A fascinating topic.
The emphasis on mediums disturbed me a bit because the feedback from the medium can be so open to interpretation. For example, Budd Hopkins supposedly said something like "You were right". Well, that could mean ANYTHING. That is not proof to me, and would not convince me of anything. If the medium had said "He is showing me a pile of books while saying that you were right", I would be impressed. But it seems such medium messages are so open to subjectivity. I think I recall Gene saying at one point that it seemed to be open to faith in terms of evaluation of mediumistic messages.
The veridicality of information accessible to and expressed by mediums is the issue, and in order to be persuaded of the veridicality achieved by some mediums I think it is necessary to read extensively in the archivcs of the Society for Psychical Research founded in the UK in the late 19th century and continuing into our time. Contemporary experimentation with mediums by Gary Schwartz and Julie Beischel also yields examples of veridicality in communications from postmortem individuals or consciousnesses directed to living persons with whom they have been connected in life. The SPR archives are available online, and we also have available a range of books by psychical researchers recounting various cases. I recommend these sources for anyone interested in the best evidence of the veridicality of communications from 'the other side'.
When I was younger, I went to several recommended mediums because a dear friend had died and I kept having dreams where he would talk to me. The information from the mediums could apply to just about anyone who had died and cared for the living. There was not a single "GOTCHA" message that could convince me it was real. And since I shared many intimate experiences with my deceased friend, it should have been easy to reference a situation that only he and I know about.
I understand your frustration. Mediums demonstrate varying levels of receptivity, and it might also be the case that some would-be communicators are unable at the point at which communication is sought to 'get through' to a particular medium. This might be the case especially when the postmortem individual has recently passed over.
However, direct after-death communications to loved ones (about which much information has been published in the past and in our time) might be easier for the recently deceased to accomplish. I think you have received such communications during sleep, and so have I. I also received such communications while awake in the months after my daughter passed over nine years ago {and several of these involved physical, bodily, effects in me that persuaded me of her presence, or at least her ability to connect with me physically as well as mentally}. I have not yet listened to the interview with Leslie Kean but I intend to do so today, and I've ordered a copy of her book. Btw, my daughter's cat, still with me, has clearly experienced visual and audial manifestations of Annie's presence on numerous occasions over these last nine years; this is obvious in Sassy's [the cat's] responses to some manifestations that she can see and hear, follow with her eyes and ears moving about the room. On three occasions Sassy has followed what I assume to be a visual manifestation that I'm unable to see as it moves down to her front paws and touches them; in these cases Sassy responds by trying to catch or stop this manifestation as it moves about in front of her paws. I could say much more about my experiences and Sassy's apparent experiences, but this is enough for now.
If people are interested in this topic from a scientific aspect, they might want to look at the books by Gary Schwartz, from University of Arizona - Tucson. He put many "famous" psychics to the test in blind studies with interesting results. See THE AFTER DEATH EXPERIMENTS. Warning: His books have sparked a lot of controversy over his possibly sloppy experiment protocols.
I've read Schwartz's first book,
The After-Death Experiments, and recommend it. As far as I can see, Schwartz has followed the methods of early experiments conducted by the SPR researchers [some of them hard scientists] and taken great pains with his own experimental protocols.
But ultimately, the problem I have with scientific research in this area is the unconscious motivation of the investigator's underlying beliefs.
I think that even if the investigator/experimenter is influenced by unconscious, subconscious, or even conscious beliefs in survival of personal consciousness after bodily death, the demonstration of veridical information received through skilled mediums over the last 130 years remains to be confronted. The only alternative explanation of these many cases of veridicality is the 'Super-Psi' hypothesis, which even Stephen Braude finds to be even more challenging in its daunting complexity than the hypothesis that consciousnesses survive bodily death and remain connected to and concerned with experiences shared with others who remain embodied in what we call life. See Braude's book Immortal Remains: The Evidence for Life After Death, which I can't seem to link here at amazon.
We all want to believe in life after death. I do since I lived in a haunted house. My roommate and I saw an apparition on many occasions. This "thing" would open/close doors as we watched, turn on all the gas stove plates, open and stop my pendulum grandfather clock, and turn lights on and off as we watched. This upset me so much that I moved out. This may not have been proof of life-after-death, but it certainly was evidence of something our current science does not understand or even admit exists.
You have had some very impressive experiences. I admire your open mind and critical thinking.
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