ABSTRACT

The paranormal, which is supposed to exceed the ordinary, the rational and the explicable, is generally placed outside the realm of knowledge defined as established factuality. At the same time, however, the paranormal is not unknowable or unsystematic. It has its own expectations and conventions, which shift over time, as does its relationship to and distance from other systems of thought. Following Michel Foucault (1997 [1972]: 181), the paranormal can be considered as a discursive practice that forms ‘groups of objects, enunciations, concepts, or theoretical choices’ through which specific forms of knowledge – as savoir rather than connaissance – are generated. This formation is governed by the ‘archive’ as ‘the law of what can be said, the system that governs the appearance of statements as unique events’ (Foucault 1997: 128–9). Besides determining what can be said, this law also determines how things are said, as the ‘system of [their] enunciability’ (Foucault 1997: 129). With regard to the paranormal, the question is therefore not only to what extent it is positioned as sayable in relation to other discursive practices, but also how statements within its own realm are shaped and ordered.