Psi Encyclopedia

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. It is sponsored by the Society for Psychical Research.

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

Featured

Rhea A White

American parapsychologist, librarian, bibliographer, and editor of the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research.

Francis Bacon and the Occult

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) believed in the possibility of psi but opposed its investigation on theological grounds.

Animals in Psi Research

The psi abilities of animals have been reported in informal observations and laboratory tests.

Eminent People Interested in Psi (list)

A list of some 200 scientists, thinkers, writers, and artists who took seriously the possibility of psi.

Psi Research in Brazil

This article traces the development of interest in psi phenomena and parapsychological research in Brazil.

Why Do Ghosts Wear Clothes?

Sceptics use the fact that apparitions appear fully clad as reason to doubt them. This article discusses why they might.

Maroczy Mediumistic Chess Match

Match played between a living Russian grandmaster and a deceased Hungarian one.

Key Topics

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.

Near-Death Experiences (Overview)

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

Society for Psychical Research (SPR)

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

Psychokinesis Research (Overview)

Research on PK has progressed from early tests with dice to random number generators, field studies, and quantum experiments.

Clinical Parapsychology

Therapeutic approach that aims to provide support for people disturbed by anomalous event experiences.

Early reincarnation beliefs in the West are associated with the Greek philosopher Pythagoras in the sixth century BCE

Reincarnation: An Introduction

This introductory article covers beliefs in reincarnation, evidence for reincarnation, and sceptical views of the research.

Psychedelics and Psi

A gradual easing of restrictions means that psi research with psychedelics, once prevalent, could soon resume.

Altered States of Consciousness and Psi

ASCs have long been known to be associated with psi experiences.

Recent Additions

After-Death Communications (Overview)

ADCs have been interpreted through both psychological and survival-based models.

Elwood Worcester

American Episcopal clergyman and psychologist (1862–1940) who helped found the Boston Society for Psychic Research.

Siméon Edmunds

British researcher (1917–69) concerned with hypnotism, spirit photography, parapsychology and Spiritualism.

Global Consciousness Project (GCP) 2.0

GCP 2.0 extends the original GCP with a larger network of quantum random number generators.

Global Consciousness: Theories

This article considers interpretations of data gathered by the Global Consciousness Project.

Minot J.Savage (Harvard Divinity School Library)

Minot Judson Savage

Unitarian minister (1841–1918) who sat with Leonora Piper and was involved with the early American Society for Psychical Research.

Presentiment Research Methods

Confirmatory studies should be preregistered and use pre-stimulus physiological data to predict stimuli.

Charles Drayton Thomas

Methodist minister (1867–1953) who studied mental mediumship, chiefly of Gladys Osborne Leonard.

Edward F Kelly

American psychologist and parapsychologist concerned with consciousness and its relation to psi and postmortem survival.

Free-Response Methods

Targets such as random images or locations allow for richer impressions than do forced-choice tests.

Children’s Near-Death Experiences

New research employs creative, participatory methods to interview children about their NDEs.

Psi Research in France

This article discusses psi research in France, from nineteenth century ‘animal magnetism’ to the present day.

Callum E Cooper

British psychologist who specializes in the study of spontaneous cases of psi phenomena.

Preventing Researcher Fraud

Preventive research practices offer the strongest protections against fraud in parapsychology.

Dealing with the Stacking Effect

When several test participants respond to the same target, their trials are statistically dependent.

Peter Underwood

British paranormal researcher long associated with the Ghost Club, author of more than 50 about haunting phenomena.

Gustav Theodor Fechner

German pioneer in experimental psychology who proposed an influential theory of immortality.

King Wen of Zhou (1231-1135 BC), established the I Ching divination system

Psi Research in China

Recent experimental and theoretical work in China includes successful attempts to train ESP abilities in blind children.

JB Rhine and the Replication Crisis in Research

Rhine anticipated reforms linked to psychology’s replication crisis.

Cyril L Burt

Influential but controversial British psychologist (1883–1971) who believed psychic phenomena merited serious attention.

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.

Mikhail Petrovo-Solovovo

Russian diplomat and psychical researcher (1868–1954) known for interest in physical mediumship.

Daryl Bem

Daryl Bem, an American social psychologist, has carried out landmark experiments on precognition.

Etzel Cardeña

Mexican-born psychologist with interests in consciousness, dissociation and altered states related to psi.

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 Boy Who Came Back from Heaven’ (recanted NDE)

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

Oskar Estebany

Twentieth-century Hungarian-Canadian psychic healer whose abilities were demonstrated in successful laboratory experiments.

Out-of-Body Experiences (OBEs)

Reviews research on OBEs, the sense of having separated from the body and of viewing it from the outside.

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.

Drummer of Tedworth

Poltergeist case investigated by Joseph Glanvill (1636–1680), one of the first to receive serious scrutiny.

Fox Sisters

American women who were at the centre of poltergeist-type disturbances and later helped found Anglo-American Spiritualism.

Cold Reading

Discusses the psychological strategies that can be used to simulate a mediumistic communication or psychic reading.

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.

Native American Children with Past-Life Memories

Collection of cases of the reincarnation type among Tlingit and other native North American cultures.

Pretiba Gunawardana (reincarnation case)

This Sri Lankan boy remembered being a businessman who died of burns after his car caught fire.

photograph of an old-fashioned olive press in an olive grove

Suleyman Andary (reincarnation case)

Lebanese case in which the child talked about the previous life unusually late, between ages 11 and 13.

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.

Harold E Puthoff

American physicist and parapsychologist, a key figure in the US government-funded Star Gate remote viewing programme.

Edward F Kelly

American psychologist and parapsychologist concerned with consciousness and its relation to psi and postmortem survival.

GNM Tyrrell

English mathematician, physicist and radio engineer (1879–1952), remembered for his theoretical treatise on apparitions.

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.

Waterside Campus, University of Northampton

Exceptional Experience and Consciousness Studies (EECS)

Based at the University of Northampton, this is the largest centre for parapsychological research in the world.

Southern California Society for Psychical Research

Organization founded in 1961 and merged with the International Foundation for Survival Research, now also defunct, in 1983.

Parapsychology Foundation (PF)

US-based forum, founded in 1951 by Eileen J Garrett, that supports parapsychology internationally.

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.

Criticisms of Reincarnation Case Studies

This article addresses objections critics have raised to the reincarnation case research of Ian Stevenson and others.

Marcello Truzzi

American sociologist known for distinguishing open-minded scepticism of psi phenomena from simple debunking.

Martin Gardner

American critic of parapsychology and paranormal claims (1914–2010), a founding member of the modern sceptical movement.

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.