Research Into And Explanations Of Psychic Mediumship

Question 1

Why do people believe in psychic mediums?

Answer 1

Because of their ability to give accurate and personal information. However, skeptics argue mediums don’t have the ability to contact the afterlife but instead they employ a number of skilful techniques which “appear” to show them giving an accurate reading

Cold readings -

• attempt to read the client from “cold” purely by picking up clues from the client through observation, feedback and deduction.
• gives the impression the psychic is providing information that appears to demonstrate psychic powers when all they are really doing is picking up clues from the individual

Barnum effect -

• make statements that tend to be vague and general rather than personal, e.g. I see a trip, a journey sometime in the future, which can be applied to many people.
• mediums exploit this technique as people tend to accept generalised statements as accurate descriptions of themselves

Fishing -

• finding information about the client by asking clients direct questions, and then rephrasing the newfound information as a statement of their own, which feeds back to the client “new information”
• the disguising of a question as a statement, the client is then invited to elaborate upon this which allows the medium further build upon this information with more statements and questions giving the impression of psychic abilities

Question 2

What does Schwartz et al (2001) find?

Answer 2

Arranged for five well-known mediums and two participants (sitters), in the 40s and has experienced a number of deaths of people they had known over the last 10 years

Medium was restricted as sat at one side of an opaque screen to the sitter, and could only ask questions requiring yes/no answers in order to reduce the possibility of reasoning from mediums

First sitter judged 83% and second sitter judged 77% of the statements made as corrected

Question 3

What do O’Keefe and Wiseman (2005) find?

Answer 3

Tightly controlled - 5 mediums, 5 sitters, 25 readings

Mediums and sitters were isolated visually and acoustically

Readings were sent to sitters to rate accuracy of each statement.
Results were not significant - no evidence of psychic ability

Mediums who gave long general statements were highly rated than those who gave short and specific statements - supports idea of Barnum effect

Question 4

Evaluating psychic mediumships

Answer 4

Positive role-
* helps to offer the bereaved some comfort whether readings are genuine or not, it reassures people that the dead are “at peace” and enables people to come to terms with their loss

Methodological flaws of Schwartz-

• no sufficient safeguard against potential sensory leakage which could have led various strategies eg, cold reading
• calculated guesswork by mediums of the yes/no answers, eg tone and speed of answers may have given insight into their emotional state
• skilled medium is able to gather clues of age, gender, socio-economic status by their voice

*Schwartz argues that cold readings have no scientific evidence to say that they can generate the specific kind of information the mediums produced in his study

Question 5

What does the term psychic mediumship mean?

Answer 5

Abilities to communicate with people in the afterlife.
Mediums are often visited to help people come to terms with the death of loved ones:

Physical mediums - spirit is able to communists with the medium by being seen or heard

Mental mediums - spirit communicates through the mind of the medium, which is expressed verbally or in writing by the medium.