Victor Zammit Attacks Psychic News Editor

VICTOR Zammit, the self-styled “empiricist” and promoter of physical medium David Thompson, has launched another extraordinary attack upon me. However, this time I’m not alone. Oh, no…  He has also targeted Psychic News editor Susan Farrow in his vitriolic ‘gunsight’.

In the September issue of the Psychic World offline newspaper, Mr Zammit accuses me of telling “lies” to Psychic News and infers Susan Farrow published them in an attempt to “subtly attack the credibility of myself as a professional, as an empiricist… but more likely because I also write for the Psychic World.”

Mr Zammit’s latest childish outburst is in relation to my criticisms published in Psychic News of his claims regarding the alleged materialisation of Alan Crossley at a David Thompson seance.

I originally voiced my scepticism in a previous article in The Psychic Times (published some months before this website was updated with it’s new design). Link

My second article, responding to Zammit’s reply on his website, can be read by clicking on this link.

Zammit’s latest hysterical outburst in Psychic World is nothing short of shameful. By attempting to defame both myself and Susan Farrow with untruthful, unsubstantiated smears he clearly demonstrates that he is incapable of mature, rational, fair-minded debate. Further, his distortions and blatent untruths regarding Susan Farrow and myself highlight just why his claims regarding David Thompson cannot be trusted whatsoever.

It is a great pity that he drags debate into the gutter with his foul-mouthed, insulting tirades.

And this man was a lawyer?

Anyhow, below, I reproduce an article I have penned to Psychic World in reply to Zammit’s September article:

Setting The Record Straight

In his article in the September, 2008 issue of Psychic World (World Shattering Materialisations In Sydney!), Mr Victor Zammit concocted some seriously erroneous and defamatory allegations regarding myself, Psychic News editor Susan Farrow and the thousand pound challenge I issued to him.

I should like to respond to his brazen assault on truth and accuracy and set the record straight regarding these fatuous and spurious fabrications.

I would also like to reference the main points of my website articles regarding the credibility of Mr Zammit’s claims of the alleged materialisation of Alan Crossley. PW readers will then be afforded the facts relating to the reasoning behind my thousand pound challenge, as opposed to the unsubstantiated rantings contained in Mr Zammit’s September article.

Firstly, in his article, I note that he is not man enough to actually name the person he is so vociferously abusing, preferring instead to bestow upon me the monikers of ‘S’ and ‘Simon Dick’.

Such juvenility does nothing to uphold his claim to being a “professional” researcher. “Professional” researchers, by definition, behave in a “professional” manner when debating issues relating to their claims - not like a 12 year-old schoolboy.

He states in his article that he was “informed” that I “probably never attended a materialisation session…”

Since Mr Zammit often refers to David Thompson as a materialisation medium - in spite of the fact that his séances are mostly held in complete darkness and no materialisations are ever actually seen by the sitters – I can only presume that by “materialisation session” he is actually referring to a physical phenomena séance.

In this regard, I have to inform him that he has been badly deceived by his alleged ‘informant’. It appears that even empiricists and lawyers can be fooled rather easily at times.

I have sat with 2 physical mediums (as apposed to materialisation mediums) and one transfiguration medium. I was a member of Stewart Alexander’s circle in Elton, near Chester and was also a committee member of the Noah’s Ark Society for Physical Mediumship.

Mr Zammit would be well advised to check his facts before insinuating completely bogus information.

By repeatedly stating that David Thompson produces materialisations, it is clear that Mr Zammit is ignorant of the fact that for a materialisation to be regarded as such it needs to be seen. The fact of the matter is that all materialisation mediums are physical mediums but not all physical mediums are materialisation mediums.

In a recent item on his website, titled Brilliant Video of William Materialising, his confusion is startlingly clear:

“Last Monday the Circle of the Silver Chord released parts of a film clip which shows materialisation medium David Thompson’s guide ‘William’ in full form behind a curtain.”

How on earth can the film clip ’show’ the “full form” if it is behind a curtain?

Victor Zammit merely assumes it is a full form behind the curtain - unless he has X Ray vision! Further, his statement clearly undermines his claims to being an “empiricist” who only reports the facts. For, there is no credible “empirical” evidence to support Mr Zammit’s claim.

Since the film was taken in poor light conditions, the released clip only shows an unidentifiable blob protruding between the curtains. We are, therefore still waiting for verification that the full video actually shows “William materialising”, as Mr Zammit claims. I won’t be holding my breath…

Since David Thompson’s alleged materialisations are always in the dark, he cannot at present be creditably termed a materialisation medium.

Indeed, he has previously admitted on the Spiritualist Chatroom website:

“I totally agree at this point I am not a full form materialization medium…”

Some well known materialisation mediums include Alec Harris, Helen Duncan, Hunter Selkirk, Ethel Post-Parrish, Florence Cook, Bertie Lilly Candler, Nettie Nichols, Elizabeth Grover, Effie Moss, Dorothy Henderson, William W Aber and William Eglington

All of them produced materialisations in light – unlike David Thompson.

Mr Zammit claims to be an empiricist, an expert “in using scientific method to measure phenomena” and an expert in the admissibility of evidence. Then let him produce the specific observable and measurable evidence he has gathered; the exact experimentation techniques he has followed and what precise hypotheses he has formulated, tested, discounted and accepted in order to arrive at the conclusion that David Thompson is a materialisation medium.

I am sure many Spiritualists, psychical researchers and scientists interested in physical mediumship would be very interested in examining and discussing his data. Not only concerning Mr Thompson’s materialisation phenomena, but his mediumship in general.

Has Mr Zammit had the fruits of his research forwarded for peer review and publication in any of the various psychical research magazines around the world?

One such publication is The European Journal of Parapsychology. This is a peer-reviewed journal for research, particularly theoretical and theory-driven empirical work, relating to the field of parapsychology.

An ideal vehicle, one would have thought, for Mr Zammit to show-case his empirical evidence for David Thompson’s mediumship. However, to date, his research has never been published in this or any other credible publication, as far as I’m aware.

Mr Zammit never tires of proclaiming himself a “professional”, an “empiricist”, an expert in “scientific method” and the “admissibility of evidence”. Well, why doesn’t he prove it?

Let him put his qualifications to good use by presenting a research paper on David Thompson’s mediumship for review and examination by independent professionals.

He continues his article by stating I: “tried to discredit David’s mediumship and the credibility of the circle…”

Anyone who reads my original article will clearly see that it merely highlighted the fact that he gave not one shred of credible and convincing evidence that the alleged communicator was the materialised form of Alan Crossley, as he so boldly claimed.

Some facts:

1. The ‘materialisation’ was not seen by anybody in the séance room. It was pitch black.

2 The voice of the ‘materialisation’ displayed none of the character, personality or mannerisms of Alan Crossley.

3. At two points in the séance recording ‘Alan’ addresses Mr Zammit by his surname only - something Alan never did when talking to people. This is completely out of character. But Mr Zammit wouldn’t know this, since he and everybody else in the séance room never knew him.

In his PW article, he inaccurately reported this opening exchange and quoted ‘Alan’ as addressing him as “Victor”. This is patently not true, as anyone listening to the audio can hear:

Victor Zammit: “This is Victor here, Alan”.

‘Alan Crossley’: “Oh, you’re Zammit!”

Later, ‘Crossley’ declares: “I hear that you cause a lot of controversy, Zammit.”

4. The voice of the ‘materialisation’ sounded nothing like Alan Crossley. (The argument could be given that it is not always possible for the voice of the communicator to exactly match the voice as it was on earth. This may indeed be the case, and this is why in such instances it is extremely important that the evidence provided is credible and verifiable.)

5. The ‘materialisation’ gave no evidence (personal or otherwise) to confirm and verify his identity.

So, a ‘materialisation’ which none of the sitters actually saw claims to be Alan Crossley. This ‘materialisation’ sounds nothing like Alan Crossley, displays none of the personality or mannerisms of Alan Crossley and gives no personal evidence whatsoever that it is Alan Crossley.

I therefore asked the perfectly obvious and logical question in my article: “Where is the evidence” that it was Alan Crossley? My personal belief is that it certainly was not Alan Crossley, who I had known closely for a number of years.

I therefore decided to issue my challenge to Mr Zammit to provide evidence for his unsubstantiated and sensationalistic claims, by way of asking questions only the real Alan Crossley would know. If I was provided with the correct answers, then I offered to pay one thousand pounds to the charity of Mr Zammit’s choice.

These are the basic points I raised in my original article and which prompted him to indulge in an orgy of personal abuse and fabricated allegations, both on his website and in the September issue of Psychic World.

He continued:

“Clearly this uninformed ‘S’ did not understand that the group had only come through on that occasion because of the presence of David Duncan and Christine Morgan.”

The “group” Mr Zammit refers to are the alleged materialisations of Gordon Higginson, Helen Duncan and Alan Crossley.

David Duncan was Helen’s grandson and Christine Morgan’s father was a friend of Alan Crossley - but it should be noted that no one at the séance personally knew any of these three communicators.

In her testimonial, Christine Morgan writes:

“Alan Crossley, a great physical mediumship researcher and friend of my fathers also came through that evening. He greeted me personally, spoke about my dad several times, shook my hand, felt my face and stroked my hair, this causing me to be very moved.

“Two people in the spirit of whose work I revere, of whom I have only heard about and here they were speaking and touching me like they knew me personally.”

So, by Christine Morgan’s own admission she has “only heard about” Alan Crossley and never personally knew or met him. Yet Mr Zammit makes no mention of this highly important and relevant fact.

On his website, he again refers to these “two important witnesses”:

“Spirit visitors usually come through when there is a close-tie of affection and a particularly urgent reason to do so. The reason Alan Crossley came through with his friend Helen Duncan on that particular night was that Helen Duncan’s grandson and the daughter of a close friend of Alan Crossley were guests in the séance.

“So someone who had close contact with Crossley - stated that it was Alan Crossley who materialized.”

There certainly was no “close tie of affection” between Alan Crossley and the two witnesses. How on earth could there be - they had never, ever met! Further, Mr Zammit’s claim that “someone who had close contact with Crossley - stated that it was Alan Crossley who materialized” is completely delusory. How could they have had “close contact” if they never knew him?

On his website, he alleged the following:

“Secondly a member of Stewart Alexander’s Circle who claimed to have been a very close friend of Alan and heard Alan says he felt the contact was genuine:

“His voice on hearing it sounded like his earthly one …”

Why didn’t Mr Zammit name this mysterious person he claims is a member of Stewart Alexander’s home circle? Who, exactly, is this person who declares that “the contact was genuine” and insists that Alan Crossley’s voice “sounded like his earthly one”?

He fails to tell us. Why?

He has subsequently claimed that the mysterious circle member wishes to remain anonymous. If such is the case, then why did they give permission for him to use their testimonial?

Providing anonymous testimonials to back up your claims is certainly not “professional”, or indeed, credible.

Frankly, it is absurd.

The Stewart Alexander Circle were directly implemented and involved in this affair, wholly because of Mr Zammit’s unsubstantiated claim. Whilst, understandably, they were reluctant to become involved in the matter, they were honour bound to state the truth and did so by issuing the following statement – which is on public record - through their circle leader:

“Following the claim made by Victor Zammit on his website that a member of Stewart Alexander’s circle commented upon the spirit voice alleged to be that of Alan Crossley, I would like to make the following statement on behalf of The Stewart Alexander Circle:

“No member of our circle has released any statements to Victor Zammit or anybody else in relation to the alleged spirit voice of Alan Crossley. Further, the only members who knew Alan personally were Stewart and myself, and we deny any knowledge of the quote Mr Zammit uses in his article.

Ray Lister, circle leader.”

In his article in PW, Mr Zammit alleges I: “made a silly offer of one thousand pounds if I would call Alan Crossley back and cross examine him”.

Yet again, he gets his facts completely wrong. I never requested that he “call him back” or “cross examine” him. I requested that he “ask the personality claiming to be Alan Crossley 5 questions which I will provide”.

If Alan Crossley was not present then the questions and/or answers could be relayed via another spirit communicator. It was a simple and straight forward challenge that he flatly refused to agree to, deriding it as “silly”.

What is highly ironic about this jibe is the fact that in his June, 2008 online Early Report Mr Zammit refers to the spirit of the Princess of Wales, allegedly communicating through Andrew Russell-Davis.

He writes:

“I have been asking readers to submit questions that they would like answered in order to test whether ‘Diana’ is who she claims to be. This is a continuous endeavor to validate that she is who she claims to be.”

So, it isn’t silly for people who never knew ‘Diana’ to ask her questions, but it is “silly” for a personal friend to ask ‘Alan Crossley’ questions?

What unmitigated nonsense!

If he is so sure of the high calibre of David Thompson’s mediumship, of the “stunning evidence” and the “world shattering” substantiation which is “taking the world by storm”, then one would assume that he would be only too willing to try and ask a few questions in order to validate Mr Crossley’s communication.

After all, he is only too keen to ask ‘Diana’ questions in order to procure this result.

So, why does he ‘move the goalposts’ when the same request is made in relation to David Thompson’s mediumship?

In his Psychic World article he went on to issue completely fictitious allegations relating to both mine and Psychic News editor Susan Farrow’s motives relating my thousand pound challenge.

He claims I “fooled” website owners, was then “dumped” by them and then claims the motivation for my challenge was to “whip up some excitement for his miserably failing website.”

Quite how I “fooled” them and in what way is not explained. Neither does he elucidate as to how I was “dumped”. And my website actually makes a profit through advertisements, but Mr Zammit obviously doesn’t let facts get in the way of his defamatory fantasies.

He continued by inferring I somehow fooled the editor of Psychic News, Susan Farrow, who fell for my “lies” and published my comments in an attempt “to subtly attack the credibility of myself as a professional… but more likely because I also write for the Psychic World.”

Again, let the reader note that he provides not one shred of evidence, not one modicum of corroboration and not one single scrap of proof to support his shameful and contemptible assertions. This alone should reveal just how much credibility and basis in truth they actually have.

Mr Zammit’s belligerent attitude to my critical examination of his assertions regarding the alleged Alan Crossley materialisation immediately prevents any further meaningful dialogue of the salient points from being discussed.

For, instead of calmly and ‘professionally’ addressing the central questions and points made, he indulges in malicious disparagement of both Susan Farrow and myself with totally concocted and unrelated smears.

Ad hominem attacks are no substitute for factual argument, and only suggest that Mr Zammit has no valid answers to any of my points and concerns regarding his claims pertaining to the Alan Crossley ‘materialisation’.

His behaviour is a complete disgrace and just highlights why I and so many others have grave misgivings over his conduct in regard to promoting David Thompson’s mediumship.

Mr Zammit clearly has a lot to learn in respect to providing corroboration and evidence when making serious allegations. As a qualified lawyer, he should know that a case can’t be made without evidence to support it.

It is unfortunate that he chooses to so blatantly ignore this fact in his odious diatribe.

He assures readers that he knows no trickery is going on during séances because The Circle of the Sliver Chord has:

“… professional investigators who were with intelligence agencies. There is also a former police officer with professional investigation experience. There’s a psychologist with expertise in scientific method, professional journalist and a retired attorney – an expert in the admissibility of evidence.”

But none of these qualifications relate to psychical research and the investigation of the authenticity of séance room phenomena.

How many other physical mediums have these ‘professionals’ investigated or even sat with? What precise expertise, experience and training have they had in the specific investigation of physical mediumship?

Are any of these ‘professionals’ experienced and skilled magicians or escapologists; experts on the legerdemain which can occur during séances?

Mr Zammit has never furnished this information, which is vital when ascertaining if The Circle of The Silver Chord is as qualified to assess the veracity of David Thompson’s mediumship as he alleges.

If he is so keen to demonstrate that David Thompson’s mediumship produces the phenomena he claims, then why hasn’t he invited experienced, independent researchers to a test sitting?

Mr Zammit could quite easily contact The Australian Institute of Parapsychological Research, for example. They have various investigators with actual real life experience and knowledge of how to conduct credible investigations pertaining to paranormal phenomena.

He could also contact the Society for Psychical Research in London. I’m sure they would be more than delighted to arrange a test sitting for Mr Thompson whenever he visits England.

The occurrences in Mr Thompson’s séance room, which Mr Zammit alleges on his website are “taking the world by storm!” are clearly nothing of the kind since nobody outside Spiritualism and psychical research has ever heard of David Thompson. Unfortunately, his boasts merely illustrate his unfortunate tendency for exaggeration and hype when describing Mr Thompson’s mediumship.

Such wild and inaccurate claims do nothing for the credibility of physical mediumship. It is a serious subject, and should be treated as such by those who report on it.

Until Mr Zammit provides more substantive, cogent evidence to support his melodramatic claims of “world shattering” materialisation phenomena and the like, I’m afraid his assertions will continue to be treated with caution by a great many people.

Particularly so in light of the fabricated, defamatory and hate-filled abuse he hurls at people who ‘dare’ to ask questions, present a differing view or seek additional verification for his sensationalistic declarations.

———————

Ray Taylor, Psychic World’s editor, has stated he’ll publish it in the November issue. We’ll see…