HON-H 240 – The Paranormal Realm: Ghosts, Werewolves, and Conversations with the Dead

The Paranormal Realm is designed to provide an introduction to paranormal entities and ideas, past and present. This is a vast topic, so the course will concentrate on certain areas.

We’ll look at the various types of ghosts and hauntings, and explore the belief in ghosts and poltergeists in ancient times as well as in the present. The course will also investigate the organized belief of Spiritualism in America and the British Isles, which was mostly involved in trying to contact the spirits of departed individuals and had such famous supporters such as Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain. We will also look briefly at the resurgence of New Age Spiritualism in America, and examine Spiritism in Brazil and the Caribbean.

The millennium has witnessed new members of the paranormal realm: Chupacabras, Shadow People, and the Black-Eyed Children. We’ll also look at some of the most recent phenomena, such as the Dog Men and Wolf Men of the upper Midwest, and we may briefly examine the new, ultraterrestrial or trans-dimensional theories of UFO sightings, Bigfoot, Lizard Men, and other weird phenomena.

The course will also include a brief discussion of the new digital ghost hunting (as in shows like Ghost Adventures). Methods of documenting paranormal phenomena will be discussed.

From the student perspective, an interdisciplinary approach can be used to illuminate paranormal phenomena, possibly involving history, folklore, parapsychology, psychology, sociology, and cultural anthropology.  This is a ghost-friendly course. The purpose is not to ridicule any sort of belief, but rather to illustrate how such phenomena relate to the rich matrix of human experience.