Summary
Contents
Subject index
The field of research on the paranormal has changed enormously in the last 20 years. Examining experiences of ESP, psychokinesis, precognition, ganzfeld, dissociative states, out-of-the-body experiences, alien abductions and near-death experiences, David Marks appraises the best available evidence to date on scientific claims of the paranormal. Each chapter also provides a description of the psychological processes that are likely to contribute to these experiences, and to the high prevalence of paranormal beliefs. Importantly, this book does not take a fixed sceptical or ‘disbelieving’ view of the phenomena but, as far as possible, offers a neutral gaze which will equip readers to make up their own minds, as well as providing them with the critical skills to defend their conclusions.
The Origins of Subjective Anomalous Experience
The Origins of Subjective Anomalous Experience
In any developed science, there is, of necessity, a wide gap between the diverse facts of observation and those few types of observed fact which form the basis of important generalizations and from which a body of theory is then derived. For the very act of reducing observation to order involves the neglect of many pertinent facts; a theory which attempted to take account of everything would be smothered by its own complexity. Thus all generalizations and theories necessarily refer to artificially simplified situations. (Whitehead, 1938: 271)
Outline: The process of theory construction is like solving a scientific jigsaw puzzle: from the multiple pieces one is looking for one coherent picture. The puzzle here ...
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