APPARITION
An experience usually visual but sometimes in other sense-modalities in which
there appears to be present a person or animal (deceased or living) and even
inanimate objects such as carriages and other things, who/which is in fact out
of the sensory range of the experient; often associated with spontaneous
extrasensory perception, for example, in connection with an agent
who is dying or undergoing some other crisis (in which case, it is likely to
be termed a "crisis apparition," or in connection with haunting (in
which case, it is likely to be referred to in non-technical contexts as a
"ghost")
APPORT
A physical object which has been paranormally transported into a closed space
or container, suggesting the passage of “matter through matter,” that is,
through intervening solid material objects. [From the Latin apportare,
“to carry to (a place)”]
ASTRAL BODY
An entity said to be an exact, quasi-physical replica or “double” of the
individual physical body, which can separate itself from the physical body,
either temporarily, as in dreaming or in the out-of-the-body experience,
or permanently, at the moment of death. Also known as the “etheric” body.
[From the Latin astralis, derived from astrum, “star,”
derived from the Greek astron]
ASTRAL TRAVEL
See Astral Projection under Out-of-[the]-Body Experience.
AUTOMATIC WRITING
A motor automatism in which a person’s hand writes meaningful statements, but
without the writer consciously premeditating the content of what is produced.
AUTOMATISM
Any complex sensory or motor activity the details of which are carried out by
a person without their conscious awareness or volition, thus constituting
instances of dissociation; examples of sensory automatisms are certain
visual and auditory hallucinations; examples of motor automatisms are
sleep-walking, trance-utterances and automatic writing.
BILOCATION
The phenomenon in which a person’s body is seen in two different geographical
locations at the same time; also, according to Myers (1903), the sensation of
being in two different places at once, namely, where one’s organism is, and a
place distant from it, involving some degree of perception (whether veridical
or not) of the distant scene.
BOOK TEST
A test for survival sometimes conducted during a sitting in an attempt
to exclude telepathy between medium and sitter as an
explanation for the information paranormally acquired by the medium: the
communicator is requested to transmit a message referring to topics on
specified pages of a book that the medium could not have normally seen. (As a
noun), the overt response made by the percipient in guessing the
target; in a test of extrasensory perception; (as a verb), to make a
response or call.
CHAIR TEST
A test for precognition, associated especially with the Dutch sensitive
Gerard Croiset but first demonstrated by Pascal Forthuny, a French psychic, in
which a chair is randomly selected from all those set up for a later public
meeting, and the percipient describes the appearance, characteristics
and events in the life of a person, unknown to them, who will later attend
that meeting and occupy that chair.
CHANNELING
A phenomenon in which, according to Arthur Hastings (1990, p. 99), “a person
purports to transmit information or messages directly from a personality or
consciousness other than his or her own, usually through automatic writing
or trance speaking; this other personality usually claims to be a nonphysical
spirit or being.”
CLAIRAUDIENCE
Paranormal information expressed as an auditory experience; it is
generally considered to be a form or mode of clairvoyance. [From the
French clair, “clear,” + audience, “hearing,” ultimately
derived from the Latin clarus, “clear,” + audientia, derived
from audire, “to hear”]
CLAIRSENTIENCE
Paranormal information expressed as a sensation or feeling; generally
considered to be a form of clairvoyance. [From the French clair,
“clear,” + sentience, “feeling,” ultimately derived from the Latin
clarus, “clear,” + sentiens, derived from sentire, “to
feel”]
CLAIRVOYANCE
Paranormal acquisition of information concerning an object or
contempory physical event; in contrast to telepathy, the information is
assumed to derive directly from an external physical source (such as a
concealed photograph), and not from the mind of another person; one particular
form of extrasensory perception, it is not to be confused with the
vulgar interpretation of “clairvoyance” as meaning “knowledge of the future”
(for which see Precognition).
COMMUNICATOR
A personality, usually manifesting through a medium, and claiming to be
that of a deceased individual trying to communicate with the living. See also
Drop-in Communicator.
CONTROL
(i) A personality purporting to be that of some deceased individual, believed
to take control of the medium’s actions and speech during trance,
and/or who habitually relays messages from the communicator to the
sitter. (ii) In the context of scientific investigation, a control is
something (a procedure, condition, object, set of subjects, and so on) which
is introduced with the purpose of providing a check on (that is, of
“controlling for”) the influence of unwanted factors.
CRISIS APPARITION
See under Apparition.
CROSS-CORRESPONDENCES
A highly complex series of independent communications delivered paranormally
(and ostensibly from one or more discarnate entities) to two or more
geographically separate mediums such that the complete message is not
clear until the separate fragments are pieced together into a meaningful
whole.
CRYPTOMNESIA
Term coined by Theodore Flournoy to refer to a memory of some event or
experience which has been forgotten by the conscious mind, and which may
appear in awareness without the person recognizing it as a memory; sometimes
invoked as a counterhypothesis to apparent paranormal awareness. [From
the Greek kryptos, “hidden,” + mnesis, “memory”]
DEMATERIALIZATION
A phenomenon of physical mediumship in which living entities (sometimes the
medium’s own body) or inanimate objects — sometimes previously
materialized — are caused to disappear. Compare Materialization.
DISCARNATE ENTITY
A disembodied being, as opposed to an incarnate one; the surviving personality
of a deceased individual or non-human entity; a spirit. [From the Latin
dis-, “away, apart,” + caro (carnis), “flesh”]
DISSOCIATION
A process in which a body of awareness (perceptual, memory, physical) becomes
separated or blocked from the main center of consciousness; examples are
trance-speaking, automatic writing, amnesia, multiple personality, and
so on; thought by some to be a psi-conducive state.
DROP-IN COMMUNICATOR
Term coined by Ian Stevenson for a communicator who appears unbidden at
a sitting, and who is entirely unknown to the medium, sitters,
or anyone else present.
ECTOPLASM
Term introduced into parapsychology by Charles Richet to describe the
“exteriorized substance” produced out of the bodies of some physical
mediums and from which materializations are sometimes formed. [From
the Greek ektos, “outside,” + plasma, “something formed or
molded”]
GLOSSALALIA
Speaking in “tongues,” that is, in a language which is either unknown to
linguistic science, or completely fabricated; it usually occurs in a religious
context or is attributed to religious inspiration, as from the Holy Spirit;
not to be confused with xenoglossy. [From the Greek glossa,
“tongue, language,” + lalia, “chat, gossip, talking,” derived from
lalein, “to make an inarticulate sound”]
KIRLIAN PHOTOGRAPHY
A type of high-voltage, high-frequency photography, developed in the Soviet
Union by Semyon Davidovich Kirlian, which records on photographic film the
so-called “corona discharge” of an object caused by ionization of the field
surrounding that object; it is claimed by some that this process indicates the
existence of hitherto unknown radiations or energy fields such as “bioplasma”
or the “psychic aura.”
LEVITATION
The raising or suspension of persons or objects into the air without any
apparent agency as required by known physical laws of motion and gravity.
MATERIALIZATION
A phenomenon of physical mediumship in which living entities or inanimate
objects are caused to take form, sometimes from ectoplasm. Compare
Dematerialization.
MEDIUM
A predominantly Spiritualistic term applied to a person who regularly, and to
a greater or lesser extent at will, is involved in the production of psi
in the form mental and/or physical phenomena. See also Communicator;
Control; Sensitive; Trance; Apport; Ectoplasm; Levitation.
MESMERISM
The original term for what has since become known as “hypnotism,” named
after the Austrian physician Franz Anton Mesmer (1733-1815), who believed that
it involved the transfer from operator to patient of a subtle fluid, force or
energy known as “animal magnetism.”
METAPHYSICS
Anglicization of a French term coined by Charles Richet as an alternative
designation for the subject matter of parapsychology. [From the Greek
meta, indicating change of condition, + psychikos, “of the
soul, mental”]
MUSCLE-READING
A phenomena which mimics telepathy, in which a person is able, for
example, to find a hidden object by means of physical contact with the person
who knows its whereabouts, probably due to subtle muscular cues that the
latter provides unconsciously; also known as “Cumberlandism,” after Stuart
Cumberland, a nineteenth century practitioner of this art.
OCCULT
Term referring to certain reputed sciences and practices such as magic,
astrology, witchcraft, sorcery, and so on, involving esoteric knowledge or the
employment of mysterious agencies; not to be confused with scientific
parapsychology. [From the Latin occultus, “covered over, concealed”]
OUIJA BOARD
A device consisting of a board marked with words, alphabetical letters and
numerals,together with a smaller board on three legs, one of which serves as a
pointer; the device is employed to spell out messages, answers, and so on, by
having the fingers of one or more persons rest lightly upon the pointer, which
moves over the larger board and stops at the various markings; some of these
messages may be extrasensory in origin. Nowadays an upturned glass is
frequently used to spell out messages. [From the French oui + German
ja, both meaning “yes”]
PHANTASM
Any hallucinatory sensory impression, whatever sense may happen to be
affected. See also Apparition; Hallucination. [From the
Greek phantasma, “appearance, image, phantom”] [Nash, 1978]
PHOTOGRAPHY, PARANORMAL
The paranormal production of images on photographic film; also known as “thoughtography,”
a term used to describe the experiments of Tomokichi Fukurai (1931) but
adopted by Jule Eisenbud to describe the phenomena produced by Ted Serios, as
if mental images were “projected” onto the film. See also Thoughtography;
Spirit Photography.
RAPS
Percussive sounds, often tapping out an intelligible message, sometimes said
to be produced by paranormal means.
RAUDIVE VOICE PHENOMENA
See Electronic Voice Phenomena.
READING
The statements made by a sensitive (or as a result of the process of
divination) in the course of an attempt to obtain paranormal information or
“messages.”
REVENANT
An apparition of a deceased person. [From the French revenir,
ultimately derived from the Latin revenire, “to come back”]
SCRYING
A technique for obtaining paranormal impressions by staring into a crystal
ball, pool of water, coffee grounds, tea leaves and so on, which causes the
practitioner to experience images or exteriorized hallucinations. [Variant of
descry]
SEANCE
A meeting of one or more persons, generally, but not always, with a medium,
for the purpose of eliciting physical phenomena and/or for receiving
communications from the deceased; the term has also been used without
Spiritualistic connotations, that is, to refer to the purpose of getting
together to observe phenomena, without the intent to communicate with the
dead. Also called a “sitting” or “session.” [From the French, derived from the
Old French seoir, “to sit,” ultimately derived from the Latin
sedere, “to sit”]
SENSITIVE
A person who frequently experiences extrasensory perception and who can
sometimes induce it at will. Compare Medium.
SITTER
A person who sits with a medium at a seance and who receives a communication
through the medium.
SITTER GROUP
As defined by Kenneth Batcheldor (1984, p. 105), “a small, semi-informal group
that seeks to develop paranormal physical phenomena by meeting repeatedly
under conditions that resemble those of a Victorian seance. No spiritistic
assumptions are made, however, and the phenomena — such as rapping noises and
levitation of tables — insofar as they may be paranormal are interpreted in
terms of the PK abilities of the sitters.”
SITTING
A session or interview with a medium, generally by an individual or a small
number of people, and often for the purpose of obtaining communications from
the deceased; also termed a “seance.”
ABSENT (OR PROXY) SITTING
A sitting at which the person desiring to receive a communication via a
medium absents themselves from the actual sitting and is represented by
another person,
called a “proxy sitter.”
SPIRIT HYPOTHESIS
The theory that individual consciousness survives the death of the body in the
form of a spirit, and that it may be communicated with by living persons,
especially via a medium. Compare Survival.
SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHY
The photographing of supposed self-portraits of discarnate entities (called
“extras”) upon film or photographic plates. Compare Photography,
Paranormal.
SPIRITUALISM
Quasi-religious cult based upon the belief that survival of death is a
reality, and upon the practice of communicating with deceased persons, usually
via a medium.
TABLE-TILTING
A form of motor automatism in which several persons place their finger-tips on
a table top, causing it to move and rap out messages by means of a code. Also
called “table tipping” or “table turning.” [Dale & White, 1977]
THEOSOPHY
In general, any school of thought claiming to have special insight into the
nature of God; specifically, the religious and philosophical doctrines of the
Theosophical Society, founded in 1875 in New York by Madame Helene Petrova
Blavatsky based on Hindu and Buddhist notions, it taught the conscious
development of paranormal abilities, and belief in reincarnation. [From the
Greek theos, “God,” + sophia, “wisdom”]
TRANCE
A state of dissociation in which the individual is oblivious to their
situation and surroundings, and in which various forms of automatism may be
expressed; usually exhibited under hypnotic, mediumistic or shamanistic
conditions. [From the Old French transe, “passage,” ultimately
derived from the Latin transire, “to go across”]
TRANCE PERSONALITY
See Communicator; Control.
WRITING, AUTOMATIC
See Automatic Writing.
XENOGLOSSY
Term coined by Charles Richet (1905) to denote the act of speaking in a
language ostensibly unknown to the speaker. To be distinguished from
glossolalia. [From the Greek xenos, “foreign, alien,” +
glossa, “language”]
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