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Greening the Paranormal
The latest issue of the Journal of Scientific Exploration includes my review of Jack Hunter’s recent book Greening the Paranormal, an anthology of essays about how the natural world and the “paranormal” world turn out to be one and the same. Packed with fascinating firsthand experiences as well as more scholarly reflections on the role…
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Phone Calls From the Beyond?
The Journal of Scientific Exploration has just published my essay review of a recent book on a highly intriguing phenomenon: phone calls that seem to be coming from dead loved ones. This phenomenon–which might seem laughable at first–is surprisingly prevalent. And there’s a lot more to it than you might expect. It’s not just cases…
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Uncomfortable Coincidences
Coincidences aren’t all fun and games. As psychiatrist and parapsychologist Jules Eisenbud was fond of reminding us, coincidences often reflect the aspects of our mental life that we are most anxious to hide. I discuss the usefulness of these “uncomfortable coincidences” in today’s post on PsychologyToday.com.
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Are Coincidences Signs From God?
Coincidences aren’t always what they seem. Today on PsychologyToday.com, I discuss two essential things to keep in mind before embracing any event as a direct line to the divine. Hint: One of them has to do with research on ESP and psychokinesis, and the other with Santa Claus!
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Coincidences That Mislead? A New Interview With Bernie Beitman
Yesterday, I did a second interview with Dr. Bernie Beitman of the Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia, on his web radio show “Connecting with Coincidence.” Bernie and I love to get into the nuts and bolts of how coincidences work (you can find our previous interview here), and in this show,…
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Seeing the Same Word Over and Over?
Do certain words seem to follow you no matter where you look? Psychologist William Braud actually conducted experiments to figure out whether the word coincidences he was experiencing were actually due to more than chance or selective attention. I describe his method–and his results–in today’s Psychology Today post.
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Can Dreams Predict Death?
All of us have heard about people dreaming that someone died, only to discover that that person did die recently, or soon afterward. Skeptics generally assume these dreams can be explained as coincidences, but a controlled study published by Dr. Andrew Paquette in the Journal of Scientific Exploration in 2015 suggests there’s actually something to the…
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Can an Organ Transplant Alter Your Identity?
In 1988, Claire Sylvia received the first heart-lung transplant performed in New England. In the days and weeks following her surgery, she realized that she had some strange new cravings. For one thing, she found herself “dying for a beer,” even though she’d never liked beer before. She also began to add green peppers to…
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Mind Over Matter
Today on PsychologyToday.com, I discuss strange coincidences where the world seems to respond uncannily to our thoughts and emotions. The most dramatic thought-mirroring synchronicity I describe is one from my own life: the smartphone GPS incident that was the tipping point in my interest in this subject. Along with a couple of other anecdotal examples, I…
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Are Near-Death Experiences Just Comforting Illusions?
My most recent post over at Psychology Today focuses on the aspects of near-death experiences that can be verified to accurately reflect reality: specifically, verified perceptions of events at a distance and verified perceptions of events that occurred during the period when the NDEr’s body was in cardiac arrest and had minimal to no brain function.…
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Sharon Hewitt Rawlette, PhD 