Mediums

1
Mediums Psychics

• Ciarán OKeeffe
• Office GLA014, Telephone ext. 3639

2
Lecture Content

• Historical Context
• Spontaneous Cases
• Experimental Work
• Special Claimants

• Methodological Issues
• Personal Experiences

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Historical Context

• Philosophy of ADC (After-Death Communication)
• Mesmerism
• Swedenborg
• Spiritualism
• Fox Sisters (1848)
• Scientific Approach
• Society for Psychical Research (1882) ASPR

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Historical Context

• Key Scientific Figures

5
Spontaneous Cases

• Physical vs. Mental Mediumship
• Physical phenomena
• Table-tipping
• Levitation
• Materialisation
• Ectoplasm
• Others

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Spontaneous Cases

• Physical vs. Mental Mediumship

• Mental Mediumship
• Control (trance) vs. Perception
• Healing
• Speaking
• Writing
• Painting
• Clairvoyance
• Clairaudience
• Clairsentience

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Experimental Work

• Mediumship
• Early descriptive work
• Quantitative examination
• Hyslop (1919), Saltmarsh (1929), Saltmarsh Soal
  (1930)

• Development of methodology
• Pratt (1936), Pratt Birge (1948),

West (1949, 1954)

• Recent work
• Robertson Roy (2001), Schwartz et al. (2001/2),
  OKeeffe (2002)

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Pratt Birge Example matrix
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Experimental Work

• Psychics
• Early descriptive work
• Influenced by mediumistic studies
• Quantitative examination protocol development
• Rhine Institute of Parapsychology
• Tyrell (1951), Bender (1957, 1981). Roll (1969,
  1971)
• Boerenkamp Schouten (1983)
• Recent studies

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Special Claimants

• Mediums
• D. D. Home (1833 - 1886)
• Eusapia Palladino (1854 1918)
• Florence Cook (1856 - 1904)
• Mina Margery Crandon (1888 1941)
• Helen Duncan (1897 1956)
• Betty Shine (1929 2002)
• Current superstars
• John Edwards
• Colin Fry
• Sylvia Browne

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Special Claimants

• Mediums
• D. D. Home (1833 - 1886)

• Florence Cook (1856 - 1904)

• John Edwards

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Special Claimants

• Psychics
• Pavel Stepanek
• Peter Hurkos
• Gerald Croiset
• Uri Geller

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Methodological Issues

• Fraud
• Anticipating trickery
• Consulting magicians
• Countering possible trickery

• Sensory leakage
• Judging
• Subtle problems (e.g. stacking effect)