Is there any scientific explanation of the paranormal?

Abstract

THE apparent impossibility of the occurrence of `paranormal' phenomena has not discouraged their extensive investigation, although there has not been any uniformly accepted validation or explanation by the scientific community. To clarify exactly how difficult ESP phenomena are to explain, it is necessary to place them in the framework of modern science. Explanations of the phenomena have been brought forward which have been claimed to make them more respectable. These explanations must also be looked at from the point of view of modern science and this paper is devoted to that task. In particular we wish to indicate that on theoretical grounds the only scientifically feasible explanation could be electromagnetism (EM) involving suitably strong EM fields. Thus we regard that this paper completes our earlier work¹ where we presented experimental results giving the level of the EM signals emitted by subjects when engaged in supposedly paranormal activity. These EM levels were many orders of magnitude lower than the ones we calculate here as needed to achieve paranormal effects. Taken together the two papers are a strong argument against the validity of the paranormal.