Julie Beischel writes in “Beyond Reasonable: Scientific Evidence for Survival,” her prize-winning essay in the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies competition:
It is not clear where knowledge by intuition fits in the list of methods for knowing. If it is included at all, it may be listed as in between tenacity and authority or as the very least valid method and equated with superstition. I’m going to use mine right now: My intuitive sense is that people who have intuitive experiences and acquire knowledge through them would give this method top billing. (Even higher than science!) For example, my colleagues and I found through our research that a phenomenon commonly experienced by mediums is “just knowing” information
On the topic of survival, different people’s knowledge may come through different methods. People who know there is an afterlife based on religious teachings may be using the method of knowing by authority. People who have had near-death experiences may know through empiricism that consciousness survives. For some, it may simply seem logical; they may be able to infer an afterlife. And others may know intuitively that there is life after death.
When I asked some mediums I know, each with decades of experience involving communication with the deceased, “Do you believe in an afterlife?” and “What makes you sure?” the responses I received were similar: “When you have an actual experience, you KNOW” (SA; emphasis in original), “It is a knowing, not a believing” (DC), “I know it is real because I live with it every day. I am part of it and I know it” (NM), and “I don’t need to believe, I know.”
Other mediums chose to quantify their beliefs about an afterlife: “I believe 100% with no doubt” (DeM), “I believe without a doubt that there is an afterlife” (MR). “There is no doubt in my mind that our loved ones live on” (JG), and “100% yes!” (GQ). Several mediums listed personal out-of-body and near-death experiences (OBEs and NDEs) as the originating source of their belief in an afterlife. Several noted that they did not hold this belief before their OBEs, NDEs, or similar spiritually transformative experiences (STEs).
The mediums’ regular and continued experiences of communicating with the deceased during readings for sitters also served to reinforce their beliefs: “I constantly look for validation from spirit and with great success get it. Spirit does not disappoint” (MR); “Communication with the energy of those who crossed has made me certain that survival of consciousness after bodily death exists” (LJ); “The most compelling part for me is watching how people respond to the information that comes through... The sitter seems to recognize ‘who’ is communicating” (DoM); and “Not knowing someone, sitting down and communicating with spirit prior to the reading, and relaying that and other information/messages to the client is a very powerful validation that there is life beyond this physical world” (TN).
Although these are compelling claims, the described knowledge acquired is based primarily on experience. It is important to remember here that knowledge by experience is truly evidential and an entirely valid method of knowing for each individual. As I have noted before, science “can neither refute the existence nor defend the reality” of anyone’s experiences or what they know in their hearts to be true. However, society as a whole requires a more reliable method of knowing that includes conclusions that we can all agree on. Since at least the mid-1600’s, this method has been objective scientific inquiry, the roots of which are most likely thousands of years old.
*Emmons, C. F., & Emmons, P. (2003). Guided by spirit: A journey into the mind of the medium. Writers Club Press.
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).
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