Methodology
NOT AS BELIEVERS. NOT AS SKEPTICS. BUT AS ARCHIVISTS.
Evidence first. Wonder second. The Institute applies archival method to claims, testimony, historical documents, images, folklore and disputed evidence.
THE WORKFLOW
01
CLAIM
What is actually being claimed?
02
PROVENANCE
Where does the account originate?
03
RECORD
What contemporary documentation survives?
04
CORROBORATION
What supports or contradicts the claim?
05
ASSESSMENT
What can the surviving evidence reasonably support?
CREDIBILITY ASSESSMENT
The primary grades are CORROBORATED, PLAUSIBLE, UNVERIFIED and DEBUNKED. Absence of evidence does not automatically make a claim debunked; DEBUNKED requires positive contradictory evidence. Where useful, records may also use the secondary labels NOT SUPPORTED, CONTRADICTED or NOT APPLICABLE.
ETHICS AND LIMITS
Living religious belief is treated with care and never reduced to spectacle. Narrative reconstruction is identified as reconstruction. The Institute avoids sensational treatment of death, private individuals and victims. A record can be incomplete without being dismissed; it can be interesting without being asserted as fact.
Read editorial standards