Debra Diamond Brings Wall Street Smarts to NDEs, and Mediumship |424|

Oh! And it turns out on average people are quite similar, so its possible to get hits 1/3rd the time with cold reading. This is infocoming from julie bieschel, i believe, but would have to check to be sure if you have any doubt about that number.
I don't believe this is correct. Julie, of course is very careful about constructing her research designs and taking into account general hits. 1/3 is too high with no info given the medium except departed name.
 
So you did originally ask the question and although the answer was your not ready. Are you being guided into where you should investigate. Yeah, why not, you seek and it is given to you, in time. It seems you are coming into, at least, a intellectual understanding. If mathematically minded physicists can discover and comprehend completely incongruent realities of the very small. Why not you or I coming to an understanding of difficult concepts about the unobstructed universe.

i have no doubt at all I have been investigating under guidance my whole life. In fact I would have to say that I have no doubt I have lived a spirit influenced life. But its not a romantic life of bliss. It has been immensely difficult and touch and go so far as my sanity is concerned. Guidance does not mean you avoid the mine field. It may mean you get through it intact, or with a manageable count on missing body parts. It doesn't even mean you will survive - just that you will die trying.

The need to 'get' the 'unobstructed universe' is compelling. The onus is not on scientists per se but on individuals who are 'sufficiently evolved' as to acknowledge they have a role to play in service of that objective. The reality is that humans incarnate on this planet are of vastly different degrees of development. The 'more advanced' have a duty of compassionate care to those less so [this opens up political debates I will not address in an open forum].

The expectation is that those who can will respond to the challenge. The tools are not just head based intellect. Heart based feeling (for which we hardly have a noble term) is at least equally important. I say 'at least' because the cosmos, grounded in consciousness, has an internal connection that is relational [the foundation of astrology, by the way] rather than entirely rational. The relational and rational attributes are like yin and yang.
 
Michael I have read your account of GBS, but it was last year or so you recounted it and my memory fails me. What does GBS stand for?

Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) is a rare neurological disorder in which the body's immune system mistakenly attacks part of its peripheral nervous system—the network of nerves located outside of the brain and spinal cord.
https://www.google.com/search?q=gbs.....69i57j0l5.2637j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Its not that great when your own body decides its the enemy. But I was deeply internally conflicted for ages before I was laid low - so maybe I just made my psychic state my bodily state?
 
Well, one of my points is that the "medium" might be a fraud, delusional or just partly psychic. All high probability events, IMO.

Totally Eric. Mediums and channellers are often [a] delusional and induced to convey bullshit messages from low level entities. Do please read The Siren Call of Hungry Ghosts. Its the best cautionary tale you will come across.

Real communicators are another matter. I have encountered 3 - 2 I had readings with and the 3rd was my partner. We engaged with a sophisticated high level entity. I made recordings of our sessions and transcribed some. And, no, they are not available for public consumption. You can argue that you therefore do not believe me. I get that. I am unmoved. A lot of the content was personal, and that which was not included stuff that was confidential. I make my claims as they are - with no evidence to support them. Do what you will with that.
 
Personally I’m strongly against anything being ‘taken offline’. However I would be even more strongly against shutting it down completely. Please keep the conversation going, wherever that may be.

Hi Steve

All I mean is that those who wish to discuss politics to do so outside the public forum because politics is a matter of personal passion and I can confirm to you that anything involving Trump can get ugly. I would expect you can participate in an off-line discussion. It not something that is consistent with this forum, but it might be a discussion we want to have.
 
Totally Eric. Mediums and channellers are often [a] delusional and induced to convey bullshit messages from low level entities. Do please read The Siren Call of Hungry Ghosts. Its the best cautionary tale you will come across.

Real communicators are another matter. I have encountered 3 - 2 I had readings with and the 3rd was my partner. We engaged with a sophisticated high level entity. I made recordings of our sessions and transcribed some. And, no, they are not available for public consumption. You can argue that you therefore do not believe me. I get that. I am unmoved. A lot of the content was personal, and that which was not included stuff that was confidential. I make my claims as they are - with no evidence to support them. Do what you will with that.

In regards above post, should of known GBS was a medical acronym, thanks. I'll knock on wood I get passed on that experience.
I'm going to go on a little bit of a tangent here. Alex interviewed medium/channeller Suzanne Giesmann in Nov 2016 #334. The response was mixed but there were 14 pgs of posts so pretty lively interview (you didn't post there) I've been following Suzanne on FB since 2016. Shes done 2 other interviews on Batgap.
I'm not interested so much in her seminars and books. She's a fairly simple, kind, loving lady who appears to appeal mostly to the older female spiritual crowd. Her underlying message is we are all connected and are beings of light and love. She has been active with largely supportive bereavement counseling and teaching mediumship to others. Now travels the country in an RV bus giving lectures and seminars with her retired Navy Captain husband.

I signed up for and receive daily email posts from her channeled ascended group called Sanaya. At first I cast a skeptical eye on this reported ascended masters group, but a couple of things stand out for me. One is Suzanne's level of communication and intellectual abilities and these channeled works don't match. Since I receive these posts everyday 7 days a wk. Suzanne reports they come every morning like clockwork, rain or shine. I'm struck by how fresh they are. No matter the source, they are creatively highly advanced commentaries using original analogies and metaphors.

There have been poems dictated which are amazingly sophisticated. The sheer volume is breathtaking. I believe Suzanne has written something like 3,000 Sanaya posts now. Other forum posters have been casually dismissive, but I've been reading these posts for a few years now and find them mixing both dual and non dual situations as deeply penetrating as anything in Vedanta or Zen Buddhism. I have had personal paranormal experiences so Im probably more open to this kind of communication. Just thought Id pass it on and invite you to investigate. PS just scanning a few doesn't do them justice. Cheers. https://www.suzannegiesemann.com/category/sanaya/
 
I just start getting concerned when we have to create elaborate explanations for mediums' failures.

Yeah. We have to imagine mediums as translators. They fail for the same reasons a translator will fail. I respect Debra's refusal to engage with reincarnation. There are three types of mediumship that are pertinent here - interpretative, direct voice via possession or direct voice via a collaboration . An interpretative medium effectively interprets impressions received and translates them to direct speech. This is easy to fabricate. Direct voice via 'possession' can displace the person from their body by an agent whose bona fides are difficult to confirm -and these agents tend to be lower level. The rarer instances of higher level agents entering a mediator's body are not take overs, and neither is the person in a trance.

You get 'failures' at lower levels - whether delusional projections or lower level intrusions - because the agents involved tend to lack the sophistication of approach so as to not say stuff that is falsifiable.

That said, Debra also understands that some complex subjects are beyond her skill base. Outside direct voice communication you need intellectual content - otherwise what is said is garble. Often a medium of modest intellectual attainment will attempt to convey ideas above her pay grade and end up talking what seems like nonsense - or metaphor. She is doing her best with what she has.

The trouble is that we attribute to mediums powers and responsibilities we would not impose otherwise. We assume the fact that they are dead or 'in spirit' confers knowledge or wisdom not available to us. That's bullshit. That's the opportunity for fraud and deception.

There is no inherent privilege in talking with the dead. Talking with higher level agents is another matter. There has been a lot of fraud in this area.
 
There have been poems dictated which are amazingly sophisticated. The sheer volume is breathtaking. I believe Suzanne has written something like 3,000 Sanaya posts now. Other forum posters have been casually dismissive, but I've been reading these posts for a few years now and find them mixing both dual and non dual situations as deeply penetrating as anything in Vedanta or Zen Buddhism. I have had personal paranormal experiences so Im probably more open to this kind of communication. Just thought Id pass it on and invite you to investigate. PS just scanning a few doesn't do them justice. Cheers. https://www.suzannegiesemann.com/category/sanaya/

Wow! I had a quick look. There is genuine depth here, and of value to meet a personal need. The fact is that since the internet there are thousands of points of contact that meet individual needs. They are at various levels to suit personal needs and they are of varying degrees of complexity and sophistication. Inspiration is raining on us and we can all get wet with what we need to grow a little. I have a poorly maintained blog (aspiringanimist.com) that seems to hit the spot for some people at the right time for them.

My friend Enresto Sirolli inspired me with the idea I take as the sun of love and the water of inspiration. To grow, to evolve, this is what we need.

I noticed a post from Eric that suggested a problematic understanding of love, and I have to say it is the most difficult of notions to grasp. I am not going to attempt dig deeper.

The tradition I was educated in accepts the idea of Love/Wisdom as a thing. Love is not something alone. It is a framework without a focus. Love without wisdom is like passion without morality. Love needs wisdom to be whole. The same applies to Buddhism - compassion needs wisdom to be whole.
 
Totally Eric. Mediums and channellers are often [a] delusional and induced to convey bullshit messages from low level entities. Do please read The Siren Call of Hungry Ghosts. Its the best cautionary tale you will come across.

Real communicators are another matter. I have encountered 3 - 2 I had readings with and the 3rd was my partner. We engaged with a sophisticated high level entity. I made recordings of our sessions and transcribed some. And, no, they are not available for public consumption. You can argue that you therefore do not believe me. I get that. I am unmoved. A lot of the content was personal, and that which was not included stuff that was confidential. I make my claims as they are - with no evidence to support them. Do what you will with that.

Michael,
I have read it and I agree that everyone interested in this stuff should read it as well.

The medium that not only impressed me and made a believer out of my highly skeptical wife (at the time) + previously the very serious person I respect who recommended her, has suffered severe health issues in recent years. She was probably in her late 30s and no more than 40 when we sat with her (circa 2012 and 2014). By 2016 she had brain surgery to remove tumors. Her health never recovered. I think she may have died in past year. She lived about 160 miles from me and we saw her in person at her home, though she used to do séances over the phone as well.

As an aside, part of disguising my identity was to not give her a phone number. We even took the train to her town and hiked about 2 miles from the station to her house because I didn't want her to be able to trace a license plate - not that I think she did those things, but at the time I didn't know and wanted to rule out all normal means of knowing anything about me no matter how unlikely. I scheduled the event online using a computer at a library in a different town from which I live (using a fake name of course). Also, having a session at her house did not require securing the appointment with a credit card (another potential source of gathering information that could be used in the séance by a fraud). Rather, I paid her after the séance with cash.

Anyhow, after the sittings, my wife and her began friendly communications. My wife became very concerned with her health. She told my wife that mediums of her caliber often suffer health consequences, but that she would continue her work as long as possible regardless. The brave and wonderful woman paid the price.

Another aside, she seemed to have been a hybrid between psychic medium and the other types. When she was doing the séance with us, her entire demeanor, tone of voice and body language changed and matched that of the deceased who was communicating. There was none of this "I'm getting an impression that...". Instead it was direct statements being made by the spirit. At times it was as if the spirit had taken over her. At other times she was herself passing along the thoughts of the spirit (who she said was standing right in front of her and was "up in her face" - this was the spirit of a highly aggressive, intelligent, but sarcastic person in life), a big contrast to the warm loving nature of medium herself. reflecting more on the seance, when the topic was very emotional, the spirit took her over. When the topic was more factual, the medium passed along the thoughts of the spirit.

I digress again...

....IMO, not much is to be gained by talking to the dead other than confirming there is life after death and there is a definite risk if one continues to delve into it after the initial confirmation.

IMO, spirits don't know much more about the hows and whys than living people do. An asshole in life is still and asshole after death and can - and will -deploy the same tactics against you that they did when alive, but now (after death) you can't see them and they can be very sneaky about impacting your mind and health.

IMO, NDEs and new age religious training make people believe that everything is light and love after death + enlightenment. Maybe it is for some people, but certainly not for all by any means.
 
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This ability to control the actions of US presidents, may well have contributed to the West's seeming wanton desire to attack and wreck the Middle East and other places. Look back at the absurd history over the last 50 years or so.

Are you going to allow this fascinating discussion to continue as Michael has enquired?
 
David, I thought there was an agreement political discussions would be taken off line. I think you have a responsibility as a moderator not to be the instigator of contentious political comment. It not only deflects the conversation away from the focal spirit of Skeptiko, it introduces, in then instance of Trump, the most radically contentious theme imaginable - and not suited to this forum. In case you want to argue the toss, I am on my 27th book on American history, politics and Trump since 1 December last year. This is not a debate we need on an open forum discussion about an unrelated subject. If you want to set up an alternative discussion I would be happy to participate. But I won't respond to what I perceive to be numerous errors or misrepresentations above. Do we go off line and invite folk to join the discussion -or kill it now?
I think the agreement is only to keep political debates to a small number of threads, not to avoid them completely. My original comment on this topic was quite restrained - pointing out that people on earth usually have complex personalities that aren't perfect, and maybe that is true out there too. However, Laird rather drew me out - so I could ban Laird - or I could ban myself (I have long wondered if the software permits this) - or I could just try to restrain myself in future.
 
I think the agreement is only to keep political debates to a small number of threads, not to avoid them completely. My original comment on this topic was quite restrained - pointing out that people on earth usually have complex personalities that aren't perfect, and maybe that is true out there too. However, Laird rather drew me out - so I could ban Laird - or I could ban myself (I have long wondered if the software permits this) - or I could just try to restrain myself in future.

This a great thread. Please let's keep it on topic. We certainly made hash out of the Courtney Brown thread by delving deeply into politics - not a problem for me personally because I find Brown to be a goofball idiot and because all of his alleged RV work somehow manages to produce results along straight political lines (it's all leftist BS), but probably an issue for those who wanted to discuss RV in more depth.

David created a politics thread.
 
I think Michael would prefer the same, Eric.
So maybe start a private conversation David? Possibly just keep the one with the climate change video, as it appears pretty quiet.
 
I think Michael would prefer the same, Eric.
So maybe start a private conversation David? Possibly just keep the one with the climate change video, as it appears pretty quiet.
No not a private conversation - just use the politics thread, please!

David
 
I think that if there is a supreme director of all dimensions and all awareness, then its description by some religions as all good and loving must be incorrect. It also seems that it is not very interested in the detail of each person's life. Furthermore, it designed a vicious world here, what with animals slaying each other in cold blood for lunch, viruses and bacteria preying on and killing humans.
Right. Hence my background assumption of "living emulation" helps resolve the problem of evil.

Why have that? Suppose a transcendent being visits our light cone and we get everything we desire. Look at our desires. How do you maintain human values?

Notice the idea of light cone \ being of light reference. God can see every part of the system. Every decision, every interaction.
 
I don't believe this is correct. Julie, of course is very careful about constructing her research designs and taking into account general hits. 1/3 is too high with no info given the medium except departed name.
I will find the quote then. Keep in mind this background hit rate is like the placebo group...well that's controversial...too hard to type out on my phone
 
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