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Overwhelming Evidence of Afterlife

  • 03-11-2007 01:52AM
    #1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 84 ✭✭


    Is there an afterlife?

    Science laughs and mocks...but science has got it wrong so many times that I wouldn't worry too much about that.

    NDEs, mediums tested under exceptionally strict conditions, apparitions, memories of life in the spirit world unearthed under hypnosis, EVP, out of body experiences...taken seperately, any one of these phenomenena is intriguing.

    But consider them in relatikn to each other and a far more interesting, and persuasive picture, emerges...pointing to the existence of an afterlife...

    Consider the case of Leslie Flint, the British Direct Voice Medium. Even when bound and gagged AND with his mouth full of water (!) the voices kept coming...of people physically "dead"...Flint was subjected to just about every test that a dyed in the wool sceptic could conceive of...yet he was never found to be a fraud.

    The same applies to Leonora Piper, the American 19th century medium. She was tested to the utmost..and passed with flying colours. A fact that has huge implications.

    When you eliminate all the frauds and charlatans, you are left with a powerful residue of genuine, honest human beings whose abilities provide evidence of an afterlife.

    Re. NDEs...if thety are just hullicinations or the result of chemical processions within the brain, how can a patient accurately recall what doctors are saying while he/she is still clinically dead? How can such people accurately describe what was happening in the hospital ward...and events that unfolded in other parts of the hospital...while he/she was "under" or clinically dead?

    Have a look at the website of the society that honours Leslie Flint and see what you think.

    Science needs to start taking these issues more seriously!


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Comments

  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 47,768 CMod ✭✭✭✭Black Swan


    fairplay wrote: »
    Science needs to start taking these issues more seriously!
    Why don't you apply the scientific method to an investigation of the afterlife?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 8,015 ✭✭✭CreepingDeath


    fairplay wrote: »
    Is there an afterlife?

    If I were to go by the principal of "Occam's razor", then the simplest explanation is that you're wrong and none of the examples you gave would stand up to modern examination. ( they were at least 40 years ago )

    Even if there were some paranormal element hypothetically, the medium could be recalling an event rather from the past than directly interacting with a dead spirit. Any "new messages" could simply be invented, whether consciously or unconsciously. So, even if a medium could recall 100% of the past of any person who has died, it still does not necessarily prove that those people exist in some other form right now.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 84 ✭✭fairplay


    What do you mean by the "Scientific method"?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 811 ✭✭✭mal1


    fairplay wrote: »
    Is there an afterlife?

    Science laughs and mocks...but science has got it wrong so many times that I wouldn't worry too much about that.

    Science has never got it wrong. Only humans interpretation of science


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 84 ✭✭fairplay


    Quote: "Even if there were some paranormal element hypothetically, the medium could be recalling an event rather from the past than directly interacting with a dead"

    With respect, if you had studied the flint case, you would know that the evidence provided by his mediumship had nothing to do with him "recalling an event from the past". He acted as a channel for spirits who imparted very specific information concerning people who were present in the room or hall where the sittings took place.

    The various convoluted theories offered in an effort to refute his mediumship are fare more off the wall than the idea that was indeed communicating with the spirits of the so-called dead.

    Remember: He was bound and gagged, and with WATER IN HIS MOUTH during many of the sittings...with scientists among other observers present to ensure that fraud was ruled out.

    The voices still came. There's no way around accepting the bona fides of the man. Likewise with Leonora Piper. Bear in mind that scientists were involved in efforts to expose and debunk Mrs. Piper...Her mediumship also stood up to all the best efforts to destroy her reputation, as well as to controlled experiments overseen by the scientists of her day.

    I hold no brief for frauds or chartatans...but please, don't seek to defame people who simply provide evidence in support of something that you have already decided cannot be...owing to prejudice, social conditioning, or an incomplete understanding of what is or is not possible.

    It seems to me that you dismiss the overwhelming evidence provided by the flint case because it shatters your fond notion of what constitutes reality.

    By "open mind" I mean not rejecting a piece of evidence because it threatens to upset your pre-conceived view of the world and what makes it tick.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,014 ✭✭✭GhostInTheRuins


    fairplay wrote: »
    Re. NDEs...if thety are just hullicinations or the result of chemical processions within the brain, how can a patient accurately recall what doctors are saying while he/she is still clinically dead? How can such people accurately describe what was happening in the hospital ward...and events that unfolded in other parts of the hospital...while he/she was "under" or clinically dead?

    What percentage of people that died and have been revived have had NDEs? If it's proof of an afterlife surely everyone that goes through it should experience them as apposed to the very very very small amount that do.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,718 ✭✭✭SkepticOne


    Just listening to some of the recordings of Leslie Flint on the web. Most of the male voices seem to be done by one man sounding a bit like Harry Enfield doing a sort of Mr Cholmondley-Warner impression.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 21,191 ✭✭✭✭Latchy


    Intresting subject but i have always had a hard time trying to understand why ,you ,i ,we, are here in the first place ,before finding out what the next life is about .I find it hard to understand that we will on average live into our seventies having accumulated all this knowledge and then we die without really knowing why we existed in the first place ?, unless thats part of the next step .


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 18,239 ✭✭✭✭WindSock


    SkepticOne wrote: »
    Just listening to some of the recordings of Leslie Flint on the web. Most of the male voices seem to be done by one man sounding a bit like Harry Enfield doing a sort of Mr Cholmondley-Warner impression.


    :D Hehe. It's the ghosly sexists of times past. "Women! Know your limits!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 84 ✭✭fairplay


    SkepticOne wrote: »
    Just listening to some of the recordings of Leslie Flint on the web. Most of the male voices seem to be done by one man sounding a bit like Harry Enfield doing a sort of Mr Cholmondley-Warner impression.

    Silly sheap shots might get a laugh, but they mean nothing. Why not look seriously at the evidence without having decided in advance that you're going to discredit it no matter what?


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,718 ✭✭✭SkepticOne


    fairplay wrote: »
    Silly sheap shots might get a laugh, but they mean nothing. Why not look seriously at the evidence without having decided in advance that you're going to discredit it no matter what?
    I was just having a laugh but seriously, why do male of the male voices sound like the've been done by one man when they are supposedly made directly by the spirits?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 994 ✭✭✭kshiel


    Of course I cannot prove this and it is only a theory anyway but if a spirit person is using a medium to come through and the spirit has no vocal cords due to the lack of an earthly body and also due to the ability of the spirit and the medium I would assume that if the spirit has to use the vocal cord of the meduim due to the make up of him that it would at times still sound like the mediums voice in some form.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,718 ✭✭✭SkepticOne


    kshiel wrote: »
    Of course I cannot prove this and it is only a theory anyway but if a spirit person is using a medium to come through and the spirit has no vocal cords due to the lack of an earthly body and also due to the ability of the spirit and the medium I would assume that if the spirit has to use the vocal cord of the meduim due to the make up of him that it would at times still sound like the mediums voice in some form.
    No the claim is that the spirits speak directly.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,225 ✭✭✭Ciaran500


    Any links to all this proof?


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 47,768 CMod ✭✭✭✭Black Swan


    fairplay wrote: »
    What do you mean by the "Scientific method"?
    Wikipedia defines, describes, and references the scientific method, as does the "Introduction to the Scientific Method" (University of Rochester).

    It would be wise to review these two documents before reiterating the "Overwhelming Evidence of Afterlife" exists?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 84 ✭✭fairplay


    Ciaran500 wrote: »
    Any links to all this proof?

    I suggest you do not confine your search to any one form of evidence...look at NDEs, mediums (the genuine ones, eliminate the frauds), out of body experiences, recordings of Direct Voice Mediums, the files of the SPR in the UK and USA, the work of past life regression therapists etc...and then consider these in relation to each other.

    Don't be overwilling to accept or believe anything...but try not to be held back by bull**** academic or organised religion pre-conceived ideas or "reality constructs".

    Or by cheap shot quips about Leslie Flint...listen. the guy COULDN'T have fabricated those voices...study the experiments...do the research...I promise you, you'll be convinced! There were and are female voices coming through on DV too...Flint was tested to the utmost...I challenge you. Consider the evidence with an open mind. Cut through the bull**** and then see what you think.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,569 ✭✭✭iamhunted


    Wikipedia defines, describes, and references the scientific method, as does the "Introduction to the Scientific Method" (University of Rochester).

    It would be wise to review these two documents before reiterating the "Overwhelming Evidence of Afterlife" exists?

    blind faith in science is as bad as blind faith in the paranormal. The mind, for example, is a classic example of how science is split - some scientists (ok not too many) may claim the mind is seperate from the brain, others believe it to be part of the brain. If they havent worked out what the mind is then you cant take everything science says as fact. Science may have guidelines but it doesnt mean that those guidelines are never broken as to assume so would be to assume we know everything.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,718 ✭✭✭SkepticOne


    fairplay wrote: »
    Or by cheap shot quips about Leslie Flint...listen. the guy COULDN'T have fabricated those voices...study the experiments...do the research...I promise you, you'll be convinced! There were and are female voices coming through on DV too...Flint was tested to the utmost...I challenge you. Consider the evidence with an open mind. Cut through the bull**** and then see what you think.
    He personally would not have done the female voices but it sounds like one man (not necessarily himself though possible) did the voices for many of the male spirits. That voice sounds a bit like Harry Enfield doing the posh voice in the "Cholmondeley-Warner" sketches.

    Would it be possible for you to post some links to where Flint was investigated by reputable scientists. I can't seem to find the names of any or their independent accounts.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,247 ✭✭✭✭6th


    fairplay wrote: »
    Is there an afterlife?

    Maybe ... maybe not.
    fairplay wrote: »
    Science laughs and mocks...but science has got it wrong so many times that I wouldn't worry too much about that.

    Taking the same attitude towards science as science has done towards the paranormal is 100% the wrong way to go about it. Science has gotten is right infinately more times than the paranormal ... and I am speaking as a believer in many of the phenomenon you mention.
    fairplay wrote: »
    NDEs, mediums tested under exceptionally strict conditions, apparitions, memories of life in the spirit world unearthed under hypnosis, EVP, out of body experiences...taken seperately, any one of these phenomenena is intriguing.

    None of the above can be accepted as fact, the mechanics of them are simple nowhere near understood. Where we understand EVP or not we simple do not know what it is and dispite peoples beliefs and optinions what is actually happening will remain a mystery for a long time, imo.
    fairplay wrote: »
    But consider them in relatikn to each other and a far more interesting, and persuasive picture, emerges...pointing to the existence of an afterlife...

    There is a huge difference between pointing to the existence of an afterlife and, as yur topic title says Overwhelming Evidence of Afterlife it is this over colourful language and choice of words which causes confussion and draws ridicule on this area of study.

    Also these phenomenon do not point towards an existance of an afterlife, they are simply an indication that there is alot we dont understand.

    fairplay wrote: »
    Consider the case of Leslie Flint, the British Direct Voice Medium. Even when bound and gagged AND with his mouth full of water (!) the voices kept coming...of people physically "dead"...Flint was subjected to just about every test that a dyed in the wool sceptic could conceive of...yet he was never found to be a fraud.

    Impressive but then again a single case should not and is not enough to convince the world of an afterlife. I dont know enough about flint to comment further at this point.
    fairplay wrote: »
    The same applies to Leonora Piper, the American 19th century medium. She was tested to the utmost..and passed with flying colours. A fact that has huge implications.

    Tested to the utmost ... by 19th century standards.
    fairplay wrote: »
    When you eliminate all the frauds and charlatans, you are left with a powerful residue of genuine, honest human beings whose abilities provide evidence of an afterlife.

    And how do we seperate the frauds from the genuine people? Both Uri Geller & Slvia brown where both held up as heros of the paranormal for many eyars and yet have been found to be either frauds or just plain wrong in the information they receive. WHen things like this happen the community wash their hands of them and find the next person they believe to be honest human being.

    fairplay wrote: »
    Re. NDEs...if thety are just hullicinations or the result of chemical processions within the brain, how can a patient accurately recall what doctors are saying while he/she is still clinically dead? How can such people accurately describe what was happening in the hospital ward...and events that unfolded in other parts of the hospital...while he/she was "under" or clinically dead?

    Even without the spiritual and supernatural the human body is an amazing piece of kit. Belief and blind faith are required if NDE are to be taken for what they are without and understanding of what is physically happening. Still I hear people go on about the weight of the human soul when this has never been recreated since it first happened. If people are willing to accept an afterlife based on subjective experience which, lets face it, are pot luck, then fine but you can not eexpects otehrs to take this as the case.

    Why does this happen to some and not others?
    fairplay wrote: »
    Science needs to start taking these issues more seriously!

    Is this the same science that you seem to put so little faith in? Why say that science gets it wrong and yet still yearn for its acceptance? Sometimes the paranormal reminds me of a troublesome child who desperately longs for teh love and acceptance of its father.

    __________

    Pardon my typos ... I is broked.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 436 ✭✭mossieh


    Excellent post 6th.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,247 ✭✭✭✭6th


    Thank you. I sometimes worry,as I am sure many regulars do, that just because we have experienced strange happenings that we are ready to just jump up[ and believe anythign without asking questions and thinking things through.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 287 ✭✭TheThing!


    If you know of any proof of anything paranormal which includes the after life then you need to get in contact with James Randi. He has been offering a 1 million dollar prize to anybody who can put forward such proof. Funnily enough, despite the fact that the prize has been open for something like 30 years, it has never been won. Randi, and the rest of the world still await conclusive proof of the existence of anything paranormal...


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,569 ✭✭✭iamhunted


    not really. audio or video is no good as evidence as it can be claimed to be fake. the only way would be to bring randi to a haunted location and made paranormal thigns happen - which obviously will never happen.

    Randis reward is the best bit of marketing ever. He knows he can cast doubt on any paranormal footage given to him.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 287 ✭✭TheThing!


    iamhunted wrote: »
    not really. audio or video is no good as evidence as it can be claimed to be fake. the only way would be to bring randi to a haunted location and made paranormal thigns happen - which obviously will never happen.

    Randis reward is the best bit of marketing ever. He knows he can cast doubt on any paranormal footage given to him.

    Video is not evidence because is easily faked and has been on many occasions. There is no such thing as genuine video evidence as far as the paranormal goes. Bringing Randi to a so called haunted location is a reasonable suggestion and I am sure he would do it if the claims seemed to be in any way genuine. He would conduct the investigation in a scientific manner and he would find that there is in fact nothing haunted about the location.
    Randi has tested all sorts of paranormal claims from telekenisis to cold reading and never once, not on a single occasion, had it proved genuine. Look up James Hydrick and Uri Geller on Youtube for two classic example and then subscribe to the skeptics guide to the universe on iTunes and your life will instantly improve.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,247 ✭✭✭✭6th


    Any video footage can be faked without too much effort .... everything from the Paris Hilton video to Jurassic Park. Brcause everything can be faked are we to presume nothing is real?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 192 ✭✭KIVES


    The whole thing's a Ferris Wheel in my humble opinion-know of at laest 6 reputable people who have had 'genuine' paranormal experiences - is it not an anomolie to expect substantial evidence of such happenings..I mean,surely the whole thing is based on trust of a persons character+their findings - What I'm saying is,people are barking up the wrong tree in debating about 'irrefutable evidence' - my Uncle,god rest him, used to whistle to his recently deceased Dog - He'd open a tin of Predigree Chum or some such dog food and swear the spirit of Dandy was secretly nibbling away at the food - now this was simply hearsay as my Uncle was not a reputable character...basically,it's a quare pancake


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 59 ✭✭smirkingmaurice


    I know this sounds like horse dung but one day my aunt was driving to tramore when she thought she heard sniggering in the back seat, when she looked back she got a stink of rotten eggs,kind of methane smell that she nervously jests smelt like someone let "fly" so to speak. I feel like crap in that car, anyone have some kind of experience like that?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 59 ✭✭smirkingmaurice


    By the way the car is a skoda, no jokes please but maybe theres a mechanical fault or something with it


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 59 ✭✭smirkingmaurice


    Heard a story once, guy from ennis, was walking home when he saw this old woman crouched in someones yard roaring, she was dressed in white, it was raining so he didn't stop for too long. hes convinced she was a banshee. He said he could still hear her roaring when he went in home to bed, didn't get a wink of sleep. Thankfully nobody died but he said it was frightful stuff to be lying awake to


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 287 ✭✭TheThing!


    6th wrote: »
    Any video footage can be faked without too much effort .... everything from the Paris Hilton video to Jurassic Park. Brcause everything can be faked are we to presume nothing is real?

    It is not possible to prove the existence of paranormal activity beyond doubt using any video "evidence" because it is impossible to establish any form of scientific proof from such material.

    Just for your future reference, the second statement you made is a logical falacy known as the straw man argument.


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