Researching Spirit Mediums with Mark Boccuzzi (4K Reboot)

Summary

Parapsychologist Mark Boccuzzi of the Windbridge Research Center joins Jeffrey Mishlove to discuss more than a decade of scientific research into spirit mediums. He explains how modern secular mediums report being able to tell the difference between psychic information from the living and communication from the dead, which leads his team to lean toward the survival hypothesis over super-psi explanations. The conversation covers blood and brain studies of mediums, a surprising link between mediumship, childhood trauma, and autoimmune disease, and whether mediumship readings can help people suffering from traumatic grief.

Key takeaways

• 1Julie Beischel's path into mediumship research began after her mother's suicide and is described in her book 'Among Mediums'
• 2Boccuzzi and Beischel met at the 2005 Parapsychology Summer Study Program run by the Rhine Research Center and the Institute of Noetic Sciences, founded the Windbridge Institute in 2008, and spun off the Windbridge Research Center in 2017
• 3Windbridge uses a 'Test for Anomalous Information Reception' protocol and reports that some mediums give accurate, specific information about the deceased under blinded conditions
• 4The 'HemePhys' study found no blood or physiological differences between mediumship readings and control readings, but mediums reported higher rates of autoimmune disease and childhood trauma
• 5An EEG study suggested mediumship activity in the brain looks different from perception, fabrication, and recollection, which argues against simple cold reading or memory-based fraud
• 6Boccuzzi used thermal imaging to document physical mediums in darkness without adding energy to the seance room
• 7Roughly 30% of Americans may have had an after-death communication experience
• 8Forever Family Foundation co-founder Robert Ginsberg reported that only about 15% of mediums who applied passed his organization's certification
• 9Windbridge favors a 'Sitter's Bill of Rights' and the 'continuing bonds' grief model over certifying mediums

Glossary terms

Source

Transcript excerpt

we were able to do in our research with modern american secular mediums was to ask them about their experience during mediumship readings now previously traditional mediums back in victorian era and earlier would go into full trance so they couldn't really tell you much about their experience that's not the case for most american modern secular mediums and although there are still full trans mediums out there they're not the group that we that we study specifically and so when you ask them about their experience they can tell the difference between information they're receiving psychically from a living agent or a living and and communication from the deceased and we've explored that through a number of ways looking at the mediums phenomenology and experience using a number of different protocols compared to can like mediumship reading versus control conditions and things like that keep watching to learn more the new thinking aloud magazine issue 10 on ufos and uap is now ready for free download and you can also order beautiful printed copies go to newthinkingallowed.org new thinking aloud is presented by the california institute for human science a fully accredited university offering distant learning graduate degrees that focus on mind body and spirit the topics that we cover here we are particularly excited to announce new degrees emphasizing parapsychology and the paranormal visit their website at cihs.edu book four in the new thinking aloud dialogue series is charles t tart 70 years of exploring consciousness and parapsychology now available on amazon thinking aloud conversations on the leading edge of knowledge and discovery with psychologist jeffrey mishlove hello and welcome i'm jeffrey mishlove today we'll be looking at researching spirit mediums my guest is mark bokuzzi who is the co-founder with his wife julie bischel of the windbridge...

Excerpt from New Thinking Allowed, Aug 18, 2026. Rights remain with the original creators. Hear the full episode at the source.