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PSI-chology: When a Paranormal Experience Isn’t It is an unfortunate turn of events that in our modern times much of the exposure the general public has to the world of the paranormal comes in the form of television “reality” programs, or, as professional skeptic Joe Nickell termed them “crocumentaries” such as Most Haunted and the Ghost Hunters. Although these programs are wildly popular by most standards it has been noted by many serious paranormal investigators that the research, science and true skepticism that has been associated with paranormal investigation in the past by credible organizations such as the Rhine Research Lab, the SPR (Society for Psychical Research), and the PA (Parapsychological Association) has been left out all together or, at best, sensationalized and devolved into nothing more than sideshow entertainment that labels any sort of quasi-anomalous event as being paranormal. The two worst travesties that are committed in programs such as these are that (1) although the hosts may have a brief bit of historical information about the site they continually have a complete lack of true research about the site that they are investigating and (2) they are non-scientists using scientific tools that, odds are, they have not been properly trained to use, handle or interpret. Beyond that, the buffoonery of the evening continues unabated throughout the entire program where the “investigators” pointlessly meander from room to room babbling nonsensically about their “feelings” of what they believe to be happening in the unseen world around them. (Insert pointless paranoid screaming for no reason here.) For these “investigators,” research, at even the most basic level would explain at least three quarters of the purported encounters that these self serving publicity hounds claim to experience. This is what I hear from them: Jibber Jabber, Jibber Jabber, Mumbo Jumbo, Rationalization and (on occasion) Denial. If they were even anything close to an actual investigator they would be able to rule out when a paranormal encounter isn’t paranormal. Perception of the Paranormal Anomalistic Psychology was a term first suggested by Leonard Zusne and Warren Jones to indicate that part of the field of psychology specifically investigates “anomalistic” psychological phenomena. This anomalistic psychological phenomenon has been explained by most psychologists as being wholly within the perception of the experient. These events can be viewed as varying degrees of paranormal manifestation, the supernatural, magic, the occult or other such experiences which an individual may encounter. In most cases the term is also meant to include belief in UFOs, in astrology, and cryptozoology. For the purposes of the discussion, all anomalistic psychology referred to within this article will focus primarily on paranormal events. Barring any psychological illness or other mental abnormality, it has been shown that most times when someone has a paranormal experience they “accept it” under the façade of their mind playing tricks on them, that they are over tired, or some other pretense that they can easily assure themselves of. This is a type of “hard-wired” psychological defense that protects the mind from factors that are beyond our control, factors that would otherwise induce fear. In most cases paranormal experiences happen to people more often that they would be comfortable knowing about. This is not to say that every event that we can not readily explain should be called paranormal. On the contrary - we should view all paranormal events with a skeptical eye until there is no other possible explanation for the event that has taken place. Most paranormal events take place just out of range of human perception, but there are times, because the two fields of existence are so closely related, that they unintentionally intermingle with each other and give each side a glimpse of the other. Knowing this may make you think twice about the shadow that you saw moving out of the corner of your eye last night or your child‘s imaginary friend. In most cases, this unexpected contact between these two planes of existence is accidental and no harm is meant. Being that the majority of these cases of contact are accidental and no harm is intended by either party, it can, in most cases, simply be dismissed without any further thought. There are some persons who are so disturbed by such an experience, especially if it is a repeated event that they will actually move from their place of residence and immediately seek lodging elsewhere. This is simply due to the factors that have been outlined in the previous portion of the discourse on the psychology of the human mind as well as the fact that the person who has had the experience, unfortunately, has no real understanding of what has happened. Bring In the Psychics Before we even begin to examine “media psychics” like John Edwards – those who are generally understood to be cold readers who have little or no psychic abilities but are employed for dramatics on television shows – we should clear up a very basic bit of confusion between the words psi and psychic. Due to popular media ignorance there has been some confusion between what psi is and what purported “psychics” do. The obvious difference between the two is that psi ability is understood to be a cognitive or physiological action of an intangible nature that can potentially be affected by outside stimulus. Psychic ability is dependent entirely on outside stimulus and has no environmental action to support its claims. To simplify matter this we can say that psi is an intangible force made tangible through action where psychic ability is better termed as a form mediumship where a ghost or spirit speaks to or through, gives “feelings” to or communicates in some other way with a sensitive or intuitive person who claims to have psychic abilities. A psychic is traditionally defined as someone who is sensitive to paranormal energies and can communicate with supernatural forces; usually understood to be ghosts or deceased persons. Shocking claim: I have not worked with or found many true psychics. Why? Because most reputed psychics really don’t have the true talent or abilities necessary to be useful. Most people who claim to be psychic are merely “cold readers,” and there is a monumental difference between the two. Cold readers are people who deduce information from “feelings,” overtly apparent points of information, environmental suggestion and information found in the environment that may be working in. This “information” is then relayed to others who, without the benefit of research, consider the “information” given to them by the psychic as significant and true. Although the “psychic” may not intend on deceit, this unintentional misinformation, or at best seriously inaccurate information, can hinder the investigation by…you guessed it – the power of suggestion. A true psychic may get a limited amount of information this way, as we all do. However a true psychic would intuitively know facts about the area, place, event, item, etc. without any prior contact or research. To tie the above statements together in this portion of the discussion I would like you to consider, before you work with someone who claims to be psychic, whether their accuracy is above a level that would rule out random chance above and beyond the laws of probability. If they are only right about places, events, etc. roughly one third of the time (about 33%) or less the person is probably a cold reader and not a true psychic. Zener cards can aid you in making a determination on whether someone has true psychic abilities or if they are just a reader. The Zener cards have five (5) basic designs on them, which means that any person will have a random probability one (1) in five (5) chance of getting a hit which is equal to about 20%. Also, depending upon the claims of the psychic, either the chair test or the book test may give strong indicators of a person’s psychic abilities. Another more basic test is simply asking that person if they are willing to have their abilities verified in a controlled lab setting. Usually, if someone is a fraud they will not want to take any tests nor have their abilities verified in any way. Someone like this will probably make excuses as to why they can not or will not verify their abilities. Some reluctantly will take the test but will get more misses than hits when overall probability is factored in. These too will make excuses as to why they could not perform properly, but will still endorse their “abilities.” Be wary of these types of people as you probably do not want to utilize their “talents” on investigations. Most people who claim to have psychic abilities actually only have mild intuitive instincts or are environmentally sensitive at best. Some of these people who have a rudimentary sensory ability deceive both themselves as well as their audience by merely “reading” them rather than making any true revelations. The sad fact is that’s about the extent of most purported psychic’s “abilities.” From a scientific vantage point anyone can claim to have psychic abilities because they know that most people either do not know how to check these abilities against statistics and probability or can not do so. People who truly do have some sort of ability usually welcome the opportunity to have their abilities verified by a legitimate organization. The Question of True Psychic Ability Is it
really possible to communicate with the dead through the thoughts and
feelings of the living? Skeptics say no, believers say yes and
scientists say…well, science is still sharply divided on the subject and
has given no overall consensus favoring one side or the other - although
“reports” favoring both sides abound. It is believed that the human “sixth sense” is the psychic mechanism in our brain. This mechanism is the “radio receiver” that picks up and translates the “radio waves” of the ghostly communications that psychics claim to receive. Some scientists, who have performed extensive studies on the subject of these abilities and who are or have become proponents thereof, say that we are all psychic in some capacity. If the latter is true, then we must understand that:
It now comes down to this: the purported psychic must prove their abilities. Most people take psychics on their subjective word and on the generalities of their claims instead of attempting to verify the authenticity of their abilities. Many “psychics,” or perhaps they are better termed pseudopsychics utilize their “abilities” to make money by performing supposed clairvoyant or precognitive readings for people. Most times these people are, as we have previously discussed, merely cold readers and not true psychics. So how do you prove psychic ability? Like any other hard-to-verify claim made by someone – you must test it. How? The abilities that a person claims to have would dictate the type of test that they would have to take.
The previous list of “tests” obviously does not encompass all psychic abilities and in reality only represents the most common claims of ability types. If someone claims to have an ability that you believe may be useful, verify it. If it is an ability that is not listed above you may need to do some research on how to verify the specific types of claims the psychic is making or you may have to use some ingenuity in fabricating a process that can verify those claims. When testing a potential psychic on their abilities it should be remembered that even though their abilities are understood from a subjective point of view they should, if their abilities are true, be able to score above the allowances made by probability for chance hits. Most people who do possess true psychic ability don’t mind being “tested,” however those who are frauds that have something to hide usually do not want to have their abilities verified and will do most anything to avoid being exposed. People such as this do what they do for two reasons: attention and money. They disproportionately sensationalize minor pseudo-psychic events and when the paying public, pumped up with the hype, comes knocking they are willing to serve up any sort of crap du jour or inane drivel that they think people want to hear. These sideshow clowns are the exact people we see on reality television making an ass of themselves in the national spotlight for a few dollars, shrieking and screaming their way throughout the set only to be forgotten before the next episode airs. Although this is basically a reiteration of what was said earlier we do not allow our investigations and activities to devolve into such a deplorable state. A general note for all: Be wary of anyone who claims to have “psychic” superiority over others and then charge a fee to reap personal financial benefits from their self-ordained abilities. Psychics who utilize “cold reading” techniques only have a 10-20% success rate. The mantra of these frauds: “Tell them what they want to hear.” When it comes to the unseen world we are all explorers with free access and all are on equal ground. As a final point we should also remember that many people who do “psychic readings” for others are not actually psychic and generally have little or no psychic abilities. They employ divination techniques, cold reading, or another sort of deception so that they can extort monies from those who patronize their place of business. Doesn’t that make you wonder why phone psychics and others who choose to engage in activities such as this must have the disclaimer: “For entertainment purposes only” when advertising? The Power of Suggestion The power of suggestion can easily alter a person’s perception of an event or series of events, especially if those events are not fresh in their mind, or if that person tends to be easily led into believing something different than what they witnessed. To illustrate, the power of suggestion was evidenced during an investigation I was on while working with a group of “ghost hunters” at a 100+ year old hotel. It was not my group; I was not in charge so I decided to use the incident as an experiment. The group had a reputed “psychic” come in and give them his impression of the situation. From his “assessment” he told the group “Each of you will feel, hear, smell, or see something paranormal tonight.” That was a mighty bold statement. There was no skepticism involved at all. The statements he made assured some sort of guaranteed contact. These thoughts alone created a group expectation, which was borderline hyper-paranoia, of what would happen rather than what could be discovered. This induced group paranoia had everyone on edge so much that every sound, movement, or perceived unusual occurrence, real or not, was considered to be the work of a ghost or other entity. Needless to say the investigation did not go as it should have. As the “investigation” (or should I say mockery thereof) progressed the group came to a room where the psychic said someone had been disemboweled in the bathtub. Later, an exhaustive search of local historic publications, newspapers and police records turned up nothing – not even a murder, let alone a disembowelment. The psychic also said that the door to that very room would close on its own, which was more evidence of paranormal manifestations. Upon closer inspection of the door, which was well over 100 years old, it was plain to see that the door slab was warped, the frame was out-of-square and the hinges were skewed so as to make the door close on its own – not to mention that one of the hinge pins has worked itself nearly half way out of the hinge over time. When these facts were brought to the attention of the group, the psychic was somewhat embarrassed and more than angered by this revelation. Prior to this, the group was enthralled by his ramblings and hung by his every word much like lemmings. Statements such as the ones made by the psychic “guaranteeing” some sort of paranormal manifestation are irresponsible and show a complete lack of integrity on the part of that individual. During the course of the “investigation” this individual also created some more stories and embellished others to bring a certain atmosphere for the curious to create entertainment and shock value. Acts of showmanship such as that are unprofessional and to try to sensationalize purported paranormal activity only detracts from the investigation. Additionally, at a later point during the “investigation” the psychic fell down and had some sort of seizure he called a “choking spell” caused by “one of the spirits who died there from the smoke caused by the fire.” Surely there was a fire, but not where he claimed – the wing of the hotel that had caught fire was demolished some 60 years prior to our investigation and was on the opposite end of the grounds. He then proceeded to “send the spirit to the light” which left him both physically and psychologically exhausted. Well, I would be exhausted too after having to think all of that up and then dramatically act it out. Fantasy-proneness When speaking about fantasy-proneness in a psychological or parapsychological context the phrase would refer to a personality construct first described by Sheryl Wilson and Theodore Barber. The term refers to a small percentage of the population who fantasize a large part of the time and who typically see, hear, smell, touch and / or fully experience what they fantasize about. This construct, created by the individual is wholly in and of their own mind. This construct differs from daydreaming in that the individual who has created the construct seeks to, by reason of subconscious psychological induction, believe that they are experiencing or have experienced the particular construct that they are creating at the time.
Pareidolia and Its Effects An example of this can be found in the 2005 sale of a burnt cheese sandwich for $5,000 (U.S.) on a popular internet auction site. It was suggested by someone that the image on the burnt portion of the cheese sandwich was a manifestation of the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus. Other examples of this are when one sees the Virgin Mary in the reflection of residue on a recently washed window pane or the face of Jesus in the rear of acid washed denim pants. Under most ordinary circumstances the power of suggestion and / or pareidolia provides a logical psychological explanation for many delusions that people have based upon their sense perception. This condition explains most UFO sightings, Bigfoot sightings, Elvis sightings, “alien” encounters, werewolves & vampires, the Loch Ness monster, and more. It also explains most religious and faith-based apparitions and visions. In clinical trials psychologists at times encourage pareidolia as a means to understanding a patient. One of the most popular and recognized of these methods is the Rorschach ink blot test. Most people recognize these illusions for what they are. Some, however, become fixated on the reality of their perception and turn the illusion into a delusion. A little bit of skeptical thinking should convince most logical, reasonable and rational people that a waffle that looks like Pope John Paul II, a cinnamon bun that looks like Elvis or a burnt cheese sandwich that looks like the Virgin Mary are accidents, coincidences without significance and are not the divine, or the deceased, speaking to us. If you believe in a higher power, as many do, then it should be considered that throughout history the divine powers that be have manifested themselves in much more spectacular ways and would probably choose a different, less mundane vehicle for manifestation than in your breakfast. It is more than likely that the illusion of the “Virgin Mary” that one sees in the reflection from a window on the wall of a downtown high rise has been generated from that person’s own imagination and religious conditioning rather than the occurrence of an actual miracle. This seems to reason more along the lines of sane logic than the idea of a holy person, who has been dead for more than 2,000 years, deciding that now more than any other time in history – either past or present - she should manifest herself in such a mundane and useless fashion to someone who is of little value to the overall scheme of things within that particular belief system. Apophenia’s Relation to Parapsychology First being discovered and defined in 1958 apophenia (uh-pof-nee-uh) is the spontaneous perception of connections and meaningfulness of unrelated, mundane events. This condition is similar to pareidolia, but it is more severe in nature. The propensity to perceive connections between unrelated objects or ideas closely links psychosis with creativity. It may be found that apophenia and creativity could be linked as similar processes of the same thought patterns. Research indicates that high levels of dopamine in the body affect the propensity to find meaning, patterns, significance and, in an affected person’s own perception, meaning where there is none. This propensity is also related to a tendency to believe in significance of mundane, unrelated events and phenomenon. An example of this type of disorder would be a person who looks at a rock and sees “witches runes” in the cracks, or someone who sees demonic images in a fire, who looks at some match sticks that were dropped on the floor and sees a pentagram, etc. This association with unrelated objects and ideas which have little or no real significance to the person usually tends to circulate around a central psychological theme that runs parallel with the items that are in the illusions that the person believes that they perceive. Over time this can degenerate into paranoia, or given the right conditions psychosis. In the scientific field of statistics the result of apophenia is called a Type I Error. This occurs, as previously described, when the psychological focus of a person is on perceived patterns that they believe to exist when, in fact, there are none. Much like pareidolia, it is highly probable that the apparent significance of many unusual experiences and phenomena are due to apophenia. Synchronicity Synchronicity was a term created by psychologist Carl Jung to describe what he called “temporally coincident occurrences of acausal events” or an “acausal connecting principle.” This means that synchronicity is not a pattern of connection that can be explained by direct causality. In its most basic definition, synchronicity is the experience of having two or more events happen in what is believed to be a “coincidental” manner that is meaningful to the person or persons experiencing them, where the indirect meaning of the events would suggests an underlying pattern or reasoning not attributed to random selection. By definition, synchronistic events are not independent of the observer, since the observer's unique psychology is precisely what gives the synchronistic event meaning. The key here is that the observer IS the central point to which all of the synchronistic events connect, but to an outside observer a synchronistic event appears to be just another meaningless “random” event in the stream of time. Events that occur in a synchronistic pattern differ from coincidental events in that synchronicity implies that the events were not simply random happenstance but an underlying dynamic that which is being expressed through meaningful relationships, actions or events. Jung believed that this principle encompassed his concepts of archetypes and the collective unconscious in a way that was descriptive of a governing dynamic that underlay the whole of human experience - social, emotional, psychological, and spiritual. Jung believed that many experiences which were perceived as coincidental were due not merely to chance, but was suggestive of the manifestation of parallel events or circumstances reflecting this governing dynamic. Although many scientists do not accept the idea of synchronicity as a scientifically viable event it should be stated here that the correlation of events could be logically described as a statistically significant relationship between two or more events and as such is a possible explanation for the phenomenon of synchronicity. Though correlation does not imply direct causation correlation may be a property which is shared by the events without a direct cause-effect relationship, leaving the observer as the end recipient of the overall experience. Depending on the frequency of the synchronistic events some scientists may describe the “connected” events as apophenia rather than synchronicity. Collective Hallucinations During the witchcraft scares of the Middle Ages a mass hysteria followed by a communal collective hallucination that nearly everyone was a witch or in league with the devil ended with the torture and death of many innocent women. It is unfortunate that many times serious paranormal studies are subverted by either the fool or the charlatan. No matter whether it is the self-proclaimed investigator who calls every “anomaly” in a photograph proof of paranormal activity (the fool) or the person who seeks to tell others everything that they want to hear so that they can intentionally rip them off for their hard earned cash (the charlatan) it should be understood that each of these people plays a role, albeit a seriously damaging one, in the perception of paranormal events. In an attempt to explain this phenomenon in a more concise manner I will even go as far as to introduce what I believe to be the starting point for collective hallucinations: sympathy. In reviewing cases of people who exhibit high concentrations of paranoia, hysteria, and collective hallucinations it was noted that the primary factors which aggravated the incidents were that the individuals had a certain point of view that was sympathetic to others in the facility and that by either fear, suggestion or unconscious stimulation these events were induced. Many of the individuals lived in “closed communities” such as hospitals (long term care), prisons (life sentences), asylums and even convents (religious hallucinatory phenomenon). If we move from the cases studied within closed communities to the “average individual” we find that the external factors, which are usually the most statistically significant in the influence of the event remain the same, even within the minds of individuals who do not seem to be prone to those factors. A séance would illustrate how easily the credulous mind interprets an event when it is guided in a specific manner. Consider the lighting, the décor and the theatrics of the medium – all of which are set on a subconscious level to suggest a certain feeling and to induce a certain state of mind.
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