Parapsychology in Brazil: A science entering young adulthood

Besides these two theses, Konrad Lindmeier has defended his PhD dissertation in Medical Sciences at the State University of Campinas, one of Brazil's main public universities. Lindmeier conducted experimental research on clairvoyance, comparing performance using ESP cards and tarot cards as targets. Lindmeier found significant differences in the results of the tests with the distinct targets. When the tarot cards were used as targets, his results were above what was expected by chance; when ESP cards were used as targets, the results were those expected by chance. He interpreted the results from the point of view of the analytical psychology of Carl Gustav Jung. Lindmeier argued that the tarot cards chosen by the experimental participants would show an archetypal correspondence with their psyche, thus facilitating perception through ESP.

During the current year, 2001, Ricardo Eppinger, a Brazilian from Curitiba, Parana, earned his PhD at the Koestler Chair Unit of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, with a dissertation comparing psi performance in dreams and ganzfeld.

Two master's theses and two PhD dissertations may not seem like much to some of you. But in the whole history of parapsychology in Brazil, there has been no master's thesis and only one PhD dissertation on precognition defended in 1972 by Adelaide Petters Lessa, at the University of Sao Paulo, the most important public university in Brazil.

There is more good news. There are two other PhD dissertations in progress and a postdoctoral research project related to psi. In addition, there are at least three psi research projects for master's degrees. We are the authors of the two PhD dissertations in progress. Wellington is analyzing affective and cognitive aspects of Umbanda mediums (Umbanda is a Brazilian religion) in the Post-Graduate Psychology Program of the University of Sao Paulo. Fatima is analyzing poltergeist case reports from a semiotic perspective, at the Communication and Semiotics Post-Graduate Program of the Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo. The postdoctoral research project proposed by Luiz Carlos Bittencourt intends to analyze possible anomalous communication processes in reports of some occult practitioners. Elizabeth Dantas is working on her master's research project to analyze the concept of "intuition" from a psychoanalytical perspective and its implications to clinical practice Jose Zacarias de Souza and Cleber Monte iro Muniz are also working on their master's research projects. Souza's project is related to xenoglossy, and Muniz's is related to lucid dreams involving shared contents.

In addition to the academic development, in 1996/1997, we collaborated with Dr. Dean Radin in an experiment, presented at the PA convention in Halifax, Canada, in 1998. The experiment consisted of measuring possible effects that Umbanda's mediums in Sao Paulo, Brazil, tried to produce in the bodies of patients at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

It was a very good and productive experience of partnership with a foreign researcher.