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Editorial

Apropos Parapsychology

Despite scepticism from mainstream K. Ramakrishna Rao finds it paradoxical
psychology, parapsychology has been that the Western traditions, which are so
able to maintain its standpoint of studying concerned to constantly devise practical
interactions between living organisms and applications of science for human uplift,
their external environment, that appear to should be so theoretical in the arena of
transcend the known physical laws of nature. consciousness (1). In fact, this theoretical
perspective arising from the logical world-
view has done great injustice to the field
of parapsychology, where meticulous
experiments with strict scientific rigour
have been disregarded with unscientific
disdain by rationalists. The bias against
parapsychology within the contemporary
scientific paradigm is a classic example
of cultural bias. The methodology of con-
temporary parapsychology is excellent,
and if physicists were reporting such amazing
findings, as Braud’s paper on retroactive
intentional influence, it would be all over
the news (2). Presumably, parapsychology is
not taught to psychologists and psychiatrists
in training because it threatens the mechanistic
No less a personality than William James paradigm.
himself supported the opening of the American
Society for Psychical Research in 1885, while Psi Phenomena
Jung’s concept of synchronicity has been
used as an interpretative tool to explore A sizeable and verifiable data has been
parapsychology. The myriad experiences of actually collected in parapsychological
life often show that many coincidences can research in support of the psi phenomena,
turn out to be meaningful even without any shielded from the usual sensory perception
causal relationship. If such synchronicity and not available through inference or
were absent, we would have missed many a allied mechanisms. Such psi phenomena
wonderful literary piece and consummating have included extrasensory perception
experience! (ESP), telepathy, precognition and

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