Swedish Medium Caught Cheating Part two Light

Admin wrote:

Azur wrote:

Lis wrote:

Azur wrote: Here it goes again This topic is all a little boring now

And at this stage it's tit for tat.

If the subject is boring you Azur - don't read it. No one is forcing you to.

With respect, though, my response has nothing to do with 'tit for tat' as if you care to read what I wrote I was also responding to a query by Quiet.

Lis it's a forum for spiritualistic and so-called topics, of course I will read. I am a member after all.

But I reckon it's time to build a bridge and get over it, as far, as this topic is concerned.

Azur you have absolutely no right to decide what is, or what is not appropriate upon this forum. If you feel this thread no longer interests you then read it or not but never make comments like this again.

It is not by the way

a forum for spiritualistic and so-called topics,

it is a forum about Spiritualism where other things may appear in specific areas. My personal take is there is a lot of valid material in this thread and I am surprised that you have taken no interest in some of the items posted because you find them

boring

.

Enough, you will not speak to other posters in this way again it is against the ethos of the forum. It is also important that you do not decide for us what is or is not appropriate.

Whatever happened to freedom of speech Jim, I was just giving my view, what I thought.

Sorry it my words came across as insulting, but it was never my intention to hurt another.

As far as deciding what is and not appropriate for this forum, I never did, all I did was state my view.

Azur wrote:

Admin wrote:

Azur wrote:

Lis wrote:

Azur wrote: Here it goes again This topic is all a little boring now

And at this stage it's tit for tat.

If the subject is boring you Azur - don't read it. No one is forcing you to.

With respect, though, my response has nothing to do with 'tit for tat' as if you care to read what I wrote I was also responding to a query by Quiet.

Lis it's a forum for spiritualistic and so-called topics, of course I will read. I am a member after all.

But I reckon it's time to build a bridge and get over it, as far, as this topic is concerned.

Azur you have absolutely no right to decide what is, or what is not appropriate upon this forum. If you feel this thread no longer interests you then read it or not but never make comments like this again.

It is not by the way

a forum for spiritualistic and so-called topics,

it is a forum about Spiritualism where other things may appear in specific areas. My personal take is there is a lot of valid material in this thread and I am surprised that you have taken no interest in some of the items posted because you find them

boring

.

Enough, you will not speak to other posters in this way again it is against the ethos of the forum. It is also important that you do not decide for us what is or is not appropriate.

Whatever happened to freedom of speech Jim, I was just giving my view, what I thought.

Sorry it my words came across as insulting, but it was never my intention to hurt another.

As far as deciding what is and not appropriate for this forum, I never did, all I did was state my view.

Even when we state our view Azur we have a personal responsibility to phrase it in a way that will not cause harm. There is freedom of speech on this forum, more than most, but words like, here we go again, boring, build a bridge and get over it, are never going to set the right scene for dialogue. Given Light of Truths comments and the immediate appearance of COSC on this thread I belive that you may have misunderstood some of the issues. Sadly, it must be clear that, whatever your intentions, hurt was done, sadly we all get this one wrong all too often, me included. To state our individual views is fine, but the way we state them is very important.

I understand you and others are bored with this thread. Personally it has drawn some very interesting information out, including more research on other areas. I do not think this was, in Wes's words a troll post, although I quite understand his thoughts behind that, I believed, from the first, it was a post with some deeper issues behind it relating to Physical Mediumship.

Indeed the theme of this thread has been turned to one of judgement by Light of Truth so let us steer away from that because words like boring are judgemental.

thank you lis for your words of wisdom. the light of love and progression is open to all Azur included. as to mac, i am not a troll and neither a sceptic but in fact a very knowledgeable spiritualist, being humble is a challenge you and everyone is to face someday. to the negatives on here i wish you the light of truth, humbleness, forgiveness and knowledge which i pray the new year brings you and blessings to all x

lis my contribution is not and never was meant to be one of judgement. you are very correct judgement is something every soul should steer away from. our paths may someday cross in the physical mediumship arena for those of you who will be blessed to experience genuine phenomena. i wish you all blessings of warmth and love x

i apologise if i have mixed names up mac. as to being a modern spiritualist or a spiritualist- i have been a spiritualist for 25 years and experienced in physical phenomena for 23years, so not sure if that makes me old or modern. i however class myself as a spiritualist. just plain simple - spiritualist! i do however move with the times..lol

this is however the first time i have encountered differences in being spiritualist...lol. i find this a very interesting concept to grasp :-)

i must google up what a troll is! sounds fascinating if not an amusing name to call a human being! :-)

toll- a supernatural being in norse mythology and scandinavian folklore! lol :-) rest assured- that i am not :-D

every soul is at different levels of evolvement and knowledge, some more so than others.not reconciling your level of understanding with mine is quite natural. we are different souls on different pathways of knowledge and understanding but each and every one of us will always still have a long way to go!

Hi Light of Truth,

Perhaps English is not your first language? Troll is widely used term in English speaking internet forum circles to describe an individual who seeks to disrupt the forum through a variety of strategies. People interpret trollish behaviour differently, however. I would not have seen you as a troll.

I think that Anders Akesson has lost an immense amount of credibility by his deception and he may never recover from that. It's one thing to forgive, however, and another to trust. The situation is not beyond redemption but it will take some years, I suspect, if he wants to do that.

With the Internet and social media these days, it is very hard to keep these things secret especially where such sensitive subjects as mediumship and spiritualism are concerned.

Mr. Akesson would have known that he was cheating and that there could be consequences. He seems to have made a huge error of judgement. He also seems also to have a vested interest in his mediumship and it is very hard to maintain absolute purity when that occurs. Maybe it was a good lesson for him and for all of us. There have been episodes in the UK, I think, where the pressure to perform has led to suspect behaviour from mediums. It gets a little murky.

Someone earlier in this discussion raised questions as to whether it is worth pursuing physical phenomena at the public level now. It is perhaps too fraught with risk of fraudulence at the worst and misunderstanding at the best. There was a group in the city where I live which pursued these manifestations for years and all they managed was to see tables move and that was a huge effort. I wondered whether it was worth it and how much it actually proved. The leader of that group was not a person I particularly admired (from what I knew of his organisational skills) but he seemed set on proving physical mediumship. Possibly that was his door to understanding, however.

Whilst acknowledging that everyone is at different stages of spiritual evolution, I feel concerned when this concept comes up in discussions like this. It seems to be happening more frequently in public forums and to me it seems like another of saying that one person is better than another.

We each must inevitably use uniquely personal interpretations about what spiritual evolvement means. By the way, I recently had an encounter with another person of Swedish nationality who felt she is more spiritually evolved than I am. She might be right but I took it as a bit of a 'put-down' anyway . I left that forum. We simply had a disagreement about how to handle public and bruising internet fights. She seemed to take the matter as a contest between good and evil.

Sometimes we get tied up in things that are not worth the struggle.

hi quiet. perhaps english is not my first language? how so right lis is. quit the put downs. english is very much my first language. i however will not ask if perhaps german is yours? no, i will not take on such assumptions. a simple google of trolll will show you the folklore of troll :-)
it is sad that in your area all that was experienced was table movement. this is not the case in all of the UK (i reside in England by the way and speak the language of english!) :-)
it is sad to hear you have had an experience of being told you were not as evolved as the said person felt she was. that kind of knowledge as to your stage of evolvement would not be hers to know. i agree with you that sometimes we get tied up in things that are not worth the struggle. spriritualism needs to unite and not divide. Blessings x

PS, Light of Truth, welcome to the forum . I do like this place. There are few places where these discussions can be held.

you are welcome quiet and thank you for the warm welcome x

physical mediumship when witnessed at its best is a truly wondrous gift. heavy tables levitating and spinning at an incredibly fast rate up at ceiling height, direct voice, little toddlers appearing in the seance room running around playing and coming up to touch and hug with their little hands, and ultimately materialisation! people materialising from the other side and conversing with loved ones in a foreign language together (bear in mind the medium could only speak english!), and these two people chatted away in this foreign language :-) now that is truly wonderful! i am blessed to have witnessed all this. i accept fraud is unacceptable but true genuine physical phenomena does exist today!

light of truth wrote:hi quiet. perhaps english is not my first language? how so right lis is. quit the put downs. english is very much my first language. i however will not ask if perhaps german is yours? no, i will not take on such assumptions. a simple google of trolll will show you the folklore of troll :-)
it is sad that in your area all that was experienced was table movement. this is not the case in all of the UK (i reside in England by the way and speak the language of english!) :-)
it is sad to hear you have had an experience of being told you were not as evolved as the said person felt she was. that kind of knowledge as to your stage of evolvement would not be hers to know. i agree with you that sometimes we get tied up in things that are not worth the struggle. spriritualism needs to unite and not divide. Blessings x

We cross posted. I didn't mean to put you down by that question of language , by the way. Words and meaning interest me immensely. We have to be very careful and respectful in trying to understand what others are saying. By the way, it was years before I understood what trolling, flaming et al meant in Internet parlance.

I think it is good to have discussions like the one in this thread because we all learn something different from them, although they be painful at times. I sense a gentleness in you and would not want to hurt you or anyone else,

The physical phenomena thing was not necessary for me to believe but I wanted to see it just once. Something very interesting did happen there in all the table moving. With most of us the table moved in a somewhat jagged and jerky fashion. With one person, however, the table seemed to dance gently before her. I understood from that that her energy and ambience was possibly very different from those of the rest of us . She was homeopath, a healer, and quite peaceful. The spirit presence behind the table seemed to acknowledge that.

Nothing is ever wasted, eh .

light of truth wrote:physical mediumship when witnessed at its best is a truly wondrous gift. heavy tables levitating and spinning at an incredibly fast rate up at ceiling height, direct voice, little toddlers appearing in the seance room running around playing and coming up to touch and hug with their little hands, and ultimately materialisation! people materialising from the other side and conversing with loved ones in a foreign language together (bear in mind the medium could only speak english!), and these two people chatted away in this foreign language :-) now that is truly wonderful! i am blessed to have witnessed all this. i accept fraud is unacceptable but true genuine physical phenomena does exist today!

I read about physical mediumship in Maurice Barbanell's book on spiritualism and also in some of Arthur Findlay's material. I live in the colonies though and we are not, perhaps, so advanced. Or if there are groups where this happens, I don't know about them. My teacher experiences transformation sometimes but I have not actually seen this.

Thanks for the reply

light of truth wrote:physical mediumship when witnessed at its best is a truly wondrous gift. heavy tables levitating and spinning at an incredibly fast rate up at ceiling height, direct voice, little toddlers appearing in the seance room running around playing and coming up to touch and hug with their little hands, and ultimately materialisation! people materialising from the other side and conversing with loved ones in a foreign language together (bear in mind the medium could only speak english!), and these two people chatted away in this foreign language :-) now that is truly wonderful! i am blessed to have witnessed all this. i accept fraud is unacceptable but true genuine physical phenomena does exist today!

It is all very well to make these claims l-o-t but have you any published evidence that this is so?

The phenomena is neither here nor there. It is evidence of survival that counts not levitating tables nor flying trumpets.

zerdini wrote:

light of truth wrote:physical mediumship when witnessed at its best is a truly wondrous gift. heavy tables levitating and spinning at an incredibly fast rate up at ceiling height, direct voice, little toddlers appearing in the seance room running around playing and coming up to touch and hug with their little hands, and ultimately materialisation! people materialising from the other side and conversing with loved ones in a foreign language together (bear in mind the medium could only speak english!), and these two people chatted away in this foreign language :-) now that is truly wonderful! i am blessed to have witnessed all this. i accept fraud is unacceptable but true genuine physical phenomena does exist today!

It is all very well to make these claims l-o-t but have you any published evidence that this is so?

The phenomena is neither here nor there. It is evidence of survival that counts not levitating tables nor flying trumpets.

Hi Zerdini,

I've changed the emphasis in your post because I think that was your main question. I know that you were not directing your question at me but I would like to respond anyway.

Knowing my own teacher's capacity for some form of physical mediumship I don't doubt that it exists today. Perhaps it is not anywhere near as common as it was in the days of Findlay and Barbanell. I would be hesitant to see how media, the way it is today, would treat physical phenomena. If physical phenomena is designed to communicate with a few in closed circles perhaps it is better that it remains private. We don't need it to prove anything.

Physical mediumship occurred in its main phase at a particular point in the development of spiritualism but if traditional mediumship is to change, perhaps physical mediumship will also gradually disappear. Who knows? I'm interested to see what happens but we might not ever really know.

I suspect the Swedish man got into murky waters because he is quite public, and involved with the media. That partly illustrates my point. If there were physical mediums prepared to submit to scientific examination, well and good, but I feel this will become increasingly unlikely and I wonder why it is necessary anyway. Even the most rigorous scientifically tested phenomena are always open to question. And there will always be committed sceptics.

Quiet wrote:Hi Light of Truth,

" ... I think that Anders Akesson has lost an immense amount of credibility by his deception and he may never recover from that. It's one thing to forgive, however, and another to trust. The situation is not beyond redemption but it will take some years, I suspect, if he wants to do that.

With the Internet and social media these days, it is very hard to keep these things secret especially where such sensitive subjects as mediumship and spiritualism are concerned.

Mr. Akesson would have known that he was cheating and that there could be consequences. He seems to have made a huge error of judgement. He also seems also to have a vested interest in his mediumship and it is very hard to maintain absolute purity when that occurs. Maybe it was a good lesson for him and for all of us. There have been episodes in the UK, I think, where the pressure to perform has led to suspect behaviour from mediums. It gets a little murky.

I think that Quiet makes two important points in the quote above. First, in regard to Anders Akesson, I think she is right in saying that while we may, as Spiritualists, strive to be forgiving of a person's transgressions, to ignore the reality that a person has been willing to cheat, is unwise, and to trust them after they have been exposed as acting fraudulently is something that would not come easily to most people. Akerson has, by his actions, lost the trust of people who believed in him as a genuine medium.

The second point, which draws attention to a very real problem that has occurred throughout the history of physical mediumship, is of immense importance, and raises a very significant concern, highlighted by the debate about Akesson. Physical mediumship, by its very nature is based on the production of 'phenomena.' That phenomena may include 'materialisation' in which case we are then talking about a means of providing evidence of survival of the human spirit. Phenomena in physical seances that falls short of materialisation may, or may not, be viewed as offering indications of the possibility of survival, but may also merely demonstrate some form of psychokinetic ability on the part of the medium.

Either way, as Quiet has observed, there have been in the past and in present times, incidences where a 'genuine' physical mediums had been 'tempted' (be that due to the pressure to perform, or because they wish to aggrandize themselves) to fraudulently produce phenomena. This raises the question: To what degree, if at all, should we place trust, reliance, or belief in a medium who has been caught cheating, after that event?

We know there are a number of cases, the most obvious being Eusapia Palladino, who was clearly known to be both capable of genuine phenomena and who was just as inclined to cheat, if the opportunity arose, rather than work genuinely. Some researchers were willing to 'forgive' this moral 'frailty' others were not. The difficulty is, of course, how can we be sure that a medium who has been known to cheat, is not still cheating, but just not caught out at it the next time they do it. How can we be sure they were not always cheating and simply got away with with it in the past.

The only answer I can come up with is to insist that on all occasions a medium who has previously been caught cheating is to hold a physical seance there would need to be the strictest test conditions in place to prevent fraud occurring again. Only if that was done could such a medium be able to build up trust in their mediumistic abilities again. Having said that, I do find myself wondering whether it is worth the effort to do this for a medium who has been known to cheat in the past. Surely it would be better to seek out, and encourage the development of other mediums, mediums who are of the moral, ethical, and spiritual character, that would not want to cheat, and put our energy into them to help bring the truth of survival forward.

It may be a crass example, but I cannot help thinking of the'dodgy' car salesman. If you buy a car, and it turns out to be a dud with all sorts of hidden defects, and the man you brought it from knew it and deliberately cheated you out of your money by selling you the car, would you really want to go back and buy a second car from them? I rather think you would go elsewhere and prefer to deal with a reputable car dealer.

Quiet, you talk with wisdom. Zerdini, im not here to make claims, i just said what i have witnessed in over 2 decades! if you sat with the said medium, you would see the same but as you obviously have not seen such then you do not have the access to see phenomena on that level or access to such mediums. I have been truly blessed and for that i am grateful to spirit. i am still blessed to witness the wonderful phenomena of genuine physical mediumship. Blessings to you all x

Quiet, the gentleness you sense in me is because it is so. i feel a good soul in you too. may the light of love keep shining on us

light of truth wrote:Quiet, the gentleness you sense in me is because it is so. i feel a good soul in you too. may the light of love keep shining on us

But you are making claims. Claims about the phenomena you have witnessed and what it means.

obiwan wrote:But you are making claims. Claims about the phenomena you have witnessed and what it means.

Obiwan, I think we all do this to some extent. It is natural to attribute meaning to what one sees.

In terms of physical phenomena, those people who sat in the circles that Findlay and Barbanell documented would have felt the same as light of truth. My first teacher is a wonderful trance medium and I used to feel an immense sense of happiness and privilege when she spoke in trance in our circle. Sometimes she would have a question and answer session where we could ask personal questions and I used to leave these sessions feeling very moved.

It's OK to express joy about what one experiences. As we grow spiritually I think that what gives us joy might change. I have been mentally documenting my own progression in life and since I discovered some of the fundamentals which Spiritualism teaches and I can see those crests of happiness and achievement. There have also been huge troughs, close to despair. But I've realised over this holiday period that I must progress towards something else, something to do with the internal peace which requires a much more fundamental consistency in attitudes and practice. I wasn't ready for that in the early days of my association with spiritualism. I think I am ready for that now but know also that those crests of joy might need to become deep currents from discipline and hard work and, to be honest, I'd prefer that.

It is really just about progression and which applies to everyone.

So I think there is absolutely nothing questionable about circles who use physical phenomena, just as long as they don't sensationalise it or become untrustworthy with it. These sorts of things used to happen quite regularly in the early days of my current teachers mediumship but they were in private circles and just became part of ordinary practice. The documentation exists already in the works of Barbanell and others.

We get into trouble when money is concerned and people use their gifts or skills to seek public recognition and the money that often comes with it. We get into trouble when people think they know more than they do and seek to become public figures or gurus, small and large. It's a little like the recovered alcoholic or drug addict who seeks a job in rehab. clinic in his first few months of sobriety.

Some of us may encounter negative experiences along the way (I have) but we just have to pick ourselves up and keep looking for what is right for us. Jane Lyzell will have to do that as well, and others affected by this man.

I think the big things happen in small ways, so small that we sometimes miss them. I am right now re reading Ursula Roberts' autobiography, 'Living in Two Worlds', and she discusses just this kind of process. Silver Birch says something similar: that Spirit will guide us. Sometimes I think some of us try to take over the reins when there is not even a horse beneath us. To make an appalling joke - that only leads to nightmares. The Swedish man has found himself in such a nightmare.

One more comment about proof of survival, Spiritualism isn't just about that. The trance revelations from spirits such as Ramadahn, Chan, Silver Birch and others contain information about living that you can see in all the great philosophies.

I have just been reading some material from Silver Birch which is a simple explanation of the quite complex idea of karma. In fact Silver Birch almost says that the Higher Power is Karma but I'm simplifying that terribly I suspect.

Another thing, people sitting in a circle over periods of time, who know each other, would not necessarily require the same evidential proof all the time.

Even with my limited experience, I've been given messages which come almost as asides but contain meaning which is unique to me. Some of it has not been 'evidential' in the concrete way.

I guess in a way I'm responding to Lis' suggestion that physical phenomena is not necessarily proof of survival. That may be so on occasion but it is hard to make a set of principles apply to every situation.

Lis wrote:

zerdini wrote:

The following words were written in 1907, however they reflect the sentiments of many earlier Spiritualists who recorded the wisdom, knowledge and truth given to them by the spirit world.

Whie I concur with the sentiments expressed in the quote it would be nice to know the author, Lis.
Thanks and Happy New Year to you both.
Z

Hi Z,

Apologies! The quotes come from a curious little publication written by a Spiritist rather than a Spiritualist, however, while I have read similiar sentiments in many different early books, the wording in this 1907 book just seemed to convey the issue nicely as a response to a question from Quiet.

The book is 'The Sacred Book of Death' written by Dr. L. W. de Laurance (de Laurence)

Thanks Lis.