BELIEFS AND MORALSANOMALISTIC PSYCHOLOGY
For a glimpse of the kind of insights that come from anomalistic
psychology, read the following and decide whether it matches you or not:
“You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend
to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you
are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused
capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. At times you have
serious doubts whether you have made the right decision or done the
right thing.” If it sounds like you, join the gang. Back in the 1940s the
psychologist Bertram Forer showed that most people identify with these
lines (extracted by him from a newspaper astrology column), and more
recent research shows that they still do today. Sometimes called Barnum
statements (in reference to the American showman), they match the kind
of generalized material used by mediums and astrologers to convince the
gullible that they have psychic insight into their personalities.
Other anomalistic psychology research
focuses on people’s misunderstanding of
probability, tricks of memory and percep-
tion, and uncovering earthly explanations for
outlandish experiences. An example of the
latter is sleep paralysis, a common nocturnal
experience in which awareness returns before
conscious control of the body is regained
(about half of us have the experience at least
once in our lifetimes). The phenomenon
involves a feeling of being unable to move,
difficulty in breathing and is often accom-
panied by multi-sensory hallucinations,
including a perception of nearby movement.
The earthly explanation for sleep paralysis
is that it results from wakefulness returning
while REM-based dream sleep is still ongoing – hence the muscle paral-
ysis and hallucinations. However, people’s interpretations of the cause of
the experience tend to vary in line with their cultural background. For
example, the Japanese call it kanashibari and, according to tradition, it
is attributable the actions of a Buddhist god. Medieval Europe blamed
the experience on seductive demons – the female succubus and male
incubus. Contemporary Westerners (especially in the US), meanwhile,
often interpret the experience as an alien abduction.
“After well over a
hundred years of
systematic research
into allegedly
paranormal
phenomena, I do
not get the sense
that ultimate proof
of the paranormal is
anywhere nearer than
it was at the outset.”
Chris French,
Professor of
Anomalistic Psychology