This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 15, Issue 4, from 2002.
In our previous article on this subject, we outlined the path model, and how it highlights the major features of paranormal belief and experience. However, this type of linear modelling is ill-suited to test the notion that people face a basic choice between belief and fear. Therefore, we tackled this issue using nonlinear models derived from catastrophe theory (for an overview, see Guastello, 1995).
Specifically, analogous to the sudden buckling of a beam under a gradually increasing load, we argued that fear of the paranormal and belief in the paranormal create a polarity such that percipients can suddenly switch from being fearful to believing in paranormal causes due to relatively minor changes in their environments (Lange, 1998a).
This hypothesis was tested using the GEM-CAT II catastrophe software (Lange, 1998b; Lange, Oliva, & McDade, 2000), which allows researchers to combine several ‘indicator’ variables linearly into the basic (‘latent’) components of a catastrophe model. GEM-CAT II also provides estimates of the statistical significance of the indicator variables using modern resampling techniques (bootstrap and jacknife).
We discovered that delusions of the paranormal can be seen as a three-dimensional ‘cusp’ catastrophe model. The proposed cusp model entails that intolerance of ambiguity is the major variable to force a choice between fear and paranormal belief. That is, fear and belief play little role for ambiguity tolerant individuals as their beliefs are not fixed, and curiosity rather than fear dominates. However, those with low ambiguity tolerance need to be sure: they either fear the paranormal or they embrace it – but not both. Thus, for ambiguity-intolerant individuals, belief and fear define two states: one in which belief dominates fear, and one in which fear dominates belief.
The transition from fear to belief is not a gradual process for those intolerant of ambiguity. Rather, paranormal belief results from a sudden reversal away from the fear induced by ambiguity intolerance.
The system has a “memory” in the form of hysteresis. That is, assume that someone perceives a series of increasing (and, for the sake of argument, equally spaced in terms of magnitude) ambiguous events “E1 < E2 < …< Et-4 < … < Et-1 < Et” that suggest a paranormal explanation given an appropriate context. Further, assume that the shift toward paranormal belief occurs in response to Et – i.e., the ambiguous experience that acts as the proverbial straw to break the camel’s back. Now, if (somehow) the subjective evidence for a paranormal explanation decreases, the person will not relinquish his or her paranormal beliefs at the point Et (or even Et-1) where such beliefs first started. Rather, depending on the person’s ambiguity intolerance, a much lower level is needed to obtain the reverse switch (say, Et-4).
It seems impossible that one’s cognitive system ever exactly returns to a previous state. Nevertheless, it explains nicely why the same evidence can simultaneously be seen by sceptics as “too little to warrant any conclusions” and as “too much to be ignored” by a believer.
There are good reasons to believe that shifts from the belief state back to fear state are quite unlikely. Firstly, the adoption of a paranormal perspective provides great perceived explanatory power (analogous to a revelation or religious experience). Secondly, any remaining doubts are alleviated by the discovery of additional supporting evidence for a paranormal point of view that previously went unnoticed. Thus, new believers undertake a reinterpretation of their environments, sometimes resulting in the type of perceptual contagion that was discussed in an earlier section. Thirdly, a shift away from belief is likely to reinstate the fears that induced such beliefs in the first place.
Lacking longitudinal data, it is not clear if, and how often, percipients move between fear and belief. Also, whereas it seems likely that fear can be used to stimulate delusions of the paranormal, it is not clear how such delusions can be suppressed. Nevertheless, the notion that paranormal delusions are the result of an approach-avoidance type of phenomenon revolving around a conflict between fears and beliefs must seriously be entertained at this point. In particular, the model suggests that increasing believers’ tolerance of ambiguity and lowering fear might provide a strategy to change paranormal beliefs.
In addition to providing a coherent account of poltergeists, our analyses may also explain other delusions. We are particularly impressed by the similarity between descriptions of poltergeist-like episodes and contagious psychogenic illnesses. For instance, analogous to poltergeist outbreaks, contagious psychogenic illnesses are characterized by ambiguous stimulants that trigger a sudden onset and cessation of dramatic symptoms, predominantly in young females, and during times of psychosocial stress. Also, the interpretation of the contagious episode changes according to the context. For instance, Engs, McKaig & Jacobs (1996, p. 197) reported the following case:
The incident began around 6:00 p.m. during the first week of school, a time when students are beginning to form support networks. The weather during the week had been extremely hot and humid, making most of this all-female non-air-conditioned residence facility uncomfortable. While waiting in line in the snack bar, a student reported that she had seen some dusty substance in the air; another student began to feel very ill and went to the food manager to report this information. Almost immediately, other students reported symptoms similar to the first student and claimed that they smelled a bad odor. The reported symptoms included shortness of breath, eye and skin irritation, and a general feeling of sickness… In all, 69 students and workers, about 8%of the total population, reported symptoms… An exact cause of the ailments of the students who took
ill was not determined.
It is also interesting to note that Windholz & Diamant (1974) observed nearly thirty years ago that believers in the paranormal score higher than non-believers on measures of neuroticism and hypochondriasis, i.e., complaints about bodily ailments and a subjective state of suffering.
We have since conceptually replicated this result and have found that somatic complaints and hypochondriacal tendencies, among other personality variables, help to distinguish experients of haunts from non-experients. Thus, there does seem to be a strong rationale for likening haunt and poltergeist outbreaks to episodes of psychogenic illness.
It may seem peculiar to some readers that people would express conscious or unconscious psychological distress in terms of paranormal experiences. Sigmund Freud, and theorists that followed such as C. G. Jung, viewed human behaviour as the manifestation of an underlying drama within our unconscious mind. The unconscious is the seat of suppressed impulses, ideations, and emotion, and without our awareness, it can express itself through everyday behavior, dreams and mental illness. While those views have been largely superseded by more fitting theories, some theorists suggest that unconscious motivations and processes underlie paranormal experiences as well, and this may explain why self-reported apparitions, haunts, and poltergeist experiences consistently correlate with “transliminality” (the hypothesized tendency for psychological material to cross thresholds into or out consciousness).
To be sure, the idea that images, visions, and apparitions are manifestations of unconscious or preconscious material can already be found in nineteenth century texts. Likewise, parapsychological theories of apparitions emphasize the influence of psychological factors on the perception of apparitions. Thus, regardless of the ultimate source of apparitions, the psychological background of the experient cannot be dismissed.
For example, Zeanah (1988) discussed the effects of unresolved mourning as a source of imagery during hypnogogic states. In more extreme instances, it is not difficult to imagine how such psychological dramas might be responsible for some bereavement apparitions and deathbed visions. Furthermore, “paranormal” expressions of distress may also occur during normal waking states. A case study by Sabatini, Gaud, & Guillemarre-Alzieu (1987) detailed a woman who was hospitalized after a suicide attempt prompted by an argument with her lover. In telling the attending psychiatrists her life history, the woman described her place of employment as haunted by a presence connected with an old family secret.
Hess similarly characterized haunts and poltergeists as idioms of distress. Apparently, themes related to “ghosts” and “demons” are effective mediums with which to tell many types of stories. Therefore, it is not surprising that ghosts may be universal personifications of troubled psyches. Siegel & Marion (1973) even noted that some psychiatric patients perceive images of ghosts on the projective Rorschach psychological test.
None of the preceding contradicts the models summarized in these articles, albeit that these only reflect the outcomes of unconsciousness processes, not the processes themselves. Moreover, the models agree with research findings on mass delusions, as they identify fear as the primary factor in the genesis of delusions of the paranormal. Further, the finding that percipients’ reaction to ostensibly paranormal events can be described in terms of a clear dichotomy (i.e., fear vs. belief ) strongly suggests that delusions create “attractors” in percipients’ cognitions which serve to neutralize otherwise threatening experiences.
It is our current hypothesis that the nature of this attractor is difficult to define as it is largely determined by the unconscious processes outlined above. There is some evidence that such processes result in attentional biases. For instance, we found that the perception of poltergeist-like experiences within individual cases follows a power law type frequency distribution with recognizable musical properties. Also, the time between discrete observations of paranormal happenings proved highly predictable. It does not seem impossible therefore that the unconscious motivations alter the way information is attended to and interpreted – i.e., percipients might literally “operate on a different wave-length”.
In our years of research on this topic we have come to one major conclusion and that is that ghosts, haunts, and poltergeists are clearly mostly social facts, perhaps guided by our physiological makeup. Yet, they are real in the same sense that music, art, emotion, and language are real constructs. If our ideas on what generate and sustain these experiences are correct, then the study of ghosts may well provide the basis for a more comprehensive model of cognition — in the living of course!
