Sawing the branch of near-death experience research: A critical analysis of Parnia et al.'s paper.

In their recent paper, Parnia and colleagues propose a new label for the near-death experience (NDE): recalled experience of death. They claimed NDEs are "authentic" only when an objective danger is present and that authentic NDEs have a proven core phenomenology. We consider that these claims are insufficiently supported by empirical data.

Pierre Janet and the enchanted boundary of psychical research.

Among the founders of French psychology, Pierre Janet (1859-1947) is recognized for both his scientific and institutional roles. The psychology born at the turn of the 20th century was initially partly receptive to, but then engaged in, a battle with the "psychical marvelous," and Janet was no exception. He was involved in the split between psychology and parapsychology (or "metapsychics" in France), developed at that time, playing several successive roles: the pioneer, the repentant, and the gatekeeper.

From catalepsy to psychical research: The itinerary of Timothée Puel (1812-1890).

The physician and botanist Timothée Puel (1812-1890) lived through a pivotal period of psychology (1848-1878), between the academic prohibition of the study of animal magnetism to its disjointed recovery in hypnotism and psychical research. One of his cases of "catalepsy complicated with somnambulism" triggered a lively debate on "extraordinary neuroses" within the young Société médico-psychologique [Medico-psychological Society]. In 1874, Puel founded the Revue de psychologie expérimentale [Journal of Experimental Psychology], the first of its kind in French, which he intended as the vehicle of international interest in psychical research, the scholarly and institutionalized study of "psychism" that prepared the way for the recognition of academic psychology.