61. Medium Experiment (Part 3), Michael Tymn (Podcast)

[alextsakiris]

Guest: Michael Tymn author of the new book, The Articulate Dead, discusses the history of mediumship and the scientific research surrounding the topic.

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[Rod McKenzie]

Hi Alex,
FWIW, I think you handled the Rebecca Watson thing exactly right ( no throwing petrol on the flames, don’t give it oxygen etc. )
I think she is just a very silly young girl.

It was good to hear Michael’s take on things.
It took me a long time, several years in fact, to understand that the existence of the afterlife and God are seperate matters.
All too often skeptics like Dawkins, Hitchens etc expend a lot of effort debunking God and then jump too the conclusion that psi and evidence for the afterlife must therefore be fake.
This contrasts with Sam Harris who has been roundly condemned for his interest in such things.
It was also interesting to hear Michael’s take on mediums and names.

I sort of wish I’d heard the interview a few years back, it would’ve saved a lot of time ( or is that Tymn ) ;-)
Rod McKenzie

[Bharat]

Thanks for this Alex, I'll think further about the podcast and try and leave some constructive feedback. I alsoagree that the Watson issue was handled perfectly.

Rod, it seems impossible for a lot of the militant atheists I know to grasp that point. For some reason, they feel that unless a religious or spiritual belief has the tenets of monotheism, it isn't even worth paying attention to in order to debunk. B. Alan Wallace made the point very cogently about Susan Blackmore in Alex's interview with him. For some reason, the work and research they do on the monotheisms (Islam, Christianity, Judaism) is thorough and careful and some of their critiques are spot on. But as soon as other belief systems get involved, thought seems to go out the window: An inability to imagine believing in an afterlife whilst not believing in God, an inability to understand people who have no fear of going to hell or don't even believe in one etc. Intellectuals are often very depraved people.

In some way, this is just due to the nature of the modern world. After colonialism, Hinduism and Shinto were modelled on western religions which is ridiculous. Ah well, rant over.

[Sandy B]

Thanks Alex, I enjoyed the show!

I have to admit while I do believe that consciousness survives death, I don't really know if there is such a thing as god. My own experience as a NDEr supports the whole survival hypothesis, at least to me. But I didn't experience anything that would suggest that there is a god. I did feel love and connectedness, but it seemed to me that the feelings expressed by raindrops and wind were just as important as my own concerns in that place. I didn't experience any being that had a greater status in the grand scheme of things. Everything/everyone seemed equally important.

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by Bharat

For some reason, the work and research they do on the monotheisms (Islam, Christianity, Judaism) is thorough and careful and some of their critiques are spot on.

Yes - I mean, if you take a book like Dawkin's "The God Delusion", it is a valuable book, because most of it is devoted to showing the internal inconsistencies - both of historical facts, and moral values - inherent in organised religion (main emphasis is on Christianity).

I would recommend that book to anyone. It is the rest of Dawkins' ideas that seem too simplistic.

David

[Rod McKenzie]

Hi David.
I read “The God Delusion” and it seemed to me that he was saying that belief in God shows a lack of imagination and that science can explain everything in the universe.
For example Darwin’s theory of evolution etc.
He then comes to the Anthropic principle and explains it away with Leonard Susskind’s multiverse speculation. But IMHO this is not science ( is it testable ? ), it’s philosophy, I think.
So his argument may be true but IMHO it is just speculation.
So I’m not so impressed with Dawkins.
Rod McKenzie

[craven]

Alex,

Why why WHY did you give the participating mediums the results before the experiment was over? Seriously, do you WANT to give skeptics a reason to totally dismiss the work you're doing?

[Open Mind]

It was good to hear Michael Tymn speak ... I have encountered his name often when searching for information on internet and elsewhere etc.

Tymn suggested keeping the experimental group positive (keeping a happy medium? ) ...as there is no reason to assume telepathy (with living or discarnate) must work like a private communication, that sounds sensible... it also raises the question ...

Should the mediums do the trial before or after the sketpics?

In the CIA/US military remote viewing experiments, some researchers reported a 'telepathic overlay' where one could pick up another persons false ideas about a remote viewing target, that are not necessarily the target ... *if true* .... it might be better for mediums if the mediums go first?

Similarly Sheldrake's Morphic Resonance/Formative Causation hypothesis suggests we are responding to others people's habitual patterns of thought too. This *might* imply skeptics going first would confuse associations ... of course if mediumsgo first it might also help the later skeptics slightly?

I don't know .... just a thought.... I suppose it is up to the mediums.... assuming they actually know how they do it.

[hoggworks]

Alex, you said in the interview that you are open to a debate about the truth of your beliefs. That's admirable, but you say that you believe absolutely that these things are real, and are happening. How can you have a debate about the existence of something if you're not prepared to admit that you're wrong?

[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by hoggworks

Alex, you said in the interview that you are open to a debate about the truth of your beliefs. That's admirable, but you say that you believe absolutely that these things are real, and are happening. How can you have a debate about the existence of something if you're not prepared to admit that you're wrong?

What do you think Alex meant by emphasizing in the above program 'follow the data' ? Do you take this to mean an unwillingness to admit being wrong?