New study on mediumship (by Emily W. Kelly)

[Sledge]

So they did a blind study and got no significant results, then they partially unblinded the study and got significance at the p = .0003 level, meaning the probability of obtaining the same results by random chance is 1 in 3300. Quite an improvement.

The problem, of course, is that it's difficult to differentiate whether that improvement was caused by increased psychic abilities or by a combination of 1) introducing information which the "psychics" could use to make better educated guesses, and 2) biased scoring by the investigators.

Is it difficult to differentiate between the two possibilities? Is it REALLY? I don't think it is.

 

[Jeff Corey]

Jeff, not sure what you're talking about. My assumption is that she used to be named Emily W. Cook, in which case her name is on each of the publications, as either Kelly EW or Cook EW.

That possibility had occurred to me, but one of her publications lists Edward F. Kelly and Emily Williams Kelly. This would imply that her maiden name was Williams.

 

[Apology]

So what? You can test if someone can reproduce her performance by normals means. Until there, Piper will be regarded as a genuine psychic, or, at least, a real mystery.

Only by the people who want to believe, and are willing to disregard all the times she was wrong in order to fixate on the times she was right. The fact that the experiment cannot be reproduced doesn't lend anything to Piper's credibility; quite the opposite, as a matter of fact. The fact that nobody can reproduce her performance suggests that the original tests were flawed in some way.

Piper is perhaps the best case study of the history of paranormal phenomena. An anecdote has no control, one tells you a thing that you can't check. Piper's case is not anedoctal, many scientists studied her, you have wrtitten reports, controls, etc.

Yes, but we can't question the scientists that studied her to make sure their studies were properly prepared, can we? Is there anyone left alive who studied her, or are we left to pore over their case histories and merely hope that their controls were designed correctly and their data analyzed correctly? Data that's incorrectly gathered is worse than useless.

From the article: "The Mysterious Dr. Phinuit" By Michael E.Tymn

While James and Dr. Walter Leaf both found Phinuit failing in French, Dr. Richard Hodgson, who was brought over from England to study Mrs. Piper, heard him speak fluent French with two different sitters (as discussed below). Thus, this aspect is especially mystifying.

(...)

J. Rogers Rich, one of the sitters to whom Phinuit spoke French, offered this description of his first sitting on September 5, 1888: "With little trouble she went into the trance...and after a moment's silence... I was startled by the remarkable change in her voice - an exclamation, a sort of grunt of satisfaction, as if the person had reached his destination and gave vent to his pleasure thereat by this sound, uttered in an unmistakably male voice, but rather husky. I was at once addressed in French..." (Holt, 419) Phinuit then spelled out Rich's original name in the French alphabet: Thames Rowghearce Reach.

(...)

Phinuit then began speaking in French to Katharine, who had lived in France and knew the language. (Hodgson noted that little of it was recorded as the stenographer did not know French.) Someone known to Mary Howard as Madame Elisa then interrupted Phinuit, speaking in Italian. Mary Howard responded in Italian.

These are anecdotes. Since the stenographer didn't know French, we have to take Katharine and Hodgson's word for it that Piper spoke fluent French. What did Katharine and Piper talk about in fluent French? We don't know, the stenographer didn't record it. Hodgson had a vested interest in Ms. Piper's ability being genuine and not a hoax. Let's not forget that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was completely fooled by the Cottingley Fairies.

It's possible that Ms. Piper hastily studied up on a little French as soon as she realized that her lack of French was damaging her credibility. I took French in high school, and I'm sure that with a little refresher course I could convincingly address you in French. I might even be able to carry on a short, fluent conversation with you depending on the subject matter.

But there any modern-day psychics that can prove their powers under laboratory conditions. Sean Harribance was studied by years and was never caught in cheat.

Then let him apply for the Million Dollar Challenge, and prove himself not only to the skeptics, but to the world. If he's the "real deal", why isn't he even more famous than Sylvia Browne, who is a flat-out fraud? Harribance would be one of the most important people in the world and a great boon to science if he'd come forward and take (and pass) the MDC.

In addition, Harribance may not have been caught cheating, but there are questions about the researcher that studied him:

Gardner also criticized Rhine for not disclosing the names of assistants he caught cheating:

His paper "Security Versus Deception in Parapsychology" published in his journal (vol. 38, 1974), runs to 23 pages. [..] Rhine selects twelve sample cases of dishonest experimenters that came to his attention from 1940 to 1950, four of whom were caught "red-handed". Not a single name is mentioned. What papers did they publish, one wonders.

One wonders, indeed. Were the cheating experimenters featured in his 1974 paper the same ones who worked with Harribance?

Did Harribance predict 9/11? If he did, why didn't he contact the government and the press to warn us all that a great disaster was coming? Or was it the standard, vague, "I see fire, destruction and death coming" type of prediction? If he didn't predict it, then what use is a psychic who can't even warn us about important things like this? From looking at his site, he's the king of vague predictions. Here's a sample of one:

San Antonio Express-News, 8-22-86
"The Texas economy will recover."

It doesn't take a psychic to predict that an economy that's hit rock bottom will recover. Here's another:

San Antonio Express-News, 8-22-86
"Gold and silver are good long-term investments."

Is this even a prediction? It sounds more like a statement of fact to me. Most of his predictions seem to be the type of predictions that anyone who was well acquainted with the stock market and current economics could make. Stockbrokers make guesses like this all the time and make money on the art of guessing without ever claiming that they're psychic. I'm completely underwhelmed by Harribance's predictions.

If the photograph was of my grandmother, this statement would be wrong.

How sure of that are you, really? Why don't you ask her, "Grandma, who did you know that died in WWII? Did any of your family die in WWII? Friends? Old suitors? Childhood playmates?" and see what she says. She'd probably appreciate your attention and be glad to regale you with stories of life during the Great War.

The proxy knows nothing or very little about the deceased.

Then how could they possibly know when Piper's predictions were wrong? For that matter, how could they know when she was right? Surely they at least had a bare-bones biography of the subject before the experiment began.

I would like to ask you, why is it so important to you to believe that psychics have real powers? Is it that there is a psychic in your family, and to disbelieve in psychic phenomena is to call your relative a liar? Is it because a psychic made a great prediction for your future, and you want it to come true? Do you believe that you have psychic powers, so that when I tell you it isn't real, it's the same as calling you a liar? Please answer this question, because I would really like to know why you want to believe in psychic phenomena so very badly. It isn't lost on me that you could simply believe, and not bother to come here and convince critics of psychic phenomena that it's true. You've put in a lot of effort trying to convince us, and I'd like to know why you care so much.

 

[Jeff Corey]

I think we are wasting our time responding to Victor here. Having been thoroughly trounced, he has left to do more productive things.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

BTW, have you taken a look at the Division of Perceptual Studies at the UVA School of Medicine? It's got crank research written all over it.

Check out the staff:

http://www.medicine.virginia.edu/clinical/departments/psychiatry/sections/cspp/dops/staff

~~ Paul

 

[Jeff Corey]

Check out the staff:

http://www.medicine.virginia.edu/clinical/departments/psychiatry/sections/cspp/dops/staff

~~ Paul

You omitted,http://www.aaskolnick.com/dammit/

 

[Emet]

Check out the staff:

http://www.medicine.virginia.edu/clinical/departments/psychiatry/sections/cspp/dops/staff

~~ Paul

I guess I'm naive, but I had no idea a medical school would have a department like this.

But I was somewhat comforted by this:

Funding/Financial Support

Although the University of Virginia is a state university, the State contributes almost no financial support for research conducted within the Division of Perceptual Studies. Each year the Division must obtain funding to support its research and operating costs. The Division's funding comes from the mentioned bequests and from donations from private foundations and donors.

http://www.medicine.virginia.edu/clinical/departments/psychiatry/sections/cspp/dops/we_are-page

 

[Jeff Corey]

What a surprise. When Stevenson went all demented, even the pseudochiatists booted him out.
" The Division of Perceptual Studies (DOPS) is a unit of the Psychiatry and Neurobehavorial Sciences of the University of Virginia's Health System. It was founded in 1967, when Dr. Ian Stevenson resigned as Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry to become Director of the Division. "

 

[Woomaster]

But Woomaster, I also wanted to say welcome, and your English looks perfect.

Thank you for your kind words.

Ihr Englisch ist viel besser als meinem Deutsch! Tatsächlich, es ist klasse!

Danke. Ihr Deutsch ist aber auch schon ganz gut.

 

[Woomaster]

Some new information about the study from Michael Prescott's blog:

Mediums rare

An interesting article appears in the January 2011 issue of The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease (volume 199, number 1; article available for purchase here). Written by Emily Williams Kelly, one of the principal authors of Irreducible Mind, and Dianne Arcangel, author of Afterlife Encounters, the article is entitled "an investigation of mediums who claim to give information about deceased persons." It was brought to my attention by Vitor Moura.

Breach of rule 4 removed. Do not copy and paste large amounts of text from elsewhere.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Cuddles

I can't say that I'm overly impressed, mainly due to the fact that the mediums received photographs, but it is not as bad as I thought. That the researchers are willing to share their transcripts with interested readers is a step in the right direction (other 'medium researchers' like Beischel/Schwartz or Robertson/Roy did'nt do that).
In this way someone can evaluate if the readings are pure gibberish or if there are some specific 'hits'. The latter seems to be the case, but the things Prescott has listed could be explained by coincidence, I suppose. (Remember that also John Edward sometimes has a 'meaningful hit' ... ) It would be interesting to see more from the transcripts.

 

[Woomaster]

The full paper:
http://drgaryschwartz.com/files/QuickSiteImages/Kelly_1__JNMD_Mediumship_study.pdf

 

[fls]

The full paper:
http://drgaryschwartz.com/files/QuickSiteImages/Kelly_1__JNMD_Mediumship_study.pdf

The specific hits sound a lot like those sentences which are thrown into a cold reading because when they hit it can be dramatic, and/or they are more commonly hits than we realize. For example, the black licorice, Michael/Mike/Mikey name, and chicken strangler comments would all be a hit for me. These kinds of statements were present in the "wrong" readings, as well, so it's not like they were specific.

Their statistical analysis is invalid. As seems typical for parapsychological research, they did not establish an empirical baseline for comparison by using a control group. Instead they compared the results to chance, yet it seems foolish to assume that a reading based on a photo wouldn't contain distinguishing information. So the analysis fails to tell us whether these results are unlikely using normal means of gathering information. And since that is all we are interested in, the experiment fails to offer support for psi.

Thanks for bringing this to us.

Linda