Paranormal phenomena

My personal experiences are behind my lifelong study of the paranormal. Like many children I had invisible playmates when I was very young, and I saw strange lights in the yard and woods that I instinctively knew were the nature spirits who lived there. Children seem to be very open to paranormal phenomena, but their ability to have these experiences often fades away as they become more involved in the outside world, or, perhaps, as adults tell them not to believe in what they experience, that it s only in their imagination. Even when I was very young, I was puzzled that other people would tell me with great authority that I did not experience what I knew I did. 

They later wrote that they experienced what psychologists would call a kind of shared psychotic break, with one of them becoming reactive and the other paranoid schizophrenic, a state that lasted for several weeks. Many unusual paranormal phenomena accompanied this state synchronicities, telepathic communication between them, even sightings of what seemed like a UFO, and the apparent partial creation of some kind of hyperspatial communication device. One could say it was as much a shamanic madness initiation, a mythic journey to the outer reaches of the mind, as it was schizophrenia. The two intrepid explorers wrote a complex and difficult book on their experiences and theories, which also included a new mathematical theory of time wave based on the I Ching. 

While not subscribing to paranormal phenomena, David Hudson does claim that his monatomic substances are superconductors and that this may provide a possible explanation for the amazing behavior of the... 

The questionnaire development, administration procedure, and response rate The number of items on the questionnaires was 254 for HS students, 105 for BS teachers, and 129 for PS/RM teachers. In addition to questions about 3 Year HS students age, gender, and pre-college background, the student questionnaire also contained (1) four highly scientifically-deficient health news briefs whose aim was to measure respondents skills in scientifically evaluating health claims, (2) Likert-scale statements about their attitudes towards science research, what counts as reliable knowledge , and CAM, respectively, (3) Likert-scale statements about respondents beliefs about paranormal phenomena , and (4) Likert-scale questions... 

In regression analysis, HS student beliefs in the following 9 paranormal phenomena-, prophecies, star sign, horoscope, mascot, seances, ghost, clairvoyance, mental contact with the dead, and telepathy (Cronbach alpha = 0.79 for the construct), strongly predicted (/ < 0.01) their attitudes towards the CAM treatments (Pettersen, unpublished results). 

The renowned magician James Randi has issued a genuine mil-lion-dollaT challenge to anyone who can demonstrate, under their own conditions, any psychic, supernatural, or paranormal phenomenon with adequate controls in place. Many have applied, but no one has eveT won this challenge. Why not ... 

Exactly what is a paranormal experience or phenomenon Para is derived from a Latin term for beyond. So paranormal means beyond normal, or things that do not fit what we experience through our five senses alone and which do not follow the laws we observe in nature and in science. Paranormal experiences and phenomena run the gamut from the awesome and marvelous, such as angels and miracles, to the downright terrifying, such as vampires and werewolves. 

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