Grantee News Update

It gives us at PF enormous pleasure and pride to see our grantees and award winners continuing to move forward their researches, publications, and projects with the aid of a modicum of PF support (wishing always we could do more) —  all working towards the common goal of pushing the science of Parapsychology’s ball down the court.

To this end here extracted from the report from the Windbridge Institute’s 2018 Eileen Coly Grant for Research  in Dr. Julie Beischel’s own words:

“Surveys regarding anomalous beliefs and experiences have regularly been an important methodology in parapsychology. However, the majority of surveys have focused on dysfunction and have other limitations including discriminatory or leading language and items assessing non-psi phenomena. We used established survey development and piloting methods to create the Windbridge Psi and Related Phenomena Awareness Scale (WPRPAS) which assesses respondents’ awareness of psi and related phenomena. The WPRPAS describes phenomena without using potentially loaded or controversial terms and then the respondent signifies whether they are aware of that phenomena or not and, if they are, what experience they have had with it.

The PF grant covered our analysis of online WPRPAS survey responses from roughly 300 self-reported mediums and 1,000 non-mediums. The basic findings were that people with an interest in mediumistic phenomena who joined the Windbridge email list and/or who received the call for survey participation through our social media or similar organizations’ announcements are well aware of the various types of psi phenomena. The vast majority of participants (over 80% across the board) were aware of the phenomena of: energy healing, mediumistic communication, telepathy, clairvoyance, micro- and macro-psychokinesis (PK), out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences, and children who remember past lives, though those terms were not used in the actual instrument. Significantly more mediums than non-mediums reported being aware of clairvoyance (p < 0.05), energy healing (p < 0.005), and the PKs (each p < .00001). The PKs were the least well-known of any of the phenomena but over 80% of non-mediums and over 90% of mediums reported PK-awareness (micro less than macro).

However, significantly more mediums reported experiencing each of those 10 phenomena than did the non-mediums (all p < .0001). This suggests that the experience of mediumistic phenomena may be related to experiences of other psi phenomena or possibly make one more open to having and reporting those experiences.

Ideally, the WPRPAS, once published, can be used by other researchers to assess awareness of psi and related phenomena and the prevalence of those experiences in other populations. 

Those interested in being notified of any WPRPAS publications are invited to join the Windbridge Institute email list. Those interested in information about mediumistic and other after-death communication and resources related to dying, death, and what comes next are invited to join the Windbridge Research Center email list.”

Be on the lookout in PF’s You tube channel for Julie’s soon to be posted recent contribution to the 2019 ParaMOOC series.   And please subscribe to the PF’s YouTube channel ! Ring that bell for notifications of new additions to the channel and you won’t be sorry!

We are proud to acknowledge that Dr. Stephani Stephens, our 2018 Frances P. Bolton Fellowship Award recipient, has published the fruits of her labor which we in part supported with the publication of her book “C. G. Jung and the Dead: Visions, Active Imagination and the Unconscious Terrain”.  I can’t wait to get my hands on it and add it to the shelves of the Eileen J. Garrett Research Library. 

Last, but by no means least, one of  PF’s esteemed  Research Fellows, Dr. James Matlock,  has just released his long awaited tome, “ Signs of Reincarnation: Exploring Beliefs, Cases, and Theory“ . So many misconceptions about the reality of reincarnation theory are cleared away which is of great value to humankind when many of us  sometimes wonder “Do we come back?”   While you wait for your copy to arrive check out the PF you tube “Psi Byte” short presentation Jim did to introduce the concept of reincarnation.                               

At times I am quite despondent that there is so much good work which reaches my desk that PF could support–truly a myriad of funding opportunities–if we only had the funds available to disperse more financial assistance.  Then when I contemplate such valuable work being accomplished as represented above by our PF family of grantees and award winners, not to mention Research Fellows,  I take overall solace in the realization that PF, even in this our 68^th year, continues to fund quality if over quantity.  PF congratulates Drs. Beischel, Stephens and Matlock for jobs well done!

Next month I will be announcing the winner of the Lisette Coly Award enabling someone deserving to attend the 2019 Parapsychological Association Convention in Paris, France… so stay tuned.  As always, under the PF’s undulating spiral perhaps swirling nowadays a bit more slowly than desired…  but still turning… Onwards and Upwards!