Judge: Now, the counsel for the skeptics may cross-examine the witness.
Elizabeth and Peter Fenwick
Q: You say that close friends and relatives sometimes experience the presence of loved ones who died recently. Surely this could be hallucination brought on by grief, and if two close people are grieving the same relative, is it not unsurprising that they both dream of him?
A: True. These are death bed coincidences. In some, the person who is dying goes to visit someone to whom they are emotionally attached. What is surprising is that it occurs at the time of death, the two dreamers may be far away from each other, and may not even know that the relative is dying. And it is also surprising that they should both have very similar dreams at the same time on the same night.
Q: You admit there are fraudulent mediums. Couldn't they all be frauds but some cleverer than others? And if not, why do they like to work in darkness?
A: Broad brush refutation is unhelpful. Detailed examination is needed. Some of the most successful mediums have been physically examined even to the extent of having body cavities searched. They have been chained so they could not move and the experimenters have ensured that neither the medium's hands nor their feet have moved. However, the mediums were still able to produce ectoplasm and induce levitation and other physical phenomena. Mediums say it is very difficult to produce physical phenomena with normal lighting.
Q: Couldn't most mediums just be good at cold reading - or even, if it's possible, telepathic exchange with the sitters?
A: Some mediums have been rigorously tested. In the test situation the medium does not know who the sitter will be and never sees them because they are in a different room. As for telepathy, certainly this could be a factor, but from the reductionist science point of view, would not this be simply exchanging one impossible hypothesis for another? Telepathy can also be ruled out as we have been given examples of sitters who were given information they did not know, but later discovered was true.
Q: The supposed voices heard over faulty radios and faces seen in TV 'snow' are always faint and hard to make out. Aren't they just interference plus the brain's tendency to find pattern in randomness, just as we see faces on the Moon or in clouds?
A: What is required is detailed analysis of the data. Sometimes patterns are hard to make out but on other occasions they are very clear and unequivocal and loud voices have appeared from a non-functioning radio even to skeptical Scientific American writers! (Shermer, 2014).
References and Bibliography
Batcheldor, K. (1966). Report on a case of table levitation and associated phenomena. Journal Of The Society For Psychical Research, 43(729), 339-356. Retrieved 12 August 2021.
Brackett, E. (1885). Materialized Apparitions. ebook, Project Gutenberg (www.gutenberg.org/files/34475/34475-h/34475-h.htm).
Braude, S. (2016). Journal Of Scientific Exploration, 30(1), 27-55. Retrieved 4 July 2021, from http://www.researchgate.net/publication/299109580_Follow- Up_Investigation_of_the_Felix_Circle.
Cardoso, A. (2017). Electronic Contact with the Dead: What do the Voices Tell us?. White Crow Books.
Colvin, B. (2010). The Acoustic Properties of Unexplained Rapping Sounds. Journal Of The Society For Psychical Research, 73(2), 65-93.
Fenwick,
P., & Fenwick, E. (2008). The Art of Dying. Continuum.
Geley, G. (1923). Materialized Hands. Scientific American, 129(5), 316-374. Retrieved 12 August 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/24974719.
Kean, L. (2017). Surviving Death: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for an Afterlife. Three River Press.
Keen, M., Ellison, A., & Fontana, D. (1999). The Scole Report. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 58, 150-452
Peres, J., Moreira-Almeida, A., Caixeta, L., Leao, F., & Newberg, A. (2012). Neuroimaging during Trance State: A Contribution to the Study of Dissociation. Plos ONE, 7(11). https://doi.org/doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0049360
Shermer, M. (2014). Anomalous Events That Can Shake One’s Skepticism to the Core (original title "Infrequencies"). Scientific American, 311(4), 97. https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican1014-97.
Tymn, M. (2021). No One Really Dies: 25 Reasons to Believe in an Afterlife. White Crow Books.
Varvoglis, M. (1999). The Kluski Hands Moulds. Institut Métapsychique International. Retrieved 4 July 2021, from https://www.metapsychique.org/the-kluski-hands-moulds/.
“To Be And Not To Be. This is The Answer: Consciousness Survives,” essay for the 2021 Bigelow essay contest submitted by Dr Peter Fenwick & Dr Pier-Francesco Moretti, Dr Vasileios Basios, and Martin Redfern.The complete essay with footnotes is available at https://bigelowinstitute.org/contest_winners3.php.
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