1st Edition
A New Approach to Psi Re-Envisioning Paranormal Experience as Meaningful Coincidence
This book critiques conventional parapsychological viewpoints about extrasensory perception (ESP) and psychokinesis (PK), collectively referred to as ’psi’.
Since the 1930s, an over-arching view on psi has been built on J. B. Rhine’s theories and research at Duke University. The author argues that there are fundamental problems with the psi paradigm, and offers solutions based largely on Jung’s Theory of Synchronicity, treating the subject matter in a rigorous scientific way. The synchronicity concept speaks to ambiguous psi terminology, the narrow methodological approaches in psi testing, and limited interpretations of psychic experience that do not consider the pivotal role of meaning. This book considers problems with terminology, findings, and the psi construct from a Jungian synchronistic standpoint, which gives credence to issues such as archetypes, meaningfulness, and numinosity.
An important new contribution to the understanding of psi, this book will be of interest to practitioners and researchers working in the disciplines of psychology, parapsychology, consciousness studies, and physics, especially quantum mechanics.
Introduction 1. The Rhinean Revolution and What It Did for Parapsychology 2. The Trickster in Parapsychology: Part I. Secret Weapons 3. The Trickster in Parapsychology: Part II. More Secret Weapons 4. Synchronicity and Related Psi Theories 5. Quantum Mechanics, Consciousness, and Psychophysical Reality
Biography
Lance Storm is a Visiting Research Fellow at the School of Psychology, University of Adelaide, Australia. He has over 20 years of post-doctoral research experience as a theorist and designer of funded experiments in parapsychology. Storm has published in major journals including Psychological Bulletin, Journal of Parapsychology, and Journal of Scientific Exploration. He is a full member of the AIPR, and Chief Editor of the Australian Journal of Parapsychology.
"A New Approach to Psi offers an updated treatise on synchronicity that takes a considerably more evidence-based approach to the presentation, as well as integrates Jung’s ideas with key findings from modern experimental parapsychology…. To my knowledge, no previous article or text has presented this type of in-depth analysis. In doing so, it offers researchers and philosophers a new way of modeling or approaching psi-type phenomena."
James Houran, PhD, Research Director at Integrated Knowledge Systems (USA), Research Professor at the Laboratory of Statistics and Computation at the Instituto Politécnico de Gestão e Tecnologia (Portugal), and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Scientific Exploration.
"This book could be a game changer for parapsychology. After decades of scholarly and experimental work in the field, Lance Storm concludes that the long-known “tricksterish” problems associated with the entrenched Rhinean approach to studying psi will remain intractable unless there is a radical reframing of the discipline in the more holistic terms of synchronicity. Storm makes his case with great patience, subtlety, and authority, and the vision he presents is both compelling and liberating."
Professor Roderick Main, author of The Rupture of Time: Synchronicity and Jung’s Critique of Modern Western Culture
