mediumship study

[joki]

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos, you seems to be very sceptical about all mediumship (psychic?) studies, although those, which performed a century ago. What do you think about the information, which is gained by the mediums? Do you think all kind of information could be explained by cold reading techniques? I really doubt. When this is the case, there must be a way of psychic reading, which could not explain until know. What do you think about proxy sittings? Have you ever read Stephen Braude s Immortal Remains, where he presents the best cases of mediumship?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by joki

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos, you seems to be very sceptical about all mediumship (psychic?) studies, although those, which performed a century ago. What do you think about the information, which is gained by the mediums? Do you think all kind of information could be explained by cold reading techniques? I really doubt. When this is the case, there must be a way of psychic reading, which could not explain until know. What do you think about proxy sittings? Have you ever read Stephen Braude s Immortal Remains, where he presents the best cases of mediumship?

I think it can all be explained by cold reading, hot reading, confirmation bias, and probability. But I'm happy to be convinced otherwise.

Proxy sittings make no sense to me at all. See posts #11 through 15.

~~ Paul

[Mike]

Paul,

From your previous posts, it is clear to me why proxy sittings make no sense to you, but would you agree that at least with a proxy sitting, cold reading is effectively ruled out, since the actual sitter is not even present to give the medium any clues?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Mike

From your previous posts, it is clear to me why proxy sittings make no sense to you, but would you agree that at least with a proxy sitting, cold reading is effectively ruled out, since the actual sitter is not even present to give the medium any clues?

Assuming the proxy knows nothing about the real sitter, then feedback cold reading is ruled out, yes.

~~ Paul

[Mike]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Assuming the proxy knows nothing about the real sitter, then feedback cold reading is ruled out, yes.

I believe that was the the main reason why Richard Hodgson and other investigators used them.

[Mike]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

I think it [mediumship] can all be explained by cold reading, hot reading, confirmation bias, and probability. But I'm happy to be convinced otherwise.

If we now take proxy sittings as a subset of all mediumship studies, then cold reading has probably effectively been ruled out in these studies. That would mean that you would need to show how the results of the studies in this subset can be explained by hot reading, confirmation bias, and probability. I would think, though, that we can probably rule out hot reading in this subset too, as the investigators who used proxies also took pains to keep the medium in ignorance of who the real sitter was. So it would appear there would have been no opportunity for the medium to do hot reading. That leaves confirmation bias and probability to be considered.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Mike

If we now take proxy sittings as a subset of all mediumship studies, then cold reading has probably effectively been ruled out in these studies. That would mean that you would need to show how the results of the studies in this subset can be explained by hot reading, confirmation bias, and probability. I would think, though, that we can probably rule out hot reading in this subset too, as the investigators who used proxies also took pains to keep the medium in ignorance of who the real sitter was. So it would appear there would have been no opportunity for the medium to do hot reading. That leaves confirmation bias and probability to be considered.

And cheating, and bad statistical analysis. I forgot those two.

I ask again: If the medium does not know who the sitter is, how can he obtain information about the sitter? How do the spirits know who the medium is reading for?

Do you have a link to a good Hodgson study?

~~ Paul

[Mike]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

And cheating, and bad statistical analysis. I forgot those two.

I ask again: If the medium does not know who the sitter is, how can he obtain information about the sitter? How do the spirits know who the medium is reading for?

Do you have a link to a good Hodgson study?

I don't have an internet link to a Hodgson study. The studies exist in print and summaries of some of them (and partial transcripts) can be found in books like Stephen Braude's Immortal Remains, mentioned by Joki above.

Now, regarding the questions you ask again: I would say, if the medium was genuine, why would he or she have to personally obtain information about the sitter? Woudn't it be up to the spirits to provide such information? As to how the spirits know who the medium is reading for, I have no idea, unless they are somehow keeping close tabs from the spirit world on the whole proceedings.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Mike

Now, regarding the questions you ask again: I would say, if the medium was genuine, why would he or she have to personally obtain information about the sitter? Woudn't it be up to the spirits to provide such information? As to how the spirits know who the medium is reading for, I have no idea, unless they are somehow keeping close tabs from the spirit world on the whole proceedings.

And these sort of baroque requirements don't make the whole thing seem implausible to you? Suddenly we not only have dead people's souls managing to remain coherent and float about invisibly, but now they know what's going on everywhere?

If we made the experiment double blind, so that the experimenter did not know who the sitter was either, could the spirits still tell?

I'll check out Hodgson.

~~ Paul

[Mike]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

And these sort of baroque requirements don't make the whole thing seem implausible to you? Suddenly we not only have dead people's souls managing to remain coherent and float about invisibly, but now they know what's going on everywhere?

If we made the experiment double blind, so that the experimenter did not know who the sitter was either, could the spirits still tell?

I'll check out Hodgson.

Paul,

I am agnostic about many things. My interest is in following and evaluating the evidence. As I see it, whether or not the whole thing seems implausible to me is not relevant to studying and evaluating cases of alleged mediumship. I can mention here, however, that one of the things that keeps me from coming to a positive belief in an afterlife is my difficulty in imagining what an afterlife would or could be like. I am the type who might well ask a spirit during a seance to give me a detailed account of what he or she did each day of the preceeding week!

In a double blind experiment, I have no idea whether or not the spirits could still tell who the sitter is, or even if there are any spirits to tell in the first place!