Description and Impact of Encounters With Deceased Partners or Spouses.

This study investigates perceived interactions with the deceased, a phenomenon reported across societies, with 30-34% of individuals likely experiencing at least one ADC in their lifetime. Despite this prevalence, studies examining the impact of ADCs' on those who have lost partners are limited. We present data from 70 individuals reporting partner ADCs via an online survey. Forty percent reported accelerated recovery and 42.9% confirm the ADCs' significant influence in their grieving, with 61% expressing a desire for continued contact. ADCs, interestingly, didn't worsen their pain. The influence on grief-related sadness varied: 41% noted no change, while 40% reported reduced sadness. Forty-seven percent acknowledged ADCs eased their loss acceptance. The data highlight ADCs' substantial, potentially therapeutic role in grief and healing, despite varying effects on sadness and recovery. This study underscores the ADCs' possible positive influence on bereaved partners, advocating for a deeper understanding of this phenomenon in the grieving process.

Factors Moderating the Impact of After Death Communications on Beliefs and Spirituality.

After death communications(ADCs) are defined as perceived spontaneous contacts with living individuals by the deceased. This research presents on a subset of data from a recent large international survey of individuals who experienced ADCs and provided systematic information regarding these experiences. In our research we explore the impact of having an ADC on reported spirituality, religiosity, beliefs and attitudes about death and dying and also explore the moderating factors of this impact. We found that having an ADC was perceived as a positive life experience and that it was associated with a reduction in fear of death, belief in life after death and that the deceased could communicate with the living, and increased reported spirituality. Moderating factors include aspects of having or desiring physical contact with the deceased as well as perceiving some emotional reaction to the ADCs. Future directions for research exploration are also provided based on our findings.

Perceptual phenomena associated with spontaneous experiences of after-death communication: Analysis of visual, tactile, auditory and olfactory sensations.

The purpose of this study was to create a detailed characterization of the nature of the sensory perceptions associated with after-death communication. A primary aim was to determine if perceptions of after-death communication (ADC) support one or more of three hypotheses: (1) they are the result of hallucinations or day-to-day thoughts about the deceased; (2) they are subjective phenomena reflecting the extrasensory perception of remote events; or (3) they constitute objective phenomena, perceived more solidly, as if within the physical world. Methods: The study included a quantitative analysis and qualitative first-person narrative description of part of the data set from a detailed questionnaire study (991 viable cases) investigating the phenomenology of spontaneous ADCs. Results and Conclusions: A majority of respondents reported that ADCs were distinctly different from simple thoughts about the deceased. Specifically, relative distribution of ADCs across the senses was 46% visual, 44% auditory, 48% touch, and 28% olfactory, with 34% sensing the presence of the deceased without input from the five senses. ADCs often were perceived as external and having properties of the material world (e.g., solidity, tactile qualities). Even the more nebulous 'sense of presence' cases were perceived as having a distinct location in space and as being identifiable as a specific deceased presence despite the lack of sensory cues. These elements are more compatible with hypotheses 2 and 3 than hypothesis 1.

Testing the Pagan Prescription: Using a Randomized Controlled Trial to Investigate Pagan Spell-Casting as a Form of Noncontact Healing.

Objectives: This research investigates the healing practices of modern Paganism using a randomized controlled trial. Paganism is a burgeoning belief system in the United Kingdom, within which healing is a key aspect. However, Pagan spell-casting practices have received little attention from distance healing researchers. This study aims to address this gap in the literature. Design: This study utilized a randomized, double-blind, delayed intervention design. Settings/Location: Research took place at the University of Northampton. Subjects: Forty-four participants (30 females, 14 males) were recruited using snowball sampling (mean age = 24.30; range = 18-55). Procedure: Participants were randomly allocated to either Group A or B. Participants made written requests to the practitioner about changes they would like to see in their lives and provided a photograph and personal item to be used during the intervention. Participants attended meetings once a week during which they would take part in a guided body scan meditation before completing a quality-of-life measure. Healing practices were conducted for Group A between weeks 1 and 2 and for Group B between weeks 2 and 3. Outcome Measure: Well-being was measured using the 26-item WHOQOL-BREF. Results: Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) showed a significant, positive change in general health from weeks 1 to 4 (F = 4.02, p = 0.025, η2 = 0.149). Separate analysis of variances of the four WHOQOL domains showed significant improvements across the study in the physical and psychologic domains only; there was no significant group difference on any of the outcomes. Conclusion: All participants showed an increase in health and well-being domains directly related to their spell requests. However, there are no group differences to suggest that the spell-casting intervention was responsible.

Lucid dreaming incidence: A quality effects meta-analysis of 50years of research.

We report a quality effects meta-analysis on studies from the period 1966-2016 measuring either (a) lucid dreaming prevalence (one or more lucid dreams in a lifetime); (b) frequent lucid dreaming (one or more lucid dreams in a month) or both. A quality effects meta-analysis allows for the minimisation of the influence of study methodological quality on overall model estimates. Following sensitivity analysis, a heterogeneous lucid dreaming prevalence data set of 34 studies yielded a mean estimate of 55%, 95% C. I. [49%, 62%] for which moderator analysis showed no systematic bias for suspected sources of variability. A heterogeneous lucid dreaming frequency data set of 25 studies yielded a mean estimate of 23%, 95% C. I. [20%, 25%], moderator analysis revealed no suspected sources of variability. These findings are consistent with earlier estimates of lucid dreaming prevalence and frequent lucid dreaming in the population but are based on more robust evidence.

The relationship between latent inhibition and performance at a non-intentional precognition task.

CONTEXT: Many spontaneous cases of extra-sensory perception (ESP) seem to occur without the conscious intent of the experient to manifest any anomalous phenomena. Indeed, Stanford׳s psi-mediated instrumental response (PMIR) theory, which frames ESP as a goal-oriented function, goes as far as to suggest that such intent may be counterproductive to psi. OBJECTIVES: The present study was the latest to build on the successful paradigm developed by Luke and colleagues in testing the non-intentional psi hypothesis and potential covariates of psi task success. This study focused on the ability of latent inhibition-an organism׳s cognitive tendency to filter out apparently irrelevant information-to predict an individual׳s sensitivity to psi stimuli. METHOD: A total of 50 participants completed a two-part auditory discrimination performance measure of latent inhibition; a battery of questionnaires; and a 15-trial, binary, forced-choice, non-intentional precognition task. They were then either positively or negatively rewarded via images from subsets that they had pre-rated, seeing more images from their preferred subsets the better they performed at the psi task and vice versa. RESULTS: Participants scored a mean hit rate of 7.96 [mean chance expectation (MCE) = 7.50], which just failed to reach a statistically significant level, t(48) = 1.62, P = .06, one-tailed, ESr (effect size correlation) = 0.23. However, latent inhibition was found to be unrelated to participants׳ precognitive performance.

Two meta-analyses of noncontact healing studies.

OBJECTIVE: Reviews of empirical work on the efficacy of noncontact healing have found that adopting various practices that incorporate an intention to heal can have some positive effect upon the recipient's wellbeing. However, such reviews focus on 'whole' human participants who might be susceptible to expectancy effects or benefit from the healing intentions of friends, family or their own religious groups. We proposed to address this by reviewing healing studies that involved biological systems other than 'whole' humans (e.g., studies of plants or cell cultures) that were less susceptible to placebo-like effects. Secondly, doubts have been cast concerning the legitimacy of some of the work included in previous reviews so we planned to conduct an updated review that excluded that work. DATA SOURCES: The following databases were searched: Swetswise, ASSIA, Psych-NET, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, British Nursing Index, Cinahl Full Text, and Informaworld. STUDY SELECTION: Only studies in English were eligible for inclusion. All studies must have examined the effects upon a biological system of the explicit intention to improve the wellbeing of that target; 49 non-whole human studies from 34 papers and 57 whole human studies across 56 papers were included. DATA SYNTHESIS: The combined weighted effect size for non-whole human studies yielded a highly significant r of .258, but outcomes were heterogeneous and correlated with blind ratings of study quality; 22 studies that met minimum quality thresholds gave a reduced but still significant weighted r of .115. Whole human studies yielded a small but significant effect size of r = .203. Outcomes were again heterogeneous, and correlated with methodological quality ratings; 27 studies that met threshold quality levels gave an increased r = .224. CONCLUSIONS: Results suggest that subjects in the active condition exhibit a significant improvement in wellbeing relative to control subjects under circumstances that do not seem to be susceptible to placebo and expectancy effects. Findings with the whole human database suggests that the effect is not dependent upon the previous inclusion of suspect studies and is robust enough to accommodate some high profile failures to replicate. Both databases show problems with heterogeneity and with study quality and recommendations are made for necessary standards for future replication attempts.

An empirical test of the theory of morphic resonance by using recognition for Chinese symbols.

Tests of the theory of morphic resonance have tended to confirm the theory's predictions but are difficult to evaluate since they are typically reported in popular accounts rather than more detailed peer-reviewed journal papers. We replicated earlier work using word-based stimuli in a study that also looked at the effects of transliminality on performance. Sixty participants were exposed to five genuine Chinese characters and five false characters. Subsequently, participants identified the characters they could recognize among a sheet consisting of those originally presented intermixed with 10 decoys. As predicted, participants accurately recognized more of the genuine than false characters, t(59) = 2.40, P = .020, but also were more likely to report false memories for genuine than false characters, t(59) = 3.805, P < .001. Transliminality scores were related to performance with presented characters (r = .38; P = .003) but not with decoy characters (r = .14, P = .28).

Narcissism and belief in the paranormal.

The present study was designed to assess whether the relationship between narcissistic personality and paranormal belief identified by Tobacyk and Mitchell earlier could be replicated with a general population and to see whether the effect could be found with a narrower definition of paranormal beliefs that focuses only on belief in psychic phenomena. 75 participants completed the Narcissistic Personality Inventory and two measures of paranormal belief, the Paranormal Belief Scale and the Australian Sheep-Goat Scale. There was no correlation between narcissism and Paranormal Belief Scale scores, but narcissism and Australian Sheep-Goat Scale scores were significantly positively correlated. Of the three subscales to the Australian Sheep-Goat measure, scores for narcissism correlated with belief in ESP and PK but not in Life after death. These relationships were interpreted in terms of need for control.