A five year study by the Scottish Society for Psychical
Research (SSPR) shows that mediums really can get in touch
with the deceased. The SSPR's Tricia Robertson says, "The
results were very surprising. I have no idea how mediums can
gain this information but the results prove that able mediums
can accurately read their subjects."
Jenifer Johnston
writes in the Sunday Herald that
13 mediums from Scotland and London were studied. They
sat in a different room from the participants and chose the
seat numbers of people in the audience they wanted
to "read," without knowing who would be sitting there. The
audience sat in a room out of sight of the medium and were
seated randomly. After the reading, researchers would
distribute lists of what the mediums had seen and the
audience would check off which of the statements applied to
them.
According to the rules of chance, the mediums would be right
about 30% of the time, but they actually gave correct
readings 70-80% of the time. "Their chances of guessing this
level of information about their subjects is a million to one,
statistically," Robertson says. "I am aware that critics will say
the tests were somehow rigged. But, rest assured, we could
not have been more scientific in the way this was carried
out. If anyone claims it is fixed or rigged, we would sue."
Gordon Smith, one of the mediums who was tested,
says, "The conditions were very strict?I had to arrive an
hour before the participants and never got to see them.
While, for me, it is not essential to be in the same room as
the participants, the work is very credible because of those
test conditions we were working under."
Meanwhile, other researchers are trying to find out if near-
death experiences are real.
Clint Witchalls writes in the Independent that
one in 10 cardiac-arrest patients report having an NDE.
Jeanette Atkinson describes the typical experience: "I was
going towards these lights and it was wonderful, it was
peaceful, and then all of a sudden, a voice said to me, 'Come
on you silly old cow, it's not your turn yet.' And I was back in
my body. Back in pain, with a crash team round me. I don't
remember anything else after that."
Researchers Dr. Sam Parnia and Dr. Peter Fenwick are
starting a large-scale study of NDEs by placing objects out of
the line of sight of cardiac patients and asking them to report
on what they saw during their out-of-body experience. The
study will cover at least a dozen hospitals in the U.K.
One argument against NDEs is that while these patients'
hearts have stopped, their brains are still functioning, so this
must be their imagination. Researchers Stanislav Grof and
Joan Halifax say NDEs are patients reliving their birth
experience. The bright light at the end of the tunnel is the
opening of the womb, and the person who greets them is the
doctor or midwife. However, Parnia says that during cardiac
arrest and advanced cardiac life support, global brain function
ceases as well. EEG studies have shown that electrical
activity in the brain ceases at least 10 seconds before the
heart stops beating, and doesn't show any activity for up to
two hours after the heart has been started again. He
says, "The key to solving this mystery lies in the accurate
timing of the experiences. If it can be proven that this period
of consciousness has indeed taken place during cardiac
arrest, it will have huge implications."
Some researchers just
don't give up, when it comes to investigating legends that
skeptics dismiss. And why should they, when they get such
wonderful results?
