Apparition
What is generally heard, seen, smelled, or felt, which is somehow related to a part of the human personality, mind, or soul that can exist in our physical world after the death of its body.
Aura
The emanation of energy that surrounds all living things. Can be viewed through the use of Kirlian photography.
Automatism
Theory in which the subconscious communicates with the conscious by means of a vehicle such as a Ouija board, or automatic writing.
Automatic Writing
Phenomena in which people write without any conscious thought. Many feel that it is spirits writing through the body of a living person.
Benign Spirit
A spirit that is not evil or harmful to man. Angels and spirit guides fall into this category as would spirits of loved ones that come back to tell us something.
Bilocation
When an object is seen in two locations at the same time. Padre Pio was said to exhibit bilocation.
Clairaudient
Psychic ability to hear sounds or voices inaudible to the normal ear.
Clairsentient
Psychic ability to feel things not normally felt by most people.
Clairvoyance
This is a French term that means "clear seeing." It usually refers to the receiving of information from objects or events at the present time without using the normal senses or logical inference. Literally the term refers to visual information. Most of this information involves smaller targets of a more local nature.
Curse
To speak a wish of evil against someone or call down forces to hurt someone.
Demon
An evil, or inhuman spirit.
Discarnate
Spirits that exist without a physical body.
Dowsing
Also known as radiesthesia. Dowsing is the art of using a forked stick, or wire, or some other object to focus in on locating anything from water, oil, explosives, caves, minerals, mines, or tunnels.
Ectoplasm
A substance which emanates from the body of a medium during a trance. This often appears as a mist-like substance.
Electromagnetic Field
A field propagated by a combination of electric and magnetic energy which radiates from radio and light waves to gamma and cosmic rays. It is believed that when spirits manifest, they create an electromagnetic field.
EMF Detector
An instrument that measures electromagnetic energy. Also known as a Gauss Meter or magnetometer.
ESP
ESP or extrasensory perception is considered what scientist refer to as a receptive psi. This type of experience usually involves the transfer of information.
EVP
Electronic voice phenomena. Voices captured on audio tape when no one is present. It is believed that these voices are from spirits attempting to communicate with living people.
Gauss Meter
An instrument which measures electromagnetic fields. Also call EMF detectors or magnetometers.
Ghost
Generic term to describe a deceased person or image appearing to the living. Animals and even inanimate objects, like buildings, can also be ghosts.
Ghost Lights
Lights which sometimes appear in haunted houses or in some cases, woods. Not necessarily evil, these lights are often photographed by psychic researchers.
Globule A tiny sphere of electromagnetic energy. Spirits often appear on film as globules. Also known as orbs. These are not always perfect circles.
Haunted
A person or place to which spirits may be attached. These spirits can be human or inhuman in nature
Haunting
Refers to an apparition that is seen or heard or felt to perform the same acts over and over, like a recorded replay of past events.
Infestation
Condition which occurs when evil spirits inhabit a location. Infestation in a person is called possession.
Kirlian Photography
The photographing of the human aura. Two Russian scientists, Semyon and Valentina Kirlian founded this process.
Levitation
The rising of an object or person by no visible means.
Manifestation
The appearance or taking form of an entity. Can also mean the outbreak of activity.
Materialization
The deliberate, usually temporary, visible and/or physical formation of a spirit.
Medium
A psychic through whom spirits can communicate. There are two types of mediums: light and deep trance.
Metaphysics
Derived from the Latin word "meta" which means "beyond," metaphysics would literally mean that which is beyond the laws of physics. The study of psychical research.
NDE
Near death experience. Experienced when the person is in fact clinically dead for a period of time. The person usually feels themselves leaving their body and sometimes observing the location and people around them, they usually often view their own lifeless bodies, then the person feels as though they are rising up through some sort of tunnel towards a bright light. Sometimes they may see or hear a deceased family member or friend, or even a religious figure of some kind. The person having this experience is usually told it is not the right time, or they decide themselves it is not time to die, and they return to their bodies.
OBE
Out of body experience, or astral projection. This is the sensation or experience many people have of actually leaving their body for a period of time, this is where the spirit or soul leaves the body. This can also be described as "traveling clairvoyance."
Orb
A sphere of electromagnetic energy produced by spirits. Also called a globule.
Ouija Board
Game board manufactured by the Parker Brothers Company. Used to communicate with spirits. Some believe this "communication" is caused by the collective unconscious of the participants. (Automatism.)
Paranormal
Occurrences that take place outside the natural order of things. This would include ghosts, UFO's, ESP and other things difficult to explain by nature but in the realm of the natural.
Parapsychology
Derived from the Latin word "Para," which means "beyond," parapsychology literally means "beyond" psychology. It is generally defined as the scientific study of paranormal phenomena. The study of psychic or psi phenomena. These can be described as an exchange of information between living things (mostly people), or between living things and the surrounding environment. They can also be described as the possible influences of living things on the environment, which occur without the use of what we usually call normal senses, and don't seem to be explicable by the known physical laws of nature.
Phantom
An apparition or specter. Existing only as an energy form.
PK
Psychokinesis or PK is referred to as expressive psi, or mind over matter.
Poltergeist
A German term which means "noisy ghost". Most parapsychologists link this phenomena with living persons, or to a stress related situation. In this type of phenomena, objects are reported to move under their own power, objects breaking by themselves, and even sounds have been heard. Most of these events take place when a certain person is around. This has also been referred to as RSPK, or recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis.
Precognition
The ability to receive information about objects or events that exist in a future time
Psychic Research
The general study of paranormal phenomena including ESP, hauntings, ghosts, etc.
Psychometry
This is the ability to read the history of an object or location. It can also be used to gain information about people that may be associated with an object or location
Remote Viewing
This is usually the perception of information in the form of smells, tastes, feelings, sounds, or sensations. Most of the studies with remote viewing deal with information being channeled from other locations.
Retrocognition
The awareness of objects and events that existed in a past time
Sensitive
A person with psychic abilities.
Shadow Ghost
A black, mist like spirit that has no discernable features. It is usually demonic in nature and is sometimes described by witnesses as a "black shape".
Supernatural
Events that have no natural explanation. Commonly refers to acts of the divine but can also include extraordinary acts caused by negative forces.
Telekinesis
The ability to move objects from a distance. This is also called the psychokinetic effect.
Telepathy
This is commonly known as an awareness of information or emotions that exist in the mind of another person. A more simple explanation is "mind-to-mind" communication.
Teleportation
The materialization or dematerialization of an object. Ostensible teleportation is what would appear to be the movement of an object from one place to another without it actually traveling the distance between the locations.
