Parapsychology and Psychophysics. The selected works. English edition. - 1993. - №1. - p.

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"Parapsychology and psychophysics"

The Journal of L.L.Vasilyev Fund of Parapsychology

The aim of this journal, edited by the Vasilyev Fund of Parapsychology and Psychophysics is
the revival of a wide range of historically existing parapsychology directions in Russia.
All materials of the Journal are distributed between three main sections:
THE SCIENTIFIC section publishes the articles interesting for "narrow" specialists -
scientists, working in parapsychological sphere.
THE POPULAR SCIENTIFIC section is oriented on the wide range of readers - rather well-
grounded nonspecialists
And, at last, all entertaining and cognitive materials for the most wide range of readers are
presented in the third section. In this section we publish the information about different surprising
phenomena, mysterious events and wonderful abilities.
One of the main tasks of the SCIENTIFIC section is to distinguish the scientific direction new
for our country, e.g., psychophysics. Without any claim to accuracy of definition, we name
psychophysics the part of physics which investigates the features of proceeding physical
phenomena in connection with mental activity and probably with living substance at all. We want to
stress, that the subject of study is not mentality or laws of thought and logic, but physical reality;
and the normal and pathological mental activity is the instrument of the exposure of its properties.
The living substance uses some properties of the physical world and its spatial-temporal
order, which are not revealed by physical methods because of the nonadequacy of these methods to
investigated phenomena. Psychophysics has its own subject and method of investigation.
Clairvoyance, telepathy, telekinesis etc. belong to psychophysical phenomena. For a long time
the large group of such traditional for parapsychology phenomena was outside the sphere of action
of naturalists. And though some interesting information of well-known scientists in this sphere
appeared, it had incidental character. As a result of such a situation the common opinion about the
subject of investigations didn't exist.
The situation in psychophysics now bears strong resemblance with physics at the beginning of
studying electricity and magnetism, when the electrical experiments were juggled on the scene, and
there was a lot of different phenomena that seemed to be without any relationship to each other,
great amount of the most fantastic theories, many charlatans gambling on the lack of knowledge.
The systematic work of physicians in this sphere ended with the creation of the harmonious and fine
electrodynamics.
Now the same situation we have in psychophysics: physics isn't matured to solve
psychophysical problems yet, the elementary processes and phenomena are not defined, the regular
classification of phenomena doesn't exist, the adequate ways of studying psychophysical
phenomena aren't found, the way to overcome different difficulties isn't felt about. The difficulties
are multiplied, because psychophysics is the boundary sphere between several scientific spheres.
The subjects of investigation such as man, animal, or living substance at all, are unusual for
physical methods, and it means a lot of work to describe them, because they demand special
approach as entities. The thorough methods of exact sciences often become uneffective and badly
standardized while coming across the human being and his mentality, that's why the reproduction of
the obtained results is weak. But the latter is the indispensable condition for investigation on the
base of science.
The study of psychophysical phenomena, which is often connected with a changed state of
consciousness, is impossible without methods of psychiatry, psychology and psychotherapy, which
are inaccessible for physicists. Besides this the work with the people demands the special medical
education, and this makes a lot of deontological and juridical problems.
Today there is no any suitable physical theory to describe even a small amount of reliable
experimental results. All phenomena are so unusual that the experimental results are completely at
variance with certain scientific paradigm. A lot of "theoretical odd jobs" based on experimental
results of poor quality don't reflect the problem. On the other hand, a great experience of work with
people, stored in medicine, psychiatry and psychotherapy, allows to change state of consciousness
and to form it in the necessary direction rather reproductively, but the order and consistency in
decisions of fundamental physical problems, that are peculiar to physics, are absent.
The scientific section of Journal, mentioned above, is just devoted to definition and solution
of the before mentioned problems in the sphere of psychophysics. We must overcome the barrier
between physics and biology in this sphere, elaborate a common language, and make physical
problems understandable for psychiatrists and vice versa. In our opinion, the main task now is
looking for adequate ways of the registration of psychophysical phenomena in order to obtain
reproducible results.
The aim of the Journal is to draw attention of specialists, both physicists and physicians, to
parapsychological problems and the ways of their solution, to elaborate methods of experimental
research and a theoretical comprehension of the obtained results. In our opinion, the keys to success
are now in the hands of psychiatrists and psychotherapists.
In order to achieve this gain the journal publishes the following groups of materials:
1.Popular scientific reviews and articles.
2. Historical materials including folk medicine, psychological views, both European and
Oriental, medical parapsychology, extrasensory diagnostics and biocorrection.
3.Information about single observations of unusual phenomena. We want to draw attention of
psychiatrists and psychotherapists just to this section of the Journal, because their professional
qualities allow to distinguish unusual phenomena, standing out against a background of rough
psychopathological symptomatology.
4. Original scientific research works in the sphere of parapsychology and psychophysics and
first, concerning telepathy, telekinesis, clairvoyance. In our opinion, during studying of these
phenomena, it is possible to make pure experiment and to obtain the single answer about
phenomena existing, to investigate its appropriateness and get new physical results, concerning not
only well-known physical conceptions or their combination.
5.The reviews of Russian and foreign scientific works in this sphere.
6. Discussion about the works, printed in Journal. critical essays.
7."Crazy" ideas and suggestions.
8. Advertisement, both scientific and commercial.
The editorial board of the Journal and the research group of the Parapsychology Fund are far
from the idea of decicion of all these problems within the boundary of Journal and Fund. But we
hope to distinguish the main problems in order to find the way of their solution and to attract to
interest talented scientists in the solution of this problems.
The Journal is issued 6 times a year.

Editor-in-Chief Andrey G. Lee

Editorial board: Alexander P. Dubrow

Ippolit M. Kogan
Alexander G. Parkhomow
Nina E. Swiderskaya
Tamara A. Dobrokhotowa