Investigating Paranormal Claims (Part I): An Introduction to Methodology and Definitions

In his imposing two-volume work, Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts, Craig Keener (1960–) documents contemporary miracle claims in order to demonstrate that there is a significant amount of geographically widespread miracle reports today. The problem is that Keener’s work is limited in its apologetic value, oftentimes proving only anecdotally that people continue to believe they have witnessed or experienced a miracle. The author not only admits these limitations, but he also declares that he avoided a thorough fact-finding investigation to authenticate the credibility and accuracy of these stories. Keener simply leaves the work of substantiating miracle claims to future investigators.[1] What is interesting is Keener’s use of the term “credibility” in his subtitle when, in fact, neither the credibility, suitability, nor accuracy of his catalog of miracles (or the New Testament accounts) are corroborated with a forensic investigation or other fact-finding techniques. Indeed, research from several thousand psychological studies and publications consistently reveal that eyewitness accounts are routinely inaccurate.[2]

The purpose of this blog post series is to expose would-be paranormal investigators to the potential variables that could discredit or distort a claimant’s reporting of a paranormal event. Likewise, this post series will also identify some of the investigative practices needed to help substantiate or falsify a paranormal claim. The thesis here is that stories of a fantastic nature ought to be thoroughly investigated according to the rigors implemented in judicial interviewing and interrogation tactics with an awareness of and attention to the possibility of deception, as well as the psychological variables known to affect the suitability and accuracy of eyewitness testimonials. Three main areas will support my thesis: 1) an analysis of claimant credibility; 2) a survey of claimant suitability; and 3) a discussion on claimant accuracy. First, it is important to understand the terms and definitions used in this brief review.

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Definitions: Paranormal, Credibility, & Suitability

For the purposes of a fact-finding investigation, “miracles” and "paranormal" events are here defined as anomalous (potentially religiously noteworthy) events that surpass the ability of physical nature to produce (naturally) under the particular circumstances in which it occurred. As such, they have a supernatural (or what Keener labels “extranormal”) causation.[3] Likewise, claimants are considered “credible” about a specific paranormal report if they are not deliberately attempting to promote a belief or perception in others (e.g. an investigator), without advanced and explicit warning, that the claimant considers to be inaccurate, insincere, false, untrue, or unfounded. In other words, claimants are credible if they are not lying. For investigators, credibility gauges a claimant’s history of and proclivity for telling the truth about paranormal events and, thus, assesses whether the claimant is engaging in deliberate falsifications, exaggerations, or minimizations that intentionally distort a testimony’s correspondence to reality. Credibility also requires the absence of “subtle lies,” which can include literal truths that are designed to mislead investigators. These lies also manifest in the form of evading questions and concealing or omitting relevant details that would potentially discredit the claimant’s testimony.[4]

Similarly, in this blog series, “suitability” refers to the appropriateness of considering certain persons a legitimate “eyewitness” in the sense that they possess the minimal cognitive and affective characteristics at the time of the “paranormal” event. To be considered suitable, these persons needed to be free from obstructive external and internal influences, such as poor visibility conditions or certain mental illnesses, while also being present in an optimal environment conducive for providing a detailed and accurate account of the incident.[5] Finally, the term “accuracy” here denotes a high degree of factual correspondence between an eyewitness’s testimonial and the initial stimuli generated during the episode. Hence, a witness’s account of the paranormal must be both true and correct, to a high degree of relative certainty, in order to be considered “accurate.”[6] As such, any paranormal investigation that relies on personal testimony ought to scrutinize a claimant’s credibility, suitability, and accuracy in order to eliminate reasonable suspicion of deceit, suboptimal settings, or psychological distortions. To do otherwise would be to approach paranormal claims credulously and naïvely without the critical methodology necessary for proper a fact-finding investigation.

Be Cautious of Apologetic Investigations

Simply stated: a theistic or overtly religious worldview (to the extent possible) should not play a determinative role in the investigative and explanation process. Paranormal investigators ought to recognize that eyewitness testimonies, even their own, often represent the viewpoints and invested interests of those making the paranormal claim. There is a significant potential for these stories to be fabricated, erroneous, misinterpreted, inconsistent, prejudicial, and fragmentary. Hence, investigators cannot simply take miracle claims at “face value" like Keener does in his two-volume work.[7]

Instead, a critical methodology for investigating paranormal claims, as opposed to a hyperskeptical approach, allows researchers to admit the possibility of supernatural events without credulously or naïvely accepting unsubstantiated claims (a “naïve theist” approach). Here, a more critical attitude can still hypothesize, and even conclude, “extranormal” causation without hastily asserting a bona fide miracle or paranormal event has occurred prior to conducting a thorough investigation.[8] It is important to note that a critical methodology distinguishes between properly investigating a paranormal claim (e.g. did the event actually occur) and judging whether the event is supernatural (or divine) in origin. A “critical” methodology focuses on the former, not the latter, by employing fact-finding techniques designed to gauge a paranormal claimant’s credibility, suitability, and accuracy. Assessing whether a natural or supernatural explanation is the most plausible is subsequently left to individuals after examining the results of a thorough investigation.

Keener’s assumptions about having asked the right questions (like a journalist) and having received accurate depictions from acquaintances are precisely the same assumptions made by untrained and inexperienced investigators who are liable to making hasty and impulsive judgments. Journalists may know how to ask questions that expand a news story’s narrative (e.g. detailing the basic who, what, when, where, why, and how of a person’s recollection), but they do not always know how to assess a person’s credibility, suitability, and accuracy like properly trained investigative journalists and law enforcement personnel.

As any good investigator will explain, friends, family, colleagues, and acquaintances are not immune from lying or embellishing their stories, and even well-intentioned eyewitnesses habitually misconstrue or misjudge dramatic events. In fact, Keener acknowledges that a person’s religious fervor regularly results in fraudulent claims.[9] Hence, a thorough investigation is still needed before trusting “the veracity” of paranormal events. Keener appears to admit as much: “Because miracles are irregular events, we do not simply take miracle reports at face value without some evidence; the debate involves the level of evidence necessary to provide probability in a given case or whether the standard is too high to admit any evidence.”[10]

In the event that future paranormal investigators wish to assess some of the miracle claims in Keener’s work, or elsewhere, these investigators will need to know how to conduct a proper fact-finding investigation. Only then can someone make a reasonable judgment about an event’s probable and possible supernatural origins, beginning first with assessing whether a claimant is credible or not.

-To be Continued in Part II-

Citations

[1] Craig S. Keener, Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts, vols. 1 & 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011), 1‒17. For the myriad of eyewitness miracle accounts, see pp. 264‒599. For the limitations of his research, see pp. 9‒14, 249‒57. [2] See Amina Memon, Aldert Vrij, and Ray Bull, Psychology and Law: Truthfulness, Accuracy and Credibility, 2nd ed., Wiley Series in Psychology of Crime, Policing, and Law (West Sussex, England: John Wiley & Sons, 2003), 107‒10.

[3] Cf. Robert A. Larmer, The Legitimacy of Miracle (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014), 32‒37 and Michael R. Licona, “Historians and Miracle Claims,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 12, no. 1/2 (2014): 119. [4] Günter Köhnken, “Behavioral Correlates of Statement Credibility: Theories, Paradigms, and Results,” in Criminal Behavior and the Justice System: Psychological Perspectives, ed. Hermann Wegener, Friedrich Lösel, and Jochen Haisch, Research in Criminology (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1989), 271‒72; Memon, Vrij, and Bull, Psychology and Law, 7‒8. [5] See, for example, Michael C. Bromby and Maria Jean J. Hall, “The Development and Rapid Evaluation of the Knowledge Model of ADVOKATE: An Advisory System to Assess the Credibility of Eyewitness Testimony,” in Legal Knowledge and Information System, JURIX 2002: The Fifteenth Annual Conference, ed. Trevor J. M. Bench-Capon, Aspassia Daskalopulu, and Radbound G. F. Winkels (Amsterdam, Netherlands: IOS Press, 2002), 145‒46. [6] Cf. Judith C. S. Redman, “How Accurate Are Eyewitnesses? Bauckham and the Eyewitnesses in the Light of Psychological Research,” Journal of Biblical Literature 129, no. 1 (Spring 2010): 178n8 and Köhnken, “Behavioral Correlates of Statement Credibility,” 271.

[7] Robert L. Webb, “The Rules of the Game: History and Historical Method in the Context of Faith: The Via Media of Methodological Naturalism,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 9, no. 1 (2011): 60, 62‒63, 65, 67‒70. [8] Cf. Licona, “Historians and Miracle Claims,” 114‒18 and Webb, “The Rules of the Game,” 75‒76 (esp. 76n34), 78. [9] Keener, Miracles, 614‒16. [10] Keener, Miracles, 186n105.

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