How easy or difficult is to change someone's belief with regards to the paranormal?

How easy or difficult is to change someone's belief with regards to the paranormal?

Chris French (Anomalistic Psychologist) gives expert video advice on: Why do people believe in the paranormal?; Do most people believe in the paranormal?; How important are people's paranormal beliefs to them? and more...

People certainly cannot change their mind about the paranormal and I used to be a believer and now I am putting with this sceptic. I know that from the reaction and feedback I get when I do talks or when I do my lectures as part of our Degree program the students end up a lot more sceptical at the end of the course than they were at the beginning. So clearly it is possible to convince people, but you will typically find that people for whom the paranormal beliefs are one of the most important things in their lives and who possibly believe themselves to actually have psychic abilities, they will be incredibly difficult to convince and in fact even though you may test them in a way that they agree in advance to be a perfectly fare test you find that if you carry out the test and they fail it they will then find all kind of reasons why in fact it was not a fare test. You will get this kind of 'mental gymnastics' that goes on in order to preserve their belief in this thing that is so important to them that they are not going to let go. We come across that time and time again. But it is possible to believe some of these things, but it's easier with some people than with others.