ASSAP's history

This history of ASSAP, written by Val Hope (left), is arranged by area of activity rather than chronologically.

That name!

The Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena - a bit of a mouthful that can cause the uninitiated to trip over their tongues. You may wonder why we ever decided to give our association such a long title, but every word was considered very carefully. We are now well into our third decade. Our 25th anniversary fell in summer 2006, and in the autumn we celebrated this event with a joint conference with Parasearch in Worcester.

Back in 1981, when a group of psychical researchers, ufologists and earth mysteries researchers came together, they had very clear views on what they wanted to achieve. The multidisciplinary approach we now take for granted in ASSAP was quite novel back then. Researchers were starting to recognize that their work might not produce meaningful results if they remained in isolated, specialist groups. Therefore the new body was to be an association bringing together individuals and groups for a fruitful exchange of ideas. However, it was to be more than a talking shop or social club.

A scientific approach was regarded as vital. However, ‘scientific’ does not mean that our research and investigations have to be laboratory-based. Indeed, spontaneous events such as hauntings and poltergeists do not lend themselves to laboratory study. There was no place in the association for closed minds, whether for or against paranormal explanations. Neutrality guaranteed the application of scientific principles: gathering and weighing up evidence, testing, adapting and, where necessary, rejecting theories.

‘Parapsychology’ was viewed as too restrictive a term, excluding such things as legends and earth mysteries. ‘Psychical studies’ was also rejected on similar grounds. The all-encompassing ‘anomalous phenomena’ was a term that probably originated in the USA. It seemed to encapsulate the idea that the effects we were to study were unusual, but not necessarily paranormal and, after discussion, Hilary Evans’ suggestion for the new group’s name was accepted. Naturally, its shortened form rolls off the tongue more readily, and this is how we usually refer to ourselves: ASSAP.