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.
Featured
Stephen E Braude
American philosopher and parapsychologist (1945–2026) remembered for his field investigations of apparent psychokinesis.
Meditation and Psi
Traditional Yogic teachings state that a person who attains a higher state of consciousness will manifest psychic powers.
Psychedelics and Psi
A gradual easing of restrictions means that psi research with psychedelics, once prevalent, could soon resume.
Psi Research in China
Recent experimental and theoretical work in China includes successful attempts to train ESP abilities in blind children.
Clinical Parapsychology
Therapeutic approach that aims to provide support for people disturbed by anomalous event experiences.
Psi for Financial Gain
Anecdotal accounts and lab tests suggest that psi can at times be used to advantage in gambling and financial speculation.
Coover Telepathy Experiments
Early telepathy experiments, once thought a failure, now considered statistically significant.
Key Topics
Psychology and Parapsychology
Explores the overlap between psychology and parapsychology, such as personality and other variables linked to psi.
Remote Viewing
An experimental form of clairvoyance, in which a suitably trained person attempts to visualise the topography of a distant scene.
Near-Death Experience (Overview)
This article describes anomalous mental events reported by people who have survived a near-fatal accident or illness.
Animals in Psi Research
The psi abilities of animals have been reported in informal observations and tests, including modern lab experiments.
Mediumship and Multiple Personality
The personalities of mediumistic communicators are similar to dissociative identity disorder.
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.
Anthropology and Psi Research
Anthropologists have long been fascinated by belief in psi, a near universal aspect of human culture.
Recent Additions
Antony Flew
British analytic philosopher known for his influential critiques of theism, postmortem survival and parapsychology.
Coin Apports: The Mexico City Case
A variety of coins appeared without an obvious normal source or cause.
Robert McLuhan
British journalist, a prominent interpreter of parapsychology for general readers and the principal architect of the Psi Encyclopedia.
Annekatrin Angelika Puhle
German researcher whose work touches on cultural history, dreams, apparitions, magic and anomalous light experiences.
Ouija Board
Ouija boards have sometimes allowed for veridical communications from apparent spirit entities and for automatic writing in creative productions.
Susan Gerbic
American studio photographer who exposes what she believes to be pseudoscience through a special brand of 'guerilla skepticism'.
Julian Ochorowicz
Polish philosopher, psychologist and inventor (1850–1917), who made notable investigations of physical mediumship.
Minot Judson Savage
Savage (1841–1918) was a Unitarian minister who sat with Leonora Piper and was involved with the early American Society for Psychical Research.
Noah’s Ark Society for Physical Mediumship
The NAS originated in a home circle in 1990 and indirectly fostered the later Scole Circle.
Martin Johnson
As a major European experimental parapsychologist, Johnson (1930–2011) helped build the programme at the University of Utrecht.
Milan Ryzl
Milan Ryzl (1928–2011) was a pioneer in exploring hypnosis as a facilitator of ESP, best known for his extensive work with Pavel Stepanek.
Cold Spots
Sudden sensations or measurements of temperature variations recur in reports of apparitions, séances and hauntings.
Dieter Vaitl
German consciousness researcher who directed the Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health (IGPP) for two decades.
George P Hansen
Hansen has critiqued both belief in and scepticism of psi. His Trickster Theory tries to explain the instability and elusiveness of the phenomena.
Edward William ‘Serjeant’ Cox
EW Cox (1809–1879) was an English lawyer, publisher, writer and researcher of psychical phenomena.
Soul Weighing Experiments
Attempts have been made to confirm the existence of a soul by seeking a change of weight in bodies at the point of death.
Battersea Poltergeist (1928)
Disturbances reported in a small house in Battersea, London, investigated by Harry Price.
AWARE NDE Studies
AWARE and AWARE II were large-scale studies testing for veridical perceptions recalled by hospital patients during NDEs.
Robert Bigelow and the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies
Billionaire American businessman whose foundation funds research on post-mortem survival.
Explore the Psi Encyclopedia
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.
Presentiment in Laboratory Studies
An unconscious form of precognition that can be demonstrated with techniques commonly used in research on psychophysiology.
Stefan Ossowiecki
Polish businessman (1877–1944) whose clairvoyant abilities were the subject of successful tests with European psychical researchers.
Worksop Poltergeist
Original report by an SPR investigator of poltergeist-type disturbances in 1883 in Worksop, in the north of England.
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.
The Brain and Psi
Describes how electroencephalography (EEG) and brain imaging technology are being used to demonstrate psychic functioning.
Bruce Greyson
American psychiatrist at the University of Virginia who is the world's leading authority on near-death experiences.
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.
Table-Turning
‘Table-turning’ (or ‘table-tipping) refers to the anomalous movement of tables and other furniture during mediumistic seances.
Barry E Taff
Barry Taff is an American author and investigator of hauntings, UFOs and alien abduction phenomena
The Super-Psi Hypothesis
Claim that psychic functioning is more extensive than supposed, able to explain most evidence for survival.
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.
Signs of Reincarnation in Africa
Reincarnation beliefs in Africa are associated with signs such as a parent’s dreams and a child’s birthmarks.
Erlendur Haraldsson
Icelandic psychologist (1931–2020) who investigated end-of-life phenomena, mediumship, and 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.
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.
Alan Gauld
British psychologist (1932–2024) known for his writings on hypnosis. poltergeists, mediumship and the history of psychical research.
William F Barrett
British physicist (1844–1925) and co-founder of the Society for Psychical Research in 1882.
Elisabeth Targ
American psychiatrist (1961–2002) whose 1999 study on the effect of prayer on AIDS patients became the subject of controversy.
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.
Center for Research on Consciousness and Anomalous Psychology (CERCAP)
Under Etzel Cardeña at Lund University.
International Association for Near Death Studies (IANDS)
US-based outfit founded in 1981 to study NDEs and provide support and educational resources.
Institute of Paranormal Psychology (IPP)
Argentinian organization established in 1994 that conducts psi research and provides educational resources.
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.
Martin Gardner
American critic of parapsychology and paranormal claims (1914–2010), a founding member of the modern sceptical movement.
Fraud in Parapsychology and Other Sciences
Psi researchers have sometimes been caught in fraud but so have scientists in other fields.
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.
Human Radiations
The idea that humans radiate biophysical forces was once used to explain phenomena such as auras, ESP, healing, and luminous effects.
Witchcraft
Traces the development of witchcraft as the socially proscribed practice of magic, from Antiquity to the present day.
Richet’s ‘Traité de Métapsychique’ (‘Thirty Years of Psychical Research’)
A classic review of the literature, published in 1922.