An Introduction to Parapsychology in the Context of Science

Some steps towards a scientific answer to the question of what is the relation of human consciousness to the physical world are attempted by the author. Primarily, this book is based on lectures he prepared for a course he has given at the University of Pittsburgh since 1973. The lectures were prepared with the premise in mind that in order for psi phenomena to achieve scientific acceptability, a reassessment is required of the widely scattered areas of belief upon which they impinge.

There are three parts, the first consisting of 9 chapters that present the psychosocial substrata of parapsychology. The chapters are titled Definitions and Questions, Trance Mediumship, The Occurrence of Multiple Personality, An Interpretation of Multiple Personality, Consciousness and Society, Altered States of Consciousness, Factors Favoring Psi, Postmortem Survival, and History of Parapsychology.

The second part is on the observation of psi phenomena and consists of the following 7 chapters: Mechanized Methods, Spontaneous Psychokinesis, Experimental Psychokinesis, Unconscious Characteristics of Psi, Progressive Organization and Ambivalence Principles in Psychokinetic Data, Hypnosis as Psychokinesis, and Hypnosis, Peer Reviewed. The last part is on the sociology of parapsychology and consists of the following 10 chapters: Scientific Theory, Progress in Science, Fraud in Parapsychology, With Friends Like These..., Of People and Prejudice, Guardians of Orthodoxy, The Closing Mind of Adolescence, Recapitulation, Time Present, The Long Tomorrow. These are 8 appendices, titled A Background for the Study of Parapsychology, On the Malpractice of Medicine, Some Persons of Prominence in the History of Parapsychology Whose Work was Published in English, Chronology of Major, Professionally Guided Centers of Parapsychological Research in the U.S.A., Governmental Assistance to a Pretheoretical Science, Analysis of the Honorton-Science Controversy, 1972-1975, Listening Guide to the Controversy About the Relation of Intelligence to Inherited Biological Structure, and Two Instances of Spontaneous, Probable ESP Known First-Hand to the Author.