FEMINIST PSI

If some people can really peer into the future or communicate with the dead, why
can't scientists measure psychic powers in the laboratory? It could be, says
Lisette Coly, vice president of the New York-based Parapsychology Foundation,
because most of the scientists are men--and their masculine-dominated
methodology just doesn't work on elusive phenomena, also known as PSI.

To explore whether a female-centered perspective could help unlock the secrets
of ESP, the Parapsychology Foundation held a Women and Parapsychology conference
in Dublin. The eight women scientists who addressed the conference concluded
that this is a real possibility. For example, researcher Ruth-Inge Heinze of
the University of California's Center for Southeast Asia Studies called for a
"softer," anthropological approach to PSI--going into alleged sensitives'
environments to study them rather than insisting they perform in a lab.
Biophysicist Beverly Rubik of Temple University pointed out that getting away
from a combative, male-oriented science vocabulary (terms like "the Big Bang
theory") and incorporating female archetypes into the study of parapsychology
could lead to new insights. Foreign Service Institute researcher Anjum Khilji
discussed how Muslim women have preserved female traditions that supposedly
foster PSI phenomena.

Joanne McMahon, a conference speaker who heads the Parapsychology Foundation's
Eileen J. Garrett Research Library, says that the conference was not "a
men-versus-women thing. But it pointed out that when faced with a dilemma or a
research problem, parapsychologists may be able to come up with new answers by
considering a feminine perspective and by using a more interdisciplinary
approach."