Victor and Wendy Zammit are among the pillars of afterlife studies and afterlife communication, helping humankind to learn the truth about our eternal natures.
Victor James Zammit, B.A.Grad. Dip.Ed. M.A. LL.B. Ph.D, worked as an attorney in the Local Courts, District and Supreme Courts in Sydney Australia. For many years his main interest was in human rights and social justice. Around 1990 he began to experience spontaneous clairvoyance and clairaudience which led him to begin a systematic investigation of the afterlife. He was astonished to discover a hidden world of research that he felt provided overwhelming evidence for life after death. Since that time his priority has been sharing his discoveries on this website where an earlier version of this book was viewed by more than a million people.
Victor is the author of A Lawyer Presents the Evidence for the Afterlife, acknowledged as one of the most complete books on the afterlife and afterlife communication. His website is at victorzammit.com.
Wendy Zammit, MA, has had over a 40 years’ career in education, counselling, and online learning. For almost 30 years, Wendy was associated with the Alternatives to Violence Project as a facilitator of experiential workshops in nonviolent communication. She is now focusing on building online communities in areas of interest that include afterlife and psychic research.
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By Victor Zammit
If you died, and months or years later had the opportunity to come back in a temporary physical body for a few minutes to talk to your loved one, in front of a group of others, what would you say?
I can tell you from personal experience that this is the most amazing thing I have ever experienced in my life. Imagine that you are sitting in a totally pitch black room. Darkness is necessary because ectoplasm—the whitish, smoky looking substance taken from the medium’s body to make materializations happen—is extremely sensitive to light. You are holding hands with seven other people you know very well. And suddenly there is an extra person in the room. It is materialized William, the spirit convenor of the Circle of the Silver Cord. To show that he is fully materialized he stamps his feet and claps his hands. He comes and puts his large hand on your shoulder. He talks to you and answers questions about the spirit world for about twenty minutes like an old friend.
You know it’s not one of the other sitters because all sitters hold hands when someone is materialized and you can hear where the other sitters are when they speak. You know it’s not the medium because he is tied into his chair with one way cable ties, has a gag around his mouth on so that he cannot speak, and is deeply unconscious in trance.
I must emphasize that although the meeting is in darkness it is not frightening or spooky. The session begins with a brief prayer and there is a lot of exciting and uplifting music. This is done to raise the ‘vibrations’ of the sitters. When the spirit people begin to speak and materialize one at a time, there is a lot of humor and good-natured fun. They move objects, touch people gently and people are talking to each other and asking questions.
After the preliminaries, William tells you that he wants to bring through a loved one for someone in the room. He leaves and there is a sudden wooshing sound as the new person materializes. You hear a faint voice as the newcomer struggles to get used to speaking in this way. He or she calls the name of someone—usually a loved one—in the circle. When that sitter answers, you hear footsteps as the materialised spirit moves across the room and then you hear an intimate conversation.
Nick’s reunion with Sarah
Here is an example the audio version of which is on my website. David Thompson is immobilized and in trance. Several sitters are in a circle. A voice comes from the afterlife with personal information known only to one of the sitters. The voice belongs to Nick, who died five months before. He asks to speak with his partner Sarah, a guest sitting with our Circle. Nick materializes and speaks very softly—but with great emotion—as is common with many first-time communicators. You can listen to the recording of the experience using the following controls. A transcript follows the controls.
Nick: Can you hear me?
All: Yes we can hear you. You’re OK. You’re fine.
Nick: Oh My God. I’m a bit frightened of this.
All: It’s OK, You’re OK…you’re among friends.. You’re OK, just remain calm. Relax. It’s OK.
Circle member: It’s just a bit strange.
Nick: You’re right it is a bit strange.
All: It’s OK.
Circle member: Take a moment to adjust.
Nick: I never thought I’d do this.
Circle member: It’s wonderful that you have come.
Circle member: Can you tell us who you are?
Nick: My name’s Nick.
All: It’s Nick, Hello Nick.
Sarah: Baby.
Nick: I can’t. It’s Sarah, I want to see Sarah.
All: You’re here to see Sarah.
Sarah: Darling I’m here. I love you baby I love you so much.
Nick: I love you too.
Sarah: Don’t ever leave me OK. I know you’re with me.
Nick: I spend as much time with you as I can. I’m always with you to help.
Sarah: OK my baby, just stay close. I love you so much and you know how grateful I am to you for doing this.
Nick: You know something.. all those things that you bought?
Sarah: Yeah.
Nick: They’re gone, they’re lost. They was lost.
Sarah: Yeah?
Nick: Don’t worry about them.
Sarah: Really?
Nick: I knew you was there. I knew you was there
Sarah: Did you darling.
Sarah: I just, was I enough for you? I just . . .
Nick: Listen to me, listen to me we haven’t got long. Listen to me.
Sarah: OK my baby.
Nick: Always remember . . .
Sarah: Yeah?
Nick: I love you with all my heart.
Sarah: OK.
Nick: I told you that just before I left you.
Sarah: I know.
Nick: I’ll always be with you. I’ll always be with you.
Sarah: OK my darling.
Nick: Promise me something. I want you to be happy.
Sarah: I will for you. I will for you. I’ll make the best of what I’ve got here. For you.
Nick: Remember whatever happens we’ll always be together till we meet again.
Sarah: You promise me that?
Nick: I promise you.
Sarah: You . . .
Nick: From the bottom of my heart, I promise you.
Sarah: OK my darling.
Nick: I want you to be . . . happy!
Sarah: I will try. I am trying I’m trying so hard. It’s just such a shock you know. But I’m trying hard. I’m doing better Darling.
Nick: You are girl, and you’re doing fantastic.
Sarah: As long as I’ve got you with me and I know I do. I just hope I did enough for you.
Nick: Yes you did, you were everything I ever wanted.
Sarah: I was… good. I just wanted to be enough.
Nick: That’s why I died peacefully.
Sarah: You…Oh thank goodness.
Nick: That’s why I had that look of peace on my face.
Sarah: Yes: Yes. Did you see me when I went to see you?
Nick: I did. And everything you put into the coffin.
I saw it all.
Sarah: Oh, thank you darling. I tried to do right by you. I tried to do everything I could. I really tried hard.
Nick: You done more than any many could ever want. More than any man could ever want.
Sarah: OK my baby because you know you were worth it. Don’t ever doubt how much I loved you and how much I will continue to love you. Don’t ever doubt it.
Nick: Don’t ever doubt my love for you.
Sarah: OK my baby.
{Nick places his hands around Sarah’s face in an embrace}
Sarah: Oh!! Oh I love you. I love you.
{Sharp whoosh -sounds of dematerialization}
Everyone in the room is caught up in the intense emotion of the reunion. We all feel privileged to have witnessed a very special event, a meeting between two worlds.
Reunions – the ultimate evidence of the afterlife
For me physical mediumship with its spirit lights, bangs and raps and movement of the cone-shaped light weight “trumpets” used to amplify voices is extremely fascinating. But what is absolutely conclusive evidence that we are communicating with the afterlife and not some unknown function of the human psyche are the reunions between people in the room with people they had known while they were alive.
When the energy is right in these demonstrations by physical medium David Thompson, up to three loved relatives and friends will materialize one after the other. Each then walks across the room to greet the person he/she has come to contact in the room. In the seven years that my wife Wendy and I have been members of David’s circle we have been present at more than 100 of these reunions. Among many others, Wendy’s father materialized, my sister materialized, the husband of one good friend, the father of two other good friends and the Chinese grandfather of one of Wendy’s friends materialized. The talk is always intimate, of things that no-one on Earth could know except the person concerned. People have spoken briefly speak in several languages unknown to the medium.
The most common messages they bring are:
* I love you
* Be happy
* Thank you for all you did
* Don’t blame yourself
* I’m so proud of you
* I see things differently now
* I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I loved you.
While mostly it is relatives who materialize for reunions that is not always the case. In David’s Circle of the Silver Cord quite a lot of physical mediums and investigators materialize and speak to people who knew them while alive. Montague Keen, the well-known British investigator from the Society for Psychical Research, came through immediately after his death with a speech that was read out at his memorial. He afterwards materialized again and talked to and embraced his wife Veronica who confirmed his identity.
While we were in New Zealand, Gordon Higginson, the English medium who was head of the famous Arthur Findlay College, came through to talk to Ken Pretty whom he had known in England. This is a transcript of their meeting:
G.H. My name is Gordon Higginson.
KP: Hello Gordon, It’s Ken Pretty here.
GH: Yes I know. That’s why I’m here you know. (Laughter)
Circle member: You’re very clear.
G.H. Well I hope so I used to do this work when I was upon the Earth.
K.P. Absolutely.
G.H. I did, didn’t I?
KP: Yes you did.
KP: How wonderful to hear from you. I worked in your church in London Road. Stoke on Trent. It was a long time ago. Way back in the early 60’s I think.
G.H. But did you not work at Castleford.
K.P. Oh Castleford. Oh yes that’s right. I do apologize.
K.P. Don’t forget.
On one unforgettable occasion a young female police officer (daughter of a member of the Circle) was sitting as a guest with us. She had been distraught about an incident when she had tried unsuccessfully to resuscitate a doctor who had drowned in a boating accident. He came through to thank her for her efforts and to reassure her that he had already passed before she started to work on him. He also told her that being in the light of her aura had been a big help to him in crossing over.
How do you know the spirits who materialize are who they claim to be?
People materialize with the features they had while alive—they are recognized by their loved ones by voice and by touch. On the website of the Circle of the Silver Cord you can see a video testimonial by young lady whose big brother, Jeff, materialized in a meeting in Florida in 2010. Afterward, she said tearfully, “He came through this evening and gave me hugs around my neck and pressed his face against mine . . . and I could feel the stubble of his beard pushed against my face and I asked him to please kiss me. And he took both his hands and held my face and kissed me three times on my forehead. And I know it’s my brother that came through because I could smell him and if you looked around the room this evening there was nobody in there that had any sort of facial hair and I could feel all the individual hairs of my brother pressed into my face. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that I met my brother again tonight. And that was the most special thing that has ever happened to me.” On another occasion a young man recognized that his grandfather’s materialized hand was missing the finger that had been amputated when he was alive.
Children sometimes materialise. One member of the spirit team, Tim, died at the age of nine and regularly shows his small moving hand in the light of an object coated with luminous tape. Another spirit child would frequently walk around the home circle touching people. David Thompson says that the thing that kept him going in physical mediumship at the beginning was an occasion when a young child materialised and climbed onto the lap of her grieving father. The father was able to feel her face, her dress and her hair – and his life was forever transformed.
Animals occasionally materialize. In England a husband and the family dog materialized. On the recording you can hear the materialized pet dog barking and running across the room to put its paws onto the knees of the wife.
Many of the people who attend David’s sessions are mental mediums and frequently they will get confirmation of previous contacts through mental mediumship. When Wendy’s father came through he confirmed that he had spoken through David via mental mediumship the previous night. And immediately after the session he came through to me clairaudiently with a further message for Wendy, asking her to get in touch with an estranged family member actually giving his address.
Something very evidential is when the same person materializes for the same sitter through different physical mediums. This has happened when the father of Elizabeth Pretty in New Zealand materialised through another physical medium in England and confirmed to her their earlier meeting through David.
David Thompson has been a medium for more than twenty five years and is one of the most highly developed physical mediums demonstrating publicly in the world today. He started off as an excellent metal medium and one day his guide asked him to allow himself to be put into trance. His mediumship includes
- mental mediumship
- deep trance, where he becomes totally unconscious and William or other members of his spirit team take over his body and speak for extended periods of time. They coat his vocal cords with ectoplasm and so their voices are the same as when they materialise.
- physical mediumship, where loud sounds and raps occur, objects are levitated and moved around the room
- direct voice mediumship
- full materialization
- trance healing mediumship (where a spirit doctor takes over his body)
Can I get David Thompson to
bring through my whole family?
David Thompson does travel to Europe and the United States to demonstrate on a regular basis. In a public demonstration where perhaps 40 people are present there may be three reunions as well as the experienced communicators in the spirit team.
The people who come through are chosen by the spirit team on the basis of need. A good example of this was a séance in Sarasota where a man’s son materialised for a very special reason. The son had been killed two and a half years before—run down on the sidewalk. The driver was high on drugs and ended up walking out of court with a $350 ticket. In a video testimonial on the Circle of the Silver Cord website the father—after the séance—said,
And I vowed to my son that I would seek revenge. Only he and I knew that. You know it’s not something you brag about. He came though to-night and he held me and he told me ‘Daddy try to forgive him and promise me that you won’t do anything.’ And those kind of things are not something that you can read in the newspaper … I feel a relief now there is a burden lifted from me. I promised him that I wouldn’t do anything —in front of 34 people. … I’ve been to a lot of mediums and…this was …an experience.
Another woman gives her video testimonial about David Thompson’s materialisations. Her husband was a Baptist minister who was brutally murdered. She attended one of David Thompson’s demonstrations two months later and her husband came through. She says:
He walked across the room…I could hear his shoes…he put his hands on my face and they were his hands…and he bent and kissed me and talked to me in his voice…and the evidence coming through nobody else could have even dreamt it. So that to me, it basically changed the whole pattern of grieving…the anger at what had happened to such a wonderful man. And it made an incredible difference in my life.
Another thing that influences who will materialize in a public demonstration, is who will make the best communicators. Some of the spirits who have materialized through David say that it is like trying to talk with your head in a bucket of water. They say that their mind is temporarily clouded in a state they say is similar to coming out of an anaesthetic. They have to try to remember what they looked like and what their voices sounded like as well as focusing on the main things they want to say. Some people in spirit are just unable to handle the process, especially if their relatives are highly emotional or unresponsive; sometimes they try and only manage a few muffled sounds.
The number of reunions in a given sitting is also affected by the amount of harmony and goodwill in the sitters. Sometimes when David goes to a city to give several demonstrations the reunions in one will be brilliant with a lot of energy because the people present are harmonious and giving. At the following demonstration the energy might be flat because of the presence of disharmony, negative emotions of a “prove it to me” attitude. On these occasions it may not be possible to bring inexperienced communicators through. Some groups are fixated on physical phenomena rather than giving out the loving vibrations that make reunions possible.
Why can’t they turn on the lights?
One of the key properties of ectoplasm is that some of its forms are extremely sensitive to light and other electromagnetic energy, so much so that even flashing a torch drives the substance back into the medium’s body with the force of snapped elastic. Bruises, open wounds, and hemorrhage may result. There are many examples in the history of physical mediumship where mediums were cut, bruised and severely injured by sitters trying to grab materialized forms which simply dissolved. Because of this sensitivity to light, most physical mediums have to work in the dark or with occasional used of low red light and those responsible for their safety have to use absolute care in selecting sitters who can be trusted to stay still and hold hands during materializations.
During a materialization experiment with David Thompson in Sydney Australia, I was present when one of the sitters was startled by the medium’s chair being levitated and dumped in the middle of the room at the end of the session. She let out a sudden scream. When the lights came on the medium’s face showed a swelling near his eye and a number of small cuts that had not been there before the session. As he put it, a sudden noise creates an effect similar to glass shattering. On another occasion William had to withdraw the ectoplasm quickly as a curtain over one of the windows was beginning to fall down. When David regained consciousness he knew what had happened by tenderness in his stomach area. On a third occasion during a demonstration in Adelaide a woman inadvertently touched the ectoplasm and it whipped back into David leaving a cut on his hand- he still has the scar today.
The members of the Circle are very keen to be able to take videos of the materializations but up until now this has been vetoed by the spirit team because the energy of the infrared camera could harm the medium. However William has assured us that this is a goal for the future and experiments are ongoing in the home circle.
On rare occasions, when the conditions are right, and the ectoplasm has been stabilized by the spirit team, we have been able to turn on a low red light for a few seconds and film the ectoplasm flowing from David’s mouth. It is an amazing sight. White and shimmering, glowing moving and alive.
Reunions in direct-voice mediumship
Direct voice mediumship is also part of physical mediumship and is a wonderful thing to experience. Here, the spirits don’t fully materialize but use ectoplasm to create an artificial voice box that sits on the medium’s shoulder. Sometimes William will do this to save energy. At other times the voices seem to be disembodied and come from anywhere in the room. I heard William’s voice coming right up close to my left ear and then a minute later beside my right ear and then from the top of a 12-foot ceiling and then instantly on the other side of the room. Some of the voices are incredibly loud and some just a whisper.
In the United States, the most famous direct voice medium was Etta Wreidt from Buffalo, New York (died 1942). She was also able to do materializations but is most remembered for the voices. She was always conscious during seances and often joined in the conversation with visitors. Voices were heard in her sessions speaking in Dutch, French, Spanish, Norwegian and Arabic. Just as William looks after David, Dr. John Sharp looked after Mrs. Wriedt. On several occasions, Mrs. Wreidt was engaged to sit with royalty. Lady Warwick, who had been the mistress of King Edward VII, claimed that she had heard the late king talking to her in his unmistakable German accent and that she conversed with him, partly in German. After the Titanic sank, she brought through William Stead, who talked to his daughter (see Michael Tymn’s book Transcending the Titanic: Beyond Death’s Door (2012).
Leslie Flint (died 1994) was a brilliant English physical medium who tried materializations a few times but didn’t like the feeling, so he restricted his mediumship to direct voice. You can listen to audio recordings of the many famous people who spoke through him on the internet. The Anni Nanji recordings are especially impressive. These are 66 recordings of casual conversations between one of Leslie Flint’s regular sitters and his wife Anni who had died. Anni was a Swedish lady who died of cancer and her Indian husband was a doctor from Bombay. She was speaking to her husband in direct voice through Leslie Flint between 1971 and 1983. They talk in casual conversation like any married couple. The wife tells her husband that he comes to visit her very often when he is asleep and cannot understand that he does not remember visiting her. Dr. Nanji said: “This wasn’t someone impersonating my wife, it was my dead wife who knew so many things unknown to the medium, Leslie Flint.” You can listen to these remarkable tapes online at http://www.leslieflint.com/recordingsnanji.html
Why are there so few physical mediums today?
Once you experience this rare kind of mediumship for the first time, the obvious questions you ask are: why don’t people know more about it and how can it be developed?
Like all mediumship, physical mediumship is as old as time but in the USA today it has been almost forgotten. I have even heard Spiritualists in America mistakenly saying that there is no such thing as physical mediumship and it was all proven fraudulent long ago.
Physical mediumship has been known throughout history; every indigenous culture seems to have had physical mediums- sometimes called shamans or Wu in China. The Bible is full of reports of reports of physical mediumship. In 1901, US ethnologist Waldemar Bogoras traveled to Siberia to visit a shaman of the Tchouktchi tribe. Bogoras heard strange voices filling the room. The voices seemed to come from all corners and spoke English and Russian. It was the first known case in which direct spirit voices were caught in a recording.
Tribal peoples sitting in darkness perhaps around a fire, practice it even today. In August 2013, German physical medium, Kai Muegge, wrote on his blog about a physical mediumship session he conducted jointly with a Lakota medicine man at Lilydale in Buffalo New York (see felixcircle.blogspot.com)
From the middle of the nineteenth century physical mediumship became very popular in the United States and all over Europe and in Brazil. Some of the best physical mediums of the day were investigated at length by the top scientists, lawyers and judges who concluded that the effects were real and there was no fraud going on. You can read the details in my book A Lawyer Presents the Evidence for the Afterlife (2013).
Table tipping sessions, an elementary kind of physical mediumship, were very widely practiced at all levels of society. In both Europe and America people would gather in their own homes with extended family members and neighbors meeting at a regular time each week. They would sit together, sing and hold hands in an atmosphere of extreme harmony. Some of America’s best known physical mediums developed in these “home circles.”
Physical mediumship takes time and patience to develop and there needs to be someone in the group who has the necessary physical predisposition- possibly a reason why many of the great physical mediums of the past had siblings who also had the gift. Sometimes a circle will have to sit for years before getting the first voices. Leslie Flint, the famous direct voice medium, sat with a group weekly for seven years before the voices came through clearly.
After the Second World War physical mediumship was almost entirely replaced by mental mediumship. It was quicker to develop, much safer and could be practiced in lighted conditions. Some people speculate that the proliferation of electrical energies in radio, television, computers and mobile phones, all of which give out electromagnetic energy, has made it more difficult to get the incredible materialisations in red light that happened in the pre-war years.
Energy based physical mediumship
Since about 1950, and increasingly since 1990, a number of circles have been developing mediumship which is based on group energy, either on its own or with ectoplasm. The most famous of these was a dedicated group of psychic researchers in Norfolk UK, known as the Scole Experimental Group (led by Robin and Sandra Foy). They had 500 sittings from December 1992 to November 1998, working in cooperation with a wonderful team of spirit scientists, guides, and helpers.
The phenomena that were developed were energy-based and breathtaking. It did not require a single physical medium as such, although two of the group members remained in deep trance throughout. Every member of the group contributed to the phenomena. There was no danger involved to sitters or mediums by working in this way; it could be developed quicker, and was more versatile. Many more groups have gone on since to achieve spectacular phenomena in a similar energy-based way.
How to develop your own
physical mediumship circle
If you have the patience and dedication, you may be able to create a home circle for the development of physical mediumship, which includes both direct voice and materialization. This is possibly the most exciting form of spirit communication possible. At the moment, there seems to be a resurgence of interest in physical mediumship, and we have heard of new groups sitting in England, Scotland, Austria, Australia, Germany, and the United States.
There are several excellent guides to developing a home circle online. The Noah’s Ark Society Guide is useful http://physicalmediumshipdevelopment.blogspot.com.au/
John Butler’s excellent book Exploring the Psychic World (1949) contains instructions on how to develop direct voice in six months (p. 119-126). We have reprinted them at http://www.victorzammit.com/articles/directvoicecircle.htm
Robin Foy also sells a “Basic Guide to Developing an Energy-Based Physical Circle,” a 72-page book dictated by the Scole Spirit Team, for 10 euros. See: http://www.scoleexperiment.com/index.php/the-basic-guide-v15-8
As well there are a number of websites and forums on physical mediumship where you can get help and advice.
While some authors claim that you don’t need a medium to start a circle, especially for energy based mediumship, others say that having someone who is a medium, especially if they are able to go into trance, is a huge help. In some circles someone in the group will spontaneously go into trance without training.
Here is a basic idea of what is required.
- Get together a small group of people who are equally excited about the possibility of spirit communication. The normally recommended number is between five and nine. The members should be chosen with care as group harmony is the most important point.
- Decide on a place to meet. It should be the same place all the time. Ideally a small room with no furnishings which can be completely blacked out and which is totally dedicated to the purpose. There should be some means of heating in winter or cooling in summer.
- Decide on a time for sitting—exactly the same time every week for about an hour. People must be committed to not miss except in exceptional circumstances.
- When people arrive avoid any discussion of controversial subjects and go into the room after about 15 minutes.
- The members should sit in a circle and open with a prayer to focus the energies and tune into the spirit world.
- Immediately after the opening prayer there should be music—either quiet singing in unison or recorded music. The music does not have to be religious. Some circles use popular songs that everyone loves. One of the functions of the music is to help the medium go into trance, the other is to raise the energy.
- At the conclusion of the designated time close the circle with a prayer.
Harmony—the most important element
John Butler claims that the reason most circles fail to get results is lack of harmony. He writes:
In our own home circle we got very speedy results because we purposely set out to cultivate harmony among the sitters. We saw little of each other immediately before the sitting so that no controversial conversation might take place. We did not permit criticism of anybody or anything. We consciously tried to see the best in each other, and avoided being irritated by mannerisms. We became, if you like, a mutual admiration society, but we preserved harmony. There was not a shred of malice or unkindness or envy or jealousy, or even questioning amongst the whole lot of us. Tolerance and harmony reigned supreme.
This seems to be a crucial lesson for anyone who is interested in contacting the spirit world.
Where can you witness David Thompson’s physical mediumship today?
David Thompson is based in Sydney Australia but regularly conducts public demonstrations in England, especially at the Banyan Centre in Kent, and in Europe.
He travels to the United States approximately once a year and is open to demonstrating in more venues as part of a package involving demonstrations of deep trance and trance healing. For the physical mediumship, you would need to have a venue that can seat up to 40 people in a secure room that can be totally light-proofed. It must also be clean (no cobwebs) as anything left around can be absorbed into the ectoplasm. You would need to be able to vouch for the sincerity and honesty of the people who are going to sit.
Victor’s website is at victorzammit.com. Subscribe to the free Friday Afterlife Report for weekly interviews, videos and updates on afterlife research.
