Psychic News archive - University of Manitoba

Hi Mac,

This one did work I have no idea why it has dropped out again. I was able to test it last week but asked not to mention its existence until the Psychic News landing page was ready. This is from a very reliable source and I know that they are working hard to restore the linkage. Remember Manitoba is one of teh major digital collections of survival material.

Now we have a "landing page"" which is more like a crash site.

Jim

Admin wrote:Hi Mac,

This one did work I have no idea why it has dropped out again. I was able to test it last week but asked not to mention its existence until the Psychic News landing page was ready. This is from a very reliable source and I know that they are working hard to restore the linkage. Remember Manitoba is one of teh major digital collections of survival material.

Now we have a "landing page""  which is more like a crash site.

Jim

It's a puzzle, Jim.  They must - one would assume - have created other similar archives and I'd've thought the software would be well tried and tested.  And as you've pointed out they have a major collection of survival material so it's an even bigger puzzle why PN should cause problems - again.  

But what do I know? :

My Canadian source tells me that the University of Manitoba may have a problem with all of their collections currently. I had dealings with the University a week ago amd they thought it should be back up soon. Fingers crossed

Admin wrote:My Canadian source tells me that the University of Manitoba may have a problem with all of their collections currently. I had dealings with the University a week ago amd they thought it should be back up soon. Fingers crossed

yep, fingers crossed

Working again you can go straight to the
archive here. Thanks Walter https://digitalcollections.lib.umanitoba.ca/islandora/object/uofm%3A2939726

Admin wrote:Working again you can go straight to the
archive here. Thanks Walter https://digitalcollections.lib.umanitoba.ca/islandora/object/uofm%3A2939726

Yeah I'd already tried it earlier today when the archivist replied to my email message - fingers crossed all now stays good and that they don't reboot the server again! Then I'm hoping the more recent ones soon get processed and viewable.

I've been keeping in touch with the archivist over the past few weeks and have learned that the records up to 1967 are as far as the university will be going for the moment. It doesn't seem the project is over but it won't be continued until some future point. Disappointing for those of us who wanted to read the later editions of PN but fingers crossed it will start up again while we're still around!

I don't suppose there's anyone much interested but I recently found the archive has been completed up to 2010.

Thanks Mac I am surprised that one of my contacts failed to let me know that. Even some of Lis's services in the ads and all of our Psychic News Articles. Its great its all their now. 1932-2010 was always a black hole.

I took a look back and although I was aware how much Psychic News had changed since the time I 'arrived' the differences are marked and deep.

Spiritualism then was very different from the way I see it now. I came into the movement at the tail-end of a period when its meaningfulness peaked.

I agree with that Mac I think about my intro to the Churches in late 1983 into 1984 until we moved to Aus and my memory that the mediumship and talk quality was high. Indeed the churches could re in force this because there were mediums waiting to get a chance to work so they always gave feedback (good or bad) to their mediums. This maybe pick up or we won't be booking you again. It was also the time when membership of the SNU peaked.

That's an interesting coincidence, Jim, because it was 1984 when I first learned about survival, after bereavement, and began my search for understanding.  You moved to Australia about the same time.

Regular visits to Spiritualist churches along with weekly deliveries of Psychic News, monthly Two Worlds, personal experiences and reading numerous books and pamphlets etc were ways I began that journey.  When looking at a few of the archived PN papers I saw big adverts for the PN Bookshop, a place I got many of my books.

I don't know if today's church network has the quality of mediumship and the number of mediums it used to have.  Or the development programmes there used to be.  My guess is probably not. As for the SNU I can't yet figure out its importance. On principle I had previously refused to consider being a member but after the introduction of Independent Member status I have joined the Union.

My life had been on a change sequence during 1983. Flew back in from Sudan late in November to produce teh tender for looking after the Chevron Oil Camps. Found that in my 8 weeks absence a friend from the previous years intensive double postgraduate was engaged and about to hold their party. No one else from that group was attending so I delayed a trip to see my parents in Prestatyn by one day to attend. Met Lis we chatted for some time, then following week attended first Spiritualist Church at Ilford received a very impressive proof of survival message ; the after having to fly back to Sudan on Boxing Day we were able to communicate telepathically (with witnesses either end at times). Lis had, by that time, been working for about 15+ years on platform, I was inducted to the closed group she was teh trance medium for (a fine one with some excellent recordings). OK start of journey.

I think mediumship standards dipped, over here there is much more of a tendency to psychic style messages, however there are some very determined people looking to improve. My experiences with visitors is patchy, in honesty Lis has a high standard so we have a bar to judge by (albeit she thinks I now match her but I disagree), I think the fishing net era did a lot of damage to mediumship; it appears to be passing now.

SNU one visitor was membership secretary at the time wanted Lis and I to join and could have done it for us but decided not to then. Thought about it but we are members of the SPR.

I am in agreement about the generally poor standard of mediumship that I have encountered in London in recent years much of it appearing to be merely psychic in origin or simply intuitive merging into plain 'cold reading' but there have been a few exceptions.

I don't understand your phrase 'the fishing net era'. Do you mean roping in as many students as possible and then encouraging them onto the platform when they are in no way able to demonstrate convincingly?

Perhaps there's as much confusion in this modern-day UK as there appears to be in the USA concerning what mediumship actually means?

If so then it's understandable that sensitives/psychics consider themselves to be, refer to themselves as, 'mediums'. I'm weary of the number of times I've needed to explain to individuals who wonder whether they're mediums when they're simply experiencing or exhibiting psychic awareness/sensitivity.

They're probably not to blame that they misunderstand or simply don't know what's what. After all how are they to learn what mediumship is unless they've been taught by someone who does know?

wattie wrote:

I don't understand your phrase 'the fishing net era'. Do you mean roping in as many students as possible and then encouraging them onto the platform when they are in no way able to demonstrate convincingly?

When i watched at the start of my journey it was expected by the churches that a medium to stand up and go direct to the recipient, giving good evidence immediately. Then we had the I have a gentleman called Bob with me can any one take him (10 arms go up) and the evidence dragged on, I even watched one medium from England cross a room as his "'evidence" changed from a long tall Bob to a short fat Bob. One medium who visited, better known for his purported physical work got so lost, in a Sunday meeting, that I redirected him to the poor person's recipients who were not going to join in the auction to place their relative. I do think that did occur because there were to few mediums and "teachers" encouraged them to get on the platform. I am also aware that the direct route opens itself to claims of cold reading or fraud but by God done well it stuns the audience. I have even heard a defence that it engages the audience to throw it out but I get more enraged as boredom sets in because it is often done badly, not only that but I watch a medium lose a perfectly good Spirit link as another steps in for the next one in the chain that responds to the can you takes.. That Spirit coming to a medium knows who they want to talk to just ask them to share that knowledge with you. I now get the connection get some description and personality but give it out as I know where I am going to so its a bit of evidence then straight to the recipient. The group being mentored by Lis (about all try to work this way.

Mac running an open group for 17 years my mantra was we all have some form of psychic capacity but not everyone can relax control enough to connect to Spirit. Psychic is picking up the energy and feelings of a person or a place, things they know, which are fed back to them, hopefully in a way that helps but often not because they involve theories and the experiences of the psychic. A medium has a sole role, to be a conduit to bring communication from loved one's, to prove beyond reasonable doubt that you have that person and to pass on whatever message they wish to bring (Ok information from Spirit if in trance but most so called trance these days is a regurgitation of knowledge, or whacky theories, already grouped in the subconscious memory of the speaker)

Actually I find many people understand this but then they still ask ah but I have a problem can Spirit (not a relative) tell me what to do. Hmm given the mess in the world its very doubtful Spirit will tell you how to deal with your children. Just thought I should put up on a thread here the talks I have put on youtube from our zoom and virtual meetings. In one I try and let my guide Tao Seng talk.

We are singing from the same hymn sheet, Jim.  

Even though I'm a layperson I know exactly what I mean when I talk about 'mediumship'.  Making virtue of necessity I am sufficiently knowledgeable about, but distanced from, both sides of the picture.  I see the perspectives of both groups of protagonists but without being involved in either.

I have had no need to seek out mediumship for many decades but have retained an interest in all things Spiritualism and mediumship and I write online about both subjects.  But as I've mentioned frequently, the mediumship that you, Lis and I know is often not the mediumship others talk about and I routinely tread a path that is in neither camp fully.

Of late, though, I've 'gone back to my roots' and become involved with the Spiritualist Church.  Courtesy of the Zoom platform, provided by the SNU or used independently of it, I have seen more mediums working than I have seen in previous decades.  It makes for interesting observations of the techniques deployed but as yet I know little about any of the mediums.  I don't know if they've had any support for development or been influenced by the church in the way they approach their 'sitters'.  

I am present as a knowledgeable (I hope) but uninvolved observer and judge the outcome as dispassionately as possible.  How long my interest in doing that will continue I just don't know!

Running a Centre you can't just give up but I am in my twelfth year as leader now and Lis did the 11 before that. Still no obvious succession and age is catching up. Luckily Lis and I enjoy working together when we do the platform and almost all (but 2) of the mediums we use are being mentored by Lis. The two others we have known a long time and like immensely.

Zoom is really testing especially as there are platforms around that allow people to join live on Facebook but as a medium you can neither see them or know they are there. Mind boggling for any medium especially when the person is interstate or overseas and the audio lags. We are being joined by a lady from Wheeling West Virginia at 11.30pm her time and we add a dialect issue. So far the live meetings with a zoom section make it hard to give messages to those on screen our set up is limited by funds and my technical ability. However last week I had some expert back up and a good SLR recording the platform.

I can readily accept that a virtual platform isn't ideal, Jim, but I've been fortunate in seeing how successful it is for some groups. Had I not seen those examples I might wrongly have concluded that delivering mediumship in such a way just didn't work for anyone.

I've either been very lucky to have stumbled on to such strongly contrasting examples or my helpers 'over there' have steered me well.