R

Radiesthesia Psychic Dictionary Index

Theories based on the assumption that living organisms emit some kind of radiation or emanation that is capable of being detected using instruments or by dowsing. See also aura, radionics.

Radionics Psychic Dictionary Index

Use of instruments to detect radiation from living organisms. See also radiesthesia.

Random Psychic Dictionary Index

Refers to events that are, in principle, haphazard and unpredictable. See also chance.

Random Event Generator (REG) Psychic Dictionary Index

An electronic device which uses a random physical process (e.g., radioactive decay) to generate random events or random numbers.

Random Number Generator (RNG) Psychic Dictionary Index

See random event generator.

Random Numbers Psychic Dictionary Index

Numbers generated in an unpredictable, haphazard sequence.

Random Number Tables Psychic Dictionary Index

A printed table of random numbers, usually made up of several rows and columns of computer-generated numbers. To use the table a starting value is chosen by randomly selecting a row and column (e.g., by throwing a dice). Successive numbers are then chosen by working through the table using any previously chosen systematic rule. Suitable rules might be (1) moving horizontally to the right, skipping alternate numbers, or (2) moving vertically down, selecting every fifth number. The selected random numbers may then be used, for example, to determine target sequences.

Raps Psychic Dictionary Index

The name given to unexplained knocking sounds associated with physical mediumship and poltergeist activity.

Raudive Voices Psychic Dictionary Index

Intelligible voices recorded on magnetic tape under conditions of silence or white noise which are heard only when the tape is played. A phenomenon discovered by Konstantin Raudive.

Reading Psychic Dictionary Index

Information given by a psychic or medium to a sitter. See also cold reading, hot reading.

Rebirth Psychic Dictionary Index

In Buddhism, the belief that there is some continuty of mind from one life to the next. Buddhism, however, does not accept the existence of the individual soul and therefore does not view rebirth as the soul's literal re-incarnation. Cf. reincarnation. See also bardo.

Receiver Psychic Dictionary Index

See percipient.

Recurrent Spontaneous Psychokinesis (RSPK) Psychic Dictionary Index

A technical term for poltergeist activity.

Regression Psychic Dictionary Index

(a) a statistical technique that enables predictions to be made from a set of data.

(b) a technique used in hypnosis, involving suggesting to hypnotized persons that they are returning to an earlier time. Sometimes the regression occurs spontaneously, without suggestion. See also past-life regression.

Reincarnation Psychic Dictionary Index

The belief that some aspect of a person's being (e.g., consciousness, personality, or soul) survives death and can be reborn in a new body at some future date. Reincarnation is often seen as a repeating cycle of death and rebirth in which future lives are influenced by past and present actions through the law of karma. Cf. rebirth.

Remote Viewing (RV) Psychic Dictionary Index

An ESP procedure in which a percipient attempts to become aware psychically of the experience of an agent who is at a distant, unknown target location.

Response Psychic Dictionary Index

An action made by a subject in an experiment.

Response Bias Psychic Dictionary Index

Tendency of a subject to prefer particular responses.

Retroactive Psychokinesis Psychic Dictionary Index

Paranormal influence that an agent can have on an experiment after it has been completed.

Retrocognition Psychic Dictionary Index

Paranormal knowledge of past events.

Ritual Magic Psychic Dictionary Index

Magical activity involving rites and ceremonies.

RSPK Psychic Dictionary Index

See recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis.

Run Psychic Dictionary Index

A set of trials in a psi test.

S

Santeria Psychic Dictionary Index

A Cuban spiritist religion. See also Voodoo.

Sceptic Psychic Dictionary Index

A person inclined to discount the reality of the paranormal and to be critical of parapsychological research. Generally seeks rational or scientific explanations for the phenomena studied by parapsychologists.

Score Psychic Dictionary Index

Number of hits obtained by a subject in a psi test.

Scoring Psychic Dictionary Index

The process of determining a subject's score.

Screen Touch Matching (STM) Psychic Dictionary Index

A card-guessing procedure in which the subject and experimenter sit on opposite sides of a screen which has a small gap at the bottom. Key cards are hung on the screen in front of the subject (the faces may be seen or unseen). Underneath each key card is a blank card that can be seen by both subject and experimenter. The experimenter holds the target cards and the subject indicates the guess on each trial by pointing to the corresponding blank card. The experimenter then places the card in a pile on his or her side of the screen in a position corresponding to that of the indicated blank card. See also blind matching, open matching.

Scrying Psychic Dictionary Index

See crystal gazing.

Seance Psychic Dictionary Index

A mediumistic session.

Second Sight Psychic Dictionary Index

Another name for clairvoyance.

Sender Psychic Dictionary Index

Another name for agent.

Sensitive Psychic Dictionary Index

Another name for a psychic.

Sensory deprivation Psychic Dictionary Index

Conditions of greatly restricted sensory input. See also ganzfeld.

Series Psychic Dictionary Index

A sequence of runs in a psi experiment.

Serpent Power Psychic Dictionary Index

See Kundalini.

Shaman Psychic Dictionary Index

A witchdoctor or medicine (wo)man who communicates with spirits while in trance and who has the power of healing. May also show other paranormal abilities.

Shape-Shifting Psychic Dictionary Index

Paranormal ability to assume the form of another person, an animal or other entity. See also lycanthropy, therianthropy, werewolf.

"Sheep" Psychic Dictionary Index

Name given to a subject in a psi test who believes in the phenomenon. See also "goat", sheep-goat effect.

Sheep-Goat Effect Psychic Dictionary Index

Effect, discovered by the parapsychologist Gertrude Schmeidler, in which "sheep" score higher than mean chance expectation (MCE) on psi tests, while "goats" score lower than MCE.

Siddhis Psychic Dictionary Index

Name given to paranormal powers associated with the practice of Yoga.

Significance Psychic Dictionary Index

Results of an experiment are said to be statistically significant when they are very unlikely to be due to chance (and hence, in a psi test, are more likely to be due to psi). The chance probability is reported as the "significance level". To be considered significant, the chance probability must generally be less than 1 in 20 (5%, or 0.05).

Simultaneous Dream Psychic Dictionary Index

A dream whose elements correspond closely with those in the dream of another person.

Sitter Psychic Dictionary Index

A person who has a session with a medium.

Sitting Psychic Dictionary Index

A seance.

Sixth sense Psychic Dictionary Index

Popular term for ESP.

Skeptic Psychic Dictionary Index

See sceptic.

Slate-Writing Psychic Dictionary Index

Writing that appears on a slate during a seance. Often produced by fraudulent mediums and mentalists.

Sleep Paralysis Psychic Dictionary Index

An (often frightening) state of seeming to being awake but unable to move. See also false awakening.

Somnambule Psychic Dictionary Index

(a) a person who performs physical activity while asleep (e.g., sleep-walking).

(b) a person in a deep hypnotic state.

Sorcery Psychic Dictionary Index

Black magic

Sortilege Psychic Dictionary Index

Divination by lots.

Soul Psychic Dictionary Index

The spiritual element of a person, generally believed to be immortal. See also Ba, spirit, survival.

Space Brothers Psychic Dictionary Index

Extraterrestrial entities, channeled by some mediums. See also discarnate entity.

Speaking in Tongues Psychic Dictionary Index

See glossolalia

SPE Psychic Dictionary Index

See subjective paranormal experience.

Spectre Psychic Dictionary Index

A ghost or apparition.

Spell Psychic Dictionary Index

Written or spoken words believed to have magical power.

Spirit Psychic Dictionary Index

(a) a discarnate entity.

(b) soul

(c) Divine essence.

Spirit Communication Psychic Dictionary Index

See communication.

Spirit Cure Psychic Dictionary Index

Healing that is believed to result from the intervention of spirits.

Spiritism Psychic Dictionary Index

See spiritualism.

Spirit Photography Psychic Dictionary Index

Photographs of figures or faces, believed by some to be those of deceased persons. These photographs are generally revealed as fraudulent.

Spiritualism (Spiritism) Psychic Dictionary Index

Religious doctrines that advocate communication betwen the living and the spirits of the dead using a medium as intermediary.

Spontaneous Cases Psychic Dictionary Index

Paranormal phenomena that occur in everyday life, unsought and unexpected.

Spontaneous Human Combustion (SHC) Psychic Dictionary Index

Refers to cases in which a badly burned human body has been discovered in circumstances suggesting that the fire originated spontaneously in or on the body of the victim.

Statistics Psychic Dictionary Index

Mathematical techniques for analysing and interpreting numerical data.

Stigmata Psychic Dictionary Index

Unexplained markings on a person's body that correspond to the wounds of Christ.

Stimulus Psychic Dictionary Index

See target.

Subject Psychic Dictionary Index

A person whose psi ability is being investigated.

Subjective Paranormal Experience (SPE) Psychic Dictionary Index

Or Subjective Psi Experience. An experience that the person who has it believes to be paranormal.

Subjective Psi Experience (SPE) Psychic Dictionary Index

See subjective paranormal experience.

Subliminal Perception Psychic Dictionary Index

Perceiving without conscious awareness.

Super-ESP Hypothesis Psychic Dictionary Index

The suggestion that people are capable of unlimited ESP. The super-ESP hypothesis is often presented as an alternative to the survival hypothesis in explaining mediumistic phenomena (the medium is believed to obtain information using super-ESP powers and not directly from the spirit of a deceased person).

Supernatural Psychic Dictionary Index

Paranormal

Survey Psychic Dictionary Index

A method of data collection that involves interviewing (or giving questionnaires to) a representative and often large group of people.

Survival Psychic Dictionary Index

The belief that some aspect of the person (e.g., consciousness, mind, personality, soul) lives on after death of the body.

Synchronicity Psychic Dictionary Index

A term used by C.G. Jung to refer to coincidental events that are meaningfully but not causally connected.

The great Swiss psychologist, C. G. Jung, defines "synchronicity" as a meaningful coincidence. A classic example of synchronicity, told by Jung himself, concerns a crisis that occurred during therapy. Jung’s patient was a woman whose highly rational approach to life made any form of treatment particularly difficult. On one occasion, the woman related a dream in which a golden scarab appeared. Jung knew that such a beetle was of great significance to the ancient Egyptians, for it was taken as a symbol of rebirth. As the woman was talking, the psychiatrist in his darkened office heard a tapping at the window behind him. He drew the curtain, opened the window, and in flew a gold-green scarab—called a rose chafer, or Cetonia aureate. Jung showed the woman "her" scarab and from that moment the patient’s excessive rationality was pierced and their sessions together became more profitable. (Coming to terms)