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MatthewGrosso Profile
MatthewGrosso (levittown, PA)
Member since Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Last login 7/17/2008 1:44:06 PM
Counter From POQbum .com
This show is about isues of the paranormal.
Covering everything from ghost sighitngs,hauntings, alien abuction, ufo sightings,out of body , healing, magick, e.s.p. , the art of everything that is not normal must be paranormal .
Paranormal is an umbrella term for a variety of anomalous phenomena. In parapsychology, it is used to describe the ostensibly psychic phenomena of telepathy, extra-sensory perception, psychokinesis, ghosts, and hauntings. The term is also applied to UFOs, some creatures that fall under the scope of cryptozoology, purported phenomena surrounding the Bermuda Triangle, and other non-psychical subjects.[1] Paranormal is often used to denote unusual experiences that lack an obvious scientific explanation.[2] Stories relating to paranormal phenomena are widespread in popular culture and folklore, but the United States National Science Foundation has stated that mainstream science does not support paranormal beliefs.[3]
Contents [hide]
1 Paranormal research
1.1 Anecdotal approach
1.2 Experimental approach
1.3 Participant-observer approach
1.4 Debunking approach
1.5 Survey approach
2 Belief polls
3 Paranormal subjects
3.1 Ghosts
3.2 UFOs
4 Paranormal challenges
5 Etymology
6 See also
7 References
8 Further reading
[edit] Paranormal research
Approaching paranormal phenomena from a research perspective is often difficult because even when the phenomena are seen as real they may be difficult to explain using existing rules or theory. By definition, paranormal phenomena exist outside of conventional norms. Skeptics contend that they don't exist at all. Despite this challenge, studies on the paranormal are periodically conducted by researchers from various disciplines. Some researchers study just the beliefs in paranormal phenomena regardless of whether the phenomena actually exist.
This section deals with various approaches to the paranormal including those scientific, pseudoscientific, and unscientific. Skeptics feel that supposed scientific approaches are actually pseudoscientific for several reasons which are explored below.[4]
[edit] Anecdotal approach
Charles Fort, 1920. Fort is perhaps the most widely known collector of paranormal stories.An anecdotal approach to the paranormal involves the collection of anecdotal evidence consisting of informal accounts. Anecdotal evidence, lacking the rigour of empirical evidence, is not amenable to scientific investigation. The anecdotal approach is not a scientific approach to the paranormal because it leaves verification dependent on the credibility of the party presenting the evidence. It is also subject to such logical fallacies as cognitive bias, inductive reasoning, lack of falsifiability, and other fallacies that may prevent the anecdote from having meaningful information to impart. Nevertheless, it is a common approach to paranormal phenomena.
Charles Fort (1874 – 1932) is perhaps the best known collector of paranormal anecdotes. Fort is said to have compiled as many as 40,000 notes on unexplained phenomena, though there were no doubt many more than these. These notes came from what he called "the orthodox conventionality of Science", which were odd events originally reported in magazines and newspapers such as The Times and scientific journals such as Scientific American, Nature and Science. From this research Fort wrote seven books, though only four survive. These are: The Book of the Damned (1919), New Lands (1923), Lo! (1931) and Wild Talents (1932); one book was written between New Lands and Lo! but it was abandoned and absorbed into Lo!.
Reported events that he collected include teleportation (a term Fort is generally credited with coining); poltergeist events, falls of frogs, fishes, inorganic materials of an amazing range; crop circles; unaccountable noises and explosions; spontaneous fires; levitation; ball lightning (a term explicitly used by Fort); unidentified flying objects; mysterious appearances and disappearances; giant wheels of light in the oceans; and animals found outside their normal ranges (see phantom cat). He offered many reports of OOPArts, abbreviation for "out of place" artifacts: strange items found in unlikely locations. He also is perhaps the first person to explain strange human appearances and disappearances by the hypothesis of alien abduction, and was an early proponent of the extraterrestrial hypothesis.
Fort is considered by many as the father of modern paranormalism, which is the study of paranormal phenomena.
The magazine Fortean Times continues Charles Forte's approach, regularly reporting anecdotal accounts of anomalous phenomena.
[edit] Experimental approach
Participant of a Ganzfeld Experiment which proponents say may show evidence of telepathy.Main article: Parapsychology
Experimental investigation of the paranormal is largely conducted in the multidisciplinary field of parapsychology. Although parapsychology has its roots in earlier research, it began using the experimental approach in the 1930s under the direction of J. B. Rhine (1895 – 1980).[5] Rhine popularized the now famous methodology of using card-guessing and dice-rolling experiments in a laboratory in the hopes of finding a statistical validation of extra-sensory perception.[5]
In 1957, the Parapsychological Association was formed as the preeminent society for parapsychologists. In 1969, they became affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science. That affiliation, along with a general openness to psychic and occult phenomena in the 1970s, led to a decade of increased parapsychological research.[5] During this time, other notable organizations were also formed, including the Academy of Parapsychology and Medicine (1970), the Institute of Parascience (1971), the Academy of Religion and Psychical Research, the Institute for Noetic Sciences (1973), and the International Kirlian Research Association (1975). Each of these groups performed experiments on paranormal subjects to varying degrees. Parapsychological work was also conducted at the Stanford Research Institute during this time.[5]
With the increase in parapsychological investigation, there came an increase in opposition to both the findings of parapsychologists and the granting of any formal recognition of the field. Criticisms of the field were fo
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