Death-bed Visions Confirmed

Death bed visions occur when a dying person sees spirits who have come to help him make the transition at death. Death-Bed Visions by William Barrett gives many examples of this phenomena. There are known cases where those attending the dying also see the spirits. Chapter 6 of Barrett's book describes an example of this.

A short time before she expired I became aware that two spirit forms were standing by the bedside, one on either side of it. I did not see them enter the room; they were standing by the bedside when they first became visible to me, but I could see them as distinctly as I could any of the human occupants of the room....

Just before they appeared the dying girl exclaimed, 'It has grown suddenly dark; I cannot see anything!' But she recognized them immediately. A smile, beautiful to see, lit up her face. She stretched forth her hands and in joyous tones exclaimed, 'Oh, you have come to take me away! I am glad, for I am very tired.'

As she stretched forth her hands the two angels extended each a hand, one grasping the dying girl's right hand, the other her left hand....

There is also a case of a death-bed vision being confirmed through a medium. It occurred while Richard Hodgson was investigating the medium Mrs Piper. During one sitting, a spirit communicated through automatic writing and explained that she had attended someone on his death bed and had spoken to him using an unusual phrase. A relative of the deceased who was with him at his death-bed was contacted and confirmed that the dying man claimed to have seen the spirit. The relative spontaneously told what the dying man said of the spirit including the use of the unusual phrase given through the medium. An account of this is related in:

A FURTHER RECORD OF OBSERVATIONS OF CERTAIN PHENOMENA OF TRANCE by Richard Hodgson L.L.D. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research Vol. XIII. 1898, p 284 - 582

See the foot note on page 378:

The first writing of the sitting came from Madame Elisa, without my expecting it. She wrote clearly and strongly, explaining that F. was there with her, but unable to speak directly, that she wished to give me an account of how she had helped F. to reach her. She said that she had been present at his death-bed, and had spoken to him, and she repeated what she had said, an unusual form of expression, and indicated that he had heard and recognised her. This was confirmed in detail in the only way possible at that time, by a very intimate friend of Madame Elisa and myself, and also of the nearest surviving relative of F. I showed my friend the account of the sitting, and to this friend, a day or two later, the relative, who was present at the death-bed, stated spontaneously that F. when dying said that he saw Madame Elisa who was speaking to him, and he repeated what she was saying. The expression so repeated, which the relative quoted to my friend, was that which I had received from Madame Elisa through Mrs. Piper’s trance, when the death-bed incident was of course entirely unknown to me.

In this case from the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research Volume VI p 20-21, four people see the same spirit. A woman on her death bed sees her sister. A woman in the room with her also sees the spirit. Two women outside the room see the spirit pass through the door. All of them recognize the spirit as the deceased sister of the dying woman.

From Miss Pearson, 15, Fitzroy-square, W.C. April, 1888.

...

Mrs. John Pearson was in the room, Mrs. Coppinger and myself in the back room; the house lighted up on the landings and, staircases, our door wide open.

About 1 or 2 a. m. on the morning of December 23rd, both Mrs. Coppinger and myself started up in bed; we were neither of us sleeping, as we were watching every sound from the next room.

We saw some one pass the door, short, wrapped up in an old shawl, a wig with three curls each side and an old black cap. Mrs. Coppinger called out, "Emma, get up, it is old Aunt Ann." I said, "So it is, then Aunt Harriet will die to-day." We jumped up, and Mrs. John Pearson came rushing out of the room and said, "That was old Aunt Ann. Where is she gone to?" I said to soothe her, "Perhaps it was Eliza come down to see how her mistress is." Mrs. Coppinger ran upstairs and found Eliza sleeping in the servants' room. She was very awestruck but calm, dressed and came down. Every room was searched, no one was there, and from that day to this no explanation has ever been given of this appearance, except that it was old Aunt Ann come to call her sister, and she died at 6 p.m. that day.

...

In a separate letter of the same date Miss Pearson adds

"I now remember my aunt saying 'her sister had come for her, for she had seen her.'"

In this account from the "Journal of the Society for Psychical Research" Volume XI 1903-1904 p 187, two women attending a dying boy see the spirit of his deceased mother also attending to him.

On Sunday evening, June 28th, 1903, about 9 o'clock, I and the sister were standing at the foot of the bed, watching the sick one, who was unconscious, when suddenly I saw the mother distinctly. She was in her ordinary dress as when with us, nothing supernatural in her appearance. She was bending over her boy with a look of infinite love and longing and did not seem to notice us. After a minute or two she quietly and suddenly was not there. I was so struck that I turned to speak to the sister, but she seemed so engrossed that I did not think it wise to say anything.

The little patient grew gradually worse, until on Tuesday evening, June 30th, I was summoned to go at once. When I arrived at the house he had passed away. After rendering the last offices of love to the dear little body, the sister and I again stood, as on the Sunday, when I said, " M--, I had a strange experience on Sunday evening here." She quickly replied, "Yes, mother was here; I saw her." The young girl is not given to fancies at all, and must have been impressed as I was.

Negative Proof

There are two points that are often raised during debates on the existence of the afterlife.

• Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
• You can't prove a negative.

The first statement, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence," is true. Lack of evidence of something does't prove it doesn't exist. I have no evidence that you are reading this, but you are.

The second statement is false. It is possible to prove a negative. It can be proved false under the laws of formal logic. If you don't believe this, go to the store and try to pay $5 for $10 worth of goods. When the cashier says you didn't pay enough money, just say "Sorry, you can't prove I didn't pay enough because you can't prove a negative." The cashier will prove the negative (you didn't pay enough money) by counting the money you paid and showing it is less than $10.

But what about this statement:

• You can't prove spirits and the afterlife don't exist.

If you can prove a negative, how do you do it in this case?

Just because it is theoretically possible to prove a negative doesn't mean it is practical in a real world example. It's easy for the cashier to count the money you paid, but one spirit existing somewhere in the universe would be sufficient to prove spirits existed. How could a skeptic search the whole universe to prove there are none?

One possibility might be for the skeptic to demonstrate the proof of the assertion "some spirits exist" is invalid. He could do this by showing that all the evidence said to prove spirits exist is invalid.

But if absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, then even if a skeptic disputes all the evidence said to show that spirits exist, and demonstrates you can't justify belief in spirits, then he still has not proved spirits do not exist. So why should he go to the trouble of disputing the evidence for spirits? It still won't prove they don't exist.

Does this get the skeptic off the hook? Is he right that he doesn't have to justify his position because it is impossible to prove spirits don't exist? Can he win the debate that easily?

No. In a debate each side must prove their assertions. If a skeptic doesn't believe in spirits, he must explain why. Usually his disbelief is based on rejection of the evidence said to demonstrate the existence of spirits. Therefore in a debate, the skeptic is required to justify his position of disbelief by proving that what is asserted to be evidence for the existence of spirits is invalid. He doesn't have to prove spirits don't exist, he only has to prove there is no justification for belief in spirits.

Copyright © 2009 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Mind Machine Interface

A few days ago, The Daily Grail had a link to the Interchange Laboratories web site:

Interchange Laboratories, Inc. has developed a mind-machine interface technology that has the advantage of being non-contact and non-invasive. This technology operates without the need for detecting low fidelity brain waves or nerve signals.

The MMIP technology is based on interactions at the subatomic level where the distinction between mind and matter disappears and effects become instantaneous over any distance

Research conducted at Princeton University’s PEAR Laboratory (Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research) has shown that non-contact mind-machine influence is a quantifiable phenomenon unconstrained by time and space, (non-local phenomenon).

I asked Dean Radin about this in the comments section on his blog. A brief conversation ensued.

There is a pdf file on the Interchange Laboratories web site describing some of their research. Their system consists of a computer connected to an electronic device that can be influenced by psi at the quantum level called a mind machine interface processor (MMIP). The computer displays the MMIP output on a graphical user interface. If a user mentally influences the MMIP, the changes appear on the user interface.

This connection between the psi detector and computer seems to me to be a first step towards another more advanced approach to a psi interface. It might be possible have a person try to mentally influence the MMIP and have the computer watch how that effects the MMIP. Then software could analyze what happens and the computer could learn how different intentions of the individual influence the MMIP. Instead of requiring a person to learn to control the MMIP, the computer learns to interpret how the person affects the MMIP. This might be a good application for a neural network architecture.

Once the computer is trained, each user would influence the MMIP in their own individual way and the computer, which has learned how to translate the changes in the MMIP to user intentions, would control a device according to its interpretation of the user's intentions. The computer might update its understanding of the users intentions periodically to accomodate changes in the user's influence on the MMIP that might occurr over time.

The computer might be able to recognize different users because of characteristic ways each would influence the MMIP. This could provide security and increased sensitivity. The computer could only allow recognized, authorized users to control devices. Fourier transform analysis might allow the computer to separate out one individual's intentions from psychic noise or from other user's who might be trying to influence the MMIP at the same time.

If the mental effects on one MMIP are not subtle enough to distinguish between different users, perhaps an array of MMIPs in one, two, or three dimensions would have enough resolution.

If this technology becomes widespread, the individual characterisits of each user might be stored in a portable form such as an magnetic strip on an ID card or data on an RIFD chip. That way the user would not have to train every device they used.

Scientific Theories of Psychic Phenomena Part 3

Part 1
Part 3, continued from Scientific Theories of Psychic Phenomena Part 2

The Filter model of the brain

I haven't discussed the filter model of the brain before on this blog. Briefly, the filter model of the brain says that the brain does not produce consciousness it filters it. Consciousness exists separately from the physical brain and the brain restricts the faculties of consciousness that we have when in the physical body. This is discussed in more detail on my web site on the page on skeptical fallacies where the fallacy Consciousness Is Produced by the Brain is discussed.

Someone might question whether the filter model of the brain can be falsified. Any change in mental function can be explained by it. If mental faculites are increased, as sometimes occurs when a head injury leads to increased psychic perceptiveness, it can be ascribed to reduced filtering by a damaged filter. If mental faculties are decreased, as may occur after a stroke, it is ascribed to less transmission through a damaged filter. This seems to be exactly the situation Karl Popper was concerned about when he developed his falsifiability criteria.

However the filter model makes several predictions which if found to be false would disprove the filter model:

• Consciousness can exist independently of the brain.
• When consciousness is separated from the brain, it's faculties should be increased.
• The brain does not produce consciousness.

The possibility of testing the filter model with these tests demonstrates that the filter model is a scientific theory.

A common, but baseless, objection to the first test might be that one can't prove a negative, one can't prove consciousness doesn't exist independently from the brain. The idea that you can't prove a negative is a fallacy which I discuss on my web site You can't prove a negative. This is baseless because it is sufficient to either prove consciousness can exist independently of the brain.

In fact, the first test has already been passed. Part 1 of this post has discussed this. Further evidence is given on my web site in the chapter on Evidence for the Afterlife which describes the evidence demonstrating that consciousness survives the death of the physical body. Thus the filter model is not just scientifc, it is confirmed by empirical evidence.

The second test has also been passed. The evidence that conscious faculties are increased when the mind is separated from the brain comes from reports of Near Death Experiences (NDEs). People who experience NDE's are able to perceive more than they do when in the body. They report seeing in 360 degrees and seeing colors that they do not see when in the body. Blind people report seeing during NDE's. Some near death experiencers report being able to communicate telepathically with other beings. Some report understanding that time is just an illusion or that they seem to have access to all the knowledge in the universe.

The third test, proving the brain does produce consciousness will also falsify the filter model of the brain. The fact that it may be currently impossible due to technological limitations to make this proof, does not alter the fact that if it was proved, it would falsify the filter model. The possibility of this test is sufficient to demonstrate the filter model is falsifiable and is therefore scientific.

An electronics engineer can examine a radio reciever and determine that it does not generate the signal it recieves and converts to sound. A scientist should be able to examine the brain and determine how it works in the same way. The research that is currently being conducted by neuroscientists to prove the brain produces consciousness may eventually reach a blank wall like an engineer tracing the signal all the way back to the antenna of a radio and then not being able to go any further and concluding that the radio is a reciever.

The electronics engineer doesn't have to know anyting about radio waves nor should the scientist have to know anything about non-physical consciousness. The engineer only needs an amplifier and and oscilloscope and he can trace the signal. Similarly the scientist only needs to understand the physical mechanism of the brain.

The same electronics engineer can analyze a computer and show that all the behavior of the circuts are determined by the physical elements of the computer. If the brain produces consciousness, the scientist should be able to do the same thing for the brain. If you properly understand the brain you will know how, for example, an impulse to move your arm originates. If you can't explain how that impulse originates by the mechanism of the brain then you have to look for something outside the brain to explain it.

If someone says a computer is a receiver for radio waves you can falsify it by demonstrating the behavior of the computer is explained by the properties of the physical elements comprising it. If someone says a brain is a filter for consciousness you can falsify it by demonstrating the behavior of the brain is explained by the properties of the biological elements comprising it. Neuroscience will eventually resolve this question.

How might the filter model be proven? Perhaps some exremely improbable quantum phenomena will be found to occur in the brain on a regular basis. If nothing known to science can explain it, scientists will have to look for some new phenomena which may lead to the "discovery" of consciousness.

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Scientific Theories of Psychic Phenomena Part 2

Part 2, continued from Scientific Theories of Psychic Phenomena Part 1

Crisis Apparitions

When an apparition of a person is seen near the time of his death, it is called a crisis-apparition. Evidence of crisis-apparitions comes in the form of anecdotes because their occurrence is not predictable and can't be studied in a laboratory. Because of this, initially it was not known if there was a true correlation between a sighting of an apparition and the death of the individual.

A previous post on this blog, Studying Personal Experiences, describes an investigation into crisis-apparitions. The investigation was intended to determine if there was a correlation between the death of a relative or acquaintance and seeing an apparition of them. If there was a correlation, it would seem to be an important area for scientific investigation because the known laws of science could not explain what could cause such correlation to occur.

The test to determine if there was a correlation between seeing an apparition of an individual and the time of their death was very simple.

• The coincidence of seeing an apparition of an individual near the time of his death should occur more frequently than can be explained by chance.

Failure to pass this test would show that there was no correlation between seeing an apparition of a person and the time of his death. In that case, crisis-apparitions would be no different from other hallucinations and no more worthy of special investigation than other types of hallucinations.

The investigators who carried out this test made a survey from which it was possible to determine the frequency at which apparitions were seen by members of the population of England. Then, using data on frequency of deaths, the probability of someone seeing an apparition of someone by chance coincidence near the time of his death was calculated. This was compared to the actual frequency of crisis-apparitions. It was found that seeing a crisis-apparition occurred much more frequently than chance coincidence could explain.

If this investigation had shown that crisis-apparitions occurred at a frequency expected by chance, the investigation would have falsified the theory that there is a correlation between a sighting of an apparition and the death of the person.

However this investigation demonstrated that there is a correlation between the death of a person and an apparition of a person being seen. This is an extremely important result because no known laws of science can explain it. It demonstrates that crisis-apparitions are a real phenomena worthy of scientific study.

To be continued...

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Scientific Theories of Psychic Phenomena Part 1

A previous post, Karl Popper on Falsifiability, discussed the philosophical basis for confirming a theory with empirical evidence. That post explained that for a theory to be scientific it must be supported by evidence and to be considered supported by evidence a theory must pass a test that failing would prove the theory false.

Having explained this criteria, the next step will be to examine a few paranormal theories and see if such a test can be devised and if those theories have passed such a test. In this way it will be shown that certain paranormal theories are not just scientific, (ie supportable by empirical evidence), but also actually supported by empirical evidence.

There are three phenomena that I will discuss. Two of these phenomena have been discussed in previous posts. They are the mediumship of Mrs. Piper which I discussed in: Mrs. Piper: Evidence for Survival After Death and crisis-apparitions which I discussed in: Studying Personal Experiences . The third phenomena will be the filter theory of consciousness.

Belief in survival of consciousness after death.

Several tests of the theory of the survival of consciousness after death come from Richard Hodgson's investigation into the mediumship of Mrs. Piper. This research is described in:

A Further Record of Observations of Certain Phenomena of Trance by Richard Hodgson L.L.D. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research Vol. XIII. 1898, p 284 - 582:

In his investigation, Hodgson observed "communicators" that would communicate through Mrs. Piper while she was in a trance. There were different hypotheses proposed to explain them. They included deliberate fraud, alternate personalities, telepathy, and spirits.

Tests for the hypothesis that the communicators were spirits included:

• Communicators should have knowledge that is unknown to the medium and the sitters.
• Communicators should have knowledge that the person they claimed to be had while living.
• Communicators should demonstrate mannerisms and patterns of speech of the person they claimed to be.
• Characteristics of the communication should vary with the communicator independently of who the sitters are.

Failure at any of these these tests would rule out the spirit hypothesis as an explanation Mrs. Piper's mediumship.

In fact, the mediumship of Mrs. Piper passed all of these tests.

The details of the investigation are in the Proceedings. Hodgson found that the communicators were not a result of fraud, and that they had knowledge unknown to the medium and the sitters. The communicators exhibited gestures, patterns of speech, and personal knowledge of the person they claimed to be. ( Communicators also showed an interest in living friends and relatives, and demonstrated that they maintained current knowledge about them.) Characteristics of the communication varied with the communicator not with the sitters. Spirits communicating shortly after death had difficult communicating. Spirits that suffered a long illness or mental turmoil before death had more difficulty communicating. Spirits who were communicating for the first time had difficulty coming through but learned after a few attempts and could be assisted by other spirits. Some spirits were never very good at communicating. Other spirits were particularly good at communicating names. These variations in characteristics of the communicators were unaffected by who the sitters were.

Based on this evidence, Hodgson believed the communicators were spirits.

If communicators knew only what the medium knew, the spirit hypothesis would be falsified. If the communicators did not demonstrate personal knowledge and characteristics of the person they claimed to be, the spirit hypothesis would be falsified. If characteristics of the communication were found to vary with the sitters, for example if some sitters always brought through strong communicators and other sitters always brought through weak communicators, then the theory that the communicators were independent entities would be falsified.

Based on this empirical evidence one can see that belief in the afterlife is supported by empirical evidence, it has passed several tests that could falsify it and therefore belief in the afterlife is scientific.

To be continued...

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Induced After-Death Communication

Michael Prescott has reposted his article on Induced After-Death Communications. Induced after-death communication (IADC) is a therapy developed by a Veteran's Administration psychologist that helps patients with post traumatic stress syndrome. The therapy allows the patient to communicate with the spirits of those who's death was involved in the traumatic experience of the patient.

Another good article on IADC can be found on Michael Tymn's Blog.

The IADC web site is also worth a look.

I see IADC as a breakthrough in spirit communication techniques. It is the patient who has the experience not the facilitator. Also, any therapist can be trained to be a facilitator. In contrast, when you go to a medium, the medium has to have a lot of training and must also have special innate characteristics to do the mediumship and then you still don't get to see the spirits, it is the medium who does.

This is the type of breakthrough one would like to see coming from a parapsychology lab. I wish more parapsychologists were interested in afterlife research.

I would like to see more applied research of this type. It is exactly this type of discovery - something that helps the ordinary person to experience psi without a mystical intermediary - that will expand belief in psi and the afterlife. The benefits to the experiencer is also something that has the potential to generate government funding for further research.

On my web site I have a section that discuss other practical applications of psychic phenomena: If paranormal phenomena were real we would see signs of it in society.

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Karl Popper on Falsifiability

It is often said that for a theory to be scientific it must be falsifiable.

This thinking comes from the work of philosopher Karl Popper.

Popper noticed that there were some theories that seemed to be able to explain everything within their scope. No matter what conceivable situation you imagined, the theory could explain it. True believers would consider this universal application as confirmation of the theory. Popper did not agree. He recognized that the theory might be true, but it can only be confirmed if it can pass a test where failure of the test would disprove the theory. This means a theory can only be confirmed if it can be falsified. If a theory can't be falsified, it might be true but it can't be confirmed.

Science involves testing hypotheses through empirical means, either through experiment or observation. For a theory to be scientific it must be confirmable by empirical means. According to Popper, for a theory to be confirmed it must pass a test in which failure would falsify the theory. Therefore, a scientific theory must be falsifiable, otherwise it cannot be confirmed by empirical means.

This view distinguishes theories that are simply consistent with the evidence from theories that are supported by evidence. It is about whether a theory can be confirmed and how to confirm it. It is not about whether a theory is true or false - an unfalsifiable theory might be true. Unfalsifiability simply means a theory is not supported by empirical evidence even if there is a vast amount of evidence consistent with the theory.

Popper described how he developed this philosophy in the article:

Science, Pseudo-Science, and Falsifiability by Karl Popper, 1962

In the article Popper, explained how vacuous theories are always confirmed:

I may illustrate this by two very different examples of human behaviour: that of a man who pushes a child into the water with the intention of drowning him; and that of a man who sacrifices his life in an attempt to save the child. Each of these two cases can be explained with equal ease in Freudian and Adlerian terms. According to Freud the first man suffered from repression (say, of some component of his Oedipus complex), while the second man had achieved sublimation. According to Adler the first man suffered from feelings of inferiority (producing perhaps the need to prove to himself that he dared to commit some crime), and so did the second man (whose need was to prove to himself that he dared to rescue the child). I could not think of any human behaviour which could not be interpreted in terms of either theory. It was precisely this fact -- that they always fitted, that they were always confirmed -- which in the eyes of their admirers constituted the strongest argument in favour of these theories. It began to dawn on me that this apparent strength was in fact their weakness.

He contrasted this with Einstein's theory of relativity which could be tested. If the theory didn't pass the test, it would be proven false.

With Einstein's theory the situation was strikingly different. Take one typical instance -- Einstein's prediction, just then confirmed by the findings of Eddington's expedition. Einstein's gravitational theory had led to the result that light must be attracted by heavy bodies (such as the sun), precisely as material bodies were attracted. As a consequence it could be calculated that light from a distant fixed star whose apparent position was close to the sun would reach the earth from such a direction that the star would seem to be slightly shifted away from the sun; or, in other words, that stars close to the sun would look as if they had moved a little away from the sun, and from one another. This is a thing which cannot normally be observed since such stars are rendered invisible in daytime by the sun's overwhelming brightness; but during an eclipse it is possible to take pictures of them. If the same constellation is photographed at night one can measure the distances on the two photographs, and check the predicted effect.

Popper explained that a theory is only confirmed by a passing test that if failed would falsify the theory.

Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. Testability is falsifiability; but there are degrees of testability; some theories are more testable, more exposed to refutation than others; they take, as it were, greater risks.

Confirming evidence should not count except when it is the result of a genuine test of the theory; and this means that it can be presented as a serious but unsuccessful attempt to falsify the theory.

He compared the psycho-analytic theories to relativity.

The two psycho-analytic theories were in a different class. They were simply non-testable, irrefutable. There was no conceivable human behaviour which could contradict them. This does not mean that Freud and Adler were not seeing certain things correctly; I personally do not doubt that much of what they say is of considerable importance, and may well play its part one day in a psychological science which is testable. But it does mean that those "clinical observations" which analysts naïvely believe confirm their theory cannot do this any more than the daily confirmations which astrologers find in their practice.

He concludes:

Thus the problem which I tried to solve by proposing the criterion of falsifiability was neither a problem of meaningfulness or significance, nor a problem of truth or acceptability. It was the problem of drawing a line (as well as this can be done) between the statements, or systems of statements, of the empirical sciences, and all other statements -- whether they are of a religious or of a metaphysical character, or simply pseudo-scientific. Years later -- it must have been in 1928 or 1929 -- I called this first problem of mine the "problem of demarcation." The criterion of falsifiability is a solution to this problem of demarcation, for it says that statements or systems of statements, in order to be ranked as scientific, must be capable of conflicting with possible, or conceivable, observations.

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Studying Personal Experiences

The psychical researchers of the late 19th century wanted to extend the methods of science so that personal experiences could be studied quantitatively and objectively.

Their first attempt was to use a survey to help make sense of anecdotal information about crisis apparitions. The survey was called "the census of hallucinations". They tried to do a representative survey of the British population asking a simple question:

"Since January 1, 1874, have you when in good health, free from anxiety, and completely awake had a vivid impression of seeing or being touched by a human being, or of hearing a voice or sound which suggested a human presence, when no one was there ? Yes or no ?"

If a subject answered yes, they requested further information. If the event seemed to include veridical information, they sought corroborating testimony from other witnesses such as family members to whom the subject described the hallucination at the time it occurred.

This is described in: "Phantasms of the Living" by Edmund Gurney, Volume 2 Chapter XIII "The Theory of Chance Coincidence"

Next, using sources of information on the frequency of deaths such as "Supplement to the 45th Annual Report of the Registrar-General", they calculated the expected probability of having a hallucination near the time of death of a relative or acquaintance. From this they were able to demonstrate that the frequency of crisis apparitions (seeing an apparition of someone near the time of their death) was much too high to be explained by chance coincidence.

The census of hallucinations is also described in The Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. Many articles on the census can be read in the Proceedings on line at books.google.com. These articles can be easily found using the Web Guide to the PSPR on my web site:

Unfortunately, the ambition of extending the scientific method to the study of personal experiences withered when a new generation of researchers turned toward easily replicable laboratory experiments when that methodology had come into vogue in the 20th century.

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Mrs. Piper's Control Spirit, Phinuit

Lenora Piper was one of the most investigated mediums of all time. In a previous post ( Mrs. Piper: Evidence for Survival After Death ) I described how it was proved she was psychic, precautions investigators took to rule out fraud, and why it was believed that she obtained information from spirits rather than through telepathy.

Was Phinuit a Spirit?

One uncertainty about Mrs. Piper's mediumship that I have felt was unfair was the suggestion that one of her control spirits, Phinuit, was not really a spirit but an alternate personality of the medium. It seemed to me that other spirits, who gave a lot of evidential material, acknowledged he was a spirit. That seemed to be strong evidence in favor of him being a genuine spirit.

I was reading the 1898 report by Richard Hodgson in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical research and I saw that Hodgson made the same point:

A Further Record of Observations Of Certain Phenomena of Trance by Richard Hodgson L.L.D. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research Vol. XIII. 1898, p 284 - 582

On page 369 Hodgson wrote:

Now, to give Phinuit his due, notwithstanding all his shortcomings and delinquencies, I was inclined to think, even before the publication of my previous report, that Phinuit believed himself to be a "spirit." (Proceedings, Vol. VIII., p. 57.) But there was so much that was inferior about him that one could not attribute any force, on the ground of either his intelligence or his sincerity, to his persistent affirmations that he was a "spirit" and giving communications from "spirits." But we must, I think, allow some weight to such statements when they are made persistently by a continually increasing number of coherent personalities manifesting directly through Mrs. Piper's trance, and characterised by a high moral tone, a pervading sincerity, and a deep earnestness of purpose, who individually insist that they are the persons we knew in bodies incarnate; when they all make their statements from the point of view that would naturally belong to such persons under the conditions in which they claim to be; and when they stoutly resist any suggestions to the contrary. Those who adopt the hypothesis of telepathy from the living must clearly recognise the fulness and completeness of many of the personalities which they suppose to be fictitiously formed in connection with Mrs. Piper's trance, and the inversion, as it were, of the conceptions of living persons; so that there is produced this marvellous simulation of the "deceased," accompanied not only by their specific memories, but by the presentation of each character in its unity, showing a clear self-consciousness, a working intelligence of its own, and a morality in no case less than that of the persons concerned when living, but showing rather a more definite upward movement, a stronger determination towards the "things that are higher." And yet with all this apparently complete independence and power of reasoning and lofty ethical aspirations, they must be regarded as either lying or mistaken about the fact of their existence itself, and must be assumed to be, one and all, merely fragments of Mrs. Piper.

Hodgson is saying that the spirits who communicated through Mrs. Piper and proved their identity said that Phinuit was a spirit. Since they were the spirits of reliable people and therefore unlikely to lie, it is reasonable to conclude that Phinuit really was a spirit.

Copyright © 2009 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Spiritualism and Science

Dean Radin's blog has a new post: My faith was broken ...

It's about criticism published elsewhere on the internet of the NPR story I blogged about a few days ago. The criticism argued that parapsychology is an attempt to use science to support religion.

I thought that was amusing.

To a Spiritualist, the idea that parapsychology is a means of supporting religion is comical.

While parapsychologists are struggling with small effect sizes and decline effects in their labs, and at the same time debating the merits of the the super-psi hypothesis to explain the evidence for the afterlife, spirit communication and spiritual healing are facts of every day life for Spiritualists.

The ancient Egyptians built the pyramids without scientists, the Romans built roads across Europe without scientists, the Chinese developed gunpowder, and movable type without scientists. Ships sailed across the seas long before Bernoulli discovered the principle which explained their motion. In certain fields of endeavor, science is not necessary. As any shaman knows, psi is one of them. In fact, our understanding of psi would be further advanced without Science because mainstream science has only hindered research on psi.

For 150 years, while Science has been ignoring psi, Spiritualists have been demonstrating psi, educating people about psi, and training people in the use of psi. During that entire period, Science has been trying to deny the existence of psi. When it comes to psi, there is more intellectual honesty in Spiritualism than mainstream science.

Parapsychology and psychical research are interesting and I hope eventually they will increase our knowledge about psi. But, even though you can find support for Spiritualism in psychology, parapsychology, and quantum physics, right now, Spiritualists are years ahead of the scientists when it comes to using psi. Parapsychologists will find more support for their science in a Spiritualist church than a Spiritualist will find support in parapsychology labs for many years to come.

Copyright © 2009 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Transition After Death

Michael Tymn has a new blog post: What is the "Second Death"?

In this article, Michael Tymn describes a transition stage spirits go through. It starts immediately after death and lasts up to a few days. During this stage the spirits are often confused, but they become mentally clear after the transition is completed. The completion of this transition is sometimes called "the second death".

Based on what I have learned of the subject, I definately agree that this transition stage occurs. But, I wouldn't use the same term for it. "Second death" sounds traumatic. What actually happens is not at all traumatic. It is more like an awakening than a death.

Richard Hodgson, who studied the trance medium Mrs. Piper, reported that spirits would communicate through her in a confused manner for the first few days after death. This seems to indcate that there is a short transition phase for new spirits. I discussed this in a previous post: Mrs. Piper: Evidence for Survival After Death. This transition stage was one reason Hodgson thought Mrs. Piper's mediumship was really due to spirits rather than telepathic perception of thoughts from the sitters. The quality of communication varied with this characteristic of the spirit (the length of time since death) rather than some characteristic of the sitters. Sitters might have many spirits communicating with them through Mrs. Piper, but only the recently dead would be confused.

I also know an objective clairvoyant medium (she see's spirits in the room with her) who finds it easier to communicate with new spirits before they complete the transition even though the new spirits are often confused. She reports that initially spirits are in what sounds to me like an "earth bound" condition, but when they adapt to their new reality, they move on to what might be called a "higher state". After this transition, they appear to her less like the physical beings we are when incarnated and they commuincate more with images than words. This seems consistent with something Michael Tymn reports as also being a part of the second death. During that process, one layer of a series etherial bodies is shed.

It's a very intersting blog post and well worth reading.

Web Guide to the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research

I have added a Web Guide to The Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research to my web site. It's a web page with the tables of contents of the volumes of the Proceedings that are available to view on line at books.google.com. You can search through the tables of contents and if you find an article that interest you, there is a link to the same volume at books.google.com where you can click on a link to view the article. This link will take you to the Web Guide

Faith In Psi

Can parapsychology help people understand their own spontaneous psychic perceptions?

When people experience a synchronicity, they often think it is a sign telling them something. A Spiritualist might say it is due to the influence of spirit guides. Gary Schwartz might say it is evidence of a Guiding Organizing and Designing (G.O.D.) force in the universe. I think most parapsychologists would say that it is due to unconscious psi.

If the parapsychologist is right and it is unconscious psi, should it still be interpreted as a sign? Here's an example to illustrate the question: At one time I was unhappy with my job, and during that time, for some unknown reason I decided to go somewhere that was very uncharacteristic of me to go. While I was there, I met someone I knew and that meeting led to a job offer allowing me to leave the job I was unhappy with.

The Spiritualist or Gary Schwartz might say in that situation I should take the new job because there is a benevolent intelligence leading me into the coincidence

Assuming this situation is not just a coincidence due to chance, what does parapsychology say about it? Can a person rely on their unconscious psi to work for their highest good? How far can they trust it? Would it definitely be in their long term interest to change jobs or might it solve a short term problem but in hindsight turn out to be a bad decision after all? Will a foolish person use unconscious psi for their short term benefit without regard to the long term consequences? If someone had self destructive tendencies could their unconscious psi act to their detriment rather than for their benefit?

I suspect many parapsychologists assume psi is good. If a synchronicity occurs, don't they assume they used psi unconsciously for their own benefit? But isn't that just like believing benevolent spirit guides or a G.O.D. force set up the synchronicity? Don't parapsychologists have faith in psi the same way many religious people have faith in a higher power? It seems that parapsychologists have "faith" not in spirits but in psi. It is a sort of awe of the paranormal as opposed to the supernatural.

However, the Spiritualist might attribute negative consequences of a paranormal event to undeveloped spirits leading them astray. Parapsychologists often attribute poltergeist phenomena to unconscious psi, so they must believe that sometimes unconscious psi can be due a result of mental dysfunction and is not necessarily a product of "higher intuition". But I am not aware that parapsychologists have any lore to warn them when to be wary of unconscious psi in the form of synchronicities, gut feelings, or premonitions.

It seems to me that this is one of the areas parapsychology might make a significant contribution. If they can understand how unconscious psi might be used for good or ill, that might help the average person decide what to do when faced with a "sign from God". It would be an important application of the science in the every day life of the individual. It would demonstrate parapsychology's superiority over the Spiritualist or G.O.D. world view.

Copyright © 2009 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Telekinesis Proved In 1871

William Crookes tested the psychic Daniel Dunglas Home in 1871 and proved telekinesis is real. He tested Home in laboratory conditions that prevented fraud. Crookes even jumped up and down on the apparatus to prove it couldn't be moved by Home if he tried to cheat.

Crookes' book, Researches into the Phenomena of Modern Spiritualism, has diagrams of the equipment and wind-up chart recorder graphs showing the spontaneous movements.

It even has a drawing of the cage in which the accordion was seen to be playing itself.

Here is a link direct to the relevant chapter.

Copyright © 2009, 2013 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

NDE Evidence for survival

Do Any Near-Death Experiences Provide Evidence for the Survival of Human Personality after Death? Relevant Features and Illustrative Case Reports
EMILY WILLIAMS COOK, BRUCE GREYSON, AND IAN STEVENSON Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 12, No. 3, pp. 377-406, 1998

The article discusses the characteristics of NDEs that are most likely to provide evidence of survival of consciousness. It concludes that certain features of NDEs when occuring together in the same experience provide strong evidence of survival. These features are:

• Vivid imagry and sensations at a time of decreased physiological functioning.
• Out of body experience.
• Perception of verifiable information that would not be obtainable through the normal senses.

Individually these characteristics might be explainable by other means but together they argue strongly for survival. Several NDE cases are described. The paper spells out the type of evidence that would argue for survival, but they do not conclude that currently available evidence is sufficient to prove survival. This is because of a lack of cases investigated with sufficient rigor.

From the article:

One of the main reasons that near-death experiences have generated so much interest in recent years among the general public is because they seem to provide evidence that consciousness survives the death of the physical body.

...

We describe three features of NDEs - enhanced mentation, the experience of seeing the physical body from a different position in space, and paranormal perceptions - that we believe might provide convergent evidence supporting the survival hypothesis. We then describe 7 published cases and 7 cases from our own collection that contain all three features. These cases are all -with one possible exception - some what deficient with regard to their recording and investigation, but they exemplify the type of case that should be identified earlier and investigated more thoroughly than these have been, and that may then help us decide the extent to which NDEs can contribute to the evidence for survival of consciousness after death.

...

In sum, the NDE features that seem to us to have the most potential for contributing to the evidence suggesting survival after death fall into three broad categories. First, there are those features suggesting enhanced mentation at a time of diminished physiological functioning, including a rapid, detailed, and often extremely vivid revival of memories (Stevenson & Cook, 1995), complex and vivid imagery and sensations, and lucid cognitive functioning. Second, there is the experience of viewing one's physical body and the immediate environment as if from a spatial location different from that of the physical body. Finally, there are those cases in which the person has gained previously unknown but potentially verifiable information, usually either by viewing distant events or by meeting deceased persons. The first group of features suggests that mental clarity is not entirely dependent on physiological functioning; the second suggests that consciousness can function apart from, if not independently of, the physical body; and the third group suggests that NDEs are not entirely subjective in origin. Separately, none of these features provides compelling evidence for the survival of consciousness after death, since they all might be explained by other normal or paranormal mechanisms. Taken together, however, and particularly when all three types of features occur together in individual cases, the hypothesis of survival begins to seem more worthy of consideration.

Copyright © 2009 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Can Positive Thoughts Help Heal Another Person?

Npr.org has an interesting article on the healing power of thought.

Can Positive Thoughts Help Heal Another Person?
by Barbara Bradley Hagerty

In the mid-1990s, when having HIV was akin to a death sentence, Ironson noticed that a number of patients like Kaplan never got sick. Ironson wanted to know why. And she found something surprising.

"If you ask people what's kept you going so long, what keeps you healthy, often people would say spirituality," she says. "It was something that just kept coming up in the interviews, and that's why I decided to look at it."

The article also describes research being done by Dean Radin:

After running 36 couples through this test, the researchers found that when one person focused his thoughts on his partner, the partner's blood flow and perspiration dramatically changed within two seconds. The odds of this happening by chance were 1 in 11,000. Three dozen double blind, randomized studies by such institutions as the University of Washington and the University of Edinburgh have reported similar results.

Copyright © 2009 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Michael Prescott: Everything old is new again

Michael Prescott has reposted a great article exposing an example of skeptical deception:

Everything old is new again: Let's get Serios
by Michael Prescott

The article discusses Ted Serios who could psychically impress images on photographic film. Prescott exposes not one but two skeptics who tried to debunk Serios and made no mention of the the fact the Serios worked under controlled conditions that prevented fraud. One of the skeptics even listed the conditions but said they were a "preposterous set of controls" included in a challenge to him to try to produce the phenomena by ordinary means. He made no mention of the fact that the psychic he was trying to debunk worked under those conditions.

Copyright © 2009 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Mrs. Piper: Evidence for Survival After Death

Mrs. Piper: Evidence for Survival After Death

Mrs. Piper, a trance medium, was one of the most tested mediums of all time. In the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research in 1898, her primary investigator, Richard Hodgson, published the opinion that her mediumship was most likely due to communication from spirits.

Precautions Against Fraud

Richard Hodgson was a skeptic. He had investigated Madam Blavatsky and exposed her as a fraud. Hodgson's investigation of Mrs. Piper proved she was psychic. Her trance was genuine, it was not a normal state of consciousness. She gave sittings under controlled conditions. Sitters were not introduced to her by their correct names and most of the sitters were unknown to her. While she was in trance, she gave correct information about deceased individuals she could not have elicited by means of cold reading. She was watched by detectives and her mail was read to prove she did not investigate sitters before their sittings.

There was no doubt that Mrs. Piper was psychic. By the time Hodgson published his report, the main question in the minds of psychical researchers was whether she obtained her information through telepathy and unconsciously mimicked the personality of spirits or whether her mediumship was genuine communication from spirits. Hodgson's opinion, based on his extensive records of sittings and many hours attending sittings with the medium, was that her mediumship was genuine communication with spirits.

Evidence for Survival After Death

Hodgson's Five Main Points of Evidence For Survival After Death

Hodgson gave these five main reasons why he favored survival after death over telepathy as an explanation for Mrs. Pipers mediumship:

1. Skill in communicating varied with the spirit not the sitters. If Mrs. Piper obtained information from the sitters by telepathy, the quality of the information should vary with the sitter not the spirit.

   • Some spirits were never good at communicating.

   • Some spirits were better than others at communicating names.

   • During otherwise successful sitting where some spirits were able to communicate clearly, sometimes certain spirits well known to the sitters were not able to communicate clearly. This often occurred with spirits who had suffered from a long illness or a mental disturbance at the time of death. This confusion in a communicator was sometimes unexpected by the sitters particularly when the person was noted for clear thinking in life.

2. All spirits had trouble communicating at first but improved with practice.

   • This occurred even when the sitters were experienced and had had other spirits come through.

   • Difficulty in communicating could be overcome with the assistance of other spirits. Telepathy does not explain this.

3. Spirits seemed to be confused for a few days just after death.

   • This confusion was not due to changing the sitters. It occurred when the sitters remained the same.

4. Stray thoughts from the spirits (not the medium or sitter) seemed to leak through into the communications if the spirit was having difficulty communicating.

   • These thoughts reflected subjects that would be of particular concern to the spirit such as situations involving living relatives but which were unknown to the sitters.

   • These stray thoughts were thought to explain some of the seeming failures of spirits to correctly answer questions aimed and proving their identity. This is not explained by telepathy.

   • When spirits communicated by writing and controlled the medium themselves, confusion was apparent. When spirits communicated indirectly through speech by the spirit control Phinuit, confusion on the part of the spirit was obscured because Phinuit was acting as an intermediate. This explains some of the failures of spirits to correctly answer questions aimed at proving their identity, and explains some instances when Phinuit was inaccurate. This is also not explained by telepathy.

5. Characteristics of children communicators

   • The spirits of young children recently deceased had clearer memories of early childhood than spirits who had died many years before. This was not explainable by telepathy because the the sitters often had clear memories of the spirit's early childhood.

   • Spirits of young children recently deceased tended to communicate more clearly than adults recently deceased. This is not explained by telepathy.

   • Spirits of individuals who died in childhood express themselves as though they had grown during the intervening time. This occurred even when they were still thought of as young children by the sitters.

Other Evidence Not Consistent With Telepathy

1. Spirits unrelated to sitters sometimes came through to give messages to friends not present at the sitting.

2. Spirits responded to questions intended to prove their identity correctly but not always in ways the sitters expected. For example, a spirit was asked for a nickname of another person and replied with a nickname that had been used but was not the one expected by the sitter.

3. Sometimes the communicating spirit was unable to give information that was in the conscious mind of the sitter. This is inconsistent with telepathy.

4. On occasion, a spirit would not know the name of a sitter they were thought to know. This suggests telepathy was not occurring.

5. Difficulty in communicating names was a common characteristic of Mrs. Piper's mediumship. This is also inconsistent with the hypothesis of telepathy.

6. If the investigator ran the sitting like a telepathy experiment, less evidential information was given through the medium. If he treated the spirit like an actual person communicating under adverse conditions, the communication was improved. Beneficial treatment included maintaining a soothing manner, and letting the spirit say what he chose rather than subjecting him to a cross examination.

Richard Hodgson's report on Mrs. Piper is available to view or download on-line.

A FURTHER RECORD OF OBSERVATIONS OF CERTAIN PHENOMENA OF TRANCE by Richard Hodgson L.L.D. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research Vol. XIII. 1898, p 284 - 582

Article p. 284.

Table of Contents for Volume XIII.

Section: Indications That The Spirit Hypothesis is True, p 370.

Summary of Evidence for the Spirit Hypothesis: bottom of p. 391.