Validation of the Paranormal. Alex Sabell wrote in the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) “Lecture Report,” that Current SPR president, John Poynton, spoke on “Science and Psychical Research” in his President’s Report. In it, Poynton described the need for a “Kuhnian revolution, which is defined as the time when evidence piles up to such levels that when the old scientific guard die off, a new scientific establishment takes their place, happily incorporating these new ideas.” Poynton argued that such a revolution is badly needed for psychical research and may be precipitated by an accumulation of anomalies. Saying that is what the SPR should be seeking to do, he suggested that, “[the SPR should] encourage the critical investigation of paranormal and fringe science claims from a responsible scientific point of view and disseminate factual information about the results of such inquiries to the scientific community, the media and the public.” Sabell continues by pointing out that, “What might surprise some is that this statement is lifted straight from a statement written by CSICOP.

From: January 2005 issue of The Paranormal Review, published by the Society for Psychical Research

New Book Features 200 ESP Stories. Can some people see the future, read other peoples’ minds and psychically see distant events as they happen. Yes, they can, declares clinical psychologist Dr. Sally Rhine Feather, daughter of the late renowned ESP researcher Dr. J. B. Rhine, in her book The Gift, The Extraordinary Experiences of Ordinary People. The book features over 200 amazing, real-life ESP stories taken from the Rhine Research Center’s database of over 14,000 ESP reports. Dr. Feather and her co-author, Michael Schmicker, share with the reader extraordinary psychic experiences sent in by people all over America—from avoiding injuries and accidents to predicting the death of family members; from finding stolen cars to catching cheating spouses; from winning the lottery to foreseeing the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the September11 terrorist attack on America. ISBN: 0312329199, Martin’s Press, 2005

New Results from the 4Cell EVP Demonstration. We have previously told you about the continuing experiment that the American Association of Electronic Voice Phenomena (AA-EVP) members are conducting. In it, one person thinks of a question, a second person asks his or her spirit communicators to give the answer to the question to a third person. Only aware that a question has been asked, the third person conducts a recording session while asking for the answer to the question. A fourth person decides what was recorded and reports to the AA-EVP.

Of eighteen experiments, eleven were shown to be essentially correct responses, which is a little like winning the lottery eleven times out of eighteen. In a recent session, 4Cell 2 –Infinite asked for the name of a person’s favorite restaurant. The expected answer was “The Waterfront.” The Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) message was, “Has a view of the bay.” We think this response is significant to people studying mediumship as well, in that in this situation, the answer is what “waterfront” means to people. The name of the restaurant is a tangible while what the name means is a concept. This tends to demonstrate how it is possibly easier for the etheric communicators to give us conceptual information, such as love, as opposed to something tangible, such as a street address.

In a different session by the same Cell, the questioner asked for the name of her dog, now on the Other Side. She also expressed the desire to hear his bark. The expected answer was “Toby” and the Receiver recorded “Tob … y.” Later, the clearly heard sound of a dog’s bark was recorded! We are often asked by the public if animals, especially our pets survive as well. The answer is big “yes”!

Psychics Banned from Italian TV. Fortunetellers, faith healers, astrologers and magicians have been banned from appearing on daytime television in Italy. In Italy there are scores of small regional and private channels with programs that feature tarot readers and others that claim prophetic powers. An official of the Communications Guarantee Authority said the ban was “to combat any kind of exploitation of superstition or credulity among members of the public.” A survey done in Italy last year found that 9 to 10 million Italians were using the services of card readers and faith healers and that 21,500 were making a living from it.

From: “Veil falls over Italy’s soothsayers” by John Hooper in Rome, The Guardian, March 10, 2005

Catholic Book about After Death Communication. Mitch Finley has received eleven Catholic Press Awards and is a popular Catholic writer. He placed an advertisement in several newspapers asking for true stories of people who had felt the presence of a loved one after they had died. The responses resulted in his latest book, Whispers of God’s Love: Touching the Loves of Loved Ones After Death.

The OOPS center. Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have reported in the Journal Science that they have identified a brain region that acts as an early warning system, working even at the subconscious level to help us recognize and avoid high-risk situations.

“In the past, we found activity in the anterior cingulated cortex when people had to make a difficult decision among mutually exclusive options, or after they made a mistake,” said Joshua Brown, a research associate in psychology and co-author of the study with associate professor Todd Braver. Some scientists describe it as the “oops center” because the area near the top of the frontal lobes of the brain is literally the center of that irritated, sinking feeling we get when we realize we’ve made the wrong turn or clicked the wrong button on a control panel” says Brown. “But now we find that this brain region can actually learn to recognize when you might make a mistake, even before a difficult decision has to be made. It learns to warn us in advance when our behavior might lead to a negative outcome, so that we can be more careful and avoid making a mistake.”

Doctors Believe in Miracles: A survey conducted by HCD Research, a marketing and communications research company, and the Louis Finkelstein Institute for Religious and Social Studies of 1,100 physicians found that 74 percent believed that miracles had occurred in the past and 73 percent felt that miracles were still occurring today. 55 percent said that they had seen treatment results in their own patients that they considered “miraculous.” The poll showed 73 percent of the doctors felt that religion provided a reliable and necessary guide to life. Half of those surveyed said that they attended worship services at least once a month and 46 percent said that prayer was very important in their lives. Two-thirds said that they had encouraged their patients to pray. From: “I See By the Papers,” Fate, Feb 2005