Ghosts-UK - Ghosts - Paranormal News - Poltergeist - Ouija - Recent entries in encyclopedia

Esotericism

27/04/2010 18:23

* To have an esoteric opinion or belief

* Deep, Hidden knowledge or teachings that are possessed or understood only by a few and not know to the general public

* Understood only by an enlightened inner circle

Book of the damned

27/04/2010 18:23

* Know to be the first written book in the specific field of anomalistics

* Written by Charles Fort, his first published book of his own nonfictional work covering areas such as UFO's, organic and artificial matter which has fallen from the sky, strange weather, mythological creatures which could possibly exist in real life, people disappearing mysteriously and many more

* First published in 1919

Teleportation

27/04/2010 18:23

* When matter is transferred almost instantaneously from one place to another using paranormal or alchemy methods

* Something moving from one place to another without physically moving across the distance between the two places

* Commonly used as a method of travel in sci fi movies including Star trek, Heroes, Mortal kombat, Dr Who and many more

Fortean times

27/04/2010 18:24

* A monthly magazine published by Dennis publishing ltd (formerly John Brown publishing 1991-2001 followed by I feel good publishing 2001-2005)

* Dedicated to news, reviews and research based around strange phenomena and the paranormal

* It was founded in 1973 by Bob Rickard who's aim was to carry on the works of Charles Fort (1874-1932)

Committee for Skeptical Inquiry

27/04/2010 14:54

* Formerly knows as Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP)

* A non profit organisation based in America who aim is to "encourage the critical investigation of paranormal and fringe-science claims from a responsible, scientific point of view and disseminate factual information about the results of such inquiries to the scientific community and the public."

* Founded 1976 by Paul Kurtz

Extra-Sensory Perseption

27/04/2010 14:55

Anomalistics

27/04/2010 14:56

* Scientific methods used to evaluate anomalies in order to find a rational explanation

* Covers various subjects including Cryptozoology and Ufology

Mysticism

27/04/2010 14:56

* An obscure / irrational thought

* Derived form the Greek word Mystikos meaning a mysterious religion

* Beyond ordinary understanding

* A spiritual communication to the divine truth

* A belief in the existence of realities beyond human comprehension

USO

27/04/2010 14:56

* Unidentified Submerged Object

* Any unknown phenomenon detected under the surface of a body of water

Psionics

27/04/2010 14:56

* Using the mind to induce paranormal phenomena which includes such things as telepathy, telekinesis, and other workings of the outside world through the psyche.

* Practicing abilities originating from the mind to influence physical objects

* Mental powers which have an effect on physical matter

Hilary Evans

18/05/2010 21:06

* A Researcher into paranormal phenomena

* Co-founded the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena in 1981

* Born 6th March 1929 in Shrewsbury, England

Theosophy

18/05/2010 21:12

* From the Greek word "theosophia" meaning "Gods wisdom" or "knowledge of things devine"

* It is the belief of the nature of God and the soul based on mystical insight

UFOlogist

18/05/2010 21:20

* One who studies ufo's

Meteors

18/05/2010 21:29

* Extraterrestrial debris which hits the Earth' s atmosphere

* Usually ranges in size from that of a grain of sand to that of a boulder

* Can be seen when entering the Earth's atmosphere as a streak of light across the nights sky

Extraterrestrial Life

18/05/2010 21:32

* Life forms including intelligent life forms which are not native to planet Earth

* Also widely known as "Aliens"

* The subject of astrobiology

* Living organisms existing outside of the earths atmosphere

Quark

03/04/2010 15:37

*A quark is an elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of matter. Quarks combine to form composite particles called hadrons, the most stable of which are protons and neutrons, the components of atomic nuclei. Due to a phenomenon known as color confinement, quarks are never found in isolation; they can only be found within hadrons.
For this reason, much of what is known about quarks has been drawn from observations of the hadrons themselves.

Quantum Theory

03/04/2010 15:38

* A physical theory that certain properties occur only in discrete amounts

* A theory of matter and radiation, developed in its essentials mostly between 1900 and 1930, distinguished from classical theory in two important respects: discreteness and indeterminism

Qliphoth

03/04/2010 15:38

* The representation of evil forces in the mystical teachings of Judaism

Qabalah

03/04/2010 15:38

* An esoteric or occult matter resembling the Kabbalah that is traditionally secret

* An aspect of Jewish mysticism. It consists of a large body of speculation on the nature of divinity, the creation, the origin and fate of the soul, and the role of human beings

Pythagoras

03/04/2010 15:38

* Greek philosopher and mathematician who proved the Pythagorean theorem; considered to be the first true mathematician (circa 580-500 BC)

* The most famous mystic philosopher, born at Samos about 586 BC, who taught the heliocentric system and reincarnation, the highest mathematics and the highest metaphysics, and who had a school famous throughout the world

Psychotronics

03/04/2010 15:38

* The study of the interaction between matter, energy and the mind, especially the supposed relationship in parapsychological effects

* Czech term now used in France and Belgium as a synonym for parapsychology

Psychometry

03/04/2010 15:38

* Any branch of psychology concerned with psychological measurements

* The paranormal ability to discover information about an object's past, and especially about its past owners, merely by handling it; The use of psychological tests to measure intelligence, abilities, attitudes, and personality traits

* Divining knowledge about an object or a person connected with it through contact with the object

Psychokinesis

03/04/2010 15:38

* Ability to move objects with the mind

* The controlled movement of an inanimate object by the use of psychic powers. Abbreviated as PK

* Paranormal ability of the mind to influence matter, time, space, or energy without the use of any currently known type of physical means

* Telekinesis: the power to move something by thinking about it without the application of physical force

Psychic

03/04/2010 15:39

* Affecting or influenced by the human mind; "psychic energy"; "psychic trauma"

* A person apparently sensitive to things beyond the natural range of perception

* Outside the sphere of physical science; "psychic phenomena"

* A person who possesses, or appears to possess, extra-sensory abilities such as precognition, clairvoyance and telepathy, or who appears to be susceptible to paranormal or supernatural influence; A person who supposedly contacts the dead

prophecy

03/04/2010 15:39

* Knowledge of the future (usually said to be obtained from a divine source)

* Prophecy, generally, describes the disclosing of information that is not known to the prophet by any ordinary means

* A prediction uttered under divine inspiration

Pre-Existence

03/04/2010 15:39

* Existing in a former state or previous to something else

* Pre-existence (also spelled pre�xistence), beforelife, or pre-mortal existence refers to the belief that each individual human soul existed before conception, and at conception (or later, depending on when it is believed that the soul enters the body) one of these pre-existent souls enters, or is placed by God, in the body

* Preexist - exist beforehand or prior to a certain point in time; "Did this condition pre-exist?"

Prediction

03/04/2010 15:39

* A statement made about the future

* A prediction is a statement or claim that a particular event will occur in the future in more certain terms than a forecas

* Predict - bode: indicate by signs; "These signs bode bad news"

* That which has been foretold

Predestination

03/04/2010 15:39

* Previous determination as if by destiny or fate

* (Theology) being determined in advance; especially the doctrine (usually associated with Calvin) that God has foreordained every event throughout eternity (including the final salvation of mankind)

* Predestination is a religious concept, which involves the relationship between God and His creation. The religious character of predestination distinguishes it from other ideas about determinism and free will

Precognition

03/04/2010 15:39

* Knowledge of an event before it occurs

* Precognition from the Latin pr�-, �prior to,� + cognitio, �a getting to know�) denotes a form of extrasensory perception wherein a person is said to perceive information about places or events through paranormal means before they happen

* Precognitive - clairvoyant: foreseeing the future

Possession

03/04/2010 15:39

* Being controlled by passion or the supernatural

Plant Consciousness

03/04/2010 15:40

* In the study of paranormal phenomenon Plant perception, or biocommunication in plant cells, has come to mean a belief that plants are sentient, that they experience pain, pleasure, or emotions such as fear and affection, and that they have the ability to communicate with humans and other forms of life in a recognizable manner

Planchette

03/04/2010 15:40

* A triangular board supported on casters; when lightly touched with the fingertips it is supposed to spell out supernatural (or unconscious) messages

* Paranormal advocates believe that the planchette is moved by some extra-normal force

* The most common use of the planchette is with a Ouija or spirit board

* Used since the beginning of the Spiritualism movement of the mid-nineteenth century, planchettes predate the invention of spirit boards

Pineal Gland

03/04/2010 15:40

* The pineal gland (also called the pineal body, epiphysis cerebri, epiphysis or the "third eye") is a small endocrine gland in the vertebrate brain. It produces melatonin, a hormone that affects the modulation of wake/sleep patterns and photoperiodic (seasonal) functions. It is shaped like a tiny pine cone (hence its name), and is located near the center of the brain, between the two hemispheres, tucked in a groove where the two rounded thalamic bodies join.

Philosopher's Stone

03/04/2010 15:40

* Hypothetical substance that the alchemists believed to be capable of changing base metals into gold

* The philosophers' stone (Latin: lapis philosophorum) is a legendary alchemical substance, supposedly capable of turning base metals, especially lead, into gold (chrysopoeia); it was also sometimes believed to be an elixir of life, useful for rejuvenation and possibly for achieving immortality

* The discovery of the philosopher's stone was known as the Great Work

Past lives

03/04/2010 15:40

* Also known as Reincarnation

* Literally meaning "to be made flesh again", is a doctrine or metaphysical belief that some essential part of a living being (in some beliefs only human beings) survives death to be reborn in a new body

Parapsychology

03/04/2010 15:42

* Parapsychology is a discipline that seeks to investigate the existence and causes of psychic abilities and life after death using the scientific method

* Parapsychological experiments have included the use of random number generators to test for evidence of precognition and psychokinesis with both human and animal subjects[2][3][4] and Ganzfeld experiments to test for extrasensory perception

* The study of that which cannot yet be explained; psychic or occult phenomena, such as telepathy and ghosts

* Parapsychologist - someone who studies the evidence for such psychological phenomena as psychokinesis and telepathy and clairvoyance

* Scientific investigation of the paranormal

Parallel Worlds

03/04/2010 15:41

* A theory that there is a mirror universe and when one makes a decision in this universe, an alternate 'you' in the other universe makes the opposite decision

Palmistry

03/04/2010 15:41

* Telling fortunes by lines on the palm of the hand

* Palmistry or chiromancy (also spelled cheiromancy, Greek cheir (χειρ), �hand�; manteia (μαντεία), �divination�), is the art of characterization and foretelling the future through the study of the palm, also known as palm reading, or chirology

* The art of reading palms for divination

Paganism

03/04/2010 15:41

* Paganism (from Latin paganus, meaning "country dweller", "rustic") is a blanket term used to refer to various polytheistic, non-Abrahamic religious traditions.

* Local religions practiced before the introduction of Christianity; A class of religions often associated with nature rituals

* Pagan - heathen: not acknowledging the God of Christianity and Judaism and Islam

Out of body experiences

03/04/2010 15:41

* An experience of leaving ones physical body to seemingly float around the surrounding environment
* Most commonly experienced in near death circumstances
* Many people claim to have had an out of body experience whilst they are on the operating table
* One in ten people have an out of body experience at some point in their life
* In some cases the phenomenon appears to occur spontaneously; in others it is associated with a physical or mental trauma, use of psychedelic drugs, dissociative drugs, or a dream-like state. Many techniques aiming to induce the experience deliberately have been developed, for example visualization while in a relaxed, meditative state.
* Some neurologists have suspected that the event is triggered by a mismatch between visual and tactile signals. They used a virtual reality setup to recreate an out of body experience. The subject looked through goggles and saw his own body as it would appear to an outside observer standing behind him. The experimenter then touched the subject at the same time as a rod appeared to touch the virtual image. The experiment created an illusion of being behind and outside one's body. However, both critics and the experimenter himself note that the study fell short of replicating �full-blown� out of body experiences.

Premonitory

17/03/2010 20:40

pre�mo�ni�tion

1. A presentiment of the future; a foreboding.
2. A warning in advance; a forewarning.

Adj. 1. premonitory - warning of future misfortune
precursory
prophetic, prophetical - foretelling events as if by supernatural intervention; "prophetic writings"; "prophetic powers"; "words that proved prophetic"

Ouija Board

13/02/2010 21:33

* A board with all the letters from A-Z and numbers 0-9 used with a planchette to receive paranormal messages.

* A game using a board and a planchette to communicate with the dead.

Original Sin

13/02/2010 21:35

* Refers to the Christian dogma that man is depraved because Adam ate the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge.

* A sin inherited by all descendants of Adam

* The state of sin, present in each human at birth, that is a direct result of Adam's disobedience to God

Oracle

13/02/2010 21:35

*Derives from the Latin word orare, meaning "to speak"

* A Prophet or Authoritative person who devines the future.

* A shrine where an oracular god is consulted.

Occult

13/02/2010 21:36

* The word "Occult" derives from the latin word "Occulere" Which literally translates to "to hide" or "to conceal". This implies that the occult is something secretive or mysterious knowledge that would not be used in normal everyday life.

* In astronomy the word occult or occulting means a large body passing in front of another body smaller than itself (also known as an eclipse).

* Something of importance hidden from everyday view.

* Hidden or concealed.

Omen

13/02/2010 21:36

* A sign of something about to happen
* Any event or object said to portend good or evil
* Occurrence that predicts or prophesises a good or evil happening.

Numerology

13/02/2010 21:34

* The study of the supposed supernatural influence which numbers have on human affairs

Ovilus

12/02/2010 20:20

Ovilus also known as iOvilus.

The iOvilus is based on the same method of ITC communications as the highly controversial Ovilus.

The iOvilus produces speech based on changes to sensors in the iPhone or iPod Touch. Simply, the idea is that an outside force can affect a change that registers a response.
Instrumental Trans Communications "ITC" is not new, however, the methods used to try and achieve it are changing greatly.

The iOvilus is simple to use; start the app and listen to what is said. Remember, the environment drives the output of iOvilus using a 1000 word dictionary to achieve ITC Communications.

Nostradamus

04/02/2010 20:53

* A French astrologer

* An author of prophesies

Near-Death Experience

04/02/2010 20:54

*The experience of being on the brink of death but surviving the ordeal

* A broad range of personal experiences associated with impending death, encompassing multiple possible sensations including detachment from the body; feelings of levitation; extreme fear; total serenity, security, or warmth

Myth

04/02/2010 20:54

A well told story which is believed and accepted as history

Leonardo Da Vinci

04/02/2010 20:55

* An Italian painter, sculpter, engineer, scientist and architect

* He lived during the 16th century

* He painted the famous Mona Lisa and Last Supper

Karma

04/02/2010 20:55

* A Hinduism and Buddhism belief

* A Persons action which determines his/her future

* What goes around comes around

Illuminati

04/02/2010 20:07

* A secret society who is believed to possess special powers and/or enlightenment

* Founded in 1784 by Adam Weishaupt

Horoscope

04/02/2010 20:04

* Predictions on the future based on the positions of the planets

Houdini

04/02/2010 20:02

* Harry Houdini was famously known for his ability to escape from straight jackets, chains, padlocked containers and handcuffs

* An escape artist who could vanish, appear and escape from extremely difficult situations

Holy Grail

04/02/2010 20:55

* The cup from which Jesus drank wine from during the last supper

*The Holy Grail was a chalice in which Joseph of Arimathea was though to have caught Christ's blood. Some Christians believe Joseph brought it to Glastonbury, England and formed a church there.

Hinduism

04/02/2010 20:55

*One of the oldest religions.

* Most people in India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal follow this religion

Hallucination

04/02/2010 20:56

The word "Hallucination" derived from the Latin Word "Hallucinari" which means to wander in mind.

* Delusion: a mistaken or unfounded opinion or idea
* An object or event perceived through the minds eye
* A sensory perception of something which is not physically there

Ideomotor

30/01/2010 01:54

The ideomotor effect is a psychological phenomenon wherein a subject makes motions unconsciously. As in reflexive responses to pain, the body sometimes reacts reflexively to ideas alone without the person consciously deciding to take action. For instance, tears are produced by the body unconsciously in reaction to powerful emotions.

See also Automatic Writing Automatism and Ouija Board.

Automatic writing, dowsing, facilitated communication, and Ouija boards have also been attributed to the effect of this phenomenon. Mystics have often attributed this motion to paranormal or supernatural force. Many subjects are unconvinced that their actions are originating solely from within themselves.

The term was first used in a paper discussing the means through which the Ouija board produced its results, by William Benjamin Carpenter in 1852. In the paper, Carpenter explained his theory that muscular movement can be independent of conscious desires or emotions.

Scientific tests by the English scientist Michael Faraday, the French chemist Michel Eug�ne Chevreul, and the American psychologists William James and Ray Hyman have demonstrated that many phenomena attributed to spiritual or paranormal forces, or to mysterious "energies," are actually due to ideomotor action. Furthermore, these tests demonstrate that "honest, intelligent people can unconsciously engage in muscular activity that is consistent with their expectations" (Hyman 1999).[1] They also show that suggestions that can guide behavior can be given by subtle clues (Hyman 1977).

Some alternative medicine practitioners claim they can use the ideomotor effect to communicate with a patient's unconsciousness using a system of physical signals (such as finger movements) for the unconscious mind to indicate "yes", "no" or "I'm not ready to know that consciously". Scientific studies have not been conducted to support this method.[2]

Guru

07/01/2010 00:34

A teacher who teaches their disciples to dispel darkness and help them work towards the light. The word "Guru" is from the Sanskrit "gu" meaning darkness and "ru" meaning Light

Evil Eye

07/01/2010 00:34

A Glare from a "Dangerously Magical" eye which is powerful enough to inflict harm upon the people in its sight

Evil

07/01/2010 00:34

Behaviour which is morally wrong

Behaviour which brings misfortune, harm, destruction and/or bad luck upon others

Coincidence

06/01/2010 23:54

An event which may appear to have been arranged when it in actual fact was purely an accident.

Close Encounter

06/01/2010 23:54

An event where a person witnesses a UFO within 500ft of themselves. If a UFO is seen at a distance of more than 500ft then it can be argued that the sighting had been misidentified with something else.

Butterfly Effect

06/01/2010 16:24

A small action which sets of a chain reaction of events with each one being slighty bigger than the last.

The most well known being the butterfly beating its wings which eventually ends up causing a huge weather change in a different part of the world by simply shifting the air very lightly.

Buddhism

06/01/2010 16:04

A religion founded by Siddhartha Gautama [a very popular religion amongst Asians] based on the teachings of Buddha.

Buddha

06/01/2010 15:53

One who has achieved the perfect state of enlightenment according to the teachings of Buddha

The founder of Buddhism who was later worshiped as a God.

Apparition

06/01/2010 15:35

- A sudden or unusual sight which has appeared and sometimes can just as quickly disappear (possibly of a ghost or ghost-like vision)

- Something which only exists in perception

Animal Powers

06/01/2010 15:26

Many people worldwide believe that domestic animals can detect the presence of paranormal phenomena. The most common pets reported to be affected by paranormal occurrences are dogs and cats.

Domestic animals are said to be able to sense either their owners or a close loved ones own death weeks or even months before they die. This could possibly be caused by a shift in the humans energy just before they die which the pet might pick up on.

There have been reported cases in the past which could suggest that Telepathy has been used between owner and pet. One report of this was of the late nineteenth century actor William Terries who was murdered in London. At the exact same time of his stabbing, his family fox terrier pet at his home in Bedford became very unsettled. He was running around constantly yelping and barking in fear and anger. It was thought that he communicated telepathically with William and sensed he was in great danger.

Many people believe that their pet can see ghosts in and around their homes. Reports have included cats and dogs becoming scared and cowering into corners as if something has come into the room that they do not like, or animals which refuse to go into certain rooms or parts of the house as though they are avoiding going near something the human may not be able to see or sense. Many cats and dogs are said to become transfixed on areas as though they are watching someone or something in the room and many animals will not break their stare for a long period of time.

Acupuncture

06/01/2010 14:49

This is the manipulation of the body's "Ch'i energy" based on the ancient Chinese art of healing. Chinese physicians from the Stone Age found that puncturing the body with stone needles in certain areas of the body could help treat different illnesses in the organs of the body. Only a few acupuncture areas of the body were know at this time, whereas today there are around seven hundred known points and metal needles are used.

Acupuncture today is a holistic method of treatment which has been found to work when orthodox treatment has not.

Abominable Snowman

28/12/2009 19:24

also known as the Yeti is said to inhabit remote areas of mountains and jungles. There is no definite evidence of the abominable snowman's existence and all facts about it are based entirely upon folk-tales and sightings by locals of the area and mountaineers.

A few footprints have reportedly been seen, these include a british army officer who saw what was thought to be Yeti footprints 21,000 feet up Everest in 1921 and a number of westerners who saw giant footprints in 1887. In 1937, photographs of footprints were taken by F.S.Smythe and in 1951 climber, Eric Shipton Found footprints in the snow. Up until present no Yeti bodies have ever been uncovered.

Some Himalayan Monasteries are said to contain Yeti scalps, although, these are thought to be made of goatskin.

Abominable Snowmen and Yetis are said to resemble a very hairy (or furry) man with some being brown in colour and others white.

Somnambulism

30/07/2009 14:48

Sleepwalking (also called somnambulism or noctambulism[1]) is a parasomnia or sleep disorder where the sufferer engages in activities that are normally associated with wakefulness while he or she is asleep or in a sleep-like state. Sleepwalking is usually defined by or involves the person affected apparently shifting from his or her prior sleeping position and moving around and performing normal actions as if awake (cleaning, walking and other activities).

It is inexact to assume that somnambulists are unconscious during their nocturnal sleepwalking episodes. They are simply not conscious of their actions on a level where memory of the sleepwalking episode can be recalled, and because of this, unless the sleepwalker is awakened or aroused by someone else, this sleep disorder can go unnoticed. Sleepwalking is more commonly experienced in people with high levels of stress, anxiety or psychological factors and in people with genetic factors (family history), or sometimes a combination of both.

A common misconception is that sleepwalking is acting out the physical movements within a dream, but in fact, sleepwalking occurs earlier on in the night when rapid eye movement (REM), or the "dream stage" of sleep, has not yet occurred. REM behavior disorder is the proper term for the condition that occurs when a person "acts out" her dream.

Explanation

Sleepwalking can affect people of any age. It generally occurs when an individual moves during slow wave sleep or SWS (during stage 3 or 4 of slow wave sleep�deep sleep) (Horne, 1992; Kales & Kales, 1975). In children and young adults, up to 80% of the night is spent in SWS (50% in infants). However, this decreases as the person ages, until none can be measured in the geriatric individual. For this reason, children and young adults (or anyone else with a high amount of slow wave sleep [SWS]) are more likely to be woken up and, for the same reasons, they are witnessed to have many more episodes than the older individuals.

Statistics

According to a Finnish study published in 1997, children sleepwalk more frequently than adults. Sleepwalking was reported for 6.9% of female children and 5.7% of male children, compared to rates of 3.1% for adult women and 3.9% for adult men.[2]

Drug-related sleepwalking

The sleep aid Zolpidem (also sold under the brand name Ambien) has been associated with an increased likelihood to sleep walk,[3] including especially dangerous sleeping activities such as driving.

Activities

Activities such as eating, bathing, urinating, talking, dressing, driving cars, painting, whistling, dancing, committing murder, or [4][5][6] engaging in sexual intercourse[7] have been reported or claimed to have occurred during sleepwalking. In December 2008, reports were published of a woman who sent semi-coherent emails while sleepwalking, including one inviting a friend around for dinner and drinks.[8]

Contrary to popular belief, most cases of sleepwalking do not consist of walking around (without the conscious knowledge of the subject). Most cases of somnambulism occur when the person is awakened (something or someone disturbs their SWS); the person may sit up, look around and immediately go back to sleep. But these kinds of incidences are rarely noticed or reported unless recorded in a sleep clinic.

Sleepwalkers engage in their activities with their eyes open so they can navigate their surroundings, not with their eyes closed and their arms outstretched, as often parodied in cartoons and films. The subject's eyes may have a glazed or empty appearance, and if questioned, the subject will be slow to answer and may be unable to respond in an intelligible manner.

Hazards and safety

When sleepwalkers are a danger to themselves or others (for example, when climbing up or down steps or trying to use a potentially dangerous tool such as a stove or a knife), steering them away from the danger and back to bed is advisable. It has even been reported that people have died or were injured as a result of sleepwalking[9].[10] Sleepwalking should not be confused with psychosis.

Sleepwalking has in rare cases been used as a defense (sometimes successfully) against charges of murder (see Homicidal somnambulism).

Automatism

In some rare cases, a person may enter into the behaviors consistent with sleepwalking from a state of being awake and alert. This disorder is usually diagnosed as a form of epilepsy known as automatism. An attack usually begins with little or no warning. The subject may engage in simple gestures or small movements, or less commonly, complex behaviors like cooking or driving, performing the activity as if fully alert. After the seizure ends, the subject has no memory of the event, and often feels disoriented[11].

See also

* Automatism
* Dream
* Night terror
* Nightmare
* Sleep paralysis

Sexsomnia

25/03/2009 21:08

Sexsomnia is a potential explanation to reports of incubus, succubus and other paranormal related sexual activities.

Sleep sex or sexsomnia is a form of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) parasomnia (similar to sleepwalking) that causes people to engage in sexual acts while they are asleep. The proposed medical diagnosis is NREM Arousal Parasomnia - Sexual Behaviour in Sleep, and is considered to be a distinct variant of sleepwalking/confusional arousals (ICSD 2).

Symptoms

The first research paper that suggested that sexual behavior during sleep may be a new type of parasomnia was published in 1996 by three researchers from the University of Toronto (Dr. Colin Shapiro and Dr. Nik Trajanovic) and the University of Ottawa (Dr. Paul Fedoroff) [1]. Later, several papers were published describing the problem and suggested that problematic forms of sleep sex are medically treatable "conditions" (see external links). The condition was defined in a paper called "Sexsomnia � A New Parasomnia?" published in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry in June 2003. The first doctor to coin the term "Sleep sex" was Dr. David Saul Rosenfeld, a neurologist and sleep doctor from Los Angeles, California.

In some cases, sufferers are aware of their behavior for a long time before they seek help, often because they lack information that it is a medical disorder or for fear that others will judge it as willful behavior rather than a medical condition. However, the reality of sexsomnia has been confirmed by sleep disorder researchers who have made polygraphic and video recordings of patients with the condition while they are asleep and observed unusual brain wave activity during the episodes similar to that experienced in other NREM arousal parasomnias. It is a mind/body disconnect that occurs during sleep. The treatment has commonalities with other NREM parasomnias, and also involves specific interventions. By avoiding precipitating factors and ensuring a safe environment, the condition could be brought to a high level of control with minimal effort.

Sexsomnia is not always problematic or extreme for those who experience it or for their partners. There is a great variety in both the frequency and levels to which people are affected by this disorder.

Cases reported in the press

Natalie Pona, the then Sun reporter, broke the story of the first case of sexsomnia in the fall of 2005.

On 30 November 2005, a Toronto court acquitted a man of sexual assault after he was diagnosed with sleep sex disorder, although prosecutors have filed an appeal of the acquittal as of February 2006.[1] The Ontario Court of Appeal upheld the acquittal on 7 February 2008 [2]

In Britain, a man from York was cleared of three counts of rape on 19 December 2005.[3]

In Australia, a woman was reported as leaving her house at night and having sex with strangers while sleepwalking.[4]

On 8 August 2007, a British RAF mechanic was cleared of a rape charge after the jury found him not responsible of his actions when he had sex with a 15-year-old girl.[5]

On 23 March 2009, a British woman gave an interview in which she spoke about problems in her life caused by sexomnia.[6]

Fictional cases

A case of this disorder is found in the episode "Role Model" of the television series House Season 1 Episode 17 .

An episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit (season 9, episode 2, aired on October 2, 2007) called Avatar featured a suspect with this disorder. However, it turned out he was not the culprit.

In Ralph Ellison's novel Invisible Man, a farmer claims to have had sex with his daughter while asleep (the novel was written in 1953, decades before the condition was described).

See Also

* Somnambulism (Sleepwalking)
* Somniloquy (sleep-talking)
* Sleep paralysis
* REM sleep
* Rapid eye movement behavior disorder
* Dreaming

Incubus (2005 film)

26/03/2009 13:13

'Incubus' is a 2006 film by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment starring actress Tara Reid. It had an exclusive internet premiere on AOL during Halloween 2006, and was subsequently released on DVD in 2007.

Plot

Jay, her brother, and three friends seeking refuge from a torrential storm break into what they think is an abandoned recycling plant. Incredibly, they find that they've stumbled into the aftermath of a horribly brutal double murder, the only survivor of which is a Sleeper - a coma patient hooked up to life support in a triple-locked, shatter proof observation room. Closer examination reveals a disturbing truth: the Sleeper is Orin Kiefer, a murderer executed by lethal injection six years earlier for butchering his family. Trapped inside with this comatose madman, they soon discover there is no escape and the Sleeper is not as harmless as he would seem.

Jay, her brother and friends search for a way out of the factory. Unfortunately, neither Jay's brother nor her friends ever make it out of the factory alive. A psychotic man roaming the building attacks and kills her brother. What's more, is that falling asleep becomes the most dangerous thing of all.

When Peter falls asleep, his dreams are invaded and his mind is controlled by the comatose madman. The madman turns Peter into a deranged killer like himself, and he tries to attack Jay and the remaining friends, but they make it safely to the observation room and try sort the situation out.

They discover that the Sleeping madman in the room possesses the power of an Incubus demon, and can invade and control another human's mind through their dreams. To test this theory, they tell Holly to go to sleep. She is the weakest of the three, and if she turns into a psychotic killer like Peter, she'll be tied up, and easily kept under control. She agrees, and falls asleep.

Jay and Bug wait, not expecting anything to happen, but after a few minutes, Holly becomes mad, and tries to attack Bug and Jay. They try to get her to snap out of the spell of the Incubus, but find they cannot and must kill Holly. Angry, disgusted, and scared, Bug turns and attacks the comatose madman, still peacefully sleeping and dreaming. He rips off the machinery that shocks him and keeps him in his unconscious state. Bug and Jay run to get out of the factory.

Peter is waiting for them, and Bug kills him with a hammer. With his dying breath, he reveals that he is no longer psychotic. He is only Peter. As it turns out, the reason he is no longer psychotic, is because the Incubus is no longer sleeping and controlling his mind. Because the machinery keeping him comatose was destroyed, he was able to free himself, wake up, and kill. He murders Bug with a simple twist of Bug's neck, and turns to go after Jay, walking slowly and menacingly.

Though Jay manages to trick the Incubus by making it look as though she escaped onto the factory's roof, and making it possible to kill him, she makes the mistake of falling asleep after the supposed killing. She dreams of the Incubus, and he enters inside of her, making her delirious when she wakes up.

As sheriffs arrive to the scene, they discover the dead Incubus, and bloody Jay. They assume she is a killer, though she does not say a single word. She is led into a police car, in handcuffs. The movie ends with a brief shot of Jay's eyes, which suddenly turn into an alarming design revealing that she becomes a psychotic killer, possessed by the Incubus.

Cast

Tara Reid .... Jay
Akemnji Ndifornyen .... Bug
Alice O'Connell .... Holly
Rusell Carter .... Peter
Christian Brassington .... Peter
Mihai Stanescu .... Sleeper
Monica Dean .... Karen
Sandu Mihai Gruia .... Dr. Gregg
Luana Stoica.... Dr. Yousov
Ioan Brancu .... Crazy Man
Dan Mason .... The Sheriff
Silviu Olteanu .... The Deputy

Other Information

Directed by Anya Camilleri

Produced by Sherman Jay Sall, Donald Kushner, Adam Shapiro

Written by Gary Humphreys

Music by Simon Boswell

Cinematography John Lynch

Editing by Andy McGraw, John Wilson

Release date(s) October 31st, 2006 (internet) February 6th, 2007 (DVD)

Running time 92 min

Country United Kingdom

Language Spanish/English

Succubus

25/03/2009 13:30

Sucubus, Succubus, succubi

Succubus is the term used when referring to a female demon whom thrives on sex. Often it is proclaimed that a Succubus will attach herself to an unsuspecting and unwilling male raping him and using sex to torture him.

Once he's drained or dead, it's proclaimed the Succubus will then move onto another male.

Some however proclaim it's nothing more than a nightmare.

Information from the wikipedia

A Succubus (plural succubi) is a demon who takes the form of a highly attractive woman to seduce men,[1] in dreams to have sexual intercourse, according to the medieval European legend. Their male counterpart is the incubus. They draw energy from the men to sustain themselves, often until the point of exhaustion or death of the victim.[citation needed] One such story[2] relates to a man in the town of Coblenz, who has been bewitched by a succubus, with whom he is forced to repeatedly fornicate, whilst in the presence of his wife. The story goes on to say that "after an incredible number of such bouts, the poor man at last sinks to the floor utterly exhausted and disgusted beyond belief." From mythology and fantasy, Lilith and the Lilin (Jewish) and Lilitu (Sumerian) are in redactive Christian fables (folktales not part of official Christian theology), considered forms of succubi.

According to the Malleus Maleficarum, or "Witches' Hammer", written by Heinrich Kramer (Insitoris) in 1486, a succubus would collect semen from the men she slept with, which incubi would then use to impregnate women,[3] thus explaining how demons could apparently sire children in spite of the traditional belief that demons were incapable of reproduction through generative or gestative means. Children so begotten were supposed to be those that were born deformed, or more susceptible to supernatural influences.[4]

Etymology

First attested 1387, derived from Late Latin succuba "strumpet", used to describe the supernatural being as well. From succubare "to lie under", from sub- "under" and cubare "to lie".[5]

See also

"Incubus" also known as "incubi".

* Al Basti
* Cecaelia
* Empusa
* Energy vampire
* Hisa-me
* Hone-onna
* Incubus
* Lamia
* Lid�rc
* Lilith
* Mara
* Melusine
* Morrigan Aensland
* Nevan
* Naamah

Feature Films

The Incubus (1981 film)

Incubus (1965 film)

Incubus (2005 film)

Maurice Grosse

20/02/2009 18:34

Maurice Grosse (6 March 1919 in London, England - 14 October 2006 in London, England) was a British paranormal investigator famous for his involvement in the Enfield Poltergeist case.

Early life

Grosse was educated at the Regent Street Polytechnic in London. After serving an apprenticeship in commercial art and design, he served in World War II with the Royal Artillery and was among those evacuated from Dunkirk in 1940. Commissioned in 1941, he became responsible for the guarding and welfare of Italian prisoners of war for the remainder of the war. He married his wife Betty in 1944 and they had two daughters and a son. After the war, he became an inventor, and he filed the first of his many mechanical patents in 1945. His most successful invention was the rotating advertising billboard. In 1961 Grosse founded his own design and engineering consultancy business which became responsible for launching many patents throughout the world.[1]

Psychical Investigator

A personal tragedy launched Grosse into psychical research, when his daughter Janet was killed in a motorcycle accident in August 1976. Following her death, members of Grosse's family experienced a number of coincidences and psychic happenings. These led him to join the Society for Psychical Research. In September 1977 he investigated a poltergeist in a house in north London. This became the famous Enfield Poltergeist case. Grosse supported the family for many months, staying at the house for long periods and recording many hours of cassette and video evidence of the phenomena. The poltergeist activity is summarised in the book This House is Haunted (1980), written by Guy Lyon Playfair, who also investigated the case.

A controversial aspect of the case was a voice resembling that of an old man but speaking through an 11-year-old girl who was the focus of the poltergeist activity. When the girl was accused by ventriloquist Ray Alan and others of faking the voice, Grosse offered �1,000 to anyone who could duplicate the voice by ventriloquism or any other form of trickery. No one took up his challenge.[1]

Later life

Grosse investigated many other cases, and served as a member of the Society for Psychical Research's Council, as well as being the long-serving Chairman of its Spontaneous Phenomena Committee. In 1995 Grosse was at a vigil in Charlton House when it was claimed that a piece of crockery materialised and shattered. In 2000 he again was able to record poltergeist knockings on videotape at the home of a family in north London. In addition to ghosts and poltergeists, Grosse also investigated numerous claims of precognition. He also put together an extensive collection of alleged examples of psychic photography. He continued this work right up until the summer of 2006.

Grosse appeared posthumously in Channel 4's documentary Interview with a Poltergeist which was transmitted on the 6th March 2007.

berkeley square (number 50)

19/11/2007 14:29

possibly the most famous haunted house in London. the hauntings seem to have begun sometime in the 1830's after a young woman threw herself to her death from an upstairs window (still to be seen today). and reached a peak about 50 years later. the occurrences though seemed to centre around a character called Myers who went mad in the house after his betrothed called of the wedding. he died in 1878. two years later another family bought the house and one evening the housemaid was found in a state of severe shock with an expression of unspeakable horror on her face at the foot of the bed in one of the rooms-the poor girl died the following day. the most famous instance involved two sailors on home leave around Christmas time (the year escapes me for the moment) and having found themselves wandering the streets of London with nowhere to stay stumbled on number 50. they both settled into what was then known as "the haunted bedroom". one of the sailors felt uneasy but the other was soon asleep-after a couple of hours a shuffling could be heard coming up the stairs-the sailor was in the process of waking his mate when some "large dark and shapeless thing" glided into the room and set about attacking the men. one of which managed to get out into the street-his mate was not so fotunate. he was thrown from (presumably) the same window as the girl fell all those years before-a post mortem revealed he was dead before being hurled from the window-he had died of sheer fright. the house is now owned by a booksellers. and there have been no reports of activity in later years-though it is worth noting that a certain room is still avoided during the darker hours by the staff.

328 chase street

19/11/2007 14:31

328 chase street Pennsylvania was the home of Jack and Janet Smurl who's encounter with a paranormal entity (seemingly malevolent) was to form the foundation of many a heated discussion on for for's and against the existence of spiritual beings in American folklore (even to the point of a film being made). it all started in January 1974 when jack and Janet (both devout Catholics) started encountering terrifying occurrences. stains would appear on the living room carpet which no matter how much scrubbing could not be removed. deep scratch marks appeared on furniture and loud rapping noises as though someone was knocking hard on the ceilings and walls of the house. the telephone would continue ringing after the receiver was taken off the hook-this stayed in much the same way for ten years or so-then worse was to come!!. first the voices started-not much to begin with just whispers then the apparitions came. some were smiling but with a sinister smile as if promising worse to come-it did. the Smurls were then subjected to severe physical attacks and more alarmingly sexual attacks by corpse-like creatures. the attacks were not confined to the house as the Smurls were also attacked on holiday-a unique case in anyone's language. the hauntings ceased when the Smurls vacated the house in 1987. there have been no more reported instances at the house since then. it may also be worth noting that the house was built on old mine workings.

Sir William Barrett FRS

06/10/2007 01:17

Professor of Physics at the Royal College of Science for Dublin from 1873-1910 and one of the distinguished early psychical researchers. In fact, it was Barrett who first initiated the founding of both the American and British Society for Psychical Research.
Apparitions

- Sir William Barrett FRS -
"Dare I say
No spirit ever brake the band
That stays him from the native land,
Where first he walk'd when claspt in clay?
[/b]- In Memoriam xciii[/b]

WE MUST now pass on from the bizarre and perplexing phenomena we have so far discussed to the more important question of the evidence spiritualism affords of the continuance of human life after it has, to all appearance, ceased in the material body. Before entering upon the experimental part of this enquiry it is desirable to consider the evidence on behalf of survival derived from apparitions of the dying and the dead. This aspect of our subject meets with wider acceptance, and less objection from religious minds, than the evidence derived from sittings with some medium, which many regard as illegitimate.

One of the most cautious and philosophical among our distinguished men of science of the last generation, the late Dr. R. Angus Smith, F.R.S., wrote to me, forty years ago, that he was not aware of any law of nature, except the most obvious, that was sustained by so much and such respectable evidence as the fact of apparitions about the time of death.(1) In a subsequent interview I learnt from him that this opinion was arrived at only after long and careful investigation of the evidence attainable at that time. Since then the Society for Psychical Research has obtained a mass of additional and confirmatory evidence, which is incorporated in the two bulky volumes on "Phantasms of the Living" published by the Society.

(1) As the whole letter may be of future interest, I give it here in full:

"MANCHESTER,

"October 18th 1876.

MY DEAR PROFESSOR BARRETT, - I see you are deep in that fascinating study, the action of mind freed from the organism. It surprises me much that any man is found to think it of little importance, and that any man is found who thinks his own opinion so important that he cares for no evidence. I have not been able to find a book which contains all the laws of nature needed to sustain the world, but some men are easily satisfied.

"It is difficult to obtain such proofs as men demand for free mind. Visions are innumerable, and under circumstances that seem to render the sight of the absent, especially about the time of death, a reality. I am not aware of any law of nature (except the most obvious, such as are seen by common observers) which is sustained by so many assertions so well attested, as far as respectability of evidence goes. The indications we have point out to some mighty truth more decidedly than even the aberrations of Uranus to the newest of the great planets. If we could prove the action of mind at a distance by constant experiment it would be a discovery that would make all other discoveries seem trifles.

Yours sincerely
R. ANGUS SMITH."

Statistical Enquiry

In that monumental work, chiefly due to the labour and learning of Mr. Edmund Gurney, the interval between death and the apparition of the dying or deceased person was limited to 12 hours. First-hand records were however received where this interval was greatly exceeded, whilst the fact of death was still unknown to the percipient at the time of his experience. After rigorous scrutiny 134 first-hand narratives are given where the coincidence between death and the recognised "appearance "' (whether by a visual or auditory experience) of the deceased to a distant person, who was not aware of the death, is exact, or within an hour; in 39 cases the apparition was seen more than an hour, but within 12 hours of death, and in 38 cases the apparition was seen shortly before death, or when death did not follow, though the person was seriously ill.(1) In 104 cases it was not known whether the percipients' experience shortly preceded or followed the death; owing to this uncertainty these cases were not taken into account.

(1) Proceedings S. P. R.," Vol. V., P. 408.

Mr. Gurney and Mr. Myers contributed a valuable paper to Vol. V. of the "Proceedings of the S. P. R.," where additional first-hand evidence was given of "apparitions occurring soon after death." This was supplemented by a paper Mr. Myers contributed to Vol. VI. on 99 apparitions occurring more than a year after death," where 14 veridical and recognised apparitions are recorded on first-hand evidence.

The result of a critical examination of the evidence left no doubt in the mind of any student that these apparitions were veridical or truth telling, and that their occurrence was not due to any illusion of the percipient or chance coincidence. As regards this latter in order to arrive at a statistical proof Mr. Gurney obtained a numerical comparison of the veridical apparitions with those which were purely accidental, i.e. did not coincide with death. For this purpose he obtained nearly 6,000 replies to the question he addressed to adults, whether they had had any such apparition or hallucination during the preceding ten years. This was followed by a still more elaborate census of a similar kind, taken by Professor Henry and Mrs. Sidgwick, wherein 17,000 replies were received. When the relative frequency of veridical to accidental hallucinations was critically examined the possibility of chance coincidence as an explanation could be proved or disproved. The result showed, in the Sidgwick census alone, that the proportion of veridical and recognized apparitions (i.e. coincidental cases) to the meaningless (i.e. non-coincidental cases) was 440 times greater than pure chance would give. The elaborate examination of this census by experts fills Vol. X. of the Proceedings of the S.P.R., and the definite but cautiously expressed conclusion is reached that:

"Between deaths and apparitions of the dying person a connection exists which is not due to chance alone. This we hold to be a proved fact. The discussion of its full implications cannot be attempted in this paper, nor, perhaps, exhausted in this age."

Apparitions

Such a result refutes the common idea that it was a mere chance the apparition happened to coincide with the death of that particular person, and that the hits are remembered and the misses forgotten.

It was found in the course of these lengthy enquiries that the number of recognised apparitions decreases rapidly in the few days after death, then more slowly, and after a year or more they become far less frequent and more sporadic. This indeed might have been expected; for on any theory as to the nature of these apparitions it is likely that the power of communication between the dead and those living on earth would lessen as the time of transition from this life becomes more and more remote. We need not conclude from this that the soul of the departed is gradually extinguished, for we cannot track the course of the soul nor know its affinities in the larger life beyond. There are, moreover, cases, to which we will refer in a later chapter where evidence of survival has been given more than a generation after the communicator has passed from earth-life.

Those who have witnessed the apparition of a distant deceased friend, of whose death they were wholly unaware, or have heard the statement at first hand, are far more impressed by this single occurrence than by any amount of evidence derived from reading reports of apparitions. This was the case with myself when a young friend of mine narrated to me the following account of the apparition she experienced; nor did the searching cross-examination to which she was submitted at the meeting of the Psychical Research Society where I read the account, shake her testimony in the least. The full report will be found in the "Journal of the S. P. R." for May, 1908. An important feature of this incident is that the percipient was at the time at school in a convent in Belgium, where she had absolutely no access to newspapers, or any other sources of information which might have suggested the apparition. Briefly the case is as follows:

A gentleman, of some note, shot himself in London in the spring of 1907. There can be little doubt that his mind was unhinged at the time by the receipt that morning of a letter from a lady that blighted all his hope; before taking his life he scribbled a memorandum leaving an annuity to my young friend, who was his god-child and to whom he was greatly attached. Three days afterwards (on the day of his funeral) he appeared to this godchild, who, as stated, was being educated in a convent school on the Continent, informing her of the fact of his sudden death, of its manner, and of the cause which had led him to take his life, and asking her to pray for him.

The mother, anxious to conceal from her daughter the distressing circumstances of her godfather's death, waited to write until a few days after the funeral, and then only stated that her uncle (as he was called) had died suddenly. Subsequently, upon meeting her daughter on her return from the Continent, the mother was amazed to hear not only of the apparition, but that it had communicated to her daughter all the circumstances which she had never intended her daughter to know. Careful inquiry shows that it was impossible for the information to have reached her daughter through normal means.

A member of the S.P.R., Miss Charlton, who kindly went to the convent to make enquiries into this case, states that the girls in the convent never see any newspapers, all letters are supervised, and no one in the convent seems to have known of the deceased gentleman; hence "that any knowledge of her godfather's suicide, or of the reason for it, could have reached the percipient by ordinary channels, cannot be entertained for a moment."

The mother of the percipient, who is a personal friend of mine, assured me that neither she nor any of her relatives (had they known of the suicide, which they did not) wrote to the convent on the matter, except as narrated above.

Sometimes, as in the foregoing case, the phantasm is not only seen but also apparently heard to speak; sometimes it may announce its presence by audible signals. We may regard such cases as auditory as well as visual hallucinations. Rapping was heard as well as the apparition seen, in the following case, which was investigated by Professor Sidgwick in 1892, and the house also visited by Mrs. Sidgwick. The percipient was the Rev. Matthew Frost of Bowers Gifford, Essex, who made the following statement:

"The first Thursday in April 1881, while sitting at tea with my back to the window and talking with my wife in the usual way, I plainly heard a rap at the window, and looking round at the window I said to my wife, 'Why, there's my grandmother,' and went to the door, but could not see anyone; still feeling sure it was my grandmother, and knowing, though she was eighty-three years of age, that she was very active and fond of a joke. I went round the house, but could not see any one. My wife did not hear it. On the following Saturday, I had news my grandmother died in Yorkshire about half-an-hour before the time I heard the rapping. The last time I saw her alive I promised, if well, I would attend her funeral; that was some two years before. I was in good health and had no trouble, age twenty-six years. I did not know that my grandmother was ill."

Mrs. Frost writes:

"I beg to certify that I perfectly remember all the circumstances my husband has named, but I heard and saw nothing myself."

Professor Sidgwick learned from Mr. Frost that the last occasion on which he had seen his grandmother, three years before the apparition, she promised if possible to appear to him at her death. He had no cause for anxiety on her account; news of the death came to him by letter, and both Mr. and Mrs. Frost were then struck by the coincidence. It was full daylight when Mr. Frost saw the figure and thought that his grandmother had unexpectedly arrived in the flesh and meant to surprise him. Had there been a real person Mrs. Frost would both have seen and heard; nor could a living person have got away in the time, as Mrs. Sidgwick found the house stood in a garden a good way back from the road, and Mr. Frost immediately went out to see if his grandmother was really there.

The following case was carefully investigated, and corroborative evidence obtained, by Mr. Ed. Gurney, soon after the experience occurred to the narrator, Mr. Husbands(1):

(1) "Proceedings S. P R.," Vol. V., 1889.

"September 15th, 1886.

The facts are simply these. I was sleeping in a hotel in Madeira early in 1885. It was a bright moonlight night. The windows were open and the blinds up. I felt someone was in my room. On opening my eyes, I saw a young fellow about twenty-five, dressed in flannels, standing at the side of my bed and pointing with the first finger of his right hand to the place I was lying in. I lay for some seconds to convince myself of someone being really there. I then sat up and looked at him. I saw his features so plainly that I recognised them in a photograph which was shown me some days after. I asked him what he wanted; he did not speak, but his eyes and hand seemed to tell me I was in his place. As he did not answer, I struck out at him with my fist as I sat up, but did not reach him, and as I was going to spring out of bed he slowly vanished through the door, which was shut, keeping his eyes upon me all the time.

"Upon inquiry I found that the young fellow who appeared to me died in the room I was occupying.

"JOHN E. HUSBANDS."

The following letter is from Miss Falkner, of Church Terrace, Wisbech, who was resident at the hotel when the above incident happened:

"October 8th 1886.

"The figure that Mr. Husbands saw while in Madeira was that of a young fellow who died unexpectedly some months previously, in the room which Mr. Husbands was occupying. Curiously enough, Mr. H. had never heard of him or his death. He told me the story the morning after he had seen the figure, and I recognised the young fellow from the description. It impressed me very much, but I did not mention it to him or any one. I loitered about until I heard Mr. Husbands tell the same tale to my brother; we left Mr. H. and said simultaneously, 'He has seen Mr. D.'

"No more was said on the subject for days; then I abruptly showed the photograph. Mr. Husbands said at once, 'This is the young fellow who appeared to me the other night, but he was dressed differently' - describing a dress he often wore - 'cricket suit (or tennis) fastened at the neck with a sailor knot.' I must say that Mr. Husbands is a most practical man, and the very last one would expect a 'spirit' to visit.

"K. FALKNER."

On further enquiry it was found that the young man who appeared to Mr. Husbands had died just a year previously, that the room in which he died had subsequently been occupied by other visitors, who apparently had not seen any apparition, and that it must have been February 2nd or 3rd that Mr. Husbands took the room and saw the figure. Miss Falkner's sister-in-law, who was also at the hotel at the time, corroborates the above facts, and remembers Mr. Husbands telling her the incident; she also gave Miss Falkner the photograph of the deceased which Mr. Husbands recognized.

Even if Mr. Husbands had heard of the death of Mr. D. and forgotten the circumstance, this would not enable him to recognize the likeness when he was shown the photograph. Mr. Gurney, as I have said, carefully investigated this case, and saw both Mr. Husbands and Miss Falkner, receiving full viva voce accounts from each Mr. Gurney remarks:

"They are both thoroughly practical and as far removed as possible from a superstitious love of marvels; nor had they any previous interest in this or any other class of super-normal experiences. So far as I could judge Mr. Husbands' view of himself is entirely correct - that he is the last person to give a spurious importance to anything that might befall him, or to allow facts to be distorted by imagination. As will be seen, his account of his vision preceded any knowledge on his part of the death which had occurred in the room."

It would extend this book unduly were I to give any further selections from the numerous, remarkable and well authenticated cases of apparitions which are recorded in the "Proceedings of the S.P.R."(1) They are in fact so common and so generally accepted that the chief scepticism regarding them has been as to "the ghosts of the clothes" they wore, as in the last case. This would be puzzling if they were regarded as objective realities, external to the percipient. But if we regard apparitions of the dying and dead as phantasms projected from the mind of the percipient, the difficulties of clothes, and the ghosts of animal pets which sometimes are seen, disappear.

(1) A few other striking cases; are given in Chapter X of my book on Psychical Research in the Home University Library.

Experimental Phantasms

There is nothing improbable in this subjective theory of apparitions, for all the things we see are phantasms projected from our mind into the external world. It is true that a minute and real inverted picture of the objects around us is thrown on the retina by the optical arrangements in the eye, but we do not look at that picture as the photographer does in his camera; it creates an impression on certain brain cells, and then we mentally project outside ourselves a large erect phantasm of the retinal image. It is true this phantasm has its origin in the real image on the retina, but it is no more a real thing than is the virtual image of ourselves we see in a looking glass. If now, instead of the, impression being made on certain cells in the brain through the fibres of the optic nerve, an impression be made directly on those same brain cells by some telepathic impact, it may reasonably be supposed that a visual reaction follows, and a corresponding image would be projected by our mind into external space.

Nor is this pure hypothesis. Actual experiments in telepathy have been repeatedly made where the percipient has seen an apparition of the distant person who mentally desired his presence to be known. The first successful attempt at this, under conditions that admit of no dispute, was made in 1881 by a personal friend, Mr. S. H. Beard, one of the earliest members of the Society for Psychical Research. On several occasions Mr. Beard, by an effort of his will, was able to cause a phantom of himself to appear, three miles away, to certain acquaintances who were not aware of his intention to make the experiment. The phantom appeared so real and solid that the percipient thought Mr. Beard himself had suddenly come into the room; and on one occasion the figure was seen by two persons simultaneously. Similar results have been obtained by at least nine other persons, independently of each other, living, in fact, in different parts of the world, more than one carefully conducted and successful experiment being made in each case.(1)

(1) Full details of these cases will be found in Mr. Myers' Human Personality, Vol. 1, pp. 292 et seq and pp. 688 et seq.

Doubtless these apparitions, though appearing so life-like and substantial, were hallucinations, but by what process is thought able to reproduce itself in a distant mind, and thus cause these phantoms to be projected from it? Either, thought in A. by some unknown means, affects the brain matter in B., and so excites the impression, or thought exists independently of matter. Whichever alternative we take, as Mr. F. W. H. Myers says:

"It is the very secret of life that confronts us here; the fundamental antinomy between Mind and Matter. But such confrontations with metaphysical problems reduced to concrete form are a speciality of our research; and since this problem does already exist since the brain cells are, in fact, altered either by the thought or along with it - we have no right to take for granted that the problem, when more closely approached, will keep within its ancient limits, or that Mind, whose far-darting energy we are now realising, must needs be always powerless upon aught but the grey matter of the brain." ("Proceedings" S.P.R., Vol. X., P. 421).

Certainly amongst mankind a conscious thought always strives and tends to externalise itself, to pass from a conception to an expression. Creation is the externalised thought of God, and this God-like attribute we, as part of the Universal Mind, share in a partial, limited degree. Our words and actions are a constant, though partial, embodiment of our thoughts, effected through the machinery of our nervous and muscular systems. But without this machinery thought can sometimes, as we have shown, transcend its ordinary channels of expression, and act, not mediately, but directly, upon another mind, producing not only visual and auditory impressions but also physiological changes.

The Stigmata

In fact carefully conducted experiments, some of which I have myself witnessed, have shown that startling physiological changes can be produced in a hypnotised subject merely by conscious or subconscious mental suggestion. Thus a red scar or a painful burn can be caused to appear on the body of the subject solely through suggesting the idea. By some local disturbance of the blood vessels in the skin, the unconscious self has done what it would be impossible for the conscious self to perform. And so in the well attested cases of stigmata, where a close resemblance to the wounds on the body of the crucified Saviour appear on the body of the ecstatic. This is a case of unconscious self-suggestion, arising from the intent and adoring gaze of the ecstatic upon the bleeding figure on the crucifix. With the abeyance of the conscious self the hidden powers emerge, whilst the trance and mimicry of the wounds are strictly parallel to the experimental cases previously referred to.

May not the effects of pre-natal impressions on the offspring (if such cases are proved) also have a similar origin? And if I may make the suggestion, may not the well-known cases of mimicry in animal life originate, like the stigmata, in a reflex action, - as physiologists would say, - below the level of consciousness, created to some extent by a predominant impression? I venture to think that ere long biologists will recognise the importance of the psychical factor in evolution.

Adaptation to environment is usually a slow process spread over countless generations, but here also the same causes, inter alia, may be at work. Moreover, even rapid changes sometimes occur. Thus the beautiful experiments of Professor Poulton, F.R.S., have shown that certain caterpillars can more than once in their lifetime change their colour to suit their surroundings. I have seen a brilliant green caterpillar acquire a black skin when taken from its green environment and placed among black twigs. It is no explanation to say that the nervous stimulus which produced these pigmentary deposits is excited by a particular light acting on the surface of the skin.

Through what wonder-working power is this marvellous change accomplished? Not, of course, through any conscious action of the caterpillar, for even the pupae of these caterpillars undergo a like change, a light-coloured chrysalis becoming perfectly black when placed on black paper; even patches of metallic lustre, exactly like gold, appear on its integument, as I can testify, when the chrysalis is placed on gilt paper! Does it not seem as if animal life shared with us, in some degree, certain super-normal powers, and that these colour changes might be due to the influence of causes somewhat analogous to those producing the stigmata, i.e., suggestion, unconsciously derived from the environment? If so, we have here something like the externalising of unconscious thought in ourselves.

Are Apparitions Objective?

To return from this digression. Whether all apparitions are insubstantial and subjective, due to a telepathic impact from the living or the dead, I am not prepared to say. There are cases which this hypothesis covers only with difficulty where several people have witnessed the apparition and where it has seemed to have a definite objective existence in successive positions. In any case we need to be on our guard against pressing the telepathic theory to absurd extremes, as some psychical researchers seem disposed to do.

We are in fact, only on the threshold of our knowledge of this obscure and difficult region of enquiry, and humility of mind no less than confidence of hope should be our habit of thought. As Sir Oliver Lodge has remarked, "Knowledge can never grow until it is realised that the question 'Do you believe in these things?' is puerile unless it has been preceded by the enquiry, 'What do you know about them?'" It is invariably those who know nothing of the subject who scornfully say "surely you don't believe in these things!"

Visions of the Dying

There are some remarkable instances where the dying person, before the moment of transition from earth, appears to see and recognize some of his deceased relatives or friends. One cannot always attach much weight to this evidence, as hallucinations of the dying are not infrequent. Here however is a case, one of many recorded in that useful journal Light, which much impressed the physician who narrates it.

Dr. Wilson of New York, who was present at the last moments of Mr. James Moore, a well-known tenor in the United States, gives the following narrative:

"It was about 4 a.m., and the dawn for which he had been watching was creeping in through the shutters, when, as I leant over the bed, I noticed that his face was quite calm and his eyes clear. The poor fellow looked me in the face, and, taking my hand in both of his, he said: 'You've been a good friend to me, doctor.' Then something which I shall never forget to my dying day happened, - something which is utterly indescribable. While he appeared perfectly rational and as sane as any man I have ever seen, the only way that I can express it is that he was transported into another world, and although I cannot satisfactorily explain the matter to myself, I am fully convinced that he had entered the golden city - for he said in a stronger voice than he had used since I had attended him: 'There is mother! Why, mother, have you come here to see me? No, no, I am coming to see you, just wait, mother, I am almost over. Wait, mother, wait, mother!'

"On his face there was a look of inexpressible happiness, and the way in which he said the words impressed me as I have never been before, and I am as firmly convinced that he saw and talked with his mother as I am that I am sitting here.

"In order to preserve what I believed to be his conversation with his mother, and also to have a record of the strangest happening of my life, I immediately wrote down every word he said. It was one of the most beautiful deaths I have ever seen."

Miss Cobbe in her Peak in Darien gives another instance of this kind, but the following narrative is even more striking. It is vouched for by my friend the late Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood, who contributed it to the Spectator. Mr. Wedgwood writes:

"Between forty and fifty years ago, a young girl, a near connection of mine, was dying of consumption. She had lain for some days in a prostrate condition, taking no notice of anything, when she opened her eyes, and, looking upwards, said slowly, 'Susan - and Jane - and Ellen!' as if recognising the presence of her three sisters, who had previously died of the same disease. Then, after a short pause, 'And Edward, too!' she continued, - naming a brother then supposed to be alive and well in India, - as if surprised at seeing him in the company. She said no more, and sank shortly afterwards. In course of the post, letters came from India announcing the death of Edward from an accident a week or two previous to the death of his sister. This was told to me by an elder sister who nursed the dying girl, and was present at the bedside at the time of the apparent vision."

This last instance is difficult to explain away, if correctly narrated. I am also personally acquainted with one or two similar cases, which my informants consider too sacred to be made public. Several remarkable cases of visions of the dying are given in the "Proceedings and journal of the S.P.R.," which I regret are too long to be quoted here; the reader is specially referred to the following "Proc.," Vol. III., p. 93; V., P. 459, 460 VI., P. 294. The evidence seems indisputable that, in some rare cases, just before death the veil is partly drawn aside and a glimpse of the loved ones who have passed over is given to the dying person.

Pseudoscience

24/09/2007 04:17

Pseudoscience is any body of knowledge, methodology, belief, or practice that claims to be scientific or is made to appear scientific, but does not adhere to the basic requirements of the scientific method.[2][3][4][5]

The term pseudoscience is based on the Greek root pseudo- (false or pretending) and science (derived from Latin scientia, meaning knowledge). The first recorded use was in 1843 by French physiologist Fran�ois Magendie[1] considered a pioneer in experimental physiology.

The term has negative connotations, because it is used to indicate that subjects so labelled are inaccurately or deceptively portrayed as science.[6] Accordingly, those labelled as practising or advocating a "pseudoscience" normally reject this classification.

As it is taught in certain introductory science classes, pseudoscience is any subject that appears superficially to be scientific or whose proponents state it is scientific but which nevertheless contravenes the testability requirement, or substantially deviates from other fundamental aspects of the scientific method.[7] Professor Paul DeHart Hurd[8] argued that a large part of gaining scientific literacy is "being able to distinguish science from pseudo-science such as astrology, quackery, the occult, and superstition".[9] Certain introductory survey classes in science take careful pains to delineate the objections scientists and sceptics have to practices that make direct claims contradicted by the scientific discipline in question.[10]

Beyond the initial introductory analyses offered in science classes, there is some epistemological disagreement about whether it is possible to distinguish "science" from "pseudoscience" in a reliable and objective way.[11]

Pseudosciences may be characterised by the use of vague, exaggerated or untestable claims, over-reliance on confirmation rather than refutation, lack of openness to testing by other experts, and a lack of progress in theory development.

Background

The standards for determining whether a body of knowledge, methodology, or practice is scientific can vary from field to field, but involve agreed principles including reproducibility and intersubjective verifiability.[12] Such principles aim to ensure that relevant evidence can be reproduced and/or measured given the same conditions, which allows further investigation to determine whether a hypothesis or theory related to given phenomena is both valid and reliable for use by others, including other scientists and researchers. It is expected that the scientific method will be applied throughout, and that bias will be controlled or eliminated, by double-blind studies, or statistically through fair sampling procedures. All gathered data, including experimental/environmental conditions, are expected to be documented for scrutiny and made available for peer review, thereby allowing further experiments or studies to be conducted to confirm or falsify results, as well as to determine other important factors such as statistical significance, confidence intervals, and margins of error.[13] Fulfilment of these requirements allows others a reasonable opportunity to assess whether to rely upon the reported results in their own scientific work or in a particular field of applied science, technology, therapy, or other form of practice.

In the mid-20th Century Karl Popper suggested the criterion of falsifiability to distinguish science from non-science.[14] Statements such as "God created the universe" may be true or false, but they are not falsifiable, so they are not scientific; they lie outside the scope of science. Popper subdivided non-science into philosophical, mathematical, mythological, religious and/or metaphysical formulations on the one hand, and pseudoscientific formulations on the other�though without providing clear criteria for the differences.[15] He gave astrology and psychoanalysis as examples of pseudoscience, and Einstein's theory of relativity as an example of science. More recently, Paul Thagard (1978) proposed that pseudoscience is primarily distinguishable from science when it is less progressive than alternative theories over a long period of time, and the selective and or lack of attempts by proponents to solve problems with the theory.[16] Mario Bunge has suggested the categories of "belief fields" and "research fields" to help distinguish between science and pseudoscience.[17]

Philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend has argued, from a sociology of knowledge perspective, that a distinction between science and non-science is neither possible nor desirable.[18][19] Among the issues which can make the distinction difficult are that both the theories and methodologies of science evolve at differing rates in response to new data.[20] In addition, the specific standards applicable to one field of science may not be those employed in other fields. Thagard also writes from a sociological perspective and states that "elucidation of how science differs from pseudoscience is the philosophical side of an attempt to overcome public neglect of genuine science."

Both the skeptics and the brights movement, most prominently represented by Richard Dawkins, Mario Bunge, Carl Sagan and James Randi, consider all forms of pseudoscience to be harmful, whether or not they result in immediate harm to their adherents. These critics generally consider that the practice of pseudoscience may occur for a number of reasons, ranging from simple na�vet� about the nature of science and the scientific method, to deliberate deception for financial or political gain. At the extreme, issues of personal health and safety may be very directly involved, for example in the case of physical or mental therapy or treatment, or in assessing safety risks. In such instances the potential for direct harm to patients, clients, the general public, or the environment may be an issue in assessing pseudoscience. (See also Junk science.)

The concept of pseudoscience as antagonistic to bona fide science appears to have emerged in the mid-19th century. Among the first recorded uses of the word "pseudo-science" was in 1844 in the Northern Journal of Medicine, I 387: "That opposite kind of innovation which pronounces what has been recognized as a branch of science, to have been a pseudo-science, composed merely of so-called facts, connected together by misapprehensions under the disguise of principles".

Identifying pseudoscience

A field, practice, or body of knowledge might reasonably be called pseudoscientific when (1) it is presented as consistent with the accepted norms of scientific research; but (2) it demonstrably fails to meet these norms, most importantly, in misuse of scientific method.[21]

Subjects may be considered pseudoscientific for various reasons; Popper considered astrology to be pseudoscientific simply because astrologers keep their claims so vague that they could never be refuted, whereas Thagard considers astrology pseudoscientific because its practitioners make little effort to develop the theory, show no concern for attempts to critically evaluate the theory in relation to others, and are selective in considering evidence. More generally, Thagard stated that pseudoscience tends to focus on resemblances rather than cause-effect relations.

Science is also distinguishable from revelation, theology, or spirituality in that it claims to offer insight into the physical world obtained by "scientific" means. Systems of thought that derive from divine or inspired knowledge are not considered pseudoscience if they do not claim either to be scientific or to overturn well-established science.

Some statements and commonly held beliefs in popular science may not meet the criteria of science. "Pop" science may blur the divide between science and pseudoscience among the general public, and may also involve science fiction.[22] Indeed, pop science is disseminated to, and can also easily emanate from, persons not accountable to scientific methodology and expert peer review.

If the claims of a given field can be experimentally tested and methodological standards are upheld, it is not "pseudoscience", however odd, astonishing, or counter-intuitive. If claims made are inconsistent with existing experimental results or established theory, but the methodology is sound, caution should be used; science consists of testing hypotheses which may turn out to be false. In such a case, the work may be better described as ideas that are not yet generally accepted.

The following have been proposed to be indicators of poor scientific reasoning.

Use of vague, exaggerated or untestable claims

* Assertion of scientific claims that are vague rather than precise, and that lack specific measurements.[23]

* Failure to make use of operational definitions. (i.e. a scientific description of the operational means in which a range of numeric measurements can be obtained).[24]

* Lack of suitable controls. This is particularly common of some alternative medicines, particularly homoeopathy where a demonstration of an effect above and beyond that of a placebo is often absent [12].

* Failure to make reasonable use of the principle of parsimony, i.e. failing to seek an explanation that requires the fewest possible additional assumptions when multiple viable explanations are possible.[25]

* Use of obscurantist language, and misuse of apparently technical jargon in an effort to give claims the superficial trappings of science.

* Lack of boundary conditions: Most well-supported scientific theories possess boundary conditions (well articulated limitations) under which the predicted phenomena do and do not apply.[26]

Over-reliance on confirmation rather than refutation

* Assertion of scientific claims that cannot be falsified in the event they are incorrect, inaccurate, or irrelevant[27]

* Assertion of claims that a theory predicts something that it has not been shown to predict[28]

* Assertion that claims which have not been proven false must be true, and vice versa[29]

* Over-reliance on testimonials and anecdotes. Testimonial and anecdotal evidence can be useful for discovery (i.e. hypothesis generation) but should not be used in the context of justification (i.e. hypothesis testing).[30]

* Selective use of experimental evidence: presentation of data that seems to support its own claims while suppressing or refusing to consider data that conflict with its claims.[31]

* Reversed burden of proof. In science, the burden of proof rests on those making a claim, not on the critic. "Pseudoscientific" arguments may neglect this principle and demand that sceptics demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that a claim (e.g. an assertion regarding the efficacy of a novel therapeutic technique) is false. It is essentially impossible to prove a universal negative, so this tactic incorrectly places the burden of proof on the sceptic rather than the claimant.[32]

* Appeals to holism: Proponents of pseudoscientific claims, especially in organic medicine, alternative medicine, naturopathy and mental health, often resort to the �mantra of holism� to explain negative findings.[33]

Lack of openness to testing by other experts

* Evasion of peer review before publicizing results (called "science by press conference").[34] Some proponents of theories that contradict accepted scientific theories avoid subjecting their ideas to peer review, sometimes on the grounds that peer review is biased towards established paradigms, and sometimes on the grounds that assertions cannot be evaluated adequately using standard scientific methods. By remaining insulated from the peer review process, these proponents forego the opportunity of corrective feedback from informed colleagues.[35]

* The science community expects authors to share data necessary to evaluate a paper. Failure to provide adequate information for other researchers to reproduce the claimed results is a lack of openness.[36]

* Assertion of claims of secrecy or proprietary knowledge in response to requests for review of data or methodology.[37]

Lack of progress

* Failure to progress towards additional evidence of its claims.[38] Terrence Hines has identified astrology as a subject that has changed very little in the past two millennia.[39]

* Lack of self correction: scientific research programmes make mistakes, but they tend to eliminate these errors over time.[40] By contrast, theories may be accused of being pseudoscientific because they have remained unaltered despite contradictory evidence.[41]

Personalization of issues

* Tight social groups and granfalloons. Authoritarian personality, suppression of dissent, and groupthink can enhance the adoption of beliefs that have no rational basis. In attempting to confirm their beliefs, the group tends to identify their critics as enemies.[42]

* Assertion of claims of a conspiracy on the part of the scientific community to suppress the results.[43]

* Attacking the motives or character of anyone who questions the claims.[42]

Use of misleading language

* Creating scientific-sounding terms in order to add weight to claims and persuade non-experts to believe statements that may be false or meaningless.

* Use of uncommon terms for common substances can also be misleading. For example referring to water as dihydrogen monoxide (DHMO) and proclaiming that it is the main constituent of most toxic compounds.

Demographics

The National Science Foundation stated that, in the USA, "pseudoscientific" beliefs became more widespread during the 1990s, peaked near 2001 and mildly declined since; nevertheless, pseudoscientific beliefs remain common in the USA.[44] As a result, according to the NSF report, there is a lack of knowledge of pseudoscientific issues in society and pseudoscientific practices are commonly followed. Bunge (1999) states that "A survey on public knowledge of science in the United States showed that in 1988 50% of American adults [rejected] evolution, and 88% [believed] astrology is a science'".

Commentators on pseudoscience perceive it in many fields; for example Pseudomathematics is a term used for mathematics-like activity undertaken either by non-mathematicians or mathematicians themselves which does not conform to the rigorous standards usually applied to mathematical theorems.

Clinical Psychology

Neurologists and clinical psychologists are concerned about the increasing amount of what they consider pseudoscience promoted in psychotherapy and popular psychology, and also about what they see as pseudoscientific therapies such as Neuro-linguistic programming, EMDR, Rebirthing, Reparenting, and Primal Therapy being adopted by government and professional bodies and by the public.[45] They state that scientifically unsupported therapies used by popular or folk psychology might harm vulnerable members of the public, undermine legitimate therapies, and tend to spread misconceptions about the nature of the mind and brain to society at large. Norcross et al.[46] have approached the science/pseudoscience issue by conducting a survey of experts that seeks to specify which theory or therapy is considered to be definitely discredited, and they outline 14 fields that have been definitely discredited.

A typical concept used in some fringe psychotherapies is orgone energy. "There is an increasing degree of overlapping and blending of orgone therapy with New Age and other therapies that manipulate the patient�s biofields, such as Therapeutic Touch and Reiki. 'Biofield' is a pseudoscientific term often used synonymously with orgone energy. Klee states that there is even small minority of psychiatrists that promote orgone therapy, though such organizations are frowned upon by the general psychiatric community.[47]

However, there is also concern that overzealously striking down methods considered to 'lack scientific support' could be ignoring any therapeutic value observed by clinicians and their patients. Moreover, the very nature of psychology is still under fierce debate, and no single central model has yet been accepted by the scientific community, implying that the rejection of any method on solely theoretical grounds could be in error.[48] This fact in particular, combined with the subjective nature of the phenomena under study, makes it difficult to immediately and unequivocally discount or validate any given method or its theoretical justifications.

Psychological explanations

Pseudoscientific thinking has been explained in terms of psychology and social psychology. The human proclivity for seeking confirmation rather than refutation (confirmation bias),[49] the tendency to hold comforting beliefs, and the tendency to overgeneralize have been proposed as reasons for the common adherence to pseudoscientific thinking. According to Beyerstein (1991) humans are prone to associations based on resemblances only, and often prone to misattribution in cause-effect thinking.

Some transitions from pseudoscience to science

There are examples of presently accepted scientific theories that were once criticised as being pseudoscientific. The transition is marked by increasing scientific scrutiny and specificity within the field and an increased level of evidence to support the theory. Continental drift theory was once considered pseudoscientific (Williams 2000:58), but is now part of mainstream science especially since the paleomagnetic evidence was discovered that supported plate tectonics.

Atwood (2004) suggested that "osteopathy has, for the most part, repudiated its pseudoscientific beginnings and joined the world of rational healthcare."[50]

The field of physical cosmology is a futher example.[51] Currently, string theory has been criticized by certain researchers as suffering from the same problems[52]

Criticisms of the concept of pseudoscience

Pseudoscience contrasted with protoscience

Protoscience is a term sometimes used to describe a hypothesis that has not yet been adequately tested by the scientific method, but which is otherwise consistent with existing science or which, where inconsistent, offers reasonable account of the inconsistency. It may also describe the transition from a body of practical knowledge into a scientific field.[53] By contrast, "pseudoscience" is reserved to describe theories which are either untestable in practice or in principle, or which are maintained even when tests appear to have refuted them.

It is disputed (notably by Feyeraband, see above) whether meaningful boundaries can be drawn between pseudoscience, protoscience, and "real" science. Especially where there is a significant cultural or historical distance (as, for example, modern chemistry reflecting on alchemy), protosciences can be misinterpreted as pseudoscientific.

Demarcation problem

After over a century of dialogue among philosophers of science and scientists in varied fields, and despite broad agreement on the basics of scientific method,[54] the boundaries between science and non-science continue to be debated.[55] This is known as the problem of demarcation.

Many commentators and practitioners of science, as well as supporters of fields of inquiry and practices labeled as pseudoscience, question the rigor of the demarcation[citation needed], as some disciplines now accepted as science previously had features cited as those of pseudoscience, such as lack of reproducibility, or the inability to create falsifiable experiments.[citation needed]

It has been argued by several notable commentators that experimental verification is not in itself decisive in scientific method. Thomas Kuhn states that in neither Popper's nor his own theory "can testing play a quite decisive role."[56] Daniel Rothbart said that "the defining feature of science does not seem to be experimental success, for most clear cases of genuine science have been experimentally falsified."[57] The latter proposed that a scientific theory must "account for all the phenomena that its rival background theory explains" and "must clash empirically with its rival by yielding test implications that are inconsistent with the rival theory". A theory is thus scientific or not depending upon its historical situation; if it betters the current explanations of phenomena, it marks scientific progress. "Many domains in ancient Greece, for example, domains that today are called superstition, religion, magic and the occult, were at that time clear cases of legitimate science." This is an explicitly competitive model of scientific work; Rothbart also notes that it is not a completely effective model.[58]

Kuhn postulated that proponents of competing paradigms may resort to political means (such as invective) to garner support from a public which lacks the ability to judge competing scientific theories on their merits. Philosopher of science Larry Laudan has suggested that pseudoscience has no scientific meaning and mostly describes our emotions: "If we would stand up and be counted on the side of reason, we ought to drop terms like �pseudo-science� and �unscientific� from our vocabulary; they are just hollow phrases which do only emotive work for us".[59] Richard McNally, Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, states: "The term 'pseudoscience' has become little more than an inflammatory buzzword for quickly dismissing one�s opponents in media sound-bites" and "When therapeutic entrepreneurs make claims on behalf of their interventions, we should not waste our time trying to determine whether their interventions qualify as pseudoscientific. Rather, we should ask them: How do you know that your intervention works? What is your evidence?".[60]

Protoscience

24/09/2007 04:17

Protoscience is a field of study that appears to conform to the initial phase of the scientific method, with information gathering and formulation of a hypothesis, but involves speculation that is either not yet experimentally falsifiable or not yet verified or accepted by a consensus of scientists.[1] A protoscience may be distinguished from other forms of speculation in that its formulation strives to remain coherent with all relevant fields of scientific research so as to achieve falsifiability and verification as soon and as accurately as possible.

History of the term

The philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn first used the word in an essay, originally published in 1970:

Quote:

In any case, there are many fields � I shall call them proto-sciences � in which practice does generate testable conclusions but which nevertheless resemble philosophy and the arts rather than the established sciences in their developmental patterns. I think, for example, of fields like chemistry and electricity before the mid-eighteenth century, of the study of heredity and phylogeny before the mid-nineteenth, or of many of the social sciences today. In these fields, too, though they satisfy Sir Karl's [ Popper's] demarcation criterion, incessant criticism and continual striving for a fresh start are primary forces, and need to be. No more than in philosophy and the arts, however, do they result in clear-cut progress.

I conclude, in short, that the proto-sciences, like the arts and philosophy, lack some element which, in the mature sciences, permits the more obvious forms of progress. It is not, however, anything that a methodological prescription can provide. Unlike my present critics, Lakatos at this point included, I claim no therapy to assist the transformation of a proto-science to a science, nor do I suppose anything of this sort is to be had.

� Thomas Kuhn, Criticism and the growth of knowledge[2]

Examples

Scientific intuition is protoscience, being the detection of new patterns � the eureka moment that allows the breakthrough in problem solving � which initiates a new line of fruitful scientific inquiry.

* Isaac Newton is often said to have conceived of the acceleration of gravity while sitting under an apple tree and being hit on the head by a falling apple, whose height inflicted some pain. Should this story be true, this moment of insight into acceleration initiated a phase of protoscience until a hypothesis could be formulated with careful measurements and calculations that allowed experimental falsifiability, (repeatability) and verification.

* Charles Darwin conceived of his concept of evolution when on his journey in the ship Beagle to the Gal�pagos Islands he noticed that finches differed from one island to another. He strongly suspected that the different species of finches must have descended from a single species that was their common ancestor. The protoscientific hypothesis continued to prove useful when other forms of animals, including apes and humans, could be explained as sharing common descent. Only recently, with other scientific fields�especially DNA analysis which verified many of his speculations�did the concept move from protoscience to science with the Theory of Evolution accepted by the consensus of the scientific community today.

Early philosophical disciplines that later evolved into branches of modern science are considered to be protosciences.

* Aspects of alchemy served as the foundation for modern chemistry.

* Early astrology included the study of astronomy, cf. Johannes Kepler. Modern astrology, however, is a pseudoscience.

* The psychological sub-field of psychoanalysis is considered to be a protoscience by some, as many of its claims are not scientifically falsifiable.

Science itself evolved from the protoscience of the Renaissance Period that was then called "occult science" (Latin: scientia occulta), literally meaning "hidden knowledge".[3] Humans were understood to acquire true knowledge directly from God through Divine revelation. However the concept of "hidden knowledge" held that there was also true knowledge that God hid and would not reveal and intended for humans to discover on their own by human reason and effort. Thus the protoscientists of their day employed every method of pattern recognition available to them. As time went on, the term "occult" (hidden) came to refer to the unverified claims (generally psychologically symbolic or simply discredited) whereas "science" (knowledge) came to refer to the verified claims (generally mechanically predictable).

James Randi

23/09/2007 23:48

James Randi (born August 7, 1928), stage name The Amazing Randi, is a stage magician and scientific skeptic best known as a challenger of paranormal claims and pseudoscience. Born Randall James Hamilton Zwinge, in Toronto, Canada, Randi is the founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF).

The JREF provides the famous million dollar challenge offering a prize of US $1,000,000 to anyone who can demonstrate evidence of any paranormal, supernatural or occult power or event, under test conditions agreed to by both parties. He was a regular guest on the The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and is occasionally featured on the television program Penn & Teller: Bullshit!.

Early and personal life

Randi is oldest of three children born to a Bell Canada employee.[1] He took up magic after reading magic books while spending 13 months in a body cast due to injuries received in a bicycle accident.[1] The doctors never expected he would walk again, but Randi did.[1]

Randi subsequently witnessed many tricks that were presented as being supernatural. One of his earliest reported experiences is that of seeing an evangelist using the "one-ahead"[2] routine to convince churchgoers of his divine powers.[3]

Randi for many years has been an amateur astronomer, influenced by his friend Carl Sagan. In 1981 asteroid 3163 Randi was named after Randi.[1]

In 1987, Randi became a naturalized citizen of the United States.[4] Randi said that one reason for becoming an American citizen was due to a Canadian police search while on tour with Alice Cooper.[5]

In February of 2006, Randi underwent coronary artery bypass surgery.[6] In early February 2006, he was declared to be "in stable condition" and "receiving excellent care" with his recovery "proceeding well". The weekly commentary updates to his website were made by guests while he was hospitalized.[7] Randi is doing well since his surgery, and was well enough to help organize and attend the 2007 Amazing Meeting in Las Vegas, NV (an annual convention of scientists, magicians, skeptics, atheists, and other freethinkers).[8]

Background

Randi began his career as a magician, but then became a debunker of the paranormal. Then he expanded into writing about the paranormal, skepticism, the history of magic, biographer of Houdini, and even wrote a children's book.

Career as a magician

Randi has worked as a professional stage magician and escapologist since 1946, initially under his birth name, Randall Zwinge. Early in his career, Randi was part of numerous stunts involving his escape from jail cells and safes. On February 7, 1956, he appeared live on The Today Show and remained in a sealed metal coffin submerged in a hotel swimming pool for 104 minutes, breaking what was said to be Houdini's record of 93 minutes.[9][10]

Randi was the host of The Amazing Randi Show on New York radio station WOR-Radio in the mid-1960s.[11] He also hosted numerous television specials and went on several world tours. Then Randi appeared as "The Amazing Randi" on a television show entitled Wonderama from 1967 to 1972.[12] In the February 2, 1974 issue of Abracadabra (a British conjuring magazine), Randi defined the magic community saying, "I know of no calling which depends so much upon mutual trust and faith as does ours." In the December 2003 issue of the The Linking Ring, the monthly publication of The International Brotherhood of Magicians, Points to Ponder: Another Matter of Ethics, p. 97, it is stated, "Perhaps Randi's ethics are what make him Amazing" and "The Amazing Randi not only talks the talk, he walks the walk."

During Alice Cooper's 1974 tour, Randi performed as the dentist and executioner on stage.[13] Also, Randi had designed and built several of the stage props, including the guillotine.[14][15] An incident where the Royal Canadian Mounted Police searched the band's lockers during a performance has been cited by Randi as leading him to apply for American citizenship.[16] Shortly after, in February 1975, Randi escaped from a straitjacket while suspended upside-down over Niagara Falls in the winter on the Canadian TV program World of Wizards.[17]

Early in his career, Randi was sent a contract for a tour in Florida. His friends in New York mentioned to him that he�d certainly be working before audiences segregated by race, so before he signed the agreement, he wrote in a clause specifying that the promoters could not deny tickets to blacks or segregate the audiences in any way. Upon arriving on scene, he found that the concert promoter had ignored this stipulation in his contract. He discovered that blacks were forced to watch the show from the balcony, and he immediately walked away from the tour. Appealing to the American Guild of Variety Artists (AGVA), he was paid in full for the balance of the tour.

Author

Randi is author of Conjuring (1992), a biographical history of noted magicians. The book is subtitled: Being a Definitive History of the Venerable Arts of Sorcery, Prestidigitation, Wizardry, Deception, & Chicanery and of the Mountebanks & Scoundrels Who have Perpetrated these Subterfuges on a Bewildered Public, in short, MAGIC!. The book selects the most influential magicians, and explains their history in the context of strange deaths and career on the road. This work expanded on his 1976 book Houdini, His Life and Art, which focused on Houdini and his cohorts. Randi also wrote a children's book in 1989 titled The Magic World of the Amazing Randi introducing children to magic tricks.

In addition to his magic books, he has written several educational works about the paranormal and pseudoscientific. These include biographies of Uri Geller and Nostradamus as well as reference material on other major paranormal figures.

Career as a skeptic

Randi entered the international spotlight in 1972 when he publicly challenged the claims of Uri Geller. Randi accused Geller of being nothing more than a charlatan and a fraud using standard "magic" tricks to accomplish his allegedly paranormal feats, and he backed up his claims in the book The Magic of Uri Geller.[18][19] Geller later sued Randi for 15 million dollars[20]. Eventually Geller's suit against CSICOP was thrown out in 1995, and he had to pay $120,000 for filing a "frivolous" lawsuit.[21] Randi was a founding fellow and prominent member of CSICOP, the Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal.[22] Randi later resigned from CSICOP during the period when Geller was filing numerous civil suits against him. CSICOP's leadership, wanting to avoid becoming a target of Geller's litigation, requested that Randi refrain from commenting on Geller. Randi refused and resigned. He still maintains a respectful relationship with the group and frequently writes articles for its magazine.

Randi has gone on to write several books criticizing beliefs and claims regarding the paranormal. He has also been instrumental in exposing frauds and charlatans who exploit this field for personal gain. In one example, his Project Alpha hoax, Randi revealed that he had been able to orchestrate a three year-long compromise of a privately-funded psychic research experiment.[23] The hoax became a scandal and demonstrated the shortcomings of many paranormal research projects at the university level. Some said that the hoax was unethical, while others claimed his actions were a legitimate exercise in exposing poor research techniques.[24]

Randi has also appeared on numerous other programs sometimes to directly debunk the claimed abilities of fellow guests. In a 1981 appearance on a show called That's My Line, Randi appeared opposite psychic James Hydrick, who claimed that he could move things with his mind, and demonstrated this ability on live television by apparently turning a page in a telephone book without touching it.[25] Randi, having determined that the trick was most likely based on Hydrick surreptitiously blowing, arranged packaging peanuts on the table in front of the telephone book for the demonstration, preventing Hydrick from demonstrating his abilities without also giving away the secret that bursts of air were passing over the pages.[4] Many years later, Hydrick admitted his fraud.[26]

Randi was awarded a MacArthur Foundation "Genius" award in 1986, drawing upon his conjuring skills to write and educate the public on superstition and pseudoscientific matters.[1] The money was used for Randi's comprehensive expos� of faith healers including Peter Popoff, W. V. Grant and Ernest Angley.[1] During the course of the investigation Randi was "healed" by these ministers.[1] When Popoff was exposed, he was forced to declare bankruptcy within the year.[27]

James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF)

In 1996, Randi established the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF). Randi updates the JREF's website on Fridays with a written commentary titled Swift: Online Newsletter of the JREF. Randi also contributes a regular column, titled "'Twas Brillig", to The Skeptics Society's Skeptic Magazine.

He has regularly featured on many podcasts that can be found online, including The Skeptics Society's official podcast Skepticality [28] and the Center for Inquiry's official podcast Point of Inquiry [29]. From September 2006, he contributed to The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe podcast with a column entitled "Randi Speaks".[30]

The $1 million challenge

The James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) currently offers a prize of one million U.S. dollars to anyone who can demonstrate a supernatural ability under agreed-upon scientific testing criteria. Similar to the paranormal challenges of John Nevil Maskelyne and Houdini, in 1964, Randi put up $1,000 of his own money payable to the first person who could provide objective proof of the paranormal. Since then, the prize money has grown to the current $1,000,000, and the rules that surround claiming the prize are official and legal. No one has progressed past the preliminary test which is set up with parameters agreed to by both Randi and the applicant. He also refuses to accept any challengers who might suffer serious injury or death as a result of the testing they intend to undergo.

On Larry King Live March 6, 2001 Larry King asked Sylvia Browne if she would take the challenge and she agreed.[31] Then Randi appeared with Browne on Larry King Live on September 3, 2001 and she again accepted the challenge.[32] However, she has refused to be tested and Randi keeps a clock on his website recording the number of weeks that have passed since Sylvia accepted the challenge without following through.

During Larry King Live on June 5, 2001 Randi challenged Rosemary Altea to undergo testing for the million dollars. However Altea would not even address the question.[33] Instead Altea, in part, replied "I agree with what he says, that there are many, many people who claim to be spiritual mediums, they claim to talk to the dead. There are many, people, we all know this. There are cheats and charlatans everywhere."[33] Then on January 26, 2007 Altea and Randi again appeared on Larry King Live. Once again, she refused to answer whether or not she would take the One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge.[34]

Randi has recently challenged David R. Hawkins to win the prize with Hawkins' "arm-pressing technique" (applied kinesiology), suggesting it would only take thirty minutes of easy work, but believing that Hawkins would not even attempt to apply for the challenge for "obvious" reasons.[35]

Starting on April 1, 2007 only those with an already existing media profile and the backing of a reputable academic would be allowed to apply for the challenge.[36] The resources freed up by not having to test obscure and possibly mentally ill claimants will then be used to more aggressively challenge notorious high-profile alleged psychics and mediums such as Sylvia Browne and John Edward with a campaign in the media.[36]

Critics say that Randi has set up the system so that the million-dollar challenge cannot be passed, despite the fact that contestants are required to participate in establishing the conditions for success and failure. Randi himself states that "What if someone wins the million dollars? ... I think it's very highly unlikely", but bases this on the unlikelihood of the paranormal.[37] For details of the disputes, see James Randi Educational Foundation. So far, no one has passed even the preliminary testing procedures, let alone been awarded the prize money.

JREF maintains a log of past participants for the "Million Dollar Challenge" for public access.[38]

Randi's caustic style

Randi uses a harsh, uncompromising style of writing and presentation. His supporters say that there are other organizations of skeptics that have similar standing offers to prove the existence of paranormal abilities, and anyone claiming to be an expert in their field of the paranormal can apply for any of these other prizes, avoiding Randi altogether. In his weekly commentary, Randi often gives examples of what he feels is the nonsense that he deals with every day to explain his lack of patience.[39]

In the book The Faith Healers, Randi explains his anger and relentlessness as arising out of compassion for the helpless victims of frauds. Randi has also been critical of Jo�o de Deus, also known as John of God, a self-proclaimed psychic surgeon who has received international attention.[40] Randi observed, referring to psychic surgery, "To any experienced conjuror, the methods by which these seeming miracles are produced are very obvious".[41]

Also, in his weekly commentary, which he publishes every Friday, Randi often expresses dismay that he has to frequently expose various frauds because few others do so.

Criticisms of Randi

Randi was once accused of actually using 'psychic powers' to perform acts such as spoon bending. James Alcock relates this incident which occurred at a meeting where Randi was duplicating the performances of Uri Geller: A professor from the State University of New York at Buffalo shouted out that Randi was a fraud. Randi said "Yes indeed, I'm a trickster, I'm a cheat, I'm a charlatan, that's what I do for a living. Everything I've done here was by trickery." The professor shouted back: "That's not what I mean. You're a fraud because you're pretending to do these things through trickery, but you're actually using psychic powers and misleading us by not admitting it." (Alcock 2001:42) The famous author and believer in spiritualism Arthur Conan Doyle had years earlier made a similar accusation against the magician Harry Houdini.[42]

Legal disputes

Randi has been involved in a variety of legal disputes, but, in his own words, "never paid even one dollar or even one cent to anyone who ever sued me".[43]

Lawsuits brought by Geller

In an interview with Twilight Zone Magazine, Randi accused Uri Geller and Eldon Byrd of being the ringleaders in a criminal blackmail plot aimed at destroying Randi.[44] Byrd sued Randi; the jury found that Randi's claim regarding Byrd was defamatory, but awarded Byrd $0 in damages (thus preventing further appeals by Byrd).[45]

In an interview with a Japanese newspaper, Randi was presented as saying that Uri Geller had driven a close friend to "shoot himself in the head", which Randi afterwards claimed was a metaphor lost in translation.[46] However, Randi made a similar statement ("The scientist shot himself after I showed him how the key bending trick was done") in the August 23, 1986 Toronto Star that seemed to validate Geller's charge.[1] Since the referenced suicide victim died of natural causes the judge changed the charge from "libel" to "insult". Randi could not participate in the trial, but Geller dropped the charge to protect himself in another case and Randi states "I never paid even one dollar or even one cent to anyone who ever sued me, and certainly not to Geller."[47]

Randi commented that Uri Geller's public performances were of the same quality as those found on the backs of cereal boxes. Geller sued both Randi and CSICOP. CSICOP disavowed Randi because of this, claiming that the organization was not responsible for Randi's statements. The court agreed that including CSICOP was frivolous and dropped them from the action. Geller was ordered to pay substantial damages to CSICOP.[48][49]

By the mid-1990s, Randi and Geller had both run up legal bills amounting to hundreds of thousands of U.S. dollars. In a private meeting they achieved an out-of-court settlement, the details of which have been kept private. This case, as noted above, was directly responsible for the decision of Randi to part company with CSICOP.

Other

Allison DuBois, on whose life the television series Medium was based, threatened Randi with legal action for using a photo of her from her website in his December 17, 2004 commentary without her permission.[50] Randi removed the photo, and now uses a caricature of DuBois when mentioning her on his site, beginning with his December 23, 2005 commentary.[51]

Late in 1996 Randi launched a libel suit against a Toronto-area psychic/self-published author/entry-level web developer named Earl Gordon Curley.[52] Curley had made a number of objectionable comments about Randi on Usenet. Despite constantly prodding Randi via Usenet to sue (Curley's implication being if Randi didn't sue then his allegations must be true), Curley seemed entirely surprised when Randi actually retained Toronto's largest law firm and initiated legal proceedings. The suit was eventually dropped in 1998 when Earl Curley died at the age of 51, allegedly drinking himself to death.[53]

Awards

* MacArthur Foundation Fellowship 1986

* Richard Dawkins Award 2003

* Philip J. Klass Award 2007[54]

World Records

The following are Guinness records

* Was in a sealed casket for an hour and 44 minutes, which broke Harry Houdini's record of one hour and 31 minutes set on Aug. 5, 1926.[1]

* Being frozen in a block of ice for 55 minutes.[1]

Bibliography

An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural, 1995, St. Martin's Press ISBN 0-312-15119-5

# Conjuring, 1992 St. Martin's Press ISBN 0312097719

# Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions, 1982, Prometheus Books, ISBN 0-87975-198-3

# Houdini, His Life and Art. Putnam Pub Group (November 1976) ISBN 0448125528

# James Randi: Psychic Investigator, 1991, ISBN 1-85283-144-8

# Test Your ESP Potential. Dover Publications Inc. (31 Dec 1982) ISBN 0486242692

# The Faith Healers, 1987, Prometheus Books, ISBN 0-87975-369-2. (ISBN 0-87975-535-0 1989 edition) (Foreword by Carl Sagan)

# The Magic of Uri Geller, 1982, ISBN 0-345-24796-5 (later renamed The Truth About Uri Geller ISBN 0-87975-199-1)

# The Magic World of the Amazing Randi. Adams Media Corporation (September 1989) ISBN 1558509828

# The Mask of Nostradamus: The Prophecies of the World's Most Famous Seer, 1990, Charles Scribner's Sons ISBN 0-684-19056-7 or ISBN 0-87975-830-9.

Minster (cathedral)

10/09/2007 19:08

In English usage a Minster is a grand type of church; the term may be extended to apply to a cathedral, such as York Minster and Southwell Minster. Lincoln Cathedral, and Ripon Cathedral, are also sometimes called by their earlier title of minster. However, when the term is used less vaguely, it is a collegiate church.

The word is Old English, mynster or monastery, derived from Latin ministerium, the �office" or �service�, the canonical hours, which were sung at set hours in the minster. Thus minster originally applied to the church of a monastery or a chapter: it was an abbot who presided in the minster, rather than a bishop, as at a cathedral. Westminster Abbey is not the seat of the Bishop of London, whose seat is St Paul's Cathedral. But in pre-reformation Britain, many cathedrals were also monastic.

In England in addition to the above, bishops live in the cathedrals and the following are mainly fine churches, which may have been collegiate before the reformation but they are not the seat of a diocesan bishop: Beverley Minster, Wimborne Minster, Reading Minster, Doncaster Minster, Sunderland Minster, Iwerne Minster, Stow Minster, Dewsbury Minster, Berkeley Minster, Tewkesbury Minster, Howden Minster, St. Botolf's Minster (Iken, Suffolk), South Elmham Minster, Rotherham Minster, Preston Minster, Hemingbrough Minster, and Stonegrave Minster. The name Peterborough Minster is now applied to a district of Peterborough but not to Peterborough Cathedral.

The title of Stoke Minster was conferred on the parish church of St. Peter ad Vincula in Stoke-upon-Trent by The Rt Revd Jonathan Gledhill, Bishop of Lichfield, at a ceremony on May 17, 2005.

In the case of the Ulm M�nster in Germany, the term was used for a particularly prosperous parish church boasting a plethora of clergy.

In other places in Europe, �minster� has become simply a historical term for a particular church, e.g. the minsters of Strasbourg (France); Basel and Bern (Switzerland); Bonn Minster, Essen, Freiburg, Aachen, Hamelin, Doberan (all Germany).

Apophenia

09/09/2007 11:57

Apophenia is the experience of seeing patterns or connections in random or meaningless data. The term was coined in 1958 by Klaus Conrad, who defined it as the "unmotivated seeing of connections" accompanied by a "specific experience of an abnormal meaningfulness".

"While observations of relevant work environments and human behaviors in these environments is a very important first step in coming to understand any new domain, this activity is in and of its self not sufficient to constitute scientific research. It is fraught with problems of subjective bias in the observer. We (like the experts we study) often see what we expect to see, we interpret the world through our own personal lens. Thus we are extraordinarily open to the trap of apophenia."

[1]

In statistics, apophenia would be classed as a Type I error (false positive, false alarm, caused by an excess in sensitivity). Apophenia is often used as an explanation of some paranormal and religious claims. It has been suggested that apophenia is a link between psychosis and creativity.

Origins

Conrad originally described this phenomenon in relation to the distortion of reality present in psychosis, but it has become more widely used to describe this tendency in healthy individuals without necessarily implying the presence of neurological or mental illness.

Pareidolia is a type of apophenia involving the finding of images or sounds in random stimuli.

Examples
Discordianism

The Principia Discordia refers to the act of seeing order which does not really exist as the Aneristic Illusion, and avoiding this illusion is a major tenet of the Discordian religion. The Principia illustrates this with a drawing of five pebbles, and gives several possibilities for the shape (a pentagon, or a star, or disorder). It goes on to state that "an Illuminated Mind can see all of these, yet he does not insist that any one is really true, or that none at all is true".

Fiction

Postmodern novelists and film-makers have reflected on apophenia-related phenomena, such as paranoid narrativization or fuzzy plotting (e.g., Vladimir Nabokov's "Signs and Symbols", Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 and V., Alan Moore's Watchmen, Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum, William Gibson's Pattern Recognition, Arturo P�rez-Reverte's The Club Dumas, The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, and the films Conspiracy Theory, Darren Aronofsky's π, A Beautiful Mind and The Number 23). As narrative is one of our major cognitive instruments for structuring reality, there is some common ground between apophenia and narrative fallacies such as hindsight bias. Since pattern recognition may be related to plans, goals, and ideology, and may be a matter of group ideology rather than a matter of solitary delusion, the interpreter attempting to diagnose or identify apophenia may have to face a conflict of interpretations.

The Question, who is portrayed as a conspiracy theorist in the television series Justice League Unlimited, was mentioned to have apophenia. He claimed to see connections between the Girls Scouts and the crop circle phenomenon as well as spy satellites and fluoridated toothpaste.

Rorschach inkblot test

09/09/2007 10:09

The Rorschach inkblot test (pronounced IPA: [ʁoɐʃax]) is a method of psychological evaluation. Psychologists use this test to try to examine the personality characteristics and emotional functioning of their patients. The Rorschach is currently the second most commonly used test in forensic assessment, after the MMPI, and is the second most widely used test by members of the Society for Personality Assessment. It has been employed in diagnosing underlying thought disorder and differentiating psychotic from nonpsychotic thinking in cases where the patient is reluctant to openly admit to psychotic thinking.[1]

History

Originally created by Hermann Rorschach in 1921, the scoring system was improved after his death by, among others, Bruno Klopfer. John E. Exner summarized some of these later developments in the comprehensive Exner system, at the same time trying to make the scoring more statistically rigorous. Some systems are based on the psychoanalytic concept of object relations.

The Exner system is very popular in the United States, while in Europe the textbook by Evald Bohm, which is closer to the original Rorschach system as well as more inspired by psychoanalysis is often considered to be the standard reference work.

Methods

There are ten official inkblots. Five inkblots are black ink on white paper. Two are black and red ink on white paper. Three are multicolored. After the individual has seen and responded to all the inkblots, the tester then gives them to him again one at a time to study. The patient is asked to note where he sees what he originally saw and what makes it look like that. The blot can also be rotated. As the patient is examining the inkblots, the psychologist writes down everything the patient says or does, no matter how trivial.

Methods of interpretation differ. The most widely used method in the United States is based on the work of John E. Exner. In the Exner system, responses are scored with reference to their level of vagueness or synthesis of multiple images in the blot, the location of the response, which of a variety of determinants is used to produce the response (i.e., what makes the inkblot look like what it is said to resemble), the form quality of the response (to what extent a response is faithful to how the actual inkblot looks), the contents of the response (what the respondent actually sees in the blot), the degree of mental organizing activity that is involved in producing the response, and any illogical, incongruous, or incoherent aspects of responses.

Using the scores for these categories, the examiner then performs a series of mathematical calculations producing a structural summary of the test data. The results of the structural summary are interpreted using existing empirical research data on personality characteristics that have been demonstrated to be associated with different kinds of responses. The calculations of scores are often done electronically.

A common misconception of the Rorschach test is that its interpretation is based primarily on the contents of the response- what the examinee sees in the inkblot. In fact, the contents of the response are only a comparatively small portion of a broader cluster of variables that are used to interpret the Rorschach data.

Controversy

The Rorschach inkblot test is controversial for several reasons.

First, because the basic premise of the test is that objective meaning can be extracted from responses to blots of ink which are supposedly meaningless. It seems that evaluating the results of the test requires the blots of ink to have meaning in the first place�though meaning of a very subtle kind that has not been directly explicated. Otherwise, the images projected into the patterns would be of little value in assessing personality traits. Supporters of the Rorschach inkblot test believe that the subject's response to an ambiguous and meaningless stimulus can provide insight into their thought processes, but it is not clear how this occurs. Additionally, recent research has demonstrated that the blots are not entirely meaningless, and that a patient typically responds to meaningful as well as ambiguous aspects of the blots.[2]

Some critics argue that the psychologist must also project onto the patterns. A possible example sometimes attributed to the psychologist's subjective judgment is that responses are coded (among many other things), for "Form Quality": in essence, whether the subject's response fits with how the blot actually looks. Superficially this might be considered a subjective judgment, depending on how the examiner has internalized whatever categories are involved. With the Exner system of scoring, however, much of the subjectivity is eliminated or reduced by use of frequency tables that indicate how often a particular response is given by the population in general.[3] Another example is that the response "bra" was considered a "Sex" response by male psychologists, but a "Clothing" response by females (p. 227 in [4]). In Exner's system, however, such a response is always coded as "clothing" unless there is a clear sexual reference in the response.[5]

Third parties could be used to avoid this problem; however, the Rorschach's inter-rater reliability has been questioned. That is, in some studies the scores obtained by two independent scorers do not match with great consistency (see pp. 227-234 in [4]). It is commonly claimed that the reliability is over 0.85 for all scales; but this is at best percentage of agreement (a much looser criterion than reliability), and not true for all scales (p. 504 in [6]).

When interpreted as a projective test, results are thus poorly verifiable. The Exner system of scoring (also known as the "Comprehensive System") is meant to address this, and has all but displaced many earlier (and less consistent) scoring systems. It makes heavy use of what factor (shading, color, outline, etc.) of the inkblot leads to each of the tested person's comments. Disagreements about test validity remain.

Nevertheless, there is substantial research indicating the utility of the measure for a few scores. Several scores correlate well with general intelligence. Interestingly, one such scale is *R*, the total number of responses; this reveals the questionable side-effect that more intelligent people tend to be elevated on many pathology scales, since many scales do not correct for high R: if you give twice as many responses overall, you are more likely to give at least some seemingly "pathological" responses. Likewise correlated with intelligence are the scales for Organizational Activity, Complexity, Form Quality, and Human Figure responses (see Table 9.4 in [4]). The same source reports that validity has also been shown for detecting such conditions as schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders; thought disorders; and personality disorders (including borderline personality disorder). There is some evidence that the Deviant Verbalizations scale relates to bipolar disorder. The authors conclude that "Otherwise, the Comprehensive System doesn't appear to bear a consistent relationship to psychological disorders or symptoms, personality characteristics, potential for violence, or such health problems as cancer" (pp. 2249-250 in [4]). (cancer is mentioned because a small minority of Rorschach enthusiasts have claimed the test can indeed predict cancer).

It is also thought that the test's reliability can depend substantially on details of the testing procedure, such as where the tester and subject are seated; any introductory words; verbal and nonverbal responses to subjects' questions or comments; and how responses are recorded. Exner has published detailed instructions, but Wood et al.[4] cites many court cases where it was found they have not been followed. Such cases, of course, point toward the failure of some psychologists to follow prescribed procedures, but are not an indictment of the Exner system in general. Similarly, the procedures for coding responses are fairly well specified but extremely time-consuming to inexperienced examiners, and corners may be cut by a psychologist who allows haste to take precedence over accuracy. It seems that with validity in question to begin with, any psychologist using the test should be extremely careful about following all rules of administration and interpretation to the letter.

Another area of controversy is the test's norms. A great strength of Exner's system was thought to be the availability of normative scores for various populations. However, beginning in the mid-1990s others began to attempt to replicate or update these norms, and found they could not. In particular, discrepancies seemed to focus on indices measuring narcissism, disordered thinking, and discomfort in close relationships [7] Lillenfeld and colleagues, who are critical of the Rorschach, have stated that this proves that the Rorschach tends to "overpathologise normals." [7]. However, they may have failed to account for norm changes in the population that may have been drifting in a pathological direction - in other words, that the Rorschach may be accurately reflecting increasing psychopathology in the society. As described by Hibbard, [8] personality and social psychologists have written extensively on increasing narcissism in society, and this phenomenon has been shown in other research [1]. With respect to Lilienfeld's finding concerning difficulty in interpersonal relationships, that particular index has been found to be related to divorce and separation whose rates have also increased since the establishment of Exner's original norms.

The test is also especially controversial because it has been commonly used in court-ordered evaluations: as a major factor in assigning custody, granting or denying parole, and so on. This controversy stems, in part, from the limitations of the Rorschach, with no additional data, in making official diagnoses from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV)[9] That fact, however, does not render the test without value for diagnostic purposes. Irving Weiner (co-developer with John Exner of the Comprehensive system) has stated that the Rorschach "is a measure of personality functioning, and it provides information concerning aspects of personality structure and dynamics that make people the kind of people they are. Sometimes such information about personality characteristics is helpful in arriving at a differential diagnosis, if the alternative diagnoses being considered have been well conceptualized with respect to specific or defining personality characteristics".[10]

Supporters of the test try to keep the actual cards secret so that the answers are spontaneous. This practice is consistent with the American Psychological Association's ethical standards of preserving test security. The official test is sold only to licensed professionals. These ethics were violated first by William Poundstone in his book Big Secrets (1983), which described the method of administering the test and gave outlines of the ten official images. The images have since been leaked to the Internet.[11] This reduced the value of projective testing for those individuals who have become familiar with the material, potentially impacting their care. The Rorschach Society claims the blots are copyrighted; this has been disputed by others who state that the blots are in the public domain under U.S. copyright law based upon when they were first created and how long Rorschach has been dead (over 80 years).

Pareidolia

09/09/2007 10:01

The term pareidolia (pronounced /pɛɹaɪˈdoliə/ or /p�ɹaɪˈdəʊliə/), referenced in 1994 by Steven Goldstein,[1] describes a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant. Common examples include images of animals or faces in clouds, the man in the moon, and hidden messages on records played in reverse. The word comes from the Greek para- � beside, with or alongside � and eidolon � image (the diminutive of eidos � image, form, shape). Pareidolia is a type of apophenia.

Examples

Religious

There have been many instances of perceptions of religious imagery and themes, especially the faces of religious figures, in ordinary phenomena. Many involve images of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, or the word Allah.

In 1978, a New Mexican woman found that the burn marks on a tortilla she had made appeared similar to Jesus Christ's face. Thousands of people came to see the framed tortilla.[2]

The recent publicity surrounding sightings of religious figures and other surprising images in ordinary objects, combined with the growing popularity of online auctions, has spawned a market for such items on eBay. One famous instance was a grilled-cheese sandwich with the Virgin Mary's face.[3]

Rorschach test

Main article: Rorschach inkblot test

The Rorschach inkblot test uses pareidolia to attempt to gain insight into a person's mental state.[2]

Audio

In 1971, Konstantin Raudive wrote Breakthrough, detailing what he believed was the discovery of electronic voice phenomenon (EVP). EVP has been described as auditory pareidolia.[2]

The allegations of backmasking in popular music have also been described as pareidolia.[2]

Explanations

Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan hypothesized that as a survival technique, human being are "hard-wired" from birth to identify the human face. This allows people to use only minimal details to recognize faces from a distance and in poor visibility, but can also lead them to interpret random images or patterns of light and shade as being faces.[4]

Clarence Irving Lewis

In his 1929 book Mind and the World Order, epistemologist and logician Clarence Irving Lewis, a founder of the philosophical school of conceptual pragmatism, used the question of how to determine whether a perception is a mirage as a touchstone for his philosophical approach to knowledge. Lewis argued that one has no way of knowing whether or not perceptions are "true" in any absolute sense; all one can do is determine whether one's purpose is thwarted by regarding it as true and acting on that basis. According to this approach, two people with two different purposes will often have different views on whether or not to regard a perception as true. [5]

Stone Tape

06/09/2007 00:55

For the 1972 British television play, see The Stone Tape.

The stone tape hypothesis was proposed in the 1970s as a possible explanation for ghosts. It speculates that inanimate materials can absorb some form of energy from living beings; the hypothesis speculates that this 'recording' happens especially during moments of high stress such as murder, or during important moments of someone's life. This stored energy can be released at any given moment, resulting in a display of the occurred activity. According to this hypothesis ghosts are not spirits at all, simply non-interactive recordings similar to a movie.

There is no proposed mechanical explanation for this theory, what sort of energy might be involved is unknown, nor how such 'playbacks' are triggered, rendering the theory completely untestable. Some argue that a specific state of brainwaves is necessary to experience a playback, others claim that the 'viewing' person needs some psychic ability.

The Stone Tape

06/09/2007 00:52

The Stone Tape is a television play directed by Peter Sasdy and starring Michael Bryant, Jane Asher, Michael Bates and Iain Cuthbertson. It was broadcast by on BBC Two as a Christmas ghost story in 1972. Combining aspects of science fiction and horror, the story concerns a team of scientists who move into their new research facility, a renovated Victorian mansion that has a reputation for being haunted. Investigating, they learn that the haunting is a recording of a past event made by the stone in one of the rooms of the house � the �stone tape� of the play's title. Believing that this may be the key to the development of a new recording medium, they throw all their expertise and high-tech equipment into learning how the stone tape preserves its recording. However, their investigations serve only to unleash a darker, more malevolent force.

The Stone Tape was written by Nigel Kneale, best known as the writer of Quatermass. Its juxtaposition of science and superstition is a frequent theme in Kneale's work; in particular, his 1952 radio play You Must Listen, about a haunted telephone line, is a notable antecedent of The Stone Tape. The play was also inspired by a visit Kneale had paid to the BBC's research and development department, which is located in an old Victorian house in Kingswood, Surrey. Critically acclaimed at time of broadcast, it remains well regarded to this day as one of Nigel Kneale's best and most terrifying plays. Since its broadcast, the hypothesis of residual haunting � that ghosts are recordings of past events made by the natural environment � has come to be known as the �Stone Tape Theory�.

Plot summary

Peter Brock (Michael Bryant) is the head of a research team in an electronics company, Ryan Electrics, working on developing a new recording medium in the hope of giving the company an edge over its Japanese competitors. The research team are moving into a new facility at �Taskerlands�, an old Victorian mansion that has been renovated to act as their research facility. On arrival, they learn from foreman Roy Collinson (Iain Cuthbertson) that the refurbishment of one of the rooms in �Taskerlands� remains uncompleted, the builders having refused to work in it on the grounds that it is haunted. Curious, the researchers explore the room and hear the sounds of a woman running followed by a gut-wrenching scream. One of their number, computer programmer Jill Greeley (Jane Asher), sees an image of a woman running up the steps in the room and falling, apparently to her death. Inquiring with the local villagers, they learn that a young maid died in that room during Victorian times. Brock realises that somehow the stone in the room has preserved an image of the girl's death � this �stone tape� may be the key to the new recording medium that he and his team have been charged with developing. Brock and his team move into the room with their equipment hoping to be able to find the secret of how the stone tape works but, becoming more and more desperate under mounting pressure to deliver results, they only succeed in wiping the image. Brock's defeat is compounded when he is informed by his superiors that they have lost confidence in his work and that the �Taskerlands� facility is to be handed over to a rival research team working on a new washing machine. While cleaning up, Jill realises that the recording in the room was masking a much older recording, left many thousands of years ago. Returning to the room, she is confronted by a powerful, malevolent presence and, like the maid before her, falls to her death trying to escape. Following the inquest, Brock destroys all Jill's records and makes a final visit to the room where he discovers, to his horror, that the stone tape has made a new recording � that of Jill screaming his name as she dies.

Background

Nigel Kneale was a Manx television playwright who had first come to prominence in the nineteen-fifties thanks to his three Quatermass serials and his controversial adaptation of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, all of which were produced by the BBC. Going freelance in the nineteen-sixties, Kneale had produced scripts for Associated Television and for Hammer Films. In the late nineteen-sixties and early nineteen-seventies, Kneale had been coaxed back to the BBC, writing such plays as The Year of the Sex Olympics, Wine of India and, for the anthology series Out of the Unknown, The Chopper.[1]

In the middle of 1972, Christopher Morahan, who was Head of Drama at BBC2 and who had directed Kneale's 1963 play The Road and the 1965 remake of Kneale's adpatation of Nineteen Eighty-Four, approached Kneale asking him to write a play to be broadcast over the Christmas period. Accepting the commission, Kneale quickly decided that, in keeping with Christmas tradition, he would write a ghost story, but with a difference � ancient spirits would come into collision with modern science. The concept of mixing the supernatural with high technology had long been a feature of Kneale's work � most notably, his 1952 radio play You Must Listen, which concerned a telcommunications engineer who discovers that a telephone line has somehow preserved the final conversation between a woman and her lover before her suicide, was an important antecedent of The Stone Tape.[2] The science and supernatural theme is also present in Kneale's Quatermass and the Pit which, in addition, shares similar elements with The Stone Tape such as an abandoned house with a reputation for hauntings; the collection of documentary evidence of the haunting (also a trademark of M. R. James, a writer much admired by Kneale)[3] and the sensitivity of certain characters to the supernatural.[4] In addition, the relationship between the scientists and the local villagers echoes that seen in Quatermass II.[5]

For the research facility at �Taskerlands�, Kneale was influenced by a visit he had paid to the BBC's research and development facility which is based at an old country house at Kingswood Warren in Kingswood, Surrey. Similarly, the researchers working at Kingswood Warren influenced the portrayal of the members of the Ryan research team in The Stone Tape. Kneale recalled of his visit to Kingswood Warren, �The sort of impression you got of the folk who worked there was a boyishness. They were very cheerful. It was all rather fun for them, which is a very clever way to go about doing that sort of heavy research. [...] They were nice chaps � and so we got some very nice chaps for the TV version�.[6]

Kneale delivered his script, intitially titled Breakthrough and later renamed The Stone Tape, in September 1972. Because of its subject matter, it was felt that the play would be best handled as an installment of Dead of Night, a supernatural anthology series produced by Innes Lloyd. In the end, The Stone Tape was made and broadcast as a standalone programme but production was handled by the Dead of Night team under Lloyd. Selected as director was Hungarian Peter Sasdy whose credits included adaptations of The Caves of Steel and Wuthering Heights for the BBC and Taste the Blood of Dracula and Hands of the Ripper for Hammer.[7] Cast as Peter Brock was Michael Bryant, who had starred in the BBC's 1970 adaptation of Jean-Paul Sartre's Roads to Freedom and had a reputation for playing �bad boy� roles.[8][9] Jane Asher, playing Jill Greely, had, as a child, appeared in Hammer's The Quatermass Xperiment, the film adaptation of Kneale's BBC serial The Quatermass Experiment.[10] Iain Cutherberston, playing Roy Collinson, was well known for his role in Budgie and would go to become the star of Sutherland's Law[11] while Michael Bates, cast as Eddie Holmes, would later become known for his roles in the sitcoms Last of the Summer Wine and It Ain't Half Hot Mum.[12]

Recording of The Stone Tape began on 15 November 1972 with the exterior scenes of the house, �Taskerlands�.[9] These were shot at Horsley Towers, East Horsley in Surrey. This was once owned by Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron and sponsor of computer pioneer Charles Babbage.[13] Production then moved to BBC Television Centre between 20 November 1972 and 22 November 1972. Not all scenes were recorded in time and a remount was required on 4 December 1972. Michael Bates was not available on this day and his lines had to be redistributed among the other cast members. Incidental music and sound effects were provided by Desmond Briscoe of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and these proved significant in setting the mood of the play � sections were later used in a BBC educational programme on the effectivess of incidental music.[9]

The Stone Tape aired on 25 December 1972 on BBC2 to an audience of 2.6 million.[9] The Evening Standard praised the play, describing it as �one of the best plays of the genre ever written. Its virtues aren't just the main spine of the story, but the way the characters shift, as in real life, the bitter comic conflict between pure and impure science�.[14] Viewers were similarly impressed: a panel questioned for an audience report praised The Stone Tape as �thoroughly entertaining� and �both gripping and spinechilling�.[9]

The Stone Tape was one of the last plays Nigel Kneale wrote for the BBC. He had become increasingly disenchanted with the organisation, mainly as a result of the rejection of several scripts such as Cracks, a proposed Play for Today, and a fourth Quatermass serial.[15] Moving to Independent Television, he wrote and created series such as Beasts and Kinvig and succeeded in getting his rejected Quatermass scripts produced in 1979.[16] He died in 2006.

The script of The Stone Tape was published, alomg with the scripts of The Road and The Year of the Sex Olympics in 1976 by Ferret Fantasy under the title The Year of the Sex Olympics and Other TV Plays. A DVD was released by the British Film Institute in 2001 with a commentary by Nigel Kneale and critic Kim Newman, sleeve notes by Kim Newman and the script of the play as well as the script of The Road.[17]

Cultural significance

One of the first to promulgate the hypothesis of residual haunting, that ghosts may be recordings of past events made by the physical environment, was Thomas Charles Lethbridge in books such as Ghost and Ghoul, written in 1961.[18] Since the broadcast of the play, this hypothesis has come to be known as the �Stone Tape Theory� by parapsychological researchers.[19]

The Stone Tape was a significant influence on John Carpenter's 1987 film Prince of Darkness in which a group of scientists investigate a mysterious cylinder discovered in the basement of a church.[20] Besides directing the film, Carpenter wrote the screenplay under the pseudonym "Martin Quatermass", and included a reference to "Kneale University".[21] This homage did little to impress Kneale, who wrote in The Observer, �For the record I have had nothing to do with the film and I have not seen it. It sounds pretty bad. With a homage like this, one might say, who needs insults? I can only imagine that it is a whimsical riposte for my having my name removed from a film I wrote a few years ago [a reference to Halloween III for which Kneale wrote an early draft] and which Mr Carpenter carpentered into sawdust�.[22] The play also influenced the 1982 Steven Spielberg and Tobe Hooper film Poltergeist.[20]

The Stone Tape remains well-regarded to this day. Roger Fulton, writing in The Encyclopedia of TV Science Fiction, opines that it is �arguably the most creepy drama ever seen on television�.[23] The writer and critic Kim Newman regards it as �one of the masterpieces of genre television, an authentic alliance of mind-stretching science fiction concepts with horror and suspense plot mechanics�.[20] Writer and member of The League of Gentlemen, Jeremy Dyson feels that The Stone Tape �strikes a note that it just circumnavigates your intellect and gets you on a much deeper level [...] it just has this impact on you, rather like being in the room itself. Extraordinary piece of work�.[24] Writer Grant Morrison recalled The Stone Tape as �really creepy and very memorable. Just brilliant images. That scared the hell out of me!�.[24] Sergio Angelini, writing for the British Film Intitute's Screenonline, has said that �The Stone Tape stands as perhaps his finest single work in the genre�.[25] Lez Cooke, in his book British Television Drama: A History, has praised the play as �one of the most imaginative and intelligent examples of the horror genre to appear on British television, a single play to rank alongside the best of Play for Today�.[26]

Indigo Children

04/09/2007 08:13

The phenomenon of the so-called, Indigo Children is an amazing tale. Parents, teachers and child care facilitators from all over describe the attributes of children currently coming of age as representing a fundamental paradigm shift over what we have traditionally thought about children, their aspirations, and their future. The great challenge for the rest of us is to encourage this extraordinary development as if it were the hope of the future -- which it likely is, inasmuch as children are fundamentally the lifeblood of the community.

Variously called the Indigo and Violet children, the Children of Oz, or the Sun Eyed Children of the Marvellous Dawn, this generation of young people seems to be a new species of humanity arising on Earth today. They think differently, their emotional bodies process feelings differently, their energy bodies are capable of holding stronger soul vibrations, and they have a new vision to share. They do not fit into mainstream society. Many of them appear to have special psychic and healing abilities, and [they] need special support to control and develop these gifts.

The Indigo children generally seem to range in age from the teens into the thirties, while the Violet children are younger, and carry a different mandate. Some of you reading this comprise the Indigo generation, and you are birthing a new species of kids. The Violet kids do not need to read any of this to know what�s real. They are linked mind to mind in a global psychic link-up that reflects a new fifth-dimensional morphogenetic grid on Earth. As with the hundredth monkey phenomenon [1] they are the first to step into what Sri Aurobindo envisioned as �supramental consciousness�, which will eventually become available to the rest of us also, if we choose it.

�Among other attributes, the children relate easily to the rush of images of modern movies and communications and have no trouble understanding everything -- their information processing abilities sometimes breathtaking. They are very sensitive children in tune with the pace of technological and future change, have few self-worth issues, absolutely no fear of authority, frustrated by systems that are non-creative and ritual oriented, and they want to do things in new and better ways. They sometimes seem antisocial, and do not respond to guilt-inducing discipline techniques in school or at home. [emphasis added]

�Many of these children are gifted souls. They combine the weird, inventive and futuristic energies of Uranus with the inspirational energies of Neptune. They have all sorts of patterns by which their behaviors are indicated - probably the most obvious is what we call ADHD or ADD. However, they ought not be diagnosed as hyperactive, dyslexic and suffering from neurological disorders. The astrologer Donna Cunningham in her excellent article entitled The Ritalin Generation, describes them as children who may be �wired� differently from the rest of us. She suggests that rather than having ADD and being described as hyperactive, it is more likely the previous generations (the rest of us) are to be considered hypoactive by comparison (Mountain Astrologer, April/May 2001).

�The children elected as �Indigo� by authors Carroll and Tober, in their book, The Indigo Children [Hay House, 1999] may be the ones who can best adjust to the future as it�s forming now with its vast high tech and mind expanding possibilities. Only they have a nervous system wired for the immense unfolding of the next few decades, processing and acting upon astoundingly large amounts of information in very short spaces of time. This is why the new movie and TV advertisements don�t leave them mind-staggered like they do many of us. The Indigo Children can be described as creative, independent, brilliant and self-governing. Unfortunately it also means they do not fit in with today�s education systems which to many of these children, seem as unfulfilling as a discarded old piece of rag and as frustratingly slow as can be with non-responsive, entrenched authoritarianism.

�Many then are seen as difficult and overactive and are drugged out with Ritalin, et al and other pharmaceutical prescriptions to keep them limited to the older standards. Give them enlightened teachers who don�t have issues with authority themselves and they will thrive. Lock their minds up and they will rebel or refuse to cooperate and drop out.

�Identifying this combination child is the first step (not all born from 1988 have every characteristic). Cooperating with them is next. They will inherit the environmental predicament made by today�s leaders as their big issue being called upon to resolve it. They need support, understanding, creativeness and patience.�

Lord

21/05/2007 14:40

A male with nobility, power and authority.

The female equivalent is Lady.

This terms definition can vary depending on the context in which it is used, for example Lord when used within religion can refer to God.

Sometimes the Scottish equivalent is referred to as Laird, again this can vary depending on the context which it is used in.

Seneschal

21/05/2007 14:32

A seneschal was an officer in the houses of important nobles in the Middle Ages. The most basic function of a seneschal was to supervise feasts and domestic ceremonies; in this respect, they were equivalent to stewards and majordomos. Sometimes, seneschals were given additional responsibilities, including the dispensing of justice and high military command.

Motte And Bailey

21/05/2007 14:20

A motte-and-bailey is a form of castle. Many were built in Britain, Ireland and France in the 11th and 12th centuries, especially in England following the Norman Conquest of 1066.

Construction

The motte is a raised earth mound, like a small hill, usually artificial and topped with a wooden or stone structure known as a keep. The earth for the mound would be taken from a ditch, dug around the motte or around the whole castle. The outer surface of the mound could be covered with clay or strengthened with wooden supports. Bigger castles might have two mottes, as at Lewes Castle.

The bailey is an enclosed courtyard, typically surrounded by a wooden fence and overlooked by the motte. A castle could have more than one bailey, sometimes an inner and an outer, such as at Warkworth Castle, where expansion of the castle led to enclosure of a new bailey with a wall. Alternately, the multiple baileys could flank the motte, such as at Windsor Castle.

History

It is commonly believed that Motte-and-bailey castles could be very quickly erected; according to records, William the Conqueror had one built at Pevensey in eight days. But recent excavations of mottes have shown that they were built in stages, and that the building of one consisted of complex bankings of earth to keep the motte at its steep angle. Evidence now points to constuction time lasting anywhere from several months to 2 years for quality mottes. They were characteristic of the Norman Conquest period in England and of the Anglo-Norman settlements in Wales, Ireland and the Scottish lowlands. In later days a stone wall replaced the timber palisade and produced what is known as the shell-keep, as at the castles of Berkeley, Alnwick and Windsor, still existing today. The remains of castle mottes can be found in many parts of Britain. In many cases, however, earth and timber defences were never replaced with stone.

A description of this type of castle is given in the life of St John, Bishop of Terouanne (Acta Sanctorum, quoted by GT Clark, Medieval Mil. Architecture):

�The rich and the noble of that region being much given to feuds and bloodshed, fortify themselves ... and by these strongholds subdue their equals and oppress their inferiors. They heap up a mound as high as they are able, and dig round it as broad a ditch as they can ... Round the summit of the mound they construct a palisade of timber to act as a wall. Inside the palisade they erect a house, or rather a citadel, which looks down on the whole neighbourhood.�

St John died in 1130, and this castle of Merchem, built by a lord of the town many years before, may be taken as typical of the practice of the eleventh century. But in addition to the mound, the citadel of the fortress, there was usually appended to it a bailey or basecourt (and sometimes two) of semilunar or horseshoe shape, so that the mound stood on the line of the enceinte.

Today

In modern times motte and bailey castles have been excavated in great detail, mainly in Britain. The most well known is Hen Domen in Wales. This was discovered in the 1970s by British archaeologist Philip Barker. Today Hen Domen is being studied by both Rescue and the Institute of Field Archaeologists.

Modern electrostatic generators

20/05/2007 16:18

Electrostatic generators had a fundamental role in the investigations about the structure of matter, starting at the end of the 19th century. By the 1920's, it was evident that machines capable of generating greater voltage were needed. The Van de Graaff generator was developed, starting in 1929, at MIT. The first model was demonstrated in October 1929. The basic idea was to use an insulating belt to transport electric charge to the interior of an insulated hollow terminal, where it could be discharged regardless of the potential already present on the terminal,that does not produce any electric field in its interior. The idea was not new, but the implementation using an electronic power supply to charge the belt was a fundamental innovation that turned the old machines obsolete. The first machine used a silk ribbon bought at a five and dime store as the charge transport belt. In 1931 a version capable of producing 1,000,000 volts was described in a patent disclosure. Nikola Tesla wrote a Scientific American article, "Possibilities of Electro-Static Generators" in 1934 concerning the Van de Graaff generator (pp. 132-134 and 163-165). Tesla stated, "I believe that when new types [of Van de Graaff generators] are developed and sufficiently improved a great future will be assured to them". High-power machines were soon developed, working on pressurized containers to allow greater charge concentration on the surfaces without ionization. Variations of the Van de Graaff generator were also developed for Physics research, as the Pelletron, that uses a chain with alternating insulating and conducting links for charge transport. Simplified Van de Graaff generators are commonly seen in demonstrations about static electricity, due to its high-voltage capability, producing the curious effect of making the hair of people touching the terminal, standing over an insulating support, stand up.

Between 1945 and 1960, the French researcher No�l Felici developed a series of high-power electrostatic generators, based on electronic excitation and using cylinders rotating at high speed in pressurized containers.

Related recent machines

In 1991, G. L. Paramo developed the Lorente generator. It is a triboelectric machine operating with rolling friction, consisting of four cylinders with the two central ones made of different insulating materials and the two outer ones metallic. The cylinders rotate under some pressure, and the charges separated between the two central cylinders are collected by the outer cylinders.

Fringe science and devices

These generators have been used, sometimes inappropriately and with some controversy, to support various fringe science investigations. In 1911, George Samuel Piggott received a patent for a compact double machine enclosed within a pressurized box for his experiments concerning radiotelegraphy and "antigravity". Much later (in the 1960s), the Testatika was built by German engineer, Paul Suisse Bauman, and promoted by a Swiss community, the Methernithans. Testatika is an electromagnetic generator based on the 1889 Pidgeon electrostatic machine, said to produce "free energy" available directly from the environment.

Influence machines

20/05/2007 16:18

Frictional machines were, in time, gradually superseded by the second class of instrument mentioned above, namely, influence machines. These operate by electrostatic induction and convert mechanical work into electrostatic energy by the aid of a small initial charge which is continually being replenished or reinforced. The first suggestion of an influence machine appears to have grown out of the invention of Volta's electrophorus. The electrophorus is a single-plate capacitor used to produce imbalances of electric charge via the process of electrostatic induction. Abraham Bennet, the inventor of the gold leaf electroscope, described a "doubler of electricity" (Phil. Trans., 1787), as a device similar to the electrophorus, but that could amplify a small charge by means of manual operations with three insulated plates, in order to make it observable in an electroscope. Erasmus Darwin, B. Wilson, G. C. Bohnenberger, and (later, 1841) J. C. E. P�clet developed various modifications of Bennet's device. In 1788, William Nicholson proposed his rotating doubler, that can be considered as the first rotating influence machine. His instrument was described as "an instrument which by turning a winch produces the two states of electricity without friction or communication with the earth". (Phil. Trans., 1788, p. 403) Nicholson later described a "spinning condenser" apparatus.

Others, including T. Cavallo (who developed the "Cavallo multiplier", a charge multiplier using simple addition, in 1795), John Read, Charles Bernard Desormes, and Jean Nicolas Pierre Hachette, developed further various forms of rotating doublers. In 1798, The German scientist and preacher Gottlieb Christoph Bohnenberger, described the Bohnenberger machine, along with several other doublers of Bennet and Nicholson types in a book. The most interesting of these were described in the "Annalen der Physik" (1801). Giuseppe Belli, in 1831, developed a simple symmetrical doubler which consisted of two curved metal plates between which revolved a pair of plates carried on an insulating stem. It was the first symmetrical influence machine, with identical structures for both terminals. This apparatus was similar to Lord Kelvin's "replenisher" (1867). Lord Kelvin also devised a combined influence machine and electromagnetic machine, commonly called a mouse mill, for electrifying the ink in connection with his siphon recorder. Lord Kelvin also developed, between 1858 and 1867, a water-drop electrostatic generator, which he called the "water-dropping condenser".

In 1860, C. F. Varley patented a more modern type of influence machine. Between 1864 and 1880, W. T. B. Holtz constructed and described a large number of influence machines which were considered the most advanced developments of the time. In one form, the Holtz machine consisted of a glass disk mounted on a horizontal axis which could be made to rotate at a considerable speed by a multiplying gear, interacting with induction plates mounted in a fixed disk close to it. In 1865, August J. I. Toepler developed an influence machine that consisted of two disks fixed on the same shaft and rotating in the same direction. In 1868, the Schwedoff machine had a curious structure to increase the output current. Also in 1868, several mixed friction-influence machine were developed, including the Kundt machine and the Carr� machine. In 1866, the Piche machine (or Bertsch machine) was developed. In 1869, H. Julius Smith received the American patent for a portable and airtight device that was designed to ignite powder. Also in 1869, sectorless machines in Germany were investigated by Poggendorff.

The action and efficiency of influence machines were further investigated by F. Rossetti, A. Righi, and F. W. G. Kohlrausch. E. E. N. Mascart, A. Roiti, and E. Bouchotte also examined the efficiency and current producing power of influence machines. In 1871, sectorless machines were investigated by Musaeus. In 1872, Righi's electrometer was developed and was one of the first antecedents of the Van de Graaff generator. In 1873, Leyser developed the Leyser machine, a variation of the Holtz machine. In 1880, Robert Voss (a Berlin instrument maker) devised a form of machine in which he claimed that the principles of Toepler and Holtz were combined. The same structure become also known as the Toepler-Holtz machine. In 1878, the British inventor James Wimshurst started his studies about electrostatic generators, improving the Holtz machine, in a powerful version with multiple disks. The classical Wimshurst machine, that become the most popular form of influence machine, was reported to the scientific community by 1883, although revious machines with very similar structures were previously described by Holtz and Musaeus. In 1885, one of the largest Wimshurst machine was built in England (and is now at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry). In 1887, Weinhold modified the Leyser machine with a system of vertical metal bar inductors with wooden cylinders close to the disk for avoiding polarity reversals. M. L. Lebiez described the Lebiez machine, that was essentially a simplified Voss machine (L'�lectricien, April 1895, pp. 225-227). In 1894, Bonetti designed a machine with the structure of the Wimshurst machine, but without metal sectors in the disks, that was significantly more powerful than the sectored version.

In 1898, the Pidgeon machine was developed with a unique setup by W. R. Pidgeon. In October 28 of that year, Pidgeon presented this machine to the Physical Society after several years of investigation into influence machines (beginning at the start of the decade). The device was later reported in the Philosophical Magazine (Dec. 1898, pg. 564) and the Electrical Review (Vol. XLV, pg. 748). Pidgeon machines possess fixed inductors arranged in a manner that increases the electrical induction effect (and it electrical output is at least double that of typical machines of this type [except when it is overtaxed]). The essential features of the Pidgeon machine are, one, the combination of the rotating support and the fixed support for inducing charge, and, two, the improved insulation of all parts of the machine (but more especially of the generator's carriers). Pidgeon machines are a combination of a Wimshurst Machine and Voss Machine, with special features adapted to reduce the amount of charge leakage. Pidgeon machines excite themselves more readily than the best of these types of machines. In addition, Pidgeon investigated higher current "triplex" section machines (or "double machines with a single central disk") with enclosed sectors (and would receive British Patent 22517 (1899) for this type of machine).

Multiple disk machines and "triplex" electrostatic machines (Wimshurst machines with three disks) were also developed extensively around the turn of the century. In 1900, F. Tudsbury discovered that enclosing a generator in a metallic chamber containing compressed air, or better, carbon dioxide, the insulating properties of compressed gases enabled a greatly improved effect to be obtained owing to the increase in the breakdown voltage of the compressed gas, and reduction of the leakage across the plates and insulating supports. In 1903, Alfred Wehrsen patented an ebonite rotating disk possessing embedded sectors with button contacts at the disk surface. In 1907, Heinrich Wommelsdorf reported a variation of the Holtz machine using this disk and inductors embedded in celluloid plates (DE154175; "Wehrsen machine"). Wommelsdorf also developed several studies about high-performance electrostatic generators, of which the best known were his "Condenser machines" (1920), that were multiple machines with disks with embedded sectors accessed trough the edges.

Friction machines

20/05/2007 16:12

Some electrostatic generators are called friction machines because of the friction in the generation process. A primitive form of frictional electrical machine was constructed around 1663 by Otto von Guericke, using a rotating sulphur globe rubbed by hand. Isaac Newton suggested the use of a glass globe instead of a sulphur one (Optics, 8th Query). F. Hawksbee improved the basic design.

Generators were further advanced when G. M. Bose of Wittenberg added a collecting conductor (an insulated tube or cylinder supported on silk strings). In 1746, Watson's machine had a large wheel turning several glass globes with a sword and a gun barrel suspended from silk cords for its prime conductors. J. H. Winkler, the professor of physics at Leipzig, substituted a leather cushion for the hand. Andreas Gordon of Erfurt, a Scotch Benedictine monk, used a glass cylinder in place of a sphere. Jesse Ramsden, in 1768, constructed a widely used version of a plate electrical generator. By 1784, the van Marum machine could produce voltage with any polarity. Also in 1784, Van Marum constructed a rather large electrostatic machine of high quality (currently on display at the Teylers Museum in the Netherlands).

In 1785, N. Rouland constructed a silk belted machine which rubbed two grounded hare fur covered tubes. Edward Nairne developed an electrostatic generator in 1787 which introduced the ability to generate either positive or negative electricity, the first named being collected from the prime conductor carrying the collecting points and the second from the prime conductor carrying the cushion. The Winter machine possessed higher efficiency than earlier friction machines. In the 1830s, Georg Ohm possessed a machine similar to the van Marum machine for his research (which is now at the Deutsches Museum, Munich, Germany). In 1840, the Woodward machine was developed from improving the Ramsden machine (placing the prime conductor above the disk(s)). Also in 1840, the Armstrong hydroelectric machine was developed and used steam as a charge carrier.

Friction operation

The presence of surface charge imbalance means that the objects will exhibit attractive or repulsive forces. This surface charge imbalance, which leads to static electricity, can be generated by touching two differing surfaces together and then separating them due to the phenomena of contact electrification and the triboelectric effect. Rubbing two non-conductive objects generates a great amount of static electricity. This is not just the result of friction; two non-conductive surfaces can become charged by just being placed one on top of the other. Since most surfaces have a rough texture, it takes longer to achieve charging through contact than through rubbing. Rubbing objects together increases amount of adhesive contact between the two surfaces. Usually insulators, e.g., substances that do not conduct electricity, are good at both generating, and holding, a surface charge. Some examples of these substances are rubber, plastic, glass, and pith. Conductive objects in contact generate charge imbalance too, but retain the charges only if insulated. The charge that is transferred during contact electrification is stored on the surface of each object. Note that the presence of electric current does not detract from the electrostatic forces nor from the sparking, from the corona discharge, or other phenomena. Both phenomena can exist simultaneously in the same system.

Electrostatic Generator

20/05/2007 16:18

An electrostatic generator, or electrostatic machine, is a mechanical device that produces static electricity, or electricity at high voltage and low continuous current. The knowledge of static electricity dates back to the earliest civilizations, but for millennia it remained merely an interesting and mystifying phenomenon. By the end of the 17th Century, researchers had developed practical means of generating electricity by friction, but the development of electrostatic machines did not begin in earnest until the 18th Century, when they become fundamental instruments in the studies about the new science of electricity. Electrostatic generators operate by using manual (or other) power to transform mechanical work into electric energy. They develop electrostatic charges of opposite sign rendered to two conductors, using only electric forces.

Electrostatic machines are used for generating high voltages, using either friction or electrostatic induction to accumulate electrical charges. Electrostatic generators are typically used in science classrooms to safely demonstrate electrical forces and high voltage phenomena. The potential differences achieved have been also used for a variety of practical applications (such as operating X-ray tubes, sterilization of food, and nuclear physics experiments). Electrostatic generators such as the Van de Graaff generator, and variations as the Pelletron and the tandem generator, also find use in physics research.

Electrostatic generators are of two kinds: friction machines, and influence machines.

NDE

27/03/2007 06:47

NDE - Near Death Experience is the reported experiences where a person near to death senses becoming detached from his or her body and then has visions of a tunnel of light, and sometimes also the afterlife.

Magic

27/03/2007 06:30

The art, science, and practice of producing supernatural effects, causing change to occur in conformity, and controlling events in Nature with will conjuring.

See also Conjuring and Black Magic.

Magic

27/03/2007 06:29

The art, science, and practice of producing supernatural effects, causing change to occur in conformity, and controlling events in Nature with will conjuring.

See also Conjuring and Black Magic.

Macro PK

27/03/2007 06:26

Refers to psychokinesis effects which are either apparent to the naked eye or which can be deduced without the need for statistical analysis e.g. levitation, spoon-bending. The existence of macro-PK is controversial even amongst parapsychologists, having rarely been demonstrated under controlled conditions and being more susceptible to the possibility of fraud.

Macabre

27/03/2007 06:25

Something ghastly - gruesome or grim.

Lycanthropy

27/03/2007 06:24

In folklore, lycanthropy is the ability or power of a human being to undergo transformation into a wolf. The term comes from Greek lyk�nthropos (λυκάνθρωπος): λύκος, l�kos ("wolf") + άνθρωπος, �nthrōpos ("man") (Rose, 230). The word can also be used transitively, referring to the act of transforming someone else into a wolf, or werewolf.

The word lycanthropy is often used generically for any transformation of a human into animal form, though the precise term for that is technically "therianthropy". Sometimes, "zoanthropy" is used instead of "therianthropy" (Guiley, 192).

Folk-etymology also links the word to Lycaon, a king of Arcadia who, according to Ovid's Metamorphoses, was turned into a ravenous wolf in retribution for attempting to serve human flesh (his own son) to visiting Zeus in an attempt to disprove the god's divinity.

There is also a mental illness called lycanthropy in which a patient believes he or she is, or has transformed into, an animal and behaves accordingly. This is sometimes referred to as clinical lycanthropy to distinguish it from its use in legends.

Levitation

27/03/2007 06:22

The raising of a body or object without any physical or visible means.

Inhuman Spirit

27/03/2007 06:19

An entity or spirit of a being that has never lived in the earthly realm.

Infestation

27/03/2007 06:19

Repeated and persistent paranormal phenomena, usually centred around one particular person or location.

Incubus

25/03/2009 13:32

A demon which seeks sexual intercourse with a living woman.

See also "Succubus".

Information from the Wikipedia

An incubus (plural incubi) is a demon in male form supposed to lie upon sleepers, especially women, in order to have sexual intercourse with them, according to a number of mythological and legendary traditions. Its female counterpart is the succubus. An incubus may pursue sexual relations with a woman in order to father a child, as in the legend of Merlin,[1] and some sources indicate that it may be identified by its unnaturally cold penis.[2] Religious tradition holds that repeated intercourse with an incubus or succubus may result in the deterioration of health, or even death.[3]

Etymology

The word is derived from the Latin preposition in, which in this case means on top of, and cubo, which is Latin for "I lie". The word incubo translates into "I lie on top".[4]

Origins

A number of secular explanations have been offered for the origin of the incubus legends. They involve the medieval preoccupation with sin, especially sexual sins of women. Victims may have been experiencing waking dreams or sleep paralysis. Also, nocturnal arousal, orgasm or nocturnal emission could be explained by the idea of creatures causing an otherwise guilt-producing and self-conscious behavior.[5]

Purported victims of incubi could have been the victims of sexual assault by a real person. Rapists may have attributed the rapes of sleeping women to demons in order to escape punishment. A friend or relative may have assaulted the victim in her sleep. The victims and, in some cases the clergy,[6] may have found it easier to explain the attack as supernatural rather than confront the idea that the attack came from someone in a position of trust.

Ancient and religious descriptions

One of the earliest mentions of an incubus comes from Mesopotamia on the Sumerian kings' list, ca. 2400, where the hero Gilgamesh's father is listed as Lilu (Lila).[7] It is said that Lilu disturbs and seduces women in their sleep, while Lilitu, a female demon, appears to men in their erotic dreams.[8] Two other corresponding demons appear as well: Ardat lili, who visits men by night and begets ghostly children from them, and Irdu lili, who is known as a male counterpart to Ardat lili and visits women by night and begets from them. These demons were originally storm demons, but they eventually became regarded as night demons due to mistaken etymology.[9]

Incubi and succubi were said by some not to be different sexes, but the same demons able to change their sex.[10] A succubus would be able to sleep with a man and collect his sperm, and then transform into an incubus and use that seed on women. Their offspring were thought to be supernatural in many cases, even if the actual genetic material originally came from humans.[5]

Though many tales claim that the incubus is bisexual,[11] others indicate that it is strictly heterosexual and finds attacking a male victim either unpleasant or detrimental.[12] There are also numerous stories involving the attempted exorcism of incubi or succubi who have taken refuge in, respectively, the bodies of men or women.

Incubi are sometimes said to be able to conceive children. The half-human offspring of such a union is sometimes referred to as a cambion. The most famous legend of such a case includes that of Merlin, the famous wizard from Arthurian legend.[6]

According to the Malleus Maleficarum, exorcism is one of the five ways to overcome the attacks of Incubi, the others being Sacramental Confession, the Sign of the Cross (or recital of the Angelic Salutation), moving the afflicted to another location, and by excommunication of the attacking entity, "which is perhaps the same as exorcism." [13] On the other hand, the Franciscan friar Ludovico Maria Sinistrari stated that incubi "do not obey exorcists, have no dread of exorcisms, show no reverence for holy things, at the approach of which they are not in the least overawed."[6]

Regional variations

There are a number of variations on the incubus theme around the world. The alp of Teutonic or German folklore is one of the better known. In Zanzibar, Popo Bawa primarily attacks men and generally behind closed doors.[14] El Trauco, according to the traditional mythology of the Chilo� Province of Chile, is a hideous deformed dwarf who lulls nubile young women and seduces them. El Trauco is said to be responsible for unwanted pregnancies, especially in unmarried women.[15] In Hungary, a lid�rc can be a Satanic lover that flies at night and appears as a fiery light (an ignis fatuus or will o' the wisp) or, in its more benign form as a featherless chicken.[16]

In Brazil and the rain forests of the Amazon Basin, the Boto is a combination of siren and incubus, a very charming and beautiful man who seduces young women and takes them into the river.[17] It is said to be responsible for disappearances and unwanted pregnancies,[18] and it can never be seen by daylight, because it metamorphoses into kind of river dolphin during those hours. According to legend the boto always wears a hat to disguise the breathing hole at the top of its head.[19]

The Southern African incubus demon is the Tikoloshe. Chaste women place their beds upon bricks to deter the rather short fellows from attaining their sleeping forms. They also share the hole in the head detail and water dwelling habits of the Boto.

See Also

* Classification of demons
* Christian demonology
* Demon
* Demonology
* Krampus
* Lilith
* List of fictional demons
* List of theological demons
* Night terror
* Sexuality in Christian demonology
* Succubus

Feature Films

The Incubus (1981 film)

Incubus (1965 film)

Incubus (2005 film)

Incarnate

27/03/2007 06:18

Living in a physical body.

Illusory

27/03/2007 06:16

deceptive or unreal - something based on an illusion.

Hypnopompic Images

27/03/2007 06:16

Similar to a hallucination. Experienced by people as they awake from sleep.

Hypnopompic

27/03/2007 06:17

Relates to the state which exists between sleep and being fully awake.

Human Spirit

27/03/2007 06:13

The earthbound spirit of a deceased person.

Human Sacrifice

27/03/2007 06:12

The ceremonial killing of a person as an offering to an evil spirit for magical purposes.

Hex

27/03/2007 06:09

A spell or magical working, cast to influence a person's will or fate. Often related to a curse.

Healing

27/03/2007 06:08

Refers to a whole range of phenomena wherein one or more people attempt to bring about the well-being of another person. This area is very complex, involving a number of psychological and physical factors that must be allowed for before a psi component is looked for.

See also DMILS

Haunt

27/03/2007 06:07

To visit a place or a person in the form of a ghost, or a place a ghost is said to frequent.

Halo

27/03/2007 06:07

A disc or ring of light surrounding a person or object as illustrated around the head of an angel or a saint.

Monster

27/03/2007 06:05

Monster is a term for any number of legendary creatures that frequently appear in mythology, legend, and horror fiction. The word originates from the ancient Latin monstrum, meaning "omen", from the root of monere, "to warn", also meaning prodigy, miracle.

Shapeshifting

27/03/2007 06:04

Shapeshifting is a common theme in mythology and folklore, as well as in science fiction and fantasy. In its broadest sense, it is a change in the physical form or shape of a person or animal. Other terms include metamorphosis, morphing, transformation, or transmogrification.

There is no settled agreement on the terminology. Still, the most common usages are:

Shapeshifting indicates changes that are temporary.
Metamorphosis indicates changes that are lasting.
Transformation indicates changes that are externally imposed.

Shapeshifting is distinguished from natural processes such as aging or metamorphosis (despite shared use of the term), the body contortions of animals such as the Mimic Octopus, and illusory changes. Instead, shapeshifting involves physical changes such as alterations of age, gender, race, or general appearance or changes between human form and that of an animal, plant, or inanimate object.

Jinn

27/03/2007 06:02

Genie is the English term for the Arabic جن (jinn). In pre-Islamic Arabian mythology and in Islam, a jinni (also "djinni" or "djini") is a member of the jinn (or "djinn"), a race of supernatural creatures. The word "jinn" literally means anything which has the connotation of concealment, invisibility, seclusion and remoteness. In English it may be loosely translated as Ghost.

Ghoul

27/03/2007 06:00

Spirit said to prey on corpses.

A ghoul (Arabic ,غول ġūl) is a monster from ancient Arabian and Persian folklore that dwells in graveyards and other uninhabited places. The English word comes from the Arabic name for the creature: الغول ghūl, which literally means "demon". The ghul is a devilish type of jinn believed to be sired by Iblis.

The female form is given as "ghouleh" in Muhawi and Kanaana (see ref below). The plural is "ghilan".

Ghul is also the name for a desert-dwelling shapeshifting demon that can assume the guise of an animal, especially a hyena. It lures unwary travellers into the desert wastes to slay and devour them. The creature also preys on young children, robs graves, and eats the dead. Because of the latter habit, the word ghoul is sometimes used to refer to an ordinary human such as a grave robber, or to anyone who delights in the macabre. The word "ghoul" has also been used to describe cannibals such as Jeffrey Dahmer.

The star Algol takes its name from this creature.

Ghost

27/03/2007 05:57

A supernatural appearance or image not recognizable to the viewer.

A spirit of a dead person appearing in a bodily likeness to living persons, a spirit, a demon.

On another note, Ghost was a 1990 comedy romantic fantasy film starring Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, Tony Goldwyn and Rick Aviles, written by Bruce Joel Rubin and directed by Jerry Zucker.

Ganzfeld

27/03/2007 05:55

From German meaning 'whole field'. A state of mild sensory deprivation, characterised by the presentation of homogenous sensory fields . Thus, a person in Ganzfeld will have diffusive plastic hemispheres over their eyes while in a dimly red-lit room, be listening to white noise through headphones, and be seated in a comfortable, semi-reclined chair.

Its use in parapsychology is based on a noise-reduction model.

Fortean Phenomena

27/03/2007 05:53

A term used to describe any paranormal or unexplained event. Named after Charles Fort who collected and analysed such phenomena.

Fairy

27/03/2007 05:53

An elemental spirit considered benign but inclined to mischief.

ESP

27/03/2007 05:52

Extrasensory Perception - ESP - A general term used for all forms of psi where the process of information acquisition appears to be analogous to the conventional sensory processes of sight, sound, taste, touch and hearing.

Exorcist

27/03/2007 05:50

One who conducts the rights of exorcism.

Exorcism

27/03/2007 05:50

The process of expelling or removing an evil spirit by religious ceremony.

And is conducted by an exorcist.

Konstantin Raudive

27/03/2007 05:48

Dr. Konstantin Raudive (1906-1974), a student of Carl Jung, was a psychologist who taught at the University of Uppsala in Sweden. He was preoccupied with parapsychological interests all his life (especially with the possibility of life after death), and he kept in close contact with leading British psychical researchers.

Electronic voice phenomena (EVP) were investigated by him and a German parapsychologist Hans Bender. Following the publication of Raudive's book on his research (Breakthrough, 1971) these phenomena are now often referred to as "Raudive Voices".

In 1964, Raudive read Friedrich J�rgenson�s book, Voices from Space, and was so impressed by it that he arranged to meet J�rgenson in 1965. He then worked with J�rgenson to make some EVP recordings, but their first efforts bore little fruit, although they believed that they could hear very weak, muddled voices. According to Raudive, however, one night, as he listened to one recording, he clearly heard a number of voices. When he played the tape over and over, he came to understand all of them, some of which were in German, some in Latvian, some in French. The last voice on the tape, a woman�s voice, said "Va dormir, Margarete" ("Go to sleep, Margaret").

Raudive later wrote (in Breakthrough):

"These words made a deep impression on me, as Margarete Petrautzki had died recently, and her illness and death had greatly affected me."

Amazed by this, he started researching such voices on his own and spent much of the last ten years of his life exploring EVP. With the help of various electronics experts he recorded over 100,000 audiotapes, most of which were made under what he described as "strict laboratory conditions." He collaborated at times with Bender. Over 400 people were involved in his research, and all apparently heard the voices. This culminated in the 1971 publication of Breakthrough.

EMVP

27/03/2007 05:41

EMVP meaning Electromagnetic Voice Patterns.

Also known as EVP.

EVP

27/03/2007 05:44

EVP meaning Electronic Voice Patterns.

Also known as EMVP

Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP or EMVP) refers to voices or voice-like sounds of alleged paranormal origin captured on recorded media and other electronic devices. Examples of EVP are typically short, usually the length of a word or short phrase, although longer segments have been reported.

Paranormal explanations for EVP include communication from discarnate entities, psychic projections from EVP researchers, and communication from alien or trans-dimensional beings. While there is virtually no scientific literature on the subject, skeptics have disputed these explanations, proposing alternative explanations including cross modulation or interference from nearby radio sources or random noise mistakenly perceived as voices due to pareidolia, the human propensity to find familiar patterns amongst random stimuli.

The term electronic voice phenomenon was coined by publishing company Colin Smythe Ltd in the early 1970s. Previously the phenomena had been known as �Raudive Voices� after Konstantin Raudive, whose 1970 book Breakthrough brought the subject to a wider public audience. Since then references to EVP have appeared in pop culture such as in the Reality TV show Ghost Hunters, Most Haunted, the fictional Supernatural and the Hollywood films White Noise and The Sixth Sense.

Evoke

27/03/2007 05:38

To call, summon or cause spirits to appear.

Entity

27/03/2007 05:37

A disembodied or preternatural spirit.

Empathy

27/03/2007 05:37

Rarely used in modern parapsychology, the popular usage of this term refers to a low-level form of telepathy wherein the empath appears to be aware of the emotional state of a distant person. An empath may also refer to someone thought able to 'broadcast' their emotions to others.

See also DMILS and ESP.

EMF

27/03/2007 05:35

The electromagnetic field is a physical field that is produced by electrically charged objects and which affects the behaviour of charged objects in the vicinity of the field. The electromagnetic field extends indefinitely throughout space and describes the electromagnetic interaction, one of the four fundamental forces of nature. The field can be viewed as the combination of an electric field and a magnetic field. The electric field is produced by stationary charges, and the magnetic field by moving charges (currents); these two are often described as the sources of the field.

From a classical point of view, the electromagnetic field can be regarded as a smooth, continuous field, propagated in a wavelike manner, whereas from a quantum mechanical point of view, the field can be viewed as being composed of photons.

EMF Detector

27/03/2007 05:31

Instrument that measures electrical management fields (EMF).

Elemental

27/03/2007 05:30

A lesser spirit bound to the fundamentals of nature (earth, wind, water, and fire).

A spirit that is an inhabitant of one of the four elements

Can also refer to a nature spirit or an evolved thought form.

Electrodermal Response

27/03/2007 05:08

Electrodermal Response (RDA) also known as Electrodermal Activity (EDA) : A measure of skin conductance or resistance (to a small electrical current) which is related to sympathetic nervous system arousal. This response can be elicited by external stimuli (a light, tone etc.), or by internal activity (e.g. emotions). The most commonly used measure is Skin Conductance.

Eerie

27/03/2007 05:03

Strange; weird. A place or atmosphere which is mysteriously and uncannily frightening or disturbing.

Ectoplasm

27/03/2007 05:02

An unknown substance which emanates from the bodies of mediums, correlating to supernatural phenomena.

Earthbound

27/03/2007 05:00

A spirit being trapped to remain on the earthly plain.

Dowsing Rod

27/03/2007 04:59

known as a divining rod, a forked rod believed to indicate the presence of water or minerals especially by dipping downward or when held over a vein.

Some hold a belief that a Dowsing rod can be used for spiritual divination, but picking up on energy.

A divining rod (also known as dowsing rod) is an apparatus used in dowsing. There are many types of divining rods:

two brass "L" shaped wire rods (commonly made of brazing or welding rod) that are to be held one in each hand. When something is found they cross over one another making an "X" over the found object. Brass is used to prevent interference due to the Earth's magnetic field.

A forked (or "Y" shaped) willow branch. The two ends on the forked side are to be held one in each hand with the third pointing straight ahead. Often the branches are grasped palms down. The pointing end turns up or down when water is found. This method is sometimes known as 'Willow Witching'. Hazel tree branches were also used for this purpose; these were called virgula divina.

DMILS

27/03/2007 04:47

Abbreviation of Direct Mental Interaction with Living Systems. Used to denote instances where one person is attempting to influence a distant biological system, usually the physiology (see Electrodermal Response) of another person.

As it is unclear whether this represents an influence (see Psychokinesis), a case of ESP on the part of the influencee or an opportunistic selection process (see DAT), the term 'interaction' has been adopted.

Disembodied

27/03/2007 04:46

A spirit functioning without a body.

Discarnate

27/03/2007 04:46

Existing outside a physical body.

Iblis

27/03/2007 04:44

Iblīs (Arabic إبليس), is name given to the primary devil in Islam.

He appears more often referred in the Qur'an (Islamic holy Book) as the Shaitan, a general purpose term used to refer to all of the evil spirits in alliance with Iblis, but which is often used to refer to just Iblis. Iblis is mentioned 11 times, and Shaitan "al-Shaitaan" (‏(الشيطان is mentioned 87 times. He is chief of the spirits of evil (Shaitan), he is known as Satan, or "the devil" to Christians.

Belial

27/03/2007 04:42

Belial (also Belhor, Baalial, Beliar, Beliall, Beliel; from Hebrew Bliyaal בליעל; also named Matanbuchus, Mechembuchus, Meterbuchus in older scripts) is an evil being in Hebrew mythology, and also a term used to characterise the wicked or worthless.

Belial is said to be very respectful. Belial is also the demon of lust. As a Prince of Hell, he commands 80 Legions of Demons and is specifically the Prince reigning over the Northern Reaches of Hell. He controls the element of earth and reigns over the Earth Elementals (earth demons.) The other princes of Hell include: Gaap, Asmoday, and Vassago.

Lucifer

27/03/2007 04:40

Lucifer is a Latin word meaning "light-bearer" (from lux, lucis, "light", and ferre, "to bear, bring"), a Roman astrological term for the "Morning Star", the planet Venus. The word Lucifer was the direct translation of the Greek eosphoros ("dawn-bearer"; cf. Greek phosphoros, "light-bearer") used by Jerome in the Vulgate, having mythologically the same meaning as Prometheus who brought fire to humanity. In that passage, Isaiah 14:12, it referred to one of the popular honorific titles of a Babylonian king; however, later interpretations of the text, and the influence of embellishments in works such as Dante's The Divine Comedy and Milton's Paradise Lost, led to the common idea in Christian mythology and folklore that Lucifer was a poetic appellation of Satan.

In modern and late Medieval Christian thought, Lucifer is usually a fallen angel commonly associated with Satan, the embodiment of evil and enemy of God. Lucifer is generally considered, based on the influence of Christian literature and legend, to have been a prominent archangel in heaven (although some contexts say he was a cherub or a seraph), prior to having been motivated by pride to lead a revolution against God. When the angel failed, Lucifer was cast out of heaven, along with a third of the heavenly host, and came to reside in the world.

Asmodai

27/03/2007 04:38

Asmodeus (Asmodeus, Asmodaeus, pronounced Ashmed or Ashmedeus in Hebrew, also Chammadai, Sydonai) is a semi-Biblical demon mostly known thanks to the deuterocanonical Book of Tobit; he is also mentioned in some Talmudic legends and in demonology, as he is a leading figure in the construction efforts of the Temple of Solomon. Amongst many scholars, legends about Asmodai are thought to derive from Zoroastrianism, and incorporated into Judaism, and subsequently Christianity, during the Persian Achaemenids' rule over the Jews.

Idolatry

27/03/2007 04:35

Idolatry is a major sin in the Abrahamic religions regarding image. In Judaism and Christianity it is defined as worship of an image, idea or object, as opposed to the worship of a supreme being. In some versions of Islam, the creation of imagery itself as well as its worship would amount to idolatry or shirk. The Shiite minority is more apt to use representation of religious figures in art. In religions where such activity is not considered as sin, the term "idolatry" itself is absent. Which images, ideas, and objects, constitute idolatry, and which constitute reasonable worship, is a matter of contention with some religious authorities and groups using the term to describe certain other religions apart from their own.

Satan

27/03/2007 04:32

God's adversary, expelled from heaven for rebelling against God.

Satan, from the Hebrew word for "adversary" (Standard Hebrew: שָׂטָן, Satan; Tiberian Hebrew Śāṭān; Koine Greek: Σατανάς, Satan�s; Aramaic: סטנא, Saṭ�n�; Arabic: شيطان, �ayṭān, Ge'ez: ሳይጣን Sāyṭān, Turkish: Şeytan), is a term that originates from the Abrahamic faiths, being traditionally applied to an angel. Ha-Satan is the accuser, a member of the divine council, who challenged the religious faith of humans, especially in the books of Job and Zechariah. Religious belief systems other than Judaism relate this term to a demon, a rebellious fallen angel, devil, minor god and idolatry, or as an allegory for evil.

Devil

27/03/2007 04:29

The Devil is the name given to a supernatural entity who, in most Western religions, is the central embodiment of evil. This entity is commonly referred to by a variety of other names, including Satan, Asmodai, Beelzebub, Lucifer and/or Mephistopheles. In classic demonology, however, each of these alternate names refers to a specific supernatural entity, and there is significant disagreement as to whether any of these specific entities is actually evil.

The Devil is a title given to the supernatural entity, who, in Christianity, Islam, and other religions, is a powerful, evil entity and the tempter of humankind. In conservative Christianity, God and the Devil are usually portrayed as fighting over the souls of humans, with the Devil seeking to lure people away from God and into hell. The Devil commands a force of lesser evil spirits, commonly known as demons. The Devil is destined to be destroyed at the end of this age, but not before he has led many humans, some say the vast majority, to perdition. The Devil is commonly associated with heretics, infidels, and other unbelievers. The Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament) does not assign this level of personification to a devil, but rather identifies all good and evil as originating in the will of God. In humour, concept of something as evil as Satan is often mocked.

This entity is commonly referred to by a variety of names, including Angra Mainyu, Satan, Asmodai, Beelzebub, Lucifer, Belial, or Iblis. Many other religions have a trickster or tempter figure that is similar to the Devil.

Modern conceptions of the Devil include the concept that it merely symbolizes humans' own lower nature or sinfulness.

Deva

27/03/2007 04:26

A psychic term that defines a spirit entity composed of (usually negative) emotions and/or strong feelings that never existed as a living being. A Deva can manifest in a location that is connected with powerful and usually quite disturbed ambiances for example places of torture, battles and murders.

Dematerialise

27/03/2007 04:25

To disappear without trace thereby ceasing to have any material existence.

DAT

27/03/2007 04:48

Abbreviation of Decision Augmentation Theory. An attempt to reconceptualise psychokinesis as a precognition-based selection process rather than one of actual influence

See also DMILS

Cryptozoology

27/03/2007 04:24

A branch of paranormal research which deals with the exploration of legendary creatures such as the Chupacabra and the Loch Ness monster.

Crypt

27/03/2007 04:23

A vault, chamber or cellar beneath a church, often used as a place of burial.

Crisis Apparition

27/03/2007 04:22

A person seen as a ghost within twelve hours before or after death. Also may be seen when the "real" person is in crisis.

Circumambulism

27/03/2007 04:19

Ceremonial walking around an object or person to secure protection.

Channeling

27/03/2007 04:18

A form of communication, a spirit communicates and possesses a medium. The entity being the channel can be a deceased human being, angel, or demon.

According to Webster's Dictionary: the practice of professedly entering a meditative or trancelike state in order to convey messages from a spiritual guide.

Boggart

27/03/2007 04:15

Evil or mischievous spirit.

For a fairy it would seem this little creature doesn't really conform to fairy stereotypes. A boggart was reported in the Yorkshire town of Horbury in the early twentieth century it had by all accounts been attacking people around the normally quaint and peaceful town. The Horbury boggart was reported to be ice cold, hairy with glowing eyes.

Could of possibly been a hobbit in it's earliest term.

Black Mass

27/03/2007 04:12

The mass said in honor of Satan at the black witches' sabbath, and by Satanists.

Black Magic

27/03/2007 04:11

The practice of conjuring preternatural forces for a specific evil purpose.

Another definition of black magic would be the practice of conjuring preternatural forces in a manner as goes against the will of another. Magic itself is not just the conjuration of preternatural forces, it can involve both Invocation and Evocation and is more truly the imposition of one's will upon reality. Black magic is any magical act that goes against the will or brings harm to another.

Bio-PK

27/03/2007 04:00

Influence by psychokinesis of a biological system e.g. altering the haemolysis rate of blood cells in a test-tube, or changing the physiological activity of a living system

See also DMILS and Psycho Kinesis - PK

Doppleganger

27/03/2007 04:51

A doppelg�nger (or Doubleganger) is the ghostly double of a living person, adapted from German Doppelg�nger (look-alike). The word comes from doppel meaning "double" and g�nger translated as "goer". The term has, in the vernacular, come to refer to any double of a person, most commonly in reference to a so-called evil twin, or to bilocation. Alternatively, the word is used to describe a phenomenon where you catch your own image out of the corner of your eye.

Some believe it is that of a loved one in the moments prior to death, perhaps as a warning or even comforting to a loved one.

Bi-location

27/03/2007 03:56

The experience where one person apparently divides into two so that they can be seen at the same time by the same person or group of people. The images are sometimes weakened.

Also known as Doppleganger

Beelzebub

27/03/2007 03:54

One of Satan's chief lieutenants, considered Satan's "left hand man".

Beelzebub (more accurately Ba�al Zeb�b or Ba�al Zəb�b), appears as the name of a deity worshipped in the Philistine city of Ekron. It is later the name of a demon or devil, often interchanged with Beelzebul.

Barguest

27/03/2007 03:51

Spectral hound. The Barguest (also called Padfoot and Guytrash) is a large black dog, but has taken on other forms including bears and sheep. It portends doom (which rather complements its dark coat) and it has been known to be well dispoed towards people.

Also known as Barghast or Barghest. The most famous example in the UK is that of Black Shuck, tales of whom can be found from the far east coast of norfolk right across the home counties and down into Devon and Cornwall. Can be confused with lycanthrope myth.

Baphomet

27/03/2007 03:50

A demon character supposedly worshipped by the Knights Templar in 14th century France.

Banshee

27/03/2007 03:50

A spirit or omen; Scotland and Ireland is the origin.

Daemonic

27/03/2007 03:47

Daemonic would be something that was descriptively like an evil supernatural entitiy, devil or fallen angel. Dictionary.com has this to say Befitting a demon; fiendish. Motivated by a spiritual force or genius; inspired.

See also Demon, Demoness, Daemon, Demonic and Demonologist.

Voodoo

27/03/2007 03:38

Magical practice considered to be a form of black magic but also is considered a religion to some.

Voodoo or Vaudun is a religion worshipped in Haiti and neighbouring islands. It derives from an ancient african religion. The worshippers of Vaudun had to hide the godlike spirits or Loas of their worship behind figures of Catholic Dogma. Worshippers would outwardly worship catholic idols whilst actually worshipping their own loas.

Target

27/03/2007 03:36

General name given to the information which it is hoped the the receiver/percipient will gain access to through psi.

For example, the target in a Ganzfeld ESP study would be the video clip which the sender is watching.

Poltergeist

23/09/2007 23:52

German for �noisy spirit�

A general term applied to a variety of site-, or sometimes person-, specific physical phenomena. These can include temperature variations, anomalous sounds, and movement of physical objects.

The word 'poltergeist' was coined back when such phenomena were thought to be due to the presence of some sort of mischievous entity.

Currently, poltergeist phenomena are usually considered to be related either to unusual physical conditions at the affected site, or to be related to psychokinesis.

Anecdotal reports suggest that many poltergeist focus on an individual under some form of emotional stress.

Believed to be German: Polter means �noisy� and the second half geist means, �ghost�.

NeoPagan

27/03/2007 03:30

A member, follower or sympathizer of one of the newly formed Pagan religions now spreading throughout the world.

Electromagnetic Field - EMF

27/03/2007 03:17

Eclectromagnetic fields are always present in the background of everyday life.

On a ghost hunt you can use an Emf Meter or a compass, which does the same job, to measure sudden increases in the EMF - Ghosts are often associated in fluctuations in the Emf field.

Demonology

27/03/2007 03:39

The study of demons, including their characteristics, classification, and effect on mankind.

Modern demonology can also deal with the inner demons of human psychology.

See also Demon, Demoness, Daemon, Demonic and Demonologist.

Demonologist

27/03/2007 03:12

Involved in the study of Demonology.

See also Demon, Demoness, Daemon and Demonic

Curse

27/03/2007 03:10

To invoke preternatural forces to cause harm or injury to a person, place or object.

Conjuring

27/03/2007 03:10

The process of calling preternatural forces into aid or action through the use of sorcery or ceremonial black magic. The process of calling preternatural forces into aid or action through the use of good or evil magic or sorcery.

Clairgustance

27/03/2007 03:08

In the field of parapsychology, Clairgustance is defined as a form of extra-sensory perception that allegedly allows one to taste a substance without putting anything in one's mouth. It is claimed that those who possess this ability are able to perceive the essence of a substance from the spiritual or ethereal realms through taste.

See also Clairvoyance, Clairaudience, Clairsentience and Clairalience.

Clairaudience

27/03/2007 03:06

In the field of parapsychology, Clairaudience [from late 17th century French clair (clear) & audience (hearing)] is a form of extra-sensory perception wherein a person acquires information by paranormal auditory means. It is often considered to be a form of clairvoyance.[5] Clairaudience is essentially the ability to hear in a paranormal manner, as opposed to paranormal seeing (clairvoyance) and feeling (clairsentience). Clairaudient people have psi-mediated hearing. Clairaudience may refer not to actual perception of sound, but may instead indicate impressions of the "inner mental ear" similar to the way many people think words without having auditory impressions. But it may also refer to actual perception of sounds such as voices, tones, or noises which are not apparent to other humans or to recording equipment. For instance, a clairaudient person might claim to hear the voices or thoughts of the spirits of persons who are deceased. Clairaudience may be positively distinguished from the voices heard by the mentally ill when it reveals information unavailable to the clairaudient person by normal means (including cold reading or other magic tricks), and thus may be termed "psychic" or paranormal.

See also Clairvoyance, Clairalience, Clairsentience and Clairgustance.

Clairalience

27/03/2007 03:02

In the field of parapsychology, Clairalience [presumably from late 17th century French clair (clear) & alience (smelling)] is a form of extra-sensory perception wherein a person acquires psychic knowledge primarily by means of smelling.

See also Clairvoyance, Clairaudience, Clairsentience and Clairgustance.

Clairsentience

27/03/2007 03:00

In the field of parapsychology, clairsentience [From the French clair, �clear,� + sentience, �feeling,� ultimately derived from the Latin clarus, �clear,� + sentiens, derived from sentire, �to feel�] is a form of extra-sensory perception wherein a person acquires psychic knowledge primarily by means of feeling. [4] In addition to parapsychology, the term also plays a role in some religions. For example: clairsentience is one of the six human special functions mentioned or recorded in Buddhism. It is an ability that can be obtained at advanced meditation level.Generally the terms refers to a person who can feel the vibration of other people.

There are many different degrees of clairsentience ranging from the the perception of diseases of other people to the thoughts or emotion of other people. The ability differs from third eye in that this kind of ability can not have a vivid picture in the mind. Instead, a very vivid feeling can form.

Psychometry is related to clairsentience. The word stems from psyche and metric, which means "to measure with the mind".

See also Clairvoyance, Clairaudience, Clairalience and Clairgustance

Clairvoyance

27/03/2007 02:56

The psychic ability to see objects, persons, places or events regardless of time or distance.

Clairvoyance is defined as a form of extra-sensory perception that it is claimed allows a person to perceive distant objects, persons, or events, including "seeing" through opaque objects and the detection of types of energy not normally perceptible to humans (i.e. radio waves). Typically, such perception is reported in visual terms, but may also include auditory impressions (sometimes called clairaudience) or kinesthetic impressions.

Late 17th century French clair (clear) and voyant (seeing)

See also Clairsentience, Clairaudience, Clairalience and Clairgustance

Automatism

30/01/2010 01:55

An automatic, spontaneous and involuntary muscular movement which is not caused by the conscious mind.

Some believe this can be caused by ghosts or spirits, however in most instances you will find that only paranormal enthusiast claim this and that it holds no ground within the scientific community.

A logical explanation for the movement of a Planchette on a Ouija board, which is not caused by the conscious, but can be attributed to the subconscious mind. Also as a potential projection of deep thought.

See also Ideomotor Automatic Writing and Ouija Board.

[1] Any reaction that occurs automatically without conscious thought or reflection (especially the undirected behavior seen in psychomotor epilepsy)

[2] Automatic behavior, from the Greek automatos or self-acting, is the spontaneous production of often purposeless verbal or motor behavior without conscious self-control or self-censorship. This condition can be observed in a variety of contexts, including schizophrenia, psychogenic fugue, epilepsy (in complex partial seizures and Jacksonian seizures), narcolepsy or in response to a traumatic event. The individual does not recall the behavior. According to the book 'The Mind Machine' by Colin Blakemore, hypoglycemia usually leads quickly to unconsciousness, but as blood glucose level falls, there is 'a window of experience between sanity and coma in which self-control is lost', and the body 'behaves on its own'.

Automatic behavior can also be exhibited whilst in the REM state ─subjects can hold conversations, sit up and even open their eyes. Those acts are considered sub-conscious as most of the time the events cannot be recalled by the subject. It is most common when the subject has had under 10 hours sleep within a 36 hour period.

Automatic Writing

27/03/2007 02:43

This is a communication with a ghost where the ghost controls a writer's hand and writes out messages. A person produces written material while controlled by a spirit, the person is not conscious of what they are writing. A person may write pages and pages of words that they do not remember writing when they come back to their conscious state.

Aura

27/03/2007 02:42

An energy field that surrounds living creatures.

Astral Projection

27/03/2007 02:31

The separation of the astral body (or spirit) from the physical body. The astral body travels in the astral plane, to places near and far.

See also Astral Body and Astral Plane

Astral Plane

27/03/2007 02:29

The level of existence through which spirits of the dead first pass. The level in which an astrally projected spirit travels.

See also Astral Body and Astral Projection

Astral Body

27/03/2007 02:30

The soul of a person that is projected outside of their body. The invisible spirit of a person or an animal. See Astral Projection.

See also Astral Plane and Astral Projection.

Apport

27/03/2007 02:24

When a solid object appears in different locations with the help of a spirit, an object transported through supernatural means.

Apparition

27/03/2007 02:21

A disembodied soul or spirit which can be seen, a supernatural appearance or image which can be recognized by the viewer.

Anti-Christ

27/03/2007 02:20

Satan. The enemy of man and God who, according to many religious cultures, will establish a reign of evil on earth which will last fifty years, before being overthrown by the second coming of Christ.

Anomaly (anomalous)

27/03/2007 02:19

That which is not naturally or scientifically explained. Different from the norm.

Anomalous Cognition

03/04/2007 18:56

A recently coined term defined as "a form of information transfer in which all known sensorial stimuli are absent. That is some individuals are able to gain access to information by an as yet unknown process.

This is also known as Remote Viewing (RV) and Clairvoyance. Sometimes used more generally in place of ESP.

Angel

27/03/2007 02:17

A benevolent spiritual being who watches over people and is said to provide help.

Amulet

27/03/2007 02:17

An object that has the power to ward off evil spirits; usually a charm worn around the neck. This is worn to bring luck, or ward off evil.

Altered state of consciousness

27/03/2007 02:16

Any state of consciousness that is different from 'normal'.

Alchemists

27/03/2007 02:12

An Alchemists is one whom practices alchemy.

Alchemy

27/03/2007 02:15

The exploration and application of the sciences, particularly chemistry and astrology. Alchemists were mainly dedicated to the producing of gold from baser metals and other various materials.

Alchemy is an early protoscientific practice combining elements of chemistry, physics, astrology, art, semiotics, metallurgy, medicine, mysticism, and religion. There were three main goals many alchemists sought for. The most renowned goal of alchemy is the transmutation of any metal into either gold or silver.Also they tried to create universal panacea, a remedy that would cure all diseases and prolong life indefinitely.

Although these were not the only uses for the science, they were the ones most documented and well known. Starting with the Middle Ages, European alchemists invested much effort on the search for the "philosopher's stone", a legendary substance that was believed to be an essential ingredient for either or both of those goals.

Agent

27/03/2007 02:06

A human being who is unaware that they are directing poltergeist activity. Often a teenager and most often female.

Judgement Day

27/03/2007 02:06

The final judgment where God will decree the fate of all humans based on the good and evil within them whilst on Earth.

To take place at the end of times; end of time.

See also Book of Revelation and Apocalypse.

Book of Revelation

27/03/2007 02:00

The Book of Revelation or The Apocalypse of John ( pronounced apokalypsis, which is the Greek for "revelation"), is the last and only prophetical book of the New Testament in the Bible. Some Protestant evangelicals refer to the book as The Revelation of Jesus Christ (as the first verse states verbatim), arguing John may have recorded the revelation, but was not the originator.

Many mistake The Book of Revelation for the plural revelations, which is false; there was only one known revelation recorded in the author's manuscript.

Apocalypse

27/03/2007 01:55

Commonly used term to define the end of the world, however this could also indicate the start of something new.

Judgement Day, the second coming of Christ.

A Greek name for the Book of Revelations.

Optimists may use this term to refer to the end of life as we know it, and the start of enlightenment or some the birth or dawn of a new age.

Death

27/03/2007 01:50

One of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

When something comes to an end.

The permanent end of life.

Afterlife

27/03/2007 01:47

Life after death.

A continuation of life after our physical bodies die.

Bloody Mary

27/03/2007 01:42

A ghost which many teenagers claim to see. You have to recite her name or say 'Bloody Mary/Mary Worth I have your baby' a number of times into a mirror and she will apparently appear and try to grab you/scratch you to death. There are many variations to this urban legend.

Mary I, the queen of England from 1553 to 1558 became known as "Bloody Mary" during the reign of her successor, Elizabeth on account of the perceived ferocity of her religious persecutions; she has borne the epithet ever since.

Grimalkin

27/03/2007 01:40

An old grey cat of celtic myth, Grimalkin is a form of cat Sidhe, often nobles amongst the realm of faerie. It is said the noble Grimalkin could take on human form. Grimalkin is also described as a spectral cat. Grimalkin is long lived and in medieval times was often said to be a common witches familiar... more powerful an aide than the standard cat.

Demoness

27/03/2007 01:38

A female Demon.

See also Daemon, Demonic and Demon

Demon

27/03/2007 01:36

Commonly found in Jewish and Christian beliefs meaning an evil spirit.

In folklore, mythology, and religion, a demon or demoness is a supernatural being that is generally described as a malevolent spirit, but is also depicted as a force that may be conjured and insecurely controlled. The "good" demon is largely a literary device (eg: Maxwell's demon).

An inspiring influence;a divinity

See also Daemon, Demonic and Demoness

Daemon

27/03/2007 03:45

The words daemon and daimon (also spelled d�mon) are distinctive Greek spellings of demon used purposely today to distinguish the daemons of Greek mythology, good or malevolent "supernatural beings between mortals and gods, such as inferior divinities and ghosts of dead heroes", from the Judeo-Christian usage demon, "a malignant spirit that can possess humans"

--Following by Member Armaitus--
Daemon is another term for Demon. Demons are eviol supernatural beings. Devils, fallen angels.

See also Demon, Demoness, Demonic and Demonologist.

Demonic

27/03/2007 01:22

More than human; supernatural.

In folklore, mythology, and religion, a demon or demoness is a supernatural being that is generally described as a malevolent spirit, but is also depicted as a force that may be conjured and insecurely controlled. The "good" demon is largely a literary device (eg: Maxwell's demon).

Some one that is considered or referred to as demonic, is evil or cruel.

Black Shuck

27/03/2007 01:14

Black Shuck is the name given to a large black dog which is said to roam the Norfolk and Suffolk coastline.

The legends of the Black Shuck roaming the Anglian countryside date back to the time of the Vikings. His name may derive from the Anglo-Saxon word scucca meaning "demon", or possibly from the local dialect word shucky meaning "shaggy" or "hairy". The legend may have been part of the inspiration for the Sherlock Holmes novel The Hound of the Baskervilles.

Also know by the alias of Doom Dog.

Shuck

27/03/2007 01:16

Also known under a plethora of alternative names (including Trash, Striker, Barguest & Padfoot), the shuck is a large black dog, normally the size of a calf, which can bring ill fortune to those who see it.

See also Black Shuck.

Residual haunting

27/03/2007 01:06

An event or purported spirit which appears as a playback of the past.

A spirit whom is oblivious to outside interfearance and interactions.

A recording and playback of a past event.

A residue or remainder, something which is left or remains.

(see Stone Tape Theory)

Olympicus Spiritus

27/03/2007 00:59

The Star in Man. The astral body which sends forth doubles

Paranormal

27/03/2007 00:55

An experience, sight or sound which defies all known laws of science.

Para meaning beyond or beside hence paranormal beyond the normal.

unexplainable by modern day science.

Not necessarily a ghostly or spiritual experience.