Challenges for Mediums

Introduction

There is a general public percetion that psychic mediums and others who claim ESP abilities are unlikely able to live up to their claims. The early history of psychical research was laden with fraud on the part of some claimants. While more recent research is freer from such concerns, a dedicated skeptical community has engaged in questionable practices and has been reasonably successful, to date, convincing many that claims of psychic abilities in general and mediumship in particular are false. What goes unsaid in these discussions, aside from a careful consideration of the skeptics' true agendas, is the impact that criticism has on individuals who indeed may be as sensitive as they claim. While many think that these individuals are unwilling to be subjected to scrutiny because they are fakes or uncertain of their abilities, it may indeed be the case that such individuals' overriding concern has more to do with maintaining their psychological well-being.

Challenge

To understand this we must suspend any a priori notions regarding whether or not sensitives are real. We must ignore their potential motives and focus instead on their personalities and how those personality reactions might cause them to behave.

If a person's behavior is motivated by a desire to survive and a need to be comfortable, it would follow that like most all people, claimants of psychic abilities and specifically mediumship would strive to do what they feel is their life's purpose while at the same avoiding undue mental anguish and hardship. Many of these people perceive their purpose to be one of helping others, especially those who have passed on or those who survived others' deaths. Accepting this purpose in life creates an internal tension. While there is a desire to serve, that very service potentially creates conflict between these individuals and some in the outside world who are skeptical of these individuals' abilities.

Those with no experience in discarante communications are unaware that those who have passed often desperately need assistance. This theme recurs in reported discarnate post-mortem contacts. Often a timely message must be gotten to a family member or close acquaintance. This can be difficult for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that the message recipients are in grief and often protectively enclosed by others. Outsiders tend to be shunned during this time as families close ranks in mourning. This makes it difficult for messages of this type to be delivered in a timely manner. This challenge can weigh heavily on intermediaries as they come to realize the communications are real and vital. Yet at the same time, at every turn, they meet with resistance and suspicion.

Delivering messages is especially difficult in high profile cases. Not only is the family protected by the usual relatives and friends, but there is a larger circle of fans and associates each of whom has their own unique and conflicting agendas. Most of these agendas have little to do with telling truths about the deceased, especially if doing so would compromise future profits or projects. The great irony is that these people would not even comment in public about the death if there were nothing to gain on their own behalf.

It should be obvious that getting a message through is quite difficult in these conditons. Receiving public recognition for doing so is even more problematic. Hence it should no surprise that reports of such messages being successfully delivered and acknowledge by surviving family members are indeed quite rare. In fact messages are received and in some cases even successfully delivered, but the public is quite unaware of these activities.

Complications

Often in public cases disinformation is put out by so-called "media psychics" - people who are recognized by the public for their proclaimed psychic abilites. These people often appear on national talk shows, are cited by media, have published, speak on the subject and may even have had their own television programs over the years. Unfortunatley, most of these people would not be considered by most reputable research Parapscyhologists as realistic mediumship claimants. Yet their words are considered valid and their comments valued.

The other confounding factor for the public and the perception of any messages that might in fact have been received is the way in which others wish to preserve the public memory of celebrities in particular. Much of this is controlled by personal agendas and financial considerations which in turn tend to mediate away from truth-telling. Fans in particular have their own myths relative to the deceased's persona and there is a strong desire to maintain those myths even in the face of post-morten disclosures by authorities, not to mention pronouncements from those claiming post-mortem contacts.

Examples

Some real-life examples will illustrate these issues. In one case, a well-known Australian television personality died quite unexpectedly. He made himself known to a medium shortly after his death with a message for his wife. The message was delivered, but not without some difficulty on the part of the medium who had only indirect contacts with the family. The message had to do with the personality's intentions regarding his memorial. Changes were made at the last minute to his memorial services based on the information discovered as a consequence of receiving this message. Despite all of this, the message was never publicly acknowledged by the man's widow or the family.

Another example involves a recent death of a worl-famous pop music star. Within hours of his passing the man made himself known to a medium. He was quite confused about his sudden death and kept asking what had happened and how he could return to his body. He was concerned about the family, especially his children, but did not want them contacted. Instead he wanted to know what people were saying about him in death. He was decidedly against moving on or transitioning to any form of afterlife. This case was so public, the medium was highly reticent to mention it to any degree publicly for fear that she would be perceived as trying to cash in on this tragic event. Yet she had been told that some things should be said publicly, presumably by her.

Summary

Remembering those who have deceased is a cherished part of our personal and public grieving. Often though, directly because we tend to focus inward during this process, we cut ourselves off from those who might have legitimate messages from the deceased who are trying to communicate after their passing. This is further complicated by the prevalence of irresponsible and fraudulent individuals masquerading as psychic practitioners. In celebrity cases there is a block from those who are affected in various ways by the celebrity passing and who are generally not disposed to acknowledge post-mortem communications. All of this creates a great sense of stress for credible mediums who are indeed receiving communications, many of which should be shared.

If those who knew the deceased well could validate their messages, the messages could be trusted to a degree. This would separate factual messages from those that are clearly fraudulent.

If we were more open to the potential for post-mortem communications and willing to integrate evidenciary and legitimate messages into the grieving process, what a difference this could make in the resolution and acceptance of passing as a transition from one life to another rather the cold end so many perceive it to be.

Testing Mrs Patricia Putts

Introduction

Dr Richard Wiseman and Professor Chris French recently tested Mrs. Patricia Putts, a proported medium in the U.K. This was a prepatory test in an attempt to win the JREF million dollar prize. Mrs. Putts sat with 10 sitter subjects. She wrote her impressions for each; no verbal communication was allowed. The medium was unable to see details about the subjects.

After she wrote all 10 readings consisting of some number of statements each, all readings were shown to all sitters in the blind. No sitter was successful in picking their respective actual reading.The experiment was declared a failure by Wiseman and French.

Analytical Technique

But this was more of a test of the sitters' ability to guess their readings than a test of Mrs. Putts' mediumship. It is unclear why Wiseman and French decided to pass on the more common statement analysis technique used in modern mediumship research. Given the subtle nature of the phenomena, it would seem that the statement analysis approach would be more meaningful. There are too many rater bias opportunities to consider the protocol used as fair.

As an alternative, it would have made more sense to ask the sitters to review a list of 100 statements (presuming 10 statements per reading) and have the sitters mark those statements which applied to them. Those would count as 'hits' and the remainder as 'misses'. Scores for each reading would then be rank-ordered for each sitter.

If the highest scoring reading for each sitter were in fact the reading associated with that sitter, the test would be a success, otherwise the test would be a failure. Given ten sitters and ten readings, there is a 1 in 10 chance that any single sitter would be associated with their test. This is below acceptable levels of chance outcomes for small effect sizes according to conventional statistics. Associating 2 out of 10 readings with the correct sitters would occur at the 1 in 100 probability level. Three out of 10 would be at the 1 in 1000 probability level and so on. In fact the chances of all ten readings associating with their correct sitters is 1 in 1 billion. So this technique is capable of measuring incredibly small probabilities.

The original protocol measured a large effect size phenomenon, namely the ability of 10 sitters to each select their respective readings. No special equipment, abilities or knowledge required except that each sitter supposedly had the personal knowledge required to complete the task. In contrast, the method described above supports a far smaller effect size, which is consistent with anomalous psi phenomena (which includes mediumship). Therefore the described procedure would seem to be more correct for the purpose as well as being a far more objective a measure. The chosen protocol for example does not provide a way to know why the sitters selected the readings as they did. So there is no way to know if any influences occurred that might explain the outcomes.

Experimenter Effect

There is also the issue with respect to Experimenter Effect. This was conclusively demonstrated when the same Dr. Richard Wiseman failed to replicate a staring experiment by Dr. Marilyn Schlitz in the United States. When his objections were published, Schlitz exchanged places with Dr. Wiseman in an attempt at replication. Surprisingly replication occurred consistently with Dr. Schlitz and failed consistently with Dr. Wiseman, even when they exchanged test subjects. From this it was mutually concluded that the failure to replicate was something to do with Wiseman and might well have to do with his skeptical belief system. Subsequently, the Experimenter Effect has been noted in parapsychology experiments and in more mainstream research involving small effect sizes and subtle phenomena including medical research.

There was no attempt to counter this bias by using a skeptical and a non-skeptical investigator for example. This despite the fact that both Wiseman and French know and understand the implications of experimenter effect. If the test were truly unbiased they should have objected and at minimum recommended appropriate controls.

Summary

Wiseman and French seem to have followed a protocol that is contrary to modern best practice in mediumship research. It certainly appears they both are well aware of the shortcomings and pitfalls involved based on their published papers. One wonders why they would endorse such a protocol.

It was unwise to have paired Dr. Wiseman, of Schlitz/Wiseman staring experiment fame, with another skeptic like Professor French. The lack of balance not only calls into question the objectivity of the design, apparently supported by the protocol executed, but also suggests that ad hoc there was little opportunity for success. Perhaps Mrs. Putts' surprise at her complete failure was in fact warrented.

The acceptance by Wiseman and French of biased analytical techniques and their lack of attempt to control for well-known Experimenter Effect calls the basis of the entire test and their findings into question. It would be most interesting to reanalyze the data from a statement analysis perspective to see if the score changed.

Alledged Apparitions and Hauntings

Introduction

The first serious investigations into survival of bodily death focused on anecdotal accounts of alleged “apparitions” and “hauntings”. One of the first organized attempts to collect, review and comprehend these accounts was undertaken by the Society for Psychical Research in London, England beginning around 1885.

Since that time, most attempts to collect anecdotal evidence and reports of apparitional and haunting events have been undertaken by those more interested in the fantastic elements of the stories and less concerned with their merit.

This paper describes one approach that might be considered for those seriously interested in capturing, reviewing, analyzing and potentially verifying anecdotal claims of alleged apparitions and haunting behaviors.

Apparitions and Hauntings Redefined

Before proceeding further, it is well to define what is meant IN THIS CONTEXT by the terms: “apparition” and “haunting”. These terms are problematic in that they have inconsistent definitions, depending upon your background and belief systems.

In this paper, the definitions are consistent with their use in modern parapsychology research journals.

One point of confusion stems from early definitions proposed and commonly used by the SPR. These definitions were cemented in the popular mind with the publication of the book “Apparitions” by a former President of the SPR, G.N.M Tyrell. In this book, Tyrell proposes that a “haunting” is one of five forms of “apparition”. At the time, this definition made perfect sense, and was adopted by psychical researchers and even appears in early research parapsychology literature.

In the past few decades however, with an information model approach to anomalous events, including apparitions and hauntings, a new definitional criterion has emerged. Today, we separate the haunting phenomena from the apparition based on a key behavioral aspect, namely degree of interaction.

Haunting phenomena are characteristically “non-interactive” with their experients, while apparitional phenomena are “interactive” with experients.

Apparitions

Apparitions tend to appear to a smaller group of individuals than do hauntings. The apparition interacts with the experient through any one or in some cases several of the normal physical senses.

Some people believe that the term ‘apparition’ expressly defines only a visual manifestation. This is not correct. Any interactive anomalous event may be correctly termed ‘apparitional’ in nature. Thus, if there is a clear interaction between the experient and anomalous phenomena, such as perceived attempt to communicate, that phenomena may be properly characterized as ‘apparitional’.
Characteristics of Apparitions

Rarely do apparitions appeal to a percipient’s sense of taste. Most apparitions appeal to one or a combination of the other normal senses.

Visual apparitions
Visual apparitions are often reported but studies conducted on reliable phenomena data reports indicate that visual apparitions (as contrasted to haunting phenomena) are by far less common. The visual apparition can be confused with a haunting incident if the intention of the phenomena is not readily apparent. Also, a visual apparition may appear similar to side-effects in energetic psychokinetic (PK) environments that often evidence luminous forms.

Example: An example of a visual apparition might be an incident where a person sees a figure in the distance approaching slowly. The figure may appear quite solid. The figure would make an attempt at communicating in some way, such as by gesturing. If it appeared to relate to the movements of the experient, this would be considered evidence of intent of interaction.

Aural apparitions
Aural apparitions are very commonly reported but might be confused with haunting phenomena if the intent is unclear. Perhaps the most commonly heard aural phenomena is the distinct calling of one’s own name. This can be a psychological event having nothing to do with apparitions. However, it could also be an interactive attempt by a discarnate intelligence to communicate directly. Other common examples include hearing the words “Help” and “Hello”. Most aural apparitions are of a direct disembodied voice or sound as opposed to an electronic voice phenomenon. In other words, aural apparitions should be heard by the experient in real time. It should not be the case the phenomena can only be heard in the noise of an audio recording, characteristic of so-called EVP. Aural apparitions may appear similar to side-effects in energetic psychokinetic (PK) environments that often evidence disembodied voices.

Example: An example of a visual apparition might be an incident where a person hears a response to a question they ask verbally. Key to identifying the discarnate communicator as an apparition is an apparent intent to communicate interactively, that is, to answer questions meaningfully.

Olfactory apparitions
Olfactory apparitions are uncommon, although olfactory haunting phenomena are relatively common. Both are often reported as things such as the scent of flowers, smoke or food. As with visual and aural apparitions, olfactory experiences can be confused with haunting phenomena. Olfactory phenomena are quite similar to side-effects of energetic psychokinetic (PK) environment that often evidence nauseous odors.

Example: The odor of a particular type of cigar was noted during mediumistic communications with a specific historical individual. Fraud was rule out. The individual communicating clearly stated his intent to demonstrate his identity by using the odor of this specific cigar, recognizable to the sitter but not the medium.

Tactile apparitions
Tactile apparitions are somewhat common. They are often reported as a feeling of being touched or brushed. Tactile apparitional phenomena are not generally invasive, unlike psychokinetic effects which are highly targeted and generally originate with a living agent. Tactile apparitional phenomena originate with a discarnate intelligence.
Since both tactile apparitions and psychokinetic activity involve interactive touch, it is often the case that the two are confused.

Example: A woman’s skin was depressed in an active location near Washington, DC. Apparitional effects were observed by an independent investigator. The depth of touch was measurable and quantifiable. While the subject was usually able to retain composure, the incidents were a bit traumatic. Clear signs of what looked like finger marks could be seen and bruises were produced on the subject’s skin.

Note that there are many occasions when apparitional phenomena and haunting phenomena are easily confused. The most important differentiating aspect is the presence of interaction and intention on the part of the apparition.

Mediumistic communications through After-Death Communications (ADC) are by this definition likewise a form of apparitional phenomena. This is only accepted however if there is a clear interaction between a sitter and the discarnate communicator through the medium. Of course the information must be proven legitimate and valid and there must be reasonable certainty that the medium could not have acquired the information given in advance of the sitting.

Hauntings

Unlike apparitions, haunting phenomena have no interaction with their percipients. Hauntings have been described as “watching a video or motion picture repeating over and over again”.

A larger population of people report hauntings than apparitions.

Hauntings are place-oriented. It seems that some sufficiently sensitive individuals, often unaware of their ability, will detect the haunting phenomena while others will not.

Some people become confused especially when dealing with visual haunting phenomena. Often a figure will be seen apparently trying to communicate. The most commonly reported manifestation is that of a person, lips moving but no words coming out. This yields the illusion of interaction. However, it is equally likely that what is being witnessed is a memory in time part of which included a conversation that can no longer be heard. This is not an interactive attempt by an intelligent discarnate, but simply a visual record of an event.

Likewise, aural and olfactory haunting phenomena often occur. Most anomalous sounds and smells that are perceived, if there seems to be no attempt to interact with the percipient, are likely haunting phenomena. In other words, they are traces of events that once took place and likely had some significance to someone in the past.

Haunting phenomena are non-tactile in nature. While ‘pushing’ and ‘shoving’ is reported in some reportedly active sites, this phenomena is far more likely due to a living PK agent. See the paper entitled “Psychokinesis” for more details.

Haunting Myths

The literature has become littered with mythical accounts with respect to both apparitions and hauntings.

Vengeful Spirits
- Highly unlikely and rarely reliably reported
- Usually tied to history of questionable origin

Inhuman Spirits
- Some cultures include “Incubus/Succubus” phenomena
- Some cultures include “Elemental” phenomena
- Some cultures include “Faeiry/Gnome” phenomena
- Usually either misreporting or misinterpretation of natural phenomena

Demonic Spirits
- Rich in specific theological settings and cultures
- Recently reincarnated in the public’s mind
- More traditional anomalous phenomena is considered ‘demonic’ by lay people
- No reliable proof this phenomena is anything more than intense PK
- Highly belief-driven: most ‘exorcism’ and ‘cleansing’ rites focus on beliefs

Summary

Apparitions are interactive discarnate intelligences while hauntings are non-interactive. This is a new definition of these phenomena, adopted only in the past few decades.

Apparitions tend to appeal to a smaller population overall and may be perceived by any of the normal physical senses.

Haunting phenomena are mostly commonly olfactory, auditory or visual in nature. They are non-interactive and repetitive. Hauntings are perceived by a broad group of individuals, often over long periods of time.

Traditional mythologies from various sources have suggested over time that such things as vengeful spirits, inhuman spirits and demons may actually exist. Most of these anecdotal stories have problems with the reliability of the reports and are absent documentary and historical foundation.

Research Note : Experiments in Mediumship on the Web

Introduction

One of the key problems facing any investigator of psi phenomena is bringing the work to colleagues and to the public. This has traditionally involved first peer-reviewed journal publication, followed by publication in mainstream media such as books on a subject suitable for both scientific and lay audiences. Introducing colleagues and the public to the work in the early phases is a challenge. Traditionally this did not pose a great problem, since experimenters and investigators typically wanted to refine methods and protocols privately before publication. But a new type of field experiementation lends itself to early feedback. The key challenge is making the work available to colleagues spanning the globe in real-time. This challenge has been overcome using Internet technology. In a pilot project a public video server was used to make field research work available to the public as a technology experiment. This proved quite successful.

Method

Online technology provides a seamless way to integrate research partners and the public into real-time experiments irrespective of the location of the parties. Co-location has been a problem traditionally. When the experimental setting moves out of the laboratory and into the field, the problems are magnified even further. Ideally, we would like to maintain control of the enviornment while at the same time making it possible for as many colleagues as we wish to see the work in real-time. Using the Internet and streaming video servers answers this need.

We decided to start not with a traditional parapsychology experiment, but instead with something potentially a bit more edgy and likely interesting to the general public. We promoted a field investigation at the world-famous Hotel Del Coronado in Coronado, California. We have had some success in that setting communicating through trance channel with the legendary Beautiful Stranger of the Hotel Del Coronado. Her story has been told and retold for over a century. But the story seems to be very wrong, as we were told by her in 2006. We have been able to substantiate this information with careful historical research over two years' time. We are now confident that the legend is wrong and that we have the correct telling of the story. It is time to embark on a new phase of this research and we decided to expose our process to the public, online, unrehearsed and unscripted.

We chose to record the video in a guest room at the Hotel Del Coronado. At the same time, we streamed video to a publicly available video server at www.ustream.com. The trance medium, Bonnie Vent of San Diego, promoted this using her usual contact channels across the Internet. The broadcast went up on ustream.com at 5:15 PM Sunday, September 7, 2008. The 1 1/2 hour broadcast was archived at www.ustream.com/bonnievent for later viewing. It is available at www.sdparanormal.com under the Hotel Del Coronado section.

Findings

We said at the outset of the broadcast that we had no idea who might speak that evening, and we were certainly correct. We have never had trouble making contact, and this evening was no exception. However, aside from hearing briefly from the Beautiful Stranger herself for a short time, most of the remainder of the evening was spent talking with one or another inter-dimensional individual characterized as "high-level guidance". Eventually we were able to use the ustream.com chat facility to enable our viewers to ask questions interactively, to which this apparent inter-dimensional being was able to respond.

Questions spanned topics including demons and demonism, how those in other dimensions communicate with us, reactions to commercialization of paranormal topics, how to communicate with a particular spirit person, the reaction from spirit when someone in the physical world rebukes or fears attempted communications, the 'shadow people' phenomena and a discussion of reincarnation. Also included was a brief explanation of the nature of this 'guidance' and how it related to the medium as an individual.

Perhaps most interesting and measureable was the time spent in trance channel. Most trance mediums find they become quite tired after no more than twenty minutes. It is rare to go on longer. In this case we timed the trance channel session at over 55 minutes. This is the longest time this medium has spent in continual channel and the longest channel that I have ever observed anyone in channel having worked with mediums for over forty years. It is possible we set a record not only for one of the first online web cast of actual trance channeling from the Hotel Del Coronado, but also for the length of the trance channeling.

Discussion

The obvious question one must ask is 'was this real?' This is certainly top of my mind. The nature of the communications were certainly unexpected. Comparing the work with that of Bonnie Vent's earlier channel of the Beautiful Stranger, the two are quite similar in mode and personality. Even though the two events were separated by almost two years, we have the earlier communications on video and can compare the two. While there are some slight differences, the style and personality is markedly similar to conversations with the Beautiful Stranger in 2006. As to the others who came through in September 2008, it is notable that their style is reminiscent of Bonnie Vent's personal style. However the communicators were more erudite than Bonnie. Some aspects of the trance personality pervade Bonnie's personality. This is not uncommon in trance mediumship. We find traces of the medium's personality interlaced with the various communicating trance personalities. We do not consider this evidence against the validity of the mediumship. Especially in the case of historical mediumship information is often given that at the time even historians knowledgable in the history believe to be wrong. Later it is not uncommon for them to discover the information to be correct, thus changing the history itself. This is the ultimate validation of these events and characterizes much of our previous work.

Future Work

It is our intent moving forward to use this approach for two purposes. One is to provide us with an alternate way to record and archive our field work with minimal site and personnel coordination. A second purpose is to enable colleagues (and where appropriate the public) to join in our investigations. Several investigators have commented that the more eyes on the field work at the time the better. We agree with this position. Properly executed, this approach has great potential for capturing raw original work in the field.

One obvious caution arises in the context of implicit controls to the environment. While in a laboratory setting controls are easier to enforce, this approach neither weakens nor strengthens controls in field settings. While it might argued that not having physically present observers opens the door to potential chicanery, in this type of mediumistic setting it is reasonably easy to see what is in fact occuring. If the medium had done pre-work to present a more convincing case it is unlikely this would be discovered during information gathering. This sort of finding typically surfaces post-hoc during the data analysis phase of the research. However it is still important to have the usual controls in place apropos the experiment in question.

Summary

An experimental prototype was designed and executed wherein a trance medium was observed and queried by observers from the public on the Internet. This prototype was a proof-of-concept that such as technology plan could bring research colleagues together from across the globe in a common research information gathering effort. This prototype was designed for maximum engagement of a public audience. Future work would be more private and would primarily involve research colleagues online.