Fundamentals of Parapsychology

One in every four people believes they have experienced some form of paranormal activity. There are many stories of contacts with the spirit world, dream telepathy, clairvoyance and near-death experiences. This parapsychology course delves into the relationship between science, belief and truth as it introduces you to organisations that conduct scientific investigations of paranormal occurrences. We demonstrate the importance of addressing unusual and mysterious human experiences and trace the relationship between science and morality. We discuss randomness and conditional probabilities to explain how something can happen by chance.

The course then explores the mathematics of probability and establishes the importance of base rates when determining conditional probabilities. We then compare the laws of large and small numbers before moving on to the placebo effect and its ability to ‘trick’ our brains. We explain how to investigate unusual and extrasensory perception (ESP) experiences like hallucinations. The course examines the different forms of spirit healing, psychic photography and psychokinesis. We then explain how psychic fraud works and go through the strategies used by charlatans to fake psychic abilities before we cover mediumship and the ‘survival hypothesis’.

In the final section, we lay out the stages of near-death experiences and describe the circumstances under which out-of-body incidents occur. The course compares the mediumistic and environmental approaches to hauntings and explains what equipment is used for ghost hunting. We then cover laboratory-based research into telepathy and clairvoyance. Our investigation of the paranormal then moves on to UFOs as we examine collections of debris and sightings like the Roswell and Rendlesham Forest incidents. Finally, the course explains how to assess personality in terms of astrology. Whether you are merely interested in the mysterious side of life or want to participate in formal research, this course offers a fascinating introduction to parapsychology and opens doors into unseen worlds.