Scientists shed light on how and why some people report “feeling the dead”

According to new research, spiritualist media may be more prone to immersive mental activities and unusual auditory experiences early in life.

This could explain why some people and not others eventually adopt spiritualist beliefs and engage in the practice of “listening to the dead,” the study led by Durham University found.

It is said that the media that “listen” to spirits experience clairvoyant communications, rather than clairvoyant (“seeing”) or clairvoyant (“feeling” or “feeling”) communications.

The researchers conducted a survey of 65 clairvoyant spiritualist media of the National Union of Spiritualists and 143 members of the general population in the largest scientific study on the experiences of clairvoyant media.

They found that these spiritualists have a penchant for absorption, a trait related to immersion in mental or imaginative activities, or the experience of altered states of consciousness.

The media is also more likely to report experiences of unusual hearing phenomena, such as hearing voices, which often occur early in life.

Many who experience absorption or hear voices encounter spiritualist beliefs when they seek the meaning behind or the supernatural meaning of their unusual experiences, the researchers said.

The findings are published in the journal Mental health, religion and culture. The research is part of Hearing the Voice, an interdisciplinary study of voice hearing based at the University of Durham and funded by the Wellcome Trust.

Spiritualism is a religious movement based on the idea that human souls continue to exist after death and communicate with the living through a medium or psychic.

Interest in spiritualism is growing in Britain with various organizations supporting, training and providing practicing media services. One of the largest, the UN, claims to serve at least 11,000 members through its training university, churches and centers.

Through their study, the researchers compiled detailed descriptions of how the media experiences spiritual ‘voices’ and compared levels of absorption, hallucination, aspects of identity, and belief in the paranormal.

They found that 44.6% of spiritualist participants reported hearing the voices of the deceased daily, and 33.8% reported a clairaudience experience over the past day.

A large majority (79%) said that experiences of auditory spiritual communication were part of their daily lives, both when they were alone and when they worked as a medium or attended a spiritualist church.

Although spirits were heard mainly inside the head (65.1%), 31.7% of spiritualist participants said they experienced spiritual voices coming from both inside and outside the head.

When rated on absorption scales, as well as on their firm belief in the paranormal, spiritualists scored much higher than members of the general population.

Spiritualists were less likely to care about what others thought than people in general, and also scored higher for their predisposition to unusual auditory experiences similar to hallucinations.

Both high levels of absorption and propensity for these auditory phenomena were related to more frequent clairaudience communication reports, according to the results.

For the general population, absorption was associated with levels of belief in the paranormal, but there was no significant corresponding link between belief and hallucination predisposition.

There were also no differences in levels of superstitious belief or propensity for visual hallucinations between spiritualist and non-spiritualist participants.

Spiritualists reported that they first experienced clairaudience at an average age of 21.7 years. However, 18% of spiritualists reported having clairvoyant experiences “for as long as they could remember” and 71% had not encountered spiritualism as a religious movement before the first experiences.

Researchers say their findings suggest that it does not yield to social pressure, learning to have specific expectations, or a level of belief in the paranormal that leads to spiritual communication experiences.

Instead, it appears that some people are uniquely predisposed to absorption and are more likely to report unusual auditory experiences that occur early in life. For many of these individuals, spiritualist beliefs are embraced because they align significantly with these unique personal experiences.

Lead researcher Adam Powell, in the Hearing the Voice project and Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Durham, said: “Our findings say a lot about‘ learning and yearning. ’For our participants, the principles of spiritualism they both seem to give meaning to both extraordinary children’s experiences, as well as the frequent auditory phenomena they experience as practicing media.

“But all of these experiences may result more from having certain tendencies or early skills than from simply believing in the possibility of contacting the dead if you put in enough effort.”

Dr Peter Moseley, co-author of the study at Northumbria University, commented: “Spiritualists tend to report unusual auditory experiences that are positive, that start early and are often able to control. Understanding how they develop is important because it could also help us understand more about distressing or uncontrollable experiences of hearing voices. “

Durham researchers are now engaged in more detailed research on clarity and mediumship, working with professionals to get a more complete picture of what it is like to be in the reception of these unusual and meaningful experiences.

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