Program starts tomorrow, Aug 04, 2012.

The TMI piece is the finale, Sept 15 (short season!)

I don't have cable; hope you all will report on this!

Is this a season of sensationalized pieces, or is there going to be serious investigation here? I hope it is the latter.

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It turned out that I was able to watch the two episodes last night (Aug 04).

This bio channel is geared to being sensational. Yuck. I would like just the "facts."

The first story was about a man who flipped his car late on night. His brother happened to call him and on learning of the accident, made it to the scene in about 10 minutes. The police were already on the scene but the guy had disappeared. Months passed and still he did not show up. The family brought a psychic investigator in. (Or did they? Maybe the show did). The psychic picked up some information that the guy was living in some nearby area, which was rural, as a homeless person. They found a couple of makeshift living quarters and some evidence that the person they wanted might be there. (The missing guy did origami and they found origami in one of the shelters. That is unusual). They found someone who claimed to know the guy and said he felt ashamed and did not want to see his family. The family felt frustrated but better. The assumption is that he had a brain injury that led to this. Don't know what I think of the evidence but it did make you feel compassion for those living on the streets, or in the woods, like this. How many are there?

The second story was about a woman who developed pain and some kind of seizures out of the blue. No medical explanation could be offered. So she turned to some kind of healer. First he said she had an alien in her aura, then he said she and her mom, to whom she was very close, had a previous life together and this problem was the result of something that happened between them then. Don't know how we went from first explanation to second, but that is the flaw of the show's presentation. (Makes me wonder what they will do with the TMI material!). The woman accepted the explanation of the problem with her mom's personality in a former life, and they forgave each other. The woman said she got better after that. So was that placebo effect or did forgiveness play an important part? I think it is out of the scope of current methodology to prove or disprove that. The whole story of the past life and subsequent developments made some kind of sense to the woman and her mother and they were very loving about forgiving in order to move on. Maybe that is all that matters.

It looks like you can view the "old" episodes at the show's website:

http://www.biography.com/tv/the-unexplained

Thank you, Lucy.

Your summaries seem very clear, even if the TV originals did get carried away with sensationalism.  I didn’t get to see the program and am very glad you did.

Regarding the first situation, two unrelated points come to mind.

1) Today in the newspaper a long article described how traumatic brain injury may or probably accounts for desertion by servicemen during war.  The article focussed on exemplary, experienced WWI soldiers who were later executed for desertion.  The point was that current research shows that brain trauma often leads to the compulsive need to get away.  But their findings could certainly apply to a current person too who wants to 'escape.’

2) Regarding hiding in the woods, according to  neighbor who collects goods for such homeless men in a woods in this region, there are hundreds in their one area alone. Of course not all woods offer the kind climate, weather-wise and socially, that is around here but I very sadly assume it’s happening in many places.

So the first episode seems very believable to me.  I hope you’ll post about others, especially the TMI ones.  Thanks.

Bets

Hey Bets that is interesting. Gratefully, we have moved beyond executing people for desertion (at least I think we have). How sad that the behavior was evaluated only in moral terms, though sometimes I think we have moved too far in the opposite direction, using biological things to not hold people morally responsible. But I cannot imagine the grief of someone who has been a good soldier and then probably cannot even explain his own behavior to himself, and is then totally rejected by the culture he honored.

I got a chance to watch the repeats on last Saturday night, but it wasn[t the shows that were originally advertised. Actually they repeated the Dead Man's Curve episode, which I skipped this week. They also showed "A Soldier's Homecoming," involving a death that was called a suicide by law enforcement but may have been a homicide. This one has not yet been posted for later viewing. (which bums me out as I definitely cannot watch this weekend ans was depending on the episodes being posted on-line). The soldier episode contained a brief excursion into scrying, with a bit by Raymond Mody, perhaps enough info to arouse curiosity in some people. The mom got peace but no leads to conclusive evidence.

The Monroe Institute had advertised that the Aug 11 episiodes would have a Monroe trainer in one, and the same person in the 18ths but they changed their schedule. Some guy named John Kortum is supposed to be in 2, but not as a TMI trainer but as a mystical healer.

The show featuring Lifeline in scheduled for Sept. I just listened to a new interview with a woman named Natalie Sudman, at Bob Olson's site. At the end, she mentions she was at TMI for the Lifeline program that was filmed for The Unexplained, so she is in the show. She thought the filmers did a good job. I wish they were more like an old-fashioned documentary, but I guess that isn't popular now. The interview with Sudman can be seen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eb2xy3lXgM&feature=player_embedded

The website for the show posted the new shows and took the first ones off, so you might have to view them son after they are aired.

The Lifeline facilitator, John Kortum, is in two episodes. He's in the one callled "The Faith of my Recovery" about a young woman who suffers a mysterious paralysis. What a dedicated family she has! Kortum is also in the episode on "Will I ever Walk Again?" The answers given are not definite but are open-ended. The people featured do seem to show improvement. The producers must be trying to answer the question, "What is truth?" What would be a true answer to the questions posed by these situations?

comment about the series and TMI


Quote:

Due to the high ratings of the series, the BIO channel has requested that the series be extended. TMI episodes have been changed to: October 13, 2012 at 10 pm on the BIO channel.

Looks like they are gearing up over at TMI for the weekend show:

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So the long-awaited TMI installments have been shown and will be up for a week or two. Both glad and disappointed to see Natalie Sudman featured so much, especially in two. It is interesting to see her talk about her experiences and disappointing that others were not also featured.

Guess you can't do that much in 20 minutes, which is probably why the story they do follow seems a little fractured.

So in retrieval #1, Natalie has a guy run up to her. He has on a uniform...perhaps her not so distant experiences with the US military in Iraq made her look safe to a military person in spirit?...he says his name is Jerry Cranz (sp?) and he is blind (and she had suffered eye problems due to injury in Iraq) and he was killed at Shiloh (which she somehow is not familiar with, but I am originally from Tennessee so maybe I assume incorrectly that "everyone" knows about Shiloh).

So the program shifts to a geneologist, J. Mark Lowe, who has initials after his name, related to Geneology: CG and FUGA, the latter of which has to do with Utah, where a lot of geneology is done, so I assume that is supposed to mean he is very good at his work.

And he finds a Jerry Cranz (Kranz? they don't really tell us, so they?) from Illinois, 43rd regiment, 1/3 of whom were killed at Shiloh, skipping exactly how Lowe pinned that down, but that's his job, and then Lowe gets to 1930 using public records and a diary and then we shift to the present. In the present, we find descendents whose name has shifted to Almcrantz. It is frustrating to me to skip how they got there, both 1930 to now and Kranz to Almcranz, but the family seemed satisfied. It seems like a good "hit" to me, some kind of validation. It must have been interesting to the family to get this info out of the blue.

Sudman's second hit was a man named Josiah Smith from an area of NY state now apparently in NJ. Because she got a location, and dates the "Smith" name was not a problem here. In fact, Lowe turned up really good info here. Then the family moved to the Michigan area to farm. The commonality of the name would have eeb a challenge but became less so as Lowe had known someone who had researched his own SMITH family information, and that connection turned up a present-day family who turned out to have lots of info (in a box in the attic or someplace like that). So the family had lots of confirming information, including the location of graves.

Well something is going on here.

I do wonder what happened with the retrieval of another participant, who found a guy named Twitchell from Chicago. Was there not enough information for Lowe to find anything on this person? Did they find something but the family did not want to be on video? The viewer is left hanging. Maybe the point is that not every retrieval produces verifiable information.

Well I guess this is their follow-up:

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I can't join in but I think I will ask for the link   (sorry for short notice, TMI sent the email out on the 31st in the afternoon)

Hi Lucy,

Regarding the family names across time,

Frequently it’s just clerical error by a census taker or in a church’s baptismal record that changes names.  It happens so frequently across the generations that it’s barely remarkable to a genealogist and wouldn’t have to do with the program’s theme.

Just a guess about the Twitchells-- that family might also be related to Paul Twitchell who was a leader of another approach to afterlife studies in the mid-1900’s, so maybe that family wanted to stay true to that tradition.

The results seem rather impressive to me.
Bets