Experiences of mediums: Beischel excerpt #18

Julie Beischel writes in “Beyond Reasonable: Scientific Evidence for Survival,” her prize-winning essay in the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies competition:

WCRM Laura Lynne Jackson

 In a 2017 online survey study, one of the questions we asked the medium participants (14 WCRMs, 113 self-identified; n = 127) was, “What is your explanation for why you are a medium?” Love was mentioned in some of the responses. For example, one participant described their purpose as, “To help others. To bring Light and Love where there is darkness... We are all eternal beings of Light and Love, we can never be destroyed.”

A different survey question asked, “In your own words, describe your spirituality as it is related to your mediumship.” Qualitative analysis of the responses revealed a major theme that involved love. Participants’ statements included:

“I believe that life continues. Energy changes form but it never lessens or increases. I believe in a light/love in the universe, whatever we call it. People move on in a new form rather than dying and no longer existing.”

“...what I believe in is... levels of ascension and learning of dark to light based on soul growth, with love carrying over each lifetime, until you are purely good and at peace with the universe.”

Because of these types of statements, we specifically predicted that love would be experienced to a greater degree during the blinded readings for deceased targets when compared to blinded readings for living targets. Our prediction was confirmed when this specific analysis demonstrated a statistically significant difference in PCI love scores.

Let’s really take that in and metabolize it: Under controlled conditions, the mediums in this study felt more love when performing a blinded reading for a deceased target than they did when performing a blinded reading for a living target. All the mediums had was a first name. And dead people brought love to the party.

After collecting the UVO-III Study data, I also informally interviewed the WCRMs about their general experiences during psychic functioning and survival psi (mediumship readings). Referencing the overall differences between the two experiences, the WCRMs noted:

“It’s very different. It’s like listening to someone versus looking myself.”

“In a mediumship reading, it feels like someone is talking to me. With psychic readings, it’s information about someone.”

“With mediumship, I get to meet new people all the time. Psychic information is boring.”

The mediums’ comments also related to differences in how they actually perceive the information:

“With psychic information, I have to ‘squint’ from the inside out like to focus on something in the distance. When I do mediumship, it’s not squinting at all. It’s just receiving.”

“There’s a heaviness around the sensation of living people; like air compared to helium. The auditory aspect is much sharper when I’m perceiving someone who is deceased. Their energy is more like helium.”

These statements are similar to a finding from Roxburgh and Roe* who interviewed 10 Spiritualist mediums about their experiences and qualitatively analyzed the responses. The metaphor of energy was used by one participant “to make the distinction between a psychic link that is ‘static’ and ‘dense,’ and spirit communication that is ‘vibrant’ and ‘lighter’” (p. 33).

One WCRM discussed the spatial orientation of the information in response to my query:

“Somebody from the other side steps in to communicate on the right side of the ‘movie screen’ in my mind’s eye. Psychic information from the living comes to the left-hand side of the screen. The dad’s side comes on the bottom right-hand side and the mom’s side comes in the upper right-hand side of the screen.”

Several WCRMs discussed differences in their physical sensations:

“The physical feeling I get is a tingling or a pressure in my head when the medium stuff starts to happen or when they’re entering the room. I don’t get that at all during a psychic reading.”

“Physically, mediumship charges me up. It’s like having eight cups of cappuccino. It’s like a buzzing. I’ve learned I can’t do reading too late at night because I’ll just be up all night. It’s like a super-charge. Psychic information doesn’t do that.”

One WCRM spoke specifically about love:

[In mediumship readings,] “there’s more of a loving feeling. When I connect with somebody on the other side, everything’s happy and great. I feel like I don’t know who I am any more. I lose myself. My identity is gone. Who cares who I am? I’m just part of the universe; I’m part of love energy... It’s like I’m connecting with that sacred love, that universal love, on the other side even though it’s just in little tiny bits for a moment. Reading psychically is very different. I’m more aware of myself. It’s more grounded. It makes me feel alone.”

The UVO-III data collected under blinded conditions and these additional informal interview responses support the conclusions of the previous phenomenological research studies: mediums know what acquiring psychic information about the living feels like and communicating with the deceased feels different.

 

*Roxburgh, E. C., & Roe, C. A. (2013). “Say from whence you owe this strange intelligence”: Investigating explanatory systems of spiritualist mental mediumship using interpretative phenomenological analysis. International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 32(1), 27– 42.

 

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).