Parapsychology is, in weighty terms, the study of certain alleged phenomena that do not exist according to current scientific assumptions. Among its areas of interest are extrasensory perception and psychokinesis (the ability to move objects using mental powers).
On the third Friday of each month, this branch of psychology draws a crowd to Joliet Junior College to discuss and entertain ideas of the paranormal, the mystical and the metaphysical. The 9-year-old Parapsychology Club’s members are kindred spirits.
“We’re all a bunch of nuts!” said Mary Stewart Walczak of Plainfield, a club member for seven years. “We get together and have a really good time. That’s why people come from so far away to attend these meetings.”
Indeed, the club’s mailing list includes more than 150 members who travel from all over the Chicago area, a few from as far as Indiana and Wisconsin. Their occupations are as diverse as their ZIP codes: educators, psychologists, chemical engineers, doctors, dentists, nurses, students and homemakers. Their ages range from 18 to 80.
“We never know who’s going to show up. The weather has a lot to do with it and the topic as well, but we usually average about 50,” explained Lou Fry, a Coal City resident and the club’s program director. Fry is responsible for lining up the guest speaker for each meeting.
“We try to find speakers who know their field or topic, present themselves well, and if they have credentials, that’s a bonus. Plus, they have to do it for a minimal fee and have a relationship to parapsychology,” said Fry, who explained that they sometimes lose speakers because of the modest pay. There is no cost to join the club, and members sometimes forget to pass the basket for voluntary donations.
The Parapsychology Club was established in 1988 by Ann Vining of Joliet, a JCC instructor of parapsychology. The first meetings drew 40, all students in Vining’s parapsychology course.
“People kept calling me and asking about parapsychology and telling me their experiences with it,” Vining said. They spoke of experiences with extra sensory perception or sightings of the ghosts of dead relatives. “I knew they needed a place to get more information. Our club is a meeting place for people to share these experiences and to learn more about the field of parapsychology.”
Clubs like this one are nothing new. The Society for Psychical Research, founded in London in 1882, was the first important group devoted to the study of parapsychology, and a chapter was established in the United States in 1890. One current center for scientific study is the Institute for Parapsychology, sponsored by the Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man in Durham, N.C.
But these organizations are more clinical, with an emphasis on collecting data and recording information. The Joliet Parapsychology Club’s emphasis is more convivial–and it covers everything. Its philosophy is “that in order to be whole or to reach your full potential, you need to be mentally, emotionally and physically well,” Fry said.
Subjects covered include science, medicine and self-awareness. “People from all walks of life come to speak and share their information, and many are members of the club,” Fry said.
Past lecturers have included Colin Andrews of Andover Hants, England, and Bramford, Conn., a leading authority on UFOs; Sergei Samborski, a Soviet psychologist; Sister Noel Dreska, physics chair at Lewis University in Joliet; psychic Greta Alexander of Downstate Delavan; and J.J. Bittenbinder, veteran Chicago Police Department homicide detective.
Topics covered at club meetings have ranged from the creation of the cosmos, the existence of parallel universes, massage therapy, acupuncture and meditation to dream interpretation, effects of body language, pyramids, face reading, astral projection, mind control, ghosts and numerology.
Foul weather didn’t deter members from a recent lecture by Ruth Berger of Evanston, who spoke about medical intuition. Berger, 65, is an author, radio personality, psychic and medical intuitive. She claims she can diagnose health conditions, their causes and possible treatments with an accuracy rate of 90 percent.
Berger took three volunteers from the crowd and performed “medical intuition X-ray” on each. The first volunteer complained of chronic fatigue and digestive problems, and Berger diagnosed that “the power of your male energy and the insight of your female energy are not in balance. You’re feeling very stuck and restricted. It’s causing you to feel very tired and sluggish.”
The remedy? Eat a 10-inch piece of celery every day, Berger advised. This would “act like a Brillo pad and scrape away all the garbage in the body,” she said.
Berger said the current ailments of that volunteer were largely related to her past lives. “By investigating and making peace with the karma she created in a past life, she will begin to feel better,” Berger explained.
She warned that many health ailments are the result of “not using your intuition properly, thus causing it to turn inside like a combustible bomb.”
She also preached the many benefits of meditation, saying “it’s the only thing that keeps us sane in this world.”
Midway through her lecture, Berger paused to inform one of the audience members that the spirit of a recently deceased woman was standing next to her. After the audience member told Berger that her mother had died recently, Berger responded by saying the spirit of her mother “just wanted to be here with you,” prompting tears from the daughter and swiveling heads from other audience members.
Berger concluded her talk with a guided meditation that aimed to relax participants and help them visualize perfect health.
“Miracles are happening all the time,” she said, smiling.
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The next meeting of the Parapsychology Club is at 7 p.m. Friday at Joliet Junior College, 1216 Houbolt Ave., Joliet; for more information, call 815-729-9020.
