Oliver L. Reiser

Oliver Leslie Reiser was an American philosopher known for his pseudoscientific views on evolution.

Biography
Reiser was born in Columbus, Ohio and attended Ohio State University. He later earned a B.A. in 1921, M.A. in 1922, and Ph.D. in philosophy in 1924. He was a personal friend of Albert Einstein.

Reiser is most well known in humanist groups because of his book Promise of Scientific Humanism (1940). He also founded the International Committee on Scientific Humanism in the 1950s. Reiser had used the term "cosmic humanism", influenced by the work of Einstein to define what he termed a pantheist philosophy of science.

Evolution
Even though Reiser was a well-respected philosopher, he also advocated some pseudoscientific views about evolution. Most of these ideas have influenced New agers and proponents of quantum woo as well as 2012 conspiracy theorists.

The main belief of Reiser was that geomagnetic forces were directing evolution of species based on a very specific complex cyclical process. He also advocated the view that a "memory field" existed around the Earth which could also influence the evolution of organisms, he called this field the "psychosphere".

Paranormal
Reiser was also an advocate of psychic phenomena as he believed things like telepathy were real. In a paranormal book titled Psychic Exploration by Edgar Mitchell (1974), Reiser contributed a chapter titled "The Psychosphere: A Holistic View of Psychic Phenomena" where he believed his model of the "psychosphere" could explain all paranormal events.

Religion
Reiser was a pantheist and a strong critic of organised religion.