Posted on 01/18/2021 10:24:45 AM PST by Red Badger
The Fox sisters: Kate (1838-92), Leah (1814-90) and Margaret (or Maggie) (1836-93). Lithograph after a daguerreotype by Appleby. Published by N. Currier, New York. In 1848, two sisters from upstate New York, Maggie and Kate Fox, reported hearing ‘rappings’ and ‘knocks’ that they interpreted as communication coming from a spirit in their house. These events and these sisters would eventually be considered the originators of Spiritualism. Credit: N. Currier, New York
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Spiritualist mediums might be more prone to immersive mental activities and unusual auditory experiences early in life, according to new research.
This might explain why some people and not others eventually adopt spiritualist beliefs and engage in the practice of “hearing the dead,” the study led by Durham University found.
Mediums who “hear” spirits are said to be experiencing clairaudient communications, rather than clairvoyant (“seeing”) or clairsentient (“feeling” or “sensing”) communications.
The researchers conducted a survey of 65 clairaudient spiritualist mediums from the Spiritualists’ National Union and 143 members of the general population in the largest scientific study into the experiences of clairaudient mediums.
They found that these spiritualists have a proclivity for absorption — a trait linked to immersion in mental or imaginative activities or experience of altered states of consciousness.
Mediums are also are more likely to report experiences of unusual auditory phenomena, like hearing voices, often occurring early in life.
Many who experience absorption or hearing voices encounter spiritualist beliefs when searching for the meaning behind, or supernatural significance of, their unusual experiences, the researchers said.
The findings are published in the journal Mental Health, Religion and Culture. The research is part of Hearing the Voice — an interdisciplinary study of voice-hearing based at Durham University and funded by the Wellcome Trust.
Spiritualism is a religious movement based on the idea that human souls continue to exist after death and communicate with the living through a medium or psychic.
Interest in Spiritualism is increasing in Britain with several organizations supporting, training, and offering the services of practicing mediums. One of the largest, the SNU, claims to serve at least 11,000 members through its training college, churches, and centers.
Through their study, the researchers gathered detailed descriptions of the way that mediums experience spirit “voices,” and compared levels of absorption, hallucination-proneness, aspects of identity, and belief in the paranormal.
They found that 44.6 percent of spiritualist participants reported hearing the voices of the deceased on a daily basis, with 33.8 percent reporting an experience of clairaudience within the last day.
A large majority (79 percent) said that experiences of auditory spiritual communication were part of their everyday lives, taking place both when they were alone and when they were working as a medium or attending a spiritualist church.
Although spirits were primarily heard inside the head (65.1 percent), 31.7 percent of spiritualist participants said they experienced spirit voices coming from both inside and outside the head.
When rated on scales of absorption, as well as how strongly they believe in the paranormal, spiritualists scored much more highly than members of the general population.
Spiritualists were less likely to care about what others thought of them than people generally, and they also scored more highly for proneness to unusual hallucination-like auditory experiences.
Both high levels of absorption and proneness to such auditory phenomena were linked to reports of more frequent clairaudient communications, according to the findings.
For the general population, absorption was associated with levels of belief in the paranormal, but there was no significant corresponding link between belief and hallucination-proneness.
There was also no difference in levels of superstitious belief or proneness to visual hallucinations between spiritualist and non-spiritualist participants.
Spiritualists reported first experiencing clairaudience at an average age of 21.7 years. However, 18 percent of spiritualists reported having clairaudient experiences ‘for as long as they could remember’ and 71 percent had not encountered Spiritualism as a religious movement prior to their first experiences.
The researchers say their findings suggest that it is not giving in to social pressure, learning to have specific expectations, or a level of belief in the paranormal that leads to experiences of spirit communication.
Instead, it seems that some people are uniquely predisposed to absorption and are more likely to report unusual auditory experiences occurring early in life. For many of these individuals, spiritualist beliefs are embraced because they align meaningfully with those unique personal experiences.
Lead researcher Dr. Adam Powell, in Durham University’s Hearing the Voice project and Department of Theology and Religion, said: “Our findings say a lot about ‘learning and yearning’. For our participants, the tenets of Spiritualism seem to make sense of both extraordinary childhood experiences as well as the frequent auditory phenomena they experience as practicing mediums.
“But all of those experiences may result more from having certain tendencies or early abilities than from simply believing in the possibility of contacting the dead if one tries hard enough.”
Dr. Peter Moseley, co-author on the study at Northumbria University, commented: “Spiritualists tend to report unusual auditory experiences which are positive, start early in life and which they are often then able to control. Understanding how these develop is important because it could help us understand more about distressing or non-controllable experiences of hearing voices too”
Durham’s researchers are now engaged in further investigation of clairaudience and mediumship, working with practitioners to gain a fuller picture of what it is like to be on the receiving end of such unusual and meaningful experiences.
Reference: 18 January 2021, Mental Health, Religion and Culture. DOI: 10.1080/13674676.2020.1793310
I see dead voters!
About witching ...
When my dad worked for the utility, the crew needed to locate and avoid some buried lines (water or telephone ... I think phone ...) One of the guys had the bright idea of witching for it so they’d be sure and miss it.
Direct hit. Cost $10,000
I not only hear voices, but often see the spirits who are talking.
When I am around people who hear voices, I see and feel the increase in neural activity in their right temporal parietal junction. This area of their brain receives the messages, which I often hear too.
I’ve been in the university research labs where soul communication is studied and know why their efforts fail. They don’t understand the two aspects of consciousness and their unique attributes.
Communication with the dead includes both good and bad spirits and imitators. Discernment can be a tough lesson to learn. The bad ones are afraid of prayer and the Holy Spirit.
I’ve used this ability to remove ghosts from houses and help them redeem themselves to cross over. Spirit attachment and releasement as Jesus described in the Bible is real and very common.
Dark spirits greatest influence is due to people denying their existence and being unaware of their influence.
The ability is a natural function of increasing my consciousness operational frequency into the gamma range, far above the alpha and beta ranges of the prefrontal cortex. It’s like changing stations on a radio or TV and you tune into a different station.
I’ve used this ability to help the state police solve murders, but stopped doing that as it is physically and emotionally painful to connect with murder victims.
When consciousness frequency increases, you see, hear and feel directly with your consciousness beyond your five senses and your physical body. That is true being born of the spirit and it only happens when you are baptized by fire. The fire is a consciousness so high frequency that impurities cannot exist within it.
I spent the last twenty years studying neuroscience to understand how consciousness of others, including all the stored memories of their life experiences their soul and is physical to me interfaces with the physical body.
Satan's greatest trick is convincing people that he doesn't exist.....
The ability is a natural function of increasing my consciousness operational frequency into the gamma range, far above the alpha and beta ranges of the prefrontal cortex. It’s like changing stations on a radio or TV and you tune into a different station.
Physically, pun intended, may be a phenomena explained by Quantum Physics.................
Book of Samuel taught me all I need to know about this topic.
It’s a good example..................... Except for Saul................................
There’s no “except” for Saul.
It’s “because” here.
A big “no thanks” to the whole topic.
Saul is a good example of a Bad Example.........................
It’s funny, years ago I mentioned I was having a new well sunk and it was right on the line, neighbor issues, etc. and the well driller before he set up he walked the line with a fresh cut peach tree stick to make sure he hit it the first time for me.
I thought it was funny, so I told the story here. I couldn’t believe the responses I got, I just kicked back and munched on popcorn while people got quite animated about the subject.
Amazed me how many people truly believe it works tbh, and were not afraid to claim it.
What about "smelling the dead?"
Also known as being "clairolfactorant."
And if you're female, then you're "Lady Clairolfactorant."
Regards,
‘Scientists’ will NEVER achieve any understanding so long as they deny the reality of the spirit and the realm of spacetime coordinate system just a forearm away but completely un sensed. (see Daniel chapter five)
Or Bobby Drennan in Greeneville, TN?
Yet some psychics and mediums these days pass rigorous scientific tests, with one on Long Island even getting an endorsement of sorts by the Catholic Church in spite of its hostility to mediumship.
“Yet some psychics and mediums these days pass rigorous scientific tests, with one on Long Island even getting an endorsement of sorts by the Catholic Church in spite of its hostility to mediumship.”
That’s absurd.
Yet true. The Forever Family Foundation has a list of tested psychics and mediums, and the Long Island medium is named George Anderson. The resolutely materialist stance of modern science is fraying badly.
Before they sold out to the global warmists, CSICOP had an ongoing source of entertainment debunking these deluded and/or fraudulent people. Now they are just as bad as “spiritualists.”.
Houdini was one of them.
I have never heard of one passing a “rigorous scientific test.” Can you give one link to reference to such an account?
Agree 100% ! I’ve always thought big pharma treats the masses as their Petri dish. And considering the rich CEO’s moved production to China God only knows what’s in our “medicine”.
But hey big pharma saved money on payroll so there’s that.
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