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QUESTION: How is it that mediums can sometimes get accurate information about loved ones who have died? Three of the main theories - other than survival of consciousness after death - offered to explain the accuracy of information conveyed by a medium during a research reading, are as follows: 1.
The medium is using non-verbal clues (facial expressions, gasps, etc.)
from the sitter - the living person hoping to contact the deceased - to
guide what information is conveyed. This is called "cold reading." To control for the first two possible explanations, experiments performed at the Human Energy Systems Laboratory involve "blinding" of the medium. That is, the medium cannot hear or see the sitter and is given little to no information about the sitter's identity. At most, the medium may be informed of the sitter's or deceased's first name ("Paul") and/or the relationship of the deceased to the sitter ("brother"). This prevents the medium from using any verbal or non-verbal cues from the sitter during the reading. However, it is theorized that even with no contact with the sitter, the medium may still be able to read his/her mind. Although this is difficult to control for, we have employed a way for the deceased to disprove the telepathy theory. During a reading, we ask the deceased to give information that is unknown to the sitter, the medium, or the experimenter, but that can be verified later. We previously reported one strikingly evidential answer we received to this question during a presentation at a Tribute to Montague "Monty" Keen held at the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) in London on June 27th, 2004. At this Tribute, entitled "Mediumship, Survival, and Psychical Research," Mrs. Veronica Keen (Monty's wife), the Society for Psychical Research (SPR; http://www.spr.ac.uk/index), and numerous researchers paid homage to Monty and his nearly 60 years of psychical research, writing, and lectures. The Tribute took place in the room at the RSA where Monty had died during a public debate about telepathy six months prior. While making an elegantly worded statement from the front row to a skeptic at the debate, Monty collapsed and never regained consciousness. It was presumed that he died either at the RSA or on the way to the hospital. He was officially pronounced dead at the hospital. During a telephone experiment on June 10th, 2004, in which Veronica Keen was the "absent" sitter (explained below) and Doreen Molloy, author of Proof Positive: Metaphysical Wisdom, served as the research medium, the request for unknown, but verifiable information was asked of Monty. Doreen was in New Jersey, I was in Arizona, and Veronica was in London during the experiment. However, only Doreen and I were on the telephone, so Veronica was "absent" and therefore not aware of the content of the reading. Thus, Doreen received no feedback from Veronica. This experimental design is referred to as "double-blind" meaning both the sitter and the medium have been blinded. The complete double-blind experimental design consisted of five sections. In the first section, called Free-form, Doreen was informed there was an absent sitter and asked to receive information from any deceased people associated with the sitter. In the second section, called Deceased-directed, Doreen was instructed to receive information from "the husband of the absent sitter who usually called the sitter 'Darling;'" she was given neither Veronica's nor Monty's name. For the third and fourth sections, Doreen was asked to report the answers to specific questions about Monty's physical life and his experiences in the afterlife, respectively. For the last section, in response to the "unknown information" question, Doreen described "some kind of an error or mistake on the death certificate. And it would be relating to the area on the certificate where they list your cause of death and time of death. It's not a misspelling of the name or something like that, but there's some kind of error." Could this statement be verified? While in London for Monty's Tribute, I asked Veronica if she was aware of any mistake related to Monty's death certificate; she said "no." However, I asked Veronica to show me the death certificate and to verify each line - Monty's middle name, their home address, the date, etc. In the section of the certificate where the time of death was listed, the hospital at which Monty was pronounced dead was also named. I pointed to the name and asked Veronica "Is this right? Is this where he died?" wondering if the name was somehow wrong. Her answer was simple (paraphrasing): "God, no! He died in his seat at the RSA." The information in a research reading is intended for and scored for accuracy by the sitter based on their knowledge and interpretations. The item stating that there was a mistake on the death certificate was in direct response to a question requesting information that was unknown to any living person involved in the experiment but that could be verified. Note that Veronica had been unaware of any mistake, but during the verification confirmed that the place of death listed on the certificate was, in her opinion, incorrect. Veronica felt that Monty's consciousness left his body in that lecture hall at the RSA and considered that the place of death. This single item from one double-blind reading demonstrates 1) how cold reading, re-phrasing, and telepathy can sometimes be ruled out as explanations for the accuracy of a medium's statements, and 2) how the deceased can participate in the success of controlled laboratory protocols for research readings.
Julie Beischel, PhD VERITAS Research Program Human Energy Systems Laboratory The University of Arizona For
more information about this experiment, please see: |
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QUESTION: There are those who attribute a medium's apparent success in readings on the desperation that survivors feel in wanting to make contact with a loved one. Can science accurately prove a medium's ability? |
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Most people who go to a medium are in emotional pain. They are grieving the passing of someone who they dearly love. Sometimes they seek comfort (for example, to know that their loved one is okay "on the other side"), sometimes they seek information (for example, what to do about a will or a business), and sometimes they seek forgiveness (for example, for not being present when the person died). When we are in pain, it is natural to sometimes "grasp for straws" and even to fool ourselves about what is real. Can science address the reality and accuracy of mediums when sitter's emotions sometimes cloud their judgments? The answer is simple and definitive. It is yes. First, it is possible to select "sitters" (people who wish to hear from their deceased loved ones) who are trained how to score information provided by mediums for both their factual and emotional significance. For example, in a recent mediumship experiment at the Human Energy Systems Laboratory at the University of Arizona, the medium said (I paraphrase here) "The person died suddenly, unexpectedly, of a heart problem, at a podium." This sentence contains four pieces of information: (1) suddenly (as in quickly), (2) unexpectedly (without warning), (3) of a heart problem (a heart attack), (4) at a podium. The first two items (suddenly and unexpectedly) apply to many kinds of death (car crash, drug overdose, brain aneurysm, heart attack). The third item (a heart problem) is clearly more specific and is consistent with the first two items. The last item is also specific but is quite novel. It turns out that for this sitter, the "podium" item was quite accurate and very significant. Her husband had not died of a heart attack "at" a podium; he had his attack "facing" a podium while he was making a comment at a scientific meeting. The key here is the word "podium." Second, it is possible to conduct the research "double-blind" where not only is the medium "blind" (does not know) the identity of the sitter, but the sitter is "blind" to the reading (because the sitter is not present when the reading takes place). In the experiment mentioned above, the experimenter served as a "proxy" sitter. The items were transcribed and mixed with items from another person's reading. Hence, when the absent sitter was subsequently requested to score the items, she was blind to which items came from her reading and which came from the control reading. This eliminates potential emotional bias from potentially clouding the judgment. For the record, I was the proxy for the absent sitter for this portion of the experiment, and personally witnessed the medium report the podium information. I describe a wonderful surprise associated with this particular reading in the Lessons From The Lab column in the Forever Family Foundation Newsletter, Signs of Life. Third, it is sometimes said, "God is in the details" (or the "devil" is in the details, depending upon one's point of view). The same can be said for mediumship research. Sometimes sitters will misremember information provided by a medium that later turns out to be accurate. This "detail" can be scientifically important. For example, in the experiment mentioned above, the medium also said, "The deceased is showing me a large banner." The sitter scored this as a factual error. She remembered many paintings in the room, but no banner. Later, she happened to call the meeting director and asked if there was a banner present at the meeting. Much to her surprise (and ours), there had been a large banner prominently displayed at the meeting. With the stress of her husband passing suddenly at the meeting, she had failed to remember this verifiable fact. In other words, sometimes our emotions lead us to misremember key information that turns out to be true and evidential. The take home message is simple yet profound - though our emotions can sometimes cloud our judgment, science can take this into account as it investigates genuinely high accuracy rates produced by gifted mediums. Professor
of Psychology, Surgery, Medicine,Neurology, and Psychiatry
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