Global Entanglements of Eastern Bloc Parapsychology during the Cold War
At the IAHR 2025 Congress in Kraków, I organised a closed panel entitled Global Entanglements of Eastern Bloc Parapsychology during the Cold War. The session brought together scholars who examined how parapsychological research unfolded within socialist contexts and how these projects were entangled globally despite the Cold War divide. The panel explored the national and transnational transfers of parapsychological research, a theme closely connected to my current project on occultism and nationalism.
The panel featured Karolina Maria Kotkowska (Jagiellonian University), who analysed Polish studies of exteriorization and psychotronics in dialogue with international currents; Anna Ozhiganova (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg), who discussed Soviet experiments in so-called dermo-optic perception and their reception abroad; and Viktoria Vitanova-Kerber (Université de Fribourg), who examined Bulgaria’s Institute for Suggestopedia and its extensive international networks. Together, these contributions explored the intersections of science, politics, and occultism across the Eastern Bloc.
Abstract
CLOSED PANEL: Global entanglements of Eastern Bloc Parapsychology during the Cold War
Parapsychology emerged within the nineteenth century as an attempt to combine rigorous scientific methodology for researching paranormal phenomena such as telepathy and clairvoyance. Parapsychological research was a global endeavour, blossoming in countries from Canada to Japan. Superpowers, the United States and the Soviet bloc, supported parapsychology in various ways due to its alleged potential to tip the power balance in favour of either side. The panel focused on the Soviet Union and several key parapsychological hubs in Central and Eastern Europe: Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, and considered their global research entanglements along with similarities and differences in blending occult ideas and scientific methodologies under socialist, Marxist-Leninist discourse. Apart from the wider institutional backing of parapsychology, the panel explored the researchers’ involvement in international parapsychological associations and studied how they struggled to balance their agency between scholarly, political, military, and intelligence interests. The panel shed new light on scholarly exchange between the United States and the Soviet bloc and brought new insights into overlaps between occultism and socialism in the Cold War era.
Here is my introductory presentation: