| Let me take a shot at a partial answer, todd. First off, we can
divide the field into two major divisions, which might be called
Parapsychology and
Psychical Research
Parapsychology is laboratory research, while Psychical Research refers
to the much more open ended area of "field studies". (Some researchers
just treat the term "psychical research" as an old term for what is
now generally called parapsychology, and instead refer to "laboratory
parapsychology" and "field parapsychology").
Parapsychology studies two main categories of phenomena:
ExtraSensory Perception (ESP) and
Psychokinesis (PK)
It should be noted that all the categories represent specifics of the
conditions under which the phenomena are studied, rather than a
categorization on the (unknown) distinct mechanisms. Thus, more than
one distinct phenomena may be grouped under the same category, while
at the same time the same phenomenon may appear under different
categories. Only time will tell.
Anyway, ESP is said to occur when an organism (the "percipient") gains
information which, according to conventional explanatory mechanisms,
that organism had no way of knowing. PK, on the other hand, is when an
organism (the "agent") is able to influence physical things when,
according to conventional explanatory mechanisms, that organism had no
way of doing so.
Generally, in the above, the "organism" in question is a human being.
When an animal is used, the experiment is called and "anpsi"
experiment.
Within ESP, the major categories are:
Clairvoyance -- the percipient shows knowledge about something
"contemporary" but hidden from them. The term is no longer
restricted to "visual" information.
Precognition -- the percipient shows knowledge about something
which does not *yet* exist -- and which ideally, could not
be deduced from information which currently exists.
Telepathy -- the percipient shows knowledge about the thoughts,
mental images, emotions, etc., of some other organism. This
is also called General ESP (GESP) for reasons which I will
explain later.
Retrocognition -- the percipient shows knowledge about something
in the past.
Since any experiment, in order to be rigorous, must have a concrete,
objective record of what the percipient is supposed to learn (the
"target"), any telepathy or retrocognition results may be explained
as clairvoyance against those records. This is why some researchers
refer to Telepathy experiments as "General" ESP experiment -- they may
be due to either "true" telepathy or clairvoyance. There is a fair
amount of evidence that people tend to do better on telepathy style
tests than on straight clairvoyance tests (the difference is that in
a telepathy test, there is someone who knows the identity of the
target when the test is done). It is not clear, however, whether this
is due to some essential difference (i.e., telepathy *is* distinct
from "regular" clairvoyance), social factors, psychological factors, or
some co-operative ESP effect.
Technically, clairvoyance could be subsumed into precognition. There
is some evidence, however, that precognition effects are not as strong
as clairvoyance effects. Again, it is not clear whether that is due
to psychological differences, differences in the way precognition vs
clairvoyance experiments are generally designed, or some essential
difference.
PK is divided up in several different ways. The most commonly made
distinction, is:
micro-PK, and
macro-PK
The exact dividing line is a bit fuzzy, but basically, in macro-PK you
have gross modification of the state of the "target" system. Something
moves, or stops moving, something levitates, a chemical reaction
(photographic image, for example, or combustion) "spontaneously"
occurs, something moves through another solid object, etc. In
micro-PK, something which might have occurred anyway occurs. For
example, a die rolls 6 more often than could be explained by chance.
Macro-PK is rather rare, at least under conditions where conventional
explanations can be reliably excluded. Virtually all macro-PK lab
experiments have been done with "special", more-or-less professional
agents, which makes the possability of subject fraud much more
difficult to exclude. Most good laboratory evidence for PK, therefore
concerns micro-PK.
Another, distinct category of PK, that is frequently cited, is PK on
living systems. Experiments in this class, essentially are meant to
study the basis of paranormal healing and/or cursing. Some experiments
address this directly (e.g., small pieces of skin are removed from
laboratory rats under anasthesia, while a "healer" attempts to heal
some of them), while others are less direct (e.g., the agent attempts
to change the heart rate of the "target").
Active agent telepathy can be lumped under PK. Usually telepathy is
categorized under ESP, and the attention is paid to the percipient.
This is primarily because the form of a telepathy experiment is much
closer to the form of an ESP test than to the form of most kinds of
PK test. Sometimes, however, the emphasis is placed strongly on the
agent in the experiment (perhaps because the agent is a "special"
subject who shows outstanding success regardless of the percipient
in the experiment). In that case the experiment is regarded as an
"active agent telepathy" experiment, in which the process is viewed
primarily as the agent effecting the mind and/or brain state of the
percipient; which makes it a form of PK experiment.
In recent years, the work of Helmut Schmidt has focussed attention on
"retroactive" PK experiments. Schmidt has been investigating the
possible relevance of some ideas from QM (controversial ideas, I hasten
to add) to PK. He has a random-number generator based on radioactive
decay, or on electronic noise (which is probably ultimately dependent
on QM processes) create a whole set of binary events, which are then
stored without any living thing observing them. Later, an agent
attempts to influence them as they are played out to him/her, just
as if they were being created "in real time". It is found that the
results correlate well with the attempts by the agent. It is as if
the agent influenced the random events *retroactively* (other
explanations, are, however, tenable).
I've probably forgotten something, but that's the main taxonomy of
laboratory psi phenomena.
Topher
|
| According to what I interpret from Broughton's _Parapsychology,_The_
Controversial_Science_, I can augment Topher's information from .1
with the following. Any corrections or additions anyone wants to add
are welcomed.
Paranormal phenomena (genuine anomalies, no good explanation by
conventional theories) are studied by two main fields;
Psychical Research and Parapsychology. Parapsychology is the
experimental/laboratory study of ESP and PK, as described in .1.
Parapsychology relies mostly on controlled experimental conditions
and statistical analysis of results. A positive result in a
parapsychology experiment typically would be expressed as a certain
mathematical odds as to whether the effect could have been created by
chance.
Psychical Research investigates much more dramatic effects in general,
and depends almost entirely on anecdotal evidence. PR seems to divide
phenomena into several categories :
o Apparitions -- Appearance of something non-material
. Crisis apparitions (appear to be one-time crisis-related
hallucination or ESP phenomena)
. Recurrent locallized apparitions ('ghosts') -- Similar
apparitions seen by multiple different people at different
times. Seem to be locallized to a place, and may occur over
months, years, even decades.
. Concurrent apparitions -- multiple people observe the same
apparition at the same time.
Leading theories of apparitions are 'discarnate entities' and
'super ESP,' meaning ESP phenomena of orders of magnitude greater
effect than the variety generally seen in the laboratory.
o Poltergeists -- Table rappings, swinging lamps, other physical
types of paranormal effect. Leading theory seems to be macro-PK,
since the vast majority of poltergeist activity appears to follow
a living individual around, rather than be locallized to a place.
o Hauntings -- Hybrid type, may include both a locallized apparition
and poltergeist activity.
|
| As todd says, if it is done by "the direct force of the mind" or some
such, then it would be considered a form of (macro) PK. Otherwise,
it is not part of parapsychology. Parapsychology only covers certain
classes of anomalous phenomena.
There is, by the way, no concensus on the use of "psychical research"
vs "parapsychology". Some just consider psychical research a somewhat
archaic term for what is now called parapsychology -- a term which came
in when the major attention shifted from "field studies" to laboratory
work, but which continued to include the older approach (which is
seeing something of a comeback). Others, including those, like
Broughton, who are connected with Rhine's influence (and hence with
the strongest commitment to laboratory work) follow the distinction
that todd describes.
In general, the terms for field phenomenon are less precisely defined
and less standardized than for laboratory phenomenon. Hardly
surprising since the laboratory phenomenon can be classified in terms
of the kind of well defined experiment being performed, while field
phenomenon can only be classifed in terms of the events themselves --
which may not be completely observable, may be confused by red
herrings, etc. Maybe someday we'll know enough to have completely
meaningful categories.
There are, by the way, lots of other kinds of field phenomenon. For
example, Stevenson studies "cases of the reincarnation kind" and "cases
of the possesion kind".
Topher
|