Terje Simonsen | |
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 Terje Simonsen in October 2018 | |
| Born | Terje Gerotti Simonsen April 23, 1963 |
| Nationality | Norwegian |
| Alma mater | University of Oslo |
| Occupation(s) | Historian, non-fiction writer |
| Awards | Parapsychological Association Book Award (2019) [1] |
Terje Simonsen (born April 23, 1963) is a Norwegian historian and nonfiction author. He was among the first to predict the arrival of an androgynous pronoun in Norway. [2]
Simonsen was born in Norway on April 23, 1963, in the municipality of Kristiansand [3] and raised in the town of Mandal. [4] [5] He graduated from the University of Oslo in 1993. In 2001, his thesis on the Janus journal and Alf Larsen was published by Solum Forlag as a book JANUS—A Journal and an Era. [6] [7]
In 2003, he wrote an introductory essay to a Norwegian edition of I and Thou by Martin Buber, published by Bokklubben. [8] [9]
In the article “En språklig mutant i anmarsj” (“A Linguistic Mutant Approaching”), published in Morgenbladet , in 2006, Simonsen suggested that gender related changes in culture and society would result in an androgynous pronoun appearing through an evolutionary process resembling natural evolution. [10]
Simonsen's main interest has been esoteric traditions—hermeticism, kabbalah, sufism etc.—and he has also edited and authored writings within this field. [3] Among other things, he instigated the first Norwegian translation and edition of the antique esoteric text Book of Enoch in the series Verdens Hellige Skrifter ("The World’s Holy Scriptures"), where he also wrote an introductory essay. [3] [11] [12]
In 2013, Simonsen authored a book on parapsychology, where he explored various paranormal phenomena in a historical context as well as the evolution of the intellectual foundations of parapsychology. [13] [14] [15] [16] In 2018, an expanded and updated English edition was published by an Italian company Pari Publishing. [17] [18] In November 2019, it received the Parapsychological Association Book Award. [1] A new edition was released in the United Kingdom and United States in 2020 by Watkins Publishing (2020). [19] | In 2013, Simonsen authored a book on parapsychology in Norwegian, where he explored various paranormal phenomena in a historical context as well as the evolution of the intellectual foundations of parapsychology. [13] [14] [15] [16] It was published in English as Our Secret Powers—A Short History of (Nearly) Everything Paranormal (Pari Publishing, 2018) and Czech (Nakladatelství Prah, 2021). [17] [18] [20] In November 2019, the book received the Parapsychological Association Book Award. [1] The following year an upgraded English edition was released under the title A Short History of (Nearly) Everything Paranormal - Our Secret powers: Telepathy, Clairvoyance and Precognition (Watkins Publishing, 2020). [19]
Clairvoyance is the claimed ability to acquire information that would be considered impossible to get through scientifically proven sensations, thus classified as extrasensory perception, or "sixth sense". Any person who is claimed to have such ability is said to be a clairvoyant.
Extrasensory perception (ESP), also known as a sixth sense, or cryptaesthesia, is a claimed paranormal ability pertaining to reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses, but sensed with the mind. The term was adopted by Duke University botanist J. B. Rhine to denote psychic abilities such as intuition, telepathy, psychometry, clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairsentience, empathy and their trans-temporal operation as precognition or retrocognition.
Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena and other paranormal claims, for example, those related to near-death experiences, synchronicity, apparitional experiences, etc. Criticized as being a pseudoscience, the majority of mainstream scientists reject it. Parapsychology has also been criticized by mainstream critics for claims by many of its practitioners that their studies are plausible despite a lack of convincing evidence after more than a century of research for the existence of any psychic phenomena.
The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) is a nonprofit organisation in the United Kingdom. Its stated purpose is to understand events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal. It describes itself as the "first society to conduct organised scholarly research into human experiences that challenge contemporary scientific models." It does not, however, since its inception in 1882, hold any corporate opinions: SPR members assert a variety of beliefs with regard to the nature of the phenomena studied.
Telepathy is the purported vicarious transmission of information from one person's mind to another's without using any known human sensory channels or physical interaction. The term was first coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Frederic W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), and has remained more popular than the earlier expression thought-transference.
Precognition is the purported psychic phenomenon of seeing, or otherwise becoming directly aware of, events in the future.
A psychic is a person who claims to use powers rooted in parapsychology such as extrasensory perception (ESP) to identify information hidden from the normal senses, particularly involving telepathy or clairvoyance, or who performs acts that are apparently inexplicable by natural laws, such as psychokinesis or teleportation. Although many people believe in psychic abilities, the scientific consensus is that there is no proof of the existence of such powers, and describes the practice as pseudoscience. The word "psychic" is also used as an adjective to describe such abilities.
Remote viewing (RV) is the practice of seeking impressions about a distant or unseen subject, purportedly sensing with the mind. A remote viewer is expected to give information about an object, event, person, or location hidden from physical view and separated at some distance. Physicists Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff, parapsychology researchers at Stanford Research Institute (SRI), are generally credited with coining the term "remote viewing" to distinguish it from the closely related concept of clairvoyance. According to Targ, the term was first suggested by Ingo Swann in December 1971 during an experiment at the American Society for Psychical Research in New York City.
Retrocognition, from the Latin retro meaning "backward, behind" and cognition meaning "knowing," describes "knowledge of a past event which could not have been learned or inferred by normal means." The term was coined by Frederic W. H. Myers.
In American science fiction of the 1950s and '60s, psionics was a proposed discipline that applied principles of engineering to the study of paranormal or psychic phenomena, such as extrasensory perception, telepathy and psychokinesis. The term is a blend word of psi and the -onics from electronics. The word "psionics" began as, and always remained, a term of art within the science fiction community and—despite the promotional efforts of editor John W. Campbell, Jr.—it never achieved general currency, even among academic parapsychologists. In the years after the term was coined in 1951, it became increasingly evident that no scientific evidence supports the existence of "psionic" abilities.
In parapsychology, psychometry, also known as token-object reading, or psychoscopy, is a form of extrasensory perception characterized by the claimed ability to glean accurate knowledge of an object's history by making physical contact with that object. Supporters assert that an object may have an energy field that transfers knowledge regarding that object's history.
Hans Bender was a German lecturer on the subject of parapsychology, who was also responsible for establishing the parapsychological institute Institut für Grenzgebiete der Psychologie und Psychohygiene in Freiburg. For many years his pipe smoking, contemplative figure was synonymous with German parapsychology. He was an investigator of 'unusual human experience', e.g. poltergeists and clairvoyants. One of his most famous cases was the Rosenheim Poltergeist.
Dream telepathy is the purported ability to communicate telepathically with another person while one is dreaming. Mainstream scientific consensus rejects dream telepathy as a real phenomenon. Parapsychological experiments into dream telepathy have not produced replicable results. The first person in modern times to claim to document telepathic dreaming was Sigmund Freud. In the 1940s, it was the subject of the Eisenbud-Pederson-Krag-Fodor-Ellis controversy, named after the preeminent psychoanalysts of the time who were involved: Jule Eisenbud, Geraldine Pederson-Krag, Nandor Fodor, and Albert Ellis.
John Gerald Taylor was a British physicist and author. He is notable for writing a book critical of paranormal phenomena.
Lawrence LeShan was an American psychologist, educator, and the author of the best-selling How to Meditate (1974) a practical guide to meditation. He authored or co-authored approximately 75 articles in the professional literature and more than fifteen books on a diverse range of topics including psychotherapy, war, cancer treatment, and mysticism. He also wrote science fiction under the pseudonym Edward Grendon.
A psychic reading is a specific attempt to discern information through the use of heightened perceptive abilities; or natural extensions of the basic human senses of sight, sound, touch, taste and instinct. These natural extensions are claimed to be clairvoyance (vision), clairsentience (feeling), claircognisance and clairaudience (hearing) and the resulting statements made during such an attempt. The term is commonly associated with paranormal-based consultation given for a fee in such settings as over the phone, in a home, or at psychic fairs. Though psychic readings are controversial and a focus of skeptical inquiry, a popular interest in them persists. Extensive experimentation to replicate psychic results in laboratory conditions have failed to find any precognitive phenomena in humans. A cold reading technique allows psychics to produce seemingly specific information about an individual from social cues and broad statements.
The Journal of Parapsychology is a biannual peer-reviewed academic journal covering research on psi phenomena, including telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, and psychokinesis, as well as human consciousness in general and anomalous experiences.
Etzel Cardeña is the Thorsen Professor of Psychology at Lund University, Sweden where he is Director of the Centre for Research on Consciousness and Anomalous Psychology (CERCAP). He has served as President of the Society of Psychological Hypnosis, and the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis. He is the current editor of the Journal of Parapsychology. He has expressed views in favour of what he terms "an open, informed study on all aspects of consciousness" and the validity of some paranormal phenomena. The Parapsychological Association honored Cardeña with the 2013 Charles Honorton Integrative Contributions Award. His publications include the books Altering Consciousness and Varieties of Anomalous Experience.
Walter Franklin Prince was an American parapsychologist and founder of the Boston Society for Psychical Research in Boston.
Charles Edward Mark Hansel was a British psychologist most notable for his criticism of parapsychological studies.
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