Parapsychology and transpersonal psychology: "Anomalies" to be explained away or spirit to manifest?

ANOTHER PATH? NOT AN ANOMALY, BUT FUNDAMENTAL EXPLORATION

What I want to focus on today could be seen as another supplementary path for parapsychology, a path that involves its transpersonal psychological aspects. This is a path that has always been there as "psychical research," but it is a path that is rather neglected, if not implicitly repressed, in too much of parapsychology today. This alternative path is more in line with the widespread cultural interest, as expressed in the Gallup poll results, and is more in line with "spiritual" reality.

Now I know that spiritual is a controversial word for parapsychologists and for most scientists in general. Indeed, it is like waving the proverbial red flag in front of a bull for some people! But this transpersonal path recognizes the deep resistance to psi phenomena as well as the vital psychological and spiritual importance of psi, and so it has important advantages.

I do not expect to change the research strategies and emphasis of particular individuals, of course, but I do hope, in discussing this alternative path, to hearten people for whom it is appealing but who feel rejected by the "parapsychological establishment." Note carefully, however, that I am not advocating that we give up doing the best-quality scientific work possible!

In many writings, I have defined essential science and tried to discriminate it from Materialistic Scientism. Very briefly, in essential science, data is always primary. If new data does not fit into established theories, that is too bad for the established theories, not for the data. But mainstream science is dominated by an overarching paradigm, a philosophy of Materialistic Scientism, which says only what is material is real and worthwhile. From the viewpoint of Materialistic Scientism, psi is a priori impossible and/or, at best, nothing but a trivial anomaly, an error someplace that will eventually be explained away.

So when we do science, I want us to continue to do the best science possible, but I want us to give up the cringing, apologetic anomaly approach. I do not want us to implicitly buy into the putdown inherent in the word anomaly from the viewpoint of Materialistic Scientism. As Nancy Zingrone (2002) so nicely pointed out in her 2001 Presidential Address to the Parapsychological Association Convention, we have been letting the enemy set our agenda and taking an attitude associated by the scientific establishment with losers. We cannot have a healthy field if we continue to do that.

Let me make my position clear. As a parapsychologist, I do not study anomalies. I study the fundamental nature of the human mind!

Parapsychology is a very difficult field to work with. Both psi phenomena themselves and the circumstances under which they manifest are very complicated. But because of that difficulty, I am proud to work in our field! There is more challenge than in many of the easy sciences. Again, I cannot stress enough, that as a parapsychologist I do not study trivial anomalies, I study the fundamental nature of mind!