What more do I need to learn about the claim?
Most of those who make paranormal claims are either making it up and scamming people for money or admiration, or if they believe in their powers they refuse to have them tested - either fearing that their claims are too evasive to manifest on a test, or believing that skeptics and the scientific method is corrupt and unable to observe or to understand their abilities. I fall into a rare or otherwise non-existent group of claimants who do not nor desire to scam people or make money with their claim and who are willing to test the claim even if it leads to falsifying it (ie. proving that the claim does not exist). The objective of my investigation is to learn more about the experience that is the claim and to document the process of paranormal investigation and the social phenomena of skeptic-woo interaction, and to ultimately reach a final conclusion in the claim to understand what it is, and what it can or can not do. The goal is not to verify a paranormal claim, but the goal is this investigation itself.

I do not do psychic readings with people other than with Skeptics and as part of this investigation, but that means I have limited experience with this claim, and it is only through experience that I can learn something new about the claim. Every time I do a reading with a Skeptic, I learn something new, since every experience is unique with its own set of health information and other conditions of the reading experience. It is difficult for me to know in advance what more I would like to learn about my claim, because most of the things I do learn are a surprise.

The chart below shows how this investigation progresses and what the possible conclusions can be in this investigation. The first question to be answered is, is the accuracy of my perceptions high enough to imply that my claimed ability is interesting enough and worthy of this investigation? Can I really in a test setting acchieve accurate health perceptions? Because if I can not, or if my perceptions fall within what chance and random guessing would acchieve, then what I am doing or experiencing is not based on any kind of talent at all. If this were the case, I would still be interested in learning about what the processes are that produce these perceptions, and the conclusion would then be that there is an experience, but no ability, and the investigation terminated.

Well, now that I've had the IIG test, I produced results equal to 3.8%, meaning that out of 100 people guessing randomly, 3 or 4 of them would be predicted to guess to the same results as I acchieved, and this was also confirmed by about 50 people at home guessing, and two of them acchieving the same accuracy as me (doubling that gives 4 out of 100). So the accuracy was indeed high enough to allow for further testing. Traditionally, in science any results that fall below the 5% mark are considered worthy of continuation.

In the chart below, I have shaded out the now obsolete option that this not be a talent of any form. Seems that, based on the IIG test results, I may have some form of talent, but this is not a final conclusion. Further testing and with improved test procedures need to answer whether I am doing this by means that are available to all persons or whether I am using something extrasensory. If the answer is that I am using normal means, then it is still true that I have a talent or ability, but that this ability is not based on anything paranormal. The other remaining option is that my accuracy is due to something paranormal.

If my results of 3.8% at the IIG test were due to random guessing and chance and are just the same as when the other two persons out of the total of about 50 who were at home guessing, then this would be evidenced by me acchieving lower results in a next test. Because if this was just the normal flow of statistics which this time happened to put me in the good 3.8%, then it is much much more likely that in a next test I am going to fall within the lower 96.2%. My results in the IIG test were interesting, but in order to somehow conclude that my claim can do as good as that, it will have to produce good results again and consistently.

But we do have the additional thing that I encountered two unforeseen difficulties with the IIG test protocol (described here) that led to reduced performance of the claim. Without those two issues the claim would perform to its normal standard and if those two issues are corrected for in a next test the claim will then actually be able to show what it really can do. It is silly as a claimant to make excuses after a test, but fortunately I made these excuses very clearly and well before the results were established at the test, making these valid excuses to make, and proving them to not be something made "after the fact" or in defense of the claim. They are true excuses, and in spite of these two obstacles I still acchieved results of odds below 5%.

These two excuses are that I have harder to feel into larger persons, and that three 27 minute trials with two 10 minute breaks in between is far too much work and leads to exhaustion that makes the claim unable to perform. These are not silly excuses, and fortunately these can be corrected for in a next test. And with the results of 3.8% odds, the claim is indeed entitled to a next test. The claim will be demonstrated again in the year 2010.

Calling the claim "paranormal" in its investigative stage simply allows it to be processed through skepticism, but it is by no means truly the case of a paranormal occurrence unless proven so. Also, "paranormal" can be thought of as an alternative name for "unexplained". Many paths along the way provide the opportunity to reveal this experience as a normal, not paranormal, occurrence, and I do expect to discover a normal explanation, but it remains still a mystery.

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The James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF)
JREF Paranormal Challenge http://www.randi.org/