Paranormality (book)

Paranormality: Why we see what isn't there

Author	Richard Wiseman
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English, German
Subject	Psychology, Paranormal
Publisher	Macmillan
Publication date	17 August 2011 (2011-08-17)
Pages	189
Awards	Center for Inquiry's Robert P. Balles award - 2011
ISBN
Preceded by	'59 Seconds: Change Your Life in Under a Minute'
Followed by	'Rip it up: The Radically new Approach to Changing your Life'

Paranormality: Why we see what isn't there was written by psychologist and magician Richard Wiseman as a skeptic primer of all things paranormal. The book argues that paranormal phenomena like psychics, telepathy, ghosts, out-of-body experiences, prophesy and more do not exist, and explores why people continue to believe, and what that tells us about human behavior and the way the brain functions. Wiseman uses QR codes throughout the book, which link to YouTube videos as examples and as experiments the reader can participate in to further explain the phenomena. The book does more than explain how these things work, but teaches people how to engage in these activities. The book was published in the United Kingdom, and other countries. Because of a cautious American publishing market, it was only available in America through Kindle. Paranormality was awarded the Center for Inquiry's Robert P. Balles award for 2011.

Richard J. Wiseman (born 1966) is a Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom. His research has been published in peer reviewed scientific journals, and a column in the magazine Scientific American described him as "…the most interesting and innovative experimental psychologist in the world today". He has written several best-selling popular psychology books that have been translated into over 30 languages. He has given keynote addresses to The Royal Society, The Swiss Economic Forum, Google and Amazon. He is a fellow for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.

Interviewed by Swoopy for the Skepticality podcast, Wiseman stated the book has a high impact on readers because it is interactive. With instructions from the book, "you can run" a Ouija board session once you know about the ideomotor effect. "And when you turn the papers over, you can see that the spirit can no longer spell out its name, and that's because it's psychological, not paranormal". Surveying paranormal books before writing Paranormality, Wiseman asked himself what about these books engages the readers. "It's all about you, it's about your brain, it's about your behavior, it's about your beliefs". ... "getting people involved and finding out yourself". One reason the title of the book does not instantly reveal if it is supportive or skeptical of the paranormal is because they wanted it to appeal to people interested in the paranormal. The goal was to be clear that believers are not stupid, that anyone can fall for this kind of stuff, and "hey here is some fun things you can try". Wiseman felt there was no single volume of work that could be handed to someone who wanted to learn about skepticism so he wrote Paranormality. It is a "synopsis of skepticism" or could even be considered a manual "on how to be a fake psychic".