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Conceptual and Clinical Implications of a "Haunted People Syndrome". Spirituality in Clinical Practice

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Brian Laythe at Iudicium LLP
Brian Laythe
  • Iudicium LLP
James Houran at Journal of Scientific Exploration
James Houran
  • Journal of Scientific Exploration
Neil Dagnall at Manchester Metropolitan University
Neil Dagnall
Ken Drinkwater at Manchester Metropolitan University
Ken Drinkwater
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Abstract

Evidence suggests that subjective and objective anomalies associated with ghostly episodes form a unidimensional Rasch scale and that these interconnected “signs or symptoms” arguably describe a syndrome model. This view predicts that symptom perception—that is, the phenomenology of these anomalous episodes—can be markedly skewed by an experient’s psychological set. This is impacted, in turn, by psychosocial variables that affect attentional, perceptual, and interpretational processes. Therefore, we present an overview that discusses how (a) Belief in the Paranormal, (b) Religious Ideology, (c) Ideological Practice, (d) Social Desirability, (e) Latency, and (f) Environmental Setting ostensibly influence the contents or interpretations of accounts. These experiential details are similarly expected to reveal insights into the psychodynamics being expressed or contextualized via these narratives. Future research in this area should help to validate and clarify the proposed syndrome model, as well as explore which nuances in the phenomenology of ghostly episodes reflect idiosyncrasies of experients’ psychological set versus the nature of the core phenomenon itself.
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Conceptual and Clinical Implications of a “Haunted People Syndrome”
Brian Laythe
1
, James Houran
2, 3
, Neil Dagnall
4
, and Ken Drinkwater
4
1
Institute for the Study of Religious and Anomalous Experience, Charlestown, Indiana,
United States
2
Laboratory for Statistics and Computation, ISLA—Instituto Politécnico de Gestão e Tecnologia
3
Integrated Knowledge Systems, Dallas, Texas, United States
4
Department of Psychology, Manchester Metropolitan University
Evidence suggests that subjective and objective anomalies associated with ghostly
episodes form a unidimensional Rasch scale and that these interconnected “signs or
symptoms”arguably describe a syndrome model. This view predicts that symptom
perception—that is, the phenomenology of these anomalous episodes—can be markedly
skewed by an experient’s psychological set. This is impacted, in turn, by psychosocial
variables that affect attentional, perceptual, and interpretational processes. Therefore, we
present an overview that discusses how (a) Belief in the Paranormal, (b) Religious
Ideology, (c) Ideological Practice, (d) Social Desirability, (e) Latency, and (f) Environ-
mental Setting ostensibly influence the contents or interpretations of accounts. These
experiential details are similarly expected to reveal insights into the psychodynamics
being expressed or contextualized via these narratives. Future research in this area should
help to validate and clarify the proposed syndrome model, as well as explore which
nuances in the phenomenology of ghostly episodes reflect idiosyncrasies of experients’
psychological set versus the nature of the core phenomenon itself.
Keywords: phenomenology, syndrome, symptom perception, systems theory,
transliminality
We agree with Bauer’s (2004, p. 645) senti-
ment that the public deserves an accurately
informed response when scientists are posed
questions such as, “What’s going on when peo-
ple report ghosts and haunted houses?”This
issue is not trivial, as surveys show that we are
dealing with an ongoing and widespread behav-
ioral phenomenon (e.g., Chapman University,
2018;Haraldsson, 2011;McClenon, 2012;
Murray & Jones, 2012;Rice, 2003;Ross &
Joshi, 1992;YouGov, 2019). Moreover, these
narratives—as religio-cultural beliefs, shared
stories, or putative experiences—often affect
people in profound and even transformative
ways (Drinkwater et al., 2019;Hill et al.,
2018,2019). For instance, some academic re-
searchers have boldly professed that spontane-
ous cases can be so impressive prima facie that
they serve as indisputable evidence of the para-
normal (e.g., Stokes, 2017a,2017b). Other
times individuals can endure unexpected con-
sequences of these anomalous experiences that
disrupt their normal functioning.
There are many psychosocial and clinical fa-
cets to ghostly perceptions, so we take these
anomalous experiences seriously but not neces-
sarily at face value (Houran, 2017;Houran et al.,
2017). When misunderstood, these experiences
can fundamentally contribute to misdiagnosis
due to arcane content that often resembles posi-
tive symptoms in schizophrenia or schizotypal
personality disorder. In fact, Raybeyron and
Loose (2015) noted that psychiatric clinics exist
This article was published Online First March 18, 2021.
Brian Laythe https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9081-2253
James Houran https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1725-582X
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed
to Brian Laythe, Institute for the Study of Religious and
Anomalous Experience, 3804 County Rd 160, Charlestown,
IN 47111, United States. Email: blaythe@israenet.org
195
Spirituality in Clinical Practice
© 2021 American Psychological Association 2021, Vol. 8, No. 3, 195–214
ISSN: 2326-4500 https://doi.org/10.1037/scp0000251
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
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... Macrophenomenology in this context denotes the conditions that mediate the onset or proliferation of particular altered-anomalous experiences, whereas microphenomenology refers here to the specific contents or details of those altered-anomalous experiences. Accordingly, we tested whether the contents, features, and contextual details of Oz's case aligned to a "spontaneous" ghostly episode and the five recognition patterns of HP-S as outlined by Laythe Houran, Dagnall et al. (2021: (a) Transliminality (or thin mental boundaries), reinforced by Belief in the Paranormal, is the foundation of percipients' anomalous experiences; (b) "Dis-ease" (or psychological dissonance) is a catalyst for the onset of anomalous experiences; (c) Anomalous experiences involve diverse contents and "event flurries" due to Perceptual Contagion; (d) Sense-Making Attributions for the anomalous experiences conform to the percipient's immediate biopsychosocial context; and (e) Threat-Agency Detection raises the percipients' arousal or anxiety levels due to the nature, proximity, and spontaneity of anomalous events. ...
... This step extends Part 1's results by comparing Oz's holistic narrative to the Rasch hierarchy of HP-S variables from Lange and Houran's (2024) psychometric research. To clarify, Laythe, Houran, Dagnall et al. (2021 posited that ghostly episodes in an HP-S context unfold via a general scheme: Transliminality/Paranormal Belief → Dis-ease → Threat-Agency Detection → Perceptual Contagion (event flurries) → Perceptual Contagion (diverse perceptions) → Sense-Making Attributions (1) However, Lange and Houran's (2024) Rasch hierarchy of the HP-S variables in their HPSS development work found a slightly different ordering: ...
... It instead seems clear that his anomalous experiences, at the very least, fit a "transliminal dis-ease" interpretation (Ventola et al., 2019), with additional evidence suggesting good congruence with the broader syndrome model. Both Oz and an independent analysis agreed that most of the HP-S recognition patterns were present, and the sequence of events in this case aligned fairly well to certain aspects of Laythe, Houran, Dagnall et al. (2021) posited process. If anything, alignment to the HP-S model was likely underestimated. ...
Team Analysis of a Help-Seeking "Haunted Person"
Article
Full-text available
  • Dec 2024
We present a two-part, initial case study of a 33-year-old male ("Oz") who requested an investigation of his recent haunt-type experiences. We tested whether the features and dynamics of the reported anomalies aligned with a "spontaneous" case showing the recognition patterns of Haunted People Syndrome (HP-S). This model describes recurrent "ghostly episodes" as an interactionist phenomenon involving people with heightened somatic-sensory sensitivities which are stirred by disease states, contextualized with sense-making mechanisms, and reinforced via perceptual contagion and threat-agency detection. Part 1 compared contextual information from a semi-structured interview and psychometric testing with Oz to the results of an independent content analysis of his account. Part 2 featured a thematic analysis with a narrative lens to assess the sequence of events in this case against the posited HP-S process. We also explored for "deep" (autonomous) imaginary companions, stigmata marks, and enchantment reactions. The available evidence suggests this ghostly episode involved (a) an above-average "haunt intensity" and a content structure most similar to a "primed" experience, (b) an above-average score on a standardized screener for HP-S, and (c) clear aftereffects of enchantment and a probable history of encounter proneness. There were no overt signs of deception, but the case progression did not fully match prior descriptions of the HP-S sequence. This suggests that HP-S variables might work in a dynamic fashion.
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... Arguably a more parsimonious framework in this regard is the grounded theory of Haunted People Syndrome 2 (HP-S; Laythe, Houran, Dagnall et al., 2021), which contends that entity encounters or ghostly episodes recurrently manifesting to specific people are an interactionist phenomenon emerging from heightened somatic-sensory sensitivities (i.e., thin mental boundaries or transliminality 3 ), which are exacerbated by dis-ease (i.e., when a person's normal state of 'ease' becomes markedly disrupted or imbalanced), contextualized with paranormal belief (i.e., endorsement of phenomena beyond the scope of current scientific understanding), and reinforced with perceptual contagion (i.e., snowballing perceptions) via attentional biases or threat-agency detection. In short, HP-S equates spontaneous ghostly episodes to some of the fundamental mechanisms that stoke outbreaks of mass (contagious) psychogenic illness or autohypnotic phenomena in non-clinical populations (cf. ...
... We worked as a panel to draft a set of potential screening items guided by Laythe, Houran, Dagnall et al.'s (2021) original development of the HP-S concept, as well as a simple HP-S Recognition Patterns Checklist used in previous content analyses of spontaneous cases (Houran, Laythe, Little et al., 2023;. Laythe and colleagues Laythe, Houran, Dagnall et al., 2021) discussed five general recognition patterns of HP-S, but Table 1 shows that these variables can be parsed into eight distinct questions to capture their important nuances. Final wordings of the items derived from an iterative process that included consultation with a small focus group of 'entity encounter' experiencers. ...
... In particular, this first iteration of the HPSS tool comprises four of the five recognition patterns of HP-S-namely, (a) Thin Boundary Functioning (i.e., Transliminality), (b) Dis-ease States, (c) Perceptual Contagion, and (d) Sense-Making Attributions-whereas our proposed indices of Paranormal Belief and Threat-Agency Detection were omitted due to measurement issues with their current wordings. Moreover, the hierarchical structure of the four psychometrically sound indices of recognition patterns generally aligned to Laythe and colleagues' Laythe, Houran, Dagnall et al., 2021) conceptual description of their syndrome model, and HPSS scores strongly predicted scores on the SSE measure of encounter experiences. Accordingly, the HPSS looks to be an efficient and effective screener for 'encounter-prone' individuals whose anomalous experiences ostensibly exhibit many phenomenological features of Haunted People Syndrome. ...
Development of the Haunted People Syndrome-Screener (HPSS)
Article
  • Dec 2024
Spirits or other supernatural entities are central to many religio-spiritual beliefs, transpersonal practices, and altered states of consciousness, yet empirical studies of purported encounter experiences and their psychological aftereffects are relatively sparse in the literature. Haunted People Syndrome (HP-S) describes recurrent 'ghostly episodes' as an interactionist phenomenon emerging from people with heightened somatic-sensory sensitivities that are stirred by disease states, contextualized with paranormal belief, and reinforced via perceptual contagion and threat-agency detection. Increasing evidence supports this biopsychosocial model, but a screening tool for the HP-S recognition patterns should provide many research and clinical benefits. We therefore collected relevant survey data via an online research panel (n ¼ 241, balanced for gender) to develop a user-friendly but robust Rasch-scaled instrument. The final six-item, Likert-based screener has excellent internal reliability (Rasch reliability ¼ .87) and shows no significant response biases for age, gender, or a general index of mental illness. Regarding construct validity, the probabilistic hierarchy of its items generally aligns with a posited description of the HP-S process and scaled scores strongly predict the diversity (or perceptual depth) of self-reported encounter experiences. We discuss this new tool in the context of easily identifying 'haunted people' for inclusion in academic research or to guide clinical support.
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... Moreover, people with 'thin or permeable' mental boundaries (as measured by constructs like Transliminality or Paranormal Belief) are more likely to perceive these interrelated anomalies (Houran et al., 2002;Kumar & Pekala, 2001;. This ordered set of unexplained signs or symptoms in individuals with a distinct perceptual-personality profile strongly implicates a core 'encounter' phenomenon that resembles a biomedical syndrome in important ways (Laythe et al., 2021a). ...
... Accordingly, we tested whether the contents, features, and contextual details in the available case material align to the five recognition patterns of HP-S as outlined by Laythe et al. (2021aLaythe et al. ( , 2022. Two coders therefore used a set of standardized tools to independently assess this ghostly episode for high-confidence indications that: (a) Transliminality (or hypersensitivities to internal and external stimuli), reinforced by Belief in the Paranormal, was a springboard for percipients' anomalous experiences; (b) 'Dis-ease' (or psychological dissonance) was a catalyst for the onset of anomalous experiences; (c) Recurrent anomalous experiences exhibited temporal patterns (or 'event flurries') that imply perceptual contagion; (d) Sense-Making Attributions for the anomalous experiences conformed to the percipient's salient biopsychosocial context; and (e) Arousal or anxiety levels of the percipients related to the nature, proximity, and spontaneity of their anomalous events (i.e., fear-anxiety coinciding with events that were more physical in nature or within percipients' personal spaces). ...
... There were also clear indications of recognition pattern Nos 3 (Perceptual Contagion) and 5 (Threat-Agency Detection), although evidence was lacking for part of recognition patterns 1 (Paranormal Belief) and 4 (Sense-Making Attributions). Conclusions from single case studies can be particularly problematic with frontier science topics (Mayer, 2019), but our cumulative findings sit reasonably well within the broader context of prior work using mixed methods that converge to paint a common picture of ghostly episodes (or sustained entity encounter experiences) in natural settings as enactive, immersive, and often performative events (Laythe et al., 2021acf. Ironside & Wooffitt, 2021). ...
CONFRONTING THE ELUSIVE FORCE: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF A 20th CENTURY POLTERGEIST
Article
Full-text available
  • Oct 2024
Haunted people syndrome (HP-S) describes recurrent 'ghostly episodes' as an interactionist phenomenon involving people with heightened somatic-sensory sensitivities that are stirred by disease states, contextualized with paranormal belief, and reinforced via perceptual contagion and threat-agency detection. We tested the applicability of this systems theory approach using a pre-registered content analysis of a retrospective account concerning intense anomalies surrounding an adolescent female (and her family) living in Poland. Two blinded coders independently used the Survey of Strange Events (SSE) (Houran et al., 2019b) to map the anomalous phenomena in the case, as well as a series of published measures to assess contextual variables that the HP-S model links to haunt-type phenomena. We also explored four attendants to encounter experiences, i.e., 'deep' (autonomous) imaginary companions, stigmata-like marks, environmental influences, and enchantment effects with percipients. Good intercoder agreement across the measures profiled this episode as having (a) an above-average 'haunt intensity' and a content structure that paralleled both performative and spontaneous accounts, (b) a 71% match to the seven aspects of the HP-S recognition patterns, (c) a setting with distinct sentimentality for the afflicted family, and (d) apparent after-effects of situational-enchantment. A statistically derived decision-tree process with the SSE indicated that this case was inconsistent with the characteristics of a purely deceptive account. Not validated were the roles of paranormal belief, sense-making attributions, most environmental factors, deep imaginary friends, or stigmata phenomena. The results nonetheless align in important ways with prior findings that suggest enactive cognitions help to shape the phenomenology of these episodes.
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... Our research therefore has adopted a system or biopsychosocial view that models anomalous experiences and psi-type cognitions [or what Rhea White (1990) termed exceptional human experiences: EHEs] as an interactionist phenomenon emerging from the "right people in the right settings" (Laythe et al. 2018, p. 210;cf. Houran et al., 2023;Laythe et al., 2021). Specifically, we propose that EHEs often are not random occurrences but rather predictably manifest during conditions of thin (or loose) mental boundary functioning. ...
Confirmatory Study of Anomalous Experiences in Enchanted Spaces
Article
Full-text available
  • Jan 2024
This pre-registered study tested the concept of an 'enchantment-psi loop' via distinct immersive visits to sacred, haunted, and augmented reality environments. In particular, we specified four hypotheses based on the premise that anomalous experiences and cognitions would significantly shift by applying a Paranormal Belief × Transliminality × Enchantment formula. A vetted sample of thin-boundary participants (n = 22) organized into small tour groups completed measures of environmental features, real-time encounter experiences, enchantment levels, and a computerized test of putative psi after counterbalanced exposure to each of the three 'enchanted' conditions, as well as paired testing sessions within a purposely 'disenchanted' environment. Our hypotheses received mixed support. Consistent with predictions, participants' scores on both encounter experiences and psi performance increased in the enchanted vs. disenchanted conditions, though situational-enchantment levels correlated positively with encounter experiences and negatively with putative psi. Participants also tended to have above-chance scores in the enchanted conditions, but many of our predicted effects did not reach statistical significance. Tangential analyses revealed that both encounter experiences and putative psi were also influenced differentially by various emotional (i. e., feelings of happiness), motivational (i. e., attentional focus), and environmental (i. e., sentimentality 1 James Houran (Integrated Knowledge Systems, Inc., https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1725-582X) has a 397 Confirmatory Study of Anomalous Experiences in Enchanted Spaces and presence) factors. The results lend credence to aspects of the enchantment-psi loop yet indicate the need for future research to clarify important nuances or complexities with the model that likely affect the reliability or robustness of its predictions. Konfirmatorische Studie über außergewöhnliche Erfahrungen in "verwunschenen" Räumen Zusammenfassung 2-Diese vorab registrierte Studie testete das Konzept einer "Verzauberungs-Psi-Schleife" durch verschiedene immersive Besuche in heiligen, "verwunschenen" und Augmented-Reality-Umgebungen. Insbesondere haben wir vier Hypothesen aufgestellt, die auf der Annahme basieren, dass sich anomale Erfahrungen und Kognitionen durch die Anwendung einer Formel Paranormale Glaubensvorstellungen × Transliminalität × Enchantment (Verzauberung) signifikant verändern würden. Eine geprüfte Stichprobe von Teilnehmenden mit "dünnen Grenzen" (thin-boundary) (n = 22), wurde in Gruppen eingeteilt, die in ausgeglichener Exposition je-weils zu drei Orten mit "verzauberten" Bedingungen und drei Orten mit absichtlich "entzauberten" Umgebungs-bedingungen fuhren, um Testsitzungen durchzuführen. Dort schätzten sie Umgebungsmerkmale, Echtzeit-Begegnungserfahrungen 3 sowie "Verzauberungsgrade" ein und absolvierten einen compu-tergestützten Psi-Test. Unsere Hypothesen wurden in unterschiedlichem Maß bestätigt. In Über-einstimmung mit den Vorhersagen erhielten wir höhere Werte der Teilnehmenden sowohl bei den "Begegnungserfahrungen" als auch bei der Psi-Leistung unter den "verzauberten" Bedingungen im Vergleich zu den "entzauberten" Bedingungen, wenngleich der Grad der Situationsverzauberung positiv mit den Begegnungserfahrungen und negativ mit der vermuteten Psi-Leistung korrelierte. Die Teilnehmenden hatten unter den "verzauberten" Bedingungen auch tendenziell überdurch-schnittliche Werte, aber viele der von uns vorhergesagten Effekte erreichten keine statistische Sig-nifikanz. Tangentiale Analysen ergaben, dass sowohl Begegnungserfahrungen als auch mutmaß-liche Psi-Leistungen von verschiedenen emotionalen (d. h. Glücksgefühlen), motivationalen (d. h. Aufmerksamkeitsfokus) und umweltbezogenen (d. h. Sentimentalität und Präsenz) Faktoren unter-schiedlich beeinflusst wurden. Die Ergebnisse verleihen Aspekten der "Verzauberungs-Psi-Schleife" Glaubwürdigkeit, weisen jedoch auf die Notwendigkeit zukünftiger Forschung hin, um wichtige Nuancen oder Komplexitäten des Modells zu klären, die wahrscheinlich die Zuverlässigkeit oder Robustheit seiner Vorhersagen beeinflussen. Schüsselbegriffe: Verzauberung-immersive Erfahrungen-Interaktionismus-Liminalität-Psi
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... experiences that incorporates transliminality, a range of psychological factors and environmental influences. For example, Laythe et al. (2021) have noted the "interactionist (or enactive) view implies that ghostly episodes involve at least two distinct but related processes: (a) Percipient sensitivity, or "the right people in the right environments (or conditions)" and subsequently, (b) Percipient shaping, or the added influence of an individual's psychological and social set on the perceptual, attentional, or attributional processes that mediate or dictate the meaning given to anomalies" (Laythe et al., 2021, p. 205). From these data, we cannot ascertain how the physical features of the person-object interactions lead to subjective experiences of psychometry. ...
Exploring the correlates and nature of subjective anomalous interactions with objects (psychometry): a mixed methods survey
Article
Full-text available
  • Sep 2024
Introduction Psychometry refers to the experience of receiving information about a person or thing by contact with a given object. There is little research to date on the psychological correlates of psychometry and no systematic qualitative research on the nature of the experience itself. Method A convergent mixed methods online survey sought to explore how synesthesia and autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) correlate with a range of anomalous experiences, including psychometry, among members of the public. Those who reported that they had experienced psychometry were invited to describe their experiences in an open ended section. Results Results indicate that those who experience psychometry scored higher on a measure of ASMR than those who did not. Those who experience synesthesia also scored significantly higher on a measure of ASMR than those who did not. However, synesthesia was not significantly associated with psychometry. Both ASMR and synesthesia were associated with tendencies to report anomalous experiences (with and without a paranormal attribution). A thematic analysis found five themes including: a flash of imagery; lived feelings and intense emotions; noesis and perspective taking/empathy. Subjective psychometry experiences seem to reflect emotional information that is experienced as different to one’s normal experiences and felt to be from the perspective of another person. Discussion Results are discussed and quantitative and qualitative findings are integrated.
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... The idea of conceptualizing possession as a syndrome in this research was inspired by O' Keeffe et al. (2019), who defined Haunted People Syndrome to describe the anomalous perceptions associated with places believed to have paranormal activity due to religious beliefs, cultural legends, etc. (e.g., Houran & Laythe, 2022). This approach has proven very useful for re- search and has shown clinically valuable implications in the field of dissociation (see Laythe et al., 2021). ...
Evidence of phenotypes and dissociative diagnostic markers for demonic possession syndrome
Article
Full-text available
  • Dec 2024
Objective According to clinical models of personality, patients with dissociative identity disorder (DID) who have experienced demonic possession (psychiatric possession syndrome or PPS) may present two profiles: the schizo-paranoid profile (characteristic of psychotic spectrum disorder or PSD) and the hysteroid-histrionic profile (characteristic of affective disorders). The present study aimed to examine the clinical and statistical evidence of these phenotypic personality structures in patients with PPS and DID (with and without PSD).
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... The finding that transliminality mediates the relationship between PB and well-being concurred with [2]. This effect may occur because high levels manifest as the attenuated ability to actively suppress irrelevant information and increased awareness of psychological and physiological fluctuations [95][96][97]. The ensuing attention to spontaneous idiosyncratic mentation likely results in preoccupation with psychological and physical states, connectedness with experiences, and perceived lack of self-regulation and control (somatic complaints) and the environment (i.e., stress). ...
Paranormal belief, psychopathological symptoms, and well-being: Latent profile analysis and longitudinal assessment of relationships
Article
Full-text available
Within non-clinical samples the relationship between paranormal belief (PB) and well-being varies as a function of level of psychopathology. Accordingly, believers are best conceptualised as a heterogeneous set of sub-groups. The usefulness of previous findings has been restricted by conceptual methodological limitations. Specifically, overreliance on cross-sectional design, the assumption that believers constitute a homogeneous group, and consideration of direct effects. Acknowledging these limitations, the present study investigated whether profile membership derived from PB and psychopathology (schizotypy and manic-depressive experience) predicted well-being (i.e., stress, somatic complaints, life satisfaction and meaning in life) across time. Concurrently, analysis assessed the mediating effect of theoretically important variables (transliminality, happiness orientation, fearful and skeptical attitude). A sample of 1736 (Mage = 52, range = 18 to 88; 883 females, 845 males, eight non-binary) completed self-report measures indexing study constructs across time points. Latent profile analysis at baseline, identified three sub-groups varying in level of PB and psychopathology at baseline: Profile 1, moderate PB and high psychopathology; Profile 2, moderate PB and psychopathology; and Profile 3, moderate PB and low psychopathology. Path analysis demonstrated that Profile 1 (the highest psychopathology scoring profile) predicted higher negative and lower positive well-being over time in comparison with the other profiles. Moreover, Transliminality and Fearful Attitude positively mediated this relationship, whereas Skeptical Attitude produced negative mediation. These outcomes supported the presence of a sophisticated process underpinning the PB and well-being relationship. Overall, PB in the absence of psychopathology had no significant influence on well-being.
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Trained Transliminals: Exploring Anomalous Experiences and Psi in Magical Practitioners
Article
Full-text available
  • Jul 2024
This study examines a body of engaged “ritual magic practitioners” to understand their methods and techniques for facilitating putative parapsychological outcomes in everyday life, as well as outcomes on a computerized test of putative psi. We hypothesized that the combination of meditation, visualization, and related mental exercises at the core of magical practice relates to both invoked anomalous phenomena and spontaneously-occurring anomalous phenomena, and further that the perceptual-personality variable of transliminality (i.e., loose mental boundary functioning) is integral to this process. Likewise, we also anticipated that these associations would enable ritual magicians to score significantly above-chance on the psi test. A split-sample analysis found a positive and statistically significant series of relationships between transliminality and the majority of measured variables within the sample, and notably those involving questionnaire measures of subjective and objective anomalies as well as daily mental exercises. The ritual magicians also performed significantly below-chance (p < .01 for several conditions) on the psi test, as a function of open testing of ESP or using ritual to influence the test. We discuss these results in terms of significant predictions of trait and practice variables on ESP scoring, as well as the evidence that magical practice may represent techniques in which a transliminal dis-ease model might be better remediated.
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Preregistered Field Test of an 'Enchantment-Psi' Loop
Article
  • Mar 2024
Previous survey evidence suggests that situational-enchantment is a mental state conducive for psi-related experiences. In this conceptual replication and exploration, we used a preregistered research design to examine hit rate on a mobile application ('app') test of putative psi that was administered after participant exposure to two competing conditions in counterbalanced order: (a) an 'enchant-ed' immersive tour in a 'haunted' house museum versus (b) a 'disenchanted' outdoor tent session with a video that allegedly debunked the paranormal. A convenience sample of 31 volunteers recruited via social media completed counterbalanced testing in both conditions and measures of transliminality and paranormal belief, which we converted to high and low (median split) measurements as co-variates of the hit rates on the psi test. Findings showed that high levels of both transliminality and paranormal belief, as well as the 'haunted (enchanted)' versus 'skeptical (disenchanted)' conditions significantly shifted overall hit rates and above-chance performance. In the majority of analyses these effects represented more than a 10% shift in both hit rate and tests against average psi guessing rate. We discuss these results as supporting an interactionist (environment-person) model of certain parapsychological phenomena.
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Perceptual Bandwagon Effects With “Deep” Imaginary Companions
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Studies of the mediating factors of imaginary companions (ICs) in children and adults are well-represented in the literature. However, the nature and structure of behavioral expressions in IC characters have been less formally scrutinized. We examined these issues in a convenience sample of 389 adults. Of these, 155 self-reported childhood ICs and retrospectively characterized their IC phenomenology via a set of 14 items modified from previous research. Rasch analyses showed that IC experiences form a true probabilistic hierarchy whose structure varied little across respondents’ age, gender, having siblings, as well as the respondents’ number of past ICs, or their decision to inform others about their IC. This hierarchy starts with shallow (i.e., ostensibly ‘adaptive or positive’) experiences and transition to deep (i.e., relatively ‘maladaptive or negative’) contents at higher levels. Network analysis suggested that respondents invented ICs primarily to combat feelings of loneliness. However, contrary to the Rasch model, when comparing shallow vs deep IC experients’ answers, positive and negative perceptual contents lost their distinction, thereby severely distorting measurement. These distortions were sufficiently powerful to reliably predict respondents’ group membership. Results derived from retrospective accounts of childhood experiences, which might differ from IC contents and dynamics measured either in real-time or within adult populations. However, these findings suggest that ICs comprise a latent dimension of shallow-to-deep perceptions that might relate to schizotypal or dissociative phenomena manifesting in everyday contexts.
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Anxiety-Related Attentional Biases and Their Regulation by Attentional Control
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This study examined the role of self-reported attentional control in regulating attentional biases related to trait anxiety. Simple detection targets were preceded by cues labeling potential target locations as threatening (likely to result in negative feedback) or safe (likely to result in positive feedback). Trait anxious participants showed an early attentional bias favoring the threatening location 250 ms after the cue and a late bias favoring the safe location 500 ms after the cue. The anxiety-related threat bias was moderated by attentional control at the 500-ms delay: Anxious participants with poor attentional control still showed the threat bias, whereas those with good control were better able to shift from the threatening location. Thus, skilled control of voluntary attention may allow anxious persons to limit the impact of threatening information.
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Perceptual-Personality Variables Associated With Entity Encounter Experiences
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This study evaluates data from two independent samples, active paranormal believers (Study 1, N = 239) and undergraduate students (Study 2, N = 554), to find psychological variables related to self-reported Entity Encounter Experiences (EEE)—specifically, Sense of Presence, Apparitional Experience, and Spirit Possession. Sense of Presence (75%), Apparitional Experience (29%), and Spirit Possession (19%), were more frequent in S1 compared to S2 (34%, 5%, and 5%, respectively). For S1, respondents with a high frequency of EEEs tended to be extroverted, have a high propensity for unusual experiences (a schizotypy factor), and score high on ‘thin’ boundary and transliminality. For S2, respondents with a high frequency of EEEs tended to be neurotic and fantasy-prone, have cognitive-perceptual schizotypy, dissociative tendencies, and score high on absorption factors. For paranormal believers, the ‘thin’ boundary variable predicted EEE group membership. For students, EEE group membership was predicted by schizotypy, absorption, and dissociation.
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ENVIRONMENTAL "GESTALT INFLUENCES" PERTINENT TO STUDIES OF HAUNTED HOUSES
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Full-text available
  • Apr 2020
Fieldwork studies of "haunted houses" can offer ecologically valid insights for model-building or theory-formation in consciousness studies from parapsychological and conventional perspectives. The interactionist hypothesis asserts that these anomalous episodes are a phenomenon rooted in environment-person bidirectional influences. Although prior research has examined the role of various physical factors in some haunt cases, relatively recent findings in environmental psychology suggest the potential involvement of six "Gestalt influences" that transcend discrete variables as conscious-or unconscious-stimulants of witness experiences. These meta-patterns in the psychology of spaces or settings involve: (i) affordance, (ii) atmosphere, (iii) ambiguity and threat anticipatory processes, (iv) immersion and presence, (v) legibility, and (vi) percipient memory and associations. Thus, haunted houses might be variants of "enchanted spaces or extraordinary architectural experiences." New research designs are thus recommended to scrutinise the presence and impact of Gestalt influences and enactive processes in parapsychological contexts.
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Quantifying the Phenomenology of Ghostly Episodes: Part II--A Rasch Model of Spontaneous Accounts
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Full-text available
  • Sep 2019
Using a sample of self-reported “spontaneous” accounts (ostensibly sincere and unprimed, N = 426), we calibrated a 32-item, Rasch-based “Survey of Strange Events (SSE)” to quantify the phenomenology of ghostly episodes while assessing response biases related to experients’ age and gender. This inventory included psychological experiences typical of haunts, and physical manifestations common to poltergeist-like disturbances. Results supported earlier suggestions that “spontaneous” accounts have a predictable (cumulative) behavioral pattern and show a unidimensional factor structure. Further, compared to spontaneous accounts, we identified strong response biases on the SSE across four control conditions (i.e., Lifestyle, Primed, Fantasy, and Illicit). Statistical modeling successfully predicted group memberships with good accuracy, corroborating that spontaneous experiences differ systematically in certain ways from “impostors.” The SSE is a robust measure of overall intensity of ghostly episodes (Rasch reliability = 0.87) and serves as a standard operationalization of specific anomalies in surveys, fieldwork studies, and investigations that code free-response data or spontaneous case material for quantitative analysis.
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Things That Go Bump in the Literature: An Environmental Appraisal of “Haunted Houses”
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Full-text available
  • Jun 2020
This paper contains a narrative overview of the past 20-years of environmental research on anomalous experiences attributed to “haunted house.” This exercise served as a much-needed update to an anthology of noteworthy overviews on ghosts, haunts, and poltergeists (Houran and Lange, 2001b). We also considered whether new studies had incorporated certain recommendations made in this anthology. Our search revealed a relative paucity of studies (n = 66) on environmental factors that ostensibly stimulate haunt-type experiences. This literature was diverse and often lacked methodological consistency and adherence to the prior suggestions. However, critical consideration of the content revealed a recurring focus on six ambient variables: embedded (static) cues, lighting levels, air quality, temperature, infrasound, and electromagnetic fields. Their relation to the onset or structure of witness reports showed mostly null, though sometimes inconsistent or weak outcomes. However, such research as related to haunts is arguably in its infancy and new designs are needed to account better for environmental and architectural phenomenology. Future studies should therefore address four areas: (i) more consistent and precise measurements of discrete ambient variables; (ii) the potential role of “Gestalt influences” that involve holistic environment-person interactions; (iii) individual differences in attentional or perceptual sensitivities of percipients to environmental variables; and (iv) the role of attitudinal and normative influences in the interpretation of environmental stimuli. Focused scrutiny on these issues should clarify the explanatory power of evolutionary-environmental models for these and related anomalous experiences.
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Measuring extraordinary experiences and beliefs: A validation and reliability study
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Full-text available
  • May 2020
Background: Belief in the paranormal is widespread worldwide. Recent surveys suggest that subjective experiences of the paranormal are common. A concise instrument that adequately evaluates beliefs as distinct from experiences does not currently exist. To address this gap, we created the Noetic Experiences and Beliefs Scale (NEBS) which evaluates belief and experience as separate constructs. Methods: The NEBS is a 20-item survey with 10 belief and 10 experience items rated on a visual analog scale from 0-100. In an observational study, the survey was administered to 361 general population adults in the United States and a subsample of 96 one month later. Validity, reliability and internal consistency were evaluated. A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to confirm the latent variables of belief and experience. The survey was then administered to a sample of 646 IONS Discovery Lab participants to evaluate divergent validity and confirm belief and experience as latent variables of the model in a different population. Results: The NEBS demonstrated convergent validity, reliability and internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha Belief 0.90; Experience 0.93) and test-retest reliability (Belief: r = 0.83 ; Experience: r = 0.77). A confirmatory factor analysis model with belief and experience as latent variables demonstrated a good fit. The factor model was confirmed as having a good fit and divergent validity was established in the sample of 646 IONS Discovery Lab participants. Conclusions: The NEBS is a short, valid, and reliable instrument for evaluating paranormal belief and experience.
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Exploring Gaslighting Effects via the VAPUS Model for Ghost Narratives
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  • Apr 2020
The VAPUS model (Hill et al., 2018, 2019) characterizes the powerful "brand personality" of ghost narratives in terms of their Versatility, Adaptability, Participatory Nature, Universality, and Scalability. This suggests that these narratives act as cultural memes that partly reflect interpersonal or group dynamics. We use these themes in a review and conceptual synthesis of key literature to address the phenomenon of "gaslighting," which denotes the determined efforts of an influencer to alter the perceptions of a targeted individual. Modelling ghost narratives as psychosocial constructions implies malleability via attitudinal and normative influences. Accordingly, we specify and discuss two apparent manifestations of this narrative plasticity, i.e., "positive (reinforcing) gaslighting" (i.e., confirmation biases) or "negative (rejecting) gaslighting" (i.e., second-guessing or self-doubt). These ideas clarify some Trickster-type effects and imply that all ghost narratives likely involve gaslighting to an extent.
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CONCOMITANT OBJECT MOVEMENTS AND EMF-SPIKES AT A PURPORTED HAUNT
Article
Full-text available
  • Oct 2019
We documented 10 instances of anomalous movements ("PK events") of two objects under quasi-controlled conditions at a reported haunt and time-synced to readings of electromagnetic fields (EMFs). Using a series of published binomial tests, we analyzed each axis of a "target" meter (within two-feet of the affected objects) for deviant EMF activity, along with the outputs from a "control" meter approximately 12-feet away. Results indicated that the time-periods before and during the "PK events" coincided with significant suppression of EMFs, whereas the control meter showed no significant changes. Similarly, no pattern was found in terms of axis on either meter "aligning," suggesting that the EMF field associated with the object movements was local to the area of the target meter. The results seem to conceptually replicate previous findings in which EMF-variability (i.e., expansion or suppression) has been detected in association with demonstrably objective or physical haunt-type phenomena.
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Haunted people syndrome revisited: empirical parallels between subjective paranormal episodes and group-stalking accounts
Article
  • Sep 2020
Research suggests a Haunted People Syndrome (HP-S) is defined by the recurrent perception of anomalous subjective and objective events. Occurrences are traditionally attributed to supernatural agencies, but we argue that such interpretations have morphed into themes of “surveillance and stalking” in group-stalking reports. We tested a series of related hypotheses by re-analyzing survey data from the 2015 Sheridan and James study to explore statistical patterns in “delusional” group-stalking accounts (N=128) versus“non-delusional” (control) accounts of lone-culprit stalking (N=128). As expected, we found that (i) account types had different Rasch hierachies, (ii) the Rasch hierarchy of group-stalking experiences showed a robust unidimensional model, and (iii) this group-stalking hierarchy correlated significantly with spontanous “ghost“ experiences. However, we found no clear evidence for “event clustering” that might signify contagious processes in symptom perception. Findings support the viability of the HP-S construct and the idea that experiences of group-stalking and haunts share common sources.
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Clusters of Individuals Experiences form a Continuum of Persistent Non-Symbolic Experiences in Adults - https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/conscjournal/vol8/iss8/1/
Article
  • Aug 2020
Persistent forms of nondual awareness, enlightenment, mystical experience, and so forth (Persistent Non-Symbolic Experience) have been reported since antiquity. Though sporadic research has been performed on these experiences, the scientific literature has yet to report a large-scale cognitive psychology study of this population. Method: Assessment of the subjective experience of 319 adult participants reporting persistent non-symbolic experience was undertaken using 6-12 hour semi-structured interviews and evaluated using grounded theory and thematic analysis. Results: Five core, consistent categories of change were uncovered: sense-of-self, cognition, affect, perception, and memory. Participants’ reports formed phenomenological groups in which the types of change in each of these categories were consistent. Multiple groupings were uncovered that formed a range of composite experiences. The variety of these experiences and their underlying categories may inform the debate between constructivist, common core, and participatory theorists.
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