This was written about finished by Matt in December. This and my (this is Andrew typing) Intelligent Life Paper were both written for the same english project. I would've put this up sooner, but I've been really busy lately and this kept getting put off.

Thoughts of Ghosts and other "spooky" phenomena come to some peoples' minds whenever they think about the word paranormal. But those same people probably don't know that the word ‘Paranormal' also has some scientific ties as well, such as the paranormal ‘science' of Psychometry. Psychometry is just one example of the few ties that I am going to show between science and the Paranormal.

The ability to see things that aren't there can be classified as Paranormal. Yet, all the supposed "Psychics", aren't very Paranormal as far as popular belief goes. So what does it take for something to be believably classified as paranormal? Usually, just something that doesn't seem to fit into any sort of logic, and therefore is unexplainable. But what about things like Psychometry, which I mentioned earlier?

Psychometry is the measure of the soul of things. It as developed by a man named Joseph Rhodes Buchanon in 1849. (Haining, 142) The main theory behind it is that the information that was conveyed through emotions somehow recorded on objects by those previously associated with them. How is there a connection between science and the paranormal? Well, for one thing, nothing at all like this was ever recorded in History. It doesn't seem to fit into any explainable category as demonstrated by the various scientific tests performed. William Denton, an English immigrant to America, performed numerous experiments on people and in doing so, became ‘sensitive' to it himself. He believed that Psychometry was a "mysterious faculty which belongs to the soul and is not dependent upon the body for its exercise." (North, 77) All of Denton's experiments proved the theory of Psychometry to be true, with the greatest example being his wife. He gave her a fragment of volcanic lava from Hawaii. She saw "an ocean of fire pouring over a precipice and boiling as it pours. I see it flow into the ocean, and the water boils intensely." (North, 77)

The belief that an object can transpose a whole history to any one person just by being around it seems, in essence, the whole definition of paranormal. But the scientific ends of Psychometry don't end there. Variations on the theory of it were created. Sir Oliver Lodge, believed that a phenomenon similar to Psychometry could account for Hauntings. He wrote in 1908, "On a psychometric hypothesis, the original tragedy has been literally photographed on its material surroundings, may, even on the ether itself, by reason of the intensity of emotion felt by those who enacted it, and thenceforth in certain persons an hallucinatory effect is experienced corresponding to such an impression." (North, 78) Then in 1963, a British psychical researcher named Tom Lethbridge, came up with another variation. He suggested that nature generates fields of static electricity, particularly near running water and that these fields are capable of recording the feelings of people. Based on this most recent variation came another adaptation. Robert Morris was the first incumbent of the Koestler chair in Parapsychology at Edinburg University in Scotland.

He performed the most significant science experiment on the "emotional tape-recording." He took a rat, a dog, a cat, and a rattlesnake into a room where a murder had been committed. His results were astounding. The dog snarled and refused to go in. The cat lept up onto its owner's shoulders with it's back out and it's hair up. The rattlesnake immediately adopted its attack posture, and the rat didn't seem to mind too much. So to say that the Paranormal and Science have no connection would be incorrect. (Leone, Bender, 238)

For another connection between the two, I look no further than the ever-popular belief known as Telepathy. Telepathy is generally known s mind-to-mind contact without resort to the five known senses. It comes from the Greek words "tele", meaning distant, and "pathe", or feeling. There are literally thousands of telepathic cases on record. Most people can recall incidents where telepathy was a possible factor. "I remember the day my wife and I were discussing girl's names for a possible future daughter. Mid-way through the conversation I went to the toilet. As I came downstairs on the way back the name ‘Lucy' entered my head. I walked into the lounge and my wife said, ‘How about Lucy?' ". (White, 119) So many people believed in the scientific element of Telepathy that they even founded a society for Psychical research. One of its founders, F.W.H. Myers, believed so strongly in the belief that Telepathy would be understood that he wrote in the proceedings of the society: "The society for Psychical research was founded with the establishment of thought transference already rising within measurable distance of proof." (White, 118) He was to be severely saddened when proof was to become elusive, and the academic acceptance he was trying to gather was almost impossible to obtain. One of the main problems that made widespread acceptance of Telepathy hard to come by was admirably identified by the early Psychical researcher Dame Edith Lyttleton. She said, "Telepathy does not merely bridge space, it annihilates it- space becomes irrelevance." (White, 119) That's where the problem comes in. Our scientific model of how the universe works demands that space must be crossed in line with the laws allowing such movement. Telepathy, in that instance, breaks every single rule of what we have commonly come to understand as reality.

Movements of thoughts from one mind to another in an instantaneous manner condemns everything that a scientist holds near and dear. Scientists have to prove everything. And proof hasn't been easy to come by. The most commonly documented form of telepathic communication comes during what has been termed a "crisis situation". Usually it occurs when an individual becomes "aware" that another- usually a friend or relative- is in danger or has died. Often such information can filter into the mind during sleep, when it surfaces as a dream. Upon waking up, it can manifest as a feeling of certainty or as knowledge that inexplicably pops up during a conversation in which the speaker is unaware of why he said that someone has just died, for example, or where the information came from. (Leone, Bender, 152) The scientific cause for telepathy can only be confirmed in the sheer number of cases. Many people report "seeing" friends or relatives at the time of their death elsewhere. Telepathy, or coincidence? Don't decide until you hear this next example.

From time to time, memories from the sunken unconscious mind can surface. Not recognized as memories, they seem like original ideas. This is the paranormal phenomena known as Cryptomnesia. Many researchers have analysed past-life regression through hypnosis. One of the first was the French Psychic researcher colonel Albert de Rochas. Beginning in 1904, he hypnotized nineteen subjects, with his results being that they all easily manifested past lives. However, the realization also came to him that the verification of these lives was extremely difficult; he often found inconsistencies between historical records and testimony under hynosis. Human error? Or were the past-lives that the subjects manifested, more accurate than our history books? (Leone, Bender, 241)

There is evidence, too, of another sort. It comes from Psychotherapy. The sanctioning of hypnosis as valid clinical treatment by the British Medical Association in 1955, and by its American equivalent three years later, led to the development of a whole new type of therapy; past-life therapy. Since the 1960s, dozens of therapists have cured a whole multitude of phobias, fears and aversions by taking their patents back to traumas experienced in previous lives. Dr. Denys Kelsey is one psychotherapist who has used hypnotic regression to treat a host of psychosomatic ailments. One patient was a young woman who had a deep-seated fear of flying. Taking her back, "beyond birth", Dr. Kelsey brought out an incarnation of a British Royal Air Force officer who had been trapped in his cockpit and faced the terror of crashing. Once the woman was aware of this previous incarnation, she was able to overcome her fear.

That form of therapy was so successful, that in 1980, therapists got together to form the Association for Past Life Research and Therapy in Riverside, California. In 1982, one therapist by the name of Dr. Helen Wambach, decided to survey the past-life therapy through the association. Analyzing data from twenty-six therapists, she gleaned the astounding fact that out of 18,463 patients, Ninety four percent had regressed to one or more past lives. Trauma is often associated with denial of the reasons for the manifestation of the problem. Going to a therapist who practices past-life regression and connecting the trauma with a previous life makes it easier for the patient to identify the problem.

Cryptomnesia does not fit the accepted scientific memory model as presently understood. Memory is the fallout of knowledge based upon the learning processes. We do something in life, and the event is encoded as memory, so as to improve our behavior or regulate our activity. The predominant scientific view of memory is that such information is stored in nerve fibers within the brain. The actual process of memorizing is said to exist in two specific forms. In order to avoid unnecessary memorization, the brain has capabilities for short-term memory and long term memory. For Cryptomnesia to work in the context of past-life recall, the source of the past life must have been passed to long-term memory. Cryptomnesia doesn't fit what we know about memory recall. To try and "explain" reincarnation with Cryptomnesia is to answer a mystery with a mystery. (Leone, Bender, 241-243)

These three examples of what are called "Paranormal Sciences" are completely different in what they are about. Yet, in all three, there are certainly strong cases that can be made for scientific involvement. The problem is that we still don't know how to do that in a way where it will be widely accepted and believed. So the "sciences" known as Psychometry, Telepathy, and Cryptomnesia are not accepted as normal. They are, in a word, paranormal.

Matthew Wittnebel
Lone Conspirator

Works Cited

North, Anthony. The Paranormal: A Guide to the Unexplained. United Kingdom: Blandford, 1996.

Haining, Peter. Dictionary of Ghost Lore. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1984.

Leone, Bruno and L. Bender, David. Paranormal Phenomena. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1991.

White, Michael. Weird Science. New York: Avon Books, 1999.

Davidson, Joshua. A Skeptics Guide to the Paranormal. 13 May 1998 Scientific Press 12 Nov. 2001.

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