As it occurred to me: Lessons learned in researching parapsychological claims

I have been involved in parapsychology for a little over 25 years (including my time as a PhD student), so in preparing this paper I’ve welcomed the opportunity to reflect on that experience to see if any of it is worth sharing with the wider community. In particular, are there lessons I have learned the hard way that could be of benefit to early career researchers, so that their trajectory might be a little more smooth or fruitful than my own has been. I have selected some things that have occurred to me both in the sense of events that have happened and in the sense of realisations I have had based on those experiences. I hope they represent useful insights into what I regard as the art of scientific practice in parapsychology. They have shaped the kind of researcher I have become and perhaps explain some of my preoccupations and biases.