What is parapsychology?

Under the label of parapsychological phenomena, also known as psi phenomena, A series of events are grouped together that cannot be explained by natural law.. Likewise, we can also refer with this label to the set of knowledge acquired by a person using sensory skills different from the usual ones. The discipline that deals with investigating such phenomena is called parapsychology.

The scientific interest that the topic has aroused is recent; However, beliefs in the reality of such phenomena have been around for a long time.

Before the emergence and development of current scientific thought, the causality of all physical phenomena was not understood very well, so magical explanations (ghosts, sorcerers, demons, mythological beings) were resorted to.

parapsychology

Parapsychology is the study of extrasensory perception (telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, and premonition), mind-matter interaction, and phenomena suggesting survival after bodily death, including near-death experiences, hauntings, and reincarnation. (Bonilla, 2010). Let’s look at the definitions of some of the topics it studies:

Telepathy: It is brain-to-brain communication.Clairvoyance: perceive visual realities that not all people can see.Remote viewing: learn about an event from a distance without having prior information about it.Precognition: predict a future event without having information about it.Macropsychokinesis: It is having influence over large objects.Biopsychokinesis: It is the influence on biological organisms.Retrocognition: knowing an event that happened through contact with a representative object without obtaining prior information about it.

Research in this field attracted attention in the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, due to the popularity of spiritualism. At that time, various investigations into strange phenomena began. These studies generated two types of information:

Apparitions, communications with the dead, near-death experiences, precognition, strange noises and movements have hidden meanings. These phenomena are known as “events determined by need” (Ehrenwald, 1978). Clairvoyance, telepathy and card divination can be produced in a laboratory, in which the sum of the correct answers is sought to be statistically significant. . These phenomena are known as “error-determined events” (Ehrenwald, 1978).

Psychic phenomena and explanatory hypotheses

What is known about the psychic phenomena studied by parapsychology can be summarized as follows (LeShan, 2009):

Some people demonstrate that they possess information that they have hardly been able to acquire through sensory channels. Such is the case of telepathic, clairvoyant or precognitive phenomena. The space or other physical factors existing between the original information and the person who demonstrates possession of it are not determining factors. Emotional factors are those that establish the connection between the origin of the information and the individual who demonstrates that knowledge. Many people experience significant pressure when they hear or read opinion articles about paranormal phenomena or encounter information about psychic phenomena.

Three hypotheses have been postulated to explain these phenomena. The first alludes to the existence of a superior extrasensory faculty in cases of telepathy or clairvoyance. The second maintains that the existence of non-material beings can explain the existence of said phenomena. In other words, it postulates that there is something related to personality that does not cease at the moment of bodily death. The third hypothesis would combine the previous two.

There are some parapsychological events that have a valid scientific answer. For example, visual phenomena or revelations may be due to hallucinations. Many of these phenomena have a physical explanation within the eye.

Additionally, it is known that mechanical stimulations that produce the sending of electrical signals to the brain are what cause visual flashes, characteristic of certain parapsychological phenomena (Haddrill, sf).

Criticisms of parapsychology

Parapsychology is not supported by the theoretical models accepted by either the natural sciences or psychology. The fact that this pseudoscience uses the scientific method does not make it scientific. The mere use of experimental methodologies is not enough to grant it such status.

For a discipline to be conceived as scientific, it needs to produce some theory verifiable by the scientific method, in addition to starting from the use of this. In turn, this theory must be related to the body of accepted scientific knowledge, that is, it must be able to connect with the rest of the knowledge. To date, parapsychology has not produced any theories of this type, so its status is that of a pseudoscientific discipline.

To end, Parapsychology has not been able to demonstrate the existence of any paranormal phenomenon under controlled laboratory conditions.. The methodological flaws in his research in many cases provide the best explanation for the apparent experimental successes that have been obtained in this field, rather than the explanations offered by many parapsychologists.

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