ABSTRACT
Whilst the area of study was dominated by a group of people who orientated themselves toward the standards of a scientific methodology, this became more differentiated in the course of the twentieth century and in the first few years of the millennium. The range of researchers into supernatural manifestations currently extends from ‘serious’ researchers in the SPR tradition, who are primarily driven by an interest in scientific knowledge, through to leisure practitioners and lay groups, and those driven by more commercial interests, which, then as now, exploit popular interest in the ‘supernatural’ (Potts 2004: 211, 225-6).
