The Burden of Proof: Who Has It When Claiming Anomalous Experience?

I told someone I knew when a volcano would erupt before it happened. They responded, "Prove it."

Fair question. But here's a more interesting question: Who actually has the burden of proof in this exchange?

The standard answer is obvious: I'm making an extraordinary claim. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The burden is on me.

But I want to complicate this. Not to escape scrutiny - I welcome it. But because the standard framework for burden of proof was developed for scientific claims about objective, repeatable phenomena. Anomalous experiences often don't fit neatly into that framework.

When I claim precognition, I'm not claiming a general law of physics. I'm reporting specific experiences that happened to me and, in many cases, experiences I can reproduce. The epistemology is different. And that means the burden of proof question is more complex than it first appears.

Let me think through this carefully.

How do we know things we're not 'supposed' to know?

The Standard Framework: Carl Sagan's Principle

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

This is Carl Sagan's famous formulation. It's become the skeptic's mantra. And it's basically correct for many contexts.

The logic is straightforward: normal claims have normal standards (I had coffee this morning = low bar for evidence). Extraordinary claims require higher standards (I can fly = high bar for evidence). The more a claim contradicts established knowledge, the more evidence it requires.

Why this makes sense: prior probability matters. Claims that fit our existing understanding of how the world works are more likely to be true than claims that violate well-established patterns. So we should require more evidence to overcome that prior skepticism.

Applied to me: I claim precognition. This appears to challenge our understanding of time and causation. Therefore, I need substantial evidence before anyone should believe me.

Seems straightforward. But here's where it gets complicated.

What Kind of Claim Am I Actually Making?

When I say, "I've known things before they happened," what exactly am I claiming?

Interpretation 1: A General Scientific Claim. "Precognition is real and happens according to reproducible laws." This is a scientific hypothesis. It should be testable, repeatable, and generalisable. For this claim, I absolutely have the burden of proof, and the standard is high.

Interpretation 2: A Personal Historical Claim. "I've had specific experiences where information arrived about future events that later proved accurate." This is a testimonial claim about my experiences, like saying "I saw a rare bird" or "I had an unusual dream." The evidential standards are different.

Interpretation 3: A Phenomenological Report. "I experience what feels like knowing future events, regardless of the metaphysical status of this experience." This is describing my conscious experience. The claim is about what it's like for me, not necessarily about objective reality.

These are very different kinds of claims with very different burden-of-proof requirements. And yet skeptics often hear all three as the first type. This creates enormous confusion about what evidence is even relevant.

The Replication Question, And Why It's More Nuanced Than It Seems

Scientific claims require replication. Skeptics rightly say, "Demonstrate it under controlled conditions. Repeatedly."

Here's what I can say honestly: I do get information on demand. I give readings to people. I meditate, and information comes through: information that is specific, verifiable, and meaningful to the people I'm working with. This isn't only a spontaneous phenomenon that happens unpredictably. It's also something I practice and cultivate deliberately.

I also receive information out of nowhere: spontaneous knowings that arrive without invitation, like the volcano eruption I mentioned at the start.

Both modes matter. The on-demand work addresses the replication concern directly. The spontaneous experiences are harder to study but no less real to me and to those who witness them.

The skeptic might still ask: why not a controlled laboratory setting? That's a fair challenge.

But it raises a deeper question about what kinds of conditions support or inhibit these experiences, just as some phenomena in nature are real but sensitive to context, observation, and environment. The assumption that laboratory conditions are neutral rather than potentially inhibiting is itself worth examining.

The Problem With Testimonial Evidence

My primary evidence for anomalous experiences includes my own testimony and that of people I've given readings to.

Skeptics say: testimony is the weakest form of evidence. People misremember, misperceive, lie, or deceive themselves. Without independent verification, testimony proves nothing.

Fair point. Testimony alone is weak evidence for scientific claims.

But consider: most of our knowledge comes from testimony. You believe your friends when they tell you about their day. Historical knowledge depends heavily on testimony. Legal systems use testimony as evidence. Personal experience is the basis for your own certainty about your consciousness.

The asymmetry is striking: when I report ordinary experiences ("I had coffee"), you accept my testimony with minimal evidence. When I report anomalous experiences ("I knew something I shouldn't have known"), you demand extraordinary proof.

Why the difference? Prior probability. But the question worth pressing is: how much higher must the bar be? And at what point does the standard become effectively impossible to meet, particularly when the evidence includes not just my testimony but the testimony of others who have received accurate readings?

The Skeptical Burden of Proof

Here's what's often overlooked: skeptics also have a burden of proof.

If a skeptic claims "Your experience didn't happen as you remember it," they're making a claim that requires justification. The possible skeptical explanations are: I'm lying, I'm misremembering, I'm experiencing confirmation bias, I'm misinterpreting coincidence, I'm deluded, or there's a conventional explanation I'm missing.

Each of these is itself a claim that requires evidence.

If the skeptic asserts "You're obviously misremembering," they're claiming something about my cognitive processes that requires justification. If they assert "It's just confirmation bias," they need to show that confirmation bias accounts for the specificity and accuracy of my readings - readings where people confirm, in the moment, that the information is accurate and meaningful to them.

If they assert "There must be a conventional explanation," they bear some burden to provide one that actually fits the specifics.

Skepticism isn't a neutral default position that requires no justification. It's a position that makes claims: that certain phenomena don't exist, and that specific experiences have conventional explanations. Those claims deserve scrutiny, too.

The Asymmetry Problem

Here's what bothers me about the standard burden-of-proof framework as it's typically applied:

When I claim anomalous experience, I must provide extraordinary evidence, my testimony is dismissed as unreliable, the standard shifts whenever evidence is presented, and I'm asked to prove a negative - that no conventional explanation exists.

When a skeptic claims my experience has a conventional explanation, they don't need to provide evidence. Speculation is treated as sufficient, hypothetical explanations are invoked without demonstration, and they're not asked to prove their explanation is correct.

I'm not saying my claims should be believed without evidence. I'm saying the skeptic's counter-claims also need evidence, and that a fair epistemological conversation requires both sides to meet their respective burdens.

What Would Adequate Evidence Look Like?

Let's be practical. For phenomena that include both on-demand and spontaneous elements, adequate evidence might look like:

For the on-demand work: detailed documentation of readings, client corroboration, specificity of information received, pattern across many sessions, and engagement with controlled testing where the conditions are appropriate.

For spontaneous experiences: documentation at the time (not retroactive), independent corroboration where possible, specificity of the knowing, verification when the information becomes available, and ruling out conventional explanations.

I've been doing this work for decades. I have both the experiences and the people who have witnessed them. Is that enough to convince a committed skeptic? Probably not. But it's worth being honest about whether the evidentiary bar is set at "high" or at "impossible", and whether the bar is applied equally to both sides of the conversation.

My Actual Evidence

Let me be concrete. My evidence includes decades of experiences across two modes, deliberate and spontaneous knowing, readings given to others with verifiable results, documentation of specific knowings before events occurred, corroboration from people who have witnessed or received these experiences, and no clear conventional explanation that accounts for the specificity and consistency of what comes through.

What this is not: controlled laboratory evidence, statistical proof in the formal sense, independently replicated findings in peer-reviewed literature.

What I can say with confidence: I've experienced what feels like knowing things before they happen. I can access this in a deliberately cultivated way and it arrives spontaneously. Many of these experiences have been verified by others. I can't explain them through conventional means.

What I cannot prove: that these experiences represent genuine precognition in a mechanistic sense, or that anyone else is obligated to believe me. My position is that this evidence is sufficient to take seriously and investigate further. It's not a demand that others adopt my conclusions.

Where I Place the Burden

My considered view on burden of proof for anomalous experiences:

On me: document experiences carefully, seek verification where possible, rule out conventional explanations I can identify, be honest about uncertainty, don't claim more than evidence supports, welcome scrutiny.

On the skeptic: engage the specific experiences rather than just asserting "it must be something conventional," provide evidence for counter-explanations rather than just speculation, acknowledge when conventional explanations are inadequate, don't dismiss testimony arbitrarily, and recognise the limits of current methodologies.

On both: intellectual honesty about what we know and don't know, willingness to revise views based on evidence, humility about the complexity of consciousness and experience.

Living With Uncertainty And With Practice

After decades of anomalous experiences and careful thinking about burden of proof, here's where I land:

I have evidence that is experiential, testimonial, and verified, that is sufficient for me to take these experiences seriously, build a practice around them, and let them inform how I move through the world.

I don't have evidence that's sufficient to convince a committed skeptic who won't engage the specifics. Both of these can be true simultaneously.

I could be wrong about the interpretation of my experiences. Memory could be more fallible than I realise. Confirmation bias could be more powerful than I recognise. I've looked carefully at these possibilities. They don't fully account for what I experience and what I see confirmed in my work.

That's where I stand: convinced enough to take it seriously and practice it. Humble enough to admit I could be wrong. Honest enough to acknowledge my evidence won't convince everyone. And honest enough to note that dismissal without engagement isn't the same as disproof.

I'm Kathy Postelle Rixon, researcher at Cambridge, Chair of The Philosophical Society: Oxford, and shamanic practitioner who gives readings and has anomalous experiences I can't fully prove or explain to everyone's satisfaction. I think carefully about burden of proof and try to be honest about what I can and can't claim. If you're navigating similar questions about evidence and experience, reach out at kathy@magicinharmony.com or visit www.magicinharmony.com.

How do you think about burden of proof for anomalous experiences? What standards of evidence do you apply to your own experiences versus others' claims? I'd genuinely love to hear your perspective.