"Any time something is done in the dark you must be suspicious as you simply cant see what is really going on"
I believe that it was taken under consideration that doing things in the dark facilitates the use of fraud, and guarded against. And as for why it was done in the dark, all I can say is that it does make sense for the properties of light to play a part in the manifestation of spirits.
"What claims? What experiments?"
I think I can safely say I am the most tested medium this country has ever produced... I have been boxed up, tied up, sealed up, gagged, bound and held, and still the voices have come to speak their message of life eternal. Leslie Flint.
mouth sealed with horizontal and vertical strips of surgical tape, the position of which is marked on the skin with indelible pencil, and his hands tied to the chair. with a hand of a researcher permanently on his mouth, or a microphone taped to his larynx or a quantity of colored water that he had to keep in his mouth and had to be the same before and after the séance.
These are the claims anyway. For something more substantial go to his site (type his name in google) It has many recordings of seances and several interviews talking about how he has proven himself to scientists etc.
Note: quotes taken from a free short ebook available at "www.openmindsite.com" "called 21 days into the afterlife"
Last Edit: May 4, 2009 10:01:43 GMT by majinrevan666
I know the dodgy Ghandi clip will no doubt surface here but Flint is one of the very few mediums who I am still convinced may have been genuine. Whenever I read or hear about charlatans there is always an ulterior motive behind their act and it is usually money and fame. Leslie Flint never made money from any of his readings and went as far as condemning those that did.
"I know the dodgy Ghandi clip will no doubt surface here..."
I think that it would be odd that someone who could evoke a plethora of voices including (allegedly) those of random people would not take the time to perfect a voice that, I assume, had already been heard several times in the media.
"Leslie Flint never made money from any of his readings and went as far as condemning those that did"
It might be argued that it was done to stroke his own ego (A claim that has been made by one of the admins here I think). But I don't find that very compelling to think that someone would choose deliberate fraud to artificially make himself feel good, unless he was mental of course...
Post by Mr. Jon Donnis on May 4, 2009 17:44:08 GMT
I believe that it was taken under consideration that doing things in the dark facilitates the use of fraud, and guarded against.
How was it guarded against? Flint CONTROLLED all his seances, HIS confederates and helpers ran he seance.
And as for why it was done in the dark, all I can say is that it does make sense for the properties of light to play a part in the manifestation of spirits.
Whatutter drivel
I have seen all of his claims and NOTHING he did was controlled. SOhe was gagged, so what, someone else could have done the tricks, theproblem is we have no way of knowing as THE BLOODY LIGHTS WERE OFF.
Why wasnt everyone in the room gagged and tied down?
The simplest way he could have proven what he did was real was use a camera with infra red recording.
Instead he came up with elaborate systems to con the idiots into believing he had no way of committing the fraud.
They put all of their attention on him, and ignored his helpers, who were probably doing the tricks all along.
Seriously if you went to see Paul Daniels do a magic show and he said "Now I will make this bunny disappear, but i am gonna do it in the dark and you will just have to take my word for it"
would ANYONE be impressed? Of course not
Yet the worlds most stupid and gullible people, or spiritualists as they are known, took it all on face value, and because they didnt have the brainpower to see how bloody obvious the fakery was, they went along with it, concocting amazing stories of what they would see and experience.
The ONLY way to eliminate fraud is for them to do it in the light and let a magician watch. Simple as that.
FACT: 100% of seances that included night vision recording showed fraud. No exceptions, thats why they dont let anyone film it.
Seriously you would have to have the mind of a 3 year old to fall for such obviously faked party tricks
A bad ass who will beat you like he's using the fists of god.
"Flint CONTROLLED all his seances, HIS confederates and helpers ran he seance." Not according to what I've read. What is your source that he did these things during the experiments conducted, or do you believe no experiments were conducted at all? Granted I know relatively little on the subject, but from what I can gather he has had skeptics trying to disprove his claims with these experiments.
"Why wasn't everyone in the room gagged and tied down?"
Presumably because: 1.No one could enter the room. 2.No researcher present had the ability to produce these voices using his own voice, or a motive to do so.
"...took it all on face value" What? why would they do that? give me one example of a spiritualist taking it at face value.
"FACT: 100% of seances that included night vision recording showed fraud"
I'd be very interested to watch an example and see whether it was really a seance or just someone telling people to move an object with their "mind power" as one youtube video shows a magician doing, if they really do manage to perform the things that Leslie did, that's even better, mystery solved.
Edit: something like this would be nice:"http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5567299728976602556" By the way what was the explanation?
"Seriously you would have to have the mind of a 3 year old to fall for such obviously faked party tricks"
You would have to have attended one of his sessions to make such a claim, having done no such thing that statement is meaningless.
Last Edit: May 4, 2009 19:22:56 GMT by majinrevan666
Im interested in the part where the tests included a microphone taped to his larynx in that if the sounds were coming from him directly this if set up correctly would have picked up if he was the source of the voices . The tape on his mouth is useless as any half decent ventriliquist (sp?) can continue to throw thier voice under these circumstances and the water in the mouth trick has also been a staple part of these kind of acts . But the whole microphone part looses its importance if you consider that he may not have been the source of the sound anyway , I.e another person present made the sounds (very possible) , a recording was used somehow (unlikely but possible) etc. What id like to know is was a sound technition ever allowed to be present at any of the sittings or was this before the technology to pinpoint any sound to its source existed ? Surely if the sitting was subject to sound techs today they could at least give a good indication of the direction or source of the sounds ? And also was there a person who was ALWAYS present at his sittings who could have been the real source of the sounds , a common denominator who was present and took on the roll of real mimic or voice thrower in the dark ? The one thing that always throws up massive doubts should be this need for everything to be done in the dark , the minute you put conditions on it for it to work you have to ask for the reasons why and be given valid or at least quantifiable reasons why this was necessary ?
I too would be interested in knowing these things, there is very little to be found on this medium other than what is on his site. You can listen to the claims he makes regarding the experiments here:"http://www.leslieflint.com/interviewsmedia.html"
The other person doing the voices hypothesis seems more valid since I've heard it said in a session recorded that sometimes the voice emanates from a different location.
I'm not sure, you'd have to ask the mediums themselves about that. Whether valid or not they are bound to have an explanation.
As for why it is done in the dark: Well, if there is such a thing as spirits which we can not see in normal waking existence, would it not be logical that the properties of light would play a part in their manifestation? Or at least our perception thereof.
Could you answer the questions in my earlier post?
But in this case we are not seeing 'spirits' but hearing them. It appears that you are trying to validate this individual or excuse the obvious questions. These would be *why is it conducted in the dark? *why is there no independent verification *why was there no revelations from these famous people? *(i may need correcting in this) what is Gandhi doing talking when as a Hindu he should have been reborn?
First of all I'm not trying to "validate" anything, I have no desire to convince anyone of anything. Quite the opposite actually, I have heard and read statements concerning this medium which I have yet to see negated, I am merely asking for the opinions of those who habitually debunk such things to be able to fully assess whether the phenomenon is real or not.
So far what I've heard and read appears to be compelling enough to be taken seriously.
You are right in saying that we hear rather than see the phenomenon, however, it is claimed by the medium that a particular substance, IE ectoplasm, has to be formed for the voices to be heard. It supposedly creates a voice box of the substance with which the voices mange to speak audibly with corporeal people.
As for the questions.
1.I have already answered this to the best of my knowledge (Which isn't extensive) 2.There is if we are to believe the claims made concerning the medium in question. 3.Revelations? Like what?
Quite the opposite actually, I have heard and read statements concerning this medium which I have yet to see negated, I am merely asking for the opinions of those who habitually debunk such things to be able to fully assess whether the phenomenon is real or not.
What evidence have you seen that tells you it is real? You are asking us to debunk something that never had any credibility in the first place.
Would you like us to debunk fairies, leprechauns and pagans next?
So far what I've heard and read appears to be compelling enough to be taken seriously.
In what way is it compelling? A man sat in the dark with people around him, and a puppet show commenced, no evidence was shown that it was spirit. All we have is anecdotal stories, and a claim from a man, thats it. No evidence whatsoever, so how is this compelling?
You are right in saying that we hear rather than see the phenomenon, however, it is claimed by the medium that a particular substance, IE ectoplasm, has to be formed for the voices to be heard.
And why cant ectoplasm be formed in the light? Why can it only be formed in the dark? Ok, i kinda know the excuses already, apparently light damages the ectoplasm and causes it to retract into the mediums body at great speed causing harm, so why not use infra red?
Infra red cant hurt ectoplasm as infra red light is all around us all the time, dark or light.
That is the biggest flaw in their argument.
Also if we are to believe in spiritualist the likes of Helen Duncan was producing her puppets under flash photography and had no problems.
So it is simple, how can anything Flint claimed, be taken seriously when you take into fact that he refused anyone to film him, anddid it all in the dark, sounds like a really bad magic act to me
A bad ass who will beat you like he's using the fists of god.
"What evidence have you seen that tells you it is real?" Only the recordings and his own claims I suppose, of which the former is important; If the sitters were convinced that the voices were of their loved ones I find that an indication that it, at the very least, might be real.
"Infra red cant hurt ectoplasm as infra red light is all around us all the time, dark or light"
I'll have to look into that because from what I've read it supposedly has a similar effect to light. (As far as the spirits are concerned)
"how can anything Flint claimed, be taken seriously when you take into fact that he refused anyone to film him"
How do you know that he "refused" anything?
Last Edit: May 5, 2009 18:11:35 GMT by majinrevan666
Only the recordings and his own claims I suppose, of which the former is important; If the sitters were convinced that the voices were of their loved ones I find that an indication that it, at the very least, might be real.
But the sitters were all believers, uneducated in the methods of trickery, these people wanted to believe, it would be very easy to fool such people in the dark, would you agree?
"Infra red cant hurt ectoplasm as infra red light is all around us all the time, dark or light"
I'll have to look into that because from what I've read it supposedly has a similar effect to light. (As far as the spirits are concerned)
Yes I heard that to, again it is a flawed claim as infra red is everywhere all the time. Dont you think it is funny that the one method that could potentially prove such claims as real, just happens to also be the one way it could harm the medium? Despite matching every other possible requirement needed?
"how can anything Flint claimed, be taken seriously when you take into fact that he refused anyone to film him"
How do you know that he "refused" anything?
Have you seen any videos of his miracles? No off course not.
So back to the beginning again, where and/or what evidence have you seen, read, heard that would suggest in the slightest that anything he claims was real?
You agree that he did his tricks in the dark, so no one in history ever actually witnessed anything he claimed.
The people convinced by his tricks never actually saw clearly anything he claimed, and simply believed at face value what he said was true.
Why do you still find his clais compelling when no evidence exists that he did anything beyond silly parlour games?
Do you know what skepticism is? Do you think it is time you looked at skepticism as a way of looking at such claims.
A bad ass who will beat you like he's using the fists of god.
Yes, I do agree that the sitters being uneducated in the art of trickery does make them less reliable witnesses. However, if you had attended such a meeting would not the verification of at least some crucial facts be needed to convince you that it was the deceased person whom you had known, rather then some psychopathic ventriloquist or whomever else?
And as for the infra red, I just don't know enough on this subject to render a judgment yet.
Speaking of which, I think that it is you who need a reminder of what skepticism is:"http://www.thefreedictionary.com/skepticism+"
So far I think I've not yet succumbed to the "evil" skepticism warns against, I do not think that Flint is some saint, or that there is no way in hell that the feats accomplished by him were not fraudulent. It's just that I am more inclined to believe that he was telling the truth than that he didn't.
Skepticism does not have a "Whatever I don't believe in and consider delusional doesn't exist" clause as far as I know.
Last Edit: May 5, 2009 22:37:05 GMT by majinrevan666
