TERMINOLOGY
(A - M)

In this section you will find the explanations for the most frequently used terminology in parapsychological publications.

A - M

N - S

T - Z

• Altered State of Conciousness: A state of consciousness that differs from that of the awake state. It can be reached via drugs or meditation, but can equally occur spontaneously (e.g. daydreaming).
• ANPSI (Animal Psi): Indicates paranormal capacities of animals.
• Apport: The transportation of objects or living organisms from one closed off area to another, without any clear cause.
• Automatisms (automatic writing, speech or any other form of communication): The medium completely unvoluntarily and compulsively starts to write, speak, paint, move, et. They are also called automatists.
• Bilocation: Various observers report to have seen the same person in two or more different locations at the same time.
• Clairvoyance: The paranormal capacity to obtain information on objects or events that is unknown to others. Also called the Second Sight.
• Crisis-Apparition: A ghost appearance of someone who is in a crisis (a life threatening situation or the moment of dying). This phenomenon always manifests itself to persons with whom the sender had a close bond. It is possible that this apparition happens a few days or moments before the crisis.
• Direct Mental Interactions with Living Systems - DMILS: The paranormal influence on cells, enzymes and other biological systems (e.g. laying on of hands). DMILS is a synonym for bio-PK.
• Deliberatly Caused Bodily Damage - DCBD: Occurs in religious and occult circles. The mystics feel no pain and/or show no bleedings and infections when piercing their body with sharp objects. Sometimes slight bruising might occur.
• Deathbed Visions: The dying person will sit up from the bed and greet deceased relatives or friends. The strange fact here is that the person dying sometimes sees apparitions of people that have already die without him/her knowing.
• Doppelganger: Someone sees his/her own ghost or a duplicate of him/herself. This duplicate is always vague and transparent. According to a German superstition such an apparition was an omen of an imminent death. However, this phenomenon holds all signs of the autoscopic hallucination, caused by extreme stress, bad migraine, severe fatigue, mental disorders or serious physical diseases.
• Double or Astral Body: A so-called etheric body, which is claimed to be able to separate itself from the physical body and is able, from there, to operate independently as the center of the consciousness.
• Ectoplasm: Ectoplasm is told to be a cold and moist substance, responsible for the production of various materialisations outside the medium’s body. According to Richet and Von Schrenk-Notzig the ectoplasm consists of white blood cells and skin cells. Ectoplasm is a synonym for Substance X and Teleplasm.
• Experimenter Effect: The theory that experimenters hold a key function in whether an experiment is successful or not. Test persons can be influenced by the wishes, personality, body language or psi-capacities of the experimenter.
• Extrasensory Perception - ESP: A general term to indicate the paranormal capacities in which information on something is obtained, without using the normal senses or without anyone’s help.
• General Extrasensory Perception - GESP: Undifferentiated ESP during which telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition or retrocognition can operate simultaneously.
• Hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations: These hallucinations respectively happen during the moments before falling asleep and before waking up. Because the brain has not completely entered or left the dream state, dream images can be projected in the ‘ outer world’ in the shape of hallucinations. This can explain many cases of ghost-sightings.
• Intuition: Someone has an intuitive experience when he/she suddenly gets an insight or information about something without clear reasons.
• Levitation: Living organisms or objects seemingly detaching from gravity in a paranormal way.
• Luminiscent Phenomena: Strange appearances of light in or around objects.
• Macro-PK: PK-effects that can be observed immediately (e.g. metal bending).
• Micro-PK: Statistical PK-effects based on the paranormal influence of subjects on random number generators (RNGs).