The international conferences of the Parapsychology Foundation - Brief Article

Journal of Parapsychology, The, Dec, 2001 by Nancy L. Zingrone

ABSTRACT: Eileen J. Garrett and the Honorable Frances P. Bolton, the 2 founders of the Parapsychology Foundation in 1951, knew that supporting scientific investigation of psychic phenomena required more than funding and facilities. Bringing scholars together in a stress-free environment to focus topics of interest to the academic and scientific community was also important. Garrett and Bolton were well aware that the average research worker in parapsychology was a penniless academic, pursuing his or her research on a shoestring budget, under the often disapproving eyes of colleagues and sometimes family, and with infrequent access to peers. In addition to providing the financial resources to underwrite research projects, Garrett and Bolton were aware that something needed to be done to refresh the intellectual commitment of these lonely workers, The international conference program was inaugurated to bring such scholars together in an environment in which structured presentations and formal discussions could lead to creative after-hours conversations.

The First International Conference of Parapsychological Studies, held in Utrecht, Holland in 1953 was the first of these. Four working groups on different issues within the field were organized: (a) quantitative studies, (b) psychotherapeutic and psychoanalytic approaches, (c) spontaneous phenomena and qualitative research, and (d) the personality of the sensitive. Among the participants who laid the groundwork for the second half of the 20th century were Prof. Hans Bender, the founder of the IGPP (Institut fur Grenzgebiete der Psychologie und Psychohygiene); Dr. Gertrude Schmeidler, whose exceptionally productive career still continues in retirement; Dr. Emilio Servadio, the Italian psychoanalyst who was among the most prominent of his countrymen over his long career; and a host of others. The conference set the tone for the Foundation's later meetings in that key players in the field were invited, a pleasing venue was provided, a timely topic was chosen, and the intellectual work that resulted was both amb itious and ground-breaking.

Eight more conferences were held in the 1950s alone, with topics ranging from unorthodox healing to spontaneous phenomena to relationship between parapsychology and psychedelics. Similarly, from 1961 to 1965, 5 more conferences were held with wide-ranging topics, such as psychophysiological correlates of paranormal states and the intersection of religion and parapsychology. Venues for the conferences ranged from Cambridge University, which hosted the spontaneous case conference in 1955, to the Foundation's headquarters in the south of France, a venue which provided unique opportunities for invited participants to meet and discuss in comfort, and then to return to their own working lives rededicated to the task at hand.

From 1967 forward, the Foundation has made available the published proceedings of its 25 most recent international conferences. What is most interesting about these is the prescience of the topics--altered states of consciousness, quantum physics, and psi explored well before the notions took hold in the field--and the productive mix of key insiders and important outsiders with fresh perspectives. If social historians of parapsychology must acknowledge the contribution of the Parapsychology Foundation's grant program, then intellectual historians must acknowledge the profound impact that the Foundation's conferences have had on each generation of workers since 1951, both through personal experience of these exciting meetings and through the published record that the Foundation is committed to keeping in print.