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I\u2019ve never been overly interested in paranormal phenomena \u2014 what\u2019s sometimes called psi<\/em> \u2014 such as clairvoyance, ESP, and spiritualism. \u00a0My worldview doesn\u2019t demand that they be authentic or true. \u00a0Pretty obviously, though, their authenticity, if confirmed or even strongly evidenced, would tend to undermine certain reductionist materialist dogmas in a way that would be congenial to things that matter much more, and much more directly, to me.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n In recent years, I\u2019ve begun to wonder whether I shouldn\u2019t take a more serious and open-minded look. \u00a0I had long thought that such things had been definitively discredited, but now I\u2019m not so sure. \u00a0The first inkling that I had in that direction was a brief discussion, in one of his books (I no longer remember which) by the prominent Anglo-American philosopher John Hick, who had spent some time reading through the publications of England\u2019s Society for Psychical Research. \u00a0He had emerged from that reading much more impressed than I had expected he would.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Then, several years ago, I read\u00a0The Afterlife Experiments: Breakthrough Scientific Evidence of Life After Death<\/a><\/em>, by Gary E. Schwartz, and I<\/em> was more impressed than I had expected to be.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Thereupon, I read\u00a0Extraordinary Knowing: Science, Skepticism, and the Inexplicable Powers of the Human Mind<\/a><\/em> by the late Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer<\/a>, and, again, I was surprised and impressed.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019ll probably never get around to it, but it would be fascinating to seriously read through the publications of the London-based Society for Psychical Research, which may well have been relegated to the academic fringe not because its work wasn\u2019t sound and rigorous but because its conclusions are ideologically incompatible with certain reigning dogmas.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been thinking about the SPR again because I\u2019ve been reading Entangled Minds: Extrasensory Experiences in a Quantum Reality<\/em><\/a> by the controversial psychologist and professor Dr. Dean Radin<\/a>. \u00a0Think of him what you will \u2014 he, personally, isn\u2019t my focus at the moment \u2014 his brief discussion of the Society for Psychical Research is interesting.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The Society was founded around 1882 by, among others, the physicist Sir William Barrett, of the Royal College of Science in Dublin, Ireland. \u00a0Its members included the physicist Sir Oliver Lodge, who became famous for his contributions to wireless telegraphy; the physicist Baron Rayleigh, brother-in-law to the British prime minister Arthur James Balfour and eventual winner of the Nobel Prize for his discovery of the inert gas argon; the astronomer Samuel P. Langley, director of the Smithsonian Institution; the great Harvard philosopher and psychologist William James; the astronomer Simon Newcomb, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; the German physicist Heinrich Hertz, the first person to provide conclusive proof of the existence of\u00a0electromagnetic waves (who died sadly young at 36); and Edward C. Pickering, director of the Harvard Observatory.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The British physicist J. J. Thompson, who won a Nobel Prize in 1906 for his discovery of the electron, served for thirty-four years as a member of the Society\u2019s Governing Council. \u00a0The French physiologist Charles Richet, who later won a Nobel Prize for his research on anaphylaxis, served as president of the Society for a time.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n And so forth.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n These weren\u2019t mere pseudoscientific crackpots, lightly dismissed \u2014 and they believed that they had found solid evidence for psychic phenomena. \u00a0My sense is that many of their studies haven\u2019t been refuted. \u00a0They\u2019re simply out of fashion and no longer read.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Perhaps it\u2019s time to dust some of their volumes off and take another look at their work.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 \u00a0 I\u2019ve never been overly interested in paranormal phenomena \u2014 what\u2019s sometimes called psi \u2014 such as clairvoyance, ESP, and spiritualism. \u00a0My worldview doesn\u2019t demand that they be authentic or true. \u00a0Pretty obviously, though, their authenticity, if confirmed or even strongly evidenced, would tend to undermine certain reductionist materialist dogmas in a way that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n