Much of what is called “the paranormal” today has intrigued mankind since the most ancient times. The term refers to those things that are supposedly beyond the normal range of science and human experience—ghosts, strange lights in the sky, psychic phenomena, and the like. It includes the supernatural but also things such as monsters that—if they exist—might be quite natural.
With the advent of modern spiritualism in 1848, launched by the Fox Sisters’ hoaxed messages from the ghost of a murdered peddler (Nickell 2004, 31–32), the paranormal began to proliferate and to attract advocacy groups such as the British Society for Psychical Research. Founded in London in 1882, it was concerned with alleged psychic phenomena and the supposed survival of consciousness following bodily death (Guiley 2000, 304).
The paranormal grew increasingly throughout the twentieth century with various “new” (either substantially new or newly refocused-on) topics being expanded by individual gurus and groups of enthusiasts, and many cross-correspondences developing (say, between UFOs and Bigfoot). This article is a discussion of the “creation” of the paranormal by a series of major figures, each of whom took a concept—some fantasy, myth, or speculation—and transformed it into “reality” (Keel 2001b). (I have, of course, excluded a long list of topics—from astrology to zombies—whose origins are ancient.)