Posted on 11 May 2020, 9:28

When it comes to the subject of life after death, some people are content to shrug it off and flippantly comment, “Well, we’ll all know some day, won’t we?”  My response to that is, “Maybe not as soon as you think.” 

As discussed in my book, The Afterlife Revealed,  there have been numerous messages and signs from the spirit world indicating that many spirits are slow in recognizing that they are “dead,” some floundering in an “earthbound” stupor for a long time, however time is measured in that apparently low realm. This phenomenon was popularized in the hit 1999 movie, The Sixth Sense, when the Bruce Willis character apparently didn’t know he had died.

A somewhat different twist on afterlife awareness is offered in a 1954 book, Through the Psychic Door, by Dr. Frederic H. Wood, a professional musician and composer, who heard from a number of departed souls in the afterlife through the mediumship of a woman given the pseudonym Rosemary (to protect her privacy). In one message, around 1950, Wood’s deceased brother Dennis, who had died in 1912, told Frederic that after he (Frederic) dies and joins him in the spirit world that he is going to arrange for him to give a lecture to a group of scientists on his side about the reality of the earth world.  Dennis explained that many scientists on his side do not believe that there is such a place as Earth.  Apparently, these are the same scientists who refused to believe in a spirit world when they were in their physical bodies. 

Whether or not Dennis Wood was jesting is not clear, but it does seem clear from many messages coming from the spirit world that the consciousness we awaken with on that side is based on the spiritual consciousness we take with us from the physical world.  In effect, we continue in the larger world with the same beliefs we left this world with, or, otherwise stated, perhaps with the same open- or closed-mindedness we leave the physical world with.

Allan Kardec, the distinguished 19th Century French educator and psychical researcher, likened the “earthbound” condition to somnambulism, as in sleepwalking, when the somnambulist thinks he is awake.  “The moral state of the soul is the condition which determines the ease, or the difficulty, with which the spirit disengages himself from his terrestrial envelope,” Kardec explained. “The strength of the affinity between the body and perispirit (spirit body) is in the exact ratio of the spirit’s attachment to materiality; it is, consequently, at the maximum in the case of those whose thoughts and interests are concentrated on the earthly life and the enjoyment of material pleasures; it is almost null in the case of those whose soul has identified itself before with the spirit life.”

Silver Birch, the spirit entity who spoke through the entranced Maurice Barbanell said the same thing.  “The higher your consciousness, the less the need for adjustment,” he communicated.  “You must always remember that ours is a mind world, a spirit world where consciousness is king.  The mind is enthroned and mind rules.  What mind dictates is reality.” Silver Birch added that the time for realization is self-determined.  It can be short or long, as measured by our duration of time.  For the enlightened, at least those whose actions in the physical world were in accordance with their enlightenment, it is a speedy process.

A very similar message comes from the writings of medium Alice A. Bailey and her teacher, the Tibetan master, Djwhal Khul. They point out that most people, being focused on the physical plane, experience a semi-consciousness in the period after death, usually one of emotional and mental bewilderment. “In the case of the [spiritually] undeveloped person, the etheric body can linger for a long time in the neighborhood of its outer disintegrating shell because the pull of the soul is not potent and the material aspect is,” we read in Death: The Great Adventure. “Where the person is advanced, and therefore detached in his thinking from the physical plane, the dissolution of the vital body can be exceedingly rapid.”

As set forth in No Death: God’s Other Door, Edgar Cayce, the “sleeping prophet,” said that “many an individual has remained in that called death for what ye call years without realizing it was dead!”  Cayce further explained that the “entity” becomes conscious gradually and that this is contingent upon “how great are the appetites and desires of a physical body.”

One of the leading psychical investigators in the United States during the early part of the 20th Century was Carl A. Wickland, M.D., whose wife was a trance medium.  Wickland recorded the information coming from the spirit world through his wife for some 40 years.  “In the case of the open-minded, unbiased individual there is no protracted death sleep, for as transition from the physical draws near he will often discern the presence of waiting friends from the Unseen, bidding him welcome into the new life…,”  Wickland wrote, going on to state that others may awaken from the death sleep entirely oblivious of their transition and remain in such oblivion for many years as “vagabond spirits.”

Much more recently, in his 2013 book, To Die For, physicist James Beichler concludes that when mind is much more evolved than consciousness, those making the transition from this life to the larger life may be faced with a very big gap, thus encountering “boarding” problems.  He opines that an enlightened person would merge with less difficulty into his or her new state of being. “In such a case where mind – one rich in rational thinking – significantly exceeds (spiritual) consciousness, the mind might be “stuck” in its four-dimensional reality and not even realize that the body is dead,” he adds. Or this “handicapped mind,” still expecting input from the five senses, might experience a total blackness or “nothingness” because of the lack of consciousness.

Beichler’s model explains many of the characteristics and properties of the near-death experience. For example, noting that not all experiencers undergo a past-life review, he concludes that those who have a highly-developed consciousness – one that has kept pace with the development of the mind – may not need a life review as they probably reviewed their lives when alive in the flesh.  At the other extreme, there are those not advanced enough in their conscious evolution to appreciate a life review, and still others who may not accept a life review because they deny their death and sense nothing at all.  “In other words, people’s minds seize upon the most familiar surroundings when they enter the new environment of the five-dimensional universe, but can still reject the experience completely depending upon their mind set and mental priorities at the time of death,” Beichler states.

If I am interpreting various metaphysical teachings correctly, there are “magnetic currents” keeping the individual in the earthbound condition. These currents should not be confused with the so-called silver cord, the connecting link between the physical body and the spirit body.  The silver cord will have been severed at the time of physical death, liberating the spirit body, but the magnetic currents can still keep the spirit body close to the physical body. Moreover, cremation does not undo the gravitational pull of a materialistic life, but it at least mitigates the pull.

But back to the Wood brothers.  Dennis cautioned Frederic about word tests, pointing out that Lodge, who died in 1940, had, while alive, arranged to communicate a secret word after his death in such a way that the recipient would know that he had survived death.  However, it was apparently unsuccessful.  “Nothing passes so quickly from the memory on This Side as the form and construction of mere word-phrases!” Dennis communicated, further explaining what many others have said, that theirs is a thought world, one in which ideas, not words, are communicated. “Lodge is very sorry, now, that he chose that particular form of test. It is not easy or natural for us to communicate with your side in this way.”

The bottom line here seems to be that the more you come to understand about the spirit world and spiritual matters in this life, the better off you will be when you first enter that life, assuming you lived in accordance with such enlightenment.  If nothing else, you will understand that you are no longer in the physical world, and you will understand that there really is an earth world.     

Michael Tymn is the author of The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After We Die, Resurrecting Leonora Piper: How Science Discovered the Afterlife, and Dead Men Talking: Afterlife Communication from World War I.
His forthcoming book, No One Really Dies: 25 Reasons to Believe in an Afterlife is due later in 2020.
 

Thank you Michael Roll.  I’m glad you have sent an article to SPR.  Yes you are right about reaching a broader segment of the population but note that Blackmore and Wiseman are not known to the average person either, they are known to scientists and the more educated minds who ponder such philosophical and cosmological questions.

A 2018 Pew report reported that the mediumship market in US is worth $400m and growing rapidly with increasing ease of accessibility (not the total psychic which is much bigger).  Then you have major on demand series such as Amazon Prime’s Upload and Netflix’s Afterlife which are reaching large audiences. There are also shows like Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop lab which dedicated some time to Julie Beischel work at Windbridge.  A major producer for Discovery channel is also planning a series on the afterlife evidence.  The Huff Paranormal channel on YT has over 1m subscribers ... etc.  These channels are driven by the interest of millions of audience. 

In my opinion what is missing and particularly important is strengthening the empirical evidence as well as the theoretical science in this field - as it was being attempted 100 years ago - so that the more scientific and educated minds, those who are the guardians of knowledge in schools and universities, start taking this field more seriously.

I think there is a shift in the right direction especially as the older guardians of scientism move on.  But we need to encourage and demand more money to be channeled to study this field in academia and other dedicated scientific establishments.  It’s a chicken and egg situation at the moment.  However, the field of psychedelic experience research is gaining traction amongst academics and is showing that there is a major shift in outlook amongst experiencers towards spiritualism and away from materialism - similar to NDErs - which is very encouraging. 

BTW, I attended the online festival “How the Light Gets In” last weekend just to see Kastrup and Blackmore debating.  Blackmore who now believes in panpsychism had very little understanding of the cogent arguments Kastrup was presenting for metaphysical Idealism.  The third panelist and philosopher Tim Crane also had great difficulty arguing against Kastrup - he thought idealism and physicalism / materialism are both wrong but did not know what the model should be. Lol.

Maryam, many thanks for letting us know that the Society for Psychical Research is looking for articles. I have sent an update. I did have an article published by the SPR a few years ago.
In my experience to have any impact we have to hit millions of people, like the psychologists do - Blackmore, Wiseman etc.
It is only when we hit mainstream media outlets will people eventually find out that losing a loved one is only a temporary tragedy.

It is vital that every person clicks on to Dr. Keith Parson’s video “Can Spirits Materialise”. Here Dr. Parsons lists all the outstanding scientists who have carried out experiments with materialisation mediums. If we can make the Yale University scientists repeat these experiments with a contemporary materialisation medium using modern recording equipment, then this will cause a thinking revolution. Once people realise that it is a scientific fact that every person survives the death of their physical bodies then this will be a much better planet to live on. We all have to answer for our actions while on Earth.

I thought I’d bring this to the attention of Eric and others in case you are interested in having your work / theories included in the upcoming compilation / anthology on survival for the SPR.  They are calling for authors with deadline in October. 
https://www.spr.ac.uk/news/call-chapters-there-life-after-death

Dear Michael Roll,

Your words afford me a little comfort, and I thank you. I have not yet had a chance to read Ron Pearson, which you recommended me to do, but I do intend to do so.

I think it is a tragic delay of the dawn of world-wide spiritual awareness that people cannot (or do not want to bother to) understand the huge overriding relevance of Relativity.

[The realisation that quantum physics provides ground for the belief that there is top-down influence by consciousness over bodily action is now reasonably well established, I think. Quantum physics deals in THAT area of reality, Relativity’s relevance is to bigger things, spatial and temporal at large scales.]

Einstein’s denial that the mind survives physical dissolution of the physical body bears no weight. We do not know to what he was referring, whether to what some call the soul or to the electrical movements within the brain cells, or to the biological memory held within the physical body or the evident conscious something that shows itself as a distinguishable entity from time to time in out-of-body experiences. What is indisputable is Einstein’s Relativity per se, which now exists independently of him and his opinions on other matters. And it is this theory which almost NECESSITATES the existence of other universes (the locus of dark matter and energy). Our own universe is one of which its inhabitants are conscious, and it is entirely rational to expect that there are conscious inhabitants in the other inferred universes. Indeed, the claim that sometimes voices, visions etc from other universes are heard, seen, sensed suggest to any rational mind that they may be the voices etc of real Beings at least like or even superior to us.

My persistent efforts in trying to bring the subject of Relativity’s relevance to intelligent notice will give me even more comfort if rewarded by intelligent comments or question from a few others who read and comment on Michael Tymn’s Blogs. Otherwise I, like Ron Pearson, am a voice crying in the wilderness.

But what a loss of comfort to those who do not bother to understand Relativity and so suddenly see the reassuring light!

Very best regards Michael

Eric Franklin

Eric, you are up against the same thing that my pal Ron Pearson hit. Ron was a lecturer at Bath University - engineering. We lectured together across the UK. I spoke in simple layman’s language and Ron came up with the difficult science and mathematics to back up what I was presenting- Relativity and subatomic physics.
We both lectured and broadcast on the Isle of Man, not together. I went first and it was a great success as everybody understood what I was saying.
Ron followed a few days later. The chap that organised the events, Dennis Kent, told me that nobody could understand what Ron was presenting.
The psychologists play on this. They play their ace of trumps, what Einstein was reported to have said in 1955 in The New York Times. That the mind dies with the brain. That there is no question of any person surviving the death of their physical body. Ron Pearson was so frustrated that what seemed so simple to him was completely beyond the understanding of most people.

Dear Michaels, Tymn and Roll, and ALL other correspondents,

Do you not think that if Relativity Theory supports (as I and some prominent physicists have realised it does) the scientific case for the belief that we survive terrestrial death, that fact ought to be made an integral part of our case, whenever and wherever that case is presented?

As Relativity Theory was literally in the future at the beginning, and only a few years old at the end of the period of the famous participants in séances (let’s say from 1870 to 1930, eg Richet, Crookes, Barrett, Lodge, Myers, Gurney, and, of course, quite a few others) the physical theories (mentioning the ‘ether’ and/or “rates of vibration”, for instance) that were adduced by those pioneers and their immediate followers now ought to be urgently revised to take account of Relativity. Thus rewritten, the case that can be made will become so much more rational and strong that a much greater section of the public will become convinced that most psychologists are talking rubbish when they argue against the evidence. But first, a great many of US have to be convinced ourselves that ‘hard’ science DOES support the survival belief, and that hard science IS therefore relevant AND is a powerful tool in our hands. To your joint shame, no-one has taken any notice of what I have been saying on the subject, but it seems (I have not read him myself) Jim Beichler, perhaps with others, is talking about the very same evidence from Relativity as I am). Unless more of us who believe we survive stop shirking the effort the scientific route takes, and bother to understand the scientific facts and then state them the physicalists are not going to be silenced. A scientific case far beyond the risk of repudiation by arrogantly Faustian psychologists will only become possible when those in favour of the belief that we survive stop using peashooters and start using the readily available scientific machine gun.

Eric Franklin

Dear Michael Tymn, Our aim is never to convince sceptics, it is only to just present the scientific case for survival after death. In England this is never even reaching the public. Sceptics can never be convinced, they are paid to rubbish the whole idea of survival. It’s all to do with money. When ever a programme comes on British TV about mediumship. As “expert”, a professional psychologist, is brought on to make out that all mediums are frauds. The public are only allowed to hear just one side of the case, the one that keeps the old-boy network intact. This is why I wrote my book ‘The Suppression of Knowledge’. It can be read, free of charge, on the Internet.

Thank you both Michaels.
To respond to the Michael Tymn, if the SoulPhone Technology becomes a reliable mode of communication such that the public can use for themselves, then belief and believing becomes moot.  At the moment ICT / EVP is highly unreliable, using mediums and other forms of intermediated after death communication is also hit and miss, expensive and time consuming.  If all of this changes with a reliable technology as Gary Schwartz believes it is possible, then we have a true paradigm shift, as everyone loses a loved one, and even arch sceptics such as Carl Sagan- as he is famously quoted - would give anything to spend a few minutes speaking to their departed loved ones - paraphrasing.  Add to that the curiosity of the younger generations and their more open attitude towards meaning of reality etc.

However, it is still very early days with this techology.  The yes / no response is still in Gary’s lab to some limited questions by some post-materials who have been involved with his work for years.  If tests from other labs verify same level of accuracy, a scientific paper or two will raise the profile of this work considerably amongst those who are currently sitting on the fence but are eager and waiting.  Dean Radin will be one of those testing.  Thereafter, with more financial support this work could truly take off.  Much could change in the next few years.

I’m looking forward to your next article.  Should you wish to write about thought-forms, tulpas and Philip, please do consider reading The Entity Letters By James McClenon.  It potentially takes the concept of intelligent RSPK to a whole new level.  Parallels with cases such as Ken Wilbers 2109 and Joe Fisher’s Hungry Ghosts for me was revelatory.  Thank you.

Maryam, many thanks for your interest in the scientific side of survival after death. It is only if the Yale scientists start to work with a materialisation medium that we will start to crash through the powerful religious and scientific barriers. Sir William Crookes OM made the greatest scientific discovery in the history of mankind on this planet in 1874, he discovered the so-called next world.
However, Crookes only had just one etheric person to work with - Katy King. She had died so long ago that Crookes was unable to carry out the vital experiment of reuniting Katy with her loved ones who were still on Earth.
Ever since Helen Duncan was killed by a police raid in 1956, the ectoplasm rushed back into her body, the etheric scientists have been perfecting the method of communication. The materialisation medium that I worked with in Leicester did not use the “heavy” ectoplasm. It had been refined. This medium has six recently deceased people materialising at every experiment.
There must be a good number of fully developed materialisation mediums in the USA who will work with the Yale scientists.
I am coming towards the end of my stay on Earth and have completely failed to balance the psychologists case that the mind dies with the brain. However, I take great comfort from a letter I received from a mum from Manchester. She saw her two young children killed in front of her by a crazy car driver. This mother said to me, “After reading your scientific case for survival after death, my pillow is dry at night, I am a different woman.”
This proves how important it is to get our case through. Every person on Earth has lost loved ones.

[This publishes, in the hope that it benefits all, a brief direct correspondence between myself and Michael Roll. There is no private matter here, of course.]

Dear Michael,

Forgive a very brief response for the moment:

Thank you. I’ll have a look [at your website etc] as soon as I can.

One pertinent remark from elsewhere: I’ve just received Findlay’s On the Edge of the Etheric. What he writes confirms what I thought regarding Barrett, Lodge, Crookes, and many others. OF COURSE Findlay is right, but HIS physics, THEIR physics, is now out of date. Einstein’s Relativity was not in the GENERAL RUN of physicists’ consciousness at that time. [say 1915 to 1935]

Beware the word ether. It has been rendered ambiguous by Einstein. [and Michelson and Morley, and Lorentz and others] There IS an ether, but it is not the ether that was assumed to be the medium for the flight of photons from place to place. THAT ether does not exist. (Physicists use the term ‘field’ instead - and that is just as undefined, ie just a postulate, but it serves for calculation purposes.)

The etheric body is undoubtedly a real thing, and not physical but, I believe, the INTERFACE between the physical world and the All-the-rest Living-Consciousness world. [of which each of our souls is a tiny part].

Must go - lots to do.

Eric

[PS for all readers. Slightly garbled on the page though this is, it will help today’s non-physicist seekers for truth to avoid pitfalls caused by the word ‘ether’.]

Maryam,

Thank you for clarifying all that on the Yale study. I found it difficult to believe that Yale was doing some kind of study to validate real mediumship.  It now makes sense.

As for the Soul Phone, I appreciate the update, although I doubt that whatever they come up with will convince many skeptics.

Dear Michael Roll,

Apologies if I have missed part of the comments on the Yale study. I would be grateful if you could share any new information on their mediumship studies with us.

I am aware of some scientists acively focused in this field including work being carried out at Arthur Finley College (Cal Cooper reported late last year),  also, IONS under Wahbeh, Delorme and Radin who have been working on mediumship project for a couple of years now.  These organizations have an interest in the ‘ontology’ of the phenomena - “what” are the voices etc. as well as the psychology of the participants.

From what I know however, Yale, UCL and others in the past have conducted studies on hearing voices - across a range of people - to understand the psychology and possibly physiology of those who hear voices.  They differentiate people who have psychotic tendencies from those who do not have pathological issues but still report hearing voices – including for example tulpamancers.  So, in these studies, they are typically focused on psychology of the anomalous experiences / exceptional experiences, rather than the ontology of it e.g. authenticity of spirits etc.  This is because it has been historically difficult to establish the ontology.  Not only do the researchers have to accept the possibility of a different metaphysical reality, but even amongst those who do, differentiating living agent abilities (psi and PK) from that of the discarnate has created seemingly insurmountable challenges.

I’m just mentioning this because I am curious to know if there is more to the research at Yale than I appreciate
This a link from the Yale 2017 work: https://news.yale.edu/2016/09/27/psychics-help-psychiatrists-understand-voices-psychosis

Just for the record and for you to understand my perspective, I am personally all for understanding the ontology and therefore am supporting the activities of The SoulPhone Foundation (Gary Schwartz’s SoulPhone technologies).  Following excellent results at University of Arizona, the yes/no SoulSwitch device is ready to be tested at independent labs.  Once the device can show reliable responses independent of UoA, we are likely at the precipice of a real paradigm shift at a scientific level. 

Thank you in advance for sharing any info regarding Yale.

Maryam

Dear Michael Tymn,

[I sent this a day or two ago, but it does not seem to have appeared among the comments on your very stimulating blog about some spirit scientists not being aware of our physical universe.]

First, my offer to send a part of our book free of charge was to Michael D, subject to your being willing to give him my email address, for which you have my permission, and me his, if he is willing.

But I am glad that, apparently, you have already bought our book. I fully understand the problem of getting down on one’s knees, and back up again. I suffer the problem myself.

I am not a mathematician, but have a sense of what maths is about, and an ability to imagine the essential notions, such as the light cone. That is all one needs to ‘see’ how Relativity solves the problem of universes alongside each other in space. (NOT the many worlds idea, which is part of quantum physics, not part of relativity.)

I notice that Close and (forget his name) to whom you have just referred me, show a light cone right there in the top left corner of their own home page. THEY think it is a key concept too, but I haven’t begun to read their words. Typographically speaking, they use a very long line measure, ie many words per line, which is a mistake because long lines are hard for the eye-brain to scan. Typography and printing etc is one of my decades-long professional skills.

That light cone shows how a volume of space that is ABSOLUTELY ADJACENT to the observing consciousness can be totally beyond communication with it. Any event in physics sends out a photon or whatever, and it speeds out into its surrounding space, but although it goes very fast it has taken SOME time before it has covered the distance to the nearest (subatomic) event. There is therefore a (very tiny) sort of triangular annulus around any point in the universe occupied by the conscious observer with which he CANNOT communicate. All those tiny voids add up to another universe which is where those beings we call spirits dwell. They are in a different universe, RIGHT THROUGH OURS, and their universe is just as real to them as our universe is real to us, and when the bridge is crossed somehow the ‘other’ side seems dreamlike, unreal, delusive, even though it is just as real. This dream-on-the-other-side// reality-on-our-side situation is there an infinity of times, there are an infinity of universes right here around us. What’s more, there is also an infinity of universes with more dimensions than ours, higher universes.

Eric Franklin [Somewhere, I think I have a slightly polished version of this rough draft. Perhaps it is already in some mail box of yours, Michael Tymn. If I can find it, I will send it, but readers who use their visualising powers on what they see here will be able to perceive the support Relativity gives to our beliefs in spirit worlds.]

Dear Michael Tymn, please note that at the Rita Goold experiment all the etheric people who materialised spoke with the same voices that they had while on Earth. It was just like meeting our friends in a pub. It must me a fully developed materialisation medium who eventually works with the Yale scientists. Rita took a number of years before she was fully developed.

Dear Michael Tymn, I came across the brilliant materialisation medium Rita Goold in Leicester by seeing reports in the magazine Psychic News. It could be the same thing for the scientists at Yale. The publicity generated would bring forward an American Rita Goold to work with the Yale scientists.
Via Rita Goold I received the crushing proof that my “dead” father, who passed over in 1967, was still very much alive.

Michael Roll,

What materialization medium would you recommend to Yale University?  Do you know that she or he is willing to demonstrate and produce under “on-demand” or less than harmonious conditions?  If so, will the direct-voice be produced in addition to the visual materialization?

To Michael Tymn and all those who have made a careful study of survival after death and found that it is a scientific fact that we all have a soul that separates from the dead physical body. The same thing that Sir William Crookes OM discovered in the 1870’s following three years of repeatable experiments under laboratory conditions. Crookes worked with a materialisation medium, Florence Cook, where all 5 senses were working. Materialisation mediums are able to provide the crushing scientific proof of survival after death, not just evidence. It’s no good just me writing to the scientists at Yale University urging them to repeat the Crookes’ experiments - “work with a materialisation medium and not just a mental medium”. Here is the Yale email address .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) They are keen to hear from people.
Nearly all university academics across the world are locked into Einstein’s hopelessly outdated model of the universe as he stated in 1955 in The New York Times that the mind dies with the brain. “And this is how things will remain all the time good people continue to do nothing.”

Dear Michael Tymn,

First, my offer to send a part of our book free of charge was to Michael D, subject to your being willing to give him my email address, for which you have my permission, and me his, if he is willing.

But I am glad that, apparently, you have already bought our book. I fully understand the problem of getting down on one’s knees, and back up again. I suffer the problem myself.

I am not a mathematician, but have a sense of what maths is about, and an ability to imagine the essential notions, such as the light cone. That is all one needs to ‘see’ how Relativity solves the problem of universes alongside each other in space. (NOT the many worlds idea, which is part of quantum physics, not part of relativity.)

I notice that Close and (forget his name) to whom you have just referred me, show a light cone right there in the top left corner of their own home page. THEY think it is a key concept too, but I haven’t begin to read their words. Typographically speaking, they use a very long line measure, ie many words per line, which is a mistake because long lines are hard for the eye-brain to scan. Typography and printing etc are one of my decades-long professional skills.

That light cone shows how a volume of space that is ABSOLUTELY ADJACENT to the observing consciousness is also totally beyond communication with it. Any event in physics sends out a photon or whatever, and it speeds out into its surrounding space, but although it goes very fast it has taken SOME time before it has covered the distance to the next (subatomic) event next to it. There is therefore a (very tiny) sort of triangular annulus around any point in the universe occupied by the conscious observer. All those tiny voids add up to another universe which is where those beings we call spirits dwell. They are in a different universe, RIGHT THROUGH OURS, and their universe is just as real to them as our universe is real to us, and when the bridge is crossed somehow the ‘other’ side seems dreamlike, unreal, delusive, even though it is just as real. This dream-on-the-other-side/reality-on-our-side situation is there an infinite number of times, there are an infinity of universes right here around us. What’s more, there is also an infinity of universes with more dimensions than ours, higher universes. Sir William Barrett is living in one of FIVE dimensions. Ours has only four. Jim Beichler, whom you quoted in the originating blog, seems to say the same (I have not read him myself).

This is the best I can do off the top of my head and before breakfast, and I do have to break off now. I also have not proofread or other wise perfected or edited the above. But perhaps it will explain well enough for people who will take time to muse over it, and see the fundamental fact that gives a near-proof to the RELATIVISTIC many universe idea. (NOT NOT NOT the quantum physics idea called ‘many worlds’.)

Eric Franklin

A friend has been after me to reread the Seth books, which I read during the 1990s.  I was just reading “The Seth Material” and came upon this on page 214:

“The source and power of your present consciousness has never been physical, and where I am, many are not even aware that such a physical system exists.  The physical system is an illusion, but you must accept it and from its viewpoint try to understand the realities.”

Eric,

Thanks for the offer to send parts of the Subtle Energy Body book, but I am fairly certain that I have that book. It’s a matter of going to my knees and searching for it.  The problem with going to the knees at age 83 is that it is sometimes difficult to get back up.  I will give it a try later.

However, the distinction between relativity and quantum physics doesn’t help me.  While you rely on physics and math, I prefer to rely on cumulative empirical evidence developed in the fields of psychical research and related fields, at the same time many anecdotal stories that are consistent with the controlled studies add to my conviction.  As we both apparently accept survival with something approaching near certainty, I don’t think there should be a major issue here.

However, since you are big into math and physics, I would request that you review the TDVP material developed by my friend, Vernon Neppe, M.D., Ph.D. and his friend, mathematician Edward Close, Ph.D. and tell me if it lines up with what you now accept.  You can see a summary of it at
http://www.tddvp.com/

Eric, you will see that I do mention the John Logie Baird book - ‘Sermons, Soap and Television’ ( royal Television Society) 1988. When I was making a careful study of life after death I found that all the vital books I needed fell through my letter box, especially Arthur Findlay’s masterpiece ‘The Curse of Ignorance’, the true history of mankind on this planet. Totally different to the rubbish that we have been taught at school. The winners write the history books. The Christians fought and won. The Curse of Ignorance can now be read on the Internet. So can his first book ‘On the Edge of the Etheric’. This presents the scientific case for survival after death. As a branch of physics. Nothing whatsoever to do with religion or an invisible big daddy God.

Dear Michael Tymn,

I hope we have now cleared up the confusion (which was not in my mind) between relativity and quantum physics, and their respective relevances to the survival of the Inner Being of animate life on Earth (which some call the soul). Scientists have been trying to combine quantum theory and relativity for a century and, as I said for its intended lay readership in ‘The Subtle Energy Body’, certain questions within quantum physics have still not been resolved.

Let’s now leave that sorry misunderstanding and be glad that it is a scientific fact that we are ‘there’, part of a greater ‘Being-there’, and it is only the physical-world body that drops away at what we call death.

Now: regarding Michael D’s comment of 20 May: Michael, In that same book ‘The Subtle Energy Body’ Inner Traditions, 2010, you will find an account of the passing of someone into a world (ie a universe relativistically separate from our terrestrial world, ie a “heaven”) where the person passing would, on account of his erroneous prior beliefs, not have understood what was happening to him, but been terrified. Then, I believe, he would, being a trusting ‘believer’, soon have met spirits who would gladly explain his new position, and so resolve his problem.

You will find the account beginning on page 261 of the book. However, you need not buy the book. The passage referred to is NOT the publisher’s copyright material. With Michael Tymn’s special permission, and your own, if you let me have your email address I will send you that text, and the rough sketch provided to the book publishers by the terrestrial experiencer who, it seems, ‘witnessed’ in some sense the passing of the other person.

Eric Franklin

Dear Michael Roll,

Can you tell me the title of the Logie Baird book, and where I can get a copy of it? Just a copy of the text would probably do, or a PDF of the book if it is illustrated.

Very best regards

Eric Franklin

Inspired by this thread I’ve been reading the Silver Birch Q&A book. Last night I came on this wonderful comment relating to the current discussion:

Q What are the feelings of people like H. G. Wells, who were anti-Spiritualist and lifelong rationalists, when they pass on and find themselves in a spirit world in which they do not believe?

(A) It is a complete overthrow of a lifetime of philosophy and they cannot understand it. They think there must be something wrong with the universe because it does not agree with their conceptions which they had proved most logically and most scientifically. And so the adjustments have to be made and there are long arguments and discussions.

I commonly run across these same characters in my own field, a non-science field that seems to attract amateurs from the sciences like flies to honey. Long arguments and discussions, indeed!

Yes Eric, that John Logie Baird book is a mine of information. There is also a photograph of Sir Oliver Lodge working with Baird on the infra-red camera. This was published by the Royal Television Society. It was only after it was published that the powerful establishment forces realised just how dangerous it was. Reprints were banned. It was much too close to the truth for comfort.

Dear Michael Roll,

How welcome your response to my own is.

Briefly, especially as we must not use Michael Tymn’s Blog as a chat medium, BRAVO! for your part in persuading America and Yale in particular to investigate. I am going to read your broadcasts just as soon as I can. (I do have pressing matters to deal with, not least satisfying the legal requirements for registering my land in the names of my sons also. You’d scarcely believe how much of a trial this is now, not just on account of the Land Registry itself, but now, with the virus around, it’s even more difficult to satisfy their requirements. I have been registered owner of my land for 26 years; now I have to prove my own identity and my sons theirs. How I hate law, and love love, honesty and trust.)

I had no idea Logie Baird was also one of our allies. Yes, it seems the etheric body is extremely closely analogous, in its distinct non-physical world, to the flesh body. Perhaps it is the communication bridge between the physical body and the Conscious Self, and therefore the solution to the mind-body problem that so many stubborn scientists and philosophers find so indigestible. The dogma of Monism is the enemy here, I think. I do think myself it is that simple, the etheric body acting as the energy-supplying or will-supplying, intentionality-supplying interface between Self and terrestrial body; and that their arrogance and other foibles prevent said scientists and philosophers from seeing it.

Very warmest regards

Eric Franklin

Eric, how right you are to be careful of going up a ladder. At 82 I could not even hold my own weight.
I 2020 Florence Nightingale OM now has total victory over the powerful establishment forces that she was fighting against in the 1800’s. Sir William Crookes OM has only just started to breakthrough in the USA in 2020. I have done 13 nationwide radio broadcasts in the USA. These can now be listened to at the top of my website:
http://www.scsad.afterlifeinstitute.org
I have recently been in touch with scientists at Yale University. They are about to work with mental mediums. I have told the scientists that mental mediums are only able to provide good evidence of survival after death. It is only if Yale works with a materialisation medium that we will receive the definitive proof of survival as Sir William Crookes did in 1874. Please also refer to John Logie Baird’s book, ‘Sermons, Soap and Television’ (Royal Television Society)1988. On page 66 Baird tells how a scientific contact of his, at an experiment, he took the finger prints of an etheric person who materialised. These finger prints were identical to those on the dead physical body. In future experiments we will also be able to take DNA.

Dear Don Porteous,

Thank you for considering my comments worthy of a whole paragraph of reply. To respond to each matter you raise:

Of course spirits are of differing natures because the human essences, once disembodied from this universe, become the invisible voices behind the mediums visibly sitting here (unless they, as they very occasionally do, dematerialise). Even the New Testament writers recognised that we have to “test the spirits . . .” and that some bad ones had gotten out into the world. Our more technically able and scientifically knowledgeable era has confirmed this variation in séances and well-controlled scientific experiments alike.

The non-scientific but vaguely scientific-sounding idea of ‘rate of vibration’ was soon invented as any uneducated medium’s desperate search for an explanation that would satisfy insistent scientific investigators and strike awe among the laity. Many probably know no more today. Certainly, many still use this vague phrase. Greater scientific knowledge would have indicated the use of a different model and a different word. A distinction based on space would have served better than a purported distinction based on frequency of vibration, that is time, but this was not understood. We see a relic of this simple fact in the presently ongoing row caused by the confusion that exists in people’s minds regarding Relativity and Quantum Theory, and, again, it arises from ignorance of science. Very simplistically speaking, Relativity has to do with space, the present and the large, Quantum Theory with the evolution of states of the universe via sub-microscopically tiny sudden changes that we call quantum leaps. (Note that this is a very crude characterisation for the non-scientist!) So my own belief is that the place where what we call ‘spirits’ live is space-like separated from our universe and almost totally out of communication with us. The barrier is spatial and contemporary (ie here and now). In view of the current misunderstanding and misrepresentation it is worth remarking that a separate universe such as the constantly splitting universe postulated by the ‘Many Worlds’ advocate is considered to develop over TIME from a single universe, and therefore differs totally from the relativistic contemporary and SPATIALLY separate worlds I believe explain much of the research results. Vague medium-speak like “rate of vibration” explains nothing of any substance regarding either spirits within one universe that is splitting or in side-by-side relativistically separated multiple worlds.

No time to polish this rough draft.

Eric Franklin

Dear Michael Roll,

Thank you for your comment reinstating Lodge and Crookes.

Quite right. It’s about time we stopped taking the slightest notice of prejudiced scientists and of those who misunderstand science and misrepresent those who know more science than they do themselves.

I am not at all surprised to see that your own atheistic views are very close to my “religious” views that are themselves based very firmly on well-corroborated science.

I won’t say any more now. I am only half way through the electrical installation mentioned earlier today, which has gone well and without me falling off the ladder. I may yet have an 80th birthday, though I shall be glad to scrap by body in a while, but first I have a One Planet Development to establish, to help my descendants and others survive this life - plus the establishment of the recognition that Relativity Theory is highly relevant to survival, whether inadequately informed people think so or not.

Eric Franklin

My physicist friends tell me that Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics are incompatible. Einstein agreed with Susan Blackmore that the mind dies with the brain. The discovery that 95% of the universe is missing makes all the scientific proof and evidence that we all have a soul that separates from the dead physical body the rational scientific explanation. We can now bring our history books up to date. It was Sir Oliver Lodge who invented the wireless in 1894. On the front page of my website there is a photograph of a plaque at Oxford University on the very spot where Sir Oliver sent the first radio signal in 1894. Sir Oliver has been written out of our corrupt history books because he dared to agree with Sir William Crookes that it is a scientific fact that we all survive the death of our dead physical bodies. Crookes holds the same decoration as Florence Nightingale - The Order of Merit. She and Crookes were given this award for taking on establishment forces by the British monarch.
http://www.scsad.afterlifeinstitute.org

Dear all,

I have wondered, in the recent past, whether to state that my interpretation of Relativity Theory is NOT the Many Worlds Hypothesis. I’ll repeat that. My interpretation of Relativity Theory is NOT NOT NOT the much discussed Many Worlds idea. It is pure ignorant prejudgement, out-of-hand dismissal without examination of what I say, to claim that it is. It is now clear that I should have stated that before, actually naming the many worlds conjecture, and explaining that that is NOT what I mean.

Another point. I have MYSELF said quite clearly before, and even said it during the present discussion, that Relativity Theory and Quantum Theory are incompatibly separate, very difficult indeed to combine (mainly on account of infinities involved in Relativity) and the way I interpret Relativity Theory has NOTHING (shall I repeat that?) NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING to do with whether the wave function collapses or not. That question is a matter of Quantum Theory alone, nothing to do with relativity, much of which follows simply from electromagnetic theory and is, in its conception, not even experimental, but a sort of thought-experiment-with-mathematical-schema, if that conveys its nature, which, insofar as it has been possible to test the hypothesis, has survived all challenges. (Explanation of the precession of the equinoxes of Mercury, for example.)

But the belief that there are many universes normally out of communication with each other DOES follow very simply from Einstein, whoever may deny it. The mention in this connection of Quantum Theory shows simply the ignorant prejudice of a Helmholtz. QT is irrelevant here. There can be, and surely are, an infinity of universes at our own level (3-space + 1-time), and an infinity of universes at every level above that, the first such higher level being a 4-space plus “time” - and so on. I haven’t read Jim Beichler, but he clearly alludes to something of that kind on this very subject of survival of the ‘spirit’ part of the human. Evidently, there ARE some scientists who see things as I do, not as the Helmholtzes do.

Another point. It is obvious from the literature on the subject that SOME of the worlds in which departed spirits live are NOT higher than ours, but just distinct from it - out of communication in total accord with expectation on the basis of Relativity Theory. Sir William Barrett gives evidence (for those who recognise the relevance of Relativity Theory, but perhaps no others) of being in a FIVE DIMENSIONAL universe, with FOUR dimensions of space plus one of time. Sir William finds he cannot bring his whole consciousness to bear when trying to communicate with our universe of only three dimensions of space and one of time. He cannot combine a ‘new’ dimension he has with
the third of ours.

I have wasted enough time on this when I have an electrical installation to do at our cottage, a dangerous job at 79, up a ladder under the eaves, installing armoured cable single-handed. I shall ask higher spirits who are right here around me to keep my body safe. I shall now go and do that terrestrial job, not waste any more of my time on a matter in which no-one listens or uses imagination as Einstein did. Perhaps you should all go and read Jim Beichler, who shows evidence of knowing what I also have ‘seen’.

Eric Franklin

Eric,

I hesitate to do this, because the person I am quoting below is not interested in joining any debate or otherwise participating in the discussion. However, since he clearly knows more about quantum theory than I do and because you have continually invited comments on that subject, I asked him to look at your comments and give me his thoughts.  He prefers to remain anonymous and probably won’t reply to any further discussion. However, here is what he told me by email:

“....First of all, he is conflating Many Worlds Theory, or M-Theory, first put forward by Hugh Everet III as means of explaining quantum state vector collapse in quantum mechanics (the so-called ‘measurement problem’) with Relativity Theory, but the two have literally nothing to do with one another. 

“Second of all, Many Worlds Theory is an untestable theory, which is nevertheless attractive to a number of theoretical physicists, including the late Steven Hawking, as a potential means of avoiding the teleological implications of the fine-tuning of physical constants under the Anthropic Principle, given the anti-teleological orientation of modern science.  Third of all, even if we assume that Many Worlds Theory is true, there is no reason to think that this is an explanatory device to understand, say, the ‘physical’ and ‘astral’ domains as ‘parallel universes’.  To the contrary, the two domains are precisely not ‘parallel’, but hierarchical, the ‘astral’ being consistently described across discarnate and similar sources as ‘above’ the ‘physical’ in ‘frequency’ (whatever that means).  As for the question of mind/body dualism which he raises, this is a philosophic position with a long history, but has persistently suffered from the explanatory problem of just how mind and body might interact, given the radically different natures of the two.

“His statement about the distinction between ‘person’ and body and the separability of the two is in my view correct, but this needs to be understood in terms of an overarching view in which matter, including the body, is understood as a particular mode of consciousness, which is fundamental.”

That said, I like the way Frank Juszczyk explains it above and in my post of March 12, 2018 in the archives at the left.

To All (and Eric in particular):

Greetings from a new voice. I haven’t posted to this forum previously as frankly, I’ve been just a bit in awe of some of the erudition here.

I’m an ancient (79 next month) retired magazine publisher (technical publications)in the US—-who’s spent the better part of 18 years since retirement working on a book on the empirical evidence for “Spiritual Reality.” (Full title: “Spiritual Reality and the Afterlife: Materialism meets Immortality”). Unfortunately, as I apparently lack the appropriate “professional credentials,” it remains unpublished (all 550 pages of it)in spite of some help along the way from Jon Beecher, among others.

What I learned during the lengthy research process has had a profound effect on my thinking—-and indeed, on my life.Most prominently, “fear of death” is now an absolutely foreign concept to me.

The evidence generated—-some observational, some lab-based, and some from personal experimentation—-provides, to my own satisfaction at least, sufficient reason for belief in 1) the actual existence of a a non-physical aspect of our nature (mind, soul, consciousness) completely separate from the body and brain, and 2) the survival of that non-physical element after the death and dissolution of the body and brain.

A major factor in that evidence is the vast collection of communications from “the other side” through the many verifiably legitimate mediums over the years, particularly during the “golden age of mediumship” in the late 1800’s-early 1900’s, through the likes of Mrs. Piper, Mrs. Osborne Leonard, and Geraldine Cummins.

In total, I looked at communications from 144 different spirits, ranging from the famous to the anonymous. Those messages were categorized into ten separate groups,each relating to one particular area of spiritual importance, and each containing multiple questions.

Since this was, to this point, an essentially “non-religious” exercise—-in order to give it some relevance for those of more orthodox religious persuasions, I then compared the input from the various spirit-sources, to any available input, on the very same questions, emanating from the Virgin Mary during any of her many apparitions around the world. The results were, as you may imagine, quite enlightening.

For Eric in particular—-on any given question, there could be a greater or lesser degree of agreement among the spirits. Among the topics with the greatest degree of unanimity,was the insistence that the only thing separating the “spirit world” from the “physical world” was, as we’ve been told so often, the “rate of vibration.” I’m not a scientist, and don’t know how this would play in to the Relativity Theory or Quantum Theory interpretations, but it would seem to be dealing in at least the same ballpark—-

Maryam,

Thank you for the additional comments. I am pretty certain there are a number of parapsychologists who still believe that the Philip phenomenon negates the spirit explanation, but it is such a gray area and is
off subject, as you have pointed out. The same with “thought forms.”  I am not at 100% certainty on anything, but I am only at about 10% on thought forms, at least the Theosophical idea of them, which seems to oppose the discarnate spirits explanation. There is too much intelligence and dialogue with many of them to be thought forms, although we apparently don’t know how much intelligence thought forms should have. I’m too rusty on that subject right now. 

Thanks to Amos for the interesting summary on Philip, but will further save this for another blog.

Responding to the Philip experiment comment:  I personally have no axe to grind on the subject.  As a matter of fact, I wish it weren’t so difficult to discern between phenomena. But I am interested in the science of knowing, as well as the knowing.

For anyone wishing to investigate more please visit the the psi-encyclopedia website for a synopsis.
https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/philip-psychokinesis-experiments

Note that the experiments have been replicated a number of times and by others.  This suggests an extension to the phenomena of group intended table tipping which was studied by Kenneth Batcheldor amongst others.

Even amongst the parapsychologists, there is no conclusion that such phenomena negates the discarnate spirit hypothesis. These can both exist.

However, if incarnate phenomena can be achieved intentionally or subconsciously, it will make us re-assess some of the seance interactions with different measures.  For example, in his book Mediumship and Survival, Alan Gauld recalls a seance where a group of discarnate Nazi’s told the attendents - via Ouija board - the following: “I was once a sitter in a circle which received pungent communications from Goering and Goebbels and other deceased Nazi leaders. I hey favoured us with such interesting pieces of information as that Hitler was alive and well and operating a petrol pump in the town of Clifton, Arkansas, and that Martin Bormann was in Gothenburg disguised as a priest by the name of Father Odo. They favoured us also with various apologias for Nazism. After several sessions it became apparent that this little band of unrepentant sinners only communicated when the finger of one particular person was on the glass. Very reluctantly he admitted that many years before he had gone through a phase of admiration for certain features of Hitler’s Germany, and had joined an extreme right-wing political organization. Now he repudiated, indeed abhorred, his former paltering with Nazisim. None the less these views were clearly still alive in him somewhere, and slipped out when his conscious censorship was circumvented by the ouija board. I am absolutely certain that he was not deliberately manipulating the glass - his embarrassment was too great, and he refused to participate further. “

There are many more similar cases ...
Again, I do not wish to hijack the discussion here, but I wanted to set the record straight.

Michael Tymn, I don’t think I will come across Dr. Susan Blackmore again. She has moved away from the city and county of Bristol. Her last statement was that she is no longer making a study of life after death as there is no evidence for it whatsoever. Only Blackmore receives the publicity. Nobody is allowed to balance her statements. This is the reason I wrote my book ‘The Suppression of Knowledge’. This can now be read free of charge on the Internet.

To Michael Roll I want to say this:

I never use the word ‘god’ except with extreme reluctance and huge misgivings.

In fact I cannot have “lost you” by using it because I do not mean god as the word is abused in religious circles. I mean a much more mature conception to which your own concepts are close. If you believe that conscious life continues after what, down here on the earth’s surface, looks like death your own view is noticeably similar to my own. If you hold the view that that consciousness is greater by far than some merely terrestrial entity could be you are closer still to my own view. My view is that the whole MULTIverse is a great consciousness that includes all the consciousnesses in all the universes that ‘human’ consciousnesses travel to. If the consciousness you expect to experience beyond the dissolution of our physical bodies is part of THAT greater consciousness then there is no difference between your atheism and the view that occasionally causes me, however unwillingly, to use the word god.

A huge problem in all discussion is that we all have different conceptions of what any one word means. Wittgenstein (another entity I do not like to refer to because in my view he was a very poor philosopher despite being regarded as the Great God of 20th century philosophy) remarked on the way words bewitch us and mislead us from their own real meanings. As a corollary it follows that we CANNOT reliably convey our meanings to each other in words. At non-näive levels of communication we all have to allow for this, and take care to understand what the other fella is talking about - and when we SEE what s/he means that seeing will NEVER be verbal or even verbalisable.

Never choke on (my or anyone’s) words. They are all anyone has to convey conceptions to others.

As for the recognition of the huge relevance of Relativity Theory to what we are all discussing I shall just have to wait until most others, bewitched by words and unconscious of that very fact as they are, finally realise I am not talking nonsense, and wake up.

Eric Franklin

Dear Michael Tymn,

You ask Michael Roll to ask Susan Blackmore a good question. BUT when Susan Blackmore dies she will deny that Earth exists because her non-physical essence will have moved to (withdrawn to) a low (para-physical) universe that is not in communication with Earth, (a place consisting of what we terrestrial physicists call dark matter for the very reason that we cannot ‘see’ it with our terrestrial sensing instruments) so no sense data (to use Russell’s phrase) confirming Earth’s existence will reach her. She will not carry with her her merely earth-bound bio-physical memories, and, because she has no notion that she will continue to exist consciously but will have very shortly before imagined that she is about to be unconscious and non-existent she will indeed be unconscious for a ‘time’. When she slowly becomes conscious again she will become aware not of Earth, which she will have left, and which is now out beyond communication, but of her new surroundings, which will, until her consciousness develops beyond what it is in this lifetime, will be, for her, the only universe there is.

Those transitioning with more understanding will move into higher universes. So much more could be explained, but it’s obvious no-one is interested in what I have to say on the matter, but only in a much more restricted field of mulling over past investigation which will ultimately find nothing to be certain about - as exemplified by Amos’s current expression of doubts about some séances in the 1970s.

So much more could be explained, but it seems no-one is listening.

Eric Franklin

Michael,

The next time you see Susan Blackmore, you might ask her if she thinks she’ll believe that Earth exists after she dies.  However, if she doesn’t know she is “dead” at that time, why would she think it doesn’t exist?  I guess the question here is:  Can you not know you are dead and also not know that Earth exists at the same time? 

I think the evidence for the ‘Philip Experiments’ is very weak I am more likely to think that the phenomena came from mischievous INCARNATE spirits than from one mischievous discarnate spirit.  The one or two videos of the séances that do exist seem to me to be staged and frankly the people seem to be overly dramatic and somewhat goofy.  And while there are statements that “Philip” added additional information to the story I don’t read how he did this if he was only rapping one or two raps for yes or no.  To me that means that those people participating in the experiment were the ones providing the information in the questions that were asked to which only one or two raps were made in response.  Unless the raps were in response to reciting of the alphabet as reported in the Fox sisters phenomena, then I don’t understand how “Philip” could have added any new information that the sitters did not already know since they were asking the questions.  Reportedly some people heard ‘whisperings’ in their ears but there was no report of what those ‘whisperings’ said.  And no recordings were made or exist if they were made—-and it doesn’t appear that available videos were actual videos of séances with Philip but appear to be re-enactments.  In 1972 when the Philip Experiments were held there were available many recording devices including film and sound equipment to document the happenings at the meetings with Philip. Why wasn’t that done!

Available information on the internet about the Philip Experiment seem to be copy-and-paste editions of each other with nothing new provided.  Some reports say the card table rose one-half inch off of the floor while other accounts (the videos) show it wiggling around or turned on its side or upside down.  But there is no continuing video of the upside down table righting itself.  There is a report of someone sitting on the table and the table moving under that weight but there is no corroborating information concerning that one report. ( I think this was also reported to have occurred during a D. D, Home séance.) The table moved across the carpeted floor and greeted new-comers to the circle but there is nothing to substantiate that kind of movement over carpet.  Some reports say the phenomena occurred in the light, while others say that it occurred in a dimmed room.  Obviously the videos were filmed in the light and one can see it is bright daylight outside through the un-curtained windows.  Some say a year passed before raps were heard while other reports say 8 or 9 months passed before raps were heard.  Subsequent similarly contrived spirits produced raps almost immediately after conception.
 

I am suspicious of the card table shown in the video as it appeared to have one of those cardboard-like composition tops.  That is, the top did not appear to be wood.  I have had card tables such as that and those composition tops tend to buckle and just a slight pressure at one end of the table top would produce a sound or ‘vibration’ as was reported to have occurred.

I think this Philip experiment does great disservice to the study of psychic phenomena in general.  I do think it was faked in more ways than one.  That is I don’t think there was any unknown force or spirit producing the raps and movements.  Whatever or whoever was producing the effects probably was in the room seated at the table using either conscious or unconscious minute muscle contractions similar to those used to manipulate a dousing pendulum to answer yes or no to questions. I don’t think this at all suggests a psychic power of the mind.  Evidence is severely lacking in this one. - AOD

Thank you Michael Tymn. I agree that the thought-form explanation does not necessarily mean that deceased humans are not communicating.  But at this point, and particularly after having read the many cases of the misleading / mischievous communications, which may indeed be thought forms, I do not know how we can easily distinguish. 
I won’t elaborate further here as it is off topic, but thank you for sharing your perspective.

Dear Michaels (Roll and Tymn) and all others,

I do not believe Dennis Wood was pulling his brother’s leg. I believe he was very serious indeed.

I have already said that the denial that Earth exists is exactly what would be expected if there is an ignorance of Relativity Theory “over there”. If those living over there understood what Relativity Theory implies they would realise that there ARE (99.999999% certain) other universes contiguous with the one we experience, in one of which universes (we call it ours) Earth does exist. Similarly, as we view the matter from here, we can easily believe that THEY are alive and well THERE. When one doesn’t realise what Relativity Theory implies one will not be able to provide or believe any evidence that what WE call paranormal experiences are not in some way unreal or imaginary. When one does understand what Relativity Theory implies one realises it is immediately EXTREMELY PROBABLE that the entities who occasionally speak to us and claim to be living in some other place invisible to us are speaking the literal real-world truth. In both their world and ours the assertion is true. I am not talking nonsense. I’ll repeat that. I am NOT talking nonsense.

Allied to the realisation of all the foregoing is the matter of the nature of human Being (NOT the human being). Mind/body dualism is mostly denied these days, yet it is absolutely fundamental to the quest for the truth of this matter. The fundamental quality of humanness is that IT EXISTS. It is NOT consciousness but A consciousness. It is a “person”. It is a BEING. The body is not fundamental. That fundamental non-physical “LIVING ‘IS-THERE’ ” inhabits the body only for a while, and then casts it off and continues to live elsewhere. Where does it live? In another universe that Relativity Theory all-but-proves to exist.

Some of what the discussion so far contains is useful and evidential, though some is certainly not, but none takes account of the INDEPENDENTLY ESTABLISHED science that, if found relevant (which Relativity Theory and Quantum Theory indubitably are) gives the best possible corroboration of religious hope from an unbiased source, namely scientific truth that, being truth, MUST be ratified by whatever we call God.

When will readers stop and think, and come to understand this?

Eric Franklin

Eric, I can only speak for England. Here if one is reading psychology then there is only one route to take, the Blackmore route. Blackmore and I were in the waiting room waiting to go in and do a local TV broadcast. I said to Susan that we are trying to get an experiment up and running with a materialisation medium and an infra-red camera. I said to Susan in the waiting room, “You will come and witness this experiment won’t you?”
Susan refused in the waiting room. However, I asked her the same question live on the air. Susan said she would come and witness the experiment! Eric, you mention God. As an atheist you have completely lost me. At materialisation experiments I have met etheric people that our ignorant ancestors mistook for a big daddy God. As a fellow atheist Susan Blackmore and I always get on very well together. We just disagree about the subject of survival after death.

To respond to James, I don’t know, as I stated above, if Dennis was joking with his brother when he said that he wanted him to give a lecture to scientists on that side who don’t believe that Earth exists.

I can believe that many souls don’t know they are “dead.”  Do we know that we are “alive” when we are dreaming at night?  As I understand it, souls who don’t develop any real spiritual consciousness during their lifetimes continue with their earthly consciousness on the Other Side for a period of time, however time is measured.  In effect, they are living in a dream world.  However, it is quite something else for souls not to believe that Earth exists. That suggests that they have “awakened” to the fact that they have departed the physical world. Can they then not be conscious of the fact that the physical realm exists?  I am inclined to believe Dennis was pulling his brother’s leg, but it is clear that there is much we don’t know about consciousness on the Other Side, so who knows?

Thanks to all for the comments so far.  To reply to Maryam, I am not familiar with the Von Lucadou Model, but I note the word “possibly"in there and the possible similarity with Philip the Imaginary Ghost.

Much has been written about Philip the imaginary ghost created by a group of Canadian researchers during the 1970s.  Many parapsychologists have concluded from this and other similar experiments that such spirit manifestations are no more than manifestations of the human mind.
However, Allan Kardec, the pioneering French psychical researcher, discussed this a hundred years earlier in his 1874 book, “The Book of Mediums” (published after his death).  Kardec wrote: “Frivolous communications emanate from light, mocking, mischievous spirits, more roguish than wicked, and attach no importance to what they say…These light spirits multiply around us and seize every occasion to mingle in the communication; truth is the least of their care; this is why they take a roguish pleasure in mystifying those who are weak, and who sometimes presume to believe their word.  Persons who take pleasure in such communications naturally give access to light and deceiving spirits.

Kardec added: “Just the same if you invoke a myth, or an allegorical personage, it will answer; that is, it will be answered for, and the spirit who would present himself would take its character and appearance.  One day, a person took a fancy to invoke Tartufe, and Tartufe came immediately; still more, he talked of Orgon, of Elmire, of Damis, and of Valire, of whom he gave news; as to himself, he counterfeited the hypocrite with as much art as if Tartufe had been a real personage.  Afterward, he said he was the spirit of an actor who had played that character.

The bottom line here, as I see it, is that mischievous discarnates may very well have been involved with the Philip phenomenon. I don’t think it can be proved otherwise. Then again, the higher selves or spirits of the sitters may have produced Philip without the aid of discarnates. In either case, the spirit hypothesis is not ruled out. Perhaps the same reasoning can be applied to the Von Lucadou model.

Dear Michael Roll,

Thank you for mentioning Blackmore, who is indeed a bête noire muddying the field of unprejudiced investigation.

I wonder if you would like, next time you see her, to ask how she reacts to the assertion that the General Theory of Relativity strongly supports the probability of other whole universes contiguous with (ie right here), but out of communication with, our familiar universe.

How do you react yourself? I am soberly and repeatedly making this assertion myself, and it is entirely rational to do so, despite the almost total ignorance of relativity among those interested in spirituality. People seem to be afraid of science, and reject its support as if it were delusion offered by some sort of lying devil. People do not expect hard science to help prove spiritual assertions, but hard science, insofar as it is correct, CANNOT be other than a part of “God’s truth”, can it? I think it is a wonderfully reassuring thing that science confirms the value of trust (Greek pisteuo - the word usually translated as ‘faith’) in God. God is lord of science too. In Him it lives and moves and has its very being. Why is what I say not heeded?

Eric Franklin

Dear Eric Franklin,
I look forward to your book publication. Would you like some help with it ? To speed its completion ? Its possible to activate your own divine spark which provides an internal mentoring voice that deepens one’s understandings.
Within a week you receive vivid messaging night dreams
Immediate physical evidence
Vivid messaging day dreams (visions)
And even physical signals to prove you are not
just imagining.
And lots more and its FREE.
This is seriously relevant to afterlife and physical life here, and conscious states, and there is much physics in this. Hoping the moderator can go along with this just for once to see how it turns out.
http://www.truebluehealer.com/  20 mins BEGINNERS TOUR
Eric you could report back here your physics take on the situation.

It’s always a pleasure to read Mike Tymns posts.  To add to this discussion Charles Tart also addressed the issue of states of consciousness after bodily death.  He postulates that we may reside in different, varied and perhaps broader states of consciousness - depending on the person.  Indeed, references to Summerland in Spiritualist literature, and even Robert Monroe’s focus levels also correspond with this idea.
However, I would like to ask Mike but especially Eric whether you are familiar with a totally different explanation for some of the purported spirit communications - RSPK phenomena as suggested by Walter Von Lucadou’s Model of Pragmatic Information, which in turn is based on General Quantum Theory.  In the book Entity Letters - account of the SORRAT seance group of the 60s - 00s - parasociologist and SORRAT member McClenon, suggests that the purported communications were possibly a creation of a focus person which was aided by the mind of the group using the mentioned model.  Of course, we know of the Batcheldorian table tipping and The Philip Experiment, but the SORRAT group took these phenomena to another level altogether, as the purported entities communicated quite eloquently and extensively at times with the group members through letter writing, identifying themselves, giving advice and attempting to explain their metaphysics.  Forgive me if this is a little tangential but I thought the right people on present on this thread.  I’d be grateful if you could share your thoughts.  Thank you.

As Jerry Lee Lewis might say, “There’s a whole lot of quibblin’ goin’ on.” These conceptual distinctions are based on a supposed context that is irrelevant to the cosmic view of things. My departed wife mentioned the existence of a “Plan” of which she and I are a part. However, when I requested that the medium find out what the Plan is, she was unable to do so. I viewed an interview with a Near-Death Experiencer on YouTube recently who had spent years studying Quantum Mechanics in an effort to understand life and consciousness in relation to our experience of physical reality. When he communicated with a being of light on the Other Side, he was granted his request for all knowledge and it was so far beyond his comprehension that he stopped pursuing it in any depth afterwards. All one needs to comprehend, according to my companion who is in a position to know, is “be who you are” and “don’t feel guilty about anything”. The rest is silence.

Mike Tymn, you are being kind to the professional scientists. In my experience with Dr. Susan Blackmore, she lives near me in Bristol, England. We have broadcast and lectured together a number of times. It never crossed my mind that the priestly word “belief” came into play. Susan gets paid for rubbishing the whole idea of survival after death.

Dear James McArthur,

You make an interesting observation, which I believe may well be right.

A change of the pre-existing perspective may shed light on the question, and so reveal the answer. If we accept that the living being that persists through an earth life or two, and then moves to another world is the fundamental existent then an earth life might quite rationally be regarded as having been only a dream, ie less than real for the existing Being itself that experienced that earth life and now experiences something, perhaps higher, that it NOW regards as real. Unfortunately, this relegation of the past earth life to the status of a dream then allows the Being in question to deny the reality of that earth life. We invented the word dream to denote such entities, so we now use it to say it was all a dream because it no longer seems real. It has become for her/him (living in a higher place) a mere dream - and the mind jumps in with its tendency to hasty prejudice and dismisses the earth life as a dream. In fact, of course, all these perspectives raise the question of what is real and what is dream. Perhaps it is not even a valid question. The most certain thing we could say is, perhaps, that all experiences, no matter how real-seeming during the experience of them, are dreams and the only valid distinction is between the fundamental living Being (Tat twam asi) and any and all those various worlds of dream in which it successively finds itself.

And then one’s apprehensions about merely verbal philosphy arise . . .

We humans are indeed doomed to doubt and ignorance as long as we live in the nether regions and as long as we struggle in the realm of words. But you certainly express a welcome and interesting thought. Thank you.

Eric Franklin

Dear all, I like to think of this site as a peaceful place to comment on various blogs. Robust debate is fine but insults don’t seem to help in any way. So, please, no more personal insults.

The moderator.

So Eric, we need an example like Reincarnation iterations are proportional to Plancks constant divided by your mothers shoe size,  plus a time dilation fudge factor over the permeability of free space. Now that, we could all understand. So lets hear your example. Can’t wait.

Jurgen Ziewe postulated, in his book Multi Dimensional Man, that perhaps many people in the spirit world who don’t understand that they have ‘died’ are able to explain away their memories of a life spent on earth as merely having been a dream.

I wonder if this is true; and if so, whether it accounts for the disbelief in a previous earthly existence on the part of at least some of these spirit world scientists?

Dear, much-appreciated Michael Tymn,

I am, at a year off eighty, beginning to begin to write a book for the layman on the topic of relativity and its huge relevance to the attempt to demonstrate that there are other universes into which we pass when we have to throw our no-longer-habitable physical bodies away.

I am not a mathematician, and shall be writing an explanation in words as simply as I possibly can. The ideas can, with huge effort, be expressed in words. I wrote the part of Dr Maureen Lockhart’s book ‘The Subtle Energy Body’ (Inner Traditions 2010) that deals with quantum physics and its relevance to the matter of spirituality. The new book will also deal with the topic in hand at this moment, namely Relativity and the survival of the spiritual essence, which is, to physicists’ embarrassment, still rather separate from Quantum Physics.

The explanatory power of the light cone to the matter of survival in other universes is in fact very simple to see, but I think many readers are afraid of the whole matter, so an inward panic prevents them from understanding it. I shall have to sweat a great deal to express the matter in simple words and diagrams in the intended book. I hope it will be appreciated after all the effort. Very kindest regards, Michael,

Eric

Steve,

Sorry. I do not want to be rude, but your words are worthless.
Your reference to TERRESTRIAL relativity and the relativistic corrections satellite orbits need is totally irrelevant to the subject of the spirit world(s). You know nothing about terrestrial relativity, let alone how relativity affects the question of the existence of earth and heaven, and as a result you do not even recognise what I am talking about. My remarks were not about relativity within our universe but about the limit set to inter-universe communication by the finite velocity of light. Light cones - have you ever even heard of light cones? By the way, I think I should say that I have read Einstein’s own 1920 book about ten times and studied the whole book explaining his theory in phrase-by-phrase detail. This book of explanation does not actually mention light cones, and the book does not broach the matter of other universes. That came later. So I suggest you first read the book about a dozen times before making any further utterance on this matter.

On the matter of faith and religions you again show colossal misunderstanding. Physics is not a ‘religion’ at all, as is shown by an understanding of “Tat twam asi” but as scientific hypothesis succeeds hypothesis, and something like Popperian corroboration increases, thoughtful and intelligent people find in science increasing corroboration of their spiritual awareness from the facts of physics - and this cannot surprise the rational mind, for if science aims to establish factical explanations it must, insofar as it is successful in that endeavour, give SOUND REASONED SUPPORT, not vague ‘faith’, for what we call spiritual awareness.

I could say a lot more, but I shall content myself with advising you to understand what you are talking about before making any utterance on it. Sorry. I do not like issuing reproofs, but please do not try to discredit others who know a lot more than you do. There’s a saying about fools and angels. I really am sorry to have the duty to issue so stern a rebuke, but you do a serious disservice to other readers of Michael Tymn by your ignorant utterances, and my duty is to suggest that they discern which of us to take notice of. My views are deeply helpful to anyone on the journey of spiritual discovery. Yours are terrestrial - and mostly wrong anyway. Go and study the matter properly.

Eric Franklin

Eric,

I very much appreciate your comments, but as we have discussed before very few people grasp quantum mechanics as you do, including myself. I do recall getting an “A” in Physics in college 63 years ago, but that does not help me understand quantum physics.  Can you explain it here in layman’s terms?  You might be too bright for some of us.

I am 84 years old.I have spent the last 35 years ,after two ‘out of body experience’ studying life after life and have an unshakable belief in the spirit life after this one on the material earth( which as I understand it consists of only a cubic inch of material). If you can read any of Mr Tymn’s books and not be convinced,you’ll just have to go over and find out for yourself. If you live the right kind of life, you will have plenty of time to find out over there.

GPS satellites leaving earths surface have to be corrected because the separation of two objects causes the bending of space-time.  Sound like Physics now ?  Fail to see how that would aid anyone’s understanding of afterlife. Souls rising to heaven ? Bending space time ? You mention faith. Physics and cosmology is faith. Isnt the Big Bang modelled on Genesis ? Vatican astronomer Georges Lemaitre took it to St Einstein who declared it so beautiful and signed off on it.. and it became a Law of Physics. Even though the expansion coefficient could never be computed. So YES physics and cosmology require a lot of faith so it qualifies as a religion.

Dear Steve Trueblue,

No, what you say is totally incomprehensible as physics. Mumbo jumbo. I am sorry to say you have no idea what I and professional physicists who understand the matter are talking about, and your contribution simply covers my offered chink of light with total confusion. You really need to study the matter, and grasp what relativity is all about. Then you will be able to have a deep faith such as satisfies even the ‘religious’ mind.

I am very sorry to have to say this, but please take humble notice so that, after some real hard study and thought, understanding can dawn.

Eric Franklin

Relativity:  Two people finish a conversation. One walks away bending time. Physicist Wal Thornhill of Electric Universe. On E=MC squared “Physics” has not yet defined Matter or Energy after 100 yrs of Einstein. Anyone awake to this ? Hope this clarifies the matter for those wondering.

A first quick response to this paragraph in what you have written Michael (Tymn) (no time to say more - I am busy):

In one message, around 1950, Wood’s deceased brother Dennis, who had died in 1912, told Frederic that after he (Frederic) dies and joins him in the spirit world that he is going to arrange for him to give a lecture to a group of scientists on his side about the reality of the earth world.  Dennis explained that many scientists on his side do not believe that there is such a place as Earth.  Apparently, these are the same scientists who refused to believe in a spirit world when they were in their physical bodies.

***********

What Dennis Wood points out and regrets is EXACTLY the situation one would expect to be the case when the people (incarnate or not) who deny Earth’s existence are ignorant of RELATIVITY THEORY. When a person, scientist or not, understands relativity the existence of other universes present around the person but totally out of communication with her/him is almost axiomatic in its ‘certainty’. When ignorant of relativity (as 99.999% were in 1912, and 99% are now) the opposite is to be expected.

So I have to ask you and your correspondents when you will begin to take note of Relativity Theory, and realise how much the knowledge of it corroborates what Jim Beichler, HIMSELF A PHYSICIST, says, and how much ignorance of the theory obstructs understanding of what we call (the) spirit world(s)?

Please wake up. Are my words wasted upon the deaf?

Eric Franklin