You're listening to the Paranormal UK Radio Network and now it's time for the Paranormal
Peep Show. Hi, Welcome to the Paranormal Peek Show on the Paranormal UK
Radio Network with myself. New award and returning is Andy Chaplain. Andy,
welcome back and how are you pretty good? Neil? I'm fully dosed up
on all the spiced pumpkin a soup that you mentioned in the last episode that
I watched with Ben Emlyn James, and he did a very good job on
that. I've had an absolutely crazy, manic Halloween. It seems like ages
since we last spoke. I've just been going here, there, and everywhere,
And much as I love Halloween, I'm kind of glad it's all over
now because I've been doing events. I've been doing zombie things, scare mazes,
and having fun with a wonderful girl that's entered my life called Bunny.
I won't had a full name, but nicknamed Bunny. And yeah, we're
just kind of going here, there and everywhere, and that should be an
interesting future because I've got a few plans ahead of us. Oh excellent,
Oh well, good luck with that. Yeah. Ben mentioned something about being
loved up or something he chose. But yeah, Ben did a great job
co hosting. But I expected him to because he's naturally a very good guest
anyway, and he's always got a lot to talking about. And one thing
that really kind of always gets me with Ben is that he comes out with
this whole multitudes of words that I've never heard before. He flucks them from
the ethan and thinking got them, like, what given this an example?
Oh, I can't remember. He just comes over like some words like I
just can't remember. That's to review it right down. It's lots of scientific
y stuff, you know. It really sort of bends my brain a bit
and thinking what the hell does that mean? You know. But yeah,
he's very good. He can hold his own on those sorts of discussions.
And Ben's this is why we have Ben on regularly because he's such a good
guest and also a good equally co hosts. And he also obviously he hosts
Sara Apollo Detectives and we've just done a recent episode of that actually, which
I'm in the middle of editing now. So that's where we had Jarond White
talking with a Shuttle astronaut, which was an interesting debate. So I'll put
the link in the description under our show for this one if anyone wants to
watch that. So, yeah, you've had a good, good Halloween then,
so you're come and swinging around into the Christmas mode now, so you've
been busy with your psychic evenings and things. Yeah, doing a lot of
psychic events here, there and everywhere. I was kind of winding down now
a little bit. And funny enough, Neil close to us in a town
called Hoddiston or close to me, there's a theater there that's going to be
doing Most Haunted live the stage show. This was hugely controversial. I mean
I got into the whole psychic thing kind of sort of late nineties, early
two thousands, and that was when Derek Acora was doing show called Predictions on
Sky and when Most Haunted first came out and was very kind of like rudimentary
in the beginning and back in the very very first episodes, it was actually
quite good. I thought Most Taunts was kind of fairly balanced and fairly decent.
It then became controversial, didn't it, because there's accusations of faking it.
So as with most things in the kind of media and TV, world.
It starts off, but then they want it bigger and better and bigger
and better and more bizarre and more well, and so over time you'd see
Derek Acora a kind of getting more possessed many and all this kind of thing,
and it became a little bit of a laughing stock kind of and then
it's all faded out, didn't it. And the American shows started coming along,
like Taps and all that kind of thing, ghost Hunters with Zach and
his crazy hair. But yeah, this Most Taunted Live is coming around the
Spotlight Theater in Broxbourn. I think it's nineteenth of November. I'm going to
it with a couple of friends of mine and we're going to see what's going
to happen. Apparently at the end of it there's going to be a seance.
Fantastic. It'd be interesting to see if they kind of like, say,
are there any mediums in the audience, and then if there are,
be like me and yeah, see what happens, and will be quite interesting
as well, because although I'm in the mediumistic kind of like world myself,
I do actually have like a skeptics or a scientific hat as well. So
I'm going to be trying to spot to see if they're setting anything up or
if they've got any shenanigans going on, and if they are, then I
will be reporting back. Wow, maybe you can grab someone from an interview.
Yeah, yeah, but someone who is scientific and with a bit of
a mediumistic slant as well as our guest tonight. That's Chris Conley joining us.
Welcome Chris, are you there, hey, Chris, I am indeed,
Thank you, Neil Andrew Brown invitation, thank you for joining us.
So we just heard Andy. They're talking about the most Haunted live on stage
and Andy wonders if there's going to be any kind of rigging of the ghost
person. Do you think you'd be a guy that would be qualified with your
scientific, technical background and mediumistic background to kind of maybe pick up on that
sort of stuff. Well, I kind of hope, So, I kind
of hope. So. I mean, I think with anything to do with
entertainment, there's always an element of saying make believe involved. So, as
I said, it'll be interesting to see what and it comes back with.
Yeah. So to give people a bit more information about you, You've got
a sort of an engineer of science background, haven't you. In the space,
the UK space industry. Correct. Yes, so I come from an
engineering background thirty five years as an engineer, primarily as a research engineer design
products for various various LAWD buy industries. The last twelve years has been the
GO space industry, involved with the design of imaging technology for what we call
Earth observation missions, and more recently I'm involved in the writing and the development
of software out for the missions used on the satellites and on the spacecraft.
Wow. But yeah, so as a background, but I also have a
background in psychology own cart level about eighteen months or a fingers crossed from completing
my doctorate in psychology, where I'm researching the mental processes or the psychology and
the coptive process is used by mediums to commune with the spirit world. You
know that my background is really because of the science I'm interested in is to
try and try and demystify as much as possible mediumship because, as we were
discussing, only also a medium for the last twenty five years as well,
So you know, I come from it from both, from both perspectives.
It's kind of useful because obviously I've got a lot of willing colleagues and friends
willing to put themselves through all the trauer and of being involved in the experiments
that I'm conducting and so forth. So do you work with people like Dr
Kerr and O'Keeffe and Chris French and they are they I would say they are
more on the skeptics side. But there are a lot of researchers and academics
I do work with who, let's us say, I would say, I'm
more open minded about the research. And actually it was working with a researcher
from Northampton University, professor Chris Row, a psychology professor, and a group
of his PhD students that encouraged me to actually go on to do a master's
in psychology and the PhD because I realized talking to them there were things that
they were saying. They'd been researching mediumship for many years. There were things
they were saying that they can understand, and from a spiritualist perspective, I
could understand, you know, where they were coming from. But I thought,
you know, to be able to engage with researchers, you know,
I thought it would be good to certain go and get my own as soon
as off the shelf. So to speak, go and get my own PhD,
my own doctorate, and so I can understand the perspective they come from
and be able to many sort of like answer their questions from a spiritualist perspective,
from a media's perspective a degree that they would be able to understand,
and so forth. When you come across kind of like I suppose mainstream or
skeptical viewpoints regarding mediumship, how can I put this? Is there kind of
like a bias or an emphasis for you to go along with it and believe
it? Or do they or is it a case of you find your own
solutions, your own kind of like, uh, I don't know what the
right word thesis or something. Do they do they allow you to freethink within
your your masters and your doctors or is it kind of you must think this
way and if you don't then those at the end of the At the end
of the day, the doctorate is is self governed by myself, right you
know? And and the supervisors that I have, which are from Kenterrey Christ
Church University in Kent, well two supervisors there. One is a member of
the Society for Psychical Research, has been a member for many years and has
actually a past editor of their journal, and another supervisor I have is an
expert in cognitive psychology. Again, you know, they're there. We really
need to support me through the process to so I can understand if like thetistical
methods and research methodologies and things like that, the actual topic itself. You
know, they're they're you know, they're interested in and willing to support as
we go along. And you'll find interestingly that maybe I've just been very fortunate,
but you know a lot of the researchers and academics have come across are
very supportive of survival. And actually what people have realized is there is a
humongous amount of literature out there. The research lister in peur of view journals
that actually support that, you know what mediums claim to be doing. You
know that there's absolutely an abundance of literature there. See what would you would
you say, roughly speaking within the psychology world, is the percentage of believers
versus skeptics? I would I would say, I wouldn't say believers versus skeptics.
You would probably say who would be more willing to be open minded to
those that will would light to follow the sort of mainstream narrative, and it
really comes down to the scientist's world view here, seeing are they willing to
accept that, you know, if they're example, know, if they're a
realist, you know, they would accept that everything that you see is all
there is. You know, I view myself more for a critical realist,
where I say, well, you know, I genuinely believe there is nothing
paranormal. I believe eventually we would understand, you know, because we talk
about mediumship under the field of parapsychology and I kind of cringe a little bit
because para seems to suggest it's not normal, beyond the normal understanding, and
and I just think, well, no, it's just we don't understand it.
They'll be no. Mediumship is cross cultural, across the ages, you
know, across time, and so it's not nothing. There's nothing admirable about
it. It's just that we don't understand it. And I do feel that,
you know, as a scientist alone say, you know that it's encomfort
upon us to be open minded to anything. You know, for example,
we were talking earlier about did we go to the moon and things like that,
right, and you know, I'm all the mindset we did, but
there is no if there was sufficient evidence to suggest we didn't. You know,
I can't be a scientist and say no, no, no, no,
that's wrong. You know, if the evidence seems suggesting the alternative,
do you know what I mean? And it's where you know, it depends
on your worldview and whether you are a scientist or whether you're just so engrossed
in maybe should we say biases because of agendas that you have that's you from
being open and mind from the other the wider view of things. Yeah,
I think you're right, and I think interestingly, it's the same similar kind
of argument that people like for instance, Professor Chris French or doctor kan A
Keiford present in the people people who believe in the paranormal, supernatural, ghost
world will always kind of like have a bias looking for evidence that there is
something there because that's what they already believe. And so anything that happens,
you know, whether a stone is thrown, or there's a knock at the
glass of the pane of window or something forward of a table, their bias
is that it must be supernatural. But that does work the other way.
If you've got a pre disposition to believe that everything's not in any way supernatural.
You will always be looking for an explanation, even if it's like a
bizarre explanation, to rationalize that it must not be paranormal, if that makes
sense. Absolutely, you have this confirmation by that you will find things that
satisfy what you're predisposed to believe or your beliefs. Absolutely, and now,
and this is where as scientists we should be open minded and we should be
mindful that you know, the evidence, we follow the evidence of follow the
data and not follow our beliefs, you know. And so you know in
my doctorate, you know, I have to be open in the thesis,
in the in the thesis and saying you know, this is my position.
No, I've got to be open and say, look, I come promise
some of a spiritualist perspective. I'm I'm assuming the past literature on mediums is
accurate, you know, that support mediums and support what we do. And
there is an abundance of literature out there that does that, and I have
to assume that is correct. But there is a possibility is not. You
know, I mean, in my in the research I'm doing, you know,
I was you know, I had a nice clear sort of timeline and
plant while I was hoping to achieve, but very quickly in the first set
of experiments, I found that the thing that didn't support and it's and I
had to go off on a tangent and find something else. But that's the
whole point of what scientific research is about. It's not saying I'm going to
find this. It's about I need to be open, I need to conduct
your spirit because I'm interested in explaining what's going on here. But I can
only allow the data to inform my next conclusion or my next experiments. You
know. But you know, and you've got to remember that a lot of
these academical researchers have jobs. You know, they have positions in respectable sort
of universities, and you know and know it still isn't a career to move
into the field of parapsychology, you know, in terms of it's not really
going to enhance your career. So when you have skeptics, you know,
it must be very hard for someone who comes out and says, you know,
there is absolutely nothing, the area is all fantasy, it's all you
wishful thinking on the median's perspective, or even you know, some of the
some of the literature seems to suggest that that people who believe in the paranorl
or or who are mediums have some sort of cognitive deficit. You know,
we're basically unable to think scientifically or unable to think critically, you know,
and things like that. And it's like, if you present that and you
have that stance and you create a network of colleagues, the network of friends
who then scaffold that position that you're holding, it's got to be difficult for
them to change change position, do you know what I mean? And so
you know, it's it's it's human nature. It's all human behavior, human
nature, and all sort of like the unconscious by we try to go through
life to try and relieve any possible conflicts, internal conflict dissonance, can call
it stick with the sort of beliefs that fit fiss ole world view, I'd
agree. I mean, the thing is I entered the kind of like the
spiritual and the psychic world probably early two thousand by watching shows like Most Taunted,
Predictions, etc. That bumped me off into kind of like the or
springboard of me off I should say, into the world of kind of like
spiritualism and that kind of thing. However, I've always kept this scientific hat
on in terms of is there another logical explanation. So, for instance,
and Neil knows about this, when I had like a shadow man incident where
I walked along a canal path and there was very clearly a human shape,
a dark figure with a torso in a head, and it kind of as
I was walking past it and melted into the fence, into the metal fence,
that just melted away. I tried to recreate that. So in the
moment and as it happened, obviously obviously this is impossible. It wasn't a
physical person because there was nobody there. I tried to recreate it. I
was because this was twilight, so I tried to recreate it waiting for a
car to come along. There was a road kind of like on the other
side of this, and the car headlights made the shadows move kind of through
the through the metal fence. You could see the shadows both, and I
was kind of like to shift in my position. Was it kind of like
as I was moving, was something else kind of moving at the same time
was the car headlights doing? And I couldn't recreate it. But the whole
point of this is kind of what I was trying to find a logical explanation
for what I was seeing and I couldn't find it. Yeah. Absolutely,
and you know, and this is something that the spirit world tell us all
the time these do you get a communication, do you have an experience and
sort of phenomena from the spirit world and you believe it's the spirit world?
But Arsens repregated, that's interesting, Arsen's replicated, because if it is the
spirit world, they will prove it to you. You know. If it's
not, then the chances why not happen again, you know, but you
know the spirit world or intelligence, you know, so you know, ask
them to try and replicate it again. No, if it's if it is
generally some sort of spirit phenomena, that's that's manifests there. Yeah, to
obviously, But you were you were a skeptical person in the beginning though when
you got involved in all this, wasn't that Yeah, I mean I was.
I didn't really think much about it. I mean, it seems being
involved in spirituals and lie knowing you speak to family members and they and they
and they remind you that you know that You've always that. I've always had
some type of shall we say, weirdness as I like to as they like
to put it, so to speak, you know, back when I was
a toddler about four years old and so forth. But you know, it's
one of these things and that you just you know, you've got to get
you gotta work, you've got to go to school, you go to college,
you got a union, you got to work, you know, and
that sort of thing is these things should put the back of your mind and
get on with things. But it was it was just literally a chance visit
at our local Spirituous church at graves End in North Kent that prompted this whole
interest where again. And it was rather curious because I got a communication myself
from the medium, and I mean I was very skeptical, you know,
like you are. I mean, graves In church is sort of not aware.
It's like a townhouse. It's like an old Victorian sort of townhouse.
And so you've got you go in at the ground go with at the ground
level, and that's where the church is. They can diverted upstairs into a
flat and then you go down says in the basement, and that's a tea
room. Well, you know, so you go in and and you have
this communication with the service and so forth. And I got out I've got
a communication from a relative that one and I thought, well, that's really
kind of cool. So I went down afterwards to speak to the medium and
they sort of like carried the communication all and and it was it was interesting
because what they were saying was, you know that basically it was just you
know, I was, what twenty four, and they were saying, no,
you can do this too. What I was saying, you can do
this too. You know, I'm thinking, this is just a recruitment drive.
You know, this is just a recruit meeting. As a young and
twenty four year I've already know and so but nonetheless, I went back every
every week of the service, and I kept a folder because every week,
interestingly, every week, you know, as you will know, there's a
different medium serving the church, and every week I've got I've got a message
from the spirit world. For six months, every week I got a message
in the spirit world saying, uh, you can do this too. Again,
I'm thinking, okay, so this is that that applying this heavy recruitment
drive onto him. But but you know, but every time I kept I
used to go home and write up exactly what was said where I was sitting,
you know, who the medium was, you know, and things like
that, you know, just try to lay it all out, because I
was convinced it was, you know, it was some sort of fraud activity
going on here. And and then I realized one time that I thought I
understood what was going on. And downstairs in the in the tea room,
because the old old sort of townhouse you have to sort of like the old
fireplaces and the alcoves be made into cupboards, and I just thought, what,
You've probably got a high tech CCTV system hidden behind the cupboards there,
and you want microphones upstairs in the church. And I'm thinking myself, you
know, people want to breath, they go to church, they're going to
talk about their loved ones and so forth. Then and I just had this
picture of this medium sitting downstairs with his CCTV system listening to listening to coversations
upstairs, you know. But anyway, so that's how I got involved to
six months in I was eventually invited you to sit in circle again. Used
to turn up half hour earlier so I could set the jairs out, make
sure there was no triggery involved. And I think it was week three.
The medium ask me to stand up and communication and I sort of like say,
if like most people, well, how do you do that? And
they talked me through it and here I am today, and that was it,
and I decided then, I think that if I wanted to understand it,
understand what was going on, but I needed in some way to try
and discard or move aside that skeptical element and just to like throw myself into
it on the basis that at some point I'll revisit this from from a scientific
spectrum. And that's exactly why done. So you know, he involved for
twenty five years. Fifteen of those or ten of those are to say has
been now the church services and on my working at the churches have started to
tail off and the research has taken over. But I still feel that I'm
guided by spirit in this way. You know, I'm not sort of like
discarding the spirit world or or their inspiration. I still feel very much that
this is something that I think the spirit world wants me to pursue going forward
with that in mind, have you had any kind of messages or some sort
of confirmation from spirit in some way that says, please do this research or
something like that. I've had. I've had bits, yes, from from
mediums who have who have not known what I'm doing or not known who I
am or what have you, and on my involvement in spiritualism, and who
have sort of like given messages that I've been I understood to be you know
that this is the roots I'm to be taking now. Yeah, I mean
I I love serving the churches, and my fault tooth and now to try
and keep hold of those church services. But as you know, you know
that you know, if you're on a path, you can't know it is
what it is, you know. So but I'm fascinated by the research and
the moment conducting and seeing and doing. And you're looking into trance or something
as well, aren't you. Trials was something old was one of the first
areas I was looking at in I was looking into in terms of trying to
understand trance. Obviously we're throwing here to spiritualist trials or medi mystic trance,
and in particular it was again on one try to do is understand what's going
on. I suppose that comes from the engineering and sort of background. They're
and trying to break like dismantal something and put things back together again to try
and see how it all works. But Charles I thought was quite interesting because
there is a lot of myth, superstition and a lot of strange ideas about
trance and what we find and what I've found is that with trance is you
can't don't read this is a derogatory way, but you can't always trust the
trance mediums who are teaching trance because they're only teaching trants from their perspective.
And what we find is that what they're aware of, it doesn't always reflect
what they're doing and because they're tricking anybody is because that's very often when we've
measured, for example, the physiology of trance mediums, and I've measured it
using skin conductance that measures the physiology that the automomic nervous system, and a
measured using EEG using that small sort of news headband we call them news headband.
The measures the brainway of activity. With mediums. When you ask me
the trans regions, what are they're aware of, it's very often a lot
different to what the readings of the physiology of the mediums are saying is happening.
No, So there is this paradox that's a difference here. So for
example, when for example, we him trans mediums talk about the need to
go into this very deep state where they're not aware of anything and uh,
and they're just not aware in their absence of mind or they're just going through
this deep relaxation so to speak, we have to differentiate because what we see
the physiology is yes, the body is relaxed, quite true, but their
mind, their brain activity is completely the opposite. It's a very heightened state
of arounsal And it's like, well you say that to the trans media,
well, actually you know, your body was relaxed, but your mind was
literally buzzing, you know. And they're and they're like, well, that's
contrat to what they're experiencing. And so this is why I say it's it's
got it very I mean meegians who choose your in trance, I feel,
happ to be very careful in how they explain trance works because actually the physiology
that the data seems to suggest the opposite of what they're they're saying. And
the reason the reason I did the trans research was I've found myself and give
a trance and you know, and as you know as as mediums yourself,
when you're in a development group and you work in your mental mediumship, you've
got someone in front of you giving you sort of feedback no, and in
a way you're kind of learning to tune in and you're sort of like guiding
yourself. You know what's right, what's wrong. You get a sense of
afterward, you get a sense of feel. But when something is right,
you got the yeah. But what I found when I started singing for trance,
you know, I'd sat I sat there and I closed my eyes.
I was aware of the spirit world and it was like, well what do
we do now? You know? Said, well, what happens now?
You know? You know? And so that's why I did the research because
I wanted to see, well, what is meant to happen? And when
I understood that I'm not meant to just be completely unconscious or completely out of
it, but actually there's something else going on, that's when I realized that
how to sit for trance and my own trans developments or I went in leaps
and bounds. Once I realized that m is there any sort of specific spirits
that you'd be bringing through or is it a higher self or anything like that.
Oh well if it's if it's a higher self, it wouldn't be medimistic
trance. But it's it's we do I do have a so we say influence
or a spirit friend like on friends and spirit that come through and communicate.
And so yes, there are there are individuals. I'm not going to name
them but because they asked not to be named at the moment, but they
are. There are individuals that come through. It's interesting and so for the
benefit of the audience that of hearing the description of a trance for the first
time, and obviously there's people listening that are thinking, what the hell are
they talk about? Trans can can you explain for the benefit of our listeners
what in a in a mediumistic way of trance is? Okay, So when
we talk about trance mediumship, trance mediumship is a forum well mental mediumship.
So what we're you see, The thing is I don't always I don't actually
agree necessarily with the definitions here as well, but let's let's explain. Let's
go to the traditional explanation of trance mediumship. So we know mediumship is mental
mediumship in the sense that that the medium conveys the information from the impressions mental
impressions that the spirit world give them and all that's what you see on a
platform or in church and so forth. So we call that perception mediumship.
They're preceding the spirit world. Trans mediumship is just the next step in many
many ways. And the data and the physiology data and the EEG data seems
to support that. But it is just the next step in the sense is
classes control mediumship in the sense that what happens there is the medium is seen
to be going into an altered state and normally their eyes closed, and the
spirit world is just able to draw that bit closer. We're saying. The
achievement is that bit finer, as we say, And what happens is that
the medium will take on maybe the closer person of the spirit world coming forward
and provide evidence, find evidence or communication of their existence in some form.
And so that's a traditional explanation. But what do you perceive to be different.
I'm I've been with the research that I'm doing and the research I have
been doing for the last ten years. You can't help but look at the
broader sorts of literature on what we call survival of consciousness research and the survival
of continence research includes things such as near death experiences, deathbed visitation, as
reincarnation and so forth, as well as mediumship. And because a lot of
the researchers out there would say that mediumship alone though, provides evidence of continuation
of life. So it's actually if you bring all the bigger pictures, the
bigger picture of the wider perspective together, then you have that real sort of
strong case for the survival of consciousness. You know, So mediumship on its
own maybe not. Near death experiences no provide evidence to a survival, but
as they're on their own, probably not conclusive, you know, the same
as death betivisitations provide evidence contenation of life, but on their own not but
everything fully altogether the evidence of the bigger packaging, with mediumship and everything else
put together, then there is this sort of big body of knowledge. However,
to do that, you then have to say what is the commonalities here?
And when you do that you start to see that maybe the spiritualist I
called the spiritualist model of how mediumship works in the sense of you know that
we take care away and is the spirit world and the spirit parison draws close
to us or blends with us, and the tunes with us. You know,
it's not necessary. And it also doesn't explain these other forms of medium
other forms of the phenomena that we see as well. And so it seems
to suggest there is another how do I put this, There is another mechanism
that that's that's there's another mechanism in play what I think would support mediumship but
also support these other phenomenas that we see. And and I think, you
know, the spiritualist model is a model that gives us a framework of perceiving
the spirit world in some way. And it also member of spiritualism is a
religion, and so it complies with the sort of that that the religion or
the framework of religion in that respect as well in terms of happening that this
spirit world and people being there and so forth, it follows that type of
model. But the data, see the data that I'm seeing seems to suggest
that he needs something else is happening watch this space for would that suggests then,
I mean, I'm just figuring things at random here because I have an
interest We interviewed Simon Young a couple of shows back, and he's a research
although he's English, he's based in Italy, but he's into folklore and he
spoke to us about fairy sightings and very interesting. He's got this kind of
whole database of fairy sightings and people just fill out kind of a sheet of
information via his website of what they perceived to be a fairy encounter. And
he's got something like five hundred encounters and I think he's getting another five hundred
together shortly to publish as a free downloader on his on his website. And
so I kind of kind of get the idea. And then we talk about
shadow beings, and you've got these dog men, sight beings and all sorts
of things that the spiritual world or the spiritualist thing is one kind of activity
if you're like where we're literally dialing it up or they're dialing back to us
to communicate. But it's almost like, as I spoke to I gave a
talk the other week and I described to the people in the audience what possibly
the fairy beings are. It's like it's almost like that we've got a spiritual
world. But then there's the wild life, you like that we have in
our world where we see hints of wildlife and our back garden, the fox,
the badger, or the rabbit at the end of the garden. And
then further out, if we go into a jungle, we might see a
tiger or a rang, a tang or whatever it may be, and we
realize they're beings, they're living sentiment beings, but we can't always communicate with
them, but we kind of like observe them, and that observe us,
and we might have encounters with them, and I like them the fairy world
to something like the wildlife, but in a spiritual dimension. So I'm just
wondering if like what you're trying to describe is that, you know, you
think there's more to it than just the spiritualist model. There's a greater reality
beyond those Yeah, and absolutely absolutely, And I would extend that by saying
that where I refer to the spiritualist model and responding also to the mechanics of
mediumship, because it's that those mechanics of mediumship in terms of you know,
the spirit world Blainey with Arooric Field and sobil. But we've all heard about
that I'm I'm now questioning because I don't necessarily feel that that is necessary,
because you know, we have to look at all these other fields that support
some sort of a viable even ESP work, you know, the psychic work
and the s P work, you know, seems to suggest that that we
don't need. For example, we do psychometry, you know, we talk
about psychometriagnis how to give you a power and object, you know, Well,
the question is do we really need the pain and object to do psychometry?
You know, you know, is there not the ability within us to
just have that intention? And this is where we're going. This is what
the data seems to suggest that that we are that the catalyst for for all
this. This this the perception that we have and it's just it's it's because
because our doctor is to do with intention, and the copnitive process is involved
in decision making, awareness and so forth. You know that the data seems
to suggest that there is now, as I said, there is this other
mechanics involved in mediumship that doesn't necessarily follow the the the the anthropomorphic sort of
model of the spirit world in their three D form coming closer to us,
and all this sort of thing that it's easy for us to imagine, but
it's not necessarily what's going on. Mm hmmmm. Are we being spoon fed
a little bit maybe by the spirit world? I think, I know I
have been that well, you know, is it? Is it spur of
Vegeman spirit world? I've never heard, to be fair, I've never I've
never read anywhere, you know, when you go through the silver Birch works,
why you get all these other the spirit controls that have been around and
give us the philosophy of spiritu I've never heard them say a lot of them
out of the mechanics as such, you know. And I think it's it's
pretty much come from our own sort of perception of what we're perceiving is happening.
And it kind of makes sense, you know, if you know,
kind of makes sense and there is a logic to it. But you know,
I've learned to realize now that what we perceive and what we think we
perceive as a psychologist, what we think we perceive is not always was actually
happening. You know that? And it is fascinating. And what's your take
on this, Chris, Because from my perspective in doing kind of psychic work,
and mediumistic work certainly on the psychic level. The conclusion I've come to
in how I'm getting the information putting aside, you know, kind of like
the skeptical point of view of cold reading and all that kind of thing,
when I get information that I shouldn't know that corroborates as true later on by
somebody, for instance, I kind of have the position that maybe there is
almost like a psychic Internet, like the information is universal, absolutely everywhere and
somehow, and I don't know how a psychic or intuitive is almost kind of
like opening up a browser window and Google in a psychic sense and kind of
like dipping into the information and putting the information out of the ether and then
bringing it back. Do you think do you think that's I think I think
there is a strong argument to support that that that that's that sort of model
we're talk about. It depends w coome on you talking about the cache kid
records or you're talking about the super consciousness, you know, this big super
consciousness cloud that we all tapping into, and absolutely why not you know,
why not? You know, it would explain an awful lot mm hmm,
you would explain the awful lot. It'll explain the telepathy, it'll explain you
know that psychic how a sort of psychic work, and and it doesn't take
too much to see that how it may provide us a mechanism to commune with
the discard personalities. No, the spirit world. I'm talking about the mechanisms
and souff And I'm not saying we don't survive death. I'm not saying that,
you know, these individual personalities aren't existing somewhere. What I'm saying is
that the mech or the picture or what we've been told of how to perceive
you know, that mechanism working may be true. You know, And I
don't think you know happen your with super consciousness. I don't think it's too
big a step to then realize, well, perhaps we're doing a similar sort
of thing when it comes to the spirit world. Maybe it's not the spirit
world coming to us and us coming to them. Maybe it's the fact that
we're just dialing up I know, maybe we going international. Maybe the super
consciousness is the psychic and now you know, the go medium, you've got
to go to the international call and in that way, because if you think
about that, then you can start to see why you know, you've got
precognition and retrocognition and things like that. You know, there's there's this all
these types of things that can come to play. M Are you familiar to
all with the Seth material by Jane Roberts Seth's Yeah, are not? Yeah,
Yeah, I've come across it. Yes, I won't class myself as
an expert on that. Yeah, it's just I think that's that's the kind
of I don't know. That is where we're heading with this conversation. Seems
to suggest that kind of Seth material would be a kind of go to kind
of book or source material to kind of explain a lot of this. I
think because she was a medium. Again, for those that don't know who
Seth was, who Jane Roberts was. She was born in the forties I
think, not exactly sure when she was born, but during the mid sixties
to the early eighties and early nineteen eighties. I think she died in nineteen
eighties four. She channeled if one of a better word, that's a popular
American term, channel or trance as we call it in the UK, this
entity who said you can call me Seth, and he basically said, if
I recall correctly he said. The Seth personality, as you know of me,
is a bridge of the greater self that I am, and it's a
meeting point, a psychological meeting point, if I remember correctly, of what
where Jane Roberts had to stretch out to and where he had to stretch down
from, and where they met in the middle road. It formed this kind
of personality that became the Seth personality. So as a meeting of minds that
then brought through this personification. I think if I understood it correctly, would
would you agree with that? Yeah? I would, But I think you
know that. But the the initiator of that was Jane, because no mere
respects and as the case with all mediumship, no the initiator is that is
the medium and and it is. It just comes down to you know,
as I said, you know that the whole field of the research and to
do it and seems to suggest that it's all a lot of this. It
comes down to it quite simply. Where we place our awareness is as simple
as that. You know, if you place your awareness onto a pin because
someone has picked a pin up last time and you want to sense that,
you will get information from that if you want to take your awareness or take
your intention or awareness of the spirit world and say there is a person now,
then your attention goes to that you know, and it's and it is.
It seems to be as straightforward as that. There is nothing. There's
no complication mechanism as such. You know, it's just down to it's just
down to our ability to move our intention or our awareness to to where we
want to receive the information or or put or perceive the information. That's that's
there. Hm hmmm. It's interesting because, like I mean, there's certain
situations I can think of. I mean, one example where where people did
not want to receive a communication yet they did so I kind of find it
difficult to sort of think why. But but these there's these three ladies that
I saw at demonstration, and it was actually these two mediums. These two
guys were doing a demo together and one would come on do his little ten
minutes a medium chip goalf, and the other guy would come on do his
and the it was like that all evening, and at the end of the
evening they said, right, that's it, we're out of steam. We're
off now. Cheerio, thanks for coming everybody, and they walked off the
stage, and then one of the guys actually came back on and he said,
I'm sorry, I've got to give another message, and it's those three
ladies sitting at the back row and he pointed them out, and there was
three ladies at the back, probably sort of similar age to each other.
I think there were sisters by from what I could per see. And he
said, I've got your father here and he wants to communicate with you,
and they all instantly said no, we don't want to hear from him.
And he said, I know, I know you don't want to hear from
it, but he wants to speak to you. And they kept saying,
no, we don't want to hear from him. And I'm thinking, oh
my god, this is quite embarrassing because they really didn't want to hear from
him, and they weren't focusing their attention. They didn't really want him.
But somehow, I guess he forced himself into the situation. He barged his
way in and he'd been waiting there all night, I guess, to get
his message in, and I think he was coming in to say, from
what I recollect, he wanted to say sorry. To them, and he
couldn't move on. I guess wherever he was, he could not move on
without seeking some sort of forgiveness for whatever he had done. And it could
have been an abusive relationship. I just don't know what. None of them
wanted to hear from him, and so although they didn't focus their attention,
they'd obviously gone there for some reason for them to. Yeah, what's your
thoughts. But it's the interesting the phraseology in the words you're using there,
because this is something that I find fascinating, is the fact that the way
you've conveyed that is that the spirit world came to the medium in the sense,
because that's how it's perceived. You know, you think, but you
know I mean, and also you know, and if you listen to medians
where as we are as I work, you know, a lot of the
a lot of the phraseology we use, a lot of the way we describe
things is it comes through the assumption that the spirit world are coming to us
in this sort of form, and we are being perceived by that in some
way. We're perceiving that in some way. So for example, when I'm
working, I'll treasure point a minute. But when I'm working and I'll say,
actually, I feel I've put your father here, and I'll say something
that I've got your father here. Is this? Is this actually the way
know it's the father? Or am I just getting a something that's just prompted
me to say father? No, I'm not, I'm not actually sort of
you know what I mean, I'm not actually seeing the person. I'm just
getting a feel of that. But the way I present it is in the
sense that your father is here. But actually, what's happened is I've just
had some sort of neurological incident event that made me say father. And so
what you said is that you know that the father came. Yeah, well,
what if the father didn't come? What if instead of that happening,
what we had here was a medium that wasn't able to deter his attention away
from the spirit world. Because one of the things we find in our research
is one of the abilities that mediums need to develop is the ability to multitask
and switch attention. You know, as a very important clactic, that medium
wasn't able to switch their attention away from the spirit world. You know,
they may have been tired, but they're they're cognitively exhausted and their mind was
still there with the spirit world. What if psychically they felt an impression from
the women sitting in the back robe and actually he actually brought forward the father,
or he was made aware of the father, if it wasn't the father
impressing themselves on it. But the media was impressed, do you know.
I mean the medium brought that that impression the same way as were aware of
the energy of a pencil, you know, and even touches it, you
know, And that is the initiation of the communication. It's not because again
as I said, no, it's it's never as simple as this sort of
this direct connection, this direct thing. Knowing there are many things that happened.
I mean, either background in psychotherapy as well, and so you know,
when I see clients in a psychotherapy perspective, you know, they will
tell me one thing because they are insistent this is what's happening. But when
you explore it psychologically or through hypnosis or what have you, you find there's
all sorts of other underlying sorts of mechanisms and things that are going on in
play. And so you know, yeah, it is interesting. I mean
I've had a similar experience as well with a person saying no, you know,
they didn't want to hear from the person that I brought forward. But
again again when I was doing that, I would say that, you know,
did did that person come through? Was that person there and come through
or was I as an inexperienced Meejian, just opened up to everything and just
got a sense of somebody's a presence that I could link to somebody sitting in
the in the congagension, you know. And so I was putting that forward.
And again I'm not saying the spirit world are now or the spirit world
you know, we don't have survival, you know, I'm just questioning the
mechanics of it, because we do have this sort of idea of this sort
of image of the spirit world drawing close to us and blending with us and
influencing us. Well, maybe it's not that, maybe we're just psychologizing the
spirit world. Mm hmmm. Although I mean you've mentioned this in previous interviews
about the cross correspondence with Mayas and Lory Pipers. Yeah. Yeah, which
was the three different meetings, one in the United States, one in India,
and one in the UK. If I remember Roni Cart them super cones.
Yeah, so was that not mayas Frederick Myers, the late Frederick Myers,
who was the scientist or spiritualist. I can't remember what he was now,
I can't remember. But it's all written up on the the the Psycle
Research, a website for anyone who who is interested looking at the correspondence experiments.
It has been criticized since there has been talk about the the the the
individuals evolved were not as as as isolated or as distant as one one thought.
But again, you know, it all comes down again, you know,
I mean super consciousness can I think explained that in many ways as well.
You know, if the medium is if the individual is able to open
near their mind and move their intention to a place or to a source,
then why not get that m It just seems extraordinary that they would pick up
something if that is the case, of course, if if it's what is
claimed, that they would pick up something from Meyers, a part of a
poem or a book or something I can't and then the other lady picks up
another sentence of the book and it's all pieced together. It's it's it seems
quite an extraordinary feat. It is they are doing it, and I don't
know whether the super consciousness. I'm sure there's a super conscious is probably ticking
away in the background like a vast Internet generation. I mean, can explain
it. But also as I'm saying, you know, I'm not saying that
there's no spirit communication, and just find that the mechanism of that communication isn't
necessary as the spiritualists. As spiritualists, we perceive it necessarily, you know,
so you know, yes, but again it would have been initiated by
the mediums, not necessarily the spirit world initiates. It's interesting because there's the
Journeys out of the Body guy. I forget his name now it turns out
that Robert Monroe. I don't if you're aware of him. Robin Monroe.
He wrote the book Journeys Out the Body after he experimented with tape recordings and
things of different languages, and it somehow triggered He believed himself to be able
to spontaneously go out of his body in a sort of into spiritual realms and
dimensions soberly, and he went to different areas. One he thought was an
alternative Earth. Others realms that he went to appear to be possibly a spiritual
world and other places. He didn't have any idea where he was going to.
He just was some Alian place of bizarre places. But he said,
even the spiritualists, if it's the guy I'm thinking of, he said,
even the spiritualists have got it wrong. He quoted saying about what they believed
to be the case. He says, even the spirituals. When I've gone
over there, even the spiritualists have got it wrong. And I thought that
was quite an interesting state. So what was his take on what they got
wrong and how it really is? He didn't really for specify, except that
he made no mention of Indian spirit guides or anything like that. He saw
people that had died, like his ex doctor. He saw in a room
who he appeared to be a lot younger, and the doctor looked at him
in surprising and what the hell are you doing here in the spirit world.
He even made contact with his deceased wife, not laughs, as she passed
like within a week, and he said that he thought he was, you
know, because of his thirty years plus experience of going out of his body,
he thought would be all sorted for this kind of encounterver, But it
really was a major trauma to him actual encountering his wife. On the other
side, it just free I don't know if it freaked him out. It's
not the right word, but it was. It was too much to handle,
I think in a weird way, which is quite strong as well.
So yeah, it's definitely a book worth reading. Journeys Out the Body,
More Journeys, and there's a third one I can't remember the title, which
doesn't seem to be as good that one seems. I mean, are you
coming across the world? So Anthony Peak, Yeah, we interviewed him.
Yeah, so you're familiar to the fact that he is much the perception that
say, you know that there's multiple universes or multiple sort of that dimensions,
and and the fact that when we pass, what are actually doing is shifting
our awareness to the different dimensions at where we currently exist. And I mean
again, so that again is plausible and again would follow what I'm saying is
the fact that it's actually the medium that is initiating the communication, because it's
again it's their awareness moving their awareness to that source of information. Again,
all meanship, all psychic work is about to do it awareness and his interesting
that we talk and evenoment classes about awareness, but then we seem to not
really think about, well, what we actually mean by that. We actually
imply when the talk about awareness and then go on and talk about the mediums
and so forth. But it is just literally awareness, you know, it's
just awareness of things. And we see that because the I was fortunate enough
to interview nineteen international mediums, well known mediums and mediums have been on TV
stream live and all sorts of things and talking about their mediumship and how they
communicate with the spirit world. And look and see if we could understand the
cognitive process is involved and map these cognitive processes to specific sort of what we
call executive functions, functions that are used in decision making, awareness in terms
of memory, in terms of things like that. And we've found an immense
amount of commonality. And of course, these mediums are all around the world,
you know, and the UK around the world, you know, there
speak different languages and so forth. Yet there was still this commonality in terms
of how they received the spirit world, how they initiate communication the spirit world,
how they maintain that communication of the spirit world, and the importance and
certain cognitive abilities. So for example, you know, the ability to switch
their attention. That was very important, you know, between the spirit world
and in some cases between the spirit world and the recipient. You know,
so there's inspirity to switch or multitask as we call it multitasking abilities, but
also the ability to sustain their focus, to sustain this dissociated state that we
that we medians move into was it was highly important as well. So there's
there's these cognitive processes and these processes are all interlinked with the idea point or
linked with our ability, with our ability to be aware, ability to be
to attend to sources of information, and it's it's it just seems to strike
as that this is what seems to be the core of a lot of this
sort of phenomena or a gaining comes down to our ability, our attentional ability,
our attention to this source. M It's quite a complex thing, actually,
isn't it. When the more you digger deeper, the harder the lot
becomes to crack. Like I said, I had this, I love the
idea of where I wanted to end up, this research ending up, and
it hasn't gone going that really head it's left more it's leading me with more
questions and it does answers. But I think that is the the what I
think all researcher is meant to do. Yeah, don't mean to finish.
It's meant to just be some like and all like me, Andimshire is meant
to be like a vocation, something you pursue for life, so to speak,
and hopefully it has some sort of meaningful impact. And that's why it
has in essence. One one trying to achieve here, you know, is
to try and bring some sort of empirical base into the development circle. Not
to replace the spirit world, the teachers, the spirit world or so forth,
but simply to try and bring some sort of empirical basis in this because
you know, I think, you know, if we can, especially in
the you know, the world we're living in at the moment is becoming more
and more secular, you know, to Brian, to keep in touch with
these the individuals that are coming on, you know, the youngsters, the
youth of today. I think we need to bring some sort of empirical basis
to this, for what we do now is not I don't think it's good
enough to say, you know, we sit in circle. We let me
say prayer we close our eyes, we do a meditation, do a little
journey, and hey, hopefully something appears. No, and what we say
is the evidence. You know, the evidence is what we say to you,
so you have to believe it. No. I think nowadays, I
think the youngest is in the youth want to know why and how, and
this is what we're trying to I'm trying to provide a research and I'm under
conducting cool right, I think for a minute, we'll take a break here
on the Paranormal peep Show, we're talking to Chris Connley about the science of
mediumship and where it's going and the kind of research that he's been doing into
it. So join us in a minute on part two on the Paranormal peep
Show, The Day's the Best Day by Life. Listen to the Paranormal UK
Reading Network. Join Andrew o'leial every month on the Paranoral peep Show, part
of the Paranoral UK Radio Network for fund that frolics and lots of information about
weird stuff UFOs, ghosts and things that go bump in the night and everything
associated with them. Fascinating guests, fascinating talk, fascinating information. Hi folks,
Welcome back to the panor Piecho with myself, Andy Neil, and our
guests Chris Neil. We've got a question apparently, Rick. Yeah, yeah,
it's a question for Chris. It's one of the ones we've been chewing
over during the break. We're talking about trance, and I'm intrigued by trance.
Have you ever gotten trance? Andy or Yeah? Yeah. So I
told a few times that I should go in that direction, but I'm a
bit of a control freak and I don't like the idea of completely letting myself
go for something else. Yeah, I must admit that's that's the kind of
experiences I had many years ago, back in the late eighties. I was
obviously getting into this stuff quite heavily, and I was reading a lot of
the Seth material and I think I've found out about the Seth materials through this
particular book called How to Reach Your Spirit Guides by a lady called Catherine Ridle
or Riddle if the name is correct, and she if I recollect, she
was a psychologist, and I think she was skeptical in the beginning, but
then she went and saw a trance medium who then explained that she could learn
how to go into trance, and eventually she started channeling herself. And the
very first word that she uttered, she always remembered, and I think it
said something that we would like to assure you that angels do indeed exist.
And that's what she actually said to herself as in a trance state. And
so what happened to me was in the book this her own guide, if
you want to call it, Guy. I gave instructions in the book how
to go into trance and channel your spirit guides. And you had to go
through these various processes, one of which was writing out your intentions I wish
to communicate with a highly evolved soul or spirit guide or something like that,
and you'd write it down, you know, every day, and you'd probably
say it like staying your intentions, and the other parts of it was like
sitting quietly and you would meditate, but try and visualize. Visualize yourself as
an empty vessel. This is what they stressing the book, an empty vessel.
And I thought, how did I imagine myself as an empty vessel?
So the only thing that came to my mind was to imagine myself as a
Toby jug with my face on the front of a Toby jug and it's like
a great, big empty mug, and whatever it was it was going to
take it over would climb into this empty a tobe jug that was my face
on the front and then take over. Now I wasn't sure if this was
right or wrong, but I started to get some results from it, and
I started to have some weird sensations in my stomach and I kept thinking,
Oh, what's that weird warm sensation I'm getting in my stomach? So I
thought, well, can I move that sensation with my mind? And started
to move around my body this this weird sensation. It actually went up to
my throat and I could fill my Adam's apple, moved about quite on its
own, as if it was like gearing up to speak, and then suddenly
I blurted out the words were, and the words were. There seemed to
be some confusion with the process required, and it kind of shot the hell
out of me. I think, oh, my god, I spoke this,
and I wasn't expecting to say that. I was hoping to say something,
but I really didn't think it had worked. And it bloody well did
work. And it's such a shock that it brought me out of this meditative
trance state, and then I tried some sort of later exercises. And I
always remember, and I think I've said this on the show before, about
this lady that used to bring through this Manico spirit guide and we used to
see her once every term in our psychic developing circle. And this Manico spirit
guide was supposed the an African guide, and I always kind of had doubts
of whether it was real or because he sounded like fuzzy bet to but reubenstidine
about this just like fuzzy Bear to me, and I tried not to laugh,
and I look the other way, you know, And I was really
had doubts about it. But then I got a friend of mine to ask
a question of this Manico spirit guy because one time I couldn't go there,
and I'd read in one of the Seth books that he stated that Jesus didn't
die on the cross, he was actually switched with another guy, which I
thought was an interesting concept. So I thought, oh, well, who
would know the answer to that. Well, the Manico spirit guide but obviously
know the answer to that one. So I got my friend saying, could
you ask this Manico spirit guide if Jesus really did die on the cross.
And so she went to the session and she came back a few days late
and she goes, I asked your question, your behalf. I didn't say
your name or anything like that. I just said, old Manico, did
Jesus die on the cross? And there was a pause and he goes,
hang on a minute, and he went away somewhere spiritually speaking, and then
came back if it is later, and he said, you don't know the
answer, or it appears we don't know the answer. And I then thought,
ah, well that's there. It's obviously fake. Then she's obviously putting
on a funny voice, this woman, and the whole thing's, you know,
the baloney. But then I was still practicing my own transfer at this
time, and I was expecting to go into trance and pick up what I
thought was a Victorian spirit guy, because I've been told I've got this guy
called Henry working with me. And instead I started to see an image of
Jesus on the cross from the back, as if I was sitting on his
shoulder and Jesus was out like this, and I was like sitting on his
cross on his shoulder, looking down at Jesus on the cross from as if
I was a parrot on his shoulder, and I thought, what was going
on here? And then my voice literally came through as this Manico spirit guide.
I was doing the fuzzy bear voice, and it said, and he
came through with a lot of force and said, you were the one that
answered the question. It said, and I thought, and then he said
I and Manico, and I thought, oh my god. Again that freaked
me out, and I came out of trance. I thought, what the
bloody he was going on there? This Manico has found out that I was
the guilty party that asked the question, even though my name wasn't mentioned,
And he's tracked me down and he's taking names basically, and he's pulled me
in for questioning sort of thing. You know, that's the important real Well,
yeah, I don't know what the answer was in the sense of,
you know, Jesus did dine across a lot. I don't know someone died
on across her gather, But Manico was hauling me out for it, and
I thought he didn't exist. So, Chris, you've just been listening to
that. What's your thoughts on that? What did Jesus dine across No,
no, what did I what it about Fuzzy Bear that the thing is with
you know, as all forms of mediumship, there is a level of of
us in the communication. Mm hmmm is it? Is it the voice of
the spirit world? Possibly could be? And you know under the mindset that
really the voice that comes through isn't significant. It's the content of the words
that are spoken that's important, you know. I know in my in my
only developments of trance, know that the voice didn't match the communicator, but
the voice was remnant of some of the mediums charts, mediums that I respected,
that I've met, and so I know, so I suspect on a
very unconscious level, I was emulating something almost as a desire to be right,
you know. It's a desire to sort of like emulate the buns iri
that I'm respected as mediums, charlest mediums. So there's not an intentional thing,
but on a very much an unconscious level. Eventually has time developed,
the voice changed, and now that the voice is a bit more so we
say normal, compared to when it first started. So I don't really really
take much notice of the voice when it comes to the transmuniums. It is
always the content that I'm listened to and try to understand. And you know,
well, what I'm interested, what I was interested hearing was from yourself.
But was Ron Andrew when he said he's tried a few times. He's
done it a few times, but he's never too keen of letting completely go,
as if there is an element of submission in some respects. And I
find that interesting because the data, the research in g research seems to suggest
something very different to that. And as I was saying earlier, you know,
it's quite true that when a medium goes into trance that they are physically
relaxed. However, we seem to have this idea that trance mediumship is something
different from the mediumship that we are accustomed to in terms of working on platform
and so forth. And and if I said to you, you know,
if I was to ask you now, for example, everyone's listening, so
to speak, if there was to attune to the spirit world, okay,
no, you instantly get a sense, if you're a medium, instant to
get a sense of the presence of the spirit world and a sense of the
power of the spirit, of the energy of the spirit world, no matter,
I'll be aware of a particular communicator, a particular personality. But you
get a sense as you as you dalk about this expanse your very mind into
this sort of dissociated state. We get this sense of the spirit world there
and then we like we're aware of the spirit world, and then we're sort
of like aware of the of the waking state of us communicating and talking as
you long platform working trials is just an extension of that. It's literally all
it is. It is literally just tricking, and that is what the data
suggests when I measured. So I did some work using EEG equipment with trance
mediums. As I said earlier that I wanted to understand what was going on
because I spent you know, several months sitting there when my eyes closed but
there thinking what are I doing now? Do you know what I mean?
Yes, my pre where you go, and realizing that what I was doing
was I was going into this sort of deep minutive stage where I was trying
to sort of get this nothingness. Yeah, and I realized that there's nothing
news was right. I mean silver Birch said about being unconscious that we need
a quickening of the mind and to communicate through it. If the spirit world
wants you unconscious, then they would do that, you know. So if
the trials, if you have to be unconscious for trans then the spirit world
can make that happen. But the truthmaking is not unconsciousness. There isn't a
quickening of the mind going on, the same sort of quickening that goes on
when we're working on a platform or doing private sittings and so forth. The
only difference is that what happens is we're going to the trans date is you're
able to hold a single point of focus. If you hold a single point
of focus but not enough, what happens is you then start to be aware
and then you'll site beware of communication, and that's when the trials to go
up. So when you were talking about that jug so to speak, you
have taken your awareness to a single point of focus. And we know that
the areas of the brain related to trance to do with the frontal at the
frontal lobe, the prefrontal cortext called it that deals specifically with our ability to
attend to a focus point. We know to be able to maintain a focus
point, what we're doing in private sitting. We may be aware of the
spirit world, but we may be aware of the spirit world maybe in a
prusseral sort of scense, because we're very much aware of the recipient and so
forth, you know, whereas when we do the trials, we don't have
the recipient as such, we can just focus on that the spirit world.
We can just focus on that point of where the spirit world are. And
that's what I did, and the eager in search we see and again we're
haveing to clarify something else as well here when comes to mediumship, where it
comes to because we often hear about certain brain waves you have to be in
this brain wave will be alpha or be in the Theta states or the delta
states or whatever. Unfoughtuly, the brain doesn't work that way. There is
no single state. There is no single brain activity. When we talk about
brain way of activity, we talk not just the brain wave but also the
structure involved, because the brain activity and the structure tells us a little bit.
So you don't have this whole brain going into one sort of state,
you know what I mean. And it's so it's more to do with that
where the activity is occurring in the brain as opposed to the necessarily the brain
activity going on. But what we see is that when someone is working mediumistically,
doing a private sitting, for example, we see we start to see
a growing increase in activity on the right side of the brain. Okay,
so the right hemisphere, the left hemisphere stage where it is. You know,
it's not as if there's a decrease as much, but we see more
activity on the on the on the right side. When someone goes into trual,
what we actually see is a bigger difference between left and right. So
we see more activity and not just more activity on the right web side,
but we also seem to see more consistent activity. It seems to suggest that
the medium's able to maintain that. And I think it's that maintenance of being
aware of the spirit world that brings forth that trance communication. Do you know
what I mean? Where you know, when you're doing mental media, what
perception, mediumship, doing a private sitting or what have you. You know,
you're constantly being aware of the spirit world passing the information being aware of
the spirit world passing, so you're you're chopping and changing, your brain's going
from one thing to another. Whereas when you're working in trance, you don't
actually have You don't be fair, You don't really care who's sitting in front
of you. Your focus is the spirit world, and your focus is that
point and that point of whether whether it's the jug or whether it's you know,
whether it's a imagining a star in the sky, anything anything like that,
anything that helps you to focus your attention on one spot but still be
aware of the presence of the spirit world. I find is the initiation or
the initiator into or facilitates the trance states that were after So and that seems
to be, as I said, supported with what we see. What I
see seem to be seeing with the data that I did many years ago,
and so I update every once in a while. We do seem to see
this this shift from activity from you know, the left to the right side
of the breed. I'm interested to know as mediums now a clearvoyd you see
spirit mea meal and Neil will both both. I don't. I only get
the mental medium ship images in the mind. But that's not fair. Points
we see the images in the mind. We've seen those sort of things.
Yeah, but where do you see them in your mind space? Well,
if you measure the screen. Okay, you've got here and we're here.
Where do you see that? Well? If yeah, I mean it's hard
because it's a bit like trying to describe where there is the dream. But
I feel it's line down below me, just here. And sometimes in the
earlier days I used to feel something over here on the right, on the
right, uh more on the right, And I remember talking to a guy
a medium. You know, how do you know it's not you or or
yourself? You know, make it up, it's all They're easy. With
myself, I know it's myself thinking this side. But when it's spirit,
I feel it this side. And that's interesting because I used to feel it
a lot on the right, but now it seems to come down and it
appears there just in front of me, down there somewhere, which is really
yeah interesting Andrew yourself, Yeah, I see, I'd say mind's eye.
Weirdly, kind of if I'm tuning in, I might feel like like an
energy or something on my left or my right. Yeah. Sometimes occasionally I've
seen orbs of light and that's been physically in front of me, so not
in my mind. It's been kind of like literally there. But again,
as the first thing when you speak to mediums, majority of mediums talk about
if they're clearpoint talk about seeing the spirit world kind of in the front but
on the right side, which seems to be, you know, indicative of
being aware of the spirit world in some way. And mean, for me,
I know that if I'm working with the spirit world, just take my
attention to this space. I mean, obviously I'm probably reverse in the in
the capra here, but you know, I say myself, I take my
wing is into this right space here, and by take my when is there,
and asking the spirit world to draw close, I start to start working
with the spirit world in some way. But of course what you were saying
also, you know about the objective I suppose in the way, no is
it objective clairvoyance or subjective clear voices is often the term that's often used.
But people saying, lo, I could see the spirit world bear with you
almost physically. Now, what we've going to remember is that everything is subjective,
you know, even what we're doing here. Now, you know,
in a psychological set of mirror science, perspective is subjective because now it is
that we are creating an image within our own minds based on the century inputs
that we're getting. So yeah, as I thought that was interesting that you
know that most meaning talk about the right side, and it's the sort of
thing we see. It seems to lend. It seems a cocidental perhaps,
but we see that with the EEG data as well, the examblement of data
over the right side and the frontal frontal cortex and down the temporal which is
this side the years, so to speak, the temple side of the hemisphere,
of the right side of the brain, and this shift between being almost
a balance to a left and right right dominant hemispheric shift or clairvoyance or mediumship
that seems to sort of grow from and seem to get stronger as we go
from the perception mediumship to the trance mediumship. Mm hmm. Well see,
I mean maybe the data isn't there, but I'm just wondering about where you
go the deep trance state where people go into a trance produce the physical phenomenal
like materialize spirits. Do you have anything on that I don't. I have
inquired with a number of traps with a number of physical mediumship. Physical mediums
have been tooth forth coming in wanting to partake in understanding what's going on neurologically
with them, which is a little bit disappointing, but I was understandable as
well. But as I said, you know, I'm always I've got this
pausible EEG equipment. So if there's a physical medium out there listening to us,
you know, and wants to parts eight in that, do you reckon
the cond Seller's work Neil Well, Philip might be open to it. Of
the can Sellers, we mean the twins Ronnie and Philip Kinsella. They're in
Bedfordshire and Philip is the medium Philip kins Seller and Ronnie will is many times
that you know he hasn't got our psychic phone in his body, which is
very interesting considering they're twins. Although Ronnie has talked about having certain visions from
time to told him he's mentioned those to me, but Philip has been I
think he's been through sort of I don't know the words tested, simply it
has been tested. I think, I don't. It's not a physical medium
that I don't think. So he does mental clairvoids on stage and stuff,
you know, sort of sort of stuff that you would do. And I've
done open platform or whatever it is demos and stuff. I don't think he's
a physical medium in the sense of like Helen Duncan would have been, or
anything like that juice and the ectoplasmic stuff, but I'm sure it'd be willing
to be a participant in some tests for future whatever's you know or keep certainly
bear those those individuals in mind. And you have a pot mentioned something as
well that you mentioned about what experience about whether it's my imagination or the spirit
world. And there's an interesting study that was published in twenty a couple of
years ago in twenty twenty, I think it was that was published where our
researchers were looking specifically at that wanted to see if there was a difference between
the electrocoltical activity of a medium that was working mediumistically and when they were maybe
recalling a memory or using their imagination in some way. And I think they
also looked as the meditation as well. So they've got a group of mediums
to get about six mediums together and got them to work mediamistically, go meditation
imagined and tell a story in a contitious story, so to speak, and
look at the brain activity that was going on, and they found clear differences
between and I suppose in a way as mediums, that's no beach, no
big surprise, but you know, again, it gives you an illustration that
know that there are researchers out there that are open minded and interested in trying
to understand what's going on. But they did find this difference between no imagination
and mediumship and medimship and the other states as well, So they were able
to classify that a mediumistic altered state was a distinct state separate from all the
other states normal Wakan states. So you know that there is something going on.
So researchers know there's something going on. And and you know, I
mean we were talking earlier about that there is a rowing body of evidence supportty
mediumship and supporting spirituals and survival research and so forth, and and you know,
to a point now we're actually getting got one journal that was published in
twenty one, an article publishing the journal in twenty one that's actually clearly staged
that you know that when you consider the fact that you know that these mediums
that went through the studies, it was a bit of a meta analysis.
They looked at all the research over the last twenty years to come up with
some sort of thing, and then they did their own research as well,
and they basically said that, you know, whereas in the past researchers would
often say that there is something interesting going on here, that these megians are
able to obtain a normalistic, normalistic information about the deceased, but never went
as part to say where that information was coming from. They just said,
you know, these individuals are able to get this information. You know,
we've got we've got journals, our articles and journals. Now they're actually saying,
look, we have to buy the bullet here, you know, in
the sense that when we look at all the other possible explanations of the sources
of information, the only logical how inclusion can be that not only are mediums
able to receive information about deceased people, but the sources of that information are
the deceased themselves, you know. So they're actually just saying that, look,
you know, we can't figure around the bush anymore, you know,
we have to be honest and saying no, that logically, scientifically, if
we was to look at all the possible explanations, the one that is that
can explain it more of what mediums are doing is a back of the informations
coming from the deceased themselves. And that's actually quite a big statement to hand
like a peer review journal and to say that minims are trill. So I
wonder how that was received. This is it? Why? Why? Why
then? If this is in peer reviewed journals and it has got scientific backing,
why then have we got people like Chris French and they, you know,
various others saying that it doesn't exist and there's no evidence for it.
Well, there is, there's one. They're not All individuals are not always
as one performed as they think they are. Well, what's plight I suppose,
and not what it's formed? And because I know, I was one
of the provisations I do. Is is debunking the skeptics in spiritualism mediumship.
That's why it brands and you know, and it's it's very cliche, very
easy for sciences to say there's no evidence for it, you know, because
it' that's what they're taught. There's nos for it. And also because then
there is a massive paradigm shift in science, you know, and scientific understanding
if this is real, you know what I mean, And science doesn't work
that way. Science doesn't like being shifts in understanding because if you think everything
is based on the physical model of the world, the physical model of the
universe, physical modeled the body, and so forth. So then it starts
to say, as you've got evidence that there's more than that that there we
have this spirit, we have this conscious, that mind exists after the physical
death. There's nothing, there's nothing in science that bridges the two gaps,
bridges to use, and the science doesn't like that. So we're back to
the bias thing again. So it's not so much bias, it's just the
fact the scientific method and science it's health obtaining knowledge is done through iterative steps.
You know. So even though we have this this article in this peer
review journal that says that, you know, it is quite appropriate in the
scientific community to then go back to this article, is that actually yes,
he is saying that that is a conclusion, but you know, and and
come up with some other era because it's just the way that science works.
Is not to dismiss anyone's research. It's just the way that our body of
knowledge is acquired, no, and reinforced. No. So you know a
lot of the studies, example and studies done with Richard Wiseman and Kieran O'Keefe
did a study back in I think it was two thousand and eight or two
thousand and six, using a technique called the Pratt and Birge technique. And
what they did there they had five mediums at each medium did five cities and
then each person, each sitter received not only their sitting, but the sittings
from all the other recipients and so basically what we called decoy transcripts, and
they had to judge and grade out of all their transcripts, five of them
were theirs and twenty wasn't. There'll be twenty five in total, which ones
were theirs? Right? We weren't theirs? Yeah, idea being that if
the media was evidential and the spirit world was there and such, they should
choose their five top breedings. And and what we found was in most cases
the recipients didn't And so no, I think it was I think Richard Wiseman
and o' kieth basically said that they are that don't ever say there is no
such thing as a spirit world, you just say it didn't support the hypothesis
that there is a spirit world or communication. But so they published that paper,
but quite appropriately, other scientists looked at that and found flaws and laws
in them in their analysis, flaws in their experimental set up. For example,
you know, they got the mediums to come and come to the university,
so they had them sit in the university lab. You know, well,
you know, most mediums are used to nicom features and maybe pot plants
and the church and were them and so forth. It's true though, because
you know, as mediums training, you know, we don't we're not we
don't sit in them in a sort of like a magnolia room with a one
or two way mirror or things like that handler is looking at us. You
know, there is a different environment. And so you know, a lot
of the criticisms to research like that, for example, and not just picking
on their research, but research like that is we asked, now, is
there any ecological validity to it? Does it represent the real world? Is
it a real sort of well sort of environment. It's not. I could
have an impact, have a factor on what's going on, you know,
and so you know, and this is just a common process in science in
terms of you know that a paper is published, people criticize it. Some
people say that's great, let's I'll replicate it, and others will just say,
well, look that's interesting, but I've got other better things to be
doing. It's just the way science works. But the point is that there
is a there is a body of literature out there. A lot actually comes
from Brazil because they have spiritism out in Brazil and they're very much you know,
they have a quite a rich culture in terms of spiritualist or spiritism in
that respect. So there's a lot of surgeons, a lot of doctors,
or of researchers in Brazil coming out with very interesting information. Automatic writing,
for example, there was one study that was done by a Brazilian researcher looking
at automatic writers. So for those who don't understand, automatic writers are those
who going to the trance state and basically they're hanging moves and writes the letters
or words from the spirit world so as we the spirit word will control them
the hand or arm or what have you. And what they found is,
again this was a they had the medium sit inside a PET scanner, so
that's a positronic emission topography, so basically looking at the brain again, and
they had these medium sitting in the scanner going into trials and writing, and
what they found was the areas of the brain that are associated with writing now
cognition in terms of written words and so forth, were non active. So
whereas not if they weren't an all I can state in writing, these parts
of the brain would be active. So it seems to show that in a
trance stage on this aus made writing state, the areas of the brain that
they would expected to be active in writing weren't active. And the course that
they leave the paper the questions saying, look, how are able to write
you? Now? Where do they get these words from? And so forth.
So there's there's quite a lot of interesting research that is coming out at
the moment. And I've also got if anyone's interested, I under perhaps I
can provide you with the YouTube channel there. But I've done series of interviews
with scientiment researchers to celebrate the Internationals Spirations Federation Centenary. And there's a series
I think of six or seven ins with the researchers in the survival who talk
about where their research is going. And it just gives you an idea that
the some some are supportive, some are not so supportive, Some are sitting
on the fence, but it's it just gives you an idea of a feel
for what the where the literature is, where the research is, where the
understanding is at the moment in terms of survival and meaningship and what could YouTube
channel that be? Can you remember what it's called. Yeah, it's called
the ISICF, The ISICF Science Boring. Okay, cool with a counselor on
that the research on that ICF Science Borum. And it's a it's a channel
that I created over the interviews of the researchers. Excellent. Do you think
there's I mean I always think that there's there's there's like a deliberate kind of
dumbing down of this kind of stuff by the establishment, if you like that.
I mean, for instance, we bend our friend Ben does a talk
on Helen Duncan, the wartime spirituous medium who was bringing back dead sailors saying
they sunk on the HMS Barn and the British establishment on the public to know
about that. So she, you know, according to the idea that she
had to be stopped at all costs, and she was taken to the Old
Baby and tried on some come toup charges of witchcraft, et cetera, et
cetera, and put away for the remainder of the war years. And nowhere
during the course of the trial was the mention of dead sailors returning from the
barn and to you know, say they survived the grave and the ship went
down. That was never mentioned because that point to the fact that she was
genuine, and they had to come up with all sorts of trumped up ideas
that she was a fake and to put her away. So it's almost like
that they know the establishment, certainly, the war time establishment of that period
knew that there was a spirit well, because otherwise they wouldn't be trying to
hide it from the British public. Did you think there's a deliberate attempt out
there in regards to the establishment. I can only speak from the science of
community in the literature and journals and so forth what I would say, And
you know, and some of the complaints and moments that I've heard other researchers
who research mediums have and that they do say, it is very difficult to
get a paper published in a journal where you're talking about mediums or mediumship and
so forth. No, he's very difficult. You know the paper, for
example, that Richard Wiseman, I think Richard Wiseman's and Keish published was actually
the one of the journals of the British Psychological Society, and he's probably no
accident. Dare I say that their findings were that there was no it wasn't
supported, do you know what I mean? So, and the General of
the British psychos is quite a main journal, whereas you know, those that
are supportive seemed to be within the sort of field of parapsychology, the field
of you know, nomalistic psychology and things like that, so they're like specialists
sort of journals in many ways. So it goes what do you feel about
the concept that in a weird way? And you know about the Philip experiment
and for people for listeners who don't know the Philip experient. In the early
nineteen seventies, a group of scientists created a fictional character and then used a
wiki board and seiantists to try and contact this character. And it turns out
that this character was actually then communicating with them. But it's all it was
all fiction. It was all coming from their own mind or their own creation.
What do you feel about the fact that some people might be if the
if their worldview is that this is all a load of rubbish, they are
creating that that they are manifesting that as their results, whereas people who view
it that it is real are creating and manifesting that for themselves. So there's
kind of like a split in reality, this kind of thing. Yeah,
I mean, you know, there is there's with all phenomena that pertains to
be spiritual or medimistic in nature, you know, there there's always an alternative
explanation, and that's just the way things go. I mean, for example,
we had this idiomotor response, you know, the ability for people to
move things without really being conscious of moving things, you know, you know,
we had that as in hypnosis, we use the idiomotor response to for
the individual's unconscious to signify certain or answer certain questions that the individal may not
be consciously aware of answers. So there's no so things can can manifest,
you know. And and one of the things I I'm very conscious of is
the fact that there is so much we do not know about the human consciousness,
the human psyche, and it's it is very tricky to be able to
fight any you know, where is the line between what is us and what
we've done and what maybe the spirit world are doing and so forth. It
is a very it is a very great difficult sort of area to to tread
and try and to define. So it's it kind of goes in it in
a really this is a possibility. I'm not saying this is the case of
a possibility that in actual fact, when you've got a believer or somebody that's
that believes in the in the supernatural, their reality is correct for them.
And then when you've got like a Chris French or Richard Wiseman who don't believe
their reality is actually correct but for them if it is there anything actually And
there's a famous study and we call that experiment to effect, you know,
where as an experimenter has a this is what I mean. This is why
it's such a mindfield, because humans are complex individuals, and we're talking about
humans in the role of this thing. No human behavior, human psychology,
human beliefs, and so forth. You know, there's this thing called experimental
effect where those experimenters who are more open minded to a certain sort of phenomena
will experience that are more inclined to experience that or get more favorable results than
those who are more skeptical. There's there's a famous article. I remember the
other researcher, but I know again this. I think there's Richard Wiseman and
Marilyn Smith's or Marilyn Smiths something like that. I think memory says we correctly,
and some are probably going to correct me on this. But I think
they were doing looking at the efficacy of spiritual healing. Mm hmm. They
both did the same experiment together, I understand it. Both looked at the
same data, but both come from different both concluded different results, and yet
everything was the same, do you know what I mean? So one was
supportive, one wasn't, and it was just down to and and other things,
and we said, no, there is you know that for example,
the other aspects of experimental effects and might be for example, know how did
the researcher greet the medium prior to the experiment. You know, if the
person's antagonistic towards maybe they will be off and cold, you know to the
person you know, or maybe they would try to be worn for any But
you know, we know when someone isn't We can read through the lines whereas
somebody who was supportive, you know, maybe enthusiastic, maybe open, maybe
one to the medium coming in and sitting down and having a chat and all
this sort of thing. So there's there's a whole host of dynamics involved that
can have an influence and that experimental fact is why that. Then you've got
the confirmation biases of the individuals. You've got the whole host of them in
that's just the researcher. Now, then you've got the you know, how
does the medium feel? Now? Does the medium like the look of the
researcher? Does that have a factor how they work? You know, do
they like the environment that they're working in? You know, are they stressed
and they had a bad day? Did they miss the trade that they have
to run in the rain? Now, there's all sorts of things that can
can influence and that there is. Yeah, there's a whole host of things
there. And this is why, for example, why this is such a
broad field and why you know, people may arguably you could say that you
know, we'll never get to a diffidiative answer about this, but we will
learn an awful lot about what it is to be human. I think,
you know, you know the nature of humankind through this type of research.
But you know they do you go. I mean, if anyone is interesting
and joined some hype ESPR and they've got a database there going back to eighteen
eighty two, you know, and it is full of literature, you know,
talking about the research and William Russell Madge, all these sort of big
players of the Victorian era and the and the findings that they had, and
it's it's very hard to come out reading all of that stuff if you've if
you've got a very supportive wife that allows you to do nothing but read the
source and come away from that and not conclude that there is there isn't there
is a stantial body we every don supporting survival of physical death. It's interesting
because I've heard you mentioned in a previous interview about the SPR that that they've
got their own version of Wikipedia on their pages or something, because they in
its own right is very unfake, livable towards any psychic or mediumship type of
stuff. That's right. Yeah, they they got they started using Wikipedia initially,
and they started getting fed up because you had the griller skeptics, so
it would go and change everything. I think the lines that were supported and
so before and uh and and some of which allegedly, I would say,
and allegedly was funded by the late James Randy who used to donate money to
this area of ensuring that these Wikipedia pages reflected certain views. So we say,
and that's that's what I've understood. I maybe rule that's well, that's
what I said, lynched. But they got so it's SBR seemed to get
so fed up with it that they decided to create their own encyclopedia. That's
why Encyclopedia, which anyone go on to and have a look on their website
and it lists it's it's wonderful resource with the research regarding all sorts of phenomena,
not just mediumship, but things to do with ESP experiments and all sorts
of things interesting. So I think we're draw to a close. But if
people want to find out more about you, Chris, I know you have
some appearances and things. Where can they find out about you and contact you
if they need to? Oh, dear, I know a great advertisers the
stuff I'm doing. But no, I do have a website. We are
in Chris coonmony dot info that people are went out to go to. If
they want to and and I can find or at least contact with they have
questions. Okay, do you have any books or anything in the planet at
the changing times? Next on the sixteenth it fix sixteenth of November, I'll
be doing a talk on the science of readiumship and amusing some technology to measure
some brain waves. There's some willing participants in the audience to see well,
first of all if they've got a brain, but also to see how these
how things change when they doing certain given exercises. Unfortunately our show goes out
after that, but I know that it's good. I know that you've got
a version of that talk on on I think it's the Grastonbury Symposium as for
you, yes, yeah, So if they can't get to that because they've
missed it is to look at the same kind of presentation where you've been in
this. The main thing on a participant that was meditating I think and a
rainway or something which very interesting. All right, but thank you very very
much indeed, Chris Canny for your time expertise have been presenting us with your
research and ideas. It's been very fascinating hour or two. Any last words,
Andy, just thanks for Chris for coming on and if you did want
to join us on the Apollo Detectives, that would be fantastic because I enjoy
listening to the scientific angle on things, because the spiritual world and psychic world
can be very kind of airy, fairy and floaty, and it's it's nice
to kind of have a bit of a grounding with it sometimes must and multi
flows. It's very very driven in perigal evidence. Yeah, find it,
it's going to find it. That's it. Yeah, it's more airy,
very in space because there's no gravity that the very maybe I don't know.
Well, thank you Chris for joining us, and stay tuned and look out
for us next month on the Paranormal Peak Show. Join us for our December
show. We'll hopefully have some special guests of that one. Listen out for
us on all the podcast platforms and on YouTube. This is Neil Ward and
Andy Chapman and Chris Corley saying thanks for listening, good night, take care
you're listening to The Paranormal UK Radio Network voted number one for paranormal podcasts in the year