Talk:Paranormal

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Contents 1 Suggested Editing Guidelines 2 Personal Note 3 Paranormal Is Not Necessarily Supernatural Or Parapsychological 4 Paranormal Definition 5 Perinormal? 6 Magick

[edit] Suggested Editing Guidelines

In my personal opinion, I think it would render this article somewhat useless if it degraded into a debate between science and the paranormal like many of the paranormal articles on wikipedia. In an effort to remain neutral, other articles have tried to present both views, which tends to make for a long article full of redundancy, bickering, unsubstantiated information, passionate opinions, etc. The result is typically a waste of time for all involved. I propose a different method to remaining neutral on this article. Present no view whatsoever. Since the paranormal is just a term to describe other terms, it doesn't need to be a long article presenting everything there is to present about the paranormal. What is undisputed is that there is a term called "Paranormal", and it has a definition. In fact, it's an adjective which means that it literally describes something else. I think we should define the term, refine the definition, and then leave it alone. Since the term describes several other things, it shouldn't be redirected to just one other term and requires its own article (a necessary article because its a popular term and deserves to be in wikipedia), but there really shouldn't be that much in the article. Basically, let's keep it clean. Debates about the paranormal can, of course, go in here. --Nealparr 16:00, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and citation everything! That seems to be the most common reason for throwing a NPOV tag in other articles. If you add something, reference it. It's better for all.--Nealparr 16:06, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Personal Note

Though I helped in getting this article up and running, I no longer have time to maintain it. So have fun folks! I may be back later.

--Nealparr 04:31, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Paranormal Is Not Necessarily Supernatural Or Parapsychological

The word paranormal consists of two parts: para and normal. In most definitions of the word paranormal, it is described as anything that is beyond or contrary to what is deemed scientifically possible. Going off the two part word, it is implied that the scientific explanation of the world around us is the "normal" part of the definition and the "para" part makes up the beyond, contrary, or against part of the definition.

That's the strict definition.

Certainly things outside what would be considered "supernatural" meets that definition. Supernatural, for one thing, has an air of the religious or occult about it. Spontaneous time travel, which would be a paranormal phenomenon, might have nothing to do with religion or the occult and therefore the label of supernatural would be misapplied.

Likewise, spontaneous time travel, something considered "beyond scientifically possible" is not parapsychological as well. Parapsychology is limited (by parapsychologists) to studying psi (mental phenomena) and survival studies (reincarnation, etc.)

So there you have it. Not all paranormal phenomena falls under the terms supernatural or parapsychological. Spontaneous time travel is just an example. Many other paranormal phenomena meets the definition of "anything that is beyond or contrary to what is deemed scientifically possible" as well without necessarily fitting other similar terms. As another example, UFO phenomena -- even just the reported habits of making a 90 degree turns at extraordinary speeds -- fits the definition of paranormal and has nothing to do with parapsychology and might not have anything to do with the supernatural.

--Nealparr 00:48, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

To further clarify the difference between paranormal and supernatural, I offer an analogy. Just like the words forest and jungle refer to densely populated areas of vegetation, but conjure up different images, paranormal and supernatural have different connotations. Paranormal means that something is considered unexplained definitively by science. It doesn't evoke any images beyond that. Supernatural, on the other hand, does evoke an explanation, one that is beyond the physical world. It too is outside the realm of science, but conjures up images of a spiritual world. Paranormal doesn't carry those connotations in all cases. In cases such as ghosts, sure. Ghosts can fall under both terms paranormal and supernatural. However, just because a phenomenon can't fall under the term "supernatural" doesn't mean that it can't fall under the term paranormal.

--Nealparr 03:03, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Hold on you cannot just create your own unilateral definitions of words and supress references to dictionary definitions because you don't like them. Now clearly there is a debate here and the page should reflect that. You have an all encompassing definition of the paranormal (that includes many phenomena UFOs, cryptozoology etc. as well parapsychological stuff), equally it is clear that there are many people who do not(see comments on this page, the glossary of the Parapsychological Association, James Randi (OK not an appropriate authority perhaps) and above all dictionaries of English!) plus all the people like William Corliss, Forteans etc who study anomalies and don't refer to themselves as studying the paranormal! Tullimonstrum 10:12, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Tullimonstrum, the definitions all say the same thing: "not scientifically explainable". That's not my definition, that's the definition listed in every dictionary, including the ones you linked to. When you get to definitions of "supernatural", they say "of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe; especially : of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil". Not all paranormal phenomena meets the latter definition. Now, I'll give you that a lot of people want to distance themselves from the term paranormal. The reason for that is that term implies a lack of science in what they do. So naturally some UFOlogist who want people to take them seriously would distance themselves from a term that literally means in opposition of science. However, there are volumes upon volumes of literature that put UFOs in the paranormal category. To say that all of those are wrong because some UFOlogists don't like the label does a disservice to what is trying to be a factual article.

In your version you said that there is a debate on whether the term "paranormal" includes anomalous subjects. That's fine. I wouldn't object to that. But, then you go on to say "Dictionary definitions of term would imply restriction of the term to purely supernatural phenomena as does does the glossary of the Parapsychological Association." That part simply isn't true for all the reasons I've already pointed out. Most definitions say nothing at all about the "supernatural", including the Parapsychological Association definition you linked to. If supernatural is included, it is included as another word to use, but not the actual definition. The definition is "not scientifically explainable". It's also a lot like saying, "there's a debate... but here's why I'm right." That doesn't belong in the article. That belongs on the discussion page.

Here's the most recent version as a compromise:

Many see the term paranormal as synonymous with parapsychology, which deals with psychical phenomena like telepathy, ESP, and survival studies like ghosts and reincarnation. However, the paranormal is often considered to also include subjects considered to be outside of the scope of parapsychology, including UFOs, cryptozoology, the Bermuda Triangle and many other non-psychical subjects.

It's entirely accurate, neutral, and covers what we are both saying, because paranormal "is often considered" to include other subjects, without going so far as to say "it does include them".

--Nealparr 15:57, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

OK by me although I have taken the liberty of inserting "sometimes", as rather more neutral than "often" as I am still not wholly convinced your usage is the norm (it was entirely new to me). Tullimonstrum 18:27, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I reworded it a bit just to make better sense of what I had written without changing what you had written.

--Nealparr 01:14, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. One more thing has just occured to me though. Strictly speaking whatever the paranormal is it cannot be synonymous with parapsychology as that is a field of study just as "animals" is not synonymous with "zoology". 138.251.202.128 08:10, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Paranormal Definition

This article could use some expanding, but please don't just redirect it to Parapsychology. Parapsychology and Paranormal are two separate things. As a square can contain triangles, but triangles don't contain squares, Paranormal can include parapsychology subjects, but parapsychology can't contain all paranormal subjects. UFOs are not a parapsychological subject. Nealparr 22:10, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I didn't think UFO's were considered paranormal - just unidentified or unknown. What would be the difference between paranormal and anomalous phenomenon? Paranormal alwsys struck me as having a supernatural or psychic aspect, rather than something merely unknown. According to Bartleby.com, "Paranormal refers to psychic phenomena outside or beyond the normal or natural." Dreadlocke 23:14, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Of course it's open to debate, but UFOs have a long standing of being considered a paranormal subject. The reason is because they are in fact unknown. If UFOs were identified as actually being extraterrestrial, then they would move into a "normal or natural" classification (Though extraordinary feats of flying associated with them -- like the ability to make a 90 degree turn at really fast speeds -- may still be considered paranormal). Since no one has established exactly what UFOs are, they remain anomalous. For all we know, they could just be balls of light similar to ball lightning, swamp gas, atmospheric anomalies, the list goes on an on. Extraterrestrials themselves could be actual extraterrestrials, figments generated by the mind, psychic visions, entities posing as a "typical" extraterrestrial (some researchers have noticed similarities between aliens and old mythological gods and goddesses)... again, the list goes on and on. Bartleby's definition of paranormal, specifically how it says "psychic phenomena", is how most view the term paranormal, but it's not actually the definition used by parapsychologists who study psychic, or PSI phenomena, as shown in the citation I added. (What is PSI? What Isn't?, Parapsychology Association, accessed August 01, 2006). Like I said above, while psychic phenomena fits into the definition of paranormal, so do weird creatures, vampires, UFOs, astrology, and so on. None of those are psychical subjects. Finally, there's really not that much of a difference between paranormal and anomalous phenomena except for the connotations of the supernatural associated with paranormal. Ball lightning for example might be perceived as anomalous where a ghost sighting might be called paranormal. --Nealparr 17:43, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd suggest that paranormal is an explanation for anomalous phenomena. Others inclue fakery, psychological factors, fringe science or at least science not yet within the mainstream, etc. Anomalous phenomena is really Fort's damned data - weird outlying data points not accepted by whatever currently passes for the consensus. He never imposed any explicit explanations on it. (Emperor 17:39, 16 September 2006 (UTC))

I was just reading through The JREF Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge "FAQ" and the definition of "paranormal" there looked just like a brief summary of wikipedia articles, and this article is so short, so I wikified their definitions it to see how many "paranormal" (by definition) wikipedia articles already exist. Sadly they ALL exist. --Ollj 07:53, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Perinormal?

Should perinormal really be in this article? After looking for a citation for the EMF claim, I realized that the term was coined recently by one guy, and hasn't gained widespread acceptance. Does it really merit an inclusion in this article? Anyone can make up words after all. --Nealparr 19:28, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Magick

The link to the term "Magick" is not directly related to the term paranormal and should not be listed on the page. It was possibly added for the purposes of promotion.

I agree. I think I'll remove it for now and if there's strong objection it can be put back later.--Nealparr 13:34, 19 September 2006 (UTC)