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October 2002 DPE Report

The Reverend Barbara Thurman to do Presentation.  Loyd Auerbach is the President of the California Society for Psychical Study (CSPS) and a Consulting Editor for FATE magazine.  He does Parapsychology seminars on various topics in the Pleasant Hill, CA area and has asked The Reverend Barbara Thurman to do a presentation for the CSPS on November 19^th on Spiritualist Topics.  The location for the presentation is St. John's Presbyterian Center, Fireside Room, 2727 College Ave., Berkeley, CA.  If you would like more information on this presentation it will be on the CSPS website (www.ca-sps.org).  Information on other seminars conducted by Loyd can be found at www.mindreader.com/events.  Email Loyd at (email address) or write to Loyd Auerbach, The Office of Paranormal Investigations, PO Box 875, Orinda, CA 94563-0875, Phone: 415-249-9275

Apports Received at ISF Congress.  We attended the International Spiritualist Federation (ISF) Congress in June to do a presentation on the NSAC Department of Phenomenal Evidence (DPE), Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) and Instrumental TransCommunication (ITC).  The congress was a weeklong event of classes and presentations.  We sat in five, 1.5-hour sessions each for Physical Mediumship led by Marjory Kite and Trance Mediumship led by John Alexander.

On the second day of the Trance class we got our first unexpected surprise in the way of an apport from a group of our friends on the other side called the Imperator Group.  After a mediation aimed toward trance, Lisa reached under her chair for her bottle of water.  There on the floor, directly under her chair, was a small white stick that read “Medium.”  This apport is a signature of the Imperator Group of entities.  The “Medium stick” is like the ones that are placed in a person’s steak to signify that it is done the way that one has requested.

At noon, on the next day of the conference, we had made the long walk from the dorm to the building that held the classes and cafeteria.  Lisa was wearing a pair of tight fitting leather flats.  After eating lunch Lisa returned to the serving area for another glass of tea.  While walking to the serving area she felt an obstruction in her shoe that hurt.  Thinking that something had gone wrong with the interior of her shoe, she sat down and slipped the shoe off.  There in the shoe was another “Medium Stick.”

These were the first direct apports that we have received and an extremely exciting and evidential experience.  We feel that the energy and rapport of the many attendees made this possible.  The congress, classes and presenters were superb.  The presentation that we did was well received and the bonus of the apports made the congress an event that we will remember as a very special experience.

In honor of Halloween here are a couple of interesting articles that we came across.

Ghosts With Alzheimers?  An article in The Academy of Religion and Psychical Research Bulletin Volume 11, No.2, June 2002 ran with the above heading.  It speaks to the phenomena of “recorder ghosts,” ghosts that are always seen in the same places, repeating the same motions, and doing the same exact things never acknowledging onlookers.  Many ghost researchers have felt that these types of ghosts were not really the souls of the dead, but some sort of “discarded psychic rubbish left by the soul’s passing into the next world.”

The short article goes on to point out that research into Alzheimer’s Disease has raised doubt about the “recorder ghost” dogma of the paranormal community, stating that the behavior of Alzheimer’s patients is much like that of these “tape-loop” types of ghosts.  Alzheimer’s patients wander mindlessly through old behavior patterns and repeat old habitual actions.  When they are in such “spells,” they do not realize that they are lost and they do not respond when addressed.

The article concludes that, “these multiple parallels are suggesting to some modern ghost researchers that those “tape loop” ghosts may not be empty images after all, but the mentally ill souls of the dead.

Please not that this is just a theory proposed by one group of researchers.  There is currently not enough information available to make a definitive statement about these “recorder” ghosts.

Spook Lights.  There are many reports of Nocturnal Lights.  Readers may have heard of the Marfa Lights, the Tri-State Lights, the Hornet Light or Bailey’s Prairie Light.  The Brown Mountain Lights would be included in this type of phenomena.  They are mysterious lights on Brown Mountain in Burke County, North Carolina that have mystified observers for over one hundred years.  Eyewitnesses have described these balls of light as being red, yellow or white.  They remain motionless or are seen moving around and have been described as misty spheres at times.  Many individuals as well as the US Weather service and the U.S. Geological Survey department have investigated the Brown Mountain Lights.

Cherokee legends say that the lights are the spirits of slain warriors.  Other explanations for the lights range from several ghostly legends to scientific theories including ball lightning and "earth-lights” (a luminous phenomenon caused my seismic activity).  All of these explanations have failed to completely explain the nature of the lights.

A Paranormal Research Team based in Asheville, North Carolina has now observed and filmed the Brown Mountain Lights using an Infrared Night Vision camera.  Over an hour of activity was captured on the first known video evidence of the lights.  The team hopes that this footage will yield more clues about these mysterious lights that have eluded a suitable explanation.

From an article by David Russell the X Project Magazine http://www.xprojectmagazine.com/