dobro@ulowell.UUCP (Gryphon) (07/25/86)
Psi: (greek letter, short for "psionic" or "psychic") This is used as a noun to refer to a personal posessing paranormal abilites. It is also used as an adjective to refer to such abilites. Ability: either a skill (learned or acquired - natural) and/or a talent (gained or simply had - paranormal) and/or a power (simply had - supernatural) Paranormal: (from the Latin "beside the normal") Phenomena which appear to violate assumptions generally held to be true under modern science, but which are nevertheless presumed to follow hitherto unkown natural laws. [see 'supernatural'] Supernatural: (from the Latin "beyond the natural") Phenomena which are not subject to natural Law (known or unknown). The important differance between paranormal and supernatural is that the former is completely natural, simply not understood yet, while the latter is not natural. ESP (ExtraSensory Perception): The class of psi abilities by which the 'percipient' gathers data regarding a 'target', by other than 'standard means'. Almost all forms of ESP exist in both 'active' and 'passive' mode. Many ESP abilties may combine, the whole often being refered to as the "6th sense". Percipient: the person employing ESP. Target <in ESP>: the person, place, and/or object which the percipient is gathering information about. Standard means: methods of gathering information that rely upon known physical or statistical processes, including the standard five senses. This also includes fraud, sensory or data leakage, etc. [see 'CT'] Active ESP: the mode of ESP where the percipient conciously and directly seeks certain information about the target. Passive ESP: the mode of ESP where the recipient recieves information about the target without any concious action. Precognition: the ESP ability in which information is gathered, and where either the target does not yet exist, or where the information sought about the target cannot be deduced or predicted by standard means. Postcognition: the ESP ability in which information is gathered, and where either the target no longer exists, or where the information sought about the target could not be deduced by standard means, or gathered by another ESP ability, if the informations exists elsewhere. Clair-sense: the class of ESP abilites where the information received by the percipient is in the form of one of the standard five senses. The senses are - clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairolfactory, clairtactile, and clairtaste. These abilites are most often combined with pre- or post-cognition, or with 'finding' (in which case it is commonly called "remote viewing") Again, this assumes that the percipient could not gather the data using standard means. Finding: the ESP ability that deals with the detection and location of the target. The data received by the percipient might simply be distance and/or direction, or (more often) is combined with one or more of the clair-senses to yeild a more detailed perception. Again, this assumes that the percipient could not gather the data using standard means. Telepathy: the ESP ability where the target is the thoughts and/or knowledge of the another person. This ability can often be duplicated by means of other ESP abilites (eg. precog, finding). Empathy: the ESP ability where the target is the emotions and/or feelings of the another person. This ability can often be duplicated by means of other ESP abilites (eg. precog, clair-senses). Aura Reading: the ESP ability where the target is the aura associated with a particular person, place, and/or object. The data gathered may include, but is not limited to one or more of the follwing: health, alingment(personality), motivations, current psi abilities and levels, etc. **: the ESP ability to gather information by using an object as focus. The data gathered usually pertains in some way to the object used. This ability is usually considered a special form of aura reading, but hat is not necessarily so. This, and the fact that in can often be duplicated by other forms of ESP (eg. postcog, telepathy, etc.) CT (conventional theorist): Palmer (via Topher Cooper) has put forth this concept. I agree with his (Topher's) opinion that it is a useful, if extraneous, term, and have therefore included it here. A CT basically says that all psi phenomena can be explained by attributing alleged effects to subtle (or not-so-subtle) 'mundane' causes. A CT says that all data gathered is done using standard means. mundane: normal, non-psi. Used as a noun to refer to a person who has no psi abilities. Used as an adjective to describe somthing that has no psi involvement.