Abstracts from Australian Journal of Parapsychology
2024
Volume 24(1), pp. 7-16
Near Death Experiences ans Sacred Scripture: The Parallel Messaging
DOUGLAS HODGSON
Abstract: This article uncovers and examines some of the striking and uncanny parallels and synchronicities as well as notable differences between the messaging gleaned from over 500 near death experience written accounts and the ethical exhortations and Divine revelations to be found in 12 Eastern and Western religions.
2024
Volume 24(1), pp. 17-37
Parapsychology and Cyberpsychology
CLAIRE MURPHY-MORGAN & CALLUM E. COOPER
Abstract: Parapsychology’s relationship with cyberpsychology is currently seldom explored. The Internet has served as a powerful vehicle for parapsychological research design and execution (e.g., surveys, dissemination of research findings on web sites and social media), notwithstanding the pitfalls of online polarisation, censorship, and the continuing pseudoscience demarcation problem. Cyberpsychology provides a range of theoretical frameworks in helping to examine the mechanisms behind such interactions (e.g., networked publics—i.e., communities that are shaped or reconfigured by networked technologies). Parapsychology in turn has a track record of engaging with novel technologies in past and present research (e.g., lab-based studies and technology brought in to explore altered-states of consciousness), and in examining how technology can mediate anomalous experiences such as in survival themed spontaneous case research. Utilising Kirwan’s three main aspects of cyberpsychology (i.e., how we interact with others; how we use technology to fit our requirements; how our behaviours are affected by technological developments) this paper examines how the application of existing theoretical frameworks which serve cyberpsychologists are arguably of equal and ever-increasing importance to parapsychologists in understanding how their work is disseminated and discussed. Future online technologies may also present opportunities to explore shared interests, including exploration of self through both real and imagined environments, transpersonal or anomalous experiences, and how rapidly evolving Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies may mediate changes in perceptions of post-mortem survival through digitisation of death and the afterlife and perceived continuing bonds with the deceased (e.g., AI, virtual realities, etc.).
2024
Volume 24(1), pp. 39-72
Who Answered the Questions? Testing the Source of Channeled Information
PATRIZIO TRESSOLDI, JULIETTE GALLO, LAURA LIBERALE, NICOLA LO CONTE, VALENTINA RICCI, & FERNANDO SINESIO
Abstract: This study aimed to investigate the sources of information some people consider to be provided by external discarnate spiritual entities (SEs). Specifically, we aimed to test whether the information derives from conscious or unconscious sources of channelers or real discarnate SEs. Previous research has used surveys and interviews to gather information about purported sources of channeled information. This study used a new experimental design to test the reality of SEs as the source of channelers’ information. In Experiment 1, four selected mediums were asked to connect with specific spiritual or discarnate SEs to channel the responses to six identical questions. In Experiment 2, five different mediums were asked to channel the responses to five questions from a single discarnate SE. All responses were recorded, transformed into text files, and analyzed with an AI chatbot (software for quantitative and qualitative analyses of text content), and two experts in qualitative text analyses (only in Experiment 2). Both the algorithmic and human experts in the text analysis results did not support the fact that the content similarity of the responses derived from SEs. The only more parsimonious alternative interpretation is that the content of the responses derives from the mediums themselves in a particular state of non-pathological dissociative consciousness.
2024
Volume 24(2), pp. 113-154
Making a Case for Considering Place Memory and Its Possible Role in Veridical Hauntings
BRYAN J. WILLIAMS
Abstract: The idea that some kind of ‘memory’-like psychic impression relating to a certain person, object, or event from the past can somehow be retained by (or otherwise be closely associated with) a specific place over time—which has been referred to as “place memory”—is one that has been around since the early days of psychical research. But in more recent years, this idea seems to have largely been unrecognized, overlooked, or perhaps even disregarded in the debate over the question of survival after death, particularly in the way of it being a possible contender hypothesis for alternately thinking about some types of veridical haunting apparitions. Why might that be? Perhaps one reason is that the empirical case for seriously considering this idea has not been too clear. This paper aims to address this issue by reviewing certain parapsychological findings which seem to have some implications for the concept of place memory, as well as for the theory of its possible establishment through psychokinesis as proposed by Pamela Heath (2004, 2005). At the very least, these findings would seem to suggest that place memory should not summarily be taken out of consideration as a working hypothesis, and that more research may be warranted in order to further explore its potential both as a genuine psi-related phenomenon, and as a developing theoretical concept for alternately thinking about veridical hauntings.
2024
Volume 24(2), pp. 153-202
Team Analysis of a Help-Seeking “Haunted Person”
JAMES HOURAN, BRANDON MASSULLO, KEN DRINKWATER, & NEIL DAGNALL
Abstract: We present a two-part, initial case study of a 33-year-old male (“Oz”) who requested an investigation of his recent haunt-type experiences. We tested whether the features and dynamics of the reported anomalies aligned with a “spontaneous” case showing the recognition patterns of Haunted People Syndrome (HP-S). This model describes recurrent “ghostly episodes” as an interactionist phenomenon involving people with heightened somatic-sensory sensitivities which are stirred by dis-ease states, contextualized with sense-making mechanisms, and reinforced via perceptual contagion and threat-agency detection. Part 1 compared contextual information from a semi-structured interview and psychometric testing with Oz to the results of an independent content analysis of his account. Part 2 featured a thematic analysis with a narrative lens to assess the sequence of events in this case against the posited HP-S process. We also explored for “deep” (autonomous) imaginary companions, stigmata marks, and enchantment reactions. The available evidence suggests this ghostly episode involved (a) an above-average “haunt intensity” and a content structure most similar to a “primed” experience, (b) an above-average score on a standardized screener for HP-S, and (c) clear aftereffects of enchantment and a probable history of encounter proneness. There were no overt signs of deception, but the case progression did not fully match prior descriptions of the HP-S sequence. This suggests that HP-S variables might work in a dynamic fashion.