VICTOR ZAMMIT
A Lawyer Presents the Case for the Afterlife
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The Book 4th Edition

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3. My sensational materialization experiences

“A round hundred of scientists, all profoundly skeptical, and some openly hostile, declared themselves, without exception, completely convinced after having worked under the direction of Dr. Schrenck-Notzing with his medium Willy [Schneider]…. I myself took part in twenty-five of these experiments, and have convinced myself that telekinesis and materialization are facts. This conviction was shared by all the other scientific witnesses. They are all in accord that the hypothesis of fraud is quite untenable. ”
Dr Gustave Geley

“The point is, if you want real conviction of life after death, physical mediumship is the answer.”
Leslie Flint

When you come across something really spectacular, a sensational experience which contradicts your beliefs, your culture, tradition and history?what do you do? You can forget all about it or you can investigate more. I chose to investigate.

The Western world has known for a couple of thousand years that under certain circumstances it is possible for Etherians (spirits from the afterlife also known as the Etheric realm) to temporarily appear as solid flesh and blood beings, through the agency of gifted materialization mediums. But it was usually described in the context of religious or shamanistic experiences.

When people in America today hear the word “medium” they think of someone like John Edward or Allison Dubois who able to hear and see people who have died and convey to clients what they are seeing and hearing. This is called mental mediumship because it happens in the medium’s mind? the person observing cannot see or hear anything.

But a physical medium enables all the people present to see and hear and feel a variety of paranormal things for themselves. Initially this might be the levitation of a heavy table and other objects, raps and bumps which respond intelligently, spirit lights which move around at high speed or objects which are materialized.

In the case of some very rare “direct voice” mediums (see Chapt. 15) everyone present can hear the voices of spirits and take part in a conversation with them. Rarest of all physical mediums is the materialization medium. In the presence of this one in a million medium, human forms appear. They can touch and be touched. They can speak and answer questions. They can move around and make noise. They can embrace their loved ones and bring to them the message that there is no death.

From the middle of the nineteenth century there have been a number of empirical investigations of materialization mediums by scientists. A major investigation over a number of years was carried out by Sir William Crookes, the greatest scientist of his time. He, as a scientist, confirmed that materialization really happens (See Chap.10).

Materialization mediums are very rare in the world to-day, so much so that many people have never heard of them. To my knowledge, there are only four materialization mediums giving public demonstrations in the Western world, three in England and one, David Thompson, in Sydney Australia.

Brief report on materialization experiment with David Thompson on Friday June 30th 2006.

Seven Etherians (spirits) including (Sir) Arthur Conan Doyle and former Society of Psychical Research researcher, Montague Keen, actually materialized. I actually shook hands with Sir Arthur on Friday 30th June 06. Experiences like this alone, will inevitably cause a revolution in the belief in and in the acceptance of the afterlife.

Set-up and precautions.

The experiment took place in a private home at Castle Cove, Sydney. Along with the medium, David Thompson, were a total of 9 people (3 female and 6 male all professional people including a lawyer, an accountant and a media professional- all open minded skeptics).

Some of the sitters are highly experienced in physical mediumship and very familiar with the tricks used by impostors claiming to be physical mediums.
Prior to entering the room I was asked to search the medium and confirm that he had nothing under his clothing. Another sitter and I checked his track pants, pockets, his cardigan and his shoes to make sure that they were normal. All of the other sitters were searched as well and asked to leave outside anything metal, lighters, matches, mobile phones etc.

Thirty minutes prior to the beginning of the séance we set in motion an MP3 recorder with a very sensitive microphone which recorded the entire 90 minute session.

The room was a small lounge-dining room in a middle class suburban rented house in a quiet area. At the end of the room where we were sitting the windows had been blocked out and there was no furniture except for a number of straight backed chairs and a large modular display cabinet about 2.5 meters (8 feet) tall in which it would have been impossible to conceal even a small person. There were no trapdoors –walls, floors and ceiling or recesses in the room. Once everyone was seated, the only door to the room was locked and the key given to me. A large sheet of cardboard was stuck over the door to block any light and to seal the only door to the séance room. A chair was placed behind the door underneath the handle for added security.

The chair on which the medium sat was a metal one. The arms were securely fastened, there were no loose connections and there was nothing unusual beneath the chair. The chair was placed in the corner of the room. The sitters sat in a semi-circle facing the medium. The medium was strapped into the chair by means of secure belts and buckles firmly attached to the chair.

As well, heavy plastic one-way (self-locking) cable ties were secured through the buckles and cut off short so that the only way they could be released was with a metal clipper. I checked that the bindings were reasonably tight and that the medium could not slip either arm back out of the ties.

The medium had a black gag tied securely around his head through his open mouth preventing him from making any more than muffled sounds. I checked the knot and helped secure a cable tie to the gag. As well cable ties were used to tie the buttons of the medium’s cardigan to the buttonholes and clipped off very short.

On the mantelpiece in the room was a set of drum sticks and a glass of water. Beside the séance leader’s chair was a CD player with a music CD, a small lamp with red globes and a simple cardboard cone, the end of which was lined with luminous tape. In physical mediumship circles this is called a “trumpet” and is used as a simple megaphone to amplify spirit voices.

The séance experiment

The séance experiment took place in total darkness. This is because ectoplasm--a whitish gaseous substance which is taken from the medium and used by the spirits to make themselves visible--is extremely sensitive to light and to other forms of physical energy such as electricity (for more detail on ectoplasm see Chap. 10.)

The séance experiment began with one of the sitters offering a short prayer followed by the playing of the hymn “Jerusalem”. Soon afterwards we heard very distinct fairly heavy breathing and the loud clear voice of ‘William’ the spirit “master of ceremonies” who welcomed us all, talking slowly, using a low pitched resonant voice. The voice sounded as if it belonged to someone advanced in age.

Paranormal activity

The intention of this session was to ascertain whether or not paranormal activity, was taking place. I can report that the following actually happened.

1. William, the control, welcomed everyone to the circle and introduced us to some spectacular movements of the trumpet. We could see the luminous end of it whizzing around the room. At times it passed just an inch (2 centimetres) away from our faces. We could feel a rush of air as it passed us. At one stage it repeatedly tapped myself and my partner on the head, moving rapidly from one of us to the other although we were separated by another person.
William then returned and promised that the phenomena in the circle would become stronger over the next few months and that those working on the other side would try to create natural light. He stressed the importance of harmony between the sitters.

2. Timothy, was the next to speak. He is the Etherian (spirit person) in charge of the ectoplasm, responsible for the movement of the trumpet and lightening the atmosphere. He claims he died when he was nine years old. He tries to liven up the experiments with his sharp one-liners, by sharp burst of laughter and other entertaining activity such as extremely loud drumming with the drumsticks.

3. Montague Keen- spoke directly to me by name and said he would be working with me to prove the existence of the afterlife.

4. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (very well known author of Shirlock Holmes books 1859-1930) gave an eloquent speech on the topic of survival after death and how one’s state of mind on crossing over determines what one experiences. During his talk he approached me and shook my hand. His hand felt warm and solid and was huge - at least twice as large as the hand of the medium David Thompson and significantly bigger than the hand of anyone else in the room. There was a very distinct "whooshing" sound at the beginning and end of his materialization.

Seven different voices

Before each entity materialized we heard and recorded a peculiar loud “whooshing” sound which can be heard in all of the MP3 recordings. There was a similar but shorter sound when entities de-materialized.

We heard seven definitively different voices which were clear, loud and distinctive with different pitch, rhythm, pace, intonation and modulation. All of the voice answered questions intelligently from the sitters were could constantly hear each other asking questions from their original positions.

Often the entities would begin speaking using direct voice- an artificial larynx constructed from ectoplasm (See Chaps.10 and 12) the sound coming from close to the medium. Then they would materialize with a distinctive sound and start to move around the room.

Several sitters commented on the abnormal cold around their feet and legs, something which is usually associated with the production of ectoplasm.

Several of the sitters were able to see the fingers of a materialized hand in the light of the luminous strips on the trumpet while it was held high in the air.
At the end of the meeting when the lights went on the medium was still bound and in his chair but the chair had been moved without a sound into the middle of the circle, about 2 metres (six feet) from its original position and right in front of me. The medium’s cardigan was still on, with the plastic ties still unbroken, but it had been reversed so that the buttons were up the medium’s back.

Precautions against fraud.


• There was extra care in searching David Thompson, the medium himself.

• There was extreme care in tying his both hands, legs and putting the gag to make sure he could not vocalize. The tags were locked irretrievably, which meant we had to use clippers to free David after the séance.

• There was also extreme care in inspecting the chair he sat on.

• There were no floor, wall or ceiling trap doors.

• All the sitters were asked to hold hands whenever materialization was about to take place.

• Towards the end of the meeting Timothy invited me and another sitter to approach the medium in his chair and feel that he was still bound and gagged while the entity continued to talk to us. All security measures on the medium, David Thompson, and the chair were still intact. While my hand was on David Thompson's gag, the materialized Timothy was still giving instructions. It would have been a physical impossibility for the medium to say anything under the circumstances.

• One of the sitters felt that David’s face was covered with what she thought were drops of water; it was later realized this was ectoplasm.

• I held the only key then available to the only door of the séance room.

• The only door to the séance room was sealed from the inside.

• Care was taken to identify where the voices were coming from – it was noticed they came from different areas, different heights of the room.

N.B. In a subsequent materialization experiment, we replaced the gag with sticking plaster. This was of the kind which if removed would lose its stickiness and would no longer stay in place. We then drew a straight line with felt pen through the tape onto the medium’s face on both sides of his mouth. If the sticking plaster had been moved even slightly the lines would not have matched up. The voices still came strongly and after the meeting the tape was still firmly in place and the lines perfectly matched.

Conclusion

My partner and I were absolutely convinced that paranormal activity took place and that materialized entities conversed with us and that the entity which called itself Arthur Conan Doyle did in fact shake my hand.

The group is now in the process of using more sophisticated electronic equipment to analyse the voices. This is especially important because I have since attended meetings where two entities claiming to be world celebrities--Louis Armstrong and Mahatma Gandhi--materialized. We continue to proceed with caution and go to the forensic audio equipment to do full correlation tests. So far, the conduct of the parties is consistent with what we know about them. Full results will be published in the next edition of this book, in six months’ time.

For those of us fortunate enough to have the personal experience these materialization experiments are overwhelmingly convincing evidence for the existence of the afterlife.

On the Internet

Audio recordings in MP3 format from this and a number of other David Thompson materialization experiments can be found on my webpage; you can listen online or download to an MP3 player. http://www.victorzammit.com/audiomaterialization/index.html

David Thompson’s homepage
http://www.davidthompson.com.au/main.html

Report written by Society for Psychical Research investigator Montague Keen, shortly before his death, into a David Thompson séance http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/articles/keen/thompson.htm

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