Survival Psi & Somatic Psi: Beischel excerpt #13

Whatever the mediums in this study were doing, psi was involved. There are, however, two competing psi-based explanations for the source of the accurate information mediums report: survival psi and somatic psi. Together, these terms more accurately reflect the proposed theoretical framework attempting to explain mediumship and have replaced more imprecise terms like ‘super psi’ and ‘living agent psi’. 

 

If survival psi is the correct explanation, the medium is using psi to communicate mind-to-mind with the survived consciousness of the discarnate. In the somatic psi theory, the medium is not communicating with any discarnates. Instead, the somatic psi theory posits, the medium is using any combination of psi-based cognitive tasks to acquire information about the discarnate: accessing the minds of living persons associated with the discarnate; obtaining information about the discarnate from distant locations, documents, objects, or other sources; retrieving information from the future when the reading is scored by the sitter; or examining a psychic reservoir of information to learn about the discarnate. The root of the word somatic (soma) means body; the term is used to refer to the physical body of the living sitter and/or the body of information stored in the universe as examples of what sources the medium allegedly accesses in this explanation. 

 

At this time, somatic psi and survival psi are simply theoretical constructs; just names for ideas not backed by empirical evidence. We can’t prove either one in and of itself. Thus, using them as explanations for the source of the information mediums report about the deceased would commit either (a) the logical error of reification (mistaking the abstract for the concrete) or (b) the error of nominal fallacy (thinking that something is understood simply because it has a name; or ‘naming is not explaining’). Still, the two concepts are useful for thinking about and discussing mediumship, and I’ll continue to use them here as placeholders to represent the two sides of this established battle.

 

Since the initial scientific examination of mediums in the late 19th century, being able to break this tie between the ideas of survival psi and somatic psi has seemed quite impossible. It appeared that both were equally likely to be true, which has strongly dissuaded many researchers from studying mediums.

 

This is because the source of the information reported by mediums cannot be determined from its content and, for a long time, content was all researchers had. All they could do was assess the accuracy of what mediums said. And nothing a medium can say during a reading will break the tie between somatic psi and survival psi. Any content can be the result of anomalous transfer of information from a psychic reservoir, from the future, from distant places, or from the sitter or other people through somatic psi. If a medium reports something the sitter didn’t know but needed to verify through someone else, that can be explained as the medium using somatic psi to get the information from that other person. If a medium accurately reports an event that hasn’t happened yet, that can be explained as somatic psi from the future. The general phenomena attributed to somatic psi are well established and make logical sense.

 

However, the cases above could just as logically be explained as the result of survival psi and communication with a discarnate. The discarnate could provide information the sitter didn’t know and needed to verify with others. The discarnate could report information to the medium about a future event. Again, both somatic psi and survival psi could be true.

 

We could collect accuracy data until the end of time and it would continue to support the existence of anomalous information reception by mediums, but it could not help us get any closer to figuring out where a medium gets [their] information. The content of the reading is irrelevant in this debate because it can never break the tie or shift the balance.

 

So, we are at an impasse. What’s a scientist to do?

 

 

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).

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).

Medium scores for readings: Beischel excerpt #11

The scores for target readings reflect the accuracy of the information; the comparison of target reading scores to decoy reading scores reflects its specificity. If the mediums are just making up the content or guessing, we would expect to see very low accuracy scores. If the information is overly general and could apply to any sitter, we would expect to see high accuracy scores with no differences between the target and decoy scores.

What we found was that, in general, the blinded sitters in this study scored readings— performed by blinded mediums—for the sitters’ own discarnates (targets) as more accurate than readings for other sitters’ discarnates (decoys).

The statistically significant scoring data collected under blinded conditions reflect the accuracy and specificity of the information the mediums reported and are in line with the original hypothesis. Stated more plainly: The mediums in this experiment reported accurate information about deceased people that they had no way of knowing.

The data collected during this study demonstrate the phenomenon we call anomalous information reception (AIR), that is, the reporting by mediums of accurate and specific information about discarnates without prior knowledge of the discarnates or sitters, in the absence of any sensory feedback, and without using deceptive or fraudulent means. “There’s no normal way the mediums could acquire the information they report so its reception can only be described as anomalous” (that is, not normal; inconsistent with what is standard or expected). This phenomenon is not possible within the currently prevailing scientific or medical paradigms. And we use the term “reception” rather than “retrieval” to reflect the lived experiences of the mediums who report receiving or perceiving rather than retrieving the information.

Anomalous or not, these are not fluke findings. A meta-analysis of 14 studies of mediums’ accuracy published since 2001 was recently conducted. The method of meta- analysis (MA) incorporates an effective array of tools for combining data across studies and addressing controversial research findings. This particular MA also included publication bias tests to examine biases resulting from questionable research practices. The authors confirmed the reliability of the results from the studies analyzed and concluded that “some mediums are able to acquire information about deceased persons through some unknown or anomalous means”. So, the current status of the field is that at least some mediums are capable of AIR.

 

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). 

Experimental data: Beischel excerpt #10

Step 4: Perform the Experiment

Between 2009 and 2013, the 20 WCRMs on my team performed 68 quintuple-blind readings for 68 discarnates. From these my colleagues and I received 58 readings scored by sitters that contained usable data.

The main features of the quintuple-blind protocol are presented in Figure 1.

Step 5: Analyze the Data

In 2015, my colleagues and I published the results from the 58 quintuple-blind readings (48). The blinded sitters had provided overall global scores (on a 0-6 scale) for each of two readings (a target intended for them and a decoy intended for another sitter) and chose which reading of the two they believed was theirs. For 31 of those readings, the sitters also scored for accuracy each item in the portions of each of the two readings in which the mediums answered specific questions about the deceased. The scores that sitters could choose from included: obvious fit that does not require interpretation to apply, fit requiring minimal interpretation or symbolism to make sense, indirect fit requiring greater interpretation to fit, and complete miss. ‘Fits’ and ‘fits requiring minimal interpretation’ were grouped together and considered ‘hits.’ 

 

Note: The five levels of blinding were: (1) the WCRM was blinded to information about the sitter and the discarnate before, during, and after the reading and asked questions during the reading about the discarnate’s appearance, personality, activities, and cause of death; (2) the blinded sitters did not hear the readings as they occurred; they scored blinded transcripts of two readings, one for their discarnate (target) and one for another sitter’s discarnate (decoy) without knowing which was which; (3) the experimenter who consented and trained the sitters (Experimenter 1) was blinded to which mediums read which sitters and which readings were intended for which sitters; (4) the experimenter who interacted with the mediums during the phone readings and formatted the readings into item lists for scoring (Experimenter 2) was blinded to information about the sitters and the discarnates; (5) the experimenter who interacted with the sitters during scoring (Experimenter 3) was blinded to all information about the discarnates, to which medium performed which readings, and to which readings were intended for which sitters.

 

The scores for target readings reflect the accuracy of the information; the comparison of target reading scores to decoy reading scores reflects its specificity. If the mediums are just making up the content or guessing, we would expect to see very low accuracy scores. If the information is overly general and could apply to any sitter, we would expect to see high accuracy scores with no differences between the target and decoy scores. 

 

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).

Reading and controls: Beischel excerpt #9

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

Reading. During any research reading, we need to ensure that we only ask the mediums to report the types of information they usually report. Since this does not include winning lottery numbers, combinations to locks, or what color shirt the sitter should wear tomorrow, I didn’t ask for any of those things in my experiments. Additionally, although in your physical life you are regularly known by your personally-identifiable information (PII), like your name, date of birth, social security number, address, and phone number, these are not the types of information mediums are regularly observed reporting, so I didn’t ask for those during research. To further optimize the environment, I needed to limit both the number and length of readings in order to best mimic the real-world experiences of practicing mediums.

Maximum Controls. In order to control for artifacts, I needed to implement maximum experimental controls. If I wanted to study how a seed grows naturally, I would need to control for things like fertilizer and supplemental UV lamps or I’d end up making errors in my understanding of plant growth. In mediumship research, we need to address the normal, sensory explanations for the source of the information the mediums report. These include factors like hot and cold readings.

The Windbridge Research Center offers descriptions of how a fraudulent medium uses these to fabricate accurate readings:

With hot reading, the fraud will obtain information about the sitter beforehand and feed it back to them during the reading and act like it’s coming from the deceased. The information can be looked up online through social media or using confederates onsite to chat up the sitter. With cold reading, the fraud asks the sitter questions and uses their responses or uses sensory clues or cues (for example, the name, age, or gender of the sitter, their clothing or accent, tears, gasps, nods, pupil dilation, the sitter smelling of cigarette smoke, etc.) to steer the direction of the reading. A reading containing information so general it could apply to nearly anyone is also a form of cold reading.

In addition to hot and cold reading, some sitters may have a cognitive tendency to remember many items as accurate even when they were incorrect or unclear. When a sitter knows a reading was intended for them, they may rate or score items differently. During research, this ‘rater bias’ can be responsible for what seems like an accurate reading. Finally, another possible explanation for a medium’s accuracy is precognition: that is, the medium may obtain, from the future, information about which items in the reading were scored as accurate by the rater when the medium is given feedback about the scored reading.

To address these explanations for the information mediums report, the Windbridge protocol uses five levels of experimental blinding (also called masking). In research, blinding refers to the act of preventing people associated with an experiment from knowing certain pieces or types of information. For example, in a standard randomized controlled trial (RCT) involving double-blinding, the patient and the doctor are both blinded to whether the patient is taking a placebo or the medication being studied. In what we have nicknamed our “quintuple-blinded” mediumship protocol, the medium, the sitter, and three experimenters are blinded to various aspects of the protocol and to different types of information. This does not mean that anyone is blindfolded or gets poked in the eye to ensure experimental constraints. It just means that access to information is controlled.

To create the quintuple-blinding, our research readings involve only phone readings, and the sitter is not on the call. An experimenter blinded to information about the sitter and their associated discarnate serves as a proxy sitter in place of the absent sitter. Because the medium has no access to the sitter, and the blinded experimenter cannot provide cues or clues, this protocol addresses the hot and cold reading explanations. In addition, the experimenter asks the medium specific questions about the discarnate’s physical and personality characteristics, hobbies, cause of death, and any messages for the absent sitter. By asking for specific information, this addresses the overly general information explanation.

Furthermore, each medium performs two readings for two different discarnates, and then each associated sitter scores formatted transcripts of both readings without knowing which was intended for them (the target reading) and which was intended for another sitter (the decoy reading). The protocol addresses rater bias by comparing the accuracy scores of all the target readings with the accuracy scores of all the decoy readings. To address precognition, we never give the research mediums feedback about their research readings. Finally, each reading contains information about only one discarnate. This prevents cues that multiple-discarnate readings may provide to the raters.

This quintuple-blind protocol was vetted and peer-reviewed at least four times by multiple qualified peers: first, when a description of the planned project was selected to be funded by the funding organization’s reviewers; second, when the final report about the study findings was reviewed by the funding organization; third, when a description of the protocol and findings was vetted and accepted for presentation at a scientific conference; and fourth, when an article describing the findings was reviewed for publication in a journal.

 

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).

Discarnates/Sitters/Mediums: Beischel excerpt #8

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

Discarnates. The observed phenomenon involves everyday discarnates and a close sitter-discarnate relationship. In a valid research design, I can’t ask a medium for information about, say, Nobel prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman. I did not have a close personal relationship with him—and don’t know anyone who did—so I would not be able to identify him during a mediumship reading. Also, the mediums’ lived experience is that the right discarnates find them and not vice versa. They don’t have a Heaven phonebook to ring up whoever they want. They connect discarnates with sitters. Because I have no connection to discarnate Professor Feynman, there’s no logical reason to think he would want to connect with me during a mediumship reading. So, I stuck with everyday discarnates and their everyday sitter loved ones in my design.

Sitters. To fully establish an optimal mediumship research environment, we need to include the sitters in the experiment. The information reported in a mediumship reading is a personal conversation between two people with an emotional connection: the discarnate and the sitter. As I have previously noted elsewhere, even if I asked you to tell me everything there is to know about your deceased loved one, truly meaningful information may still come up in a mediumship reading that you hadn’t thought about in years. If I tried to act as an independent judge and score that forgotten information based on what I had collected from you, I would erroneously label it as inaccurate. Only you can decide what is identifying and accurate about your discarnate. It doesn’t matter what any of your friends, what any skeptic, or even what I think; it is a reading for you, not for any of us. Only people who were close to the discarnate are qualified to assess the accuracy and meaning of a reading. Thus, in my experimental design, I was only concerned with accuracy scores provided by sitters. That’s how it works in a natural, regular reading.

Mediums. The experimental design must also include people capable of the tasks requested of them. This involves pre-screening participants. If we wanted to study the phenomenon of high jumping, we would find some good high jumpers. We wouldn’t just look for people claiming to be high jumpers on Craig’s List, or invite some people off the street and tell them, “Go jump over that bar.” If those people couldn’t clear the bar, we wouldn’t have learned anything at all about high jumping.

In 2008, my team was fortunate enough to receive a research grant to establish a squad of credentialed mediums to participate in research. These mediums were tested, screened, and trained over several months using an intensive, peer-reviewed, 8-step procedure. Upon successful completion of the eight steps, mediums are termed Windbridge Certified Research Mediums (WCRMs). WCRMs agree to volunteer their time as research participants. This includes giving me feedback about protocol designs as well as participating in studies. Because certification is a time- and resource-intensive process, we stopped certifying mediums after the granted project was complete.

At its maximum, my team included 20 WCRMs. After the retirement of a couple, our current team includes 18 WCRMs. The reference I made above to “some mediums I know” who provided responses to the question “Do you believe in an afterlife?” are some of the WCRMs on my team (in the order their responses appear here): Samara Anjelae (SA), Dave Campbell (DC), Nancy Marlowe (NM), Debra Martin (DeM), Marisa Ryan (MR), Joanne Gerber (JG), Ginger Quinlan (GQ), Laura Lynne Jackson (LJ), Doreen Molloy (DoM), and T.L. Nash (TN). When I collected their responses in March 2021, they gave me permission to publicly share their names as part of “a secret media project” I wouldn’t tell them anything about. I had never asked them those questions before. If this essay makes it into the world, I hope the WCRMs are pleasantly surprised to find their responses here. 

 

 

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).

Scientific Method: Beischel excerpt #7

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

The scientific method is clear. Step 1: observe. Step 2: Formulate a Hypothesis

After observing mediums make statements about discarnates, I can ask, “Are those statements correct? Do they accurately reflect reality?” To develop a hypothesis, I created a positive statement about mediums, discarnates, and sitters predicting reality and based on my observations. The statement needed to be falsifiable: that is, it must be possible for the assertion it makes to be refuted with evidence. The hypothesis was: The information about discarnates reported by mediums is accurate and specific. It is possible for that falsifiable hypothesis to be disproven. Again, I didn’t expect 100% perfection. And rather than use arbitrary assumptions about what would be impressive, I used established statistical methods to objectively determine if the information was actually accurate and specific. Testing the hypothesis allowed me to acquire new knowledge about an aspect of nature. That is the aim of science.

Conjecturing about a phenomenon and then performing experiments based on assumptions does not qualify as science. Any direction starting with, “I wonder if a medium could...” is most likely not a scientific pursuit. I can’t wonder if mediums can report lottery numbers and then ask them to buy a ticket and call that science. That’s not something that they regularly do, and thus it can’t be observed during Step 1. If one observes the mediumistic triad as it exists in nature and then thinks, “Well, then mediums should also be able to [blank]” without ever observing them [blank]ing, no science is happening.

Step 3: Design an Experiment

From the beginning, I knew that in order to appropriately test the hypothesis that the information about discarnates reported by mediums is accurate and specific, two equally important factors of the experiment were necessary. Ideally, laboratory-based mediumship research should include: (a) a research environment that optimizes the mediumship process for both the medium and the discarnate and (b) research methods that maximize the experimental blinding of the medium, the rater, and the experimenters in order to eliminate all conventional explanations for the reported information and its accuracy and specificity.

Without these factors in place, we really won’t know anything more about mediumship after the experiment than we did before it so any results would be meaningless. I have used different analogies to demonstrate this point over the years:

• You can’t study football on a baseball field using hockey equipment and the rules for soccer and then claim you’ve disproven the existence of football.

• You can’t place an acorn in your palm, wait a few minutes, and then call it a fraud when it doesn’t turn into an oak tree.

Optimal Environment

To bring an observed natural phenomenon into the laboratory for examination, creating an environment as close to the natural one as possible is necessary. When the phenomenon being studied involves people and not just seeds or chemicals, the research design must include the real-world, lived experiences of the people. In order to acquire new knowledge, my practice has always included bringing research participants into the conversation when designing a study. This allows me to collect feedback about what is and is not their lived experience of the phenomenon under investigation. In the observed phenomenon of mediumship readings, mediums report discarnate-associated information to the discarnates’ living loved ones, the sitters. Therefore, the experimental protocol design needed to account for all three people and their relationships to each other—discarnates, sitters, and mediums—and include reasonable reading conditions. 

 

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).