AUTHORS NOTE: Before you begin reading this article I should stress that although the information contained is provided for informational purposes so that the reader may better understand the interrelation of psychology and parapsychology it should be known and understood that parapsychologists do not diagnose or treat any psychological illnesses and should not attempt to do so at any time under any circumstance.

            The phrase “Anomalistic Psychology” was a term first suggested by Leonard Zusne and Warren Jones to indicate the part of the field of psychology that specifically investigates abnormal psychological phenomena. This anomalistic psychological phenomenon has been explained by most scientists in terms of paranormal events, 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 tend to “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 it has been found that paranormal experiences, those which are completely unexplainable, 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 - we should view all anomalistic events with a skeptical eye until there is no other possible explanation for the event that has taken place, but, how do we identify what some of the factors that would induce a false sense of paranormal activity would be?

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. 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 tonight.” There was no skepticism involved at all. This statement of “definite contact” 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 a prostitute 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 was warped, the frame was out-of-square and the hinges were skewed so as to make the door close on its own.

            When the facts about the door were brought to the attention of the group, the psychic was somewhat embarrassed and upset by this revelation. Prior to this, the group was enthralled by his ramblings and hung by his every word much like a bunch of 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 stories and embellished others to bring a certain atmosphere for the curious to create entertainment and shock value. Acts of showmanship such as this are unprofessional and lend a carnival-like atmosphere to an investigation. The purported paranormal activity, if there was any to be found, would have taken a backseat to the second-class P.T. Barnum wannabe running that freakshow.

Pareidolia and Its Effects

            In conjunction with the power of suggestion it is imperative that we also briefly discuss pareidolia (pair-reed-ole-lee- uh). Pareidolia is a type of psychological delusion that involves vague or obscure stimulus which is perceived by an individual as something that is clear and distinct in their own mind. 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.

            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 critical 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 divine miracles 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” 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, present or future - she should manifest herself in such a mundane and useless fashion. 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 of perception and, although this condition is generally thought of in a negative manner, there are instances in clinical trials where psychologists will induce pareidolia as a means to understanding a patient. One of the most popular and recognized of these methods is the Rorschach ink blot test.

Collective Hallucinations

            During the witchcraft scares of the Middle Ages a mass hysteria spread throughout Western European communities that was quickly followed by wide spread collective hallucinations which bore the idea that nearly everyone who was “different” in one way or another was a witch or in league with the devil. These “indications” of an individual being a witch were primarily fabrications or delusions that were created by suggestive gossip. These “devil’s marks” were usually something simple such as a birthmark or the pronunciation of a word which was slightly different than the norm (which was believed to be some sort of necromancer’s code).  This psychological hallucination led to accusations that ultimately ended with the torture and death of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of innocent men, women, and children.

            Unfortunately, in a more modern vein, paranormal investigators have been subject to a similar form of the same deluded and superstitious beliefs. Because these ideas have been fostered along through the years, aided most recently by numerous paranormal reality “crocumentaries” many times serious paranormal studies, such as those that explore collective hallucinations are subverted by either the fool or the charlatan. No matter if 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 investigators and the events that we research.

            Although there have been several studies on collective hallucinations over the years many of these were performed in a manner where the events that the percipients witnessed were psychologically suggested so that a certain state of mind would be intentionally induced. In many of these studies the methods utilized were substandard, many of the field workers were recruited ad-hoc and the reports that they submitted were both subjective and arbitrary. Basically, what we have here is a case of one bad egg makes the rest suspect. This type of poorly conducted scientific experiment has done little at best to aid psychologists in understanding how collective hallucinations work.

            The best general consensus that parapsychologists have right now in as far as the way that collective hallucinations work is that a bioelectric transference field occurs and is passed from one percipient to another by acasual contact. This field, when passed from one person to another, connects each of the individuals senses to induce a state of mind where each of the percipients, although independent individuals, perceived the same events for a miniscule but measurable amount of time. This String Theory effect allows a sight, sound, scent, feeling, etc. to be passed along by from one percipient to another by said acasual contact through their own bioelectric fields. This String Theory effect is believed to be the primary mechanism of causation for this type of event. A group hallucination could then be likened to a virtual reality hologram where each witness is “plugged in” to the stored bioelectric energies that are being released into the local environment. The experients then witness the energy dispersing from the source in the form of an anomalous field event which is perceived in a similar manner by each of the experients. The similarity between the experiences of each person involved now causes the event to be considered a group hallucination.

            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 / or 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 or area and that by either fear, suggestion or unconscious stimulation these events were induced. Many of the individuals cited 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. The simple illustration of 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.

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 suggest 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 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.

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. The condition of apophenia is similar to pareidolia, but it is more severe in nature.

            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 on the floor and sees a pentagram, etc. This association with unrelated objects and ideas which has 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 they are witnessing. Over time this condition can degenerate into paranoia, or given the right conditions psychosis.

            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 the significance of mundane, unrelated events and phenomenon. 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.

            So, what does this mean to the paranormal investigator? The information presented here reveals that there are other psychological alternatives within the perception of an experient that may explain the propensity of certain individuals to claim that they experience perceived paranormal events on a regular or semi-regular basis. This information, when used as a tool for deducing and understanding purported paranormal events, will aid the investigator in formulating a more informed and definitive conclusion to his or her investigatory initiatives. It is now up to you to determine if it is indeed all in your mind.