Defining the Paranormal
Welcome to Field Notes from the Beyond!
General Paranormal Studies
Distressing Near-Death Experience - The less common version of an NDE in which a person experiences something distressing. There are three types, including inverse, void, and hellish. It is estimated that distressing NDEs account for somewhere between 1% and 20% of cases of NDEs.
Ghosts & Hauntings: Know Your Investigators
Jason Hawes - Co-founder and lead investigator of The Atlantic Paranormal Society, one of the stars of the Ghost Hunters television franchise.
Cryptids
Lake Worth Monster - A cross between a goat and a man, this biped is 7-feet tall and weighs between 250 and 300 pounds. It is covered in scales and whitish-gray hair and is an agile swimmer that kills sheep by breaking their necks and is known to attack cars. It is found in Lake Worth, east of Fort Worth, Texas.
Aliens & UFOs
Close Encounters - The categorization scale for sightings and interactions with UFOs and aliens created by J. Allen Hynek in his 1972 book The UFO Experience. It originally included three kinds, but has been expanded to seven.
Non-Human Entities
Mahabharata - A Hindu text that narrates the events and aftermath of the Kurukshetra War, a war of succession between two groups of princely cousins, the Kauravas and the Pandavas.
Psychic Abilities
Astragalomancy - An ancient Greek and Roman divination practice using a type of marked dice made of the astragali or ankle bones of sheep, goats, or deer to predict the future.
Magic
Litha - A pagan holiday celebrating the longest day of the year that marks the peak of the sun’s power, fertility, and the abundance of nature. This is celebrated on June 21 this year, but each year falls between June 20 and 23 in the Northern Hemisphere, depending on the timing of the astrological solstice.
Coming Up Next
Next in Field Notes from the Beyond:
Defining the Paranormal Spotlight: Jason Hawes
This Day in Paranormal History
Who are we?
We are a group of scholars interested in understanding paranormal, supernatural, and anomalous phenomena from an academic perspective. We want to document and validate experiences people have and study them in a rigorous way to bring credibility to these phenomena. Join us for our monthly podcast Beyond the Human and follow us on Spotify, Instagram, and Patreon to learn more about who we are, our methods, and what we want to learn!