Indridi Indridason's contact with Emil Jensen

 >I don’t know when Nielsson became a spiritualist, but Kvaran sure was well before he met Indridi.

OK well that's a big problem for you because the best evidence you gave us on the 'sociopolitical' stuff is about Nielsson not Kvaran. Here's what you gave us:

>“But this political reflection was also based on a passionate interest in spiritualist theories and, in particular, in those focusing on the return of ancestors. It is obvious that in most Reformed countries, including Denmark, this movement was extremely popular at the end of the nineteenth century. Yet it takes on a special dimension in Iceland, because the process of national reconstruction is based not only on the need to establish a republican constitution, but also on a ’new religion’, one’s own that, while remaining Christian, would distinguish itself from colonial Christianity. This spiritualist movement made it possible to conjure up ancestors and rely on them to create this new religion. According to the words of Haraldur Nielsson, theologian and nephew of the bishop of Iceland, the aim was to ‘reconstruct a rationalist Lutheranism based on positive faith that the spiritualist way will strengthen and ennoble’ (Jónsson, 1968: 72-73). Therefore, at the turn of that century, the unofficial histories of religious spiritualism and political independence merged in the livingrooms of Reykjavík where politicians, essayists, poets and clergy met around mediums giving voice to ‘ancestors’. These experiences, still private, would then rapidly enjoy a popular success.”
 
>“But, at the same time, after a local government was recognized in 1904, the dynamic forces of spiritualism made their solemn declaration of national independence by presenting, on the ancient plains of the Parliament of Þingvellir, the very young but oh so popular medium Indriði Indriðason astride a fiery white stallion, mimicking as such the revived image of Óðin, the shaman-god, on his mythical mount Sleipnir.”

Notice how there's absolutely nothing about Kvaran but there's mention of Nielsson. But in response to my rebuttal about this you say 'I don’t know when Nielsson became a spiritualist, but Kvaran sure was well before he met Indridi'. Well clearly that doesn't help your argument one bit because the facts your argument is based on don't appear to say anything about Kvaran. The source I found suggests Nielsson became a spiritualist because of Indridi but you ignored that.

You are completely missing the point. Kvaran and Nielsson were members of the same movement.

Maybe you were misled by your faulty Google Translation into thinking the Experimental Society was in on the suicided ghost explanation, which isn't the first time errors from your translation have screwed things up in this thread. Why use a Google translation when Haraldsson's Indridi book was originally published in English? The book says that it was Indridi's spirit 'controls' not anyone in the Experimental Society (your translation misleadingly gives the word as 'management') who came up with the suicided ghost excuse. 

 
I am using free online resources and I don't have the English version of the book. Be free to correct every faulty translation.

So, it was the spirit who came up with the excuse during the seance with the close Circle members after the incident? Ok, it's fine with me. Now I completely trust everything Kvaran and the boys were saying.

Mendel didn't claim that spirits of ancestors are behind his explanation of genetics... False analogy.

I don't get why the analogy is false? Because later data confirms at least the basic idea communicated by Mendel?

I generally dismiss mediums who've been found to have cheated as well, though I am a bit more tolerant in this case. I do think if we grant Mendel the benefit of later research that should extend to mediumship as well, though I would agree it doesn't seem mediumship has the same replicability/applicability of genetics...

I don't get why the analogy is false? Because later data confirms at least the basic idea communicated by Mendel?

I generally dismiss mediums who've been found to have cheated as well, though I am a bit more tolerant in this case. I do think if we grant Mendel the benefit of later research that should extend to mediumship as well, though I would agree it doesn't seem mediumship has the same replicability/applicability of genetics...

I think that genetics and mediumship can't be put in the same basket. That is why I think the analogy is bad. If I was wrong, I think that we wouldn't be having this discussion at all, as life after death would be a scientific fact by now verifiable as genetics. But, unfortunately, that isn't the case.

I think that genetics and mediumship can't be put in the same basket. That is why I think the analogy is bad. If I was wrong, I think that we wouldn't be having this discussion at all, as life after death would be a scientific fact by now.

But I don't think we're discussing genetics as a scientific field, more Mendel's potential fraud while still providing some evidence.

I don't think mediumship will provide what we would call a "scientific fact", if by which we mean something that can be predictably replicated with the right tools/environment. It can provide something closer to a legal standard, when interwoven with other Survival evidence, but that of course leaves room for some doubt...

But I don't think we're discussing genetics as a scientific field, more Mendel's potential fraud while still providing some evidence.

I don't think mediumship will provide what we would call a "scientific fact", if by which we mean something that can be predictably replicated with the right tools/environment. It can provide something closer to a legal standard, when interwoven with other Survival evidence, but that of course leaves room for some doubt...

What about Julie Beischel's successful mediumistic communication experiments with certain high performing mediums using extremely controlled conditions, and the very extensive and successful testing under stringent conditions (especially by William James) undergone to validate Leonora Piper's mediumship? These seem to me to at least nearly meet such requirements for replicability. They weren't actually widely replicated because of the aversion of most professionals from touching this research topic with a ten foot pole, and the consequent lack of funding.

What about Julie Beischel's successful mediumistic communication experiments with certain high performing mediums using extremely controlled conditions, and the very extensive and successful testing under stringent conditions (especially by William James) undergone to validate Leonora Piper's mediumship? These seem to me to at least nearly meet such requirements for replicability. They weren't actually widely replicated because of the aversion of most professionals from touching this research topic with a ten foot pole, and the consequent lack of funding.

Yeah that's a good point, I'd have to look more into Beischel's research.

I just think there will, barring some fundamental shift in the nature of reality, be some room for doubt about Survival as compared to findings in Physics/Chemistry/Biology. 

(Admittedly I also don't think Psychology gives hard scientific facts in the sense of being universal, and I think assuming its current findings will definitely be confirmed by Neuroscience to be too much of a leap of faith.)

>Mendel didn't claim that spirits of ancestors are behind his explanation of genetics... False analogy.

More debunker scoffing rather than argument. Once again, that's not allowed here. Unsurprisingly, @Sciborg_S_Patel understood the argument that I was making, whereas you didn't:

>But I don't think we're discussing genetics as a scientific field, more Mendel's potential fraud while still providing some evidence.

Next:

>There was a witness who wasn't part of the Circle, the photographer. It is better to admit and make a good excuse then to cover it up.

I suppose you completely missed the fact that the photographer was brought in specifically because one of Indridi's "controls" requested that a photography experiment be conducted, which doesn't fit the argument you're trying to make here at all. Your typically misleading framing suggests that someone from outside the Experimental Society stormed in and caught Indridi out, when in fact he was there only at their request and more specifically Indridi's.

>This strategy leaves much better impression. If he was cheating once, there is a possibility that he was doing it more often and that some of the members of the Circle were part of it. The medium was under the full control of the Circle almost all of the time and was on salary.

So once again lazy accusations and innuendos rather than any useful explanation or evidence as to how the fraud was committed. The skeptic Hannesson imposed strong controls in many sessions and concluded Indridi produced anomalies nevertheless. In an impressive display of illogic you conclude that those sessions somehow don't matter because most sessions had weaker controls and lacked skeptical oversight. You might as well conclude that we should discard all science because most of it has been done without the exacting standards of 21st century research.

>You are completely missing the point. Kvaran and Nielsson were members of the same movement.

Lmao. Anyone with eyes to see can go back and read our exchange, and see that the only error here was in your mishandling of the biography of Nielsson.

>Be free to correct every faulty translation.

You'd think at this point you'd have a bit more appreciation for how likely they are to be faulty rather than repeatedly offer them up as gospel...........

>So, it was the spirit who came up with the excuse during the seance with the close Circle members after the incident? Ok, it's fine with me. Now I completely trust everything Kvaran and the boys were saying.

Most researchers of mediumship regard the "spirit controls" not as spirits at all but expressions of the medium's unconscious mind. This is because almost never is there veridical information or other features to suggest the "controls" are spirits of deceased people but usually many things to suggest they are part of the medium's psychology. This contrasts with communicators that provide real evidence of being dead people.

Something no one has mentioned yet but that creates a gigantic problem for the idea that Indridi proponents were helping him commit fraud is the fact that on one occasion the proponents documented Indridi likely committing fraud. This happened on 6 December 1907 during an experiment with him involving photography, where he draped a sheet over a broomstick. There is some evidence he was in a trance at the time and unaware of what he was doing. Again this is in Haraldsson's book. Whether the fraud was unconscious or not, I've got no idea why a gang of fraudsters would document and discuss fraud by the person they were helping to commit fraud. That doesn't make sense.

One counterargument one could make, which is related to the one that Marcus F. is making, is that there were people present that saw what happened, and perhaps everyone present was not involved in the fraud. So the people involved in the attempts to perform fraud, perhaps Kvaran and Nielsson, would perhaps want to be open to everyone with the fact that the fraud took place since everyone present was aware of it and there was no possiblity of hiding it. My response to such an counterargument is that it was not necessary for Nielsson to write about it in a paper. If he was involved in performing fraud then one would assume that he would avoid making people aware that Indridi had ever performed fraud, because there has always been people that thinks "If once cheating, always a cheater". Writing about it in a paper is to draw much more attention to the fraud than he would want to do if he was commiting fraud.

Something no one has mentioned yet but that creates a gigantic problem for the idea that Indridi proponents were helping him commit fraud is the fact that on one occasion the proponents documented Indridi likely committing fraud. This happened on 6 December 1907 during an experiment with him involving photography, where he draped a sheet over a broomstick. There is some evidence he was in a trance at the time and unaware of what he was doing. Again this is in Haraldsson's book. Whether the fraud was unconscious or not, I've got no idea why a gang of fraudsters would document and discuss fraud by the person they were helping to commit fraud. That doesn't make sense.

One interesting thing is that trance mediums often attempts to cheat while in trance, often in pathetic ways. Alan Gauld writes in Mediumship and Survival, that is free with a creative commons license:
"It was true that on an off-day, Phinuit would ramble and flounder hopelessly, would fish for information, and if given any, would blatantly serve it up again as though it had been his own discovery. But when he was on form he could, with hardly any hesitation or fishing, relay copious communications from the deceased friends and relatives of sitters, communications which would turn out to be very accurate even in tiny details, and far too accurate for the hypothesis of chance or of guesswork from the appearance of the sitters to seem in the remotest degree plausible."
Phinuit was the medium Leonora Pipers control.
"Similar tale-spinning tendencies are manifested in the way in which controls cover up their mistakes. Controls will, generally speaking, not admit their blunders. They will rationalize, explain away, concoct any excuse, however tenuous and childish. All other considerations seem subordinated to an overwhelming urge to keep the drama flowing without pause or hiccup."
https://www.esalen.org/ctr/mediumship
This looks very similiar to what happened in the Indridi case. Indridi while in trance attempted the most pathethical attempt to commit fraud, because his control, which was probably a part of his subconsciousness, wanted to desperately keep the drama flowing despite the fact that Indridi's paranormal abilities was not working properly at that moment. Then when the fraud was discovered, the control came up with a far-fetched explanation for why the fraud had taken place, yet again in a desparate attempt to keep the drama flowing. So I don't see any reason to think that Indridi did consciously commit fraud.