ABSTRACT
The paranormal is something that cannot be explained in terms of the laws of nature and reason as we currently understand them. The term is sometimes substituted for ‘the occult’ from the Latin occultus: that which has a hidden, secret meaning. Why, then, study the paranormal, if it is fundamentally unknowable, and perpetually hidden? As Jeffrey J. Kripal has said: ‘The paranormal is our secret in plain sight. Weird’ (2010: 6).
