John Robert Benneth
~ more background information ~
When he was a boy, he saw Kreskin reading people's minds on
TV, Benneth thought to himself, "I want to learn how to do that."
His studies didn't necessarily reflect only that dream. If you asked his friends what he would talk about the most, you would probably get different answers, but all who know him, understand that fifty year old Benneth has been a student of homeopathic medicine for as long as any can remember. It just seemed natural and a curiosity for Benneth. Using the internet as his way of peer review and exchange of information, Benneth excelled in his explanation of his beloved subject.
In 1999 he acquired notoriety for his subtle energy studies and caught the attention of physicists for his reports of methods by which to identify the specificity of the sub atomic field. These methods, according to Dr. Gary Schwartz of the Human Energy Systems Laboratory at the University of
Arizona, demonstrate a universal memory system. The implications of this has led to challenge among atheists and the skeptical.
Takes on a million dollar psychic challenge
In January of 1999 MacArthur Genius award winner James "the
Amazing" Randi wrote to Benneth to offer him a million dollars for a
procedure to provide the physical proof for the basis of homeopathic
medicine, which Randi had declared was fraudulent. Benneth accepted the
challenge and within months had produced 52 methods by which it could be
done, and the homeopathic industry took off. Sales skyrocketed, logging a
staggering 20 percent annual growth in what had previously been a scoffed at
doctrine, a pseudo-science that most chemists and physicists said had "no
theoretical basis" for operation.
Although Randi has yet to pay the million, Benneth's results created
a virtual bonanza for him personally and his lot changed drastically. He
moved his base of operation from Portland, Oregon to the fountain head of
the great American bonanza, Virginia City, Nevada.
In proving homeopathy, Benneth discovered a new dimension of
physics, he found what could be the physical basis for paranormal
phenomena, a sub atomic field that can be identified, out of which matter
is formed and transformed and through which all thoughts connect.
He had confronted in Tucson the director of America's leading test
lab of psychics and mediums, Dr. Gary Schwartz , and stunned numerous
witnesses by timing his appearance at the lab with a meteorological
manifestation, where the sun appeared to split into three parts; he
obtained written confirmation for his process in physics from Nobel prize
laureate Brian Josephson; bearded Randi; predicted in stanza on the
Internet the huge February 17th, 2000 storm that wiped out southern
Africa; timed his February 28th, 2001 declaration of "Sui Juris" in a
Multnomah county, Oregon courtroom with an earthquake that cleared the
building; took for his residence the Mackay Mansion and found Mark
Twain's horsehair whip and a treatise about St. Peter Claver in the
attic.
Only after Benneth performed dozens of manifestations of Mark
Twain, mind reading and prediction stunts for the public in Virginia
City's legendary haunted theater, Piper's Opera House, did Dr. Gary Schwartz, who had
run exhaustive tests on life after death medium John Edward, say
that Benneth was indeed in spirit contact with Twain.
Uri Geller, the man who bends metal with the force of his mind,
without touching it, and sends Randi into paroxysms of rage, was
insisting that Benneth was truly precognitive when Benneth, before it
happened, had seemed to remote view Geller getting called on the carpet
by George Harrison, who demanded that Geller use his powers for healing. Geller also said he thought that Benneth was sharing the stage at Piper's Opera House with the ghost of Kit Carson.
"What Geller does, is for real, there's little or no deception, he
can actually affect the material structure of matter with his mind," says
Benneth. "What Geller does other people can also do. Children are
especially good at psychokinesis. Geller is a modern spiritual leader
because he shows just how powerful a mind can be. That's why I'm
interested in Geller."
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Another odd thing or two. . .
Not only does Benneth resemble Twain physically,
but his likes and dislikes are often the same. Twain liked to fence. Benneth
astonished Virginia City's fencing master with his classical French
style, a vicious lunge and a flying parry that skewered the chairman of
the board of Piper's.
|
Pilots have a force of mind to steer with confidence, to know their
way, to take the responsibility of human lives into their hands with
quiet determination. Twain was a river pilot back when rivers were still wild, that is until he fled the Mississippi to escape the Confederate draft and go to Virginia City. So was Benneth
a pilot until the one time he stood his father's airplane on its nose over a residential area and left laundry snapping on clothes lines.
Living with history. . .
Benneth's simple, hard bed in the Mackay Mansion is in the basement of
the house, right at what used to be the secret entrance into the Gould
and Curry mine that connected to the Consolidated Virginia and the heart of the
big bonanza.
Every morning he wakes around 4:30 AM, the same time as the speculators, Hearst,
Mackay, and the men who worked for them, would roll out of bed, get
dressed in dirty ragged clothes and descend into deep shafts to risk life
and limb digging silver and gold, then return to dine on the finest cuts
of steak, New York lobster and Pacific oysters, hauled to their Comstock
loft over a mile high on ice carts pulled by mules.
Mackay, both a Freemason and a Catholic, built the biggest ship the
world had ever seen, he laid railroads and was always generous with his
money. He married a widow and lifted her and her fatherless child from
grinding poverty to become great socialites, to lunch regularly with
Queen Victoria. Mackay was a philanthropist and an empire builder, rising
to become the richest man in America. He did not do these things by
being a lucky prospector. He staked no claim but to earn it, starting as
a pick shovel man at $4 a day, taking feet in the mine for pay.
The Mackay Mansion, the headquarters for a creative bonanza 144 years ago, much like the Internet is today, was originally built by George Hearst, is now opened up for visitors to come to a pivotal place in our country. Experience yesterday's marvels and meet a man who has a connection to the past and a link to the future.
FUTURE COLLIDES WITH PAST
Benneth, who has made an intense study of cycles, says, "A barasca
is the opposite of bonanza. Every bonanza is followed by a barasca, and
the world is now in barasca."
"War has been noted to follow cold droughts, 1859 was like no other,
and we're currently in the midst of a serious cold drought."
Virginia City is like a bellwether of America. The first big strike
was in 1859, and that same year the tent city that sprung up overnight
was buried by an avalanche. It was one of the worst winters on record and
immediately following it the nation experienced the most devastating of
any war the American nation has experienced, before or since
"But it is during these times of barasca that people get smart and
start working harder," says Benneth. "And they start listening more to
the sound of opportunity. The men and women who proceeded us had
confidence during barasca the bonanza would follow."
"The real wealth is in the lessons learned about the human spirit.
During the big bonanza these were the richest people on Earth. Whereas
most squandered their wealth, others used to it to conceive of even
greater things, and their wealth and the engineering skills they learned
on the Comstock they applied to building subways, railroads and the first
global telecommunications system."
"I know there are a few people out there who intuitively recognize
this," Benneth says. "And so 'My Dinner with the Mysterious Stranger' is
more than a piece of entertainment, it is a wonder work, where odd things
happen that will be sure to astound and inspire those who wish to have
it, from the meeting of great spirits past, to demonstrations of the
ability of one mind to connect with another."
Join me for dinner. . .
PHONE CONTACT: 775-847-5280
EMAIL CONTACT:
MarkTwain@HistoricalGazette.net
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