Book review: Among Mediums

Afterlife researcher Julie Beischel of the Windbridge Institute has put out a terrific new Kindle ebook, Among Mediums: A Scientist's Quest for Answers, covering her experiences investigating mediumship. It's a short book and a quick read — entertaining, humorous, unpretentious, almost breezy, written in a conversational style, with many parenthetical personal asides. The content is rather light, but an appendix offers extensive links to supplemental reading of a more technical nature.

Among Mediums is not intended to convert skeptics. Beischel is speaking to the interested layman, and not to people whose minds are already made up. I find this approach refreshing, as I've come to think that far too much energy is expended in trying to persuade the unpersuadable.

Beischel observes that her principal interest in mediumship is not the mechanism behind the phenomenon, but its social utility. As she points out, science does not understand the mechanism behind many widely accepted natural phenomena, but this does not prevent us from taking advantage of them. For instance, until recently the mechanism by which aspirin reduced inflammation and pain was unknown, but people still received the benefits of aspirin, even if they didn't know how it worked.

Beischel writes: "Because I was trained as a pharmacologist, the unexplained things that come to my mind are the many drugs on the market that work through mechanisms we don't fully understand." Among these drugs are the anethestics used in surgery, leading her to make a humorous point:

In a blog I wrote on this topic, I pointed out that if skeptics need to have surgery, they must then forgo the general anesthesia since the doctors cannot define the precise mechanisms of action of those compounds. Those skeptics must be forced to conclude that any previous loss of consciousness demonstrated in other patients when exposed to these drugs was surely due to error, fraud, chance, or statistical manipulation.

She feels it should be possible to gain advantages from mediumship even if we don't have a theory by which to explain it. One of her top priorities is the study of mediumship's value in the grieving process. As our society ages, this topic may become even more relevant than it is today.

In the early part of the book, Beischel briefly reviews her studies in pharmacology and her eventual transition to the very different field she works in today. Interestingly, she discusses the research she conducted with Gary Schwartz at the University of Arizona only in the most general terms, and Schwartz's name appears nowhere in the book.

For me, the most interesting part of Among Mediums is Beischel's discussion of her own sitting with a medium some years ago — the one and only formal sitting she ever arranged for herself. Beischel writes:

Angela began talking about a male in my generation, she provided the name Ron, that we were teenagers together, that he had died in a car accident, that  he was reckless, that he drove too fast, that people had warned him about driving, that he was 17 when he died, that he drove a restored Mustang or other "muscle car," that drinking was involved, that he was aggressive, that he was in my close group of friends, and that he and I joked around a lot. There were a total of 16 pieces of very specific information.

And not a single one was right.

The alleged communication meant nothing to Beischel. She was ready to dismiss Angela as a "crazy charlatan" until the medium proceeded to transmit a second communication that related strongly to Beischel's deceased mother, who had passed by suicide.

A couple of years later, Beischel began dating someone who'd attended her high school and college, though they hadn't known each other during that time, and was surprised to discover that he had known a young man whose description and manner of death closely matched that of the communicator who'd come through in the early part of the medium's reading. The names were slightly different, however; the medium had given the name Ron, and the actual name was Rick. Since death in an auto accident is not too uncommon among teens, this apparent hit may have been coincidental. Who knows?

From a scientific standpoint, the meatiest part of the book is Beischel's discussion of the protocols employed by the Windbridge Institute to rule out information leakage in testing mediums. If I understand it correctly, the experiments are quintuple-blinded, meaning that multiple layers of sequestration are imposed on the researchers, sitters, and mediums. The precautions are almost paranoid in their elaborateness, and it's hard to see how even the most determined skeptics could poke holes in the procedure (though I'm sure they will try).

The payoff in this section is, I felt, a bit anti-climactic. Although we are told that the mediums' success rates exceeded chance by a statistically significant amount, we don't get to read excerpts from the transcripts and we don't hear about specific hits. I suspect that Beischel left out this material because she does not want to sensationalize her research, but I would have liked to see some of it.

Among Mediums gives a clear sense of the fund-raising challenges faced by the very few people who devote their careers to this marginal area of research. Beischel notes that people are always suggesting possible avenues of research to her, but there is simply no money to pursue them.

Speaking of such suggestions (as pointless as they may be), I've sometimes thought it would be worthwhile to see how mediums perform under hypnosis. There is evidence dating back to the 19th century that hypnosis can intensify psychic abilities even in people with no obvious psychic gifts. The more recent ganzfeld studies also suggest that a semi-hypnotic state (more precisely, a state of mild sensory deprivation) is conducive to enhanced psi. If mediums allowed themselves to be hypnotized, would their accuracy rates improve? Would the messages come through more directly, in the manner of trance mediumship? It would be interesting to find out. But I'm sure other people have thought of this, and there just isn't enough money to pursue it.

Overall, Among Mediums is an excellent introduction to scientific research into purported communications from "the other side," and one that should appeal to intelligent, open-minded readers, especially those with little prior exposure to this subject. And revenues generated by book sales will help fund the Windbridge Institute's research.

So … buy it already!

Comments

[Cynthia McTyre]

I did buy it, and I enjoyed it. I hope she will write another book that contains some of the transcripts, noting some of the hits (and misses, too, for balance).

[Philemon]

Michael,

Another thing I found rather shocking was how few readings had been collected and analyzed - what was it - like 23 or so? I don't have my kindle at hand to see. I found that as disappointing as anything else.

I'm currently reading (finally!) George P. Hansen's "The Trickster and the Paranormal" and he discusses how this situation would be exactly what we should expect - a very "liminal" woman like Beischel (with all her very liminal, anti-structural, personal characteristics) eeking her way through life (having to sell her own few precious family heirlooms to buy groceries with) and doing her research with scant funding from interested parties.

The whole thing is sad! I nearly cried when I read how Beischel had to sell the "haunted dresser" that belonged to her family just so she could eat. Hansen is really on to something with his thesis about the anti-structural properties of the paranormal and anyone involved in it.

[tsavo]

Part 1
I digressed a bit from my planned reading schedule to take a look at Julie Beischel's book and I'm glad I did. It' a perfect follow-up to Trevor Hamilton's book which I mentioned in a previous post. Hamilton's book is a personal quest for answers about mediumship and lists the actual transcripts of his sittings with nine different mediums over a period of several years. Beischel's book summarizes the results (without transcripts) of controlled, blinded sittings carried out by a team of investigators also over a number of years.

Since the blog topic specifically relates to Beischel's book, I'll only comment further on it. First let me say that I think the work she is doing is superb and it's a crying shame there isn't more money available to her and to others willing to do similar research. It's a brave thing to put your entire life and career on the line against current establishment thinking. Bully for her!

As to the question of survival evidentiality, Beischel's comment toward the end of Chapter 5 is telling: "Whatever is going on (though I'm leaning toward survival), it is interesting and worthy of further investigation." Note the words "leaning toward". This seems to always be where anyone that carefully examines the matter from the outside ends up. The mediums themselves obviously feel differently, but they have the benefit of direct personal experience.

[tsavo]

Part 2
The weakest part of her book is clearly the section dealing with the use of phenomenology to try and resolve the survival vs super-ESP/PSI impasse (Chapter 5: Operation Research Program). It is very soft ground in terms of evidentiality. While she seems well on the way toward showing that there are likely to be different paths to the information reservoir (wherever it is) - ie whether the medium "receiving" or "retrieving", it all ends up being, as the terms themselves are, interpretive and subjective. For example, Beischel focuses strongly on the idea of lower volitional control during a mediumship reading as indicating that the information is "coming in" rather than "being retrieved". Another interpretation might well be that the loss of volitional control primarily reflects a loss of *conscious* control, in deference to *subconscious* control. In other words, the medium simply "goes deeper" to get the information and it feels like less overt control. It would therefore properly be viewed as two different pathways for "retrieval". Beischel addresses this concern (ie subconscious involvement) later by citing early age onset of mediumistic experience, but IMO, early onset does nothing to resolve things.

Something I really both liked and disliked was her treatment of rater bias. The basic concept of choosing between real and decoy medium responses is great, but I feel she's totally off base by intentionally using discarnates/sitters that are as dissimilar as possible. Yes, "...if both of those readings described, say, young men in their 20's [etc]...it would be nearly impossible for a sitter to distinguish which reading was for his son". But that's precisely the degree of rigor which provides the greatest evidentiality -something that's UNIQUELY identifying! If it's necessary to make the discarnates/sitters extremely dissimilar in the first place in order to generate statistically acceptable results in terms of rater bias removal, it weakens the case.

[Sophie]

Philemon,

'Hansen is really on to something with his thesis about the anti-structural properties of the paranormal and anyone involved in it.'

Superb spotting of a very wise insight! (You picked your nick aptly.)

[Bruce Siegel]

"Another thing I found rather shocking was how few readings had been collected and analyzed - what was it - like 23 or so?"

Philemon, I've been reading the book and I feel exactly the same way. The actual number, by the way, is 21, not 23.

On the one hand, I'm greatly impressed by the multi-layered blinding she uses.

But why so few readings? She has 20 certified mediums and the research has been going for years, hasn't it? So why so little data?

16 of the 21 sitters were able to correctly identify which reading was theirs. That's an impressive percentage. And if that figure continued to hold over a larger number of readings, then--given her extremely clean protocol--it seems to me she'd have, at the very least, strong evidence for psi.

But 21 readings is not all that much to go by.

Also: Like Michael, I was struck by the fact that she doesn't mention Gary Schwartz by name. She mentions working in his VERITAS program. She refers to meeting "the psychologist who had worked with John Edward." That has to be Schwartz, right?

So why not give his name? I'd like to hear the story behind that. :o)

[Rabbitdawg]

Another plus for Among Mediums: A Scientist's Quest For Answers is the humor. I never burst out laughing 'til I cried, but I definitely felt better after reading it than I felt before. It took just a few hours to read, but for $4.99, it's a good deal.

[steve em]

I enjoyed the book and her sharing her personal history with us. the time will come Julie and others like her will be considered pioneers.

[Herb Solely]

Slightly off topic - however for all those interested in David Thompson, I noticed that there some zip tie escape videos on youtube. There is also a zip-tie escape magic trick on sale at this site: http://www.penguinmagic.com/p/S12252

Perhaps learning to escape from zip-ties is easier than we suppose.

[Martina McKeough]

Just a thought but are the mediums already in a form of trance when they are doing their work. We go into a trance like state naturally many times a day so how can you tell that they aren't already in hypnosis?

[Michael Prescott]

You're right, Herb - zip-ties can be defeated by any competent escape artist. This was one of the points I raised in my criticism of the controls used in Thompson's seances. As far as I know, the people investigating Thompson never altered their protocol to take account of this criticism.