The field, in full

Labs, journals & the money.

The legitimate field is small, aging, and chronically underfunded – roughly 200 people worldwide, a handful of active labs, about six specialty journals, and a few million dollars a year in grants. Seeing its true scale is part of reading the evidence correctly.

Active labs & organizations

Division of Perceptual Studies (DOPS)
University of Virginia · est. 1967
Active
Inside UVA’s Department of Psychiatry – unusually, within a top medical school. NDEs, reincarnation-type cases, terminal lucidity.
Koestler Parapsychology Unit (KPU)
University of Edinburgh · est. 1985
Active
The only endowed chair of parapsychology in the UK. Runs a preregistration Study Registry since 2012.
Exceptional Experience & Consciousness Studies
University of Northampton
Active
Chris Roe’s group; dream-ESP and mediumship meta-analyses, non-contact healing.
Parnia Lab
NYU Grossman School of Medicine
Active
The AWARE cardiac-arrest program – the only line of this work that routinely appears in mainstream medical journals.
CERCAP
Lund University, Sweden
Active
Etzel Cardeña’s center; publishes the no-fee, open-access, preregistration-oriented JAEX.
IGPP
Freiburg, Germany · est. 1950
Active
Founded by Hans Bender; one of the world’s largest institutes. Counseling, history, retropriming.
Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS)
Novato, California · est. 1973
Active
Private institute founded by astronaut Edgar Mitchell; Dean Radin’s mind–matter program. No university affiliation.
Windbridge Research Center
Tucson, Arizona · est. 2017
Active
Laboratory-controlled mediumship under multi-level blinding; private institute.
Rhine Research Center
Durham, NC · split from Duke 1965
Legacy
Successor to J.B. Rhine’s Duke lab; publishes the Journal of Parapsychology (1937). Now mostly education and community programs.
ICRL (formerly PEAR)
Princeton lineage · PEAR 1979–2007
Legacy
Carries on the analysis and publishing of Princeton’s PEAR lab; home of the Global Consciousness Project.
Society for Psychical Research (SPR)
United Kingdom · est. 1882
Active
The oldest such organization; publishes the JSPR and the Psi Encyclopedia. Caroline Watt is President (2025).
Parapsychological Association (PA)
International · est. 1957
Active
An AAAS affiliate since 1969. Just ~123 professional members and ~79 associates – the field’s true scale.
Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit
Goldsmiths, University of London
Skeptic-adjacent
Chris French’s group – studies why people believe; a careful skeptic-adjacent home.
American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR)
New York · est. 1884
Defunct
Once major (William James was a founder). Sold its HQ in 2024; archives now inaccessible – effectively collapsed.

The journals

Where the work is actually published and peer-reviewed.

Journal of Anomalous Experience and Cognition (JAEX)
Lund University – open-access, no fees, preregistration-oriented; the field’s most rigorous venue.
Journal of Parapsychology
Founded 1937 by J.B. Rhine; published by the Rhine Research Center.
Journal of the Society for Psychical Research
Published since 1884.
Journal of Scientific Exploration
Society for Scientific Exploration, founded 1982.
EXPLORE: The Journal of Science and Healing
An Elsevier journal where some mediumship work appears.
Journal of Near-Death Studies
Published by IANDS.

The most rigorous work also reaches mainstream venues – Psychological Bulletin, American Psychologist, Resuscitation, Frontiers in Psychology, Cortex, and PLoS ONE – especially the NDE/resuscitation research.

Who funds it

Total global research funding is on the order of a few million dollars a year.

Bial Foundation (Portugal)
The single largest funder worldwide – 946 projects across 16 editions, ~1,900 researchers, 31 countries; maximum grant €60,000.
Perrott-Warrick Fund
Trinity College, Cambridge (Myers/Warrick bequests). Past senior researchers: Sheldrake, Watt, Roe.
Linda G. O’Bryant Noetic Sciences Research Prize
An annual IONS prize.
Bigelow Institute (BICS)
Funded a $1.8M essay contest (2021) and a $390K medium-communication challenge (2023). Heterodox even within the field – its “beyond a reasonable doubt” framing is widely judged methodologically poor.
Read funding with care

The Bigelow Institute (BICS) is funded by a single wealthy patron with a strong prior commitment to the survival hypothesis, and its “beyond a reasonable doubt” essay-contest framing is not how science adjudicates evidence – one analysis judged only ~20% of its winning essays to meet the field’s own highest evidence standard. We list it for completeness, not endorsement.