An AECKO Case Need Not Be a Ghostly Episode:Parapsychology vs. Anomalistic Psychology Redux

Abstract

In the Spring 2025 issue of the Journal of Scientific Exploration (JSE), Ciaran O’Keeffe, Brandon Massullo, Brian Laythe, Neil Dagnall, Kenneth Drinkwater, and James Houran (2025; hereafter O’Keeffe et al.) published an article in which they claim validity for their Haunted People Syndrome (HP-S) model of “ghostly episodes” in the features of the Silicon Valley case investigated and reported by the present authors (Auerbach et al., 2022a, 2022b, 2023), involving household disturbances of the recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis (RSPK, or “poltergeist”)-type (video presentation available here). We take issue with a number of O’Keeffe et al.’s claims on logical, empirical, conceptual, and clinical grounds, and since our counterarguments are too extensive to meet the 10,000 word limit allotted to us by the JSE, we instead present them in the collection of papers contained herein, prefaced by introductory remarks from L.A.

The paper by B.J.W. points out several empirical and conceptual issues with HP-S before specifically addressing the arguments made by O’Keeffe et al. (2025) in their article text. In particular, O’Keeffe et al. seem to misunderstand the anomalous episodic communal kinetic occurrences (AECKO) methodological approach to spontaneous cases being developed by G.F.S., labeling it a “model” when it is not meant to be. O’Keeffe et al. also continue to use the term “poltergeist,” claiming it as a member of their (undefined) “ghostly episodes” phenomena, while ignoring historic evidence suggesting that “poltergeist”/AECKO/RSPK-type cases are a distinct class of their own. O’Keeffe et al. further seem to overlook parapsychological study findings which indicate that several of the behavioral traits, states, and characteristics they associate with HP-S also tend to be correlated with veridical psi, and would thus not uniquely support HP-S alone. And rather than being consistent with HP-S, the qualitative features of the Silicon Valley case actually appear to be more at odds with HP-S when examined closely, thereby challenging O’Keeffe et al.’s claim of validity.

B.H.’s paper challenges O’Keeffe et al.’s (2025) use of clinical data from Auerbach et al.’s (2022, 2023) Silicon Valley case study to validate their Haunted People Syndrome (HP-S) theory. Potential ethical issues are considered due to what appears to be a possible misinterpretation or seeming misrepresentation of Auerbach et al.’s data, arguing that O’Keeffe et al. (2025): 1.) enlisted a member of their team (a ‘professional clinician’) to supply subjective rating responses to their HP-S questionnaires; 2.) used Auerbach et al.’s Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) Self-Assessment psychoeducational clinical intervention data out of context for clinical assessment of the family; and 3.) made clinical assessment/interpretations about family members, based on the HSP data and their own team generated HP-S data, without the family’s informed consent. B.H. notes that the research analysts and clinicians in the O’Keeffe et al. and Auerbach et al. teams are from multiple countries (U.S., U.K., and Canada), each with distinct standards of practice and codes of ethics. B.H. concludes with suggesting that parapsychologists adhere to the Universal Declaration of Ethical Principles for Psychologists as proposed to and adopted by the International Union of Psychological Science’s (IUPsyS, 2008) 116 national psychology associations world-wide to forward the development of ethical standards of practice in the emerging specialty field of clinical parapsychology.

G.F.S.’s paper raises two additional considerations: First, rather than parapsychology, O’Keeffe et al.’s (2025) article seems to emerge from anomalistic psychology, where anomalous experiences are explained in terms of known physical and psychological factors, often to the exclusion of any veridical psi element possibly being involved. This would seem to be most clearly evidenced by their article continuing to maintain a long-held working assumption that psi experiences are ultimately delusional, in spite of existing data to the contrary. Second, it is argued that the reductionist methods traditionally used in parapsychology may be inadequate for understanding psi, and that the approach to studying psi might benefit from being reframed in terms of complex systems science. This would necessitate a greater respect for spontaneous case research, including AECKO investigations.