2001 DPE Reports

August 2001 DPE Report

Greetings from Tom and Lisa Butler.

This is our first Monthly Report as Co-directors of the NSAC Department of Phenomenal Evidence.  As we begin, we wish to thank Rupert for his contribution and past work for this Department.

New Web Site: we have established a web site at http://nsacphenomena.com.  This site is designed to help share phenomenal evidence information amongst the NSAC churches and with the public.  It includes a report form that can be downloaded or filled out and submitted online.

Egroup: We have also established an email distribution service (Egroup) to help us share information about Phenomena.  Participants can send and receive emails from all other participants.  The home page for this Egroup is at [closed due to time constraints].  You can request Egroup membership from that page; however, we wish to keep membership limited to NSAC members, so please contact us and we will add you.  Please tell us the church you are with.  Our objective is to have at least one person from each NSAC church who is authorized to represent his or her church in the Egroup.

Grief Management: Here is an example of grief management using Electronic Voice Phenomena.  A friend living in Dundee, UK, has told us that, “One of the woman had a lovely little girl who died 20 or so years ago.  She (the woman) could not come to terms with her death and was very angry (as to) why (God would) take her.  For all of these years, she could not accept it.  Then I came along and got her daughter on tape.  The woman was over the moon and could not thank me enough.  But the bottom line is, Lisa, we gave her back her faith and hope that there is life after death.  When I saw the woman and how much it meant to her--this is what it’s all about.  But, all thanks go to my people as I call them.”  (“My People,” refers to our friends contact on the other side who help her.)

After Death Communications:  Some of you may be familiar with the work of Dr. Botkin.  He uses Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) to help people deal with troubling, memories.  There is a good overview of his work at www.near-death.com/botkin.html.  There is also a very good article by Dr, Botkin titled: The Induction of After-Death Communications Utilizing Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing: A New Discovery by Allan L. Botkin, Psy.D in the Journal of Near-Death Studies, Vol. 18 #3, Spring 2000.  (IANDS, PO Box 502, East Windsor Hill, CT 06028, www.iands.org.  A check for $15.20 fetched us the #3 Journal.)

EMDR involves a rapid back and forth movement of the eyes while concentrating on a charged emotion.  The therapist invokes this by asking the patient to watch a finger move back and forth.  A cycle consists of thirty seconds or so of the movement, followed by a period of discussion or introspection.  The cycle can be repeated as needed.  You may have noticed that the medium, George Anderson ( www.georgeanderson.com ) moves his hand back and forth during a reading.  There is reason to believe that mediumship and genuine ADCs can be invoked or augmented with this technique.  Dr. Botkin uses a very special version of EMDR to invoke ADCs.  He has told us that he is writing a book that will more fully disclose his EMDR technique.  We should point out that professionals discourage use of this technique if you are "unlicensed."

University of Arizona, Tucson:  As you may know, the Reverend Anne Gehman, Virginia was tested in the Human Energy Systems Laboratory at the University of Arizona.  We recently had the opportunity to meet Gary Schwartz, Ph.D., who is the director of the lab.  Gary is both personable and knowledgeable about our favorite subjects.  We have met few people with so much enthusiasm for research into mediumship.  In the final analysis of the data, it appears that Gary is convinced of the validity of mediumship.  Since he is working with deceased people as if they were part of his research team, we must also conclude that he accepts continuation of life as a fact.

We believe that Gary will conduct more experiments to help us better understand the nature of mediumship.  It is very important that we in NSAC do all we can to support this effort, since Gary is helping to provide a modern day, scientific foundation for the validity of mediumship.

Once again, we wish to thank everyone for the support—today and tomorrow.  We will be working to gather and report phenomenal evidence from the churches.  If anyone has questions as to what we are looking for, or would like to make suggestions, please do contact us at the addresses listed below.

Tom and Lisa Butler
Directors, NSAC Department of Phenomenal Evidence