Top 10 Paranormal Phenomena Explained
Here are the top 10 paranormal phenomena, a vigorous belief in which still persists in large parts of the US population to this day.
This is in spite of rational explanations provided by our understanding of human psychology and the world in which we live.
A number of these explanations are humbly offered below. I hope you keep your beautiful mind open while reading them.
Paranormal Phenomenon #1: Faith Healing
Faith healing is the belief that you can be cured of an ailment through mysterious healing mechanisms - like spirits, energy and miracles.
A middle-man facilitates the process by placing his hands in certain places, chanelling or unblocking energy, while the patient invests all their efforts in believing it's working.
There are no side-effects to faith healing, unless you consider the persistence of your original condition a side-effect.
The problem with this idea is that doctors already acknowledge that many chronic and acute conditions can get better without a cure, and even that serious illnesses like cancer and multiple sclerosis can recede inexplicably for years. This occurs whether faith healing is involved or not.
It is a wonder of the human body to heal itself. We can also call upon the scientifically accepted Placebo Effect, which demonstrates the body can heal itself (in a limited number of examples - we're not curing terminal cancer here) with the use of a dummy pill. It even works when the patient knows it's a fake.
So, is our faith misplaced in the case of magic energy healing?
There have even been cases of famous faith healing practitioners like Marjoe Gortner and Peter Popoff who were exposed as being fraudulent.
In Popoff's case, his 20-year evangelical healing act was no more than his wife giving him medical information in an earpiece, which was extracted from his audience via questionnaires beforehand. He confessed everything in a documentary film - one last stab at capitalizing on his talent for showmanship.
Putting your health - or your life - in the hands of a faith healer is Darwinism in action.
To date there is no measurable evidence (such as CT scans or X-rays of a tumor before and after faith healing treatment) to prove the effect, and no identifiable mechanism other than vague descriptions of "energy". What is this energy? Why can't we measure it? How can we be sure it's there at all?
For scientists and doctors, faith healing is not a viable alternative to clinically proven medicine, which is backed by millions of examples of real-world success. At best, faith healing is the mark of a delusional person who's convinced they have magic powers in order to feel better about their lives. At worst, it's a con man attacking your wallet - and your dignity.
Paranormal Phenomenon #2: Alien Abduction
It was science fiction that gave us the first example of alien
abduction. In 1946, Planet Comics published a strip in
which aliens used a luminous tractor beam to kidnap a female
earthling they called Specimen 9.
In the decades since, we have become obsessed by the idea that aliens are abducting us in our sleep.
A typical encounter involves waking up in the night, finding yourself unable to move, and being approach by a terrifying entity. The sights, sounds and sensations feel completely real. Sometimes they touch you or try to harm you in your bed, and other times they take you aboard a spaceship. Sounds pretty terrifying.
The reality of what's going on it much more sobering. Well known to lucid dreamers, there is a condition known as sleep paralysis which has been widely documented across many cultures for many centuries. Sleep paralysis is the body's natural "REM atonia" mechanism - by which communication between the brain and the body is cut off so that we don't act out our dreams.
Sometimes we wake up - or at least, become conscious in our dreams - and become vividly aware of the sleep paralysis in action. We may be in the bed we went to sleep in, or sometimes a completely different bed, highlighting the fact that we are dreaming. As terror kicks in, the mind frequently conjures up a terrifying dream scenario to explain the paralysis, and an intruder enters the scene.
I once awoke, paralyzed in my bed, listening to the sound of a deranged mental patient dragging her feet down the hallway towards my bedroom door. "Oh f***!" I thought. And with that I directed my awareness to float out of the window and into the night... where I experienced a long lucid dream, eventually waking up safe and sound in my bed. Had I believed in alien abductions, could I have dreamed of being taken aboard a spaceship that night?
Historically, the sleep paralysis intruder was often a demon or an old hag. Today, we conjure up aliens and spirits. It really depends on the culture and your personal beliefs. Some aetheists see cartoon characters or stick figures.
That's all good if you subscribe to the most likely explanation for what we're perceiving as alien abductions. Of course, there is still a chance that hundreds of millions of people are abducted from their homes every year by extraterrestrial intelligence. But I'm suggesting a much more likely explanation backed by the shared hullucinatory condition of sleep paralysis.
Paranormal Phenomenon #3: Ghosts and Spiritual Entities
Paranormal Phenomenon #4: Psychics and Mediums
Paranormal Phenomenon #5: Astrology
Paranormal Phenomenon #6: Spontaneous Human Combustion
Paranormal Phenomenon #7: Near Death Experiences
Paranormal Phenomenon #8: Reincarnation
Paranormal Phenomenon #9: Crystal Skulls
Paranormal Phenomenon #10: Auras
Further Reading
To learn more scientific explanations for paranormal phenomena, check out the superb website, The Skeptic's Dictionary.
About The Author
Rebecca Casale is a lucid dreamer and a science writer with a special interest in biology and the brain. She is the founder of World of Lucid Dreaming and Science Me.
