The possible fuTure of parapsychology wiTh some help from regression To The hypnoTic pasT

in 882, the spr was founded to investigate “that large body of debatable phenomena designated by such terms as mesmeric, psychical, and spiritualistic,” and to do so “in the same spirit of exact and unimpassioned enquiry which has enabled science to solve so many problems” (gauld, 968, p. 37). since then, the scientific acceptance of hypnosis (partly based on “mesmerism”) and that of parapsychology have diverged widely. nonetheless, many threads link hypnotic and ostensible psi phenomena and experiences both in the past and the present. one shows a consistent positive correlation between hypnotizability (the ability to respond to suggestions in a hypnotic context) and reports of anomalous experiences (some of which specifically refer to potential psi phenomena) (pekala & cardeña, 2000). That these reports are not just the product of faulty reasoning or strange beliefs is supported by meta-analyses in which a hypnotic procedure was found to be associated with higher scoring than a control comparison (schecter, 984; stanford & stein, 994, Van de castle, 969), and by a recent study (Tressoldi & Del prete, 2007). besides the fact that hypnotizability is related to higher reports of psi experiences and beliefs, hypnosis involves a number of elements that may make the appearance or recognition of psi phenomena more likely, including: (a) an inward focus (honorton, 977), (b) a reduction of critical, evaluative thinking (cardeña & spiegel, 99 ), and (c) spontaneous experiences of transcendence during “deep hypnosis” (cardeña, 2005). it is also relevant to discuss briefly the small to modest positive correlation between hypnotizability and dissociative tendencies (e.g., butler & bryant, 997). This correlation hides the fact that whereas low hypnotizables very rarely manifest dissociation, a subset of high