A Mixed Methods Phenomenological and Exploratory Study of Channeling

Wahbeh, Helané, Carpenter, Loren, Radin, Dean • 2018 Current Era • mediumship

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Plain English Summary

This small but fascinating pilot study took five women who practice "full-trance channeling" -- claiming to let other beings speak through them -- and monitored a quantum noise generator (a device producing truly random data from quantum physics) during their sessions. Over four days at Mt. Shasta, California, patterns in the random data shifted during channeling compared to rest periods, and one particular "being" produced an especially strong signal surviving statistical corrections. Perhaps most striking: psychological testing showed the channelers were perfectly mentally healthy, challenging the old assumption that channeling signals mental illness. With only five participants, all female and Caucasian, the findings are preliminary but intriguing.

Actual Paper Abstract

Full-trance channeling is a practice in which an individual (a channeler) willingly enters into a dissociated mental state with the intention of bringing forth an intelligent "entity" that speaks and acts through their mind and body. During such states, the person acting as the channeler may or may not be consciously aware of what they are saying or doing. This study was designed to contribute to the conceptual framework for understanding the nature of channeling, as well as to further understand the phenomenological experiences of such individuals. We invited five full-trance channelers to participate in a pilot study at Mt. Shasta, California, between March 19 and March 22, 2017. Prior to the event, demographic measures, spirituality and religion measures, experience with medication, and personality, dissociation and psychotic symptoms were collected via questionnaires. The results showed that the channelers were similar to general population norms. As expected, paranormal belief scores and reports of "anomalous information reception" experiences were high. During the focus group meeting, a custom-built, multi-channel, random number generator (RNG) system located in the same room as the group continuously recorded data for exploratory purposes. A modestly significant mean difference between RNG data obtained during channeling versus no-channeling control periods was found (z = 2.250, p = 0.024, two-tail). This encourages additional research and development of physical detectors as potential methods for objectively measuring environmental fluctuations associated with the act of channeling. Such techniques may also provide a novel means of discriminating among different purported "beings" said to arise during channeling sessions. Qualitative analysis of the channeled content revealed five common themes: 1) mechanisms of channeling; 2) the need to awaken humanity and methods by which to do so; 3) the nature of reality; 4) descriptions of multi-dimensional beings and worlds; and 5) suggestions for advancing channeling research.

Research Notes

First QNG study of channeling — extends RNG paradigm from group consciousness/intention to trance mediumship. Channelers psychologically healthy (normal DES-T, CAPE-P15), countering pathological models. Exploratory design with no pre-registered hypotheses; small homogeneous sample (N = 5, all female/Caucasian). Part of Wahbeh's IONS mediumship research program alongside wahbeh_2018_exceptional and wahbeh_2018_people.

Five female full-trance channelers participated in nine channeling sessions over four days at Mt. Shasta, California. Pre-study surveys showed normal personality (BFI-10), dissociation (DES-T mean = 12.3, below clinical cut-off of 30), and psychotic symptom scores (CAPE-P15 mean = 0.37, below cut-off of 1.47), alongside high paranormal belief (30.8/36) and anomalous information reception (0.51/1.0). A custom 32-channel quantum noise generator (QNG) recorded continuously; a composite measure combining autocorrelation and mutual information differed between channeling (n = 658 samples) and control periods (n = 475 samples): z = 2.250, p = 0.024, two-tailed. One of 18 individual being-period comparisons survived FDR correction (Being #7: z = 3.431, p = 0.0006). Qualitative analysis identified 21 purported beings and five content themes. Channeling formats included traditional, sequential, simultaneous, and attempted materialization.

APA

Wahbeh, Helané, Carpenter, Loren, Radin, Dean (2018). A Mixed Methods Phenomenological and Exploratory Study of Channeling. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research.

BibTeX

@article{wahbeh_2018_mixed,
  title = {A Mixed Methods Phenomenological and Exploratory Study of Channeling},
  author = {Wahbeh, Helané and Carpenter, Loren and Radin, Dean},
  year = {2018},
  journal = {Journal of the Society for Psychical Research},
}

A Mixed Methods Phenomenological and Exploratory Study of Channeling

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Actual Paper Abstract

Research Notes

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