Life in B Flat(Science and Spirituality)

Sunday, June 14, 2009

The Icelandic Physical Medium Indridi Indridason

The career of physical medium Indridi Indridason is described in The Icelandic Physical Medium Indridi Indridason by Loftur R. Gissurarson & Erlendur Haraldsson, Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 57, 1989, 53-148. The paper is from Dr. Erlendur Haraldsson's web site. Indridason's career as a medium was cut short by illness after only four years. He died in 1912 at the age of 29. During his brief career, he produced most of the phenomena that other physical mediums have produced, including levitations, appearance of lights, odors, direct voice communication, materializations, apports, and poltergeist phenomena. Indridason was Iceland's first medium and the Experimental Society in Iceland was formed for the express purpose of investigating his mediumship. During his seances, his hands were held by someone selected to be the "watchman" to rule out fraud as an explanation for the phenomena that occured.

The paper is interesting and entertaining to read ...

Levitation (p 75):

During the period when the seances were held in members’ homes, Indridason is reported to have levitated sometimes up to the ceiling, which he touched with his head (Kvaran, 1910, p45 Nielsson, 19l9b, p.344 Thordarson, 1942, p. 13). Sometimes he even bumped his head harshly against the ceiling and complained about “pain in his head” after sittings (Kvaran, 1906, p.26). According to Kvaran it was difficult at first to observe the levitations of the medium because of the darkness. But the noise, especially when he crashed down on the floor, resulted in complaints from neighbours, and at least twice the Society had to find another flat to hold their seances (Kvaran, 1906, p.26; 1934).

Evidential Clarivoyance (p 76):

... on the evening of 24th November 1905, when a personality, who had previously appeared but not identified himself, introduced himself as Mr. Jensen (a Danish surname) for the first time through Indridason at a séance (Kvaran, 1910, p.46; Nielsson, 1922a, pp. 14-15; 1922b,p.456). Nielsson reports (1922b,p.456) :—

The first evening he manifested himself through the medium, he told us that, during the half-hour pause while the medium was being allowed to rest in the middle of the sitting, he had set off for Copenhagen and had seen that a factory was on fire in one of the streets of the city. He told us that the firemen had succeeded in conquering the fire. At that time no telegraphic connection between Iceland and the outside world had been established, so there was no means of hearing about that event. This happened on 24th November 1905, Next day I went to see the Bishop of Iceland, the Right Reverend Hallgrimur Sveinsson, who was my uncle, and stated to him what Jensen had told us, and asked him to put it down and be a witness, whether this proved true or not. At Christmas the next boat came from Denmark, and my uncle looked with curiosity through the Danish paper, Politihen, and to his great satisfaction observed the description of the fire. Both day and time were right. Jensen was also right about the factory. It was a tamp factory at 63, Store Kongensgade.

The medium's arm dematerializes (p 78):

Perhaps the most mysterious phenomenon observed with Indridason started on 18th December 1905 (Kvaran, 1906, pp.27-32; l9l0,p.45) when the sitters heard some creaking sounds in his arm while he was in a trance state. At Kvaran’s home the next day, Indridason, while awake, wrote automatically about the serious concern the controls had about the experimenting séance that was to be held the following evening. The controls stressed in this automatic writing that the sitters would have to be very calm and quiet, otherwise the medium’s life could be in danger. An “operation” would be carried out on him but he was not to have any knowledge about that beforehand so he would not be worried. At the séance during the evening, Indridason’s left arm apparently became invisible and intangible for a while. Here is Kvaran’s description, based on extensive notes taken during the séance (1906,pp.27-32):-—
Then I shall allow you to hear what happened at the séance the next evening (19th Dec.). After the usual séance beginning, a song from us and a prayer from the control, the control seemed to go away for a while. Then the medium said:
“Hi! I’m glad to see you come. But what are you going to do with all those knives? —No, no, no!” (Goes into the cabinet). “No, no, this is not allowed.”
The control’s voice: “You be careful!”
Now for a while one could hear cries of pain from the medium coming from the cabinet. Then he came out of the cabinet and said, as if very unhappy:
“When are you coming back with it?”
Then the medium came to me (I sat at the back of the hall), handed me the empty left sleeve of his jacket and said with the control’s voice:
“Take hold here, carefully! You can touch with caution,”
I touched, but could not find the left arm.
The control: “Take the jacket and be careful! Take it from the right side! [Probably, start by taking the jacket off the right shoulder.] I will put him outside; the air is more refreshing there. [Probably, take Indridason out of the séance room.] I’m afraid that, if it becomes too hot, he will bleed.”
The medium then went out into an empty room at the front of the hall and stayed there for a while. Then he came back in and went into the cabinet.
Then I was called up by the control’s voice: “Would you see if his nose is bleeding?”
I asked if I could then light a match.
“Yes, but you may not have the light on for a very long time.”
I lit a match and saw that it was not bleeding. The medium was lying on his right side on a mattress inside the cabinet. I checked again to see if I could find the arm. But the result was the same.
The medium: “Ah, where are you going with it? Where is it?”
The control: “Check now carefully whether you can see any phenomenon in front of you; perhaps someone will be able to see something waved; my relative’s arm, for example.”
We searched carefully around us in the hall, but didn’t see anything. However, two sitters felt a cold, soft hand touch their faces. I was again invited to search the shoulder, and I did it as carefully as I could, but did not find the arm.

Materializations (p. 82):

Kvaran (1910, p.47) and Nielsson (1922b, p.456) report that shortly before Christmas 1906 sittings were being held in two rooms in Kvaran’s house (one fairly large room and a small adjoining bedroom). During sittings in the large room, the smaller séance room started to become filled with very strong whitish light. In this light appeared a human being that purported to be the discarnate Mr.Jensen. He first appeared between the curtains (probably, curtains between the rooms), in the small room, and shouted, in a genuine and typical Copenhagen Danish accent, “Ka’ De se mig?” (in English: “Can you see me?”) (Kvaran, 1934; Nielsson, 1922 a, p.20). The control personalities had said they required the small room for their own use. Kvaran’s wife and Thorlaks son say that Jensen always asked as he appeared, “Can you see me?” (Thordarson, 1942, pp. 102, 109). Kvaran (1910, p.47) continues: — Then Jensen became visible in the [selfluminous] light. In the New Year he showed himself in the living room, where we sat. He was dressed in a white, very fine robe, which reached down to the floor. The light radiated from him and we saw him in various locations in the room, Sometimes he stood very close to one of us. Once he stood on a sofa and behind his shoulders was something like a tiny sun on the wall. This was a very beautiful sight. Sometimes he stood on the chair-back behind the medium.

Poltergeist (p 93):

Indridi is starting to dress again and is putting on his trousers, but I walk into the outer room and stand there. Then Indridi screams for help once more. I run into the bedroom to him. But then I see a vision that I shall never forget. Indridi is lying horizontal in the air, at about the height of my [Thorlaksson’s] chest, and swaying there to and fro, with his feet pointing towards the window, and it seems to me that the invisible power that is holding him in the air is trying to swing him out of the window. I don’t hesitate a moment, but grab around the medium where he is swinging in the air, and push him down onto the bed and hold him there. But then I notice that both of us are being lifted up. I scream to Thordur Oddgeirsson and ask him to come to help.
...
Mr. Oddgeirsson went into the bedroom, but a chair was hurled at him and fell beside the stove in the outer room. Mr. Oddgeirsson moved aside to avoid the chair and went on into the bedroom. Mr. Thoriaksson was then lying on the medium’s chest. Mr. Oddgeirsson lay down on the knees of the medium, whose whole frame was in motion on the bed. Then a bolster, which was under the medium’s pillow, was thrown into the air; it fell on the bedroom floor. Simultaneously the candlesticks which were in the outer room came through the air and were flung down in the bedroom.

Direct Voice (p 123):

A friend of Hannesson reported to him the following incident (Hannesson, 1924b, p.267):— A friend of mine was once invited to a séance of the Society, previous to my going there. He was a good singer, but a humorist and jester. Before he went, he told me where he was going, and that he had a trick up his sleeve for the ghosts. He seemed to look upon the manifestations as rather a joking matter. When he came back he was amazed at the ghosts and their performances, and said that this was not altogether natural. “I had heard,” he said, “that Mr. N.N. [probably a deceased person] was appearing there and singing, and I knew that he used to be an excellent duet singer. I thought I should soon find out if there was here the question of a trained singer or not, but for a further certainty I was going to offer to sing with him a duet. He appeared, and I did as I had intended. He agreed and consented to my taking the lower voice while he was to take the higher. I purposely began too high so as to make him break, but I failed miserably in my reckonings. He sang the higher voice with such power that the whole house resounded and I was absolutely amazed.” My friend thought it very improbable that there was in the whole town a singer who could do what this “voice” had done.

As you can see, despite being from a scientific journal, it's a good read.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Dr. Erlendur Haraldsson

I just found the web site of Dr. Erlendur Haraldsson He co-authored several papers with Ian Stevenson. A lot of his work available to download from his web site.

His papers include:

Erlendur Haraldsson & Ian Stevenson (1975). A communicator of the "drop in" type in Iceland: The case of Runolfur Runolfsson. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 69, 33-59.

The above case is frequently cited to refute the super-psi hypothesis because the spirit was not related to the medium or sitters, gave verifiable information, and communicated for reasons that were meaningful only to himself. He gave the location of a thigh bone hidden in a wall and asked that it be buried because it was from his own corpse.

Loftur R. Gissurarson & Erlendur Haraldsson (1989). The Icelandic Physical Medium Indridi Indridason. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 57, 53-148.

Erlendur Haraldsson & Ian Stevenson (1975). A communicator of the "drop in" type in Iceland: The case of Gudni Magnusson. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 69, 245-261.

This paper describes the drop-in case of Gudni Magnusson. He suffered an injury after running out of gasoline in his truck. He died as he was being taken by boat to a hospital.

Here is how the information came through Finna, the medium's control spirit:

Finna then said: “He was alone in a car on his way over a mountain pass and then the car broke down. I see clearly how he crawled under the car and then something inside him tore. He died from that.” I asked: “Did he die immediately?” Finna said: “No, he managed to get to his home, and then I see he was carried by boat. He was brought to a doctor. I see the boat between fjords and that he died on the way in the boat.” I asked: “Can you tell me between what fjords he was to be brought [for medical care]?” Finna said: “I cannot get that, but Eskifjordur is what he has most on his mind.”

When they tried to verify the information that came through the medium, this is what they found out:

There is a married couple here [in Eskifjordur] by the name of Anna Jorgensen and Magnus Arngrimsson. The husband has worked for a long time at road building both in Mulasyslu and Thingeyjarsyslu, and in recent years his wife has always lived with him wherever he happens to be working. . . . One of their sons . . . who was about 20-21 years of age [he was actually 24 at the time of his death, see below], was a truck driver and had been for the past two or three years. He had often worked with his father in road building. Last fall this young man, whose name was Gudni Magnusson, was very busy with his truck driving and he left in the morning to go to Vidifjordur, a rather long and strenuous journey. Then later in the day he went to Reydarfjordur. After reaching there he left for home. His truck was not running well and the trip took longer than usual. He was alone. When he was crossing the mountain pass between Reydarijordur and Eskifjordur, the truck ran out of gasoline. So he left the truck and went down to Eskifjordur to obtain some gasoline in a can. That meant a walk of four miles each way and when he returned home he was exhausted. During the night he experienced extremely severe pain in the stomach. Einar [Astrads, the writer’s husband and the physician of the area] was sent for and went to him, but could not diagnose his condition at first.
The next day Einar had to go to Reydartjordur and stayed there the whole day. in the evening he received a telephone call at Reydarfjordur asking him to come quickly [back to Eskifjordur] because Gudni’s condition had become very critical. Einar was also asked to bring with him the army doctor stationed at Reydarfjordur if that would make it easier to help Gudni. The [two] physicians arrived at nine o’clock in the evening and they saw immediately that the young man was in a very critical condition and probably suffering from some internal rupture or intestinal obstruction. They could do nothing with the patient where he was. They therefore decided to send the young man at once to the hospital at Seydisfjordur. They could not use an airplane because, being October, it was already dark. They therefore took Gudni in a motorboat, but he died on the way between Nordfjordur and Seydisfjordur. This is what we here know about this incident. When I read your letter, I naturally thought of this young man because his name was Gudni Magnusson, and although this was not an automobile accident, the young man was working with a truck and working strenuously.

Friday, June 12, 2009

Fanny Ruthven Paget & Caroline Larsen

Michael Tymn has a new post on his blog: A Near-Death Experience to Die For.

It's about Fanny Ruthven Paget's book "How I Know that the Dead Are Alive". The book describes a long near-death experience the author had during an illness.

Her book is available free to read on-line or download at archive.org.

"My Travels in the Spirit World" is a similar book by Caroline Larsen. It's available free to download in pdf format from spiritwritings.com, or to read on-line at magic7.com.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Meditation and Emotions

I recently took a look at Charles Tart's blog It looks very good. I left a comment on a recent post titled Meditation to Repress Emotions?.

The subject of emotions arising during meditation is something that ought to be considered by a beginner when he is just getting started. Meditation will unleash emotions. A beginner might start out thinking meditation will make him feel calm and serene. But it is also possible that this calmness of mind will lower defense mechanisms and eventually open an emotional Pandora's box. Beginners need to understand the potential for emotional turmoil. Working through emotions can be immensely healing in the long run but is can be difficult to go through. Not everyone wants to take that path. Some people may already be going through turmoil in their lives and they might not need any more. Dealing with emotions should be something that is chosen not something stumbled upon.

Vipassana or insight meditation is a good meditation for helping to get in touch with emotions. But concentration mediation will not let you hide from emotions either. The experience of Gopi Krishna who wrote "Living with Kundalini" is a good example demonstrating that concentration meditation will not let you hide from emotions. Gopi Krishna had a severe Kunalini experience while doing a type of concentration meditation. From my experiences with Kundalini "energy", I understand it to be caused by the release or expression of strong emotions. If muscle tension coincides with repression, then the release of emotions can have effects that are also experienced in the muscles and this I believe the cause of the symptoms and sensations that comprise the experience of Kundalini energy.

If a student begins asking about emotions arising during meditation, a teacher should make sure to explain the potential for an emotional upheaval exists in addition to the potential for serenity.

As I describe on the meditation page on my web site (linked above), an important part of meditation is finding the right balance between letting out and letting go of emotions. Each person has to find the right balance for themselves. If you focus too much attention on emotions (letting out) you may reinforce negative attitudes, but if you ignore emotions (letting go) they may lurk in your unconscious and cause difficulties in life.

It is also important to understand that there are different causes of emotions and the way to deal with an emotion depends on it's source. Some emotions come from how we think about things. Meditation is very good at helping with these emotions. When we sit and meditate we can't escape our thoughts. Even if we try hard to concentrate, thoughts will arise anyway. During meditation, we get a good look at these thoughts and emotions and we begin recognize how pointless they can be. We learn that they are not reality, they are just in our mind, and then their grip on us weakens.

However some emotions have a firm biochemical basis independent of our thoughts. This often occurs with depression or anxiety. Some people might have low levels of neurotransmitters or high levels of stress hormones. Meditating can strip away a person's defense mechanisms and bring these underlying emotions into their conscious awareness. Once these issues are out in the open it might not be easy to put them back. Beginners at meditation should be aware of this. Meditation can help cope with these issues but will not solve the problem. Sometimes changes in diet, lifestyle, or getting more exercise can be of greater help with these emotions than meditation.

Anyone who is interested in meditation as a means to calm the mind should also understand that substances like caffeine, alcohol, tobacco, sugar and refined carbohydrates, can create mental turmoil. Anything that effects the brain will interfere with equanimity. These substances work in subtle ways, the effects may accumulate gradually and be difficult to notice. They can also cause withdrawal symptoms so the situation can get worse if you try to give them up. However, a healthy lifestyle can do as much for calmness of mind as a meditation practice. The two together are worth the effort.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Varieties of Mystical Experiences

I've released a new page to my web site: Varieties of Mystical Experiences I discuss some of the mystical experiences I've had and how a western world view may influence our understanding of ancient tradtions.

One day, near the end of that long evening session, I was meditating, gazing at the wooden floor, (in Zen it is customary to meditate with the eyes open) and I felt myself being pulled forward out of my body for a few seconds. A minute later it happened again for a longer time. During this time I had no sensation of my body at all, the only thing I was aware of was the perception of the floor in my visual field. Because it was the only thing I was aware of, it seemed to me that I associated my self with that thing. I knew I existed but I didn't know where. I knew this image of the floor existed. It seemed natural to associate this image with my self. It seemed like I was this image of the floor.
This was without a doubt the "non duality of subject and object" described in the definition of kensho. It proved to me that the sense of self is subjective. It is also consistent with the filter model of consciousness which says that the brain does not produce consciousness but filters it. When the brain is quiescent from meditation it may filter consciousness less and we may have expanded consciousness such as this awareness of the oneness of subject and object.

Varieties of Mystical Experiences

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Super-psi does not Explain the Evidence for the Afterlife

Summary:

Super-psi is the theory that the evidence for the afterlife is really caused by the unconscious psychic abilities of living persons. However, there is overwhelming evidence for the afterlife which cannot be explained by super-psi. Parapsychologists who believe in super-psi are probably suffering from perceptual bias.

Evidence For Survival that cannot be Explained by Super Psi:

Spirits have to learn to communicate through certain forms of mediumship and some spirits are better learners than others. Super-psi is not a good explanation for this phenomenon.
Other characteristics of spirit communication vary with the spirit not the medium or the sitters.
Some haunting phenomena are not dependent on the presence of any single person, some of which are ended through spirit communication. Guy Lyon Playfair, William Roll, and Ian Stevenson all thought some poltergeist phenomenon were caused by spirits.
Birthmarks: When a child remembers a past life, and has a birthmark at a location of an injury in the past life, it suggests the spirit body may carry information from one life to the next. It would be absurd to believe the fetus was psychic and was fulfilling a psychological need by unconsciously creating the birth mark.
Shared Death Bed Visions, Shared Near-Death Experiences, and Multiple Witness Crisis Apparitions are not well explained by super-psi. You'd have to be a super-duper-psychic not just a super-psychic to induce hallucinations in other people.
Near Death Experiences: Cases of NDEs where the experiencer has vivid realer-than-real experiences when there is no brain activity and no veridical information, cannot be explained as psi from a living person because there is no evidence of psi and no live person during the experience. These experiences cannot be explained as ESP during an abnormal brain state shortly before or after the experience. Near-death experiencers neurosurgeon Dr. Eben Alexander, psychiatrist Dr. Carl Jung, and military remote viewer Joe McMoneagle, who have special qualifications to judge the phenomenon, all believed their near-death experiences represented evidence for survival after death.
Drop-in Communicators: A medium might be said to be fulfilling an unconscious psychological need when using super-psi to obtain information about deceased relatives of the sitters. However when the medium brings through spirits who are unrelated to the sitters and who communicate for purposes of their own, there is no psychological motivation. Super-psi cannot explain these cases.
Cross Correspondences: When more than one medium spontaneously, without being prodded by an investigator, brings through parts of a message, and the message only makes sense when the parts are put together, this indicates that spirits are independent of any medium. This also shows that spirits have initiative and the ability to organize complex tasks. Super-psi cannot explain this.
ESP is not Produced by the Brain: ESP is not limited by time or distance. It cannot be explained by the known laws of physics including quantum entanglement. Since human consciousness is capable of ESP, consciousness cannot be the result of any physical process in the brain. Anyone who acknowledges the reality of ESP has already admitted that consciousness is non-physical so they have no grounds upon which to deny survival of consciousness.
More

The illogical argument for Super-psi

Inaccurate and Unverifiable Control Spirits: When a trance medium brings through communications from a control spirit who gives inaccurate information, or who fishes for information, and who claims to be a person for whom there is no evidence of ever having lived, it is often said to be evidence of super-psi. This is not logical, super-psi is supposed to explain how a medium can provide accurate information about the deceased but in these cases the hypothetical super-psi is providing inaccurate information about the deceased.

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Introduction

When a psychic obtains information without the use of the bodily senses, it is called extra sensory perception (ESP). Some researchers incorrectly believe that all phenomena which seem to be evidence of spirits and the afterlife are really due to the psychic functioning of living persons. This type of psychic functioning is called super-ESP or super-psi. In the case of trance mediumship, the medium is presumed to obtain information using super-psi and then unconsciously impersonates or dramatizes the spirit. However, there is much evidence for survival after death that cannot be explained by super-psi.

Super-ESP is defined differently by different authors.

Hornell Hart in Survival Versus Super-psi defines super-ESP as

The use of telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition and retrocognition to obtain information from anywhere in the world and from any time.

Hornell Hart's definition was proposed to explain how a medium might get information about a dead person needed to dramatize their personality when the information is not available through telepathy from the minds of the sitters. According to Hart's definition, the medium has access to any information in the conscious or unconscious mind of any person anywhere in the world or from any other source (such as events or documents) from any time in the past or future.

Neal Grossman in Further Thoughts on Super-psi: A conversation. defines superESP as:

Non-propositional knowledge obtained through ESP.

In the article, Grossman explains that knowledge about facts, "knowledge-that", is propositional knowledge. Other types of knowledge, "knowledge-how", such as skills, are non-propositional knowledge.

Grossman's definition of superESP explains how a psychic might use ESP to get the skills needed to dramatize the spirit of a deceased person. The ability to obtain facts through ESP doesn't explain how a psychic might obtain skills. To play a piece of music on the piano, you have to practice. No amount of reading about playing the piano can replace practice. One way skills are transmitted psychically is through mediumship. A medium in a trance may be able to speak in a language they never studied. In this case a spirit is controlling the medium's body and the skills come from the the spirit. Super-ESP, or super-psi, refers to the ability to obtain skills through psychic means from sources other than spirit influence. Some researchers who don't believe in the afterlife, believe super-psi allows a psychic to obtain skills and the psychic may demonstrate those skills while dramatizing the spirit.

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The Evidence for Super-Psi

There is empirical evidence that supports the super-psi hypothesis. Some of this evidence comes from psychology where it is known that multiple personality disorders or hypnosis may cause people to exhibit alternate personalities that behave like some of the spirit controls of trance mediums. Other evidence for super-psi comes from parapsychology where experiments have demonstrated that ESP is not limited by time, distance, or the complexity of a task.

However, much of the evidence said to show that super-psi is the explanation for evidence of the afterlife comes from trance and other forms of mediumship. Much of this evidence is based on spirit controls of mediums who act like an alternate personality of the medium and whose identity cannot be verified and/or who give incorrect information when asked questions about the spirits they claim to be communicating for or otherwise act inconsistently with the character they purport themselves to be.

There seems to be a flaw in this reasoning. Super-psi proponents point out the possibility of super-psi based on evidence from psychology and parapsychology. But, then they identify examples of flawed mediumship that don't live up to the capabilities of what they say super-psi can achieve. Yet super-psi proponents assert these cases of flawed mediumship are instances of super-psi in action and conclude that mediumship that does yield verifiable evidence of identity of the spirit is a result of super-psi.

It is hard to understand how this flawed mediumship could be due to super-psi. According to the believers in super-psi, super-psi should give verifiable and correct information. If these mediums were using super-psi, their mediumship should be verifiable and accurate. Since it is not, then it is either not super-psi or super-psi is not capable of accurately portraying a deceased individual. In either case this is not evidence that super-psi is the explanation for accurate mediumship.

In fact there is another explanation for some flawed mediumship and it is based on empirical evidence not convoluted logic.

One of the observations that helped convince Richard Hodgson that spirits exist and can communicate through mediums was made when he began to understand the source of errors in Mrs. Piper's mediumship. This happened when spirits began to communicate through writing rather than by using the control Phinuit as an intermediary. Hodgson learned that there are many conditions that caused confusion in the communicating spirits. Confusion was caused by unfamiliarity with the conditions that occur when communicating through a medium, and by the transition from physical life to spirit life, or by a long period of illness or mental turmoil preceding death. When spirits communicated by writing and controlled the medium themselves, their confusion was apparent. When spirits communicated indirectly through the spirit control Phinuit who spoke for them, confusion on the part of the communicating spirit was obscured because Phinuit was acting as an intermediary. This explains some of the failures of spirits to correctly answer questions aimed at proving their identity, and it explains some instances when Phinuit was inaccurate. These same phenomena are likely to explain other cases where flawed mediumship is purported to be evidence for super-psi. More information on Hodgson's research on the mediumship of Mrs. Piper can be found in the post Mrs. Piper: Evidence for Survival After Death

Hodgson's observations weaken the case for super-psi because they provide an alternative to the super-psi hypothesis to explain flawed mediumship and they are based on empirical observations not supposition.

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The Evidence For Survival After Death

There are several phenomena that seem to demonstrate the existence of spirits and the afterlife which are not easily explained by super-psi and for which the survival hypothesis seems much more likely. This type of evidence often involves phenomena that are independent of any living person and often produce highly accurate information about a deceased individual. Furthermore, if someone is going to assert a phenomenon is due to super-psi, where a living person unconsciously imitates a spirit or simulates some type of afterlife phenomenon, he must consider what is known about how the unconscious acts. There must be some identifiable unconscious motivation or psychological need being fulfilled, otherwise the super-psi hypothesis becomes fatuous because it would be unfalsifiable and any phenomenon could be explained by it. For example, a medium giving a reading has a need to bring through information about the customer's deceased relatives and acquaintances. When the medium brings through spirits unrelated to the sitters it does not fulfill any psychological need. In many of the phenomena which are better explained by survival than super-psi, there is no identifiable unconscious motivation or psychological need being fulfilled. These phenomena include:

Drop-in Communicators
Cross Correspondences
Spirits have to learn to communicate through certain forms of mediumship.
Other characteristics of spirit communication vary with the spirit not the medium or the sitters.
Haunting phenomena that are not dependent on the presence of any single person, some of which are ended through spirit communication.
Birthmarks in children who remember past lives suggest the spirit body carries characteristics from one life to the next.
Shared death bed visions, multiple witness crisis apparitions, and shared near death experiences.

Sometimes drop-in communicators who are unrelated to the sitters or the medium communicate through a medium. They do this for reasons of their own which have nothing to do with the sitters or the medium. This shows they are independent of any living person. Because of this, there is no identifiable unconscious motive or psychological need being fulfilled upon which to base belief in unconscious impersonation by the medium. Furthermore, the identity of the spirit is verifiable and they give accurate information about their life that is not known by the medium or sitters.

Back to Summary

The cross-correspondences were a form of message spontaneously received in parts by several mediums working independently. The parts of the message often consisted of obscure literary allusions unknown to the mediums and made no sense to any living person until put together after all the pieces had been received. This demonstrates that the communicator retained the specialized knowledge of literature he had when living, that he was still creative, intelligent, had initiative, had organizing and coordinating abilities and was independent of any living person. As with the drop-ins, there is no identifiable unconscious motive or psychological need being fulfilled upon which to base belief in unconscious impersonation by the mediums.

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Spirits have to learn to communicate through mediums. In certain forms of mediumship, such as direct voice, trance, or materializations, spirits demonstrate a learning process. They may have difficulty communicating on the first attempt and they usually communicate more clearly and more naturally after several attempts. This indicates the spirit exists and is learning to communicate through the techniques of mediumship.

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Richard Hodgson, who studied the medium Mrs. Piper, observed that characteristics of the communication varied with the communicators and did not depend on the sitters. The communicators seemed to be independent of any living person. Some spirits were never good at communicating. Some spirits were better than others at communicating names. All spirits had trouble communicating at first but improved with practice. This difficulty in communicating could be overcome with the assistance of other spirits. Spirits seemed to be confused for a few days just after death. Stray thoughts from the spirits (not the medium or sitter) seemed to leak through into the communications as if the spirit was having difficulty controlling the means of communication and private thoughts were being transmitted unintentionally. 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. The spirits of young children recently deceased had clearer memories of early childhood than spirits who had died many years before. Spirits of young children recently deceased tended to communicate more clearly than adults recently deceased. Spirits responded to questions intended to prove their identity correctly but not always in ways the sitters expected. Sometimes the communicating spirit was unable to give information that was in the conscious mind of the sitter. On occasion, a spirit would not know the name of a sitter they were thought to know. Difficulty in communicating names was a common characteristic of the communication. If the investigator ran the sitting like a telepathy experiment, less evidential information was given through the medium. If he treated the spirit in a sensitive and soothing manner like an actual person communicating under adverse conditions, the communication was improved.

This is explained in more detail in Mrs. Piper: Evidence for Survival After Death

Back to Summary

Communicating with spirits has eliminated haunting phenomena that had occurred with several successive residents of the same house who were unrelated and unknown to each other. The super-psi hypothesis can't explain this because it assumes there is a living person who is responsible for the phenomena. If the people in the house change, then according to the super-psi hypothesis, the phenomena should stop. It is stated in Chapter 23. Poltergeists of A Lawyer Presents the Case for the Afterlife by Victor Zammit, that the well regarded investigators, Guy Lyon Playfair, William Roll, and Ian Stevenson all believed some poltergeist phenomena was due to spirits.

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Children who remember past lives sometimes have birthmarks on parts of their bodies where they sustained an injury in the remembered past life. This is evidence for survival because it suggests spirit body carries characteristics from one life to the next. Invoking super-psi to explain this doesn't make sense. It is absurd to assume a fetus could be psychic and be fulfilling a psychological need by creating such birth marks.

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During shared death-bed visions (and other situations) multiple people who are not mediums see the same spirits. There are various ways this is demonstrated to be an objective phenomena and not a hallucination. Sometimes a person attending the dying sees the same spirits the dying person sees. There is also a case where the spirit who helped a dying person make the transition, described how they did that through a medium. When the investigators contacted a relative of the dying person they were able to get confirmation that the dying person saw the spirit and the spirit used an unusual phrase also reported by the medium. The medium and the dying person were unknown to each other but both reported the same phrase used by the spirit. This is evidence that the phenomena was independent of any living person. Several examples of confirmed death bed visions were discussed in the previous post: Death-Bed Visions Confirmed. Similar evidence comes from Shared Near Death Experiences and Multiple Witness Apparitions. When more than one person experiences the same phenomena, it becomes unlikely that the phenomena is dependent on one person because you would have to accept that the psychic abilities of one person could influence the perceptions of other people to cause these shared experiences.

Back to Summary

Near Death Experiences are among the best evidence for survival. They cannot be explained by super-psi or by any normal phenomena. All the purported "scientific" explanations for NDEs fall far short of explaining the full extent of NDEs. In many NDEs, shortly before, during, and after the experience, the brain is in a state incapable of supporting lucid consciousness so ESP from an abnormal brain state cannot explain NDEs. Super-psi is defined as some type of unconscious psychic functioning by a living person that simulates an afterlife phenomena. But, during many NDEs, the person has no brain function and is effectively dead, not living, so whatever happens during an NDE cannot be said to be due to super-psi. In some NDEs, there is no veridical content and those cases also cannot be said to be due to super-psi because there is no evidence of any psychic functioning. The lack of veridical information doesn't effect the validity of the experience as evidence for the afterlife because if a person with no brain function can have any type of conscious experience, even if it is a hallucination, that conscious experience by a person effectively dead is evidence for survival. Furthermore, even if a person without brain function can be shown to have "super-psi", a dead person being psychic ought to be considered evidence for survival. Additionally, near-death experiencers, neurosurgeon Dr. Eben Alexander, psychiatrist Dr. Carl Jung, and military remote viewer Joe McMoneagle, who have special qualifications to judge whether the phenomenon could be due to ESP caused by an abnormal brain state all believe their near-death experiences represented evidence for survival after death.

Back to Summary

ESP is not Produced by the Brain ESP is not limited by time or distance. It cannot be explained by the known laws of physics including quantum entanglement. Since human consciousness is capable of ESP, consciousness cannot be the result of any physical process in the brain. Anyone who acknowledges the reality of ESP has already admitted that consciousness is non-physical so they have no grounds upon which to deny survival of consciousness. The section ESP is not Produced by the Brain in Near-death Experiences and Afterlife Phenomena explains how the existence of ESP demonstrates that consciousness is non-physical and is not produced by the brain.

Back to Summary

These examples of phenomena which appear to be due to survival and cannot be easily explained by super-psi are very strong evidence for survival after death. Furthermore, once you obtain evidence for survival from one form of evidence, survival becomes the more parsimonious explanation for many other afterlife phenomena and super-psi becomes a poorer explanation for those phenomena as well.

More information on these forms of evidence for the afterlife can be found here.

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Monday, June 8, 2009

Brain Injury Expands Consciousness

There was a very interesting article published in the dailymail.co.uk on June 1 2009:

Masterstroke: Man who couldn't even draw stickmen wakes from brain surgery... as a talented artist

For most, stroke and brain surgery can be devastating but for Alan Brown it sparked a previously unseen talent... as an artist.
When Alan, 49, emerged from a gruelling 16-hour operation following his stroke, he found he had become a reborn 'Michelangelo' and was able to paint and draw with incredible detail.

This is strong evidence that the brain does not produce consciousness but restricts it. I discussed this topic previously in the post Scientific Theories of Psychic Phenomena Part 3 The commonly held materialist view of the brain is that it produces consciousness. However the view that consciousness exists independently from physical matter and the brain filters or transmits consciousness has more empirical support.

Chris Carter explains this in his article:

Does Consciousness depend on the Brain?

The argument in its essence is that the transmission and production hypotheses are equally compatible with the facts materialism tries to explain - such as the effects of senility, drugs, and brain damage on consciousness - but that the hypothesis of transmission has the advantage of providing a framework for understanding other phenomena that must remain utterly inexplicable on the basis of the materialistic hypothesis. The materialists simply deny that these other phenomena even exist, as they rightly realize that the existence of these phenomena threatens their ideology with extinction.

It is extremely unlikely that a brain injury could cause the same changes in the brain that learning a skill would produce. If an injury to the brain can give a person a new talent, that suggests that the talent originally existed in the non-physical consciousness but the brain was restricting that talent from expressing itself in the physical organism. The stroke may have damaged the part of the brain that restricted the talent from emerging. This might then allow the patient to become more fully conscious of his innate abilities.

Sunday, June 7, 2009

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.

Saturday, June 6, 2009

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.

Friday, June 5, 2009

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.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

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.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

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...

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

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...

Monday, June 1, 2009

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.

Saturday, May 30, 2009

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.

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.

Friday, May 29, 2009

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.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

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.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

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.

Pages

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Friday, June 12, 2009

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

The Evidence For Survival After Death

Monday, June 8, 2009

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Friday, June 5, 2009

Thursday, June 4, 2009

The Filter model of the brain

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Crisis Apparitions

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Belief in survival of consciousness after death.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Friday, May 29, 2009

Was Phinuit a Spirit?

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

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