Zener cards used in testing for ESP

Extrasensory perception (ESP) is the purported ability to acquire information by paranormal means independent of any known physical senses or deduction from previous experience. Paranormal is an Umbrella term used to describe unusual Phenomena or experiences that lack an obvious Scientific explanation Senses are the physiological methods of Perception. The senses and their operation classification and theory are overlapping topics studied by a variety of fields The term was coined by Duke University researcher J. B. Rhine to denote psychic abilities such as telepathy, the sensing of thoughts or feelings without help from the 5 known senses, precognition, the knowledge of future events, and clairvoyance, the awareness of people, objects or events without the help of the 5 known senses. Joseph Banks Rhine ( September 29, 1895 &ndash February 20, 1980) (usually known as J The word psychic (ˈsaɪkɨk from the Greek psychikos—"of the soul mental" refers to the claimed ability to perceive things hidden from the normal senses Telepathy ( Greek τηλε tele meaning "distant" and πάθεια patheia meaning "to be affected by" describes the purported transfer Precognition (from the Latin præ- “prior to” + cognitio “a getting to know” denotes a form of Extrasensory perception where in a person is said to perceive Clairvoyance (from 17th century French with clair meaning "clear" and voyance meaning "visibility" is the apparent ability to gain ESP is also sometimes casually referred to as a sixth sense, gut instinct, a hunch, a weird vibe or an intuition. Senses are the physiological methods of Perception. The senses and their operation classification and theory are overlapping topics studied by a variety of fields The term implies sources of information currently unexplained by science. Extrasensory perception (ESP is the apparent ability to acquire information by Paranormal means independent of any known physical Senses or deduction from previous Popular belief in ESP is widespread, but skeptics are still not persuaded that there truly is a sixth sense because of the lack of reliable theories and information. ^[1][2][3]

The existence of ESP abilities is highly controversial, and no scientifically conclusive demonstrations of the existence of ESP have been given. ^[1] Parapsychology explores this possibility, and some experiments such as the ganzfeld have been suggested as good evidence of ESP,^[4][5] however its existence is not generally accepted by the scientific establishment. Parapsychology is a discipline that seeks to demonstrate the existence and causes of Psychic abilities and life after death using the Scientific method A ganzfeld experiment (from the German for “entire field” is a technique used in the field of Parapsychology to test individuals for Extra-sensory perception

History of ESP

The notion of extrasensory perception existed in antiquity. In many ancient cultures, such powers were ascribed to people who purported to use them for second sight or communicate with deities, ancestors, spirits, and the like. Second sight is a form of Extra-sensory perception whereby a person perceives information in the form of vision, about future events before they happen

Extrasensory perception and hypnosis

There is a common belief that a hypnotized person would be able to demonstrate ESP. Carl Sargent, a psychology major at the University of Cambridge, heard about the early claims of a hypnosis – ESP link and designed an experiment to test whether they had merit. Carl L Sargent (born December 11 1952, in Caerleon, Monmouthshire) is a British author of several The University of Cambridge (often Cambridge University) located in Cambridge, England, is the second-oldest university in the He recruited 40 fellow college students, none of whom identified themselves as having ESP, and then divided them into a group that would be hypnotized before being tested with a pack of 25 Zener cards, and a control group that would be tested with the same Zener cards. The control subjects averaged a score of 5 out of 25 right, exactly what chance would indicate. The subjects who were hypnotized did more than twice as well, averaging a score of 11. 9 out of 25 right. Sargent's own interpretation of the experiment is that ESP is associated with a relaxed state of mind and a freer, more atavistic level of consciousness. Skeptics believe that Sargent's experiments lacked proper controls.

J. B. Rhine

In the 1930s, at Duke University in North Carolina, J. B. Rhine and his wife Louisa tried to develop psychical research into an experimental science. Duke University is a private Research University located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Joseph Banks Rhine ( September 29, 1895 &ndash February 20, 1980) (usually known as J To avoid the connotations of hauntings and the seance room, they renamed it "parapsychology. A séance (ˈsay-ons is an attempt to communicate with spirits The word " séance " comes from the French word for "seat" "session" Parapsychology is a discipline that seeks to demonstrate the existence and causes of Psychic abilities and life after death using the Scientific method " While Louisa Rhine concentrated on collecting accounts of spontaneous cases, J. B. Rhine worked largely in the laboratory, carefully defining terms such as ESP and psi and designing experiments to test them. A simple set of cards was developed, originally called Zener cards^[6] (after their designer) — now called ESP cards. They bear the symbols circle, square, wavy lines, cross, and star; there are five cards of each in a pack of 25.

In a telepathy experiment the "sender" looks at a series of cards while the "receiver" guesses the symbols. To try to observe clairvoyance, the pack of cards is hidden from everyone while the receiver guesses. To try to observe precognition, the order of the cards is determined after the guesses are made.

In all such experiments the order of the cards must be random so that hits are not obtained through systematic biases or prior knowledge. At first the cards were shuffled by hand, then by machine. Later, random number tables were used and, nowadays, computers. An advantage of ESP cards is that statistics can easily be applied to determine whether the number of hits obtained is higher than would be expected by chance. Rhine used ordinary people as subjects and claimed that, on average, they did significantly better than chance expectation. Later he used dice to test for psychokinesis and also claimed results that were better than chance.

In 1940, Rhine, J. G. Pratt, and others at Duke authored a review of all card-guessing experiments conducted internationally since 1882. Titled Extra-Sensory Perception After Sixty Years, it has become recognised as the first meta-analysis in science. ^[7] It included details of replications of Rhine's studies. Through these years, 50 studies were published, of which 33 were contributed by investigators other than Rhine and the Duke University group; 61% of these independent studies reported significant results suggestive of ESP. ^[8] Among these were psychologists at Colorado University and Hunter College, New York, who completed the studies with the largest number of trials and the highest levels of significance. ^[9][10] Replication failures encouraged Rhine to further research into the conditions necessary to experimentally produce the effect. He maintained, however, that it was not replicability, or even a fundamental theory of ESP that would evolve research, but only a greater interest in unconscious mental processes and a more complete understanding of human personality. ^[11]

Early British research

One of the first statistical studies of ESP, using card-guessing, was conducted by Ina Jephson, in the 1920s. She reported mixed findings across two studies. More successful experiments were conducted with procedures other than card-guessing. G. N. M. Tyrrell used automated target-selection and data-recording in guessing the location of a future point of light. Whateley Carington experimented on the paranormal cognition of drawings of randomly selected words, using participants from across the globe. J. Hettinger studied the ability to retrieve information associated with token objects. All reported evidence suggestive of extrasensory perception.

Less successful was University of London mathematician Samuel Soal in his attempted replications of the card-guessing studies. Samuel George Soal (1889 &ndash 1975 was a British psychical researcher and parapsychologist However, following a hypothesis suggested by Carington on the basis of his own findings, Soal re-analysed his data for evidence of what Carington termed displacement. Displacement is a characteristic quality of psi, or anomalous cognition Soal discovered, to his surprise, that two of his former participants evidenced displacement: i. e. , their responses significantly corresponded to targets for trials one removed from which they were assigned. Soal sought to confirm this finding by testing these participants in new experiments. Conducted during the war years, into the 1950s, under tightly controlled conditions, they produced highly significant results suggestive of precognitive telepathy. Telepathy ( Greek τηλε tele meaning "distant" and πάθεια patheia meaning "to be affected by" describes the purported transfer His findings were especially convincing for many other scientists and philosophers regarding telepathy and the claims of Rhine. Critics offered claims of fraud, the invalidity of probability theory to science, and the possibility of unconscious whispering, as accounting for Soal's results. These charges against Soal, and spirited defenses by his colleagues, continued until after his death in 1975. In 1978, parapsychologists largely abandoned any further defence of the findings when a computer-based analysis identified inexplicable sequences in the target lists used for one of Soal's experiments.

Sequence, position and psychological effects

Rhine and other parapsychologists found that some subjects, or some conditions, produced significant below-chance scoring (psi-missing); or that scores declined during testing (the "decline effect"). Psi hit and psi miss are terms used in discussion of Parapsychological experimentation to describe the success or failure of the subject in achieving the desired result Personality measures have also been tested. People who believe in psi ("sheep") tend to score above chance, while those who do not believe in psi ("goats") show null results or psi-missing. This has became known as the "sheep-goat effect".

Prediction of decline and other position effects has proved challenging, although they have been often identified in data gathered for the purpose of observing other effects. ^[12] Personality and attitudinal effects have shown greater predictability, with meta-analysis of parapsychological databases showing the sheep-goat effect, and other traits, to have significant and reliable effects over the accumulated data. In Statistics, a meta-analysis combines the results of several studies that address a set of related research hypotheses ^[13][14]

Cognitive and humanistic research

In the 1960s, in line with the development of cognitive psychology and humanistic psychology, parapsychologists became increasingly interested in the cognitive components of ESP, the subjective experience involved in making ESP responses, and the role of ESP in psychological life. Cognitive psychology is a branch of Psychology that investigates internal mental processes such as problem solving memory and language Humanistic psychology is a school of psychology that emerged in the 1950s in reaction to both Behaviorism and Psychoanalysis. Memory, for instance, was offered as a better model of psi than perception. This called for experimental procedures that were not limited to Rhine's favoured forced-choice methodology. Free-response measures, such as used by Carington in the 1930s, were developed with attempts to raise the sensitivity of participants to their cognitions. These procedures included relaxation, meditation, REM-sleep, and the Ganzfeld (a mild sensory deprivation procedure). These studies have proved to be even more successful than Rhine's forced-choice paradigm, with meta-analyses evidencing reliable effects, and many confirmatory replication studies. ^[15][16] Methodological hypotheses have still been raised to explain the results, while others have sought to advance theoretical development in parapsychology on their bases. Moving research out of the laboratory and into naturalistic settings, and taking advantage of naturally occurring conditions, has been a related development.

Parapsychological investigation of ESP

Main articles: Parapsychology, Scientific investigation of telepathy, and Ganzfeld experiment

The study of psi phenomena such as ESP is called parapsychology. Parapsychology is a discipline that seeks to demonstrate the existence and causes of Psychic abilities and life after death using the Scientific method Numerous scientific experiments seeking evidence of Telepathy have been conducted over more than a century in the field of Parapsychology. A ganzfeld experiment (from the German for “entire field” is a technique used in the field of Parapsychology to test individuals for Extra-sensory perception Parapsychology is a discipline that seeks to demonstrate the existence and causes of Psychic abilities and life after death using the Scientific method The consensus of the Parapsychology Association is that certain types of psychic phenomena such as psychokinesis, telepathy, and precognition are well established. The Parapsychological Association was formed in 1957 as a professional society for parapsychologists following an initiative by J The term psychokinesis (from the Greek ψυχή, "psyche" meaning mind soul heart or breath; and κίνησις, "kinesis" Telepathy ( Greek τηλε tele meaning "distant" and πάθεια patheia meaning "to be affected by" describes the purported transfer Precognition (from the Latin præ- “prior to” + cognitio “a getting to know” denotes a form of Extrasensory perception where in a person is said to perceive ^[17][4][18]

Much reported extrasensory perception is said to occur spontaneously in conditions which can not be scientifically controlled. Such experiences have often been reported to be much stronger and more obvious than those observed in laboratory experiments. These reports, rather than laboratory evidence, have historically been the basis for the extremely widespread belief in the authenticity of these phenomena. These experiences have not been replicated under controlled scientific conditions. ^[4]

Those who believe that ESP may exist point to numerous parapsychological studies that appear to offer evidence of the phenomenon's existence: the work of J. B. Rhine, Russell Targ, Harold E. Puthoff and physicists at SRI International in the 1970s, and many others, are often cited in arguments that ESP exists. Joseph Banks Rhine ( September 29, 1895 &ndash February 20, 1980) (usually known as J Russell Targ is an American physicist and author an ESP researcher and pioneer in the earliest development of the Laser. Harold E Puthoff, PhD (born 20 June 1936) is an American physicist who earlier in his career was involved in research on paranormal topics SRI International, based in the United States is one of the world's largest contract Research institutes.

The main current debate concerning ESP surrounds whether or not statistically compelling laboratory evidence for it has already been accumulated. ^[19][4] The most compelling and repeatable results are all small to moderate statistical results. Statistics is a mathematical science pertaining to the collection analysis interpretation or explanation and presentation of Data. Some dispute the positive interpretation of results obtained in scientific studies of ESP, because they are difficult to reproduce reliably, and are small effects. Parapsychologists have argued that the data from numerous studies show that certain individuals have consistently produced remarkable results while the remainder have constituted a highly significant trend that cannot be dismissed even if the effect is small. ^[20]

Skepticism

See also: Parapsychology#Criticism

Among scientists in the National Academy of Sciences, 96% described themselves as "skeptical" of ESP, although 2% believed in psi and 10% felt that parapsychological research should be encouraged. Parapsychology is a discipline that seeks to demonstrate the existence and causes of Psychic abilities and life after death using the Scientific method In ordinary usage skepticism or scepticism ( Greek 'σκέπτομαι' skeptomai, to look about to consider see also spelling differences Psi is a term from Parapsychology derived from the Greek, ψ psi twenty-third letter of the Greek alphabet; from the Greek ψυχή ^[21] The National Academy of Sciences had previously sponsored the Enhancing Human Performance report on mental development programs, which was critical of parapsychology. ^[22]

A scientific methodology that shows statistically significant evidence for ESP with nearly 100% consistency has not been discovered. The lack of a viable theory of the mechanism behind ESP is also frequently cited as a source of skepticism. Historical cases in which flaws have been discovered in the experimental design of parapsychological studies, and the occasional cases of fraud marred the field. ^[23]

Critics of experimental parapsychology hold that there are no consistent and agreed-upon standards by which "ESP powers" may be tested, in the way one might test for, say, electrical current or the chemical composition of a substance. It is argued that when psychics are challenged by skeptics and fail to prove their alleged powers, they assign all sorts of reasons for their failure, such as that the skeptic is affecting the experiment with "negative energy. "

See also

• Clever Hans
• Parapsychology
• Intuition
• List of spirituality-related topics
• Silva Method
• International Zetetic Challenge
• Consciousness causes collapse
• Clairvoyance
• Remote viewing
• Precognition
• Retrocognition
• Aura reading
• Telepathy
• Out-of-body experiences
• Astral projection
• Mediumship
• Psychokinesis
• Pyrokinesis

References

Further reading

• The Conscious Universe, by Dean Radin, Harper Collins, 1997, ISBN 0-06-251502-0. Dean Radin (born February 29, 1952) is a researcher and author in the field of Parapsychology.
• Entangled Minds by Dean Radin, Pocket Books, 2006
• Milbourne Christopher, ESP, Seers & Psychics: What the Occult Really Is, Thomas Y. Dean Radin (born February 29, 1952) is a researcher and author in the field of Parapsychology. Milbourne Christopher (1914 - 1984 was one of America's foremost illusionists, performing in sixty-eight countries Crowell Co. , 1970, ISBN 0-690-26815-7
• Milbourne Christopher, Mediums, Mystics & the Occult by Thomas Y. Crowell Co, 1975
• Milbourne Christopher, Search for the Soul , Thomas Y. Crowell Publishers, 1979
• Georges Charpak, Henri Broch, and Bart K. Georges Charpak (born August 1, 1924) is a Polish - French Physicist and Nobel Prize in Physics winner Holland (tr), Debunked! ESP, Telekinesis, and Other Pseudoscience, (Johns Hopkins University). 2004, ISBN 0-8018-7867-5
• Hoyt L. Edge, Robert L. Morris, Joseph H. Rush, John Palmer, Foundations of Parapsychology: Exploring the Boundaries of Human Capability, Routledge Kegan Paul, 1986, ISBN 0-7102-0226-1
• Paul Kurtz, A Skeptic's Handbook of Parapsychology, Prometheus Books, 1985, ISBN 0-87975-300-5
• Jeffrey Mishlove, Roots of Consciousness: Psychic Liberation Through History Science and Experience. 1st edition, 1975, ISBN 0-394-73115-8, 2nd edition, Marlowe & Co. , July 1997, ISBN 1-56924-747-1 There are two very different editions. online
• John White, ed. Psychic Exploration: A Challenge for Science, published by Edgar D. Mitchell and G. Edgar Dean Mitchell DSc (born September 17, 1930) is an American pilot and Astronaut. P. Putman, 1974, ISBN 0-399-11342-8
• Richard Wiseman, Deception and self-deception: Investigating Psychics. Richard Wiseman (born 1966 is Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom. Amherst, USA: Prometheus Press. 1997
• Benjamin B. Wolman, ed, Handbook of Parapsychology, Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1977, ISBN 0-442-29576-6
• Myers, David G. Psychology. Accessed on December 9, 2004. Events 536 - Byzantine General Belisarius enters Rome while the Ostrogothic garrison peacefully leaves the city "MMIV" redirects here For the Modest Mouse album see " Baron von Bullshit Rides Again " Contains information concerning the Randi Foundation tests.
• Extra sensory perception Extrasensory perception (ESP) article