The Intersection of Parapsychology and Skepticism: Bridging the Divide
The primary focus of this podcast episode is the necessity for a balanced approach to skepticism within the realms of science and parapsychology. Throughout our discussion, we delve into the complexities of the skeptical community, distinguishing between genuine skeptics and those who merely scoff at unorthodox phenomena without engaging with the evidence. We explore the ramifications of dismissing anomalous experiences, which can lead to emotional harm for individuals who encounter them, and argue for the importance of integrating empirical data with personal experience in the study of psychic abilities. Our dialogue highlights notable contributions from the field of parapsychology, including significant studies that have provided replicable evidence for phenomena often dismissed by skeptics. Ultimately, we advocate for the establishment of constructive dialogue between skeptics and proponents of parapsychology, emphasizing the importance of collaboration in advancing our understanding of these enigmatic experiences.
Welcome to another thought-provoking episode of Deadly Departed! Today, host Jock Brocas and co-host Craig Weiler, science editor at Paranormal Daily News, dive deep into the delicate balance between scientific inquiry and the study of the paranormal. In this episode, Craig shares his experiences engaging with the skeptical community—especially after posting in a Reddit forum—and the heated reactions that followed. Together, Jock and Craig unpack the crucial role true skepticism plays, the pitfalls of scoffing and closed-mindedness, and why scientific balance is essential in exploring parapsychology.
They explore everything from the replicability of key studies, like those by Etzel Cardeña and the famous Ganzfeld telepathy experiments, to the impact of personal experience on belief in the anomalous. You’ll hear honest reflections on bias—from both skeptics and believers—as well as stories of scientists whose perspectives changed after experiencing something unexplainable firsthand.
If you’ve ever wondered why the divide between mainstream science and paranormal research persists, or how we can bridge the gap through open-minded dialogue and empirical investigation, this episode is for you. Tune in as we challenge assumptions, call for collaboration, and highlight the urgent need for education and transparency in the fascinating world beyond the veil.
The discourse presented in this podcast episode meticulously navigates the intricate interplay between skepticism and the field of parapsychology. The hosts, Jock and Craig, embark on a profound examination of the necessity for a balanced approach towards the scientific inquiry of paranormal phenomena. They elucidate the challenges faced by parapsychologists in the quest for empirical validation, specifically addressing the pervasive skepticism that often dismisses their findings without due consideration. The discussion delves into the historical context of skepticism, contrasting genuine scientific skepticism with what they term as 'scoffing', a dismissive attitude that undermines the validity of parapsychological research. Throughout the episode, the hosts advocate for an open-minded exploration of anomalous experiences, urging both skeptics and proponents of the paranormal to engage in constructive dialogue that transcends mere ridicule and fosters understanding. They emphasize the importance of empirical evidence while also acknowledging the subjective nature of personal experiences in shaping one's understanding of reality, thus advocating for a synthesis of experiential and scientific methodologies in the study of parapsychology.
Takeaways:
- In the realm of parapsychology, skepticism often obstructs a comprehensive understanding of anomalous experiences.
- We must recognize that scientific skepticism can inadvertently dismiss genuine phenomena, leading to psychological harm.
- A nuanced approach that integrates empirical evidence with experiential data is essential for advancing parapsychological research.
- The dialogue between skeptics and parapsychologists is crucial for fostering a balanced exploration of the unknown.
- It is imperative to educate the public about parapsychology to bridge the gap between skepticism and acceptance.
- The scientific community's acknowledgment of empirical studies in parapsychology indicates a gradual shift towards acceptance of anomalous phenomena.
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Paranormal Daily News
- Chris French
- Cal Cooper
- Rupert Sheldrake
- Graham Hancock
- Ezel Cardena
- Darrell Bem
- Lisa Miller
- Marjorie Willacott
- Dean Radin
- Richard Wiseman
- Center for Inquiry
- Assagioli
- Carl Jung
- Stanislav Grof
- Steve Parsons
- Jack Hunter
- Matt from Aleph
- Brian Lathe
Transcript
And one of the challenges here is that there seem to be factors involved that are may actually be beyond comprehension, but certainly it's all happening in the mind.
Speaker A:So there's no mechanistic process that's really easy to nail down.
Speaker A:That's true.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Welcome to the Deadly Departed podcast, where the veil between the living and the dead is just a whisper away.
Speaker B:I'm Jock, and along with my colleagues in Paranormal Daily News, we will be your guides through the shadowy realms of the paranormal and the unexplained.
Speaker B:In each episode, we will dive into the eerie and the enigmatic with the help of today's leading experts in parapsychology, science and the supernatural, prepare to uncover the secrets that lurk in the dark and explore the mysteries that defy explanation.
Speaker B:Let's embark on this journey now.
Speaker B:Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker B:This is Jock.
Speaker B:I'm here with my good friend Craig Wyler, the science editor of pdn.
Speaker B:Craig, how are you doing this morning?
Speaker A:I'm doing great, Jock.
Speaker A:It is.
Speaker A:It's wonderful to be back on the podcast and talking again.
Speaker A:This is just great.
Speaker B:Before we jump into what we're going to talk about, I just want to say this is veterans.
Speaker B:This is not Veterans, This Memorial Day.
Speaker B:Memorial Day.
Speaker B:And you may be listening to this after Memorial Day because we are not going to be publishing this, but, you know, let's just take a time.
Speaker B:It doesn't matter to me.
Speaker B:I'm an ex veteran.
Speaker B:Memorial Day is every day.
Speaker B:I remember those that have gone before us.
Speaker B:I remember those that have fought in wars before us.
Speaker B:And that's the reason that we can do this.
Speaker B:It's the reason we can sit down and do this podcast and talk about things that we're passionate about because we are free.
Speaker B:Because the men and women of that era and even though I've given so much good, given the lives, that we may be free.
Speaker B:And that's something that we must remember.
Speaker B:And so if you're listening to this after Veterans Day, then, please, Veterans Day, Memorial Day, two different days I get, to me, they're both the same because we're veterans and we're remembering them.
Speaker B:But happy Memorial Day and happy Veterans Day.
Speaker B:Whatever time you're listening to this, please remember our veterans, our soldiers, those that have gone before us every day of your lives, because it's because of them that we are free.
Speaker B:And today, guys, we're going to jump into a really juicy episode.
Speaker B:So Craig recently put up a post in a Reddit forum, which God only knows why he did this, this was a skeptical forum.
Speaker B:And I'm of the opinion, you know, I've always been.
Speaker B:We do need skeptics.
Speaker B:And I tend to, I don't like to use that cliche that, you know, I'm a skeptical medium or anything.
Speaker B:I like to use the term that I have a skeptical interest at things.
Speaker B:I don't just accept everything as real, even in paranormal phenomena and parapsychology.
Speaker B:And the work I do is a medium.
Speaker B:You know, there has to be a level of empirical evidence.
Speaker B:But I am absolutely flabbergasted at some of the responses that actually came from that post.
Speaker B:And so today we're going to jump into why we really need a balanced approach to science and also paranormal or parapsychological science as well.
Speaker B:Craig, why on earth did you just decide to go and do it and write a post in a skeptical forum?
Speaker A:I did this on a whim.
Speaker A: I had a book that I wrote in: Speaker A:And in the book I followed skepticism.
Speaker A:And this is actually what I'm known for in parapsychology is my takedown of organized skepticism.
Speaker A:And so one of the things that I did along the way was I really got to understand the skeptic community rather well.
Speaker A:And so when I talk about this, I, this comes from long experience.
Speaker A:I've had hundreds of conversations with skeptics and I do understand a lot about their process now.
Speaker B:I honestly.
Speaker B:So as I mentioned, Craig, I'm kind of, you know, you've heard me so many times.
Speaker B:I think we need our skeptics.
Speaker B:You know, there's certain skeptics that I don't, I'm not drawn to.
Speaker B:There's good skeptics out there that I think that are open minded, like Chris French, even though he's, you know, he's really in a skeptical camp, he's open minded.
Speaker B:And Cal Cooper, who's quite skeptical, but also he's open minded.
Speaker B:They want to see this research.
Speaker B:I think there's a great divide from understanding the research and what I want to kind of jump into.
Speaker B:And this isn't the same.
Speaker B:I think I admit that I have biases, but I haven't seen bias as bad in the skeptical.
Speaker B:And let's actually, let's not label it skeptical, but in the scientific community I've seen really, really, really bad bias that they're not willing to even entertain what we have.
Speaker B:And the data that we have in parapsychological inquiry and parapsychological research, where there are been a number of approaches, we've had mixed method approaches, we've got quantitative approaches, and we'll talk a little bit about that later.
Speaker B:But why do you think that?
Speaker B:It's just, they just want, they just refute everything.
Speaker B:They will not look at the data that we have.
Speaker B:They will not even entertain it.
Speaker B:We need to understand why they are so biased and what their approach.
Speaker A:So first of all, in the scientific community in parapsychology, they've kind of divided the skeptics up into two camps.
Speaker A:One of them are actual skeptics and the other one are scoffers.
Speaker A:Now what Jock was talking about, about the Reddit thread that I was on was they're mostly scoffers.
Speaker A:They don't look at the evidence, they seem to revel in their ignorance of it.
Speaker A:And they're incredibly insulting and just basically not open to anything else, any information from anybody else.
Speaker A:Because to them we're all crazy and not worthy of any respect.
Speaker A:And of course, because we're crazy and we're not worthy of any respect, all of our data is crazy and not worthy of any respect.
Speaker A:And so you have a situation with the skeptics where everything skeptical has 100% credibility and everybody else has zero credibility.
Speaker A:And when you have people with that point of view, there's no getting through them because nothing you say can possibly make any difference to them.
Speaker A:And this is the crowd that I was running into on Reddit.
Speaker B:So let's kind of, I want to kind of refute some of the things because we know of a great study that's well known in the parapsychology community on Ezel Cardena did research and we've got that where there's been empirical evidence and also that a lot of the research that he's did has been replicable.
Speaker B:And there are organ, you know, there are researchers that have been able to replicate, but in the same token, there are researchers that haven't been able to replicate.
Speaker B:I have my own theory on that, but obviously there is a, maybe a potential heavy bias there.
Speaker B:But you know, when we can replicate these studies which has been proven, why are we still fighting against this battle that seems to be going nowhere?
Speaker A:Well, it's a pretty easy, it's pretty easy to describe here, is that when you have skeptics that are 100% stubborn all the time, your data is not going to get through.
Speaker A:And what we see in the skeptical community is talking points which are a media thing that we're all familiar with where you take a statement and you just repeat it and repeat it and repeat it.
Speaker A:And one of them is that the studies in parapsychology are not replicable, that as you tighten the controls, the effects disappear.
Speaker A:And this is something that they've repeated over and over and over again.
Speaker A:Now this doesn't match the data at all.
Speaker A:This is.
Speaker A:No, it doesn't.
Speaker A:It's a bald faced lie.
Speaker A:Particularly when you're looking at something like the Ganzfeldt telepathy studies.
Speaker B:The Ganzfeldt studies are actually a prime example because the data is replicable, it has been proven.
Speaker B:But then you have somebody that you know, and I'm not going to mention any names because I don't want to give them airtime, but you have then researchers that jump into it.
Speaker B:And my theory is, Craig, that they're so biased and they're so skeptical that they get in the way somehow.
Speaker A:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker A:Well, you have an organization, the center of Inquiry, the center for Inquiry, my apologies, that is an atheist organization.
Speaker A:And there are skeptics and basically they turn all of their media attention towards downplaying and trashing the results in parapsychology.
Speaker A:They've been at it for a very long time.
Speaker A:This organization was created in the 70s and over time they've gotten into Wikipedia where they have editors constantly working to do the same thing and they're basically promoting their point of view of the world and trashing everybody else's in order to advance their ideas.
Speaker A:It's a lot like evangelicals and evolution where you have somebody constantly pushing their point of view because it's very important.
Speaker B:To them personally, which creates a massive amount of bias in itself.
Speaker A:It does, yeah.
Speaker A:And it creates a lot of confusion in the media because they're constantly getting two different stories.
Speaker A:Now the skeptics have a better media presence and so they generally win through public relations rather than winning through science.
Speaker A:Very frustrating for people on the parapsychology side, but there's nothing to be done.
Speaker B:For it, you know, and there's also, I think it's not like we're without our problems in parapsychology because there seems to be also a great divide between parapsychology and transpersonal psychology and even from transpersonal psychology and normal psychology.
Speaker B:Well, we say normal, but other forms of psychology.
Speaker B:I'm a great proponent, I'm a great believer that I would like to be able to see transpersonal and parapsychology work together because I think there's a great synergy between them, massive synergy.
Speaker B:And albeit that a lot of the research is phenomenological and experiential, I think there has to be an importance put on experience, because even in anomalous phenomena, your world can be shaken if you experience something that can't really be explained.
Speaker B:And I think, along with the skeptical camp, if you like, is a lot of them have never had any of these experiences, because I found over the years that there are many skeptics who have, and I could mention some of them that have experiences that change their whole direction of their research, change their whole, I would say, belief system.
Speaker B:It rocks their world.
Speaker B:But they're open enough to start to go down that way.
Speaker B:For instance, you can look at the awakened brain, okay, where that research was done.
Speaker B:I can't remember her name now, but she's been on the podcast here with us as well, and Dr. Miller.
Speaker B:So she's did some fascinating research in neuropsychology and the implications of the brain.
Speaker B:And that totally shocked our world, rocked her world, and that's moved.
Speaker B:And that's just one example.
Speaker B:But there's many other examples where there have been skeptics who have had an experience.
Speaker B:So maybe the issue is here is that none of them have got an experience.
Speaker B:So they're totally biased and they're coming from a place of ignorance.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker B:But we really, really, really need to join forces between experience and empirical evidence to be able to maybe even generate a new methodology or a new way of researching and bringing parapsychology, science and other forms of psychology into the mix.
Speaker B:But we're not willing to create these bridges, hopefully within transpersonal psych and parapsychology that, that, that bridge is being created.
Speaker B:I do see signs of that.
Speaker B:But as far as the science community is concerned, we're trying to build bridges, but they won't build them back.
Speaker A:Well, the first point that I want to make here, which I think is an important one, is that this is an area where skepticism does active harm.
Speaker A:When you have people denying the existence of anomalous experiences, you are screwing with people's minds.
Speaker A:This is a form of gaslighting.
Speaker A:And we know that people do have anomalous experiences.
Speaker A:There are actually journals out there, scientific journals, that document these anomalous experiences.
Speaker A:The journal of anomalous experiences is one of them.
Speaker A:And so you have this, you know, you have this crossover between psychology and parapsychology at that point, because when people have these experiences, if they don't have the scientific and mental framework to accept them.
Speaker A:It is world shaking for them and it is difficult for them to reconcile it.
Speaker A:For example, if you have a strong anomalous experience, let's say that you had a very close friend or a spouse die, and then you see an apparition of that person, at some point you could think that you're going crazy, when in fact this is.
Speaker A:It's not a normal experience, but it's not outside of what happens with people.
Speaker A:It's unusual, but it's not unheard of.
Speaker A:And these sorts of things are important to be able to integrate for people so that these experiences don't rock their world, that they can treat them as normal and that the life can go on rather than feeling crazy.
Speaker A:And this is just.
Speaker A:There's all kinds of harm with skeptics not acknowledging these experiences.
Speaker B:But if you look at the scientists now, and I mentioned Lisa Miller, Dr. Lisa Miller, who's phenomenal, that rocked her world and it kind of changed the whole direction in what she was doing.
Speaker B:And then the one that I couldn't remember was Marjorie Willacott, you know, who was a neuroscientist, you know, and then that totally changed her paradigm and changed her direction.
Speaker B:And phenomenal researcher, her book Infinite Awareness, is great.
Speaker B:Recommend it to anybody.
Speaker B:In fact, that's maybe one that we'll review at some point.
Speaker B:But you've got these scientists who are willing to play the game, and even skeptics.
Speaker B:Like Chris French is not totally dissing anomalous phenomena.
Speaker B:Rupert Sheldrake has done so many.
Speaker B:I mean, morphic resonance or all his research and everything else.
Speaker B:His research is replicable.
Speaker A:Yes, it is.
Speaker B:Scientists are willing to change their direction.
Speaker B:Maybe not so much Chris French, but he is open.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So Chris French is a skeptic that engages with parapsychology.
Speaker A:For the listeners who don't know who he is, he's been engaging with parapsychologists for a long time.
Speaker A:This is actually unusual among skeptics, especially.
Speaker B:With Rupert Sheldrake, because he's engaged with him a lot.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So this is unusual with skeptics.
Speaker A:First of all, Chris French is the only skeptic who does this.
Speaker A:The only person that's even maybe slightly in the same league is another academic, Richard Weissman.
Speaker B:But what's interesting is he's more hard than skeptic, though.
Speaker A:He's more hard than skeptic.
Speaker A:But the interesting thing is when you look at how Chris French, Professor Chris French, emeritus, when you look at how he sees parapsychology, and because he's had so much contact with it, what you see is a very nuanced and complicated view of the field.
Speaker A:So he's still skeptical.
Speaker A:But on the other hand, he sees a lot of the information and so he doesn't take a super hardened position.
Speaker A:And more importantly, he has an end game for parapsychology, something almost no other skeptic does.
Speaker A:Which is to say, he says, if you do these things, then I think it'll be acceptable to me.
Speaker A:In other words, I think I'll believe the results if you get this far.
Speaker A:Now, I have a problem with that with most skeptics because they usually just start moving the goalposts.
Speaker B:I was just about to say that, because this is normally.
Speaker B:And we've seen that in the past.
Speaker B:Well, if you do this and then you reach it.
Speaker B:Yeah, but you need to add this and then everything keeps moving and they're never happy in the end.
Speaker B:But at least he does engage and at least he's willing to.
Speaker B:There was a great.
Speaker B:And maybe we can link it actually in a show.
Speaker B:Notes.
Speaker B:There was a. I don't know, you probably watched.
Speaker B:I watched it as well, but there was a great debate between him and Rupert Sheldrake and I believe it was at the University of Cambridge.
Speaker B:And I found.
Speaker B:I, you know, I did find it.
Speaker B:Good, because he did open up and I'm sure it was him.
Speaker B:Was it?
Speaker B:It was Chris French, wasn't it wasn't it wasn't Wiseman.
Speaker B:I think it was, yeah, it was Chris French.
Speaker B:And, you know, I do believe that he engaged and his end potential.
Speaker B:Last thought was, I'm not going to shut the door to this.
Speaker B:I'm willing to look at the data and see where it goes and see what can be measured.
Speaker B:Because at the end of the day, science is what can be measured.
Speaker B:And also parapsychology is really epistemological and it's about what.
Speaker B:It can be measured as well.
Speaker B:And we need to maybe bring that into an experiential component as well, because there's a lot that can tell us from experience.
Speaker B:And as I've always said, experience.
Speaker B:Trump's theory, once you've had the experience, it can just.
Speaker B:It can knock your theory out of the way.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:You know, for our listeners, I think I need to add a little bit more context here about the science of parapsychology.
Speaker A:Psychic ability is really difficult to test for.
Speaker A:It's probably one of the most difficult things.
Speaker A:And this is one of the reasons why the controversy continues is it has never.
Speaker A:They've never been able to create an easily replicable experiment with parapsychology.
Speaker A:It just.
Speaker A:They come fairly close with a few things.
Speaker A:The steering studies were.
Speaker B:But stealing studies.
Speaker A:The Ganzfeld, which is a slightly more complicated study, but all of these things, you can't.
Speaker A:In none of these studies can you simply run the experiment and get a positive result every single time.
Speaker A:It just doesn't happen.
Speaker A:So sometimes the.
Speaker A:Sometimes you'll have a strong effect, sometimes you have a weak effect.
Speaker A:Then you need to bunch all the studies together to find out that, you.
Speaker B:Know, Craig, I would say the same of science, though.
Speaker B:I would say the same of science.
Speaker B:I would say no matter what the research that they do in science, even if it's replicable, they're not going to replicate the exact data every single time or the exact thing.
Speaker B:I mean, I see it from.
Speaker B:I work with scientists and other side of things that I do and I see the research that they do and it's replicable to a degree, but it's not guaranteed because there's a lot of conditions that go into it and there could be environmental conditions, there could be biological conditions.
Speaker B:It's not always going to be the same.
Speaker B:So aren't they just calling the kettle black?
Speaker A:To a certain extent?
Speaker A:Yeah, there's definitely a double standard there.
Speaker A:However, I will say that psychic ability is particularly tricky.
Speaker A:And one of the challenges here is that there seem to be factors involved that are may actually be beyond comprehension, but certainly it's.
Speaker A:It's all happening in the mind.
Speaker A:So there's no mechanistic process that's really easy to nail down.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:There'S a.
Speaker A:There's a lot of black box stuff happening with, with psychic ability.
Speaker A:And actually Dean Radin, the probably the top expert on psychic ability in the world, you know, has said that this is really, really tricky stuff that one time, you know, he'll have like a set of five different psychic criteria.
Speaker A:And on one study, criteria A goes off the charts, and on the next study he does everything exactly the same and criteria B goes off the charts and then he does it again and C goes off the charts.
Speaker A:Now, all of this stuff demonstrates psychic ability, but it's all squeaking out in different directions, making it difficult to nail down.
Speaker A:And most importantly, it does not seem to be terribly predictable.
Speaker A:And this is one of the things that gives skeptics of psychic ability room to maneuver and room to discredit, when in actuality, it's just a really difficult phenomena to measure with science.
Speaker B:This is why I think as well that we need to really have a serious look at experiential phenomena and blend that in with what you can measure.
Speaker B:And I think that's possible.
Speaker B:I do believe it's possible.
Speaker B:But of course, that's taking a massive leap.
Speaker B:And that's also maybe taking a massive leap of faith as well.
Speaker B:Because you're asking, even in the parapsychology field, people to have a certain amount of faith or have a certain amount of willingness to change that paradigm, to change the approach.
Speaker B:But I think if we're going to break through in science, we need to look at other avenues, we need to look at new approaches, we need to be willing to open up and perhaps look at a phenomenological data more, as long as there's, you know, empirical evidence that can be brought into that pattern.
Speaker B:You know, some of the studies that have been out there, as you mentioned, Ganzfeld, there's empirical data.
Speaker B:There's empirical data with the steering studies, there's empirical data with other studies.
Speaker B:There's been studies all over the world where we've managed it in afterlife studies, in mediumship, you know, there's elements of empirical data as well.
Speaker B:We need to get to a point, we need skeptics, don't get me wrong, we need them, right?
Speaker B:As much as it was painful to say, we need them because at the end of the day, in our own way, we're skeptic of them, right?
Speaker B:Because they're skeptics of everything that we are doing, and we are kind of skeptics of everything that they're doing.
Speaker B:So there is an imbalance where we need to find some harmony between us.
Speaker B:Science, I don't use the word skeptics really, but science is skeptical of what we do, and we can also be skeptical of what they do.
Speaker B:So we're just the same, you know, and we are really.
Speaker A:I would disagree.
Speaker A:And the reason is because the.
Speaker A:From, from my experience with skeptics, one of the challenges with them is that they.
Speaker A:When you're dealing with a materialistic mindset, you tend to discount things like belief as not being part of it.
Speaker A:And in fact, belief is a huge part of studying psychic ability.
Speaker A:If you don't get that part that what's going on in your mind is going to affect your experimental results, then everything's going to look like weird stuff to you.
Speaker A:But in fact, in empirical studies, what they've been able to show is that belief actually matters.
Speaker A:There are, in fact, there are some studies where you have a test where both side missing, which is when you, when you sign Missing, basically, is when you can't hit the target to save your life to the point where that's a psychic ability.
Speaker A:And if you measure those against people who can hit the target, what you find is that people who believe in psychic ability do well to the point of statistical significance, and people who don't believe it do poorly to the point of statistical significance.
Speaker B:I would challenge that.
Speaker B:I would challenge that, right, Because.
Speaker B:And I can't remember the study, but there has been studies, and I have no.
Speaker B:And I need to dig this out, but there has been studies where there actually have been individuals in a study that don't believe in psychic ability that I've scored quite high.
Speaker B:And it shocked them, right, because they don't necessarily have a belief in it, but what they've actually done, what they've taken part of.
Speaker B:This was something recently that I read.
Speaker B:I'll need to dig out the paper.
Speaker B:But what they had taken part, I think it was a study in Europe.
Speaker B:And what they had taken part of actually showed that it didn't matter.
Speaker B:They still had the ability to score high on these psychic tests.
Speaker B:So I would say that it's not all about belief.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And that's just my personal opinion.
Speaker B:If you believe it, then obviously there's an element of you that you're believing in the power of it.
Speaker B:You're believing that you can do it and you have an expectation that you're going to sky high, but that you're going to score high.
Speaker B:But also I think there's an element where if you don't believe it, but you actually get the data that shows there's something there, it may change.
Speaker B:It may change your whole way of looking at things.
Speaker B:And I've seen it.
Speaker B:I've seen skeptics who have scored, and I don't want to use the word skeptics, but people who don't believe in psychic ability that have scored relatively high and done fairly well.
Speaker B:So I don't think we can say that it's all about belief.
Speaker A:Okay?
Speaker A:So granted, it's not all about belief, but, you know, this is an effect that shows up regularly in psychic studies and it's called the differential effect.
Speaker A:I actually, you know, to me it looks like a mere world effect where you have people actually living in different worlds based upon their beliefs because the skeptics will generally miss and the psychics will generally.
Speaker B:They live in their own world as well.
Speaker B:But again, that's me just being skeptic of their world.
Speaker A:Yeah, but I mean, this is where belief is shown to have A real world effect.
Speaker A:And so, you know, my point is that psychic ability because of this can be difficult to study.
Speaker A:You know, for example, if you have a general population and you're looking at the psychic ability of 100 people, if you don't break this down by belief, it shows no psychic ability at all.
Speaker A:But if you do break it down by belief, you can show that some people are doing well and others are doing less than well.
Speaker A:So it's complicated.
Speaker B:Sorry.
Speaker B:If you can hear that bleep in there, somebody's messaging me and I actually turned on do not disturb.
Speaker B:So I don't know why they're messaging me.
Speaker B:You know, this is interesting.
Speaker B:You know, I would love to say that we're making breakthroughs.
Speaker B:I'd love to say that we are, that we are breaking, but I don't think we are because we're replicating the same thing all the time.
Speaker B:And if we don't get some kind of cohesion between elements of psychology, parapsychology and the scientific community, are we ever going to get any further in trying to understand, trying to get the ontology of what we do or what it's about?
Speaker B:I think we've got a long way to go.
Speaker B:And this is why I think as well, Craig, we need, you know, we've talked about this many things, but we need a lot more parapsychologists.
Speaker B:We need a lot more education in what we do because our field, even, you know, it was accepted, I think, what was it?
Speaker B:The scientific society, exploration, parapsychology was accepted in that field.
Speaker B:But we need more.
Speaker B:We need more of our research to be accepted or at least to be taken seriously in order for us to start to build bridges between us.
Speaker A:Well, there are some bridges already being built.
Speaker A:The Parapsychological association last year hosted for the first time a continuing education credit for psychology.
Speaker A:They hosted a continuing education credit for psychotherapists in the area of anomalous experiences.
Speaker A:So the fact that the field of psychology is allowing this is a sign that parapsychology.
Speaker B:Yeah, and I think that's what's needed with transpersonal psychology.
Speaker B:And that's part of the field of psychology as well.
Speaker B:It's a relatively new field from researchers like Assagioli and Carl Jung, Stanislav Grof, even, I would suggest, not so much Alpha Dadler.
Speaker B:But it's been a groundbreaking method.
Speaker B:You know, it's been a groundbreaking element of psychology to look at that.
Speaker B:However, it does miss, if you like, the empirical data.
Speaker B:And that's where we need to create bridges and perhaps, maybe Even maybe there's a sign within clinical parapsychology, which I'm really, really interested in, maybe that is a potential bridge that can happen.
Speaker B:And to have the PA to do, you know, continuing education credits, I think that's amazing.
Speaker B:But we need more.
Speaker B:It's not enough because it's kind of, you know, science is way.
Speaker B:You know, they're looming this shadow right over us and almost pointing a finger at us, you know, that big finger coming down from the sky, but, you know, there's perhaps a little light coming through the clouds, you know.
Speaker B:But we need more of it.
Speaker B:We need to educate the public more.
Speaker B:And we need to educate the public in a way that allows them to understand it, which is one of the reasons why we're bringing out paraguise in an easier form.
Speaker B:Because if the public can't be educated to understand something an easier way, they're just going to take whatever the skeptics say.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Now, to that end, in terms of the empirical evidence, there are two things that have pushed psychology along.
Speaker A:One of them was Darrell Bem's study Feeling the Future, which was published in a psychology journal.
Speaker B:And that was controversial.
Speaker A:Yes, it was a very reputable journal.
Speaker A:His studies were deemed to be absolutely ideal, which is the only reason he got published.
Speaker A:And this has been a controversy ever since.
Speaker A:And skeptics have been trying to discredit it in any way they can find.
Speaker A:But the field of psychology did notice, and it has cracked the door open just a little bit, and things are easing up on that side.
Speaker A: ardena published the paper in: Speaker A:It's been cited, I think, in 50 different papers.
Speaker B:Oh, definitely.
Speaker B:It's a great paper, actually.
Speaker B:I've studied that paper myself, and I'd recommend anybody to read it.
Speaker B:We'll link it below.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So these things had an effect on the field.
Speaker A:Oh, that was also published in the Psychology Journal.
Speaker B:Yes, it was.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So these things have had an effect on the field of psychology that more people are understanding that there is empirical evidence and it is moving things forward.
Speaker A:The issue is always the.
Speaker A:What I would call emotional skepticism versus scientific skepticism, and that people are reacting to an emotional side that's driven by.
Speaker B:The emotional bias, to be honest, driven by emotion.
Speaker A:That's been really clear in my studies of skepticism, is this is all emotional driven, emotionally driven, and it's affecting their logical processes.
Speaker A:On this particular subject, this doesn't mean that skeptics are crazy.
Speaker A:What it means is that on this particular subject.
Speaker A:When you're looking at psychic ability, they tend to go off track because there's something deeply disturbing about it for them.
Speaker B:I think.
Speaker B:I mean, you're right.
Speaker B:I mean, I think it is deeply disturbing because at the end of the day, if your whole world is shattered from what you, what your expectations are and your perceptions are, it is going to frighten you, it's going to put you.
Speaker B:And it's, you know, there's an element as well of the, oh, I could have been wrong and I'm going to be judged as well.
Speaker B:You know, it's totally, if I cross over the other side, am I screwed kind of thing.
Speaker B:I mean, that's me taking it to an extreme.
Speaker B:But the reality is it is uncomfortable.
Speaker B:And I understand that because at the same token, it's uncomfortable for me to try and be critical and look at some of the experiences that I've had.
Speaker B:And so I understand that even we, as parapsychologists, researchers, people with psychic ability or mediums, we have our own biases.
Speaker B:But I think we are willing and readily open to say, well, I certainly am, yes, I have a bias and I need to work through that.
Speaker B:But I'm willing to look at your data, I'm willing to try and understand that so that I can understand me better.
Speaker B:But that doesn't happen on the other side of the coin.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker A:And that's an interesting thing about the approach.
Speaker A:So, for example, when I was starting to learn about parapsychology, I remember specifically having the idea that I felt that psychic ability was real and that the skeptics had to prove themselves.
Speaker A:This was the point of view that I was coming from.
Speaker A:And I was very clear that this was my particular bias in going into it.
Speaker A:What this meant in terms of my research was that I took an entirely different approach that the skeptics normally do, which is to say that to me, it was the skeptics that had to prove their point more than anybody else, because the idea that psychic ability didn't exist was a very low probability in my mind.
Speaker A:So the skeptics would actually have to go to extra trouble to prove their point that it didn't exist.
Speaker A:Taking that point of view.
Speaker A:This meant that every time I looked at an argument that skeptics made, I would go look for the rebuttal.
Speaker A:And oftentimes, so from a journalistic perspective, rebuttals are hard to find.
Speaker A:They're generally not in popular articles like the skepticism is.
Speaker A:They're.
Speaker A:They're often in scientific papers.
Speaker A:They're on somebody's blog and they're kind of just out of the way.
Speaker A:Oftentimes the skeptics, even when they know that these rebuttals exist, won't link to them because pettiness, that's why we publish.
Speaker B:Them, by the way, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker B:We're happy.
Speaker A:But yeah, so there's a certain amount of pettiness involved.
Speaker A:And so I knew to go look for these rebuttals because it turns out there always is one.
Speaker A:Anytime there's a scientific disagreement within parapsychology, there's a rebuttal.
Speaker A:You just have to go find it.
Speaker A:It takes some digging and once you find, tends to change the discussion substantially because this is when you find out what's really going on.
Speaker A:Rebuttals are amazing for that in that you see this entirely different skeptical point of view.
Speaker A:When you see the first, when you see the first argument from them and, and then when the people that are rebutting that argument start taking it down, it's like, oh, wow, so this was wrong and that was wrong and that was wrong and that was wrong.
Speaker A:And you realize that the skeptics are relying a lot on other people's ignorance to push their points across.
Speaker A:As Jock was making the point earlier.
Speaker B:I remember the first rebuttal I ever wrote that was the first rebuttal I wrote in PDN on called Defending the Soul.
Speaker B:And of course there's the split brain argument as well, where we still see anomalous phenomena, we still see evidence of consciousness continuing as well.
Speaker B:So there's still a lot that we can do.
Speaker B:And I think it's important as well, you're coming from a journalistic side of things, Craig, that people understand how you approach your journalist, your journalistic approach to taking some of these studies and writing about it.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker A:Well, yeah, I mean, when I, at this point, when I write about the studies, I write about them as though they're ordinary science.
Speaker A:And it seems to me that this is the proper approach because really it is ordinary science.
Speaker A:People are doing things in an ordinary scientific fashion.
Speaker A:The idea that parapsychologists do something differently than the rest of the world, that somehow their science is inferior, doesn't bear up when you, when you see the actual studies.
Speaker A:I mean, this is just, you can just see it if you engage with the actual studies.
Speaker A:And in fact, you know, Chris French never brings up the argument that parapsychology is inferior because he knows better.
Speaker A:He's, he's engaged.
Speaker B:And in the same token, they've never been able to prove that psychic ability doesn't exist or that anomalous phenomena doesn't exist.
Speaker B:They just say the data is there, it doesn't exist, but there's no proof of it.
Speaker B:They don't have any empirical evidence that it doesn't.
Speaker A:Well, what they'll say is that it's never been proven.
Speaker B:Which that's, that's a crutch though.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A: al of data dating back to the: Speaker B:You find as well that the scientific community do not actually.
Speaker B:I've seen arguments that have been happening and when you ask them if they've actually read the data, they haven't.
Speaker B:They haven't studied the data.
Speaker B:A lot of these skeptics, there are skeptical people in science that have read the data and like Chris French, and they're open to it.
Speaker B:And Richard Wiseman has understand that he maybe can't replicate some of it, but you know, he has, he does try to look at the data, but there's others that just will come out and they don't understand it.
Speaker B:They've never read Cardena's paper, they've never read the Stern studies, they've never looked at the Ganzfeld studies, and they've never looked at any other studies that's out there feeling the future.
Speaker B:You know, a lot of the skeptics that are out there screaming, like for instance in the forum that you were in, they probably haven't read that data.
Speaker A:Oh, no, no.
Speaker A:In fact, this is really common among these, I'll call them scoffers.
Speaker A:This is really common among the scoffers that they don't read any of the data.
Speaker A:They're operating from a position.
Speaker A:Yeah, scoffers.
Speaker A:They are operating from a position of abject ignorance.
Speaker A:And so what you've seen from the conspiracy community is they're saying, do some fucking research.
Speaker A:Which, you know, you can understand their point of view.
Speaker A:Now, that doesn't mean that the, that, that the conspiracy community is right, because oftentimes what they're using for evidence is dodgy at best.
Speaker B:That's another episode because the conspiracy theorists do my head.
Speaker B:And because this conspiracy theories make things fit, they will find a way to make it fit no matter what you do.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:I don't generally go for conspiracy stuff.
Speaker A:Not because, not because I think that the conspiracies don't exist.
Speaker A:Corruption exists.
Speaker A:So yes, conspiracies exist.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:But they don't have any evidence.
Speaker B:Most of the time they've got no evidence.
Speaker A:Well, and you chase it down and you find a little bit here, a little bit there, but nothing, nothing.
Speaker A:There's no smoking, no smoking gun, nothing, nothing of just a lot of speculation.
Speaker A:So it's not worth chasing down.
Speaker A:But the point is that you need to do some of your own research if you're going to understand where the other person's coming from.
Speaker A:And this applies especially to skeptics.
Speaker A:They need to do some research.
Speaker B:This is why we also need citizen parapsychologists.
Speaker B:And you and I are bringing Brian Lathe on.
Speaker B:We're going to be doing an episode with him talking about Ghosted as from the review that we did.
Speaker B:And I think this is the reason why we really need to educate the public and we need to be able to educate them in the studies and in parapsychology, in anomalous phenomena.
Speaker B:And, you know, what is, what is.
Speaker B:I don't want to say what is real and what is illusion because, you know, I don't want to go into the whole showmanship and everything of what's out there for the paranormal.
Speaker B:But we need to educate them and in proper procedure and research protocols and what we can expect through the data.
Speaker B:And I think that would make better citizen parapsychologists, citizen scientists, for instance.
Speaker A:Parapsychology is an excellent field for understanding the challenges of science.
Speaker A:It is a difficult field to start with and with all of the controversy, it forces you to look at different points of view and how different philosophies can guide entirely different takes on exactly the same evidence.
Speaker A:All these things are relatively important for understanding science in general.
Speaker B:Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker B:I totally, 100% agree with you, Craig.
Speaker B:Where do we go, where do we go from here?
Speaker B:We're getting, I mean, do you think we're going to get to the point where we'll, we'll see some synergy between our camps?
Speaker B:I mean, we're seeing light coming through the clouds.
Speaker B:Do you think it's going to get any, any better?
Speaker A:Well, when you.
Speaker A:So, so there's two sides, right?
Speaker A:There's actual skeptics and the scoffers.
Speaker A:So the scoffers will be won over.
Speaker A:What Absolutely everybody else in the world will accepts the evidence.
Speaker A:When the entire world accepts the evidence and it's now safe to believe in it, then they'll go ahead and jump on board, but not until then.
Speaker A:And some of them have said this directly, that they will only accept parapsychology when it's accepted by the general scientific community, whatever the heck that is.
Speaker B:This is why we have a really big job at pdn.
Speaker B:This is why we are doing what.
Speaker A:We do oh, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A:So for those of you that are interested in promoting parapsychology in the world of psychic ability, there's an important saying by the Dutch, and that is that the dogs bark but the caravan moves on.
Speaker A:And that is to say.
Speaker A:Yeah, and that is to say that you simply keep providing the evidence and you keep forcing the skeptics to confront it, because all they have is disagreement, all they have is negativity.
Speaker A:And if you keep forcing them to provide nothing but negativity and talking points, then eventually other people will catch on that they're not providing anything, they're not bringing anything to the party, that the skepticism is really just denial and there's no meat behind it.
Speaker A:They can't trace this denial back to anything specific.
Speaker A:There's nothing concrete for them to grab on.
Speaker A:They're just repeating talking points.
Speaker A:And this only becomes clear through repetition, which means that you keep pushing these issues out there and keep forcing them to engage with it and then let the rest of the world watch what happens.
Speaker B:Absolutely, Craig.
Speaker B:This has been a great discussion.
Speaker B:I'm glad that we jumped on to do this.
Speaker B:And guys, if you're interested, go and check out Paranormal Daily News.
Speaker B:We've got some excellent articles there.
Speaker B:And we also got a community which has got some great people in there, some great parapsychologists, some very well known parapsychologists.
Speaker B:That community is small, it's private.
Speaker B:If you want to join, you're more than welcome to join.
Speaker B:We do make sure that you have your full name.
Speaker B:We can check out your social media.
Speaker B:We know exactly who you are because it is a safe space.
Speaker B:It's a place for education and for people to get together that are interested in education, interested in learning more about this field.
Speaker B:We'll put that link below.
Speaker B:Whether you're watching it on YouTube or whether you're listening to this podcast.
Speaker B:We'll put a link there so you can come and join us.
Speaker B:We'd love to have you.
Speaker B:We've got lots coming up.
Speaker B:We've got great masterclasses coming up, great speakers that's coming up.
Speaker B:This is about education in a safe environment where we can discuss and debate different things as well.
Speaker B:And we're really excited about the future.
Speaker B:There's fantastic articles out there.
Speaker B:And of course, here's the other thing.
Speaker B:If you're a skeptical person, if you're even a scientist who's now changed their point of view or changed their direction because you've had an anomalous experience and you've never wanted to speak up, then please connect with us because we would love to hear from a lot of you out there who are skeptics, either professionally in science or, or you just had, you were a skeptic and you had an experience that kind of rocked your world that changed the whole paradigm of your belief.
Speaker B:Then we'd like to hear from you.
Speaker B:Drop us a message, drop us a voicemail.
Speaker B:Email us Paranormal Daily News.
Speaker B:We'd love to hear from you because this is good information, not only to get discussions going, but to see exactly, you know, the trend.
Speaker B:If there's people out there that are still hiding because they don't want to be attacked or they don't want to be laughed at, we're certainly not going to do that.
Speaker B:We're just interested in the data and perhaps at PDN we'll be doing our own research at some point.
Speaker B:Certainly that's the way that I'm heading for.
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker B:And these conversations are great.
Speaker B:Make sure to join us on the Deadly Departed podcast.
Speaker B:And Craig, fascinating conversation.
Speaker B:There's a lot to do.
Speaker B:Will you be going into Reddit anytime soon or will you just, just give it a miss now?
Speaker A:Yeah, I will eventually be back.
Speaker A:Just, just sort of out of curiosity.
Speaker A:I don't, I, I don't get too worked up over people insulting me.
Speaker A:It's just not really a big deal to me.
Speaker A:So, yeah, I'll be back at some point.
Speaker A:Like I said, it's kind of interesting.
Speaker A:Also, I've been sharing the information there with a researcher, Claire Murphy Morgan, who is studying skepticism and has been collecting these arguments for her own studies.
Speaker B:Yeah, actually, I'm going to be interviewed by her soon as well.
Speaker B:So, guys, thank you for joining us once again on Deadly Depart.
Speaker B:If you've got any questions, then reach out to us, please.
Speaker B:We've got some great guests coming out.
Speaker B:Again, I said Brian Lathe is going to be on the show where we're going to be discussing that work as well.
Speaker B:And we've got some fantastic guests that are going to be coming up.
Speaker B:Jack Hunter and Matt from Aleph, who I met over there.
Speaker B:And we're going to be discussing his new book, which in fact, actually I thought Matt was a skeptic.
Speaker B:And I had to, when I was chatting the other day, I had to hold my hand up and say, okay, you know, and that was my bias for making that judgment.
Speaker B:So we've got some great guests coming up.
Speaker B:I'm hoping to get Steve Parsons back as well.
Speaker B:He's been on the show before.
Speaker B:And also there's other guests that we're going to be bringing back as well.
Speaker B:So lots coming up.
Speaker B:Guys, please keep joining us.
Speaker B:Craig and I will be back very soon.
Speaker B:We'll be going on another subject matter.
Speaker B:And keep in touch.
Speaker B:We've got any questions, reach out.
Speaker B:God bless.
Speaker A:SA.
