The Magazine of the Society for Psychical Research 12 (2023)
A varied range of articles for this issue. Hopefully something to appeal to everyone's interests and a few to get some thoughts going too.
Firstly we start off with the Presidential Pages where Adrian Parker continues his look at some of the work of Bernardo Kastrup and quickly moves on to the perils of AI in the form of ChatGPT. Ending up with Rupert Sheldrake and Skeptics tilting at each other before finishing on NDE's.
And moving from NDE's we have two possible cases of after— death communication reported to the Spontaneous Cases Committee and reported to us by Graham Kidd, we have a few more of those coming up in future issues as well. Spontaneous cases are, pretty much by definition, difficult to research but they are what ultimately gave rise to the formation of many groups and the scientific research that is carried out today.
Nicholas McGirr then gives us a preview of a system he has designed to assess the effectiveness of ghost investigations: this will be commercially available from January 2025.
And talking of commerce we have the Paranormal pound in your pocket. John Tate gives us Paranomics 3: A Research Agenda, looking at the money involved (or lack of it in some instances). Some aspects of the paranormal produce large amounts of money but how much of that filters down to the grass roots of research?
Finally, a review of an annual Edinburgh (local for me) based event – Psi Saturday. Members of Northampton Exceptional Experiences and Consciousness Studies research group came to the Scottish capital to present a day of talks outlining their current research. Even if you're not based in Edinburgh it is worth the journey.
It's nice to see that there is still room for a wide range of approaches to the study of the paranormal and that more are coming on line. As can be seen from Northampton and many other institutes there are an excellent crop of researchers coming up and carrying the flag. The SPR and other organisations are able to offer some funding but compared with the money that is needed it's a drop in the ocean, but ultimately every little bit helps.
Next issue I will be putting out the details for a return of a competition first organised by my predecessor in this post, Dr Leo Ruickbie, a chance to have an image of your own on the cover – photographs, paintings and drawings all welcome. Watch out for the full details in the next issue.
Gordon Rutter
Editor