Originally published in 1968 The Founders of Psychical Research is centred upon the lives and work of Henry Sidgwick, Edmund Gurney and Frederic Myers - prominent in the Society for Psychical Research (S.P.R) - during its early years: it is not a history of the Society. It passes over important aspects of the S.P.R.'s story and deals at some length with matters quite outside it. The book frequently gives accounts of 'paranormal' phenomena which if indeed they occurred, would not be explainable through any recognisable hypothesis, but are treated throughout as unexplained.

The Psychic Immune System theorizes the existence of a hidden variable that acts via both unconscious and conscious processes to protect humans individually and collectively from mortal threats. Much like the physical immune system, the psychic immune system scans for danger, protects, heals, and ensures human safety and survival. Kroth argues that it isn't just luck that has enabled people to survive the multitude of epidemics, wars, and environmental disasters that could have resulted in extinction, but rather the work of a complex system that has enabled us to survive. Scrutinizing a variety of past and present threats, Kroth points to traces of a systematic force that has protected humans. Recommended for scholars of psychology, history, and political science.

First published in 1938, Science and Psychical Phenomena presents a comprehensive overview of diverse field of phenomena which is included under the heading of psychical research. Psychical research does not deal in Spiritualism or 'Spooks'. It is the scientific investigation of the hidden faculties of Man, and it constitutes the main pathway to the understanding of the Human Individual. Since second half of nineteenth century, unknown to the general public, careful work with new methods has been going on, and the results when properly understood, are as startling as they are important. The present volume summarizes the work and discusses the far-reaching conclusion to which it points. This book is an important historical document for scholars and researchers of religion, psychology, philosophy of mind and psychic studies.

Contemporary parapsychology tends to be preoccupied with ESP (telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition) and psychokinesis. In contrast, this cutting-edge anthology assembles an international team of experts from the fields of psychology, parapsychology, philosophy, anthropology and neuroscience to examine critically what is referred to as the survival hypothesis: the tentative statement or prediction that some aspect of our personhood (e.g., consciousness) persists subsequent to the death of the physical body. The appraisal of the survival hypothesis will be restricted to the phenomenon of mediumship; that is, humans who ostensibly communicate with the deceased. The book has been divided into four main sections: Explanation and Belief; Culture, Psychopathology and Psychotherapy; Empirical Approaches, and The Present and Future. The issue of postmortem survival is supremely relevant to us all because in our consensual space-time reality the human encounter with death is, of course, a certainty.

Western science teaches that our beings are governed by the laws of physics and our minds play no part. There are, however, flaws in this thinking, most prominently unexplained paranormal phenomena that defy explanation by modern theories of physics. Collected by a handful of renegade scientists who call themselves parapsychologists, these data include extrasensory perception (ESP), poltergeist occurrences, and psychokinesis. Much of the current data in parapsychology and their implications for understanding the true nature of the self are examined here. Beginning with a consideration of several instances of spontaneous psi, the book examines the theoretical explanations of paranormal phenomena. It also covers the hypothesis and evidence that minds contain the so-called hidden variables that determine the outcomes of the quantum process, thus interweaving parapsychology with modern physics. The mind's fate upon the death of the physical body is discussed; the reader is forced to consider in detail the relationship between the conscious mind and the physical brain and the evidence that minds survive the death of bodies.

The pioneering analysis of synchronicity was given by Jung, yet despite the concept's momentous significance in Jung's work, and despite the widespread dissemination of the term 'synchronicity' even within pop culture, synchronicity is often badly misconstrued and remains "perhaps the least understood of Jung's theories". Synchronicity, Science, and Soul-Making has already been hailed as the most important analysis of synchronicity since Jung himself.

The belief in telepathy is still widely held and yet it remains much disputed by scientists. Roger Luckhurst explores the origins of the term in the late nineteenth century. Telepathy mixed physical and mental sciences, new technologies and old superstitions, and it fascinated many famous people in the late Victorian era: Sigmund Freud, Thomas Huxley, Henry James, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Oscar Wilde. This is an exciting and accessible study, written for general readers as much as scholars and students.

Tour the mighty Mississippi River with this first A-Z encyclopedia-style listing of paranormal phenomena along its winding length. Presented in a convenient, cross-referenced format, these pages are an indispensable guide of the supernatural for the curious traveler, brave riverboat pilot, ghost-folklore buff, aspiring vampire slayer, and dedicated UFO chaser. Learn how to distinguish hoodoo from Voodoo and examine posthumous perambulations and visitations of the pirate Jean Lafitte. Find out about the domain and habits of devil babies and grunch, assess haunted plantations and mansions, and chart prominent water-monster hazards. Please note, though, that the root work conjure-spells, blues-musician pacts with the devil, loup-garou assemblies, Bigfoot-trackings, Judas Eyes, and exorcism rituals are offered for entertainment and historical enlightenment only, and because dangerous, should not be undertaken by amateurs. So take a ride down the mighty Mississippi and experience the paranormal for yourself!

Demonic possession, multiple personalities, spirit possession, self-healing, and exorcism--the psychological study of such phenomena has long been fraught with difficulties. A strong behavioristic approach in the discipline has resulted in a reluctance to examine internal, intangible, inaccessible mental states that are not readily amenable to experimental investigation. In Altered States of Consciousness and Mental Health, a distinguished group of contributors explores these and other phenomena from a cross-cultural perspective. They dispell common misconceptions, clarify terms, and resolve controversies surrounding the relationships between consciousness and psychological well-being. Historical, biological, psychological, and methodological factors are considered from a variety of cultural contexts. In addition, contributors provide fascinating case studies and interviews for each of the phenomena discussed. This ground-breaking study will be of particular interest to cross-cultural psychologists, anthropologists, sociologists, ethnopsychiatrists, and mental health professionals who find themselves coming into increasing contact with these phenomena. "It is an important contribution to cross-cultural understanding of human thinking. . . . I would recommend it strongly to all psychologists and psychiatrists interested in trying to widen the perspectives of their basically Eurocentric disciplines." --British Journal of Psychiatry "An interesting and thought-provoking collection of papers in this emerging field which deserves to become a standard text in the years ahead." --Clinical Psychology Europe "What the book does is to open discussion and pave the way for more and better investigations of the phenomena of altered states of consciousness and their relation to mental health." --New Zealand Journal of Psychology

In 1775 Cherokee leaders sold most of Tennessee and Kentucky to the recently arrived white settlers, but Dragging Canoe, a proud chief, said that the sacred land should not be defiled by the white man's ax and plow. "This is the Dark and Bloody Ground " he proclaimed to the assembled chiefs.

Perhaps it is the abundance of decaying mansions that harbor dark and sinister secrets, or perhaps it is Tennessee's tragic heritage of war and defeat, or it may just be the love of a good story that accounts for the fact that Tennessee is steeped in strange tales. Each of these 40 accounts has been exhaustively researched and is presented as accurately as possible, inclulding:

• The day in 1877 when it rained foot-long snakes in Memphis
• The arch rivals who are buried in the state capitol building; on quiet nights one can still hear them arguing
• Elvis's ghost, who visits Graceland in the early morning in his black limousine
• The mathematics professor from the University of Nashville who suddenly burst into flames
• Andrew Jackson's encounter with the infamous Bell Witch
• The vampire found in Bradley County, with a wooden stake through her heart
• The day a UFO buzzed Huntsville, Chattanooga, and Knoxville

This is a work of "systematic parapsychology." The book aims to construct a framework and system of parapsychology, taking a comprehensive approach to the field. The Outline of Parapsychology states that parapsychology has a different philosophical background from the existing science and religions, and posits that pantheism could be the theoretical basis of parapsychology. The book also integrates parapsychology with oriental philosophies and New Age movement thought.

This is a book of "systematic parapsychology." The book aims to construct a framework and system of parapsychology. It takes a comprehensive approach to the field and states that parapsychology has a different philosophical background from the existing science and religions, and posits that pantheism could be the theoretical basis of parapsychology. The book also integrates parapsychology with oriental philosophies and the New Age Movement thought.

This book traces how religion could have originated in prehistory and antiquity, out of natural human and prehuman behaviour. Religion is defined here as beliefs, conceptions, practices and roles concerned with the 'supernatural'. A variety of elements of religion can be identified. These include: spirits, ghosts, life after death, heaven, shamans. To try to reduce religion to a single original element is a mistake. There may be no single origin. But the individual elements have separate origins, and these can be traced. The common subjective component of religious elements is the numinous, which is commonly ascribed to external sources identified as 'supernatural' and 'spiritual'. The numinous sense is explained by means of certain neural processes with a focus in the temporal lobes. Probably for the first time, evidence is brought to bear from primatology, palaeoanthropology, ethnography, ancient history and history of religions, as well as theology, neurology and psycho-pharmacology. The field of origins of religion has been neglected by anthropology since the 1930s, but has enjoyed renewed interest from the 1990s. This wide-ranging interdisciplinary book makes an important contribution to the field.

Psychic and other exceptional experiences are surprisingly common but opinions as to their causes vary widely. Can tricks of the mind such as hallucinations, mistaken perception and errors of judgement explain such phenomena or does some yet to be understood non-sensory means of communication come into play? In Parapsychology, leading researchers from both the UK and the USA combine their expertise to form a lucid account of research into the science of psychic experience. Beginning with an introduction to the methodology, Parapsychology addresses topics including coincidence, telepathy, precognition, psychokinesis, healing, apparitions, reincarnation and out-of-body experiences. Each chapter describes the phenomenon, outlines the main lines of research and discusses the merits of possible explanations for such anomalies of cognitive function. Extensive suggestions for relevant further reading on each individual subject are provided, along with a detailed glossary of terms. Parapsychology provides an accessible and succinct overview of the research and current thinking on the subject of psychic and allied experiences. This balanced account of work in this fascinating area will be of great interest to students and researchers in psychology as well as anyone with an interest in the field.

Beginning with an introduction to the methodology, "Parapsychology" provides the reader with a sympathetic yet critical overview of current research into unexplained phenomena including visions, telepathy, psychokinesis, divination, and out-of-body experiences. Each chapter describes the phenomena, outlines the main lines of research, discusses possible explanations for such anomalies of cognitive function, and provides suggestions for relevant further reading.
"Parapsychology"'s detailed, yet accessible coverage of the psychological study of unexplained phenomena will be welcomed by psychology and social science students and researchers.

Some experiences of the natural world bring a sense of unity, knowledge, self-transcendence, eternity, light, and love. This is the first detailed study of these intriguing phenomena. Paul Marshall explores the circumstances, characteristics, and after-effects of this important but relatively neglected type of mystical experience, and critiques explanations that range from the spiritual and metaphysical to the psychoanalytic, contextual, and neuropsychological. The theorists discussed include R. M. Bucke, Edward Carpenter, W. R. Inge, Evelyn Underhill, Rudolf Otto, Sigmund Freud, Aldous Huxley, R. C. Zaehner, W. T. Stace, Steven Katz, and Robert Forman, as well as contemporary neuroscientists. The book makes a significant contribution to current debates about the nature of mystical experience.

In Necessary Losses, Judith Viorst turns her considerable talents to a serious and far-reaching subject: how we grow and change through the losses that are an inevitable and necessary part of life. She argues persuasively that through the loss of our mothers' protection, the loss of the impossible expectations we bring to relationships, the loss of our younger selves, and the loss of our loved ones through separation and death, we gain deeper perspective, true maturity, and fuller wisdom about life. She has written a book that is both life affirming and life changing.

This book focuses on a number of psychodynamic concepts, processes, symptoms, and also achievements in terms of the bridge and the bridging functions. It deals with questions of psychological growth, creativity, and the arts.

Do you believe in ghosts? Chances are you're either too willing, or not willing enough, to believe that personal consciousness survives after bodily death. Some underestimate the evidence for life after death, not realizing how impressive the most convincing cases are. Others overestimate it, rejecting alternative explanations too readily. In fact, several non-survivalist explanations-hidden or latent linguistic or artistic talents, extreme memory, even psychic abilities-are as interesting as the hypothesis of survival, and may be more plausible than their critics realize. Immortal Remains takes a fresh look at some of the most puzzling cases suggesting life after death, and considers how to tell evidence for an afterlife from evidence for exotic things (including psychic things) done by the living. Author Stephen E. Braude, who has done extensive research in parapsychology and dissociation, explores previously ignored issues about dissociation, creativity, linguistic skills, and the nature and limits of human abilities. He concludes that we have some reason, finally, for believing in life after death.

Can mediums communicate with the dead? Do people really believe they've been abducted by aliens? Why do some people make life decisions based on their horoscope? The Psychology of the Paranormal explores some commonly held beliefs regarding experiences so strange they can defy an obvious scientific explanation. The book explains how psychologists have conducted experiments to provide insight into phenomena such as clairvoyance, astrology, and alien abduction, as well as teaching us fundamental truths about human belief systems. From debunking myths about Extra Sensory Perception, to considering whether our lives can truly be fated by the stars, The Psychology of the Paranormal shows us that however unlikely, belief in the paranormal will continue to be widespread.

Routledge is now re-issuing this prestigious series of 204 volumes originally published between 1910 and 1965. The titles include works by key figures such asC.G. Jung, Sigmund Freud, Jean Piaget, Otto Rank, James Hillman, Erich Fromm, Karen Horney and Susan Isaacs. Each volume is available on its own, as part of a themed mini-set, or as part of a specially-priced 204-volume set. A brochure listing each title in the "International Library of Psychology" series is available upon request.

In this book, David Ray Griffin, best known for his work on the problem of evil, turns his attention to the even more controversial topic of parapsychology. Griffin examines why scientists, philosophers, and theologians have held parapsychology in disdain and argues that neither a priori philosophical attacks nor wholesale rejection of the evidence can withstand scrutiny.

After articulating a constructive postmodern philosophy that allows the parapsychological evidence to be taken seriously, Griffin examines this evidence extensively. He identifies four types of repeatable phenomena that suggest the reality of extrasensory perception and psychokinesis. Then, on the basis of a nondualistic distinction between mind and brain, which makes the idea of life after death conceivable, he examines five types of evidence for the reality of life after death: messages from mediums; apparitions; cases of the possession type; cases of the reincarnation type; and out-of-body experiences. His philosophical and empirical examinations of these phenomena suggest that they provide support for a postmodern spirituality that overcomes the thinness of modern religion without returning to supernaturalism.

"This is a very thorough integration of the data from parapsychology, both experimental and anecdotal, into the philosophical discussions concerning the nature and role of consciousness. The scholarship is sound, and the issues raised in this book are very hot topics in the academic community, especially among philosophers and cognitive scientists". -- Richard S. Broughton, Director, Institute for Parapsychology

"This elegantly written book shows a greater command of the empirical data than any otherwork on the subject by a philosopher, and no other philosophical work on the survival of death deals with the conceptual issues with greater subtlety or thoroughness". -- Stephen E. Braude, author of ESP and Psychokinesis: A Philosophical Examination and The Limits of Influence: Psychokinesis and the Philosophy of Science

In "Psychic Experience and Problems of Technique", Stewart draws deeply on his own clinical experience to focus on changes in the patient's experience of inner space, and to record the growth of his own understanding of the patient's experience and how this can change. Beginning with an account of the role of collusion in the myth of Jocasta and Oedipus, he goes on to a theoretical discussion of thinking, dreams, inner space and the hypnotic state, in the context of extensive clinical experience. The second part of the book centres on practical clinical issues and problems of technique, tackling in particular the role of transference interpretations, other agents of change, and the problems encountered in benign and malignant types of regression. The wealth of clinical material and the author's informality and openness in presenting his experiences of working with very disturbed patients should be of interest to psychoanalysts.

Exorcism is more widespread in contemporary England than perhaps at any other time in history. The Anglican Church is by no means the main provider of this ritual, which predominantly takes place in independent churches. However, every one of the Church of England dioceses in the country now designates at least one member of its clergy to advise on casting out demons. Such `deliverance ministry' is in theory made available to all those parishioners who desire it. Yet, as Francis Young reveals, present-day exorcism in Anglicanism is an unlikely historical anomaly. It sprang into existence in the 1970s within a church that earlier on had spent whole centuries condemning the expulsion of evil spirits as either Catholic superstition or evangelical excess. This book for the first time tells the full story of the Anglican Church's approach to demonology and the exorcist's ritual since the Reformation in the sixteenth century. The author explains how and why how such a remarkable transformation in the Church's attitude to the rite of exorcism took place, while also setting his subject against the canvas of the wider history of ideas.

A fifteen-year-old girl who claimed regular communications with the spirits of her dead friends and relatives was the subject of the very first published work by the now legendary psychoanalyst C.G. Jung. Collected here, alongside many of his later writings on such subjects as life after death, telepathy and ghosts, it was to mark just the start of a professional and personal interest-even obsession-that was to last throughout Jung's lifetime. Written by one of the greatest and most controversial thinkers of the twentieth century, Psychology and the Occult represents a fascinating trawl through both the dark, unknown world of the occult and the equally murky depths of the human psyche. Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961). Founded the analytical school of psychology and developed a radical new theory of the unconscious that has made him one of the most familiar names in twentieth-century thought.