To be or not to be! A "paraphysics" for the new millennium - Parapsychological Abstracts

Journal of Parapsychology, The, March, 2002 by Sally R. Feather

BEICHLER, J. E. (2001). To be or not to be! A "paraphysics" for the new millennium. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 15, 33-56.

In 1974, Brendan O'Regan and James Beal declared the emergence of a new field of science, paraphysics. The decade of the 1970s also saw the first publication of the Journal of Paraphysics increasing publications and interest in paraphysics and physics of the paranormal; the entrance of physicists into parapsychology in larger numbers than ever before, resulting in new avenues of research; and the development of a secret government program for the study and application of paranormal abilities. These and related developments seemed to represent the culmination of a long evolutionary process by which normal physics was slowly coming to terms with paranormal physical phenomena; however, the acceptance of paraphysics as a legitimate field of science is yet to be accomplished nearly 3 decades later. In fact, at the end of the 2nd millennium, use of the word paraphysics has declined despite recent developments concerning the scientific verification of psi phenomena and a new mindset in parapsychology.

Present ambiguities in the status of paraphysics can only be understood against the background of its initial development and the continuing evolution of physics itself. As a branch of theoretical physics, pamphysics is subject to all of the subtle changes of attitude within the scientific community at large as well as individual changes within both physics and parapsychology. The same evolutionary factors that have changed the landscape of modem physics since the 1960s, spawned O'Regan and Beal's announcement, and subsequently pushed the birth of paraphysics into the background of science have now opened new avenues of research, which once again demonstrates the need to establish paraphysics as a legitimate scientific endeavor. There is now reason to believe that science has at last matured to a level of understanding of nature that will allow physicists and other scholars to openly and seriously discuss the role and validity of paraphysics.

--Author's abstract