USA, October 11, 2005: Two prestigious American universities have been given grants from the government and privately to delve into the paranormal. The news release explains what is happening at the University of Arizona psychology laboratory, “Researchers at the innocuously named Human Energy Systems Laboratory — with a total
annual budget of about $500,000 — have been busy asking psychics to pose questions to dead people. One subject was Allison DuBois, who inspired the NBC show Medium. The center is also looking into topics like ‘energy healing’ and ‘non-contact therapeutic touch’. The new medium-by-e-mail project is now recruiting psychics. Researchers will talk to relatives of the dead and then e-mail questions about the deceased to mediums. According to Schwartz, the center’s director, the mediums won’t know any details about the dead person other than his or her name. Researchers will then compare the medium’s answers to those provided by the same medium to questions about another deceased person.” Gary Schwartz adds, “Research with about 20 mediums proves that some do indeed have a connection to the dead, or at least a way to glean details about them.”
At the University of Virginia the article points out that a division called ‘Personality Studies’ is home to both near death studies (why do people have visions on the operating table?) and a researcher who compiles reports of children who talk about their past lives.
To add fuel to the fire Science journalist Mary Roach has published a book called Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife. Roach sums it up, “Nowadays, the study of the afterlife is a fringe subject in academia. There’s very little of it going on. It’s hard to get funding for legitimate research these days, and you can imagine (the struggle for) something as seemingly frivolous as parapsychology. There are people who think it’s outrageous that money is being spent on such a stupid topic, and others that feel like it’s an important question that medicine or psychology should address. I’m more open to the possibility that we haven’t figured it all out. Science doesn’t necessarily have all the answers.”