Shamans, Seers & Saints

What connects ancient seers to modern psychics? The answer lies in the remarkable consistency of extrasensory experiences across millennia and continents.

In this captivating conversation, Irish author Daniel Bourke unpacks the cross-cultural patterns of telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition documented in his book "Telepathic Tales: Precognition and Clairvoyance in Legend, Lyric and Lore." From bilocation accounts where individuals appear in two places simultaneously to spontaneous abilities that help locate lost objects, Bourke reveals how these phenomena appear with striking similarity from Scotland to Peru, ancient Greece to modern America.

Bourke shares the story of skeptical psychoanalyst Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer, whose worldview was shattered when a dowser successfully located her daughter's stolen harp after conventional methods failed. We journey through the Scottish Highlands' rich tradition of "second sight," explore indigenous shamanic practices for remote viewing, and discover how healing knowledge has been transmitted through dreams and visions across diverse cultures.

Perhaps most fascinating are the accounts of historical figures like Charles Dickens, who once dreamed of meeting a woman in a red shawl named Miss Napier—only to encounter this exact stranger the following evening. Through careful documentation and comparative analysis, Bourke demonstrates that what we might dismiss as mythology often contains verifiable experiences reported consistently through time.

Whether you're a skeptic or believer, this exploration of humanity's persistent relationship with the unexplained will challenge your understanding of consciousness and perception. The evidence suggests these experiences represent not cultural fabrications but a fundamental aspect of human cognition that transcends both time and place.

Ready to explore the telepathic thread that connects us all? If you do, you’ll want to view Daniel Bourke’s interview with host Stan Mallow on “Paranormal Yakker”.

Chapters

• 0:00 Daniel Bourke discusses Telepathic Tales on Paranormal Yakker.
• 0:53 The Bilocation Phenomenon.
• 2:26 Finding Lost Items.
• 4:36 The Haunted Highlands of Scotland.
• 6:21 Psychic Phenomena in Indigenous Cultures of Australia & America.
• 8:39 Paranormal Events in the Plains of Peru.
• 10:19 Cures Discovered by Telepathy.
• 13:09 Greek Seer’s Prophecy About Hercules Comes True.
• 15:22 Shaman’s Vision of Impending Danger.
• 17:25 Magic Performed by Legendary Witches, Wizards & Heroes.
• 20:08 Extraordinary Experiences of Extraordinary People.
• 23:04 Where to buy Telepathic Tales.

Transcript

0:00

Hi everyone, I'm Stan Mallow, welcome to Paranormal Yakker. My guest on today's show is Irish Author, poet and songwriter, Daniel Bourke. I'll be talking with him from his home in Dublin about his book

Telepathic Tales: 0:16

Precognition and Clairvoyance in Legend, Lyric and Lore. Telepathic Tales is an in depth collection of real life psychic moments from cultures across time and place from ancient seers and indigenous shamans to Charles Dickens, Carl Jung, and 13th century poet, scholar, and mystic Rumi. Daniel Bourke, welcome to Paranormal Yakker. Stan, thank you for having me back, I appreciate the invite. Many unexplained ESP related happenings are covered in your book. One of them is about people who have the ability known as bilocation, a phenomenon that enables them to be in two places at the same time. Can you, Daniel, give me an example of someone who had that ability? Well with bilocation, the bilocation is in this book it comes in more on the accounts related to the kind of deathbed visions now. Like historically and in history of religion, bilocation is usually a power that you see ascribed to like the saints for example. Padre Pio for example would be a famous example, but there are much older examples also in the dialogues of Pope Gregory for example etc. But in this book the bilocation isn't a huge focus, but it does come out in the accounts wherein individuals, and this ties back into our last interview actually, the individual on the deathbed will sometimes claim to have visited another at a distance and in order to kind of inform them of their death, but what's interesting is that you also have accounts where in, sorry, in those accounts, the individual at a distance will also say that they saw that person at the same time and that it will be confirmed that they did say those words at the hospital bed, for example. And those are kind of in the literature called reciprocal apparitions, but in my work, they do kind of, they are a form of bilocation in my work. You, Daniel, also write about people who have the ability to find lost items. Could you give an example of someone who had that ability and did they perform any sort of ritual or meditation that helped them to find the lost item or did they just focus on the item in their mind and its location automatically came to them? It's actually all of the above. I mean, in some of the ancient accounts and the ancient texts from Greece and Rome, you will see examples of people specifically employing specialists in order to locate lost items. However, in our own times, and there is a caveat here I'll come to in a second, in our own times, you'll find many accounts which are spontaneous. And for example, Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer, psychoanalyst, she had a fascinating account, she's passed now, in her incredible work, Extraordinary Knowing, in which her daughter's harp had been missing for a long time, and they'd pretty much given up hope on ever finding it. And her friend kind of told her, in what Elizabeth called a kind of a joking tone, to ask a dowser to find it. And Elizabeth being a kind of a highly Western materialist kind of psychoanalyst, she didn't take it seriously. However, the dowser she consulted did find the harp, and it kind of shook Elizabeth's worldview. And it was kind of the impetus for her entire work in this area, and her work Extraordinary Knowing, for example. So the caveat there is that while many in the West do have spontaneous experiences, as opposed to sought when it comes to locating lost items, in the literature, for example, of many Native American cultures, you will also find many examples of spontaneous examples of the finding of lost items also. A spirit may come in a dream and point out the location of a lost doll, or a deceased ancestor may point out the location of a root or a plant that needs to be found, for example. So while we do in the majority have those spontaneous accounts in the West, it wasn't the case that there were not any in the ethnological records, for example. In your book you take your readers on a cross-cultural voyage through extra sensory experiences. I would now like to ask you about a few of them. What mysterious phenomena occurred in the haunted islands of Scotland? Well, the Haunted Islands of Scotland, Scotland has just a long history of, I believe, 17th, 16th century, like the term second sight was kind of popularized, and the idea that there were certain individuals with the capacity to see spirits or kind of sense auras, but just generally have some sort of strange extra sensory capacities. You will find that to this day in the Highlands. In terms of like, there are so many accounts of wraiths, for example, in the Scotland Highlands, so many examples of apparitions at the moment of death, as those again reference in my previous work. You will find examples of, if I could remember the author's name, that I'm actually working on something at the moment, wherein an author had written many experiences that she had growing up in the Scottish Highlands, including the kind of local "wise woman" who may have the capacity to kind of dream ahead of time, etc. Or even read minds, what's called in the life of the saints, this is called heart reading, or reading hearts, the idea that one can actually kind of divine the thoughts of another, often accidentally, but sometimes purposefully. I don't go too deeply into that in this book, but it is something that I'm working on for a future book, so stay tuned for that. What can you tell me about the psychic phenomena occurences that took place in the indigenous cultures of Australia and America? With this book, what I really wanted to do was to show the reader that so many of these experiences of extra sensory perception, or as some people prefer to say today, anomalous cognition, these kind of classic experiences that have been documented by parapsychologists quite carefully, and others. The folklorists, the ethnologists and the anthropologists have recorded the same in quite significant numbers. So in many Native American cultures, for example, you will find accounts of what I call visions of a visitor's arrival. This ties into the Scandinavian "Värdoger". This is the idea of a premonitory sight or sound of a visitor's arrival. Now there, in Scandinavia, these are examples in which the individual becomes aware of the coming of another, often through apparition, sometimes through sound, but I expand that into visions and dreams in general. And when you do that, you find so many of these accounts within the records of ethnologists. For example, you find so many, such as Elmer Miller, he was a chair of the anthropology department at Temple University in Pennsylvania. He recorded a number of these accounts in his work Coming to the Gran Chaco Region of South America. This was in the 1960s. He had numerous examples, including kind of hidden away in the notes of, for example, a pastor of the Toba people from Gran Chaco, a guy, a man named Acosta. Elmer was surprised that he knew that they were coming. And how did Acosta account for this? Acosta told Elmer he had a vision of their coming the night before. And Elmer wrote, quote unquote,"Despite more than a year in this cultural milieu, I was perplexed." This is the same kind of kind of, you see this kind of surprise expressed by Western social scientists very commonly coming in contact with native tribes and cultures who seem to have these strange capacities. And they express them casually, as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world. What paranormal event took place in the plains of Peru that qualified it for being included in Telepathic Tales? There are actually so many again with Peru there are actually so many accounts of wraiths again the idea of learning of a distant death through the visit of an of a supposed spirit for example But there are examples in Peru from for example in the West these visions of a distant death are very kind of ubiquitously recorded not necessarily in the last 50 or 60 years, but certainly before that and It with again when I mentioned I say in Peru we find these very commonly what's interesting is that just like the West we Also find numerous crisis visions in Peru. These are visions which seem to be veridical regarding a distant crisis, but not a death. There's a general crisis You have a woman named Flor for example who told an author that she dreamed her daughter needed her and she was dying and following her dreams instructions, she finds her daughter and discovers she had been barely surviving on a handful of corn a day. You have many of these examples from Peru in which the individual discovers what turns out to be accurate information regarding a distant crisis and for me and this book the main focus are dreams and visions which correlate with the external world. They actually are veridical. They are truth-telling and that is that has been my main interest and it will be I hope the reader will find it interesting how many of these dreams have been recorded throughout history and throughout time. The discovery of cures by telepathic means is covered in Telepathic Tales. Could you tell me about someone who discovered a cure in that manner and what was it they were able to cure using telepathy? In the book, on the chapter about cures and contact with the other world, I bring many accounts of seemingly mysterious healing under the umbrella of contact with the other world, because it seems like if the folklore, the legends and the tales consistently tell us that, contact with the other world in general has the capacity to impart healing. And we see this throughout time, we see this in the Asclepieion temples where individuals dreamed of gods and other types of beings who would impart cures, sometimes very specific, sometimes kind of general, but oftentimes highly specific prescriptions, for example, side of vinegar, mixtures of different flowers, etc. You see the same thing from as far apart as South America, Tibet and China, for example, you have so many of these accounts, and in many of these accounts, again, there are veridical examples wherein the individual is told exactly where a plant is, or exactly the type of plant needed, and they will attest that this was found there, for example. And there are such a number of these accounts, and they very carefully distinguish these accounts from the more spontaneous or mythologized accounts. So we should be careful in making generalizations in there. And I will say also that the third party aspect, in North Native America, you may see that a deceased individual brings the information of the distant cure. In Turkish folklore, you have many examples of fairies. A fairy may say, "In return for your kindness to a farmer, I shall teach you something very useful. I shall tell you how to cure those who are sick and at the point of death." In Irish folk tales, you find many of these fairy examples too. A man who got lost on his way home, he was quote-unquote "stupefied," and he had to sit down, he fell asleep. A passage between two pillars opened up in his dream, inside which was a large vaulted room with hundreds of lamps. This is kind of classic fairy story imagery. Strange men and women in green garb, red coats, and after he sings with them, they cure his back, and he wakes up feeling as if he had wings. Okay, so, well, when you hear that, it does feel like a kind of an intriguing, perhaps contrived to some extent, maybe legendary tale. The common thread throughout the chapter and what I focus on is contact with the other world, and we see that still today during near-death experiences where individuals claim and has been documented interesting and spontaneous healing post-near death experiences, so I tried to tie it all together in that regard. The accurate prophecies of Greek seers, such as, Iamus are included in your book, what was his prophecy about Hercules that did indeed come true? This is a kind of classic clairvoyant capacity. Like today, you will just you'll still read and even in even in works that are kind of skeptical and tend towards the hallucinatory, you will read accounts where the individual suddenly kind of stops in their tracks or whether in a waking vision or in a dream. But in this case, we'll say waking vision because it's directly related to Iamus. They will suddenly become aware that somebody has died at a distance or that somebody is in trouble at a distance, etc., or that somebody is arriving soon, for example. And with the Iamus, this was the kind of tale of from Greek mythology in which Hercules left the company of the legendary twins Castor and Pollux. They visited the Iamus and they specifically asked him for the tidings of those twins. And that's what's interesting is that just because we see the same again in these Native American and South American tribes, the shaman or the medicine man is specifically consulted for the very exact same kind of information. In any case, Iamus had said that this very day, that great spirit has departed from among men, yes, for it has shown me it was shown to me in a vision how he met the doom of fire and entered that flaming gate into everlasting bliss. And these again are the same capacity asscribed to the saint with Saint Columba in Ireland with his Vida, with his life, you read these accounts, where suddenly it comes upon him, this information. He will say at this very moment, such and such a thing has occurred, has passed at a distance. And I invite the reader in this book to look at these tales again and consider that while many are certainly kind of edifying didactic, some contrived for the extent to which they are indistinguishable from accounts still recorded today in earnest by ordinary people, suggests a connection through time. That is something that I really try to get through with this book. Can you give me an example of a shaman who, while in a trance, was able to see a vision that resulted in him warning his tribe of impending danger? There is an example in the book of a man, this is a non-indigenous individual, who had been gotten lost in the Mexican desert. And you'll forgive me, there are so many tribes in the book off the top of my head, it's sometimes hard to remember the specifics, but I believe it was perhaps the Mexican, the Cajita Mexicans perhaps. But in any case, this man claims that there were three men from this tribe who rescued him. And when he asked them how they knew, they simply said that we had consulted our medicine man, and he had dreamed that you were out here. And they simply came to find him based upon that information. And these kinds of tales, again, they become less far fetched, at least in the sense that they aren't entirely contrived, when you realize that the same things occur today, that still today, people like you will find in police records in Poland, for example, accounts in which you know, psychics are brought to brought on board, and brought to bear on the investigations. And they claim, you know, knowledge of the location of a body, for example, and this is maybe documented to have turned out correctly. And if this is the same phenomenon you find kind of in the military and the Navy, where they put 20 million into remote viewing and extra sensory perception over the course of 20 years, and they reported many accounts of successful remote viewing, for example, of Russian submarines and bases, etc, that ostensibly turned out accurate. So what we're seeing again is the same phenomenon, or at least what presents as the same phenomenon, through cultures and time that are widely separated by at times oceans and other times millennium. Also written about in your book are witches, wizards and heroes of legend and romance who were privy to secret knowledge through magical means. Can you tell me about one or two of them and explain in what ways, for what reasons, did they use this secret knowledge they possessed? Absolutely. I love the I love I set up the first chapter with a quote from Jacob Grimm from the fairy tales. It goes that witches have red eyes and cannot see far but they have a keen scent like the beasts and are aware when human being is drawn near. And I love that because it really sums up the capacities of these individuals at least according to the kind of areas they come from and the folk tales etc. It is again the same capacities. It is we see that we see the witch becoming aware perhaps in Italy for example there are example there are accounts of I believe it was in 1960s Venice where certain witches would use a particular kind of brew. And when an author the author's name was Charles Lee Charles Leland and when he asked them you know what they use it for they specify that it was in order to know who was coming ahead of time at a distance. And that's very interesting because we could take like we're talking about Italy in the 1960s or so like and we can go back to. We can go back to Spanish missionaries in 1681 for example where they found that the inhabitants of what is now New Mexico they would use peyote cactus specifically in order to induce visions quote unquote. In which a person could tell just what persons might be on the way from New Spain to New Mexico. So you see you specialists completely separated from cold by culture by oceans and by time ingesting brews in order to enter all the states specifically towards the very same goals and you see the same in South America. You see the shaman while in trance somebody may ask on a whim this has been documented in certain papers where somebody will visit the shaman while he's in trance ask where is this person are they on the way. And the answer may come or it may not and the extent to which the individual the shaman, the witch was accurate that would very often determine the extent to which they would then be taken seriously. In other words these things were not always just blithely casually believed but the individual had to have a record of these kinds of visions turning out true more than more often than not. As stated in my introduction, Daniel, you write about the extraordinary experiences of a number of notable people. This includes Charles Dickens, Carl Jung, and Rumi. Could you give me a brief synopsis of their experiences? Well, with Charles Dickens, I thought that was a nice account to include early on in the book, because it ties in so nicely with the first chapter. So he wrote in his journal, and there's a couple of things to say here, because Charles Dickens wrote in his journal of a dream, which he quote unquote, all the circumstances, which he said, I should say, quote unquote, all the circumstances were quote unquote, exactly told. And his dream was of a lady in a red shawl, who identified herself as a Miss Napier. Dickens wondered in the morning why on earth he would dream such a thing, because he had never heard of somebody and he didn't recognize the woman. The same night, however, the same night after the morning of the dream, he had quote unquote, the identical lady in the red shawl turned up in his retiring room, and her name was Miss Napier. She had, as it turned out, been traveling to see him with two others known to him. So this is a perfect account of the kind of vision of a visitor's arrival in the first chapter, but it's also an account of something called deja-rèvé. This is to see, to have seen before this is not deja vu, where the individual has a sense that the moment was predicated, sorry, that the moment had been lived in a dream, but they are sure in this case, in deja-rèvé, that they had dreamed this moment before. So that's a nice example of a deja-rèvé, which is something that I'm actually working on for a separate book, which is going to be coming in February. But with Rumi, he actually had many accounts of kind of extra sensory perception. And he made it very clear that the saints living in his time also were kind of, it was kind of understood and known kind of commonly and locally that these people would express extra sensory perception, whether it's knowing the thoughts, whether it's the incoming visitor, etc, etc. You could have an example in the 13th century where a king whose lover falls ill very soon after they meet, the king is visited in a dream by a saint who assures him that a certain sage will soon arrive to diagnose the woman's illness, which is quote unquote fulfilled thereafter. So again, we see the cross-cultural aspect of the vision of a visitor's arrival, but also the third party, which in this case takes the form of a saint. So while the form may take the place of a saint there, or a deceased relative in Native America or a totem, for example, or a spirit animal, the point is that some third party has imparted this information in a dream of vision which turned out accurate. And that is the kind of common point of interest for me. Should viewers fo Paranormal Yakker want to buy Telepathic Tales and also learn of the other books you've authored, how, Daniel, can they do that? Absolutely, they can find Telepathic Tales on amazon.com primarily and all good bookstores or my publisher's website at innertraditions.com Daniel Bourke, I thank you for being my guest on Paranormal Yakker. As was the case when I previously interviewed you, yakking with you has been the most enjoyable and informative experience. Thank you Stan, I appreciate the invite again. Thank you very much.