Psychic Phenomena

Abstract

No field of scholarly endeavor has proved more frustrating, or has engendered a broader spectrum of professional and personal reaction, than the study of psychic phenomena. Although broadly reported and intensely debated in a multitude of religious, anthropological, philosophical, medical, and psychological contexts throughout recorded history, orderly scientific contemplation of the topic is little more than a century old, perhaps best marked by the founding of the Society for Psychical Research in London in 1882. The onset of systematic research is usually associated with the organization of the J. B. Rhine Laboratory at Duke University in the late 1920s, where many of the premises, protocols, and proponents of this field were spawned. Over the past decade, the availability of microelectronic data processing equipment has opened several new approaches to psychic research, yet intense disagreement persists within the scientific community regarding the reality of the purported phenomena, and their accessibility to controlled study.