Defining Parapsychology

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Defining Parapsychology

• Lecture 1
• Parapsychology
• Kevin Silber

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Learning Objectives

• At the end of this session you will
• know what will be covered in this module
• understand how you will be assessed
• appreciate the difficulty in defining
  parapsychology
• understand the definition to be used in this
  module in so far as that includes or excludes
  phenomena from consideration within the module
• be introduced to a number of key terms in
  parapsychology

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Approaching the module

• We aim to cover the topic of parapsychology from
  a number of different perspectives
• Our view of the topic will be critical and
  evaluative
• This is not the same as negative or dismissive
• Your input to the debates and discussions is
  crucial to the modules success

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What is in the module?

• This week we lay the foundations of what we
  consider to be the limits of parapsychology for
  the purposes of this module
• For the next 4 weeks we will deal with the issues
  that surround the topic.
• What difference does your philosophical viewpoint
  make?
• How has parapsychology been viewed throughout
  history?
• What are the forms of evidence that are available
  for scrutiny?
• What are the methodological requirements of
  parapsychological research?

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What is in the module?

• In week 6 we will have a practical session no
  more about that until the time comes
• Weeks 7 to 10 cover 4 major areas of
  parapsychological interest and research
• ESP
• Precognition
• PK
• Altered experiences
• Ghosts and hauntings

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The Assessment

• There is one piece of assessed work
• 2000 word theoretical critique of a media report
• Find a media report of a parapsychological event
• Provide a critique of the evidence being reported
• Relate this evidence to other pieces of evidence
  in the literature

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The Assessment

• There will be opportunities during the module to
  practice your skills at these requirements and to
  receive feedback on your progress
• These opportunities will be delivered during
  seminars and via a supporting Blackboard website
  and the Q drive.

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Defining the term

• There is no universal definition of
  parapsychology
• The para part of the term could imply
• non-mainstream / on the fringes of,
• only loosely connected to
• not really / pretend
• beside / beyond

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Defining Parapsychology

• On the next slide are a number of phenomena
• Write each down and record whether or not you
  would include it in your own definition of a
  parapsychological phenomenon.
• Which fit the label paranormal without being
  examples of parapsychology?

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List of possible phenomena
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A definition

• Perhaps a parapsychological event can be defined
  as and interaction between an organism and its
  environment that is not mediated by an
  identifiable, observable physical agent.
• To the purest, it can be sensory (Extra-Sensory
  Perception) or motor (PsychoKinesis).
• Other inclusions, such as alien abduction might
  not fit neatly into this duality.

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Parapsychological Events

• A parapsychological event is often described as
  having a weird, uncanny, unnatural or unreal
  quality.
• During this module you may well want to question
  any definitions you come across

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Key Terms

• Essential to your understanding of the material
  we cover is an understanding of some of the main
  terms and concepts referred to within
  parapsychology.
• Many have both an academic and a lay meaning and
  you need to ensure that it is the academic one
  you adopt in the context of this module.
• The following explanations are taken from the
  Koestler Parapsychology Unit in Edinburgh
  (http//moebius.psy.ed.ac.uk).

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Key Terms

• Paranormal (literally 'beyond normal')
• Term used to denote any phenomenon which appears
  to be inexplicable by current scientific
  theories.
• Parapsychology (literally 'beyond psychology')
• The study of apparent new means of communication,
  or interaction, between organisms and their
  environment (commonly referred to as psi, or
  psychic ability), beyond those presently
  understood by the scientific community.

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Key Terms

• Psi
• A general term, introduced by T.H Thouless and
  B.P. Wiesner (see SPR Proceedings 47(166) 1-19)
  which refers to the factor(s) responsible for
  parapsychological phenomena. Originally derived
  from the use of the greek letter psi to denote
  the unknown quantity in an equation.
• Psychic (from Greek 'psyche')
• Popular term used to denote a person who
  regularly uses, or who appears to be especially
  gifted with, psi abilities. Also refers to
  general phenomena related to the mind.

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Key Terms

• 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.
• Clairvoyance (literally 'clear-seeing')
• A subset of ESP covering apparent information
  transmission as though it were the result of
  visual perception. The perception can appear
  externally - either replacing the normal visual
  scene (as in visions) or being incorporated into
  it (as could be the case with apparitions) - or
  internally, in the form of mental imagery and
  intuition. It is also used more generally to mean
  paranormal acquisition of any information
  directly from a physical source and not from the
  mind of another person (cf. telepathy).
• Telepathy (literally 'distant perception/feeling')
  
• The apparent ability to communicate information
  from one mind to another. This information may be
  'received' in the same form as that from the
  visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, gustatory
  or even kinaesthetic senses. It is distinguished
  from clairsentience in that the information is
  assumed to have originated from the mind of
  another person, rather than the target object
  itself.

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Key Terms

• Precognition
• The apparent foreknowledge of as yet undetermined
  (i.e. unpredictable based on knowledge of the
  present which available through conventional
  sensory channels) future events.
• Telekinesis (literally 'distant-movement')
• Another term for psychokinesis. Sometimes used to
  denote effects which occur at a distance.
• Psychokinesis (PK) (literally 'mind-movement')
• The apparent ability to influence the environment
  seemingly by intention or other mental activity
  alone. Parapsychologists usually distinguish
  between the extremely small effects of micro-PK
  and larger effects of macro-PK.

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Key Terms

• Random Event Generator (REG)
• A system used to produce unpredictable events for
  parapsychological (and other) experiments. The
  system can either be pseudo-random (which
  approximates a random system but is actually
  based on a deterministic algorithm) or
  true-random, where the system is theoretically
  completely unpredictable. The random/rand/rnd
  function in many computer languages is a
  pseudo-random algorithm. The electronic noise
  found in circuits is an example of a true random
  system.

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Key Terms

• Remote Viewing (RV)
• A term for cases of ESP, most commonly in
  laboratory studies, wherein a person attempts to
  describe a remote location. In some cases there
  will be a target person at this location
  (described as an 'agent' or 'beacon') in others,
  the location will be identified purely by an
  abstract or coded ID.
• Target
• General name given to the information which it is
  hoped 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.

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Key Terms

• There are, of course, other terms that are
  important.
• Note that some of the key terms have only subtle
  distinctions and some are legitimately
  interchangeable.
• In time, these terms will become second nature to
  you.

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Some Websites to Look at

• http//www.channel4.com/entertainment/tv/microsite
  s/M/mindcontrol/video/
• http//www.scientificexploration.org/jse/abstracts
  .php
• http//www.mdani.demon.co.uk/para/parapsy.htm

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Summary

• The module will cover a number of selected topics
  in parapsychology.
• Some of these will be about issues and some will
  be about evidence.
• It is hard to give a precise definition of the
  term parapsychology but we have tried here to
  outline the limits as far as this module is
  concerned.
• We have introduced a number of key terms that you
  should start to familiarise yourselves with.