"We are not human beings going through a temporary spiritual experience. We are Spiritual Beings going through a temporary human experience."
-- Author Unknown
-- Author Unknown
Glossary
Dictionary of the Paranormal
(Thanks to Haunt Masters Club for the listing)
A
After-death Communications (ADC): Also called Post-mortem Communication; literally communication from the deceased.
Agent: In poltergeist phenomena, parapsychologists use this term to indicate the supposed source, usually a young girl.
Allotriophagy: Once referring to vomiting up strange objects such as stickpins, toads, rings, etc. during an exorcism.
Altered States of Consciousness (ASC): Also Altered States of Awareness; a common condition where the mind becomes more relaxed and many parapsychologists believe this state of awareness makes receiving psychic impressions easier. An article on ASC from Wikipedia lists the stages in relation to trance mediumship:
Anomalistic Psychology: In A Dictionary of Ghosts, Peter Haining writes that, with their interest in the paranormal, Leonard Zusne and Warren Jones coined this phrase in 1982 to describe an area of psychology that investigates seemingly paranormal phenomena.
Anomalistics: The study of unusual phenomena; replaced Fortean Phenomena.
Anomalous Cognition: In his book A Glossary of Terms Used in Parapsychology, author Michael A. Thalbourne explains that this phrase was invented by researchers at the Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) as an umbrella term to describe the transfer of information without use of the five senses.
Anomalous Operation: Also Anomalous Perturbation; an umbrella term author Michael A. Thalbourne uses in his book, A Glossary of Terms Used in Parapsychology, to describe the use of alleged psychic abilities to influence the physical world.
Apophenia: An article on apophenia from Wikipedia describes these phenomena as seeing patterns when there really are none.
Apparitional Experience: The experience of seeing an apparition.
Apport: The Historical Terms Glossary of the Parapsychological Association explains this word is French meaning, “to bring.” This is a term used to define an object that appears during a séance.
Arrival Case: In his book, A Glossary of Terms Used In Parapsychology (2003), Michael A. Thalbourne, Ph.D. explains this is a situation where someone has a hunch or dream they will meet someone and actually do soon after.
Asport: The Historical Terms Glossary of the Parapsychological Association explains this word is French meaning, “to send.” This is a term used to define an object that disappears during a séance.
Astral Projection: The alleged ability to separate the consciousness from the physical body. This seems to be reported most when people are undergoing a crisis, are in extreme pain or under anesthesia, leading some skeptics to believe this is simply a dissociative process of the brain to protect the mind from stress.
Aura: A multicolored luminous that raditates from all objects. An article on auras from Wikipedia states that people who suffer migrane headaches and epilepsy often report seeing a halo around living people. However, W. E. Butler was one of the first to assign seeing auras to clairvoyant facilities. He believed that the colors that appear to hover around people are a direct indication of their physical and emotional well being.
Automatism: Automatic behavior without conscious self-control, such as automatic writing.
Autoscope: A term proposed by parapsychologist Sir William Barrett in his book On the Threshold of the Unseen (1917), to describe an instrument that facilitates undetectable automatism of the wrist to facilitate clearer movements. For instance: the planchette from an Ouija board or one used for automatic writing, dowsing rods, pendulums, etc.
Autosuggestion: The influence of the senses by belief and expectation.
Automatic: A term given to inspired actions by alleged spirits. Automatic writing, for instance, is thought to be because of the influence of a spirit.
Automatic Writing: Also called direct writing: messages written on paper allegedly by spiritual interference with the hand. In Mediums' Book, author Allan Kardec calls the technique psychography, and separates it into two categories:
Automatism: Uncontrolled
muscular twitches all over the body that many Spiritualists attribute
to the inspiration of spiritual entities. In the wrist, this is used to
explain automatic writing, dowsing rods, Ouija boards, planchettes,
pendulums, etc.
Autophany: Also called heautoscopy: seeing your double.
Autoscopy: The belief that one is seeing their physical form while having an out-of-body experience.
B
Billet Reading: In Introduction to Parapsychology, author Harvey J. Irwin defines this as a clairvoyant’s ability to perceive information sealed in an envelope. Crafty fraudulent mediums were once able to perpetrate this trick by soaking the envelope in rubbing alcohol when given an opportunity. The alcohol will make the envelope temporarily translucent, but dries quick enough not to indicate any mischief.
Bilocation: Also called multiplication: the alleged ability to appear in two places at one time.
Biolocation: A Soviet term for dowsing.
Bio-perception: In his book, A Glossary of Terms Used In Parapsychology (2003), Michael A. Thalbourne, Ph.D. explains this is a Japanese term used to describe a person who “feels things others can’t.”
Book Test: A once popular method of testing mediums was to read a passage from a book and discover if the medium could recite the same passage without having any knowledge of the book in particular.
Brutch: An area of supposed psychic disturbance.
C
Card Test: Also called a Card-guessing Experiment; a standard test parapsychologists use to test for potential extrasensory perception with special cases called Zener cards. There are several techniques used by different institutions:
Of course, there were differences with each test subject that turned up some interesting observations:
D
Death Compact: A deal two friends make, that the first one who dies will try to contact the other from beyond the grave.
Deathbed Vision: Sir William Barrett coined this term for his book Death-bed Visions (1926); this is a fairly common occurrence where someone who is deathly ill will begin staring into a corner or suddenly begin having conversations with people no one else can see or hear.
Decline Effect: This was noticed by American parapsychologist Joseph Banks Rhine when he was testing subjects with alleged psychic abilities to describe the drop off in hits (correct responses) the longer a test went on and the more times the test was performed.
Déjà vu: Also called paramnesia; a French phrase that means, “already seen,” and describes the eerie feeling that you have already experienced things before when you are confronted with them for the first time. An article on Déjà vu from Wikipedia explains that French psychical researcher Émile Boirac coined the term in 1917 and that 70% of people have reported it. He divided the experience into four classifications:
Most skeptics believe an excess of serotonin in the brain causes this sensation.
Delusion: A false belief that is usually an apperception: reflecting the inner turmoil of the mind of the percipient.
Dematerialization: In Buckland’s Book of Spirit Communications, author Raymond Buckland defines this as the disappearance of an object during a séance.
Depossession: The release of an earthbound, obsessing spirit from the human host.
Derma-optical Perception (DOP): Literally, “skin sight;” in Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain, Sheila Ostrander devotes a large section to the phenomena where presumably someone can be blindfolded and touch colors and guess them accurately.
Dermography: In his book, A Glossary of Terms Used In Parapsychology (2003), Michael A. Thalbourne, Ph.D. explains that this term is used when scratches and even writing inexplicably appears on someone’s skin.
Dice Test: Also called a Dice-throwing Experiment; a standard test parapsychologists use to test for potential psychokinesis. There are several techniques used by different institutions:
Direct: A term given to the seemingly direct presence of a spirit. For example, a direct voice is supposedly the actual voice of a ghost.
Direct Painting: In Buckland’s Book of Spirit Communications, author Raymond Buckland defines this as an instance where allegedly a spirit literally paints a portrait.
Direct Voice: Also called independent voice; in On the Edge of the Etheric (1931), by J. Arthur Findlay, readers learned that during some séances, a disembodied voice sounds from somewhere in the room or through a trumpet to communicate to the sitters.
Direct Writing: Also called Autography; in Buckland’s Book of Spirit Communications, author Raymond Buckland defines this as an instance where allegedly a spirit literally writes a message.
Discarnate: Without a body.
Displacement Effect: A phrase used in extrasensory perception (ESP) tests to describe an instance when a test subject picks the next card in the deck, not the one the sender is concentrating on.
Divination: Also called fortune telling.
Doorway Test: Michael A. Thalbourne, Ph.D., author of A Glossary of Terms Used In Parapsychology (2003), described this as a cunning test some parapsychologists use to verify whether or not someone that claims to see auras can actually do so. The subject is asked behind which unattached door a person is standing.
Double: Paul Roland writes intelligently about doubles in his book The Complete Book of Ghosts. In Germany, this phenomenon is labeled a doppelganger; in Norway it is called vardoger; in Greece it is called larva; in Wales it is called fye or waft; in England it is called fetch; in Tibet it is called delok; in Scotland it is called taslach. It is seeing an exact copy of yourself and usually foretells of impending disaster or death. It is different from astral projection in that the body is unaware of their copies actions.
Down Through (DT) Technique: This experiment was started by American parapsychologist Joseph Banks Rhine to test clairvoyant abilities in test subjects. Instead of trying to read the mind of a “sender” about the image on a Zener Card, the subject would lay their hand on the deck and guess at each card’s symbol, starting from the top and working their way down.
Dowsing: Using a forked stick or two L-shaped metal rods to facilitate automatism to discover underground water or ore.
Dracontology: This term was said to have been coined by a monk from the monastery in St. Benoit-du-Lac in a letter to Jacques Boisvert of Quebec, as the "study of lake monsters."
E
Ectenic Force: The alleged force surrounding a physical medium that allows objects to move in his or her presence.
Effluviography: More commonly known as “aura photography.”
Ectomist: A term some paranormal investigators prefer over ectoplasm to describe unexplainable fog or mist in pictures or on video.
Ectoplasm: A Greek phrase that means, “externalized substance” and sometimes called teleplasm; once used to describe an odd substance mediums allegedly produced that would take the form of disembodied spirits. More recently, this describes a fog or mist that appears on film and cannot be explained as naturally occurring.
Electromagnetic Field (EMF) Detector: A device that registers electromagnetic fields that most parapsychologists believe indicate the presence of a spirit.
Electronic Voice Phenomena (EMF): Also called Psychophonia by Ferdinando Bersani; The alleged voices of discarnate souls caught on an audio recorder. This phrase originally appeared in the book Breakthrough: An Amazing Experiment in Electronic Communication with the Dead (1968), by Dr. Konstantin Raudive. He was in Sweden recording bird songs and when he played them back he supposedly heard the voices of deceased individuals.
Electrophotography: A word used to describe so-called Kirilian photography.
Empath: Also called telempath; the alleged ability to perceive the emotions of others far beyond what is capible by empathy alone. Most skeptics, however, believe a person who claims this facility is simply projecting their own emotions onto others.
Ethereal: Of Heaven.
Etherialization: In Buckland’s Book of Spirit Communications, author Raymond Buckland defines this as an apparition having no lower body.
Extrasensorymotor Phenomena: Information received outside of the normal scenes or muscular capabilities.
Extrasensory Perception (ESP): Called Anomalous Cognition by Edwin C. May, Ph.D., Cryptaesthesia by French physiologist Charles Robert Richet and Supernormal Cognition by French psychical researcher Eugene Osty. It is known as Metagnomy in France and Paragnosia in the Netherlands. Also called the sixth sense; this term was coined by Joseph Banks Rhine for his book Extra Sensory Perception (1934). This is the alleged ability to receive information outside of the five senses. The book Psychic Exploration by Edgar D. Mitchell explains that the Soviet term for this is bioinformation. He also describes a sub-classification:
Experient: In his book, A Glossary of Terms Used In Parapsychology (2003), Michael A. Thalbourne, Ph.D. used this term to indicate a person who is the agent of psychokinesis.
Extraterrestrial (ET): Another name for aliens.
F
Falsidical: Parapsychologists use this to indicate a false or mistaken statement or experience.
Forced-choice Experiment: In The Psychic Quest: Understanding Your Psychic Potential, author Douglas G. Richards explains this is test where the subject must chose from a small number of choices.
Free Response Test: The method of testing clairvoyance devised by psychical researcher Charles E. Stuart, detailed in the book Extra-sensory Perception After Sixty Years: A Critical Appraisal of the Research in Extra-sensory Perception (1940), where subjects are welcome to draw any impression from a huge number of possible targets has many times come under fire, since it is quite possible for any abstract drawing to be considered a hit to a particular piece.
G
Ganzfeld Experiment: In The Psychic Quest: Understanding Your Psychic Potential, author Douglas G. Richards explains that this is a German word that means “whole field.” It was initiated by Charles Honorton’s Psychophysical Research Laboratories in Princeton, New York. Subjects are tested lying down with eye coverings and white noise hissing through headphones to put them in a sort of altered state of consciousness that is believed to leave one open to telepathic suggestion.
Gestalt Impression: Drawing a picture that matches up with a picture previously sealed in an envelope of which the subject had not seen.
Glossolalia: “Speaking in tongues” during ecstatic trances.
Gravity Hill: Also called gravity road; an article on gravity hills from Wikipedia explains that this is a convincing optical illusion where a road looks like it is sloping one way when it is actually gently sloping the other.
H
Haint: A Southern Appalachian term for a ghost, derived from the word “haunt.”
Hallucination: Perception of stimuli that aren’t actually present, but are believed to be genuine:
Paul Devereux, author of the book Haunted Land: Investigations into Ancient Mysteries and Modern Day Phenomena, is willing to concede that many apparitions are due to hallucinations, but questions why some seem to be experienced only in certain places regarded to be haunted; he calls them Place-related Hallucinations.
Haunted: A place that is allegedly plagued by frequent supernatural occurrences.
Haunting: Frequent visitation by seeming paranormal phenomena:
Heteraesthesia: A term coined by psychical researcher Frederic W. H. Myers in his book Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death (1907) to describe a sensitivity that is seemingly outside of the normal means.
Hit: In parapsychology, this word is used to indicate a correct response.
Home Circle: A séance held in someone’s home without the used of a professional medium.
Hot Reading: An article on hot reading from Wikipedia states that this is when a fraudulent psychic or medium has foreknowledge of someone’s history and claims the knowledge comes from otherworldly communications.
Hot Spot: Some “ghost hunters” use this term to indicate an area of alleged paranormal activity.
Hypermnesia: An uncanny ability to vividly or completely recall information filtered by the conscious mind but still contained in the subconscious. In parapsychology, this could account for seemingly past-life experiences and psychic information when a person isn’t aware that their subconscious has retained bits and pieces of information and pieced them together.
Hypnagogia: An article on hypnagogia from Wikipedia explains this common condition of hallucinations that occur upon falling asleep or waking up. The most common is the feeling of falling before falling asleep, called a hypnic jerk. However, this condition can create auditory and visual hallucinations, feelings of impending disaster or doom, perceiving a malevolent presence, the inability to breath or move, etc. People who suffer a severe episode cannot be convinced that it wasn’t real.
I
Ideomotor Effect: Uncontrolled muscular movements that many skeptics believe is the reason a planchette moves across an Ouija Board. When table tipping became a popular pastime, Reverend Edward Gillson seized the opportunity to write a prejudice book called Table-Talking: Disclosures of Satanic Wonders & Prophetic Signs: A Word for the Wise (1853), exposing the spiritualist beliefs as downright diabolical. He maintained that when a table began to move under the alleged direction of a spirit to communicate with the living, it was actually a demon moving the table and by placing a copy of the Holy Bible on it, the table would instantly stop all movement.
Illusion: Parapsychologists use this to indicate naturally occurring phenomena that can be mistaken as paranormal.
Incombustibility: A term used to describe a person who is flame-retardant.
Incorporeal Personal Agency (IPA): A phrase used by psychical researcher Frederic W. H. Myers in his book Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death (1907) to describe a discarnate human consciousness.
Inedia: A term used to describe the amazing ability some Buddhist monks possess to live without food for prolong periods of time.
Instrumental Transcommunication (ITC): Anomalous phenomena that are allegedly evidence of spiritual activity through electronic devices, such as telephones, televisions, cameras, camcorders, audio recorders, thermometers, electromagnetic field (EMF) detectors, etc.
Intersubjective Phenomena: Experienced by more than one individual.
Intelligent Haunting: Allegedly a spirit that interacts with its surroundings and with people and is no longer reserved to playing out a role as with residual hauntings.
Interpenetration of Matter: A phenomena where it seems an object has passed through another solid object.
Intra-mediumistic: Michael A. Thalbourne, Ph.D., author of A Glossary of Terms Used In Parapsychology (2003), uses this term to describe information that could have only been obtained through a medium actually in contact with a deceased individual, not by ESP or telepathy.
Intrasomatic Hypothesis: An idea published by Karlis Osis and Donna McCormick that states that the soul doesn’t actually leave the body during a so-called out-of-body experience, but that the information is gained via extrasensory perception.
Intuition: To know something without reasoning.
L
Liminality: An article on liminality from Wikipedia defines this as a state of dissociation, where a person becomes disoriented and loses their sense of self. Self-proclaimed trance mediums often describe this ambiguous state before they begin to allegedly channel a spirit.
Linger Effect: When an object moves after the agent of psychokinesis has been removed form the area.
Linkage Hypothesis: Maurice Clement Marsh believed that in order for a sensitive to “tune-in” to another person, they must have a personal object from that person, called Linkage Material.
Lithoboly: The book Exploring the Unknown by Reader’s Digest defines this as the strangest phenomenon in poltergeist cases where rocks inexplicably fall from the sky or from the ceiling in a house.
Luminous Phenomena: Also called Thoughtgraphic Appearance; anomalous light that appears in pictures or video.
Luminosity: In Poltergeists and the Paranormal: Fact Beyond Fiction, Doctors Philip Stander and Paul Schmolling mention luminosity as a sort of poltergeist phenomena. They are small bright lights that suddenly appear and hover, with no scientific explanation or logical cause.
M
Manabee: A term that comes from the Southern Appalachian Mountains that describes a ghost that haunts a small, inanimate object.
Manifestation: A spirit allegedly taking form.
Materialization: An object supposedly appearing out of thin air.
Medium: Literally, a channel for alleged discarnate spirits to use to communicate with the living. An article on mediumship from Wikipedia places mediums into three separate categories:
The book Psychic Exploration by Edgar D. Mitchell also gives two more classifications for mediums:
Psychic Medium is a newer term that describes some who allegedly has psychic abilities and is a medium. A Trumpet Medium is one that can allegedly produce the direct voice of a spirit through a trumpet during a séance.
Mentalism: Stage magic that simulates telepathy.
Metaphysical Levitation: Levitation by supernatural means.
Metetherial: A term coined by Frederic William Henry Myers, one of the founders of the Society for Psychical Research in London, used to describe an invisible world “behind our own” where spirits reside.
Minition: A word coined by psychical researcher Frederic W. H. Myers to describe a message the offers council or a warning about a disaster.
Miss: In parapsychology, this word is used to indicate an incorrect response.
O
Occult: Literally, “hidden.” Most parapsychologists prefer to distance themselves from this word and all things connected with it.
Operator:
(Thanks to Haunt Masters Club for the listing)
A
After-death Communications (ADC): Also called Post-mortem Communication; literally communication from the deceased.
- Induced After-death Communication (IADC): In Allan Botkin’s book, Induced ADC's for Grief Therapy (2005), he reveals his secret for hypnosis in which the patient experiences a deceased loved one again.
Agent: In poltergeist phenomena, parapsychologists use this term to indicate the supposed source, usually a young girl.
Allotriophagy: Once referring to vomiting up strange objects such as stickpins, toads, rings, etc. during an exorcism.
Altered States of Consciousness (ASC): Also Altered States of Awareness; a common condition where the mind becomes more relaxed and many parapsychologists believe this state of awareness makes receiving psychic impressions easier. An article on ASC from Wikipedia lists the stages in relation to trance mediumship:
- Alpha: 12.39 - 9.9 Hz: Start of Meditation
- Low Alpha: 9.89 - 8.2 Hz: Inspiration, Mental Mediumship, Clairvoyance, etc.
- Alpha/Theta: 8.19 - 7.7 Hz: Light Trance, Overshadowing
- High Theta: 7.69 - 7.1 Hz: Partial Loss of Awareness
- Theta: 7 - 4.9 Hz: Further Loss of Awareness
- Low Theta: 4.89 - 4.3 Hz: Deeper Trance
- Theta/Delta: 4.29 - 3.9 Hz: Out of Body Feeling
- High Delta: 3.89 - 3 Hz: Spirit Guides Controlling
- Delta: 2.9 - 1.5 Hz: Passive Body
- Low Delta: 1.49 - 0.5 Hz: Full Deep Trance
- Panning: 0.49 - 0.01 Hz: Where Have You Gone?
Anomalistic Psychology: In A Dictionary of Ghosts, Peter Haining writes that, with their interest in the paranormal, Leonard Zusne and Warren Jones coined this phrase in 1982 to describe an area of psychology that investigates seemingly paranormal phenomena.
Anomalistics: The study of unusual phenomena; replaced Fortean Phenomena.
Anomalous Cognition: In his book A Glossary of Terms Used in Parapsychology, author Michael A. Thalbourne explains that this phrase was invented by researchers at the Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) as an umbrella term to describe the transfer of information without use of the five senses.
Anomalous Operation: Also Anomalous Perturbation; an umbrella term author Michael A. Thalbourne uses in his book, A Glossary of Terms Used in Parapsychology, to describe the use of alleged psychic abilities to influence the physical world.
Apophenia: An article on apophenia from Wikipedia describes these phenomena as seeing patterns when there really are none.
Apparitional Experience: The experience of seeing an apparition.
Apport: The Historical Terms Glossary of the Parapsychological Association explains this word is French meaning, “to bring.” This is a term used to define an object that appears during a séance.
Arrival Case: In his book, A Glossary of Terms Used In Parapsychology (2003), Michael A. Thalbourne, Ph.D. explains this is a situation where someone has a hunch or dream they will meet someone and actually do soon after.
Asport: The Historical Terms Glossary of the Parapsychological Association explains this word is French meaning, “to send.” This is a term used to define an object that disappears during a séance.
Astral Projection: The alleged ability to separate the consciousness from the physical body. This seems to be reported most when people are undergoing a crisis, are in extreme pain or under anesthesia, leading some skeptics to believe this is simply a dissociative process of the brain to protect the mind from stress.
Aura: A multicolored luminous that raditates from all objects. An article on auras from Wikipedia states that people who suffer migrane headaches and epilepsy often report seeing a halo around living people. However, W. E. Butler was one of the first to assign seeing auras to clairvoyant facilities. He believed that the colors that appear to hover around people are a direct indication of their physical and emotional well being.
Automatism: Automatic behavior without conscious self-control, such as automatic writing.
Autoscope: A term proposed by parapsychologist Sir William Barrett in his book On the Threshold of the Unseen (1917), to describe an instrument that facilitates undetectable automatism of the wrist to facilitate clearer movements. For instance: the planchette from an Ouija board or one used for automatic writing, dowsing rods, pendulums, etc.
Autosuggestion: The influence of the senses by belief and expectation.
Automatic: A term given to inspired actions by alleged spirits. Automatic writing, for instance, is thought to be because of the influence of a spirit.
Automatic Writing: Also called direct writing: messages written on paper allegedly by spiritual interference with the hand. In Mediums' Book, author Allan Kardec calls the technique psychography, and separates it into two categories:
- Indirect Psychography: The use of an Ouija Board to receive spiritual messages.
- Direct Psychography:
Communications written on paper allegedly under the influence of a
deceased person. Kardec goes further and separates this into
subcategories:
- Mechanical Psychography: Allegedly when a spirit controls someone’s hand while his or her attention is elsewhere.
- Semi-mechanical Psychography:
Allegedly when a spirit is writing a message but the person has
complete control of their arm and hand the whole time and is able to
stop the communication, turn the page, etc.
- Intuitive Psychography: Alleged
spirit messages that are contained in the automatic writing of a
person, though the messages are usually from the subconscious mind.
- Inspirational Psychography: Messages written down by a person who feels inspired by an alleged connection with a spirit.
- Presentient Psychography: Receiving a communication that a person is unable to understand when it is written down.
Autophany: Also called heautoscopy: seeing your double.
Autoscopy: The belief that one is seeing their physical form while having an out-of-body experience.
Billet Reading: In Introduction to Parapsychology, author Harvey J. Irwin defines this as a clairvoyant’s ability to perceive information sealed in an envelope. Crafty fraudulent mediums were once able to perpetrate this trick by soaking the envelope in rubbing alcohol when given an opportunity. The alcohol will make the envelope temporarily translucent, but dries quick enough not to indicate any mischief.
Bilocation: Also called multiplication: the alleged ability to appear in two places at one time.
Biolocation: A Soviet term for dowsing.
Bio-perception: In his book, A Glossary of Terms Used In Parapsychology (2003), Michael A. Thalbourne, Ph.D. explains this is a Japanese term used to describe a person who “feels things others can’t.”
Book Test: A once popular method of testing mediums was to read a passage from a book and discover if the medium could recite the same passage without having any knowledge of the book in particular.
Brutch: An area of supposed psychic disturbance.
Card Test: Also called a Card-guessing Experiment; a standard test parapsychologists use to test for potential extrasensory perception with special cases called Zener cards. There are several techniques used by different institutions:
- Basic Technique: The
parapsychologists takes a card from the deck and without looking at it
places it face-down on the table and waits for the subject to guess the
symbol.
- Before Technique:
The test subject calls out their impressions of what symbol is on the
card before the parapsychologist pulls it out of the deck.
- Blind Matching Technique: The
subject is seated across from five sealed envelopes, each with a card
with a different symbol on it. The subject is then asked to place the
cards with corresponding symbols onto the envelopes.
- Down Through (DT) Technique: Trying to guess cards from the top to the bottom of the deck.
- Open Deck Test: An ESP test where the cards are chosen at random.
- Up Through (UT) Technique: Trying to guess cards from the bottom to the top of the deck.
Of course, there were differences with each test subject that turned up some interesting observations:
- Consistent Missing: This is when the tester notices the subject consistently mistakes one card symbol for another.
- Displacement: some subjects will call out a symbol on the next card. Michael A. Thalbourne, Ph.D. separates this anomaly into two categories:
Death Compact: A deal two friends make, that the first one who dies will try to contact the other from beyond the grave.
Deathbed Vision: Sir William Barrett coined this term for his book Death-bed Visions (1926); this is a fairly common occurrence where someone who is deathly ill will begin staring into a corner or suddenly begin having conversations with people no one else can see or hear.
Decline Effect: This was noticed by American parapsychologist Joseph Banks Rhine when he was testing subjects with alleged psychic abilities to describe the drop off in hits (correct responses) the longer a test went on and the more times the test was performed.
Déjà vu: Also called paramnesia; a French phrase that means, “already seen,” and describes the eerie feeling that you have already experienced things before when you are confronted with them for the first time. An article on Déjà vu from Wikipedia explains that French psychical researcher Émile Boirac coined the term in 1917 and that 70% of people have reported it. He divided the experience into four classifications:
- Déjà vécu: A French phrase that means, “already lived.” This is actually what most people consider to be Déjà vu.
- Déjà senti: A French phrase that means, “already felt;” believing you remember something someone is talking about.
- Déjà visité: A French phrase that means, “already visited;” belief that you have seen a new landscape before.
- Déjà rêvé: A French phrase that means, “already dreamed;” belief that you had had the same dream before.
Most skeptics believe an excess of serotonin in the brain causes this sensation.
Delusion: A false belief that is usually an apperception: reflecting the inner turmoil of the mind of the percipient.
Dematerialization: In Buckland’s Book of Spirit Communications, author Raymond Buckland defines this as the disappearance of an object during a séance.
Depossession: The release of an earthbound, obsessing spirit from the human host.
Derma-optical Perception (DOP): Literally, “skin sight;” in Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain, Sheila Ostrander devotes a large section to the phenomena where presumably someone can be blindfolded and touch colors and guess them accurately.
Dermography: In his book, A Glossary of Terms Used In Parapsychology (2003), Michael A. Thalbourne, Ph.D. explains that this term is used when scratches and even writing inexplicably appears on someone’s skin.
Dice Test: Also called a Dice-throwing Experiment; a standard test parapsychologists use to test for potential psychokinesis. There are several techniques used by different institutions:
- Around-the-die Technique: A test where subjects are asked to influence dice to land on the same number again and again.
- Placement Test: A subject is instructed to try to influence dice in to a certain area; introduced by W. E. Cox.
Direct: A term given to the seemingly direct presence of a spirit. For example, a direct voice is supposedly the actual voice of a ghost.
Direct Painting: In Buckland’s Book of Spirit Communications, author Raymond Buckland defines this as an instance where allegedly a spirit literally paints a portrait.
Direct Voice: Also called independent voice; in On the Edge of the Etheric (1931), by J. Arthur Findlay, readers learned that during some séances, a disembodied voice sounds from somewhere in the room or through a trumpet to communicate to the sitters.
Direct Writing: Also called Autography; in Buckland’s Book of Spirit Communications, author Raymond Buckland defines this as an instance where allegedly a spirit literally writes a message.
Discarnate: Without a body.
Displacement Effect: A phrase used in extrasensory perception (ESP) tests to describe an instance when a test subject picks the next card in the deck, not the one the sender is concentrating on.
Divination: Also called fortune telling.
Doorway Test: Michael A. Thalbourne, Ph.D., author of A Glossary of Terms Used In Parapsychology (2003), described this as a cunning test some parapsychologists use to verify whether or not someone that claims to see auras can actually do so. The subject is asked behind which unattached door a person is standing.
Double: Paul Roland writes intelligently about doubles in his book The Complete Book of Ghosts. In Germany, this phenomenon is labeled a doppelganger; in Norway it is called vardoger; in Greece it is called larva; in Wales it is called fye or waft; in England it is called fetch; in Tibet it is called delok; in Scotland it is called taslach. It is seeing an exact copy of yourself and usually foretells of impending disaster or death. It is different from astral projection in that the body is unaware of their copies actions.
Down Through (DT) Technique: This experiment was started by American parapsychologist Joseph Banks Rhine to test clairvoyant abilities in test subjects. Instead of trying to read the mind of a “sender” about the image on a Zener Card, the subject would lay their hand on the deck and guess at each card’s symbol, starting from the top and working their way down.
Dowsing: Using a forked stick or two L-shaped metal rods to facilitate automatism to discover underground water or ore.
- Map Dowsing:
Holding a pendulum over a map to try to locate out-of-sight objects.
This method became very popular during the Vietnam War, where it was
useful in discovering secret tunnels and landmines.
Dracontology: This term was said to have been coined by a monk from the monastery in St. Benoit-du-Lac in a letter to Jacques Boisvert of Quebec, as the "study of lake monsters."
Ectenic Force: The alleged force surrounding a physical medium that allows objects to move in his or her presence.
Effluviography: More commonly known as “aura photography.”
Ectomist: A term some paranormal investigators prefer over ectoplasm to describe unexplainable fog or mist in pictures or on video.
Ectoplasm: A Greek phrase that means, “externalized substance” and sometimes called teleplasm; once used to describe an odd substance mediums allegedly produced that would take the form of disembodied spirits. More recently, this describes a fog or mist that appears on film and cannot be explained as naturally occurring.
Electromagnetic Field (EMF) Detector: A device that registers electromagnetic fields that most parapsychologists believe indicate the presence of a spirit.
Electronic Voice Phenomena (EMF): Also called Psychophonia by Ferdinando Bersani; The alleged voices of discarnate souls caught on an audio recorder. This phrase originally appeared in the book Breakthrough: An Amazing Experiment in Electronic Communication with the Dead (1968), by Dr. Konstantin Raudive. He was in Sweden recording bird songs and when he played them back he supposedly heard the voices of deceased individuals.
Electrophotography: A word used to describe so-called Kirilian photography.
Empath: Also called telempath; the alleged ability to perceive the emotions of others far beyond what is capible by empathy alone. Most skeptics, however, believe a person who claims this facility is simply projecting their own emotions onto others.
Ethereal: Of Heaven.
Etherialization: In Buckland’s Book of Spirit Communications, author Raymond Buckland defines this as an apparition having no lower body.
Extrasensorymotor Phenomena: Information received outside of the normal scenes or muscular capabilities.
Extrasensory Perception (ESP): Called Anomalous Cognition by Edwin C. May, Ph.D., Cryptaesthesia by French physiologist Charles Robert Richet and Supernormal Cognition by French psychical researcher Eugene Osty. It is known as Metagnomy in France and Paragnosia in the Netherlands. Also called the sixth sense; this term was coined by Joseph Banks Rhine for his book Extra Sensory Perception (1934). This is the alleged ability to receive information outside of the five senses. The book Psychic Exploration by Edgar D. Mitchell explains that the Soviet term for this is bioinformation. He also describes a sub-classification:
- General Extrasensory Perception (GESP):
The alleged ability to use telepathy and clairvoyance in combination
and coined by American parapsychologist Joseph Banks Rhine. In China,
the phrase Exceptional Fluctuations of the Human Body (EFHB) is used instead.
Experient: In his book, A Glossary of Terms Used In Parapsychology (2003), Michael A. Thalbourne, Ph.D. used this term to indicate a person who is the agent of psychokinesis.
Extraterrestrial (ET): Another name for aliens.
Falsidical: Parapsychologists use this to indicate a false or mistaken statement or experience.
Forced-choice Experiment: In The Psychic Quest: Understanding Your Psychic Potential, author Douglas G. Richards explains this is test where the subject must chose from a small number of choices.
Free Response Test: The method of testing clairvoyance devised by psychical researcher Charles E. Stuart, detailed in the book Extra-sensory Perception After Sixty Years: A Critical Appraisal of the Research in Extra-sensory Perception (1940), where subjects are welcome to draw any impression from a huge number of possible targets has many times come under fire, since it is quite possible for any abstract drawing to be considered a hit to a particular piece.
Ganzfeld Experiment: In The Psychic Quest: Understanding Your Psychic Potential, author Douglas G. Richards explains that this is a German word that means “whole field.” It was initiated by Charles Honorton’s Psychophysical Research Laboratories in Princeton, New York. Subjects are tested lying down with eye coverings and white noise hissing through headphones to put them in a sort of altered state of consciousness that is believed to leave one open to telepathic suggestion.
Gestalt Impression: Drawing a picture that matches up with a picture previously sealed in an envelope of which the subject had not seen.
Glossolalia: “Speaking in tongues” during ecstatic trances.
Gravity Hill: Also called gravity road; an article on gravity hills from Wikipedia explains that this is a convincing optical illusion where a road looks like it is sloping one way when it is actually gently sloping the other.
Haint: A Southern Appalachian term for a ghost, derived from the word “haunt.”
Hallucination: Perception of stimuli that aren’t actually present, but are believed to be genuine:
- Auditory Hallucination: Hearing things that aren’t really there.
- Gustational Hallucination: Tasting something that really isn’t there.
- Olfactory Hallucination: Smelling things that aren’t really there.
- Tactile Hallucination: Being touched by something that isn’t really there.
- Visual Hallucination: Seeing things that are not really there.
Paul Devereux, author of the book Haunted Land: Investigations into Ancient Mysteries and Modern Day Phenomena, is willing to concede that many apparitions are due to hallucinations, but questions why some seem to be experienced only in certain places regarded to be haunted; he calls them Place-related Hallucinations.
Haunted: A place that is allegedly plagued by frequent supernatural occurrences.
Haunting: Frequent visitation by seeming paranormal phenomena:
- Person-centered Haunting: Once used to describe poltergeist phenomena.
- Place-centered Haunting: Used to describe a location where alleged paranormal events frequently take place.
Heteraesthesia: A term coined by psychical researcher Frederic W. H. Myers in his book Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death (1907) to describe a sensitivity that is seemingly outside of the normal means.
Hit: In parapsychology, this word is used to indicate a correct response.
Home Circle: A séance held in someone’s home without the used of a professional medium.
Hot Reading: An article on hot reading from Wikipedia states that this is when a fraudulent psychic or medium has foreknowledge of someone’s history and claims the knowledge comes from otherworldly communications.
Hot Spot: Some “ghost hunters” use this term to indicate an area of alleged paranormal activity.
Hypermnesia: An uncanny ability to vividly or completely recall information filtered by the conscious mind but still contained in the subconscious. In parapsychology, this could account for seemingly past-life experiences and psychic information when a person isn’t aware that their subconscious has retained bits and pieces of information and pieced them together.
Hypnagogia: An article on hypnagogia from Wikipedia explains this common condition of hallucinations that occur upon falling asleep or waking up. The most common is the feeling of falling before falling asleep, called a hypnic jerk. However, this condition can create auditory and visual hallucinations, feelings of impending disaster or doom, perceiving a malevolent presence, the inability to breath or move, etc. People who suffer a severe episode cannot be convinced that it wasn’t real.
Ideomotor Effect: Uncontrolled muscular movements that many skeptics believe is the reason a planchette moves across an Ouija Board. When table tipping became a popular pastime, Reverend Edward Gillson seized the opportunity to write a prejudice book called Table-Talking: Disclosures of Satanic Wonders & Prophetic Signs: A Word for the Wise (1853), exposing the spiritualist beliefs as downright diabolical. He maintained that when a table began to move under the alleged direction of a spirit to communicate with the living, it was actually a demon moving the table and by placing a copy of the Holy Bible on it, the table would instantly stop all movement.
Illusion: Parapsychologists use this to indicate naturally occurring phenomena that can be mistaken as paranormal.
Incombustibility: A term used to describe a person who is flame-retardant.
Incorporeal Personal Agency (IPA): A phrase used by psychical researcher Frederic W. H. Myers in his book Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death (1907) to describe a discarnate human consciousness.
Inedia: A term used to describe the amazing ability some Buddhist monks possess to live without food for prolong periods of time.
Instrumental Transcommunication (ITC): Anomalous phenomena that are allegedly evidence of spiritual activity through electronic devices, such as telephones, televisions, cameras, camcorders, audio recorders, thermometers, electromagnetic field (EMF) detectors, etc.
Intersubjective Phenomena: Experienced by more than one individual.
Intelligent Haunting: Allegedly a spirit that interacts with its surroundings and with people and is no longer reserved to playing out a role as with residual hauntings.
Interpenetration of Matter: A phenomena where it seems an object has passed through another solid object.
Intra-mediumistic: Michael A. Thalbourne, Ph.D., author of A Glossary of Terms Used In Parapsychology (2003), uses this term to describe information that could have only been obtained through a medium actually in contact with a deceased individual, not by ESP or telepathy.
Intrasomatic Hypothesis: An idea published by Karlis Osis and Donna McCormick that states that the soul doesn’t actually leave the body during a so-called out-of-body experience, but that the information is gained via extrasensory perception.
Intuition: To know something without reasoning.
Liminality: An article on liminality from Wikipedia defines this as a state of dissociation, where a person becomes disoriented and loses their sense of self. Self-proclaimed trance mediums often describe this ambiguous state before they begin to allegedly channel a spirit.
Linger Effect: When an object moves after the agent of psychokinesis has been removed form the area.
Linkage Hypothesis: Maurice Clement Marsh believed that in order for a sensitive to “tune-in” to another person, they must have a personal object from that person, called Linkage Material.
Lithoboly: The book Exploring the Unknown by Reader’s Digest defines this as the strangest phenomenon in poltergeist cases where rocks inexplicably fall from the sky or from the ceiling in a house.
Luminous Phenomena: Also called Thoughtgraphic Appearance; anomalous light that appears in pictures or video.
Luminosity: In Poltergeists and the Paranormal: Fact Beyond Fiction, Doctors Philip Stander and Paul Schmolling mention luminosity as a sort of poltergeist phenomena. They are small bright lights that suddenly appear and hover, with no scientific explanation or logical cause.
Manabee: A term that comes from the Southern Appalachian Mountains that describes a ghost that haunts a small, inanimate object.
Manifestation: A spirit allegedly taking form.
Materialization: An object supposedly appearing out of thin air.
Medium: Literally, a channel for alleged discarnate spirits to use to communicate with the living. An article on mediumship from Wikipedia places mediums into three separate categories:
- Mental Medium: A medium that allegedly conveys messages from deceased individuals.
- Mixed Medium: Michael A. Thalbourne, Ph.D., author of A Glossary of Terms Used In Parapsychology
(2003) used this to designate a medium that seems to actually retrieve
veridical information at times, but often times does not, suggesting
this ability is not under the medium’s control.
- Physical Medium:
A medium that produces certain physical phenomena that claim to be
spiritual in origin, such as objects levitating, musical instruments
playing of their own accord, emitting ectoplasm, the materialization of
full-bodied apparitions, etc.
- Trance Medium: Also called trans-medium; a medium that slips into a trance and supposedly communicates messages from deceased individuals.
- Part Trance Mediumship: The medium is fully aware of what they communicate to sitters.
- Full Trance Mediumship: The medium is completely unaware of what they communicate to sitters.
- Clairvoyant Medium: A medium that allegedly sees spirits.
- Direct-voice Medium: A medium that slumps into a trance and the voice of a supposed spirit can communicate with the living.
Psychic Medium is a newer term that describes some who allegedly has psychic abilities and is a medium. A Trumpet Medium is one that can allegedly produce the direct voice of a spirit through a trumpet during a séance.
Mentalism: Stage magic that simulates telepathy.
Metaphysical Levitation: Levitation by supernatural means.
- Autolevitation: The alleged ability to levitate the self.
Metetherial: A term coined by Frederic William Henry Myers, one of the founders of the Society for Psychical Research in London, used to describe an invisible world “behind our own” where spirits reside.
Minition: A word coined by psychical researcher Frederic W. H. Myers to describe a message the offers council or a warning about a disaster.
Miss: In parapsychology, this word is used to indicate an incorrect response.
Occult: Literally, “hidden.” Most parapsychologists prefer to distance themselves from this word and all things connected with it.
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