Remote viewing/astral projection study

[Suncross74]

Craig, what you're saying is not acceptable. "No good psychics want to prove themselves" - I doubt it. That's a broad and sweeping statement and sounds more like an excuse for failure than a real fact. Consider the good it would do to PROVE psi once and for all - then more of the suffering could get help from the real psychics, and it could be developed into a proper science so we can study what works and what doesn't and amplify psi's powers. I refuse to accept that we cannot study this phenomenon.

You are some sort of psychic, no? Want to participate? If not, why? Not seeking fame? We'll publish you under a pseudonym, or just give your SCEPCOP forum name or something. We will hide you so there will be no media glory, just proof for you, proof for us, and proof for anyone willing to believe that we who did the study are not liars or idiots.

-Suncross74

[Suncross74]

The Ganzfeld, Remote Viewing, Dream-psi, etc. studies generally use one psychic for each session. In the ganzfeld protocol, for example, only 1 psychic (a.k.a. the receiver) can volunteer per session. If the test-subject is a fake, then the only options he/she has is "guess" or "quit" The probability of a fake test-subject reaching at least a 0.05 significance level by pure guessing is quite frankly 5%. Given the population of independent studies, we would expect 5% of them to reach the 0.05 significance level by dumb luck. For instance, if we conduct a total of 347 independent studies where each study consists only 1 test-subject and total number of sessions/hits, we would expect (by average) about 17 significant studies to be due to chance at the 0.05 significance level.

Look, my hypothesis for this research is to see whether or not, it is possible test-subjects can show evidence of psi at the 0.05 level. If this hypothesis is correct, then we would expect more or less than 5% of the studies in the database to be statistically significant. I know we're having a hard time agreeing with each other, but I guess we just have to agree to disagree.

No, I totally agree with you. We will only test one psychic at a time. We were just using different words here.

But how am I supposed to calculate the p-value when it is impossible (if not, virtually impossible) to draw the probability of hit without any decoys? Using the z-score formula wouldn't work either due to the lack of a null-hypothesis which is akin to the probability of hit in this case. Tell you what, how about we just use 1 decoy? This way the psychic has a 1/2 or a 50% percent chance of guessing the actual target. As for the confusion, we can make the decoy and the actual target irrelevant to each other as much as possible. Deal?

Can't you just calculate the probability of getting a hit vs. a miss? If you need the decoy for the calculations, sure, we can do that, I just don't want to screw an otherwise capable viewer up, that's all.

A ranking is a judging method where the psychic judges a picture as most likely and others unlikely. 1 indicates most likely, 2 indicates somewhat likely, 3 unlikely, 4 very unlikely.

I don't know, how would you work that into this study?

I hate to say this, but there is a major problem and that problem is known as experimenter bias. Since we already know what the actual target is, our decision of whether or not the description is accurate may consciously or unconsciously bias the study. In order to avoid this flaw, we need to remain completely blind from the actual target (This is why I said all studies should be done under double-blind conditions) I also don't like judges that decide whether or not the description is accurate because the psychic is the one who possessess more first-hand knowledge of his/her psychic impressions than the judges and therefore, should decide whether or not the description fits. Speaking of whether or not the description fits, I highly recommend you to read this: http://www.assap.ac.uk/newsite/articles ... ormal.html

I agree, but, two things:

1) How can we, the runners, possibly remain blind to the pictures?

2) Allowing the psychic to judge whether it's a hit or not is completely unacceptable and I hope you see why. They would try to argue that "yeah, this is a hit, because..." etc. At the very least, it would wipe out the credibility of our study.

If you think I was being condescending, I apologize. I'm just trying to help you improve our upcoming study and avoid pitfalls as possible.

No, absolutely! I appreciate your candor and I hope you'll continue in this way; we need each other's input in order to design an effective study.

-Suncross74

[_Ice_Ages_14_Aces_]

No, I totally agree with you. We will only test one psychic at a time. We were just using different words here.

I'm glad we finally came to an agreement

Can't you just calculate the probability of getting a hit vs. a miss? If you need the decoy for the calculations, sure, we can do that, I just don't want to screw an otherwise capable viewer up, that's all.

Not really. Since a hit/miss in the description is quite subjective (without the use of decoys of course), there's no objective probability for it. With a decoy it's 1/2 or 50% probability of hit as well as a miss. Don't worry, there won't be any problems with the viewer.

I don't know, how would you work that into this study?

Simple! The psychic ranks the decoy and the hidden actual target 1-2 or vice-versa. It's not really necessary especially when the psychic has to guess which one of these 2 pictures is the correct one.

I agree, but, two things:

1) How can we, the runners, possibly remain blind to the pictures?

2) Allowing the psychic to judge whether it's a hit or not is completely unacceptable and I hope you see why. They would try to argue that "yeah, this is a hit, because..." etc. At the very least, it would wipe out the credibility of our study.

1) Third party? Or I can just send you 2 pictures (where 1 is the actual target) while you, as well as the psychic, are completely blind from the actual target.

So which one do you prefer? Third party or the latter?

2) But keep in mind that the psychic hasn't seen the actual target via ordinary means, so he/she can't say this is a hit because... and quickly get a hit right away since I'll be the judge of that (if you choose the latter of course)

No, absolutely! I appreciate your candor and I hope you'll continue in this way; we need each other's input in order to design an effective study.

Thank you, I'll take that as a compliment

[_Ice_Ages_14_Aces_]

Craig, what you're saying is not acceptable. "No good psychics want to prove themselves" - I doubt it. That's a broad and sweeping statement and sounds more like an excuse for failure than a real fact. Consider the good it would do to PROVE psi once and for all - then more of the suffering could get help from the real psychics, and it could be developed into a proper science so we can study what works and what doesn't and amplify psi's powers. I refuse to accept that we cannot study this phenomenon.

You are some sort of psychic, no? Want to participate? If not, why? Not seeking fame? We'll publish you under a pseudonym, or just give your SCEPCOP forum name or something. We will hide you so there will be no media glory, just proof for you, proof for us, and proof for anyone willing to believe that we who did the study are not liars or idiots.

-Suncross74

I believe Craig is more of a conjurer masquerading as a psychic (I could be wrong though)

I agree! Who no good psychic wants to prove themselves? If they can do what they claim to do, they should have no problem passing a study with at least an 80% statistical power.

Why not make a 1st, 2nd, 3rd championship list? The psychic who has the most smallest p-value gets 1st place (you get the point)

By the way, I know someone who claims to be psychic. His name is Craig Weiler (a.k.a. the puppy with the colossal nose who can sniff everything in SCEPCOP)

[Craig Browning]

Craig, what you're saying is not acceptable. "No good psychics want to prove themselves" - I doubt it. That's a broad and sweeping statement and sounds more like an excuse for failure than a real fact. Consider the good it would do to PROVE psi once and for all - then more of the suffering could get help from the real psychics, and it could be developed into a proper science so we can study what works and what doesn't and amplify psi's powers. I refuse to accept that we cannot study this phenomenon.

You are some sort of psychic, no? Want to participate? If not, why? Not seeking fame? We'll publish you under a pseudonym, or just give your SCEPCOP forum name or something. We will hide you so there will be no media glory, just proof for you, proof for us, and proof for anyone willing to believe that we who did the study are not liars or idiots.

-Suncross74

Consider how narrow and arrogant this perspective is, it's very one sided and does not give consideration to the actual psychic community let alone the long held traditions within it; skeptics simply being unable to believe that someone is humble and has no need to prove themselves, but this is how things have been in the spiritual community for centuries if not longer. Just because someone has learned to read the tarot doesn't make them a psychic and for lack of a better parallel, these tend to be the type of headstrong fame seekers you get when it comes to all this testing, people that have just lost their training wheels but who haven't lost their dependence on carnal things.

Yes, I have a degree of what I call "Intuition-based Ability" in that I believe all of the psi field hosts roots within scientific principles and that eventually, possibly by way of the quantum science arena, this will prove itself out. But as a psychic I understand how fickle the abilities can be and that "they" aren't some kind of light switch that turns on and off on demand -- we're not trained monkeys. Besides that my involvement in any such experiments would be instantly skewed due to my standing in professional magic; I not only know most of the secrets behind such work I develop them for others; kind of a "Magician's Magicians" if you would.

Yes, there have been, back in the 50s and even early 70s, some hard core psychics that have participated in a handful of experiments and yet, when they proved themselves to be successful, such as bending light/laser and physically taking on the illness of another person in order to heal them (when we do this most of the side-effect dissipates over a day or two but karmic remnants always remain. Look for people calling themselves healers and pay attention to their left hand and how aged it looks compared to the right, it's called "Wizard's Hand"). The thing is, these people realized, perhaps too late, that the so-called science community would never be satisfied and wanted them to be full-time Guinea Pigs who have no life of their own, no freedom. To satisfy one group only meant that another group would want to do their own tests and so on and so on. From their view all this testing had far more to do with disproving things so as to cosign the skeptic's mantra than it had to do with understanding the process and actually learning about it from a humanitarian level. I know of no "scientist" that would subject themselves and their families to such infringement, do you?

[Suncross74]

@Ice: I'd rather send the pics to a skeptic and let him/her hold them.

@Craig: Ridiculous. You think the entire "spiritual community" as a whole is not interested in proving psi. That is a massive generalization. If no good psychics are interested in proving psi, what are we doing here at all?

If psi were proven, that would be a GREAT world advancement and a great contribution to the world. I accept that whatever ability you have cannot be activated, however, there ARE those who claim they have abilities they CAN use on command. If they are not interested in testing just because "they don't want to," then they are either fools or frauds. It's quite that simple.

-Suncross74

[_Ice_Ages_14_Aces_]

Consider how narrow and arrogant this perspective is, it's very one sided and does not give consideration to the actual psychic community let alone the long held traditions within it; skeptics simply being unable to believe that someone is humble and has no need to prove themselves, but this is how things have been in the spiritual community for centuries if not longer. Just because someone has learned to read the tarot doesn't make them a psychic and for lack of a better parallel, these tend to be the type of headstrong fame seekers you get when it comes to all this testing, people that have just lost their training wheels but who haven't lost their dependence on carnal things.

Why do you hold the proposition that no psychics want to prove themselves? I understand that psychics who possess ESP or PK aren't 100% accurate, but that is no way a legitimate excuse for not being tested. If you actually paid more attention to the parapsychological literature, you can clearly see these studies that advocate ESP/PK don't have a 100% accuracy. In the ganzfeld database, for example, the average hit rate is 32% where 25% would be expected by chance. Sure our common sense tells us a 32% hit rate is meaningless compared to 25%; however, it is actually practically significant even though the effect-size is quite small (About r=0.16). So why not participate in our study? We are giving you the opportunity to be the first test-subject who proved himself of showing evidence of your psychic ability.

Yes, I have a degree of what I call "Intuition-based Ability" in that I believe all of the psi field hosts roots within scientific principles and that eventually, possibly by way of the quantum science arena, this will prove itself out. But as a psychic I understand how fickle the abilities can be and that "they" aren't some kind of light switch that turns on and off on demand -- we're not trained monkeys. Besides that my involvement in any such experiments would be instantly skewed due to my standing in professional magic; I not only know most of the secrets behind such work I develop them for others; kind of a "Magician's Magicians" if you would.

I would actually be quite surprised if you can cheat in our study when the actual targets for each session will remain completely anonymus from you and suncross

Yes, there have been, back in the 50s and even early 70s, some hard core psychics that have participated in a handful of experiments and yet, when they proved themselves to be successful, such as bending light/laser and physically taking on the illness of another person in order to heal them (when we do this most of the side-effect dissipates over a day or two but karmic remnants always remain. Look for people calling themselves healers and pay attention to their left hand and how aged it looks compared to the right, it's called "Wizard's Hand"). The thing is, these people realized, perhaps too late, that the so-called science community would never be satisfied and wanted them to be full-time Guinea Pigs who have no life of their own, no freedom. To satisfy one group only meant that another group would want to do their own tests and so on and so on. From their view all this testing had far more to do with disproving things so as to cosign the skeptic's mantra than it had to do with understanding the process and actually learning about it from a humanitarian level. I know of no "scientist" that would subject themselves and their families to such infringement, do you?

This isn't James Randi's One Million Dollar Challenge where a psychic has to reach a p-value of at least 0.000001 (one in a million) in order to claim the prize. This is a place where we give any psychic the opportunity to demonstrate their psi abilities under fair, scientific, double-blind conditions. We're not skeptics trying to disprove or never satisfied with psychics. We are just psi researchers who are testing the alternative hypothesis of whether or not, test-subjects can show evidence of psi under the 0.05 significance level.

[_Ice_Ages_14_Aces_]

@Ice: I'd rather send the pics to a skeptic and let him/her hold them.-Suncross74

No problem

However, we need to make sure the skeptic never shows us the actual target untill the judging process is over and remain completely ignorant to the psychic we're testing just to ensure no fraud was involved.

There is another potential problem which might be a significant issue:

If the skeptic choose the actual target, there is a possibility his/her selection of the target might be biased which enables the psychic to find a "pattern" The pattern can be: (1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2) (1,1,1,2,2,2), etc. If the psychic notices a pattern, he/she can easily inflate the hits to a degree that would be considered "very unlikely due to chance"

[Suncross74]

So, for each trial, get a pic with distinctive, landmark features that will be easy to describe, and one black JPG. Flip a coin to choose whether to name the target pic 1.jpg or 2.jpg, and then send them to the skeptic to be printed and set beside each other. Then have them view it.

Personally I think statistics will be the lesser way to go with this one. The best way to do this study and avoid the "oh, that significance level is too small to matter" arguments is just to publish each picture used, and a copy of the psychic's description, so people can see for themselves. We can include a note about how many hits vs. misses we counted, but I think that would overall be the better way to conduct this one.

By the way, why no skeptic volunteers yet?

-Suncross74

[Craig Browning]

@Craig: Ridiculous. You think the entire "spiritual community" as a whole is not interested in proving psi. That is a massive generalization. If no good psychics are interested in proving psi, what are we doing here at all?

One example of several in which we boldly see the analytical mind not wanting to understand things from a spiritual sense of perspective in which "proof" isn't needed; they live by way of "faith" and the belief that what they do is a sacred gift to be protected and honored NOT exploited in any way.

As I pointed out, there's a truck load of commercial psychics out there that will volunteer for such bits and will fail because of a few key factors, the least of which is that they have little to no formal training and thus, no genuine sense of honor when it comes to the gifts. This type of neophyte is in it for the cash & ego; I even know more than a few that look down their nose as the more traditional type of practicing psychic, thinking them "fools". . . then again, more than a few of these bastard children have been called down by their former "masters" in public, because they've lost the call -- they surrendered it for the sake of ego. Author/Lecturer Jane Roberts is an excellent example of this; psychics that are able to see auras and life energy recall seeing Seth enter her during the earlier period of the Seth talks messages but after the date in which Roberts stated that Seth would depart they noticed a entirely different kind of phenomena in which Seth never entered her and what came from her mouth was pure psychological hokum. She'd tasted carnal success and turned what was originally a spiritual gift into a company and business idea. While she's profited from it, she's likewise lost a great deal, including respect from within the more learned side of the psychic community. This can be said about Lazarus and several other "channeled" entities. On the other hand we have amazing texts, like A Course in Miracles that were channeled by a person that was a devout atheist during their waking state and wished nothing to do with religion or spirituality; they had no formal connection to theology, the Jesus story, etc. and yet delivered an amazing piece of literature that gives exact biblical quotes and story references as well as parables alongside similar connections to Lord Buddha and others or merit.

What I've said and shared here isn't myth, a look at history will reveal just how many "master spirits" shy away from popularity and carnal greatness -- how they lived humbly in a state of near poverty, many "begging" for lack of a better term, for what tips & rewards passers by would offer in exchange for a wisdom thought, divination or blessing. This is how the true Psychic or Spiritually Filled individual acts, it's their followers who later glorify them and turn them into "gods" when in truth, they were simple people who found enlightenment or upon whom enlightenment was given . . . possibly through earned Karmic points in lives previously known.

As To Me . . . I do not claim to be one of these "Masters" of spirit. One side of my private life has always been tied to religion and philosophy, mostly because that was the kind of family environment I lived in but as I aged, it was a kind of "calling" I found myself in (I nearly went to seminary to become a minister) One the other side of this same coin we find my ties to show biz and my inner-drive to be a clown and the center of attention and so my choice in life has been very much carnal and deliberately so. I would eventually learn how to use my theatrical passion in conjunction to my personal beliefs, allowing me to deliver ways by which to educate the public when it came to the surreal; literally giving them a far more pragmatic way of looking at things while allowing them room for their beliefs and personal testimonies. For me shooting down a persons faith and essentially calling them fools for believing in such things is cruel and inhumane not to mention arrogant. I see far too much of this from within the show biz side of things thanks to Derren Brown and Criss Angel types, but when I find folks outside that environment and supposedly tied to scholastic and analytical research pulling the same sort of insult, I have no choice but to speak up for the down trodden and attempt to explain the facts of life and why some people choose to not face any kind of man-made trial via which the goal is to disprove the divine and devastate the idea of faith.

And Before We Come Back to the Classic List of Breakthroughs Scientific Study Has Given Us. . . let's remember that a lot of what was proven/dis-proven centered on the orthodoxy and megalomania of The Church, which believed it answered only to "God" even though it served mana. There is little to nothing about the organization (regardless which flavor you are looking at) that's genuinely honest and true to the essence that the prophets (including JC & Co.) brought to us. The Corporation of Christ has but one goal and that's world domination and had it not been for the bold actions of science, even from within the belly of the beast, we'd be in a world in which dogma was the rule and free thought an act that would bring about the certainty of death.

The church likewise exploited the auspices of science for its own sake, just as it does today, manipulating this and that circumstance so as to "prove" various biblical tales; what was once accepted by persons outside the cult when it came to God's condemnation or plagues and rejected by the followers has become a thing embraced, so as to lure more people into its folds. This is especially true with the tale of Moses & the Exodus and what is believed to be the finding of Sodom & Gemorha. Religionists -- the "scientists" of the big three Abrahamic faiths, grasp at anything and everything they can to serve as proof though very little has ever been proved. For this we owe the scientific challenge or "question" greatly. But the scientific movement has developed a second edge that cuts deeply now against all things miraculous and unexplainable - it cuts for sake of cult gain and global influence; it has become the very dogmatic thing it once slew and thus, we find the problem.

[Arouet]

Others are better to help with the protocol, but i'm game for participating in some of the trials. Would be better if we could do it in the evening, around 9:30 - 10:00 EST so that my kids are most likely asleep and won't interrupt.

[_Ice_Ages_14_Aces_]

So, for each trial, get a pic with distinctive, landmark features that will be easy to describe, and one black JPG. Flip a coin to choose whether to name the target pic 1.jpg or 2.jpg, and then send them to the skeptic to be printed and set beside each other. Then have them view it.

The problem with this is since you already flip the coin, you already know what the actual target is.

How about this:

I or you send 2 distinctive, landmark pictures to the skeptic or third party and ask him/her to flip a coin. If the coin lands on heads, picture 1 would be the target and 2 for tails. Once we have the discription from the psychic, we bring out those 2 pictures (without knowing the actual target) and have the psychic or us to decide which one of these 2 pictures is the most likely to the description. Afterwards, we send the decision to the skeptic and if the skeptics finds that the decision matches the actual target, it's a direct hit otherwise a miss.

Personally I think statistics will be the lesser way to go with this one. The best way to do this study and avoid the "oh, that significance level is too small to matter" arguments is just to publish each picture used, and a copy of the psychic's description, so people can see for themselves. We can include a note about how many hits vs. misses we counted, but I think that would overall be the better way to conduct this one.

Hey, good idea !

By the way, why no skeptic volunteers yet?

Looks like Arouet may be our skeptical volunteer.

[_Ice_Ages_14_Aces_]

Others are better to help with the protocol, but i'm game for participating in some of the trials. Would be better if we could do it in the evening, around 9:30 - 10:00 EST so that my kids are most likely asleep and won't interrupt.

Sounds good to me.

Would you like to participate as a skeptic who holds on the actual targets or as a test-subject?

If you choose the latter, how many sessions do you wish to make? (Note: The larger the sessions, the more likely the study becomes in finding evidence of psi that is if it's there of course)

[Arouet]

Others are better to help with the protocol, but i'm game for participating in some of the trials. Would be better if we could do it in the evening, around 9:30 - 10:00 EST so that my kids are most likely asleep and won't interrupt.

Sounds good to me.

Would you like to participate as a skeptic who holds on the actual targets or as a test-subject?

If you choose the latter, how many sessions do you wish to make? (Note: The larger the sessions, the more likely the study becomes in finding evidence of psi that is if it's there of course)

I could do both I guess. But maybe let's wait until the protocol has been fully worked out, then I'll decide what I'll do!

[_Ice_Ages_14_Aces_]

Others are better to help with the protocol, but i'm game for participating in some of the trials. Would be better if we could do it in the evening, around 9:30 - 10:00 EST so that my kids are most likely asleep and won't interrupt.

Sounds good to me.

Would you like to participate as a skeptic who holds on the actual targets or as a test-subject?

If you choose the latter, how many sessions do you wish to make? (Note: The larger the sessions, the more likely the study becomes in finding evidence of psi that is if it's there of course)

I could do both I guess. But maybe let's wait until the protocol has been fully worked out, then I'll decide what I'll do!

No problem!

I believe our protocol may be fully worked out this week. We just need suncross to say "agree", so we can finally begin.