Rosemary Brown

[starstruck5]

What are your views on music being transmitted from the spirit world?  I would have scoffed at this a few months ago, but since my dear mum has passed away -I have been given absolute proof that you do go on after your days -we are not just flesh and blood then -

This piece by Schubert was supposedly transmitted to Rosemary -what do you think of it?

[nyiregyhazi]

what's this "absolute proof" of yours then?

[starstruck5]

what's this "absolute proof" of yours then?

It's personal so I can't disclose details -but my sister experienced exactly the same thing - it just defied any normal in the world explanation -and trust me I would find it if there was one -because I have always been such a rationalist.

But what do you think of the music?

[j_menz]

This piece by Schubert was supposedly transmitted to Rosemary -what do you think of it?

Either Schubert hasn't learnt much in the last nearly 200 years (indeed he seems to have lost some talent), Rosemary was a lousy choice of scribe, or the whole thing is the product of either fraud or an overactive imagination.

[starstruck5]

Either Schubert hasn't learnt much in the last nearly 200 years (indeed he seems to have lost some talent), Rosemary was a lousy choice of scribe, or the whole thing is the product of either fraud or an overactive imagination.

Don't think there would be much point in pretending to receive music from the beyond -I have heard some pieces which make me dubious and others which make me think -that is special -you could be right -but I have learned not to scoff too loudly these days at stuff we don't understand . I think Rosemary Brown was also limited in her technique -so I suppose it would be a challenge for composer and medium.  To be able to improvise in the style of so many composers is a gift in itself -if that is the truth of the matter -I am open minded.

[nyiregyhazi]

It's personal so I can't disclose details -but my sister experienced exactly the same thing - it just defied any normal in the world explanation -and trust me I would find it if there was one -because I have always been such a rationalist.

But what do you think of the music?

I can't personally separate the two things. All over the internet there is evidence of the techniques used by supposed psychics and mediums- that regularly startle people but which are altogether explicable. Based on seemingly real experience I'd swear blind I've seen a ghost, but it's something called "old hag syndrome" where the brain is sluggish at making the transition between sleep and being awake. I also have various impossible false memories that I would have sworn blind were true, but which have been disproven beyond all doubt. There a very interesting book about the unconscious by a guy called Mlodinov that I strongly recommend reading. We cannot even afford to trust ourselves, let alone what another person swears is compelling- because there's almost certainly a perfectly rational explanation.


 Regarding Rosemary Brown, it could scarcely be clearer that it's nonsense. There's some kind of cock and bull explanation about the composer's supposedly had to teach her various things about composition before they could pass their ideas through her and supposedly it was only possible to pass on simpler compositions. There's absolutely no convincing reason to believe that, even if there were proper evidence of communication from beyond, for some reason the spirits of the composers would be limited by her technical ability as a musician. Total hogwash.

[pianist1976]

Maybe I need a second listening but it doesn't sound very Schubert like for me. It tries (sometimes do a schubertian major contrast) but it isn't enough (in my opinion).

I found the score:

https://www.box.com/s/yslqfobtz4/1/70237453/3719407513/1

I didn't make a deep analysis (I wonder if is it necessary at all...) and my opinion also the writing is not Schubert at all. Too much naive, no complex harmony, an amateurish conduction of the accompainment and bass...

And most important of all, no need of an analysis for this, the mark of Schubert's personality  is always very strong and there's no trace of it on this piece.

Maybe I'm wrong but if this thing was dictated by Schubert from the grave, I'm Mickey Mouse.

If it's not a (intended) scam, this lady maybe smoked too much pot (it was the nineteen sixties  )

[starstruck5]

I can't personally separate the two things. All over the internet there is evidence of the techniques used by supposed psychics and mediums- that regularly startle people but which are altogether explicable. Based on seemingly real experience I'd swear blind I've seen a ghost, but it's something called "old hag syndrome" where the brain is sluggish at making the transition between sleep and being awake. I also have various impossible false memories that I would have sworn blind were true, but which have been disproven beyond all doubt. There a very interesting book about the unconscious by a guy called Mlodinov that I strongly recommend reading. We cannot even afford to trust ourselves, let alone what another person swears is compelling- because there's almost certainly a perfectly rational explanation.


 Regarding Rosemary Brown, it could scarcely be clearer that it's nonsense. There's some kind of cock and bull explanation about the composer's supposedly had to teach her various things about composition before they could pass their ideas through her and supposedly it was only possible to pass on simpler compositions. There's absolutely no convincing reason to believe that, even if there were proper evidence of communication from beyond, for some reason the spirits of the composers would be limited by her technical ability as a musician. Total hogwash.

I would never bother reading Mlodinov -I find people who try to disprove phenomena we don't understand extremely arrogant and often more deluded than the people they dismiss. I have no doubt there are fraudsters and tricksters. However, my experience was not only shared and happened while we were both chatting, far from sleep related -but an impression was also made on my sisters' pet cat -who admittedly was sleeping -but became VERY awake -I would like Mlodinov to explain how an animal is subject to unconscious human syndromes. If two people also experience exactly the same thing at exactly the same time, it is impossible to find a psychological explanation. Something else also occurred which defied the laws of physics -I did experience this second incident alone -but it seemed pretty real to me.
 
 Not too long ago I would have been the same as you -wanting very much to dismiss such things as hogwash -it offends our concept of rational reality and a reality we feel comfortable with -but the reality we think we experience is very different from the actual world. Quantum theory alone should alert us to the strangeness of actual reality -why should be surprised at anything?  Life itself is not exactly a simple phenomenon is it?

I deliberately posted the Schubert, because I too had my doubts regarding this particular piece -though there are lovely moments in it -but there are examples of quite complex music, supposedly transmitted by Liszt which is quite compelling.  Those that want to dismiss RB as a fraudster will do so regardless

[j_menz]

I deliberately posted the Schubert, because I too had my doubts regarding this particular piece -though there are lovely moments in it -but there are examples of quite complex music, supposedly transmitted by Liszt which is quite compelling.  Those that want to dismiss RB as a fraudster will do so regardless

Both Schubert and Liszt had some very interesting developments in their music in the periods leading up to their deaths. It seems extremely odd that if there is an afterlife of the sort required for this sort of communication there is no possibility for personal development in it. Indeed the music RB attributes to these composers appears to even regress them, avoiding those later developments. Frankly, it's either a pretty poor sort of afterlife or its RB's own work.

[ted]

Here is my contribution to this thread. I improvised it one night after work over forty years ago, having just seen a television documentary about her. I liked the notion that a terribly romantic nineteenth century musician might be hovering around me and stuffing things into my brain. Well, after all, music is pure magic and all about implanting illusion in a listening mind, so why not ?

[ahinton]

I seem to recall that the subject of Rosemary Brown's been debated here before but I could be mistaken and I don't have time to check.

What surprises me is that a number of distinguished musicians, including composers Humphrey Searle (with whom I studied) and Richard Rodney Bennett, expressed the view that there was something in it. As j_menz has suggested here and many others have done elsewhere, if Brownesque effusions are all that major composers can manage in an "afterlife", then who needs afterlives? Schubert and Liszt are indeed excellent examples of composers who were forging new and interesting paths in their last years; Chopin, with his ever more sophisticated use of counterpoint is another who came to be under the Brown spotlight. Whilst I do not think for one moment that RB did the kind of thing that she did for fame, money or any other dubious motive, I do nevertheless believe that she was at best delusional in terms of what she though she was doing and how it supposedly came about.

That said, the notion of "finding" music in the air, so to speak - or somehow accessing it as though it was already there - is nevertheless a phenomenon less easy to dismiss. Stravinsky testified to it, as did Schönberg; Busoni referred to the rôle of the composer as being somewhat more akin to that of a diviner and illustrated this in his Fantasia Contrappuntistica, describing it as "compilata per il pianoforte da Ferruccio Busoni". Elgar famously claimed to have discovered some of his ideas when walking in the Malvern Hills, Worcestershire, England, on the grounds that they were already there, as if awaiting someone to tap into their resource; thee is no doubt that something of this kind was at work when Anthony Payne put together Elgar's Third Symphony from the composer's sketches, because his very considerable composerly abilities and scholarly knowledge and understanding of Elgar's music alone would simply not have been sufficient to enable him to bring to life the work that he has done. All of this might also sound fanciful to some, but a good deal less so, I submit, than the ramblings of Ms Brown. Considering this divination phenomenon prompted the third of my own Sieben Charakterstucke for piano, during the course of which Elgar effectively joins hands with Schönberg and Busoni in the guise of multiple and simultaneous allusions to their work.

Best,

Alistair

[nyiregyhazi]

I would never bother reading Mlodinov -I find people who try to disprove phenomena we don't understand extremely arrogant and often more deluded than the people they dismiss. I have no doubt there are fraudsters and tricksters. However, my experience was not only shared and happened while we were both chatting, far from sleep related -but an impression was also made on my sisters' pet cat -who admittedly was sleeping -but became VERY awake -I would like Mlodinov to explain how an animal is subject to unconscious human syndromes. If two people also experience exactly the same thing at exactly the same time, it is impossible to find a psychological explanation. Something else also occurred which defied the laws of physics -I did experience this second incident alone -but it seemed pretty real to me.
 
 Not too long ago I would have been the same as you -wanting very much to dismiss such things as hogwash -it offends our concept of rational reality and a reality we feel comfortable with -but the reality we think we experience is very different from the actual world. Quantum theory alone should alert us to the strangeness of actual reality -why should be surprised at anything?  Life itself is not exactly a simple phenomenon is it?

I deliberately posted the Schubert, because I too had my doubts regarding this particular piece -though there are lovely moments in it -but there are examples of quite complex music, supposedly transmitted by Liszt which is quite compelling.  Those that want to dismiss RB as a fraudster will do so regardless

Mlodinov merely writes about the unconscious in this book. he's not out to prove anything. however it contains an interesting story about a horse that could supposedly do maths. a scientist who went to observe noticed that all the separate humans who it did maths for were unwittingly giving a cue to the horse, that it was merely responding to in a simplistic reponse. things are nor always as they appear. you don't need to believe in mediums to know that animals can be perceptive to emotions or that some can literally smell fear in response to the pheromones that are released. you didn't detail your story, but I doubt if it involves anything beyond a simple explanation. also, given that someone wins the lottery every week (at 16 million to one odds) most "uncanny" coincidences are not terribly remarkable, given how much more unlikely a lottery win is. mind readers consistently fail to achieve anything statistically improbable as an average whenever tested over enough time to reasonably gauge their ability.


anyway, the book is interesting not because it is out to debunk anything but because it illustrates how flawed memory is. it made me realise I cannot necessarily even trust my own, nevermind anyone else's account. the sheer scope of the brain to distort true events (not as a knowing lie but due to how the brain alters memories over time without conscious awareness) means that neither your account of anything nor anyone else's can be trusted as hard evidence. as I said, my experience of a ghost remains overwhelmingly vivid. that doesn't mean it was real. The day hard documented evidence of something comes up is the day I'll believe in the paranormal.

[nyiregyhazi]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans


here's the story. note how the people giving the cues didn't even know they were doing it. the overwhelmingly strong statistical evidence does not lie and taking only a small part of that evidence could easily be misinterpreted for "proving" the horse was reading minds rather than doing maths. however it wasn't. it was observing physical behaviour patterns. the experimenter learned to put on the same show, not by telepathy but by response to unconsciously given visual clues.

[starstruck5]

Mlodinov merely writes about the unconscious in this book. he's not out to prove anything. however it contains an interesting story about a horse that could supposedly do maths. a scientist who went to observe noticed that all the separate humans who it did maths for were unwittingly giving a cue to the horse, that it was merely responding to in a simplistic reponse. things are nor always as they appear. you don't need to believe in mediums to know that animals can be perceptive to emotions or that some can literally smell fear in response to the pheromones that are released. you didn't detail your story, but I doubt if it involves anything beyond a simple explanation. also, given that someone wins the lottery every week (at 16 million to one odds) most "uncanny" coincidences are not terribly remarkable, given how much more unlikely a lottery win is. mind readers consistently fail to achieve anything statically improbable as an average whenever tested over enough time to reasonably gauge their ability.


anyway, the book is interesting not because it is out to debunk anything but because it illustrates how flawed memory is. it made me realise I cannot necessarily even trust my own, nevermind anyone else's account. the sheer scope of the brain to distort true events (not as a knowing lie but due to how the brain alters memories over time without conscious awareness) means that neither your account of anything nor anyone else's can be trusted as hard evidence. as I said, my experience of a ghost remains overwhelmingly vivid. that doesn't mean it was real. The day hard documented evidence of something comes up is the day I'll believe in the paranormal.

First of all my sisters cat was not responding to anything emotional -the initial change in reality occurred by the cat suddenly becoming awake and staring at something we couldn't see -there was no insect or anything obviously moving -the cat was keenly aware of the change before my sister and I.  The second incident was actually quite real, in that the temperature of the room went down well below freezing. Now you could argue this was my own physiological response, fear, the chills whatever, but the radiator went from hot to stone cold -all the other radiators in the house were unaffected -I didn't mis-remember anything either -it only happened a few weeks ago -nothing like it since -I don't expect you to accept my testimony as hard evidence, and frankly I don't care if you do or do not -doubt away -My outlook has certainly been altered by these events. Also, if I can't trust my senses and my recall of events in the short term then that is more scary than the paranormal -not that I am afraid of it -. Even more disturbing to me, would be the idea that I would want to mislead or invent -to what purpose? 


I think it is extremely silly to dismiss any paranormal event, as always having the explanation we need, to fit the reality we are familiar with and comfortable with - This in itself is foolish.  I have no desire to be a champion for it either -because as I have stated, until recently I would have agreed with you 100%.   

The same thing happens with those who believe in UFO'S and those that don't. I always call this the: 'Only my pond has life syndrome'  If we only knew of one pond and it clearly had life, it follows that if there other ponds at least some of them must also sustain life -but some think only our planet sustains life -even though there must be many, many, thousands or even millions in the universe -

[starstruck5]

I seem to recall that the subject of Rosemary Brown's been debated here before but I could be mistaken and I don't have time to check.

What surprises me is that a number of distinguished musicians, including composers Humphrey Searle (with whom I studied) and Richard Rodney Bennett, expressed the view that there was something in it. As j_menz has suggested here and many others have done elsewhere, if Brownesque effusions are all that major composers can manage in an "afterlife", then who needs afterlives? Schubert and Liszt are indeed excellent examples of composers who were forging new and interesting paths in their last years; Chopin, with his ever more sophisticated use of counterpoint is another who came to be under the Brown spotlight. Whilst I do not think for one moment that RB did the kind of thing that she did for fame, money or any other dubious motive, I do nevertheless believe that she was at best delusional in terms of what she though she was doing and how it supposedly came about.

That said, the notion of "finding" music in the air, so to speak - or somehow accessing it as though it was already there - is nevertheless a phenomenon less easy to dismiss. Stravinsky testified to it, as did Schönberg; Busoni referred to the rôle of the composer as being somewhat more akin to that of a diviner and illustrated this in his Fantasia Contrappuntistica, describing it as "compilata per il pianoforte da Ferruccio Busoni". Elgar famously claimed to have discovered some of his ideas when walking in the Malvern Hills, Worcestershire, England, on the grounds that they were already there, as if awaiting someone to tap into their resource; thee is no doubt that something of this kind was at work when Anthony Payne put together Elgar's Third Symphony from the composer's sketches, because his very considerable composerly abilities and scholarly knowledge and understanding of Elgar's music alone would simply not have been sufficient to enable him to bring to life the work that he has done. All of this might also sound fanciful to some, but a good deal less so, I submit, than the ramblings of Ms Brown. Considering this divination phenomenon prompted the third of my own Sieben Charakterstucke for piano, during the course of which Elgar effectively joins hands with Schönberg and Busoni in the guise of multiple and simultaneous allusions to their work.

Best,

Alistair

I am quite impressed that you studied with Humphrey Searle. 

Your arguments were also well written and presented. However, I am not sure that you are entirely accurate.  This piece by Liszt, supposedly transmitted to RB -does seem to echo his late style somewhat -I certainly could not have written it, and I am fairly good at mimicking styles myself -

[nyiregyhazi]

First of all my sisters cat was not responding to anything emotional -the initial change in reality occurred by the cat suddenly becoming awake and staring at something we couldn't see -there was no insect or anything obviously moving -the cat was keenly aware of the change before my sister and I.  The second incident was actually quite real, in that the temperature of the room went down well below freezing. Now you could argue this was my own physiological response, fear, the chills whatever, but the radiator went from hot to stone cold -all the other radiators in the house were unaffected -I didn't mis-remember anything either -it only happened a few weeks ago -nothing like it since -I don't expect you to accept my testimony as hard evidence, and frankly I don't care if you do or do not -doubt away -My outlook has certainly been altered by these vitamins events. Also, if I can't trust my senses and my recall of events in the short term then that is more scary than the paranormal -not that I am afraid of it -. Even more disturbing to me, would be the idea that I would want to mislead or invent -to what purpose?  


I think it is extremely silly to dismiss any paranormal event, as always having the explanation we need, to fit the reality we are familiar with and comfortable with - This in itself is foolish.  I have no desire to be a champion for it either -because as I have stated, until recently I would have agreed with you 100%.  

The same thing happens with those who believe in UFO'S and those that don't. I always call this the: 'Only my pond has life syndrome'  If we only knew of one pond and it clearly had life, it follows that if there other ponds at least some of them must also sustain life -but some think only our planet sustains life -even though there must be many, many, thousands or even millions in the universe -

Why is it silly- given that the only evidence we ever get is people's words for it? if that's the case, we should never doubt anything that sounds silly or improbable, as long as someone says it's true. that's called being gullible, not open mindedness . as I said, it's not about lying. the brain can play some spectacular tricks, which is why the only credible evidence of paranormal would be recorded data. the whole thing about false memories is that you think they are real memories. if you have a genuinely open mind read Mlodinov. it's interesting that you give a specific detail of a cold radiator when alone but no specifics on the shared experience. a cat woke up and stared at nothing? so what? what's remarkable? there is bucket loads of hard evidence about how easily brains are fooled by emotion and other things. for years I was certain that I had a vivid memory of seeing a piranha film starring pierce brosnan and Alexandre Paul. no such film exists, but I had been wrongly certain that I recalled seeing it. human brains are not to be trusted and there's no credible evidence for something that can only be explained by paranormal occurrences. If I can't even trust myself on something as mundane and believable as a film, I'm not going to take anyone's word at face value on something that is totally inexplicable- unless there is compelling evidence beyond word of mouth.


I don't subscribe to the idea that only earth could have life. but I've never seen any believable evidence of life from elsewhere coming here.

[starstruck5]

There was more to it than the cat waking up obviously -but I don't want to share it with you -you would pour scorn on it anyway -there was also a drastic temperature change in that incident too -by the way.

I would simply define the paranormal as that which we don't yet understand. No one can say human beings understand much -I am not even interested in proving anything -you know what you know, experience what you experience and sometimes it is impossible to find rational explanations -they may exist -but who can say with any certainty?  I just know that there is more to existence than I previously imagined -
and sometimes the rational explanations become more silly than just accepting there is an afterlife!

I can't stand arrogant psychologists -so I am not open minded enough to read Mlodinovs' stuff, nor do I care enough about his theories -so what if he discovered some interesting psychological states -It doesn't explain anything that happened to me and my sister -  -but I am open minded about Rosemary Brown -the Liszt piece I posted above is much more convincing to me than the Schubert -though I love the melodies in that -they are very beautiful -whoever wrote it -

[nyiregyhazi]

I am quite impressed that you studied with Humphrey Searle.  

Your arguments were also well written and presented. However, I am not sure that you are entirely accurate.  This piece by Liszt, supposedly transmitted to RB -does seem to echo his late style somewhat -I certainly could not have written it, and I am fairly good at mimicking styles myself -

Interesting piece, but to my ears it's just a hotchpotch of unstructured gestures, that lead nowhere. it has nothing like the harmonic tension of such mature works as nuages gris. it's more like earlier Liszt but with very little sense of real melody or direction. I don't find it terribly hard to believe that anyone with a keen ear and knowledge of liszt's compositions could have come up with that. the first few harmonic changes were certainly Lisztian and quite possibly derived from Liszt himself (like the transparent rip off of 4ths from the liebestraum that comes later). the manner of chromatic passing notes was more reminiscent of early scriabin than Liszt. it's more like how scriabin pushed the limits of romanticism than how Liszt began to move into a world of introversion. oh and the last resolution was plain cheesey. not even early Liszt finished music with such a camp cliché.

[nyiregyhazi]

There was more to it than the cat waking up obviously -but I don't want to share it with you -you would pour scorn on it anyway -there was also a drastic temperature change in that incident too -by the way.

I would simply define the paranormal as that which we don't yet understand. No one can say human beings understand much -I am not even interested in proving anything -you know what you know, experience what you experience and sometimes it is impossible to find rational explanations -they may exist -but who can say with any certainty?  I just know that there is more to existence than I previously imagined -
and sometimes the rational explanations become more silly than just accepting there is an afterlife!

I can't stand arrogant psychologists -so I am not open minded enough to read Mlodinovs' stuff, nor do I care enough about his theories -so what if he discovered some interesting psychological states -It doesn't explain anything that happened to me and my sister -  -but I am open minded about Rosemary Brown -the Liszt piece I posted above is much more convincing to me than the Schubert -though I love the melodies in that -they are very beautiful -whoever wrote it -

If you're not willing to read it, don't expect to learn anything about the hard evidence behind why reams of seeming phenomena are readily explained beyond all doubt. it's not even a book about skepticism. it simply happens to contain fully verifiable information that can be used by any intelligent person to explain phenomena for which the only evidence is a person's individual account (ie virtually all paranormal events, given that they are always based on people's accounts and not hard evidence). If you'd sooner decide that your own brain is infallible than learn about how our brains work, that does nothing to make your experience look credible. I learned a lot from reading this book- primarily that I should not trust what I think I've experienced as being the final word. if claims of personal experiences are all the evidence we have for the paranormal, they are no more worthy of credit than a person who stops you in the street to tell you have that he can urinate gold.

one of the problems with the human nature is our desire to assume personal infallibility. it's covered in the book. It was only upon reading that I realised how much doubt any rational person needs to treat their own believed experiences with, nevermind how much doubt anyone else's assurances should be given. the brain looks to confirm what it believes to be true and nobody is immune to that. humans are notoriously unreliable, no matter how sure they are and that includes you as much as it includes me.


PS I've experienced perception of drastic temperature changes myself. Perception is relative and linked to emotion. a feeling of fear alters blood circulation and can easily account for that- and among multiple people simultaneously, if you're both freaked out by a cat. it's why people go white from shock. show me a film of a mercury filled thermometer plummeting to zero and I'll be interested. tell me that you felt cold and therefore ghosts exist and I'll treat it with the same skepticism as the guy who urinates gold, sorry.

[lateromantic]

Either Schubert hasn't learnt much in the last nearly 200 years (indeed he seems to have lost some talent)

Well, what would you expect?  Instead of composing, he's been decomposing.

[thalbergmad]

I don't subscribe to the idea that only earth could have life. but I've never seen any believable evidence of life from elsewhere coming here.

So much shite has been written on the subject that sceptics can have a field day. My bookshelves groan under the strain of books on the subject. Von Daniken makes an interesting read, but almost drowns in bullcrap. "Left at East Gate" which covers the Rendelsham Incident is somewhat harder to completely dismiss.

I have no idea who this Mlodinov chap is, but perhaps "The Scole Experiment" might give some food for thought in the opposite direction.

My mind remains open to all possibilities. There is fraud and opinionated arseholes on both sides of the fence.

Thal

 

[nyiregyhazi]

So much shite has been written on the subject that sceptics can have a field day. My bookshelves groan under the strain of books on the subject. Von Daniken makes an interesting read, but almost drowns in bullcrap. "Left at East Gate" which covers the Rendelsham Incident is somewhat harder to completely dismiss.

I have no idea who this Mlodinov chap is, but perhaps "The Scole Experiment" might give some food for thought in the opposite direction.

My mind remains open to all possibilities. There is fraud and opinionated arseholes on both sides of the fence.

Thal

 

based on the lack of controls and basic investigative procedures detailed here, there's no way to take the Scole thing as proof of anything. the thing about allowing them to come equipped with their own luminous wrist bands (and taking that as "proof" that they weren't doing things with their hands) is staggeringly weak science. likewise the thing about the box that contained film. what kind of idiot investigator let's them provide a "locked" box? fine for a magic show, but staggeringly shortsighted as part of a supposed investigation into the paranormal.

https://skeptoid.com/mobile/4179

[thalbergmad]

You come to a remarkably quick conclusion, based on what appears to be a 5 minute internet investigation.

What do you think you are going to find on "skeptoid".

Of course I might be wrong and you have balanced your research by looking at other sources over a considerable length of time.

Thal

[nyiregyhazi]

You come to a remarkably quick conclusion, based on what appears to be a 5 minute internet investigation.

What do you think you are going to find on "skeptoid".

Of course I might be wrong and you have balanced your research by looking at other sources over a considerable length of time.

Thal

I checked a few pages and saw nothing to refute the many completely unscientific compromises to the quality of the evidence gained, that were detailed there. If this were done under conditions worthy of serious consideration, it would be a lot more well known. Unsurprisingly, the mediums involved have never taken up the serious conditions that would be imposed by any proper scientists- eg. thermal imaging cameras.


Quite frankly, the horse that did maths would have equally believable or even more so- were it not for the fact that an intelligent man was wise enough to do proper research that got to the bottom of what was really going on, behind a seemingly remarkable surface. It's a shame that the researchers who tested these mediums were so gullible. If there's any reality behind any of what they recorded, it's compromised by a totally unscientific approach- leaving it impossible to give serious consideration to as evidence.

[thalbergmad]

There is nothing scientific about the spirit world. I have read enough and witnessed enough to convince me. If I am a gullible fool, then I am in the company of millions and we ain't all gullible fools.

You should go for a session of retrogression hypnosis. Perhaps you were more open minded in a previous life and less prone to dismiss something after 5 minutes investigation .
 
Thal

[starstruck5]

If you're not willing to read it, don't expect to learn anything about the hard evidence behind why reams of seeming phenomena are readily explained beyond all doubt. it's not even a book about skepticism. it simply happens to contain fully verifiable information that can be used by any intelligent person to explain phenomena for which the only evidence is a person's individual account (ie virtually all paranormal events, given that they are always based on people's accounts and not hard evidence). If you'd sooner decide that your own brain is infallible than learn about how our brains work, that does nothing to make your experience look credible. I learned a lot from reading this book- primarily that I should not trust what I think I've experienced as being the final word. if claims of personal experiences are all the evidence we have for the paranormal, they are no more worthy of credit than a person who stops you in the street to tell you have that he can urinate gold.

one of the problems with the human nature is our desire to assume personal infallibility. it's covered in the book. It was only upon reading that I realised how much doubt any rational person needs to treat their own believed experiences with, nevermind how much doubt anyone else's assurances should be given. the brain looks to confirm what it believes to be true and nobody is immune to that. humans are notoriously unreliable, no matter how sure they are and that includes you as much as it includes me.


PS I've experienced perception of drastic temperature changes myself. Perception is relative and linked to emotion. a feeling of fear alters blood circulation and can easily account for that- and among multiple people simultaneously, if you're both freaked out by a cat. it's why people go white from shock. show me a film of a mercury filled thermometer plummeting to zero and I'll be interested. tell me that you felt cold and therefore ghosts exist and I'll treat it with the same skepticism as the guy who urinates gold, sorry.

Your response is really arrogant and insulting. First of all there was no fear or freaking out about the cat,  which produced the temperature change and trust me, it is extreme. I suspect even if I had video evidence and 4000 witnesses, you would still be a sceptic and call the evidence fake- You are also discounting a combination of events -That is your perogative -but as far as I am concerned the argument is finished -please don't respond anymore -it is getting us nowhere. I am still grieving, I can do without your pompous waffle. Your dismissal of the Liszt was crass by the way.

[nyiregyhazi]

Your response is really arrogant and insulting. First of all there was no fear or freaking out about the cat,  which produced the temperature change and trust me, it is extreme. I suspect even if I had video evidence and 4000 witnesses, you would still be a sceptic and call the evidence fake- You are also discounting a combination of events -That is your perogative -but as far as I am concerned the argument is finished -please don't respond anymore -it is getting us nowhere. I am still grieving, I can do without your pompous waffle. Your dismissal of the Liszt was crass by the way.

how many pieces of either late or even early Liszt start with harmonic tension and then end with such a cheap gesture that liberace might have thought twice about employing it?


by all means call me arrogant, but I apply the same demands for evidence and mistrust of human experience to you myself and everyone. if you cared to read the evidence I detailed (rather than be so arrogant and cocksure as to dismiss it without so much as willingness to consider it as an explanation- illustrating the classic human conceit of infallibility, via complete unwillingness to consider that one's perceived experience is not always objectively accurate) you might become a little more open to possibility of self doubt. if I tell you that I once met William the conqueror, you are more than welcome to doubt me- if my word is all that I have to offer.


If it troubles you so much than I don't casually humour the implausible, when it is only based on the proven unreliability of human memory (ie human memory in general- which neither you nor I are exempt from) go ahead and use your contacts in the spirit world to put a curse on me.

[nyiregyhazi]

There is nothing scientific about the spirit world. I have read enough and witnessed enough to convince me. If I am a gullible fool, then I am in the company of millions and we ain't all gullible fools.

how many million Americans believe in the divine creation of earth? if the spirits are inclined to pass on messages that they're okay with repeatedly being observed for experiments, but that it's not okay to observe them with thermal imaging technology, then it's not a view that I'd widely heard about before.

[thalbergmad]

Your science is incompatable with the spirit world. If your mind is so closed to the possibilities of other planes of existence, then there is little point in continuing this conversation.

As I said in a previous post, some retrogression might open your mind, but if you are against it before you even start, then it would be useless.

I will respond no further as it is a waste of time.

Thal

[nyiregyhazi]

Your science is incompatable with the spirit world. If your mind is so closed to the possibilities of other planes of existence, then there is little point in continuing this conversation.

actually, that's the problem. supposedly, from the experiment you mentioned it IS compatible with science. just as long as there are no thermal imaging cameras. apparently on the day when Richard wiseman designed a box, none of the mysterious images appeared on the film that day. obviously the spirit world is not compatible with a properly secure box. the spirits only like to pass messages through boxes that are not designed by scientists?
and they are happy to reveal themselves aplenty to researchers as long as there aren't enough safeguards for the evidence to be considered adequate?