How to Assess Psychics and Mediums

abracad, February 1, 2013 · Categories: science and spirituality

A Simple Method for Evaluating a Psychic Reading

These days many people consult psychics and mediums, perhaps looking for guidance on some aspect of their lives, or simply seeking evidence that the human experience is more than just a random accident of a meaningless universe. Whether we have a private sitting or join an open meeting, say at a Spiritualist church, We often come away from a reading with mixed feelings. This article presents a simple, but hopefully objective, method for assessing the quality of information given.

Briefly, the difference between a medium and a psychic is that mediums channel information from the spirits of the deceased whereas psychic pick up information by general non-physical means. Often mediums and psychics are the same (ie "sensitives") and a reading may contain information both from deceased spirits and of general psychic origin. Itâ€™s possible that even the medium (psychic) cannot identify the source of the reading, but so long as it's accurate and helpful that shouldn't matter too much.

In making an assessment it's essential that a sitting be approached without bias, ie with a completely open mind as to the authenticity of what takes place. Prior personal belief or skepticism should (as far as humanly possible) be put to one side and each meeting treated as an independent experiment.

Types of Psychic Reading

Readings may occur in a variety of contexts, eg:

Private (individual) sittings
Small group (eg Spiritualist church) demonstrations
Mass (eg theater) demonstrations
Technology-mediated form (increasingly), eg by phone / Internet

Types of Psychic Information

Regardless of the form or context of a reading it consists of series of statements of various types:

Information about sitter and/or current/past circumstances, eg "you have some legal documents to sign"
Information about deceased person, eg "he had fish and chips every Friday"
Prediction about the future, eg "you'll receive a new job offer in the Spring"
Advice, eg "you should socialize more"

Of these, only 1 and 2 are immediately evaluable. (3 will be after elapse of the relevant time period, and 4 is non-evaluable).

Interestingly type 2 information may be unknown to you at the time it is given, but later verified, eg by consulting with other family members. Such cases provide good evidence that the information genuinely came from a deceased spirit and was not read telepathically from your mind.

Assessing Psychic Reading Quality

To objectively evaluate a psychic/medium's performance it is necessary to accurately record all the information given for analysis. Many mediums welcome the recording of readings, which obviously makes the process much simpler, but where this is not the case notes should be made preferably during the sitting or as early as possible afterwards.

Probably the most instinctive way to evaluate a psychic/medium is to calculate a percentage score for the accuracy of the reading. However, this method has a number of flaws. If a psychic offered, "you drive a car", followed by a whole bunch of (non-evaluable) generalities his rating (for most people) would be 100%. But all he did was get one fairly generally applicable statement right. A second psychic might give some really specific details that would only apply to a few people, but if 75% were right (an impressive performance) he would score less than the first reader.

To overcome this the record of the reading should be broken down into a number of distinct, evaluable, statements. Where possible these should be entered into a computer spreadsheet.

Accuracy of Psychic Information

Before assessing whether the statements are accurate, each one should be given a(n estimated) probability of being correct, given the psychic/medium's knowledge of you. Eg are you known to the psychic? What can be inferred from your appearance? Eg there is considerably more chance of a 60-year old's mother being in spirit than a 20-year old's, someone wearing an expensive suit is less likely to have financial issues than cheap casuals.

The order in which the statements were made, and your responses to them, will also affect the probabilities. Eg if you said someone wasn't a humorous person, a follow-up statement that they were stern-natured would obviously have a high probability of correctness.

Now, work through each statement and decide if it is correct or not. Sometimes you won't know the answer, eg a fact about a long-deceased distant relative. Where possible unknown statements should be checked, eg with living family members.

Treat each statement as though the psychic/medium was making a $1 bet (without the bookmaker's margin); ie: score -1 for each incorrect statement and 1/p - 1 (where p is the probability of accuracy given the psychic's naturally obtained knowledge) for correct statements. Eg if a statement has a 50% chance of being right and it is right, award the psychic a score of 2-1 = 1; for those statements whose accuracy cannot be assessed award 0, ie a non-bet.

Dealing with Complications

Statements can vary in certainty, eg at the simplest level they may differ between a question (do you have a letter to write?) and a definite statement (you have a letter to write); the hypothetical stakes can reflect this, eg 1 unit for clear statements, 0.5 for questions.

In group meetings some mediums use open queries, ie they describe a Spirit communicator giving information bit by bit until a sitter acknowledged it may apply to them. This may appear as a cop out, but it is possible that in a group situation there may well be a number of Spirit entities simultaneously eager to link with those physically present. In such cases, until a link is confirmed, the probability of a statement's truth is that of its applicability to the entire assembly.

A further complication arises from generalizations that would apply to the large majority - if the circle of consideration were drawn wide enough; eg a common name, say Peter, is given - having one in your current circle of acquaintances or a deceased loved one would result in a yes, never having known one would be a no, but how about a long-lost relative or a colleague from a long-vacated job? In these situations - where the information can be accepted, but at a distance that would be accepted by 90% of recipients - the statement should also be treated as a non-bet.

Finalizing Scores

Adding up the scores of each statement gives a score for the success of the reading. Any positive score is suggestive the psychic/medium performed better than chance (ie accessed information from supernatural sources), and suggests: i) greater weight be given to any advice arising from the reading, and ii) the psychic/medium is worthy of further consultation.

This assessment system has an unbounded maximum score. If it is required to keep the score within some range (eg 0 to 10) a formula such as r = 10(1-e^au) may be applied, where r is the score within the range (in this case 0 to 10) and u is the (original) unbounded score. The formula applies for u>0, otherwise r=0. The value of a is set as required, but must be consistent across comparisons; eg setting a to -0.087 gives a mid-range r=5 for u=8.

Obviously there is some degree of subjectivity in allocating the probabilities, although this can be made more accurate by further research. However, so long as the means of allocating probabilities (eg general knowledge) remains consistent from reading to reading this method provides an effective means for comparison of readings from psychics and mediums.