A life of psi

• Published in: Fortean times no. 402; p. 62
• Main Author: Ruffles, Tom
• Format: Magazine Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Diamond Publishing Ltd 01.02.2021
• ISSN: 0308-5899

A life of psi Tom Ruffles finds that the rigorous approach of a collection of essays by a respected psychical researcher is a corrective to shallow thinking Dangerous Pursuits Mediumship, Mind and Music Stephen E Braude Anomalist Books 2020 Pb, 331pp, £14.50, ISBN 9781949501155 Stephen Braude, emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, has had a distinguished career as a psychical researcher, but the path has not always been easy (though dangerous might be putting it too strongly). Braude next asks how the deceased, given their apparent ability to describe events in the world via mediums, can have a perceptual point of view in the absence of a physical body. A chapter on what Braude considers terminological blunders takes aim at colleagues who replace familiar terms like ESP with "anomalous cognition", and psychokinesis with "anomalous perturbation", arguing that while they attempt to make the subject respectable they are less precise than the existing vocabulary (and sceptics aren't fooled anyway).