Want To Believe? Go On, It Will Make You Happier

A disturbing encounter with the demon Shax and other “war stories” from dabbling in the occult may not be the usual fare for a university conference.

But those were topics up for discussion at an event held this month at Goldsmiths, University of London that brought academics sceptical of the paranormal face to face with ghoul-hunters.

Seriously Possessed: Discourse on Demonology was organised by the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena and the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit at Goldsmiths. It forms part of a series – previous events have included Seriously Staked and Seriously Spooked – that brings together historians, psychologists, sceptics and “believers”.

Chris French, professor of psychology at Goldsmiths, opened proceedings by casting a distinctly “sceptical eye on paranormal claims”. Although he acknowledged that “no one has solved the mind problem” and that most people are “intuitive dualists”, alleged cases of possession could be explained either in terms of psychiatry and neurology (eg, epilepsy, Tourette’s syndrome and schizophrenia) or as forms of “learned behaviour” drawing on different religious traditions.

Source:  Times Higher Education