Paranormal and the Politics of Truth: A Sociological Account

by Jeremy Northcote

Overview

This book is based on the author's ten-year research into the politics of belief surrounding paranormal ideas. Through a detailed examination of the participants, issues, strategies and underlying factors that constitute the contemporary paranormal debate, the book explores the struggle surrounding the status of paranormal phenomena. It examines, on the one hand, how the principal arbiters of religious and scientific truths — the Church and the academic establishment — reject paranormal ideas as "occult" and "pseudo-scientific", and how, on the other hand, paranormal enthusiasts attempt to resist such labels and instead establish paranormal ideas as legitimate knowledge. The author contends that the paranormal debate is the outcome of wider discursive processes that are concerned with the construction and negotiation of truth in Western society generally. More specifically, the debate is seen as an aspect of the "boundary work" that defines the contours of religious and scientific orthodoxy. The book paves new ground in understanding the nature of belief relating to a topic that has long held fascination to academics and lay people alike – paranormal ideas. It develops a discursive framework for understanding a contemporary social phenomenon, hence placing the study at the cutting edge of ethnographic development that seeks to integrate discursive perspectives with empirical accounts of sociological phenomena. Most importantly, the study is intended to contribute to the debate surrounding communicative action, by outlining a discursive perspective on the negotiation of ideational differences that goes beyond the incommensurability theories that have dominated the sociology of communication and knowledge.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781845400712
Publisher:	Imprint Academic
Publication date:	03/01/2007
Pages:	250
Product dimensions:	5.31(w) x 8.27(h) x 1.80(d)

Table of Contents

Preface     vii
Glossary & Abbreviations     ix
Introduction     1
Defining "the Paranormal"     12
A History of Struggle     21
Introduction
"Occultism" and the Early Church
The New Scholastics and the Satanic Threat
The Occult as a Renaissance Passion
The Enlightenment Era and the Birth of the modern Skeptic
The Changing Views of the Church
The Paranormal Debate in the Post-Enlightenment Era
Conclusion
The Players in the Contemporary Debate     55
Introduction
Supporter and Opponent Positions
Participant Types
Discursive Commonalities and Differences
Becoming a Participant     83
Introduction
Involvement from an Emic Perspective
Etic Perspectives
Discursive Factors
The Internalisation Process
Conclusion
The Discursive Basis of Conflict     120
Introduction
Clashes Between Opponents
An Etic Perspective on Issues Underlying Conflict
The Doxa of Conflict
Conclusion
Strategic Action within the Debate     147
Introduction
Understanding Strategic Action
Strategic Devices
The Expressive Aspect of Strategic Action
Conclusion
Conclusion: The Possibility of a Positive Dialogue     186
Conducting a Positive Dialogue
The Possibility of a Positive Dialogue
The Auto-Ganzfeld Debate
The Conditions for a Positive Dialogue
Concluding Remarks
Appendix     209
Bibliography     212
Index     230

Editorial Reviews

"The author gives an even-handed discussion of the strategies people use to demonise their chosen Others ... This book ... will help readers navigate rough waters in the quest for big truths."

Times Higher Education Supplement - Michael Grosso

"Northcote should be praised for his courage and integrity to pursue such a risky subject matter ... In a highly focused manner, Northcote takes us from the fear of secret societies in the seventeenth century to the societal psychological distress caused by alienating behaviors of those who control the discourse of this debate."

Metapsychology - Chris Rawls

"The interest of this book is that it shows how the debate is rooted in wider discursive formations that have come to underlie Western thinking more generally. This book provides a very interesting discussion of the politics of truth in this field."

Network Review (Summer 2008) - David Lorimer

"There is an appropriate measure of humility ... this tone pervades the entire book, in contrast to more annoyingly self-certain interpretive approaches towards which we should be skeptical instictively. ... an unusually enjoyable and enlightening book that i would recommend to anyone interested in either social aspects of the paranormal, or discourse conflict more generally."

Contemporary Sociology, 37, 5. - Barry Markovsky

"We are inclined to think that the facts speak for themselves, but collected, they speak plainer. [Northcote's] book enables them to do that and us to broaden our perceptions, and I commend it to members, and even more to sceptics."

Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, Vol. 73.1, No. 894. - Chris Bratcher

"The author gives an even-handed discussion of the strategies people use to demonise their chosen Others ... This book ... will help readers navigate rough waters in the quest for big truths." Micheal Grosso, The Times Higher Education Supplement."Northcote should be praised for his courage and integrity to pursue such a risky subject matter ... In a highly focused manner, Northcote takes us from the fear of secret societies in the seventeenth century to the societal psychological distress caused by alienating behaviors of those who control the discourse of this debate." Chris Rawls, Metapsychology."The interest of this book is that it shows how the debate is rooted in wider discursive formations that have come to underlie Western thinking more generally. This book provides a very interesting discussion of the politics of truth in this field". David Lorimer, Network review (Summer 2008)"There is an appropriate measure of humility ... this tone pervades the entire book, in contrast to more annoyingly self-certain interpretive approaches towards which we should be skeptical instictively. ... an unusually enjoyable and enlightening book that i would recommend to anyone interested in either social aspects of the paranormal, or discourse conflict more generally." Barry Markovsky, Contemporary Sociology 37, 5."We are inclined to think that the facts speak for themselves, but collected, they speak plainer. [Northcote's] book enables them to do that and us to broaden our perceptions, and I commend it to members, and even more to sceptics" Chris Bratcher, Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, Vol. 73.1, No. 894.

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