The Book 4th Edition
<<
Previous Chapter : Book
Index : Next Chapter >>
3. My sensational materialization experiences
“A round hundred of scientists, all
profoundly skeptical, and some openly hostile, declared
themselves, without exception, completely convinced after
having worked under the direction of Dr. Schrenck-Notzing
with his medium Willy [Schneider]…. I myself took
part in twenty-five of these experiments, and have convinced
myself that telekinesis and materialization are facts. This
conviction was shared by all the other scientific witnesses.
They are all in accord that the hypothesis of fraud is quite
untenable. ”
Dr Gustave Geley
“The point is, if you want real conviction
of life after death, physical mediumship is the answer.”
Leslie Flint
When you come across something really spectacular, a sensational
experience which contradicts your beliefs, your culture,
tradition and history?what do you do? You can forget all
about it or you can investigate more. I chose to investigate.
The Western world has known for a couple of thousand years
that under certain circumstances it is possible for Etherians
(spirits from the afterlife also known as the Etheric realm)
to temporarily appear as solid flesh and blood beings, through
the agency of gifted materialization mediums. But it was
usually described in the context of religious or shamanistic
experiences.
When people in America today hear the word “medium”
they think of someone like John Edward or Allison Dubois
who able to hear and see people who have died and convey
to clients what they are seeing and hearing. This is called
mental mediumship because it happens in the medium’s
mind? the person observing cannot see or hear anything.
But a physical medium enables all the people present
to see and hear and feel a variety of paranormal things
for themselves. Initially this might be the levitation of
a heavy table and other objects, raps and bumps which respond
intelligently, spirit lights which move around at high speed
or objects which are materialized.
In the case of some very rare “direct voice”
mediums (see Chapt. 15) everyone present can hear the voices
of spirits and take part in a conversation with them. Rarest
of all physical mediums is the materialization medium. In
the presence of this one in a million medium, human forms
appear. They can touch and be touched. They can speak and
answer questions. They can move around and make noise. They
can embrace their loved ones and bring to them the message
that there is no death.
From the middle of the nineteenth century there have been
a number of empirical investigations of materialization
mediums by scientists. A major investigation over a number
of years was carried out by Sir William Crookes, the greatest
scientist of his time. He, as a scientist, confirmed that
materialization really happens (See Chap.10).
Materialization mediums are very rare in the world to-day,
so much so that many people have never heard of them. To
my knowledge, there are only four materialization mediums
giving public demonstrations in the Western world,
three in England and one, David Thompson, in Sydney Australia.
Brief report on materialization
experiment with David Thompson on Friday June 30th 2006.
Seven Etherians (spirits) including (Sir) Arthur Conan Doyle
and former Society of Psychical Research researcher, Montague
Keen, actually materialized. I actually shook hands with
Sir Arthur on Friday 30th June 06. Experiences like this
alone, will inevitably cause a revolution in the belief
in and in the acceptance of the afterlife.
Set-up and precautions.
The experiment took place in a private home at Castle Cove,
Sydney. Along with the medium, David Thompson, were a total
of 9 people (3 female and 6 male all professional people
including a lawyer, an accountant and a media professional-
all open minded skeptics).
Some of the sitters are highly experienced in physical mediumship
and very familiar with the tricks used by impostors claiming
to be physical mediums.
Prior to entering the room I was asked to search the medium
and confirm that he had nothing under his clothing. Another
sitter and I checked his track pants, pockets, his cardigan
and his shoes to make sure that they were normal. All of
the other sitters were searched as well and asked to leave
outside anything metal, lighters, matches, mobile phones
etc.
Thirty minutes prior to the beginning of the séance
we set in motion an MP3 recorder with a very sensitive microphone
which recorded the entire 90 minute session.
The room was a small lounge-dining room in a middle class
suburban rented house in a quiet area. At the end of the
room where we were sitting the windows had been blocked
out and there was no furniture except for a number of straight
backed chairs and a large modular display cabinet about
2.5 meters (8 feet) tall in which it would have been impossible
to conceal even a small person. There were no trapdoors
–walls, floors and ceiling or recesses in the room.
Once everyone was seated, the only door to the room was
locked and the key given to me. A large sheet of cardboard
was stuck over the door to block any light and to seal the
only door to the séance room. A chair was placed
behind the door underneath the handle for added security.
The chair on which the medium sat was a metal one. The arms
were securely fastened, there were no loose connections
and there was nothing unusual beneath the chair. The chair
was placed in the corner of the room. The sitters sat in
a semi-circle facing the medium. The medium was strapped
into the chair by means of secure belts and buckles firmly
attached to the chair.
As well, heavy plastic one-way (self-locking) cable ties
were secured through the buckles and cut off short so that
the only way they could be released was with a metal clipper.
I checked that the bindings were reasonably tight and that
the medium could not slip either arm back out of the ties.
The medium had a black gag tied securely around his head
through his open mouth preventing him from making any more
than muffled sounds. I checked the knot and helped secure
a cable tie to the gag. As well cable ties were used to
tie the buttons of the medium’s cardigan to the buttonholes
and clipped off very short.
On the mantelpiece in the room was a set of drum sticks
and a glass of water. Beside the séance leader’s
chair was a CD player with a music CD, a small lamp with
red globes and a simple cardboard cone, the end of which
was lined with luminous tape. In physical mediumship circles
this is called a “trumpet” and is used as a
simple megaphone to amplify spirit voices.
The séance experiment
The séance experiment took place in total darkness.
This is because ectoplasm--a whitish gaseous substance which
is taken from the medium and used by the spirits to make
themselves visible--is extremely sensitive to light and
to other forms of physical energy such as electricity (for
more detail on ectoplasm see Chap. 10.)
The séance experiment began with one of the sitters
offering a short prayer followed by the playing of the hymn
“Jerusalem”. Soon afterwards we heard very distinct
fairly heavy breathing and the loud clear voice of ‘William’
the spirit “master of ceremonies” who welcomed
us all, talking slowly, using a low pitched resonant voice.
The voice sounded as if it belonged to someone advanced
in age.
Paranormal activity
The intention of this session was to ascertain whether or
not paranormal activity, was taking place. I can report
that the following actually happened.
1. William, the control, welcomed everyone to the circle
and introduced us to some spectacular movements of the trumpet.
We could see the luminous end of it whizzing around the
room. At times it passed just an inch (2 centimetres) away
from our faces. We could feel a rush of air as it passed
us. At one stage it repeatedly tapped myself and my partner
on the head, moving rapidly from one of us to the other
although we were separated by another person.
William then returned and promised that the phenomena in
the circle would become stronger over the next few months
and that those working on the other side would try to create
natural light. He stressed the importance of harmony between
the sitters.
2. Timothy, was the next to speak. He is
the Etherian (spirit person) in charge of the ectoplasm,
responsible for the movement of the trumpet and lightening
the atmosphere. He claims he died when he was nine years
old. He tries to liven up the experiments with his sharp
one-liners, by sharp burst of laughter and other entertaining
activity such as extremely loud drumming with the drumsticks.
3. Montague Keen- spoke directly to me
by name and said he would be working with me to prove the
existence of the afterlife.
4. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (very well known
author of Shirlock Holmes books 1859-1930) gave an eloquent
speech on the topic of survival after death and how one’s
state of mind on crossing over determines what one experiences.
During his talk he approached me and shook my hand. His
hand felt warm and solid and was huge - at least twice as
large as the hand of the medium David Thompson and significantly
bigger than the hand of anyone else in the room. There was
a very distinct "whooshing" sound at the beginning
and end of his materialization.
Seven different voices
Before each entity materialized we heard and recorded a
peculiar loud “whooshing” sound which can be
heard in all of the MP3 recordings. There was a similar
but shorter sound when entities de-materialized.
We heard seven definitively different voices which were
clear, loud and distinctive with different pitch, rhythm,
pace, intonation and modulation. All of the voice answered
questions intelligently from the sitters were could constantly
hear each other asking questions from their original positions.
Often the entities would begin speaking using direct voice-
an artificial larynx constructed from ectoplasm (See Chaps.10
and 12) the sound coming from close to the medium. Then
they would materialize with a distinctive sound and start
to move around the room.
Several sitters commented on the abnormal cold around their
feet and legs, something which is usually associated with
the production of ectoplasm.
Several of the sitters were able to see the fingers of a
materialized hand in the light of the luminous strips on
the trumpet while it was held high in the air.
At the end of the meeting when the lights went on the medium
was still bound and in his chair but the chair had been
moved without a sound into the middle of the circle, about
2 metres (six feet) from its original position and right
in front of me. The medium’s cardigan was still on,
with the plastic ties still unbroken, but it had been reversed
so that the buttons were up the medium’s back.
Precautions against fraud.
• There was extra care in searching David Thompson,
the medium himself.
• There was extreme care in tying his both hands,
legs and putting the gag to make sure he could not vocalize.
The tags were locked irretrievably, which meant we had to
use clippers to free David after the séance.
• There was also extreme care in inspecting the chair
he sat on.
• There were no floor, wall or ceiling trap doors.
• All the sitters were asked to hold hands whenever
materialization was about to take place.
• 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, the materialized Timothy
was still giving instructions. It would have been a physical
impossibility for the medium to say anything under the circumstances.
• One of the sitters felt that David’s face
was covered with what she thought were drops of water; it
was later realized this was ectoplasm.
• I held the only key then available to the only door
of the séance room.
• The only door to the séance room was sealed
from the inside.
• Care was taken to identify where the voices were
coming from – it was noticed they came from different
areas, different heights of the room.
N.B. In a subsequent materialization experiment,
we replaced the gag with sticking plaster. This was of the
kind which if removed would lose its stickiness and would
no longer stay in place. We then drew a straight line with
felt pen through the tape onto the medium’s face on
both sides of his mouth. If the sticking plaster had been
moved even slightly the lines would not have matched up.
The voices still came strongly and after the meeting the
tape was still firmly in place and the lines perfectly matched.
Conclusion
My partner and I were absolutely convinced that paranormal
activity took place and that materialized entities conversed
with us and that the entity which called itself Arthur Conan
Doyle did in fact shake my hand.
The group is now in the process of using more sophisticated
electronic equipment to analyse the voices. This is especially
important because I have since attended meetings where two
entities claiming to be world celebrities--Louis Armstrong
and Mahatma Gandhi--materialized. We continue to proceed
with caution and go to the forensic audio equipment to do
full correlation tests. So far, the conduct of the parties
is consistent with what we know about them. Full results
will be published in the next edition of this book, in six
months’ time.
For those of us fortunate enough to have the personal experience
these materialization experiments are overwhelmingly convincing
evidence for the existence of the afterlife.
On the Internet
Audio recordings in MP3 format from this and a number of
other David Thompson materialization experiments can be
found on my webpage; you can listen online or download to
an MP3 player. http://www.victorzammit.com/audiomaterialization/index.html
David Thompson’s homepage
http://www.davidthompson.com.au/main.html
Report written by Society for Psychical Research investigator
Montague Keen, shortly before his death, into a David Thompson
séance http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/articles/keen/thompson.htm
<<
Previous Chapter : Book
Index : Next Chapter >>
|
