The Element Encyclopedia of the Psychic World: The Ultimate A-Z of Spirits, Mysteries and the Paranormal

1797 Pages·2006·4.46 MB·English

by  Theresa Francis-Cheung

Theresa Cheung
THE ELEMENT
ENCYCLOPEDIA
PSYCHIC
OF THE
WORLD

the ultimate
a-z of spirits, mysteries
and the paranormal
Contents

Cover
Title Page
Introduction
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
Resources
Index
Acknowledgements
Copyright
About the Publisher
Introduction

A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its
old dimensions.
(Oliver Wendell Holmes)

In the last few decades interest in the psychic world has escalated. Beyond
the basic Steven King novel, the idea of being psychic or having psychic abilities
has penetrated deeply into mainstream culture.
The movie Ghost (1990), with Whoopie Goldberg as reluctant medium Oda
May Brown, was the first blockbuster film to portray psychic phenomena in a
positive light. Since then a steady stream of books, films and documentaries has
followed. Organizations, seminars, workshops, websites, study programmes,
chat rooms and courses in parapsychology (the study of the paranormal or
unexplained) and psychic development have sprung up over night. Doctors and
researchers in holistic health are assembling a startling body of evidence for the
interconnectedness of mind, body and spirit. We can now speak ‘openly’ about
alternative healings, meditative and psychic experiences without fear of ridicule.
Yet despite all the attention currently being given to psychic phenomena, their
true nature still lies deeply shrouded in mystery. One of our favourite ways for
dealing with the unknown is through language. We assign a word to an
experience, to something we want to describe, and then we feel we have a handle
on it. So let’s try to get a grasp on this great unknown, the universe of psychic
phenomena, by assigning words to it.
To begin with, what do we mean by ‘psychic? The word psychic describes
anything in connection with the psyche. ‘Psyche’ dates back to ancient times
when a goddess by the name of Psyche was thought to be in charge of the
invisible but essential part of human existence. Over time the word and its
meaning evolved, and today a Thesaurus offers the following synonyms: mind,
soul, self, subconscious, spirit, subliminal self, inner self, awareness, ego and
individuality. Today we use the word psyche to refer generically to all kinds of
phenomena, experiences or events that seem to be related to the invisible mind,
internal body sensations and altered states of consciousness, which cannot be
explained by established physical principles.
To qualify as psychic, an experience must therefore involve interactions that
are qualitatively different from our normal, physical ways of exchanging with
the world (e.g. verbal and nonverbal communication, sensations and bodily
movements). A genuine psychic experience cannot be based even upon the most
subtle, subliminal forms of perception or action.
As the experience is different for every person it is impossible to explain
exactly what the psychic state is, but a large number of experiences are
considered psychic. These include telepathy (mind reading), clairvoyance
(psychic ability to see objects and visions), psychokinesis (mind-over-matter),
psychic healing, out-of-body experiences, poltergeists, spirits and hauntings.
Within the pages of this Encyclopedia you’ll find a veritable compendium of all
aspects of psychic phenomena - what they are, the evidence for them, the
theories which have been proposed, the dynamics which favour or suppress
them, and the techniques for discovering them in yourself. You will also find
biographies of famous mediums and key figures in the psychic world as well as
information about divination methods, well-known hauntings and paranormal
beliefs from all over the world. The aim isn’t to explain the unexplainable - as
that is impossible - but to lift the veil and make the groping for words easier
when it comes to researching, questioning and understanding the mysteries of
the psychic world.
Introducing the psychic world [a very brief history]

Psychic traditions have existed since the beginning of recorded history and
have been present in one way or another in ancient cultures all over the world. It
seems that a belief in ghosts and communication with spirits of the dead has also
always been with us from our earliest beginnings.
In the ancient Middle East, psychic powers were practised by prophets and are
described in the Bible’s Old Testament. The royalty of many ancient cultures
used divination to seek guidance in times of war and to predict natural disasters
such as drought. The Egyptians believed they could communicate with the dead
and forecast future events using palmistry and dream divination. In Africa the
ancient peoples used trance states to contact the spirits of their dead ancestors.
The Greeks used oracles at sacred locations to give prophecies of the future and
the Romans looked to the stars for messages from the invisible realm. Early
American psychic practices have also been documented. The Aztecs in Mexico
used astrology and oracles and Native Americans relied on advice given to them
by shamans who entered deep trancelike states to contact spirits.
Although belief in ghosts was present from the very beginning of human
history, the first extant report of a haunted house comes from a letter written by a
Roman orator called Pliny the Younger (AD 61-112). He wrote to his patron,
Lucias Sura, about a villa in Athens that nobody would rent because of a resident
ghost.
The best-known psychic of the Middle Ages was a French physician called
Nostradamus (1503-1566). He wrote about a thousand prophetic verses, which
are still analysed today by scholars looking for references to the world’s future.
After the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, during the Age of Reason, belief
in psychic powers and the paranormal waned, but it was reborn again with the
help of the Spiritualist movement. The foundations of spiritualism were laid by
Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), who allegedly went into trances and
communicated with the dead. However, it was the Fox sisters, Kate (1841-1892)
and Margaretta (1838-1893), who really brought psychic phenomena to the
forefront. The sisters claimed they were able to manifest spirit communication
through the rappings of a peddler who had been murdered and found in the Fox
home. The public were fascinated as the sisters gave public demonstrations of
this psychic manifestation throughout the United States.
Even though the sisters later confessed to fraud, the Spiritualist movement
was by then well underway both in the United States and in Europe. Spirit
rapping gave way to séances, table-tilting, trance writing and spirit
communication through a medium. Many of these techniques are still practised
today by Spiritualist churches.
Perhaps the biggest influence on the advancement of psychic knowledge was
that of a man called Edgar Cayce (1877-1945), who is now considered the
founder of the so-called New Age movement. Cayce had remarkable psychic
powers. Allegedly he could see into the future and give predictions. He could
look through objects and inside the human body. He was also able to enter
another person’s mind and know what that person was thinking, and sleep on a
book and remember its contents.
The phenomena produced by mediums and psychics like Cayce during the
height of spiritualism in the latter part of the nineteenth century quickly attracted
the attention of eminent scientists and intellectuals, and the scientific
investigation of alleged psychic powers, ghosts, apparitions, poltergeists and
paranormal phenomena began in earnest. In 1882 the Society for Psychical
Research was formed in London, and in 1885 the American Society for
Psychical Research was founded in Boston. Clubs, organizations and societies
dedicated to the paranormal sprung up all over the world, and as the twentieth
century drew to a close the psychic world had successfully filtered into
mainstream culture. It looks set to stay there.
Today we have televised séances and ghost investigations, celebrity mediums
and psychics and bookshops, websites and university courses devoted to the
paranormal. Over the years investigation of the paranormal has become
increasingly sophisticated and precise. It isn’t about superstition and eyewitness
accounts any more, but about laboratory experiments, data, theories, statistical
evaluation and high technology. There are those who are keen to offer theories to
prove we live in a psychic world and those who are convinced it doesn’t exist.
There is a huge desire to unravel the mystery. The hotly debated question at the
beginning of the twenty-first century is, are psychic phenomena real?
Fact or fiction?

Is the psychic world real? I’ll give you the answer straight out: No one
knows for certain.
There are, however, many theories to explain the thousands upon thousands of
documented experiences that people around the world have had since the
beginning of recorded history. Some believe psychic phenomena are real,
whether or not science, fraud, misinterpretation, hallucination or natural
phenomena can explain them. Others argue that if something is unexplainable by
science, it cannot be real. These two sides - believers and sceptics - engage in
heated debates over whether reports of paranormal experiences are
misinterpretations, coincidences, the product of hallucinations or something
more substantial.
Meanwhile, researchers into paranormal phenomena continue to seek
explanations. It seems that the three hardest words for human beings to utter are
‘I don’t know’. We demand an accounting for every claim or experience, even if
that experience seems unexplainable. Consequently, scientists, parapsychologists
and psychologists have come up with a variety of theories for why paranormal
phenomena exist, if they exist. For example:
Sceptic: ‘Anecdotal evidence, characteristic of most psychic
phenomena, is basically unreliable. Anecdotes may have natural, not
mysterious explanations, such as random coincidence, fraud, imagination,
or auto-suggestion.’
A believer responds: ‘The hard evidence for psychic phenomena today
is founded on repeatable experiments and not anecdotal evidence.
Anecdotal evidence is considered valid in law and many other fields. The
validity of anecdotal evidence does not depend upon the opinion of those
listening to it.’
Sceptic: ‘If an experiment is not controlled to prevent fraud, then the
results may not be trusted. This is especially so given the fact that many
people who claimed to possess psychic abilities were later proven to be
frauds. Parapsychology experiments are usually poorly designed. They
often lack proper controls, allowing paths of intentional or unintentional
information leakage through normal means.’
A believer responds: ‘There is no such thing as a completely foolproof
experiment in any field of science, and it is unreasonable to hold
parapsychology to a higher standard than the other sciences. Fraud and
incompetence in parapsychology is addressed in the same way it is
addressed in any other field of science: repeating experiments at multiple
independent laboratories, and publishing methods and results in order to
receive critical feedback and design better protocols, etc’
Sceptic: ‘Parapsychology experiments are rarely replicated with
positive results at independent laboratories.’
A believer responds: ‘The existence of certain psychic phenomena has
been reasonably well established in recent times through repeatable
experiments that have been replicated dozens of times at labs around the
world.’
Sceptic: ‘Positive results in psychic experiments are so statistically
insignificant as to be negligible, i.e. indistinguishable from chance. For
example, parapsychology may have a “file drawer” problem where a large
percentage of negative results are never published, making positive results
appear more significant than they actually are.’
A believer responds: ‘Experimental protocols have been continually
improved over time, sometimes with the direct assistance of noted sceptics.
Meta-analyses show that the significance of the positive results has not
declined over time, but instead has remained fairly constant. There are
certain phenomena that have been replicated with odds against chance far
beyond that required for acceptance in any other science.’
Sceptic: ‘Currently unexplainable positive results of apparently sound