Short article in extrasensory perception

 

Extrasensory Perception: Is It Real?

The novel Slan by A. E. van Vogt has become a science-fiction classic. First serialized

in the magazine Astounding Science Fiction in 1940, the story relates the adventures of

a boy with telepathic powers and his conflicts with nontelepathic adversaries. Telepathy

has become a staple of science fiction and is taken for granted as a power of the

mind in many novels and films. But is it real?

Before we address the fact or fiction of telepathy, let’s explore the phenomenon

as if it were real. This will permit us to understand more accurately what people

mean when they use words such as telepathy.

Telepathy belongs to a larger category of phenomena called extrasensory

perception. Extrasensory perception, or ESP, is the capacity to be aware of external

events without the use of one of the conventional senses such as vision or hearing.

ESP is referred to as the sixth sense, but there are

at least seven readily identified senses. ESP should more accurately be called the

eighth sense.

There are three kinds of extrasensory perception: (1) precognition, (2) telepathy,

and (3) clairvoyance. Precognition is the power to know what will happen

in the future. Living almost five hundred years ago, the French physician and

astrologer Nostradamus is one of the more famous individuals in history purported

to have had precognitive powers.

Telepathy is the power to send and receive mental messages. The ability to

read the minds of people who can’t read yours is also considered to be a telepathic

power. A spy with this ability would have a useful psychological tool. In the first

half of the twentieth century Upton Sinclair, author of The Jungle and a defeated

candidate for governor of California, conducted telepathic experiments with his

wife and published a book called Mental Radio.

Clairvoyance is the power to have visions and “see” something out of the

range of normal vision. (The word clairvoyance has French roots meaning “clear

seeing.”) Some clairvoyants are asserted to be able to give medical readings and

visualize an illness in another person in the same way that an X-ray machine can.

A person who can combine the two powers of precognition and clairvoyance is

thought to be able to both predict and visualize future events. The term seer

implies an ability to combine these powers.

Although not a form of ESP, there is another power often associated with it.

This is psychokinesis or PK. Psychokinesis is the power to move objects using

only energy transmitted by the mind. In the movie The Empire Strikes Back, the

hero Luke Skywalker lifts a small spaceship out of the muck of a bog with PK. A

gambler who believes in PK believes he can give the dice a mental nudge as

they’re rolling and influence the numbers that come up.

All four of the phenomena mentioned above are combined into a general class

of mental abilities called psi powers, powers of the mind that are thought to transcend

the conventional laws of physics and our ordinary understanding of natural

science. Psi powers are sometimes also called “wild talents.”

Do psi powers, ESP and PK, actually exist? If one were to make a decision

on anecdotal evidence alone, then one would accept the reality of these powers.

There are many stories and personal experiences that relate vivid and seemingly

convincing events that tempt skeptical observers to become believers.

However, anecdotes and personal experiences are hardly the stuff of science.

They can’t be verified. They are difficult or impossible to replicate. Often the

only witness is one individual. When the number of subjects in a study is only

one, the study has no reliability and can’t be generalized. Consequently, wonderful

stories aren’t sufficient evidence in favor of the hypothesis that ESP and

PK are real.

On the other hand, experimental science has explored psi powers. Joseph B.

Rhine (1895–1980), working at Duke University, conducted many experiments on

ESP and PK. He called the study of such phenomena parapsychology. Telepathy

experiments were conducted with the aid of a set of twenty-five cards called Zener

cards. There are five symbols and these are each repeated five times. PK experiments

often involved the tossing of dice because probable outcomes could be accurately

stated. Rhine’s research favors accepting the hypothesis that psi powers are

real. Others such as Charles T. Tart, using the experimental method, have obtained

results that are similar to Rhine’s.

On the other hand, many psychologists remain unconvinced. They point out

that there are flaws in the methodology of the various parapsychological experiments.

Also, it should be noted that such experiments do not consistently support

the reality of psi powers. Skeptics assert that when parapsychological

experiments are well designed and tightly controlled, many of the positive results

fade away.

It is not possible at this time to make a simple statement saying that psychology

either accepts psi abilities as real or rejects them as false. It can be asserted that

many psychologists—perhaps most—are unwilling to accept the reality of these

phenomena. They don’t believe that the data are sufficiently convincing.

                                                                                      from book psychology a self teaching guide

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