Stephen E. Braude, PhD, served as chairman of the philosophy department at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He has also served as president of the Parapsychological Association. He is author of Crimes of Reason, The Gold Leaf Lady, Immortal Remains, The Limits of Influence, First Person Plural, and ESP and Psychokinesis. He is the recent recipient of the prestigious Myers Memorial Medal awarded by the Society for Psychical Research for outstanding contributions.
Here he describes the academic challenges of conducting serious inquiry into paranormal phenomena, a major problem being the emotional resistance from colleagues. He points out that critics of parapsychology often commit the logical error of arguing from the weakest, rather than the strongest, cases. He notes that similar irrational resistance also occurred with regard to the academic acceptance of hypnosis and dissociative identity disorder (or multiple personalities). Braude also voiced certain criticisms aimed at some colleagues within the field of parapsychology. In particular, he felt that the arguments in favor of the survival of the human personality after death were weak insofar as they did not take into account the extent and range of both normal and paranormal human abilities.
(Recorded on June 28, 2015)
Published on August 17, 2015