This FAQ was written as a general introduction to parapsychology for individuals ranging from advanced high-school students to professionals with little or no background in parapsychology. Writing for such a broad audience is a challenge, because gaining an appreciation of parapsychology today requires at least a passing knowledge of a wide range of topics, including statistics, experimental design, quantum mechanical theory, the sociology and philosophy of science, history of parapsychology, and the scientific literature on parapsychology.

Because our expected audience is so broad, we have touched only briefly on many technical issues that underlie interesting issues and debates within the field. Therefore, the approach in this FAQ is to clarify the complex topic of parapsychology without glossing over important points and without "dumbing down" the basic content. For a few particularly tricky issues that we do wish to cover here, we've included sections labeled Technical Note.

We are slowly building a comprehensive source of information on parapsychology, mainly through the addition of hyperlinks to other sources on the Web, including details on the major topics of debate, the prevailing theories, discussions of empirical evidence, links to journal papers, reference sources, mission statements and other items from the major parapsychological research centers, individual researchers' home pages, and home pages for relevant scientific and scholarly societies.

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