Dr. Gary Schwartz returned to report on his studies of mediums, such as Allison DuBois (who is currently being fictionalized on the hit TV show Medium). DuBois first visited Schwartz telling him that "she sees dead people" and that her spirit guides told her to have her skills tested.
Allison, along with two other mediums, Laurie Campbell and Mary Occhino, showed off their abilities in an experiment Schwartz set up that involved Deepak Chopra, whose father had recently passed away. The mediums did not know the sitter was Chopra, and he later evaluated their information as being 80% accurate in describing his father. Occhino even pinpointed an uncle in Chopra's family that had the rare condition of having his vocal chords removed during an illness.
Schwartz commented that legitimate mediums each have their differing talents. For instance, DuBois is particularly gifted in naming certain foods that the deceased were associated with. She also was committed to bringing visibility to her profession and made it her mission to get her story out via the TV show, he said. Schwartz commented that his studies do not conclusively prove the survival of consciousness after death, but they definitely show that mediums are retrieving information from paranormal sources, quite possibly from "living" spirits. For a list of qualified mediums, he recommended the site foreverfamilyfoundation.org
The New Body Farm
First half-hour guest, author Mary Roach discussed a proposed new 'body farm' that would study decomposing bodies as a way to learn forensic information. The new location in Iowa would offer researchers different climate conditions than the existing site in Tennessee, and thus they could study different variables, she explained.