The RelationshipBetween Individual Belief and Performance in Parapsychological Phenomena
Summary
The phenomenon of ESP has been the subject of increased interest in recent years. The series of tests carried out formed an observational study into the ESP -- related phenomena of telepathy and water divination.
For the telepathy test, the subjects worked in pairs - each individual acting alternately as sender and receiver. When water dowsing, participants worked in threes, with two acting as experimenters and one as the dowsing subject. Before the participants underwent the tests, they were asked to rate their belief in ESP on a score from 1 (belief in ESP) to 10 (no belief).
Of the sixty-six subjects, thirty-one scored higher in the telepathy test than probability; whilst for water dowsing, forty-one scored less -- indicating that they were closer to the location of water than probability predicted. Twenty-two participants out-performed probability on both tests.
Unfortunately, as the data was found to be unduly biased, no firm conclusions could be drawn.
Introduction
Parapsychology is the study of phenomena that are either unusual, or unexplainable in terms of standard scientific principles. In general, they occur very infrequently, but there are 'a few exceptional "stars" that have regular paranormal experiences and may show seemingly consistent paranormal activity'. (Daniels, M. 1998)
Extra-sensory perception (ESP) is the general term which has been given to any manifestations of ability that cannot be attributed to standard human sensory function. Its main forms are: telepathy -- the ability to 'read' the thoughts of others, or to receive information from another person without using standard senses; clairvoyanc...
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...ir results were distorted by working with sceptics/believers.
This entire study, therefore, cannot be viewed with any great certainty, as accusations of bias can be levelled toward nearly the entire data set, not enabling any real conclusions to be drawn.
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ability and himself. Finally, The Sealand Lady for her strong will on telepathy and finding it to be
Merleau-Ponty distinguishes three aspects of the psychological process; basic sensations, perception, and the associations of memory (Merleau-Ponty, 1994). Basic sensations receive raw information from the world and transduce them for our perceptual processes. Perception unifies the infinite amount of information about our environment, from our environment, into a meaningful structure. Perception is interpretive, but its presentation of the world is as distal and objective. There are three central features of perception for Merleau-Ponty. First, perception is synthesized independently by the body and not by the mind (consciousness).
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The world is not what it appears to humans, but there are things that may be recorded, repeated, and experienced by others. Though each person is different, it is believed that we all experience the world in the same way more or less. Touch, taste, sight, smell and sound are the ways we interpret our environment. However, from time to time people have experiences that occur beyond those five senses and defy explanation as anything other than an otherworldly. Those experiences became a large part of religion, yet the manner in which most occur begs the question – why?
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Despite the historical and prevalent stigma and sensationalization associated with this field, many respected educational establishments have laboratories involved in the research of psi. The Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research program, instituted in 1979 to investigate mind-matter interactions (2); the Parapsychological Association, a 1957 offshoot of the Duke Laboratory (3); the Koestler Parapsychology Unit at the University of Edinburgh (4); and Stanford University's 1946 endeavor, Stanford Research Institute are four of these. It should be noted that Stanford Research Institute separated from the university in 1970, and became SRI International. (5)
Paranormal activity is manifestation that lies outside of the normal experience which can’t be proven to be real. Most people have become interested in the haunted houses and stones due to the lack of support that they are getting from the community of science. The lack of support from the community will be hard to get because most people do not believe in this. According to the unknown, “paranormal activities and sightings usually fall into categories: spirituals entities, crytids, which are organisms whose existence is told by legends and myths.” Most people think that paranormal deal with just ghost and their hauntings but it is much more than that. Paranormal phenomena are not accepted by the scientists because they feel the evidence should be required. According to Psychic Readings, "ESP stands for extra sensory perception. While clairvoyance, or seeing clearly is primarily an optional phenomenon." A clairvoyant psychic is someone who shares a vision of unseen in telling about their health or future. "Clairvoyants are people who specialize in supernatural skills," states Psychics Reading. People like this have a magical ability to see into the past, present, and future. ESP is normally addresses as the sixth sense. "The term 'ESP' was used often in 1870 by Sir Richard Burton." Psychical research does not support that everyone is born with this capability. It is said there are people who have experienced at least one ESP in their lifetime. However to Schmeidler, another theory claims that ESP is a super sense which evolves in the nervous system. From David’s perspective, “hundreds of years ago to possess the gift of clairvoyance, one was considered a witch - as unknown knowledge was 'feared' (the emotion which keeps us trappe...
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Ability and talent A person's psychic, ESP, or telepathic abilities can't be judged by a single or a group of exercises. This ability develops through time and practice. So, if you don't do well the first time, don't feel bad, the exercises need to be practiced over and over. Be patient and you can expect to see an improvement in all your latent abilities over a period of time, not just in a few tries of guessing cards.
ability and himself. Finally, The Sealand Lady for her strong will on telepathy and finding it to be
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