Past Events
May 24, 2021
In this talk, Dr Simmonds-Moore will discuss recent research conducted at the University of West Georgia on the psychology and parapsychology of ghost experiences. Synaesthesia will be discussed as playing a key role in the aetiology of a range of paranormal experiences, but in particular experiences of ghosts. Synaesthesia occurs when an inducing stimulus (the inducer) results in the usual response plus an additional response (the concurrent). I will discuss how synaesthesia is implicated in…
May 17, 2021
In this talk Dr Dullin will present an overview of some of the Telekinesis research that has been carried out at LAPDC (Anomalous Psychophysics and Cognitive Dissonance Laboratory) concerning potential human influence on light spinning objects. The presentation will include some background information on the topic of telekinesis and will also include some videos of recordings by some lab members showing the use of telekinesis to move small spinning objects.
April 24, 2021
This study day will celebrate the contributions of three eminent psychical researchers who sadly died in the past year, with particular reference to their work on the evidence for survival. Each of these luminaries will be the focus of a session featuring two SPR members who knew them well. The day will end with a general discussion and audience participation.
April 12, 2021
'This talk will cover my research into different beliefs and why we believe in certain things and not others. It will look at the personality types potentially associated with what we believe and how these beliefs might affect the way we think. This talk will cover differences in thinking and personality and cover the issues with researching paranormal belief and whether a particular mindset or way of thinking are required to believe in the paranormal. I will also talk about how research…
March 29, 2021
We all experience non-physical visions when our physical eyes are not in operation, for example, during dreaming. Many also experience visions in their meditation, while doing psychic viewing, under the influence of psychedelics, and during dying.
These non-physical visual experiences have been categorised as subjective, implying they don’t really exist. Some non-physical visual phenomena are even regarded by mainstream scientific community as ‘hallucinations’, fantasy or even ‘…
These non-physical visual experiences have been categorised as subjective, implying they don’t really exist. Some non-physical visual phenomena are even regarded by mainstream scientific community as ‘hallucinations’, fantasy or even ‘…
March 1, 2021
The Irish broadcaster and historian Brian Inglis (1916-1993) turned his back on a successful television career to carve out a completely new role, as advocate for the reality of psi forces--in Inglis's mind, the single major underreported news story of his era. In his two-volume history of the Occult ("Natural and Supernatural" (1977), "Science and Parascience" (1984)) and other related books, Inglis set out what he believed to be incontrovertible evidence for the truth…
February 22, 2021
The psi-critic James Alcock has recently argued that psi-research needs to focus on finding a theory which explains the vast range of phenomena in psychical research. He rightly asks, what do they all have in common and how can they fit into natural science? If we accept consciousness as primary in nature and psi as established, then we are free to theorize that the entities that appear behind all these phenomena are created by, and are part of, our individual wider consciousness. Just how this…
January 18, 2021
Informed, constructive criticism plays an important corrective role in enabling scientific progress. Just as a government in office needs a discerning opposition to call it to task to ensure good governance, so parapsychology needs a strong and capable counter-advocate movement to ensure that its methods are robust and its findings valid and meaningful. Parapsychological research has certainly received more than its fair share of criticism, though unusually this mainly comes from ‘armchair…
December 14, 2020
Toward a Scientific Resurrection of Magic. A growing number of scientists are questioning whether materialism -- the prevailing scientific worldview -- is adequate to understand all aspects of reality. This is leading to reconsideration of ideas like panpsychism, and more generally the philosophy of idealism. In parallel, we see rising scholarly interest in Western esoteric traditions, where we find that some aspects of ancient wisdom that were previously dismissed as superstitious nonsense are…
December 12, 2020
Psychical research aspires to be a science and yet appears to be incompatible with the reductionist, materialistic science which currently prevails. Indeed, despite the strength of evidence for psi, its reality is sometimes rejected on these very grounds. However, the old-fashioned materialistic paradigm was overthrown a century ago with the advent of relativity and quantum theory and more recent developments across a variety of academic disciplines point to a new “post-materialist” paradigm…
November 23, 2020
Following his retirement in October this year, Professor Chris French will reflect on the work of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit, founded in the year 2000. His talk will describe the reasons for founding the Unit and give some examples of its work, as well as considering the future prospects of anomalistic psychology and parapsychology.
September 22, 2020
Telepathic parapsychology research is a subject of much debate. In this presentation, Dr Deborah Erickson reviews some of her research focusing on telepathic interspecies communication with domestic dogs and therapy horses.