Paranormality: Why we see what isn't there is a 2011 book about the paranormal by psychologist and magician Richard Wiseman. Wiseman argues that paranormal phenomena such as psychics, telepathy, ghosts, out-of-body experiences, prophesy and more do not exist, and explores why people continue to believe, and what that tells us about human behavior and the way the brain functions. Wiseman uses QR codes throughout the book, which link to YouTube videos as examples and as experiments the reader can participate in to further explain the phenomena. Because of a cautious American publishing market, it was only available in America through Kindle. Paranormality was awarded the Center for Inquiry's Robert P. Balles award for 2011.
Contents Interviewed by Swoopy for the Skepticality podcast, Wiseman stated the book has a high impact on readers because it is interactive. Surveying paranormal books before writing Paranormality, Wiseman asked himself what about these books engages the readers. "It's all about you, it's about your brain, it's about your behavior, it's about your beliefs". ... "getting people involved and finding out yourself". One reason the title of the book does not instantly reveal if it is supportive or skeptical of the paranormal is that they wanted it to appeal to people interested in the paranormal. The goal was to be clear that believers are not stupid, that anyone can fall for this kind of stuff, and "Hey here are some fun things you can try". Wiseman felt there was no single volume of work that could be handed to someone who wanted to learn about skepticism so he wrote Paranormality. Interviewer Kylie Sturgess asked Wiseman if the book was something he had been meaning to write for some time, as there is "so much in it". Wiseman replied that it was something that he pitched over fifteen years prior but he could not find "the right angle on it". Finally, he decided that he could write it in a way that it was not a debunking book. He told Sturgess that researching the paranormal tells us a lot about the brain and how we can be deceived. For example, he talks about people who claim they are being attacked by a ghost or an entity when they are starting to wake up; this information tells us a lot about sleep. Suggestibility, he says, also plays an important role when studying the paranormal. The book has many tests the reader can take to discover how suggestible they are. The "underlying theme of the book" is how easily people are fooled when they don't have "the scientific method at your fingertips." Wiseman says that the chapter in the book where he explains psychic tricks is the most controversial; psychics "don’t want people to know that stuff." He stresses that it "would be a huge shift" if people contacted consumer affairs organizations asking for the evidence of these paranormal claims.
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