The 21st of March, 2024 was a significant day in my life for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it was the day I held the book-launch event for my long-delayed book, The Science of Weird Shit, published two days earlier by MIT Press (the paperback edition will be published on 1 April 2025 – thank you for asking). I marked this momentous occasion by giving a talk at Goldsmiths, University of London, from whence I had retired in 2020 having worked there for 35 years. This was followed by, although I say so myself, one hell of a party. A thoroughly good time was had by all.
The second reason that this was a significant day in my life, if not in anybody else’s, was that it was the official final day of operation for the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit (APRU). Although this momentous event went unreported by the media, I felt that now, one year on, it would be appropriate to present a brief history of the Unit. So here it is.
The Unit was founded in the year 2000 as I was approaching the end of my 3-year stint as Head of the Psychology Department at Goldsmiths. Goldsmiths operated what was referred to as a “rotating head” system. This meant that anyone at the level of senior lecturer and above could potentially end up acting as head of department for 3 years (although I confess that the term always made me think of that memorable scene from The Exorcist). There was very little time to carry out much research when serving as HoD and, in recognition of this, Goldsmiths provided those in the role with a research assistant. My research assistant was Kate Holden and, between us, we came up with the idea of founding the APRU. The basic idea was that this would provide a focus for research activity in the area and encourage collaborative research both nationally and internationally.
Now, I’m not sure what image that title, “the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit”, conjures up in your mind but I suspect that for many people with little direct experience of academia it may be a somewhat misleading one. Maybe you pictured a modern building with a big sign outside proudly proclaiming this dedicated unit? Maybe, in your mind’s eye, there are dozens of white-coated scientists inside, some hurrying around carrying clipboards and others chewing on pencils as they contemplate the results of their latest experiments displayed on their computer screens? Maybe others are using high-tech brain-scanners to probe the inner workings of psychics’ brains?
If so, I’m sorry to disappoint you. The truth is that the APRU never had any dedicated research space of any kind. There was never more than a dozen or so active members of the unit at any one time. Membership would consist of myself, my postgrads, project students, any research assistants I happened to have, colleagues (both from Goldsmiths and beyond) who wished to collaborate on specific projects, and volunteers.
Despite that, I think it’s fair to say that the APRU punched above its weight over the years, particularly in terms of media coverage. The reason is, of course, that the media love stories related to the paranormal which results in the general public getting the impression that there is much more research on such topics taking place within universities than there actually is. In fact, there are only a handful of universities around the world actively carrying out research in the areas of anomalistic psychology and parapsychology.
When journalists and other interested parties would sometimes request a tour of the APRU, I sensed they were often a little disappointed to learn that we did not have a suite of dedicated research labs. The truth is that it would have been entirely inappropriate for us to have such dedicated space. The methodologies used in our studies varied enormously from study to study, as described in The Science of Weird Shit. Some studies were carried out in small research cubicles, often collecting response data using small desktop computers. Others required the use of more elaborate set-ups, involving, say, observations through one-way mirrors. Sometimes data were collected via the administration of questionnaires to members of the general public going about their daily business.
In recent years, a lot of our research was carried out without having to leave one’s office at all thanks to the internet. When it comes to testing psychics, any test had to be designed around the specific claim that was being made which could involve some very elaborate set-ups. Given the wide variety of methodologies employed in our research, it made much more sense for us to make use of the general resources available within the Psychology Department at Goldsmiths as and when we needed them rather than to acquire dedicated research labs that would stand idle for much of the time.
So what did the APRU actually achieve over the 24 years of its existence? Rather a lot, as it happens. One of the explicit aims of the APRU was to “raise the academic profile” of anomalistic psychology – or, to put it another way, to make anomalistic psychology more academically respectable. In the early days of my interest in this area, back in the 1980s and ‘90s, it was made pretty clear to me by a previous head of department that my dabbling in anomalistic psychology would be tolerated but not actually encouraged – provided that I also carried out research and published in more conventional areas of psychology. I meekly complied, publishing papers on such topics as automated assessment and the relationship between cognition and emotion alongside my output on anomalistic psychology topics. Eventually, I took the plunge and made the decision to concentrate my research efforts solely upon topics within anomalistic psychology, concentrating mainly upon sleep paralysis, false memories, and belief in conspiracy theories.
In order to raise the academic respectability of anomalistic psychology, we published mainly in mainstream psychology journals as opposed to parapsychology journals. We did this because we were aware that the mainstream science media tend to completely ignore parapsychology journals (wrongly in our opinion). Since 2000, the APRU has published almost 40 papers on anomalistic topics in peer-reviewed journals (this total includes numerous papers by Dr Paul Rogers, an honorary member of the APRU), not to mention 39 chapters in edited volumes and innumerable articles elsewhere (including the Guardian and, of course, The Skeptic– which, from 2001 to 2011, we edited). Oh, and there were two co-authored books, one sole-authored book, and a co-edited volume (the latter being a collection of some of the best articles published in The Skeptic magazine).
We also organised numerous conferences, often in association with other groups such as Sense About Science, the Centre for Inquiry UK, the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena, and the Association for Skeptical Enquiry (including the European Skeptics Congress, held at Goldsmiths in 2015). In terms of conference and other presentations, we made well over 500 appearances from 2000 onwards. These ranged from invited keynote presentations at national and international conferences, through talks at various universities, to talks at local Skeptics in the Pub groups and in local schools – and even two national theatre tours in association with the BBC’s Uncanny series.
From 2006 to 2019, we organised and ran the APRU Invited Speaker Series at Goldsmiths. Greenwich Skeptics in the Pub was founded in 2013 and is still going strong (do come along!). Our public engagement work also included dozens of TV and radio appearances, interviews for magazines and newspapers, and podcast interviews (with respect to the latter, personal highlights for me would have to include chatting with Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson and M*A*S*H’s Alan Alda).
Overall, I think that’s a pretty reasonable level of output for a largely unfunded research unit. Although details of the Unit still appear on Goldsmiths website, its last official day of operation was, as stated at the beginning of this article, 21 March 2024. Speaking for myself, I intend to carry on researching, writing, and giving talks for a good few years to come. I just won’t have to feel guilty about never finding the time to update the APRU’s website.
