Can mediumship be scientifically tested? And, if so, how? [Archive]

Clancie

12th April 2004, 02:22 PM

My position re: mediumship is "There may be something to it." I am often told here that this is a "claim" and asked for my "evidence". In reality, I do not see this as a claim, nor do I think laboratory evidence in support of it is possible to get. But, for those who think otherwise, I'm curious what sort of an experiment you think could be done.

How can mediumship be satisfactorily tested in a laboratory setting and replicated? How could a test of mediumship –ever- definitively prove soul survival and communication?

Aren’t there too few observable “facts” about mediumship (i.e. none) to be able to base a testable hypothesis on?

Isn't it too subjective, with too many variables (individual abilities of the mediums...the subjectivity of sitter validations) to really lend itself to valid scientific testing?

Also, what is the control? What level of performance would be accurately labelled "better than chance"? (And even if such performance was achieved to the point of being statistically significant, how could one distinguish between "super psi*" and mediumship?)

When one of the possible explanations for “hits” is “lucky guess”...how does one get a basis for comparison with "real" mediumship and guesswork, even on a double blind test? Can we really define what would be expected by chance?

With it being so “human based” (medium and sitter are it)...what about an “off day”? How do you eliminate the possibility of sitter buy in for validations? And “hits” (as anyone who participated in GS’s experiments knows) are often a judgment call, not nearly as clear cut as “Yes” and “No”.

So...any ideas about testing for mediumship--if its possible to do at all, and if so, how?

[Note: *Yes, know many here regard super-psi to be as implausible as mediumship. Nevertheless, if results that are "better than chance" need to be explained, that would need to be ruled out as an alternative explanation].

*****

And, a note about the thread guidelines. Pyrrho says the thread creator needs to specify at the outset if off topic posts aren't allowed...and I am. This thread has a clear topic and I am requesting that discussion stay on that topic--the topic of scientific testing of mediumship--"is it possible and if so how?"

ceptimus

12th April 2004, 02:59 PM

It depends on what the medium does. If only the spirits they supposedly communicate with could come up with a few verifiable hard facts it would be fairly easy to devise a test. We could present a medium with a few hundred random sitters. The medium could ask the departed spirits of the sitter if they remembered the birthday (even just the month would do) of their former loved one.

Of course, most mediums are not prepared to undergo such tests, which speaks volumes.

Nyarlathotep

12th April 2004, 03:07 PM

I would have to think more on he specifics, but I think a test along the lines of what Houdini had set up with his wife would go a long way toward establishing mediumships credibility if it were possible.

I am thinking something along the lines of finding a suitable number of terminally ill people who are still in full possession of their faculties and re willing to cooperate. A researcher could give that patient a code to remember, something random and meaningless like "JK76H32" (this would be to prevent the medium from guessing due to knowing preferences or quirks of the deceased). Now the hard part would be preventing the code from getting out before the terminally ill patient dies. I am not sure how to do that, but if that could be done, the code could be kept by a neutral 3rd party, unknown to the medium or the sitter. The medium would have to retrieve the code from the deceased. Success would be if they could do this at a significantly better rate than guessing numbers at random.

Now there may be a flaw in all of this (I've only put 15 minutes thought into it after all) but if I were a researcher who wanted to study mediumship, that is the direction I would go.

apoger

12th April 2004, 03:17 PM

My position re: mediumship is "There may be something to it." I am often told here that this is a "claim" and asked for my "evidence". In reality, I do not see this as a claim,

You are right. It's not much of a claim.

It's difficult to gather evidence for something undefined.

How could a test of mediumship –ever- definitively prove soul survival and communication?

"Definitively prove"?

That's not how science works. Unless mediumship can somehow be "proved" via math or logic, it's not likely that we will see "proof". Science works by accumulating evidence.

Aren’t there too few observable “facts” about mediumship ...

Isn't it too subjective, ...

With it being so “human based”....

This is a major issue. In order to experiment for mediumship, or try to gather evidence for mediumship, we need to define what it is we are looking for.

You have mentioned "soul survival and communication". Is this what the thread is about? For the purposes of this discussion is this an attempt to develop a protocol for testing the possibility of these concepts? I'm looking to make sure we are all on the same page before making suggestions. If we can agree on this much we can move forward with some foundation. If there is some other attribute of "mediumship" that you want included, please let us know.

Clancie

12th April 2004, 03:36 PM

Posted by apoger

You have mentioned "soul survival and communication". Is this what the thread is about? For the purposes of this discussion is this an attempt to develop a protocol for testing the possibility of these concepts?
Yes, at this point, I think those are the two key elements that are combined in the idea of mediumship.

If there is some other attribute of "mediumship" that you want included, please let us know.
Well, I can't guarantee that my ideas won't change as a result of what people post here, but, yes, that is what I think is meant by "mediumship".

Unless mediumship can somehow be "proved" via math or logic, it's not likely that we will see "proof". Science works by accumulating evidence.
Math or logic? I thought the request here was for evidence, (and not accumulated -anecdotal- evidence since no matter how much of that there is, it is "worthless" I'm told, in the context of science), but "evidence" that has been acquired in a laboratory, with well controlled experiments...double blind testing...replicable results... published...and peer-reviewed. (Also, doesn't it need to be falsifiable as well?)

That's what I understand is meant by "scientific testing", anyway, when people talk about it here re: mediumship. But I'm interested in both parts of the question--if its possible to test this at all and, if so, what ways one would suggest going about it (even if some suggestions don't conform to all of the "scientific" criteria/limits listed above--and wouldn't ever actually "prove" it, as you say, just give strong evidence for it, if in fact, it really does exist).

apoger

12th April 2004, 03:49 PM

My suggested protocol for a test to gather evidence of communication with a soul that has survived death of the physical body.

We know that human bias and cheating are extraordinarily commonplace when dealing with attempts to delve into this issue. Thus to make certain that procedures are tight, extraordinary efforts will need to be made to secure the test.

1 - Find volunteers that are very near death. Perhaps people that have been in accidents or have terminal diseases. Wait until these people are on deaths door.

2 - When a volunteer is ready have all people leave the room. All contact with this person must cease.

3 - The volunteer generates a random number from 1-100.

4 - The volunteer opens an envelope that has a piece of paper with 100 words which have been numbered, and the volunteers name.

5 - The volunteer circles and memorizes the word which corresponds to the number chosen at random.

6 - The volunteer places the paper in a secure manner so it cannot be tampered with.

7 - The volunteer is allowed to die. No contact of any sort is allowed between the volunteers isolation and death. Yes, this is pretty cold, that's why we need volunteers.

8 - Once the volunteer has expired, the paper can be collected and held securely.

9 - 100+ samples of this type are generated.

10 - Mediums of all types are given a year to delve into the beyond in whatever manner they feel is effective.

11 - They are given the names and history's of the volunteers.

12 - They are asked to discover the word that the volunteer circled before death for every volunteer.

13 - At the end of the year the results of all delvings are collected and stored.

14 - The papers are then opened and the circlings are compared to the delvings.

15 - If any medium scores significantly over chance, they repeat the experiment.

I would say that with repetition this would be a fairly credible experiment.

Dancing David

13th April 2004, 07:57 AM

Wow, Apoger, that would be a double blind.

"Does you word start with J ?"

I would think of a lot of ways that the mediums could prove contact with the dead.

People hide stuff in thier houses and cars all the time, large sums of cash, personal letters, illegal drugs and the like. the dead would probably want people to have the moeny. The medium would reveal the location of the cash and every body would be happy.

There are also thousands of dead bodies waiting to be discovered after a grisly murder, that would be proof right there.

Clancie

13th April 2004, 11:08 AM

Thanks for the input so far. I don't really see any of these as necessarily tests of mediumship, but...keeping an open mind.
Posted by ceptimus

We could present a medium with a few hundred random sitters. The medium could ask the departed spirits of the sitter if they remembered the birthday (even just the month would do) of their former loved one.
Well, just for argument sake, assuming they could do this, how would you distinguish "mediumship" from "super-psi"?

Of course, most mediums are not prepared to undergo such tests, which speaks volumes.
We don't know this to be true, ceptimus.
Posted by Nyarlathotep

I would have to think more on he specifics, but I think a test along the lines of what Houdini had set up with his wife would go a long way toward establishing mediumships credibility if it were possible.
[Side note: Arthur Ford supposedly got the Houdini message--but there is much controversy re: collusion, yes or no.]

I am thinking something along the lines of finding a suitable number of terminally ill people who are still in full possession of their faculties and re willing to cooperate. A researcher could give that patient a code to remember, something random and meaningless like "JK76H32" (this would be to prevent the medium from guessing due to knowing preferences or quirks of the deceased).
Well, if you give me a random combination of letters and numbers like this today and ask me six months from now what it was...sorry to say, but--dead or alive--I'm not going to remember it.

Now the hard part would be preventing the code from getting out before the terminally ill patient dies. I am not sure how to do that, but if that could be done, the code could be kept by a neutral 3rd party, unknown to the medium or the sitter. The medium would have to retrieve the code from the deceased.
Again, how good is the memory of the terminally ill? What makes us think -anyone- would remember this weeks or months later?

Beyond that, the third party part seems unavoidable and compromising.

Beyond that, like ceptimus's example, even assuming mediums could do this, how would this show "mediumship" rather than "super-psi"?

TLN

13th April 2004, 11:18 AM

Originally posted by Clancie
Thanks for the input so far. I don't really see any of these as necessarily tests of mediumship, but...keeping an open mind.

Perhaps if you could define specifically what "mediumship" is we could better devise a test.

CFLarsen

13th April 2004, 11:26 AM

I think it is easier if we get factual.

If we work from these premises: "Survival of the soul" and "Communication with the Soul", we also have to work with what the psychics actually claim to be able to do. It doesn't make much sense in discussing a scientific test for mediumship, unless we know what actual claim we are dealing with. Some psychics can only hear spirits, some can see them, and so on. We can't test a medium if he can see the spirits, if he only claims to be able to hear them. Some can only get "I love you" messages, others can get factual information.

One thing is obvious: We cannot design a "meta"-test that covers a lot of ground.

So why not take the psychic/medium we are probably most familiar with: John Edward. We have discussed his "process" in great detail, we got transcripts and books so we know in detail what he can do. He also seems to be able to get factual information, and his success could indicate that we might find evidence - the argument that Schwartz also made.

We should definitely avoid slamming Schwartz for his design, but that doesn't mean we should ignore it. We can learn from the flaws, and try to come up with something better.

So, what can JE actually do? This is a good reason to use him as an example: There doesn't seem to be any limits to how he gets the information, and there doesn't seem to be any limits as to what kind of information he can get. He sees, he hears, he feels. He gets "I love you", as well as tangible pieces of information, like feathers and cigarettes.

Sitters.
Must be strangers to both mediums and experimenters. They must come from all levels of society, cultural, religious, economical, what-have-ya. Ask the Census Bureau or a marketing company to provide the experimenters with demographical profiles. Do not put an ad out, asking for volunteers. That will get mostly believers to sign up.
Sitters must be interviewed beforehand about their beliefs. Ideally, they should not know what kind of experiment they are participating in, until they are handed the audio tapes.

Feedback.
Is out. Pure and simple. With one stroke, we eliminate all doubt about visual and audio feedback, etc. JE has done ADC without feedback, so that shouldn't be a problem.

Sitter validation.
While indicative, the sitter should not be relied upon as the final validation. If a sitter says "Hey, there were wrong cigarettes in the coffin", then we should check the claim as well afterwards.

Independent "validators" must be assigned to check the information. They are not to be told this is an experiment. Leading questions must be avoided: They shouldn't ask "Were there wrong cigs in the coffing?", but "What can you tell me about the funeral?"

Sitters have to be isolated.
Not just from the mediums, but also while the independent validation takes place. We cannot have the sitters go back and spill the beans.

Blinding.
Double-blind, thank you. JE does not know who he reads. Or if he reads anyone at all. Those recording the data do not know the identity of the sitters. Those recording the data do not know the identity of the "validators". And so on.

Security.
Record everything. Video, audio, the lot. Put it on a website, for free download.
Assign professional bodyguards whose job is to secure that the sitters and the mediums are kept apart.
Keep the medium under surveillance during the whole experiment. No TV, no radio, no newspapers. At irregular intervals, scan the medium for microphones or listening devices. And the rooms where the medium is.

Replication.
The whole experiment has to be performed another place, at another time, by completely other people. Preferably as many times as possible. All results are kept secret until all experiments are finished, to avoid leakage.

Misc.
Forget about the EEG stuff - it is a nuisance to the medium, it can go wrong (it's technology!) and besides, we are only interested in verifiable information from the spirits.

Results.
For each experiment, at least 20 sitters must be read, from a pool of 100. Randomly selected, by coin-toss. Pull a coin from a bag of coins each time. Get newly minted coins. Each selection has to be done right before the reading begins.

How the information is evaluated is quite another matter. Since JE claims not to be in control what comes through, it does make the testing of him close to impossible.

One way of doing it would be to look at "special hits", that are only applicable to one sitter. For that, we need more than just one "special hit" out of, say, a hundred statements. If the information fits anyone else than the sitter, then it has to be discarded.

If that kind of precise information is not possible to obtain, then we have to come to the conclusion that mediumship is indistinguishable from cold reading techniques, vague guesses and "feel good" statements.

As a sidenote, I think a discussion about the difference mediumship and "superpsi" belongs in another thread. The subject of the thread was to how to test mediumship scientifically. It would be nice if we could stay on track.

Nyarlathotep

13th April 2004, 11:26 AM

Originally posted by Clancie
Beyond that, like ceptimus's example, even assuming mediums could do this, how would this show "mediumship" rather than "super-psi"? [/B]

As TLN said, to answer that question, you would need to define a difference between "mediumship" and "super psi". You are, after all, only testing the effect. By your logic, how could you say for certain that even if the medium of your choice were 100% real, that they don't get their info via "super-psi" rather than speaking to the dead?

ceptimus

13th April 2004, 11:36 AM

Clancie: Thanks for the input so far. I don't really see any of these as necessarily tests of mediumship, but...keeping an open mind.

ceptimus: We could present a medium with a few hundred random sitters. The medium could ask the departed spirits of the sitter if they remembered the birthday (even just the month would do) of their former loved one.

Clancie: Well, just for argument sake, assuming they could do this, how would you distinguish "mediumship" from "super-psi"?

You are assuming (for the sake of argument) that the mediums would score a statistically significant number of hits. I don't believe they would, so my test would kill two birds with one stone. In the (in my opinion unlikely) event that any medium did pass this initial test, then I agree further tests would be required to find out just what kind of paranormal effect (or maybe fraud) was in operation.

I can't see the point of developing a highly formal and secure test, unless mediums are first able to demonstrate that they can do what they claim.

Clancie

13th April 2004, 11:47 AM

Posted by ceptimus

I can't see the point of developing a highly formal and secure test, unless mediums are first able to demonstrate that they can do what they claim.
Well, since mediumship isn't about claiming to match living people to their birthdates, I guess we'd be at an impasse with your proposal.
Posted by Nyarlathotep

As TLN said, to answer that question, you would need to define a difference between "mediumship" and "super psi". You are, after all, only testing the effect.
I know how the distinction between the two is regarded by many here (like arguing the scientific difference between pink unicorns and the tooth fairy), but for those seriously interested in studying this and open-minded about it, that really -is- regarded as a significant and difficult problem to address through testing.

By your logic, how could you say for certain that even if the medium of your choice were 100% real, that they don't get their info via "super-psi" rather than speaking to the dead?
That's actually a genuine concern that many "believers" (or quasi-believers) have about mediumship.

It is often addressed by the medium "telling you something that no one knows"--for example, Steve G's son correctly directing him to where the pair of sunglasses were, or Lamar Keene correctly directing the widowed sitter to where her husband had hidden their financial papers.

Of course, the refutation of these for people here would be one word: "anecdotal".

Clancie

13th April 2004, 11:49 AM

Posted by TLN

Perhaps if you could define specifically what "mediumship" is we could better devise a test.
TLN,

I -did- define it already. "Soul survival + communication with the living."

TLN

13th April 2004, 11:51 AM

TLN

13th April 2004, 11:52 AM

Originally posted by Clancie
I -did- define it already. "Soul survival + communication with the living."

So, mediumship is the ability of a person to communicate with dead people, correct?

ceptimus

13th April 2004, 11:55 AM

Is there some reason why the souls cannot communicate verifiable facts? It doesn't have to be birthdates - anything verifiable would do.

I submit that only vague and untestable things are ever 'communicated', or when verifiable things are 'communicated' in a controlled test, the hit rate is no different from that predicted by chance. This shows that all mediums are either deluding themselves, or are frauds.

(edited for spelling)

Clancie

13th April 2004, 11:57 AM

Mediumship is based on two premises, TLN...that the soul/personality survives well enough that communication can, at certain times and in certain ways, be possible for some people to do.

Nyarlathotep

13th April 2004, 11:58 AM

Originally posted by Clancie

I know how the distinction between the two is regarded by many here (like arguing the scientific difference between pink unicorns and the tooth fairy), but for those seriously interested in studying this and open-minded about it, that really -is- regarded as a significant and difficult problem to address through testing.

Before you could even begin to test the difference you would have to define the difference. What can a "medium" do that a "super-psi" could not or vice versa? Answering that would be a good start.

That's actually a genuine concern that many "believers" (or quasi-believers) have about mediumship.

It is often addressed by the medium "telling you something that no one knows"--for example, Steve G's son correctly directing him to where the pair of sunglasses were, or Lamar Keene correctly directing the widowed sitter to where her husband had hidden their financial papers.

Of course, the refutation of these for people here would be one word: "anecdotal".

Well, it is anecdotal from a scientific standpoint unless it is done under controlled conditions and is replicable. If you want scientific acceptance for a phenomenon it has to stand up to scientific standards of evidence. I don't know what else to say.

Clancie

13th April 2004, 12:00 PM

Posted by ceptimus

I submit that only vague and untestable things are ever 'communicated', or when verifyable things are 'communicated' in a controlled test, the hit rate is no different from that predicted by chance. This shows that all mediums are either deluding themselves, or are frauds.
Please provide the link to the controlled test results that support your statement: that

"when verifiable things are 'communicated' in a controlled test, the hit rate is no different from that predicted by chance."
Really. What's the study you're referring to?

ceptimus

13th April 2004, 12:04 PM

I'm not referring to any study. I'm referring to the absence of any reliable studies that demonstrate the opposite. Also to the fact that the $1 million still hasn't been won.

CFLarsen

13th April 2004, 12:13 PM

Originally posted by Clancie
Well, since mediumship isn't about claiming to match living people to their birthdates, I guess we'd be at an impasse with your proposal.

Mediumship is also about matching living people to their birthdates, as well as to whatever dates that are important to them. Mediums like John Edward do this all the time. Sitters take this as evidence that the medium is real.

This is, incidentally, a fact.

Originally posted by Clancie
I know how the distinction between the two is regarded by many here (like arguing the scientific difference between pink unicorns and the tooth fairy), but for those seriously interested in studying this and open-minded about it, that really -is- regarded as a significant and difficult problem to address through testing.

I object to the implications in this paragraph: It paints those opposed to Clancie's POV as not seriously interested and close-minded. It is not for this forum to make jabs at opponents like that.

Originally posted by Nyarlathotep
Before you could even begin to test the difference you would have to define the difference. What can a "medium" do that a "super-psi" could not or vice versa? Answering that would be a good start.

Not only that, it is crucial. If we can't tell the difference, we can't know which is which. And, as always, it is up to the claimant to explain that.

Originally posted by Nyarlathotep
Well, it is anecdotal from a scientific standpoint unless it is done under controlled conditions and is replicable. If you want scientific acceptance for a phenomenon it has to stand up to scientific standards of evidence. I don't know what else to say.

There isn't anything else to say. If you want to examine mediumship from scientifically, you can't start including anecdotal evidence.

Clancie

13th April 2004, 12:30 PM

Posted by ceptimus

I submit that....when verifyable things are 'communicated' in a controlled test, the hit rate is no different from that predicted by chance.
Well, you "submit" that, but when asked for an actual study that supports this, you don't have any, and instead say this:

I'm not referring to any study. I'm referring to the absence of any reliable studies that demonstrate the opposite.
You see the problem with this, don't you? (Not that you're alone here in arguing this way).

CFLarsen

13th April 2004, 12:34 PM

Originally posted by Clancie
You see the problem with this, don't you? (Not that you're alone here in arguing this way).

Nope.

ceptimus

13th April 2004, 12:41 PM

It would be absurd for scientists to formally study something when there is no apparent evidence or theory for its existence.

Nyarlathotep

13th April 2004, 12:47 PM

Now that I am on my lunch hour and this questions does not have to share space in my head with work concerns, a thought occurred to me.

There really are TWO questions here. The first is "Can Mediums get the information they claim to be able to get?". The second is "If they can, how do they get it?"

It is important to separate the two questions because the second question means nothing unless the first question is answered and answered with a "yes". So the FIRST step in trying to answer the question of whether mediumship is real is to simply test mediums for their ability to get the information they claim to be able to access. As long as you can eliminate them getting it by "mundane" means (cold reading, cheating,etc.) it does not matter if they are getting it through communicating with the dead, "super-psi", invisible pixies whispering it in their ear, or any other "non-normal" means.

I think several means of doing this have been suggested. They might not be easy, but it IS doable.

If the answer to the first question is "No, they can't do what they claim" then the second question is moot. If one DID establish that they could do what they say, then one could worry about whether it is after-death communication or super-psi or whatever. Of course it would first be necessary to establish a clear difference between such things as mediumship and super-psi and anything else someone could suggest as a means of getting this info. But unless Mediums can be shown to have some element of fact to them it can be safely filed under "Bridges we will cross if we come to them"

Clancie

13th April 2004, 12:50 PM

Posted by ceptimus

It would be absurd for scientists to formally study something when there is no apparent evidence or theory for its existence. Do you wish me to provide references of studies showing that hedgehogs can't fly, that earthworms don't emit light when dipped in sugar water, and so on?
And herein lies the key problem.

The question posed by this thread is "Can mediumship be tested scientifically and, if so, how?" The reason for the question is that many, many skeptics criticize mediums for -not- undergoing scientific testing (in a lab...double blind...replicable...published and peer reviewed). This certainly presupposes that such testing is possible--"if only one could find willing mediums"!

Frankly, I don't think mediumship is testable. But others here apparently disagree so I'm curious to see what proposals would look like for these replicable lab tests. Maybe seeing them would change my mind.

But when someone responds with "It would be absurd for scientists to formally study something when there is no apparent evidence or theory for its existence" well, I think you basically just answered the question with your honest answer which is, "No."

CFLarsen

13th April 2004, 12:55 PM

Nyarlathotep ,

Absolutely nailed right on the (ouch) head.

Clancie

13th April 2004, 12:58 PM

Posted by Nyarlathotep

If one DID establish that they could do what they say, then one could worry about whether it is after-death communication or super-psi or whatever.
Nyarlathotep (and thank you for donating some of your lunch time to my dilemma :) ),

The thing is that mediums -do- often do appear to do what they "claim" to do--which is, simply, "To bring information purportedly from the deceased and convey it to the living who find the information meaningful."

I think we could accept this statement as true without in any way agreeing that mediumship is real. Information -does- come through that -could- come from a deceased person and -is- often extremely meaningful to the sitter.

Does that mean mediumship is real? No. It could be possible to do this for any number of reasons, as you mention.

But..if that is the claim (as I think it is, and it is a fairly modest claim and I think there's plenty of observable anecdotal evidence to support it), the question becomes is it testable? I think it isn't, but am hoping I'm wrong.

voidx

13th April 2004, 01:04 PM

Let's not get side-tracked by arguing who has what studies to back up what comments. The simple fact is that in essence what ceptimus is saying is correct. Lets first find out if anything period is happening, and then conduct further tests to clarify whether its mediumship or "super-psi" whatever the stated difference there might be. They've been provided before I know, but link us to your accepted definitions of "super-psi" so we have something to start from in this thread.

The other problem is that the examples you state that we would classify as anecdotal are in fact anecdotal. It's not our fault they are, so don't blame us for categorizing them as such, its what they are. We don't say their worthless, but their pretty close since we have no way of verifying them.

The main over-riding problem is while you define mediumship as a surviving consciousness and communication with said consciousness, we don't have a common and accepted process for how this communication takes place. The problem with this is that any given medium can use the lack of, or disagreements with the stated, or lack thereof, process of mediumship within the test as an excuse for poor performance. To me it still makes the most sense to have the medium provide in as much detail as possible what their own process is, and then devise a test around that and see if anything significant comes out of it, then we can revise and further the test if anything does indeed seem unusual. If the medium cannot think of at least a somewhat detailed process for what their doing, then how do even they know if their communicating with a surviving consciousness, or just imagining things in their head?

ceptimus

13th April 2004, 01:10 PM

I edited out the bit about the earthworms and hedgehogs, as I thought it was (perhaps) unnecessarily sarcastic - but you managed to quote it in the brief time it was there.

I think a test could be devised, but first there would be less formal tests, to see if the thing is worth the bother of testing properly.

There are plenty of precedents for this in the history of science. Meteorites are one. At first, most scientists dismissed the idea, "Rocks falling from the sky? What rubbish!" or they tried to come up with mundane explanations - pebbles being sucked up by tornadoes and so on. But eventually enough evidence was gathered to convince a few scientists to study the phenomenon properly, and it was quickly incorporated into mainstream science.

Scientists are quite keen to investigate new phenomena, and quite often there turns out to be nothing there. Polywater and Cold Fusion are two recent examples.

Over the last two hundred years or so, many people have tried to investigate mediums, in a scientific manner, and the general scientific concensus is that no such phenomena exists. Personally, I am amazed that anyone could seriously suggest that there is a requirement for further serious study.

Nyarlathotep

13th April 2004, 01:16 PM

Originally posted by Clancie

The thing is that mediums -do- often do appear to do what they "claim" to do--which is, simply, "To bring information purportedly from the deceased and convey it to the living who find the information meaningful."

I think we could accept this statement as true without in any way agreeing that mediumship is real. Information -does- come through that -could- come from a deceased person and -is- often extremely meaningful to the sitter.

Does that mean mediumship is real? No. It could be possible to do this for any number of reasons, as you mention.

But..if that is the claim (as I think it is, and it is a fairly modest claim and I think there's plenty of observable anecdotal evidence to support it), the question becomes is it testable? I think it isn't, but am hoping I'm wrong.

Appear is the key word. A good magician can appear to saw a woman in half, it doesn't mean he actually does it. The point of testing would be to figure out whether it is simply appearance or if it is a reality.

"A medium can get information to which he does not have acess by normal means" seems like a fair statement and is a testable claim. The key would be to block off the mediums access to "normal means". And by normal means I include clues and other things that would enable to the medium to deduce the info (i.e cold reading).

Would any one procedure be bulletproof? Of course not, that's why replicability is important. Scientists are human and the adage "Two heads is better thatn one" applies to them too. Scientist A might design a protocol that seems bulletproof to him but then scientist B finds some exploitable flaw and close it up when he replicates the experiment. If this is done enough times and mediums could prove themselves in enough replications and variations, mediumship would be scientifically established (note I did not say proven. NOTHING is ever proven in science, things are established as fact based on the best evidence we have)

voidx

13th April 2004, 01:27 PM

Originally posted by Clancie
I think we could accept this statement as true without in any way agreeing that mediumship is real. Information -does- come through that -could- come from a deceased person and -is- often extremely meaningful to the sitter.

I would strongly disagree with this statement myself. To state that very often the information brought across is extremely meaningful to the sitter is saying a lot, and I don't think it could be shown that it is often the case. Besides, the term "extremely meaningful" as it pertains to the sitter is quite largely over-shadowed by sitter bias and extreme subjectivity. Eliminating these factors in any given test is key, but it is also difficult because to do so too effectively would bring out claims of the test potentially inteferring with the process of mediumship.

The very vagueness of the "process" of communication works in the mediums favour here. If we tightened up our controls to disallow for feedback from sitters, and that particular mediums states it as a necessary part of their "process" then they will cry foul. If we tighten up our controls to eliminate taking sitter bias and their subjective accounts of how much the reading "meant" to them, then again, it will just be rolled in as a requirement of their "process" of mediumship.

I think the main problem here is that your getting ahead of yourself. We're already moving onto the types of communication that are sending across "meaningful data" in regards to a sitter. Surely there should be a way for this mode of communication to gather detailed amounts of information on the communicating spirit itself, without the sitter. Why is the sitter, and their subjective accounts of how meaningful the information is, required at the start? I don't see that it is, aside from the fact that most mediums label it as a requirement of the process.

I think that when you define mediumship as communication with a surviving consciousness, you need to define what is communicated because it seems to me that what type of information is communicated is rather limited. Spirits for example seem almost incapable of communicating their previous home address and phone numbers or social insurance numbers or any other massive amount of easy communicatible information, with which to identify themselves.

So to me the definition should be more like mediumship is communication with surviving consciousness. This communication takes the form of random bits of information related to a particular sitter related somehow to the surviving consciousness. It is in essence a key factor that the sitter is allowed to judge the meaningfulness of said information as a means of identifying the surviing consciousness. That, in my opinion, would be a more accurate definition.

TLN

13th April 2004, 04:11 PM

There are several thoughtful and lengthy posts above that have already said everything well enough, but I just wanted to boil this down to its simplest component for clarity sake.

Originally posted by Clancie
The thing is that mediums -do- often do appear to do what they "claim" to do--which is, simply, "To bring information purportedly from the deceased and convey it to the living who find the information meaningful."

This is, quite simply, a testable claim.

But I'm no scientist. Are there any here that could help us along in designing a test of this claim, the title of this thread?

To start things rolling, I suppose we'd first have to decide what finding the information "meaningful" would mean as many statements made by mediums are vague and could fit many situations, people, places, events, what have you. But, is there an objective way to do that, as in, how could you design a test to eliminate the sitter bias? Won't some sitters either want to assist the medium, or not, based on predispositions? Try to imagine Clancie being a volunteer sitter on this experiment; Now Claus; now RC; now me; see the problem? All these people are biased and any good scientific experiment tries to correct for that bias, but how can we do that here?

apoger

13th April 2004, 04:42 PM

Thanks for the input so far. I don't really see any of these as necessarily tests of mediumship, but...keeping an open mind.

Frankly, I don't think mediumship is testable. But others here apparently disagree so I'm curious to see what proposals would look like for these replicable lab tests.

I thought I offered a fairly solid test way back at the start of this tread. If you see an issue with it, please let me know what that issue is and I will see if I can work it out.

Mediumship is based on two premises, TLN...that the soul/personality survives well enough that communication can, at certain times and in certain ways, be possible for some people to do.

Ok, now you have added in additional qualities that need to be addressed. Mediumship works "at certain times" and "in certain ways".

I must ask you to define;

A> When
B> In what way

Once you tell me when and what we are looking for, I will devise a test to explore it.

RPG Advocate

13th April 2004, 08:24 PM

Originally posted by TLN
To start things rolling, I suppose we'd first have to decide what finding the information "meaningful"

I think the "meanful" requirement is actually a red herring. In testing a claim of mediumship, I don't care whether a piece of information is "meaningful" to the sitter. The only thing I care about is whether or not it's true. I think the validation protocol needs to be extremely tight. I would submit that CFLarson's suggested validation protocol

While indicative, the sitter should not be relied upon as the final validation. If a sitter says "Hey, there were wrong cigarettes in the coffin", then we should check the claim as well afterwards.

Independent "validators" must be assigned to check the information. They are not to be told this is an experiment. Leading questions must be avoided: They shouldn't ask "Were there wrong cigs in the coffing?", but "What can you tell me about the funeral?"

is too loose. The validation should require no judgement on the part of the validator, and thus any data points to compare with the reading should be restricted to documented numerical values, for instance, that are either right or wrong. There should be no such thing as a "special" hit. Each tested data point is either a hit or a miss. You wouldn't tell the claimant in advance what you were accepting as data points, so that he or she wouldn't intentionally make easy guesses.

Atlas

13th April 2004, 10:58 PM

I was wondering if a test could be devised where clear minded elderly individuals would agree to place a keepsake in a box. A ring, a key, a coin, a doll, something light that would be packed so that is wouldn't slide around and make noise. In addition they would also put in a scrap of paper handwritten or typed with a quote that they choose from the bible or a poet or a movie.

A collection company then retrieves the box and a sealed letter describing the contents and stores them until the person dies and becomes eligible for testing.

When that person dies the medium tries to ascertain which of 10 identical boxes is the one the deceased store a keepsake in. Also to describe the keepsake and the quote and whether it was handwritten or typed.

Points are scored by divining the right box. whats inside, what the quote is, and whether it's handwritten.

Of course this might be child's play for a super psi, but using identical boxes might allow for some kind of repeatability. I don't believe in other faculty (psi or medium) so I wouldn't care who proved me wrong. Perhaps there are super psi people who think they are mediums because of info they pick up from the sitter.

Whoever is tested should be assumed to be who they say they are (mediums) and then choose those who score highly for further testing according to their specific ability.

Soapy Sam

14th April 2004, 04:34 AM

Some months ago, I suggested to Steve Grenard that if anyone out there could tell me the titles of the first seven books on my top shelf (from the left), I would be convinced that some real effect was implied and I suggested he pass the suggestion on to any people he knew who might be interested in such a test. Any method short of burglary was acceptable-remote viewing or consulting spirits included.

Steve did not take up the suggestion for reasons he explained at the time and which I will not quote, simply because I did not save the PMs we exchanged and I do not want to misquote him.

Surely though, many variations on a similar test could be set up with no cost or trouble at all? We have at this forum a number of hard line sceptics. Convincing them that a real effect was in force would be a major coup for any PSI advocate, which might in turn lead to a "proper" scientific test of such effects. At the least, it would be interesting for US.

Of course, books are a poor suggestion. Any regular here knows at least some of the books on my shelves because I have named them in threads. You could also make intelligent guesses about my likely reading choices. So-

I have before me a list of six numbers, each of eight digits.
These were generated randomly, not by computer, but by opening a series of eight books at random pages, all well beyond the middle of the book and writing down the second digit of the page number. (So yes, there can be zeroes).

The list is sealed in an envelope in my desk, in Hamilton, Scotland.
No burglars, please.

I ask anyone interested to submit your version of the list , either here or by PM. I will reveal the list , with any received responses, next Wednesday. (May 21st).

That's six numbers, each of eight digits. No decimal points.

I make no claim that this answers Clancie's question. But it's a start and very simple to do.

ps- In case anyone cares- the choice of odd or even page was made by where the ruler that I opened the book with fell. My right handedness may have introduced a slight bias here, and that is the only clue you get.

MRC_Hans

14th April 2004, 06:19 AM

I can see the thread is not yet at a point where a late-comer cannot join ;).

Originally posted by Clancie

*snip*

The thing is that mediums -do- often do appear to do what they "claim" to do--which is, simply, "To bring information purportedly from the deceased and convey it to the living who find the information meaningful."

Well, yes, but magicians also appear to do what they claim to do, pulling rabbits up from hats (just a silly example).

I think we could accept this statement as true without in any way agreeing that mediumship is real. Information -does- come through that -could- come from a deceased person and -is- often extremely meaningful to the sitter.

Ah, but here is the crunch: Does any information come through that the sitter does not already know (or can be expected to imagine, like "dad is fine on the other side")?

Does that mean mediumship is real? No. It could be possible to do this for any number of reasons, as you mention.

But..if that is the claim (as I think it is, and it is a fairly modest claim and I think there's plenty of observable anecdotal evidence to support it),

The problem of anecdotical evidence, even if we take it at face value, is that it is selected data. Therefore it is not representative of reality, but of the opinion of the one who selected it.

People are often miffed when anecdoticals are rejected, but think of it this way: If I want, I will be able to find a number of people who lived to be 90, in spite of a life of excessive drinking, heavy smoking, no exercise, overweight, etc. I will also be able to show you accounts of people who were semi-veggies, exercised daily, never smoked, etc, but still died of heart attacks before they were 50. So can we deduce anything about healthy lifestyle from that?

the question becomes is it testable? I think it isn't, but am hoping I'm wrong.

Clancie, ask yourself this question: Are you hoping for a positive or negative test result? Or just testability?

The stance of science is that if anything pertains to the real world, it is testable. It might be hard to test, but if it has an effect in the real world, it can be tested.

According to the above, you put the claim of mediumship down as:

Information is passed from the deceased to the living.

To test this, we must first ensure that information does not pass the other way, that is, from the sitter to the medium.

So the medium must be blinded to the sitter, and no communication must occur between the sitter and the medium, neither verbally nor visually.

Secondly, the sitter should be kept from interpreting the data. This means that the sitter some interrogation technique must be used when evaluating the reading for hits. An example:

Reading: I get something about working in wood.

Multi-choice query to sitter:

Was the deceased working with

a) Papers

b) Machinery

c) Wood

d) Stone or building

e) Trading

f) Entertainment

In this case a C answer would be deemed a hit. If chategories can be built well, it should be possible to avaluate the result stastistically.

As I assume the claim is that information may not always be forthcoming, lack of information in some area should not count as a miss, only supplied data should be evaluated as either hits or misses.

I think it can be done. The dificult thing will be to find a medium that will take the test ;).

Hans

Soapy Sam

14th April 2004, 07:04 AM

Hans- I agree with your points, but would ask this- Why do we need a sitter at all?
If information can pass from the spirit world to the medium, surely it can be factual, hard data?
If a spirit can enter my flat and read the titles on the shelves, it can transmit that data , with my address and phone number, to a medium of it's choice, who can then phone me.

I for one would be fascinated if this happened.
I am not holding my breath though.

Ooops. There's the phone!

voidx

14th April 2004, 09:20 AM

Originally posted by Soapy Sam
Hans- I agree with your points, but would ask this- Why do we need a sitter at all?
If information can pass from the spirit world to the medium, surely it can be factual, hard data?

The seeming lack of mediums and the coinciding surviving consciousness' to not be able to provide this level and type of information is one of the biggest reasons I doubt its validity. There is absolutely no logical reason that would prevent this form of "communication" from doing this. Yet it is rarely to never produced so far as I know. Numbers would be the easiest thing to send across one would think, so rather than screwing around with pronunciation of names (Bob,Bill,Bart) just give your birthdate and last known address, or any address you might have lived at.

Its because of the apparent lack of this form of "communication" to provide a wide range of easily knowable and communicatible data that convinces me that anytime "communication" is used in conjuction with mediumship, it should be nailed down just what this form of "communication" is actually capable of getting. As say I defined in my last post.

Clancie

14th April 2004, 09:26 AM

First, re: super-psi. Here's an article by Steven Braude about super-psi vs. survival.

Braude on Super-psi/Survival Hypotheses (http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/articles/braude/superpsi.htm)

I know most people don't give credence to either of these, but for the sake of discussion, if we can't distinguish mediumship from super-psi (assuming one or both would be the best explanations for observed phenomena), then one really can't make the argument for survival at all.

*Super-psi is basically knowing information psychically from the living or from existing sources in the world--like having "telepathy" with the sitter...or RV'ing a paper hidden in a desk, etc. (I disagree with him that we should assume unlimited super psi, but that's basically another issue).

Clancie

14th April 2004, 09:35 AM

Posted by ceptimus

I submit that only vague and untestable things are ever 'communicated'
What do you base this on? (Just curious)

...or when verifiable things are 'communicated' in a controlled test, the hit rate is no different from that predicted by chance.
Or this?

And, btw, what -is- the hit rate predicted by chance?.

Clancie

14th April 2004, 09:44 AM

apoger,

Is your proposal sincere or tongue-in-cheek? Putting dying people through these random intellectual activities is, uh, pretty ambitious. :)

Beyond that, I see kind of a commonality between some of the proposals here--somehow having a dying person know a secure and secret code with the idea that mediums could be tested by how well they determine this code after the person has died. (Actually, Suzy Smith is trying this with Gary Schwartz--see "The Afterlife Code", if interested. No one's "gotten" it, so far).

Possible problems with this are:

1. This could test RV-ing rather than mediumship

2. Interpreting the answers. "What is right?" "What is wrong?" For example, if I circle the word "eagle" and the medium says "bird"...is that totally wrong? (And if the medium is given the original list, couldn't s/he just guess? Of course, he could guess at a rate better than chance, but would that really prove mediumship)?

Or, in the number test someone suggested, if I memorized a random string of numbers/letters (highly unlikely, being at death's door) "JZ842MK" and, after I died, the medium got "8M21ZZ4"...would that be scored as "wrong"?

3. Beyond that, of course, this just isn't what mediumship is supposed to be, nor would it be distinguishable from super-psi.

(more later, re: nyarlathotep, voidx, MRC Hans, atlas, Soapy Sam, RPG Advocate... & inc. you, Claus--just as an experiment here in the CT forum. But these really pile up for one person so...it will be a while. ).

apoger

14th April 2004, 10:20 AM

Is your proposal sincere or tongue-in-cheek?

I am sincere. As stated earlier we would have to take extraordinary efforts in order to secure such as test to make sure that the information is not leaked in a mundane manner.

The only way to prevent this is to make sure that the person in question cannot transfer the information in any way prior to death. After all, you have suggested that the proposed test be "definitive". If you want the test to be suggestive rather than definitive, just let me know.

1. This could test RV-ing rather than mediumship

Without knowing the exact nature of "RV" I cannot determine a way to exclude the possiblity. However since we have no credible evidence that RV exists, we can conditionally exclude it. Saying that we need to defend against RV is akin to saying that we also must defend against sneaky magic elves that might steal the paperwork and then return it after they gleen the results.

In science new discoveries often lead to new understandings. If evidence of RV appears we may have to redefine much of what we "know". If that includes redefining previous mediumship tests, so be it. However until both are established... this is a non-issue.

Interpreting the answers. "What is right?" "What is wrong?" For example, if I circle the word "eagle" and the medium says "bird"...is that totally wrong?

The word eagle is quite different from the word bird. This is totally wrong.

This volunteer is taking on the responsibility of memorizing one word for the benefit of all mankind. I don't think it's asking them too much to use the exact word and not a generalization.

(And if the medium is given the original list, couldn't s/he just guess? Of course, he could guess at a rate better than chance, but would that really prove mediumship)?

A rate better than chance would certainly be evidence of something beyond the ordinary. With repitition it would become convincing.

apoger

14th April 2004, 10:24 AM

Interpreting the answers. "What is right?" "What is wrong?

Just to head off more "interpretation" questions...

We could also use colors or shapes instead.
Just let me know what information can be transfered and we will use that.

michaellee

14th April 2004, 11:50 AM

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Clancie
I -did- define it already. "Soul survival + communication with the living."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mediumship is based on two premises, TLN...that the soul/personality survives well enough that communication can, at certain times and in certain ways, be possible for some people to do.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Call it mediumship, call it Super psi, call it crossing over, call it whatever you want. A test I think would be sufficient to satisfy everyone involved, both believers and non-believers. would be one whose results, negative or positive, either prove or disprove the claim being made. This includes claims made by anybody who states they can communicate with persons deceased.

Sitters: Newborn infants at pre-selected hospital's maternity wards. Preferably hospitals that have on average, at least 50 newborn infants staying in their ward simultaneously for one day during each week. The hospital location can be anywhere in the US, as varying locations help to limit possible cheating by the medium. This would provide 50 unique, definitely unbiased sitters to use on a weekly basis. They also would be guaranteed to provide no feedback. If the 50 number is not attainable, a lower number would still be valid, it would simply lengthen the amount of testing time.

Testee: John Edward, or any other claimed psychic, medium. or Super psi guy. The testee would have no prior knowledge of the intended sitter group, nor its location. If the number of hospitals possible to be used in the test is, lets say 5,000, randomly select one of these from the list, blindfold the medium, fly or drive to the selected hospital, and have the medium begin the reading in the maternity ward of the hospital.

Test: Since the goal of the test is to prove:
a) If the soul survives
b) If the soul or personality of the dead communicates with the living
c) If some people(mediums, etc.) that can, at certain times and in certain ways, communicate with that soul/personality

then our test is simple. We have 50 unbiased sitters, unknown to the medium. Most or all of the 50 sitters have a relative or relatives who have died. All of these deceased relatives of the newborns had a social security number. Everybody over the age of 25 knows and will know their social security number by heart, even after the day they die, if their soul/personality continues to exist.

As the medium conducts the sitting, each soul or personality that comes through is asked to communicate their social security number, and as further confirmation, the first initial of their first name or their entire first name(if they can remember it). The social security numbers and corresponding initials/names are logged for each sitting.

One sitting can be done per day, at a hospital location randomly selected. Do this for one year, 5 days a week. That provides us with 260 sittings from all over the U.S., including a random group of 13,000 ubiased, no feedback sitters.

If the medium was communicated on average one social security number per sitting, that gives us 260 social security numbers to match up, one per day per hospital to any of the 50 newborn infants.

What would be a successful test? The possibility of cheating is very low, as the medium, in order to cheat, would have to find out the social security numbers of one deceased relative for every one of the 4 million newborns per year, and then correlate the number to the randomly selected hospital's 50 infants. This is almost an impossibility.

If the medium could provide even one valid, matching social security number to any of the 13,000 sitters, it would be shocking. If the list of numbers was 260, then 50 correct numbers would be reason for Randi to write a check for a million dollars. Hell, I would even send a check for a $1000, now that the entire world has been changed forever.

I know what the response will be: The medium doesn't choose what kind of information is communicated, and can't ask for social security numbers, so this test is not possible nor fair to the medium. My response is: Then rewrite the definition of medium once again, and do not include the word "communicate". If the medium is truly receiving information from deceased people, then obtaining this information, in order to finally prove the ability, should be no problem.

If the medium can only receive information, and cannot ask or communicate a request for specific information, then how do the dearly departed know where or how to contact the medium in the first place? If John Edward is doing a reading in studio with 50 sitters from Boston, when he starts his reading and says "I am getting something from a J or John type person", then a sitter confirms, and the reading is deemed correct for the sitter, how did the deceased know their living relative was in that studio on that day, one of 50 people out of 280 million in the US alone?

The answer surely must be that John Edward somehow asks for or communicates, in whatever unexplained method he uses, to all the deceased relatives of the 50 sitters in his audience that day that their living loved ones wish to communicate with them. So If Edward can ask for and receive communication from deceased relatives of 50 people out of 280 million, he surely can request something as unforgettable as a social security number. Any excuses to the contrary only serve as proof of the non existence of communicating with the dead.

Soapy Sam

14th April 2004, 11:53 AM

Voidx- Quite. A postcode / zipcode would be a fair start.

[That said, I once watched a street entertainer in Colorado who seemed to have memorised all US zipcodes. He was able to cobble together generic descriptions of neighbourhoods given a code. As he did this while juggling on a unicycle, I was pretty impressed.]

Still. I wonder if anyone ever gor a postcode from a ouija board?

drkitten

14th April 2004, 12:12 PM

Originally posted by michaellee
We have 50 unbiased sitters, unknown to the medium. Most or all of the 50 sitters have a relative or relatives who have died. All of these deceased relatives of the newborns had a social security number. Everybody over the age of 25 knows and will know their social security number by heart, even after the day they die, if their soul/personality continues to exist.

Um, this is a big, and possibly invalid, assumption.

Specifically, we've got a lot of evidence from brain damage as a result of head trauma or strokes about what people remember and what they don't. The first basic finding is -- it's pretty random. We've also got some evidence about what stuff tends to get lost and tends to get kept, and social security numbers don't score high on the "tends to get kept" scale. They're very abstract, not usually used on a daily basis, don't have a lot of emotional content, et cetera.

I don't know any specific studies of whether or not post-cva patients remember their social security numbers well, but would not be surprised to find out they don't. And if living people with brain damage can't hold onto their SSN, I'd be surprised indeed to find out that dead people did.

michaellee

14th April 2004, 12:19 PM

So out of 13,000 sitters dead relatives, how many do you think retained the memory of their social security numbers in the afterlife? Even if only 1 out of 4 deceased remember, that stills gives us 12 or 13 sitters per day for 260 days.

So, people who die usually have lost most of their ability to remember information? I guess this explains why they can only communicate the first initial of their first name some of the time to John Edward and company.

DrMatt

14th April 2004, 12:37 PM

There are big ships, little ships, and medium ships.

Seriously, though--figure out what exactly your claim--or the claim of the person you represent--is, and then we can design a test specifically to distinguish *that* from delusions, lies, and mistakes.

I'm quite with you on the notion that there's "Something" to it, but as far as I can tell, that "something" is widespread gullability. I'm willing to be shown otherwise--but please, tell us what you're going to show us.

Iamme

20th April 2004, 06:59 PM

This thread begs to be e-mailed to Gary Schwartz. Maybe even HE could learn something.

CFLarsen

20th April 2004, 10:47 PM

Originally posted by Iamme
This thread begs to be e-mailed to Gary Schwartz. Maybe even HE could learn something.

Does he want to learn?

Ersby

21st April 2004, 02:40 AM

My protocol makes no allowance for bias, and in fact makes it an element of the judging procedure. This may be a failing, but it avoids all the dryness of social security numbers and random words.

Have the sitter receive their reading via a computer terminal. This means the sitter has no idea if the person doing the reading is a medium, a cold reader, some guy with a big pile of name/death/social statistics beside them or even a rewritten ELIZA style AI program. This will go some way to eliminate the effects of sitter buy-in, since if the sitter IS the type to say yes to everything, and they’re being read by a cold reader then that’d be very instructive too.

I’m undecided as to whether to give the sitter a keyboard and let them respond in full sentences, or to limit their responses to “yes” “no” “maybe”.

After the reading is complete the sitter would be asked what they thought of the reading and whether this information could be guessed/could possibly be mediumship/is definitely mediumship. Then the sitter will be asked to look back through a print out of the reading and explain the stories behind the hits and perhaps change their opinion of the reading.

And then they’re asked if they thought the reading was psychic or not.

The mediums should get more positive responses.

It’d be nice if certain criteria could be established beforehand so that the readings can be independently judged. Certain little things that have been claimed for mediums could be quantified. For instance, that mediums stay on one topic for much longer than cold readers, and that the things they talk about are related to those people already spoken about and not to some other person previously unmentioned.

Restrictions could be put in place on those doing the readings. For example, their spiel is actually typed up by someone else, who’d ignore any stylistic touches and simply stick to the questions being asked/information coming through. This’d remove the “Do you understands” and “I feel that” type vagueness.

Sitter-silent readings could also be done. You could even use old readings, and have them appear on screen as if live from another person somewhere else.

Iamme

21st April 2004, 04:31 PM

Hello Ersby.

(Ersby)It’d be nice if certain criteria could be established beforehand so that the readings can be independently judged.

(Iamme) Yes. It be nice. But don't spirit energies (pretending there IS such a thing that the medium 'receives') come through how they want to come through?

(Ersby) Certain little things that have been claimed for mediums could be quantified. For instance, that mediums stay on one topic for much longer than cold readers,

(Phelps) You'll have to get the spirit to agree to this, won't you?

(Ersby), and that the things they talk about are related to those people already spoken about and not to some other person previously unmentioned.

(Phelps) Again, you would have to get the spirit to agree to this. You are creatingh rules for the medium which may deviate from their normal way of reading someone. And, the nmedium can always say that the reason they 'read' with the style that they do, is dictated by how and when during the reading that they hear from the spirit. Obviously, the medium hears from the spirit as the reading progresses. Otherwise...why wouldn't a medium shell out 20 things in the very beginning?

(Ersby) Restrictions could be put in place on those doing the readings. For example, their spiel is actually typed up by someone else, who’d ignore any stylistic touches and simply stick to the questions being asked/information coming through.

(Iamme) You mean that the medium would be hearing from the spirit. Then, the medium would tell the transcribist to write it down...and then the medium would read to the sitter what was written? This seems unnecessary IMO. I would like you first to give me more examples of what you mean the medium does, BESIDES the two following examples, you cited, in the paragraph below. Those two items, I don't think, influence an opinion of the reading, in as much that they deceive an audience into thinking the sitter is saying yes to a hit, as opposed to meaning "Yes, I know what you are talking about. I follow your reasoning."

(Ersby) This’d remove the “Do you understands” and “I feel that” type vagueness.

(Iamme) I agree that the extra verbiage which obviously has nothing to do with what the spirit is actually conveying, should be minimized. The sitter is going to know, no matter what, whether the reading was something really special or not. Elimination of "baggage" statements will merely help an outside judge, if one or more are used, to understand if the sitter believed something was a hit or not.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ersby

21st April 2004, 08:44 PM

Originally posted by Iamme

(Phelps) You'll have to get the spirit to agree to this, won't you?

Well, if the mediumship hypothesis is correct, then they already behave this way, so it shouldn't be a problem.

Ersby

22nd April 2004, 12:41 AM

Originally posted by Iamme

(Iamme) You mean that the medium would be hearing from the spirit. Then, the medium would tell the transcribist to write it down...and then the medium would read to the sitter what was written? This seems unnecessary IMO.

No, I don't mean that at all. The medium wouldn't speak to the sitter: the reading would be done via computer. So the medium would speak, and someone would type in the bare bones of what he said, and it is this the sitter (in another place entirely) would read.

e.g. Instead of saying"They're telling me about making cheese, or a big block of cheese. There's a story about it, like it was left out or it went off" etc. this would be truncated to "Tell me about the cheese." The sitter should understand, if the mediums' claims to get meaningful and specific information stands.

As for creating rules that may deviate from the way mediums work, I'm fairly confident this is a closer protocol than anything else suggested.

Although, to answer the thread's original question, if you're going to suggest any poor results are due to the spirits acting in a cheeky or difficult manner, then mediumship cannot be scientifically tested.

Iamme

23rd April 2004, 05:23 PM

Good evening Ersby.

(Ersby)
Although, to answer the thread's original question, if you're going to suggest any poor results are due to the spirits acting in a cheeky or difficult manner, then mediumship cannot be scientifically tested.

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Trouble is...that is exactly the feeling I get whem listening to a medium like John Edward: That they are acting "cheeky" and in a difficult mannor. Why else can't the spirit cause the medium to say a whole name if they really want the sitter to know that the spirit is in their presense? Why can't the spirit cause the medium to see, hear or feel an entire dialogue that the medium then passes on to the sitter... at the very beginning of the reading?

I have tried to give benefit of the doubt to the medium in observing this process on tv. I have tried to reason, that the reason the medium operates the way they do, is because the information comes to the mind of the medium as opposed to us thinking the spirit is clearly broadcasting it somehow to the medium. The only plausible explanation is that this spirit energy affects the mind of a receptive medium (the reason why everybody can't be a medium due to the lack of this receptiveness) minutely...just enough to cause the medium to guess at what they perceive through their senses. Hence, why mediums so often tell the sitter what they are getting in the form of a question.

But to test for this, IF what I just said was true, ....would be pretty impossible because every thing wopuld be predicated on "I think THIS is what I'm getting...but it could also possibly mean yadda, yadda"...which would work for both true mediumship...and a scam.

If mediumship was so cut and dried, I don't think some of us would have been arguing about it for several years on the John Edward board. :)

As far as your computer terminal idea goes: I think any of various testing procedures, if different from each other, may help shed some light on this process. I'd be willing to take a look at it.