The Death Of Stephen Braude

He died last Saturday. He was a major figure in paranormal research. I learned a lot from him. He had a rare combination of breadth and depth of knowledge of the field, carefulness, and communication skills. He worked at an unusually high level in a context that's unusually difficult, one that's been neglected and is often despised, despite being so important. One of the ways you can measure somebody's significance is how often you wanted to hear from him in important contexts. There were many times over the years when a paranormal issue came up, and I wanted to hear from Stephen Braude.

You can find him referred to in a lot of places in our archives, by me and by others who have posted here. Here's a Psi Encyclopedia article that provides an overview of his life and paranormal work. I've often recommended his book The Gold Leaf Lady (Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 2007) as an introduction to the paranormal. I'd still recommend it as a good place to start, both in terms of an introduction to the paranormal and as an introduction to Braude. Here's a video he participated in around the time the book came out. It's about fifteen minutes long and will provide you with an overview of Braude's background and the book. I've also linked this video in the past, in which Braude discusses some of the paranormal cases he studied the most, like the Ted Serios case. During the last several years of his life, Braude did some interviews about various paranormal topics with Jeffrey Mishlove. You can find them by running a search with Braude's name at Mishlove's YouTube channel.

Overestimating The Prior Improbability Of Miracles

Stephen Braude wrote:

First, it is moot whether psi phenomena violate any important scientific theory. Only from an already suspect reductionistic perspective would they seem to pose a threat to received science. It is more plausible that psi phenomena, like organic phenomena and the phenomena of consciousness generally, simply fall outside the domain of physics. Second, even if psi phenomena did violate some major scientific law(s), there is nothing sacred about received science. Like the received science of days past, much of it may require modification or rejection, even if only to countenance everyday mental processes such as volition and memory. Third, subjective probability assignments concerning scientifically anomalous phenomena carry little weight, as the history of science amply demonstrates.

Moreover, we know very little about ostensibly paranormal phenomena (especially, I suppose, if they are genuinely paranormal) but a great deal about misperception, naiveté, fraud, etc. But in that case, our assessments of the probability of the latter should be given greater weight than our assessments of the probability of the former. After all, we often have a solid basis for judging the likelihood of misperception, etc., occurring in spontaneous cases. But we have virtually no basis for deciding the likelihood of an event occurring - in the absence of fraud, misperception, etc. - that at least appears to violate some fundamental scientific law or metaphysical assumption. We do know, of course, that phenomena discovered in the past have deeply changed the course of science, and we know that phenomena considered impossible or highly improbable on received scientific principles have been found to be possible or not so improbable after all. So we know that genuine scientifically anomalous phenomena may occur, some of which eventually get incorporated into the science of the day. But earlier on, when the phenomena are still extraordinary and poorly understood, we lack the kind of information customarily needed to assess the probability of their having occurred. To judge whether a given event is likely in a particular circumstance, we must first know something of the event's nature and limits. That is how we determine the likelihood of misperception, fraud, etc. We know what sorts of situations might motivate fraud or encourage misperception, and we can make reasonable and well-informed judgments about their likelihood in the circumstances in question. In fact, we have a substantial and clear background of data to which we can appeal when making these judgments. But it is just this sort of background information that we lack in the case of ostensibly paranormal events. So it seems reasonable to decide the likelihood of an ostensibly paranormal event having occurred on the basis of the evidence against the occurrence of misperception, fraud, etc. (The Limits Of Influence [Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, Inc., 1997], 46-47)

He goes on to quote some comments from C.J. Ducasse:

…assertions of antecedent improbability always rest on the tacit but often in fact false assumption that the operative factors are the same in a presented case as they were in superficially similar past cases. For example, the antecedent improbability of the things an expert conjurer does onstage is extremely high if one takes as antecedent evidence what merely an ordinary person, under ordinary instead of staged conditions can do. The same is true of what geniuses, or so-called arithmetical prodigies, can do as compared with what ordinary men can do. And that a man is a genius or a calculating prodigy is shown by what he does do, not the reality of what he does by his being a genius or prodigy. This holds equally as regards a medium and his levitations or other paranormal phenomena. (47)

Braude then comments:

It would be almost transcendentally foolish to maintain that the unprecedented mnemonic abilities reported by Luria (1968/1987) are unlikely to be genuine, due to their antecedent improbability (based on the population of normal human beings). With reasoning such as this, we could forever avoid acknowledging the existence of exceptional human abilities. But then it is presumably equally indefensible to distrust nearly a quarter-century's worth of reports of decently-illuminated table levitations by D.D. Home, on the grounds that the antecedent improbability of that ability is overwhelmingly high. (47)

How The Nature Of A Miracle Can Be Evidential

"Even if witnesses were biased or predisposed to experience paranormal phenomena, that would not explain why the biased misperceptions or reports are similar in so many peculiar details. One would need an elaborate psychological theory (to say the least) to explain why people of dissimilar backgrounds and cultures, with apparently no common needs to experience bizarre phenomena of any sort, independently report (for example) 'raining' stones inside a house or the intense heat of apports." (Stephen Braude, The Limits Of Influence [Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, Inc., 1997], 26)

Ed May's Materialism

Alex Tsakiris recently interviewed Stephen Braude. He makes a lot of significant comments during the interview, but a segment I found especially interesting was one about Ed May. You can click on the link just provided to watch that segment on the YouTube video of the interview. Braude's comments about his private interactions with May are worth hearing. You can listen to Tsakiris' interview with May here. And here's a post I wrote about the significance of the interview.

Confusing The Author Of Nature With The Editor Of Nature

"…scientists who regard the phenomena investigated by psychical researchers as impossible seem…to confuse the Author of Nature with the Editor of the scientific periodical, Nature; or at any rate they seem to suppose that there can be no productions of the former which would not be accepted for publication by the latter!" (C.J. Ducasse, cited in Stephen Braude, The Limits Of Influence [Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, Inc., 1997], 20)

Randi's Million Dollar Challenge And The Eisenbud Challenge

James Randi did some good things, and he ought to be getting some positive coverage in the context of his death earlier this week. But the coverage has been far too positive, which is unsurprising in light of the media's biases. You can read our archive of posts on Randi here. While the media give so much attention to Randi's Million Dollar Challenge, keep in mind his failure to meet a challenge in the other direction:

Nevertheless, with his usual bluster, Randi accepted a $10,000 challenge (a considerable sum in those days) to duplicate the Serios phenomena and make good on his claim.

Of course, confidence is easy to feign, and Randi does it routinely in his role as magician. He also cleverly takes advantage of the occasional high-profile case he successfully exposes as fraudulent, by publicizing those successes and creating the impression that he's a generally reliable guide when it comes to the paranormal. So Randi's dismissal of the Serios case was all it took for those already disposed to believe that Serios was a fake, and it was probably enough even for those sympathetic to parapsychology but unaware of Randi's dishonesty....

What the TV audience never learned was that when the show was over and Randi was pressed to make good on his wager, he simply weaseled out of it. To keep that side of the story under wraps, Randi prohibited publication of his correspondence on the matter. That was undoubtedly a shrewd move, because the letters show clearly how Randi backed down from his empty challenge. However, Randi's original letters now reside in the library at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, and researchers, finally, can easily confirm this for themselves. When Serios's principal investigator, Jule Eisenbud, died, I was assigned the task of going through his papers. I collected all the material relevant to the Serios case and deposited it in the Special Collections section of the UMBC library. (This includes correspondence, the original photos and film, and signed affidavits from witnesses.)...

But there's no documentary evidence of Randi having even attempted to duplicate the Serios phenomena under anything like the conditions in which Serios succeeded, much less evidence of his having actually pulled it off....

In fact, the history of parapsychology chronicles some remarkable examples of dishonest testimony and other reprehensible behavior on the part of skeptics....

Skepticism is just as glib and dishonest now as it was in 1882 when the British SPR [Society for Psychical Research] was founded. In fact, despite sensible and careful dismantling of the traditional skeptical objections, the same tired arguments surface again and again. And those arguments all too easily mislead those who haven't yet heard the other side of the story or examined the evidence for themselves.

(Stephen Braude, The Gold Leaf Lady [Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 2007], 22, 34, 126)

See my post here about how other magicians have misled people about the paranormal.

Christianity And Living Agent Psi

I've posted an Amazon review of Stephen Braude's recent book. The review repeats some of what I've said here, but also adds some comments on other subjects, such as the evidence Christianity provides for life after death.

How Replicable Should The Paranormal Be?

Critics of the paranormal often object that paranormal events should be documented in scientific experiments if such phenomena actually occur. It's also common to object to decreases in reported paranormal activity over time or from one region to another, as if we should expect more consistency if the paranormal actually exists.

There are a lot of problems with those objections (e.g., the documentation we already have from scientific experiments), and Stephen Braude discusses some of those problems in his recent book. What I'm quoting below isn't meant to be exhaustive. I doubt that Braude intended to cover all of the ground involved, and I'd include other factors from a Christian perspective:

As time went on, more and more people, both in and out of the field of psychical research, took seriously the possibility that physical mediums might in fact be PK agents and therefore the actual cause of phenomena attributed by others to surviving spirits. And even when the mediums and other spiritists resisted this belief, the fact remains that the belief was increasingly "in the air" and difficult to ignore as growing numbers of secular researchers began to investigate the phenomena for themselves. But this can only have had a chilling effect on the psychology of mediumship generally. Mediums knew that even some sympathetic investigators considered them to be causes of - and not simply vessels for - paranormal physical phenomena. So they now had a concern that quite possibly had never entered their minds before - namely, that they might have powers they couldn't control and that conceivably could do great harm.

It's not surprising, then, to find that Eusapia Palladino's impressive phenomena in the 1890s and first decade of the twentieth century were less impressive than those of Home twenty years earlier. And it's even less surprising to find that many of the mediumistic "superstars" in the next several decades of the twentieth century had increasingly less intimidating repertoires of phenomena. For example, by the time we come to Rudi Schneider in the 1920s and 30s, the most sensational phenomena tended merely to be medium-sized object movements. And more recently, alleged PK superstars such as Nina Kulagina and Felicia Parise produced even smaller-scale phenomena.

Moreover, it's interesting to note how PK superstars in the latter half of the twentieth century seemed to suffer greatly when producing their phenomena. Their spiritistic predecessors typically went into a trance or at least into a state of passive receptivity, and occasionally they were tired afterwards. But more modern PK stars have more thoroughly accepted their role as the originator of their physical manifestations, and they seem quite clearly to be making a conscious effort to achieve those results. But of course, since they acknowledge their own role in the production of the phenomena, it's not surprising that they should have to work hard (say) to make a cigarette or pill bottle move a millimeter or an inch. In fact, consider how convenient effortful PK is psychologically - that is, from the psychic's point of view. If PK subjects feel it's necessary to expend a great deal of energy to produce only a small effect, then (in a careless line of thought characteristic of much self deception) it can easily seem to them as if their life or health would be endangered by trying to produce a phenomenon worth worrying about….

So, practically speaking, investigators may simply have to acknowledge a law of diminishing returns in applying controls. Besides, it would hardly be surprising if at some point (given human psychology), continually tightening controls simply snuffs out the phenomena. And how readily that occurs will undoubtedly vary from one subject to the next, just as our inhibition-thresholds vary widely in many familiar life contexts. I believe that's one reason why laboratory phenomena are so modest compared with phenomena in natural settings, if the phenomena can be duplicated at all in the lab. As I've argued elsewhere, since we really are nowhere close to knowing what psi's natural history is (i.e. its function or purpose - if any - in real-life settings), for all we know it may be similar in crucial respects to familiar phenomena or abilities (e.g., sexual performance, athletic skills) that can only be evaluated in their natural contexts, not in the straitjacketed conditions required for formal experiments.

(Dangerous Pursuits [San Antonio, Texas: Anomalist Books, 2020], 10-11, 69)

The Dark Side Of The Paranormal

I've often made the point that one of the issues that needs to be addressed more in discussions of the paranormal is the negative nature of much of what's involved. Stephen Braude makes some comments relevant to that subject in his new book:

In fact, over several decades of public lectures, I've had many opportunities to see how much distress I cause when I simply raise the issue [of the potential for using psychic powers for bad purposes] with my audiences. Significantly, that reaction has been especially intense at various New Age conventions where attendees focus exclusively on the potential benefits of psychic influence, apparently refusing to acknowledge the obvious point that no power can be used only for the good. I must confess, I've found it mischievously satisfying on those occasions to play the role of spokesperson for the Dark Side. With gratifying regularity, I've sent some in my audience home in tears….

I'm aware that many people accept the possibility of psychically influencing normal, everyday states of affairs, at least when the effects are salutary - for example, in the realm of healing or meditating for crime reduction. But of course, no force can be used exclusively for the good. So it's both interesting and revealing that few of those who propose beneficial applications of psi consider equally seriously the potential for pernicious uses of the same power.

(Dangerous Pursuits [San Antonio, Texas: Anomalist Books, 2020], 5, 149)

Stephen Braude's New Book

I recently finished reading his latest book, Dangerous Pursuits (San Antonio, Texas: Anomalist Books, 2020), which consists mostly of updated versions of material he'd previously published. The book is largely about mediumship, but there's also a lot of discussion of philosophical issues related to the paranormal. Some other topics are addressed as well. You can find out more about the issues the book covers on the Amazon page linked above.

There are a couple of chapters on his investigation of the Felix Experimental Group, centering around the mediumship of Kai Mügge. Though Mügge cheats at times (which is common among people with genuine abilities, as we see in academic contexts, sports, etc.), it does seem that he's producing some real paranormal phenomena as well. Some apparently authentic table levitations were caught on video. Braude discusses them and includes some photographs. A video of a particularly impressive levitation is supposed to be included in an upcoming film by Robert Narholz (tentatively titled Finding PK). Judging by the photos and Braude's account of the surrounding context, it seems that the levitation I just referred to is genuine. Go here to watch Braude discussing the subject in an interview, accompanied by a series of photos of the levitation mentioned above. (Watch the remainder of the interview for more photographs and video of levitations not associated with Mügge. For a discussion of other paranormal events caught on video and links to the relevant videos, see here.)

I found Braude's chapter on the mediumship of Carlos Mirabelli highly interesting. I didn't know much about Mirabelli before reading Braude's material. Mirabelli was reported to have "produced full-form materializations in bright daylight, and these were often recognized as deceased relatives, acquaintances, or well-known public figures by those attending the séance. Sitters would watch them form; attending physicians would carefully examine them for up to 30 minutes and report ordinary bodily functions; photographs of the figures would be taken (for example, Fig. 1); and then they would slowly dissolve or fade before everyone's eyes. Moreover, Mirabelli reportedly materialized animals as well." (99) Braude provides some of the relevant photographs, including one apparently showing a woman in the process of materializing. He reports an occasion when one of the medical personnel present touched one of the bodies that was in the process of dematerializing and found it to be "a spongy, flaccid mass of substance and that then he experienced some kind of a shock and fell to the ground" (105). You can read an online version of Braude's chapter on Mirabelli here.

Braude also has a chapter responding to criticisms of the mediumship of D.D. Home. If you don't know much about Home, Braude's chapter is a good introduction.

Much of Braude's material in the book is about issues related to the distinction between psi and super psi. One of the chapters discusses why it might be that disembodied individuals would perceive their surroundings as if having a body (an ability to perceive the physical environment, a range of vision similar to what an embodied person has, etc.). Even the chapter on jazz improvisation includes some comments on paranormal issues. Because of the variety of topics covered, most people interested in paranormal issues should find something worth reading.