psychotronics

Meaning

Noun

• A field of military technology dealing with electronic weapons or devices used to either degrade or enhance human health by directed energy.
• Synonym of parapsychology

Origin

• , on the model of French psychotronique which Fernand Clerc proposed in November 1954 in the journal ‘'Vie des Métiers'’, defining it as "use of thought and will"; Clerc's term was popularized by the magazine '‘Toute la Radio'’ in January 1955, which speculated on the possibility of telekinesis, particularly operating microwave printed circuit boards by concentration.
• In the late 1960s, the term was popular among parapsychology researchers of the socialist bloc (particularly Zdeněk Rejdák), used instead of parapsychology to avoid its negative connotations and "advance parapsychology as a science" (as stated in the Constitution of the Parapsychological Association in 1957) and because the incorporation of the word electronics better conveyed the focus on energy, and (according to parapsychology researcher Larissa Vilenskaya in 1983) because the term analogized parapsychology to bionics.
• The term was then popularized in western world during the second half of the Cold War by science fiction and fears of mind control.