Christopher French

Psychologist Professor Chris French offers some examples of seemingly paranormal behaviour and provides psychological explanations for belief in and the experience of ‘weird shit’.

Opinion polls show the majority of the general public accepts that paranormal phenomena do occur. Such widespread experience of and belief in the paranormal can only mean one of two things. Either the paranormal is real, in which case this should be accepted by the wider scientific community, or belief in and experience of paranormal phenomena can be fully explained in terms of non-spooky, psychological factors. French will illustrate his talk with many often dramatic examples of seemingly paranormal phenomena and provide an introduction to anomalistic psychology as he attempts to provide psychological explanations of belief in and experience of ‘weird shit’.

French is emeritus professor in the Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London, where he is also head of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit. He is a fellow of the British Psychological Society and of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, and a patron of Humanists UK. He writes for the Guardian and the Skeptic magazine and is author of The Science of Weird Shit: Why Our Minds Conjure the Paranormal.

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