Pierre Vermersch

It is absurd and without any scientific interest to try to play off DES against EI, as if the question was to know if one method is better than the other in the absolute. All methodological inventions deserve to be tried and tested. But the question is how apposite are they to their object of study. However, Froese and Gould’s article opens a range of issues that are important and interesting. I would like to contribute my own vision of the answers to these questions. The key issue is that of the reliability of verbal reports, whether collected at the very time of the experience (DES) or a posteriori (EI). To answer this question, we must have elements of comparison, that is independent data sources. It is pointless to ask ‘whether the subject really experienced what he is describing’, because no one has the possibility of objectifying his/her experience and then comparing it to the verbalizations related to this experience. As researchers, what we know about this experience is what is said about it. However, it is possible to compare verbalizations with traces and observations concomitant with the experience of reference, and to assess the plausibility of what is said, given that every experience takes place in the world and must obey physical, temporal and logical constraints. And the more numerous these constraints are, the more they have the opportunity to unfold, the more they will enable us to corroborate the accuracy of what is said and to measure the distortions (which are just as interesting).