Beischel Julie, Schwartz Gary E
Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health, Department of Psychology, The University of Arizona, USA.
Explore (NY). 2007 Jan-Feb;3(1):23-7. doi: 10.1016/j.explore.2006.10.004.
Investigating the information reported by mediums is ultimately important in determining the relationship between brain and consciousness in addition to being of deep concern to the public.
This triple-blind study was designed to examine the anomalous reception of information about deceased individuals by research mediums under experimental conditions that eliminate conventional explanations.
Eight University of Arizona students served as sitters: four had experienced the death of a parent; four, a peer. Eight mediums who had previously demonstrated an ability to report accurate information in a laboratory setting performed the readings.
To optimize potential identifiable differences between readings, each deceased parent was paired with a same-gender deceased peer. Sitters were not present at the readings; an experimenter blind to information about the sitters and deceased served as a proxy sitter. The mediums, blind to the sitters' and deceased's identities, each read two absent sitters and their paired deceased; each pair of sitters was read by two mediums. Each blinded sitter then scored a pair of itemized transcripts (one was the reading intended for him/her; the other, the paired control reading) and chose the reading more applicable to him/her.
The findings included significantly higher ratings for intended versus control readings (p = 0.007, effect size = 0.5) and significant reading-choice results (p = 0.01).
The results suggest that certain mediums can anomalously receive accurate information about deceased individuals. The study design effectively eliminates conventional mechanisms as well as telepathy as explanations for the information reception, but the results cannot distinguish among alternative paranormal hypotheses, such as survival of consciousness (the continued existence, separate from the body, of an individual's consciousness or personality after physical death) and super-psi (or super-ESP; retrieval of information via a psychic channel or quantum field).
调查灵媒所报告的信息，对于确定大脑与意识之间的关系至关重要，此外还备受公众关注。
这项三盲研究旨在检验研究灵媒在消除传统解释的实验条件下，对已故个体信息的异常接收情况。
八名亚利桑那大学的学生担任委托人：其中四人经历过父母离世；四人经历过同龄人离世。八位此前在实验室环境中已证明有能力报告准确信息的灵媒进行读心。
为优化读心之间潜在的可识别差异，每位已故父母与一位同性别的已故同龄人配对。读心时委托人不在场；一位对委托人及已故者信息不知情的实验者担任代理委托人。灵媒对委托人及已故者的身份不知情，每人读取两位不在场的委托人及其配对的已故者；每对委托人由两位灵媒读取。然后，每位不知情的委托人对一对详细记录的文本（一份是为他/她准备的读心内容；另一份是配对的对照读心内容）进行评分，并选择更适用于自己的读心内容。
研究结果包括，目标读心内容的评分显著高于对照读心内容（p = 0.007，效应量 = 0.5），且读心选择结果显著（p = 0.01）。
结果表明，某些灵媒能够异常地接收到关于已故个体的准确信息。该研究设计有效排除了传统机制以及心灵感应作为信息接收的解释，但结果无法区分其他超自然假设，如意识存续（个体意识或人格在肉体死亡后脱离身体继续存在）和超心灵感应（或超超感知觉；通过 psychic 通道或量子场检索信息）。
