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Media Watch for October 2007 (Issue 71)
Paranormal Photographic Exhibition: The Roca Museum in Argentina is located in the most luxurious neighborhood of Buenos Aires. In November 2006 the Museum carried “Images of the Occult: First Spiritism and Paranormal Photographic Exhibition.” 2,600 visitors attended during the first two weeks. The exhibition was complemented by an agenda of presentations and panel discussion that focused on apparition-related topics, such as psychic/spiritist photography, the psychomanteum, ITC, mediumship, survival and super-psi hypotheses, experiences of a sense of presence, and hallucination vs. ghostly experiences. The topics were discussed by speakers with diverse backgrounds: historians, sociologists, physicians, anthropologists and psychologists.
The event was organized by the Paranormal Psychology Institute (IPP). Its supporters included the Ministry of Culture of the Government of the City of Buenos Aires, the Latinoamerican Psi Information Agency, the Biodynamic Research Association, Inc. (a technology and research center), and the oldest Kardecian spiritist society named La Fraternidad, established in 1880. From: “Images of the Occult: First Photographic Exhibition of the Paranormal,” Argentina 2006 by Juan Gimeno Paranormal Review April 2007 Issue 42.
Scientific Dogma: John Poynton writes in The Paranormal Review, “The early struggle of experimental science was to free thought from the dogmas of received teaching, but it was not long before that freedom became encrusted by dogmas as potent as those that early science had struggled against….
“The dogma of a mindless, purposeless universe leads to disenchantment which extends all the way to the inner world of personal experience and feeling … It is a view that has tended to straightjacket psychology to a point where psyche is ejected as inconsequential, and it has tended to shift the focus away from what should be essential in parapsychology and psychical research, namely psyche or spirit and its interactions with a perceived world. Within the standard materialistic paradigm of an impersonal, purposeless universe, psi experience, intuition, consciousness and spirituality may be eyed only from the point of view of finding ‘normal’ explanations for purported paranormal phenomena….” From: “President’s Note on ‘A Tide in the Affairs of Men,’” by John Poynton The Paranormal Review April 2007. What is the Source of the Message?: The question that researchers of mediumship always seem to come up with is: “Where does the information that a medium gets come from? Does it come from a deceased entity, the medium’s telepathic contact with living people who have knowledge of the deceased person or is the information drawn from a cosmic library where all information about a person is stored (a process known as super-psi)?” Emily Kelly, an assistant professor with the Division of Personality at the University of Virginia, is conducting proxy sittings that she hopes will help address this question. In her experiments the medium does not meet or otherwise come into contact with the person trying to reach the deceased. These experiments sound much like the ones being done by Gary Schwartz at the University of Arizona. Schwartz’s analyses of transcripts from his experiments show examples of “discarnate intention that virtually rules out both telepathy and super-psi as plausible explanations.” From: “Mediums at Large,” by Patrick Huyghe Fate April 2007. Psychics Helping Police: In his article, “Mediums at Large,” Patrick Huyghe writes that the skeptics can say it isn’t so but psychics are helping law enforcement officials all of the time. He mentions British Columbia psychic Norm Pratt who helped police locate the body of a young woman missing for ten months, and Noreen Renier of Court TV’s Psychic Defectiveness who after reading a toothbrush and a pair of shoes correctly described the location where a missing man with Alzheimer’s body was found. In Germany, the mother of a murdered girl used a psychic to get information on the murderer after police had questioned 6,500 men and had taken 4,300 DNA samples with no results. The mother insisted that the police follow the psychic’s lead and they confronted a man fitting the description and location given by the psychic; the man confessed. From: “Mediums at Large,” by Patrick Huyghe Fate April 2007.
The Cat Called the Grim Rea-purr: Oscar, a two-year old, grey and white cat was just a kitten when he was adopted in July of 2005 by the dementia unit of Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Rhode Island. The doctors and care specialists who come to tend the terminally ill there say that Oscar has special powers and knows when a patient is about to die. Dr. Dosa a geriatrician at Rhode Island Hospital who attends patients at Steere House says, “He doesn’t settle in their room until the day they die … he’s universally there, curled up on their bed, two hours before they take their last breath.” Now when Oscar is sited with a patient it sets off a flurry of activity, as the clergy may by called and relatives are notified of the patient’s imminent passing. The staff is aware of only one death at which Oscar was not present but it was not because he didn’t notice. Instead relatives asked that Oscar be removed from the room. Standing outside he began such frantic meowing and scratching at the door that he had to be removed from the unit. He was clearly upset about being removed from the room. This is even more interestingly to those who know that Oscar is not particularly friendly and is a loner who doesn’t like spending time with patients or staff.
Oscar’s abilities have been tested. A visiting palliative care expert, Dr. Joan Teno of Brown University, noticed that a patient was close to crossing. One of the nurses, not wanting Oscar to break his streak went and got him. He sniffed around and promptly left the room. Mary, the nurse said, “The next morning I asked how things had gone overnight and was told the patient had died at 2:30 AM – about ten hours after I’d predicted. And Oscar had gone back into the room and stayed there two hours beforehand.
Dr. Teno says that Oscar is a compassionate cat who comforts dying patients. One man whose mother and aunt had both passed over while at Steere said, “What could be more peaceful than a purring cat … He brought a special serenity to the room.” From: the Daily Mail, “Grim rea-purr: The cat that can predict death,” by Victoria Moore www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=470906&in_page_id=1770
Another Ark: In February 1992, Johan Huibers had a dream that Holland would become flooded. In the past two years he has used 1,200 trees and spent more than a million dollars building a replica of Noah’s Ark. Johan’s fully functional ark is 150 cubits long, 30 cubits high and 20 cubits wide. That’s two-thirds the length of a football field and as high as a three-story house. Life-size models of giraffes, elephants, lions, crocodiles, zebras, bison and other animals greet visitors as they arrive.
Is There (Cyber) Space for God?: An article in the Italian Jesuit journal, La Civilta Cattolica, urges Catholics not to be scared of entering the Internets virtual world to look for converts. Second Life is a simulation game where players can create a virtual version of themselves. According to the Second Life website there is a population of more than eight million residents with millions of dollars changing hands every month. In the article, academic Antionio Spadaro is quoted as saying, “Deep down, the digital world can be considered, in its way, mission territory.” From: Yahoo News, “Jesuits say take word of God to Second Life,” by Robin Pomerory http://news.yahoo.com
Best Practices: The AA-EVP is sponsoring a new Internet tool for developing articles called “Best Practices,” which are intended to document the “state of the art” for working with things etheric. Anyone who has some experience with such activities as “an effective technique for studying psychometry” should consider becoming an editor. Practices need to be based on empirical evidence, research and/or sound logic. Also, what is said in an article must be based on a consensus of editors who have experience in the same subject. Even if you do not want to introduce a practice, you may help the community by contributing to subjects with which you have experience.
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