A curated overview of the most important external sources for the serious, scientific engagement with mediumship, near-death experiences and consciousness research – from academic research institutes to peer-reviewed journals and specialised encyclopedias. All links lead to external providers.
Structured overview platforms on consciousness, mediumship and psi research – ideal as an entry point and for research on individual researchers, cases and concepts.
Online encyclopedia maintained by the Society for Psychical Research, with hundreds of thoroughly researched articles on researchers, studies, cases and concepts in consciousness and parapsychology research. The gold standard for research in the field.
Initiative by scientists (including Rupert Sheldrake and Larry Dossey) advocating for an opening of mainstream science toward consciousness and psi phenomena. Access to texts, videos and researcher profiles.
Platform and YouTube series by Jeffrey Mishlove (PhD in parapsychology, UC Berkeley), winner of the 2021 BICS essay competition. Long-form deep interviews with virtually every important researcher in the field – from Schwartz to Beischel to Tressoldi.
Foundation by Dutch-Portuguese philosopher and computer scientist Bernardo Kastrup. One of the most influential addresses for analytic idealism – the thesis that consciousness, not matter, is fundamental. Freely accessible articles, videos, books and online courses at a high intellectual level.
Long-running US public-broadcasting series and website by Robert Lawrence Kuhn (PhD in neuroscience). Thousands of in-depth interviews with scientists, philosophers and theologians on consciousness, the existence of God, death and cosmology – accessible yet intellectually serious. Complementary to New Thinking Allowed.
The official, freely accessible online archive of the CIA containing the declassified files of the Stargate programme (1972–1995). Over 12,000 documents on remote viewing, the SRI experiments by Puthoff and Targ, the operational missions of the Fort Meade viewers (McMoneagle, Buchanan, Smith), the Geller tests, the 1995 AIR final report and internal evaluations. Primary source for everything discussed in our Stargate, SRI and remote viewing blog articles. Free to search and download.
The BIAL Foundation's research portal, opened in 2014: a freely searchable database of every project in psychophysiology and parapsychology funded since 1994 – with project abstracts, keywords, the institutions of the researchers involved, the resulting publications and, where the investigators agree, the final reports. Plus the contributions to the "Behind and Beyond the Brain" symposia and the award-winning works. Results indicate what is indexed in SCOPUS and ISI Web of Science. Anyone wanting to trace what actually came of a grant will find it here rather than in press releases.
Active academic and independent research institutions running their own studies on consciousness, mediumship and near-death experiences.
University-based research unit founded by Ian Stevenson in 1967. Today active with Jim Tucker (reincarnation research), Bruce Greyson (NDE), and Edward & Emily Kelly (consciousness survival). One of the largest databases of exceptional experiences worldwide.
Research centre in Tucson, Arizona, founded in 2008 by Julie Beischel. Quintuple-blind mediumship research, certification of research mediums, and applied research on grief support through afterlife contact.
The German address for consciousness research. Focus areas: experimental parapsychology, anomalistic psychology, and counselling for people with exceptional experiences. The "Model of Pragmatic Information" developed by Walter von Lucadou is one of the field's most original theoretical contributions.
Founded in 1973 by Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell. Research on consciousness, intuition, healing and psi phenomena. Home of Dean Radin, senior scientist and author of several standard works (Entangled Minds, Real Magic).
Belgian research team led by Steven Laureys and Charlotte Martial, using neuroimaging methods to investigate states of consciousness in coma patients and near-death experiencers. Internationally one of the most respected addresses for the neuroscientific study of NDEs.
Historically the most important US laboratory for experimental parapsychology, founded in 1962 as the successor to the parapsychology lab established by J. B. Rhine at Duke University in 1935. Still active today with research, online courses and the publication of the Journal of Parapsychology. The Center also houses the physical archive of over 14,000 spontaneous psi case reports collected and classified by Louisa E. Rhine from the 1940s onward — the largest single dataset of its kind worldwide. The archive is accessible on site in Durham but has not yet been digitised.
International training and conference centre for mediumship at Stansted Hall (Essex), run by the Spiritualists' National Union. Week-long courses with the world's most respected tutors in mediumship, spiritual healing and philosophy. Effectively the "university" of British Spiritualism.
Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) Lab under Robert G. Jahn (Dean of the Princeton School of Engineering) and Brenda Dunne, 1979–2007. Investigated human-machine interactions with random event generators – with highly significant statistical results over nearly 30 years. Continued today by International Consciousness Research Laboratories (ICRL); the full data archive is publicly accessible.
Founded in 1998 by Roger D. Nelson (senior researcher at the PEAR Lab, Princeton), a worldwide network of up to 70 quantum random number generators that registers systematic deviations from chance during major events such as September 11, 2001. Over 500 formal events, cumulative statistics at p ≈ 10⁻¹². Since 2023 transitioning to GCP-2.0 with pre-registration and an expanded network.
Personal website of Dr. Dean Radin (Senior Scientist at IONS), author of standard works such as The Conscious Universe, Entangled Minds and Real Magic. Provides free PDFs of all his peer-reviewed publications, lecture slides, YouTube talks and a blog on current topics in consciousness research.
Research and education centre for expanded states of consciousness founded by Robert Monroe in 1974 in Faber, Virginia. Known for Hemi-Sync audio technology (binaural beats for inducing altered states of consciousness) and the Gateway programme – which was also evaluated by the US Army (the 1983 DIA 'Gateway Process' report is publicly accessible via the CIA archives). Monroe's books Journeys Out of the Body (1971), Far Journeys (1985) and Ultimate Journey (1994) are among the most widely read works on out-of-body experiences.
Interdisciplinary research centre at the University of Arizona in Tucson, founded by Stuart Hameroff. Has hosted the Toward a Science of Consciousness conference series since 1994 – the world's largest and oldest academic consciousness conference. Meeting point for neuroscientists, physicists, philosophers and clinicians. Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff regularly present their Orch-OR theory (Orchestrated Objective Reduction) here. Contributions from David Chalmers, Giulio Tononi, Christof Koch and others.
One of the few university-based parapsychology research units worldwide, established in 1985 from the estate of writer and intellectual Arthur Koestler (1905–1983) and his wife Cynthia. Based in the Department of Psychology at the University of Edinburgh. Research focuses: experimental investigation of anomalous cognition, Ganzfeld experiments, implicit precognition, psychological correlates of anomalous experiences. Key researchers: Robert Morris (founding chair), Caroline Watt (current director).
Counselling and documentation centre founded in 1989 and directed to this day by Walter von Lucadou – for people with exceptional experiences, from poltergeist phenomena and precognitive dreams to after-death contacts. Combines free counselling with the scientific documentation of thousands of cases; the central German-language address in the field.
Paris institute founded in 1919 and state-recognised as being of public utility; its first honorary president was physiology Nobel laureate Charles Richet, who coined the term métapsychique. Still active today with research, lectures and a historical archive spanning from the Palladino and materialisation investigations to the present.
University research centre for spirituality and health founded in 2007 and directed by psychiatrist Alexander Moreira-Almeida – known among other things for the study of 115 psychographing mediums distinguishing mediumistic activity from mental illness. Three research lines: epidemiology of religiosity and health, religious/spiritual experiences, and the history and philosophy of spirituality research.
The lab of critical-care physician Sam Parnia at NYU – by its own description the first research laboratory to combine resuscitation medicine with the question of what happens to the human mind during and after cardiac arrest. Home of the AWARE studies on consciousness and awareness during resuscitation.
The address behind Jeffrey Tarrant's brainwave measurements with mediums, in Eugene, Oregon. Tarrant, a clinical psychologist and board-certified neurofeedback practitioner, runs two arms: the NeuroMeditation Institute for brain-based meditation training and Psychic Mind Science for qEEG investigation of mediumistic and psychic states. This is the source of the measurements on some 20 mediums, healers and psychics documented in his book "Becoming Psychic".
Platforms collecting and documenting near-death experience reports for both experiencers and researchers.
The world's largest collection of near-death experiences, with more than 5,000 detailed reports and a standardised online questionnaire of over 100 items. Freely accessible to experiencers and researchers, multilingual.
The oldest international organisation dedicated to research and support around near-death experiences, founded in 1978 and under this name since 1981. Publisher of the Journal of Near-Death Studies; local support groups worldwide; online conferences.
German-language counterpart to IANDS. Brings together experiencers, relatives and researchers; offers reports, conferences and counselling in the German-speaking world.
US non-profit organisation supporting the bereaved and researching after-death communication. Runs its own medium certification programme (Certified Medium), regular conferences, podcasts and peer-support groups. A practice-oriented counterpart to IANDS.
Peer-reviewed journals in which the central studies on mediumship and consciousness research are published.
Quarterly journal of the SPR, founded in 1884. Publication venue for the Roy/Robertson Glasgow studies and Schwartz's VERITAS papers, among many others. One of the oldest continuously published journals in its field.
Peer-reviewed Elsevier journal at the intersection of science, healing and consciousness research. Publication venue for Beischel's quintuple-blind studies and Tressoldi's mediumship meta-analysis.
The only peer-reviewed journal devoted exclusively to the scientific study of near-death experiences. Published by IANDS; founded in 1981 as Anabiosis – Journal of Near-Death Studies.
One of the oldest peer-reviewed journals in experimental parapsychology, founded in 1937 by J. B. Rhine at Duke University. Today published by the Rhine Research Center.
Peer-reviewed quarterly of the Society for Scientific Exploration, founded in 1987. Publication venue for Stephen Braude's investigations of physical mediumship, Etzel Cardeña's work and numerous remote-viewing studies. One of the few academic journals publishing methodologically rigorous work on frontier phenomena.
Since 1994 the central interdisciplinary forum for the scientific and philosophical debate on consciousness. David Chalmers published his 1995 Hard Problem paper here; contributors include Tononi (IIT), Koch, Penrose and Hameroff (Orch-OR). The bridge between neuroscience, physics and philosophy of mind.
Peer-reviewed bilingual journal of the Gesellschaft für Anomalistik (since 2001) – the German-language journal for parapsychology, exceptional experiences and frontier science, with an open peer commentary section accompanying each main article.
Privately funded foundations that finance a significant share of serious consciousness research worldwide.
Portuguese foundation created in 1994 by the Bial pharmaceutical company and the Council of Rectors of Portuguese Universities. It has funded psychophysiology and parapsychology since 1994 with grants of up to 60,000 euros – 946 approved projects, around 1,900 researchers from 31 countries. A key funder of Beischel's early work at the Windbridge Institute, the EEG study by Delorme and Radin, and the ADC study around Evelyn Elsaesser. Host of the "Behind and Beyond the Brain" symposia since 1996.
Foundation launched in 2021 by US entrepreneur Robert Bigelow. Known for an essay competition with a total of US $1.8 million in prize money on evidence for the survival of consciousness after physical death – the winning essays are freely available.
Founded in 2011 by Federico Faggin (designer of the Intel 4004 microprocessor, National Medal of Technology 2010, Kyoto Prize 1997) and his wife Elvia to fund scientific research into consciousness. Supports projects at the intersection of physics, neuroscience and philosophy of mind – including Giulio Tononi's Integrated Information Theory (IIT). Faggin's book Irreducible (2024) argues that consciousness is fundamental and cannot arise from computation.
Scientific societies that have shaped the field methodologically for up to 140 years and publish member journals.
Founded in London in 1882, the oldest continuously active research society in the field. Co-founders included Henry Sidgwick, Frederic W. H. Myers, and William James. Publisher of the Psi Encyclopedia and the JSPR.
Scottish branch of the SPR, long shaped by Archie Roy and Tricia Robertson. Currently led by Tricia Robertson; organises regular study days and lecture series in Glasgow.
International professional association for parapsychologists, founded in 1957. Since 1969 an affiliated member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) – a notable status in the wider scientific landscape.
Founded in Boston in 1885, the oldest psychical research society in the United States. Now based in New York; maintains its own library, archive, and the Journal of the ASPR.
Umbrella organisation of British Spiritualism, founded in 1901, representing around 350 affiliated Spiritualist Churches in the UK and internationally. Operator of the Arthur Findlay College and custodian of the Seven Principles of Spiritualism.
Founded in 1982 in the US, an international professional association for the study of phenomena that mainstream science treats as "anomalous". Annual conferences, member journal Journal of Scientific Exploration. A bridge between established science and frontier research.
Founded in 1999, an international professional society for remote viewing, emerging from the SRI/Stargate programme community. Members and speakers include former Stargate viewers (Paul Smith, Lyn Buchanan), SRI researchers and active practitioners. Annual conference, archive and introductory material on Coordinate Remote Viewing (CRV) methodology.
International scientists' initiative under the umbrella of the British Scientific and Medical Network. In 2019 it published the widely cited report "Beyond a Materialist Worldview – Towards an Expanded Science", signed by Edward Kelly, Larry Dossey, Etzel Cardeña and others. Argues for an expansion of mainstream scientific methodology to include consciousness phenomena.
Academic society founded in 2017, arising from the Manifesto for a Post-Materialist Science (2014), signed by Mario Beauregard, Gary Schwartz, Larry Dossey, Dean Radin, Rupert Sheldrake, Stephan Schwartz and others. The AAPS organises conferences, awards prizes and connects scientists who consider the materialist paradigm insufficient to explain consciousness, psi phenomena and near-death experiences. Many of the researchers featured in our blog articles are members or signatories.
A curated bibliography of the most important peer-reviewed studies and standard works – with authors, year, venue and a short note. Where we have covered the topic in a dedicated blog, the link is included.
Key publications that have shaped the scientific picture of the near-death experience – from Raymond Moody's founding 1975 book to Pim van Lommel's Lancet study and today's prospective hospital studies.
The founding work of near-death research. Moody coined the term "near-death experience" and described, based on about 150 case reports, the classic core features: tunnel, light, life review, encounters with the deceased.
The first systematic data collection in NDE research: 102 standardised interviews with people after life-threatening events. Ring developed the "Weighted Core Experience Index" – the precursor of the Greyson Scale – and in 1981 co-founded the International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS).
The first cardiological NDE study with a control group. Sabom originally set out to refute Moody's reports and instead introduced the methodological comparison: NDE experiencers described their own resuscitation significantly more accurately than medical laypeople who were merely guessing.
Arguably the most important prospective NDE study ever: 344 resuscitated cardiac-arrest patients across ten Dutch hospitals. 62 reported NDEs. Published in the prestigious Lancet – a methodological and academic milestone.
Greyson's 16-item scale became the methodological standard of NDE research. Every serious subsequent study measures the "depth" of an experience with this scale – the foundation of statistical comparability across the entire field.
Long analysed over 1,600 NDE reports from the NDERF database (now over 5,000). His book consolidates the results into nine "lines of evidence" and is one of the most widely read serious works in the field.
An 800-page work by several DOPS researchers at the University of Virginia. Argues on a broad evidential basis that the materialist model of consciousness cannot explain central phenomena (NDEs, mediumship, precognitive dreams). An academic heavyweight contribution.
A five-year prospective study in a Welsh intensive care unit. One of the few independent replications of the van Lommel method – including documented cases of out-of-body perception verified by nursing staff.
The standard academic handbook of the field. Over three decades of NDE research in one volume – methodology, phenomenology, demographics, after-effects, controversies. Required reference for any serious scientific investigation of the phenomenon. Holden's tally of veridical perceptions within it (107 cases, 92 % completely accurate) is the field's strongest single aggregate finding.
The founding work of deathbed-vision research, published posthumously. Physicist and SPR co-founder Barrett collected reports of the dying seeing deceased persons – including cases where the dying person could not have known of the apparent visitor's death (Peak in Darien).
The major cross-cultural survey of deathbed visions: some 10,000 questionnaires to physicians and nurses in the USA and northern India. Core finding: apparitions of the deceased coming to take the dying away predominate, independent of culture, fever or medication.
Study of 31 blind persons with near-death or out-of-body experiences – including people blind from birth who described visual impressions. Ring and Cooper coined the term mindsight for the phenomenon.
The largest prospective multi-centre study of awareness during cardiac arrest (2,060 cases, 15 hospitals) – including the verified case of a patient whose perceptions during three minutes of resuscitation were confirmed. The planned visual test with hidden targets effectively never took place: hardly any event occurred in rooms fitted with shelves – a shortcoming of the study, not evidence against the reports.
Prospective longitudinal study at Hospice Buffalo: 88% of patients reported at least one end-of-life dream or vision – mostly comforting, increasing in frequency toward death, and clearly distinguishable from delirium.
The central peer-reviewed studies in the experimental investigation of mediums – from Schwartz's VERITAS publications through the Glasgow Study and Beischel's quintuple-blind work to Tressoldi's 2020 meta-analysis.
The key publication of the VERITAS programme at the University of Arizona. Five prominent US mediums were tested with one sitter; their hit rates were clearly above chance. Opened modern university-based mediumship research.
The Glasgow study by Astronomy Professor Archie Roy and Tricia Robertson. Using double- and triple-blind designs, it refutes the Forer hypothesis ("just generalities"). Chance probability of the result: around one in a million.
Beischel's first triple-blind study at the Windbridge Institute. Blinds not only the recipient and the medium but also the experimenter. The methodological leap that was further developed into the quintuple-blind protocol in subsequent studies.
The methods paper behind the Windbridge studies: screening and training of research mediums, the architecture of the blinding, and the scoring of readings. Beischel's central requirement is that a study must achieve two things at once – an environment that does not obstruct the mediumship process, and blinding strict enough to rule out conventional explanations.
The first EEG study of its kind: six certified research mediums went through four mental states – thinking about a known living person, listening to a biography, imagining a fictitious person, and mentally interacting with a deceased person. In all six, electrocortical activity differed significantly between states. The authors remain self-critical: part of the gamma-band difference probably stems from eye and muscle activity. Three of the four mediums evaluated also scored significantly above chance for accuracy.
Two questions in one design: how do mediums experience a reading, and how accurate are their statements when they know neither the sitter nor the deceased and receive no feedback during the session? The study combines phenomenological analysis with accuracy scoring under blinding that goes beyond the usual double-blind standard.
The question of benefit rather than proof: what does a mediumship reading do to grief? The paper places the findings within the continuing bonds model, in which an ongoing relationship with the deceased is part of grief resolution rather than its opposite – the basis of Windbridge's later work on grief support.
The replication and extension of Beischel's original work, now with quintuple blinding – the methodologically strictest setting in all mediumship research. 20 certified mediums, 86 readings, p-values down to 0.0001.
Not the hit rate but the experience: for mediums, what distinguishes contact with a deceased person from a psychic reading about a living one? The content analysis of their reports identifies three overarching themes – preparation, the communication itself, and the experience of it – providing the phenomenological complement to the blinded studies.
Beischel's taxonomy of after-death communication: spontaneous (unexpected and unsought), facilitated (within a guided protocol), assisted (via a medium) and requested (actively asked for). The paper sorts the four types and summarises what is known about their effect on grief – the conceptual groundwork for later ADC research.
The German counterpart to the international mediumship research. Prof. Oliver Lazar (FOM Düsseldorf) studied 243 participants with two mediums – authenticity above 90%, comforting impact 96%. Methodological demarcation from cold reading.
Review article in the flagship journal of the American Psychological Association. Cardeña's conclusion: the evidence for psi is comparable to that for established phenomena in psychology. Cardeña later said this was the most difficult of his 300+ papers to publish.
The meta-analysis of 18 mediumship experiments from 14 peer-reviewed publications between 2001 and 2019. Aggregated combined effect: p < 10⁻⁹. Two tests for publication bias found no signs of selective publishing. The statistical capstone of modern mediumship research.
Neuropsychologist and neurofeedback specialist Tarrant has mapped the brains of some 20 mediums, healers and psychics using quantitative EEG and describes what changes during a session – most notably in the gamma band. An important qualification: the measurements are documented here as a book, not as a blinded study in a peer-reviewed journal; Tarrant's peer-reviewed work lies in technology-assisted meditation. The book is thus the accessible account of a research programme whose controlled precursor is the EEG study by Delorme and Radin.
The study of 115 psychographing mediums in São Paulo: high social functioning and low prevalence of mental disorders – mediumistic experiences could not be equated with dissociative or psychotic diagnoses.
SPECT study of ten Brazilian psychography mediums: in the experienced mediums, activity in language and planning areas decreased during trance writing even though the resulting texts were more complex than in the waking state – the opposite of what deliberate composition would predict.
Systematic investigations into poltergeist phenomena and recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis (RSPK) – from the classic Freiburg case collections to modern theoretical models.
Quantitative-statistical meta-study from the environment of Hans Bender's chair at the University of Freiburg. Huesmann and Schriever analysed 253 poltergeist cases from the IGPP archives covering 1947–1986 both quantitatively and qualitatively – phenomena, focal persons, witnesses, documentation quality. The statistical fingerprint: 91% acoustic phenomena, 70% object movements, 29% electrical disturbances, apparitions under 10%. Focal persons predominantly adolescents in puberty (girls averaging 11, boys 13 years). The majority of cases lasted less than three months; intensity followed a bell curve.
Books that each summarise an entire research field – written by leading researchers themselves. Well suited as an entry point or for deeper reading.
The standard work on the historical investigation of mediumship. Gauld, Cambridge psychologist and SPR historian, applies methodologically strict scrutiny to the classic case databases – Mrs. Piper, Mrs. Leonard, the Cross-Correspondences. Cited in practically every serious subsequent work on mediumship.
Van Lommel's comprehensive presentation – the book-length expansion of his 2001 Lancet study. Combines the Dutch cardiac-arrest study with neuroscience, quantum physics and a hypothesis of non-local consciousness. A classic of cardiological consciousness research and one of the most influential NDE books overall.
More than four decades after "Mediumship and Survival", Gauld presents the deepened and updated comprehensive treatment of the heyday of mental mediumship. Detailed analyses of the classic cases – Mrs. Piper, Mrs. Leonard, the Cross-Correspondences – at the current state of research. The definitive update to his 1982 standard work.
Greyson's life-work summary from four decades of university NDE research at the University of Virginia (DOPS). Weaves his own cases, studies and personal reflections into a generally accessible overall picture – arguably the most readable serious book on near-death experience in recent years.
The systematic study of children who seem to remember previous lives – founded by Ian Stevenson at the University of Virginia and continued there to this day.
The foundation of reincarnation research: twenty meticulously documented cases of children whose statements about a previous life could be verified. Established the research programme that now comprises over 2,500 cases at the University of Virginia (DOPS).
Laboratory research on telepathy, clairvoyance and remote perception – from the 1970s SRI programme to modern meta-analyses.
The SRI paper in Nature: the two laser physicists report experiments on remote perception under sensory shielding, including the 1972/73 Uri Geller series. One of the most debated publications in the field – complete with controversial accompanying editorials.
Do you know an important source that is missing here? Let us know via the feedback form.