Have any parapsychologists tried to get in contact with the recently deceased? Suppose you were on your deathbed, and agreed to make the attempt-success would mean probably a Nobel prize for the scientist. So, you agree, to something like"within 30 hours of my passing, I will send you a coded message".
Has this ever been tried? Has anyone reported results?
Many have tried, none have succeeded.
Here’s one series of attempts, with mixed results:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_262.html
Harry Houdini supposedly set up an elaborate code for his widow to know if it was really him making contact. Accounts vary as to whether or not the code ever came through, but most reliable accounts say no, it didn’t.
There was an actual business for a short time where you could pay the dying (through an agent who took a commission) to take messages to the deceased. I’ve wondered if it was inspired by the famous story of Disraeli who, when he was on his deathbed, was told Q. Victoria was waiting to see him and responded something to the effect of “Let her wait. She’ll just want me to take a message to Albert.”
A Vietnam born friend of mine made an interesting observation once about how to gauge the validity of John Edwards or James Van Praagh or one of the other “Is there anyone here who has a loved one named Mike? Or Michael? Or Michelle? Might me Mickey?” Her suggested challenge was to have him perform his magic in a room full of Asians/Africans/other non-white non-American ethnicity he did not know and who could not speak English (though he’s allowed an interpreter). If he could successfully say “Is there anybody here with a loved one named Thongtonsoc (or Cessinacta or Kahubu)?” then it would be far more convincing than saying “Tom/Dick/Harry says Hello”. I’ve wondered if this has ever been tried. (She got the idea from seeing a TV ‘medium’ profess contact with someone named Nguyen when he found out that there were Vietnamese in the room.)
nope. too much weird in my family to begin with.
herein this thread.
scroll down to my post about halfway through.
ghost stories
in my family, we don’t need much encouragement. :rolleyes:
Many years ago I read a story in C.B. Colby’s “Strangely Enough!” that for a time convinced me that such things were possible, and also scared the crap out of me.
The story was about a guy on his deathbed in a hospital. On the side table by the bed was a small, unframed hand mirror. Just before he died, the man cried out “You won’t be able to pick up that mirror!”
Several nurses tried to pick it up, but they couldn’t. They thought, and I thought for sure the man’s “ghost” was holding it down as some sort of sign that he was still around.
But when I thought about it a little more, I realized that the man had probably tried earlier to pick the mirror up himself and couldn’t do it. (It was stuck to the table somehow, maybe from some residual glue still on it from when it used to be mounted in a frame). So, when he died, he made that remark to the nurse, and it was misunderstood.
So, this is a reported result that I think has been de-bunked.
This was the worst part of an already particularly bad movie about Houdini. In the very last scene, a medium brings a message to his widow, and before the credits roll a card says that she maintained to her death that the message was the one they agreed upon. NO IT WASN’T! She maintained to her death that she never ever heard the agreed message, but way to go shit all over the legacy of the man you’re making a movie about.
Inspired by Houdini, I and my ex agreed on a message that no-one else has a prayer of figuring out, and said that whoever died first would try their damnedest to make contact if it is at all possible. We’re both still alive, but I’ll do what I can to let you know.
After I die, I’ll be sending a message that John Edwards is the former Senator and Presidential candidate, and John Edward is the douchebag fake medium.