Medium Research & Certification (Windbridge Institute) Done Scientifically! (1 Viewer)

[Sinera]

I came across Julie Beischel's work already years ago. You know I am highly (but openmindedly) skeptical of mediums and even more of any kind of channelling. However, what I like is that she has a highly scientific approach with double and triple blind studies to examine the abilities of Mediums to retrieve verifiable information about/from deceased persons. This is rather convincing in my view.

It all started when Julie Beischel (today's director of the Windbridge Institute) did research on mediums with Dr. Gary Schwartz who published a book called 'The Afterlife Experiments' in 2006. I've read it years ago and remember I was also very impressed. It was criticised by 'skeptics' a lot then and nowadays claiming it is all 'cold-reading' (e.g. stage magician / psychological tricks to get info from the client) but they obviously did not even read the book nor the studies themselves and how they were conducted. Moreover, today the protocol has even been improved and seems almost fail-safe. So hardcore skeptics should have a hard time.

For more info here are some links, an early study quoted from, and also books and videos:

Windbrige Mission Statement:

The mission of The Windbridge Research Center is to ease suffering around dying, death, and what comes next by performing rigorous scientific research and sharing the results and other customized content with practitioners, clinicians, scientists, and the general public.

In July 2017, the nonprofit Windbridge Research Center took over the peer-reviewed research on the topics of life after death and after-death communication that had been conducted at the Windbridge Institute, LLC, since 2008. The Center has also added non-profit outreach and educational activities to this research.

www.windbridge.org/about-us/

www.windbridge.org/

www.windbridge.org/research/

www.windbridge.org/mediums/

www.windbridge.org/education/major-findings/

Findings to date:

A mediumship reading appears to involve a complex dynamic between the sitter, the medium, and the invited deceased person. Each can potentially impact the success of a reading (2, 12).​

Some mediums, under controlled laboratory conditions, can report accurate and specific information about deceased people (6, 13).​

The experience of receiving communication from the deceased is different than retrieving psychic information about the living. Thus, these might be different tasks and mediums may be actually communicating with the dead (8, 10, 14).​

Mediums may have unique psychological or personality characteristics when compared to non-mediums (5).​

Electroencephalograms (EEGs) of mediums suggests that the experience of communicating with the deceased is different than remembering or imagining (9).
​

Thus, claims that mediums are fabricating information or recalling facts are not supported. In addition, because mediumship involves the mediums talking and using facial muscles, EEG, which is susceptible to muscle movement artifacts, may not be well-suited for studying this phenomenon. Experiments exploring the neuroscience of mediumship using different brain imaging techniques are currently in the planning stages.​

Survey findings have demonstrated that mediums have a significantly higher incidence of autoimmune diseases and a significantly higher general disease burden than do non-mediums (7). Examining various components in the mediums’ blood as well as basic psychophysiological measures showed that no hematological or physiological changes were seen when comparing a reading condition to a control condition (7). A link between disease prevalence and childhood trauma in this population has been proposed (4, 7).​

Preliminary research has demonstrated that receiving a mediumship reading may have a positive healing effect on those who are suffering from grief after the death of a loved one (3, 11). However, further research is needed to draw any strong conclusions.​

Using a fully-blinded protocol similar to that employed to test mediumship accuracy during readings for deceased people, exploratory and on-going research has demonstrated that some mediums can report accurate and specific information about deceased companion animals as well (1).

www.windbridge.org/education/major-findings/

One study from 2007 already:

http://www.windbridge.org/papers/BeischelEXPLORE2007vol3.pdf

Conclusions: The results suggest that certain mediums can anomalously receive accurate information about deceased individuals. The study design effectively eliminates conventional mechanisms as well as telepathy as explanations for the information reception, but the results cannot distinguish among alternative paranormal hypotheses, such as survival of consciousness (the continued existence, separate from the body, of an individual’s consciousness or personality after physical death) and super-psi (or super-ESP; retrieval of information via a psychic channel or quantum field).
www.windbridge.org/papers/BeischelEXPLORE2007vol3.pdf

Here is a recent interview on the Skeptiko Podcast:



The early work, the book and a TV-documentary on the "Afterlife Experiments":

Last not least here's the latest Skeptiko interview with one of the "Windbridge certified" mediums:

 

[Sinera]

Crickets.


Once again.
*Sigh*
After two days, and there's not even a merciful 'informative' rating.
*Sigh*
Hopeless.


Okay, so be it - I give up ... and at the same time shall oblige.


No more attempts at well-researched quality output articles and boring 'scientific' stories. Who of us needs them anyway? It's no action, no cool stuff, no fun. I understand. So this ends my attempts at presenting research evidence of paranormal and spiritual matters. Once and for all.

Got it. Check.


If dragons, angels and aliens are wished, you shall get them. So be it, my dear friends.


Therefore I will start writing now about one of my latest divinely fantastical superduper astral projections in the OBE thread and you will not be disappointed. (I'd almost say divinely fantastical superduper magnificent astral projections, but that would only show my huge ego and be a bit too much of boasting. So you did not read 'magnificent', okay? Forget it. Just divinely fantastical superduper will do. I am a very modest cat after all).

Dragons - - check
Angels- - check
Aliens - - check

Got it.

And there is even a white dragon in that story. Yeah!

Give the crowd what it usually cheers for. See you there. It's gonna be amazing!



Meow!

 

[Alain]

The problem with certain persons is they read a title aaa that can be that i don t trust it. A blind opinion without even reading a little bit.

I find it sounds superb.

However i have my problems with videos over 30 mimutes

 

[Sinera]

The problem with certain persons is they read a title aaa that can be that i don t trust it. A blind opinion without even reading a little bit.

The thread title was as good as I felt I could do it. However, I think the opposite is the case. It is not about trustworthiness of the info. Vice versa. If it was more daring it would have received more clicks, rates, comments ... Problem is it is not exciting enough and maybe the word 'scientific study' in it is a bit too deterring. Or maybe I should have added an imagined dragon to it anyway, would have helped. I need to learn some storytelling or a better packaging of the info. My fault.

However, to be honest, so far I have given up on this forum. Well, at least with trying to do some more 'serious' quality output. That is over for me now. Seems I'm too different and of another mindset, too. Don't fit in here. It's okay. On the long run, it seems that my fate might be the same as recently with the member 'thesmileyone' soon.

But thanks for the nice comment anyway. Appreciated.

However i have my problems with videos over 30 mimutes

I understand your situation as a non-native speaker of English which makes it harder for you to follow a longer English video. And yes, my attention span is sometimes also limited, even also in my mother tongue. I am aware that some vids are long here, okay. But browsing the text and maybe some of the linked files would still have been possible in quick time and adding a comment, at least one of expressing 'interest' to get into it further. Actually I'm even a bit surprised because I thought this forum would be more into mediums and similar stuff (more like I usually am, actually) so I wondered why no one reacted to this fantastic research about mediumship which actually provides hard evidence even for 'skeptics'. But as said above, I don't care anymore too much. Not taking things too seriously helps also a little.

Back to the dragons.

 

[Alain]

Yes he has also his dimension of thoughtd on it s own. We are a nice cocktail on here in a good sense.

 

[Alain]

It is also in other languages with the attention span so i am more made to read then here audio as conclusion

 

[Bert]

I think there is little reaction because most people here already have their own channel to the divine so they don't need " (scientific) proof".

For me the title also combines for me two untrustworthy things:
- mediums with an untrustworthy reputation but with genuine seers among them
- science which produces the results that the money pays for. Look at the pharma industry with double blind tests. They still con the situation.
so maybe I'm a bit to disillusioned, especially in the accepted scientific world that is only interested in keeping the status quo and keeping the money flowing to them (climate science, archeology, energy generation,...).
Nothing wrong with the scientific method if applied correctly.

I hope she can convince some non-spiritual people that there is something more than the physical world and I applaud that she tries to do it in the playing field of the non-believer. But you will only change the ones that already have a spark of doubt in the current ways.

This quote just popped in my head by Buckminster Fuller:
You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.

I think this site and many other communities are the new model and it will make the old one obsolete. timing? soon

Now back to juicy DRAGONS...

 

[Linda]

There are threads that generate lots of interest and others that do not. I keep an eye on the posts and have noticed that some get dropped way down in the "What's New" screen. Sometimes it is because of the volume of new posts and replies that come after. Other times, well, it just seems a topic does not connect with readers at the moment. I've seen threads pop back to life later on when people get interested in them.

This thread has had 118 views in 10 days, which is pretty good. The best thing I can share is to write about what interests or moves you without expectation from readers.

I'll admit that I enjoy the validation of replies and ratings, which is why I try to share the same with others. However, the lack of ratings does not necessarily mean no one was interested or that people were unable to appreciate the topic.

Looking at this particular thread, my observations are that this is a large topic with many links and videos, and I have 2 comments. First, I believe a way to spark interest is to bring forth something specific in one video or article that really spoke to you - caused you to think more. Second, know the audience. Many people are reading on phones and too much content is hard to manage. Also, quite a few people are reading here in-between other parts of their lives - work, children, laundry, etc.

Before too many make assumptions about why thesmileyone left the forum, let me explain. He was in the process of getting away from all social media, and this forum was the last place he was active.

 

[June]

The thread title was as good as I felt I could do it. However, I think the opposite is the case. It is not about trustworthiness of the info. Vice versa. If it was more daring it would have received more clicks, rates, comments ... Problem is it is not exciting enough and maybe the word 'scientific study' in it is a bit too deterring. Or maybe I should have added an imagined dragon to it anyway, would have helped. I need to learn some storytelling or a better packaging of the info. My fault.

However, to be honest, so far I have given up on this forum. Well, at least with trying to do some more 'serious' quality output. That is over for me now. Seems I'm too different and of another mindset, too. Don't fit in here. It's okay. On the long run, it seems that my fate might be the same as recently with the member 'thesmileyone' soon.

But thanks for the nice comment anyway. Appreciated.


I understand your situation as a non-native speaker of English which makes it harder for you to follow a longer English video. And yes, my attention span is sometimes also limited, even also in my mother tongue. I am aware that some vids are long here, okay. But browsing the text and maybe some of the linked files would still have been possible in quick time and adding a comment, at least one of expressing 'interest' to get into it further. Actually I'm even a bit surprised because I thought this forum would be more into mediums and similar stuff (more like I usually am, actually) so I wondered why no one reacted to this fantastic research about mediumship which actually provides hard evidence even for 'skeptics'. But as said above, I don't care anymore too much. Not taking things too seriously helps also a little.

Back to the dragons.

Hi Sinera, did you enjoy getting it all off your chest, I have been known to do that, I call it having a rant.
You and I joined the forum around the same time and many times I’ve found myself agreeing with you, especially the scepticism.

I am very much into the medium type stuff, contacting the spirit world, and have been communicating with it for years.
I did view your post, meaning to return for another look, but I must be honest, im not interested in what the scientists say.
What do they know anyway if they haven’t had any experiences, I know, I feel, I experience, that’s all I need.
Besides, videos drain the iPad batteries. Lol

I’m sorry you were disappointed with the response, or lack of, I’ve experienced the same thing on occasion, then, as Linda said, found someone interested a week or so later.

I agree with you that the forum doesn’t seem too much into the ‘ medium ‘ type spiritual stuff, but it’s still a great place with, it seems to me anyway, lots of genuine love.

I appreciate the effort you made to post the videos, there may be guests who have been helped by them.
Sometimes we can do or say something that really helps a person in their quest, their path, they could remember it for years and always be grateful, and we will never know.

So old darling, please don’t leave us, you can be so sceptical and I love it.
And please, please, no DRAGONS.

 

[Alain]

Sweet charming unicorns june?

 

[June]

Sweet charming unicorns june?

Oh alright then

 

[Sinera]

'kay, unicorns then ...

check

 

[Sinera]

I hope she can convince some non-spiritual people that there is something more than the physical world and I applaud that she tries to do it in the playing field of the non-believer. But you will only change the ones that already have a spark of doubt in the current ways.

These kind of articles are meant to be in this vein or follow this purpose. After all this forum also has a focus on the consciousness shift and that would include people who work on the paradigm shift in science leading us away from today's reductionism and into the post-materialism phase. This is the purpose, I thought people would like it to see it validated by some of the scientific 'establishment' although of course they are then again the 'fringe' guys who get ousted and laughed at by the mainstream. At least it is still so today and will hopefully soon change. This is a true signal for me of the true 'Shift' in Consciousness for humanity. We're not there yet of course. It is as Tesla said it:

 

[Lila]

I love this topic and what you've written, which is the part that I have managed to get to so far... and that is the issue for me, at least; putting aside time to watch the videos. This takes planning and I think I'll have some time today which is why it took me so long to post. I expect your articles to be in depth, Sinera, so I put them aside for when I have time to delve deeper, which is not as often as I would like.

I also love unicorns
though they have not been your style. The Nikola Tesla quote above seems far more your style which describes a world I look forward to and try to aim for, one article at a time.

We are a wide range of individuals here with a wide range of interests. As June says, quite a few of us have an inclination to trust our own input more than others' views which makes for some interesting discussions that bring me back even after I've been away.

 

[Pucksterguy]

In some ways Sinera your beating a dead horse. I've read a thousand NDE's . I've read a ton of OBE's. I have a good understandi g of the topic to the point that I lost my fear of death. To me everything above is just a rehash. I found your description of the Void and it's nuances very interesting and it confirmed a few things. My big thing right ow is learning to manifest/create my world around me. Some more info on that and other more advanced concepts is what I'm interested in rather then just the abc's. This goes for everybody, throw out new novel and very advanced philosophies something I might never have considered like "back drop people" or ways to unlearn programming so I can keep or get a more open mind so this feeble little mind can grasp new and outlandish concepts. I can go on and on but I think you guys get my drift.

 

[Sinera]

In some ways Sinera your beating a dead horse. I've read a thousand NDE's . I've read a ton of OBE's. I have a good understandi g of the topic to the point that I lost my fear of death. To me everything above is just a rehash.

Yeah, I hear you, PG, I get it, but as I said above, it is not to convince anyone here about the validity of mediumship. You might misunderstand this. The purpose for these kinds of articles is (better: was since I won't do them anymore) to show how science is catching up, slowly but it does. The Void article is in a different vein, however, since it is not scientific except for my 'personal experience-based research/science' and that of the many others with their experience which leads thus to a kind of 'metaphysical/spiritual science' by corroboration via the compiling and comparing of 'anecdotal evidence', if you will.

 

[Pucksterguy]

I understand and appreciate that bro. All I was trying to say is most of us here are past the basics and don't much care how much "science" thinks it's cat hing up. I used to follow astro physics and other sciences and got sick and tired how supposedly learned and inteligent people would cast aside and vilify fellow scientists for daring to go against the grain with new twchnologies and theoreys. I expect that in politics not in the halls of acadamia. They behave like idiots and bullies unbecomeing of their alleged intelligence.

 

[Snowmelt]

Therium posted a thread in late November 2018 about a spirit speaker box that an American had designed to communicate with (probably) 4th dimension disembodied spirits (probably on the frequency band right next to ours). I dug in deep and devoted a couple of days of non-stop research on this topic. Then I realised a lot of the entities were the same voices coming back through, as soon as this guy opened his channel (literally a channel, as he was using a technology). And yet this guy devoted months and years to this endeavour. Was he so tied into the egoic flavour of this that he didn't realise how narrow was the frequency band of his undertaking? This internet research I did also led me on to listening to quite a few Youtubes from Marisa Ryan and other well known mediums who do the circuit. I subscribed to Marisa Ryan's channel and have had nothing but marketing emails for 2+ months. She's always wanting to teach and train others, but that's a business, and I have my own direct experiences to work with.

I also realised that while it's valid to try to help lost souls find their way out of their particular consciousness bubble (and I won't call those heaven or hell here, although obviously many do label those realities as such), there are plenty of good causes that could be done right here in this dimension, whereas those lost souls made soul-level choices about learning their spiritual evolution while they were in physicality, and the drop-out space where they feel disconnected is actually given to them as a gift to help them consciously realise that they are in fact disconnected. With that recognition comes the ability to ask their higher selves for help/re-connection/intention to move on from a stuck place, etc.

I suggest people pay attention to their own psychic or intuitive experiences in daily life (as many people on this forum do report). For instance just this last week, as I was sorting out fabrics and table runners at the charity shop, my hand touched on a fine example from Bali with a lot of turquoise colouring. Just as my hand made contact, I knew that someone whom I hardly know but who was in the shop at that moment might like this for their home. She agreed that she wanted to buy it that day, because turquoises are one of her favourite colour ranges. This kind of instant knowing has nothing to do with thinking. It is intuition working on its own. It can be developed through practice. I liken it to leap-frogging over the stepping stones. You don't need to follow a linear path when your intuition is activated. You can jump to a conclusion and dissect and analyse it once you get to a conclusion. It's best not to overthink intuitive thoughts, as that tends to kill them. That's probably why science has a hard time with intuition, because it is right-brained.

That's why I'm not waiting for science to bring the facility of instant knowing or instant recognition to the people. I am hoping the Wave, or the Event, a supra-natural evolutionary upgrade, will do that. It's about time people started using the equipment they've been carrying around in their epithalamus.

 

[Sinera]

I understand and appreciate that bro. All I was trying to say is most of us here are past the basics and don't much care how much "science" thinks it's cat hing up. I used to follow astro physics and other sciences and got sick and tired how supposedly learned and inteligent people would cast aside and vilify fellow scientists for daring to go against the grain with new twchnologies and theoreys. I expect that in politics not in the halls of acadamia. They behave like idiots and bullies unbecomeing of their alleged intelligence.

I absolutely agree. They are actually not scientists in my view at all. A scientist is always open to the new and has an open mind and does not defend academic authority and narrowly defined paradigms, which is what these 'idiots' do. It is my hope that they will get less in number over the years and their influence will vanish and that researchers like Beischel will gain the upper hand. This hope is as Max Planck stated it (paraphrased, not literal quote):

"Truth never triumphs - its opponents just die out." / "Science advances one funeral at a time"

 

[Anaeika]

Love your article! Did you know that Dr. Gary Swchartz was my professor at the University of Arizona? I took his love and spirituality class. I absolutely love this guy! He is so passionate about his work and it was refreshing to sit in his class. He is a real rebel in his field. There needs to be more professors like him brave enough to pursue this. His work has brought respect into the field of parapsychology, giving the general public a larger view of the world and not to mention, taking away the stigma. Science does has a place in the spiritual. It needs to be accessible to more than just us weirdos. Xoxo

 

[Snowmelt]

If science wants to join this party, it will have to stop dissecting particles and atoms, and diminishing everything to its smallest possible expression of being. Spirituality is about expansion and a unified field of consciousness, a unity view, where separate particles turn out to be fractal expressions of the same glorious life force. Of course, the relatively new understandings of science in the field of quantum mechanics probably means this has turned around.

 

[Anaeika]

If science wants to join this party, it will have to stop dissecting particles and atoms, and diminishing everything to its smallest possible expression of being. Spirituality is about expansion and a unified field of consciousness, a unity view, where separate particles turn out to be fractal expressions of the same glorious life force. Of course, the relatively new understandings of science in the field of quantum mechanics probably means this has turned around.

Oh yeah, Gary is on board and teaches all of this. In fact, it is required reading! Integratives are bridges!

 

[Sinera]

Love your article! Did you know that Dr. Gary Swchartz was my professor at the University of Arizona? I took his love and spirituality class. I absolutely love this guy! He is so passionate about his work and it was refreshing to sit in his class. He is a real rebel in his field. There needs to be more professors like him brave enough to pursue this. His work has brought respect into the field of parapsychology, giving the general public a larger view of the world and not to mention, taking away the stigma. Science does has a place in the spiritual. It needs to be accessible to more than just us weirdos. Xoxo

WOW.
No, of course I did not know. You never told us. (So if I'd still use the rating system I would have used a 'New to me!' icon now.) You were one of his students, really, wow! Great. I'm suprised and amazed. Really cool.

 

[Anaeika]

No, of course I did not know. You never told us. (So if I'd still use the rating system I would have used a 'New to me!' icon now.) You were one of his students, really, wow! Great. I'm suprised and amazed. Really cool.

You need a MEOWZERS rating system! Hehe

 

[Sinera]

You need a MEOWZERS rating system! Hehe

yeah ...

purr = I love this post , meow = I like this post (it's okay), scratch = disagree/dislike

I'll talk to Laron. The rating system is discriminatory for people wanting to speak catish. Needs change.

 

[Pucksterguy]

 

[Alain]

miawl

 

[Sinera]

miawl

french or luxemburgish for miau?

https://www.dict.cc/?s=miau

No. We're all MIAWL here. Or MEOW. Or MIAU.

 

[Alain]

Miau or whatever written. Ilike cats much but i don t support well their hair wonder why

 

[Snowmelt]

I like cats when they understand I'm the one that likes getting mooched.