Eteponge's Blog

A Response To Derren Brown's Critiques Of Remote Viewing

2010-04-26T00:33:00.000-07:00

First off, I need to go indepth explaining what Remote Viewing is, what Double-Blind Controlled Experiments have been conducted with Remote Viewing, showcase some of the best examples of Remote Viewing, and then deal with Derren Brown's two highly unimpressive video segments on Remote Viewing at the end of this article.

For those who are unaware of what Remote Viewing is ...

"Remote viewing (RV) is the ability to gather information about a distant or unseen target using paranormal means or extra-sensory perception or sensing with mind. Typically a remote viewer is expected to give information about an object that is hidden from physical view and separated at some distance. The term was introduced by parapsychologists Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff in 1974."

The most obvious question is, have there ever been any serious research studies into Remote Viewing, and have any Double-Blind Controlled Experiments been conducted that have yielded significant results, highly suggesting that there is something to it? The answer is yes.

US Government Research Into Remote Viewing :

"In 1972, Puthoff tested remote viewer Ingo Swann at SRI, and the experiment led to a visit from two employees of the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology. The result was a $50,000 CIA-sponsored project. (Schnabel 1997, Puthoff 1996, Kress 1977/1999, Smith 2005)

As research continued, the SRI team published papers in Nature , in Proceedings of the IEEE (Puthoff & Targ, 1976), and in the proceedings of a symposium on consciousness for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (Puthoff, et al., 1981).

The initial CIA-funded project was later renewed and expanded. A number of CIA officials including John McMahon, then the head of the Office of Technical Service and later the Agency's deputy director, became strong supporters of the program.

By the mid 1970s, facing the post-Watergate revelations of its "skeletons," and after internal criticism of the program, the CIA dropped sponsorship of the SRI research effort. Sponsorship was picked up by the Air Force, led by analyst Dale E. Graff of the Foreign Technology Division.

In 1979, the Army's Intelligence and Security Command, which had been providing some taskings to the SRI investigators, was ordered to develop its own program by the Army's chief intelligence officer, Gen. Ed Thompson. CIA operations officers, working from McMahon's office and other offices, also continued to provide taskings to SRI's subjects. (Schnabel 1997, Smith 2005, Atwater 2001)

The program had three parts (Mumford, et al., 1995). First was the evaluation of psi research performed by the U.S.S.R. and China, which appears to have been better-funded and better-supported than the government research in the U.S. (Schnabel 1997)

In the second part of the program, SRI managed its own stable of "natural" psychics both for research purposes and to make them available for tasking by a variety of US intelligence agencies.

The most famous results from these years were:

* The description of a big crane at a Soviet nuclear research facility by Pat Price's (Kress 1977/1999, Targ 1996).

* A description of a new class of Soviet strategic submarine by a team of three viewers including Joseph McMoneagle (Smith 2005, McMoneagle 2002).

* Rosemary Smith's location of a downed Soviet bomber in Africa (which former President Carter later referred to in speeches).

“She went into a trance. And while she was in the trance, she gave us some latitude and longitude figures. We focused our satellite cameras on that point, and the lost plane was there.” - Former President Jimmy Carter

By the early 1980s numerous offices throughout the intelligence community were providing taskings to SRI's psychics. (Schnabel 1997, Smith 2005) The third branch of the program was a research project intended to find out if ESP – now called "remote viewing" – could be made accurate and reliable.

The intelligence community offices that tasked the group seemed to believe that the phenomenon was real. But in the view of these taskers, a remote viewer could be "on" one day and "off" the next, a fact that made it hard for the technique to be officially accepted. Through SRI, individuals were studied for years in a search for physical (e.g., brain-wave) correlates that might reveal when they were "on- or off-target".

At SRI, Ingo Swann and Hal Puthoff also developed a remote-viewing training program meant to enable any individual with a suitable background to produce useful data. As part of this project, a number of military officers and civilians were trained and formed a military remote viewing unit, based at Fort Meade, Maryland. (Schnabel 1997, Smith 2005, McMoneagle 2002)

Additional Information on the Early RV Experiments (Including Descriptions of Very Impressive Hits):

Some of the best results were with New York artist Ingo Swann. Puthoff and his colleague Russell Targ began testing Swann with objects hidden in boxes, and pictures in envelopes--experiments he regarded as a trivialization of his skills. Swann told Puthoff he could close his eyes and see anywhere on the planet. Give him any co-ordinates for latitude and longitude, the artist said, and he would describe what was there.

Swann apparently had some success with this, and the researchers thought they had a case of eidetic imagery--perfect visual recall from memory, from material presumably culled from maps. They chose more refined co-ordinates, down to buildings, and Swann still kept getting "hits" far beyond chance. This was the first indication of the military possibilities of so-called "remote viewing."

One remote viewer, Joe McMoneagle, was said to be particularly skilled. His job was remote viewing a large, mysterious building in the northern Soviet Union. "Most analysts though the Soviets were trying to build a miniature aircraft carrier," says McMoneagle. "We remote viewed the building, and determined that in fact they were building the largest submarine in the world. We were able to describe in detail the tubes and how they were mounted on the sides of the sub. It turned out to be the new Typhoon class submarine, the largest submarine in the world. It had exactly the number of tubes we said, and everything was essentially correct."

Under the DIA's wing, several successes were cited, including the finding of Brig.-Gen. James Dozier, kidnapped by the Italian Red Brigade. According to the physicist in charge of the DIA Stargate project, one remote viewer gave the name of the town where Dozier was being hid--Padua--and another gave the name of the building. Details down to the bed where Dozier was chained were apparently accurate."

The US Government spent over 20 years and millions of dollars on their own Remote Viewing Program, it was declassified by the CIA in 1995. It was called Project Stargate. The program's best Remote Viewers, Joe McMoneagle, Keith Harary, and Ingo Swann, produced numerous amazing dazzle-shot hits on a number of BLIND targets and locations (all done in controlled single-blind and double-blind experiments).

Here's some indepth information on this program ...

"The Stargate Project was the umbrella code name of one of several sub-projects established by the U.S. Federal Government to investigate the reality, and potential military and domestic applications, of psychic phenomena, particularly "remote viewing": the purported ability to psychically "see" events, sites, or information from a great distance. These projects were active from the 1970s through 1995, and followed up early psychic research done at The Stanford Research Institute (SRI), The American Society for Psychical Research, and other psychical research labs.

The Stargate Project created a set of protocols designed to make researching clairvoyance and out-of-body experiences more scientific, and minimize as much as possible session noise and inaccuracy. The term "remote viewing" emerged as shorthand to describe this more structured approach to clairvoyance. Stargate only received a mission after all other intelligence attempts, methods, or approaches had already been exhausted.

At its peak, Stargate had as many as 14 labs researching remote viewing. It was also reported that there were over 22 active military and domestic remote viewers providing data. When the project closed in 1995 this number had dwindled down to three.

According to Joseph McMoneagle, "The Army never had a truly open attitude toward psychic functioning". Hence, the use of the term "giggle factor" and the saying, "I wouldn't want to be found dead next to a psychic." As with all intelligence information, intelligence gathered by remote viewing must be verified by other sources. Remote-viewing information could not stand alone.

According to The Ultimate Time Machine by Joseph McMoneagle and Reading the Enemy's Mind: Inside Star Gate America's Psychic Espionage Program by Paul H. Smith, examples of confirmed future targets being sensed by Stargate remote viewers include:

* The predicted launch date for a newly constructed submarine months before it actually rolled from its construction crib and into the harbor by Joseph McMoneagle. McMoneagle guessed the submarine would be launched about four months later, sometime in the month of January 1980. Satellite photos confirmed this in mid-January 1980 According to Paul H. Smith, McMoneagle predicted several months in the future.

* The predicted release of a hostage in the Middle East and a correct description of the medical problem precipitating his release. The information was provided three weeks before the hostage takers made their decisions.

This conclusion seems to be associated with the following text: "When one of the hostages was released early because of medical conditions and shown the information we [remote-viewers] had accumulated, he was enraged. In his mind, the only way we could possibly had such accurate information, would be to have someone inside the embassy with the hostages..."

The information given by Keith Harary, at SRI, the Stargate Project, was: "He seems to be suffering from nausea. One side of his body seems damaged or hurt. He will be on an airplane in the next few days." The target turned out to be the hostage Richard Queen, held by Iranian militants and now desperately ill with symptoms including muscle weakness, lack of coordination, difficulty in vision, spasticity, vertigo, facial numbness, tremor, and emotional lability, multiple sclerosis, that affected his nerves on one side. In part due to his input, Harary says he was later informed by contacts at SRI, President Carter dispatched a plane to bring Queen home. There is no reference to a three week prediction. There is no mention of the Iran hostage crisis (November 4, 1979 - January 20, 1981) or this incident in the 1984 book, The Mind Race: Understanding and Using Psychic Abilities, by Russell Targ and Keith Harary, which centers around remote viewing experiments and SRI.

* Upon reading of the May 17, 1987, attack on the frigate the U.S.S. Stark in The Washington Post, Paul H. Smith became convinced that his remote viewing, three days earlier, of an attack on an American warship, including the location, the method, and the motive, was precognition. The American Warship "viewing" session was around 30 pages long, including writing and sketching of ships, parts of ships, map-like diagrams, etc.

In regards to Domestic Applications of what would become Remote Viewing, various field testings in remote viewing was done in the mid-1970s.

* In a particular well known serial crime incident, a single lone suspect in question was later captured by law enforcement and put into prison. About twenty years later the original lone suspect changed his confession, and verified almost exactly to what was remote viewed by those domestic remote viewer(s). On the eve of reopening this case, the FBI stepped in, and asked that the case be put on hold. This case has been upgraded to Classified, with no indication at this time that it will be reopened . This noted case has been published and later suggested by name in the movie Suspect Zero."

Project Stargate was eventually discontinued for various reasons ...

"In 1995, the CIA hired the American Institutes for Research, a perennial intelligence-industry contractor, to perform a retrospective evaluation of the results generated by the remote-viewing program, the Stargate Project. Most of the program's results were not seen by the evaluators, with the report focusing on the most recent experiments, and only from government-sponsored research.

One of the reviewers was Ray Hyman, a long-time critic of psi research, and another was Jessica Utts who, as a supporter of psi, was chosen to put forward the pro-psi argument.

Utts maintained that there had been a statistically significant positive effect, with some subjects scoring 5%-15% above chance.

Hyman argued that Utts' conclusion that ESP had been proven to exist, "is premature, to say the least." Hyman said the findings had yet to be replicated independently, and that more investigation would be necessary to "legitimately claim the existence of paranormal functioning.

Based upon both of their studies, which recommended a higher level of critical research and tighter controls, the CIA terminated the 20 million dollar project in 1995.

The official reason given for this was an unfavorable review by two scientists. However according to Joseph McMoneagle's book Mind Trek (1997) these scientists were not shown 99% of the documented results of remote viewing, which were and are still classified, were forbidden to speak with any of the remote viewers or project managers and were not given any means to evaluate the operational effectiveness of the information they were shown (1997: 218-229)."

However, that was not the only factor. Daz Smith, a noted Remote Viewer, also provided me with the following information concerning the dissolution of the program:

"Most of the program participants were rotating out of the program and even retiring form the Army so were freer to talk and setup their own rv projects, also one of the scientist involved for over ten years (Targ) had also filed a FOIA request for all information regarding himself. It was therefore inevitable that the program was about to go very public - so the only option they had was to crate a hurried fake/biased examination of the last ten project in the last few years work and not the entire 30+ years of scientific projects and claim it didn't work. yet the program managed to get funding year on year from congress, intel and the military based on the results each year - if it didn't work why did it go on for over 30 years?"

Here are several video segments where Remote Viewer Joe McMoneagle was Put To The Test on his Remote Viewing Abilities in Controlled Double-Blind Experiments:

An Anomalous Cognition Example with Mr. Joseph W. McMoneagle, July 1994

In this first video above, a random person is selected to take hundreds of different photographs around the city (Houston, a city Joe McMoneagle had never been to), these are later dwindled down to four carefully selected target areas (which are very different from one another), which are then placed in four sealed envelopes, mixed up and shuffled randomly, and then randomly numbered. One of these is then randomly selected (via dice roll) by yet another person as the target area. Another randomly selected person is then sent to the target area to be a beacon for Joe McMoneagle.

Joe McMoneagle is placed in a room, given a photograph of the target person in an unrelated setting, and is told to focus on her and her surroundings. He's HIGHLY ACCURATE.

Within minutes, his drawing has totally eliminated the other three possible targets, and is roughly 80% accurate (with dazzle-shot accuracy) on the exact target area.

National Geographic Remote Viewing Example with Joe McMoneagle (February, 2005)

The above video is another Double-Blind Experiment on Joe McMoneagle, this time done by National Geographic. In this experiment, out of hundreds of possible photographs, a random target location is chosen, a random individual is selected to go to the location, Joe McMoneagle is sealed off in a room, is shown a picture of the target person in an unrelated setting, and is told to focus on her and her surroundings.

This time, not only is Joe McMoneagle highly accurate, but the test goes one step further, where the present researcher, Dr. Edwin May, after JoeMcMoneagle leaves the room, is given the additional task to MATCH JoeMcMoneagle's drawing to the correct location, out of over a dozen possible photographs. (Dr. Edwin May too is BLIND to the target location.) Amazingly, he does match Joe McMoneagle's drawing to the correct target location.

ABC Nightline Report on the CIA Declassifying Project Stargate

All three videos link give detailed overviews of the program and some of it's biggest dazzle shot hits.

Here are some of the best hits by Joe McMoneagle, keep in mind that these were ALL drawn during DOUBLE-BLIND CONTROLLED EXPERIMENTS where he was given NOTHING on the target location :

Remote Viewing Example 1

Remote Viewing Example 2

Remote Viewing Example 3

Remote Viewing Example 4 Target

Remote Viewing Example 4 Drawing

Remote Viewing Example 5 Target

Remote Viewing Example 5 Drawing

Remote Viewing Example 6 Target

Remote Viewing Example 6 Drawing

Remote Viewing Example 7 Target

Remote Viewing Example 7 Drawing

Now, on to reviewing Derren Brown's two highly unimpressive video segments on Remote Viewing ...

There are two video segments of UK Skeptic, Mentalist, and Magician Derren Brown that I've come across that deal with the topic of Remote Viewing that I was highly unimpressed with.

The first video segment I've come across deals with, expectedly, a group of gullible New Agers who "Train Psychics" in an Institute for "Developing Psychic Abilities", in a Town that is *filled* with New Age Thinking, Propaganda, Services, etc, on every corner of Town.

Derren over-exaggerates how "well known" and "respected" they are. (I'd never heard of them, and their website is filled with typical New Age imagery and topics, just seems to be yet another dime a dozen New Age group to me.)

Here is a link to the video:

Derren Brown - Remote Viewing Clip

(I must point out here, isn't it funny how Debunkers in these videos tend to resort to using the "Best of us, worst of them" logical fallacy often? Where they tend to show the silliest proponents, New Agers in a New Age Town claiming to be "Psychic Trainers", while the Debunkers make themselves look good in comparison to the "gullible crazies", it's shooting fish in a barrel, plain and simple.

Why not interview far more *credible*, no-nonsense, Scientific oriented Remote Viewing Researchers with a great track record, such as Dr. Edwin C. May, Ph.D, who presided over the US Government's official Remote Viewing Program? Or world famous Remote Viewers who partook in that same US Government Remote Viewing Program with MANY Double-Blind Verifiable Dazzle Shot Hits, such as Joe McMoneagle? Hmmm?)

In this video segment, Derren arrives at this Institute claiming to be a Psychic wanting to take a Remote Viewing Test. He sits down with a pen and paper, while a woman goes into the next room within earshot of him to draw a series of random pictures, and he is suppose to successfully Remote View the picture she is drawing. (This is a very weak form of controlled Remote Viewing.)

He is in total verbal communication with the woman who is drawing the picture in the next room the entire time that he is suppose to be Remote Viewing, and while he talks to her, he lets slip all sorts of suggestive details that will influence what she is drawing (so he can easily guess her drawing).

For example, he says to her, "keep it simple, let your thoughts SAIL AWAY, and don't go OVERBOARD on detail", and surprise surprise, she draws a boat on the water, which he likewise draws a very simple representation of (very general looking, so that it could apply to any type of "boat in water" scenario she could draw via his subtle suggestions), among several other drawings she did that he likewise used subtle manipulation via inserting suggestive words to influence her outcome. (Only the boat example's subtle suggestions are shown, the rest were not used in the video, but are implied.)

These were all very simple drawings of very simple things, a banana, a religious symbol and bush, a boat on the water.

The "Psychic Trainer New Agers" are surprised and shocked, and praise him, and worry that he might take their job he is so good, one suggests that he wants to use the video to train other Remote Viewers. Alas, they'd been had.

I have praise on this segment only because he shows how *uncontrolled* remote viewing can be easily manipulated, especially if you are in direct verbal communication with the person drawing the target, where you can subtlely leak suggestive phrases to them that can influence the outcome of their drawing, and because he pwned some gullible new agers. But, all in all, it's shooting fish in a barrel.

The second video segment of Derren Brown's dealing with Remote Viewing was better done than the first one, but was still very very flawed.

Here's a link to the video:

Derren Brown and Dr. Carr - Remote Viewing

Right off the bat, he inaccurately claims that the US Government Remote Viewing Project was "wasted scientific research".

Apparently he seems to be very unfamiliar with the overall data and the most significant hits of the RV Program, not surprisingly.

In the video, he gets a Psychologist and Remote Viewer Trainer Dr. Carr (whom I've never heard of before, and who gets only a very few hits on Google, most leading to his own Remote Viewing Workshop Website, which resembles many such RV Workshops you'll find online from many different people who are into RV Training) and Derren asks him to do a controlled Remote Viewing Test with him, which he agrees to.

Derren then *highly inaccurately* claims that Dr. Carr is the "World's Foremost Authority On Remote Viewing", which is not even close by a long shot. I'd consider Dr. Edwin May, Joe McMoneagle, Keith Harary, or Ingo Swann a hell of a more significant authority on Remote Viewing. Dr. Carr was never involved with Project Stargate which set the bar.

Derren Brown has a target woman go out into the local city, and has Dr. Carr in his studio, and asks him to zero in on her location with his Mind and Remote View her, and then draw her current location and describe her surroundings and what she is seeing.

Dr. Carr spends an HOUR AND A HALF drawing HUNDREDS of different drawings, many of which are *very general* images which can be compared to an ink blot test.

He then selects five different images that could *possibly* match the location, AFTER the woman comes back into the studio and tells them both of her surroundings. He picks one in particular that could be vaguely and generally seen as resembling a Fountain that was near her target location.

Derren Brown also points out that Dr. Carr wrote out over a hundred different words which he believed corresponded to the target area, which, when you look at them all, could cover just about everything and any location.

I found this to be a very shotty experiment, with a less than impressive "Remote Viewer".

I praise the segment only for Pwning a less than impressive "Remote Viewer" who obviously doesn't hold a candle to Joe McMoneagle, Keith Harary, or Ingo Swann.

Now, compare this guy's methods to Joe McMoneagle, who would only limit himself to 20 minutes top on drawing a target. His drawings were done on several pages, were not vague, were very detailed and specific, very much fit the target area, contained words and phrases associated with the target, and were about 80% accurate overall.

Derren Brown makes the suggestion near the end of the program that someone should take a Remote Viewer's finished drawing of a target and match it to the exact target location using just the drawing.

Guess what? Dr. Edwin May did just that with Joe McMoneagle's drawing in the National Geographic Remote Viewing Experiment.

Closely examine JoeMcMoneagle's Remote Viewing drawings with their exact targets. Realize that he is BLIND to the target entirely, as is the researcher Dr. Edwin May. Compare these dazzle-shot examples with the pityful examples supplied by Derren Brown in these two video segments.

That's all that really needs to be said.

- Eteponge

Sources for Quotations: Wikipedia Articles on Remote Viewing.

Indepth Review Of Richard Dawkins' "Enemies Of Reason" Documentary

2010-04-20T21:56:00.000-07:00

This review deals only with the first episode of "Enemies of Reason" by Richard Dawkins.

I'll start off by saying that I found certain aspects of this Documentary by Richard Dawkins praise worthy.

I myself am highly skeptical of Psychics, as only a few (yet a significant few) of those that I have researched (out of many) do I consider as having highly intriguing, anomalous, currently unexplainable aspects to what they do when the overall data is examined, in a number of specific cases, where Cold Reading and Hot Reading simply do not apply when all the known facts and circumstances are examined and considered, and these individuals have some very impressive cases worthy of serious further study.

Most typical Psychics you'll come across however, are generally easily and readily explainable via Cold Reading and Hot Reading, although as I mentioned, there are notable exceptions which beg further research and examination.

Regardless, for the most part, Cold Reading and Hot Reading are the tricks of the trade for phony psychics, which, in my humble opinion, are the majority of them.

In that sense, Richard Dawkins and Derren Brown do a great job of explaining the tricks of the trade of phony psychics via exposing the Cold Reading techniques in the Documentary. For this, I have praise.

However, I also have issues with the very same segment. For example, a New Age Psychic Fair and a Spiritualist Church where pretty much everyone claims Psychic Ability and are fitted into that Belief System I do not consider to be a very good place to seek out one with authentic psychic abilities. You're bound to get a hell of a lot of Self Deluded people there who claim to be Psychic and are a huge disappointment, and maybe one or two people there who are actually impressive. (From what I've personally been told by persons who have visited both types of places many times.)

I suggest that there is a far more credible way of finding reputable mediums to interview and test for a Documentary, and it begins with asking the question ...

Are there serious research studies out there that attempt to test Mediumship under controlled conditions that attempt to rule out Cold Reading and Hot Reading? The answer is yes.

Dr. Gary Schwartz of the University of Arizona has been doing Double-Blind (and now stepped up to Triple-Blind) Experiments with Mediums (with the purpose of ruling out Cold Reading and Hot Reading techniques) over the past ten years.

His early testing protocols starting out Single-Blind, and with various design flaws, but each year he has taken the Skeptics' advice and their critiques of his early experiments to heart and has tightened the controls, year after year, and now he has advanced Triple-Blind protocols in place with some very impressive results with certain Mediums, even under controlled conditions where Cold Reading and Hot Reading are not possible. (Thus ruling out the tricks of the trade of phony Psychics.)

In these controlled experiments, a random sitter (out of a very large undisclosed pool) is randomly selected, and a random proxy sitter (of no relation to the sitter, and has never met them before) is randomly selected from the same pool to take the physical place of the person actually being read. The medium is placed in one room, and is not allowed to talk to or see the proxy sitter, who sits in another room. So, the actual sitter being read is not present, but a proxy sitter of no relation is sitting in for them, and even they cannot speak to the Medium. All of this is done blind to the medium, the sitters, the proxy sitters, and the researchers. Then a second reading is done, this time for the proxy sitter themselves. After both readings are over, both readings are then given to the true sitter who was not physically present during the reading, who examines, judges, and determines which of the two readings was meant for them, and the overall accuracy of the psychic information and of the alleged deceased relatives who came through during the reading. Matching their own reading from the two readings is highly significant.

The most impressive Mediums who have partaken of the study have scored in a consistent 70% - 98% accuracy range, even under these controlled conditions where Cold Reading and Hot Reading cannot apply.

Any ordinary Cold Reader would be crippled under these controlled conditions, and as the experiments are Triple-Blind, this rules out Hot Reading as well.

A little background information on Dr. Gary Schwartz:

GARY E. SCHWARTZ, Ph.D., Director of the VERITAS Research Program, is a professor of Psychology, Medicine, Neurology, Psychiatry, and Surgery at the University of Arizona and director of its Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health and its Center for Frontier Medicine in Biofield Science. After receiving his doctorate from Harvard University, he served as a professor of psychology and psychiatry at Yale University, director of the Yale Psychophysiology Center, and co-director of the Yale Behavioral Medicine Clinic. Dr. Schwartz has published more than four hundred scientific papers, and edited eleven academic books.

For the sake of credibility and objectivity, I would have suggested that Richard Dawkins interview and test those most impressive Mediums who have been rigorously tested and gotten accuracy in the 70%-98% percentage range in Dr. Gary Schwartz's *most recent* Triple-Blind experiments (where the controls have been the tightest) to do a controlled reading on him and on a controlled group selected by Dawkins himself, rather than scouting random Psychic Fairs and Spiritualist Churches for people simply claiming to be Psychic. That would have been a hell of a lot more credible and objective examination of the phenomenon.

Here's some further information on Dr. Gary Schwartz's Medium Experiments ...

http://www.explorejournal.com/article/PIIS155083070600454X/fulltext (Anomalous Information Reception by Research Mediums Demonstrated Using a Novel Triple-Blind Protocol)

http://amnap.blogspot.com/2007/05/triple-blind-mediumship-experiment.html (Triple-blind mediumship experiment published)

http://veritas.arizona.edu/ (The VERITAS Research Program Website)

Here is an article where Dr. Gary Schwartz has responded indepth to criticism of his experiments ...

http://www.enformy.com/Gary-reHymanReview.htm (How Not To Review Mediumship Research)

Geraldo of Fox News once did a segment on his show where he attacked Dr. Gary Schwartz and his Research with many false accusations and biased reporting, Gary's response is here ...

http://www.drgaryschwartz.com/response.htm (Examining an erroneous and malicious character assassination)

I would have further suggested a skilled Cold Reader like Derren Brown to undergo Dr. Gary Schwartz's Triple-Blind Medium Experiments to see if he can still get a high pecentage of hits, even under those crippled conditions. That would have made for a far more impressive documentary.

As an aside, I have issues with Derren Brown's own TV Programs on these topics. For example, I was highly unimpressed with his two Remote Viewing critique segments, which I'm planning on tackling in a further separate article. He did succeed however, in an impressive Cold Reading bit on his own TV Program, excerpts of which were shown in Richard Dawkins' Documentary. However, there have been allegations that Derren uses plants in his audience to make his tricks appear more impressive, which makes his Cold Reading segment, as well as other audience driven segments, a bit suspect, IMHO.

Here's some indepth critiques of Derren Brown ...

http://michaelprescott.typepad.com/michael_prescotts_blog/2006/11/i_feel_a_cold_r.html (I Feel A Cold Reading Coming On)

http://michaelprescott.typepad.com/michael_prescotts_blog/2006/11/derren_brown_pa.html (Derren Brown Part Deux)

http://www.simonsingh.net/Derren_Brown_Article.html (Spectacular Psychology or Silly Psychobabble?)

The Psychics interviewed in the Richard Dawkins documentary did not at all come across as impressive. The program shown miss after miss with each Psychic, which lead me to wonder how much the program had been edited, or if every Psychic he met truly was that bad and unimpressive.

Doing a little Googling, I did find evidence that the segment had been edited. In the Craig Hamilton-Parker segment, where Craig was giving psychic readings to people in his Spiritualist Church, Dawkins only shows examples of misses, and examples of persons being read whom had already had readings by Craig previously. The easily explainable types.

One woman who attended Craig's Spiritualist Church that very same day that Richard Dawkins attended had received an impressive reading by Craig, and she had never been there before, had never met Craig before, he did not know her, she did not know him. She wrote to Craig after Dawkins' program first aired, to express outrage over how Craig's impressive reading with her was totally edited out of the documentary's final cut ...

http://www.psychictv.co.uk/richard-dawkins-debate.html

"You came to me first, and this was the first time I had seen you. When we have has readings we only ever answer yes and no during the reading and this time was no different.

"You started off with saying that you had a female, and that she was having trouble speaking, she had a lispy voice, and you could barely hear her, and you felt it was my mother, my mother had her throat cut twice in operations and did have a lispy voice, and she did have trouble projecting her voice.

"You then became confused because you said she was doing a stirring movement and you said you did not understand as she was saying over and over 'the treacle's mine', 'the treacle's mine,' this was an outstanding amazing statement as the area which I lived all through childhood was fondly known as the treacle mines.

"You gave many other factually correct details, but the most amazing of all was that you said my mother came out of her door and saw two Morris Minors, she said they were black, I said no - (They had black roofs and the man restored them but they were gray), you then mentioned the neighbours name, which was correct, later my husband reminded me that although the Morris's were originally gray he had the doors and wings replaced with and they were indeed black.

"The whole reading was accurate and could not be interpreted to be made to fit or desperately misunderstood as Richard dawkins implies to those who seek spiritualists, and we were interviewed by him after where we told him your reading was 100% accurate and even about the Morris minors changing colour.

"How can Mr Dawkins whome should be, as a man of science open to things that may not be able to be understood because we cannot physically prove these things blatantly deny that he found any proof or evidence that evening?There have been many examples in the past and present of things that may not have a concrete basis to provide evidence of proof such as 'string theories, and black holes' - did eminent theologians and scientists just ignore these things because of the inability to give concrete proof? Or were they just better men than he?

"To summarise what i found the saddest of all was that on the programme he said that he found no evidence of proof of mediumship or séance as he referred to it, and yet in my interview with him he clearly was given acknowledgement of evidence that was true, yet he chose not to show any of this on the programme, and was selective, perhaps because it did not fit with the whole ethos of his programme. Surely such a professional should have had the integrity and honesty when making such a programme to show all sides and not just make the evidence fir for the glory of a television programme!

"I want to thank you once again for your outstanding reading and the evidence that you provided."

Suzie D. - Camberley

It would appear that the most impressive readings of Craig that day were totally edited out of the program, and only those with clear misses, and those where he read the same person he had read before previously, were shown. The easier to explain examples.

However, unfortunately, this wasn't the only thing edited from Richard Dawkins' Documentary, the most problematic being his entire interview with Rupert Sheldrake. First off, a little background on who Rupert Sheldrake is ...

Rupert Sheldrake is a Biologist with an unblemished academic record and a research fellowship at the Royal Society who has been doing serious Double-Blind Experiments with Telepathy for years, especially with Dogs who Know when their owners are coming home (even when they arrived at random times, in different cars, different clothing, and even skipping a day) where the Dogs would go and wait by the door or window expectantly, in their normal waiting place and waiting position, starting 10 to 15 minutes before they arrived home, until they finally arrived.

Other researchers have successfully replicated Sheldrake's experiments, independently of him, even noted Skeptic Richard Wiseman, who reluctantly admitted in an interview with my friend Alex Tsakiris that his experiment results matched Sheldrake's. The results are significantly above the chance ratio in these experiments, something intriguing is definately going on with these animals.

Several years ago, Skeptic James Randi, when asked about Rupert Sheldrake's experiments, falsely claimed that when you examine the tapes, the dogs react to any and everybody who walks by, and to every car that drive by, which is totally false. Randi later admitted he hadn't even seen the tapes. Skeptic Michael Shermer has repeated these false allegations in an interview with my friend Alex Tsakiris. There has been much false information and unfairness directed towards Rupert Sheldrake.

Other experiments Rupert Sheldrake has done has been with Telephone Telepathy, where individuals who claimed to know who is calling them on the telephone before they answer it or look at the caller ID, even old friends, relatives, and associates that they haven't spoken to in years, are put to the test.

They are tested from a very large pool of relatives, friends, associates, etc, from their present and past, each phone call selected at random, blindly, and the individual has to relate who he or she thinks is calling them before they answer the phone, all in a controlled experiment. He's done this type of experiment for years. Again, with those individuals, much like with the animals, very significant above chance results.

The Imperial College London Dissertation asserted that the Scientific Community has been unfair to Rupert Sheldrake ...

http://www.skeptiko.com/88-scientific-community-unfair-to-rupert-sheldrake/

"Although skeptical of Sheldrake’s theories, Phillips focused on how Sheldrake was being judged, “I wanted to be impartial as to whether he was right or wrong and instead go on and look at whether he’d been treated fairly.”

What he discovered surprised him. Stevens found that despite an unblemished academic record and a research fellowship at the Royal Society, Sheldrake faced public scorn from colleagues for publishing his theory of morphic fields which suggests a living, developing universe with its own inherent memory. “There was a review in the journal, Nature in which the editor, John Maddox said that the book, A New Science of Life, should be burned”, Stevens said. “You’d think that that sort of attitude towards what was just a theory would be out of date and would be seen as you know, unscientific. But in fact, it damaged Sheldrake’s career, not John Maddox’s career.”

But the biggest surprise came when Stevens looked at Sheldrake’s collaboration with skeptics like Dr. Richard Wiseman. According to Stevens Wiseman failed to follow normal procedures scientists use when collaborating and reporting their results.

“Wiseman actually did repeats of Sheldrake’s results. He never denied this, but he only admitted it, I think, ten years later. I mean, in normal experiments, if you repeat someone’s results, you say it. And there didn’t seem to be any reason for him not to say, ‘I’ve repeated his results. These experiments work. Sheldrake wasn’t wrong.’ And you know what? Sheldrake was a Research Fellow at the Royal Society. I would hope that when he has some experiments and tests things he’d get it right because he’s from one of the best institutions of science in Britain and in the world. So I really don’t know why Wiseman took so long just to say, ‘Yes, the patterns in Sheldrake’s works were repeated in my own.’”, said Stevens."

Here is Rupert Sheldrake's indepth account of what went down with Richard Dawkins when he was interviewed for his Documentary ...

http://www.sheldrake.org/D&C/controversies/Dawkins.html

"Soon before Enemies of Reason was filmed, the production company, IWC Media, told me that Richard Dawkins wanted to visit me to discuss my research on unexplained abilities of people and animals. I was reluctant to take part, but the company’s representative assured me that “this documentary, at Channel 4’s insistence, will be an entirely more balanced affair than The Root of All Evil was.” She added, “We are very keen for it to be a discussion between two scientists, about scientific modes of enquiry”. So I agreed and we fixed a date. I was still not sure what to expect. Was Richard Dawkins going to be dogmatic, with a mental firewall that blocked out any evidence that went against his beliefs? Or would he be open-minded, and fun to talk to?

The Director asked us to stand facing each other; we were filmed with a hand-held camera. Richard began by saying that he thought we probably agreed about many things, “But what worries me about you is that you are prepared to believe almost anything. Science should be based on the minimum number of beliefs.”

I agreed that we had a lot in common, “But what worries me about you is that you come across as dogmatic, giving people a bad impression of science.”

He then said that in a romantic spirit he himself would like to believe in telepathy, but there just wasn’t any evidence for it. He dismissed all research on the subject out of hand. He compared the lack of acceptance of telepathy by scientists such as himself with the way in which the echo-location system had been discovered in bats, followed by its rapid acceptance within the scientific community in the 1940s. In fact, as I later discovered, Lazzaro Spallanzani had shown in 1793 that bats rely on hearing to find their way around, but sceptical opponents dismissed his experiments as flawed, and helped set back research for well over a century. However, Richard recognized that telepathy posed a more radical challenge than echo-location. He said that if it really occurred, it would “turn the laws of physics upside down,” and added, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”

“This depends on what you regard as extraordinary”, I replied. “Most people say they have experienced telepathy, especially in connection with telephone calls. In that sense, telepathy is ordinary. The claim that most people are deluded about their own experience is extraordinary. Where is the extraordinary evidence for that?”

He produced no evidence at all, apart from generic arguments about the fallibility of human judgment. He assumed that people want to believe in “the paranormal” because of wishful thinking.

We then agreed that controlled experiments were necessary. I said that this was why I had actually been doing such experiments, including tests to find out if people really could tell who was calling them on the telephone when the caller was selected at random. The results were far above the chance level.

The previous week I had sent Richard copies of some of my papers, published in peer-reviewed journals, so that he could look at the data.

Richard seemed uneasy and said, “I’m don’t want to discuss evidence”. “Why not?” I asked. “There isn’t time. It’s too complicated. And that’s not what this programme is about.” The camera stopped.

The Director, Russell Barnes, confirmed that he too was not interested in evidence. The film he was making was another Dawkins polemic.

I said to Russell, “If you’re treating telepathy as an irrational belief, surely evidence about whether it exists or not is essential for the discussion. If telepathy occurs, it’s not irrational to believe in it. I thought that’s what we were going to talk about. I made it clear from the outset that I wasn’t interested in taking part in another low grade debunking exercise.”

Richard said, “It’s not a low grade debunking exercise; it’s a high grade debunking exercise.”

In that case, I replied, there had been a serious misunderstanding, because I had been led to believe that this was to be a balanced scientific discussion about evidence. Russell Barnes asked to see the emails I had received from his assistant. He read them with obvious dismay, and said the assurances she had given me were wrong. The team packed up and left.

Richard Dawkins has long proclaimed his conviction that “The paranormal is bunk. Those who try to sell it to us are fakes and charlatans”. Enemies of Reason was intended to popularize this belief. But does his crusade really promote “the public understanding of science,” of which he is the professor at Oxford? Should science be a vehicle of prejudice, a kind of fundamentalist belief-system? Or should it be a method of enquiry into the unknown?"

This is highly problematic for Richard Dawkins, IMHO. My biggest beef with the program is this, which didn't even make the final cut.

Now, on to the next section of review, his segment on Astrology ...

I personally have very little interest in Astrology, I'm highly skeptical of it. However, I'd like to point out that the type of Astrology that Richard Dawkins dealt with in "The Enemies of Reason" is tabloid Star Sign / Horoscope Astrology, and he only interviewed a Star Sign / Horoscope newspaper Astrologer. Why is this significant?

Because the Star Sign / Horoscope Astrology you find in the newspapers and tabloids is *not* an authentic version of Ancient Astrology. Vedic Astrology for example, is a hell of a lot more complicated than merely assigning a Star Sign to someone, that's just one small part. There are many, many, MANY factors to designing a chart for someone in Vedic Astrology. It's a very through process, and the outcome is a VERY individualized reading that doesn't easily match another person. Why is this significant?

Because the skeptical test presented in the program (which was also repeated by James Randi, Carl Sagan, and Derren Brown on other TV programs) of making a single personality trait filled Astrology chart that would fit just about everybody, where people of totally different star signs are all given the exact same chart, and all claim that it matches them, utterly falls apart when used with personalized Vedic Astrology Charts.

The perfect example would be the TV program that Skeptic Michael Shermer did with a Vedic Astrologer. Skeptic Michael Shermer had heard the claim that Ancient Vedic Astrology is far more complex, indepth, and specific to the individual than modern tabloid Horoscope Astrology, and that normal skeptical explanations and experiments leveled against it would fail. So, he decided to put it to the test.

He did a controlled experiment with the Vedic Astrologer, Jeffrey Armstrong, where he gave him only the absolute minimum of required information to make a Vedic Astrology Chart for his group of participants. He was not allowed to see or speak with any of them.

Some of the participants were given their own charts, while other participants were given mixed up charts (readings that were not their own), to see how specific and accurate he was.

All of those who were given their own charts, the readings were very specific, highly accurate (over 80%), and would not apply to the other members in the room. All those who were given mixed up charts, charts that were not their own, the readings did not match at all, they were very inaccurate (5%-10%), and bombed. Then, Michael Shermer revealed what he had done, and gave the authentic charts back to those who had been given the wrong ones, the accuracy rating skyrocketed to over 90% accurate.

Watch Skeptic Michael Shermer get utterly PWNED by a Vedic Astrologer on his own show ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mbf_vWtSq8E

Again, I personally have very little interest in Astrology, I'm highly skeptical of it, etc, but if Richard Dawkins had taken Jeffrey Armstrong to task with his Vedic Charts, mixing up everyone's readings, he obviously would have failed, as Shermer had.

Regardless, again, I have praise for the Astrology portion of the documentary, because it shows what bullshit the Star Sign / Horoscope Astrology from the tabloids really is. As for Vedic Astrology however, I'm still just as skeptical, but it was weird seeing Shermer get his ass handed to him by a Vedic Astrology, when he tried to pull off the same type of "every astrology reading matches every individual" experiment.

Skeptical Organization CSICOP, which Richard Dawkins is a member of, got into a big coverup controvery years ago about one of their early astrology debunking experiments. Here's an indepth explanation of this event below ...

"Michel and Francoise Gauquelin found that European sports champions were born in Mars sectors 1 and 4 at a rate of 22% instead of the 17% expected by chance. A large control group of 16,756 non-athletes was located. When Zelen analyzed the data, the control group baseline came in almost perfectly, at 16.4%, and the 303 champions incidentally came in with a Mars effect of 21.8%, both as Michel Gauquelin had predicted."

Here's the controversy with Skeptic Organization CSICOP, they set out to debunk this, but their findings actually MATCHED the data, and so they filed it away and didn't report it, because it didn't match their intended debunking ...

"One of their first projects was to debunk Astrology. During their research, especially into the statistical findings of Michel Gauquelin, one of their founders Dennis Rawlins discovered that the team was committing the "file drawer effect". When the evidence and results they found didn't fit their hypothesis (which was that Astrology was all bunk) they simply "filed it away". They only wanted evidence that disproved Astrology. They had an agenda, in other words. This disgusted Rawlins, who wanted the team to be about open minded nonbiased inquiry. So, he quit and published a paper called Starbaby."

http://cura.free.fr/xv/14starbb.html (sTARBABY by Dennis Rawlins)

The next portion of Richard Dawkins' program, regarding dowsing, I will not critique, as I'm not very familiar at all with the topic of dowsing, and when I tried to do a search on responses to Skeptic Chris French's dowsing experiment in the Documentary by actual Dowsers, and even critiques of that specific segment of Enemies of Reason by actual Dowsers, I found nothing. So, I take it Dawkins and French did a satisfactory job on that experiment. Bravo.

The last thing I wish to comment on is Richard Dawkins bringing up B.F. Skinner's "Superstitious Pigeons" experiments. Skinner of course suggested that the pigeons behaved as if they were influencing the automatic mechanism with their "rituals" and that this experiment shed light on human behavior.

Doing a little research on the topic of these experiments, I found, surprisingly enough, that they have been largely discredited by modern behavioral psychologists:

"Modern behavioral psychologists have disputed Skinner's "superstition" explanation for the behaviors he recorded. Subsequent research (e.g. Staddon and Simmelhag, 1971), while finding similar behavior, failed to find support for Skinner's "adventitious reinforcement" explanation for it. Staddon & Simmelhag proposed that Skinner's pigeons weren't acting superstitiously. By looking at the timing of different behaviors within the interval, Staddon and Simmelhag were able to distinguish two classes of behavior: the terminal response, which occurred in anticipation of food, and interim responses, that occurred earlier in the interfood interval and were rarely contiguous with food. Terminal responses seem to reflect classical (rather than operant) conditioning, rather than adventitious reinforcement, guided by a process like that observed in 1968 by Brown and Jenkins in their "autoshaping" procedures. The causation of interim activities (such as the schedule-induced polydipsia seen in a similar situation with rats) also cannot be traced to adventitious reinforcement and its details are still obscure (Staddon, 1977). Despite challenges to Skinner's interpretation of the root of his pigeons' superstitious behaviour, his conception of the reinforcement schedule has been used to explain superstitious behaviour in humans."

I would have suggested that Richard Dawkins work harder on fairly presenting all sides of each issue, not falling into simple confirmation bias, so that the viewers can be well informed and make up their own mind.

But as we can see, "Enemies of Reason" is clearly not an objective unbiased documentary, but a one-sided "high grade debunking exercise". It was an enjoyable viewing, but mostly what I took from it was entertainment. A rich man's version of "Penn & Teller's Bullshit", with roughly the same level of "objectivity".

The debunking done in the documentary was half-assed at best, and didn't deal with the harder to explain / more credible research and data on these topics, with the exception of the Dowsing Experiment, which I thought was fairly well done.

I'm sad to say that it reminded me of Ben Stein's "Expelled", which caters specifically to a Creationist Audience, and "What The Bleep Do We Know?" which caters specifically to a New Age Audience. Feeding confirmation bias and presenting things one-sidedly does not equal a fair documentary.

- Eteponge

Cases where Psychic's Information finds a body or makes an arrest

2010-03-27T14:33:00.001-07:00

Over the years I've heard and read many times from Skeptics that, "there isn't a single case in all of recorded human history where a Psychic's Information has led to the discovery of a body or an arrest in a murder". Really now?

Etta Smith Case:

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/criminal_mind/forensics/psychics/8.html

"In 1980, Etta Smith, a shipping clerk in Los Angeles, heard an announcement on the radio about a house-to-house search for Melanie Uribe, a missing woman from her neighborhood, as documented in A&E's film and Larsen's Psychic Sleuths. Smith had an impression that the woman was not inside a building but outside in a certain area, and though she'd never before had such an overwhelming sense of something, it seemed so vivid that she reported it to the police. "It was like someone was talking to me," she said. She felt that the nurse had been hit in the head and dumped in a canyon, which she showed to a detective on a map. She said there was a dirt path going to her. When he seemed not to take her seriously, she decided to go have a look on her own.

As Etta drove through the target area in Lopez Canyon, she had a feeling of "urgency." Spotting some tire tracks in the dirt, she felt them and sensed the trauma that had taken place there. "It was like a thermometer going up." She got back into her car and drove, but her daughter told her to stop because she'd seen something. What she had spotted were a pair of white nurse's shoes.

Smith knew who was there. She drove away and spotted a policeman. She waved him to a stop and told him about the body. He told her to go home. She did, but then two detectives came to bring her in for questioning. She agreed to take a lie detector test, and the police later said that she'd been judged "deceptive," so she was treated as a suspect, strip-searched, and put into a cell for three days. They planted an undercover cop in the cell with her to try to find out why she had come forward and whether her information had come from neighborhood gossip, as suspected. The cop reported that her motive was money.

Then three men confessed and Etta was released. She filed a wrongful arrest suit, asking $750,000 in damages. The jury awarded her $24,000.

She says she never had another such vision, or if she did, she was smart to not report it."

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,963923,00.html

"For Etta Louise Smith, the nightmare began shortly before Christmas 1980, when she claims to have had a vision of something white, covered by brush. A Lockheed aerospace worker in Burbank, Calif., Smith does not consider herself a psychic. Yet after she heard radio reports about Nurse Melanie Uribe, 31, who had vanished on her way to work, Smith was convinced she knew where the body could be found. She took her information to the police, who put her off.

Smith then organized a search with two of her young children and a 20-year- old niece. In remote Lopez Canyon, 18 miles north of Los Angeles, her daughter spotted a white heap that turned out to be Uribe -- robbed, raped and beaten to death. Smith told police of her discovery and was arrested for the murder.

While she was held in jail for four days, the killers -- three men with prior arrest records -- turned up. Smith, 39, filed a suit for false arrest. Last week Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Joel Rudof ruled that despite Smith's detailed account of the murder of a woman she never knew or saw, police did not have probable cause to lock her up."

She and the Detective were interviewed on Larry King Live in 2004:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0404/29/lkl.00.html

"SMITH: Right. On Wednesday, while I was at work, I was listening to the news off and on during the day. And around 3:00, I heard the police say that they were doing a house to house search for her after locating her vehicle. And as soon as that thought registered, instantly my mind said, she's not in a house. As soon as that thought passed, it was as if I saw a movie. I could visually see where she was. I didn't know the name of the street, but I knew how to get there. And I couldn't shake this. I couldn't it to leave me.

GRACE: When I you say you saw, what did you see?

SMITH: I saw a canyon road. I saw where the road curved. I saw a dirt path going to a white object, and a hill behind it very, very clearly.

GRACE: An so officer, Detective Ryan, what did you do when this woman, you've never seen her before, comes up with this vision?

RYAN: I invited Etta to step into the squad room, where we have large wall maps of the area of our division and asked her to indicate as best she could the area she felt this canyon was in and the roads that led to it. And as she did so, I took several photographs depicting both her and her pointing to the location in case it did turn out that she was possibly involved.

GRACE: So you were cynical, weren't you?

RYAN: Yes, I was.

GRACE: When you come back, we are going to hear the rest of the story. At this juncture, a 31-year-old nurse, Melanie Uribe, never missed work, as reliable as a Timex wrist watch, goes missing. All that is found is her burned out car, and suddenly, a psychic comes on the scene. Stay with us.

So Detective Ryan, we left off where she was pointing on a map where she thought, after seeing a vision of a canyon, this missing nurse was. What did you do then?

RYAN: The area she was indicating is a very remote sector of the San Fernando Valley, Lopez Canyon. I then instructed her to be back at the station the following morning at 7:00 a.m., and we would have a helicopter from air support divisino there to take there up into this area and search with her help and assistance.

GRACE: The following morning, did she show up?

RYAN: No, she didn't.

GRACE: What happened, Etta? Why were you a no show?

SMITH: Well, as I was leaving the police station, Mr. Ryan had told me they had not checked that area yet, and I told him I had a feeling I would. Something inside of me said they might not check in time. I didn't know if the victim was dead or alive. I just felt so strongly she was there, that if somebody needed to get to her, they needed to get to her right away, and I couldn't let it rest because it wouldn't leave me alone. I kept seeing it over and over and over again. So I proceeded to go to the canyon.

GRACE: So you get in your car, and drive to this remote area, all on your own.

SMITH: Right, with some family members.

GRACE: You know, Etta, this is such an incredible story to me. You get in your car. You drive out to this remote canyon, and tell us what happened.

SMITH: Well, in driving up the canyon, I had instructed everybody with me to please be on the alert for anything white showing through shrubbery. We cruised the canyon very slowly, got to the top, didn't see anything but I could feel trauma.

And at the top when all of us got back in the vehicle, I said we may not have seen anything, but I feel her. I very much feel her. She's in this canyon, and I said we're going back down the canyon. If we don't find anything, we're leaving here, because I feel it.

GRACE: So you go back down the canyon and?

SMITH: Got halfway down, I noticed tire marks in an embankment on the left side of the road. I also noticed tire marks in dirt on the right side of the road. Instinctively, something told me to stop. I got out of my van. I looked to see if someone possibly could have turned around in the middle of this narrow canyon road, and I put my fingers into the impressions in the dirt, and as soon as they touched the dirt, it was almost electrifying, I could just feel all kinds of trauma.

In leaving that side, I went to the other side of the road laid my fingers in the impressions and the same thing happened. And I knew, I knew this was the vehicle. I knew that these tire impressions were involved with this victim.

GRACE: So what, in the end, Etta, did you find?

SMITH: We ended up finding the victim exactly as I had said, off on the right-hand side of the road with a dirt path leading to her, white showing through shrubbery with a hill behind her.

GRACE: Detective Ryan, this woman, Etta Smith, a psychic, found a dead body before the police could, and in return, they arrest her, detective. How was the case finally solved?

RYAN: Well, it was very complicated. That touches on the perimeter of the story. Basically, because she had found it, and nobody else was able to or come up with any clues, naturally, all involved in the investigation had felt that she had to know the perpetrators and, or, band of participant in order to go to that location so specifically.

I believe that it was not luck. I believe that she had a feeling for the location. There hadn't been anything in the newspapers indicating the clues that we had or the suspects we might be looking for. And basically the case was going absolutely nowhere at that point. So her finding the body just really tended to point fingers...

GRACE: At that point, it did make her a legitimate suspect, but in the end, as it turns out, three guys had been overheard bragging that they had kidnapped and tortured and killed a nurse. And they were turned in, and confessed, and were found guilty and the end of the story, I guess, Etta is something you didn't predict. You sued the police department and won for false arrest.

SMITH: Right. It took six years to do, but I felt forced to do it. I had to clear my name. I did not want any cloud of suspicion hanging over me, plus I had a high level clearance with the Department of Defense, and I needed my day in court."

What do the Skeptics have to say regarding this case?

The only skeptical information I've come across regarding this case is the conspiratorial accusation that Etta Smith must have had an unknown informant who must have overheard the three suspects boasting about the murder and the location of the body in town, and told Etta about it.

However, there are several problems with this:

One, while all sources mention that the three suspects did indeed boast of the murder in town to some people they knew (Etta never knew and never met the suspects, even according to them), which led to their downfall, none of the sources state or even suggest that they revealed the location of the body to anyone, only that they boasted about the murder itself. You'd think that those who turned them in for boasting about the murder would have also mentioned to the police that they revealed the location of the body to them, even if just to help clear Etta, who was jailed at the time on suspicion.

Two, there is ZERO actual evidence that there was such an informant at all who secretly supplied information to Etta, it's all purely conspiratorial speculation on the skeptics' part. You'd think the theoretical informant would have come forward after all this time to say, "I overheard the information from the suspects! I supplied it to Etta Smith!" Especially since she and the lead Detective have been on TV Programs like Larry King and Sightings to talk about what happened. Perfect opportunity for the theoretical informant to step forward and take the limelight. But no such luck.

Detective Lee Ryan, the lead Detective on the case, who witnessed it all go down, believes she's for real, for what it's worth.

The Jackie Poole Case:

(Thanks to Michael Prescott for pointing this case out to me)

"Murderer Anthony Ruark was fingered from beyond the grave by the avenging spirit of his victim Jackie Poole. Jackie's ghost gave stunned police the name of her killer in a macabre late-night interview conducted through a clairvoyant. Hardened sceptical detectives were so convinced by medium Christine Holohan that they arrested Ruark only to release him for lack of proof. But on Friday, 18 years on, evil Ruark, 40, was jailed for life at the Old Bailey after the world of forensic science finally caught up with her deadly accurate psychic evidence. The clincher was fragments of skin found under barmaid Jackie's nails matching Ruark's DNA profile. "

"P.C. Tony Batters and Detective Constable Andy Smith interviewed Christine Holohan who was claiming to have been contacted by the spirit of the murdered woman, Jacqueline Poole. After going into a trance both officers were surprised at the detailed information Holohan provided. She not only described the murder scene but seemed to know a great deal of personal information about the victim. For example she mentioned her divorce, that she was suffering from depression and that she had just been given a prescription by her doctor. She also knew her maiden name (Hunt). But that’s not all. She gave a detailed description of the killer and with ‘automatic writing’ wrote down the name “Pokie” which we now know to be the killer’s nickname. In relation to the missing jewellery she wrote down “garden”. Batters states that out of around 130 points made by Holohan more than 120 have now been shown to be correct. The two officers found this quite remarkable but what apparently clinched it for them was an impromptu psychometric reading from Holohan to D.C. Andy Smith in which she told him quite personal information that she could not possibly have known prior to the meeting."

“…but the fact is that, without the help of the medium's statements, the police would not have retrieved the pullover or interviewed and taken statements from everyone with whom Ruark came into contact with that evening. Nor, according to Tony Batters, would they have checked and verified all Ruark's movements during previous fortnight.”

He then elaborates further;

“The pullover became vital as it was his only garment retained for forensics, and it showed numerous exchanges of blood and saliva from Jacqui Poole to him. This proved an act of violence, as opposed to the intimacy which he claimed in his defence at Court.”

http://www.100megsfree4.com/farshores/pghost27.htm

http://www.tonyyouens.com/ruislip_murder.htm

http://www.laois-nationalist.ie/news/story/index.aspx?trs=cweykfmhoj

Psychic John Catchings Case:

He told the detective that the man's body is located very close by (within a mile of the victim's home) near a run down house (and described all the junk stuff in the yard) behind the house in a river stream, trapped under debris, and that one of his shoes is sticking out of the debris with his ankle exposed, and that's how he will find him. He told the detective he must go to the site with two additional police officers, and he will find the body. The detective instead went alone, and found nothing. Then he went again, with two other police officers, and found the body exactly as he described it, behind the same old house as he described it.

Video testimony of the detective ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOZKdFttTTM

Other Case (Needs Identification):

There was another case mentioned on the old TV Series "Sightings" (I can't find an online video of it unfortunately) where a Psychic told a Detective that the missing little girl's body was on an old local farm, right next to a big tree, and that there were chickens clucking all around her body. The detective in the interview said he followed her clues, found an old local farm, saw a big tree, and found the little girl just a few feet from the big tree, with chickens clucking all around her body. The detective followed the Psychic's clues right to the little girl's body. It had the detective interviewed and everything regarding what happened. He was quite clear about what happened, and that it was the Psychic's clues that led him to her body.

Teresita Basa Case:

http://ghosts-hauntings.suite101.com/article.cfm/teresita_basas_ghost_named_her_killer

"On February 21, 1977 Chicago police officers found the body of Philippine born Teresita Basa lying on the floor of her apartment, stabbed to death and partially burned. She was a popular respiratory therapist at Edgewater Hospital. The initial suspect was her boyfriend, but after interviewing him, police realized he wasn’t her killer. Solving the case was dead-ended until Basa’s spirit named her killer.

Basa’s Ghost Contacts Mrs. Chua:

Four months after the crime, Chua, who also worked at the hospital, went into an altered state of consciousness, ASC, and spoke in Tagalong, a dialect of her native Philippine language. The voice said she was Basa and that co-worker Allan Showery murdered her because he stole her jewelry.

When Chua came out of her ASC, she remembered nothing. Her husband, Dr. Jose Chua, was baffled and frightened by the incident. During the next communication, Basa said that Showery had her jewelry and gave her pearl cocktail ring to his common-law wife. After the third incident, Jose contacted the police.

Police Investigation of Basa’s Murder:

The detectives handling the case, Joseph Stachula and Lee Epplen, were skeptical but wanted to follow up on all leads. The autopsy revealed Basa was a virgin. They asked Chua if Basa had been raped to test her. The answer was "no."

The Chuas told the men about Showery and the stolen jewelry. They searched Showery’s apartment and found Basa’s jewelry. When Showery was arrested and told about the evidence, he signed confessions admitting to murdering Basa and stealing her jewelry. The case was officially closed in August 1977."

Psychic Detective Dorothy Allison Redux

2009-07-10T06:10:00.000-07:00

Exploring The Veridical Cases Of Psychic Detective Dorothy Allison In Comparison With What The Skeptics Claim.

Updated: August 18, 2009

A fascinating person I've researched regarding the topic of Psychic Detectives has been that of Dorothy Allison. I want to recap Psychic Detective Dorothy Allison's best cases and explain why I personally feel there is great research worthy significance in the anomalous veridical details that she provided in these particular cases, and also tackle some common Debunker Explanations of these same cases which frequently OMIT very important veridical information that Dorothy provided in these cases.

I'll present the cases of hers I find most crucial, and then deal with criticisms of hers I've read from debunker sources.

Case I:

I'll start with the most significant (to me) case of Dorothy Allison. Where the father of a murdered teenage girl followed Dorothy's clues to a marsh area location over 30 miles away from their home, found all of the specific clues that Dorothy gave her at this location (including a big rock with the letters MAR written on it in big red letters), and then brought Dorothy Allison there. She told him, "this is the place, your daughter is here, you have to get the police". The police wouldn't listen to them (still treating her case as a runaway). Several months later, a group of teenagers found her body in a water hole in the exact same area they were searching, in visible sight of ALL of the clues Dorothy had mentioned.

Detailed Information on this Case:

On May 15, 1976, a 14 year old teenage girl named Susan Jacobson disappeared shortly after leaving her home. Her parents went to the police, who simply wrote her off as a runaway, and told them that they had neither the time nor manpower to search for an obvious runaway. The parents heard of Psychic Dorothy Allison by reputation, and arranged her to meet them at their home, after the police refused to take their daughter's disappearance seriously. Here are the highlights of this particular case...

* In the case of this murdered girl: The numbers she got, 2562 being the daughter's birthday, 405 being the time the daughter was born. She named her boyfriend (got the right name) and stated that she had been strangled by her boyfriend (he was later convicted of it). She got a vision of the place her body was to be found (a marsh area), the word MAR written in Big Red Letters on a Rock (her exact words) found within 100 yards of the body (in plain visual sight from where her body was dumped), Smell of Oil (she was found in an oil drum), and 222 connected with the Smell of Oil (being Numbers on the Oil Drum that she was found in), she was in water but didn't drown (she was in a water hole in the oil drum), and a number of other visual clues all found within 100 yards of the body in plain visual sight (two sets of church steeples, dual smoke stacks, a broken down car, in a marsh area, etc).

As for the debunkers on this particular case ...

They are mostly silent. The Debunker Skeptic Articles will often only mention that Dorothy and her Clues did not directly locate the body (true), will leave out ALL Veridical Hits on this Case, (except sometimes they will mention one very weak one, where Dorothy supposeably mentioned a "bridal path of horses" [which I can't find mentioned in any source on her on this case], which connects to the cemetary where she was later buried, and TOTALLY OMIT the more interesting veridical hits.)

In OMITTING the veridical information Dorothy got on the case, they've left out the most interesting aspects of the case, the most intruiging being, that her own father followed Dorothy's clues to the *exact location* where his daughter's body was later found, over 30 miles away, as well as the information I previously mentioned.

Case II:

Now the second case of hers I'll present is her very first one, which is almost as good as the one I listed above ...

On December 3rd 1967, a little boy was playing with his brother along the riverbank, and disappeared. Dorothy Allison had a vision of the boy drowning and being caught in a pipe, a full two hours before the incident happened. She later contacted the police, who were very skeptical, but upon describing the little boy and the clothing he was wearing the morning of his disappearance exactly, information that had not been released to the public (no photo of the little boy had been released to the public either), they decided to take her insights seriously in an open-minded way. Here are the highlights of this particular case...

* In this case the entire description of the drowned child was accurate in each and every detail and layer of clothing (not made available to the public), including the religious metal pin on the third undershirt and that his under shoes would be found on the wrong feet (this even the parents didn't know). She also saw that when he would be found his hands would be caked with mud, which they were, and that when he fell in the water, was distracted by a paint can, which his brother who was there confirmed, but his parents didn't know. All sorts of numerous visual location information being within visual sight of the body, (that he would be found behind a school, with a lumber mill nearby, gold painting on a door near by, a parking lot and an ITT factory nearby, etc, all were within plain visual sight of the body when and where it was found), and the biggest that he would specifically be found on February 7th, and a high significance that was put on the number 120 would be solved on that date as well (police detectives interviewed stated that they had written these clues down three months before it happened, the exact date and time), and he was indeed found on February 7th, at 1:20 in the afternoon.

As for the debunkers on this particular case ...

In the missing child who drowned case from 1967, what the Debunkers usually state is that she did not locate the body herself (true), that her clues did not *directly* lead to the discovery of the body (again, true), point out that a man looking to bury his cat discovered the body (true), and then point out that Dorothy "wasted their time" digging up a drainage pipe "she said contained the boy" that didn't contain the boy (half-true, distorted information), and then count the entire case a total miss. (While OMITTING all of the dazzle shot hits she DID get right on the case.)

Examining the veridical hits I posted earlier, it's clear that by OMITTING this information out of the equation entirely, they've left out very significant, very interesting information she got on this case.

Also, the information they present regarding the drainage pipe search for the boy was a bit inaccurate. What actually occured, was Dorothy Allison had a vision of the boy's body inside of a drainage pipe that had unique cracks all inside of it, and had a vision of him being sucked out of the drainage pipe. She asked the police to search the drainage pipes in the park, because it might not be too late, that he could still be inside of it.

All of the pipes in the park did not looked cracked (at least from the outside) like the one she saw in the vision. But, she had a gut feeling that "that one!" (she pointed at one) was the one. They opened up the pipe, and it WAS the pipe in her vision, it had the same unique cracks all inside of it. (And, it was the *ONLY* drainage pipe in the entire park that was cracked inside, even the maintanace guy was unaware of it.) But the boy's body was no longer there. That's the full story of the pipe incident that debunkers don't mention.

Case III:

On December 20, 1974 a businessman got aboard a train to travel, but no one saw him get off of it at it's stop. He simply disappeared. Rumors circulated that he had embezzled and vanished, or run off with a mistress, they simply couldn't find the guy. So the police, knowing the reputation of Dorothy Allison, contacted her asking for her help. The police wrote down everything she said, a full three months before his body was discovered. Here are the highlights of this perticular case ...

* In this case of a man who went missing on a train, she saw that he had actually fallen from the train into the water (she said he thought he was at his stop, walked out, and fell into the water below), even though police suspected he had embezzled or ran off with a mistress. The Bow and Arrow significance she got which was how his body was discovered (a son and father were shooting arrows with a bow over the river, when a stray arrow from their shooting above the riverbank missed it's target and landed right next to his corpse below on the riverbank, they called the authorities.) That there was a row of tires up on a sleded hill next to the area where the body was found where children played (which was fully accurate), and the 222 clue given by Dorothy as significant in this case was February 22, the exact date the body was found.

* Other Clues She Gave On This Case: She said 166 was as significant in this case as 222 and was unrelated to 222 (the date he was found). There was an old tugboat permanently stationed below the very section of bridge (near Lyndhurst Station) he fell off from on the train, on it's side, was painted in very large numbers, 166. She also said she saw "two guys" were significant to the case. These would be the two people who discovered the body.

As for the debunkers and this case, I haven't seen a single mention of this case, it's totally omitted.

Case IV:

Famous Cases ...

* That the Son of Sam killer would be caught because of a Parking Ticket, such an obscure foreseen detail, not to mention the Accurate Portrait of the Killer that she drew.

* That Patty Hearst would bond with her kidnappers and rob a bank with them, not to mention her pinpointing locations where she was previously held. (When they checked these locations, she was no longer there, they had moved, but it was later revealed after she was found that they had actually been there previously.)

* She was also questioned about a missing body in the John Wayne Gacy case, which she said would be found floating in the river at a certain *specific* bridge, and even gave the exact time and day. (Like in the child's case.)

As for the Skeptics on these three cases, only the Patty Hearst and Gacy cases get mentioned criticized by debunkers ...

One skeptic article has the father of Patty Hearst talking about how she did not locate his daughter, and the Debunkers making a big deal out of his statements, and suggesting that the Patty Hearst case was a complete miss. They, however ignored Dorothy's prediction that she would bond with her kidnappers and rob a bank with them, and that she pinpointed locations that they had been, but were no longer there by the time they searched there.

One Skeptic Article I read states that on the Gacy Murders, she merely led the police on a "wild goose chase" with absolutely nothing of substance. This was inaccurate...

She predicted the exact time and day that one of the bodies of the young men murdered by Gacy would be found (one that was not in the house, that was still missing), and she stated that his body would specifically be found floating down a river NEXT TO A SPECIFIC BRIDGE when it was discovered. ALL of these details were correct, the exact time and date the body was found (like in the little boy's case) and he was discovered floating down a river NEXT TO A SPECIFIC BRIDGE. (She even named which bridge it was.)

That's significant.

Case V:

These are several MISC cases of hers I find interesting ...

* In March of 1991, accurately picking up that a girl in the area would be dismembered, encased in cement, dumped in a specific lake, with one body part sticking out of the cement, shortly before it happened. And another girl in the general area would be found nude, strangled, covered with brush, and placed near running water. (And was, in June 1991.) Both before they happened, one several months before it happened. (Interesting thing about that case, was that she was initially there trying to pick up a *different* murder victim in that area. She got nothing on that original victim, but instead picked up information on a *separate* killing that *had not happened yet*.)

* That she would die shortly before her 75th birthday of heart disease (made In 1990), and did just one month short of her 75th birthday (died In 1999).

* In the murders of two girls, she saw the word "Silvermead", and a row of mobile homes, and the name Goldstein. When the two girls' bodies were found, they were found less than half a mile from Silvermead Trailer Park, which is owned by a man named Mr. Goldstein.

* "Chief DeLitta of the Nutley police said she had been helpful on many occasions, citing a 1993 bludgeoning murder. Among Ms. Allison's correct predictions were double letters in the names of the suspect and a street that figured in the case, the occupation of the suspect's father, and the facts that the suspect lived in a garden apartment next to a yellow house and that one of his car's headlights was out.

She also said the murder weapon would be found in a river. The weapon was never found, but the man convicted of the crime later admitted throwing it in the river, the chief said." - New York Times Article on Dorothy Allison

* She saw the name Richard or Robert, with a middle name of Lee or Leroy, with something to do with shoes or shoemaking, an accomplice, and a dead nurse. These clues haunted her, and she repeated these to police over and over, as a case to look into. An unsolved case involving a dead nurse soon turned up, and eventually turned out to have been done by a Richard Lee Dodson, who was a shoemaker by trade, who had an accomplice.

An elderly Alzheimer's patient disappeared from a nursing home. Dorothy Allison was called into the case.

* Dorothy said he was near a wooded area, where there are caves, near a mountain. She also said the Number 5 is significant.

Conclusion:

* He was found in a wooded area, near a copper mine, near a mountain, 2.5 miles from the nursing home. And the only house on the road he was found dead on, was house number 5. (The house number on the house was 5.)

Dorothy Allison met the director of the Unsolved Mysteries episode that she was interviewed in, and upon seeing the woman with him who would later become his wife, she pointed to her and said to her...

* 3/27! 3/27! (March 27th is her birthday.)

* The woman asked Dorothy if there is anything she should look out for. Dorothy told her that her husband is going to have a heart attack. (That same day, hours later, her ex-husband had a heart attack. This hit was slightly misdirected, as he was once her husband, but wasn't at the time. It was the ex-husband, not the current one, that had the heart attack.)

Those are the cases (in order I listed) that I find the most intriguing from greatest to least.

Now, of course, to be totally fair and honest, there ARE a number of cases where Dorothy Allison investigated and DID NOT get ANYTHING of value on a particular case, (or information that was far too vague to count as hits), and even cases where she got INACCURATE INFORMATION and OUTRIGHT MISSES when she tuned into certain cases.

This is not disputed. These exist, you can find mention of them online and in books. For Example...

* A case of a boy who ran away from home and joined a religious cult, whom she said was dead, but who was actually later found alive is one example of a clear miss. Nevertheless, the Police Detective on the case said that Dorothy was shockingly correct about most of the information given on this case. (She herself claimed she misinterpreted what she was seeing in regards to the boy's death, and that the "death" imagery she got was symbolic of his "spiritual death" as he had forsaken his former self entirely and joined a religious cult.)

*A case where she said a teenage boy would be found dead in a flooded basement, but whom was actually later found dead outdoors, on the other side of town, is another example of a clear miss.

* In the Atlanta Child Murders Case, she famously gave out 42 names of possibly suspects, none of which matched either of the actual suspects.

* She got information wrong on the Jon Benet Ramsey case. She drew a portrait of the killer which turned out to be a fairly accurate portrait of the guy who was arrested (then later released) just a few years ago (a few years after Dorothy died) in suspicion of the case, but he was later cleared of any wrongdoing. So, he didn't do it, but Dorothy seemed to have picked up on the guy. Misdirected hit perhaps? (I've also seen arguments by Skeptics that although the portrait resembles Karr, there are features noticeably off that indicate it can't be matched to Karr at all.)

Even the book "Dorothy Allison: A Psychic Story" gives a number of her known misses as well as her known hits. It gives cases where she got valuable information, and cases where she did not. These are not hidden. Even Dorothy Allison herself mentioned this in her Unsolved Mysteries interview. About this book I mentioned (long out of print and a good source on her) ...

"Material for this book was gathered from several sources. Dorothy's own retelling of the stories has been supported by newspaper and magazine articles and signed affidavits from many of the parties involved. In most cases, the families of the victims have cooperated fully, regardless of the fact that the interviews stirred unpleasent memories. Many of the law-enforcement officers involved have also given generously of their time in recounting their experiences with the psychic detective." - Scott Jacobson in Foreward to 'Dorothy Allison: A Psychic Story'

There are a number of intriguing cases in this book that I don't have listed, and some of the cases I do have listed have additional information that I need to eventually update with in this book.

That she got certain cases wrong, off, or inaccurate is known and not hidden, the bigger questioned that should be asked is, "Does she have very good cases that stand up to scrutiny where the veridical data she presented is both unexplainable, specific, veridical, highly significant, and could have led them to the body if they interpreted it correctly in time?" And that answer is yes.

I recently found an online video of the interview that Dorothy Allison AND the Police Detectives she worked gave on an episode of Unsolved Mysteries, where it profiled several of her best cases. Here is the Unsolved Mysteries Episode on Dorothy Allison, it's in six parts, and isn't very good video quality (since it's so old), but I highly recommend watching them all, in order, as they present several of her best cases. I'm glad I stumbled across this ...

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8y22o_dorothy-allison-part-1_shortfilms

http://www.dailymotion.com/user/mikele79/video/x8y316_dorothy-allison-part-2_shortfilms

http://www.dailymotion.com/user/mikele79/video/x8y2uf_dorothy-allison-part-3_shortfilms

http://www.dailymotion.com/user/mikele79/video/x8yitp_dorothy-allison-part-4_shortfilms

http://www.dailymotion.com/user/mikele79/video/x8yj0q_dorothy-allison-part-5_shortfilms

http://www.dailymotion.com/user/mikele79/video/x8ynwj_dorothy-allison-part-6_shortfilms

Apparitions & Hauntings & Death Bed Visions

2009-07-10T06:06:00.000-07:00

The main types of Apparition Encounters that I personally give real interest to are the ones with Veridical Details associated with them. (That is, Verifiable Details.) The types that highly suggest there may be more going on than mere hallucinations and "just seeing things". Simply "Seeing An Apparition" isn't very convincing (unless multiple people witness it at the same time and describe the same entity, of which there are many cases, kind of hard for multiple people to hallucinate the same detailed entity) and can easily be explained by hallucination or the eyes playing tricks on you or a similar explanation, save for those types of cases with Veridical Details being imparted from the encounter, those are far more interesting, but are still largely subjective accounts. You can't generally measure or reproduce on demand these anomalist encounters, as they are by their very nature, anomalist, but they are very intriguing.

Veridical Types of Apparition Hauntings...

* Veridical information revealed to the witness/witnesses either in the apparition's appearance (such as specific clothing, facial/body features, injuries, etc), movements (such as having a distinct limp), smells (such as the distinct smell of specific lady's perfume that the person wore in life and no one else in the household owns or keeps), the specific location (such as the apparition being spotted in the place of death or great tragedy), or relayed veridical information that is later verified as factual about the deceased (such as later matching their description with an old photograph of the deceased, or being told who killed them, the location of valuables, or specific phrases known being uttered which matches their personality known only to living relatives/friends).

* Especially interesting are the cases where multiple people, either together at the same time, or independently at another time at the same location, end up describing the *exact same entities* they are witnessing. Even if they had no prior knowledge of the location or it's history.

Now, another type of Veridical Apparition Encounter is the Phenomenon known as After Death Communication (ADC)...

* A classic example are the cases where the apparition of a relative who is known to be in good health appears to a loved one, totally unexpected, and either announces their death or fades away without speaking, all when the experiencer was in good mind and not stressed, and later that day or the next morning, the experiencer finds out that the same relative died unexpectedly the night before or earlier in the day, shortly before they were visited.

* If the apparition is unknown to the person, there are many cases where the apparition was identified by other means: The apparition wears specific very unique clothing, has a unique scar or birthmark or is injured or bandaged in a certain way, a very unique hair style, has a distinct limp, smiles in a certain way, or some other physial characteristic that is later identifies them when the witness or witnesses speaks to other people / relatives / friends, or sees them in a photograph.

* The witness or witnesses may be visited by an apparition and believes them to be a living person, because unknown to the witness, the person had actually died sometime before, and the witness or witnesses was not aware of it.

* The apparition either directly tells them or shows them something important (a family secret, a lost will, how they died, who killed them, etc) that is later independently verifed to be true.

Then there is the Phenomenon known as Death Bed Visions (DBVs) where a person near death witnesses deceased relatives surrounding their death bed waiting on them. This is signifcant for the Veridical Details in many cases.

Death Bed Visions often contain Veridical Elements such as the following...

* Visions seen by the Dying of Persons *unknown* by them to be Dead, but known to the Family to be Dead. (Such as a younger relative who may have died in a car accident during the dying person's illness, that the family decided not to tell them about in fear it would make them more ill, and just before they die, they are shocked to see this young person's spirit waiting on them, calling on them.)

* Visions seen by the Dying of Persons *unknown* by them to be Dead, and likewise *unknown* to the Family to be Dead. (Such as a relative who unexpectedly died hours or days or weeks before, but news had not yet reached the family of their demise, and the entire family assumed them to be alive, yet the dying person sees them waiting on them as a deceased family member, which is later confirmed.)

* Visions seen by the Dying of Persons Known by them to be Dead, and Death-Bed Visions seen by others. (Sometimes, even the visions of the dying of persons known to them to be dead contain Veridical Elements, such as the dying seeing them wearing certain clothing or certain accesories they had earlier in life that they had never seen them wear personally, that is confirmed by other family members who would have known. And in some cases, people not close to dying have seen spirits of the deceased waiting on the dying person before their death, didn't know who they were, later described them to other relatives, and found out who they were.)

The above types of Veridical Encounters highly suggest that certain Apparition Phenomenon is more than simply "hallucinations" or "just seeing things" when you examine that many of them contain strong veridical elements aside from merely "seeing a ghost". That's the interesting part. However, proof, as in absolute end-all proof, is harder to come by, as these are subjective experiences. But are very interesting regardless.

Reincarnation Examination

2007-09-22T10:16:00.000-07:00

Examination of the Phenomenon and Research of Reincarnation

Updated: August 10, 2009

The most convincing aspects of the Reincarnation Phenomenon to me are the numerous well documented cases of Spontaneous Past Life Recall of young children (typically from the time they first begin talking until they are around seven years of age) where they recall numerous very important often obscure veridical details from a previous life that turn out to be correct, information they and their families couldn't have ordinarily known or obtained. Even if the previous person was totally obscure and living hundreds or thousands of miles away and seperate by a period of years or decades or longer. Often very specific "unknowable" details come through in addition to personal and life event details, such as where they hid important things, and family secrets unrevealed to outsiders, privite events in their life that are only known to the immediate family or a perticular family member, and even details not currently known, but later discovered to have been accurate. Numerous well documented cases where birthmarks or scars in the present life match those of death marks or injuries or scars in their previous lives. Numerous well documented cases of people having intense fears or phobias or physical problems in their present life that is traced to a previous life either through Spontaneous Past Life Recall or through undergoing Past Life Regression, that is then completely cured by them remembering it and confronting it. Numerous well documented cases where a person undergoing Past Life Regression speaks an unlearned foreign language in the manner of the dialect of the time, including persons who speak dead languages during their Past Life Regression. Several noted cases of people born blind who were able to see during a Spontaneous Past Life Recall or through undergoing Past Life Regression in which they had recalled living a previous sighted life. Etc.

The best cases do not deal with weak data, but with very specific veridical details, where not a few, but dozens upon dozens of key statements are verified. Key dazzleshot veridical details, obscure veridical details known only to the person and their closest family members, veridical details known only through painstaking research (not easily known, especially given the education of the person and their family), veridical details from their previous life (checked and confirmed to exist) that they, their family, and the investigators couldn't have possibly known, things known only to the previous person, or only known as a secret between them and their family, where they hid documents and other personal valuables, where they had scars or injuries on their bodies, obscure events in their life that was never written down or talked about until the previous family was told about it and remembered, etc. Details that are not confirmed until years later due to the current historical record not having that information, xenoglossy, curing of phobias and fears from these recalls, and the biggest of all, birthmarks in the present life matching death marks and scars from the veridically recalled previous life, complete with medical records and autopsy reports. These keep the phenomenon interesting.

(I will discuss individual best of the best cases indepth in an upcoming seperate article.)

***Answering Arguments Of The Skeptics***

Skeptic Argument # 1: Everyone who claims to have remembered a past life always remembers being someone famous, never anyone normal or ordinary, and several different people have claimed to have the same past life.

Ridiculously inaccurate beyond even being laughable. People who make this statement have obviously NEVER read the actual research on Reincarnation, nor any actual research cases, because if they had, they would realize that the vast majority of Reincarnation cases that are taken seriously and are well documented which contain numerous veridical details of past lives, ARE of people recalling normal ordinary lives. There are a very few seriously taken cases of people claiming to recall the life of some famous, and even then, most of the time it is someone obscure to the general public, such as a little known artist who is known to people in that profession, but not famous enough to be recognize by the general public, and the information that comes through is Veridical and Obscure enough to be taken seriously.

As for more than one person claiming to remember the same past life, it's all in the veridical details. You will find hundreds of gullible New Agers claiming they are peter pan, cleopatra, napoleon, marilyn monroe, or darth vader, but do their "memories" add up to things they couldn't have possibly known? That's the checker.

Skeptic Argument # 2: Most cases of Reincarnation are reported in countries where belief in Reincarnation is the norm, and it is even encouraged.

My Answer: While many cases are, there are also many exceptions to this. Most of the Best Cases of Reincarnation that I have personally come across have come from America or European Countries, where Reincarnation is not the norm, and where it is discouraged. Many of the people and families in these cases were Christians or Non-Religious People who did not believe in Reincarnation and it even went against the belief system that they were raised with and adhered to. There are a number of books and reports on these well documented cases in these countries.

In addition, even in cases in which Reincarnation is reported in countries that believe in Reincarnation (such as India) they will often happen to families that are of a Religious Belief that does not believe in Reincarnation, such as Muslims and Christians, to the dismay of their parents.

The reason many critics use this argument is because Ian Stevenson's earliest published research books that got widespread attention consisted of mostly cases from those countries (because they were more prone to discussing their experiences there, as opposed to America where reincarnation is greatly discouraged in families due to Christian Upbringings), but he later did a research book on many veridical cases of european and american families with reincarnation, and a number of researchers in the years after him have gathered many additional cases from american and european families.

Skeptic Argument # 3: During past life regression and even spontaneous past life recall, there is always the possibility of false memories coming out.

True. However, when a person under regression begins to speak an unlearned foreign language, or even a dead language, and comes up with veridical details that can be checked with historical sources, even very obscure information that takes tons of indepth research to confirm, some of which is not confirmed until decades after the fact, it's far more plausible that these are authentic memories of an authentic past life. There are also the cases where the person had a lifelong phobia or physical ailment that is cured after remembering details from a past life where the phobia or ailment originated. That also lends credence to it being an authentic past life. It's also interesting to note that most researchers point out that when such people describe the era they were reliving so vividly, they often describe it better than the best historians.

Skeptic Argument # 4: Linguist Sarah Thomason's attacks on Xenoglossy Research.

Linguist Sarah Thomason has written several debunkery articles attempting to discredit Dr. Ian Stevenson's Xenoglossy Work over the years. The title of her key article attacking the Xenoglossy Work of Dr. Ian Stevenson is, "Stupid Dead People Communication Tricks", which gives you an idea from the title as to how cynical and one-sided her approtch to the subject is. She has been completely discredited with opposing facts and evidence that was supplied to me by the good folks over at www.childpastlives.org which I will post below. In short... (and I quote)

"In his book "Xenoglossy" Dr. Ian Stevenson documented a study he made of a 37 year old American woman. Under hypnosis she experienced a complete change of voice and personality into that of a male. She spoke fluently in the Swedish language, a language she did not speak or understand when in the normal state of consciousness. Dr Stevenson's direct involvement with this case lasted more than eight years. The study involved linguists and other experts and scientists who meticulously investigated every alternative explanation. Others have followed in Dr. Stevenson's footsteps and offered up impressive cases for research and obtained similar results."

(The critic in question dishonestly acted as though no expert linguists were present with Dr. Ian Stevenson in his research, which is completely untrue, she also cherry picked the weakest Xenoglossy cases in existence to attack, with common languages such as german and french, ignoring the stronger cases of more remote languages and even dead languages coming through in Xenoglossy, especially in cases where the person lived in an area where there is no access to such languages, remote or dead. Many examples of these are provided in one of the key links I will provide below.)

I made two topics on www.childpastlives.org clearing up further Skeptical Arguments used against Reincarnation and Xenoglossy...

http://www.childpastlives.org/vBulletin/showthread.php?t=130 38 - Question Regarding Geographical Beliefs In Ian Stevenson's Cases Of Reincarnation

http://www.childpastlives.org/vBulletin/showthread.php?t=129 97 - Question regarding Xenoglossy Research in Reincarnation Cases of Past Life Regression

http://www.childpastlives.org/vBulletin/showthread.php?t=14581 - Tackling A Skeptic's Arguments

Links with *some* of the best cases (by no means complete by a long shot) are here...

http://www.victorzammit.com/book/4thedition/chapter24.html - Victor Zammit's Book's Chapter on Reincarnation (despite my dislike for Victor Zammit's arrogent outspokenness and his gullibility in certain areas, he does a very good job presenting an overview of indepth veridical information on some of the best cases of Reincarnation, complete with reliable sources.)

http://www.childpastlives.org/vBulletin/showthread.php?t=351 8 - A good forum post containing links to information on some of the best cases.

http://www.wie.org/j32/reincarnation.asp - Death, Rebirth, and Everything in Between: A Scientific and Philosophical Exploration, by Carter Phipps

A decent article on Ian Stevenson's research in perticular, including matching birthmarks...

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/reincarnation01.html

Two Books I can recommend on the subject that I have personally read are...

"One Soul, Many Lives: First Hand Stories of Reincarnation and the Striking Evidence of Past Lives" by Roy Stemman, which is an indepth overview of the best of the best veridical cases of Reincarnation, documented from numerous reliable sources.

David Fontana's "Is There An Afterlife?: A Comprehensive Overview of the Evidence". I have read through the book, and in each and every chapter, he presents all avalible evidence and presents both pro-researcher arguments and skeptic arguments and pro-researcher counter-arguments and skeptic counter-arguments, etc. He presents the full data and full set of arguments for and against as is. It deals with far more than simply Reincarnation though.

The book is interesting, because at the beginning of each chapter, he presents the weaker, mildly veridical cases, and shows how easily they can be explained away, but then he goes on to present stronger and stronger cases, with more and more solid and obscure veridical details that are harder to explain away, and then goes on to present the best of the best cases, all the while putting forth the arguments and counter-arguments of both sides.

The book has a full Five Star Rating on Amazon and incredible reviews. I highly recommend it if you want a fair presentation of both sides.

Here are several TV & Documentary Segments on YouTube on some of these cases...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EWwzFwUOxA - Veridical Case of James 3 (Part 1)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5965wcH2Kx0 - Veridical Case of James 3 (Part 2)

The above segment however does not contain all of the avalible information on the James 3 case, just a brief overview of the case, showcasing many of the verified dazzleshot past life memories. A more indepth article on this case in perticular, containing additional veridical information, is here...

http://www.ntcsites.com/acadianhouse/nss-folder/publicfolder /AP/cover_feature_24_3.htm - The Past Life Memories of James Leininger

Last time I discussed this case on a message forum I was hit by a Skeptical Article that claimed to "expose" the case, and I looked at it, found it to be a distorted one-sided half-truthed presentation that did not deal with the overall facts and circumstances of the case, and made unfounded assumptions that are easily checked and countered, and so I rebutted it in full here in this topic post on this forum here (childpastlives.org), in two parts, along with rebutting several other skeptical explainations of the case I have heard...

http://www.childpastlives.org/vBulletin/showpost.php?p=15897 6&postcount=11 - Rebuttal of Skeptics' Arguments against James 3 Case (Part 1)

http://www.childpastlives.org/vBulletin/showpost.php?p=15897 7&postcount=12 - Rebuttal of Skeptics' Arguments against James 3 Case (Part 2)

Several other segments on YouTube of Reincarnation Cases...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lB_j-chZvR0 - Veridical Case of Robert Snow (A highly skeptical chief of police who investigated his own past life memories following a hypnotic regression, and confirmed dozens of obscure veridical details, which he was only able to confirm by getting ahold of the dead man's diary from almost a century earlier, loaned from a museum. In his regression he even mentioned he did a painting of a hunchback woman in this previous life, which he was later able to find and obtain in real life, painted by the same guy he remembered being.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OarxB-dsK8U - Case of a four year old boy who recalled life as an 18 year old WWI Soilder named James who was shot through the throat and killed. The four year old suffered from a throat tumor in the same location his previous self was shot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQHp9bGVDB8 - Someone Else's Yesterday (Fireman who recalls previous life as a general in the civil war, his scars and birthmarks in his present life exactly match those the general obtained during battle, he also greatly resembles the general.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5cGSUBU8-w - Excellent Documentary on Reincarnation titled "The Boy Who Lived Before". This program looks at two perticular amazing veridical cases of two small children recalling past lives, and researches their cases from all angles, and interviews serious reincarnation researchers and serious skeptics alike for their insights, and does an investigation with one of the kids in real time, with very interesting results.

Near Death Experiences / Out Of Body Experiences: An Indepth Examination of Veridical Evidence

2007-09-22T10:11:00.000-07:00

Near Death Experiences / Out Of Body Experiences: An Indepth Examination of Veridical Evidence & The Rebuttal of Common Skeptical Explainations

Updated: August 10, 2009

Veridical Perception & Veridical Information gained during Near Death Experiences / Out Of Body Experiences, even during a flat EEG where brain and heart activity have ceased, and even in cases of persons born blind:

There are a number of highly interesting documented cases of people having near death experiences / out of body experiences, even during a flat EEG where brain and heart activity have ceased, returning with factual information which they had no prior knowledge of, and numerous cases in which the experiencers returned to life with information unavailable to them at the time of death.

These include being able to accurately tell the doctors what they were doing while they were clinically dead, what clothes they wore, what procedures and instruments they used, and any conversations being said, including accurate blow by blow accounts of their own resuscitation from a bird's eye point of view, the details of which can later be checked and verified to be true.

Often times they also describe what was happening out in the hallway, who was sitting in the waiting room, what was happening on the other side of the building, and conversations being said at these same locations, all while they were clinically dead elsewhere. The events witnessed, heard, and experienced later being verified to be true. Even obscure objects on the roof have been seen and verified.

There are also accounts of experiencers meeting deceased relatives during an NDE that the person did not know was dead, such as a relative or a friend, and finding out that they were in fact deceased after the fact, and learning information from them that they could not have otherwise known.

There are many accounts of children and adult NDErs learning about relatives and siblings who had died before their own birth that they never met or were never told about, etc.

Also, people who are blind, and some people who have been blind since birth, have been able to accurately perceive visual surroundings during their experience. Many people have also been informed of knowledge far beyond their personal capacity. Etc.

The most convincing aspect of these, is that a number of them were recounted, recorded, and documented IMMEDIATELY or VERY SOON after the patient regained consciousness to the doctors, nurses, staff, and family members, not long after the fact.

(I will discuss individual best of the best cases indepth in an upcoming seperate article.)

Interestingly, there have in fact been Successful Experiments in actually testing Veridical NDEs...

* Many doctors, nurses, medical staff, paramedics, and family members have been interviewed by NDE Researchers to obtain cross-referanced verifiable information between the stories of the patients concerning their Veridical NDEs and the cross-referanced experiences of the medical staff involved with them.

* Dr. Michael Sabom did a study on over 57 cardiac patients who had clinically died and were brought back, 32 of whom had experienced Veridical OBEs and had described in great detail their own resusitations during cardiac arrest, and 25 of whom had not experienced an OBE during their cardiac arrest. He had two groups, the experiencers who saw in their OBEs and the non-experiencers who did not, describe their resusitations. To his suprise, 80% of the non-experiencers made serious mistakes. On the other hand, all of the experiencers did not make a single mistake.

Accourding to PMH Atwater in her book "The Complete Idiots Guide To Near-Death Experiences" regarding Dr. Michael Sabom's Research Study...

"Experiencers even correctly detailed readings on medical machines that were not in their line of vision, and described other circumstances they should not otherwise have been able to know."

* Dr. Pim Van Lommel did a more indepth study with 344 cardiac patients independently of Dr. Michael Sabom with similar results.

They made sure that their subjects could be verified as flatlined during the experiences. (This is significant because the brain flat-lines within 4 to 20 seconds of cardiac arrest.)

* Dr. Kenneth Ring did a study on Veridical NDEs of 31 persons who were blind (a number of whom were born blind) and found that they could veridically "see" events while their OBE unfolded the same way sighted people's do.

I'd like to add that Dr. Michael Sabom and Dr. Pim Van Lommel and Dr. Kenneth Ring's Research were published in PEER REVIEWED Science Journals. Most notably The Lancet Medical Journal.

Here is an excellent list of arguments in favor of the phenomenon by IANDS...

* Once a person's brainwaves have ceased, indicating that all mental activity has stopped - perceiving, thinking, and remembering - how do we explain their accurate perception of events going on around their 'deceased' body (both sight and sound), and their accurate reporting of events taking place even at significant distances from their clinically-dead body?

* If we regard experiencers' perceptions of dead relatives as just imaginary "wishful thinking", how can we explain their accurate description of relatives previously unknown to them, yet later verified by living relatives and by civil documents?

* If the spiritual component of the near-death experience could be explained away as just an extension of the person's pre-existing belief system, why have confirmed atheists come back after their NDE convinced there is a God? And why have religious believers returned from their NDE with un-orthodox changes to their prior dogmas?

Many NDE-accounts seem to include elements which, according to several theorists, can only be explained by an out-of-body consciousness.

As Greyson notes: "No one physiological or psychological model by itself explains all the common features of NDE. The paradoxical occurrence of heightened, lucid awareness and logical thought processes during a period of impaired cerebral perfusion raises particular perplexing questions for our current understanding of consciousness and its relation to brain function. A clear sensorium and complex perceptual processes during a period of apparent clinical death challenge the concept that consciousness is localized exclusively in the brain." (Greyson, 2001)

Research on NDEs occurring in the blind have also hinted that consciousness survives bodily death.

NDE's can also lead to long-lasting spiritual effects (as evidenced by the many studies which confirm the experience as having taken place during clinical death)."

OBE Specific Research:

* The Monroe Institute's OBE Experiments.

* Charles Tart's OBE Experiment of having an experienced OBEr accurately read a five-digit number from an unreachable/unseeable location. 100,000 to 1 chance accuracy.

* Robert Morris' OBE Experiments with Keith Harary who reported accurately on sitters, letters, and positions, in a sealed laboratory 20 yards away.

* Clinical testing of OBEs - in which strain gauges were triggered at a distance, apparently by the test subject's roving presence, and in which an animal reacted consistently as if the subject were in the room when he was reportedly having an OBE while asleep in the next room.

* The US Government's 20 year long Program "Stargate" on Remote Viewing which had a number of amazing positive significant veridical results with Remote Viewers, as well as a number of noted misses.

What do the Skeptics on the other hand have to say about NDEs? Let's be fair now.

Skeptic Argument 1: Dying Brain Theory

The Dying Brain Theory states that upon clinical death the brain is slowly straved of oxygen and creates a vivid hallucination that is later remembered as an NDE.

This theory in truth falls very short of the cold hard medical facts of what happens to the brain after cardiac arrest occurs and when clinical death sets in, and is likewise destroyed by the well documented Veridical Aspects of the NDE Phenomenon itself that are never adaquetely dealt with as a whole.

In total refution of the "Dying Brain Theory" the cold hard medical facts are that when a person's heart stops they lose total consciousness within seconds. The loss of consciousness is complete and there are no memories of the event. EEG and brain stem monitors show no brain activity while in this state. There is no gag reflex, no pupil response, no brain activity whatsoever. They are dead. The brain cannot produce images in this state, and even if it could, you couldn't remember them.

Multiple medical doctors including Peter Fenwick a respected neuropsychiatrist, Pim Van Lommel a cardiologist, Sam Parnia, Bruce Greyson, Ian Stevenson, Melvin Morse, Michael Sabom, and numerous others, will tell you the same thing.

"Simultaneous recording of heart rate and brain output show that within 11 seconds of the heart stopping, the brainwaves go flat. Now, if you read the literature on this, some skeptical people claim that in this state there is still brain activity, but, in fact, the data are against this in both animals and humans. The brain is not functioning, and you are not going to get your electrical activity back again until the heart restarts." (Dr. Peter Fenwick)

Further Dr. Peter Fenwick Quotations:

"Let's look at the physiological state of the brain and body at the time of reported NDEs. No detectable cardiac output, no respiratory output - they certainly weren't breathing. Neither did they have any brain stem reflexes - in other words they was no activity whatsoever in the brain."

"The first point is that signs of cardiac arrest are the same as clinical death. There is no detectable cardiac output, no respiratory effort, and brainstem reflexes are absent. If you are in this state and I put a tube down your throat, you will not cough. You will have dilated pupils. Your blood pressure has fallen to zero. You are, in fact, clinically dead. Even if I start cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), I cannot get your blood pressure any higher than 30 millimetres of mercury, and this is not going to produce an adequate blood flow to your brain."

"When you are fully unconscious, you show the signs of clinical death which is no respiration, no cardiac output, fully dilated pupils showing that your brain stem is not functioning and that is the clinical criteria of death." (Dr. Peter Fenwick)

Dr. Sam Parnia: "During cardiac arrest brainstem activity is rapidly lost. It should not be able to sustain such lucid processes or allow the formation of lasting memories."

Further Dr. Sam Parnia Quotations:

".....This is termed the delayed hypoperfusion phase and is thought to occur due to a disturbed coupling between brain function, metabolism and blood flow. Clinically, these observations are supported by the loss of brainstem reflexes such as the gag reflex that indicate a loss of brainstem function, which normally activates the cortical areas via the thalamus."

"As seen these experiences appear to be occurring at a time when global cerebral function can at best be described as severely impaired, and at worse non-functional."

"An alternative explanation is that the experiences reported from cardiac arrest, may actually be arising at a time when consciousness is either being lost, or regained, rather than from the actual cardiac arrest period itself. Any cerebral insult leads to a period of both anterograde and retrograde amnesia In fact memory is a very sensitive indicator of brain injury and the length of amnesia before and after unconsciousness is a way of determining the severity of the injury. Therefore, events that occur just prior to or just after the loss of consciousness would not be expected to be recalled. At any rate recovery following a cerebral insult is confusional and cerebral function as measured by EEG has in many cases been shown not to return until many tens of minutes or even a few hours after successful resuscitation." (Dr. Sam Parnia)

Pim Van Lommel's well-known research study published Peer-Reviewed in The Lancet, a leading medical journal, also notes that cerebral activity flatlines within 4 to 20 seconds of cardiac arrest.

Dr. Pim Van Lommel Quotations:

"You can prove that the brain stem is no longer functioning because it regulates our basic reflexes, such as the pupil response and swallowing reflex, which no longer respond. So you can easily stick a tube down someone's throat. The respiratory centre also shuts down. If the individual is not reanimated within five to 10 minutes, their brain cells are irreversibly damaged."

"The fact that in a cardiac arrest loss of cortical function precedes the rapid loss of brainstem activity lends further support to this view."

"From studies of induced cardiac arrest we know that in our Dutch prospective study of patients who survived cardiac arrest (Van Lommel et al., 2001), as well as in the American (Greyson, 2003) and English study (Parnia et al., 2001), not only total lack of electrical activity of the cortex must have been the only possibility, but also the abolition of brain-stem activity."

"However, patients with an NDE can report a clear consciousness. And because of the occasional and verifiable out-of-body experiences, like the one involving the dentures in our study, we know that the NDE must happen during the period of unconsciousness, and not in the first or last seconds of cardiac arrest. So we have to come to the surprising conclusion that during cardiac arrest NDE is experienced during a transient functional loss of all functions of the cortex and of the brainstem."

"What you see when you induce cardiac arrest is that within one second the blood flow to the brain is zero centimeters per second. Within two seconds, it stops totally. After an average of 6.54 seconds, the first ischemic changes show on the EEG, with attenuation of the waves. After 10 to 20 seconds, you have a flat- line EEG, which means the electrical activity of the cortex is gone. The brain stem reflexes- such as the gag reflex and whether the pupils stay dilated - and the medulla oblongata - where the center of breathing is - stops. So that's the functional loss of your total brain. Well, with a heart attack, if it occurs on the coronary care unit, it takes between 60 and 120 seconds before circulation is restored. If it occurs on the general ward, it takes two to five minutes. If it occurs in the street, it usually exceeds five to 10 minutes, and 90 percent of those people will die."

"How could a clear consciousness outside one's body be experienced at the moment that the brain no longer functions during a period of clinical death with flat EEG? . . . Furthermore, blind people have described veridical perception during out-of-body experiences at the time of this experience. NDE pushes at the limits of medical ideas about the range of human consciousness and the mind-brain relation. In our prospective study of patients that were clinically dead (flat EEG, showing no electrical activity in the cortex and loss of brain stem function evidenced by fixed dilated pupils and absence of the gag reflex) the patients report a clear consciousness, in which cognitive functioning, emotion, sense of identity, or memory from early childhood occurred, as well as perceptions from a position out and above their "dead" body." (Van Lommel, Van Wees, Meyers, Elfferich (2001). Near-Death Experience in Survivors of Cardiac Arrest: A Prospective Study in the Netherlands. Lancet.)

The Dying Brain Theory also doesn't explain why only 18% of those who are brought back from clinical death experience an NDE, while the remaining 82% do not. Even under the exact same conditions.

"Our most striking finding was that Near-Death Experiences do not have a physical or medical root. After all, 100 per cent of the patients suffered a shortage of oxygen, 100 per cent were given morphine-like medications, 100 per cent were victims of severe stress, so those are plainly not the reasons why 18 per cent had Near-Death Experiences and 82 per cent didn't. If they had been triggered by any one of those things, everyone would have had Near-Death Experiences." (Van Lommel 1995)

The point being, if anyone of those things, dying brain, etc, had been the trigger, they all would have had NDEs who suffered the same degree of lack of oxygen, but because only 18% did, it's obviously not the trigger for the NDE experience.

I'd like to clarify that even though only 18% of those who are brought back from clinical death experience an NDE (all under the same medical conditions), the LONGER one is clinically dead, the higher the chance of being brought back with an NDE. Those who were clinically dead longer than several minutes have a far higher chance of coming back with an NDE than those who were clinically dead for only a minute or two.

Skeptic Argument 2: DMT Chemicals Causing NDEs

DMT does not account for the Veridical Elements of the NDE, nor the amazing structure of many NDEs, accourding to the book DMT: The Spiritual Molecule, it may act as an initial NDE trigger, but cannot make up for the entire experience, Veridical Elements and all, in addition to the pesky little fact that within 4 to 20 seconds of cardiac arrest, the brain waves go flat, and even if they were sufficient (which they are not), the brain cannot produce images in this state, and even if it could, you couldn't remember them.

Skeptic Argument 3: Ketamine

The Skeptic Sources refering to the Drug Ketamine causing NDEs are referancing an old paper by Ketamine Researcher Dr. Karl Jansen, who has since totally changed his stance on Ketamine actually causing the experiences, and is now far more open to the metaphysical component of NDEs. His current hypothesis is that Ketamine and other triggers of NDEs/OBEs simply act as a "door to a space" rather than actually producing that space. He states that his findings now are more in line with other researchers in his field such as John Lilly and Stanislav Grof.

"I am no longer as opposed to spritual explanations of these phenomena as this article would appear to suggest. Over the past two years (it is quite some time since I wrote it) I have moved more towards the views put forward by John Lilly and Stan Grof. Namely, that drugs and psychological disciplines such as meditation and yoga may render certain 'states' more accessible. The complication then becomes in defining just what we mean by 'states' and where they are located, if indeed location is an appropriate term at all. But the apparent emphasis on matter over mind contained within this particular article no longer accurately represents my attitudes. My forthcoming book 'Ketamine' will consider mystical issues from quite a different perspective, and will give a much stronger voice to those who see drugs as just another door to a space, and not as actually producing that space'." (Dr. Karl Jansen)

Melvin Morse M.D. wrote an insightful article titled "The Right Temporal Lobe And Associated Limbic Lobe Structures As The Biological Interface With An Interconnected Universe" that is along these lines of thought.

Skeptic Argument 4: The Navy Airmen Stress Tests

These are studies where they used Navy Airmen in G-Force stress tests that caused the blood in the heads of the individuals to drain, inducing a state of simulated clinical death, in which NDEs were reported. These do not conflict with the NDE Phenomenon, as the persons were essentially put into a state of simulated clinical death when the blood drained from their heads, and they had an NDE.

Again, like Pim Van Lommel's findings, it only occured in 18% of individuals who underwent and came back from this state of simulated clinical death.

Skeptic Argument 5: Susan Blackmore's Critique Of "The Tunnel"

Regarding the Tunnel that people see during their NDEs, Susan Blackmore has theorized that the optic nerve causes a "Tunnel Effect" due to random neuron firings in the back of the eye to explain away the "Tunnel" that people see.

But a woman named Vicki who was born blind had her optic nerve severed in her incubator at birth, and she still visually saw a Tunnel during her NDE and OBE. And it happened awhile into the actual experience.

The fact is, The Tunnel can appear in front of them, to the side of them, up above them, even through a wall, soon after or long after their clinical death set in. And sometimes even not at all.

The Tunnel is truely a moot point concerning the overall NDE experience.

Skeptic Argument 6: The Assertion That People Only See And Experience What They Already Believed

While this may be true in certain cases, this is also completely untrue in a number of other cases. Many Atheists and Agnostics have come back believing in a God for example. Many Christians come back believing in Reincarnation, that Other Religions are Valid Spiritual Paths, and other Unorthodox Hetrodox ideas. There are a number of cases of Hindus meeting Muhammed, Muslims meeting Buddha, Christians meeting a Figure of God other than Mainstream Christianity. (I know one Southern Baptist Christian who saw Shamanic Imagery in his NDE, and became a Shaman. I met another one who met a Demiurge Figure in Addition to a God Figure, which reflects Gnosticism.) A seven year old girl who was raised Christian saw deceased spirits of people waiting to be reborn (reincarnation) that goes against her belief system, etc.

I know an Atheist who had a very profound NDE when she was a child, and she had been raised non-religious, and she had experienced God in a Interconnected Oneness Context, that she was informed "All is One", and she said that she became and identified and connected with everything during her NDE. Very much in line with Eastern Spiritual Thought.

Skeptic Argument 7: Keith Augustine's Anti-NDE Article (The Skeptic's Trump Card)

Sources such as Keith Augustine's article will prey upon the perceived weakness of certain NDEs, out of their full context, while ignoring alternative explainations and far better and far stronger NDE examples, in an attempt to bring all NDEs down. The "weird" NDEs he presents are without context, and his sources are usually Christian Fundamentalist Anti-NDE Books (Not Kidding), and short excerpts from Books of NDE Researchers, taken out of their full context and presented without the full explaination of the NDE Researchers who are presenting them. His alternative explainations of Veridical NDEs ignore pesky facts and additional and alternative information that he convienently ignored to come to his conclusions.

The bulk of his arguments against specific veridical cases, revolve largely around presenting totally unprovable unverifiable highly speculative "coulda-woulda-shouldas" regarding how they "could have seen/heard those things naturally" while ignoring well presented alternative explainations, the full context of the specific cases, and ignoring all of the known facts and circumstances surrounding the matter at hand that conflict with his hastey conclusions. Basically, presenting personal speculation in such as way as to suggest that mere speculation is somehow as damning as actual facts. His arguments often revolve around presenting a totally one-sided view of things, ignoring what the other side has to fully say regarding it, and comes up with his own conclusion without the full data being presented there. There are times where he partially or very briefly and shortly presents what the other side has to say, but certainly not all of it, as much of what he does not present is very damning to his side of the argument.

http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/articles/carter/augustine.htm - Rebuttal to Keith Augustine's attack of "Does Consciousness depend on the Brain?"

http://michaelprescott.typepad.com/michael_prescotts_blog/2006/08/ndes_and_their_.html - Michael Prescott's indepth critique of Keith Augustine's Anti-NDE Article.

http://michaelprescott.typepad.com/michael_prescotts_blog/2007/07/who-will-watch-.html - Who Will Watch The Watchers (Michael Prescott debunks the Skeptic Sources that Keith Augustine used in an attempt to discredit Kimberly Clark's famous case)

FIN

I'm planning on making another indepth article on this subject eventually to tackle more indepth skeptical arguments that I didn't have time to tackle in this perticular article, although I feel that the whole of what I did tackle in this perticular article covers all of the main skeptical objections.

Sources:

http://www.near-death.com/evidence.html - Indepth NDE/OBE Evidence In Favor of Survival of Consciousness (53 Items of Evidence Presented, Full of Links, Sources, and Referances.)

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/articles001.html - A Critique of Susan Blackmore's Dying Brain Hypothesis by Greg Stone

http://www.esalenctr.org/display/confpage.cfm?confid=9&pageid=86&pgtype=1 - Transmission Theory of Consciousness

http://www.esalenctr.org/display/confpage.cfm?confid=9&pageid=95&pgtype=1 - Near Death Experiences as Evidence for Survival of Bodily Death

http://www.melvinmorse.com/e-tlp.htm - The Right Temporal Lobe And Associated Limbic Lobe Structures As The Biological Interface With An Interconnected Universe

http://profezie3m.altervista.org/archivio/TheLancet_NDE.htm - Van Lommel, Van Wees, Meyers, Elfferich (2001). Near-Death Experience in Survivors of Cardiac Arrest: A Prospective Study in the Netherlands. Lancet.

http://www.cinemind.com/atwater/VLommel.html - "About the Continuity of Our Consciousness" by Pim Von Lommel

http://www.mikepettigrew.com/afterlife/html/dutch_study.html - The Dutch Study

http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/whoswho/vanLommel.htm - A great response by Pim Van Lommel against a Leading Skeptic regarding his research study.

"Autoscopic Evidence: Dr. Charles Tart's Out-of-Body Experience Research":

http://www.near-death.com/tart.html

"Psychophysiological Study of Out-of-the-Body Experiences in a Selected Subject":

http://web.archive.org/web/20060215224439/http://www.paradigm-sys.com/display/ctt_articles2.cfm?ID=31

Out-Of-Body Experiences (OBE or OOBE), Article by Mario Varvoglis, Ph.D.:

http://www.parapsych.org/out_of_body_experiences.htm

Out-of-Body Experience (OBE) Research:

http://library.thinkquest.org/C0120993/obefull.html

http://www.biomindsuperpowers.com/Pages/CIA-InitiatedRV.html - CIA-Initiated Remote Viewing At Stanford Research Institute

"In July 1995 the CIA declassified, and approved for release, documents revealing its sponsorship in the 1970s of a program at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, CA, to determine whether such phenomena as remote viewing "might have any utility for intelligence collection". Thus began disclosure to the public of a two-decade-plus involvement of the intelligence community in the investigation of so-called parapsychological or psi phenomena. Presented here by the program's Founder and first Director (1972 - 1985) is the early history of the program, including discussion of some of the first, now declassified, results that drove early interest."

http://www.geocities.com/wwu777us/Debunking_Skeptical_Arguments.htm - Debunking Pseudo-Skeptical Arguments of Paranormal Debunkers

http://www.nderf.com/phpBB2/index.php - NDERF Forum, where lively Debate and Discussion of NDEs/OBEs takes place on a daily basis.

New Veridical Information and Additional Cases upcoming in my soon to be Revised Article on Psychic Dorothy Allison

2007-09-05T01:07:00.001-07:00

Just letting everyone know, on the topic of my Dorothy Allison article, I recently bought the only known book (used since it's out of print) on Dorothy Allison that I could find entirely devoted to her and her cases, co-written by her, on her life and cases, written in 1980, that I know will shed additional light and new information on some of the cases I have already presented here in my indepth article on her, in addition to containing information on cases of hers I haven't yet read about.

From briefly skimming through it during the past several days, I have noticed that it does contain MUCH additional Veridical Information on those cases I've already profiled in my Article, but that it also contains MUCH information on new cases that I did not even know about before. From what I have read within it so far, the Veridical Information I have posted on each of these cases in my current Article generally covers only roughly HALF of the overall Veridical Data on these Cases. So actually, the cases I presented appear to actually be even more solid with the overall data than they appeared in my article. Think of my current article therefore as a "Preview" to my upcoming updated draft. The original will remain as a summery, the new one will be far more indepth.

The book also mentions certain misses and misdirected hits of Dorothy's in these cases, going chronologically from the beginning to the end of each case, so it's a fair presentation overall, and doesn't cover up things she got wrong or misdirected.

The most exciting thing is there are new cases within it that I can update my article with. I will be updating my article in the near future after I read the entirety of the book for it's contents of additional information on her cases, including some previously unknown to me. I'll let you all know then.

I wish I could somehow get in contact with one of Dorothy Allison's relatives, friends, or the law enforcement that worked with her, for additional information on her later cases past 1980 that I know are very intriguing, but little is known about. Maybe one of them will stumble upon my article online someday and contact me? Who knows.

She is definately a Psychic who needs more indepth material written about her and put out there. That's why I wrote my article. To get as much information as I know on her out there in one article.

Accourding to the information in the book, she never charged families ANY money for helping them find bodies or helping find out who the killer was, and in many case she later became very close friends with the family members of dead relatives she helped locate. However, accourding to some skeptic sources, she requested to be paid for her services to law enforcement, which is reasonable knowing there are a number of cases she actually flew to another state or at least a great distance to investigate, spending her time and effort to try to assist Police.

EDIT: A friend of mine suggested that I take the book "with a grain a salt" because it was co-written by Dorothy Allison. I'd like to point out however, that that's not how the book is at all. And it wasn't directly written by her, but by a man named Scott Jacobson, who consulted her, and obviously did his research independent of her. It's not written from a first person's perspective, it's a chronological timeline of events from her earliest cases up to 1980. It even mentions things down to the hour right, that I've read from other sources. Every single thing I've read in the book so far matches every other source I've read (including skeptic sources), including the misses and misdirected hits, those are also the same ones mentioned in Skeptic Sources. It even mentions misses and misdirected hits that AREN'T mentioned in any Skeptic Sources I've seen. You'd think that if the book were leaving anything out, that Skeptics would have picked up on anything not mentioned in it. Regardless, as it's the only book ever published on Psychic Dorothy Allison, it's the only indepth source I currently have independent of the others. That it currently matches everything exactly with the other sources I read (though giving much more indepth detailed information, additional hits, additional misses) it's really my best source at the moment.

"Material for this book was gathered from several sources. Dorothy's own retelling of the stories has been supported by newspaper and magazine articles and signed affidavits from many of the parties involved. In most cases, the families of the victims have cooperated fully, regardless of the fact that the interviews stirred unpleasent memories. Many of the law-enforcement officers involved have also given generously of their time in recounting their experiences with the psychic detective." - Scott Jacobson in Foreward to 'Dorothy Allison: A Psychic Story'

So, it does appear that the man who wrote it cross-referanced all of his material with the people involved and existing sources to confirm her stories.

- Eteponge

Exploring The Veridical Cases of Psychic Detective Dorothy Allison

2007-08-29T00:02:00.000-07:00

Exploring The Veridical Cases of New Jeresy Housewife and Psychic Detective Dorothy Allison:

Dorothy Allison was first known to display Psychic Ability at the age of 14 when she correctly predicted the untimely death of her perfectly healthy father of pneumonia shortly before he unexpectedly caught it and passed away. She later married, had children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. Her reputation as a Psychic Detective all started in 1967, when she unexpectedly had a vision of a small polish boy who had drowned, and went to the police with it, and her clues proved amazingly accurate and detailed and very specific to the case. This started the chain of events where she took up many such cases with Strongly Veridical Results overall. Her clues were like puzzle pieces, that once assembled, provided an amazingly accurate overall picture of the events. She was known as "The Human Radio", due to her picking up all of these Psychic Signals, which she described as like tuning into a Television Program or a Radio, where she would get these flashes of visuals or information, and have to interpret them.

I've provided ALL avalible information on each case presented. Hits, misses, and misdirected hits. I provided arguments from all sides. This is currently my article based masterpiece. It's the first indepth article of information of it's kind on the web on Psychic Detective Dorothy Allison that provides all known cases and all known information on all known cases and arguments from all sides. People should find the overall information presented within very intruging. It is my first attempt at a "full data" article.

Case I: The Little Boy Who Drowned In A Pipe

On December 3rd 1967, a little boy was playing with his brother along the riverbank, and disappeared. Psychic Dorothy Allison had a vision of the boy drowning and being caught in a pipe, a full two hours before the incident happened. She later contacted the police, who were very skeptical, but upon describing the little boy and the clothing he was wearing the morning of his disapperance exactly, information that had not been released to the public (no photo of the little boy had been released to the public either), they decided to take her insights seriously in an open-minded way. Here are the highlights of this perticular case...

Clues She Gave:

In her initial vision of the little boy, a full two hours BEFORE the child drown in the river. She saw him...

* In A Pipe.

* Hands Clasped Together.

* Wearing a Green Snow Suit, with a Polo Shirt with Stripes underneath, and an Undershirt beneath that with a Metal Pin on it, and his Shoes are on the wrong feet.

Additional Psychic Information that came through her during the police investigation, which was all relayed and documented a long while prior to his being discovered...

* The number 120 is significant.

* The number 8 is significant.

* He will be found behind a School.

* A Parking Lot behind an ITT Factory being significant.

* Lumber being significant.

* Gold Lettering on a Window being significant.

* He will be found on February 7th.

Conclusion:

* He was found floating in the river (where there had been pipes running up and down it, one of which unchecked may have released him as the snow began to thaw) on February 7th at approximately 1:20 in the afternoon. (Verified: February 7th as the date he would be found, and the significance of the number 120.)

* An Elementary School PS 8 stands at the riverbank nearby. (Verified: The significance of the number 8 and that he would be found behind a school.)

* Across the street is a Lumber Yard. (Verified: The significance of Lumber.)

* Next door is an office building with Gold Letters on the Window. (Verified: The significance of the Gold Lettering on a Window.)

* Directly across the river is the local ITT Factory and it's Parking Lot. (Verified: The signifiance of A Parking Lot behind an ITT Factory.)

* The boy when found had on ALL of the EXACT SAME CLOTHING that she had seen him wearing in her vision. (Verified: All details of clothing.)

* While his golaches were on the right feet, his undershoes were indeed on the wrong feet. (Verified: Shoes being on the wrong feet.)

Known Misses / Misdirections / Misinterpretations:

* She felt he would eventually be found in one of the many pipes along the river. He may have indeed been in one at some point like what she had seen in her initial vision, but the police when they searched the pipes in the river could not find him in them. He was later found floating in the river.

Case II: The Man Who Fell In Water

On December 20, 1974 a businessman got aboard a train to travel, but no one saw him get off of it at it's stop. He simply disappeared. Rumors circulated that he had embezzled and vanished, or run off with a mistress, they simply couldn't find the guy. So the police, knowing the reputation of Dorothy Allison, contacted her asking for her help. The police wrote down everything she said, a full three months before his body was discovered. Here are the highlights of this perticular case...

Clues She Gave:

* He Drowned. He fell off of the train and into water. He's in the Water.

* A Row of Tires is significant.

* A Little Park where kids slide down a hill on is significant. "I see a man in this water here" she said.

* A Bow and Arrow is significant.

* The number 2-2-2 is significant.

Conclusion:

* A father and his teenage son were Bow and Arrow target shooting on a bluff over a river when one Arrow missed their target and landed several feet from the dead man's body at the base of the riverbank. (Verified: The significance of a Bow and Arrow.)

* His body was found on February 22. (Verified: The significance of the number 2-2-2.)

* He had in fact fallen off of the train and drowned in the river. (Verified: Cause and Reason of Death.)

* Nearby was a park where Rows of Tires had been arranged to make a sled run. (Verified: The significance of a Row of Tires and the Park that kids use as a sled run.)

Known Misses / Misdirections / Misinterpretations:

* She mentioned a fire engine that kid's shouldn't play as being in the area. In all sources I read, it doesn't mention whether or not this clue was ever verified. It may or may not have been.

Case III: The Murdered Teenage Girl

On May 15, 1976, a teenage girl disappeared shortly after leaving her home. Her parents went to the police, who simply wrote her off as a runaway, and told them that they had neither the time nor manpower to search for an obvious runaway. The parents heard of Psychic Dorothy Allison by reputation, and arranged her to meet them at their home, after the police refused to take their daughter's disapperance seriously. Here are the highlights of this perticular case...

Clues She Gave:

* She asked the parents what 2562 means. (It was their daughter's birthday, February 5, 1962.)

* She asked what 408 or 405 meant, could be either one she was getting she said. (4:05 was the time their daughter was born.)

* She immediately got a vision that the daughter had been strangled by her boyfriend (and gave his name).

* She said that she would be found at a place with the words MAR written in Big Red Letters.

* She said that she is in water, but that she did not drown.

* She mentioned the Smell of Oil and 222.

* She mentioned an Abandoned Car.

* She mentioned Two Sets of Dual Church Steeples.

* She mentioned Dual Smoke Stacks.

*She mentioned Marshes and Swamps.

Conclusion:

* After the police refused to cooperate, the father went on his own search using Dorothy's Clues. He came to a Marshed and Swamped area in another town, where he saw Two Sets of Dual Church Steeples, and Dual Smoke Stacks, and decided to check out the area. (Verified: All of Those Specific Clues.)

* He found a rock with the words MAR written in Big Red Letters in the same area. (Verified: The words MAR written in Big Red Letters.)

* He found an Abandoned Car nearby in the same area. (Verified: Abandoned Car.)

* He never found her himself on his search, but sometime later, several teenagers found her body in the exact same area, merely 100 Yards from the rock with MAR written on it, with ALL of Dorothy's above Clues being clearly visible within eyesight from the placement of the body. (Verified: All of Those Specific Clues.)

* The body was found in a Water Hole, placed in an Oil Drum, and the Serial Number on the Oil Drum was 222. (Verified: That she was in water, but did not drown. The Smell of Oil. The significance of the number 222.)

* The boyfriend had in fact killed her, and was arrested and charged with her murder. He had in fact strangled her, placed her in an oil drum, and dumped her body in the water hole. (Verified: Cause of Death and The Person Responsible.)

Known Misses / Misdirections / Misinterpretations:

* The only known one in this perticular case is where she said the number 408 or 405, but she clarified that it could be either one that she was getting. It was 405 that was correct, the daughter's time of birth.

Case IV: Son of Sam

Dorothy Allison was consulted during the Son of Sam murders. Here are the highlights of this perticular case...

* She drew a very accurate Portrait of the killer that looked a lot like David Berkowitz.

* She correctly predicted that the killer would be caught because of a Parking Ticket.

No further information known.

Case V: Patty Hearst

Dorothy Allison was consulted during the Patty Hearst kidnapping. Here are the highlights of this perticular case...

* She gave precise details of the locations in Pennsylvania and New York where she was being held captive.

* She correctly predicted that she would bond with her kidnappers and assist them in a bank robbery.

No further information known.

Case VI: Her Own Death

* In 1990, Dorothy Allison advised her family that she was going to die shortly before her 75th birthday of heart disease. She passed away in December, 1999 from heart disease, just one month shy of her 75th birthday.

Case VII: Foreseen Deaths of Two Teenage Girls

It all started in March 1991 when Dorothy Allison was called on a case of a missing teenage girl. She couldn't pick up anything on the girl in question, but what she picked up instead was startling...

* What she saw was a girl dismembered and her various parts encased in cement. She said that one leg would be popping out.

* She later drove past a lake, and had a strong impression of a girl to whom something had happened, part of the same vision.

However, there was no such discovery. At least not right away. It appeared to be a complete miss.

However, several months later, in June 1991, another teenage girl went missing...

* Two weeks later, her body was discovered in the lake, dismembered, and encased in cement, each piece floating in a seperate block. (It was unverified however, if one leg was indeed "popping out" as Dorothy Allison had seen.)

So it seems she picked up nothing on the first girl, but had instead tuned into and seen the death of the second girl, months before it happened. A clear misdirected hit.

When Dorothy was contacted again, she stated that the body of another victim would soon be found. She said the girl would be strangled and that she would be found underneath some brush, where one could hear trickling water.

* Soon afterwards, another teenage girl nearby went missing, and two weeks after that, her nude body was found, strangled, underneath some brush, near a culvert.

Known Misses / Misdirections / Misinterpretations:

* She clearly picked up nothing in regards to the original girl she was there to investigate. She instead apparently picked up information on a girl who wasn't killed for another several months, and then on another girl who was later killed as well.

Case VIII: Ongoing Police Case Investigation of a Murdered Girl (Still a Cold Case)

This case was randomly chosen by the Television Program "Unsolved Mysteries" in 1988 to test Dorothy Allison's Psychic Ability. She was flown to another state, and took part in the investigation of an obscure murder case in an obscure town she had no way of knowing about. In April of 1984 a 15 year old school girl was murdered. Dorothy Allison was told nothing about the case beforehand. ALL of the below information that Dorothy gave was filmed as it happened in real time. Here are the highlights of this perticular case...

* She gave the name Chuck Goldstein or Bernstein and said he may have information. (This person does exist in this town, but it is unverified as to what became of this clue, and what this person knew.)

* She said the girl was walking along the same street that they (Dorothy and the Police) were driving on, and that she got as far as the library, where she met two brothers or two cousins or twin friends of hers right from her own neighborhood, who took her away in a real old yellow car. (The police did confirm the library was on the same street they were driving on, on the left, a ways down the road. But the rest of the details are unverified.)

* She said the girl had been raped and then murdered. That she had been hit in the head but it hadn't killed her. That suffacation was what killed her, but it wasn't a strangling around the neck, she choked on something, a choking IN the throat, that she had something placed in her throat during the attack that suffacated her. (ALL of these details were 100% correct and verified by the Police, and the Police added that this information was NEVER made public, especially the way she died, a foreign object lodged in her throat.)

* The Number 17 (or 1 and 7) is significant. (It turned out that Number 17 is the Cemetary Plot Number of the murdered girl's grave.)

* The word Cleveland is significant. (It turned out that the last street sign before the Crimescene is at a turnoff called Clevelandtown Road.)

* An Old Church is significant. (Half a mile from where the body was found there is An Old Church.)

* She gave graphic details of how and why the girl was killed, and even the name of the killer, but it was bleeped out. The case is still unsolved, so much is still unverified. It will be interesting to see how it all panned out if the person or persons are ever caught.

Case IX: Misc Cases

Misc Case I:

An elderly alzheimer's patient disappeared from a nursing home. Dorothy Allison was called into the case. Here are the highlights of this perticular case...

* She said he was near a wooded area, where there are caves, near a mountain.

* She said the Number 5 is significant.

Conclusion:

* He was found in a wooded area, near a copper mine, near a mountain, 2.5 miles from the nursing home. And the only house on the road he was found on, was house number 5. (The house number on the house was 5.)

No other details are known.

Misc Case II:

Dorothy on an investigation interviewed a non-suspect of a crime, "saw" that he had actually killed the girl, confronted him, she even mentioned the murder weapon to him, he later confessed to Police. (Though it is uncertain as to whether or not he confessed because of Dorothy. No other details are known of this case.)

Misc Case III:

Dorothy Allison met the director of the Unsolved Mysteries episode that she starred in, and upon seeing the woman with him who would later become his wife, she pointed to her and said to her...

* 3/27! 3/27! (March 27th is her birthday.)

* The woman asked Dorothy if there is anything she should look out for. Dorothy told her that her husband is going to have a heart attack. (That same day, hours later, her ex-husband had a heart attack. This hit was slightly misdirected, as he was once her husband, but wasn't at the time. It was the ex-husband, not the current one, that had the heart attack.)

Case X: JonBenet Ramsey Murder, Portrait of a Pseudo-Killer (A Misdirected Hit?)

Dorothy Allison stated that John and Patt Ramsey were innocent, and she drew a sketch of the person she "saw" as the killer of JonBenet Ramsey, and it looked remarkably like modern day suspect John Karr. He looked very different in 1998 when she originated drew the drawing, and the portrait actually looks more like him today with his receeding hairline, than how he looked back then.

A misdirected hit? John Karr has now been eliminated as a suspect, but in 2006 he was arrested and thought to be the killer, and looked at the time remarkably like the man in the drawing, drawn eight years earlier.

It is very possible, as a human receiver for information, that she tuned in and foresaw the modern media hoopla surrounding him being taken into custody and practically everyone thinking he was the killer finally caught, and she interpreted that received reception as him being the killer, much like many of us did. John Karr knew many intimate details of the crime, which makes it obvious that Dorothy would zero in on him as the killer. But DNA Evidence seems to exclude him. So who knows?

Skeptics count this case as a complete miss, but the above explaination is still very plausible, especially given that many of her documented misses are misdirected hits, and this case seems to fit that mold.

Dorothy Allison also stated in regards to this case, "This man went unnoticed in the house. The Ramsey's are not responsible for the death of the child. This is my true and honest belief." "I keep seeing the man that took her. I keep seeing he had a problem. This much I can reveal to you. I know he had trouble with his hip and leg, and I'd like to kick the other one so he can't walk at all."

I have no idea if the hip and leg problems are related to John Karr. If not, maybe in this instance she was focusing in on the real killer?

That's the tough thing with Psychic Visions, they are often hard to interpret save in hindsight when it all comes together, then they happen to fit together like pieces of a puzzle. Misdirected information pops up from time to time as well.

Case XI: The Cult Boy (Clear Miss or Misdirected Hit?)

Dorothy Allison was on a case of a missing boy. Accourding to a police officer on the case, she got MANY details of the case right. (I have been unable to find out what these specific details were however.) Except one detail was glaringly wrong, or so it seemed. She said the boy is dead. However, it turned out that the boy was very much alive, at least in the physical sense, as he had ran away and joined a cult. When asked about this, Dorothy clarified that she had seen his "spiritual death", as the boy they now know is not the same person as he was before he joined this dangerous cult. Clear Miss or Misdirected Hit? In what way was the boy dead? Depends on how you interpret it.

Conclusion and Comments:

Skeptics have stated that the way Dorothy Allison works is by throwing out random vague clues that are very general and could be applied to virtually anything and any crime, and then the Police and family members will "retro-fit" the information after the case is solved.

However, I'd like to point out that many of the clues are far from being vague, general stuff that would fit virtually anything and any crime. Let's recap several cases...

2562 being the daughter's birthday, 405 being the time the daughter was born, MAR in Big Red Letters on a Rock near the body, Smell of Oil she was in a drum, and 222 being the Serial Number on the Oil Drum, and a number of other visual clues all within 100 yards of the body in plain visual sight. The boyfriend's name, that he had strangled her. The Policed treated the disapperance as a runaway, Dorothy Allison saw otherwise.

The entire description of the drowned child being accurate in each and every detail and layer of clothing, including the metal pin on the third undershirt and that the shoes would be on the wrong feet. All sorts of numerous visual location information being within visual sight of the body, that he would specifically be found February 7th, and he was found at 1:20 in the afternoon showing the significance of the number 120.

That the man on the train had fallen from the train into the water, even though police suspected he had embezzled or ran off with a mistress. The Bow and Arrow significance which was how his body was discovered, when a stray arrow from people bow and arrow shooting above the riverbank missed it's target and landed right next to his corpse below on the riverbank. The row of tires on a sleded hill next to where the body was found, and 2-2-2 in this case was February 22, the date the body was found.

That the Son of Sam killer would be caught because of a Parking Ticket, such an obscure foreseen detail, not to mention the Accurate Portrait of the Killer. That Patty Hearst would bond with her kidnappers and rob a bank with them, not to mention her pinpointing locations where she was held.

That she would die shortly before her 75th birthday of heart disease, and did just a month short of her 75th birthday.

Accurately picking up that a girl in the area would be dismembered, encased in cement, dumped in a specific lake. And another girl in the general area would be found nude, strangled, covered with brush, and placed near running water. Both before they happend, one several months before it happened.

Etc. Etc. Etc.

Yes, many of her clues didn't make connectable sense at the time, because certain details hadn't even happened yet, but later fit together like solid pieces of a crucial puzzle.

Could these crimes have been solved or prevented with the information she provided? Maybe, maybe not. One detective who worked with Dorothy Allison said in retrospect that he should have realized that this and that clue and statement meant this and that, and kicked himself that he wasn't keen enough to zero in on it in time.

However, that one murdered teenage girl's dad, following Dorothy's clues, did find the *exact correct location* where her body was later found, in an obscure area of another town a good distance away in a marsh area. That's one case at least, where all of her viable clues were zeroed in on and put to good use to find the exact location before the body was discovered, as the father found the exact location where the body was later found, with all of the viable clues being within visual sight of where the body was later found. Especially the MAR words written in big red letters on a rock within visual sight of the water hole where the body was kept.

Dorothy Allison also did point out the lake where the dismembered girl was later found encased in cement, several months before it happened.

Retro-Fitting? More like "Puzzle-Fitting".

Personally, with all of these cases and veridical details as a whole, I see it as being more than likely that something more is going on here than mere "coincidence".

This is why I consider Dorothy Allison to have been one of the most credible psychic sleuths out there, and why I obviously disagree with one-sided skeptics who proclaim that no purported Psychic Detective has EVER contributed ANY useful veridical information or lead to the location of ANY body or accurately described ANY killer in all of recorded history. To that accusation, I clearly call BULL.

Sure, there are many psychic frauds out there, just as there are frauds in virtually every profession and field and phenomenon, but just because you find a lot of counterfeit money out there, doesn't mean that all money must therefore be counterfeit.

On one last note, world renowned polygraph expert Dr. Ed Geld once tested Dorothy Allison and asked her how she obtained her information, and she answered entirely truthfully in the polygraph test that the information came from her psychic abilities. Dr. Ed Geld found her to be answering very honestly and truthfully, that she fully believed what she was saying was true, that there was no conscious deception on her part.

- Eteponge

Claim that scientists recreated OBEs untrue. Debunking an inaccurate news story.

2007-08-26T14:07:00.000-07:00

Here is the recent news claim...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070823/sc_afp/usscienceparanormal_070823220839 - Scientists recreate out-of-body experiences (no drugs)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6960612.stm - Out-of-body experience recreated

http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070820/full/070820-9.html - Illusion mimics out-of-body experiences

That is the claim that news stories are running with, but a closer examination reveals this simply isn't true at all.

The device used in the new research in question is nothing more than an optical illusion, where the person is fully conscious and alert, and placed in a stagnate simulated autoscopy perception generated by virtual reality. Totally different than a real OBE.

In a real OBE for example, the person is either in an unconscious state or a flat-lined state where brain-wave activity is nill, the person is completely detached from all feeling and senses of the physical body, sometimes the person will have 360 degree ultra clear vision from every angle of the room, and the person actually wanders around while OBE in many cases, not staying stagnate in one position, wandering far outside of their line of sight, like going into the hallway, or the waiting room, or the roof of the building, going into the street and other areas, and Veridically seeing & hearing events, objects, people, writing, events, and conversations there, which can later be checked and verified to be true in a number of well documented and well researched cases. There are even well documented cases of persons who are blind and persons who were born blind having visually veridical OBEs.

Dr. Jeff Long of NDERF / OBERF (NDE/OBE Research Foundation) has reviewed both articles in this week's issue of the Journal Science, including commentary. He also provided comments on the articles by NDE Researcher P.M.H. Atwater L.H.D.

http://www.nderf.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=22614#22614

Highlights: "Neither research team claimed to produce an OBE. Both research tems were clear they were tricking the body's sensory system and creating an illusion. Apparently no research subject in either study claimed to have a real OBE. These studies got a lot more press coverage than was warrented by the limited significance of their findings."

"A true, real out-of-body experience, especially if an aspect or component of the near-death phenomenon, typically involves extensive movement and interaction not only within the environment of the individual, but in novel, different, or far-flung environments unknown to the individual that are explored and investigated at length. When these individuals return to their bodies, they are able to recount in detail what they observed, heard, touched, sensed, smelled, and witnessed. Third-party verification of such details is commonplace."

"True out-of-body experiences do not match the results of the experiments conducted by the two neuroscientists reported on in Science Journal. What they did find, though, is quite intriguing and may indeed explain the phenomenon of the double-walker counterpart people have claimed that they had - since the earliest of times."

I personally found it quite amusing to see misinformed one-sided skeptics on science forums running with this misunderstood research screaming, "I told you so! Another example of science over superstition!" Which objectively proves that being one-sided is being dumb-sided, as the vast majority of skeptics I have met have never honestly researched BOTH SIDES of the issue regarding these things. Confirmation Bias is LOL. (I on the otherhand *constantly* read up on all sides of the issue regarding these Phenomenon, reading material from both Researchers and Skeptics).

If they had, they would have known that the research in question produced NOTHING like a real OBE, and regardless can not explain the overwhelming numbers of Veridical Details obtained during real OBEs, especially those that have been documented as occuring during a state in which the brain waves are flat-lined following cardiac arrest.

Introduction

2007-08-25T16:42:00.000-07:00

Hi. I'm Eteponge. I'm going to start posting my Research Findings and Research Articles here on the Topic of various Paranormal Phenomenon. Anything new I write up or any new information I come across, I will put here.

I want to give every single Phenomenon, Veridical Case, and Person I post about a fair all-sided view of things, to eliminate bias. I want to write about hits and misses, Veridical Elements and Non-Veridical Elements, Pro-Arguments and Anti-Arguments, Counter-Arguments from BOTH SIDES, and simply the data and facts as a whole, presented as is.

That is my goal.