Victor Zammit's new book claiming science has proven the afterlife

DoomMetal

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I am sure most of you know who Victor Zammit is. But if you don't here is his website:

http://www.victorzammit.com/

He is a fundamentalist spiritualist and his website claims scientific "objective" evidence has proven the afterlife and that skeptics deny, ignore and supress the evidence.

He has just released a new book A Lawyer Presents the Evidence for the Afterlife. It has only been out a few days but it turns out he gave out hundreds of copies to his spiritualist buddies this is why he has already nearly 80 5 star reviews on amazon! http://www.amazon.com/A-Lawyer-Pres...60576&sr=8-1&keywords=Victor+and+Wendy+Zammit

As for the book itself it seems little different than his old book which can be found free on his website. In short he claims long debunked mediums from the early 20th century had scientifically proven the existence of a spirit world.

Zammit has a chapter in his book about the notorious fraud medium Helen Duncan which surprise surprise Zammit claims was genuine as seen here!

http://www.victorzammit.com/book/4thedition/chapter11.html

As you can see Zammit evokes conspiracy theories involving the British Government to supress Duncan's mediumship, total nonsense! And practically everything he writes is false. You only need to go here to see Duncan was a fraud:

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

Now these are the photographs that Zammit claims were genuine "spirit materializations"

Helen_Duncan_fake_ectoplasm.jpg


Those "spirits" look like dolls to me! Maybe because that is what they were!

It amazes me how spiritualists still believe this stuff is genuine in the 21st century and how Zammit is so dishonest in claiming this stuff has proven the afterlife. :boggled:
 
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Here is another medium that Zammit claims in his book had scientifically proven the afterlife:

Eva Carriere

Cardboard_cut_out_with_Eva_C.png


The "man" on the left was a large cardboard cut-out of Ferdinand I of Bulgaria, the head was adapted from a newspaper article. You can read about it here:

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

Yet Zammit claims the cut-out figure was a real spirit materialization, Zammit also forgets to mention that Eva was nude in her séances :rolleyes:
 
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DoomMetal said:
Now these are the photographs that Zammit claims were genuine "spirit materializations"
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I'm confused. Does he claim that the strange-looking dolls in the photos were being moved around by spirits? Or that the things in the photos are not, in fact, dolls, but are actually spirits, which just happen to look exactly like dolls? Because if it's the latter, then wow, the guy's even further gone than I realized.
 
Quinn said:
I'm confused. Does he claim that the strange-looking dolls in the photos were being moved around by spirits? Or that the things in the photos are not, in fact, dolls, but are actually spirits, which just happen to look exactly like dolls? Because if it's the latter, then wow, the guy's even further gone than I realized.
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he is much further gone than you realized :p.
 
Aepervius said:
he is much further gone than you realized :p.
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Ah. I see. Ahem.

So, do you suppose there was something unusual that caused those particular spirits to look that way, or do we all turn into puppets from Mr. Rogers' Land Of Make-Believe after we die?
 
I'm confused. Does he claim that the strange-looking dolls in the photos were being moved around by spirits? Or that the things in the photos are not, in fact, dolls, but are actually spirits, which just happen to look exactly like dolls? Because if it's the latter, then wow, the guy's even further gone than I realized.
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He claims the strange-looking doll figures were indeed real spirit materializations. He is not a troll, he actually believes this. Yes it is worrying! Especially as Zammit insults people when they turn round and say they look like dolls!

If you look at the history of "ectoplasm" materializations the entire thing was fraud from the beginning. Most reports of "ectoplasm" died out in the 1950s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ectoplasm_(paranormal)#Fraud

So, do you suppose there was something unusual that caused those particular spirits to look that way, or do we all turn into puppets from Mr. Rogers' Land Of Make-Believe after we die?
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According to spiritualists the ectoplasm is formed when the "spirits" project their image to the medium by telepathy which is then "materialized" into the ectoplasm.

This is the reason according to the spiritualists why the materializations look funny:

As I understand it from other research in this area, the discarnate must visualize his or her old self and project that image into the ectoplasm. The ability of discarnates to do this apparently varies as much as artistic ability varies among incarnates. While some people have artistic talents and might do a good self portrait, my self-portrait would look more ridiculous than the Duncan materialization above.

But think about it, if you had to telepathically project an image of yourself to someone, what would the self-image be based on? What you see when shaving or applying make-up in the morning or a good photograph of yourself? I’m pretty sure that I would visualize myself based on a 40-year-old photograph. I know that when I sometimes look in the mirror I wonder who it is looking back at me and that person in the mirror does not match the more idealized likeness I have of myself. And I know that when I think of my brother, who died in an accident 40 years ago, I picture him as he appeared in a high-school graduation photo, not as he appeared in some fleeting moment in our interaction during his lifetime.
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The above quote nuttiness was from Michael E. Tymn (Victor Zammit's spiritualist buddy)

http://whitecrowbooks.com/michaeltymn/entry/ectoplasm_hokey_but_true/

Yes it is hard to believe if the spiritualists really believe this or not, it is ABSOLUTELY BONKERS!!!!. It borders on trolling. So instead of dolls or carboard cut out (WHICH WERE ACTUALLY FOUND!!) they were telepathic images projected into ectoplasm... and they only look "silly" because the spirits when they telepathically send their self-image to the medium don't properly remember what they look like :rolleyes:

More on Tymn here:

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Michael_E._Tymn

One word Bonkers ;)
 
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Here is another medium that Zammit claims in his book had scientifically proven the afterlife.

Mina Crandon

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

Mina_Crandon_Fake_Ectoplasm.jpg


The above photograph is a picture of Mina Crandon in a séance with her "spirit" hand... and yes the hand looks like a piece of animal tissue. That is because that is what it was!

In one séance the "spirit" hand was grabbed, it was examined by biologists and was found to be made of a piece of carved animal liver. :eek:

Of course no mention of any of this in Zammit's book. You can only call Zammit dishonest for ignoring such facts, it amazes me how 80 people almost on amazon give his book 5 stars when this information is only a click away on the internet. :jaw-dropp
 
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OMG this keeps just getting worse and worse!!

Here is another medium that Zammit claims was genuine in his book:

Mary Marshall

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Mary_Marshall

And the spiritualist who took the photographs was Thomas Glendenning Hamilton.

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

Zammit claims in his book that both Marshall and Hamilton were genuine and had proven the afterlife in scientific conditions. Let's have a look at some of these photographs that have meant to have proven the afterlife:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-q9uIXRqmP...Y/T1ROKUOJYpc/s1600/2906266420_76986c08b8.jpg

Mary Marshall above, with tissue paper in her mouth and cut-out heads from magazines and newspapers stuck to it. And yes that is the cut-out head of Arthur Conan Doyle!

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_DPowIRbow...BI/AUxqcihBzOA/s400/2905463637_2407d73bfc.jpg

Lmao, how can ANYONE claim such a thing is a real spirit materialization!! Tiny newspaper cut-out of someone's head lol!

To the spiritualists such as Zammit who actually claim such ectoplasm photographs are genuine why would a spirit be that small and why would it be coming out a mediums mouth :jaw-dropp

http://www.spiritarchive.org/uploads/1/2/4/7/12470836/4728969.jpg?423

This women was mentally ill... a rubber glove?? How can spiritualists honestly buy into this nuttiness!!

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3206/2906656382_f1394ffa53.jpg

WHAT is going on??!! Disturbing :eek:

How is tissue paper on her head scientific evidence for the afterlife Victor Zammit?! What world are you in Zammit??! Remember Zammit is the one who in his books claims the photographs taken by Thomas Glendenning Hamilton were all genuine spirit materializations. As seen above we can see that they are nonsense! This stuff is offensive! How can anyone take it seriously? Is it coincidence that Zammit included none of the above photographs in his book? :rolleyes:

Changed hotlinked images to regular links. Please see Rule 5.
Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: zooterkin
 
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Geez, I certainly hope the preceding pictures are not genuine, because I hate to think the afterlife consists of spending eternity floating aimlessly in a sea of snot...or worse!
 
Stellafane said:
Geez, I certainly hope the preceding pictures are not genuine, because I hate to think the afterlife consists of spending eternity floating aimlessly in a sea of snot...or worse!
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If the medium swallows the wrong way then uncle Charley could wind up being flushed down the porcelain bowl.
 
Let me show some more examples of Zammit's dishonesty.

In his book online on his website, Zammit writes:

Skeptics claim that ectoplasm does not exist and photographs of it are all faked, usually by the medium rolling up cheesecloth in the mouth or anus prior to the séance and pulling it out and making it walk and talk and assume the shape of one’s dead relatives—a feat which I for one would love to see one single skeptic actually demonstrate, especially while tied hand and foot to their chair the way most materialization mediums are!!!
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http://www.victorzammit.com/book/4thedition/chapter10.html

No materialization medium has ever produced "ectoplasm" materializations when they have been tied down with their hand and feet to a chair. See the images above, none of them were completey tied down.

In his chapter 10 (see the link) called "Materialization Mediumship", Zammit claims the following mediums were genuine:

Rita Goold, Mina Crandon, Bangs Sisters, William Eglinton, Helen Duncan, Alec Harris and Jack Webber.

Ok as shown on this thread already Mina Crandon, Jack Webber and Mina Crandon were all frauds. Now lets look at some of the others he claims were genuine and had scientifically proven the afterlife.

1. Rita Good

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

In 1984, Tony Cornell attended a series of séances with Goold. During a séance the spirit Russell materialized, however, Cornell felt the hands of Russell and described them as female like with long nails, he was the same size of Goold when he was meant to be a boy and smelt of Goold's perfume.

The other spirit who materialized Helen Duncan was the same size as Goold but was 224 pounds before she died. At the end of the séance when the lights were turned on Cornell observed that one of the shoes was different on Goold than the one before the séance and that one of her trouser legs was rolled up, indicating that she had changed clothing during the séance. Goold would also play music during her séances which provided cover for her to change clothes and when the music was turned off would pretend to be the spirits.
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So Rita Goold was a fraud.

2. Bangs Sisters

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

The psychologist Stanley LeFevre Krebs had exposed the Bangs Sisters as frauds, he employed a hidden mirror and caught them tampering with a letter in an envelope and writing a reply in it under the table which they would pretend a spirit had written.
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So the Bangs Sisters were frauds.

3. William Eglinton

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

In 1876 Eglinton was exposed as a fraud when the psychical researcher Thomas Colley seized the "spirit" materialization and cut off a portion of its cloak. It was discovered that the cut piece matched a cloth found in Eglinton's suitcase. Colley also pulled the beard off the materialization and it was revealed to be a fake, the same as another one found in the suitcase of Eglinton.
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Eglinton was a fraud.

4. Alec Harris

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

In January 1955, Tony Cornell attended a séance to investigate the mediumship of Harris. In the séance Harris sat behind a curtain cabinet and in total eleven "spirit" figures came out from behind the curtain at different times dressed in different clothing. They walked around the room, communicated with the sitters to then disappear behind the curtain. The room was in complete darkness apart from some dim light in the middle of the room.

Cornell noted that all the figures had a similar stature, they dressed similarly but used different masks and hats. Only one figure came out from the curtain at a time and only minutes after each other. According to the sitters who had touched the figures, their skin felt coarse and rough even though some were supposed to be female. Cornell wrote that a stomach rumble, nicotine smelling breath and a pulse gave it away that all the figures were in fact Harris and that he had dressed up as each one behind the cabinet. The cabinet was not examined before or after the sitting and Harris refused to be searched before or after the sitting.

The spirit figures were also reported to creak and move floor boards as they walked on them, indicating that they were human.
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Alec Harris a fraud.

The list goes on and on. Practically everything Zammit has written about mediumship is a lie. Do his spiritualist followers not bother to check up on the mediums he claims were genuine? You only need to spend a few minutes looking online. :eek:
 
Well, let's not be too hasty...Eva Carrière's shows may have been worth the price of admission. To wit:

wikipedia said:
...Carrière has been described as "perverse and neurotic". She was well known for running around the séance room naked indulging in sexual activities with her audience. Her companion Juliette Bisson (1861–1956) would, during the course of the séance sittings with Schrenck-Notzing, introduce her finger into Eva's vagina to ensure no "ectoplasm" had been loaded there beforehand to fool the investigators, and she would also strip nude at the end of a séance and demanded another full-on gynecological exam.

It has been noted that the mediumship sessions of Carrière with Schrenck-Notzing were pornographic. The photographs that were taken during the séances show Carrière in the nude emerging from her cabinet and others revealing fake ectoplasm strings hanging from her breasts. Another photograph taken revealed ectoplasm in the shape of a deflated, and disembodied penis. Both Juliette Bisson and Carrière were in a sexual relationship together, and they both worked in collaboration with each other to fake the ectoplasm and eroticize their male audience.
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OK, so maybe it wasn't exactly talking with the dead. But I bet it was nevertheless entertaining!
 
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Stellafane said:
Well, let's not be too hasty...Eva Carrière's shows may have been worth the price of admission. To wit:



OK, so maybe it wasn't exactly talking with the dead. But I bet it was nevertheless entertaining!
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So they were raising more than just the dead eh?
 
Here is another medium that Zammit claims was genuine and had proven the afterlife in scientific conditions:

The Brazilian medium Carmine Mirabelli

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmine_Mirabelli

As shown on my other thread, Mirabelli was a known fraud, his levitation photograph was discovered to be a fake. Let's have a look at one of his "materializations".

http://psychictruth.info/Mirabelli_Spirit_Produced_Centre.jpg

The spiritualist Carlos de Castro is on the right, a spirit materialization of a dead poet is supposed to be in the middle and Mirabelli is on the left.

What does this photograph look like to you? :rolleyes:

Yes, it is a living human! Just some paid accomplice to sneak into the séance half way through and pose on the chair!

Note that Mirabelli's hands and feet are both free, they are certainly not tied down like Zammit claimed most materialization mediums are. As stated above there is no evidence materialization mediums have been tied down to a chair.

So what do we have? A pitch black room and some guy pretending to be a "spirit" in the middle of the photograph, certainly no scientific controls in place. But according to Zammit it's scientific evidence for the afterlife! Oh and Zammit claims in his book that Mirabelli performed his "materializations" in broad daylight... does that dark room look like daylight?

Here is just some of the nonsense that Zammit writes regarding Mirabelli:

At a well-attended seance in Sao Vicente the chair on which the entranced Mirabelli was sitting rose and floated in the air two meters above the floor. Witnesses timed its levitation for 120 seconds. On another occasion Mirabelli was at the da Luz railroad station with several companions when he suddenly vanished. About fifteen minutes later a telephone call came from Sao Vicente, a town ninety kilometers away, stating that he had appeared there exactly two minutes after he had disappeared from da Luz.
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http://www.victorzammit.com/book/4thedition/chapter10.html

So according to the spiritualists Mirabelli floated into the air and on another occasion teleported 90 kilometres away?? It seems the sources for this are nothing more than hearsay. I would love to see scientific evidence for such a thing. When will Zammit learn that unconfirmed hearsay and magical word of mouth stories are not scientific evidence for the afterlife? ;)

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Edited for Rule 5. Do not hotlink images.
 
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This is a scream! I should point out that the idea that Mediums have been held down / tied down and unable to move their legs and arms during their miracles is not just a conceit of Zammit. Several noted Parapsychologists have made that claim, notably the late John Beloff. It does appear to be the case that the examples given of this supposed, "strict" testing circumstances invariably turn out to have been in actual fact far less strict in reality. Also researchers like Beloff are annoying in that they frequently resorted to reversing the onus as a rhetorical tool to get around the bad evidence for their claims.

Beloff also didn't seem to understand the rather obvious reason's why there was a decline in the number of mediums who claimed and produced physical paranormal miracles, like ectoplasm. I personally think it had something to do with electric lights and the flashlight.
 
Victor Zammit pushes delusional psychic detectives?

Victor Zammit has a long history in pushing various psychic detectives and psychic mediums inside North America as well. His stunning support behind such psychic detective actresses as Noreen Renier and Laurie McQuary appears to be a means to market delusional mind melds.

See http://www.gpinquirygroup.com/gpinquirygroup/Victor%20Zammit%20page.html for his more recent antics in completely missing his favorite target --- skeptics.
 
Pacal said:
This is a scream! I should point out that the idea that Mediums have been held down / tied down and unable to move their legs and arms during their miracles is not just a conceit of Zammit. Several noted Parapsychologists have made that claim, notably the late John Beloff. It does appear to be the case that the examples given of this supposed, "strict" testing circumstances invariably turn out to have been in actual fact far less strict in reality. Also researchers like Beloff are annoying in that they frequently resorted to reversing the onus as a rhetorical tool to get around the bad evidence for their claims.

Beloff also didn't seem to understand the rather obvious reason's why there was a decline in the number of mediums who claimed and produced physical paranormal miracles, like ectoplasm. I personally think it had something to do with electric lights and the flashlight.
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Pacal it is interesting to see you mention Beloff. I am in agreement with you.

Beloff was one of the very last parapsychologists to defend physical mediumship. Many parapsychologists have been convinced most mediumship is fraud and have rejected the spirit hypothesis and nearly all parapsychologists have rejected physical mediumship. See for example the books by Eric Dingwall, Harry Price etc.

Little psychical researchers/parapsychologists have ever supported physical mediums as they caught them in fraud, notice for example how Zammit has little references to the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) in his books.

I am not sure how the myth came about that physical mediums have been tied down and produced ectoplasm in scientific conditions, this was never ever the case, even the photographs and reports contradict it.

In his book Zammit has spiritualist stories where the lights in the séance room were turned on and supposedly the skin of the medium was burned, and he even claims mediums came close to death. This is complete nonsense, it is just an excuse for physical mediums why ectoplasm cannot be produced in light conditions. In the dark they can easily place cheesecloth, muslin etc around the room.

Zammit also sets up a straw man by claiming the skeptics say most physical mediums hide the ectoplasm down their throat and regurgitate it through their séances. The skeptics have never said this apart from in the case of Helen Duncan, Duncan was an obese lady with a very large stomach and had no problem regurgitating very large rolls of cheese-cloth.

Of course nobody is claiming that the mediums regurgitated full size rubber dolls, they were easily hidden in the séance room beforehand. Most mediums including Duncan herself worked with secret and hidden accomplices (her husband for example). Like all spiritualist fundamentalists Zammit does not mention this.

Zammit also sets up another straw man by claiming skeptics say that the mediums hide their ectoplasm in their anus. I have been studying mediumship for a long time, and I have only ever read about two mediums doing this. As stated the easiest way to get the ectoplasm in the séance room was by secret accomplices. In most cases they were not searched before these séances took place and neither were the séance rooms themselves. The are much evidence of séance rooms where trap doors have been found.

The fraud medium Gordon Higginson used to hide his fake ectoplasm cloth under the seats in his séances. Spiritualists never used to thoroughly check the séance room beforehand, but as soon as psychical researchers or investigators were invited they started to look and easily find the stuff hidden in the room. I have read many times how ectoplasm muslin or cheesecloth was hidden under floorboards in the séance room or hidden in secret compartments in the room.

There has never ever been ectoplasm produced in full light conditions. The reason ectoplasm declined was because of the upgrade in technology. People started asking for séances to be performed with video camera equipment or infra-red cameras etc with these in place it would rule out chances of fraud. Most mediums realised this so gave up physical mediumship as they could no longer just walk around the séance room placing the cheesecloth about or dressing up in cloth. After 1960 most mediums turned to purely mental mediumship.

If you go to any modern day spiritualist church, some spiritualists are actually embarrassed about physical mediumship and don't like talking about it. If you ask them why it stopped and no modern medium is doing it anymore they have no response, I mean they aren't going to be honest and admit it was fraud are they but deep down most of them probably know it was unless of course they have fooled themselves like Zammit ;)
 
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Zammit's FAQ is also filled with porkies :rolleyes:

He writes:

Q8. Have many sceptics applied for the million dollar reward if they can rebut the evidence for the afterlife?

Answer: Oh yes, a few did. Whenever I inform them what they have to do - rebutting mostly the objective evidence I included in my book on the net, they do not write back. A few academic sceptics complained that the test 'proving beyond possible doubt' is impossible. Their claim is "nothing is absolutely certain in this world." My reply is that this is the test that the skeptics are demanding! And since the cash reward is very high so must be the test of validity. Besides, I stated, of course, there are certain things which are absolutely certain in this world. For example, I made the statement about the mortality of the human condition -we humans physically die. One American Ph.D sceptic tried to argue with me that no one can prove that!! I just replied, if he could show me that President Kennedy is not dead, or Princess Diana or Mother Theresa or Elvis Presley are not dead, my sponsors will gladly hand over the million dollars!
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I would love to see some proof of this.


Q9. You are making an offer which is impossible to prove because 'you can't prove the negative'. Can you explain ?

Answer: I am NOT asking anyone to 'prove the negative.' I received many emails from skeptics saying that - but they themselves have not read my challenge - they read the website of some skeptic who deliberately misled them about what I have on my website. Then these skeptics waste my time repeating what some other skeptic has deliberately misrepresented about my offer.

If the reader goes to my home page - it is clearly expressly stated that the challenge is about rebutting the 'EXISTING EVIDENCE.' The evidence is in my book - click on the BOOK on the homepage - you will then see the evidence which has to be rebutted - chapters 3 to 24. Now, that is NOT proving the negative. That is technical evidence which is admissible in a court of law - all the way up to the Supreme Court of the United States, the High Court of England and the High Court of Australia and in all civilised countries in the world. I state that only lawyers know what technically constitutes admissible evidence. Check with your own lawyer. That skeptical stage magician who has been disseminating negative propaganda to fool the uninformed knows absolutely NOTHING about laboratory experimentation and what constitutes admissible technical evidence.
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http://www.victorzammit.com/FAQs/index.html

Zammit's nonsense regarding mediumship has already been debunked in this thread. You can see the type of lies he spreads. He's been duped into believing rubber dolls and cheesecloth are "objective" scientific evidence for an afterlife. :)
 
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DoomMetal said:
Here is another medium that Zammit claims in his book had scientifically proven the afterlife.

Mina Crandon

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

[qimg]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Mina_Crandon_Fake_Ectoplasm.jpg[/qimg]

The above photograph is a picture of Mina Crandon in a séance with her "spirit" hand... and yes the hand looks like a piece of animal tissue. That is because that is what it was!

In one séance the "spirit" hand was grabbed, it was examined by biologists and was found to be made of a piece of carved animal liver. :eek:

Of course no mention of any of this in Zammit's book. You can only call Zammit dishonest for ignoring such facts, it amazes me how 80 people almost on amazon give his book 5 stars when this information is only a click away on the internet. :jaw-dropp
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Heh...I was reading about that and when I saw that picture I thought it looked like a pile of something else. Ugh. And coming from between her legs? UGH!

I truly cannot fathom how ANYBODY was ever fooled by all this nonsense. And to use such old "evidence" as fact for today is simply ludicrous. Of course no-one who did such flap-doodle craziness is alive today to debunk, so I guess Zammit feels he is safer from criticism.
 
Minarvia said:
I truly cannot fathom how ANYBODY was ever fooled by all this nonsense. And to use such old "evidence" as fact for today is simply ludicrous. Of course no-one who did such flap-doodle craziness is alive today to debunk, so I guess Zammit feels he is safer from criticism.
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Ah, but physical mediumship is back in style. And with people like Stephen Braude jumping on the bandwagon.

http://felixcircle.blogspot.com/

~~ Paul
 
Paul C. Anagnostopoulos said:
Ah, but physical mediumship is back in style. And with people like Stephen Braude jumping on the bandwagon.

http://felixcircle.blogspot.com/

~~ Paul
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No it's not back in style. Most spiritualist church's stay far away from physical mediumship and now only practice mental mediumship. There are only a handful of "physical" mediums left world-wide.

Stephen Braude is a very rare exception. Most parapsychologists have rejected physical mediumship as fraud since the 1940s.

The typical spiritualist claim that Braude is a skeptic is false, in his early books he seems to reject fraud as an explanation for mediumship and just claim "super ESP" is doing it all, now he's apparently converted to the spiritualist hypothesis. He may have a phd in philosophy but he knows nothing about science. He is actually being dishonest when it comes to writing about mediumship.

All of the historical mediums he claims were genuine were frauds, you only need to read this book, to see that:

http://archive.org/stream/isspiritualismba00mccarich#page/n3/mode/2up

Is Spiritualism Based on Fraud? by Joseph McCabe. The problem is, is that the spiritualists never read the skeptical material and have no interest in any evidence which has debunked their mediums as frauds.

As for the Felix Circle blog, stuff like this is laughable:

http://felixcircle.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/ectoplasm-and-full-form.html

It's just cheesecloth and newspaper clipping cut outs of peoples faces or people dressed in cloth. I find it hard to believe that anyone deep down believes this is real, if they do they have fooled themselves is a form of self-delusion, fantasy prone personality or mental illness.
 
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I truly cannot fathom how ANYBODY was ever fooled by all this nonsense.
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I have never understood it either. Only a minority of devout spiritualists like Victor Zammit or Michael E. Tymn or those from the Felix Circle believe such sillyness is genuine. Most parapsychologists reject physical mediumship as it is nothing but fraud, even J. B. Rhine the "father" of American parapsychology rejected physical mediumship as fraud! Parapsychologists are no support to the spiritualists, but you won't usually hear about this from the spiritualists.
 
DoomMetal said:
Here is another medium that Zammit claims in his book had scientifically proven the afterlife:

Eva Carriere

[qimg]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Cardboard_cut_out_with_Eva_C.png[/qimg]

The "man" on the left was a large cardboard cut-out of Ferdinand I of Bulgaria, the head was adapted from a newspaper article. You can read about it here:

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

Yet Zammit claims the cut-out figure was a real spirit materialization, Zammit also forgets to mention that Eva was nude in her séances :rolleyes:
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If she is nude in that photo there has been some serious retouching going on. On this page you can see what I presume to be the un-retouched version (NSFW: breasts!).
 
Michael C said:
If she is nude in that photo there has been some serious retouching going on. On this page you can see what I presume to be the un-retouched version (NSFW: breasts!).
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Yes the breasts were removed from the photographs due to censorship issues regarding nudity. You can read about it here in the book Phenomena of Materialisation by Baron von Schrenck Notzing who was involved in taking the photographs at her séance tests.

http://archive.org/stream/phenomenaofmater00schr#page/n339/mode/2up

See the photograph, and on page 221 Schrenck Notzing writes:

On the photographs intended for publication, Eva's naked body was, for obvious reasons, retouched in such a way that the sex characteristics (breasts, etc) are not seen.
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The uncensored photographs were released by Eva's lesbian lover Juliette Bisson. Bisson was present during Eva's séances and was involved in her ectoplasm "materialization" frauds. They were made from cardboard, cloth, newspaper clippings and other materials.
 
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Here is a paper from Stephen E. Braude from 1992. In this paper he supports the super-psi hypothesis of mediumship opposed to the survival hypothesis.

http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/jse_06_2_braude.pdf

It's a pretty embarrassing paper and I guess that's why only the fringe paranormal journal - The Journal of Scientific Exploration published it. I read the whole thing but no evidence for the super-psi hypothesis of mediumship was given :rolleyes:
 
DoomMetal said:
No it's not back in style. Most spiritualist church's stay far away from physical mediumship and now only practice mental mediumship. There are only a handful of "physical" mediums left world-wide.
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True, but it seems as if they are back in action after a long period of silence. Perhaps I just wasn't paying attention and they've been futzing around all along.

~~ Paul
 
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Paul C. Anagnostopoulos said:
True, but it seems as if they are back in action after a long period of silence. Perhaps I just wasn't paying attention and they've been futzing around all along.

~~ Paul
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Even if we assume physical mediumship is genuine it is contradictory by their own beliefs. If you speak to most spiritualists they would admit that they believe in apparitions or ghosts (Zammit even cites a small chapter on people witnessing apparitions). Apparations/hauntings/ghosts have nothing to do with mediumship. Now apparitions do not need a medium to "materialize" or to be seen, in fact they don't materialize at all. There is no "ectoplasm" from apparitional experiences or sightings of ghosts. Ghosts and mediumship contradict each other.

So if these "spirits" could come back to earth (which spiritualists believe) as ghosts (without the need of a medium) then why do they need to assume physical mediumship as well? There is no need for a medium at all. According to various books on ghost hunting one does not need any "psychic" power to witness a ghost.

Of course what I am saying here is based on their own beliefs. They (the spiritualists) have never explained this issue, and they usually ignore it. They contradict themselves by their own reasoning. I understand that the spiritualists do not usually mention ghosts, but they have expressed their belief in them.

The issue was raised in the book Hauntings and Poltergeists: Multidisciplinary Perspectives by James Houran, Rense Lange. But this issue has been around for over 70 years. You won't usually read about this, but ghost hunters because of this very reason have been very critical towards mediumship which they claim is mostly nothing more than a scam. Andrew Green one of the worlds most famous ghost hunters was very critical towards mediumship. Ghost hunters are no friends of physical mediumship but when you flick open Zammit's book he doesn't mention any of this.
 
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:) Thanks Sherlock ,for that interesting link on Victor Zammit,excellent reading material ,it gave me some food for thought[and a headache].!
 
Are there any lawyers here? Perhaps we could launch some kind of "counter lawsuit" to Zammit's.
 
Not sure if this has already done the rounds but it looks like Victor is after Stephen Hawkings now :D

To-day’s brief talk is to show you why this closed-minded Professor of Cosmology Prof. Stephen Hawking is deluding himself when he says there is no afterlife. He further stated in the television documentary ‘Curiosity … Who Created the Universe’ that there is no God. This professor made serious blunders and failures which I believe have completely destroyed the credibility of his anti-afterlife argument.
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http://www.victorzammit.com/articles/stephenHawking exposedyoutube.htm
 
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