Archives and Psychical Research

1987. Archives and psychical research. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 81, 233-255.

The importance of archives to the historian is well known. The value of archives for education is receiving increased recognition, but little attention has been paid to their potential contribution to scientific research. This paper emphasizes the place of archives in parapsychology.

Examples are given of the use of primary materials in scholarly writings and laboratory studies. The requirements of both traditional document archives and modern data archives are considered, and strategies for the effective documentation of the activities of parapsychology are discussed. A Parapsychology Archives is proposed as a way of ensuring the systematic collection, preservation, and preparation for research of parapsychological materials. Sources of information about archives are described, and existing archival resources in parapsychology are listed in the latter part of the paper.

Read Archives and Psychical Research in full online.

To save a copy of Archives and Psychical Research to your hard drive as a PDF file, with the document open in your browser use the browser’s Download or Save button or (with Windows) right-click with your mouse and select “Save as.”

Use the form below to post a comment.