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The Afterlife Experiments
''The Afterlife Experiments: Breakthrough Scientific Evidence of Life After Death'' is a book written by Gary Schwartz and bestselling author William L. Simon, with a foreword by Deepak Chopra. The book, published in 2003, reviews several experiments which aimed to investigate the possibility of life after death through the use of psychic mediums. Included in these experiments is one filmed and aired as part of an HBO special. Two studies stemming from the experiments were also published in the '' Journal of the Society for Psychical Research''. The substance of the book and the studies it describes was generally claimed by the media as scientific evidence of life after death. However, there was significant criticism from the scientific community of the studies, their methodologies, and resulting data analyses. About the authors Gary Schwartz, Ph.D., received his initial doctorate from Harvard University. Thereafter, he became a member of the psychology and psychiatry departmen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gary Schwartz
Gary E. Schwartz is an American psychologist, author, parapsychologist and professor at the University of Arizona and the director of its Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health. Schwartz researches the veracity of mediums and energy healing. His mediumship experiments have been described as flawed by critics who have argued that they failed to use adequate precautions against fraud and sensory leakage, relied on non-standardized, untested dependent variables and unaccounted for researcher degrees of freedom.Battista, Christian; Gauvrit, Nicolas; LeBel, Etienne. (2015). ''Madness in the Method: Fatal Flaws in Recent Mediumship Experiments''. In Keith Augustine & Michael Martin. ''The Myth of an Afterlife: The Case against Life After Death''. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 615-630 Biography Schwartz was born on June 14, 1944 in Mineola, New York. Schwartz received his PhD from Harvard University and was a professor of psychiatry and psychology at Yale University as wel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Edward
John Edward McGee Jr. (born October 19, 1969) is an American television personality, writer and self-proclaimed psychic medium. After writing his first book on the subject in 1998, Edward became a well-known (and controversial) figure in the United States with his shows broadcast on the Sci-Fi Channel premiering in July 2000 along with broadcasting on We TV since May 2006. Biography Edward (born in Glen Cove, New York) is the only son of an Irish-American police officer and an Italian-American working mother. He was raised Roman Catholic and although he later stopped practicing, he stated that he has never stopped feeling connected to God and his Catholic roots. Edward was quoted saying, "This is something that is driven by a belief in God. It's the energy from that force that I think allows us to create ''this'' energy." According to Edward, when he was 15 and "a huge doubter" (in psychic abilities), he was read by a New Jersey woman who convinced him that he could beco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Afterlife
The afterlife or life after death is a purported existence in which the essential part of an individual's Stream of consciousness (psychology), stream of consciousness or Personal identity, identity continues to exist after the death of their physical body. The surviving essential aspect varies between belief systems; it may be some partial element, or the entire soul or spirit, which carries with it one's personal identity. In some views, this continued existence takes place in a Supernatural, spiritual realm, while in others, the individual may be reborn into World#Religion, this world and begin the life cycle over again in a process referred to as reincarnation, likely with no memory of what they have done in the past. In this latter view, such rebirths and deaths may take place over and over again continuously until the individual gains entry to a spiritual realm or otherworld. Major views on the afterlife derive from religion, Western esotericism, esotericism, and metaphy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Skeptical Inquirer
''Skeptical Inquirer'' (S.I.) is a bimonthly American general-audience magazine published by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) with the subtitle "The Magazine for Science and Reason". The magazine initially focused on investigating claims of the paranormal, but evolved and expanded to address other pseudoscientific topics that are antithetical to critical thinking and science. Notable skeptics have credited the magazine in influencing their development of scientific skepticism. In the "Letters to the Editor", the most frequent letters of appreciation come from educators. History The magazine was originally titled ''The Zetetic'' (from the Greek meaning "skeptical seeker" or "inquiring skeptic"), and was originally edited by Marcello Truzzi. About a year after its inception a schism developed between the editor Truzzi and the rest of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP). CSICOP was more "firmly opposed to nonsense, more ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sensory Leakage
Sensory leakage is a term used to refer to information that transferred to a person by conventional means (other than psi) during an experiment into extrasensorial perception (ESP). Robert Todd Carroll. (2014)"Sensory Leakage in The Skeptic's Dictionary. For example, where the subject in an ESP experiment receives a visual cue—the reflection of a Zener card in the holder's glasses—sensory leakage can be said to have occurred. History Scientists such as Donovan Rawcliffe (1952), C. E. M. Hansel (1980), Ray Hyman (1989) and Andrew Neher (2011) have studied the history of psi experiments from the late 19th century up until the 1980s. In every experiment investigated, flaws and weaknesses were discovered so the possibility of naturalistic explanations (such as sensory cues) or deception and trickery were not ruled out. The data from the Creery sisters and the Soal–Goldney experiments were proven to be fraudulent, one of the subjects from the Smith-Blackburn experiments co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Randi Educational Foundation
The James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) is an American grant-making institution founded in 1996 by magician and skeptic James Randi. As a nonprofit organization, the mission of JREF includes educating the public and the media on the dangers of accepting unproven claims, and to support research into paranormal claims in controlled scientific experimental conditions. The organization announced its change to a grant-making foundation in September 2015. The organization previously administered the One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge, a prize of one million U.S. dollars to anyone who could demonstrate a supernatural or paranormal ability under agreed-upon scientific testing criteria. The organization has been funded through member contributions, grants, and conferences, though it ceased accepting memberships after 2015. For several years, the JREF website published the blog ''Swift'', which included news and information as well as exposés of paranormal claimants. Hist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Randi
James Randi (born Randall James Hamilton Zwinge; August 7, 1928 – October 20, 2020) was a Canadian-American stage magician, author, and scientific skeptic who extensively challenged paranormal and pseudoscientific claims.#Rodrigues, Rodrigues 2010p. 271 He was the co-founder of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), and founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF). Randi began his career as a magician under the stage name The Amazing Randi and later chose to devote most of his time to investigating paranormal, occult, and supernatural claims. Randi retired from practicing magic at age 60, and from his foundation at 87. Although often referred to as a "debunker", Randi said he disliked the term's connotations and preferred to describe himself as an "investigator". He wrote about paranormal phenomena, skepticism, and the history of magic. He was a frequent guest on ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'', famously exposing fraudulent faith healer Peter Pop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Wiseman
Richard John Wiseman (born 16 September 1966) is a professor of the public understanding of psychology at the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom. He has written several psychology books. He has given keynote addresses to The Royal Society, The Swiss Economic Forum, Google and Amazon. He is a fellow for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and a patron of Humanists UK. Wiseman is also the creator of the YouTube channels Quirkology and In59Seconds. Early life and education Wiseman was born and raised in Luton. His mother a seamstress and his father an engineer, he learned his trade as a teenage magician working the crowds in Covent Garden. At 18 he continued as a street performer and went to University College London to study psychology, partly because it "was right around the corner". He shared accommodation as a student with Adrian Owen, later also to become a psychologist. In his years as a street performer he learned how to adapt or get out of what you are do ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ray Hyman
Ray Hyman (born June 23, 1928) is a Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon, and a noted critic of parapsychology. Hyman, along with James Randi, Martin Gardner and Paul Kurtz, is one of the founders of the modern skeptical movement. He is the founder and leader of the Skeptic's Toolbox. Hyman serves on the Executive Council for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Career Hyman was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts to a Jewish family. Although he was bar mitzvahed at 13, Hyman "never had a religious feeling". In his teenage years and later while attending Boston University, he worked as a magician and mentalist, impressing the head of his department (among others) with his palmistry. Hyman at one point believed that 'reading' the lines on a person's palm could provide insights into their nature, but later discovered that the person's reaction to the reading had little to do with the actual lines on the palm. This fascination with why this h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cold Reading
Cold reading is a set of techniques used by mentalists, psychics, fortune-tellers, and mediums. Without prior knowledge, a practiced cold-reader can quickly obtain a great deal of information by analyzing the person's body language, age, clothing or fashion, hairstyle, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, level of education, manner of speech, place of origin, etc. during a line of questioning. Cold readings commonly employ high-probability guesses, quickly picking up on signals as to whether their guesses are in the right direction or not. The reader then emphasizes and reinforces any accurate connections while quickly moving on from missed guesses. Psychologists believe that this appears to work because of the Barnum effect and due to confirmation biases within people. Basic procedure Before starting the actual reading, the reader will typically try to elicit cooperation from the subject, saying something such as, "I often see images that are a bit uncl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Suzane Northrop
Suzane Northrop is an American writer, podcaster, TV show host, and psychic medium. She has written at least four books, and hosted the television show, '' The Afterlife with Suzane Northrop''. She participated in ''The Afterlife Experiments'' which was turned into a book by Gary Schwartz. The experiments and their conclusions were widely criticized across the scientific community for not being blinded, and for the lack of inclusion of any other scientifically credible evidence. Early life Suzane Northrop stated in an interview that her first memory of contact with the deceased occurred when she was five years old. However, in both that interview and in an earlier one with the Dayton Daily News, Northrop said that her first real contact with dead people happened when she was 13 when she spoke with her paternal grandmother who had just died the previous week. She received a music degree from the California State University, Los Angeles, in 1979. She soon moved to New York City w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scientific Control
A scientific control is an experiment or observation designed to minimize the effects of variables other than the independent variable (i.e. confounding variables). This increases the reliability of the results, often through a comparison between control measurements and the other measurements. Scientific controls are a part of the scientific method. Controlled experiments Controls eliminate alternate explanations of experimental results, especially experimental errors and experimenter bias. Many controls are specific to the type of experiment being performed, as in the molecular markers used in SDS-PAGE experiments, and may simply have the purpose of ensuring that the equipment is working properly. The selection and use of proper controls to ensure that experimental results are valid (for example, absence of confounding variables) can be very difficult. Control measurements may also be used for other purposes: for example, a measurement of a microphone's background noise in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
