Certificate Programs

Field Investigations: Professional Certificate

This program is designed to provide a complete approach to investigating psi and paranormal phenomena in their natural environments, outside of the laboratory. It will include investigative techniques for hauntings and apparitions, localized poltergeist phenomena, past life memories, near-death experiences, and mediumship encounters. This program will discuss the historical foundation for investigations, investigative techniques, interviewing skills, technology for investigations, and ethical matters essential to performing a professional investigation.

Estimated time to complete this program: 24 - 40 months

Skills Development

The following skills are necessary to achieve a certificate in field investigations from the Rhine Education Center. Students will demonstrate these skills through their writings, their responses to course evaluations, and their project work.

  1. Recognition of possible phenomena
  2. Classification of phenomena according to academically recognized terminology
  3. Proper literature reviews, research techniques, and appropriate resources
  4. Critical evaluation of activity and reports to determine their possible origins, including examinations of:
    • Physical influences such as:
      • environmental factors
      • air flow, reflective light, magnetic or electronic interference, errant sounds, or other less obvious physical factors
      • equipment malfunctions or failures
    • Psychological factors such as:
      • expectations
      • creative interpretations
      • false memories or faulty records
      • misinterpretation of observations or causes of activity
      • group, family, and or cultural pressures that may influence reports
    • Misdirection and Fraud such as:
      • exaggeration
      • attention seeking
      • purposeful or inadvertent deception to create the impression of phenomena
      • purposeful or inadvertent suppression of information
      • misrepresentation of phenomena
  5. Interviewing techniques including
    • Avoiding leading questions
    • sensitivities to cultures, gender, beliefs, and other individual characteristics
  6. Proper tools and equipment and their appropriate use
  7. Investigative techniques including:
    • gathering evidence
    • recording processes
    • protecting and preserving evidence
    • exploring possible sources of evidence
    • considering all evidence in context
    • appropriate evaluation of motivations for reports and origin of evidence
  8. Ethical factors to be considered in investigations
  9. Reporting techniques and appropriate platforms to disseminate information

Courses

  • Introduction to Parapsychology (8 week)
  • Consciousness & Survival Studies (8 week)
  • Qualitative Research Methods for Field Investigations (8 week) or Qualitative Research Methods (8 weeks)
  • Field Investigations: Hauntings, Apparitions, & Poltergeists (8 week)
  • Advanced Field Investigations (8 week)
  • Paranormal Phenomena: EVP, ITC, and Other Technologies Used to Investigated the Paranormal (4 week)
  • Development of Investigative Techniques (historical review of techniques to the present) (4 week)
  • Ethical issues in Field Investigations (4 week)
  • Paranormal Case Studies (8 week)
  • A Skeptical Approach to Parapsychology (8 week)
  • Cases of the Reincarnation Type & Near-Death Studies (8 week)
  • Special topics in Tools & Technologies: Mediumship, Machine Influence, & the Biofield (4 week)
  • Cultural Perspectives on the Paranormal (8 weeks) or Paranthropology (8 weeks)
  • Final Project: Develop an Investigative Plan – Independent Study

Additional Information

Students can apply for the certificate program by sending an email to administration@rhineeducationcenter.org and expressing an interest in the program. Once accepted, the student is responsible to insure they complete each course in the program, take each for a grade, and achieve a passing grade in each course.

Once all of the courses are completed, the student must apply to complete the certificate by sending an email to administration@rhineeducationcenter.org. The student's transcript will be reviewed, and if the courses have all been completed with satisfactory grades, the certificate will be awarded.