““When a reunion between the living and the dead takes place it may be the first time the living
understand that death has not robbed them of the love they once experienced with family and
friends on the earth plane. With the knowledge of no death, they are free to live life.”” James Van Praagh
As B. F. Skinner showed in rats, pigeons, and humans, organisms do not need steady reinforcement to continue pressing a bar, pecking a plate, or pulling a one-armed bandit (slot machine). Intermittent reinforcement will do just as well, and sometimes even better at eliciting the desired behavior. “A ““Variable Ratio Schedule”” of reinforcement turns out to be the best for gambling games, where the payoff is unpredictably variable, depending on a varying rate of responses. Payoff comes after ten pulls, then three pulls, then twelve pulls, then seven pulls, then twenty-three pulls, and so on.”
It is remarkable how infrequently the payoffs need to come to keep the subjects motivated. And
this was for such basic rewards as sugar water (rats), seed (pigeons), and money (humans).
Imagine how much more motivating, and, correspondingly, lower the rate of reinforcement can be, when the reward is the belief that your lost loved ones are not really dead and, as an added bonus, you can speak with them through a medium.This renders intelligible, in part, the success of a medium whose hit rate is far below that of even the lowest-paying gambling games in Las Vegas. It also helps explain the more general case of how we believe.
The simplest explanation for how mediums can get away with such an outrageous claim on such
questionable techniques is that they are dealing with a subject the likes of which it would be hard to top for tragedy and finality——death. Sooner or later we all will face this inevitability, starting, in the normal course of events, with the loss of our parents, then siblings and friends, and eventuallyourselves. It is a grim outcome under the best of circumstances, made all the worse when death
comes early or accidentally to those whose ““time was not up.”” As those who traffic in the
business of loss, death, and grief know all too well, we are often at our most vulnerable at such
times. Giving deep thought to this reality can cause the most controlled and rational among us to succumb to our emotions. (Skeptic Journal)
In a 17 nation study, Americans were most likely to report having experienced contact with the
dead.
This, in part, can be seen in the cultural climate regarding such experiences. Over the past two decades there has been a growing "New Age" movement that has redirected Americans' attentions toward spiritual matters. By the late 1980s, Americans were spending hundreds of dollars per hour to psychics "channeling" advice from alleged spiritual entities. In 1987, the spiritual experiences of actress Shirley MacLaine were dramatized in a two-part prime-time television broadcast on a major network. The nation's top paperback publisher, Bantam Books, increased its number of New Age-type books ten-fold between the late seventies and late eighties, which was its fastest growing line of non-fiction books (Levine, 1). A Gallup survey of the American public indicated that one in four believed in reincarnation, and a 1984 NORC survey revealed two-thirds of Americans claiming to have had some psychic experience.
As is evident, having a paranormal experience significantly increases the likelihood of believing that one has felt in touch with the dead. For instance, those having had an ESP experience are nearly four times as likely to have had an ADC experience than those not having had an ESP experience.
So what factors increase the likelihood of feeling in contact with the dead? Using the 1989 GSS,MacDonald (1994) employed a logistic regression model to predict the odds of having such an experience. He found, in part, that "paranormal experiences arise out of the uncertainty of life and the human condition and appear most frequently among those subject to the most change and stress. Women, ... report higher instances of deja vu, telepathy,
clairvoyance, and communication with the dead"
Fox (1992) claims that there is a positive relationship between paranormal experiences and
psychological well-being.
Many skeptics have said that people easily agree with what their told. According to Jill Neimark
in "Do the Spirits Move You?" "The tendency for people to agree with what they've been told at readings has been dubbed the Barnum effect, in honor of P.T. Barnum's line, 'There's a sucker born every minute.'.. The Barnum effect is heightened incredibly in one-on-one readings, simply because of the way most psychics
approach them. Many offer a kind of messianic authority that both elevates and deflates the
listener, and that may veer from warmly embracing to hostile - an all-knowing blend of mothers milk and a slap in the face." (Anyone else thinking this reminds you of Sylvia?)
What is rarely discussed is people’s evident interest in realms of existence beyond the visible. The popularity may reveal a deep human desire for assurance and proof about the matter of death.
Might it be possible for one who grieves the loss of a loved one to actually experience some
emotional comfort?
Fox’s research would seem to show us that it does. Not only this research but also the fact that imagining seeing or hearing the deceased is a normal occurrence for the bereaved.
Additional landmark work in the area of understanding grief was done by Dr. Eric Lindemann, who identified six "stages" of grieving during the acute grief stage that his research showed to last for 2-5 years.
One of those stages is:
Pre-Occupation with the deceased (including hallucinations of seeing them or feeling their
presence.)
In most cases, this feeling or connection was not long-term and brought a sense of closure to the bereaved.
As Ravi loves to say-“the understanding of something does not make it excusable”. Nor am I
advocating for the mediums in any way- in fact- it makes them all the more responsible as any
who have done their homework would know that this experience is common and marketable.
However, for the people who have these experiences, it is important for skeptics to realize that as,Juliet explained, the experience is a completely subjective one. And as shown, it may be one that brings closure and a sense of peace.
It is not for us to judge those who need this experience and/or believe in it- nor those who guide them in these experiences and support them ( as long as they are not profiting by misleading or tricking them).
This is the slant that most skeptics do not take in their zealous efforts to protect those who believe from charlatans and those who would profit from other’s grief- that the actual belief is not the foe- for many it is the path to healing.

Shanks responds

Jules