Template talk:Paranormal

Purpose
This template is meant to link up main articles related to paranormal beliefs. It may be a good idea to remain minimalistic here. Please don't spam. -- Nealparr  (talk to me) 07:49, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Scope
How does this template work in terms of the preexisting Template:Parapsychology? Which entries belong in one, which belong in the other, which belong in both? -Verdatum (talk) 15:06, 5 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Parapsychology has a narrow scope of phenomena they study (See: Parapsychology), and avoid many topics that are paranormal (paranormal having a broader definition which includes phenomena not explained by science). This may help.


 * Also, while the parapsychology nav should include many obscure articles related to parapsychology, there's just way too many when it comes to Category:Paranormal. I'm hoping this template can be minimalistic and cover highly notable topics or topics that are categories unto themselves, for example Ghosts, Forteana and Parapsychology. All of those are encompassing of many topics.


 * There may be some duplicate entries between the paranormal sidebar and the parapsychology footer, but it's not as redundant as it may seem. If you look at psychology, they have both a sidebar and footer covering the same information in both.


 * I didn't want this navbox to be obtrusive, so I made it where it could be collapsed and not compete with other templates or infoboxes. That's why it's a sidebar versus footer bar. It can be tucked away in a "See also" or "Further reading" section and not dominate the page.


 * I'm still working out which articles to include and which articles are too narrow, with the intent of being minimalistic. It's a work in progress. -- Nealparr  (talk to me) 18:27, 5 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Parapsychologists are very picky about what they study. I think this navbox is long overdue. I like the collapsable feature. Also, different articles can display an approprate image, if desired and if one can be found. 5Q5 (talk) 16:23, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Science, Paranormal and Limitations of Science
Science is dependent on reproducible registration by human sensations. We all know that science has alot of limitation in what we know! About human life and death itself we are not knowing many things. And we must accept that science is the name of continous search and change. For all these reasons I feel we should be cautious about denying existence of otherside of the nature which remains unexplored and we should leave that to our future generations. May be some day we know them all! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Drmanku (talk • contribs) 22:22, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Keep it simple
Keeping it simple would be just a list of articles. That is useful. Having the articles and the skeptical ones makes it a "ya but this is why they are all false" kind of billboard. Tom Butler (talk) 21:53, 25 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Deleting the opposing POV makes it violate NPOV. It should cover all significant sides of the subject. There are far too many articles listed. It's not supposed to be a duplication of the contents of the Category. This old version looks much better. It should also show the Category. -- Brangifer (talk) 20:05, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * If you insist on including skeptical then balance it with science and reasons for conflict. Otherwise lets delete the whole thing.Tom Butler (talk) 00:44, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * We can't include everything in one navbox. I have reverted to Brangifer's version as I think it is best -- balanced and not too big. But if this does not suit others I am not against deleting the whole thing. Johnfos (talk) 01:08, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

I think it is a good idea to delete the whole box then. Saying this is paranormal and this is what the skeptics say is just another forum for conflict. While they may not be real, the rest of the story is told by the science articles and sociological dynamics of emergent ideas.

Meanwhile, I am taking it back. Your decision that the box is too big seems arbitrary.Tom Butler (talk) 02:14, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Scientific literacy
I have added Scientific literacy to the "Related articles on Social change and Parapsychology" section. A major issue for people interested in these subjects is the lack of guidance from mainstream science. Except for a handful of academically trained researchers in parapsychology, there is virtually no culture of science leadership within the frontier subject community. In the sense intended by the National Science Foundation, improved education would probably change the character of how these subjects are viewed by people in the frontier subject community. Tom Butler (talk) 17:21, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Addition to template
I would like to add Orb (paranormal) to the template, if this is acceptable. Thanks. Jack1956 (talk) 14:51, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

UFOs not paranormal?
After adding this Navbox to a large set of UFO related articles (as well as other woo items), another editor deleted all the UFO ones claiming the topic is not Paranormal. This despite me pointing out that WikiProject Paranormal flagged the articles, and the Navbox itself has UFOs in its list. Please see the discussion here. Anyone care to join in the argument on that page? If not, the Paranormal boxes will likely stay off. RobP (talk) 16:25, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
 * No opinions on this? RobP (talk) 01:56, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the late response, but I think that you are right that the UFO phenomenon is usually classified under the paranormal. Among reasons for this would be claims of telepathic communication, teleportation, lost time, conflation of E.T. and spiritual beings, channelings, etc...  — Paleo  Neonate  – 16:09, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
 * So will you support adding the Para banner to articles such as Roswell? RobP (talk) 01:05, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, I just added my comment there, thanks for the reminder. — Paleo  Neonate  – 12:15, 28 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Provide us with irrefutable evidence that anything paranormal exists, and I will support this. This is a quality encyclopaedia, not a platform for people's paranoia and non-scientific beliefs. HiLo48 (talk) 22:20, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
 * A similar example is the historical Jesus and miracles of Jesus which are of interest to both history and religion. While actual physical or optical illusions (sightings labeled as UFO) exist (and an influential man named Jesus may have existed), the UFO culture has a lot to do with the paranormal and occult/paranormal encyclopedias include UFO material.  I don't personally believe in the paranormal.  But a few popular examples: many claim to telepathically communicate with aliens.  "Abductions" often are a result of sleep paralysis (before UFOs were popular, people interpreted these as demon attacks, the mare, etc).  Things like the disclosure project often reveal to be a type of new-age UFO religion...  "Ancient alien theorists" usually incorporate that as part of their creation myth (i.e. to justify the arrival of the human species).  — Paleo  Neonate  – 22:58, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
 * — Paleo Neonate  – 23:34, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Adding: The above source is not to source my previous paragraph which was written before I found it, only to show an example of how tightly UFO and occult/paranormal are related. But at the same time I respect the view that it could appear to support belief in the paranormal (I never had that impression, however).  That above mini-encyclopedia for instance doesn't preach about the paranormal but just documents many paranormal related subjects; I would expect our templates and articles on the subject to also avoid promoting it, of course.  — Paleo  Neonate  – 02:49, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Near Death Experiences
Dear all, I submit request for removing near death experiences from Paranormal Navbox. The main reason for saying this is that there are pretty solid mainstream scientific explanations showing that "an NDE is a subjective phenomenon resulting from 'disturbed bodily multisensory integration' that occurs during life-threatening events" see []. A solid publication supporting this is:  Blanke, Olaf (2009). The Neurology of Consciousness. London: London: Academic Publishers, 2009. pp. 303–324. ISBN 978-0-12-374168-4. If you wish I can provide more publications.

The other argument is that near death experiences are very frequent. If you check under the "Prevalence" section, on the [] page you will see that a selective study in Germany found that 4% of the sample population had had an NDE - and another 2005 telephone survey in Australia concluded that 8.9% of the population had had an NDE.

So, both due to their frequencies as well as to the availability of mainstream science explanations, I believe NDEs should be removed from the template.

Your thoughts? Josezetabal (talk) 15:53, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
 * As with my comments regarding UFO articles directly above (to which I added the banner - and then had it removed by someone claims they are not real so don't deserve the label - as they also have mainstream science explanations - I think the deciding factor is not wether a concept IS paranormal, but wether paranormal believers THINK that it is. If your criteria were used, the list of "paranormal" labeled items would be exactly (or nearly) zero, and ghosts, Bigfoot, ESP, etc.should all be removed. RobP (talk) 01:18, 17 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Thank-you for your reply. When you say "but wether paranormal believers THINK that it is" you mean the majority of population right? Because obviously this should not be influenced by a few wikipedians. Do you agree? Now, where is the data showing that the majority of the population thinks NDEs are paranormal? As for the non-paranormal claims - there are solid articles from mainstream science - see below list :


 * There is nothing paranormal about near-death experiences: how neuroscience can explain seeing bright lights, meeting the dead, or being convinced you are one of them. Dean Mobbs, Caroline Watt Trends in Cognitive Sciences.   Volume 15, Issue 10, October 2011, Pages 447-449


 * Attributional style in a case of Cotard delusion. McKay, R. and Cipolotti, L. (2007) Conscious. Cogn. 16, 349–359


 * The body unbound: Vestibularmotor hallucinations and out-of-body experiences. 6 Cheyne, J.A. and Girard, T.A. (2009)  Cortex 45, 201–215
 * The out-of-body experience: disturbed self-processing at the temporo-parietal junction.   7 Blanke, O. and Arzy, S. (2004)  Neuroscientist 11,  16–24
 * Direct determination of man’s blood pressure on the human centrifuge during positive acceleration. 8 Lambert, E.H. and Wood, E.H. (1946), Federation Proc. 5, 59 Nelson, K.R. et al. (2007) Neurology 68, 794–795
 * The Physiology of the Tunnel. Blackmore, S.J. and Troscianko, T. (1988)  J. Near Death Stud. 8, 15–28
 * Complex visual hallucinations: Clinical and neurobiological insights. Manford, M. and Andermann, F. (1998) Brain 121, 1819–1840
 * Stimulating illusory own-body perceptions. Blanke, O. et al. (2002) Nature 419, 269–270
 * Reduced dorsal prefrontal gray matter after chronic ketamine use. Biol. Psychiatry 69, 42–48 Liao, Y. et al. (2011)
 * Dying to live: Science and the near-death experience, Grafton Blackmore, S.J. (1993)


 * Seriously? The standard for this is now "the majority of population" believing it is paranormal? Since when it this? Do you have evidence that ANY of the items currently in the Paranormal banner meet that criteria? And in what geographic context? I just think it needs to be that it is "generally" believed to be paranormal. Yes that is vague, but if you are going to try to quantify this for all the topics in the banner, the existence of the banner itself will be in BIG trouble. How about this: Just Google it. Besides Wikipedia and a FEW science hits, EVERTYTHING else returned is paranormal tripe. (This was the first hit in my list tonight.) Go into a book store and look at all the books on the subject in the woo woo isle. Here is what Amazon returns for a search! Not a science book in the list. And besides a minority of rational thinkers, if you mention NDE to most anyone you know, if they know what it is - they will invariably NOT be quoting any of the science when they explain it to you. RobP (talk) 01:54, 16 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Thank-you for your reply. Let's leave aside (for the moment) what the most of the population thinks because neither you nor I can prove to each other that "near-death experiences" are deemed paranormal. We would need need for that a review article from a scientific journal, with objective data. The fact remains though, that several review articles in solid scientific journals offer rational scientific explanations on the subject. So the phenomenon has a rational/scientific basis. Best Josezetabal (talk) 08:18, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * We agree on that point. HOWEVER, virtually EVERY subject in the banner has a “ratinal/scientific basis”. That argument for excluding NDE from the list would - as I said - whittle the list down to nearly or absolutely nothing. RobP (talk) 16:17, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Hello, can you please point me to the criteria used to for being qualified as paranormal? Are these criteria explained somewhere? And also, do we have a list of review articles for the different topics? It is important toe stablish how solid these articles are. Best Josezetabal (talk) 07:14, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

"Main articles"
What exactly is going on in the "main article" section of this template? Almost all of these entries are simply examples of folklore, many of them ghostlore. Exactly what qualifies something to become a part of this section? From what I can tell, this portion of the template appears to be a grab bag of whatever editors deemed to be 'weird' some time in the past (UFOs, fairies, ghosts) and should simply be removed. In fact, it's unclear to me what exactly the purpose of this template is today, particularly in light of the fact that we now have, say, WP:Folklore. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 19:02, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Really, Will-o'-the-wisp is somehow a main article? I don't think the template is useless, as the word has its uses (take the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal). There's crossover between folklore and paranormal/pseudoscientific claims - reports of a Mothman can be studied as examples of folklore, but insisting that there is some kind of "real" extradimensional entity is a paranormal claim. --tronvillain (talk) 19:37, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Will-o'-the-wisp had longstanding weighting in favor of the paranormal (e.g. headers like "Attempted scientific explanations" and zero mainstream views in the lead) but I've fixed them. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:44, 20 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for checking this stuff out, folks. I'll go ahead and gut the template of the problem items and check out their respective articles, and we can go from there. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 20:46, 20 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I've pruned a bunch of items that seemed inappropriate, like common features of folklore across the world. I've noticed, however, that the article for supernatural needs to be completely rewritten (Talk:Supernatural). What a mess! &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 21:04, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Lucid Dreaming in "Parapsychology" Section
I am new to Wikipedia, but I was wondering why the article Lucid Dreaming is listed in this paranormal template under the Parapsychology section? Although lucid dreaming attracts a lot of New-Age/Spiritual people, it's a scientifically-backed phenomena that has been documented for years in various studies (such as the 1975 Hearne study included in its article), and one that many people experience regularly. It is a naturally-occurring event and thus, I feel that it is misleading for it to be included in this "Paranormal" template under the "Parapsychology" section.

What do you all think? Suuvah (talk) 17:27, 26 October 2021 (UTC)