Authorities Keep Gaslighting Those Having Out-of-Body Experiences

 In my July 2025 post "When Gaslighting Psychiatric Mudslinging Defames Healthy NDE and OBE Observers" (which you can read here) I documented some appalling gaslighting by authorities trying to shame, defame and pathologize healthy witnesses of the paranormal. The American Heritage Dictionary defines the word "gaslight" to mean this: "To psychologically manipulate (someone) so that they question their memories, perception, or sanity." 

Below is an infographic on gaslighting, one I modified from an output of Google Gemini:

Sociologist Paige Sweet defines gaslighting as "making someone seem or feel unstable, irrational and not credible, making them feel like what they’re seeing or experiencing isn’t real, that they’re making it up, that no one else will believe them.” The visual below shows two examples of gaslighting:

The visual below shows two other examples of gaslighting:

The latest example of gaslighting of witnesses of the paranormal is an article by neuroscientist Marina Weiler entitled " 'Am I Crazy?' Understanding Out-of-Body Feelings." Weiler attempts to reframe the well-documented fact of out-of-body experiences (a type of anomalous visual perception) as a mere "feeling." Instead of referring to out-of-body experiences, her title refers to "out-of-body feelings." Of course, there is a world of difference between an experience and a perception (on one hand), and a mere feeling (on the other hand). You may go to a reputed haunted house, and get a spooky feeling; but that counts for very little. If, on the other hand, you actually see a translucent apparition floating about, that is a perception, and it counts for very much as evidence. 

Are out-of-body experiences mere "feelings"? No, they are not. They are something much more than mere feelings: they are perceptions and observational experiences. In my post "Neuroscientists Cannot Credibly Explain Any of These 11 Features of Out-of-Body Experiences" which you can read here, I describe nine common features of out-of-body experiences, giving abundant examples of cases in which each of the features was reported. The features were these:

1. Feature #1: observing one's own body from outside it, typically from a horizontal position, at a distance of about two meters above it, or from a location near the ceiling.
2. Feature #2:  a strong feeling of euphoria or exaltation during an out-of-body experience
3. Feature #3:  an experience of being able to pass-through matter while having an out-of-body experience.
4. Feature #4:  an experience of having enhanced senses during an out-of-body experience, which may include the ability to see through walls or look inside the body as if you had x-ray eyes, or the ability to see a 360 degree view.
5. Feature #5: an experience of being connected to the body while outside of it, sometimes with there being a cord-like or elastic structure between the observer outside of the body and his own body.
6. Feature #6:  an experience of encountering one or more spiritual or non-physical entities (or deceased people) while having an out-of-body experience.
7. Feature #7:  an experience of completely leaving the location of the body, while traveling to other earthly locations or unearthly locations.
8. Feature #8:  an out-of-body experience experience that includes observations of things that should have been impossible for a person to observe, giving his physical position.
9. Feature #9:  an experience of having an exalted intellect or speeded-up mind during an out-of-body experience.

Only one of these nine features can be called a "feeling." So it is grossly misleading to be calling out-of-body experiences "feelings," and to try to reframe out-of-body experiences as "out-of-body feelings." 

Engaging in some psychiatric mudslinging, Weiler claims, "People who'd had a disembodiment feeling showed more mental health diagnoses, more treatment history, and higher dissociation and childhood trauma." This statement includes a reference to a paper of hers hidden behind a paywall. The abstract of the paper makes no such claim, and we read no numerically specific claim of such an effect in the snippets of the paper you can read here. Should we bother to pay money paying for such paper? No, much better to just assume that no strong evidence was found of any such effect, because of the failure to report numerical specifics of any such effect in the paper's abstract or snippets. Almost always when scientists get noteworthy results giving decent evidence of an effect, they mention the specifics of such results in the abstracts of their paper. 

Gaslighting is a game of "shame, blame and defame the witness." Weiler seems to play some of that game when she tries to associate  having out-of-experiences with shame. She says, "In my inbox, I regularly hear from people carrying enormous shame around disembodiment feelings like hers, afraid to tell even those closest to them." You get her drift? It sounds kind of like: "Did you have an out-of-body experience? Be ashamed. Be very ashamed!" There is actually no reason why anyone should be ashamed of having a psychic experience, and surveys show that a large fraction of the population have such experiences.  You can read about such surveys here. 

It sounds like gaslighting when Weiler states this: "The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5) defines depersonalization/derealization disorder as persistent episodes of feeling detached from one's own body, thoughts, or surroundings—a description sitting uncomfortably close to out-of-body experiences." But typically an out-of-body experience is a one-shot affair, happening only one time in someone's life; and typically that one time is when someone had a close encounter with death such as a cardiac arrest. There is no legitimacy in Weiler's attempt to compare such once-in-a-lifetime events with " persistent episodes of feeling detached from one's own body, thoughts, or surroundings."

A site with the title of "The Brains Blog" can be found at the URL of https://philosophyofbrains.com/.  It has a byline of "Since 2005, a leading forum for work in the philosophy and science of mind." Searching for the term "out-of-body experience" using the search tool at the site, I get only one article using that term in its title. It's an article with the gaslighting title "What do out of body experiences tell us about self-consciousness; Or, Disorders of Self-Consciousness Part 5." The psychologist author makes a bad description of the conditions under which out-of-body experiences occur, failing to mention that they occur during close encounters with death such as cardiac arrest. I am left with the impression that the brain experts long writing at the Brains Blog have failed to do their homework in adequately studying this topic of out-of-body experiences so relevant to "the philosophy and science of mind."

Beware of gaslighting authorities who act like the guy below, who tries to gin up a personality defect from some one-shot observational report, while getting all confused between "something someone saw" and "something someone felt":

Postscript: I looked up some of the papers of Marina Weiler on Google Scholar. She has some papers on out-of-body experiences, which are mostly behind paywalls. Her paper "Distinguishing out-of-body experiences from lucid dreaming: a phenomenological analysis" is a paper that seems to gaslight those having out-of-body experiences, by trying to conflate out-of-body experiences with a type of vivid dreaming. Saying things like "maybe you were just dreaming" is a common type of gaslighting. The most prominent cases of out-of-body experiences occur during cardiac arrest, when the brain has shut down in a state of asystole, with brain waves appearing only as flat lines. Neither hallucinations nor dreams are possible during such a state, a fact which cripples Weiler's attempted explanations of out-of-body experiences. 

In that paper by Weiler we have this very bad misstatement: "Nonetheless, some have found that only a small percentage (4.5%) of reported OBEs occur during awake states (Green, 1968b), indicating that the majority of OBEs occur during sleep states." The reference is to the 1968 book "Out-of-the-body Experiences" by Celia Green, which you can read here. The book describes a major survey of out-of-body experiences conducted by Green, in original research.  Searching for that figure of 4.5% in the text of that book, I cannot find it. But I do find statements in that book stating the opposite. On page 85 the book states, "Of the subjects of single cases, 56.5 per cent actually claimed to have been more awake and keenly observant than usual." On page 20 the book states, "Twelve per cent of the 'single' cases studied were initiated while the subject was asleep." 

On page 61 of Green's book we read this: "Sixty-one percent of subjects report having had only one ecsomatic experience."  The book earlier defined "ecsomatic experience" as an out-of-body experience. This data is consistent with my claim earlier in this post that "typically an out-of-body experience is a one-shot affair, happening only one time in someone's life," a reality that discredits Weiler's attempt to link out-of-body experiences and types of psychiatric phenomena happening more than once in a lifetime. 

On page 42 of Green's book she states this: "Eighty-one percent of the subjects of 'single' ecsomatic [out-of-body experience] cases stated that, while they were apparently out of their bodies, they seemed to see their physical bodies from outside." So it makes no sense at all when Weiler states in her paper that "our proposed definition suggests that OBEs [out-of-body experiences] should not be defined by the subject’s ability to perceive their own body from a third-person perspective."

Weiler's paper "Neuroimaging studies of extra-sensory perception: A systematic and critical review" has the wrong title, as the studies reviewed are almost all EEG brain-wave studies that do not involve the creation of any images. But quite foolishly, some neuroscientists have started to say that EEG studies that involve no images are examples of "neuroimaging." It's just another of endless examples of defective assertions by today's neuroscientists.  

Such a paper causes me to wonder: why would someone focus on the tiny number of studies involving attempts to get neural correlates of extra-sensory perception, rather than seriously studying the vastly larger body of ESP tests that were done when a subject was not being brain-scanned and was not connected to an EEG device?  The very idea of looking for a neural correlate of extrasensory perception (ESP) makes little sense. ESP is a particularly clear example of a mental capability that cannot be explained by brain activity. That's why so many neuroscientists refuse to seriously study the 200 years of evidence for ESP and psi -- because such evidence conflicts with their "brains make minds" dogma.

A recent University of Virginia press release discusses an experiment Marina Weiler did involving people trying to have out-of-body experiences:

"The descriptions the participants gave of the objects on the laptop screen did not prove statistically more accurate than what could be expected from guessing. But during interviews afterward, one participant described how a researcher in another room, behind closed doors, had been seated on the left looking at a laptop screen while another researcher was farther back reading a book. Another participant described how a researcher had been seated on the right, taking notes, while a second was sitting on the left at the computer.

Trial records confirmed both descriptions were correct at the time of the participants’ sessions. Further, there was no way the participants could have seen the researchers, according to the trial organizers.

That has prompted Weiler and her collaborators to propose that the targets provided during OBE trials may play important roles in determining outcomes. It’s possible, they suggest, that memorable, distinctive or emotionally engaging targets may be easier for participants to visualize. "

That sounds like a failure to put two and two together. The reported result should make you suspect that out-of-body experiences can actually occur or that extrasensory perception can actually occur, rather than creating some mere opinion about what type of targets are easiest for a person to visualize. 

They Use the Word "Delirium" to Gaslight the Dying

Dying people often report seeing visions or apparitions.  But skeptics often try to sweep under the rug such experiences, by dismissing them as "delirium." 

Researching the topic of deathbed visions, Karlis Osis and Erlendur Haraldsson conducted research surveys of hospital workers. In a July 1977 paper published in Volume 71, Number 3 of the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, they reported 178 cases of dying people who reported seeing an apparition of a dead person (Table 1). The number was much higher than the 68 who reported an apparition of a living person. The majority of these apparitions were described as having a purpose of being there to "take away" the dying person.  In the US there was a very high percentage of deathbed apparitions identified as a mother, father, spouse, sibling or offspring, while in India there was a relatively high percentage of apparitions identified as unidentified figures (Table 2). Roughly half of the people reporting such visions were characterized as having a consciousness of "clear," rather than "mildly impaired," "severely impaired" or "fluctuating" (Table 3). Registered users of www.archive.org can read the book describing this research, using the links here or here or here.  

We read the following on a page of the Psi Encylopedia describing deathbed visions:

"In 2017, Una MacConville carried out a study with Irish health care professionals. The carers reported that 45% of their patients spoke of visions of deceased relatives, often joyful experiences that bring a sense of peace and comfort."

 Some examples of deathbed visions can be found here and here and here.   A survey of family members of deceased Japanese found that 21% reported deathbed visions. A study of 103 subjects in India reports this: "Thirty of these dying persons displayed behavior consistent with deathbed visions-interacting or speaking with deceased relatives, mostly their dead parents." A study of 102 families in the Republic of Moldava found that "37 cases demonstrated classic features of deathbed visions--reports of seeing dead relatives or friends communicating to the dying person." 

A 1949 book states this: 

"It is a commonplace truth, observed by many physicians and clergymen, that a dying person, when conscious near the moment of death, acts or speaks as if he saw standing near loved ones who have already died. Dr. Russell Conwell told Bruce Barton in the interview quoted earlier in another connection, that he had witnessed this phenomenon 'literally hundreds of times.' "

The 2024 paper "Nurses' encounters with patients having end-of-life dreams and visions in an acute care setting – A cross-sectional survey study" reports this: "Fifty-seven nurses participated from a workforce of 169 (34% response rate), of whom 35 (61%) reported they had encountered end-of-life dreams and visions." We read this: 

"A meta-analysis of studies of estimates of patient reports indicated that 77% (95% confidence intervals [CI] 69%–84%) of people dying an ‘expected death’ may report an ELDV [end-of-life dream or vision]  (Hession et al., 2022). Across the world, studies provide consistent findings about ELDV." 

The survey gives us these interesting results for the 55 of 57 participants who answered "Yes" to one or more of the survey questions (I will round down the percentages). The percentages seem to refer to anything that the respondents either witnessed themselves or things the respondents observed other people reporting. 

• "Visions of dead relatives or religious figures ‘collecting’ or ‘taking away’ the dying person": 45%. 
• "Visions of dead relatives sitting on or near the patient's bed providing emotional warmth and comfort":  56%.
• "Patients reporting a sense of going back and forth from a different reality during the dying process": 32%
• "Coincidences, usually reported by friends and family of the person who is dying who say that the dying person has visited them at the time of death":  40%.
• "Dying dreams or visions through which the patient seems to be comforted and prepared for death": 38%
• "A comatose patient suddenly becomes alert enough to coherently say goodbye to loved ones at the bedside":  46%.

In the periodical here, the August 8, 1935 edition of the periodical Light, Constance Buttenshaw describes a deathbed vision of her dying mother:

"It was very clear that she saw two Beings standing at the foot of her bed. 'Who are those beautiful tall people at the foot of my bed? ' she asked, and from then she could hardly take her adoring and beseeching eyes away from them. She afterwards explained to us that they had come for her and were waiting to lead her Home. She was afraid, almost desperately at times, that they would go without her. She then began a most vivid description of what she saw. Her eyes left the confines of the room and seemed to be gazing beyond at the most stupendous scenes. She used words of beauty and description that she would not have used normally. In trying to describe colours she failed, saying: ' You have no words to describe the colours or beautiful sounds in your language.'  She saw beyond the Guardians at the bed a very lovely scene of river, valley, and mountain pass, through which she said she saw throngs of people passing. She said : ' I was here last year, I wonder if I ought to have stayed, don’t hold me back this time'  (see above) and, smiling to the Guardians, she said : ' I shall soon be ready, please don’t let them go without me.' ... All through these hours, from 3 p.m. to 11, she at no time had a distraught or strained look in her eyes nor any suspicion of senility....

There appeared to her to be, among many other things, people looking after and playing with many children in a beautiful garden full of flowers. Also, she several times mentioned a Being : ' It is not Alfred' (my husband), she said, ' but he is working out ideas, putting them into Alfred’s head and helping him to design things.'  And so on, hour after hour, using beautiful sentences, laughing at times at us and with us in the sweetest way, she crept nearer and nearer to the end (I prefer beginning), while we sat enthralled and oblivious of time.   She began to droop a little, quite pleasantly, just tired with all her wonderful marvels, but always saw vividly the waiting figures whom she from time to time unconsciously included by a look or word with us, so real they were to her. Her general anxiety was that her tenacious body would again prevent her spirit leaving. At last she sank back very gently. She appeared to be seeing and talking to my father, who had died some years before... Then she sank back smiling and passed on."

Many have heard about what are called veridical near-death experiences, which are cases in which someone seems to acquire knowledge during a near-death experience that he could not have got through normal sensory means. Many examples of such veridical near-death experiences are discussed here.  A lesser-known type of thing is what we may call a veridical deathbed vision. In such a vision a person may seem to learn of things he never discovered through normal sensory means. One example of a veridical deathbed vision is discussed in the 1921 newspaper account below, which you can read here. 

But there is a technique that materialists try to use to sweep under the rug such deathbed visions. The technique is to call them examples of delirium.  What is meant by the word "delirium"? It turns out that the word "delirium" is defined in a ridiculously broad way. It's a term meaning any change in mental state that comes on quickly. 

The Mayo Clinic page on the topic of delirium defines the term in a ridiculously broad way.  The page lists the following as symptoms of delirium:

"Anxiety, fear or distrust of others

Depression

A short temper or anger

A sense of feeling elated

Lack of interest and emotion

Quick changes in mood

Personality changes

Seeing things that others don't see

Being restless, anxious or combative

Calling out, moaning or making other sounds

Being quiet and withdrawn — especially in older adults

Slowed movement or being sluggish

Changes in sleep habits.

A switched night-day sleep-wake cycle"

A description of delirium so broad is just perfect for those who want to gaslight the dying by sweeping under the rug their reports  of  deathbed visions. You start out with a word "delirium" that suggests the idea of hallucinations to 90% of the people who hear the word. Then you stretch the definition so much so that it applies to almost anyone with the slightest deviation from perfect mental normality.  So then you can talk like this:

"Was your dying relative feeling a little anxious?  She was delirious. Was she feeling elated? She was delirious. Did she act a little restless in bed? She was delirious. Was there any change in her sleep habits? She was delirious. Did her mood change? She was delirious. Did she seem uninterested in what you were saying? She was delirious. Did she get a little angry some time? She was delirious."

Now, having defined "delirium" in so insanely broad a way, so that it applies to almost any slight deviation from perfect normality, the stage has been set for sweeping under the rug reports of deathbed visions.  The skeptic can then say that almost all dying people are delirious, so we shouldn't pay attention to anything they report.  Given that 90% of the people who hear the word "delirious" think of hallucinations, this technique may be effective.  But it is an appalling piece of word trickery and gaslighting. 

If you happen to be present at the deathbed of your relative, note carefully what they say, and do not tell them they are hallucinating or delirious, because you do not know such a thing. Tender affection is appropriate behavior to a dying relative, not gaslighting. 

Postscript: A web site today has an article on another type of deathbed phenomenon, one I discuss in my posts here.  The New York Times also has an article on this phenomenon.  We have an interesting quote by a major neuroscientist : 

"But in his 2024 book, 'Lucid Dying,'  Parnia firmly staked his position in the mind-body debate. 'We are at the cusp of the exploration of a new frontier in science,' he wrote, declaring himself 'quite optimistic that the nature of human consciousness — our very selfhood — will be discovered to be a flux of energy like electromagnetic waves that interacts with the brain and body but is not produced by them.' "

Pathologizing Psychologists Fail to Explain Apparition Sightings

In my widely-read post "Pathologizing Scientists May Try to Stigmatize Witnesses of the Spooky," I described the bungling methods of a pair of scientists who have attempted to spread insinuations of psychological problems in people reporting that they saw spooky things. The latest example of bungling work of this type by a pathologizing scientist comes in the form of an article at "The Conversation" site, an article by psychologist Melissa Maffeo. The article is entitled " Is my brain wired to never see a ghost? A psychologist on three factors that make a paranormal experience more likely." We get more evidence of mudslinging weaponized psychology,  resembling the folly depicted below. 

In the article Maffeo shows no evidence of having studied apparition sightings. She cites not one single report of anyone who claimed to see an apparition. A look at her papers on Google Scholar shows no papers showing signs of scholarship of reports of apparition sightings. 

Maffeo offers three very lame explanations for why people may see apparitions. Her first attempt at an explanation (which she called "Haunted Factor #1") is the extremely lame explanation of "environmental stimuli." She starts out by referring to electromagnetic fields, which can be measured by a portable EMF detector sometimes marketed as a "ghost detector."  

EMF fields might explain why you might get a higher-than-expected reading on an EMF device. But EMF fields are worthless in explaining apparition sightings. I have published 85 posts describing apparition sightings, which you can read here (continue to press Older Posts at the bottom right to read them all). Not one of the many hundreds of apparition sightings I describe involved a case in which someone got a high EMF reading while reporting seeing an apparition about the same time. 

Maffeo describes a scientific study in which people were put in a special room, and bombarded with infrasound and complex electromagnetic fields (EMFs). The study's paper found that "although many participants reported anomalous sensations of various kinds, the number reported was unrelated to experimental condition."  The paper mentions subjects reporting "mildly anomalous sensations," but does not mention any subject reporting seeing an apparition. The paper says, "The results reported do not support the idea that complex EMFs play a role in inducing anomalous experience."  So Maffeo's "Haunted Factor #1" is a flop as an explanation for people seeing apparitions. 

Maffeo lists "Neurological Mixups" as "Haunted Factor #2." She refers to a study involving an epilepsy patient who had electrodes implanted in her brain. After an electrical current was sent to her brain, the female supposedly reported a "creepy feeling that somebody is close by."  The study fails to qualify as good evidence, because we do not have any transcripts of interviews in which this effect was reported. We merely have some short quotes from a subject, quotes which are not full sentences; and we do not know whether these quotes are in response to leading questions designed to elicit particular types of anomalous reports from the subject. In any case, what was reported was not an apparition sighting, and the case is of no value in explaining apparition sightings in people who do not have electrodes implanted in their brains, people with brains not being artificially stimulated by electricity sent into the brain from an outside source. 

Maffeo also refers to the 2002 paper "Stimulating illusory own-body perceptions." This 2002 paper has some quotes by a subject who the authors had brain-zapped with electricity, by inserting electrodes in her brain. The authors have attempted to portray this as evidence of an artificially induced out-of-body experience. But the only sentence that the paper quotes from the subject is one that does not indicate a full out-of-body experience. That sentence is this: "I see myself lying in bed, from above, but I only see my legs and lower trunk." That sounds like some weird electricity-induced perception anomaly that is not properly described as an out-of-body experience. During an out-of-body experience a person will typically report leaving his body and seeing his entire body (not just the legs and lower trunk) from outside of the body. Eager to report some experimental induction of an out-of-body experience, our authors seem to have taken some account that does not match those of out-of-body experiences, and called that an out-of-body experience. The authors make this claim: "Two further stimulations induced the same sensation, which included an instantaneous feeling of 'lightness' and 'floating' about two metres above the bed, close to the ceiling." Since this is not an actual full-sentence quote from the subject, it has very little value as evidence. A second-hand account of a person's weird experience during brain zapping (by some other person who did not have that experience) is pretty worthless as evidence. What would we have read from a transcript of what the subject said, one including any questions the subject was asked? We have no idea. 

The paper did nothing to explain out-of-body experiences, since such things occur in people who do not have electrodes in their heads, and are not receiving inputs of electricity from an outside source. And the paper does nothing to explain apparition sightings. 

The final part of Maffeo's discussing of her "Haunted Factor #2" is a discussion of the rare phenomenon of sleep paralysis. This does nothing to explain 95% of apparition sightings and 95% of out-of-body experiences, which do not occur during any such sleep paralysis. 

Maffeo then offers a "Haunted Factor #3" of "Personality Traits." Maffeo now moves into pathologizing mode, playing the game of "stigmatize the witnesses." She claims, "There’s a growing body of research that suggests people with certain personality traits are more likely to believe in the paranormal." She links to a page that has the journal Nature as its source, but strangely has no listed author.  It's an "AI overview" page that reads like AI slop. 

Maffeo then refers to the very dubious socially-constructed concept of "schizotypy." She states this:

"There’s a growing body of research that suggests people with certain personality traits are more likely to believe in the paranormal. For instance, some people are hyperaware of unconscious perceptions and ideas, which then permeate their consciousness. Often, these traits are associated with magical thinking, distorted or unusual thoughts, disorganized behavior and, sometimes, trouble forming close relationships. Psychologists refer to this set of traits as schizotypy. They’re related to schizophrenia, although being high in schizotypy doesn’t mean you will be diagnosed with the disorder of schizophrenia. People with high levels of schizotypy are more likely to believe in the paranormal."

I quote in the appendix of this post how Peter C. Gøtzsche, MD discusses this concept of "schizotypy," and states that "This test for schizotypy is bogus." The term "schizotypy" seems to have been hoisted as a smear word to stigmatize and shame various nonconformists or believers in things that materialists rather that you not believe in. In the appendix of this post Gøtzsche describes a checklist for "schizotypy" characteristics, which he says is similar to one on a page of the Mayo Clinic website. He does not mention that one of the items on that Mayo Clinic checklist is "belief in special powers, such as mental telepathy." And looking at the paper here and the paper here offering a "scale" to assess "schizotypy," I see in both a checklist in which anyone reporting experience with ESP or a sixth sense would be judged to have a "symptom of schizotypy." So Matteo's claim that "people with high levels of schizotypy are more likely to believe in the paranormal" is pretty meaningless,  given that schizotypy has been defined so that anyone who believes in telepathy will score higher on a "schizotypy checklist." 

What is going on here is weaponized psychology involving circular reasoning.  A particular psychiatric-sounding term of abuse "schizotypy" was invented, without anyone giving a cohesive definition of such a term. Some alleged "characteristics of schizotypy" were arbitrarily listed, including "odd beliefs or magical thinking that’s inconsistent with cultural norms,"  "odd thinking and speech patterns," and "belief in special powers, such as mental telepathy."  Now anyone who fails to speak like a materialist would (and anyone who deeply studies the two hundred years of evidence for ESP) can then be conveniently shamed and stigmatized as being guilty of "schizotypy." This seems like very bad psychology bungling by pathologizing psychologists eager to attach badges of shame on sane well-functioning people. The nebulous term "schizotypy" is a not-really-scientific term of abuse similar to the equally nebulous and not-really-scientific term of abuse "transliminality" discussed here. 

Because the experimental evidence for ESP includes very well-replicated results such as the Ganzfeld experiments and extremely convincing results such as reported by professors Rhine and Riess, we should note that when psychologists include belief in telepathy as a symptom on a checklist of a socially constructed syndrome they call "schizotypy" (consisting of an arbitrary disjointed potpourri of unconnected "symptoms"), such psychologists have gone very far astray. It's kind of like someone inventing a checklist of 10 "symptoms" of something he decides to call "Wilkinson's Syndrome," and listing belief in the reality of social injustice as one of the symptoms. 

A recent paper ("Personality Facets Systematically Relate to Nonordinary Experiences") attempted to look for a relation between personality characteristics and reports of paranormal experiences. Contrary to Matteo's claim of a link between personality traits and reports of the paranormal, the paper failed to find any strong evidence of such a link. 

Maffeo seems to be engaging in the type of mudslinging that goes on when someone vaguely tries to tar someone by suggesting "associations" or "similarities" between that person and some other unsavory-seeming or despised type of person. She lists no real evidence of a correlation between this "schizotypy" and schizophrenia, no evidence that people who reported apparitions have this "schizotypy," and no evidence that people who see apparitions have schizophrenia.  The type of hallucinations typically occurring in schizophrenia are auditory hallucinations, in which people hear voices, rather than seeing human forms. 

Wrapping things up, Maffeo offers the lamest attempt to explain apparition sightings, the kind of explanation that would probably only be offered by someone who had failed to decently study reports of such sightings. She states this:

"Consider a person who believes in paranormal phenomena who experiences a natural change in electromagnetic fields or an episode of sleep paralysis. Those experiences induce unusual sensations that this person cannot explain. Searching for meaning in ambiguity, this person distorts their distinction between internally and externally generated sensations. They settle on the only explanation that makes sense to them – that this strange feeling they experienced was a ghost."

This fails miserably as an explanation for apparition sightings. There is zero evidence that people reporting apparition sightings ever experienced any such thing as "a natural change in electromagnetic fields"; and goofy, reckless experiments bombarding people with electromagnetic fields fail to ever produce apparition sightings. The vast majority of reports of apparition sightings (more than 95%) occur in people who are not experiencing any such thing as "sleep paralysis"; and probably 90% of them are reports from people who were not lying down when the reported event occurred. And very few of the rare people who report "sleep paralysis"  report seeing apparitions. Also, in reports of apparition sightings there is only rarely a claim of an unusual sensation before the apparition was seen. 

Maffeo's final reference to a paper is a reference to a paper in which some 22 people were taken to a building, with half of them being told that the location was haunted. The paper authors say "our model predicts that demand characteristics such as the mere suggestion that a location is haunted are also sufficient to induce poltergeist-like perceptions such as reports of a 'sensed presence,'  apparitions, or other anomalous sensations." But contrary to such a prediction, none of the 11 people told that the house was haunted reported seeing an apparition. So the paper gives no support for Matteo's insinuation that belief in the paranormal helps explain apparition sightings. 

Maffeo hasn't done anything at all to explain apparition sightings. All that she has given is another sad example of weaponized psychology in which psychologists seem to be eager to pathologize healthy witnesses of the spooky.

Maffeo ends her article with these "holier than thou" sentences trying to suggest her superiority to the witnesses she has tried to stigmatize:

"I’m pretty sure I don’t have personality traits like schizotypy. I don’t believe in the paranormal. And I don’t think I’ll ever see a ghost."

But this smug assertion of superiority may be inappropriate at the end of an article that fails so badly to explain what it is trying to explain. 

One of the reasons why apparition sightings cannot be explained by anything Maffeo mentions is that there are very many cases of people who saw an apparition of someone they did not know had died, with the witness soon learning the person did die at about the time the apparition was seen (discussed in the 18 posts here). Also not explained by anything Maffeo mentions is the fact that we often get reports of multiple witnesses seeing the same apparition. To read about such reports, see my posts below:

When an Apparition Is Seen by Not Just One

When Apparitions Get Observed by Not Just One

When an Apparition Is Seen by Multiple Observers: 17 Cases

When an Apparition Is Seen by Multiple Observers: 17 More Cases
More Apparitions Seen by Multiple Observers
Many an Apparition Is Seen by More Than One
Still More Apparitions Seen by Multiple Observers

More Apparitions Seen by Multiple Witnesses

When Multiple Witnesses See the Same Apparition

Yet More Apparitions Seen by Multiple Witnesses

When Apparitions Get Multiple Witnesses

When Apparitions Are Seen by Multiple Witnesses

Many Said They Saw Nelly Butler's Apparition

While materialists would like to dismiss apparitions as a relic of the past, a look at the frequency of the term "ghost" using the Google Ngram viewer shows no sign that references to ghosts or apparitions are fading away. To the contrary, as shown below, the 21st century is showing a strong uptick in references to ghosts. 

Appendix: Gøtzsche on Schizotypy

In a page at the Mad in America website (which has many great articles exposing the overconfident errors of psychiatrists), Peter C. Gøtzsche, MD  refers to "schizotypy" as "a very vague and highly dubious concept." Below is a quote from an article at the Mad at America site, an article in which  Peter C. Gøtzsche, MD discusses this dubious socially constructed term "schizotypy", which does not correspond to any distinct thing in human minds. I'll quote almost all of what he says, although I suspend judgment about some of his complaints about psychiatrists. He states this:

Schizotypy is a very strange construct. I came across this diagnosis because a Danish filmmaker I worked with who made the film “Diagnosing Psychiatry,” got the diagnosis when she became stressed over a difficult divorce.

She jokes about this diagnosis in her film, and I looked it up on the Internet where there was a screening test for schizotypal personality disorder. The test reflects quite well how this construct is described on the Mayo Clinical website and by the DSM. There were nine questions and you should reply true or false, or yes or no, to each one.

1. “Incorrect interpretations of events, such as a feeling that something which is actually harmless or inoffensive has a direct personal meaning.” This is a very vague question, and many people interpret events incorrectly or take them personally.
2. “Odd beliefs or magical thinking that’s inconsistent with cultural norms.” That’s an interesting one. In Denmark, a young psychiatrist disagreed with the odd cultural norm at the department, which was to institute preventative treatment with neuroleptics for schizotypy. Is this psychiatrist then abnormal?
3. “Unusual perceptions, including illusions.” Most psychiatrists would need to say yes to this question. Just think about the illusion called the chemical imbalance.
4. “Odd thinking and speech patterns.” Surely, most psychiatrists display odd thinking, maintaining the lie about the chemical imbalance and many other lies, and also denying totally what other people see clearly, including their own patients, e.g. that psychiatric drugs do more harm than good.
5. “Suspicious or paranoid thoughts, such as the belief that someone’s out to get you.” If you are detained in a psychiatric department, such a reaction is normal and understandable. The staff surely is out to “get you,” namely to treat you forcefully with neuroleptics against your will. When psychiatric leaders use terms about their opponents such as “antipsychiatry” and “conspiracy,” can it then be considered a “yes” to item 5?
6. “Flat emotions, appearing aloof and isolated.” This is what psychiatric drugs do to people, so if they weren’t abnormal to begin with, the psychiatrists will ensure that they become abnormal.
7. “Odd, eccentric or peculiar behaviour or appearance.” One definition of madness is doing the same thing again and again expecting a different result, which is what psychiatrists do all the time. I would call that an odd, eccentric and peculiar behaviour.
8. “Lack of close friends or confidants other than relatives.” This is what psychiatric drugs do to people, particularly neuroleptics.... 
9. “Excessive social anxiety that doesn’t diminish with familiarity.” If you are detained in a psychiatric department, such a reaction is normal and understandable.

There was no explanation about the number of points needed for a diagnosis, so I tried the test a couple of times. If you have 5 out of 9 positive replies, you are told: “You are suffering from Schizotypal Personality Disorder … You must talk with a professional mental health expert.”

If you have 4 out of 9, the message is: “You have some symptoms and might be suffering from this disorder. You have got few points but according to DSM if you agree with three or four questions on this test, you might have developed this personality disorder. Please check with your mental expert.”

This test for schizotypy is bogus. Amusingly, many psychiatrists would be suspected of having this disorder because they test positive for items 3, 4 and 7, and they would then need to consult a “mental expert” who would likely also have 3 positives if tested. What is less amusing is that the test provides circular evidence for the patients who, even if they are normal, might test positive when they have been treated inhumanely by psychiatrists, including being forcefully treated with neuroleptics.

Pathologizing Scientists May Try to Stigmatize Witnesses of the Spooky

The Society for Scientific Exploration or SSE is an organization doing research on the anomalous and the paranormal. The SSE publishes a monthly bulletin called the Explorer, and a quarterly journal with back editions you can read here, without being blocked by a paywall. 

The current leader of the SSE is James Houran. Houran makes frequent use of the extremely elastic "shame and slur them" jargon term "transliminality," a not-really-scientific term presumably designed to stigmatize various witnesses or believers in reasonable things as being guilty of "fantasy proneness" or "magical ideation."  The word "transliminality" has appeared in the titles of ten papers Houran has authored or co-authored. In one paper Houran uses that term "transliminality" 15 times, and the term "transliminal" 5 times.  The definition he gives of the term "transliminality" in one paper is the nonsensical-sounding definition of "a hypothesized tendency for psychological material to cross thresholds into or out of consciousness." 

In the latest edition of the SSE's Explorer, we have a defense of the term "Haunted People Syndrome," which seems to be a term used by a very tiny group of psychologists to try to pathologize or stigmatize some witnesses of the paranormal, to make them sound psychologically disturbed.  The word "pathologize" is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as "to unfairly or wrongly consider something or someone as a problem, especially a medical problem."

The term "Haunted People Syndrome" was coined in 2019 by a group of researchers including Ciarán O’Keeffe and James Houran. In the latest edition of the Explorer, we read a defense of that term "Haunted People Syndrome," denying that it is a term that pathologizes witnesses of the paranormal. Referring to the term "Haunted People Syndrome", someone incorrectly claims "the HP-S model is not diagnostic or pathologizing." That is not correct, because this HP-S model is pathologizing. 

The writer of the Explorer article is not identified, but we may suspect it is either Houran (currently in charge of the Society for Scientific Exploration) or Ciarán O’Keeffe, who is thanked at the end of the article. Misspeaking badly, the Explorer writer claims this:

"Unfortunately, the technical term 'syndrome' is often misread by non‑specialists as implying a psychiatric disorder or condition. Instead, as is common in behavioral sciences, it refers to a cluster of signs, symptoms, or features with no established cause. It is a descriptive label—not a diagnostic one—and carries no implication of pathology."

That is not correct. The term "syndrome" definitely does carry an insinuation of pathology.

The quote below from the original 2019 paper introducing the term "Haunted People Syndrome" should make you suspect that the authors such as Houran and O’Keeffe were introducing the term in an attempt to pathologize or stigmatize some witnesses of the paranormal or people reporting spooky events: 

"The term 'syndrome' refers to a set of signs and symptoms that occur together to characterise an abnormality or condition (British Medical Association, 2018), therefore the concept of HP-S [Haunted People Syndrome] most obviously encompasses percipients within the general population who invoke labels of ghosts or other supernatural agencies to explain a specific set of anomalous events that often are perceived recurrently." 

In that paper the authors suggest that this "Haunted People Syndrome" tag of shame should be applied to people such as witnesses who report "apparent object movements, malfunctioning of electrical or mechanical equipment, and inexplicable percussive sounds like raps or knockings." I made a very exhaustive study of the very many people in the nineteenth century who reported the extremely widely-reported phenomenon of mysterious raps, focusing on the original, earliest published reports of such cases. I found no sign at all that any of the reports could be explained by any theory of psychological disturbance in some individual. To the contrary, the most notable feature of such reports is how very often they occurred as reports in which multiple witnesses (very often more than three) were simultaneously reporting hearing the strange sounds occurring very loudly. My posts documenting such occurrences can be read using the link here leading to a free online book collecting the posts. 

A look at the papers co-authored by Houran on the topic of this "haunted people syndrome" leaves me with a very clear impression that the authors wish to stigmatize, pathologize and delegitimize certain types of witnesses of the spooky.  For example in the paper here Houran states that his "Haunted People Syndrome" or HP-S "equates the psychological drivers of these anomalous events to some of the fundamental mechanisms that stoke outbreaks of mass (contagious) psychogenic illness or autohypnotic phenomena." And in the paper here Houran and his co-authors state, "This view essentially equates ghostly episodes to the same fundamental mechanisms that stoke instances of mass (contagious) psychogenic illness."  And the beginning of Houran's paper here states, "Haunted People Syndrome (HP-S) denotes individuals who recurrently report various 'supernatural' encounters in everyday settings ostensibly due to heightened somatic-sensory sensitivities to dis-ease states (e.g., marked but sub-clinical levels of distress), which are contextualized by paranormal beliefs and reinforced by perceptual contagion effects." 

Whoever claimed in the recent SSE Explorer article that "Haunted People Syndrome" is not an example of pathologizing people has misstated the truth badly.  Claims of "Haunted People Syndrome" are pretty obviously examples of "shame the witnesses" stigmatizing that can be called gaslighting or pathologizing, and seem like examples of weaponized psychology in which the chief goal seems to be to destroy or damage the credibility of certain types of witnesses and claimants (I here use the word "gaslighting" in the broader sense of the word, to mean someone trying to undermine the report of some witness by suggesting pathology in the witness). 

On page 189 of the document here, in a paper entitled "Quantifying the Phenomenology of Ghostly Episodes: Part II – A Rasch Model of Spontaneous Accounts," we read of a "Survey of Strange Events" created by Houran and O’Keeffe. It is a type of survey that rather seems to be designed to get as many "Yes" answers as possible, with all "yes" answers being used to discredit or suggest pathology in the people taking the survey.  Some of the items are very questionable, given the purpose of the survey. Among them are these:

#1: "I saw with my naked eye a non-descript visual image, like fog, shadow or unusual light." 

#4: "I smelled a mysterious odor that was pleasant."

#5: "I smelled a mysterious odor that was unpleasant."

#6: "I had a positive feeling for no obvious reason, like happiness, love, joy, or peace."

#7: "I had a negative feeling for no obvious reason, like anger, sadness, panic, or danger."

#8. "I felt odd sensations in my body, such as dizziness, tingling, electrical shock, or nausea (sick in my stomach)."

#9: "I had a mysterious taste in my mouth." 

#16: "I heard mysterious sounds that could be recognized or identified, such as ghostly voices or music (with or without singing)." 

#17: "I heard mysterious 'mechanical' or non-descript noises, such as tapping, knocking, rattling, banging, crashing, footsteps or the sound of opening/closing doors or drawers."

22. "I saw objects moving on their own across a surface or falling." 

25. "Pictures from my camera or mobile device captured unusual images, shapes, distortions or effects." 

26. "Plumbing equipment or systems (faucets, disposal, toilet) functioned improperly or not at all." 

27. "I saw objects breaking (or discovered them broken), like shattered or cracked glass, mirrors or housewares."

28. "I heard mysterious 'mechanical' or non-descript noises, such as tapping, knocking, rattling, banging, crashing, footsteps or the sound of opening/closing doors or drawer."

Very strangely, this survey is introduced with the claim of "we calibrated a 32-item, Rasch-based 'Survey of Strange Events (SSE)' to quantify the phenomenology of ghostly episodes." But none of the 14 items above refer exclusively to anything involving ghosts or spirits, and only one of the items listed above refers to ghosts or spirits. 13 out of 14 items are items that might be reported by someone experiencing natural events having nothing to do with ghosts or spirits.  For example, anyone seeing a shadow would answer "yes" to question 1; any anyone seeing anything falling might answer "yes" to question 22; anyone who ever had a clogged toilet would answer "yes" to question 26; and anyone who ever twice dropped a glass and saw it shatter would answer "yes" to question 27. 

So I am left puzzled by this survey, which seems badly designed. Why would anyone add such items in a survey alleged to be quantifying "the phenomenology of ghostly episodes"? Maybe to get survey scores as high as possible, or to get a nonzero score from as many people as possible, even those who had not reported seeing or hearing or feeling a ghost or spirit.

The survey also has other items which are badly worded, taking the form of "leading questions" seemingly designed to elicit a dogmatic answer from the person taking the survey.  So, for example, an item 16 that should have been some non-dogmatic statement as "I experienced something that could have been communication with the dead" or "I experienced something that could have been a sign from the dead" appears as the dogmatic statement "I communicated with the dead or other outside force." 

Because of all of these defects in this Survey of Strange Events, I cannot take seriously any paper using it in an attempt to validate the existence of such a thing as "Haunted People Syndrome." So when Houran and O' Keeffe use such a survey in the paper here, one entitled "The Dr. John Hall story: a case study in putative 'Haunted People Syndrome' ", we should have no confidence in their methodology. And we should be left with a low confidence in the paper when we consider that this "Survey of Strange Events" contains mostly first-person statements beginning with the word "I," with 27 out of 32 survey items beginning with "I"; but the authors of the paper did not get any completion of the survey from the person who is the subject of their paper (Hall). So in Table 2 of the paper authors or their helper rather seem to be "putting words in the mouth" of the target subject (Hall), by counting him as answering "Yes" to questions on a survey he did not actually take.  (We read, "An experimentally-blind rater reviewed Hall’s (2009) self-reported group-stalking experiences and coded their alignment with the SSE [Survey of Strange Events] categories.") The authors claiming the case of Hall as validation for their attempted explanation of "ghostly episodes" is  laughable, as Hall's claims apparently do not even involve supernatural-seeming events, judging from a book of his that makes no substantive mention of ghosts, spirits or the supernatural, but instead makes claims of shadowy clandestine intrusions and interference by governments or their agents. 

A very close look at the Table 2 of that paper may leave the reader shaking his head in dismay, because there seems to be occurring multiple misclassifications in which events that do not match the items on the Survey of Strange Events are being counted as matches of items on that survey. For example, "lies spread about victim" are being counted as examples of a survey item referring to "ghostly voices"; spam emails and spam phone calls are being counted as examples of a survey item referring to spooky electrical malfunctions;  suspicions of being secretly followed or spied on are being counted as examples of a survey item referring to ghosts and apparitions; and cases of "left unwanted items" or "unsolicited letters" are being counted as examples of the survey item "I experienced objects disappear or reappear around me." All four of these seem like classification errors by the paper authors. 

A similar "putting words into someone's mouth" seems to be going on in the paper "Haunted People Syndrome Redux: Concurrent Validity From an Independent Case Study," in which Houran and O' Keeffe apply their "Survey of Strange Events" survey (containing mainly first-person assertions) to a case (investigated by Auerbach) involving people who never actually completed their survey.  Table 3 of that paper has 27 first-person sentences beginning with "I" (such as "I saw objects flying or floating in midair"). But that table was not filled in by any actual witness or person reporting something spooky, but was instead filled in by someone else, basically "putting words into the mouth" of someone else after studying what someone else reported. 

This seems to be methodology that has gone badly astray. Researchers eager to try to validate the "Haunted People Syndrome"  concept have committed methodology bungling. No one should ever be filling in for someone else some survey consisting mainly of first person assertions beginning with "I," just as your friend should not be doing your income tax form without your consent, in an attempt to validate some theory he has about you. 

Referring to Houran and O'Keeffe's paper mentioned above ("Haunted People Syndrome Redux: Concurrent Validity From an Independent Case Study"), another paper mentions voluminous objections to that paper, by stating this:

"We take issue with a number of O’Keeffe et al.’s claims on logical, empirical, conceptual, and clinical grounds, and since our counterarguments are too extensive to meet the 10,000 word limit allotted to us by the JSE, we instead present them in the collection of papers contained herein, prefaced by introductory remarks from L.A."

The authors of that  paper (or collection of papers) seem to have some complaints similar to those I discuss above; and we hear mention of a complaint of "what appears to be a possible misinterpretation or seeming misrepresentation of Auerbach et al.’s data." 

The concept of "Haunted People Syndrome" is a relatively recent invention contrived by a tiny band of researchers such as Houran and O'Keeffe, a group probably small enough to fit in a small room.  The term "Haunted People Syndrome" does not appear in the standard manual of psychiatric diagnostics, the DSM-5. Even if you were to get the original witnesses to fill out some survey such as the Survey of Strange Events, that would do nothing to show the validity of the "Haunted People Syndrome" concept.  That survey does not even specifically mention fear, so it seems senseless for Houran to try to suggest that some score on that survey validates a "Haunted People Syndrome" concept based on claims of fear causing reports of the anomalous. A high score on this Survey of Strange Events merely suggests that something very spooky was reported, and does nothing to show a cause of such reports. (Item 7 on the Survey of Strange Events refers vaguely to "a negative feeling...like anger, sadness, panic or danger," but that is not any specific reference to fear.) 

Houran and O'Keeffe seem like people who may be clinging to old stereotypes about reports of apparitions. I pointed out in a 2014 post that such stereotypes were discredited by a study published in that year, a study of 39 people who claimed to see an apparition. The study concluded that “nearly all of our participants identified either a positive or nonthreatening encounter with a ghost.” The study discredits the "Haunted People Syndrome" idea of Houran that apparition sightings are best explained as being caused by "marked but sub-clinical levels of distress." These days apparitions sightings most commonly occur as deathbed visions, and such things tend to be not scary at all, but comforting. To read about deathbed visions, read my series of posts here. 

You could easily write a very long book solely on the topic of psychologists and other scientists who have unfairly pathologized and stigmatized healthy people by trying to gin up some narrative of mental problems. One chapter of that book would discuss how homosexuality was long classified as a mental illness, with pseudoscientific Freudian claims used to try to justify such a classification. Another chapter of that book would discuss all the psychologists who gave a diagnosis of "sluggish schizophrenia" to many healthy dissidents merely because they expressed dissatisfaction with the so-called "worker's paradise" of the Soviet Union. An additional chapter in that book could be written from the very many posts of the "Mad in America" website that abundantly document  cases of eager-to-pathologize psychiatrists or psychologists applying psychiatric labels (or psychiatric-sounding labels) to people  in some very dubious manner, with unnecessary harm often resulting.  Another chapter of that book would discuss all of the psychologists and scientists who wrongly used the word "hallucination" when describing spooky observational reports by psychologically normal witnesses with no history of mental illness. 

The very high prevalence of reports of the paranormal tends to suggest the invalidity of attempts to explain them by evoking rare psychological syndromes. According to the paper "Psychic Experiences in the Multinational Human Values Study: Who Reports Them?" here: "Three items on personal psychic experiences (telepathy, clairvoyance, contact with the dead) were included in a survey of human values that was conducted on large representative samples in 13 countries in Europe and in the U.S. (N = 18,607). In Europe, the percentage of persons reporting telepathy was 34%; clairvoyance was reported by 21%; and 25% reported contact with the dead. Percentages for the U.S. were considerably higher: 54%, 25% and 30% respectively." 

Similar results are reported below:

• A 2015 Pew Research poll found that 18% of Americans said they've seen or been in the presence of a ghost, and that 29% said that they've felt in touch with someone who died.  
• A 1976 survey of 1467 people in the US asked people if they had ever "felt as though you were really in touch with someone who had died?" 27% answered "Yes."

On the page here, we read this:

" A new YouGov poll asked Americans about their paranormal experiences. Most Americans say they’ve had at least one paranormal experience, and many believe that they personally have a paranormal ability."

The poll was a survey of 1136 American adults. Among the more interesting findings were these:

• 18% of the Americans polled reported "seeing unexplained orbs of light."
• 16% of the Americans polled reported "seeing a spirit or ghost." Of these, the majority said they had seen such a thing more than once.
• 23% of the Americans polled reported "seeing lights or other devices turn on or off without explanation."
• 17% of the Americans polled reported "seeing an object move without explanation."
• 16% of the Americans polled reported "seeing a door open or close without explanation."

There is a strong reason for suspecting that the survey results given above are underestimations, because of self-censorship by survey respondents. We must remember that authorities in our culture have a long history of shaming, gaslighting, misrepresenting and attempting to pathologize people who report experiences of the paranormal. For many decades and centuries such authorities (including professors, skeptics and clergy) have attempted to portray people reporting paranormal experiences as neurotic, psychotic, liars, fakes, fools or people dabbling with the diabolical. Consequently we should assume that there is a significant degree of self-censorship in which many  people who had paranormal experiences do not report them, for fear of "getting in trouble" or being embarrassed, shamed, ridiculed or gaslighted. To help limit such self-censorship, all surveys of paranormal experience should be secret-ballot type surveys, but probably most of the surveys above were not surveys that guaranteed confidentiality and anonymity to respondents. Because of the self-censorship factor, the number of people experiencing the phenomena asked about in the surveys above could easily be 25% or 50% larger than the numbers reported in the surveys. 

Postscript:  I doubt that Houran and O'Keeffe are adequately thorough scholars of the topic of apparition sightings. A very thorough scholar of that topic would tend to realize that relatively few apparition reports can be explained under some theory evoking a similarity to "mass (contagious) psychogenic illness."  In cases of mass contagious  psychogenic illness, you typically get many people in one location (such as a single school or ship) suddenly believing in something, as some terror spreads rapidly by word of mouth from person to person. Apparition reports are rarely like that. Most commonly only a single person will claim to have seen some apparition. His report may be published, and others may calmly believe his account. But such a transmission of belief is very different from what goes on in the panic-like spread of contagious psychogenic illness, where you find other people quickly saying something like, "I am experiencing what you experienced." There are many cases of multiple people claiming to see the same apparition. But in such cases it is usually only a small number who claimed to see the apparition, almost always fewer than ten, and usually fewer than five. It is quite rare for there to occur cases in which mass numbers of people report seeing the same apparition.