Since its inception in 2007, members of Exploring the Extraordinary have organised two very successful academic conferences that have brought together researchers from a variety of different disciplines and backgrounds. The purpose of these events has been to encourage a wider dissemination of knowledge and research, and an interdisciplinary discussion of extraordinary phenomena and experience. By ‘extraordinary’ we refer to phenomena and experiences that are considered to be beyond the mundane, referring to those that have been called supernatural, paranormal, mystical, transcendent, exceptional, spiritual, magical and/or religious, as well as the relevance of such for human culture.

The 3rd Exploring the Extraordinary conference will take place in York in the U.K. on the 23rd-25th September. Exploring the Extraordinary is an interdisciplinary network for those actively engaged/interested in research into the ‘extraordinary’ – for example, topics often regarded as paranormal, supernatural, religious, transcendent, ecstatic, exceptional, mystical, anomalous, magical, spiritual.

The conference will include:

Keynote lectures
Professor Charles Emmons – ‘In praise of experience as data’
Dr Serena Roney-Dougal – ‘Tibetan psychic traditions’

Panels
Boundaries, personal experience and the mystical
Vampires in culture
Space, place and supernatural resonance
The paranormal on both sides of the Atlantic
Parapsychological approaches to paranormal belief and experience
Hospitals, dying and extraordinary experiences

Documentaries
Trance mediumship: A Portrait
Personal Electronics
Ghost Project

Also – sessions on art, photography and spirit; research reports; and two art exhibitions (‘Nature, twilight and the night’ and *’Dimensions of
spirit’)

The conference costs £70 (£55 for concessions) or £30 (£20 concessions) per day. For further information about Exploring the Extraordinary, and to see the conference schedule, please visit http://etenetwork.weebly.com. Registration forms, and further information, is available from ete.network@gmail.com.

Dr Hannah Gilbert,
Anomalous Experiences Research Unit,
Department of Sociology,
University of York,
Heslington, York,
YO10 5DD
United Kingdom