Terms

AGENT
In a test of general extrasensory perception, the individual (human or animal) who looks at the information constituting the target and who is said to “send” or “transmit” that information to a percipient; in a test of telepathy, and in cases of spontaneous extrasensory perception, the individual about whose mental states information is acquired by a percipient; the term is very occasionally used to refer to the subject in a test of psychokinesis or the focus in a poltergeist case. [From the Latin agens (agentis), derived from agere, “to drive, do”] 

ANOMALY
Neutral term applied to a phenomenon which implies that the phenomenon is unexpected according to conventional scientific knowledge, but which does not commit the user to any particular type of explanation; sometimes sometimes preferred to “paranormal.”

APPARITION 
A full figural materialization 

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]

AURA
A field of subtle, multicolored, luminous radiations said to surround living bodies as a halo or cocoon; the term is occasionally used to refer to the normal electromagnetic field forces surrounding the body. [Latin, from the Greek,“breath of air”]

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.

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).

COINCIDENCE; IN THE PARANORMAL
Two events are said to constitute a coincidence if they occur in such a way as to strike an observer as being highly related as regards their structure or their “meaning”; to dismiss such an occurrence as a “mere coincidence” is to imply the belief that each event arose as a result of quite independent causal chains (that is, they are “acausal”) and that no further “meaning” or significance is to be found in this fortuitous concurrence; sometimes, however, a sense of impressiveness is engendered by the belief that the concurrence is so very unlikely as to have been the result of “pure chance” that there must be some cause or reason for the concurrence, thus investing the coincidence with a sense of meaningfulness. See also Synchronicity.

COLD READING
A set of statements purportedly gained by paranormal means but which in fact is wholly based on broadly accurate generalizations and/or on information obtained directly from the person seeking the reading, such as can be gleaned from facial gestures, clues in conversation, and so on.

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.

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”] 

ELECTRONIC VOICE PHENOMENA (EVP)
Phenomena first reported by Raymond Bayless and popularized by Konstantin Raudive, consisting of sounds said to be the faint voices of deceased individuals, recorded on previously
unused magnetic tapes.

EXTRASENSORY PERCEPTION (ESP)
The acquisition of information about, or response to, an external event, object or influence (mental or physical; past, present or future) otherwise than through any of the known sensory channels; used by J. B. Rhine to embrace such phenomena as telepathy, clairvoyance and precognition; there is some difference of opinion as whether the term ought to be attributed to Rhine, or to Gustav Pagenstecher or Rudolph Tischner, who were using the German equivalent aussersinnliche Wahrehmung as early as the 1920s. [From the Latin extra, “outside of,” + sensory]

GHOST 
Is the etheric double of it physical counterpart.

HAUNTING
The more or less regular occurrence of paranormal phenomena associated with a particular locality (especially a building) and usually attributed to the activities of a discarnate entity; the phenomena may include apparitions, poltergeist disturbances, cold drafts, sounds of steps and voices, and various odors.

HEALING, PSYCHIC
Healing apparently brought about by such non-medical means as prayer, the “laying on of hands,” Psychic healing; immersion at a religious shrine, and so on, and inexplicable according to contemporary medical science; not to be confused with merely unconventional medicine.
INTUITION
Somewhat ill-defined term referring to the faculty of coming to an idea directly, by means other than those of reasoning and intellect, and indeed often outside of all conscious processes; the source of these messages is often said to be in the normal, mundane, unconscious, but it is often also said to be the result of mystical or paranormal processes. The word sometimes refers to the process, sometimes to the product of intuition. [From the Latin intueri, “to look at, contemplate”]

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.


LUMINOUS PHENOMENA
The paranormal production of light phenomena, generally in the presence of certain physical mediums.

MATERIALIZATION
A phenomenon of physical mediumship in which living entities or inanimate objects are caused to take form, sometimes from ectoplasm. Compare Dematerialization.

MEDITATION
A broad term embracing a number of techniques for achieving various altered states of awareness, with some of these altered states resulting in the ecstatic qualities of so-called “peak experience;” most meditative techniques are ways of learning to still the agitation of the mind so that more subtle and valuable aspects of self and reality may be perceived; some techniques involve concentration, in which attention is focused on a particular object and restrained from wandering, while others involve giving one’s total attention to whatever spontaneously happens, with no attempt to control or focus attention.

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.

NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE (NDE)
Term applied to experiences undergone by persons who either seem to be at the point of death (or who are even formally declared dead) but then recover, or who narrowly escape death (as in a motor car accident) without being seriously injured; it has been suggested that there is, upon coming close to death, a “core” NDE made up of certain common elements, such as a feeling of indescribable peace, a sense of being out of one’ s body, a movement into a dark void or down a tunnel, seeing a brilliant light, and entering that light; there may also be reported the experience of so-called “panoramic memory” (the “life review”), the encountering of an “unseen presence,” or being greeted by deceased relatives or religious figures.

OUT-OF-[THE]-BODY EXPERIENCE (OBE, OR OOBE)
An experience, either spontaneous or induced, in which one’s center of consciousness seems to be in a spatial location outside of one’s physical body; Celia Green distinguishes two types of such “ecsomatic” [From the Greek ek, “out of,” + soma, “body”] experiences: the “parasomatic” [From the Greek para, “along side of”] in which the person appears to themselves to possess a duplicate body, sometimes connected to the physical body by a “silver cord;” and the “asomatic” [From the Greek a-, “without”] in which they feel themselves to be entirely bodiless; in either case, many experients claim to perceive their physical bodies lying inert, to see and hear people while remaining unperceived themselves, and to perceive objects and events normally beyond the range of their physical senses; of special interest to parapsychologists on account of its alleged connection with clairvoyance, and to students of survival as providing an example of what disembodied existence could be like. The term “OBE” is preferred by parapsychologists for the phenomena also known as “astral projection,” “traveling clairvoyance.”
See also Astral Body. [Dale & White, 1977] 

PARANORMAL
Term applied to any phenomenon which in one or more respects exceeds the limits of what is deemed physically possible on current scientific assumptions; often used as a synonym for “psychic,” “parapsychological,” “attibutable to psi,” or even “miraculous” (although shorn of religious overtones). [From the Greek para, “beside, beyond,” + normal] 

POLTERGEIST
A disturbance characterized by bizarre physical effects of paranormal origin, suggesting mischievous or destructive intent: these phenomena include the unexplained movement or breakage of objects, loud raps, the lighting of fires, and occasionally personal injury to people; in contrast to a haunting, the phenomena often seem to depend upon the presence of a particular living individual, called the “focus,” frequently an adolescent or child; and apparitions are rarely seen. [German: literally, “noisy ghost”]

PSYCHIC SURGERY
A form of psychic healing practiced particularly in the Philippines, in which diseased tissue are said to be removed without the use of surgical instruments, and bleeding, infection, and the like, are inhibited paranormally. The term is also used of surgery in which the surgeon operates while in a trance, as performed by J. Arigo and other Brasilian exponents of this pratice, usu-ally using unsterilized knives as scalpels.

PSYCHOKINESIS
Paranormal action; term coined by Henry Holt and adopted by J. B. Rhine to refer to the direct influence of mind on a physical system that cannot be entirely accounted for by the mediation of any known physical energy. See also Psi-Kappa under Psi; Retroactive PK; Recurrent Spontaneous Psychokinesis. [From the Greek psyche, “mind, soul,” + kinesis, “a moving, disturbance,” derived from kinein, “to set in]

PSYCHOMETRY
Term coined by Joseph Rodes Buchanan (1893)to refer to the practice in which sensitives hold an object in their hands and obtain paranormal information about the object or its owner; owing to the confusion with a psychological term, “psychometry” has in recent years been superseded by “token-object reading.” [From the Greek psyche, “soul, mind,” + metrein, “to measure”]

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.”

REINCARNATION
A form of survival in which the human soul, or some aspects of self, is, after the death of the body, reborn into a new body, this process being repeated throughout many lives. See also Rebirth. [From the Latin re-, “again,” + in- “into,” + caro (carnis), “flesh”]

REMOTE VIEWING
A neutral term for general extrasensory perception introduced Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff (1974), especially in the context of an experimental design in which a percipient attempts to describe the surroundings of a geographically distant agent. 
 

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”]

SECOND SIGHT
Concept used in the Celtic folklore of the supernatural,
and encompassing what would today be referred to as “psychic ability.” Also sometimes called “deuteroscopy.” [From the Greek deuteros, “second,” + skopia, derived from skopein, “to look at”]

SENSITIVE
A person who frequently experiences extrasensory perception and who can sometimes induce it at will. Compare Medium.