Split Thread Scorpion's Spiritualism

[JayUtah]

To them I was just a face in the crowd.

You were "just a face in the crowd" when your argument needed to be that you were too insignificant to warrant any attention or effort on the part of others to discover your family's past. When that argument fell flat, you suddenly became an "insider in the church" so that your new argument could be that no one would have been able to do the research we hypothesized without you knowing about it. You're simply asserting whatever facts need to be true in order to evade the rebuttal du jour, with little regard for whether it your story stays consistent from day to day.

Now that it's evident your critics didn't buy the ploy, you're desperately trying to equivocate some path between your two claims. You haven't even bothered to try to fix the other holes in your story -- the patent absurdities in your version of your mother's pregnancy. Instead you try to shame your critics for having found them, and then frenetically try to change the subject. Now it's becoming a daily occurrence for you to simply recite all your beliefs over and over again. You're clinging to them like a safety blanket.

You asked us to accept that your belief in spirits and true mediums was the product of lengthy fact-finding and rational deliberation. That's preposterous, because all we're doing here is asking you to continue the process you say you followed in order to arrive at your belief. You can't and won't do it. So it's hardly the process by which you came to believe in spiritualism.

 

[JayUtah]

How could any of those messages be cold readings. They told me facts I had not talked about. I kept a straight face and only answered yes or no if they asked me questions.

You keep falling into the trap of believing that the only way someone can have known about your family is if you knew about it and told them. The question is not whether you knew those facts, but whether they knew those facts. As Nay_Sayer points out, you've been shown innumerable ways in which those facts could have come to someone's attention in ways you didn't previously consider. As long as your argument is going to be that true mediumship is the reasonable default when all other possibilities fail, it's up to you to address all the other possibilities whether you're the one to have thought of them or not.

 

[JayUtah]

The young man who conducted the circle was named Trevor Williams.

For which some reason is relevant to AmyW's trying to get advice on how to smoke out fake mediums. Once again the thread is Scorpion's Storytime.

On one occasion the table lamp next to me flickered strangely. It didn't flicker in an ordinary way. It looked as if something was moving around inside the bulb. I have always thought that might have been a physical manifestation of some spirit interfering with the lamp.

Yeah, to me this just shows how willing you are to attribute even the most trivially unusual observations to the involvement of spirits. That church and those fake mediums really saw you coming.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

During the circle he appeared to be taken in trance by a Chinese spirit guide and I was able to speak to the guide.

Which dialect of Chinese do you speak?

 

[Max_mang]

The young man who conducted the circle was named Trevor Williams. During the circle he appeared to be taken in trance by a Chinese spirit guide and I was able to speak to the guide. He told me I was not meant to have
an easy life because of my karma.

I do not think Trevor was trying to fool me as he was a friend, and as far as I know he is still a practicing medium who rotates the churches holding services.
I saw him in a church a few years ago holding a Sunday service.

On one occasion the table lamp next to me flickered strangely. It didn't flicker in an ordinary way. It looked as if something was moving around inside the bulb. I have always thought that might have been a physical manifestation of some spirit interfering with the lamp.

Somehow this failed both the "please start a new thread" and "how you determined" parts of my request.

 

[bluesjnr]

Which dialect of Chinese do you speak?

Oh come on I think it's obvious that Scorpion doesn't speak Chinese of any measure. What are you thinking!?

Now that Trevor Williams, he could talk Chinese and if he couldn't then I'll deus ex machina a omnipresent translator in the afterworld, and if that doesn't float I'll insist that a heavenly committee decided that English would be the interdimensional language of choice and if that don't satisify y'all I'll just........

 

[JayUtah]

Somehow this failed both the "please start a new thread" and "how you determined" parts of my request.

Scorpion's arguments in any thread tend to be simply a storytime recitation of the same small set of anecdotes from his younger years, with the probable intent to show that his belief in spirits, the spirit world, and all things attendant thereto are rational beliefs that cannot be refuted by skeptics. These arguments -- generously so called -- rarely have much to do with the topic and soon outstrip the efforts of other contributors to carry on with the thread. We would like to continue explaining to AmyW how to formulate a critical approach to claims of the supernatural, as she has asked us to do. She has asked Scorpion to stop. But by the authority of the onion Scorpion evidently has tied to his belt, we're going to be subjected to a day of rambling anecdotes about Trevor and a Chinese spirit guide. And because some of his critics have now bitten into that derail -- as we inevitably do -- Scorpion has contrived a change of subject without feeling pressured to fix all the gaping holes in his baby-brother story. He has effectively distracted the audience from his failure to maintain coherence in the story he insists his critics cannot explain away.

 

[JayUtah]

Which dialect of Chinese do you speak?

Based on other statements Scorpion has made, it may not be necessary to involve spoken language. He has hypothesized in another thread that spirits communicate with the living essentially telepathically. He offered no further details, but I allow that such a hypothesis could involve the implantation of ideas without the use of ordinary spoken language. If we consider the bare minimum result of such a communication to be an altered mental state, then we can place the scope of the alleged mechanism by which it is accomplished at any scope of abstraction that is indicated by evidence. Now whether any of it is indicated by evidence is another matter. But unlike other elements of his various stories, I don't consider this one necessarily to be a plot hole.

 

[Darat]

(1) A medium told me I had a dead brother I did not even know about and told me his name.

(2) A medium told me I had recently done a blue and white painting and I was not satisfied with it. ( I am sure I had not told anyone this)

(3) A medium correctly told me I spent all my money on LP records.

(4) A medium told me the exact circumstances of my grandfathers death.



I did not come lightly to a belief in mediums. It took two years of such messages to convince me that the most likely explanation for what was happening was the mediums were doing what they said they were doing, and getting messages from the spirit world.

Why don't you get your dead brothers death certificate, at the moment we don't know if you have a dead brother that needs explaining.

 

[Thor 2]

On one occasion the table lamp next to me flickered strangely. It didn't flicker in an ordinary way. It looked as if something was moving around inside the bulb. I have always thought that might have been a physical manifestation of some spirit interfering with the lamp.

Do you ever wonder why spirits present themselves in this vague, obscure manner? Why not just appear as an unambiguous likeness of the departed and say "Hey dude, here I am."

Come to think of it I do recall you telling us about a medium who told you about your dead baby brother. Your brother appeared fully grown, as a spirit, and looked just like you, the medium said. I think I may have asked you how this could be so, and what the spirit would look like, when it got attached to another embryo.

 

[Nay_Sayer]

How could any of those messages be cold readings. They told me facts I had not talked about. I kept a straight face and only answered yes or no if they asked me questions.

No, You assert they did. It has been shown your memory is faulty.

Add to that your in a position of defending them your more likely to be engaging in willful dishonesty as to not concede the notion you may have, in fact, been duped.

 

[Nay_Sayer]

Delete

 

[JayUtah]

No, You assert they did. It has been shown your memory is faulty.

He fairly admitted he couldn't remember exactly what was said. His claims to the fidelity of his memory vary depending on whether his argument in the moment benefits from it being fuzzy or sharp.

 

[Nay_Sayer]

He fairly admitted he couldn't remember exactly what was said. His claims to the fidelity of his memory vary depending on whether his argument in the moment benefits from it being fuzzy or sharp.

So, there is a 50% chance this may or may not have happened...maybe.

 

[Steve]

Do you ever wonder why spirits present themselves in this vague, obscure manner? Why not just appear as an unambiguous likeness of the departed and say "Hey dude, here I am."

Come to think of it I do recall you telling us about a medium who told you about your dead baby brother. Your brother appeared fully grown, as a spirit, and looked just like you, the medium said. I think I may have asked you how this could be so, and what the spirit would look like, when it got attached to another embryo.

Seems that dead young people can grow and mature at the same rate as the living. I wonder what happens when you become a really old spirit. Do you die again and become yet another spirit? If you are already really old when you die the first time do you just keep dieing, returning as a spirit, and then dieing again in rapid succession?

 

[Pixel42]

Scorpion's arguments in any thread tend to be simply a storytime recitation of the same small set of anecdotes from his younger years, with the probable intent to show that his belief in spirits, the spirit world, and all things attendant thereto are rational beliefs that cannot be refuted by skeptics. These arguments -- generously so called -- rarely have much to do with the topic and soon outstrip the efforts of other contributors to carry on with the thread. We would like to continue explaining to AmyW how to formulate a critical approach to claims of the supernatural, as she has asked us to do. She has asked Scorpion to stop. But by the authority of the onion Scorpion evidently has tied to his belt, we're going to be subjected to a day of rambling anecdotes about Trevor and a Chinese spirit guide. And because some of his critics have now bitten into that derail -- as we inevitably do -- Scorpion has contrived a change of subject without feeling pressured to fix all the gaping holes in his baby-brother story. He has effectively distracted the audience from his failure to maintain coherence in the story he insists his critics cannot explain away.

You're right as usual, Jay. As one of those who allowed themselves to be diverted from helping AmyW shake off the superstitious nonsense which has plagued her life, I'd like to thank the mods for moving this derail to a more appropriate thread.

 

[Matthew Ellard]

The young man who conducted the circle was named Trevor Williams.

Trevor Williams..... born in 1931?

He has a lovely advertisement.

"With his omnipresent energy and intuition, Trevor Williams has the potential to be a source of inspiration and illumination for people. With no conscious effort, he galvanizes every situation he enters, and energy seems to flow through him without being aware of this great potential or controlling it. When he is aware of his outstanding personality, Trevor tries to blend with his environment, feeling conspicuous, alien, and out-of-place.
Trevor channels information between the higher and the lower, between the realm of the archetype and the relative world. Ideas, thoughts, understanding, and insight - all of these can come to him without having to go through a rational thought process, as if there is a bridge between his conscious and unconscious realms, attuning him to a high level of intuition through which even psychic information can flow. "

I didn't supply a link as that may be breaking some forum rule.

 

[Darat]

Which dialect of Chinese do you speak?

This is one of the very funny things with mediums, they get all these foreign spirits yet they all speak English. But of course it is not just that, if we take on board the reincarnation malarkey it makes no sense at all, why would any spirit be any "nationality"? And when it becomes obvious even to the credulous that the nationality/ethnicity is rather shall we say superficial suddenly the spirits have to pretend to be these foreigners because of the rules, the prime example of this is Scorpion's old favourite "Silver Birch" originally claimed to be a native American but later on revealed he wasn't really a native American. One wonders if in a couple of sessions there was someone who knew a lot about native Americans and asked some some hard questions...

 

[Darat]

Based on other statements Scorpion has made, it may not be necessary to involve spoken language. He has hypothesized in another thread that spirits communicate with the living essentially telepathically. He offered no further details, but I allow that such a hypothesis could involve the implantation of ideas without the use of ordinary spoken language. If we consider the bare minimum result of such a communication to be an altered mental state, then we can place the scope of the alleged mechanism by which it is accomplished at any scope of abstraction that is indicated by evidence. Now whether any of it is indicated by evidence is another matter. But unlike other elements of his various stories, I don't consider this one necessarily to be a plot hole.

But recall Silver Birch, that spirit dictated his teachings to his favourite meat puppet so the meat puppet could write down his teachings to help us evolve. I'll leave to one side the contradiction that we aren't meant to know about the spirit world because of the rules but all these spirits keep breaking the rules to let us know that they are fine and in the spirit world.. "they" being perhaps a female (or male but a slight built man) you are related to or was a friend of someone you are related to who may have passed recently, like in the last 6 months, 12 months, 5 years, sometime and they have a name beginning with a M or a N or Q or H or G or I or they lived in a town that began with a letter from the English alphabet...

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

This is one of the very funny things with mediums, they get all these foreign spirits yet they all speak English. But of course it is not just that, if we take on board the reincarnation malarkey it makes no sense at all, why would any spirit be any "nationality"? And when it becomes obvious even to the credulous that the nationality/ethnicity is rather shall we say superficial suddenly the spirits have to pretend to be these foreigners because of the rules, the prime example of this is Scorpion's old favourite "Silver Birch" originally claimed to be a native American but later on revealed he wasn't really a native American. One wonders if in a couple of sessions there was someone who knew a lot about native Americans and asked some some hard questions...

Recently, in this thread or some other, I posted Houdini's comment that he was amazed to have his mother mediumaticaly communicate in English as she neither wrote or spoke it in life.

(Just in case I had "mis-remembered" hearing this factoid, I did a DuckDuckGo to verify its widely reported veracity. )