Experimental Christmas Tree Seances and other trials

--Nick asked me to post about our experience at the centre. This is expanded from the posting I made on the centre's Facebook page.

Now there were several specific items to consider when reviewing this.

-It was a totally open event (most recorded séances are invite only) and we had no idea of either the numbers that would attend or who the people would be. In the end we had 11, many with no idea what was likely to happen. Indeed my guide would comment that one reason for the lack of play was Spirit were uncertain how people would, in fact, react if toys began moving.

-I have never attempted to run a séance, we had no denoted physical medium (most Christmas Tree Séances were in the presence of a known physical medium, on my side, at best, the last time we had table tipping it became apparent the table stopped if I was not on it). I was relying on instructions my guides gave me beforehand and also upon the suggestions Lis (who did not attend) received from Spirit. In addition after a bad fall two Mondays ago I was still in a fair amount of pain, which hampered my own abilities (back to doctors soon Lis and I think the damage to my Thigh may be more severe than first thought because 6 days on it can still be agonising if I push too much)

-Although we intended to use dim red light the room has no blackout and there was a fair degree of residual light (enough to se without any lighting). Indeed on the third day of a heatwave, with the temperature still over the old 100 F (the previous 2 days had been 103F and 105F) the air-conditioning had to be on needing windows to be open  and causing the blinds to move. Additionally as we started storms, lightning, thunder and hail rolled in.

-About 15 minute before starting we became entangled in an effort to rescue to rather lovely small dogs that had no identification on them. One came into the garden of the centre and the other kept running off. As a distraction this was definitely undesirable. Luckily a neighbour sat outside with them waiting the RSPCA. So are start was late.

-Basically from the start it was my intent, with my guides support, to push the envelope of how a séance could be run. Go back to first base, when they began. a time when no one had any "rules", ignoring all the well meaning "myths" that have built up to become the absolute requirements for success (which of course they were not with the first materialisations). Sadly, particularly in the light of the time we obtained Spirit faces on group members, our Parapsychologist with the low light camera and energy instruments, could not make it so we have no record.

Short opening prayer then a meditation designed purely to lift the entire energy in the room and within people. A dedication prayer then silly songs, including obligatory Rudolph and Jingle Bells, as a nod to tradition, amazing how well people did this but I realise we now need to move on to modern songs which could be sung to the same effect.

Then lower the lights (waste of time enough residual light to see well enough anyway) and ask Spirit to take over. Really what happened then was totally inconclusive, remember we were almost certainly using energy not ectoplasm. Everyone reported seeing ( but in reality subjectively) one or more Spirit Children, we even had some noises around the room although these needed separating from the natural sounds. I certainly was aware of the children and they formed a complete circle around the tree at one time, while other "adult" Spirits including my guide were present in the circuit. This is a feeling although my guide was close, we had an agreement that I would if needed drop into trance for the first time but I worked with him just passing his words on.

Two things became clear, given the mixed nature of the audience (although I was aware everyone would behave appropriately) there was some concern on the Spirit side about how people would really react if the musical instruments suddenly started up, the balls were kicked and the push along toys started moving. The second was something (like the use of old fashioned silly songs) relating to the type of toys, my guide indicated that Spirit Children of today almost needed teaching what to do with toys like ours (subjectively I heard one Spirit Child say where's the Xbox). I think Spirit may need to teach them because we will never have people willing to donate at that level.

After waiting some time it was suggested by my guide that we move to doing something else at another part of the room, then see what happened around the tree afterwards. First stop was table tipping where the best we achieved was a little movement. Unfortunately by this point my leg was in real pain so as the table started I had to step back.

That failure did not worry me because we moved to a place where individuals cold stand wrapped in black out curtain with just the face showing in dim red light. Every individual had Spirit overlaying different faces, changing size, sex hair colour , adding moustaches, beards and glasses. This is an extension of work through the last few years. It does not produce, as yet, recognisable faces but it shows a potential for Spirit to achieve things well beyond the established idea of a single transfiguration medium. In terms of observable and witnessed phenomena this was the nights high spot. The lack of the low light camera was really unfortunate.

By the end of this section the energy was dipping so we returned to the circle and lifted the main room lights a little. Clearly there had been no major play with the toys but a few were in different positions. To finish the evening we stood to form a circle around the tree holding hands and offering a thanks to Spirit, our guides and helpers, a blessing on those from Spirit and a blessing on those disadvantaged children who would receive the toys that the energy with in them would uplift them helping them both this Christmas and for their future life. Suddenly, as we did this, everyone felt the presence of the Spirit Children moving round brushing against legs and touching hands, some saw them subjectively and heard them. No evidence but a moment that will last for all of us who attended.

Sadly I can offer no proof for any of this, there is no evidence to back up anything I write so I do not expect anyone to just accept our experiences as truth. Indeed I still wonder if Spirit are truly prepared to provide perfect indisputable evidence. Were they to do that, with the world as it is now, would the knowledge be for the good of mankind or open to misuse?

The reality is that $200 and around 30 toys will be donated to the Salvation Army's Smith Family Christmas Present appeal.  This follows are ability to donate $1,250 held over, mainly given by Irene McGilvray DSNU,OSNU,TSNU from monies received during her April visit for charitable donation on a fire appeal, to help the victims of SA's latest disaster the Pinery Fires which swept the near north nearly reaching the Barossa valley.

Oh yes we will be doing it again next year for the same charity and hope more people will come, in between times we will practice.

Sounds like an excellent outcome and a good séance considering it was the first time.

Thanks for writing the report and as Neilos says it was a good seance for a first attempt. It's interesting what you say about the spirit children today wanting more modern toys like xboxes. With Colin Fry's Christmas Tree seances in was mainly fluffy animals, toy cars, dolls tea sets etc. He would always ask that nobody brought along anything that would light up because of the light sensitive ectoplasm. Unfortunately somebody did bring something that lit up and when it did the ectoplasm shot back into his solar plexus causing burns and making Colin very ill. He did continue to sit for physical mediumship after a few weeks but the controls told us it had set back his development by a couple of years which was a shame as the spirit team were working on bringing their own light into the seance room so we could see them. This never happen as a year later Colin stopped physical seances to concentrate on his clairvoyance and TV work.

Well our second attempt was much more succesful in many ways.

Once again we started with the halogen ceiling lights dimmed but at a decent level, external light through the blinds because we were close to our longest day and a red light turned on and placed close to the area we would use for transfuguration.

We started with a prayer and short meditation then started singing to lift the energy There was a strong sense of the presence of Spirit but to prevent the energy from dropping we did not prolong the time we wauted for Spirit to appear.  We moved on to sit the attendees at the two round, claw footed, tables we had available. Spirit was then asked to move the tables to denote their presence. The first table stated moving accross the room, rotating and then changing direction after 10 minutes. In a further 10 minutes the other table headed over to the Christmas Tree. Both tables moved at speed and tried to lift from the ground especially when rotating quickly. We achieved some communication but at best this is a clumsy way to say hello.

When the tables stopped we went on to transfiguration with most people taking a turn wrapped in blackout curtain and standing against a white board. There was tremendous activity with faces appearing and changing even if none were recognisable.

Then we returned to the circle to ask a blessing on the toys from Spirit. On this occasion everyone felt Spirit around especially the hands of small children. Some of the toys had moved in our absence and once again the Christmas Card had been opened.

It was a wonderful evening and with the money donated we bought more toys to go with the one's brought along. Others, who did not attend the seance, donated toys and it was nearly 80 toys we could donateA which teh Uniting Church happily collecetd from us to distribute.

This year we go for the third seance on Wednesday December 13th.

In the period since the last seance we have used the tables four times in my weekly group, which is an open group where the membership changes regularly. It is always held in diimed halogen lights with sufficient ligh to see clearly. The movement has been very active and the time for the tables to start moving has decresed substantially. We have also achieved more success with the transfiguration.

In the last 8 weeks, as a lead up to the Christmas Seance, the experimentation has increased. The transfiguration reached an interesting level when people described in details the faces appearing in front of the person and it was clear that each individual had their own Mothers face appearing in front of theirs.

On another day we sat peope in the circle centre, just after the meditation and relatives showed themselves, in my case I was overshadowed by my guide Tao Seng who made his strongest yet bid to provide trance (however, although what I am doing is almost unheard of in open groups I am unwilling to introduce Trance especially when I have not done any yet).

The meditation on that day was fascinating because there were voices in the air nearby and a couple of large sounds that could have only been raps.

In the same period we have used one of the tables again (the group was only 5 or 6). On the first the table started moving in just under 3 minutes and was very active . The second it moved in less than a minute and was extraordinary almost parallel to the ground and turning from one claw foot to the other. On both occasions the communication made it clear Spirit was involved and on the latter one I received an answer to a question I had posed to Spirit before the group started.

The signs are good for this years seance, although it still remains an experiment.

For interest my group involves a meditation to connect to Guides, exercises in tuning up psychic skills (or developing them we do have real beginners attending at times) and a segment on attempting to connect with Spirit using specific exercises.

Interesting that we have had 3 more seances with different suceeses; including  some great results for charity. Balls rolling accross the floor tables flying some transfiguration. Strong sense and feel of Spirit presence even if no sight.

This years was very interesting after the opening prayer and meditation we tried to see what we could get but I was asked by my guide to move on. 15 people enough to fill the two tables. Ater a couple of minutes with people tuning in I joined one table which then started moving within a minute. One participant thought my single hand was doing it until I removed it and the table kept going. Similar effect with the second table.

The faces, created energetically by Spirit, were very numerous and strong. The writing Planchette then produced a very strong series of lines and curves. Oh yes a couple of quick viseos from the tables.

Hi
I have tried to view the videos but each one comes up with the message "null. If the owner of this video has granted you access,please sign in". I am logged in as a member on this site. Any suggestions on what I need to do to access the videos?
Many thanks

Karenhoffen wrote:Hi
I have tried to view the videos but each one comes up with the message "null. If the owner of this video has granted you access,please sign in". I am logged in as a member on this site. Any suggestions on what I need to do to access the videos?
Many thanks

It needs website owner, Jim, to grant open access to the videos he's uploaded to YouTube. Drop him a note.

Thanks Mac

I have made these public so people can see them. Remember i was using a 16 year old Minolta Dimage Z1 2mp digital camera. I was doing single time exposures when I have the video a go and it worked. However i had little idea of the storage space on the SD card so I kept the runs short. I had to have one hand on the table to get them moving but once each one started then the people kept them moving. We just had fun I have found that the communication using a table is cumbersome and slow but we have had some excellent messages in the past.

Now I know that the video will work in that light I will ensure we take more in the future and use it in the transfiguration. Not ideal but I have not the money to spend on good low light equipment.
Jim

Thanks Jim. I would be fascinated to try this. I will ask the leader of the Awareness Circle at church if we can try this sometime.

Some places really frown on this, I don't know why, I learned from the great NSAC medium and Minister Rev Anne Gehman when she visited us in 2007. Took me a while to find teh tables and then decide to give it a go, No need for darkness, it will even work in full daylight we did it as part of our 2019 afternoon Hydesville remembrance meeting.

Do you need special tables or just suitably light ones that are the right size for the room/group?
Thanks

My (and Rev Anne Gehman's) choice is round with three claw feet. This is the one Anne gehman, her Husband Wayne knoll, my wife and I (both mediums) , a Friend and 56 years comittee member of our centre and a sceptical scientist were on in 2007. It threw itself around the room leaving the ground leaping until the leg broke. Ours are taking off like that. Ideally well balanced and taking 6-7 people. We hava a small one, a middle sized one and a large table we tend not to use.





A full write up of that visit is here https://www.nasm.org.au/annegehman.pdf  The bent spoon is mine and I still occasionally do spoon bending to remind people of our own latent abilities (not Spirit)

Thanks Jim. Very interesting read. I will watch out for a table like this in our local charity shops. I expect one will turn up - especially if spirit wants me to pursue this!
On a more menial level, my partner and I, both on our mediumistic journey (two years now), have been playing ludo. We increasingly believe that we can influence the dice or at least ask our spiritual supporters to influence the dice. My partner is able to sense the number of spirits who gather round the table as we play. They seem to enjoy being part of the game and it makes it more interesting for us too; a fun way of developing our communication skills. I have found that if I put the number of fingers on the table of the number I want thrown, I can be successful in influencing the dice. I only do it at key points in the game and it often works when I am helping other people win. It doesn't work all the time but I suspect that in terms of probabiliy, the numbers would be statistically significant. My partner is more to obtain a mental agreement with his spirit guide on what he wants thrown. I need to do a more scientific study of this.
I am wondering if wood as a formally living being is a good "medium" for transmitting thoughts or being influenced by spirits. The dice we are using are wood too. We have less success with plastic dice. Maybe there is a link to the turning tables phenomena. Would non-wood tables respond in the same way? Has this been tried? I wonder if some types of wood respond better than others. I believe our table is made of oak. I'm not sure about the dice.
Any thoughts or suggestions?
Many thanks
Rachel

nick pettitt wrote:Thanks for writing the report and as Neilos says it was a good seance for a first attempt. It's interesting what you say about the spirit children today wanting more modern toys like xboxes. With Colin Fry's Christmas Tree seances in was mainly fluffy animals, toy cars, dolls tea sets etc. He would always ask that nobody brought along anything that would light up because of the light sensitive ectoplasm. Unfortunately somebody did bring something that lit up and when it did the ectoplasm shot back into his solar plexus causing burns and making Colin very ill. He did continue to sit for physical mediumship after a few weeks but the controls told us it had set back his development by a couple of years which was a shame as the spirit team were working on bringing their own light into the seance room so we could see them. This never happen as a year later Colin stopped physical seances to concentrate on his clairvoyance and TV work.

Colin did Physical seanses in sweden after that at Ramsbergsgarden :-)

mac wrote:It's a long time ago and I can only just remember the events.  I was always disappointed that Colin withdrew from demonstrating physical mediumship as I'd hoped he would be the one to bring it out into the open to a mass audience. It wasn't to be.

Colin did Physical mediumship in sweden and he was starting to sitt aghen in cirkel oute here , but then he whent sick so sade

Karenhoffen wrote:Thanks Jim. Very interesting read. I will watch out for a  table like this in our local charity shops. I expect one will turn up - especially if spirit wants me to pursue this!
On a more menial level, my partner and I, both on our mediumistic journey (two years now), have been playing ludo. We increasingly believe that we can influence the dice or at least ask our spiritual supporters to influence the dice. My partner is able to sense the number of spirits who gather round the table as we play. They seem to enjoy being part of the game and it makes it more interesting for us too; a fun way of developing our communication skills. I have found that if I put the number of fingers on the table of the number I want thrown, I can be successful in influencing the dice. I only do it at key points in the game and it often works when I am helping other people win. It doesn't work all the time but I suspect that in terms of probabiliy, the numbers would be statistically significant. My partner is more to obtain a mental agreement with his spirit guide on what he wants thrown. I need to do a more scientific study of this.
I am wondering if wood as a formally living being is a good "medium" for transmitting thoughts or being influenced by spirits. The dice we are using are wood too. We have less success with plastic dice. Maybe there is a link to the turning tables phenomena. Would non-wood tables respond in the same way? Has this been tried? I wonder if some types of wood respond better than others. I believe our table is made of oak. I'm not sure about the dice.
Any thoughts or suggestions?
Many thanks
Rachel

Sorry Rachel, this all slipped by me, I managed to get that one done despite the impact of my detached retina but then learning Zoom and trying to keep the Spiritualist centre, I am leader of, active during teh Pandemic while maintaining support to teh cpompanies I consult for beat me.

To be honest a metal table will move just as readily Anne Gehman and her husband loved sitting at round metal cafe tables. Wood is more visually satisfying.

I must specify nothing will ever be done in the dark at our centre. The halogen lights are half dimmed and we have a red light on as well. We also start with a fair amount of daylight. Indeed I have run sessions in the aftternoon with the blind half open and lights on. For a Hydesville meeting the tables ran round, and we got some element of facial transfiguration.

My personal view is that Spirit want to move well on from transfiguration and darkness given the historically high levels of fraud involved. (even the Koons cheated to repeat their effects away from their Spirit House back in 1853/54). Genuine physical manifestation in eth dark is almost as scarce as hens teeth as you dig and research more deeply.

quote:  "My personal view is that Spirit want to move well on from transfiguration and darkness given the historically high levels of fraud involved."

My own view is that some, perhaps many, of our friends in spirit have discontinued any work they used to do with the phenomena associated with physical mediumship.  As Jim suggests probably because of frauds who make money from the shenanigans.  

But when we talk about 'spirit' it's simply shorthand for my italicised phrase above.  I expect some spirit individuals will continue to produce phenomena because it appeals to them. And some mediums will continue for the same reason. I personally don't care for them because phenomena in themselves don't deliver the message of survival.

What I think I'm seeing nowadays, though, is increasing interest in so-called near-death experiences.  They're often wrongly reported as someone dying but "coming back from death" bringing with them amazing accounts of what they experienced. And often how they were "told to return".

I've lost count of the number of times I've given a proper explanation of what happened but for all the limitations of NDEs they do introduce folk to the notion of life beyond this dimension.  NDEs seem much more impactful in conveying the message of survival than anything I can tell them of the way Spiritualism does it.

I think I agree with you Mac, on top of that all to often you are, if you go to a Spiritualist Centre, likely to leave less impressed than you should be either from the psychsim on diplay instead of proof of survival or from talks that maybe veer off the point a fair bit. I apologise to the centres I know that are dedicated to maintaining these standards, as I am aware many still try but ther are some that enjoy the broader edges.

I don't 'do' church or centres but I do refer others to them and I do try to be as aware as I can of what's offered in them.

Now, though, although I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Spiritualist, albeit one who's NOT a churchgoer, I'm increasingly holding back from giving a Spiritualist perspective of survival. Even I find it old-hat!

What's needed in my view is a fusion of old values with modern day interests, NDEs being a particular one. I didn't use to see it that way and I'm still uncomfortable that apparent near-death is often taken as meaning someone returning from being dead. But beyond that it also means folk are becoming more accepting that we actually do survive the death of our bodies and that we do live on in some form or another. And that's what Spiritualism is primarily about.....

Life often requires compromise and I've accepted the NDE compromise.

I forgot to say that the 2019 seance which we based as a centre piece to fund raising for the Uniting Church Christmas Appeal meant a small centre like our contributed more than their own churches to the appeal, over $1,000 in toys and $1,250 in food plus some cash.

We also had more success with the Writing Planchette than before.

Sad really I have been able to get the equipment to record it now but not the opportunity to run a Seance.