"Not only do I believe that scientific and scholarly approaches may help us to understand psychic phenomena more deeply, but I see the discipline as a unique strand of humankind's efforts to understand itself."

       So writes Dr. Carlos S. Alvarado, assistant professor of research in psychiatry and neurobehavioral sciences at the Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia.

         Dr. Alvarado has agreed to be the keynote/Frank C. Tribbe Memorial speaker at the Academy's 2009 conference June 19-22 at DeSales University in Pennsylvania.  He will discuss aspects of the history of out-of-body experiences. 
        Alvarado, who grew up in San Juan, Puerto Rico, received his BA in psychology from the University of Puerto Rico, an MSc in parapsychology from John F. Kennedy University in California, an MA in history from Duke University, and a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Edinburgh.

        He is the author of Getting Started in Parapsychology (2002), which he is currently updating. With his wife, Nancy L. Zingrone, he has been presenting continuing education seminars for psychologists in Puerto Rico about parapsychological topics.  Also with his wife, he is currently analyzing the results of surveys involving depersonalization and dream experiences, and he is writing a variety of papers about OBEs and NDEs, funded by a grant from the Society for Psychical Research.  One of those papers will be the basis for the keynote address at the Academy's conference. 
      I recently put some question to him by e-mail.

Dr. Alvarado, what motivated you to become a parapsychologist?

      "When I was around 17, I developed an interest in psychic phenomena and related topics. It is an interest I cannot explain. I read about yoga, witchcraft and many other topics. In my readings I encountered the field of parapsychology and was immediately attracted to the scientific study of psychic phenomena. I started my study of parapsychology's literature around 1972.   I remember reading various journals from cover to cover and books by authors such as Robert Amadou, Hereward Carrington, Frederic W.H. Myers, J.G. Pratt, J.B. Rhine, Louisa E. Rhine, René Sudre, and many others. Somewhat later, I started reading the old literature and was forever fascinated by the historical aspects of the field. At the time I was living in Puerto Rico and every time I visited New York City, I took the opportunity to buy old books.

          "I wanted to be a parapsychologist. But due to practical considerations, such as the lack of employment and formal educational programs on the subject, I opted for the study of psychology instead."

Do you have any regrets about entering the field?

       "I do not have regrets. However, it has been difficult to obtain employment due to my work in parapsychology. This was particularly true when I went back to Puerto Rico around 1997. For example, a friend of the family who took my CV to a person she knew in one of the administration offices of a private university reported back saying that this person handed the CV back to her with disdain for my parapsychological interests. There were other problems, including successful attempts to curtail my teaching of parapsychology in a local institution through various means such as telling students my courses were not going to be offered that particular semester when this was not true.  

        "While these problems made life difficult, particularly financially, I am aware that others have had far worse experiences. Life has been made easier due to my marriage to Nancy L. Zingrone, who also works in parapsychology and collaborates with me in research and other projects. And the work is fascinating to me. In addition, the phenomena of the field have implications about human nature that are of great importance."

What has been the highlight of your career to date?

       "I do not think I would refer to ‘highlights,' but instead to things that were important to me professionally. Two examples were my association with persons that are no longer alive. Between 1982 and 1986 I worked for Dr. Ian Stevenson as a research assistant at the University of Virginia. I learned much from Dr. Stevenson, both from his work and from him as a person. My period at the University of Edinburgh pursuing a Ph.D. with Robert L. Morris was also important to me.  Dr. Morris' positive and supportive attitude towards students was inspirational and something to emulate. Both of these events provided useful professional and personal development in ways I cannot start to describe in this short interview."

What are your main areas of interest in parapsychology?

        "I am very interested in providing historical perspective to workers in parapsychology. This involves the publication of papers that remind current researchers that specific ideas and research are not new but have a history, and that knowledge of this literature can give you perspective and ideas for further research. Furthermore, this literature is sometimes essential for evidential and theoretical concerns. I discussed this in a paper I published in 1982 in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research entitled "Historical Perspective in Parapsychology: Some Practical Considerations."  With this purpose in mind, I have published many papers summarizing aspects of the old literature about such varied topics as out-of-body experiences, displacement in ESP, ESP and altered states of consciousness, parapsychological terminology, Ernesto Bozzano's ideas about bilocation, the concept of human radiations, SPR dissociation work, and mental mediumship and memory. The latter paper was published in 1980 in the Journal of the Academy of Religion and Psychical Research.

        "I am also interested in more general historical issues beyond the practical use of the old literature for the interests of parapsychologists. There is much to learn from the past about the various factors that have affected the development of the field, as well as about particular ideas and methodologies without focusing on the reality of the phenomena. I have written papers along these lines about the influence of Eusapia Palladino on the development of ideas in psychical research, and the more general influence of mediumship in the development of concepts about the subconscious mind and dissociation."

When did you become interested in OBEs?

         "I published my first paper on the topic when I was 21 years old. This was a review of experimental studies that appeared in the Spanish journal Psi Comunicación in 1976. Since then I have conducted research on the subject, first for my MS degree and later for my Ph.D. degree. This research - most of which I have conducted with my wife Nancy - has  centered on questionnaire studies about the psychology of the person who has had OBEs, and about the features of the OBE, or characteristics such as floating over the physical body, seeing the physical body, and traveling to a distant location. The field of OBE research is very underdeveloped and much needs to be done. I have had the opportunity to study aspects of the experience that no one has focused on in modern times. This includes attempts to replicate the OBE feature patterns reported both by Sylvan Muldoon and Robert Crookall."

       So much of modern parapsychology beats around the bush on the issue of the survival of consciousness after death,  focusing more on the existence of ESP of one kind or another and seemingly pretending that it is unrelated to the survival issue or ignoring it.  Where do you stand on the survival issue?

       "For many workers in the field, survival research is not a main interest. To some extent this is academics as usual. People specialize in some areas and develop interests due to personality traits, life experiences, training, and employment opportunities, and parapsychology is no exception. Then there are concerns such as getting tenure and the belief that the area has many methodological difficulties. However, I believe that in some cases there is more than this. In some circles it is more "respectable" to conduct ESP experiments than working with survival-related phenomena such as apparitions or mediumship. I still remember how the director of a parapsychology unit within an university, wanting to keep a conservative image, discouraged students from pursuing topics such as apparitions for dissertation research.

       "While I have my doubts about some of the evidence, overall I think there is enough to take the idea of survival seriously. For example, the best of the mediumship literature (particularly studies with Leonora Piper and Gladys Osborne Leonard) is impressive to me.

        "I agree with Ian Stevenson when, after discussing alternate explanations, he wrote:  ‘I can say that I think reincarnation is, for some cases, the best interpretation. I am not claiming that it is the only possible interpretation for these cases, just that it seems the best one among all those that I have mentioned.'

         "Something similar may be said about some cases of mediumship and apparitions, but we need to be careful about dogmatic opinions. I am continuously surprised about how sure many individuals are about many obscure issues relevant to survival to the point of preaching. For example, some assure us that consciousness needs a subtle body to communicate, while others are equally convinced that such view is nonsensical because consciousness has no need of such mechanisms to manifest. But not all of us can see the logic behind such convictions and in fact it seems that some presume to know too much without actual evidence, or without recognizing the ambiguity of some of the evidence. Similarly, others talk about nonphysicality or nonlocality as if they really knew the nature of the problem. While such ideas need to be discussed, and actually make sense in some instances, we need to realize that we know almost nothing about these constructs."

What other areas of parapsychology do you feel have been neglected?

        "One of them is the importance of spontaneous cases, which I discussed in my 1995 presidential address to the Parapsychological Association entitled ‘The Place of Spontaneous Cases in Parapsychology.'  Unfortunately parapsychology as a scientific discipline has neglected studies that are not conducted in the laboratory. My address was a critique of this situation from different points of view. I have made this point repeatedly in other papers.

         "Another topic that has been neglected is luminous phenomena.  In 1987 I published a paper listing and analyzing features of luminous manifestations seen close to the body of mediums, dying persons, mystics and saints, and others. In my paper "Neglected Near-death Phenomena," published in 2006 in the Journal of Near-Death Studies, I made a call, with specific suggestions for research, to consider phenomena such as physical events (clock stopping, falling pictures), and observations of ‘emanations' from the body of dying persons. Regarding other neglected phenomena, I have conducted statistical studies of haunting apparitions and auras.

        "Most of my efforts in the last years have been the education of the general public through Web materials. Through my association with the Parapsychology Foundation, I have prepared several online materials that anyone can access. This includes over 40 short bibliographies on different topics."

It often seems to me that parapsychology is trying to reinvent the wheel and ends up with a square wheel.  How do you see this?

       "I still recall a conversation with someone that argued that he did not see the point in conducting more parapsychological research because we had already established the existence of the phenomena and its spiritual nature. But even granting these points for the sake or argument, such a view does not satisfy the scientific mind. There are still many questions that are unanswered. Just as saying that suggestion ‘explains' hypnosis, which is no explanation at all, we should not presume that evoking the nonlocal or spiritual aspect of humankind is really an explanation, or at least the end of the argument. If, as argued by William James and others, the mind is an independent agent that uses the nervous system to communicate, but is not generated by that system, even if its expression may be hindered or modified by it, there is much to investigate and to be learned about the presumed psychophysical interaction between these orders of reality.

       "The point of science is not just to assert that something exists, but to understand its functioning. In addition, we do not understand the nature of parapsychological individual differences. Why are some people more open to psychic experiences than others? Why do some mediums receive information via possession, while others perceive images or words dictated to them? We are still at the beginning of our explorations."

What historical cases have impressed you the most?

         "There are many old cases that I find impressive. Regarding mental mediumship, I can mention Leonora E. Piper and Gladys Osborne Leonard. The case of Eusapia Palladino, even accepting the obvious evidence for fraud, is impressive in many respects.

        "Many of the reports include much more than evidential information. This was the case of the features of ESP presented by Stephan Ossowiecki.  Other examples are the 1892 and 1898 reports of Mrs. Piper authored by Richard Hodgson that have much information about trances and spirit controls."

If you could go back in time and meet one of the early researchers, who would it be? 

       "The history of psychical research presents us with so many fascinating individuals that I find it very hard to focus only on one. One of them has to be Frederic W.H. Myers, who was a brilliant individual. The way he brought together many aspects of psychology and psychical research was remarkable and very different from most of his contemporaries. He seemed to have experienced those subliminal uprushes he wrote about. I think that Myers was more influential in psychical research after his death in 1901 than has been recognized. But in some ways his ideas were watered down over time and, as happens in many fields, people adopted some concepts (such as the role of the subconscious) without crediting Myers. This topic deserves historical study.

       "Another fascinating figure I would like to meet is Charles Richet. He showed much courage in defending psychic phenomena putting his scientific reputation at risk. While he conducted research, he also did much for the field using his social and scientific prestige to open doors for psychical research, particularly in France.

        "While much less ‘prestigious' and with less formal education than Myers and Richet, Hereward Carrington devoted his life to the field. I have been studying the beginning of his career and it is interesting that his initial reputation in the field was made through his exposures of mediumistic fraud.  He was also a prolific writer of books and articles for the general public. In my view his career would constitute an excellent case study in the popularization of psychical research."

 Many of Dr.Alvarado's articles can be found at http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/personalitystudies/Carlosbio.cfm

        According to Silver Birch, the spirit entity who communicated for nearly 50 years through the trance mediumship of Maurice Barbanell, a British journalist, certain groups in the afterlife spheres celebrate the holidays - both Christmas and Easter.   However, he pointed out that these celebrations were going on well before the Christian era gave added meaning to them. 

      At what is now Christmas time, the birth of the sun was celebrated - the end of the long cycle when there arose the first sign that new life was being born into the earthly world.  Then, when the sun attained its fully glory it was regarded as a period of resurrection.  "Those times had significance to us because it was then that we received the greatest communion from the Great Spirit," he explained.  "You do not yet understand very much the influence of the sun. At these times, we held for many days what you call séances.  We received at those festivals much inspiration."

        The festival of the birth of the sun was the most important, Silver Birch added, because it represented the beginning of a new era.   It was the end of one cycle and the beginning of a new one.   Because the festivals were held in the world of matter, they were celebrated in the world of spirit.   "A spiritual meaning has now come out of them," Silver Birch continued.  "Instead of celebrating the dawn of the new life, we now use it to withdraw from the world of matter to get new power of the spirit so that we can bring new light to the world."  

      At what might be called retreats here on earth, these advanced spirits take counsel from even higher spirits, share experiences, learn how far they have succeeded or failed, and formulate plans for future missions.   Among those higher spirits who give counsel, he said, "is the great figure of the Nazarene, who is still imbued with the task of teaching humanity age-old truth enshrined in all that we seek to do, that love is the fulfilling of the law."

      However, Silver Birch stressed that he is not the Nazarene of the Churches, exalted into a deified place, but rather a great spirit who strives still to serve through many instruments.   "I wish that you could see and hear the Nazarene and feel that great love as he encourages us in our missions, as he expresses his knowledge of all that has been done and urges us to go forward with new strength, with new hope, with new vision, and with new purpose."

       One of the sitters asked Silver Birch if in referring to the Nazarene, he was speaking of the man Jesus or the spirit forces working through him. "The man," Silver Birch replied through the entranced medium.  "But he has since evolved and there is now a far greater spiritual consciousness expressed through him than there was in the earthly incarnation, for the amount that he expressed then had to be in consonance with the limitations of his day.  There has never been on earth anyone through whom the manifestation of the spirit has been greater than through the Nazarene.  There has never been any through whom the laws have revealed themselves at so great an intensity as through the Nazarene."

       At another sitting, a person asked Silver Birch if Jesus was "God the Son," as the Church teaches, or if he was an ordinary man with great mediumistic powers.  Silver Birch answered: "The Nazarene was a messenger of the Great Spirit who came into your world in order to fulfill a mission of the Great Spirit.  He fulfilled his mission on earth, but he has not yet fulfilled the rest of his mission, which is till being directed from the world of spirit.  It is wrong to worship the Nazarene, for worship should be given only to the Great Spirit and not to His messengers.  The Nazarene came into your world by fulfilling the natural laws which the Great Spirit had ordained, the same natural laws which all must fulfill in order to be born into your world. You cannot live, you cannot be born into your world, you cannot pass from your world into mine, except through the natural laws of the Great Spirit."

       Asked about the Christian doctrine of atonement, Silver Birch said:  "How pitiable a conception is this of the Great Spirit and of the mission of the Nazarene!  He was full of the love and mercy and gentleness of a loving Father.  You are all placed in the world of matter to build your own character and accomplish your own soul evolution...All else is a doctrine of cowardice and injustice.  If you have done wrong, be a man and pay the price!  Do not attempt to shelve your responsibilities on to the back of another."     

Homosexuality and Possession

      In my blog post of November 7,  reference was made to a book by Wanda Pratnicka, Possessed by Ghosts (2006), in which she claims that a primary cause of homosexuality is possession at birth by an earth-bound spirit of the opposite sex.   Several people responded somewhat emotionally to the post, both at the site and by e-mail to me.  A couple of them implied that I was endorsing the view or that it was disparaging to gays to even give recognition to such a theory.  

         As I told them, I am highly skeptical of that particular claim by Pratnicka, although I am much less skeptical when it comes to possession or overshadowing, in general.  However, I offered Pratnicka's views on the subject as food for thought.  I am not qualified to accept or reject her assertions on the subject.  Moreover, to the extent that I find most everything else she states to be consistent with what others have written on the subject of possession,  I think it would be irresponsible for me to reject her statements because it offends some people or because some people are unable to set emotion aside in considering such a "theory," even though Prtnicka presents it as fact, not theory.

I recently received the below e-mail from Dr. Paul D. Biscop, of Nanaimo, British Columbia, and would like to present his view on the subject:

        "While I have not read [Pratnicka's] book, I would nonetheless like to respond for your readers from my professional point of view as a Registered Art Therapist (ATR) and a Cultural Anthropologist (Ph.D.) and from my personal point of view as a Spiritualist medium of 40 years.

         "As a professional anthropologist teaching at College and University levels, my teaching specialties include Anthropology of Religion; Healing (Medical) and Human Sexuality, the latter of which I pioneered in teaching in western Canada, first at Simon Fraser University and then at Douglas College here in British Columbia.  Patricka‘s claim that homosexuality is caused by possession at birth by an earth-bound spirit of the opposite sex is one that could be accepted only by those who might share what appears to be a mediaeval religious world view, one in which any kind of non-reproductive sex is considered "unnatural" and therefore "of the Devil", thus leading to an explanation of homosexuality as "unnatural" and more or less demonic, a demonic etiology of homosexuality if you will.   I suspect her work is a published attempt to validate and legitimate not a clinical or academic point of view but rather a bizarre religious point of view. There are serious flaws of assumptions as well as ignorance of cross-cultural data on human sexual behaviors in general and the meanings given to the variants found, especially in regard to homosexual behaviour and gender as well.

        "It appears that Pratnicka considers both sex (male/female) and gender (masculine/feminine) a part of "nature" (as ordered by God?) and not a part of culture, as created by humankind. From an anthropological cross-cultural perspective, a number of points are clear: biology provides the basis for sex (male/female/intersexed) but culture provides the meanings that become attached both to sex and sexual behaviour; sexual behaviour and sexual identity are separate and not necessarily consistent; gender roles are created by society and culture, and vary accordingly. In fact, both sexual and gender identities are far more numerous and flexible cross-culturally than the usual narrow definitions of orthodox Western thinking might expect. Sexual behaviour that has one meaning in one culture might have an opposite or other meaning in another culture. As for gender, there are many societies that permit of plural genders and gender identities rather than only two, as in Western concepts. In a few societies, gender is not fixed but assigned according to particular tasks which either men or women may take up or leave aside as they choose or are required.

        "Homosexuality, as defined in Western terms, may or may not occur in every society, but homosexual activities may occur without any particular identity being attached to them. In some cases, the presence of homosexuality may be missed by outside observers because the natives have no particular term or perception of it as such.  While the biological similarity of males everywhere, as females every where, is much the same, it is reasonable to expect some similarity in gender roles as well. This we find cross-culturally, but at the same time we also find considerable variation in gender roles.

"Indeed, the example of ritual homosexuality as required in some Melanesian societies, which is not defined as homosexual behaviourbut rather a necessity of biology in order to "grow boys into men", shows the poverty of Pratnicka's concepts. What the cross-cultural study of human sexuality strongly suggests is that "nature" gives us the drive to eroticize something or other, but culture and individual factors shape what is ultimately eroticized by anyone, male, female, intersexed or other. In fact, the variety of human sexual behaviour, and the flexibility with which it is expressed, would support not a genetic likelihood for homosexuality, but rather a socially learned pattern of behaviour and identity construction.

       "Spirit possession beliefs and practices vary greatly from culture to culture as well, and, though common, are not quite universally found either. Both the kinds and nature of spirits are culturally conceived and experienced. Possession may be involuntary or it may be voluntary; most commonly, it begins as involuntary and progresses to be voluntary.  I have not heard of any culture in which possession is believed to occur at birth and continue throughout the lifetime, whether that possession be by a spirit of the same sex or opposite sex. In some cases, spirits do not have sex as male or female at all.

       "As an Art Therapist formerly in clinical practice with adolescents in a psychiatric facility, and as a cultural anthropologist, I am aware of many claims in our society to have "cured" homosexuality that generally do not hold up to scrutiny either clinically or over the long term. Most of these claims seem to serve only to validate the status of the claimant, whether scientist, pastor, therapist or snake oil salesman!

        "Finally, I might add that in forty years of public mediumship, I have never encountered a case of actual possession under any circumstances.  All I have ever seen is some great fiction, based loosely on some early social science research, and lots of anecdotal tales that cannot be confirmed. I have, however, seen possession that does fit the anthropological profile, and I respect the use of what is believed to be possession as a genuine means to spiritual experience in the context of those particular cultures in which it is documented.

        "What we see in Pratnicka's tale is not science or social science, but the politics of explanation, in which explanation is tied to ideology and personal expedience at the expense of peoples' experience of human needs and even of truth itself. One can only shake one's head at such incredible nonsense."