From Skeptic to Believer: News Anchor Gets a First Time Reading from a Medium

Are you asking me what the different types of mediumship are?

No. I'm asking you which kind you had in mind when you responded that my previous post somehow depended on the type of mediumship. Put another way,,, which type of medium communication would you suggest is distinguishable from telepathy?

I assume you had a particular one in mind that brought my statement into question.. ? You wouldn't just say that for no reason,,, would you?

In case it is unclear, here is what I said- 
Unfortunately it seems to me that no test of communication with the deceased could be created that would eliminate the claim that the actual sitter's mind is being "read".

No. I'm asking you which kind you had in mind when you responded that my previous post somehow depended on the type of mediumship. Put another way,,, which type of medium communication would you suggest is distinguishable from telepathy?

I assume you had a particular one in mind that brought my statement into question.. ? You wouldn't just say that for no reason,,, would you?

In case it is unclear, here is what I said- Unfortunately it seems to me that no test of communication with the deceased could be created that would eliminate the claim that the actual sitter's mind is being "read".

This should be good.

Just came across this and thought I'd share it FWIW.

Matt Fraser (medium) makes a very good point about skeptics being called on preferentially during group readings (platform work). 

FYI you silly skepticals that you are! 

Looking at the ancestry.co.uk version of "Soldiers Died in the Great War", that date of death returns an Ernest Saunders.

Unfortunately Erics were a lot rarer than Ernies in those days.

Haha well done Chris. I will have to leave it for now but I can feel the urge to trawl the census data

No. I'm asking you which kind you had in mind when you responded that my previous post somehow depended on the type of mediumship. Put another way,,, which type of medium communication would you suggest is distinguishable from telepathy?

I assume you had a particular one in mind that brought my statement into question.. ? You wouldn't just say that for no reason,,, would you?

Ah ok. Well I can't see how telepathy could realistically be proposed for:
1) Independent Direct Voice mediumship;
2) Full form materialisation mediumship;
3) Trance when the communication is directly from the purported communicator.
4) Instances of mental mediumship where the information revealed is known by no living person.

Ah ok. Well I can't see how telepathy could realistically be proposed for:
1) Independent Direct Voice mediumship;
2) Full form materialisation mediumship;
3) Trance when the communication is directly from the purported communicator.
4) Instances of mental mediumship where the information revealed is known by no living person.

snip- Unfortunately it seems to me that no test of communication with the deceased could be created that would eliminate the claim that the actual sitter's mind is being "read"

OK. Lets look at the list.

The skeptic responds as follows-
1- Direct voice. The skeptic simply says the medium used a concocted accent to confirm information that the sitter knows. Telepathy 
2- Full form. Whatever trick the medium used to create the fake form is explained away, and information is explained by telepathy. 
3- Trance. Whatever information the concocted voice passes on is gained by telepathy from whatever person knows it.
4- Mental mediumship and info the nobody knows. Sorry already discussed this one. And it is the most fun. In the rare case of information that is known by no living person (I can point to lots of examples of this), the skeptic simply points to super psi with lots of breathless references to quantum entanglement, and people's electromagnetic images, in the form of light, existing forever, flying away from earth at the speed of light.

Actually the skeptic can point to super psi in all of these cases. In fact the skeptic can point to the completely fictitious super psi in response to any possible veridical mediumship case you could conjure up. 

Well, with the exception of Physical Mediumship. As I'm sure you know, here stuff is physically "aported". Tough to argue with that, right? Unfortunately just like your case of full form mediumship, examples are so rare, and the physical proof of such even rarer, that we have a hard time substantiating it. What with all the dark rooms, the no cameras and no lights allowed and whatnot. 

There you are.

Sorry to say but as I said: other than item 4 which is a special case due to the fact that the info is unknown, which is easily defended by Mr Skeptic using the super psi, all the others can easily be attributed to telepathy.

Face it Obi- you can't outright win the argument against someone who wants to play those phony cards. Phony because they can't tell you how telepathy or super psi actually work. Hell, they don't even need to believe those things exist to use them as arguments. Given that point, they can't win the argument either. So you have a stalemate. Which is right where we have been with skeptics for over 100 years. 

As they say in poker... Read 'em and weep.

Sorry. It annoys me too.

[Ninshub]

X2

I asked this mental medium Cindy Kaza in a MeetnGreet session that very question. She concurred (as she should considering the incredible demonstration of evidential claircognition). Mental and physical mediumship is evolving, rapidly in many cases, one evolution is the amount of information that is coming through many modern mental mediums per sitter. Kaza can work with a single sitter or a group of related sitters and a single discarnate or a group of (loosely) related discarnates for 15-20 minutes or more.

Thanks! Interesting.

Yes a person could say all those things but they need to support it with evidence.

With the independent direct voice - to suggest telepathy requires the construction of a complete personality not just information. It would be like suggesting, in the best cases, a person you had never met called you on the telephone and held a conversation with you so accurate in terms of personality, content and style as to convince you they were someone you knew and loved. One could 'say' telepathy but that would, imho, simply be using the word almost as some sort of magic charm. How on earth would that work? It doesn't make any sense (to me anyway).

To adopt that position with full materialisation would be similar to the independent direct voice but even more illogical as far as I can see. I may be wrong but I cannot recall reading even the most ardent skeptic suggesting that mediums could, using telepathy as an information source, construct a full human body (by some fraudulent means), which could move, speak and interact with the sitters,  be recognised by loved ones and facilitate this encounter by telepathy. Is it conceivable - well yes, I just conceived of it. Is it likely? Personally I can't see how but then again I have read scores of reports of people's experiences with the phenomena and it doesn't fit.  (* see point below)

Similar for trance in the conditions I mentioned. Telepathy cannot as far as I can see be used to explain the nature of the communication. Fraud is usually the explanation of choice for such people. In fact, I can't think of many skeptics who would accept telepathy as a fact, let alone be used to describe the phenomena I have mentioned.

Then there are the encounters with dead people that are not facilitated by mediums. That must be imagination or hallucination or simply lying. See it's easy to conjure up explanations that are superficially attractive but don't  bear the weight of the experience for the person who has observed it when the full facts are examined. 

In short, telepathy isn't a sensible response to such phenomena but short of the person experiencing it for themselves I can't think of a way to budge someone who insists it's all smoke, mirrors and the effect of something else (telepathy) that most skeptics probably don't accept exists, and those that do have never seriously suggested that it can be wielded in such a way.

* This also reminded me of the Super Psi explanation which you mentioned, which appears to be something that can be used to perform any of phenomena that may be demonstrated by mediums. Depending on your point of view it's a way to explain psi phenomena without the need for survival of death or a dualistic model. Is it convincing or just a desperate attempt to avoid the unacceptable alternative? I've never seen anyone demonstrate that kind of thing is even remotely possible with 'Super Psi'. Chris Carter I think disposes of it pretty well in one of his interesting books. It could be aliens using invisibility cloaks of course.

Imho there's no point in arguing with people who dogmatically assert their position when it doesn't fit the reported fact or what has been shown to be possible with telepathy. The difficulty is that unless we have experienced it ourselves, or can show them, they have a position which it is difficult to falsify. In any even what would be the point? What would one be trying to achieve?

You're right it is a stalemate. The answer is, I think, to form a personal view of the evidence and test the strength of skeptical arguments against that view, being prepared always to revise our view if the argument is strong enough. Sceptical arguments can be a good way to increase one's knowledge and refine our opinion but without incontrovertible evidence people can always find a way to stick with their original thinking if they want to. After all, the certainty of knowing we are right is very powerful and comfortable isn't it?

Yes a person could say all those things but they need to support it with evidence.

With the independent direct voice - to suggest telepathy requires the construction of a complete personality not just information. It would be like suggesting, in the best cases, a person you had never met called you on the telephone and held a conversation with you so accurate in terms of personality, content and style as to convince you they were someone you knew and loved. One could 'say' telepathy but that would, imho, simply be using the word almost as some sort of magic charm. How on earth would that work? It doesn't make any sense (to me anyway).

To adopt that position with full materialisation would be similar to the independent direct voice but even more illogical as far as I can see. I may be wrong but I cannot recall reading even the most ardent skeptic suggesting that mediums could, using telepathy as an information source, construct a full human body (by some fraudulent means), which could move, speak and interact with the sitters,  be recognised by loved ones and facilitate this encounter by telepathy. Is it conceivable - well yes, I just conceived of it. Is it likely? Personally I can't see how but then again I have read scores of reports of people's experiences with the phenomena and it doesn't fit.  (* see point below)

Similar for trance in the conditions I mentioned. Telepathy cannot as far as I can see be used to explain the nature of the communication. Fraud is usually the explanation of choice for such people. In fact, I can't think of many skeptics who would accept telepathy as a fact, let alone be used to describe the phenomena I have mentioned.

Then there are the encounters with dead people that are not facilitated by mediums. That must be imagination or hallucination or simply lying. See it's easy to conjure up explanations that are superficially attractive but don't  bear the weight of the experience for the person who has observed it when the full facts are examined. 

In short, telepathy isn't a sensible response to such phenomena but short of the person experiencing it for themselves I can't think of a way to budge someone who insists it's all smoke, mirrors and the effect of something else (telepathy) that most skeptics probably don't accept exists, and those that do have never seriously suggested that it can be wielded in such a way.

* This also reminded me of the Super Psi explanation which you mentioned,  which appears to be something that can be used to perform any of phenomena that may be demonstrated by mediums. Depending on your point of view it's a way to explain psi phenomena without the need for survival of death or a dualistic model. Is it convincing or just a desperate attempt to avoid the unacceptable alternative? I've never seen anyone demonstrate that kind of thing is even remotely possible with 'Super Psi'. Chris Carter I think disposes of it pretty well in one of his interesting books. It could be aliens using invisibility cloaks of course.

Imho there's no point in arguing with people who dogmatically assert their position when it doesn't fit the reported fact or what has been shown to be possible with telepathy. The difficulty is that unless we have experienced it ourselves, or can show them, they have a position which it is difficult to falsify. In any even what would be the point? What would one be trying to achieve?

You're right it is a stalemate. The answer is, I think, to form a personal view of the evidence and test the strength of skeptical arguments against that view, being prepared always to revise our view if the argument is strong enough. Sceptical arguments can be a good way to increase one's knowledge and refine our opinion but without incontrovertible evidence people can always find a way to stick with their original thinking if they want to. After all, the certainty of knowing we are right is very powerful and comfortable isn't it?

Snip- After all, the certainty of knowing we are right is very powerful and comfortable isn't it?

Well,, at the risk of coming off like an arrogant A-hole,, yes it is.