Extrasensory Perception
©Adam vanLangenberg - MSSS
ESP refers to the
sensing of things
beyond the range of
your standard senses.
Clairvoyance:
seeing things
beyond your
natural sight
Clairaudience: hearing
things beyond your
natural hearing
Touching, tasting
and smelling things
beyond your
natural range is
gross.
Most people
don’t
advertise
these abilities.
There is also
precognition (literally
‘knowing
beforehand’)
People with
precognition claim to
be able to predict the
future.
Psychics have existed for many
thousands of years and still
operate today, despite there being
zero evidence for their powers.
Ancient psychics were often referred to as
“soothsayers” and they used various methods to
see into the future:
Throwing bones
Looking at bird’s flight patterns
Examining animal entrails
Astrology
Tarot cards
Numerology
Unfortunately, many
“psychics” make millions
of dollars by convincing
gullible people of their
powers.
These con artists make many, many
predictions. Some of them are
bound to come true, by chance
alone.
Some of their predicitions
are so vague that anything
could be a sign that they
came true:
“The three horned
dragon will rise in the
city of five hills.”
Some of them are so obvious that
they are bound to happen anyway:
“There will be a natural
disaster in Australia this
year, possibly involving
fire or water.”
The best ones come true
regardless of what happens:
“An assassination attempt
will be made on Julia
Gilard which the media
will attempt to cover up.”
Sylvia Browne
One of the worst, yet most successful psychics around.
In 2003, Browne claimed that eleven year old Shawn
Hornbeck had been abducted by a very tall man with long black
dreadlocks and a blue sedan, and that his body could be found
near two large, jagged boulders in a wooded area about 20 miles
southwest of Richwoods. Her claims led to a refocusing of search
efforts of numerous people calling in with tips regarding possible
spottings of the rock formations Browne had mentioned.
Hornbeck was found alive four years later, having been abducted
by a white man with short brown hair who drove a small white
Nissan pickup. Browne told the New York Daily News, "I'm
terribly sorry that this happened, but I think my body of work
stands by itself.”
-- Wikipedia
If you pay her $850, she will talk to
you on the phone for around 15
minutes and tell you about your
guardian angels.
Sylvester Stallone
Sylvester Stallone’s mother
Rumpology –
Like palm
reading, but
further south.
She will look at your bottom for $125.
Ke$ha wears her mother’s dried
up placenta around her neck to
give her psychic powers.
No clever picture could truly capture the horror of this statement so none will be used.
Psychics often depend on a logical
fallacy known as “confirmation
bias”.
Confirmation bias is the tendency
to focus on evidence that
supports your belief and ignore
evidence that doesn’t.
It is why a lot of people
believe they have powers
themselves.
People often mistake perfectly
mundane perception for psychic
powers.
ie: finishing off their
partner’s sentences
or determing what
mood they’re in
without being told
The James Randi Educational
Foundation (JREF) offers a
USD$1,000,000 prize to anybody
who can display supernatural
powers in a controlled
environment.
So far, nobody has claimed the
prize, despite hundreds of
applicants.
Suspiciously, none of the big-name
psychics have even accepted the
challenge, despite being told the
prize could be donated to charity in
their name.
People WANT to believe in these
things. A world with psychic
powers is probably more
interesting than a world without.
“..it is far better to grasp
the Universe as it really is
than to persist in
delusion, however
satisfying and
reassuring.”
Carl Sagan
9/11/1934 – 20/12/1996