mediumship study

[joki]

Alex discussed his experiences from the last months regarding the sceptical views in his last podcast. At the end he wants us to think about a mediumship study. I think the most problem is to rule out cold reading techniques, which is not so easy. I think that G.S. studies are not bad, but still do not completely rule out cold reading. I was really surprised after I have watched the videos from professional mentalists. They could fake a lot of PSI phenomena. Even a name could be enough to suggest some information by remote viewing. I have discussed this with George Hansen by some emails. I recommend to study the work of Derren Brown or Criss Angel, who dismiss PSI phenomena. I think most important is to invite good medium and some sceptical magicians (must be sceptical; ?Derren Brown?) and bring them together in order to test the abilities. But this design could also fail. Stephen Braude has shown in his recently published book that PSI does sometimes not work, when psychical stress is involved.

[alextsakiris]

Originally Posted by joki

Alex discussed his experiences from the last months regarding the sceptical views in his last podcast. At the end he wants us to think about a mediumship study. I think the most problem is to rule out cold reading techniques, which is not so easy. I think that G.S. studies are not bad, but still do not completely rule out cold reading. I was really surprised after I have watched the videos from professional mentalists. They could fake a lot of PSI phenomena. Even a name could be enough to suggest some information by remote viewing. I have discussed this with George Hansen by some emails. I recommend to study the work of Derren Brown or Criss Angel, who dismiss PSI phenomena. I think most important is to invite good medium and some sceptical magicians (must be sceptical; ?Derren Brown?) and bring them together in order to test the abilities. But this design could also fail. Stephen Braude has shown in his recently published book that PSI does sometimes not work, when psychical stress is involved.

Good ideas. I have invited Derren Brown on Skeptiko (more than once), but received no reply. I think it would be interesting to set up an experiment where a metalist and a medium are both put through a series of tests with tighter and tighter controls at every round.

Must say, I'm still not sure how you think "cold reading" could factor into Gary Schwartz's work. In his research the mediums:
- never meet the sitter
- never see the sitter during the reading
- never talk to the sitter (all done through email)
- never get any responses from the sitter (no Q&A)
- the researcher doesn't know who's being read for

I just don't see where "cold reading" can come into play here.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Alextsarkiris

Must say, I'm still not sure how you think "cold reading" could factor into Gary Schwartz's work. In his research the mediums:
- never meet the sitter
- never see the sitter during the reading
- never talk to the sitter (all done through email)
- never get any responses from the sitter (no Q&A)
- the researcher doesn't know who's being read for

I just don't see where "cold reading" can come into play here.
Reply With Quote

Surely you're joking. If Schwartz isn't a liar and a cheat, then he's an idiot. In the Afterlife experiments, he postulates that "departed hypothesized co-investigators" are participating in the experiments. Then it turns out that Montague Keen's widow contacted Schwartz to say that mediums had contacted her with the report that Keen wanted Schwartz to conduct research. Then it turns out the medium is going to be Alison Dubois. I'm supposed to believe that Dubois did not know that Keen's widow had requested the experiments and that the departed hypothesized co-investigator was Keen.

The Afterlife experiments have to be the sloppiest crud ever passed for mediumship studies.

~~ Paul

[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by joki

I think that G.S. studies are not bad, but still do not completely rule out cold reading. I was really surprised after I have watched the videos from professional mentalists. They could fake a lot of PSI phenomena. Even a name could be enough to suggest some information by remote viewing.

joki, professional mentalists cheat They aren't doing anything like what they claim to do. If you ask them to cold read (as mediums are supposedly doing) given the chance they will cold read, hot read or do whatever they can to be impressive. They are showmen.

Incidentally Gary Schwartz did challenge various magicians a few years ago like Randi, Hyman and other to cold read. I think Ray Hyman replied it might take a few years practise.

I have discussed this with George Hansen by some emails.

Joki, wasn't Alex looking for interviews? How about you or Alex interview magician George Hanson?

I recommend to study the work of Derren Brown or Criss Angel, who dismiss PSI phenomena. I think most important is to invite good medium and some sceptical magicians (must be sceptical; ?Derren Brown?) and bring them together in order to test the abilities. But this design could also fail.

Derren Brown isn't necessarily doing what you might think he is doing, even if is calling it 'cold reading' .... he presents it like he can pick up tiny clues or mentally influence people ...he presents it like he is using NLP or hypnotism or whatever ....but he is mostly using techniques a magicians/mentalist would use.

For example on the UK TV program 'Seance', Derren Brown used a video editing/camera trick to replicate an old style psychic claim He implied he could mentally influence a student in cabinet to throw a tamborine over a curtain without her recalling the event (presented like hypnotism) this was to demonstrate how mediums created fraudulent Victorian seance phenomena. But, as confirmed on magic websites (and at JREF – topic by 'pajboy') he used a video editing camera technique that can be effectively proven using a stopwatch (yes, a video editing technique was obviously very common technique in Victorian days ) Derren Brown in interview, not just on actual TV program implied it was a mental technique. That is magicians for you, if they are too honest the mystique is lost.

Incidentally, I read somewhere that Derren Brown contacted Richard Wiseman before making this TV program 'Seance'. Possibly because magician Richard Wiseman had done experiments for TV to show how easy it is to fool students in a darkened seance rooms. These type of experiments were done before Wiseman, around 1880s when another debunker Dr Richard Hodgson, also showed how easy it is to fool people in the dark ....

..... with one interesting twist in the story....around 10 years later skeptic Dr Richard Hodgson changed his mind and declared mental psychic phenomena was indeed a fact. This same medium also convinced Wiliam James, Myres and Hyslop

So who knows, perhaps Richard Wiseman will do a U-turn too? Don't hold your breath, doggy Jaytee tried

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

Incidentally Gary Schwartz did challenge various magicians a few years ago like Randi, Hyman and other to cold read. I think Ray Hyman replied it might take a few years practise.

But not for Ian Rowland.

~~ Paul

[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

But not for Ian Rowland.

~~ Paul

Was Rowland already on the scene by then? I don't know. Anyway, magician Ray Hyman as a former palmist might have had a go? Why not? What did he have to lose?

It seems the same shyness came over both magicians Hyman and Wiseman during the Demkina trials too, what a good opportunity to show just how easy it was for two magicians to do what she was doing (No Paul, I am not saying Demkina is necessarily genuine or can really do what she claims - I have no idea) but don't you sometimes think this is all a bit political at times? Do you not get the tiniest hint of feeling that maybe CSI (CSICOP) would be extremely embarassed if they inadvertedly supported a paranormal claim? So they keep the bar high as possible and hide behind 'Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordindary Evidence?'

Ian Rowlands is an ideal chap for a cold reader VS psychic trial for a test of 'cold reading' hypothesis (not so good for testing ESP/survival hypothesis).
I think the ESP/survival hypothesis is better tested by protocol with what no sensory clues at all.

[Mike]

I think testing mediums should be routinely done in such a way that cold reading is not even possible. If the medium is blind to the sitter's identity and cannot see or hear the sitter before, during, and after the seance, then why even bother with cold readers? I don't think any cold reader would claim to be able to perform in such a setting anyway.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

It seems the same shyness came over both magicians Hyman and Wiseman during the Demkina trials too, what a good opportunity to show just how easy it was for two magicians to do what she was doing (No Paul, I am not saying Demkina is necessarily genuine or can really do what she claims - I have no idea) but don't you sometimes think this is all a bit political at times? Do you not get the tiniest hint of feeling that maybe CSI (CSICOP) would be extremely embarassed if they inadvertedly supported a paranormal claim? So they keep the bar high as possible and hide behind 'Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordindary Evidence?'

Oh, it's certainly political all right. But, hey, so is the rest of life. CSI stays away from actual experiments because of the whole mess with Gauquelin, Rawlins, and Starbaby.

On the other hand, the JREF is perfectly happy to test someone. Sure, there is argument about whether the Challenge has the bar set too high, but why doesn't someone just step forward, take the Challenge, win the million, and donate it to charity? Ooh, how embarrassing that would be for the JREF.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Mike

I think testing mediums should be routinely done in such a way that cold reading is not even possible. If the medium is blind to the sitter's identity and cannot see or hear the sitter before, during, and after the seance, then why even bother with cold readers? I don't think any cold reader would claim to be able to perform in such a setting anyway.

Well, they could still do some work. After all, the daily horoscope is a cold read that appears to fool some people.

And here's a question for you: How can the medium even connect with the sitter if he doesn't know who the sitter is? Is there some sort of "Hey Edward, I'm over here" psychic flag-waving thing going on in the matrix?

~~ Paul

[joki]

Alex, Dr. J.Beischel has published some months ago a triple blind study in the journal explore, which can be downloaded: Elsevier.
I recommend firts to read the article.
Here are some of my concerns: Cold reading may have been eliminated, but sensory cues were not. The mediums were given the first names of the discarnates, and the discarnates were paired to assure a large age difference. First names are not uniformly distributed across years, and the first name could give some (probablistic) clue to the age of the person.
Further, but not so important, the article has some statistical flaws.

So planning a new study we really have to rule out all sensory clues. That is the reason, why we need magicians (professional) and scientists (?Wiseman?) and open-minded professionals like G. Schwartz and come together.
Do we really, although the information details are incredible of some mediums. where the information comes from? Where all deatails really given by the discarnates? Super-PSI is another question.