Autism, Spirituality & Record Blog Stats!

When checking my blog stats I’ve often noticed that my most popular articles/pages are about autism and spirituality, specifically my article entitled Autism, Psychic Abilities, the Paranormal & Paganism …is there a connection?, as well as my page called Strengths & Advantages of being an Aspie! In the past my “busiest” day recorded 92 hits on the blog overall in a single day, and that record stood for quite a few months, until today, which has seen that record blown away with the incredible number of 440 hits in one day! Woohoo! This has come about thanks to a link to my article (see article at 1st link above, in which I mention William Stillman and his first 2 books on the topic of autism and spirituality) on “Knapp’s News” on a US online radio station called Coast to Coast AM.

Tonight’s show (10pm-2amPT, US time) on Coast to Coast AM is called Autism & Spirituality. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to listen to it as I’d have to subscribe/pay to have access to Coast to Coast’s audio files (which can be found on the link I just gave to this show) so I’ll just have to make do with the show’s recap. The promo for the show says…

Is autism a disease or a gift? William Stillman has written a trilogy of books about the spiritual and God connection of autism. He’ll be joined by Laura Hirsch, who has worked with a medium to discover the root cause of the condition. Hosted by George Knapp.

Once the show had aired the recap finally appeared on the show’s website a couple of hours later…

Autism & Spirituality

During the first half of the program, George Knapp spoke with William Stillman, author of a trilogy of books about the spiritual aspects of autism. In the latter half of the show, Laura Hirsch discussed how she worked with a medium to discover the root cause of the condition.

Describing autistics as “inherently gentle and exquisitely sensitive,” Stillman decried the “myth and fallacy” which suggests that autism results in lower intellect. Instead, he said that the condition is a neurological disorder which traps “completely competent” people inside of their bodies. Therefore, he argued, the condition heightens the autistic’s senses and forces them into a state of “perceiving things seen and unseen.” For example, he referenced autistics who are incapable of speech and mused that “when you live in silence, it’s a perpetual state of meditation.” As such, he put forward the notion that such a condition is comparable to religious figures who “deliberately enter into similar states of solitude in order to obtain a spiritual plateau of enlightenment.”

Based on his work with a number of autistic children and their families, Stillman noted that many of them have had a variety of paranormal experiences. He claimed that he has “collected more than a few examples” of instances where an autistic child had a tantrum while the family was driving on the highway. They were forced to pull over until he had calmed down and, upon returning to the road, saw that the “time out” spared them from a multi-car traffic accident that occurred a few miles ahead of them. Additionally, Stillman said that he has seen evidence of telepathy, communication with animals, and even prenatal memories that autistic children claim to recall. Ultimately, Stillman said, “my focus is not on what causes autism, but what autism causes.”

Conversely, Laura Hirsch detailed her investigation into the cause of autism and the shocking answers she uncovered. The mother of an autistic child, Hirsch explained that she grew suspicious when her son suddenly developed autism between the age of 1 and 2. “Something happened to my child and I was determined to find out,” she recalled. Having a number of friendships with mediums, she turned to the practice of channeling in the hopes of finding some insight as to what caused her son’s condition. While she originally believed that the condition was caused solely by vaccinations, Hirsch revealed that the spirits who communicated with her and the medium told her something “completely different.”

According to the channeled messages, the condition is caused by the MMR vaccine combining with “something else that everyone’s been missing.” This mystery ingredient, she was told, is the remnants of a military biological weapon that has been developed in secret. This weapon is a “primitive anthrax” in the form of a powder, that has been escaping from the facility and spreading via the wind and contaminating the air, soil, and water of the United States. Rather than a conspiracy to afflict the nation, Hirsch said that “it’s not happening on purpose. It’s something they don’t realize is happening.” She lamented that “we’re making something to use on our enemies, but its harming our people in the meantime.”

Website(s):

williamstillman.com

foundationofdiscovery.com

Before the recap appeared I went to Laura Hirsch’s website, hoping to find out more about her ideas, only to find I would have to buy her book to find out. The recap of her interview on the show did provide some information but based solely on this her ideas don’t sound like plausible  explanations for autism overall. It’s not the channeling that I find difficult to accept, but rather the  information and explanation that was channeled.  Just because something is channeled doesn’t mean it is coming from a reliably informed and well educated source. For a start, autism has been around long before there ever was a MMR vaccine; the idea that vaccination caused autism has been thoroughly debunked and in any case thimerosal/thiomersal (the mercury-containing ingredient at the centre of the vaccine controversy) is no longer used in childhood vaccines in Australia, yet cases of autism are still appearing in this country and indeed all around the world. If Laura Hirsch’s idea of “primitive anthrax” is true there should be a cluster of cases of autism in the US which geographically correspond to the likely spread of the contaminant via air currents and water flow. Is this the case? Has anyone even looked at this? How does she explain the advent of autism in countries outside the US? We can’t all be subjected to the combination of the MMR vaccine and the “primitive anthrax” from this one US facility.  Her idea (as I see it, based solely on the info in the recap) appears to ignore the fact that genetic factors play a strong role in autism.  Perhaps her theory might explain some localised cases of autism but certainly not worldwide. Perhaps  also, the  very brief recap does not correctly represent her theory, but as it stands there are too many things there that don’t make sense to me so I’ll politely agree to disagree and leave her idea alone for now …maybe I will buy her book to find out more. 🙂

I have just recently read William Stillman’s latest book — The Autism Prophecies: How an Evolution of Healers and Intuitives is Influencing Our Spiritual Future — which I enjoyed far more than his first two books in the trilogy as this one provided much more information than books one and two. As explained in this third book, the first two gradually led up to and prepared the reader for the  information finally revealed in the third book, much of which many people might otherwise have found too strange or unbelievable.  However, as I am already well and truly interested in the paranormal and ‘alternative’ spirituality I found the first two books a little ‘tame’ in that respect. Much of what he said in this third book resonated strongly with my own personal experiences as well as my observations of others, which includes information about autistic children and the paranormal received from a couple of clients of SOuL Searchers Paranormal Investigations of which I am a team member.

Here’s some information about William Stillman’s book, from his website…

The Autism Prophecies: How an Evolution of Healers and Intuitives is Influencing Our Spiritual Future

by William Stillman
Publish Date: April 20, 2010
Paperback, 208 pages; published by New Page Books
ISBN: 1601631162

It is estimated that every twenty minutes a child is diagnosed with autism, and statistics are rapidly rising worldwide without any single known cause. Now, with The Autism Prophecies, award-winning author, William Stillman (Autism and the God Connection and The Soul of Autism), himself a person on the autism spectrum, completes his spiritual trilogy by revealing the truth about autism and its purpose. The Autism Prophecies explores the following:

• Why abuse of those with autism threatens to increase, and how it’s driven not by fear of our differences but by fear of our similarities.
• How some with autism are natural-born healers who employ compassion despite contradictory diagnoses indicating a void of empathy.
• How impossible gifts such as mind control and speaking unknown languages could be occurring in some individuals with autism.
• How parents may distinguish their child’s spiritual interactions from behavior that might be mislabeled—and unduly medicated as hallucinatory.
• Why there’s a dramatic spike in night terrors, and the urgent signs families should recognize to protect themselves accordingly.
• How the wisdom of many individuals with autism may help us to prepare for future hardships and an impending renaissance of civility, respect, and compassion.

In pursuing an enlightened future, The Autism Prophecies views these spiritual aspects through an autistic prism. William Stillman stands alone as the first and only author with the courage and foresight to illuminate the inherent spirituality in many persons with autism—individuals who, historically, have been marginalized and devalued by our culture. His unique research, called “brave” by his supporters, has gained the respect and attention of serious parapsychology scholars and spiritual scientists, as well as open-minded theologians.

And here’s what other people are saying about his book…

“In The Autism Prophecies, William Stillman illuminates the Soul purpose of individuals with autism; that they are here to share their spiritual gifts and talents, to help usher in a new age of truth and enlightenment, and to remind us that we are all more alike than different.”
—Mary Riposo, Ph.D., psychologist and author of Using Reiki Techniques with Children: A Guide for Parents and Professionals.

“From his unique personal perspective and research into the experiences of many autistic individuals, William Stillman presents a provocative case for autistic individuals often possessing special ways of knowing that border on the psychic and spiritual. If valid, his reporting has remarkable implications for a fuller understanding of the nature of human consciousness.”
—Sally Rhine Feather, Ph.D., Executive Director, Rhine Research Center

“In The Autism Prophecies—the final book in his seminal trilogy on autism—William Stillman reveals more startling truths about evolution, the future of our planet, and what the rapidly growing community of individuals, that, sadly, are still being dismissed with the “affliction” of autism, are really here to teach us.”
—Sandra Sedgbeer, Editor-in-Chief, Inspired Parenting magazine and Children of the New Earth magazine.

“Common minds judge and so fail to see what uncommon people so clearly show us we have the ability to know and be. The Autism Prophecies is wonderful! And for everyone who strives to become unlimited.”
—Nancy and Elena, co-producers and radio hosts, Beyondtheordinary.net

The number of hits on my blog have been steadily rising as I write this article so I will update the final count tomorrow. Unfortunately I have no way to tell whether people are actually reading my article once they click on it, but I’d like to think that at least some of them are and that they glean some useful information from it. 😀

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Edit: June 29 2010, 7:30AM AEST ~ The final count for June 28 was 440 hits on my blog site overall, with 352 of those hits going to my article Autism, Psychic Abilities, the Paranormal & Paganism …is there a connection? which was linked to by the radio station. Another 32 hits went to Strengths & Advantages of being an Aspie! and the rest were spread over 7 other articles/pages plus the home page.

But the hits are still on the rise. So far this morning my site has had a further 477 hits, so today’s count has already exceeded yesterday’s and it’s only 7:35AM!  I’m famous! …um, well, maybe not, lol. But it does make this little black duck feel happy to know something I’ve written is being taken notice of, and favourably too judging from the comments so far on my linked article.

8:00AM AEST ~ 492 hits! LOL, this is amazing! 😀

Edit: June 30 2010 ~ A NEW RECORD! The final count for June 29 was 839 hits on my blog site overall, with 604 of those hits going to the linked article! Wow! …this makes a total of 1279 hits in only 48 hours! As expected, the viewing rate is now slowing, with only 54 views this morning (as of 6:30AM AEST).