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Suzane Northrop (born in 1948) is an author, podcaster, tv show host, and purported psychic medium. She has written at least four books and hosted the television show The Afterlife with Suzane Northrop. She participated in the Afterlife Experiments which was turned into a book by Gary Schwartz. The experiments and their conclusions were widely criticized across the scientific community for not being blinded and the lack of inclusion of any other scientifically credible evidence. In 2020, she was a subject of a sting operation run by Susan Gerbic where it was discovered that Northrop's co-host Thomas John was using information acquired from audience Facebook accounts or hot reading during these group sessions.

Early Life

Suzane Northrop stated in an interview that her first memory of contact with the deceased occurred when she was five years old. However, in both that interview and an earlier one with the Dayton Daily News, Northrop states that her first real contact with dead people happened when she was 13 and spoke with her paternal grandmother who had just died the previous week. She received a music degree from California State University of Los Angeles in 1979. She soon moved to New York City where she attempted composing as well as dance.

Mediumship Career

Career Highlights

Northrop started her mediumship career by giving readings at street fairs in New York City for $3. She published her first book in 1994 titled Séance: A Guide for Living and went on to publish three more books over the next decade. In 2008, Northrop hosted a 10 episode TV series called the The Afterlife with Suzane Northrop. In August of 2020, Northrop launched a podcast called The Dead People's Society Podcast. Late in 2020, Northrop along with Thomas John hosted a ticketed event virtually where they provided readings and over the internet to several of the people in attendance.

The Afterlife Experiments

In 1997, Northrop was contacted by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross about appearing in a documentary being produced for HBO which would explore the question of the survival of consciousness after death. This would later become the HBO documentary "Life After Life". Gary Schwartz who was involved in the project wrote a very controversial book about the research he conducted during these sessions called The Afterlife Experiments. Schwartz describes Northrop's style as very fast, "an uninterrupted barrage of information"; "Northrup had begun talking virtually nonstop". Schwartz' findings were that Northrop as well as the rest of the "highly skilled mediums, in laboratory controlled yet supportive conditions, can receive specific categories of information that can be rated accurately by trained research sitters."

According to Schwartz, they set up a second experiment at the urging of John Edward and Suzane Northrop which were set up with a new group of sitters and four of the five original mediums including Northrop. Schwartz refers to this as the The Miraval Experiment. The goal of this second round of experiments was to replicate the findings of the original HBO show and expand on them with further quantitative data. His findings in this second round of experiments provided data "that are consistent with the hypothesis that some form of anomalous information retrieval was occurring in these skilled mediums."

This would lead to the show Exploring the Unknown which was produced by Michael Shermer to call asking to do a segment on Northrop.

Mediumship Criticism

Exploring the Unknown

In 1999, she was profiled on the TV show Exploring the Unknown produced by Michael Shermer. In that episode, Northrop is seen giving a reading over the radio. Mentalist Mark Edward was asked to explain how Northrop accomplished what appears to be talking to dead family members of the participants in the show. Edward said of Northrop that, “The technique is to talk really fast. Say a lot of things, so fast that the normal average person doesn’t have a chance to respond or reconstruct what you just said.” He further explains how Northrop can easily overcome incorrect or unrelated guesses by telling the sitter to "watch for it" and that she also provides statements that could have multiple meanings to give herself the widest latitude for turning a miss into a hit. Edward also provides the reasons behind her use of initials which have a much higher hit rate and can relate to almost anything.

How Not To Test Mediums

Northrop uses "The Afterlife Experiments" as evidence of her abilities. However, in his article, "How Not To Test Mediums", Ray Hyman does a deep dive into "The Afterlife Experiments" and concludes that there were several major flaws in the experimental designs including the failure to use double-blind procedures, inadequate precautions against fraud and sensory leakage, failure to independently check on facts the sitters endorsed as true and several others. Hyman also finds severe issues with Schwartz' interpretations of the data such as creating non-falsifiable outcomes by reinterpreting failures as successes among others. In his conclusion, Hyman states that, "The studies were methodologically defective in a number of important ways, not the least of which was that they were not double-blind... Yet the experimenters offer the results as a "breathtaking" validation of their claims about the existence of the afterlife."

Operation Lemon Meringue

In 2020, Northrop and Thomas John began doing medium events together using Zoom where they charged people to attend these with the possibility that they would receive a reading from one of the two purported mediums. Susan Gerbic and the Guerilla Skeptics attended several of these events. Gerbic's team was able to notice statements or terms that Northrop uses over and over again in different events that elicit hits. Gerbic noted that in Northrop's Exploring the Unknown appearance, she used the word "rose" which she again uses again during the Zoom events with Thomas John. Gerbic makes a point that the word "rose" could be used to reference a first name, middle name, nickname, hobby, the flower itself, etc. and also notes that Rose was one of the most popular names for women in the early 20th century which would fit the age of women that had recently passed. Another example of reusing the same fishing technique in Exploring the Unknown and one her Zoom events is asking about a vehicle whether it be a car or truck. Gerbic describes this as cold reading which she describes as "using general statements that are typical of most people. It’s helpful to know some basics of the sitter: the gender, approximate age, ethnicity, and accents, all of which can be inferred over the radio".

Bibliography

• Séance: A Guide for Living
• Second Chance: Healing Messages from the Afterlife
• Everything Happens for a Reason: Love, Free Will, and the Lessons of the Soul
• A Medium’s Cookbook: Recipes for the Soul: A Step-By-Step Guide toward Creating a Banquet of Connections to Those Who Have Passed Over

References

1. ^ Gerbic, Susan (28 January 2021). "Suzane Northrop – Operation Lemon Meringue". Skepticalinquirer.org. CFI. Archived from the original on 13 January 2021. Retrieved 28 January 2021.
2. ^ Schwartz, Gary E.; Simon, William L.; Russek, Linda G. (10 March 2002). The Afterlife Experiments: Breakthrough Scientific Evidence of Life After Death. Pocket Books. ISBN 0-7434-3658-X.
3. ^ Hyman, Ray (9 February 2021). "How Not To Test Mediums". Skepticalinquirer.org. CFI. Archived from the original on 30 October 2020. Retrieved 9 February 2021.
4. ^ Thompson, Vicky (1 February 2021). "Doorway into the Afterlife: An Interview with Suzane Northrop". Archived from the original on 26 March 2015.
5. ^ Hopkins, Tom (4 February 2021). "Psychics make stop in tri-state". newspapers.com. Dayton Daily News. Archived from the original on 5 February 2021. Retrieved 4 February 2021.
6. ^ Northrop, Suzane (25 January 1994). Séance: A Guide for Living. Alliance Publishing Company. ISBN 978-0964150904.
7. ^ Northrop, Suzane (21 April 2002). Second Chance: Healing Messages from the Afterlife. Jodere Group. ISBN 978-1588720351.
8. ^ Northrop, Suzane (1 November 2004). Everything Happens for a Reason. Northstar 2LLC. ISBN 978-1588720436.
9. ^ Northrop, Suzane (20 October 2005). A Medium’s Cookbook: Recipes for the Soul: A Step-By-Step Guide toward Creating a Banquet of Connections to Those Who Have Passed Over. Northstar 2LLC. ISBN 978-0976260837.
10. "Dead Peoples' Society with Suzane Northrop". podcasts.google.com/. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
11. ^ "1999 Exploring the Unknown - Suzanne Northrup - Gary Schwartz - Mark Edward". YouTube. Retrieved February 15, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

External links

• Official website

Category:American television personalities Category:American spiritual mediums Category:American psychics Category:People from Corning, New York Category:1969 births Category:Living people

• Stale userspace drafts