Francis B. Tatel Dr.

Maria Corazon Castro

MA English Studies (Language) English 299

A Harmful Experimental Research

For something to be accepted as real, science demands it must be able to be duplicated

over and over again in a scientific setting. But there are some things that do not conform to the

idea of repeatable experiments but are the constant pet topics of scientists—the supernatural.

Much experimental studies has been conducted to prove and disprove the existence of the

supernatural. And although it is true that the supernatural is an interesting field of interest for so

many people, I believe that it is not reasonable to study it in a university setting, especially the

reality of necromancy, because of the harms it poses. To conduct an experimental-qualitative

study to prove whether necromancy is really possible and to discover the ways in performing it

successfully by subjecting the participants to séances would really be harmful physically and

psychologically.

Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary defines necromancy as the conjuration the

spirits of the dead for purposes of magically revealing the future or influencing the course of

events. Certainly this is a dangerous activity for one to engage on. Hammersley and Traianou

(2012) wrote in Ethics in Qualitative Research: Controversies and Context that “perhaps the

most common, and usually the most important, principle involved in discussions of research

ethics concerns harmful consequences that could result from the actions of researchers” (57).

Moreover, they enumerated potential threats of harm arising from research categorized into the

following:

1. Pain, physical injury, and permanent disability.

2. Psychological damage, for instance emotional distress, erosion of self-confidence, stress-

related illness, and so on.

3. Material damage of some kind, for example loss of one’s freedom through imprisonment,

dismissal from one’s job, reduction in income or wealth, damage to property, and so on.

4. Damage to reputation or status, or to relations with significant others, for example through the

disclosure of information that was previously unknown to some relevant audience.

5. Damage to a project in which people are engaged, to some group or organisation to which they

belong, perhaps even to some institution or occupation in which they participate.

Conducting an experimental-qualitative research about necromancy through séances can

surely cause physical harm to the participants. A séance is a sitting organized for the purpose of

receiving spirit communications or paranormal manifestations through a medium (Giuley, 2007).

Since this kind of experiment deals with spirits, which do not usually obey commands, there is

always a possibility to conjure a poltergeist that might seriously harm the participants. A

poltergeist is mischievous and sometimes malevolent spirit that is characterized by noise,

moving objects, and physical disturbances (Giuley, 2007). This is certainly a kind of physical

harm the researcher is exposing his participants to.

There is also a psychological harm that the participants might encounter in this kind of

study. A possible psychological harm that might result from necromancy through séances is

spirit attachment. Spirit attachment is a type of possession in which a discarnate entity becomes

attached to a living person, much like a parasite. Victims may become depressed, even suicidal,

and exhibit signs of multiple personality disorder. The severity of symptoms depends on how

fully the entity invades the consciousness and body of the host (Giuley, 2007). Clearly, this is a

possible psychological harm to the participants that the researcher must anticipate.
 However, the participants and the researcher are not the only ones who can be affected by

the failure of this kind of experiment. The academic institutions within which researchers work

would also be affected. Expanding the possible effects, it should be noted that particular studies,

such as this one, can do harm to whole research communities, for example by bringing them into

disrepute, and/or by blocking access for future studies in particular settings.

Not all kinds of research topics are beneficial even though they promise to produce

knowledge with value. Values of knowledge must be judged in terms of relevance to human

concerns. This is because the value of some items of knowledge, in some contexts at some times,

may even be judged to be adverse to people.

Works Cited:

Guiley, Rosemary. The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits. 3rd ed. New York: Infobase, 2007.

Scribd.

Hammersley, Martyn and Anna Traianou. Ethics in Qualitative Research: Controversies and

Context. New Delhi: Sage, 2012. Booksc.org.