Talk:Dannion Brinkley

Brinkley's dubious military claims

Someone keeps trying to remove criticism of Dannion's claim he was a CIA sniper. One said the L.A. Times article "Blinded by the Light" about Brinkley wasn't in the newspaper archives. Let the record show the article is real. Here is a link, and here are the parts about Dannion:

http://articles.latimes.com/1995-03-24/news/ls-46593_1_death-experience

Lightning shot through the telephone and into Dannion Brinkley's body, welding the nails in his shoes to the nails in the floor--and sending his soul on one of the most bizarre near-death sojourns ever recounted.

According to his best-selling book, "Saved by the Light," Brinkley traveled to a luminous crystal city where he met 13 silver-blue spirit beings, learned of calamities in store for the Earth and saw his entire life flash before him.

Or so the story goes. ...

Brinkley says his life review covered "at least 6,000 fistfights" that he had between fifth and 12th grades. That averages out to two brawls a day, nonstop for eight years, making Brinkley the Wilt Chamberlain of schoolyard pugilism.

He also says he was a Marine Corps sniper during the Vietnam War, dispatched to Cambodia and Laos to assassinate enemy officers and politicians. But military records show that Pfc. Brinkley was never a sniper, never saw combat, indeed never left the United States during his 18 months in the service.

He was a truck driver stationed in Atlanta.

Brinkley declines to offer any evidence of overseas duty, saying the government is covering up his record because it is classified. But several sources inside and outside the military (including ex-Marines involved in the same covert operations Brinkley claims a role in) say his tale is full of holes and that the so-called secret files are all public. ...

... His 1994 book claims that the beings of light in his near-death journey correctly foretold dozens of world events, including the 1991 Persian Gulf War and the 1986 radiation leak at Chernobyl. Unfortunately, as noted by the Sunday Times of London, visions of the future are "traditionally revealed before they happen rather than afterwards, thereby making them more convincing."

Still to come, says Brinkley: a 1995 nuclear disaster in Norway and a U.S. economic collapse by 2000. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.5.13.15 (talk) 20:12, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

More discrepancies in Brinkley's story

Dannion claimed he was paralyzed for a week and could say only a few words at a time after being hit by lightning in 1975; however, he sounded quite loquacious when the Augusta Herald visited him in the hospital after the incident. No mention is made of paralysis; hard to imagine the newspaper omitting such a detail if it was true:

Phone Call Almost Cost Him His Life

By Carl Langley, Herald Staff Writer

"If there's a moral to my story it's this: Don't ever talk on the telephone when a lightning storm is developing."

The warning came from Danny Brinkley, a tall, well-built young man. He was speaking from his bed in Room 922 at University Hospital.

A lightning bolt that Danny's doctor said was sufficient to kill almost anyone else landed him in the hospital Wednesday night. He expects to be there through the rest of the weekend.

Danny, a former Aiken High football player, was waiting for his wife, Sandy, to finish supper Wednesday night when he decided to make a telephone call to a friend.

He went into the back bedroom of the trailer, called his friend and was negotiating the purchase of an automobile.

"I had just finished the call and was starting to hang up when he (the friend) said, 'one more thing...'"

That was the last statement Danny remembered for several hours. For after that unfinished remark came a blinding flash of auburn light, the sensation of an icepick being driven into his ear, a tremendous surge of pressure into his back between the shoulder blades and a sense of being burned in an acid bath."

"I've never felt anything like that," Danny recalled. His body was snatched from the floor by the burst of electrical energy, leaving his shoes behind, and hurling him across the bed flat on his back.

Mrs. Brinkley recalled the sensation of a flow of static electricity sweeping through the trailer from the bedroom where the telephone was located out through the kitchen and dining area.

She rushed to the bedroom to tell her husband that "lightning has struck somewhere around here," only to find Danny sprawled across the bed, his stocking feet hanging over the edge.

His tongue had started to swell and there was no visible sign of respiration. Frantically, Mrs. Brinkley began pounding away on her husband's chest, stopping only to grasp his tongue and pull it away from his windpipe so he could breathe.

"I was out for a few minutes, and she saved my life," Danny said. With breathing restored, Mrs. Brinkley called the Aiken Paramed ambulance service and he was rushed first to Aiken County Hospital, then on to University Hospital.

A neurosurgeon treating Danny said the force of the bolt would have killed an elderly person, a young child or most adults not in the physical condition of Danny, who is 6-2 and weighs 190 pounds.

(Article from Friday, Sep. 19, 1975)

75.5.14.128 (talk) 01:07, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

"Self-described" attribution is POV

Dannion Brinkley is a near-death experiencer whose NDE was first told to NDE researcher Raymond Moody shortly after it occurred in the 1970s. Brinkley's story of being hit by lightning while on the phone has been investigated by Moody and others. Yes, Brinkley's story is self-described but it is also confirmed by researchers. To call it "self-described" is a pejorative non-neutral POV that implies that it Brinkley has made it up. That is not acceptable in the lead of a WP:BLP. On that basis, I am removing the phrase. If there are reliable sources that dispute that he had an NDE, they can be added to the article as well. --EPadmirateur (talk) 04:35, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I am beginning an extended edit of this article to document Brinkley's story and support it with reliable sources. --EPadmirateur (talk) 23:28, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Extensive modifications are complete. Much new information was added about Brinkley's hospice and veterans advocacy work. --EPadmirateur (talk) 05:44, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Nice work! I shortened the introductory section and made a few minor edits. 75.4.233.180 (talk) 06:59, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Questions about references

There are two references used in this article which are not verifiable:

• Carl Langley, "Phone Call Almost Cost Him His Life", Augusta Herald, September 19, 1975, a newspaper account which quoted Brinkley saying he was "out for a few minutes" until his wife revived him by pounding on his chest. This looks like a reliable reference but it can't be checked: can you copy the full text of this news story here? If not, we need to remove the reference.

It is reliable, but the paper ceased publication in 1993 and isn't online. I will inquire if there's a way to get a PDF copy from the Augusta public library. But is there a way to post it? This is the text of the relevant passage:

His tongue had started to swell and there was no visible sign of respiration. Frantically, Mrs. Brinkley began pounding away on her husband's chest, stopping only to grasp his tongue and pull it away from his windpipe so he could breathe.

"I was out for a few minutes and she saved my life," Danny said. With breathing restored, Mrs. Brinkley called the Aiken Paramed ambulance...

75.4.250.72 (talk) 08:29, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, I agree that it's a reliable source. If we can just post more of the article's text, there's no need for a PDF. Can you add the full text of the article? This snippet of the account is consistent with his written account (see p. 4-5). He was out of his body, his wife moved his tongue away, gave CPR and then he was back in his body. Shortly afterward his friend arrived, they called the ambulance and he was out of his body again. The fact that his account 2 days later to a newspaper reporter didn't include all these details and sought to minimize the episode ("I was out for a few minutes and she saved my life") is not surprising. What is more interesting is that Brinkley stated that he was paralyzed for the first 7 days and could only speak a few words at a time (p. 67). One would expect that he would not have been interviewed just 2 days later but if he was, his account would have had to be short. So, it would be best to have the full wording of the newspaper account to see if the reporter gave the same impression of the extent of Brinkley's injuries or not. --EPadmirateur (talk) 19:52, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

• "Reverend Death," June 25, 2008, produced by www.WorldofWonder.net. This reference does not support the statement "Brinkley's doctor told a British documentary crew that Brinkley's story about being dead in the hospital morgue was 'not true.'" The link does not establish that Rev. Exoo (or someone else interviewed) was Brinkley's doctor nor that Brinkley's story was claimed to be untrue. In fact the link and blurb don't mention Brinkley at all and the documentary about Exoo is about something completely different (assisted suicide of non-terminally ill people). Even if this claim is made in this documentary, the entire source doesn't appear sufficiently reliable to be included in a biography of a living person. Please justify this reference or it will need to be removed.

Thanks. --EPadmirateur (talk) 22:29, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Exoo isn't Brinkley's doctor. He is a minister who references Brinkley to persuade clients that the afterlife will be pleasant if they commit assisted suicide. Brinkley is interviewed in the documentary, as is his doctor & Carl Langley from the Augusta Herald. The quote is accurate, but I understand your concern insofar as it cannot be viewed online. Perhaps there is a way I can download a segment or two using youtube. 75.4.250.72 (talk) 08:29, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Again, this extra detail helps a lot. In my opinion, the entire documentary does not look reliable, from the looks of the web site. How are we to be sure that this was his doctor and that was Carl Langley the reporter? What did they say exactly? Brinkley's account states clearly that he had been pronounced dead. Was this the doctor that pronounced him dead to his wife and friend ("He didn't make it", p. 28) and we are merely quibbling over whether he was in the morgue (his account says he was about to be taken somewhere by two orderlies, on a gurney with a sheet over his head, p. 63-64)? So whether to leave this material in needs many more details, in my opinion. It just doesn't look reliable. --EPadmirateur (talk) 19:52, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

This YouTube clip from "Reverend Death" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4BeWRddAjc) should answer your concerns on the newspaper article and the documentary. I wish YouTube had the full documentary. They were pros. 75.4.248.81 (talk) 07:56, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you again. Yes, this segment of the documentary shows that it's a reliable source, in my opinion. I would point out that what the doctor and reporter claim do not actually contradict Brinkley's story: he never stated that "he woke up in the morgue" but the documentary interviewer repeats this as Brinkley's claim several times. And Brinkley stated in the book that he was initially resuscitated by his wife in their home ("I was out for a few minutes"), but later lost consciousness in the ambulance and went into cardiac arrest. Langley says in the documentary, "Woke up in the morgue? I never heard that story." Again, where was Dr. Eaves (sp?) during the resuscitation? It sounds like he arrived after is was all over: "When I saw him, he was completely lucid..." Indeed, was there a resuscitation at all in the hospital, as Brinkley stated? But all of this is neither here nor there. Dr. Eaves clearly states in the documentary, the stories "about him being pronounced dead and they pulled a sheet over him: no, that's not true".

Still, to do proper diligence here, it would be important to get the full newspaper story from the Augusta Library. It looks like they have the story on microfilm, September 18, 1975, page 1D and a following page. It looks like a short piece; if we can copy the text here, then everyone can look at the full story. I would be most interested to see what Langley described as Brinkley's condition: Brinkley said he was paralyzed for a week and could speak only a few words at a time. If Brinkley is giving a detailed interview the next day, that would be contradictory. --EPadmirateur (talk) 16:54, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

I will inquire about obtaining the article. 75.4.249.226 (talk) 17:44, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

This entire article is coming dangerously close to being libelous. First, I cannot even get past the first page of the LA Times article to see what Roy Rivenburg has to say. I clicked on both the next icon and the page number icons and it just stays on page one. Second, who is calling whom the liar here? Here is what a Huffington Post writer has to say about Roy Rivenburg (the writer you cite) and it is anything but flattering:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/roy-rivenburg

You need to be very careful that the sources you cite are not hidden. They need to be viewable by everybody. I cannot read past the first page of the LA Times article! You also need a fair and balanced perspective. The entire tone of this article is impossible. You should at least present the entire list of the books that Dannion has published and who the ghost writer was for each one. Can you at least get that part correct? You can also give evidence of inconsistencies where the writing (not publishing) of the event post-dates when it was actually written. Anything less than that isn't factual. Most authors and ghost authors keep a bound writing notepad that they write their thoughts down and on what date it was done. I have news for you. That is permissible in a court of law for me to prove that some computer code I wrote actually was wrote by me rather than by somebody else. It is not when the code goes out the door but what is in that little bound book that is authoritative. Be absolutely certain what you are writing is verifiable! But even more to the point try to be as objective as possible. What I am seeing here is a lot of hear-say evidence. There is a reason the Wikipedia states right below what I am typing "Encyclopedic content must be verifiable." The reason why is that in a court of law hear-say evidence is usually tossed out the door. It can be used in limited scope for certain purposes but in general hear-say evidence is tossed out the door. Okay, lets verify your author. Here is his Linked-In profile. He is the one that creates that. It isn't me or somebody else who is creating it. So if it isn't correct he has nobody to blame but himself:

http://www.linkedin.com/in/rivenburg

Here is where the author currently works that wrote the article you cite that I cannot even read:

http://notthelatimes.com/

I wouldn't be sure but I think the Huffington Post does not consider what they said to be anything other than what they really think. You will have to ask the Huffington Post whether they consider Roy Rivenburg to be a credible journalist and they wrote what they did in jest or whether they really think he is a charlatan. What I think has been done here is to write a lets trash Dannion Brinkley article that is neither verifiable, nor even close to accurate. For heaven's sake, just my research of reading the short treatise on time measurement by NIST on my part in trying to convince people that Daylight Saving Time should be abandoned has surpased all of the research that has been done here:

http://nomoredst.blogspot.com/2011/02/hour-minutes-and-seconds-of-time-part-1.html

But I also read the long NIST article from end to end including treatment of both Einstein's Theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics (and yes I do understand them). But that isn't the point. The point is I am trying to convince people we should just voluntarily do things earlier if it makes sense but to send Daylight Saving Time to the scrap heap. Does that have any place in being part of Wikipedia? Absolutely not! That is why I wrote it in my blog and why it is not at Wikipedia. Here is what should be at Wikipedia and is at Wikipedia on Daylight Saving Time:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time

This article needs to show the same attention to detail and research the one on Daylight Saving Time has. Every point I was interested led to links that were fruitful. At this point, the addition of Dannion's work in hospice seems to be nothing more than an add on after-thought to paint on some sort of layer of respectability to what I term a "let's trash Dannion Brinkley" article. His feeling that hospice has value seeems to be incongruent with all of the other stuff you say about him. I don't have any problem if you don't believe anything he says. But something like this is a mini-biography and here are two excellent ones where there is a contentious point that shows you can do a much better job:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_De_Forest http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Howard_Armstrong

The contention was a court battle that went on for years. Note that Armstrong had his patent two years before De Forest applied for a same (similar) patent. But there are still people today that believe the final decision of the court battle was correct and the De Forest should have won. They could care less that almost all of the other Electrical Engineers in the IEEE thought Armstrong was robbed. Yet I think I got a good gist of what both Lee De Forest (dedicated and hard working) and Edwin Howard Armstrong (IQ off the charts) were like. But this article is nothing more than a let's trash Dannion Brinkley effort where I am left entirely puzzled what Dannion is like, or for that matter even who he is. I suspect Dannion's statement that he had X fights was probably an exagerration. He was probably trying to make the point that he was not a very good person before he had an experience that some people call a NDE, Have you read any of his books? I suggest you do that before you write anything about him. If you want to continue writing like this then I suggest you sign on with http://notthelatimes.com. This entire article needs to be removed. Yes, I realize everybody voted it should be retained. Whether Wikipedia wants it rewritten is up to them. It would be nice to have something like the ones on Lee De Forest and Edwin Howard Armstrong where I learn something about the person. If nobody feels qualified to do it and take the time to do it well it would be better to just not have it. Why do you cite an article from what appears to be a discredited author as one of you prime sources? Even worse, I cannot even read that article you cite. Dannion must be a forgiving person. If you wrote something like this about me I would be dragging you into court and suing you for libel. Even worse, it does nothing to educate me about who Dannion Brinkley is or what he is like. Isn't that the point of these mini-biographies? I am more confused now than I was when I started! hhhobbit (talk) 00:59, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Major Updates and Article Edits

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

After reading this article I had several major concerns. First, this article contained contentious material in the second sentence, and in other places throughout the article. Under the BLP (biography of living persons) rules of Wikipedia all material in this article must be written in a disinterested form, conservatively and with regard to the subject's privacy. I'm not sure if we can totally achieve that with this article, but let's rise up to the challenge and do the best we can.

My primary concern is that within the second sentence it is already getting into "he said she said" claims. I hope we can find a better way to present the information so that it is as conservative and respect privacy.

I tired to make simple updates to the form of this article but I found the major issue was mixing the controversy/skepticism about Brinkley with the things he says in his books. Therefore, I extrapolated all of the "skepticism and controversy" and put it into its own major heading. I retained as much skepticism and controversy as possible and added another category called "special powers." I think it's reasonable to assume that if someone says they're psychic and "reading minds," a fair and balanced view would be to that other people think that's not possible. I cited the Skeptics dictionary. Maybe there's a better way to lay out this "Special Powers" section. What do you think?

In the fair and balanced vein, while I was researching this article I came across a video by Brinkley addressing the claims of the first NDE controversy. I added a citation so people can navigate to Brinkley's side of the story. Brinkley has the right on his Wikipedia page to let people know his side of the controversy.

One of the major things I discovered while researching this is that Brinkley says he didn't wake up in the morgue. In his official response video, he says that a publicist made that up to make the story sexy. I looked in the book to see if that was the case. Here's what it said on page 54 of Saved by the Light.

"I couldn't move, which is a bad state to be in when orderlies are coming to take you to the morgue."

I believe that implies that he was not at the morgue. Therefore, I updated that section (and removed a line that said he woke up in the morgue) and quoted what the booked said on page 55. I think I wrote it is the most conservative why to talk about someone being dead and coming back. When his friend says, "he's still alive," it can mean that he died or did not die.

I also added an additional "fair and balanced" sentence under military service. I think it's reasonable to assume if he was in the CIA and his missions were classified, then he wouldn't openly tell people the specifics - or as he says, "camouflage" them. That needs to be added to keep it balanced.

Additionally, much of Brinkley's fame and prominence comes from the fact he has had multiple Near Death Experiences and survived some intense events and surgeries. To provide as much information as possible, I added a new header (Other near death experiences) with a conservative account of these events.

I did not edit anything under Hospice and Volunteer work.

I noticed on Brinkley's websites he says he has won a bunch of awards for hospice and volunteer work. I tried to search for these online but couldn't find any sources. Can anybody verify these?

http://thetwilightbrigade.com/dannion-brinkley.htm

Other simple edits include:

I noticed in the discussion that someone didn't think the article explained who Dannion was above and beyond his books. I agree. It didn't. I added a broader description to include speaker, hospice volunteer and a figure in the New Age and New Thought Movement. Since Brinkley won the Lifetime Achievement award from George Noory (cited) I think it's safe to say he's prominent. His work speaks for itself that he is a part of New Age and New Thought.

I added a Television header because a TV show should not go under a Books header.

I added numerous [[ ]] throughout the article.

I provided citations and references for everything I added.

All said, I believe the best way to write this article is to tell the most conservative facts of Brinkley's story (maybe we're saying too much) - by way of what he says (and make it clear it's what he said) and other citations (like Moody). Then, lay out the controversy and skepticism, but keep it balanced. This means as editors we have provided as much fact as possible and still allowed everyone the ability to decide for themselves what they think is true when the truth isn't obvious.

I look forward to working with everyone to get this article edited, updated and into tip top shape.

all the best, Threxnova (talk) 04:06, 17 June 2011 (UTC)threxnova

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