The SPR Psi Encyclopedia

A reliable source of information about psi research, the scientific investigation of psychical phenomena, created by the Society for Psychical Research @spr1882

[The SPR Psi Encyclopedia @psiencyclopedia]

We've moved! I'm handing over to a colleague who has started a new feed, and this one is now inactive. The Society for Psychical Research's Psi Encyclopedia can now be found at @PsiEncyclo so please head over there to find out about the latest additions to the website.

[The SPR Psi Encyclopedia @psiencyclopedia]

Andreas Sommer report - Visualising the Supernatural - The 2025–26 Kunstmuseum Basel exhibition 'Ghosts: Visualizing the Supernatural' traced 250 years of visual culture surrounding apparitions, mediumship and the occult: https://t.co/0U0UHd7zhL

[The SPR Psi Encyclopedia @psiencyclopedia]

Video introduction to the SPR's Psi Encyclopedia, put together by @TucsonPara : https://t.co/dD3F0MWwYr

[The SPR Psi Encyclopedia @psiencyclopedia]

Experiments with a small random-moving robot made René Peoc’h one of the most discussed figures in animal psychokinesis research. His studies with imprinted chicks and other subjects suggested intention might bias random systems: https://t.co/rm0kDG6t3v

[The SPR Psi Encyclopedia @psiencyclopedia]

Coin apports are a specialised form of ‘apport’ phenomena in which coins are said to appear without an obvious normal source or cause. This article centres on a recent Mexico City case: https://t.co/wFHLM2VLvU

[The SPR Psi Encyclopedia @psiencyclopedia]

Antony Flew was a philosopher known for his critiques of theism, postmortem survival and parapsychology. He remained sceptical of postmortem survival and precognition, whilst arguing that psychical research deserved rigorous philosophical scrutiny: https://t.co/Xxdd1LXJfs

[The SPR Psi Encyclopedia @psiencyclopedia]

Robert McLuhan, who has helped shape one of the field’s main public resources. Through blogging, publishing and editorial work, he became a prominent interpreter of parapsychology for general readers and the principal architect of the Psi Encyclopedia: https://t.co/nfq8ypdsX9

[The SPR Psi Encyclopedia @psiencyclopedia]

Annekatrin Puhle is a German philosopher whose works bring cultural history, dreams, apparitions, magic and anomalous light experiences into dialogue, combining archival investigation, case collection and personal-experience accounts: https://t.co/VBjERUZWfs

[The SPR Psi Encyclopedia @psiencyclopedia]

The Ouija board's history crosses Spiritualism, parlour gaming, psychical research, literature, and popular culture. It has generated evidence relevant to automatisms, mediumship, implicit cognition, and the study of anomalous information (revised): https://t.co/uus6AqckLI

[The SPR Psi Encyclopedia @psiencyclopedia]

Susan Gerbic became a visible example of activist scepticism through campaigns against alleged psychic fraud, the building of sceptical communities, and coordinated efforts to shape public information about what she regards as ‘pseudoscientific’ claims. https://t.co/5dOPJbGrkK

[The SPR Psi Encyclopedia @psiencyclopedia]

Cyril Burt, one of Britain’s most influential psychologists, took a serious interest in parapsychology, arguing that psychic phenomena merited scientific attention. His writings approached these phenomena with caution, curiosity and rational scrutiny: https://t.co/Wpe6kGfPn7

[The SPR Psi Encyclopedia @psiencyclopedia]

Julian Ochorowicz was a keen advocate of the medical benefits of hypnosis. He championed hypnosis as therapy, treated telepathic suggestion as a serious topic and investigated mediums, interpreting dramatic séance phenomena without resorting to spirits. https://t.co/bLMjulMHu9

[The SPR Psi Encyclopedia @psiencyclopedia]

Minot Judson Savage (1841–1918) argued that mediumistic communications and other psychic phenomena pointed not merely to telepathy but to the continued existence of the dead. His writings sought to reconcile scientific method with survivalist belief: https://t.co/gS9uk0LT3p

[The SPR Psi Encyclopedia @psiencyclopedia]

The Noah’s Ark Society for Physical Mediumship originated in 1990 in a home circle led by Robin Foy. The NAS helped preserve mediumistic traditions and indirectly fostered the later Scole Circle.
https://t.co/PrlCIGsZsV

[The SPR Psi Encyclopedia @psiencyclopedia]

Experimental parapsychologist Martin Johnson (1930–2011) linked academic psychology and experimental parapsychology. His work on the Defense Mechanism Test and publication standards left durable marks on parapsychology: https://t.co/8FLUf8uaOe

[The SPR Psi Encyclopedia @psiencyclopedia]

Czech parapsychologist Milan Ryzl helped bring Cold War-era ESP research to international attention through his investigations of hypnosis as a psi facilitator and his striking experiments with Pavel Stepanek. Latest in the SPR's Psi Encyclopedia: https://t.co/opB1w0vY5b

[The SPR Psi Encyclopedia @psiencyclopedia]

Sensations or measurements of cold recur in reports of apparitions, séances, hauntings, often treated as signs of the paranormal. Evidence remains sparse, ordinary environmental and physiological explanations may account for at least part of the effect. https://t.co/3iRRefb8wg

[The SPR Psi Encyclopedia @psiencyclopedia]

Dieter Vaitl helped bring altered states, meditation, and exceptional experiences into serious psychophysiological study. Bridging parapsychology, clinical psychology, and neuroscience, he shaped modern German research on consciousness: https://t.co/dOMmXoUvcf

[The SPR Psi Encyclopedia @psiencyclopedia]

George P Hansen is a parapsychologist, magician and critic of both believers and sceptics of psi phenomena. He is best known for developing Trickster Theory, an attempt to explain the instability and elusiveness of psi phenomena: https://t.co/K0r8cHno4C

[The SPR Psi Encyclopedia @psiencyclopedia]

Edward ‘Serjeant’ Cox (1809–1879) was an English lawyer, publisher, writer and researcher of psychology and psychical phenomena: https://t.co/wPIdAtkpg7