Contemporary methods used in Laboratory-based mediumship researCh

Abstract

The analysis of information conveyed by mediums (individuals who report experiencing regular communication with deceased) is important for several reasons: * The survival of consciousness (i.e., continued existence, separate from body, of an individual's consciousness, personality, identity, or self after physical death) is a vital issue to many people. The general public's deep concern with survival and mediumship is illustrated by recent rise of these topics in popular television shows, books, and movies. * Investigating phenomenon of anomalous information reception (AIR) by mediums is essential in understanding mind's perception and processing of nonlocal, nonsensory information. * An extensive understanding of information mediums report and process by which they report it is necessary in order for such information to be sensibly utilized by society. For example, mediums may be able to regularly and consistently find missing persons and contribute to criminal investigations if parameters such as error rates can be identified. Furthermore, because source of information anomalously reported by mediums has not been determined, it is possible that in future, when process is better understood, knowledge acquired through AIR may benefit scientific, technological, and social progress. * Providing empirical evidence on a topic historically linked with religion (i.e., afterlife) may greatly impact modern society as well as contemporary western healthcare. For example, research in Terror Management Theory has found that belief in an afterlife may liberate people from the compulsion to continually prove our value and correctness of our beliefs (Dechesne et al., 2003), an impulse that can manifest in extreme as radical nationalism (which provides individual with psychological comfort of symbolic immortality). Additionally, empirical evidence for survival of consciousness may alleviate fear and anxiety commonly experienced by hospice patients and their families, and mediumship readings may even be beneficial in grief recovery. However, evidence for survival of consciousness may also have socially negative consequences (e.g., possible increased justification for terrorism or suicide). * Finally, survival and mediumship studies provide unique evidence for an issue central to consciousness science: relationship between mind/consciousness and brain. That is, is consciousness (a) a product of brain as theorized by materialist neuroscientists such as Francis Crick and Christof Koch (e.g., Crick & Koch, 2003) or is consciousness (b) mediated, transmitted, transformed, guided, arbitrated, or canalized (Forman, 1998) by brain as hypothesized by such scientists as Max Plank and William James? (This second theory is discussed, for example, by Clarke, 1995.) In addition, research investigating survival of nonhuman consciousness (i.e., deceased companion animals) may help us better define exactly what consciousness is. As with study of any natural phenomenon, bringing mediumship into regulated environment of laboratory allows for controlled and repeated examination of AIR by mediums. HISTORY Several comprehensive reviews of more than a century of mediumship research findings exist (Braude, 2003; Fontana, 2005; Gauld, 1984). In addition, methods used during this time to evaluate information reported by mediums (and psychics) have also been reviewed (Burdick & Kelly, 1977; Fontana, 2005; Schouten, 1994; Scott, 1972), though only Fontana's review includes research performed since 2001, albeit briefly (p. 221). The contemporary findings generally confirm and extend early observations (e.g., systematic assessment of individual mediums or examination of spontaneous cases) that certain mediums can report accurate and specific information about deceased loved ones (termed discarnates) of living people (termed sitters) even without any prior knowledge about sitters or discarnates and in complete absence of any sensory sitter feedback. …