VFF response:
The problem is, that I based my choice to begin to investigate on what is termed as "anecdotes"; personal experiences with the claim which did not occur under circumstances in which they could have been documented to be turned into formal evidence. I was having the health perceptions for many years, until interesting cases of accuracy started adding up.
Things such as meeting a coworker for the first time and instantly seeing a huge clear image of internal reproductive cysts. The experience was just like if you are in a quiet room and suddenly without warning someone turns the TV on and it is loud and clear and the volume is on really high. A totally overwhelming experience. I just wanted to blurt out "internal cysts!" but had to restrain myself. And so it would be, every time I would see her, the loud images would be there. Knowing of course that my images are to be considered subjective and also that I have no right to inquire with her about her personal health, I never said anything. About a month later she confided in us that she was scheduled for surgery to remove internal reproductive cysts.
Experiences like these, and this one in particular, rightfully so made me curious. I am quite sure most people would become curious if it happened to them. But what I'm both proud and relieved of, is that I've always had a sense of distancing from these perceptions, ie. that they are not an automatic and immediate sense of my reality, I do not hold them as real, and even as there seems to be accuracy I can still step back from them and say that I need more data in order to be sure. And to be honest, the experience I have of when an image of internal tissues pops up in my head, is quite similar to daydreaming, or feeling things when I listen to music. It's not like I think it is real. It just is and I've come across interesting cases of accuracy, so I am curious.
So I begun to investigate, and in the process of having a study I did a reading on FACT skeptics during which I identified that one was missing a left kidney. I did not write that down because my logic could not possibly believe in it and was interfering, and therefore it remains an anecdote and not supported by formal evidence. And on a lady FACT skeptic I knew she was missing her uterus, because I was seeing just dark and lack of the vibrational pattern that I would otherwise feel from there, and normally the uterine tissue is one of the clearest ones I see, in a pretty pink and red color. Also an anecdote, the reading was done in a hurry after a meeting and no proper documentation was in place. It is things like these, that further compel me to investigate.
I consider a wide range of possible normal explanations. Perhaps I am remembering the hits, and forgetting the misses? But if I were simply guessing my way to these very specific ailments, it should be pretty hard to guess right on these and there should in addition be a large amount of incorrect guesses. And the incorrect guesses should be remarkable, describing all forms of various similarly specific, and hidden internal information. And there should be more misses than hits, statistically speaking. But where are they?
Perhaps, then, I am simply remembering it wrong. Selective memory, or confirmation bias. But for one thing, I must praise myself a little bit for having an excellent memory. I make all A's in college. If I was the type of person prone to false memory and false beliefs and for forgetting things, I am quite sure I would not be doing so well with difficult coursework which requires specific and verbatum recollection. Somewhere along there, would have been reflected my lack of memory or of having inconsistencies appearing into my memories and beliefs. Some of these defects would also have shown in the other parts of my life, such as in my work as a practical nurse. Would I not be forgetting things, or remembering things wrong? Yet I am a very reliable and skilled worker. And in my personal life, I would surely have people telling me that I forgot to do something, or that my memory of things was wrong, yet it doesn't happen. I am being quite honest about this, my recollection is one of the more reliable cases.
Alright then, what if I am lying? That is why I have tests whose results are documented to form formal evidence. I can not prove that my past anecdotes are not lies, if I could then they would not be anecdotes they would be formal evidence. But one of the main reasons why there is such a discrepancy between what internet-skeptics think and what I think, is the anecdotes. My anecdotes play part in my own assessment of this claim, yet the anecdotes are not available to others. That is why this is more compelling to me, than to others. Meanwhile, there is one further anecdote which has the potential of being turned into formal evidence. I did a reading on a well-known skeptic which went very well, so well in fact that it is yet another of those experiences I have had of the claim that compel me to further investigate. I hope to make this one available as formal evidence soon. I did something that I can not explain.
It is important to note that even I discard most of my experiences with the claim. It takes quite a lot to impress me. As you see me saying in the video where I accurately read that a TAM skeptic had anxiety and palpitations, rather than say "look I got it right!" I say "this is not evidence for the claim, as there could have been external symptoms". Anything that could have come with external symptoms, or anything involving people whom I have known before and interacted with is not the least bit impressive to me and is not added into my list of anecdotes that make this interesting. It takes things like, missing internal organs, knowing that a person has eaten a Lactobacillus supplement, describing a specific symptomless viral disease, to get my attention.
Alright, so what could explain those cases where I identify something that I simply should not have known? It doesn't matter, because there are too many possible interfering factors. As a student of chemistry I like to have my research subjects in the lab where I can control the factors and testing conditions. I would not do a chemistry experiment outdoors or in the kitchen where I can not control and regulate the temperature and other factors that may affect the subject under study. My initial reason to begin to investigate was based on prior anecdotes, and I mean the impressive ones like knowing stuff that I shouldn't have been able to know. So, if you allow that I thought I saw or experienced something that was interesting then allow the fact that I begun to investigate.
The issue here then is, why do I continue? Why am I still wanting to have additional tests? After all, I failed two tests already? Well, that is where skeptics and scientists divide. I certainly hope that the JREF makes Dr. Massimo Pigliucci's TAM8 lecture available to all, where he discusses why exactly a skeptic is not automatically a scientist, and why just by being a "critical thinker" does not qualify a skeptic to conduct scientific research as a scientist. Sadly I am not only a paranormal claimant but I am also a double-major science student, and that makes for a lot of frustrations as my goals are not skeptical debunking, but scientific exploration.
So let's look at the IIG test. Why did I want to have another test after I failed that one? Bear with me here, because I want to explain this. I am testing my perceptions, right? I am testing what the accuracy is in the perceptions that I have. In order to test the perceptions for their accuracy, I first need to have a perception. The claim is, and always has been, that "I claim that when I perceive health information of a person, that perception would be accurate. I do not claim that I would be able to sense every bit of health information considered to be in every person, or that I would perceive something in every person." This was how my claim was stated right from the very start with the IIG some three years ago. I never claimed to know everything and every time and in every person, but that when I did see something, when it did kick in, that information would be accurate.
It's like if you want to test how high a person can jump. They would have to jump first. If their leg hurts or if they are not feeling well that day then they will tell you that and they will ask to be tested later. If I am not getting a perception from a specific set of people and I make that clear during the test, and not afterwards, then that does not speak for the claim at all. There was no perception to be tested for accuracy.
The specific set of people in trial 1 were very difficult for me to feel into. I spent ages on # 12, eventually having to go through his ureters and work my way up to the kidneys; I could not sense through his back! Of course I was not allowed to speak during the trial, but as soon as that trial was over I was complaining during the entire break to all the IIG staff about how I knew my answer would be wrong. How would I know it was wrong? Because I had not formed a perception that I was confident in.
To test the perceptions for their accuracy, a perception has to occur. I can not hold the inaccuracy of trial 1 against my claim, because I made the complaint that it was not representative of my claim during the test, and not afterwards once the results had been established. And if the IIG would dare to release the video footage from during the break, not the live UStream one where the sound was cut off, it would be even more clear how I knew my answer in trial 1 would be wrong.
But I had agreed to a test protocol!, the skeptics will say. Well, once again that shows how skeptics are not scientists. Before you conduct a science experiment, you sit and think through the hypothesis and the procedure and theoretically come up with a procedure. You might need to make an initial assessment of various testing parameters first, which is what I did with my study. But when you run an experiment you always allow the discovery of yet new parameters not foreseen during the initial planning stages. In fact, it is your job as the scientist to critically analyze the test results and to do your best to find any possible additional factors, even if it is just a hunch! And then you go back there and redo the experiment, tweaking one parameter at a time.
Let me give a concrete example. I was working on the study of a colloidal silica compound which was doped with a nitrogen compound, giving the compound luminescent properties, which means that it absorbs and then re-emits light, appearing to be glowing. The synthesis was a lengthy multistep process, and achieving fluorescence (short-term luminescence, the glowing ends when the UV-light is turned off) at the end was fairly easy. But what I wanted to do was to study phosphorescent samples (where the glowing would last some time even after the UV-lamp was turned off, kind of like glow in the dark stars). Ones had been synthesized, and I was following the procedure very carefully, yet I never obtained any phosphorescence.
I was very disheartened, wondering what part of the procedure was I not adequately trained in to be performing it properly. Well, basically my hypothesis was to obtain phosphorescent material. I had a procedure. And it failed. Did I give up? A chemist does not give up at this point, that's when they start thinking. I redid the same procedure, each time more carefully, and still was not obtaining the desired phosphorescence in the product. So I begun to look at the parameters. I chose two parameters in the procedure and tweaked them one at a time in its own series of additional experiments. In one set, I varied the amount of one of the ingredients added. Still no phosphorescence. In the other set, I varied the amount of time that the compound spends in the oven. Still no phosphorescence. By that time, the time in my lab was ending and I never did obtain the desired result which had been reported by a previous scientist. Turns out, not even the professor or a graduate student was able to obtain phosphorescence by following the procedure. It remains a mystery.
The moral of the story is that this is how scientific research is done. You do not make one procedure alone and run one series of tests and conclude. You investigate possible sources of error, you try those assumptions, test the parameters, and reconsider. The final outcome and conclusion is obtained after a lot of work, and different approaches, and typically the end result is not a 100% yes or no answer, rather it is a description of a chemical behavior, how it behaves, under what conditions, rather than an all-exclusive yes or no trying to say what it is in a simple sentence.
I could have concluded that I was a bad chemist and that the procedure really works, but turns out it was not me it was the procedure. Thing is, phosphorescence has been obtained (and we know that since there are still samples available in the lab which exhibit this behavior), but the procedure allowing it to manifest has not been adequately defined.
Well, chemistry has a lot to teach about how to handle a scientific research hypothesis. All skeptics are interested in, is one simple test to say yes or no, either 100% correct or nothing at all. Problem is, they are looking for a superpower magic psychic ability that works always and under all conditions. Real-life phenomena that are based on human performance never behave that way.
And in the third trial I was exhausted. I managed to pick the person, but as I say in the video of the test before the results were established I had to guess on the side. And as we all know by now, I had the right person, but the wrong side. Is exhaustion not a valid excuse? When it is made during the test and not after? I wrote it down in my papers, many times and in many ways, that I was tired and that the claim was not performing.
Test protocols are designed as best as they can before the test is conducted. After a test it is permitted and good protocol to look back and find ways of improving the test to better allow the phenomenon under study to manifest. Additional tests always enhances the result, even if all they would end up doing was confirming and reinforcing the previous result. When the claim does not manifest, such a trial does not speak for or against the claim. And when I am tired, and the claim is not manifesting, that can not be held against the claim. Because there are so many times when it does manifest, when I make very clear and compelling perceptions, and that is when I make no excuses, that is when there are no excuses. Those are the cases I want the claim to be evaluated by. And my confidence comes during the test, not after once the results have been revealed. So there.
If my claim was that I could not only do this, but that I could also do this all the time and under all possible conditions, then by all means the fact that I experienced issues in trial 1 and 3 would hold against the claim.
What is interesting, is that when I had a very clear, compelling, and consistent perception in trial 2, so clear that I said many times during the break after that trial that this trial represented the very best of what my claim tries to do and that if I were wrong the claim would be falsified, I was right in that trial. And that I was right on the person in trial 3 and had been confident of that. All this meant, was that I wanted to learn from this test, take these two issues into account in a future test protocol, and try again.
If you are a scientist, which skeptics are not, and you run a test, and if you for any reason whether based on observable reasons or by merely suspecting it, you think that a testing parameter is disturbing with the test, you will run the test again, having addressed that parameter in the next test. Just to find out. Just out of curiosity, or actually scientific necessity - you have to do that. A testing procedure is hardly ever finalized right away in the science lab, it just isn't that simple or ideal. And if the hypothesis fails under the first test, trying out another test is not "cheating"; its results are valid too. And if falsification is the only possible outcome, then any other tests will only reinforce that.
But if you are a skeptic, all you want is for a psychic claimant to agree to a test, any test, of their claim. To go ahead and have that test, and to fail to achieve the 100% accuracy that would win them the title of super psychic and a huge cash prize. One chance a year is all you get. If something unexpected goes wrong, so what, a super psychic ability should be able to overcome that. And if you've just had an hour already of intense concentration and are nearly having an epileptic seizure and the claim is no longer manifesting, too bad. You're supposed to be able to do it all the time, under any conditions. Isn't that what psychic means? It's not like we're testing some actual human skill - it's magic!
Skeptics are valuable in that they identify issues that help in strengthening a test protocol and they offer to set up tests. But they are not scientists. Dr. Massimo Pigliucci's lecture talk would fit nicely right about here.
So I had another test. At TAM. So what? Why is that so bad? If my claim is headed toward falsification, meaning that there is no ability above chance in detecting hidden health information, than another test would only be able to arrive at that result. What skeptics don't understand, and probably never will, is that additional tests can only reinforce the true result. They seem to think that psychics are up to no good. The IIG sent Mark Edward to keep a very close watch on me throughout the test. Mark is a skilled mentalist and former psychic fraud and he was there to look closely at me to see whether I was doing any tricks that might help me cheat or win. It seems, almost, as if skeptics are afraid to let psychics be tested again. What if this time they succeed with their trick. Or, skeptics will think that having another test means that I am challenging or dismissing the IIG test results. What skeptics don't understand is that more tests is a good thing. If my claim does not work, further tests will emphasize that. More tests is good!
Can you blame me for wanting to have another test after IIG? Am I mentally ill for thinking that my results were "interesting"? Other people have told me they were interesting. My results were the highest than ever before for any paranormal test.
The TAM test went really well. It had only five people, and I did not get tired this time like at the third trial in the IIG test. Isn't that wonderful? Maybe it means that I am not all about excuses, maybe it means that my excuse of fatigue in the third trial of the IIG test was a valid excuse? Maybe I really was tired in the third trial of the IIG test? Why not test the claim when it works? Fortunately I can say whether it is manifesting or not, during the test and not afterwards. If I couldn't, if I could only assess whether it worked or not after the results have been announced, then it would not be a testable claim. Or I would be lying.
There were ten possible kidney spaces among the five people of the TAM test. I managed to see a kidney in eight of those ten. Pretty good, don't you think? In seven out of those eight I saw a kidney many times and very clearly. So the difference between seeing, and not seeing, was in these cases very large. It is not like I am vague about my answers, saying that "maybe I saw a kidney here" and "maybe I didn't see a kidney here". Where I saw a kidney I saw it many times and repeatedly.
How do I see a kidney? When I look at the person's back, I am feeling a vibrational landscape across them. It is like a detailed shimmer, that I feel. Across the outline of what will look like a kidney, the shimmer is dense and defines the shape of a kidney. It feels dense and heavy. When I don't feel a kidney, there is the absence of this feeling. It feels empty instead. In one of the eight, person # 1 left side, I only saw the kidney once and weakly.
In two out of ten I never saw a kidney. My first choice was not the target, my second one would have been. I think that's interesting. So let me have another test. What do the skeptics think I am doing? Guessing? Lucky guesses? If that is all there is to it, then let me do another test and the odds say that I am most likely to guess wrong that time. If I make two choices out of ten that is odds of 1 in 5 of the target being among those two. If I have one test and the target is among my two there was a 1 in 5 chance of succeeding by guessing. But look at this, then in another test it is a 4 in 5 chance of guessing it wrong! Shouldn't skeptics be thrilled about the prospects of seeing me get it wrong next time?
LightinDarkness says: "I think the fact that Anita believes she must "feel" like she is mentally ill to actually have some sort of problem is the largest indicator of where her "abilities" originate from (that would be mental delusions, not paranormal superpowers)." I don't believe anything. I don't know what this is. And why are you so convinced that I think I have paranormal superpowers? All I am saying is that when I look at people I see images of health information, and that I have experienced interesting cases of accuracy. And the reason I don't "feel" mentally ill is because the perceptions in themselves are not a mental illness. Everyone is entitled to what ever it is that they experience in their heads. What distinguishes between healthy or not is what it does. The perceptions do not harm me. They are not frightening, I do not experience them as part of reality. They are impressions, just like when I see that the number 3 is orange. I also do not hurt anyone else with them. I do not tell people about what I see, other than to skeptics when I am doing testing with them to check for their accuracy. There is nothing about the perceptions or with what I do with them that makes them a mental illness. I still believe you are using these accusations as a form of insult disguised in meaning to help, simply because skeptics do not like paranormal claimants. You do not have the tolerance to let someone have their own experience, and you are afraid that I would start to practice psychic readings and charge people money for it. Where is your evidence of that? I am entitled to my perceptions, I do not regard them as a psychic ability, and all I am doing is testing them to learn more about them.
And there are no "abilities". There is a "claim". And the claim does not come from mental delusions, the claim comes from actual experiences with the claim and its accuracy.
LightinDarkness: "As you point out, that is the point of why people have mental health issues - if they realized something was wrong, it wouldn't be a problem to begin with. Mental illnesses are predominately characterized by those suffering from them not knowing that anything is wrong..which is why its a problem." What exactly is wrong? I see perceptions, and I investigate them. Why is any of that wrong?
LightinDarkness: "Either Anita knows this and is simply trying to grab attention or shes mentally ill...or both." Or she has experienced interesting cases of accuracy with her perceptions and is trying to investigate it with skeptics because skeptics offer to test claims of the paranormal, ie. experiences that seem to lack a normal explanation and that require testing in order to find out. I am not doing this for attention, don't you see that I have a real and very interesting claim here? And you skeptics offer to be available to paranormal claimants to test and discuss their claims, meanwhile you seem to rather just want to debunk, ridicule, and insult?
I am not mentally ill. The perceptions themselves are not a mental illness. They are like synesthesia, and people are entitled to such experiences. And none of what I do with my perceptions is mental illness. I chose to begin to investigate because I thought there was accuracy, yet I understood that there are other possible explanations such as selective memory or external clues that could have led to the perceptions to depict accurate information and that is why I wanted to test this. And now after experiences during the study and after two tests I still find the accuracy high enough to indicate that there is something to this. The accuracy is higher than it should be.
LightinDarkness: "But we can at this point rule out any supernatural powers due to her IIG failure." You can not conclude on anything after the IIG test. There were two valid complications with the procedure that impaired on my perceptions. How was I supposed to know that not all people are as easy for me to feel into? I had not felt into that many people before during the study. And I didn't expect to be so exhausted after an hour. I made those excuses during the test. Not after. And they are valid excuses to make.
And my answer in the TAM test was accurate. It just had a poor precision. I will have another test, and I am not mentally ill.
