Apparitional Experiences Primer: Characteristics of Apparitions

In looking at the various types of apparitions in the previous section, we also got a brief look at some of their characteristics. In this section, we provide a fuller summary of their characteristics, based on previous findings in parapsychology and psychical research (Irwin, 1994, Sect. 8; Roll, 1982, Sect. 2; Tyrrell, 1953/1961, Apparitions, Ch. 2).

The first characteristic naturally deals with physical appearance. Unlike the misty and translucent ghost of classic folklore, many apparitions are described by witnesses as being solid looking and life-like. For example in the "Morton Ghost" case, in which the Despard family repeatedly saw the figure of a spectral widow over the course of several years, Rosina Despard had stated that the figure "...was so solid and life-like that it was often mistaken for a real person" (Morton, 1892, p. 321).³ In a similar fashion, we saw in the crisis case (Section 2) that the woman and her daughter initially took the apparition to be the woman's real father. In the bystander case, the doctor described the image of his late father-in-law as being opaque and life-like.

While appearing solid, some apparitions can apparently exhibit physical or non-physical features. For instance, some appear to cast shadows and reflections. One curious example of an apparition casting a reflection is seen in one woman's personal account of a crisis case, which Feather and Schmicker (2005) present in their book The Gift:

"My mother lived in California and I lived in Wichita, Kansas. At 9:40 A.M. on February 17, I was sitting in my bedroom at my dressing room table, brushing my hair in front of the mirror. Suddenly the room was illuminated with the strangest light, one I can't fully describe. I then felt a rustle of wind across my shoulders, and a faint sound like the brushing of birds' wings. Then I looked in the mirror.

"My mother was standing behind my chair ... She just stood and smiled at me for a full thirty seconds. I finally said, 'Mom!' and rushed for her, but she disappeared, light and all. I was so upset by this that I shook for an hour. When my husband came home for lunch, I told him about it and got myself ready for a phone call that mother was dead ... Sure enough, about one P.M. that same day, the call came that my mother was gone ..." (pp. 261 – 262).

In other cases, apparitions have been seen to appear or disappear in enclosed rooms, and pass through doors and walls (Stevenson, 1982, p. 353; Tyrrell, 1953/1961, pp. 56 – 58). Attempts to touch an apparition have either resulted in the figure apparently eluding the hand to where it is unable to be touched, or the hands or arms simply passing through the figure. An example in which the apparition eludes the witness' hand can be found in the Morton Ghost case, in which Rosina Despard describes her attempts to touch the spectral widow. She noted that, "It was not that there was nothing there to touch, but that she always seemed to be beyond me, and if followed into a corner, simply disappeared" (p. 315). This latter statement may be valuable, in that it offers the hint that any non-physical features of an apparition may perhaps relate to distortions in perception on the part of the witness. If this is so, then it may suggest that, despite looking physical, apparitions may be mental forms, as well. That is, how the witness perceives the apparition may be partly determined by his or her own mental state at the time.

Although they traditionally represent deceased persons, we see in some cases that apparitions can also sometimes represent people who are still living. An example comes from an account given in a study of cases by Dr. Louisa Rhine (1957):

A little old lady came around every Thursday morning selling eggs from door to door and she always stopped at my house. This Thursday I had to go to town and as I was coming up the little road leading to my house I saw the egg lady standing on the porch. I noted that she was wearing a new pink dress and a sort of little bonnet to match. Just as I spied her, she turned to step off the porch and called to her to wait and then she just disappeared.

She never came out my gate, she didn't go anywhere, she just wasn't there. I was not more than 50 feet away when I first saw her and there were no bushes or plants to obstruct my vision. Later in the afternoon a knock sounded on my door and when I responded there stood the little egg lady dressed in pink and with her basket on her arm. I told her I was sorry I was not at home when she called about an hour earlier. She looked very surprised but smiled as she answered, "But this is the first time I have been here today. An hour ago I was just leaving the ranch. I was thinking about you and wondering if you wanted some eggs" (p. 22).

In addition, apparitions of the living may sometimes occur in crisis cases, when the person whose apparition is seen is ill or in an accident, but not faced with the threat of death. We shall also see in the next blog post that there have been a few rare cases in which living people have attempted to intentionally make themselves appear as an apparition to people they know.

Some apparitions may seem to exhibit behavior that suggests that they have some degree of awareness of their surroundings (Tyrrell, 1953/1961, pp. 60 – 66). Dr. Harvey Irwin (1994) offers the illustrative example that if a witness "... moves around the room the apparition's head may be said to have turned to follow these movements" (p. 58). Another interesting example comes from an account by Rosina Despard of an encounter with the spectral widow:

[The widow] crossed the drawing room, and took up her usual position behind the couch in the bow window. My father came in soon after, and I told him she was there. He could not see the figure, but went to where I showed him she was. She then swiftly went round behind him, across the room, out the door, and along the hall, disappearing as usual near the garden door, we both following her (Morton, 1892, p. 317, emphasis added).

This account suggests that, rather than simply passing through him, the spectral widow had moved to intentionally avoid Rosina's father as she exited the room. Rosina additionally noted that the widow would always move to avoid the light, leaving the witnesses unable to tell if she cast a shadow (p. 321). Apparent displays of awareness such as these tie into the issue of whether or not some apparitions are intelligent, an issue we shall discuss a bit more in Section 7.

Although the majority of apparitions have been witnessed by one person, there have been a small number of cases in which an apparition was collectively perceived by more than one witness. As we saw in the crisis and post-mortem cases (Section 2), two individuals may perceive the same apparition at one time. On the other hand, one witness may see the apparition, while another may not; this was apparently the case in the account by Rosina Despard involving her and her father, above.

Some apparitions of the dead tend to be seen in the geographical location where they once lived or worked (as in haunting cases), or around people who knew them in life (as in bystander-type cases). In addition to the Gordy case (Section 2), another example comes from Dianne Arcangel (2005, pp. 18 – 20), who relates a personal account of the experiences that workers at her family's dry cleaning business have had with the ghost of a man named Dyer. Employed with the business for about 30 years, Dyer worked diligently at his spotting board from morning till night, until his sudden death from a heart attack. Not long after, a female co-worker walked in and saw Dyer working behind his spotting board. She smiled and waved at him, and he waved back. The woman turned to put her things down, and when she turned back to him, Dyer was gone. Several other workers who were employed there later on reported similar incidents, and tenants of the apartment that was later built above the business by Arcangel's husband also reported seeing the spectral figure of a man resembling Dyer. Her husband noticed that one particular area of the apartment, located directly over the area of Dyer's spotting board, was constantly cold, even in the summer months. Arcangel says that neither her husband, the later workers, nor the tenants had ever known about Dyer prior to the experiences.

A comparison of four separate survey studies, shown in Table 1, suggests that more (non-haunting) apparitions tend to be of people with close family relation to the witnesses, rather than strangers.⁴

Table 1. Relationship Between the Apparition and the Witness in Apparition Cases (% Cases)

Values not cited are marked with a dash (-). All values are rounded to the nearest one percent.

In a later survey study, Dr. Haraldsson (1994) stated that nearly half of the figures seen in the 357 apparition cases he gathered were of a relative of the witness. In contrast, 29% of those cases involved the witness seeing the figure of a person unfamiliar to them. Similarly, in reviewing studies that compared apparitions of the dead with those of the living, Dr. Ian Stevenson (1982) had noted that: "No fewer than 78% of apparitions of the dead were perceived by a [witness] to whom the [deceased person] had had strong emotional ties, such as a husband, wife, or fiancé; and among apparitions of the living the percentage of such appearances rose even higher, to 92%" (p. 351).

There is some indication that the farther one gets from a person's time of death, the less frequently that person's apparition appears. In other words, sightings of the apparition of a deceased person tend to decline in frequency with increased time from the person's moment of death. Evidence for this initially surfaced in the late 1880s, when two prominent psychical researchers, Edmund Gurney and Frederic Myers (1888-89), had conducted a survey of early apparition cases they had gathered and published in a two-volume case anthology of psychic experiences entitled Phantasms of the Living (Gurney, Myers, & Podmore, 1886). They observed from these 211 cases that "... the recognised apparitions decrease rapidly in the few days after death, then more slowly; and after about a year's time they become so sporadic that we can no longer include them in a steadily descending line" (Gurney & Myers, 1888-89, p. 427). A similar decline in apparitional sightings was observed by Rosina Despard in the Morton Ghost case. She noted that from 1882 to 1884 she saw the spectral widow "... about half a dozen times" (Morton, 1892, p. 314), and it was also seen by several other members of her family during that time period. It was reportedly seen frequently throughout the year of 1885 (p. 318). By 1887, Rosina noted that "... we have few records; the appearances were less frequent" (p. 321). She added that from 1887 to 1889, the spectral widow was rarely seen, and then: "From 1889 to the present, so far as I know, the figure has not been seen at all" (p. 321).

The appearance of an apparition can sometimes be accompanied by certain kinds of subjective effects, such as feeling sensations of cold, wind, or touch. In the survey of apparition cases described in his classic book Apparitions, psychical researcher G. N. M. Tyrrell (1953/1961) observed that the experience of cold breezes and similar cooling sensations was fairly frequent across witness accounts. For instance, some witnesses gave the following statements: "I ... felt myself grow perfectly cold"; "A cold, shivering feeling came over me"; "The apparition 'laid a cold hand on his cheek'"; "As if a cool wind was blowing about me" (p. 73). Rosina Despard stated that similar cold sensations were sometimes felt in proximity to the spectral widow of the Morton Ghost case (Morton, 1892, p. 325).⁵

One final characteristic of apparitions is that, aside from being visual, some can be purely auditory, seeming to manifest as sounds reflective of human activity. An example of an auditory apparitional experience can be found in an investigation by Dr. William Roll (1991) of the alleged haunting phenomena witnessed by the tour staff and crew of the Queen Mary cruise ship, now permanently docked in Long Beach, CA. According to accounts by the staff and crew, sounds of loud metal impacts, voices, and rushing water are sometimes heard coming from the lower forward compartments near the ship's bow. However, when the compartments are checked, no one is found to be in the area, nor is there any sign of damage or a leak. To see if these sounds might represent an objective event rather than being purely subjective, Roll attempted to record them by leaving a voice-activated tape recorder overnight in the bow. When retrieved in the morning and played back, it was discovered that "... the tape recorder picked up a strange sequence of noises. You could hear heavy blows of metal, sounds of rushing water and voices, one of which, low pitched and gravelly, was almost intelligible" (p. 58). The recorded sounds were found to be strikingly similar to a description given by the ship's chief engineer, who heard the sounds on several occasions when he was in the bow area with no one else around. In addition, the nature of the sounds seemed consistent with a tragic event occurring early in the Queen Mary's sailing history, when it had been a military transport during World War II. During an evasion maneuver off the coast of Scotland in October of 1942, the bow of Queen Mary had accidentally collided with the British battle cruiser Curaçoa, tearing the smaller cruiser in half and resulting in the deaths of over 300 British sailors.⁶

Dr. Erlendur Haraldsson (1994) offers another example of an auditory apparition in his second survey of cases, which again seems to reflect the activity of a person:

Shortly after our father died, I came to his house with my brother. We knew that there was nobody in the house, and then we heard the old man at his desk. He was walking around, opened the door, and closed it again. Both of us stopped and listened when we entered, and then I remarked: "I guess there is no doubt who is up there." "No, there is no doubt about it," my brother replied. Both of us went upstairs; no one was there. We had heard this so clearly. He was 85 years old when he died, and he walked slowly, you know, had the typical old man's way of walking (p. 3).

Bryan Williams, University of New Mexico

Annalisa Ventola, CERCAP, Lund University

Mike Wilson, Psi Society

Notes

3.) The "Morton Ghost" case, documented by 19-year-old medical student Rosina Despard, is a classic in psychical research in that offers another good example of a haunting apparition. We previously alluded to this case in our second primer (Williams, Ventola, & Wilson, 2008), and refer the reader to that primer for a brief and convenient summary.

4.) Aside from the data of Persinger (1974) and Haraldsson (1988-1989), the results shown in Table 1 were calculated from data presented in Appendix Table 2 of Osis and Haraldsson (1977, p. 218), and the Appendix of Arcangel (2005, p. 284, 291). Cases in which the apparition was of a spiritual, historic, or unidentifiable figure are excluded.

5.) For additional discussion of cold sensations in relation to apparitions and haunt phenomena, see our second primer.

6.) In the late 1980s, Unsolved Mysteries had aired a segment on the alleged haunting of the Queen Mary and the investigation of it by Roll and British psychical researcher Tony Cornell. A two-part streaming video clip of this segment can be found on YouTube – Part 1 and Part 2. A sample of Roll's recording of the unusual sounds in the bow area can be heard in Part 2.

Arcangel, D. (2005). Afterlife Encounters: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Experiences. Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads Publishing Company.

Feather, S. R., & Schmicker, M. (2005). The Gift: ESP, the Extraordinary Experiences of Ordinary People. New York: St. Martin's Press.

Gurney, E., & Myers, F. W. H. (1888-89). On apparitions occurring soon after death. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 5, 403 – 485.

Gurney, E., Myers, F. W. H., & Podmore, F. (1886). Phantasms of the Living (2 vols.). London: Trübner.

Haraldsson, E. (1988-1989). Survey of claimed encounters with the dead. Omega: Journal of Death & Dying, 19, 103 – 113.

Haraldsson, E. (1994). Apparitions of the dead: Analysis of a new collection of 357 reports. In E. W. Cook & D. L. Delanoy (Eds.) Research in Parapsychology 1991 (pp. 1 – 6). Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press.

Irwin, H. J. (1994). The phenomenology of parapsychological experiences. In S. Krippner (Ed.) Advances in Parapsychological Research 7 (pp. 10 – 76). Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company.

Morton, R. C. (1892). Record of a haunted house. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 8, 311 – 332.

Osis, K., & Haraldsson, E. (1977). At the Hour of Death. New York: Avon Books.

Persinger, M. A. (1974). The Paranormal (2 vols.). New York: M.S.S. Information Corporation.

Rhine, L. E. (1957). Hallucinatory psi experiences II. The initiative of the percipient in hallucinations of the living, the dying, and the dead. Journal of Parapsychology, 21, 13 – 46.

Roll, W. G. (1982). The changing perspective on life after death. In S. Krippner (Ed.) Advances in Parapsychological Research 3 (pp. 147 – 291). New York: Plenum Press.

Roll, W. G. (1991, May). Journey to the Grey Ghost. Fate, pp. 55 – 61.

Stevenson, I. (1982). The contribution of apparitions to the evidence for survival. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 76, 341 – 358.

Tyrrell, G. N. M. (1953/1961). Science and Psychical Phenomena/Apparitions. New Hyde Park, NY: University Books.

Anomalous Experiences Primer: Types of Apparitions

Part 2. Types of Apparitions

Although the two terms are often used synonymously, it is useful to initially define what we mean by “apparition.” The term apparition, from the Latin word apparere (meaning “to show oneself”), may be formally defined as:

An experience, usually visual but sometimes in other sense-modalities, in which there appears to be present a person or animal (deceased or living) ... who/which is in fact out of the sensory range of the [witness]” (Thalbourne, 2003).

In other words, it is the experience of the presence of a person or animal – living or dead – that is not actually there, which seems to occur primarily through sight, but at times can seem to occur through the other senses (sound, smell, taste, and touch). This term is a bit broader than the more popular term ghost (from the German word geist for “mind” or “spirit”), which refers to the apparition of a deceased person, usually in connection with a haunting. Although we will use both terms throughout this primer, we shall primarily use the term apparition, given its broader meaning.

There are actually several known types of apparitions that have been documented by psychical researchers and parapsychologists since the late 19th century.¹ They include: crisis apparitions, post-mortem apparitions, deathbed visions, haunting apparitions, and apparitions of the bystander-type. In addition to describing each one below, we provide an illustrative case example of each to help the reader better grasp what each entails.

Crisis: As implied by its name, a crisis apparition appears to a witness at a time when the person whose apparition is seen is experiencing a state of crisis, whether it is an accident, an illness, or even the threat of death. A good example of a crisis apparition case is given by Dr. Sally Rhine Feather and author Michael Schmicker (2005) in their book The Gift:

A woman and her fifteen-year-old daughter had recently moved to California from their previous home in Washington D.C., where they had left the woman’s father very ill. One day not long after moving, they entered the dining room, and to the woman’s great surprise, there stood her father. “Why Dad, when did you get here?” she exclaimed.

At that point, her daughter turned around to look, and she, too, saw the figure of her grandfather, his hand upraised in a gesture of greeting or perhaps blessing, but he slowly faded away, and they both suddenly realized that he was not really in California in their house. Shortly afterward, they received the news that he had died (p. 254).

In addition to representing a crisis apparition, this case has three other interesting aspects to it. First, it is case where the apparition was collectively perceived, meaning that it was witnessed by more than one person. Second, the apparition was apparently so real looking to the woman that she actually mistook it for her real father at first. This goes against the folklore-based view that apparitions are often only misty, translucent outlines. Third, the apparition of the man seemed to acknowledge the presence of his daughter and granddaughter, suggesting that it had some degree of intelligent awareness. We shall discuss these aspects a bit more in future installments of this primer.

Post-mortem: As implied by its name, a post-mortem apparition appears after a person’s death, anywhere from several hours to several years after. As an example, we briefly recount a case documented by survival researcher Dianne Arcangel (2005, pp. 70 – 72):

About four months after her son Tommy had been tragically murdered, a woman was out walking Tommy’s dog in the daytime and they were passing by the parking lot where Tommy had kept his Jeep when the dog began barking and pulling on the leash. Looking up, the woman saw a young man standing in a blue outfit about 30 feet away, although she could not see him clearly because she was not wearing her glasses. When finally put them on, she recognized Tommy standing there on the sidewalk and smiling at her, wearing a blue outfit he had bought but never got to wear before he died. She immediately called out to him, and she and the dog began running toward him. But then, the image of Tommy seemed to slowly turn around and glide away, his feet being about an inch off the pavement. Despite how fast they ran, the woman and the dog could not catch up to him, even after pursuing him for three blocks. Then, the woman’s sight of her son was abruptly obstructed by some passing schoolgirls, and when she looked up again, the figure of Tommy was gone.

This case has two other interesting aspects to it. Similar to the crisis case, the apparition in this case was apparently witnessed not only by the woman, but also by the dog. It also seemed to suggest an optical effect, as the woman needed her glasses to see the apparition clearly.

Deathbed Vision: Near the moment of death, some terminally ill and dying patients have described seeing images of people and places that seem to relate to an afterlife existence, images known as deathbed visions. Reports of such visions have been recorded since the 19th century (Rogo, 1978), and are still occasionally reported today among healthcare and hospice workers (e.g., Arcangel, 2005, pp. 110, 116 – 120).

Among the images described by patients are apparitions of deceased friends and relatives. In the 1970s, Drs. Karlis Osis and Erlendur Haraldsson (1977) had surveyed and interviewed 877 medical doctors and nurses in India and the United States, whose patients had reported seeing deathbed apparitions. In one of the 418 cases they documented, a nurse recounts the deathbed vision related to her by an intelligent 76-year-old female patient who had suffered a heart attack:

[The patient’s] consciousness was very, very clear – no sedation, no hallucinogenic history. She was cheerful and confident that she would recover and return to her daughter who badly needed her at home. Suddenly she stretched out her arms and, smiling, called out to me. “Can’t you see Charlie [her dead husband] there with outstretched arms? I’m wondering why I haven’t ‘gone home’ before.” Describing the vision she said, “What a beautiful place with all the flowers and music. Don’t you hear it? Oh, girls, don’t you see Charlie?” She said he was waiting for her. I feel she definitely saw her husband (pp. 80 – 81).

During her experience, the woman had a feeling of peace and serenity reportedly come over her. She remained oriented to her surroundings, and was able to talk with the nurse and the family at her bedside during the vision.

This case has two aspects to it that are consistent with other cases of deathbed visions. First, as indicated in the narrative, the woman was not medicated or sedated at the time of her vision, indicating that it was not a drug-induced hallucination. Similarly, most of the patients in other cases were not found to be medicated, sedated, running a high fever, or in a delirium at the time of their vision (Osis, 1975; Osis & Haraldsson, 1977, pp. 70 – 73), arguing against a medical-related hallucination as the cause for their vision. Second, the apparition seen by the woman was that of a close relative (her husband). Similarly, a majority of the patients (90%) in other cases had seen close relatives (Osis & Haraldsson, 1977, p. 64). We’ll return to this second finding in the next installment.

Many patients regard the deathbed apparitions they see as “take-away” figures, meaning that the apparition seemed to appear for the purpose of greeting, inviting, or leading the patient to the afterlife. This apparent purpose of the apparition was noted in nearly two-thirds (65%) of the cases documented by Osis and Haraldsson (1977, pp. 65 – 67). Reflecting on her experience as a hospice chaplain, Dianne Arcangel (2005) openly states: “I have never sat with a dying patient who was not in the accompaniment of an apparition as their time grew near. No one ever dies alone” (p. 120, her italics).

Haunting: As many paranormal enthusiasts are probably all too aware, most of the apparitions seen at allegedly haunted sites do not take the form of the classic ghost of folklore, instead appearing as shadowy forms, floating lights, and hazy mist-like clouds. It seems that, in most cases, these kinds of apparitions are more likely to have a geophysical and/or psychological explanation (for reviews, see Persinger, 1974, Pt. II; Persinger & Koren, 2001; Roll & Persinger, 2001), and are less likely to be indicators of survival. However, there have been a few rare cases in which apparently well-defined apparitions of deceased human individuals have been repeatedly seen over time in the places where they once lived or worked. One such case is the “Gordy” case, initially investigated in the late 1980s by Dr. William Roll (in Roll & Persinger, 2001, p. 160), which we briefly summarize here:

Soon after moving to a new home with her family, a little girl named Heidi Wyrick had met a man in her neighborhood named “Con,” who invited her to play on a swing. When Heidi asked for permission to do so, her mother asked about Con and Heidi described him as “having blood all over.” Concerned that Con may be a kidnapper or a child molester, Heidi’s parents had the neighborhood searched for the man, but were unable to find him. A short time later, Heidi began speaking of regularly meeting with another man in the neighborhood named “Mr. Gordy” to play on the swing, and her parents figure that Con and Mr. Gordy are the girl’s imaginary playmates. Eventually they discover that an elderly gentleman named James Gordy, as well as a man named “Lon,” had actually lived in the neighborhood many years back, and that Lon had lost his hand in a machinery accident. The descriptions that Heidi gave of the two men were later found to closely match photographs of them (she was also able to correctly pick them out of a random collection of old photos), and Roll could find no normal way in which Heidi could have learned about them prior to her family’s discovery of their identities.²

The Gordy case seems to contain a possible parapsychological component, in that it suggests that Heidi was able to somehow psychically perceive the apparitions of people who had once lived in her local surroundings. How might we come to better understand this? We’ll briefly look at some possible theories in a later installment of this primer.

Bystander-Type: It turns out that apparitions may not only be associated with a haunted location; in rare cases, they may be associated with a person. Rather than being seen in the place where they once lived or worked, some apparitions have been witnessed in close proximity to people who once knew them in life. Dr. Louisa Rhine (1957) had coined the term bystander-type case to label these kinds of cases, noting that, “...these cases are suggestive of the haunting cases, the main difference, however, being that in these the link is a person rather than a geographical location” (p. 39).

An example of an apparition of the bystander-type comes from a study by the late Dr. Ian Stevenson (1995), in which he had interviewed a medical doctor who had once witnessed such apparition while keeping vigil at the bedside of his mother-in-law, who was very ill, in a coma, and near death. According to the doctor:

I was standing by her bed and no one else was in the room. She had an agonal inspiration, and at that moment I had a very clear picture of G. C. [her late husband] standing across from me with his arms outstretched, and he said, “Flora, I’ve been waiting for you.”

I did not really have to look to see that my mother-in-law had died, but the physician in me pushed me to verify that (p. 362).

The doctor stated that the figure he saw of his late father-in-law was “...quite opaque, as he would have seen him in life” (p. 362). He was only able to see the figure from the waist up, but believed that the surrounding furniture had blocked his vision of the rest. Prior to his encounter, the doctor believed that he had only been able to see his father-in-law only once or twice while his father-in-law was still alive, but he was familiar with his father-in-law’s appearance from family photos. However, he had not expected to see his father-in-law at the time of his mother-in-law’s passing, stating that, “I was surprised but comforted by what I saw” (p. 363).

In this case, the doctor was able to see the apparition of a man in close proximity to the man’s dying wife, and thus the doctor was acting as a third person “bystander” witness (hence the term). One might notice that this case seems similar to a deathbed vision, but we should point out that it cannot be classified as one in the strictest sense because the mother-in-law was comatose and did not herself perceive the apparition of her deceased husband.

The case has three other interesting aspects to it. First, as in the crisis case, the apparition that the doctor saw appeared solid. Second, as in the deathbed case, the apparition he saw was of a relative in his family. Third, the doctor reportedly heard the apparition speak, suggesting it had some degree of intelligence. We’ll look more at these aspects in future installments.

Bryan Williams, University of New Mexico
Annalisa Ventola, CERCAP, Lund University
Mike Wilson, Psi Society

Anomalous Experiences Primer: Introduction

We wish to dedicate this primer to the memory of Dr. Gertrude R. Schmeidler (1912 – 2009), one of the leading female parapsychologists in the field, who, in 1966, had devised an ingenious method of applying the statistical techniques of laboratory tests to the field study of ghosts, apparitions, and hauntings.


Stories about ghosts and apparitions of the dead have long been the basis for much myth, fantasy, and folklore in human culture. But is there really something to them beyond pure imagination and superstition? According to a Gallup survey conducted in June of 2005, just under one-third of the 1,002 adult Americans surveyed (32%) had answered affirmatively to the question, “Do you believe that ghosts/spirits of dead people can come back in certain places/situations?” (Lyons, 2005). A poll of 808 Americans by CBS News in October of 2005 indicated that just over one-fifth (22%) have seen or felt the presence of a ghost (Alfano, 2005). Slightly higher figures were indicated in a poll of 721 British adults in February of 1998: 40% believed in ghosts, while 37% had seen or felt one (MORI, 1998). In addition, reports of ghosts and apparitions have appeared across many cultures over the course of time (Editors of Time-Life Books, 1988), suggesting that apparitional beliefs and experiences are a persistent and widespread phenomenon.

Experiences that people have had with apparitions are of interest to parapsychologists for three main reasons. First, the process of witnessing an apparition may perhaps involve the use of extrasensory perception, or ESP. If that is so, then this may provide us with a possible reason as to why some people (particularly psychics and mediums) are reportedly able to see or otherwise “sense” apparitions, while others are not. Second, some of the physical phenomena that can be associated with apparitions, such as odd sounds and occasional object movements, may perhaps involve the use of psychokinesis (PK), or “mind over matter.” It could perhaps be the case that the apparition seen was somehow formed through a PK-related process as well. Third, apparitions clearly seem relevant to the issue of possible life after death, and interest in this issue tends to be one thing that parapsychologists have in common with the diverse community of paranormal enthusiasts who have a broader interest of investigating ghosts and apparitions in relation to alleged hauntings. It turns out, however, that there may be more to ghosts and apparitions than just haunts.

This Halloween day, we are launching a third installment of our basic primer series – yet another “crash course,” if you will – for paranormal enthusiasts and the general public for the prime reason that there has been much misunderstanding within the paranormal enthusiast community regarding what has been learned in the past about ghosts and apparitions, particularly by parapsychologists. To help guide enthusiasts with their own background knowledge for field investigations, we will be providing a basic, accessible overview of the current parapsychological research and perspectives over the next week. We hope that this primer will help to bridge the gap between parapsychologists and paranormal enthusiasts when it comes to the study of ghosts and their relevance to the issue of survival after death.

Bryan Williams, University of New Mexico
Annalisa Ventola, CERCAP
Mike Wilson, Psi Society


Alfano, S. (2005, October 30). Poll: Majority believe in ghosts. CBS News on-line report. Available over the Internet at: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/10/29/opinion/polls/main994766.shtml. Accessed October 8, 2009.

Editors of Time-Life Books. (1988). Phantom Encounters (Volume in the series “Mysteries of the Unknown”). Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books.

Lyons, L. (2005, July 12). One-third of Americans believe dearly may not have departed. Gallup Survey on-line report. Available over the Internet at: http://www.gallup.com/poll/17275/OneThird-Americans-Believe-Dearly-May-Departed.aspx. Accessed October 5, 2009.

MORI. (1998). Paranormal survey [Conducted for the Sun newspaper]. Available over the Internet at: http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/poll.aspx?oItemId=2082. Accessed October 8, 2009.

Michael Jawer to Give PF Lecture

Author Michael Jawer giving a
PF Perspectives Lecture at the Open Center in Manhattan
on Thursday, October 29th, 2009!

From 7:00pm to 9:00pm on Thursday, October 29th (doors open at 6:45 p.m.), Michael Jawer will present a lecture centering on his new book, written with colleague, Mark Micozzi and titled “The Spiritual Anatomy of Emotion: How Feelings Link the Brain, the Body, and the Sixth Sense.” The lecture will be held at the New York Open Center at 22 East 30th Street in Manhattan. Seating is limited so call 212-628-1550 to reserve (there's a $5.00 donation at the door.)

Contemporary science holds that the brain rules the body and generates all our feelings and perceptions. Authors Michael Jawer and Dr. Marc Micozzi disagree. They contend that it is our feelings that underlie our conscious selves.

The development of one’s feelings lies at the core of our individual personalities. Throughout our lives, emotion plays a lead role in susceptibility to stress, immune function, and wellness or illness. And, most startlingly, emotion turns out to be critical to understanding anomalous perceptions.

Based on differences in how each of us literally feels — our innate sensitivity — the more physical disturbances we are likely to have: from ailments such as allergies, migraines, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, phantom pain, and post-traumatic stress to anomalous perceptions such as apparitions and involuntary out-of-body experience. Citing the latest research on immunity, sensation, stress, cognition, and emotional expression, Jawer and Micozzi’s new book demonstrates that the way we process our feelings provides a key to who is most likely to experience these phenomena and why. Emotion is the portal into a world of extraordinary perception — and a slew of studies offer a scientific foundation for telepathic dreams, poltergeist disturbances, and more.

The Spiritual Anatomy of Emotion challenges science’s prevailing belief that the brain must necessarily rule the body. Far from being a mere by-product of neurochemistry, emotion is the vehicle by which we can understand ourselves and our interactions with the world around us, as well as our most intriguing — and perennially baffling — experiences.

Michael Jawer is an independent researcher who has been examining mind-body differences among individuals for the past 10 years. His original survey investigation, published by the Society for Psychical Research in the UK, uncovered linkages between environmental sensitivities, a variety of personality factors, and apparitional experience. His papers have also appeared in Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing, Seminars in Integrative Medicine, and Science & Consciousness Review. Jawer’s interest in emotion and extraordinary sensitivities was kindled by his investigation of indoor air quality/sick building issues in the 1990s. Jawer was awarded the 2005 D. Scott Rogo Award for Parapsychological Literature. That award partially funded the writing of the book.

Marc S. Micozzi, MD, PhD, is adjunct professor of physiology and biophysics at the Georgetown University School of Medicine. He edited the first US alternative medicine textbook, Fundamentals of Complementary & Alternative Medicine, now in its fourth edition. He has consistently been committed to helping to raise the standards for research, investigation, and practice in the growing field of complementary and alternative medicine. Dr. Micozzi has been a frequent speaker on these topics nationally and internationally, and has organized and chaired conferences with the likes of former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop and Dr. Dean Ornish.

Their book, The Spiritual Anatomy of Emotion (with a Foreword by Larry Dossey, MD) is published by Park Street Press. It is noted in the current issue of Psychology Today and has been chosen for the Book-of-the-Month Club’s “One Spirit” catalog. The book’s website is http://www.emotiongateway.com.

History of Parapsychology PDF Guide

One of the best ways to learn about parapsychology is to study its historical development. History can help you to understand the origin of ideas, theories, methodology, controversies, terms, and other things you may be interested in from the context of the times in which the developments took place, and considering both actual parapsychological work and the social aspects that influenced the field. The latter includes beliefs prevalent at the time, competition with other disciplines, patterns of intellectual influence, and the dynamics of professionalization, among other topics. From the point of view of doing parapsychology, the past literature can provide us resources to avoid past methodological mistakes, generate hypotheses for research, and evaluate controversies. Furthermore, a historical perspective can do much to provide us with the human aspect of parapsychology, aspects such as information about the lives of mediums, psychics, researchers, and theoreticians.

In the downloadable pdf below titled Learning the History of Parapsychology, Dr. Carlos S. Alvarado presents some bibliographical suggestions and links to information sources that will assist interested readers in becoming familiar with the history and past literature of parapsychology.

Download: Learning the History of Parapsychology by Carlos S. Alvarado

Review of Targ: Memoirs of a Blind Biker

Reviewed by Hannah Jenkins, PhD

A generation of parapsychologists are starting to retire. Fortunately for us, instead of working on their golf swing, some of them are jotting down memories. Do You See What I See?: Memoirs of a Blind Biker, another recent personal account of a life involved with psi research, is by Russell Targ, the physicist legend of remote viewing, co-author (with Harold Putoff) of the influential Mind Reach and, we discover, an avid motorcyclist despite being legally blind.

The book starts with a description of a quintessential post-war, European-influenced Chicago/New York childhood. It then goes on to tell us about his studies, early career, marriage, fatherhood, move to California, divorce, motorcycle riding and other loves. There's much to keep us interested on both personal and professional fronts: Bobby Fisher (the eccentric chess player) was his brother-in-law, and at work during breaks at NASA conferences he had quiet talks about ESP with the likes of Werner von Braun, Edgar Mitchell and Arthur C. Clarke. But Targ is no mere name dropper. The stories are informed by his thoughtful philosophical approach to life, namely, that ‘yes, things happen, but we give them all the meaning they have for us.’ All the major milestones of a life, the negatives and positives, are presented with great candor in very readable, engaging prose.

There is also an absorbing account of the ups and downs of his professional life as both an engineer for Lockheed and scientist specializing in ESP. His professional life was a delicate balance between mainstream and psi research. Many of those involved in the latter will identify with the problems he manages to overcome: he was successful at both. It's an edifying story, especially when you consider he had serious health issues to contend with for most of his life. Remarkably there’s never a hint of self pity in the writing, even when he relates the tragic death of his daughter Elizabeth Targ.

He's apparently undaunted by life challenges that would throw many off course. And though his tone does sometimes have a suggestion of 'look what I did!' he's reflective enough to acknowledge this and aware that his upbringing as an only child and early illnesses have had a profound, and mostly positive, impact on his confident and resilient approach to life.

For those engaged with psi research, the book becomes especially interesting when he expands on his contributions to ESP experiments. Russell Targ was involved in some of the seminal moments of psi research over the last four decades and was close to many other psi researchers who have also profoundly influenced the field. One of them is Charles T. Tart who wrote the forward to The Blind Biker. He describes Russell Targ's contribution to psi research as the ‘battery development pioneer’ and lauds him for bringing elusive real life psi into a more moderate, but reliable, scientifically useful form.

Although there is much that is already on the public record, it is fascinating to get the personal inside story of the developments which have informed current psi research. Some have attained legendary status, for instance the activities of the Delphi Group. But did you know that the documentary describing the silver commodities stock prediction experiments has disappeared from the archives of the production company who made it? Or that the group once received a $320,000 contract with Atari to design and build an ESP video game? And he outlines the development of remote viewing. I won't repeat the details here as it's worth reading from his perspective, especially the theories about Pat Price. The stories reveal an innovative approach to the development of practical applications for psi and one wonders if we need to up the stakes of current research to match the efforts of researchers from his era.

I highly recommend Do You See What I See?: Memoirs of a Blind Biker as an inspiring story which will be of interest to those outside psi research as much as those in it.

Hannah Jenkins, PhD

Parapsychological Association to Host Logo Competition

The principal international scientific organization studying the nature of consciousness, the Parapsychological Association (PA), is holding a logo competition in anticipation of the relaunch of its website, www.parapsych.org. An affiliate of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, the PA is engaged in the study of psi (or ‘psychic’) experiences, such as telepathy, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, psychic healing, and precognition.

The competition, which is open to the public, encourages amateurs, artists and graphic designers to draw on the 52 year history of this well-established organization to create a logo that will serve the PA’s website as well as its printed materials. The winner of the logo competition will receive a prize of $100.

The deadline for submissions is October 5, 2009. Contest rules can be found at Logo Competition Rules Contact the business manager at business@parapsych.org with inquiries.

About the Parapsychological Association:

The Parapsychological Association is the international professional organization of scientists and scholars engaged in the study of 'psi'’ (or 'psychic') experiences. Their primary objective is to achieve a scientific understanding of these experiences. The PA was first established in 1957, and has been an affiliated organization of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) since 1969. There are approximately 300 PA members around the world.

The PA provides an international forum for scholarly exchange through annual conferences, generally held in North America or in Europe, and through publication of the proceedings from these conferences. The PA is a non-adjudicating organization and endorses no ideologies or beliefs other than the value of rigorous scientific and scholarly inquiry. It is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization.

Parapsychology Research Center to Open in Second Life

A new parapsychological research center is soon to open in a popular virtual arena called Second Life. The Alvarado Zingrone Institute for Research and Education (The AZIRE) was founded to provide resources for researchers, clinical psychologists and psychiatrists, therapists and counselors, and teachers and students interested in seemingly psychic phenomena. A project of Alvarado Consulting, The AZIRE is located in Charlottesville, Virginia and in the online virtual world, Second Life (http://www.secondlife.com).

Dr. Carlos S. Alvarado and Dr. Nancy L. Zingrone, the folks behind The AZIRE, have enjoyed careers in parapsychology since the late 1970s. Focusing mainly on the psychology of experience — especially on the out-of-body experience — they have been lucky enough to have worked at some of the premiere institutions in the field, such as the Rhine Research Center in Durham, North Carolina, the Koestler Parapsychology Unit in the Department of Psychology at the University of Edinburgh, the Parapsychology Foundation in New York City and Greenport, New York, and at the Division of Perceptual Studies in the Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia, where they now hold part-time grant-based research faculty appointments.

The AZIRE website — http://www.theazire.org — includes links to blogs on various aspects of their field of study including parapsychology as a profession, parapsychology’s contribution to science, and biographies in parapsychology, as well as links to personal blogs such as those written by Dr. Charles Tart and Dr. Dean Radin. The AZIRE website also includes links to many universities, institutes, and organizations all over the world as well as to those few opportunities for accredited and/or high quality online learning in parapsychology. Links are also provided to web-based freely available articles by Alvarado and Zingrone and to recommended books in the field.

In addition to developing online courses, a “Virtual College Fair” is in the planning stages. So far Dr. Charles Tart, Dr. Caroline Watt of the University of Edinburgh, and Dr. Ian Hume of Coventry University have committed to being interviewed about the online programs and courses their institutions offer. To be notified when the interviews are scheduled, email nancy@theazire.org.

The AZIRE has committed to Second Life as a particularly vibrant media for education. To exploit that potential, The AZIRE Learning Center presents similar resources to those provided by The AZIRE website but using some of the interactive media available inworld such as continuously running slideshows, “notecards,” a YouTube viewer and click-throughs to buy books and download articles. Still in development in Second Life are The AZIRE Library that will include an expanded selection of articles and books to download or buy, and The AZIRE Classroom Building, a cosy space where discussions and classes will be hosted.

If you’re experienced in Second Life, Alvarado and Zingrone want to remind you that The AZIRE’s first open house is on Sunday, September 20^th, 2009 from 2:00 to 4:00 pm PST. Once inworld, IM Maggie Larimore (Zingrone’s Second Life alter ego) and she will send you the landmark. For those who’d like to give Second Life a try, once inworld IM Maggie Larimore and/or Rodolfo Mirabella (Alvarado’s SL alter ego) for a warm welcome!

2009 PA Convention in Seattle

Register Now!

The Annual PA Convention is an international gathering of scientists and scholars engaged in the study of psi (or 'psychic') experiences, such as telepathy, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, psychic healing, and precognition. The convention features three days of papers and posters presenting the latest academic research taking place in laboratories and research centers around the world. PA conventions are open to the public, and provide ample opportunities for attendees to discuss and exchange ideas.

Donald Hoffman, Professor of Cognitive Sciences at the University of California, Irvine, will be the banquet speaker on Saturday night. Professor Hoffman's areas of expertise include Consciousness, Visual Perception, and the Mind-Body Problem. He is the author of the book Visual Intelligence: How We Create What We See. His talk entitled "Consciousness and the interface theory of perception" will present a non-materialist solution to the mind-body problem.

Accommodations are available both in the dormitories on the University of Washington campus and at the Watertown Hotel. Use the registration form to book dorm room accommodations, but for hotel reservations, please contact the Watertown Hotel directly. Additional details on hotel accommodations, and tentative event schedule can be found at parapsych.org.

Review of Outside the Gates of Science

Damien Broderick is an Australian science-fiction author and critic with a PhD in the comparative semiotics of science and literature. A rare and chimeric blend of qualities which make him an engaging and sympathetic commentator on parapsychology- an enterprise which is viewed by establishment science somewhat in the same way that science fiction is viewed by the literary establishment- as a quirky and rather embarrassing enterprise driven by a desire for wish-fulfilment that anyone with respectable academic ambitions ought to have grown out of by the time they hit puberty. However Outside the Gates of Science: Why It's Time for the Paranormal to Come in from the Cold is not a book you’ll feel you have to read surreptitiously under the bedcovers. A fast-moving foray into the fascinating (and sometimes downright bizarre) world of parapsychological research.it’s a good introduction to the controversies of the field for the non-specialist reader.

The first section of the book is a recap of some of the most often cited evidence for ESP and PK starting with the work of Joseph Banks Rhine and his card-guessing experiments at Duke University. Broderick draws a firm line between this and previous research carried out by spiritualists and psychical researchers noting that the key distinction was one of method and perhaps more importantly, cast of mind. He argues that whereas nineteenth century psychical researchers resembled historians or geographical explorers accumulating anecdotes and taking copious notes to construct narratives Rhine’s 20^th century laboratory based approach emphasised scientific standards of rigour and repeatability. In short, there are two basic types of parapsychologist- story-tellers and bean-counters. Broderick apologises for this somewhat glib summing up of the paradigm wars but his whimsical and sometimes sardonic sense of humour adds a lot to the book’s charm although the more worthy and serious minded reader may find this off-putting. (Personally speaking, I shrieked with laughter and mentally assigned appropriately-sloganed t-shirts to every parapsychologist I’ve ever met and several more whom I haven’t). Creationist sensibilities may then be shaken with the declaration of support for Evolutionary Theory phrased as “Ancient Ignorant Guess vs. Darwin, Mendel, Crick and Watson, and the Human Genome Project” (p18-19) and then it is swiftly on to the work of the Princeton Anomalies Research Team (PEAR). Emphasis is placed on Jahn and Dunne’s avoidance of what they termed as “ ‘Gee Whiz’ experiments, flashy psychic bombshells of the Uri Geller spoon-bending variety” (p21) and statistical evidence is soberly and concisely presented before moving onto an absorbing account of Targ and Puthoff’s Remote Viewing experiments and the political intrigues of psychic spies, the Stargate Project and the hunt for Saddam Hussein. There is plenty of Gee Whiz to go round here, and the author is clearly enthralled with the topic, having discussed it in depth with key players such as Ed May and Joe McMoneagle. It would appear if ‘psi’ exists that the best evidence and applications might be found in these shadowy realms, but not all the stories can be told, at least in full, and the reader is left somewhat unsatisfied at unaccredited sources and hints at hidden knowledge while Broderick himself admits that the rules of the inner circles operate “rather like the first and second rules in the movie Fight Club (‘Do not talk about Fight Club’)” (p 88).

The shadows are swiftly dispelled with what I found to be a particularly lucid exposition of quantum theories which managed to convince me that I might actually have some notion about what they might mean. No doubt this illusion will vanish the next time I talk to a real physicist, but nevertheless this is a tribute to Broderick’s calibre as a thinker and clarity as a writer as much as a testament to my own vanity. Giving short-shrift to “ the pseudo-quantum song warbled by smiling new age irrationalists” and singling out Lynne McTaggart’s book The Field (2002) as a particularly flawed example of that genre, he tackles the issue of Quantum weirdness, noting that this “looks to some people suspiciously like psychic weirdness: instantaneous nonlocal connections, reversed-time aspects to causality. The most extraordinary aspect of this discussion, for the hardnosed lay realist, is surely that it is taking place at all." (p. 189). Pointing out the similarities between the role of an observer in both ‘psi’ and quantum experimentation he argues that this "must lie at the heart of the solution to the problem of psi phenomena; and, indeed, an understanding of psi phenomena and consciousness must provide the basis for an improved understanding of Quantum Mechanics" (p. 206).

Broderick is indeed persuaded of the reality of at least some ‘psi’ phenomena- but not all, he would rather “keep gods, demons and tricksters at bay as the hypothesis of last resort." (p 272). In what might be read as a rebuke to the novel ambitions of wannabe ‘clinical parapsychologists’, he notes that “we must not allow ourselves to forget that the most powerful paranormal phenomena ever claimed have been reported by schizophrenics and other mentally disordered people” (p 274) and the difference between reports of this sort and the claims of parapsychology research is, he asserts, “the witness of their accumulating evidence and theoretical apparatus, however incomplete, by people who are not mystics or cultists” (p 275). And there’s the rub. I don’t doubt that Broderick is indeed correct in his assertion that “if telepathy, remote viewing, precognition and psychokinesis become repeatably demonstrable, they will enter, at last the realm of regular science...” (p 310). However, given that previous chapters acknowledging the capricious nature of ‘psi effects’ it might be expected that this state of affairs might be difficult, if not impossible to achieve. Furthermore, not all those individuals who have reported miracles can be easily written off as insane and whereas notions of a deity, or an afterlife or esoteric ruminations about consciousness may remain outside the gates of science, they have found well-appointed mansions of their own in departments of theology, philosophy and even anthropology across wide swathes of academia whilst academic parapsychology is still viewed with some suspicion. Perhaps we should not assume that respectability is inextricably wedded to materialism. In 1959 novelist and scientist C.P. Snow famously warned that science and arts were becoming two cultures, more recently Brockman (1995) has promoted the notion of a “third culture” to describe scientists- in particular evolutionary biologists, psychologists and neuroscientists- who may render visible “the deeper meanings in our lives” and supersede literary artists in their ability to “shape the thoughts of their generation.” So does parapsychology really need to be science and if so, why should it want to be seen as a hard, pure science?

In the last section of Outside the Gates of Science entitled “Tomorrow’s Psi” Broderick muses on the potentials of parapsychology’s future. There may well be those that feel that the here and now of psi is puzzling and fascinating enough, but time marches on and although after all that quantum discussion and talk of retro-causation I’m not entirely sure in which direction that march will proceed, I am rather persuaded that those parapsychologists who concern themselves purely with the here-and-now run the risk of finding themselves swiftly relegated to the realms of the been-and-gone. In this final flight of fabulous speculation, Broderick, as a science fiction writer, really comes into his own with some wide-ranging thoughts about how an acknowledged reality of ‘psi’ in the workaday world might reshape human experience.

An entertaining and thought-provoking read.

Wendy E. Cousins

References

Brockman, J. (1995) The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution, Simon & Schuster:

McTaggart L. (2001) The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers.

Snow, C.P. (1993) The Two Cultures, Cambridge University Press; New edition.

-------

Wendy E.Cousins is an Irish University lecturer/psychologist.

Labels: book reviews

Conference on Health, Mental Health, and Exceptional Human Experiences

A conference on Health, Mental Health and Exceptional Human Experiences will take place at Liverpool Hope University on Monday 7th September.

Review of The Spirit of Dr. Bindelof

The Spirit of Dr. Bindelof: the Enigma of Séance Phenomena, by Dr. Rosemarie Pilkington features the story of a little known episode of physical mediumship that took place among a group of teenage boys in New York City in the 1930’s. Dr. Pilkington is a musician, writer, and educator with a PhD in psychology from Saybrook Institute. She befriended one of the members of this sitter group, Gilbert Roller, later in his life and presents his autobiographical account of the boys’ experimentation with séance phenomena, and their contact with an alleged spirit named Dr. Bindelof.

Gilbert recalled his childhood home life as “monstrous and terrible” (p. 7). Early in the story, we learn that he was the focus of an outbreak of poltergeist activity in his home. Gil’s mother was absent much of the time, and she and her husband (Gil’s stepfather) fought often. When Gil was about 12 or 13, the family heard sounds from his mother’s bedroom and found hairpins that had apparently flown from the dresser and hit the door. Wooden knobs from her shoe tree came off and were flung across the room. As the phenomena progressed, dishes would come crashing off the counters, and the words ‘GO GO’ were found crayoned in huge letters on the wall. These and other events prompted Gil’s father to call in the well known psychical researcher, Howard Carrington, to investigate.

Later, Gil joined his mother in evening séances in which minor events occurred in his presence. Eventually, he started his own sitter group along with some of his teenage friends, including the late Montague Ullman, who later became a psychiatrist and parapsychologist and founder of the Dream Laboratory at Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn, New York (whose own account of the sittings can be found here). The boys were dedicated to the task of facilitating paranormal phenomena and met regularly on Saturday nights for several years. Among the phenomena they reported were table levitations, raps, direct voice phenomena, direct writing, and communications with a ‘spirit’ by the name of Dr. Bindelof, who provided healing and medical advice. On the front of the book is a portrait of Dr. Bindelof, taken under the very specific guidance of the communicator.

Gilbert and Pilkington seem to agree that there was no ‘spirit’ of Dr. Bindelof. Rather, the doctor was the unconscious projection of the sitter group and that Gil was the source of major occurrences in and out of the séance room. In the next two sections of the book, Pilkington provides a brief history of physical mediumship, covering well known cases like the Fox Sisters, Daniel Douglas Home, Florence Cook, Eusapia Palladino, and Ted Serios, as well has lesser known cases such as Franek Kluski and Indridi Indridason. Throughout her narrative, Pilkington relates aspects of these cases to the Bindelof case, maintaining that these kinds of unusual events were likely paranormally produced by living beings, “although belief in outside or discarnate forces greatly helps in their production.” And if these phenomena are genuine, “our current knowledge of the mind and body, our whole concept of physical laws, is woefully limited” (p.226).

Despite my involvement in the field of parapsychology, my boggle threshold, the point at which I consider phenomena highly unlikely to be real, is admittedly pretty low. I was attracted to this field because I was impressed by laboratory studies of psi and the evidence for small-scale psi effects in environments where variables can be manipulated and performance measured. Time and time again, in laboratories around the world, well-educated and credible scientists have demonstrated that human consciousness may not be limited to space or time. I am more boggled that the work of parapsychologists doesn't receive more serious mainstream consideration than I am by the implications of their results.

However, many large scale psychokinetic effects do exceed my boggle threshold, and I find it difficult to accept the reality of such phenomena unless I can either investigate them myself or have their mechanisms explained to me. Pilkington’s narrative attempts to demonstrate to readers that these events are real, but I still remain unconvinced. However while reading The Spirit of Dr. Bindelof, I was impressed with the reality that credible and well-trained investigators have observed physical effects that seem to defy space or time, and that these observers were willing stake their reputations reporting them. Many of these investigations took place with cooperative subjects who were willing to be thoroughly examined and perform such feats under well-lit conditions. Quality investigations such as these have taken place around the world, decade after decade, yet the phenomena still remain a mystery.

After reading Pilkington's book, I am just a little bit more curious about sitter group phenomena, enough so that I might find the patience to try it myself. For those interested in forming such groups, Pilkington’s appendix, So You Want to Do It Too?, offers advice to novices.

However, for me the larger issue is understanding 'how it works', and unfortunately large scale psychokinetic (macro-PK) events have not yet been subjected to the volume of research that ESP and small scale psychokinetic (micro-PK) events have. A systematic, scientific research program into macroscopic psychokinetic phenomena would be absolutely groundbreaking. But unlike some of the phenomena described in The Spirit of Dr. Bindelof, scientific research programs don't drop out of thin air. Rather, they are supported by the research dollars of individuals and foundations with the vision and courage needed to support science on the cutting edge.

Gilbert Roller passed away on October 20, 2004 at the age of 89. Recently, his widow, Mrs. Marion Roller made a generous contribution to the Parapsychological Association (PA) in her husband's name to establish a new endowment for research. The Gilbert Roller Fund supports scientific field investigations into macroscopic psychokinetic phenomena such as those reported in sitter groups, séances, poltergeist activity, and/or theoretical approaches to help explain the nature of such large scale effects. Right now, the PA is in the midst of a matching funds drive for this endowment until Friday, May 1, 2009. Mrs. Roller is matching, dollar for dollar, donations made to this fund. So your tax-deductible contribution of $50 would not-so-mysteriously become $100 research dollars, and so on. Donations can be made online at the PA website. Your contributions would enable qualified researchers with professional knowledge of past research of this type to continue to explore large-scale psychokinetic phenomena.

Addendum: I just received the following from a representative of Mrs. Roller's estate:

Through May 1st your contribution will be matched TWO FOR ONE, that is for every $50 you donate, the fund will receive $150. If you have not yet contributed, please do so this week to help add to our knowledge and to take advantage of this generous offer.

Annalisa Ventola

www.publicparapsychology.org

Labels: book reviews

Lecture Review: Science and the Afterlife

Science and the Afterlife

A Review of a Lecture Presented at the San Diego Bereavement Consortium

March 20, 2009

Recently, Dr. Julie Beischel, a premier investigator in the fields of survival of consciousness and mediumship research, spoke before an audience of perhaps one hundred people in San Diego at a lecture at the Scottish Rite Event Center. Early in her presentation, Dr. Beischel requested a show of hands in the audience of those who believed that consciousness survives death, and not surprisingly, 90% raised their hands, though I was not among them. This was due to my agnosticism on the topic, despite my own first impulse to raise my arm.

“Survival after death,” reported Dr. Beischel, “has a body of data at least one hundred years old.” She described three established types of after-life research: 1). proof-focused (i.e. validity studies); 2). process-focused (phenomenology of the medium herself); and 3). applied (i.e. field work). Beischel’s approach is clearly proof-focused. She herself is well-schooled in laboratory science having earned her doctorate in Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Arizona—an impressive prelude to her present career as researcher/bridge-maker to the other side.

According to Beischel, researchers agree that “the perception is real” (regarding contact with the dead), though what actually is occurring in such cases is less conclusive. Of course, irrefutable scientific proof for survival, an afterlife, and direct communication with the “discarnate,” would most certainly be a gold ticket in the annals of science research, on a par with evidential proof of alien contact, the cure and eradication of cancer, or even a treatment for male-pattern baldness that worked. Moving from perception to causation in this controversial territory is like moving from the belief in faeries to having one sing with the band at your daughter’s wedding.

Dr. Beishal reviewed her fairly rigorous eight-step process at The Windbridge Institute to screen and train competent mediums as subjects (often on the phone) for controlled experiments. Both mental mediums and “trance mediums” (who remain dissociated during their transmissions) are utilized. Training includes grief counseling to help mediums better relate to their bereaved sitters during contact sessions. Curiously, the words ‘ghost’, ‘apparition’, or ‘spirit’ are not used in this vocabulary, and Beischel admits a double-edged sword in the current pop culture fascination with mediums, spirit possession, ghost hunters, and the like, which, at once, trivializes her research as a kind of thrill-ride for hormonally-ravaged teenagers, but also raises public awareness for the much-needed funding in this universally relevant area.

I found especially interesting Beischel’s discussion of the three likely mechanisms researchers use to explain ‘anomalous information receptions’ (AIR): namely, 1) consciousness survives death. 2) a super psi effect is triggered in such cases (in which case, what’s actually occurring is psi, not survival). 3). A ‘psychic reservoir’ or universal data bank (ala the Akashic records, etc.) is tapped.

The first option feels circular to me, and not mutually exclusive of the others. Receptions occur “because consciousness survives” seems like saying “we float in the water because the ocean is wet.” There must be a second half to this explanation. Option 2--the super psi effect--seems to be the confounding factor that ambiguously follows this work to its conclusion (or stalemate) without ever being ruled out, or adequately control for. What may appear like valid contact between medium and discarnate may actually be some telepathic snatching up of the sitter’s memories (with, or without, anyone realizing it). In that case, the after-life has not been unwrapped so much as hijacked by super-psychics! Option 3, however, the ‘psychic reservoir hypothesis’, despite its Aquarian acoustic, resonates most with my own sympathies as a Jungian psychologist and tarot expert. I can easily visualize The High Priestess channeling subtle, subliminal, collective memories accessed from her deeply intuitive predisposition.

Option 3 also suggests ‘absolute knowledge’ (Jung) arising synchronistically between medium, sitter, (and possibly discarnate as well). The connection, however, is ‘acausal’ in nature, i.e. emitting no energy exchange between senders and receivers (the holy mantra of synchronicity theorists!). Like in divination procedures, a transpersonal intelligence or awareness seems simply to open up (or is recognized as having always been there) under the proper conditions. Whereas super psi posits something is happening here (albeit subtle)— an energy still is exchanged (and sought after for measurement by scientists). In any event, Dr. Beischel admitted without hesitation to the audience that the question itself remains open.

The psychology of abundance seems another relevant piece to the life-after-death puzzle. Unlimited amounts of anything—cash, phone minutes, refills, or lifetimes—make sudden ceasing to be seem so less pressured and irredeemable. Could survivability, and its implied endlessness, have such a paradoxical effect? Might surviving into the afterlife take some of the umph out of the “now or never?” Beischel reports that grief-stricken family members feel better after consulting a medium than after consulting a mental health worker. (Why am I not surprised?). Could this artifact be merely some opiate effect in the service of denial? Or could something far less predictable be going on here-- the foreshadowing of a vast paradigm shift with respect to consciousness surviving after death. As Dr. Julie Beischel noted at the end, perhaps the greatest effect of her findings for the medical community is simply that: “Death is then viewed more as a transition, than a failure.” Could this be the larger hypothesis that we are looking for?

Arthur Rosengarten, Ph.D.

http://www.moonlightcounseling.com

http://geocities.com/tarotpsych/

Dr. Art Rosengarten is a Jungian psychologist in Encinitas, California, The Director of Moonlight Counseling, the author of Tarot And Psychology: Spectrums Of Possibility (2000), and the creator of Tarot Of The Nine Paths: A Guide For The Spiritual Traveler (2009). He completed the first scientific study of tarot divination for his doctoral dissertation at the California Institute Of Integral Studies (1985) and has since researched domestic violence through the synchronisitic lens of tarot readings. Dr. Rosengarten is owner/moderator of tarotpsych: an online discussion group for tarot experimentation and community. His articles, services, books and deck can be found on his website: www.artrosengarten.com

Windbridge Institute Study

The Windbridge Institute is in need of research volunteers for an online study. Participants in this study will be asked to visit a specific website and listen to a selection of different sounds (audio files). Participants will then be asked to complete an on-line survey with questions about what they heard. The study takes about an hour to complete.

More details are available at http://www.windbridge.org/study.html. Please use 'pubpara' as your participant code.

Labels: calls for participants

New Parapsychology Blog

JJ Lumsden, parapsychologist and author of The Hidden Whisper, has recently started his own blog at parapsychologist.tumblr.com. Starting off with a few short essays and quotes, this looks like a promising blog to watch.