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Psychics - Psychic terms Category: People and society > Spiritualism, Parapsychology and Paranormal Date & country: 14/09/2007, UK Words: 415

Divination
Practices involving the interpretation of signs or symbols that seek to obtain oracular knowledge of events. Examples of divinatory practices are geomancy, tarot, I Ching, sortilege, and reading tea leaves.

Divining Rod
A forked rod (or sometimes a pair of L-shaped rods) used in dowsing.

DMILS
`Direct Mental Interaction with Living Systems`. Psychokinetic influences on physiological processes. See also Bio-PK.

Doppelganger
A mirror image or double of a person. See also astral body.

Double
A duplicate of one's own body. See also astral body

Double Blind
An experimental procedure in which neither the subject nor experimenter is aware of key features of the experiment.

Down Through Technique (DT)
An experimental test for clairvoyance in which the person guesses the order of a stacked series of target symbols (e.g., cards) from top to bottom. Cf. up through technique.

Dowsing
The paranormal detection of underground water or mineral deposits (or lost persons and objects) using a divining rod or pendulum.

Dream
See paranormal dream.

Drop-in Communicator
An uninvited communicator who 'drops in' at a sitting.

Earthquake Effect
A phenomenon produced by the physical medium D.D. Home, involving the room shaking as if there was an earthquake.

Ecstasy
An altered state of consciousness in which the person experiences great rapture and loss of self-control. Cf. trance.

Ectoplasm
A semi-fluid substance exuded by a physical medium from which materializations may form.

EEG (Electro-encephalography)
A method of recording variations of electrical activity in the cortex of the brain.

Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP)
See Raudive voices.

Elemental Spirit
A spirit associated with one of the classical four elements (fire, earth, air and water). See also animism.

Elongation
Paranormal extension of the physical body, reported in some mystics and physical mediums.

Empath
Someone who shows considerable empathy, especially of the apparently psychic type.

Empathy
The ability to understand the experience or emotional state of another person or animal. Often used to refer to an apparently psychic ability to experience another person's sensations, pain or emotions. Cf. clairsentience, intuition.

Entity
See discarnate entity.

ESP
See Extrasensory Perception.

ESP Cards
See Zener Cards.

Etheric Body
Similar to astral body.

Evil Eye
Alleged ability of some people to harm others by looking at them.

Evocation
The summoning of (often evil) spirits using a magical incantation or ritual. Cf. invocation.

EVP
Electronic Voice Phenomena. See Raudive voices.

Exorcism
A religious or quasi-religious rite to drive out evil spirits. See also possession.

Experiment
A test carried out under controlled conditions.

Experimental Group
A group of subjects who undergo a specific experimental procedure. Often results from this group are compared with those of a control group.

Experimental Parapsychology
Parapsychological research involving experimental methods rather than survey techniques or the investigation of spontaneous cases.

Experimenter
The person who conducts the experiment.

Experimenter Effect
Influence that the experimenter's personality or behaviour may have on the results of an experiment.

Extradimensional
Originating outside our normal space-time reality. Cf. extraterrestrial.

Extrasensory Perception (ESP)
Paranormal acquisition of information. Includes clairvoyance, telepathy and precognition. See also psi.

Extraterrestrial
Originating beyond planet Earth. Not normally considered to be extradimensional.

Fairy
Small, human-like mythical being. May be benevolent or malevolent.

Faith Healing
Healing that is associated with prayer or belief in Divine power.

False Awakening
An experience in which a person believes he or she has woken up, but actually is still dreaming.

Faraday Cage
A wire mesh enclosure that provides a shield to radio waves.

Feedback
The giving of information to subjects about their performance on a test. See also biofeedback.

Fire Walking
Walking on red-hot coals, without pain or damage to the feet.

Flying Saucer
A term, coined in 1947, to refer to unknown disk-like aerial objects, often believed to be extraterrestrial spacecraft. The term has now been largely superseded by `UFO`.

Focal Person
Person who is at the centre of poltergeist activity.

Forced-Choice Test
An ESP test in which the subject guesses from a predetermined list of alternative targets.

Fortean Phenomena
Strange phenomena, especially those which challenge conventional scientific knowledge. Named after the American researcher and writer Charles Fort. Fortean phenomena include those generally considered paranormal, but also bizarre non-paranormal events such as monsters and prodigies, extraordinary coincidences, and unusual rains.

Fortune Telling
Various practices which aim to divine future events. See also divination.

Fraud
The deliberate faking of paranormal phenomenena, generally for the purpose of financial gain, psychological manipulation, or notoriety. Faking for the purpose of entertainment (e.g., by stage magicians and mentalists) is not normally classed as fraud.

Free-Response Test
An ESP test in which the subject responds freely (does not choose from a fixed list of targets). For example, the subject may write down or draw their impressions, or may talk freely into a tape recorder. In order to assess the accuracy of the responses, they are compared with various targets (including the actual target) by a judge. See also preferential matching.

Ganzfeld
A technique for investigating ESP in which the person experiences an absence of patterned stimulation. This generally involves the subject wearing halved table-tennis balls over the eyes while listening to hiss (white noise) through headphones.

Geomancy
A system of divination involving the interpretation of lines or figures.

GESP
See general extrasensory perception

Ghost
Popular term for an experience believed to indicate the presence of the spirit of a deceased person. See also apparition, haunting, poltergeist. Full definition

Gimmick
In conjuring, any small concealed apparatus that is used to produce a magical effect. Also used by fraudulent mediums.

Glossolalia
Unintelligible speech generally uttered in a dissociated or trance state. Also known as `speaking in tongues`. See also xenoglossy.

Guardian Angel
An angel believed to protect the individual. See also guide.

Guide
A spirit who is believed to assist a person's spiritual journey. See also angel, guardian angel

Hallucination
A sensory experience that does not correspond to physical reality. See also apparition.

Haunting
Paranormal phenomena such as apparitions, unexplained sounds, smells or other sensations that are associated over a lengthy period of time with a specific location. Cf. poltergeist.

Healer
Someone who claims the power of healing.

Healing
Generally indicates cures that cannot be explained in terms of accepted medical principles. See also faith healing, psychic healing, spirit cures.

Hellstromism
See contact mind reading.

Hex
(a) An evil spell or magical curse.
(b) To practice witchcraft.

Hit
A response that accurately matches the target. Cf. miss.

Hot Reading
A reading given in which prior knowledge of the sitter has been obtained, often using devious or fraudulent means. Cf. cold reading.

Huna
An Hawaiian religious practice involving clairvoyance, precognition, healing, miracles and magic.

Hyperacuity
See hyperaesthesia.

Hyperaesthesia
Exceptionally acute sensory awareness.

Hypnagogic Imagery
Imagery occurring in the hypnagogic state (occuring while dropping off to sleep).

Hypnopompic Imagery
Imagery occurring in the hypnopompic state (occurring while waking up).

Hypnosis
An ASC involving a heightened degree of suggestibility. See also Mesmerism.

Hypnotism
See hypnosis.

I Ching
Ancient Chinese `Book of Changes`. It describes 64 hexagrams (patterns of 6 broken and unbroken lines) which are used in a divinatory practice involving the throwing of yarrow stalks or coins.

Illusion
(a) An appearance that leads the person to draw mistaken conclusions.
(b) In conjuring, a perceptual trick.

Imagery
The ability to perceive images in the mind. These may be visual, auditory, tactile, etc.

Immortality
Various beliefs based on the assumption that some aspect of personal existence survives death.

Incline Effect
An increase in performance on a psi test when the test is repeated. Cf. decline effect.

Incorruptibility
Inexplicable lack of decay in a corpse.

Indirect Voice
Mediumistic phenomenon in which the discarnate entity appears to speak using the vocal apparatus of the medium. Often the voice will sound very different from the medium's normal voice. Cf. direct voice.

Intuition
The non-paranormal ability to grasp the elements of a situation or to draw conclusions about complex events in ways that go beyond a purely rational or intellectual analysis. Cf. clairsentience, empathy.

Invocation
Summoning benevolent spiritual beings. Cf. evocation.

Judge
Person who compares targets and responses in an psi experiment.

Ka
Ancient Egyptian term for the double or astral body. See also Ba.

Karma
Hindu and Buddhist ethical doctrine of `as one sows, so shall one reap`. See also reincarnation.

Key Cards
Reference cards used to indicate each target alternative in a card-guessing test.

Kirlian Photography
A photographic method involving high frequency electric current, discovered by S.D. & V. Kirlian in the Soviet Union. Kirlian photographs often show coloured halos or `auras` surrounding objects.

Kundalini
In Yogic belief, a source of tremendous vital energy that may be stimulated by various practices. Kundalini, or the `Serpent Power`, is believed to provide energy for paranormal phenomena.

Laying on of Hands
A healing practice, in which the healer's hands are placed on or near the body of the sick person.

Levitation
The paranormal raising or suspension of an object or person.

Life after Death
See survival.

Life Review
Flashback memories of the whole of a person's life, often associated with the near-death experience.

Lucid Dreaming
Dreaming in which the person is aware that the experience is a dream. Often associated with feelings of aliveness and freedom, and with the ability to control dream events.

Lucidity
(a) An early term for clairvoyance.
(b) Lucid dreaming.

Luminous Phenomena
The experience of strange lights or glows, often around objects or people. See also aura.

Lycanthropy
The supposed magical transformation of a person into the form of a wolf. See also shape-shifting, therianthropy, werewolf.

Macro-PK
Psychokinetic effects that can be directly observed rather than only inferred from statistical analysis. Cf. micro-PK.

Magic
(a) Practices that aim to use paranormal or spiritual means to influence events. See also white magic, black magic.
(b) The art of conjuring.

Magician
A person who practices magic.

Majority Vote Technique
An ESP procedure in which several subjects guess a target (or one subject makes several guesses). The most frequent guess is used as the response.

Mantra
A sacred sound or sacred syllables used in meditation. See also transcendental meditation.

Match
An alternative term for hit.