Editorial Policy
The Journal of Exceptional Experiences and Health (JEEH) is a peer-reviewed, open-access, free-to-publish and fully indexed scientific journal dedicated to the interface between exceptional experiences and health.
Exceptional experiences are those that appear to the percipient to be incompatible with (and potentially inexplicable in terms of) current scientific understanding. Such phenomena may be variously termed ‘psychical’, ‘death related’, ‘mystical’, ‘spiritual’, ‘transpersonal’, and so on. With reference to the foundational work of Rhea White (1931-2007), conditions for something to be considered an exceptional human experience include experiencing a spontaneous and unexpected event; feeling as if the moment is meaningful; an inability to ascribe a normal explanation to the event; accepting that the event was genuine; incorporating the event into one’s life story; a shifted perspective or worldview; and feeling more connected with all other life and the cosmos.
Although many of the exceptional experiences which are the focus of this publication have traditionally been studied by parapsychology, the journal does not have a corporate stance on the ontological nature of such experiences. It is grounded in professional-ethical principles, including theoretical openness, worldview neutrality, and respect for the plurality of interpretive frameworks. Inspired by the WHO definition, health is understood as physical, mental and social well-being, with no reference to any specific disease or infirmity.
The relationship between exceptional experiences (hereafter ExE) and health is understood to be multi-dimensional. The scope of the journal, therefore, is relatively broad. A major focus of the publication is the area often referred to as clinical parapsychology, which is the provision of expert counselling to people who are somehow disturbed by ExE and seek to understand and integrate them. The scope of the journal also includes ExE which are known to have powerfully adaptive after-effects, such as in the case of, for instance, near-death experiences or after-death communication. The journal also deals with what seems to be an association between certain health conditions and higher prevalence of ExE (e.g. reports of apparent telepathy in autism; paradoxical lucidity in patients with severely compromised brains). Finally, there are empirically validated examples in which ExE are explicitly used for therapeutic purposes (e.g. Induced After Death Communication; spiritual healing) or at least with a therapeutic intent (e.g. evidential mediumship).
Reflecting its broad scope, the journal is intended to be a resource for both researchers and clinicians/practitioners. It publishes articles in the following categories:
- Research, whether quantitative, qualitative, or mixed, presenting original data, replication of studies, and re-analyses of collected data. This category includes experiments and correlational studies, as well as systematic single or multiple case studies, field research, historical analyses, and other forms of systematic inquiry.
- Registered reports, in which authors send a full study design for peer review before collecting data (see https://www.cos.io/initiatives/registered-reports).
- Theoretical, including implications of the theory and fit to the extant data.
- Case reports amounting to descriptive studies that document unusual experiences in a single individual.
- Methodological/analytical new proposals.
- Summaries of important new books or reviews of a topic.
- Invited debates on contentious issues.
- Book reviews.
- Letters to the editor about current issues or papers recently published in JEEH.
OPEN ACCESS
All articles published in JEEH are open access, freely and universally accessible online, and archived in the open journal’s Lund University website (https://journals.lub.lu.se/jaex). Articles in JEEH can be distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License CCBY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, with appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, a link to the Creative Commons license, and an indication if changes were made. The authors retain the copyright and full unrestricted publishing rights.
There are no charges for article submission or processing. JEEH uses the Open Journals System hosted on the servers of the Public Knowledge Project hosted at Simon Fraser University (Canada). However, in order to ensure the long-term sustainability of the project, authors are encouraged to make a donation (link to the donation page).
DOI AND INDEXING
Online have ISSNs, and all published items have a Crossref DOI (digital object identifier), are archived in PKP PN, and are indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Google Scholar, and Researchgate from the journal’s inception. Applications to other indexing organizations will follow as JEEH matures.
REVIEW PROCESS
Submissions may be analyzed with a computerized plagiarism software. If there is no indication of plagiarism they will be reviewed using double-masked (blind) procedures, with empirical and theoretical papers reviewed by at least two reviewers and book reviews by at least one. Accepted submissions are copyedited for grammar and style. The copyedited version will be sent to the author(s) for any required changes and approval. A prompt response is required. Substantive revisions are generally not allowed after the manuscript has been accepted.
CORRECTIONS AND RETRACTIONS
The policy of the JEEH is that all published articles (including invited papers and book reviews) shall undergo a thorough review process, so that they can be relied to be accurate, fair, complete, and citable. This does not preclude the possibility that errors may occur. Important errors (i. e., not just a minor typo) will be mentioned in an errata section later on a numbered page that will contain the original article's citation. Cases where such corrections are insufficient to address will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis by the Editor in Chief.
EDITOR'S RESPONSIBILITIES
Publication decisions
The Editor-in-Chief has final responsibility for deciding paper publication. S/he will evaluate manuscripts without regard to the authors' race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, political philosophy, or scientific stance. The decision will be based on the paper’s importance, clarity, and thoroughness, the study’s validity, and its relevance to the journal's scope. Legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism will also be considered.
Confidentiality
The editor and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.
Disclosure and conflicts of interest
Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted paper will not be used by the editor or the members of the editorial board for their own research purposes without the author's explicit written consent.
REVIEWERS' RESPONSABILITIES
Contribution to editorial decisions
The peer-reviewing process assists the editor and the editorial board in making editorial decisions and may also serve the author in improving the paper.
Promptness
Any selected referee who feels unqualified for reasons of competence or conflict of interest to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and withdraw from the review process.
Standards of objectivity
Reviews should be conducted impartially. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.
Acknowledgement of sources
Reviewers should identify cases in which relevant published work referred to in the paper has not been cited in the reference section. They should point out whether observations or arguments derived from other publications are accompanied by the respective source. Reviewers will notify the editor of any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.
Disclosure and conflict of interest
Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions associated with the papers.
