James E. Beichler
> To Be or Not to Be! A ‘Paraphysics’
for the New Milennium
About James E. Beichler, PhD
Salem-Teikyo University
2001 Society for Scientific Exploration
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Abstract
- In 1974, Brendan O’Regan and
James Beal declared the emergence of a new field of science, paraphysics.
The decade of the 1970s also saw the first publication of the Journal
of Paraphysics; increasing publications and interest in paraphysics
and physics of the paranormal; the entrance of physicists into parapsychology
in larger numbers than ever before, resulting in new avenues of research;
and the development of a secret government program for the study and
application of paranormal abilities. These and related developments
seemed to represent the culmination of a long evolutionary process
by which normal physics was slowly coming to terms with paranormal
physical phenomena; however, the acceptance of paraphysics as a legitimate
field of science is yet to be accomplished nearly three decades later.
In fact, at the end of the second millennium use of the word paraphysics
has declined in spite of recent developments concerning the scientific
verification of psi phenomena and a new mindset in parapsychology.
Present ambiguities in the status of paraphysics can only be understood
against the background of its initial development and the continuing
evolution of physics itself. As a branch of theoretical physics, paraphysics
is subject to all of the subtle changes of attitude within the scientific
community at large as well as individual changes within both physics
and parapsychology. The same evolutionary factors which have changed
the landscape of modern physics since the 1960s, spawned O’Regan’s
and Beal’s announcement and subsequently pushed the birth of
paraphysics into the background of science, have now opened new avenues
of research, which once again demonstrates the need to establish paraphysics
as a legitimate scientific endeavor. Quite frankly, there is now reason
to believe that science has at last matured to a level of understanding
of nature which will allow physicists and other scholars to openly
and seriously discuss the role and validity of paraphysics.
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Fonte:
Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 33–56,
2001
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