(2017-08-24, 10:54 PM)Chris Wrote: [ -> ]Along the same lines, I know there's a fairly recent biography of Leonora Piper by Michael Tymn. Has anyone here read it, and if so would they recommend it? Or would anyone recommend anything else that's been written about her, including sceptical accounts?
Joseph Rinn's book
Searchlight on Psychical Research, 1950 contains skeptical information on Piper
. He put her mediumship down to cold reading and muscle reading. After a negative sitting he attended where Piper was obviously fishing for information, he was banned from attending any further séances. A spiritualist commentator later made the allegation that Rinn never attended any séances with Piper and he made the whole thing up to discredit her... I find this unlikely.
There are 64 pages free of Rinn's book here:
https://issuu.com/conjuringarts/docs/pag..._psychical
(2017-08-27, 05:40 PM)Chris Wrote: [ -> ]I think it's logically impossible to prove survival, because if information is to be verifiable, the information needed to verify it has to be known by someone or has to be stored somewhere. If telepathy and clairvoyance exist, that means it is accessible through psi.
Sorry, I don't buy this argument.
To take a small example, one of the videos I posted in the reincarnation thread has someone finding a number of correlations with memories retrieved through hypnotic regression. There was a particular pattern of markings hidden beneath the dust and dirt on the stone floor in some obscure outbuilding of an old stone cottage or something like that. The very obscurity of the detail raises the question of why it would feature so strongly - why not something more prominent instead?
There are other examples where the information had to be dug up from ancient records which were unpublished in modern times.
The super-psi argument simply causes more difficulties than it solves. For example, why would someone come up with obscure and unknown details relating to one single person? If super-psi is operating, why wouldn't it pick up information from hundreds or millions of different people?
More to the point, reincarnation recall isn't about dry academic facts such as words on a page. It is a holistic phenomenon, including everything that it means to
be a person, from emotional states, likes and dislikes, attitudes and opinions towards the world. Those are the things which form the nature of what one is in everyday life, not just in a brief interlude of recall, but continuously throughout a lifetime.
The only realistic alternative to reincarnation would be a form of possession, but that too would imply survival.
(2017-08-27, 06:55 PM)Typoz Wrote: [ -> ]The only realistic alternative to reincarnation would be a form of possession, but that too would imply survival.
But why not a form of retrocognitive telepathy? If you accept telepathy and precognition, why shouldn't the transfer of information between two minds at different times be possible?
(2017-08-27, 06:30 PM)Leuders Wrote: [ -> ]Joseph Rinn's book Searchlight on Psychical Research, 1950 contains skeptical information on Piper. He put her mediumship down to cold reading and muscle reading. After a negative sitting he attended where Piper was obviously fishing for information, he was banned from attending any further séances. A spiritualist commentator later made the allegation that Rinn never attended any séances with Piper and he made the whole thing up to discredit her... I find this unlikely.
There are 64 pages free of Rinn's book here: https://issuu.com/conjuringarts/docs/pag..._psychical
Thanks for that. Though attending a single seance at which a medium fished for information seems to be a rather slender basis for reaching a judgment about her whole career, doesn't it?
(2017-08-27, 07:11 PM)Chris Wrote: [ -> ]Thanks for that. Though attending a single seance at which a medium fished for information seems to be a rather slender basis for reaching a judgment about her whole career, doesn't it?
Yes a single sitting in itself will not reveal her entire career results. But these single sittings all add up and they are usually ignored by paranormal believers for example Michael E. Tymn's biography does not mention any of the negative sittings (Rinn is not cited etc). In total I have come across about sixty sitters who received totally negative sittings with Piper, noting she fished for information or made errors.
Amy Tanner lists some of these sitters in her book:
https://archive.org/stream/studiesinspir...2/mode/2up
(The chapter first cites sitters who were convinced, some neutral and then those who had negative sittings)
(2017-08-27, 07:31 PM)Leuders Wrote: [ -> ]Yes a single sitting in itself will not reveal her entire career results. But these single sittings all add up and they are usually ignored by paranormal believers for example Michael E. Tymn's biography does not mention any of the negative sittings (Rinn is not cited etc). In total I have come across about sixty sitters who received totally negative sittings with Piper, noting she fished for information or made errors.
Amy Tanner lists some of these sitters in her book:
https://archive.org/stream/studiesinspir...2/mode/2up
(The chapter first cites sitters who were convinced, some neutral and then those who had negative sittings)
Based on the information on Greg Taylor's account, Amy Tanner isn't a reliable source.
http://www.dailygrail.com/essays/2010/11...al-skeptic
(2017-08-27, 07:31 PM)Leuders Wrote: [ -> ]Michael E. Tymn's biography does not mention any of the negative sittings (Rinn is not cited etc).
To be fair to Tymn, he makes it explicit at the outset that his intention is not to study the "strike outs", but the "game-winning hits" (p. xvi-xvii). He also says his book is not a biography of Piper but a study of the "dynamics of her mediumship". (p. xvi).
(2017-08-27, 07:37 PM)Chris Wrote: [ -> ]Based on the information on Greg Taylor's account, Amy Tanner isn't a reliable source.
http://www.dailygrail.com/essays/2010/11...al-skeptic
Greg Taylor's article is self-published. He does not attempt to refute Tanner's criticisms in depth, he only mentions her name a few times. I find it unlikely that Taylor has actually read Tanner's book. His article does not cite any pages to her book nor does he cite a bibliography. He takes his few criticisms of Tanner
directly from a review by Eleanor Mildred Sidgwick.
Amy Tanner was a very influential early female psychologist (
http://www.feministvoices.com/amy-tanner/).
Do you think Greg Taylor is a reliable source?
Quote:Greg Taylor is an Australian blogger and pseudoscience promoter. He is the owner of the paranormal website, "Daily Grail".
Taylor has an obsession with the medium Leonora Piper. He repeatedly claims that skeptics have failed to debunk the medium.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Greg_Taylor
As for Tanner's book it was positively reviewed in a top psychology journal.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1413084
The reviewer started the review with:
Quote:"This volume records the findings and verdict of a patient investigation sustained by a scientific conscience and enthusiasm."
Jastrow, Joseph. (1911).
The American Journal of Psychology 22 (1): 122-124.