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

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.

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.

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

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

Invocation
Summoning benevolent spiritual beings. Cf. evocation.

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.

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.

Incorruptibility
Inexplicable lack of decay in a corpse.

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

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

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

Hypnotism
See hypnosis.

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

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.

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

Hyperacuity
See hyperaesthesia.

Hyperaesthesia
Exceptionally acute sensory awareness.

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

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

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

Hellstromism
See contact mind reading.

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

Circle
A group of people who hold seances. See also mediumship.

Clairaudience
The paranormal obtaining of information by hearing sounds or voices. See also clairvoyance, clairsentience.

Clairsentience
An archaic term that refers to the paranormal obtaining of information using faculties other than vision or hearing. Cf. clairaudience, clairvoyance, empathy, intuition.

Healer
Someone who claims the power of healing.

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.

Goat
Name given to a subject in a psi test who does not believe in the phenomenon. See also 'sheep', sheep-goat effect.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Experimenter
The person who conducts the experiment.

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

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.

Experiment
A test carried out under controlled conditions.

EVP
Electronic Voice Phenomena. See Raudive voices.

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

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

Etheric Body
Similar to astral body.

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

ESP Cards
See Zener Cards.

ESP
See Extrasensory Perception.

Entity
See discarnate entity.

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.

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

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.

Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP)
See Raudive voices.

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

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

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

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

Dream
See paranormal dream.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Dissociation
Activity performed outside of normal conscious awareness, or mental processes that suggest the existence of separate centres of consciousness.

Displacement
Responses on a psi test that correspond systematically to targets other than the intended one (e.g., those before or after).

Discarnate Entity
A spirit or non-material entity. Often used to refer to the personality of a deceased individual. See also channeling, communication, mediumship, possession, survival.

Direct Voice
A voice heard in a seance which does not seem to emanate from any person. The voice may seem to come out of thin air, or from a trumpet used specifically for this purpose. Cf. indirect voice.

Dice Test
Experimental techniques for investigating psychokinesis, in which a subject attempts to influence the fall of dice.

Demonic Possession
Possession by evil spirits. See also exorcism.

Deport
The paranormal movement of objects out of a secure enclosed space. Cf. apport. See also dematerialization, teleportation.

Dematerialization
The paranormal fading or disappearance of a physical object. See also deport.

Delta
A term used to refer to any kind of anomalous experience.

Deja Experience
See deja vu.

Deja Vu
A person's feeling that current events have been experienced before.

Deathbed Experience
A dying person's awareness of the presence of dead friends or relatives. See also near-death experience.