June 30, 2025 • 51 mins
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...
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
And one of the challenges hereis that there seem to be factors
involved that are may actuallybe beyond comprehension, but certainly
it's all happening in the mind.
So there's no mechanisticprocess that's really easy to nail
down.
That's true.
Yeah.
Welcome to the Deadly Departedpodcast, where the veil between the
living and the dead is just awhisper away.
(00:21):
I'm Jock, and along with mycolleagues in Paranormal Daily News,
we will be your guides throughthe shadowy realms of the paranormal
and the unexplained.
In each episode, we will diveinto the eerie and the enigmatic
with the help of today'sleading experts in parapsychology,
science and the supernatural,prepare to uncover the secrets that
lurk in the dark and explorethe mysteries that defy explanation.
(00:44):
Let's embark on this journey now.
Good morning, good evening,good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
This is Jock.
I'm here with my good friendCraig Wyler, the science editor of
pdn.
Craig, how are you doing this morning?
I'm doing great, Jock.
It is.
It's wonderful to be back onthe podcast and talking again.
(01:06):
This is just great.
Before we jump into what we'regoing to talk about, I just want
to say this is veterans.
This is not Veterans, ThisMemorial Day.
Memorial Day.
And you may be listening tothis after Memorial Day because we
are not going to be publishingthis, but, you know, let's just take
a time.
It doesn't matter to me.
I'm an ex veteran.
Memorial Day is every day.
(01:28):
I remember those that havegone before us.
I remember those that havefought in wars before us.
And that's the reason that wecan do this.
It's the reason we can sitdown and do this podcast and talk
about things that we'repassionate about because we are free.
Because the men and women ofthat era and even though I've given
so much good, given the lives,that we may be free.
(01:50):
And that's something that wemust remember.
And so if you're listening tothis after Veterans Day, then, please,
Veterans Day, Memorial Day,two different days I get, to me,
they're both the same becausewe're veterans and we're remembering
them.
But happy Memorial Day andhappy Veterans Day.
Whatever time you're listeningto this, please remember our veterans,
our soldiers, those that havegone before us every day of your
(02:13):
lives, because it's because ofthem that we are free.
And today, guys, we're goingto jump into a really juicy episode.
So Craig recently put up apost in a Reddit forum, which God
only knows why he did this,this was a skeptical forum.
(02:35):
And I'm of the opinion, youknow, I've always been.
We do need skeptics.
And I tend to, I don't like touse that cliche that, you know, I'm
a skeptical medium or anything.
I like to use the term that Ihave a skeptical interest at things.
I don't just accept everythingas real, even in paranormal phenomena
and parapsychology.
(02:55):
And the work I do is a medium.
You know, there has to be alevel of empirical evidence.
But I am absolutelyflabbergasted at some of the responses
that actually came from that post.
And so today we're going tojump into why we really need a balanced
(03:16):
approach to science and alsoparanormal or parapsychological science
as well.
Craig, why on earth did youjust decide to go and do it and write
a post in a skeptical forum?
I did this on a whim.
So a little bit of backgroundfor the listeners here is that I
(03:38):
had a book that I wrote in2013 about a science conference that
took place in TED talks wherethey banned a couple of talks, one
of them by Rupert Sheldrakeand the other one by Graham Hancock.
And in the book I followed skepticism.
And this is actually what I'mknown for in parapsychology is my
(04:00):
takedown of organized skepticism.
And so one of the things thatI did along the way was I really
got to understand the skepticcommunity rather well.
And so when I talk about this,I, this comes from long experience.
I've had hundreds ofconversations with skeptics and I
do understand a lot abouttheir process now.
(04:24):
I honestly.
So as I mentioned, Craig, I'mkind of, you know, you've heard me
so many times.
I think we need our skeptics.
You know, there's certainskeptics that I don't, I'm not drawn
to.
There's good skeptics outthere 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.
(04:45):
And Cal Cooper, who's quiteskeptical, but also he's open minded.
They want to see this research.
I think there's a great dividefrom understanding the research and
what I want to kind of jump into.
And this isn't the same.
I think I admit that I havebiases, but I haven't seen bias as
(05:06):
bad in the skeptical.
And let's actually, let's notlabel it skeptical, but in the scientific
community I've seen really,really, really bad bias that they're
not willing to even entertainwhat we have.
And the data that we have inparapsychological inquiry and parapsychological
(05:29):
research, where there are beena number of approaches, we've had
mixed method approaches, we'vegot quantitative approaches, and
we'll talk a little bit aboutthat later.
But why do you think that?
It's just, they just want,they just refute everything.
They will not look at the datathat we have.
They will not even entertain it.
(05:50):
We need to understand why theyare so biased and what their approach.
So first of all, in thescientific community in parapsychology,
they've kind of divided theskeptics up into two camps.
One of them are actualskeptics and the other one are scoffers.
Now what Jock was talkingabout, about the Reddit thread that
(06:12):
I was on was they're mostly scoffers.
They don't look at theevidence, they seem to revel in their
ignorance of it.
And they're incrediblyinsulting and just basically not
open to anything else, anyinformation from anybody else.
Because to them we're allcrazy and not worthy of any respect.
(06:34):
And of course, because we'recrazy and we're not worthy of any
respect, all of our data iscrazy and not worthy of any respect.
And so you have a situationwith the skeptics where everything
skeptical has 100% credibilityand everybody else has zero credibility.
And when you have people withthat point of view, there's no getting
(06:55):
through them because nothingyou say can possibly make any difference
to them.
And this is the crowd that Iwas running into on Reddit.
So let's kind of, I want tokind of refute some of the things
because we know of a greatstudy that's well known in the parapsychology
community on Ezel Cardena didresearch and we've got that where
(07:19):
there's been empiricalevidence and also that a lot of the
research that he's did hasbeen replicable.
And there are organ, you know,there are researchers that have been
able to replicate, but in thesame token, there are researchers
that haven't been able to replicate.
I have my own theory on that,but obviously there is a, maybe a
(07:44):
potential heavy bias there.
But you know, when we canreplicate these studies which has
been proven, why are we stillfighting against this battle that
seems to be going nowhere?
Well, it's a pretty easy, it'spretty easy to describe here, is
(08:06):
that when you have skepticsthat are 100% stubborn all the time,
your data is not going to get through.
And what we see in theskeptical community is talking points
which are a media thing thatwe're all familiar with where you
take a statement and you justrepeat it and repeat it and repeat
it.
(08:26):
And one of them is that thestudies in parapsychology are not
replicable, that as youtighten the controls, the effects
disappear.
And this is something thatthey've repeated over and over and
over again.
Now this doesn't match thedata at all.
This is.
No, it doesn't.
It's a bald faced lie.
Particularly when you'relooking at something like the Ganzfeldt
(08:47):
telepathy studies.
The Ganzfeldt studies areactually a prime example because
the data is replicable, it hasbeen proven.
But then you have somebodythat you know, and I'm not going
to mention any names because Idon't want to give them airtime,
but you have then researchersthat jump into it.
And my theory is, Craig, thatthey're so biased and they're so
(09:09):
skeptical that they get in theway somehow.
Oh, absolutely.
Well, you have anorganization, the center of Inquiry,
the center for Inquiry, myapologies, that is an atheist organization.
And there are skeptics andbasically they turn all of their
(09:31):
media attention towardsdownplaying and trashing the results
in parapsychology.
They've been at it for a verylong time.
This organization was createdin the 70s and over time they've
gotten into Wikipedia wherethey have editors constantly working
to do the same thing andthey're basically promoting their
(09:56):
point of view of the world andtrashing everybody else's in order
to advance their ideas.
It's a lot like evangelicalsand evolution where you have somebody
constantly pushing their pointof view because it's very important.
To them personally, whichcreates a massive amount of bias
(10:16):
in itself.
It does, yeah.
And it creates a lot ofconfusion in the media because they're
constantly getting twodifferent stories.
Now the skeptics have a bettermedia presence and so they generally
win through public relationsrather than winning through science.
Very frustrating for people onthe parapsychology side, but there's
(10:37):
nothing to be done.
For it, you know, and there'salso, I think it's not like we're
without our problems inparapsychology because there seems
to be also a great dividebetween parapsychology and transpersonal
psychology and even fromtranspersonal psychology and normal
psychology.
Well, we say normal, but otherforms of psychology.
(10:58):
I'm a great proponent, I'm agreat believer that I would like
to be able to seetranspersonal and parapsychology
work together because I thinkthere's a great synergy between them,
massive synergy.
And albeit that a lot of theresearch is phenomenological and
experiential, I think therehas to be an importance put on experience,
(11:21):
because even in anomalousphenomena, your world can be shaken
if you experience somethingthat can't really be explained.
And I think, along with theskeptical camp, if you like, is a
lot of them have never had anyof these experiences, because I found
(11:42):
over the years that there aremany skeptics who have, and I could
mention some of them that haveexperiences that change their whole
direction of their research,change their whole, I would say,
belief system.
It rocks their world.
But they're open enough tostart to go down that way.
(12:06):
For instance, you can look atthe awakened brain, okay, where that
research was done.
I can't remember her name now,but she's been on the podcast here
with us as well, and Dr. Miller.
So she's did some fascinatingresearch in neuropsychology and the
(12:31):
implications of the brain.
And that totally shocked ourworld, rocked her world, and that's
moved.
And that's just one example.
But there's many otherexamples where there have been skeptics
who have had an experience.
So maybe the issue is here isthat none of them have got an experience.
So they're totally biased andthey're coming from a place of ignorance.
And.
But we really, really, reallyneed to join forces between experience
(12:57):
and empirical evidence to beable to maybe even generate a new
methodology or a new way ofresearching and bringing parapsychology,
science and other forms ofpsychology into the mix.
But we're not willing tocreate these bridges, hopefully within
transpersonal psych andparapsychology that, that, that bridge
(13:18):
is being created.
I do see signs of that.
But as far as the sciencecommunity is concerned, we're trying
to build bridges, but theywon't build them back.
Well, the first point that Iwant to make here, which I think
is an important one, is thatthis is an area where skepticism
does active harm.
(13:40):
When you have people denyingthe existence of anomalous experiences,
you are screwing with people's minds.
This is a form of gaslighting.
And we know that people dohave anomalous experiences.
There are actually journalsout there, scientific journals, that
document these anomalous experiences.
(14:00):
The journal of anomalousexperiences is one of them.
And so you have this, youknow, you have this crossover between
psychology and parapsychologyat that point, because when people
have these experiences, ifthey don't have the scientific and
mental framework to accept them.
It is world shaking for themand it is difficult for them to reconcile
(14:22):
it.
For example, if you have astrong anomalous experience, let's
say that you had a very closefriend or a spouse die, and then
you see an apparition of thatperson, at some point you could think
that you're going crazy, whenin fact this is.
It's not a normal experience,but it's not outside of what happens
(14:47):
with people.
It's unusual, but it's notunheard of.
And these sorts of things areimportant to be able to integrate
for people so that theseexperiences don't rock their world,
that they can treat them asnormal and that the life can go on
rather than feeling crazy.
And this is just.
There's all kinds of harm withskeptics not acknowledging these
(15:10):
experiences.
But if you look at thescientists now, and I mentioned Lisa
Miller, Dr. Lisa Miller, who'sphenomenal, that rocked her world
and it kind of changed thewhole direction in what she was doing.
And then the one that Icouldn't remember was Marjorie Willacott,
you know, who was aneuroscientist, you know, and then
(15:31):
that totally changed herparadigm and changed her direction.
And phenomenal researcher, herbook Infinite Awareness, is great.
Recommend it to anybody.
In fact, that's maybe one thatwe'll review at some point.
But you've got thesescientists who are willing to play
the game, and even skeptics.
Like Chris French is nottotally dissing anomalous phenomena.
(15:55):
Rupert Sheldrake has done so many.
I mean, morphic resonance orall his research and everything else.
His research is replicable.
Yes, it is.
Scientists are willing tochange their direction.
Maybe not so much ChrisFrench, but he is open.
(16:17):
Yeah.
So Chris French is a skepticthat engages with parapsychology.
For the listeners who don'tknow who he is, he's been engaging
with parapsychologists for along time.
This is actually unusual amongskeptics, especially.
With Rupert Sheldrake, becausehe's engaged with him a lot.
(16:39):
Yeah.
So this is unusual with skeptics.
First of all, Chris French isthe only skeptic who does this.
The only person that's evenmaybe slightly in the same league
is another academic, Richard Weissman.
But what's interesting is he'smore hard than skeptic, though.
He's more hard than skeptic.
(17:01):
But the interesting thing iswhen you look at how Chris French,
Professor Chris French,emeritus, when you look at how he
sees parapsychology, andbecause he's had so much contact
with it, what you see is avery nuanced and complicated view
of the field.
So he's still skeptical.
(17:21):
But on the other hand, he seesa lot of the information and so he
doesn't take a super hardened position.
And more importantly, he hasan end game for parapsychology, something
almost no other skeptic does.
Which is to say, he says, ifyou do these things, then I think
it'll be acceptable to me.
(17:42):
In other words, I think I'llbelieve the results if you get this
far.
Now, I have a problem withthat with most skeptics because they
usually just start moving the goalposts.
I was just about to say that,because this is normally.
And we've seen that in the past.
Well, if you do this and thenyou reach it.
Yeah, but you need to add thisand then everything keeps moving
(18:04):
and they're never happy in the end.
But at least he does engageand at least he's willing to.
There was a great.
And maybe we can link itactually in a show.
Notes.
There was a. I don't know, youprobably watched.
I watched it as well, butthere was a great debate between
him and Rupert Sheldrake and Ibelieve it was at the University
(18:25):
of Cambridge.
And I found.
I, you know, I did find it.
Good, because he did open upand I'm sure it was him.
Was it?
It was Chris French, wasn't itwasn't it wasn't Wiseman.
I think it was, yeah, it wasChris French.
And, you know, I do believethat he engaged and his end potential.
(18:48):
Last thought was, I'm notgoing to shut the door to this.
I'm willing to look at thedata and see where it goes and see
what can be measured.
Because at the end of the day,science is what can be measured.
And also parapsychology isreally epistemological and it's about
(19:10):
what.
It can be measured as well.
And we need to maybe bringthat into an experiential component
as well, because there's a lotthat can tell us from experience.
And as I've always said, experience.
Trump's theory, once you'vehad the experience, it can just.
(19:31):
It can knock your theory outof the way.
Yeah.
You know, for our listeners, Ithink I need to add a little bit
more context here about thescience of parapsychology.
Psychic ability is reallydifficult to test for.
It's probably one of the mostdifficult things.
And this is one of the reasonswhy the controversy continues is
(19:56):
it has never.
They've never been able tocreate an easily replicable experiment
with parapsychology.
It just.
They come fairly close with afew things.
The steering studies were.
But stealing studies.
The Ganzfeld, which is aslightly more complicated study,
(20:16):
but all of these things, you can't.
In none of these studies canyou simply run the experiment and
get a positive result everysingle time.
It just doesn't happen.
So sometimes the.
Sometimes you'll have a strongeffect, sometimes you have a weak
effect.
Then you need to bunch all thestudies together to find out that,
you.
(20:36):
Know, Craig, I would say thesame of science, though.
I would say the same of science.
I would say no matter what theresearch that they do in science,
even if it's replicable,they're not going to replicate the
exact data every single timeor the exact thing.
I mean, I see it from.
I work with scientists andother side of things that I do and
(20:58):
I see the research that theydo and it's replicable to a degree,
but it's not guaranteedbecause there's a lot of conditions
that go into it and therecould be environmental conditions,
there could be biological conditions.
It's not always going to bethe same.
So aren't they just callingthe kettle black?
(21:20):
To a certain extent?
Yeah, there's definitely adouble standard there.
However, I will say thatpsychic ability is particularly tricky.
And one of the challenges hereis that there seem to be factors
involved that are may actuallybe beyond comprehension, but certainly
(21:41):
it's.
It's all happening in the mind.
So there's no mechanisticprocess that's really easy to nail
down.
Yeah.
There'S a.
There's a lot of black boxstuff happening with, with psychic
ability.
And actually Dean Radin, theprobably the top expert on psychic
(22:02):
ability in the world, youknow, has said that this is really,
really tricky stuff that onetime, you know, he'll have like a
set of five different psychic criteria.
And on one study, criteria Agoes off the charts, and on the next
study he does everythingexactly the same and criteria B goes
off the charts and then hedoes it again and C goes off the
(22:25):
charts.
Now, all of this stuffdemonstrates psychic ability, but
it's all squeaking out indifferent directions, making it difficult
to nail down.
And most importantly, it doesnot seem to be terribly predictable.
And this is one of the thingsthat gives skeptics of psychic ability
(22:47):
room to maneuver and room todiscredit, when in actuality, it's
just a really difficultphenomena to measure with science.
This is why I think as wellthat we need to really have a serious
look at experiential phenomenaand blend that in with what you can
(23:08):
measure.
And I think that's possible.
I do believe it's possible.
But of course, that's taking amassive leap.
And that's also maybe taking amassive leap of faith as well.
Because you're asking, even inthe parapsychology field, people
to have a certain amount offaith or have a certain amount of
willingness to change thatparadigm, to change the approach.
(23:35):
But I think if we're going tobreak through in science, we need
to look at other avenues, weneed to look at new approaches, we
need to be willing to open upand perhaps look at a phenomenological
data more, as long as there's,you know, empirical evidence that
(23:56):
can be brought into that pattern.
You know, some of the studiesthat have been out there, as you
mentioned, Ganzfeld, there'sempirical data.
There's empirical data withthe steering studies, there's empirical
data with other studies.
There's been studies all overthe world where we've managed it
in afterlife studies, inmediumship, you know, there's elements
of empirical data as well.
(24:19):
We need to get to a point, weneed skeptics, don't get me wrong,
we need them, right?
As much as it was painful tosay, we need them because at the
end of the day, in our ownway, we're skeptic of them, right?
Because they're skeptics ofeverything that we are doing, and
(24:40):
we are kind of skeptics ofeverything that they're doing.
So there is an imbalance wherewe need to find some harmony between
us.
Science, I don't use the wordskeptics really, but science is skeptical
of what we do, and we can alsobe skeptical of what they do.
So we're just the same, youknow, and we are really.
(25:02):
I would disagree.
And the reason is because the.
From, from my experience withskeptics, one of the challenges with
them is that they.
When you're dealing with amaterialistic mindset, you tend to
discount things like belief asnot being part of it.
And in fact, belief is a hugepart of studying psychic ability.
(25:26):
If you don't get that partthat what's going on in your mind
is going to affect yourexperimental results, then everything's
going to look like weird stuffto you.
But in fact, in empiricalstudies, what they've been able to
show is that belief actually matters.
There are, in fact, there aresome studies where you have a test
where both side missing, whichis when you, when you sign Missing,
(25:51):
basically, is when you can'thit the target to save your life
to the point where that's apsychic ability.
And if you measure thoseagainst people who can hit the target,
what you find is that peoplewho believe in psychic ability do
well to the point ofstatistical significance, and people
who don't believe it do poorlyto the point of statistical significance.
(26:13):
I would challenge that.
I would challenge that, right, Because.
And I can't remember thestudy, but there has been studies,
and I have no.
And I need to dig this out,but there has been studies where
there actually have beenindividuals in a study that don't
believe in psychic abilitythat I've scored quite high.
(26:35):
And it shocked them, right,because they don't necessarily have
a belief in it, but whatthey've actually done, what they've
taken part of.
This was something recentlythat I read.
I'll need to dig out the paper.
But what they had taken part,I think it was a study in Europe.
And what they had taken partof actually showed that it didn't
matter.
(26:55):
They still had the ability toscore high on these psychic tests.
So I would say that it's notall about belief.
Right.
And that's just my personal opinion.
If you believe it, thenobviously there's an element of you
that you're believing in thepower of it.
You're believing that you cando it and you have an expectation
(27:18):
that you're going to sky high,but that you're going to score high.
But also I think there's anelement where if you don't believe
it, but you actually get thedata that shows there's something
there, it may change.
It may change your whole wayof looking at things.
And I've seen it.
I've seen skeptics who havescored, and I don't want to use the
(27:38):
word skeptics, but people whodon't believe in psychic ability
that have scored relativelyhigh and done fairly well.
So I don't think we can saythat it's all about belief.
Okay?
So granted, it's not all aboutbelief, but, you know, this is an
effect that shows up regularlyin psychic studies and it's called
the differential effect.
(27:59):
I actually, you know, to me itlooks like a mere world effect where
you have people actuallyliving in different worlds based
upon their beliefs because theskeptics will generally miss and
the psychics will generally.
They live in their own worldas well.
But again, that's me justbeing skeptic of their world.
Yeah, but I mean, this iswhere belief is shown to have A real
(28:21):
world effect.
And so, you know, my point isthat psychic ability because of this
can be difficult to study.
You know, for example, if youhave a general population and you're
looking at the psychic abilityof 100 people, if you don't break
this down by belief, it showsno psychic ability at all.
But if you do break it down bybelief, you can show that some people
(28:44):
are doing well and others aredoing less than well.
So it's complicated.
Sorry.
If you can hear that bleep inthere, somebody's messaging me and
I actually turned on do not disturb.
So I don't know why they'remessaging me.
You know, this is interesting.
You know, I would love to saythat we're making breakthroughs.
(29:07):
I'd love to say that we are,that we are breaking, but I don't
think we are because we'rereplicating the same thing all the
time.
And if we don't get some kindof cohesion between elements of psychology,
parapsychology and thescientific community, are we ever
going to get any further intrying to understand, trying to get
(29:30):
the ontology of what we do orwhat it's about?
I think we've got a long wayto go.
And this is why I think aswell, Craig, we need, you know, we've
talked about this many things,but we need a lot more parapsychologists.
We need a lot more educationin what we do because our field,
(29:53):
even, you know, it wasaccepted, I think, what was it?
The scientific society,exploration, parapsychology was accepted
in that field.
But we need more.
We need more of our researchto be accepted or at least to be
taken seriously in order forus to start to build bridges between
(30:16):
us.
Well, there are some bridgesalready being built.
The Parapsychologicalassociation last year hosted for
the first time a continuingeducation credit for psychology.
They hosted a continuingeducation credit for psychotherapists
(30:37):
in the area of anomalous experiences.
So the fact that the field ofpsychology is allowing this is a
sign that parapsychology.
Yeah, and I think that'swhat's needed with transpersonal
psychology.
And that's part of the fieldof psychology as well.
It's a relatively new fieldfrom researchers like Assagioli and
(31:03):
Carl Jung, Stanislav Grof,even, I would suggest, not so much
Alpha Dadler.
But it's been a groundbreaking method.
You know, it's been agroundbreaking element of psychology
to look at that.
However, it does miss, if youlike, the empirical data.
(31:25):
And that's where we need tocreate bridges and perhaps, maybe
Even maybe there's a signwithin clinical parapsychology, which
I'm really, really interestedin, maybe that is a potential bridge
that can happen.
And to have the PA to do, youknow, continuing education credits,
(31:48):
I think that's amazing.
But we need more.
It's not enough because it'skind of, you know, science is way.
You know, they're looming thisshadow right over us and almost pointing
a finger at us, you know, thatbig finger coming down from the sky,
but, you know, there's perhapsa little light coming through the
(32:10):
clouds, you know.
But we need more of it.
We need to educate the public more.
And we need to educate thepublic in a way that allows them
to understand it, which is oneof the reasons why we're bringing
out paraguise in an easier form.
Because if the public can't beeducated to understand something
an easier way, they're justgoing to take whatever the skeptics
(32:30):
say.
Yeah.
Now, to that end, in terms ofthe empirical evidence, there are
two things that have pushedpsychology along.
One of them was Darrell Bem'sstudy Feeling the Future, which was
published in a psychology journal.
And that was controversial.
Yes, it was a very reputable journal.
(32:52):
His studies were deemed to beabsolutely ideal, which is the only
reason he got published.
And this has been acontroversy ever since.
And skeptics have been tryingto discredit it in any way they can
find.
But the field of psychologydid notice, and it has cracked the
(33:14):
door open just a little bit,and things are easing up on that
side.
The other thing that happenedwas Etzel Cardena published the paper
in 2018 on the experimentalevidence for psychic ability.
It's been cited, I think, in50 different papers.
Oh, definitely.
(33:34):
It's a great paper, actually.
I've studied that papermyself, and I'd recommend anybody
to read it.
We'll link it below.
Yeah.
So these things had an effecton the field.
Oh, that was also published inthe Psychology Journal.
Yes, it was.
Yeah.
So these things have had aneffect on the field of psychology
that more people areunderstanding that there is empirical
(33:57):
evidence and it is movingthings forward.
The issue is always the.
What I would call emotionalskepticism versus scientific skepticism,
and that people are reactingto an emotional side that's driven
by.
The emotional bias, to behonest, driven by emotion.
(34:20):
That's been really clear in mystudies of skepticism, is this is
all emotional driven,emotionally driven, and it's affecting
their logical processes.
On this particular subject,this doesn't mean that skeptics are
crazy.
What it means is that on thisparticular subject.
When you're looking at psychicability, they tend to go off track
(34:43):
because there's somethingdeeply disturbing about it for them.
I think.
I mean, you're right.
I mean, I think it is deeplydisturbing because at the end of
the day, if your whole worldis shattered from what you, what
your expectations are and yourperceptions are, it is going to frighten
you, it's going to put you.
And it's, you know, there's anelement as well of the, oh, I could
(35:03):
have been wrong and I'm goingto be judged as well.
You know, it's totally, if Icross over the other side, am I screwed
kind of thing.
I mean, that's me taking it toan extreme.
But the reality is it is uncomfortable.
And I understand that becauseat the same token, it's uncomfortable
for me to try and be criticaland look at some of the experiences
(35:27):
that I've had.
And so I understand that evenwe, as parapsychologists, researchers,
people with psychic ability ormediums, we have our own biases.
But I think we are willing andreadily open to say, well, I certainly
am, yes, I have a bias and Ineed to work through that.
(35:48):
But I'm willing to look atyour data, I'm willing to try and
understand that so that I canunderstand me better.
But that doesn't happen on theother side of the coin.
No.
And that's an interestingthing about the approach.
So, for example, when I wasstarting to learn about parapsychology,
(36:11):
I remember specifically havingthe idea that I felt that psychic
ability was real and that theskeptics had to prove themselves.
This was the point of viewthat I was coming from.
And I was very clear that thiswas my particular bias in going into
it.
What this meant in terms of myresearch was that I took an entirely
(36:34):
different approach that theskeptics normally do, which is to
say that to me, it was theskeptics that had to prove their
point more than anybody else,because the idea that psychic ability
didn't exist was a very lowprobability in my mind.
So the skeptics would actuallyhave to go to extra trouble to prove
their point that it didn't exist.
(36:56):
Taking that point of view.
This meant that every time Ilooked at an argument that skeptics
made, I would go look for the rebuttal.
And oftentimes, so from ajournalistic perspective, rebuttals
are hard to find.
They're generally not inpopular articles like the skepticism
(37:18):
is.
They're.
They're often in scientific papers.
They're on somebody's blog andthey're kind of just out of the way.
Oftentimes the skeptics, evenwhen they know that these rebuttals
exist, won't link to thembecause pettiness, that's why we
publish.
Them, by the way, ladies and gentlemen.
We're happy.
But yeah, so there's a certainamount of pettiness involved.
(37:45):
And so I knew to go look forthese rebuttals because it turns
out there always is one.
Anytime there's a scientificdisagreement within parapsychology,
there's a rebuttal.
You just have to go find it.
It takes some digging and onceyou find, tends to change the discussion
substantially because this iswhen you find out what's really going
(38:08):
on.
Rebuttals are amazing for thatin that you see this entirely different
skeptical point of view.
When you see the first, whenyou see the first argument from them
and, and then when the peoplethat are rebutting that argument
start taking it down, it'slike, oh, wow, so this was wrong
and that was wrong and thatwas wrong and that was wrong.
(38:28):
And you realize that theskeptics are relying a lot on other
people's ignorance to pushtheir points across.
As Jock was making the point earlier.
I remember the first rebuttalI ever wrote that was the first rebuttal
I wrote in PDN on calledDefending the Soul.
And of course there's thesplit brain argument as well, where
(38:49):
we still see anomalousphenomena, we still see evidence
of consciousness continuing as well.
So there's still a lot that wecan do.
And I think it's important aswell, you're coming from a journalistic
side of things, Craig, thatpeople understand how you approach
(39:12):
your journalist, yourjournalistic approach to taking some
of these studies and writingabout it.
And.
Well, yeah, I mean, when I, atthis point, when I write about the
studies, I write about them asthough they're ordinary science.
And it seems to me that thisis the proper approach because really
(39:34):
it is ordinary science.
People are doing things in anordinary scientific fashion.
The idea thatparapsychologists do something differently
than the rest of the world,that somehow their science is inferior,
doesn't bear up when you, whenyou see the actual studies.
I mean, this is just, you canjust see it if you engage with the
actual studies.
And in fact, you know, ChrisFrench never brings up the argument
(39:57):
that parapsychology isinferior because he knows better.
He's, he's engaged.
And in the same token, they'venever been able to prove that psychic
ability doesn't exist or thatanomalous phenomena doesn't exist.
They just say the data isthere, it doesn't exist, but there's
no proof of it.
They don't have any empiricalevidence that it doesn't.
(40:19):
Well, what they'll say is thatit's never been proven.
Which that's, that's a crutch though.
Right.
And to do that, they have toignore a great deal of data dating
back to the 1800s.
You find as well that thescientific community do not actually.
I've seen arguments that havebeen happening and when you ask them
(40:42):
if they've actually read thedata, they haven't.
They haven't studied the data.
A lot of these skeptics, thereare skeptical people in science that
have read the data and likeChris French, and they're open to
it.
And Richard Wiseman hasunderstand that he maybe can't replicate
some of it, but you know, hehas, he does try to look at the data,
(41:05):
but there's others that justwill come out and they don't understand
it.
They've never read Cardena'spaper, they've never read the Stern
studies, they've never lookedat the Ganzfeld studies, and they've
never looked at any otherstudies that's out there feeling
the future.
You know, a lot of theskeptics that are out there screaming,
like for instance in the forumthat you were in, they probably haven't
(41:26):
read that data.
Oh, no, no.
In fact, this is really commonamong these, I'll call them scoffers.
This is really common amongthe scoffers that they don't read
any of the data.
They're operating from a position.
Yeah, scoffers.
They are operating from aposition of abject ignorance.
(41:48):
And so what you've seen fromthe conspiracy community is they're
saying, do some fucking research.
Which, you know, you canunderstand their point of view.
Now, that doesn't mean thatthe, that, that the conspiracy community
is right, because oftentimeswhat they're using for evidence is
(42:09):
dodgy at best.
That's another episode becausethe conspiracy theorists do my head.
And because this conspiracytheories make things fit, they will
find a way to make it fit nomatter what you do.
Right.
I don't generally go forconspiracy stuff.
Not because, not because Ithink that the conspiracies don't
exist.
(42:29):
Corruption exists.
So yes, conspiracies exist.
Right.
Yeah.
But they don't have any evidence.
Most of the time they've gotno evidence.
Well, and you chase it downand you find a little bit here, a
little bit there, but nothing, nothing.
There's no smoking, no smokinggun, nothing, nothing of just a lot
of speculation.
So it's not worth chasing down.
(42:50):
But the point is that you needto do some of your own research if
you're going to understandwhere the other person's coming from.
And this applies especially to skeptics.
They need to do some research.
This is why we also needcitizen parapsychologists.
(43:12):
And you and I are bringingBrian Lathe on.
We're going to be doing anepisode with him talking about Ghosted
as from the review that we did.
And I think this is the reasonwhy we really need to educate the
public and we need to be ableto educate them in the studies and
in parapsychology, inanomalous phenomena.
And, you know, what is, what is.
I don't want to say what isreal and what is illusion because,
(43:33):
you know, I don't want to gointo the whole showmanship and everything
of what's out there for the paranormal.
But we need to educate themand in proper procedure and research
protocols and what we canexpect through the data.
And I think that would makebetter citizen parapsychologists,
(43:54):
citizen scientists, for instance.
Parapsychology is an excellentfield for understanding the challenges
of science.
It is a difficult field tostart with and with all of the controversy,
it forces you to look atdifferent points of view and how
(44:15):
different philosophies canguide entirely different takes on
exactly the same evidence.
All these things arerelatively important for understanding
science in general.
Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
I totally, 100% agree withyou, Craig.
Where do we go, where do we gofrom here?
(44:36):
We're getting, I mean, do youthink we're going to get to the point
where we'll, we'll see somesynergy between our camps?
I mean, we're seeing lightcoming through the clouds.
Do you think it's going to getany, any better?
Well, when you.
So, so there's two sides, right?
There's actual skeptics andthe scoffers.
So the scoffers will be won over.
(44:57):
What Absolutely everybody elsein the world will accepts the evidence.
When the entire world acceptsthe evidence and it's now safe to
believe in it, then they'll goahead and jump on board, but not
until then.
And some of them have saidthis directly, that they will only
accept parapsychology whenit's accepted by the general scientific
(45:19):
community, whatever the heckthat is.
This is why we have a reallybig job at pdn.
This is why we are doing what.
We do oh, yeah, absolutely.
So for those of you that areinterested in promoting parapsychology
(45:40):
in the world of psychicability, there's an important saying
by the Dutch, and that is thatthe dogs bark but the caravan moves
on.
And that is to say.
Yeah, and that is to say thatyou simply keep providing the evidence
and you keep forcing theskeptics to confront it, because
(46:04):
all they have is disagreement,all they have is negativity.
And if you keep forcing themto provide nothing but negativity
and talking points, theneventually other people will catch
on that they're not providinganything, they're not bringing anything
to the party, that theskepticism is really just denial
(46:28):
and there's no meat behind it.
They can't trace this denialback to anything specific.
There's nothing concrete forthem to grab on.
They're just repeating talking points.
And this only becomes clearthrough repetition, which means that
you keep pushing these issuesout there and keep forcing them to
engage with it and then letthe rest of the world watch what
(46:51):
happens.
Absolutely, Craig.
This has been a great discussion.
I'm glad that we jumped on todo this.
And guys, if you'reinterested, go and check out Paranormal
Daily News.
We've got some excellentarticles there.
And we also got a communitywhich has got some great people in
there, some greatparapsychologists, some very well
known parapsychologists.
That community is small, it's private.
(47:12):
If you want to join, you'remore than welcome to join.
We do make sure that you haveyour full name.
We can check out your social media.
We know exactly who you arebecause it is a safe space.
It's a place for education andfor people to get together that are
interested in education,interested in learning more about
this field.
We'll put that link below.
(47:33):
Whether you're watching it onYouTube or whether you're listening
to this podcast.
We'll put a link there so youcan come and join us.
We'd love to have you.
We've got lots coming up.
We've got great masterclassescoming up, great speakers that's
coming up.
This is about education in asafe environment where we can discuss
and debate different things as well.
And we're really excited aboutthe future.
(47:53):
There's fantastic articles out there.
And of course, here's theother thing.
If you're a skeptical person,if you're even a scientist who's
now changed their point ofview or changed their direction because
you've had an anomalousexperience and you've never wanted
to speak up, then pleaseconnect with us because we would
love to hear from a lot of youout there who are skeptics, either
(48:17):
professionally in science or,or you just had, you were a skeptic
and you had an experience thatkind of rocked your world that changed
the whole paradigm of your belief.
Then we'd like to hear from you.
Drop us a message, drop us a voicemail.
Email us Paranormal Daily News.
We'd love to hear from youbecause this is good information,
(48:42):
not only to get discussionsgoing, but to see exactly, you know,
the trend.
If there's people out therethat are still hiding because they
don't want to be attacked orthey don't want to be laughed at,
we're certainly not going todo that.
We're just interested in thedata and perhaps at PDN we'll be
doing our own research at some point.
(49:04):
Certainly that's the way thatI'm heading for.
Sure.
And these conversations are great.
Make sure to join us on theDeadly Departed podcast.
And Craig, fascinating conversation.
There's a lot to do.
Will you be going into Redditanytime soon or will you just, just
give it a miss now?
(49:26):
Yeah, I will eventually be back.
Just, just sort of out of curiosity.
I don't, I, I don't get tooworked up over people insulting me.
It's just not really a bigdeal to me.
So, yeah, I'll be back at some point.
Like I said, it's kind of interesting.
Also, I've been sharing theinformation there with a researcher,
(49:49):
Claire Murphy Morgan, who isstudying skepticism and has been
collecting these arguments forher own studies.
Yeah, actually, I'm going tobe interviewed by her soon as well.
So, guys, thank you forjoining us once again on Deadly Depart.
If you've got any questions,then reach out to us, please.
We've got some great guestscoming out.
Again, I said Brian Lathe isgoing to be on the show where we're
(50:11):
going to be discussing thatwork as well.
And we've got some fantasticguests that are going to be coming
up.
Jack Hunter and Matt fromAleph, who I met over there.
And we're going to bediscussing his new book, which in
fact, actually I thought Mattwas a skeptic.
(50:32):
And I had to, when I waschatting the other day, I had to
hold my hand up and say, okay,you know, and that was my bias for
making that judgment.
So we've got some great guestscoming up.
I'm hoping to get SteveParsons back as well.
He's been on the show before.
And also there's other gueststhat we're going to be bringing back
as well.
So lots coming up.
Guys, please keep joining us.
Craig and I will be back very soon.
(50:52):
We'll be going on anothersubject matter.
And keep in touch.
We've got any questions, reach out.
God bless.
SA.
And one of the challenges hereis that there seem to be factors
involved that are may actuallybe beyond comprehension, but certainly
it's all happening in the mind.
So there's no mechanisticprocess that's really easy to nail
down.
That's true.
Yeah.
Welcome to the Deadly Departedpodcast, where the veil between the
living and the dead is just awhisper away.
(00:21):
I'm Jock, and along with mycolleagues in Paranormal Daily News,
we will be your guides throughthe shadowy realms of the paranormal
and the unexplained.
In each episode, we will diveinto the eerie and the enigmatic
with the help of today'sleading experts in parapsychology,
science and the supernatural,prepare to uncover the secrets that
lurk in the dark and explorethe mysteries that defy explanation.
(00:44):
Let's embark on this journey now.
Good morning, good evening,good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
This is Jock.
I'm here with my good friendCraig Wyler, the science editor of
pdn.
Craig, how are you doing this morning?
I'm doing great, Jock.
It is.
It's wonderful to be back onthe podcast and talking again.
(01:06):
This is just great.
Before we jump into what we'regoing to talk about, I just want
to say this is veterans.
This is not Veterans, ThisMemorial Day.
Memorial Day.
And you may be listening tothis after Memorial Day because we
are not going to be publishingthis, but, you know, let's just take
a time.
It doesn't matter to me.
I'm an ex veteran.
Memorial Day is every day.
(01:28):
I remember those that havegone before us.
I remember those that havefought in wars before us.
And that's the reason that wecan do this.
It's the reason we can sitdown and do this podcast and talk
about things that we'repassionate about because we are free.
Because the men and women ofthat era and even though I've given
so much good, given the lives,that we may be free.
(01:50):
And that's something that wemust remember.
And so if you're listening tothis after Veterans Day, then, please,
Veterans Day, Memorial Day,two different days I get, to me,
they're both the same becausewe're veterans and we're remembering
them.
But happy Memorial Day andhappy Veterans Day.
Whatever time you're listeningto this, please remember our veterans,
our soldiers, those that havegone before us every day of your
(02:13):
lives, because it's because ofthem that we are free.
And today, guys, we're goingto jump into a really juicy episode.
So Craig recently put up apost in a Reddit forum, which God
only knows why he did this,this was a skeptical forum.
(02:35):
And I'm of the opinion, youknow, I've always been.
We do need skeptics.
And I tend to, I don't like touse that cliche that, you know, I'm
a skeptical medium or anything.
I like to use the term that Ihave a skeptical interest at things.
I don't just accept everythingas real, even in paranormal phenomena
and parapsychology.
(02:55):
And the work I do is a medium.
You know, there has to be alevel of empirical evidence.
But I am absolutelyflabbergasted at some of the responses
that actually came from that post.
And so today we're going tojump into why we really need a balanced
(03:16):
approach to science and alsoparanormal or parapsychological science
as well.
Craig, why on earth did youjust decide to go and do it and write
a post in a skeptical forum?
I did this on a whim.
So a little bit of backgroundfor the listeners here is that I
(03:38):
had a book that I wrote in2013 about a science conference that
took place in TED talks wherethey banned a couple of talks, one
of them by Rupert Sheldrakeand the other one by Graham Hancock.
And in the book I followed skepticism.
And this is actually what I'mknown for in parapsychology is my
(04:00):
takedown of organized skepticism.
And so one of the things thatI did along the way was I really
got to understand the skepticcommunity rather well.
And so when I talk about this,I, this comes from long experience.
I've had hundreds ofconversations with skeptics and I
do understand a lot abouttheir process now.
(04:24):
I honestly.
So as I mentioned, Craig, I'mkind of, you know, you've heard me
so many times.
I think we need our skeptics.
You know, there's certainskeptics that I don't, I'm not drawn
to.
There's good skeptics outthere 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.
(04:45):
And Cal Cooper, who's quiteskeptical, but also he's open minded.
They want to see this research.
I think there's a great dividefrom understanding the research and
what I want to kind of jump into.
And this isn't the same.
I think I admit that I havebiases, but I haven't seen bias as
(05:06):
bad in the skeptical.
And let's actually, let's notlabel it skeptical, but in the scientific
community I've seen really,really, really bad bias that they're
not willing to even entertainwhat we have.
And the data that we have inparapsychological inquiry and parapsychological
(05:29):
research, where there are beena number of approaches, we've had
mixed method approaches, we'vegot quantitative approaches, and
we'll talk a little bit aboutthat later.
But why do you think that?
It's just, they just want,they just refute everything.
They will not look at the datathat we have.
They will not even entertain it.
(05:50):
We need to understand why theyare so biased and what their approach.
So first of all, in thescientific community in parapsychology,
they've kind of divided theskeptics up into two camps.
One of them are actualskeptics and the other one are scoffers.
Now what Jock was talkingabout, about the Reddit thread that
(06:12):
I was on was they're mostly scoffers.
They don't look at theevidence, they seem to revel in their
ignorance of it.
And they're incrediblyinsulting and just basically not
open to anything else, anyinformation from anybody else.
Because to them we're allcrazy and not worthy of any respect.
(06:34):
And of course, because we'recrazy and we're not worthy of any
respect, all of our data iscrazy and not worthy of any respect.
And so you have a situationwith the skeptics where everything
skeptical has 100% credibilityand everybody else has zero credibility.
And when you have people withthat point of view, there's no getting
(06:55):
through them because nothingyou say can possibly make any difference
to them.
And this is the crowd that Iwas running into on Reddit.
So let's kind of, I want tokind of refute some of the things
because we know of a greatstudy that's well known in the parapsychology
community on Ezel Cardena didresearch and we've got that where
(07:19):
there's been empiricalevidence and also that a lot of the
research that he's did hasbeen replicable.
And there are organ, you know,there are researchers that have been
able to replicate, but in thesame token, there are researchers
that haven't been able to replicate.
I have my own theory on that,but obviously there is a, maybe a
(07:44):
potential heavy bias there.
But you know, when we canreplicate these studies which has
been proven, why are we stillfighting against this battle that
seems to be going nowhere?
Well, it's a pretty easy, it'spretty easy to describe here, is
(08:06):
that when you have skepticsthat are 100% stubborn all the time,
your data is not going to get through.
And what we see in theskeptical community is talking points
which are a media thing thatwe're all familiar with where you
take a statement and you justrepeat it and repeat it and repeat
it.
(08:26):
And one of them is that thestudies in parapsychology are not
replicable, that as youtighten the controls, the effects
disappear.
And this is something thatthey've repeated over and over and
over again.
Now this doesn't match thedata at all.
This is.
No, it doesn't.
It's a bald faced lie.
Particularly when you'relooking at something like the Ganzfeldt
(08:47):
telepathy studies.
The Ganzfeldt studies areactually a prime example because
the data is replicable, it hasbeen proven.
But then you have somebodythat you know, and I'm not going
to mention any names because Idon't want to give them airtime,
but you have then researchersthat jump into it.
And my theory is, Craig, thatthey're so biased and they're so
(09:09):
skeptical that they get in theway somehow.
Oh, absolutely.
Well, you have anorganization, the center of Inquiry,
the center for Inquiry, myapologies, that is an atheist organization.
And there are skeptics andbasically they turn all of their
(09:31):
media attention towardsdownplaying and trashing the results
in parapsychology.
They've been at it for a verylong time.
This organization was createdin the 70s and over time they've
gotten into Wikipedia wherethey have editors constantly working
to do the same thing andthey're basically promoting their
(09:56):
point of view of the world andtrashing everybody else's in order
to advance their ideas.
It's a lot like evangelicalsand evolution where you have somebody
constantly pushing their pointof view because it's very important.
To them personally, whichcreates a massive amount of bias
(10:16):
in itself.
It does, yeah.
And it creates a lot ofconfusion in the media because they're
constantly getting twodifferent stories.
Now the skeptics have a bettermedia presence and so they generally
win through public relationsrather than winning through science.
Very frustrating for people onthe parapsychology side, but there's
(10:37):
nothing to be done.
For it, you know, and there'salso, I think it's not like we're
without our problems inparapsychology because there seems
to be also a great dividebetween parapsychology and transpersonal
psychology and even fromtranspersonal psychology and normal
psychology.
Well, we say normal, but otherforms of psychology.
(10:58):
I'm a great proponent, I'm agreat believer that I would like
to be able to seetranspersonal and parapsychology
work together because I thinkthere's a great synergy between them,
massive synergy.
And albeit that a lot of theresearch is phenomenological and
experiential, I think therehas to be an importance put on experience,
(11:21):
because even in anomalousphenomena, your world can be shaken
if you experience somethingthat can't really be explained.
And I think, along with theskeptical camp, if you like, is a
lot of them have never had anyof these experiences, because I found
(11:42):
over the years that there aremany skeptics who have, and I could
mention some of them that haveexperiences that change their whole
direction of their research,change their whole, I would say,
belief system.
It rocks their world.
But they're open enough tostart to go down that way.
(12:06):
For instance, you can look atthe awakened brain, okay, where that
research was done.
I can't remember her name now,but she's been on the podcast here
with us as well, and Dr. Miller.
So she's did some fascinatingresearch in neuropsychology and the
(12:31):
implications of the brain.
And that totally shocked ourworld, rocked her world, and that's
moved.
And that's just one example.
But there's many otherexamples where there have been skeptics
who have had an experience.
So maybe the issue is here isthat none of them have got an experience.
So they're totally biased andthey're coming from a place of ignorance.
And.
But we really, really, reallyneed to join forces between experience
(12:57):
and empirical evidence to beable to maybe even generate a new
methodology or a new way ofresearching and bringing parapsychology,
science and other forms ofpsychology into the mix.
But we're not willing tocreate these bridges, hopefully within
transpersonal psych andparapsychology that, that, that bridge
(13:18):
is being created.
I do see signs of that.
But as far as the sciencecommunity is concerned, we're trying
to build bridges, but theywon't build them back.
Well, the first point that Iwant to make here, which I think
is an important one, is thatthis is an area where skepticism
does active harm.
(13:40):
When you have people denyingthe existence of anomalous experiences,
you are screwing with people's minds.
This is a form of gaslighting.
And we know that people dohave anomalous experiences.
There are actually journalsout there, scientific journals, that
document these anomalous experiences.
(14:00):
The journal of anomalousexperiences is one of them.
And so you have this, youknow, you have this crossover between
psychology and parapsychologyat that point, because when people
have these experiences, ifthey don't have the scientific and
mental framework to accept them.
It is world shaking for themand it is difficult for them to reconcile
(14:22):
it.
For example, if you have astrong anomalous experience, let's
say that you had a very closefriend or a spouse die, and then
you see an apparition of thatperson, at some point you could think
that you're going crazy, whenin fact this is.
It's not a normal experience,but it's not outside of what happens
(14:47):
with people.
It's unusual, but it's notunheard of.
And these sorts of things areimportant to be able to integrate
for people so that theseexperiences don't rock their world,
that they can treat them asnormal and that the life can go on
rather than feeling crazy.
And this is just.
There's all kinds of harm withskeptics not acknowledging these
(15:10):
experiences.
But if you look at thescientists now, and I mentioned Lisa
Miller, Dr. Lisa Miller, who'sphenomenal, that rocked her world
and it kind of changed thewhole direction in what she was doing.
And then the one that Icouldn't remember was Marjorie Willacott,
you know, who was aneuroscientist, you know, and then
(15:31):
that totally changed herparadigm and changed her direction.
And phenomenal researcher, herbook Infinite Awareness, is great.
Recommend it to anybody.
In fact, that's maybe one thatwe'll review at some point.
But you've got thesescientists who are willing to play
the game, and even skeptics.
Like Chris French is nottotally dissing anomalous phenomena.
(15:55):
Rupert Sheldrake has done so many.
I mean, morphic resonance orall his research and everything else.
His research is replicable.
Yes, it is.
Scientists are willing tochange their direction.
Maybe not so much ChrisFrench, but he is open.
(16:17):
Yeah.
So Chris French is a skepticthat engages with parapsychology.
For the listeners who don'tknow who he is, he's been engaging
with parapsychologists for along time.
This is actually unusual amongskeptics, especially.
With Rupert Sheldrake, becausehe's engaged with him a lot.
(16:39):
Yeah.
So this is unusual with skeptics.
First of all, Chris French isthe only skeptic who does this.
The only person that's evenmaybe slightly in the same league
is another academic, Richard Weissman.
But what's interesting is he'smore hard than skeptic, though.
He's more hard than skeptic.
(17:01):
But the interesting thing iswhen you look at how Chris French,
Professor Chris French,emeritus, when you look at how he
sees parapsychology, andbecause he's had so much contact
with it, what you see is avery nuanced and complicated view
of the field.
So he's still skeptical.
(17:21):
But on the other hand, he seesa lot of the information and so he
doesn't take a super hardened position.
And more importantly, he hasan end game for parapsychology, something
almost no other skeptic does.
Which is to say, he says, ifyou do these things, then I think
it'll be acceptable to me.
(17:42):
In other words, I think I'llbelieve the results if you get this
far.
Now, I have a problem withthat with most skeptics because they
usually just start moving the goalposts.
I was just about to say that,because this is normally.
And we've seen that in the past.
Well, if you do this and thenyou reach it.
Yeah, but you need to add thisand then everything keeps moving
(18:04):
and they're never happy in the end.
But at least he does engageand at least he's willing to.
There was a great.
And maybe we can link itactually in a show.
Notes.
There was a. I don't know, youprobably watched.
I watched it as well, butthere was a great debate between
him and Rupert Sheldrake and Ibelieve it was at the University
(18:25):
of Cambridge.
And I found.
I, you know, I did find it.
Good, because he did open upand I'm sure it was him.
Was it?
It was Chris French, wasn't itwasn't it wasn't Wiseman.
I think it was, yeah, it wasChris French.
And, you know, I do believethat he engaged and his end potential.
(18:48):
Last thought was, I'm notgoing to shut the door to this.
I'm willing to look at thedata and see where it goes and see
what can be measured.
Because at the end of the day,science is what can be measured.
And also parapsychology isreally epistemological and it's about
(19:10):
what.
It can be measured as well.
And we need to maybe bringthat into an experiential component
as well, because there's a lotthat can tell us from experience.
And as I've always said, experience.
Trump's theory, once you'vehad the experience, it can just.
(19:31):
It can knock your theory outof the way.
Yeah.
You know, for our listeners, Ithink I need to add a little bit
more context here about thescience of parapsychology.
Psychic ability is reallydifficult to test for.
It's probably one of the mostdifficult things.
And this is one of the reasonswhy the controversy continues is
(19:56):
it has never.
They've never been able tocreate an easily replicable experiment
with parapsychology.
It just.
They come fairly close with afew things.
The steering studies were.
But stealing studies.
The Ganzfeld, which is aslightly more complicated study,
(20:16):
but all of these things, you can't.
In none of these studies canyou simply run the experiment and
get a positive result everysingle time.
It just doesn't happen.
So sometimes the.
Sometimes you'll have a strongeffect, sometimes you have a weak
effect.
Then you need to bunch all thestudies together to find out that,
you.
(20:36):
Know, Craig, I would say thesame of science, though.
I would say the same of science.
I would say no matter what theresearch that they do in science,
even if it's replicable,they're not going to replicate the
exact data every single timeor the exact thing.
I mean, I see it from.
I work with scientists andother side of things that I do and
(20:58):
I see the research that theydo and it's replicable to a degree,
but it's not guaranteedbecause there's a lot of conditions
that go into it and therecould be environmental conditions,
there could be biological conditions.
It's not always going to bethe same.
So aren't they just callingthe kettle black?
(21:20):
To a certain extent?
Yeah, there's definitely adouble standard there.
However, I will say thatpsychic ability is particularly tricky.
And one of the challenges hereis that there seem to be factors
involved that are may actuallybe beyond comprehension, but certainly
(21:41):
it's.
It's all happening in the mind.
So there's no mechanisticprocess that's really easy to nail
down.
Yeah.
There'S a.
There's a lot of black boxstuff happening with, with psychic
ability.
And actually Dean Radin, theprobably the top expert on psychic
(22:02):
ability in the world, youknow, has said that this is really,
really tricky stuff that onetime, you know, he'll have like a
set of five different psychic criteria.
And on one study, criteria Agoes off the charts, and on the next
study he does everythingexactly the same and criteria B goes
off the charts and then hedoes it again and C goes off the
(22:25):
charts.
Now, all of this stuffdemonstrates psychic ability, but
it's all squeaking out indifferent directions, making it difficult
to nail down.
And most importantly, it doesnot seem to be terribly predictable.
And this is one of the thingsthat gives skeptics of psychic ability
(22:47):
room to maneuver and room todiscredit, when in actuality, it's
just a really difficultphenomena to measure with science.
This is why I think as wellthat we need to really have a serious
look at experiential phenomenaand blend that in with what you can
(23:08):
measure.
And I think that's possible.
I do believe it's possible.
But of course, that's taking amassive leap.
And that's also maybe taking amassive leap of faith as well.
Because you're asking, even inthe parapsychology field, people
to have a certain amount offaith or have a certain amount of
willingness to change thatparadigm, to change the approach.
(23:35):
But I think if we're going tobreak through in science, we need
to look at other avenues, weneed to look at new approaches, we
need to be willing to open upand perhaps look at a phenomenological
data more, as long as there's,you know, empirical evidence that
(23:56):
can be brought into that pattern.
You know, some of the studiesthat have been out there, as you
mentioned, Ganzfeld, there'sempirical data.
There's empirical data withthe steering studies, there's empirical
data with other studies.
There's been studies all overthe world where we've managed it
in afterlife studies, inmediumship, you know, there's elements
of empirical data as well.
(24:19):
We need to get to a point, weneed skeptics, don't get me wrong,
we need them, right?
As much as it was painful tosay, we need them because at the
end of the day, in our ownway, we're skeptic of them, right?
Because they're skeptics ofeverything that we are doing, and
(24:40):
we are kind of skeptics ofeverything that they're doing.
So there is an imbalance wherewe need to find some harmony between
us.
Science, I don't use the wordskeptics really, but science is skeptical
of what we do, and we can alsobe skeptical of what they do.
So we're just the same, youknow, and we are really.
(25:02):
I would disagree.
And the reason is because the.
From, from my experience withskeptics, one of the challenges with
them is that they.
When you're dealing with amaterialistic mindset, you tend to
discount things like belief asnot being part of it.
And in fact, belief is a hugepart of studying psychic ability.
(25:26):
If you don't get that partthat what's going on in your mind
is going to affect yourexperimental results, then everything's
going to look like weird stuffto you.
But in fact, in empiricalstudies, what they've been able to
show is that belief actually matters.
There are, in fact, there aresome studies where you have a test
where both side missing, whichis when you, when you sign Missing,
(25:51):
basically, is when you can'thit the target to save your life
to the point where that's apsychic ability.
And if you measure thoseagainst people who can hit the target,
what you find is that peoplewho believe in psychic ability do
well to the point ofstatistical significance, and people
who don't believe it do poorlyto the point of statistical significance.
(26:13):
I would challenge that.
I would challenge that, right, Because.
And I can't remember thestudy, but there has been studies,
and I have no.
And I need to dig this out,but there has been studies where
there actually have beenindividuals in a study that don't
believe in psychic abilitythat I've scored quite high.
(26:35):
And it shocked them, right,because they don't necessarily have
a belief in it, but whatthey've actually done, what they've
taken part of.
This was something recentlythat I read.
I'll need to dig out the paper.
But what they had taken part,I think it was a study in Europe.
And what they had taken partof actually showed that it didn't
matter.
(26:55):
They still had the ability toscore high on these psychic tests.
So I would say that it's notall about belief.
Right.
And that's just my personal opinion.
If you believe it, thenobviously there's an element of you
that you're believing in thepower of it.
You're believing that you cando it and you have an expectation
(27:18):
that you're going to sky high,but that you're going to score high.
But also I think there's anelement where if you don't believe
it, but you actually get thedata that shows there's something
there, it may change.
It may change your whole wayof looking at things.
And I've seen it.
I've seen skeptics who havescored, and I don't want to use the
(27:38):
word skeptics, but people whodon't believe in psychic ability
that have scored relativelyhigh and done fairly well.
So I don't think we can saythat it's all about belief.
Okay?
So granted, it's not all aboutbelief, but, you know, this is an
effect that shows up regularlyin psychic studies and it's called
the differential effect.
(27:59):
I actually, you know, to me itlooks like a mere world effect where
you have people actuallyliving in different worlds based
upon their beliefs because theskeptics will generally miss and
the psychics will generally.
They live in their own worldas well.
But again, that's me justbeing skeptic of their world.
Yeah, but I mean, this iswhere belief is shown to have A real
(28:21):
world effect.
And so, you know, my point isthat psychic ability because of this
can be difficult to study.
You know, for example, if youhave a general population and you're
looking at the psychic abilityof 100 people, if you don't break
this down by belief, it showsno psychic ability at all.
But if you do break it down bybelief, you can show that some people
(28:44):
are doing well and others aredoing less than well.
So it's complicated.
Sorry.
If you can hear that bleep inthere, somebody's messaging me and
I actually turned on do not disturb.
So I don't know why they'remessaging me.
You know, this is interesting.
You know, I would love to saythat we're making breakthroughs.
(29:07):
I'd love to say that we are,that we are breaking, but I don't
think we are because we'rereplicating the same thing all the
time.
And if we don't get some kindof cohesion between elements of psychology,
parapsychology and thescientific community, are we ever
going to get any further intrying to understand, trying to get
(29:30):
the ontology of what we do orwhat it's about?
I think we've got a long wayto go.
And this is why I think aswell, Craig, we need, you know, we've
talked about this many things,but we need a lot more parapsychologists.
We need a lot more educationin what we do because our field,
(29:53):
even, you know, it wasaccepted, I think, what was it?
The scientific society,exploration, parapsychology was accepted
in that field.
But we need more.
We need more of our researchto be accepted or at least to be
taken seriously in order forus to start to build bridges between
(30:16):
us.
Well, there are some bridgesalready being built.
The Parapsychologicalassociation last year hosted for
the first time a continuingeducation credit for psychology.
They hosted a continuingeducation credit for psychotherapists
(30:37):
in the area of anomalous experiences.
So the fact that the field ofpsychology is allowing this is a
sign that parapsychology.
Yeah, and I think that'swhat's needed with transpersonal
psychology.
And that's part of the fieldof psychology as well.
It's a relatively new fieldfrom researchers like Assagioli and
(31:03):
Carl Jung, Stanislav Grof,even, I would suggest, not so much
Alpha Dadler.
But it's been a groundbreaking method.
You know, it's been agroundbreaking element of psychology
to look at that.
However, it does miss, if youlike, the empirical data.
(31:25):
And that's where we need tocreate bridges and perhaps, maybe
Even maybe there's a signwithin clinical parapsychology, which
I'm really, really interestedin, maybe that is a potential bridge
that can happen.
And to have the PA to do, youknow, continuing education credits,
(31:48):
I think that's amazing.
But we need more.
It's not enough because it'skind of, you know, science is way.
You know, they're looming thisshadow right over us and almost pointing
a finger at us, you know, thatbig finger coming down from the sky,
but, you know, there's perhapsa little light coming through the
(32:10):
clouds, you know.
But we need more of it.
We need to educate the public more.
And we need to educate thepublic in a way that allows them
to understand it, which is oneof the reasons why we're bringing
out paraguise in an easier form.
Because if the public can't beeducated to understand something
an easier way, they're justgoing to take whatever the skeptics
(32:30):
say.
Yeah.
Now, to that end, in terms ofthe empirical evidence, there are
two things that have pushedpsychology along.
One of them was Darrell Bem'sstudy Feeling the Future, which was
published in a psychology journal.
And that was controversial.
Yes, it was a very reputable journal.
(32:52):
His studies were deemed to beabsolutely ideal, which is the only
reason he got published.
And this has been acontroversy ever since.
And skeptics have been tryingto discredit it in any way they can
find.
But the field of psychologydid notice, and it has cracked the
(33:14):
door open just a little bit,and things are easing up on that
side.
The other thing that happenedwas Etzel Cardena published the paper
in 2018 on the experimentalevidence for psychic ability.
It's been cited, I think, in50 different papers.
Oh, definitely.
(33:34):
It's a great paper, actually.
I've studied that papermyself, and I'd recommend anybody
to read it.
We'll link it below.
Yeah.
So these things had an effecton the field.
Oh, that was also published inthe Psychology Journal.
Yes, it was.
Yeah.
So these things have had aneffect on the field of psychology
that more people areunderstanding that there is empirical
(33:57):
evidence and it is movingthings forward.
The issue is always the.
What I would call emotionalskepticism versus scientific skepticism,
and that people are reactingto an emotional side that's driven
by.
The emotional bias, to behonest, driven by emotion.
(34:20):
That's been really clear in mystudies of skepticism, is this is
all emotional driven,emotionally driven, and it's affecting
their logical processes.
On this particular subject,this doesn't mean that skeptics are
crazy.
What it means is that on thisparticular subject.
When you're looking at psychicability, they tend to go off track
(34:43):
because there's somethingdeeply disturbing about it for them.
I think.
I mean, you're right.
I mean, I think it is deeplydisturbing because at the end of
the day, if your whole worldis shattered from what you, what
your expectations are and yourperceptions are, it is going to frighten
you, it's going to put you.
And it's, you know, there's anelement as well of the, oh, I could
(35:03):
have been wrong and I'm goingto be judged as well.
You know, it's totally, if Icross over the other side, am I screwed
kind of thing.
I mean, that's me taking it toan extreme.
But the reality is it is uncomfortable.
And I understand that becauseat the same token, it's uncomfortable
for me to try and be criticaland look at some of the experiences
(35:27):
that I've had.
And so I understand that evenwe, as parapsychologists, researchers,
people with psychic ability ormediums, we have our own biases.
But I think we are willing andreadily open to say, well, I certainly
am, yes, I have a bias and Ineed to work through that.
(35:48):
But I'm willing to look atyour data, I'm willing to try and
understand that so that I canunderstand me better.
But that doesn't happen on theother side of the coin.
No.
And that's an interestingthing about the approach.
So, for example, when I wasstarting to learn about parapsychology,
(36:11):
I remember specifically havingthe idea that I felt that psychic
ability was real and that theskeptics had to prove themselves.
This was the point of viewthat I was coming from.
And I was very clear that thiswas my particular bias in going into
it.
What this meant in terms of myresearch was that I took an entirely
(36:34):
different approach that theskeptics normally do, which is to
say that to me, it was theskeptics that had to prove their
point more than anybody else,because the idea that psychic ability
didn't exist was a very lowprobability in my mind.
So the skeptics would actuallyhave to go to extra trouble to prove
their point that it didn't exist.
(36:56):
Taking that point of view.
This meant that every time Ilooked at an argument that skeptics
made, I would go look for the rebuttal.
And oftentimes, so from ajournalistic perspective, rebuttals
are hard to find.
They're generally not inpopular articles like the skepticism
(37:18):
is.
They're.
They're often in scientific papers.
They're on somebody's blog andthey're kind of just out of the way.
Oftentimes the skeptics, evenwhen they know that these rebuttals
exist, won't link to thembecause pettiness, that's why we
publish.
Them, by the way, ladies and gentlemen.
We're happy.
But yeah, so there's a certainamount of pettiness involved.
(37:45):
And so I knew to go look forthese rebuttals because it turns
out there always is one.
Anytime there's a scientificdisagreement within parapsychology,
there's a rebuttal.
You just have to go find it.
It takes some digging and onceyou find, tends to change the discussion
substantially because this iswhen you find out what's really going
(38:08):
on.
Rebuttals are amazing for thatin that you see this entirely different
skeptical point of view.
When you see the first, whenyou see the first argument from them
and, and then when the peoplethat are rebutting that argument
start taking it down, it'slike, oh, wow, so this was wrong
and that was wrong and thatwas wrong and that was wrong.
(38:28):
And you realize that theskeptics are relying a lot on other
people's ignorance to pushtheir points across.
As Jock was making the point earlier.
I remember the first rebuttalI ever wrote that was the first rebuttal
I wrote in PDN on calledDefending the Soul.
And of course there's thesplit brain argument as well, where
(38:49):
we still see anomalousphenomena, we still see evidence
of consciousness continuing as well.
So there's still a lot that wecan do.
And I think it's important aswell, you're coming from a journalistic
side of things, Craig, thatpeople understand how you approach
(39:12):
your journalist, yourjournalistic approach to taking some
of these studies and writingabout it.
And.
Well, yeah, I mean, when I, atthis point, when I write about the
studies, I write about them asthough they're ordinary science.
And it seems to me that thisis the proper approach because really
(39:34):
it is ordinary science.
People are doing things in anordinary scientific fashion.
The idea thatparapsychologists do something differently
than the rest of the world,that somehow their science is inferior,
doesn't bear up when you, whenyou see the actual studies.
I mean, this is just, you canjust see it if you engage with the
actual studies.
And in fact, you know, ChrisFrench never brings up the argument
(39:57):
that parapsychology isinferior because he knows better.
He's, he's engaged.
And in the same token, they'venever been able to prove that psychic
ability doesn't exist or thatanomalous phenomena doesn't exist.
They just say the data isthere, it doesn't exist, but there's
no proof of it.
They don't have any empiricalevidence that it doesn't.
(40:19):
Well, what they'll say is thatit's never been proven.
Which that's, that's a crutch though.
Right.
And to do that, they have toignore a great deal of data dating
back to the 1800s.
You find as well that thescientific community do not actually.
I've seen arguments that havebeen happening and when you ask them
(40:42):
if they've actually read thedata, they haven't.
They haven't studied the data.
A lot of these skeptics, thereare skeptical people in science that
have read the data and likeChris French, and they're open to
it.
And Richard Wiseman hasunderstand that he maybe can't replicate
some of it, but you know, hehas, he does try to look at the data,
(41:05):
but there's others that justwill come out and they don't understand
it.
They've never read Cardena'spaper, they've never read the Stern
studies, they've never lookedat the Ganzfeld studies, and they've
never looked at any otherstudies that's out there feeling
the future.
You know, a lot of theskeptics that are out there screaming,
like for instance in the forumthat you were in, they probably haven't
(41:26):
read that data.
Oh, no, no.
In fact, this is really commonamong these, I'll call them scoffers.
This is really common amongthe scoffers that they don't read
any of the data.
They're operating from a position.
Yeah, scoffers.
They are operating from aposition of abject ignorance.
(41:48):
And so what you've seen fromthe conspiracy community is they're
saying, do some fucking research.
Which, you know, you canunderstand their point of view.
Now, that doesn't mean thatthe, that, that the conspiracy community
is right, because oftentimeswhat they're using for evidence is
(42:09):
dodgy at best.
That's another episode becausethe conspiracy theorists do my head.
And because this conspiracytheories make things fit, they will
find a way to make it fit nomatter what you do.
Right.
I don't generally go forconspiracy stuff.
Not because, not because Ithink that the conspiracies don't
exist.
(42:29):
Corruption exists.
So yes, conspiracies exist.
Right.
Yeah.
But they don't have any evidence.
Most of the time they've gotno evidence.
Well, and you chase it downand you find a little bit here, a
little bit there, but nothing, nothing.
There's no smoking, no smokinggun, nothing, nothing of just a lot
of speculation.
So it's not worth chasing down.
(42:50):
But the point is that you needto do some of your own research if
you're going to understandwhere the other person's coming from.
And this applies especially to skeptics.
They need to do some research.
This is why we also needcitizen parapsychologists.
(43:12):
And you and I are bringingBrian Lathe on.
We're going to be doing anepisode with him talking about Ghosted
as from the review that we did.
And I think this is the reasonwhy we really need to educate the
public and we need to be ableto educate them in the studies and
in parapsychology, inanomalous phenomena.
And, you know, what is, what is.
I don't want to say what isreal and what is illusion because,
(43:33):
you know, I don't want to gointo the whole showmanship and everything
of what's out there for the paranormal.
But we need to educate themand in proper procedure and research
protocols and what we canexpect through the data.
And I think that would makebetter citizen parapsychologists,
(43:54):
citizen scientists, for instance.
Parapsychology is an excellentfield for understanding the challenges
of science.
It is a difficult field tostart with and with all of the controversy,
it forces you to look atdifferent points of view and how
(44:15):
different philosophies canguide entirely different takes on
exactly the same evidence.
All these things arerelatively important for understanding
science in general.
Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
I totally, 100% agree withyou, Craig.
Where do we go, where do we gofrom here?
(44:36):
We're getting, I mean, do youthink we're going to get to the point
where we'll, we'll see somesynergy between our camps?
I mean, we're seeing lightcoming through the clouds.
Do you think it's going to getany, any better?
Well, when you.
So, so there's two sides, right?
There's actual skeptics andthe scoffers.
So the scoffers will be won over.
(44:57):
What Absolutely everybody elsein the world will accepts the evidence.
When the entire world acceptsthe evidence and it's now safe to
believe in it, then they'll goahead and jump on board, but not
until then.
And some of them have saidthis directly, that they will only
accept parapsychology whenit's accepted by the general scientific
(45:19):
community, whatever the heckthat is.
This is why we have a reallybig job at pdn.
This is why we are doing what.
We do oh, yeah, absolutely.
So for those of you that areinterested in promoting parapsychology
(45:40):
in the world of psychicability, there's an important saying
by the Dutch, and that is thatthe dogs bark but the caravan moves
on.
And that is to say.
Yeah, and that is to say thatyou simply keep providing the evidence
and you keep forcing theskeptics to confront it, because
(46:04):
all they have is disagreement,all they have is negativity.
And if you keep forcing themto provide nothing but negativity
and talking points, theneventually other people will catch
on that they're not providinganything, they're not bringing anything
to the party, that theskepticism is really just denial
(46:28):
and there's no meat behind it.
They can't trace this denialback to anything specific.
There's nothing concrete forthem to grab on.
They're just repeating talking points.
And this only becomes clearthrough repetition, which means that
you keep pushing these issuesout there and keep forcing them to
engage with it and then letthe rest of the world watch what
(46:51):
happens.
Absolutely, Craig.
This has been a great discussion.
I'm glad that we jumped on todo this.
And guys, if you'reinterested, go and check out Paranormal
Daily News.
We've got some excellentarticles there.
And we also got a communitywhich has got some great people in
there, some greatparapsychologists, some very well
known parapsychologists.
That community is small, it's private.
(47:12):
If you want to join, you'remore than welcome to join.
We do make sure that you haveyour full name.
We can check out your social media.
We know exactly who you arebecause it is a safe space.
It's a place for education andfor people to get together that are
interested in education,interested in learning more about
this field.
We'll put that link below.
(47:33):
Whether you're watching it onYouTube or whether you're listening
to this podcast.
We'll put a link there so youcan come and join us.
We'd love to have you.
We've got lots coming up.
We've got great masterclassescoming up, great speakers that's
coming up.
This is about education in asafe environment where we can discuss
and debate different things as well.
And we're really excited aboutthe future.
(47:53):
There's fantastic articles out there.
And of course, here's theother thing.
If you're a skeptical person,if you're even a scientist who's
now changed their point ofview or changed their direction because
you've had an anomalousexperience and you've never wanted
to speak up, then pleaseconnect with us because we would
love to hear from a lot of youout there who are skeptics, either
(48:17):
professionally in science or,or you just had, you were a skeptic
and you had an experience thatkind of rocked your world that changed
the whole paradigm of your belief.
Then we'd like to hear from you.
Drop us a message, drop us a voicemail.
Email us Paranormal Daily News.
We'd love to hear from youbecause this is good information,
(48:42):
not only to get discussionsgoing, but to see exactly, you know,
the trend.
If there's people out therethat are still hiding because they
don't want to be attacked orthey don't want to be laughed at,
we're certainly not going todo that.
We're just interested in thedata and perhaps at PDN we'll be
doing our own research at some point.
(49:04):
Certainly that's the way thatI'm heading for.
Sure.
And these conversations are great.
Make sure to join us on theDeadly Departed podcast.
And Craig, fascinating conversation.
There's a lot to do.
Will you be going into Redditanytime soon or will you just, just
give it a miss now?
(49:26):
Yeah, I will eventually be back.
Just, just sort of out of curiosity.
I don't, I, I don't get tooworked up over people insulting me.
It's just not really a bigdeal to me.
So, yeah, I'll be back at some point.
Like I said, it's kind of interesting.
Also, I've been sharing theinformation there with a researcher,
(49:49):
Claire Murphy Morgan, who isstudying skepticism and has been
collecting these arguments forher own studies.
Yeah, actually, I'm going tobe interviewed by her soon as well.
So, guys, thank you forjoining us once again on Deadly Depart.
If you've got any questions,then reach out to us, please.
We've got some great guestscoming out.
Again, I said Brian Lathe isgoing to be on the show where we're
(50:11):
going to be discussing thatwork as well.
And we've got some fantasticguests that are going to be coming
up.
Jack Hunter and Matt fromAleph, who I met over there.
And we're going to bediscussing his new book, which in
fact, actually I thought Mattwas a skeptic.
(50:32):
And I had to, when I waschatting the other day, I had to
hold my hand up and say, okay,you know, and that was my bias for
making that judgment.
So we've got some great guestscoming up.
I'm hoping to get SteveParsons back as well.
He's been on the show before.
And also there's other gueststhat we're going to be bringing back
as well.
So lots coming up.
Guys, please keep joining us.
Craig and I will be back very soon.
(50:52):
We'll be going on anothersubject matter.
And keep in touch.
We've got any questions, reach out.
God bless.
SA.
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