Michael E. Tymn

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===Thomas Glendenning Hamilton===
 
===Thomas Glendenning Hamilton===
[[File:The fake ectoplasm of Mary Marshall.jpg|thumb|right|220x220px|left|A photograph taken by Hamilton of the medium Mary Marshall revealing tissue paper and cut-out heads from newspapers. Tymn believes the photograph depicts real spirits.]]
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[[File:The fake ectoplasm of Mary Marshall.jpg|thumb|right|220x220px|left|A photograph taken by Hamilton of the medium [[Mary Marshall]] revealing tissue paper and cut-out heads from newspapers. Tymn believes the photograph depicts real spirits.]]
  
 
The photographs taken by the spiritualist Thomas Glendenning Hamilton of ectoplasm reveal the substance to be made of tissue paper and magazine cut-outs of people. The famous photograph taken by Hamilton of the medium [[Mary Marshall]] (1880-1963) depicts tissue paper with a cut out of Arthur Conan Doyle's head from a newspaper. Skeptics have suspected that Hamilton may have been behind the [[hoax]].<ref>[http://www.randomhouse.ca/hazlitt/feature/touching-dead-spooky-winnipeg Touching the Dead: Spooky Winnipeg by Tom Jokinen]</ref>
 
The photographs taken by the spiritualist Thomas Glendenning Hamilton of ectoplasm reveal the substance to be made of tissue paper and magazine cut-outs of people. The famous photograph taken by Hamilton of the medium [[Mary Marshall]] (1880-1963) depicts tissue paper with a cut out of Arthur Conan Doyle's head from a newspaper. Skeptics have suspected that Hamilton may have been behind the [[hoax]].<ref>[http://www.randomhouse.ca/hazlitt/feature/touching-dead-spooky-winnipeg Touching the Dead: Spooky Winnipeg by Tom Jokinen]</ref>

Revision as of 15:19, 25 October 2013

Eva Carriere with cardboard cut out figure King Ferdinand of Bulgaria which Tymn claims was a real spirit.
Can such things be?

Paranormal

Icon ghost.svg
The Twilight Zone

Michael E. Tymn is an American pseudoscience promoter and spiritualist author known for his books on life after death.

Contents

Biography

Tymn is a 1958 graduate of the San Jose State University School of Journalism. He has contributed more than 1,500 articles to 40 publications over the past 50 years although the majority of these publications are paranormal related. His metaphysical and paranormal articles appear in FATE, Mysteries, Atlantis Rising, Vital Signs, Venture Inward, Nexus, Psychic News, Psychic Times and the Christian Parapsychologist. He is currently resident of Kailua, Hawaii.

Tymn is the Vice-President of the Academy for Spiritual and Consciousness Studies, Inc. (formerly the Academy of Spirituality and Paranormal Studies, Inc., and previously the Academy of Religion and Psychical Research), and chief editor of its two publications, The Journal of Spirituality and Paranormal Studies, and The Searchlight magazine.[1]

Tymn claims that survival of consciousness after death has been proven [2] on the and says he is impelled to bring this evidence to the attention of others, especially those in despair.[3] He also claims to have a library of approximately 700 books on life after death.

Tymn has a religious background and now describes himself as an "unorthodox Christian".[4]

Spiritualism

Helen Duncan in a seance with fake dolls which Tymn claims were spirits.

Tymn has no formal training in science, but he promotes his work as being grounded in scientific ideas. His work does not acknowledge studies which have debunked many of the early mediums.

Tymn is a spiritualist, he believes that spirits can be invoked in dark seance rooms to take over peoples brains and bodies to communicate through them in trance sessions (even though he has never experienced or witnesed this himself [5] and no scientific data has ever proven this). He seems to accept many of the old Victorian reports of mediums communicating with spirits in seances at face value and claims they are genuine as "scientific evidence" for life after death.

In the description to his book The Articulate Dead, Tymn has written there have been "many charlatans" in spiritualism yet in the book he mentions no fraudulent mediums.[6] His blog also avoids any mention of fraud. Tymn has not admitted a single medium was a fraud on his blog and claims every historical medium was genuine.

Tymn avoids mentioning mediums who have self-confessed to fraud such as Frederick Tansley Munnings and William Roy.

Eva Carriere

Tymn has written the alleged spirit materialization of the medium Eva Carriere known as "Bien Boa" was a real spirit. However, a man called Areski admitted in a 1906 newspaper article that the entire thing was a hoax and that he had dressed up as Boa.[7]

Carrière had used cut out face clippings from the French magazine Le Miroir as her ectoplasm faces.[8] Tymn does not mention any of these facts in his books.

Charles Richet

Tymn usually quote mines the psychical researcher Charles Richet on "spirit materializations" but whilst Richet believed them to be real he denied that the materializations had anything to do with spirits and rejected the spirit hypothesis of mediumship.[9] Tymn claims that Richet was an "objective" researcher, however, Richet was revealed to be in a sexual relationship with the medium Eusapia Palladino that he investigated.[10] Tymn does not mention this fact.[11]

Helen Duncan

Tymn believes the cheese-cloth ectoplasm and mask-like dolls of Helen Duncan were actually spirits even though the photographs of her spirits look like cheesecloth and dolls and such props were found in the séance room by psychical researchers.[12] Harry Price analyzed Duncan's ectoplasm and discovered it was made from cheesecloth and in other cases a rubber glove.[13]

Leonora Piper

Tymn is the author of the book Resurrecting Leonora Piper: How Science Discovered the Afterlife which was released in 2013. In the book he ignored all the data and references which proved Leonora Piper did not communicate with spirits in the seance room. Piper in her own words denied that spirits spoke through her.[14] Tymn ignores her confession and claims spirits did speak through her.[15]

Tymn has also ignored Dr. Lloyd Tuckett's 75 page skeptical analysis of Piper's mediumship published in 1911.[16] For Piper's errors see here. Tymn has ignored all this evidence.

Camille Flammarion

Tymn has written that the French astronomer Camille Flammarion was a believer in psychic phenomena, whilst this is true it was Flammarion who said "We cannot trust the loyality of mediums. They nearly all cheat" and after sixty years into investigating mediumship wrote that the spirit hypothesis has not been proven.[17] Tymn does not mention this.[18]

Gustav Geley

The French psychic researcher and spiritualist Gustav Geley is usually mentioned by Tymn, however Geley was discovered to be a dishonest researcher as after his death photographs were discovered which he had hidden which showed fraud of the medium Eva Carriere. Wires could be seen running from Carriere's head supporting fake ectoplasm.[19] Tymn does not mention this.[20]

Kathleen Goligher

Tymn claims that the ectoplasm and levitations of a table by the medium Kathleen Goligher were genuine and were caused by spirits, he also cited the work of the psychical researcher W. J. Crawford in defense of this view.[21] He does not mention any of the evidence which exposed Goligher as a fraud.

Firstly there were no scientific controls in the séances as Goligher and her family had their hands and legs free at all times.[22] The physicist Edmund Fournier d'Albe investigated Goligher at twenty séance sittings and observed Goligher holding the table up with her foot.[23] He discovered that the "ectoplasm" substance in the photographs of Crawford was muslin. In a séance he observed white muslin between Goligher's feet.[24] D'Albe published his observations in The Goligher Circle in 1922 which exposed the fraud mediumship of Goligher and because of the exposure she retired from mediumship in the same year.[25] None of this is mentioned by Tymn.

Thomas Glendenning Hamilton

A photograph taken by Hamilton of the medium Mary Marshall revealing tissue paper and cut-out heads from newspapers. Tymn believes the photograph depicts real spirits.

The photographs taken by the spiritualist Thomas Glendenning Hamilton of ectoplasm reveal the substance to be made of tissue paper and magazine cut-outs of people. The famous photograph taken by Hamilton of the medium Mary Marshall (1880-1963) depicts tissue paper with a cut out of Arthur Conan Doyle's head from a newspaper. Skeptics have suspected that Hamilton may have been behind the hoax.[26]

Gladys Osborne Leonard

Tymn claims Gladys Osborne Leonard was genuine medium who communicated with spirits.[27] In 1917, Edward Clodd examined the mediumship of Leonard and wrote she had known her séance sitters before she had held the séances, and could have easily obtained information by natural means.[28] Tymn does not mention Clodd.

In a séance on December, 3, 1915 Leonard described an army photograph featuring Raymond the son of Oliver Lodge sitting on the ground with an officer placing his hand on his shoulder. Tymn believes Leonard could not of known about this photograph by natural means and has attributed the information as evidence for spirit communication however the skeptic Walter Mann refuted the spiritualist interpretation of the photograph and uncovered the fraud of Leonard. Leonard had already seen the photograph as she had five days to obtain the photograph before the séance.[29] Leonard's supposed "spirit" control Raymond was asked specific questions and he failed to answer them. Her control Raymond could not remember the name of a single soldier he had been with before his death, and failed to give the name of a single soldier in the photograph.[30]

Oliver Lodge

Tymn believes Oliver Lodge's son "Raymond" communicated through the medium Gladys Osborne Leonard, however, Dr. Charles Arthur Mercier wrote an entire book debunking both Lodge and the "Raymond" communications.[31] Tymn does not mention Mercier or the book.[32] Lodge was gullible and easily duped into believing psychic phenomena and spiritualism by tricks. At St. George's Hall, London the stage mentalist David Devant performed a fake "clairvoyant" act where he would read a message sealed inside an envelope. Oliver Lodge who was present in the audience was duped by the trick and claimed that Devant had used psychic powers. In 1936 Devant in his book Secrets of My Magic revealed the trick method he had used.[33]

Richard Hodgson

Tymn has written that the psychic researcher Richard Hodgson was a skeptic and only became a believer in spiritualism after studying the mediumship of Leonora Piper, this is not true. Hodgson himself claimed to witness spirits throughout his life. In 15 Charles Street he would lock himself in his room and claimed that spirits were in communication with him. He locked the door to his room and allowed nobody in with him as he believed they would disturb the "magnetic atmosphere".[34] Hodgson was also described as an over-zealous and an unreliable witness by Joseph McCabe after reading a letter he had written.[35] None of these facts are mentioned by Tymn.

Although a believer in mental mediumship, Hodgson was a critic of physical mediumship which he claimed was fraudulent. Some of the mediums that he exposed as frauds were William Eglinton, Eusapia Palladino, Henry Slade and Rosina Thompson. Tymn believes all of those mediums were genuine. Tymn cherry-picks information he likes and ignores any evidence of fraud.

Cecil Husk

According to Tymn the materializations of the medium Cecil Husk were real.[36] Tymn does not mention that in a séance in 1891 Husk was caught leaning over a table pretending to be a spirit by covering his face with phosphor material.[37] The magician Will Goldston also exposed the "spirit" materializations of Husk were fake. In a séance Goldston wrote "I saw at once that it was a gauze mask, and that the moustache attached to it was loose at one side through lack of gum. I pulled at the mask. It came away, revealing the face of Husk."[38] Tymn does not mention the exposure by Goldston.

Eileen Garrett

Tymn mentions the mediumship of Eileen Garrett and claims she was in contact with spirits.[39] What Tymn does not mention is that Garrett came to reject the spirit hypothesis of mediumship. Garrett wrote "In all my years' professional mediumship I have had no "sign", "test" or slightest evidence to make me believe I have contacted another world." She considered that her trance controls were personalities from her subconscious and admitted to the parapsychologist Peter Underwood "I do not believe in individual survival after death".[40]

In her autobiography Garrett abandoned the spirit hypothesis in favor of a "magnetic field" that can be contacted.[41] Tymn does not refer to her autobiography.

Tymn claims Garrett communicated with spirits from the R101 airship crash.[42] Tymn did not research this case in detail as the paranormal debunker Melvin Harris went back to the primary sources and read over the R101 séance material and discovered that the whole thing was a hoax, the entire thing had been fabricated by spiritualists as the alleged communications themselves contained no secret information about the R101 airship. Archie Jarman also researched the R101 airship and compared the information to Garrett's and wrote an 80,000-word report on the topic concluding that the séance information was valueless and that we should "best forget the psychic side of R-101; it's a dead duck— absolutely!"[43]

Etta Wriedt

According to Tymn the direct voice medium Etta Wreidt was one of the best mediums to have provided evidence for spirit communication.[44] Tymn does not mention that Wriedt was caught in fraud. The physicist Kristian Birkeland turned on the lights in a séance with Wreidt, snatched the trumpets and discovered that the supposed "spirit" noises produced by her trumpet were caused by chemical explosions induced by potassium and water and in other cases by lycopodium powder.[45]

Minnie Harrison

Tymn writes that he is 98.8% convinced that the medium Minnie Harrison had produced real spirit materializations.[46] You only need to look at the photographs of her materializations to see that they are bogus. All Harrison did was dress up in a cloth. Compare Harrison [1] to her "materialization" [2] both have the same nose and face.

Ethel Post-Parrish

Tymn admits that the supposed ectoplasm "materialization" of a spirit called Silver Belle in a series of photographs with the medium Ethel Post-Parrish look "like a painting or a mannequin", however, he goes on to say that he believes it was still a real spirit materialization and that the reason the "materialization" only looked that way is because the "spirit" had to project its image into the "ectoplasm" and had difficulty in doing it because it could not remember what it fully looked like.[47] Are there not mirrors in the spirit world?

What Tymn does not mention is that the photograph was taken by Jack Edwards and was revealed to be a hoax. A photograph was taken of smoke and by a double exposure a cardboard figure was superimposed onto it. The woman standing outside of the cabinet curtain was also an accomplice involved in the deception. The supposed "spirit" was nothing more than a cardboard figure.[48]

Estelle Roberts

Tymn has written the medium Estelle Roberts communicated with a Native American spirit guide called "Red Cloud".[49] The paranormal debunker Melvin Harris examined some photographs of Red Cloud and wrote the face was the same as Roberts and she had dressed up in a feathered war-bonnet.[50] A photograph of Roberts can be found here [3] which has the same face as "Red Cloud" [4] it's clear that Roberts and Red Cloud were one and the same.

George Valiantine

Tymn has written that the direct-voice mediumship of George Valiantine was genuine.[51] The British journalist Ernest Clephan Palmer attended some séances with Valiantine. Valiantine denied that he had used the trumpet, however, when Palmer investigated the trumpet "a good deal of moisture" inside the mouth piece was found, which indicated that it been spoken into by a human and not a "spirit".[52] Tymn does not mention this.

Valiantine was caught in fraud by the Scientific American who offered $2,500 to any psychic or medium to produce a "visible psychic manifestation." Valiantine took the challenge and claimed that in his presence whilst sitting down spirits would speak through a trumpet that floated around a darkened room. For the test, Valiantine was placed in a room but what he didn't know was that an electrical connection had been rigged to his chair and was connected to a light signal in an adjoining room which would activate if he left his chair. The light signal was activated and all the trumpet activity coincided when Valiantine had left his chair. He cheated so did not collect the award.[53]

Harry Price investigated the "direct voice" mediumship of Valiantine in London. In the séance Valiantine claimed to have contacted the "spirit" of the composer Luigi Arditi who spoke Italian. Price wrote down every word that was attributed to Arditi and they were found to be word-for-word matches in an Italian phrase-book.[54] Tymn does not mention any of these facts.

Psychic healing

Tymn says that he believes psychic healing to be real.[55] However, he does not mention the scientific study conducted by Louis Rose in 1954 which was published in the British Medical Journal. In a hundred cases that was investigated no single case revealed that the healer's intervention alone resulted in any improvement or cure of a measurable organic disability.[56]

Famous quotes

Etta Wriedt was a genuine medium, no ands, ifs,or buts about it. End of discussion. I have no desire to go back and forth with someone who simply wants to believe the pseudoskeptics.[57]
— Michael E. Tymn's comment after he had been shown the evidence that Wriedt had been caught using chemicals in her trumpets to make "spirit" noises.

Publications

  • Resurrecting Leonora Piper: How Science Discovered the Afterlife (2013)
  • Transcending the Titanic: Beyond Death's Door (2012)
  • The Afterlife Revealed (2011)
  • The Articulate Dead (2008)

See also

External links

Footnotes

  1. ASCSI website. See history, organization, and publications pages.
  2. Michael E. Tymn - "there is plenty of very good evidence" for life after death
  3. Biography for Michael E. Tymn
  4. Michael Tymn Interview
  5. Says he has not experienced spiritual communication but believes those who have
  6. The Articulate Dead by Michael E. Tymn
  7. See page 59 in Peter H. Aykroyd, Angela Narth and Dan Aykroyd. A History of Ghosts: The True Story of Séances, Mediums, Ghosts, and Ghostbusters. Rodale Books. 2009
  8. See page 187 in Georgess McHargue. Facts, Frauds, and Phantasms: A Survey of the Spiritualist Movement. Doubleday. 1972
  9. Robert H. Ashby. The Guidebook for the Study of Psychical Research. Rider. 1972. ISBN 0091139015
  10. See page 419 in William Kalush, Larry Ratso Sloman. The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero. Atria Books. 2006
  11. Paid Debunkers: How the Public Is Misinformed by the Media and Academia About Psychic Phenomena
  12. Tymn writes he believes ectoplasm is real
  13. The Cheese-Cloth Worshippers by Harry Price
  14. Mrs Pipers Plain Statement
  15. Tymn on Leonora Piper
  16. The Mediumship of Mrs Piper by Ivor Lloyd Tuckett
  17. See pages 32-101 in Alfred Schofield. Modern Spiritism: Its Science and Religion. P. Blakiston's Son & Co. 1920
  18. Is $5-Million for Life After Death Research a Waste?
  19. J. Gordon Melton. The Encyclopedia of Religious Phenomena. Visible Ink Press. 2007. ISBN 1578592097
  20. Proof of Spirits? You be the Judge!
  21. The mystery of ectoplasm: Part 5
  22. See page 233 in Julian Franklyn. A Survey of the Occult. Kessinger Publishing. 1935
  23. See page 128 in C. E. Bechhofer Roberts. The Truth About Spiritualism. Kessinger Publishing. 1932
  24. See page 37 in Edmund Edward Fournier d'Albe. The Goligher Circle. 1922
  25. See page 115 in Mary Roach. Six Feet Over: Adventures in the Afterlife. Canongate Books Ltd. 2010
  26. Touching the Dead: Spooky Winnipeg by Tom Jokinen
  27. Gladys Osborne Leonard by Michael E. Tymn
  28. See pages 215-241 in Edward Clodd. The Question: A Brief History and Examination of Modern Spiritualism. Grant Richards, London. 1917.
  29. See pages pp. 187-188 in Walter Mann. The Follies and Frauds of Spiritualism. London: Watts & Co. 1919
  30. See page 97 in Alfred W. Martin. Psychic Tendencies of To-Day. D. Appleton and Company. 1918
  31. Spiritualism and Oliver Lodge by Charles Arthur Mercier
  32. When an “Ape-Man” Materialized in a Scientist’s Lab
  33. See pages 15-16 in John Booth. Psychic Paradoxes. Prometheus Books. 1986
  34. Alex Baird. The Life of Richard Hodgson. Psychic Press Limited, London. 1949
  35. See page 101 in Is Spiritualism Based on Fraud? By Joseph McCabe
  36. The mystery of ectoplasm: Part 3
  37. See page 90 in Rodger Anderson. Psychics, Sensitives and Somnambules. McFarland & Company. 2006
  38. See page 4 in Will Goldston. Tricks Of The Masters. G. Routledge & Sons, Ltd. 1942
  39. Are Ghosts Earthbound Spirits? By Michael Tymn
  40. See page 56 in Peter Underwood. No Common Task: The Autobiography of a Ghost-Hunter. George G. Harrap & Co Ltd. 1983
  41. Eileen Garrett. My Life as a Search for the Meaning of Mediumship. Arno Press. 1975
  42. Things You Can do When You’re Dead! by Michael E. Tymn
  43. See pages 171-182 in Melvin Harris. Investigating the Unexplained: Psychic Detectives, the Amityville Horror-mongers, Jack the Ripper, and Other Mysteries of the Paranormal. Prometheus Books. 2003
  44. Was Etta Wriedt the Best Medium Ever?
  45. See page 126 in Joseph McCabe. Is Spiritualism based on Fraud?. London: Watts & CO. 1920
  46. The Best Evidence for Life After Death?
  47. The mystery of ectoplasm: Part 4
  48. M. Lamar Keene. (1997). The Psychic Mafia. Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-1573921619
  49. Why Red Indians So Often “Control” Mediums
  50. See page 21 in Melvin Harris. Investigating the Unexplained: Psychic Detectives, the Amityville Horror-mongers, Jack the Ripper, and Other Mysteries of the Paranormal. Prometheus Books. 2003
  51. The Voice: Was It Really Confucius Speaking?
  52. See page 78 in Ernest Clephan Palmer. The Riddle of Spiritualism. Kessinger Publishing. 2003
  53. See page 413 in William Kalush, Larry Sloman. The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero. Atria Books. 2006
  54. See p. 203 in Harry Price. Search For Truth: My Life For Psychical Research. Collins. 1942
  55. Is psychic healing for real?
  56. Louis Rose. Some Aspects Of Paranormal Healing. British Medical Journal. 1954. Vol. 2, No. 4900. pp. 1329-1332
  57. An Interview with Victor and Wendy Zammit
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