In a new study, scientists have determined which traits may make a person more likely to experience hearing the voices of the dead.
According to the study, a predisposition to high levels of absorption in tasks, unusual auditory experiences in childhood, and a high susceptibility to auditory hallucinations all occur more strongly in people who claim they have heard voices of the dead.
The study can help researchers better understand the auditory hallucinations that occur in mental disorders such as schizophrenia.
Clairvoyance and clairaudience, the experiences of seeing or hearing something in the absence of an external stimulus, respectively, are topics of great scientific interest.
Anthropologists studying religious and spiritual experiences and scientists studying pathological hallucinatory experiences are equally interested.
Specifically, researchers want to know why some people with such auditory experiences report having a Spiritualist experience, but others find the experience terrifying and are then diagnosed with a mental disorder.
“Spiritualists tend to report unusual auditory experiences which are positive, start early in life and which they are often then able to control,” Peter Moseley psychologist at Northumbria University in the UK said.
“Understanding how these develop is important because it could help us understand more about distressing or non-controllable experiences of hearing voices too,” he added.
Moseley and his colleague, psychologist Adam Powell of Durham University in the UK, recruited and surveyed 65 clairaudient mediums from the UK’s Spiritualists’ National Union. They also recruited 143 members of the general population using social media. They attempted to determine the difference between Spiritualists and the general public, who do not generally report hearing the voices of the dead.
Their findings found that 44.6 percent of the Spiritualists reported hearing voices daily. 79 percent said the experiences were part of their daily lives. Most reported hearing the voices inside their head, but 31.7 percent said that the voices were also external.
Compared to the general population, the Spiritualists reported a much higher belief in the paranormal. They were also less likely to care what other people thought of them.
The Spiritualists reported having their first auditory experience at a young age, 21.7 years old on average. They also reported a high level of absorption, which is a term used to describe full immersion in mental tasks and activities or altered states, and how effective someone is at tuning out the world around them.
The Spiritualists also reported that they were more prone to hallucination-like experiences.
In the general population, high levels of absorption were also strongly correlated with belief in the paranormal. However, there was little to no susceptibility to auditory hallucinations.
Researchers say these results show that experiencing hearing the voices of the dead is not caused by peer pressure, social context, or belief in the paranormal. Rather, people adopt Spiritualism because it aligns with their personal experience.
“Our findings say a lot about ‘learning and yearning’. For our participants, the tenets of Spiritualism seem to make sense of both extraordinary childhood experiences as well as the frequent auditory phenomena they experience as practising mediums,” Powell said.
He continued, “But all of those experiences may result more from having certain tendencies or early abilities than from simply believing in the possibility of contacting the dead if one tries hard enough.”
I find it very difficult to believe in any such thing as talking to the dead or ghosts or life after death. I think without definite proof it is wrong to purport such notions.
This is fact: The newspaper I worked for was publishing its final edition. It closed. That night I walked to my car and said out loud: What do I do now? I have no place to go. A voice responded: it’,ll be 3 months before you find a place to go. I said: What?? And the voice repeated the message. Three months to the day, I walked into a new newspaper job.
Second: 11 years later, We had put our house up for sale and I was living away from home. One evening in this small apartment while eating supper alone, a voice said….Nothing will happen until you go back home. I called my wife to see how the sale of the house ws going and it wasn’t good. I told her what happened and she said turn in your notice and come back home. I did. We had planned to move to Arizona because of a good friend. I arrived home two weeks later; a half hour after arriving, our friend called from Arizona and said he had sold everything and was moving to phoenix. He thought we’d like to know. Our plans changed; our children were living in Florida and we had lived there before moving to Illinois; the next morning, the realtor called and asked us to go out to breakfast for a couple hours, someone wanted to see our beautiful home. We did and when we came back a couple hours later, the phone rang; the realtor called….she had sold our house and we came back to Florida where we’ve lived ever since. These messages were not hallucinations. I am a firm believer in God who has granted me graces, love and mercy. For example, I had triple bypass surgery on August 19, 1986. The average bypass lasts about 13 years. It’s now 2021. And that’s no hallucination either. In between 1971 and now there have been many spiritual things that have happened to me….because of my faith and trust in Jesus Christ….and that’s all I’ll say. Enough is enough…..thanks for listening.
Sorry…forgot to mention….those messages I received were not from anyone who had died….my parents, grandparents or cousins who have passed away…..
From time to time I can talk to my daughter Patty,but I am only dreaming it i think, but if I wake up and go back to sleep I go right back to my dream,I dont see her but I can talk to her but think it is just a dream,when I was about 7 I had a fractured skull and a pce of bone went into my brain I dont know if that has anything to do with it or not
I would like to believe we survive physical death. I put hope in EVP & NDE.
Ecclesiastes 9:5,6 says: (5) For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing at all, nor do they have any more reward, because all memory of them is forgotten.
(6) Also, their love and their hate and their jealousy have already perished, and they no longer have any share in what is done under the sun.
Can you tell me more about your site, your location and subjects? This is the first time I’ve heard of it. Sounds interesting. Thank you!
Even if possible, not recommended. It is not of this realm and to try to communicate with it could be dangerous. You also will never really know exactly what you are communicating with; even if it assures you it’s someone you once knew.