Tag Archive: psychic powers


Scientists understandably don’t have much patience for the notion of extrasensory perception. Yet evidence persists in the psychological literature that people’s bodies sometimes unconsciously “predict” unpredictable future events. These visceral responses don’t appear to be the result of sheer chance.

That’s the result of a meta-analysis of earlier papers on this subject conducted by a trio of researchers led by Julia Mossbridge of Northwestern University.

They started with 49 articles but, in bending over backwards to take the most conservative possible approach, tossed out 23 that, for various reasons, didn’t meet their standards. The effect remained. By “effect,” I’m not talking about people having the ability to read palms or tea leaves.

What the studies measured was physiological activity—e.g., heart rate or skin conductance—in participants who, for instance, might have been shown a series of images, some harmless and others frightening. Using computer programs and statistical techniques, experimenters have found that, even before being shown a troubling image, participants sometimes display physiological changes —a faster heart rate, for example—of the kind that would be expected only after seeing the image, and not just because the subjects know a scary snake picture is coming sooner or later.

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Few people are aware that there have been numerous, carefully-controlled scientific experiments with telepathy, psychokinesis, remote viewing, and other types of psychic phenomena, which have consistently produced compelling, statistically-significant results that conventional science is at a loss to explain.

Even most scientists, are currently unaware of the vast abundance of compelling scientific evidence for psychic phenomena, which has resulted from over a century of parapsychological research.

Hundreds of carefully-controlled studies–in which psi researchers continuously redesigned experiments to address the comments from their critics–have produced results that demonstrate small, but statistically significant effects for psi phenomena, such as telepathy, precognition, and psychokinesis.

According to psychologist Dean Radin, a meta-analysis of this research demonstrates that the positive results from these studies are significant with odds in the order of many billions to one.

Princeton University, the Stanford Research Institute, Duke University, the Institute of Noetic Science, the U.S. and Russian governments, and many other respectable institutions, have spent years researching these mysterious phenomena, and conventional science is at a loss to explain the results.

This research–which was originally published in numerous peer-reviewed scientific journals over the past century–is summarized Radin’s remarkable book The Conscious Universe.

Just as fascinating as the research into psychic phenomena is the controversy that surrounds it.

In my own experience researching the possibility of telepathy in animals, and other unexplained phenomena with British biologist Rupert Sheldrake, I discovered that many people are eager to share personal anecdotes about psychic events in their life–such as remarkable coincidences, uncanny premonitions, precognitive dreams, and seemingly telepathic communications.

In these cases, the scientific studies simply confirm life experiences.

However, many scientists that I’ve spoken with haven’t reviewed the evidence, and remain doubtful that there is any reality to psychic phenomenon, because the mechanism isn’t understood yet.

Nonetheless, surveys conducted by British biologist Rupert Sheldrake and myself reveal that around 78% of the population has had unexplainable “psychic” experiences, and the scientific evidence supports the validity of these experiences.

It’s also interesting to note that many people have reported experiencing meaningful psychic experiences with psychedelic drugs–not to mention a wide range of paranormal events and synchronicities, which seem extremely difficult to explain by means of conventional reasoning.

A questionnaire study conducted by psychologist Charles Tart of 150 experienced marijuana users found that 76% believed in extrasensory perception (ESP), with frequent reports of experiences while intoxicated that were interpreted as psychic.

Psychiatrist Stanislav Grof, and psychologist Stanley Krippner, have collected numerous anecdotes about psychic phenomena that were reported by people under the influence of psychedelic drugs, and several small scientific studies have looked at how LSD, psilocybin, and mescaline might effect telepathy and remote viewing.

For example, according to psychologist Jean Millay, in 1997, students at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands did research to establish whether or not the use of psilocybin could influence remote viewing.

This was a small experiment, with only 12 test-subjects, but the results of the study indicated that those subjects who were under the influence of psilocybin achieved a success rate of 58.3 percent, which was statistically significant.

A new edition of the 1964 book ESP Experiments With LSD-25 and Psilocybin: A Methodological Approach, by Roberto Cavanna and Emilio Servadio was republished in 2010, with a new preface by Charles Tart.

In the introduction Tart states that, “this study remains as important today as when it was first published, and will hopefully guide a new generation of researchers to finding the knowledge we need!”

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Like many mothers who feared for their family’s safety during World War II, Mona Miller was evacuated from London to the peaceful seaside town of Babbacombe in Devon.

It seemed like a wise precaution but, shortly after her arrival there with her young children, Mrs Miller became increasingly uneasy.

‘I had a feeling that I must leave Devon and return home,’ she told me.

‘At first I dismissed the idea; why leave when I was so happy and contented despite the war going on around me?

I've long believed that presentiments, premonitions and other psychic phenomena such as telepathy should be taken more seriously by my scientific colleaguesI’ve long believed that presentiments, premonitions and other psychic phenomena such as telepathy should be taken more seriously by my scientific colleagues

‘But the feeling increased. The walls of my room seemed to speak to me: “Go home to London.” I resisted the call for about four months then, one day, like a flash of light, I knew we must leave.

‘On a Saturday in late 1942, we travelled back to London and a few days later I received a letter from a friend in Devon.

‘“Thank God you took the children on Saturday,” she wrote. “Early Sunday morning, Jerry dropped three bombs and one fell on the house where you were living, demolishing it, and killing all the neighbours on either side.”’

Mrs Miller was far from the only person to experience such forebodings during the war.

Three years later, in the spring of 1945, U.S. serviceman Charles Bernuth took part in the invasion of Germany and, shortly after crossing the Rhine, found himself driving along the autobahn one night with two officers.

He described how a ‘still, small voice’ within him told him there was something wrong with the road ahead.

‘I stopped, amid the groans and jeers of the other two. I started walking along the road.

‘About 50 yards from where I had left the jeep, I found out what was wrong.

‘We were about to go over a bridge — only the bridge wasn’t there. It had been blown up and there was a sheer drop of about 75ft.’

Both Mrs Miller and Charles Bernuth had experienced presentiments — feelings that something was going to happen without knowing what it would be.

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