{"id":77,"date":"2012-02-24T11:47:22","date_gmt":"2012-02-24T11:47:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/EverydaySpirituality\/?p=77"},"modified":"2012-02-24T11:47:22","modified_gmt":"2012-02-24T11:47:22","slug":"has-wiseman-got-it-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/EverydaySpirituality\/?p=77","title":{"rendered":"Has Wiseman got it wrong..?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018I was deeply sceptical about the existence of paranormal phenomena, and had confined them to a mental file-drawer labelled \u201cnot true, but fun to talk about at parties\u201d\u2019 (Wiseman, 2011. 3).<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Richard Wiseman is a highly successful psychologist, with a background in magic, and perhaps has a different set of ethics governing his approach to his research. As a social scientist however I believe that retaining an element of respect is a vital part of what I do. Reading Wiseman\u2019s words in this quote make me feel uncomfortable because he is very dismissive and judgemental.<\/p>\n

During my recent fieldwork I had direct firsthand experience of an \u2018otherworldly\u2019 presence – or what Wiseman might dismiss as a \u2018paranormal phenomenon – and the impact of such an experience. I was told by one of the mediums I have been interviewing for my research that I would soon face a challenging meeting with a difficult senior manager. But the good news was that his spirit guide had given him a message for me. I was to look over this person\u2019s left shoulder and I would receive a sign that spirit were looking out for me and that everything would be ok.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>When the meeting actually took place \u2013 several hundred miles from the location of the medium, in the private office of a member of staff on a university campus that the medium had never visited \u2013 I looked over the manager\u2019s shoulder and received the \u2018sign\u2019. There on the shelf directly above his left shoulder was a lone mug carrying the slogan \u2018Keep Calm and Carry On\u2019. It was sound advice in the circumstances, because the manager was antagonistic, so it helped me psychologically to deal with that successfully.<\/p>\n

Regardless of the fact that the \u2018message\u2019 was somewhat vague, and the mug on the shelf a very mundane physical object, it seemed to me that in that moment I had experienced something of the sensation of what it must be like to live in a world and feel spirit \u2018there\u2019.<\/p>\n

I will never know how the precise circumstances behind this \u2018coincidental\u2019 event might have come to be, but it reinforced in my mind as a researcher that I have to take these experiences, and their impacts on practitioners\u2019 lives, seriously. It also told me something very useful about how as social scientists we go about our fieldwork. Had I relied solely on observing the medium giving similar messages to other people I wouldn\u2019t have had the opportunity to spontaneously experience something decidedly otherworldly in the way that he and my other research participants routinely do.<\/p>\n

Leaving aside Wiseman\u2019s question of what might be classified as \u2018real\u2019 and what might be consigned to a drawer marked \u2018not true\u2019, as Sociologist Charles Emmons said on the Anomalous Experiences Research Unit\u2019s online forum: \u2018even to the extent that anomalous experiences are not \u201creal\u201d, they can still be real in their consequences, which is why no social scientist should ever condemn the study of any such subject\u2019.<\/p>\n

Certainly after my experience with the \u2018Keep Calm\u2019 mug, I\u2019m ready to admit that as critical social scientists we can never really file away anything with complete certainty!<\/p>\n

If you want to read more about my reflections on social science methods and otherworldly encounters go to Methodological Innovations Online<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Charles Emmons <\/a>is Professor of Sociology, Gettysburg College, USA, and co-author with Penelope Emmons of Science and Spirit<\/em> and Guided by Spirit<\/em><\/p>\n

Reference: <\/strong>Wiseman, R. (2011) Paranormality: why we see what isn\u2019t there. London: Macmillan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018I was deeply sceptical about the existence of paranormal phenomena, and had confined them to a mental file-drawer labelled \u201cnot true, but fun to talk about at parties\u201d\u2019 (Wiseman, 2011. 3). Richard Wiseman is a highly successful psychologist, with a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/EverydaySpirituality\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/EverydaySpirituality\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/EverydaySpirituality\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/EverydaySpirituality\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/EverydaySpirituality\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=77"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/EverydaySpirituality\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/EverydaySpirituality\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77\/revisions\/79"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/EverydaySpirituality\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/EverydaySpirituality\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=77"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/EverydaySpirituality\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=77"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}