Journal of Scientific Exploration

‘Seven Deadly’ Author Sins that Subvert Scientific Progress

James Houran — 2024-07-09

Near-Death Experiences are Caused by the Separation of Consciousness from the Body: An NDE Scale Analysis

Robert Mays — 2024-07-09

Near-death experiences (NDEs) cannot be defined merely as a collection of phenomenal features. An accurate definition needs to describe what NDEs essentially are, that is, what lies behind the phenomenal features. The definition would describe what happens in the experience to account for the different features; this can only be fully described in the context of an underlying theoretical framework. In this paper, we propose the mind entity framework, which holds that a human being is a nonmaterial mind united with the physical body. In an NDE, the mind, or seat of consciousness, separates from the body and operates independently of it until the mind returns to and reunites with the body. From this framework, we identified the nine NDE features from the 16 features of the NDE Scale (Greyson, 1983) that specifically imply the separation of the mind from the body. The five most prevalent of these “separation” features accounted for 98.8% of NDEs in a sample of NDE accounts in the IANDS Experience Registry (N=565). The prevalence of these five “essential” NDE features was repeated in three other large NDE datasets published in the last 20 years. Therefore, an NDE can be defined as a profound subjective experience caused by a person’s consciousness separating from their physical body.

A Series of Past-Life Visions and Intuitive Impressions Surfacing in Middle Adulthood with Behavioral Influences Beginning in Childhood

James G. Matlock — 2024-07-09

In the wake of several traumatic experiences, a French woman in her early 50s began to have visions and intuitive impressions about seven past lives she felt she had lived. She was able to verify memories of the most recent life and identify the deceased, an American Marine fatally wounded in Vietnam. It then became clear that she had been subliminally influenced by this life in various ways from childhood, most strongly following an NDE at 18. On the eve of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, she began to have detailed visions of a Don Cossack who had served in the Imperial Guard of Catherine the Great and Alexander I, dying during Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow in 1812. Although the Cossack story is plausible, it has not been possible to investigate it or to identify the individual involved; nonetheless, here too there are apparent behavioral influences on the subject’s present life. Although the subject recalled the other five lives in fragments only, some of these also seem to have impacted her unconsciously. This study explores the nature of past-life remembering and demonstrates how presumptive past lives may exercise an influence behaviorally, emotionally, and somatically, even in the absence of conscious recall.

Trained Transliminals: Exploring Anomalous Experiences and Psi in Magical Practitioners

Brian Laythe — 2024-07-09

This study examines a body of engaged “ritual magic practitioners” to understand their methods and techniques for facilitating putative parapsychological outcomes in everyday life, as well as outcomes on a computerized test of putative psi. We hypothesized that the combination of meditation, visualization, and related mental exercises at the core of magical practice relates to both invoked anomalous phenomena and spontaneously-occurring anomalous phenomena, and further that the perceptual-personality variable of transliminality (i.e., loose mental boundary functioning) is integral to this process. Likewise, we also anticipated that these associations would enable ritual magicians to score significantly above-chance on the psi test. A split-sample analysis found a positive and statistically significant series of relationships between transliminality and the majority of measured variables within the sample, and notably those involving questionnaire measures of subjective and objective anomalies as well as daily mental exercises. The ritual magicians also performed significantly below-chance (p < .01 for several conditions) on the psi test, as a function of open testing of ESP or using ritual to influence the test. We discuss these results in terms of significant predictions of trait and practice variables on ESP scoring, as well as the evidence that magical practice may represent techniques in which a transliminal dis-ease model might be better remediated.

Why William Shakespeare Did Not Write the Works Attributed to Him, and Why Sir Henry Neville Did

William Rubinstein — 2024-07-09

This article complements those published in the special issue of this Journal (Summer 2023) about the Shakespeare Authorship Question. After making some important points about why William Shakespeare could not have written the works attributed to him, the present paper argues the case for Sir Henry Neville (1563–1615) as the real author. Of particular interest is the fact that Neville’s handwriting, in letters and in annotations in books, appears to be identical with the handwriting in “Hand D” of the play Sir Thomas More, the only manuscript source believed to be in the handwriting of “William Shakespeare”. Twelve key points are then advanced as to why Neville was the real author of Shakespeare’s works.

The Hessdalen Lights Seen as the Aerial Counterpart of an Unsuspected Subsoil Phenomenon. Is the Earth Harboring a Multimouth Wormhole?

Gianni Pascoli — 2024-07-09

To date, Hessdalen lights (HLs) are misunderstood; nevertheless, these phenomena are surprisingly ignored by most of the scientific community. However, a few researchers, such as Erling Strand and Massimo Teodorani, have paved the right path by showing that experimental methods of physics can be applied to study HLs. Additionally, we believe that matter cannot simply be brushed aside and that it deserves a serious examination. Recently, we proposed a possible origin of HLs (Pascoli, 2021). The basic idea—a micrometric wormhole manifestation—is promoted here, and we suggest that the Hessdalen-type lights, seen pretty much everywhere in the world, may eventually be interpreted as a symptom of an unsuspected phenomenon deep in the subsoil of the considered site. The idea of a geological origin for the Hessdalen lights has already been proposed (Teodorani, 2004, 2014); however, this interesting suggestion is being reconsidered from an entirely new perspective. The present paper has to be seen as a working hypothesis, in which the main interests are to foster thinking on underlying physics and to suggest a full series of experiments that can be performed on these very enigmatic Hessdalen lights. Regardless of the strength of a hypothesis, the experiment is the final arbiter in science.

A Plausible Thermo-Dynamic Cause of an Implausible Psicho-Dynamic Course From The CIA Archive

Daqing Piao — 2024-07-09

The STAR GATE archive included an experiment from China of psicho-physical claim reportedly conducted on aqueous object (Wu et al, 1991). Over a time-lapse of approximately 208 seconds, total 7 phases of significant temperature deviation from the baseline temperature of 25 °C may be identified, without an explainable source of thermal generation. Not questioning the genuineness of the experiment, this work analyzes the thermal-energy transfer on the test-object that could have caused the reported temperature changes. A non-adiabatic single-compartment produces first-order low-pass responses between a thermal-input and the object’s temperature. Whereas the input determines the steady-state condition, the thermal dissipation dictates the dynamics. Under the assumption of ONLY first-order responses and adjusting the input parameters including DC and AC magnitudes and time-constant of the single-compartment responses, multi-phase temperature changes resembling the reported patterns could be reconstructed. One rising phase and three falling phases with apparent oscillation were reconstructed by considering the thermal input to contain modulatory patterns of 0.4-0.5 Hz in frequency. Such modeled modulation of the thermal inputs would correspond to a correlation coefficient of 0.95 between the DC and AC magnitudes at a varying AC/DC modulation-depth of 94%. The low-frequency may suggest relevance to altered neuro-electro-physiology.

Frontier Science with ‘Dirty Test Tubes’ - Flaw or Feature?

James Houran — 2024-07-09

Online Group PK Experiments: Hypothesis Testing and Theory Development

James McClenon — 2024-07-09

The author conducted weekly online group psychokinesis (PK) experiments between Aug. 9, 2019 and Feb. 25, 2023, with the goal of experiencing collective PK. Participant observation experiments were designed to uncover variables associated with group PK experiences rather than prove the existence of PK. Early experiments seemed to increase individual propensity for spontaneous anomalous experience. The group began attempting to influence pinwheel turning on June 12, 2020. Direct observation seemed to reduce pinwheel turning. Certain conversational elements, such as emotion and discussion of psychical research, seemed to enhance turning. A motion-activated Blink camera was incorporated into the protocol on November 8, 2021, allowing documentation of 44 pinwheel experiments. Experiences involved ostensible anomalous pinwheel turning, equipment failures, poltergeist-like events, and trickster effects. Quantitative results included: (1) Significantly more pinwheel turning, as measured by camera activations, during group meetings compared to equivalent non-group periods; (2) Certain discussion topics were associated with rapid turning: occult traditions, psychic readings, psychical research; and (3) Other variables were associated with reduced turning: direct observation, relaxation exercise, miscellaneous discussion topics. Participants felt that the pinwheels exhibited a form of intelligence due to the pinwheel response to group discussion. Trickster effects included turning patterns that changed over time, unusual equipment failures, and ‘hiding’ behavior thwarting full verification. These features suggest that the replicability of findings may be limited, although a series of methodological guidelines are suggested to increase success. Grounded theory strategies allow theory development, and a new model is proposed to account for the phenomena in question.

A Multi-Method Perspective on Psi

Gerhard A. Mayer — 2024-07-09

Embodied Psi: The Next Turn in Parapsychology

Walter von Lucadou — 2024-07-09

Lefty, Alice, and Jim

James Carpenter — 2024-07-09

Reply to Commentaries on Putative Pinwheel PK

James McClenon — 2024-07-09

The Presence of Other Worlds: The Psychological/Spiritual Findings of Emanuel Swedenborg

Dan Synnestvedt — 2024-07-09

Beyond Reasonable Doubt: The Pascagoula Alien Abduction

Ron Westrum — 2024-07-09

A Critical and Objective Investigation Into the Phenomenon of Mediumistic Materializations of Past and Present

Renaud Evrard — 2024-07-09

WTF Just Happened?!: A Sciencey-Skeptic Explores Grief, Healing, and Evidence of an Afterlife

Neal Grossman — 2024-07-09

An End to Upside Down Thinking: Dispelling the Myth That the Brain Produces Consciousness, and the Implications for Everyday Life

James Kenneth Arnette — 2024-07-09

Review of A Critical Investigation Into Precognitive Dreams

Marcus Anthony — 2024-07-09

Response to Review of Redemption of the Damned: Volume II

Martin Shough — 2024-07-09

Reply to Shough and van Utrecht

Jerome Clark — 2024-07-09

Announcements

Brian Laythe — 2024-07-09