Campbell was one of the most influential figures in science fiction history who cultivated a 'stable' of authors; Asimov was his most famous protégé. Campbell's interest in psi was inflamed further by SF luminaries H Ron Hubbard and A E Van Vogt, who started the Dianetic movement a while before Scientology became a 'thing'. (Since Scientology turned into such a cult, it must be pointed out that Van Vogt had nothing to do with its development).
But I'm counter-intrigued: why are so many people in this discussion (and in the article's comments) so vehemently opposed to psi? It's been comprehensively debunked, but Campbell had a neat (and plausible) explanation for that, which no one ever addresses. And many of the most striking anecdotes of psi phenomena have never been adequately explained. This is reminiscent of a consensus reality (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_reality), which SF readers in particular should be less susceptible to...
Being a big fan of Aldous Huxley I was pretty astonished but none the less entertained by his apparent believe in the supernatural which might have been due to him having lost most of his eyesight when he was in his teens.
In case you are interested, there is a lecture where he talks about this stuff over at the psychedelic salon:
https://psychedelicsalon.com/podcast-578-1-enemies-of-freedo...
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Aldous_Huxley
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Bates_eye_method#Aldous_Huxley
Thus in any demonstration, there's usually someone in the audience who is more than a 'non-believer': strongly opposed to psi, who has the effect of damping or negating the demonstrator.
The other thing that's rarely mentioned is that most psi phenomena manifest themselves in moments of extreme peril or emotion, which (by their very nature) cannot be replicated in a laboratory situation.
Campbell also pointed out that, throughout human history, psi has been misunderstood, and ultimately maligned by religion, that most contagious of memes. So it's a subconsciously suppressed ability, and its suppression (and repression) is the cause of many human ills...
He believed that psi is an emergent phenomenon (like consciousness and intelligence), and - foreshadowing Penrose's "The Emperor's New Mind" - that the explanation for psionic phenomena lay in quantum physics and information theory. I've highlighted those last few words, because current information theory does not adequately cover phenomena such as complexity, synergetics and emergence. For a taster of what a new extended information physics should look like, check out Tom Stonier's "Information And The Internal Structure Of The Universe".
> He believed that psi is an emergent phenomenon (like consciousness and intelligence)
I find usually those people tend to avoid the actually really weird/provoking questions staring right at us -- like how does a bunch of neurons firing electrical signals produce our consciousness and all personal experiences, why is our universe and lives like this in particular, or how to reconcile with death and finiteness -- in favor of comfortable wishful thinking, mysticisms and obscurantism (Penrose lately seems to have fallen into this modus).
In the context of SF, Philip K. Dick's claim "It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane" comes to mind (which I deeply disagree with, but understand).
with arguably the biggest scandal of this year being Cambridge Analytica/Emerdata, seizing control of other people's minds was correct in its precociousness.
more broadly, sci-fi inherits from religion (really religious fantasy), which has always been about control of group behavior and group think, power and identity, the relationship between creator and creation, etc. "we shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us" was said by mcluhan, but it may as well have been said by victor frankenstein or any other critic of science and industry.
The uplift cycle by David Brin is amazing.
The comment about Asimov misses reminds of another brin novel, Earth, that is known for envisioning several events and technology that appeared after its publication.
They are not big parts of the plot though, except for faster than light travel, which is necessary to write about a galatic civilization.
Uplift for example is a hard sci concept that is too rarely evoked.
Books with psi by forgotten writers that are interesting (to me): Stapleton's 'Odd John' and May's 'Intervention'.
Yet 'every sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic'. This presumably applies to fictional tech also.