tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/paranormal-21949/articlesParanormal – The Conversation2023-10-26T21:10:13Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2101792023-10-26T21:10:13Z2023-10-26T21:10:13Z‘The Undead Archive’ exhibit: Contemporary artists respond to 1920s photos of mediums manifesting spirits<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/the-undead-archive-exhibit-contemporary-artists-respond-to-1920s-photos-of-mediums-manifesting-spirits" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>In July 1923, the British author <a href="http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/mb_history/25/doyleinwinnipeg.shtml">Arthur Conan Doyle arrived in Winnipeg to give a public lecture, “The Proofs of Immortality</a>,” as part of a 40-city North American tour that attracted sizable audiences. </p>
<p>Doyle, widely known today as the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Arthur-Conan-Doyle">writer who created Sherlock Holmes</a>, was also <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/spiritualism-religion">a spiritualist</a> — part of circles of people who adhered to and investigated the religious belief that souls of the dead can interact with living people. </p>
<p>On Doyle’s first night in Winnipeg, <a href="https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/8405/#">he and his wife Jean Leckie Doyle were invited to sit in on</a> an investigative seance led <a href="https://survivalresearch.ca/t-glen-hamilton">by physician Thomas Glendenning Hamilton</a> and his wife and collaborator Lillian Hamilton, a trained nurse. </p>
<p>In Dr. Hamilton’s darkened seance chamber, as Doyle would later write, he <a href="https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php/Our_Second_American_Adventure">experienced a luminous table fly into the air</a>. </p>
<p>Hamilton’s legacy includes an uncanny trove of pseudo-scientific photographs related to his investigations of paranormal materializations. No longer accepted as scientific, they are better analyzed as art.</p>
<p>A new scholarly <a href="https://uofmpress.ca/books/detail/the-art-of-ectoplasm">collection of essays</a> and an art exhibit, <a href="https://umanitoba.ca/art/undead-archive"><em>The Undead Archive: 100 Years of Photographing Ghosts</em></a>, at the University of Winnipeg use an art historical lens to contextualize these uncanny photographs as visual culture.</p>
<h2>The ‘psychic force’</h2>
<p>Doyle recounted how the table clattered again and again entirely on its own, with no sitter touching it. One moment, it was quiet. Then: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“<a href="https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php/Our_Second_American_Adventure">A moment later it was like a restless dog in a kennel, springing, tossing, beating up against the supports and finally bounding out with a velocity which caused me to get quickly out of the way</a>.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Hamiltons and the Doyles agreed the table was moved by <a href="http://hdl.handle.net/10719/1412050">an invisible force, the psychic force</a>, and that it was a message from a discarnate (disembodied) personality who survived death. </p>
<p>Psychic force, as some scientists believed, would extrude from the body of the medium and manifest as a organic plasm <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/ectoplasm-occultism">known as ectoplasm</a>, through which spirits could communicate. </p>
<p>Doyle kept abreast of the Hamiltons’ research. According to the Hamiltons and Jean Leckie Doyle, he even manifested as a “transcendental personality,” two years after he died, <a href="http://hdl.handle.net/10719/1411171">materializing in the fluffy ectoplasm in a photograph Hamilton took in 1932</a>.</p>
<h2>Expression of bereavement</h2>
<p>It was not uncommon after the losses of the First World War and the 1919 influenza pandemic for North Americans to participate in seances and dabble in spiritualism as an expression of bereavement, as <a href="https://centreforsensorystudies.org/felicity-t-c-hamer/">historians Felicity Hamer</a> <a href="https://uofmpress.ca/books/detail/the-art-of-ectoplasm">and Esyllt Jones have outlined</a>. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/spirit-photography-captured-love-loss-and-longing-169239">Spirit photography captured love, loss and longing</a>
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<p>Interestingly, Hamilton rejected the popular religion of spiritualism, critiquing it as a cult. He presented his investigations as scientific, and stressed his mastery of photographic technology.</p>
<p>From 1923 to 1935, with an elaborate set of cameras and lenses, Hamilton set out to capture the “psychic force” on glass plates in his laboratory.</p>
<p>He published hundreds of photographs of tables turning and ectoplasmic extrusions of cellular plasm from the body of the female mediums.</p>
<p>It was tricky to photograph the light-sensitive ectoplasm, and Hamilton’s cropped shots of the mediums surrounded by organically shaped material increased <a href="http://hdl.handle.net/10719/1410987">his status as a researcher</a>. </p>
<h2>Inspired ‘Ghostbusters’</h2>
<p>Hamilton’s images were exhibited and widely distributed. They were also <a href="https://courtauld.ac.uk/whats-on/science-in-the-seance-room-stereographs-medical-men-and-the-testing-of-margery-crandons-extraordinary-body-c-1925">praised by researchers, including two researchers who got into a famous public</a> argument <a href="https://collections.musee-mccord-stewart.ca/en/objects/396129/houdini-presents-his-own-original-invention">with the magician Houdini</a> after claiming to debunk his magic, and Samuel Aykroyd, actor Dan Aykroyd’s great-grandfather. The younger Aykroyd’s <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/television/article-dan-aykroyd-on-his-family-history-in-the-occult-and-why-he-wanted-to/">1984 blockbuster <em>Ghostbusters</em> brought ectoplasm into popular culture</a>.</p>
<p>Between the world wars, some scientists were open to the notion of
invisible forces (also known as the psychic force, or the vital force) and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137027252_6">they relied on outdated scientific theories, including “the etheric universe” and “vitalism” to support their research</a>. </p>
<p>Hamilton’s images had a second wave of international recognition after they were digitized in 2001 at the University of Manitoba Archives and Special Collections and were discovered online by artists intrigued by the grotesque aesthetics of the bodily excretions. </p>
<h2>‘Undead Archive’ exhibit</h2>
<p>Hamilton was aware of the abject nature of his photos and described them as “monstrously extraordinary.” </p>
<p>But he also saw <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003045595-7/visualizations-vital-psychic-force-serena-keshavjee">ectoplasm as a vital moulding material able to create endless forms and shapes</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://umanitoba.ca/art/undead-archive">exhibit, <em>The Undead Archive: 100 Years of Photographing Ghosts</em></a>, at the University of Winnipeg’s Gallery 1C03, and the University of Manitoba’s School of Art and Archives and Special Collections, similarly focuses on artistic interpretations of this mysterious substance.</p>
<p>The exhibition, which I curated, features 25 contemporary artists responding to ectoplasm and the Hamilton photographs. Works include stop-motion videos of ectoplasm morphing into recognizable shapes, one by <a href="https://www.shannontaggart.com/">Shannon Taggart</a> and one by <a href="https://www.graceanagle.co.uk">Grace Williams</a>. Williams animated an old photo of ectoplasm being expelled, while Taggart stitched together still shots of a contemporary medium (Kai Muegge) extruding ectoplasm in 2018. </p>
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<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/407233870" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Spiritual Ectoplasm’ (2011) by Grace Williams.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Hamilton was never able to film ectoplasm because of the low light conditions of the seance chamber, and so these videos give us the opportunity to sense the theatrics and the intrigue of the early 20th-century seance.</p>
<h2>Unseen, suppressed spiritual work</h2>
<p>Some artists put themselves in the role of the mediums, mimicking the body language of the trance state. <a href="https://www.erikadefreitas.com/">Erika DeFreitas</a> uses crocheted doilies instead of ectoplasm, calling attention to unseen labour mediums carried out to support psychical researchers.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.kcadams.net/">KC Adams, an Anishinaabe, Ininew and British artist living in Manitoba</a> researched and created a virtual reality artwork for the exhibition that <a href="https://www.edu.gov.mb.ca/iid/aid/identifiers.pdf">examines Ininew</a> burial rituals supressed <a href="https://www.facinghistory.org/en-ca/resource-library/banning-indigenous-culture#">suppressed under the Indian Act</a>.</p>
<h2>Pandemics and forgetting</h2>
<p>In <em>The Art of Ectoplasm</em>, Jones writes that it was only in March 2020, with COVID-19, that our society thought about <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/influenza-pandemic-of-1918-1919">the 1918-19 influenza pandemic</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-scream-has-gone-viral-again-136661">Why ‘The Scream’ has gone viral again</a>
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<p>In <em>Contagion</em>, Teresa Burrows creates a shrine-like installation of <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/corporate/organizational-structure/canada-chief-public-health-officer.html">Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer</a> using a uses a rapid antigen test to frame this. </p>
<p>In Burrows’ image, Tam looks upwards, as if in a trance, and is surrounded by green beads imitating the COVID-19 virus. In the early days of the pandemic, Dr. Tam was constantly on national TV and social media, like a diviner laying out warnings. </p>
<h2>Winnipeg as ‘psychic centre’</h2>
<p>One hundred years ago, as Winnipeggers were coming out of the 1918-19 influenza pandemic, Doyle offered what seemed to be evidence of life continuing after death. </p>
<p>After siting with the Hamiltons in their seance laboratory, in a July 5 1923 letter to Lillian Hamilton, Doyle described Winnipeg as a “psychic centre,” in many ways divining Winnipeg’s loss of status as “<a href="https://manitobamuseum.ca/archives/15742">Chicago of the North</a>,” offering an alternative moniker. </p>
<p>The idea of Winnipeg as a supernatural place has been taken up by artists and authors, exemplified by filmmaker <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iU1sjdTPdvM">Guy Maddin’s <em>My Winnipeg</em></a>, as well as the exhibition art, much of it created during COVID-19 lockdowns. </p>
<p>As we emerge from our pandemic, it is interesting to think back on Hamilton’s post-pandemic experimental seances and wonder: What form might our grieving take?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210179/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Serena Keshavjee receives funding from SSHRC. </span></em></p>An art exhibit, ‘The Undead Archive: 100 Years of Photographing Ghosts,’ sees contemporary artists contextualize uncanny photographs taken between the World Wars in Winnipeg.Serena Keshavjee, Professor, History, University of WinnipegLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2013232023-04-06T09:06:49Z2023-04-06T09:06:49ZWhat science can tell us about the experience of unexplainable presence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516614/original/file-20230321-20-jd9dd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C0%2C5614%2C3666&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The experience of feeling a presence can be unnerving</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/blurred-mysterious-man-back-camera-standing-1881502204">Raggedstone/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you’ve ever had the eerie sensation there’s a presence in the room when you were sure you were alone, you may be reluctant to admit it. Perhaps it was a profound experience that you are happy to share with others. Or – more likely – it was something in between the two. </p>
<p>Unless you had an explanation to help you process the experience, most people will struggle to grasp what happened to them. But now research is showing this ethereal experience is something we can understand, using scientific models of the mind, the body, and the relationship between the two.</p>
<p>One of the largest studies on the topic was carried out as long ago as 1894. The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) published their <a href="https://archivesearch.lib.cam.ac.uk/repositories/2/archival_objects/630399">Census of Hallucinations</a>, a survey of more than 17,000 people in the UK, US and Europe. The survey aimed to understand how common it was for people to have seemingly impossible visitations that foretold death. The SPR concluded that such experiences happened too often to be down to chance (one in every 43 people that were surveyed). </p>
<p>In 1886, the SPR (which numbered former UK prime minister William Gladstone and poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson among its patrons) published <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/phantasms-of-the-living/9F0A0E709528D2C0EAC348FF83065921">Phantasms of the Living</a>. This collection included 701 cases of telepathy, premonitions and other unusual phenomena. For instance, the Reverend P H Newnham, of Devonport in Plymouth, told the story of a visit to New Zealand, where a night-time presence warned him away from joining a boat trip at dawn the next morning. He later learnt that all on the voyage had drowned. </p>
<p>At the time, phantasms was criticised for being unscientific. The census was received with less scepticism, but it still suffered from response bias (who would bother responding to such a survey except those with something to say). But such experiences live on in homes across the world, and contemporary science offers ideas for understanding them. </p>
<h2>Not such sweet dreams</h2>
<p>Many of the accounts SPR collected sound like hypnagogia: hallucinatory experiences that happen on the boundaries of sleep. It has <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(18)30138-X/fulltext">been suggested that</a> several religious experiences recorded in the 19th century have a basis in hypnagogia. Presences have a particularly strong link with sleep paralysis, experienced by <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3156892/">around 7% of adults</a> at least once in their life. In sleep paralysis our muscles remain frozen as a hangover from REM sleep, but our mind is active and awake. Studies <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=D&q=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17574867/&ust=1678277280000000&usg=AOvVaw15x6rBEx6rOlY61uhbMcC6&hl=en&source=gmail">have suggested</a> more than 50% of people with sleep paralysis report encountering a presence. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Young girl asleep watching over herself" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516615/original/file-20230321-955-3snn6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516615/original/file-20230321-955-3snn6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516615/original/file-20230321-955-3snn6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516615/original/file-20230321-955-3snn6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516615/original/file-20230321-955-3snn6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516615/original/file-20230321-955-3snn6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516615/original/file-20230321-955-3snn6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">When we feel an eerie presence it could just be us.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-girl-waking-again-when-soul-240138820">sezer66/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While the Victorian presences documented by the SPR were often benign or comforting, modern examples of presence triggered by sleep paralysis tend to exude malevolence. Societies around the world have their own stories about nighttime presences – from the Portuguese “little friar with the pierced hand” (<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5013036/">Fradinho da Mao Furada</a>) who could infiltrate people’s dreams, to the <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17379609/">Ogun Oru</a> of the Yoruba people in Nigeria, which was believed to be a product of victims being bewitched. </p>
<p>But why would an experience such as paralysis create a feeling of presence? Some researchers have focused on the specific characteristics of waking up in such an unusual situation. Most people find sleep paralysis scary, even without hallucinations. In 2007, sleep researchers <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17337212/">J. Allen Cheyne and Todd Girard</a> argued that if we wake paralysed and vulnerable, our instincts would make us feel threatened and our mind fills in the gap. If we are prey, there must be a predator.</p>
<p>Another approach is to look at the commonalities between visitations in sleep paralysis and other types of felt presence. Research over the past 25 years has shown presences are not only a regular part of the hypnagogic landscape, but also reported in <a href="https://psyarxiv.com/qykhd">Parkinson’s disease, psychosis, near-death experiences and bereavement</a>. This suggests that it’s unlikely to be a sleep-specific phenomenon. </p>
<h2>Mind-body connection</h2>
<p>We know from <a href="https://journals.lww.com/cogbehavneurol/abstract/1996/04000/unilaterally_felt__presences___the_neuropsychiatry.5.aspx">neurological case studies</a> and <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16988702/">brain stimulation experiments</a> that presences can be provoked by bodily cues. For example, in 2006 neurologist Shahar Arzy and colleagues were able to create a “shadow figure” that was experienced by a woman whose brain was being electrically stimulated in the left temporoparietal junction (TPJ). The figure seemed to mirror the woman’s body position – and the TPJ combines information about our senses and our bodies. </p>
<p>A series of experiments in 2014 also showed that disrupting people’s sensory expectations seems to <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25447995/">induce a feeling of presence</a> in some healthy people. The way the procedure the researchers used works is to trick you into feeling as if you are touching your own back, by synchronising your movements with a robot directly behind you. Our brains make sense of the synchronisation by inferring that we are producing that sensation. Then, when that synchronisation is disrupted – by making the robot touches slightly out of sync – people can suddenly feel like another person is present: a ghost in the machine. Changing the sensory expectations of the situation induces something like a hallucination. </p>
<p>That logic could also apply to a situation like sleep paralysis. All our usual information about our bodies and senses is disrupted in that context, so it’s perhaps no surprise that we may feel like there is something “other” there with us. We might feel like it’s another presence, but really, it’s us.</p>
<p>In my <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medicine/article/varieties-of-felt-presence-three-surveys-of-presence-phenomena-and-their-relations-to-psychopathology/C7DD60644076559D5685D51226693E5D">own research</a> in 2022, I tried to trace the similarities in presences from clinical accounts, spiritual practice and endurance sports (which are well known for <a href="https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/press-play-with-madeleine-brand/whats-different-about-u-s-deportation-policy-now/badwater-ultramarathon-sleepwalking-hallucinations-and-the-magic-of-death-valley">producing a range of hallucinatory phenomena</a>, including presence). In all of these situations, many aspects of the feeling of a presence were very similar: for example, the subject felt that the presence was directly behind them. Sleep-related presences were described by all three groups, but so were presences driven by emotional factors, such as grief and bereavement.</p>
<p>Despite its century-old origins, the science of felt presence has really only just begun. In the end, scientific research may give us one over-arching explanation, or we may need several theories to account for all these examples of presence. But the encounters people described in Phantasms of the Living aren’t phantoms of a bygone age. If you’re yet to have this unsettling experience, you probably know someone who has.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201323/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ben Alderson-Day receives funding from Wellcome and is the author of "Presence: The Strange Science and True Stories of the Unseen Other" (Manchester University Press). </span></em></p>It is deeply connected to sleep paralysis but that can’t explain everything.Ben Alderson-Day, Associate Professor of Psychology, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1972912023-03-13T16:38:54Z2023-03-13T16:38:54ZStarseeds: psychologists on why some people think they’re aliens living on Earth<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514273/original/file-20230308-24-wolhb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=53%2C0%2C6000%2C3979&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Welcome to the new reality.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/double-exposure-portrait-young-woman-close-1723327936">sun ok/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There’s a new group of people on Earth who believe they’re aliens.
Star people, or <a href="https://brill.com/display/book/9789004435537/BP000031.xml">starseeds</a>, are individuals who believe they have come to Earth from other dimensions to help heal the planet and guide humanity into the “golden age” – a period of great happiness, prosperity and achievement. </p>
<p>It might sound a little crazy but an internet search for the term brings up over 4 million results and there are scores of people posting videos on TikTok, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/starseed/?hl=en">Instagram</a> and Facebook who believe they originate from another world. Indeed, content with the term <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/starseed?lang=en">#starseed</a> has over 1 billion views on TikTok.</p>
<p>Unlike “Earth souls”, who are said to reincarnate on Earth, starseeds believe they have reawakened from another planet to be born here. <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Beginners-Guide-to-Starseeds/Whitney-Jefferson-Evans/9781507215364">Starseeds believe</a> they are conduits between divine realms and the Earth and that they can transport between galaxies via <a href="https://insighttimer.com/hypnolution/guided-meditations/starseed-activation-meditation">meditation</a>. Starseeds also believe they can communicate in “<a href="https://blog.mindvalley.com/light-language/">light language</a>” – a form of communication that is said to bypass human limitations and be the language of the soul.</p>
<p>The idea is widely credited to the author <a href="https://www.waterstones.com/author/brad-steiger/320608">Brad Steiger</a> who wrote prolifically about the unknown and was keenly interested in alien life and extraterrestrials. In his 1976 book, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/894911">Gods of Aquarius</a>, Steiger introduced his notion that some people originate from other dimensions. </p>
<p>Believers claim there are several ways to tell if you are a starseed. These include searching for meaning in life and feeling a lack of belonging. Being spiritual and possessing a strong sense of intuition (knowing) are also qualities of a starseed. </p>
<p>They are also said to be empathetic, sensitive and have more <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=q8L657GHi6kC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=starseed+mental+and+physical+health+problems&ots=YZ263SVYMB&sig=rbmofx2MVrP6MExxKJjQkkmszX0#v=onepage&q=starseed%20mental%20and%20physical%20health%20problems&f=false">physical and mental health issues</a> as their souls aren’t used to having a human body. Starseeds want to help humanity. But they get overwhelmed by life on Earth and so recharge by spending time alone.</p>
<p>Believers also say that starseeds have the desire to explore and experience new cultures and spheres, which help star people to then provide novel insights into existence. Examples include <a href="https://theconversation.com/conspiracy-theories-start-to-take-hold-at-age-14-study-suggests-156006">new (conspiracy) theories</a> about society, holistic health interventions along with thoughts on <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/ancient-sites-built-by-aliens">ancient aliens and civilisations</a>.</p>
<h2>Choose your reality</h2>
<p>You might recognise some aspects of yourself in the above description. Many people, for example, report <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/11/18/finding-meaning-in-what-one-does/">searching for meaning in life</a> along with <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00332747.2015.1015867">feeling displaced</a> or like they <a href="https://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/newsroom/newsn/11261/feeling-like-you-dont-belong-racial-and-identity-based-insults-and-slights-can-lower-self-esteem-and-damage-quality-of-life">don’t belong</a> at times. </p>
<p>Indeed, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00332747.2015.1015867#:%7E:text=Conclusions%3A%20Sense%20of%20belonging%20is,in%20the%20treatment%20of%20depression.">research shows</a> that a low sense of belonging is often linked to depression. But what makes some people who are experiencing such feelings <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/oct/17/eva-wiseman-conspirituality-the-dark-side-of-wellness-how-it-all-got-so-toxic">jump to the conclusion</a> that they must be from another planet? Particularly given that no life beyond Earth has ever been found and there is <a href="https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/about/">no evidence</a> that alien life has ever visited Earth.</p>
<p>Welcome to the <a href="https://neurofied.com/barnum-effect-the-reason-why-we-believe-our-horoscopes/">Forer effect</a>. Named after <a href="http://apsychoserver.psych.arizona.edu/jjbareprints/psyc621/forer_the%20fallacy%20of%20personal%20validation_1949.pdf">Bertram Forer</a>, the psychologist who first figured out that it was pretty easy to get people to agree with vague descriptions about themselves – see horoscopes.</p>
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<p>The concept of starseeds is a form of <a href="https://www.icsahome.com/articles/what-is-new-age-langone">new age belief</a>. The term refers to <a href="https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-319-08956-0_78-1">alternative spiritual practices</a> that developed during the 1970s. </p>
<p>Although each <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/10/01/new-age-beliefs-common-among-both-religious-and-nonreligious-americans/">new age belief</a> is different, philosophies share common features: they view existence in terms of the universe and focus on spirituality as well as <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10253860500241930?casa_token=Rz5YQdqjZhcAAAAA%3A_g8SOXBuZsO5Ftgb4lWC7AnBRgnbB1TtAFM9LJUS1Ru7K9jTJvLlz4pIt8e1eLj9LBWyDH6UEO">the self</a>. Think crystals, energy healing and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-science-of-why-so-many-people-believe-in-psychic-powers-102088">psychic abilities</a>.</p>
<p>Other features include <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3705678/#:%7E:text=Reincarnation%20is%20the%20religious%20or,of%20the%20previous%20life's%20actions.">reincarnation</a>, <a href="https://www.livescience.com/41462-what-is-karma.html">karma</a> and the possibility of reaching a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136466131630002X">higher level of consciousness</a>.</p>
<p>Support for <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2012-21330-003">new age beliefs</a> – such as starseeds – is <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/10/01/new-age-beliefs-common-among-both-religious-and-nonreligious-americans/">on the rise</a>. It comes from a <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/distrust-in-science-is-causing-harm-but-these-researchers-have-a-plan#:%7E:text=Distrust%20of%20science%20is%20a,often%20stickier%20than%20the%20truth.">distrust of science</a> and doubts about <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-reality-a-game-of-quantum-mirrors-a-new-theory-suggests-it-might-be-162936">conventional perceptions of reality</a>. Particularly, cynicism about <a href="https://apnews.com/article/covid-technology-health-government-and-politics-new-york-cfb56a95aec23dddbabcf3ebbe839f05">modern society</a> and an attempt to find meaning in life. </p>
<h2>Fantasy v fiction</h2>
<p>Certain personality characteristics may also incline some people to believe in the notion of starseeds. For instance, if you are <a href="https://metro.co.uk/2020/09/11/overactive-imagination-you-might-have-a-fantasy-prone-personality-type-13247464/">fantasy prone</a> and often confuse imaginary and real events you may see the theory of alien consciousness as profound and desirable.</p>
<p>In psychological terms, this is known as a <a href="https://escholarship.org/content/qt2t1731dw/qt2t1731dw.pdf">source monitoring error</a>, which is a type of unconscious memory error whereby a person gets confused between what’s real and accurate and what’s unreal and imagined. </p>
<p>It’s commonly seen in schizophrenia and research has found links between <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165178117312301">schizotypal personality disorder</a> – a common disorder considered to be a mild form of schizophrenia – and belief in conspiracy theories.</p>
<p>A further effect that can encourage such beliefs is what’s known as <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2158244018809874#:%7E:text=Ontological%20confusion%20is%20a%20set,possibly%20caused%20by%20categorical%20trespassing.">ontological confusion</a>. This occurs when people cannot discriminate between <a href="https://www.psypost.org/2018/11/people-who-are-religious-and-ontologically-confused-are-more-likely-to-share-pseudo-profound-bullshit-52583#:%7E:text=For%20example%2C%20ontologically%2Dconfused%20people,more%20likely%20to%20be%20shared.">metaphorical and factual</a> statements such as: “Old furniture knows things about the past.” These may be interpreted more literally than metaphorically and so make it more likely that people then endorse pseudoscientific, transcendental theories. </p>
<p>This is especially true when the source of the information is perceived to be trustworthy and knowledgeable. Dubbed <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/the-einstein-effect-people-trust-nonsense-from-scientists-more-than-spiritual-gurus#:%7E:text=The%20authors%20think%20their%20results,the%20social%20credibility%20they%20possess.">the Einstein effect</a>, this is where trusted sources of information are given more credence because of the social credibility they possess. </p>
<p>In the case of starseeds, <a href="https://www.waterstones.com/book/letters-to-a-starseed/rebecca-campbell/9781788175876">several books</a> published by <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/The-Beginners-Guide-to-Starseeds/Whitney-Jefferson-Evans/9781507215371">big publishing houses</a> may provide a sense of authenticity and so too does the fact that a number of them are bestsellers. Indeed, it seems life as we know it, may not be as straightforward as we once imagined.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197291/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>We’ve spent ages learning about the people who think they’ve come from another planet, so you don’t have to.Ken Drinkwater, Senior Lecturer and Researcher in Cognitive and Parapsychology, Manchester Metropolitan UniversityAndrew Denovan, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, University of HuddersfieldNeil Dagnall, Reader in Applied Cognitive Psychology, Manchester Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1877462022-10-03T12:06:27Z2022-10-03T12:06:27ZWhat is déjà vu? Psychologists are exploring this creepy feeling of having already lived through an experience before<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482853/original/file-20220906-22-6ddelb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=732%2C310%2C4526%2C3518&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How can someplace you've never been feel so familiar?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/girl-walking-through-door-royalty-free-image/646061622">mrs/Moment via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/curious-kids-us-74795">Curious Kids</a> is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">curiouskidsus@theconversation.com</a>.</em></p>
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<p><strong>Why do people experience déjà vu? – Atharva P., age 10, Bengaluru, India</strong></p>
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<p>Have you ever had that weird feeling that you’ve <a href="http://onlyhumanaps.blogspot.com/2008/10/">experienced the same exact situation before</a>, even though that’s impossible? Sometimes it can even seem like you’re reliving something that already happened. This phenomenon, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.129.3.394">known as déjà vu</a>, has puzzled philosophers, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/archneurpsyc.1959.02340150001001">neurologists</a> and <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25118382">writers</a> for a <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Cavendish_Lecture/Dg41AQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0">very long time</a>.</p>
<p>Starting in the late 1800s, <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Deja-Vu-Experience/Cleary-Brown/p/book/9780367273200">many theories began to emerge</a> regarding what might cause déjà vu, which means “already seen” in French. People thought maybe it stemmed from mental dysfunction or perhaps a type of brain problem. Or maybe it was a temporary hiccup in the otherwise normal operation of human memory. But the topic did not reach the realm of science until quite recently.</p>
<h2>Moving from the paranormal to the scientific</h2>
<p>Early in this millennium, a scientist named Alan Brown decided to conduct a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.129.3.394">review of everything researchers had written about déjà vu</a> until that point. Much of what he could find had a paranormal flavor, having to do with the supernatural – things like past lives or psychic abilities. But he also found studies that surveyed regular people about their déjà vu experiences. From all these papers, Brown was able to glean some basic findings on the déjà vu phenomenon.</p>
<p>For example, Brown determined that roughly two thirds of people experience déjà vu at some point in their lives. He determined that the most common trigger of déjà vu is a scene or place, and the next most common trigger is a conversation. He also reported on hints throughout a century or so of medical literature of a possible association between déjà vu and some types of seizure activity in the brain.</p>
<p>Brown’s review brought the topic of déjà vu into the realm of more mainstream science, because it appeared in both a scientific journal that scientists who study cognition tend to read, and also <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Deja-Vu-Experience/Brown/p/book/9781138006010">in a book</a> aimed at scientists. His work served as a catalyst for scientists to design experiments to investigate déjà vu.</p>
<h2>Testing déjà vu in the psychology lab</h2>
<p>Prompted by Brown’s work, my own research team began conducting experiments aimed at testing hypotheses about possible mechanisms of déjà vu. We <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Deja-Vu-Experience/Cleary-Brown/p/book/9780367273200">investigated a near century-old hypothesis</a> that suggested déjà vu can happen when there’s a spatial resemblance between a current scene and an unrecalled scene in your memory. Psychologists called this the Gestalt familiarity hypothesis.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482854/original/file-20220906-25-tky7ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="brightly lit area of a hospital with workers and patients" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482854/original/file-20220906-25-tky7ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482854/original/file-20220906-25-tky7ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482854/original/file-20220906-25-tky7ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482854/original/file-20220906-25-tky7ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482854/original/file-20220906-25-tky7ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482854/original/file-20220906-25-tky7ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482854/original/file-20220906-25-tky7ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Maybe the layout of a new place is very similar to somewhere else you’ve been, but that you aren’t consciously remembering.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/nurses-station-in-hospital-royalty-free-image/906005394">FS Productions/Tetra images via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>For example, imagine you’re passing the nursing station in a hospital unit on your way to visit a sick friend. Although you’ve never been to this hospital before, you are struck with a feeling that you have. The underlying cause for this experience of déjà vu could be that the layout of the scene, including the placement of the furniture and the particular objects within the space, have the same layout as a different scene that you did experience in the past.</p>
<p>Maybe the way the nursing station is situated – the furniture, the items on the counter, the way it connects to the corners of the hallway – is the same as how a set of welcome tables was arranged relative to signs and furniture in a hallway at the entrance to a school event you attended a year earlier. According to the Gestalt familiarity hypothesis, if that previous situation with a similar layout to the current one doesn’t come to mind, you might be left only with a strong feeling of familiarity for the current one.</p>
<p>To investigate this idea in the laboratory, my team used virtual reality to place people within scenes. That way we could manipulate the environments people found themselves in – some scenes shared the same spatial layout while otherwise being distinct. As predicted, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2011.12.010">déjà vu was more likely to happen</a> when people were in a scene that contained the same spatial arrangement of elements as an earlier scene they viewed but didn’t recall.</p>
<p>This research suggests that one contributing factor to déjà vu can be spatial resemblance of a new scene to one in memory that fails to be consciously called to mind at the moment. However, it does not mean that spatial resemblance is the only cause of déjà vu. Very likely, many factors can contribute to what makes a scene or a situation feel familiar. More research is underway to investigate additional possible factors at play in this mysterious phenomenon.</p>
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<p><em>Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com</a>. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anne Cleary is a member of the American Psychological Association Council of Representatives.</span></em></p>While people have wondered about déjà vu for a long time, only recently have scientists started experimentally investigating what might trigger it.Anne Cleary, Professor of Cognitive Psychology, Colorado State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1213852019-08-30T12:38:45Z2019-08-30T12:38:45ZWhy do people believe in curses?<p>Strictly Come Dancing, the TV show which pairs celebrities with professional dancers to compete in a ballroom dancing competition, has apparently been the cause of a number of divorces, break-ups, and scandals. This “<a href="https://www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2019-08-19/strictly-come-dancing-strictly-curse-affairs-break-ups/">Strictly curse</a>” is not helped by the show’s demanding schedule, long practice hours, and intimate dancing. </p>
<p>Strictly is not the only modern curse featured in the media of late. The <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-49125467">curse of the Tour de France</a> returned, with the failure of a French rider to win the <a href="https://usimmigrationupdate.com/french-cyclists-hit-again-by-curse-of-tour-de-france-bbc-news/">cycling race</a>. Hopes that Julian Alaphillippe would this year end the 34-year drought were dashed.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the rapper Drake has been linked to a series of <a href="https://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/the-drake-curse-best-times-it-struck-down-sports-teams-athletes-2487702">sporting failures</a> over the years. The Drake curse <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-47947155">was broken</a>, however, when his team (the Raptors) won their first basketball championship earlier this summer. Other popular culture “curses” around James Dean’s <a href="https://sg.news.yahoo.com/curse-james-dean-porsche-550-010003800.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAF2ZVBzvFXEOzvnoMUgY8skG7UrCeRorWZqdpvaG_S4h25uBQpsuPmuhd4IF81thP1olYYRZm2M4UM9fnKeCgNd8_vW2c4TpA8cF8uNnsXs6roX4sjdbWZXpXeiVeqN9uKxf8ToZc2suFf0VKmK7OMf6gKX2xIJWf5xKupt25V5l">car</a> and the next <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/jun/07/james-bond-25-film-cursed">James Bond</a> film, have also circulated of late.</p>
<p>What’s this all about? Most people these days surely don’t believe in supernatural curses. But their prevalence in the media suggests that they still have a hold on psyches, and that a good amount of people still pay credence to them.</p>
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<h2>Rational explanations</h2>
<p>From a scientific perspective, curses have rational explanations. These clarify why people directly ascribe supernatural powers to negative events.</p>
<p>For instance, belief in curses can arise from thinking style. Psychologist Daniel Kahneman has <a href="http://reflectd.co/2016/02/24/thinking-styles/">proposed</a> that there are two distinct modes of decision making. System 1 is automatic, rapid and largely unconscious. Subsequently, this system is intuitive and prone to biases and systematic errors. In contrast, System 2 is controlled, slow, effortful, and produces rational thought. So, perhaps people believe in curses because their spontaneous, subjective, System 1 thinking predominates.</p>
<p>Endorsement of curses may also stem from the desire to make sense of the world; ascribe meaning to chaos. Why do people sometimes see faces in clouds or Jesus in their toast? We have a tendency to find meaningful patterns in meaningless noise: which some call <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/reality-play/201207/being-amused-apophenia">apophenia</a> and others <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/patternicity-finding-meaningful-patterns/">patternicity</a>. In the case of curses, this can cause people to see links between random events and wrongly attribute misfortune and bad luck to a magical hex rather than factors such as chance and human error.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290279/original/file-20190830-165972-1eh7rip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290279/original/file-20190830-165972-1eh7rip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290279/original/file-20190830-165972-1eh7rip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290279/original/file-20190830-165972-1eh7rip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290279/original/file-20190830-165972-1eh7rip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290279/original/file-20190830-165972-1eh7rip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290279/original/file-20190830-165972-1eh7rip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Cloud or dragon?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/clouds-shaped-like-dragon-1065151103?src=-1-2">Phloxii/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
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<p>Those who believe in curses may also be susceptible to the <a href="http://www.howtogetyourownway.com/effects/barnum_effect.html">Barnum</a> or Forer Effect. This is where people wrongly infer that general information has specific personal relevance. In the context of curses, this might explain the tendency to associate general misfortune with particular, personally significant jinxes. </p>
<h2>Psychological influences</h2>
<p>A belief in curses, once it exists, is often reinforced by other psychological tendencies.</p>
<p>Believers in curses may look for affirming evidence, such as potentially related bad luck, and discount contradictory data. This confirmatory bias produces coherent, but logically inconsistent narratives supporting the presumption of supernatural forces. </p>
<p>This was true of the curse of Tutankhamun, for example. This derived from the general notion that a curse would befall anyone who broke into a pharaoh’s burial site. At the time of the excavation of Tutankhamun’s tomb, the archaeologists suffered no misfortune. But as a result of press coverage about “the pharaoh’s curse”, subsequent deaths and misfortunes of the archaeology team became associated with the curse. Similarly, the movies Poltergeist and The Omen have over time acquired a reputation <a href="https://www.historytoday.com/archive/months-past/tutankhamuns-curse">as cursed</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290281/original/file-20190830-166005-1jeocn7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290281/original/file-20190830-166005-1jeocn7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290281/original/file-20190830-166005-1jeocn7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290281/original/file-20190830-166005-1jeocn7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290281/original/file-20190830-166005-1jeocn7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290281/original/file-20190830-166005-1jeocn7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290281/original/file-20190830-166005-1jeocn7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tutankhamun.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/funeral-mask-pharoah-tutankhamun-754025107?src=-1-4">Sean M Smith/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The power of curses to influence people stems from belief in their veracity. This often arises from an external locus of control, where people feel unable to influence events. In the absence of perceived control, people become more accepting of mysterious, external forces. Psychologists refer to this as <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/moments-matter/201708/locus-control">magical thinking</a>.</p>
<p>In addition, belief in curses is associated with certain personality characteristics. Particularly, tolerance of ambiguity and neuroticism. Tolerance of ambiguity describes the degree to which an individual can <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/anger-in-the-age-entitlement/200902/uncertainty-is-your-friend-part-i">cope with uncertainty</a>. People with low tolerance of ambiguity tend to look for closure. This manifests as the failure to critically consider evidence and to jump to conclusions. These factors can lead to indiscriminate, premature acceptance of material. Neuroticism, meanwhile, can facilitate worry, concern and rumination about curses.</p>
<p>In extreme cases, belief in curses can undermine confidence in oneself and one’s future success. Psychologists refer to this as self-fulfilling prophecy. This is where belief in a curse produces the perception of inevitable misfortune. Indeed, the mere suggestion of bad luck can produce negative outcomes. Researchers call this the <a href="https://www.brainblogger.com/2009/07/15/the-curse-of-the-nocebo-effect">Nocebo Effect</a>.</p>
<h2>Social factors</h2>
<p>The influence of curses also originates from their grounding in culture. Specifically, through education and social narratives, the notion of curses perpetuates over time. Consequently, they become culturally acceptable and in some instances plausible. For example, the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20180216-the-strange-power-of-the-evil-eye">evil eye</a> has a long tradition around the world. This derives from the belief that someone who achieves great success also attracts the envy of those around them, manifesting itself as a curse that will undo their good fortune. </p>
<p>Socially, media coverage can induce the notion that curses exist. A recent example is the <a href="https://www.nme.com/blogs/what-is-momo-your-guide-to-the-horrifying-meme-billed-as-the-new-slenderman-2364215">Momo Challenge</a>. This spread via WhatsApp and involved the appearance of a creepy, Japanese sculpture accompanied by instructions to perform dangerous tasks. The communication also predicted unfortunate consequences if the receiver failed to follow instructions, or pass on the message. This story went viral and caused children and parents great anxiety. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1101230074601320448"}"></div></p>
<p>Although there is of course no scientific evidence to support the supernatural basis of curses, they can still have a powerful psychological influence on people. Believing in curses can undermine decision making, well-being and self confidence. In extreme cases, they can also facilitate unusual ideas, undermine critical thinking and produce <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/football/2012/apr/25/the-knowledge-football-curses">odd behaviours</a>.</p>
<p>Despite evidence to the contrary, some curses are compelling. So it will be interesting to see whether forthcoming contestants in Strictly Come Dancing avoid the bad luck associated with previous series.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121385/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From Strictly Come Dancing to the Tour de France ‘curses’ have rational explanations. Here, psychologists discuss why belief in them persists.Ken Drinkwater, Senior Lecturer and Researcher in Cognitive and Parapsychology, Manchester Metropolitan UniversityNeil Dagnall, Reader in Applied Cognitive Psychology, Manchester Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1020882019-02-04T16:03:59Z2019-02-04T16:03:59ZThe science of why so many people believe in psychic powers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242272/original/file-20181025-71011-oqlp4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Mind reading and the ability to predict the future are not skills people generally associate with the human race. Yet, research shows many people genuinely believe in the <a href="https://www.livescience.com/16748-americans-beliefs-paranormal-infographic.html">existence of psychic powers</a>.</p>
<p>You would think that instances of proven psychic fraud over the years would weaken the credibility of psychic claims. There have been historical cases, such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lajos_Pap">Lajos Pap</a>, the Hungarian spiritualist medium, who was found to be faking animal appearances at seances. And then more recently, self described psychic James Hydrick was revealed as a trickster. Hydrick confessed his paranormal demonstrations were <a href="https://boingboing.net/2015/07/21/classic-video-james-randi-exp.html">tricks learned in prison</a>.</p>
<p>Another notable example involved televangelist Peter Popoff. His wife used a wireless transmitter to broadcast information about sermon attendees to Popoff via an earpiece. Popoff claimed to receive this <a href="http://thesplendorofthechurch.com/2017/11/12/born-again-televangelist-peter-popoff-exposed-as-a-fraud/">information by paranormal means</a> and rose to fame hosting a nationally televised programme, during which he performed seemingly miraculous cures on audience members.</p>
<p>But despite such cases, there are still many people who firmly believe in the power of psychic ability. <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/16915/three-four-americans-believe-paranormal.aspx">According to a US Gallup survey</a>, for example, more than one-quarter of people believe humans have psychic abilities – such as telepathy and clairvoyance.</p>
<h2>The believers</h2>
<p>A recent report may help to shed some light on why people continue to believe in psychic powers. The study <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758%2Fs13421-015-0563-x">tested believers and sceptics</a> with the same level of education and academic performance and found that people who believe in psychic powers think less analytically. This means that they tend to interpret the world from a subjective personal perspective and fail to consider information critically. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-top-three-scientific-explanations-for-ghost-sightings-58259">The top three scientific explanations for ghost sightings</a>
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<p>Believers also often view <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2016/oct/31/did-a-memory-experiment-really-show-evidence-for-psychic-abilities">psychic claims as confirmatory evidence</a> – regardless of their evidential basis. The case of Chris Robinson, who refers to himself as a “dream detective”, demonstrates this. </p>
<p>Robinson claims to have foreseen terrorist attacks, <a href="https://nypost.com/2016/08/01/meet-the-psychic-who-uses-gift-to-solve-fbi-cold-cases/">disasters and celebrity deaths</a>. His assertions derive from limited and questionable evidence. Tests conducted by Gary Schwartz at the University of Arizona provided support for Robinson’s ability, however, other researchers using similar methods <a href="http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread885689/pg1">failed to confirm Schwartz’s conclusion</a>.</p>
<h2>Vague and general</h2>
<p>Psychic claims are often general and vague – such as foretelling a plane crash or celebrity death – and this is in part why so many people believe in the possibility of psychic abilities.</p>
<p>This is known as <a href="http://psych.fullerton.edu/mbirnbaum/psych101/barnum_demo.htm">The Barnum effect</a>, a common psychological phenomenon whereby people tend to accept vague, general personality descriptions as uniquely applicable to themselves. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242273/original/file-20181025-71011-6l7xhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242273/original/file-20181025-71011-6l7xhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242273/original/file-20181025-71011-6l7xhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242273/original/file-20181025-71011-6l7xhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242273/original/file-20181025-71011-6l7xhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242273/original/file-20181025-71011-6l7xhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242273/original/file-20181025-71011-6l7xhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A psychic medium is someone who is believed to have extrasensory powers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBXRzdzFnHk">Research for example</a>, has shown that individuals give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically to them, that are in fact vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people. The name references the circus man Phineas Taylor Barnum, who had a reputation as a master psychological manipulator.</p>
<h2>Impossible to validate</h2>
<p>Many psychic claims have also proved impossible to confirm. A classic illustration is Uri Geller’s contention that he “willed” the football to move during a <a href="http://www.urigeller.com/how-i-moved-the-football-during-euro-96/">penalty kick at Euro 96</a>. The ball movement occurred spontaneously in an uncontrolled environment and Geller made the claim retrospectively. </p>
<p>When professed abilities are subject to scientific scrutiny researchers generally discredit them. This was true of Derek Ogilvie in the 2007 TV documentary The Million Dollar Mind Reader. Investigation concluded Ogilvie genuinely believed he possessed powers, but was not actually able to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2006/jun/19/familyandrelationships.tvandradio">read babies’ minds</a>. </p>
<p>And when scientists have endorsed psychic claims, <a href="http://www.urigeller.com/documentaries/summary-of-the-sri-experiments/">criticism has typically followed</a>. This occurred in the 1970s when physicists Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff published a paper in the prestigious journal Nature, which supported the notion that Uri Geller possessed genuine psychic ability.
Psychologists, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=L-SSHIVt30cC&pg=PA443&lpg=PA443&dq=Ray+Hyman+uri+geller+wall&source=bl&ots=pVdBWGUKpX&sig=31jz9cUM6RTOdppBmM-rHaEcVvg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjy4b-zpePfAhWG2KQKHb_0C_YQ6AEwHHoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=Ray%20Hyman%20uri%20geller%20wall&f=false">such as Ray Hyman</a> refuted this – highlighting major methodological flaws. These included a hole in the laboratory wall that afforded views of drawings that Geller “psychically” reproduced. </p>
<h2>Mixed evidence</h2>
<p>Another factor that facilitates belief in psychic ability is the existence of scientific research that provides positive findings. This reinforces believers’ views that claims are genuine and phenomenon real, but ignores that fact that published studies are often criticised and replication is necessary in order for general acceptance to occur.</p>
<p>One prominent example of this was a paper produced by social psychologist Daryl Bem in the high-quality Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. It was said the research showed support for the existence of precognition (conscious cognitive awareness) and premonition (affective apprehension) <a href="https://www.apa.org/pubs/highlights/psyccritiques-spotlight/issue-11.aspx">of a future event</a>. But other researchers <a href="https://www.csicop.org/si/show/failure_to_replicate_results_of_bem_parapsychology_experiments_published_by">failed to reproduce these results</a>.</p>
<h2>Mind set</h2>
<p>So it seems that despite occurrences of fakery, forgery and fraudulence – as well as mixed evidence – people will still continue to believe in psychic phenomena. cIndeed, <a href="https://today.yougov.com/topics/entertainment/articles-reports/2017/10/31/1-3-americans-feel-they-have-experienced-psychic-m">research has shown that</a> one in three Americans feel they have experienced a psychic moment – and nearly half of US women claim they have felt the presence of a spirit.</p>
<p>Whether this is down to lack of analytical skills, genuine experiences, or just in a bid to make the world a little bit more interesting, it seems believers will continue to believe – despite science indicating otherwise.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102088/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Over a quarter of people believe that humans have psychic abilities.Neil Dagnall, Reader in Applied Cognitive Psychology, Manchester Metropolitan UniversityKen Drinkwater, Senior Lecturer and Researcher in Cognitive and Parapsychology, Manchester Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/989202018-07-06T10:37:31Z2018-07-06T10:37:31ZThe monster festival – a pilgrimage to small town America<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226323/original/file-20180705-122256-108s5km.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A restaurant in Bishopville, S.C. markets the town's association to the Lizard Man.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joseph P. Laycock</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One of my hobbies is dragging my patient wife to small towns to study beliefs and practices related to <a href="http://www.dictionary.com/browse/cryptozoology">cryptozoology</a> – the hunt for creatures, from Bigfoot to the Loch Ness Monster, whose existence hasn’t been scientifically proven.</p>
<p>In 2018, our summer “vacation” included a stop in Bishopville, South Carolina, to attend the first annual Lizard Man festival. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lizard_Man_of_Scape_Ore_Swamp">The Lizard Man of Scape Ore swamp</a> terrorized Lee County in 1988 – and, <a href="http://www.wistv.com/story/7948448/lizard-man-returns">according to some</a>, continues to do so today. </p>
<p>Bishopville isn’t the only town to turn local reports of terrifying paranormal encounters into annual festivals. Point Pleasant, West Virginia, has <a href="http://bulletin.equinoxpub.com/2012/09/west-virginia-is-one-big-portal-reflections-on-the-eleventh-annual-mothman-festival-part-1/">the Mothman festival</a>, while Flatwoods, West Virginia, has a festival honoring the <a href="http://www.braxtonwv.org/FlatwoodsMonsterInfo.aspx">Braxton County monster</a>. And every year, you can go to Fouke, Arkansas, to celebrate <a href="https://www.arkansas.com/blog/post/boggy-creek-festival-in-fouke/">the Beast of Boggy Creek</a>. </p>
<p>Cryptozoology isn’t a religion. But in his book “<a href="https://www.abc-clio.com/ABC-CLIOCorporate/product.aspx?pc=A3296C">Haunted Ground: Journeys Through Paranormal America</a>,” Darryl Caterine argues that certain “paranormal hot spots” function like American sacred spaces – at least, for certain people. </p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=4EKx-aoAAAAJ&hl=en">As a professor of religious studies</a>, I am fascinated by the people who visit these small communities in search of strange creatures, and why many of these small towns have come to embrace their roles as pilgrimage sites.</p>
<h2>The legend of Lizard Man</h2>
<p>Cryptid researcher Lyle Blackburn probably gives the best account of the Lizard Man saga in his book “<a href="https://www.anomalistbooks.com/book.cfm?id=77">Lizard Man: The True Story of the Bishopville Monster</a>.” </p>
<p>In July 1988, the Lee County Sheriff’s Office received a call from a resident in a small community called Browntown complaining that their car had been “mauled” overnight, apparently by an animal. </p>
<p>When <a href="https://wach.com/news/local/former-lee-county-sheriff-passes-away-at-86">Sheriff Liston Truesdale</a> began interviewing Browntown residents, several described seeing a 7-foot tall creature with red eyes – what someone eventually referred to as “the Lizard Man.” Truesdale put the word out that if anyone knew anything about the damaged car or a strange creature that they should contact him.</p>
<p>On July 16, resident Tommy Davis brought his 17-year-old son, Chris, to the sheriff’s office. Chris Davis explained that when he was heading home from his night shift at McDonald’s, he took a shortcut down a rural road and got a flat tire. After he finished changing it, he saw a 7-foot tall, green creature, with three fingers on each hand and red eyes. When Davis tried to drive away, it leaped onto the roof of his ’76 Celica. By swerving back and forth, Davis dislodged it and escaped. Truesdale – who had after all asked the community for information about strange creatures – believed Davis was telling the truth. Chris even took a polygraph test and passed.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226336/original/file-20180705-122268-1hzpp33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226336/original/file-20180705-122268-1hzpp33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226336/original/file-20180705-122268-1hzpp33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226336/original/file-20180705-122268-1hzpp33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226336/original/file-20180705-122268-1hzpp33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226336/original/file-20180705-122268-1hzpp33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226336/original/file-20180705-122268-1hzpp33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226336/original/file-20180705-122268-1hzpp33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The author on the road where Chris Davis claims he had his encounter with the Lizard Man.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joseph P. Laycock</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After Davis’ story went public, more sightings were reported, some plausible, some clearly fabrications. Soon armed parties were exploring along the swamp. The media descended on Bishopville. Locals began selling Lizard Man t-shirts and other merchandise. Sheriff Truesdale was interviewed by Good Morning America and CBS’ Dan Rather, and newspapers as far away as South Korea ran Lizard Man headlines.</p>
<p>To this day, the mystery hasn’t been solved, with <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/lizard-man-scares-south-carolina-residents_us_55c126ece4b05c05b01f67f4">alleged sightings</a> as recently as 2015. But the chain of events – a strange sighting, media attention, more sightings, followed by visits from curious tourists and monster hunters – have played out in towns across the country, from Point Pleasant to Roswell, New Mexico.</p>
<h2>A mystery that terrifies and fascinates</h2>
<p>If you believed a monster was real, why would you travel to its alleged lair?</p>
<p>Many find legends like the Lizard Man enthralling. But some become obsessed, longing to know more about something both mysterious and frightening. In these monster hunters, I see elements of religion.</p>
<p>The theologian Rudolf Otto believed there was an essence to religion he called “the numinous.” </p>
<p><a href="https://openlibrary.org/books/OL7160292M/The_idea_of_the_holy">Otto claimed</a> that religion is best understood by observing remote cultures where “its primal quality of impulse and instinct” remains intact. To Otto, the numinous is experienced as a <em>mysterium tremendum et fascinans</em> – a mystery that terrifies and fascinates. This feeling arises from an encounter with “the wholly other,” or that which we cannot understand.</p>
<p>While listening to a lecture in Bishopville from Matthew Delph of the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/1402338320064907/">Mountain Empire Cryptid Research Organization</a>, I thought of Otto. Delph described his encounter with a Bigfoot while hunting in Indiana, when the creature hurled a log that narrowly missed his head. (Some think Lizard Man was a misidentified Bigfoot.)</p>
<p>Delph recalled, “I was seeing something that’s not supposed to exist.” He was frightened but also haunted by the experience. He explained that his research isn’t so much about proving Bigfoot’s existence but rather a personal need to “face that fear.”</p>
<p>Other festival-goers were seeking less direct connections to the <em>mysterium</em> using material objects and ritual. One researcher explained why he took some bricks and wood from a famous “butterbean shed” near Davis’ alleged encounter, adding, “You want to take something tangible with you because the mystery is intangible.” </p>
<p>While touring the Scape Ore swamp, I heard one anecdote about the Boggy Creek festival in Fouke. Someone said they were such a fan of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fouke_Monster">the legend of Boggy Creek</a> they wanted to be “baptized” in the swamp. The comment was facetious, but it betrayed a desire to something to become more closely intertwined to the mystery. </p>
<p>Cryptozoology might not be a religion, but the first stages of ancient religions may not have looked much different from the practices that form around these cryptid legends.</p>
<h2>Misfits and locals mix</h2>
<p>To me, what makes monster festivals strange are not the creatures they celebrate, but rather the way they facilitate the intermingling of cultures that have traditionally defined themselves in opposition to each other.</p>
<p>The conventional wisdom is that struggling small towns should appeal to a nostalgic time when America was more conservative, more Christian and simpler – not stranger. To be sure, monster festivals always attract local families with smiling children. But to bring in tourism dollars, they have to draw other elements not easily reconciled with what architecture professor Kirin J. Maker calls “<a href="http://www.hws.edu/alumni/pssSummer14/main.aspx">the myth of main street</a>.”</p>
<p>There certainly exists what might be called a “cryptozoology tribe” that turns out for these festivals – cryptid fan culture has heavy overlap with horror movie fans, conspiracy theorists and a “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychobilly">psychobilly</a>” aesthetic. Black T-shirts, tattoos and patches for “The Misfits” abound.</p>
<p>These eccentric tastes may be part of the reason small towns usually don’t invest in monster festivals until they have to. The mutation of monsters from bizarre police reports into emblems of the community seems to go hand in hand with the destruction of small town economies by the forces of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/16/us/global-economy-taking-toll-on-small-towns.html">globalization and urbanization.</a></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226334/original/file-20180705-122247-i2fdyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226334/original/file-20180705-122247-i2fdyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226334/original/file-20180705-122247-i2fdyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226334/original/file-20180705-122247-i2fdyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226334/original/file-20180705-122247-i2fdyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226334/original/file-20180705-122247-i2fdyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226334/original/file-20180705-122247-i2fdyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226334/original/file-20180705-122247-i2fdyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Plaster Lizard Man prints and T-shirts on display at the South Carolina Cotton Museum.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joseph P. Laycock</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>John Stamey, the mastermind behind the Lizard Man festival, <a href="http://scpublicradio.org/post/30-years-later-legend-lizard-man-lives-bishopville">modeled it directly</a> on the Mothman Festival in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Like Point Pleasant, Bishopville has a struggling Main Street with empty storefronts.</p>
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<p>Here I see another connection to religious traditions. Pilgrimage has always been an economic phenomenon, and <a href="https://blog.oup.com/2011/12/pilgrimage/">many medieval towns</a> depended on stories of local miracles to draw pilgrims. By inviting in the cryptozoology tribe, today’s small towns are celebrating aspects of local culture that were once pushed to the periphery or mocked. But like the medieval towns of the past, their local economies are getting a nice little boost, too.</p>
<p>At the same time, these festivals draw middle-class urbanites like myself who want to learn more about places that many Americans have forgotten about or <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/11239.html">fail to understand</a>.</p>
<p>Surely, some in Bishopville would rather forget about the Lizard Man, while some Americans might not have any desire to learn about Bishopville. But America’s strange pilgrims keep drawing our attention to the edges.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98920/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph P. Laycock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Towns are embracing their eccentric visitors as a way to boost their struggling economies.Joseph P. Laycock, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Texas State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/935342018-06-20T08:26:16Z2018-06-20T08:26:16ZWhat lies behind ghosts, demons and aliens – according to sleep researchers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223618/original/file-20180618-85845-15vgp4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Captblack76/Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you believe in the paranormal you might not be surprised if you hear stories of deceased loved ones appearing during the night, huge explosions heard just as someone is drifting off with no obvious cause, and other peculiar occurrences. But what if you don’t?</p>
<p>My interest in the paranormal started with an impromptu coffee with a colleague, <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/christopher-french-168769">Chris French</a>, who researches reports of paranormal experiences. He told me stories of countless people who had recounted such events. These experiences tended to start while lying in bed. Then something unusual would happen – perhaps a demon would appear or the environment would seem strange or there would be a sensed presence. The person having this experience might also report being glued to their mattress, tarmacked into the bed, totally unable to move. </p>
<p>It’s unsurprising that people who experience such things might interpret them as paranormal. But certain phenomena such as <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/sleep-paralysis-9780199313808?q=brian%20sharpless&lang=en&cc=us">sleep paralysis</a> provide an alternative to paranormal explanations for such occurrences. Hence my interest in the subject, as a sleep researcher. </p>
<h2>Sleep paralysis</h2>
<p>When we sleep, we cycle through different stages. We start the night in non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep – which gets progressively deeper. We then cycle back until we hit rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. During REM sleep we are most likely to have vivid dreams. At this stage we are also paralysed, perhaps as a safety mechanism to stop us acting out our dreams so that we don’t end up attempting to fly. </p>
<p>But during sleep paralysis, features of REM sleep continue into waking life. Those who experience it will feel awake yet might experience dream-like hallucinations and struggle to move. This experience is pretty common, occurring in around 8% of people (although <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1087079211000098?via%3Dihub">estimates vary dramatically</a> depending on who we are asking). It’s even possible to <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1621022">induce sleep paralysis</a> in some people, by disrupting their sleep in specific ways.</p>
<p>Certain researchers, French among them, believe that this explains a huge number of paranormal accounts. Information about sleep paralysis is finally seeping into <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/kendall-jenner-sleep-paralysis_us_580a2833e4b0cdea3d86e413">public awareness</a>, but we now need to understand more about this common complaint. </p>
<p>Our preliminary work, which I recount in my new book <a href="https://bloomsbury.com/uk/nodding-off-9781472946188/">Nodding Off: The science of sleep from cradle to grave</a>, hints at possible <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jsr.12282">genetic and environmental explanations</a> for why some people are more likely than others to experience sleep paralysis. This now needs to be replicated using much larger samples. Reviewing the literature, we have also highlighted a host of other <a href="http://www.smrv-journal.com/article/S1087-0792(17)30112-0/abstract">variables associated with this common experience</a>, including stress, trauma, psychiatric difficulties and physical illnesses. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223620/original/file-20180618-85854-xl2b58.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223620/original/file-20180618-85854-xl2b58.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223620/original/file-20180618-85854-xl2b58.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223620/original/file-20180618-85854-xl2b58.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223620/original/file-20180618-85854-xl2b58.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223620/original/file-20180618-85854-xl2b58.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223620/original/file-20180618-85854-xl2b58.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The worst dreams.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/afraid-young-woman-hiding-white-blanket-106535048?src=oHbLZiN9CMU_8X-qIuLZiw-1-23">Creativa Images/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Exploding head syndrome</h2>
<p>Sleep paralysis aside, how else are sleep researchers helping to explain paranormal experiences? People sometimes describe experiencing huge explosions during the night which simply can’t be explained. There is no sign that a shelf has fallen down or a car has backfired. There is no one playing the electric guitar next to their head. </p>
<p>Again, this can be linked to our sleep - this time explained by “<a href="http://www.smrv-journal.com/article/S1087-0792(14)00022-7/abstract">exploding head syndrome</a>”, a term <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673688925512?via%3Dihub">coined relatively recently</a> by the neurologist JMS Pearce. When we fall asleep, the reticular formation of the brainstem (a part of our brain involved in consciousness) typically starts to inhibit our ability to move, see and hear things. When we experience a “bang” in our sleep this might be because of a <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1468-2982.2007.01522.x">delay in this process</a>. Instead of the reticular formation shutting down the auditory neurons, they might fire at once. </p>
<p>As with sleep paralysis, this phenomenon is also under-researched. For this very reason, in 2017 my colleagues and I joined forces with <a href="http://www.sciencefocus.com/article/mind/qa-sleep-paralysis-and-exploding-head-syndrome">BBC Focus</a> and <a href="http://briansharpless.com/index.html">Brian Sharpless</a>, a leading expert on this phenomenon, to collect data on this topic. </p>
<h2>Imps and ghouls</h2>
<p>Finally, what might scientists make of precognitive dreams? We might dream of a friend we haven’t seen for years only to have them call us the very next day. French thinks science can provide an explanation for this too. Referencing work by John Allen Paulos that focuses on probabilities, <a href="http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.117.8727&rep=rep1&type=pdf">he explains</a> how such an occurrence may be surprising on any single day, but over time, quite likely to occur. </p>
<p>Researching my book, I spoke to Mrs Sinclair, who is 70, and lives alone. She told me about what she had thought was a ghost living in her house, an imp throttling her during the night and other things that had left her petrified. Having scientific explanations provided her with immense comfort and she no longer believes in paranormal explanations for the things that she experienced. </p>
<p>Our hope is that scientific explanations of paranormal experiences might help others by lowering anxiety. Decreasing anxiety has also been <a href="http://www.smrv-journal.com/article/S1087-0792(17)30112-0/pdf">hypothesised</a> as a potential method by which to reduce sleep paralysis. So, perhaps providing more information about these unusual experiences might even mean that things are less likely to go bump in the night.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93534/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alice M. Gregory is Professor of Psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her book Nodding Off: The Science of Sleep from Cradle to Grave, on which this article is based, was published by Bloomsbury in June, 2018. She has provided guidance and educational content for babysleep.com, a website partially supported by Johnson and Johnson, who do not have any influence over content and do not advertise on it. She has previously received funding to support her work from multiple sources including the MRC, ESRC, Leverhulme Trust and the British Academy. </span></em></p>Sleep paralysis and exploding head syndrome can help explain things that go bump in the night.Alice M Gregory, Professor of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/866062017-11-01T22:37:17Z2017-11-01T22:37:17ZCrop circles blur science, paranormal in X-Files culture<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192709/original/file-20171031-18693-14unifg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An intricate crop circle spans a diameter of more than 45 metres in a barley field close to Barbury Castle near Wroughton, England, about 130 kilometres west of London, in 2008. The circle is noteworthy for its complexity, representing the first 10 digits of the mathematical constant pi, or 3.141592654.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lucy_Pringle_Aerial_Shot_of_Pi_Crop_Circle_-_panoramio.jpg">Lucy Pringle</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Crop circles are some of the most beautiful, mysterious and controversial landscape phenomena in the contemporary world. They are found around the globe, appearing in countries with large areas of agricultural land. They are also central to a shift in culture with investigative approaches that mimic science and increasingly make the <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/jessicaalexander/13-episodes-of-the-x-files-to-watch-this-hallowe-1030w">paranormal mainstream</a>.</p>
<p>Unlike UFOs, ghosts and <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/sasquatch-court-bc-1.4375801">sasquatches</a>, crop circles are tangible — people can touch and walk into them. <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/12/surge-crop-circles-caused-drone-users-police-say/">At least 30 appeared in England last summer</a>. In British Columbia, crop circle formations appeared in Vanderhoof, about 100 kilometres west of Prince George, in 1998 and 2001. </p>
<p>Crop circles and what people do with them represent one aspect of <a href="https://www.sfu.ca/geography/news-and-events/news-archives/news-2015/20151113-paul-kingsbury-sshrc-grant-awarded.html">my ongoing four-year research project</a>, which explores the recent growth of beliefs, practices and experiences related to the paranormal. My fieldwork studies investigative paranormal groups in the Vancouver area and paranormal conferences across North America and England.</p>
<p>Recent literature in the social sciences on <a href="http://www.paranormalculturesresearch.com">paranormal cultures</a> argues that despite the rise of a secular, post-religious society, paranormal discourses are becoming increasingly significant in <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Co-habiting-with-Ghosts-Knowledge-Experience-Belief-and-the-Domestic/Lipman/p/book/9781409467724">people’s lives</a> in the West.</p>
<p>Because the <a href="https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/paranormal">paranormal</a> refers to “events or phenomena… that are beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding,” researchers have long acknowledged that the paranormal intersects with “normal” everyday life. </p>
<p>Recently, however, as a result of a paranormal influence in popular culture, the rise of new spiritualities and commodities associated with them — such as cauldrons, healing crystals and online psychic services — researchers have begun to question describing interest in the paranormal as subcultural or countercultural, rather than mainstream. </p>
<h2>Paranormal goes mainstream and scientific</h2>
<p>Investigative organizations and international conferences that mobilize paranormal feelings, knowledge and practices are central to the merger between the paranormal and the mainstream. </p>
<p>Drawing on the models and techniques that mimic conventional science, these conferences and organizations are open to the public and have led to the democratization of paranormal investigation and availability of paranormal experiences.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IRdrt8nPyy8?wmode=transparent&start=12" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The 1990s TV series, <em>The X-Files</em>, which followed FBI agents investigating strange phenomena, has regained popularity and returned to production amid rising interest in the paranormal.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Researchers — especially in the humanities — acknowledge the relevance of the paranormal. Yet enduring skepticism in the social sciences about the legitimacy of the claims about paranormal phenomena and experiences has resulted in <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2016-07-26/scientific-crop-circle-research-held-back-by-ufo-links/7660712">a lack of critical studies</a> on how people are actually engaging with the paranormal.</p>
<p>Academic research has already acknowledged the importance of local paranormal groups and international conferences that engage paranormal phenomena — in particular ghosts, UFOs and <a href="https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/cryptid">cryptids</a> such as sasquatch. Yet we know very little about the relationships between these groups and conferences, as well as why and how they shape people’s everyday lives.</p>
<p>My study helps explain how paranormal organizations and conferences are contributing to these sociocultural changes. </p>
<h2>Rationality conflicts with crop circles’ mystery</h2>
<p>Crop circle research or “cereology” exemplifies the tension between the ordinary and extraordinary.</p>
<p>No matter what one understands to be the cause of crop circles, whether they are all human-made or involve aquifers, ley lines, divine feminine energy, ancient sacred sites, ball lightning or even UFOs, crop circles bring to the fore a mysterious disconnection between language and the visible, as described in Jean-François Lyotard’s book <em><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8468070-discourse-figure">Discourse, Figure</a></em>. </p>
<p>The French philosopher argues there is an unstable relationship between linguistic meaning and units of signification, that is, the visible patterns of words, dreams, symbols and visual art. Because there is no inherent meaning in any given signifier (meaning always relies on another word and a wider context), and art and symbols are conceptually opaque by default, they necessarily defy easy rational understanding.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192744/original/file-20171031-18700-13qz7po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192744/original/file-20171031-18700-13qz7po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192744/original/file-20171031-18700-13qz7po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192744/original/file-20171031-18700-13qz7po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192744/original/file-20171031-18700-13qz7po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192744/original/file-20171031-18700-13qz7po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192744/original/file-20171031-18700-13qz7po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192744/original/file-20171031-18700-13qz7po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A crop circle enthusiast from Dublin lies on the ground to connect with what he believes are sacred energies in a crop circle in Wiltshire, England, in July.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Paul Kingsbury)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Case in point: Events at the <a href="http://temporarytemples.co.uk/event/summer-lectures-crop-circle-conference-2017">2017 Summer Lectures Crop Circle Conference</a> in Devizes, England, illustrated the difficulty of researching crop circles.</p>
<p>One day during the conference, I went to visit a crop circle with fellow researchers only to find a sign on a gate to the property: “Crop circle closed.” The person representing an organization that liaises between farmers and crop-circle researchers was not present. Because we could not proceed without trespassing, we got back into the car.</p>
<p>Back at the conference, an argument erupted over the behaviour of some researchers who had ignored the “Crop circle closed” sign, climbed over the fence and walked to the crop circle. </p>
<p>For one researcher, this transgression was troubling because it exhibited the crass consumption of what he believed was a sacred phenomenon. Another researcher, who had ignored the sign, replied that he respected this opinion, but felt the crop circle was “calling out” to him and that it would be more disrespectful to ignore the pull of the sacred. </p>
<p>The researchers had differing views on whether a “Crop circle closed” sign, which demarcated a boundary, should be obeyed or whether it was an inappropriate obstacle to the “call” of the crop circle.</p>
<p>The tension between the appearances and meanings of crop circles also informed the tricky patience demanded in a <a href="http://web.mit.edu/4.299/Students/diop/relevant.html">sacred geometry</a> workshop. As participants drew lines with compasses and protractors, they struggled to accurately reproduce the complex patterns of crop circles, losing small pieces of pencil lead and struggling to keep their compasses from slipping on the paper. Conference organizer Karen Alexander said the exercise gave the participants a better appreciation and intimate understanding of crop circles. </p>
<h2>Interpreting paranormal cultures</h2>
<p>As a part of my work, I explore the tensions between the visual and language, focusing on the complexity of crop-circle landscapes where enthusiasts struggle to navigate toward, inside and away from crop circles. </p>
<p>Lyotard aligns these events with “figural space” — elusive elements that disrupt and exceed the capture of language. Crucial here is how crop circles — unlike ghosts, UFOs and sasquatches — are highly tangible signs. But what they mean and what they are remains a mystery. </p>
<p>Despite claims by “<a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/crop-circles-the-art-of-the-hoax-2524283/">circle-makers</a>” that they are <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/10217151/Crop-circles-demystified-how-the-patterns-are-created.html">human-made</a>, the sheer size and complexity of the circles belies a 100 per cent human-made explanation. </p>
<p>According to researchers at the conference, hoaxers, when questioned about how they were able to make 80 or so perfectly round circles without breaking or snapping cereal stalks, are unable to reproduce the patterns and ignore the researchers’ questions.</p>
<p>Furthermore, finding and getting to the <a href="https://www.livescience.com/26540-crop-circles.html">crop circles</a> — navigating narrow and winding English countryside roads and locating their exact whereabouts in large fields of wheat or barley — is no small feat.</p>
<p>Like all the other paranormal investigation cultures I have studied so far, crop circle research blurs the distinction between the everyday and the extraordinary. Beyond this, one cannot discount the importance of geography in the micro-spaces of fields and conference venues. The regional nature and extent to which crop circles are landscape phenomena incites many people’s desire to shape their encounters with the sublime.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86606/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Kingsbury receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p>Crop circles are global phenomena gaining attention as paranormal culture becomes mainstream, along with a hybrid approach that emulates scientific investigation.Paul Kingsbury, Professor, Department of Geography, Simon Fraser University, Simon Fraser UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/736972017-03-14T15:10:29Z2017-03-14T15:10:29ZHow friends and families can help those who are at risk of psychosis<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159289/original/image-20170303-16382-snxnhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hearing voices can make you anxious.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Preethi Premkumar</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When you think of paranormal experiences it often conjures images of ghosts, aliens or witchcraft. But it can also include hearing voices, out-of-body experiences, or even strong spiritual or superstitious beliefs. Such experiences are quite common – <a href="http://orca.cf.ac.uk/30606/">75% of people in Britain</a> have said that they have had one or more paranormal experiences in their lifetime. These are usually fleeting though, and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16004653">very few</a> report having paranormal experiences continuously over a two year period.</p>
<p>However, paranormal experiences can stabilise in a small proportion of people – those with a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15717986">schizotypal personality</a>, who have regular paranormal experiences which resemble milder forms of those seen in people who suffer from schizophrenia. Although only <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22260930">0.6% of this group</a> will actually develop psychosis, they may experience high levels of social anxiety which can lead them to avoid social interactions. </p>
<p>However, <a href="http://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/13104/">research has shown</a> that this avoidance is seen less in those who have supportive friends and family. It means that this support could actually reduce the chances of developing psychosis. </p>
<p>People with a schizotypal personality <a href="http://labs.psychology.illinois.edu/kwapil_lab/Brown%20et%20al%202008.pdf">often have poor social interactions</a> because they find them unrewarding and can have difficulty maintaining focus in social situations. They often fear that <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14780880903304550">others will ridicule them</a> or dismiss their experiences, and that telling others about their paranormal experiences would devalue their beliefs. But what makes those with paranormal beliefs struggle with social interaction in this way? </p>
<h2>Abnormal responses to praise</h2>
<p>A brain imaging study in 2012 revealed <a href="http://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/13104/">what happens in the brain</a> when schizotypal people are in social situations. Their brains were imaged while they viewed scenes depicting social rejection. The researchers found that these people disengaged brain areas associated with social pain and the ability to empathise with others, to stop them from being hurt in a way that those without experiences did not.</p>
<p>People who have paranormal experiences not only actively distance themselves from social rejection, but may also unconsciously <a href="http://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/26624/">direct their attention towards it</a>. When those with paranormal experiences viewed scenes of either social acceptance, or even <a href="http://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/12741/">criticism from a close relative</a>, nothing unusual is seen in the brain. However, when they heard praise from a close relative, they activated the insula and thalamus areas – which assess the importance and reward value of an event – less than those who do not have paranormal experiences. This implies that people with paranormal experiences actually find praise unrewarding.</p>
<h2>Family influences</h2>
<p>People with schizotypal personality often have poor communication with their families, and are more likely to <a href="http://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/12741/">experience hostility</a> than others. It’s also unfortunate that, in those who “hear voices” in their heads, the disempowering social interactions they have with their families leads the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20041419">voices they hear to also become disempowering</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160307/original/image-20170310-15265-1qfmjhw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160307/original/image-20170310-15265-1qfmjhw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160307/original/image-20170310-15265-1qfmjhw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160307/original/image-20170310-15265-1qfmjhw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160307/original/image-20170310-15265-1qfmjhw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160307/original/image-20170310-15265-1qfmjhw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160307/original/image-20170310-15265-1qfmjhw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Paranormal experiences are often not believed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/ghost-haunted-house-mysterious-woman-horror-420971914?src=4smXff4ubgpEN0X9dIE91A-1-4">Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>The way in which those with paranormal experiences talk about their family communications is <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8408961">often described as “odd”</a>. When people with paranormal experiences were recorded during an interview about people in their life that they resented, they displayed more avoidant and hostile behaviours compared to those without such experiences. This in turn made the interviewer feel more anxious and angry – a reaction that would not help any situation. </p>
<p>In order to help, the family could offer more emotional support, by being more accepting and less critical about their relative’s paranormal experiences. They could also be more encouraging about the person’s discussion of their paranormal experiences.</p>
<p>People who do not normally have paranormal experiences are more likely to believe in such things if they thought that a person in a professional capacity <a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ898951">also believed</a> in it or if the scientific community accepted those beliefs. Although a family may not believe in the paranormal, they could try to believe that the person has an experience of some type – whether these really have paranormal origins or not – so that the person with these experiences feels more personal satisfaction when they talk about them.</p>
<p>One study taught individuals how to disclose their paranormal beliefs to others in <a href="http://www.atpweb.org/jtparchive/trps-34-02-01-029.pdf">ten weeks of training</a>. They reported that by writing about their self-development and sharing it with like-minded people, they found more meaning in life and felt less stressed.</p>
<p>Sharing their paranormal experiences with people they can trust allows those with schizotypal personality to overcome social alienation, experience personal growth and feel less anxiety. If a person with schizotypal personality could share their experiences with their family and have a wider acceptance of their paranormal experiences, then this could help to reduce the social exclusion they feel. Close family and friends who show more emotional support can reduce the risk of them feeling distressed – and even help them from developing psychosis.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73697/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Preethi Premkumar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>People with paranormal beliefs often experience social rejection. But for those at risk of psychosis, support is important for prevention.Preethi Premkumar, Lecturer/Senior Lecturer Psychology, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/582592016-10-27T10:37:29Z2016-10-27T10:37:29ZThe top three scientific explanations for ghost sightings<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143088/original/image-20161025-31470-qlvqs0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Paranormal or just plain ordinary?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joe Techapanupreeda/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>From ghosts to ghouls, witches to wizards, Halloween is the one time of the year when people come together to celebrate everything supernatural. But beyond the fancy dress and trick or treating, belief in ghosts is actually relatively common – with <a href="https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/246/Survey-on-Beliefs.aspx">38% of people classifying themselves as believers</a> and a similar number having actually reported seeing one. </p>
<p>The term “ghost” refers to the idea that the spirits of the dead – human and animal – influence the physical world. And the idea of a haunting can often include anything from a sensed presence, or objects moving, to spirit activity.</p>
<p>But in a world filled with science and reason, these “hauntings” can often boil down to a very simple explanation. So with Halloween just round the corner, here are the top three scientific and psychological explanations for hauntings, spirits, spookiness and all things supernatural – although it should be noted that many important questions have yet to be resolved …</p>
<h2>1. Because I told you so</h2>
<p>Attempts to explain hauntings often draw upon psychological factors – such as suggestion – so being told a place is haunted is more likely to lead to ghostly goings-on. </p>
<p>One <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9229473">classic study</a> saw participants visiting five main areas of a theatre before completing a questionnaire to assess their feelings and perceptions. Prior to the tour, one group was told the location was haunted, while the other group was informed that the building was under renovation. Unsurprisingly, participants that were told the place was haunted experienced more intense experiences – similar to those of paranormal happenings. </p>
<p>Verbal suggestion has also been shown to increase paranormal perceptions – as shown in <a href="https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-24/edition-10/new-voices-power-suggestion">research</a> on seance phenomena, paranormal key bending and psychic reading – especially when the suggestion is consistent with existing paranormal beliefs.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143090/original/image-20161025-31479-k8kwp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143090/original/image-20161025-31479-k8kwp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143090/original/image-20161025-31479-k8kwp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143090/original/image-20161025-31479-k8kwp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143090/original/image-20161025-31479-k8kwp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143090/original/image-20161025-31479-k8kwp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143090/original/image-20161025-31479-k8kwp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">No spirits here…</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>But <a href="http://mind2magic.com/blog.htm/?p=40">research</a> in real-world settings has produced inconsistent results. A study in the supposedly haunted <a href="http://www.richardwiseman.com/research/ghosts2.html">Hampton Court</a> found that suggestion had no effect on participants’ expectations of experiencing unusual phenomena, or their tendency to attribute unusual phenomena to ghosts. </p>
<p>So it is fair to say that the effects of suggestion vary depending upon a person’s beliefs. And of course, paranormal believers are prone to endorsing alleged paranormal phenomena – while sceptics will deny the existence of the paranormal.</p>
<h2>2. Electromagnetic fields and spooky sounds</h2>
<p>Other explanations draw on environmental factors, such as electromagnetic fields and infrasound. <a href="http://www.innerworlds.50megs.com/God_Helmet/god_helmet.htm">Canadian neuroscientist Michael Persinger</a> demonstrated that the application of varying electromagnetic fields to the temporal lobes of the brain could produce haunting experiences – such as perception of a presence, a feeling of God or sensations of being touched. And it has been noted that areas most associated with hauntings – such as Hampton Court – do possess erratic magnetic fields. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143091/original/image-20161025-4729-66jyw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143091/original/image-20161025-4729-66jyw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143091/original/image-20161025-4729-66jyw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143091/original/image-20161025-4729-66jyw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143091/original/image-20161025-4729-66jyw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143091/original/image-20161025-4729-66jyw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143091/original/image-20161025-4729-66jyw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Is that a figure I see before me?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>Similarly, infrasound – audio frequency below the range of human hearing – is also thought to be able to explain such phenomena. <a href="http://www.strangerdimensions.com/2013/06/21/infrasound-the-fear-frequency/">Several studies</a> have linked infrasound and bizarre sensations. </p>
<p>In one example, contemporary pieces of live music were laced with infrasound and the audience were then asked to describe their reactions to the music. More unusual experiences were reported when infrasound was present – chills down the spine, feeling nervous, waves of fear and uneasy or sorrowful emotions. </p>
<h2>3. Toxic hallucinations</h2>
<p>“Supernatural” perceptions can also arise from <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3022735/Seen-ghost-inhaled-toxic-mould-Poor-air-quality-old-buildings-lead-haunting-hallucinations.html">reactions to toxic substances</a> – such as carbon monoxide, formaldehyde and pesticide. It also also been suggested that fungal hallucinations – caused by toxic mould – could stimulate haunting-related perceptions. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143092/original/image-20161025-4717-3zamji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143092/original/image-20161025-4717-3zamji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143092/original/image-20161025-4717-3zamji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143092/original/image-20161025-4717-3zamji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143092/original/image-20161025-4717-3zamji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143092/original/image-20161025-4717-3zamji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143092/original/image-20161025-4717-3zamji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Probably best to stay out of the graveyard if you’ve been on the mushrooms.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>Shane Rogers and his team from <a href="http://www.clarkson.edu/news/2015/news-release_2015-03-31-1.html">Clarkson University</a> in the US observed similarities between paranormal experiences and the hallucinogenic effects of fungal spores. This may explain why ghost sightings often occur in older buildings with inadequate ventilation and poor air quality. </p>
<p>The notion is not new and experts have previously reported a <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1996-09-21/news/9609210090_1_fungus-books-hallucinogenic">similar effect associated with old books</a>. They claim that mere exposure to toxic moulds can trigger significant mental or neurological symptoms, which create perceptions similar to those reported during haunting experiences.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58259/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Neil Dagnall receives funding from Bial.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ken Drinkwater receives funding from the Bial Foundation, Portugal. </span></em></p>The truth about the paranormal – just in time for Halloween.Neil Dagnall, Reader in Applied Cognitive Psychology, Manchester Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/630252016-08-02T08:50:12Z2016-08-02T08:50:12ZThe Living and the Dead captures Victorian anxieties about science and the supernatural<p>From telegraphs to television sets, new technologies have often been imagined as strange or magical in the popular consciousness. It is no coincidence that developments in 19th century science and technology like the railway, the phonograph, and the photograph coincided with a deep cultural fascination with the paranormal. Discussions of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-victorians-brought-famous-artists-back-from-the-dead-in-seances-62647">seances</a>, spirit mediums and purported photos of ghosts were found in the newspapers of the day, and science was used to either try to prove or repudiate the claims. These feverish times are the setting for BBC One’s supernatural drama <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03wv2rl">The Living and the Dead</a>. </p>
<p>In the opening episode, pioneering photographer Charlotte Appleby (played by Charlotte Spencer) reflects in wonder that “You could be dead and buried a hundred years, and people could still hear what you sounded like” while listening to phonograph recordings of people from the Somerset village of Shepzoy. It is 1894, and she and her psychologist husband Nathan (played by Colin Morgan) have moved to the village to take charge of the family estate.</p>
<p>Her enthusiasm for this new medium is quickly dampened, however, when the voice of Nathan’s young son who tragically drowned fills the room, urging his father to join him in play. Various other paranormal events soon follow. Ghostly voices emerging from the phonograph are replicated by a young woman who claims to have been possessed by the spirit of a local man who died without having been baptised. A railway survey unleashes the unquiet souls of five boys who died in a mine collapse. The ghosts of roundhead cavalrymen descend. And there is the curious apparition of a woman with what viewers recognise as an iPad – presumably too absorbed in her screen to notice that she has wandered into the 19th century.</p>
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<h2>Gothic horrors</h2>
<p>Series creator Ashley Pharoah described the series as “<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2016/06/28/the-living-and-the-dead-is-thomas-hardy-with-ghosts--and-time-tr/">Hardy with ghosts</a>”. In many ways, the village of Shepzoy is a new take on Thomas Hardy’s fictional county of Wessex which, modelled on the counties of England’s southwest, self-consciously captured the tensions between the city and country at the moment the transformations brought by the railways and the industrial revolution began to unfold.</p>
<p>Charlotte distinctly resembles <a href="http://www.bustle.com/articles/171552-bathsheba-everdene-is-literatures-forgotten-feminist-hero">Bathsheba Everdene</a>, the spirited young woman who inherits and manages her uncle’s farm in Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd (1874). The introduction of new machinery and farming techniques to Shepzoy is met with similar distrust and even satanic associations as they are in Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891). But ultimately the series has more in common with the Gothic tales of the same period, such as The Turn of the Screw (1898) by American writer <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henry-James-American-writer">Henry James</a> – in fact, the younger brother of William James, a leading early psychologist – or the short stories of In a Glass Darkly (1872) by <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/11048229/Sheridan-Le-Fanu-the-father-of-modern-horror-at-200.html">Sheridan Le Fanu</a>, in which self-consciously modern individuals find themselves powerless against dark supernatural forces.</p>
<p>The tense phonograph scene from The Living and the Dead gives an indication of its writer’s engagement with these Gothic themes. And the same motif of strange objects – technological, mystical, or ambiguously situated between the two – that allow the voices of the dead to come to life is one that recurs frequently in the fictions of the time. </p>
<p>For example, in <a href="http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/JapBox.shtml">The Japanned Box</a> (1899) by <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/arthur-conan-doyle-9278600">Sir Arthur Conan Doyle</a> a mysterious woman’s voice, thought to be a ghostly emanation, is revealed to have been produced by a phonograph. In <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/rudyard-kipling-9365581">Rudyard Kipling’s</a> Wireless (1902), mechanical signals inadvertently channel the creative spirit and poetry of the long-dead Keats. In <a href="http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/mclandburgh_florence">Florence McLandburgh’s</a> The Automaton Ear (1873), an unnamed professor invents a device able to detect sounds beyond the limits of the human ear – only to be haunted by the now-audible cries of the dead.</p>
<p>In each instance, the scientific instrument in question establishes a threshold between life and death, offering the simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying possibility of passing between the two. The human body and mind become peculiarly vulnerable beyond that threshold, while the stories point also to the limits of scientific knowledge at the time and its capacity to explain the world. </p>
<h2>Technology or totem?</h2>
<p>Communications technologies such as the penny post, the railway, the telegraph, telephone and wireless radio receiver shrunk the distances between people in ways that seemed impossible. For those first witnessing them, they created a powerful sense of removal from the material world, permitting experiences that seemed beyond the realms of normal consciousness and corporeality.</p>
<p>At the same time, new technology provided the means to preserve the past: the phonograph could capture and replay the voices of the dead, the photograph could record their lifelike image, while the then burgeoning science of psychology provided doctors with new ways to consider past versions of the self, and access to the unconscious mind. These anxieties and tensions are invoked in The Living and the Dead in a way that those of the period would have recognised, with the past, present and future drawn together through technology and the supernatural. As the web of connections between individuals in Shepzoy deepens, it becomes increasingly unclear who is being haunted, and who is the ghost.</p>
<p>The plot device of time periods that bleed into one another is one Pharaoh has used in previous series <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478942/">Life on Mars</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1008108">Ashes to Ashes</a>, but perhaps here he has found more suitable material upon which to graft it – after all, the fracturing of the laws of space and time are more comfortably explored in a Victorian ghost story than in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2013/feb/14/the-sweeney-box-set">The Sweeney</a>. Having binge-watched series one, I’m living in the hope of an apparition from the future that can confirm there will be a second.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63025/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>As part of the Diseases of Modern Life team at St Anne's College, Oxford, Melissa Dickson receives funding from the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme ERC Grant Agreement number 340121.</span></em></p>BBC One’s The Living and the Dead revels in the Victorians’ obsession with the supernatural and the limits of science.Melissa Dickson, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/535172016-01-22T13:07:12Z2016-01-22T13:07:12ZCan The X-Files survive today? The truth is out there …<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108988/original/image-20160122-417-1wo0bw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C857%2C2012%2C1566&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Channel Five</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The return of The X-Files to television screens after a 14-year absence was met with justifiable excitement and trepidation. It was an important show, combining <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052520/">Twilight Zone</a>-style fantasy with humour, drama and emotion. The X-Files took its subject matter seriously, and was taken seriously by viewers. Along with <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118276/">Buffy the Vampire Slayer</a>, which aired at roughly the same time, it might well be seen as a precursor to titles like <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0844441/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">True Blood</a>, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0813715/?ref_=nv_sr_2">Heroes</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/game-of-thrones">Game of Thrones</a> or the relaunched <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/doctor-who">Doctor Who</a>. The X-Files was a template for shows that take traditionally wild or outlandish narrative themes and approach them with the kind of sincerity more usually found in “quality” television drama.</p>
<p>The X-Files gave us the monster of the week, of course, and the overarching season-by-season story arc of alien invasion. But it was the relationship between agents Mulder and Scully, played by David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, that undoubtedly formed the central thread of the show. Whether this relationship should remain platonic or develop romantically was a point of <a href="http://www.vulture.com/2016/01/mulder-scully-romance-history.html#">great contention</a> among fans. </p>
<p>Such engagement illustrates the show’s strong investment in human drama within its fantasy setting, and it’s no surprise that successful fantasy television titles that have since followed tend to focus on families and friendships as much as vampires, superheroes, dragons or monsters. It’s equally unsurprising that Mulder and Scully should have become the main focus of publicity for the show’s relaunch, given the deep attachment viewers had been encouraged to forge with the characters over the years.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108991/original/image-20160122-441-1iayj4q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108991/original/image-20160122-441-1iayj4q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108991/original/image-20160122-441-1iayj4q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108991/original/image-20160122-441-1iayj4q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108991/original/image-20160122-441-1iayj4q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108991/original/image-20160122-441-1iayj4q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108991/original/image-20160122-441-1iayj4q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">I want to believe …</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jdhancock/7948964312/in/photolist-d7qw9Q-zH8Kxx-4FTxo4-hp1Mcb-5bzJHS-zrQwSj-5aeF4q-uvJ3Fe-6YsPK-7z9QPu-4NjZ2-59GFdN-65ewe-69ASm-654JX-7XXJB6-57s2pr-57Z8Ug-prd6j3-bHAVcD-bi3tC-57wfKf-3AeDCZ-B86QJb-69UBsp-59GCLE-3jPohD-zHCvsD-7kXBKd-7kXBJ5-8Z7rdE-29Rhwf-azAqoX-8as26F-7kXHdW-7kTHMK-57rYRa-7kTHyZ-8WCmBq-8oCJcb-fQrGVn-8oDg7z-4Zimxj-8WATff-kF5A2-59aKRj-5bBcAh-4L5Q8p-rEhEjx-3exNfi">jdhancock/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The show’s strong fanbase guaranteed its status as “cult” television. Interestingly, it was already being called this at the time of its broadcast, rather than in a nostalgic or ironic way. The sense of belonging that the show engendered was potent during the 1990s; it was not uncommon to see “The Truth Is Out There” slogans mingling with Nirvana album covers or Tarantino movie posters on the t-shirts of teenagers. In this way, The X-Files coincided with a period in which television began to achieve a status nearing equivalence with film and music. </p>
<p>Those t-shirts are an indication of how The X-Files was seen as a marketable property, and themed merchandise like mugs, toys, posters and books also started appearing in increasing bulk. It also then became part of a growing trend in box-set television. Entire seasons of The X-Files could be purchased on boxed VHS sets and displayed as a collection on owners’ bookshelves. It was a change from the 80s when a taste for VHS cases that had been designed to imitate book spines on shelves concealed the “guilty pleasure” of video watching from view.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108994/original/image-20160122-447-1l4pip5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108994/original/image-20160122-447-1l4pip5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108994/original/image-20160122-447-1l4pip5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108994/original/image-20160122-447-1l4pip5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108994/original/image-20160122-447-1l4pip5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108994/original/image-20160122-447-1l4pip5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108994/original/image-20160122-447-1l4pip5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Assange appropriation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/newtown_grafitti/5427334245/in/photolist-9NC8X1-9NzmbH-v8Bqb-5fZVtu-k5JKVE-YSNRM-6vnGiZ-ebrcCQ-5JVn3f-2Famm1-a17JQq-pYkW2-a4X26o-es7ndW-5zU4XL-ah8dSg-ANm8Jc-eb5coi-9kpmjs-6P9gzw-cAdNb-ajUwqA-6rMz94-9gAvon-9xkVGs-4gK28K-9C2b4u-nTvHk-c5xxFs-kKxTN-hWko-5bVYGQ-5Fqr4z-eg2eoh-5SCbFd-5Nzjv6-fTyiB-fTyiC-hzuY-4pKw4S-b84Lo-7oaXzq-97oe8Y-2fobDt">newtown_grafitti/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“The Truth Is Out There” t-shirt slogan refers, of course, to The X-Files’ consistent emphasis upon government conspiracy and the idea of a world hidden from us by unseen hands. As The X-Files returns, it’s obvious that these ideas haven’t gone away. But they have changed. </p>
<p>In a television era that is post-9/11 and post-Iraq War we’re familiar with government and terrorist conspiracy shows like <a href="https://theconversation.com/homeland-snowden-and-fictional-defences-of-the-cia-49534">Homeland</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0285331/">24</a>. Against these titles, The X-Files’ paranoia about extra-terrestrial invasion might seem locked into a particular era, quaint even. The X-Files allegorised fears of otherness in the way that 50s sci-fi movies allegorised Cold War anxieties but, now that shows regularly visualise immediate real-world threats and anxieties on screen, it may need to find a way of adapting its themes to make them relevant once again. </p>
<p>The X-Files re-enters a television world that it helped to define and shape, but the ground has inevitably shifted. Since The X-Files was first broadcast television has become far more ambitious, far more confident. After all, it was 12 years ago that <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0411008/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Lost</a> locked its audience into its bafflingly myriad, grand conspiracy stretching over six seasons. </p>
<p>We live in an era in which seemingly nothing is allowed simply to end (or, at least, nothing that might yield a potential profit). Perhaps The X-Files faces the same challenge as another recent revival, <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/star-wars">Star Wars</a>: offering fans enough that is familiar to remain faithful to the original, but providing enough that is different in order to remain relevant in a changed world. We’ll soon find out if it can match its earlier success. The truth will be out there for all to see.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53517/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Walters does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the post-9/11, post-Iraq television landscape we’re familiar with government and terrorist conspiracy shows. How will aliens hold up?James Walters, Senior Lecturer in Film and Television Studies, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/481602015-10-30T10:06:06Z2015-10-30T10:06:06ZHearing ghost voices relies on pseudoscience and fallibility of human perception<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99893/original/image-20151027-5007-5v3ufo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Did you hear that?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/robandstephanielevy/2550298653">Rob and Stephanie Levy</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Nontrivial numbers of Americans <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2014/10/24/study-democrats-are-more-likely-than-republicans-to-believe-in-fortune-telling-astrology-and-ghosts/">believe in the paranormal</a>. These beliefs have spawned thousands of <a href="http://www.paranormalsocieties.com/">groups</a> dedicated to investigating paranormal phenomena and a proliferation of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Paranormal_reality_television_series">ghost-hunting entries</a> in the reality television market. Anecdotal evidence even suggests that ghost-hunting reality shows have <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/10/27/ghosts.go.irpt/">increased public openness</a> to paranormal research, which usually entails a small group traipsing through reportedly haunted locales at night with various ghost-hunting technologies. </p>
<p>Audio recorders figure prominently in paranormal researchers’ <a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/3052221/elasticity/dont-cross-the-streams-the-tech-of-modern-ghost-hunting">toolkits</a>. Microphones capture ambient sounds during the investigation. Later, the audio recordings are scoured in search of messages from spirits. The premise is that audio recording devices can register otherwise inaudible communications from discarnate entities.</p>
<p>These purported communications have been dubbed <a href="http://paranormal.about.com/od/ghostaudiovideo/a/All-About-EVP.htm">electronic voice phenomena (EVP)</a>. The sounds are generally brief – most examples consist of single words or short phrases. Perceived contents of EVP range from threatening (“You’re going to hell”) to bizarre (“<a href="http://atransc.org/examples/bill_weber_evp.htm">Egypt Air</a>”).</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kb8NgPf_AnQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">An EVP recorded at Lizzie Borden’s house.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Part of the attraction of the audio recorder for paranormal researchers is its apparent objectivity. How could a skeptic refute the authenticity of a spirit captured by an unbiased technical instrument? To the believers, EVP seem like incontrovertible evidence of communications from beyond. But recent research in my lab suggested that people don’t agree much about <em>what</em>, if anything, they hear in the EVP sounds – a result readily explained by the fallibility of human perception. Despite the technological trappings, EVP research bears several characteristics of pseudoscience.</p>
<h2>What are the EVP sounds?</h2>
<p>The chain of evidence for most purported EVP makes hoaxes difficult to rule out, but let’s assume that many of these sounds are not deliberate fraud. In <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1975-26528-001">some instances</a>, alleged EVP are the voices of the investigators or interference from radio transmissions – problems that indicate shoddy data collection practices. <a href="http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2013/11/study-claims-evps-persist-even-in-controlled-environments/">Other research</a>, however, has suggested that EVP have been captured under acoustically controlled circumstances in recording studios. What are the possible explanations for these sounds?</p>
<p>The critical leap in EVP research is the point at which odd sounds are interpreted as voices that communicate with intention. Paranormal investigators typically decode the content of EVP by arriving at consensus among themselves. EVP websites advise paranormal researchers to ask themselves, “<a href="http://www.praofb.org/v2/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=15&catid=5&Itemid=30">Is it a voice…are you sure?</a>” or to “Share results among fellow investigators and <a href="http://www.ghostresearch.org/articles/evp.html">try to prevent investigator bias when reviewing data</a>.” Therein lies a methodological difficulty. </p>
<p>Research in mainstream psychology has shown that people will readily perceive words in <a href="http://deutsch.ucsd.edu/psychology/pages.php?i=211">strings of nonsensical speech sounds</a>. People’s expectations about what they’re <em>supposed</em> to hear can result in the <a href="http://hdl.handle.net/1853/51675">illusory perception of tones, nature sounds, machine sounds, and even voices </a> when only acoustic white noise – like the sound of a detuned radio – exists. Interpretations of speech in noise – a situation similar to EVP where the alleged voice is difficult to discern – <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/002383095800100202">can shift entirely based upon what the listener expects to hear</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99895/original/image-20151027-4974-1tn2vze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99895/original/image-20151027-4974-1tn2vze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99895/original/image-20151027-4974-1tn2vze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99895/original/image-20151027-4974-1tn2vze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99895/original/image-20151027-4974-1tn2vze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99895/original/image-20151027-4974-1tn2vze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99895/original/image-20151027-4974-1tn2vze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99895/original/image-20151027-4974-1tn2vze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">But if it’s not a ghost….</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/valeriebb/3109139670">Valerie Everett</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<h2>EVP in the perceptual research lab</h2>
<p>In my lab, we recently <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/acp.3068">conducted an experiment</a> to examine how expectations might influence the perception of purported EVP. Our EVP were audio recordings from <a href="http://www.travelchannel.com/shows/ghost-adventures/video/guess-that-evp-vol-1">a ghost-hunting reality show</a>. </p>
<p>We asked three questions: Do people perceive alleged EVP to be voices under controlled conditions? If they hear voices, do they agree about what the voices are saying without being told what they’re supposed to hear? And finally, does it matter whether or not they think the research topic is paranormal?</p>
<p>Half of participants were told that the experiment was part of a research project on paranormal EVP. The other half were told that we were studying speech perception in noisy environments – a typical (if perhaps boring) perceptual psychology experiment.</p>
<p>In a study trial, participants heard a sound and were asked if they detected a voice in the stimulus. If they responded “no,” the trial ended. If they responded “yes,” they reported what they thought the voice had said. Across the study, participants heard the purported EVP, recordings of actual human speech, recordings of human speech obscured in noise, and recordings of only noise. The EVP and speech-in-noise sounds were inherently ambiguous – they sort of sounded like a voice was present and sort of did not. </p>
<p>Compared to the control condition, the suggestion of a paranormal research topic made people more likely to report hearing voices for both the EVP (48% versus 34% “yes” responses) and the voices hidden in noise (58% versus 40% “yes” responses). For real human speech, all participants nearly always heard a voice (99% “yes” responses), and for noise all participants almost never heard a voice (1% “yes” responses). So suggesting a paranormal research topic mattered only when the audio was ambiguous. </p>
<p>Further, when people said they heard a voice in the EVP, only 13% agreed about exactly what the voice said. To compare, 95% percent of people on average agreed about what the voice said when they heard actual speech.</p>
<p>In one final analysis, we showed that the participants’ interpretations agreed with the paranormal researchers’ interpretations less than 1% of the time. These findings suggest that paranormal researchers should not use their own subjective judgments to confirm the contents of EVP.</p>
<p>But perhaps most importantly, we showed that the mere suggestion of a paranormal research context made people more likely to hear voices in ambiguous stimuli, although they couldn’t agree on what the voices were saying. </p>
<h2>A perceptual explanation of EVP</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99896/original/image-20151027-4997-qe9uoe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99896/original/image-20151027-4997-qe9uoe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99896/original/image-20151027-4997-qe9uoe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99896/original/image-20151027-4997-qe9uoe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99896/original/image-20151027-4997-qe9uoe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99896/original/image-20151027-4997-qe9uoe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99896/original/image-20151027-4997-qe9uoe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99896/original/image-20151027-4997-qe9uoe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">It can’t just be chance!</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/journeyguy/13976567206">Jeff Noble</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We concluded that EVP are an auditory example of pareidolia – the tendency to perceive human characteristics in meaningless perceptual patterns. There are many <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/danmeth/12-things-that-looks-faces#.ypxBxVYqv">visual examples of pareidolia</a> – things like seeing human faces in everyday objects (<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2014.01.013">such as Jesus in a piece of toast</a>).</p>
<p>Research from cognitive psychology has shown that paranormal believers may be <a href="http://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3057">especially prone to misperceiving chance</a> events. A face-like configuration in a slice of toast seems meaningful. People ask, "What are the chances?“ But if you add up all of the slices of toast you see over the days and weeks and months of a lifetime, it becomes inevitable that you will encounter some of these human-like configurations in toast due to chance.</p>
<p>Similarly, paranormal investigators record a practically limitless amount of audio and use all manner of sound-processing techniques including <a href="http://www.praofb.org/v2/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=15&catid=5&Itemid=30">filtering the sounds to remove particular frequencies and boosting the volume</a>. Inevitably they’re able to find samples of audio that sound somewhat like a voice.</p>
<p>Assuming some of these voice-like sounds can’t be attributed to shoddy data collection practices, their actual sources likely run the spectrum from ambient environmental noises to electrical interference to audio processing artifacts. If the listener is intently expecting to hear a person, virtually any sound can meet that expectation. One writer aptly suggested that EVP are like an <a href="http://www.digicult.it/news/rorschach-audio-evp-psychoacoustics-and-auditory-illusions/">auditory inkblot test</a>: a blank slate upon which the listener can project any interpretation. The tendency for EVP investigators to hear a voice – a meaningful sound with agency and intention – is likely <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2466/pms.1997.84.3c.1455">amplified by the suggestion of a paranormal context</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99894/original/image-20151027-4963-jagdwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99894/original/image-20151027-4963-jagdwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99894/original/image-20151027-4963-jagdwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99894/original/image-20151027-4963-jagdwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99894/original/image-20151027-4963-jagdwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99894/original/image-20151027-4963-jagdwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99894/original/image-20151027-4963-jagdwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99894/original/image-20151027-4963-jagdwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The technological trappings of ghost hunting can lend a gloss of objectivity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/uair01/6133170067">P K</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>EVP research bears hallmarks of pseudoscience</h2>
<p>In pseudoscience, there is a semblance of adherence to the values of science. Objectivity in EVP research is equated with the use of a technological recording device per se, but subjectivity permeates the critical step of interpreting what the sounds mean. In science, objectivity is a critical value for researchers – an ideal that we <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-objectivity/">attempt to apply to all aspects of inquiry</a> – rather than a feature of our equipment.</p>
<p>Another characteristic of pseudoscience is a <a href="http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/observer/2005/september-05/the-10-commandments-of-helping-students-distinguish-science-from-pseudoscience-in-psychology.html">lack of integration</a> with related areas of inquiry. There is a <a href="http://doi.org/10.1016/j.heares.2012.04.013">rich history</a> of using experimental methods to examine auditory perception, yet EVP enthusiasts are either unaware or willfully ignorant of this relevant work.</p>
<p>Science also values <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1985-11037-001">parsimony</a> – the idea that the simplest explanation is preferred. To explain EVP as the result of human auditory perception, we need a theory to account for how and why a human listener sometimes misperceives ambiguous stimuli.</p>
<p>In fact, this very tendency is one of many well-documented cognitive <a href="http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6916.2008.00058.x">shortcuts</a> that may have adaptive value. A voice may indicate the presence of a potential mate or foe, so it may be useful to err on the side of perceiving agency in ambiguous auditory stimuli.</p>
<p>A paranormal theory is much more complex. We have to explain how disembodied entities acquire agency. We have to explain why they have the ability to produce sound but only communicate in audio recordings instead of simply speaking aloud. We have to explain why they apparently can’t speak clearly in full sentences, but only brief, garbled, often seemingly random phrases.</p>
<h2>What’s the harm?</h2>
<p>Many forms of popular entertainment require the suspension of disbelief, and viewers of paranormal reality shows are hopefully tuning in for the entertainment rather than scientific value of these programs. There are many important public issues, however, for which pseudoscientific beliefs have <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2015/02/03/383501038/science-denialism-has-consequences">harmed public discourse</a>. </p>
<p>Currently, there is only limited, tentative <a href="http://doi.org/10.1080/21548455.2012.761366">evidence</a> to link exposure to pseudoscience on television to pseudoscientific beliefs. Still, one <a href="http://doi.org/10.1177/1075547012454599">study showed</a> that people find paranormal research to be more credible and scientific when it is shown using technological tools such as recording devices. Other evidence has suggested that <a href="http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ898951">popular opinion may outweigh scientific credibility</a> when people evaluate pseudoscientific claims.</p>
<p>A good ghost story may hold entertainment and even cultural value, but the popular portrayal of pseudoscientific practices as science may be detracting from efforts to cultivate a scientifically literate public.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/48160/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Nees does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ghost hunters love to record and parse EVP – electronic voice phenomena – they say are messages from spirits. But perceptual psychology has scientific reasons for why what they’re hearing isn’t from the other side.Michael Nees, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Lafayette College Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.