Several years ago, Bruce Moen made this claim in response to my thread:  "We could each cite historical examples to support real contact or false contact by mediums in the past to support our own hypothesis."  This thread reposts my reply.  I'm resurrecting this thread as a counterpart to my thread on issue of spiritual self-deception vs. an honest quest for spiritual truth.
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I don’t believe the distinction between “real contact” and “false contact” is as clear-cut as Bruce seems to feel.  In my view, the answers to the ensuing 4 questions cast a pall of suspicion over ALL channeling. It is not impossible that mediums like Gordon Smith channel deceased souls.  For that matter, it is not impossible that the Apollo moon landing was faked in a New Mexico hangar to gain a propganda advantage over the Soviet Union.   But mere ESP or clairvoyance seems a more plausible explanation of the best of channeling in view of the evidence cited in my replies to (1)-(4):

(1) What if sitters request contact with fake deceased relatives and the mediums still oblige with a very impressive channeling?               

(2) Bruce seems to imagine that channeled materials unknown to anyone living provide convincing evidence of contact with the dead.  But what if a drop-in communicator could provide amazing verifications even involving precognition of the future, and yet, be later proven a fraud?

(3) What if the spirit control of mediums with impressive verifications can be proven to be a fraud?   What conclusion would that warrant about other spirit controls whose self-professed identity cannot be verified?            

(4) What if it can be shown that the attribution of channeled materials to discarnate friends and relatives reflects a culturally conditioned bias?   

Channeling can be significantly called into question on all 4 grounds.

(1) Leonore Piper is one of the most impressive mediums ever.   She seemed to have the uncanny ability to channel two entities at the same time, one through automatic writing and the other through entranced speech.   Psychologist G. Stanley Hall had a trick up his sleeve when he went for a sitting with her.    She was currently using the spirit of Richard Hodgson as her control.   Hodgson had formerly investigated her, but had recently died of a massive heart attack.  Hall asked Hodgson's spirit to contact Hall’s niece, “Bessie Beals,” so that he might speak with her.  Miss Beals was duly introduced and proceeded to communicate with Hall through Mrs. Piper.  Actually Bessie Beals did not exist.  She was a figment of Hall’s mind.  “Hodgson,” in embarrassment tried to wriggle out of the situation, saying that he had been mistaken about the name.  He said that the person brought was a Jessie Beals, related to another sitter.  Dr. Samuel Soal visualized incidents with an imaginary friend, John Ferguson.  He then went for a sitting with the medium, Blanche Cooper.  The incidents he visualized came forth as though communicated by John from beyond death! 

(2) At a sitting with medium Blanche Cooper on Jan. 4 ,1922, Dr. Samuel Soal’s deceased brother unexpectedly said, “Sam, I’ve brought someone who knows you.”  Then in a very clear, strong, and familiar voice, Gordon Davis began to speak through Cooper.  Davis was an old school acquaintance whom Soal believed to have been killed during World War I.  Davis seemed to verify this when he said, “My poor wife is my only concern now--and my kiddie.”  Soal thought he recognized Davis' tone of voice with its fastidious accent.  The communicator used forms of expression that typified the real Gordon Davis' speech  (e.g. “old chap”; “confab” instead of “meeting”).  Davis spoke of the school they had attended, Rochford, and provided details of their last conversation.  He proceeded to refer correctly to persons, places, and events from their school days.  At two ensuing sittings on Jan. 9 and 30, 1922, Davis gave a detailed description of his house, its contents, and the arrangement of its contents.   

To his great surprise, Soal learned in 1925 that Davis was still alive after all and went to visit him.  A great deal of the channeled material about the house proved to be correct.  But Davis and his "wife and kiddie” had not moved into the house until over a year after the relevant sitting!  Davis' diary showed that during Soal’s sittings he had been seeing real estate clients.  Only around the  time of the sittings did Davis even inspect this house for the first time.   But Davis did not move into the house until a year later.  More importantly, the furnishings of the house had not been planned in advance!  Yet the details channeled earlier turned out to be correct: a large mirror, lots of paintings, glorious mountain and sea scenes, very big vases with funny saucers, two brass candlesticks, and a black dickie bird.  Two of the paintings were only done after the sittings!  So much of the material channeled in the later sittings about the house must be ascribed to precognitive telepathy (John Heaney, 176-177). 

Why is channeling not discredited in this way more often?  Well, ask yourself how often you are mistakenly informed that your friend has died.   Was the medium able to exploit Soal’s mistaken faith in Davis’ death as an aid in the process of reconstructing Davis’ personality and future by precognitive telepathy?  Or were the medium (Blanche Cooper) and sitter (Sam Soal) duped by an impersonating spirit?

If you ask what sort of test might favor spirit contact over ESP and clairvoyance as an explanation of channeled material, the answer is the demonstration of a skill lacked by the medium (e. g. xenoglossy).  That is, if a channeled entity can respond to questions posed to the medium in a language unknown to that medium, then mere ESP cannot adequately explain this.  Research has shown that ESP does not extend to a full-blown new skill.  But it must be remembered that xenoglossy is a prime criterion for demonic possession.   So the possibility of an impersonating spirit must be taken into account in such cases.  My reply to question (3) and (4) are important here.

(3) Some spirit controls seem clearly fraudulent.  While Richard Hodgson was still alive, he thoroughly investigated one of Leonore Piper's spirit controls named Phinuit in 1892.  The Phinuit persona claimed to be the spirit of a French doctor whose full name was Jean Phinuit Scliville and who had lived in the early 1800s and had practiced medicine in London, France, and Belgium.  But he was unable to speak more than a few French phrases, displayed no more knowledge of medicine than the average layman, and had never (according to medical records) attended the medical schools at which he claimed to have studied and practiced.  Hodgson initially concluded that Phinuit was just a secondary personality of Mrs. Piper which either erroneously believed itself to be or falsely pretended to be the spirit of a deceased French doctor.   But Hodgson later changed his mind and now concluded that some of the material produced in a trance by Mrs. Piper seemd to go beyond what might be obtained by thought transference from the sitters and thus seemed to suggest real contact with the dead. In his words, “Among these (comunicators) are more than half-a-dozen intimate friends of my own, who have produced upon me the impression...that they are the personalities I knew, with characteristic intelligence and emotion, questioning me and conversing with me under difficulties.”  It seems doubtful that Hodgson would have changed his mind if he had lived to discover the Gordon Davis case.

(4) Shamans understand their mediumship to put them in contact with spirits and demons as well as with deceased people.  In earlier centuries Neoplatonists also practiced trance mediumship, but attributed it to the agency of gods or demons rather than to discarnate humans.   Likewise, witches from the 17th and 18th centuries ascribed their channeled material to demons.  Perhaps the modern attempt to identify spirit controls with deceased personalities reflects the wishful thinking of modern cultural prejudice.  Why is Leonora Piper’s spirit control (Phinuit) lying about his true identity?  Why did Sam Soal’s alleged brother lie about bringing Gordon Davis’ spirit through?   Or were these people simply deceived?

Don

Don,

A serious question from me...

What's your continued interest in discussing this topic?  What are you looking for by doing this?  And why on Bruce's site?

Don:

I didn't read what you wrote, but I pretty much know from past experience what you are going to say.

Some of us have told you in the past that through making contact with our love-based spirit friends "for years," we don't need the kind of verifications you speak of. Such experience means much more than the approach you outline. Since what we said didn't mean anything to you, it seems as if you have no interest in learning from us. This being the case, why should we have any interest in learning from you?

It is quite obvious to me that your reason for being here is to try to convert everybody to your way of thinking,  such a way doesn't give much credence to what Bruce Moen wrote. If you read his books with a mind that isn't limited by your preconceptions, you might benefit by some of what he says.

I would never go to a forum of a teacher I have little interest in, and attempt a hostile takeover, as you do here with the assistance of people such as Roger, Dude and 1796. If you don't understand why it is wrong to do such a thing, then I wonder if your discrimination is clear enough to help others. I recommended to Bruce that you be banned from this forum. I believe the same is true for Dude, Roger and 1796. Of course it is completely up to Bruce to decide what to do, and I respect whatever his decision is, since "he" "not anybody else" is the creator of this forum.

You know I'm not a big fan of some sources of channeling...yet, I don't speak of these now, because I believe there is a more important issue to speak of now.

Dude, if you want to say I am being disrespectful because  being respectful is so important to you, please be fair about this and point out when Don, Roger and 1796 have been disrespectful. 1796 returned just so he could take an indirect pot shot at Justin, and you said nothing.

Doc:

I'm not considering this post in isolation. I'm speaking of numerous threads that have gone on for years.

Bruce took the time to do the exploration he did, he wrote five books, got them published, gained some notoriety, and then started this site.

If Don wants a forum that serves the purpose of promoting his form of Christianity and putting down ways of understanding that include things such as hollow heavens, Disks, retrievals and PUL, then perhaps he should find some way to gain his own notoriety, perhaps by writing a book, so he could start his own forum and advocate his viewpoints there, rather than take over the forum of a person that didn't have the same goals as himself.

Remember, one of the commandments states that people should not steal from others.

"I would never go to a forum of a teacher I have little interest in, and attempt a hostile takeover, as you do here with the assistance of people such as Roger, Dude and 1796. If you don't understand why it is wrong to do such a thing, then I wonder if your discrimination is clear enough to help others. I recommended to Bruce that you be banned from this forum. I believe the same is true for Dude, Roger and 1796."

Here we go again. Albert, it appears your only objective is to continually disrupt the forum via ad hominen attacks. I resent the spurious accusations you direct toward me and others. I'm assisting in a hostile takeover of the forum as is 1796 and Dude? Post the links pls. 1796 just returned after a long absence. How is he doing that, by osmosis?

If Vicky allows this sort of paranoid nonsense from you to continue, it'll be the forum that suffers. Things were returning to normal after your friend left, I guess you couldn't deal with that.

R

The Donald,

Don't you ever get tired of regurgitating and rehashing of your own old material?  It just feels for me, and some others here, like the continuous barrage of your personal beliefs and self superiority.  Your method for the most part is to pretend you understand the beliefs of someone else, Bob Monroe, me or others you disagree with.  Then you gin up a straw-man argument against those beliefs that conflict with yours, then you destroy the straw-man, and in doing so either imply or state that your beliefs are true and the other person's are wrong.

I for one am getting tired of your long diatribes  professing your superiority with your twisted logic arguments.  I'd like to suggest you post your belittling, self aggrandizing material on your own website because, frankly, I am sick of it.

TheDonald wrote on Jun 1^st, 2017 at 10:02pm:

You start with one of your typical, straw-man arguments.  Don, "mere ESP or clairvoyance" CAN be used to explain the method by which a person might perceive verifiable, previously unknown information from a deceased person, but this fact cannot explain the origin such verifiable information.  Don, you have used a misleading straw-man argument to pretend that calling it "mere ESP or clairvoyance" eliminates the possibility that the contact and information are real.   One thing as nothing to do with the other.  Don, they don't.

TheDonald wrote on Jun 1^st, 2017 at 10:02pm:

               
A little research on thought forms might be useful for you, Don.  And again, you resort to a straw-man argument.  An "impressive channeling" that does not include veritably, real information is not at all what I am talking about.

TheDonald wrote on Jun 1^st, 2017 at 10:02pm:


No Don, I do not "seem to imagine" that.  What I call my Basic Premise in workshops is.

1.  If you can find a way to make contact and communicate with a person who is known to be deceased . . .

2.If you can obtain information from this deceased person you have absolutely no other way of knowing except by this contact and communication . . .

3.  If you can verify that the information real, you have not really proven anything, yet.

4.  But you have obtained some evidence, thru your own direct experience, that this deceased person continues to exist, some where.

TheDonald wrote on Jun 1^st, 2017 at 10:02pm:

Another straw-man bites the dust.  If the information was later prove to be fraudulent, it was not verified, was it.
TheDonald wrote on Jun 1^st, 2017 at 10:02pm:
    

A whole bunch of straw-men.   Don, none of what you describe here has anything to do with information that meets the Basic Premise criteria participants use in the workshops.  Typically over 90% of participants in any given workshop fulfill the Basic Premise, both in the role of "medium" and in the role of "sitter."

  Don, going thru the rest of your straw-man filled diatribe is, for me, senseless.  I do wish you would either find something useful to post about, or post your diatribes on your own website.

Bruce 

Albert, Vicky said she was giving everyone a clean slate, yet you continue to dwell in the past and cause trouble where there would be none.  Pestering Vicky and now Bruce when he is ill is shameful.

I don't know what list you're talking about.  Don has not violated any posting guidelines since he's returned to the forum.  If he had I would say so.

TheDonald wrote on Jun 2^nd, 2017 at 12:38am:


You completely deleted your first response to my question.  Your first response said that you called it simple-minded and naive to trust one's own direct experience.  Too bad I didn't copy that response now that I see you've deleted it.

Why are you surprised I ask this question? 

1).  You use the same topic over and over on this site...and it seems your goal is to constantly and consistently try to change the minds of anyone who doesn't believe as you do.  It's obvious that you're not interested in Bruce Moen's work...you're merely using his work and his site as a means of propagating your own writings. 

2.)  You do not bring it up to discuss and hear other people's views.  You do not write in a sharing and conversational way.  Instead, you write speeches and then come post them here. 

3.)  You do not bring it up because you are in search of how to have your own direct experience.  You are on a mission to have people listen to you, not one of learning yourself.  You use the guise of acting as if you're doing people a service by telling them how they must properly discern the truth and telling them how it must be done.

4.). You are here to be an author...to write and be read, that's it. 

These are what I see of you Don.  So that's why I ask why you do this, what you get out of it, and why you are here on this site.  Even Bruce is tired of it.  What does that tell you Don?  Do you still want to continue what you're doing here?