Episode 5: Reincarnation, Randomness, and Retrocausality

Despite funding cuts, media evisceration, and the onslaught of skeptics and their muddying of data, parapsychology rises from the ashes. Into the twenty-first century, academic parapsychologists, sometimes working in isolation, make remarkable strides, even in areas that surpass traditional psi research.  

Serious studies of life-after-death, extra-physical survival, and reincarnation reenter the fold—sometimes with impeccable evidence and methodology. 

Other clinicians study the existence of a global “universal consciousness” and how psi figures into animal instinct. Still further innovators map out occurrences of precognition and even retrocausality, in which the future after the present. 

In virtually every case, professional skeptics deride—and sometimes misrepresent data that parapsychologists gather with clinical assiduousness Although the parapsychology field is growing and expanding, every square inch of intellectual territory must be defended, often multiple times

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Written and Narrated by Mitch Horowitz

Produced by Jim Perry and Jon McEdward

Original Music & Sound Design by Dean Hurley

Cover Artwork by Jake in Colour

Selected References

“Ian Stevenson’s Case for the Afterlife: Are We ‘Skeptics’ Really Just Cynics?” by Jesse Bering, Scientific American, November 2, 2013

In September 1977, The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease dedicated a full issue to Stevenson’s work, as did the Journal of Scientific Exploration in 2008

(volume 22, number 1).

Reincarnation and Biology: A Contribution to the Etiology.

of Birthmarks and Birth Defects (Praeger, 1997) by Ian Stevenson

Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation (University Press of Virginia, 1966) by Ian Stevenson

For the work of the PEAR lab see: 1 * 2 * 3

See www.sheldrake.org/reactions, which explores a variety of issues and resources pertaining to “professional skepticism.” 

“Rationalists are wrong about telepathy” by Rupert Sheldrake, Unherd, Nov 22, 2021

“Heads I Win, Tails You Lose” by Chris Carter, Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 74, 2010

“A Dog That Seems to Know When His Owner Is Coming Home: Videotaped Experiments and Observations” by Rupert Sheldrake and Pamela Smart, Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 14, No. 2, January 2000

“Feeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and Affect” by Daryl J. Bem, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2011, Vol. 100, №3

“Journal’s Paper on ESP Expected to Prompt Outrage” by Benedict Carey, New York Times, Jan. 5, 2011

“Failing the Future: Three Unsuccessful Attempts to Replicate Bem’s ‘Retroactive Facilitation of Recall’ Effect” by Stuart J. Ritchie, Richard Wiseman, Christopher C. French, PLoS ONE, March 2012, Volume 7, Issue 3

“Bem’s response to Ritchie, Wiseman, and French,” posted 15 Mar 2012

“Authors’ response to Bem,” posted 15 Mar 2012

“Daryl Bem Proved ESP Is Real: Which means science is broken” By Daniel Engber, Slate, June 7, 2017

“REVISED: Feeling the future: A meta-analysis of 90 experiments on the anomalous anticipation of random future events” [version 2; peer review: 2 approved] by Daryl Bem, Patrizio E. Tressoldi, Thomas Rabeyron, Michael Duggan, first published: 30 Oct 2015, latest published: 29 Jan 2016, last updated: 23 Jul 2020, F1000Research

“The Unbearable Fear of Psi: On Scientific Suppression in the 21st Century” by Etzel Cardeña Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 29, №4, December 15, 2015

 “The Case Against Psi” by Douglas M. Stokes, Parapsychology: A Hand- book for the 21st Century edited by Etzel Cardeña, John Palmer and David Marcusson-Clavertz (McFarland, 2015)

Archive Clips

Dr. Ian Stevenson * Dr. Roger Nelson * Dr. Daryl J. Bem * Dr. Rupert Sheldrake

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