Episode 208 – Unbridled Creation: On Kenneth Batcheldor’s Theory of the Paranormal

Kenneth Batcheldor was a British clinical psychologist who, during the final two decades of his life, investigated the paranormal through direct experiments in table-turning. The final fruit of that work was an essay, compiled from Batcheldor’s notebooks by Patric Giesler, entitled “Notes on the Elusiveness Problem in Relation to a Radical View of Paranormality.” Published in the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research in 1994, it remained unknown to JF and Phil until Shannon Taggart called their attention to it quite recently. Since the theory Batcheldor presents here with admirable lucidity is deeply attuned to ideas they have been discussing on Weird Studies for nearly a decade, they decided to devote an episode to it. The core idea is by far the weirdest of all—in a sense, it is the weird itself.

Read Batcheldor's essay on the Weird Studies Patreon.

Visit Weirdosphere to enroll in Phil's upcoming 5-week course, "A Musical Tarot."

Pierre-Yves Martel's Weird Studies: Volume 3 will be available for preorder on March 13. Visit his Bandcamp page for details.

REFERENCES

K. M. Wehrstein, “Kenneth Batcheldor” in Psi Encyclopedia  

Kenneth Batcheldor, “Notes on the Elusiveness Problem in Relation to a Radical View of Paranormality,” ed. Patric Giesler, The Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 88, no. 2 (1994): 90-116. 

Kenneth Batcheldor, “Contributions to the Theory of PK Induction from Sitter-Group Work,” Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 78 (1984): 105-122. 

George P. Hansen, The Trickster and the Paranormal 

Quintin Meillassoux, After Finitude 

Joshua Ramey, “Contingency Without Reason: Speculation after Meillassoux” 

Kenneth Batcheldor, Videos of Table Tipping 

Weird Studies, Episode 24 with Lionel Snell 

David Lynch, Wild at Heart 

William James, The Principles of Psychology

Tom Cheetham, Imaginal Love 

A. Irving Hallowell, Ojibwa Ontology, Behavior, and World View 

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