VICTOR ZAMMIT
A Lawyer Presents the Case for the Afterlife
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VICTOR J ZAMMIT: A New York Lawyer Challenges David Thompson’s Materializations

Lawyer Victor Zammit’s replies to a New York lawyer’s Mr J's cross examination of what Victor stated in his report about the successful materializations of David Thompson.

(For full text of the N.Y. lawyer see end of this page under ANNEXURE 'A')

Victor: Absolutely, I can answer all the issues/objections and negative imputations and nuances raised by the New York lawyer. It is good that another lawyer communicates and tries to cross-examine me on one of the most important critical and sensational phenomena of our time - David Thompson's materializations.

A) Mr D, the New York lawyer states, “I was very disappointed to read your rather positive review of a séance you attended with David Thompson this June. As a lawyer myself, I looked forward to more critical and creative thinking than you displayed”.

Victor: Close ‘content analysis’ of your overall statements and questions reveal that you are operating with at least three unfair and unfounded ‘presumptions’:

i) the presumption that the paranormal does not exist and therefore whatever I report cannot be right,
ii) the presumption that fraud is taking place in these materializations,
iii) the presumption that you have a monopoly on truth and anything inconsistent with your truth just cannot be valid.

Further content analysis of what you stated reveals:

iv) your own deeply entrenched negative partiality against materializations,
v) that you are a ‘hard line skeptic’.

A more impartial analyst would not have stated, “…I was very disappointed to read your rather positive review of a séance…” but would have demanded more information to confirm what exactly occurred during the materializations of David Thompson in June 06 in order to come to the right conclusions. You came to your negative conclusions without having the full information and your conclusions are not consistent with the evidence stated in my report (stated in my original first report about David’s materializations).

B) Essentially, you bound a man to a chair and sat in darkness while experiencing various phenomena. You then turned on the lights and a man was still bound in a chair.

Victor:That would be an oversimplistic description of what actually happened and tends to reduce the fundamental changes which took place during the materialization experiment. You left out many critical procedures. For example, we bound to a chair a special man - a ‘materialization medium’, not just a ‘man’.

This medium is a gifted materialization medium. He emitted ectoplasm. Ectoplasm mediums are extremely rare in this world. I only know of one in Australia. Two in the UK and none in the U.S. that I know of. This ectoplasm was the ‘medium’ which reduced the afterlife vibrations of the etherians to physical vibrations for materializations - for the etherians to become solid. Those with scientific background have scientifically explained materialization process in my chapter 6 of my book, Einstein’s ‘E=mc2 and materialization’ (A Lawyer Presents the Case for the Afterlife www.victorzammit.com ).

The critical importance of ectoplasm: ectoplasm, a whitish gaseous substance, can only function in total darkness and sometimes in low red light. When police raided the British materialization medium Helen Duncan 1956 in Nottingham, England (see chapter 11) and put the light on during a materialization experiment, the ectoplasm was quickly drawn back into the medium with great force, eventually killing her.

Ectoplasm was scientifically studied, Professor Richet, Nobel Laureate and Professor of Physiology and by Professor W D Crawford from Queen’s University, Belfast. Both admitted its existence and wrote scientific reports about ectoplasm. Baron Von Schrenck-Notzing, a Munich physician, showed that ectoplasm is composed of leucocytes – white or colorless blood cells – and epithelial cells – those from the various protective tissues of the body.

C) Your inability to see during the performance would seem to make you a very questionable witness.

Victor: If by ‘questionable’ you mean unreliable, then I reject that completely. If by ‘questionable’ you mean needing further questions, yes, I accept that. It all goes to credit. It is not dissimilar to a situation when you close your eyes in a room sitting down and someone comes up to you very close – up to twelve inches away from you, talking to you in an intelligent way. You know that someone is holding a conversation with you; you know that the conversation is being taped, you know a voice is produced with its peculiar rhythm, pace, pitch, intonation; you know that someone actually shakes hands with you; you feel the materialized hand, it is solid as yours; that someone asks you intelligent questions. You ask the voice questions and obtain intelligent answers.

Now I submit that when this situation occurs it does not mean that it is impossible or impractical that someone is actually there in a materialized form, performing, doing the talking, the conversing and the answering of questions. Besides, there have been other prominent people with the highest credibility in this world who reported similar incidents to what I reported – including the abovementioned Nobel Laureate Professor Richet and Professor W D Crawford.

D) Your professed belief in the supernatural would also make you a biased observer - preferring to see confirmation of your beliefs than all of the ways you may have been deceived.

Victor: I NEVER professed any belief in the supernatural. That is an assumption which I reject, totally. Unlike you with your skeptical beliefs, I do NOT have the luxury of ‘beliefs’. As a matter of fact since I started investigating the paranormal and the afterlife I have never stated at any time that I believe in anything. I am on record for accepting the evidence for the afterlife. Objective evidence has nothing to do with beliefs. One is objective the other is subjective.

Notwithstanding that I am a university trained lawyer (now retired) I am also an empiricist. I am also formally qualified with a Major in Psychology with three years full time of Scientific Method. For the last sixteen years I have investigated the paranormal using empirical methodology. I have technical knowledge about what variables I have to control when conducting experiments. That technically and inevitably excludes subjectivity, personal beliefs and assumptions. The endeavor is always for strict empirical objectivity and accordingly, that would not and could not make me a biased observer. If I am biased, then I am biased towards objectivity. I do not investigate to prove anything. I investigate and report what I find.

1. Are you aware that magicians have been replicating the performance you described for over a hundred years?

Victor: Not only am I aware that a couple of magicians have been putting on shows claiming they are replicating the paranormal – but without scientific scrutiny - I am also aware there have been, and there are, genuine empirically based materializations experiments taking place. I am also aware that there are quacks, charlatans and other tricksters of every kind in every profession, in science, in medicine and in the paranormal.

To my knowledge, there has never ever been a magician who was able to duplicate the performance of a gifted materialization medium producing phenomena under strict empirical scrutiny. Never. It just could not be done. There has never been an instant where strict empirical methodology was applied and where a magician was able to produce materializations, produce materialized phenomena and produced materialized voices. Never. And to the claim that a trained actor can come up with seven different voices, with a gag firmly around his mouth, I guarantee it can never be done.

I would be most interested if you could name me just one instant where empiricists reported that magicians were able to produce speaking materialized beings. I am also aware that magicians, including James Webster (who is also a member of the British Circle of Magicians) from the United Kingdom, have investigated the paranormal and have unqualifiedly stated that no magician can do what a genuine medium can do.

2. Are you aware that many magicians and their accomplices have confessed to putting on convincing performances like the one you described using nothing but trickery? http://www.prairieghosts.com/seance2.html

Victor: That website would be irrelevant and inadmissible because it states itself ‘TRICKS OF FRAUDULENT MEDIUMS.’ I am not involved with ‘tricks of fraudulent mediums’. There was never an empirically conducted materialization experiment where the mediums used tricks or fraud or deceit. The website given is a narrative, hearsay account of some of the séances and is inadmissible. The narrative, third party writer there does not identify just one specific materialization experiment, let alone just one séance conducted by a scientist.

The article also concedes that whereas there have been many fraudulent séances, there must have been genuine séances as well. Relating to fraud, the writer of the same article concedes, “… this was not the case with every medium …’ meaning that cheating and fraud did not happen with genuine mediums. My research is strictly empirical. I would be more interested if you cited an example where empiricists, who were able to perceive the paranormal with empirical equanimity, were in control and where they had a gifted materialization medium - and to see what the results were. That you conveniently chose not to report. (See end of article for relevant links on empirical materializations).

A repeated fundamental objection by the hard core skeptics is that there is no ectoplasm – that in fact the medium uses ‘cheesecloth.’ Two things I say to that: first, Professor Donald West (Society for Psychical Research U.K.) is on record for seriously suggesting that materialization medium Helen Duncan hid the ‘cheesecloth’ in her anus to fool the sitters. This he stated when he was severely criticizing Helen Duncan’s materialization mediumship chapter 11 of my book www.victorzammit.com (see http://www.victorzammit.com/book/chapter11.html . “It’s possible” Professor West boasted defiantly, for that to be done. So I challenged this good Professor to demonstrate himself that to me. I would accordingly challenge Randi or any hard core skeptic who claims that - to show how they can stick long piece of white cheesecloth - the size of a long scarf – then make it appear in form of a human being – e.g. like Louis Armstrong, then to make it sing “Hello Dolly” in the raspish, deep, resonant voice of Louis Armstrong.

3. Do you know that many magicians take great care to secure themselves to a chair (or in a locked trunk or something) specifically for the purpose of misdirection because their tricks do not depend on them being free?

Victor: Be that as it may, you are obviously implying that the medium has accomplices. I stated and will re-state, that it physically impossible for the genuine materialization mediums such as David Thompson to have had accomplices. With extreme care, I (and others) checked the security for fraud myself and guarantee, with absolute certainty, that it was physically impossible for accomplices to have participated in the materialization experiment.

We would be confident to take the medium to anyplace – of your choice - where trapdoors – floors, walls and ceilings do not exist. That the room, floor, walls and ceilings are solid concrete with no windows and only one door which would be secured, sealed and guarded all the time by any independent party. But then, a magician of your choice would have to duplicate the experiment under identical conditions – and when that magician fails, he’s got to hand over half a million dollars to the medium David Thompson (see below).

4. Are you aware that, for over a century, magicians have been using accomplices?

Victor: Magicians use accomplices. Genuine materialization mediums do not. Magicians are professionally trained to ‘cheat’, to ‘lie’, to fool the audiences, to misdirect, misinform, to deceive. Gifted, genuine materialization mediums who are spiritually advanced, do not lie, do not cheat, do not fool or deceive anyone. For over a century, there were magicians who used accomplices- that’s how they give the impression of magic. But a definitive distinction has to be made between a cheating magician and an genuine materialization medium and no expression should be used to expressly state or impute the two are or can ever be the same.

5. Did you take any precautions against Mr. Thompson's use of accomplices?

Victor: Absolutely. I know all the sitters. I can absolutely guarantee that there were no accomplices. It would be a physical impossibility for anyone to sneak into the experimenting room. All walls, floors, ceilings were very carefully checked. Windows were locked from the inside. The only door to the experimental room was sealed, locked from the inside and a chair put under the lock from the inside. Obstacles were put between the door and where chair of the sitter was, so that it would be physically impossible to open the door. All seven sitters were at one time or another conversing with the materialized etherians. When any entity materializes all sitters have to join hands. It is very easy to account for every sitter by the physical position, by holding the hands. Further, when materializations take place, all sitters converse with the materialized etherians and each sitter is accounted for by his/her vocalizing and from identifying the position from where they are verbalizing – sitting in their respective chairs.

6. Did you mark the other attendees with glow tape?

Victor: No that was not done when I attended the first materialization experiment. There were luminous strips put on the medium himself in other sessions. But do understand these are very early days. We are improving and refining the methodology all the time. In all fairness, there was a time, where the medium’s chair was translocated one foot away from me. With very low red light on, I was told to hold the medium’s hand and check the seals – which were intact. I also checked his gag and left my hand on the gag – but the voice from the materialized entity was still being heard.

7. Did you secure the other attendees to their chairs?

Victor: The only security, at the moment, is by way of accountability of holding hands. In one experiment the sitters during materialization were told to identify themselves by name when the voices were coming from the opposite direction. When the voice was heard, each sitter was accounted for and the voice came from the area they were sitting. Briefly, the medium David Thompson sits in the corner – he does NOT use a cabinet. Then the sitters sit in a semi-circle facing the medium. The only door to the experimental room, facing the medium would be on the extreme right hand side – opposite the sitter on the right hand side.

8. Did you bar all entrances to keep out any accomplices unknown to you?

Victor: (**** see answer to your question 5, above.) Yes, absolutely. As I stated, it is physically impossible for accomplices to enter the room because there are obstacles to open the door. There was only one entrance/exit door. All windows were locked from the inside. There were no trap doors in the ceiling, walls or floor.

9. Did you place bubble wrap on the floor or employ motion detectors?

Victor: No we did not. As abovestated, we only had three brief sittings. There is still so much to consider. I am hoping that the experiments will go on for the next six months where other method will be used to assist in the empirical procedure. We will be employing different methods to continue to show what is really happening. In one experiment in England the experimenters among other things put talcum powder on the floor.

10. Would you repeat this experiment while wearing night-vision goggles (such goggles merely collect ambient light and do not give off any light or energy of their own)?

Victor: That was my first question in the very first experiment to the materialized etherian who calls himself ‘William’ who is the ‘control’ of the medium. I wanted infra red video, night vision goggles. The reply was that we have to understand that we are dealing with very highly volatile and extra sensitive afterlife energies. We just cannot superimpose our conditions (what we think is reasonable) onto the afterlife conditions. Patience, this etherian stated, patience. In the future, the afterlife will bring its own light. In England there are materialization experiments going on where sitters are using infra red filming. We would need a few months of investigations on these materializations. Accordingly, answering your question, yes, one day in the future, we will be wearing night-vision goggles, we will be taking still photographs.

11.Would you like $1 million US dollars? If you can repeat the events that you described, James Rand will pay you one million dollars. Go to www.randi.org for more information.

Victor: Let me say this first, I have been advising leading psychics in the U.S. and elsewhere not to fall for Randi’s trap. My research into the offer is that it is propaganda, not a genuine offer. I do not consider the $1million dollar challenge to be genuine. First, he is on record for stating to one of the founders of CSICOP, “I will always have a way out (of paying the $1million)”. That speaks volumes; that reveals intention and that is not denied by Randi. That expressly stated intention shows that he is not genuine and will find someway of not paying the $1m. We are on notice Randi is going to do that.

I had complaints from psychics and investigators – Michael Roll, Chris Robinson and others, who had great problems communicating with Randi, notwithstanding they acted according to the instructions on his offer. He just does not respond to their correspondence.

However, David Thompson would take him on but not on the unilateral conditions set by Randi. Among other things, the $1million would have to be deposited with a truly independent stakeholder and on proving the paranormal has taken place, the $1m would have to be handed over to the medium forthwith – no subsequent if’s, but’s, or maybe’s or “let me think about it”.

Randi fails to beat my own challenge

For the record, Randi has not applied to beat my own $1million challenge. He implied he would when my offer first came out on the internet – some eight years ago. I am still waiting for him and any of those highly qualified empiricists closed minded skeptics on the East Coast to take me on.

By countering Randi’s offer, we are too making another offer for any magician – for anyone to duplicate our materializations experiments under strict scientific conditions. At least one debunking skeptic ex-magician claimed he could duplicate any psychic experiment and gets the same results. Let him try. If he fails, he has to hand over the medium David Thompson, half a million dollars. As to one of the fundamental conditions, there will be only one minute notice where the experiments or the duplication of the experiments will be taking place. Also, payment has to be made immediately on results.

12. I predict that, like most biased witnesses I have examined, you will not express the least doubt in your story. However, as an attorney, I wish you would honestly evaluate whether you could withstand a real cross-examination.

Victor: Again, you are making erroneous assumptions by your ‘predictions’ when you do not have all the information to make any prediction. Further, you yourself show that you are a negatively biased witness by your own sustained and consistent anti-paranormal negativity. I reiterate, I am an empiricist and do not have the luxury of beliefs or partiality in any way.

Was Newton biased in his observation of gravity? Was Einstein biased in his mathematical findings? Was Galileo biased in his heliocentric view of the solar system?

David Thompson’s materialization experiments are empirical – they are duplicated over time and space, variables are held constant and they yield the same results – therefore they are repeatable. That is a being empirical. That is being objective.

By contrast, content analysis shows you are a skeptic, even a debunker, with your own personal, subjective beliefs. That is your prerogative. But you are arguing from a position of extreme weakness because you do not have science to support your ‘beliefs’ that the paranormal does not exist, that materializations do not take place. Again, you cannot independently substantiate your personal, subjective, personal beliefs. And as you know, anything subjective is itself subject to error, to complete invalidation. There is no empirical basis for skeptical beliefs.

We have expressly stated WHAT the evidence is. As you know, the onus shifts on to the opposition to show that the evidence cannot be admitted as admissible objective evidence. No one - no scientist, no lawyer, no debunker, no theologian, no closed minded skeptic in the eight years has been able to rebut my evidence and findings for the afterlife. And my own definitive prediction is, with the professional knowledge and experience that I have, no one, no one will ever be able to rebut or duplicate the materializations of David Thompson. And as we all know, anything expressly stated and not rebutted stays valid.

For the record, I guarantee that paranormal activity is taking place in these below- mentioned materialization experiments. I also state that I shook hands with an entity claiming to be a materialized Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) and state that his hand was solid, and that his voice was inches away from where I was. His answers to my questions were taped. At this stage, we are empirically studying the materialized voices to see if there can be an correlation between the voices of those who materialized and their voices when they were alive on earth. At this stage we only have a prima facie case made out that these materialized etherians are who they claim to be. We will be announcing all empirical results on my website in the future.

The above information is very likely to upset the conservatives because it is questioning entrenched traditional cherished beliefs and values. It is challenging scientific orthodoxy and materialism. It is evidence that consciousness survives physical death.

EXTERNAL CREDIBILITY OF MATERIALIZATION

The SCOLE EXPERIMENT http://www.victorzammit.com/book/chapter05.html which is well documented confirms everything David Thompson is doing. The investigators are highly credible scientists, psychologists, lawyer, and other professionals. See below.

Senior scientists and investigators who participated in the Scole materialization experiments included Professors David Fontana, Professor Arthur Ellison and Montague Keen. Of course, over the four years and five hundred sittings there were many others who attended as senior scientists and guests in the actual experiments: Dr Hans Schaer a lawyer, Dr Ernst Senkowski, Piers Eggett, Keith Mcquin Roberts, Dr Rupert Sheldrake, Professor Ivor Grattan-Guiness - all with scientific or other relevant background and a host of other highly credible witnesses who have had years of experience in dealing with the paranormal. In the United States sessions were also attended by a number of scientists. There were a number of senior scientists from the space agency NASA and others from the Institute of Noetic Sciences http://www.noetic.org/ near San Francisco as well as representatives from Stanford University.

Some of the most famous materialization mediums of the last two centuries include Daniel Dunglas Home, who was investigated in a laboratory by Sir William Crookes, Franek Kluski, the Warsaw medium who was notable for materializing large numbers of animals and mediumship was verified by Dr Gustave Geley, who participated in Kluski's seances at the Paris Institut Metapsychique International and by Prof. F. W. Pawlowski.

When you investigate the sheer number of testimonies of highly credible witnesses of the phenomena of materialization you cannot help but be struck by highly credibility of the witnesses and the similarities in the phenomena. For example see the online accounts of the following materialization mediums:

Elizabeth S and May E Bangs (known as the Bang Sisters) of Chicago, Illinois,

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~bretty/articles_bangs1.html

Arnold Clare http://www.fortunecity.com/roswell/seance/78/aclare.htm

Florence Cook, http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/mediums/cookflorence.htm

Margery Crandon, http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/mediums/crandon.htm

Stella Cranshaw, better known as 'Stella C.', http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/mediums/stella.htm

Frank Decker, http://www.fortunecity.com/roswell/seance/78/deckerg.htm

Elizabeth Hope who worked under the pseudonym of Mme. D'Esperance, http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/mediums/desperance.htm

The Eddy Brothers, http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/mediums/eddy.htm

William Eglinton, http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/mediums/eglinton.htm

Rita Goold http://www.cfpf.org.uk/articles/mediums/crossley/crossley_pn83-en.html
http://survivalebooks.org/russell/russbyrne.htm

Alec Harris whose wife documented his mediumship in They Walked Among Us.
http://website.lineone.net/~enlightenment/alec_harris.htm

Minnie Harrison, http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/harrison/index.html

Cecil Husk, http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/articles/barrett/years.htm

Stainton Moses, an Anglican clergyman, http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/mediums/moses.htm

Eusapia Palladino, http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/mediums/palladino.htm

Estelle Roberts, http://www.harvestfields.ca/ebook/02/033/10.htm

Rudi and Willy Schneider, http://www.fortunecity.com/roswell/seance/78/schneidr.htm
http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/mediums/schneider.htm

Hunter Selkirk, http://www.fortunecity.com/roswell/seance/78/selkirk.htm

Jack Webber http://www.fortunecity.com/roswell/seance/78/webr.htm

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ANNEXURE 'A' - full text of New York lawyer

Mr. Zammit:

I was very disappointed to read your rather positive review of a seance you attended with David Thompson this June. As a lawyer myself, I looked forward to more critical and creative thinking than you displayed. Essentially, you bound a man to a chair and sat in darkness while experiencing various phenomena. You then turned on the lights and a man was still bound in a chair. Your inability to see during the performance would seem to make you a very questionable witness. Your professed belief in the supernatural would also make you a biased observer - preferring to see confirmation of your beliefs than all of the ways you may have been deceived. Were this a court case and were I to have you on the stand, I might ask some of the following questions:

1. Are you aware that magicians have been replicating the performance you described for over a hundred years?
2. Are you aware that many magicians and their accomplices have confessed to putting on convincing performances like the one you described using nothing but trickery? http://www.prairieghosts.com/seance2.html
3. Do you know that many magicians take great care to secure themselves to a chair (or in a locked trunk or something) specifically for the purpose of misdirection because their tricks do not depend on them being free?
4. Are you aware that, for over a century, magicians have been using accomplices?
5. Did you take any precautions against Mr. Thompson's use of accomplices?
6. Did you mark the other attendees with glow tape?
7. Did you secure the other attendees to their chairs?
8. Did you bar all entrances ro keep out any accomplices unknown to you?
9. Did you place bubble wrap on the floor or employ motion detectors?
10. Would you repeat this experiment while wearing night-vision goggles (such goggles merely collect ambient light and do not give off any light or energy of their own)?
And, last,
11. Would you like $1 million US dollars? If you can repeat the events that you described, James Rand will pay you one million dollars. Go to www.randi.org for more information.

I predict that, like most biased witnesses I have examined, you will not express the least doubt in your story. However, as an attorney, I wish you would honestly evaluate whether you could withstand a real cross-examination.

Mr D, New York.


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