Does anyone take Super Psi seriously?

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Stephen Braude comes to mind as often comparing the super-psi and survival hypotheses. (So answering Sciborg's question in the thread's title, the answer is "Yes, Stephen Braude".)

Here is one place he does this:

Survival or Super-psi?

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Here's Mishlove's presentation of the hypothesis, mentioning Braude.

Haven’t other posters (here and at the other place) historically referred to Max’s explanations for veridical NDEs as “super psi”?

I wouldn't - Max's explanation just seems like regular Psi to me. It's contentious but not, IMO, and example of super psi.

I was thinking more in terms of mediumship where one's own psychic powers seems to come through as a communication from the afterlife. That, and the idea that PK can be so strong it actually creates events that seem to be foretold through precognition.

Stephen Braude comes to mind as often comparing the super-psi and survival hypotheses. (So answering Sciborg's question in the thread's title, the answer is "Yes, Stephen Braude".)

Here is one place he does this:

Survival or Super-psi?

Yeah, by "anyone" I meant people on this forum.

As much as I respect Braude this is one of a few contentions I have with his line of thought. Which is fine, as the only person who is 100% right about all things paranormal I can't expect everyone to be as clued-in as I am.

Yeah, by "anyone" I meant people on this forum.

As much as I respect Braude this is one of a few contentions I have with his line of thought. Which is fine, as the only person who is 100% right about all things paranormal I can't expect everyone to be as clued-in as I am.

Regarding Braude, survival and the super psi hypothesisnote I haven't read anything recently so the following is an impression of him from a while back)
In listening to Braude discuss the super psi hypothesis and survival, which he seemed ambivalent about, I was struck by his expression of human exceptionalism, that is human as opposed to any sort of higher intelligence. It seemed very parrallel to how scientists talk in terms of "the royal WE".
My sense was that he felt "WE" would some day understand all of this and will be able to attribute it to how amazing we humans are, that is claim it for the modern enlightened heroic ego.

From Michael Sudduth, "Super-Psi and the Survivalist Interpretation of Mediumship" in JSSE Vol. 23 No. 2:

"...advocates of what is often called the “super-psi hypothesis” maintain that the data of mediumship may be
at least equally explained in terms of living agent psi (ESP and psychokinesis)."

This way of thinking is best seen as a desperate stratagem by many academic parapsychologists to somehow retain their credentials among their materialist peers by narrowly avoiding the postulation of the existence of the soul, survival and an afterlife as the explanation for all the data of parapsychology and psychic research, not just mediumship. Super psi by some subconscious levels of the human mind is seen as the least materialist paradigm-breaking explanation for all the veridical data of mediumistic communications, NDEs, deathbed visions, past life memories of young children, plus physical manifestations such as in physical mediumship. Many parapsychologists demean much of this empirical evidence entirely, but some of those who do take it seriously take the next least damaging (to academic careers) position that it's all psi effects of buried levels of the human mind. Super Psi has the wonderful to academic philosophers advantage of avoiding interactive dualism, which is dreaded, politically incorrect and closed-mindedly avoided in academia. That this explanatory (or more correctly, "explain away") tactic invokes a massively complicated burden from the Occam's Razor principle is complacently ignored.

Still don’t know what super psi is vs psi...

Psi phenomena is the catch all label for all the separate human phenomenal effects, without taking on the separate loaded meaning in their individual labels.

I just don’t see what putting ‘super’ in front of it means... that is different from the psi label itself.

It has all to do with the magnitude of the phenomenon. "Super-psi" is postulated to be able to easily do things like convincingly mimic and provide information from a deceased human personality to the satisfaction of both a medium's sitter and the medium him/herself, convince an NDEer that his experience of the Light and deceased personalities are real, etc., capabilities far beyond anything demonstrated by actual occurrences of esp abilities. And many features of actual mediumistic communications are not what would be expected from a super-strong subconscious psi ability. Michael Prescott, from his blog:

"Here are some specific examples (of psi as opposed to super-psi). At least as far back as Richard Hodgson's investigations of Leonora Piper, it has been noted that newly deceased communicators speaking through mediums often exhibit feebleness and confusion; their messages are brief and muddled. But with the passage of time (usually just a few days) the communicators improve noticeably; the confusion is largely dispelled, and the messages become clearer and more lengthy. Moreover, with continued practice, some communicators seem to hone their skills, and some just seem better at it than others; certain individuals come through a variety of mediums with consistently good results, while others never seem to get the hang of it.

Hodgson and other survivalists argue that these developments are just what we would expect if the communications are genuinely coming from discarnate individuals. The trauma of the dying process leaves these persons fatigued and befuddled for a short time, but with the opportunity to rest and orient themselves to their new environment, they grow stronger and shake off their lethargy. Furthermore, practice improves their abilities in some cases; and just as some incarnate individuals have a gift for mediumship and others don't, some discarnates are better able to communicate through mediums than others.

None of this, Hodgson et al. would say, is what we would expect from super-psi, or any kind of psi among the living. We would expect (super) psi to generate all messages with approximately equal clarity, since all are originating from the same source. Even if mediums and sitters differ in their native psychic abilities, we would at least expect the same medium in conference with the same sitter to produce roughly the same quality of results from one week to the next, rather than a dramatic improvement consistent with the discarnate's period of R&R and orientation."

Regarding Braude, survival and the super psi hypothesisnote I haven't read anything recently so the following is an impression of him from a while back)
In listening to Braude discuss the super psi hypothesis and survival, which he seemed ambivalent about, I was struck by his expression of human exceptionalism, that is human as opposed to any sort of higher intelligence. It seemed very parrallel to how scientists talk in terms of "the royal WE".
My sense was that he felt "WE" would some day understand all of this and will be able to attribute it to how amazing we humans are, that is claim it for the modern enlightened heroic ego.

I can definitely see Braude denying higher/other intelligences but given all his central critiques of reductionism/mechanism I don't believe he thinks we will be able to understand everything about the paranormal let alone the "normal".

I should note, in fairness, that - if my memory serves - Braude did lean toward survival over super-psi. I need to double check Immortal Remains...