• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Parapsychology Classes: Have You Taken One?

MrRING

MrRING

Android Futureman
Joined
Aug 7, 2002
Messages
6,053
Has anybody here taken a university class in parapsychology? If so, what was the emphasis and did you encounter any phenomenon?

I have, but I don't have enough time tonight to go into detail.
 
Woops - meant to get back to this sooner. Basically, we have a parapsychologist at my school who teaches a single class under Philosophy called Philosophy of Parapsychology. He tended to avoid cyrptozology (for instance, he didn't believe that Bigfoot could be a biological organism). He was big on healing energies, ghosts, aliens, and conspiracies.

Once he did a healing chant that was certainly remarkable theatre, and very interesting in the terms of alternative space it created. Better still was his bringing in a local faith healer who came in to see what she could do. To set the story up, all semester long a fairly skeptical older (late 40's) buisnessman was taking the class with us, and he sure seemed to me to be taking the class to fullfill an easy elective requirement. In any case, one of the two people she healed was him! And he went from skeptic to believer overnight, he said she appered in his dreams that night, and some old college football injuries begain to heal. (Did he just have a dream, and could she obsurve somehow he had a slight limp? Can't be sure....)

As far as what she did, she basically had him lay down, and she prayed and concentrated while feeling the air around him and making motions like she was pulling something away.

In any case, it was interesting, and in the case of one skeptic, it made him a believer. Though, I can't be 100% sure he wasn't a plant put in by the teacher to make us believe in what happened, I truly doubt it.

Here is his webpage in case anybody's interested in reading about him:

http://www.markwoodhouse.com

And here is some exciting bits from his vitae:

In addition to his life as an academic philosopher, he participates in scientific, spiritual, and healing communities. He has presented at over thirty national conferences, most recently the Whole Life Expo in Atlanta and the Scientific and Medical Network in London, and the International Futures Forum in St. Andrews, Scotland.

He assists others in understanding and integrating their personal growth challenges and dimensional awakenings (healing, meditation, clairvoyance, etc.) as the veil of consciousness becomes progressively thinner. He also serves as an informal consultant, support system, and referral source on a wide range of ideas and experiences relating to the current shift in planetary consciousness.

He works collaboratively with the BAND OF MERCY, an interdimensional group of angels and etheric surgeons, whose mission includes clearing, healing, and integrating energies on whatever level clients may require -- both locally and at a distance. His hands, heart chakra, and toning are tools of healing.
Click to expand...
 
Ironically, I consider myself a skeptic, but I have a lot of time for cryptozoology (after all, every now and again they do find stuff). And this guy's the opposite.

It's a funny old world.
 
Naughty_Felid said:
Didn't Titch do it?
Click to expand...
Me too, we did the online one taught by Caroline Watt at Edinburgh University. It's 10 weeks through the autumn. There was lots to read. People came from a lot of different backgrounds. (Sometimes I found what they wrote was a bit impenetrable because they were relating it to specialised areas they already knew about). I thought it was very interesting though, I'm glad I did it. I felt that Prof. Watt engaged with us well, and the materials were good They seem to be running it twice a year now. https://koestlerunit.wordpress.com/online-course/online-course-content/ It's £300. The text book is super though, I'd recommend that if you don't want to go the whole hog, and it contains questions to think about as you read through. (An introduction to parapsychology, by Irwin and Watt).
 
Haven't done any university parapsychology courses. However, I once for some reason went to an 'Introduction to Psychic Development' session at the local Spiritualist Church.

There were a group of us and the tutor present, and we were told there was nobody else in the building. That didn't stop someone walking about noisily on the floor above.
 
I never took any classes on anything after high school.

Eponastill said:
Me too, we did the online one taught by Caroline Watt at Edinburgh University. It's 10 weeks through the autumn. There was lots to read. People came from a lot of different backgrounds. (Sometimes I found what they wrote was a bit impenetrable because they were relating it to specialised areas they already knew about). I thought it was very interesting though, I'm glad I did it. I felt that Prof. Watt engaged with us well, and the materials were good They seem to be running it twice a year now. https://koestlerunit.wordpress.com/online-course/online-course-content/ It's £300. The text book is super though, I'd recommend that if you don't want to go the whole hog, and it contains questions to think about as you read through. (An introduction to parapsychology, by Irwin and Watt).
Click to expand...
If someone wants to buy An introduction to parapsychology, be sure to get the fifth edition. The first three were hard covers; the last two, paperbacks. It is easy to identify the fifth one, because it has Watt's name on the cover:

irwin-1st.jpgirwin-2nd.jpgirwin-3rd.jpgirwin-4th.jpgirwin-5th.jpg

9780754624509.jpg
Another thing you can buy is Parapsychology, edited by Richard Wiseman and Caroline Watt, ISBN-13 9780754624509. It contains reproductions of 26 famous papers in the field. Most of the book can be viewed here: https://books.google.com/books?id=rEErDwAAQBAJ

The book costs about £200 at Blackwell's: https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/9780754624509

9781780748870.jpg
For a long time, there were garbled records, confusing this book with another one, Parapsychology, written by Caroline Watt. It was difficult to be sure which one you were buying, on the used market.

Apparently, someone mixed the prices for them, and I was able to buy a used copy of the blue book, without a dust cover, for the criminally low price of £30. It is still in transit to a courier service that will ship it to Brazil. My guess is that it was listed with the price of the white book. They had four copies; all gone now, they lasted only for a few days.
 
Last edited:
Also known as 'anomalous psychology' [by actual psychologists ;)]
 
Naughty_Felid said:
Didn't Titch do it?
Click to expand...
yes, the Edinburgh university is highly recommended, I felt as thick as pig shit doing the course, lots of it is way over my baldie head, but it is very thought provoking, "we proved psi!!!" "ha! did you factor in this?" "no!, but this makes that not important!". the thing i still remember is how Parapsychology is held to higher standards then "proper science" probably rightly, and how many techniques pioneered in Parapsychology have been useful in other disciplines.
 
titch said:
Parapsychology is held to higher standards then "proper science" probably rightly, and how many techniques pioneered in Parapsychology have been useful in other disciplines.
Click to expand...
Can you provide examples?
 
I don't think I mentioned it, buy the class textbook for the class I took was The Roots Of Consciousness by Jeffrey Mishlove. Before the class, I knew of Mr. Mishlove as the host of Thinking Allowed, which showed up on our local public broadcasting channel. His sequel show appears to be on YouTube:

https://youtube.com/c/NewThinkingAllowed
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top