LETTERS

Afterlife

Regarding Scott Wilson’s letter about the Other Side [‘Burning question’, FT411:72]: there are several problems with the point he makes. Even if there are some genuine mediums, they are human beings, and might have reasons to lie about the religious aspects of the afterlife. They themselves might not even be sure. What’s more, mediums cannot be certain that the spirits they speak to are (a) really dead human beings and not deceptive spirits or demons; or (b) actually telling them the truth.

Without even going into laws or strictures which might restrain the dead in their communications with us, we are still left in the same position of uncertainty familiar to us.

I think that if any medium is real, (s)he wouldn’t be one of those charging for services, but if there is any reality to communications from Beyond, there is definitely some deliberate system in place to keep us from ever being certain of its reality. The practicality of this should be apparent; we would all manage our lives very differently if we had certainty of (and knowledge of) an afterlife.

Dean Teasdale
Gateshead, Tyne & Wear

Distorted perception

The third witness to the Brumby Wood incident [FT411:51] was very telling in her response as her insight shows how a lot of people filter reality through belief (it must have been a white or grey figure because that is what colour ghosts are). In other words, she initially dismissed her own experience of the figure being black because her prejudice told her that spectral figures are not that colour.

Imagine this in a courtroom or when giving