Psychology Professor of paranormal beliefs, experiences and cognition

“From next month, potentially thousands of teenagers at schools and colleges throughout the UK will start lessons that deal with telepathy, psychokinesis, psychic healing, near-death experiences and talking to the dead,” reports Chris French for the Guardian.co.uk.

French reports the definition of Anomalistic Psychology as, “the study of extraordinary phenomena of behaviour and experience, including (but not restricted to) those which are often labelled “paranormal”. It is directed towards understanding bizarre experiences that many people have without assuming that there is anything paranormal involved. It entails attempting to explain paranormal and related beliefs and ostensibly paranormal experiences in terms of known psychological and physical factors.”

“Given its focus upon ostensibly paranormal events, it is important to distinguish anomalistic psychology from the closely related discipline of parapsychology. This is the scientific investigation of the “paranormal” – phenomena that cannot be explained in terms of currently accepted scientific theories.” reports French.

“Most parapsychologists focus on three main areas: extrasensory perception (ESP), psychokinesis and evidence relating to the possibility of life after death. Alleged ESP includes telepathy (direct mind-to-mind contact), clairvoyance (picking up information from remote locations without the use of the known sensory channels) and precognition (foretelling the future). Psychokinesis is the alleged ability to influence the outside world by willpower alone – everything from subtle effects upon random events at a subatomic level through psychic healing to spoon-bending and levitation,” reports French.

“Anomalistic psychologists are interested in claims relating to all of these areas, but they are also interested in attempting to explain beliefs and experiences that fall outside this strict definition of paranormal, including alien abduction claims, astrology, the Bermuda triangle, dowsing and so on – in other words, all things weird and wonderful,” reports French.

“Chris French is a professor of psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London, where he heads the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit. He also edits the [UK] Skeptic magazine.” (Source) Read his full article here Check out French’s impressive bio here