What are the “circumstances” we’re concerned about?
Ever since the 1800’s, there have been special “medium sessions” known as “séances”. Many “Spiritualist Mediums” routinely held séances for people who were hoping to hear from their departed loved ones – people such as Mary Todd Lincoln, who was hoping to hear from her two dead sons, Edward and William.
Unfortunately, not all of those mediums conducting séances were genuine, and not all of them were ethical. For that reason, in the mid-1880’s, a group of University of Pennsylvania faculty members were commissioned to investigate many of the “Spiritual Mediums” operating at that time – and they found “fraud or suspected fraud in every case they examined”. (19)
Today, there are still mediums conducting séances, and there are still questions of fraud or trickery with some of them – so we are excluding all séances from the “medium sessions” we’re considering – even though some of them may in fact be legitimate sources of afterlife evidence.
We are also excluding those “medium sessions” that are held privately – sessions where the only living people in the room are the one person hoping to hear from the deceased, and the one medium acting as an intermediary, through whom the deceased (presumably) communicates. We are excluding such sessions since there is no third person present who can witness the medium’s process, and score the accuracy of the medium’s reading in some fashion.
So what kind of “medium sessions” are we including?
We’re only considering those “medium sessions” that have these minimum characteristics:
1.The session is not a séance.
2.The session involves at least one individual – one “witness” – who is not related to the medium, nor to the person hoping to hear from the deceased (the “client”), nor to the deceased.
3.Neither the medium nor the witness has obtained information about the client or the deceased prior to the reading (Obtaining the deceased’s first name as a “focal point” is the only permissible exception).
4.The medium’s message from the deceased includes some details that are very specific to the deceased – not generic.
5.The “witness” is reputable, and able to provide usable information about the medium’s process and his or her accuracy.
In Chapter 7, we discuss the skeptical comments about “medium sessions” as well as the criteria we’re using to determine if a given session might be viewed as “credible afterlife evidence”.
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Chapter 7. “Credible Evidence” Criteria for “Medium Sessions”
What do the skeptics say about “medium sessions?”
Apparently, most skeptics are among the 55% of us who don’t believe a medium can communicate mentally with the dead – at least, that’s what their comments suggest. Here’s a representative set of those comments: (20) (21) (22) (23)
1.In some cases, the medium or an associate wanders among audience members before a scheduled performance and listens for information that can be used on stage as part of the readings. This practice is part of a technique known as “hot reading”.
2.Often the medium employs “warm reading” techniques – uses principles of psychology that apply to almost everyone. For example, knowing that many grieving people will be wearing pieces of jewelry from their departed loved ones, the medium claims to be receiving a message that “a piece of jewelry belonging to the deceased is being worn here tonight”.
3.Many times, mediums use “cold reading” techniques, such as “fishing for details”. For example, the medium says “the deceased is telling me something about January” – and the client is expected to agree or disagree. If the client says “I was born in January, the medium says “Yes, I see that”, and then continues with “another piece of bait”. If the client says “I can’t think of anything”, the medium says “I’m sure of it, but perhaps you’re suppressing a painful memory”, or “I’m sorry, that message is from another spirit who wants to be heard”. Here is another “cold reading” example: The medium says “I’m sensing that the deceased had a pain – around the heart”, and the client either answers something like, “He died of a heart attack”, or “I don’t know anything about a pain around the heart”. Given the latter response, the medium replies “He’s telling me he didn’t want anyone to worry, so he kept it to himself”, or “He’s telling me he had a secret romance that didn’t turn out very well when he was a young man”.
4.In almost every case, the client wants the medium to succeed in communicating with a departed loved one, so the client works very hard to find personal meaning in whatever the medium offers. This is known as “subjective validation” – the client validates words, initials, dates, or symbols as accurate because he or she wishes to find personal meaning and significance in them. Note that this is an issue whether or not the medium communicates directly with the client. Even in those cases where the medium does not ask questions directly of, nor receives answers directly from, the client, the medium’s message is likely to be subjectively validated by the client.
5.Most clients also exhibit “selective thinking” or “selective memory” – in other words, they retain the favorable evidence from the medium’s reading, and ignore or forget the unfavorable evidence from the reading.
6.If the medium does receive specific information about the deceased, it’s not necessarily from the deceased – it could be that the medium is telepathically receiving that information from the client.
Given these skeptical comments, and given that the majority of us do not believe in mental communication with the dead, finding credible “medium sessions” is likely to be difficult. Let’s establish our criteria for the search, using the skeptical comments as a basis.
What are the criteria we’re using in our search for credible “medium sessions”?
The first five of our criteria are matched to the skeptical comments listed above:
1.The medium and the medium’s associates are to have no contact with the client prior to the session (Matched to skeptical comment 1).
2.Any non-specific information presumably being supplied by the deceased through the medium is not to be considered credible evidence (Matched to skeptical comments 2, 3, 4, and 5).
3.During the session, the medium and the medium’s associates are not to see or hear the client, nor are they to ask questions of the client (Matched to skeptical comment 3).
4.To be considered accurate and credible, the medium’s reading must contain information that in combination is very specific to the deceased – information such as the deceased’s name, a pet phrase or remark, a distinguishing physical characteristic, the cause of death, a life event known only by the deceased and close loved ones, etc. (Matched to skeptical comments 4 and 5).
5.The client must not be anywhere near the medium before or during the medium’s reading (Matched to skeptical comment 6).
In addition to these five criteria matched to the skeptics’ comments, we are adding a sixth criterion of our own:
6.Some of the specific information about the deceased that is provided by the medium must be transcribed to enable validation by individuals other than the client.
In Chapter 8, we apply the six criteria listed above to evaluate which medium sessions in the published material are to be considered “credible evidence” of an afterlife – assuming