Experiencing the Exceptional & Extraordinary (4 Week) - Syllabus

Course Description

What types of experiences do people report? Who reports them? What are some of the theories behind some of these experiences? How are these experiences evaluated and investigated?

About Experiencing the Exceptional and Extraordinary 
This 4 week course will provide overview of the full range and depths of exceptional experiences, also known as anomalous events, including experiences of hallucinations, lucid and precognitive dreams, near-death and out-of body events, UFO sightings, alien abductions, psychokinesis, remote viewing, mysticism, anomalous healing, psi-events and past-lives.

Experiencing the Exceptional & Extraordinary (EEE) will evaluate whether there are underlying similarities among all the phenomena and the issues with moving forward with a new scientific paradigm.

Course Outline

Week 1

Introduction and Overview

  • Varieties of Exceptional Experiences

  • Who reports EEs

  • Types of classifications

  • Early studies of the Society for Psychical Research 1886

  • Present studies overview Rhine, PA, SSE, PRS, PEAR, SoC

  • The scientific method and the objective vs. subjective crisis in research

Week 2

What is Reported?

  • Overview of reports: human figures, animals, objects

  • Investigations of hallucinations, lucid, precognitive dreams, OBEs

  • Investigations of hauntings & apparitions

  • Investigations of UFO and alien & apparitions

  • Investigations of remote viewing, psychokinesis

  • Investigations of anomalous healing

Week 3

How is it Reported?

  • Examining Scientific Evidence

  • A few classic case studies

  • NDEs, & after life

  • Past lives and reincarnation

  • Training for EEs

Week 4

Where do we do from here?

  • Beyond classification - understanding how to learn from spontaneous psi event in context

  • Recognizing genuine exceptional experiences

  • The unexpected cost of EEs

  • The academically treacherous phenomena of scientific research of exceptional experiences

Course Materials

  • Various articles, videos, and links selected by the instructor and provided for download or viewing in the courseroom throughout the course.

Course Activities

  • Students will be expected to view the class broadcasts or the recordings of the classes each week.
  • Though this course is not graded, to get the most out of this course, students should participate in weekly discussion forums and activities. In the forums, each student will be expected to provide an original posting each week and to respond to at least one other student. This is the fun and interactive part of the course!