I got a lot of comments on the last few posts, so I thought I would answer the direct questions here.
wvogt wrote,
Charles Drayton Thomas said that his book tests and newspaper tests were invented by his deceased father, John Wesley Thomas. If this were the case, would you consider these creative enough to be beyond the capacity of an ego persona? Similarly, the cross correspondences of Myers, et al.
Yes. The book tests show considerable ingenuity, in my opinion. And the cross correspondences are among the best evidence of personal survival. Also, as Michael Tymn noted, he has two articles on this subject, "The First Book Test" and "The Moses Book Test," on his Web site.
William wrote,
A couple of other interesting creative paranormal stories that tend to support communication from the other side is the Patience Worth story and the two sisters (Bang sisters) that could paint dead relatives of those in the audience in record time and I have read that one painting actually changed in some way like the eyes moved on the painting right in front of the audience. Michael does paintings qualify as creative?
An interesting side note to the Patience Worth story is that the medium (Pearl Curran) to Patience Worth was told to go to a certain hospital and there would be a baby available for adoption and to name that baby Patience Worth. And indeed there was a baby girl that the parents could not support and gave her up for adoption and she was named Patience Worth.
Paintings certainly qualify as creative. I don’t know enough about the Bangs sisters to comment on them, though. I’m not familiar with that particular story about Patience Worth, but her writing is evidence of remarkable creativity, in my opinion. And the fact that she accurately used a lot of archaic and obscure vocabulary makes it difficult to explain her writing as merely the product of her unconscious mind.
JoeMB wrote,
Just finished "Ghosts in Solid Form" by Gambier Bolton. Lots of great info. and once again, fascinating details of full blown materializations. Gotta love these free E Books.
Bolton actually gives a laundry list of the best conditions for this to happen. He suggests using red paper (gels?) to avoid the natural, gas (the old days) or electric light hitting the medium. Seems like holding these seances in good light is not a problem, if proper precautions are taken.
I’m not sure dim red light qualifies as good light, unfortunately. M. Lamar Keene in The Psychic Mafia talks about how dim red light was useful in abetting his impersonations. I carried out a small experiment with red light and found that anything dark would disappear entirely, just as Keene had said.
TomC wrote,
pardon my ignorance, but exactly how credible is David Fontana, and SPR? and with researchers like him and Montague keen?
so what do you think about them? are they for real? or they’re just all part of the conspiracy to deceive the public into believing afterlife?
My impression of David Fontana is that he is a serious, honest researcher who is perhaps overly inclined (by my standards) to make excuses for mediums who are caught faking. I can’t speak to his skills as an investigator.
The SPR, in general, is a very credible organization that has historically been surprisingly skeptical – maybe too skeptical in some areas (such as materializations).
I don’t think Fontana, Montague Keen, or the SPR is part of any conspiracy, but people’s wishes and predispositions can affect their observations. That’s the basic problem with materialization mediumship; it depends on the accounts of the sitters, and it is always possible to say that the sitters were deceived. In the best observed cases, such as Palladino’s 1908 sittings or Home’s experiments with Crookes, this explanation is pressed to the breaking point (in my opinion). But few studies of physical phenomena in mediumship are as good as those.
Michael Tym wrote,
Your "witness" sounds like the "oversoul" or "higher self." It seems to me that there is a fifth alternative, something between #3 and #4. That is, there are many "ego personas" or "streams of consciousness" within the "Witness." Maybe that is assumed in #3. Therein do we get into a different read than the traditional one on reincarnation.
That’s an interesting idea. If we imagine something like a group soul, and each ego-persona is a facet of this collective entity (somewhat like facets of a diamond), then we do have a different way of looking at not only reincarnation but also spirit guides (who would presumably be part of our collective oversoul). See this excellent essay by Michael Tymn for some ideas about this.
Joe MB wrote,
But if you listen to that interview with MP, the host, Marcel, is doing impersonations of the alleged spirits. Totally unprofessional.
Besides being humorous, the impressions served a valid purpose – to show how easy it is to fake these voices. Marcel’s off-the-cuff imitations sounded a lot like the voices in the audio clips. If he can fake them, can’t David Thompson fake them, too?
As a side note, the other day I found myself doing the Louis Armstrong voice while driving my car (with the windows closed). It’s really not hard at all. I sang "Hello Dolly," just like the materialized Satchmo.
William wrote,
What is the origin of our suffering?
If you use a character in a play as an example then this is not a good analogy. The character in a play knows he or she is acting and not the real character.
Stated another way they are not ignorant of their perceived identity.
Actually the character in a play does not know that he or she is acting. It’s the actor who knows this. The character, as such, knows nothing at all – which is what makes the character such a good analogy to the ego-persona.
Klause wrote,
Michael – do you think, believe, that animals are without any "witness"-part?
I sure don’t know, but my guess is that they have "witness" too.
Michael Tymn’s idea of a group soul may be relevant here. In some traditions there is talk of a group soul for certain kinds of animals. Of course, I have no idea how to evaluate these claims.
Bill W. wrote,
The term ego-persona is fine, but while the soul certainly is a witness, I think it is much, much more than that and at least deserves a better name, like the higher self, divine spark, or the light within. I prefer to just call it the soul, but I guess that may have gotten some strange connotations from certain religious concepts or sayings like "lost souls" or "saving our souls."
That’s a good point. Higher Self may be the best term, except that it may suggest (to some people) the idea of a personal self, which gets us back to the ego again. But I agree that there is more involved than just witnessing.
TomC wrote,
i just finished reading about Helen Duncan from Dave Fontana’s book ‘is there an afterlife.’ i think he made a pretty good case that she was genuine in some ways. why would she offer to demonstrate her ability in court (even though the judge turned down her offer), and also the fact that there were so many other phenomena other than those pictures you posted? those pictures definitely threw me off- but reading about her in the book, i can’t help it but to think that she had to be genuine in some way, no?
The offer to demonstrate her abilities in court, which impressed David Fontana, doesn’t especially impress me. Presumably she would have insisted on her usual conditions – darkness, a cabinet, etc. And cheesecloth is so compressible that it can be wadded up into a very tiny ball and concealed in a body cavity. My guess is that she was not genuine, although her defenders would point to the claim that in two of her seances, classified information about the recent sinkings of British warships (including the names of the ships – the Hood and the Barham) came through. Coincidence? Misreporting by Helen’s partisans? Or something more?
JoeMB wrote,
Some feel that all the voices are "done" by DT. But in VZ’s book which I have in front of me, he writes:
"Towards the end of the meeting, Timothy invited me and another sitter to approach the medium in his chair and feel that he was still bound and gagged while the entity continued to talk to us. All security measures on the medium David Thompson and the chair were still intact. While my hand was on David Thompson’s gag, we could hear the materialized Timothy still giving instructions from a different direction."
So, either VZ is:
1) Lying
2) Misunderstood what really occurred
3) Reporting accurately what happened
If number 3 is the answer, then how to explain the voice of Timothy?
And, if DT is escaping from those flex ties every night and putting them back on himself, in the dark, he needs to start a career as an escape artist. And why would he go through all of this? I’m not saying fraud isn’t happening but to me, fraud doesn’t make sense. He’s not charging for these sittings and he’s been in the current circle for a year now.
Unfortunately I don’t have much confidence in Victor Zammit’s skills as an observer or reporter. I do not think he is lying, but I do think he wants very strongly to believe that the materializations are genuine. In one audio clip, the spirit voice of William is heard before and after David Thompson’s gag is checked, but not while the gag is being checked. Victor Zammit also reported that you can hear David Thompson and William counting to ten simultaneously. I listened to the clip and heard no such thing. I heard the William voice counting to ten along with the circle leader, but I did not hear a voice identifiable as David Thompson’s at all.
Regarding a possible motive, it is true that David Thompson is not charging money for his sittings with the Circle of the Silver Cord. But he has gained publicity and some credibility by submitting to these tests. Now he is on tour, charging for seances, seminars, and workshops, many of which are sold out. He makes a good living at mediumship.
Tony M wrote,
I am very interested in the idea of survival after death but some things really stump me and these nagging questions won’t go away . I am not a hardened skeptic but the things that puzzle me haven’t really been addressed convincingly . Here are my obstacles to being convinced…
1. If a person can be knocked unconscious and see,hear and feel nothing then isn’t it logical to assume that death is eternal unconsciousness?
2. Is a baby or toddler conscious or self aware? If a baby dies then does anything survive then? A baby has a brain like an adult so does it go through the same process at death?
3. Mental deterioration as in Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia change a person completely so what if anything of those people can survive?
Art supplied good answers in the comments thread, where he mentioned that the issue of brain damage can be addressed by seeing the brain as a receiver of the signal of consciousness. I wrote about this here.
I suspect that a baby’s self-awareness consists of the Witness (or Higher Self) primarily or exclusively, since the ego-persona has not been constructed yet, or has been only partially constructed. Very young children (age three or so) have reported near-death experiences, though not a life review.
As for being knocked unconscious, we may simply not remember what we experienced in that state, just as we typically forget our dreams upon waking. And of course some people in a state of unconsciousness or coma have had NDEs or out-of-body experiences that contain verifiable information.
Some interesting info on the mental life of babies – and even fetuses – is presented in Changes of Mind, by Jenny Wade. This is a very good book, though written in a rather dry, technical style that may be off-putting to some readers.