Agent:
The apparition, or ghost, seen by a human being, (or percipient.)

Apparition:
The manifestation of a ghost or spirit into a human-looking form.  A presence seen to the naked eye that is known not to be of the living.  Some apparitions seem real with definable form and features while others appear fuzzy, hazy, transparent or ill-defined.  Some are little more than patches of light, streaks or blobs.  They appear and disappear suddenly and sometimes they just fade away.  They are able to move through solid objects such as walls and some walk around them.  They can cast shadows and reflect in mirrors or not.  Some are accompanied by sounds, smells, cold or hot spots and some can move physical objects in the real environment.

Automatic Writing
This is a communication with a ghost where the ghost controls a writer's hand and writes out messages. A person produces written material while controlled by a spirit, the person is not conscious of what they are writing. A person may write pages and pages of words that they do not remember writing when they come back to their conscious state.

Collective apparition:
An unusual type of spirit in which more than one person sees the same phenomenon.

Crisis apparition:
A specific type of out-of-body experience in which the agent projects his or her astral body at a time of crisis or death, usually to a loved one.

Ectoplasm
Exteriorized sunstance' produced out of the bodies of some physical mediums and from which materializations are sometimes formed.

Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP):
Is the practice of getting voices recorded on tapes, usually audio. Usually nothing is heard at the time of the recording. Only during playback do you hear the hushed and gravely voices.

Electro-Magnetic Field Meter (EMF):
This is a "must" have for ghost hunters. This tool detects the changes in the Electro-Magnetic Field. This field is around everything. From T.V.'s to Power Boxes. So care must be used in your "possible" ghost. The normal reading for paranormal activity is between 2.0 and 8.0. Above this is usually man-made in origin.

Exorcism:
The expulsion of a ghost, spirit, demon, or other enity/entities thought to be possessing or haunting a human being or location. The ritial, conducted by an excorcist, is usually religious in nature, and calls upon some Higher Power to cast out the evil force(s).

Ghost:
A form or apparition, usually the visual appearance of a deceased human's spirit soul.

Ghost Hunt:
Is a informal attempt to site or simply record a ghost in a location that has no history of hauntings.

Ghost Hunter:
A person or group who tries to record spirits or ghosts. This may be done by means of photgraphy, video tape, or other means. Sometimes the source of a haunting can be found.

Ghost Investigation:
Going to a known haunted place and recording data (video, photos, audio, temperatures), notes, interviews and other evidence to prove/disprove the haunting and to assist the owners and the spirits in moving on and leaving the place if they want that. The assistance can be either you directly assisting the owner with the situation or putting them in contact with experienced groups or individuals that will try to resolve the situation. Your assistance can be something as simple as educating them on what is going on and their options.

Haunt:
A ghost that returns to the same place is said to haunt it. A ghost usually haunts places, not people.

Medium:
A person who can communicate with a spirit, usually on behalf of a living person.

Paranormal:
Something that is beyond the simple human experience or scientific explanation.

Poltergeist:
A disturbance characterized by bizarre physical effects of paranormal origin, suggesting mischevious or destructive intent: these phenomena include the unexplainable movement or breakage of objects, loud raps, the lighting of fires, and occasionally personal injury to people; in contrast to a haunting, the phenomena often seem to depend on the prsence of a particular living individual, called the 'focus', frequently an adolecent or child; and apparitions are rarely seen.

Radio Voice Phenomenon (RVP):
Receiving the voices of deceased human being over a regular radio.

Recurrent Spontaneous Psychokinesis (RSPK):
A technical term for poltergeist activity. [See "Repressed psychokinetic energy" and "Poltergeist" for more info.]

Supernatural:
Something that exists or occurs through some means other than any known force in nature. As opposed to paranormal, the term "supernatual" often connotes divine or demonic intervention.