Glossary of Parapsychology / “Ghost�?Hunting terms

Agent - (1) Person who attempts to communicate information to another in an ESP experiment. (2) The subject in a psychokinesis experiment. (3) Person who is the focus of poltergeist activity.

Alpha Rhythm - Electrical activity in the brain (about 10 cycles per second) associated with a state of mental relaxation.

Altered State of Consciousness (ASC) - A term used to refer to any state of consciousness that is different from "normal" states of waking or sleeping. ASCs include hypnosis, trance, ecstasy, psychedelic and meditative experience. ASCs do not necessarily have paranormal features.

Apparition - The visual appearance of a person whose physical body is not present.

Apport / Asport - An apport is a solid object that seemingly appears from nowhere in the presence of a medium. Asport is any object the ‘spirits�?or medium makes disappear or teleports to another location.

Astral body - The body a person seems to occupy during an out-of-body experience.

Astral plane - A world some people believe exists above the physical world.

Astral projection - An out-of-body experience.

Astrology - A theory and practice which attempts to identify the ways in which astronomical events are correlated with events on earth.

Aura - A field that some psychics see surrounding the living body.

Automatic writing - Writing without being aware of the contents, as when a medium apparently transcribes written messages from disembodied spirits.

Automatism - Any unconscious and spontaneous muscular movement caused by ‘the spirits�? (Automatic writing).

Autoscopy - Seeing one's 'double', or looking back at one's own body from a position outside the body (OBE).

Bilocation - Being (or appearing to be) in two different places at the same time (similar to autoscopy).

Call - Response made by a subject in a card-guessing or other ESP test.

Card Guessing - An experimental test for ESP in which subjects guess the identity of a set of cards.

Case study - An in-depth investigation of an individual subject.

Cerebral Anoxia - Lack of oxygen to the brain, often causing sensory distortions and hallucinations. Sometimes used to explain features of the near-death experience.

Channeling - The process by which a medium apparently allows a spirit to communicate through his or her person.

Clairaudience - Auditory form of ESP (compare with Clairvoyance).

Clairsentience - Physical sensations (or smell) form of ESP. Sometimes used as a general term for clairvoyance and clairaudience.

Clairvoyance - A subset of ESP. The viewing of distant scenes not apparent to the eye, may appear externally - either replacing the normal visual scene (visions) or being incorporated into it (as could be the case with apparitions) - or internally, in the form of mental imagery and intuition.

Closed Deck - A set of cards used in a card-guessing test where each card appears a fixed number of times. Statistical analysis of research data using a closed deck differs from statistical analysis of data using an open-deck.

Cold reading - A technique using a series of general statements, questions, and answers that allows fake mediums, mind-readers, and magicians to obtain previously unknown information about a person. (Reader has no prior knowledge).

Collective apparition - An unusual type of ‘ghost�?sighting in which more than one person sees the same phenomenon.

Control - In experimental parapsychology a procedure undertaken in order to ensure that the experiment is conducted in a standard fashion and so that results are not unduly influenced by extraneous factors.

Control Group - A group of people whose performance is compared with that of experimental subjects.

Correlation - An association between two or more events or variables.

Correlation Coefficient - A mathematical index of the degree of association between two or more measures.

Crisis apparition - An apparition seen when the subject is at the point of death or is the victim of a serious illness or injury.

Cross-correspondences - Interrelated bits of information received from ‘the spirit world�?by different mediums at different times and locations. The communications must be joined together to form a complete message from ‘the spirit(s)�?

DAT - Decision Augmentation Theory. An attempt to reconceptualize PK as a precognition-based selection process rather than one of actual influence.

Decline Effect - A decrease in performance on a psi test when the test is repeated.

Déjà vu - The feeling of having experienced something before.

Dice Test - Experimental techniques for investigating psychokinesis, in which a subject attempts to influence the fall of dice.

Direct voice phenomenon (DVP) - A ‘spirit�?voice, spoken directly to sitters at a seance. The sound usually seems to come from a point near the medium, or through a spirit horn or trumpet, but not from the mouth of the medium.

Displacement - Responses on a psi test that correspond systematically to targets other than the intended one (those before or after).

Dissociation - Activity performed outside of normal conscious awareness, or mental processes that suggest the existence of separate centers of consciousness.

DMILS - Direct Mental Interaction with Living Systems. Used to denote instances where one person is attempting to influence a distant biological system, usually the physiology of another person. As it is unclear whether this represents an influence (PK), a case of ESP on the part of the influence, or an opportunistic selection process (see DAT), the term ‘interaction�?has been adopted.

Doppelganger - A mirror image or double of a person.

Double Blind - An experimental procedure in which neither the subject nor experimenter is aware of key features of the experiment.

Down Through Technique (DT) - An experimental test for clairvoyance in which the person guesses the order of a stacked series of target symbols (cards) from top to bottom. (opposite of up through technique).

Electrodermal response - A measure of skin conductance or resistance related to sympathetic nervous system arousal. This response can be elicited by external stimuli (a light, tone etc.), or by internal activity (e.g. emotions).

Electroencephalograph (EEG) - A device that monitors the electrical activity of the brain over time by means of recording electrodes attached to the surface of the scalp.

Electrooculograhph (EOG) - A device that records eye movement.

Empathy - Rarely used in modern parapsychology, the popular usage of this term refers to a low-level form of telepathy wherein the empath appears to be aware of the emotional state of a distant person. An empath may also be able to “broadcast�?emotions to others.

Empiricism - The premise that knowledge should be acquired through observation.

ESP - Extrasensory perception. (receptive psychic) The ability to gain knowledge through means other than the five physical senses or logical inference.

Electronic voice phenomenon (EVP) - The capture of ‘spirit�?voices on magnetic tape as an audio recording. Many times, no sound is heard while the tape is recording. It’s only upon playback that the harsh, hushed voices can be heard.

Experiment - A test carried out under controlled conditions.

Experimental Group - A group of subjects who undergo a specific experimental procedure. Often results from this group are compared with those of a control group.

Experimental Parapsychology - Parapsychology research involving experimental methods rather than survey techniques or the investigation of spontaneous cases.

Experimenter - The person who conducts the experiment.

Experimenter Effect - Influence that the experimenter's personality or behavior may have on the results of an experiment.

False Awakening - An experience in which a person believes he or she has woken up, but actually is still dreaming.

Forced choice experiment - An experiment in which the subject is forced to choose among an assortment of possible targets, such as the five ESP cards.

Free response experiment - An experiment in which the subject knows only the general nature of the target - for instance, that it is a picture - but not anything else.

Ganzfield experiment - An experiment where input from the outside world is reduced by placing halved ping-pong balls over the eyes and by masking external sounds (covering subject's ears with headphones and playing white noise). A state of mild sensory deprivation.

General Extrasensory Perception (GESP) - ESP in which it is unclear whether the results are due to clairvoyance, telepathy, precognition or retrocognition.

Ghost - A form of apparition, usually the visual appearance of a deceased human’s ‘spirit soul�?or that of a crisis apparition.

Ghost hunt / Ghost investigation - A ghost hunt is an informal attempt to simply sight or record a ‘ghost�?in a location similar to others known to be haunted. A ghost investigation, on the other hand, is a carefully controlled research project, set up to record paranormal activity, usually at a location known, or presumed to be haunted.

Goat - A subject in an experiment who does not believe in the ability for which he or she is being tested.

Hallucination - Perception of sights, sounds, etc., that are not actually present. Ghosts, as we define them, are not hallucinations, because they have a real, external cause.

Haunting - Recurrent sounds of human activity, sightings of apparitions, and other psychic phenomena, in a location when no one is there physically.

Hit - A choice that proves correct.

Hot Reading - A reading given in which prior knowledge of the sitter has been obtained, often using devious or fraudulent means.

Hypnosis - State like sleep in which the subject acts only on external suggestion.

Illusion - A distorted perception of objects or events causing a discrepancy between what is perceived and what is reality. (sometimes confused with hallucination)

Incline Effect - An increase in performance on a psi test when the test is repeated.

Intuition - The non-paranormal ability to grasp the elements of a situation or to draw conclusions about complex events in ways that go beyond a purely rational or intellectual analysis.

Judge - Person who compares targets and responses in a psi experiment.

Kirlian Photography - A photographic method involving high frequency electric current, discovered by S.D. & V. Kirlian in the Soviet Union. Kirlian photographs often show colored halos or "auras" surrounding objects.

Laying on of hands - A process by which certain healers profess to be able to heal patients by touch.

Levitation - The lifting of physical objects by psychokinesis (PK).

Life Review - Flashback memories of the whole of a person's life, often associated with the near-death experience.

Longbody - A web of living connections among people, places, and objects.

Lucid Dreaming - Dreaming in which the person is aware that the experience is a dream. Often associated with feelings of aliveness and freedom, and with the ability to control dream events.