Discovery Lab Answers

Mark Boccuzzi is a parapsychology researcher and instrument designer profiled at Mark Boccuzzi — ESP-Nexus. His work centers on three domains: controlled mediumship research, instrumental transcommunication (ITC) and electronic voice phenomena (EVP), and the development of research infrastructure and assessment tools. The sources retrieved for this question span all three areas.

Experiments

Blinded mediumship studies. Boccuzzi has been a collaborator on the Windbridge research program’s controlled mediumship experiments. A 2021 study with Julie Beischel, Adam J. Rock, and Ronald J. Pekala examined the phenomenological experiences of Windbridge Certified Research Mediums (WCRMs) during blinded readings for deceased versus living targets, under randomized and counterbalanced conditions ^[2]. An earlier line of work cited within that paper includes a study by Rock, Beischel, Boccuzzi, and Biuso (2014) assessing phenomenology and accuracy under “beyond double-blind” conditions.

Precognitive remote viewing. Boccuzzi co-authored a 2024 study with Julia Mossbridge and Kirsten Cameron testing precognitive remote viewing (PRV) in two large online experiments — one forced-choice (682 participants, 5,432 trials) and one free-response (307 participants) — examining which state, trait, and target parameters predict accuracy ^[1].

ITC and EVP analysis. Boccuzzi has conducted experimental investigations into ITC and EVP, applying objective measurement and blinded analysis to test whether naive listeners could detect phrases that ITC operators perceived in randomized speech-element samples. The ESP-Nexus spoke page for this line of work describes it as a systematic effort to apply rigorous experimental controls to one of parapsychology’s most contentious domains.

Bereavement and after-death communication. Boccuzzi was a co-author on a 2014 study with Beischel and Mosher examining individuals’ self-reported experiences of grief in relation to receiving mediumship readings, using an anonymous online survey format ^[5].

Assessment instrument development. With Beischel, Boccuzzi co-developed the Windbridge Psi and Related Phenomena Awareness Questionnaire (WPRPAQ) and its shorter scale form (WPRPAS), deployed across samples of self-identified mediums and non-mediums ^[3].

Methodology

Blinded mediumship protocol. The 2021 phenomenology study ^[2] used Windbridge’s multi-blind design. Mediums were fully blinded to the identity of the target (deceased or living). A matched-gender sitter and Proxy Rater/Reader (PRRR) pairing was used. Participants completed the Phenomenology of Consciousness Inventory (PCI) at baseline and after each reading condition. Conditions were randomized and counterbalanced. Boccuzzi handled the logistics of the email-based reading protocol — the ESP-Nexus page notes that his role at Windbridge has been primarily instrumental and methodological, including designing the software for randomization, target presentation, and response recording.

PRV online testing. The 2024 Mossbridge, Cameron, and Boccuzzi study ^[1] ran two separate online tests, each designed to allow participants to contribute across multiple sessions. Randomness in target selection was verified against NIST tests of randomness. Practice and test trials were tracked separately. Forced-choice data were analyzed in two batches (participants who contributed to both batches, approximately 17% of participants, were treated as independent individuals in one analytical pass). Pre-specified significance threshold was p = .05, two-tailed; raw data were made available upon request.

WPRPAQ/WPRPAS design. The questionnaire development study ^[3] was attentive to problems in prior instruments — loaded terminology, stigmatizing language, and failure to distinguish belief from experience. The WPRPAQ deliberately avoided qualifiers such as “alleged,” “purported,” or “supposed,” and was structured to measure awareness of and experience with a range of phenomena separately from belief. Data were collected from 316 self-identified mediums and 1,030 non-mediums.

ITC/EVP methodology. The ITC work applied blinded listening protocols and randomized speech-element generation systems to test whether perceived phrases could be detected above chance by naive listeners — a design intended to separate perceptual interpretation from the signal itself.

Data

The structured evidence block for this question is not populated with audited quantitative rows, so the figures below come from the retrieved primary sources and must be read as such.

Mediumship phenomenology study ^[2].

The authors note that the sitters’ and PRRRs’ blinding was not complete, which they flag as a limitation making the accuracy results unsuitable for inclusion in future meta-analyses ^[2].

PRV online study ^[1].

Batch 2 test trials were significantly worse than chance — a below-chance result the authors describe as an expectation-opposing effect. The difference between practice and test trial performance in batch 2 was itself significant: χ²(1, N = 2429) = 3.9, p < .05. The one positive signal reported in the retrieved excerpts is a finding that unconditional love, as a state measure, was associated with better performance — a result the authors note is consistent with an established relationship between positive or self-transcendent states and psi task performance ^[1]. The Precognition page on ESP-Nexus notes that forward-control versions of the experiment produced the classic effects while the primary test conditions did not, and lists null effect sizes (d = 0.001, d = 0.034, d = −0.03) for the primary analyses.

WPRPAQ/WPRPAS ^[3]. More than 80% of both mediums and non-mediums reported awareness of eight of the ten phenomena assessed. Mediums and non-mediums showed no statistically significant demographic differences. The mediums’ awareness of micro-PK and macro-PK was significantly higher than non-mediums’ awareness of those phenomena (each p < .00001); no differences between samples were found for awareness of the other eight phenomena.

Skeptical critiques

What critics argue. The 2021 phenomenology study’s own authors — Beischel, Rock, Pekala, and Boccuzzi — record a specific methodological limitation: the sitters’ and PRRRs’ blinding was incomplete ^[2]. They state directly that this makes the accuracy results unsuitable for inclusion in future meta-analyses regarding medium accuracy. This is not an external critic’s objection but an internal limitation the authors themselves raise, and it has direct implications for how the accuracy data from this study can be used downstream.

For the ITC/EVP line of work, the ESP-Nexus spoke page records that naive listeners were unable to detect the phrases ITC operators perceived in the same samples — raising questions about whether the perceived phenomena reflect a signal in the audio or a perceptual/interpretive process in the operator. The study itself identified the psychology and motivation of ITC operators as a domain requiring future research.

What the experimental data show. The mediumship phenomenology findings ^[2] — particularly the love-dimension elevation for deceased-target readings and the 74% target-discrimination rate — were obtained under conditions that were fully blinded for the mediums, though not for all other participants. The ITC blinded listening results, as described on the spoke page, did not produce detection above chance by naive listeners.

Analysis. The internal limitation flag on the 2021 mediumship accuracy data ^[2] is specific and consequential: it restricts how those accuracy scores can be aggregated with other studies. The phenomenological findings (PCI dimensions, love scores) are not subject to the same blinding concern, since they measure the mediums’ own reported experience rather than accuracy against an external standard. For the PRV work, the below-chance batch 2 test-trial result and the null primary effect sizes reported on the Precognition page sit alongside the unconditional-love correlate — the pattern is not uniformly positive. Independent replication of the love-dimension finding outside the Windbridge group has not been published in the sources retrieved for this question.

For a fuller view of Boccuzzi’s research record, including his ITC/EVP work, see the spoke page at Boccuzzi: Instrumental Transcommunication and Electronic Voice Phenomena.