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Post by LeroyC Sun Sep 16, 2012 1:11 pm

Hello everyone,

Just felt I needed to post this, as its either me, or I am getting more and more upset about physical medimship today; in fact I am on the verge of packing it all in!!.

Let me be clear; its physical mediumship that is my real interest, and I think I speak from long (practical) experience with most of the contemporary physical mediums and a few who are not now with us. In fact I have been 40 years in this movement, and made its history my special study.

While I am not a medium I certainly know how they operate and what should constitute evidence of survival. In fact, on this site I think Zerdini puts if very clearly in this regard and in his quest for what constitutes evidence; and to be fair he is older than I and also had the 'practical experience' so to speak !

I write this after attending a seance by a friend of mine. That is the sad thing; the medium is a friendly caring person who genuinely wishes to be of service to spirit. They have been sitting a number of years and have a physical circle. I was invited to attend as they were getting a lot of phenomena.
The seance lasted almost two hours and there were alleged 'experienced' individuals sitting who were conversant with physical mediumship. To a person, the meeting was pleasant and friendly; and all the sitters appeared to be in good harmony.

The circle leader was down to earth, and the seance room was fine. The seance began in darkness and with music. After about 15 mins a 'trance' voice was heard from the cabinet. The medium was not restrained. More music, a smattering of 'clairvoyance' from the sitters and again another trance voice.

People expressed feelings of 'its cold in here', 'there's something in front of you', I can smell perfume etc. All subjective statements. More music. The red light goes on and we sit to witness transfiguration of 'relatives'. No speach. 10 mins of red light on the medium. No evidence of changes, no ectoplasmic mask. Light goes out, more music. Trance voice.

Shortly after we are told the energy is low, and the circle needs to shut now. Medium comes out of trance. lights go on. Members of the circle are enthusiastic at seeing the transfigurations (???), and feeling spirit people. Atmosphere is positive, all retire for a cup of tea...a great night by all accounts!!

So what do I do ?. In my experience nothing happened. At least not in a physical sense. I spend almost two hours listening to music in the dark. NO survival evience at all. And that's my real beef...NO evidence. When are mediums and their sitters going to get real and stop accepting this vague dross and sit back and start asking some real questions and indeed looking for personal survival evidence ?

Quite clearly me frind is not a developed physical medium; at least as far as I am experienced in judging so. More to the pont I do not want to offend or hurt them by being scathing in my criticism. I am best just saying that it was 'interesting' and leave it at that.

Problem is we now see so much of this banality that is it any wonder Spiritualism is in the doldrums. Is it me, or is it now about time that we reject these 'wanabees' and quite simply say that people should, and ought to develop properly. particularly before going 'public' which my friend wants to do.

Are people really so deluded as to accept this sort of thing ?. It undoubtable gives Spiritualism a bad name, and by the look of another well known site on this topic it is slowly being poluted by wanabees and weirdo's whom have NOTHING to contribute to any rational debate about physical mediumship. Comments would be appreciated. At this juncture I am just depressed with it all !

LeroyC

LeroyC


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Post by mac Sun Sep 16, 2012 4:01 pm

LeroyC wrote:Hello everyone,

Just felt I needed to post this, as its either me, or I am getting more and more upset about physical medimship today; in fact I am on the verge of packing it all in!!.

Let me be clear; its physical mediumship that is my real interest, and I think I speak from long (practical) experience with most of the contemporary physical mediums and a few who are not now with us. In fact I have been 40 years in this movement, and made its history my special study.

While I am not a medium I certainly know how they operate and what should constitute evidence of survival. In fact, on this site I think Zerdini puts if very clearly in this regard and in his quest for what constitutes evidence; and to be fair he is older than I and also had the 'practical experience' so to speak !

I write this after attending a seance by a friend of mine. That is the sad thing; the medium is a friendly caring person who genuinely wishes to be of service to spirit. They have been sitting a number of years and have a physical circle. I was invited to attend as they were getting a lot of phenomena.
The seance lasted almost two hours and there were alleged 'experienced' individuals sitting who were conversant with physical mediumship. To a person, the meeting was pleasant and friendly; and all the sitters appeared to be in good harmony.

The circle leader was down to earth, and the seance room was fine. The seance began in darkness and with music. After about 15 mins a 'trance' voice was heard from the cabinet. The medium was not restrained. More music, a smattering of 'clairvoyance' from the sitters and again another trance voice.

People expressed feelings of 'its cold in here', 'there's something in front of you', I can smell perfume etc. All subjective statements. More music. The red light goes on and we sit to witness transfiguration of 'relatives'. No speach. 10 mins of red light on the medium. No evidence of changes, no ectoplasmic mask. Light goes out, more music. Trance voice.

Shortly after we are told the energy is low, and the circle needs to shut now. Medium comes out of trance. lights go on. Members of the circle are enthusiastic at seeing the transfigurations (???), and feeling spirit people. Atmosphere is positive, all retire for a cup of tea...a great night by all accounts!!

So what do I do ?. In my experience nothing happened. At least not in a physical sense. I spend almost two hours listening to music in the dark. NO survival evience at all. And that's my real beef...NO evidence. When are mediums and their sitters going to get real and stop accepting this vague dross and sit back and start asking some real questions and indeed looking for personal survival evidence ?

Quite clearly me frind is not a developed physical medium; at least as far as I am experienced in judging so. More to the pont I do not want to offend or hurt them by being scathing in my criticism. I am best just saying that it was 'interesting' and leave it at that.

Problem is we now see so much of this banality that is it any wonder Spiritualism is in the doldrums. Is it me, or is it now about time that we reject these 'wanabees' and quite simply say that people should, and ought to develop properly. particularly before going 'public' which my friend wants to do.

Are people really so deluded as to accept this sort of thing ?. It undoubtable gives Spiritualism a bad name, and by the look of another well known site on this topic it is slowly being poluted by wanabees and weirdo's whom have NOTHING to contribute to any rational debate about physical mediumship. Comments would be appreciated. At this juncture I am just depressed with it all !

LeroyC

You say your friend's not a developing physical medium so I assume another group member was and it's that individual who wants to 'go public'. Am I correct?

In your piece you say you were invited because the group had experienced a lot of phenomena so why would you have expected survival evidence? OK the phenomena didn't match up to your personal experience so you've been lucky before with what you've witnessed....

This may sting but wouldn't it be better to offer to help these folk who (from what you say) were doing their best? Suggestions or advice would surely be better than grumbling about wannabes - why not be someone to explain why the medium or group isn't ready to be demonstrating?

You say "....we now see so much of this banality that is it any wonder Spiritualism is in the doldrums." It's not for that reason at all! Physical mediumship hasn't been that heavily linked with Spiritualism in quite a few years so the decline's down to other factors too....

For myself I don't care about physical mediumship any more than I care about other forms of evidential mediumship. Sure it can be impressive when it's done well but so can other forms and the outcome is what matters more than the method.

mac


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Post by LeroyC Sun Sep 16, 2012 10:00 pm

Hi

My friend regards the mediumship as fairly well developed, to such an extent that it is being developed as a 'comercial' venture.

While I fully aknowledge that phenomena may or may not be linked to survival evidence the express focus of the mediumship ( in my friends eyes) is to provide this.
Unfortunately I fear this is not the case. If you are acquainted with physical mediumship, and I presume you are, then you will realise that in any one generation there are only ever a handful of such mediums with that gift ( not my assertion by the way, but that of the late Alan Crossley ). It is estimated that 1 in 100.000 people may have this gift.

I still assert that such demonstrations do nothiong for the reputation of Spiritualism or Spiritualists, who's fundamental focus is to provide survival evidence.

My friend lives a good distance away from myself, and even if I could be a regular sitter and provide all the advice I was capapble of giving ( which would be ideal I am sure ), if the gfit is not there then you are wasting your time. sitting in love and harmony and devloping what gifts you may have is fine, but that gift may not be what you want, and many 'want', or 'think' they are physical mediums.

I must admit I am rather curious about your stance, ie ' For myself I don't care about physical mediumship any more than I care about other forms of evidential mediumship. '

If that is the case then why be involved in Spiritualism at all if iit is not to establish evidence for life after death ?..That I would argue is the ultimate 'outcome' do you not think ?

LeroyC

LeroyC


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Post by Admin Mon Sep 17, 2012 12:15 am

Hi Leroy, I think that you are right to feel depressed. There is a lot of encouragement for people to try to develop Physical mediumship and no one who looks at those working publically can fail to see it can become a nice way to earn money. Additionally the most common stance about the mediums is what you have reported relatively uncritical acceptance.

Indeed in the upper echelons of the modern physical mediumship world, of those who currently demonstrate in public for money, any negative comments are disallowed. The rules of evidence for proof of survival are just ignored entirely.

As a mental medium the day I walk away from the Sunday platform and feel I did not achieve this I will stop working. I also expect and hope for constructive feedback/advice to improve. This is from someone who only chatrges for private readings (and if one of those fails the money will go back immediately). If you want to charge learn to do mediumship properly and evidentially.

If not say you are putting on a show which is for entertainment but might have some Spirit evidence. In their latter years this is how the Davenports advertised themselves, especially on their final trip to Australia , New Zealand and back to Australia followed by the tragic death. Become more vaudeville like Anna Eva Fay, who only in the early days (like the Davenports) claimed any Spirit involvement, later on with her friendship with Houdini and honorary membership as the first woman associate of the magic circle it was clear she had always been a clever conkurer.

Whatever they do it should distance themselves from Spiritualism, I was so greatful when David Thompson and Victor Zammitt made it clear they were not Spiritualists. Dark Seances are a form of contagion which have no place in Spiritualism. Banned by the then National Spiritualists Association in the USA in 1967, rejected by Emma Hardinge Britten and DD Home, Sadly people cannot resist the "excitement", the titillation factor that has caused the spate of recent books by social researchers about the pretty women mediums, dark seances and Victorian morals.

The transfiguration experience is, sadly, par for the course. In dim red light even when shone on the face people's subconscious can easily invent faces. In a crowd if they react out loud these all too easily become real to others. I have now watched it 3 times and seen some faces that other discerning people did see but not many of those others feel they saw.

I think you are right about the very few aho have ever had the true ability as a Physical medium to prove survival. Then of those who appeared to be its necessary to really investigate their history. All to many of the early claims prove to fail especially when the evidence comes in Dark Circles.

It makes me think about the Mrs Fay lauded by EE Brackett in materialised Apparitions and also by Florence Marryatt in There is No Death but exposed as the first one to use assistants acting as Spirits enetering from a room behind the cabinet in the "Vampires of Onsett". This was one of several instances where fraud came out with the Boston Physical Mediums. It is also the first time the method , which was exposed by the Psychic Observer using infra red at Camp Chesterfield in 1964, of assistants appearing through a secret room, was used. Mrs Fay was also the first to bring through a multitude of materialised Spirits , all at once, which is another common element of that type of cheating.


So Leroy I would not give up, I admit I am totally uninterested in Physical mediumship on the basis of the way people are currently doing it, however good mental mediumship does give me adequate proof of survival anyway. Sadly even this is now rare as people think they can do one workshop and be a medium. As a result they give messages from their own subconsciousness not even using any Psychic gift.

Mark you I can understand your despondence, the more research I do the worse the overall picture becomes until you end up with a handful of White Crows you may be prepared to talk about as real. Equally you realise that the biases of researchers have also caused us many problems.

I end up focusing upon the experiences I have had to gether with the observations of others and the messages I have given where there was a high degree of accuracy with people I did not know at all.

I would love to start a physical circle, in dim red light, just to see what came out of it. The risk is , if you use the USA model of table, trumpet and transfiguration, people get over involved in the excitement of potentially telekinetic effects without bothering to discern whether there is any real contact from Spirit. In some ways the worst of these are the tables because if you experience one moving at speed it can be quite addictive (as can spoon bending when someone starts to make it happen and thats pure psychic force whhich depletes the individual).
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Post by mac Mon Sep 17, 2012 7:07 am

Hi

My friend regards the mediumship as fairly well developed, to such an extent that it is being developed as a 'comercial' venture. not good....

While I fully aknowledge that phenomena may or may not be linked to survival evidence the express focus of the mediumship ( in my friends eyes) is to provide this. To provide which? phenomena or mediumship????
Unfortunately I fear this is not the case. If you are acquainted with physical mediumship, and I presume you are, then you will realise that in any one generation there are only ever a handful of such mediums with that gift ( not my assertion by the way, but that of the late Alan Crossley ). It is estimated that 1 in 100.000 people may have this gift. Yes I am completely familiar with the overall picture even though I didn't know that estimated figure.

I still assert that such demonstrations do nothiong for the reputation of Spiritualism or Spiritualists, who's fundamental focus is to provide survival evidence. But they're not the words you wrote earlier - you've now changed your emphasis. Wink Spiritualism is in the doldrums for a variety of reasons. Of course poor (or non-existent) physical mediumship doesn't help that but how many see physical mediumship anyway? No, Spiritualism faces many problems and I'd suggest that weak physical mediumship is a comparatively minor one. I'm always concerned that it's the phenomena that may be more of an attraction than providing evidence of survival and consequently it may attract individuals whose primary focus is not on evidential mediumship, individuals who believe that phenomena somehow demonstrate the principle of survival. Of course I don't need to tell you that they're wrong.

My friend lives a good distance away from myself, and even if I could be a regular sitter and provide all the advice I was capapble of giving ( which would be ideal I am sure ), if the gfit is not there then you are wasting your time. sitting in love and harmony and devloping what gifts you may have is fine, but that gift may not be what you want, and many 'want', or 'think' they are physical mediums. One wouldn't know for sure that the gift for developing pm isn't there until it's been assessed by someone experienced enough to know. I accept you're not in a position to provide that assessment or any long-term support (and the group might not want your input anyway.) Whadya do?

I must admit I am rather curious about your stance, ie ' For myself I don't care about physical mediumship any more than I care about other forms of evidential mediumship. '

If that is the case then why be involved in Spiritualism at all if iit is not to establish evidence for life after death ?..That I would argue is the ultimate 'outcome' do you not think ? Please read my words again. I wrote: I don't care about pm any more than I care about other forms of mediumship. Did I say I don't care about mediumship? You perhaps think that pm is the only worthwhile form of mediumship, that it has more value? I've met individuals with that outlook. Read what I've written elsewhere and you'll see my stance. I'm an out-and-out Modern Spiritualist. I have no bias for or against any form of evidential mediumship, no bias for or against physical mediumship.


mac


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