PARAPSYCHOLOGY
Parapsychology IS the scientific and scholarly study of certain unusual events associated with human experience.
A long-held, common sense assumption is that the worlds of the subjective and objective are completely distinct, with no overlap. Subjective is "here, in the head," and objective is "there, out in the world." Parapsychology is the study of phenomena suggesting that the strict subjective/objective dichotomy may instead be part of a spectrum, with some phenomena occasionally falling between purely subjective and purely objective. We call such phenomena "anomalous" because they are difficult to explain within current scientific models.
These anomalies fall into three general categories: ESP (terms are defined below), PK, and phenomena suggestive of survival after bodily death, including near-death experiences, apparitions, and reincarnation.
Parapsychology IS NOT the study of "anything paranormal" or bizarre. Nor is parapsychology concerned with astrology, UFOs, searching for Bigfoot, paganism, vampires, alchemy, or witchcraft.
Many scientists have viewed parapsychology with great suspicion because the term has come to be associated with a huge variety of mysterious phenomena, fringe topics, and pseudoscience.
Many feel that the strangest, and most interesting, aspect of parapsychological phenomena is that they do not appear to be limited by the known boundaries of space or time. In addition, they blur the sharp distinction usually made between mind and matter.
In popular usage, the basic parapsychological phenomena are categorized as follows:
- Telepathy: Direct mind-to-mind communication
- Precognition: Also called premonition. Obtaining information about future events, where the information could not be inferred through normal means.
- Clairvoyance: Sometimes called remote viewing; obtaining information about events at remote locations, beyond the reach of the normal senses.
- ESP: Extra-sensory perception; a general term for obtaining information about events beyond the reach of the normal senses. This term subsumes telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition.
- Psychokinesis: Also called PK; direct mental interaction with physical objects, animate or inanimate.
- Bio-PK: Direct mental interactions with living systems.
- NDE: Near death experience; an experience reported by those who were revived from nearly dying. Often refers to a core experience that includes feelings of peace, OBE, seeing lights and other phenomena.
- OBE: Out-of-body experience; the experience of feeling separated from the body, often accompanied by visual perceptions as though from above the body.
- Reincarnation: The belief that we live successive lives, with primarily evidence coming from the apparent recollections of previous lives.
- Haunting: Recurrent phenomena reported to occur in particular locations that include apparitions, sounds, movement of objects, and other effects.
- Poltergeist: Large-scale PK phenomena often attributed to spirits, but which are now thought to be due to a living person, frequently an adolescent.
- Psi: A neutral term for parapsychological phenomena. Psi, psychic, and psychical are synonyms.