Amazingly, one in every hundred British citizens believes that they can communicate with the dead. Leading figures, including Celine Dion and Kesha, also say they can feel the dead. Now scientists are trying to understand why.
The strange and creepy phenomenon appears to be far more popular than one might think, leading a team of researchers to investigate dozens of mediums and spiritualists in an effort to find out why some people believe in the paranormal.
Spiritualists believe that human souls continue to exist after death and can communicate with the living through a medium or psychic. It peaked in popularity in the late 19th century and has made a comeback in recent years, with British research suggesting that there are hundreds of thousands of believers across the country.
It is not surprising that the phenomenon of dealing with souls who have left their dying coil has not stood up well to rigorous scientific investigations.
The scientists discovered that spiritualistic mediums are more prone to deepening spiritual activities and often have unusual auditory experiences, especially earlier in their lives. The captivating activities include experiencing altered states of consciousness and imaginative activities.
“Our findings say a lot about ‘learning and longing’. For our participants, it seems that the principles of spiritualism make sense of extraordinary children’s experiences as well as the regular auditory phenomena they experience as exercise mediums, ” explains lead researcher Adam Powell.
Mediums what “Hear” spirits are said to experience loud communication, rather than clairvoyance (“See”) or cleaner (“Feeling” or “Feel”) communication.
“But all of these experiences can be more the result of certain tendencies or early abilities than simply believing in the possibility of coming into contact with the dead if someone tries hard enough,” Powell added.
The study examined researchers from Durham University who conducted a survey of 65 mediums from the Spiritualists’ National Union. It found that more than 44 percent of participants reported daily hearing voices of the dead, while more than 33 percent said they had heard a voice in the past day.
Most mediums heard the dead in their head, but about 30 percent said they heard voices inside and outside their head. The average age for initial experiences was between 21 and 22 years.
The scientists also interviewed a control group of 143 members of the general public to understand the most important characteristics of the mediums.
The results indicate that people who hear voices turn to spiritualistic beliefs to explain the meaning or significance of their strange experiences.
The researchers say they hope the findings will help people understand more about disturbing or uncontrollable experiences of hearing voices.
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