Some people regard anything with more than a passing interest in the paranormal as ‘eccentric’, a little ‘around the twist’, a ‘conspiracy nut’.

It’s a prejudice that, as a science writer, I experience all too often. Meanwhile, a growing number of scientific papers go further. Indeed, some psychiatrists suggest that believing in magic is a hallmark of a mild form of schizophrenia. And that’s worrying for everyone interested in the paranormal.

Many psychiatrists believe that a pattern of thoughts, beliefs and behaviours called schizotypy lies between ‘normality’ and schizophrenia. Marked schizotypy is, essentially, ‘mild’ schizophrenia. Among other characteristics, schizotypical personalities may show odd or eccentric behaviour and appearance; demonstrate ‘cognitive slippage’ (linking unrelated concepts by tangential connections, such as bird to cola: bird, bat, ball, dance, Tango, cola); and report perceptual changes and magical thinking.

To Western psychiatrists, magical thinking is having beliefs that defy ‘scientific’ cause and effect, including astrology, spirit influences, and telepathy.

So, if you believe in magic, cast horoscopes or consult your guardian angel you could be on the way to being diagnosed with mild schizophrenia. Ironically, Swedish researchers note that patients who report paranormal experiences and beliefs tend to be healthier than those with more mainstream views (Personality and Mental Health 2009;3:193-202). Paranormal experiences can help solve life crises and improve mental health.

Psychologists argue that magical thinking offers an appearance of control in circumstances when you cannot exert real influence. Some psychologists regard people with paranormal beliefs as having cognitive deficits – in other words, impaired mental abilities. In particular, they suggest, paranormal believers tend to misunderstand probability and relationships between events (the ‘conjunction fallacy’).

For example, if I constructed a sigil to get a new job and succeeded, I could believe the ritual helped. Cynics would argue there was no link: my success was down to my CV. Such ‘misunderstandings’, they suggest, help form and maintain paranormal beliefs (Applied Cognitive Psychology 2009;23:524-42)

Other papers argue that people with ‘magico-religious beliefs’ tend to think intuitively rather than analytically (European Journal of Personality 2006;20:585–602). Yet analytical thinking develops largely through a scientific or philosophical education. Even if they’re interested in the paranormal, few scientists admit their secret vice. On the other hand, many people investigate the paranormal because science doesn’t hold all the answers. (Despite a decade as a research scientist, I agree.) So, it’s hardly surprising if those studied think intuitively.

Nevertheless, some people cast a scientific eye over the paranormal. In a series of articles over the last 15 years, I’ve tried to examine the irrational rationally. Much more importantly than my humble scribbles, groups such as the Centre for Fortean Zoology, the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena, and Society for Psychical Research investigate the paranormal analytically. Indeed, some past-presidents of the SPR were eminent scientists, including Sir William Crookes, who discovered thallium and cathode rays.

And I can’t help feeling uncomfortable at the implicit assumption in many of these studies: that a belief in the paranormal is a sign of marginal psychosis or dysfunctional thinking. There’s a real danger of turning a paranormal interest into a disease that needs ‘treatment’ – in the same way that psychiatrists once regarded homosexuals as ‘ill’.

As late as 1977, the World Health Organisation’s International Classification of Diseases included homosexuality as a mental illness. It’s easy to argue that an overemphasis on the scientific materialist method is also abnormal. As is so often the case, the ideal lies in the middle.

As the old saying suggests: ‘Keep an open mind, but not so open that your brain falls out.’

by Mark Greener

Mark Greener is an award-winning freelance journalist specialising in health and bioscience. Mark is a former research scientist who has written widely on his life-long passion: cryptobiology. He’s the author of nine books and his features have appeared in magazines worldwide. He lives between Cambridge and Ely and keeps a sharp look-out for the Fen Tiger but has sadly never even seen a footprint.

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