AIR but not survival: Beischel excerpt #12

Anomalous information reception (AIR)

Mediumship accuracy data collected under controlled conditions demonstrate AIR, but do not directly establish that the mediums are communicating with the deceased. The results, in and of themselves, do not provide evidence for survival. The 58 mediumship readings described above contained accurate information about discarnates but the data did not allow us to draw conclusions about the source of the information. The experiment was only capable of testing mediums’ accuracy.

However, the experimental conditions in that study did address normal sources for the reported information, so we know the mediums were not using any standard sensory methods to acquire the information. They didn’t look up, make up, hear about, or deduce from clues the accurate information they reported. So, how did they get the information? How did they seem to know that a given discarnate was an outgoing brunette, or dominated at bar trivia, or died in a traffic collision? Where did this knowledge come from? Let’s look at psi.

Psi

Historically, the term psi has been used to describe the different anomalous ways people acquire information and affect the environment. In my understanding, psi includes two major phenomena which are not mediated by the senses or by logical inference: (i) anomalous cognition (previously, extrasensory perception, ESP) and (ii) psychokinesis (PK). Anomalous cognition involves telepathy, the transfer between people of information, thoughts, or emotions; clairvoyance, the transfer of information about or the perception of distant objects, events, or situations; precognition (conscious cognitive awareness of), presentiment (physiological reaction to), or premonition (affective apprehension of) future events that could not be inferred or anticipated; and retrocognition, the transfer of information about a noninferable past event. PK is the apparent influence of thoughts or intentions on physical or biological processes or objects unmediated by physical forces.

Events involving psi phenomena “that seem to violate the current common-sense view of space and time” have actually been reported by people from all walks of life in “every society of which there is record”; that is, psi has been happening all over the world throughout history. And people continue to believe in and experience these types of phenomena today. Nonetheless, near the end of the 20th century, at the request of Congress and the CIA, evaluations were commissioned to assess the validity of psychic functioning. The findings were reported by University of California statistician Jessica Utts and published in 1995 (and republished in 2018). Utts’ findings were:

“Using the standards applied to any other area of science, it is concluded that psychic functioning has been well established. The statistical results of the studies examined are far beyond what is expected by chance. Arguments that these results could be due to methodological flaws in the experiments are soundly refuted”.

Utts went on to suggest that, “There is little benefit in continuing experiments designed to offer proof, since there is little more to be offered to anyone who does not accept the current collection of data”.

If only.

Psi research continued and, in a recent review of findings and meta-analyses referencing more than 125 published works, Lund University psychologist Etzel Cardeña again concluded that the published evidence: “provides cumulative support for the reality of psi, which cannot be readily explained away by the quality of the studies, fraud, selective reporting, experimental or analytical incompetence, or other frequent criticisms. The evidence for psi is comparable to that for established phenomena in psychology and other disciplines.”  

The extensive collection of psi data implies that consciousness can function separately from the sensory limitations of the body and can transcend space and time. Indeed, the US military continues to find value in psi abilities that can alert sailors and Marines to danger before it happens; the Defense Department calls this ability “sensemaking” which “Navy scientists assure the public is not based on superstition”.

So, if the mediums in the quintuple-blind protocol were not using normal, sensory means to get the information they reported, the only rational explanation left is that the source of the information must have involved psi.

But which type of psi? 

 

 

Dr. Julie Beischel is the Director of Research at the Windbridge Research Center. She received her PhD in Pharmacology and Toxicology with a minor in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Arizona and uses her interdisciplinary training to apply the scientific method to controversial topics. For over 15 years, Dr. Beischel has worked full-time studying mediums: individuals who report experiencing communication with the deceased and who regularly, reliably, and on-demand report the specific resulting messages to the living. References cited in her paper are deleted from these excerpts but a full paper with references is available at the Bigelow website (https://bigelowinstitute.org/contest_winners3.php).