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About the Diploma
This comprehensive distance learning course is a
professional-level programme of study at further education level, designed to
give the student a broad knowledge of paranormal phenomena, an appreciation of
the history of paranormal and psychical research using experimental designs and
studying spontaneous phenomena, to develop an open-minded attitude towards the
causes of parapsychological events, as well as to educate the student in ways of
approaching and investigating alleged paranormal occurrences.
We
will also introduce students who have Internet access to the vast resources on
parapsychology, paranormal and spiritual topics available on the World Wide Web,
for additional research, study and support.
This course will be of great benefit to anyone who has a deep personal interest
in psychic or paranormal phenomena, to those who would like to study the subject
systematically, and to all those who might become involved with such phenomena
either directly or indirectly, including: counsellors, hypnotherapists,
psychotherapists, ministers, mental health workers, law enforcement agents,
psychic investigators, cult investigators, researchers, journalists, mediums,
psychics, healers, dowsers, workers in the tourism industry, and persons working
or living in or near reputedly haunted sites.
Textbooks extra (approx. cost of textbooks GBP 150 – book purchases may be
spread out throughout the course and students may save money by looking for used
books online.)
FORMAT
This course uses the "read a book, write a paper" method, which
was traditionally used by a
number of American distance learning universities. For each textbook, we supply
a study plan which shows how to structure your learning and provides the
assignments. Assessment is by written answers to set questions. The use of
authoritative textbooks throughout the course means that you will build up a
comprehensive professional library and you will have direct access to material
written by some of the foremost experts in the field. In addition, you will be
encouraged to broaden your knowledge using suggested additional reading and
Internet resources.
Tutor support will be given in the form of feedback on your assignments and you
may also communicate with your tutor by email if you have questions or
need advice.
ENTRY QUALIFICATIONS
No particular entry qualifications are required but an adequate standard of
general education and written and spoken English is assumed. You should be able
to cope with study at further education level.
SYLLABUS - REVISED OCT 2009 (We reserve the right to alter the syllabus
and/or set books at any time. If any book proves difficult to obtain, we may
substitute another unit.) A copy of the reading list will be supplied on
request.
·
1. Parapsychology - Revolutionary
Research
This unit is a
primer on how parapsychological research (formerly called psychical research)
was carried out from its beginnings in the nineteenth century, through the
twentieth century and concluding with reflections on the state of parapsychology
today and its implications for science, society and spirituality. Original
scholarly articles, dating from 1886 to 2007, are reproduced in the text,
interwoven with extensive introductions and commentary by the editors, who
conclude that evidence for at least some aspects of the paranormal is solid.
·
2. Developing Your Psychic
Senses
This unit takes us on remarkable intellectual and intuitive journey by a
psychotherapist into how to access and develop the sixth sense or "psi". We
learn about multiple routes to psychic opening, what unfolding psychic awareness
can feel like, the role of the implicate order, the use of imagery to access psi,
and 23 tips for developing and maintaining psychic awareness. There is also a
section on ethical issues of psychic work.
·
3. Testing Psychic Claimants
This unit gives careful, practical yet flexible
guidelines to help researchers and investigators assess the purported abilities
of those who claim to be psychic. The aim is to be fair to the person being
researched or investigated, avoiding both false positive and false negative
results.
·
4. Science and Unusual Experiences
The core text for this unit provides a collection of scientific
papers on the investigation of unusual topics. Part I is concerned with
scientific method and reasoning: science and experience, probability and
coincidence, and the placebo effect. Part II looks at beliefs in the context of
psychic fraud and astrology. Part III examines a range of unusual experiences:
unconscious awareness, dreams telepathy, alien abduction, meditation, paranormal
cognition and the near-death experience. A final chapter looks at society and
the paranormal. The book is often fairly skeptical though it admits that
science is only one way of understanding experience.
·
5.
Channeling
An
authoritative study of many types of channeling from both human and electronic
sources. The original text has had 100 pages added for its new edition to take
into account a range of new examples of channeled communication.
·
6. Conducting Extrasensory
Perception Research
The student will learn how laboratory tests of ESP have been conducted over the
past 50 years and how many of these experiments have had methodological
problems. Though many writers have proposed how experiments should be made more
rigorous, this study assembles a range of relevant material in one handy volume
and gives checklists and guidelines for researchers. Students of this course
will not have to conduct laboratory experiments but will learn the principles
and practicalities of sound research. This unit should be of great help to
editors, book reviewers, journalists and other researchers.
·
7.
Psychic Warfare, Historical and Modern
A study of the practice of psychic spying over the past 5,000 years, from its
origins in ancient Egypt, through the story of Queen Elizabeth I's spy John Dee,
to Nazis and the occult, the CIA and the Cold War, the clandestine roles of
Aleister Crowley and Ian Fleming, and the remote viewing activities of Joseph
McMoneagle.
·
8. Authenticated Cases of the
Paranormal I
In
this unit you will study a superb collection of papers by world-famous experts:
Guy Lyon Playfair on Mirabelli; Paola Giovetti on mediumship in Italy including
the famed Eusapia Palladino; Gissurarson and Haraldsson's investigation of the
mediumship of Indrida Indridason; Imich's study of the seances of Matylda; the
physical mediumship of Teofil Modrzejewski; physical mediumship in
pre-revolutionary and contemporary Russia; and a collection of spectacular cases
of psychic phenomena in China. The text has a collection of rare illustrations.
· 9. Authenticated cases of the
Paranormal II
A highly accessible account of favourite well-authenticated cases of psychic
phenomena selected by Professor Archie Roy. The cases described are drawn from
three continents and cover over 100 years of psychical research by some of the
foremost investigators in the field. Professor Roy suggests his own theory of
The Archives of the Mind which might go some way towards explaining these
phenomena.
·
10. Evidence for the Afterlife
Evidence pointing
to the existence of an afterlife comes from many sources, and this unit provides
an overview and discussion of most of these angles of exploration including:
modern parapsychology, apparitions, hauntings, mental mediumship, drop-in and
cross-correspondence communication, physical mediumship, communication using
instruments, near-death and out-of-body experiences, and reincarnation. Finally,
the study focuses on what the nature of the afterlife – and our role as
individuals in it - might be like.
Graduation and further study
A printed Diploma suitable for framing will be issued upon graduation.
This diploma carries credit towards a distance degree from
Calamus International University in counselling psychology and related fields.
(CIU is a non-UK, private, non-government-accredited university.) |
