JAnom 23-1 as PDF (compressed, 3,1 MB)
Journal of Anomalistics 23 (2023), No. 1, pp. 6–13
DOI: 10.23793/zfa.2023.6
Editorial
Gerhard Mayer
Artificial Intelligence and Anomalies
Künstliche Intelligenz und Anomalien
PDF full text (English, pp. 6–9)
PDF full text (German, pp. 10–13)
Main Articles
Journal of Anomalistics 23 (2023), No. 1, pp. 14–40
DOI: 10.23793/zfa.2023.14
Hostile Relations: Proponents and Opponents of Criminal Mediumism around 1900 in Germany
Uwe Schellinger
Abstract
The article describes the first detectable discourses on the use of paranormal methods such as clairvoyance or telepathy, but also of spiritualistic otherworldly contacts, in police investigative work since the last decade of the 19th century in Germany. The proponents of such practices to support the police, such as the philosopher and occultist Carl du Prel, the spiritualist Egbert Müller, or the lawyer Franx Xaver Riss, were opposed to the negative positions of critics such as Albert von Schrenck-Notzing or Albert Moll. While the latter primarily criticized the lack of an empiricalexperimental basis, the proponents considered the involvement of personal media as an important resource to be used. The published contributions of decidedly opposing views marked the beginning of the history of the development of criminal mediumism, which finally became widespread under the term ‘criminal telepathy’ in the decades after World War I. Up to the present, the associated issues have been discussed again and again. The criminal mediumism introduced around 1900, but also the criticism of it, thus prove to be historical constants.
Keywords
criminology – criminal mediumismus – criminal telepathy – mediumism – police – spiritualism – Carl du Prel – Egbert Müller – Albert von Schrenck-Notzing – Albert Moll – Franz Xaver Riss
Journal of Anomalistics 23 (2023), No. 1, pp. 41–76
DOI: 10.23793/zfa.2023.41
Sleep Paralysis and Extraordinary Experiences
Gerhard Mayer, Max Fuhrmann
Abstract
We have investigated sleep paralysis (SP) with an online questionnaire. Our sample consisted of 380 participants who experienced at least one SP. In this paper, we present those parts of the investigation that concern the relationship of SP to extraordinary experiences, paranormal beliefs, and absorption. For this purpose, we used a self-developed German questionnaire on SP experiences, a German questionnaire Fragebogen zur Phänomenologie außergewöhnlicher Erfahrungen (PAGE-R-II), to assess the extent to which people with SP have had other extraordinary experiences, a German translation of the Belief in the Supernatural Scale (BitSS), and a German version of the Tellegen Absorption Scale (TAS). Our hypotheses regarding a positive correlation between the frequency of SP and certain forms of extraordinary experiences as well as paranormal/supernatural beliefs and absorption were only partially confirmed. We found an expected significant correlation between the frequency of SP and the expression on the PAGE dimensions “Dissociation” and “Externality”, but not between the frequency and the other two mentioned scales “Coincidence” and “Internality”. 55 % of participants reported having paranormal experiences during SP. This group had highly significant higher mean scores on the three scales PAGE, BitSS and TAS. Furthermore, the exploratory part revealed interesting correlations between the applied scales and specific hallucinatory perceptions and emotions, which leads us to the assumption that two main types of experiencing SP may exist: one mainly connected with typical negative emotions and a more external focus of experience, and another one, which is more likely accompanied also by positive emotions and by more internally experienced perceptions. This assumption requires further investigations.
Keywords
absorption – extraordinary experiences – frequency – gender – hallucinations – out-of-body experience – paranormal beliefs – paranormal experiences – perceptions – REM sleep – sleep paralysis
Journal of Anomalistics 22 (2023), No. 1, pp. 77–102
DOI: 10.23793/zfa.2023.77
Rethinking a Ghostly Episode in the Legacy Literature
James Houran, Brian Laythe, Cindy Little, Damien J. Houran
Abstract
The grounded theory of Haunted People Syndrome (HP-S) contends that spontaneous ‘ghostly episodes’ recurrently experienced by certain people are an interactionist phenomenon involving heightened somatic-sensory sensitivities which are stirred by dis-ease states, contextualized with paranormal belief, and reinforced via perceptual contagion and threat-agency detection. A historical report of a poltergeist-like outbreak that was touted in a non-psi journal was used to test the applicability of this psychological model. Two independent and blinded raters used the Survey of Strange Events (SSE: Houran et al., 2019b) to map the anomalous phenomena in the case, as well as a Recognition Pattern Checklist to assess for contextual variables that the HP-S model links to the features and dynamics of sustained haunt-type anomalies. High inter-rater agreement on the raters’ scores suggested that the available details of this case corresponded to (a) an occurrence with above-average ‘haunt intensity’ compared to published norms, and (b) 100% ‘agreement’ on the ostensible presence of all five proposed recognition patterns of HP-S. Furthermore, a review of this episode’s general structure using an SSE based Decision-Tree process cautioned against a purely parapsychological interpretation of some or all the reported anomalies. This basic analysis serves as a practical primer for using the SSE tool and HP-S model to guide future investigations of ghostly episodes by professional parapsychologists and citizen scientists alike.
Keywords
case study – citizen science – haunted people syndrome – interactionism – liminality
Journal of Anomalistics 23 (2023), No. 1, pp. 103–131
DOI: 10.23793/zfa.2023.103
Understanding the Nature of Psychokinesis
Fotini Pallikari
Abstract
This paper is the extended transcript of a lecture of November 2, 2021, presented online at the Colloquia of the Institut für Grenzgebiete der Psychologie und Psychohygiene (IGPP).2 It concerns a novel type of analysis of the micro-psychokinesis (MicroPK) meta-analysis data, BSB-MA, of carefully selected studies (Bösch et al., 2006a). The current paper introduced scientifically recognized data analyses other than the usual statistical approaches that yielded controversially debated conclusions. The method of Rescaled Range Analysis and the Markov model revealed correlations in the BSB-MA database introduced by three biases acknowledged in experimental science that altered some of the data: The Experimenter Expectancy Effect, the Conformity, and the Publication biases. They shaped the scatter of the random BSB-MA scores on the funnel plot. Most errors the biases have introduced were unintentional. Two interpretations of the evidence in the BSB-MA database based on the scientific method are likely: the paranormal, which explains some of the evidence, and the non-paranormal, which accounts for all evidence the present analyses realized. The principle of parsimony favors the latter interpretation.
Keywords
mind-matter interaction – telekinesis – psychokinesis – psychical phenomena – funnel plot – two state Markov chains – rescaled range analysis – meta analysis – conformity bias – experimenter expectancy effect – publication bias – random number generators analysis – Occam’s razor
Journal of Anomalistics 23 (2023), No. 1, pp. 132
DOI: 10.23793/zfa.2023.132
Editorische Vorbemerkung
Gerhard Mayer
Journal of Anomalistics 23 (2023), No. 1, pp. 133–143
DOI: 10.23793/zfa.2023.133
Zwanzig Jahre Verallgemeinerte Quantentheorie
Hartmann Römer
Journal of Anomalistics 23 (2023), No. 1, pp. 144
DOI: 10.23793/zfa.2023.144
Editorial Preface
Gerhard Mayer
Journal of Anomalistics 23 (2023), No. 1, pp. 145–154
DOI: 10.23793/zfa.2023.145
Twenty Years of Generalized Quantum Theory
Hartmann Römer
Journal of Anomalistics 23 (2023), No. 1, pp. 155–187
DOI: 10.23793/zfa.2023.155
Voices from Beyond: Mysterious Magic – Spectacle, Show, Protection and Healing
Gabriele Lademann-Priemer
PDF full text (German, with extended English Abstract)
Abstract
Since meeting a patient diagnosed as schizophrenic and the ‘voices’ she heard, it has preoccupied me to what extent voices that cannot be assigned to any place or body, i. e. are acousmatic, can cause illness or have a healing effect and thus change life. In ancient times, people naturally reckoned with such voices. They were assigned to the other world, be it the world of the gods, of God or the realm of demons. Something similar can be found in African cultures. Christians in Africa report on God‘s call, which is often expressed in dreams and strengthens people on their way or warns them of going astray. In the cults of West Africa, spirits speak to people in trance, the oracle speaks to the one who consults it, the sacred tree to the one who addresses it. These voices are ‘acausal’ but in some circumstances may cause causality. The European-American and increasingly scientistic world view is deterministic, whereas in Africa, as in European antiquity, people reckon with acausality and the interaction of the visible and invisible worlds. This is by no means ‘irrational’, but a different form of rationality.
Keywords
acousmatic voice – conversion – magic – oracle – visions
Journal of Anomalistics 23 (2023), No. 1, pp. 202–209
DOI: 10.23793/zfa.2023.202
Mirage Identification Suggested for Egede’s Sea Serpent Sighting
Ulrich Magin
Abstract
The description of a “sea monster” by the Apostle of Greenland, Hans Egede, is among the first three written observations of a “sea-serpent” that is known, and has become one of the classic reports of unidentified marine animals in the corpus of sea serpent lore. It is also one of the most discussed encounters on record (the opinions of the different interpreters will be given after the description). This paper uses an already suggested identification of a possible stimulus for the report (that of Paxton et al. that Egede’s report is of a baleen whale), and expands on it using the finds of Lehn on Arctic mirages and sea-monsters.
Keywords
sea-serpent – sea-monster – whale, mistaken for sea-serpent – greenland – mirage
Continued discussions on previous contributions
Journal of Anomalistics 23 (2023), No. 1, pp. 202–209
DOI: 10.23793/zfa.2023.202
Kommentar zu Karl-Hans Taake: Vom „Bauernschreck“ der Lavantaller Alpen bis zu den französischen „Bestien“: Wie Angriffe geflohener Großkatzen zu Wolfsangriffen umgedeutet werden“ in Journal of Anomalistics, 22(1) (2022), pp. 136–155
Drei fehlende Belege für einen entlaufenen Löwen
Ulrich Magin
Book Reviews
Journal of Anomalistics 23 (2023), No. 1, pp. 210–212
DOI: 10.23793/zfa.2023.210
Everton de Oliveira Maraldi (2021). Parapsychology and Religion
Reviewer: Nicole M. Bauer
Journal of Anomalistics 22 (2023), No. 1, pp. 213–217
DOI: 10.23793/zfa.2023.213
Bertram Schmidt (2022). Der andere Bezug. Gute Totengeister in Weltliteratur, Wissenschaft und Religion
Reviewer: Gerhard Mayer
Journal of Anomalistics 23 (2023), No. 1, pp. 218–225
DOI: 10.23793/zfa.2023.218
Wolfgang Mölkner, Rolf Gröscher (2022). Zweck, Ziel, Zufall. Dialog über die Entwicklung des Denkens
Reviewer: Stephan Krall
Journal of Anomalistics 23 (2023), No. 1, pp. 226–230
DOI: 10.23793/zfa.2023.226
Elmar Schübl (2021). Ich denke in Farbe, Form und Klang. Thomas Ring 1892–1983
Rezensiert von: Gerhard Mayer
Journal of Anomalistics 23 (2023), No. 1, pp. 231–239
DOI: 10.23793/zfa.2023.231
Rasa Navickaité (2023). Marija Gimbutas: Transnational Biography, Feminist Reception, and the Controversy of Goddess Archaeology
Rezensiert von: Meret Fehlmann
Corrigendum
Journal of Anomalistics 23 (2023), No. 1, pp. 241–249
DOI: 10.23793/zfa.2023.241
Abstracts-Dienst / Literaturspiegel
Frauke Schmitz-Gropengießer, Gerhard Mayer
