Heisenberg,
I am open to the idea of real contact, but every contact I have had with the other side, and many verified cases of contact, leave me with no doubt that the danger stated in your passage is - well - how shall I say this nicely? - overstated if not completely made up.
I have seen sincere mediums give readings where they were speaking directly to and through a deceased loved one, in the daylight and although there was no deliberate materialization of an object, there was no danger implied or precautions taken to the medium.
Admittedly, the entire concept of people giving up their vocal cords or body for a spirit to "enter," or use already sets a bad precedent, as it implies a loss of control from the side of the living, and almost invites fraud, misinterpreted psi, etc (if real).
Where was the documentation from the alleged debunkers after this incident? Without more information we are listening to heresay and tall tales from a biased source. Campfire stuff.
Seances first entered the modern world in the mid 1700s from written records, and peaked with the spiritualist movement in the 1800s. However, as hucksterism spread, there were several large public investigations which debunked many illusionists of that time in a convincing manner: (from an article on the seance)
" During the latter half of the 19th century, a number of Spiritualist mediums began to advocate the use of specialized tools for conducting séances, particularly in leader-assisted sessions conducted in darkened rooms. "Spirit trumpets" were horn-shaped speaking tubes that were said to magnify the whispered voices of spirits to audible range. "Spirit slates" consisted of two chalkboards bound together that, when opened, were said to reveal messages written by spirits. "Séance tables" were special light-weight tables which were said to rotate, float, or levitate when spirits were present. "Spirit cabinets" were portable closets into which mediums were placed, often bound with ropes, in order to prevent them from manipulating the various aforementioned tools.
The exposure of supposed mediums whose use of séance tools derived from the techniques of stage magic has been disturbing to many believers in spirit communication. In particular, the 1870s exposures of the Davenport Brothers as illusionists and the 1887 report of the Seybert Commission brought an end to the first historic phase of Spiritualism. Stage magicians like John Neville Maskelyne and Harry Houdini made a side-line of exposing fraudulent mediums during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1976, M. Lamar Keene described deceptive techniques that he himself had used in séances; however, in the same book, Keene also stated that he still had a firm belief in God, life after death, ESP, and other psychic phenomena.
The exposures of fraud by tool-using mediums have had two divergent results: Skeptics have used historic exposures as a frame through which to view all spirit mediumship as inherently fraudulent, while believers have tended to eliminate the use of tools but continued to practice mediumship in full confidence of its spiritual value to them."
The Seybert Commission was a group of faculty at the University of Pennsylvania who in 1884-1887 investigated a number of respected spiritualist mediums, uncovering fraud or suspected fraud in every case that they examined.
Anyone who puts value in the story proposed rather one-sidedly about the dangers of 18th century ectoplasm causing injury to a medium, is entering into a kind of belief system in a process that is dictated to us solely by the medium (guru), and thus a matter of belief rather than a "known" truth. While I don't completely discount discarnate ghostly hands and tables levitating, I have found a trove of the same feats described in Scole used by illusionists since around the 1800s, but rarely before then. I have also seen reports of mediums who were unafraid to give readings out in the light. Now why do you suppose that is?
Why do people consider that they need to have the nonphysical materialize in the physical to be their proof of life after death? It makes far more sense to me that knowledge of what could only have been known by the deceased or the return of a temporarily deceased person (NDE), would be the best evidence of the continuation of consciousness.
At the height of the spiritualist movement, large numbers of mediums and illusionists were unmasked as frauds in a most telling way - sort of like Toto going behind the curtain in the movie The Wizard of Oz to find the man behind the smoke and mirrors. Houdini himself did this many times, and wrote at least two texts on this.
Just as some on this thread ask for us to examine the Scole data in more detail, it is incumbent on us to examine the past, the notable tricks that were debunked over a century ago by others. Examples of this can be found with relative ease (Houdini's books are still available). Or on the web, articles such as;
http://www.prairieghosts.com/seance2.htmlEither way, I guess we decide what is real to us, as is always the case.
Matthew