"Psychic and paranormal phenomena will always be a source of controversy, because it is an inconvenient reminder that there is more to our reality than meets the eye."- Anthon St Maarten.
The term parapsychology (or psi phenomena) originates from para, meaning "alongside", and psychology, "the study of the mind". Parapsychology is a field that both explores and examines parapsychological phenomena that can't be explained through our current scientific knowledge nor on the basis of physical laws. Psychologists describe these phenomena with the Greek letter Ψ, and it is not based on hypothesis nor facts. Such phenomena have existed since ancient times, and people explained them to be magicians, phantoms, devils, or mythological creatures such as witches. However, in today’s universities, parapsychology is taught according to methodology and experiments. It is often defined as the scientific study of claims of extrasensory perception (ESP). Parapsychology is divided into two main branches:a) extra-sensory perception (ESP) which is the study of communications ostensibly without the known sensory organs, andb) psychokinesis (PK) or the study of physical events that apparently occur without the involvement of any recognized motor organs.
Since many people believed in the existence of parapsychology, it is difficult to put an exact date on its beginning. However, in the 19th century, parapsychology came into its own as an area of academic research. Spiritualism had an important connection to the increased popularity of parapsychology where it was based on the belief that through séances, the living can contact the dead. Theosophy, a religious movement, also had an influence on the rise of parapsychology where people aimed to understand the world's truths through meditation and other practices. The Society for Psychical Research, based in Cambridge, England, and established in 1882 was a group of thinkers who researched and even attempted to prove paranormal activity and ESP without biasness. Furthermore, in the 20th century, parapsychology remained popular; however, not as much as it was in the Victorian Era when spiritualism was at its peak.
Now, we will be talking about the different phenomena in parapsychology. As was stated in the introduction, we have two kinds of phenomena. The first that we will be talking about is extrasensory perception, which includes many abilities. The more important ones, however, are telepathy, precognition, and clairvoyance. First, telepathy is the direct transfer of thoughts from one person (sender or agent) to another (receiver or percipient) without using the usual sensory channels of communication, hence a form of extrasensory perception (ESP). Another way is through expressions which the mind analyses to make the receiver aware of the topic. Moreover, under the term "Telepathy", we have the term "Empathy " which is the ability to interpret the emotions of others. While the existence of telepathy has not yet been proved, some parapsychological research studies have produced favourable results using techniques such as card guessing with a special deck of five sets of five cards, which we will talk about further in the paragraphs below. Concerning scientific justification, many studies have demonstrated that we can “read” other people’s minds because we have neurons that act as automatic mirrors (mirror Neurons). In fact, that is why we can grasp the intentions and emotions of others automatically. In 2007, psychology professor Gregor Domes and his colleagues found evidence that the ability to interpret subtle social cues can be enhanced by oxytocin, a hormone that increases trust and social approach behaviour. In 2008, psychiatrist Ganesan Venkatasubramanian and his colleagues conducted a brain-imaging study in which they prepared images for a mentalist (someone who is purportedly telepathic) and a control subject. The mentalist was able to produce an image very similar to the one prepared for him; whereas, the control subject was not. These investigators have demonstrated that when the mentalist was successful, the right parahippocampal gyrus (PHG) (a grey matter in the cortical region of the brain that surrounds the hippocampus and is part of the limbic system where its main role is coding memories and retrieval) was activated; on the other hand, it was not activated in the other person. Instead, the left inferior frontal gyrus was activated. This finding was similar to a prior study too.
Second, precognition is the scientific name for a group of abilities that have to do with knowing or using information about the future without drawing on information from the five senses, memory, or logic. Premonitions are one of those abilities – a premonition is a feeling or sense about a future event, but it includes premonition as well as other ways of knowing. Precognition could occur when the person is awake; although, it is mostly common in dreams. In addition to the effect of dream recall frequency, The American psychological association in Washington DC stated that studies clearly show that personality variables are related to the frequency of precognitive dreams. Furthermore, there is something called unconscious precognition; in other words, precognition that we don’t notice in our daily lives because we’re not conscious of it. For example, a 2012 analysis of 26 experiments found that physiological changes occur before emotional events that do not occur as often before boring events. These are changes in heart rate, sweat, respiration, and behaviour, and they occur seconds before violent or erotic images are randomly selected to be shown to people volunteering for these experiments. However, not every sense can be considered precognition. For example, If every Thursday you get a call from Aunt Matilda, it’s not precognition to feel like she’ll call on a Thursday. Some examples of actual precognition are: - According to a newspaper story in January 2018, a man named Victor Amole dreamed about the numbers 3-10-17-26-32. He never had a dream like that before. He decided to enter the lottery using those numbers. In effect, he entered four times. He won, each ticket being worth $100,000. Five numbers, all recorded before the event. In this case, the odds of anyone’s dream of five random numbers being accurate are easy to calculate – according to the Virginia lottery, they were 1 in 278,256 for that draw. Because of these kinds of results, precognition is becoming a hot topic in the parapsychological research world. This doesn’t mean precognition research is uncontroversial. Another personal example is that my mother, Souha Moadad, dreamt about her brother getting into a car crash. She saw his car flip and woke up shocked and worried. The next day, she received a call from her brother telling her that his car flipped over.
Third, Clairvoyance translates to “clear seeing" from the French word "clairvoyant”. In parapsychology, clairvoyance is defined as the “perception of distant events or images”. It is sometimes explained as an “extension” of our eyesight. Some occult and psychic teachers, however, have a different take. They believe our physical senses are an outgrowth of our psychic senses. Although impossible to prove, it’s an interesting idea that fits squarely within a post-materialist paradigm: consciousness is fundamental, and everything physical springs out of it. Many people have their first clairvoyant experiences as children; others start experiencing clairvoyance as adults. Many psychic instructors tell us that all the clairs are available to us and are simply dormant. They can be reawakened. For example, according to them, most people can learn to see auras — the colourful halo of subtle energy that surrounds each living being. We can categorize clairvoyance as either external or internal. External clairvoyance involves seeing an overlay on the world around you or other dimensions (such as the medium who can see spirits), which are called psychic mediums. For example, there are people who report being able to see disembodied entities (such as the spirit of a deceased person) as vividly as though you or I were standing in front of them or in a more energetic form such as orbs, sparkles, and moving shadows. On the other hand, internal clairvoyance involves seeing something on your “viewing screen”; that place where you see images in your mind’s eye, such as when you are imagining something. For example, psychic dreams, premonition or precognition, and remote viewing are all types of internal clairvoyance. In addition, there is something called remote viewing which involves being able to perceive distant people, places, or events. It is a form of clairvoyance that was taught and popularized by Ingo Swann, an artist and psychic who was the linchpin (backbone) of the Stargate Project — along with renowned laser physicist Russel Targ. Let’s look at Project SCANATE (known also as project STARGATE) as an example of what can be accomplished with remote viewing, and it will be explained later on in the paragraphs below.
Lastly, we move on to psychokinesis, also called telekinesis: The Greek word tele meaning "far off". It is the idea of moving an object using only psychic powers, mostly shown in films and TV shows. A lot of scientists do acknowledge the existence of telekinesis due to experience or beliefs; however, many ignore it and deem it as fake news due to it's little scientific proof. One way to explain it is through this proposed theory stated by Dr. Eric Haseltine. Eric Haseltine is an author as well as a neuroscientist. He has also published more than 100 articles in Discover magazine, on Discover.com, and in journals such as Brain Research and Society for Neuroscience Proceedings. He similarly maintains a blog on Psychology Today to share his ideas. Then, according to him, particles like electrons don’t always live in any particular manner, but in many places, most very close to each other, some very far away. This means that many electrons are found in the room you’re sitting in right now, in your computer, and even exist inside your brain. When you think, you create electromagnetic fields that affect electrons, found near you or ones that are far away. When you push or pull on an electron with an electric field, the electrons moves a little. When that happens to an electron that occupies many spaces at the same time, it will experience what physicists call a collapse. Moreover, the shepherd’s “tap” is an analogy for what you do to the many states of an electron when you generate an electric field with your thoughts: you cause multiple, simultaneous incarnations of that particle to “collapse” into occupying one particular place which can be inside your brain, somewhere in the room you’re sitting in, or 14 billion light years away on the far side of the universe. Then some particles that constitute you are, at the same time, on the opposite side of the universe. Thus, a quantum “tap” that originates on the far side of the universe—say an exploding star—could cause a “collapse” inside your head. "Your thoughts move the universe outside you—a little—and the universe moves you."- Eric Haseltine.
Before talking about the experiments, we will talk about Joseph Banks Rhine (J.B. Rhine), an American parapsychologist who was credited for forming the word "Extrasensory perception (ESP)". He wanted to become a botanist (expert in the study of plants), but he became interested with "psychic occurrences." In 1930, both him and William McDougall, helped establish the Parapsychology Laboratory in Duke University in North Carolina. There, he held about 90,000 experiments, and after that, he released multiple books such as "Extrasensory perception " in 1934 and "New Frontiers of the Mind" in 1937. Because of this, he inspired a lot of psychologists to try and find proof of extrasensory perception. Now, we will talk about 2 experiments that show that there is somewhat proof of extrasensory perception. The first one is called "The Ganzfeld Effect" which is German for "whole field". It is a method proposed by the psychologist Wolfgang Metzger. The idea behind using the Ganzfeld procedure was that our ESP may be so weak that it often gets covered up by all the stimuli coming in through our senses, so it is logical to deprive the subject from their senses to find some proof of its existence. Therefore, the Ganzfeld effect is when you are deprived from your senses for a period of time. During that time interval, your brain will try to make sense of what is happening by trying to get used to the feeling of being without any sensory stimuli. Without getting distracted by the surrounding sights and sounds, your mind will fill in the gaps, which often gives visual and auditory hallucinations. This is because this effect alters your state of consciousness( psi). The way to make sure that this experiment will work is to make sure that your whole vision must be filled with a uniform colour, making sure that there is no change in brightness or any visual and auditory distractions. After that, it will only take a few minutes for your brain to start changing your perception. You may feel a slow drop in brightness even though you know the light in the room isn’t changing. Shortly after, you may see different colours, eye tracers, blood vessels, or fading colours. If you stay in this state for much longer, you may start seeing vivid hallucinations (images). Your brain has nothing to make sense of, so it starts boosting the small amount of information coming in. It is recommended, however, to not stay in that state for too long since the hallucinations can cause serious problems and for people with mental illnesses to not try this experiment. The hardest part about performing the ganzfeld experiment is getting the visual conditions right. This is achieved by cutting a ping pong ball in half and placing each half over your eyes. The balls have to be spotless and shouldn't let any light in through the corners. Another widely used method includes making a face mask out of paper and taping the edges. The paper mask lets in just the right amount of light and provides a uniform viewing area.
You'll also be instructed to listen to white noise throughout the experiment by wearing noise-cancelling headphones to prevent auditory distractions. In addition, there are two participants in this procedure: the sender and the receiver. While the receiver relaxes with ping pong balls over his or her eyes, the sender is shown a randomly chosen picture and is asked to try to mentally send that image to the receiver for 30 minutes. When time is up, the ping pong balls and headphones are removed, and the receiver is shown a set of four pictures, one of which is the picture that the sender was trying to send. The receiver is supposed to pick the picture he or she thinks the sender was viewing—the picture that most closely resembles the thoughts and images that were going through the receiver’s mind during the study. If the receiver just guesses, he or she has a 1 in 4 chance of picking the picture that the sender was sending. However, many of the ganzfeld studies showed that receivers picked the correct picture significantly more than 25 percent of the time. Moreover, in the first meta-analysis (looking at different experiments around 1 topic), 28 experiments were performed. 23 out of the 28 were a success, where the receiver chose the right picture. This shows that, in some way, there is a psychic connection between people, and it is mostly expressed when our sensory stimuli are blocked. However, this experiment relieved a lot of criticism. The first of many whom criticised it was Ray Hyman, a psychologist and a noted critic of parapsychology. He stated that the randomization procedure is biased as the images shown to the receiver aren't randomised properly. The only way for it to work is if it is completely random. He also said that the isolation of the receiver may be inaccurate as well since he/ she could receive clues from the experimenter or as he stated it, " sensory leakage" as in the receiver could have received the information without using their perception but by convention.
The Second experiment is the research program "Project STARGATE" was started in response to the CIA's concern about reported Soviet investigations of psychic phenomena. US intelligence sources concluded that the Soviet Union was engaged in "psychotronic" research. By 1970, it was suggested that they spent approximately 60 million rubbles per year over this research and over 300 million by 1975. This suggested that they had achieved breakthroughs even though the matter was considered controversial. Stargate's earliest and most foundational experiments were funded by the CIA in 1972 at the Stanford research institute by Dr. Russel Targ and Dr. Harold Puthoff. It was used to identify psychic abilities in many places such as the military . The experiment proceeded as such: first off, find any person (part of the two doctors' theory is that any one can express psychic abilities), and put them in a room with an experimenter. Then we get a list of names of locations and both the person and the examiner will not be told about the contents of the list. After that, another person will choose a location and go there along with 3 other people, and they will observe their surroundings. The maybe psychic person will guess where they are and describe their surroundings. This is repeated many times until the examiner takes the results that the maybe psychic person describes. For the experiment's results, they then go to the chosen locations to see their descriptions.
Another method used was the CRV method (coordinate remote viewing method). It was a technique where the chosen person was given specified geographic coordinates to an exact location. The person will attempt to guess what is exactly there. The successes of the remote viewing data were very much "mind-boggling"; in 1974, a remote viewer was given the task of locating a Soviet TU-95 bomber that crashed somewhere in Africa. The viewer was able to locate it within miles of the actual wreckage. Furthermore, remote viewers have also been said to have helped find SCUD missiles along with secret biological and chemical warfare projects, and they have identified and located the purposes of tunnels and extensive underground facilities. Another example of CRV is the research program "Project STARGATE" as discussed earlier.
In conclusion, it is clear that the study of parapsychology isn't as popular now as it was during the time of the creator Joseph Banks Rhine. As we stated before, there are different phenomena in parapsychology, ones that belong to ESP such as telepathy (the communication between people without using normal communication organs), precognition (the ability to get hints about the future), and clairvoyance (the ability to retrieve information which is not known), and ones that belong to psychokinesis such as telekinesis (the ability to move objects using the mind). In addition, we talked about the ganzfeld effect and Stargate CIA which prove that there is somewhat of a connection between the psychic lives of individuals. Its discovery has created a revolutionary impact on classical philosophy and psychology. We personally believe that science, in this modern day and age, is still evolving, and what we believe now might be totally different in the future. We believe that parapsychology can have a great impact on our future if we discover the scientific reasoning behind it, as it turns factual. Therefore, more experiments are needed to be sure of its existence and to maybe try and awaken "our powers" for better use.