Psi Vs. Survival: a Qualitative Investigation of Mediums’ Phenomenology Comparing Psychic Readings and Ostensible Communication with the Deceased Adam J
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Psi vs. survival: A qualitative investigation of mediums’ phenomenology comparing psychic readings and ostensible communication with the deceased Adam J. Rock, Julie Beischel & Christopher C. Cott Certain mediums are able to report accurate and specific information about the deceased loved ones (termed ‘discarnates’) of living people (termed ‘sitters’) even without any prior knowledge about the sitters or the discarnates, in the complete absence of any sensory feedback, and without using deception. Despite recent experimental research investigating this phenomenon (e.g. Beischel & Schwartz, 2007), few systematic qualitative studies (e.g. Rock, Beischel & Schwartz, 2008) have been conducted. Consequently, six certified research mediums were asked to describe in as much detail as possible their subjective experiences during discarnate communication and psychic readings for the living. Thematic analysis revealed various comprehensive constituent themes for each experience type. Mediumship and psychic reading experiences were subsequently situated within Grof’s (1975) cartography of the transpersonal dimensions of the psyche. The present study constitutes an initial step towards isolating the phenomenological processes underlying discarnate communication readings. A detailed understanding of these processes may, in turn, assist researchers with regards to determining the source of the purportedly non-local, non-sensory information mediums report. ROF (1988) asserted that mediumship 2007). However, after over a century of phenomena constitute transpersonal research (reviewed by Braude, 2003; Gexperiences characterised by the Fontana, 2005; Gauld, 1983), the current extension of one’s consciousness ‘beyond state of mediumship findings does not the phenomenal world and the time-space directly address which parapsychological continuum as we perceive it in our everyday mechanisms are involved in AIR by medi- life’ (p.105). Skilled mediums can report ums. In and of themselves, the data cannot accurate and specific information about the distinguish between hypotheses including: deceased loved ones (termed ‘discarnates’) (a) the survival of consciousness (i.e. life of living people (termed ‘sitters’1) using after death; the continued existence, sepa- anomalous information reception (AIR) – rate from the body, of an individual’s con- that is, without any prior knowledge about sciousness or personality after physical the discarnates or sitters, in the absence of death); (b) super-psi (i.e. the retrieval of any sensory feedback, and without using information through clairvoyance, precogni- deceptive means (e.g. Beischel & Schwartz, tion, and/or telepathy with the living, also 1 Mediums performing readings with proxy sitters provide information for (and sometimes about) living people who are not present at the reading. Consequently, ‘sitter’ would be more completely defined as a living person who requested a reading from a medium and who has a desire to receive information about one or more deceased people with whom s/he had an emotionally close relationship, irrespective of whether or not s/he is present for or hears the reading as it takes place. Conversely, a ‘proxy sitter’ is a living person who is present for the reading, but is not the person for whom the information reported during a reading is intended. A proxy sitter may or may not have knowledge about the absent sitter or the deceased persons contacted during the reading. 76 Transpersonal Psychology Review, Volume 13, No. 2, Winter 2009 © The British Psychological Society ● ISSN 1366–6991 Psi vs. survival called super-ESP; reviewed in Braude, 2003, for immortality may affect individual and and Fontana, 2005); and (c) the psychic group behaviour. For example, research in reservoir hypothesis (i.e. that all information Terror Management Theory has found that since the beginning of time is stored some- belief in an afterlife may liberate people how and somewhere in the universe and from ‘the compulsion to continually prove mediums are accessing that cosmic store our value and the correctness of our beliefs’ rather than communicating with the (Dechesne et al., 2003), an impulse that can deceased; reviewed in Fontana, 2005). manifest in extreme cases as radical actions The continued evaluation of the medi- that defend or propagate the dominance of umship process together with research one’s beliefs, religion, nation, etc. (which addressing the survival of consciousness provides the individual with the psychologi- hypothesis are important for many reasons, cal comfort of symbolic immortality). For including those that are academically impor- these academic and socially relevant reasons, tant as well as those that are socially relevant. it is important to continue investigating the First, an understanding of the mediumship information mediums report as well as the process may aid in determining which mech- mediumship process itself. anisms may be at work during the processing It is noteworthy that previous and historic of non-local, non-sensory information. Sec- mediumship research has been primarily ond, survival and mediumship studies pro- proof-focused; that is, it has been concerned vide unique evidence for an issue central to with demonstrating a specific and replicable consciousness science: the relationship effect (i.e. AIR) in a laboratory setting. How- between the mind/consciousness and the ever, by limiting research to proof-focused brain. That is, is consciousness (a) a product studies, important phenomenological medi- of the brain as theorised by materialist neu- umship processes underlying AIR may be roscientists (e.g. Crick & Koch, 2003) or is neglected (Rock et al., 2008). In contrast, consciousness (b) mediated, transmitted, the phenomenological researcher engages transformed, guided, or arbitrated by the in process-orientated research investigating brain (e.g. Clarke, 1995)? ‘the way things are experienced by the expe- On a socially applicable front, this riencer, and … how events are integrated research is important beyond just addressing into a dynamic, meaningful experience’ the public’s growing interest in mediumship (Hanson & Klimo, 1998, p.286). Previous and the survival of consciousness. First, research has used phenomenological analy- mediums may be able to perform socially sis to investigate, for example, the experi- useful tasks like finding missing persons or ence of meditation (Gifford-May & contributing to criminal investigations, but Thompson, 1994), being unconditionally in order for society to sensibly utilise the loved (Matsu-Pissot, 1998), and shamanic- information mediums provide, the process like journeying (Rock, 2006). This type of by which it is acquired needs to be better analysis has the advantage of allowing the understood. In addition, the information researcher to ostensibly identify the essential mediums provide may contain wisdom or aspects of the experience being investigated knowledge that could benefit scientific, tech- (Fischer, 1998). nological, and/or social progress. Further- However, to date and to the best of our more, scientific evidence for life after death knowledge, there is a paucity of systematic could revolutionise healthcare by alleviating qualitative research addressing modern-day the anxiety felt by hospice and end-of-life mediums’ phenomenology pertaining to patients and their families and changing the AIR (e.g. Rock et al., 2008). Nonetheless, it is way allopathic physicians view death. Medi- important to acknowledge that numerous – umship readings may also be helpful in grief arguably unsystematic – qualitative studies counselling and recovery. Finally, evidence were conducted during the first half of the Transpersonal Psychology Review, Volume 13, No. 2, Winter 2009 77 Adam J. Rock, Julie Beischel & Christopher C. Cott 20th century2. The resulting publications telepathy4 readings for the living, then that often included descriptions of individual may lend more support to the survival mediums or readings (e.g. Newton, 1938; hypothesis than to the super-psi or psychic Saltmarsh, 1929; Thomas, 1928) and reports reservoir (collectively ‘psi’) theories. about groups of mediums (e.g. Assailly, 1963; The present study extends a previously Carington, 1939). It is perhaps noteworthy published process-focused quantitative study that these early studies tended to neglect (Rock & Beischel, 2008) that experimentally mental mediumship in favour of physical investigated the phenomenological differ- mediumship (e.g. Besterman, 1932) and ences that arose psychologically in accor- mediums during trance states (e.g. Caring- dance with the demands of a discarnate ton, 1939; Thomas, 1928). This is consistent reading task versus a control task5. Rock and with Fontana’s (2003) assertion that medi- Beischel administered seven mediums, who umship has gone through various develop- had undergone an extensive certification mental phases: ‘Initially it was rappings, table procedure6, counter-balanced sequences of a turning and ouija boards, then came more discarnate reading and control condition. sophisticated physical phenomena, after The discarnate reading condition consisted which the focus shifted to trance work, then of a phone reading including questions to automatic writing, and then to mental about a target discarnate in which only a mediumship and channeling’ (p.16).3 blinded medium and a blinded experi- Going forward, additional proof-focused menter were on the phone. The control con- research in the absence of a process-focused dition