Contemporary methods used in Laboratory-based mediumship researCh

As with the study of any natural phenomenon, bringing mediumship into the regulated environment of the laboratory allows for the controlled and repeated examination of anomalous information reception by mediums. It also lends statistically analyzed evidence regarding the survival of consciousness hypothesis and addresses the relationship between consciousness and brain. Ideally, laboratorybased mediumship research includes 2 equally important factors: (a) a research environment that optimizes the mediumship process for both the medium and the hypothesized discarnate and (b) research methods that maximize the experimental blinding of the medium, the rater, and the experimenter in order to eliminate all conventional explanations for the information and its accuracy and specificity. The Windbridge Institute for Applied Research in Human Potential utilizes several methods that build upon historical as well as modern mediumship investigations in order to meet these 2 research goals. The research methods discussed include: detailed research reading protocols; the pairing and formatting of readings; experimental blinding; the thorough screening of all research participants; and a specific scoring system used by raters. the analysis of information conveyed by mediums (individuals who report experiencing regular communication with the deceased) is important for several reasons: • the survival of consciousness (i.e., the continued existence, separate from the body, of an individual’s consciousness, personality, identity, or self after physical death) is a vital issue to many people. the general public’s deep concern with survival and mediumship is illustrated by the recent rise of these topics in popular television shows, books, and movies. • investigating the phenomenon of anomalous information reception (air) by mediums is essential in understanding the mind’s perception and processing of nonlocal, nonsensory information. • an extensive understanding of the information mediums report and the process by which they report it is necessary in order for such information to be sensibly utilized by society. For example, mediums may be able to regularly and consistently find missing persons and contribute to criminal investigations if parameters such as error rates can be identified. Furthermore, because the source of the information anomalously reported by mediums has An earlier version of this paper was presented by the author at the Rhine Research Center conference “Consciousness Today,” Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, March 23-25, 2007. 38 The Journal of Parapsychology not been determined, it is possible that in the future, when the process is better understood, the knowledge acquired through air may benefit scientific, technological, and social progress. • providing empirical evidence on a topic historically linked with religion (i.e., the afterlife) may greatly impact modern society as well as contemporary western healthcare. For example, research in terror management theory has found that belief in an afterlife may liberate people from “the compulsion to continually prove our value and the correctness of our beliefs” (dechesne et al., 2003), an impulse that can manifest in the extreme as radical nationalism (which provides the individual with the psychological comfort of symbolic immortality). additionally, empirical evidence for the survival of consciousness may alleviate the fear and anxiety commonly experienced by hospice patients and their families, and mediumship readings may even be beneficial in grief recovery. however, evidence for survival of consciousness may also have socially negative consequences (e.g., possible increased justification for terrorism or suicide). • Finally, survival and mediumship studies provide unique evidence for an issue central to consciousness science: the relationship between the mind/consciousness and the brain. that is, is consciousness (a) a product of the brain as theorized by materialist neuroscientists such as Francis Crick and Christof Koch (e.g., Crick & Koch, 2003) or is consciousness (b) mediated, transmitted, transformed, guided, arbitrated, or canalized (Forman, 998) by the brain as hypothesized by such scientists as max plank and William James? (this second theory is discussed, for example, by Clarke, 995.) in addition, research investigating the survival of nonhuman consciousness (i.e., deceased companion animals) may help us better define exactly what consciousness is. as with the study of any natural phenomenon, bringing mediumship into the regulated environment of the laboratory allows for the controlled and repeated examination of air by mediums.