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with their eyes covered and headphones over their ears playing ‘white noise’. Honorton gave a good description of this technique in the Psychological Bulletin in 1994, by which time an automated device called a ‘random event generator’ had been developed to eliminate bias. In spite of these methodological advances, many scientists still doubt the existence of psychic abilities.
At this point, I’ll just mention sceptics very briefly.
Sceptics are usually scientists who’ve applied scientific methods to find out if psi exists. And to the extent that it can be tested, they’ve concluded that it doesn’t. Susan Blackmore is a well-known example of a sceptic. After having an impressive out-of-body experience in her youth, she studied the paranormal for 30 years. However, after much research, she found no evidence for the existence of the paranormal and is now investigating consciousness and meditation. Right, now I’ll move on to explain one of the reasons why the paranormal is questioned so seriously by mainstream scientists.
Materialism, as I mentioned earlier, is the belief
that things are only real if they can be shown to exist physically. And reductionism, a more radical form of materialism, is defined by Graham as: ‘the idea that psychological explanations can be replaced by explanations in terms of brain functioning or even in terms of physics and chemistry’.
Anyway, one of the arguments against the
paranormal is that, as physical and biological sciences advance, more and more phenomena that were previously thought to be inexplicable can be explained scientifically. A case in point is the out- of-body experience (OBE), which French briefly describes as ‘an experience in which a person seems to perceive the world from a location outside the physical body.’ Well, spiritualists might interpret this as evidence of the separate existence of body and spirit. But neurological research has shown that electrical stimulation of the right temporal lobe of the brain results in a sensation of floating and being outside the body. In other words, the out-of-body experience is produced by a spontaneous electrical spasm in the brain. A second example of science disproving popular belief is the case of déjà vu, you know, that feeling that you’ve already lived the moment you’re living now. Now, some people say that this is proof of having lived a former life. In fact, the evidence shows that far from proving that we have lived before, déjà vu can be explained by any one of several cognitive theories. In my opinion, A.S. Brown’s summary of these possibilities in his article, ‘A review of the déjà vu experience’,
published in the 2003 issue of the Psychological Bulletin, is very balanced. He has no doubt that there are psychological explanations for the phenomenon, and in my view, recognition memory theories are particularly interesting. Before I go on to discuss psychokinesis, I’m going to stop and …
Unit 11, Lesson 11.2, Exercise F≤2.18
Now, some people say that this is proof of having lived a former life. In fact, the evidence shows that far from proving that we have lived before, déjà vu can be explained by any one of several cognitive theories. In my opinion, A.S. Brown’s summary of these possibilities in his article, ‘A review of the déjà vu experience’, published in the 2003 issue of the Psychological Bulletin, is very balanced. He has no doubt that there are psychological explanations for the phenomenon, and in my view, recognition memory theories are particularly interesting.
Unit 11, Lesson 11.2, Exercise G≤2.19
Extract 1 Today, I am going to present some of the main arguments for and against the existence of paranormal phenomena, that is to say, events and experiences that seem to have no scientific explanation, like seeing ghosts or being able to predict the future.
Extract 2
Don’t misunderstand me; I’m not going to try to convince you that either of these actually happens.
Extract 3 Materialism, on the other hand, maintains that there can be no division between body and spirit; not only that, but only the physical exists.
Extract 4
First of all, I think it’s fair to say that there are four main views on the existence of paranormal events.
Extract 5 The third group, sceptics, take the view that, because out-of-body experiences, for instance, are subjective, it is to some degree impossible to prove or disprove their existence.
Extract 6
In an attempt to present a balanced view, I’m going to summarize each of these views in turn.
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