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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”]
ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPH (EEG)
The mechanical device employed in the technique which known as
electroencephalography.
ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHY
A technique for amplifying and recording the fluctuations in electrical
voltage in a living brain using electrodes attached to key positions on
the person's head; this technique has proved to be particularly
important for sleep-research (and thus also for research on
dream-telepathy), where characteristic brain waves have been identified
and related to the successive stages of sleep. [From the Greek
enkephalos, "the brain," derived from en, "within," +
kephale, "the head," + graphein, "to write"]
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.
ESP
See Extrasensory Perception.
ESP CARDS
A special deck of cards, developed by perceptual psychologist Karl Zener
for use by J. B. Rhine in tests of extrasensory perception: a
standard pack contains 25 cards, each portraying one of five symbols —
circle, cross, square, star or wavy lines. Also called Zener cards.
EXCEPTIONAL HUMAN EXPERIENCE
Expression coined by Rhea White (see, for example, 1994, p. 5) as “an
umbrella term for many types of experience generally considered to be
psychic, mystical, encounter-type experiences, death-related
experiences, and experiences at the upper end of the normal range, such
as creative inspiration, exceptional human performance, as in sports,
literary and aesthetic experiences, and the experience of falling in
love.”
EXPERIMENTER EFFECT
An experimental outcome which results not from manipulation of the
variable of interest per se, but rather from some aspect of the
particular experimenter’s behavior, such as unconscious communication to
the subjects, or possibly even a psi-mediated effect working in accord
with the experimenter’s desire to confirm some hypothesis.
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]
FAITH HEALING
See Healing, Psychic.
FANTASY-PRONENESS
A personality construct first described by Sheryl Wilson and Theodore
Barber (1983, p. 340) to refer to a small percentage of the population
“who fantasize a large part of the time, [and] who typically ‘see,’
‘hear,’ ‘smell,’ ‘touch’ and fully experience what they fantasize”; such
persons tend to be able to hallucinate voluntarily, to be
excellent hypnotic subjects, to have vivid memories of their life
experiences, and to report experiencing parapsychological
phenomena.
GANZFELD
Term referring to a special type of environment (or the technique for
producing it) consisting of homogenous, unpatterned sensory stimulation:
audiovisual ganzfeld may be accomplished by placing translucent
hemispheres (for example, halved ping-pong balls) over each eye of the
subject, with diffused light (frequently red in hue) projected onto them
from an external source, together with the playing of unstructured
sounds (such as “white” or “pink” noise) into the ears, and generally
with the person in a state of bodily comfort; the consequent deprivation
of patterned sensory input is said to be conducive to introspection of
inwardly-generated impressions, some of which may be extra-sensory in
origin. [From the German for “entire field”]
MANUAL GANZFELD
The use of the word "manual" refers to the fact that the target
selection is carried out by manual access to computer or random number
tables as well as the fact that all the important events in the
experiment are recorded by hand. Consequently, the technique has
limited safeguards against fraud or data selection compared with the
autoganzfeld.
AUTOGANZFELD
An implementation of the ganzfeld technique in which many of
the key procedural details, such as selection and presentation of the
target and the recording of the evaluation of the target-response
similarity given by the percipient are fully automated and
computerized, the goal being to reduce as far as possible errors and
sensory communication on the part of the human participants.
GELLER EFFECT
The ability to bend metal by paranormal means; named after the
Israeli stage performer Uri Geller, who was the first person to claim
publicly the metal-bending ability; the term has been largely
superseded by “PK-MB,” or, more simply, “metal-bending.” See also
Mini-Geller; Psychokinesis.
GENERAL EXTRASENSORY PERCEPTION (GESP)
A non-committal technical term used to refer to instances of
extrasensory perception in which the information paranormally
acquired may have been derived either from another person’s mind (that
is, as telepathy), or from a physical event or state of affairs
(that is, as clairvoyance), or even from both sources;
experimental parapsychologists rarely use the term “telepathy” because
of the difficulty, in tests of so-called telepathy, of excluding the
possible operation of clairvoyance.
GHOST
As popularly used, this term denotes only the apparition of a
deceased person, and is not sufficiently precise for use in psychical
research. [Ashby, 1972]
GOAT
Term originally used by Gertrude Schmeidler (1943) to describe a subject
who rejects the possibility that extrasensory perception could
occur under the conditions of the given experimental situation; this
somewhat narrow meaning has been extended to refer also, or
alternatively, to persons who do not believe in the existence of ESP in
general (that is, under any conditions!), or even to persons who obtain
low scores on various so-called “projective,” “scalar” or “checklist”
measures of belief in (and/or experience of) different sorts of putative
psi phenomena. Compare Sheep. See Sheep-Goat Effect.
HALLUCINATION
An experience having the same phenomenological characteristics as a
sense-perception, and which may lead the experient to suppose the
presence of an external physical object as the cause of that experience,
but in which, in fact, there is no such object present.
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.
HYPNAGOGIC STATE
Term referring to the transitional state of consciousness experienced
while falling asleep, sometimes characterized by vivid hallucinations
or imagery of varying degrees of bizarreness; sometimes used to refer
also to the similar state of awareness experienced during the process of
waking up. Compare Hypnopompic State. [From the Greek hypnos,
“sleep,” + agogos, “leading”]
HYPNOPOMPIC STATE
Term coined by Frederic Myers to refer to the transitional state of
consciousness experienced while waking from sleep; the term “hypnagogic”
is sometimes used to refer to this state also. [From the Greek
hypnos, “sleep,” + pompos, “escort, guide”]
HYPNOSIS
A condition or state, commonly resembling sleep, which is accompanied by
narrowing of the range of attention, is characterized by marked
susceptibility to suggestion, and can be artificially induced.
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”]
JUDGING
The process whereby a rating or a rank-score (that is, “1st,” “2nd,”
“3rd,” and so on) is awarded to one or more responses produced (or
targets used) in a free-response test of extrasensory perception,
in accordance with the degree of correspondence obtaining between them
or one or more targets (or responses); also, the attempt to match, under
blind conditions, a set of targets with a set of responses.
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.”
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