Anecdata

I've been reading The Testosterone Advantage Plan, a diet and exercise book by Lou Schuler (yeah, I'm trying to get in better shape), and I came across a short passage that, surprisingly enough, is relevant to the subject of parapsychology. It involves the value of anecdotes in the scientific process.

Schuler writes:

Realize, too, that almost all important scientific discoveries have begun with small pockets of anecdotal data. For example, in the early 1980s, doctors in urban centers on both coasts noticed that male patients were trickling in with a strange disorder that seemed to be zapping their immune systems and, often, causing strange red blotches on their faces and other parts of their bodies. The doctors took personal histories and learned that almost all of these patients were gay. As the early trend swelled into an alarming epidemic, doctors theorized – based on the anecdotal information available to them at that point – that some terrible new bug was afoot in the gay community. As months passed, having little else to go on, researchers further theorized that this new syndrome was spread by homosexual contact. This, of course, was medical science's first hazy awareness of the modern plague that more intensive research later diagnosed as the AIDS virus. [pp. 46-47; emphasis in original]

As you know, one of the most popular criticisms of paranormal phenomena is that the evidence is largely anecdotal. This isn't quite true, since there is an impressive library of carefully documented case histories investigated by the Society for Psychical Research and its counterparts, and by other researchers. Still, it's undeniable that a good deal of the evidence for psi and life after death is anecdotal. And as the saying goes, "The plural of anecdote is not data."

Fair enough. But as the example from Schuler's book suggests, anecdotes are not necessarily worthless, either; in fact, they can be very valuable. In some cases, they provide important hints about what's going on – hints that, when followed up, can lead to harder data. Although Schuler gives only one example, he does note that "almost all important scientific discoveries" begin with anecdotal cases, and I suspect this is true. For instance, the discovery of meteorites began with farmers' anecdotal accounts of stones falling from the sky; the discovery of fossils began with anecdotal accounts of workmen digging up old bones; the discovery of citrus as a preventive measure for scurvy began with anecdotal accounts of sailors who avoided the illness by eating fruit; etc.

Anecdotes may not be data in the strict sense, but we ignore them at our peril.

Comments

[Michael Prescott]

BTW, near the end of the comments thread on my post "An end to hedging" there's a long and interesting comment by Smithy (Dutch NDE researcher Rudolf Smit) on Leslie Flint's mediumship. I mention this because I'm not sure how many people are still following that thread.

I have no opinion about Flint, except to say that the audio recordings I've heard weren't very convincing. But I haven'y studied the case.

[Matt Rouge]

For my testosterone, I just do roids. j/k

Actually, I think the plural of anecdote *is* data.

Anecdotes are data. They are information. Skeptics have created this epistemological rule for their own convenience based on their own philosophy.

I mean, for example, if 50 independent people swear they saw something of an ostensibly paranormal nature, the skeptics will just label the whole thing an "anecdote." Nya nya, that doesn't count! If a paranormal investigator does a field investigation and finds something--another "anecdote."

Sure, not all anecdotes are *good* data. People can be mistaken, people can lie. But anecdotes, i.e., observations of trustworthy observers and witnesses are strong evidence indeed.

[Matt Rouge]

BTW, I mean that each anecdote is a data point of varying value; not that each is proof in and of itself.

[lynn]

"I mean, for example, if 50 independent people swear they saw something of an ostensibly paranormal nature, the skeptics will just label the whole thing an "anecdote." Nya nya, that doesn't count! If a paranormal investigator does a field investigation and finds something--another "anecdote."

And scientists call anecdotal data with regard to string hypotheses, a theory.

Ahh the most biased thinking of all, Matt.

Cheers.

[Barbara]

Michael you seem to think highly of "hard data", which is what science needs to do its physical stuff. Then you talk about stony meteorites. How does this bear on the paranormal, which by its nature produces transitory, ephemeral or nonphysical phenomena?

Paranormal phenomena relate to consciousness, which science calls "hard" too -the hard problem. In other words, the paranormal is not physical, so it is not scientific. Nevertheless, as we agree, it's real.

[Juan]

Barbara, "hard data" has nothing to do with the physical, but with what is replicable at will under laboratory conditions. So the fall of a meteorite is a physical event, but it is not a hard data because that can not be reproduced in a laboratory. Psi phenomena are difficult to reproduce in laboratory conditions, so there is little hard data in this area, but in the future may appear a physical theory that explains some aspects of these phenomena.

[Barbara]

Juan, you jest! How can a physical theory explain nonphysical phenomena?

[Michael Prescott]

Psi may be nonphysical, but if it produces measurable results it can be tested scientifically.

[Alexander1304]

Here is the skeptic treatment of the evidence for life after death:

"In the paragraphs that follow, I will attempt to show that, not only is there now no hard evidence for life after death, but there can be no such evidence. Contrary to what mediums, ghost hunters, and NDE researchers would have us to believe, it is not possible to prove the “survival” hypothesis, even in principle."

Here is the link.I'll be back from my vacation in 3 days,and will post it to discuss on Sceptico forum:

http://www.skepticreport.com/sr/?p=185

Fortunately,there are people not less rational and informed than the author of this link,whi think othervice...

[RabbitDawg]

This discussion about the dismissiveness of anecdotal evidence by modern Western science and society brings to mind one of my favorite quotes from Nancy Evans-Bush.
Her response when asked if near-death experiences are "real":

The view of science for the past 300-plus years, and ferociously during the past century, has been that only physical reality is "real" reality; the rest has been increasingly dismissed as illusion. To say, "It's all in your mind" means that the "it" is not only unreal, but unimportant.

This obviously is nonsense. Is loving someone less real than breaking your thumb with a rock? Is the political passion that starts a war less real than the rubble of a bombed city? Brain scans during deep prayer and meditation show activity in certain parts of the brain and demonstrate that something is happening; but scans are neither prayer nor meditation any more than a book is a trip to Niagara Falls.

A near-death experience is a real experiential event in the life of the individual who has it. The instant it is told, it ceases to be that experience and becomes a story, a narrative that cannot be "known" to anyone else as it is to the experiencer. Does the memory point to a "real" reality of the material world? Could it be photographed? Any possible photos would only be of neural activity, not of the experience itself.
There is no known geographical locality that matches what is described in NDE's. On the other hand, NDE's have real consequences, some of which may be physical, that are real enough to disrupt and reshape human lives. They belong to a category of events that have been known and respected around the world through time.

Nice.

[Juan]

Barbara, psi phenomena can be physical phenomena, in the sense of being explainable in part by physical theories. For example, the non-locality of quantum theory could be present in psi abilities and non-locality remains a physical property. I do not think is that psi phenomena can be explained entirely in physical terms, because the psi abilities set their objetives semantically, not mechanically, and no place in physics for semantics. So, I think some aspects of psi phenomena are explicable physically, but others require taking certain non physical and irreducible elements, as consciousness, semantics, intentionality, etc.

Alexander1304, the author of the article you exposed commits the fallacy that we must discard all logical possibilities that are alternatives to accept the possibility of the afterlife, which is clearly impossible, but nowhere is that we can rule out all alternative possibilities to accept our favorite hypothesis, because there will always be infinite alternative hypotheses. All we can do is consider the most plausible hypotheses according to certain criteria of simplicity and choose the one that best explains all available data, and in the afterlife for those who know of this we know that the most plausible is that there is a form of afterlife.

[Alexander1304]

Thanks,Juan.More and more I begin to see flaws in skeptical arguments.More and more I see ideology in their position,rather than open-mindness

[Art]

Speaking of anecdotes one of my favorite books is "Death Bed Visions" by Sir William Barrett. It is available for free online! What a deal. I found it in a list of free online books off this blog. Can't remember who posted the link but thank you.

After finishing reading & posting here I am going to share the link on my Facebook page. If you want to read some anecdotes that will lift you up and make you feel good about life I highly recommend you read the stories in William Barrett's book about death bed visions.

Death Bed Visions William Barrett - 26 page free online book:

http://www.survivalafterdeath.info/books/barrett/dbv/contents.htm

[Paul]

Another word for anecdote, particularly from the person claiming the experience, is testimony.Testimony is a form of evidence surely? How much one attributes to a particular instance of testimony can be somewhat subjective, however it is still evidence.

[RabbitDawg]

Anecdote / testimony. Good point, Paul - I like that.
It all comes down to bias and trust.

[Barbara]

"non-locality remains a physical property."

Er, says who? It's a "scientific" way of saying something can be in two places at once. Sounds like a lovely bit of woo to me.

[Roger Knights]

Paul says:

"Another word for anecdote, particularly from the person claiming the experience, is testimony. Testimony is a form of evidence surely? How much one attributes to a particular instance of testimony can be somewhat subjective, however it is still evidence."

Check out this book, $15 for the Kindle version. Witness Testimony Evidence by Douglas Walton

"Douglas Walton provides an introduction to basic concepts, tools and methods in argumentation theory and artificial intelligence as applied to the analysis and evaluation of witness testimony. He shows how witness testimony is by its nature inherently fallible and sometimes subject to disastrous failures. At the same time such testimony can provide evidence that is not only necessary but inherently reasonable for logically guiding legal experts to accept or reject a claim. Walton shows how to overcome the traditional disdain for witness testimony as a type of evidence shown by logical positivists, and the views of trial sceptics who doubt that trial rules deal with witness testimony in a way that yields a rational decision-making process."

[Matt Rouge]

Here's something I've been meaning to bring up for awhile in relation to the skeptical worldview:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansion_of_Many_Apartments

The poet John Keats had this stunningly brilliant insight:

||I compare human life to a large Mansion of Many Apartments, two of which I can only describe, the doors of the rest being as yet shut upon me - The first we step into we call the infant or thoughtless Chamber, in which we remain as long as we do not think - We remain there a long while, and notwithstanding the doors of the second Chamber remain wide open, showing a bright appearance, we care not to hasten to it; but are at length imperceptibly impelled by awakening of the thinking principle - within us - we no sooner get into the second Chamber, which I shall call the Chamber of Maiden-Thought, than we become intoxicated with the light and the atmosphere, we see nothing but pleasant wonders, and think of delaying there for ever in delight: However among the effects this breathing is father of is that tremendous one of sharpening one's vision into the nature and heart of Man — of convincing one's nerves that the World is full of misery and Heartbreak, Pain, sickness and oppression — whereby This Chamber of Maiden Thought becomes gradually darken'd and at the same time on all sides of it many doors are set open - but all dark - all leading to dark passages — We see not the balance of good and evil. We are in a Mist - We are now in that state — We feel the burden of the Mystery.||

The primitive and idealized "science" of the skeptics is this very Chamber of Maiden-Thought. They are in terror of noticing, much less exploring, the "many doors set open - but all dark - all leading to dark passages."

[Sophie]

Michael,

'... the discovery of meteorites began with farmers' anecdotal accounts ... Anecdotes may not be data in the strict sense, but we ignore them at our peril.'

I put it to you that anecdotes are data. Each anecdote is a datum. Compatible anecdotes coalesce as data that make a review-worthy body of information. The danger in the paranormal-phenomenon anecdote is our funny capacity for copycatting. For instance, when someone reports having seen a ghost in a building, it is likely that others will report that too. The veracity of the reporters is equally impeccable, whether they are or are not victims of self-suggestion. That engages us in an anecdote-by-anecdote sifting, typically equipped with nothing more than the common legal yardstick, 'the reasonable man', to guide us when we dismiss one as 'delusion' and credit another as worth retaining. Of course, nothing guarantees that our sifting will retain only the nuggets and all the nuggets. So yes, I take your point that we dismiss anecdotes at our peril.

[Roger Knights]

Here's an account of a little-known but spectacular Icelandic medium of a century-plus ago:

http://www.dailygrail.com/Essays/2012/10/The-Uninvited

[George]

Yes, anecdotes may be pointing to some reality as in the red blotches and malaise that indicated AIDS. However, with respect to say, NDE's, why think that they point to something spiritual or that consciousness is some separate entity that can detach itself in the right circumstances? For example,Dr Kevin Nelson thinks these experiences point to the R.E.M system of the brain and primitive brain structures.

[Joshua Cearley]

@George
Pretty much everyone who is outspoken on the matter and is a doctor have some lobe or another that they attribute it all to. What they can't explain is the veridical details that sometimes crop up (like seeing dead family members you didn't know were dead, or never met before) which are not sufficiently addressed by pointing to REM or "rebooting brain."

It's also necessary for neuroscience to address ESP situations, such as mediums producing accurate readings of deceased people under blinded conditions (as Windbridge does) as well as experiments like Radin's presentiment or various Ganzfeld studies.

Right now they choose to just take those off the table by calling every failure Law and every success a Fluke; if they allowed any ground to these strange artifacts they would have the onus of explaining them materially, and right now we simply can't.

[Sophie]

Alexander1304,

I wonder what John Reese makes of the huge amount of reported research on afterlife-related subjects, and of the current, sometimes rather affluent research programs (viz. the Templeton Foundation's $5 million grant to UC Riverside). Do you think his childish article is worth Skeptico time?

The Templeton Foundation grant to UC Riverside: The project team consists of three philosophers. Might Skeptico ask why? I know the Templeton Foundation is a private body, and therefore gives grants to whomever it wishes, but is a team of philosophers-only up to the job of pursuing conclusions about the immortality proposition? These are the team's research questions:

• whether and in what form(s) persons survive or could survive bodily death
• whether and to what extent persons’ beliefs about immortality influence their behavior, attitudes, and character
• why and how persons are (at least pre-reflectively) disposed to believe in post-mortem survival
• whether it is in some sense irrational to desire immortality
• and more besides.
http://www.sptimmortalityproject.com/

Surely philosophers are not equipped to approach the first of the above questions. (The other questions are innocuous, so they are OK there.) By golly, not only 'whether persons survive' but also 'in what form(s)'! Bit ambitious, no, if they are actually meaning to come up with research findings? But they probably are not: There'll be literature review and effete arbitration exercises. Might Skeptico get onto this, do you think?

[Art]

"However, with respect to say, NDE's, why think that they point to something spiritual or that consciousness is some separate entity that can detach itself in the right circumstances? For example,Dr Kevin Nelson thinks these experiences point to the R.E.M system of the brain and primitive brain structures." - George
-------------------------------

How do they explain the connection between NDE's and the holographic universe theory and quantum physics? And if you don't know or understand what that is you haven't read enough yet.

[George]

@Joshua

Veridical experiences are suspect. We had the famous case of Maria and the tennis shoe on the ledge. However, researchers say that such a tennis shoe would have been easily observable from Maria's room and someone could have told her about it or she just saw it there herself.

@Art

With respect to a holographic universe, as tantalizing as it is, it is far from being demonstrated. So any connection you wish to make with NDE's and such a universe is dubious.

And quantum physics deals with sub-atomic phenomena. Any connection with NDE's is speculative, imaginative and, again, far from being demonstrated.

[Art]

"With respect to a holographic universe, as tantalizing as it is, it is far from being demonstrated. So any connection you wish to make with NDE's and such a universe is dubious." - George
----------------------

What your post lets me know is that you don't have a clue what I'm talking about.

[Michael Prescott]

'However, researchers say that such a tennis shoe would have been easily observable from Maria's room'

This is incorrect. No one has ever claimed the shoe was visible from Maria's room. As for the 'researchers,' use the Google search box on the left side of this page to search this blog's archives for the keywords 'tennis shoe' for a thorough takedown of the so-called research.

[Ray]

The more I research this field the more I realize I don't have as great a grasp on the "subconscious" as I thought I did. Can anyone point me in the direction of some academic theory and work on the role and power of the subconscious, not specifically tied to paranormal events just in general. Is it still considered an abstract concept or does it have a high level of probability? I see it being used as the lightning rod to explain paranormal events and it just occluded to me that the concept itself is really never well explained in the paranormal literature.

[Joshua Cearley]

@Ray
We don't really know what the subconscious is. It seems to be a side component that stores information and helps co-process things for the conscious mind, but it loses the "headers" of the data it keeps. This is how cryptomnesia is believed to work; you read something, the subconscious retains it, and the conscious mind forgets it, when it comes out later you think you've discovered it when you already knew it in the past.

Unfortunately, it's also utterly unfalsifiable. While cryptomnesia appears to be a very real thing, it can be broadly applied to all scenarios because there's no way to prove it didn't happen.

[Juan]

If we know the literature of NDEs, we know that NDEs provide fairly convincing evidence that consciousness can function independently of the brain, due to two features of these experiences: the hyper-lucidity while brain activity is crumbling and the collection of information could not be obtained by the known senses, whether through veridical extracorporeal experiences or encounters with loved ones who believed they were alive but they are dead.

This article seems to me quite interesting:

http://sedna.no.sapo.pt/death_scresearch/pdf_docs/12.3_cook_greyson_stevenson.pdf

It is true that cases of veridical extracorporeal experiences are often anecdotal, but when you consider all of them, their strength is quite considerable, and are already developing experiments NDEs that must await the results.

[Ray]

@ Joshua

Thanks for the excellent summary. I guess from an evolutionary standpoint I dont understand the point of the subconscious. Is it perhaps acting as a data backup drive since your conscious doesn't have the ability to retain all the information it receives? If this is the case then we is the subconscious do such a poor job at retaining this stored information, it appears to happen erratically at best. I just don't understand how some aspects of the Paranornal can be explained away by something that we dont fully understand. We are using something we don't quite grasp to explain events we don't understand !

[Michael Prescott]

An interesting take on the subconscious was provided by Arthur J. Ellison, who nicknamed the subconscious 'George,' which was a name used by pilots to identify the autopilot. George is tenacious and resourceful but kind of dumb. He will believe whatever you tell him, which is why he's so suggestible. He operates in the background carrying out instructions and delivers the results to you when he gets them. If you tell him to track down a name you've forgotten, you can let him do it without further supervision and the name will pop into your head eventually. George also seems to be connected to the psychic or spiritual world. Information from this realm is typically filtered through George.

FWH Myers took a slightly different view, regarding the subconscious and the higher self as two aspects of the subliminal self.

[Sophie]

Michael,

'FWH Myers took a slightly different view, regarding the subconscious and the higher self as two aspects of the subliminal self.'

As I understand it, Myers's 'subconscious' (and I endorse what you say of it) has some close parallels with Jung's 'psyche'. For Jung, we 'individuate' only once we have managed to descend into our psyche to explore it. The psyche is unique, and thus our pure individual self.

Jung used 'unconscious', never 'subconscious', in the sense that Freud used it: to refer to our automatic thought processes, to our store of forgotten 'memories', to our affective states that those 'memories' effect, to our unaccountable motivations, etc. – that is, to existential states not brought into being by an intention of the conscious mind.

The New Age sense of 'subconscious' is dramatised by your George: it is highly suggestible and cannot process suggestions because it is a-rational, but it can determine behaviours and states of mind. That is why advertisers and other sorts of mindbenders drop ideas into the subconscious with imagery and music calculated to achieve a specific effect on behaviour: These subliminally planted ideas sort of sneak past the conscious mind that might have reject it.

I suspect that strategies for getting to the subconscious are testable, simply by observing whether each has the effect it is calculated to have. There are masses of advertisements on the 'net about courses that can acquire managements skills, etc., for the takers. I'm not aware that anyone has tested these courses empirically. The claim that these strategies actually do get to a notional mind structure called the sub-conscious is not backed by any evidence. So the notion itself might well be bogus.

[Joshua Cearley]

@Ray
The same way proponents do. Proponents claim Quantum Mechanics explain aspects of the paranormal they like, Skeptics claim the subconscious explains aspects of the paranormal they don't, and neither can explain either side fully. Also, you're correct in some way. Jung said that the subconscious handles data because if the consciousness had to keep track of all that information, it would explode from being overwhelmed.

@Sophie
I think when testing if something is subconscious or psi, they usually just invoke blinding protocols. It's easier to say, ask someone else to come look at your house and ask them if they think it was haunted after visiting (without having ever told them prior) then to try and separate what might be real or what might be triggered memories.

[Sophie]

Joshua,

I read Jung quite a bit some years ago, and I am quite sure that his 'unconscious' (not 'subconscious') is not primarily a data-storage space. Its content is much the same as that of our conscious mind (see my third paragraph, above), but we are not aware of that content in the rational way that we are aware of that which is in our conscious mind. Another distinction: Our conscious mind directs our intentional behaviour. Our unconscious mind produces our automatic behaviour.

Also, you seem to be implying that there is some relationship between psi and the subconscious (whatever that is). There are claims to the effect that psi can read the unconscious. (Of course, as Chris Carter points out, the proposition that there are psi powers is completely unproven.) The subconscious (in its New Age sense) probably isn't worth reading. It is only worth dropping suggestions into. The claim seems to be that it is open to suggestion, and can direct behaviour. That is testable, but it seems not to have been. To me, that suggests that the subconscious (New Age sense) = twaddle.

[Matt Rouge]

Sophie, are you saying that you don't believe in psi?!

[Michael Prescott]

'Of course, as Chris Carter points out, the proposition that there are psi powers is completely unproven.'

Huh? Carter spent a whole book arguing that psi is abundantly supported by evidence.

[Sophie]

Michal and Matt,

By golly there are problems with terminology in this discipline! I am under the impression that 'psi' is the abbreviation of 'super-ESP', and that the latter is the materialist hypothesis for explaining away psychic ability, e.g. to communicate with disincarnate beings. (See Carter, Science and the Afterlife Experience, pp. 270-271.) I.e., the psychic medium, the materialist debunkers say, just reads the sitter's unconscious. (And hang it: Carter keeps using 'subconscious'.) The materialists posit psi (super-ESP) without a shred of evidence that there is such a thing.

[Ray]

There are those that believe psi functioning is a real phenomenon like Dean Radin but do not attribute to survival on consciousness. I believe Stephen Braude was leaning more toward super psi but with his latest book "Immortal Remains" he tips the scale slightly in favor of survival but not by a lot.

I am struggling with the super psi vs survival theories. After doing a ton of research there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that information can be gathered by non local means. I have had personal experience validated by this with medium readings.

I guess where my concerns against survival and that it could just be psi functioning among the living are (which these have been discussed many times but just giving my own hangups that I am struggling with)derived from the following that just stick out in the literature:

* Piper's controls sometimes employing fishing tactics and delivering messages that are incoherent babble

* Piper giving an accurate reading to William James about something he was thinking about that day (I don't remember the specific incident but it was dually noted in Carter's book) which implied telepathy

* There was an example in Charles Tart's "The End of Materialism" which tells a story of a medium giving an accurate reading and nailed it...too bad the person was still alive! New Age crowd, I am not too familiar with this but couldn't that be explained by the fact that the person was not a medium and was merely psychic and just reading the "Aura" of the person in question?

*Eleanor Sidgwick analyzed the Book Tests and only found 36% to be on target (still well above chance but not enough for my comfort)

* Conjuring Philip- huge implications for the power of the human mind to create paranormal occurrences or was it a real entity that needed attention and went with it :)?

* Siren Call of Hungry Ghost- was it just the subconscious of the group who made up the entities or was it malevolent spirits?

I know we all know the strongest cases leaning toward survival Hodgson control, drop in communications, etc. They take my concerns above and put me slightly back in the pro survival camp but they are still lingering problems that have made most parapsychologist second guess. The idea of the subconscious comes up in a lot of the papers I read as the culprit so that is why I was asking if there was a uniformed consensus on what it is exactly.

I guess my other nagging concerns are with physical mediumship and poltergeist cases. Some argue that human psychokinesis is solely responsible for these actions but psychokinesis has only been demonstrated in lab sittings with very small effects, not like moving an entire fireplace like in the Enfield case or seeing, talking to and feeling materialized spirits. How does one go from barely moving a pinwheel to throwing heavy equipment like in a poltergeist? I have no doubt that these things do happen and are genuine, even scrubbing out all the fraud and delusions but it's a real job trying to decipher super psi (which is frustratingly unfalsifiable) or survival.

[Sophie]

Ray,

'After doing a ton of research there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that information can be gathered by non local means. I have had personal experience validated by this with medium readings ... Piper giving an accurate reading to William James about something he was thinking about that day'

I wonder if we need to be too concerned. For instance, that Piper was mediumistic is not invalidated by the fact that he could also read minds. But then, did/could Piper know when he was channelling a disincarnate being and when he was reading minds? (Piper's controls' fishing and the babbling messages: Might these just be dismissed as Piper's bad days?)

I know only some of the other examples you cite, but I must agree with you that they are worrying. Your thinking reminds me of someone's account of Houdini and his deep desire to believe in the possibility of contacting the dead, for he was very keen to contact his mother. But, himself a magician, he kept unmasking fake mediums instead. And I was quite touched by the same writer's account of Houdini's bad falling out with his close friend, Arthur Conon Doyle, when he averred that the latter's mediumistic (automatic writing) wife was a victim of her own delusions. She had claimed to have succeeded to contact Houdini's mother. But the message was in English, a language that Houdini's mother spoke minimally and could not write. The wife's argument that the language of the afterlife is universal did not impress Houdini.

Heck, I do hope someone saves the day here.

[Juan]

Hello Ray.

Examining psychic literature I believe that some cases of apparent mediumship are super-psi, as some things that your exhibit, but I think there are other cases where super-psi is clearly unsustainable and most plausible is the afterlife. For example this article about the medium Leonora Piper:

http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com.es/2009/05/further-record-of-observations-of.html

This is important, because there are cases where the most plausible is that the information obtained by medium through psi abilities and no contact with spirits of deceased does not negate that there are other cases where the most plausible is that the medium is contacting the spirits of deceased. And of the latter type of cases are plentiful in psychic research.

[ncu9nc]

I also have a post on my blog about super psi:

http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2009/06/survival-and-super-psi.html

Take NDE's for example, what is the use of saying they are due to super psi in cases when there is no brain activity and no veridical information. How is that psi from the living? There is no psi, and no live person.

Playfair, Roll and Stevenson all thought some polergeist phenomenon were caused by spirits.

When a child who remembers a past life has birth marks at a location of an injury in the past life, are we to assume the absurdity that the fetus was psychic and fulfilling an unconscious need?

In some forms of mediumship each spirit has to learn how to communicate some are better learners than others. Is it really likely a medium would simulate this?

What about Shared Death Bed visions, shared NDEs, multiple witness crisis apparitions - you have to be a super-duper-psychic not just a super psychic to induce hallucinations in other people.

[Ray]

All good points. I do recall especially in the Piper case that communicators got better with time.

Let's also throw in genuine direct voice mediumship such as Etta Wreidt, Emily French and Elizabeth Blake (who was investigated by 2 sceptical magicians and found to be genuine). The very fact that someone's subconscious would 1) be able to compile enough data to form a personality 2) sound like the deceased individual and 3) carry on conversations with detailed information seems absolutely absurd.

[Michael Prescott]

Psi is a synonym for ESP plus PK.

Super-psi is a synonym for super-ESP plus (super) PK.

[snorkler]

Anecdata-anecdota,there is really no substitute for personal experience.
I've read thousands of anecdotes over the past several months, and I'm less convinced of the possibility of the afterlife than before i began researching.Over the past couple of weeks I have gradually drifted away from other Paranormal/afterlife sites, concluding that they only offer me confusion or false hope.Within 24 hours of my wifes death I hit the Internet and found the Spiritual Development website, where I consumed virtually every word and anecdote I could find.There was a link to Victor Zammits site, and I wasted far too much time reading his dribble. Actually 'wasted' is not really fair to VZ, because back then I had a desperate need to 'believe' and took his opinions at face value. I could say that Victors bullshit probably saved my own life back in those early days.
I'm afraid no amount of anecdotes will do it for me.IMO I have everthing here on site that is conducive to some spiritual contact.
I cut my wifes body down from the tree where she hanged herself, spent half an hour trying to revive her. a further 4 hours with her body before the coroner took her away. I have the urn with her cremated remains set into that tree, no more than 150 metres from my cabin. I have kept almost all her posession undisturbed etc etc. In over 5 months since that tragic day I have not sensed so much as a flutter of paranormal evidence.
Ultimately this lack of evidence, and my dissilusionment may be a good thing, so that I can focus my energies on living the remainder of my life in a dimension that I know really exists.

[Ray]

Hi Snorkeler. I cannot even begin to understand the grief that has befallen you. Before you give up see if you can connect with medium Georgia Oconnor. Several of us on this site had a reading with her and most (not sure if all) came away with info that could be dismissed by data mining. I was highly sceptical myself after my dad killed himself but his alleged spirit came through the reading with things no one could dig up and even some info I didn't know and had to later confirm.

[Ray]

Could not be dismissed by data mining sorry

[Matt Rouge]

Ray,

ncu9nc just wrote what I was going to write.

Like, all this is true but when you die--whoops! fooled ya!

If the evidence is compelling enough to believe in the first place, then I don't think the super-psi hypothesis is what one should end up believing.

Cheers,

Matt

[Matt Rouge]

snorkler,

Very sorry for your terrible loss. I can't imagine going through what you did.

A typical way the departed reach us is in our dreams. We are on the Astral plane when we dream, and it's fairly easy for those in the Afterlife to meet us there.

If you've had a dream of your wife smiling and seeming OK, it was probably her sending a message to you.

[snorkler]

Thanks Ray and Mat.Perhaps it is still far too early.Something that I find disconcerting is that come bedtime I have been so emotionally exhausted that as far as I can tell, I don't dream at all.
My life isn't all about my grief though.
A little OT. I mentioned VZ earlier, and yes I know he has been soundly criticised on this forum.
When I first began reading his work,for some reason I was impressed by his oft touted lawyer status, thinking that a law degree equalled intelligence,rational analytical thinking,and naively I also thought honesty and integrity.
We in Australia are currently going through a serious constitutional crisis which threatens our democracy.You won't read about it in our subserviant mainstream media just yet though.
Since 2007, federally we have been governed by the most useless, inept bunch of communist criminals in our history.Almost every single member of our parliament are lawyers.
I think Kellogs must have been handing out law degrees with packets of cornflakes for VZ and this bunch of crooks to qualify.