Reflections on being a parapsychologist

Journal of Parapsychology, The, Fall, 2003 by Carlos S. Alvarado

In addition, many of the early discussions in which automatic writing was seen as the production of the subconscious mind were published in psychical research journals by Frederic W. H. Myers (1884) and William James (1889). This contributed to the idea that not everything that appears to come from discarnate spirits is necessarily so. Our contributions to demystify all kind of claims are particularly important in terms of public education.

Fifth: Our researchers have used and pioneered statistical techniques to study phenomena. Philosopher and skeptic Ian Hacking (1988) has argued that early use of randomization and probability calculations took place in the context of nineteenth-century studies of telepathy. A particularly influential paper was that published by Charles Richet (1884) in the Revue philosophique which inaugurated the use of probability theory in psychical research at a time when psychologists were using statistical methods only infrequently. Following this, British researchers continued the use of statistical calculations in such classic works dealing with spontaneous experiences as Phantasms of the Living (Gurney, Myers, & Podmore, 1886) and the Census of Hallucinations (Sidgwick, et al., 1894), not to mention experimental work. Later parapsychologists, from H. F. Saltmarsh and S. G. Soal (1930), J. Gaither Pratt (1936), and Charles Stuart (1942), and later contributions (summarized by Burdick and Kelly, 1977), developed methods by which to evaluate experimental free-response material quantitatively. It may be argued that the best of our current techniques may be adapted to aspects of the study of subliminal perception, unconscious learning, and dream and waking imagery.

Sixth: Parapsychology has also contributed to the study of fraud and self-deception. Instructive cases have been reported since the nineteenth century. This includes a mediumship case with no apparent motivation of fraud reported by Henry Sidgwick (1894) and the efforts taken by several members of a community to convince one individual of poltergeist manifestations discussed by Hereward Carrington (n.d., pp. 2-19). More recently we could mention the writings of Ejvegaard and Johnson (1981) on an apparition case, Delanoy (1987) on metal bending, and Stevenson and colleagues (Stevenson, Pasricha & Samararatne, 1988) on cases of the reincarnation-type.

It is important to recognize that the above-mentioned contributions have been made under extremely difficult conditions. Individuals coming from other disciplines such as medicine, physics, psychology, or biology are often unaware of how easy they have it in their fields, enjoying all kinds of resources supportive of their work. Regardless of the usual problems with resources everywhere, I do not think anyone tan dispute that, in a large measure, they enjoy much higher levels of funding than we do. Furthermore, except in small or developing research specialties, mainstream scientists have never faced the serious personnel problems we face in parapsychology. We have never had enough people working in the field, especially full-time workers.