The PowerPoint lists some of the information about ParaMOOC2017, a free open online course on serious academic and scientific research into what seem to be psychic phenomena and on their implications for science in general. Physics, psychology, anthropology, and history are among the disciplinary approaches included. The Slide Show includes info about the course and the names, presentation titles and biographies of the guest lecturers. To enroll in the course (open until August 31st, 2017, although live sessions until February 24th, recordings of live sessions and materials will be available to new students through August): http://the-azire.wiziq.com/course/178247-parapsychology-research-and-education-paramooc2017

2. GUEST SPEAKER
BIOGRAPHIES
Parapsychology Research and Education
(also known as ParaMOOC2017)
Live Sessions: January 16th through February
24th
Extended Discussion Forums through Sunday August 27th
The Parapsychology Wordle was made by the artist
RadiantSkies and licensed through 123rf.com

3. DR. EDWARD F. KELLY
PRESENTATION: FROM PHYSICALISM TO IDEALISM:
MY ENGAGEMENT WITH THE PARANORMAL
2PM EASTERN MONDAY JANUARY 23RD 2017
Edward F. Kelly is a research professor in the Department of Psychiatry and
Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia, with interests in psychical
research and functional neuroimaging. He is lead author of three previous books:
Computer Recognition of English Word Senses; Altered States of Consciousness
and Psi: An Historical Survey and Research Prospectus; and Irreducible Mind:
Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century (with his colleagues Emily Williams Kelly,
Adam Crabtree, Alan Gauld, Michael Grosso & Bruce Greyson).
His most recent book, Beyond Physicalism, was edited with Dr. Adam Crabtree
and Dr. Paul Marshall and contains chapters by Dr. Harald Atmanspacher, Dr.
Loriliai Biernacki, Professor Bernard Carr, Wolfgang Fach, Dr. Michael Grosso,
Michael Murphy, Dr. David E. Presti, Dr. Gregory Shaw, Dr. Henry P. Stapp, Dr. Eric
M. Weiss, and Dr. Ian Whicher.
Dr. Jeffrey J. Kripal, the J. Newton Rayzor Professor of Religious Studies at Rice
University wrote “Beyond Physicalism is much more than a book. It is the intimate
expression of a decade and a half of critical but collegial conversations between
established scientists and professional humanists around some of the most
important but still unsettled questions facing humanity: those involving the
nature of mind or consciousness—that is, the nature of us.”
Beyond Physicalism received a Parapsychological Association Book Award from
2015.

4. DR. GERHARD MAYER
PRESENTATION: THE SPECIAL CONDITIONS OF
PARAPSYCHOLOGICAL / ANOMALISTICS RESEARCH AND
THE PARADIGM OF REFLEXIVE ANOMALISTICS
2PM EASTERN WEDNESDAY JANUARY 25 TH 2017
Gerhard Mayer studied psychology, sociology, philosophy, and history
of art at the University of Freiburg. He received his Ph.D. in psychology
from the University of Freiburg in 2000. Since 1996 he has been
working as a research fellow at the Institute for Frontier Areas of
Psychology and Mental Health in Freiburg/Germany (IGPP).
His research interests include media research concerning
parapsychological issues, neo shamanism, magical practices and
beliefs, the biographical integration of extraordinary experiences, and
the methodology of parapsychological investigations. He is author of
many articles and monographs on these topics, and co-editor of a
book series and a scientific journal on Anomalistics, as well as the
compendium Handbuch der Anomalistik (2015, Stuttgart: Schattauer).
He is executive director of the Gesellschaft für Anomalistik (Society for
Anomalistics) and member of the editorial team of the peer-reviewed
journal Zeitschrift für Anomalistik.

5. DR. MASAYUKI OHKADO
PRESENTATION:
CHILDREN'S PRENATAL AND PERINATAL MEMORIES
2PM EASTERN TUESDAY JANUARY 31ST 2017
Ohkado is currently Professor of Chubu University in the Graduate
School of Global Humanities and Faculty of General Education, and a
visiting professor at the University of Virginia in the Division of
Perceptual Studies, School of Medicine. Trained in linguistics,
especially in the generative grammar, he shifted his focus from how
language is represented in the mind to the nature of consciousness,
and eventually to parapsychological phenomena suggesting that
consciousness is independent of the brain. He has worked on a case of
xenoglossy occurring under hypnosis (a case of a Japanese woman
recalling a life as chief of a small village in Nepal), near-death
experiences, “death” experiences under past-life regression therapy,
and children claiming to have past-life and related memories. He is
also interested in the practical use of these phenomena: Familiarity
with them tends to increase one’s sense of purpose in life.

6. DR. CHRISTOPHER LAURSEN
PRESENTATION: PARAPSYCHOLOGY AND THE POLTEGEIST
2PM EASTERN FRIDAY FEBRUARY 3 RD 2017
Dr. Christopher Laursen is a historian of religions, sciences,
and the environment. He looks at how people experience
and try to explain anomalous events and phenomena in
the modern era. He graduated with a Ph.D. from the
University of British Columbia in 2016. He is currently
working on a book, Mischievous Forces, about the
development of the psychokinesis hypothesis of the
poltergeist phenomenon. His recent essays and articles
have been published in Jeffrey J. Kripal’s edited volume
Super Religions (2016), Jack Hunter’s Damned Facts (2016),
and the magazine Fortean Times. His website is
christopherlaursen.com.

7. DR. ALEXANDER SECH JUNIOR
PRESENTATION: SOME HISTORICAL ASPECTS OF 19TH
CENTURY STUDIES OF PSYCHIC PHENOMENA
2PM EASTERN SATURDAY FEBRUARY 4 TH 2017
Alexandre Sech Junior is currently working on the historical
interfaces between psychical research and the psychology
of trance states. His research interests are William James,
history and philosophy of science, history and philosophy
of psychology, history of psychical research and the co-
emergence of psychical research and psychology in the
late nineteenth century. The topic of his Ph.D. thesis was
the relevance of psychic phenomena in the works of
William James. He is a member of the Research Center in
Spirituality and Health (NUPES) at the Faculty of Medicine
of the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF), Brazil,
whose objective is to develop interdisciplinary research on
those subjects. He is also a member, in the same university,
of the Research Center in History and Philosophy of
Psychology (NUHFIP).

8. DR. EVERTON MARALDI
PRESENTATION:THE CONCEPT OF CREATIVE DISSOCIATION:
CONTRIBUTIONS TO
THE STUDY OF ARTISTIC MEDIUMSHIP
2PM EASTERN SUNDAY FEBRUARY 5 TH 2017
Everton Maraldi has a Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the
University of São Paulo (USP, Brazil) and holds a postdoc
position at the same University. He is a member of the
Inter Psi - Laboratory of Anomalistic Psychology and
Psychosocial Processes (USP, Brazil). His research interests
include topics such as dissociation, mediumship,
anomalous creative experiences, and paranormal beliefs.
His Ph.D. dissertation was about the prevalence of
dissociative experiences and related variables among
religious and non-religious Brazilian respondents
(acknowledgements to FAPESP - Foundation for Research
Support of São Paulo, Brazil). See some of Maraldi's
publications at: https://usp-
br.academia.edu/EvertonMaraldi

9. JACK HUNTER
PRESENTATION:BETWEEN REALNESS AND UNREALNESS:
ANTHROPOLOGY, PARAPSYCHOLOGY AND THE ONTOLOGY
OF NON-ORDINARY REALITIES
2PM EASTERN FRIDAY FEBRUARY 10 TH 2017
Jack Hunter is an anthropologist exploring the borderlands
of consciousness, religion and the paranormal. His doctoral
research with the University of Bristol examines the
experiences of spirit mediums and their influence on the
development of self-concepts and models of
consciousness. He is the founder and editor of
Paranthropology: Journal of Anthropological Approaches
to the Paranormal (www.paranthropology.co.uk). He is the
author of Why People Believe in Spirits, Gods and Magic
(2012), editor of Damned Facts: Fortean Essays on Religion,
Folklore and the Paranormal (2016), and co-editor with Dr.
David Luke of Talking With the Spirits: Ethnographies from
Between the Worlds (2014). He teaches A-Level Religious
Studies and Sociology at North Shropshire College.

10. DR. DARYL BEM
PRESENTATION:FEELING THE FUTURE:
LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS ON PRECOGNITION
2PM EASTERN SATURDAY FEBRUARY 11 TH 2017
Daryl Bem, professor emeritus of psychology at Cornell University,
obtained his B.A. degree in physics from Reed College in 1960,
and began graduate work in physics at MIT. While there, he
became so intrigued by the civil rights movement that he decided
to switch fields and pursue a career in social psychology
specializing in beliefs, attitudes, and public opinion. He obtained
his Ph.D. degree in social psychology from the University of
Michigan in 1964, and has since taught at Carnegie-Mellon
University, Stanford, Harvard, and Cornell University, where he has
been since 1978. He retired in 2007.
Professor Bem has published on several topics in psychology,
including beliefs, attitudes, and public opinion; group decision
making; self-perception; personality theory; sexual orientation;
and psi (ESP). He is coauthor of an introductory textbook in
psychology and the author of Beliefs, Attitudes, and Human
Affairs.

11. DR. JULIA MOSSBRIDGE
PRESENTATION:PREDICTING THE UNPREDICTABLE:
EVIDENCE AND WORKING MODEL
2PM EASTERN TUESDAY FEBRUARY 14 TH 2017
Julia Mossbridge, M.A., Ph.D. is a Scientist at the Institute of
Noetic Sciences (IONS), the CEO and Research Director of
Mossbridge Institute, LLC, the Science Director at Focus@Will,
and a Visiting Scholar in the Psychology Department at
Northwestern University. Her research interest is primarily to
understand how time is perceived by the conscious and
subconscious minds. Mossbridge is also honored to be the
2014 winner of the Charles Honorton Integrative Contributions
award. Dr. Mossbridge received her Ph.D. in Communication
Sciences and Disorders from Northwestern University, her M.A.
in Neuroscience is from the University of California at San
Francisco, and she received her B.A. with highest honors in
neuroscience from Oberlin College. Dr. Mossbridge is also the
co-author with Dr. Imants Baruss of the new APA book titled
Transcendent Mind: Re-thinking the Science of Consciousness.

12. DR. CHRISTINE SIMMONDS-MOORE
PRESENTATION: SYNESTHESIAS AND PSI
2PM EASTERN WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 15 TH 2017
Christine Simmonds-Moore earned her Ph.D. on the topic of
Schizotypy as an anomaly prone personality type from University
of Northampton in the UK. In 2010, she left her native UK for the
USA. Christine is currently an Associate Professor of Psychology at
the University of West Georgia. Her research interests include the
study of personality types who are prone to exceptional
experiences; synesthesia; transpersonal experiences; mental health
and exceptional experiences; cognitive and neurobiological
correlates of paranormal experiences (including attention); and
how sleep-related and other altered states of consciousness relate
to exceptional experiences. Christine has worked on a variety of
Bial (and other) funded research projects, including studies on
healing, the ganzfeld, implicit ESP, synesthesia and ESP,
paranormal belief and disbelief and a study exploring experiences
people have when they wear a placebo “God helmet”. She is the
editor of Exceptional Experience and Health: Essays on Mind, Body
and Human Potential and a co-author of a text book on
Anomalistic Psychology.

13. DR.PETER BANCEL
PRESENTATION: WHY THE GLOBAL CONSCIOUSNESS
PROJECT DOES NOT MEASURE GLOBAL CONSCIOUSNESS
2PM EASTERN WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 16 TH 2017
Peter Bancel received a Ph.D. in experimental physics from the
University of Pennsylvania. He lives in France and has worked
for the Centre Nationale de Recherche Scientifique and at the
Institut des Matériaux de Nantes. His research interests have
included order and structural defects in quasi-crystalline
materials, two-dimensional phase transitions, and protein
crystallisation. His current research involves analysis of data
correlations in data from the Global Consciousness Project,
immersive approaches to mental state preparation for psi
experimentation, and learning how insights from foundational
work of quantum theory might be applied to psi. He has
obtained grants from the Parapsychology Foundation, the Bial
Foundation and the Society for Psychical Research, among
others. He is currently affiliated with the Institut
Métapsychique International in Paris.

14. DR. ALEJANDRO PARRA
PRESENTATION:LEARNING TO READ THE “SOUL OF
THINGS”: AN UP-TO-DATE STATE OF THE ART REVIEW
OF THE TOKEN-OBJECT EFFECT AND PSI.
2PM EASTERN SATURDAY FEBRUARY 18 TH 2017
Alejandro Parra is President of the Instituto de Psicología
Paranormal at Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he serves as a
psychotherapist in general clinical psychological practice in the
Clinical Area of the Institute of Paranormal Psychology. He
conducts therapy groups and uses an historical approach in his
continued research into parapsychology, dreamwork, and
mediumship. In a counseling setting he also conducts workshops
with psychics and mediums on their paranormal/spiritual
experiences. Parra has taught an accredited course in
Transpersonal Psychology at the Universidad Abierta
Interamericana in Buenos Aires. He is a full member and
International Liaison of the Parapsychological Association, a past
President of the Association (period 2011-2013); and an
International Affiliate and International Liaison of the
Parapsychology Foundation. Parra has authored a number of
books, among them Sensibilidad psíquica? [Psychic Sensibility]
(Deva´s, 2010), dealing with research and experimental design on
psychic readings, token-object effect and psychometry.

15. CHARMAINE SONNEX
PRESENTATION:A REVIEW OF NON-CONTACT HEALING:
TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS
2PM EASTERN TUESDAY FEBRUARY 21 ST 2017
Charmaine Sonnex is an Associate Lecturer in
Psychology at the University of Northampton
and is in the final stages of her PhD. Her research
interests include Transpersonal Psychology, non-
contact healing, Paganism, religion and
spirituality. Charmaine’s thesis includes a
comprehensive meta-analysis of the current
empirical research into various form of non-
contact healing, explores Pagan ritual workings
through a psychological lens, and seeks to
establish the efficacy of Pagan healing practices
through a randomised controlled trial (RCT).

16. DR. FABIO DA SILVA
PRESENTATION:COULD THE PRESENTIMENT STUDIES
BE USEFUL FOR PSI TRAINING GROUPS RESEARCH?
2PM EASTERN WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 22 ND 2017
Psychologist and specialist in Neuropsychology.
Master and Ph.D. in Social Psychology by University
of São Paulo (USP), with internship research at the
Institute of Noetic Sciences. Professor in
postgraduate courses related to neurosciences,
education, mental health and organizations. Member
of the Inter Psi - Laboratório de Psicologia
Anomalística e Processos Psicossociais from USP.
Coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Group of studies
in Anomalistic Psychology in Paraná Regional
Psychology Board. Director of the Neuropsi Institute:
innovative research and action in integral human
development.

17. DR. ETZEL CARDEÑA
PRESENTATION:THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY:
PERSONAL REFLECTIONS ABOUT PARAPSYCHOLOGY
2PM EASTERN WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 23 RD 2017
Etzel Cardeña holds the endowed Thorsen Chair in Psychology
(with a remit in parapsychology and hypnosis) at Lund University
in Sweden. He has graduate degrees from York University and the
University of California, Davis, and was a postdoctoral fellow at
Stanford University. A fellow of the American Psychological
Association and the Association for Psychological Science, he has
been president of Division 30 of APA, the Society for Clinical and
Experimental Psychology, and the Parapsychological Association;
his work has received awards from these and other organizations.
His more than 300 publications, in more than 10 languages,
include the two editions of Varieties of Anomalous Experience,
Altering Consciousness (in two volumes), the e-book Non-
Ordinary Mental Expressions for Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
and Parapsychology: Handbook for the 21st Century which he
edited with his Dr. John Palmer and David Marcusson-Clavertz. He
has also worked professionally in theatre and is the Artistic
Director of the International Theatre of Malmö.