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Pavel Štěpánek
Pavel Štěpánek (born 1931) is a retired Czech celebrity psychic. He became, during the 1960s, the most tested individual participant in parapsychology experiments, both in terms of number of trials, and number of independent investigators. In 1968, results of these experiments were published in the journal ''Nature'', with Joseph Gaither Pratt as principal author. Critics have pointed out numerous experimental flaws in the tests that would have resulted in Štěpánek being able to guess correctly with no need for extrasensory perception, and have noted that when these problems were eliminated, Pavel failed the tests.C. E. M. Hansel, ''ESP: Deficiencies of Experimental Method'', Nature 221, 1171-1172 (22 March 1969) Biography Štěpánek was born in Prague, then in Czechoslovakia, in 1931. After completing secondary school, he was employed as a foreign-language correspondent for an export firm, and later as an information clerk for the Prague Central Library. He held this posit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Czechs
The Czechs (, ; singular Czech, masculine: ''Čech'' , singular feminine: ''Češka'' ), or the Czech people (), are a West Slavs, West Slavic ethnic group and a nation native to the Czech Republic in Central Europe, who share a common Bohemia, ancestry, Czech culture, culture, History of the Czech lands, history, and the Czech language. Ethnic Czechs were called Bohemians in English language, English until the early 20th century, referring to the former name of their country, Bohemia, which in turn was adapted from the late Iron Age tribe of Celtic Boii. During the Migration Period, West Slavic Bohemians (tribe), tribes settled in the area, "assimilated the remaining Celtic and Germanic populations", and formed a principality in the 9th century, which was initially part of Great Moravia, in form of Duchy of Bohemia and later Kingdom of Bohemia, the predecessors of the modern republic. The Czech diaspora is found in notable numbers in the Czech American, United States, Germany ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Psychic
A psychic is a person who claims to use powers rooted in parapsychology, such as extrasensory perception (ESP), to identify information hidden from the normal senses, particularly involving telepathy or clairvoyance; or who performs acts that are apparently inexplicable by natural laws, such as psychokinesis or teleportation. Although many people believe in psychic abilities, the scientific consensus is that there is no proof of the existence of such powers, and describes the practice as pseudoscience. Psychics encompass people in a variety of roles. Some are theatrical performers, such as stage magicians, who use various techniques, e.g. prestidigitation, cold reading, and hot reading, to produce the appearance of such abilities for entertainment purposes. A large industry and network exist whereby people advertised as psychics provide advice and counsel to clients. Some famous psychics include Edgar Cayce, Ingo Swann, Peter Hurkos, Janet Lee, Miss Cleo, John Edward ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parapsychology
Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena (extrasensory perception, telepathy, teleportation, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis (also called telekinesis), and psychometry (paranormal), psychometry) and other paranormal claims, for example, those related to near-death experiences, synchronicity, apparitional experiences, etc. Criticized as being a pseudoscience, the majority of mainstream scientists reject it. Parapsychology has been criticised for continuing investigation despite being unable to provide reproducible evidence for the existence of any psychic phenomena after more than a century of research. Parapsychology research rarely appears in mainstream scientific journals; a few niche journals publish most papers about parapsychology. Terminology The term ''parapsychology'' was coined in 1889 by philosopher Max Dessoir as the German . It was adopted by Joseph Banks Rhine, J. B. Rhine in the 1930s as a replacement for the term ''psychical research'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Gaither Pratt
Joseph Gaither Pratt (August 31, 1910 – November 3, 1979) was an American psychologist who specialized in the field of parapsychology. Among his research interests were extrasensory perception, psychokinesis, mediumship and poltergeists. Much of Pratt's research was conducted while he was associated with J. B. Rhine's Parapsychology Laboratory at Duke University (1932–1964), and he also conducted research while associated with Columbia University (1935–1937), under Gardner Murphy, and the University of Virginia (1964–1975). Pratt was co-experimenter in the Pearce–Pratt and Pratt–Woodruff tests that are considered by some parapsychologists to have provided evidence for psi, though critics discovered flaws in the experiments. Hansel, C. E. M. (1980). ''ESP and Parapsychology: A Critical Re-Evaluation''. Prometheus Books. pp. 125–140. Stenger, Victor J. (1990). ''Physics and Psychics: The Search for a World Beyond the Senses''. Prometheus Books. pp. 171–174. He was t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extrasensory Perception
Extrasensory perception (ESP), also known as a sixth sense, or cryptaesthesia, is a claimed paranormal ability pertaining to reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses, but sensed with the mind. The term was adopted by Duke University botanist J. B. Rhine to denote psychic abilities such as intuition, telepathy, psychometry, clairvoyance, empathy and their trans-temporal operation as precognition or retrocognition. Second sight is an alleged form of extrasensory perception, whereby a person perceives information, in the form of a vision, about future events before they happen ( precognition), or about things or events at remote locations ( remote viewing). There is no evidence that second sight exists. Reports of second sight are known only from anecdotes. Second sight and ESP are classified as pseudosciences. History In the 1930s, at Duke University in North Carolina, J. B. Rhine and his wife Louisa E. Rhine conducted an invest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nature (journal)
''Nature'' is a British weekly scientific journal founded and based in London, England. As a multidisciplinary publication, ''Nature'' features Peer review, peer-reviewed research from a variety of academic disciplines, mainly in science and technology. It has core editorial offices across the United States, continental Europe, and Asia under the international scientific publishing company Springer Nature. ''Nature'' was one of the world's most cited scientific journals by the Science Edition of the 2022 ''Journal Citation Reports'' (with an ascribed impact factor of 50.5), making it one of the world's most-read and most prestigious academic journals. , it claimed an online readership of about three million unique readers per month. Founded in the autumn of 1869, ''Nature'' was first circulated by Norman Lockyer and Alexander MacMillan (publisher), Alexander MacMillan as a public forum for scientific innovations. The mid-20th century facilitated an editorial expansion for the j ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland became part of Nazi Germany, while the country lost further territories to First Vienna Award, Hungary and Trans-Olza, Poland (the territories of southern Slovakia with a predominantly Hungarian population to Hungary and Zaolzie with a predominantly Polish population to Poland). Between 1939 and 1945, the state ceased to exist, as Slovak state, Slovakia proclaimed its independence and Carpathian Ruthenia became part of Kingdom of Hungary (1920–1946), Hungary, while the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was proclaimed in the remainder of the Czech Lands. In 1939, after the outbreak of World War II, former Czechoslovak President Edvard Beneš formed Czechoslovak government-in-exile, a government-in-exile and sought recognition from the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University Of Virginia
The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and contains his The Lawn, Academical Village, a World Heritage Site, UNESCO World Heritage Site. The original governing Board of Visitors included three List of presidents of the United States, U.S. presidents: Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe, the latter as sitting president of the United States at the time of its foundation. As its first two Rector (academia)#United States, rectors, Presidents Jefferson and Madison played key roles in the university's foundation, with Jefferson designing both the #1800s, original courses of study and the university's #Academical Village, architecture. Located within its 1,135-acre central campus, the university is composed of eight undergraduate and three professional schools: the University of Virginia School of Law, School of Law, the University ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University Of Tasmania
The University of Tasmania (UTAS) is a public research university, primarily located in Tasmania, Australia. Founded in 1890, it is Australia's fourth oldest university. Christ College (University of Tasmania), Christ College, one of the university's residential colleges, first proposed in 1840 in Lieutenant-Governor Sir John Franklin's Legislative Council, was modelled on the University of Oxford, Oxford and University of Cambridge, Cambridge colleges, and was founded in 1846, making it the oldest tertiary institution in the country. The university is a Sandstone universities, sandstone university, a member of the international Association of Commonwealth Universities, and the Association of Southeast Asian Institutions of Higher Learning. The university offers various undergraduate and graduate programs in a range of disciplines, and has links with 20 specialist research institutes and co-operative research centres. Its Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies has strongly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhine Research Center
The Rhine Research Center is an independent, non-profit parapsychology research center that takes a scientific approach to anomalous phenomena and exceptional human experience. According to the mission statement, the "Rhine's mission is to advance the science of parapsychology, to provide education and resources for the public, and to foster a community for individuals with personal and professional interest in PSI." It is the successor to the Parapsychology Laboratory at Duke University Duke University is a Private university, private research university in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity, North Carolina, Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1 .... In 1965, when J. B. Rhine reached mandatory retirement age, he left Duke University and founded an independent non-profit organization called the Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man. The current research center is a successor to this org ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Martin Gardner
Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914May 22, 2010) was an American popular mathematics and popular science writer with interests also encompassing magic, scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literatureespecially the writings of Lewis Carroll, L. Frank Baum, and G. K. Chesterton.Martin (2010) He was a leading authority on Lewis Carroll; '' The Annotated Alice'', which incorporated the text of Carroll's two Alice books, was his most successful work and sold over a million copies.Martin Gardner obituary (2010) He had a lifelong interest in magic and illusion and in 1999, ''MAGIC'' magazine named him as one of the "10 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parapsychologists
Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena (extrasensory perception, telepathy, teleportation, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis (also called telekinesis), and psychometry (paranormal), psychometry) and other paranormal claims, for example, those related to near-death experiences, synchronicity, apparitional experiences, etc. Criticized as being a pseudoscience, the majority of mainstream scientists reject it. Parapsychology has been criticised for continuing investigation despite being unable to provide reproducible evidence for the existence of any psychic phenomena after more than a century of research. Parapsychology research rarely appears in mainstream scientific journals; a few niche journals publish most papers about parapsychology. Terminology The term ''parapsychology'' was coined in 1889 by philosopher Max Dessoir as the German . It was adopted by Joseph Banks Rhine, J. B. Rhine in the 1930s as a replacement for the term ''psychical research'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
