Dr. Mark Pitstick After Death Communication Shatters Materialism |468|

Yes, I do wish Alex would give each interviewee a window of at least 1/3 of the podcast at the start to expound his ideas - maybe with a little questioning from Alex, but any controversy should come later in the discussion - if for no other reason that by then we all know a little more about what the disagreement actually consists of!

David

how boring would that be? I already listen to five interviews with this guy... for example go listen to him on batgap
557. Mark Pitstick - Buddha at the Gas Pump
 
That rhyming with squeegee seems quite widespread, I think when encountering a less familiar word, there's a tendency to reach for something more familiar. Ouija though is formed from the word "yes" in French and German, with a little bit of anglicisation of the 'j' perhaps.
thx. btw I don't transcribe :)
 
Unfortunately, Dr Schwartz's work is not the gold standard when it comes to parapsychology. Here is a critique of some of his earlier work by Daryl Bem:

http://dbem.org/Afterlife Experiments.pdf
I just glanced at that, and I think a lot of it relates to the wretched super-psi alternative. As I have said before, this is basically a ridiculous hypothesis in that it tries to replace a simple hypothesis (communication with the dead) with a more complicated hypothesis that itself has to acknowledge that consciousness is not confined to the brain - i.e. it has to discard materialism.

I think if others - e.g. Wiseman - want to argue from the super-psi premiss, they should come out and announce that they are discarding materialism.

Phenomena like ESP, precognition, clairvoyance, communication with the dead, reincarnation, etc are clearly somewhat arbitrary subdivisions of the overall psi concept, and it seems utterly preposterous to accept some of them for the sake of argument to disprove some others.

David
 
Last edited:
Unfortunately, Dr Schwartz's work is not the gold standard when it comes to parapsychology. Here is a critique of some of his earlier work by Daryl Bem:

http://dbem.org/Afterlife Experiments.pdf
great... Thanks for bringing us to level three :-)

so the problem with gary schwartz's previous work was "subjective validations." that's the beauty ( if he's done it correctly and let's assume that he has) of working with a photon beam generator... it's not subjective... again, assuming someone of schwartz's caliber is handling the basics of baselining and basic experimental controls. which I think is a reasonable assumption.
 
great... Thanks for bringing us to level three :)

so the problem with gary schwartz's previous work was "subjective validations." that's the beauty ( if he's done it correctly and let's assume that he has) of working with a photon beam generator... it's not subjective... again, assuming someone of schwartz's caliber is handling the basics of baselining and basic experimental controls. which I think is a reasonable assumption.

Unfortunately, he gets his funding by using that ridiculous "A Team" nonsense.

Here is a link to Michael Prescott's Blog, where some past indiscretions are discussed:

https://michaelprescott.typepad.com/michael_prescotts_blog/2007/10/geraldomania.html

The Michael Prescott conversation spilled over into another forum:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=95589

FYI: Trancestate (Doug) had sent me those links a long time ago. It's nice he can still contribute to the forum. :)
 
Last edited:
Wouldn't it be hilarious if James Randi joined Schwartz's A Team? Carl Sagan is already there, so reformed deceased skeptics are clearly welcome.

I can see it now. Some psychic will say they are in communication with Randi, who wants to make amends and help Parapsychology. It would bring a lot of attention to Schwartz, piss off skeptics and there would be no way to show it was fake because it would just be someone's personal experience.
 
Mark started rather woodenly, but brightened up as the podcast went on.

I'd really like to have heard a bit more about the technology being used here. I looked at his website, but I couldn't see any nuts and bolts information. Is there a better link than the main website?

Are we saying that the yes/no answers come from a double slit experiment in which many photons pass through the slits? I wonder how this signal is hardened up enough to be useful - is the discarnate entity using some sort of error correcting code perhaps?

How is the reverse communication handled?

As regards verifying if the entity is Einstein or whoever - I'd say that is simply not possible to prove. However if some other entity - say a relative of the experimenters - identifies the entity as Einstein, perhaps that is enough.

Ganging together these switches to make a keyboard implies that the entities are able to handle the ASCII code, or something similar. I guess if they can handle error correcting codes, that should be a doddle!


David
They were measuring changes in luminance. In which system and exactly how, i dont recall. The plasma globe was created by Tesla and supposedly Tesla is a deceased luminary helper.

Who they are isnt certain. So we would be better alligned with truth if we stick to what can be known.
how boring would that be? I already listen to five interviews with this guy... for example go listen to him on batgap
557. Mark Pitstick - Buddha at the Gas Pump
But then you missed some basic questions that dug deep. This device could offer physical verification for many unanswerable questions.

If spirits interact with our world physically, what does that mean? Nothing you asked was helpful and it realky felt like you didnt want to know his side of things.

If verified, of course i believe his device over ndes, mediums, past life regression, etc.

I do doubt they can get it to work reliably. You never said how you disagreed, just conveyed your dislike of their approach. Very little substance here, very dissapointed over the methodology ping pong.

That is solved with improved reliability. Why not discuss that? Oh right its proprietary.
 
If verified, of course i believe his device over ndes, mediums, past life regression, etc.
Ultimately, the only thing we can trust is our own self. There are various names or ideas we use to represent this, such as conscience, looking within, still small voice of calm. There are techniques such as prayer, meditation and dream-journalling.

Any device or technology still needs to be subservient to our own judgement, which is why I used the word 'conscience'.
 
Ultimately, the only thing we can trust is our own self. There are various names or ideas we use to represent this, such as conscience, looking within, still small voice of calm. There are techniques such as prayer, meditation and dream-journalling.

Any device or technology still needs to be subservient to our own judgement, which is why I used the word 'conscience'.
A single device? Sure, use discretion. But millions? I suppose it would always come down to your own judgement in a certain sense. But we do this all the time, for good or ill. Vaccines, evolution, the logos in the bible, existence of black holes, the earth being round, etc etc.
 
exactly... let's start with, what are "spirits"? what is our "physical world"?

Let's do the double slit experiment.
Did you edit the interview a lot? You tried that approach but it wasn't fruitful. Where were you going exactly? I think you didn't want to have concrete answers by going down that path.

Do you think Dr. Schwartz is now less likely to come on?

I always thought the afterlife, if it were real, would be a wondrous place, at least in transition. That's my expectation. You really got sidetracked from the science which functionally destroys wonder only to reveal new questions.
 
Last edited:
They were measuring changes in luminance. In which system and exactly how, i dont recall. The plasma globe was created by Tesla and supposedly Tesla is a deceased luminary helper.

Who they are isnt certain. So we would be better alligned with truth if we stick to what can be known.

But then you missed some basic questions that dug deep. This device could offer physical verification for many unanswerable questions.

If spirits interact with our world physically, what does that mean? Nothing you asked was helpful and it realky felt like you didnt want to know his side of things.

If verified, of course i believe his device over ndes, mediums, past life regression, etc.

I do doubt they can get it to work reliably. You never said how you disagreed, just conveyed your dislike of their approach. Very little substance here, very dissapointed over the methodology ping pong.

That is solved with improved reliability. Why not discuss that? Oh right its proprietary.

You might be able to show a device is being affected anomalously, but how can you know if it is being affected anomalously by discarnate entities, aliens, inter-dimensional beings, or plain old humans? Many mediums have been connected to PK. There is no way to know if the PK agent is the living or the dead.
 
If you're familiar w/ Edgar Cayce, he was a poor photographer & tried to make money by finding oil wells & calling horse races, but didn't have any luck. I remember one incident in which one unscrupulous person put him to 'sleep,' got some profitable information, & left Edgar w/ a severe headache. I think he earned a headache whenever he cooperated w/ someone to use his ability from gain, not service. It's been a very long time since I read any of that Cayce material, so forgive me if I'm inaccurate.
I agree that including Michael Jackson in their crew was unwise, but Dr. Pitstick appears unwaveringly honest about the experiments, so it would be the old 'sin of omission' to leave him out. Really, we aren't talking about 'Heaven' are we, if we give the post-material persons a residence, right? I therefore don't have a problem w/ a less than perfect person contributing. As the Dr. said, he'll let the A-team speak for themselves later on. Now, that should really be intriguing! Understandably, I am like most people & learning about this just now: this sounds so much like the Spiritual Medium craze of the late 18th century & early 19th century which Harry Houdini debunked & he & his wife were poisoned for doing so. Like Edgar Cayce, there was one man of that period whose name I cannot remember, like John Jamison something, who was a rare true example. He was so successful that he married into Russian nobility, but died of tuberculosis which I thought was odd. Why couldn't he heal himself? He was kicked out of his parent's house for tormenting his sister for chasing her around the apartment w/ a table that he powered w/ psychokinesis. He then had to make a living using his abilities. It was reported that he couldn't do demonstrations whenever he wished, but he had to 'recharge' after doing some. His most notable one involved floating himself out an open window in broad daylight & back inside again through a different window. The 'tricks' he did weren't very varied, but apparently someone convinced him to produce glowing, detached hands & other phenomena that were popular at the time. Except for extremely rare examples, until recently I had gave no credence to mediumship or psychics in general. I strongly believed most of them were frauds, talented tricksters, or great guessers.

I think Schwartz is the guy Alex should have been taking to, not Pitstick. Schwartz lets his faithful followers speak on his behalf rather than risk answering hard questions himself.
 
You might be able to show a device is being affected anomalously, but how can you know if it is being affected anomalously by discarnate entities, aliens, inter-dimensional beings, or plain old humans? Many mediums have been connected to PK. There is no way to know if the PK agent is the living or the dead.
With thousands of devices, odds are we will get a more definitive answer to our questions.
 
With thousands of devices, odds are we will get a more definitive answer to our questions.
Why? If the device is really being activated by users, then it is kind of like using a pendulum to get yes/no answers. You end up talking to your own subconscious, which controls the movement of the pendulum.
 
Back
Top