Paranormal expert takes weird science to UK’s summer festivals

Goldsmiths, University of London’s Professor Chris French – the country’s leading authority on the psychology of paranormal belief and experiences – is touring the UK’s festivals this summer, from Latitude to the Edinburgh Fringe.

As a professor of psychology and head of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit at Goldsmiths, Chris French has spent decades exploring and explaining why people believe in astrology, the paranormal, aliens, ghosts and other forms of ostensibly supernatural magic.

On 16 July he takes the stage at Suffolk’s Latitude Festival with the Department of Psychology’s Gustav Kuhn – a magician and cognitive psychologist with a research focus on magic, and the ways in which magicians allow you to experience the impossible.

While Professor French explains our psychological need for the paranormal and what this need reveals about being human, Dr Kuhn will be conducting a live experiment into the psychology of magic, to demonstrate how we are primed to be deceived and why we certainly shouldn’t believe our own eyes.

Find out more at latitudefestival.com

On 23 July, Professor French appears at Bluedot in Cheshire – a brand new intergalactic festival of music, science, arts, culture and space exploration.

Visit discoverthebluedot.com for more information

Professor French, the founder of the hugely successful Skeptics in the Pub event series in Greenwich, travels to Edinburgh on August 13th. The sixth annual Edinburgh Skeptics on the Fringe promises to bring science, reason and critical thinking to the world’s biggest arts festival.

More details to be announced on edinburghskeptics.com

On Thursday 29 September, Professor French’s Latitude talk returns to SalonNorth: Magic, part of Harrogate International Festivals. With appearances by Chris, science journalist Jo Marchant and comedian Doug Segal, the magic-themed night offers “stimulating ideas in art, science and psychology designed to change your life for the better”.

Full details are available on the Harrogate International Festivals website

 

Visit the APRU's webpages to join the Psychology of the Paranormal Email network and receive the latest details of public events hosted by Chris French, the APRU at Goldsmiths, Greenwich Skeptics in the Pub, and more.