INTRODUCTION
Since the beginning of historic times, testimonies reported the description ofphenomena whose objective reality seemed incompatible with a rational interpretationof what led to give them meaning through religious doctrines. These are now calledparanormal phenomena since the experimental method used to identify their existencebut where there is no scientific theory on this basis (some UFO cases are goodexamples).
Among them, the terminology introduced by American academics permanently around 1930 denominates those involving psychic - between humans or between humans and their environment - interaction inexplicable by the biological, physical or psychologicalcurrently known.
Scientific parapsychology studies these interactions using only the procedures andconcepts of science, so without reference to religious or philosophical systems.
The first works date from the second half of the 19th century.
THE SECOND HALF OF THE 19th CENTURY
From 1850, a religion, spiritualism, "invented" the United States, has grown rapidly throughout the Western world and has even become a mass movement started falling very rapidly to 1940(History of spiritualism is told by two anthropologists and Aubree M. F.Laplantine The table in the book and minds, JCLattès Editions, 1990).Spiritualism claims to be rational and not dogmatic because offering an interpretation of the phenomena called parapsychology today, which is why it has attracted at the time, intellectuals (the most famous was Victor Hugo) and attracted the attention of Scientists wishing to submit to experimental analysis of the facts on which he wants to build.
By 1853, the famous physicist Faraday provided an explanation of the movement of "turntables" while during the following decades was developing the study of the behavior of "mediums", who, according to spiritism, are capable of producing intense parapsychological phenomena .Among the French scientists who studied the "mediums" in the late 19th and early 20th listed the Curies, the psychiatrist Pierre Janet, and the future Nobel Prize in Medicine Charles Richet, who agreed on the non-scientific nature of the spirit hypothesis and therefore considered that the authenticity of the facts could not validate anything.In the same vein, when in 1882 the university of Cambridge in London founded the first organization of parapsychological research organized "The Society for Psychical Research" (still active today) they wrote articles stating that participation in activities does not imply adherence to a philosophy or religion.It is important to note that while scientific parapsychology has its origins in fact valued by proponents of spiritualism, it has since its inception distanced himself from this religion, as some researchers even marking Richet insisted their opposition (in agreement withstrongly rationalist attitude will be his throughout his career)
More even Richet, in the 1880s, proposed the first to focus instead of "mediums" and spectacular events, but to try to highlight the parapsychological phenomena in everyone using to methodology using statistical analysis and probabilistic reasoning. In doing so he opened a line of research that would be extremely fertile, but at the same time he asked that the psychic phenomena have their origin in natural faculties of man finally dissipating, there are now over a century, confusion with the spiritualism.
THE FIRST HALF OF THE 20th CENTURY
The first experiments, in the strictest sense, parapsychology has focused on the phenomena commonly known as "clairvoyance" and "telepathy" and were conducted at the Universities of Stanford and Harvard between 1915 and 1917. It was forced choice experiments with the idea of operator cards Richet above. American researchers took a leadership position and they have not left since, and that is why we stick mainly by their activities.
From the academic year 1927, the biologist and psychologist Joseph Banks Rhine develop experimental programs at Duke University Durham (North Carolina) and it is in this place he took charge of the first institutional laboratory of parapsychology in 1930.In 1937, this laboratory published the first issue of a journal "The Journal of Parapsychology" and in 1939, Rhine wrote the book Extra Sensory Perception After six years, which proposed a review of the program and figured psychology students from the Harvard academic year 1940-1941.
Rhine who worked closely with his wife Louisa, remained active until his death in 1980.His contribution is one of the largest in the history of scientific parapsychology both conceptually - directly inspired by experimental psychology - as those of the methodology - characterized by the use of relevant and innovative statistical - and results: this is the first Rhine which highlighted parameters that can stimulate or inhibit the phenomenon.His career and his work is detailed in the works cited in the bibliography.
In France in 1919, the patron Jean Meyer founded and largely financed the Psychic Institute to allow Charles Richet and his staff to have a high-performance tool. Unlike the American school which has just been read, favored quantitative investigations, the Psychic Institute has first pursued and case studies with some success.After the Second World War, under the direction of the chemical engineer Rene Warcollier (the inventor of the artificial nacre) and influenced by U.S. developments, researchers at the Institute of Psychic conducted essentially collective experiences of telepathy, always qualitative , but for men and women participants of "the street".In virtually dormant since the death of Warcollier (1960), Psychic Institute published a scientific journal of French language, "Journal Psychic" whose collection is available from the author
THE SECOND HALF OF THE 20th CENTURY
Since 1960, U.S. researchers have felt the need to overcome the problems "in vitro" of Rhine to be within an ethological perspective. Rhine has highlighted a definitive reality of phenomena, it became necessary to study these "in vivo". Suffice it here to some brief information on major American works of the past 25 years since this work are presented in detail in the seminal work of Richard Broughton recently translated into French.
Until 1978 Montague Ullman and Stanley Krippner at the Maimonides Hospital conducted the New York experiments on telepathy in the dream state.
In 1974 at Stanford Research Institute, physicists Harold Puthoff and Russell Targ have designed and successfully carried out so-called "remote viewing" that led to several publications in renowned scientific journal "Nature" in 1980 and 1981 and then were repeated later in the program "Stargate" funded and controlled by the CIA (significant results published in 1995, analyzed and discussed in 1996 in the "Journal of Scientific Exploration" and the "Journal of Parapsychology")
In 1969, physicist Helmut Schmidt introduced the use of random generators as part of parapsychological research conducted in Seattle in the research laboratory of the aircraft company Boeing.
Since 1980, the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Princeton, Robert Jahn, director of the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Laboratory experiments which use computers.
At the same time the Psychophysical Research Laboratory, McDonnell Foundation Charles Honorton (who died prematurely in 1992) introduced the method Ganzfeld sensory deprivation and thus showed the most brilliant researcher in parapsychology of his generation.
We can not forget the fierce debate around the "metal bender" Uri Geller in 1974.The mainstream press writes that commonly Geller is a cheater unmasked by illusionists.This is incorrect.The study of the literature on the case shows that Geller Illusionists have only highlighted the possible tricks, no special effects and instead of actual experiences were those published in "Nature". On the other hand similar cases have been studied in the greatest discretion (but with scientific publication) in Britain and Germany.
Finally, it was during the last two decades has begun the study of phenomena known as "body out the experiment" and "near death experiment" and Ian Stevenson (University of Virginia, Charlottesville) has published his work on ethnological stories called "reincarnation".
In Europe today, the major university research teams are located in Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Reykjavik and Fribourg.
In France the original experiments aiming at the demonstration of psychic phenomena in animals were performed in 1968 by R. Chauvin, from 1978 to 1982 by B. Thouvenin, and since 1987, by R.Péoc h.The Catholic University of Lyon is the only company to offer (since September 1995) a module dealing with parapsychology entitled "Science, society and so-called paranormal phenomena".
Parapsychology & Science
Is parapsychology a science, a pseudoscience, or something else? Supporters and practitioners insist that parapsychology is a valid scientific enterprise, but those involved in more mainstream fields often have little more than derision for it. Parapsychologists act like they are involved in science, but they exhibit few of the standard characteristics in terms of how science operates.
To many, parapsychology qualifies as a legitimate science. After all, the Parapsychological Association has been accepted as an affiliate of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (something which happened in 1969 through the efforts of AAAS president Margaret Meade, a big believer in psychic powers). There are also several professional bodies of parapsychologists that ostensibly serve to monitor research and ensure that high standards are met.
In addition, students can take courses in parapsychology at several dozen universities across the United States and around the world. There are even a couple of Ph.D. programs available. There are numerous journals that publish papers on the subject, exhibiting research from laboratories all over the world. Despite this, however, it is not clear that parapsychology is truly scientific.
Most of mainstream science completely ignores parapsychology, at least when not criticizing it. It’s almost unheard of for mainstream science journals to publish peer-reviewed papers on parapsychology. Funding for research doesn’t come from the usual sources — parapsychologists must rely upon private donors or from other institutions already in the field.
Claims of psychic powers present a problem for traditional science because they imply the existence of powers which are not merely unknown to science, but which in fact contradict well-established scientific laws and understandings of how the universe works. This does not mean that claims of psychic powers are necessarily false, but rather than their existence is a priori unlikely.
What sorts of scientific principles would parapsychology like to overthrow? They include:
1. Future events cannot affect the present before they occur.
2. A person’s mind cannot affect the material world without the mediation of some physical energy or force.
3. One person cannot know the content of a second person’s mind except through the observation of speech or behavior.
4. A person cannot obtain knowledge of a distant point in space without sensory experience of that point or the transmission of energy.
5. A person’s personality and memories are dependent upon the existence and proper functioning of their physical brain.
2. A person’s mind cannot affect the material world without the mediation of some physical energy or force.
3. One person cannot know the content of a second person’s mind except through the observation of speech or behavior.
4. A person cannot obtain knowledge of a distant point in space without sensory experience of that point or the transmission of energy.
5. A person’s personality and memories are dependent upon the existence and proper functioning of their physical brain.
This creates significant empirical consequences. If the acceptance of the existence of psychic powers and phenomena requires a reworking of the most fundamental laws of physics and our understandings of matter and energy, then a great deal of empirical evidence is necessary. We already have a tremendous amount of empirical evidence which indicates that our current understandings are correct — thus, better evidence is necessary in order to conclude that they are incorrect, or at least woefully incomplete.
