Parapsychology Today

1. What exactly is parapsychology?

2. What parapsychology is not?

3. Is parapsychology a legitimate science?

4. Do apparitions really occur, or are they psychosis related?

5. Is Ghost Hunting, as indicated on TV, accurate in it’s findings?

 

Parapsychology Today

Steeped in a history of mystique which dates back centuries, parapsychology is a study which has over time, gone through several name changes, been radically feared, shunned as the Devil’s work, thought of as witchcraft, and cast aside as evidence of a psychotic breakdown.

Parapsychology is a topic which brings an immediate emotional response on the part of those who are exposed to it’s subject matter.

 

What Exactly Is Parapsychology?

Parapsychology is considered by some to be a science, while others consider it to be a pseudoscience. For every supporter of Parapsychology, there are two non-supporters.  One must take into consideration that in the United States alone 34% of the population indicate that they believe in parapsychology, and/or have had direct personal experiences which they believe to be parapsychology or paranormal related.

More accurately stated, parapsychology studies or investigates the claimed abilities of some individuals to be able to interact with, or experience interactions with the environment (surroundings) in ways not yet fully understood by the scientific community.  Most of these events, for purposes of classification have been dubbed “Paranormal”.

In our modern society, different agencies, and different bodies of academia, under the umbrella of para-psychological studies are studying the existence of causes and conditions of psychic abilities, near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences, crisis apparitions, retro-cognitions, claims of reincarnation related memories, regression memories, prophecy, apparitions, ghosts and life after death.

At the time of this writing, parapsychology is being studied by and in 30 different countries, with the main grouping of these countries being Europe and United Kingdom based.  With a changing priority base and political focus, the United States’ interest in parapsychology as a study and topic of research peaked in the 1970′s.

 

What Parapsychology Is NOT?

In a world which seems to flutter-by grasping onto myths more often than fact, parapsychology has often been mis-categorized.

Parapsychology does not get involved in the scientific study of ghost sightings, but in what appears to be a possible conflict, parapsychology does get involved in trying to validate or refute the existence of ghosts.

Parapsychology is not about, or endorsing Tarot or astrology.

Parapsychology is not part of a New Age movement philosophy, and it is not a religion, nor does it, in a proper scientific context endorse a particular religious community.

The goal and focus of parapsychology continues to be a scientific study of otherwise unexplainable phenomena.

 

Is Parapsychology A Legitimate Science?

In a scientific community of opposing opinions, there are those who view parapsychology as a legitimate science and those who consider it to be a sloppy science at best.

Scientific research often depends on controlled environments, where results can be repeated within the confines of set parameters.  The very nature of para-psychological studies has made the issue of controlled environments difficult, and in some studies, repeated results based on the confines of set parameters has been difficult to achieve.  Part of the challenge for those active in the study of parapsychology continues to be that the overall scientific community is attempting to confine the study of parapsychology to a set of natural, physics related, and mathematical laws as we know them to be now without allowing for the possibility that current scientific understandings and means of measurement may fall short of those required.

As an example of mindsets needing to change to grasp new concepts pertains to one topic currently being researched heavily.  This topic lives in strong defiance of many of the scientific community’s currently recognized universal laws.  This topic pertains to the possible existence of multiple simultaneous and parallel plains of existence.  As more research is done on this subject matter, the science community is beginning to embrace the opinion that this may in fact be a reality, BUT it’s requiring a new openness to the possibility that there are natural laws in existence which mankind has not yet understood.

In short, as with any new science, the surrounding scientific community does have a somber history of, figuratively speaking, looking through a pipe and only believing in what they see at the end of the pipe.  Reality tells us that by removing the pipe and allowing full peripheral vision to absorb it’s surroundings, we gain a greater sense of the bigger picture.

Parapsychology, based on it’s current findings, and interpretations is typical of most other fields of science in their early stages.

Parapsychology, characteristic of most “young sciences”, is often viewed as an embryo science–a frontier science of the mind.  The scientific community is slowly embracing parapsychology as a frontier discipline for advancing human knowledge.  As a frontier science, some stalwarts of the scientific community would consider parapsychology to be in the Wild West era of scientific study, where laws are blurred, and jurisdictions undefined.  Critics in their comments, are shooting straight from the hip in true gunslinger fashion.

Parapsychology will go through shifts, and changes in focus as the scientific community learns from this fascinating, perhaps more accurately stated “thriller” field of science.

 

 

 

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