From Skeptic to Believer: News Anchor Gets a First Time Reading from a Medium

[Ninshub]

Along the same lines, I know there's a fairly recent biography of Leonora Piper by Michael Tymn. Has anyone here read it, and if so would they recommend it? Or would anyone recommend anything else that's been written about her, including sceptical accounts?

I have, and it's very good. There was a discussion of this on the old-old forum, re: the 205 Skeptiko podcast:
http://forum.mind-energy.net/forum/skept...ms-podcast

I seem to remember it was discussed elsewhere too, maybe also on that forum, but I can't remember or find where.

@Kamarling
I share your experience really. I'm not a massive fan of mental mediumship, however I've read a lot of very interesting experiences. I've seen a few mediums and not had any evidence of survival. Of course that doesn't mean that other people haven't.

[Ninshub]

@Kamarling
I share your experience really. I'm not a massive fan of mental mediumship, however I've read a lot of very interesting experiences. I've seen a few mediums and not had any evidence of survival. Of course that doesn't mean that other people haven't.

I thought you were for some reason, Obi. Are you then more of a fan of phys med?

Thanks to Kamarling and Ninshub for their responses. The article on Martin Gardner was very revealing.

I'm a fan of evidence Ninshub . My personal view is that although mental mediumship is more commmon, generally physical mediumship can offer better evidence of survival.

Agreed. The good new is: there are LOTs of examples out there with solid evidential content. 

Basically, if I was not already convinced of the validity of mediumship, these videos wouldn't be enough to convince me.

Here's what I consider to be a better example out of many that are available-




The medium correctly states:
- the husband's name, 
- the fact that he died in the service, 
- that he died in Iraq, 
- that he was shot in the jaw/neck, 
- and that he damaged the wedding picture.

The medium stated these things without equivocation, and didn't fish for validation.

I consider this a reading with strong veridical support. Notice also that there was very little that was said that was incorrect. The only thing I can think of is that she missed the date by one day (15th vs 16th).

Interesting I agree but nothing that couldn't be explained by telepathy and not necessarily evidence of survival imho.

True, but,,,

 there are other mediumship examples where the medium shares information that the sitter didn't know. So since this sort of thing has been demonstrated many times. So in case you would be using an argument which as already been shown to be invalid. 

A problem is: some people will just claim that this double blind sort of case it is just an example of "Super Psi". (ahhh, super psi,,, the eventual argument for all people who want to maintain a hold on their materialist bedrock) 

I've found that one needs to look at the breadth of various psi demonstrations to reach a the conclusion of the existence of psi, as there is always a way to explain away just about any demonstration of this type. For many, it is the plethora of various explanations with ever increasing levels of unlikelihood (and really, silliness) that eventually convince them that it is easier to believe in the base assertion than it is to believe in the eventually ridiculous layers of alternative explanations. 

Question: why would one disbelieve in mediumship, but find it plausible to believe that one can read another's mind? What is the mechanism for that mind reading ability? And if one can't explain that psi skill, isn't it illogical to use this unexplained and possibly unbelievable skill, to argue against mediumship? I see this sort of thing all the time, and it makes no sense to me.

True, but,,,

 there are other mediumship examples where the medium shares information that the sitter didn't know. So since this sort of thing has been demonstrated many times. So in case you would be using an argument which as already been shown to be invalid. 

A problem is: some people will just claim that this double blind sort of case it is just an example of "Super Psi". (ahhh, super psi,,, the eventual argument for all people who want to maintain a hold on their materialist bedrock) 

I've found that one needs to look at the breadth of various psi demonstrations to reach a the conclusion of the existence of psi, as there is always a way to explain away just about any demonstration of this type. For many, it is the plethora of various explanations with ever increasing levels of unlikelihood (and really, silliness) that eventually convince them that it is easier to believe in the base assertion than it is to believe in the eventually ridiculous layers of alternative explanations. 

Question: why would one disbelieve in mediumship, but find it plausible to believe that one can read another's mind? What is the mechanism for that mind reading ability? And if one can't explain that psi skill, isn't it illogical to use this unexplained and possibly unbelievable skill, to argue against mediumship? I see this sort of thing all the time, and it makes no sense to me.

At least at a localised level, perhaps genuine mediums can somehow dissipate their ego better than the general population, allowing their brains networks to become partially entrained by third parties signals.

The brain appears to be an incredibly sensitive stochastic feedback system, it's already incredibly noisy, and like other stochastic systems, such systems improve the noisier things get.

Noisy nonlinear systems like the brain, have long been known to enhance the transmission, transduction or detection of weak signals through stochastic resonance (SR). Simply put, the addition of noise to a system increases it's response to an external signal, perhaps allowing a biological system to detect, and respond to very weak external fields, far below the thermal noise limit.

What I find particularly interesting about the SR process is that it's most effective at detecting weak signals around the same frequency as the transmitter... it's a newish science, and it's still not exactly clear how SR works.

There are plenty of papers showing such effects in biological systems, and a few papers I've come across clearly demonstrating noise in neuronal systems can maximise the spiking activity coherence with an external EM signal - indicating a stochastic resonant behavior in the brain. We're detecting effects of hyperweak magnetic fields on organisms in a growing body of behavioral studies, some of these magnetic fields are really really weak... as low as 40,000 times weaker than the earths local geomagnetic field.

We're possibly talking about hyperweak magnetic fields, affecting the magnetic moment of electrons isolated in hydrophobic cavities of proteins, with amplification occurring across many repeating proteins such that an effect on the organism slowly becomes apparent.

I agree jkmac there's quite a lot of evidence of people receiving information from mediums that was unknown to them. Just observing re the example you mention.

Interestingly, quite a lot of it doesn't necessarily imply survival either. I'm thinking of things like psychometry for instance.

I agree jkmac there's quite a lot of evidence of people receiving information from mediums that was unknown to them. Just observing re the example you mention.

Interestingly, quite a lot of it doesn't necessarily imply survival either. I'm thinking of things like psychometry for instance.

I think it's logically impossible to prove survival, because if information is to be verifiable, the information needed to verify it has to be known by someone or has to be stored somewhere. If telepathy and clairvoyance exist, that means it is accessible through psi.

The closest I can get to a method of proving survival is to imagine someone with a phenomenal memory who could memorise a decryption key and then destroy it. But even if that could be done, and if the decryption key could be recovered by a medium, how could some process of retrocognition be ruled out? Even if the deceased had had phenomenal mental powers, and had been able to work out the key without using a computer or writing the key down, how could retrocognitive telepathy be ruled out?