Triple Blind Study Validates Life After Death and Mediumship

Anomalous Information Reception by Research Mediums

Demonstrated using a novel triple-blind protocol

By Dr. Julie Beischel and Dr. Gary E Shwartz, University of Arizona and the Windbridge Institute.

Dr. Beischel emphasizes how difficult it is to gain scientific support and acceptance for parapsychological investigations because it has been so stigmatized.  This is why it is so important for us to think critically about the paranormal.  We are not helping anyone by declaring that every speck of dust caught in a camera flash is really a ghost.  As a community paranormal investigators need to be willing to expose those in their midst who are faking it for publicity or money; because when a skeptic does it, it makes everyone else in the community look less credible.  The community must police itself.

This kind of research is important.  Current science views the brain as the cause of consciousness, but more and more we are finding evidence that-- as William James suggested--the brain is an antenna-receiver, for our consciousness.  This means that consciousness may not die when the brain does, and that certain people-- psychics-- may be able to 'tune in' to other peoples' frequencies.

This is the principle Beischel's work is based on.  Now lets look at the methods for the study:

The first steps in building the experiment involved finding and evaluating people who claimed to be psychics.  These people were volunteers, people from all over the country, most of which make their living operating as psychics.  Each prospective medium goes through an 8 step process.

1) a written questionnaire

2) a psychological/personality test

3) a phone interview with an existing certified research medium

4) a phone interview with a Windbridge investigator

5) 2 blinded phone readings to evaluate accuracy of ability

6) mediumship research training - explaining how the research works

7) training in the rules regarding the safety and psychological well-being of human subjects during research

8) grief training

Once they have completed all of these satisfactorily, they become a certified research medium, and are able to participate in the research.

The sitter--a living person who has a relationship to the deceased (or discarnate)—is selected from a pool of University of Arizona students who volunteered for the research.  These sitters stated they had a "very close" relationship with a specific discarnate (usually a deceased parent).

Then, a Research Assistant collects data from each sitter about their discarnate and their relationship to them.  Research Assistant then sorts the descriptions.  Two readings will be done on the same day, so the Research Assistant is pairing these readings so that the 2 discarnates to be contacted on the same day are the same gender, but will be as different as possible in age, physcial description, personality and hobbies, and cause of death.  By the end of the research, the sitter must choose which of the 2 readings from the pair sounds more like their loved-one.  Because the gender of both discarnates in the pair is the same, the sitter is not able to choose the reading meant for himself based on the discarnate’s gender. 

Once the Research Assistant does this, her part in the experiment is done. She does not speak to or interact with the mediums.

Then, a medium performs 2 readings, one for each discarnate in the pair. The medium is given ONLY the first name of the discarnate.  The medium is not given any information about the sitter or his/her relationship to the discarnate.  The readings are done over the phone.  The medium lives in a different city--sometimes a different state than the sitter and researchers.  The actual student-sitter is not present, and has no contact with the medium. 

An Experimenter is used as a proxy-sitter.  Experimenter does not know any more information than the medium was given-- only the first name of the discarnate.  They do this for 2 reasons:  1) Mediums feel more comfortable because it mimics their normal reading practices to be speaking to a sitter. and 2) Experimenter knows nothing about the discarnate, so this ensures they cannot unconsciously give clues or ask the medium leading questions.

Experimenter then asks the medium a set of 4 questions about the discarnate, concerning physical appearance, personality, hobbies, and cause of death. Experimenter transcribes the information given about the discarnate into a report.  The discarnate's name is removed from the report, instead substituted for a number.  Then Experimenter --who does not know which sitter is related to which discarnate-- gives copies of the 2 numbered pieces of paper to Sitter A and Sitter B and asks them to fill out a questionnaire rating how accurate to their loved-one they feel each aspect of the description of the discarnate was (physical description, hobbies, personality and cause of death) :

Their answers ranged from

Obvious fit

Mild or moderate fit

No fit

OR does not fit the named discarnate or myself, but fits someone else I was close to

The sitter was then asked to score the OVERALL reading's fit and likelihood of correct information on a scale of 0-6.

0 No correct information/communication

1 Little correct information/communication

2 some correct information, but not enough to suggest more than chance guessing

3 Mix of correct and incorrect information, but enough correct to indicate communication with the deceased

4 Good reading, but some incorrect information

5 Good reading, relatively little incorrect

6 Excellent, with essentially no incorrect information, includes strong aspects of communication

The sitter is then asked to choose which of the 2 readings is about their loved-one and rate how strongly they feel:

clearly more applicable to me

moderately more applicable

only slightly more

both seemed equally applicable

OR neither were applicable to me

RESULTS:

The average intended medium-reading turned out a score of 3.56, somewhere between “a mix of correct and incorrect information, but not enough correct information to indicate communication occurred” and “good reading with some incorrect information”.  The average control reading had a score of 1.94 “some correct information, but not enough to suggest beyond chance that communication with the deceased occurred”. 

6 out of the 8 research mediums produced positive results (intended ratings were higher than control ratings). The other 2 mediums were given scores equal to the control.

3 mediums produced dramatic findings in at least one reading, with scores of 5.0 “good reading with relatively little incorrect information” to 5.5   (6.0= excellent reading with strong aspects of communication and essentially no incorrect information).

When asked to choose which reading was most applicable to them, sitters chose the intended reading 81% of the time.  Science expects a 50% accuracy, based on chance.  Anything more than a difference of 10% is considered statistically significant, since there is a 31% difference, this is considered by scientists to be statistically significant proof.

PROS:

Triple-blind experiment design eliminates all known potential sources of sensory cues, rater bias, and fraud.

Triple blind experiment design also eliminates possibility of medium reading the mind of the sitter, since they have not met the sitter and know nothing about them.

CONS:

This was done on a small scale, with 16 sitters, and 8 mediums.  This could mean that the sample is too small, and results are simply chance.  Averaging the results of more responses together gives us a more realistic picture.

Sitters were chosen out of a pool of 1,600 students who answered “yes” or “unsure” when asked if they believed in an afterlife and mediums.  Because they already believed in the afterlife, some sitters may have been inclined to give a higher rating, saying it was more likely communication occurred.   However, this does not reflect on their ability to choose the reading intended for them, since this is an objective choice.

The findings point to the mediums’ ability to gain information by using some kind of non-conventional sense.  It is not clear HOW they get this information.  Possibilities include: survival of consciousness; super-psi (receiving information from a ‘universal library’); or the ability to mentally locate and read physical papers/photos.