Paranormal Experiences in the German Population. A Representative Poll and Interview Study

This empirical research project was made up of a representative survey in the German population about attitudes and experiences in the field of the paranormal and of a following qualitative survey of a partial sample about their own extraordinary experiences.

The representative survey of 1,510 people shows that the German population is very open-minded as regards such phenomena and experiences. About 50 to 70 percent of the people interviewed can imagine that certain paranormal phenomena such as extrasensory perception, telepathy or precognition really exist. For almost 25 percent of the population it is conceivable that UFOs exist.

This positive attitude towards the "supernatural" corresponds to the frequency of personal experiences in this field. Almost three fourths of the interviewees have had at least one extraordinary experience in their lives which can be associated in the broadest sense with the field of paranormal experiences. Even though the more everyday experiences such as déjà-vu or astounding coincidences are most frequent in the population, altogether more than 50 percent of the interviewees tell of classic paranormal experiences such as prophetic dreams, apparitions or spook.

It is remarkable that the occurrence of such experiences is generally independent of socio-demographic factors such as sex, origin, education and religion. There is no difference in the occurrence of extraordinary experiences between women and men, East Germans and West Germans, people belonging to a religious denomination and those who do not (an average of two to three of the types of experience mentioned in the illustration). Merely the age of the people interviewed shows an explicit influence. One can observe that the open-mindedness towards paranormal phenomena decreases significantly with increasing age. The contingent of first-hand extraordinary experiences decreases with increasing age as well. In other words: Not only is the existence of supernatural phenomena more easily conceivable for young people, but such experiences are also significantly more frequent for them.

In the second part of the project more than 200 thematic interviews were conducted and analyzed. Of central interest were not so much representative data or statistical interrelations than rather questions concerning the subject matter. These were chiefly questions about issues, circumstances, interpretations and explanations of extraordinary experiences.

The individual results of this qualitative study are far too extensive and complex for it to be possible to represent them adequately in a few paragraphs. (For further particulars we refer you to the various publications). To summarize, all that can be said here is that in synopsis both parts of the study provide an extremely dense image of the everyday reality of so-called extraordinary experiences. Against the background of this study, examinations of this specific range of experience can assume three basic, empirically assured facts in future: (1) Extraordinary experiences may be rare in one person's individual lifetime, but they are extremely widespread in the population - and in this sense they are common. (2) Even though they are not imparted within the scope of institutional processes of education, the ideas and interpretations that deal with such experiences belong to the knowledge about everyday life in German society - thanks to mass media, popular culture and communication in everyday life. The status of the "extra-ordinary" is not a result of the fact that these phenomena are rare or unknown, but of a specific social attribution of this range of knowledge and experience.

Abstract: M. Schetsche (in cooperation with I. Schmied-Knittel)

Project Leader:
PD Dr. Michael Schetsche (since May 2002)
Prof. Dr. Johannes Mischo (until 2001)

Staff Members:
Ina Schmied-Knittel, M.A.

Dipl.-Chem. Raffaella Deflorin, M.A.
(until April 2002)

Dipl. Psych. Harriet Falkenhagen
(until April 2001)

Publications:

Schmied-Knittel, Ina und Michael Schetsche (2005): Everyday Miracles: Results of a representative survey in Germany. In: European Journal of Parapsychology 20(1), S. 3-21.

Eberhard Bauer, Michael Schetsche (Hrsg.) (2003): Alltägliche Wunder. Erfahrungen mit dem Übersinnlichen - wissenschaftliche Befunde. Würzburg: Ergon [Everyday miracles: Experiences with the supernatural. Scientific findings.]