Crisis Apparitions in Psychology Today

The problem is that PSI is an ill-defined word. If you define it to include spirit like qualities such as those you list,  then you have more or less assumed life after death!

Besides, what I can't stand is that Super-psi is an hypothesis being put forward from a materialist perspective, and as such it is basically a joke.

Hmm I don't think Braude is a materialist? 

Super Psi basically came about because certain mediumship cases seemed to indicate high Psi functioning of subpersonalities who were unlikely to be who they claimed (A Native American girl named "Chlorine" for example). There were also some cases of people demonstrating incredible Psi functioning, sometimes when hypnotized, and attempts at cold sitting where it seemed the medium telepathically read the minds of people who'd been fed incorrect information.

Where it went awry, IMO, is evidence of apparitions, reincarnation, and NDEs were then tried to be forced into examples of Super Psi. These don't fit nearly as well, if you take these cases as things that happened it seems very unlikely the Super Psi explanation fits. OTOH, when you look at sub-personalities as spirit entities in their own right, the Survival/Spirit hypothesis ends up fitting cases of presumed Super Psi.

It isn't really "materialist" necessarily, it just seems like after a point one is forcing a denial of any afterlife.

"it seems to me what strikes them is some aesthetic opposition to the afterlife." or perhaps some atheistic predisposition.
It does seem a little odd to me for someone with that predilection to put that much study and research into such fringe topics.

Well Braude has had a paranormal experience in his younger days when he was at university, so I think that is what motivates him. 

There definitely seems to be an atheist bent to Super Psi, a sort of fear of religion. I recall John Searle - a materialist philosopher - admitting he didn't think any materialist explanation [for the Hard Problem of Consciousness] was any good but academia was afraid saying this would be inviting the world to return to the "Dark Ages" of religious dominance in society.

Well Braude has had a paranormal experience in his younger days when he was at university, so I think that is what motivates him. 

There definitely seems to be an atheist bent to Super Psi, a sort of fear of religion. I recall John Searle - a materialist philosopher - admitting he didn't think any materialist explanation [for the Hard Problem of Consciousness] was any good but academia was afraid saying this would be inviting the world to return to the "Dark Ages" of religious dominance in society.

It often seems to me that there is a confusion over the scope of the term 'atheism'.

Frequently people are heard to express a disbelief in human survival after death, and bracketing that together with an explanation such as "because I'm an atheist". However the latter term refers to a deity or non-acceptance of any deity. That doesn't seem to me to in any way disallow human survival. Unless of course they consider that after death we must become gods ourselves, which seems an unnecessary complication to a simple question about existence of a part of us which doesn't disintegrate along with the physical. It is akin to a disbelief in non-physical consciousness because of some fear of a god they don't even believe in.

I guess my bafflement is this: why minimise and belittle human existence by denying this eternal component of ourselves? It seems a wilful act of self-harm. Like if someone could run faster or jump higher - just metaphorically - but refuses to do so because of some non-religion.

It often seems to me that there is a confusion over the scope of the term 'atheism'.

Frequently people are heard to express a disbelief in human survival after death, and bracketing that together with an explanation such as "because I'm an atheist". However the latter term refers to a deity or non-acceptance of any deity. That doesn't seem to me to in any way disallow human survival. Unless of course they consider that after death we must become gods ourselves, which seems an unnecessary complication to a simple question about existence of a part of us which doesn't disintegrate along with the physical. It is akin to a disbelief in non-physical consciousness because of some fear of a god they don't even believe in.

I guess my bafflement is this: why minimise and belittle human existence by denying this eternal component of ourselves? It seems a wilful act of self-harm. Like if someone could run faster or jump higher - just metaphorically - but refuses to do so because of some non-religion.

Yeah I would agree that the question of Survival need not invoke any god, and arguably the accounts from parapsychology are actually challenges to religious authority.

Academia, in the West at least, seems to have had a religion of its own - Myth of Progress - that didn't want a "foothold" in the door that might let religion in. This obsession with forcing materialism on the masses with missionary zeal seems to stem from that...

Yeah I would agree that the question of Survival need not invoke any god, and arguably the accounts from parapsychology are actually challenges to religious authority.

Academia, in the West at least, seems to have had a religion of its own - Myth of Progress - that didn't want a "foothold" in the door that might let religion in. This obsession with forcing materialism on the masses with missionary zeal seems to stem from that...

'Myth of Progress' - that's like a lot of modern myths. Another one being the biological 'Tree of life'. Attempting to assign each lifeform to a specific branch on an evolutionary tree. Occasionally a creature (or plant etc.) is reclassified and instantaneously leaps from one branch to another. In actuality, that whole tree structure itself is based upon a belief system, something which someone once though was a good idea, and it has become frozen into dogma. As for progress, I certainly hope to see progress. That does mean from time to time reassessing or abandoning outdated concepts, as new information is absorbed.