Etzel Cardeña (born 1957) is Thorsen Professor of Psychology (including parapsychology and hypnosis) at Lund University, Sweden where he is Director of the Centre for Research on Consciousness and Anomalous Psychology (CERCAP). A native of Mexico, Cardeña studied at the Universidad Iberoamericana in México and completed an MA in clinical psychology at York University in Toronto, Canada and an MA and PhD in Personality Psychology at the University of California, Davis. His doctoral thesis under the supervision of Charles Tart was on the phenomenology of deep states of hypnosis. He subsequently went on to do post-doctoral work in the area of dissociation and hypnosis at Stanford University under David Spiegel.[1] Cardeña has held academic posts at Trinity College, Hartford and the University of Texas–Pan American. He has served as President of the Society of Psychological Hypnosis (APA Division 30)and the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis.
Cardeña was President of the Parapsychological Association for the year 2008-2009 and has often expressed strong views in favour of the reality of paranormal phenomena. In a series of interviews with Swedish Newspapers he has said that there is clear evidence for telepathy, psychokinesis and precognition and that he himself has been involved in such psychic experiences.[2][3] His edited book Varieties of Anomalous Experience: Examining the Scientific Evidence published in 2000 is a scholarly volume on anomalous experiences.
In addition to his professional work in psychology Etzel Cardeña has worked in theatre as a director, actor and playwright in Mexico, the USA and Sweden. He did graduate studies in theatre at the University of California, Davis.