Super-Psi & some notes from Braude's Immortal Remains

Since there's been some conversation re: Super-Psi vs Survival, I figured I'd post some notes from Immortal Remains by Stephen Braude. Note that Braude himself leans toward survival at the end of the book, even when one takes in the Super-Psi possibilities into consideration.

I personally reject the Super-Psi hypothesis while accepting that Survival might also be false...though I think there are reasons to take the varied arguments for some kind of survival very seriously in total. I'll sprinkle in some of my thoughts here and there.

I'll start with the basic overview of what is going into the Super-Psi hypothesis within this book. If you have the book and feel I'm missing something crucial posting that would be quite helpful thanks!:

1. Objection to the Term - Braude objects to the term Super-Psi because he feels it sets up the Hypothesis for failure by assuming the kind of Psi necessary has never been observed. Braude notes that not only have there been cases of incredible Psi outside of the lab, [the lab data parallels aspects of Super-Psi in that it is unconsciously motivated]. Though not necessarily at the level of "Super", but it is not clear whether any kind of "Super" Psi is necessary for the hypothesis regardless.

2. After-death communications, even by survived entities, needs Psi. Braude notes that the very kind of communication mechanisms used by the supposed dead would require Psi on the scale of Super-Psi.

3. As we don't know have a mechanism for Psi, or even a set of natural laws to describe its limitations, we cannot even rule out the "Super" part.

4. Survival literature doesn't deal well enough with the literature on disassociation, which would tie into the Super-Psi hypothesis in regards to the dead persons seemingly communicating.

I think that's the relevant bits from the introduction.

The first part of Chapter 2 deals with an introduction to Drop-In Communications.

These are cases where a personality shows up, unrequested, to a medium circle and imparts information that is only later verified. Braude notes certain variations on how mediumship occurs:

• That some of these cases involve the medium speaking directly to the dead person.
  
• Where it seems they only glean information ("I see so & so doing this or that").
  
• Where a spirit is a kind of companion to the medium and speaks to the dead for them Control Personalities).
  
• Most dramatically where the dead posses at least part of the living medium in order to communicate directly.
  

Braude notes that the seeming companion could be a disassociated personality using Psi or maybe Super-Psi to get all the information that seemingly comes from the dead - however he also notes this seems unlikely for drop-in communications because there's nobody interested in that subject nor has knowledge of that subject.

But Braude does give some credence to the idea that even drop in communications are the product of Psi, Super or otherwise. He notes there are cases where the personality is obviously false, or imparting completely incorrect information - an African ghost wanting a key to a Native American wigwam, a ghost claiming Hitler's pumping gas in America. (Though for myself I don't see why these can't be the "Hungry Ghosts" we've been warned about.) Braude makes note of a control's capacity for discussion of science/philosophy/etc running out when a medium's knowledge would fail them, but he doesn't yet make a clear parallel of knowledge.

However, IMO, it isn't clear whether the falsity of a control's identity means a falseness of the actual dead subjects communicated to though naturally the questionable nature of the former does make one question the latter.

Yet, as Braude himself notes, there is a parsimony to the cases where solid evidential evidence (perhaps in addition to expected mannerism and character) matches up with what we'd expect the dead person to know while they were alive. He makes note of Gauld's additional argument for survival being that in the best cases the information is scattered and obscure.

At this point Braude begins to lay out the case for Super-Psi. He notes that because information found via traditional means is obscure does not mean it is difficult to find or put together psychically. He brings up the "Magic Wand Hypothesis" that all that is required for Psi is wishing subconsciously or consciously. This seems rather weak as a hypothesis, since it allows for all sorts of ad hoc explanation, but Braude does note that even in weak lab Psi you can get better results when the person is guiding more by subconscious desire than direct effort.

Setting the stage, Braude gets into analysis of a couple cases which I'll post about next. But I'll give it a day or two if people want to comment.

As an addendum, some additional commentary from Prescott on this subject:

Controls, communicators, and personas

So let's step back and take another look at this whole issue of communicators and controls in mediumship. We are told that some of the communicators appear to be genuine, while others appear to be artificial constructs. But if all personas are artificial constructs by their very nature, then this distinction falls apart. All personas are thought forms. All personas are equally real -- or unreal, depending on how you wish to look at it. All personas are ultimately ideas in the mind of God or thought forms in Cosmic Consciousness. The medium's special ability is to tap into some reservoir of these thought forms, without distinguishing between those that were originally connected with a self-aware consciousness and those that were not. The personas themselves cannot make such distinctions, either. One thought form is just like another.

This may seem like a bizarre notion, but I submit that it may be the best way of understanding the complexities of mediumistic communication. As a final piece of evidence to support my hypothesis, I would point to the famous experiment detailed in the book Conjuring Up Philip, by Iris Owen and Margaret Sparrow (summarized here and here).

A group of sitters made up a historical character named Philip and then spent some months trying to summon him in a séance. They eventually succeeded. Philip produced a variety of well-documented phenomena, including table movements of a very extreme and violent character, and loud raps that intelligently answered questions. Yet Philip was always understood to be a completely fictional character. There never was any such person, even though the Philip who seemingly manifested in the séance room insisted that this was in fact his identity.

My big issue with this, as well as Idealism that assumes selves are illusory, is that the argument starts with the subjective self as an individual in the world and then (AFAICTell) leaps to assume this individual somehow doesn't exist. Yet it is the apprehension of all objects by the subject occurring via qualia that is the foundation stone of Idealism..

That said, the Phillip experiment is a very interesting case - Braude actually brought it up in the chapter notes as a potential case in favor of Super-Psi though again the Hungry Ghost Hypothesis seems as strong or stronger IMO...

There are two main cases Braude makes mention of re: Drop Ins, that of the Count Cagliostro and that of Runki's Leg. 

Prescott does a good job summarizing the latter, which is the far more evidential case of interest:

Runki's Leg

The case of the Count is a curious one though. The Count was a drop-in communicator to two mediums, and whose personality seemed rather different than that of the actual, historical count. This one was far more sexual and blasphemous, a champion of sexual freedom including that for women. The personality was far different than any known biography, though instead it did seem to match the commentary recorded in the smears made against the man by the Vatican. This description also wasn't made public until 1972, and not translated into any known English document until 1974. [However Braude notes that the afterlife researcher Gauld disagrees that no such lascivious descriptions of the Count's character existed in public record. It seems there are some texts noting characteristics inline with the Vatican's charges. This would suggest neither Super-Psi nor Survival were shown by this case.]

Beyond that the investigator of this drop in was James Hyslop, a man who was conservatively spiritual man but who nevertheless found lavicious spirits coming to mediums he was investigating. There are some potential arguments that the female mediums, given the times, might have also found themselves projecting their repressed sexual desire onto the Count.

But even as an example of Super-Psi this seems a bit odd. Braude conjectures the three of them possibly "psychically raided" a description of the Count and used this figure as a projection of their sublimated desires. Yet, again, I have to question this when compared to my own suggestion that this is another case of a "Hungry Ghost". In fact the personality's desire to speak of - and possibly encourage - sexual acts it can enjoy second hand goes very, very well with the low character of those spirits described to manipulate channelers and mediums for their own gain. After all, why would the three people use their Super-Psi to find a record of the Count when it was likely there was some other historical figure - even a locally known one - who could suffice as a projection of their Super-Psi?

That said, I do think Braude is not completely wrong that there can be a connection between seeming possession and disassociation of personality - there are stories in India where supposed ghost possession would come before a young girl's wedding which made some sense as these women would enter into arranged marriages and go far from home for the first time in their lives.

As there is little discussion of evidential aspects here, I think we can move on. Will go into the Runki's leg in my next post, just have to take care of a few things IRL...

Some things worthy of note that do seem to differ bit from Prescott's summary of the case:

-Runki said he was fifty-two, but the church records say he was just shy of fifty-one. There is, however, documentation that incorrectly agrees with the number fifty-two.

-Runki originally said his leg was lost at sea, but then changed this once Ludvik entered the medium-ship circle.

Braude makes much of the age discrepancy, noting:

Consider: If Runki wasn’t actually communicating, and if someone at the seance had, either normally or paranormally, scoured existing records for information, this is the sort of error we could expect to see. To figure out Runki’s actual age at the time of death, one would have to locate the appropriate records and do some calculating. But to identify Runki as fifty-two years old at his death, one would only have to read it off the false or misleading record in the parish notebook.

Braude, Stephen E.. Immortal Remains (p. 48). Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Kindle Edition.

Now there are some issues here that Braude doesn't get deeply into that I think are worth dwelling on. Braude makes note that we don't know how Super-Psi works, but it seems to me we can at the least try to gain a rational understanding of what would have to be happening here. Given the way the case plays out, it would seem that the Super-Psi case would need to involve a lot of planning. Even Braude notes that it is no small coincidence that Ludvik comes to the medium circle at an opportune time.

This would suggest a disassociated personality dwelling in tandem within the medium, a sitter, or most generously (perhaps too much) an entity that exists within the network between minds. This entity has pretend to be Runki while badgering the sitting circle for months on end, demanding his leg, and then bring into the circle the one person who could provide a solution. And so the mistaken age required had to be read from the book, either by this disassociated personality or by someone else.

Since there isn't a strong reason to suppose someone just happened to read Runki's age so as to provide the opportunity for a bit of telepathy, and given Braude's suggestions in the Cagliostro case, it seems that Braude suggests Super-Psi is getting the information from the text itself even when the text is not generally accessible like the accounts shut away in the Vatican.

But reading a closed book would mean there is either something about the object that is accessible (say from another dimensional angle beyond the 3 spatial ones we're used) or that the book can somehow allow access to the necessary information in the way a psychic can touch an object learn things about the owner. Beyond that, in the construction of the case, it seems persons - namely Ludvik - and objects would also require some kind of resonance (say the right "aura") to be found for the entire case of Runki and his leg to end with a satisfyingly evidentiary result. Note that Ludvik did not know about the leg bone in his wall, and was only encouraged to look for it because of Runki's insistence.

But if all that is true, then just as Survivalists must posit feats of Psi comparable to Super Psi, the Super Psi hypothesis suggests the very kind of Psi-powers (and possibly spatial realities among other natural effects) that would allow a dead but still extant Runki to figure out that Ludvik had his leg bone within the wall of his house. After all, what is good for the goose is good for the gander. If Super-Psi advocates grant all of these powers to a living agent possessing Psi, they can hardly object if the Survivalist grants these same powers to the dead. 

Of course, as Prescott notes, you could reject both Super-Psi and Survival, but the point of this thread is to decide between the two. Thus Drop In Communicators to me seem to point to two entities -> those deceased who are who they claim to be, and mischievous spirits of some sort (the hungry ghosts) that pretend to be these dead people.

At least so far I see little reason to even consider the Super-Psi hypothesis.

Next up is Trance Mediumship.

[Laird]

But if all that is true, then just as Survivalists must posit feats of Psi comparable to Super Psi, the Super Psi hypothesis suggests the very kind of Psi-powers (and possibly spatial realities among other natural effects) that would allow a dead but still extant Runki to figure out that Ludvik had his leg bone within the wall of his house.

I'm a little confused by this, Sci. Wouldn't the super-psi hypothesis dispense with Runki altogether and have the medium supernaturally gaining all of the required information herself?

I'm a little confused by this, Sci. Wouldn't the super-psi hypothesis dispense with Runki altogether and have the medium supernaturally gaining all of the required information herself?

Going by Braude's explanation there's a Runki personality created by undetected DID, unless the medium is trying to fool everyone using Psi with conscious intent. But if a medium could gain this kind of information with such speed and ease it seems they could easily amass wealth, power, fame, or whatever it is they would desire by trying to pretend there are ghosts.

[Laird]

OK, got it. Thanks for the explanation.

Re gaining information with ease, perhaps one could suggest that it could only be gained with such ease in certain circumstances (e.g., a seance) in which the medium's (and sitters') inherent beliefs "unlock" it - but then, yes, there is the question of what the purported entity is with whom the medium purportedly comes into contact, so I see why DID is being proposed.

I think that super-psi runs into the fact that the complete data is always the enemy of theorizing based on just a part of the data.

Super-psi is a theory that was originally invented to hopefully explain the apparent evidence of an afterlife from mediumistic communications in a more parsimonious way as manifestations of a powerful subconscious or unconscious mind fueled by powerful psi and a strong inner need on the part of the medium to generate evidence of survival.

The goal of the super-psi theory presumably being to avoid postulating a discrete center of consciousness or spirit or soul that can separate from the brain and body to visit other locations in the physical world and also that persists after death in another realm of existence. It seems much more parsimonious (to say nothing of politically correct) to simply postulate strong psi powers exerted by a consciousness that is still (as assumed by materialism) a function of the physical brain and that doesn't survive physical death. A theory that hopefully explains the evidence but seems less materialist paradigm-breaking and less unacceptable in academia and with the intellectual powers-that-be.

This theory of super-psi invented to explain away afterlife evidence is implausible for a number of reasons well articulated by various writers such as Chris Carter and Michael Prescott.

But even more importantly, it is implausible because it mostly only considers the mediumistic communications data plus other phenomena exhibited by talented mediums, a limited data set.

It doesn't consider the NDE data which constitutes one of the most extensive of the present categories of evidence that mind does not equal brain and that the mind can separate from the physical brain to occupy other spatial locations and also be transported to another realm of existence in which transcendental life-changing experiences can occur including greeting and communicating with deceased loved ones and friends. Veridical NDEs can include verified observations of details of the emergency room and attending doctors, and other further even more transcendental experiences, all occuring while the person's brain was dysfunctional due to cardiac arrest or other trauma. Other veridical data and features from NDE accounts include verified details of remote visitations, and the profound and long term life-changing effects of the experience on the personality.

None of these features of NDEs are plausibly explained by super-psi on the part of talented mediums, or even super-psi on the part of the subconscious minds of the NDEers themselves who are generally ordinary people with no particular psychic talents. Except by resorting to such contorted logic as suggesting that the subconscious mind can generate extremely powerful and convincing life-changing hallucinations with much veridical content while the physical brain is dysfunctional.

The "while the physical brain is dysfunctional" part just in itself rules out the primary reason for postulating super-psi in the first place.

So I think super-psi is therefore relegated to unimportant status in the deliberations and investigations of parapsychology.

I think that super-psi runs into the fact that the complete data is always the enemy of theorizing based on just a part of the data.

Super-psi is a theory that was originally invented to hopefully explain the apparent evidence of an afterlife from mediumistic communications in a more parsimonious way as manifestations of a powerful subconscious or unconscious mind fueled by powerful psi and a strong inner need on the part of the medium to generate evidence of survival.

The goal of the super-psi theory presumably being to avoid postulating a discrete center of consciousness or spirit or soul that can separate from the brain and body to visit other locations in the physical world and also that persists after death in another realm of existence. It seems much more parsimonious (to say nothing of politically correct) to simply postulate strong psi powers exerted by a consciousness that is still (as assumed by materialism) a function of the physical brain and that doesn't survive physical death. A theory that hopefully explains the evidence but seems less materialist paradigm-breaking and less unacceptable in academia and with the intellectual powers-that-be.

This theory of super-psi invented to explain away afterlife evidence is implausible for a number of reasons well articulated by various writers such as Chris Carter and Michael Prescott.

But even more importantly, it is implausible because it mostly only considers the mediumistic communications data plus other phenomena exhibited by talented mediums, a limited data set.

It doesn't consider the NDE data which constitutes one of the most extensive of the present categories of evidence that mind does not equal brain and that the mind can separate from the physical brain to occupy other spatial locations and also be transported to another realm of existence in which transcendental life-changing experiences can occur including greeting and communicating with deceased loved ones and friends. Veridical NDEs can include verified observations of details of the emergency room and attending doctors, and other further even more transcendental experiences, all occuring while the person's brain was dysfunctional due to cardiac arrest or other trauma. Other veridical data and features from NDE accounts include verified details of remote visitations, and the profound and long term life-changing effects of the experience on the personality.

None of these features of NDEs are plausibly explained by super-psi on the part of talented mediums, or even super-psi on the part of the subconscious minds of the NDEers themselves who are generally ordinary people with no particular psychic talents. Except by resorting to such contorted logic as suggesting that the subconscious mind can generate extremely powerful and convincing life-changing hallucinations with much veridical content while the physical brain is dysfunctional.

The "while the physical brain is dysfunctional" part just in itself rules out the primary reason for postulating super-psi in the first place.

So I think super-psi is therefore relegated to unimportant status in the deliberations and investigations of parapsychology.

There's a section on NDEs, but given how the book is old (2003) and goes into cases even older than that, not sure how much I'll delve into those parts.

I guess I could do a comparison with some stuff from Self Does Not Die...