‘That Dude’: An Alien to the Truth

Psi is an anomaly of ceaseless wonder and mystery. The psi hypothesis remains neither confirmed nor disconfirmed but it connects us to our fellow beings, to nature and the cosmos at large.
A book reviewer ‘That Dude’ writes a scurrilous piece which is planted at the top of my Amazon book website.
‘That Dude’ needs to remove it because loss of sales could be associated with the slander committed there.

“God Spoke To Me”: Subjective Paranormal Experience and the Homeostatic Response To Early Trauma

Citation: Marks DF. “God Spoke to Me”: Subjective Paranormal Experience and the Homeostatic Response to Early Trauma. Imagination, Cognition and Personality. 2021;40(3):223-272. doi:10.1177/0276236620934003 Available here. There is a strong connection between subjective paranormal experience and childhood trauma. In this paper I hypothesise that a perception of control in relation to the trauma is brought by homeostasisContinue reading ““God Spoke To Me”: Subjective Paranormal Experience and the Homeostatic Response To Early Trauma”

Investigating the Paranormal: Part II

Parascience has so far failed to produce a single repeatable finding and, until it does, will continue to be viewed as an incoherent collection of belief systems steeped in fantasy, illusion and error. Originally appeared in Nature Vol. 320, 13 March 1986, pp. 119-124.  The first part of this article is here. Psychological Factors ManyContinue reading “Investigating the Paranormal: Part II”

The Paradox of Coincidence

The Paradox By the Principle of the Long Run, a coincidence is always deemed to be a chance event, no matter how long the odds. If paranormal coincidences exist, the normal scientific approach means that they would be mixed in with chance events and made non-significant. Science rules out of existence the very phenomenon that itContinue reading “The Paradox of Coincidence”

Uri Geller: Self-Proclaimed ‘Psychic’

A flash-back to 1975 when Uri Geller came to town.  Super-psychic or super-charlatan? Who to Believe? On the one hand, a scientific report published in Nature verifying Geller’s psychic abilities under supposedly cheat-proof conditions, and on the other, a highly speculative but critical attack published simultaneously in New Scientist. While Targ and Puthoff’s reply …Continue reading “Uri Geller: Self-Proclaimed ‘Psychic’”

Psychology and the Paranormal

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy” So the well-worn saying goes. Are there? If so, what are they? And how does one obtain solid evidence? These questions have taxed human beings for millennia. A zetetic approach I approach psychology and the paranormal  in a spiritContinue reading “Psychology and the Paranormal”

Investigating the Paranormal: Part I

This post reproduces an article I wrote 35 years ago. My current position as a zetetic is less dogmatic than I was then, a died-in-the wool skeptic.   Parascience has so far failed to produce a single repeatable finding and, until it does, will continue to be viewed as an incoherent collection of belief systemsContinue reading “Investigating the Paranormal: Part I”

Improbability and Impossibility in Nature

The Science of the Impossible When the sun, moon and earth all fall into alignment, something improbable happens – a solar eclipse. A solar eclipse in improbable but it is not impossible, because it actually can happen. Not very often, of course, but on a few rare, predictable occasions. On average a solar eclipse occursContinue reading “Improbability and Impossibility in Nature”

Increasing Prevalence of Paranormal Belief

Belief in paranormal phenomena is widespread everywhere around the world including colleges and universities. There is evidence from the US that belief rates are increasing. According to Lindeman and Aarnio (2006) more than a third of Americans believed in psychic powers and extrasensory perception at that time. Recent figures produced by the Chapman University SurveyContinue reading “Increasing Prevalence of Paranormal Belief”

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