Not trying to ruffle anyone's feathers here. Simply inviting serious
and objective responses to the following article.
Admittedly, it is difficult to evaluate without more information, but
nonetheless, interesting.
Scientists Becoming Believers In
Spiritualists' Paranormal Powers
By Robert Matthews - Science Correspondent
http://www.telegraph.co.uk
3-4-1
A unique scientific experiment has produced startling
evidence
that some "spirit mediums" may indeed have paranormal
talents.
Scientists involved in the study at the University of
Arizona
say that the findings are so extraordinary they raise
fundamental questions about the survival of consciousness
after death.
Until now, the whole issue of the "afterlife" has been
dismissed
by most mainstream scientists, with spiritual mediums
being
regarded as either self-deluded or charlatans. Now the
first
serious laboratory study of a group of mediums has
found that
they share an uncanny ability to state facts about the
deceased
relatives of people who come to them.
The experiments, details of which will be published
this week,
involved five mediums and two "sitters" unknown to the
mediums, whose deceased relatives they were asked to
contact.
In the first experiment, each medium spent an hour
with one of
the sitters in a laboratory, with a screen preventing
visual
contact. Under constant video surveillance, each began
talking
about aspects of the sitter's deceased relatives. The
sitter was
only allowed to respond to specific questions from the
medium
with the words "yes" or "no". At the end of each
session, the
information gleaned by the mediums was analysed for its
accuracy.
The transcripts of each session showed that the mediums
typically produced more than 80 pieces of information
about
the deceased relatives, ranging from their names and
personal
idiosyncrasies to the precise circumstances of their
death.
When analysed for factual accuracy, the mediums achieved a
success rate of 83 per cent, with one achieving an
accuracy of
93 per cent.
Similar success was achieved in experiments involving the
second sitter, and even when the mediums were not
allowed to
communicate with the sitter in any way. Sceptics have long
argued that the success of mediums is due to so-called
"cold
reading", in which mediums make educated guesses about
deceased people - such as asking if a husband died of
heart
disease, which is a common cause of death.
The team claims to have dealt with this objection
after a panel
of more than 60 people was asked to supply the same
information as the mediums about the sitter. The
average score
was only 36 per cent, with the most successful guesser
achieving just 54 per cent.
Reporting their findings in the forthcoming issue of
the Journal
of the Society for Psychical Research, the researchers
conclude: "Highly skilled mediums are able to obtain
accurate
and replicable information." Professor Gary Schwartz,
who led
the team, told The Telegraph: "The bottom line is that
there is
a class of highly skilled mediums who are doing something
extraordinary."
The secret of their success is unclear: every
precaution was
taken to rule out unconscious cheating or outright
fraud. In one
experiment, a medium claimed to have been in communication
with the sitter's deceased mother three days before
the meeting
- and supplied a prayer that the mother used to recite
for the
sitter as a child.
Prof Schwartz said such evidence is consistent with
claims of
mediums to deal directly with the dead, rather than merely
with the minds of the sitters. He said: "All the data
gathered so
far is consistently in accord with survival of
consciousness
after death. Based on our data to date, the most
parsimonious
explanation is that the mediums are in direct
communication
with the deceased."
Sceptics said that while the results are intriguing,
they leave
many questions unanswered. Dr Chris French, a leading
expert
at Goldsmiths College, London, said:
"Parapsychologists have
become disillusioned with studies of mediums because the
results are usually nothing more than you would expect
by cold
reading. This study has results that are so out of
line that one
would want to have a very close look at how it was done."
The implications of the study are to be discussed at an
international meeting in Arizona this week. Prof Schwartz
admitted that the findings were likely to disturb many
people.
He said: "Some of our colleagues would like us to do this
research elsewhere."
-------------
Mike Lee [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Dept of Psychology http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~mdlee
University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, MB Canada
