Para­nor­mal Glossary

Below are some of the most com­monly used para­nor­mal terms.  If you run into a term which is not included on this list and would like more infor­ma­tion about it, please con­tact us at contact@spirtofpa.com.

• Anom­aly — A devi­a­tion from the com­mon rule; some­thing dif­fer­ent, abnor­mal, pecu­liar, or not eas­ily clas­si­fied. This term is often used to describe a para­nor­mal event which does not involve ghosts or entities.
• Appari­tion — The per­cep­tion of either a liv­ing being or an inan­i­mate object with­out there being any mate­r­ial stim­u­lus for such a perception.
• Astral Pro­jec­tion — An inter­pre­ta­tion of any form of out-of-body expe­ri­ence that assumes the exis­tence of an “astral body” sep­a­rate from the phys­i­cal body and capa­ble of trav­el­ing out­side it.
• Astrol­ogy — a group of sys­tems, tra­di­tions, and beliefs which hold that the rel­a­tive posi­tions of celes­tial bod­ies (the Sun, Moon, and plan­ets) and related details can pro­vide infor­ma­tion about per­son­al­ity, human affairs and other “earthly” matters.
• Audio Tag­ging – the process by which an inves­ti­ga­tor will mark any anom­alous sound dur­ing record­ing which might later be mis­taken for a para­nor­mal event.
• Aura — A field of sub­tle, lumi­nous radi­a­tion sur­round­ing a per­son or object.
• Auto­matic Writing/Art — A con­cept in by which spir­its are claimed to dic­tate or take the hand of a medium to write mes­sages, let­ters, and even entire books.
• Chan­nel­ing — The act of allow­ing a spirit to use one’s body for com­mu­ni­ca­tion, some­times involv­ing the prac­ti­tioner to enter a trance-like state and become tem­porar­ily pos­sessed by a spirit.
• Clairalience — a form of extra-sensory per­cep­tion wherein a per­son accesses psy­chic knowl­edge through the phys­i­cal sense of smell.
• Clairau­di­ence — a form of extra-sensory per­cep­tion wherein a per­son acquires infor­ma­tion by para­nor­mal audi­tory means.
• Clairc­og­nizance — A form of extra-sensory per­cep­tion wherein a per­son acquires psy­chic infor­ma­tion pri­mar­ily by means of intrin­sic knowledge.
• Clair­gus­tance — A form of extra-sensory per­cep­tion that allegedly allows one to taste a sub­stance with­out putting any­thing in one’s mouth. It is claimed that those who pos­sess this abil­ity are able to per­ceive the essence of a sub­stance from the spir­i­tual or ethe­real realms through taste.
• Clairsen­tience — A form of extra-sensory per­cep­tion wherein a per­son acquires psy­chic knowl­edge pri­mar­ily by feeling.
• Clair­voy­ance — the abil­ity to gain infor­ma­tion about an object, per­son, loca­tion or phys­i­cal event through means other than the known human senses.
• Cold Spots — sud­den tem­per­a­ture drops in one spe­cific loca­tion which are said to occur due to the pres­ence of an entity.
• Déjà vu — The expe­ri­ence of feel­ing sure that one has already wit­nessed or expe­ri­enced a cur­rent sit­u­a­tion, even though the exact cir­cum­stances of the pre­vi­ous encounter are uncer­tain and were per­haps imagined.
• Demon — A super­nat­ural being described as some­thing that is not human and in ordi­nary usage malevolent.
• Demon­lol­ogy — The sys­tem­atic study of demons or beliefs about demons.It is the branch of the­ol­ogy relat­ing to super­hu­man beings who are not gods. It deals both with benev­o­lent beings that have no cir­cle of wor­ship­pers or so lim­ited a cir­cle as to be below the rank of gods, and with malev­o­lent beings of all kinds.
• Dis­em­bod­ied Voice - A sound resem­bling speech with no per­ceiv­able phys­i­cal origin.
• Div­ina­tion — The attempt to gain insight into a ques­tion or sit­u­a­tion by way of a stan­dard­ized psy­chic process or ritual.
• Divin­ing Rod — An L or Y shaped stick used to locate ground­wa­ter, ores, gem­stones, oil, or gravesites or as a com­mu­ni­ca­tion tool with spir­i­tual enti­ties. It is held loosely in the hands and alleged that the move­ment reflects the exis­tence of some­thing under­ground or the inter­ac­tion of a spirit.
• Ecto­plasm — A sub­stance or spir­i­tual energy that results from inter­ac­tion with para­nor­mal enti­ties or asso­ci­ated with the for­ma­tion and man­i­fes­ta­tion of spirits.
• Elec­tro­mag­netic Field (EMF) — a phys­i­cal field pro­duced by elec­tri­cally charged objects. It affects the behav­ior of charged objects in the vicin­ity of the field. It is believed that para­nor­mal occur­rences cause elec­tro­mag­netic anom­alies and thus can be measured.
• Elec­tronic Voice Phenomenon(EVP)- Anom­alous voices or other sounds on elec­tronic audio record­ings. These anom­alies are not heard at the time of the recording.
• Ele­men­tal — A non-human entity that orig­i­nates from either a nat­ural source, a nature-worship rit­ual, or a reserve of resid­ual emo­tional energy that devel­ops a per­son­al­ity or abil­ity to inter­act with the phys­i­cal world.
• Empa­thy — the capac­ity to rec­og­nize and share, feel­ings that are being expe­ri­enced by another being.
• Extra Sen­sory Perception(ESP)- The abil­ity to expe­ri­ence, feel, or per­ceive some­thing psy­chi­cally or in a man­ner that tran­scends the phys­i­cal senses.
• Entity — A term used to refer to human ghosts and other spir­i­tual beings.
• Exor­cism — The reli­gious prac­tice of evict­ing demons or other spir­i­tual enti­ties from a per­son or place they have possessed.
• Ghost — the essence or spirit of a deceased per­son or ani­mal that can appear, in vis­i­ble form or other man­i­fes­ta­tion, to the living.
• Haunt­ing — an occur­rence where a super­nat­ural being is inter­act­ing with the human world at a spe­cific loca­tion. These can include resid­ual, intel­li­gent, pol­ter­geist, inhu­man or demonic.
• Hex — A neg­a­tive spell or curse.
• House Bless­ing — also known as “House Cleans­ing”, the prac­tice of using rit­ual and prayer to force a spirit out of a loca­tion. Most com­monly done through reli­gious min­is­tra­tion, a house bless­ing can also be done pre­emp­tively to pre­vent future para­nor­mal occurrences.
• Inhu­man Haunt — Recur­ring para­nor­mal activ­ity that is believed to orig­i­nate from a sen­tient super­nat­ural being. This being never existed as a human or lived a nat­ural life.
• Intel­li­gent Haunt — Para­nor­mal activ­ity that has sen­tience or self-awareness with the abil­ity to inter­act inten­tion­ally with the phys­i­cal world.
• Invo­ca­tion — The act of call­ing upon spe­cific spir­i­tual beings for a dis­tinct purpose.
• Medium — One who pro­fesses the abil­ity to com­mu­ni­cate with spirits.
• Orb — Unex­pected, typ­i­cally cir­cu­lar, lumi­nous arti­facts that occur in pho­tog­ra­phy — some­times with trails indi­cat­ing motion. Most orbs in pho­tog­ra­phy are dust, bugs or water vapor.
• Ouija Board — a div­ina­tion tool devel­oped in the late 1800s to allow non-sensitives to com­mu­ni­cate with the spirit world with­out the use of a medium or psy­chic. Most para­nor­mal teams, SPIRT of PA included, would advise against the use of a Ouija board as they are eas­ily mis­used and can increase unwanted activity.
• Para­nor­mal — Expe­ri­ences that lie out­side the range of nor­mal expe­ri­ence or cur­rent sci­en­tific explanation.
• Para­nor­mal Inves­ti­ga­tor — A per­son who stud­ies claims of spir­i­tual activ­ity or haunting.
• Para­psy­chol­ogy — a dis­ci­pline that seeks to inves­ti­gate the exis­tence and causes and con­di­tions of psy­chic abil­i­ties, near-death expe­ri­ences, out-of-the-body expe­ri­ences, cri­sis appari­tions, retro-cognitions, rein­car­na­tion mem­o­ries, regres­sion mem­o­ries, prophecy, astrol­ogy, ghosts and life after death.
• Phan­tom Smell — An odor with no per­ceiv­able phys­i­cal origin.
• Pol­ter­geist — a phe­nom­e­non in which dis­or­der occurs with­out explain­able cause, usu­ally indoors and in the pres­ence of peo­ple. Such dis­or­der typ­i­cally includes inan­i­mate objects mov­ing or being thrown about, erratic noises (such as knock­ing, pound­ing, or bang­ing), and phys­i­cal attacks on human beings. Pol­ter­geists have tra­di­tion­ally been described as trou­ble­some spir­its or ghosts haunt­ing a par­tic­u­lar per­son, but are often sug­gested in para­psy­chol­ogy to be caused by spon­ta­neous psychokinesis.
• Pos­ses­sion — Psy­choki­netic con­trol of the behav­ior of a liv­ing thing or nat­ural object by a spir­i­tual being.
• Psy­chic — a per­son who pro­fesses an abil­ity to per­ceive infor­ma­tion hid­den from the nor­mal senses through extrasen­sory per­cep­tion (ESP), or is said by oth­ers to have such abilities.
• Psy­choki­ne­sis — The direct influ­ence of mind on a phys­i­cal sys­tem that can­not be entirely accounted for by the medi­a­tion of any known phys­i­cal energy.
• Resid­ual Haunt — Repeated play­backs of audi­tory, visual, olfac­tory, and other sen­sory phe­nom­ena that are attrib­uted to a trau­matic event, life-altering event, or a rou­tine event of a per­son or place, like an echo or a replay of a video­tape of past events.
• Séance — A semi-ritualized attempt to com­mu­ni­cate with spir­its, often by a group of peo­ple. These are most often led by a trained medium and should not be attempted by those with­out proper training.
• Sen­si­tive — a per­son who has the abil­ity to sense (either through sight, sound, emo­tion, instinct or men­tal images) the pres­ence of an entity. Most often, they are not able to directly com­mu­ni­cate with the entity.
• Smudg­ing — The process of using a bun­dle of herbs (most com­monly sage) for spir­i­tual cleans­ing or purification.
• Spirit Guide — An entity that acts as an advi­sor or pro­tec­tor to a liv­ing incar­nated human being.