Education in Parapsychology

Screen shot of WikiHow search for

parapsychology from March 4th 2017
Recently a nice short article on WikiHow came to the attention of The AZIRE. The article,
called 3 Ways to Find Parapsychology Courses is really quite good, but the article is a tad
outdated, having been last updated two years ago. We wanted to write a long reply with a
lot of possibilities for independent study, finding good adult education, and accredited
courses in the field, but ran up against the URL limit for comments. So while Nancy has
joined WikiHow and can edit the article, we decided it would be better to do a new page on
The AZIRE website on educational opportunities and link to that, the Parapsychology
Foundation YouTube Channel, and the Parapsychological Associations page on university-
based accredited education on an international level in the comment.

So what motivated this updating interest was that one of the first recommendations,
Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, New Hampshire, no longer teaches parapsychology
courses in the psychology department, as far as we know. Back in the day, Professor Bill
Jack taught a minor in the scientific parapsychology there but he retired some years ago. A
quick search of the catalog of psychology courses doesnt reveal any remaining
opportunities in serious parapsychology.
 Consciousness Minor Home Page
retrieved from the University of Washington Bothell website
However, one recent development along these lines is Professor Kate Noble and her
colleagues who have set up a consciousness studies minor for undergraduates at the
University of Washington at Bothell. The UWB consciousness studies minor includes a
single course specifically on the field at the beginning of the minor, and all its courses
taking a wider approach to parapsychology as a segment of consciousness studies as a
whole are much more friendly to the findings of scientific parapsychology in its other
courses than any other conventional university. The scope of the minor is very interesting
and is a very welcome new look at the scientific study of psychic phenomena and other
related areas within the wider context of consciousness.

Most universities that feature parapsychology at all in the US have a single course on the
findings of scientific parapsychology. The WikiHow article mentions a number of these, and
a longer list is available on the Parapsychological Associations website on its accredited
international course and degree possibilities page. No university in the US has a
comprehensive program or series of courses on the history and content of the field as far as
we know.

Parapsychology Foundation home page at

www.parapsychology.org
Adult education for those who wish to be researchers or learn more about the research is
iffy when it is not under the guidance of organizations with a serious interest in the
scientific side of the field. The WikiHow article mentions the Rhine Education Center which
provides solid adult education courses several times a year. While we can definitely
recommend those, we also recommend our own ParaMOOC series on the social media
teaching platform, WizIQ.com which starts every year in January and continues through
August. The course is organized by The AZIRE and supported financially by
the Parapsychology Foundation (PF), a not-for-profit organization that is now in its 66th
year, and has always had a very serious commitment to supporting the scientific study of
psychic phenomena. The PF also issues certificates of completion for those students in the
ParaMOOC courses who engage with a significant portion of the course materials and/or
complete agreed upon requirements.

The PF has also had a commitment to the international nature of the field and has long
believed that scientists and academics in a variety of disciplines from a variety of countries
are necessary to understand the complex problems that psychic phenomena bring to
science. So of course, the PFs emphasis on educational opportunities and the importance of
understanding the traditions of research in other countries is paramount. Not only does the
Foundation support an international affiliates program, but it has also provided online
events that focus on research and education in the affiliates home countries.

This is how another great resource for serious students has come into being,
the Parapsychology Foundation YouTube playlist on its International Affiliates Conference.
There are reviews of the history of the topic and current educational opportunities in the
UK, Brazil, Argentina and France on this playlist all drawn from the First PF International
Affiliates Conference online held in 2016. Coming soon to the playlist are the presentation
of the 2017 PF Internatioal Affiliates Conference: New Faces in Parapsychology for which
four of the PF International Affiliates nominated new researchers in the field (two doctoral
students, one in Scotland, one in Brazil, and a young researcher from Hungary) to present
their work.

Back to this years free online iteration of the ParaMOOC series: While the live sessions of
presentations by the guest speakers have completed, the course is still open to enrollment
until August 31st. You can join the course by clicking here. Thirteen active researchers
outlined their work, and two doctoral students presented their doctoral research. All those
presentations are available as recordings on WizIQ along with the PowerPoints, chat logs of
each live session, and a variety of additional materials including lectures from previous
iterations of the ParaMOOC series.

Whats still available for live interaction are the Last-Sunday-of-the-Month discussion
forums that will continue through August 27th in The AZIRE Academy on WizIQ and at the
The AZIRE Library and Learning Center in the virtual world Second Life. The 2018 iteration
of the course will start on the 15th of January in 2018 and continue through August of next
year as well. Planning for next years speakers is already underway.
 All the live sessions of the past
three courses are in recordings in the courses on WizIQ and the individual lectures are
going up on the Parapsychology Foundation YouTube Channel under the ParaMOOC
playlist.

To the left is: The Parapsychology Research and Education Course Logo for 2017 logo that
includes the speakers, organization team, and the Parapsychology wordle created by the
artist RadiantSkies that was licensed from our favorite stock photo and original graphics
arts site, 123rf.com.

Finally, a word about the best places to start independent study on the scientific side of the
field. First, these are (in The AZIREs opinion) the best YouTube channels for credible
lectures/interviews/overviews of education in the field are the Parapsychology
Foundation, our own Parapsychology Online, and the channels of the Parapsychological
Association, New Thinking Allowed, and IONs (The Institute of Noetic Sciences).
 PF You
Tube Channel
Combine these YouTube channels with the new SPR Psi Encyclopedia website, Carlos
blog, Parapsychology: News, History and Research, and the Parapsychology
Foundations PF Blogand PF News, and youve got an excellent set of resources to build up
your knowledge in the field while youre hunting up the right course or set of courses for
you.
 The SPR
Psi Encyclopedia that features expert-written entries on various people, organizations,
beliefs and phenomena related to psychical research and parapsychology.
So while in the US accredited programs are incredibly to find, as the authors of the entry on
WikiHow noted, there are some ways that folks with a serious interest in the field can get a
good grounding in scientific parapsychology. Were just still at that stage that the process
has to be self-starting, at least in the U.S.