Christine A. Simmonds-Moore
Psychology Department
Liverpool Hope University,
UK
This presentation explores survival related experiences from a qualitative perspective, with a particular focus on spontaneous and unexpected survival experiences, which may occur outside of their usual contexts. It is noted that transpersonal research methods (see Braud & Anderson 1998 ) may be adopted to employ open interviews and flexibility for inclusion of experiential elements within them (e.g., mediums and healers "reading" or "working on" ther interviewer) and allow for greater insight into the experience being investigated. Subjective paranormal phenomena may be explored through such interviews, which address survival-relevant experiences alongside other paranormal phenomena. This allows for understanding as to how various types of paranormal experience cluster together, as well as the characteristics of those who report such phenomena. It also allows for an expansion of our understanding of personality concepts such as boundary thinness (see Hartmann, 1991), for example, the way in which personality and survival relevant experiences have evolved across a life-time.
Interviews may be added into traditional laboratory research, e.g., as undertaken recently on a research project exploring healing (Palmer, Bauman, Simmonds & Drucker, 2005). It is noted that such mixed design approaches, incorporating proof, process and phenomenological elements to laboratory experiments have and will continue to develop a greater understanding of a wide variety of paranormal phenomena, including those relevant to the survival question. The author draws upon work undertaken with people reporting a range of psychic experiences; those working as psychic healers and those working as mediums. Traditional "categories" of subjective paranormal experiences are often blurred and experiences suggestive of survival do seem to manifest outside of their "usual" context. For example, in the Palmer et al. (2005) healing study, it was found that healers working in a variety of traditions frequently described employing methods of channeling light alongside experiencing apparitions of deceased spiritual entities whilst executing their healing methodology. Likewise, one participant reported that she often experienced spontaneous mediumship phenomena whilst working on her clients. Often, the healer did not initially understand who the apparition was, and later realized the apparition was associated with a deceased person. In recent interviews with mediums, it was also found that healing experiences or training were not uncommon in their life histories. The author also describes future work, whereby varieties of psychokinetic experiences, in particular those apparently related to survival (e.g., see Alvarado, 2006) will be explored qualitatively.