Abyssum - Active-Agent Telepathy - ADC Project - Adjuration - Affectability - Agent - Agla -  Alpha Wave - American Association-Electronic Voice Phenomena - Angels - Anpsi- Apparitions - Apports - Asports - Astral Body - Astral Projection - Astral world - Aura - Autography - Automatic Drawing and Painting - Automatic Speaking - Automatic Writing - Automation - Autoscope

Ball-of-Light International Data Exchange - Bilocation - Biocommunication-  Biofeedback - Bioinformation - Bio-introscopy - Biological Phenomena - Bioplasma -  Blind - Blind-Matching - Bolide - Book Test 

Candles Burning Blue - Cantilever - Census of Hallucinations - Chair Test - Channeling - Chemical Phenomena - Churchyard - Clairaudience - Clairvoyance - Closed Deck - Communigraph - Control - Cross-Reference - Cryptesthesia - Cryptomnesia

De Tromelin Cylinder - Deline Effect - Deja Vu - Demonology - Dermo-Optical Perception - Dermography - Direct Drawing and Painting - Direct Voice -  Direct Writing - Displacement - Double - Double Blind - Dream Body - Dreaming True - Drop-in Communicator - Dual Personality - Dynamistograph

Ecsomatic Experiences - Ectenic Force - Ectoplasm - Electric Girls - Electric Phenomena - Electronic Video Phenomena - Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) -  Emanations - Ether - Etheric Double - Etheric Vision  - Exorcism - Experimenter Effect - Exteriorization of Motricity - Exteriorization of Sensitivity - Extra - Extrasensory Perception (ESP) - Eyeless Sight

Faculty X - Farajou Data Base - Feedback - Fetch - Fey - Fluid Motor - Fourth Dimension

Ganzfeld Setting - GESP - Ghost - Glamourie - Glossolialia - Glottologues - Group Soul - Guardian Angels - Guide - Guiding Spirits

Hallucination - Hambaruan - Hands of Spirits - Haunting - Hyperesthesia - Hypnagogic State

Ideoplasm - Ignis Fatuus - Illusion - Incorporeal Personal Agency(IPA) - Independent Voice - Independent Writing - Influence - Inner Voice - Intuition - Intuitional World

"John King"

Ka - Karma - "King, John" - Kirlian Aura - Koilon  

Levitation - Lucid Dreaming - Lucidity - Luminous Bodies - Luminous Phenomena

Macro-PK - Magnetic Phenomena - Magnetometer - Materialization - Matter Passing through Matter - Meditation - Medium - Mental World - Metagnome - Metagnomy -  Metagraphology - Metapsychics - Metempsychosis (Transmigration of Souls) - Methetherial - Micro-PK - Monition - Monitions of Approach - Morphogenetic Fields - Movement (Paranormal) - Muscle Reading

Near-Death Experience Project - Near-death Experience - Nengraphy - Newspaper Tests

Object Reading - Objective Phenomena - Obsession and Possession - Open Deck - Ouija Board - Out-of -the-Body Travel

Pantomnesia - Paragnost - Parapsychology - Percipient - Perispirit - Personality - Phantasmagoria - Phone-Voyance  Physical World - PK - Plachette - PMIR - Pneumatographers - Poltergeist - Portent - Possession - Posthumous Letters - Power Spots - Precipitation of Matter - Precognition - Premonition - Presentiment - Prevision - Psi - Psi-Conducive - Psi-Hitting - Psi-Inhibiting - Psi-Mediated Instrumental Response - Psi-Missing - Psi-Trailing - Psionics - Psychenautics - Psychic - Psychic Body - Psychic Force -  Psychic Telephone - Psychical Research - Psychode - Psychograph - Psychography - Psychokinesis - Psychology - Psychometry - Psychophone - Psychoplasm - Psychorrhagic Diathesis - Psychotronics

Random Event Generator - Rapping - Rapport - Raps - Raudive Voices - Recurrent Spontaneous Psychokinesis - Reflectograph - Regurgitation - Reincarnation - Retrocognition - Retro-PK (Retroactive PK) - Rupa

Séance - Second Sight - Sensitive - Sensory Deprivation - Sheep-Goat Hypothesis - Sixth Sense - Skotograph - Slate Writing - Smells (Psychic) - Somatography - Soul - Soul Travel - Spectral Flames - Spiegelschrift - Spiritcom - Spirit - Spirit Children - Spirit Hypothesis - Spirit Photography - Spiritism - Spiritoid - Sthenometer - Stroboscopes - Subconscious - Subjective Phenomena - Subliminal - Subliminal Self - Suggestion - Super-extrasensory Perception - Supernatural - Supernormal - Supersensonics - Survival - Sympathy - Synchronicity

Table-Turning - Telekinesis - Telepathy - Telephone Calls (Paranormal) - Teleplasm - Teleportation - Telery - Telesomatic - Telesthesia - Temperature Changes - Thanatology- Thoughtforms - Thoughtography - Thought-Reading - Thought-Transference - Token Object - Touches, Psychic - Trance -  Trance Personalities - Transfiguration -Transition - Transportation - Transposition of the Senses - Typtology

Verograph - Vision (Ocular and Inner) - Visions - Visitants - Vitality - Voices (Paranormal) - Volometer

Walk-Ins - Winds (Paranormal)

Xenoglossy

Zener Cards - Zwaan Rays  

Glossary

A

Abyssum - An Herb used in the ceremony of exorcising a haunted house.Abyssum is consecrated by the sign of the cross and hung up at the four corners of the house.

Active-Agent Telepathy - Term used by parapsychologists for situations in which the agent in telepathic experiments seems to be an active factor in causing mental or behavioral effects in the percipient, or subject, rather than being simply a passive participant whose mental states are recognized by the percipient.

ADC Project - Established by Judy and Bill Guggenehim to accumulate first-hand accounts of people who have felt the direct presence of or have actually seen deceased loved ones.They have collected more than two thousand such accounts of "after death contact" (ADC) in their study.

Adjuration - A form of Exorcism by which an evil spirit is commanded, in the name of God, to do or say what the exorcist requires of him.

Affectability - A term coined by parapsychologist Charles Stuart implying susceptibility to feedback in a situation where the subject in an ESP test is told the score on the previous run and asked to estimate the score on the next run.In this context, "affectable" subjects were those who consistently gave estimates that reflected their score on the immediately previous run: "unaffectable subjects" were not so influenced.By measurement on a Stuart Interest Inventory, Stuart claimed that unaffectable subjects appeared to score higher than affectable on ESP perception.However, the term "affectability" can be applied to the degree of suggestability of a subject. 

Agent - Term in parapsychology to denote the individual who attempts to communicate information to a percipient, or subject, of extrasensory perception.

Agla - A word from the Kabala formerly used by the rabbis for exorcisms of the evil spirit.It is made up of the initial letters of the Hebrew words, Athah, gabor, leolam, Adonai, meaning, "Thou art powerful and eternal, Lord."

Alpha Wave - A brain wave with a frequency of between 14 and 50 cycles per second, related to relaxation and dream states.Through biofeedback machines, subjects can learn to produce alpha waves and induce altered states of consciousness.During the 1970's, many thought alpha waves to be especially associated with ESP and worked on producing them as a means of assisting people with psychic development.

American Association-Electronic Voice Phenomena - The American Association-Electronic Voice Phenomena was founded in 1972 to collect objective evidence of survival after death.It describes itself as "a metaphysical organization interested in spiritual evolvement." Research is primarily centered around what are called Raudive voices, voices that seem to appear spontaneously on recording tapes and purport to be the communications of the dead.

Angels - The word "angel" ("angelos" in greek, "malok" in hebrew) means a person sent or an messenger.It is a name not of nature but of office, and is applied also to humans in the world who are ambassadors or representatives.In another Sense, the word denotes a spiritual being employed in occasional offices; and lastly, men in office as priests or bishops.Today, the term is now limited to its principal meaning, and pertains only to the inhabitants of heaven. 

Anpsi - Psi faculty in animals.The term "Psi-trailing" is used to indicate a form of Anpsi in which a pet may trace its owner in a distant location it has not previously visited.

Apparitions - An apparition, from Latin apparene (to appear), is in its literal sense merely an appearance-a sense perception of any kind, but as used in psychical research and parapsychology the word denotes an abnormal appearance or perception which cannot be explained by any mundane objective cause.Taken in this sense the word covers all visionary appearances, hallucinations, clairvoyance, and similar unusual perceptions."Apparition" and "ghost" are frequently used as synonymous terms, though the former is, of course, of much wider significance.A ghost is a visual apparition of a deceased human being - the term implies that the ghost is the spirit of the person it represents.Apparitions of animals and even inanimate objects are also occasionally reported.All apparitions do not take the form of visual images; auditory and tactile perceptions, although less common, are not unknown.For example, there is record of a house that was "haunted" with the perpetual odor of violets.

Apports - The name given to various objects, such as flowers, jewelry, and even live animals, reportedly materialized in the presence of  a medium.During the first hundred years of spiritualism, the production of apports was one of the most prominent and effective features of Spiritualistic seances.Sometimes apports flew through the air and struck the faces of sitters; sometimes they appeared on the table, or in the laps of those present.A favorite form was the scattering of perfume on the company.In the last half century, however, as standards for observing séances improved, and the number of fake mediums exposed increased, the appearances of apports steadily decreased and today can only be found in the small circles of fake mediums that still exist on the fringes of the Spiritual community.

Asports - The reverse of apport phenomena-the disappearance of objects from the séance room through the barriers of intervening matter and their appearance at another spot. It is seldom attempted as an independent demonstration and may more often form part of an apport materialization.

Astral Body - An exact replica of the physical body but composed of finer matter.The term is chiefly employed in Theosophy, and those numerous occult systems derived from it, to denote the link between the nervous system and the cosmic reservoir of energy.The astral body corresponds to the double of out-of-the-body experiences reported in psychic research.The term double, however, is less comprehensive and refers only to the living; astral body refers specifically to the bodily counterpart of the dead.The etheric double or body, in Theosophy, is distinct from the astral, but in Spiritualistic literature they are often interchanged.These concepts derive from traditional Hindu mysticism,though there are also western precursors.

Astral Projection - Popular term for the ability to travel outside the physical body during  sleep or trance, also known as etheric projection or out-of-the-body traveling.Astral projection involves the movement of the consciousness, often pictured as an astral body or double, some distance away from the physical body.There are numerous reports of this ability in popular psychic literature as well as that of psychic research.

Astral world - According to theosophical teaching,the Astral World is the first sphere after bodily death.It is said to be material of a refined texture.There are many speculations concerning this world of existence.Theosophy claims definite knowledge of its conditions and its inhabitants and the numerous teachers influenced Theosophy offer variations on the basic theme.Many descriptive accounts are to be found in spiritualistic after-death communications.All this, however , is inaccessible to experimental research.

Aura - An emanation said to surround human beings,chiefly encircling the head and supposed to proceed from the nervous system.It is described as a cloud of light suffused with various colours.This is seen clairvoyantly, being imperceptible to the physical sight.

Autography - A term sometimes used to denote Spiritual phenomenon of direct writing.

Automatic Drawing and Painting - The phenomena of artistic expression without control of the conscious self belongs to the same category as automatic writing, but neither necessarily involves the other.

Automatic Speaking - The phenomena of excitation of the vocal cords without the volition of the conscious self.Today this phenomenon is called channeling.Speech bursts forth impulsively, whether the medium is in a trance or a more normal waking state.In the latter case, and in partial trance, the medium may understand the contents of the communication even if it comes in a language unknown to him or her.But the retention of the consciousness during automatic speaking is exceptional.

Automatic Writing - Scripts produced without the control of the conscious self.It is the most common form of mediumship, the source of innumeral cases of self-delusion, and at the same time the source of some of the most interesting and intriguing cases of mediumship.Between these two extremes many problems of a complex nature present themselves to psychical research.Spiritualists consider automatic writing to be performed "under control" - that is, under the controlling agency of the spirits of the dead - and are therefore not judged to be truly "automatic".Most researchers, however, have ascribed such performances to the subconscious activity of the agent.

Automatism - A term indicating organic functions, or inhibitions, not controlled by the conscious self.The word "automatism"is actually a misnomer, as the acts, or inhibitions, are only automatic from the viewpoint of personal consciousness and they may offer the characteristic features of voluntary acts on the part of another consciousness.

Autoscope - Term used by Sir William Barrett in his work "On the Threshold of the Unseen" (1917) to denote any mechanical means whereby communication from the unknown may reach us.The unknown may be an extraneous mind, living or dead, or the subconscious.The planchette, the ouija board, and the divining rod are typical autoscopes.

  B

Ball-of-Light International Data Exchange - Project set up to share and disseminate information related to balls of light, with a wide scope of inquiry including ball-lighting, marsh lights, will o' the wisp, and seance room phenomena.

Bilocation - Simultaneous presence in two different places.The term is often used in histories of saints, but there are also many secular examples. (See double)

Biocommunication - Preferred term for telepathy by Russian parapsychologists.

Biofeedback - A term covering a range of EEG (electroencephalographic) feedback instruments and techniques, as well as apparatus giving information on other biological functions.Biofeedback instruments can convey to the subject the characteristics of his own brain waves, skin resistance, or heartbeats so that he can learn to modify these functions consciously.In this way, the subject can enhance his capacity for relaxation or reproduce some of the psych-physiological control shown by yogis and Zen masters.

Bioinformation - Preferred term for extrasensory perception by Russian parapsychologists.

Bio-introscopy - Term for eyeless sight or "skin vision" used by parapsychologists in Russia.

Biological Phenomena - Term used by parapsychologists for psychokinetic influences on living systems, such as accelerating or restarting growth of seeds, or bacteria or apparently revivifying anesthetized mice.

Bioplasma - A term used by Russian parapsychologists to indicate a theoretical energy field counterpart of the human body, involved in extrasensory perception and psychokinetic phenomena.Such a concept has some affinity with the astral body spoken of by Theosophists.

Blind - Term used by parapsychologists in experiments where the evaluator of targets and responses to them is without knowledge of information that would reveal the target. (See also Double Blind)

Blind-Matching - A term used by parapsychologists in relation to tests for clairvoyance with ESP cards.The subject holds the pack of Zener cards face downward and sorts them into five piles, which are latter compared to key cards already hidden in envelopes.

Bolide - See Ball-of-Light International Exchange

Book Test - Experiments in psychic research to exclude the working of telepathy in mediumistic communications.In answer to questions or for reasons of personal relevance, the communicator indicates a certain book upon a certain shelf in the home of the sitter and gives the text on a certain page.

  C

Candles Burning Blue - There is a superstition that candles and other lights turn blue when spirits are present, because of the sulphurous atmosphere thought to accompany the specters.Some individuals claim to see apparitions and state there is a change in the temperature and other properties of the ambient air when ghosts appear.

Cantilever - A theory of the physical action of ectoplasm during the phenomenon of telekinesis, or the movement of objects without contact or other physical means.

Census of Hallucinations - An early survey of public encounters with paranormal apparitions, occasioned by the publication of "Phantasms of the Living", by Edmund Gurney, F. W. H. Myers, and Frank Podmore (1886), expanded on in 1889 by a committee of the Society for Physical Research, London.The report of the committee was published in 1894.Seventeen thousand people were canvassed, of which 1,684 answered claimed to have seen apparitions.

Chair Test - A parapsychology test in which a chair number is chosen randomly from a seating plan for a future meeting at which seats are not reserved or allocated to specific individuals.The person who is being tested attempts to describe the appearance, characteristics, or other details of the individual who will latter attend the meeting and occupy the chair.

Channeling - A contemporary term for earlier Spiritualist idea of mediumship, spirit entities conveying philosophical or spiritual advice or healing through mediums.

Chemical Phenomena - Psychic phenomena of a chemical nature have often been reported to occur in seance rooms.Psychic light is one of the strangest chemical manifestations as it is cold, and its production defies human ingenuity.Some alleged examples of chemical phenomena include;instances where blood was drawn without a break in the skin;during materialization, ozone and phosphorus were often smelled and fully materialized phantoms exhaled carbon dioxide.

Churchyard - It is not difficult to understand why the churchyard has come to be regarded as the special haunt of ghosts.The popular imagination may well be excused for supposing that the spirits of the dead continue to hover over the spot where their bodies are laid.The ancient Greeks thought the souls of the dead were especially powerful near their graves or sepulchres, because of some natural tie binding body and soul, even after death.The more earthly a soul was, the less willing it was to leave the vicinity of its body, and in consequence, specters encountered in a churchyard were more to be feared than those met elsewhere.The apparitions witnessed at the tombs of saints, however, were to be regarded as good angels rather than as the souls of the saints themselves.

Clairaudience - The faculty of "clear hearing", the ability to hear sounds inaudible to the normal ear, such as "spirit" voices;a faculty analogous to clairvoyance, but considerably less frequently met with.

Clairvoyance - The faculty of clear-sightedness, the supposed paranormal ability to see persons and events that are distant in time or place.Clairvoyance may be roughly divided into three classes- retrocognition and premonition; perceiving past and future events; and perception of contemporary events happening at a distance, or outside the range of normal vision.Clairvoyance may include psychometry, second sight, and crystal gazing.Prophecy is a form of clairvoyance extending back into antiquity.

Closed Deck - Term used by parapsychologists in card-guessing tests, where each symbol in the deck occurs a set number of times, as in a normal pack of playing cards.The deck is randomized for each run in the test.This is in distinction to an open deck.

Communigraph - An instrument for mechanical communication with spirits of the dead.Known as the Ashkir-Jobson Communigraph, it consists of a small table with a free pendulum underneath.The pendulum may make contact with a number of small metal plates representing the alphabet.The contact closes a circuit and makes the corresponding letter appear illuminated upon the face of the table.According to the inventors claim, no medium is necessary for the instrument to work.If a circle sits around the table, the pendulum will begin swinging by what seems to be its own volition.

Control - A term designating the spirit entity that works with a medium from "the other side" and who takes charge of the seance proceedings while the medium is in an trance.This operator might also be called a guide.Generally, the term implies enduring attendance by a distinct and continuous personality who uses the entranced medium's body.

Cross-Reference - Simultaneous delivery of spirit messages through difference mediums with a request to forward them to the right person.The idea, originated by the communicators themselves, was to disprove the suggestion that messages were merely the workings of the medium's subconscious mind.

Cryptesthesia - A term coined by Charles Richet meaning a hidden sensibility, a perception of things by a mechanism unknown to us of which we are cognizant only of its effects.It indicated an all-inclusive psychic sense which comes into action by some mysterious external vibrations which Richet termed the "vibrations of reality", the so called sixth sense.It includes clairvoyance, premonition, monition, psychometry, dowsing, and telepathy.With the establishment of parapsychology as the dominant school within psychical research, the term psi has largely superseeded cryptesthesia as an overall term for the psychic faculty.

Cryptomnesia - A term coined by Theodore Flournoy and used in physcial research to denote unconscious memory.It may be accessible in trance and explain much unusual information, or knowledge recalled under special circumstances.

D

De Tromelin Cylinder - A device for the detect of psychic force was invented by the Count de Tromelin at the opening of the twentieth century.A paper cylinder with a crosspiece of  straw revolves on a fine point when a human hand is in the vicinity or when the operator wills the device to move.It is also known as the fluid motor.Many variant devices of this kind have been made to demonstrate the supposed action of psychic force or willpower on a lightly suspended object.One such indicator is a square of paper, folded across the diagonals so that it can revolve on a fixed needle point.One problem with all such devices is the lack of controls to exclude the possibility of the movement being caused by air currents or the heat of the operators hand.The most impressive devices are those enclosed within a glass cover to exclude air movement.

Decline Effect - Term used by parapsychologists to indicate a falling off in frequency of high scores when a test of psi is repeated.It is also called the "decline curve", referring to the appearance when the data is put into graphical form.

Deja Vu - A french term used by psychical researchers to characterize the feeling people sometimes have that some scene or experience in the present also occurred in the past.Deja vu (already seen) is often coupled with deja entendu (already heard).Through the years, many have related the feeling of deja vu to the phenomena of astral projection or out-of-the-body travel, when individuals apparently visit an distant place in an astral or etheric body during sleep.Deja vu is also associated with fulfillment of a prior premonition of a forthcoming event.

Demonology - The study of demons or evil spirits;also a branch of magic that deals with such beings.In religious science it has come to indicate knowledge regarding supernatural beings that are not deities.The greek term daimon originally indicated "genius" or "spirit" and Socrates claimed to have intercourse with his daimon.However, with the advent of Christianity it came to mean malevolent spirit entity.Demonology was especially developed during the Middle Ages.

Dermo-Optical Perception - One form of eyeless sight, the ability to perceive without the use of the eyes, or "seeing with the skin".

Dermography - The psychic phenomena of skin writing, related to stigmata but with one essential difference-stigmata writings last for months, years, or throughout a lifetime, whereas skin writing disappears in a few minutes or in a few hours at the most.

Direct Drawing and Painting - A development of automatic drawing and painting in which the hand of the automatist is not made use of, and sometimes even drawing and painting materials are dispensed with, the sketch being precipitated in the darkness in a time that is usually too short for normal execution.It is a fairly well known mediumistic phenomenon but also one that is always open to suspicion of fraud.

Direct Voice - Theoretically, an isolated paranormal voice in space without a visible source of agency.In classical Spiritualist seances, the voice issued primarily from a trumpet that sailed around the seance room in the dark and appeared to serve as a condenser.

Direct Writing - The claimed phenomenon in Spiritualism of spirit writing that is produced directly without visible physical contact with the medium and sometimes without writing material.It dispenses with mechanical contrivances such as the planchette and Ouija board and bypasses table tipping or table turning.

Displacement - A term used in parapsychology for a form of extrasensory perception (ESP) in a test series, in which correct information about targets is displaced backwards or forward from the actual target.If there is a consistent pattern of scoring one or two places from the target, this might have significance for ESP instead of just being a series of misses.

Double - The etheric counterpart of the physical body which, when out of coincidence, may temporarily move about in free space in comparative freedom and appear in various degrees of density to others.The belief in the existence of the double, or astral body, is ancient, and it's modern use as a "working hypothesis" solves many puzzling problems in psychical research.

Double Blind - Term used in parapsychology for a situation where all the participants in a test are unaware of any information or cues relating to the target of the test or psi responses to it.

Dream Body - A hypothetical duplicate of the physical body similar to the double or astral body.Reportedly the experience of the astral body is most commonly accessed during sleep and its reality often experienced as a dream.

Dreaming True - The ability to have control and consciousness in the dream state, also known as lucid dreaming.

Drop-in Communicator - Term coined by parapsychologist Ian Stevenson to indicate an uninvited entity or communicator at a seance, usually unknown to medium or sitters.

Dual Personality - What is popularly termed dual, split, or multiple personality is one of what psychologist call disassociation.Two or more mental processes in the individual can be said to be disassociated if they coexist or alternate without apparently influencing one another or becoming connected.

Dynamistograph - An instrument said to have been constructed under spirit guidance by the dutch physicists Dr. J.L.W.P.Matla and Dr. G.L.ZaalbergVan Zelst of The Hague to obtain direct communication with the spirit world without using a medium.The device consisted of a cylinder into which the spirit influence was supposed to enter, a table isolated by a sheet of glass and charged with an electric current, a pair of scales, and a writing apparatus arranged on the Morse system.Enclosed in a room, the action of the instrument was observed through a small glass window.Long communications were allegedly spelled out by spiritual intelligences using a lettered dial at the top of the machine.

E

Ecosomatic Experiences - One of many terms for out-of-the-body travel, also known as OOB, astral projection, or etheric projection.The term esomatic is used by parapsychologist Celia E. Green, director of the Institute of Psychophysical Research, Oxford, England, in conjunction with related technical terms, including parasomatic (in which the percipient appears to have another body) and asomatic (in which the subject is unaware of having a body).

Ectenic Force - A supposed physical force emanating from the person of the medium and directed by his or her will, by means of which objects may be moved without contact in apparent defiance of natural laws.

Ectoplasm - A term coined by physical researcher Charles Richet and widely used in Spiritualism, derived from the Greek ektos and plasma (meaning "exteriorized substance").It denotes a mysterious vapor like substance that, Spiritualists claimed, streamed out of the body of entranced mediums.The manipulation of ectoplasm, either by the subconscious self or by discarnate intelligences, resulted in the phenomena of a superphysical order (including partial and complete materializations.)Psychoplasm and teleplasm are terms similarly used to convey the same meaning, the latter denoting action at a distance from the medium's body, while ideoplasm progresses a step further and means the molding of the ectoplasm into the likeness of a self.

Electric Girls - Girls in whose presence certain phenomena occurred, similar in nature to the time-honored phenomena of the poltergeist, but ascribed to the action of some physical force akin to electricity.

Electric Phenomena - Phenomena with properties resembling electricity have sometimes been observed in animal magnetism and also in psychical mediumship.

Electronic Video Phenomena - Similar to the electronic voice phenomenon.Reports have been made of paranormal images appearing on television sets.There is no firm evidence for such claims, since faulty tuning, interference patterns, and other obvious technical reasons may explain unusual images on a television tube.

Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) - Preferred term for the phenomena discovered by Frederick Jurgenson in 1959 and extensively developed by the experiments of Konstantin Raudive (1909-1974).The phenomena is often referred to as Raudive voices.Raudive voices, apparently from dead individuals, are electronically impressed on tape recordings made on standard apparatus (sometimes enhanced by a simple diode circuit).

Emanations - Supposedly perceived by psychics and identified by some parapsychologists, but largely unrecognized by mainstream science, emanations play a significant part in theories about psychic phenomena.Since the late 18th century and Franz Anton Mesmer's proposals concerning magnetic fluid, a variety of terms for emanations have been proposed, such as "odic force," "animal magnetism," "ether," "radiations," and "vibrations".At various times emanations were said to proceed from and surround everything in nature.

Ether - Late nineteenth-century hypothesis suggested by physicists as a means of accounting for the propagation of light as a wave motion through otherwise empty space.The idea of ether meshed with the teachings of the mesmerists and Theosophists, who spoke of subtle substructures of matter and sometimes referred to as koilon--all pervading, filling empty space, and interpenetrating all matter.Ether was supposedly of very great density, 10,000 times more dense than water with a pressure of 750 tons per square inch.

Etheric Double - According to theosophical teaching, derived from ancient Hindu philosophy, the etheric double is an invisible part of the ordinary, visible, physical body, which it interpenetrates and beyond which it extends a little, forming with other finer bodies the aura.The etheric double is not made of the supposed omnipresent ether of space, but is composed of physical matter known as etheric, superetheric, subatomic, and atomic.The term double is used because the etheric double is a replica of the denser physical body.

Etheric Vision - According to theosophical teachings, the power of sight peculiar to the etheric double, a subtle counterpart of the physical body.Etheric vision is of considerably greater power than physical vision, and by its aid many of the phenomena of the physical world may be examined, as well as many creatures of a nonhuman nature that are ordinarily just outside the range of physical vision.It responds readily to stimuli of various kinds and becomes active under their influence.

Exorcism - To exorcise, according to the received definitions, states Edward Smedley in Occult Sciences (1855), is "to bind upon oath, to charge upon oath, and thus, by the use of certain words, and performance of certain ceremonies, to subject the devil and other evil spirits to command and exact obedience".

Experimenter Effect - Term used by parapsychologists to indicate an experimental result that has been influenced by the conscious or unconscious attitudes or behavior of the experimenter, rather that by the characteristics or psi factors relating to the subject.Such an effect could involve the expectations (positive or negative) of the experimenter or the particular methods used in dealing with subjects.

Exteriorization of Motricity - Term used by early psychical researchers to denote action of the medium's motor force outside the periphery of the body.It was offered as an explanation of telekinesis (now know as psychokinesis).

Exteriorization of Sensitivity - Term used to denote sensory power of the medium operating outside the periphery of the body.

Extra - A paranormal imposed face or figure on a photographic film or plate.Such extras were alleged to appear on pictures produced through psychic photography and spirit photography.

Extrasensory Perception (ESP) - A term used in parapsychology to denote awareness apparently received through channels other than the usual senses.Phenomena related to esp include clairvoyance, telepathy, and precognition. 

Eyeless Sight - The ability to see without using the eyes, also known as paroptic vision, dermo-optical perception (DOP), hyperesthesia, synesthesia, cutaneous vision (skin vision), extraretinal vision, and biointroscopy.

F

Faculty X - A term coined by British author Colin Wilson in his book The Occult:A History (1971) to indicate a latent power in human beings enabling awareness of a higher reality beyond immediate sense perception.The term is synonymous with the more generally used ESP.

Farajou Data Base - Iranian research center and scientific data bank for conducting research on psychology, parapsychology, hypnotism, yoga, zen, meditation, and natural treatments.

Feedback - Term used in parapsychology to indicate information relating to a subject's performance that may be relayed by the experimenter or indicated by apparatus and can be immediate or (in a test series) delayed.

Fetch - According to Irish and British belief, the spirit double or apparition of a living person, also known as the wraith.It resembles in every particular the individual whose death it is supposed to foretell, but is generally of a shadowy or ghostly appearance.The fetch may be seen by more than one person at the same time and, like the wraith of England and Scotland, may even appear to the person it represents.

Fey - A term with various meanings:cowardly, doomed, or gifted with second sight.The most common definition is possessing second sight, in which sense the term is more widely used in Scotland.The word seems to mean "fated" (i.e.,possessing some special occult destiny), which indicates either the doom of early death or the faculty of second sight.

Fluid Motor - A simple device invented by Count de Tromelin, described in his book Les Mysteries de l'Universe (ca. 1908).It was supposed to demonstrate the existence of human energy emanations analagous to the subtle "fluid" of animal magnetism.It was composed of a paper cylinder about two inches in diameter, open at each end and crossed diametrically at it's upper part by a piece of straw.A needle was stuck through the middle with the point resting on the bottom of a small, inverted porcelain or glass jar.The paper cylinder was suspended outside and concentric with the inverted jar, the point of the needle acting as a pivot and enabling it to turn easily under the slightest impulse.        

Fourth Dimension - A "higher" form of space that mathematicians conceive as another direction from which a fourth line may be drawn at right angles to each of the three lines (mutually at right angles) that three-dimensional space permits to be drawn through any point in it.A highly speculative form of the theory that such a higher form of space exists has been employed in the attempt to solve certain questions concerning psychic phenomena.

G

Ganzfeld Setting - A development in modern parapsychological techniques.The term Ganzfeld roughly translates as "total field", and the Ganzfeld Setting is basically a sensory isolation situation used for testing ESP.The subject, wearing earphones and blinders, sits in a comfortable chair in a soundbooth and is instructed to stare at a bold red light, creating a diffused glow.Over the headphones comes a soft hiss of white noise.The subject normally stays in the isolation booth for about 35 minutes and is instructed to think aloud, describing mental images, thoughts, and feelings.This monologue is monitored by an experimenter on an intercom system.Meanwhile another assistant (often a friend or associate of the subject) starts looking at pictures (often on slides held to the light).

GESP - Abbreviation for general extrasensory perception, a term used by parapsychologists to cover both telepathy (in which there is an apparent transfer of information paranormally from one mind to another) and clairvoyance (in which apparent paranormal cognition relates to an object or event).

Ghost - The disembodied spirit or image of a deceased person, appearing to be alive.The term does not include apparitions of the living.Ghosts are believed to be ethereal, able to penetrate doors and walls, and are often said to appear at the moment of death to a distant relative or friend.Ghosts are also believed to haunt specific localities, either dwellings associated with their earthly life or locales with a tragic history.

Glamourie - The state of mind in which witches were said to see apparitions and visions of many kinds.

Glossolialia - A form of religious speech generally called "speaking in tongues" or "pseudo-tongues".It is also occasionally confused with xenoglossis, which refers to speaking in tongues unknown to the medium or psychic.

Glottologues - Mediums or ecstatics who speak in unknown tongues.

Group Soul - The concept posits a number of souls bound together by one spirit, acting and reacting upon one another in the ascending scale of psychic evolution.There may be contained within that spirit any number of souls.

Guardian Angels - More common term for what Spiritualists call guiding spirits, claimed to watch over or inspire individuals and intervene in moments of crisis or danger.

Guide - A continually benevolent, protective, ethereal influence acting through mediums in Spiritualist seances.The term is more comprehensive than control, as the latter may apply to any chance communicator who gets through.The guide usually delivers lofty philosophical or religious instruction beyond the normal intellectual capacity of the medium.It may operate while the medium is either awake or in trance.

Guiding Spirits - The claimed existence of guiding spirits or guardian angels escapes experimental verification.According to seance-room communications, everyone has guiding spirits and they are often relatives who have risen to a high spiritual level in the beyond.

H

Hallucination - A false perception of sensory vividness arising without the stimulus of a corresponding sense impression.In this it differs from illusion, which is merely the misinterpretation  of an actual sense perception.Visual and auditory hallucinations are the most common, but hallucinations of the other sense may also be experienced.Human figures and voices most frequently form the subject of a hallucination, but in certain types other classes of objects may be seen, as, for instance, the rats and insects of delirium tremens.

Hambaruan - Among the Dayaks of Borneo the hambaruan, or soul of a living man, was believed to be able to leave the body at will and go where it chose; however, it was vulnerable to capture by evil spirits.If this should happen, the man would fall ill, and if his soul was not speedily liberated, he would die.The belief represents an awareness of the experience today termed out-of-the-body experience.

Hands of Spirits - There have been various instances in occult history where the hand of a spirit has been said to become visible to the human eye.

Haunting - Disturbances of a paranormal character, attributed to the spirits of the dead.Tradition established two main factors in hauntings:an old house or other locale and restlessness of a spirit.The first represents an unbroken link with the past, the second is believed to be caused by remorse over an evil life or by the shock of violent death.The manifestations vary greatly.In most cases, strange noises are hear alone (auditory effects); in some others objects are displaced, and lights are seen (visual effects); also, a chilliness is sometimes felt in the atmosphere, not infrequently unbearable stench pervades the room, and an evil influence imparts feelings of unspeakable horror (sensory effects); and phantoms, both human and animal, appear in various degrees of solidity.The more noise they make the less solid they are.

Hyperesthesia - An actual or apparent exaltation of the perceptive faculties, or superacuity of the normal senses, characteristic of the hypnotic state.It has been observed frequently in hysterics.They may feel a piece of wire on their hands as heavy as a bar of iron.The smallest suggestion-whether given by word, look, gesture, or even breathing or unconscious movement-is instantly seizes upon and interpreted by the entranced subject, who for this reason is often called "sensitive". The phenomena of hyperesthesia, observed but wrongly interpreted by the early magnetists and mesmerists, was largely responsible for the so-called clairvoyance, thought reading, community of sensation, and other kindred phenomena.In its manifestation, hyperesthesia is often difficult to distinguish from telepathy, or clairvoyance.Theoretically the dividing line is that clairvoyance is a central perception that does not reach us through the sensory organs.In practice it is difficult to decide whether the perception takes place through the sensory organs or not.

Hypnagogic State - A condition between waking and sleeping characterized by illusions of vision or sound.

  I

Ideoplasm - Another term for ectoplasm, a substance claimed to issue from the body of a materialization medium in a vaporous or solid form, taking on the appearance of phantom forms or limbs.The concept of ideoplasm stems from the investigations of such physical researchers as the Frenchman Gustav Geley and conveys the additional idea that the substance may be molded by the operators into any shape to express the idea of the medium or of the sitters.

Ignis Fatuus - A wavering luminous appearance frequently observed in meadows and marshy places, around which many popular superstitions cluster.Will o' the Wisp and Jack o' Lantern are two well known ones.Science now attributes these ignes fatui to gaseous exhalations from the moist ground or, more rarely, to night-flying insects.

Illusion - Sensory perception originated by an actual sensory stimulus to which wrong interpretation is attached.

Incorporeal Personal Agency(IPA) - Rather cumbersome term used by parapsychologist J. B. Rhine to indicate survival of bodily death (i.e.,aspects of personality surviving without a body).

Independent Voice - See Direct Voice

Independent Writing - See Direct Writing

Influence - In mediumistic terminology influence is equivalant to "spirit".The american medium Lenora Piper applied it to objects that, by virtue of association of ideas or magnetism of the late owner, helped her to establish communication with the deceased.The presence of such objects, she declared, helped her to clear the ideas of the communicators.The term influence was used earlier by practitioners of animal magnetism to denote the mesmeric force between operator and subject.

Inner Voice - An auditory sensation covered, whether subjective or objective, by the term clairaudience.Clairaudience is usually conceived of as a purely mental phenomenon.

Intuition - Human faculty by which individuals are aware of facts not accessible to normal sensory or mental processes.Some apparent intuition may be attributed to unconscious sensory or mental perception or deduction.Other intuitive awareness suggests paranormal faculty.

Intuitional World - Theosophical term for the Buddhic plane or the fourth world, from which come intuitions.

J

"John King" - Claimed spirit entity manifesting at many Spiritualist seances.

K

Ka - The human double or astral body in ancient Egyptian belief.

Karma - A doctrine common to Hinduism, Buddhism, and Theosophy, although not wholly adopted by Theosophists as taught in the other two religions.The word karma itself means "action", but implies both action and reaction.All actions have consequences, some immediate, some delayed, others in future incarnations, according to Eastern beliefs.Thus individuals bear responsibility for all their actions and cannot escape the consequences, although bad actions can be expiated by good ones.

"King, John" - One of the most romantic and frequently claimed spirit entities, manifesting at many Spiritualists seances of different mediums over many decades.He claimed he had been Henry Owen Morgan, the famous buccaneer who was knighted by Charles II and appointed governor of Jamaica.

Kirlian Aura - Although  the human aura has long been considered a psychic phenomenon visible only to gifted sensitives, some scientists have maintained that the aura is an objective reality and that such a radiation around human beings various in different states of the individuals health.In 1958, Semyon Davidovich and his wife, Valentina Khrisanova Kirlian, two soviet scientists described electrophotography, a photographic technique of converting the nonelectrical properties of an object into electrical properties recorded on photographic film.Intense examinations of the paranormal claims for Kirlian photography has shown that most of the early effects reported can be attributed to lack of proper controls in the laboratory.During the 1980's, reports of Kirlian effects all but disappeared.

Koilon - The name given to ether by Theosophists Annie Besant and Charles W. Leadbeater in their book Occult Chemistry (1919).

L

Levitation - The rising of physical objects, tables, pianos, etc., or of human beings into the air, contrary to the known laws of gravitation and without any visible agency.More often the term is used in a restricted sense and refers to the levitation of the human body.

Lucid Dreaming - Preferred modern term for "dreaming true", indicating the experience of dreaming with consciousness that one is dreaming, i.e., experiencing a dream with waking consciousness.The condition is often associated with out-of-the-body travel, as it often happens that some incongruity in a dream stimulates the dreamer to conclude "Why, I must be dreaming!" and this awareness sometimes precedes an out-of-the-body event.

Lucidity - A faculty by which paranormal knowledge may be obtained.It is a collective term for the phenomena of clairvoyance, clairaudience, psychometry, and premonitions.It was first used by experimenters describing the condition of sensitives in relation to the phenomena of animal magnetism and mesmerism but was later used by French psychical researchers.It has generally been replaced in recent decades by ESP, or extrasensory perception.

Luminous Bodies - Dead bodies were frequently supposed to glow in the dark with a sort of phosphorescent light.Possibly the belief arose from the idea that the soul was like a fire dwelling in the body.

Luminious Phenomena - A frequent occurrence in Physical mediumship.On rare occasions such phenomena have been witnessed in apparent independence of mediumistic conditions.

M

Macro-PK - Term used to denote the effects of psychokinesis (paranormal movements) that, like table turning, are large enough to be observed by the naked eye.In contrast, Micro-PK refers to psychokinetic effects so minute that they require statistical analysis or special methods to detect.

Magnetic Phenomena - Some readily observable phenomena have suggested a connection between psychic abilities and magnetism.The medium Henry Slade could influence the movements of a magnetic needle.Johann Zollner made convincing experiments with a glass covered compass.

Magnetometer - A device invented by the Abbe Fortin (ca. 1864) consisting of a piece of paper cut to the shape of a compass needle and considered to indicate some kind of electromagnetic force.It was suspended in a glass cylinder by a silk fiber.If the cylinder was approached by hand, the paper, (over a dial of 360 degrees) would either turn toward the hand or away from it.Carried out in a more substantial form with a "metallic multiplicator," a condenser, and a needle, the magnetometer was used for the study of terrestrial magnetism to solve meteorological problems.

Materialization - The claimed manifestation of temporary, more or less organized, apparitions in varies degrees of form, often possessing human Physical characteristics and said to be shaped for a temporary existence from a substance called "ectoplasm".

Matter Passing through Matter - Matter interpenetrating matter has been claimed frequently as a seance-room phenomenon.It is involved in the marvel of apports and teleportation of the human body, and its validation under test conditions, which has never occurred, would help toward these greater phenomena becoming recognized.

Meditation - A traditional spiritual exercise in both Eastern and Western mystical systems, usually involving a static sitting position, a blocking of the mind from normal sensory stimuli, and a concentration upon devine thoughts or mystical centers in the human body.

Medium - A medium is one whose organism is sensitive to vibrations from the spirit world and through whose instrumentality intelligences in that world are able to convey messages and produce the phenomena of Spiritualism.

Mental World - Formerly known as the Manas Plane.In the theosophic scheme of things, this is third lowest of the seven worlds.It is the world of thought into which man passes on the death of the astral body, and is composed of the seven divisions of matter in common with the other worlds.It is observed that the mental world is the world of thought, but it is necessary to realize that it is the world of good thoughts only, for the base thoughts have all been purged away during the soul's stay in the astral world.   

Metagnome - Term used by French psychic researchers for a gifted percipient of paranormal knowledge or  extrasensory perception.The term avoids the Spiritualist associations of "medium" but is know generally superseded by the term "psychic", indicating an individual with extrasensory perception.

Metagnomy - Term used by French psychic researchers to indicate knowledge acquired through cryptesthesia, i.e., without the use of our five senses.The term derives from the greek words meta (after) and gnomon (knower) and designates the phenomenon of supernormal cognition, now generally called extrasensory perception by parapsychologists.

Metagraphology - Term indicating psychometric power on the basis of scripts.It has nothing to do with graphology (interpretation of personality traits in handing), as the reading of the present, past, and future of the subject is not affected by the study of the writing.The script simply serves as an influence, as does any given object in psychometry.

Metapsychics - The term proposed by Charles Richet in 1905 (when he was elected president of the Society for Psychical Research, London) for phenomena and experiments in psychical research.In his inaugural address he defined metapsychics as "a science dealing with mechanical or psychological phenomena due to forces which seem to be intelligent, or to unknown powers, latent in human intelligence".He divided it into objective and subjective metapsychics, the first dealing with material, external facts; the second with psychic, internal, nonmaterial facts.

Metempsychosis (Transmigration of Souls) - From the Greek meta, "after", and empsychos, "to animate", the belief that after death, the soul passes into another body, either human or animal.In ancient Greece it was roughly equivalent to the idea of reincarnation.

Methetherial - A term coined by F.W.H.Myers meaning beyond the ether, the transcendental world in which spirits exist.

Micro-PK - Term used to denote psychokinetic (paranormal movement) effects that are weak or minute, thus requiring statistical analysis or special methods of detection.In contrast, marco-PK effects are paranormal movements sufficiently large or impressive to be observed by the naked eye.

Monition - Supernormal warning.In the wider sense of the definition of psychic researcher Charles Richet, it is the revelation of some past or present event by other than the normal senses.Monitions may range from trifling events to warnings of death.They occur accidentally and are verifiable as true.All the monitive phenomena lie within the field of nonexperimental telepathy and clairvoyance and include apparitions of the dead and of the living, provided that they are message-bearing.It is characteristic of monitions that they deeply impress the mind of the percipients and permit an accurate remembrance even after the lapse of many years.

Monitions of Approach - Unaccountable ideas of an impending meeting with someone.A person seen in the street, for example, is believed to be an old friend, and the next second the mistake is seen.Soon afterward, the real friend is appears.Such occurrences are fairly common, but may happen in a somewhat complicated way.A voice may be heard announcing the person's arrival while the percipient is in a dreaming or waking state.The voice may be accompanied by a phantom of the approaching individual.Spiritualists said that monitions of approach came from the projection of the human double of the person soon to arrive.

Morphogenetic Fields - Term normally used somewhat loosely to indicate the mysterious factors that influence the development of form and characteristics in nature.A special theory of the action of morphogenetic fields, relevant to occult and new age considerations, was proposed in 1981 by Rupert Sheldrake in his theory concerning what he termed formative causation.This theory also has relevance to such parapsychological phenomena as clairvoyance, telepathy, and reincarnation.

Movement (Paranormal) - Paranormal movement has been given various names, among them,  parakinesis, which refers to movement with some contact but not enough to explain the motion.Movement without perceptible contact is called telekinesis.

Muscle Reading - According to psychic researcher James H. Hyslop, "the interpretation by the operator of unconscious muscular movements in the subject experimented on".As no paranormal perception is involved in the interpretation, psychical research is not specifically concerned in muscle reading, although the special sensitives involved may have some relevance to the mechanisms of paranormal cognition.Some have suggested that what has been interpreted as telepathy may in fact be conscious or unconscious muscle reading.

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