Recently I listened to a talk given by
Robert McLuhan as part of the online course ParaMOOC 2018, organised by Nancy
Zingrone and Carlos Alvarado and sponsored by the Parapsychology Foundation. The presentation was on the subject of The Psi Encyclopedia: A Window on Psychical
Research and it took place on 23 January 2018. It was a useful overview of the Society for
Psychical Research’s Psi Encyclopedia, of which Robert is the editor.
Robert commenced by outlining the severe
problems with Wikipedia as a source for psi topics because of the
hostility of those who dominate the editing process; the availability of
generous funding via the Buckmaster bequest to the SPR in 2013; the aim of the
project to provide accurate and accessible information; and the launch of the
Psi Encyclopedia in September 2016. He
then delved into the contents of the encyclopaedia and how it is laid out.
By January 2018, Robert continued, there
were 224 paid-for articles amounting to roughly 750,000 words, which he has
edited on his own. These he said came
from about 50 contributors who have a variety of backgrounds. Most articles are between 2-8,000 words. The focus is primarily on scientific
research, and the editorial policy is to try to achieve balance; the
encyclopaedia in his words ‘Broadly represents the view of the psi research
community, but includes skeptical [sic] claims and comment.’ As is to be expected, coverage so far is not
comprehensive, but Robert said he was working on it. The target is to have 300-350 articles
amounting to somewhere in the region of a million words.
Unfortunately because of the Buckmaster
funding running out there was probably only a year or fifteen months left in
which to add new paid content though after that it would still be possible to
add articles on a voluntary basis.
Robert mentioned acting as editor for a further three years or so, and
the situation afterwards is unclear. The
presentation was upbeat and well received by the audience; there was a great
deal of enthusiasm for what Robert was doing and for the value of the Psi Encyclopedia.
I thought it would be worth giving my
thoughts arising from the talk, but before discussing the encyclopaedia, I
should say that while I recognise it is a valuable tool for psychical research
and parapsychology, and helps the SPR to fulfil its charitable remit in the
area of education, I personally have not contributed, out of principle. This is because, as a trustee and director of
the SPR by virtue of being an elected member of its Council, I was unhappy with
the way part of the Buckmaster bequest was utilised. However, I wish the Psi Encyclopedia well.
The encyclopaedia really is a useful
source of information, well laid out and referenced. Robert had initially envisaged mostly short
articles, and my preference would have been for short articles with links, as
some people will not reach the end of a long article yet might read the same volume
of words by dotting around different sub-topics. That though is a minor quibble. Another is that considering the scope of the
field, 300-350 articles will not really be enough to do it justice.
A pressing concern is going to be the
requirement to keep the Psi Encyclopedia updated; there will be a need for
top-up financing once the Buckmaster money has been spent. The Encyclopedia may
possess greater authority than Wikipedia, but it is also more expensive to
develop and maintain. If long-term maintenance is sporadic or does not happen
at all, the articles will eventually become an antiquarian snapshot of the
field rather than a working tool. Some,
such as the two on experimental parapsychology in Europe and the UK, and that
on parapsychology PhDs in the UK, will need updating on an annual basis. Even historical articles will need revision
as new information becomes available. Wikipedia’s
articles, for all their faults, are constantly revised while the psi Encyclopedia’s
are not.
Another problem is consistency of quality. The Psi Encyclopaedia’s strength is that
there is editorial control preventing pseudo-sceptics from monopolising
articles. The danger though is that the
articles are only as good as the individual authors, and while a lot of the
articles are authoritative, penned by an impressive roster of writers, others
are being churned out.
At the time of writing, 52 contributors
are responsible for about 245 articles, but while many have submitted one
or two, others have produced large quantities.
This has had two consequences: a number of the articles are essentially
hack-work based on what literature is to hand, and certain areas of psychical
research are overrepresented. To take an
example of each, one contributor is credited with 38 articles, 15.5% of the
total; and the category ‘possession and past lives’ is the subject of a
disproportionately large group of articles in the database – a whopping 56,
nearly 23% of the total.
If an author lacks deep knowledge of a
particular topic but the editor has to go with whoever offers, the quality will
suffer. As a random example which caught
my eye recently, the article on Lourdes fails to include a reference to Donald
West’s 1957 book Eleven Lourdes Miracles. Considering West’s long and distinguished
association with the SPR, this is a disappointment. If I seem to be focusing on one particular
contributor with all these examples, it is because this person, primarily
a journalist, has been so prolific.
A couple of points made in the
discussion following Robert’s presentation are worth mentioning. When Robert talked of the need for promotion
of the Psi Encyclopedia, it was suggested social media be used more
extensively. Robert highlighted the
twitter feed he set up dedicated to the encyclopaedia, which he admitted he
rarely uses, but he did not say that new articles are regularly linked on the
SPR’s Facebook page and Twitter feed (by me), and nobody else pointed it out
either. Clearly it is not just the Psi
Encyclopedia which is in need of publicity.
Finally, the antiquated look and
cumbersome operation of Lexscien, which hosts SPR publications (notably its Journal and Proceedings) was raised.
Nancy Zingrone, the moderator for the session, seemed to think it was an
SPR project whereas it is an independent operation, the SPR’s main function
being to throw money at it. I have
previously drawn attention to its deficiencies, but it is clear the SPR
is being tainted by association. The
best solution would be for the SPR to take back control of its publications and
integrate them with the Psi Encyclopedia, but it does not seem likely to happen
any time soon.
