For Practitioners

Thank you for your interest in our work at the Windbridge Research Center. This page was designed for practitioners of mediumistic, psychic, healing, coaching, or other practices.

For those working with dying clients

2-sided Folded Pamphlet (PDF):
End of Life Experiences: What to Expect

Journal Article (PDF):
End-of-Life Experiences: Advice for Caregivers by Patricia Pearson, MSc

Video (Watch on YouTube):
Passing On is an original PBS documentary “comprised of compelling, sensitive, and personal stories that frankly discuss the topics of death, dying, and end-of-life planning.” (57 min)

Community Resource:
Share The Care is a system used by caregivers and their friends, neighbors, co-workers, and acquaintances that lets everyone share responsibilities. The simple, easy-to-follow system includes seven guiding principles and 23 forms to help create and maintain a caregiver network.
[Visit Share The Care website]

Correcting misconceptions about mediums

We try to correct misconceptions about mediums and their abilities wherever we can. Here are the free resources we’ve created:

Fact Sheet (PDF):
“Well, actually…” Responses to Common Misconceptions about Mediums

Fact Sheet (PDF):
Testing Mediums’ Accuracy Under Controlled Laboratory Conditions

There is a lot of negative press about mediums in the popular culture, so we addressed the issue of fraud directly:

Are all mediums frauds?

Research with mediums

We define mediums as people who report experiencing contact with the deceased regularly, reliably, and on-demand and who share the specific resulting messages with living people called sitters during an event called a reading.

Related Resources: 

What are mediums and how do scientists study them?

Why is mediumship research important?

External online article:
Beischel, J. (2018). Mental mediumship research. Psi Encyclopedia.

Methods and Findings. For a discussion of our three research programs investigating mediums, see “Mediumship Research at the Windbridge Research Center by Director of Research, Julie Beischel, PhD” here.

Our current projects

We are currently finalizing journal articles detailing study findings regarding American mediums’ demographic, personality, and psychological characteristics; childhood and spiritual experiences; and business practices as well as their descriptions of factors that enhance or inhibit communication with the deceased, their explanations for why they are mediums, how their abilities developed, and how their cultural background and spirituality relate to mediumship. Please join our email list to be notified of the publication of these articles.

Afterlife consumer bill of rights:
We are currently developing a Bill of Rights for consumers of afterlife-related services to train individuals on how to protect themselves from fraud. Once finalized this will be available for free from our website so that consumers can access it and practicing mediums can be aware of what we are teaching people. Please join our email list to be notified when this document is available.

Also see ‘Our Current Activities’ page:

Our Current Activities

Please make sure to join our email list to be notified of opportunities to participate in research as well as receiving Center news, events, publications, and media. Email newsletters are sent once per month.

Mediums’ health issues

Early stage research suggests that mediums may have higher incidences of diseases and other conditions including autoimmune disorders as compared to the incidences reported in the general US population or in non-medium populations of similar ages and genders.

Fact Sheet (PDF):
Disease Burden in Mediums

In addition, mediums report a higher incidence of childhood trauma than do non-medium populations of similar ages and genders. Because of the established relationship between childhood trauma and adult physical disease and our research finding that a single mediumship reading did not cause any changes in various hematological and psychophysiological factors in participants (Beischel, Tassone, & Boccuzzi, 2019), we have concluded that the increased incidence of disease in mediums is related to the increased incidence of childhood trauma and that it is not mediumship that causes an increase in disease but trauma that causes both disease and mediumship (Beischel, 2015).

Citation: Beischel, J., Tassone, S., & Boccuzzi, M. (2019). Hematological and psychophysiological correlates of anomalous information reception in mediums: A preliminary exploration. EXPLORE: The Journal of Science & Healing, 15(2), 126–133. doi: 10.1016/j.explore.2018.04.009
[View on PubMed]

Video Citation: Beischel, J. (2015, May). Assessing hematological and psychophysiological correlates of anomalous information reception in mediums. 34th Annual Meeting of the Society for Scientific Exploration, Rockville, Maryland.

Publications are currently in progress to report on these findings in more detail. More information will be posted here as soon as it becomes available.

Contact with the deceased: Normal and usually healthy

Experiences of contact with the deceased are called After-death Communication experiences or ADCs. The primary clinical issue around ADCs is how they can alleviate grief and not whether or not they reflect actual communication with the deceased.

Contact a healthcare provider if you are experiencing destress from an ADC.

Related Resources: 

Journal Article:
The introduction to this article discusses the ubiquitous, healthy nature of spontaneous ADCs.
citation: Beischel, J. (2014). Assisted after-death communication: A self-prescribed treatment for grief [Extended abstract]. Journal of Near-Death Studies, 32, 161–165.

Online article:
Is hearing from the dead normal?

These references discuss ADCs in more detail:

Journal Article (PDF):
Beischel, J., Mosher, C. & Boccuzzi, M. (2014-2015). The possible effects on bereavement of assisted after-death communication during readings with psychic mediums: A continuing bonds perspective. Omega: Journal of Death and Dying, 70(2), 169-194. doi: 10.2190/OM.70.2.b

Journal Article (PDF):
Beischel, J. (2019). Spontaneous, facilitated, assisted, and requested after-death communication experiences and their impact on grief. Threshold: Journal of Interdisciplinary Consciousness Studies, 3(1): 1–32.

About consciousness and ‘the afterlife’

Your mind, self, or identity (the unique mental part of you; also called your soul or spirit) is referred to by researchers and others as your consciousness. When discussing consciousness after the death of the brain and body, researchers use the term ‘survival of consciousness’ or just ‘survival’ for the phenomenon often called ‘the afterlife.’

Related Resources: 

Fact Sheet (PDF):
Support for the Survival of Consciousness Explanation

How is this possible?

Fact Sheet (PDF):
The Four Types of After-Death Communication Experiences (ADCs)

Journal article (PDF):
The Afterlife as an Extension of Lifespan Development by Pamela Rae Heath, MD, PsyD

Journal article (PDF):
“End-of-Life Experiences: Advice for Caregivers” by Patricia Pearson, MSc (article in Threshold)

Video:
Passing On is an original PBS documentary “comprised of compelling, sensitive, and personal stories that frankly discuss the topics of death, dying, and end-of-life planning.” (57 min) 

Community resource:
Share The Care is a system used by caregivers and their friends, neighbors, co-workers, and acquaintances that lets everyone share responsibilities. The simple, easy-to-follow system includes seven guiding principles and 23 forms to help create and maintain a caregiver network. Vist their website here.

For those working with bereaved clients

Though the traditional psychotherapeutic model of grief recommended severing bonds with the deceased, the current Continuing Bonds model encourages ongoing relationships with the deceased (Klass & Steffen, 2018).

The results of current and future research must be reviewed before readings with mediums can be ethically recommended as a treatment option. The combination of traditional psychotherapy and mediumship readings may prove to be more beneficial than either intervention separately.

Grief and After-death Communication

The evidence collected to date regarding the efficacy of mediumship readings for the bereaved:

Journal Article (PDF):
Beischel, J., Mosher, C. & Boccuzzi, M. (2014-2015). The possible effects on bereavement of assisted after-death communication during readings with psychic mediums: A continuing bonds perspective. Omega: Journal of Death and Dying, 70(2), 169-194. doi: 10.2190/OM.70.2.b

Fact Sheet (PDF):
The Potential Therapeutic Benefit of Mediumship Readings in the Treatment of Grief

Should I get a reading?

Reference:

Klass, D. E., & Steffen, E. (Eds). (2018). Continuing bonds in bereavement: New directions for research and practice. London, UK: Routledge.

What’s Next?