Scientists explain how and why some people say they “hear the dead”

Spiritualistic mediums may be more prone to immersive mental activities and unusual auditory experiences early in life, new research shows.

This could explain why some people and not others ultimately adopt spiritualistic beliefs and engage in the practice of “ hearing the dead, ” according to the study conducted by Durham University.

Mediums who “hear” spirits are said to experience clairaudient communications, rather than clairaudient (“seeing”) or clairsentient (“feeling” or “feeling”) communications.

Researchers surveyed 65 Clairaudient Spiritual Mediums from the National Union of Spiritualists and 143 members of the general population as part of the largest scientific study of the experiences of Clairaudient Mediums.

They found that these spiritualists have a propensity for absorption – a trait related to immersing themselves in mental or imaginative activities or experiencing altered states of consciousness.

Psychics are also more likely to report experiences of unusual hearing phenomena, such as hearing voices, which often occur early in life.

Many who experience absorbing or hearing voices encounter spiritualistic beliefs when looking for the meaning behind, or the supernatural significance, of their unusual experiences, the researchers said.

The results are published in the journal Mental health, religion and culture. The research is part of Hearing the Voice – an interdisciplinary study of vocal hearing based at the University of Durham and funded by the Wellcome Trust.

Spiritism is a religious movement based on the idea that human souls continue to exist after death and to communicate with the living through a medium or psychic.

Interest in spiritualism is increasing in Britain with several organizations supporting, training and offering the services of practicing mediums. One of the largest, the SNU, claims to serve at least 11,000 members through its training college, churches and centers.

Through their study, the researchers gathered detailed descriptions of how mediums experience spirit “voices”, and compared absorption levels, hallucination propensity, aspects of identity and belief in the paranormal.

They found that 44.6% of the Spiritualist participants reported hearing the voices of the deceased daily, with 33.8% reporting a clairaudience experience during the last day.

A large majority (79%) said that auditory spiritual communication experiences were part of their daily life, taking place both when they were alone and when working as a medium or attending a spiritualist church.

Although the spirits were primarily heard inside the head (65.1%), 31.7% of the Spiritualist participants reported experiencing spiritual voices coming from both inside and outside the head.

When rated on absorption scales, as well as how strongly they believe in the paranormal, Spiritualists scored much higher than members of the general population.

Spiritualists were less likely to care about what others thought of them than people in general, and they also scored higher for their propensity for unusual hallucination-like hearing experiences.

According to the results, both high levels of absorption and the propensity for such auditory phenomena were related to reports of more frequent clairaudient communications.

For the general population, absorption was associated with levels of belief in the paranormal, but there was no corresponding significant relationship between belief and the propensity to hallucinate.

There was also no difference in the levels of superstitious belief or propensity to visual hallucinations between the spiritist and non-spiritist participants.

Spiritualists have reported experiencing clairaudience for the first time at an average age of 21.7 years. However, 18% of spiritualists said they had experiences of clairaudience “as long as they could remember” and 71% had not encountered spiritualism as a religious movement until their first experiences.

The researchers say their findings suggest that he doesn’t give in to social pressure, learn to have specific expectations, or that a level of belief in the paranormal leads to experiences of spiritual communication.

Instead, it appears that some people are particularly predisposed to absorption and are more likely to report unusual hearing experiences that occur early in life. For many of these people, spiritualistic beliefs are adopted because they align in a meaningful way with these unique personal experiences.

Lead researcher Dr Adam Powell, of Durham University’s Hearing the Voice Project and Department of Theology and Religion, said: “Our results say a lot about ‘learning and desire’. For our participants, the principles of spiritualism seem to make sense of childhood experiences as well as the frequent auditory phenomena they experience as mediums of practice.

“But all of these experiences may result more from having certain tendencies or early abilities than just believing in the possibility of contacting the dead if one tries hard enough.”

Dr Peter Moseley, co-author of the study at Northumbria University, commented: “Spiritists tend to report unusual auditory experiences which are positive, which start early in life and often follow. able to control. It is important to understand how these develop. might help us better understand the distressing or uncontrollable experiences of hearing voices. “

The Durham researchers are now engaged in further investigation of clairaudience and mediumship, working with practitioners to get a fuller picture of what it is like to be at the end of these unusual and meaningful experiences.

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