; much like Tafel was prone to do.
- Patrick Johnson also made the observation, regarding Tafel, that “He loved to clinch arguments with irrefutable quotations that he could draw from his memory.” Mr. Hoagland has a similar tendency. One of events that he focuses on in Monuments of Mars is the “Brookings Report,” of 1959, in which the Brookings Institute delivered a paper to the US Congress stating that humanity was not psychologically ready to discover evidence of extraterrestrial life. The “Brookings Report” indicated that finding evidence of extraterrestrial life would be too much of a shock for humanity and suggested that such evidence may need to be suppressed for the stability of the planet. Hoagland indignantly cites a quotation from the Brookings Report, regarding evidence of extraterrestrial life, which speculates on “how might such information, under what circumstances, be presented to or withheld from the public..and for what ends.”
Mr. Hoagland then cites an interview of Stanley Kubrick, director of 2001: A Space Odyssey, in which Kubrick demonstrates knowledge of the Brookings Report long before it was released to the general public. Mr. Hoagland suggests that Kubrick produced his film, 2001, in part, to counter the Brookings Report. Hoagland then uses a Kubrick quote to express his own passionate view on the matter of discovering evidence of extraterrestrial life: Kubrick states: “I would personally tend to view such contact with a tremendous amount of excitement and enthusiasm. Rather than shattering our society, I think it would immeasurable enrich it…”
Like Tafel, throughout his book, Monuments of Mars, Mr. Hoagland utilizes quotations from others to “cinch” his own arguments.
- Though this may be coincidence, there is even a similarity in the research methods of Tafel and Hoagland. Tafel spent years essentially making photographs of Swedenborg’s documents. Tafel then spent years studying these photographs to produce a lengthy, comprehensive work, Documents Concerning Swedenborg. Similarly, much of Hoagland’s work has based on the analysis of photographs of Mars. From this study, Hoagland has also produced a very well documented, lengthy work, his Monuments of Mars.
- Patrick Johnson summarized Tafel’s role in the Swedenborg Society in the following manner. Tafel, he said, was “the controversialist,” who led the Swedenborgians through a “revolution of ideas.” In the same way, Richard Hoagland is playing the role of a controversialist, staunchly defending his hypothesis that evidence exists of extraterrestrial life on Mars. If future research proves him right, then Mr. Hoagland has also shepherded us through a “revolution of ideas” concerning our understanding of the planet Mars.
In my research on reincarnation, I have noticed that the passion that fuels the action of individuals in contemporary life, often stems from past life experiences and affiliations. As such, I wondered if Richard Haogland’s passion for establishing proof of a civilization on Mars stems from past life experiences. Accordingly, I asked Ahtun Re, the spirit guide channeled through Ahtun Re, whether perhaps Richard Haogland lived on Mars, in a past incarnation, in an ancient civilization. Ahtun Re told me that this was true, that Mr. Hoagland had once lived on Mars, and that he participated in the society, the civilization, that he is so drawn to prove existed in a distant time.
Mr. Hoagland centers his work on what appears to be a human type “Face,” sculpted on the surface of Mars. Hoagland describes, in great detail, a hypothesized Martian city that once thrived adjacent to this Face. One can imagine that the Face may just be a natural formation, which from satellite images, resembles a human face. This, indeed, must be the opinion of most NASA scientists.
I asked Ahtun Re, who has been such a reliable resource in making past life matches, such as in the cases of Carl Sagan, Steve Jobs, Ralph Nader and Neale Donald Walsch, whether the Martian Face indeed represents the work of extraterrestrial intelligence or whether it is just a natural geologic formation. Ahtun Re told me that the Face was a natural formation, which was sculpted into the shape of a humanoid face by Martian inhabitants, much as Mount Rushmore was sculpted by humans. As such, Ahtun Re confirmed Mr. Hoagland’s hypothesis.
It is interesting to reflect on the possibility that Richard Hoagland himself was a Martian, participating in a civilization that existed eons ago. This possibility is supported by Mr. Hoagland’s own musings. Let us consider the following paragraphs from Monuments of Mars, in which he reflects on the Face of Mars, with its surrounding pyramidal structures, and the city that he visualizes adjacent to the Face. Mr. Hoagland writes:
“If I were correct, I was staring at the ruins of a culture which had vanished at a time when men on earth were just starting to tame fire…if not long before.”
“‘They’ had been there once…someone, to whom the pyramids, arranged in their meticulous rectilinear array, had had meaning, soaring against a nonblue sky of a world that perhaps may had once been home. In itself it was ludicrous. It wasn’t part of any current ‘reality’ that geologists and planetologists referred to when they spoke of Mars. But it was there: palpable and as real as the gold color of the couch that I was sitting on. I was gazing at the remains of something that had once been grand and beautiful, whose grandeur—across timeless millennia and the vast emptiness between the worlds—still clung to crumbling shapes casting their long shadows out across the sands of this strange land. There was something…timeless…here.”
“Like the Face, the massive ‘pyramid,’ and of course, the strange rectilinear collection of what I now increasingly thought of as the City. It wasn’t truly like a city—at least any modern city such a reference conjures up. There were no obvious spires, like Manhattan; no grid-like streets marking out ‘downtown.’ So why was I thinking of it the City…?
Because (my internal watchdog prompted) it feels like a place where “Martians” would have gathered.
It wasn’t a ‘city,’ my mind suddenly intuited, as much as some kind of “sacred center’—perhaps dedicated to the ‘god’ represented by the Face itself.
A series of images cascaded before me: silent processions of robed and hooded ‘Martians’ gathering among the sacred stones on the solstice…I took real effort to shake this vivid picture.”
I would suggest that for Mr. Hoagland, it “took real effort to shake this vivid picture,” because Mr. Hoagland was experiencing a past life memory, of an existence on the planet Mars. In the case of Carroll Beckwith/Robert Snow, Captain Snow expressed how his past life experience or memory was more real, more vivid, than waking consciousness. Past life memories can be experienced in this way.
As an interesting correlate, Emanuel Swedenborg, the subject of Rudolph Tafel’s scholarship, is featured as a reincarnation case in my book, Return of the Revolutionaries.
Stanislav Grof, MD, is a psychiatrist and one of the founders of Transpersonal Psychology. Dr. Grof is a former Chief of Psychiatric Research at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center. Like Swedenborg, Dr. Grof became interested in altered states of consciousness. Dr. Grof invented Holotropic Breath Work as a way for people to access altered, spiritual states in a safe manner. Because of our common interest in consciousness and spirituality, I was curious about Grof’s past incarnations. A few years ago, I asked Ahtun Re who Stanislav Grof was in a past lifetime. Ahtun Re responded, “Swedenborg.”
Swedenborg was a scientist, philosopher and clairvoyant who lived from 1688 to 1772. Jeffrey Mishlove, Ph.D., in his book, Roots of Consciousness, described Swedenborg as “the single individual who combined within himself the most intense spiritualistic exploration with the most sophisticated scientific expertise.” Swedenborg was firmly grounded in science and made important contributions in mathematics, physics and biology. Swedenborg spent many years studying human anatomy and physiology and as a result of his work, he was the first to discover the function of the cerebellum. In addition to his scientific pursuits, Swedenborg developed clairvoyant abilities and was able to extensively explore the realms of spirit.
Swedenborg’s description of the spiritual world was compatible with the perceptions of Austrian clairvoyant, Rudolf Steiner. Swedenborg and Steiner both described the spiritual world as being made up of various spheres of light and said that souls are attracted to particular realms based on their level of evolution. Steiner, interestingly, has also recently been identified in a reincarnation case. More recently, Michael Newton, Ph.D, also advances this general picture or landscape of the spiritual world in his classic book, Journey of Souls. Newton’s work is based on hypnotic regression sessions, where the client is taken back to a point in-between lifetimes and observations of the spirit world are described from a regression state.
In his daily life, Swedenborg would communicate with spirits, sometimes talking aloud to invisible beings. Though some might have questioned his sanity, Swedenborg showed no signs of mental illness and continued to function in high strata of society.
Grof, in exploring consciousness, was an early LSD experimenter. I have heard Dr. Grof in lectures describe spiritual realms accessed through LSD in a manner that would be consistent with Swedenborg’s personal spiritual experiences. Later, Grof invented a technique called Holotropic Breath Work, which allows practitioners to achieve altered states through natural means. Stanislav Grof has written a number of books on psychology and consciousness, including The Holotropic Mind.
In conclusion, I submit that Richard Hoagland is the reincarnation of Rudolph Tafel. In addition, as indicated by Ahtun Re, Mr. Hoagland’s passion for uncovering evidence of extraterrestrial life on Mars may stem from a past lifetime in which he participated in that Martian civilization. As such, we may view the Tafel/Hoagland case as a type of “affinity case,” much like the cases of Abigail Adams/Marianne Williamson, William James/Jeffrey Mishlove, and physicists C.S Peirce/H.D. Brown. In all these cases, the contemporary individual is intuitively attracted to their own past life persona, just as Mr. Hoagland appears to have been intuitively drawn to a past lifetime on Mars. And finally, even Rudolph Tafel’s biographical subject, Emanuel Swedenborg, is with us today in the persona of Stanislav Grof, MD.
