A
TELEPHONE poll conducted during a live, television studio debate, revealed
that 86 percent of callers were convinced of an afterlife... despite them
hearing much-loved medium, Doris Stokes, labelled a fraud.
"Is there life after death"? was the question debated on Grampian
TV's "We the Jury" programme earlier this month in Scotland. Viewers
were invited to register their opinion and a mock jury asked to give a verdict.
For the motion was Hants-based
medium Craig Hamilton-Parker, resident psychic
on Channel 4's "The Big Breakfast," while journalist and sceptic
Dorothy-Grace Elder spoke against it. "Nothing infuriates traditional
scientists more than claims of the paranormal," opened Craig.
"Levitation, spoon-bending,
life after death, telepathy, threaten the whole fabric of science.
"Sceptical committees set
up to investigate claims invariably conclude that the phenomena are fake.
"They resent serious paranormal
experimentation, for if confirmed the established basis of science will
be threatened. "Many prominent scientists," he added, "refuse
even to investigate the evidence."
Various great names in his-tory,
including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, William Crookes, Madame Curie, Lord Dowding,
Thomas Edison and Arthur Findlay, had proof of an after-life through mediumship.
Why were so many great and inquiring minds ever duped, asked Craig, if mediumship
is fraud?
He went on to cite near-death
experiences (NDEs) as further proof of life after death, and in an obvious
dig at psychologist Dr Susan Blackmore sitting in the invited audience,
said evidence showed that patients who had reported leaving their bodies
after being declared clinically brain-dead, were free of drugs, had no preconceived
beliefs, and remembered the incident in
minute detail afterwards.
"A dying brain should not
retain such lucidity," he stated pointedly.
Dr Blackmore is well-known for
her belief that NDEs are merely a creation of a dying brain, a view she
expounded upon later in the programme.
Dorothy-Grace Elder, opposing
the motion, completely failed to address the issue, however. Her argument,
such as it was, centred on the irrelevant issue of fortune-telling, and
went further off-beam when the cur-rent American fad of head-freezing "as
a guarantee of immortality" was brought up.
"The gullible and the grieving
are all at risk. The psychic industry I see as a sick growth on a society
that has lost its way and is now losing its marbles," she said.
Mrs Grace-Elder went on to sneer
at those fortune-tellers who fled from the "old chestnut challenge"
of predicting the Grand National winner.
"This year they couldn't
even predict the race would be null and void," she finished, which
served to underline her ignorance of the fact that life after death was
the central issue, not precognition.
When the debate thrown open to
the audience, a number of NDEs were recounted, included one from broadcaster
Neville Garden, who collapsed when conducting an orchestra. For two minutes,
he said, he had no heartbeat or pulse. Be-fore losing consciousness, though,
he felt himself floating up in the air to the extent where he could see
his physical body.
This experience, sadly, did not
convince him of an afterlife and he stated he remained a sceptic.
Speaking up for Spiritualism was
Bill Coller, publicity officer for the Spiritualists' National Union.
"Most people look at the
paranormal, metaphysical aspects without really looking at the life continuance,"
he said. "In our area, we relate to life continuance, have an awareness
of the next dimension and can communicate with it."
Author Ian Wilson then took centre
stage, as someone who had allegedly investigated Spiritualism and found
it wanting. He narrowed his comments down to one person, however: medium
Doris Stokes, who passed in 1987.
"I am quite sure that she
faked her stage shows. I investigated a Palladium show she did, which when
you looked at the first half, it was amazingly convincing.., until you discovered
all the people for whom Doris produced messages were known to her beforehand,"
he said.
"I was amazed how easily
I was able to show how fraudulent Doris Stokes was."
(Mr Wilson first made these claims
shortly after she passed. They were strenuously denied by her former manager,
Laurie O'Leary). Countering, Craig Hamilton-Parker spoke of his own sittings
with Doris and told of the accurate Survival and precognitive evidence,
he had received through her.
But he qualified it by commenting
that she was constantly under pressure "to deliver the goods."She
might have started with a catalyst to get the public's faith in what she
was doing, then the rest was true," he said. Surprisingly, for one
so sceptical about Doris' mediumistic abilities, Mr Wilson then remarked,
"I would accept that."
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