4 Moorgate
London
EC2V
Ever since records began, in every known society, a substantial proportion of the population has reported unusual experiences, including seeing ghosts, feeling spiritual presence, psychic experience, near death experiences and UFO sitings, many of which could be labelled as “paranormal”.
Opinion polls show that the majority of the general public accepts that paranormal phenomena do occur.
Such widespread experience of and belief in the paranormal can only mean one of two things:
Either paranormal is real, in which case this should be accepted by the wider scientific community which currently rejects such claims; or else belief in and experience of paranormal phenomena can be fully explained with psychological reasoning.
Led by Pr. Chris French, this talk will provide an introduction to anomalistic psychology, the study of extraordinary phenomena of behaviour and experience. Dr. French will attempt to provide non-paranormal explanations for these types of experiences, by applying known psychological and physical factors.
This approach will be illustrated with examples relating to a range of paranormal phenomena.
French has authored or co-authored over 130 articles and chapters dealing with a wide variety of subjects in psychology, his work has been published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology, the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, the British Journal of Psychology and the British Journal of Clinical Psychology.