fandomhigh | Magical Theory 101 (Wednesday, 02/01/2006, 4th Period)

CLASS IS CLOSED
The door, as usual, is closed in order to minimize disruptions from the hallway, and Jenny's got coffee, bagels, and strawberry cream cheese sitting up on her desk by the sign-in sheet. "Today? Magic and science meet. Well, sorta, given that not everyone thinks parapsychology is a real phenomenon. ~~And I'm totally not cribbing off this lecture for Psych 101 later, why do you ask?~~ Parapsychology is the study of certain extrasensory abilities that researchers believe can be quantified in a laboratory setting. Extra-sensory perception--ESP--is also known as anomalous cognition, and includes telepathy, clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairalience, clairgustance, clairsentience, precognition, postcognition, psychometry, and dream transference. Anomalous operation includes psychokinesis--aka telekinesis--out-of-body experiences, astral projection, near-death experiences, mediumship, and reincarnation.

Some parapsychologists specificially study hauntings hauntings. You guessed it, ghosts. ~~In fact, I think our esteemed Gremlinbusting team has some credentials in the field of parapsychology. ;) Not that I know or care IC, because gremlins going away is a good thing in Jenny's eyes.~~

So. The larger scientific community? Pretty skeptical. Go figure, right? It's common for parapsychological research to be held to even more strict standards of the scientific method than most standard psychological research. For example, two researchers must always be present during an experiment in parapsychology in order to ensure that the results are considered valid. Valid results? Anything over a twenty-five percent success rate is considered valid by the parapsychological research community. But we're going to treat it as real here. Anybody here skeptical that sort of stuff exists? Seriously, if you are? Okay. No problem there. I just disagree. Sure, there are frauds out there. I've got no problems with stricter research standards. I just don't think the scientific community at large is ever going to be in the mood to recognize that parapsychological phenomena is real and quantifiable.

So. Some basic definitions are needed, right? Here are a few of the basics. Your worksheet has more definitions for you. Psychokinesesis: Movement of physical objects by force of will. Telepathy: Ability to communicate mind-to-mind. Clairvoyance: Knowledge of distant events, places, or, hey, whatever. Basically, knowledge of current events transmitted by inexplicable means. First you want to prove it exists before you prove how the information is transmitted, I think anyway. Hauntings? A little more complicated. You could call it looking for ghosts. Or some people think a ghost is just an empathic residue of an individual or a particularly strongly felt event that took place at the site of a haunting.

Extra reading is up on the desk for you if you want it. We've got "Parapsychology Without The Para (Or Psychology) and and your worksheet is next to it. ~~First link is a pdf file, second link is our usual Wikipedia link.~~

A lot of these things are tested with Zener cards, which are those five sets of cards with different symbols that one person holds up and one tries to guess. You can actually test telepathy, clairvoyance, or precog with those--depending on your test setup.

I've actually got a laptop set up here with an online Zener card experiment. Can't test telepathy that way, but since the results are preselected, what you're testing is clairvoyance--if you want to play around with that.

Parapsychology is a big field, and I've boiled it down a lot for you here. Questions on anything more that I didn't cover? Further explanations on what I have covered? Randomness?"

OOC Note: Things are busy today. Expect slow replies. :)

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...

Xander shook his head at his 5/25 score on the card test. "And this is why Xander is your sidekick friend, not your psychic one."

"Some people got it, some people don't," said Jenny. She smiled. "From what I remember? You're a mean hand with the research instead."

Paige looks annoyed at the fact she only got 5 out of 25, but then her power isn't clairvoyance or telepathy so she doesn't worry too much.

"Well I think these things obviously exist, I mean look at all the different at this school, we have telepaths, empaths, seers and telekinetics. I guess somethings are easier to test than others though, although I guess real sceptics would just suggest whatever they see is a hoax right?"

"Depends on what you think a skeptic is, Paige," said Jenny. "How about you give a definition?"

"Well I guess I'd say a skeptic is someone who doesn't believe in things other than those that can be explained logically by natural sciences for example, so if they were faced with say a telepath they'd look for more logical explanations, than the fact the person can actually read people's thoughts, to explain it away."

She shrugs, "But I could be very wrong there."

Re: Discussion - Today's Topic: Parapsychology

romanywitch - 2006-02-01 19:58 (UTC) - Expand

the4thsister.livejournal.com - 2006-02-01 20:07 (UTC) - Expand

Kiki takes the test as quickly as she can, trying to make her selections before her natural inclination to tap into her magical abilities and truly test herself takes over. In spite of her best efforts, she looks at the result with a small frown.

"11/25." She sits down againt quietly, looking thoughtful and serious.

Jenny doesn't say anything, as Kiki looks like she's having a bad time of it right now.

Kiki stays pretty quiet the rest of class. She's attentive and interested, just not very talktive.

"Huh," Bel said. "I got 5/25, too. Guess I'm not very clarvoiyant, but never thought I was."

"At least you know your own strengths," said Jenny.

"A lot of people have precognition or clarvoyance where I come from," Bel said. "There's the Oracle, and the Seer -- well, two Seers. One of 'em looks kinda like Cordelia. Oh, and the Crone. And of course my g--...and Phoebe." He stumbled over her name. "It's not exactly common, but it's not a rare skill set, either."

"I got 6/25," Piper said with a shrug. Clairvoyance isn't one of her powers, so the results didn't really surprise her.

"It's mostly for fun," said Jenny. She grinned at Piper.

Sakura blinks. "Seven," she says, honestly more to herself than anyone else. She hadn't expected to get anything above five. Odd. She shrugged. Didn't mean much, anyway.

"You do a lot of work with cards in your system of magic, don't you, Sakura?" asked Jenny.

Sakura nods with a wordless sound of acknowledgement. "I do," She frowns. What did that have to do with clairvoyancy?

romanywitch - 2006-02-02 02:13 (UTC) - Expand

"25/25" Maia said quietly taking her seat again. She read over the work sheet quietly. Zener cards were the norm when she had checkups back home.

Jenny nodded. "Neat."

"I got 6 out of 25," Cordelia said, grinning slightly. "I'm not that surprised."

"Oh?" said Jenny. She grinned at Cordelia. "How come?"

"Like Xander, I think research is more my forte. I...knew someone...who had visions. But they were generally 'people need help we need to move NOW' kind of visions, I don't think he would have scored any different than average, either."

romanywitch - 2006-02-02 02:42 (UTC) - Expand

upforachase.livejournal.com - 2006-02-02 02:45 (UTC) - Expand

Krycek took the test, then sat back with a faint smirk. "Four out of twenty-five," he said, sounding not at all disappointed.

"Not so much a believer in parapsychology?" asked Jenny.

"Not so much that," Krycek said with a shrug. "I'm just not at all disappointed to show that I have no affinity for it."

romanywitch - 2006-02-03 02:01 (UTC) - Expand