Prolegomena to any Future Possibility of a Science of the Weird
"Anyone will renovate his science who will steadily look after the irregular phenomena. And when the science is renewed, its new formulas often have more of the voice of the exceptions in them than of what were supposed to be rules."
— William James
This initiative is dedicated to the memory of Stephen E. Braude (1945–2026) — philosopher of mind, parapsychology's most rigorous scholarly defender, and, in the judgment of his colleagues, "one of the greatest philosophers of the weird." His meticulous documentation of meaningful psychogenesis — from the Gold Leaf Lady to recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis — remains the cornerstone of the kind of empirical inquiry this initiative pursues. His work will live on as a monument to the power of thought to overcome its contingent dogmatism in order to meet the demands of Nature in her most extraordinary manifestations.
The Problem
The phenomena most frequently reported by credible observers of UAP — entity encounters, altered states, psychophysical events, and experiences of what ufologist J. Allen Hynek called "high strangeness" — are precisely those that popular discourse sensationalizes and academic discourse reflexively brackets away. Neither response constitutes inquiry.
The Empirical Weird Initiative begins from a different premise: that phenomena deemed robust but not easily explained within the framework of scientific materialism deserve the same quality of careful, disciplined attention we would bring to any other empirical question. Not pseudoscience. Not mere humanistic interpretation. Genuine, rigorous — possibly even formal — empirical inquiry into anomalous phenomena.
This means treating anomalous experiences as empirically real in their own right, refusing to bracket them away simply because they violate prevailing materialist frameworks. It also means resisting the opposite error: the slide into metaphysical overclaiming, New Age reductionism, or the uncritical embrace of any single theoretical framework.
The EWI is an exercise in what William James called radical empiricism: the commitment to exclude nothing that is directly experienced, and to admit nothing that is not. UAP-related experiences, entity encounters, psi phenomena, psychedelic experiences, mystical states — these belong to the same family of phenomena that James himself investigated at the turn of the twentieth century. We are, in a meaningful sense, picking up where he left off, but with a century of additional scholarship, methodology, and case documentation to draw upon.
"The point of a science of the weird is to take at least some of these experiences at face value and investigate them empirically — in a Jamesian radical empiricist fashion. Not what scientific materialists mean by 'scientifically,' but genuinely empirically: if it is actual, then it must be possible."
— EWI Rationale Document, January 2026
What counts as "the weird"?
Whatever phenomena or experiences people, for some good reason, take as worthy of empirical investigation that has not yet — and maybe never could be — explained in a manner consistent with scientific materialism. Phenomena characterized by "ontological shock" and thought to cast doubt on physicalism, not because they have been explained away, but because they haven't.
Scope of Inquiry
The EWI treats UAP-related weirdness as a special case of a broader problem — and frames that broader problem explicitly, situating UAP entity encounters within a wider family of anomalous human experience that the field must engage if it is to address these phenomena honestly.
Abductions, contact experiences, non-human intelligence encounters — the core "weird" stratum of UAP reports that conventional ufological frameworks have treated inadequately and mainstream science has refused to treat at all.
Telepathy, remote viewing, precognition, psychokinesis, and recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis (RSPK) — exhaustively documented in the parapsychological literature and consistently resistant to explanation within a separability-assuming physical framework.
Extreme mind-body effects — stigmata, hypnotically induced blisters, placebo and nocebo phenomena, thoughtography — that demonstrate the mind's capacity to exert unexplained causal influence over physical systems extending beyond the boundary of the individual body.
DMT entity encounters, ayahuasca experience, and other entheogenic states in which experiencers report contact with apparently autonomous non-human entities — documented extensively in both the grey literature and, increasingly, in academic consciousness research.
First-person accounts of non-ordinary states with apparently veridical cognitive content — the tradition that William James documented in The Varieties of Religious Experience and that remains systematically undertheorized in the philosophy of science.
Jungian synchronicity, mythopoetic experience, and the broader question of whether meaning-laden coincidence and cosmic symbolism are brute features of reality — a question that the EWI takes seriously as a scientific and not merely hermeneutic problem.
Intellectual Orientation
Previous attempts to engage the empirical weird have faltered in characteristic ways. The EWI is acutely aware of these failures and has built its intellectual orientation around explicitly identifying — and steering clear of — three major pitfalls.
These are not merely cautionary notes. They are the ground rules of the inquiry — the price of intellectual honesty about a project that has been attempted before, in various forms, and has not yet succeeded.
We steer clear of both reductive physicalism (the dogma that everything is ultimately reducible to matter) and absolute idealism (the claim that everything is mind). Neither pole has earned its authority over anomalous experience. Both foreclose inquiry prematurely by providing answers before the phenomena have been properly described.
We reject the scholarly habit of "bracketing away" the reality question — the implicitly materialist move of treating anomalous experience as a social, cultural, or psychological object without asking whether it has any external referent. Social/cultural reductionism is, arguably, just another form of materialism dressed in humanistic garb. The reality of the weird must be engaged, not managed.
We will not repeat the slide into New Age philosophies, postmodernisms of various kinds, or the "reenchantment agenda." We respect these traditions but seek to exit these frames in favor of a radical empiricism genuinely seeking a science of the weird — one with predictive, unificatory, and explanatory ambitions, however transformed those concepts may need to become.
Methodological Framework
The following framework, developed in working sessions following the Phase 1 retreat, represents the current working methodological architecture — explicitly provisional, under active development, and to be substantially refined through Phase 1.5 and Phase 2. It is published here as an invitation to engagement, not as a finished product.
Beginning with the axiom of radical empiricism: neither excluding any element that is directly experienced, nor admitting any element that is not. Treating anomalous experiences as empirically real in their own right — refusing to bracket them as hallucinations or cultural artifacts simply because they violate materialist frameworks.
William James · Radical EmpiricismEstablishing the zeroth-order foundation: that the boundaries of human consciousness exceed the neurophysiological machinery of the brain. Demonstrating that mental intention exerts unexplained causal influence over biological processes — the local mind-body coupling as an empirical starting point, not a final answer.
Irreducible Mind · Braude · Kelly et al.Moving beyond the local mind-body coupling to investigate cases in which inner states are coupled with material states external to the observer's own body — thoughtography, apport phenomena, RSPK. The much harder empirical problem: the non-local mind-matter-world coupling.
Braude · Serios · Gold Leaf LadyIdentifying candidate empirical postulates from documented cases of high strangeness, UAP encounters, and parapsychological phenomena — to be rigorously workshopped and refined in Phase 1.5. These initial candidates address the separability assumption, the semiotic character of anomalous events, physical residue, systematic elusivity, and ontological shock as empirical data.
Phase 1.5 primary focusDeriving a formal methodological structure from the finalized postulates — one capable of generating specific observational and experimental protocols. The "flip": instead of trying to explain what the postulates describe, they become the explanans. The observed relations are taken as given and become the foundation for method, not its object.
Phase 2 primary deliverableApplying the methodology to specific documented phenomena — identifying which existing cases can be re-examined under the new framework, what new observational or field studies they suggest, and how the resulting data relates to the broader research questions about the nature and ontology of the empirical weird.
Phase 2–3 scopeWorking Framework — Phase 1 Output
The Phase 1 retreat established philosophical common ground and identified a set of candidate empirical postulates drawn from documented high strangeness, UAP encounters, and parapsychology. These are offered as a first approximation — the most promising initial candidates, not finished theoretical commitments. Rigorously workshopping, refining, and testing these postulates is the central intellectual work of Phase 1.5 (Methods Workshop, planned for October 2026).
Classical science assumes the observer and the measurement apparatus are in principle independent, non-interacting systems. In the empirical weird, the observer may be an entangled, complex instrument whose presence, belief, and meaning-attribution actively co-creates the anomaly. This candidate postulate, if sustained, has the most direct and far-reaching methodological consequences of any in this initial set — it is Phase 1.5's first priority for critical scrutiny.
Anomalous phenomena — UAP encounters, poltergeist activity, thoughtography — may be structurally semiotic and hermeneutical: functioning not merely as mechanical events but as meaningful signs operating across a gap between human consciousness and an unseen order. If so, any methodology of the empirical weird requires a hermeneutic dimension that standard scientific instruments cannot supply — a genuinely novel contribution the EWI aims to develop.
The non-local mind-matter coupling may be capable of producing objective, physical effects in the shared environment. Anomalous events frequently leave physical residues — ground traces, radar tracks, photographic anomalies, electromagnetic interference — suggesting the phenomena can exist simultaneously in the subjective and objective domains. Physical-science methodology and instrumentation will be brought to bear on this candidate in Phase 1.5.
The empirical weird appears to systematically resist stable, reproducible objectification — manifesting to multiple witnesses (demonstrating intersubjectivity) yet consistently eluding definitive scientific capture. This candidate holds that elusivity is a structural feature of certain phenomena, not a failure of method, and must be theorized and studied as such. Developing tools for tracking elusivity itself is among the most novel methodological challenges the EWI faces.
Encounters with anomalous phenomena routinely produce severe ontological shock and a subsequent transformation of the experiencer's cognitive and perceptual capacities. This candidate postulate holds that such transformative aftermath must be treated as core empirical data, not as a psychological side-effect to be controlled for. Its integration into a formal methodology — drawing on phenomenological and ethnographic traditions — is a key Phase 1.5 task.
On the status of these candidates: The Phase 1 retreat produced the philosophical orientation and the team necessary to begin this work; it was not designed to finalize the postulates. The Phase 1.5 Methods Workshop (target: October 2026) will bring together the core methodology team to rigorously interrogate, revise, and extend these candidates — testing each against the empirical record, the constraints of physical-science methodology, and the insights of anthropological and phenomenological fieldwork — en route to the formal methodological framework that constitutes Phase 2's primary deliverable.
Phase 1 — Completed
Phase 1 of the EWI took the form of an intensive, informal interdisciplinary retreat held at a private estate in the municipality of Celorico de Basto, northern Portugal — approximately 70 kilometres east of Porto. The retreat was organized under the direction of Drs. Cifone and Silberstein, with logistical coordination and local support generously provided by Sr. Francisco Mourão-Corrêa (SUAPS Director of Regional Academic Outreach for Europe) and with the cooperation of the Municipality of Celorico de Basto, whose assistance in ensuring the event proceeded smoothly — including during a period of local festivities — helped create the conditions in which participants could focus entirely on the work at hand. Catering was provided by Casa do Lago (Mondim de Basto). The retreat model was chosen deliberately: less structured than a workshop, more focused than a conference, designed to allow genuine intellectual risk-taking in a setting of shared inquiry.
On the format: The retreat was consciously designed as less formal than a workshop — no papers required, no predetermined conclusions sought. The agenda provided for morning and afternoon salons, with each speaker given thirty minutes and the remainder of each session devoted to free discussion. Opportunities were created for first-person sharing of anomalous experiences among participants. The intent was genuine intellectual risk-taking in a protected setting — building the trust and shared vocabulary that more structured Phase 1.5 and Phase 2 work will require. The first post-retreat scholarly deliverable — a working paper on anthropological methods for UAP studies — was submitted by two EWI team members within days of the retreat's conclusion, marking the beginning of the initiative's active publication record. A preliminary internal report on Phase 1 findings is in preparation; this page will be updated as further outputs are finalized.
Phase 1 Retreat Participants
The retreat brought together a deliberately unusual intellectual cohort spanning philosophy, anthropology, consciousness studies, religious studies, esotericism, physical science, and history — all committed to engaging the empirical weird without flinching and without overclaiming.
Participants included the following scholars, Society advisors, and internal leadership. Some retreat participants are not listed at their own request; institutional affiliations are given as publicly acknowledged.
Intellectual Foundations
The retreat circulated a curated reading list — not as required reading but as orientation into the intellectual terrain. The selections span William James's radical empiricism, the parapsychological literature, contemporary consciousness research, philosophy of mind, anthropology of religious experience, and UAP-specific scholarship. They represent the intellectual coordinates of the EWI's inquiry.
Several of the readings were authored by retreat participants or by scholars whose work directly informed the EWI's framing. The list is reproduced here both as a record of Phase 1 and as a resource for scholars interested in engaging this terrain.
Initiative Roadmap
The EWI is explicitly conceived as a multi-phase initiative — beginning with a structured intellectual retreat, advancing through a concentrated methods workshop and symposium stages, and ultimately producing a field-deployable methodological framework that can guide rigorous empirical investigation into the anomalous.
Phase 1 has been completed and the first post-retreat working paper has been received. Phase 1.5 — a concentrated in-person methods workshop targeted for October 2026 — is in active planning, with a working budget of approximately $100,000. Funding is being sought through the SUAPS SIRI fund, the BIAL Foundation, and targeted donor cultivation.
Five-day interdisciplinary retreat, Celorico de Basto, Portugal (May 28 – June 1, 2026). Ten presentations across six salon sessions. Phase 1 established the philosophical orientation, assembled the core team, identified five candidate empirical postulates, and generated the initiative's first scholarly working paper.
CompletedA concentrated in-person working session — smaller and more focused than Phase 1 — bringing the core methodology team together to rigorously workshop the two central deliverables: a set of desiderata for an adequate methodology of the empirical weird, and a finalized principles-and-postulates framework sufficient to support the derivation of specific, deployable methodological protocols.
Target: October 2026Phase 2 envisions the first field deployment of the EWI methodology, most plausibly in Brazil under the direction of EWI team members with established fieldwork there. Concurrent with deployment, Phase 2 produces the formal methodological framework document and begins generating the scholarly outputs — including a special issue of Limina: The Journal of UAP Studies — that will establish the EWI's place in the academic literature.
2027 targetA larger, public-facing conference or symposium bringing the science of the weird into broader academic dialogue, paired with the formal establishment of a standing SUAPS research group devoted to the empirical weird — providing ongoing institutional infrastructure for collaboration, further events, and the long-term development of the field.
Ongoing developmentDeliverables
Structured synthesis of Phase 1 retreat discussions — preliminary, subject to revision as further participant input is gathered. Internal document; selected findings to be published in Phase 2–3 outputs.
A rigorous, transdisciplinary methodological framework for the empirical study of anomalous experience — from the foundational empirical postulates through formal structure to field-deployable protocols. Primary deliverable of Phase 1.5 and Phase 2.
A special issue of Limina: The Journal of UAP Studies collecting the scholarly outputs of the EWI — including contributions from retreat and workshop participants.
A formal, named SUAPS research group devoted to the empirical weird — providing institutional infrastructure for ongoing collaboration, future events, and the long-term development of the field.
The Empirical Weird Initiative is entering its Phase 1.5 methods workshop phase and welcomes expressions of interest from scholars across philosophy of mind, consciousness science, parapsychology, anthropology of religion, and related fields.
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