Tag Archives | Paranormal

The Search For The Brain’s Telepathy Center

By on November 14, 2012 in News 7

Via Science 2.0, a study reveals the section of the brain producing strange powers:

Experimenters from the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences [joined with] the Vivekananda Yoga Research Foundation, Bangalore, India to perform “Probably the first fMRI study to analyse the neuroanatomical correlates of telepathy.”

They asked Mr. Gerard Senehi, “well known for his mind reading and telepathy”, to try to reproduce an unseen sketch which had been drawn by the experimenter. An anonymous control subject was also tested. During their attempts, both individuals were continuously scanned in an fMRI machine.

“The image reproduced by the ‘mentalist’ showed striking similarity to the original drawn by the experimenter, whereas the drawing by the control subject did not. Furthermore, the fMRI scans showed measurable differences in brain activity of the two subjects — “This study’s findings are suggestive of an association between telepathy and the right parahippocampal gyrus.”

… Read the rest

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Strange Cases Of Slippage Through Time

By on November 11, 2012 in News 41

Mysterious Universe ponders times slips — cases in which people temporarily experience the future or past, or briefly interact with people or objects from a different era:

Physicists like Albert Einstein, Michio Kaku and Stephen Hawking have all said time travel is theoretically possible; our science just can’t achieve it. But what if nature can?

Time slips have been reported throughout history. English women vacationing in France in 1901 claimed they stepped into the French Revolution, and two English couples traveling in Spain in the 1970s stayed at an oddly archaic hotel that was simply gone on their return journey. RAF pilot Sir Victor Goddard encountered airplanes in 1935 that didn’t exist until 1939, and a 100-year-old Swiss watch found in a Chinese Ming dynasty tomb. People may slip like this all the time.

During the Aurora Borealis of 2004, visible in North America as far south as the lower Midwest, Jake, 15, stood outside his parents home in the Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri, around 10 p.m.

… Read the rest

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Professional Psychics Fail Scientific Experiment

By on November 1, 2012 in News 28

Was this a fair experiment? Perhaps the laboratory setting suppresses psychic abilities. The BBC reports:

The test by researchers at Goldsmiths, University of London, tried to establish whether mediums could use psychic abilities to identify something about five unseen volunteers. The results, carried out under test conditions, did not show evidence of any unexplained powers of insight.

The experiment asked two professional mediums to write something about five individuals who were concealed behind a screen. These five volunteers were then asked to try to identify themselves from these psychic readings – with a success rate of only one in five. This was a result that was “entirely consistent with the operation of chance alone”, said Professor French.

But one of the mediums, Patricia Putt, rejected the suggestion that this showed any absence of psychic powers – saying that she needed to work face-to-face with people or to hear their voice, so that a connection could be established.

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Want People to Believe in Your Paranormal Experience? Make it Sound “Science-y”

By on October 26, 2012 in News 8

Picture: Harry Price (PD)

In this technological and mechanistic age that good old fashioned ghost stories don’t stand a chance of being accepted as plausible unless you sprinkle a little pseudoscience into the mix. This generation of  flim-flam artists may be just stumbling onto this fact, but fiction writers (as well as some of the earliest ghost-hunters) have known it for years. The protagonists of Bram Stoker’s Dracula bring modern technology to their fight against the eponymous vampire, as do the heroes (and villains) of several H.P. Lovecraft tales such as “The Shunned House”, “From Beyond”. Even Arthur Machen utilized scientific jargon in his classic story of the supernatural (or preternatural?) ”The Great God Pan.”

An interesting study from LiveScience shows that a little techno-babble can go a long way in convincing people of the plausibility of supernatural experiences:

Fans of paranormal reality TV shows like “Ghost Hunters” and “Ghost Adventures” are treated to an array of technical jargon and references to fancy instruments — ion generators, electromagnetic field detectors and video goggles with built-in speech-synthesizers that allegedly can sense spirits.

… Read the rest

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Paranormal or Normal?

By on October 6, 2012 in News 0

John Kruth, Executive Director of the Rhine Research Center, which has been at the forefront of laboratory research into anomalous perception since its founding in 1935,  pointed out an interesting correlation between psi research and hypnosis:

“For decades, hypnosis was considered by many to be unproven and an illusion because there was no definitive mechanism provided to describe how it worked. Still there is no definitive mechanism that identifies the mechanics of hypnosis, but since there are practical applications in psychology and medicine, it has become an accepted practice.

Today, many people reject PSI phenomenon because no mechanism has been “proven” in the laboratory despite the years of “proof-oriented” experimental evidence for all aspects of PSI. Hypnosis was accepted because it has practical applications. Will the same thing happen with PSI in the coming years?”

One of the researchers helping to guide the field into more applicable areas is Jack Hunter, the Editor of the Paranthropology Journal of Anthropological Approaches to the Paranormal.  Hunter’s investigations into anomalous phenomena use insights gained from the fields of anthropology, specifically ethnographic approaches, that highlight participatory and experiential elements of the phenomena rather than laboratory findings.… Read the rest

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Siberia Experiences Spate Of Yeti Sightings

By on September 30, 2012 in News 8

Furry creatures which walk human-style on two legs are being spotted left and right by residents in Siberia, oddly coinciding with the timing of a Bigfoot conference set to take place next month. The Siberian Times reports:

Yetis have been ‘sighted’ recently in three different remote areas in Kemerovo region, according to local reports. Russia is to host a conference and expedition in search of the yeti next month.

One was spotted this month by an unnamed state inspector in the Shorsky National Park, says local government official Sergei Adlyakov. ‘The creature did not look like a bear and quickly disappeared after breaking some branches. Earlier in August, fisherman Vitaly Vershinin saw two creatures near Myski village, according to a local Siberian newspaper. It was reported that several days after this sighting ‘local people saw a strange creature one more time’.

Officials in Kuzbass, Kemerovo region, told of another alleged sighting.’We were sailing in a boat without an engine.

… Read the rest

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Are UFO’s from Mars and Ghosts from Venus?

By on September 28, 2012 in News 24

Picture: Trocaire (CC)

Why is it that men seem more into UFOs and conspiracy theories whereas women tend to favour ghosts and psychics?

A recent wideranging article on the BBC website describes a UFO conference and briefly mentions the phenomenon:

The predominant demographic is older men. But somewhere between a quarter and a third of Bufora attendees look under 30 and a similar proportion are female.

You can’t have an active interest in these topics without noticing that women tend to flock to psychic nights in greater numbers whereas UFO conferences tend to have a clear male bias.

The Unexplained Mysteries website claims:

research has indicated that belief in various paranormal topics differs between men and women.

While both genders tend to believe in paranormal topics the key difference is in which ones. Teacher and researcher Kylie Sturgess found that women were more likely to believe in astrology, psychics and ghosts whereas men are more predisposed to believe in aliens, cryptozoological creatures and conspiracy theories.

… Read the rest

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Japanese Exorcist Whose Rituals Killed Six Receives Death Penalty

By on September 28, 2012 in News 0

It seems anyone who crossed the Japanese faith healer with a small cult following would be beaten to death with sticks in an deadly “exorcism” rite. Via Japan Subculture:

Sachiko Eto, 65, a faith healer and self-professed exorcist, was convicted for murder after the deaths of six believers in Fukushima Prefecture between 1994 and 1995.

According to Japanese media reports and The Associated Press, Sachiko Eto, her daughter and another accomplice had beaten their victims to death, using thick drumsticks. The beating were to “drive out demons hiding in their bodies” and conducted in her home. At least one of the exorcisms was apparently motivated by Ms. Eto’s decision that the the victim was sleeping with Ms. Eto’s lover. Another victim was “exorcised” after refusing to loan Ms. Eto money. There were also questions as to the vanishing of her husband in 1992, before she became a spiritual leader.

Eto is reportedly the first female in Japan to be executed in more than 15 years.

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