Research Shows Mediumship as a Distinct Mental State — What Brain Science Reveals

Afterlife Studies| Consciousness| Afterlife Studies | Consciousness

November 08, 2026•2 min read

Research Shows Mediumship as a Distinct Mental State

JULIA After-Death Communication, Afterlife Studies, Blogs, Consciousness brain activity in mediums, Dean Radin, Julie Beischel, mediums, mediumship, the Windbridge Institute 1

At last evidence that we mediums are not just imagining things!

From the Daily Grail, published December 4, 2013

A recent study conducted by Dean Radin of the Institute of Noetic Science, Julie Beischel, founder of the Windbridge Institute, and others has shown that electrocortical activity during mediumistic ‘communication’ is distinctly different from that which occurs during other contemplative moments, such as when people think about the living or even about imaginary people. The research was designed to explore possible correlations between the accuracy of mediums’ statements and the electrical activity in their brain; and the differences in mediums’ brain activity when they intentionally evoked four different subjective states.

The researchers collected psychometric and brain electrophysiology data from six people who were previously accredited by the Windbridge Institute for mediumship under double-blind conditions. Each of the six performed two tasks with eyes closed. In the first task, the medium was given the first name of a deceased person and asked 25 questions, after which they were asked to silently perceive information relevant to the question for 20 seconds and then respond. These responses were then scored for accuracy by individuals who knew the deceased persons. Researchers found that of the four mediums whose accuracy could be evaluated, three scored significantly above chance (p < 0.03). One of the mediums also showed a highly significant correlation between accuracy and brain activity in frontal theta.

In the second task, participants were asked to experience four mental states for 1 min each, a process that was repeated three times: (1) thinking about a known living person, (2) listening to a biography, (3) thinking about an imaginary person, and (4) interacting mentally with a known deceased person. Interestingly, statistically significant differences in electrocortical activity among the four mental states were found in all six participants, leading the researchers to conclude that the differences in electrocortical activity “suggest that the impression of communicating with the deceased may be a distinct mental state distinct from ordinary thinking or imagination”.

Here’s the conclusion of the paper, in the authors’ words:

To conclude, we believe the results for Medium 1, correlating accuracy with electrocortical activity, qualify as a robust finding. The results regarding differences in gamma power bands between different mental states remains puzzling as the gamma difference we observed seems to arise, at least in part, from eye or muscular activity. The characterization of the exact nature of this difference in the gamma frequency band, and assessing whether any of this activity originates from the brain, calls for additional research. Taken together, the study’s findings suggest that the experience of communicating with the deceased may be a distinct mental state that is not consistent with brain activity during ordinary thinking or imagination.

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Julia Assante, PhD

Dr. Julia Assante has been an active medium, life reader and medical intuitive since 1977. She was tested at Columbia University (1981) for telepathy and remote viewing under scientifically controlled conditions. Her accuracy scores were so high above other professional psychics that the researchers created a category for her alone. She is regarded as outstanding within the field of parapsychology. Julia is also the author of The Last Frontier: Exploring the Afterlife and Transforming Our Fear of Death. Her book won the Nautilus Gold Award for the category of death, dying and grief. Publisher’s Weekly called it “… the most important book on the enigma of death since the ground-breaking work of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross.” Her book was endorsed by such stellar authors as Deepak Chopra, Larry Dossey and Dean Radin, among others. In The Last Frontier, Julia draws primarily on her own amazing experiences as an active professional intuitive for 47 years. Her strong academic background (Columbia University and Yale) allowed her to include her ground-breaking exploration of the various historical constructions of the afterlife, from ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia to the present. Her book also includes consciousness research, physics, quantum biology, and parapsychology, studies of Near-Death Experiences and Nearing Death Awareness. She also uses the records of past-life therapists, of which she is one, of medical personnel and bereavement counselors. Her book further supports survival after death by including some of the best testaments of the many thousands of people who have experienced communication with the dead. Many readers have called The Last Frontier the Bible of life after death. During the last 47 years, Julia has given private sessions and workshops in English and German, in the US and Europe on remote viewing, healing and medical intuition, after death communication, and recalling past and future incarnations. Furthermore, she has appeared on the TV program “Meine letzte Chance” (“My Last Chance)” which has helped people lead healthier lives. She has also given numerous talks and interviews on topics such as after-death communication, end-of-life research, mediumship, and spiritual transformation. As a certified regression / Past-Life therapist, she has helped many individuals on their profound journeys of self-discovery, which often leads to physical healing from even such dangerous diseases as cancer. Her greatest achievement, however, is the Percy Project in which she scientifically proves the survival of life after death using technology. The result of her last trials were extraordinary, without a single failure but with many mind-boggling surprises. She hopes to continue trials in Vienna soon. For more on this, see The Percy Project on this website. Academically, Julia is an established archaeologist and social historian of the ancient Near East, including ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt and Greece. She was awarded a PhD by Columbia, but also studied at She taught at Columbia, Bryn Mawr and the University of Münster and has given talks at major universities in the United States and Europe. Her numerous, often revolutionary, scholarly articles (see Academia.edu) continue to influence research on the ancient Near East as well as biblical and Greco-Roman studies. Julia has led a multicultural life. She has lived in the US but also in France, Italy, Germany, Austria and China. She has also studied seven languages, including three cuneiform ones. Today, she lives a quieter life with her partner, dividing her time between Austria and France. Even in retirement, she continues to share her knowledge through talks, interviews and writing, to inspire a new generation to be aware of the next step–nonlocal multidimensional universes! It’s going to be fun!

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