The Paranormal
What's in a name?
The Society for Psychical Research 🔗 (The S.P.R.) was formed in1872: 'Psyche'---an obscure term---begged the question. 'Parapsychology'---an academically respectable name---does the same, assuming it's all in the head---but what does 'para' mean? 'Paranormal' has a whiff of 'Alma's not Normal' about it. 'Anomalous Phenomena' is too vague. The 'Supernatural' implies the experiences are not of this world. 'Uncanny' has wide coverage: there's a whiff of the weird there. It's a cabinet of curiosities, with no hint of a single cause. But the events demand explanation, or a change of take on some people's powers.
Mental occurrences
The S.P.R. conducted a 'Census of Hallucinations'. The term did not imply they were illusory; merely that they were interventions into consciousness, say an apparent visitation by or of someone at their point of (unanticipated) death, perceived as an apparition or communication, akin to a voice memory, of a message, usually when the recipient was somnolent, and awoken from it (two examples known to me, including 'writing on the wall').
Phenomenologically, they are akin to seeing 'ghosts' or sensing sudden temperature drops or other unexplained things like raps and other noises and doors apparently opening, where experiences of the same by others---if not primed by expectation---suggest a rote apparition, signature or other trace that has been 'left'. (A typically inconclusive example was the house next door to me in Preston, E Kent).
Visions or other apparent knowledge of an unpredictable future event, forms of Precognition, are significant when the 'seer' recorded the form of it and made it known before the event occurred. But how common are false premonitions? (Predictions of Trump's next pronouncement and its timing don't count!).
'Psychics' who have veridical visions of the present by 'remote viewing' have been deployed by police forces to locate people; they have been to my mind unsatisfactorily tested for 'significance' by asking them to choose one of a set of pictures, one of which corresponds to the test target.
Statistically very significant tests of 'viewing'---or rather, selecting---present and future targets have been run with zener' cards (see image at top of page): interestingly, when the 'subjects' become bored by the exercise, they have sometimes begun to predict/identify massively against the odds.
Physical 'powers : Psychokinesis, or 'Action at a Distance' is to my mind far more capable of testing and proof---or the contrary, and has been my main field of interest. Events can be potentially recorded on film---or now mobile 'phones.
People---perhaps due to inner turmoil---have accidentally and randomly affected their electrical surroundings: possibly today, computers. A less alarming event in childhood has given rise to a 'power'---most convincingly exhibited by British 'psychic' Matthew Manning and problematically by Uri Geller---in his case trammelled by turning it into an act. It does seem that this power weakens with age---or perhaps settles down to a 'healing' practise.
Lastly, 'Table turning'---the Victorian, originally spiritualist, wont to have a table move of its own accord through the intent or command of those sitting at it. Accounts suggested it could be worth a reprise, and if apparently repeatedly successful, it could be filmed or otherwise monitored with devices. I was part of a foursome attempting this once a month for a couple of years: from an evidential point, the concern was induced movement, perhaps through 'folie a deux (or more)', although accounts of very heavy kitchen tables rearing, moving and even levitating would make this an inadequate explanation in those cases.
More stuff on the Paranormal
Scope and Methods of Parapsychological Study
● Scope of Parapsychological Study
Near Death Experience (NDE)
● The Strange Case of Near Death Experiences by Chris Bratcher
● A Brief Visit to the Red Light District --- The Philosopher AJ Ayer's NDE and how it did not convert him to belief in God or life-after-death.
● AJ Ayer and Life After Death [75 page PDF]
● About the Continuity of Consciousness [21 page PDF]
Precognition
● Fortune Tattling --- How phone-line fortune-telling operates, the comforts it brings and the exploitation it can represent.
Spiritualism
● The Church of England's 1937 Report into Spiritualism --- This is included as an interesting historical oddity. The majority report was supressed following submission to the Bishops and only published nine years later by Psychic News via a leaked copy.
● Spiritualism in late 19th Century USA and how Spiritualists dealt with the problem of slavery in relation to the afterlife. The Spiritualist's idea of heaven was called 'Summerland', a happy place where everyone prospered. But what was the place of former slaves in this place? Some thought they would be emancipated and live in equality with whites. Others believed they would continue to live as slaves 'on the other side'.
● A Magician Among the Spirits by Harry Houdini (book) — This is Harry Houdini's 1924 book in which he exposes the tricks used by medium in the early part of the twentieth century when Spiritualism was all the rage on both sides of the Atlantic.