STEPHEN HUPP

Chris French, professor emeritus of psychology at Goldsmiths College, is a leading authority on, well, weird shit. His previous books on anomalistic psychology were written for an academic audience, and now he has a new book for the masses titled The Science of Weird Shit: Why Our Minds Conjure the Paranormal. I’ve been influenced and inspired by French for a long time, so I was delighted to learn of this new book. I jumped at the chance to ask him a few questions.

SH: Before you found skepticism, what fascinated you the most about the paranormal?

CF: Looking back, I think there were a lot of factors. As a child, I was terrified by the idea of ghosts. I am not sure whether I in fact believed in ghosts or not, but the idea that they might be real was enough for me to need a night light for a lot longer than most kids!

When I was a teenager, Uri Geller appeared on the scene in the U.K., and his claims were endorsed by some eminent scientists at the time. To me, with my love of science fiction and fantasy, the notion that some people might really possess superpowers was incredibly exciting.

In your book, you describe the precise moment you turned toward a skeptical worldview. Can you share that experience here too?

I did my PhD at the University of Leicester. While I was there, a friend recommended a book that they thought I might like. That book was James Alcock’s Parapsychology: Science or Magic? (1981). It was the first ever skeptical analysis of paranormal claims I had ever come across, and, as my friend expected, I really did enjoy it. The book opened my eyes to the fact that there were skeptical publications out there if you knew where to look. Up to that point, I had never heard of Skeptical Inquirer, but I immediately took out a subscription and read every issue I could get my hands on from cover to cover. I also bought books by the likes of James Randi, Ray Hyman, Martin Gardner, and others. From that point on, I was hooked.