Psychic Ability: Is It Real? What Does It Mean?
The term psychic power refers to any ability by which mind can interact with matter by means beyond currently understood laws of science.
Parapsychology, the scientific discipline devoted to the study of psychic ability and other paranormal phenomena has coined the umbrella term psi to refer to a number of distinct categories of psychic ability, namely:
- Telepathy – direct mind to mind communication.
- Clairvoyance (remote viewing) – direct knowledge of distant circumstances (clairvoyance also describes a form of mediumship).
- Precognition – knowledge of the future (above and beyond what might be reasonably predicted given present knowledge).
- Psychokinesis (pk) – direct action of mind upon matter.
- Mediumship – communication with the surviving consciousness of the deceased (as opposed to the general psychic ‘ether’), associated with the Spiritualist movement. Mediumship may take the form of clairvoyance (seeing Spirit), clairaudience (hearing Spirit), clairsentience (intuitive awareness of Spirit).
Cambridge physicist and Nobel Laureate Brian Josephson has said: “there is now strong evidence for the existence of parapsychological phenomena.” [Pioneer of the paranormal]
The authoritative Parapsychology FAQ (edited by Dean Radin, Ph.D. Senior Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences with contributions by various learned individuals from prestigious institutions) says:
To be precise, when we say that “X exists,” we mean that the presently available, cumulative statistical database for experiments studying X, provides strong, scientifically credible evidence for repeatable, anomalous, X-like effects.With this in mind, ESP exists, presentiment (physical changes in skin reactivity, pupil size, heart rate, and other factors indicating precognition before a stimulus is applied) exists, telepathy (direct mind-mind communication) exists, and mind-matter interaction (previously known as psychokinesis or PK) exists.
Radin presents extensive and convincing evidence in The Conscious Universe.
Psychic ability manifests in two distinct ways – the spontaneous and the willed, with the spontaneous being by far the most common, ie most of our psychic experiences happen without us either trying for or expecting them.
The most frequently occurring form of spontaneous psychic manifestation is that of the meaningful coincidence. This phenomena was studied in depth by the revolutionary psychologist CG Jung, who famously termed it Synchronicity.
Like any human talent, psychic ability appears to be distributed throughout society in varying degrees. Thus there are psi superstars, as well as those who appear to manifest next to no ability.
Certain conditions appear to be more conducive for manifesting psi.
The Maimonides Medical Center’s Dream Laboratory produced impressive results over several years of dreamers being able to identify pictures psychically “transmitted” to them whilst sleeping. Following a series of precognitive dreams English aeronautical engineer J.W. Dunne published the parapsychological classic An Experiment in Time which both describes his dreams and proposes a revolutionary model of time. Some personal precognitive dreams are described in Some Personal Psychic Experiences and their Implications.
Laboratory experiments using the “Ganzfeld” technique have also proven to be particularly fortuitous in producing psychic functioning, producing statistically impressive results. Ganzfeld involves the subject (receiver) undergoing sensory deprivation for a short time – around 30 minutes. This is achieved by placing halved ping-pong balls over their eyes, bathing them in a (commonly) red light, and playing white noise through earphones. The subjects speak the impressions which come into their mind through a microphone and, post-experiment, attempt to identify a picture that was being psychically transmitted to them.It thus appears that psychic ability is strongest when conscious activity is minimized, suggesting that the mind may have access to a weak psychic input signal, that is generally lost against the backdrop of everyday noise, but becomes more discernible when that noise is attenuated, eg during sleep or sensory deprivation.
The extent to which we believe, or at least accept the possibility of psychic ability, affects the extent to which we manifest such ability. Believers are more likely to manifest psi, whereas skeptics tend to underperform, even making wrong guesses to a significantly significant extent! This so-called sheep and goats effect was first reported by Gertrude Schmeidler.
It is also likely that, as with other abilities, our individual psychic faculties may be improved with practice!
So, psychic abilities are real, but what are their implications?
The effects of all forms of psychic powers are weak. Though it would be nice for psychics to tune in to foresee the winning lottery numbers, in reality they appear limited to achieving just a few percentage points above the norm, albeit consistently and over the long run. It’s as though there’s some greater intelligence (God?) directing the show that hints at its existence through psi, but only inasmuch that it doesn’t de-rail the greater plan. Thus using our innate psi to get rich probably isn’t going to work, though developing and employing it to its full might give us a helping hand in making the most of life’s great adventure.
But much more important is what psi reveals about the nature of reality. For several centuries we have placed our faith in the powers of science to eventually provide a theory of everything. Psi cannot exist under the current scientific paradigm. But countless personal experiences and the scientific discipline of parapsychology say psi does exist. Thus the current scientific paradigm is not a complete and accurate representation of reality.In fact, modern scientific theory is beginning to recognize its own limitations. Einstein’s Relativity suggests that space and time, and matter and energy, are not fixed and absolute as we perceive them but are actually interchangeable. Fundamental to quantum theory is the uncertainty principle which suggests a theoretical limit to the knowledge we can obtain about the universe. Quantum theory also assigns an essential role to the observer in making any observation, since we cannot observe anything without interacting with and influencing it.
The universe begins to look more like a great thought than a great machine. Sir James Jeans FRS
The stuff of the world is mind-stuff. Sir Arthur Eddington FRS
The existence of psi suggests reality is more (maybe far more) complex than that described by scientific law. If the physical universe is (to some extent) a giant machine slowly winding down, then there is a much greater reality that designed and breathed life into that machine, and makes it tick. And that greater reality will remain long after its current creation has ceased to function.
Far from being a subordinate and evolved product of the brain, the mind and consciousness are highly significant in shaping reality itself, to the point that the physical universe might be a mere product of mental activity. Might it be that psi is both a reminder from our source that we are fundamentally spiritual beings, and also the mechanism by which that source imposes its (and our) purpose upon the physical universe?
Begin your psychic power training now.
The Nature of 'Psi'
The term 'psi' (psychic ability or psychic functioning) has been adopted to describe the range of seemingly anomalous effects which seem to arise from man's interaction with the external universe. Such effects include clairvoyance (information about remote objects / events obtained by non- physical means); telepathy (communication between one mind and another without any form of physical transmission); precognition (predicting the outcome of future events to a greater degree of accuracy than would be expected given the currently available information) and psychokinesis (pk, mind having a direct and measurable influence on physical reality).
Clairvoyance, telepathy and precognition are often termed extra-sensory perception (ESP) and may be likened to a weak and unreliable sixth sense, e.g. a success rate of 27% opposed to a chance level of 25% over a large number of trials in a psi experiment would be considered a success. In contrast to ESP in which the subject appears receptive to non-physical information, pk involves the mind of the subject 'reaching out" to influence the external world.
One of the strangest forms of psi is the phenomenon known as retro-pk, in which subjects appear to be able to use pk to reach back in time and influence the outcome of already completed experiments. Considerable research has been done in this field by Helmut Schmidt, with experiments consisting of a subject attempting influence sets of pre- recorded randomly or pseudo-randomly generated data (truly random data arises from a process such as radioactive decay, pseudo-random data is generated from a suitable algorithm initiated by an arbitrarily chosen 'seed'). Schmidt has obtained statistically significant results in such experiments [1] with such results casting doubt upon the very nature of time.
Throughout history there have been accounts of unexplainable phenomena - apparitions, poltergeist activity, premonitions etc. Science turned its attention toward such phenomena in the late 19th Century when eminent scientists of the day began to investigate the claims of the increasingly popular subject of spiritualism. The British Society for Psychical Research was founded in 1882 and continues to investigate anomalous phenomena to this day.
Why has mankind felt the need to invent 'supernatural' theories of creation and the universe? The skeptic may suggest it preferable to facing the inevitability of eventual oblivion - but that begs the question of what within us is able to dread the concept of our ultimate insignificance.
The 'science' of parapsychology effectively began with the work of J B Rhine at Duke University in the 1930's. Rhine sought to investigate esp under laboratory conditions by means of card guessing experiments.
A survey of more than 1,100 college professors in the United States found that 55% of natural scientists, 66% of social scientists (excluding psychologists), and 77% of academics in the arts, humanities, and education believed that ESP is either an established fact or a likely possibility. (Wagner & Monnet, 1979), quoted in [2].
A collective analysis by statistician Jessica Utts and Nobel Laureate Brian Josephson of a range of 'remote viewing' experiments (including those conducted by the U.S. government) 'argues strongly for the phenomena being real and not artifactual'. Analysis of forced-choice experiments (e.g. card guessing) revealed a consistent 27% success rate opposed to 25% by chance (Honorton & Ferrari and US government); 'If chance alone were the explanation for these results, it would be truly remarkable to achieve a 27% success rate over thousands of trials, and it would be even more remarkable to see identical results in the government work' [3].
The document "Frequently Asked Questions about Parapsychology" (ed. Dean Radin, Dec 1995) states that "ESP exists, precognition exists, telepathy exists, and PK exists. ESP is statistically robust, meaning it can be reliably demonstrated through repeated trials' where the definition of existence is 'that the presently available, cumulative statistical database for experiments studying X, provides strong, scientifically credible evidence for repeatable, anomalous, X-like effects." This document was produced by a group of scientists and scholars from the disciplines of physics, psychology, philosophy, statistics, mathematics, computer science, chemistry, anthropology, and history, hardly a group prone to the excesses of imagination.
Traditionally it has been thought that psi is more acute in those individuals seeking to satisfy some positive and selfless purpose, the 'spiritual ideal'. This is the central tenet of religion. 'First find deep within self that purpose, that ideal to which ye would attain. Make that ideal one with thy purpose in Him." [4]
It has been demonstrated that psi can operate just as effectively in a negative direction as it does in the positive, i.e. some subjects consistently score significantly below chance. The direction of scoring has been found to be correlated with the subjects attitude to psi and has been called the 'sheep-goat" effect (sheep are believers in the possibility of psi, goats are hostile to the idea) [5]. Assuming that negative and positive psi are equally likely, the implications for large-scale multi-subject experiments would be for the mean outcome of the experiment to be close to the value predicted by chance; however the range, or deviation, of scores should be greater than chance.
Psi appears to vary greatly among individuals. Just as some are gifted at sport, art, writing or academic discipline so there have been some remarkable psi subjects while in most of us, for most of the time, psychic abilities are sadly non-existent. To name but a few - the Victorian medium D.D.Home exhibited incredible physical phenomena before audiences consisting of the most notable scientific figures of the day; the Russian woman Nina Kulagina was able to consistently demonstrate macro-pk (moving small objects by power of thought) under controlled conditions; Uri Geller sprang to prominence in the early 1970s with his ability to bend spoons and other metal objects by lightly stroking them, later confirming his abilities under laboratory conditions [5]. Geller also has the ability to reproduce unseen drawings at a distance.
Psi appears to be more prominent in subjects experiencing altered states of consciousness e.g. relaxation, meditation, hypnosis, dreams or the effects of drugs. These effects are confirmed by a number of successful experiments using the Ganzfeld method which seeks to provide a monotony of input to the senses. The subject's body is cushioned while s/he is fed 'white noise' through headphones and a soft red light is filtered through halved ping-pong balls covering the eyes [2]. It would appear that when the senses are switched from their usual preoccupation with the external world, and toward the inner world, they are more able to perceive subtle psi influences.
Paradoxically, it has been found [2] that extroverts (i.e. those whose attentions are mainly directed outwards) tend to be better psi subjects. It may be that extroverts also reach deeper within, as well as beyond themselves. It is possible that psi may be a perfectly natural talent that has been hidden by the artificial constraints imposed by modern society with its emphasis on objective reality. Note how flocks of birds or shoals of fish are able to change direction instantaneously, or stories of domestic animals which appear to possess heightened sensitivity or a sixth sense.
A major criticism by skeptics is that psi effects tend not to be replicable on demand. The researcher Charles Tart pointed out "there is an important experimenter effect in all psi research; some people have the 'magic touch' and regularly get results, others don't and we have little idea as to why' quoted on [RetroPsychoKinesis Project Home Page]. It has been suggested that the positive results obtained by some could be due to their working methods, it is at least as valid to suggest that a psi experiment is influenced by the whole environment in which it is conducted (including the experimenter).
Can psi be trained or developed by practise? If psi is considered as a natural but undeveloped faculty then it should respond to favourable conditions (e.g. meditation, Ganzfeld), and also to exercise - i.e. consciously trying to use it to transmit thoughts between oneself and a willing partner, prediction of winning horses, lottery numbers etc. Books on developing one's psychic abilities are plentiful, and at least one organization offers to train remote viewing ability in students (at a cost), however the degree to which psi can successfully be enhanced by exercise is an area for further research.
The scientific theories of Newton and Darwin implied a mechanistic, or clockwork, universe in which the current state of the world was determined entirely by its preceding state and so on ad infinitum. The Marquis de Laplace suggested that a powerful enough intelligence given complete knowledge of the universe at any one time would be able to predict its entire future in the minutest detail. This philosophy of determinism left no room for soul, spirit or God, and left man a mere automata. Mind and consciousness were but side effects of the physical body and free-will no more than illusion.
The reign of determinism was finally overthrown by the emergence of relativity and quantum theory in the early twentieth century. Although the deterministic or classical theories were remarkably successful at describing the workings of the universe (accurately enough to put a man on the moon), they were found not to hold at speeds approaching the velocity of light and at the very small (sub-atomic) level. Quantum theory suggests that the fundamental components of the universe sometimes behave as particles and sometimes as waves depending on the mode of observation. The act of observation inevitably alters that which is being measured. The equations of quantum theory no longer predict the outcome of experiments, only the probabilities of different possible outcomes. The new situation could be summarized as "You can't predict the future. You can only state the odds" [6].
While quantum theory is more optimistic than the rigidity of determinism, it still suggests that the universe is governed by chance rather the actions of Will. Despite its success at describing the universe where classical theories fail (Quantum theory 'correctly describes the world to a level of precision and detail unprecedented in science' [7]) many scientists, unhappy at its inherent randomness, still felt it to be an incomplete theory and that certain 'hidden variables' existed behind the apparent randomness exhibited at the quantum level. This view prompted Einstein's famous assertion that "God does not play dice".
Max Planck, a founder of quantum theory and a firm believer in determinism, conceded '...we have our most direct and intimate source of knowledge, which is the human consciousness telling us that in the last resort our thought and volition are not subject to ... causal order', quoted in [8]. Once we admit to the existence of a distinct thought or volition not subject to physical law psi becomes a distinct possibility.
Physicist Henry Margenau (quoted by Sir John Eccles in [9]) states that the components of the brain 'are small enough to be governed by probabilistic quantum laws' and are 'always poised for a multitude of possible changes, each with a definite probability'. Margenau believes that such changes may be influenced by the mind, which 'may be regarded as a field in the accepted sense of the term. But it is a non-material field... And so far as present evidence goes it is not an energy field in any physical sense, nor is it required to contain energy in order to account for all known phenomena in which mind interacts with brain." It is plausible that this thing called 'mind' could lay beyond the probabilistic quantum effects observed at the limits of physical science.
Traditional Mysticism describes existence as occurring in a number of 'worlds' or "planes' (typically four or seven) of which the physical plane is the lowest and densest. In this model higher planes cause effects to occur on the lower planes, therefore the physical or earth plane is considered as the plane of effects. Could the higher worlds of the occultist be the elusive hidden variables of physics as well as the home of the spirit or soul that drives the body throughout this life?
Modern science is also in accord with the Mystical philosophy of the holistic or inter-connected nature of all things. Even Newtonian physics described fields (gravity) connecting every particle with every other, however this concept has been greatly strengthened with the principle of non-locality arising from quantum theory in which a change made to one particle may instantaneously affect another particle elsewhere. Thus it is impossible to consider any individual entity in isolation from the whole.
References
[1] PK Tests with prerecorded and pre-inspected seed numbers; Helmut Schmidt; Journal of Parapsychology, Vol. 45 No. 2, June 1981.
[2] Does Psi Exist? Replicable Evidence for an Anomalous Process of Information Transfer; Daryl J. Bem and Charles Honorton (1994); Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 115, No. 1, 4-18.
[3] The Paranormal: the Evidence and its Implications for Consciousness; Jessica Utts and Brian D. Josephson; Times Supplements 1996.
[4] American psychic Edgar Cayce quoted in: Understand and Develop your ESP; Mark Thurston PhD; A.R.E. Press, 1977.
[5] Parapsychology - A Concise History; John Beloff; Athlone Press, 1993.
[6] Space, time and quanta: an introduction to contemporary physics. Robert Mills, pub Freeman 1994.
[7] The Ghost in the Atom. ed. P.C.W. Davies & J.R. Brown; pub Cambridge University Press, 1986.
[8] New Pathways in Science. Sir Arthur Eddington MA, DSc, LLD, FRS; pub Cambridge University Press 1935.
[9] Mindwaves: thoughts on intelligence, identity and consciousness. Ed. Blakemore & Greenfield; pub Blackwell 1987.
