parapsychologists

"In every age of the world there has been an established system, which has been opposed from time to time by isolated and dissentient reformers. The established system has sometimes fallen, slowly and gradually: it has either been upset by the rising influence of some one man, or it has been sapped by gradual change of opinion in the many."

"During the last two centuries and a half, physical knowledge has been gradually made to rest upon a basis which it had not before. It has become mathematical."

"‘European science could never have reached its present height had it not been fertilised by successive wafts from the […] knowledge stored up in the East.’ ‘Think what must have been the effect of the intense Hinduizing of three such men as Babbage, De Morgan and George Boole on the mathematical atmosphere of 1830–1865.’ ‘I do as George Boole and De Morgan did: I bow my head inreverent thankfulness to that mysterious East, whence come to us wafts of some transcendent power the nature of which we ourselves can hardly state in words.’"

"All the men who are now called discoverers, in every matter ruled by thought, have been men versed in the minds of their predecessors, and learned in what had been before them. There is not one exception. I do not say that every man has made direct acquantance with the whole of his mental ancestry... But... it is remarkable how many of the greatest names in all departments of knowledge have been real antiquaries in their several subjects. I may cite among those... in science, Aristotle, Plato, Ptolemy, Euclid, Archimedes, Roger Bacon, Copernicus, Francis Bacon, Ramus, Tycho Brahe, Galileo, Napier, Descartes, Leibnitz, Newton, Locke."

"Modern discoveries have not been made by large collections of facts, with subsequent discussion, separation, and resulting deduction of a truth thus rendered perceptible. A few facts have suggested an hypothesis, which means a supposition, proper to explain them. The necessary results of this supposition are worked out, and then, and not till then, other facts are examined to see if their ulterior results are found in nature."

"I abandoned the extraterrestrial hypothesis in 1967 when my own field investigations disclosed an astonishing overlap between psychic phenomena and UFOs ... The objects and apparitions do not necessarily originate on another planet and may not even exist as permanent constructions of matter. It is more likely that we see what we want to see and interpret such visions according to our contemporary beliefs."

"This planet is haunted by us; the other occupants just evade boredom by filling our skies and seas with monsters."

"The Old Testament is a chronicle of horrors, describing an egocentric collection of supernatural beings who were always doing rotten things to gentle souls like Job."

"If everyone understood evolution, then the tyranny of religious memes would be weakened, and we little humans might find a better way to live in this pointless universe."

"Parapsychology seems to be growing further away from the progress and excitement of the rest of consciousness studies."

"The other key to my failures seemed to be belief. I was told that I didn’t get results because I didn’t believe strongly enough in psi, because I didn’t have an open mind!"

"Consciousness is an illusion constructed by the memes."

"Memetics appears to have a lot of implications that we humans are machines, which people have never liked. Of course we're machines, we're biological machines. But people don't like that. Free will and consciousness is an illusion, and the self is a complex of memes. People don't like that. My view is that if these things are true it doesn't matter if we like them or not."

"The way I really think is more like this "I am a scientist. I think the way to the truth is by investigation. I suspect that telepathy, clairvoyance, psychokinesis and life after death do not exist because I have been looking in vain for them for 25 years. I have been wrong lots of times before and am not afraid of it"."

"Couched, of course, in tones of the utmost friendliness and benevolence, they unite in regretting that he [Somerset Maugham] was able to fulfil his own wishes."

"It is easier to make people appear equally stupid than to make them equally clever, so teaching methods are adopted which make it practically impossible for anyone to learn anything."

"It is actually a principle of modern paternalism that if you want something you should be stopped from having it[…] Most foods are harmful to some people if taken in excess, and I expect the only reason that carrots are still available without a prescription is that no one has got very excited about them, or claimed that they might cure cancer."

"I spent a couple of years between eleven and thirteen analysing the social evaluations that were taken for granted, also acquiring a thorough scepticism about processes regarded as causal, and the consistency of the physical world, as well as the reliability of my own mental processes. By the time I was thirteen I was running out of things to think about, so starting on a run of exam-taking seemed all the more appropriate, as I was finding it difficult to make use of spare time."

"The most exciting thing possible is actually true."

"I have long had a theory that the popularity of Christianity has always depended on its appeal to the sadism of its adherents. The exceptional should be crucified, saith Society; and somehow everyone suspects (in spite of all arguments to the contrary) that if there is a God, he may be exceptional in some way. So the figure of Christ crucified becomes the figure of the dangerous exceptional alien—suitably defeated. 'Only a suffering God can help', said Bonhoeffer, licking his lips."

"What appear to be the most valuable aspects of the theoretical physics we have are the mathematical descriptions which enable us to predict events. These equations are, we would argue, the only realities we can be certain of in physics; any other ways we have of thinking about the situation are visual aids or mnemonics which make it easier for beings with our sort of macroscopic experience to use and remember the equations."

"It is when the commercial factor enters into the situation that the possibility of genuine individual liberty arises."

"Children need admiration rather than affection."

"The starting point is that one is interested in the universe, one observes that one is finite and that this is intolerable. One has a limited time and apparently limited capacity with which to find anything out. Therefore it is possible to despair. There are many orders of despair, and none of them are known to normal psychology. This is demonstrated by the fact that it has not become existential. Normal psychology will never devalue anything. Existential psychology, at least to a certain point, consists of exploiting the recoil from the despair of finiteness. The recoil is a drive with at least the instinctive immediacy of the survival instinct. There is no point in saying, 'What is there to do? What could such a drive possibly tend towards?'. The survival instinct tends to prolong life. The fundamental drive tends to inform itself about the universe."

"Progress towards sanity is achieved by abandoning first the desire for omnipotence and then that for exceptional achievement."

"The perception that existence exists invalidates the normal personality,as does the imminence of death."

"It is superfluous to be humble on one's own behalf; so many people are willing to do it for one."

"Now if you see that it is inconceivable that anything should exist, it is evident that at least one inconceivable fact is there. That is to say, that which exists is not limited to the conceivable. Since the inconceivable is there, it is impossible to set any limit to the quantity of inconceivableness which may be present in the situation. Now were the existence of anything consistently to remind you of the fact of inconceivability, since it is impossible to live without interacting with a large number of existing things, it would be impossible for you to feel in the same way about the conceivable."

"In the universe there is room for an infinite series of beginnings."

"It has never seemed to me offensive that persons should be other persons' paid servants; but that other persons should be other persons' doctors, who are able to prescribe and refuse chemicals, has always seemed to me abominable."

"In the country of the blind the one-eyed man is lucky to escape with his life."

"People have been marrying and bringing up children for centuries now. Nothing has ever come of it."

"What is scandalous is not that stupid people should sometimes inherit private incomes; but that clever people should sometimes not."

"'Social justice' - the expression of universal hatred."

"Society is everybody's way of punishing one another because they daren't take it out on the universe."

"Society is a self-regulating mechanism for preventing the fulfilment of its members."

"When people talk about 'the sanctity of the individual' they mean 'the sanctity of the statistical norm'."

"Democracy: everyone should have an equal opportunity to obstruct everybody else."

"The human race believes in not taking its problems seriously enough to solve them."

"People having religions is an insult to the universe."

"The object of the educational system is to make the child feel suitably guilty for the harm that has been done to him."

"Education by the State is a contradiction in terms. Intellectual development is only possible to those who have seen through society."

"That society exists to frustrate the individual may be seen from its attitude to work. It is only morally acceptable if you do not want to do it. If you want to, it becomes a personal pleasure."

"Lack of clarity is always a sign of dishonesty."

"The only important thing to realise about history is that it all took place in the last five minutes."

"I cannot write long books; I leave that for those who have nothing to say."

"Now if anyone were reminded about the inconceivable by the fact of existence at all constantly, he would sooner or later have the perception that there may be inconceivable considerations which are inconceivably more important than any conceivable consideration could be."

"Now if you do have a perception that any conceivable consideration may be utterly invalidated by some other consideration which you do not know, and if you are reminded of this perception constantly by the fact that things exist, certain modifications take place in the way you feel about things. These modifications have not taken place in the psychology of most people."

"Young people wonder how the adult world can be so boring. The secret is that it is not boring to adults because they have learned to enjoy simple things like covert malice at one another's expense. This is why they talk so much about the value of human understanding and sympathy - it has a certain rarity value in their world."

"In an unenlightened society some people are forced to play degrading social roles; in an enlightened society, everyone is."