Reviewed by Nemo C. Mörck
Lance Storm is a veteran parapsychologist at the University of Adelaide, Australia. His latest two books, A New Approach to Psi and A New Approach to Synchronicity, may well be among the most important this year. However, these are not light reads. A New Approach to Psi consists of 254 pages, including appendices, references, and index.
Storm appears to have written with fellow parapsychologists in mind. This is not a book in which the author tries to convince the reader that psi exists. Storm has a grander vision in mind. In the Preface he suggests that we don’t understand how psi functions and in the Introduction that parapsychologists may be “stuck in their old ways” (p. 1) and, whether ready or not, parapsychology “might be heading for a paradigm shift” (p. 1).
... I endeavour to explore the phenomenon of psi from all angles; its ambiguities and its paradoxes, but more than that, I will consider its inconsistencies and even its inadequacies ... (p. xi).
Storm comes across as bold and ambitious in this book. He devotes considerable space to warranted critical commentary about the parapsychological terminology (ESP, PK, and psi). At the same time he urges parapsychologists to consider synchronicity. Storm notes that C. G. Jung once defined synchronicity as a “coincidence in time of two or more causally unrelated events which have the same or a similar meaning” (p. 1). However, Jung is not remembered for his precise definitions and many, including Koestler (1972) and Wilson (1984), have found it frustrating to understand Jung when he wrote about archetypes, the collective unconscious, and synchronicity.
Perhaps synchronicity is thought to be too loosely and inconsistently defined (conceptually speaking), and therefore too multi-faceted for controlled experimentation in the laboratory; or too ‘psychoanalytic’, and therefore too much owned by analysts and psychiatrists; or too ‘metaphysical’ so that it is only really appreciated by philosophers, theologians, or those in the New Age movement (p. 3).
One of the cases that interested Jung was Emanuel Swedenborg’s clairvoyant vision, in 1759, of a fire in Stockholm. Storm uses it as an example of synchronicity, and, as an example, this is acceptable. However, careful reading of the literature (Broad, 1953, pp. 147-155; Dingwall, 1948/1962; Haraldsson & Gerding, 2010) reveals that no contemporary record of what Swedenborg actually said has been found, no record of his host William Castel has been found, and it has not even been established if Swedenborg was in Gothenburg at time of the fire.
Storm also writes about Ted Owens, the PK man, but throughout the book he relies more on findings from meta-analyses and experimental parapsychology. For example, he cites Russell Targ’s publications about Pat Price’s remote viewing. However, Targ’s recollections cannot always be trusted (Storm, 2025; Wargo, 2020). Yet it is intriguing that Price at one point appears to have picked up impressions from waterworks that no longer existed: Targ learned about the waterworks after Price’s death. As Storm notes this seems hard to explain with the Observational Theories. However, Walker (2003) did not regard it as conclusive evidence against them. I leave physicists to debate this and the final chapter (Quantum Mechanics, Consciousness, and Psychophysical Reality).
I do not wish to give the impression that Storm is not familiar with the literature. In contrast, I believe that he, along with Chris Roe and John Palmer, may well be one of the parapsychologists most familiar with experimental parapsychology, hence his frustration with the field is significant:
Clearly though, something is amiss, for advances have been slow. The evidence from the findings—the small (or weak) effect sizes, the relative inconsistency, the sporadic nature at the trial level in even the most successful experimental domains ... (p. 89).
Storm does not shy away from suggesting that parapsychologists have been overly concerned about experimenter effects. There is plenty of evidence for experimenter effects, but the results of meta-analyses suggest that differences between experimenters are not noteworthy. Storm also comments on the so-called decline effect and argues that it too has been exaggerated (Tressoldi & Storm, 2024).
Naturally, Storm has studied how synchronicity has been regarded by the parapsychology community. He also devotes space to commentary about how synchronicity aligns with theories about psi and how it functions, including First Sight Theory (Carpenter, 2012) and Rex Stanford’s Psi-Mediated Instrumental Response (PMIR) model. After having heard Hans Bender give a lecture about synchronicity Stanford said:
I have long felt that synchronicity doesn’t have testable implications because, being an acausal theory, it has taken a form where there are no clearly antecedent conditions to anything, and therefore I don’t think we are talking about the same kind of theory (Shapin & Coly, 1977, see pp. 81-82).
However, Palmer (2008) has suggested testable hypotheses. Storm also shares his own ideas and suggests that the I Ching might prove to be useful since it is “amongst the few mantic arts that give users the opportunity to focus on a specific, immediate issue of concern which invariably brings in affect, numinosity, and meaningfulness” (p. 176).
If parapsychologists are actually dealing with synchronicity then there is no energy or information transfer nor any causal connections and it makes no sense to talk about sender and receiver. This would mean that the influential J.B. Rhine encouraged the wrong approach.
Other perspectives have emerged, including one put forth by a former parapsychologist, George Hansen (2001), due to a perceived lack of progress. Storm calls Hansen’s book controversial: “Occasionally in his writing, Hansen himself is evidently prone to Trickster phenomenology and he has to be read with due caution, but his message is nonetheless sobering …” (p. 53). Storm recognises that the Trickster archetype needs to be acknowledged (Storm, 2023), and devotes space to it, knowing that many researchers may think that “there is no need for this Trickster character” (p. 107).
Storm is acutely aware of the resistance his approach will face. If he is right then parapsychologists have been going about their business in the wrong way for as long as psi has been studied in laboratory settings. The Rhinean paradigm came along with assumptions that needs to be reconsidered (Beloff, 1989), but what Storm suggests also comes with a new set of assumptions, including archetypes and acausal relations between events, that do not seem easy to test. Nevertheless, parapsychology may well be at crossroads and all roads need to be considered. I appreciate that Storm has shown one.
PS
Michael Daw will review A New Approach to Synchronicity for the SPR website.
References
Beloff, J. (1989). The Rhine legacy. Philosophical Psychology, 2(2), 231-239.
Broad, C. D. (1953). Religion, philosophy and psychical research. Harcourt, Brace & Company
Carpenter, J. C. (2012). First sight. ESP and parapsychology in everyday life. Rowman & Littlefield.
Dingwall, E. J. (1962). Very peculiar people. University Books. (Original work published 1948).
Hansen, G. P. (2001). The trickster and the paranormal. Xlibris
Haraldsson, E., & Gerding, J. L. F. (2010). Fire in Copenhagen and Stockholm Indridason’s and Swedenborg’s “remote viewing” experiences. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 24, 425–436.
Koestler, A. (1972). The roots of coincidence. Hutchinson
Palmer, J. (2008). Synchronicity and psi: How are they related? In L. Storm (Ed.), Synchronicity: Multiple perspectives on meaningful coincidence (175–192). Pari Publishing.
Shapin, B., & Coly, L. (1977). The philosophy of parapsychology. Proceedings of an international conference held in Copenhagen, Denmark August 25-27, 1976. Parapsychology Foundation.
Storm, L. (2023). The dark spirit of the trickster archetype in parapsychology. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 37(4), 665-682. https://doi.org/10.31275/20232715
Storm, L. (2025). A new approach to synchronicity: a re-appraisal of Jung’s acausal connecting principle with a focus on psi. Routledge.
Tressoldi, P. E., & Storm, L. (2024). The myth of the decline effect in psi research: the empirical evidence. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 38(3), 461-465. https://doi.org/10.31275/20243313
Walker, E. H. (2003, August, 2-4). Dualism, causal loops in time, and the quantum observer theory of paraphysical phenomena. The Parapsychological Association 46th Annual Convention, Vancouver, Canada.
Wargo, E. (2020). Pat Price, precognition, and “star wars.” a reexamination of a historic remote viewing case. EdgeScience, 42, 10-23.
Wilson, C. (1984). C. G. Jung: Lord of the underworld. Aquarian Press.
Acknowledgement
James E. Kennedy kindly read and commented on the first draft.