Amulet: Any object that's thought to have the power to ward off ghosts and/or evil spirits or to bring good luck.
Apparition: The spirit or ghost which appears at a location or on film in a human-like form. Usually considered to be the spirit of a deceased person.
Apport: A physical object of no significant weight that can materialize/appear at will.
Aura: The energy/life force surrounding all living beings. The colors of the aura can determine the mood or/and physical condition of the living being. There are three layers, the phsycal, emotion, and spiritual.
Automatic Writing: A way that a spirit medium can obtain information from the other world/realm. It is said that the spirit takes control of the medium and causes them to write the information.
Automatism; Any unconcious and/or spontaneous muscular movement caused by the apirits. Automatic writing is one form of automatism.
Channeling: A popular way of spirit communicatoin. Spirits pass information directly to a medium and the medium can then pass the information to the listeners.
Clairaudience: A way of recieving information through auditory inpressions, voices and whipsers.
Clarivoyance: A way of recieving information through site.
Cold Reading: A technique using a series of statements, questions, and answers that allows fake mediums, mind-readers, and magicians to obtain previously unknown information about a person.
Crossroads: A place haunted by entities who like to lead confused travelers astray. It is also said to be a place to make a deal with the devil himself.
Dematerialization: The disapperance of a spirit in front of a person.
Demonology: The study of demons. A demonologist is a person familiar with demons. Such a person could be called in to study a haunting or possession and in some cases, an exorcism.
Direct Voice Phenomena (DVP): A spirit voice, spoken directly to sitters at a seance. The sound usually seems to come from a point near the medium or through a spirit horn or trumpet, but not from the mouth of the medium.
Direct Writing: A spectral phenomena, seen most often in a seance, in which spirit handwriting appears on a previously unmarked surface.
Doppelganger: The ghostly double of a living person. It is said that if the double is seen during the day that it is a sign of good fortune, if seen after dark, it is a death omen.
Dream Communication: A way that a spirit can communicate with you.
Drop-In Communicator: A drop-in communcator is a spirt or entity that makes it's presence known at a seance. Its identity is usually unknown to the medium and the sitters.
Earthbound: A ghost/spirit that can not or will not cross over at the time of their death esp. if the death was sudden or under stressful matters. They are stuck between this realm and the next.
Ectoplasm: Usually refered to as a substance belived to emanate from the body of a medium during communication with the dead. It may also refer to substances believed to be left behind by a spirit after dematerializes.
Ectomist: The mist-like appearance on photographs that is believed to be of paranormal origin.
Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP): The supernatural voices/sounds that an audio/video recorder can pick up.
Extrasensory Perception (ESP): Some believe that only a few people have this ability and some believe everyone has it. That it is dormant or ot fully used their entire life unless a traumatic event allows it to open up or through traning to open it up. It is a gift to perceive things. Most commonly called the "sixth sense". It can provide information of the present, past, and future.
Exorcism: The act of driving out/warding off demons/spirits, from people, places, or things in the name of God.
Extra: A shape/face that appears in a picture which cannot be explained
Ghost: A form of an apparition, usually the visual appearance of a deceased human's spirit soul.
Ghost Hunt/Ghost Investigation: A ghost hunt is an informal attempt to simply sight or record a ghost in a location similar to others known to be haunted. A ghost investigation is a carefully planned and controled research project, set up to record paranormal activity, usually at a location known or presumed to be haunted.
Ghost Hunter: A person who searches for, finds, and sometimes is able to identify apparitions or the cause of spirit activity
Ghostbuster: A person who removes a ghost, poltergeist, spirit entity, or spectral activity from a haunted site.
Ghost Lights: Strange balls of light that appear in a certain location, often for a period of time. Some believe they are from natural origin pertaining to earthquakes, fault lines, railroad tracks, gases, or water sources. But in some cases the lights involved a person who was beheaded and the light is them searching for their missing head or the spirit who cannot find their grave.
Gray Lady: A gray lady is the ghost of a woman whose death has been caused by a loved one or who has died while waiting for her lover to return or appear.
Haunting (Infestation): A repeated apperance of phenomena accuring in a certain location. It is usually a combination of cold spots, apparitions, missing objects, smells, sights and/or sounds of paranormal activity. This phenomena is witnessed by one or more people.
Hallucination: A false or distorted perception of objects or events with a full belief in their reality. Ghosts, as we define them, are not hallucinations, becuase they have real, external cause.
Incubus: A demon which is a sexual oppressor of women.
Intelligent Haunting: A haunting that takes place around a person(s) or location that is caused by an intelligent/conscious spirit. It is usally the spirit of a person/animal who has passed on but has not crossed over. They interact with people trying to make its presence known through repeated sights, sounds, and/or smells.
Levitation: The raising of physical objects without any help from people or machines.
Marian Apparition: The apperance of the ghostlike figure of the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus.
Materialization: The sudden appearance of a person, object, or animal in front of witnesses.
Manifetation: The signs of a haunting. If it is demonic it will look unnatural in apperance. There will be a flaw.
Medium: A person who can channel spirits, or a spirit or entity communcates through.
Mesmerism: The induction of a sleep or trance state. Hypnotism.
Near-Death Experience (NDE): A near-death experience is undergone by a person who clinically dies or comes very close to actual death and is revived. Often, the person recalls extraordinary, even paranormal, visions of an afterlife.
Orbs: Round opaque lights that are seen on film and are believed to be spirits.
Paranormal: Anything out of the normal range of explanation.
Phantom: Ghosts who usually appear darker in color and may wear a cloak or robe.
Phaontom Hitchhiker: Requests a ride then suddenly disappears from inside the vehicle.
Phantom Traveler: A phantom traveler is the ghost of a human or animal that haunts a specific roadway, route, or vehickle.
Phenomenon (phenomena): An event that is an outward sign of the working of the laws of nature and extraordinary happenings.
Poltergeist: In German it means "noisy ghost". This phenomena usually happens when adolescents are going through puberty. Many believe it is kinetic energy.
Psychic: A person who is mosre sensitive beyond the normal means. They are able to see, hear, smell, and/or feel things out of what we believe to be normal. A psychic cold is when all thermal energy is removed, like heat from rooms and even from the body.
Psychokinesis (PK): Mind over matter. When a person can move objects and even bend them only using there mind. Most poltergeist cases are just this.
Quija Board: A board with the alphabet and numbers and yes or no on it. It is used as a way to contact the spirits.
Radio Voice Phenomenon (RVP): Receiving the voice of a deceased human being over a regular radio.
Rapping: Considered to be knocking sounds that are at a haunted location. It is one of the earliest forms of spirit communcation.
Residual Haunting: When an event is repeated. There is nothing really there but it looks, sounds, and/or smells like there is something going on. It is like watching a film over and over again. It is usually caused by the energy that has been imprinted on a location.
Retrocognition: A sudden time warp in which you find youself in the past, seeing or experiencing events of which you had no prior knowledge.
Scrying: A type of prophecy in which the fortune-teller reveals the future while staring into a mirror, onto some other shiny or reflective surface, or into a crystal.
Seance: When a group of people, with one acting as a medium, come together and try to talk to someone who has passed on.
Sensitive: Someone who's aware of or can feel (is sensitive to) paranormal presences that can't be picked up by the regular five senses.
Spirit: Believed to be a part of a person, like the soul. It is refered to as being the part that has not moved on after the persons death. The part of a person that is not phsyical.
Spirit Photography: A spirit photograph capture the image of a ghost on film. Many spirit photographs are supposedly intended as a mere portrait of a living human being, but when the film is developed, an ethereal ghostly face or figure can be seen hovering near a subject. Ectomist is also may also appear in spirit photographs.
Spiritualism: A belief system that spirits of the dead can (and do) communicate with living hujans in the material world.
Succubus: A demon which is a sexual oppressor of men.
Super-ESP: A powerful form of telepathy that allows a medium to unconsciously pick up information about a deceased person from other living people.
Supernatural: Something that occurs and/or exists by a means other than a force in nature. The activity caused by any force/agent that is not part of our physical earthly realm.
Teleportation: The appearance, disappearance or movements of bodies/physical objects through closed doors or over some amount of distance using paranormal means.