Rules of Evidence — Survival
Image modified from hpixabay.com/vectors/alice-in-wonderland-small-door-30327/
Opinion 13
Tom Butler, 2021
Why This Essay
As I began preparing my review the first BICS essay, (1) it became obvious that there is some confusion about which phenomenal experience may be proof of information from survived personalities (discarnate) and which may be better explained as psychic access of information from incarnate personalities. As a general statement, personal stories, compilation of case studies and interviews are informative but not necessarily evidence of survival unless they include an account of possible mechanism or processes that make them evidential. “I had a veridical dream,” “spirit told me” or “how could such a complex event be explained otherwise” are not, by themselves, evidential arguments.
The essay question for the BICS contest was “What is the best available evidence for the Survival of Human Consciousness after Permanent Bodily Death?” It seems from my reading of the essays that the included “proof” in most do not adequately account for the Psi Hypothesis.
I spend a lot of time explaining these phenomena in Quora. (2) Also, fifteen years or so working with ATransC members and people contacting the ATransC website has made me realize that people too easily misunderstand even the simplest of paranormal related concepts. Such misconceptions are the stuff of myth and baseless beliefs. One of my objectives in writing about things paranormal is to help promote “paranormal literacy.”
This essay is about concepts, points of view and their implications related to the study of things paranormal. My focus is on rules of evidence for the Survival Hypothesis. Remember that this is the world according to Tom. A qualified parapsychologist might have a rather different view. If so, remember to examine their qualifications. Mine are here. (3)
Points of View
Dualism — The point of view that there is a greater reality (nonphysical, etheric) and the physical universe which is an aspect of the greater reality. Mind is native to the etheric and the human body is native to the physical.
Physicalism — There is only physical reality. If mainstream science does not specifically allow for something, that something cannot be. In this view, belief in the possibility of things paranormal is pseudoscience and any evidence to the contrary is delusion or fraud. Extinction of self at biological death.
Physical Dualism — The same as Physicalism except this holds that mind is a bioelectric expression of brain and may exist in a nonphysical field capable of propagating thought. This field is sometimes referred to as the “Psi Field” where the influence of thought is known as “Psi.” Everyone expresses and senses Psi influences. Extinction of self at biological death; however, the person may “survive” as residual memory.
Strict Dualism — The biological organism is an individual that is natural to the physical aspect of reality and mind is an individual that is native to the etheric aspect of reality. They are entangled for this lifetime in an avatar relationship. Continuation of self-aware, sentient self after bodily death.
Hypotheses
Psi Field Hypothesis — The nonphysical characteristic of reality that propagates the influence of the mind. The dominant assumption of this hypothesis is that the field is an emergent quality of the physical. I refer to that as the Physical Dualism point of view. In the Strict Dualism view, the greater reality is modeled here as the etheric and the Psi Field is modeled as an aspect of the etheric.
Psychic Hypothesis — The Psychic Hypothesis is the argument that people are naturally able to psychically access information that resides in the Psi Field. In most versions, this means psychic access of information from other people’s memory. See First Sight Theory (4)
Super-Psi Hypothesis — The extreme version the Psychic Hypothesis is known as the Super-Psi Hypothesis. In one version of Super-Psi, people’s every thought and expression are stored in a kind of residual memory life record in the Psi Field. In effect, if the information has ever existed, it remains accessible to people’s psychic functioning.
Super-Psi assumes psychic access to information is not limited by distance. It also assumes the psychic is able to access information from other minds without knowing which mind holds the information or where the source physically located. That is, the difficult of information access is not a factor.
By itself, Super-Psi does not disprove survival. It is reasonable to argue that Super-Psi can be a correct model for extraordinary information access be it from incarnate or discarnate minds.
It might be helpful to think of accessed information as thoughtforms. When a person thinks about, Uncle John, thoughtforms related to Uncle John are, in effect, attracted to the person. The degree to which contact is made is a function of rapport, focus and intention. (Remember this is conceptual and there is no distance. We navigate the greater reality by changing our point of view.)
Survival Hypothesis — The argument that an aspect of a person continues to exist in a self-aware, sentient form after bodily death. The Strict Dualism point of view is necessary for this hypothesis to work. A person’s sense of self is thought to continue to interact with reality.
An important measure of evidence is the extent to which it is consistent with what is known about the same or similar examples of phenomena. The existence of Psi and the Psi Field is reasonably well documented. (5) If an instance of apparent after death communication has most or all of the same characteristics as an example of psychic access of information, it may be more reasonable to think psychic functioning rather than survival.
It is not enough to give example after example of apparent survival evidence. If evidence is claimed, it is incumbent on the claimant to explain why it is evidential.
Two-Mind Hypothesis — If the Survival Hypothesis is largely true, that which continues after “permanent bodily death” is necessarily a sentient life form that is native to and inhabits the etheric aspect of reality. In this hypothesis, our sense of “I am this” is linked to the etheric personality.
The second mind in this hypothesis is that of the human avatar. The idea is that our human body is an independent life form that could exist without our symbiotic presence. I model this mind as the Body-Mind which governs its formation in the sense suggested by The Hypothesis of Formative Causation (aka Morphic Resonance). See Morphic Resonance and Morphic Fields (6) and Morphic Fields (7)
In a practical sense, all minds are native to the etheric. Some are Body-Minds, some are entangled with an avatar, and some are without an avatar. They are all essentially the same but fulfill different purposes under different circumstances.
Concepts
Rapport — I defined the Organizing Principle of Rapport (7) as: Personalities are interconnected by links of cooperation (influence) forming a matrix of relationships (cooperating community). One personality’s awareness of another personality manifests as a link of attention and intention between the two fields. The nature of this link of rapport depends on the clarity (intensity) of awareness and the reason for the awareness. These links are dynamic and are thought to facilitate cooperation. See Society for Research on Rapport and Psychokinesis (SORRAT) (8)
Presentiment — It has been shown that people unconsciously detect environmental signals before becoming consciously aware of them. While there is a small delay between unconscious detection and conscious awareness, the body has been shown to respond before conscious awareness.
Nonlocality — An important characteristic of the Psi Field is that it appears to behave as a singularity. Parapsychologists note that it is holographic-like in that there is no apparent distance between a psychic and that which is being sensed. We see the same effect with EVP. For instance, in real time, a person in New York City can be on the telephone with a person in Chicago and record the voice of someone who transitioned in Dallas.
Dread Impulse — This is my term for what appears to be a psychic response to approaching disaster. (9) In the Global Consciousness Project (10), the output of a global array of Random Event Generators (REG) is analyzed for changes in randomness. It has been shown that REG randomness tends to change when associated with meditating people. The global REG array indicated changes in randomness just prior to major catastrophes such as the 9–11 attack on the World Trade Center.
Intended Order — The transformation of relatively chaotic noise into images or speech in Instrumental TransCommunication (ITC) is described as psychokinetic impression of intended order on the noise.
The way expressions of intended order behave suggests that a physical person is required to provide a conduit for the etheric-to-physical influence. We think this is true because of the differences in practitioner ability and because our hypothetical nonphysical communicators are apparently unable to directly see what incarnate people see. Thus, we speculate that etheric personalities can only see the physical as incarnate people see it.
From our study of ITC, it is evident that the conduit supporting the expression of intended order can be the practitioner or interested observer located anywhere in the world. This is consistent with the implications of nonlocality.
Sensed Information — According to First Sight Theory, (4) all minds sense psychically and express psychokinetically. In Strict Dualism, the human avatar functions as a roving smell-see-feel-hear-touch sensor. The biological brain functions as a bioelectric-to-Psi transmitter for sensed signals and a Psi-to-bioelectric receiver for movement commands.
In every situation, these Psi and bioelectric environmental signals are “preprocessed” in the mostly unconscious perception and expression functional areas of mind. The results, possibly modified to better agree with Worldview, are then made available to conscious awareness. Because of this “preprocessing,” the awareness of environmental information tends to be modified to better agree with the experiencer’s expectation. As such, we tend to experience what we think is true.
Mind as Storyteller — Our mind is “hardwired” to explain sensed information. Sensed information may be from our body. For instance, we may hear a sound which our mind attempts to identify and formulate a story about its probable cause to conscious self.
In the Strict Dualism model, it does not matter if a psychic signal is from a physically living or a discarnate Uncle John. The deciding factor will be if the experiencer thinks Uncle John is alive or not. If the experiencer accepts the idea of survival, the signal may be more readily attributed to long “dead” Uncle John. If the experiencer does not accept the idea of survival, the signal will more likely be attributed to a random thought about Uncle John.
Following the Strict Dualism model, dreams and the mental chatter meditators try to suppress are examples of the mind trying to explain environmental signals. In effect, these stories are sent to conscious awareness as a stream of consciousness thread that is often nonsensical.
Complexity Argument — Consider this:
A religious person’s and an atheist stood at a viewpoint overlooking a wide expanse of forest, sea and mountains. The religious person waved his hand, indicating the beauty of the scene around them, asking “How can you doubt there is a God when you witness such wonders?”
That is the complexity argument often claimed as a proof of Divine intervention. Reductionists respond that natural organizing principles and time is all it takes to create such wonders. They argue that no “higher consciousness” intervention is necessary. Of course, the belief-based response is to ask from whence came the singularity that began the physical universe by producing those natural principles? In the end, it always comes down to initial assumptions.
Psi — As the expression of mind, thought can be modeled as an influence. That influence is referred to as “Psi.”
Proofs
Local Ghost — Following the implications of nonlocality and mind-to-mind psychic functioning, reported ghosts are not actually “stuck” in a “haunted” location. In effect, the experiencer has a haunt encounter because one is expected. When considered from the Physicalist point of view, a ghostly noise is only the building settling or wind. From the Physical Dualist point of view, such noises may be setting or the wind, but they might also be psychokinetically induced by the experiencer’s heightened expectations.
From our experience with ITC, especially the audio form of ITC known as Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP), a personality still entangled with an avatar is necessary to provide the etheric-to-physical influence. I refer to that influence as Intended Order. It appears that an incarnate person can psychokinetically express intended order on relatively chaotic energy to produce expected haunt effects.
I am not sufficiently informed to argue if an apparition of long dead Uncle John is proof of the presence of Uncle John. With that said, I will argue that our mind is capable of producing an apparition in great detail. As such, I hesitate to consider a reported apparition a decisive proof of survival.
Vivid Dreams — Jeffrey Mishlove began his “Beyond the Brain” BICS essay (16) by recounting a dream-state visit form his uncle. He was unaware at the time that his uncle had just transitioned. He wrote:
“There is only one reasonable way to account for this event, the most earthshaking and unforgettable of my young life. Uncle Harry actually visited me in a dream when he died. Extrasensory perception alone doesn’t account for the overwhelmingly potent emotions associated with his presence. Uncle Harry’s visitation convinced me, beyond all doubt, the soul exists and survives the physical body’s death.”
This is the complexity “proof” for survival. As it goes, “Such a ‘real’ experience containing verifiable evidence, that the experiencer was unaware of at the time, must mean that the discarnate personality was actually present.”
While I will not argue that such a dream cannot be caused a discarnate personality, there are a number of important factors that suggest it is better explained with Super-Psi:
• Nonlocality suggests that family members who were aware of Uncle Harry’s transition are in the same psychic “space” with Mishlove.
• The Global Consciousness project has shown that people seem to express an intense psychic “dread” of impending events.
• The link of Rapport between Mishlove and his family heightens the probability that he would at least unconsciously experience their dread.
• Mind as storyteller can produce unconscious perception that emerges as very real-seeming conscious experiences.
• The Super-Psi Hypothesis is a relatively well-establish model suggesting that it is reasonable to argue Mishlove psychically sensed his family’s dread and then unconsciously composed a likely story about his uncle based on prior experience.
Spirit Told me — We all experience reality as it is explained by our mostly unconscious mind and according to expectations framed by our worldview. (11) (12) (13) This “preprocessing” is a form of storytelling. By that I means a mental medium may sense a discarnate personality’s expression, but that sensed information is then “preprocessed” to better agree with expectations prior to becoming part of the medium’s conscious awareness. I do argue that some information mediums relay is from discarnate personalities. It depends a lot on the medium’s training. In the end, it is the contents of the message that must decide.
I am a certified medium and part of my challenge is to distinguish between what I expect and what I am actually sensing. In the context of mediumship, this discernment is linked to the concept of lucidity, meaning how clearly a person is able to sense unfiltered reality. The development of such ability is thought of as the conscious alignment of worldview with the actual nature of reality. I refer top that as the Mindful Way. (14)
The bottom line is that information gathered psychically is probably best explained with the Super-Psi Hypothesis. Some psychically gathered information may come from discarnate personalities. However, the experiencer should be mindful that all such information is probably colored by their worldview. Some people are more able to “see past” mind’s “preprocessing” to understand the raw message stream. Skill alone is not enough to know the lucidity of the experiencer.
As a general statement, the argument that psychically sensed information comes from discarnate personality must account for the possibility of Super-Psi. The only way I know of to assure the information does not come via Super-Psi is if the information has not previously existed in the minds of other people.
Inherited Credibility — While a seemingly paranormal experience may not be credible on its own, it might gain credibility if it shares characteristics of more credible phenomena. For instance, transform EVP gains credibility because it appears to depend on the same trans-etheric principles found in visual ITC and in the study of how the output of REGs become less random in the presence of meditating people.
I am not fond of compilations of stories, even meta-analysis of research as a form of proof of survival. However, the credibility of many experiences appearing to involve the same or similar principles tends to support the individual example. With that said, most of the compilations I have seen involve more or less the same effects that might be better explained with the Super-Psi Hypothesis.
Closing Comments
The objective of the BICS essay contest was to further the study of survival. Based on the judges and the tone of the winning essays I have read thus far, the judging criteria were, in their order of apparent importance, author credentials, thorough discussion of the subject and readability. I have mostly not been impressed with the evidential nature of the “evidence” for survival.
Understanding the nature of survival has profound implications for humankind. While many kinds of experience such as reincarnation, near-death experiences and mediumship might seem to prove survival, they also might prove Super-Psi. Part of the challenge for authors and judges alike is to understand the phenomena and which constitutes proof of survival, and which is evidence of our naturally occurring psychic nature.
The essay I submitted was designed to outright prove survival by using an EVP utterance about information that did not exist prior to the recording. Not being an academic and considering the hard sell of EVP, I am not dismayed that my essay was not selected. Many of the winners are much more readable. Even so, it is written with the utmost respect for the need for informed proof. As such, I recommend it as a teaching tool for how evidence should be presented. You can read it online: Case for the Survival Hypothesis. (15)
As always, I appreciate your comments and suggestions.
References
1. Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies (BICS). bigelowinstitute.org/.
2. Butler, Tom. Quora. quora.com/profile/Tom-Butler-79.
3. Butler, Tom. “Tom Butler’s Biography.” Etheric Studies ethericstudies.org/tom-butler-biography/.
4. Butler, Tom. “About First Sight Theory.” Etheric Studies. 2018. ethericstudies.org/first-sight-theory/.
5. Radin, Dean. “Selected Peer-Reviewed Publications on Psi Research.” Dean Radin.com. deanradin.com/recommended-references.
6. Sheldrake, Rupert PhD. “Morphic Resonance and Morphic Fields.” Rupert Sheldrake. sheldrake.org/research/morphic-resonance/introduction?.
7. Butler, Tom. “Morphic Fields.” Etheric Studies. 2018. ethericstudies.org/morphic-fields/.
8. Mügge, Kai. “Society for Research in Rapport and Telekinesis (SORRAT).” Felix Experimental Group. 2008. kaimuegge.com/sorrat/.
9. Bancel, Peter. “Searching for Global Consciousness: A 17-Year Exploration.” National Library of Medicine. 2016. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28279629/.
10. Global Consciousness Project: Meaningful Correlations in Random Data. noosphere.princeton.edu/.
11. Bargh, John A. “Our Unconscious Mind.” PScience Associates. 2013. pscience.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/UNCONSCIOUS-unconscious-mind-shapes-our-day-to-day-interactions-Bargh-SciAm-2013.pdf.
12. Littin, Shelley. “UA Study: Your Brain Sees Things You Don’t.” University of Arizona. 2013. uanews.arizona.edu/story/ua-study-your-brain-sees-things-you-don-t.
13. Max-Planck-Gesellschaft. “Decision-making May Be Surprisingly Unconscious Activity.” Science Daily. 2008. sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080414145705.htm.
14. Butler, Tom. “The Mindful Way.” Etheric Studies. 2014. ethericstudies.org/mindfulness/.
15. Butler, Tom. “Case for the Survival Hypothesis.” Etheric Studies. 2021. ethericstudies.org/case-for-the-survival-hypothesis/.
16. Mishlove, Jeffrey. “Beyond the Brain: The Survival of Human Consciousness After Permanent Bodily Death.” Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies. 2021. bigelowinstitute.org/contest_winners3.php
