On Deanna's "Granddad" thread, Bruce offered this response to the reservations I expressed about the evidential value of channeling:

"In your post to Deanne you said:

>> Please believe what meets your needs, but at least try to grasp the alternative interpretation.  That is, the medium could have read your mind about the chicken, the lollipop, and the pigeon and then misinterpreted this as a contact with your granddad. <<

We have no way of testing either hypothesis, in this case;

hypothesis #1 the medium was actually in contact with the deceased Grandad,

hypothesis #2  the medium was reading Deanna's mind.

The historical evidence you site with other mediums during other times really has no bearing on the hypothesized contact between this medium and Deanna's Grandad.  We could each site historical examples to support real contact or false contact by mediums in the past to support our own hypothesis.  

We can argue our own favored hypothesis, and attempt to get others to admit ours might be the correct one, or believe ours in place of theirs.  But, since we can't test either hypothesis, in this case, wouldn't you agree, Don, that Deanne's hypothesis is as equally likely to be true as yours?

Deanne's experience is at least anecdotal evidence that real contact may be possible, and points to the need for structured research to settle the question.  What is needed to settle the question of the reality of afterlife contact is a well designed experiment, data gathering and data analysis.  Lacking that, the hypothesis remains untested and is neither proven nor disproven."
_______________________________

I agree with Bruce about the need for more research and applaud Gary Schwartz's research, despite it's flaws.   I would also encourage Deanna to continue her exploration of spiritualism, despite my reservations.  But I am unhappy with the way Bruce frames his two hypotheses.  Rather than critique his approach directly and generically, I will use his position as a launching pad for an extensive summary and assessment of the evidential value of the  best of channeling.  In the process, my quibbles about Bruce's way of framing the issues should become apparent.  I'm taking this approach because the issues are so complex and because it is precisely the unique specifics of great channeling that will most intrigue readers.

I will begin tomorrow by assessing the relevance of Leonora Piper to the super-ESP explanation of channeled evidence.  She is clearly one of the most outstanding and closely scrutinized American mediums of all time.  As this thread develops, my posts will draw from several sources, most notably from two of the best books on the subject: John Heaney, "The Sacred and the Psychic: Parapsychology and Christian Theology" and David Fontana, "Is There an Afterlife?  A Comprehensive Overview of the Evidence."  Heaney and Fontana complement each other's research very well.   Please be patient.  It will take me some time to distill out the most decisive evidence and analysis.

Don

Well, why WOULDN'T Deanna's hypothesis be just as likely as yours, Don?
And why is the Christian view more correct than, say... the Buddhist view? Or the ancient Aztec view? Or the traditional Japanese Shinto view for that matter?
Yeah sure, you've got a list of books for me to read... (ALL from a Christian slant, BTW.)
Give me SCIENTIFIC PROOF of Christianity's veracity, Don... and then I'll take your (frankly bullying) stance on other people's views more seriously.
But as long as it is something based purely on FAITH, I'll NEVER take it seriously. Blind faith is a worthless thing for knowing the truth, Don. Blind faith didn't give us antibiotics, or send men to the moon (it got humanity into a lot of wars though, and you COULD make the argument that war speeds up tecnological innovation...) If there was a personal God... well, "he" gave us brains for a REASON, Don. I suspect it was to USE them to the BEST of our ability... no?
Or does "he" require us to "check our brains at the church door" and live our lives as if we all had I.Q.'s of 73? To simply listen to "Those Who Know Better Than Us" (i.e. priests, preachers and other fleas on the body politic...)  And all the time "God" pretends he doesn't exist, and leaves us with nothing but a dead... dusty... musty... foggy... (not to mention incredibly DULL - ever tried reading the Bible without falling asleep, Don?) OLD BOOK as evidence of his existence? If so, WHY to all the above? Answer me THAT.
P.S. I mentioned SCIENTIFIC proof, Don. And I DON'T mean Duane Gish-style "Creation Science" (complete with humans and dinosaurs living together a'la "The Flinstones.") Ditto for "anecdotes" I can go hunt up on Snopes.com... anecdotes aren't really to be trusted anyway. (Do you believe in all the Bigfoot stories over the past 30 years, Don???)
Bring on the Proof,

B-man

Considering this thread as part of the original thread...

Why can't someone define what will be accepted as "proof" beforehand? That is what would make it scientific....

but even in science things are often obscurred. Lots of statements are made without having to be backed up and there is less noise over that than there is over mediumship.

For example, this statement from a current article (emphasis mine).

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/health_science/articles/2006/01/30/peanut_aller...

"One widely held theory -- endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics -- is that allergy might be avoided if the mother stays away from peanuts and other likely food allergens during pregnancy and breastfeeding and that children shouldn't be given them until at least 2 years of age. But supporting research is absent."


Now why don't people make noise over the American Academy of Pediatrics making unproven statements? Yet we live by what they say.

Why are you so offended by someone who feels her grandad communicated with her from beyond? Do you get angry when the American Academy of Pediatrics makes unproven statements?

What constitutes scientific evidence of valid communication from a deceased person?

THE MEDIUMSHIP OF LEONORA PIPER (1859-1950)

Leonora was initiated into her gift at age 8 while playing in the garden.   She suddenly felt a sharp blow on her right ear and heard a prolonged S sound followed by the words, "Aunt Sara not dead but with you still."  Terrified, she notified her Mom who noted the exact time.  It was soon confirmed that Aunt Sara had died on that day at that time.

As a fully developed medium, she displayed the astounding ability to channel two different discarnate entities at the same time, one entity through automatic writing and the other orally!  Her automatic writing was typically scribbled with her eyes closed and her head resting on the table.  When she emerged from her trance, she had no recollection of her channeling because, as her spirit control Phinuit explained, she had no access to her brain while out of her body, and so, could store no memories within it.  I am hard pressed to dismiss the role of spirits in this channeling, especially in view of how impressive her verifications can be.

For example, consider the 5 years that George Pelham served as her spirit control through both her automatic writing and her entranced voice.  A skeptic, George had promised his friend, investigator Richard Hodgson that if he died first and survived, he would try to demonstrate his survival to Hodgson's satisfaction.  George allegedly became Leonora's spirit control just 5 weeks after his untimely death.  Fontana explains how Hodgson was convinced that Leonore really could channel George:

"During the 5 years concerned he [George] recognized at least 30 of Mrs. Piper's sitters who were known to him in life, never once claimed erroneously to know any of the 120 or so sitters with whom he had been unacquainted, and referred correctly to many other people who were not present but who had been familiar with him.  Furthermore, he displayed all the keenness, intelligence, and other [personality] characteristics possessed by George Pelham in life, and convinced a large number of Mrs. Piper's sitters that it really was he. (Fontana 125)."  
 
Still, there is some reason to believe that Leonora did not channel the spirits of the dead, but rather gleaned her impressive information through ESP.   Let me offer 5 reasons for my reluctant conclusion:

(1) Leonora was a psychic as well as a medium.  She demonstrated the psychic ability to remove the scent from flowers and cause them to wither in a few minutes.  She was also adept at psychometry, the paranormal ability to deduce details about both living and dead people simply by holding objects that they once owned.

(2) Soon after his death in 1905, Richard Hodgson allegedly served as Leonora's spirit control.  The eminent psychologist, E. Stanley Hall, went for a sitting with her and asked "Hodgson" to contact his niece Bessie Beals.  Miss Beals came through Leonora and communicated extensively.   But in fact the cunning Hall had made Beals up.  When the exposed "Hodgson" was confronted with this ruse, he tried to wriggle out of his embarrassment by claiming that he had been mistaken about the name and that the person he channeled through Leonore was in fact a Jessie Beals who was related to another sitter (Heaney 176).

(3) "S. G. Soal...visualized incidents with an imaginary friend, John Ferguson.  He then went for a sitting with the medium, Blanche Cooper.  The incidents he visualized came forth as though communicated from beyond death (Heaney, 176)."

(4) In my view, Leonora's perspective on her own channeling can be an important factor in assessing her ability to contact the dead.  The New York Herald quoted her as preferring the ESP theory as the most plausible scientific explanation of her gift: "I do not believe that spirits of the dead have spoken through me when I have been in the trance state...It may be that they have, but I do not affirm it."    She would later claim she was misquoted, but admitted, "Spirits of the dead may have controlled me and they may not.  I confess that I do not know (Fontana 125)."  If not even Leonora is fully convinced, then neither am I.

(5) I have described the Gordon Davis case in other posts, but only superficially.  It is perhaps the strongest case of all for the ESP interpretation of channeling.  In my next planned post, I will analyze this case in much greater detail.  It raises the possibility that spirit impersonators might be responsible for some channeling and this possibility arises from Leonora's use of Dr. Phinuit as her spirit control.  But more on this in a future post.

Don

NOTE TO CHUMLEY, LUCY, AND CRICKET:

Brendan, it is bad enough that you refuse to read books on the paranormal and spirituality.  But it is even worse when you make absurd assumptions about books you've never read.   Fontana is not a Christian; he is a hard-core and very rational New Ager, whose book I highly recommend.  

Lucy, far from being "offended" by Deanna's experiences, I am deeply impressed by them and have urged her to continue her spiritualist explorations.  I simply have reservations about their true significance, as should be obvious from this post.  Cricket, your case is very impressive and not what the mere ESP interpretation might predict.

I've gone back and forth on the possibility of ESP in the sheep case...technically, I knew that there had been three sheep, but I didn't know they were talking about it, didn't remember it at first, and certainly wasn't thinking about ghosts or sheep at the time.  I wonder how far into someone's head ESP can reach if the person is not thinking about the subject in question or anything even related.

Dave, as usual I am awed by your response, and it complements what I was trying to say.  Point well taken.  ESP implies a connection between two minds through a means of communication, like a telephone, which if scientifically explained would just be another "sense" like hearing.

However, ESP implies the connection of two minds.  And admitting that there is a mind/consciousness is something that basic science is loathe to do.  We are more than the some of our parts (take water, neurotransmitters, electrochemical reaction - shake, baste, and voila!).

Thanks
M

I'm grateful for all the thoughtful replies and expect to alter my preconceived agenda to address some of them.   Today, given the interest expressed in the mechanics of ESP, I thought I'd outline parapsychologist Eleanor Sidgwick's neglected theory about how ESP might operate in channeling.

She theorizes that discarnate spirits are in telepathic communication with the sitter rather than with the medium.  In her view, the sitter unconsciously serves as the receiving station from the spirit world and the medium serves as the amplifier and loudspeaker.  The medium picks up astral communications telepathically from the sitter.  Fontana (129-130) laments the neglect of Sidgwick's theory and implies that ingenious tests might be devised to test it.

At first blush, her theory nicely explains two troubling facts about even the best mediums. 
(1) Some sitters receive more verifiable and superior communications from mediums than others.  Indeed, for some sitters, channeling frankly seems a dreadful failure. 

(2) Her theory might also explain how impressive contacts can be made with people relevant to the sitter but unknown the the medium.

The chief difficulty raised by her theory is its apparent inability to account for proxy sittings in which the sitter serves as a stand-in for an absent third party and where neither the medium nor the sitter has any personal link with the astral communicators.   Proxy sittings can yield impressively verified details and  have potential as a rebuttal of attempts to invoke ESP as a way of dismissing the validity of channeling.   I will discuss proxy sitting research in future posts.  They may owe their success to subtly unique dynamics.

Don

Ian Stevenson has researched telepathy and offers good evidence that, while one can telepathize words, phrases, ideas, and images, one cannot telepathize a skill.   Channeled cases of prolonged xenoglossy require a linguistic skill that cannot be dismissed as ESP.  Dolores Jay channeled Gretchen who allegedly lived in Germany over a century ago, though her earthly identity was never verified.   Stevenson found that "Gretchen" spoke German intelligibly and gave sensible answers in German to questions posed to her in German.  Stevenson thoroughly researched  Dolores's life and established to his satisfaction that she had never studied German.   Such cases cannot be dismissed as ESP, but it must be remembered that xenoglossy can be a primary symptom of demonic possession.  Still, I deem Dolores's gift genuine.    

A famous parapsychologist and founders of the Society for Psychical Research all died around 1900: Edmund Gurney, Henry Sidgwick, and Fred Myers.  Shortly thereafter various women began to produce scripts through automatic writing and oral channeling which claimed to originate chiefly from Myers and Gurney.  Each of the women was generally unacquainted with what the others were channeling.   Over a period of 30 years a system of cross-correspondences appeared in the scripts.  Scattered allusions to classical myths (e.g. Ovid and Virgil) and to English poets like Browning and Keats) only became coherent when linked with messages from other mediums.   It was like a an elaborate jigsaw puzzle which was reminiscent of the style and literary knowledge of the 3 deceased scholars.   Tellingly, before his death, Myers had predicted in a book that proof an afterlife would eventually come from a group effort from the other side.  I doubt that this phenomenon can be dismissed as ESP.   It seems more likely that the deceased Myers organized the fulfilment of his earthly prophecy.

Don