Stone Songlines

At the weekend,I came across an interesting article about a book just published which looks at the phenomenon of people in extreme circumstances feeling the presence of someone around them, helping and supporting them to survive.

The antarctic explorer, Sir Ernest Shackleton, spoke of an "unseen presence" which stayed with him and two companions as they made a heroic, last-ditch attempt to reach a British whaling station. They were trying to get help to the other memebers of the expedition who were sick, exhausted and waiting 110 kilometres away at Eelphant Island.  Shackleton later described this presence which stayed with them on their journey as his 'divine companion'.

The author of "The Third Man Factor" was intrigued by this concept and has tracked down numerous instances where people were struggling to survive in extremely difficult circumstances and spoke of an invisible presence suppporting them and encouraging them to stay alive and survive.

The incidence of what the author calls "the third man" has occurred among mountaineers, shipwrecked sailors, in urban environments, and in the wilderness.  On September 11,2001, trader Ron DiFrancesco was the past person out of the south tower of the world Trade Centre before it collapsed.  Fighting his way downstairs he felt he was eing "guided", with an "angel" urging him not to recoil from flames in a stairwell but to run through them.  He believed this was divine intervention. There are other similar examples in the book.

The author refers to this phenomenon as a "coping mechanism", which is, of course, a rational way of trying to explain the idea of an unseen presence.  For myself, and perhaps yourselves, I would draw the conclusion that some energy being in the Spirit world had chosen to accompany people through dangerous times because it simply wasn't their time to quit Planet Earth.