In the US dispute Arizona attorney Charna Johnson faces suspension for telling her client, Chad Lakridis, that references to sex in her emails to him were from his deceased wife, Jan. Other reports indicate that in personal communications and emails Johnson would refer to herself in the first person as Lakridis's wife or use the pronoun "we" when telling Lakridis what to do. Johnson met Lakridis when he taught her ballroom dancing; she went on to represent him for three years. She had previously offered tarot readings. Ah, Arizona!
Johnson and the client both testified that they genuinely believed the client's wife was within Johnson.
The notion that a deceased person can manifest himself/herself within a living person strikes me as absurd and not something that would be recognised by a contemporary court but, as noted in some of my more acerbic comments about devotees of quantum mysticism, has been espoused by some people who assert that reincarnation, precognition, the 'oneness blessing' and so forth are "hard science" rather than an expression of the belief system apparent among fans of L Ron Hubbard, Edgar Cayce and Madame Blavatsky.
In the Arizona case Lakridis reportedly felt that his wife had come back from the dead to heal some of the damage from her drug use and presumably salve the grief - or was it delight - caused by her suicide. I say delight because the client might have taken to heart the statement by Ervin Laszlo, editor and founder of Global Futures, about "Communication with entities that are no longer living in the familiar form in this world but are alive nonetheless". She's not dead, she's just dialling in a performance from another part of the Akashic Field?
Ms Johnson reportedly testified that there was no sexual contact with the client ... it's all very Blithe Spirit and, in my opinion, all very silly.
Corcos notes that the hearing on the channeling allegations pitted two experts who disagreed on whether Johnson must have been delusional. A state expert said that delusion is the inevitable conclusion, given that there is no scientific evidence to support channeling [as noted elsewhere in this blog, Australian courts have not embraced the more amusing claims featured in Global Futures]. Johnson's expert more creatively indicated that such scepticism is an inappropriate value judgment that may contravene the religious beliefs of millions of people. Quite, although I note that while millions - or thousands - of people may well believe in mumbo jumbo that belief, however sincere, does not necessarily make something true.
The report indicates that Johnson began representing the client during his divorce proceedings in January 2000. The client's wife committed suicide a few months later; Johnson subsequently co-represented him in probate proceedings. She reportedly stated that she had her first 'experience' - presumably as the vessel housing the undead dear departed - on or about the day of her client's wife's funeral.
Would we give much credence to the claim that she had no responsibility for murder or other crime because she was merely channelling the deceased? Such a claim is consistent with some of the statements from exponents of quantum mysticism ... if we accept the premise that the dead manifest themselves once they have been interred or cremated, why assume that they only do 'good' things?
In its judgment the court [PDF] noted that Johnson was accused of two ethical violations as a legal practitioner. She represented Lakridis "while involved in a sexual intimate relationship with the client, and also while [she] claimed to be able to convey the thoughts of the deceased wife to the client". Secondly, in an unrelated disciplinary matter (regarding claims that after channelling another client's dead father she had been written into that client's will as sole beneficiary) Johnson was "specifically asked whether she had ever 'channeled' the thoughts of a deceased person to a client. [She] under oath denied ever having done so and the State Bar alleges that this was false and that [she] knew it to be false".
The court dismissed Johnson's testimony that she was confused by questions about channeling in the preceding disciplinary hearing. Johnson reportedly said she was possessed by the woman's spirit and thus was not technically channeling. Cue the sound of scepticism from the bench: "To pretend that she did not understand the common vernacular of what channeling is cannot be believed".
The court held that Johnson made a false statement. She had been charged with falsely denying in a bar proceeding that "she had ever 'channeled' the thoughts of a deceased person to a client".
it is not up to this Hearing Officer to decide whether in fact Respondent was or was not truly possessed by and speaking for [the client's] deceased wife. Respondent believed it, [the client] believed it, as did at least two other independent people who witnessed it. Given all of this, it is hard to believe that Respondent schemed and connived to make all this up. Once it happened, it is certainly possible that Respondent got carried away with all the attention she received as a result of it and either embellished or exaggerated. On the other hand, Respondent could have genuinely believed in and felt controlled by circumstances.
A review of [the evidence] shows that having the spirit of [the client's] deceased wife within her was not an entirely pleasant experience for Respondent and the degree of her voluntary participation in it simply cannot be determined. The experts ... cannot even agree on what was going on.
