Sue Darroch and Matthew Didier's Paranormal Blog

Parapsychology is defined as ‘the scientific study of the capacity attributed to some individuals to interact with their environment by means other than the recognized sensorimotor channels’. The neutral term ‘psi’ is used to denote this hypothesised capacity.

We recently received a message from someone asking how they could find out if a person who is claiming to be a parapsychologist from an accredited University actually is.

Here is our answer:

If someone is claiming to be a parapsychologist from the Koestler unit in Edinburgh you can contact them directly online and inquire with them here:

http://www.koestler-parapsychology.psy.ed.ac.uk/index.html

Current and former staff and students are listed online. If the person has earned a degree through them they can let you know. If someone is misrepresenting themselves as a parapsychologist from Edinburgh they can let you know that too.

If someone is claiming a degree from another University that you find questionable we do encourage you to contact the University in question. They too will be interested in finding out if someone is trying to pass off credentials from a specific institution they did not earn. This is in fact fraud.

Parapsychologists are not ghost busters nor ghost hunters this is a complete misrepresentation. If in doubt check the accepted definition of parapsychology through the University of Edinburgh at the link I have posted.

I would like to add the thoughts of my friend Dr. Eric Ouellet to this entry:

An important point that needs to be made, to add to Sue's comments, parapsychology is sub-discipline of psychology. This means that most university-based parapsychologists are actually affiliated with the department of psychology of their university.

As well, parapsychologists tend to study paranormal phenomena from a particular scientific perspective. For instance, those who work on premonition, clairvoyance, and telepathy are usually specialists in cognitive psychology.

Those interested in hauntings and poltergeists are oftentimes specialists in clinical psychology or psychoanalysis.

Those interested in psycho-kinesis oftentimes have also a background in physics or engineering.

Parapsychology is like any other disciplines, it has its own specialty and works within established models and theories, while working at developing their own.