Rosemary Brown

[Mark Thomas]

So you'd rather have been "Wrong but Wromantic", Thal, than "Right but Repulsive"? Sorry for the digression...

[semloh]

OK - please allow me one step further along the digression! 

My view is naturally that there is a psychological explanation. The human brain is capable of the most astounding things. In the course of my work, I've met people who can't tie their shoelaces but can instantly tell you the day of the week of any given date in history, or multiply numbers faster than a calculator; people who suddenly develop amazing artistic or musical skills after suffering a brain injury; people of average intelligence who have photographic memories or who can recall a piece of music perfectly after a single hearing, and play it perfectly - at least to the best of their ability; people who seem normal in all respects but who are convinced they are inhabited by aliens, constantly monitored by the CIA, or terrified they will flood the world if they urinate! What's so amazing about composing a few piano pieces after all that? 

[ahinton]

FWIW, I think the latter explanation is the correct one. Commentators on contacts with various sorts of discarnate entities (such as religious apparitions, encounters with aliens, etc.) note that they always have one thing in common, namely deception. Thus, depending on the context, they may pose as a particular religious figure (work this out for yourself!), or as a visitor from outer space, or (in  RB's case) as a composer. In my locality - a small seaside town with an elderly population - we have a lot of mediums who visit claiming to be able to put the bereaved in touch with their deceased relatives. They may be sincere, as no doubt RB was, but they are in fact themselves being deceived and are perpetrating deception upon others.

I note with interest from the Wikipedia article that RB's family was involved in mediumistic practices...

Who knows? You may be right about this, entirely or in part and, as such, it could even be that both answers apply here. Certainly your last statement above is correct and cannot sensibly be denied. I remain puzzled, however, as to what really did happen and how.

[Alan Howe]

My view is naturally that there is a psychological explanation. The human brain is capable of the most astounding things.

...and, of course, we must be open to this explanation. It's certainly a very real possibility. But so is the spiritual explanation. And the place to start is surely RB's activities as a medium...

If I may be allowed a philosophical aside: a totally material, atheistic worldview is forced to seek an explanation within the human psyche; a theistic worldview, on the other hand, allows the possibility that not everything has to be nor can be explained in that way and that there exist certain forces which can act upon the human psyche from outside.

[petershott@btinternet.com]

By golly - I cannot recall such a chain of posts before about a non-composer, romantic or otherwise!

In the days when I had to earn my crust of bread I taught, among other things, a final year undergraduate course on philosophy of religion. Using that I could stretch out this thread forever - but I shall spare everyone from such a fate!

But two pertinent questions which haven't been answered. First, how did Ms RB understand what was being supposedly 'communicated' to her given a language barrier? For example, if she got some bit of Schubert 'wrong' how would Schubert tell her? Or, how did she know she was right / correct? And if notions like 'right' or 'wrong' don't have application here, then is there any reason at all to even begin to take this stuff seriously?

Secondly, and I ask rather tongue in cheek, why is it that all composers allegedly somehow in contact with RB are, broadly speaking, 19th century 'romantic' composers (and European)? Isn't that a bit odd? Wouldn't we take a bit more notice if RB suddenly produced pieces of music 'communicated' to her by, for example, Charles Ives or Bela Bartok? Or, what would be the response if she produced unfamiliar pieces which she claimed were now lost works of Algernon Ashton or Percy Sherwood? Wouldn't you rather scoff? So why bother attend to her claim that she was producing posthumous works by Liszt or Rachmaninov?

[Alan Howe]

If the answer lies in the activities of discarnate entities, their objective would be above all to deceive RB and, through her, other people. It's far more likely, therefore, that RB would be deceived by these entities posing as familiar, rather than unfamiliar composers. As for the language barrier, well, that would presumably be all part of the deception - after all, they would probably say that everyone spoke the same language 'on the other side'. As for knowing whether what had been communicated was right or wrong, well, what does it matter? If you're deceived, whatever comes out is going to be deemed correct.

Bottom line: RB's compositions aren't by certain dead composers. They're either the productions of an undiagnosed mental or psychological disorder, or dictations from discarnate entities. The former is a fascinating possibility; the latter a major cause for concern with regard to the lady's spiritual condition, especially if she had been into mediumistic practices all her life.

[Alan Howe]

Just came across this interesting exchange:
http://www.piano-tuners.org/piano-forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=9810

[kolaboy]

In my view the two possibilities are:

1. That RB had some sort of extraordinary mental condition yet to be explained. This would no doubt be the modern psychological/psychiatric explanation.

2. That RB, as a medium herself, was in fact in contact with discarnate entities (which inhabit the spiritual world), posing as dead composers for the purpose of deception. This would be the historic Christian explanation.

I certainly agree with the second possibility.

[Balapoel]

In my view, the two possibilities are:
1) RB was a charlatan.
2) RB was deluded and thought she heard voices.

In my view the two possibilities are:

1. That RB had some sort of extraordinary mental condition yet to be explained. This would no doubt be the modern psychological/psychiatric explanation.

2. That RB, as a medium herself, was in fact in contact with discarnate entities (which inhabit the spiritual world), posing as dead composers for the purpose of deception. This would be the historic Christian explanation.

[Alan Howe]

1) RB was a charlatan.
2) RB was deluded and thought she heard voices.

I think No.1 has been effectively ruled out. Nobody who met her thought she was intentionally out to deceive anyone.
No.2 raises the same question: were the voices in her head or did they come from elsewhere? Depends on your worldview...

[Balapoel]

Well, as a scientist, I tend to prefer hypotheses that are consistent with the observable world. Of the two presented here, (1) hallucinatory voices in someone's head, an observable phenomenon played out in countless psychiatric cases, or (2) actual voices from 'beyond', which have never been demonstrated, and actually would be inconsistent with mountains of empirical evidence (e.g., when parts of the brain are damaged, these have real repercussions in the sense of self; the mind is what the brain does; etc.), one might be preferred.

Tests could be constructed. If the second is correct, then the 'medium' could be able to demonstrate knowledge not known by the medium. These could then be checked independently. To my knowledge, this type of knowledge has never been demonstrated.

[Alan Howe]

Well, as a scientist, I tend to prefer hypotheses that are consistent with the observable world.

...in which case your worldview (scientific materialism) has already predetermined not only the parameters of your investigation, but the possible results too; whereas mine (Christian theism) allows for the possibility of a psychological explanation, but also permits the possibility of one rooted in mediumistic practices involving contacts with discarnate entities beyond the reach of purely scientific enquiry.

[Balapoel]

Fair enough. But my view is not 'scientific materialism'. In fact, I would follow Noam Chomsky in his criticisms of such. In this manner, deism could be possible (and scientific inquiry would have no purchase), whereas theism (as evinced in literal readings of certain writings) can be shown to be inconsistent with historical and other evidences. So, for instance, we could not disprove that such a thing as 'ghosts' exist, but you could certainly test (Ms. Brown for instance) in theory, in such a way as to determine if she was undergoing psychotic episodes. Chemical imbalances and MRI data (and others) would be independent means to determine if this were the case.

So, I would disagree that this type of phenomenon would be outside scientific inquiry. But we can respectfully agree to disagree.

[Alan Howe]

I think we're probably at the outer limits of this discussion as we're now likely veer off into a discussion of the consistency of Christian theism with historical and other evidences. I therefore accept your invitation to agree to disagree about RB!

[eschiss1]

Was just looking up Ian Parrott (to see if he was in the archived sections of this site...), though, since he died a few weeks before anything in this thread was written...
hrm! *blink*