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Supernatural Explained

38 resources

🎬 Videos(19)

Video

RfRx - Belief in Psychics: Why We Believe, and What's the Harm? with Rob Palmer

Recovering from Religion

A surprisingly high percent of people believe in "psychics" and "mediums" (those claiming to see the future & communicate with the dead). Unfortunately, having supernatural beliefs inherent in being religious influences people to believe this at a rate over 5 times higher than atheists do. This leaves them open to psychological and financial devastation at the hands of con-artists. In this talk, Rob reveals how psychics and mediums manipulate people into believing they have special abilities (on TV and in person), and explain why science says that these paranormal claims are untrue. He presents details about believers defrauded of enormous sums (up to their entire life savings), and he will explain how the legal system is not on your side if you become a victim.

Video

RfRx - Skepticism and the Paranormal with Rob Palmer

Recovering from Religion

Rob Palmer is a Guerilla Skepticism on Wikipedia team member and skeptical activist who writes for Skeptical Inquirer as The Well-Known Skeptic. He does public speaking and writing about contemporary skeptical issues, and has interviewed conference speakers, scientists, TV personalities (Star Trek's Q!), and many skeptical & atheist activists. He takes a special interest in combating dangerous beliefs and educating the public about the harm that often befalls vulnerable victims who trust in people making paranormal and supernatural claims. While claims like these are commonly believed, Rob reminds us that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Tonight we will be examining how good the evidence is for some common paranormal and supernatural beliefs, as well as why so many believe extraordinary claims without sufficient evidence.

Video

RfRx - Filled with the Spirit: Demonic Possession and Spirit Belief with Kara Griffin

Recovering from Religion

Dr. Kara Griffin was raised a fundamentalist Christian, receiving intensive instruction and indoctrination from sources including private church schools and homeschool groups, Bill Gothard's Institute in Basic Life Principles, purity culture youth seminars, and evangelical mega-churches. After leaving the faith in college, Kara began pursuing their lifelong passion for learning and appreciating - rather than condemning - the diversity of humans and other animals.

Video

RfRx - Psychic Predictions with Rob Palmer

Recovering from Religion

In 2021, The Skeptic Zone producer and CSI Fellow Richard Saunders completed his 12-year project dubbed the Great Australian Psychic Prediction Project (GAPPP) – an analysis of almost 4,000 published paranormal predictions made by over 200 people claiming paranormal powers in Australia. The scoring of the predictions was performed by an international team of volunteers of which Rob was a member. In this presentation, an expanded version of the talk to be given at CSICon 2022 in a few weeks, Rob will share details and the results of this unique investigation into the precision (or lack thereof) of the published predictions of prominent, public, paranormal practitioners.

📄 Articles(14)

Article

A Closer Look | Skeptical Inquirer

Kenny Biddle

A column by Kenny Biddle, a science enthusiast who likes to take a closer look at claims involving paranormal experiences, the equipment people use to search strange things, and the evidence presented for ghosts, UFOs, and cryptids. I promote science, critical thinking, and skepticism through his blog "I Am Kenny Biddle" and the in-depth articles on CSI. I am fortunate to frequently host workshops on how to deconstruct and explain paranormal photography/videos and methods to solve mysteries. "I am not an irretrievable sceptic. I am not hopelessly prejudiced. I am perfectly willing to believe, and my mind is wide open; but I have, as yet, to be convinced. I am perfectly willing, but the evidence must be sane and conclusive." - Harry Houdini That quote perfectly expresses my approach to paranormal claims; I am open to it, but there must be solid evidence. Every extraordinary claim is a mystery, and I search through the details looking for clues that will reveal what is really going on. Every investigation is a journey, allowing me to learn new things and discover hidden clues. My column is where I share what I have learned with those curious about strange claims and are looking for a more objective view.

Article

Apophenia

Wikipedia

Apophenia () is the tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things. The term (German: Apophänie) was coined by psychiatrist Klaus Conrad in his 1958 publication on the beginning stages of schizophrenia. He defined it as "unmotivated seeing of connections [accompanied by] a specific feeling of abnormal meaningfulness". He described the early stages of delusional thought as self-referential, over-interpretations of actual sensory perceptions, as opposed to hallucinations.Apophenia has come to imply a human propensity to seek patterns in random information, such as gambling.

📚 Books(3)

Book

Paranormality

Richard Wiseman

Paranormality: Why we see what isn't there is a 2011 book about the paranormal by psychologist and magician Richard Wiseman. Wiseman argues that paranormal phenomena such as psychics, telepathy, ghosts, out-of-body experiences, prophesy and more do not exist, and explores why people continue to believe, and what that tells us about human behavior and the way the brain functions. Wiseman uses QR codes throughout the book, which link to YouTube videos as examples and as experiments the reader can participate in to further explain the phenomena. Because of a cautious American publishing market, it was only available in America through Kindle. Paranormality was awarded the Center for Inquiry's Robert P. Balles award for 2011.

🎙️ Podcasts(1)

📁 Other Resources(1)

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