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Psychic Science - Glossary of Terms in Parapsychology Category: People and society > Parapsychology Date & country: 17/09/2007, UK Words: 415

Spirit Communication
See communication.

Spirit Cure
Healing that is believed to result from the intervention of spirits.

Spirit
(a) a discarnate entity. (b) soul (c) Divine essence.

Speaking in Tongues
See glossolalia

Spectre
A ghost or apparition.

Spell
Written or spoken words believed to have magical power.

Space Brothers
Extraterrestrial entities, channeled by some mediums. See also discarnate entity.

SPE
See subjective paranormal experience.

Sorcery
Black magic

Sortilege
Divination by lots.

Soul
The spiritual element of a person, generally believed to be immortal. See also Ba, spirit, survival.

Somnambule
(a) a person who performs physical activity while asleep (e.g., sleep-walking). (b) a person in a deep hypnotic state.

Sleep Paralysis
An (often frightening) state of seeming to being awake but unable to move. See also false awakening.

Slate-Writing
Writing that appears on a slate during a seance. Often produced by fraudulent mediums and mentalists.

Sixth sense
Popular term for ESP.

Skeptic
See sceptic.

Sitter
A person who has a session with a medium.

Sitting
A seance.

Simultaneous Dream
A dream whose elements correspond closely with those in the dream of another person.

Siddhis
Name given to paranormal powers associated with the practice of Yoga.

Significance
Results of an experiment are said to be statistically significant when they are very unlikely to be due to chance (and hence, in a psi test, are more likely to be due to psi). The chance probability is reported as the 'significance level'. To be considered significant, the chance probability must generally be less than 1 in 20 (5%, or 0.05).

Sheep-Goat Effect
Effect, discovered by the parapsychologist Gertrude Schmeidler, in which 'sheep' score higher than mean chance expectation (MCE) on psi tests, while 'goats' score lower than MCE.

Sheep
Name given to a subject in a psi test who believes in the phenomenon. See also 'goat', sheep-goat effect.

Shape-Shifting
Paranormal ability to assume the form of another person, an animal or other entity. See also lycanthropy, therianthropy, werewolf.

Serpent Power
See Kundalini.

Shaman
A witchdoctor or medicine (wo)man who communicates with spirits while in trance and who has the power of healing. May also show other paranormal abilities.

Sensory deprivation
Conditions of greatly restricted sensory input. See also ganzfeld.

Series
A sequence of runs in a psi experiment.

Sensitive
Another name for a psychic.

Second Sight
Another name for clairvoyance.

Sender
Another name for agent.

Seance
A mediumistic session.

Scrying
See crystal gazing.

Scoring
The process of determining a subject's score.

Screen Touch Matching (STM)
A card-guessing procedure in which the subject and experimenter sit on opposite sides of a screen which has a small gap at the bottom. Key cards are hung on the screen in front of the subject (the faces may be seen or unseen). Underneath each key card is a blank card that can be seen by both subject and experimenter. The experimenter holds the target cards and the subject indicates the guess on each trial by pointing to the corresponding blank card. The experimenter then places the card in a pile on his or her side of the screen in a position corresponding to that of the indicated blank card. See also blind matching, open matching.

Score
Number of hits obtained by a subject in a psi test.

Sceptic
A person inclined to discount the reality of the paranormal and to be critical of parapsychological research. Generally seeks rational or scientific explanations for the phenomena studied by parapsychologists.

Santeria
A Cuban spiritist religion. See also Voodoo.

Run
A set of trials in a psi test.

RSPK
See recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis.

Retrocognition
Paranormal knowledge of past events.

Ritual Magic
Magical activity involving rites and ceremonies.

Response Bias
Tendency of a subject to prefer particular responses.

Retroactive Psychokinesis
Paranormal influence that an agent can have on an experiment after it has been completed.

Response
An action made by a subject in an experiment.

Remote Viewing (RV)
An ESP procedure in which a percipient attempts to become aware psychically of the experience of an agent who is at a distant, unknown target location.

Reincarnation
The belief that some aspect of a person's being (e.g., consciousness, personality, or soul) survives death and can be reborn in a new body at some future date. Reincarnation is often seen as a repeating cycle of death and rebirth in which future lives are influenced by past and present actions through the law of karma. Cf. rebirth.

Apport
A physical object which appears in a way that cannot be explained (seeming to come from nowhere). Apports are often associated with the seance room and physical mediumship. Cf. deport. See also materialization, teleportation.

Anoxia
See cerebral anoxia.

Anpsi
See Animal Psi

Apparition
A visual appearance (cf. hallucination), often of a person or scene, generally experienced in a waking or hypnagogic / hypnopompic state. See also crisis apparition, ghost, haunting.

Announcing Dream
A dream believed to announce an individual's rebirth. See also reincarnation.

Anomalous Experience
A general term referring to unusual experiences that cannot be explained in terms of current scientific knowledge. Cf. psi.

Anomalous Phenomena
Natural phenomena that cannot be explained in terms of current scientific knowledge. See also Fortean phenomena.

Receiver
See percipient.

Regression
(a) a statistical technique that enables predictions to be made from a set of data. (b) a technique used in hypnosis, involving suggesting to hypnotized persons that they are returning to an earlier time. Sometimes the regression occurs spontaneously, without suggestion. See also past-life regression.

Rebirth
In Buddhism, the belief that there is some continuty of mind from one life to the next. Buddhism, however, does not accept the existence of the individual soul and therefore does not view rebirth as the soul's literal re-incarnation. Cf. reincarnation. See also bardo.

Reading
Information given by a psychic or medium to a sitter. See also cold reading, hot reading.

Raudive Voices
Intelligible voices recorded on magnetic tape under conditions of silence or white noise which are heard only when the tape is played. A phenomenon discovered by Konstantin Raudive.

Raps
The name given to unexplained knocking sounds associated with physical mediumship and poltergeist activity.

Random Numbers
Numbers generated in an unpredictable, haphazard sequence.

Random Number Tables
A printed table of random numbers, usually made up of several rows and columns of computer-generated numbers. To use the table a starting value is chosen by randomly selecting a row and column (e.g., by throwing a dice). Successive numbers are then chosen by working through the table using any previously chosen systematic rule. Suitable rules might be (1) moving horizontally to the right, skipping alternate numbers, or (2) moving vertically down, selecting every fifth number. The selected random numbers may then be used, for example, to determine target sequences.

Random Number Generator (RNG)
See random event generator.

Radionics
Use of instruments to detect radiation from living organisms. See also radiesthesia.

Random
Refers to events that are, in principle, haphazard and unpredictable. See also chance.

Random Event Generator (REG)
An electronic device which uses a random physical process (e.g., radioactive decay) to generate random events or random numbers.

Radiesthesia
Theories based on the assumption that living organisms emit some kind of radiation or emanation that is capable of being detected using instruments or by dowsing. See also aura, radionics.

Quantitative Method
A research method involving the collection and statistical analysis of numerical data. Cf. qualitative method.

Qualitative Method
A research method involving the collection of non-quantitative data (e.g., observations, interviews, subjective reports, case studies). Cf. quantitative method.

Psychometry
Obtaining paranormal knowledge using a physical object as a focus. Also known as object reading.

Pyramid Power
Belief that pyramid shapes can produce paranormal effects.

Psychokinesis (PK)
The paranormal influence of the mind on physical events and processes.

Psychical Research
Term coined in the late 19th century to refer to the scientific study of the paranormal. Now largely superseded by 'parapsychology'.

Psychic Surgery
Actual or simulated surgical procedures carried out by healers.

Psychic Healing
Forms of healing using psychic powers. See also laying on of hands, psychic surgery.

Psychic Photography
General term used to refer to paranormal photographic images. See also Kirlian photography, spirit photography, thoughtography.

Psychic
A person who exhibits psi ability (also used as an adjective).

Animal Psi
Paranormal abilities exhibited by animals. Also known as 'Anpsi'.

Animism
Religious practices based on the belief that all living things and natural objects have their individual spiritual essence or soul.

Psyche
Generally refers to the mind.

Psychedelic
Literally 'revealing mind'. A class of plants and drugs (e.g., peyote, psilocybin, LSD) that can produce florid ASCs.

Psi-Missing
Significantly worse than chance performance on a psi test. Psi-missing is also evidence for psi, because a target can only be missed consistently if the person 'knows' what it is.

Psi-Hitting
Significantly better than chance performance on a psi test.

Psi
A term used to encompass all paranormal abilities. Includes both ESP and PK abilities.

Pseudo-Random Numbers
Numbers generated by an electronic calculator or computer using a complex mathematical algorithm that simulates a random process. Although the numbers generated are essentially unpredictable, they are not strictly random. See also random numbers, random event generator.

Proxy Sitting
A seance in which another person sits in on behalf of the person receiving a communication.

Prophecy
(a) A prediction, usually resulting from a sense of spiritual revelation. (b) The ability to receive prophetic revelations.

Proof research
Research that aims to demonstrate the existence of psi. Cf. process research.

Animal Mutilation
Refers to cases in which animal corpses (often cattle) have been found with bizarre injuries that do not seem to have a normal explanation in terms of illness, accident or action of predators. Cuts and injuries often appear to have been carried out with surgical precision. Typically the corpse is drained of blood. Certain body parts may be absent (e.g., genitals).

Process research
Research that aims to investigate factors affecting psi. Cf. proof research.

Presence
A subjective feeling that a person, animal or discarnate entity is present.

Probability
The likelihood that results in a test were due to chance. See also significance.

Angels
Benevolent spiritual beings who help people in need. See also guardian angel.

Animal Magnetism
A term coined by F.A. Mesmer to refer to a putative force or fluid capable of being transmitted from one person to another, producing healing effects. See also Mesmerism.

Premonition
An experience believed to foretell future events. See also prediction, precognition, prophecy.

Prediction
A statement that claims to foretell future events. Cf. premonition, precognition, prophecy.

Preexistence
Belief that the personality or soul exists prior to birth. Cf. survival. See also reincarnation.

Preferential Matching
Technique in which a judge ranks a subject's free responses in terms of their similarity to various possible targets.

Precognition
The paranormal awareness of future events. See also prediction, premonition, prophecy.

Prayer
A sincere attempt to communicate with a spiritual being or power.