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Media Watch for June 2007 (Issue 67)
Prayer Research: What are the appropriate criteria for designing healing prayer studies? A recent prayer study at Harvard, led by Herbert Benson, had everyone praying the same standardized prayer, even if it differed from their normal practice. In contrast, the late Elizabeth Targ would not accept into her studies a person who did not have years of experience offering healing intention or prayer. It is wise for all of us to remember the importance of designing these experiments. When we read that a prayer study failed, it might have nothing to do with prayers failing to heal but with researchers failing in the design of a study.
Intention and Training Important in Healing: The January 2007 Paranormal Review carried an overview of the 2006 Parapsychological Convention held in Stockholm. An article written by Chistian Gaden Jensen mentioned two studies by US researcher Dean Radin. Regarding a study done by Radin and Eva Lobach, Jensen wrote, “Their study suggested that the human nervous system anticipates future events in ways that cannot be explained conventionally.” In another study by Radin on the effects of distant intention with a focus on the roles of motivation and training, Jensen wrote “The study supported earlier findings that the sender’s distant intention correlates with changes in the receiver’s autonomic nervous system and suggested that both personal motivation to heal and be healed as well as training in directing one’s intention may be modulators in this relationship.”
Study verifies Power of Positive Thinking: Your medication really may work better if the doctor talks it up before giving it to you. A study from the University of Michigan is showing that the power of expectation has a physical affect and is not just psychological. Men whose jaws were injected with saltwater to cause pain were told that they were getting a pain reliever when they really got a placebo. Their brains immediately released more endorphins blocking the transmission of pain signals between nerve cells and the men felt better. A study in Italy hooked pain patients to a computerized morphine injection system. Sometimes they knew that morphine was being administered and at other times they did not. The morphine was up to 50% more effective when the patients knew it was being given to them. From: Study verifies Power of Positive Thinking, by Lauran Neergaard, Associated Press, 28 November 2005
Anomalous Experiences: In another presentation at the 2006 Parapsychological Association Convention, Etzel Cardeña spoke about spontaneous anomalous experiences. He discussed a possible connection between hypnosis and psi phenomena. His study looked at hypnosis versus no hypnosis and showed that phenomenological patterns among the highly hypnotizable participants resembled descriptions given of various anomalous experiences. Cardeña feels that anomalous experiences may underlie religious beliefs, rather than the opposite. From: the Paranormal Review Jan 2007, Issue 41 “The 2006 Annual Parapsychological Association Convention,” A Review by Christian Gaden Jensen
Double-blind EVP Experiments: The 4Cell EVP Demonstration is an AA-EVP initiative based on a four-person protocol—and at least one communicating entity (thought to be a discarnate person). The Questioner composes a question and gives it to the Sender. The Sender asks his or her etheric communicator to give the Receiver the answer, and then notifies the Receiver that the request has been sent, but does not disclose the question. The Receiver, who may be on the other side of the world, conducts an EVP recording session to collect the answer, and then gives the resulting EVP (if any) to the Scribe who makes the first determination as to what was recorded—again, without knowing the question. After that, all four of the team is told the question and agrees on what was recorded. To date, the experiments produce a correct answer, or one arguably correct, around sixty-eight percent of the time.
In a recent experiment conducted by the 4Cell, Cease2decease, (Members: Vicki Talbott, Rheta Conley, Terry Dullin and Mary Jo Gran), the question asked of the entities was, “What do you do for fun?” As Scribe, Vicki said that several appropriate EVP were recorded but, “I am posting ‘Playing with Chihuahuas’ for a couple of reasons. First, when we heard it we thought it was a strangely specific answer. Shortly thereafter, I realized why they would say that. One student from a country where eating dogs is not uncommon, started a running joke in our international ESL grammar class about eating and being eaten by Chihuahuas. Soon all the students were making up sentences based on the topic … I think our communicators knew this was going to happen and are joking about playing with the Chihuahuas my students have eaten in their writings. By the way, they are all dog lovers, and one of them even has a Chihuahua, so this was and is all in fun.”
In a second experiment, the Scribe said that, “Mary Jo’s sister, Sheila, recently crossed over. Sheila has been very vocal since her passing and Mary Jo wished to direct a question specifically to her. The question was ‘What was the nickname Mary Jo gave her sister, Sheila, after she got her Harley?’” The expected answer was “Tilt,” because Sheila always leaned to the side while riding her Harley. The answer recorded and posted on the Idea Exchange is “Leans to one side,” Which is considered a direct hit.
There are a couple of points that can be draw from these results. “Playing with Chihuahuas” is an excellent response when you know the story of Vicki’s grammar class. It also tells us that the entities have access to that sort of information, perhaps from Vicki’s mind or because one of the communicators is actually watching the class, and we should never doubt that our communicators have a sense of humor.
A second point is that the communicators sometimes give the conceptual meaning of the answer, rather than the concrete term. Here, “Leans to one side” is a conceptual rendering of “Tilt.” There is growing evidence that conceptual information can be more easily passed across the veil than can concrete information. This is consistent with common metaphysical beliefs and offers a possible reason why mediums do not do well with things like the lottery. From: April 2007 AA-EVP NewsJournal, www.aaevp.com TV Psychics Get It Wrong: Many will remember the Shawn Hornbeck case. Shawn went missing in 2002 while riding his bike to a friend’s house. Shawn was found alive with another kidnapped boy earlier this year. What people may not know is that shortly after his disappearance both Sylvia Browne and James Van Praagh told his parents during television appearances that Shawn was dead. The “psychic” clues given by Browne and Van Praagh led to extensive but futile searches in the areas where they had said that the boy’s body could be found. Two weeks after the televised reading with Browne, the family told a local newspaper that they had consulted other psychics too. The father was quoted as saying, “I don’t know what to think any more, the information from different psychics doesn’t match up.” From: Paranormal Review, www.paranormalreview.co.uk/
Premonitions Registry: The Parapsychology Foundation’s Psychic Explorer Club invites you to send in your premonition to be registered. All submissions are archived alphabetically by the last name of the person who submitted the premonition. The Foundation will make no attempt to validate or assess the success of the premonitions received. Upon request by the registrant, the Foundation will forward the complete text of the experiencer’s original email as it was enrolled in the registry, with the date and time of receipt noted. You don’t have to be a member of the Parapsychology Foundation to register your premonition, simply email premonitionsregistry@psychicexplorers.org , or write Parapsychology Foundation, PO Box 1562, New York, NY, 10021.
Blind Man has Déjà Vu: Déjà vu is commonly described as the feeling of having seen something before. But researchers have now found a blind man who has experienced déjà vu. The man had a déjà vu experience when undoing a jacket zipper while hearing a particular piece of music, and also while hearing a snatch of conversation while holding a plate in the school dining hall. The report was carried in the December issue of the journal Brain and Cognition.
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