In 2001, as part of the Parapsychology Foundation’s 50th anniversary, the Parapsychology Foundation Lyceum Program was inaugurated. The program has two branches — the PF Lyceum website and the PF Lyceum educational programs. Both the website and the education programs — are an expression of the Foundation’s ongoing commitment to advancing education in parapsychology. The yew tree branch was chosen as the centerpiece in the PF Lyceum logo. Emblematic of Eileen J. Garrett’s affinity for this coniferous tree of her Irish homeland, the yew tree was a powerful symbol of creativity to Garrett, and for her, stood as “a bridge of association to original ideas,” as we hope the PF Lyceum has been and will continue to be.
From 2001 through 2003, several on-site seminars and one-day forums were offered to the public covering Psychokinesis, OBEs, NDEs, and such “forgotten” phenomena as aura vision, apparitions of the living, haunting apparitions, and death-bed visions, among other topics. The PF Lyceum website which launched in the same year, extended from a frequent education blog (38 in the series published from 2005 through 2015) and descriptions of our on-site seminars and forums to a repository of information useful to the serious student of the scientific study of psychic phenomena. The original website includes an online copy of the Foundation’s Biographical Dictionary of Parapsychology (edited by Helen Pleasants, 1964 and posted to the Lyceum site by PF Outreach Coordinator Natasha Chisdes). Biographies of more modern researchers were also added. In addition, Dr. Carlos S. Alvarado prepared over 40 bibliographies on specific topics as well as slightly more than a dozen guides to various aspects of the field important to students such as the “Guide to Self-Study.” Visitors to the Library can use these bibliographies to find the books on the shelves as well. The PF Lyceum website also provides archives of important events such as the 2008 Utrecht II conference, winning essays from the Robert Coly Prize competition and more. When the PF Lyceum website is updated in 2017 and 2018, all information resources will be built out in the new redesign, and the frequent blog on education in the field will return.
Beginning in 2015, the Parapsychology Foundation began to support the Parapsychology and Anomalistic Psychology: Research and Education free and massively open online course (MOOC) originally developed by then PF volunteers Drs. Alvarado and Zingrone. Continuing a commitment to the development of online events combined with traditional PF Programs, the Foundation offered the PF Forum: Advancing Parapsychology in the UK, open to the public for free on the social media teaching platform, WizIQ.com. In 2016, the name of the ParaMOOC series was changed to Parapsychology: Research and Education, with that free course offered again in 2017 and in the planning stages for 2018. International Affiliates Conferences were held in 2016 and 2017, and as well as the PF Lyceum Forum: Physical Mediumship in October of 2016. Conferences for 2017 and 2018 are now in the planning stages. Perspectives Lectures have also been continued at the Eileen J. Garrett Library and elsewhere in 2016 and 2017. Slowly legacy film from previous meetings and events are being edited and uploaded to the Parapsychology Foundation’s YouTube channel, an integral part of the Foundation’s rededication to advancing education in the field. New content is also being developed and posted on an occasional basis.