My medium testing protocol

[mcairo]

Hey Open Mind.

Thank you for your condolences. The entangled emotions a child and parent have transcend all time an philosophy, and sooner or later must be dealt with at an emotional/spiritual level. One must pass through grieving, acceptance and forgiveness, like it or not. That's where I am at right now.

Anyway, let me briefly address the protocol you mention above. On the surface, the only objection I would have to the way the protocol is laid out would be the ability of the targeted sitter to be able to concentrate and personalize the information while sitting in a room with 49 other people, each seemingly responding to the same information. This scenario starts to create doubt and second guessing as each person witnesses other people reacting to the information.

I have done both group readings and individual readings, and I can tell you from experience that the group dynamic most definitely has an effect on the way people respond to personal information. Ask anyone who has ever participated in a marketing focus group and they will tell you the same thing.

Secondly, I think the group response technique is a misleading ploy used to somehow always suggest, even before testing has begun, that "cold reading" is the default explanation for medium communication. Now, I don't disagree that there is a "horoscope effect" in most medium readings, where information is so generic it could apply to a large group; however, one should keep in mind that the commonality of information does not negate the truth of that information.

I guess what I am saying is that both a census taker and a professional biographer could knock on your door and both leave with a true picture of your life in hand. One version would be generic in nature, and one would be more specific and detailed. Yet both versions would be true.

The scientific assumption that most skeptics make is that genuine communication from discarnate to medium should favor the type of information one would expect the biographer to assemble. Thus, any personal information that falls under the "census taker" category should not be counted or weighed equally.

From my experiences, though, most readings have a combination of both types of information. What you want as a good medium, is to have the "biographer" info outweigh the "census" info, but there could still be great relevance in that census taker style info.

For instance, it is not uncommon for me to be informed by spirit that the sitter has had two abortions and one miscarriage. On the surface, this information could apply to thousands of women, yet this "census" type of information could represent a great pain and struggle for the sitter before me. The conversation might turn to "guilt" and how that guilt is causing damage to their marriage, etc. How would a skeptic handle this information if let's say three women out of the 50 answered "yes" to this. Would this information be deemed "generic" or "cold reading"?

There's another incorrect assumtion that most people make about mediumship. That is that readings are opportunities for the deceased to relay facts about themselves. This could not be further from the truth. Most times, the deceased are talking about the lives of the sitter, trying to establish an understanding that the deceased is still involved in their lives and is there for counsel and support. This may not have much scientific value or meaning, but to people who are dealing with a variety of emotional and spiritual struggles, it means everything.

It's been stated a dozen and a half times, science is a method not a position. Science can measure people, but it can't measure the true value of a friend's love in a moment of great anguish. I accept this, and have no qualms with science. I know that science probably will never vindicate my claims as a medium, but even so, I still try to be scientific in my methodology with clients. I feel like I owe it to them, so that when a skeptic tries to discount their reading with me, they will be able to say, "All I ever answered was 'yes' or 'no'."

If psi proponents are looking for a smoking gun, I don't think they will find it with medium testing. The testing protocol is usually riddled with misguided assumptions and the evaluation methods are designed to only measure "factual" truths, not "emotional" ones.

[David Bailey]

Is it out of the question to request some very specific information - such as the birthday of the deceased person? This need not be the sole aim of the sitting, but it would provide very powerful evidence - and supply enormous comfort to the sitter that they were participating in something genuine.

David

[eyemsougly]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

This will allow the medium to tune his statements for the target sitter. Even someone admitting to cold reading could tune his statements. The reading turns into a game of 20 questions, homing in on attributes of the target.

I have to agree. Even Schwartz recognized that allowing feedback was a non starter.

[eyemsougly]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

Is it out of the question to request some very specific information - such as the birthday of the deceased person? This need not be the sole aim of the sitting, but it would provide very powerful evidence - and supply enormous comfort to the sitter that they were participating in something genuine.

apparently it is out of the question as I've never seen any medium who claims to be able to get specific dates. Most struggle even with first names.

one thing that impressed me with Schwartz' experiments was for the first sitter all 5 mediums got that the sitter had lost a son, to suicide, with an "M" first name. If that is true (and without seeing the transcripts I don't trust Schwartz at all) it is hardly a smoking gun but would be impressive if it could be replicated on demand.


Marcel: do you think you could be effective under my protocol? I remember your i2i challenge and that seemed pretty strict so I figured somebody like you wouldn't have a problem with my protocol.

[Mike]

Originally Posted by eyemsougly

apparently it is out of the question as I've never seen any medium who claims to be able to get specific dates. Most struggle even with first names.

There have been mediums who on their best days have given highly specific information, such as names, dates, etc. One only has to read the best transcripts of seances with mediums such as Leonora Piper, Gladys Osborne Leonard, and Eileen Garrett to see examples of this. These mediums were all trance mediums, and none of the investigators who tested them ever caught them cheating. They also had "off days" where the information they produced was poor and not specific at all.

Are there any mediums like this around today? In reading transcripts from "famous" mediums of today, I've not seen this kind of specific information, although Open Mind has said that he has see a few mediums who were able to provide specific information.

I think it would be great if people testing mediums today could search for ones who come as close to this ideal as possible.

[eyemsougly]

I've seen John Edward make hits that seemed at the time like they cold only be due to either guenuine Psi or hot reading. Then when reading the transcripts later they don't seem as impressive.

I've also seen him totally stink out the joint, so who knows.

I ignore all studies from Spiritualism's glory years in the turn of the century.

[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

This will allow the medium to tune his statements for the target sitter. Even someone admitting to cold reading could tune his statements.
~ Paul

OK forget feedback, the mediums don't seem to need it, they were still successful in Roy/Robertson protocol without feedback.

Instead of testing mediums, let us test cold readers with feedback! Let us see how well all those CSICOP magicians can 'tune' their statements to an unknown, unseen, unheard person using just 'yes', 'no' or 'can't respond' resplies on a screen to such an extent they can produces information that fits the targets better on average than audience of others also scoring each statement.... not as easy as you think Paul.

Then make it even easier for the CSICOP magicians, let them see the target sitter via concealed camera and see if they can give info more accurate to sitter than an audience of others scoring

Paul, no one has scientifically tested cold reading..... someone needs to do it ...psi skeptics just believe it is the correct explanation without evidence. Most magicians hot read (if possible) even if pretending to cold read, just like most mentalists use conjuring when pretending to use mental skills. They just want to look good. No one really knows the capabilities of cold reading .... yet.

[eyemsougly]

I agree that cold reading is very overrated, but hasn't been tested.

Like I suggested on the other thread, maybe have the sitters get two readings, one from a medium and one from a cold reader. After it's done the sitter has to tell which reading was better. If all 6 sitters pick the medium's reading then we might have something.

The problem would be subliminal cues that one guy is taking it seriously and the other is just cold reading. I don't know, I'm starting to get kinda frustrated.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

Paul, no one has scientifically tested cold reading..... someone needs to do it ...psi skeptics just believe it is the correct explanation without evidence.

Ian Rowland did a pretty good job on ABC's "PrimeTime."

Originally Posted by eyemsougly

Like I suggested on the other thread, maybe have the sitters get two readings, one from a medium and one from a cold reader. After it's done the sitter has to tell which reading was better. If all 6 sitters pick the medium's reading then we might have something.

You have to control for the fact that the mediums might be much better cold readers than the controls. It is, after all, their livelihood.

~~ Paul

[eyemsougly]

you're right, it couldn't work