Discovery Lab Answers

Everton de Oliveira Maraldi — Research and Scholarship

Based on the sources retrieved for this question, Maraldi is a Brazilian psychologist and parapsychology researcher whose work spans empirical psychology, philosophy of mind, and the intersection of religion, spirituality, and anomalous experience. The retrieved sources do not include quantitative experimental datasets, so this answer focuses on his documented research themes, institutional affiliations, and scholarly contributions.

Institutional Affiliations

The retrieved sources establish several concurrent roles:

• Research associate, D’Or Institute for Research and Education, Rio de Janeiro ^[2]
• Professor of Religious Studies, Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, Brazil ^[1][2]
• Professor in the Post-Graduate Program on Medical Sciences at the Institute of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of São Paulo ^[3]
• President of the Parapsychological Association (at the time of the 2025 publication) ^[3]

Research Themes Documented in the Sources

Afterlife experience and epistemology. Maraldi’s 2023 paper in the International Journal of Transpersonal Studies examines what he calls “varieties of afterlife experience” — ranging from near-death experiences to apparent communications from the deceased — and asks what epistemological and cultural frameworks apply to them ^[2]. He raises the methodological challenge of distinguishing spirit-hypothesis explanations from alternative accounts (such as unconscious knowledge retrieval), and explores whether such phenomena are amenable to systematic scientific investigation at all ^[2].

Science and spiritual practices. A 2023 commentary in the Journal of Scientific Exploration uses “spirit releasement therapy” — as practiced by a clinician named Tramont — as a case study in how far dialogue between science and spiritual therapeutic practices can go ^[1]. Maraldi identifies general principles that might be discerned in such practices while arguing that the evidentiary base remains limited in scope and practical application, cautioning against building a full therapeutic model on current evidence ^[1].

Parapsychology and religion. Maraldi authored a 2021 monograph, Parapsychology and Religion, published in Brill’s “Research Perspectives in Religion and Psychology” series — a book-length treatment reviewed in the Zeitschrift für Anomalistik in 2023 ^[4].

Research methodology — member-checks. A 2025 collaborative paper with James Houran and Beth M. Houran in the International Journal of Transpersonal Studies debates the use of member-checking as a validation technique in studies of exceptional human experiences ^[3]. The paper raises the concern that close engagement with study participants may bias interpretations in favor of participants’ own frameworks, at the cost of alternative explanations ^[3]. Maraldi’s credited role on this paper was Investigation, Writing–Review & Editing ^[3].

What the Sources Do Not Cover

The retrieved excerpts do not include quantitative experimental results — no effect sizes, hit rates, sample sizes, or p-values are present in what was retrieved. If Maraldi has conducted controlled experimental psi research (e.g., ganzfeld or precognition studies), those data are not in the passages retrieved for this question. The retrieved excerpts do not show them; the full papers would need to be consulted directly for any such figures.

Skeptical Critiques

The retrieved sources do not carry direct skeptical engagement with Maraldi’s empirical claims in the form of published critiques or reanalyses, so no skeptical critique section is warranted here. The 2023 Journal of Scientific Exploration commentary does, however, contain Maraldi’s own internal critique of the evidence base for spirit releasement therapy — he notes that the evidence is limited in practical scope and argues against premature therapeutic systematization on those grounds ^[1].

For broader context on the research areas Maraldi works in, the ESP-Nexus Phenomena section and Studies section cover related experimental literature.