 |
Karlis Osis | |
|---|---|
 Karlis Osis testing his stepdaughter in a psychokinesis experiment. | |
| Born | Kārlis Osis December 26, 1917 |
| Died | December 26, 1997 (aged 80) Glen Ridge, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Nationality | Latvian |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Parapsychology |
Karlis Osis (Latvian: Kārlis Osis; 26 December 1917 – 26 December 1997) was a Latvian-born parapsychologist who specialised in exploring deathbed phenomena and life after death. [1]
Karlis' first research, conducted in the 1940s, was inspired by the work of English physicist and parapsychologist William F. Barrett, specifically his book, Death Bed Visions.[ citation needed ] In an attempt to build on Barrett's research, he and Erlendur Haraldsson conducted a four-year study whereby they sent out hundreds of questionnaires to doctors and nurses in both the US and northern India, asking them about their observations regarding dying patients. [2]
Their research highlighted differences between cultural experiences near death. [3] They found that a person's religion greatly influenced what was seen and that this was most apparent when observing the differences between Indian and American experience where Indian patients were far more likely to see a personification of death than Americans. [3]
He repeated this experiment again in 1976, this time investigating the effects high fevers, painkillers and diseases which specifically affect the brain, had on a patient's reported experiences at the time of death. [4] Despite the far smaller pool of data (the newer study involved just 877 doctors in the USA alone), Osis concluded to his satisfaction that what he called the "sick brain hypothesis" – that the decrease of brain activity was causally linked to near death experiences – did not stand up to scrutiny. [4]
On being asked about the practical applications of his theories, Osis remarked that "One definite finding of the research is the diminishing fear of death". [5]
In 1957, Osis became the director of the Parapsychology Foundation in New York, being elected as president in 1961. [1] In 1962, he began working with the American Society for Psychical Research, work which continued for many years. [6] In 1971, he and Haraldsson co-authored the book At the Hour of Death, describing the results of their research. [7]
In the 1970s Osis conducted many out-of-body experience (OBE) experiments with the psychic Alex Tanous. For a series of these experiments he was asked whilst in an OBE state to try to identify coloured targets that were placed in remote locations. Osis reported that in 197 trials there were 114 hits. However, the controls to the experiments have been criticized and according to Susan Blackmore the final result was not particularly significant, as 108 hits would be expected by chance. Blackmore noted that the results provide "no evidence for accurate perception in the OBE". [8]
In 1980, Osis carried out another experiment with Tanous. He would attempt to leave his body to a shielded chamber to identify a target that contained strain gauges to detect mechanical activity. Osis reported that from the results Tanous had left his body and was present at the target location. This conclusion has been criticized. The baseline activity of the device was not measured and the overall hit rate was not reported by Osis. According to Blackmore when she calculated the hit rate from the data "overall the subject made no more hits than would be expected by chance. This implies that any hits made were likely to have been due to chance and not an OBE. Osis' conclusion therefore seems quite unjustified and the results do not unambiguously support the idea that Alex Tanous was able to influence the strain gauges with his OBE presence." [9]
Osis also conducted experiments with volunteers in a soundproof chamber in an attempt to get them to move a pendulum from a distance. Magician Milbourne Christopher has written that none of Osis' "out-of-the-body experiments can be properly evaluated; complete data about them have never been published." [10] Science writer Mary Roach suggested that Osis was a "deluded or sloppy researcher." [11]
The method Osis and Haraldsson used to collect data has drawn criticism from the skeptical community. [12] According to Terence Hines:
Osis and Haraldsson's (1977) study was based on replies received from ten thousand questionnaires sent to doctors and nurses in the United States and India. Only 6.4 percent were returned. Since it was the doctors and nurses who were giving the reports, not the patients who had, presumably, actually had the experience, the reports were secondhand. This means they had passed through two highly fallible and constructive human memory systems (the doctor's or nurse's and the actual patient's) before reaching Osis and Haraldsson. [13]
The psychologist James Alcock criticized the study, as it was anecdotal and described their results as "unreliable and unintepretable." [14] Paul Kurtz also criticized the study, saying all of the data were second-hand and influenced by cultural expectations. [15]
Extrasensory perception (ESP), also known as a sixth sense, or cryptaesthesia, is a claimed paranormal ability pertaining to reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses, but sensed with the mind. The term was adopted by Duke University botanist J. B. Rhine to denote psychic abilities such as intuition, telepathy, psychometry, clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairsentience, empathy and their trans-temporal operation as precognition or retrocognition.
Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena and other paranormal claims, for example, those related to near-death experiences, synchronicity, apparitional experiences, etc. Criticized as being a pseudoscience, the majority of mainstream scientists reject it. Parapsychology has also been criticized by mainstream critics for claims by many of its practitioners that their studies are plausible despite a lack of convincing evidence after more than a century of research for the existence of any psychic phenomena.
Telepathy is the purported vicarious transmission of information from one person's mind to another's without using any known human sensory channels or physical interaction. The term was first coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Frederic W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), and has remained more popular than the earlier expression thought-transference.
A ganzfeld experiment is an assessment used by parapsychologists that they contend can test for extrasensory perception (ESP) or telepathy. In these experiments, a "sender" attempts to mentally transmit an image to a "receiver" who is in a state of sensory deprivation. The receiver is normally asked to choose between a limited number of options for what the transmission was supposed to be and parapsychologists who propose that such telepathy is possible argue that rates of success above the expectation from randomness are evidence for ESP. Consistent, independent replication of ganzfeld experiments has not been achieved, and, in spite of strenuous arguments by parapsychologists to the contrary, there is no validated evidence accepted by the wider scientific community for the existence of any parapsychological phenomena. Ongoing parapsychology research using ganzfeld experiments has been criticized by independent reviewers as having the hallmarks of pseudoscience.
An out-of-body experience is a phenomenon in which a person perceives the world as if from a location outside their physical body. An OBE is a form of autoscopy, although this term is more commonly used to refer to the pathological condition of seeing a second self, or doppelgänger.
Remote viewing (RV) is the practice of seeking impressions about a distant or unseen subject, purportedly sensing with the mind. A remote viewer is expected to give information about an object, event, person, or location hidden from physical view and separated at some distance. Physicists Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff, parapsychology researchers at Stanford Research Institute (SRI), are generally credited with coining the term "remote viewing" to distinguish it from the closely related concept of clairvoyance. According to Targ, the term was first suggested by Ingo Swann in December 1971 during an experiment at the American Society for Psychical Research in New York City.
In Spiritualism, paranormal literature and some religions, materialization is the creation or appearance of matter from unknown sources. The existence of materialization has not been confirmed by laboratory experiments. Numerous cases of fraudulent materialization demonstrations by mediums have been exposed.
Charles Henry Honorton was an American parapsychologist and was one of the leaders of a collegial group of researchers who were determined to apply established scientific research methods to the examination of what they called "anomalous information transfer" and other phenomena associated with the "mind/body problem"—the idea that mind might, at least in some respects, have a physical existence independent of the body.
Charles T. Tart is an American psychologist and parapsychologist known for his psychological work on the nature of consciousness, as one of the founders of the field of transpersonal psychology, and for his research in parapsychology.
Milbourne Christopher was a prominent American illusionist, magic historian, and author.
Ingo Douglass Swann was an American psychic, artist, and author, whose claims of clairvoyance were investigated as a part of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Stargate Project. Swann is credited as the creator of the term “Remote Viewing," a term which refers to the use of extrasensory perception to perceive distant persons, places, or events.
A near-birth experience is an alleged recollected event which occurred before or during one's own birth, or during the pregnancy, an alleged remembering of one's own pre-existence, or an alleged encounter with the unborn child experienced by relatives or close family friends. Under this usage, the term "near-birth experience" is analogous to the term "near-death experience."
Erlendur Haraldsson was a professor emeritus of psychology on the faculty of social science at the University of Iceland. He published in various psychology and psychiatry journals. In addition, he published parapsychology books and authored a number of papers for parapsychology journals.
Michael Anthony Thalbourne was an Australian psychologist who worked in the field of parapsychology. He was educated at the University of Adelaide and the University of Edinburgh. His books include: A glossary of terms used in parapsychology (2003), The common thread between ESP and PK (2004), and Parapsychology in the Twenty-First Century: Essays on the future of Psychical Research (2005).
Telekinesis is a purported psychic ability allowing an individual to influence a physical system without physical interaction. Experiments to prove the existence of telekinesis have historically been criticized for lack of proper controls and repeatability. There is no reliable evidence that telekinesis is a real phenomenon, and the topic is generally regarded as pseudoscience.
Extrasensory Perception is a 1934 book written by parapsychologist Joseph Banks Rhine, which discusses his research work at Duke University. Extrasensory perception is the ability to acquire information shielded from the senses, and the book was "of such a scope and of such promise as to revolutionize psychical research and to make its title literally a household phrase".
Deathbed phenomena refers to a range of paranormal experiences claimed by people who are dying. There are many examples of deathbed phenomena in both non-fiction and fictional literature, which suggests that these occurrences have been noted by cultures around the world for centuries, although scientific study of them is relatively recent. In scientific literature such experiences have been referred to as death-related sensory experiences (DRSE). Dying patients have reported to staff working in hospices they have experienced comforting visions.
Charles Edward Mark Hansel was a British psychologist most notable for his criticism of parapsychological studies.
Kathleen Mary Hervey Goldney (1894–1992) best known as K. M. Goldney was a British parapsychologist and writer.
Olof Jonsson (1918-1998) was a Swedish-American engineer and psychic.
{{cite news}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
