PSI Vol.24, No1 December 2002 Foreign affairs pp.9-15.
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Recent Research Activities in North America
Hideyuki KOKUBO*
Yamamoto Bio-Emission Laboratory,
National Institute of Radiological Sciences, Japan
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Abstract
The author reviewed research trends in North America in 2001. The author attended meetings of the "Parapsychological Association" , "Society for Scientific Exploration" and "Bridging Worlds and Filling Gaps in the Science of Spiritual Healing" and visited institutions/organizations; Parapsychology Foundation, American Society for Psychical Research, Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research, Institute of Noetic Sciences, California Institute for Human Science, Laurentian University, and Hawaii Remote Viewers' Guild. Generally, themes of studies were common to those in Japan, but experiments were done under stricter conditions.
Facilities of institutions consisted of soundproofed rooms, various kinds of experimental rooms, measurement apparatuses and libraries. Compared with the situation in North America, Japanese studies, especially qigong research, should be improved in both methodology and equipment immediately. In the USA, the budget for research on complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) increased remarkably at the end of the 20th century. Thus, research on healing such as laying-on-of-hands and prayer therapy which had common bases with parapsychological phenomena became active. It could be said that a part of parapsychology was changing to "normal sciences". Researchers in North America could be categorized into two groups; one group which had a strong tendency to extend their activities of communication with scientists in other branches and the other group which had a weak tendency to do so. Research on anomalous phenomena and parapsychology are very much interdisciplinary sciences. Therefore activating communication with various researchers was seen to be important.
Key words : research trend, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), anomalous phenomena, parapsychology
Accepted : May 5,2002
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