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Anomalous Information Reception by Research Mediums Demonstrated Using a Novel Triple-Blind Protocol

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Beischel, Julie, Schwartz, Gary E • 2007 Modern Era • mediumship

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⚡ Mediumship 📖 Deep Dive Ndes Consciousness

Plain English Summary

Can mediums really pull accurate information about dead people out of thin air? This study tackled that question with an impressively locked-down design. Eight pre-screened mediums each did phone readings knowing only a deceased person's first name. A stand-in (called a proxy sitter) sat in for the real grieving family member, so the medium couldn't fish for clues or read body language. Then the actual sitters scored blinded transcripts without knowing which reading was meant for them. The results were striking: sitters rated the readings intended for them significantly higher than decoy readings, and picked out their own reading 81% of the time (chance would be 50%). The triple-blind setup effectively rules out cold reading, fraud, and even telepathy with the living sitter as explanations. The one question it can't settle is a big one: are mediums genuinely contacting the deceased, or tapping into some extraordinary psychic source among the living? Either way, these are hard numbers to dismiss.

Actual Paper Abstract

Context: Investigating the information reported by mediums is ultimately important in determining the relationship between brain and consciousness in addition to being of deep concern to the public. Objective: This triple-blind study was designed to examine the anomalous reception of information about deceased individuals by research mediums under experimental conditions that eliminate conventional explanations. Participants: Eight University of Arizona students served as sitters: four had experienced the death of a parent; four, a peer. Eight mediums who had previously demonstrated an ability to report accurate information in a laboratory setting performed the readings. Methodology: To optimize potential identifiable differences between readings, each deceased parent was paired with a same-gender deceased peer. Sitters were not present at the readings; an experimenter blind to information about the sitters and deceased served as a proxy sitter. The mediums, blind to the sitters' and deceased's identities, each read two absent sitters and their paired deceased; each pair of sitters was read by two mediums. Each blinded sitter then scored a pair of itemized transcripts (one was the reading intended for him/her; the other, the paired control reading) and chose the reading more applicable to him/her. Results: The findings included significantly higher ratings for intended versus control readings (p < 0.007, effect size < 0.5) and significant reading-choice results (p < 0.01). Conclusions: The results suggest that certain mediums can anomalously receive accurate information about deceased individuals. The study design effectively eliminates conventional mechanisms as well as telepathy as explanations for the information reception, but the results cannot distinguish among alternative paranormal hypotheses, such as survival of consciousness (the continued existence, separate from the body, of an individual's consciousness or personality after physical death) and super-psi (or super-ESP; retrieval of information via a psychic channel or quantum field). Key words: anomalous information reception, survival of consciousness, mediumship, mind-brain relationship (Explore 2007; 3:23-27. © Elsevier Inc. 2007)

Research Notes

First triple-blind mediumship experiment, introducing the proxy-sitter protocol that eliminates telepathy as an explanation — a major advance over prior single/double-blind designs. Foundation for the Windbridge Research Center's subsequent mediumship program. Central to controversy #6 (mediumship).

Eight pre-screened research mediums each performed two phone readings for absent university student sitters in a novel triple-blind design: mediums knew only the deceased's first name, a blinded proxy sitter conducted the session, and sitters scored itemized transcripts without knowing which reading was intended for them. Each deceased parent was paired with a same-gender deceased peer. Intended readings received significantly higher global scores than controls (M = 3.56 vs. 1.94; t = 3.105, df = 15, p = 0.007, effect size = 0.5). Sitters chose the intended reading 81% of the time (13/16, p = 0.01). The design eliminates cold reading, fraud, and telepathy with the sitter as explanations, though it cannot distinguish survival of consciousness from super-psi.

Links

DOI: 10.1016/j.explore.2006.10.004

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📋 Cite this paper
APA 
Beischel, Julie, Schwartz, Gary E (2007). Anomalous Information Reception by Research Mediums Demonstrated Using a Novel Triple-Blind Protocol. Explore. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.explore.2006.10.004
BibTeX 
@article{beischel_2007_anomalous,
  title = {Anomalous Information Reception by Research Mediums Demonstrated Using a Novel Triple-Blind Protocol},
  author = {Beischel, Julie and Schwartz, Gary E},
  year = {2007},
  journal = {Explore},
  doi = {10.1016/j.explore.2006.10.004},
}