Improving Public Access to Research in Parapsychology

Over the weekend I was tasked with researching material for a literature review on the perceptual-personality variables associated with poltergeist/RSPK focal agents - a task for which which I restricted myself to material that had undergone some form of peer review, and where either psychometric measures were employed or where the researchers had consulted with a clinician. I learned a lot from this exercise, most of which I will save the for article itself, but my greatest surprise was how much I had to rely on resources from the Proceedings of Papers presented at the annual conventions of the Parapsychological Association, or its more polished cousin - Research in Parapsychology in order to complete my task.

As the Executive Director of the Parapsychological Association spearheading an archive project in honor its 60th year, I have amassed nearly a complete collection of these resources over the last year thanks to donations from our members, and since roughly April of this year, I have been campaigning on Crowdrise for the funding needed to get them digitized and released to the public in the form of some sort of searchable database. At this point, we've only met about 1/3 of our funding goal. Another 5K or so will make this dream a reality.

So for now, this amazing resource sits in an office that only I have access to, and you betcha that I made good use of it for my lit review! In the end, roughly 1/3 of the resources that I examined came from papers in this archive - works that were peer-reviewed by members of the PA, but were never submitted for further publication. That may seem like a high proportion, but I was looking for a very particular thing.

How many other important research questions might to fit this profile? How many future students of consciousness research will be discouraged by their lack of access to the specialized libraries that currently hold this sort of collection when they try to ask similar questions?

A donation of $10 will digitize 100 pages of this archive, $25 will get you something fun in the mail, $60 and you'll get a thumb drive of archival material, $100 will make you a sponsor of the project. Help us get this research in front of everyone who needs it - whether they know it or not - once and for all.

Donate at Crowdrise today!

Public Parapsychology Talk (Cols, OH): Environmental Sensitivity & Paranormal Experiences

Public Parapsychology Talk: 

Environmental Sensitivity & Paranormal Experiences

Brandon Masullo

Upstairs Arts Space

4601 N. High St. Suite 200

Columbus, Ohio 43214

May 15, 2017 - 7pm

Do you have long-standing allergies, chronic pain and fatigue, migraines, or sensitivity to lights, sounds, and smells? Do you have more paranormal and apparitional experiences than average?  Environmental Sensitivity – being affected by the surrounding environment to a higher degree than the normal population –  may be a factor in such experiences.  Several parapsychological studies in the past 10 years have provided significant correlations between environmental sensitivity and paranormal experiences.

Brandon Massullo, a clinical therapist and parapsychologist residing in Medina, Ohio will discuss these studies in this Public Parapsychology talk at the Upstairs Arts Space in Columbus, Ohio on May 15th at 7pm. Massullo has been fascinated by paranormal phenomena for over 20 years and has been a participant and featured speaker in numerous paranormal forums and events. He studied psychology and parapsychology at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and his research has been cited in parapsychological journals, articles, and mainstream books.

Admission to this talk is free. Donations to offset meeting expenses will be gratefully accepted.

The Upstairs Arts Space is located in Beechwold at the corner of Sheffield and High (next to Beechwold Hardware). Look for the stairs behind the stone facade (sorry, no elevator).

RSVP at Facebook

Public Parapsychology Talk (Columbus,Ohio): Neuroscientific Perspectives on Apparitions, OBEs & Self-healing

Feeling the presence of a non-physical entity, experiencing being outside of one’s own body and alleviating the sensation of pain without medicine – these experiences sound like science fiction movie themes . However, recent neuroscience research has explored how these occurrences happen by ordinary means while investigating the underlying brain mechanisms that induce them. On Monday April 10th (7pm) at the Upstairs Arts Space in Columbus, Ohio,  Pavo Orepić of the Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience (LNCO) of École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland will present what his lab has discovered about what happens in one's brain while experiencing these “supernatural” sensations and how can they be induced by external sensory manipulation.

Pavo Orepić is a neuroscience PhD student at EPFL in Switzerland. He is currently involved in several projects at the Center for Neuromodulation, located at the Department of Neurosurgery at The Ohio State University (OSU). Having graduated in computer science at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany, his job is developing virtual reality technologies that are being used as tools for prominent neuroscience research.

Admission is free. Donations to offset meeting expenses will be gratefully accepted. RSVP at Facebook.  More info at parapsych.org.