Ecology: Parapsychology’s Next Challenge | Renaud Evrard

Renaud Evrard is Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Lorraine (Nancy). He is the co-founder of the Center for Information, Research and Counseling on Exceptional Experiences, author/editor of several books on the clinical, historical, anthropological, and sociological approaches of exceptional experiences, and current President of the Parapsychological Association.

A recent collective book edited by anthropologist Jack Hunter, Greening the Paranormal (2019), developed some links between ecology and parapsychology. The most obvious intersection between both is a commonly-reported aftereffect of several different types of exceptional experiences (psychedelics, near-death or abduction experiences, etc.), in which the experiencer comes away from their encounter with an enhanced sense of connection to the environment and the world around them. The study of this rising “ecological consciousness” shows another promising aspect of these experiences.

Links between ecology and parapsychology were already made by several authors, with approaches like Méheust’s “ecology of the psi subject”, Long’s “extrasensory ecology”, Warwick’s “transpersonal ecology”, Devereux’s “re-visioning” of the Earth, and Schroll’s “transpersonal ecosophy”. More recently, the Global Consciousness Project was developed as a holistic experimental approach to psi, a unique 20-year scientific collaboration of researchers recording the effects of mass consciousness in response to major global events.

But, as suggested by Hunter (2019, p. 3), we should not examine parallels between ecology and parapsychology just for the sake of exploring interesting intersections, “but for the essential task of contributing towards a much broader – necessary – change of perspective concerning our relationship to the living planet.”

While humanity’s greatest challenge is the current ecological crisis, parapsychology may contribute to the expected changes of behavior by changing the way we think about our place in the cosmos.

Presented at the online PA Symposium “Ecology, Nature and Parapsychology” on November 21,2020; program chaired by Renaud Evrard, President of the Parapsychological Association. Download the Abstract at https://www.parapsych.org/articles/37/525/ecology_nature_and.aspx

The Parapsychological Association is an international professional organization of scientists and scholars engaged in the study of psi (or ‘psychic’) experiences, such as telepathy, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, psychic healing, and precognition. The primary objective of the PA is to achieve a scientific understanding of these experiences.

A longer version of this convention video, including the Q&A period, is available to PA members-only at parapsych.org. There is a level of PA membership for everyone interested in the scientific and scholarly advancement of parapsychology. Learn more at: https://www.parapsych.org/join_the_pa.aspx

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Published on May 18, 2021

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