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

Possession
Refers to cases in which a person's body is apparently taken over by another personality or entity. Cf. multiple personality. See also demonic possession, discarnate entity.

Alpha Rhythm
Electrical activity in the brain (about 10 cycles per second) associated with a state of mental relaxation. See also EEG.

Ancestor Worship
Religious practices involving the veneration of dead ancestors.

Pocomania
A Jamaican spiritist religion. See also Voodoo.

Poltergeist
German word meaning 'noisy or troublesome spirit'. Poltergeist activity may include unexplained noises, movements of objects, outbreaks of fire, floods, pricks or scratches to a person's body. Unlike hauntings, which are associated with specific locations, poltergeists typically focus on a person (the focal person or poltergeist agent) who is often a young child or adolescent. Many physical mediums experienced poltergeist activity in their childhood.

PMIR
See psi-mediated instrumental response.

Plant Psi
ESP exhibited by plants.

Planchette
A small platform on casters generally used with a ouija board. Sometimes used with an attached pencil to produce automatic writing.

Pilot Study
A preliminary study, generally of modest scale.

PK
See psychokinesis

Placebo
An inactive treatment often given to a control group.

Placement Test
A test for PK in which the subject attempts to influence the place in which dice or other objects land. See also dice test.

Picture Drawing
A free-response ESP test in which the subject attempts to draw impressions of the target.

Physical Mediumship
The production of paranormal physical phenomena (lights, sounds, materialization, elongation, levitation, etc.) by a medium. Physical mediumship often (but not always) involves a state of trance. See also mental mediumship.

Phrenology
The reading of character and mental ability from the shape of a person's skull.

Phantasm
An apparition.

Phenomenology
An approach to research that aims to describe and clarify a person's own experience and understanding of an event or phenomenon.

Percipient
Person who receives impressions in an ESP test. See also agent, subject.

Pendulum
An object suspended by a thread. Movements of a pendulum are often used by dowsers to locate objects or answer questions.

Past-Life Regression
A technique of hypnosis involving regressing people to supposed previous lives. See also reincarnation.

Past-Life Memories
Mental images that are believed to be memories of previous lives. See also reincarnation, past-life regression.

Parapsychology
Term coined by J.B. Rhine to refer to the experimental and quantitative study of paranormal phenomena. Now generally used instead of 'psychical research' to refer to all scientific investigation of the paranormal. Cf. transpersonal psychology.

Paranormal Dream
Dreams in which the dream imagery provides paranormal knowledge (e.g., ESP or precognition). See also announcing dream, lucid dreaming.

Paranormal
Beside or beyond the normal. Inexplicable in terms of our ordinary understanding or current scientific knowledge.

Palmistry
The art of assessing a person's character and forecasting life events by examining features of the hand. See also divination.

Absent Healing
Healing that takes place when the healer is not in direct contact with the person to be healed.

Absent Sitter
A person, not present during a sitting, on whose behalf readings are given. See also Proxy Sitting.

Acupuncture
Traditional Chinese medical practice that involves sticking needles into specific locations on the body. See also healing.

Agent
(a) Person who attempts to communicate information to another in an ESP experiment. Cf. percipient. (b) The subject in a psychokinesis experiment. (c) Person who is the focus of poltergeist activity.

Akashic Records
Memories of all experiences since the beginning of time, believed by some mystical doctrines to be stored permanently in a spiritual substance (Akasha).

Out of Body Experience (OBE, OOBE)
A fully conscious experience in which the person's centre of awareness appears to be outside of the physical body. See also autoscopy, near-death experience.

Out
In conjuring and mentalism, a convincing explanation for an apparent failure, or a convincing alternative ending to an effect that has not worked as planned. Also used by fraudulent clairvoyants and mediums.

Oracle
(a) An answer to a question, believed to come from the gods. (b) a shrine at which these answers are given.

Orgone Energy
A term used by Wilhelm Reich to refer to a universal life force, associated with sexuality.

Ouija Board
A board with letters and numbers on which messages are spelled out by unconsciously moving (with the fingers) a glass or planchette. See also automatism.

Open Matching (OM)
A card guessing procedure in which key cards are placed face up on the table. The subject then places the unseen target cards in piles in front of each key card, according to their guesses. See also blind matching.

Omen
A sign that foretells events.

One-Ahead Principle
In mentalism, a procedure for sequentially revealing information where the revealing of one item gives the mentalist the next answer. Also used by fraudulent clairvoyants.

OOBE
See out of body experience.

Open Deck
A series of cards used in a card guessing test where each card is chosen randomly and independently. This enables each target to be selected any number of times. Statistical analysis of research data using an open deck differs from statistical analysis of data using a closed deck.

Occultism
Esoteric systems of belief and practice that assume the existence of mysterious forces and entities.

Object Reading
See psychometry.

Occam's Razor
The principle that we should always prefer the simplest explanation of events.

OBE
See out of body experience.

Numerology
A system of divination involving the interpretation of numbers.

Null hypothesis
The hypothesis that experimental results are due to chance.

Newspaper Test
(a) A communication in which the spirit forecasts an item in a future day's newspaper. (b) An conjuring effect in which a magician or mentalist predicts a future newspaper item.

Necromancy
Black magic practices involving communicating with the dead.

Mystical Experience
ASCs involving experiences of ecstasy, unity, timelessness, loss of self, divine revelation, etc.

Mysticism
Religious or spiritual doctrines which argue that the human mind or soul can directly experience the divine. See also mystical experience, transpersonal psychology.

NDE
See near-death experience.

Near-Death Experience (NDE)
Experiences of people after they have been pronounced clinically dead, or been very close to death. Typical features of the NDE are an OBE, life review, a tunnel experience, light, coming to a boundary (marking death), seeing dead friends and relatives, experiencing a loving or divine presence, and making a choice (or being told) to return. Occasionally NDEs can be frightening and distressing. NDEs often have profound effects on the person's later life. See also cerebral anoxia, survival.

Multiple Personality
A psychiatric condition in which the person manifests two or more distinct and separate personalities at different times. Cf. possession.

Muscle Reading
See contact mind reading.

Mystic
(a) A person who has mystical experiences. (b) Used loosely to refer to psychics, mediums or romantics.

Motor Automatism
See Automatism

Morphic Resonance
A term coined by Rupert Sheldrake to refer to the way in which the 'morphogenetic field' (underlying form) of an object or organism may influence distant fields.

Mnemonist
A person who has learned techniques that enable extraordinary feats of memory.

Miss
A mismatch between the target and response. Cf. hit.

Misdirection
Techniques used by conjurers and mentalists to distract a person's attention or confuse their thinking.

Cold Reading
A reading given with no prior knowledge of the sitter. Often a mixture of very general statements which could apply to anyone, together with inferences made from cues presented by the sitter (e.g., physical appearance, clothes, tone of voice, statements made). Cf. hot reading.

Collective Apparition
An apparition seen simultaneously by more than one person.

Coincidence
The occurrence, within a short space of time, of two or more meaningfully related events and without any apparent causal connection between them. Coincidences are sometimes bizarre and extraordinarily improbable. See also synchronicity.

Closed Deck
A set of cards used in a card-guessing test where each card appears a fixed number of times. Statistical analysis of research data using a closed deck differs from statistical analysis of data using an open deck.

Miracle
A beneficial event attributed to supernatural or divine intervention.

Mind Reading
See telepathy.

Micro-PK
Psychokinetic effects that cannot be directly observed, but only inferred from the statistical analysis of data. Cf. macro-PK.

Metamorphosis
See shape-shifting.

Metempsychosis
Another term for reincarnation.

Metal Bending
Psychokinetic ability to bend metal objects. A phenomenon popularised by Uri Geller.

Message
See communication.

Mental Mediumship
The paranormal obtaining of information by a medium. Cf. physical mediumship.

Mentalism
A branch of conjuring involving the simulation of psi.

Mesmerism
A system of healing developed by F.A. Mesmer, involving the induction of trance states and the supposed transfer of animal magnetism. People in Mesmeric trance often showed paranormal abilities such as clairvoyance.

Mediumship
Activity of a medium.

Medium
A person believed to act as an intermediary between discarnate entities and the living. See also clairvoyant medium, trance medium, mental mediumship, physical mediumship.

Medicine Man - Medicine Woman
A witchdoctor or shaman.

Meditation
Mental or physical-mental techniques which aim to produce spiritually desirable states of consciousness. See also ASC, Yoga.

Mean Chance Expectation (MCE)
The most likely chance score in a psi test.

Materialization
The formation of a visible and tangible object or human shape during a seance. Cf. apport.

Matching
See preferential matching, matching tests.

Matching Tests
Card guessing tests in which the subject uses key cards when making guesses. See also blind matching, open matching, screen touch matching.

Match
An alternative term for hit.

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

Clairvoyant
See clairvoyant medium.

Clairvoyant Medium
Or clairvoyant. A person who obtains information paranormally (often by spirit communication) without the need to enter into a trance state. Cf. trance medium.

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.

Magician
A person who practices magic.

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.

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

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

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.

Clairvoyance
A general term that refers to the paranormal obtaining of information about an object or event. In modern usage, this does not necessarily refer to obtaining information visually. Cf. clairaudience, clairsentience, ESP, psi.

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.

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

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

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.