I was very fortunate to have had the well-known German materialization medium, Kai M., and his wife Julia come to the Los Angeles area for two séances on July 19 and 20, 2014. This article will provide a brief background on materializations and describe in detail the amazing events of our two séances.
I will describe the events of a séance from beginning to end with events from of the two nights overlapping.
Materialization, especially full-body materialization, is the rarest of all reported paranormal physical phenomena. Portions of human bodies, such as hands, which move, grasp, carry things, etc., or entire bodies which speak, breath and walk like living beings materialize (i.e. form) from ectoplasm. Ectoplasm is a whitish substance which comes from the medium’s body through one or more orifices such as the nose, ears, mouth and/or the solar plexus.
When ectoplasm is initially expelled from the medium it looks transparent, like fine silk. This silk-like looking ectoplasm then solidifies into partial or full materializations of spirit entities or into a rod-like shape that moves the trumpet (a megaphone typically one to two feet long). The ectoplasm always returns to the medium’s body after the materializations are finished.
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| Baron Freiherr von Schrenck Notzing (Phenomena of Materialization) and Charles Richet 1906 |
Ectoplasm was given its name by Professor Charles Richet in 1905, when he was president of the Society for Psychical Research. He derived the name from the Greek word meaning “exteriorized substance”. The German authority Baron von Schenk-Notzing, who called it “teleplasma” produced a chemical analysis (around 1913) as follows: “colorless, slightly cloudy fluid with slightly alkaline reaction, traces of sputum, mucous membrane granules, potash, cell detritus, skin discs and minute particles of flesh”. This analysis was similar to that done by Dr. Dombrowski of the Polish Society for Psychical Research in 1916. Because those analyses were done in 1913 and 1916 they could not be as sophisticated and advanced as you would find nowadays. These analyses do however support the fact that ectoplasm actually does come from the body of the medium. I have documented a large number of reports of materializations and these as well as some photographs of ectoplasm can be found in my book titled “Life After Death: Some of the Best
Evidence” (Outskirts Press, 2008).
Ectoplasm can be very sensitive to unexpected touching or by being exposed to white light.
There have been a few reported cases of serious injury to the medium when a sitter in a séance grabbed or shone white light on the ectoplasm. This has typically happened when a skeptic tried to unsuccessfully expose the medium for being fraudulent.
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| Full Body Materialization through a South African Medium in the early 70ies from Jan Vandersandes Book |
Some of the best materialization mediums have produced full-body materializations in red light (which is of lower energy than white light) and a rare few have even produced materializations in white light (for examples see my book).
Kai Muegge has been doing materialization séances for several years. Most of his séances are done in total darkness but he regularly produces ectoplasm with red light on. He mainly produces ectoplasm from his mouth/nose which then accumulates on the floor and partial forms such as hands and faces are formed. We were fortunate to observe just that and I will describe it below. I know of no cases where full materializations were formed in his seances. Hopefully he will eventually be able to do that as well.
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| Typical ectoplasmic Materialization of Kai M. |
Given that a materialization medium can be seriously hurt during a séance means that precautions need to be taken to ensure that no sitter grabs the ectoplasm or shines white light on it. During our séances sitters were warned before the séance that under no circumstances could they touch the ectoplasm. Also, all sitters were searched before entering the séance room. During the séance all the sitters had to hold hands in order to remove the temptation for any sitter to grab at any flying objects or the ectoplasm.
Similarly, precautions were taken to make sure that fraud on the part of the medium could be completely ruled out. I observed Kai get dressed in his séance clothes (a track suite over his naked body) in a separate room and actually searched the clothes for anything unusual before he put them on. I found nothing. I then followed him to the séance room and to his seat in his cabinet. He never left my sight. Kai sat on a chair in a small cabinet made from a PVC frame attached to the ceiling (a circle about four feet in diameter and six feet high with black curtains all around it and two curtains in the front that could be pulled to each side to open).
There were 19 sitters for the first séance and 16 sitters for the second séance. The seats for the sitters were positioned in a semi-circle with the sitters facing the cabinet. Julia sat next to the cabinet on the right side and I sat next to the cabinet on the left side. The séances were held in the house of one of the sitters (Margaret Kefer). I searched the room for anything that might be used to enable Kai to see in the dark or to move the trumpet or any other objects. Nothing was found.
With Kai seated in the cabinet and all the sitters seated, the lights were turned off after the entrance to the room was taped with black tape and black out curtain so no light at all could come into the room (as were the windows).Meditation music was then played on the CD player and Kai started his breathing routine (loud holotropic breathing) which puts him in a very deep trance.
It took about 10-15 minutes for him to be in deep trance at which time his main spirit guide (Hans Bender, a German psychologist and parapsychologist who had died in 1991) started speaking through him. At that time several raps on the ceiling above the cabinet were heard.
Hans totally controls Kai’s body. He talks using Kai’s vocal cords, he can make Kai stand up, even walk several paces, grab and hold Julia’s and my hand and move Kai in and out of the cabinet while seated. Hans was the only spirit entity to speak in both séances. Kai was moved from inside the cabinet to just in front of it and, after speaking briefly in German and then English, Hans asked for the music and for the sitters to watch the control center: an inverted plastic bucket that was taped to the floor and positioned about 3 meters in front of the cabinet. Julia had placed a tambourine, a rattle and three balls make of cork with luminous paint on them. Several familiar songs from ABBA were played and the sitters were urged to sing along to increase the energy and vibrations.
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| Former Head and Face Materialization of Kai M. |
While the music was playing and the sitters were singing or humming along, several sitters reported being touched on their legs, arms and head and the tambourine made noise. This occurred while Kai was “controlled”: Julia held his right hand while I held his left hand. The purpose of the “control” was to rule out that Kai could be touching sitters or the tambourine or produce any of the other phenomena I will mention.
Occasionally Hans asked me to take my left hand, lean over in front of Kai and confirm that Julia’s hand was indeed holding Kai’s right hand. Hans called this “super-control” which also ruled out Julia for causing the touches or tambourine noise or any of the phenomena.
I asked Hans who was causing the touches and he replied it were materialized hands, not full bodies.
Once the tambourine stopped making a noise the three luminous balls (about an inch in diameter) started rolling around on top of the bucket and then were thrown onto the floor. Julia then picked them up using a red flashlight and placed them back on top of the bucket. Just before Julia turned the flashlight on Kai was moved back into the cabinet and was brought back out once the light was turned off. The three balls then did exactly as before and ended up on the floor again.
Hans then asked Julia to place a hankerchief on the bucket (it had seven luminous spots on it so could clearly be seen in the dark). Once the flashlight had been turned off and Kai had been moved back out in front of the cabinet and taken in control, the hankerchief started flying around the circle and went to one of the sitters who was told to hold it between the thumb and the index finger.
Then we could see that it was being pulled away from her. She was told to let go and it flew to the other side of the circle were another sitter held it up. It then flew back to the control center.
Next white lights started flying around the room. Typically you would see a light fly for about a second at a high speed, then disappear and then a second or so later appear again and do the same thing. Numerous lights were flying around the room, mainly above the sitters. This lasted several minutes while Kai was controlled the whole time.
Hans then asked Julia to place the trumpet (about a foot and a half long, made from cardboard with luminous spots around the bottom edge) at the control center. Once the red light was turned off and Kai had been moved back out in front of the cabinet to be taken in control, the trumpet started flying around the room. It flew rapidly to the ceiling, the walls and all around without hitting anything or any of the sitters. The trumpet movement was exactly as we saw with David Thompson and as my wife Marlene and I saw while we sat in South Africa for many years. In my book I discuss trumpet movement and have photographs showing how the trumpet moves (using ectoplasm attached to the medium). The movement of the balls and the trumpet occurred only during the first séance. The touching, the tambourine and the lights occurred in both.
Now the red light part of the séance on Saturday started. Julia turned on a weak red light (located on a small table next to Julia) while Kai sat on his chair in front of the cabinet. Hans then asked me to sit on the floor in front of Kai, who held out his hands. I was asked to put my hands about a foot below Kai’s open hands held with the inside down, which I did. After about a minute something (an apport) fell into my hands. At no time did I see anything in his hands or between his fingers. The apport, which turned out to be a sea shell with some gold flakes in it, just dropped from his hands.
The shell is three quarters of an inch long and it now sits on my desk.
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| Ectoplasmic extrusion under scientific control and protocol (stripsearch, controlled environment) during test séances 2013, when Kai performed for a group of scientists |
Hans now asked for the red light to be turned off and we heard him move Kai back into the cabinet. He asked for the sitters to sing along with the music and asked Julia to turn the red light back on. He then asked Julia and me to pull the curtain open so that we could all see Kai seated in the cabinet. Kai then stood up (remember, it is Hans who is totally controlling Kai to do what he does) and ectoplasm started coming out of his mouth. Kai used his hands to pull the ectoplasm out of his mouth and it fell to the floor, where it formed a pile about one and a half feet in diameter and about 6-10 inches high just inside the cabinet.
Once the ectoplasm stopped coming from Kai’s mouth, he stepped out of the cabinet (still totally controlled by Hans) and picked up some of the ectoplasm (about 3 inches in diameter and a few feet long). He placed that ectoplasm on the curtain of the cabinet and it stuck to the curtain.
Kai picked up a bit more ectoplasm and pressed it against my forehead and then pressed it against my wife’s forehead (she sat next to me). The ectoplasm felt cool and wet but had no noticeable odor. After that Kai walked back into the cabinet and sat down. Ectoplasm was still piled on the floor next to him and some on it now started rising slowly (about 3 inches in diameter rising to a height of about 8-10 inches). It stopped rising and Hans asked Julia and me to close the curtain.
After about 1-2 minutes Hans asked Julia and me to open the curtains again. Kai was sitting on his chair and there was no sign of any ectoplasm (it had all returned to the medium-Kai).
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| Object that dropped in Vandersandes hand from mediums checked empty hand. The strange shell was filled with gold flakes to show that precious materials can be materialized/apported |
The second sitting on Sunday was different from the first sitting on Saturday in several aspects. On Saturday it was very warm in the séance room and at the end of the séance (around 3 hours) it had become very uncomfortable, if not unbearable. Luckily on Sunday one of the sitters brought a portable air-conditioner so the temperature during the séance was comfortable. Early during the second séance, when it was dark and sitters mentioned being touched, Hans all of a sudden got very upset and said that one of the sitters on the right side of the cabinet tried to make contact (with his/her legs or feet since sitters were holding hands) with the ectoplasm (this is of course very dangerous to the medium and could cause him harm). He asked the sitter to leave the séance room, however no one admitted to trying to touch the ectoplasm. Hans pleaded for a while and almost stopped the sitting. Eventually, he moved some of the sitters on the right side further from the cabinet.
After about 45 minutes the sitting resumed. As a result of the lost time Hans asked the sitters if they wanted more physical phenomena (such as the trumpet flying) or more time with the red light on. All said the red light.
The red light part of the Sunday séance started similar to the Saturday séance. With the curtains pulled open and Kai standing in the cabinet, ectoplasm started streaming from his nostrils. The ectoplasm fell to the floor and formed a pile. Kai then walked out of the cabinet holding some of the ectoplasm (it had stopped flowing from his nose) and walked to Margaret (at whose home the séances were held and who was sitting next to Julia on the right side of the cabinet). Kai touched ectoplasm to Margaret’s forehead and then let her touch the ectoplasm. He asked her to remove an apport which was embedded in the ectoplasm. It took her a few minutes to remove a crucifix about an inch long. She described the ectoplasm as cool, wet and stringy.
Kai walked back into the cabinet. The ectoplasm was still on the floor to his left. It started rising and formed a hand with the fingers clearly visible. The fingers moved slowly. The index finger had a ring on it but it could not be easily seen by those sitters far from it. I sat right next to the hand so could clearly see it. Hans said it was his hand. He said that there was not enough energy to form faces in the ectoplasm (as has happened in other séances with Kai). He then asked Julia and me to close the curtain.
Once the curtain was closed there were around 10 light flashes (like exploding fireworks) in and around the cabinet. Some flashes were small (approximately 6-12 inches in diameter) while small were larger (approximately 2-3 feet in diameter).
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the physical phenomena we observed in the two séances could not have been produced by Kai or Julia walking around in the dark or by any other means.
Similarly, there is no way Kai’s mind could have produced the phenomena (I discuss this possibility in my book). The only explanation is that spirit entities (Hans and others in the spirit world) produced these phenomena using Kai’s mediumship.
Seeing ectoplasm in red light is a rare experience now a days. The séances were a truly unique experience.
Jan Vandersande