Who is the top parapsychologist in the world today?

[Erin Pavlina]

Before I go mucking around the internet, does anyone have an idea off the top of their head on who would be the top parapsychologist in the world (or USA) today? Or the top parapsychology research facility? I'd like to get in touch with them directly if I can.

[Apollia]

I never realized it before reading this question, but I don't have a definite idea of the answer to this at all.

Which is strange to me, because I am actually very interested in psychic stuff, but, I guess I just have never gone out of my way to learn who are considered the most respected and "official" people and organizations in the field.

However, one organization and person I know of that seem to me like they might qualify are Jeff Mishlove and his organization, the Intuition Network. Maybe they could help.

Jeff Mishlove also has a forum: Gaia Community Group — Psi And a blog: Jeffrey (Jeff) Mishlove's Blog — Gaia Community

He has a very impressive resume, various details of things he has done and assorted web links are in his Gaia profile page: Jeffrey (Jeff) Mishlove's Profile — Gaia Community And a short summary is here: ABOUT JM

Other than that, all I can think of are particular well-known psychics, like John Edward, James van Praagh, and Uri Geller.

Oh yeah, and the Ghost Hunters, aka TAPS - The Atlantic Paranormal Society. I love that show.

The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS)

Ghost Hunters | SCIFI.COM

I don't know if this will help, but it's all I can think of off the top of my head.

Best wishes,
Apollia

[Erin Pavlina]

Thanks Apollia. I should clarify that I mean really top notch scientist types. Not other psychics and mediums, etc. I mean who in the world has the grant money and is actively researching and studying the paranormal? Not that Jeffrey isn't... just want to clarify further.

[demk]

Dean Radin has done some credible looking research on precognition among other stuff.

[SunnKali]

I don't have a specific person's name, but perhaps the Rhine Research Center is a kind of place you're looking for?

The Rhine Research Center - Homepage

Or Institute of Noetic Sciences?

Institute of Noetic Sciences: Home Page

[kgiuliani]

Here's a link to a list of resources on Gregg Braden's website. Maybe you'll find what you're looking for there.

Gregg Braden » Important Links

Or I got this from Wikipedia:

The VERITAS Research Program - Home

[Sentient]

You could follow up on Rupert Sheldrake. Perhaps another poster more familiar with him can comment, but he is at least attempting to create scientifically rigorous studies that examine paranormal phenomena.

Perhaps it'd be useful to know what your intention is. There are going to be people who push boundaries in order to sketch rough maps of territory that most haven't charted. Then there will be others trying to take digital pictures of well traveled terrain that is still pushing at the edge of the secular and skeptics.

My guess is that the most advanced knowledge (uncharted territory) probably lies in the hands of a few really gifted psychics... why don't you just ask around at the ICDI conference? Most of the people on the lecture circuit know each other fairly well from what I've been told.

[Adelina]

Probably at one of the university departments-

UVA
or University of Arizona VERITAS-
which has Dr. Gary Schwartz, who wrote several books

or someone from the Princeton PEAR lab that just closed,
like Robert Jahn

You should probably connect with Raymond Moody, since he's nearby you,
he also wrote a book,
is at UNLV.

[AuspiciousEight]

Originally Posted by Erin Pavlina

Before I go mucking around the internet, does anyone have an idea off the top of their head on who would be the top parapsychologist in the world (or USA) today? Or the top parapsychology research facility? I'd like to get in touch with them directly if I can.

Erin,

The answer to your question depends somewhat upon your reason or intention for asking.

Research into the paranormal and various psychic abilities have been explored by a variety of intelligent individuals, research associations, and universities for literally centuries. There have been a variety of studies done by parapsychologists that have "proven" the existence of psychic phenomenon(PEAR, GC project, the hundreds of experiments done demonstrating the role consciousness has on Random Event Generators and Geiger counters, etc, etc). As expected, skeptics have found every way under the sun to deny or debunk these reports. People never want to let go of their cherished beliefs...

If you're looking to conclusively prove the existence of psychic phenomenon for the "scientific" community, I would suggest a different approach.

Instead of doing experiments that seem to go against the current scientific paradigm of reality, do experiments that help scientists to enlarge the current scientific paradigm so that it can include psychic phenomenon. This has been explored somewhat in the field of Quantum mechanics, so I would start there.

In this manner, instead of trying to prove psychic phenomenon and blowing away the current scientific models (which the scientific community doesn't seem to like) you can aid in slowly transforming and expanding the current scientific paradigm so as to include psychic phenomenon as a possibility.

The real benefit to doing this is because if the scientific community at large can accept psychic phenomenon as real, then the vast majority of the population is sure to follow, as they now have their "proof". And of course, this would basically start a global revolution, in the true sense of the word.

At any rate, this is all assuming that your intention is on doing experiments or proving the existence of psychic phenomenon, which could very well be completely wrong to begin with. Although, I'm not entirely sure why else a psychic medium would be interesting in contacting a parapsychologist.

God Bless,

[Erin Pavlina]

My intention is to work with them to expand ways of detecting and testing paranormal phenomenon.

Thanks all for your input. Gives me a good place to start.

[fellowtraveler]

Originally Posted by Erin Pavlina

Before I go mucking around the internet, does anyone have an idea off the top of their head on who would be the top parapsychologist in the world (or USA) today? Or the top parapsychology research facility? I'd like to get in touch with them directly if I can.

Try Dr. Gary Schwartz. He tested Mary Occhino, who I'm sure you're aware of, and he works with Deepak Chopra.

[Pokerman13]

Dean Radin!!!!! His talk at google headquarters was interesting, It's fun to watch a bunch of smart people squirm. I think hes definitely the guy your looking for.

Heres his blog

Entangled Minds

[Mags]

Well, if you ever have the urge to visit Scotland, you could drop by the Koestler Parapsychology Unit at Edinburgh University.

Koestler Parapsychology Unit

(They do have links on their website to other parapsychology units worldwide, so could be a good starting place to look for places close to you).

[Sentient]

Originally Posted by Pokerman13

Dean Radin!!!!! His talk at google headquarters was interesting, It's fun to watch a bunch of smart people squirm. I think hes definitely the guy your looking for.

Heres his blog

Entangled Minds

Thanks for mentioning Dean Radin!! I went to his blog and hunted down the video of his talk at Google. This is the link for others who are interested. I have to say, this is maybe the first video on psi I've seen that purports to be "scientific" that actually delivers...

YouTube - "Science and the taboo of psi" with Dean Radin

It can be a bit dismaying to see people claim to be "scientific" and then put up a bunch of swiss cheese arguments. Braden's speech at ICDI comes to mind with his Sept 11th chart that showed only 6 days of data that he spoke about as if it was conclusive (did anyone else catch that?). I found him taking logical leaps again and again which was a bit frustrating. Don't get me wrong, I thought it was a great speech and awesome msg that I took a lot away from. It just didn't sit right with me that he was arguing persuasively in a manner designed to convince when his facts didn't match. I felt it was unfair to the audience to insinuate it was all such a done deal since it took away the right for people to make up their own mind. For his speech, it was towards a noble end, but the same methodology can be employed to lead people in very disempowering, consciousness lowering directions. It also needlessly galvanizes the opposition of the closed minded skeptics who become likely to lump even the meticulous efforts in with their less careful brethren.

Back to Radin's video at Google...I've always wanted to watch something like this and I've thought it important to give at least the open minded skeptics "permission" to relax their opposition to psi related phenomenon.

I'm a really left brained person to the point where it can feel like I never belong. I often joke that around spiritual friends they tease me for how intellectual I am. Around intellectual friends, they joke about how spiritual I am! It's a no win!

I always ask my spiritual friends why they completely rebuff the need to provide any proof. Erin made an excellent post about how tough it is to deal with the closed minded skeptics. I get the frustration involved, but for those who are at least open to listening, it can really be valuable in finally being coaxed to "let go" enough to see where it takes you.

Myself, I've gone back and forth a number of times. I've bought in and then totally wondered what I was doing and turned my back on paranormal stuff. It may not have been "proof" but most recently I was inspired to keep going by listening to Erin and Steve's podcast. It just reminded me that at this point, given all that I've experienced, it just makes more sense to run with it than it does to try to deny it. So, thank you for that Erin, and thank you to all those who help out those of us who end up on the fence!

[Erin Pavlina]

In an odd coincidence, I opened my nightstand drawer last week and discovered I actually had, in my possession, the Dean Radin book Entangled Minds. Didn't even know I had it let alone that it was in my nightstand (were I put books in the queue to read).

I think I've had that book in there for many months. I started reading it but i found it really boring (sorry, Dean). I wish someone could break it down for a non-physics non-science-type like myself.

[Sentient]

Well, if you watch the video that Pokerman13 so gratiously first mentioned (link in my last post) you just need to know a little bit about statistics to see that his info is pretty solid.

Just know that a "P value" is the probability that the results are due to chance. If you flipped a coin 10 times and it landed heads everytime, there is a 0.5^10 chance that it was just due to luck. It's the same idea. If there is a p of 0.05, it means there's a 5% chance it was due to luck. (I know some stats major is going ot be upset with this explanation and I completely defer to you, but I figure it's at least in the spirit of a basic explanation) Of course, I'm sure the book is another story, but that little bit of info will be enough to get through the video.

You can just look at the experiments that he presents in his video and see that the p scores on them are really low. As long as his experiments are designed well (most skeptics will use this as their point of argument) then it is for all intents and purposes proof!

He has some really coole experiments about precognition or presentiment as he calls it in that video. People actually show a reaction to emotionally charged pictures before the picture is shown to them! ..Furthermore, the pictures are drawn randomly and this happens before even the computer has decided which image it will show to the person. That's pretty crazy!

I watched another video of his too, and he had a cool experiment where they placed random number generators running constantly in lots of cities around the world. They keep them on 24/7 and then when some globally significant event happens (defined as anything that a lot of people pay attention to) they look at the output of the RNGs(Ran Num Gens). Surprisingly (or not) they stop being random at times of global attention. Again very cool.