Resources
Glossary
Is it a spirit or an entity? What the heck is an EVP? Electromagnetic whatsits? The paranormal community if rife with specialized terminology that often raises eyebrows. The amount of paranormal terminology out there is voluminous to say the least, but we wanted to pull together a short list of common words and phrases that might come up during investigations and give them definitions that we might give to clients in terms everyone can understand. Request additions and changes here.
Anomaly — Noun. Something that deviates from what is standard, normal, or expected.
- Visual Anomaly — Noun. A visual phenomenon that is abnormal, novel, or noteworthy. Orbs, shadow figures, apparitions, and other such occurrences count as visual anomalies.
- Auditory Anomaly — Noun. An auditory phenomenon that is abnormal, novel, or noteworthy. Disembodied voices and other mysterious sounds that are heard count as auditory anomalies.
- Olfactory Anomaly — Noun. A smell-based phenomenon that is abnormal, novel, or noteworthy. Unexpected or unusual odors count as olfactory anomalies.
- Tactile Anomaly — Noun. A physical (touch-based) phenomenon that is abnormal, novel, or noteworthy. Feelings of being touched without origin count as tactile anomalies.
- Gustatory Anomaly — Noun. A taste-based phenomenon that is abnormal, novel, or noteworthy. Unexpected or unusual taste phenomena of mysterious origin (without interaction) count as gustatory anomalies.
Apparition — Noun. A visible or semi-visible manifestation of a ghost or spirit. They can have several forms: Full-body, partial, or even presenting as a visibly real person or animal. They can be transparent, blurry, or appearing as real as a live person, and can reflect specific appearances such as facial features, anatomy, and even clothing (e.g. a woman in a white dress).
Baseline — Noun. Conditions, circumstances, or states considered to be "normal.". This is used as a means of comparison when data is collected or experiences are reported.
Cross Over — Verb. The spiritual process for which a spirit journeys from one side to the other side (e.g. from the Earthly realm to Heaven). Can either occur naturally or with guidance through ritual.
Debunk — Verb. To find a rational rational, non-paranormal explanation that offers a reasonable account for an event or phenomenon, grounded in non-supernatural reasoning.
Demon — Noun. An evil, non-human supernatural entity colloquially originating from Christian dogma. Typically associated with violent behavior such as scratching, burning, and possession. More modern, agnostic interpretations prefer to replace "demon" with "negative entity" or "lower vibrational entity" within the parnormal community's lexicon.
Egregore — Noun. A supernatural entity that manifests from the energy that living people put into a concept, not having existed prior, a thought-form made real.
Energy — Noun. The capacity or ability to do work through the use of physical or chemical resources and can exist in multiple forms like thermal, radiant, kinetic, potential, electrical, and chemical.
- Electromagnetic Energy — Noun. A form of energy that travels in waves at the speed of light and is also known as electromagnetic radiation. It can be emitted, reflected, or absorbed by objects.
- Spiritual Energy — Noun. Thought to be what all supernatural entities are made of and use to manifest and interact with the environment. Often used as a vague catch-all to describe energy of a supernatural source, unknown to science as being anything measurable.
Entity — Noun. The umbrella term when describing ghosts, spirits, shadow people, egregores, demons, or other supernatural beings.
Evidence — Noun. The results of an investigation by a paranormal investigation team, including but not limited to photos, videos, and audio recordings depicting legitimate paranormal activity.
EVP — Noun. An acronym standing for "Electronic Voice Phenomena," these are voice or sound anomalies that show up on audio and video recording devices from unknown origins and were not heard live in the moment of recording.
Fear Cage — Noun. A location, oftentimes a small room or other isolated area, that is surrounded with or filled with electronic equipment that collectively emits a high amount of EMF. In such scenarios, that amount of EMF can have a physiological response on people and animals, often causing small body hairs to stand on end, sensations of dizziness, feelings of anxiety and paranoia, and all manner of halucinations.
Fun House Effect — Noun. The physiological response to how your brain interprets physical surroundings that are uneven, angled, or arranged in a way that throws off your equilibrium, often being misinterpretted as the effects of a paranormal encounter. Effects can include diziness, the feeling of being pulled in a certain direction, imbalance, and motion sickness.
Ghost — Noun. Thought to be the spirit form of a person or animal. Generally thought of as synonymous with other words like spirit, entity, and apparition, though some modern interpretations apply it more to residual activity (think of your "ghost" in Mario Kart).
Infrared / IR — Adjective. A subsection of the electromagnetic spectrum, like ultraviolet or visible light. Video cameras often include technology to see in this section of the electromagnetic spectrum (e.g. nightvision), which allows paranormal investigators to film (and see) in total darkness.
Intelligent Haunt — Noun. Paranormal activity in a given location that exhibits awareness and responsiveness to stimuli from living people. Can respond to questions via equipment, voice recording, and interacting with the environment (e.g. knocking, tapping).
Lights Out — Noun. A phase of an investigation often used wherein all the lights in a location are turned off to provide total or near-total darkness. It is common practice among investigators because it allows for better opportunities to catch light-based phenomena. Additionally, some reported phenomena is said to occur in total darkness or other low-light conditions, as it has an easier time manifesting under those conditions.
Manifest — Verb. The act of an entity making itself known to the living by making itself visible or audible, or otherwise putting its energy toward methods of detection through our other senses or equipment.
Medium — Noun. A person with apparent extrasensory abilities, able to see, hear, feel, and/or communicate with spirits.
Orb — Noun. A round or spherical visual anomaly often thought to be a visual manifestation of an entity. Often characterized by sweeping, arcing movement and a distinct glowing appearance when seen through a camera, many people misidentify floating dust particles, water droplets, and tiny insets as being orbs.
Ouija Board — Noun. A board game that is thought to be a tool used for communicating with the dead. They feature the alphabet, the numbers 0—9, the words "yes" "no" and "goodbye." A specific set of instructions is advised to be followed for safe usage, and negative occurrences are thought to be the result of misuse of the board or its instructions. Generally advised against use.
Paranormal — Adjective. Existing or occurring outside of the realm of normal, scientifically explainable experience.
Pareidolia — Noun. A psychological phenomenon that causes people to see familiar patterns in random visual stimuli. Most commonly, seeing faces in things where no face is present, or assigning human physical traits to things.
Poltergeist — Noun. Traditionally translated as "noisy ghost," they are generally thought to be activity that manifests in the form of physical interactions with the environment (e.g. moving an object across a table). Some more modern interpretations add that the phenomena is the result of a living person's stress and negative energy.
Portal — Noun. Thought to be doorways in the spirit realm through which entities can travel to and from different locations.
Residual Haunt — Noun. Paranormal activity in a given location that does not exhibit awareness or responsiveness to stimuli from living people, and is otherwise said to be "going through the motions" of a day-to-day life without any understanding of its existence in spirit form.
Setup — Noun. The phase of an investigation where testing and recording equipment is placed around a location, experiments are set out, and spaces are established for home base, predetermined ingress/egress doors, and safe hospitality functions (what furniture you can sit on, which bathrooms you can use, etc.).
Shadow Person — Noun. A type of paranormal entity characterized by manifesting as a totally black silhouette or a formless shadow without being cast from a light source. Often characterized by supernaturally quick movements and sometimes having clothing features (e.g. wide brimmed hats, hoods, etc.). Traditionally thought to be negative entities, modern investigators tend to give them more neutral characteristics.
Sound / Noise Matrixing — Noun. Auditory pareidolia, or hearing familiar sounds in noise. Falsely hearing identifiable sound features like voices among otherwise random, unassociated sound sources.
Spirit — Noun. Thought to be one's "soul" or energetic form after death. Generally thought of as synonymous with other words like ghost, entity, and apparition, though some more modern interpretations apply it more to intelligent haunts (e.g. a lingering spirit trying to cross over).
Summon — Verb. The process by which an entity is called forth into the Earthly realm by a living person through spiritual and often ritualistic means.
Thermal / FLIR — Noun. Camera technology that sees the temperature of its subject and visualizes it as color mapping in live video. The warmer an object's temperature is, the more yellow, orange, and red it appears on screen. Likewise, the cooler an object's temperature is, the more green, blue, and purple it appears on screen.
Walkthrough — Noun. The preliminary stage of an investigation, where clients are interviewed about the property, its history, their experiences, and their requests pertaining to the investigation itself. Investigators tour the property while taking notes along with prelimiary photos and video that can help determine investigative practices.