Michael Thalbourne

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Michael Thalbourne(born 1955) is an Australian psychologist and parapsychologist. He has written extensively on the concept of transliminality; his early work suggesting that this could be a trait linking variables such as personality, mystical experience and belief in the paranormal led him to describe this as a "common thread" linking these variables (Thalbourne & Delin, 1994). His later work has looked at the relationship between religiosity and transliminality (Thalbourne & Delin, 1999) and also how transliminality may relate to traits such as psychoticism (Thalbourne, Bartemucci, Delin, Fox & Nofi, 1997). Thalbourne has constructed a questionnaire which, as with Hood's (1975) M-Scale, assesses mystical experience(Thalbourne, 1991). Thalbourne has also collaborated on empirical research projects with Erlendur Haraldsson.Thalbourne is visiting research fellow at the University of Adelaide, and has acted as president of the Australian Institute for Parapsychological Research (see the external link listed below). He has also done research into kundalini. He published a scale to assess the Kundalini experience with the world-renowned expert on panic attacks, Bronwyn Fox (Thalbourne & Fox, 1999). More recently, he has used the random number generator in connnection with Kundalini (Thalbourne, 2006). In his paper of 2006, he states that he understands that the term "Kundalini" to mean "the coiled one", and refers to research into the near-death experience in connection with Kundalini, and also refers to the Physio-Kundalini Scale, the 19-item scale devised by Bruce Greyson to assess Kundalini experience. Thalbourne himself has devised a longer scale than Greyson's Physio-Kundalini Scale to assess Kundalini.

==Books authored or edited by Thalbourne==:

Thalbourne, M.A. (1982). Glossary of terms used in parapsychology. London: Heinemann.

Thalbourne, M.A. & Storm, L. (Eds).(2005). Parapsychology in the Twenty-First Century: Essays on the Future of Psychical Research. London: McFarland and Company. ISBN: 0786419385 (pbk.)



[edit] References

  • Michael Thalbourne. Parapsychology Society. Retrieved on 2008-05-02.
  • Hood, R. (1975). The construction and preliminary validation of a measure of reported mystical experience. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 14, 29-41
  • Thalbourne, M.A. (1991).The psychology of mystical experience. Exceptional Human Experience, 9. 68-86
  • Thalbourne, M.A. (2006). Kundalini and the output of a Random Number Generator. Journal of Parapsychology. 70 302-33
  • Thalbourne,M.A.,Bartemucci,L.,Delin,P.S.,Fox, B. & Nofi, O. (1997). Transliminality: Its Nature and Correlates. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 91, pp305-32
  • Thalbourne, M.A. & Delin, P.S. (1994). A common thread underlying belief in the paranormal, personality, mystical experience and psychopathology. Journal of Parapsychology, 58, 3-38
  • Thalbourne, M.A. & Delin, P.S. (1999). Transliminality: Its relation to dream life, religiosity and mystical experience. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 9, 45-61
  • Thalbourne, M. A., & Fox, B. (1999). Paranormal and mystical experience: The role of panic attacks and Kundalini. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 93, 99-115.