Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folklore, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Notable paranormal beliefs include those that pertain to extrasensory perceptions (for example, telepathy), and the of ghost hunting, cryptozoology, and ufology.
Proposals regarding the paranormal are different from hypothesis or speculations extrapolated from scientific evidence because scientific ideas are grounded in empiricism observations and experimental data gained through the scientific method. In contrast, those who argue for the existence of the paranormal explicitly do not base their arguments on empirical evidence but rather on anecdote, testimony and suspicion. The standard scientific models give the explanation that what appears to be paranormal phenomena is usually a misinterpretation, misunderstanding or anomalous variation of natural science.
In traditional ghostlore, and fiction featuring ghosts, a ghost is a manifestation of the spirit or soul of a person. Alternative theories expand on that idea and include belief in the ghosts of deceased animals. Sometimes the term "ghost" is used synonymously with any spirit or demon; however, in popular usage the term typically refers to the spirit of a deceased person.
The belief in ghosts as souls of the departed is closely tied to the concept of animism, an ancient belief that attributed souls to everything in nature.
Early in the history of UFO culture, believers divided themselves into two camps. The first held a rather conservative view of the phenomena, interpreting them as unexplained occurrences that merited serious study. They began calling themselves "Ufology" in the 1950s and felt that logical analysis of sighting reports would validate the notion of extraterrestrial visitation.
The second camp held a view that coupled ideas of extraterrestrial visitation with beliefs from existing quasi-religious movements. Typically, these individuals were enthusiasts of occultism and the paranormal. Many had backgrounds as active Theosophists or spiritualists, or were followers of other esoteric doctrines. In contemporary times, many of these beliefs have coalesced into New Age spiritual movements.
Both Secularity and spiritual believers describe UFOs as having abilities beyond what are considered possible according to known Aerodynamics constraints and Scientific law. The transitory events surrounding many UFO sightings preclude any opportunity for the repeat testing required by the scientific method. Acceptance of UFO theories by the larger scientific community is further hindered by the many possible associated with UFO culture.
Charles Fort (1874–1932) is perhaps the best-known collector of paranormal anecdotes. Fort is said to have compiled as many as 40,000 notes on unexplained forteana, though there were no doubt many more. These notes came from what he called "the orthodox conventionality of Science", which were odd events originally reported in magazines and newspapers such as The Times and scientific journals such as Scientific American, Nature and Science. From this research Fort wrote seven books, though only four survive: The Book of the Damned (1919), New Lands (1923), Lo! (1931) and Wild Talents (1932); one book was written between New Lands and Lo!, but it was abandoned and absorbed into Lo!
Reported events that he collected include teleportation (a term Fort is generally credited with coining); poltergeist events; falls of frogs, fishes, and inorganic materials of an amazing range; crop circles; unaccountable noises and explosions; spontaneous fires; levitation; ball lightning (a term explicitly used by Fort); unidentified flying objects; mysterious appearances and disappearances; giant wheels of light in the oceans; and animals found outside their normal ranges (see phantom cat). He offered many reports of OOPArts, the abbreviation for "out of place" artifacts: strange items found in unlikely locations. He is perhaps the first person to explain strange human appearances and disappearances by the hypothesis of alien abduction and was an early proponent of the extraterrestrial hypothesis.
Fort is considered by many as the father of modern paranormalism, which is the study of the paranormal.
The magazine Fortean Times continues Charles Fort's approach, regularly reporting anecdotal accounts of the paranormal.
Such anecdotal collections, lacking the reproducibility of Empirical, are not amenable to scientific investigation. The anecdotal approach is not a scientific approach to the paranormal because it leaves verification dependent on the credibility of the party presenting the evidence. Nevertheless, it is a common approach to investigating paranormal phenomena.
In 1957, the Parapsychological Association was formed as the preeminent society for parapsychologists. In 1969, they became affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
By the 2000s, the status of paranormal research in the United States had greatly declined from its height in the 1970s, with the majority of work being privately funded and only a small amount of research being carried out in university laboratories. In 2007, Britain had a number of privately funded laboratories in university psychology departments. Publication remained limited to a small number of niche journals, and to date there have been no experimental results that have gained wide acceptance in the scientific community as valid evidence of the paranormal.
Participant observation suggests that by immersing oneself in the subject that is being studied, a researcher is presumed to gain understanding of the subject. Criticisms of participant observation as a data-gathering technique are similar to criticisms of other approaches to the paranormal, but also include an increased threat to the scientific objectivity of the researcher, unsystematic gathering of data, reliance on Subjectivity measurement, and possible observer effects (i.e. observation may distort the observed behavior). Specific data-gathering methods, such as recording EMF (electromagnetic field) readings at haunted locations, have their own criticisms beyond those attributed to the participant-observer approach itself.
Participant observation, as an approach to the paranormal, has gained increased visibility and popularity through reality television programs like Ghost Hunters, and the formation of independent ghost hunting groups that advocate immersive research at alleged paranormal locations. One popular website for ghost hunting enthusiasts lists over 300 of these organizations throughout the United States and the United Kingdom.
The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), formerly the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), is an organization that aims to publicize the scientific, skeptical approach. It carries out investigations aimed at understanding paranormal reports in terms of scientific understanding, and publishes its results in the Skeptical Inquirer magazine.
CSI's Richard Wiseman draws attention to possible alternative explanations for perceived paranormal activity in his article, The Haunted Brain. While he recognizes that approximately 15% of people believe they have experienced an encounter with a ghost, he reports that only 1% report seeing a full-fledged ghost while the rest report strange sensory stimuli, such as seeing fleeting shadows or wisps of smoke, or the sensation of hearing footsteps or feeling a presence. Wiseman makes the claim that, rather than experiencing paranormal activity, it is activity within our own brains that creates these strange sensations.
Michael Persinger proposed that ghostly experiences could be explained by stimulating the brain with weak magnetic fields. Swedish psychologist Pehr Granqvist and his team, attempting to replicate Persinger's research, determined that the paranormal sensations experienced by Persinger's subjects were merely the result of suggestion, and that brain stimulation with magnetic fields did not result in ghostly experiences.
Oxford University Justin Barrett has theorized that "agency"—being able to figure out why people do what they do—is so important in everyday life, that it is natural for our brains to work too hard at it, thereby detecting human or ghost-like behavior in everyday meaningless stimuli.
James Randi, an investigator with a background in illusion, felt that the simplest explanation for those claiming paranormal abilities is often trickery, illustrated by demonstrating that the spoon bending abilities of psychic Uri Geller can easily be duplicated by trained stage magicians. He was also the founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation and its million dollar challenge that offered a prize of US$1,000,000 to anyone who could demonstrate evidence of any paranormal, supernatural or occult power or event, under test conditions agreed to by both parties. "The Million Dollar Challenge". James Randi Education Foundation. Despite many declarations of supernatural ability, the prize was never claimed.
Many studies have found a link between personality and psychopathology variables correlating with paranormal belief. Some studies have also shown that fantasy proneness correlates positively with paranormal belief.
Bainbridge (1978) and Wuthnow (1976) found that the most susceptible people to paranormal belief are those who are poorly educated, Unemployment or have roles that rank low among social values. The alienation of these people due to their status in society is said to encourage them to appeal to paranormal or magical beliefs.
Research has associated paranormal belief with low Cognition, low IQ and a lack of science education. Intelligence and highly educated participants involved in surveys have proven to have less paranormal belief. Tobacyk (1984) and Messer and Griggs (1989) discovered that college students with better grades have less belief in the paranormal.
In a case study (Gow, 2004) involving 167 participants the findings revealed that psychological absorption and dissociation were higher for believers in the paranormal. Another study involving 100 students had revealed a positive correlation between paranormal belief and proneness to dissociation. A study (Williams et al. 2007) discovered that "neuroticism is fundamental to individual differences in paranormal belief, while paranormal belief is independent of extraversion and psychoticism". A correlation has been found between paranormal belief and Irrationality.
In an experiment Wierzbicki (1985) reported a significant correlation between paranormal belief and the number of errors made on a Syllogism task, suggesting that believers in the paranormal have lower Cognition. A relationship between Narcissism and paranormal belief was discovered in a study involving the Australian Sheep-Goat Scale.
De Boer and Bierman wrote:
A psychological study involving 174 members of the Society for Psychical Research completed a delusional ideation questionnaire and a deductive reasoning task. As predicted, the study showed that "individuals who reported a strong belief in the paranormal made more errors and displayed more delusional ideation than skeptical individuals". There was also a reasoning bias which was limited to people who reported a belief in, rather than experience of, paranormal phenomena. The results suggested that reasoning abnormalities may have a causal role in the formation of paranormal belief.
Research has shown that people reporting contact with Grey alien have higher levels of absorption, dissociativity, fantasy proneness and tendency to Hallucination.
Findings have shown in specific cases that paranormal belief acts as a psychodynamic coping function and serves as a mechanism for coping with stress. Survivors from childhood sexual abuse, violent and unsettled home environments have reported to have higher levels of paranormal belief.French, C.C., & Kerman, M.K. (1996). "Childhood trauma, fantasy proneness and belief in the paranormal". Paper presented to the 1996 London Conference of the British Psychological Society, Institute of Education, University of London, 17–18 December 1996. A study of a random sample of 502 adults revealed paranormal experiences were common in the population which were linked to a history of childhood trauma and dissociative symptoms. Research has also suggested that people who perceive themselves as having little control over their lives may develop paranormal beliefs to help provide an enhanced sense of control. The similarities between paranormal events and descriptions of trauma have also been noted.
Gender differences in surveys on paranormal belief have reported women scoring higher than men overall and men having greater belief in UFOs and extraterrestrials. Surveys have also investigated the relationship between Ethnic group and paranormal belief. In a sample of American university students (Tobacyk et al. 1988) it was found that Black people have a higher level of belief in and witchcraft while belief in extraterrestrial life forms was stronger among White people. Otis and Kuo (1984) surveyed Singapore university students and found Han Chinese, Indian people and Ethnic Malays students to differ in their paranormal beliefs, with the Chinese students showing greater skepticism.
According to American surveys analysed by Bader et al. (2011) have the highest belief in the paranormal and while the findings are not uniform the "general trend is for whites to show lesser belief in most paranormal subjects".
Polls show that about fifty percent of the United States population believe in the paranormal. Robert L. Park says a lot of people believe in it because they "want it to be so".
A 2013 study that utilized a biological motion perception task discovered a "relation between illusory pattern perception and supernatural and paranormal beliefs and suggest that paranormal beliefs are strongly related to agency detection biases".
A 2014 study discovered that Schizophrenia patients have more belief in psi than healthy adults.
It was also realized that people with higher dopamine levels have the ability to find patterns and meanings where there are none. This is why scientists have connected high dopamine levels with paranormal belief.
Terence Hines has written that on a personal level, paranormal claims could be considered a form of consumer fraud as people are "being induced through false claims to spend their money—often large sums—on paranormal claims that do not deliver what they promise" and uncritical acceptance of paranormal belief systems can be damaging to society.Hines, Terence (2003). p. 38.
A survey conducted in 2006 by researchers from Australia's Monash University sought to determine the types of phenomena that people claim to have experienced and the effects these experiences have had on their lives. The study was conducted as an online survey with over 2,000 respondents from around the world participating. The results revealed that around 70% of the respondents believe to have had an unexplained paranormal event that changed their life, mostly in a positive way. About 70% also claimed to have seen, heard, or been touched by an animal or person that they knew was not there; 80% have reported having a precognition, and almost 50% stated they recalled a previous life.
Polls were conducted by Bryan Farha at Oklahoma City University and Gary Steward of the University of Central Oklahoma in 2006. They found fairly consistent results compared to the results of a Gallup poll in 2001."Smart People See Ghosts", Brad Steiger, Fate Magazine, April 2006, p. 52–56; the unusual thing found by Farha and Steward was that belief in the supernatural increased with education level, contrary to many other surveys. However, that aspect of their study is not being used here.
+Percentage of U.S. citizens polled | |||||||||
Psychic, Faith healing | 57 | 26 | 18 | 54 | 19 | 26 | 55 | 17 | 26 |
ESP | 29 | 39 | 33 | 50 | 20 | 27 | 41 | 25 | 32 |
41 | 25 | 35 | 42 | 16 | 41 | 37 | 16 | 46 | |
Demonic possession | 41 | 28 | 32 | 41 | 16 | 41 | 42 | 13 | 44 |
40 | 27 | 34 | 38 | 17 | 44 | 32 | 19 | 48 | |
Telepathy | 25 | 34 | 42 | 36 | 26 | 35 | 31 | 27 | 42 |
Extraterrestrials visited Earth in the past | 18 | 34 | 49 | 33 | 27 | 38 | 24 | 24 | 51 |
Clairvoyance and Prophecy | 24 | 33 | 43 | 32 | 23 | 45 | 26 | 24 | 50 |
Mediumship | 16 | 29 | 55 | 28 | 26 | 46 | 21 | 23 | 55 |
Astrology | 17 | 26 | 57 | 28 | 18 | 52 | 25 | 19 | 55 |
Witchcraft | 27 | 19 | 55 | 26 | 15 | 59 | 21 | 12 | 66 |
Reincarnation | 16 | 28 | 57 | 25 | 20 | 54 | 20 | 20 | 59 |
A survey by Jeffrey S. Levin, associate professor at Eastern Virginia Medical School, found that more than two thirds of the United States population reported having at least one mystical experience. USA Today, 12 January 1994
A 1996 Gallup poll estimated that 71% of the people in the U.S. believed that the government was covering up information about . A 2002 Roper poll conducted for the Syfy reported that 56% thought UFOs were real craft and 48% that aliens had visited the Earth.
A 2001 National Science Foundation survey found that 9% of people polled thought astrology was very scientific, and 31% thought it was somewhat scientific. About 32% of Americans surveyed stated that some numbers were lucky, while 46% of agreed with that claim. About 60% of all people polled believed in some form of Extra-sensory perception and 30% thought that "some of the unidentified flying objects that have been reported are really space vehicles from other civilizations."
In 2017 the Chapman University Survey of American Fears asked about seven paranormal beliefs and found that "the most common belief is that ancient advanced civilizations such as Atlantis once existed (55%). Next was that places can be haunted by spirits (52%), aliens have visited Earth in our ancient past (35%), aliens have come to Earth in modern times (26%), some people can move objects with their minds (25%), fortune tellers and psychics can survey the future (19%), and Bigfoot is a real creature. Only one-fourth of respondents didn't hold at least one of these beliefs."
Since then, many individuals and groups have offered similar monetary awards for proof of the paranormal in an observed setting. These prizes have a combined value of over $2.4 million.
The James Randi Educational Foundation offered a prize of a million dollars to a person who could prove that they had supernatural or paranormal abilities under appropriate test conditions. Several other skeptic groups also offer a monied prize for proof of the paranormal, including the largest group of paranormal investigators, the Independent Investigations Group, which has chapters in Hollywood; Atlanta; Denver; Washington, D.C.; Alberta, B.C.; and San Francisco. The IIG offers a $100,000 prize and a $5,000 finders fee if a claimant can prove a paranormal claim under 2 scientifically controlled tests. Founded in 2000 no claimant has passed the first (and lower odds) of the test.
Paranormal challenges
See also
Paranormal
By location
Authors
Skepticism
Notes
Further reading
External links
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