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The Articulate Dead

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Michael Tymn is a recognized expert in the history of mediumship, writing extensively about the subject in his highly-respected online blog ([...] and in many articles for magazines and journals such as FATE, Nexus, Mysteries, Two Worlds, Atlantis Rising, The Summit, The Christian Parapsychologist, and other publications.

He brings a wealth of serious reseach and insights to "The Articulate Dead" and presents it with journalistic flair. As Mike notes in his preface, his goal was to "resurrect some of the most interesting and credible personalities and cases in the annals of psychical research from the period 1850 to 1940, what might be called the 'heyday' of mediumship, or spirit communications."

What we're offered is a fascinating look at some of the most convincing evidence available to date on the phenomena -- "evidence that seems to have been forgotten or ignored" -- strongly suggesting a continuing existence beyond the grave.

If you don't believe in a life after death, or comminciations from spirits, you may change your mind after reading this book. You don't have to take it on faith, take it on evidence. It's here.

A "Must Read" for Time Magazine, Harvard and Dr. Pinker

William E Stoney

1/25/09

On January 9th 2007 Time magazine published a special issue titled "Mind & Body. The major message of the issue as stated by the lead author, Dr. Steven Pinker of Harvard, was that "every aspect of consciousness can be tied to the brain. ....Consciousness does not reside in an ethereal soul that uses the brain like a PDA; consciousness is the activity of the brain....when the physiological activity of the brain ceases, as far as anyone can tell the persons consciousness goes out of existence. Attempts to contact the souls of the dead (a pursuit of serious scientists a century ago) turned up only cheap magic tricks."

If you are inclined to accept the above as the proven scientific evaluation of the mind brain relationship and therefore Dr. Pinker's above evaluation of the results of the scientific attempts to contact the souls of the dead 100 years ago, you must read "The Articulate Dead". Dr. Pinker was correct in noting that there were serious scientific investigations of communication with the dead, he just totally misrepresented the results. Michael Tymn has provided us with an extensive and very readable account of the real results of those scientific investigations.

Those of you who are not familiar with the extensive history of psychical research will find that history outlined in an appendix. It begins with the start of paranormal phenomenal phenomena at the home of the Fox family in Hydesville New York on March 31st 1848. The family learned to converse with the originator of raps that were heard throughout the house and found them selves talking with the spirit of a peddler who had been killed in the house several years before. From that beginning there was literally an explosion of such communications, first in the US, then in England, France and the rest of Europe. Spiritualist churches featuring messages to the members from their deceased loved ones through a medium were founded and flourished much to the concern of the traditional churches. Table tilting, wherein a table with the sitter's hands on top would answer yes/no questions or select letters from the alphabet by tilting on two legs or turning right or left according to a prearranged code became the primary parlor game. Numerous other communication methods were developed including several forms of the ouije board, trance mediumship using the medium's voice or more rarely a voice separate from the medium, and automatic writing that has been the source of many full length books of spirit communications.

From the beginning these activities aroused the attention of academics and others of the educated classes. They loudly and often proclaimed the gullibility of those who believed in such impossible phenomena. A hardy few however decided to give the phenomena a fair evaluation. They found, much to their surprise, that they were forced to conclude that at least some of the reported communications and physical phenomena (including levitation of furniture and people) could not be attributed to fraud and that the hypothesis of spirit communication and activity was the simplest and most believable explanation. Those people and their investigations are the subject of this book.

The credentials of the people who risked their professional reputations by their declaration of belief in communication with spirits will certainly make a reader wonder whether there is any logical reason to accept the word of Dr. Pinker over theirs. Some were well known only in their own time but others are still famous today for their accomplishments. You will read about the investigations and conclusions of three scientists, Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir William Crookes and Sir William Barrett, who were knighted for their inventions and accomplishments in physics, of one of the originators of the theory of evolution. (No not Darwin but his semi-forgotten co-originator Alfred Russel Wallace), of the acknowledged father of psychology, William James, of a Pulitzer Prize winning author, Hamlin Garland and many others.

The intellectual credentials of the investigators are important but it is the investigations themselves that must be the basis of whether we can believe that they really are discussions with the spirit world. The first thing to note is number of the mediums studied providing positive results. Equally, and to some even more evidential, are the lengthy and in depth studies of several outstanding mediums, studies that in one case continued for over 40 years with continuing evidential data of the reality of the deceased being contacted and without any evidence of fraud. You will also be impressed with the precautions that were taken to preclude the use of previous knowledge and "cold" readings. The sitters never used their real names and in many cases were represented by others who did not know them. This latter practice was used to make the spiritual explanation more readily believable than the mind reading hypothesis then and now proposed as the alternative. It is here that the details are critical and it is the details that this book provides that make it the ideal entrance into the world of spiritual communication and its evidence for the reality of the afterlife.

But there is a third element that is crucial in deciding if we can accept the evidence provided. The experimenters spent the majority of their efforts in proving that the communications were from the people they claimed to be and not from the imaginations of the medium. Most believed that they had indeed accomplished this beyond a reasonable doubt. They spent little effort in analyzing or discussing those parts of the communications that described the conditions in which the communicators found themselves since they had no way of assessing the validity or not of such descriptions. However what's it like over there is certainly the first question that comes to mind once we start to believe that we are communicating with the spirit world since even our religions have very little to say on that subject. As you will read, the descriptions from many different communicators do provide a reasonably consistent and understandable picture of the afterlife. And these descriptions also have strong implications on the way in which we should conduct our current lives. Thus, it is these descriptions and their implications that many of you will find the most interesting, thought provoking and perhaps the most important part of this book.

I am sure that most if not all of you who are reading this review are doing so because the issue of what happens after death has become personally important because of the loss of a loved one or because a recent birthday started you thinking about your own mortality. Being able to add a science based proof of the afterlife and a comprehensible image of its characteristics can add immeasurably to our own understanding and acceptance of our place in the universe.

But beyond this personal reason there are broader social reasons as well. You are probably aware of the increasingly more visible and acrimonious debate between the believers and the atheists. Its resolution is important because it has the potential of altering the church/state separation our forefathers so wisely included in our constitution.
It is equally important to resolving the intra religious disputes that have already caused countless deaths as true believers seek to impose their beliefs on all about them by the gun and the bomb. The facts provided by the communications described in this book may be the only way mankind will ever resolve these problems. Thus it is truly tragic that the leaders of that scientific process have chosen to ignore and to denigrate without examination the communication data that have been collected by methods that they would easily see are scientific in design and process and which have been replicated again and again for over a century. Yes there remain many unanswered questions and reason for doubt but the quantity and quality of the communication data then and now certainly deserve the best scientific attention academia can muster.

Dr.Pinker, read this book and tell us if you wish to repeat your Time magazine statement.

In the spirit of full disclosure I am, with Mike Tymn, a member of the Academy of Spirituality and Paranormal Studies. Please note that the investigation of spirit communications is far from a dead subject (pun intended). I recommend that you follow up your reading of this book by going to the Academy's web site, [..] that will introduce you to the current research on spirit communications. I also recommend the author's own extensive blog to which he frequently adds articles on many aspects of the spirit communication evidence past and present. [..]. To those who want to read what are described as the best evidential case histories I recommend another Academy member and author, (The Survival Files), Miles Edward Allen's web site
[..]

Finally I leave it to Amazon's capable hands to provide a list of the other current literature on this subject.

In the first stages a science's development, individuals carefully record phenomena they observe in the natural world, not fully understanding the relationships among them or their causes, but intent on advancing their understanding through careful attention to the data. The records become natural histories. In the early 19th century, William Smith, Georges Cuvier, and Alexander Broignart recorded the presence of fossils in layers of rock, leading to theories about stratification. Adam Sedgwick, Charles Lyell, and Roderick Murchison then used that understanding to map geological periods in the stratifications. Eventually, sciences of geology and evolutionary biology developed from these natural histories.

Observations of natural phenomena involving the afterlife and after-death communication were recorded from 1848 through 1944 by the early pioneers such as John W. Edmonds, Allan Kardec, Sir William Crookes, Sir William Barrett, Federick W. H. Myers, James Hyslop, Richard Hodgson, Oliver Lodge, and Robert Hare. Their observations provided natural histories of the afterlife and after-death communication that had the potential for providing succeeding generations of researchers with the bases on which to formulate theories and perform research. Hare, for example, noted in 1855 the "deliberate attempt on the part of the inhabitants of the higher spheres to break through the partition which has interfered with the attainment, by mortals, of a correct idea of their destiny after death" (quoted on page 10). However, the partnership between scientists on the next plane of life and researchers on this plane of life remains poorly understood and virtually undeveloped today, in spite of Hare's very early observation of this natural phenomenon. Researchers into the afterlife and after-death communication have not sufficiently attended to the records developed by these pioneers, and today's research remains poorly developed because the natural history from this period hasn't guided research designs.

We who are engaged in research in the afterlife and after-death communication owe a great vote of thanks to Michael Tymn for reviving the natural history of that period from 1848 through 1944 to bring to us the neglected records we need to inform our studies of the afterlife and after-death communication today. The Articulate Dead provides a chronological overview of after-death communications from the Fox sisters through Wicklund's astonishing discoveries of the sinister effects lower-level discarnates have on people. Most of the valuable insights from the period described in the book have been neglected because of the current fascination with near-death experience research that can more readily be fitted into today's dominant, physical-science research paradigm. Researchers wouldn't consider holding séances to gather data, even though through the encounters Tymn describes between people on the two sides of life, clear, valuable insights into the nature of the death, the afterlife, and after-death communications have emerged.

I recommend that anyone engaged in afterlife and after-death communication research purchase a copy of this book and read it thoroughly, then listen to as many of the Leslie Flint séance tapes as he or she can obtain, and only then begin to develop theories and create research designs. Only with this solid background in the literature can we move forward in our attempts to understand death, the afterlife, and after-death communication.

And because it's an interesting, easy read, I recommend that skeptics and people who don't know the rich literature and history of after-death communications read this book as a primer, then delve into any of the lives and mediumship accounts of the great mediums and researchers described in the book. The open-minded, albeit skeptical reader cannot help but be moved at least a few steps from ignorance toward understanding by the contents of this book.

As a scientist for most of my adult life, I rarely thought about mediums. When I did consider them, I thought they were fortunetellers or just plain charlatans. In 1997, after evaluating my near-death experience (NDE), I became interested in spirituality, religion and paranormal phenomena. This led to my joining the Academy of Spirituality and Paranormal Studies (ASPSI), becoming the editor of its journal, and writing Searching for Eternity: A Scientist's Spiritual Journey to Overcome Death Anxiety. In researching that book, I evaluated a variety of paranormal phenomena, including NDEs, out-of-body experiences (OBEs), apparitions, visions, dreams, mediumship, electronic voice phenomena, past life regressions, and other evidence for reincarnation. I concluded that the best evidence for a surviving soul, the existence of an afterlife, and the reality of God came from NDEs. I changed my previous belief about mediums and reaiized that although many were charlatans, there were a few who apparently did make contact with deceased entities. Nevertheless, even with those I was still not convinced of their veracity.
As a result of several submissions to The Journal of Spirituality and Paranormal Studies and from meetings of the Academy, plus watching popular mediums such as John Edward and James Van Praagh, I realized that there were few current mediums who appeared to be authentic, and many more in the late 1800s through the mid-1900s who also seemed to have made contact with the deceased. However, I believed that those previous reports might have been deceptions because of the lack of good scientific investigations in those years. After reading this book I realized that I was wrong on both counts, i.e., scientific investigations and reliable medium contacts. There were several eminent scientists, such as Sir William Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge, Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace, and Dr. Charles Richet who began as skeptics, but after thoroughly investigating mediums they became convinced that some were genuine. For them, the evidence appeared incontrovertible.
Why were there so many more medium reports in those days (and so many eminent scientists willing to examine the evidence) and so few medium reports currently with only a few scientists willing to investigate mediums? I believe the answer is that before movies, cable television, VHSs, DVDs,computers, the Internet, iPods, rapid air travel, and cell phones, scientists and people in general had a lot more free time and were willing to wait the lengthy time it often took for medium contacts to take place. It could be that it is difficult for discarnate spirits to make contact with us, and that is why it took so long for contact to be made in the past. Nowadays, with rapid mass communication and so much to do, most scientists and people in general do not have the time or patience to investigate mediums and wait for events to unfold. Many believe that today's science is so much better than that of the late 1800s to the mid-1900s that even apparently good investigations of mediums by eminent scientists of that era would not be reliable. However, after reading The Articulate Dead and discussing its conclusions with eminent current scientists, I am convinced that even had those previous scientists the use of modern technology they would have come to the same conclusions.
ln a thoroughly enjoyable manner, Mike Tymn takes us back to that era when mediumship flourished. We accompany the scientists and the mediums as they divulge amazing results. It is difticult to remain a real skeptic after reading this outstanding book. Even though not everyone will be convinced that mediums can and do communicate with deceased entities, most people wili come away from The Articulate Dead with a new appreciation and understanding of mediums and their uncanny abilities.

Spirit communication -- particularly two-way communication -- has always been a controversial subject. But the only way to learn the truth about life in spirit is to talk with the people who are there.

Since AD 325, the long arm of the Christian Church has prohibited this knowledge by wiping out millions of mediums who were originally the source of all religions. The truth from spirit that mediums passed on to the people in the early years of Christianity, for instance, took away the fear of death. Therefore priests replaced the mediums in order to generate guilt and fear in the flock. The more we know about where we go when we cross over, the less control the Church has over us.

Michael E. Tymn has rounded up the hardest and most convincing evidence that will make skeptics take a second look at the wonders of where we go when we shuck our costumes and leave our roles in this life. The rest of us will simply enjoy the fascinating information and look forward to our next adventure in spirit.

As a researcher of psychic science for thirty years and an advocate for mediums, I appreciate the author's convincing stories and their appeal to young souls and old souls alike.

I encourage the reader to read, absorb and grow.

Michael Tymn, The Articulate Dead. Lakeville, MN: Galde Press, Inc., 2008.
254 pages, $19.95.
Reviewed by Susan B. Martinez, Ph.D.

Mike Tymn lives and breathes the Work - to carry forward the factual record of man's eternal progression, as demonstrated by the pioneers of psychical research, in Europe and America.

Many of us have heard of D.D. Home, Mrs. Piper, Sir Oliver Lodge, or Bligh Bond - to name a few of the outstanding figures in the Movement. Tymn's book places these names in perspective and treats us to a close chronicle of the best mediums of the Great Age of Spiritualism.

More than mere history, this account comes to grips with the value of this legacy - the evidence of life after death. The Survival Hypothesis. Tymn in fact rescues this great corpus of evidence from the materialist juggernaut which has used all its power and drive to quash any consideration of life in spirit. But the facts speak for themselves, and as dozens of cases are examined, we are confronted with otherworldly powers and knowledge (communications) which CANNOT be explained - or rather explained away - by : 1. telepathy or mind-reading, 2. subconscious information, 3. workings of the brain, 4. secondary personality, 5. fraud or trickery (such as snapping of the knee-joints or hidden threads or wires), 6. some universal memory bank (which Tymn spoofs as a "giant computer in the ethers"), 7. hallucination or mis-observation.

No, the strenuous tests and trials of our forbears, in earnest quest of decisive proof of an afterlife, successfully eliminated and ruled out each and all of the above interpretation. Spiritual phenomena, it seems, could only be defeated by disbelief per se, by "some grotesque" counter-theory, or by what Tymn labels - the scientific fundamentalism of "pseudo-skeptics." Despite which - many of today's commentators continue to brand these pioneers a passel of charlatans and deluded investigators.

And that is precisely why this book merits notice. To set the record straight. Among its charms are: a compelling cover, many portraits and illustrations, a helpful Timeline in the Appendix, useful perhaps to today's writer/researcher; a grateful chapter on Dr. Wickland, whose important work/ideas most writers steal but, for a wonder, do not credit; a levitation by spirits (Occam's Razor cuts to the chase); and incisive portrayals of the afterworld given by discarnate psi investigators and spiritualists killed in the Great War.

Read this book if you want to know what "newspaper tests," cross-correspondences, and psychic umbrellas are; or how the Mayor of Boston found out about the Ongoing; about after-death pacts and the white crow of mediumship; the acclaimed "Faunus message," or one of the best cases of psychic archeology on record - the Glastonbury Scripts.
Heaven: "No fabled dreamy heaven of eternal inactivity
awaits you, but a sphere of progressive usefulness and
growth to higher perfection."

Veteran psi journalist and truth-seeker, Mike Tymn also delivers myth-shattering quotes from communicators and investigators alike - descriptions and conclusions which make us realize that our interest in the next world is more than an amusing hobby or "occult" fancy. "Knowledge of the afterlife," as Tymn states, in summing up the views of Sir William Barrett, "opens the gates of inspiration, and makes the intuition keener. With that comes greater enthusiasm, greater understanding of the beauties of life..." And from the Spirit Teachings through - perhaps England's most exalted medium - William Stainton Moses, we hear that "The Truth will always be esoteric. It must be so; for only to the soul that is prepared can it be given."

Are you prepared?

In this book, Michael Tymn reviews the history and pertinent details of mental mediumship starting with the Fox sisters in 1845, and progressing to cover the great mediums who were able to demonstrated that there is indeed an afterlife. As an experienced and well-published journalist, Mr. Tymn entertains as he instructs. Of the many volumes I have collected on spiritism and the afterlife, this is one of the best! I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to understand the old-time ways of mental mediumship. I understand that he is currently working on a companion text on physical mediumship. This will also be one to include in your reference library.

There is an amazingly wide range of historical material of the mid-19th-mid-20th centuries presented in The Articulate Dead - more than one might think that could be contained in a book of a little over 250 pages. This makes it invaluable for the reader with a keen interest in historical facts and anecdotes, gleaned from many resources and case histories of mediums, their work, as well as their investigators--both supportive and skeptical. In spite of its age, the material chosen is far from dry, but still very alive, inspirational and stimulating. Michael Tymn has been able to extract and present the most salient and interesting aspects of these cases, and one comes away feeling as if having read a lot more than just one book, a testament to the exceptional journalistic skills of the author, a highly respected freelance writer of the paranormal for the past five decades. Some of the more classic cases will be recognized at once, but others less so, having been obscured by time, and seldom coming to light over the past century.

In spite of the wealth of information, this work is not heavy or dense, and will be thoroughly enjoyable reading for the casual seeker as well as the most academically-minded. This would include those who are mediums themselves, (such as this writer,) who would especially appreciate the material that relates how some of the mediums felt and what they experienced; how their mental and physical health was impacted by their abilities -- material often left out in many books which tend to objectify the medium and forget that, like spirits, they're people, too.

The history in The Articulate Dead repeatedly demonstrates that Professional Skeptics are often motivated more by fear and ignorance and less by love and education, and that those in spirit are far more tolerant of the skeptics than skeptics are of them. The problem of what to do with skeptics then is still one that remains for today's mediums and their supporters. This was quite evident in one of our favorite chapters, "The Education of a Skeptic". A significant part of many of the cases involve the usual odd behavior of skeptics, who are always hovering around like annoying gnats but afraid to take the plunge, yet often end up interwoven into these living tales in most intimate ways - and whether or not they like it. Indeed, as this book illustrates, by the time those in spirit are finished with them, many of the skeptics become transformed into the most ardent of supporters and passionate campaigners for the truth of survival.

The foreword is by Donald R. Morse, PhD., President Emeritus of the esteemed Academy of Spirituality and Paranormal Studies, Inc.; Mike Tymn is the editor and a writer for their excellent magazine, The Searchlight, and also the Vice President of the organization. Dr. Morse wonders why historically there were so many more in-depth explorations and accounts in those years than now; so does Mike Tymn. The main factor see is that of time. Mediumship development, as well as the sittings and other spirit intercommunication activities, generally take a lot of time; hours and hours of sitting in the dark, day after day, week after week, which has been and still is the general rule to achieve adequate buildup of vibrations to catalyze substantial contact. Although we of the 21st century think we have more time, we actually have less, brought about and increasingly exacerbated by our technology that brings us the instant gratification to which we feel so entitled. We simply can't sit still long enough, and the author confesses to such a lack of patience himself. Unfortunately for the lazy bones, those in spirit seem to have no interest in our ipods or sending a twitter from the twilight zone.

The author also suggests that there are fewer mediums in modern times because those in spirit dimensions are having as difficult a time getting through to us as we are to them. This is in agreement with the some of the conclusions (among many others) in our own book, "The Risen," which also favors Mike's belief that the increasing negativism of today's world continues to hamper the efforts of those in spirit. It is for this reason that having books like The Articulate Dead will continue to be useful to turn to for supportive guidance and inspiration, especially as we personally have begun to see some new inroads being made - slowly but surely - toward new and exciting forms of contact with our spiritual brethren beyond this Earth.
(Submitted by August Goforth & Timothy Gray, authors of "The Risen: Dialogues of Love, Grief & Survival Beyond Death - 21st Century Reports from the Afterlife Through Contemplative, Intuitive, and Physical Mediumship")