Psi Text Resources Thread

Courtesy of the SPR Facebook page, here's the publisher's description of a collection of essays by Jack Hunter, entitled "Engaging the Anomalous":
http://augustnightbooks.com/

The essays were written between 2010 and 2017, and "push toward the development of a non-reductive, participatory and experiential anthropology of the paranormal". There are complimentary comments from several names, including Dean Radin, who thinks the essays are "crisp".

(I was interested to see that "August Night Books" - an imprint of White Crow Productions - is named after a UFO encounter in 1988 on the edge of Cannock Chase in Staffordshire, close to where I grew up:
http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2018/04/re...never-saw/ )

Now that looks really interesting.

Courtesy of the SPR Facebook page, here's the advance online publication of a paper that's due to appear in the journal American Psychologist (the official peer-reviewed scholarly journal of the American Psychological Association). It's by Etzel Cardeña, and is entitled "The experimental evidence for parapsychological phenomena: A review."

The abstract reads:
This article presents a comprehensive integration of current experimental evidence and theories about so-called parapsychological (psi) phenomena. Throughout history, people have reported events that seem to violate the common sense view of space and time. Some psychologists have been at the forefront of investigating these phenomena with sophisticated research protocols and theory, while others have devoted much of their careers to criticizing the field. Both stances can be explained by psychologists’ expertise on relevant processes such as perception, memory, belief, and conscious and nonconscious processes. This article clarifies the domain of psi, summarizes recent theories from physics and psychology that present psi phenomena as at least plausible, and then provides an overview of recent/updated meta-analyses. The evidence provides cumulative support for the reality of psi, which cannot be readily explained away by the quality of the studies, fraud, selective reporting, experimental or analytical incompetence, or other frequent criticisms. The evidence for psi is comparable to that for established phenomena in psychology and other disciplines, although there is no consensual understanding of them. The article concludes with recommendations for further progress in the field including the use of project and data repositories, conducting multidisciplinary studies with enough power, developing further nonconscious measures of psi and falsifiable theories, analyzing the characteristics of successful sessions and participants, improving the ecological validity of studies, testing how to increase effect sizes, recruiting more researchers at least open to the possibility of psi, and situating psi phenomena within larger domains such as the study of consciousness.
http://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10...amp0000236

Unfortunately the text is available only as a purchase, for $11.95. But as it's a high-profile publication, I presume we can look forward to quite a bit of discussion of its contents in the next few months.

There's an interesting account of how Colin Wilson came to write "The Occult" in chapter 18 of his autobiographical work "Dreaming to Some Purpose" (2011). It's a fairly generous preview, but some pages are missing. In chapter 19 he covers the sequel, "Mysteries", but for me the text stopped just after he started to talk about the book. If anyone is curious to read the whole thing, the book is available for £2.49:
https://books.google.com/books?id=ZCvrS9DjE68C

The SPR Facebook page has a link to a chapter by the psychiatrist Eliot Slater (1904-1983), entitled "Lionel and Marianne - A Pscyhiatric Interpretation", written for Trevor H. Hall's book, "Marianne Foyster of Borley Rectory", but rejected and like the book itself subsequently unpublished.

This is one of several pieces connected with parapsychology that are available at the Eliot Slater Archive, the others being reviews of or introductions to books:
http://eliotslater.org/index.php/psychia...nge-things

Courtesy of the Anomalist, Michael Prescott has a new blog post entitled "Medley of malodorous musings":
http://michaelprescott.typepad.com/micha...sings.html

It includes mention of a recent book about psi, "Our Secret Powers", by Terje Simonsen:
https://www.amazon.com/Our-Secret-Powers...895604334/
It has been enthusiastically reviewed (by Dean Radin and Stanley Krippner among others), though it sounds as though it's pitched as an overview of the field aimed at the general reader, rather than an in-depth study.

Prescott also criticises Radin for the opening of his book "Real Magic" with a supposed news item from the 30th century. He thinks it fails to establish circumspect judgment and a cautious respect for the facts, and in fact does what Radin accuses present-day demagogues of doing - making grandiose and unrealistic promises. He is, however, objecting to the presentation rather than the substance, which he expects to be worthwhile. In the comments section, Prescott is winning 2-1 at the moment.

A book brought to my attention by a post from Dean Radin.

Here's a new book by a journalist that I can recommend. It covers a huge range of psychic phenomena, it's well written, accurate, up to date, and comprehensive.

Our Secret Powers: Telepathy, Clairvoyance and Precognition. A Short History of (Nearly) Everything Paranormal

Seemingly it is out of print and may not be available. But from the reviews it sounds like a good introduction for those not acquainted with the field, if you can get hold of a copy.

A book brought to my attention by a post from Dean Radin.

Our Secret Powers: Telepathy, Clairvoyance and Precognition. A Short History of (Nearly) Everything Paranormal

Seemingly it is out of print and may not be available. But from the reviews it sounds like a good introduction for those not acquainted with the field, if you can get hold of a copy.

Also mentioned by Michael Prescott (see my post above).

Also mentioned by Michael Prescott (see my post above).

Thanks Chris. My attention-span seems to be getting very short - I somehow missed that.

Thanks Chris. My attention-span seems to be getting very short - I somehow missed that.

Not at all. Much better for things to be posted twice rather than not at all. I don't tweet, so I wouldn't have seen it if it hadn't been for Michael Prescott's blog.