Literal meaning 'beyond psychology' (derived from the latin word para) - parapsychology is the study of paranormal phenomena related to psychology which is beyond scientific explanation.
Your degree in Parapsychology allows graduate entry to the Scooby Gang, where you'll spend your time chasing ghosts who turn out to be criminals.
by VinC October 17, 2004
Get the parapsychology mug.Parapsychology is the study of ghosts and anything paranormal. There are many different teams, shows, games, and movies based of of parapsychology.
by Parapsychologist February 14, 2015
Get the Parapsychology mug.1. The study of paranormal entities, such as ghosts. Commonly used in fiction.
2. A type of front-line psychology involving heavy retrospect and scientific thought. Commonly employed by individuals with depression and anxiety, either supplementing or in lieu of professional psychiatric care.
2. A type of front-line psychology involving heavy retrospect and scientific thought. Commonly employed by individuals with depression and anxiety, either supplementing or in lieu of professional psychiatric care.
1. I've been handling ghost-hunting for years now, so I've got a pretty good grasp on parapsychology. Did you know that what was previously considered spectral ectoplasm... goes on tangent
2. I'm tired of my psychology getting in the way of me living my life, so I've been doing some pretty heavy parapsychology lately, trying to get to the core of the issues I've been having.
2. I'm tired of my psychology getting in the way of me living my life, so I've been doing some pretty heavy parapsychology lately, trying to get to the core of the issues I've been having.
by Inlovewithabsol December 14, 2023
Get the Parapsychology mug.The field's foundational crisis: The apparent incompatibility of psi phenomena (telepathy, precognition, psychokinesis) with the causal, local, and time-asymmetric framework of known physics. Even if statistical anomalies in experiments exist, the hard problem is constructing a mechanism that doesn't unravel fundamental physics. How does information travel without energy (telepathy)? How does an effect precede its cause (precognition)? How does mind influence matter without force (psychokinesis)? The phenomena, if real, aren't just unexplained; they seem to require a revolution that overthrows locality, causality, or conservation laws.
Example: A precognition experiment where someone's nervous system reacts to a randomly selected emotional image seconds before the computer selects it. The hard problem: The information (the future image) has to travel backwards in time to affect the person's physiology. This isn't a "subtle energy" or "unknown field" problem. It's a violation of temporal causality, the principle that cause comes before effect. Any genuine psi phenomenon presents not just a new force to discover, but a fundamental rewrite of the physics textbook's first chapters. Hard Problem of Parapsychology.
by Nammugal January 24, 2026
Get the Hard Problem of Parapsychology mug.The field's core, frustrating dilemma: how to produce statistically significant, repeatable results for phenomena (telepathy, remote viewing) that are purported to be subtle, spontaneous, and influenced by consciousness itself—including the consciousness of the skeptical experimenter. The "hard problem" is designing an experiment that is both rigorously controlled (to prevent fraud) and sufficiently open/non-threatening to allow the purported "psi" effect to occur. It's the science of the maybe, perpetually on the edge of a breakthrough that never solidifies.
Example: "The parapsychology lab's best results came from relaxed, believing participants and experimenters. When skeptical replicators used the same protocol but with an attitude of disdain, the effect vanished. The hard problem: is psi real but 'shy,' or is the data just measuring the experimenter's own bias and the participant's desire to please?" Hard Problem of Parapsychology
by AbzuInExile January 31, 2026
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