Julie Beischel holds a doctorate in pharmacology and toxicology, but following the suicide of her mother and a convincing mediumship reading 13 years ago, she decided to pursue research with mediums. Currently she is the only person in this country doing so full-time at the Windbridge Institute, which she co-founded with her husband. Since 2008 this has involved a team of mediums who were intensely screened over several months in an eight-step procedure. One of the main projects of the Institute has been to examine the abilities of these mediums to report accurate and specific information about deceased individuals without prior knowledge or feedback or using deceptive or fraudulent means.
Beischel describes the research design as follows. A pool of over 1000 individuals was identified who volunteered to serve as sitters by completing an online application which includes a questionnaire about the deceased person (discarnate) they would like to hear from. This includes such items as the discarnate’s physical and personality characteristics, interests or hobbies, and cause of death. One of the volunteer sitters is chosen at random from this pool and paired with a second sitter on the basis of his or her discarnate being very different from that of the first sitter. Two readings are scheduled with a randomly selected Windbridge certified research medium (WCRM), one for each sitter’s chosen discarnate. Readings are given over the phone with the medium alone who is only given the discarnate’s first name and knows nothing about the sitter.
s soon as the medium has connected with the discarnate her reading begins to be recorded,
She is asked several standard questions by an experimenter (over the phone).
What did the discarnate look like in his/her physical life? Describe the personality of the discarnate. What were the discarnate’s hobbies or activities? How did s/he spend his/her time? What was the discarnate’s cause of death? Does the discarnate have any comments, questions, requests, or messages for the sitter? Is there anything else you can tell me about this person?
Usually a week later the same medium is given the name of the second sitter’s discarnate, and the same process occurs. Readings are transcribed to create lists of these items. Both of these are emailed to the two sitters who each score each list without knowing which of the two was for his or her discarnate. Items are scored for accuracy, and a reading is given an overall global score from 0 to 6. Additionally, sitters are asked which reading was intended for him or her.
At the time the study was written up scoring was available for 21 readings. Sitters scored more of the items as correct in their own readings than the other reading, and this difference was statistically significant. They also gave their own readings higher overall scores than the second readings, again statistically significant. Out of the 21 readings 16 sitters correctly chose the one they thought was intended for them (statistically significant). Beischel summarized the results as supporting the initial hypothesis that certain mediums can report accurate and specific information about discarnates with no prior knowledge about the sitters or discarnates, without any feedback during the reading, and without fraud or deception.
However, she points out that we can’t conclude that the mediums are communicating directly with the deceased. Two competing hypotheses need to be considered. One is that there is some kind of psychic reservoir where all information since the beginning of time is stored somehow somewhere, like the claimed Akashic record. The medium accesses this to acquire facts about the deceased. The second is the superpsi hypothesis just discussed. Beischel concludes that the survival hypothesis can’t be considered to be better than these other two based on the results of this medium study.
To address the superpsi possibility the Windbridge team investigated the mediums’ experiences during their readings. Several things occur spontaneously in readings that suggest survival rather than psi. Sometimes the mediums are contradicted by the discarnates and surprised by the information they receive which may be quite funny. This wouldn’t be likely if psi were used to acquire the information. In one study WCRMs completed a questionnaire about their experience following a reading and another following a conversation with Beischel. In the reading they experienced higher levels of negative emotions, as well as alterations in sense of time, body image, perceptions , and general state of awareness than they experienced during the phone call. Conversely they experienced a sense of lower levels of volitional control and memory.
Many of the WCRMs also perform psychic readings and thus have experience acquiring information about the living using psi. In one study they were asked to describe in as much detail as possible doing both medium and psychic readings. While they reported similarities there were also differences. In medium readings the WCRMs reported signs that contact had been made such as rings or whines or light flashes or feelings of vibration or heat. The mediumship experience involved independent, autonomous communicators who could surprise and sometimes frighten the mediums with their presence and sometimes voiced opinions with which the mediums didn’t agree. They actually experienced the emotions of the discarnates, whereas they were only aware of the emotions of the living in psychic readings.
In an ongoing study WRCMs were given the first name of a living person and a discarnate without knowing which was which. They did readings for both and completed questionnaires about them. In 83 percent of the cases they accurately identified which recipient was living and which was deceased.
These studies on the actual experiences of mediums, Beischel believes, more strongly support the survival hypothesis than those involving a psychic reservoir or superpsi.