ABSTRACT
What are paranormal phenomena? UFOs? Bigfoot? Mind reading? Ghosts? Spoon bending? By “paranormal”, I do not mean “supernatural” or “beyond nature” where the reported phenomena are by definition incompatible with scientific theorising and investigation. Rather, I mean that the phenomena appear to suggest organisms can interact with their environment in ways that are not explicable within current scientific understanding. This does not mean that paranormal phenomena can never be understood, but it may mean that some of our present scientific knowledge and theories would need to be adjusted to accommodate them. We don’t yet know exactly how paranormal phenomena operate, indeed there is still some debate over whether such phenomena even exist, so it is more accurate (but cumbersome) to describe these as seemingly paranormal phenomena. The particular phenomenon that I will concentrate on in this chapter is extrasensory perception (ESP), with further definition and examples given below.
