ESP: The Insurgency Of The Five Senses

ESP

We have all learned about the five senses we possess: taste, touch, sight, sound, and smell. Still, we wonder, “Do we possess another sense, a supernatural power? Does ESP actually exist or is it just coincidence?” For over a century, scientists have run thousands of experiments to learn if we have supernatural powers. American parapsychologist, J.B. Rhine, coined the term "extrasensory perception" to describe the apparent ability of some people to acquire information without the use of the known five senses (www.parapsych.org 1). Extrasensory perception, or ESP, has been tested using three categories: telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition. Skeptics question the validity of these tests and suggest that ESP is attributed to

Telepathy, the ability to receive a thought or feeling from the mind of another (Netzley 12), is “possibly the most frequently used mechanism for interpersonal communication (Slate 9).” Conditions that are commonly associated with occurrences of telepathy include a close personal bond or blood relatedness between subjects, a time of crisis, or an urgent need to communicate when other channels of communication are unavailable. It has also been shown that in persons who are in close proximity or compatible relationships, telepathy becomes a normal component of the daily communication process (Slate 9). (Netzley

Several theories surround why subjects do better in a hypnotic or dreaming state. To test the theory that the subconscious mind is more receptive to telepathic images because it is not distracted by the senses, researchers developed the ESP-ganzfield experiment. The results of this stimulation deprivation experiment show a thirty-four percent success rate, whereas chance would predict twenty-five percent (Netzley 22). (Houghton Netzley)

The second category of ESP, clairvoyance, involves the power of being able to see physical objects, conditions, situations, or events that cannot be perceived by the other senses (Slate 15). Because of its advanced complexity, it is one of the most complex forms of psychic phenomena. Unlike telepathy, clairvoyance functions independently of another mind or mental energies of another, leaving the experience to rest within the individual subject’s “imaginative and creative mind (Slate 16).”