Prodigy Paranormal Glossary: A - H

Choose definitions by Alphabet Group: A - H I - P Q - Z


Absent Healing	Healing that purportedly takes place when the healer is not in direct physical contact with the subject to be healed.

Absent Sitter	An individual or entity not present during a psychic session, who is examined of read.

Acupuncture	Traditional Chinese medical practice that involves sticking needles into specific locations on the body

Agent	An individual who attempts to communicate information to another sentient being in an ESP session.

Akashic Records	Memories of all experiences since the beginning of time, believed by some mystical doctrines to be stored permanently in a spiritual substance (Akasha)

Alien Abduction	Reported experiences of being abducted by alien creatures, often into spacecraft. Abductees often experience lost time and suffer loss of memory. When memories are recovered, often using hypnotic regression, abductees may report that surgical operations were performed on them. See also temporal lobe activity

Alpha Rhythm	Electrical activity in the brain (about 10 cycles per second) associated with a state of mental relaxation

Altered State	A term used to refer to any state of consciousness that is different from 'normal' states of waking or sleeping. ASCs include hypnosis, trance, ecstasy, psychedelic and meditative experience. ASCs do not necessarily have paranormal features

Ancestor Worship	Religious practices involving the veneration of dead ancestors

Angels	Benevolent spiritual beings who help people in need. See also guardian angel

Animal Magnetism	A term coined by F.A. Mesmer to refer to a putative force or fluid capable of being transmitted from one person to another, producing healing effects

Animal Mutilation	Refers to cases in which animal corpses (often cattle) have been found with bizarre injuries that do not seem to have a normal explanation in terms of illness, accident or action of predators. Cuts and injuries often appear to have been carried out with surgical precision. Typically the corpse is drained of blood. Certain body parts may be absent (e.g., genitals)

Animal Psi	Paranormal abilities exhibited by animals

Animism	Religious practices based on the belief that all living things and natural objects have their individual spiritual essence or soul

Announcing Dream	A dream believed to announce an individual's rebirth

Anomalous Experience	A general term referring to unusual experiences that cannot be explained in terms of current scientific knowledge

Anomalous Phenomena	Natural phenomena that cannot be explained in terms of current scientific knowledge. See also Fortean phenomena

Apparition	A visual appearance (cf. hallucination), often of a person or scene, generally experienced in a waking or hypnagogic/hypnopompic state

Apport	A physical object which appears in a way that cannot be explained (seeming to come from nowhere). Apports are often associated with the seance room and physical mediumship

Artefact	In parapsychology, false evidence of paranormal phenomena, due to some extraneous normal influence

Astral Body	A term used by occultists, spiritualists and theosophists to refer to a supposed double of the person's physical body. The astral body is believed to be separable from the physical body during astral projection (out of body experience) and at death

Astral Projection	A term used by occultists, spiritualists and theosophists for the out of body experience. It is believed to result when the astral body separates from the physical body

Astrology	A theory and practice which attempts to identify the ways in which astronomical events are correlated with events on earth (e.g., with an individual's personality and biography, or with social and political trends)

Atavism	Re-emergence of ancestral characteristics; a genetic throwback

Augury	Divination

Aura	A field of energy believed by some to surround living creatures. Certain clairvoyants claim to be able to see the aura (generally as a luminous, coloured halo)

Automatic Writing	The ability to write intelligible messages without conscious control or knowledge of what is being written

Automatism	Physical activites (e.g., arm movements, writing, drawing, musical performance) that occur without the automatist's conscious control or knowledge. Also known as motor automatism. See also automatic writing, dissociation

Autoscopy	Seeing one's double. Looking back at one's own body from a position outside of the body

Ba	Ancient Egyptian concept of a person's essence, believed to be be immortal

Banshee	In Gaelic belief, a female entity who heralds a death by groaning and screaming

Bardo	In Tibetan Buddhism, an intermediate state of existence, usually referring to the state between life and rebirth

Basic Technique	Term used in card-guessing tests of clairvoyance, in which the top card of the deck is placed to one side after each guess

Billet Reading	Procedure in which a question is secretly written on a piece of paper which is folded or sealed in an envelope, and handed to the psychic who attempts to answer the question. Various trickery can be employed by fraudulent psychics and mentalists

Bilocation	Being (or appearing to be) in two different places at the same time

Bio-PK	Psychokinetic effects on biological processes

Biofeedback	A general term for techniques that involve giving a person information about their current physiological state (e.g., heart rate, EEG). Biofeedback is used to enable people to control consciously their physiological processes

Black Art	Conjuring technique of concealing objects using black covers against a black background. Also used by fraudulent mediums

Black Magic	Magical spells or rituals practiced with the intention of harming others

Blind	An experimental control in which subjects are not informed of certain key features of the experiment. Also used to refer to a procedure where a judge is asked to compare targets and responses without knowing which responses were made to which targets

Blind Matching	An identical procedure to open matching, except that the key cards are unseen by the subject

Book Test	A communication in which the sitter is asked to look at a specific book and page in order to receive a significant message. An effect in which the psychic or mentalist divines the words written on a particular page of a book

Cabinet	A box or curtained enclosure in which a physical medium is secured and from which various phenomena may manifest (e.g., lights, objects moving, instruments played). Certain stage magicians can simulate this procedure with great effect

Call	Response made by a subject in a card-guessing or other ESP test

Candomble	A Brazilian spiritist religion

Card Guessing	An experimental test for ESP in which subjects guess the identity of a set of cards (e.g., playing cards or Zener cards)

Cartomancy	Fortune telling using cards

Cerebral Anoxia	Lack of oxygen to the brain, often causing sensory distortions and hallucinations. Sometimes used to explain features of the near-death experience

Chance	Random, unpredictable influences on events

Channeling	Receiving messages and inspiration from discarnate entities

Charm	A spell or object possessing magic power

Christian Science	A religious healing movement founded by Mary Baker Eddy. Rejects orthodox medical practice

Cipher Test	A coded message left by a person who intends to communicate the cipher after death

Circle	A group of people who hold seances

Clairaudience	The paranormal obtaining of information by hearing sounds or voices

Clairsentience	An archaic term that refers to the paranormal obtaining of information using faculties other than vision or hearing

Clairvoyance	A general term that refers to the paranormal obtaining of information about an object or event. In modern usage, this does not necessarily refer to obtaining information visually

Clairvoyant	A person who obtains information paranormally (often by spirit communication) without the need to enter into a trance state

Closed Deck	A set of cards used in a card-guessing test where each card appears a fixed number of times. Statistical analysis of research data using a closed deck differs from statistical analysis of data using an open deck

Cold Reading	A reading given with no prior knowledge of the sitter. Often a mixture of very general statements which could apply to anyone, together with inferences made from cues presented by the sitter (e.g., physical appearance, clothes, tone of voice, statements made)

Collective Apparition	An apparition seen simultaneously by more than one person

Collective Unconscious	Concept put forward by C.G. Jung to refer to a level of unconscious thought and experience shared collectively by humans

Communication	In mediumship, a message purported to be from a discarnate entity

Communicator	A discarnate entity from whom the medium receives messages

Confederate	A person who secretly provides information to a fraudulent psychic or mentalist

Conjuring	Using trickery to simulate paranormal effects, generally for the purpose of entertainment

Contact Mind Reading	A technique simulating telepathy, in which the mind reader (who generally holds a hand or arm) responds to slight muscle movements produced unconsciously by the person whose mind is apparently being read

Control	In experimental parapsychology a procedure undertaken in order to ensure that the experiment is conducted in a standard fashion and so that results are not unduly influenced by extraneous factors. In spiritualism, a discarnate entity who communicates with a trance medium and who generally controls the trance state

Control Group	A group of people whose performance is compared with that of experimental subjects

Corn Circle	Circular (or more elaborate) formations found in growing crops, most commonly in Southern Britain. Sometimes they are associated with UFO sightings. Many formations appear to have been intelligently created and to have some symbolic meaning. Despite several confessions made by various individuals and groups, the crop circle mystery remains unsolved

Cosmic Consciousness	A blissful experience in which the person becomes aware of the whole universe as a living being. See also altered state of consciousness, mystical experience

Coven	A group of witches

Crisis Apparition	An apparition in which a person is seen within a few hours of an important crisis such as death, accident or sudden illness

Cross-correspondence	Separate items of information, received independently by two or more mediums, which make sense only when pieced together. Cross-correspondences is a classic case of highly complex cross-correspondences which continued from 1901 to 1932 among a group of automatists associated with the Society for Psychical Research

Cryptomnesia	Knowledge (acquired in normal ways) that may be revealed without the person remembering its source. Such memories may falsely appear to be paranormal revelations. Sometimes cryptomnesia is used as an explanation for apparently paranormal experiences such as xenoglossy or past-life memories

Curse	Words spoken or written in order to influence others paranormally, causing them harm

Daemon	A guardian spirit who communicates inspiration and advice

Death	Generally understood to be the extinction of an organism's life. Many doctrines assert some form of mental or spiritual survival of physical death. See also deathbed experience, haunting, mediumship, near-death experience, reincarnation

Deathbed Experience	A dying person's awareness of the presence of dead friends or relatives

Decline Effect	A decrease in performance on a psi test when the test is repeated

Deja Vu	A person's feeling that current events have been experienced before

Delta	A term used to refer to any kind of anomalous experience

Dematerialization	The paranormal fading or disappearance of a physical object

Demonic Possession	Possession by evil spirits

Deport	The paranormal movement of objects out of a secure enclosed space

Dice Test	Experimental techniques for investigating psychokinesis, in which a subject attempts to influence the fall of dice

Direct Voice	A voice heard in a seance which does not seem to emanate from any person. The voice may seem to come out of thin air, or from a trumpet used specifically for this purpose

Displacement	Responses on a psi test that correspond systematically to targets other than the intended one (e.g., those before or after)

Dissociation	Activity performed outside of normal conscious awareness, or mental processes that suggest the existence of separate centres of consciousness

Divination	Practices involving the interpretation of signs or symbols that seek to obtain oracular knowledge of events. Examples of divinatory practices are geomancy, tarot, I Ching, sortilege, and reading tea leaves

Divining Rod	A forked rod (or sometimes a pair of L-shaped rods) used in dowsing

DMILS	Direct Mental Interaction with Living Systems. Psychokinetic influences on physiological processes

Doppelganger	1. Mirror image or apparent double of a person. 2. Mythology creature that is able to assume the visage of another entity for deception.

Double	A duplicate of one's own body

Double Blind	An experimental procedure in which neither the subject nor experimenter is aware of key features of the experiment

Down Through Technique	An experimental test for clairvoyance in which the person guesses the order of a stacked series of target symbols (e.g., cards) from top to bottom

Dowsing	The paranormal detection of underground water or mineral deposits (or lost persons and objects) using a divining rod or pendulum

Dream	Physiological state during sleep where the brain undergoes an alternate conscious state in which events are viewed and played out.

Drop-in Communicator	An uninvited communicator who drops in at a sitting

Earthquake Effect	A phenomenon produced by the physical medium D.D. Home, involving the room shaking as if there was an earthquake

Ecstasy	An altered state of consciousness in which the person experiences great rapture and loss of self-control

Ectoplasm	A semi-fluid substance exuded by a physical medium from which materializations may form

EEG (Electro-encephalography)	A method of recording variations of electrical activity in the cortex of the brain

Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP)	See Raudive voices

Elemental Spirit	A spirit associated with one of the classical four elements (fire, earth, air and water)

Elongation	Paranormal extension of the physical body, reported in some mystics and physical mediums

Empath	Someone who shows considerable empathy, especially of the apparently psychic type

Empathy	The ability to understand the experience or emotional state of another person or animal. Often used to refer to an apparently psychic ability to experience another person's sensations, pain or emotions. Cf. clairsentience, intuition

Entity	A spirit or non-material entity. Often used to refer to the personality of a deceased individual.

ESP	Short form for Extrasensory Perception.

ESP Cards	Set of 25 cards (5 each of circle, square, Greek cross, five-pointed star, three wavy lines) designed by the perceptual psychologist Karl Zener for use in card-guessing tests of ESP. Also Known as Zener Cards.

Etheric Body	Similar to astral body

Evil Eye	Alleged ability of some people to harm others by looking at them

Evocation	The summoning of (often evil) spirits using a magical incantation or ritual

EVP	Electronic Voice Phenomena. Intelligible voices recorded on magnetic tape under conditions of silence or white noise which are heard only when the tape is played back.

Exorcism	A religious or quasi-religious rite to drive out evil spirits

Experiment	A test carried out under controlled conditions

Experimental Group	A group of subjects who undergo a specific experimental procedure. Often results from this group are compared with those of a control group

Experimental Parapsychology	Parapsychological research involving experimental methods rather than survey techniques or the investigation of spontaneous cases

Experimenter	The person who conducts the experiment

Experimenter Effect	Influence that the experimenter's personality or behaviour may have on the results of an experiment

Extradimensional	Originating outside our normal space-time reality. Cf. extraterrestrial

Extrasensory Perception (ESP)	Paranormal acquisition of information. Includes clairvoyance, telepathy and precognition

Extraterrestrial	Originating beyond planet Earth. Not normally considered to be extradimensional

Fairy	Small, human-like mythical being

Faith Healing	Healing that is associated with prayer or belief in Divine power

False Awakening	An experience in which a person believes he or she has woken up, but actually is still dreaming

Faraday Cage	A wire mesh enclosure that provides a shield to radio waves

Feedback	The giving of information to subjects about their performance on a test

Fire Walking	Walking on red-hot coals, without pain or damage to the feet

Focal Person	Person who is at the centre of poltergeist activity

Forced-Choice Test	An ESP test in which the subject guesses from a predetermined list of alternative targets

Fortean Phenomena	Strange phenomena, especially those which challenge conventional scientific knowledge. Named after the American researcher and writer Charles Fort. Fortean phenomena include those generally considered paranormal, but also bizarre non-paranormal events such as monsters and prodigies, extraordinary coincidences, and unusual rains

Fortune Telling	Various practices which aim to divine future events

Fraud	The deliberate faking of paranormal phenomenena, generally for the purpose of financial gain, psychological manipulation, or notoriety. Faking for the purpose of entertainment (e.g., by stage magicians and mentalists) is not normally classed as fraud

Free-Response Test	An ESP test in which the subject responds freely (does not choose from a fixed list of targets). For example, the subject may write down or draw their impressions, or may talk freely into a tape recorder. In order to assess the accuracy of the responses, they are compared with various targets (including the actual target) by a judge

Ganzfeld	A technique for investigating ESP in which the person experiences an absence of patterned stimulation. This generally involves the subject wearing halved table-tennis balls over the eyes while listening to hiss (white noise) through headphones

Geomancy	A system of divination involving the interpretation of lines or figures

Ghost	Popular term for an experience believed to indicate the presence of the spirit of a deceased person

Gimmick	In conjuring, any small concealed apparatus that is used to produce a magical effect. Also used by fraudulent mediums

Glossolalia	Unintelligible speech generally uttered in a dissociated or trance state. Also known as speaking in tongues

Guardian Angel	An angel believed to protect the individual

Guide	A spirit who is believed to assist a person's spiritual journey. See also angel, guardian angel

Hallucination	A sensory experience that does not correspond to physical reality

Haunting	Paranormal phenomena such as apparitions, unexplained sounds, smells or other sensations that are associated over a lengthy period of time with a specific location

Healer	Someone who claims the power of healing

Healing	Generally indicates cures that cannot be explained in terms of accepted medical principles

Hellstromism	See contact mind reading

Hex	Evil spell or magical curse. Protection from witchcraft

Hit	A response that accurately matches the target

Hot Reading	A reading given in which prior knowledge of the sitter has been obtained, often using devious or fraudulent means

Huna	An Hawaiian religious practice involving clairvoyance, precognition, healing, miracles and magic

Hyperaesthesia	Exceptionally acute sensory awareness

Hypnagogic Imagery	Imagery occurring in the hypnagogic state (occuring while dropping off to sleep)

Hypnopompic Imagery	Imagery occurring in the hypnopompic state (occurring while waking up)

Hypnosis	An ASC involving a heightened degree of suggestibility

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Prodigy Paranormal Glossary: A - H

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