Agreed Coal, and this is a pretty murky area, I mean there is a fine line in this area of study, between all the 70s fortean-kitsch, pseudoscientific new age remote influencing stuff (i.e. the much maligned ganzfeld experiment), and simply poorly understood processes of the Human mind. We are though talking about just connections under a broad range of mental phenomenon, little understood scientifically, not necessarily the common perception of the term 'psychic'. That's why I always try and use 'psychical' in place of 'psychic'. I know they pretty much usually denote the same category of phenomena for most people, but it's an attempt at differentiating between an oft flaky, overused and poorly used term, and a term which can cover the gamut of unusual mental processes.
On another note, considering what you said about 'sober people', psychology Professor Dr. Imants Barušs did some interesting experiments a few years ago in this area of thought, (see, Alterations of Consciousness at a Self-Development Seminar: A Matrix Energetics Seminar Survey: Journal of Consciousness Exploration Research, November 2014). Also recommended is his 2013 book, The Impossible Happens: A Scientist's Personal Discovery of the Extraordinary Nature of Reality.
Thanks for posting those, most interesting paper.
It's certainly put together in the 'proper' way, but reading it critically (in the academic sense of the word):
The two previous studies summarised are intriguing, the ‘remote influencing’ is by far the most intriguing part of the paper. More details on the controls and protocol really ought to have been included, so the reader doesn’t have to follow the reference, especially with something as contentious as this and ought to include the proposed hypothesis, underlying proposed mechanism or theory, to explain any positive results.
The rest of the paper is interesting; it's clear about ME, i.e. no-one knows what it really is and the whole thing could be down to one charismatic individual manipulating a crowd. This is stated - then the surveys are not applied to control groups, one might, for example, administer the same surveys to people at an NLP seminar, a Gospel church congregation, a corporate retreat or to a health spa. Or all of those.
There’s no mention of randomisation of the various reporting measures either inter or intra. No randomising = no effect. Questionnaires, even solid proven ones, prime each other in odd and unpredictable ways and so does the order of questions within them.
I'd like to see a replication with strong double blind protocols and controls and a hypothesis and proposed mechanism; otherwise, these types results will always be easily 'dismissible'. If one simply looks for an effect, one is hoping for an effect and confirmation bias will worm its way into the work.
The paper might be summed up as “We propose something happens to people during ME sessions and when we checked it did. It might have been good.”
If those studying such esoteric phenomena wish to be taken seriously they have to really double down on the scientific method, both in the design and administration of the experiment and the reporting of it. Firstly because it's up to the proposer to make their case (in this paper, I submit they haven't) and secondly well meaning people then use such flawed results to implement treatments or social policies, which at best are a huge waste of money and at worst cause insidious harm.
Plus replication, replication, replication. The level of statistical significance p<0.05 is generally acceptable in social psychology and is taken to mean a hypothesis is supported by the results, but it still means that if there was no effect, that result would crop up 1 in 20 times by chance.
I've put the book on the big list of books I gradually acquire and read, although these days the end of the list is gaining on me...