Physical mediumship, often described as communication between the spiritual and physical realms, has been recorded throughout U.S. history and worldwide. Typically conducted in darkness, these séances involve the invocation of a spirit in physical form and may produce extraordinary apparent phenomena, including materialization, ectoplasm, direct voice mediumship, and apports. For participants,...
Of all scientific frontiers, attempts to establish the existence of psi phenomena may have produced greater gains than any other in recent decades.An ever-growing handful of institutions continue to take the matter quite seriously, and, combined with the efforts of dedicated researchers, have pushed the conversation into territory our forebears would envy.To those tracking these developments,...
A number of professionals across various fields have come together in this anthology to shed new light upon terminal lucidity, while also exploring some other near-death phenomena.Challenging still-prevailing ideas of death, this forward-thinking volume calls for the recognition and integration of these phenomena into the dying process.It also offers intriguing speculation regarding the extent...
Out-of-body experiences (OBEs) are phenomena in which a person perceives their consciousness as separate from their physical body. Although these experiences have been reported for centuries in spiritual traditions, they are attracting increasing interest in the fields of neuroscience, psychology and anthropology. This study aims to take stock of the issue through a literature review by...
Sam Parnia's stated aim is "to synthesize the most important scientific discoveries and make them available to professionals and the general public alike" (p.5).Lucid Dying is written in a straightforward though repetitive manner, and the tenor of the book is one of earnest enthusiasm if not actually proselytizing.Parnia is well qualified to have an opinion on this topic, as he has been in the...
From its inception in 1882, one of the main research interests of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) has been to determine whether mediums receive telepathic messages from the living mind of a bodily dead person, thus confirming personal life after bodily death, or from the mind of a sitter.Despite much continuing research, the issue as to whether we survive bodily death remains...
With The Case for the Afterlife, Chris Carter brings a lucid, succinct, and eminently readable contribution for the newcomer, both in presenting evidence in support of the book's title and in dealing with a number of the logical fallacies often engaged in by sceptics.While a majority of the sources have been cited many times in related works, Carter, as ever, brings his own perspective and...
We conducted two online surveys with German ghost hunting groups (GHGs) and individual ghost hunters. The first questionnaire targeted entire teams, the second individual members. Our goals were (1) to understand the current GHG scene in Germany—their composition, investigation approaches, and exceptional experiences (ExEs)—and (2) to gain insight into the people engaged in this time- and...
Frederic Myers (1843-1901), co-founder of the Society for Psychical Research, developed a pioneering theory of consciousness in the late 19th century (Gauld, 1968; Hamilton, 2009). Myers initially introduced a distinction between two forms of consciousness: the subliminal (subthreshold) and the supraliminal (ordinary consciousness). This theory was hailed by his contemporaries, notably Theodore...
We applied two advanced large‐language models—OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4o and GitHub Copilot—to evaluate the Drake–S Equation framework for postmortem survival of consciousness relative to eight previously specified evidentiary standards. ChatGPT-4o judged this equation approach a “Good” to “Very Good” fit on 75% of the criteria (23/32 points, 72% overall), whereas Copilot rated it a “Good” to “Very...
This research explored whether anomalous ‘dimensional-slip’ experiences—reported by an allegedly haunted woman named “Nell”—would systematically map to distinctive features of various transcendental spaces discussed in spiritual and psychological traditions. A two-part content analysis using ChatGPT-4o compared the phenomenology of Nell’s written accounts (n = 4) to an inventory of 32 classic...
A Chaotic Life is a three-volume series in which Stanley Krippner (b.1932), a well-known American parapsychologist (and much more), recounts his life from his childhood, recalling his university years, recounting his reactions to various episodes of the Second World War and passages from his adult life.Krippner has visited more than one hundred countries and has interacted with cultures and...