Welcome to the Psi Encyclopedia! We aspire to provide a comprehensive introduction to academic parapsychology, which studies the range of psychic experiences collectively termed ‘psi’.  The existence of psi phenomena – and the related idea that consciousness is independent of the physical body and so may survive death – is strongly disputed by materialist scientists, yet parapsychologists are convinced they have evidence for these things. The Psi Encyclopedia presents this evidence in nearly 750 signed articles by over 80 authors, many of them senior academics, arranged in categories and subcategories that highlight the major interests of the field.

Mark Boccuzzi created this short video that explains what we are about.

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Key Topics

photograph of JB Rhine, one of the first to explore psychological variables underlying psi

Psychology and Parapsychology

Explores the overlap between psychology and parapsychology, such as personality and other variables linked to psi.

Ingo Swann, one of the first remote viewers

Remote Viewing

An experimental form of clairvoyance, in which a suitably trained person attempts to visualise the topography of a distant scene.

Tunnel in Near-Death Experience

Near-Death Experience (Overview)

This article describes anomalous mental events reported by people who have survived a near-fatal accident or illness.

photo of N'kisi, an African Grey parrot involved in ESP experiments

Animals in Psi Research

The psi abilities of animals have been reported in informal observations and tests, including modern lab experiments.

Gladys Leonard, medium studied by the Society for Psychical Research

Mediumship and Multiple Personality

The personalities of mediumistic communicators are similar to dissociative identity disorder.

vernon mews

Society for Psychical Research (SPR)

Membership organization founded in London in 1882 for the scientific investigation of claims of psychic phenomena.


European Children with Past-Life Memories

European children speak of past lives less often than Asian children do, yet the cases are very similar.

Bronislaw Malinowski among the Trobriand Islanders

Anthropology and Psi Research

Anthropologists have long been fascinated by belief in psi, a near universal aspect of human culture.

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ESP & Psychokinesis

Extra-sensory perception (ESP) comprises telepathy, clairvoyance and precognition. Psychokinesis (PK) is the direct influence on matter by mind alone. Both ESP and PK have been tested in the laboratory and studied in real life situations. Together they constitute psi, in the strict sense of the term. Subcategories group together overviews and general topics in psi studies, tests of ESP and PK, and researcher biographies.

Eleonore Zugun

Eleonore Zugun (Talpa Poltergeist)

Adolescent Romanian girl (1913–1991), the centre of a well-documented 1920s poltergeist-type episode.

james carpenter3

James Carpenter

American clinical psychologist, psychotherapist and parapsychologist, best-known for his innovative First Sight Theory of psi.

Bryan Williams

Bryan J Williams

Student of cognitive psychology interested in field-like influences on the behaviour of random number generators.

Mind & Body

This category contains articles that treat consciousness in relation to the body. Subcategories focus on consciousness and psi; dreams and psi; and distant healing and psychotherapy. Also included are sitter groups and macro-psychokinesis as well as poltergeists, often assumed to relate to discarnate entities but now known more often to have living agents. A final subgroup is concerned with out-of-body and near-death experiences and events reported on the threshold of death.


William Bengston

American sociologist and practitioner of ‘energy healing’ (1950–2025) who engaged in successful laboratory tests.

Tunnel in Near-Death Experience

Near-Death Experience (Overview)

This article describes anomalous mental events reported by people who have survived a near-fatal accident or illness.

still image of Puck frrom the 2017 TV film A Midsummer's Nightmare

Thoughtforms

Describes the concept of an entity created directly and exclusively by the mind, whether unconsciously or consciously.

Survival of Death

Life continued in a spiritual or purely mental form after bodily death is a staple of religious beliefs worldwide, and likely is as old as humanity. The question of evidence for it has been central to the Society for Psychical Research since its founding in 1882. Subcategories focus on hauntings and apparitions and on psychic (also called mental) mediumship.

chico xavier2 (2)

Chico Xavier

Popular Brazilian medium (1910–2002) celebrated for his prolific output of poetry, fiction and Spiritist philosophy.

The Lutzes' house in Amityville

Amityville Hoax

Alleged 1970s haunting in Long Island, New York, which became the basis for sensationalist books and films.

Marthe Beraud (Eva C), French physical medium

Marthe Béraud (Eva C)

French materialization medium studied by European researchers in the early twentieth century.

Reincarnation

Reincarnation beliefs are widespread in the world and in recent decades researchers have found what they believe is evidence of them through the study of people (mainly children) who claim to have lived before. Subcategories highlight case studies, past life regression, and biographies of major researchers.

Fourteen-month-old Osel correctly selects the bell that belonged to a recently deceased monk, Lama Yeshe, helping to confirm his reincarnation

Testing Children’s Past-Life Knowledge

Children who remember past lives are often set tests to try to establish the truth of their claims.

Rylann O'Bannion

Rylann O’Bannion (reincarnation case)

An American girl's memories of dying when an aeroplane crashed into her home were confirmed by an autopsy report.

Rylann O'Bannion

American Children with Past-Life Memories

List of cases of children’s past-life memories from the Americas, with descriptions.

Researchers & Authors

Here can be found more than 300 biographical profiles of key figures who have been involved in psi research and parapsychology as field investigators, experimentalists, theorists and commentators. The biographies are grouped in subcategories by 30-year age cohorts, highlighting contemporaries.

edmond gurney2

Edmund Gurney

Edmund Gurney (1847–1888) was a founder member of the SPR noted for his research on hypnotism, telepathy and apparitions.

Jacobo Grinberg-Zylberbaum

Jacobo Grinberg-Zylberbaum

Mexican psychologist and consciousness researcher who carried out experiments in telepathy and extraocular vision.

dowding2

Hugh Dowding

Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding (1882–1970), head of RAF Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain, who became a Spiritualist.

Organizations

The oldest organizations devoted to parapsychology were member organizations like the Society for Psychical Research, established in London in 1882. Since JB Rhine founded the Parapsychology Laboratory at Duke University in 1930, there have been university-based units as well. This category comprises both historical and contemporary bodies concerned with research and education in parapsychology.

BIAL's Behind and Beyond the Brain Symposium, 2018

Bial Foundation

Foundation set up by Portuguese pharmaceutical giant to support research in neuroscience, psychophysiology and parapsychology.

Nineteenth-century table turning session

London Dialectical Society

19th-century rationalist debating club whose 1871 investigative report showed certain PK activity to be genuine.


Koestler Parapsychology Unit (KPU)

A leading centre for parapsychological research and training, based at the University of Edinburgh.

Sceptical Views

Sceptics argue that psychics and mediums achieve their effects by trickery, that psychic experience is an illusory effect caused by a combination of brain misperceptions and confirmation bias, and that evidence of psi in laboratory tests can be attributed to poor methodology. This category includes biographies of leading sceptics as well as general articles discussing their allegations.


Antony Flew

British analytic philosopher known for his influential critiques of theism, postmortem survival and parapsychology.


Susan Gerbic

American studio photographer who exposes what she believes to be pseudoscience through a special brand of 'guerilla skepticism'.

James Alcock

James Alcock

Canadian psychology professor, amateur magician and career psi sceptic, member of the Executive Council for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.

General Topics

This category contains articles on a variety of topics that do not fit well in any of the main categories, from dowsing to crop circles and other anomalistic phenomena, the Miscellaneous Anomalistic subcategory. Other subcategories list articles on psychics and mystic and on important articles, books and journals in the field of parapsychology.

book cover of Podmore's 'Apparitions and Thought-Transference' (1894) Cambridge Library Collection, 2011

Podmore’s ‘Apparitions and Thought-Transference’

Argues that apparitions may be explained through telepathy.

photo of Alex Malarkey

‘The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven’ (recanted NDE)

Best-selling American book describing the supposed NDE of a 6-year-old child.

image of house keys on hall table

JOTT: Phenomena of Spatial Discontinuities

The everyday misplacements of objects may sometimes have a non-normal cause.

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