Navigating the Out-of-Body Experience

by Graham Nicholls

  In this chapter, I will explore the differences between healthy, inquiring skepticism and the popular movement. I will keep this investigation focused on those who deal with the out-of-body experience as we explore what they say and whether they and their views hold up in any real sense. As many writers have noted, the best evidence for the OBE will no doubt come from your own exploration, yet I also believe that we need the tools to assess those experiences, and that’s exactly what a scientific and skeptical understanding can help us do.

  You may have read reports in the press over the last few years claiming that out-of-body experiences are illusory, and that they can be easily produced via brain stimulation. In fact, despite these reports in popular press such as Time magazine, New Scientist, the New York Times, and others, there has never been a convincing replication of an OBE in the laboratory. Even if there had been, I would wonder if this would mean as much to our understanding of the subject as has been claimed. A hallucinatory experience does not, logically speaking, disprove the existence of the object of the hallucination. For example, if I hallucinate that a car just drove by my upstairs window, it does not follow that cars do not exist! Unfortunately, popular or media skepticism relies heavily on this logical fallacy. Skeptics will demonstrate that a similar experience or event can be created by trickery or psychological means as a tool to convince uninformed members of the public that all psychic phenomena must therefore be false. This blind spot in their reasoning shows that we are not simply dealing with a different take on the evidence, which is valid and acceptable, but instead a clear and obvious bias. While I believe that media skepticism has a role to play when dealing with charlatans such as fake mediums and others, it can hinder our understanding if explanations are offered for phenomena prematurely.

  The Skeptical Community

  The popular skeptical community is not simply a grouping of individuals supporting scientific understanding; it is an active, organised network engaged in activism with the aim of silencing or attacking those they deem to be on the side of superstition and ignorance while also rejecting scientific investigation of psychical phenomena. The mantra of this movement is “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” usually credited to Carl Sagan.2

  Yet where does this quote originate and what does it really mean? Sagan actually borrowed this phrase from Marcello Truzzi, a sociologist and prominent skeptic who had a far more careful understanding of genuine skepticism. His version reads, “When such claims are extraordinary, that is, revolutionary in their implications for established scientific generalizations already accumulated and verified, we must demand extraordinary proof.”3 Ironically, Truzzi turned against many of the media skeptics and came to view them as “pseudoskeptics,” to use his term. He believed that those who dispute the reality of fields such as out-of-body experiences or psychic abilities are also making a claim and must therefore, by scientific standards, also prove it: “If a critic asserts that there is evidence for disproof, that he has a negative hypothesis—saying, for instance, that a seeming psi result was actually due to an artifact—he is making a claim and therefore also has to bear a burden of proof.”4

  This is an important point, as popular skepticism often operates by hiding behind the “burden of proof,” which is always on the claimant in science. Truzzi shows here that this burden is also on those who make negative claims. He points out that reliance on an “artifact” or unknown factor, as a way of dismissing evidence, is not valid and is actually unscientific.

  Next we’ll look at three key individuals promoting skeptical arguments against the objectivity of out-of-body experiences.

  Susan Blackmore

  The most well-known skeptic of out-of-body experiences may be Susan Blackmore, a British writer and lecturer who studied psychology and physiology at Oxford University and gained a Ph.D. in parapsychology from the University of Surrey. She now spends most of her time writing and speaking on subjects related to consciousness, but for many years was prominent, especially on British television, offering possible explanations for various psychic phenomena.

  Blackmore’s interest in parapsychology began as a university student when she had a cannabis-induced episode that included several elements in common with out-of-body and near-death experiences. In her 1996 book, In Search of the Light, she describes experiencing a whole range of complex phenomena, such as a dark tunnel and flying over vast distances. However, there were many questionable elements to the experience. For example, she states that she was able to communicate with others present in the room at the time. This is very suggestive to me that her experience was more of a hallucination than a full OBE. I find this unsurprising since it was the result of both drug use and an evening of highly suggestive paranormal discussion.

  Regardless of the subjectivity of Blackmore’s experience, it is clear it had a profound impact on her and led to a desire to explore, and even prove, the validity of psychic phenomena. She began a series of experiments in areas such as telepathy over an approximately two-year period. Based on her consistent failure in these experiments, she came to the conclusion that out-of-body experiences, and psi abilities in general, were false.

  I do believe that this rejection of psi was a genuine shift in her belief system, as she was unable to obtain the positive results in her psychic experiments that others were getting. However, some such as Chris Carter,5 an expert on the skeptical community, believe it was her own failings as a scientist that resulted in a misguided conclusion. In fact, she admits that her experiments were poorly designed. In a reply to Rick Berger’s critical examination of her experiments, she said, “I am glad to be able to agree with his final conclusion— ‘that drawing any conclusion, positive or negative, about the reality of psi that is based on the Blackmore psi experiments must be considered unwarranted.’ ”6

  So what are we to make of Blackmore’s position? She states on the one hand that it was her investigation of psychic phenomena that convinced her these areas are not real, but on the other hand, when challenged she admits that her own work cannot be the basis of any conclusions.

  We are forced to be very careful when taking her opinions as anything other than personal. This is highlighted by her lack of awareness of much of the current (and earlier) research. In a lecture by her that I attended in 2008, she stated that she had never read the major U.S. military remote viewing research, commonly known as the Stargate material, when it was made available. She stated that she was so disillusioned with parapsychology at that point, she decided to not read it.7 Further, in an interview with Alex Tsakiris in 2010, she admitted that her ideas were now fifteen years out of date with regard to near-death experience research.8 This would not be an issue since she has left the field, but her ideas are still widely referenced.

  Blackmore also wrote a book on OBEs, Beyond the Body (1983), in which she explored the then-current evidence. Although very in-depth in many ways (and I do agree with some of her conclusions), it did leave out much of the evidence in favour of nonlocal consciousness. It also drew conclusions based on a lack of evidence, as unfortunately there has been very little research devoted specifically to out-of-body experiences. So at best we can say that her book went some way to dispel some myths about the nature of OBEs, but was ultimately limited by a lack of specific research to draw upon.

  Blackmore’s main theory to explain the out-of-body experience is that it is a form of sleep paralysis and therefore illusory. Although I must state I have never personally experienced sleep paralysis or paralysis as part of the process of having an OBE, it seems that a very few people do experience this, as Blackmore points out in her paper on the subject: “In surveys, Green found that 5 percent of OBErs reported paralysis at some stage, and Poynton found 7 percent.”9 This seems to me a very low percentage on which to base a theory.

  Blackmore further describes sensations, such as buzzing, humming, and vibrations. These are very vague t
erms, and of course it is common that such descriptions are vague, but that leads me to conclude we can draw very little from them. Blackmore states, “These results suggest that there is considerable overlap between the two experiences of OBEs and sleep paralysis.”10 Yet, although there is “overlap,” it is a long way from offering an explanation or drawing the conclusion that these experiences are in the brain alone, and that there is no objective factor. To do that, the findings of NDE researchers and the objective evidence from other areas of psi research would need to be addressed. I also feel that a more precise exploration of the descriptions of both out-of-body experiencers and those undergoing sleep paralysis would be needed to really determine whether or not there is a relationship between the two.

  So what can we take away from Blackmore’s work? While I think that her opinions are as honest as any individual’s can be, and her willingness to sometimes admit when she is wrong is admirable, there are two main problems for me with her position and conclusions. First, her research was discredited by her own admission and, second, she is simply one individual. There are many researchers who have gained consistent, significant, and positive results in psychic experiments and continue to do so. That is an example of why science doesn’t base its conclusions on one person’s research. If it did, a vocal individual like Blackmore might be enough to convince many that something untrue was in fact true. I feel this may be exactly what has happened within the skeptical community with Blackmore; we have someone who admits her work was flawed and her knowledge outdated, yet she is still quoted as a leading expert in areas such as the near-death experience, despite the fact that she gave up parapsychology some fifteen years ago.

  Olaf Blanke

  Olaf Blanke is a Swiss medical doctor with a Ph.D. in neurophysiology, the study of the function of the nervous system. This led him to the study of self consciousness, or how our understanding and awareness of ourselves is constructed. This includes how we are conscious of the position and activities of the body in space. For example, I know where my hands are as I write these words, I’m aware of the feeling of them typing, and my visual sense matches what I feel. In Blanke’s research, the aim is to understand how all of this sensory information is put together. This led to experiments that attempt to alter our sensory awareness, essentially by tricking the mind through technology such as virtual reality or stimulation of the temporal lobes of the brain; some believe the latter causes experiences that resemble mystical or paranormal visions.

  Blanke’s work has been extensively quoted by the press as proving that out-of-body experiences are “all in the mind.”11 Yet a simple review of his work reveals that he is one of the key scientists relying upon the logical fallacy that producing a hallucination or illusion disproves something about the object of the hallucination or illusion. As I explained earlier, this is simply not the case. What Blanke’s work actually shows is that the brain can be tricked or manipulated so that it becomes confused about the position of the body or limbs in space. It tells us little, if anything, about full out-of-body experiences. Furthermore, in a conversation with Dr. Peter Fenwick, a physician and leading expert on out-of-body and near-death experiences, he made it clear to me that Blanke’s work “has never produced a proper out-of-body experience; he’s produced [only] elements of it.”12

  The way that Blanke’s research has been reported in magazines such as New Scientist13 has been extremely misleading. Instead of giving readers an accurate picture of what is taking place in Blanke’s laboratory, we are given the conclusion that OBEs are all in the mind, which the evidence simply does not demonstrate. I believe it is harmful to science in general, since this distortion in body perception has now been widely accepted by mainstream scientists as a valid explanation for OBEs, and led them to the conclusion that further research into the objective factors of OBEs is unnecessary.

  Dr. Jeffrey Long, bestselling author of Evidence of the Afterlife, has clearly shown that the principal argument—that Blanke induced a classic out-of-body experience—is false. Long and his coauthors summarize the research by looking at two cases: an English patient who had a spontaneous out-of-body experience unrelated to Blanke’s work, and a Swiss patient who was the key subject in Blanke’s 2002 Nature journal article. Long’s paper states, “[T]he English patient’s experience seemed quite realistic, whereas the Swiss patient’s experience was unrealistic—fragmentary, distorted, and illusory. In fact, a thorough review by one of us (Holden) of three classic books reporting extensive OBE research [Green (1968), Gabbard and Twemlow (1984), and Irwin (1985)] and one very recent review of the entire OBE research literature (Alvarado, 2000) reveals that the English patient’s OBE is quite characteristic of OBEs in general, while the Swiss patient’s is highly uncharacteristic.”14

  In conclusion, Blanke’s work represents a totally artificial process using technology from virtual reality and brain stimulation, yet despite this elaborate approach, it has failed to reliably produce the results one would expect if the claim that OBEs are “all in the mind” is correct. Instead, he has produced less than what would be expected from, for example, a hypnotic induction with a suggestible subject.

  James Randi

  James Randi, a stage magician, author, and “debunker,” is by far the most outspoken figure in the modern skeptical movement, and one source of its most common rhetoric. He is a complex figure. On the one hand, he is willing and able to actively expose charlatans and frauds, as he did with the Evangelical faith healer Peter Popoff in 1986. But there is another side to Randi that many within the skeptical community may be unaware of, or choose to overlook. I believe that he is willing to blur the truth, and maybe even lie, when the goal of turning public opinion against the reality of psychic research is at stake.

  For example, in 2000, Randi claimed in an article on psychic abilities in dogs: “We at the JREF [James Randi Educational Foundation] have tested these claims. They fail.” He went on to say that a video of research done with a specific dog known as Jaytee did not show any sign of telepathy or awareness of when the animal’s owner would return home. Randi stated: “Viewing the entire tape, we see that the dog responded to every car that drove by, and to every person who walked by.” With this statement, he is arguing that the dog’s behaviour was due to pure chance and nothing more. Yet according to Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, whose research Randi was referring to, “This is simply not true, and Randi now admits that he has never seen the tape.” When Sheldrake challenged the claims Randi had made, Randi was forced after several e-mails to admit that his statements were total exaggeration. He wrote in an e-mail to Sheldrake, “I overstated my case for doubting the reality of dog ESP based on the small amount of data I obtained. It was rash and improper of me to do so.”15

  I shared the above situation not to make a particular point about telepathy in animals, but to illustrate the problematic nature of figures like James Randi, who is given a vast amount of respect by the skeptical community and continues to have large amounts of air time on television and in other media. It is important to ask why someone with such biased and reactionary views is given so much attention.

  So how should we view James Randi’s statements about other areas of psychic phenomena, including his claim that he has had an out-of-body experience, which was little more than a hallucination? When we consider what he says in light of his making repeated, untrue claims regarding Sheldrake’s work, I find I am unable to trust the integrity of his statements in other areas.

  We must proceed with a high level of caution concerning Randi’s claim that he has had an out-of-body experience. During a lecture at Cal Tech in 1992, Randi described an experience in which he found himself floating “spread-eagle” on the ceiling of his bedroom, looking down at the large bed. He goes on to describe seeing his black cat curled up in the middle of the bed, while his physical body lay on the far side of the bed to avoid disturbing the cat. He also describes a grayish light that sounds som
ewhat similar to a common phenomenon within my own experiences, yet he seems to attribute this to a television set that is showing the static screen you might expect when there is no signal. He goes on to relate how the cat looked up at him with green eyes, which he remembers were the same shade as the bedspread. However, when he spoke to his adopted son the following morning, he found that the bedspread he had seen in the experience was in the laundry and the cat had been outside the house since four o’clock the previous day. In his lecture, Randi boldly proclaimed, “It was a dream, an hallucination if you will. It could not have happened.”16

  While this sounds like strong evidence against Randi’s out-of-body experience, there are a few questions we should ask. First, was this an OBE as I defined it earlier in this book? Second, if it was, does this really tell us anything about OBEs? And last, is his conclusion logical? Following the logic used here—i.e., Randi’s experience was false, therefore all OBEs are probably false—we could also conclude, to return to our earlier example, that a hallucination of a car flying past our upstairs window proves that cars are probably not real. This kind of reasoning is not workable and is based on a logical fallacy. We must seek out further evidence and explore further to reach a genuine understanding.

  James Randi is not a scientist. He can tell us little about what actually might be going on in psychic and out-of-body experiences. He is interested in debunking frauds, which is admirable as far as it goes, but when it comes to science, we are better served to look to those who are doing genuine research that tries to answer our questions about paranormal experiences, not someone simply looking to fulfill his agenda by rejecting them.

  While skepticism is important and useful when approached without bias, the pseudoskepticism of many of those who are most outspoken about out-of-body experiences offers us little of benefit to our understanding of the phenomenon. I maintain that the best way to investigate the out-of-body state, and psychic phenomena in general, is through scientific methodology—not the opinions of of vocal individuals like Randi.