IONS-Windbridge Mediumship Study

The Institute of Noetic Sciences and the Windbridge Institute are conducting a study exploring the perceptual capacities of mediums, some of whom claim to be able to sense if a person in a photo is presently alive or dead. We are working with selected research mediums from the Windbridge Institute.

We understand that this is a sensitive subject, but it is nevertheless a claim that can be tested in scientific ways. To do this we are collecting photos of people's faces, some of whom are alive and others who are now dead. We will be studying the mediums' brain activity while they view these photos, presented in random order and with no indication of the person's present status, to see if their brains unconsciously respond differently to images of the living or the dead.

If you have photos of yourself that you would like to share for this experiment, please click here. Individuals in these photos will not be identified by name.

Comments

DougD said…
Dean, this reminds me of the test that was once available on the IONS Psi Arcade site. It was open to the general public and I remember participating in it eight or nine years ago. What was the outcome of that study?
Slorri said…
The chance is you would be getting mostly photos of alive ones this way.
MickyD said…
Dean, I was going to send a pix of myself but no one was around so I held the camera at arms length to take the pic, but in the image it is obvious that's it's a self-pic. My point being, have you taken into consideration subtle clues that might indicate if the person is still alive (self pic, for example) or deceased? These subliminal differences could arguably influence brain activity. Also, I noticed on the Bial website that the Mossbridge, Tressoldi, Utts Precog meta-analysis is under revision for publication, so more good news about psi publications hitting the mainstream - also, Navarro has a ganzfeld study in press at the European Journal of Psychology - all good news!
Dean Radin said…
The earlier photo study is still live, but the page isn't linked from anywhere. Somehow people keep finding it. There are tens of thousands of responses, and we've just recently gone back to look at the data. Nothing to report yet.

There are lots of places around the web to find memorial pictures of the disceased, so that's not a problem. But we'd rather get photos from living relatives who agree to our using their images.

We're pretesting the possibility of alive/dead cues in the photos to develop a set of balanced images. Of course all of the photos are of people while they are/were alive, so we just have to ensure that there aren't obvious clues from historical periods, or differences in how healthy someone looks, etc.
francisco.j.93 said…
hello mr.Dean. long time I dont pass through here! I hope you have been doing fine. I have a question that is kindof off topic. what do you think about UFOs and their relationship with mediums? many mediums have claimed to have contact with "ultraterrestrials". maybe you can make a thread about it here. thanks
MickyD said…
Dean, I noticed on the Bial website, that the intention tea study should be near completion. Any interesting findings?
Dean Radin said…
I am still waiting to see the data on the intentional tea study. No results to report yet.

On UFOs and ETs, I've heard lots of stories too, some more credible than others. But because I don't have an infinite amount of time to study everything, I tend to pay more attention to things that are clearly testable. As far as I can tell we can't test those ideas, so I don't spend much time thinking about them.
Anonymous said…
It might show precognitive PSI if the medium/every body gets feedback in the future regarding the photo's.

Excellent work at Winbridge - Thanks
Johann said…
Dean, this may be off-topic, but, considering the incredible results of your double slit interferometer experiment, did you try to publish it in a major journal like Science, Nature, or Physics Today? If not, why? And if so, why did they reject it?
Dean Radin said…
> did you try to publish it in a major journal like Science, Nature, or Physics Today.

Physics Today is a magazine, not an academic journal. Science and Nature are not likely to ever publish anything this controversial, at least not until major labs have successfully replicated the effect.

That study was part of a series of studies which are continuing, so perhaps for the follow-up papers I'll move up the journal hierarchy. Getting it into Physics Essays was already a bump up towards the mainstream.
Johann said…
> Science and Nature are not likely to ever publish anything this controversial, at least not until major labs have successfully replicated the effect.

What about Darryl Bem's research getting published in JPSP? His actual study design was largely original right, I think.

> That study was part of a series of studies which are continuing, so perhaps for the follow-up papers I'll move up the journal hierarchy. Getting it into Physics Essays was already a bump up towards the mainstream.

I look forward to that! If it receives attention anywhere near Bem's papers, the public will not easily forget it! Psi in the headlines twice in two years? There is potential here!
David Bailey said…
Suppose some photographs are of elderly people, and/or they were obviously taken a long time ago, these would be clues that the person would likely be dead.

How do you anticipate correcting for this?
Dean Radin said…
> Suppose some photographs are of elderly people ... How do you anticipate correcting for this?

We won't be using photos that give such clues.
MickyD said…
I think a clever control would be to run an experiment with folks who are good at picking up subtle differences (using normal psychological processes) and see if they can pick out the deceased photographs more than chance. If not, then you have done a good job at photo selection.
Klaus said…
Problem: The participants choice of photograph might very well be due to the aliveness or deadness of the person on the photograph. I might, subconsciously, choose a more "dignified" or "nostalgic" picture of a person who is dead.
Anthony Mugan said…
Not instantly directly on topic but interesting and possibly of relevance to theoretical psi considerations. This is a version of a delayed choice experiment in quantum mechanics - it appears that even the issue of if quantum particles are entangled or not can be determined retro-causally.

http://phys.org/news/2012-04-quantum-physics-mimics-spooky-action.html

One has to wonder how non-locality doesn't lead to a crisis in the sense Kuhn developed, but...

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