Extrasensory Perception
ESP: What is it?
 Information not gained through the recognized
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physical senses but perceived by the mind.
Term coined to J.B. Rhine (1985-1980)
Father of Parapsychology
Botanist who became a psychologist
Worked at Duke University
Founded the Rhine Institute
Apply scientific principles to “physical phenomena”
Institute still exists but not affiliated with Duke
Abilities in Parapsychology
 Telepathy: mind reading, discerning another thoughts
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through PSI.
Clairvoyance: ability to see things beyond the normal
range of vision.
Precognition: knowing the occurrence of an event
before it happens.
Telekinesis: the movement of objects that can’t be
explained scientifically.
These abilities are testable in lab settings.
Other parapsychological study
 Near-death experiences
 Ex: case studies of people who have “died”
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during operations
Reincarnation
Ex: interviews with young children (3-7)
remembering deceased family members
Apparitional experiences
Ex: ghost hunters
Beliefs in USA adults (Gallop 2011)
 Have had a paranormal experience
 Believe that ghost are spirits of the dead
 Psychic or spiritual healing
 Demonic possession
 Believe in extrasensory perception
 Believe that houses can be haunted
 Channeling (spirit being enters body)
71%
56%
55%
42%
41%
37%
9%
Early Psychical Research
 Society for Psychical Research: London, 1882
 Interests: telepathy, apparitions, haunts
 Spiritualism: communicating with the dead
 William James was an early supporter of
research
 American Society for Psychical Research:
NYC, 1885
William James
Believers and skeptics
Photography
provided evidence
of haunts.
Or did it?
Real or fake?
How could you tell?
Believer: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Author of Sherlock Holmes
mysteries
Also a believer in psychical
phenomenon
Sent pictures of fairies taken by
children
Published them in newspaper
as being the real thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxnhtbaBXJc&feature=related
Skeptic: Harry Houdini
Escape artist and stage performer
Appears in movie as the skeptical voice.
Sought our a medium to contact his mother.
Unfortunately medium “channeled” his
mother as speaking German when she spoke
Yiddish.
Went on campaign to expose fraudulent
mediums.
Mediums using tricks to make spirits appear.
More recent battle
Uri Geller, Psychic
James Randi, Magician
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB9Hf7ERvXE
Need for Control of the Lab
 JB Rhine aware of the need for controlled experiments
 Reason for the establishment of lab to test
 Telepathy: discerning another thoughts.
 Clairvoyance: ability to see things beyond the normal
range of vision.
 Precognition: knowing the occurrence of an event
before it happens.
 Telekinesis: the movement of objects that can’t be
explained scientifically.
Zenner Deck
 Karl Zenner developed system for testing abilities
 Subjects guess which of five novel symbols was going
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to appear.
Percentage of correct guesses has to be significantly
better than chance.
1 out of 5 or 20% most likely outcome by chance.
Need to do lots of trials (thousands of them) to
determine if ESP actually exists.
Rhine and Zenner conducting 90,000 trials on subjects
Zenner Test
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBJ84RNCXM
Criticism of Research
 Illusionist Milbourne Christopher states that “there are
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at least a dozen ways a subject who wished to cheat
under the conditions Rhine described could deceive
the investigator.”
For example, early Zenner decks printed on thin paper
allowing subject to see the image on opposite side.
Also high hit rates early on that fade with further trials.
Selective reporting of only positive findings.
Need for more careful controls.
Does any PSI research stand up?
 Some skeptic would say that none of it is scientific.
 Prefer to call in pseudoscientific.
 In 1988 US National Academy of Sciences concluded
that there was “no scientific justification from research
conducted over a period of 130 years for the existence
of parapsychological phenomena.”
 Parapsychology remains an isolated inquiry.
 Only funding comes from private sources.
Some believers still exist.
 Daryl Bem
 Member of Cornell’s Psych Dept from
 1978-2007
 Well known researcher in several areas.
 Personality and sexual orientation.
 Also conducted experiments in PSI.
 Best know for remote sending using Ganzfield
procedure.
Ganzfield
 A "receiver" is placed in a room relaxing in a comfortable
chair with halved ping-pong balls over the eyes, having a
red light shone on them. The receiver also wears a set of
headphones through which white noise is played. The
receiver is in this state of mild sensory deprivation for half
an hour. During this time, a "sender" observes a randomly
chosen video clip and tries to mentally send this
information to the receiver. The receiver speaks out loud
during the thirty minutes, describing what he or she can
“see”. This is recorded by the experimenter (who is blind to
the target). Ganzfield means “entire field” in German.
Subject characteristics
 Transmission is best with subjects who
 Well known to each other (close friends)
 Regularly meditate
 One is sender, the other is the receiver.
 Sender views video clip.
 Receiver must select right video clip (1 out of 4).
 Chance would be 25%
 Bem reports rates of 35%, statistically significant.
Some skeptics not satisfied
 Susan Blackmore, a paranormal investigator (2001).
The only honest reaction to the claims of psi in the
ganzfeld is for me to say "I don't know but I doubt it.
 Skeptics Dictionary (2011). Actually, what we know is
that the jury is still out and it probably will never come
in if the best that parapsychologists can come up with
is a statistic that is unlikely due to chance. What hope
do we have of isolating, harnessing, or expanding this
power if a person who has it can’t even directly
recognize its presence?
Do we keep searching?