TDG has reported previously about controversies surrounding the 'afterlife research' conducted by Dr Gary Schwartz at the University of Arizona. Late last year, Dr Schwartz was at the centre of some bizarre accusations - including 'preying' (financially) on a man whose son had recently died - in a segment aired on Fox, hosted by Geraldo (Dr Schwartz responded here).

This debacle had followed a split between Dr Schwartz and some of his most high-profile research subjects: Allison Dubois (of Medium fame) and Laurie Campbell (who also appeared on the Geraldo segment). Both mediums suggested that Dr Schwartz had improperly disclosed their names and names of close family, without their permission, and Dubois claimed that Dr Schwartz was riding on the coat-tails of her success. Talking to Geraldo, Laurie Campbell said "I think with my resignation it kind of shows in 2005 that I felt he was highly unethical and I can no longer be connected to his program or the university."

These alleged ethical breaches were investigated by the Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The investigation is mapped out in the following three 'Determination Letters': June 2007, December 2007, and May 2008 (PDF files) - the final letter being the most informative, as the others were part of the continuing investigation. The main findings are set out below.

Firstly, the OHRP found that Dr Schwartz had failed to protect the privacy of his research subjects, though they considered the matter resolved by an internal reprimand by the University of Arizona:

We determined that the principal investigator for the above-referenced research initiated changes to the research without institutional review board (IRB) review and approval, and as a result, failed to protect the privacy of subjects and to maintain the confidentiality of data...

...We acknowledge your statement that the Vice President for Research, Graduate Studies, and Economic Development at the University of Arizona (UA) will issue a letter of reprimand to the principal investigator... This corrective action adequately addresses our determination.

Though the wording is obscure, the following passage seems to address the Geraldo segment's claims (or at least, a similar situation) of Dr Schwartz seeking funding from vulnerable 'research subjects'. In this case the OHRP considered the allegation 'unproven':

One complainant alleged that one of the purposes of the research was fund-raising for Dr. Schwartz but that this was not disclosed to subjects, in contravention of HHS regulations at 45 CFR 46.116(a)(1). You stated that the UA investigative panel found no evidence of funding irregularities or of Dr. Schwartz’s solicitation of funds from research subjects. We therefore determine that the allegation is unproven.

There are additional findings which I won't quote here at length, but which may be of interest to readers, so I suggest that you read through the PDFs for a complete picture. These include concerns about a 'cooling off' period after the death of a loved one, before engaging a 'sitter', and a complaint about personal information being lost in the post (finding: "not a violation of HHS regulations").

In light of these findings, I contacted Gary Schwartz for his take on the investigation. Dr Schwartz was kind enough to give a detailed reply - I quote it in full below, as it offers some clarification of the events in question (admittedly, from Dr Schwartz's personal perspective), which tended to get lost in the 'sterile' HHS letters:

The purpose and spirit of federal rules concerning the use of human subjects is for subject protection (e.g. protecting their anonymity) and safety. Our laboratory closely follows these rules. Much of our research - for example, the studies reported in my latest book THE ENERGY HEALING EXPERIMENTS (which recently won a Nautilus Gold Book Award) - is supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NIH funded research strictly follows the University implementation of the federal rules. However, none of our afterlife research has ever been funded by federal sources.

Moreover, our very early research - the targeted experiments of concern in the HHS investigation - were primarily supported by the media. The 1999 HBO special LIFE AFTERLIFE is a case in point (discussed in detail in my book THE AFTERLIFE EXPERIMENTS). This was a public demonstration experiment - meaning, the subjects (mediums and sitters) choose not to be anonymous - and the experiment was designed for complete public awareness. The subjects (as well as the experimenters) signed legally binding consent forms provided by the media, indicating their agreement to use their names publicly. Since the research was explicitly designed for public education, and signed consents were used, we did not submit this research to the University (i.e. subjects were volunteering and choosing to have their participation in this demonstration research be public). As the Veritas.arizona.edu web site explains in detail, save for this early public research, the majority of our afterlife research went through the formal University human subjects approval process.

The HHS investigation was initiated by a few disgruntled subjects (sitters and mediums) who sought any means possible to denigrate the laboratory. Most of their complaints were found to be invalid. HHS was correct that the early research did not use federally sanctioned human consent forms (though they did use legally binding media human consent forms). Moreover, although I received various written and aural requests by various mediums to use their names in subsequent media presentations and publications, the laboratory initiated formal legally binding written documents (approved by the University) a few years ago to insure that potential future disgruntled individuals could not find legal loop holes to denigrate the laboratory.

I applaud the HHS and University in fulfilling their important responsibility to investigate potential human subject violations, whether the complaints are valid or not, and regardless of the motives of the complainants. HHS and the University recognize that I and my laboratory are committed to following both the procedures and spirit of subject (both human and animal) protection and safety.

My thanks to Dr Schwartz for responding to my request for comment - I am open to posting the opinions of others involved, if they wish to contact me. However, I'm hopeful that the completed HHS investigation draws the curtain on this controversy, so that we can return to answering the important question - is there evidence for afterlife survival? There is no place for ego and personal squabbles in such a vital investigation, and I don't think the topic has been served well at all by this particular controversy.

There's dead, and then there's mostly dead: the most recent eSkeptic newsletter features an article by Mark Crislip titled "Near Death Experiences & the Medical Literature". The article primarily looks at NDE studies - in particular the famous Lancet paper published by Pim van Lommel et al, which is one of the most important of the NDE literature.

I read the article from the perspective of a practicing physician who spends all his time in an acute care hospital and has been involved with many cardiac arrests over the years. The NDE question in this study hinges on whether the [sic] were dead or nearly dead. In the article the authors “defined clinical death as a period of unconsciousness caused by insufficient blood supply to the brain because of inadequate blood circulation, breathing, or both. If, in this situation, CPR is not started within 5–10 min, irreparable damage is done to the brain and the patient will die.”

Crislip's article brings up some good points in regards to how we define death, and is intelligently written. Nevertheless, there are elements of nonsense debunkery which should be set straight:

a) The whole article appears to take on the validity of the Lancet paper, on the basis of the "clinically dead" definition ("The NDE question in this study hinges on whether the [sic] were dead or nearly dead"). However, this is only a part of the paper. In fact, the Lancet article explicitly points out that NDE's happen in contexts that are not related to brain-death, such as "fear-death" situations in which bodily health is never affected...the experiencer just believes they are about to die.

a) Crislip points out discrepancies in reports over time, noting that "Some of the NDEs were, it seems, implanted memories." While this may be so, historical surveys show quite clearly that the NDE is a real phenomenon, not simply implanted. NDEs have been written about well before they entered the public consciousness. Crislip's statement may be of note though in giving percentages of people who have had NDEs - but not in the reality of the experience (reality as in 'it occurs', not that what is experienced is real).

b) Crislip finishes by saying "I am certainly not going to disagree with the idea that nearly dying is transformative..The knowledge that you are truly mortal is life altering. Cancer survivors can have the same epiphany without the cardiac arrest." However, the Lancet article explicitly notes that "The process of transformation after NDE took several years, and differed from those of patients who survived cardiac arrest without NDE", discussing these findings in detail within the article based on a longitudinal study. The study notes that the transformation was not because of the knowledge of mortality, but "a significant increase in belief in an afterlife and decrease in fear of death compared with people who had not had this experience"

There's a few other things, but just wanted to point out these items while they were in my head. Both articles are well worth the read though.

Michael Tymn has a great feature on his blog, an interview with Dr. Archie E. Roy, professor emeritus of astronomy and honorary research fellow at the University of Glasgow, who is also an investigator of apparent psychic phenomena. Dr Roy recently wrote perhaps the definitive account of the cross-correspondences - regarded by many as the best evidence for contact from beyond the grave - titled The Eager Dead (Amazon US and UK). Head on over to Mike's blog and read the full thing - below are some highlights.

Dr Roy on investigating a poltergeist case:

One case stands out in my mind. In 1972 I became involved in the Maxwell Park case with my colleague, the Rev. Max Magee, chaplain to the students of Strathclyde University. It was a powerful poltergeist case which had lasted half a year before I was called in. The family members were terrified by the physical manifestations that tormented them...In time some fifty people were witnesses, including cynical journalists, town councilors, doctors, policemen and others, turned from original scepticism to utter conviction that they had witnessed the paranormal. A police officer told me, ‘You know, I had to take some of my men off that case. They were turning in reports like ‘The bed was proceeding in a northerly direction.'

On the influence, and subsequent obscurity, of Fred Myers in the field of psychical research:

Charles Richet said: ‘If Myers was not a mystic, he had all the faith of a mystic and the ardour of an apostle, in conjunction with the sagacity and precision of a savant.' And yet just a few years ago, a young parapsychologist at the International Conference of the Society for Psychical Research could begin his presentation by referring to him vaguely as ‘Some guy called Myers.' The audience's frisson of surprise was akin to that we would expect at a modern physics conference if a young speaker had used the phrase ‘Some guy called Einstein'.

On the evidence for an afterlife:

To me, at the present time, the evidence for the survival of bodily death is of such strength that it is the most parsimonious theory accounting for much more than any other.

Have to say though that I'm not sure about the end of the interview, where Dr Roy claims to be writing a "true detective story" about "a particular event, the deliberate creation of the stellar constellation figures." Did the trickster just step in the room?

Last week, the Phoenix New Times posted an extremely in-depth story about medium Allison Dubois, who has gained fame over the past few years due to the TV series based around her life, Medium. The article takes a skeptical eye to the Dubois' claims about working with law enforcement, as well as some more personal stories, talking not just to the lady in question, but her family and friends as well.

As Michael Prescott has pointed out on his blog, there is a decidely negative tone to the story. Michael cites the example of the death of Dubois' childhood friend - much space is devoted to a contrary account to the story told by Dubois, but hardly any to supportive material.

However, medium Marcel Cairo has taken issue with Dubois' alleged 'creativity' in recounting her past history assisting law enforcement agencies, in his recent blog post "Dubious About Dubois":

As a medium devoted to the promotion of psi research and the demotion of charlatans, I would hope that Ms. Dubois would genuinely tackle the very valid criticisms made against her rather than attack those who make them. The more ammunition we give the skeptics to ridicule and debase the search for outer consciousness, the more banging of our heads against the wall we'll experience.

Personally, I can't help but see a little hypocrisy in Allison Dubois falling out with Dr Gary Schwartz because it "angers her that someone would try to profit from her abilities", when she herself writes books which mention people's dead children whom she has assisted in locating (such as the Dave Hartman mentioned in the article) - those parents may have a greater claim to being offended, in my opinion (regardless of her ability). Similarly, her alleged private email threats to the writer of the story mention putting things on the public record.

However, whatever character flaws Dubois might have (or not have, as the case may be - I'm hardly trusting of the press), shouldn't be considered in assessing her possible psychic abilities. Certainly, as Marcel Cairo says, such controversies provide ammunition for fundamentalist skeptics - and so it's worthwhile calling for some explanation of the story's criticisms. But, Dr Gary Schwartz, despite no longer being on speaking terms with Dubois, maintains that she is an immensely talented medium. If that is the case, we can only hope that Allison Dubois at some point undergoes further scientific testing to assess her abilities.

Alex Tsakiris, host of the Skeptiko podcast, is currently working with the panel from The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe (most notably, Dr Steven Novella) in order to undertake a 'bipartisan' research demonstration on the claimed abilities of mediums. In a recent podcast, Tsakiris and Novella fleshed out the protocol for the demonstration (see here for the protocol text). This is a great step, with a group of skeptics finally cutting the talk, and getting their hands 'dirty' with some actual experimentation - in concert with someone (Alex) who comes from the other side of the fence when it comes to opinions on psychic abilities.

On the downside, I do see some issues likely to pop up. Firstly, the intrinsic nature of a 'one-off' experiment/demonstration such as this is likely to result in a dispute over the validity of the data - no real conclusion will be able to be reached without many more experiments of the same kind. Beyond that, I'm not sure a third party scoring protocol is the best way forward for research with mediums: the often-told story about sessions with mediums is that they bring up lots of nonsense, but then have one massive hit that is hard to dismiss by coincidence. I think this is best scored by the person themselves - though I'm not sure of the best way to approach it (multiple mediums, only one of whom is 'genuine'?).

In any case, it will be interesting to see how this develops. In the meantime, Alex has also posted a new podcast interview with Julie Beischel, who is a bona fide researcher on this topic.

Yahoo has video of a strange news case in which it is claimed that an elderly woman was dead - that is, with no brain waves - for 17 hours, before suddenly resuscitating herself as nurses made final preparations for the dead body. The family had made the decision to turn off life support, but the woman was left on a respirator for almost a day as a decision over organ donation was mulled over, despite showing no signs of brain function.

When interviewed, she said "I feel blessed and I know God has something in store for me." It would be interesting to know if she underwent any sort of (Very!) Near Death Experience, and also to get a full report from a scientist/medical doctor rather than relying on this media report for details. Much more here and here. I still have some questions over the "10% chance of survival" mixed with "no neurological functioning", and also how long her body temperature was lowered via hypothermia. Thanks RPJ and Kat.

We reported a while back about rumours concerning Steven Spielberg's involvement in a "Paranormal Facebook" - that is, a social networking website devoted to paranormal topics. In today's news briefs, RPJ points at a fresh update on the state of the project:

The site will reportedly be called “Rising” or “The Rising” (our understanding is that they have acquired both .com domain names), and the logo above and animated logo below are at least preliminary versions of the final.

...The Rising will have original video content with a permanent host in addition to the social network where users can share stories and experiences, tapping into serious demand for this kind of thing.

Not sure whether to take this at face value, or whether it could all be a movie (or game) tie-in, or even possible an Alternative Reality Game (ARG). Guess we'll see as time progresses (in the meantime, if Mr Spielberg needs a news guy for his new site, I could sure use some income for this gig...)

In other Spielberg-related news, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has opened, and reviews are pretty good (see Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB). Looks like it recaptures the vibe of the series well, which is no mean feat - I'll have to check it out. (BTW, I just finished typesetting Filip Coppens' article on the Mitchell-Hedges crystal skull for Darklore Volume 2, and I'm sure you folks will really dig it)

Over one hundred years ago, the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) - with members from the top tiers of science - embarked on a search for evidence of an afterlife. Although largely forgotten by the public today, some of their research findings were compelling. Many people point to the sittings with mediums Leonora Piper and Gladys Osborne Leonard, as the most convincing. However, those who have studied the SPR's research in depth also would probably raise another candidate: the 'cross correspondences'.

[T]he Cross-Correspondences were fragments of information that came through different mediums and which in themselves meant nothing. However, when pieced together they formed coherent messages. The objective was for the communicating spirits to demonstrate that the messages were not coming from the conscious or subconscious of a single medium, or by means of telepathy from another human, or from some cosmic memory bank. It was as if the spirit communicators devised a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle with the pieces scattered in various parts of the world.

The obscurity of the cross correspondences is no doubt due to the sheer complexity of the communications and 'puzzles', which most lay readers don't have time for. However, a recent book by Professor Archie E. Roy may offer the best insights yet. Titled The Eager Dead (Amazon US and UK, I've now heard from numerous people, in the know, who consider it a wonderful exposition of this difficult topic.

One of those is Michael Tymn, an expert in the history of psychical research (and who contributed a fascinating article to Darklore Volume 1. Mike wrote a glowing review of the book, commenting that not only did it discuss the scientific aspect, but also offered human insights into the relationships between the dead and living people involved. Filip Coppens too has just this week posted an article to his website about the cross correspondences, inspired by his reading of The Eager Dead. Both articles give an excellent overview of the case, so check them out when you get the chance. Better still, pick yourself up a copy of The Eager Dead.

An interesting development in the UK with the British government announcing that 'spiritual services' will now be included in consumer protection laws, a move which has led to concerns from those who earn their money from such pursuits. Whereas with the previous legislation the onus was on prosecutors to prove fraudulent behaviour, under consumer protection laws psychics and the like may be required to show their abilities are genuine:

The Government says the regulations target "misleading or aggressive" activities and "will not affect the supply of spiritualistic services in themselves".

But many mystics fear they could be sued by customers unhappy with the service they have received, or be forced to prove in court they really have otherworldly powers. Some envision having to make customers sign a waiver before a seance or a sitting. Even more gallingly, they fear they might have to advertise that their services are for entertainment purposes only.

Skeptic Ben Goldacre has additional comment in his most recent Bad Science column, and makes some good points (although I disagree with his summation of psychics in general). Most importantly, how such a law is going to be policed, considering that there currently is no set test for mediumship:

With my tiny brain, I can't see how anyone is going to rationally police this kind of thing, given that the whole industry is, by definition, based on nonsense, and it's plainly undesirable to ban things simply because they're stupid...

...If we're going to be paternalistic about the credulous, you might hope we start with Carol Vorderman's high interest "loan consolidation" adverts before we get to Cilla Black's £1.50 a minute Psychic Hotline service. Although I bet they make a great pair.

The latter point is a good one as well. And if 'psychic' statements are to be considered under consumer protection, what about similar statements (about the future, wellbeing etc) by religious authorities?

All the same, regulation of some description may be just what the doctor ordered - and some psychics agree. It's quite obvious that there are large numbers of outright frauds involved (while skeptics might say "all" rather than "large numbers", I've seen enough in my time to still find some merit in the field). To be really optimistic, perhaps it could even result in more attention being paid to some sort of scientific testing or certification - though in reality I doubt that this new legislation will be policed with much force...rather simply used as necessary for egregious infringements.

Will be interesting to watch in any case. Certainly, it may focus some attention on some very grey areas as to what should constitute 'genuine' psychic ability...

I'm looking forward to seeing the movie Death Defying Acts, starring Guy Pearce as the legendary Harry Houdini and Catherine Zeta-Jones as a fraudulent psychic. Despite the film not getting overly enthusiastic previews, I'm really interested to see how they treat Houdini's interaction with the spiritualist scene, and how much historical information is included. The movie outline reads...

It is 1926, and Harry Houdini is the most famous performer in the world. Audiences flock to watch him perform his amazing stunts. But the man behind the legend is a tortured soul, having been unable to hear his mother’s dying words. He offers a $10,000 reward to anyone who can contact his mother from beyond the grave. When a beautiful but deceptive psychic, Mary McGregor, and her sidekick daughter, Benji, take the challenge, Harry is initially skeptical, but is soon captivated by her charms. The more time he spends with the mysterious woman, the more attracted he is, and what began as a con soon evolves into a passionate and complicated love affair, as Houdini attempts the most dangerous stunt of his career.

That description might be enough to get James 'The Amazing' Randi foaming at the mouth, considering how he holds Houdini as somewhat of a hero-figure - a magician who turned his talents to exposing bogus spiritualist mediums. But perhaps the outline is a little misleading, and Pearce's Houdini will in fact be the harsh skeptic that Houdini was in life. It will also be interesting to see how this romance between Houdini and the psychic is managed, considering that in real life Houdini was married for 33 years to his wife Beatrice (Bess), right up until his death.

During the 1920s, Houdini became perhaps the most well-known debunker of psychic claims (despite this, he had a rather peculiar friendship with Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, an avowed believer in Spiritualism). One of the more notable cases he investigated was the physical mediumship of 'Margery' (real name: Mina Crandon), as part of a Scientific American investigating team which offered $2500 for proof of psychic abilities - and this story itself is worthy of a movie. ... Read More »