Upcoming Events

The Rhine Education Center is offering three online "Professional Parapsychology" courses, all starting in June. The costs range from $79 to $225. 

Introduction to Parapsychology (8 weeks)
with Loyd Auerbach, MS
Parapsychology is a very well defined science that has been studied for over a century.  Professional parapsychologist and paranormal investigator Loyd Auerbach will introduce students to the terminology, evidence, and techniques used by researchers to study anomalous or paranormal phenomena.

Remote Viewing (4 weeks)
with Paul H. Smith, PhD
Famous remote viewing instructor Paul H. Smith, PhD, viewer and official historian of the Star Gate program sponsored by the US Intelligence Services, will guide students through the science and techniques used by professional remote viewers.  Don't miss this amazing opportunity to learn from an expert!

Beyond the Physical: Evidence for the Persistence of Spirit (4 weeks)
with John G. Kruth, MS
Have you wondered if there is evidence that the human soul survives physical death?  Is there any evidence that there is a soul that exists outside of the physical body?  What happens after we die?  These and other questions will be explored in the context of the scientific evidence gathered by researchers studying Near-Death Experiences, Out of Body Experiences, Spirit Communication, Memories of Past-Lives, and Apparitions & Hauntings.

http://www.rhineeducationcenter.org/edu/

The SPR has announced a lecture on 7 June. Dr Terence Palmer, described as an authority on F. W. H. Myers, will speak on "Telepathic Hypnosis: A Neglected Research Field":
https://www.spr.ac.uk/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=107

I went to this talk - the first SPR lecture I've been to.

I had naively expected this to be about telepathy experiments conducted under hypnosis. In fact it was about treating people with psychiatric problems by hypnotising them remotely, through a medium, and then having the patient "possess" the medium so that the therapist could speak to the patient through the medium, and in fact speak to other personalities, many of which are what are usually called demons (though the speaker said they disliked being called that). These could be eliminated, apparently with the help of higher powers, such as the Archangel Michael. On one occasion the problem wasn't demons, but the spirit of a deceased alien from another galaxy whose spaceship had encountered problems when it visited earth!

To be honest this isn't really the kind of thing I was expecting from an SPR lecture. I was also surprised by the lack of critical questioning afterwards. I hope it was due to politeness rather than an unquestioning acceptance of what had been presented.

In fact it was about treating people with psychiatric problems by [... omitted ... ].

I suppose the most important question is whether or not the 'treatment' was beneficial in resolving the problems. Also how the outcome compares with that from more conventional treatments.

I suppose the most important question is whether or not the 'treatment' was beneficial in resolving the problems. Also how the outcome compares with that from more conventional treatments.

Yes, I agree. Palmer presented three case studies, and read out comments from the families to the effect that the patients had improved. He was asked how he could know it was the result of his therapy rather than the effect of medication or a natural progress of the disease, but he didn't seem to have a clear answer. I think to be sure he'd have to do a blind study in which some patients were selected at random to receive the therapy and others weren't, and the patients were somehow assessed without knowledge of whether they'd received it. 

That would be a big task. On the other hand, I'd have thought it would be easy to verify whether the medium was really in telepathic communication with the patient, to the extent that s/he could be questioned by the therapist. But early on the speaker said he wasn't interested in proof because he knew the technique worked.

Courtesy of the SPR website, here are details of the Supernatural in Contemporary Society Conference, due to take place in Aberdeen on 23-24 August. The keynote speakers are David Clarke and Dennis Waskul (the SPR website says speakers will also include Jack Hunter, Robin Wooffitt, Terence Palmer and Leo Ruickbie):
https://www3.rgu.ac.uk/news-and-events/c...rence-scsc

Courtesy of the SPR Facebook page, here's a link to information about a panel discussion about Animal Psi and Animal Communication at the Rhine Research Center on Friday 13th, which is also due to be broadcast live online:
https://ymlp.com/zbWlRo

I hesitated before posting this, because the panel seems to be dominated by commercial "psychics" and therapists of various kinds, and the tone seems a million miles away from that of objective scientific enquiry.

Registration is open for the 42nd Annual SPR International Conference, to be held 21-23 September in Newcastle upon Tyne:
https://www.spr.ac.uk/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=108

Invited speakers are David Luke, Bernardo Kastrup and Rupert Sheldrake.

On her blog, Caroline Watt posts some more details about the conference, and in particular about the contributions from her own department:
"There will be two papers reporting latest KPU work (precognition research using the ganzfeld method, and studies replicating Walach and von Lucadou’s Correlation Matrix Method)."
https://koestlerunit.wordpress.com/2018/...ciousness/

She includes a poster for the conference, from which we learn that David Luke is "sometimes regarded as the rockstar of psychedelic research" and Bernardo Kastrup is "a proflic author on philosophical issues". (I think we know what they mean.)
https://koestlerunit.files.wordpress.com....jpg?w=640

There is also a detailed programme here:
https://www.spr.ac.uk/sites/spr.ac.uk/fi...GRAMME.pdf
[Edit: wrong URL corrected]

Going back to the Edinburgh contributions, with the help of the titles in the programme, it was possible to find recent abstracts of related work at the "Edinburgh Research Explorer" portal, as copied below. Sometimes one gets the impression that the message coming from Edinburgh is "it's all very interesting whether there's anything real behind it or not". The message of these two studies seems to be "it looks as though there's something real behind it".

(1) Ganzfeld

Caroline Watt, Emily Dawson, Alisdair Tullo, Abby Pooley, Holly Rice.
Testing Precognition and Altered State of Consciousness With Selected Participants in the Ganzfeld. A Pre-Registered Study.

A paper with the same title was presented by Caroline Watt at the 61st Annual Convention of the Parapsychological Association in August:
The present study was the first to contribute to a registration-based prospective meta-analysis of ganzfeld ESP studies ...
We sought to maximise the anticipated psi effect size by selecting participants ...
Results. Twenty-two direct hits were obtained out of 60 trials, corresponding to a statistically significant 36.67% hit-rate. Therefore our hypothesis that the randomly selected future target would be identified to a greater than chance degree was supported.
https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/en/...66a3).html

(2) Correlation Matrix Method

Ana Flores, Ian Tierney & Caroline Watt.
Studying Mind-Matter Interaction Through Non-Local Entangled Correlations.

A paper entitled "Where mind connects with matter: Replicating the correlation matrix method" was presented by the same authors at the 61st Annual Convention of the Parapsychological Association in August:
This article describes two experimental replications of a new methodological paradigm called Correlation Matrix Method ...
 In both experiments the number of significant correlations produced between participant influence and values produced by random number generator were very significantly more than the ones produced by the control method. Limitations in the method, and in the analyses are discussed, also suggestions for further experiments are explored.
https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/en/...cbd5).html

A related Research Note by the same authors is also in press in the Journal of Parapsychology:
https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/en/...9ed5).html

Results. Twenty-two direct hits were obtained out of 60 trials, corresponding to a statistically significant 36.67% hit-rate.

Assuming the choice was made between four possibilities, that would be associated with a p value of 0.03.

More details here, along with the speakers list and abstracts of their talks:
http://www.scientificexploration.org/2018-conference

I think I’ll remote view it

Courtesy of the SPR Facebook page, the Rhine Research Center is hosting a three-hour event entitled "The Psychic Spy & His Handler: True Stories of Star Gate", with Joe McMoneagle and Edwin May on the afternoon on Saturday 29 September. It will also be available to view remotely (online) for a small fee:
https://ymlp.com/zESXKq