On 11th September, 2014 my daughter Lily and I sat for the second time with the German physical medium, Kai M. and his wife/circle leader Julia M. of the Felix Experimental Group (FEG), Dr. Hans Bender, spirit communicator/controller, hosted by Dr. N. at his home in C..
Second and third séances were also hosted by N.on 16th and 18th September (which we did not attend). Our thanks to N. for all his efforts bringing physical mediumship back to the C.D. community. Our thanks to Julia and Kai, Hans Bender and the Chemists for coming back again.
This summary has been written using a recording that Lily and I made the evening of 12th September as we recollected the phenomena, marveling at the meaning of it all, and feeling privileged indeed to witness the various modalities that Hans Bender and the Chemists use in order to communicate with us across that so-called veil.
We may have misremembered the order of some of the many phenomena and other minor details, but our report is essentially accurate. I have recently read a friend’s report on the séances of 16th and 18th September which she attended. She wrote that deceased pets sat on sitters’ laps and were generally running about the séance room, and faces were produced in the ectoplasm.
Likewise, last year on 9th August Lily and I sat for the first of several séances held in C., NY.
During the second and/or third séances, I believe, little faces appeared in the extruded ectoplasm, which were not produced during the first séance we attended.
Hans and his Chemists are to be commended for the variety of phenomena produced as no two séances appear to repeat themselves.
The security protocols carried out to control the medium, Julia, and the séance environment to squelch any suspicion of faked phenomena were the same as had been used in August, 2013, including having independent sitters check the séance room beforehand, a gentleman sitter inspecting Kai as he disrobed and changed into different clothes, and the sitters being kept in “chain” by holding hands while the phenomena was being produced.
One difference in the security protocol from last year was that Julia hummed when experiments were being carried out so that we would always know where she was. The entranced Kai was always controlled by 4-limb control, except, of course, when Hans controlled Kai’s body and walked about the séance room, in which case, red light was used, and Hans repeatedly asked N. to confirm where the medium was when phenomena was occurring.
There were approximately 15 sitters, in addition to Kai and Julia, arranged in an oblong around the cabinet. Julia sat to Kai’s right. To Julia’s right was the young lady who controlled the music box, and I sat to this lady’s right. I was asked to place my left hand on her right thigh throughout, rather than holding her hand in the chain that we were asked to form with our neighbors, since she had to have her hands free to work the music player.
On Kai’s left was Dr. Neal, and Lily sat to Neal’s right. Lily and I were about perfectly opposite one another across the room, and it seemed that possibly we formed an energetic nexus of sorts.
Kai came into the séance room practicing his holotropic breathwork, while a chanting kind of music was being played. He seemed to be having a bit of difficulty becoming entranced as he asked for the music to be turned up louder so that he could surrender to it. Lily was breathing deeply and relaxing while Kai was doing his peculiar quick inhalations – hee-hee-hee-hee-hee – then a long exhale – whooo – and then the pattern repeated. She was amazed to experience that, exactly in synchrony with Kai’s quick hee-hee-hee-hee-hee inhales, her closed eyes pulsated and twitched to this rhythm, as if somehow energetically linked. She said it felt like energy was being pulled outwards from her eyes when he inhaled. She stressed that it was not as if she was just reacting to his noisy breathing with a vague kind of twitch, but a distinct pulling out from her eyes whenever he inhaled. If the lights had been on, she says anybody could have seen her eyes twitching. She relaxed into this experience and observed it. As for me on the other side of the room, my solar plexus was being pulled on – but not rhythmically like Lily’s eyes – and for a brief period my heart chakra went wild.
While Kai was breathing in this fashion, working to become entranced, he somehow knocked over the bucket kept in the cabinet where he keeps his water bottle and towel, so Julia had to spend time taping it down again.
Soon Dr. Hans Bender announced his presence and we were asked to raise the energy by singing loudly to the music. Over the sound of our vigorous singing we soon heard knocks and tapping from the ceiling. The sitters screamed their welcome. Lily also heard a kind of scurrying noise from her side of the room, but I did not hear that, especially since everybody was already having such a great time laughing, singing and squealing – and we had only JUST begun!
Throughout the evening, we sang so loudly that for most of the time I could not hear what song was playing, so I resorted to generic la-la-la-ing to the unheard tunes.
Small lights were observed near the cabinet around this time. We were asked to continue to sing, and Hans delivered mini-lectures here and there, although we cannot recall what he said at that time, but soon he announced that spirit entities were going to be moving around touching the sitters.
Soon many sitters squealed out in both delighted and frightening ways. A lady who sat two seats down on my right was especially favored with lingering touches which caused her to scream loud, long and often. After the séance she demonstrated to us how she felt as if someone was moving their hands up one leg and an arm and lingering around playing up and down her arm, giving her the idea of some kind of critter working its way spider-like and holding on. She told us that she had recently had surgery on the leg that was being touched in this way and wondered if possibly she was being given healing?
Lily felt a quick tap of two or three spirit fingers on her wrist. The fingers had a kind of cool warmth to them. I was starting to feel neglected, especially with all the touching of the two ladies to my right, when I finally felt a finger (or something shaped like one) poke me once right in my navel. This was followed by a strange feeling on the right top of my head. It felt as if two pieces of about 4” flat, curved plastic were pressed in on my head, not in a hurting way, but just so that I was aware that something was being pressed on my head. The two pieces together gave to my mind the image of a kind of quarter-crown on my head. I did not “shout out” what I experienced at the time, but told Lily about it afterwards. She wondered if it was the ‘kundalini’ sensations I often feel on my crown, but I assured her it was a physical pressure of some kind of objects placed on my head.
After probably everyone except the lady working the music player and Julia had been touched by spirit, Hans announced that there was a special spirit visitor walking about the room. We heard footsteps walking from the cabinet down the side of the room where Lily was sitting. She said the footsteps sounded like a lady in low heels walking by her and several other sitters. As I was further away from these footsteps, I could not characterize them as being the footsteps of a woman in heels. Then Hans said that the visitor would touch a sitter who the visitor wished to be with. A male sitter acknowledged he was touched, but provided no other information during the séance.
The touching of sitters all about the room then resumed for some time when Hans again asked for quiet. He said that the special visitor wanted to identify and confirm to a sitter and we heard more footsteps, after which a lady sitter said she was touched. Hans said that he himself was not aware of the identity of the spirit visitor, but said that the visitor was present in order to be with the sitters. We did not hear anything further from these two sitters as to whether they recognized the visitor who had touched them, so I can only hope that the experience had meaning for them.
The many layers of the onion
We wondered why Hans did not know the identity of the special visitor. Did the visitor enter from some frequency range to which Hans was not attuned? Later, Hans commented that a couple of the planned experiments (one of the ping-pong ball demonstrations and the healing lights) had to be cancelled due to lack of energy. The mind boggles – do the Chemists monitor some kind of an ecto gauge to keep track of the energy levels?! Later in the evening, Hans commented that he had to check with the “group controller” on something. So, Hans is not the leader, but needed to check with someone ‘higher up.’
During the final demonstration when Hans displayed the ectoplasm under red light and touched several sitters with a sheet of stretched ectoplasm he carried around the room, he said that this demonstration was in part the result of efforts of early researchers like Schrenck-Notzing, Charles Richet, and others whose names I cannot now recall. For some reason, I have a hard time believing that such notables were with us that night– ironically – considering what amazing demonstrations we witnessed and know to have been genuinely produced using unknown laws from a different frequency, shall we say, which broke the physical laws we have been taught.
Fireworks
We sang, we were happy. A couple of large flashes of white light came from the cabinet where Kai/Hans was. Sitters screamed their delight.
About 7 small swirling lights moved about like fireflies and then spiraled up like sparks from a fire, which then disappeared. Hans exclaimed from the cabinet, “Bless you all!” – followed immediately by a huge light flash in front of the cabinet. We responded in kind, “Bless you Hans!” – followed immediately by another huge flash of light. We responded like a preacher and congregation in this fashion, rewarded with huge flashes of light, perhaps 4 or 5 times, with each succeeding flash brighter than the preceding. These flashes looked a bit like very large camera flashes.
One of the flashes was so bright that it registered as a lingering image on my retina which I continued to see for maybe 30 seconds.
There was one tremendous light seen to the left of the cabinet, very high. Other huge flashes were suspended high in the room, and of course there was nothing that could have physically supported them at that height.
Other lights produced for this fairly long display looked crescent shaped, either because of the movements they made, or because they were actually crescent shaped. In addition, there was directionality to the lights. Sometimes they fanned out into the room. One light was directed towards where Lily was sitting, and when Lily looked away and then saw the after-effects on her eyes, it looked curiously to her like an imprint of a hand. She explained that, for instance, when you look at the filament of a light and then close your eyes, you can still see the light filament imprint. It looked to her like the element of the light had the shape of a human hand. I did not notice any optical after-effects resembling a hand, however, and we are not making much out of Lily’s optical impression, except to say that the lights in the pitch darkness were so spectacular to produce these after-effects on our retinas.
None of the lights we saw resembled a “D-Lite Flight” magician’s light.
Musical Instruments, Ping-pong Balls and Hand Constructions
A tambourine and hand bells were placed on top of the bucket in the center of the room. After we sang to produce energy, these instruments jingle-jangled and beat about as they traveled across the floor a distance of perhaps two feet.
Later, Hans came out of the cabinet and asked us to sing loudly to generate energy for the next experiment with illuminated ping-pong balls placed on top of the bucket. He asked N. to confirm where the medium was. The ping-pong balls were then manipulated by visible spirit hands.
The balls bounced up and off the bucket, like pop corn, and then rolled over near the woman who had been screaming earlier, and over to the young lady to my left. However, Hans said the second ping-pong experiment would have to be cancelled due to lack of energy, and asked Julia to remove them.
An approximately 5” x 5” illuminated plaque was placed in the center focus area on the bucket. We were asked again to sing. The tile was too dim to see much, so Hans asked Julia to shine her light on it some more to get it brighter, although this did not make it much brighter. After a few minutes a hand shape was seen with three fingers, then a tiny, somewhat malformed hand, followed by a normal adult size hand.
Mobile, Self-Illuminated Ectoplasmic Construction
From the left side of the cabinet, an irregularly shaped serpentine construction, about 2 feet tall, attached to a cord of ectoplasm, began to “walk” towards my side of the room. Or to be more precise, when this construction first started to move near me and the sitters sitting on either side of me, it looked like it was being propelled by the ectoplasm cord – there certainly were no “legs” with which to “walk” – it glided towards us. The construction was self-illuminated – Lily thought it greenish-yellow, while I thought it was more of a beige color. There were no other lights on in the séance room, so we were all able to see this sauntering construction because of its own self-illumination.
The construction was shaped like a crooked tree branch, maybe about 8 inches in diameter, but it was also changing shape, slightly undulating and it seemed that it was growing a bit taller as it got closer to me. This construction was quite close to us, probably about a foot and a half away from our feet. I was so intrigued by it that I tried to observe it very closely as it moved towards me. While I was trying to absorb as much of the details as possible, it felt like time was slowing down for me. My neighbor to my right exclaimed, “I’ve been waiting all my life to see this!” Everybody was loudly encouraging the construction, thanking it, etc.
When it was in front of me, I yelled at it, “Please, can’t you grow taller?!” And it did grow taller! Not only did it grow taller, but it then shot up in the air to about 7 foot in height, and then it swooped down on me, to the right side of my head, probably only missing me by a millimeter or so, and causing quite a breeze that my neighbor and I felt. She said that she thought the breeze that was created smelled nice, like the air freshener Febreze. However, I did not notice any smell at all, but was just stunned at what I saw coming at me so close, moving so quickly it seemed to be just a whizzing light, not the crooked construction that had been moving on the floor.
After the construction had swooped down on me, I was stunned for a bit and spent some moments recovering, but then I got back to the business of observing it as it made its way all across the room so that all the sitters could see it and squeal out in delighted ways at its antics as it then was actually dancing, right to the beat of the music, and later it was hopping!!
When it arrived on the other side of the room and passed by Lily, she also encouraged it, and it then came closer to her so that she could observe it better. She said it looked like a foot. The adorable hopping construction then withdrew to the cabinet and Hans announced the end of the experiment, but before he could move onto the next demonstration, I interrupted him to make sure he and everyone knew how the construction had reacted to my request to grow bigger and then had shot up and swooped down on me. His response was to say “Very interesting …” and he thanked me for sharing. He used the word “interesting” a lot and towards the end of the evening when he used it again to describe the indescribable, I said, “Hans, ‘interesting’ is an understatement!”
Later I pondered whether the two items that were pressed onto the right top of my head could in any way be related to the ectoplasmic construction whizzing up and swooping down on me, also on the right side of my head.
Cardboard Trumpet
From the cabinet, Hans threw a lightweight approximately 1 foot cardboard trumpet, which had small squares of regularly placed luminous tape on the large end, into the central focus area of the room. He asked us all to count down from 5 to 0 and at “0” to squeeze our neighbors’ hands, not too hard, but with a pronounced squeeze – but when we did so, Hans asked us to halt the procedure as he said that Dr. N. had done something wrong with the medium (probably squeezing the medium’s hand).
We all laughed. Then Hans told us to count down again from 10 to 0 and at “0” to squeeze our neighbors’ hands.
This procedure worked well as the trumpet then rose from the floor and flew around for a very long time. The trumpet made figure 8’s, zooming here, there and everywhere, doubling back on itself, sometimes moving in non-directional ways, trailing the ceiling slowly and then swooping down wildly around the room, playfully touching people on their heads, faces, arms, legs. Although one sitter yelled “Ouch” when she was gently “bashed” by the trumpet, no one was ever hurt by it; the trumpet was exquisitely and intelligently controlled throughout.
For instance, the two ladies on my right were receiving lots of “bashes” all over their heads and arms and I remarked to my neighbor that when the trumpet moved up and down near her head, the regularly placed illuminated tape made it look like the trumpet was laughing. So we were all laughing at the laughing trumpet, which then responded to my comment and came over and tapped me all over my head and the right side of my face. I closed my eyes to protect them while all the tapping was going on, but I really did not need to close them as the trumpet “knew” where my eyes were and did not touch them.
When the trumpet flew quickly by Lily, it tapped her on the head, and moved down to tap other sitters. It then came back and moved up and down for the sitter to her left. Lily also said something encouraging to the trumpet for moving up and down, which responded by coming to gently hit her on the head, forehead and face. She also instinctively closed her eyes and recoiled a bit from the “bashes” since it was in her face. Later, when the trumpet was still flying around, it moved a bit slower near her. The man next to her remarked to his neighbor how it had hit him on the head so many times – so the trumpet came back to the man and hit him some more – bringing to mind the image of a rolled up newspaper being used to discipline a naughty puppy.
The Lord Ganesha
Hans was seated outside the cabinet when he announced that the youngest sitter would be receiving a special apport. “L”, the lady who controlled the music player, was the lucky recipient (Lily having missed the gift by a few years, darn). Hans asked “L” to kneel in front of him and to touch his hands and left arm to satisfy herself that there were no suspicious objects on his person. She was asked to then cup her hands under his outstretched left hand, which was palm down. His hand then shook vigorously over her cupped hands for possibly 15 seconds. She exclaimed that something was dropped in her hand – and it was WARM!
Red light had been on during this whole exercise, but it was too dim to see anything fall. “L” did not say that she had seen anything fall either; possibly even if the red light had been brighter we would not have seen anything fall as it seemed to just materialize in her hand.
Hans said that her apport, a tiny figurine of the Lord Ganesha, had been made “from nothing” by the Chemists and that its copper bottom had a prayer in it.
What Hans said and how he expressed himself
Hans explained that all the demonstrations we were witnessing were a kind of performance of mediumistic abilities. He emphasized that the word “performance” was not a bad word necessarily.
He said that there were different modes of communication. For example, he used painting as a comparison between earthbound and spirit communication. Those who are earthbound think differently than those who lack physical bodies, so he tried to paint a picture for us with the “performance.” Hans was often verbose, causing the mind to lose interest to what he was trying to impart to us. Lily and I marveled that he had come to us “all the way” from the spirit realms – yet we laughed at his verbosity which could be mind-numbing. We got lost in his words, and then we wondered what we were supposed to have understood.
Later in the evening, he disabused the developing mediums among the sitters regarding the spiritualistic literature they have been exposed to describing the spirit realms – because, he said, it is not like what they’ve read or been taught. But then Lily and I could not recall a single thing he said about what the spirit realm WAS like. It was as if he said, “Don’t believe the hype – but I’m not going to even try to tell you what the real deal is!”
This was exactly the situation that Stewart Edward White complained of to the spirit communicators he called “The Invisibles” in his “Betty” books (“The Betty Book”, “Across the Unknown” and “The Unobstructed Universe”). S.E. White complained one day to the Invisibles that, after months and years of communication, the Invisibles had only given them tantalizing little tidbits now and then about the spirit realms. Why had they failed to disclose much of anything or to describe the realms they now inhabited? They answered that he would not understand and they did not know what word-symbols to give him to make him understand. But yet, over the years, the Invisibles used analogies, coined new vocabulary, and slowly built up layers of understanding – but oh – how they had to struggle to communicate. In “The Unobstructed Universe,” Betty, who was herself then inhabiting the spirit realm, and other Invisibles, coined new vocabulary to try to impart how the laws of their unobstructed universe were the very same laws that operate in our obstructed universe. “The Unobstructed Universe” was a valiant attempt to communicate these important laws to us. And Hans’ and the Chemists’ “performance” are beautiful attempts to impart a kind of communication.
The Demonstration of Ectoplasm
Late in the evening, since there was not enough energy for the healing lights display, Hans announced the final “performance,” where extruded ectoplasm would be displayed, under red light. We heard Hans say, “Kai, you go back to sleep. We are not finished yet – sleep!” This command implied that Kai, although unconscious, was on some level anticipating the time for the release of the ectoplasm, which must be an unpleasant and exhausting experience for him, and was trying to wake up possibly to avoid it.
We sang to raise energy. Hans was looking for his water bottle from Julia to drink before the ectoplasm would be extruded. Soon we heard Hans choking and hacking in the cabinet. Julia and N.waited for the sound of his stamping feet to open the curtains.
Under dim red light we saw Hans retching up reams of a stiff cloth-like substance which he pulled out with his left hand. Soon there was a huge pile of this substance. As mentioned in Stephen Braude’s report, one could understand how a researcher might offer up as an explanation for the production of ectoplasm that Kai, like the dhauti, could have swallowed long pieces of cleansing cloth to regurgitate – because this particular type of ectoplasm looked like thin fabric, perhaps a cheese cloth. But as Braude wrote in his report, and Hans said, if this were true, the sitters would be able to smell the unpleasant gastric juices being vomited along with the material.
There was no such unpleasant smell at any time. In fact, Hans walked about with a stretched out piece of this fabric-like ectoplasm later in the demonstration and touched the face of the lady to my right with the ectoplasm, only a few inches from me, and I could smell nothing at all.
Hans then got up from his chair to manipulate the ectoplasmic sheeting in order to show the fibers and webbing and to walk stiffly about the room, explaining that the medium’s body was walking like a robot because Hans was having difficulty controlling his body due to a lower back problem. (In 2013, the entranced medium did not walk about the séance room.)
Hans stretched the ectoplasm into a large piece of veil-like material and threw part of it over Julia, covering her all over for a brief time. Part of the ectoplasm was attached to the cabinet while he pulled on it out into the circle about 5 or 6 feet. Julia used a flashlight to let us see the fibers a bit more, but the lighting was not very good. (A large pile of ectoplasm was apparently not needed as it remained on the floor throughout.)
Hans then asked who wanted to feel the ectoplasm and carried it over to the two ladies next to me. One lady said it was wet and cold, and after the séance, the lady sitting next to me said she could still feel a slight residue of the ectoplasm on her cheek. A man sitting near Lily who touched it said it was cold.
After we had all agreed with Hans that the display had been “interesting,” the curtains were closed briefly and when they were re-opened the pile of ectoplasm was altogether in a pile, growing into a column about 3 foot in height. Hans asked if we could all see it going up, but we said no, not very well. Hans impressed on Julia that she must obtain a better red light without fail before the next séance and she promised she would. Nevertheless, we could see quite enough. The curtains were then closed and re-opened to reveal that the ectoplasm was close to the medium’s mouth. The curtains were closed again and when they opened for the last time, we saw the medium covered in a kind of ectoplasm blanket. Hans explained that the ectoplasm was shrouding the medium to energize him and give him healing.
Shortly thereafter the evening closed with a prayer by Julia.
Extra
Lily and I also attended Kai’s weekend trance development workshop where we met a young lady, Marsha, who had received a yellow hibiscus flower apport through Kai’s mediumship earlier in the summer. She shared with many of us the story of her receiving this marvelous apport, and the following, in her words, is what she experienced:
Marsha’s story:
“The UMC in F. and Rev. K. L. hosted Kai, a German Physical medium, in July of this year on a rainy night. There were about 20 sitters. During the seance/circle Kai was in complete trance when his guide, Hans Bender, said, “There is a lady here that spirit has a gift for and she will feel touched.” The circle continued, but when several inquiries were made of who felt touched, it was a lady to the left of me that reported she was touched. The circle continued again and Hans later said, “There is an African American lady here by the name of Marsha and your Grandmother has a gift for you.” My grandmother had passed when I was a child.
“Hans later explained that ecotoplasm will come out of his mouth and it is very important every piece be returned. He instructed Julia M. and Rev. Kevin to make sure no one attempts to touch the ecotoplasm that would come out of Kai’s mouth.
“The circle continued again and it came to the point in the evening when Kai produced a large amount of ectoplasm from his mouth onto the floor. Hans then reminded Julia and Kevin to guard it closely. Hans then broke off a piece the size that would fill two large adult hands. Hans, controlling Kai’s body, walked across to where I was sitting opposite him. He then handed me the ectoplasm. He instructed me again to make sure that each strand of ectoplasm be returned to the medium. He said be careful with your eyes. Out of nowhere in the complete darkness a bright flash of light appeared causing me to shield my eyes.
“The ectoplasm that he was holding then turned neon green. He gave me the ectoplasm to hold and instructed me to remove an object that was in the ectoplasm. I tried to gently move the strands away from the object that was deeply imbedded in the ectoplasm. The ectoplasm was wet and warm. It was like tightly woven intersections of cotton fibers.
“I tried to remove something that I could feel in the center.
“
After a few moments Hans asked me if I needed some help. I eagerly gave him back this mass of ectoplasm because of my difficulty of removing the object and my fear that I would leave strands of ectoplasm on the object.
“Hans used Kai’s hands and removed the object and placed it in my cupped hands. Hans then returned to his seat in front of the circle. He then asked Julia to turn the red light on the object. When illuminated in the beams of a small flashlight a hibiscus flower was revealed.
“Hans said my grandmother loved flowers. I could feel in the remainder of the circle something moving in my hand, but I was confused because flowers do not move.
“When the circle closed and the white light was put on, we saw that the peach colored hibiscus flower had dew drops on its petals from the rain outside and a small ant was crawling in its center.
“Kai said he had never transported live objects like flowers or an ant before this circle. Later when he was doing the question and answer portion of the circle, I was standing in the back of the room with Rev. K. with the flower cupped in my hands and resting on my upper stomach. Suddenly the individual petals of the flower started moving like fingers in and out and side to side. This was seen under white light. I called it to Rev. Kevin’s attention, who brought it to the attention of Kai. Everyone who was still there who had participated in the circle rushed over to me. They saw the petals of the flower moving by themselves. When Julia saw it, she said, ‘It’s alive.’”