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Volume 15: Number 1: Article 3
To Be or Not to Be! A 'Paraphysics' for the New Millennium
James E. Beichler, Salem-Teikyo University, Salem, WV 26426
In 1974, Brendan O'Regan and James Beal declared the emergence of a
new field of science, paraphysics. The decade of the 1970s also saw
the first publication of the Journal of Paraphysics; increasing publications
and interest in paraphysics and physics of the paranormal; the entrance
of physicists into parapsychology in larger numbers than ever before,
resulting in new avenues of research; and the development of a secret
government program for the study and application of paranormal abilities.
These and related developments seemed to represent the culmination of
a long evolutionary process by which normal physics was slowly coming
to terms with paranormal physical phenomena; however, the acceptance
of paraphysics as a legitimate field of science is yet to be accomplished
nearly three decades later. In fact, at the end of the second millennium
use of the word paraphysics has declined in spite of recent developments
concerning the scientific verification of psi phenomena and a new mindset
in parapsychology.
Present ambiguities in the status of paraphysics can only be understood
against the background of its initial development and the continuing
evolution of physics itself. As a branch of theoretical physics, paraphysics
is subject to all of the subtle changes of attitude within the scientific
community at large as well as individual changes within both physics
and parapsychology. The same evolutionary factors which have changed
the landscape of modern physics since the 1960s, spawned O'Regan's and
Beal's announcement and subsequently pushed the birth of paraphysics
into the background of science, have now opened new avenues of research,
which once again demonstrates the need to establish paraphysics as a
legitimate scientific endeavor. Quite frankly, there is now reason to
believe that science has at last matured to a level of understanding
of nature which will allow physicists and other scholars to openly and
seriously discuss the role and validity of paraphysics.
Keywords: history of science, paraphysics, psi, physics of psi, parapsychology
FULL TEXT:
To Be or Not to Be! A 'Paraphysics' for
the New Millennium
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