Open minced approach to psychic research

fairplay

Firstly, that word "minced" in the heading is a misprint. It should read "minded".

I challenge you to investigate cases of mediumship, telepathy etc with an OPEN MIND and honestly assess the evidence for an afterlife.

Why does religion and science have to be opposed in an eternal struggle?

I'm in favour of proper scientific research into the afterlife, but a bigoted approach is no better than the former religious attitude of intolerence...There's a lot of evidence to support the view that life continues after death...anyone with an open mind will find that evidence overwhelming.

Look up: Direct Voice medium Leslie Flint...John Sloan...Leonora Piper...just to begin with!

A Challenge! Any takers?

dango

fairplay wrote:

There's a lot of evidence to support the view that life continues after death...anyone with an open mind will find that evidence overwhelming.

What evidence? I'm not mincing my words:D

p.pete

I think there was something in Hamlet about a worm being able to eat a decomposed king - clearly evidence of life continuing after death...

John

fairplay wrote:

I challenge you to investigate cases of mediumship, telepathy etc with an OPEN MIND and honestly assess the evidence for an afterlife.

By OPEN MIND do you mean dispensing with the scientific method in order to agree with your particular theory? That's not science.

And there have been a number of reputable scientists who have taken on the challenge and been unsuccessful, the most famous of which is Alfred Russell Wallace who came up with the theory of evolution along with Darwin. After they presented the case for evolution he stopped doing research in that area and then spent the rest of his life trying to contact the dead. He never did.

Myksyk

We've had a century of research into these claims with no evidence to show for it. Open-mindedness has nothing to do with it. If you construct research properly then the researcher's open or closed mind should not come into it (in fact one of the main reasons behind the develpoment of the scientific method is precisely to control for such factors). Your challenge seems to involve simply looking at particular people's claims, stories, anecdotes and testimonials and see if you're convinced by them - this as far from science and open-mindedness as you can get.

By the way, the scientific method constitutes one of the most transparently open-minded approaches to questions you can get. It seeks to identify every possible factor that might be playing a part in the phenomenon you're observing and then set up testable hypotheses and controlled experiments to see what's really going on ... i.e. it opens its mind to all known variables and assesses the evidence after that. In contrast people who are convinced by the shenanigans of mediums etc don't want to hear anything which may rob them of their misapprehensions ... they're typically only interested in one explanation ... the one they started out with.

JuliusCaesar

John wrote:

they presented the case for evolution he stopped doing research in that area and then spent the rest of his life trying to contact the dead. He never did.

He may be in contact with them now!

fairplay

Yes, actually, there is a lot of evidence to support the claim that we survive death. Before dismissing this, please read the reports of the SPR, and consider...OBJECTIVELY...the experiments conducted with mediums like Leonora Piper and Leslie Flint.

I emphasise these two as they are among the mediums who, when subjected to every conceivable test and restriction by SCIENTISTS and other researchers, were not found to be guilty of fraud or any form of trickery. Frauds and charlatans must be excluded from any consideration of the evidence of an afterlife.

Smart alec silly put downs have no value either, I would suggest. Nor have off the cuff dismissals based on narrow minded half truths.

Beborah Blum's book on the Victorians and the search for evidence in that era is worth reading. She's an award winning American science journalist.

Quite a lot of very convincing evidence supporting the FACT of an afterlife has been suppressed...as distinct from discredited...I urge anyone who thinks otherwise to start searching...researching...and to do some serious thinking.

Science hasn't all the answers. There people who can see auras, and help battle illness with this gift or ability. There are people too who can communicate with those many of us think of as "dead".

Energy can't be destroyed, the scientists agree on that...it just changes in various ways.

The evidence provided by Leslie Flint ALONE would be enough to convince any fair minded person of this fact. Consider that evidence carefully before crying "bull****" or "superstition".

I am not approaching this from a religious point of view, though almost all religions do encompass a strong belief in an afterlife.

Closed minds will never accept evidence of survival. But I dare anyone with an open mind on this issue to assess some of the very compelling evidence gathered to date.

John

If you want us to check out these so-called famous journalists and researchers, maybe provide us with some links?

Gibs

An interesting discussion of some stuff related to the above can be found here. It's a recent episode of the BBC Radio 4 show, "All in the mind" and looks at 20 years of academic parapsychology research in the UK.

Here's another article on the subject from the Psychologist (i.e. the BPS monthly) published last year.

fairplay

Also run a google search on Leslie Flint, a British direct voice medium...and Leonora Piper, the American medium, both of whom were tested to the utmost by scientists and, despite the toughest safeguards and restrictions, continued to demonstrate that communication with the so-called "dead" is quite possible.

Direct Voice mediumship, when it happens under strictly supervised "laboratory" conditions, provides some of the most convincing evidence of an afterlife...even if you reject in total evidence provided by other sources.

Tricksters and frauds dismiss completely...and claims unsupported by reliable witnesses.

I'm not a religious fanatic or an opponent of the Theory of Evolution. Nor am I pleading from any emotional standpoint, though I suppose it is impossible for any of us humans to be a hundred percent objective about something as awe-inspiring as the question as to whether we survive death or just go out like a light.

All I'm saying is that the evidence provided thus far, when analysed fairly and without prejudice, clearly supports the belief that life after death is a reality.

Just bear in mind...there's A LOT OF EVIDENCE TO BE CONSIDERED if you start from, say, the 1860s or thereabouts. I mention the SPR because that society has been quite conservative in its approach to investigating these matters, preferring to err on the side of caustion and to utterly dismiss the "evidence" of any supposed medium ever found to have perpetrated fraud in the course of his or her alleged spirit communication.

Don't even consider the "iffy" cases...just the air-tight ones. In the case of Leslie Flint, repeated experiments produced communications from people we speak of as "dead". Remember...every conceivable precaution was taken to exclude the possibility of fraud. Have a look at this, and similar, evidence before blindly stating that belief in an afterlife is just wishful thinking.

As one 19th psychic researcher opined, the evidence supporting survival is strong enough "to hang a man twenty times over"!

Advances in science and technology have helped to add further to the wealth of evidence for survival. Many of Leslie Flint's communications were taped, and are availiable for further study and analysis.

Out of Body experiences that occur during NDEs, where people describe accurately parts of the hospital or other unfamilar surroundings when allegedly "outside" their physical bodies, should be considered too in conjunction with the evidence provided by rigorously tested mediums.

I'm not even scratching the surface of this very important subject, just proposing that we look honestly at the evidence and throw off the blinkers that both science and religion have at various junctures expected us to wear.

Dare to probe..and dig deep.