PARNORMAL PHENOMENA SHOULD BE STUDIED SCIENTIFICALLY

PROFESSOR SIMON THORPE ARGUES THAT PARNORMAL PHENOMENA SHOULD BE STUDIED SCIENTIFICALLY

 Professor Thorpe is the CNRS (French National Research Center) Director of Research for the Brain and Cognition Research Center at the University of Toulouse, France. Talk January 15, 2013. 

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passage through the paranormal

Scientist Proves ESP Is Real

From the New York Times :


Prof Bem

One of psychology’s most respected journals has agreed to publish a paper presenting what its author describes as strong evidence for extrasensory perception, the ability to sense future events.

The decision may delight believers in so-called paranormal events, but it is already mortifying scientists. Advance copies of the paper, to be published this year in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, have circulated widely among psychological researchers in recent weeks and have generated a mixture of amusement and scorn.

The paper describes nine unusual lab experiments performed over the past decade by its author, Daryl J. Bem, an emeritus professor at Cornell, testing the ability of college students to accurately sense random events, like whether a computer program will flash a photograph on the left or right side of its screen. The studies include more than 1,000 subjects.

Some scientists say the report deserves to be published, in the name of open inquiry; others insist that its acceptance only accentuates fundamental flaws in the evaluation and peer review of research in the social sciences.

“It’s craziness, pure craziness. I can’t believe a major journal is allowing this work in,” Ray Hyman, an emeritus professor of psychology at the University Oregon and longtime critic of ESP research, said. “I think it’s just an embarrassment for the entire field.”

The editor of the journal, Charles Judd, a psychologist at the University of Colorado, said the paper went through the journal’s regular review process. “Four reviewers made comments on the manuscript,” he said, “and these are very trusted people.”

All four decided that the paper met the journal’s editorial standards, Dr. Judd added, even though “there was no mechanism by which we could understand the results.”

But many experts say that is precisely the problem. Claims that defy almost every law of science are by definition extraordinary and thus require extraordinary evidence. Neglecting to take this into account — as conventional social science analyses do — makes many findings look far more significant than they really are, these experts say.

“Several top journals publish results only when these appear to support a hypothesis that is counterintuitive or attention-grabbing,” Eric-Jan Wagenmakers, a psychologist at the University of Amsterdam, wrote by e-mail. “But such a hypothesis probably constitutes an extraordinary claim, and it should undergo more scrutiny before it is allowed to enter the field.”…

[continues in the New York Times]

New Paranormal Investigation TV series

A new program is being screened on the community TV station TVS.

Called Paranormal Investigators : Australian Paranormal Media the show can be seen on TVS on Monday evenings at 9.30pm

From the producer Attila Kaldy :

OK, so here it is: I’m a freelance producer and research coordinator of a paranormal investigative organisation in Sydney.

You can say that I have been to some really freaky places over the years. Besides chasing the unexplained, my passion is to convey the weird side of this great continent to a large audience. I guess this was the main motivation for my interest in production.

I have taken a lot of journeys, experienced many adventures while exploring the unexplained (hauntings, UFOs, … you know the things folks don’t really like to talk about).

Kanova Productions basically says, ‘Hey, it’s OK to come out and share your experiences with others’. And the people who do are normal everyday folk looking for validation. That’s all!

So what if certain individuals are judgemental? Think of it this way: they are the ones lacking the valuable experience that you had.

Back to the story. In 2002 I produced a low budget UFO doco called The Oz Unknowns. I guess we all have to start somewhere. This was two years after establishing an investigative group in southwest Sydney. The Oz Unknowns featured three stories about Aussies experiencing bizarre aerial phenomena (UFOs).

When branching out into afterlife research, I released PI – Paranormal Investigators. Again, it was limited in the way we expect to see such a production. The material used was raw footage, taken from investigations, so it gave it that rustic, spooky feel.

When PI was aired in Sydney and Melbourne I was surprised how popular the series was.

After producing some trial documentaries, I decided to take an innovative approach to ghost hunting and created, produced Paranormal Investigators – The Challenge in 2008. A trainee was introduced, someone with no experience, chasing the paranormal through dark corridors and creepy forests.

Go to their website to read more about the show.

'Ghost' photos with Maurice Grosse

Maurice Grosse (6 March 1919  - 14 October 2006) was a well know British paranormal investigator. After serving in WW2 and being evacuated from Dunkirk Grosse became a successful inventor and following a tragic accident in which his daughter died in 1975, several members of his family began to experience paranormal activity.

Maurice joined the Society for Psychical Research and the Ghost Club and was involved with a famous case called the Enfield Poltegeist during which an old man appeared to talk through an 11year old girl. Grosse stayed with the family in Enfield and taped a lot of paranormal activity. Despite various people accusing the case of being a fraud no-one took up Grosse's challenge and offer of a thousand pounds reward to prove that the activity was faked.

Here is part of a TV program which featured Maurice Grosse after he had passed away in which he discusses various instances of ghosts appearing in photographs.