ABSTRACT
The case for and against the legitimacy or validity of parapsychology is both long-standing and rather tortuous. Extreme critics dismiss the entire paranormal 'enterprise' as a gigantic confidence trick, few practitioners doubt that at the outer fringes it does shade into the occult and consequently lays itself open to charges of charlatanism and downright fraud. Debunking the paranormal has become something of a field sport for a number of writers and journalists. And there is no doubt that to some extent parapsychologists and camp-following psychics have contributed to their own suspect image by giving too many 'hostages to fortune'. Social Science too has made its own quizzical contribution to the study of the paranormal. A haunting case which has become the subject of much controversy among the paranormal-oriented community is the Borley Rectory phenomenon. This case has been reviewed and re-reviewed in the pages of the appropriate literature, and is still without resolution.
