Best Practices

Also at ethericstudies.org/witness-panel/
These practices are recommendations provided under the
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License

Abstract

One of the biggest problems in ITC is the difficulty practitioners have in assessing the quality of examples. Even examples that are considered Class A, which should be correctly seen or heard without prompting, are shown to be correctly understood only an average of 25% for EVP and of the time by online listeners.^[1] and 61% for video-loop ITC ^[2]

An important aid for practitioners is the use of witness panels; people with at least average hearing, vision and comprehension who will examine examples, and without prompting, tell the practitioner what is seen or heard. The rest of the task is for the practitioner to accept the results.

This practice details a methodology for establishing and using a witness panel to assess the quality of examples.

Justification/Introduction

People asked to examine examples of reportedly paranormal phenomena often complain that they are not convincing. For EVP, the first response from witnesses tends to be that the examples are just noise. If voices are heard, it is difficult for witnesses to mentally orient themselves so as to place the voices in a context that will give them meaning if all that is offered is just the phenomenal voice.

Examples of visual ITC can be even more confusing. For instance, reflected light phenomena is too easily discounted as mundane if the part of the scene that is being reflected is not known. In another example, it is difficult to convince the witness that a face-like feature in any media is paranormal if the witness can associate the offered example with the faces in clouds effect.

A little time spent on the Internet examining examples posted on various websites will show that this complaint is often deserved. Each time a website visitor responds to an example with “That is just noise” or “All I see is odd patterns that look more like a Rorschach test than something paranormal,” the credibility of anyone in the paranormalist community become easier to discount. The result is increased credibility of the skeptics and progressively less funding for research.

Examples of ITC are frequently composed in novel ways the average witness will have difficulty comprehending. EVP are often very difficult to understand. Even Class A examples are likely formed with a novel arrangement of formants, distorting audio cues and making it difficult for the witness to understand. It is correctly noted that hearing EVP is often like learning a new language. To complicate this, is the fact that each practitioner tends to record in what amounts to a different dialect of this novel language.

Visual examples of ITC range from something normal that is out of place to faces formed in noise. The paranormality of something normal but out of place is difficult to argue as paranormal because it is so normal. The paranormal features formed in noise is difficult to comprehend because the witness must learn to look at patterns rather than hard-edged features. It is common for a witness to say that “Oh, I was looking for a photograph.”

There is no realistic way to police the quality of paranormal phenomena examples being presented to the public. Instead, individual practitioners must learn to self-edit, and take special care to help witnesses understand what they are being shown … preferably while letting the witness independently discover the feature.

Unreliable Sensing

A single person’s senses are unreliable. Anomalistic psychology^[3] is based on the assumption that people too easily fool themselves into believing the mundane is paranormal. A second way of looking at this is that people’s natural mental processes can produce erroneous comprehension from confusing environmental information.

One study clearly demonstrated that people tend to hear what they are told to expect,^[4] even if it is not present in the example. In visual ITC, people are more likely to see what the practitioner expects them to see after being told what to look for.

Experience has shown that one reliable way to assure an example represents what the practitioner thinks is to ask a number of people to examine the example and tell the practitioner what they see or hear. The most common approach to this review is use of a witness panel.

Practice

The objective of a witness panel is not to find people who will agree with the practitioner but to establish how the average member of the public will experience an example. If at least a majority of the panel does not report experiencing an example as the practitioner expects, then the example should be set aside and not be shared with the public.

The one consideration that the practitioner should always be aware of is that witnesses will become expert for the practitioner’s unique EVP dialect or ITC visual characteristic. This is unavoidable, but the periodic test of asking a new person to grade the example will help maintain the usefulness of the panel.

It is up to the practitioner to make this work.

1. It is recommended that an uneven number of people participate in a witness panel to avoid ties and simplify the grading of examples. Five people are recommended as a manageable number and should provide a sufficiently large review.
2. While there are no studies of this, observations indicate that individual ability to hear fallows a natural distribution determined by comprehension, hearing ability (both frequency and volume), vision and span of attention. Even after finding enough volunteers, it may be necessary to screen witnesses with known examples of known quality to find people who can be depended on to represent the average listener.
3. Examples should be saved in a file only marked as “Example (number).” The practitioner will need to track the true title. Please refer to the subsection below on Sound File Considerations.
4. Members of the panel should be asked to examine or listen to the example and write down what is seen or heard. It is reasonable to include alternative interpretations, but this should be limited to avoid guessing bias.
5. The practitioner should compile the responses and compare them to what is thought to be in the example.
6. At his point, the practitioner must decide whether or not the example is suitable for public demonstration. It is possible that the example should be discarded. Certainly, if it is being considered for a client, then the results of the panel may lead the practitioner not to display the example to the client.

Sound File Considerations

The Sharing EVP practice should be reviewed before any example is sent to the listening panel.

It is always a good idea to include a little natural voice in sound files, such as the practitioner’s voice asking a question. This provides context to help witnesses orient themselves in the recording.

Very long examples are often difficult to understand, so it may be necessary to segment the utterance in several files.

One or two syllable utterances are very often artifacts. Especially in opportunistic EVP, very brief utterances may appear to be phenomenal, but be in fact, naturally occurring. It is strongly recommended that the practitioner consider the context of the utterance and be prepared to discard any example that might possibly be a naturally occurring sound. Certainly, one-word EVP are not acceptable for public demonstration unless clearly relevant. For instance, a “Bob” utterance is suspect when asking for why a person might be in the house while “Stuck” might be a meaningful response.

Be leery of examples which are supposedly an answer to a question for which any response can be construed as the correct answer.

Visual Example Considerations

Transform EVP examples ultimately come down to whether or not the utterance is present and states what is reported; however, some forms of visual ITC are plagued with difficulties distinguishing real phenomena from artifacts. Before sharing examples of visual phenomena, it is a good idea for the practitioner to become familiar with the kinds of mundane phenomena that might seem paranormal.

It is important to explain to the witness how the example was collected and the environment in which it occurred. This requires good record keeping by the practitioner. In field studies, environmental snapshots are useful for later reconstruction of the scene.

Captive Syndrome

Captive syndrome, more correctly known as Stockholm Syndrome, is roughly described as a psychological condition in which hostages develop a sympathetic point of view about their captors. As it applies to witness panels, people, especially family members, tend to want to please practitioners. It translates as a willingness to fudge a little in how they describe examples if perceive it will make the practitioner happy.

Consideration of this tendency to err in favor of the practitioner is the reason it is important that the practitioner does not reveal what is thought to be in the example until after the witness independently arrives at a conclusion.

Physical Mediumship

The phenomena of physical mediumship should lend itself to a form of analysis supported by a witness panel. In this, séance sitters might be studied rather than the medium. The idea would be to record the phenomena and study how the sitters experienced them, how they felt and possible spiritual impressions they experienced.

This remains an open question but would be a refreshing alternative to the relentless parapsychological studies attempting to prove the phenomena exist.

References

1. ↑Butler, Tom. “Online Listening Trials.” Association TransCommunication. 2008. atransc.org/evp-online-listening-trials/
2. ↑Butler, Tom. “Perception of Visual ITC.” Association TransCommunication. 2016. atransc.org/visual-perception-study/
3. ↑Goldsmiths, University of London, What is Anomalistic Psychology?, http://www.gold.ac.uk/apru/what/, Reviewed 12/10/2015
4. ↑Leary, Mark. “A Research Study into the Interpretation of EVP – Three parts”
5. Association TransCommunication.
6. atransc.org/radiosweep-study2/, Reviewed 12/10/2015

Also at ethericstudies.org/control-recorder/
These practices are recommendations provided under the
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License

Sponsor(s)

Tom Butler, Cindy Heinen

Abstract

It is easy to record environmental sounds that are natural, but that sometimes sound like EVP. The problem is finding a way to guard against mistaking ambient or normal sounds as being paranormal. This Best Practice recommends that a second audio recorder be used when the person is unable to assure control of ambient sounds while recording for EVP.

Sound reproduction varies among types and designs of recorders. There are many elements in the design of IC recorders, the type of recorder commonly used for EVP recording, that can cause sound to be poorly recorded and reproduced. To assure that suspected EVP are not just poorly reproduced normal sound, this Best Practice recommends that a backup recorder be used that is able to record and reproduce sound at a superior fidelity to that of the main EVP recorder.

Justification/Introduction

Unnoticed background sounds: The human mind is able to focus on a task at hand, often to the exclusion of unrelated stimuli. For instance, Alva Noë refers provided an example of “inattentional blindness”: “In one study, perceivers are asked to watch a videotape of a basketball game and they are asked to count the number of times one team takes possession of the ball. During the film clip, which lasts a few minutes, a person in a gorilla suit strolls onto the center of the court, turns and faces the audience and does a little jig. The gorilla then slowly walks off the court. The remarkable fact is that perceivers (including this author) do not notice the gorilla. This is an example of what has been called inattentional blindness.”^[1]

During the excitement of a hauntings investigation, it is reasonable for an experimenter to not notice background sounds, such as people talking in a nearby room, routine sounds caused by the experimenter or even intakes of breath before speaking. Sounds can be easily mistaken as EVP, not so much because they sound paranormal, but because they were not noticed during the recording session.

EVP and the brain: Memory has been shown to be a three-stage process starting with sensory memory, which is the initial recording of sensory information. Some of this information will be encoded into short-term memory where, if not actively processed, it has a limited life of a few seconds. We can, however, further encode this information into long-term memory, but even at this stage memories can be altered or forgotten.^[2] During an EVP session, our consciousness is focused on the task at hand; conducting the session or doing the investigation. It is not possible to be aware of everything that is going on around us. A backup recorder will provide a hard copy of all the audio that occurs during an EVP session that we are incapable of remembering. Reviewing this audio will assist in helping to verify if a suspected EVP is just a normal voice or sound we do not remember.

Pareidolia is when our brain interprets a vague image or sound as something recognizable or specific. In the case of EVP, this would mean finding speech patterns in muted sounds or even random noise. It’s easier to do this than one may think, especially with IC recorder file compression that can alter the tonal quality or timbre of sounds as well as distort normally occurring sounds. A clear, higher sound quality backup recording can be an asset when determining if a suspected class B or C EVP is authentic or possibly just an artifact or distortion of the digital recording process.

Suspected EVP comparison: The fidelity capabilities of recorders should also be taken into account when selecting a backup recorder. The fidelity of a recorder is the quality of the reproduced sound. High fidelity would be reproduced sound that is as close to the original sound as possible. Low fidelity would be sound that is not a true reproduction of the original sound because of distortion, compression or other sound artifacts.

Many of the early IC recorders that investigators used have elements in their design that result in low fidelity voice reproduction due to frequency limitations during recording and sound reproduction, quantization noise, and the limitations of file compression. While proponents of the white noise theory suggest the internal noise produced by these recorders may be just the thing that enables the paranormal voices to be formed on these recorders,^[3] it also can drastically change the quality and understandability of normally occurring sounds or voice. This especially holds true to any IC recordings done in a LP (Long Play) or SP (Standard Play) mode. IC recorders can be set to record in a variety of modes that establish recording time and recording quality. Frequency response of the recorders can even be affected by the selection of specific modes. For example, a Panasonic RR-QR160 set to an SP mode has a frequency response of 230 Hz to 3400 Hz, while the response in the HQ (High Quality) mode is 240Hz to 5100 Hz. When recording in SP or LP mode, compression of the audio information gives you more recording time but poorer voice reproduction or fidelity. When researchers record in these lower quality modes it is important to be aware of the sound reproduction capabilities of that particular mode. The use of a backup recorder that reproduces sound at higher fidelity than the main EVP recorder, especially if this main recorder is an IC recorder set to a lower voice quality mode, is highly suggested.

Simultaneous EVP: The AA-EVP has no reliable evidence that the identical EVP has been simultaneously recorded on more than one device.^[4] Sarah Estep has reported that, in group recordings, she has never encountered an instance of duplicated EVP. A typical report: Joan Kachurik August 28, 2005 post in the AA-EVP Idea Exchange:

“Hi,

“I have the very same Panasonic as you just bought, and I also have an Olympus 480PC. I have turned them both on at the same time, spoke into them at the same time, saying the same thing. It is so odd … sometimes I get a reply on the Olympus and nothing on the Panasonic, and other times the Olympus picks up and not the Panasonic. There were a couple of times when both picked up … but said different things. It is really confusing…but at the same time when editing the recordings, it is such fun to see what each recorder is going to do.

“The same thing happens with my tape recorders. I have a GE mini-cassette recorder, and a GE shoebox tape recorder that I record on at the same time, with excellent results on each one, but always different. I have never received the same EVP at the same time on different recorders.

“Really interesting, isn’t it?”

EVP are not an acoustical event: EVP have been shown to be an electrical event, rather than an acoustical event. The fact that an EVP can be recorded without a microphone,^[5] in an acoustically isolated chamber and apparently by only one recorder, makes it reasonable to assume that a sound simultaneously recorded by two devices is not EVP. The sound may be paranormal, as in direct voice,^[6] but it is not by definition, EVP.

Practice

The procedure recommended in this proposed Best Practice is for EVP experimenters to use at least one audio recorder in addition to the one being used for EVP collection as a control recording device. This may be accomplished by having two recorders in operated by one person, two people working together during recording sessions using their own personal recorders and/or people recording for EVP and other people video recording the session.

The backup recorder should record and reproduce sound at superior quality to that of the intended EVP recorder.

Video recorders tend to have higher quality audio tracks than are usually found in recorders used for EVP. Most are stereo, giving less likelihood the video recorder will record EVP, but at the same time, giving the ability to have a sense of direction for ambient sound.

It is suggested that the two soundtracks be compared if there is any doubt about the authenticity of an EVP. If the suspected EVP is found on both recordings, then it is the recommendation of this practice to discard that part of the recording unless it contains information that is evidential in some other way. Even then, the possibility that the utterance is direct voice should be considered.

It is also suggested that all suspected EVP be checked against the backup recording.

Example Application

This practice is applicable to any recording situation that has uncontrolled ambient sounds, such as during haunting investigations where sounds from other quarters can sometimes be heard.

References

1. Noë, Alva, Perception, action, and nonconceptual content, host.uniroma3.it/progetti/kant/field/hurleysymp_noe.htm, Verified 18 December 2007
2. Myers, David G. Exploring Psychology. New York: Worth Publishing, 2005
3. Butler, Tom and Lisa. There is No Death and There Are No Dead. Nevada: ATransC Publishing, 2004
4. Butler, Tom and Lisa, Communication with members and ATransC and other EVP researchers, ATransC Correspondence
5. Butler, Tom and Lisa, Estep Correspondence, private communication with Sarah Estep
6. Crawford, W. J., Direct Voice Phenomena, survivalafterdeath.info/articles/crawford/directvoice.htm, Verified 18 December 2007

These practices are recommendations provided under the
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License

Abstract

The objective of this practice is to establish a meaningful measure which can be used by readers to rate paranormalist community media. (1) It will give people a way to tell future experiencers what to expect by assigning a value on a five-star scale. The rating is also intended to provide feedback to authors.

The Survival-Related Media Rating (SRM) Rating scale may be used by individuals who publish a review of an article, research report or audio-visual media. (For instance, SRM Rating: 2.8) Ideally, an organization will establish a publicly accessible website on which media reviews may be added with a cumulative rating.

Sponsor

Tom Butler

Co-Sponsors

None at this time

Scope

This practice is specifically written for survival-related media. It may be adapted for other subjects, especially those of concern to the paranormalist community.

Statement of Intent

Just as it is common practice for someone other than the author or publisher to review a book, other forms of media should also be reviewed. Research reports published in parapsychological journals are the most obvious application of this practice.

Most forms of media are simply published for public consumption. In some cases, a Like flag can be set, but there is typically little means by which experiencers can rate content to provide feedback to publishers or alert the next person about what to expect.

This practice is intended to provide such a means of review based on a standard rating system. The intention is to improve the quality of paranormalist media.

Problem

Collaboration between practitioners and those who would study the phenomena produced by practitioners is essentially nonexistent. The majority of those posing as parapsychologists either do not accept the existence of a psi field and psi functioning or accept psi as a purely human ability related to physical space. Very few people posing as parapsychologists study survival-related phenomena with the intention of understanding their nature, rather than disproving their existence. The result of this Academic-Practitioner Partition is a culture of science that tends to stifle the serious study of survival-related phenomena. (2)

Most parapsychological research reports are written from the viewpoint that reported survival-related phenomena are an illusion, ordinary mistaken as paranormal, human-caused artifacts, psi functioning or fraud. Authors seldom reveal this bias to the reader in a “This is what we intend to prove” format. Instead, one must be trained in the author’s field of study to be equipped to see the actual intent in the otherwise vague wording. Ignoring the need to communicate to laypeople has become part of the parapsychological culture.

Intentional Bias

Examination of the History and Talk pages of paranormal-related articles in Wikipedia will show that the dominant skeptic editors have biased those articles to make the subject appear unreal or fraudulent. (3) The public is expected to believe the online encyclopedia as truth; however, people who are familiar with this bias advise others to find a different source for the information they seek. It would be ideal for the paranormalist community if such articles were clearly identified as biased.

Current Relevance

As a survival-related field of study, transcommunication is rapidly evolving as more is understood. It is not uncommon for an article to be out of date after twelve-to-fifteen years. This is not universally true, but it would be useful to future readers if the articles were rated in terms of contemporary relevance to survival.

Author Point of View

The most important thing to know when reading an article in parapsychological publications is the point of view of the author. For instance, if the author is in the Anomalistic Psychology school of parapsychological thought, (4) the article will likely be written to explain paranormalist phenomena in terms of reductionist physical principles. This is the Physical Hypothesis.

If the author is from the Exceptional Experiences Psychology school of thought, (5) it is reasonable to expect that psi-related phenomena have been considered. From the perspective of survival, this is the Super-Psi Hypothesis. Psi functioning is important to the study of survival, but it is likely the author will have mostly ignored survival-related evidence.

Jean-Michel Abrassart stated this point very well in the 2013 inaugural issue of the Journal of Exceptional Experiences and Psychology. From the closing remarks of “Paranormal Phenomena: Should Psychology Really Go Beyond the Ontological Debate?”: (6)

This leads me to the third point, which is the researcher’s own beliefs about the paranormal. Since it could still today be detrimental for someone’s academic career to clearly state that he or she believes in authentic paranormal processes (or that psi exists), it is much easier to hide behind statements like “we won’t engage in the ontological debate” that “we will purely talk about the phenomenology of the anomalous experience” and that “all that interest us is the psychology of para-normal beliefs.” I think that this state of affairs is unfortunate. It is not conducive to a proper debate about alleged paranormal phenomena.

I advocate that psychologists studying alleged paranormal phenomena should at least be able to state what their own beliefs are on the topic they are studying. In the scientific study of religion, there is a long history of religiously committed people who have made significant scientific contributions, …. If we can imagine that a committed Christian can legitimately study personal prayer, why not a medium studying mediumship? I state the question because for example Biscop (2010) is a spiritualist medium doing anthropological work on this very subject. Similarly, to psychology of religion, it is clear that the researcher’s own beliefs about the paranormal will influence if not the research itself (with the experimenter effect) but in the least his or her conclusions. I think that transparency (stating one’s own beliefs about the subject one is studying) is preferable to staying safely outside the ontological debate.

Collaboration

As a matter of practical community interaction, there is an Academic-Layperson Partition that tends to suppress the exchange of information between the Ph.Ds. trained in research and the laypeople who produce the phenomena to be studied. (2)

Some people who have worked with paranormalist phenomena for many years have accumulated considerable practical experience, often arcane knowledge about the phenomena and how they are best produced and examined. Paranormalist Ph.Ds. tend to assume knowledge based on literature reviews that typically exclude lay reports.

The consequence of research without community collaboration is too often misleading media that serves the skeptics better than the paranormalist community.

Trusted Advisors

People are conditioned to trust scientists and tend to do so without question. In practice, the reality of the paranormalist community is that ideologies tend to bias expected rational thought. Thus, many people posing as scientists do so under the false cloak of authority as they comment on aspects of paranormalist phenomena about which they have no training or in-depth understanding. In many respects, academics are not as rational and well-informed as lay-practitioners.

Ethics

Perhaps the most important indicator of the intention and point of view of the author is whether the subject and practitioners were treated in an ethical manner. The separation between academics and laypeople tends to make it okay for researchers to mistreat laypeople and mislead them about the author’s intentions. Of course, this should cause people to question the author’s work.

Practice

To provide an easy to administer method, this practice includes the recommendation that a standard review and rating system be adopted by the community. This may also include a short-written review.

Possible Format

The public is conditioned to use a five-star rating system. The recommendation here is a one-to-five-star score derived as the average rating for supporting categories. The categories need to be standardized. If a reviewer wishes to add or delete a category, the recommendation here is for the reviewer to use the standard format and add a note to include the additional rating. In the future, that added feature might be incorporated into the practice.

Program Aided Format

Review and rating plugins are available for online content management systems but may require modification to make them suitable for multiple reviews on a single page. Such a program might be applied thus:

           Title:  Research Report
      Author:  Author 1; Author 2
Publisher:  Paranormalist Journal

   SRM Rating:   2.8

Comment:  (100 Words)

Rating Components:

            Intentional Bias:   3
       Current Relevance:  4
Survival Point of View:  1
                 Collaboration:  1
                                Ethics:  5

Manual Format

Most people commenting on media will not have access to a rating and review system templet. Two recommended manual notation formats are:

1. SRM Rating: 2.8
2. SRM Rating: 2.8 (Bias – 3; Relevance – 4; Survival – 1; Collaboration – 1; Ethics – 5)

(It is a good idea to include a link to the practice. For now, it is https://ethericstudies.org/practice-srm-media-review/.)

Implementation

Practices are intended to be developed and maintained by a small group of people who represent the interests of the community. They are intended to be living documents. That is, it is expected that they will be updated as circumstances change and with more understood about the reason they exist. All practices have the same maintenance concerns.

A possible solution to the development and maintenance issues is for one person (or organization) to agree to act as a chairperson for a practices committee. His or her duties would include maintaining an online forum, such as a wiki, on which other volunteers might edit practices via a consensus approach like that used in Wikipedia. Of course, a major difference would be that the wiki would be closed to all but the volunteers vetted by the Chair.

Until such a capability exists, practices maintained at ethericstudies.org/category/practices/ should be considered drafts and should not be considered widely accepted.

In the meantime, the rating system is still useful as a tool for expressing a reviewer’s opinion about items of paranormalist media. You are invited to use it.

Example Application

See Opinion 4 Failure to Replicate Fallacy

Reference

1. Butler, Tom. “Paranormalist Community.” Etheric Studies. ethericstudies.org/paranormalist-community/.
2. Butler, Tom. “Open Letter to Paranormalists: Limits of science, trust and responsibility.” Etheric Studies. ethericstudies.org/open-letter-to-paranormalists-science/.
3. Butler, Tom. “Concerns with Wikipedia.” Etheric Studies. ethericstudies.org/concerns-with-wikipedia/.
4. “What is Anomalistic Psychology?” Goldsmiths, University of London. 2015. gold.ac.uk/apru/what/.
5. Simmonds-Moore, Christine. “What is Exceptional Psychology?” Journal of Parapsychology, 76 supplement, Pages 54-57. 2012.
6. Abrassart, Jean-Michel. “Paranormal Phenomena: Should Psychology Really Go Beyond the Ontological Debate?” Journal of Exceptional Experiences and Psychology, 1-1, 2013. academia.edu/3715042/Paranormal_Phenomena_Should_Psychology_Really_Go_Beyond_the_Ontological_Debate.

 

Also at ethericstudies.org/sharing-evp/
These practices are recommendations provided under the
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License

Sponsor(s)

Tom Butler

Abstract

The phenomenal voices of Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) are typically classified in terms of how well an untrained listener can be expected to understand the utterance. Research is showing that, on average, a listener will only make out up to 25% of Class A examples without prompting. Yet, practitioners commonly post Class C examples on the Internet in forms that even experienced listeners find difficult. This practice includes recommendations intended to guide practitioners in ways of sharing examples with the public that offer listeners the highest likelihood of understanding what is said.

Introduction

Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) are formed by transforming available audio-frequency noise into voice or via some form of selection of available voice fragments. Either way, the resulting audio-file contains voice which is an approximation of the human voice it is supposed to represent. Allophones which form the voice are often oddly arranged and the usual auditory cues may be misplaced from what the listener has been culturally trained to expect.

A good assumption for everyone concerned with these phenomena is that practitioners hear their examples as they report. The problem is that good examples of EVP for comparison are not commonly available, and there are too few qualified listeners willing to deal with the social-technical issues surrounding critiques. This leaves most practitioners alone in determining what are and are not EVP. And in fact, there is substantial evidence that people who are new to EVP are often mistaken about the quality of their examples.

A classification system indicating how well a listener can be expected to hear and understand examples of EVP has been shown to help practitioner grade their examples, The classification system used by ATransC is:

Class A: Can be heard and understood over a speaker by most people

Class B: Can be heard over a speaker but not everyone will agree as to what is said

Class C: Can only be heard with headphones and is difficult to understand.

Class B or C voices may have one or two clearly understood words. Loud does not equal Class A.

Research has shown that, on average, a Class A or B example will be correctly heard and understood only 20 to 25% of the time. That percentage will increase as the listener becomes accustomed to a particular practitioner’s usual examples. It will also increase if the listener takes time to use headphones and listen to the example many times.

Validity of Examples

Probably the two most damaging factors determining how well the concept of EVP is accepted by the general public and whether or not mainstream scientists are willing to study it is the poor quality of examples on the Internet and unsupported claims made by practitioners.

This is not a simple case of, “Well, they are just being silly,” or “They are delusional.” The skeptical community is determined to make the study of anything like EVP seen as a form of pseudoscience. They are already very successful in convincing governments and university that believing in pseudoscience poses a danger to society because it degrades people’s understanding of science and takes undue advantage of unsuspecting citizens. People who seriously study these phenomena and people who display examples to the public are all in the same community and painted with the same brush normally reserved for our least discerning members. The result is little to no support for serious research and rejection of scholarly papers by the mainstream academia.

The following factors should be considered when selecting an example for public display:

Sound Mistaken as Voice

Under the right conditions, a burst of noise or a fragment of voice can be mistaken as a one syllable word. This is especially true if the practitioner is intently listening to every sound in an effort to detect an EVP. Add to that, the likelihood that background noises are present and marginal recording quality, and the possibility of mistaking mundane sounds as paranormal words becomes a high probability. For this reason, experienced researchers will ignore single syllable words in EVP if they are not accompanied by other words or are not clearly in context.

Contextual Utterances

EVP is considered communication between two intelligent personalities. As such, EVP are expected to have some relationship with what is happening in the recording environment, both timeliness and message content. Probably because the communication is between etheric personalities–that of the communicator and the practitioner’s etheric personality–an EVP in response to a question may be recorded before it is spoken but after it is mentally composed. As a general rule, it is expected that an EVP will be recorded within a few seconds (before or after) of the question or incident about which the communicator might comment.

Some technologies for EVP make it a little too easy to simply turn on the process and wait for sounds to be recorded that might be EVP. In this approach, practitioners tend to develop a likely story to explain the EVP. This approach to EVP is referred to as “storytelling” and is commonly associated with mundane sounds mistaken as EVP. The practitioner can assure against the tendency to story tell by maintaining a strict policy of discarding possible EVP that do not conform to question-answer or incident-comment criteria.

Background Sound

The current working hypothesis is that the voice in EVP is formed by transforming available audio-frequency sound energy. Thus it is referred to as “transform EVP.” EVP are thought to be formed in the input, analog stage of the recorder, but otherwise, the recorder is just to make a record of the EVP and the practitioner’s voice.

Experience is showing that a microphone is only important to introduce additional noise if the noise generated internally by the recorder is not useful for voice formation.

A very high-quality recorder produces very little internal noise but a low-quality recorder typically produces too much steady-state noise, which is not useful for EVP.

Current understanding is that noise in the voice range–400 to 4,000 Hz–with many perturbations, such as small noise spikes, is useful for voice formation. The noise is needed for voice, but the perturbations are apparently useful to initiate the voice formation process.

The Panasonic RR-DR60 produces this kind of noise internally, but it is possible to produce it externally. One technique is to rapidly sweep a radio dial. This is not radio-sweep as used in ghost or spirit boxes. That technique sweeps the dial in two to four seconds and may produce whole words in the output file. The ATransC does not consider the result of radio-sweep to be EVP. The objective is to sweep the entire dial in under a second so that no whole words or even allophones can be detected. The objective is the resulting noise and not the “whole” sounds.

Sounds from a common fan, running water or passing cars have been shown to be “dirty enough” to produce EVP.

Selective Reporting

If the practitioner selects seemingly meaningful sounds out of a stream of sounds while ignoring other, less seemingly meaningful ones, then that is referred to as “selective reporting.” This is especially a problem with radio-sweep and EVPmaker techniques.

Radio-Sweep

A special case of EVP is what is commonly known as radio-sweep. This involves manually or automatically sweeping a radio dial to produce sound fragments which are present when consecutive radio stations are momentarily connected to the output sound stream. Voice fragments, music, silence and miscellaneous noises are typically part of the output stream, and since most radio-sweep devices sweep the dial in seconds, entire words are often in the output.

Current research is showing that radio-sweep probably does not produce EVP. ^[1] [2] Virtually all forms of EVP are either transform (voice formed out of noise) or opportunistic (words formed by selection of existing words or parts of words). Radio-sweep messages claimed to be paranormal are found in voice fragments which are necessarily formed in pre-scheduled programming at the moment the sweep intersects that station.

The question or situation, the time the sweep is conducted and the moment the sweep intersects the station must all occur to produce the intended fragment of voice. If the sweep is too slow, then whole words are detected.  If it is
even slower, then whole phrases can be detected. These words or phrases must be what are required for the intended message. If not, then the announcer must be coaxed into saying the required words at the required moment. There is no precedence indicating the etheric communicators are willing to impose their will on people in this manner.

Based on listening tests, claimed radio-sweep EVP are either transform EVP resulting from manipulation of noise naturally resulting from the sweep, or normal sounds mistaken as paranormal. Storytelling is a major problem, as is selective reporting.

Live Voice

Pre-recorded speech is sometimes used as the input sound source for transform EVP. Speech in a different language is most popular, but as is seen in radio-sweep, any speech is liable to be used. As it turns out, many naturally occurring phrases sound like English phrases and it is easy to inappropriately attribute paranormality without careful comparison of input and output files.

The Butlers conducted a study of the use of live voice for EVP by comparing input and output files for multiple session. Each session produced what was heard as an EVP transformed from the input; however, on closer examination, every example turned out to be naturally occurring foreign-language speech that sounded like an English phrase.^[3]

The ATransC recommends that, if live voice is used as the input file or sound source for EVP, suspected EVP should be compared to the section of the input file that is thought to have been transformed. If the two files are essentially the same, the example should be rejected. Also, suspected EVP should be rejected if the same “transform” is seen to have occurred in more than one session.

Practice

A precondition for sharing EVP with the public is that the practitioner must have a sense of what is said in the example and that this has been supported by some kind of EVP Listening Panel of uninformed people. It is not enough to find someone who will agree with the practitioner. It is important that the listener is not influenced by what the practitioner believes is said.

When sharing examples of EVP with the public, the objective is to assure the examples are correctly heard and understood. To accomplish this, the practitioner should present examples in a form that allows listeners to adjust volume, repeat segments and distinguish between the target voice and peripheral sounds. Recommendations to accomplish this include:

1. Isolate the EVP and possibly a little of the practitioner’s voice so that it is clear that the listener is hearing the EVP and the obvious voice of the practitioner (alternatively, someone or something the listener has been told to expect).
2. Present one example or phrase per sound file. A very long sound file with many sounds can be very confusing, making it difficult for the listener to know which sound is supposed to be the EVP.
3. The average sound file should be less than thirty seconds.
4. Avoid over processing the sound file. Changing speed, noise reduction, frequency selection and over amplification can change the intended meaning of EVP or make mundane sounds seem to be EVP. Extreme amplification is likely to make radio-frequency contamination audible.
5. If live voice is used, provide a comparison between the input and output files for the isolated EVP.
6. In all cases, explain how the recording was made and what has been done to the file.

Example Application

This practice is applicable to any situation in which examples of EVP are shared with the public. When used as part of the practitioner’s routine, it will help assure that the practitioner does not fall into the trap of self-delusion that so often occurs with people new to EVP.

It is important to note that this practice is intended for use when sharing examples; however, it is not uncommon for people to record only for themselves, and to practice a kind of mental mediumship aided by EVP, whether it is clearly understood or not. EVP can be a personal tool for communication with loved ones, and while it is good that a person does not make a habit of mistaking the ordinary as phenomenal, sometimes the healing that occurs with belief that contact has been made trumps best practices.

References

1. ↑Leary, Mark. A Research Study into the Interpretation of EVP, atransc.org/radiosweep-study2/. ATransC Online Journal, 2013.
2. ↑Butler, Tom and Lisa. Radio-sweep: A Case Study, atransc.org/radiosweep-study1/. ATransC Online Journal, 2013.
3. Butler, Tom and Lisa. Using Live Voice Input Files. ATransC, atransc.org/live-voice/.

Also at ethericstudies.org/scientific-method-itc/
These practices are recommendations provided under the
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Trans-etheric phenomena are thought to manifest as a subjective action causing an objective reaction. What is considered the scientific method by mainstream society is an ordered process of assessing what is known, developing a theory and conducting experiments to test the theory. Institutionalized science is able to support the additional and very important step of reporting results for collaboration on future research and to allow other, knowledgeable researchers the opportunity to comment on the work.

In its simplest form, the scientific method is applicable to paranormal research and should be considered a given for any research project. However, mainstream science has evolved this basic approach by preferring the study of induced events over spontaneous ones. For instance, studying reports of a phenomenon (field research) is not as well accepted as studying the recreation of those events under controlled conditions (clinical research). Since sightings of ghosts are spontaneous events and are not easily (if at all) replicated under controlled conditions, ghosts are rejected a priori.

Statistical analysis of experimental results has become an important tool for establishing a measure of significance for results. In fact, statistical analysis may as well be a requirement of mainstream methodology because lacking some statistical number indicating the significance of the results, the research will doubtless be rejected as pseudoscience.

EVP examples that can be heard over a speaker and understood without prompting by the average person (Class A EVP). are considered relatively rare; perhaps one in a thousand examples. Consequently, using mainstream science methodology with statistical analysis, virtually all Class A examples would be rejected from experimental results as deviating too radically from the statistical average for EVP.

The ATransC promotes the use of the basic elements of the scientific method as described below. However, that method must be evolved to better support the study of trans-etheric phenomena. Here are a few considerations:

• Instead of using statistical analysis to look for small deviations from the norm, we recommend that experiments be designed to consider decisive results and reject results that are evident only after analyzing many tests. Using EVP as an example, this practice would reject Class C examples as possibly phenomenal, but unacceptable as data points: experimentally, if all that was recorded was Class C, then nothing was recorded.

• The initial survey of prior art should not depend on previous work that is not more than eight-ten years old. In this field of study, what is known has a half-life of about eight years.

• Base the hypothesis on material that has been vetted via peer review (subject-matter specialists). This is difficult today but will become practical as more people are producing well-documented reports that are subjected to peer-review.

• Be sure to document assumptions and provide the rationale for the assumptions based on established work.

• Conclusions should be contingent on replication of the work. A single study should not be represented as being decisive proof. Instead, it should be considered with other, similar studies as a trend.

Problems faced by researchers in this field:

• There are too few similar studies to establish a meaningful sense of prior art.

• People most qualified to conduct experimental studies of these phenomena seldom have an academic degree to give them credibility. If they have a degree, likely it is not in an applicable subject.

• The community has not developed a culture of collaboration, careful study and peer-review.

Important Terms

Science: The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena. b. Such activities restricted to a class of natural phenomena. c. Such activities applied to an object of inquiry or study. 2. Methodological activity, discipline, or study. 3. An activity that appears to require study and method. 4. Knowledge, especially that gained through experience.*

Scientism: The belief that science, the scientific method and work product is the only way to validate reality. In practical terms, “scientism” holds that, if something is not recognized by mainstream science, then it is not real and is, therefore, impossible.

Scientific Method: A systematic approach to gaining understanding about a subject. In its simplest form:

• Explain the question
• Conduct background research including a survey of the “state of the art”
• Develop a hypothesis that puts the question and current understanding into a contextual framework
• Define a resulting question or prediction of behavior that can be derived from the hypothesis.
• Conduct experiments that test the question.
• Analyze the resulting information and develop a conclusion.
• Document the experiment, results and conclusion in a form that can be reviewed by others.

Variations of the scientific method include meta-analysis, which is really the analysis of similar work to find a trend, observational as conducted by early naturalists as they observed the behavior of living creatures, systems and interaction of systems, and experimental or clinical which involves an attempt to induce the predicted behavior in controlled conditions. All of these methods are based on the assumption that they are objective.

In the study of trans-etheric influences, observed phenomena thought to be the result of a subjective influence causing an objective effect. Consequently, attempts to apply the scientific method to trans-etheric phenomena has been less than successful and

Scientist: A person having expert knowledge of one or more sciences, especially a natural or physical science. In the context of this discussion, a scientist is a person working in the field for which he or she is academically trained. (from the American Heritage Dictionary)

Also at ethericstudies.org/research-practitioner/
These practices are recommendations provided under the
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Sponsor(s)

Tom Butler

Abstract

To conduct research, it is necessary to have a reliable way to collect transcommunication examples. This practice is concerned with qualifying and grading practitioners in a standardized way that lends itself to statistical studies.

Justification/Introduction

Etheric Studies includes the study of both spontaneous and induced forms of trans-etheric influences. Both involve a conceptual influence from the etheric which produces a physical effect. While it is believed that everyone has mediumistic ability, as with many human endeavors, some people are naturally better than others.

To study these phenomena, it is necessary to have a reliable means with which to test hypotheses. This usually includes the need for a method of producing phenomena such as a mental or physical medium or an ITC practitioner. However, it has been a common practice amongst researchers to use students as “practitioners” for studies without regard to their actual ability.^[1]

A brief survey of the Internet will show that hundreds of people are offering their services as mental mediums, yet people who sit for a medium’s service commonly complain about the quality and veracity of the messages. Some organizations have established a methodology for testing mediums and maintain a list of what they consider qualified and reliable mental mediums.

There are currently (1-27-2013) no such means of testing ITC practitioners, and consequently, there is no reliable source of practitioners researchers can enlist. To alleviate this problem, this practice offers a workable means for practitioners to self-test and qualify themselves as a research practitioner.

Practice

This practice provides a means of avoiding the need to avoid the need to have a central screening. Instead, practitioners are expected to arrange for self-testing. Based on the results, it is recommended that practitioners wishing to serve the public and/or research publish their status as part of their bio. However, an important consideration is that the practitioner should also have self-test results available for review.

Mental Mediumship

This section will be based on the methodology used by an existing organization.

Audible ITC (EVP)

There are a number of different techniques for EVP formation. The primary ones are:

• Transform EVP: voices formed by changing background audio-frequency noise
• Opportunistic EVP: voices formed by impressing a random process to select bits of sound–usually fragments of voice–to form the intended message.
• Answering Machine EVP: Usually spontaneous messages left on answering devices or in voice mail.

All three of these may be spontaneous but transform and opportunistic EVP are most often induced.

• The person initiating the communication is referred to as the practitioner.
• The person for whom the message was requested, if applicable, is known as the sitter.
• The person listening to an example of EVP is referred to as a listener.

Practitioner Confidence

While EVP practitioners may be able to record EVP, how often and of what quality determines practitioner confidence. Here, “confidence” is used as a reference of how confident the person is that an EVP will be found in any one recording and of what quality.

Quality and Quantity

The quality of EVP is described using the Class A, B and C system in which:

• Class A examples should be correctly heard and understood by the average person without headphones and without prompting
• Class B examples should be correctly heard and understood, perhaps depending on headphones and possibly with prompting
• Class C examples will likely require prompting, headphones and considerable experience to be understood.

Loud is not Class A. An example may consist of a combination of the three, but to be Class A, the meaning should be clear based on the Class A portions.

The quantity of examples is based on the number of examples per minute of recording. (This is a relatively new measure, and it is important to understand the following is a draft proposal for a quantitative measure.)

Based on a three-minute recording:

• Level 1 practitioners can expect to record at least one Class A or B EVP example every session
• Level 2 practitioners can expect to record at least one Class A or B EVP example every five sessions
• Level 3 practitioners can expect to record at least one Class A or B EVP example every ten sessions

Procedure

This is a self-test. The practitioner is responsible for organizing and executing the test and maintaining a record available for third-party review on request. Assuming the practitioner is able to achieve a level of confidence that one or more EVP will be recorded in a series of sessions, the practitioner should feel free to post this fact to the public. Self-test

1. Practitioners wishing to establish a rating for research should begin by selecting a recording technique with which they are most confident that they can record EVP. This includes recording device, background sounds, mental preparation and kinds of questions if any. A record of this should be made including kind of recorder or computer program and the nature of supplied sound if any. If an input file is used, it should be clearly documented so that it can be reviewed by others if necessary. If a sound fragment or word library is used, its content should be clearly recorded for future reference.
2. A listening panel should be recruited, consisting of at least five people with at least average hearing.
3. A log should be maintained.
4. A series of recording sessions should be conducted; all of the same length and made under the same circumstance. It is recommended that at least ten, three-minute sessions be made.
5. If EVP are present in one or more of the sessions, the utterance should be extracted to a new audio file. The content of the file should not be included in the title.
6. The listening panel should be asked to review each example knowing only that an EVP is thought to be contained in the file. Listeners should independently listen to the examples and document what they think is said.
7. The resulting record should be compiled by a member of the listening panel and presented to the practitioner.

There are no limits to how many times this test may be conducted. In fact, the self-test may prove to be an effective learning tool as a means of self-grading to mark progress.

This is based on the honor system, but it should be clear that researchers may ask for the self-test record and will expect practitioner performance to agree with advertised ability.

Example Application

This is important to give the reader an idea about how the practice applies. The example should show the potential problem of not following the practice.

Substantiating Material

Provide references supporting the practice if appropriate. Include substantiating evidence not identified by the references. Also when appropriate, include all statements indicating a recommended procedure should be supported by one or more of the following:

• Logical conclusions based on accepted social behavior, ethical standards and successful practices.
• Personal experience is supported by at least three witnesses. (Their contact information should be available but not in the document).
• Research that has been published in a regularly published publication or on the Internet and that includes at a minimum, an explanation of the experimental protocol, results, involved researchers, date of the research and original purpose for the research.

References

Be sure to include the <references /> that should be in the template. Also, include any additional categories.

1. Butler, Tom. Critiquing ITC Articles written by Imants Barušs, ethericstudies.org/failure-to-replicate-itc/

Also see Open Letter to Paranormalists: Limits of science, trust and responsibility
These practices are recommendations provided under the
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Abstract

A panel is proposed to monitor research protocols and final reports for reasonableness of conclusions and research ethics to assure ethical treatment of research subjects and protect the greater good of the community.

Elements of the Wizard of Oz story are used to help characterize the Academic-Layperson Partition in the paranormalist community. The wizard represents parapsychologists and other people representing themselves with the authority of an advanced college degree. Of course, munchkins represent layperson community. Dorothy represents the honest broker influence proposed in this essay.

Paranormalist Community

The paranormalist community consists of several loci of interest which are related by the desire to understand the same phenomena. It is difficult to characterize these loci because many cultural influences are at play which have nothing to do with the phenomena. A rough first cut might be researchers, practitioners and seekers.

Research is claimed by parapsychologists because of their academic credentials, but when the loci are characterized in terms of acceptance of survival, parapsychology is demonstrably more concerned with human potential rather than survival of personality as a preferred explanation for phenomena. (This is sometimes described in terms of the Super-Psi Hypothesis versus the Survival Hypothesis.) Consequently, survival has become the domain of citizen scientists, most of whom do not have an advanced degree.

From the perspective of survival, paranormal phenomena appear to be interrelated. As such, from the story of blind men describing an elephant, we know that it is necessary to have a collective view if the phenomena are to be properly understood. We are all gathered around the same metaphorical elephant, but in practice, there is little shared understanding. We are demonstrably incapable of correctly describing these phenomena.

Wizard of Oz Syndrome

As it turns out, the major themes in the Wizard of Oz story lend themselves to many different cultural stories. For instance, the innate goodness in people is portrayed in the story by virtually everyone but some of the witches.

The relationship of the wizard with the other citizens of Oz illustrates the main point of this essay. William Bouffard provides a good description of this complex of behaviors in his December 2012 blog, The Wizard of Oz Syndrome.¹As he describes it in the workplace:

My premise is that the typical workplace sociopathic management acts no differently than the Wizard. They can exhibit many personalities that manifest themselves depending on who they are targeting at the time. To the organization as a whole, they are the giant head; to the loyal sycophants they are like a beautiful woman; to those being bullied they’re a horrible monster, and to all others (who get in their way or challenge them) they are a ball of fire–a dictator. This then is The Wizard of Oz Syndrome.

People in management that suffer from this syndrome begin to believe they are behind the metaphorical curtain, pulling all the strings and that without them the organization just can’t function.

Academic-Layperson Partition

The Academic-Layperson Partition is the cultural separation of those who identify themselves as academically superior personalities as compared to those who either do not have an advanced degree or who do not assume authority under cloak of their advanced degree. From my perspective as a layperson, the complex of behaviors represented by the academic side of the partition includes a priori assumption of knowledge and academic authority resulting in reluctance to collaborate with layperson practitioners. The most grievous behavior concerns mistreatment of witness and practitioner research subjects.

The complex of behaviors represented by the layperson side of the partition includes an expectation that people claiming academic authority will fairly study experienced phenomena and provide meaningful guidance in how to deal with the unknown.

The relationship can be characterized as a general contempt for laypeople and baseless respect for parapsychologists. Probably the most disturbing aspect of the Wizard of Oz Syndrome is that parapsychologists, as the wizards in this story, behave as if they believe their wizard status. This can be characterized as a Wizard Complex.

Dorothy the Revealer

Because of how he presented himself, the munchkins in the Wizard of Oz feared the wizard and attributed super-human powers to him. As it turned out, the wizard was an interloper to the land of Oz just like Dorothy. While he was clever, he was also deceptive and treated the munchkins to suit his wants. By contrast, Dorothy’s innocence inadvertently revealed the wizard as just an ordinary man.

Continuing this comparison between the Oz story and the paranormalist community, there is no Dorothy the Revealer counterpart in our community. Writing about these issues does not fulfill the Revealer function. Dorothy is an honest broker in the Oz story because her only agenda was to find her way home. Whatever she did in behalf of the citizens of Oz was due to her innocent nature and not to her desire to take advantage of the situation.

Practitioner Advocacy Panel

This essay is written to propose a cooperative effort amongst members of our community to provide a resource for researchers and practitioners which will facilitate a positive contribution to the community of researchers. There is likely no set approach to such a panel, so its formation and function should be decided by volunteers. Here are points to consider for its organization:

Panel Makeup

The Panel would probably be most effective with an odd number of at least seven people representing both sides of the Academic-Layperson Partition. There should be at least one parapsychologist, practitioner in mediumship and/or healing and one Instrumental TransCommunication practitioner.

All positions should be filled by way of a vote on social media. Perhaps a Facebook page can be set up on which candidates could provide a brief bio and the number of likes counted as votes. However it is done, the Panel will be of little use if it is not accepted by the general community.

A chairperson should be selected from the panel by other members of the panel. All positions should be for a limited period so that not all come up for reelection at the same time. Say positions 1, 3, 5 for three years, positions 2, 4 and 6 for two years and position 7 for one year.

Scope

The Panel would be responsible for the development of practices which describe its function and how members of the community are asked to interface with the panel. These would include a practice for ethics, the panel’s charter and mission statement.

The Panel’s charter will include the authority to review research proposals, especially protocols and provide guidance concerning collaboration, ethical treatment of research subjects (practitioners, witnesses) and reporting. The charter will also include the authority to review research reports before they are published and provide guidance for ethical treatment of research subjects. The Panel should be expected to make public comment about concluding remarks in reports as to their agreement with protocols and resulting data.

Submission of research proposals and reports to the Panel should be considered a courtesy rather than mandatory, and resulting comments from the Panel should be considered suggestions rather than requirements. As is the nature of best practices, it is reasonable for members of the community to ask whether or not such research has been reviewed by the Panel. Perhaps note to the effect that the “Research has been conducted in compliance with applicable best practices” at the end of a report would signal an intention to support the community.

The panel would be responsible for identifying literature and human resources from which to draw their comments to researchers and practitioners. The objective is that the Panel would represent the best practice of the time. The panels should not, under any circumstances, attempt to dictate science or protocol. At the same time, a poor report from the Panel would be expected if research report conclusions were not representative of data collected within the protocol.

The panel should publish an occasional (at least once a year) report of activities.

Research Ethics

The National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research 1979 Belmont Report should be used as the bases of a research ethics standard.²

The current culture amongst researchers of speaking to the community without listening to the community has fostered an atmosphere in which it appears reasonable to defame a practitioner with little or no empirical support. At the same time, the academic community is sheltered community response by the Academic-Layperson Partition. The inspiration for a Practitioner Advisory Panel has come from real-world situations in which research subjects have been abused by trusted researchers.

Limitations

The Panel is not expected to provide expert opinion about the quality of research. The objective is limited to establishing the reasonableness of protocols and subsequent reports, and the wellbeing of research subjects. This is an important standard. The Panel should not assume the authority to determine good or bad science. The standard should always be whether or not the data emerges from the protocol and the conclusions emerge from the data.

The overriding goal of the Panel should be to protect the public image of the community and the wellbeing of research subjects.

Example Application

The reason for this practice comes from the treatment of a physical medium test subject by parapsychologists. The protocol appears to have been limited to proof-gathering with little reference to theory. The final report came in the form of three articles accusing the medium of fraud which reportedly had occurred outside of the study.

The researchers continued to use every opportunity to make negative public comments about the medium. At the same time, only one publication gave the medium a forum to respond, albeit as a layperson responding to a team of doctorates. Reviewing the incident, it has become clear that all three major parapsychological organizations have been involved in the attack. There has been little evidence of corrective response from peer parapsychologists, reinforcing the Academic-Layperson Partition.

The resulting damage to the medium’s reputation (defamation) and unethical treatment will certainly have a lasting negative impact on the larger community. The intention of this practice is to provide a means of addressing such treatment, and assuming the researchers intended well, providing guidelines for future ethical treatment of research subjects. ^{3, 4}

References

1. Bouffard, William, The Wizard of Oz Syndrome, 12/28/2012, puttincologneontherickshaw.com/authors-blog/the-wizard-of-oz-syndrome/
2. The Belmont Report, The National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, 1979, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, gov/ohrp/humansubjects/guidance/belmont.html
3. Butler, Tom. The Felix Study: Personal Attack Under Cover of Science. 2014. ethericstudies.org/scientist-attack-medium/
4. Butler, Tom. The Arrogance of Scientific Authority. 2015. ethericstudies.org/arrogance-of-science/

Also see: Peer Review or Vetting?

Abstract

This article recommends a methodology intended to provide authors of articles on frontier subjects a means of producing reliable source articles while fostering a culture of cooperation which will lead to continuous improvement.

In established subject areas as found in mainstream science, articles intended to be a reliable source such as a research report, are generally written by people holding an academic degree in the subject of the article. There are “peers” who hold similar or same degrees and who have similar experience in the subject. There is also an established culture of collaboration and community support in established subject areas, which assures the availability of peer reviewers.

Academic degrees in frontier subjects from accredited colleges and universities often do not exist. If a person studying the frontier subject does have an advanced academic degree, it will likely be in a different field. Thus, the people studying frontier subjects generally lack formal training in the subject. Also, the culture may not have an established expectation of peer support and collaboration. Because of this dynamic, articles on the subject are usually not vetted by peers, and cannot be seen as a reliable source.

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Article Credibility

The credibility of an article is directly proportional to the quality of scholarship and thoroughness applied by the author, but perceived credibility begins with the author’s credentials, followed by the reputation of the publication. The publication’s reputation in scientific and scholarly subject areas depends partly on whether they use a process of peer review to screen articles.

Credibility of the Author

The author’s credentials such as academic training, past publications and positions in the frontier community establish the reader’s expectations as to the credibility of the author.

The author should maintain an up-to-date biography stating his or her credentials. Care should be taken not to use terms that might be seen as an effort to over-inflate the importance of the credentials. For instance, using the term “research” to describe participation in a group hauntings investigation may be misleading. At the same time, an audio engineer for a radio station is not the same as an electronics engineer specializing in signal processing. It should be noted whether or not academic credentials were received from an accredited or unaccredited institution.

Credentials are a very important area of concern for all members of a frontier subject. A person may have little more than a high school education and may not have been widely published, but he or she may be recognized worldwide as an expert in the subject because of a lifetime of diligent study. In effect, this is the experience found with naturalists who have studied subjects in their natural environment. His or her report may be the most accurate and informative available anywhere in the world. If the person lacks writing ability, it is up to the community to lend a hand to help edit the material for public access.

People working in frontier subjects have the opportunity to “break the mold” demanded by academia when it comes to credibility and that would begin with a candid disclosure of credentials. If the person holds a doctorate in an unrelated field such as dentistry, using the title of ”doctor” when writing on a metaphysical subject would be misleading. The public is conditioned to think in mainstream terms and if “Dr.” is used, people will assume the doctorate is in the subject area of the article and also that it is from an accredited institution. If that is not the case, then the article and by association the frontier subject is discredited.

At the same time, the reader is apt to ignore a more scholarly report from a veteran in the field because there is not a “Dr.” before the author’s name. One of the first changes our community must do is educate the general public so that people know to look at experience and methodology before the title.

Credibility of Non-Peer Reviewed Publications

The first duty of publications specializing in frontier subjects is to help establish an informed community, and their second duty is to inform the general public. A publication may include personal stories intended to show readers the possibilities. Such stories are generally only reviewed for reasonableness and their inclusion is based on the editor’s sense of legitimacy of the person telling the story. Technical articles are generally selected based on reasonableness, technically (scientifically) correct assumptions and usefulness to the community. Such articles are usually not often peer-reviewed in the normal sense, but they are most often vetted by the publisher based on extensive experience in the field.

Peer Review Publications

Peer-reviewed journals should require that at least two people who are trained in the subject of the article provide constructive feedback to the author. The object is to assure that the article meets minimum standards of objectivity, application of the scientific method, correct statistical analysis and reasonableness of conclusions. The reviewers often do not know who the author is (first blind) and the author often does not know who the reviewers are (second blind). “Peer review” is also referred to as “refereed.” Journals seeking to follow the lead of the parapsychological organizations by adhering to the scientific methodologies, tend to segregate the academic from the practitioner. For instance, the Editorial Board for the Society for Scientific Exploration (SSE) consists entirely of doctorates.

Peer Review in Frontier Subjects

Peer review as practiced in mainstream science is meant as a technique for assuring quality articles, but it is seldom applied in a way that fulfills the needs of frontier subjects. One major problem is the assumption that a person with a degree is more credible in the subject area than one without. There is a functional partition separating academics from practitioners. Since knowledge of frontier subjects generally rests with the practitioners and “naturalist-style” researchers, journals often fail to publish articles representative of the state of the art of understanding and practices.

At the same time, the discipline of academic practice is essential to the evolution of frontier subjects into mainstream thought. It is essential that academically trained researchers work on frontier subjects, but if it is not accomplished as a collaborative effort with practitioners who have the practical experience and have trained themselves to “properly” study the subject, then the benefit is too often lost. However, in current academic culture it would seem intolerable and unthinkable to have a practitioner peer review the work of a doctorate.

Defining Peer Review for Frontier Subjects

The definition of “peer review” must be expanded for frontier subjects, and should indicate that the article has been reviewed by people with real intellectual and practical knowledge of the subject. Such a person may or may not be aware of the best scientific methods and practices. If they are not, it opens a productive path of collaboration, because an academically trained peer could supplement a peer with practical knowledge in the field. Peer review might be divided between practical peers and academic peers.

One possible application of this principle is to have two levels of reliability in articles:

1. Vetted: reviewed for adherence to the writer’s guide and good science); and,

2. Peer-reviewed: Reviewed by both academic peers and practical peers.

Because it is unlikely that academic organizations will adopt a practical peer or vetted approach to document review, the most realistic solution appears to be the use of a vetting rather than peer review. See Peer Review or Vetting?

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Recommended Article Review

The credibility of an article, and by association, that of the author and publication, would be enhanced if it is shown that subject-matter experts (“practical peers”) were part of the review process. Following are suggestions to apply this concept:

• Named Reviewers: The objective of “blind” reviews is to assure unbiased consideration of the article, but a result is that qualifications to review the subject are not known to the reader. This fosters suspicion, and in some cases, uninformed reviewers effectively support what is seen by the frontier community as a debunking article even though the publishers may have intended it to be a constructive and informative piece.
  If peer review is claimed, then it is important that the reader knows how the article was evaluated. If the reviewers have been selected because of their qualifications to judge beyond simple adherence to the writer’s guide, then they should be credited in the article. A person who is known to the public will protect his or her reputation by providing a professional review. In effect, visibility of the reviewer will likely produce a more unbiased review even as it informs the reader as to how the article was seen by others.

• Reviewer Biography: The reviewer’s biography should be available on the publishing organization’s website and easily accessible by the public based on the person’s real name. The biography should show that the person’s expertise is relevant to the subjects reviewed.

• Reviewers Knowledgeable in the Subject: A reviewer’s expertise must be relevant to the subject matter. For example, if the biography of one reviewer for an article on cold fusion holds a doctorate in psychology, and the second reviewer is seen to have no academic degree but has worked in related physical and chemistry fields for ten years, the reader should look to the second person to authenticate the article. If the reader is an academic, then one must trust that discernment was included in his curriculum.

• Availability of Reviews: Most readers will not ask to read reviews; however, they can be as informative as the original article and publishers should consider making them available at least on request if not associated with the reviewer’s biography. A copy of the researcher’s raw data should be available on request as standard practice. So too, should the reviews.

• Kinds of Review: If the article is not reviewed by a practical peer, then the article should not be considered peer-reviewed or refereed. If it is considered peer reviewed, then whether or not the article has been vetted should be indicated.

Also at ethericstudies.org/peer-review-or-vetting/
These practices are recommendations provided under the
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License
Also, See Failure to Replicate Fallacy, Survival-Related Media Review, and Rating and Peer Reviewed Online Journals

Abstract

A technical report intended for publication is considered more credible if it has been subjected to peer review. peer review is considered and intended results are compared to actual results. An alternative approach known as vetting is discussed and a recommendation is made for how vetting might be used. 

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Introduction

These comments are written from the point of view that there is an Academic-Layperson Partition in the paranormalist community which impairs cooperation between parapsychologists and experiencers. The effect is that people who are trained in the scientific method tend to distrust the often more pertinent understanding of paranormal phenomena held by experiencers and practitioners.

A second assumption is that the lay members of the paranormalist community tend to assume parapsychologists honestly seek to further understanding of Psi Field and survival-related phenomena. But, in fact, some parapsychological literature is designed to show that the phenomena are normal mistaken as paranormal, fraud or delusion. And that such debunking literature is often written in a way that laypeople do not clearly understand.

Terms

Paranormalist is defined here as people who are more than a little interested in paranormal phenomena, or who are studying or practicing some technique related to the paranormal.

The paranormalist community consists of people in some way interested in paranormal phenomena.

Experiencers are those who have witnessed an apparent objective paranormal event or who have had an apparent paranormal personal experience.

Practitioners are those who are able to produce objective and subjective paranormal phenomena.

Paranormalist interests include the study of:

Phenomena

• Psi phenomena (telepathy, remote viewing, telekinesis)
• Healing intention (biofield healing, distant healing, healing prayer)
• Hauntings investigation, transcommunication (mediumship, ITC, channeling)
• Survival (the etheric, personality, cosmology, possibly reincarnation)

Experiences

• Near-Death
• Out-of-Body Experiences (Soul Travel, Astral Projection, Sometimes simple disassociation)
• Reincarnation (past life regression, sense of previous lives)
• The grief of losing a loved one
• Fear of the unknown (fear of dying, fear of demonic forces, fear of becoming earthbound)

From mainstream society, paranormalists are conditioned to trust scientists, almost without question. Within the paranormalist community, parapsychology represents the science subgroup seeking to further understanding of paranormal phenomena and experiences. They are the academically trained people to whom the rest of the community turns for answers.

Problem Areas

There is an Academic-Layperson Partition in the Paranormalist Community which probably naturally evolved because of a difference in education. The mostly Ph.D. parapsychologists are accustomed to a professional and university culture which is mostly not part of the layperson’s experience. The effect is that those who are best prepared to cooperate to study these phenomena are not effectively communicating with those who, as experiencers and practitioners, most understand their practical nature.

There are a number of important consequences of this partition:

Collaboration

• Information flow is mostly from academic to layperson by way of publication and conferences. There is very little flow of information in the other direction.
• Without an open exchange of information from practitioners and experiencers, researchers have been shown to incorrectly assume understanding.
• Lacking authentic information about the target phenomenon, research protocols are often based on wrong assumptions.
• The parapsychological community exhibits a sort of Wizard Complex in which there is an assumption of knowledge that is not, in fact, knowledge (Omniscient Science).

Communication

• Parapsychologists have been shown to have three primary research objectives: Anomalistic Psychology (Physical Hypothesis) (1); Exceptional Experiences Psychology (Super-Psi Hypothesis) (2); and, Survival (Survival Hypothesis) (3).
• A high percentage of material published by the parapsychological groups is intended to prove the Anomalistic Psychology or Exceptional Experiences Psychology point of view. This, without clearly stating as much in the article.
• The combination of ill-informed protocol design and deceptive research objectives in respected journals has made those journals mostly irrelevant to the larger community.

Ethics

• The Academic-Layperson Partition has produced a culture within the parapsychological community which has apparently made it permissible for researchers to deceive laypeople.
• There are instances of researcher mistreatment of layperson research subjects. The standard of ethical conduct required by universities is effectively ignored by parapsychologists.
• There is no outcry from parapsychologists when one of their members is unethical. Instead, the parapsychological community effectively circles the wagons in their support.
• The parapsychological community furthers layperson abuse and deceptive communication by creating opportunities for the offending researchers to tout their misleading discoveries.

Literature Visibility

There are many factors influencing the effect of peer review practices and in truth, probably none are malicious or intended to suppress frontier subjects. However, while all of these may be unintended consequences, they are also virtually all controlled by the mainstream academic culture.

• The resulting document becomes part of the body of literature which is accessed by other researchers, thus multiplying positive and negative aspects of the published document.

• Publication editors are able to select comments from the public, and thereby control the apparent acceptability of the article.

For frontier subjects which may include emergent science, the concerns also include:

• Mainstream authority is virtually always the only source for both author and peers. Consequently, the public has been taught to respect academically credentialed scientists with little reservation and peer-reviewed articles are seen to represent the truth about the subject.

• In practice, literature produced by laypeople studying frontier subjects is simply ignored by academics because of the lack of academic standing of the authors and laypeople’s inability to be published in academically respected journals.

• Frontier subjects become represented by the mainstream academic community, which by contrast, biases public perception.

• Public funding for research and education in frontier subjects depends on the perception of the subject fostered by mainstream academia and is consequently mostly unavailable to the often better-informed laypeople.

• It can be said that academic careers flourish or fade depending on how often their writing is cited. The same is true of rankings in Internet search results. Citing is part of the academic culture. Citing is not as common amongst laypeople. Consequently, lay literature tends to fade from lack of notice.

Review and Rating

A distinction is made in this essay between academic peers and subject-matter specialists. Academic peers are those who, from an academic point of view, are treated as having equal education and possibly equal ability. Subject-matter specialists are people who have established themselves in their field of study or practice as people who have practical understanding of the subject.

Peer Review

In the context of technical articles and research reports proposed for publication, peer review is a process by which a document is evaluated by people academically trained in the appropriate field of study and who are seen as being sufficiently qualified to judge the quality of the article. The review is intended to be conducted during preparation for publication.

The current practice is to deliberately keep the reviewer’s identity and qualifications secret. Reviewer comments to authors are also kept secret. As a practical consequence of secret peer review, the validity of parapsychological research reports is necessarily in question. This problem is exasperated when obviously biased articles, and reports about poorly designed studies, are published in supposed peer-reviewed journals.

A common complaint amongst paranormalists is that, without oversight, a good old boy culture appears to have developed in which review of club values (procedure, formatting, author credentials) may be accepted as peer-review, while subject matter content may not be appraised.

Some practitioners have noted that they are unaware of parapsychologists who are knowledgeable about the practitioner’s study and who might have been a peer reviewer for a journal. While one practitioner may not be aware of qualified parapsychologists, the complaint is so common that practitioners have little choice but to think related articles are only reviewed for compliance with editor objectives and construction but not for technical reasonableness.

Vetting

As it is intended here, vetting is the examination of published material by subject-matter specialists to determine the sensibility of the material. In the paranormalist community, subject-matter specialists tend to be practitioners and laypeople studying the phenomena in their natural circumstances. (In this case, experiencers are not considered subject-matter specialists unless they have also conducted studies and are practitioners or have a direct understanding of their work.)

Because of the Academic-layperson Partition, vetting is more likely to occur after publication. Consequently, the results of vetting tend to be in the form of reviews posted on social media or on personal websites.

Vetting is intended to warn future readers about what they should expect from the media. It should always be done with the additional intention of providing feedback to the authors. Thus, vetting should be conducted as a positive process with positive results in mind.

Negative reviews put the entire paranormalist community in a poor light and increase distrust. With this in mind, reviews should be couched in terms of what has and what can be learned from the experience. Reviewers should be mindful that all is not known about these phenomena. It is risky to be very dogmatic about what is right.

In vetting, it is important that more than one person is part of the process. As recommended in the Survival-Related Media Review and Rating (Draft) Best Practice, (4) an average rating representing a consensus of the reviewers should accompany reference to the reviewed document.

Three example reports of vetting are:

Failure to Replicate Fallacy (5)

Debunking Survival Under Cover of False Academic Authority (6)

Failure to Replicate ITC (7)

Consideration for Vetting Media

As with peer review, vetting is ideally conducted prior to publication. With that in mind, here are a few of the characteristics a reviewer may wish to consider (also see Survival-Related Media Review and Rating (4)):

1. Clearly stated reason – Reason for the publication is clearly evident. This is not the research question. It is the reason the research question is being asked. What is the author trying to accomplish? Is it to further understand or to prove something?
2. Relevance – Does the media indicate its scope? For instance, should the media be directed toward a human behavior-related audience such as the field of psychology or sociology? If it is a study of group interaction incidentally conducted in a typically paranormal situation such as a hauntings investigation, it probably has nothing to do with the paranormal aspect and should be marked accordingly. The next question would have to be, “if so, why is it being published in a parapsychological journal?”
3. Furthering Understanding – It should be clearly stated if the media is simply replicating old studies. If the authors have incorporated new theories or used a special technique for replication, it would be helpful if that is mentioned early on. A witness report is not a research report. If a peer-reviewed journal publishes a witness report as science, look for ulterior motives such as debunking.
4. Collaboration – Have the authors included lay-literature in their preparation? Have they made an effort to have practitioners and experiencers review the protocol and considered their suggestions? Such information should be clearly noted in the introduction of the media. Be aware that, in some cases, collaboration is with people who are handy, but only peripherally part of the sub-community. The author may have unwittingly contacted the least qualified, self-proclaimed expert. If so, provide helpful suggestions.
5. Theory – An important way to further understanding is to at least attempt to incorporate research findings into the model that represents the author’s assumptions. Have contending theories been considered? If so, why were they rejected? It is not necessary to address all contending theories. Perhaps the main three: Physical Hypothesis, Super-Psi Hypothesis and Survival Hypothesis.
6. Ethics – Ethical considerations include treatment of human test subjects and fairness in criticism. At a minimum, the standard in The Belmont Report (8) should be followed for human test subjects. If in the media, did the authors fairly comment or did they assume knowledge they might not have? Will the media further the community or will it diminish the community?
7. Clarity of Communication – Is the media composed so that a person who is not trained in the subject at a Ph.D.-level should be able to understand the message? This would be true of at least the introduction (the abstract) and the conclusions. An overreliance on multi-syllable words which would be unfamiliar to someone in a different field of study should be noted as a negative. If a statistical analysis was conducted, are the results clearly stated rather than requiring an in-depth understanding of statistical notation? Is the intended meaning communicated in a way that will be useful to the average paranormalist?
8. Availability – The media need not be free to the public, however, if it is not, are there any parts of it for which the public might have a need to know? This is especially important for media that draws a presumably learned conclusion about phenomena important to others studying the subject, or that finds fault with others. If the media is behind a paywall, any related media review should list that as a decided negative. (4)

Note that laypeople subject matter specialists are not expected to comment on the application of the scientific method. Protocol design is dependent on factors that are unique to the authors understanding and purpose. Reviewers should probably limit comments to how reasonably the protocol treated techniques and current practices.

A final editorial comment by the reviewer may be useful if the conclusions seem to stray too far from current understanding without explanation as to why. Editorial comments are risky, however, in that they can easily become the unnecessary promotion of the viewer’s personal favorite theory.

Vetting is Collaboration

The objective of any publication is to communicate something the authors believe others should or would like to know. If the author is deceptive about the intent or vague about the media’s content, the resulting communication might be better considered propaganda intended to debunk or subtly change experiencer’s opinion.

Peer review is part of a closed system embedded in the academic side of the Academic-Layperson Partition. It is not visible to laypeople, and therefore, the actual meaning and value of peer-reviewed literature are not evident to laypeople.

In contrast, vetting of media by members of the intended audience is a more visible way of helping experiencers understand the media and authors understand how well they accomplished their objective.

References

1. APStaff. “What is Anomalistic Psychology?” Goldsmiths, University of London. 2015. gold.ac.uk/apru/what/.
2. Simmonds-Moore, Christine. “What is Exceptional Psychology?” Journal of Parapsychology (#76 supplement, 54-57, 2012).
3. Butler, Tom. “Trans-survival Hypothesis.” Etheric Studies. 2015. ethericstudies.org/trans-survival-hypothesis/.
4. Draft Best Practice. “Survival-Related Media Review and Rating.” Etheric Studies. 2018. ethericstudies.org/practice-srm-media-review/
5. Butler, Tom. “Failure to Replicate Fallacy.” Etheric Studies. 2018. ethericstudies.org/failure-to-replicate-fallacy/
6. Butler, Tom. “Debunking Survival Under Cover of False Academic Authority.” Etheric Studies. 2014. ethericstudies.org/scientist-attack-medium/
7. Butler, Tom. “Failure to Replicate ITC.” Etheric Studies. 2010. ethericstudies.org/failure-to-replicate-itc/
8. “The Belmont Report: Office of the Secretary, Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects of Research.” The National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research.1979. hhs.gov/ohrp/humansubjects/guidance/belmont.html.

Also at ethericstudies.org/classifying-phenomena/
These practices are recommendations provided under the
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License

Miner corrections 3-9-2021

Introduction to Classifying Phenomena

A common dilemma in the study of some forms of transcommunication is classifying phenomena examples of phenomena that are perhaps not as paranormal as others. For instance, video-loop Instrumental TransCommunication (ITC) sometimes produces convincing likenesses of human faces for which there is no known physical explanation.

At the same time, a face seen in calcium buildup on a subway wall may be paranormal, but it is tempting to ignore it as happenstance because the pattern could occur without intelligent intervention. However, ignoring a face-like pattern may be a mistake because the bounds of the etheric communicator’s capabilities are not known. Our reaction might be different if we knew that a person looking a lot like the calcium pattern had been killed on that very spot.

Six Association TransCommunication (ATransC) members responded to an email that went out asking for input in the Idea Exchange. GP noted that “We are not necessarily bound to follow the rigid, objective procedures of the natural and physical sciences … we make an assessment.”

PH reminded us of the dangers of finding patterns where there are none; a human condition known as “pareidolia.” As always to be depended on for help, MD, described how she sometimes deals with degrees of paranormality. JK agreed that some phenomena are more difficult to attribute as paranormal. CS explained that, if he can still see the image after looking away, then he thinks it is not paranormal. SS made a number of interesting points, but importantly, agreed that we were being too restrictive in how we graded phenomena.

Based on this input, I am proposing a more robust classification system for phenomena.

Tradition

The community of people who study ITC has historically used a three-tier system for classifying EVP. The system has been very useful; however, the increasing popularity of live-voice forms of audio forms of ITC, also known as Electronic Voice Phenomena or EVP, requires a more robust system. While a similar problem has been encountered with visual forms of ITC, there has been no classification system for that form of the phenomena. The three-class system for rating EVP is:

Class A: Can be heard and understood over a speaker by most people
Class B: Can be heard over a speaker, but not everyone will agree as to what is said
Class C: Can only be heard with headphones and is difficult to understand
[Note that Class B or C voices may have one or two clearly understood words. Loud does not equal Class A.]

Type 1 and Type 2 Phenomena

The proposed system is based on two types (Type 1 and Type 2), each with three-subclasses. In the old system, the majority of examples (specifically EVP) are rated as Class C while a small percentage of examples are rated Class B and even fewer are rated Class A.

As a general rule, Class C examples are very common, but are also much less evidential in that they are not easily shared (objectivity), and therefore, it is much more difficult to argue that they are paranormal. Thus it is shown in Figure 1 that, as the objectivity of examples increase, they are perceived as being more paranormal.

In the proposed system, a distinction is made between features which are always present (Type 2) and transient features (Type 1). A face seen in the decomposition pattern of a leaf is more or less always there (Type 2), as opposed to a face found in light reflected from moving water (Type 1). As a general rule, “always there” phenomena appears to be formed by opportunistically adapting naturally occurring processes to express the message (assuming one is intended). If perceived as phenomena, “always there” features would be considered Type 2.

Features found in ever-changing noise are thought to be formed by transforming that noise into the voice or face. While the resulting features are fleeting unless caught in media (photographic or audio recording), they tend to be better formed and more easily identified as anomalous. So for both audible and visible phenomena:

Type 1: Transformed physical media; not always present
Type 2: Always present; often as a persistent artifact

The Classes are as before, but described in more generic terms:

Class A: Evident without explanation
Class B: May require directions
Class C: May be vaguely experienced; mostly obscured by noise

Types Are Based on Technique

Audio ITC: The input sound used in EVP helps determine the type. There will be exceptions, but as a general rule:

Type 1 Audible: Input is noise, either ambient room noise or supplied, perhaps with a fan or a noise generator. The formation of voice is thought to be via transformation as the communicator imposes intended order on the otherwise chaotic noise.
Type 2 Audible: Input sound is live voice. This included someone talking on the radio, in the room or pre-recorded, perhaps in a foreign language. The easily heard voice is supplied, but formation of the message is seen as opportunistic selection of parts of the existing voice.

It is important to note that a Type 1 EVP can be formed in any sound, including noise or voice. As such, foreign-language voice can be transformed into new words. With that said, the practitioner can be expected to provide both input and output files for comparison. Since it is known that EVP occur in one process, two recorders recording the same input should not produce the same EVP.

Visual ITC: Features found in photographs and video frames of medium-density optical noise are considered transform features. They are transient, in that an observer does not see them at the time of recording, only upon review of the media.

By comparison, a pattern on a piece of toast that resembles a face is long lasting and visible without the need to examine a photograph. With these considerations in mind:
Type 1 Visual: Transform phenomena. Input is noise, usually medium density which is not very light or very dark. Textured surfaces facilitate image formation, as do image compression techniques. Often, visibility of the resulting paranormal feature is limited by the resolution of the media.
Type 2 Visual: Opportunistic phenomena. Naturally occurring surface characteristics which are more or less static can sometimes be arranged to form faces. Whether or not they are intentionally formed is not clear, but the availability of alternative explanations causes these features to be perceived as less paranormal.

Mental Experiences

There is a need for a system of classification for mentally sensed phenomena. This would include the various forms of mental mediumship, including automatic writing, psychometry and remote sensing. It would also include Near-Death Experiences (NDE) and Out-of-Body Experiences (OBE). The common factor is a person reporting an experience that cannot be directly shared by others.

A possible classification is:

Type 1 Mental: Spontaneous or induced experience not shared by others and able to be substantiated with objective evidence.

Type 2 Mental: Spontaneous or induced experience not shared by others and only substantiated by personal references.

Also at ethericstudies.org/characteristic-test-for-evp/
These practices are recommendations provided under the
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License

 

Sponsor(s)

Tom Butler

Abstract

There are a number of characteristics commonly associated with Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP). If a possible EVP does not exhibit at least some of these characteristics, it may be prudent to set it aside until more evidence is available. This is not to say that a previously unknown characteristic may not be found in a “genuine” EVP, but the majority of examples clearly show a number of these characteristics. As such, it is recommended that experimenters and researchers become familiar with this list, and seriously consider using it as a means of avoiding false positives.

Justification/Introduction

By definition, EVP are unexpected voices that are collected on digital and analog recording media, that are not explained by currently known physical principles. They appear to be ubiquitous, in that experimenters around the world are able to collect them with just about anything that will record human voice frequencies and under just about any recording circumstance. Their nature tends to vary, relative to the experimenter, recording environment, and technique.

The majority of EVP examples are considered Class C, meaning that they are difficult to hear and understand, and it is likely that not all of the words will be correctly deciphered. Nevertheless, Class C examples can sometimes be shown to be phenomenal utterances and often provide useful information. Even experienced experimenters are liable to mistake some environmental sounds, technological artifacts and editing errors as EVP. For instance, the unconscious intake of breath before speaking might sound like the word “help.” During field recording, an unnoticed person might be speaking in another part of the building and the resulting recorded words might be mistaken as a phenomenal utterance.

There is a Best Practice titled Control Recorder for EVP, which suggests using two audio records during experiments in order to reduce false positives. Some experimenters also protect the primary recorder with a portable radio frequency shield, such as two or more isolated and nested metal containers; however, such precautions can be clumsy and may be difficult for the average person who is just trying to record a few EVP. Given that it has been experimentally established that EVP can be recorded in conditions isolated from ambient sounds, light or radio frequency contamination, it is reasonable to expect the average person to be able to record EVP in uncontrolled conditions.^[1] If a person is familiar with the more common characteristics of the voices, and is willing to discard examples that do not fall within the “norm,” it is reasonable to conclude that the resulting EVP are likely to be genuine.

Typical Characteristics of Transform EVP

A characteristic test is not absolute proof of EVP, but if stringently applied, it should reduce false positives to a reasonable minimum. Typical Characteristics of Transform EVP

1. EVP are distinctive: EVP have a distinctive character of cadence, pitch, frequency, volume and use of background sound. The voices have a distinctive sound to them that is difficult to describe. For instance, EVP messages often have an unusual speed of enunciation; the words seem to be spoken more quickly than normal human speech.
2. Frequency range: EVP are formed in available background sound. As such, if there is a high-frequency component in the background sound, say caused by whistling wind, it is possible that the EVP will be of similar frequency range. If there are both higher frequency and lower frequency components in the background sound, it is possible to find EVP formed in both regions of the sound. In some instances, two different voices might overlap.
3. A need for background sound sources: Research has shown that the voice in EVP is formed out of ambient sound energy.^[2] Because of these characteristics, it is standard practice to assure the availability of ambient sound for voice formation, even while isolating the recording device or process from uncontrolled ambient sounds, such as crowd noise.
4. Missing frequencies: Spectral analysis of EVP samples has shown that the fundamental frequencies of voice associated with the human voice box are sometimes missing in EVP. He describes the typical EVP as a “thickening” of the background noise to form the voice.^[3]
5. Precursor sounds: Sounds are often heard prior to an occurrence of EVP. Although these vary in nature, they tend to be within tenths of a second of a phrase and are a “popping” or “clicking” noise reminiscent of the “squelch” sound caused when the automatic gain control engages as the “push to talk” button is depressed on a Citizen’s Band radio.^[4]
6. EVP show evidence of being limited by available energy: Utterances tend to have about the same amount of audio power in their associated sound wave from one EVP sample to another. That is, a short EVP will tend to be louder than a long EVP. A very long phrase might be composed of two or more average length phrases separated by minor pauses. Also, an utterance may trail off at the end, as if the energy is being depleted before the message is delivered. Again, this is as if the communicator is attempting to manage available power as “packets” of energy. The evidence is very strong that EVP are energy-limited phenomena.^[5]
7. EVP are complete words or phrases: Messages are typically one to two seconds in duration and are not truncated at the beginning or end. If EVP where radio interference, they would often begin in the middle of a word. EVP messages are usually complete thoughts, as well.^[5]
8. The voices in EVP are often recognizable: It is common for an EVP to contain the recognizable voice of the discarnate person thought to be speaking. It is also common for that entity to say something that was typical of what he or she would have said while in the physical. Their personality clearly remains intact even though the person no longer has a physical body.
9. EVP are found wherever the practitioner listens: This suggests that the source of audio noise is not a factor for EVP, so long as the audio energy is suitable for voice formation. In practice, the majority of techniques for recording EVP involve sound conditioning, rather than unique forms of psi detection. For instance, upscaling infrasound so that it can be heard by human ears or downscaling ultrasound, really constitute techniques of sound conditioning, and the resulting EVP is not evidence that the utterance was formed beyond human hearing, but that it was formed when the audio energy was made available to the recording process.

Typical Characteristics of all forms of EVP

10. EVP Are in the language of the practitioner: Alexander MacRae has conducted experiments in a place that has no English language radio or television stations, yet resulting EVP were in English, which is his primary language.^[5] It is typical for the EVP, no matter where they are recorded, to be in a language that the experimenter understands. There have been exceptions to this which were apparently intended as a demonstration, but as a rule, EVP will be spoken in a language understood by the experimenter or an interested observer.

This brings up an interesting point of speculation about psi-based communication. Mental mediums often report that they receive communication from nonphysical entities as images which they must interpret. These images are not just mental pictures. They are packets of information that are sufficiently complete for the receiver to fully understand their meaning. Robert Monroe ^[7] referred to this form of information as “Thought Balls.”

11. EVP are not ambient sound or broadcast programming: EVP are not ambient sound or broadcast programming: Studies have been conducted to determine if EVP are stray radio signals, ambient but unnoticed voices or other sounds. EVP were collected in an electrical, audio and radiofrequency shielded room.^[8] In one study, a radio and a recorder were placed in a padded chamber which was then buried underground. The recorder did not record radio programming but did record EVP, which were transformed from the noise produced by the radio.^[1]
12. Party line: Some EVP sound as if they are comments intended for someone other than the experimenter. This is much like momentarily listening in on a party-line telephone call. It is not uncommon in both field and controlled recording situations to record comments that seem as if unseen people are discussing the experimenter’s actions in much the same way that you might discuss the activity of someone that you were watching.
13. EVP are appropriate to the circumstances: There are numerous examples of EVP that are clearly direct responses to questions recorded just prior to the EVP phrase or to the circumstances. An example of an EVP being appropriate to a circumstance is an EVP recorded by Lisa Butler. The Butlers were asking a woman about the upstairs lighting and sound room for the Frank Sinatra Theater at the Cal-Neva Casino at Lake Tahoe, CA. They had heard that the heavy door to the room often shut for no apparent reason, scaring the crews setting up lights and sound systems for shows. The woman told them that she would never ever go up there. Lisa’s recorder was on while she thanked the woman for her assistance. On the recording, Lisa can be heard saying, “Thank you very much.” Underneath her voice, is a clearly heard paranormal voice saying, “Please don’t come.” However politely said, it seems obvious someone did not want to be disturbed.
14. Precognitive responses: Answers to questions may be recorded prior to a question being asked, so that the answer, as a phenomenal message, is on the soundtrack followed by the practitioner asking the question. More research is required before making informed speculation about this observed characteristic, but the indication is that the etheric communicator may be sensing what the practitioner is about to ask as a mind-to-mind exchange.^[9]
15. Vocalized questions elicit more EVP: There is evidence that the communicating entities are able to read our thoughts, as illustrated by the occasional EVP which clearly responds to a comment just seconds before the comment is expressed.^[5]
16. The “Newness” effect: The experimenter’s excitement in trying a new detection device or recording technique may be the source of improved EVP collection. As the new approach becomes “normal operating procedure,” the improvements generally fade back to a more “normal” Quality and Quantity (QQ) of EVP collection. This suggests that it is important for the experimenter to maintain peaked interest during experiments. This is also one of the reasons it is speculated that the experimenter is an integral part of the recording circuit. The experimenter is apparently supplying the necessary psi energy to enable a nonphysical to physical transfer of energy.
17. Effective devices unique to the practitioner: Exceptionally effective EVP and ITC collecting systems have been developed; however, these typically work well for the developer but do not necessarily work as well for other experimenters. This paradox supports the belief that the experimenter is part of the recording circuit. It has also reinforced the concept that the communicating entity may be specific to the experimenter.
18. EVP can be thoughts of living people: Two experiments appear to show that at least some EVP might be initiated by living people who were sleeping or perhaps only distracted at the time. In these prearranged experiments between a practitioner and a sleeping person, questions were clearly answered by a communicating entity, and the answers are appropriate for the sleeping person. This fact of EVP suggests the possibility that EVP can become an important tool for consciousness research. For instance, is it possible that a patient in a coma might initiate an EVP when requested?^[10]
19. Understanding EVP may be like learning a new language: As discussed in the EVP Online Listening trials report, people with little or no experience listening to EVP will typically correctly report words in Class A Transform EVP on average of 20% to 25% of the time. In contract, an experienced practitioner should correctly understand close to 100% of Class A utterances.^[11] This number drops to 0% to 5% for studies of radio-sweep (Spirit Box, Frank’s Box, Ghost Box); 0% if single-syllable utterances are omitted.^{[12], [13]}
    

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References

1. Weisensale, Bill (1981), “Shielding a Recorder from Radio Frequency Interference for EVP,” Spirit Voices, Issue 3, 1981. Republished: Association TransCommunication website. “Eliminating Radio Frequency Contamination for EVP,” atransc.org/eliminating-rf-contamination/.
2. Gullà, Daniele (2004), Computer–Based Analysis of Supposed Paranormal Voice: The Question of Anomalies Detected and Speaker Identification” atransc.org/gulla-voice-analysis/.
3. Presi, Paolo, Italian ITC researcher with Il Laboratorio, Bologna, Italy, biopsicocibernetica Closed.
4. Butler, Lisa (2002), “Precursor Sounds in Physical Phenomena,” Association TransCommunication, atransc.org/precursor-sounds/.
5. MacRae, Alexander (2000). The Mystery of the Voices, Self published CD, Portree Skye, Scotland. for details about the Alpha Device, llewellyn.com/journal/article/38.
6. Blank
7. Monroe Institute, 62 Roberts Mountain Road, Faber, Virginia 22938, monroeinstitute.org.
8. MacRae, Alexander (2003), Report of an Anomalous Speech Products Experiment Inside a Double Screened Room, as printed in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, spr.ac.uk.
9. Butler, Tom. “Perception.” Etheric Studies. 2015. ethericstudies.org/perception/
10. Butler, Lisa (2002), “French Sleep Experiment,” Summer 2002 AA-EVP NewsJournal, aatransc.org/recording-thoughts-of-living/.
11. Butler, Tom (2008), “EVP Online Listening Trials,” Association TransCommunication, atransc.org/evp-online-listening-trials/
12. Butler, Tom (2009), “Radio-sweep: a Case Study,” Association TransCommunication, atransc.org/radiosweep-study1/
13. Leary, Mark (2013), “A Research Study into the Interpretation of EVP,” Association TransCommunication, atransc.org/radiosweep-study2/

 

 

Also at https://ethericstudies.org/being-a-good-witness/
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Initiated by Tom Butler.

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Abstract

It has been shown that expectations of the observer can have an influence on what that observer experiences. This observer effect is enhanced when the person insists that one thing is true despite possible evidence to the contrary. The consequence is the loss of an opportunity to experience genuine phenomena. The inevitable public denunciation of the phenomena and/or practitioner also harms the paranormalist community. This practice describes ways in which witnesses might avoid this problem by suspending judgment to leave time for additional information to become available.

Justification/Introduction

A well-established scientific community helps us understand everyday experiences. In academia, a vast international library system helps researchers develop a consensus understanding of nature which leaves little doubt about how we should think of our ordinary experiences. However, when it comes to transcommunication and psi functioning, which are phenomena that are not recognized by the mainstream as either possible or real, there is virtually no academic or scientific community providing guidance to the paranormalist community.

This Best Practice offers a consensus opinion of how to relate to paranormal phenomena. It purpose is to help develop a shared, informed point of view which would normally be developed by mainstream science and academia.

Practice

It helps to ask questions. It is important that people in our community feel free to do so. Perhaps our most effective defense against delusion is discernment through critical thinking, and that is accomplished by the free exchange of ideas. This is not to say that one opinion is as good as another. Reality behaves according to principles which are knowable. In fact, an opinion can only be a personal opinion if it is not supported by empirical evidence.

In this regard, it is important that people do not believe something is paranormal that is not. This has been a real problem in our community as mundane artifacts were widely seen as evidence but later understood for the mundane artifacts they really are. One form of photographic orbs comes to mind as a good example.

A Case Study

A case study to illustrate this point is based on comments about darkroom séances reported in the ATransC NewsJournal. A person who was knowledgeable about EVP commented that “It seems fake to me.” He went on to say that “I believe there is a trap door or something like it. Notice that he’s behind the curtain for no real reason other than to shield eyes from whatever he’s doing. He may be an escape artist. He may have an associate sneak in from the floor or wall, etc. If he hid a small speaker in the wall outlet it could sound like this. He literally could have someone in another room speaking into a wireless mic and then it can be projected through the hidden speaker.”

This person also expressed a common complaint about pictures of ectoplasm: “The ectoplasm is most likely cotton gauze or some such item that he hides somewhere on his body. In the old days, they would hide it in their mouths then let it dribble out….”

The person is quite knowledgeable about some forms of these phenomena but appears to lack understanding of materialization mediumship. He also ignored the Butler’s first-person account of that included how they had thoroughly examined the room and that the circle had just moved into the rented house. The trap door explanation may sound reasonable. For people who assume trickery, it may even seem right. Once the trap door explanation is accepted, then all of the remaining proofs are easily ignored as more of the same trickery.

Most important, though, is the potential harm such unsubstantiated comments may have on the paranormalist community. This raises the question of, given that questioning experiences is important, how does one do so without seeming to be negative? The answer may be in the initial assumptions people have when they formulate their questions. There appear to be three basic first responses: the proof is faked, the proof is real and suspended judgment.

Assumption of Trickery

It is easy to assume an instance of phenomena is faked by saying, “There must be (any excuse you can imagine without bothering to produce supporting evidence).” The “There must have been a trap door” explanation is a good example.

The more positive response might be “How could that be?” which leaves open the possibility it might be real. Offered explanations about how something could have been faked are seldom supported by how the explanation could realistically explain the evidence.

The assumption of trickery became a form of group-think as people in England claiming to be Spiritualists went into something of a feeding frenzy as they proposed one unsupported trap door-like explanation after another for a well-known physical medium’s work.

Assumption of Fact

Assuming the validity of phenomena without question is equally damaging. Not knowing why a person believes something is true too easily leads to the appearance of faith-based systems of belief. The mainstream community will not take our frontier field of study seriously so long as vocal members of our community claim obviously mundane events as paranormal.

One of the most important factors keeping this community from maturing into the mainstream is the indiscriminate belief in evidence that is not actually evidential. It has prevented us from developing a common, credible point of view and assures that mainstream society will continue to accept the Skeptic’s view that we are delusional.

Suspended Judgment

Suspended judgment is the middle way in which experiences can be taken at face value, uncontaminated by assumptions based on belief rather than evidence. Most of the phenomena that are given a trapdoor-type explanation can be explained by more realistic hypotheses. For instance, one complaint from the English blog was that the order of events in the medium’s séances is always the same, however, in fact, virtually all of the mediums the Butlers have sat with express a similar need for consistent order of events.

A reasonable hypothesis is that the familiar order of events in a séance helps to entrain the medium’s mind, leading the medium to ever deeper levels of trance. The sameness is not proof the medium is in a deep trance. It is probably a necessary mechanism that makes the phenomena possible.

White Crows

Philosopher William James told us: “If you wish to upset the law that all crows are black, you must not seek to show that no crows are; it is enough if you prove one single crow to be white.”

It is not necessary to believe all that you experience. Instead, ask yourself if there is a single aspect of an experience that is convincingly paranormal. If so, then, based on your background understanding about things paranormal and how others have responded to the experience, you probably have reason to say that there may be truth in the experience. Say to yourself “I am not necessarily convinced about most aspects of this experience, but that one aspect is very convincing so I will keep the whole experience in my ‘wait and see folder’ as I seek more understanding.”

The white crow may take a while to show up. This is why suspended judgment is so appropriate. For instance, some darkroom mediums finish séances with their chairs moved from the cabinet to the open floor at the center of the room. The theory is that the entities use this movement to safely dissipate the accumulated energy, and of course, to provide something of an exclamation point to the demonstration.

Moving the chair, and the usual rearranging of his clothes is a common demonstration of phenomenal control in David Thompson’s seances. It is difficult to put into an evidential perspective. However, at the end of the darkroom demonstration Stewart Alexander provided during the 2011 Stewart Alexander and Friends Conference, the Butler’s witnessed the glow tabs on Stewart’s knees passing by at eye level, less than a foot from their face. Others who were further around the circle, saw the tabs tilt dramatically as Stewart’s chair floated around the room. He had been partially awakened for the experience and complained something to the effect, “I really do not like this part.” Later, with the lights on, Stewart’s undershirt was found lying on the floor.

Events like the levitated chair are white crows that tend to give credibility to the rest of the demonstration. Certainly, not being able to explain what happened does not automatically lead to the assumption of trickery.

Unintended Consequences

Like super athletes, physical mediums are born with latent ability that seldom becomes evident without years of development. it is the personal cost of many years need for development and the risk of abuse from skeptics that paranormalists need to be mindful of. The attack by that English blogger became personal and was more debunking than an effort to understand. The blogger is responsible for what is on his website, so it must be assumed he supported the many naive comments from like-minded website visitors. It will probably not take very many attacks like that to deny the rest of us the chance to witness at least one white crow.

Example Application

This is important to give the reader an idea about how the practice applies. The example should show the potential problem of not following the practice.

Substantiating Material

Provide references supporting the practice if appropriate. Include substantiating evidence not identified by the references. Also when appropriate, include all statements indicating a recommended procedure should be supported by one or more of the following:

• Logical conclusions based on accepted social behavior, ethical standards and successful practices.
• Personal experience which is supported by at least three witnesses. (Their contact information should be available but not in the document).
• Research that has been published in a regularly published publication or on the Internet and that includes at a minimum, an explanation of the experimental protocol, results, involved researchers, date of the research and original purpose for the research.

References