Extra-sensory perception

Types of ESP

Specific types of extra-sensory perception include:

• Perception of events in other places (clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairgustance, clairsentience) and in other times (precognition, retrocognition, second sight)
• Perception of aspects of others not perceivable by most people (aura reading)
• The ability to sense communications from, and communicate with, people far away (telepathy), beyond the grave (mediumship, séancing, and spirit walking), or in other dimensions (astral projection)

The study of these abilities, called parapsychology, includes other phenomena such as psychometry and psychokinesis, which are associated with ESP.

A person capable of using ESP is referred to as a psychic or as having psychic powers.

History of ESP

The notion of extra-sensory 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, etc.

Extra-sensory perception and hypnosis

When Franz Anton Mesmer and Grigori Rasputin were first popularizing hypnosis, the legend came about that a person who was hypnotized 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. He recruited forty fellow college students, none of whom identified him- or herself 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.

This experiment was later shown to have been conducted without normal experimental controls. Subsequent experiments using normal experimental controls have not reproduced Sargent's results or any indication of the existence of ESP.

Modern Day ESP Investigation

People are currently investigating this phenomena today, such as the scientist Dean Radin . For fifteen years he has investigated psi phenomena through appointments at Princeton University, University of Edinburgh, University of Nevada, SRI International, Boundary Institute, and Interval Research Corporation. He is presently Laboratory Director at the Institute of Noetic Sciences in Petaluma, California.

Ongoing debates about the existence of ESP

Proponents of the existence of ESP point to numerous scientific 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, are often cited in arguments that ESP exists. Books such as James Randi's The Truth About Uri Geller, which examines the claims of the titular psychic, point out that these studies were not conducted with proper scientific controls, and that when alleged psychics such as Gellar are tested with such controls in place, they cannot produce results greater than would be accounted for by chance.

In general, numerous ESP studies have failed to find any evidence of the phenomenon. Those studies that have produced apparent evidence of its existence are marred by methodological flaws. [1] Proponents of ESP claim that the phenomena is a "taboo" subject in the scientific and rationalist communities, resulting in sociological rather than scientific barriers to research.

Difficulties testing ESP

It has been suggested that ESP may have a subtle rather than an overt effect, and that the ability to perceive may be altered by the nature of the event being perceived. For example, some proponents of ESP put forward that predicting whether a loved one was just involved in a car crash might have a stronger effect than sensing which playing card was drawn from a deck, even though the latter is better suited for scientific studies. This, in part, is why scientists remain skeptical, although proponents of ESP such as biologist Rupert Sheldrake point to cases of ESP involving subjects who are familiar with each other that they believe indicate a positive demonstration of the ability. [1]. Critics respond to Sheldrake's claims by arguing that his experiments are methodologically flawed and lack proper controls such as sufficient randomization, that they are not peer-reviewed, and as such, that they are not scientifically reliable. Sheldrake has responded to many critics; for example, explaining that he has tried countless randomization techniques, often employing methods suggested by critics, still obtaining results greater than chance each time. The Responses to 14 of his critics are in the Journal of Consciousness Studies (JCS Vol 12 No. 6, 2005). 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. Often, when self-proclaimed 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." The non-empirical nature of this response, as well as the practice of charlatanry in ESP and psychic circles [2], is why scientists and rationalists conclude that the existence of the phenomena cannot be established scientifically.

There is some dispute over the interpretation of results obtained in scientific studies of ESP, as the most compelling and repeatable results are all small to moderate statistical results. Critics of ESP argue that the results are too small to be significant, while proponents of ESP argue that the results are consistent in numerous studies. The combined significance is large and considered to be further proof by proponents. That an inordinately large number of trials must be conducted to obtain statistically significant results is seen as a problem for verifying the legitimacy of ESP claims. However other areas of science, such as the medical field, rely heavily on this method of data collection. For example, the statistical results of the positive effect of aspirin on the heart are less than many ESP results. [2]

General criticism Claims of extra-sensory perception have been subjected to repeated criticism by mainstream scientists, and most of the scientific community believes that claims of ESP constitute pseudoscience. Most of the criticism hinges on two major contentions: first, that studies which have shown evidence of ESP are often either anecdotal or plagued with methodological flaws which allowed cheating, and second, that the results of studies which are not flawed show no evidence of ESP.

Sometimes, the failure of an ESP experiment can be inaccurate and portrayed incorrectly through popular news media. An example of this case is that of a dog in England named Jaytee, who his owners claimed had an ability to sense when one of them was leaving work to come home (which he allegedly displayed by running out to the porch at that time). Rupert Sheldrake tested JayTee extensively, including more than 50 videotaped trials, and claimed that his tests had shown that the dog had ESP ability. Two skeptical scientists from the University of Hertfordshire, Richard Wiseman and Matthew Smith, then used Sheldrake's video camera setup, conducted only 4 trials of their own, and claimed that the dog had no such ability. Wiseman and Smith concluded that while Jaytee made several trips to the window during the day, the action was more in response to having heard some kind of noise outside.[3] However, Sheldrake believes the data they collected actually matched his own convincingly. [4] Sheldrake has commented on the experiment conducted by Wiseman: "As in my own experiments, he sometimes went to the window at other times, for example to bark at passing cats, but he was at the window far more when Pam was on her way home than when she was not. In the three experiments Wiseman did in Pam's parents' flat, Jaytee was at the window an average of 4percent of the time during the main period of Pam's absence, and 78percent of the time when she was on the way home. This difference was statistically significant"

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