Prove it to Me — A New Study in Mediumship by Dr. Gary E. Schwartz
By William G. Everist

“'Having been there myself, I know what it’s like to feel ‘this simply can’t be true.’  I know what it’s like to literally see things with my own eyes in the laboratory and discount them because of prior learning, ignorance, or fear.  I know intense skepticism first hand.'  And yet, Dr. Gary E. Schwartz has managed to examine the possibility that our current common sense idea of death will ultimately be replaced with a new paradigm of consciousness."

“Seems like ancient history,” Schwartz recently commented after reviewing my initial interview with him for the premier issue of “Ghost! Magazine” in the fall of 2004.  “We’ve come so far in the past three years.”

Indeed they have, I thought as I recalled his continuing efforts to tighten up the methodology of his inquiries.  In spite of exceptional data and outstanding statistical significance, Schwartz was always his own worst critic.  Playing the devil’s advocate, Schwartz always retained an inner skepticism and continually made the methodology even more stringent.

Continuing the tradition of tightened methodology in the investigation of the relationship between the brain and consciousness, Dr. Julie Beischel, Co-Director of the VERITAS Research Program at the Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health at the University of Arizona, recently announced their latest published study in the January 2007 issue of EXPLORE: the Journal of Science and Healing (vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 23-27).  Titled, "Anomalous Information Reception by Research Mediums Demonstrated Using a Novel Triple-Blind Protocol", this study in association with Schwartz, Director of the research program and the Laboratory, has provided yet another example of significantly accurate information reception by mediums concerning deceased individuals.  However, the triple-blind design for this study has effectively eliminated all known potential sources of conventional sensory cues and rater bias, as well as telepathy as explanations for the information reception.

The primary purpose of the study was to establish convincing evidence that accurate information about a sitter’s deceased loved one could be reliably obtained from research mediums under highly controlled experimental conditions that would effectively eliminate conventional explanations for the process.  The triple-blind design effectively reflects significant methodological and conceptual innovations beyond previous single and double-blind mediumship experiments. Specifically, the use of a blind proxy sitter condition eliminates the possibility of telepathy (i.e., the mind reading of the sitter) as a plausible explanation. Furthermore, pairing two readings for scoring optimizes rater blinding as well as the ability of raters to recognize identifying descriptions in each transcript.  Also, the asking of specific questions about the deceased during the readings provides similar types of information in each reading for a more objective rating procedure.

In the study, four university students who had experienced the death of a parent and four who had experienced the death of a peer, were read by eight mediums who had previously demonstrated an ability to report accurate information in a laboratory setting. Prior to the readings, information about each of the deceased (discarnates) and his/her relationship with the associated sitter was collected from the sitter participants by a research assistant who had no contact with the mediums. Discarnate descriptions of the four deceased parents were then paired with the four deceased peers of the same gender for a total of the four pairs of sitters to optimize differences in age, physical description, personality description, cause of death, and hobbies/activities of the discarnate individuals.

For more on Dr. Schwarz’s findings in this new study, see the full article in our Spring issue.
William G. Everist is our Science editor, and a long-time contributor to Ghost! Magazine.

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