Summary
Mary Rose Barrington, a retired lawyer and former president of the Oxford University Society for Psychical Research has spent many years researching psychic phenomena and observing how it interacts with our daily lives. In Talking about Psychical Research: Thoughts on Life, Death and the Nature of Reality, Mary Rose Barrington asks, “What is the point of psychical research?” She goes on to share her thoughts on subjects including telepathy, clairvoyance, ‘ jotts’, scepticism, psychic force and her ‘small theory of everything’, and in doing so provides us with an enlightening, erudite and entertaining read.
CONTENTS
Foreword
Preface
PART ONE:
FIRST PRINCIPLES
Introduction
What is the point of psychical research?
Repeatable psi experiment – a contradiction in terms
PART TWO:
SUNDRY TOPICS IN BRIEF
Introduction
Can hatred throw stones?
Making things happen
Putting the horse before the cart
Clairvoyance and Telepathy
Dishonest disbelief – a case history
PART THREE:
OPPOSITE ENDS OF A SPECTRUM
Introduction
The strongest link
The other side of the channel
PART FOUR:
WIDER ANGLES AT GREATER LENGTH
Introduction
Proof – the validation of singular events
Jott – minor incidents, major implications
A small theory of everything
Psychic Force
Envoi
References
Index of names
Praise for Talking About Psychical Research.
“Ms Barrington has put together a collection that underlines the substance and importance of this field of study, and develops a “mind infused”, multi-level worldview to accommodate psychic phenomena. This collection deserves a place on the bookshelf of anyone interested pondering over the field and its history”.
~ Prof. John Poynton, MSc, PhD, OMS, Past president of the
Society for Psychical Research
“Having attended many of Ms Barrington’s psychical research lectures, I am delighted that she has finally put them down on paper in this book. The reader is presented with several decades of serious research, personal experience, and classic scholarship, which cannot be bought, and is only down to the dedication and commitment she has given to psychical research. A valuable insight!”
~ Callum E. Cooper, PhD, University of Northampton,
co-editor of Paracoustics: Sound & the Paranormal
“Focused on the wider dimension signalled by reported personal experience, this informative, witty and delightfully subversive volume carries an impressive assembly of knowledge, reflection and wisdom in support of the value and importance of that experience”.
~ Zofia Weaver, BA, PhD, author of Other Realities?:
The enigma of Franek Kluski’s mediumship