SEE Qualitative Content

Extrasensory Perception

Is it Real?

Is It Possible to Measure Supernatural or Paranormal Phenomena?

Author:

Michael Shermer

Publication: Scientific American

Publisher: SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, a Division of Springer Nature America, Inc.

Date: Sep 1, 2016

Copyright © 2016, Scientific American, Inc.

Extra Sensory Perception: a brief history

The Telegraph

© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2019

Who Believes in ESP: Cognitive and Motivational Determinants of the Belief in ExtraSensory Perception

Eur J Psychol. 2019 Feb; 15(1): 120–139.

Published online 2019 Feb 28. doi: 10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1689

PMCID: PMC6396695

PMID: 30915177

Selected Philosophical and Methodological Papers

Paul E. Meehl

C. Anthony Anderson

Keith Gunderson

Copyright Date: 1991

Edition: NED - New edition

Published by: University of Minnesota Press

Pages: 308

The CIA Recruited ‘Mind Readers’ to Spy on the Soviets in the 1970s

Sarah Pruitt

© 2019 A&E Television Networks, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Neuroimaging fails to demonstrate ESP is real

BY Amy Lavoie

Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Harvard Gazette

DATE January 3, 2008

Table of Contents

Extra Sensory Perception: A Brief History

Who Believes in ESP: Cognitive and Motivational Determinants of the Belief in Extra-Sensory Perception Compatability

Is It Possible to Measure Supernatural or Paranormal Phenomena?

Where the known meets the unknown we are tempted to inject paranormal and supernatural forces to explain unsolved mysteries. We must resist the temptation because such efforts can never succeed

By Michael Shermer on September 1, 2016

The history of science has beheld the steady replacement of the paranormal and the supernatural with the normal and the natural. Weather events once attributed to the supernatural scheming of deities are now understood to be the product of natural forces of temperature and pressure. Plagues formerly ascribed to women cavorting with the devil are currently known to be caused by bacteria and viruses. Mental illnesses previously imputed to demonic possession are today sought in genes and neurochemistry. Accidents heretofore explained by fate, karma or providence are nowadays accredited to probabilities, statistics and risk.

If we follow this trend to encompass all phenomena, what place is there for such paranormal forces as ESP or supernatural agents like God? Do we know enough to know that they cannot exist? Or is it possible there are unknown forces within our universe or intentional agents outside of it that we have yet to discover? According to California Institute of Technology physicist Sean Carroll in his intensely insightful book The Big Picture (Dutton, 2016), “All of the things you’ve ever seen or experienced in your life—objects, plants, animals, people—are made of a small number of particles, interacting with one another through a small number of forces.” Once you understand the fundamental laws of nature, you can scale up to planets and people and even assess the probability that God, the soul, the afterlife and ESP exist, which Carroll concludes is very low.

But isn’t the history of science also strewn with the remains of failed theories such as phlogiston, miasma, spontaneous generation and the luminiferous aether? Yes, and that is how we know we are making progress. The postmodern belief that discarded ideas mean that there is no objective reality and that all theories are equal is more wrong

than all the wrong theories combined. The reason has to do with the relation of the known to the unknown.

As the sphere of the known expands into the aether of the unknown, the proportion of ignorance seems to grow—the more you know, the more you know how much you don’t know. But note what happens when the radius of a sphere increases: the increase in the surface area is squared while the increase in the volume is cubed. Therefore, as the radius of the sphere of scientific knowledge doubles, the surface area of the unknown increases fourfold, but the volume of the known increases eightfold. It is at this boundary where we can stake a claim of true progress in the history of science.

Take our understanding of particles and forces, which Carroll says “seems indisputably accurate within a very wide domain of applicability,” such that “a thousand or a million years from now, whatever amazing discoveries science will have made, our descendants are not going to be saying ‘Ha-ha, those silly twenty-first-century scientists, believing in neutrons and electromagnetism.” Thus, Carroll concludes that the laws of physics “rule out the possibility of true psychic powers.” Why? Because the particles and forces of nature don’t allow us to bend spoons, levitate or read minds, and “we know that there aren’t new particles or forces out there yet to be discovered that would support them. Not simply because we haven’t found them yet, but because we definitely would have found them if they had the right characteristics to give us the requisite powers.”

What about a supernatural God? Perhaps such an entity exists outside nature and its laws. If so, how would we detect it with our instruments? If a deity used natural forces to, say, cure someone’s cancer by reprogramming the cancerous cells’ DNA, that would make God nothing more than a skilled genetic engineer. If God used unknown supernatural forces, how might they interact with the known natural forces? And if such supernatural forces could somehow stir the particles in our universe, shouldn’t we be able to detect them and thereby incorporate them into our theories about the natural world? Whence the supernatural?

It is at the horizon where the known meets the unknown that we are tempted to inject paranormal and supernatural forces to explain hitherto unsolved mysteries, but we must resist the temptation because such efforts can never succeed, not even in principle.

We all have these odd little experiences, but you may have them more than most because you are tuned-in. People think they are experiencing something they experienced in the past, but it’s the opposite. You may never have been in that place, but you once had a “future memory” of it. Hence the strange feeling of knowing but not quite knowing. You are tuning into a memory.

A very strong conviction that you have been somewhere before, or have met someone previously, probably indicates that you are remembering a past incarnation.

Déjà Vu

Extra Sensory Perception: a brief history

1870 – Term ‘Extra Sensory Perception’ allegedly coined by the British explorer Sir Richard Burton.

1882 – ‘Telepathy’ – mind reading – formally introduced after research undertaken by the Society of Psychical Research in Britain, and in 1884 by similar organisations in the US.

1892 – Dr Paul Joire, a French researcher used the term ESP to describe the ability of a person who had been hypnotised or was in a trance-like state to sense things without using ordinary senses.

1930’s – Duke University psychology JB Rhine popularises the term to denote psychic abilities such as telepathy and clairvoyance. Rhine and his wife Louisa tried to develop research into “parapsychology”. They used a set of cards, originally called Zener Cards, now called ESP cards, which bear the symbols of a circle, square, wavy lines, cross and a star. There are five cards of each in a pack of 25. In an experiment, the “sender” looks at a series of cards while the “receiver” guesses the symbols. Rhine argued that when his subjects scored highly, it could only be expect by chance once in a thousand. The experiments faced several criticisms, namely that the statistics were not reliable, that only favourable results were published and that “fraud” was possible. Computers are now being used to determine ESP.

1940 – Rhine, JG Pratt and others at Duke author a review of card-guessing experiments conducted since 1882 – ‘Extra-Sensory Perception After Sixty Years’, which becomes recognised as the first meta-analysis in science. More than 60 per cent of the results indicate the presence of ESP ability.

1953 – Report by Rhine on the ability of dogs to detect landmines through ESP. After a training period of more than three months, two dogs in California successfully found mines six out of seven times without any sensory cues.

1964 – Scientists demonstrate that through use of hypnosis, there is a success rate of 64 per cent.

1971 – Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Dean Mitchell allegedly conducted secret ESP experiments during the mission with collaborators on Earth. Following ‘sleep time’ on the ship, he concentrated on a series of symbols and shapes on a clipboard. Four men on Earth tried to ‘receive’ them.

1974 – Ganzfeld test findings published by Charles Honorton and Sharon harper in the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research. The 30-minute procedure involves two subjects, one the sender and the other the receiver. Both persons lie on chairs, eyes

The concept of Extra Sensory Perception has been around for more than a century but was only popularised in the 1930s.

covered with halved ping pong balls so the visual field was solid white. White noise was played in the background. Subjects were asked to free-associate out loud while their responses were put on to a magnetic tape. In another room, the telepathic sender chose at random a set of slides to look at and try to send the subject. After the experiment, the subject was asked to guess which of the reels, of a group of four, had been the target.

1984 – Test results from 10 different laboratories find superior results. Hypnosis proved to enhance ESP ability more than anything else.

1988 – Psychologist Gertrude Schmeidler finds that higher scores are obtained when the experimenter was warmer and friendly to the subject than a cold, formal one. Dr Schmeidler, in her research, also divided subjects into “sheep”, who believed ESP might work, and “goats”, who did not. Her studies found that “sheep” scores were generally above expectation and “goats” scored below.

2011 – Academic paper argues that people may be able to see into the future to be published by the respected Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Prof Daryl Bem of Cornell University, said the results of nine experiments he carried on students over the past decade suggested humans could accurately predict random events.

Who Believes in ESP:

Cognitive and Motivational Determinants of the Belief in Extra-Sensory Perception

Marija Branković

Monitoring Editor: Ljiljana Lazarevic and Iris Zezelj

Keywords: paranormal belief, extra-sensory perception, intuition, fear of death, fatalism

Many people believe in extra-sensory perception, e.g. the ability to communicate with thoughts, to sense future events or locate radiation with the help of a V-shaped piece of wood. Addressing a gap in research specifically focused on ESP beliefs, we investigated cognitive styles and basic motivations related to these beliefs in two survey studies. The findings suggest that a propensity to use intuition is the best predictor of ESP beliefs in terms of cognitive style. ESP belief is positively related to fear of death, and this relation is partly mediated by fatalism, i.e. the belief that chance controls one’s life. ESP beliefs do not seem to be perceived as irreconcilable with a rational view of reality however, they do not necessarily provide psychological protection from existential concerns. The implications of the findings in terms of costs and benefits of these beliefs and the possibility to change them are discussed.

The One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge was an offer of 1 million US dollars to anyone who can demonstrate a paranormal ability under scientific testing conditionsi. From 1964 to 2015, when the competition was terminated, not a single person of over thousand applicants succeeded in proving their supernatural ability. However, recent studies reveal that around two-thirds of Americans believe in psi phenomena (Rice, 2003). ESP or “psi” refers to extra-sensory perception, i.e. phenomena as telepathy (communicating with thoughts), psychokinesis (the ability to move objects without physical contact), precognition (the ability to predict future events), psychometry (reading the past from an object) or dowsing (the ability to locate underground water, buried metals and gravesites using dowsing rod). The common denominator for all the phenomena in question is that they break the fundamental scientific principles known to date (Broad, 1953). The most recent attempts to demonstrate the reality of ESP were made by Daryl Bem (Bem, 2011), but several labs promptly attempted and failed to replicate his findings (Galak, LeBoeuf, Nelson, & Simmons, 2012; Ritchie, Wiseman, & French, 2012). Since they failed to stand numerous scientific tests (e.g. Enright, 1995) these phenomena are thus considered pseudoscientific or, as other authors prefer to term this “… not empirically attested to the satisfaction of the scientific establishment.” (Irwin, 2009, p. 16).

The high prevalence of ESP beliefs, even among well-educated individuals (Rice, 2003; Wuthnow, 1978), calls for a better understanding of their psychological determinants. In two studies we, therefore, investigated cognitive and motivational determinants of ESP beliefs, more precisely which kind of cognitive style predicts these beliefs and whether they are deeply founded in some basic existential concerns, i.e. fear of death.

ESP as a Type of Paranormal Belief

Paranormal belief is a term with very wide and varying content. The most widely used instrument for studying paranormal beliefs (Tobacyk & Milford, 1983, also a revised version Tobacyk, 2004) has

been extensively criticized for grouping together different types of beliefs that have different origins and different correlates (Aarnio & Lindeman, 2005; Lawrence, 1995; Rice, 2003; Thalbourne, 1995; Wiseman & Watt, 2004), e.g., belief in God and other religious beliefs, beliefs in ghosts, supernatural healing, precognition, superstition etc. Although authors in the field appear to agree that paranormal belief is a multidimensional phenomenon (Aarnio & Lindeman, 2005; Irwin, 1993, 2009) the exact number and nature of the relevant dimensions are yet to be established. However, in previous studies, factor analytical analyses have often identified a component that is related to psi or similar phenomena (e.g. Lange, Irwin, & Houran, 2000; Tobacyk & Milford, 1983).

Beliefs in ESP phenomena are interesting because they are seemingly a more “modern” form of paranormal belief, perhaps more in line with the current worldviews, compared to more traditional forms of superstitious beliefs or religious beliefs. For instance, Schouten (1983) found that students espousing ESP beliefs did not express negative feelings about the influence of technology in the modern society (see also Wuthnow, 1978). Supporting this, a recent survey conducted on a representative sample of the US public revealed that 60% of participants expressed their belief in ESP, which makes them one of the most prevalent forms of paranormal belief (in comparison with 33% who believe in astrology, 35% believing that extraterrestrials visited the Earth in the past, or 24% acknowledging that they are at least somewhat superstitious; Rice, 2003; see also Irwin, 2009). Another finding illustrating the prevalence of ESP beliefs is that people tend to interpret their unusual experiences in life in terms of psi, although in most cases it is possible to rule out this interpretation (Kennedy, 2005).

Traditionally, researchers interested in ESP came mostly from the ranks of parapsychologists and their interest was primarily related to the issue of how belief in ESP affects performance in ESP tasks (Irwin, 2009). They studied the sheep-goat effect, that is, the phenomenon that persons who believe in ESP (sheep) are also more successful at tasks created to demonstrate ESP phenomena, compared to skeptics (goats) (e.g. Storm & Thalbourne, 2005; Thalbourne, 2010). Otherwise, most of the previous research was related to paranormal beliefs in general, and thus have a limited applicability to ESP beliefs specifically.

In this study, we therefore decided to focus on this specific type of paranormal belief and study some of its psychological foundations. A more thorough understanding of ESP beliefs has implications for the wider debate related to personal, social and political consequences of holding and acting upon such beliefs (see also Irwin, 2009). It would also help better delineate the relations of these specific beliefs and the more general category of paranormal belief.

The Present Study

In this manuscript, we will present two studies. Study 1 examined whether ESP beliefs can be reliably measured and whether rational

You Have Divinatory Abilities

If you are able to intuit meaning from divinatory tools, such as tarot cards, playing cards, a glass or crystal ball, palm reading, tea leaf reading, or anything like that, then you are probably an intuitive psychic. It is possible to learn such skills— for example, the tarot is a structured system that anyone can learn. The skill when reading cards is to marry the meaning with your intuition to give an accurate interpretation.

Scrying (foretelling the future using a reflective object or surface) with a crystal ball or dark mirror is a form of meditation. Again, anyone can learn this, and with practice, become proficient in foretelling the future.

Another divinatory skill is divining for water, objects, and energy lines. Divining involves using a divining rod, usually made from a light twig or wire and picking up varying energy patterns from the earth. Holding a pendulum will also yield results.

or intuitive cognitive styles are better predictors of these beliefs. Study 2 examined the motivational foundations of ESP beliefs, in particular, their relation to fear of death and external/internal locus of control. As already argued, since research on ESP has been largely integrated within the study of paranormal belief in general, we will start by presenting the findings from this wider framework and then discuss whether they also apply to ESP, theoretically and (if possible) empirically.

Theoretical Rationale Cognitive Predictors of Paranormal Belief

Previous research suggests that socio-demographic differences account for a very small percentage of the variance in paranormal belief, disproving the “deprivation theory”, i.e. the idea that poorer educational and socio-cultural background should make individuals more susceptible to paranormal belief (Rice, 2003, cf. Haraldsson, 1981; Pennycook, Cheyne, Seli, Koehler, & Fugelsang, 2012; Wuthnow, 1978). The existent research also failed to reveal deficits in critical reasoning ability among paranormal believers (Hergovich & Arendasy, 2005; Roe, 1999). Portions of research suggest that it is the individual’s cognitive style, rather than cognitive ability or education that makes the difference. A propensity for an analytical thinking style has been shown to negatively predict paranormal belief although this link has been studied most extensively with regard to religiousness or using the undifferentiated measures of paranormal belief (Gervais & Norenzayan, 2012; Morgan, 2016; Pennycook et al., 2012; Pennycook, Ross, Koehler, & Fugelsang, 2016). For instance, Pennycook and colleagues recently presented a meta-analytical integration of a number of studies which go to show that non-believers are more analytical and reflexive than believers (Pennycook et al., 2016). The authors argue that a propensity for analytical thinking undermines religiosity and other kinds of paranormal belief because people prone to analytical thinking are readier to critically examine culturally accepted beliefs and renounce them (Pennycook et al., 2012, 2016).

Paranormal belief has also been related to more specific deficiencies in rational thinking, such as misperception of chance (Blackmore & Troscianko, 1985; Brugger, Landis, & Regard, 1990; Dagnall, Parker, & Munley, 2007) or confusion of ontological domains (Lindeman & Aarnio, 2007). However, the existent research suggests that a lack of rationality cannot be the exclusive explanation since a large percentage of variance still remains unexplained (Pennycook et al., 2016; cf. Gray, 1985). Furthermore, different authors, especially developmental psychologists, argue for the important role of intuitive thinking in development and maintenance of paranormal belief, religious belief in particular (Boyer, 2008; Epley, Converse, Delbosc, Monteleone, & Cacioppo, 2009; Kelemen, 2004). In line with this, intuitive cognitive style has been demonstrated to predict esoteric thinking and superstition (Epstein, Pacini, Denes-Raj, & Heier, 1996). Lindeman and

Aarnio (2007) also found that intuitive thinking was the more important predictor of superstition and paranormal belief than analytical thinking.

Cognitive Styles and ESP Belief

A central issue of interest for the present study is whether the previous findings can be extrapolated to ESP beliefs in particular. Similar to other paranormal belief, belief in ESP was found not to be related to the reasoning ability (Hergovich & Arendasy, 2005), suggesting that it is differences in cognitive style rather than cognitive ability that are of importance. Furthermore, it has been established that better-educated individuals are in fact more likely to endorse belief in psi (Rice, 2003). It is possible that ESP beliefs have some specific relations to cognitive style. First, it is possible that an analytical cognitive style can be related to an interest in and espousing of ESP beliefs, as an alternative to more traditional religious and superstitious ones (cf. Morgan, 2016). Another issue of interest is the relationship between analytic and intuitive cognitive styles. In the cited research analytical style has most frequently been defined as the propensity to overcome highly salient intuitive solutions to problems (Pennycook et al., 2012), and measured with the cognitive reflection task (Frederick, 2005). This conceptualization has two tacit assumptions, namely that the two cognitive styles exclude each other and that the preferred styles identified in a problem solving context can be generalized to other issues and domains. However, it is possible that a person with a highly analytical cognitive style in rational problem solving would still lean on the intuition when thinking about whether there is more to reality than we can perceive.

We, therefore, chose to investigate both intuitive and rational cognitive styles. Based on dual system models of information processing (Evans, 2003; Kahneman, 2015; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986), Pacini and Epstein (Epstein et al., 1996; Pacini & Epstein, 1999) distinguish between a rational (analytical, objective, fact-oriented) mode and an experiential (intuitive, associative, emotional) mode of information processing. The core proposition of the model is that the two systems operate independently so that individuals can hold conflicting beliefs arising from the two different systems (e.g. death is an irreversible ending of life / the soul continues to exist after death). Following this distinction, belief in ESP could be more closely related to the operation of the intuitive than the (inconsistency) of the rational system, resulting in ESP beliefs existing side-by-side with rational and scientifically based worldviews. In the current study, we wanted to investigate whether analytical or experiential style are significant predictors of ESP beliefs as well as which style contributes more to their prediction.

You Have Visions

Seeing visions and spirits is a sign of clairvoyance (clear vision) or second sight. This often occurs in conjunction with clairaudient abilities. Receiving messages from spirits means that you are a psychic medium (i.e. an intermediary between the living and those who have passed). It’s possible to shut down these abilities, but often times spirits can be quite nagging in their enthusiasm to get their message heard.

Method Participants and Procedure

Two hundred and fifty-seven students from the Faculty of Philosophy, Faculty of Media and Communications and Faculty of Mathematicsii in Belgrade participated in a survey study (43% female, mean age 21.94, SD = 5.74). Roughly a half of the students (58%) were administered a pen-and-paper questionnaire during classes at the university, while the remaining participants responded online. Students participated voluntarily and signed (clicked on) informed consent prior to answering the questionnaire.

Instruments

The questionnaire consisted of a short socio-demographic section and three scales that were counterbalanced, to prevent any order effects.

Extra-sensory perception belief scale

was developed, which consisted of 12 items with 5-point rating scales. We chose to examine belief in most common phenomena related to ESP: telepathy, precognition, dowsing and perception of causality instead of chance. The scale tapped into phenomena close to the everyday experience that could be interpreted as evidencing ESP (e.g. I believe that it is not a coincidence that when I intend to call someone, that very person calls me. Or I always feel when a close person is not feeling well, even when we do not have direct contact). The scale showed good internal consistency (α = .85).

Principal component analysis revealed a clear unidimensional structure of this scale (detailed in Table 1). The first principal component explained 38.7% of the variance and had high loadings (a minimum of .40) from all the items in the scale. The second component explained additional 9.82% of the variance, and it appears to be a more specific aspect of ESP belief, most closely related to “sensing” events or people without direct contact. Inspection of the Scree plot suggests that the largest difference in the percentage of the explained variance is between the first and second component (the third component explained 8.03% of variance), so we therefore conclude that the one-factor solution is the most adequate for this scale.

Factor Loadings for the First Principal Component Extracted From the Scale of ESP Beliefs

Item Factor loading

I believe that some people can sense future events. .747

I believe that is not a coincidence when the very person I am thinking about calls me. .741

The alleged parapsychological powers boil down to pure speculation or fraud. .717

With the help of certain instruments (as dowsing rod), people can detect sources of dangerous radiation in the house. .652

I think that the modern science has shown there is no evidence for parapsychological claims. .649

I believe it is possible for people to sense things from the domains beyond their physical senses. .625

When I guess correctly the side on which a coin will lend, I know that it is a result of pure chance. .615

I can sense when somebody is watching me from behind. .610

I believe that profilers have the ability to read the circumstances of a crime from objects. .562

Even though I do not know how, I can always feel when a close person is unwell, without any direct contact. .537

Sometimes I dream about things that later happen. .523

I do not believe that dowsing (using metal or tree V- shaped instruments) is a reliable method of detecting underground water. .409

Superstition

was measured by the scale developed in Serbian and validated by Žeželj, Pavlović, Vladisavljević, and Radivojević (2009). This scale taps into the most frequent traditional forms of superstitious beliefs, e.g. When somebody mentions some unfortunate event, it is good to knock on wood, for protection. Or I never go under a ladder, even when this is more convenient for me. It has 20 items with 5-point rating scales (α = .89).

Cognitive styles

were measured by a translated version of the 40-item RationalExperiential Inventory (REI; Pacini & Epstein, 1999). This inventory assesses rational and experiential styles through two dimensions: engagement (motivation to use rational and intuitive thinking) and self-rated ability. Rational style is indicated by the endorsement of items as I am much better at figuring things out logically than most people (ability) or Using logic usually works well for me in figuring

out problems in my life (engagement). Intuitive style is indicated by items as When it comes to trusting people, I can usually rely on my gut feelings (ability) and Intuition can be a very useful way to solve problems (engagement).

A principal component analysis was conducted to explore the structure of the scale since we did not find any previous report using the scale in Serbian translation. The first two components (18.11%, 16.73%) could clearly be interpreted as experiential and rational cognitive styles, since they had loadings from all the respective items from the scales. Scree plot suggested that the largest difference in explained variance was between the second and the third factor (which explained 5.49% of the variance), so a two-factor solution appears to be the best fitted to the data. However, since the subscales suggested by the authors provided reliable measures of the described dimensions (α = .75 for RA, .78 for RE, .82 for EA, and .78 for EE), and they offered the distinction relevant to the current research question, we used them in the analyses to allow more precise conclusionsiii.

Results

Descriptive statistics and correlations between variables are presented in Table 2.

2

Descriptive Statistics and Correlations Between Variables in Study 1

While there is a substantial correlation between the superstition and ESP belief scale scores, belief in ESP is endorsed significantly more than the traditional forms of superstitious beliefs,

= 16.33,

Both types of beliefs are related to the dimensions of cognitive styles, as evidenced by the presented correlations. However, it is predominantly the dimensions of the experiential rather than the rational cognitive styles that are related to ESP beliefs. We further

explored the ability of cognitive styles to predict ESP beliefs by way of a regression analysis.

Regression analyses revealed that cognitive styles explained 20.4% of the variance in ESP beliefs and that the best predictor was intuitiveness, more precisely the motivation to use intuition (β = .35, p < .001) (detailed in Table 3). The self-rated rational ability was only marginally significant as a predictor (β = -.15, p = .066). In comparison, cognitive styles explained 16% of the variance in superstition, but the predictors that emerged significant were different: traditional superstitious beliefs are best predicted by a lack of rational engagement (β = -.27, p = .001) and the self-rated experiential ability (β = .20, p = .018).

Table 3

Results From Multiple Regression Analyses in Study 1

Discussion

In the present study, we set out to investigate beliefs in extra-sensory perception, as one specific type of the wider category of paranormal beliefs. We argued that, in addition to further study of the multiple dimensions of paranormal belief and their mutual relations (Irwin, 2009), an approach focusing on specific types of these beliefs can be warranted. Our short scale developed to measure ESP beliefs proved a reliable and relatively unidimensional instrument so we believe its further use and refinement can be recommended. To establish convergent and discriminant validity of this scale, we compared it to a reliable measure of more traditional forms of superstitious belief (Žeželj et al., 2009). We have seen that the scales do correlate to a considerable extent but also that the average scores are higher on ESP beliefs than superstition scale, which means that these beliefs appear to our young participants as more acceptable than the traditional ones. Importantly, superstition and ESP beliefs showed distinct patterns of

relations with the aspects of cognitive styles: while intuitive engagement predicted ESP, a lack of rational engagement and self-rated intuitive ability predicted superstitious beliefs. We can thus conclude that ESP beliefs are a phenomenon related to other types of paranormal belief (superstition) but can be recognized as a distinct and seemingly more acceptable type, more in line with the modern life. A clear limitation of the present analysis is the fact that the superstition and ESP scales have been developed independently, so that we can observe some overlaps in their contents (e.g. related to foreseeing the future). Future studies need to distinguish more clearly between these two dimensions, to achieve optimal discriminative validity.

Now turning to the main issue of the present study, our findings reveal that a propensity to rely on intuition is a more important predictor of ESP belief than a lack of rationality. This is in line with some of the previous research theoretically founded in the idea of rationality and intuitiveness as independent rather than contrasting thinking styles (Lindeman & Aarnio, 2007). At the same time, our findings complement previous studies that defined a rational thinking style (more precisely, ability) as the propensity to overcome intuitive responses (Pennycook et al., 2012). An obvious difference is that our measures relied on self-report rather than more objective assessment. It can be argued that the fact that rational ability did not emerge as a predictor of ESP depends on the nature of the measure, which does not have to reflect more objective measures of ability. This remains an issue to be addressed by future studies that should focus more specifically on ESP beliefs. Another interesting issue would be examining intuitive ability, however, this appears to be a much more elusive construct, difficult to conceptualize and measure objectively.

Our findings thus lend support to a relative independence of intuitive and rational cognitive styles, both structurally (in terms of principal components) and functionally (as predictors of different types of beliefs). Apparently, ESP belief can exist side by side with rational and scientific worldviews within the same individual. This could be either because some individuals do not acknowledge a sharp dividing line between these worldviews or, quite contrary, that they do recognize this division and keep their intuitive approach for the domains other than science. As an example of the former stance, we can consider Daryl Bem, the scientist we mentioned earlier in this paper. He is at the same time an enthusiastic proponent of parapsychological research and a scientist who adheres to stringent scientific principles of research. An example of the second stance is the approach called NOMA (Non-overlapping magisteria; Gould, 1997) advocating treating science and religion as independent fields – science as providing facts and religion as the domain of morality, values and meaning. Future studies should investigate how and why individuals choose to combine this seemingly opposite views. Perhaps these worldviews fulfill different psychological needs of the individual. In the following study, we will focus on some of these needs and motives.

Theoretical Rationale

The Motivational Underpinnings of Paranormal Belief

The ubiquity of paranormal beliefs opens up the question of whether they could have some important psychological functions, i.e. serve some basic psychological needs. Existential motives have been proposed as basic motivations of paranormal belief, i.e. the need for meaning in life, for overcoming uncertainty, establishing (an illusion of) control or diminishing fear of death (Irwin, 1993, 2009; Kennedy, 2005). A frequent motivational account of paranormal belief is that it is primarily motivated by a desire to achieve control over the unusual or uncertain aspects of life (Irwin, 1993). For instance, Rudski and Edwards (2007) examined the use of superstitious rituals in the everyday life of students and concluded that these rituals mostly occur in uncertain situations, thus providing the students with an illusion of control and a way of coping. Following the same basic idea, an interesting study of the occurrence of psychological papers examining parapsychology through several decades (from 1929 to 1977) found that unfavorable social conditions (expressed through both subjective and objective indicators) predicted scientific interest in parapsychology (McCann & Stewin, 1984). Previous findings also suggest a relation between paranormal belief and the external locus of control, i.e. the tendency to ascribe events in one’s life to external forces (Dag, 1999; Groth-Marnat & Pegden, 1998; Tobacyk & Tobacyk, 1992), although this was not demonstrated for the psi-subscale of the general paranormal belief (e.g. Groth-Marnat & Pegden, 1998).

Previous research also established a link between paranormal belief and death anxiety (Irwin, 1993), however, there is still controversy as to whether this relationship is positive or negative. In an experimental study, it was found that making thoughts about personal mortality salient lead participants to report more belief in supernatural agents, coming from both one’s own and other religions, as well as a strengthened belief in divine intervention (Norenzayan & Hansen, 2006). From the opposite perspective, Kennedy and Kanthamani (1995) found that participants who thought they had paranormal and/ or transcendent experiences reported a stronger belief in life after death, belief in a higher power and sense of purpose in life as well as decreased fear of death. The authors, however, did not clearly distinguish what they termed paranormal and transcendent experiences and in particular transcendent experiences appear to be defined circularly, so that the effects of the experience cannot be delineated from the experience itself.

Motivations Underlying ESP Beliefs

In this study, we chose to focus on the relation of ESP beliefs with death anxiety and the locus of control, as representative of the most common underlying motivations suggested by previous research. Theoretically, it can be argued that these motivations are also relevant

Seeing auras is more common than you think. You can probably see your own right now. Hold your hand in front of a dark background and move your fingers slightly. You should see a silvery aura like cigarette smoke around your fingers. It might take a little practice, but you’ll soon be able to play with the energy between your fingers. Then you can progress to other people and to auric colors.

You See Auras

for ESP belief, that is, that ESP is motivated by a desire to better control one’s environment and reduce some basic anxieties. What is more, since death is one of the ultimately non-controllable aspects of life, need for control and fear of death appear to be related. This proposition has received empirical support from other domains of research. In one study (Fritsche, Jonas, & Fankhänel, 2008) the authors showed that death anxiety can be diminished when participants are induced to perceive some level of personal control over the circumstances of the process of dying as opposed to those who did not. These findings suggest that the need for control could be one of the crucial components of death anxiety.

Contrary to more traditional superstitious and religious beliefs, Davies and Kirkby (1985) show that belief in psi is related to an internal locus of control, at least regarding personal and interpersonal spheres. Irwin (2000) also found that a component he interpreted as psi beliefs may be related to a heightened desire for control and a conviction that one has the means to control the events in the sociopolitical arena. The latter finding is difficult to interpret, so the author suggests its further validation. It is apparent from this short review that the relation between the locus of control and ESP belief needs further investigation with more focused and reliable measures.

However, it is questionable whether belief in psi can offer psychological certainty one strives for. Some studies suggest that potentially protective function of paranormal belief in facing existential uncertainties and fears could be limited to religious beliefs. In line with this, Tobacyk and Pirttilä-Backman (1992) found a positive correlation between death anxiety and the dimension of paranormal belief related to psi, at least among their Finnish participants. Wong (2009) proposes a sort of a vicious circle of superstition and anxiety in which anxiety leads to superstition, which cannot relieve the anxiety, thus leading to it becoming even more intensive, which in turn leads to more superstition and so on. This reasoning might also be applicable to ESP belief. Psi phenomena suggest a certain alternative perspective on reality and it has been shown that people tend to explain their unusual experiences in terms of psi (Kennedy, 2005). However, this is not comparable to the sort of more organized worldviews as religion, with clear values and standards of behavior, and coming with a promise of literal immortality. Therefore, these beliefs might not offer sufficient comfort in facing basic anxiety.

Based on these combined insights, we wanted to test the idea that ESP beliefs are related to basic existential anxieties, more precisely to the individual’s chronic level of fear of death. Based on previous research suggesting that control is one of the most important aspects of death anxiety (Fritsche et al., 2008), we also wanted to examine whether the locus of control would mediate this relationship, that is, whether a tendency to attribute outcomes in one’s life to chance would mediate the relationship between fear of death and ESP beliefs.

We expect that fatalism should mediate the effect of fear of death on ESP beliefs, since fear of death is proposed to be the basic existential

Note. We report Spearman coefficients since the variables deviated from normal distribution.

concern, which shapes the way in which a person perceives the environment (Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, 1997). If fear of death gives rise to a need to control the environment and perceive it as less uncertain, fatalism could be one of possible responses or paths through which some people deal with this basic fear (e.g. believing in destiny alleviates at least some of the fear in dealing with the uncertain future). However, it is also possible that people more prone to fatalism experience more fear of death, which, in turn, motivates them to seek to believe in something “more” that is out there (e.g. psi phenomena). Therefore, we will also test this alternative mediation model (from fatalism, through fear of death, to ESP beliefs).

Method

Participants and Procedure

Two hundred and twenty students from the Faculty of Media and Communications, Faculty of Philosophy and Faculty of Mathematics in Belgradeiv were surveyed (66.8% female, mean age 21.34, SD = 3.49). The surveys were administered during classes at the university. Participants read and signed informed consent prior to participation. They were thanked and provided with either oral or written debriefing.

Instruments

ESP beliefs were assessed using the scale described in the previous study (α = .83). Principal component analysis suggested a single-factor solution, with almost the exact same percentage of explained variance as in Study 1 (38.64%). Fear of death was measured by the 28-item Collet-Lester Fear of Death Scale (Lester & Abdel-Khalek, 2003) (α = .92). The scale was translated for the purposes of the present study by two independent translators, while the final formulations were agreed upon through discussion. No substantial change was made in comparison to the original item wording. Participants indicated the degree to which they found different aspects of death and the process of dying troubling, on a 5-point rating scales. According to the authors, the scale consists of four subscales: own death, own dying, death of (close) others and dying of (close) others. A principal component analysis was performed to explore the structure of the scale. The first component explained the largest proportion of variance (32.85%) and had high loadings (> .46) from all the items included in the scale. Also, the largest difference in the percentage of the explained variance was between the first and the second component (second component explained 9.58%, third component 6.59%), suggesting a one-factor solution. We thus computed a total score indicating the level of fear of death. Locus of control was measured by the multi-dimensional IPC (Internality, Powerful Others, and Chance Scales) (Levenson, 1981), a 24-item instrument with 6-point rating scales, ranging from -3 (do not agree at all) to +3 (fully agree). This scale was intended to offer a more differentiated measure of locus of control, an individual’s chronic tendency to interpret the events in his or her life as mostly dependent on

the individual him- or herself (internal locus) or dependent on external factors, such as chance (fatalism) or the will of powerful others. A principal component analysis suggested that the first extracted component explained the largest percentage of variance (25.59%) while the second and the third component explained 10.40% and 7.40% of variance, respectively. Factor loadings suggest that there is a common, bi-polar dimension, underlying this construct. However, since the previous research highlights the role of the perception of chance or fatalism as a specifically important determinant of paranormal belief, we computed the scores for the three subscales, internality (α = .68) v, powerful others (α = .84), and chance/fatalism (α = .73), according to the original instruction (Levenson, 1981) and divided the sums with the number of items.

Four ways to Tap into your Sixth Sense

Four ways to Tap into your Sixth Sense

by Tanaaz

In this human dimension we rely on our five senses in order to navigate through the world. These five senses are necessary for our survival however, there is another sense that exists on a more subtle level- the sixth sense.

Our sixth sense can often go undetected, but it is this sense which gives us access to our intuition, gut feelings and psychic abilities.

The sixth sense allows us to access things that can’t really be rationalised with the human mind and gives us access to the unseen worlds and to the world of spirit energy.

We all have a sixth sense and we all have the ability to tap into it, all it takes is becoming aware and paying attention to the subtle messages that our sixth sense offers.

If you want to strengthen your sixth sense, here are some suggestions-

Get Balanced

Compatibility of Science and ESP

Paul E. Meehl

As two of the people whose comments on an early draft of George Price’s article on “Science and the Supernatural” he acknowledged in a footnote, we should like to clarify our position by presenting the following remarks.

Price’s argument stands or falls on two hypotheses, only the first of which he appears to defend. They are (1) that extrasensory perception (ESP) is incompatible with modern science and (2) that modern science is complete and correct.

If ESP is not incompatible with modern science, then the Humean skeptic has no opportunity to insist on believing modern science rather than the reports about ESP. If modern science is not believed to be complete or correct, then the skeptic is hardly justified in issuing a priori allegations of fraud about experimenters even when they claim that they have discovered a new phenomenon that requires reconsideration of the accepted theories.

In our view, both of Price’s hypotheses are untenable. Whatever one may think about the comprehensiveness and finality of modern physics, it would surely be rash to insist that we can reject out of hand any claims of revolutionary discoveries in the field of psychology. Price is in exactly the position of a man who might have insisted that Michelson and Morley were liars because the evidence for the physical theory of that time was stronger than that for the veracity of these experimenters. The list of those who have insisted on the impossibility of fundamental changes in the current physical theory of their time is a rather sorry one. Moreover, unhappy though Price’s position would be if this were his only commitment, he cannot even claim that specifiable laws of physics are violated; it is only certain philosophical characteristics of such laws that are said to be absent from those governing the new phenomena.

It is true that Price attempted to give a specific account of the incompatibilities between ESP and modern science, rather than relying on Broad’s philosophical analysis, but here the somewhat superficial nature of Price’s considerations becomes clear. Of his eight charges, seven are unjustified.

1. He claims that ESP is “unattenuated by distance” and hence is incompatible with modern science. But, as is pointed out in several of the books he refers to, since we have no knowledge of the minimum

The Sinking of The Titanic

When the Titanic sunk in 1912, hundreds of people came forward with reports of psychic dreams about the demise of the great ship. Amazingly, it was possible to validate at least 19 of them, including one date-stamped letter.

Does this prove that psychic dreams are real?

Alas, no.

Having dreams that predict the future is all a numbers game: there are 6.5 billion people on this planet (each with free will) and having an average of five dreams per night.

In turn, those dreams support multiple dream themessuch as sinking ships or airplane crashes. It is therefore highly likely that many thousands of people will dream about a sinking ship on any given night.

And let’s not forget the element of unconscious insight. The Titanic was the world’s largest ship on its maiden voyage, and was in the headlines even before the tragedy struck. What’s more, the media had fatefully called her “unsinkable”.

effective signal strength for extrasensory perception, the original signal may well be enormously attenuated by distance and still function at long range.

2. He says that ESP is “apparently unaffected by shielding.” But shielding may well have an effect: the evidence shows only that the kind of shielding appropriate to electromagnetic radiation is ineffectual; since detectors indicate that no such radiation reaches the percipient from the agent, this is scarcely surprising.

3. He says “Dye patterns .. . are read in the dark; how does one detect a trace of dye without shining a light on it?” The two most obvious answers would be by chemical analysis and physical study of the impression (which is usually different for different colors).

4. “Patterns on cards in the center of a pack are read without interference from other cards.” The word read is hardly justified in view of the statistical nature of the results; however, this phenomenon is always used by parapsychologists as evidence against a simple radiation theory, which it is. But no simple radiation theory can explain the Pauli principle and one can no more refute it by saying “How could one electron possibly know what the others are doing?” than one can refute the ESP experiments by saying “How could one possibly read a card from the middle of the pack without interference from those next to it?” These questions are couched in prejudicial terms.

5. “We have found in the body no structure to associate with the alleged functions.” Even if true, this hardly differentiates it from a good many other known functions; and among eminent neurophysiologists, J. C. Eccles is one who has denied Price’s premise [originally in Nature 168 (1951)].

6. “There is no learning but, instead, a tendency toward complete loss of ability,” a characteristic which Price believes has “no parallel among established mental functions.” Now it would be reasonable to expect, in a series of experiments intended to show that learning does not occur, some trial-by-trial differential reinforcement procedure. Mere continuation, with encouragement or condemnation after runs of many trials can hardly provide a conclusive proof of the absence of learning in a complex situation. We ourselves know of no experiments in which this condition has been met and which show absence of learning; certainly one could not claim that this absence was established. Furthermore, even if it had been established, it would be very dangerous to assert that there is “no parallel among established mental functions.” In the psychophysiological field particularly, there are several candidates. Finally, even if it had been established and there were no parallel among mental functions, there would be no essential difficulty in comparing it with one of the many familiar performances that exhibit no learning in adults —for example, reflex behavior.

7. “Different investigators obtain highly different results.” This is the most distressingly irresponsible comment of all. ESP is a capacity like any other human capacity such as memory, in that it varies in

strength and characteristics from individual to individual and in the one individual from one set of circumstances to another. The sense in which Rhine and Soal (Price’s example of “different investigators”) have obtained “highly different results” is when they have been dealing with different subjects or markedly different circumstances — for example, different agents; and exactly the same would be true of an investigation of, for example, stenographers’ speed in taking dictation or extreme color blindness.

There remains only statistical precognition, which is certainly not susceptible to the types of explanation currently appropriate in physics: but then it is not a phenomenon in physics. Even if it were, it is difficult to see why Price thinks that we properly accommodated our thought to the distressing and counterintuitive idea that the earth is rotating whereas we should not accept precognition. His test for distinguishing new phenomena from magic is hopeless from the start (“The test is to attempt to imagine a detailed mechanistic explanation”) because (1) it is of the essence of the scientific method that one should have means for establishing the facts whether or not one has already conceived an explanation and (2) it would have thrown out the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and action across a vacuum —that is, nuclear physics and the whole of electricity and magnetism — along with ESP.

Finally, Price’s “ideal experiments” are only Rube Goldberg versions of the standard tests plus a skeptical jury. The mechanical contrivances would be welcome if only parapsychologists could afford them, and the jury is obviously superfluous because, according to Price’s own test, we should rather believe that they lie than that the experiments succeed. However, in our experience, skeptics who are prepared to devote some time and hard work to the necessary preliminary study and experimenting are welcome in the laboratories at Duke and London. Without the training, one might as well have (as Price would say) 12 clergymen as judges at a cardsharps’ convention.

The allegations of fraud are as helpful or as pointless here as they were when they were made of Freud and Galileo by the academics and others who honestly believed that they must be mistaken. They are irresponsible because Price has not made any attempt to verify them (as he admits), despite the unpleasantness they will cause, and because it has been obvious since the origin of science that any experimental results, witnessed by no matter how many people, may be fraudulent.

You Have a WellDeveloped Intuition

This is also known as a gut feeling or a strong hunch. Your body, everyone’s body, in fact, is an antennae. It is sensitive to energy. Everyone can tune into their intuition, but most choose to ignore it. You have learned that your intuition has guided you well throughout your life. You don’t make decisions logically, although you do consider that your way is logical.

To test out your intuition, next time you have to make a decision, however small, place your hand on your solar plexus and become aware of the feeling in your body when you consider each choice laid before you. Do you feel it? Your body, your intuition knows what to do before your do it.

The CIA Recruited ‘Mind Readers’ to Spy on the Soviets in the 1970s

Project Star Gate operated between 1972 and 1995 and attempted to offer, in the words of one congressman, “a hell of a cheap radar system.”

Sarah Pruitt

In 2017, the CIA declassified some 12 million pages of records revealing previously unknown details about the program, which would eventually become known as Project Star Gate. By the time the program was shut down in 1995, psychics known as “remote viewers” had taken part in a wide array of operations, from locating hostages kidnapped by Islamic terrorist groups to tracing the paths of fugitive criminals within the United States.

The roots of Project Star Gate go back to 1972, when a classified report made waves within the U.S. military and intelligence communities by claiming that the Soviet Union was pouring money into research involving ESP and psychokinesis—the ability to move objects with the mind—for espionage purposes. In response, the CIA began funding its own top-secret research, headquartered at the Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, California. Psychic Uri Geller led ESP investigations.

Late that year, the research team at SRI invited Uri Geller, an ex-Israeli paratrooper who had become internationally famous for his psychic powers, to Menlo Park for testing. Though Geller was best known for his alleged ability to bend metal cutlery with his mind, the CIA was much more interested in another of his professed skills: the ability to read other people’s minds, and even control their minds with his own.

As Annie Jacobsen writes in her book Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government’s Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis, the declassified documents show that CIA analysts wanted to probe Geller’s abilities in the area of “mind projection” and its possible use for national security purposes.

According to Jacobsen, Geller played a key role in setting into motion the U.S. government’s investigation into ESP and psychokinesis. In the winter of 1975, she writes, Geller even took part in a series of classified psychokinesis tests at a lab in Livermore, California, where scientists were developing advanced nuclear warheads, laser systems and other emerging weapons technologies.

In one experiment for the CIA, Geller was isolated in a room and told a picture had been drawn. He then drew a picture of a square with diagonals drawn.

The CIA shut down its work with ESP in the late 1970s, and the program moved to the U.S. Army’s Fort Meade in Maryland, where it was funded by the Defense Intelligence Agency. Over the better part of the next two decades, Congress continued to approve funds for the remote viewing program.

“It seems to me a hell of a cheap radar system,” Rep. Charlie Rose of North Carolina told fellow members of the House Select Committee on Intelligence during a meeting about psychic research in 1979. “And if the Russians have it and we don’t, we’re in serious trouble.” Psychics helped with top-secret programs.

You Read Thoughts

You often know what someone is going to say before they say it. You can tell who’s calling before you answer the phone. Sometimes you know when your child or partner is in a difficult situation. You may often preempt a request. For example, you take your husband a cup of tea and he says, “You must have read my mind.” If this happens a lot, you are probably tuning in to his “requests.” This is a sign that you have telepathic skills. If you think you are telepathic, there are many ways to develop your ability. Playing guessing games is helpful.

Army veteran Joseph McMoneagle stood out among the remote viewers who worked with the government’s top-secret program. As he later told the Washington Post, McMoneagle was involved in some 450 missions between 1978 to 1984, including helping the Army locate hostages in Iran and pointing CIA agents to the shortwave radio concealed in the pocket calculator of a suspected KGB agent captured in South Africa.

Another remote viewer, Angela Dellafiora Ford, was asked in 1989 to help track down a former customs agent who had gone on the run, she recounted recently on the CBS News program 48 Hours. She was able to pinpoint the man’s location as “Lowell, Wyoming,” even as U.S. Customs was apprehending him 100 miles west of a Wyoming town called Lovell.

Publicly, the Pentagon continued to deny it was spending money on any kind of psychic research, even as reports leaked out in the 1980s of the details of the government’s experiments. Finally, in 1995, the CIA released a report conducted by the independent American Institutes for Research, which acknowledged the U.S. government’s long-rumored work with remote viewing for military and intelligence purposes.

The report also declared Star Gate as a failure, arguing that “it remains unclear whether the existence of a paranormal phenomenon, remote viewing, has been demonstrated.” Though the analysts acknowledged that some trials had been successful and that “something beyond odd statistical hiccups is taking place,” they concluded that any information remote viewing had provided had been too “vague and ambiguous” and did not produce “actionable intelligence.” ‘Spidey sense’ was investigated among Marines.

The shutdown of the program that year did not mark the end of the government’s interest in psychic phenomena. In 2014, Jacobsen writes, the Office of Naval Research launched a four-year program (costing some $3.85 million) to explore the use of premonition or intuition—what is popularly known as a “sixth sense” or even a “Spidey sense,” in honor of the web-throwing superhero—among sailors and Marines. And Dr. Edwin May, the former Star Gate research head, has continued to argue on behalf of ESP as a legitimate tool for military and domestic intelligence long after the program was shut down. In 2015, May told Newsweek that his most recent ESP study, funded by the non-profit Bial Foundation, “is probably the best experiment in the history of the field.”

Whatever its use for espionage purposes, belief in the powers of ESP has a long-running history of support among ordinary Americans: According to a 2005 Gallup poll, 73 percent of Americans at the time believed in some kind of paranormal phenomena, with 41 percent of those polled saying they believe in ESP specifically.

Is There a Sixth Sense?

Is There a Sixth Sense?

Some experts claim that hunches might actually foretell the future. Others aren’t so sure.

By Dean Radin, Colleen Rae, Ray Hyman, published July

last reviewed on June 9, 2016

1, 2000

Ever have a hunch, an instinct or an intuition? Research psychologist Dean Radin, Ph.D., claims that hunches might actually foretell the future. The University of Oregon’s Ray Hyman, Ph.D., however, isn’t so sure.

Alex, a university colleague, was cleaning his double-action, six-shot revolver in preparation for a hunting trip later in the month. In this pistol, when the trigger is pulled the hammer is cocked, the cylinder revolves, and the hammer falls on the next chamber, all in one smooth motion. For safety’s sake, Alex normally kept five bullets in the revolver, with the hammer resting on the sixth, empty chamber.

Before cleaning the gun, he removed the five bullets and set them aside. When finished cleaning, he began to put the bullets back in the cylinder. When he arrived at the fifth and final bullet, he suddenly got a distinct sense of dread. It had something to do with that bullet.

Alex was bothered about the odd feeling because nothing like it had ever happened to him before. He decided to trust his gut, so he put the bullet aside and positioned the pistol’s hammer as usual over the sixth chamber. The chamber next to it, which normally held the fifth bullet, was now also empty.

Two weeks later, Alex was at a hunting lodge with his fiancee and her parents. That evening, unexpectedly, a violent argument broke out between the parents. Alex tried to calm them down, but the father, in an insane rage, grabbed Alex’s gun, which had been in a drawer, and pointed it at his wife.

Alex tried to intervene by jumping between the gun and the woman, but he was too late— the trigger was already being pulled. For a horrifying split second, Alex knew that he was about to get shot at point-blank range. But instead of a sudden, gruesome death, the pistol went “click.” The cylinder had revolved to an empty chamber—the very chamber that would have contained the fifth bullet if Alex had not set it aside two weeks earlier.

Had Alex actually predicted the future, or was this just an extraordinary coincidence? There are several possible explanations for why such “intuitive hunches” sometimes play out. One is that on a subconscious level, we are always thinking and coming to conclusions, but that these register only as hunches to our conscious mind. Another is that we pick up telling cues from body language, subliminal sounds or peripheral vision without being consciously aware of doing so. A third is that for each amazing coincidence we remember, we forget all the times we had a hunch and it didn’t pan out. A fourth possibility is that we modify our memories for our own convenience, creating a connection where it may not have existed. And so on. These sorts of prosaic explanations probably account for many intuitive hunches. But they don’t explain them all.

As in the case of Alex’s intuition, a series of carefully documented case studies raises the possibility that some intuitions are due to a genuine sixth sense. But to confirm that those stories are what they appear to be, we must turn to controlled laboratory tests.

In a pilot study and in three follow-up experiments, I have observed that many people respond unconsciously to something bad—even before it happens. Take the prototypical case of a well-known editor of a popular magazine. When she asks the question, “Is there a sixth sense?” I don’t answer directly. I ask if she’d like to participate in an experiment that uses pictures randomly selected by computer, and she agrees.

I have her sit before a blank computer screen. All I’ve told her is that she’s about to see a series of digitized photographs. Some will be calm, like a placid lake, and others will be emotional, like a big spider. On two fingers of her left hand, I attach electrodes that measure tiny changes in her skin resistance. On a third finger I place an electrode that monitors blood flow. I explain that all she has to do is press the button on the mouse when she’s ready to begin, and then look at the pictures.

I leave the room, she relaxes, and then she presses the button. For five seconds, the screen remains blank, and then the computer randomly selects one picture out of a large pool of photos—some calming and some provocative. The picture is displayed for three seconds, and then the screen goes blank for eight seconds. Finally, a message appears announcing that she can start the next trial whenever she’s ready. She repeats this sequence 40 times. At the end of the experiment, I analyze the data recorded by the electrodes and prepare two summary graphs. Each graph shows average changes in her skin resistance and blood flow before, during and after she saw either calm or emotional pictures. What she immediately notices is that after she viewed the emotional pictures, both her skin resistance and fingertip blood flow dramatically changed. And after she viewed calm pictures, her physiology hardly changed at all.

“So I responded emotionally when I saw something emotional, and I remained calm when I saw something calm,” she says. “How does that demonstrate a sixth sense?”

I direct her attention to the segment of the graph showing her responses before the computer selected the pictures. “This bump shows that your body responded to emotional pictures before the computer selected them. And this flat line,” I say, pointing to the other line, “shows that your body did not respond before calm pictures were shown. You see? Your body was responding to your future emotion before the computer randomly selected an emotional or calm picture.”

As this sinks in, I add, “We can now demonstrate in the laboratory what at some level we’ve known all along: Many people literally get a gut feeling before something bad happens. Our viscera warn us of danger even if our conscious mind doesn’t always get the message.”

Our editor’s body showed signs of what I call presentiment, an unconscious form of “psi” perception. Psi is a neutral term for psychic experiences, and though it sounds like fodder for an episode of the X-Files, scientists around the world have studied the subject in the laboratory for over a century. The scientific evidence is now stronger than ever for commonly reported experiences such as telepathy (mind-to-mind communication), clairvoyance (information received from a distant place) and precognition (information received from a distant time). Studies suggest that we have ways of gaining information that bypass the ordinary senses. The sixth sense and similar terms, like second sight and extrasensory perception (ESP), refer to perceptual experiences that transcend the usual boundaries of space and time.

In trying to take these findings further, I realized that we have to dig deeper than what’s detectable at the conscious level. While ESP and psi generally refer to conscious psychic experiences, I’ve always thought that asking people to consciously report subtle psi impressions was a shot in the dark. What would happen if we bypassed the psychological defense mechanisms that filter our perceptions and censor our conscious awareness? Would we find psi experiences that people weren’t aware of?

A handful of colleagues have paved the way for this type of investigation. In the mid-1960s, psychologist Charles Tart, Ph.D., of the University of California at Davis, measured skin conductance, blood volume, heart rate, and verbal reports between

two people; called a sender-receiver pair. He, as the sender, received random electrical shocks to see if remote receivers could detect those events. Tart found that while they weren’t consciously aware of anything out of the ordinary, the distant receivers’ physiology registered significant reactions to the shocks he experienced.

In other, independent experiments, engineer Douglas Dean at the Newark College of Engineering; psychologist Jean Barry, Ph.D., in France; and psychologist Erlendur Haraldsson, Ph.D., at the University of Utrecht, all observed significant changes in receivers’ finger blood volume when a sender, located thousands of miles away, directed emotional thoughts toward them. The journal Science also published a study by two physiologists who reported finding significant correlations in brain waves between isolated identical twins. These sorts of studies came to be known as Distant Mental Intention on Living Systems (DMILS).

The idea for studying intuitive hunches came to me in the early 1990s, while I was a research fellow in the psychology department at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. I was investigating the “feeling of being stared at.” In the laboratory, I separated two people, placing them in rooms that were 100 feet away from each another. Then I monitored person number 1’s electrodermal activity while person number 2 stared at person number 1 over a one-way closed-circuit video system. Although the staredat person could have no conscious idea when the “starer” was doing the looking, since the two were in different rooms and the staring occurred at random times, I did observe small changes in the skin resistance of the person being stared at over closed-circuit television.

In thinking about this result, I realized that (for relativistic reasons) this sort of “nonlocal” connection across space implied a complementary connection across time. If we were seeing a genuine space-separated effect between people, then the same thing ought to work as a time-separated effect within one person. I called this proposed effect “presentiment” because the term suggests a response to a future emotional event.

I soon discovered that even the staunchest skeptics, those ready to swear on a stack of scientific journals that psi was impossible, were somewhat less critical of intuitive hunches. That’s because most people have had at least one.

I myself hardly believed the results of the studies I conducted on the magazine editor and others. But I couldn’t find any mistakes in the study design or analysis of the results. Some months later, Dick Bierman, Ph.D., a professor at the University of Amsterdam, learned of my studies and couldn’t believe them either. So he repeated the experiment in his lab and found the same results. Since then, two students of psychologist Robert Morris, Ph.D., at the University of Edinburgh, have also repeated the study, and again found similar results. More replication attempts are now under way in several other laboratories.

Do our experiments prove without question that the sixth sense exists? Not yet. What we have are three independent labs reporting similar effects based on data from more than 200 participants. The proof of the pudding will rest upon many more labs getting the same results. Still, our studies, combined with the outcomes of many other types of tests by dozens of investigators on precognition and other classes of psi phenomena, have caused even highly skeptical scientists to ponder what was previously unthinkable—the possibility of a genuine sixth sense.

In the mid-1990s, for example, no less an arch-skeptic than the late astronomer Carl Sagan rendered his lifelong opinion that all psi effects were impossible. But in one of his last books, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, he wrote, “At the time of writing there are three claims in the ESP field which, in my opinion, deserve serious study: (1) that by thought alone humans can (barely) affect random number generators in computers; (2) that people under mild sensory deprivation can receive thoughts or images “projected” at them; and (3) that young children sometimes report the details of a previous life, which upon checking turned out to be accurate and which they could not have known about in any other way than reincarnation.”

If scientists eventually agree that a sixth sense exists, how might this change society? On one hand, it may change nothing; we may learn that genuine psi abilities are rare and only weakly predictive, and thus inconsequential for most practical purposes.

On the other hand, it’s possible that the study of the sixth sense will revolutionize our understanding of causality and have radically new applications. For example, in an article co-titled ‘Exploring an Ourtageous Hypothesis,’ psychologist William Braud, Ph.D., professor and research director at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology and co-director of the Institute’s William James Center for Consciousness Studies, discusses the concept of “retroactive intentional influence” as applied to healing. He poses the idea that in cases where serious illnesses disappear virtually overnight, perhaps a healer went back in time to jumpstart the healing process.

Braud is well aware of the mind-bending nature of this hypothesis, but it is not purely fantastical. In his article, he reviews several hundred experiments examining a wide range of retrocausal phenomena, from mental influence of random numbers generated by electronic circuits, to guessing picture targets selected in the future, to studies examining the “feeling of being stared at,” to presentiment experiments. He concludes that this sizable but not well-known body of carefully controlled research indicates that some form of retroactive intentional influence is indeed possible, and may have important consequences for healing.

A less radical application might be for early warning systems. Imagine that on a future aircraft all the members of the flight crew are connected to an onboard computer system. The system is designed to continuously monitor heart rate, electrical activity in the skin, and blood flow. Before the crew comes aboard, each person is calibrated to see how he or she responds before, during and after different kinds of emotional and calm events. Each person’s idiosyncratic responses are used to create a person-unique emotional “response template,” which is fed into the computer.

While the plane is in the air, the computer monitors each crew member’s body to assess their emotional level. If the computer detects that all crew members are about to have an emotional response (and the aircraft is otherwise operating normally), then the computer could alert the pilot. Sometimes even a few seconds of advance warning in an aircraft can save the lives of everyone on board.

Very likely, some intuitive hunches do indicate the presence of a sixth sense. But for whom? Probably everyone, to a degree. But just as some people have poor vision, it is also quite likely that some people are effectively “psi-blind.”I suspect that in the future, with a little assistance from specialized technologies, the same way a hearing aid can improve poor hearing, it may become possible to boost our weak sixth sense.

Where’s the Science in Psi?

Dean Radin asks, “Do our experiments prove without question that the sixth sense exists?” He then answers, “Not yet,” correctly recognizing that we need further successful experiments, by independent investigators, to prove that such a sixth sense is real.

But even that’s not so simple. The independent investigators must do more than duplicate Radin’s findings. They must do so using different apparatus, measurements and randomizing procedures than he did to avoid replicating any errors he may have made inadvertently, otherwise they’re just perpetuating faulty findings.

I can already spot some potential errors in his methods. For example, Radin’s claim that people in his presentiment experiments unconsciously anticipated emotional pictures—based on his observation of changes in their skin resistance—violates some basic principles of cause and effect in science. That’s because the case for presentiment rests on comparing changes in physiological states, and different methods of calculating such changes can yield wildly different results.

For example, many years ago, a student was doing research to show that blinded rats are better than sighted rats at transferring their learning to a new task. The trouble

was, a previous researcher had found just the opposite effect. The difference between the two studies? How they measured change. The earlier researcher had calculated the simple difference between the number of errors the rats made on the first task and the number of errors they made on the second task; the student, meanwhile, had measured the changes in terms of percentages. This seemingly innocuous difference led to completely opposite findings! When we used the same measuring technique on both studies, they yielded uniform results.

In addition to the potential pitfalls of choosing a measuring method, researchers must also account for the great degree of variability of physiological changes, which Radin does not do convincingly. Skin resistance, like other physiological measures, varies greatly from person to person and over short and long periods. It also reacts to many aspects of the test subjects’ internal and external environment, which is why investigators use a number of adjustments to remove unwanted variation so they can focus only on the changes in which they are interested.

While to his credit, Radin does try to reduce some unwanted variability, his efforts seem to be indirect and arbitrary at best, especially when the process can be very tricky. Radin measured the change in physiological states by subtracting the very first sample of skin resistance on each trial from all the remaining samples of skin resistance for that trial. The evidence for presentiment, he says, is the fact that the averages of the change in skin resistance are larger before viewing emotional pictures than before calm pictures. That seems to make sense. But the first samples of skin readings taken in the trial set the baseline against which the results of all future trials will be compared and computed. So if, for some reason, the first samples of the trials involving emotional targets happen to have a somewhat lower value of skin resistance than the first samples of the calm trials, this alone would yield, perhaps falsely, a bigger “change score” for the emotional trials.

To see this problem in action, assume that the average raw score level for both calm and emotional trials is 20. If the baseline for the calm trials is 15, then the change score for the calm trials would be 20-15=5. If the baseline for the emotional trials is 10, then the change score for the emotional trials would he 20-10=10. Thus, the scoring procedure produces a bigger change in the emotional trials, all because of the differences in baselines. As you can see, the simple choice of method can greatly influence the findings. The devil, as they say, is in the details.

So

how do we

know which measure to trust when each gives a different outcome?

The solution is clear only when we have a detailed theory of the underlying process being studied. But that’s a key problem here: There is a general lack of a positive theory of ESP or psi. What kind of a process is it? How does it behave? Indeed, as many parapsychologists recognize, ESP is, at present, defined negatively, in terms of what it is not; the experimenter claims she has found psi when she has eliminated all normal scientific explanations for the outcome. Given this hazy state of affairs, there is no principled way to state what the correct measurement procedure should he. This would not be too serious if different methods produced the same outcome. But we do not know if this is the case in Radin’s experiments.

If I am investigating changes in the firings of nerve impulses in the optic nerve, for example, we have both extensive theory and data to inform us of the appropriate measures to use: We know the underlying distribution of such firings and we know how to appropriately transform them so that the measures of change make sense in terms of what we know about nerves and nerve impulses, in the case of the presentiment hypothesis, however, we do not have a detailed theory and sufficient data to know what sorts of transformations and measures of change make sense. So before we can believe that the physiological changes show that the subject is anticipating the emotional picture, we need to show, at the least, that different ways of measuring the physiological changes will yield the same outcome. We also would need to collect the physiological measures under more varied circumstances and over longer time periods.

The history of attempts to investigate scientifically psychical phenomena goes back 150 years, and is replete with examples of psychical researchers claiming they finally proved the existence of the paranormal. In each instance, subsequent generations of parapsychologists have had to discard as badly flawed what had seemed to the previous generation to be irrefutable proof of psi, or psychic phenomena.

A case in point is the study cited by Radin of the “significant correlations in brain waves between isolated identical twins.” This study was reported in the journal Science in 1965 by Duane and Behrendt. These investigators took advantage of the fact that alpha brain waves can be induced by simply closing one’s eyes. The researchers put two members of a pair of twins in separate rooms and connected them to electrodes to measure their brain waves. They instructed one of the twins to shut her eyes at predetermined times. This produced the expected alpha rhythms in her brain waves, and supposedly caused the other twin’s brain waves to show alpha rhythms at the same time. If this is indeed what had happened, it would be evidence for ESP. But there were many methodological problems. First, the isolation of the twins was not very convincing since they were in adjacent rooms. Second, the evidence for the correlation of the brain waves was based solely on subjective, visual inspection of the brain wave recordings. As psychologists know, people are very poor at determining correlations subjectively, which is why experimenters trust only correlations tabulated by computers.

Duane and Behrendt later admitted, among other things, that because the twins were not in shielded rooms, they could conceivably have sent coded signals to one another. “In retrospect, the biggest defect in our experimental procedure was that we did not rule out completely conventional forms of communication between the twins, and we did not perform a statistical analysis to eliminate spontaneous alpha rhythms.” While they continued to seek the “hard, quantitative data” they said would prove or refute the hypothesis, neither these authors or anyone else has succeeded, during the intervening 45 years, in replicating these results under scientific conditions.

In his book The Conscious Universe, Dean Radin remains optimistic that, correctly interpreted, the experimental outcomes of parapsychological experiment conclusively demonstrate the existence of psi or ESP.

But if the century and a half of psychical research has taught us anything, then the next generation will likely not be able to replicate Radin’s presentiment results and will begin to search elsewhere for their elusive quarry. On the other hand, if history ceases to repeat itself, future parapsychologists may very well find ways to help us develop our intuitive powers; it remains to be seen whether Radin’s research will pave the way.

Bibliography

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Is It Possible to Measure Supernatural or Paranormal Phenomena? Re trieved from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-it-pos sible-to-measure-supernatural-or-paranormal-phenomena/. Meehl, P. (1991). Selected Philosophical and Methodological Papers (An derson C. & Gunderson K., Eds.). University of Minnesota Press. Neuroimaging fails to demonstrate ESP is real. Retrieved from https:// news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2008/01/neuroimag ing-fails-to-demonstrate-esp-is-real/.Pruitt, S. (2018, October 17).

The CIA Recruited ‘Mind Readers’ to Spy on the Soviets in the 1970s. Retrieved from https://www.history.com/news/cia-esp-espionagesoviet-union-cold-war.Shermer, M. (2016, September 1).