Anomalous Information Reception by Research Mediums Demonstrated Using a Novel Triple-Blind Protocol

Mediumship: review of quantitatives studies published in the 21st century

“…Data from experiment 2 of the study of Kelly & Arcangel 33 was also excluded from this review because of lack of strict adherence to triple-blind protocol (mediums received pictures from the deceased individuals, many of the sitters were colleagues or friends of one of the investigators, and this investigator knew some of the deceased individuals). Altogether the results of the well-controlled studies included in this review show: (a) in two studies 30,34 (totaling 28 mediums and 102 readings) the sitters' accuracy ratings of specific information from target readings were statistically higher than for decoy readings; and (b) in three 33,35,36 studies (totaling 10 mediums and 44 readings) there was no statistical difference in the fit scores assigned by sitters for the target or decoy readings.…”

“…(Table 3) Quantitative research on alleged mediums has been done for more than a hundred years, and meanwhile the designs of studies have been progressively improved as to eliminate information leakage and telepathy as explanations for the reception of accurate information by mediums 23 . Research protocols reproduce the habitual situation of a friend or relative (the named "sitters") of a deceased person consulting a claimed medium looking for postmortem information about this person, but they apply a "triple blind" design 30 . That is, mediums are blind to the identities of the consultant ("sitter") and of his/her related-deceased person; the researcher interacting with the mediums (acting as a proxy for the consultant) also remains blind to the identities of the consultants and his/her related-deceased person; and consultants who score the accuracy of the "readings" remain blind about the information source (reading really intended for him/her vs decoy reading) 18 .…”

“…Beischel & Schwartz (2007) 30 8 mediums (who had previously demonstrated ability to provide mediumistic information with accuracy, according to the authors) and 8 consultants (highly motivated to receive information from deceased relatives)…”

Fenômenos psíquicos e o problema mente-corpo: notas históricas sobre uma tradição conceitual negligenciada

“…A antiga literatura sobre pesquisa psíquica, tal como alguns estudos da médium americana Leonora E. Piper (1857-1950), apresenta um exemplo de estudos de sessões nas quais a sobrevivência do espírito tem sido considerada seriamente pelos pesquisadores psíquicos conhecidos por sua abordagem empírica rigorosa sobre o tópico 70,71 . Na mesma linha, houve muitos outros estudos relevantes com outros médiuns 72,73 .…”

Transpersonal Psychology and an Agnostic Experiential Exploration of Mediumship and the Ostensible Phenomenon of Life after Death

“…The second half of the 20 th century was generally dominated by quantitative research, which carried over to research in mediumship and parapsychology as well (Beischel, 2014;Cardeña, Lynn, & Krippner, 2000;Irwin & Watt, 2007). The 21 st century has recently seen an advance of interest in qualitative research in mediumship (Harris & Alvarado, 2014;; however, such research is generally described in the literature as studying the experiences of mediums and sitters, who, for the most part, are people other than the researcher (see for example Beischel & Schwartz, 2007;Rock, Beischel, & Schwartz, 2008;Robertson & Roy, 2004;Rock, Beischel, & Cott, 2009;Williams & Arcangel, 2011). What has been described in the context of qualitative research of mediumship may or may not involve actual mediumship sessions, researchers are at times not physically present with the medium, and typically researchers are bringing critical evaluation to the experiential reports of others rather than being able to apply such a perspective to their own firsthand experiences.…”