INTRODUCTION

Evolution.. . is a change from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity, to a definite coherent heterogeneity. (Spencer, 1862/1991)

Tales of strange, extraordinary, and unexplained experiences and en­counters with the "unknown" have long fascinated artists, scientists, and the lay audience. The period of the 19th-century European Romanticism was a time of deep interest in alterations of consciousness; such works as George Eliot's The Lifted Veil featured reputed parapsychological phenom­ena as a central part of their plot. In the 20th century, the Surrealist movement paid special attention to automatic writing and drawing, altered states of consciousness, and dreams. As evidence of more recent popular interest in anomalous phenomena, one need look no further than to the enormous international popularity of such television programs as The Twi­light Zone or The X-Files during the second half of the 20th century. At the beginning of the 21st century, popular interest in such topics as near-death experiences, purported parapsychological phenomena, and mystical events has remained very strong. This can be understood, in part, because many anomalous experiences seem to hold great significance for those who have them or even for those who just vicariously partake of them.

Before we proceed further, it is important to clarify how we use the term anomalous experience. The English word anomalous derives from the Greek anomalos, meaning irregular, uneven, or unequal, in contrast to homalos, which means the same or common. An anomalous experience is irregular in that it differs from common experiences, is uneven in that it is not the same as experiences that are even and ordinary. Typically, it is also unequal in that it does not draw the same attention, at least in aca­demia, as that given to regular experiences.

We define an anomalous experience as an uncommon experience (e.g., synesthesia) or one that, although it may he experienced by a substantial amount of the population (e.g., experiences interpreted as telepathic), is believed to deviate from ordinary experience or from the usually accepted explanations of reality. The focus of this book is on experiences, not on testing the consensual validity of such experiences. For instance, the pos­sibility of verified parapsychological phenomena is briefly mentioned in chapter 7 under explanatory theories, but the focus is on the experiences people have, not on the external phenomena to which they may refer, nor on "unusual people" (see, for example, Dingwall, 1962).

Although there is some overlap, we distinguish anomalous experi­ences from altered states of consciousness (e.g., Tart, 1969). Whereas some of the former do occur during an alteration of consciousness (e.g., near­death experiences; see Greyson, this volume, chap. )0), anomalous experiences such as synesthesia (Marks, this volume, chap. 4) may be part of the ordinary state of consciousness of the individual. We also distinguish experience from procedures such as hypnosis or meditation, which may or may not produce a major alteration in consciousness.

We also contrast anomalous, a term that does not have any necessary implication of psychopathology, with abnormal, a term that usually denotes pathology. Notwithstanding the presence of anomalous experiences in case studies of disturbed individuals, surveys of nonclinical samples have found little relationship between these experiences and psychopathology (e.g., Greeley, 1975; Spans, Cross, Dickson, & Duhreuil, 1993). This is the case even in hallucinations, often used as a landmark of psychopathology (see Bentall, this volume, chap. 3). The relationship between psychopathology and belief systems that involve anomalous experiences is more complex because of the multidimensional structure of beliefs (Krippner & Winkler, 1996). Nonetheless, the various contributions to this volume make clear that holding such unusual beliefs as the reality of alien abduction is not an indicator per se of psychopathology (see Appelle, Lynn, & Newman, this volume, chap. 8).

Other disciplines have also used the terms anomalous, anomalies, and anomalistic, but only to refer to seemingly unexplainable events (i.e., a demonstrable occurrence) rather than experiences (i.e., a psychological event that may or may not be associated with a demonstrable consensual occurrence). For instance, parapsychologists often use these terms to denote an event in which there is purported access to unavailable information, such as a dream report of an airplane disaster that coincided with an actual event (e.g., Thalbourne, 1982). In an important article, the sociologist Marcello Truzzi (1971) wrote that anomalous phenomena "contradict com­monsense or institutionalized (scientific or religious) knowledge"; they are "anomalous to our generally accepted cultural storehouse of truths" (p. 637). Similarly, the anthropologist Roger Wescott (1977) suggested that the word anomalistic he used as a prefix to the name of any discipline dealing with so-called paranormal topics. Some of these topics, for instance the possibility of the existence of Bigfoot, do not necessarily involve anom­alous experiences.

INDIVIDUAL AND CULTURAL IMPORTANCE

A striking aspect of some anomalous experiences is that, even when single and transitory, they are reported to have an enormous impact on the experient. An individual may undergo a change in values after a near­death or an anomalous healing experience (see this volume, Greyson, chap. 10; Krippner & Achterberg, chap. 11), or mystics may describe experiences that will also influence many people (Wulff, this volume, chap. 12). The attribution of personal meaning to anomalous experiences has been ad­dressed by such writers as James McClenon (1994b), who referred to them as "wondrous events" (suggesting that they stimulated the development of religious ideologies). Daniel A. Helminiak (1984) called them "extraordi­nary experiences" (depending on whether they further the experient's "au­thentic growth"), and Rhea A. White (1995) referred to them as "excep­tional human experiences" (noting their transformational potential in people's lives).

To determine that an experience is uncommon or anomalous, we have to consider the cultural framework in which the evaluation of the expe­rience occurs. Many years ago, Ruth Benedict (1934) reminded us that what is normal (or pathological) in one culture may not be so in a different one. In a similar vein, in his book Anomalies of Personality, the Russian psychologist Boris Bratus (1988/1990), basing his argument on statistical averages, proposed that what is anomalous in one culture may be the norm in another culture (p. 4). He used the term anomalous in the sense of a personality characteristic that deviates markedly from a cultural norm.

Summarizing a number of surveys conducted in the United States, MacDonald (1994) concluded that age, education, gender, race, religion, and socioeconomic status influence the likelihood of reporting various paranormal experiences, and he attributed the differences to the "shaping of individual realities" (p. 36). MacDonald conjectured that "the reality of human experience is socially constructed and is therefore subject to vari­ation depending on the social context" (p..36). The sociologist James McClenon's (1994a) review of the literature on altered states of consciousness and anomalous experience persuaded him that such traits as absorp­tion, dissociation, fantasy proneness, and hypnotic susceptibility need to be considered to understand these states (see also Cardeña, 1996). Mc­Clenon considered these traits to he "normal human capacities which have not been thoroughly studied in non-clinical populations" (p. 129). The contributors to this book point out that psychology has made progress in understanding these variables and their relationship to anomalous experi­ences. The focus of this book is psychological, but we should not forget that neurological pathologies, such as temporal lobe abnormalities or head inju­ries, can give rise to unusual phenomena (Cardeña, 1997; George, 1995).

A BRIEF HISTORY

The study of anomalous experiences is currently a marginal area of concern for psychology, but it has not always been so neglected. Some of the topics covered in this book, including mystical and psi-related expe­riences, have figured in the history of psychodynamic psychiatry (see Ellenberger, 1970). In this Introduction, we give an overview of the psycho­logical study of anomalous experiences, which has, at times, also included the study of anomalous events, cognitive misattributions, and related topics.

The first systematic inquiry into various anomalous experiences can he traced to the founding of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) in London in 1882. Various notable scientists and philosophers gathered "to investigate that large body of debatable phenomena ... without prejudice or prepossession of any kind, and in the same spirit of exact and unim­passioned inquiry which has enabled Science to solve so many problems" (Society for Psychical Research, 1882-1883, p. 2). Although the goals of the Society centered on testing claims of such purported psi phenomena as telepathy and clairvoyance (see Targ, Schlitz, & Irwin, this volume, chap. 7), it was also interested in the study of personality, dissociative phenomena, hypnosis, preconscious cognition, and related topics (Gurney, Myers, & Podmore, 1886). A few years after the founding of the SPR, a similar organization, led by William James and others, was established in the United States.

In contrast to the British and American Societies for Psychical Re­search, which are open to the general public, the Parapsychological As­sociation, founded in 1957 and an affiliate of the American Association for the Advancement of Science since 1969, consists of professional mem­bers from different countries. This association is committed to looking for scientific explanations of anomalous events and experiences. (For a brief history of the scientific approach to parapsychological phenomena, see Rush, 1986.)

Within the realms of clinical and general psychology, William James (1890/1923) provided a comprehensive survey of the "Science of Mental Life, both of its phenomena and of their conditions" (p. 1). With his vast erudition and incomparable prose, James discussed anomalous phenomena in chapters dealing with more classical topics such as memory or the self. Our book follows the spirit of James's "radical empiricism," which includes the totality of human experience within the boundaries of scientific in­vestigation. Our title, of course, pays homage to James's (1902/1958) classic volume, The Varieties of Religious Experience.

Besides James, F. W. H. Myers (1903/1961) attempted a bold integra­tion of such areas as personality, sleep, and hypnosis, and other members of the scientific vanguard studied anomalous experiences. H. Sidgwick, Johnson, Myers, Podmore, and Sidgwick (1894) analyzed some 17,000 re­sponses to the question "Have you ever ... had a vivid impression of seeing, or being touched, or of hearing a voice; which impression, so far as you could discover, was not due to any external cause?" Affirmative answers were obtained from about 1 in 10 respondents and were categorized as sensory hallucinations (visual hallucinations were more common than auditory or tactile), ordinary sense perceptions, dreams, and what today would be considered eidetic imagery. It is striking how well the results of this study have withstood the test of time (see Bentall, this volume, chap. 3). Another landmark in the study of anomalous experiences was an in­quiry into reputed psi-related phenomena, Phantasms of the Living (Gurney et al., 1886).

Theodore Flournoy (1901/1994), a psychology professor at the University of Geneva, wrote an in-depth case study of a medium who spoke in different voices, wrote in different handwriting styles, and used different names. Rather than positing deception or accepting the medium's claim of contact with the "spirit world," Flournoy made a case for multiple personality and produced a sophisticated interpretation of the psychodynamic founda­tions of the imaginary languages involved. A friend of Flournoy, Carl G. Jung (1902/1970), conducted a landmark study with another medium. Using a word-association test he had developed, Jung traced the origins of the names the medium gave him of her own "spirit guides" and of the "forces" that guide the universe. Jung terminated his work when the medium, Jung's young and enamored cousin, exhausted her flights of fancy. Later it was found that at least part of her mediumistic performances had fraudulent aspects (Ellenberger, 1970). Jung would later use his analytic psychology to explain UFO sightings and other unusual events (Jung, 1959).

The French clinical tradition at the turn of the 19th century was engaged in developing a general psychology of cognition, emotion, and experience that would be informed by abnormal conditions. For instance, Alfred Binet, mostly known to psychologists as the suffix of the Stanford­Binet IQ test, wrote an important treatise on the dissociation of identity, On Double Consciousness (see Robinson, 1998). Another eminent French psychologist, Theodule A. Ribot, authored scientific studies on Diseases of the Will and The Diseases of Personality (see Robinson, 1998). The most lasting contributions to this area can be traced, however, to the landmark works of Pierre Janet, who researched and theorized on, among other top­ics, pathological and nonpathological forms of dissociation, hypnosis, memory, and the sense of time (see Van der Hart, 1998).

From the Germanic and Austrian traditions, clinicians also made im­portant contributions to the study and conceptualization of anomalous ex­periences. Sigmund Freud's goal was to build a psychoanalytic theory that would "shed light upon unusual, abnormal, or pathological manifestations of the mind" (Freud, 1936/1984, p. 447), and we cannot fail to mention Karl Jaspers's undervalued General Psychopathology (1923/1963 ). Jaspers also aimed to understand abnormal and anomalous events, and his detailed descriptive analysis of experience provided an alternative to traditional psychodynamic and diagnostic classifications of psychopathology.

With regard to unusual beliefs or explanations, a student of Wilhelm Wundt, the Danish psychologist Alfred Lehmann, published a book titled Superstition and Magic (1898). In it, he focused on observational errors, such as the misinterpretation of optical effects, that were responsible for false belief systems. Lehmann granted that some extraordinary phenomena could not he explained away by errors of observation and would have to wait for a scientific explanation.

A few years later, the psychologist Joseph Jastrow collected a series of his essays in a book titled Fact and Fable in Psychology (1900). These essays provided conventional scientific explanations to anomalous beliefs. He pointed out how experience is reified, belief systems often influence interpretations of experience, and speculation takes precedence over au­thentication. In a later book, Wish and Wisdom, Jastrow (1935) posited that "wishful thinking" interferes with rationality, and he systematically applied this hypothesis to a number of anomalous experiences.

The decades-long dominance of behaviorism, launched by J. B. Watson's (1913) call to arms against the study of consciousness within psy­chology, explains why the more comprehensive program for psychology proposed by James and others did not progress for a number of decades. Even B. E Skinner's less restrictive behaviorism did not study introspective reports on their own terms, but only as "verbal behaviors." The ascent of modern cognitive psychology as a dominant force in the 1950s and 1960s provided a valid framework to study mental processes (Gardner, 1985), but the study of subjective experiences, especially anomalous ones, had to wait even longer.

The first modern, systematic attempt to explain anomalous experience was The Psychology o f Anomalous Experience, written by Canadian psychol­ogist Graham Reed (1972, 1988). Reed studied unusual experiences from a cognitive---experiential perspective. He discussed anomalies of attention, imagery and perception, recall, recognition, experience of self, judgment and belief, qualities of consciousness, and flow of consciousness. Although a slim volume, Reed's work deserves careful attention.

Leonard Zusne and Warren H. Jones (1980, 1989) treaded a similar path to that of Jastrow in their book Anomalistic Psychology, the second edition of which was subtitled A Study of Magical Thinking. They contended that "magical thinking is wholly or partly at the root of any explanation of behavioral and experiential phenomena that violates some law of nature or suggests, without supporting evidence, the existence of principles, forces, or entities unknown to science" (Zusne & Jones, 1989, p. 13). To them, anomalous psychological phenomena are "those behaviors and experiences that seem to violate natural laws" (p. ix). Zusne and Jones (1989) presented a useful example of the relative aspect of some beliefs. When comparing bleeding from peptic ulcers and from stigmata, they wrote, "The difference between the psychophysiologically normal and the psychophysiologically anomalistic is only a matter of statistical incidence and the cultural context within which the event happens" (p. 34).

Two recent books have analyzed various forms of faulty thinking that may give rise to the belief in unusual events. Thomas Gilovich (1993) dis­cussed cognitive (e.g., misperception and misinterpretation of random data), motivational (e.g., "seeing what we want to see"), and social (e.g., biasing effects of second-hand information) determinants of questionable beliefs in anomalous events. Theodore Schick and Lewis Vaughn (1995) discussed a number of ways in which valuable information can be ignored or misrep­resented while questionable forms of evidence such as tradition or the au­thority of the person making a pronouncement can be overvalued. They proposed a formula in which claims need to be clearly stated, the evidence for the claims must be looked at carefully, and any alternative hypotheses must be considered and rated according to certain criteria of adequacy. To their credit, Schick and Vaughn (199.5) concluded that their "considerations should not be taken as the final word on the matters investigated here" (p. 281), and they pointed out that at least one parapsychology researcher had met some of the challenges from his harshest critics (p. 231). Ray Hyman (Hyman & Honorton, 1986), a noted critic of parapsychology research, agreed that some data obtained under controlled conditions "cannot reason­ably be explained by selective reporting or multiple analysis ... (and) the final verdict awaits the outcome of future ... experiments" (pp. 352-353).

THE PRESENT INVESTIGATION

We decided to compile this volume because we share a fascination with these phenomena, and we believe that current empirical and conceptuat developments in psychology can prevent it from falling prey to either naive scrutiny or automatic rejection. Like many readers of this book, we were partly drawn to a life of science and the study of psychology by the "big" questions that some anomalous experiences pose about the nature of reality and human consciousness: What is the relationship between our conscious experience and what we call the physical world? How does heal­ing occur? What are the boundaries between dreaming and waking life? Is there credible evidence that thoughts affect the material world or can be transferred by extrasensory means? Does consciousness persist after death? What do mystical experiences tell us about the nature of reality?

Science may not have come very far in addressing the ontological status of these questions, but readers of the book will discover that psy­chology has much to offer in terms of proposing appropriate ways to obtain and evaluate evidence, characterize variables associated with these phenom­ena, and describe and investigate anomalous experiences. In turn, some anomalous experiences may have much to offer science in terms of clarifying its current boundaries and identifying how psychology, the neurosciences, and the social sciences can join hands to explain the "dome of many-col­oured glass" of life, to borrow Lord Percy Bysshe Shelley's beautiful image.

REFERENCES

American Psychiatric Association. (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

Benedict, R. (19.34). Patterns of culture. New York: Houghton Mifflin.

Bratus, B. B. (1990). Anomalies of personality: From the deviant to the norm (A. Mikheyev, S. Mikheyev, & Y. Filippov, Trans.; H. Davis, Ed.). Orlando, FL: Paul M. Deutsch Press. (Original work published 1988)

Broughton, R. (1991). Parapsychology. The controversial science. New York: Ballantine.

Cardeña, E. (1996)."Just floating on the sky": A comparison of shamanic and hypnotic phenomenology. In R. Quekelbherge & D. Eigner (Eds.), 6th jahrbuch fur transkuhurelle medizin and psychotherapie [6th yearbook of crosscultural medicine and psychotherapy] (pp. 367-.380). Berlin: Verlag fur Wis­senschaft and Bildung.

Cardeña, E. (1997). The etiologies of dissociation. In S. Powers & S. Krippner (Eds.), Broken images, broken selves (pp. 61-87). New York: Brunner/Mazel.

Cardeña, E. (in press). "You are not your body": Commentary on the motivation for self-injury in psychiatric patients. Psychiatry.

Deikman, A. J. (1966). Deautomatization and the mystic experience. Psychiatry, 29, 324-338.

Dingwall, E. (1962). Very peculiar people: Portrait studies in the queer, the abnormal,and the uncanny. New Hyde Park, NY: University Books.

Ellenberger, H. F. (1970). The discovery of the unconscious. New York: Basic Books.

Flournoy, T (1994). From India to the planet Mars: A case study in multiple personality with imaginary languages. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1901)

Freud, S. (1984). A disturbance of memory on the Acropolis. In A. Richards (Ed.), Volume II. On metapsychology (pp. 44.3-456). Middlesex, England: Pelican. (Original work published 1936)

Gallagher, C., Kumar, V. K., & Pekala, R. J. (1994). The Anomalous Experiences Inventory: Reliability and validity. Journal of Parapsychology, 58, 402-428.

Gardner, H. (1985). The mind's new science. New York: Basic Books.

George, L. (1995). Alternative realities: The paranormal, the mystic and the transcendent in human experience. New York: Facts on File.

Gilovich, T (1993). How we know what isn't so. New York: Free Press.

Greeley, A. M. (1975). The sociology of the paranormal: A reconnaissance. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

Gurney, E., Myers, E W H., & Podmore, F (1886). Phantasms of the living (2 vols.). London: Trübner.

Helminiak, D. A. (1984). Neurology, psychology, and extraordinary religious ex­periences. Journal of Religion and Health, 23, 33-46.

Hunt, H. (1995). The nature of consciousness. New Haven, CT Yale University Press.

Hyman, R., & Honorton, C. (1986). A joint communiqué. The psi ganzfeld con­troversy. Journal of Parapsychology, 50, 351-364.

James, W. (192.3). The principles of psychology. New York: Holt. (Original work published 1890)

James, W (1958). The varieties of religious experience: A study in human nature. New York: New American Library. (Original work published 1902)

Jaspers, K. (1963). General psychopathology (J. Hoenig & M. Hamilton, Trans.). Manchester, UK: University Press. (Original work published 192.3)

Jastrow, J. (1900). Fact and fable in psychology. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Jastrow, J. (19.35). Wish and wisdom. New York: Appleton-Century.

Jung, C. G. (1959). Flying saucers: A modern myth of things seen in the skies. New York: Harcourt Brace.

Jung, C. G. (1970). On the psychology and pathology of so-called occult phenom­ena. In The collected works of C. G. Jung (Vol. 1, pp. 6-91). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1902)

Krippner, S., & Winkler, M. (1996). The "need to believe." In G. Stein (Ed.), The encyclopedia of the paranormal (pp. 441-454). Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.

Lehmann, A. (1898). Aberglaube and zauberei [Superstition and magici. Stuttgart, Germany: Enkc.

Lynn, S. J., & Rhue, J. W (Eds.). (1994). Dissociation: Clinical, theoretical, and research perspectives. New York: Guilford Press.

MacDonald, W L. (1994). The popularity of paranormal experiences in the: United States. Journal of American Culture, 1, 35-42.

McClenon, J. (1994a). Surveys of anomalous experiences: A cross-cultural analysis. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 88, 117-135.

McClenon, J. (1994b). Wondrous events: Foundations of religious beliefs. Philadel­phia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Michelson, L., & Ray, W. J. (Eds.). (1996). Handbook of dissociation. New York: Plenum.

Myers, F W. H. (1961). Human personality and its survival of bodily death. New York: University Books. (Original work published 190.3)

Pasricha, S., & Stevenson, l. (1986). Near-death experiences in India. Jour al of Nervous and Mental Disease, 174, 165-170. Pope, K. S., & Singer, J. L. (Eds.). (1978). The stream of consciousness. New York:Plenum.

Powers, S., & Krippner, S. (Eds.). (1997). Broken images, broken selves. New York: Brunner/Mazel.

Reed, G. (1972). The psychology of anomalous experience. London: Hurchinson Uni­versity Library.

Reed, 0. (1988). The psychology of anomalous experience (rev. ed.). Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books.

Robinson, D. N. (1998). Dissociation and the foundations of cognitive psychology in nineteenth century France. Psychological Hypnosis, 7, 15-20.

Rose, S. (1976). The conscious brain (rev. ed.), Middlesex, England: Penguin. Rush, J. H. (1986). Parapsychology: A historical perspective. In H. L. Edge, R. L.

Morris, J. Palmer, & J. H. Rush (Eds.), Foundations of parapsychology (pp. 9­44). New York: Rourledge Kegan Paul.

Sacks, O. (1995). An anthropologist on Mars. New York: Knopf.

Schick, T., & Vaughn, L. (1995). How to think about weird things. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield.

Sidgwick, H., Johnson, A., Myers, F W. H., Podmore, F, & Sidgwick, E. (1894). Report on the census of hallucinations. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 10, 25-422.

Siegel, R. K. (1989).