DOCSLIB.ORG

Journal Summer 10

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Journal Summer 10 “Nasci, Laborare, Mori, Nasci” Summer 2010 The Ghost Club Journal Summer 2010 Chairman’s letter The Ghost Club Journal Summer 2010 Welcome to the Summer issue of The Chairman’s Letter 2 Ghost Club Journal. Writing the chairman’s letter is usually a Philip Paul, A Tribute 4 task undertaken with pleasure, but on this Alan Murdie occasion it is tinged with some sadness. As you will see, this issue of the Journal re- Ghost Club notices and 7 cords the passing of two of the great Announcements names in British ghost hunting of the last Notebook 8 sixty years. These are Philip Paul and Tony Mark Salmon & Paul Collins Cornell, and tributes to them are included inside. Haunted Scotland 11 As with many others, I have personal Derek Green reasons through the Ghost Club for re- Ixworth School Ghost Walk 15 membering both. In 1997, Tony Cornell Laura Dean was the speaker at the first Ghost Club meeting I ever chaired (this was when the What’s on in London 17 Ghost Club met at 6.30 pm, on Tuesday Philip Carr evenings at the Victory Services Club). Book Reviews 20 Tony spoke on poltergeists, on which he Sarah Darnell. Anna Pearce. John Barrett was an acknowledged authority, not least from first-hand experience. Hauntings at Worth 24 With Philip Paul, I was delighted first to Chris Huff correspond, and then meet him in person in 2001. Meeting Philip was to be put in Ghosts in the News 27 touch with an important period from the Sarah Darnell Ghost Club’s history. Between 1952-54, Letters to the Editor 33 Philip was responsible for reviving our Club after it had ceased to meet, following A Tribute to Tony Cornell 34 the death of Harry Price in 1948. The Club Alan Murdie we enjoy today is descended directly from that initiative. Sadly, it was straight after Is It A Ghost? 37 attending our Club meeting held on June 12th this year that I learned that Philip had From The Archive… 39 died. An Article by Maurice Grosse However, in one of those marvellous 2 The Ghost Club Journal Summer 2010 pieces of synchronicity that sometimes oc- female skull – unfortunately 200 years too cur, on the following Saturday, one week young. Nevertheless, strange manifestations later, I was delighted to come across, quite still persist....” unexpectedly, an article about Philip, pub- Naturally, I bought the magazine (it was lished over fifty years ago and mentioning only 10p!). To come across this item, at the Ghost Club. such a time, was all at once meaningful, Like many Ghost Club members, I love rather poignant and yet also a comfort. Of second hand bookshops, and I was brows- course, it is easy to assign such moments ing in one of my favourites, Lankester’s to coincidence. But the older I get, the Books and Antiques at Saffron Walden, in more coincidence seems an over-worked word to describe the numerous events Essex. I have been to Lankester’s many which seem to link up together at certain times over the last twenty years but on this significant stages in the journey of life. occasion, I discovered a room stuffed with At such times, I am also reminded of the old books and magazines which I had minutes of a Victorian Ghost Club meeting never previously entered (I think it has re- held on March 1st 1889, recording the con- cently been opened up to accommodate the tribution of Mr Henry Hood on the occa- burgeoning collections of old volumes sion of the death of a fellow member, gracing the shelves). Within it, I found a Stanhope Speer: large pile of Essex Countryside magazines, “Mr Hood emphasised the fact that death dating from the mid-1950s through to the hid from mortal eye a separated brother, but was powerless to affect the concrete late 1980s. Flicking through the piles - unity of the Club. The loss was only appar- about the sixth or seventh copy I picked up ent when we happily change our condition at random – I found the edition from the that is the only change. We remain the summer of 1957, Volume 5 number 2. same. Stanhope Speer is one of us still, as Turning the pages, I found myself reading he has always been. The unity of the broth- the following item under the heading erhood is unbroken.” “Most Haunted House”: The following year on November 2nd “Peterborough” in the Daily Telegraph, re- 1890, the Ghost Club President Mr Paice cently had something to say about Borley. He spoke of how Club members were assured mentioned Mr Philip Paul, the vice-chairman “of the continued existence of the so- of the Ghost Club, had told the Psychic and called “Dead” and of the power enjoyed by Literary Luncheon Club that “neither Price’s them under veritable condition of a re- inaccuracies nor the attempts to demolish his association with us conscious on both claims shook the strong evidence for ghostly sides”. On recalling the names of deceased phenomena”. Disappointingly, though, Mr. Ghost Club members he “invited the Paul had to admit that though he had been Members present in the flesh to devote to Borley on July 28 for the last seven years some moments of serious recollection and he had failed to see the famous woman in of affectionate association with these their black who has appeared to so many others departed friends and brethren – members on that day....Harry Price believed the still of this Club”. woman in black to be the ghost of a nun With best wishes murdered 300 years ago. After extensive dig- ging Mr Paul did in fact unearth parts of a Alan Murdie Summer 2010 The Ghost Club Journal 3 It is with great regret we announce the Philip puzzled about why his sister might passing of Philip Paul, author, journalist and have signalled thus, rather than alerting fam- authority on the paranormal who died on ily members in the same house, and sought June 12th 2010. In the space available, I can- answers in psychical research. The phe- not attempt to do justice either to Philip or to nomenon led him to the writings of Cammille his work but let it be recorded at the outset, Flammarion, the French Astronomer and psy- that the Ghost Club owes him a great debt, chical researcher which are filled with similar since he was instrumental in reviving the cases of crisis manifestations, as are the re- Club as a functioning body between 1952 cords of the British Society for Psychical Re- and 1954. search. The Ghost Club had ceased meeting fol- Following the tragedy, Philip went to stay lowing the death of Harry Price in 1948 and with his mother’s family in a remote Norfolk Philip took a lead in re-establishing it as a village, where the people still exhibited the place for believers and sceptics to meet in a mindset of the pre-modern era. They still convivial setting. The story of the successful looked at the world in stark and simple Bibli- re-launch is told in his book Some Unseen cal ways and at the same time populated Power (1985) but unfortunately, Philip found their village with numerous spectres. his efforts hindered and hi-jacked shortly af- (Growing up in East Anglia myself, I can re- ter the revival begun. The spirit of openness member the tail-end of this rural culture and and enquiry he had hoped to engender was such character from my own boyhood). quashed by the personal agendas of certain Ghost stories told by candle light stimulated members, and as a result he withdrew. None- his mind yet further, and provided inspiration theless, he continued to take an interest in for his ambitions as an author. the Club and its doings over the following His first writing job came as a reporter with years. After reforms of the Ghost Club in the weekly Newmarket Journal and in June 1997, he was in touch with the then General 1944 he achieved his first major scoop. An Secretary, the late Commander Bill Bellars ammunition train blew up at Soham station OBE and sent his best wishes. In 2002 we causing large scale destruction just as the were delighted to formally welcome Philip paper was going to press. At the time the pa- back to the Club. In the years that followed per was lacking an editor – he had died the he attended a number of meetings and week before – leaving Philip a free hand to events, until prevented from doing so by fail- send the story to Fleet Street. This provided ing health in 2008. Even then he continued to an entry for Philip to national journalism (the contribute to the Journal with his last article story appeared belatedly in the Newmarket appearing in the spring 2010 edition. Journal the following week). Like the young Philip drew upon a lifetime of experience Dickens he excelled in two subjects: crime investigating the paranormal. The starting and ghosts, about which he continued to point was a family tragedy in 1938 which oc- write for the next sixty years. curred when Philip was 15 years old. This An influence in Fleet Street was the famous was the sudden death of his sister Iris, aged editor Hannen Swaffer (known as the Pope of 22, in the bath at home. Simultaneous with Fleet Street for both his magisterial manner her death, a relative three miles away heard and his spiritualist views). But Philip became an unexplained knocking on the window.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Enf Ield 'Poltergeist' This Morning's Revisit of the Classic Case Provokes Further Thoughts
    The Enf ield 'Poltergeist' This Morning's revisit of the classic case provokes further thoughts AT THE BEGINNING OF FEBRUARY, I appeared on This Morning to talk highly resistant to disbelieving witnesses. Playfair himself wrote that"... about the Enfield 'poltergeist' with Guy Lyon Playfair (writer of This paranormal events only took place in the presence of people who House is Haunted) and Janet Winter. The producers were very pleased believed them to be possible"3 In fact, it's hard to avoid wondering that they had an appearance by the woman who had been the eleven- whether the agents of the peculiar occurrences at Enfield were simply year-old at the centre of the events in the late 70s, but were extremely refusing to play to tough crowds. concerned about her resilience and sought an assurance from me that In her piece, Ms. Barrington makes the point that "Janet has consis- I could keep it generalised and unconfrontational, which I was happy to tently resisted the fame and fortune that would certainly come her way do. When I met Janet in the Green Room, I have to say I found her if she were now to claim that she had faked all her phenomena." While extremely likeable and every bit as nervous as I had been warned. She true, that carries the implicit assumption that fame and fortune are the has previously been quite publicity-averse and, fair enough, most peo- objects of Janet's desire. Having been a witness to her demeanour at a ple would find going on the telly very nerve-wracking indeed.
    [Show full text]
  • The Science of Mediumship and the Evidence of Survival
    Rollins College Rollins Scholarship Online Master of Liberal Studies Theses 2009 The cS ience of Mediumship and the Evidence of Survival Benjamin R. Cox III [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.rollins.edu/mls Recommended Citation Cox, Benjamin R. III, "The cS ience of Mediumship and the Evidence of Survival" (2009). Master of Liberal Studies Theses. 31. http://scholarship.rollins.edu/mls/31 This Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by Rollins Scholarship Online. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master of Liberal Studies Theses by an authorized administrator of Rollins Scholarship Online. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Science of Mediumship and the Evidence of Survival A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Liberal Studies by Benjamin R. Cox, III April, 2009 Mentor: Dr. J. Thomas Cook Rollins College Hamilton Holt School Master of Liberal Studies Winter Park, Florida This project is dedicated to Nathan Jablonski and Richard S. Smith Table of Contents Introduction ............................................................................................... 1 The Science of Mediumship.................................................................... 11 The Case of Leonora E. Piper ................................................................ 33 The Case of Eusapia Palladino............................................................... 45 My Personal Experience as a Seance Medium Specializing
    [Show full text]
  • Super-Psi and the Survivalist Interpretation of Mediumship
    Journal of Scientifi c Exploration, Vol. 23, No. 2, pp. 167–193, 2009 0892-3310/09 ESSAY Super-Psi and the Survivalist Interpretation of Mediumship MICHAEL SUDDUTH Department of Philosophy San Francisco State University San Francisco, CA e-mail: [email protected] Abstract—According to the survivalist interpretation of mediumship, the existence of discarnate persons provides the best explanation for the data associ- ated with physical and mental mediumship. Others—advocates of what is often called the “super-psi hypothesis”—maintain that the data of mediumship may be at least equally explained in terms of living agent psi (ESP and psychokinesis). Many defenders of the survivalist interpretation of mediumship attempt to defl ate the alleged explanatory virtues of the super-psi hypothesis by arguing that the hypothesis is unfalsifi able and lacks independent evidential support. My central contention in this paper is that these frequently encountered survivalist criticisms of the super-psi hypothesis are ultimately self-defeating to the case for survival from mediumship. To show this I fi rst argue in some detail that the survivalist interpretation of mediumship is committed to a kind or degree of psi that is indistinguishable from what is required by the super-psi hypothesis. From this vantage point it can be shown that any attempt to impugn the explanatory virtues of the super-psi hypothesis on account of the kind or degree of psi it requires undercuts the argument for survival itself. Keywords: super-psi—survival—mediumship—telepathy—clairvoyance— postmortem Introduction Data collected from physical and mental mediumship constitute an important strand of ostensible evidence for postmortem survival.
    [Show full text]
  • Between Static and Slime in Poltergeist
    Page 3 The Fall of the House of Meaning: Between Static and Slime in Poltergeist Murray Leeder A good portion of the writing on Poltergeist (1982) has been devoted to trying to untangle the issues of its authorship. Though the film bears a directorial credit from Tobe Hooper, there has been a persistent claim that Steven Spielberg (credited as writer and producer) informally dismissed Hooper early in the process and directed the film himself. Dennis Giles says plainly, “Tobe Hooper is the director of record, but Poltergeist is clearly controlled by Steven Spielberg,” (1) though his only evidence is the motif of white light. The most concerted analysis of the film’s authorship has been by Warren Buckland, who does a staggeringly precise formal analysis of the film against two other Spielberg films and two other Hooper films, ultimately concluding that the official story bears out: Hooper directed the film, and Spielberg took over in post­production. (2) Andrew M. Gordon, however, argues that Poltergeist deserves a place within Spielberg’s canon because so many of his trademarks are present, and because Spielberg himself has talked about it as a complementary piece for E .T.: The Extra­Terrestrial (1982). (3) A similar argument can be made on behalf of Hooper, however, with respect to certain narrative devices and even visual motifs like the perverse clown from The Funhouse (1981). Other scholars have envisioned the film as more of a contested space, caught between different authorial impulses. Tony Williams, for examples, speaks of Spielberg “oppressing any of the differences Tobe Hooper intended,” (4) which is pure speculation, though perhaps one could be forgiven to expect a different view of family life from the director of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) than that of E.T.
    [Show full text]
  • Hellish Love: an Exhibition of Objects from the Swedenborg Collection
    FROM THE SWEDENBORG COLLECTION Hellish Love: an exhibition of objects from the swedenborg collection STEPHANIE BROWN | LOUISE CAMU MOLLY COLDICOTT | GREER DALE-FOULKES | MENGYANG FAN GERTRUDE GIBBONS | LYDIA GRANGER | MALVINA JANASIK SARAH KHAN | WESLEY KNOWLER | CHENYUAN LIANG BINYAO LIU | YUZU ONO | SICILY SCARLET MAXIMILIAN SCHUCH | HARALD SMART | JOHN VAUGHAN 19-23 OCTOBER 2020 Swedenborg House | Free Admission The Swedenborg Society Swedenborg House 20-21 Bloomsbury Way London WC1A 2TH in association with the Royal College of Art School of Arts & Humanities, Writing MA programme 2019/20 2020 1 HELLISH LOVE: AN EXHIBITION OF OBJECTS 2 FROM THE SWEDENBORG COLLECTION Table of Contents Introduction Sally O’Reilly..........................................................................................5 FRAGMENT OF BARK 1 A Piece of Swedenborg’s Poplar Tree Bark Gertrude Gibbons...............................9 2 Ward and Ballast Wesley Knowler..........................................................................12 3 Found Harald Smart........................................................................................15 SPIRIT PHOTOS 4 A Little Imagination Louise Camu.........................................................................17 5 Spirit Cards Molly Coldicott.................................................................................20 6 Lady Divinity Sarah Roselle Khan........................................................................22 7 When the Veil is Lifted, No One Shall Giggle in Front of the Spirit
    [Show full text]
  • LEASK-DISSERTATION-2020.Pdf (1.565Mb)
    WRAITHS AND WHITE MEN: THE IMPACT OF PRIVILEGE ON PARANORMAL REALITY TELEVISION by ANTARES RUSSELL LEASK DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at The University of Texas at Arlington August, 2020 Arlington, Texas Supervising Committee: Timothy Morris, Supervising Professor Neill Matheson Timothy Richardson Copyright by Antares Russell Leask 2020 Leask iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS • I thank my Supervising Committee for being patient on this journey which took much more time than expected. • I thank Dr. Tim Morris, my Supervising Professor, for always answering my emails, no matter how many years apart, with kindness and understanding. I would also like to thank his demon kitten for providing the proper haunted atmosphere at my defense. • I thank Dr. Neill Matheson for the ghostly inspiration of his Gothic Literature class and for helping me return to the program. • I thank Dr. Tim Richardson for using his class to teach us how to write a conference proposal and deliver a conference paper – knowledge I have put to good use! • I thank my high school senior English teacher, Dr. Nancy Myers. It’s probably an urban legend of my own creating that you told us “when you have a Ph.D. in English you can talk to me,” but it has been a lifetime motivating force. • I thank Dr. Susan Hekman, who told me my talent was being able to use pop culture to explain philosophy. It continues to be my superpower. • I thank Rebecca Stone Gordon for the many motivating and inspiring conversations and collaborations. • I thank Tiffany A.
    [Show full text]
  • The Third Secret of Fatima
    Fatima Apparitional Experiences Dr James Paul Pandarakalam An apparition may provide evidence of the authenticity of its manifestation at a physical site by offering predictions that are to be fulfilled at a later date. One of the distinctive features of the events at Fatima in Portugal in 1917 is the fulfilment in our own time of the predictions made. Ever since the occurrence of these famous visionary experiences, among observers and believers there has been an exponential interest in the third secret. Voice phenomena observed during Marian apparitions such as those at Fatima have analogies with externally controlled recurrent spontaneous psychokinetic (RSPK) activity, and visionary experiences involving RSPK or RSPK-like activity may be instances of apparitions at a physical site. The voice extinction and sensory disconnection demonstrated in the Fatima percipients could be explained as psychokinetic-like activity on the part of the apparition. True apparitional experiences prove the existence of psi-like phenomena and discarnate survival. In general, paranormal phenomena involve non-physical, physical and social events. Only physical events are accessible to scientific study. Marian apparitional experiences may be subjected to scientific analysis, but Marian apparition is beyond the scientific realm. The Fatima apparitional events inform research into post-mortem existence and offer a complementary insight into our current knowledge of the discarnate realm. Marian apparitions may be regarded as an antidote to the afflictions of the present century. Introduction Several hundreds of apparitional experiences have been claimed to have occurred in the twentieth century. Marian apparitional experiences have been reported in nearly all the continents of the world in the later half of that century.
    [Show full text]
  • Twenty-First Century American Ghost Hunting: a Late Modern Enchantment
    Twenty-First Century American Ghost Hunting: A Late Modern Enchantment Daniel S. Wise New Haven, CT Bachelor oF Arts, Florida State University, 2010 Master oF Arts, Florida State University, 2012 A Dissertation presented to the Graduate Faculty oF the University oF Virginia in Candidacy For the Degree oF Doctor oF Philosophy Department oF Religious Studies University oF Virginia November, 2020 Committee Members: Erik Braun Jack Hamilton Matthew S. Hedstrom Heather A. Warren Contents Acknowledgments 3 Chapter 1 Introduction 5 Chapter 2 From Spiritualism to Ghost Hunting 27 Chapter 3 Ghost Hunting and Scientism 64 Chapter 4 Ghost Hunters and Demonic Enchantment 96 Chapter 5 Ghost Hunters and Media 123 Chapter 6 Ghost Hunting and Spirituality 156 Chapter 7 Conclusion 188 Bibliography 196 Acknowledgments The journey toward competing this dissertation was longer than I had planned and sometimes bumpy. In the end, I Feel like I have a lot to be thankFul For. I received graduate student Funding From the University oF Virginia along with a travel grant that allowed me to attend a ghost hunt and a paranormal convention out oF state. The Skinner Scholarship administered by St. Paul’s Memorial Church in Charlottesville also supported me For many years. I would like to thank the members oF my committee For their support and For taking the time to comb through this dissertation. Thank you Heather Warren, Erik Braun, and Jack Hamilton. I especially want to thank my advisor Matthew Hedstrom. He accepted me on board even though I took the unconventional path oF being admitted to UVA to study Judaism and Christianity in antiquity.
    [Show full text]
  • News and Comment
    News and Comment An Unbeliever Among D The Faithful his past May, Cambridge Univer- jointly by the president of the Society sity appointed its first research for Psychical Research (Archie E. Roy) Tfellow in parapsychology. Nor- and three past presidents 0ohn Beloff, mally, you might not expect this to Arthur J. Ellison, and Alan Gauld). be a high-profile news item. But the "Dr. Humphrey," they wrote, post went to a skeptic, Nicholas Humphrey, and this turned an unus- ual academic appointment into a media event in Britain. The Times of London wasted no time in interviewing Humphrey, who was refreshingly forthright in his replies. "After a hundred years of experiments into the paranormal," he said, "they have come up with nothing convincing. I want to show not only that these things don't happen, but that they are logically impossible, that the paranormal is all in the mind." Nor did he give any ground to the spiritually minded. "Roman Catholi- cism without the paranormal would be nothing; it needs its miracles. But then who needs Catholicism? Praying has no paranormal benefits—statisti- cally, it is not going to help." "The most important work to be done in this area," he said, "is to expose the fallacies. This is not a game. A lot of people are putting around mislead- ing ideas, and others are being conned financially and intellectually." Almost immediately, ruffled feath- ers began afluttering in the dovecotes of academe. A letter to the Times was signed Inquirer Winter 1993 115 "appears to be lumping together all the concerned with research into the silliest nonsense and foolish supersti- physical sciences, and the dons there tions he (and we) dislike and calling were imperfectly sensible of the honor it parapsychology.
    [Show full text]
  • Essay Review of the Survival Hypothesis
    Journal of Scientifi c Exploration, Vol. 29, No. 2, pp. 305–330, 2015 0892-3310/15 ESSAY Essay Review of The Survival Hypothesis ALAN GAULD The Survival Hypothesis: Essays on Mediumship edited by Adam J. Rock. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2013. viii+310 pp. $49.95 (paperback). ISBN 978-0-7864-7220-8. In his Introduction, the Editor of this book, Adam J. Rock, manages to present us in the space of twelve pages—no mean feat—with some key definitions, a “necessarily brief and incomplete history of mediumship,” an introduction to the ‘source of psi’ problem with respect to mediumship, an outline of the structure and contents of the present volume, and his concluding wish that survival-related topics, such as mediumship will receive more attention than hitherto within mainstream parapsychology. Part I of the book is entitled Explanation and Belief, and opens with two closely linked essays by Stephen E. Braude on The Possibility of Mediumship: Philosophical Considerations, and by Michael Sudduth on Is Postmortem Survival the Best Explanation of the Data of Mediumship? Stephen Braude is one of a rather limited number of writers in this field whose clarity and brio one can enjoy regardless of whether or not one agrees with his opinions. In the present article he tackles, with special reference to mediumship, the question of whether there can be a scientific or other rational basis for belief in the survival of bodily death. He notes at the outset that this question is hedged about with a variety of troublesome philosophical issues in which the unwary may become ensnared.
    [Show full text]
  • Polterheist Freelings Sleep, Carol Anne Fixates on the Television Polterheist As It Polterheist Static Again
    FREE POLTERHEIST PDF Laura Resnick | 375 pages | 06 Nov 2012 | DAW BOOKS | 9780756407339 | English | New York, United States Polterheist () - IMDb From Coraline to ParaNorman check out some of our favorite Polterheist movie picks to watch this Halloween. See the full gallery. Two gangsters are given 72 hours to discover the whereabouts Polterheist a stash of drug money stolen by their boss. There's only one problem Frantic to find the cash, the hapless criminals kidnap a psychic medium and force her to contact the dead gang boss. Unfortunately for them, they only succeed in unleashing an evil spirit bent on revenge. Rather like the recent "revelation" that Amazon is full of fake reviews, we find a similar ghostly phenomenon here. There are Polterheist number of glowing reviews for this title, created by persons who joined IMDB inand have submitted a single Polterheist for this movie. One would almost suspect a master plan to promote their own movie Anyway, I actually enjoyed this movie. It's a great idea reminds me a bit of "Cleaver", Polterheist movie within The Sopranos. It's not great, and Polterheist cast Polterheist note an Emmerdale actress have limited talent Polterheist display, but it made me chuckle, and I do enjoy bungled Polterheist movies. Looking for some great streaming picks? Check out some of the IMDb editors' favorites movies and shows Polterheist round out your Watchlist. Visit our What to Watch page. Sign In. Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Full Cast and Crew. Release Dates. Official Sites. Company Credits. Technical Specs. Plot Summary.
    [Show full text]
  • Religion and the Paranormal Spring 2021 REL 3938 (Writing Rule 4) Prof
    Religion and the Paranormal Spring 2021 REL 3938 (Writing Rule 4) Prof. Erin Prophet • [email protected] Class Time: MWF. 7 (1:55-2:45 p.m.) Class location: MAT 103 and online via Zoom Office Hours: Mon: 12:30 pm -1:30 pm; Wed: 12:30-1:30 pm. Fri. 12:30-1:30 p.m. Location: Anderson Hall 130 or online The supernatural seems to force us toward religion, while the paranormal merely forces us to say, “I don’t know.” —Steve Volk1 Pseudoscience speaks to powerful emotional needs that science often leaves unfulfilled….Pseudoscience is embraced, it might be argued, in exact proportion as real science is misunderstood…Religions are often the state-protected nurseries of pseudoscience. —Carl Sagan2 Psi, the paranormal, and the supernatural are fundamentally linked to destructuring, change, transition, disorder, marginality, the ephemeral, fluidity, ambiguity, and blurring of boundaries. —George P. Hansen3 1 Fringe-ology 2011, p. 4 2 The Demon-Haunted World 1996, pp. 14-15. 3 The Trickster and the Paranormal 2001, 22. Syllabus: Religion and the Paranormal 2 Prof. Erin Prophet Course Overview As many as three-quarters of Americans hold at least one paranormal belief. What does this tell us about the future of religion? We will examine the paranormal as an “other” category for both religion and science. Organized religion uses it to distinguish the miraculous from unsanctioned activities like witchcraft and the occult. Science frames itself as the opposite of superstition. And yet in a “disenchanted” world, it’s important to ask why we continue to be fascinated with the paranormal, as seen in the explosion of the topic in film (horror, superheroes), television, gaming and manga.
    [Show full text]