Parapsychological Association

The Parapsychological Association is an international professional organization of scientists and scholars engaged in the study of Parapsychology. In 1969, after a rousing conference speech by the anthropologist Margaret Mead, the American Association for the Advancement of Science voted to admit the Parapsychological Association to its ranks of approved disciplines. Her support helped lend a degree of legitimacy to the field of parapsychology, which had long struggled for scientific acceptance.¹

Despite this recognition, the field of parapsychology, and the Association, continued to face an "informal system of scientific apartheid." Parapsychologists were officially allowed to call themselves scientists but were largely kept out of the mainstream scientific community, often ignored and forced to rely on private funding and publish in their own specialized journals. This was largely due to the fact that their work, while statistically significant, often lacked tangible, real-world applications that could convince skeptics. The Duke University Parapsychology Laboratory is an example of a research institution whose work contributed to the field of parapsychology.¹