Reactions to the AFC protocol for physical mediums

by mac Fri Jan 09, 2015 4:39 am

Interesting thread on PM4U - it gives an insight into the way the AFC's protocol has ruffled the feathers of folk who aren't impacted anyway and may not be Spiritualists either. Read bottom to top to get the correct chronological sequence. Yesterday refers to Wednesday January 7. Extraneous material such as photos have been stripped out but can be seen on the PM4U website.

Comment by james johnson 7 minutes ago
No offence was taken.

Comment by Kai Muegge 1 hour ago
Yeah, no, excuse me, i know, i simply used your name to express myself! No offense meant. Smile

)

Comment by james johnson 2 hours ago

"Additionally after an initial darkness phase modern mediums CAN demonstrate in red light certain phenomena for everybody to see. Have a look at our website to see actual experimentation going on showing trumpets levitated in red light for expample - after an initial darkness phase!"
If that remark is also directed at me then I think you've missed the point, Kai. It's not me needing persuasion about physical mediumship. I'm on board.

Comment by james johnson 2 hours ago

Although your reply mentions me by name, what you've written is not a response to the simple points I have consistently been making. Additionally my points do not raise any points concerning the as-yet-unlinked quantum physics and spiritual dimensions. Neither did I say anything sought to challenge your point about physical mediumship needing to grow in the dark. That's naturally for you mediums to work on in collaboration with your helpers and nothing I've said seeks to deny that.

I've kept to the issues raised by the AFC's new protocol, the points raised initially by Neal. It's not me you need to persuade. It's not me who created the rules under which the mediums will have to work at the AFC. Since there's only been Scott Milligan mentioned by name thus far, I can't see that it's going to make much of an immediate change other than for the (mostly) Spiritualist members (I'm guessing) who attend the college.
Like it or loath it the protocol is now in place and protests are likely to achieve little - just think back to the Psychic News debacle that left the publication a shell of its former importance - I doubt that this issue is likely to be as important as that was.

And the upshot of all this is that it's a comparatively minor and parochial issue compared with the international physical mediumship scene, would you not agree?

Comment by Kai Muegge 3 hours ago
Additionally after an initial darkness phase modern mediums CAN demonstrate in red light certain phenomena for everybody to see. Have a look at our website to see actual experimentation going on showing trumpets levitated in red light for expample - after an initial darkness phase!

Comment by Kai Muegge 3 hours ago

James, as i said, there was never and there is no physical medium in which the things do no nedd to be developed from a darkness environment into different degrees of light for different phenomena.
It is the Physical Mediumship tradition that puts their mediums bound and roped into cabinets and feels unsure then letting the medium alone when things happen in the room. Having one or two people holding the medium for example would take away the insecurity felt in regards to presented phenomena.
After years of discussion with spirit controls they do align with quantum physics results in reg to the 'observer effect' within quantum physics experimentation: they showed clearly the heavy influence of the humans consciousness with sensible processes.

In fact it is not the darkness that is needed. Many parapsychologists consider the darkness as 'perception distorting' momentum as the necessary momentum to have those phenomena triggered within our reality!
From that theory the nonlocality theorem of schroedingers cat creates a state of consciousness that is like a blind spot. As long as we do not see the cat in the box from a quantum view of things the cat could be at the same time in AND out of the box.

That blind spot of the undetectability of the human perception could enable spirit to enter our dimensional reality physically.

We are long since persuaded from spirit discussion that it is in fact not darkness that is needed but the state of consciousness darkness is creating!

If that space cannot be created anymore, even with strictly held mediums physical mediumship has no chance. l would moreover like to underline THAT IT WAS ALWAYS SPIRITs NEED FOR DARKNESS! I guess the most mediums could easily live with any light conditions!

Comment by james johnson 7 hours ago

quote: "The new attempt of rejection of Physical Mediumship within the AFC is subtly shifted onto the shoulders of the mediums themselves. They only have to throw overboard a most basic and necessary aspect within demonstration...and early they ll be allowed to come back! Purposeful calculatio!
We know of decades unfruitful experimentation banning darkness. It did not work!
So it will take long until the unquestionable reality of physical spirit interaction can be demonstrated again by a Physical Medium within the College!"

Physical mediumship isn't, of course, being rejected. What's being rejected is the earlier approach, the idea being that demonstrations should in future be able to be seen clearly and/or monitored along with video recording. If it's the case that modern-day mediums can only operate in the dark then it's the intention of the AFC that they won't be allowed to demonstrate it there.

I'm not aware how many mediums will be affected but perhaps someone on this website can bring us up to speed - just how many individuals will be adversely impacted by the new protocol?

Comment by james johnson 8 hours ago

The AFC has every right to determine the protocol acceptable for demonstrations given on its premises. And every medium has the right to reject it and not demonstrate there. But I doubt very much that there's any misunderstanding or misinterpretation of the historical situation surrounding physical mediumship.
What you see as wishful thinking is simply a desire that physical mediumship be demonstrated under conditions where fraud can not reasonably be alleged. The production of physical phenomena isn't by itself an indication of spirit involvement no matter what one might claim and it is a moot point what phenomena in isolation actually demonstrate. The AFC naturally represents the position of Spiritualism in this regard and there's no point in expecting a different approach from that body. That won't change any more than the approach of modern day mediums will change unless both try to accommodate one another's wishes.
One obvious response to the AFC's demands is to engage with that organisation and ask to test, in the safety of their home group, the devices offered to Scott Milligan.

Comment by Kai Muegge 9 hours ago

The new attempt of rejection of Physical Mediumship within the AFC is subtly shifted onto the shoulders of the mediums themselves. They only have to throw overboard a most basic and necessary aspect within demonstration...and early they ll be allowed to come back! Purposeful calculatio!
We know of decades unfruitful experimentation banning darkness. It did not work!
So it will take long until the unquestionable reality of physical spirit interaction can be demonstrated again by a Physical Medium within the College!

Comment by Kai Muegge 9 hours ago

I guess Neal as many others saw in AFCs work with Milligan a sign of opening.
Afc a few years ago actually still announced PM is extincted since the 50ies.
Their stance resulted at least partially, if not mainly from misunderstandings or from misinterpretation of historical physical mediumship and resulting expectations towards modern Physmediums that could not be fulfilled by them: Unquestionably identifyable materializations of deceased loved ones as the only justiyable mediumistic service for grief processes of people.

Physical phenomena per se, may they give us insight about spirit 'technology', its range of influence and spirit/human interplay and more were not regarded as worthwhile.
A dogma relating to demonstration of PM was the result.
No modern physical medium seemed to fulfill what was expected after having taken historical reports not under independent consideration: 'Survivalism' had overheightened what allegedly had happened in materialization and PM séances. What they havenot taken into consideration was the psychology of grief and what it did and does to the perception of those inmidst of a loss.
So many expected the AFC would open to the reality of todays spirit demonstration and not carry on to exercise wishful thinking.
Not that survivalistic proof is not part anymore within physmed of today but obviously not anymore to a degree that is expected.
Why that is the case can be opened to discussion of course but a reason to ban it is surely not or is it?
Peace!

Comment by james johnson 12 hours ago

Plainly we are all singing from the hymn sheet! What we should reflect on now, though, is the context of this discussion, that of the future, specific requirements of the Arthur Findlay College in connection with the demonstration of physical mediumship.

From what I've been reading there won't be many physical mediums impacted by the new requirements. Neal's remarks that the AFC has nixed demonstrations of physical mediumship appears to affect only Scott Milligan who (I understand) has withdrawn from his planned programme of demonstrations. I'm not aware that any of the other named individuals or the unnamed medicine men had any commitments at AFC anyway so it's hard to see how they would be left out as Neal suggests. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

It needs no explanation why those requirements have been instituted and although they are onerous the intention is simple and our unseen friends will surely not disagree with the motives for such a protocol. I'm not a fortune teller, I don't predict the future, but I am confident in saying that unless physical mediumship emerges from the dimly lit or dark conditions still so often adopted, doubts about authenticity will continue unassuaged.
Are we prepared to accept that status quo?

Comment by Kai Muegge 14 hours ago

You are all dearly welcome! We are all together on a journey so unique and mysterious, so strange and often contradictory, that it is important to enrich each other with content and opinion about the yet not fully revealed and understood interplay of human consciousness and objective reality! Love from Germany!

Comment by Barry Carter 17 hours ago
let spirit guide you

Comment by Christine Di Nucci 18 hours ago

Hi Tim...I was just going to say the same! Thank you Kai for taking the time to explain in detail such relevant information so that others can better understand the subject as a whole. I have always felt that it is necessary for both light and darkness to be embraced on equal terms, for without darkness lights cannot be seen, and without the light shadows are invisible.

Comment by tim doyle 18 hours ago

Just wanted to say thanks to Kai for all his input on this subject, must have taken quite a time to type all the info and in such depth too, he highlights for me where generalisations in many reports and documenteries, videos etc can and have been misleading, making one think that these phenomena were more prevalent than they actually were or happened in lit conditions etc. thank you for your dedication in trying to get the right information across.

Comment by Kai Muegge 20 hours ago

Absolutely not. You are right with your wants! Your words in the interest of physical mediumship, your want that these special mediumistical features are even more respected i did not want to negate. They are in the interest of a general acceptance of what is going on. But what is important to state is that with the most mediums you SEE a lot.
And there are only very few mediums today that doesn t present visual phenomena!
The visual part of demonstrations is the most important in my opinion as well!
We are working forward in the eleventh year of existence the most things to become visible: direct apports, morphing ectoplasm, faces and heads of the deceased, affected focus objects in a distance, spirit hands! ALL VISIBLE IN FEG SEANCES! Touches though are only felt in the darkness, some so called mimikry sound phenomena (raps at the ceiling and walls, hearing spirit walking through the room) are heard during darkness phases.
So i am fully with you!
I only wanted to clearly underline that there is a huge misunderstanding in regards to FULL MATERIALIZATIONS specifically, they were never really good visible and the grade of visual content of a fully hooded figure in dark red light (Katie Kings are so few and never happened agajn in such a repeatability) is not really higher than a figure walking around and touching people in the dark.
The visual phenomena are unquestionably the most interesting!
Love from Germany, Kai

Comment by james johnson 22 hours ago

I understood your point about so-called daylight mediums and that they were exceptional.
My points related to the situation for our less-exceptional physical mediums where the demonstration of phenomena in low-light will allow the sitters to actually witness what's happening. I'm sure we can agree that unless there is an adequate level of illumination (of whatever color) then ordinary folk will not be able to see adequately. And if there is no light, or a very low level which makes vision problematic, then sitters will not see things clearly or may not see anything at all. Under those conditions phenomena are experienced but not actually seen.

I'm simply stating what surely must be obvious when I say that the unique value of physical mediumship is greatly diminished, or even lost, if what occurs can't actually clearly be seen. Am I then wrong to think that physical mediums don't aspire to demonstrating to sitters their very special attributes in the best way possible, in good light?

Comment by rion 22 hours ago

dont want to argue with anyone - just wanted to say something Smile

I sat with my friends a few times in a physical circle. We did it with the glass dome and no cabinet. a bit hap-hazard because I couldnt block the light out although I tried, and we could see quite well in a dim sort of way. We got lots of things happening, well maybe not lots but little lights, and although probably many will not believe we got a man appear beside me. This shock us and we have stopped, well mainly because it also made the doors etc in my house open and close at other times. (we will begin circle again one day.) Anyway my point.... I cannot be an excetional medium that is too far fetched. So.......... well you see what I am saying:)

Comment by Kai Muegge 22 hours ago

Yeah, the point is, most spiritualists refer to materializations if they describe the important differences between mental and physical. The question is if the visual degree of information was ever higher than today!? All physical mediums work from a darkness base into different degrees of visible productions. Then and now!
'Daylight mediums' was THOSE mediums called who HAD a special ability to produce besides the usual dark productions phenomena in better light!
If we call them day- or candlelight, magnesium-flashlight- or fireplace mediums, THEY WERE EXCEPTIONS!
This is all i wantedto make clear!
We modern physical mediums do work for years to bring things into light as you may know and produce different phenomena incl materializations in good red light!
It only need to be stated that the idea in earlier days mediums might have worked basicly differently in regards to light is false!
PHENOMENA CAN BE DEVELOPED INTO LIT CONDITIONS BUT DARKNESS WILL STAY AN UNAVOIDABLE FACTOR ALONGSIDE ALL WE KNOW FROM THE HISTORICAL AS from the experimental point of view.

Comment by james johnson yesterday

I hadn't mentioned 'daylight' and I'm not really interested in judging using that criterion.
By 'in the light' I meant able to be seen (using whatever light had been chosen) rather than at a seance held in the dark or in conditions so dark that normally sighted people would be unable to discern what was happening. You may well be correct that there were few who performed in daylight but that's not the point I was making.
Keeping things really simple, surely it would be desirable for everyone concerned that attendees at a seance would witness - see without any difficulty - whatever takes place in a seance room? Isn't that something towards which physical mediums might wish to work, something to which they might aspire? If not, why not? It happened in the past so why would it not be possible in the present?

Comment by Kai Muegge yesterday

If we want to judge strictly then there were even less than a handful 'daylight mediums' because there was NONE that performed Physical Mediumship resp Seanceroom Phenomena exquisitely in light or even daylight.
The term daylight medium was used from a historical perspective and from a general one.
When the first mediums demonstrated Phenomena in the early spiritualistic climate to an unprepared public there were some things done in light, that later did not anymore appeared to be demonstrated by the thousands 'darkness mediums' of the second and later generations that followed.
Lets have a look. If there was someone a daylight medium, then it was the Scottish DD Hume at the start of his carreer in America. Some of his early phenomena were actually demonstrated seemingly in rooms by day, slightly shielded against light by closing outer window panels, even though the majority of his seances were held by night, which were his strongest ones. HIS MATERIALZATIONS even COULD ONLY BE SEEN IN DARKNESS, because these were no so called 'flesh and blodd' materializations but slightly glowing forms for example described more thoroughly by Crookes and his colleagues and family, who saw them.
The public and the scientific community was not prepared - there were no standards for investigation and that is the reason that many reports about Hume not even mentioned if it was dark or not. Overviewing Hume, we need to say an overwhelming majority of his seances were held at night in rooms only lit by candles or the fireplace, several feet away from the table around they sat.
Under thtese conditions Hume did perform object movements and his famous 'spirit hands' that appreared at the rim of the tables surface and seemingly floated to sitters and put flowers in their buttonholes.
In regards to Materializations until 1870 the word „Spirit-Form“ (later ectoplassm) was used. Hands and Arms were seen at the Davenport Brothers, with J.Koons and D.D. Home in the Earliest Days of Spiritualism.
Epes Sargent even writes in „The Scientific Basis of Modern Spiritualism“, that „as far back as 1850 a full Spirit Form would not infrequently appear!“ Eventually D.D. Home produced partial and transparent full forms at least from 1853 on IN VERY DARKENED CONDITIONS.
Non-transparent, solid forms, palpable, wrapped in spirit clothes, so called 'flesh and blood' materializations appeared for the first time at Mrs. Mary Andrews Seances In Auburn, Monrovia 1860.
Here we have a lighted instance during the seance: Andrews Seances were always splitted in two parts: First a Dark Circle, Questions were answered by Spirit Lights, indep. Voices, Instruments were playing, touches a.s.o, all in the dark. Then came the Light Circle, the Medium in a typical Cabinet for the early times, from which faces and hands and lipe moved and appeared. Despite its name the light circle was of course not lighted. It was just lit enough that the sitters could see the presented 'spirit forms'.

by Lis Fri Jan 09, 2015 6:43 am

There is an old phrase that comes to mind on reading the comments made by Kai Muegge: "Oh how dangerous a little knowledge can be!"

Muegge goes on about what materialisation mediumship was really like in the past - how few really worked in light and, bless him, how those who were grieving saw what they wanted to see and were therefore deluded.

No doubt Muegge has made it his business to look at physical mediumship from an historical perspective in order to be sure what he does apparently fits the parameters - but he needs to do a hell of a lot more in-depth research into the historical records of materialisation séances before he can rightly claim the expertise he does.

As for his remarks about the as-yet-unlinked quantum physics and spiritual dimensions - the less said the better.

It is clear though, the devotee's are lapping it up.

by Jane Lyzell Fri Jan 09, 2015 1:31 pm

intresting to se - thanks Lis

by mac Fri Jan 09, 2015 2:38 pm

Lis wrote:There is an old phrase that comes to mind on reading the comments made by Kai Muegge: "Oh how dangerous a little knowledge can be!"

Muegge goes on about what materialisation mediumship was really like in the past - how few really worked in light and, bless him, how those who were grieving saw what they wanted to see and were therefore deluded.

No doubt Muegge has made it his business to look at physical mediumship from an historical perspective in order to be sure what he does apparently fits the parameters - but he needs to do a hell of a lot more in-depth research into the historical records of materialisation séances before he can rightly claim the expertise he does.

As for his remarks about the as-yet-unlinked quantum physics and spiritual dimensions - the less said the better.

It is clear though, the devotee's are lapping it up.

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king....

by obiwan Fri Jan 09, 2015 7:02 pm

mac wrote:
Lis wrote:There is an old phrase that comes to mind on reading the comments made by Kai Muegge: "Oh how dangerous a little knowledge can be!"

Muegge goes on about what materialisation mediumship was really like in the past - how few really worked in light and, bless him, how those who were grieving saw what they wanted to see and were therefore deluded.

No doubt Muegge has made it his business to look at physical mediumship from an historical perspective in order to be sure what he does apparently fits the parameters - but he needs to do a hell of a lot more in-depth research into the historical records of materialisation séances before he can rightly claim the expertise he does.

As for his remarks about the as-yet-unlinked quantum physics and spiritual dimensions - the less said the better.

It is clear though, the devotee's are lapping it up.

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king....

Ain't that the truth.It's a shame that some of the people interested in this subject (genuine physical mediumship I mean) don't seem to be aware of or refer to the body of evidence collected. Some of it is hard to get to that's true but once consulted it puts the alleged mediumship of people like Kai Muegge in the right perspective.

by irishsphinx Sat Jan 10, 2015 2:57 am

obiwan wrote:
mac wrote:
Lis wrote:There is an old phrase that comes to mind on reading the comments made by Kai Muegge: "Oh how dangerous a little knowledge can be!"

Muegge goes on about what materialisation mediumship was really like in the past - how few really worked in light and, bless him, how those who were grieving saw what they wanted to see and were therefore deluded.

No doubt Muegge has made it his business to look at physical mediumship from an historical perspective in order to be sure what he does apparently fits the parameters - but he needs to do a hell of a lot more in-depth research into the historical records of materialisation séances before he can rightly claim the expertise he does.

As for his remarks about the as-yet-unlinked quantum physics and spiritual dimensions - the less said the better.

It is clear though, the devotee's are lapping it up.

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king....

Ain't that the truth.It's a shame that some of the people interested in this subject (genuine physical mediumship I mean) don't seem to be aware of or refer to the body of evidence collected. Some of it is hard to get to that's true but once consulted it puts the alleged mediumship of people like Kai Muegge in the right perspective.

From experience, others won't need to point it out, it will be seen for itself, in good time.

by mac Sat Jan 10, 2015 4:21 am

Earlier than later, one hopes.

by obiwan Sat Jan 10, 2015 9:16 am

mac wrote:Earlier than later, one hopes.

It's too late for earlier.

by mac Sat Jan 10, 2015 3:33 pm

obiwan wrote:
mac wrote:Earlier than later, one hopes.

It's too late for earlier.

I think that's probably right, obi.

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