This FAQ was first compiled in 1995 by an ad-hoc group of scientists and scholars interested in parapsychology, the study of what is popularly called "psychic" phenomena. Since then this document has been translated into German, Portuguese, Spanish and Finnish, and reprinted in several magazines around the world. The authors' disciplines include physics, psychology, philosophy, statistics, mathematics, computer science, chemistry, anthropology, and history. The major contributors and their affiliations are listed at the end of this document.

The majority of this group are members of the Parapsychological Association (PA). The PA is an international professional society founded in 1957 and elected an affiliate of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1969. While not an official publication of the PA, the contributors to this FAQ include several past-Presidents of the PA and members of the Board of Directors of the PA. The authors' cumulative laboratory and field research experience with parapsychology is estimated at over 400 years.

The authors (listed here) aimed for consensus on each FAQ item, but as in many topics, especially in young, multidisciplinary domains like parapsychology, there were some disagreements. In spite of these disagreements, the authors believed that because of burgeoning public interest in parapsychology, the lack of reliable information about this topic on the Web, and the many myths and distortions associated with this field, it was important to put some basic information on the Web sooner rather than later.

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