The phenomenology and impact of hallucinations concerning the deceased

A great study including one of my favourite skeptical parapsychologists, Dr Callum E Cooper. Big survery of people who have had After Death Communications that sorts them into different types and discusses the effects they have on the people who have them, ranging from increased help with bereavement to increased belief in life after death.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/...tM#article

"one of my favourite skeptical parapsychologists"
Is skeptical parapsychology a thing then? I mean like sceptical chemistry and sceptical biology are.

"one of my favourite skeptical parapsychologists"
Is skeptical parapsychology a thing then? I mean like sceptical chemistry and sceptical biology are.

Callum E Cooper makes the rounds in a couple of skeptic groups, he was even a runner up a couple years back for a skeptical award. Though he is very much a parapsychologist and is quite good.

A great study including one of my favourite skeptical parapsychologists, Dr Callum E Cooper. Big survery of people who have had After Death Communications that sorts them into different types and discusses the effects they have on the people who have them, ranging from increased help with bereavement to increased belief in life after death.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/...tM#article

Conclusions

ADCs are a common feature of bereavement that occur unexpectedly, and are independent of any underlying pathology or psychological need. For the person experiencing the hallucination, they are important and meaningful events that they interpret in terms of continuing bonds with the deceased. This adaptive outcome may be stymied where mental health professionals trivialise or pathologise disclosures about ADCs.

It is amusing that the author decries the typical trivialising and pathologizing of these experiences, while at the same time following into line with the reductionist materialist assumption that this is all hallucinatory, not real but figments of the subconscious imagination. Maybe this having it both ways is just trying to avoid rejection of the paper.

It is amusing that the author decries the typical trivialising and pathologizing of these experiences, while at the same time following into line with the reductionist materialist assumption that this is all hallucinatory, not real but figments of the subconscious imagination. Maybe this having it both ways is just trying to avoid rejection of the paper.

I'd say so. Listening to his talks, he's very much up to considering the posibility that these are genuine experiences and not purely mental. There's a couple points throughout the paper where he drops those little "based on nonphysicalist views though they could be this" hints, but I just think he was trying to keep it kinda in line so everyone could read it.