After Death Communications: Messages from the departed whose intent is normally to comfort the bereaved or bring closure to unfinished business.
Agenerate: Kardec's term for apparition.
Agent: A person who is unaware that they are directing poltergeist activity. Often a teenager and most often a female.
Altered State of Consciousness (ASC): Consciousness that is different from normal or transcendental to other realms or realities.
Amanuenses: One who takes dictation. Many channels refer to themselves as an amanuenses for their spirit source.
Anniversary Haunting: A haunting that happens on the same day every year usually commemorating a traumatic or tragic event.
Announcing Dreams: A dream believed to announce an individual's rebirth.
Anomaly: An irregular or unusual event which does not fit a standard rule or law. An anomaly is something which cannot be explained by current accepted scientific theories.
Apparition: The appearance of a ghost or spirit, usually taking the form of a visual image of a deceased individual in either real life or on film. However, there are apparitions based on each of the five senses. Usually visual (the appearance of a person who was commonly associated with the area in life), auditory (sounds of walking, voices, doors, opening, or battle are the most common types of auditory apparitions), tactile (feeling a slight wind in a closed-off room, or a slight tug on a person's clothing with nobody in the immediate vicinity), or olfactory (smells or odors, such as perfume or cigar smoke, commonly associated with the area or an individual or event) apparitions appear in conjunction with each other, but occasionally only one of the senses are involved. Very rarely is the sense of taste involved.
Apport: Solid object materializes in different locations with the help of a spirit; any object transported through space and time by supernatural means.
Asport: The reverse of apport phenomena: the disappearance of objects from the seance room through the barriers of intervening matter and their appearance at another spot.
Astral Body: Soul of a person projected outside of their body; body of light; invisible spirit of a person or an animal; counterpart to the physical body that exists in the spirit realm.
Astral Plane: A level of reality through which spirits move or in which they exist.
Astral Projection: Separation of the astral body from the physical body usually by a deliberate act of will.
Astral Travel: The nonphysical body may travel to locations nearby or even visit places hundreds of miles away. The experience, reported by people of many different ages and cultures, is deeply impressive and has understandably given support to the widely held belief that humans have a spirit or soul that leaves the body for another world at death (See Out of Body Experience).
Attachment: A ghost is said to be "attached" when it manifest mainly in the presence of a certain person or object.
Aura: Energy or life force surrounding all living individuals. The color of an aura can determine the mood or physical condition of an individual. Spirits can sometimes use a physical aura for energy, thereby depleting the person whose energy was taken.
Automatic Writing: Abnormal phenomenon, a type of automatism, in which a person writes spontaneously, apparently without control over what is written. Automatic writing may sometimes arise as a symptom of mental disturbance. The phenomenon has also occurred in connection with mediumship, with ostensible communications from deceased persons taking the form of automatic scripts.
Automatic Drawing and Painting: Attempts at artistic expression without control of the conscious self. The phenomenon belongs to the same category as automatic writing but neither necessarily involves the other.
Automatic Speaking: Excitation of the vocal chords without the volition of the conscious self. The speech bursts forth impulsively whether the medium is in trance or in the waking state. In the latter case, and in partial trance, the medium may understand the contents of the communication even if it comes in a language unknown to him.
Automatism: Spontaneous muscular movement caused by ghosts. A sample is Automatic Writing.
Autoscopy: Looking back at nones's own body from a position outside of the body. See also Out of Body Experience.
B
Bardo: In Tibetan Buddhism, an intermediate state of existence, usually referring to the state between life and rebirth.
Belief: Conviction or assumption; system of interpreting reality; structuring thoughts or presumptions.
Birthmark: A physical skin discoloration linked to past-life trauma. Researchers had found that past-life injuries, usually fatal, had exactly corresponded with a birthmark or skin discoloration at the present life.
Blueprint: Once our Spirit makes the decision to inhabit a human body, we create a blueprint for this life based on what we are most interested in experiencing and learning to overcome in our eternal pursuit of knowledge.
Book Tests: Experiments to exclude the working of telepathy in mediumistic communications. In answer to questions or for reasons of personal relevance the communicator indicates a certain book upon a certain shelf in the home of the sitter and gives the text on a certain page.
C
Cabinet: Curtain enclosed space in which mediums claim to condense the psychic energy which is necessary for physical manifestations.
Camp Meetings: Or Assemblies, as they have been later called, last throughout the Summer season. Many mediums take up their residence in the grounds. Lily Dale in New York is a leading camp visited by thousands of people each year.
Caodaism: Is the 1926 invention of Ngo Minh Chieu, a Vietnamese civil servant with a strong belief in mysticism. For years, Chieu conducted seances in which he received revelations from spirits of prominent figures who seemed determined to continue their teachings despite their deaths. After four years of personal enlightenment through these spiritual encounters, Chieu presented the messages of his revelations to the public as tenets of a new religion. Ministers of this religion act as mediums.
Channeling: A form of communication, a spirit communicates and possesses a medium. The entity being the channel can be a deceased human being, angel, or demon. The flow of intelligent energy from subtle dimensions to this one.That energy can be used for healing, communication or other purposes. Some channelers receive it by a process such as automatic writing. Others go into an altered state and are able to hear clairaudiently or speak from a trance state or by a process called direct voice mediumship. In some cases the person channeling, called the channel, is tapping into the highest level of their own psyche, in others beings or energy coalitions from other dimensions provide the information. Those channels whose source is extraterrestrial are usually called contactees.
Coincidence: Thoughts and actions that are accompanied by external mirroring. See also Synchronicity.
Clairaudience: Ability to hear discarnate sounds and voices beyond normal hearing; psychic hearing.
Clairsentience: Person sensitive to psychic forces; person who can easily sense feelings or emotions; empathy.
Clairoleofactor: To have an extraordinary sense of smell, as if you could smell flowers before they bloom.
Clairvoyance: Ability to see events, places, objects, or persons outside of normal restraints of time and space. It is the ability to perceive distant events that are seemingly hidden and unknown. Also, to be able to regress or advance in time and see future and past events that are not visible to the normal human eye or mind.
Cold Reading: Fraudulent reading by a psychic who uses psychological or historical clues to discern information.
Cold Spots: Drop in temperature associated with a paranormal event; cold or shivery sensation received when a spirit is nearby.
Collective Apparition: An apparition seen by more than one person.
Contagion: Contagion in paranormal research is when someone's impressions or data are influenced, consciously or unconsciously, bu outside opinion or historical facts.
Control: The operator on the other side in charge of seance proceedings. This operator may also be called a "guide," and generally the term implies enduring attendance by a distinct and continuous personality to use the entranced medium's body, to deliver direct or relayed messages to sitters.
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: Concordant automatism, a scheme allegedly originated by the spirit of F. W. H. Myers to eliminate the hypothesis of telepathy from spirit communications. A set of related messages may be received through various mediums about the same time in places as far apart as India, New York, and London.
Cross-Reference: Simultaneous delivery of spirit messages through different mediums with a request to forward them to the right person. The idea, originated by the communicators, is to disprove the working of the medium's subconscious mind.
Cross-Species Communication: To have a special rapport and understanding with animals.
Cults: Groups that demand obedience and submission in the name of a Higher Power.
D
Deathbed Experience: A dying person's awareness of the presence of dead friends or relatives.
Deceased Loved Ones: With few exceptions, everyone you have ever loved and lost through death is alive and well and happy on The Other Side - and they visit you often.
Deja Vu: Current incident which we recognize as having taken part in before.
Demon: Evil entity hostile to humans; devilish spirits.
Demonology: Study of demons and their classification; demons as an explanation for hauntings.
Dermo-Optic Perception or Skin-Vision: The term "Dermo-Optic" refers to seeing -not with the eyes- but by use of the skin surface. In Dermo-Optics, this is generally achieved with the fingertips in direct contact with the object. The ability to read newsprint while blindfolded or to distinguish colors, also without using the normal organ of sight, has another another name besides Dermo-Optics. It is referred to as "skin-vision."
Dermography: Skin writing; a phenomenon of the stigmatic class, with one essential difference: the real stigmatic writings last for months, years or throughout a lifetime, whereas skin writing disappears in a few minutes or in a few hours at the most.
Direct Drawing and Painting: A development of automatic drawing and painting in which the hand of the automatist is not made use of, and sometimes even drawing and painting materials are dispensed with, the sketch being precipitated in the darkness in a time which is usually too short for normal execution.
Direct Voice: An isolated voice in space without visible source of agency. It issues mostly from a trumpet which sails about the seance room in the dark and appears to serve as a condenser. With an increase of power the trumpet may be dispensed with and the voice may be heard from the center of the floor or from any part of the room.
Direct Writing: A development of automatic writing, produced without visible physical contact with the medium and sometimes without writing material. That contact, in an invisible form, may exist is a justified inference from the oft observed synchronized motions of the medium's hands.
Discarnate: Energy or astral substance existing without a physical body; disembodied.
Divination: To obtain unknown knowledge or future events from omens. Astrology may be considered divination.
Dmils: Abbreviation of Direct Mental Interaction with Living Systems. Used to denote instances where one person is attempting to influence a distant biological system, usually the physiology of another person. As it is unclear whether this represents an influence, a case of ESP on the part of the influence, or an opportunistic selection process, the term interaction has been adopted.
Doppleaganger: German word for "double-goer" or spirit double; spirit of a living person outside that person's body; Germans believe it means imminent death to meet your Doppelganger.
Double: Etheric counterpart of the physical body which, when out of coincidence, may temporarily move about in space in comparative freedom and appear in various degrees of density to others. The belief in the existence of the double, or astral body, is age old, its acceptance as a working hypothesis solves many a puzzling problem in psychical research.
Dowsing: Use of L-shaped metal rods or forked tree branches to find "living" energy of water or spirits.
Dream Communication: Experience in which the departed individual (spirit) can manifest in the form of a dream in order to communicate with the living. Usually associated with the very recent death of the individual attempting to make contact in order to inform the dreamer of his or her death.
Dreams: A physical, mental and spiritual state where our conscious mind give way to our subconscious.
Dust Orb: Photographic orb caused by flash reflection off of invisible dust particles suspended in the air.
E
Empathy: Rarely used in modern parapsychology, the popular usage of this term refers to a low-level form of telepathy wherein the empath appears to be aware of the emotional state of a distant person. An empath may also be able to "broadcast" emotions to others.
Earthbound Spirit: A spirit trapped in the earthly or material realm. people who have passed over but do not realize their true condition or do and choose the vicarious thrills of imposing themselves on earth-dwellers. The result is hauntings and occasionally possessions which may bring their condition to the attention of RESCUE CIRCLES.
Ectoplasm: Psychic substance or residue capable of assuming vaporous, liquid or solid states left behind by spirits; partially materialized glowing matter.
Elemental: A lesser spirit bound to the fundamentals of nature (earth, wind, water, and fire).
EMF: Electro-magnetic field; paranormal manifestations cause changes in the electro-magnetic field, which can be measured with an EMF meter or gauss meter.
Elongation: Paranormal extension of the physical body, reported in some mystics and physical mediums.
Emanations: Unknown to physical science, which sensitives may perceive or which the human body emits form a growing chapter of psychical research. Their importance is indicated by the phenomena of psychometry and dowsing.
Empath: Sensitive person who can feel the energy or emotions of spirits or other living beings, human or animal.
Entity: Disembodied or preternatural spirit; a being.
Epicenter: Person or person that a poltergeist or haunting tends to focus on. Paranormal phenomena usually increases when the epicenter is present.
ESP: Extrasensory perception; sixth sense. Most individuals have this ability, although it can be dormant their entire life. In many cases, a traumatic event may allow a percipient to actually communicate with the spirit of a dead individual. Ability to sense energy or information outside of the basic five senses of taste, touch, sight, sound and smell.
Evil Spirits: There are many intelligent entities in the higher and lower spheres which may not be of human origin or may not be benevolent. But the evil spirits, commonly spoken of, are the spirits of bad men who inhabit the lower spheres from which, either owing to the special locality to which they are earth-bound, or the attraction of bad, immoral sitters, they may easily reach the medium.
EVP: Electronic voice phenomena; ghostly voices recorded on audio or video tape; voices recorded on audio media that are only detected during playback.
There are three classes of EVP, as described by scientist Konstantin Raudive:
Class A: Voices can be heard and identified by anyone with normal hearing and knowledge of the language spoken; no special training of the ear is needed to detect them.
Class B: Voices speak more rapidly and more softly, but are still quite plainly audible to a trained and attentive ear. The ability to differentiate increased with practice. but this is a slow and wearysome process. For this reason it is difficult to use non-regular participants for experimental purposes with class “B” voices.
Class C: Consists of the most interesting voices; voices that give us a great deal of information and much paranormal data. Unfortunately, these can be heard only in fragments, even by a trained ear, but with improved technical aids, it may eventually become possible to hear and demonstrate these voices, which lie beyond our range of hearing, without trouble.
Exorcism: Expulsion of a ghost, spirit, demon, or other entity possessing human being or location; religious ritual to cast out evil forces.
F
False Positive: Paranormal evidence caused by a natural occurrence; common false positive is when cigarette smoke is captured on film, causing false ecto or mist.
Faraday Cage: A wire mesh enclosure that provides a shield to radio waves.
Fraud: The deliberate faking of paranormal phenomena, 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.
G
Ganzfeld Stimulation: In parapsychology an environment of mild sensory deprivation intended to stimulate the receptivity of extrasensory perception.
Ghost: A recording of one or more persons or objects that had either a repetitious routine or a very intense emotional experience. This recording is not sentient, but rather simply something that plays over and over, gradually losing energy over time. This recording can be recharged under certain circumstances, such as the appearance of certain individuals. An apparition or spirit that usually can be connected with a deceased person or animal; any supernatural appearance or image. The spectre of a person who has died and who is believed to haunt places at certain times. Ghosts are often described as being indifferent to human presence, though a few are vengeful. Taoism sees ghosts as the unsettled spirits of those without descendants, and celebrates a special festival every year to pray for them and thus release them into the next world. In Western tradition, ghosts usually haunt places associated with a tragic moment in their lives.
Ghost Buster: Person who attempts to rid a location of ghosts.
Ghost Hunt: Informal attempt to experience ghostly phenomena in a location that has no history of hauntings.
Ghost Hunter: A person who investigates hauntings to find explanations for possible paranormal phenomena involved. There are two types of ghost hunters. The first kind is the scientific hunter who uses scientific methods and equipment in order to make accurate calculations and observations about a haunting. The second type is the psychic or intuitive ghost hunter, who uses psychic impressions or intuition to learn about a haunted area.
Ghost Investigation: Formal investigation of a place known to be haunted.
Ghost Light: Mysterious lights associated with accidents that have taken place near railroad tracks or roads; levitating lights that travel in straight light; unexplainable mountain lights; theatrical term for a light on a pole left on-stage while nobody is about. According to one tradition, theater owners leave the light on to keep the heather ghost company overnight. If the ghost thinks it has been abandoned and causes accidents to to happen on the set.
Guardian Angel: Supernatural being that protects people or places. Belief in guardian spirits is found worldwide and has a long history. Such spirits may be thought to dwell in rocks, rivers, or trees; others are associated with crops or buildings. Many faiths teach that each person has a guardian spirit or angel who watches over them. In Islam there are believed to be two such angels, one on either shoulder. In many branches of Christianity it is believed that at birth everyone is given a guardian angel to whom they can turn in times of stress or temptation. The Christian concept of patron saints - St. Christopher, for example, is believed to protect travelers - may have developed from a belief in guardian spirits.
H
Haunted: Active visitation of a place by ghost; a place where ghosts or spirits seem to reside or to which they return. Normally the activity produces similar audible or visible experiences by people both associated with and those just visiting the haunt.
Haunting: Any repeated appearance of phenomena commonly associated with ghosts, spirits, or poltergeists. Usually a combination of cold spots, apparitions, missing objects, and other forms of paranormal activity that tend to be witnessed by more than one person over an extended period of time.
Hoax: A pre-staged or preplanned series of events to give the impression that something paranormal has been occurring in any given place. Usually made by people who wish to draw attention to themselves or to debunk or test ghosts hunters and parapsychologists.
Holding Place: A Spirit dimension where Grey or Dark Entities reside as a result of not passing through The Light.
Hungry Ghost or Petras: In the Buddhist religion, hungry ghosts are beings who experience continuous frustration and unsatisfied hunger. They seem to be attached to their worldly material possessions they once had, including their homes and other places, and when they pass away their suffering continues and no matter how much they have or they eat they are never satisfied.
Hyperaestthesia: Exceptionally acute sensory awareness.
Hypnosis and Sensory Awareness: It is a hypnogogic state - a condition wherein the mind functions in an altered stated of awareness, somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness. The field of attention is narrowed and behavior is characterized by an openness to a focus of inner consciousness levels, and suggestion from within or without. There is increased voluntary control of the involuntary 'nervous system" and bodily function. Inner levels of consciousness and heightened states of sensory awareness, varying in degrees from very light to excessively deep, are called "hypnogogic trance states." This literally means that the mind is between wakefulness (consciousness) and sleep (inconsciousness). In the various hypnogogic trance states, the individual is able to "tap" the unused portion of the brain, and this outwardly unconsious and inwardly conscious state, results in a heightened awareness to the sensory field. This enable the subject to experience mind-body awarenss and inner consciousness that results in time regression, problem solving, memory recall, profound aesthetic experiences, mystical insight, clairvoyance, and even the deepest levels of mediumistic trance states.
I
Illusion: An appearance that leads the person to draw mistaken conclusion.
Imagery: The ability to perceive images in the mind. These may be visual, auditory, tactile, etc.
Imprint: A place that retains energy memories, a sort of emotional Bermuda Triangle. It is caused by a highly concentrated collection of intense feelings fathering in a specific place and then becoming self-contained and self-sustaining over the years.
Incubus: A demon which seeks sexual intercourse with a living woman.
Infrared Thermometer: Non-contact digital thermometer that measures surface temperatures by comparing the infrared energy to the ambient energy.
Inhuman Spirit: An entity or spirit of a being that has never lived in the earthly realm.
Intuition: Act of knowing without the use of usual rational processes. Based partly on subconscious patterns association of known information.
Instrumental Transcommunication (ITC): The use of TVs, radios, telephone, computers, and other technical equipment to get information from the other side.
K
Kinetic Energy: The movement of objects spontaneously, unwilled and without mundane means.
L
Lepke: Finnish word (Lepke) used to describe a ghost that looks just like a real person until it passes through a wall or does some other supernatural feat.
Levitation: Raising of a body or object into the air without any physical or visible means; ability to rise or hover above the ground.
Ley Lines: Alignments of ancient sites, these are considered to be earth's natural energy lines and also that spirit may use these lines as a way of traveling quickly from one place to another. I has also been suggested that where two lay lines cross there is a possible change of a portal to other dimensions.
Life Force: Energy of life that animates the body and is the source of emotions, intelligence, personality, etc.
M
Manifestation: The tangible signs of a haunting, including tactile, auditory, olfactory, and visual. These can be measured in an investigation and can be used to support the evidence that a place is indeed haunted.
Materialization: Sudden appearance of spirits in physical form.
Medium: Person who can communicate with a spirit or ghost; person who serves as a n in-between for spirit communication. There are two main groups of spiritual phenomena, mental and physical, and there are both mental and physical mediums (persons endowed with psychic awareness). In the presence of such persons, alleged paranormal phenomena take place, often when the medium is in a trance. Mental phenomena include information given by mediums which they supposedly could not have acquired through any normal means.
Miasma: A glowing mist usually sighted hovering above graves; miasmic light is a ghostly light.
Mist: Foggy or vapor-like materialization that can sometimes be traced to supernatural forces.
N
Natural Spirit: Elves, nymphs, dryads, sprites, and other nature spirit to be guardians of their local environment.
Near Dearth Experience (NDE): A term coined by Raymond Moody to described a series of life changing visions experienced by a person usually on the point of death. Experience in which the world is apparently perceived from somewhere outside the body. A person having such an experience may perceive his or her real physical body below, often from the perspective of a nonphysical body which in some cases appears attached to the physical body by a cord. The experience has most often been reported by those who have temporarily died but have then been resuscitated after a period of unconsciousness.
O
Orb: Transparent or white ball of spirit energy captured on film that are sometimes believed to be trapped souls; can be caught on film, video tape, and digital pictures, and sometimes be seen with the naked eye.
Ouija Board: A board with letters and numbers on which a planchette (or marker) is placed in order to communicate with the spirits of the dead. Usually used in divination, it can actually be used to summon spirits other than those initially sought after. It is very difficult to rid an area of a spirit that has been conjured through a Ouija board.
Out of Body Experience (OBE): The experience of moving out of one's body, retaining consciousness. In some societies, sorcerers and shamans are believed to be able to send their souls to distant places to obtain information or to bring back the lost soul of a sick person.
P
Paranormal: Anything out of the normal range of explanation. Term is usually used in conjunction with ghosts, UFOs, and other phenomena that cannot be explained by traditional scientific theories and hypotheses.
Paranormal Group: A group of individuals dedicated to discussing, investigating, or exploring possible explanations to hauntings and other paranormal or supernatural events.
Parapsychology: Term coined in German by Max Dossoir (1889) and adopted by J. B. Rhine in English to refer to the scientific study of paranormal or ostensibly paranormal phenomena, that is PSI; except in Britain, the term has largely superseded the older expression "psychical research;" used by some to refer to the experimental approach to the field. The branch of psychology that deals with the investigation of purportedly psychic phenomena, as clarivoyance, extrasensory perception, telepathy, and the like.
Past Life Memories: Cell memory that is retained and is passed through in reincarnations.
Past Life Regression: Hypnosis/meditative state where the subject can explore first hand their past lives.
Percipient: An individual involved with or observing a paranormal event. Witness or person who sees (perceives) an apparition.
Phantasm: Projection of the mind; an illusion; sometimes used to connote a spirit or ghost.
Phantom: Any non-material spirit; specter, entity, or apparition; usually malevolent.
Phantomania: Condition in which the victim is held paralyzed while being subjected to supernatural attack.
Planchette: Indicator or pointer used in association with a Ouija board.
Poltergeist: German word for "noisy ghost;" energetic or non-spirit entity; mischievous and sometimes destructive kinetic energy released in the form of knocking, thumping, and banging sounds, levitating or moving objects, stone-throwing, and unexplainable fires. Often associated with prepubescent children. Identical phenomena attributed to poltergeists have been reported from all parts of the world and throughout all ages.
Portal: Gateway or doorway to the other side; doorway between the physical and the spiritual realms. Not normally visible with the naked eye, such points have been supposedly caught on camera.
Possession (of a person by a spirit): The entry of a spirit into the body of a willing or unwilling host, in which the spirit takes control of the individual's motor and cognitive functions.
Precognition: Knowledge of future events.
Precognitive Dreams: To have dreams of events or incidents before they happen.
Premonition: A vision or feeling of some future event; warning of approaching negative occurrence.
Preternatural: Something associated with inhuman, primitive, demonic, or uncontrollable spirits or forces.
PSI: General term used by parapsychologists to denote the underlying and unknown energy behind all psychic phenomena; also denoted by the Greek letter psi.
Psychic: Person who knows or communicates with unseen forces, spirits, or entities; telepath; clairvoyant.
Psychic Impression: A form of idea or message that a percipient may encounter about an area, a person, or an event. Usually associated with precognition, retrocognition, or psychometry.
Psychic Phenomena: Usually this refers to any phenomena perceived outside the five senses such as mediumship, telepathy, out of body experience, near death experience, etc.
Psychic Powers: Powers which are regarded to be outside known physical powers.
Psychic Research: Research into non physical phenomena – e.g. in communication with intelligences from the afterlife, levitation, apportation, materialization, telepathy, etc.
Psychokinesis: The ability of thought or mental prier to affect objects without apparent physical contact with that object. This has been referred to as "mind over matter." We know that in clairvoyance, objects affect the mind. In psychokinesis, the phenomenon is reversed. The mind affects objects and thus creates movements of those objects by "will" alone, and with absolutely no physical touch. After all, the life force within us is a greatly powerful and energizing force. Therefore, if the power of the mind is strong enough it will -at least, it can- creates object movement.
Psychometry or Psychoscopy: The ability to acquire knowledge of people, places, or objects by touching an object associated with it. It has been defined as the art of reading the character, surroundings or influences of a person, or object, by touch alone. The word -Psychometry- comes from the Greek "psyche" and "metron." Literally explained, this means, "measure of the soul." Today, the word "psychometry" is no longer used. Now, it is generally associated with mental tests, and serves as the basis for various tests of "potential" administered through the public school system. The more generally accepted term for object or character reading is now "Psychoscopy," and so, quite naturally, any individual involved in the research or a student of phenomenon is known as a psychoscopist.
R
Radio Voice Phenomena (RVP): A form of electronic voice phenomena received over a common radio in the AM, FM, or shortwave frequencies.
Radiesthesia or Dowsing: The science of radiation detection. The word is derived from two Greek words that mean "rod" and "divining." Dowsing is another word long in use that defines the ability to successfully employ a divining rod.
Radionics: Use of instruments to detect radiation from living organisms.
Raps: The name given to unexplained knocking associated with physical mediumship and poltergeist activity.
Raudive Voices: Intelligible voices recorded on magnetic tape under conditions of silence white noise which are heard only when the tape is played. A phenomenon discovered by Konstantin Raudive.
Reflection Image: A false positive that occurs when the flash of a camera reflects off of a shiny surface causing a false ghostly image or streak of light to appear on film.
Reincarnation: The belief that each person possesses a soul which is independent of the body and can be reborn into another body.
Remote Viewing (RV): Ability to access distant or shielded information primarily of visual character, such as natural or structural features, via an unknown mental process. RV can include other sensory modes, such as feelings, motion, or sound. Some individuals associate specific approaches or protocols, or with RV. Other similar terms: remote perception, enhanced perception, extrasensory perception (ESP).
Residual Energy: The energy behind classic anniversary hauntings; these cases exhibit a release of built up energy as if they were recorded in the walls or ground of a haunted location by some traumatic event; psychic imprint energy; spirit trapped in a continuous emotional loop in time.
Retrocognition: Paranormal knowledge of past events.
Revenant: Historical or family apparition that tends to haunt a particular place due to some traumatic event that occurred there.
RVP: Radio voice phenomenon; a form of electronic voice phenomena received over a common radio in the AM, FM, or shortwave frequencies.
S
Seance: A meeting of individuals in order to contact the spirit of a deceased loved one or other person (usually consisting of a medium, assistants, loved ones of the departed, or other interested individuals). Many seances were exposed as hoaxes in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Sensitive: Person who possesses psychic powers; psychic.
Shaman: A wizard, sorcerer, or medicine man in tribal societies who is a intermediary between the living, the dead, and the gods.
Simultaneous Dream: A dream whose elements correspond closely with those in the dream of another person.
Sitter: A person who has a session with a medium.
Skeptics – Closed-minded/Open-minded: An open-minded skeptic is someone who doubts anything which can be doubted usually accepts evidence. Closed-minded skeptics refer to those who reject objective evidence even if is shown.
Soul: Essence that distinguishes one person from another and survives through time.
Spectre: Phantom; disembodied spirit; grisly ghost; ghost not recognizable to the percipient; also Spectre.
Spirit World: Dimension of reality in which spirits reside; Heaven, the Summerland, Valhalla, the other side.
Spirit: The actual consciousness or soul of an individual that has passed on and continue to be observed in an area. There are four main reasons that spirits exist: (1) The person does realize that he or she is dead; (2) there is unfinished business or an unkept promise after death; (3) the spirit is simply saying goodbye to a loved one; and (4) the spirit has returned to offer advice.
Spirit Guide: It is said that every one of us has a spirit guide, someone we were very close to and literally trusted with our soul on The Other Side, who agreed to be our constant, vigilant companion and helpmate when we made the choice to experience another lifetime on earth.
Spiritual Healing: Healing is spiritual, but not in a religious sense. It is a physical phenomenon and a natural occurrence with much scientific fact to substantiate and explain it. It appears to depend more on the ability of the healer rather than the degree of emotional acceptance of the person being healed. The "cure" or healing effect, comes directly from the person who acts as the healer, not by some mystic site, but by the logical principle of energy radiations that emanate from the human body, and become pronounced during the healing process.
Spontaneous Cases: Paranormal phenomena that occur in everyday life, unsought and unexpected.
Succumbus: A demon which seeks sexual intercourse with a living man.
Supercharged Orb: Usually an orb that has a color to it, normally green or red caught on film.
Supernatural: Pertaining to that beyond nature or above natural law; as opposed to the term "paranormal," the term "supernatural" connotes divide or demonic powers.
Synchronicity: A coincidence so meaningful, it defies logic.
T
Telepathy: The ability to read other people's minds and/or to communicate by thought transfer. It is a silent language of thoughts, carried out by mind to mind communications. It is possible that mind communications were entirely successful in pre-historic days - long before we were dependent on words as a means of expression has often been said that words actually block the channels of communications. To further complicate our modern means of communication, we face the barrier of many different languages. How much easier it would be for all of us if the unversal communication was accomplished through thoughts alone.
Teleportation: Dematerialization and rematerialization of an object; objects move through time or space by supernatural forces.
The Other Side: The dimension to which departed souls transcend and reside between reincarnations into the earth plane. Ghosts do not transcend to this place as they are bound to the earth plane.
Thermascanner: An instrument that takes instant temperature changes. Used in ghost investigations.
V
Veridical Dream: A dream that relates to actual events of either the past, present, or future that the dreamer is unaware of.
Vortex: The center of spiritual energy, where it is focused or concentrated. Usually accompanied by cold spots, electromagnetic disturbances, and increased paranormal activity. Caught in photographs as orbs in motion; some believe them to be a portal in time and space.
W
White Noise: A hiss-like sound, formed by combining all audible frequencies. Because white noise contains all frequencies, it is frequently used to mask other sounds.
Wraith: A spirit that comes back to avenge his own death, considered an omen spirit.
X
Xenoglossy: The ability to speak a foreign language – sometimes modern and other times a dead language – fluently while in an altered state of consciousness the person having no knowledge whatsoever of that language when fully conscious.
