Leslie Kean's new Netflix documentary

I think even people who want the afterlife to be real don't want mediumship to be so you'll see a kind of prejudiced presentation.

True, but I don’t think that was the case here.

Thats the thing though ain't it. We are unfortunately on the back end in our interests, cause there's a hell of a lot of science that just annihilates different ways that souls, PSI or immaterial things that act with the material exist. At the very least we have evidence, and as long as we keep getting it we know we can't be dismissed outright and there's something going on.

Though, sometimes I do feel like we're a bit stuck in the immaterialism of the gaps struggle, since we can't exactly get anywhere if that's really the case, and materialism may have big hurdles to cross to solve these issues, but it is pretty successful.

Could you expand on this remark? I kind of interpret this as saying that science disproves notions of a soul and some sort of interactional dualism (?). What are these ideas or concepts or theories that science disproves?

Could you expand on this remark? I kind of interpret this as saying that science disproves notions of a soul and some sort of interactional dualism (?). What are these ideas or concepts or theories that science disproves?

I certainly didn't mean it disproves all conceptions of a soul or interactionalist dualism, but it disproves some. Like an example we all know, if I take a brick and smack you over the head and you're all fucked up mentally after, it means that whatever your mind is certainly isn't entirely removed from your body. That's why we have stuff like the filter hypothesis these days instead of going yup it's an entirely removed soul piloting a meat puppet, whatever we are it's strong intertwined. Same with some ideas about how quantum physics might relate, we can detect a LOT of stuff with all our colliders and shit nowdays so we know that if there's anything interacting with our minds or bodies it's either not physical or interacts in a way that is different from how we might normally assume.

Not disproving EVERYTHING, but like regular science trimming and narrowing down how things might work.

So we watched last two episodes of the series, that being on ghosts and reincarnation, and my relatives were surprisingly quite astonished by them and seemed to very much think that something real or at the very least totally unexplained had been shown. So it seems that the only episode out of all of them that an of us didn't like were the mediumship ones.

So we watched last two episodes of the series, that being on ghosts and reincarnation, and my relatives were surprisingly quite astonished by them and seemed to very much think that something real or at the very least totally unexplained had been shown. So it seems that the only episode out of all of them that an of us didn't like were the mediumship ones.

Seems to be about that for everyone, people I know who have watched it and nearly all the critical reviews I've read. NDE episode? Astonishing. Reincarnation? Great. Ghosts? Eeehhh it was okay. Mediumship? Yeah no thanks.

I watched episode 3 and it was a little better imho. The was a bit more historical reference to research and I thought leslie’s report of the Stuart Alexander seance was interesting. She seemed to have a good view in albeit dim red light.

Seems to be about that for everyone, people I know who have watched it and nearly all the critical reviews I've read. NDE episode? Astonishing. Reincarnation? Great. Ghosts? Eeehhh it was okay. Mediumship? Yeah no thanks.

I wonder though how much of this reaction was based upon people's preconceived ideas rather than reacting to the show itself? (By the way I've not seen it myself). On UK tv I've seen a fair number of programs about mediumship, not questioning the phenomena usually, but having mediumship as the show itself. Much of this is enough to turn anyone away from the idea. Though the now-deceased Colin Fry seemed less stomach-turning.

I wonder though how much of this reaction was based upon people's preconceived ideas rather than reacting to the show itself? (By the way I've not seen it myself). On UK tv I've seen a fair number of programs about mediumship, not questioning the phenomena usually, but having mediumship as the show itself. Much of this is enough to turn anyone away from the idea. Though the now-deceased Colin Fry seemed less stomach-turning.

UK TV is usually not a good yardstick for unbiased treatment of these matters. They tend to present parapsychology as either entertainment (Ghost Hunter style daytime TV) or fodder for the debunkers. Add to that the fact that there are some prominent atheists presenting the "facts" or the "scientific truth". We can think of Brian Cox - the pin-up boy of science programming - or other science presenters such as Jim Al-Khalili (vice-president of the UK Humanists) and another prominent atheist is Marcus du Sautoy who has presented numerous science programmes on British television. Not to mention the likes of Stephen Fry who is regarded as one of the most intellectual presenters on television and who once, on air, told viewers of his QI show who happened to believe in the paranormal to fuck off and watch another channel. And don't get me started on the paid debunkers who are always wheeled in when anything of potential paranormal significance hits the news. People like Richard Wiseman and Susan Blackmore.

Having said all of that, two of the best and most even-handed documentaries I have seen were shown on UK TV. One was "The Day I Died" which was an account of Pam Reynolds' NDE and the other was a kind of fly-on-the-wall documentary titled "Talking to the Dead" which showed the work of the well-known Scottish medium, Gordon Smith and was surprisingly fair. I have not seen the Netflix series yet and I am somewhat reluctant to watch in case it is a dumbed-down version of her book which I read a while ago. I guess I should give it a chance though.

I wonder though how much of this reaction was based upon people's preconceived ideas rather than reacting to the show itself? (By the way I've not seen it myself). On UK tv I've seen a fair number of programs about mediumship, not questioning the phenomena usually, but having mediumship as the show itself. Much of this is enough to turn anyone away from the idea. Though the now-deceased Colin Fry seemed less stomach-turning.

Maybe but for me the biggest thing is tha t the mediums all sounded like they were using cold reading. they kept asking "so does that mean anything to you?" and similar, as well as not providing all that specific of information and generally the sitters filled in the rest. Quite frankly if they can do what they believe they can do they shouldn't need so much confirmation. and yes as much as someone could argue that's just my preconcieved notion of mediumship I far more consider it the expectation of standard of quality that one should reach before thinking of themselves as a medium.

So when you combine such low quality mediumship, a bunch of excuses on their part that "oh we just have to deal with the fact that people won't believe what we do" and then saying that all the alleged ectoplasm all must be in total darkness AND that its actually produced by the spirits the medium supposedly is hearing for normal mediumship it makes all of it look like garbage.

Even though I have zero problems believing in ectoplsm both because of my own experimentation and that of others, for someone who's not done that or experienced anything like it themselves those things combined makes it too much to believe in.

Of note, there's two interviews with Stuart Alexander on New Thinking Allowed, so you can at the very least hear his take on his own seances in his own words, and personally he sounds totally genuine and better than the other featured mediums.

I wanted to add something to my post. It’s related to the reincarnation episode but it is widely applicable to other such things, certainly NDEs. 

In two of the cases where a father was included, they describe them both reacting the same way at first. That reaction might be summed up as ‘reincarnation? NO FECKING WAY!!!’  Clear Cognitive Dissonance in my view. However, with the child in question being so close to them, and the evidence so compelling, they simply were forced into breaking out of their limiting mindset and embracing the possibility that this may be true. 

How often have we heard a NDE experiencer expressing similar reactions from their families? I would say very often. But now, most often there’s only the individuals very personal event as evidence. Often there is no mother or other figure on their side, so that they carry the ‘burden’ alone, often burying it deep. Some eventually resurface, but how many stay hidden in peoples minds?

This is only one such secret, but how many sad or painful, or indeed blissful memories, are waiting until some future event bring them to light?