Who or What is David Thompson's 'William"?

Waller. I strongly advise you to read the article. I am sure you will think a bit different then. Some things are proven and that is more than suspecting fraud.

1) Muegge did not tell the truth on some things
2) He bought big amounts of cobweb but claimed he did not
3) He deleted articles from his blog

I can state neither Braude nor Nahm wanted to debunk Muegge. They were for sure in a belive Situation, willing to find waterproof facts for the evennon believers. What came out for sure did not look that good as hoped. But those are proefessionals and so far they also had to track down that truth. The articles do not debunk Muegge in total, they just state some things seemingly are fraud and maybe others are real. I did not hear the interview but have in mind, those People invested many days and travel for their work and now see themselves faced by suspected show magic. That for sure does not make your relation better to the man claiming himself as medium.

Small box thinkers are something completely different. Those two guys really worked with believe on that story for long with the wish to prove in their heart but the responibility to show the reality in their brains. Everyone is always crying for facts, here was a fair attempt to get some. Lets see if Muegge someday reacts. He if genuine has all means to prove finally he is gifted. I would be beyond the first telling my congratulations if so.

very welcome my friend. Thanks for your kind words. I appreciate you keep your mind open for making and own impression of the things running. I did as well for long as second hand information may be interesting but not more (I exclude the reports in the Journal from that statement as a lot of passionate work and professional skills have invested in those as far as I can tell by reading the almost  EDITED 60 pages (I wrote earlier 300 sorry that was a mistake) so this one is confirmed for me especially as it fits my impressions)

Summing up the articles I have to say I would have been not so fair in my conclusions, the authors really acted like gentleman as well as professionals investigators as well as people who are still open minded. One door that leads to nowhere does not mean all doors do... and they made that point as well…some fraud may not mean all is fake any maybe as many mediums the guy was just stressed contributing the expectations from the audience. Not a working excuse in my mind. I would have loved sitting one time at a séance hearing the medium say “sorry, today we wont succeed making a contact”. Much better than being sure Louis Armstrong will sing “wonderful world” anytime and anywhere (as example)

Thanks Waller and Eternaltruths,

This is a very interesting discussion which is well worth following up. Waller we have no position but a search for the truth, as Lis has made very clear. Reality of survival is critical to both of us as Lis and I are well regarded as mediums and teachers who focus upon the reality of survival. We have seen Mr Thompson work.

I think you should have a really detailed look at the threads on here. In terms of Thompson, we have comments from two of his long term circle leaders which recommend that proper research be conducted. Read and think but remember it may not be the best thing to ask directly, a previous issue cropped up on the forum where some one on PM4U came here after being almost victimised for just asking questions. It may be better to observe and question discreetly while holding onto your own opinion.

There are many of your points which I cannot agree with, for a start if you are a physical medium you are responsible, as I am as a mental medium, for truth.

I can also bend spoons, dowse for streams etc etc but that is not mediumship just an expression of the psychic abilities inherent within all of us. Lis is a great mental and trance medium, can do transfiguration and Spirit Art. We both write and study the philosophy and history of Spiritualism with an involvement with research, other researchers, Psypioneer and we were regular contributors to Psychic News, indeed this forum took one of the major roles in ensuring it resumed publication.

Anyway its a good topic which may help move things on but our total responsibility is to the truth. There is no personal truth just a personal opinion Truth is objective and provable.

Jim

Jim

Thanks Jim. I agree with you, especially concerning questions regarding mediums like Thompson. That can run out of control. Maybe you are aware of the "Stenman Case" as I call it. Very interesting to follow the let’s call it "friendly discussion" in Roy Stenmans blog between Thompson and Roy who was interested in some things on Thompsons mediumship and received disturbing answers.

It has been deleted now in parts I guess (the site crashed), very bad luck as the comments were of high value since people who attended sittings also put some words on all. It for sure is better doing research in private and facing so called gifted mediums with facts if you have some.

Accusations without evidence are dangerous, unfair and for sure totally wrong. We for sure all want the good to come up and the higher to be proven even to the sceptics, not setting up a witch hunt.
Nevertheless frauds must be debunked as the light can only shine trough if the walls of cheating have been torn down to ground. If we say it’s time for the truth lies have no more roads to run.

eternaltruths wrote:

It has been deleted now in parts I guess (the site crashed), very bad luck as the comments were of high value since people who attended sittings also put some words on all. It for sure is better doing research in private and facing so called gifted mediums with facts if you have some.

curious

I had Roy Stemman's website listed in my 'Favourites' tab so I could easily find and visit it as I do with all my other 'regulars'.  The (cached) webpage presented when I used the link I'd saved but the site showed postings until some time in 2013 (I think it was without again checking. It was - I just checked)

Is the wesbite now not operational?  That would account for the old dates of articles.  Pity as it looked to have been an interesting place....

mac,

as far s I know Roy actually is involved in too many other things to run the site. But thats just information from third party. Keeping up such a site takes time especially if you want a certain standard. I am sure Roy is still with us. Nevertheless the site once crashed and especially the Feedback of Readers concerning Thompson vanished, I even could not get them from webarchive.org

But I totally agree, it was a an intersting place and Roy was and sure is a man of honesty and one of those guys I call healthy sceptics. We dont get a step further without evidence and Roy was searching for that, always being objective in his articles.

Thanks for your thoughts - I found the website too late it seems. no matter

Waller wrote:mac, et , others

I backed into this link

paranormalreview.com/index.php/category/mediumship/

on Stenman's to and fro with David Thompson.

Here's a question. I have notes and links to dozens of people who have had personal survival evidence presented to them in Thompson's (and Muegge's for that matter) sittings. This is evidence that meets the traditional definitions - intimate information that could only be known and shared between two people and impossible for the medium to know.

Are they all liars and/or mistaken? That is immensely improbable especially considering the reputations of many of these people, experienced in the subjects of PM, afterlife research and spirit communications. R. Craig Hogan for example.

circleofthesilvercord.net/?page_id=791

It follows then regardless of the issues about the genuineness of phenomena generation that Thompson and Muegge have provided survival evidence. If survival evidence is the key to genuine mediumship then how is it possible that Thompson and Muegge would be considered less than genuine?

The key is partly in who the evidence has been given to. For example, you may describe the most amazing personal evidence but if I do not know you and cannot assess your judgement then your testimony is of marginal value to me, though it may be incontrovertible to you. Could they all be mistaken? It depends on their individual accounts, the records of the sittings, their recollection of the circumstances and other factors to do with their bona fides as witnesses.

Waller wrote:
Waller asked: "It follows then regardless of the issues about the genuineness of phenomena generation that Thompson and Muegge have provided survival evidence. If survival evidence is the key to genuine mediumship then how is it possible that Thompson and Muegge would be considered less than genuine?"

obiwan wrote:The key is partly in who the evidence has been given to. For example, you may describe the most amazing personal evidence but if I do not know you and cannot assess your judgement then your testimony is of marginal value to me, though it may be incontrovertible to you. Could they all be mistaken? It depends on their individual accounts, the records of the sittings, their recollection of the circumstances and other factors to do with their bona fides as witnesses.

One white crow would be enough.

The sheer numbers of positive experiences, I have over two hundred many from people of irrefutable character in the parapsychological and related fields, related to post mortem survival evidence is proof beyond any reasonable doubt that the Thompson and Muegge PMs produce genuine incarnate-discarnate communications.

It is outside statistical probability that they are all mistaken, lying, fooled or idiots. I know many of them personally.

One white crow would be enough.

That's fine for you but, with respect, not much use to me as I know nothing about you or the soundness of your judgement.

The burning question is whether it is a White Crow Waller.

A lot of negative material does not reach our attention because of the forms people sign beforehand which can be backed up by a threat of legal action. Roy's was some of the strongest from a very experienced sitter.

Now what I am about to say is a hypothetical. I raise it because this is the way that the famous cheat William Roy worked and is the way that I know Camp Chesterfield used to achieve its results.

In both cases the mediums obtained copious details about sitters and people before working. They were then able to bring this intimate knowledge into play in the séances.

In Mr Thompson's case he insists on having all the details, including the id he requires on the day of the sitting, provided in the form which must be filled in. This also instructs the sitter what he may do with the information he gets in the séance. He greets each sitter on arrivaland personally seats them.

Now, given you have linked me to your blog and interests I could find out a huge amount about you within a day, if I so chose. You tell us you have regular contact with Muegge and Thompson so they have even more knowledge of you.

Some of the sitter reports, even positive one's, indicate that at times the "materialised" relative goes to the wrong person first. It is also clear that many who receive messages and comment in support either know Mr Thompson well or have been in communication with him (or communicating their excitement about their intended attendance on forums, facebook etc). Very different to all the early mediums who in test conditions, or even ordinary séances had little, or deliberately no knowledge of attendees, nor did they meet them before and then personally sit them down.

This leaves the whole issue of who is communicating and where the information coming from totally open to conjecture, making the job of sceptics very easy.

Now when two of Mr Thompson's ex circle leader, who sat with him and ran the séances for over 10 years, indicate that testing should be done it raises serious questions for me, why are they doing this? I guess Mr Thompson would come up with some reason like spite because they had been discarded but I got to know both people quite well. I may have been at odds with him but I did admire Chris Hood with his partner Rosheen Mason as the Australian circle leader and business manager respectively. They were devoted to Mr Thompson's cause previously and helped him personally in one of his darkest hours.

Here is Chris Hoods post  on this forum, he led COSC for around 6 years https://www.spiritualismlink.com/t2121-mediocrity-in-physical-mediumship and attended many of the séances where positive reports came from.

Now none of us can be certain that the William Roy scenario above is not being used and none of us can say it is being used either. I am aware Mr Thompson is a mental medium as well, but having seen him he prefers the fishing net approach throwing out material until he gets the right person. However, I have also seen him work directly to a person with survival messages so he could just be using this faculty too.

In the end I will go with his ex circle leaders, testing to prove veracity, in the meantime Mr Thompson will have his believers and his doubters even though as a doubter of his materialisation I refuse to call him a fraud because I have no specifically clear evidence and know he has mediumistic abilities.

However I will never attend a dark séance, why when so much used to be achieved in dim or full light. I have seen enough to convince me, without sitting in a dark room, in uncomfortable conditions to watch trumpets fly and be unconvinced by the messages and the trance from a guide who never was who he claims to be.

What I do hope is that all of these, if tested, prove genuine because the damage to the survival movement would be very great.

Oh by the way the link to Chris Hood's post will back also give you the key links to most of Roy Stemman's Thompson posts.

Waller wrote:

obiwan wrote:
That's fine for you but, with respect, not much use to me as I know nothing about you or the soundness of your judgement.

That's the point I am making, Wan. It has nothing to do with my judgment, your judgments or any judgments. The numbers of people regardless of who they are make it are statistically impossible that so many people who relate similar experiences in being provided post mortem survival evidence are inaccurate.

Yet for some odd reason when discussing Thompson and Muegge they are not allowed this statistical proof yet the same people who would hold up Harris, Higginson, Goold, Duncan, Home or other not-so-modern PMs claiming they are genuine.

Having never set foot in one of their seances so how do they ascertain that they were genuine? By the number of people who have testified that they were.

It's baffling this issue. Sorta.

It may be a simple difference of perspective. Personally speaking one good, well documented experience by someone I can trust trumps 100 experiences attested to by strangers I know nothing about.

I am not sure your argument in favour of numbers holds water. It seems akin to the thousands of people who claim to have been cured by televangelists - maybe they were but I wouldn't put much store in it simply based   on the numbers. Or to be crude - let's all eat horse dung, millions of flies can't be wrong.

To be serious though I do get  the point you're making, which is I think: is it possible that so many witnesses could be mistaken? My answer would be 'Yes of course it is possible' for many reasons.

Ah but is it likely they were mistaken? Well that depends on their powers of observation,  the  controls in place to  reduce the risk of fraud and the nature and quality of the survival evidence along with the trustworthiness of the witnesses.

The reports of witnesses to the two people you mention, that I have seen anyway, are mostly lacking in sufficient detail for me to assess their validity. There is also little to no evidence in most of the reports I have seen that tell me much about the sitters either.

I'm not saying that either medium is not genuine. I simply cannot tell.

Concerning Thompson I myself made the following experiences.

1 You have to show your ID Card days before.
2 You are checked with a metal detector.
3 Thompson lets the people enter slowly into the room and watches each of them entering very intense. I was first of all so I was with Thompson in the room
4 Thompson decides where the people will sit (at least this was the case when I was there)
5 Thompson talks to persons, one lady had a broken leg. Guess who later on was visited by the materialized ones?
6 The materialized have problems in the dark. Often they walk to the wrong person (happened twice when I was there) and / or touch the wrong person. The girl for example had a broken left leg. Bad luck the materialized one touched the right one for faster healing.
7 The materialized are good in reacting. Being confronted with the wrong leg of the girl, the materialized said "well this one also has problems"
8 The materialized loose their language skills. A ladies granddad (or dad) appeared and she welcomed hin in her mother language. Bad luck the materialized did not understand what she said as he seemingly lost his mother language and reacted in english.
9 The materialized seem very patient. Why else would people like Louis Armstrong spent eternity with guest starring at each Thompson event? Even if eternity has endless time, this somehow must get boring someday performing again and again.
10 The materialized prefer entertainment instead of important messages. Hand on your heart. If you came back from eternity, materialize with huge effort. What would you do. Make senseless jokes and play with luminous objects.
11 The materialized are not shaped like humans. A materialized lady entered the scene and a sitter was allowed to touch her breasts. The sitter said she feels a man.
12 The materialized love loud music. In between the seance again and again very loud music was played so you could not hear anything else.
13 The materialized Need pich black. Besides they use all the energy and ectoplasm they never ever even showed in red light when I was at a seance. Thompson and his team also used tapestrippings for the small lights on the tapedeck they used so the Little lamp would not cause a light.
14 The materialized seem to wear sneakers. This is a second hand info from another sitter who seemingly felt that when a materialized tapped on his barefoot.
15 The materialized seem to look like... I leave that open half, some sitters said that light once entered the room by fault and they could see a special person in front of them.

Point 14 and 15 are just taken from other vsitors. The rest is own experience. A longer time anyone could buy the audio recordings from the seances and besides they are cut and not full length they have some of the errors on. Now These days the Thompson page no longer has that material online for purchase. I wonder why.

Up to you. I strongly adivse anyone out there investing on your own. You may say it was a waste of money afterwards maybe but is it really a waste if you get a clear and own impression. I dont think so. And the above written which is my Impression for you already is second hand. I totally understand that noone can take that for granted in total as you dont know me.

Let me add, I wished my experiences would have been of a better kind. Not for the money but the feeling and evolvement. I nevertheless have no doubts in a higher world. I just doubt the cooperation between some people here and the ones one step in front of us.

I had a bit of survival evidence at a Dave Thompson séance back in 2003.
At the time I was a regular sitter with Colin Fry who used his large shed AKA Spirit Lodge in the back garden of his house in Haywards Heath and Dave had just moved into the house next door, I never worked out if that was coincidence or not, but Dave then started to use Colin’s Lodge to do a few public PM demonstrations. It was at one of these public demos that one of Dave’s controls, Tim, announced he had a lady called Emily who wanted to speak and asked if anybody knew an Emily. Scott Milligan was one of the sitters and he spoke up to say he knew an Emily but when Tim said she was a grandmother Scott wasn’t so sure. I then said I had a grandmother called Emily. Tim asked me if my name was Nicholas and whether that was what she’d have called me and when I said yes Tim said she’d try and come out the cabinet to speak to me. After a bit of music to build up the energy she came through with a message that I should be sitting as a physical medium myself. She then asked me if my chest was alright now as I’d had a little touch of the flu a few weeks ago. This wasn’t the case but she said Henry had said I wasn’t well. I then questioned who Henry was as I didn’t recognise the name and she said he was uncle Henry on my father’s side. At the time none of this made sense to me but when I got home I found a family tree and there was a Henry who would have been my granddad’s uncle so she would have known him as uncle Henry and he would have been my father’s great uncle.
This to my mind was good survival evidence and the fact that it wasn’t in my mind at the time goes a long way to rule out telepathy.
There were no ID checks back then, you had to book up a seat in advance but there was nothing stopping you using a false name if you wanted to. Also recording of the séance was allowed and a friend of mine recorded it and gave me a copy at the time. I have a recording of the communication on my web site, here’s a link if you wanna listen…  
http://www.mediafire.com/listen/2enk74y3d1oy30d/Emily+Gran+Dave+Thompson+PM+02.11.2003.mp3

Ahhh...the good old days!  Good evidence, Nick. It's the kind we all wish we could have and especially the sort you have to research to identify the communicator.

Now why can't all evidential mediumship be as evidential as this...???    

nice audio recording btw

Hi nick,
be sure I love to "hear" such answers. I would give months of wages for being false in my impression towards Thompson and others based on my personal experiences. What you encountered is exactly of that kind each of us wants to receive. For you sure this was good evidence and I thank you for sharing it.

nick pettitt wrote:I had a bit of survival evidence at a Dave Thompson séance back in 2003.
At the time I was a regular sitter with Colin Fry who used his large shed AKA Spirit Lodge in the back garden of his house in Haywards Heath and Dave had just moved into the house next door, I never worked out if that was coincidence or not, but Dave then started to use Colin’s Lodge to do a few public PM demonstrations. It was at one of these public demos that one of Dave’s controls, Tim, announced he had a lady called Emily who wanted to speak and asked if anybody knew an Emily. Scott Milligan was one of the sitters and he spoke up to say he knew an Emily but when Tim said she was a grandmother Scott wasn’t so sure. I then said I had a grandmother called Emily. Tim asked me if my name was Nicholas and whether that was what she’d have called me and when I said yes Tim said she’d try and come out the cabinet to speak to me. After a bit of music to build up the energy she came through with a message that I should be sitting as a physical medium myself. She then asked me if my chest was alright now as I’d had a little touch of the flu a few weeks ago. This wasn’t the case but she said Henry had said I wasn’t well. I then questioned who Henry was as I didn’t recognise the name and she said he was uncle Henry on my father’s side. At the time none of this made sense to me but when I got home I found a family tree and there was a Henry who would have been my granddad’s uncle so she would have known him as uncle Henry and he would have been my father’s great uncle.
This to my mind was good survival evidence and the fact that it wasn’t in my mind at the time goes a long way to rule out telepathy.
There were no ID checks back then, you had to book up a seat in advance but there was nothing stopping you using a false name if you wanted to. Also recording of the séance was allowed and a friend of mine recorded it and gave me a copy at the time. I have a recording of the communication on my web site, here’s a link if you wanna listen…  
http://www.mediafire.com/listen/2enk74y3d1oy30d/Emily+Gran+Dave+Thompson+PM+02.11.2003.mp3

Forgive me for saying Nick that whilst I accept you rate the evidence it doesn't strike me as strong at all. Uncle Henry being you grandad's uncle (if I read it correctly) would strike me as particularly general - I am sure we all have a Henry somewhere up the maternal and paternal lines if we look far enough.

You gave him the name Emily really it seems to me - he mentioned the name and someone said they knew an Emily (ie you), although I am not saying it was cold reading it's a common cold-reading technique.

I don't mean to sound disrespectful to you.

obiwan wrote:

nick pettitt wrote:I had a bit of survival evidence at a Dave Thompson séance back in 2003.
At the time I was a regular sitter with Colin Fry who used his large shed AKA Spirit Lodge in the back garden of his house in Haywards Heath and Dave had just moved into the house next door, I never worked out if that was coincidence or not, but Dave then started to use Colin’s Lodge to do a few public PM demonstrations. It was at one of these public demos that one of Dave’s controls, Tim, announced he had a lady called Emily who wanted to speak and asked if anybody knew an Emily. Scott Milligan was one of the sitters and he spoke up to say he knew an Emily but when Tim said she was a grandmother Scott wasn’t so sure. I then said I had a grandmother called Emily. Tim asked me if my name was Nicholas and whether that was what she’d have called me and when I said yes Tim said she’d try and come out the cabinet to speak to me. After a bit of music to build up the energy she came through with a message that I should be sitting as a physical medium myself. She then asked me if my chest was alright now as I’d had a little touch of the flu a few weeks ago. This wasn’t the case but she said Henry had said I wasn’t well. I then questioned who Henry was as I didn’t recognise the name and she said he was uncle Henry on my father’s side. At the time none of this made sense to me but when I got home I found a family tree and there was a Henry who would have been my granddad’s uncle so she would have known him as uncle Henry and he would have been my father’s great uncle.
This to my mind was good survival evidence and the fact that it wasn’t in my mind at the time goes a long way to rule out telepathy.
There were no ID checks back then, you had to book up a seat in advance but there was nothing stopping you using a false name if you wanted to. Also recording of the séance was allowed and a friend of mine recorded it and gave me a copy at the time. I have a recording of the communication on my web site, here’s a link if you wanna listen…  
http://www.mediafire.com/listen/2enk74y3d1oy30d/Emily+Gran+Dave+Thompson+PM+02.11.2003.mp3

Forgive me for saying Nick that whilst I accept you rate the evidence it doesn't strike me as strong at all. Uncle Henry being you grandad's uncle (if I read it correctly) would strike me as particularly general - I am sure we all have a Henry somewhere up the maternal and paternal lines if we look far enough.

You gave him the name Emily really it seems to me - he mentioned the name and someone said they knew an Emily (ie you), although I am not saying it was cold reading it's a common cold-reading technique.

I don't mean to sound disrespectful to you.

Yes you’re right, and of course it would have been much more evidential if he had come straight to me and said I’ve got your gran Emily here instead of asking the initial questions to everybody in the room, although I did wait till he’d confirmed it was a grandmother called Emily before I said anything.
When Henry came into the conversation and I questioned who he was she said it was uncle Henry. Uncle Henry was my granddad’s uncle so he was probably know also to my gran as uncle Henry at the time.
I don’t know what the odds are of one of the sitters, I think there were about 20, having a grandmother called Emily who had an uncle called Henry. The only thing I know for sure is that nobody in the room that night knew about Emily or Henry and I only knew about Emily.

Fair comment. It might not be as much of a stretch as you'd think but I take your points.

Yes you’re right, and of course it would have been much more evidential if he had come straight to me and said I’ve got your gran Emily here instead of asking the initial questions to everybody in the room, although I did wait till he’d confirmed it was a grandmother called Emily before I said anything. wrote:

Interesting but it sounds a lot like mental mediumship not physical mediumship Nick. I have seen him work at that, throwing information into the room, so it sounds very familiar but that would not be in trance, it actually adds a question for me.

Admin wrote:

throwing information into the room.

Well quite.

Waller wrote:

obiwan wrote:Fair comment. It might not be as much of a stretch as you'd think but I take your points.

What are the pure statistics on this event happening by chance?

I suspect it would be difficult to assess. My, perhaps cynical view, in the worst case might look like this..with no disrespect to Nick and apologies for cutting it down a bit:

Medium: I'm getting the name Emily (not to anyone in particular);

Nick: my grandma was called Emily (this is given by Nick,  not the medium)

Medium: and Uncle Henry

(Whose uncle? If medium assumes it is someone related to Emily then possibly up to a couple of generations a back. The medium doesn't say who Henry is the uncle of. So this Henry could be anywhere in the family tree.

Question: how common was Henry as a name then? Let's assume fairly common. I know I have a couple of Henrys in my family tree,  so does my partner.

It turns out that Henry is actually Emily's uncle. The medium doesn't say this, Nick identifies it.)

Now I am not saying what the medium was doing was fishing or disingenuous. Also, I am picking a couple of pieces out of a longer conversation. It might well be the case that the communication was exactly what Nick interpreted it to be. The point I am making is that from an evidential point of view, to me, it is weak. This is of course simply my subjective judgement of the report.

It's important to take into account what a medium gets wrong, rather than just looking at what they got right. I once saw a highly regarded medium perform in public and she gave some impressive evidence of survival, but that evidence was overwhelmed by the constant fishing and questions she asked, as well as the numerous things she said that were wrong. The hits outnumbered the misses by close to ten to one, and seriously undermined any credibility she had in my eyes.

Waller asked about statistics, and for that event I took a notebook and recorded ticks for hits and crosses for misses, if I also wrote down the number of questions she asked I would have run out of pages   

My point would be that by being as objective as possible, and taking into account everything that was right, and everything that was wrong, you have a better chance of making a fair assessment of how a medium performed on the day in question.

Wes wrote:It's important to take into account what a medium gets wrong, rather than just looking at what they got right.  I once saw a highly regarded medium perform in public and she gave some impressive evidence of survival, but that evidence was overwhelmed by the constant fishing and questions she asked, as well as the numerous things she said that were wrong.  The hits outnumbered the misses by close to ten to one, and seriously undermined any credibility she had in my eyes.

Waller asked about statistics, and for that event I took a notebook and recorded ticks for hits and crosses for misses, if I also wrote down the number of questions she asked I would have run out of pages   

My point would be that by being as objective as possible, and taking into account everything that was right, and everything that was wrong, you have a better chance of making a fair assessment of how a medium performed on the day in question.

IMHO Wes it's not just what is right and what is wrong, but also how the information was obtained (which you also allude to).