Dead Reckoning

[Encyclopedia Titanica]

First off, on the following matter I have absolutely no knowledge - I don't know what I am talking about at all (nothing strange there!) - that's why I am asking the question.

Secondly, I don't intend this to be morbid, unpleasant or disrespectful and I don't mean to offend anyone.

The question is if mediums and spiritualists etc. are all they are cracked up to be why aren't there dozens of books filled will the testimony of the Titanic's victims? We could get all the answers we need from the people that were actually there!

Isn't it the case that because we don't have such books that the whole thing must be a scam and those involved it it are frauds. If so then it isn't it surprising that some people are so convinced that it isn't and that it actually works. I suppose in the case of grieving relatives it is understandable.

What do you think? Are there records (there must be) of people trying to contact the victims - or for that matter the departed survivors - of the Titanic and what were the results?

Just wondering ...

 

[Tracey McIntire]

Hi Phil!
Excellent question! I know that Harry Houdini did a lot of research on mediums--as an accomplished magician he was able to recreate a lot of the "effects" that mediums of the time used to "prove" their contact with the spirit world. He was never able to find a medium that he could not debunk--despite offering a very high monetary incentive. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, on the other hand, was totally convinced that contact with the afterlife was possible. His wife was supposedly a medium--but she ended up being debunked by Houdini! There was a huge interest in spiritualism during the 20's and a lot of people took advantage of this. I'm sure there must be accounts somewhere of Titanic victims "contacting" their relatives. After all, it was only a decade earlier that they died! Nowadays, I think, the emphasis is not so much on mediums and spirits in the afterlife, but on reincarnation and past lives. So to answer your question (in a round about way!), I would start looking in newspapers published during the 20's for any potential "Titanic spirit" stories. Of course, whether they were true or not is up to you to decide.

Sincerely,
Tracey McIntire

 

[Parks Stephenson]

Oh, no...not the whole 'Tommy' Andrews and Mrs. Bride reincarnation thing again! :-(

Parks

 

[Encyclopedia Titanica]

Sorry if I just opened a can of worms.

 

[George Behe]

Hi, Phil!

Yes, there are a number of accounts of seances which attempted to 'contact' Titanic victims right after the disaster. Let's just say that the results of these seances are not all that convincing to anyone who is familiar with the methods that fraudulent mediums used to fleece their victims.

All my best,

George

 

[Shane Kurup]

Following on the spiritual side.....

I read somewhere that a few day's before the Titanic sunk, there was a young girl dying in a hospital due to a severe illness. Before she died she said to someone "Look at all those people drowning!" and claimed she saw the Titanic sinking. Does any one have, or know of any sources that support this,and do any of you belive it?
There are also countless other stories of people canceling, deliberately missing the boat and of wives begging their husbands by cable to not sail in the Titanic, because they "felt uncomfortable".
Another even stranger tale is a woman, who standing on the Isle of wight with friends, watching the Titanic sail past suddenly said out loud " That boat is going to sink". When her friends reminded her the Titanic was "unsinkable" she snapped back "It is going to sink!". That same woman also correctly predicted the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915. She also accurately predicted that it would be sunk by a torpedo from a German U-Boat.
What do you all make of this?

Shane

 

[Paul Rogers]

I have some friends and close relations who have knowledge of this subject, so I thought I'd try and answer some of the above points. I am not personally a "Spiritualist," but I will attempt to explain how these things were explained to me. I may get bits of this totally wrong BTW!

It's only fair to set out my stall up front and say that I do believe in this sort of thing...but not in terms of "ghosts" as we mainly think of them. I call them "lost souls."

I'd also like to highlight to everyone the problems with using the "jargon" relating to topics of this nature. Words like: "The other side," "Guardians," "Ghosts," etc. tend to carry their own "baggage" and it is easy to hear (and laugh and dismiss) the words without considering the ideas behind them.

Anyway, here we go:

When people die, they normally have their Guardians/relatives ready to lead them to...wherever it is we go! (Who knows? Let's call it "The Other Side" as I can't think of anything better.) However, if death occurs suddenly, or the deceased is not "ready" to die, then they can miss their Guardians, and roam around as a lost soul.

These souls exist in pitch darkness, and normally feel intense emotions, such as fear, loss, etc. which they were experiencing just prior to death. They tend to gravitate towards light, looking for an escape. Other humans give off "light" as an aura, which attracts these lost souls. (Think of the lost soul as existing in outer space, surrounded by glowing stars. The "stars" are living humans.)

One can tell if one has "attracted" such a being by feeling sudden panic attacks, or general feelings of fear without source; we tend to "feel" the emotions of the lost one(s) we have attracted. However, most of the time, our Guardians block out and protect us from these lost souls, as we have no way to deal with them. Eventually, they are attracted to the people with the "brightest light" or aura, who tend to be spiritualist in nature, and can help them "cross over." (I warned you about the jargon, didn't I? I can see you laughing from here!)

You can see, therefore, that such a being is in no condition or state of "mind" to be contacted and asked questions by us!

I am given to understand that there are spirits at peace on the "other side" who can, if they want to, make contact with us. However, they only tend to involve themselves in this world if they are themselves Guardians of someone living. And then, their focus is on the one they are protecting. Answering questions about what happened when they died is of no importance to them...I guess they might be thinking: "Who cares? It simply isn't important."

Although I do believe in this, (I have my reasons, which are private), I am aware that this argument is circular in nature, and impossible to prove. But then, the whole topic of Life After Death is a matter of Faith, isn't it?

I also believe that most Mediums are, um, let's say "creative" in what they do. Most of my Spiritualist friends never advertise, and remain very quiet on the subject. I can't imagine any of them conducting a seance; in fact, they would consider a seance to be an irrelevant and unnecessary activity.

Okay - you can all burst out laughing now! As I said before, these are just my beliefs; I am not going to force anyone to accept them, and I won't get into an argument regarding them. I do hope you've found this note useful, though.
Regards,
Paul.

 

[Maureen Zottoli]

Dear Phil and Paul,

First Phil. This is an interesting thread and I love the title. I think that many have ideas on this and there is probably a lot in papers near the time of the accident and most likely around anniversaries I'll bet.

Second Paul. I respect what you have shared here and although I donot share your beliefs, I do find what you have shared very interesting and am so glad that you posted here. I would like to ask a question though, I believe it was Shane shared above that some had "seen the sinking" (my paraphrase) prior to the actual sinking and shared this with others. Why is it or how is it that some folks know or are told about events or "see events" way before they happen? Do guardians communicate in some way or is this just some made up thing that people do?

Some people have "seen" things that they could not have possibly known and yet they do? Any thoughts Paul?
Maureen.

 

[Dave Gittins]

For those into such ratbaggery, you can read a first hand account of the sinking by W T Stead.

It's in a book that seems to have been published under different names. The one I have is called "Titanic" edited by John Wilson Foster and published by Penguin.

 

[Barbara DeCrow Goldberg]

This is a response to Shane's question about the story of the little girl dying in a hospital, who reportedly had a vision of the Titanic's sinking. The background material accompanying the "Titanic" CD put out by the White Star Orchestra describes an account of a little girl dying at the Salvation Army mission in Kirkcudbright, Scotland. She reportedly described "a big ship sinking," "all those people drowning," and someone called "Wally," who "is playing a fiddle and coming at you." Then, according to this write-up, the Salvation Army officer heard the downstairs door open, and when he went to investigate, felt someone "whisk past him, briny wet." When he went upstairs again, the little girl told him that her mother had come to take her to heaven. Then she died, and the downstairs door latch clicked again. A few hours later the news of the Titanic disaster was announced, along with the information that the Bandmaster, Wallace Hartley was among those lost.

Unfortunately, the White Star CD does not give the source for this story, but it certainly seems like the same account.

Barbara

 

[George Behe]

Barbara Goldberg wrote:

>This is a response to Shane's question about the >story of the little
>girl dying in a hospital, who reportedly had a >vision of the Titanic's
>sinking. The background material accompanying the >"Titanic" CD put out
>by the White Star Orchestra describes an account >of a little girl dying
>at the Salvation Army mission in Kirkcudbright, >Scotland. .....

>Unfortunately, the White Star CD does not give >the source for this
>story, but it certainly seems like the same >account.

Hi, Barbara!

I provided the original account to Rustie Brown, who reproduced it (very briefly) in her book, "The Titanic, the Psychic and the Sea." My own book, "Titanic: Psychic Forewarnings of a Tragedy") contains a more lengthy -- and accurate -- account of the incident.

Ian Whitcomb's account (which appeared in the CD liner notes you mentioned) is a 'jazzed up' version of the account; his mention of something "whisking past him, briny wet" comes straight out of his own imagination -- just as did some of his info about the Titanic's band. (How else can one appear to be an 'expert' unless one provides 'new' information that nobody else has ever seen?)

A note to Shane: just for the sake of accuracy, all of the incidents you mentioned (which appear in my book) qualify as examples of 'precognition' (if there really is such a thing) instead of as contact with a deceased person.

All my best,

George

 

[Paul Rogers]

Hi Maureen.

I'm referring to George's post above, which notes that the incidents you are questioning are: "...examples of 'precognition' (if there really is such a thing) instead of as contact with a deceased person."

I myself know absolutely nothing about precognition. My thoughts would be that George is better placed to discuss these events, bearing in mind his literary work on the topic.

Regards,
Paul.

 

[Michael Tennaro]

Philip Hind wrote:
Are there records (there must be) of people trying to contact the victims - or for that matter the departed survivors - of the Titanic and what were the results?

Hi Philip,

aren't you starting this thread about a week too late? Halloween was last week.

at any rate, there was at least one book specifically on the subject you asked about. It was written by none other than William Stead himself after his death.

as you probably know, William Stead was one of the most well respected men of his time. he was famous for many things, but primarily as a peacemaker and secondly as a spiritualist. he was able to regularly contact the 'other side' with a method he called 'automatic writing' in which he wrote the words someone was sending him from beyond the grave. sort of like an ethereal morse code.

with such contacts, you think someone would have tipped him off not to get on Titanic for that maiden voyage, but that is an entirely different story.

Stead did sail on Titanic, and he did die in the tragedy. afterwords another automatic writer, Pardoe Woodman sat down with Stead's daughter, Estelle Stead. using Estelle as a medium, Woodman wrote a book of about 100 pages concerning what happened to the Titanic victims after they, uh, died.

There is a three page excerpt from this book in John Wilson Foster's book The Titanic Reader, which Dave Gittins referred to above.

the title of this book, as reprinted in 1998 goes under the longwinded name of Beyond Titanic - Voyage into Spirit - the Blue Island: A True Story: Passenger W.T. Stead Recounts His (and Others’) Entry and Progress in the Spirit World Following the Great Disaster. authors are listed as W.T. Stead & Pardoe Woodman.

the original work was apparently done around 1924, but I have no further information on the original.

actually, I have never been able to get my hands on either version of this book. they almost seem to be (cue the Twilight Zone theme) phantoooooom boooooooks.

Michael (TheManInBlack) T
who has never met a ghost he didn't like.

 

[George Behe]

Michael wrote:

>There is a three page excerpt from this book in >John Wilson Foster's
>book The Titanic Reader, which Dave Gittins >referred to above.
>the title of this book, as reprinted in 1998 goes >under the longwinded
>name of Beyond Titanic - Voyage into Spirit - the >Blue Island: A True
>Story: Passenger W.T. Stead Recounts His (and >Others’) Entry and
>Progress in the Spirit World Following the Great >Disaster. authors are
>listed as W.T. Stead & Pardoe Woodman.
>the original work was apparently done around >1924, but I have no further
>information on the original.

Hi, Michael!

The original book was published in 1922 under the title, "The Blue Island: Experiences of a New Arrival Beyond the Veil." Stead's daughter Estelle was one of the two "transcribers" (Woodman being the second.) I believe 'automatic writing' was involved in the process of recording the book's text.

Another (and far more interesting) volume was written by James Coates in 1913 and is called "Has W.T. Stead Returned?" It records incidents which occurred at a number of Spiritualist seances that attempted to 'contact' Stead after his death. (Any researchers reading these accounts, though, should first familiarize themselves with the techniques used by fraudulent mediums during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.)

Additional Stead accounts (as well as plenty of precognitive accounts) are contained in my first two books, and 'new' accounts continue to turn up with great regularity.

All my best,

George

 

[Michael Tennaro]

Hi George,

thank you for the information on Blue Island. much appreciated. you mention your first two books were on psychic incidents? I am aware of Titanic, Psychic Forewarnings. what is the other title?

all the best, Michael (TheManInBlack) T