The Pursuit of the Paranormal or the Study of Anomalous Experiences? Parapsychology's Next 25 Years

At the outset I must say I feel most honored to be invited to join such distinguished international colleagues in offering my thoughts on where parapsychology will be in 25 years' time. The survival of the 'Journal of Parapsychology' for 75 years is a truly remarkable achievement. I doubt that J. B. and Louisa Rhine would have had such a lofty aspiration in mind when the Journal was originally conceived. I dearly hope the Journal will go on to celebrate its centenary, but it seems to me there are some major challenges ahead in this regard. Not that the Journal will want for papers to publish. In terms of empirical progress in parapsychology over the next 25 years one does not need to call on the fortune teller's crystal ball to foresee a burgeoning of increasingly sophisticated data on the psychological correlates of parapsychological experiences and the incremental success of neurobiological reductionists in undermining parapsychological hypotheses about these experiences. In terms of psi experiments more specifically, in the short term there will be continued interest in the development of novel psi-conducive procedures. In time, however, I suspect there will be a relatively dramatic move away from studies predicated on anomalous deviations from chance expectation; even in psychology as more generally conceived, the edifice of "null hypothesis testing" is beginning to show structural weaknesses (see, e.g., Rodgers, 2010), and new statistical approaches will evolve to redress these problems. It remains to be seen whether these methods will throw new light on the psi hypothesis or will assign more than a hundred years' worth of experimental psi data to the recycle bin for the results of misguided empirical effort. I do not have an emotional investment in either of these contingencies; ultimately the truth will out, and the truth is usually enlightening. Methodological developments nevertheless will have a profound impact on the kinds of questions parapsychological researchers will be asking. Among the general public, interest in the paranormal and in the fruits of parapsychological research should persist over the next quarter of a century, although undoubtedly such interest will gradually be further eroded by a relentlessly materialistic scientific mainstream and by the fading relevance of spirituality in modern society. The continuation of public support for the field nevertheless is not a trivial issue, as every scientific discipline needs to be mindful of its broader cultural significance.