The phenomenon happens too often to be ignored. These troublesome spirits have been with us for centuries. Their persistent banging and wanton destruction has fostered the belief in something ‘evil‘. It was, however, Martin Luther (1483-1546) who said, ‘It is not as a poltergeist that the Devil discloses his true nature,’ and it was he…
PhenomenonEctoplasm is said to be formed by physical mediums when in a trance state. This material is excreted as a gauze-like substance from orifices on the medium’s body and spiritual entities are said to drape this substance over their nonphysical body, enabling them to interact in the physical and real universe. Some accounts claim that…
MythologyThe application by English-speakers of this German word to the paranormal concept is relatively recent; Francis Grose’s Provincial Glossary of 1787 included the term fetch instead, defined as the “apparition of a person living.” A best-selling book on paranormal phenomena, Catherine Crowe’s The Night-Side of Nature (1848), helped make the German word well-known. However the…
Ghosts and the afterlifeFurther information: Soul (spirit), Psyche (psychology), Underworld, Hungry ghost and Psychopomp Further information: Ghost Festival, All Souls’ Day, Day of the Dead and Ghost Dance Although the human soul was sometimes symbolically or literally depicted in ancient cultures as a bird or other animal, it appears to have been widely held that…
The Occultthe Latin word occultus “clandestine, hidden, secret”) is “knowledge of the hidden”. In common English usage, occult refers to “knowledge of the paranormal”, as opposed to “knowledge of the measurable, usually referred to as science. The term is sometimes taken to mean knowledge that “is meant only for certain people” or that “must be…
The Stone Tape theoryis the speculation that ghosts and hauntings are analogous to tape recordings, and that emotional or traumatic events can somehow be “stored” in rock and other items and “replayed” under certain conditions. The idea was first proposed by British archaeologist turned parapsychologist Thomas Charles Lethbridge in 1961. Lethbridge believed ghosts were not…
Astral ProjectionAstral projection (or astral travel) is an interpretation of an out-of-body experience (OBE) that assumes the existence of an “astral body” separate from the physical body and capable of travelling outside it. Astral projection or travel denotes the astral body leaving the physical body to travel in an astral plane. The idea of astral travel…
ParapsychologyParapsychology is a pseudoscience concerned with the investigation of paranormal and psychic phenomena. Parapsychologists study telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, near-death experiences, reincarnation, apparitional experiences, and other paranormal claims. Parapsychology research is largely conducted by private institutions in several different countries and funded through private donations,and the subject rarely appears in mainstream science journals. Most papers about…
An out-of-body experienceAn out-of-body experience (OBE or sometimes OOBE) is an experience that typically involves a sensation of floating outside one’s body and, in some cases, perceiving one’s physical body from a place outside one’s body (autoscopy). The term out-of-body experience was introduced in 1943 by George N. M. Tyrrell in his book Apparitions,[1] and was…
“Spirit guide”is a term used by the Western tradition of Spiritualist Churches, mediums, and psychics to describe an entity that remains a disincarnate spirit in order to act as a guide or protector to a living incarnated human being. Traditionally, within the spiritualist churches, spirit guides were often stereotyped ethnically, with Native Americans, Chinese or…
