The scope of parapsychology

From WikiSynergy

The Parapsychological Association, says that parapsychology is limited to three main categories of paranormal phenomena:

[edit] Mental phenomena

This class covers extrasensory perception (ESP), meaning that you get information by means that science doesn't yet understand. Clairvoyance, in its modern usage, is the same as ESP (clairvoyance originally meant only psychic sight). Included in this category are such things as:

• Telepathy
• Precognition
• Retrocognition
• Remote viewing
• Psychometry
• Xenoglossy
• Mental mediumism (spiritualistic phenomena)
• Possession

It should be stated that since no one knows what psi is, it may not be accurate to call these phenomena "mental."

[edit] Physical phenomena

This includes paranormal phenomena which effect (or are) physical objects:

• Psychokinesis (telekinesis)
• Poltergeists
• Materialization
• Psychic healing
• Morphic fields
• Synchronicity.^[1]

[edit] Survival phenomena

The survival of consciousness after death:

• Ghosts
• Phantoms
• Out-of-body experiences (astral projections)
• Reincarnation
• Near-death experiences (NDEs)

There are many other types of paranormal phenomena, but they are usually considered outside the purview of parapsychology. Some, such as elecronic voice pheonmena, are on the edges. Someone who studies these things is not automatically a parapsychologist. In order to be a parapsychologist, you have to study them in a scientific manner.

References

1. ↑ Jung was in his mid seventies before he formally set down his thoughts about synchronicity—although he had been thinking about and occasionally alluding to the phenomenon for almost thirty years (Jung, 1952b, par. 816; 1963, p. 342). He defined synchronicity in a variety of ways. Most succinctly, he defined it as ‘meaningful coincidence’ (Jung, 1952b, par. 827), as ‘acausal parallelism’ (Jung, 1963, p. 342), or as ‘an acausal connecting principle’ (Jung, 1952b). More fully, he defined it as ‘the simultaneous occurrence of a certain psychic state with one or more external events which appear as meaningful parallels to the momentary subjective state’ (Jung, 1952b, par. 850). himself to ‘the hope that something unexpected would turn up, something that would burst the intellectual retort into which she had sealed herself’.Religion, Science, and Synchronicity by Roderick Main In Harvest: Journal for Jungian Studies 46, no. 2 (2000): 89-107.