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Psychokinesis (from grc, ψυχή, , soul and grc, κίνησις, , movement, label=ㅤ
), or telekinesis
(from grc, τηλε, , far off and grc, κίνησις, , movement, label=ㅤ
), is a hypothetical
psychic ability
This is a list of alleged psychic abilities that have been attributed to real-world people. Many of these abilities pertain to variations of extrasensory perception or the ''sixth sense''. Superhuman abilities from fiction are not included.
Psych ...
allowing a person to influence a
physical system
A physical system is a collection of physical objects.
In physics, it is a portion of the physical universe chosen for analysis. Everything outside the system is known as the environment. The environment is ignored except for its effects on the ...
without physical interaction.
Psychokinesis experiments have historically been criticized for lack of proper
controls and
repeatability
Repeatability or test–retest reliability is the closeness of the agreement between the results of successive measurements of the same measure, when carried out under the same conditions of measurement. In other words, the measurements are taken ...
.
There is no good evidence that psychokinesis is a real phenomenon, and the topic is generally regarded as
pseudoscience
Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or falsifiability, unfa ...
.
Etymology
The word ''psychokinesis'' was coined in 1914 by American author
Henry Holt in his book ''On the Cosmic Relations''. The term is a
compound
Compound may refer to:
Architecture and built environments
* Compound (enclosure), a cluster of buildings having a shared purpose, usually inside a fence or wall
** Compound (fortification), a version of the above fortified with defensive struct ...
of the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
words ψυχή (''psyche'') – meaning "mind", "soul", "spirit", or "breath" – and κίνησις (''kinesis'') – meaning "motion" or "movement".
The American
parapsychologist J. B. Rhine
Joseph Banks Rhine (September 29, 1895 – February 20, 1980), usually known as J. B. Rhine, was an American botanist who founded parapsychology as a branch of psychology, founding the parapsychology lab at Duke University, the ''Journ ...
coined the term ''
extra-sensory perception
Extrasensory perception or ESP, also called sixth sense, 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 Universi ...
'' to describe receiving information paranormally from an external source.
Following this, he used the term ''psychokinesis'' in 1934 to describe mentally influencing external objects or events without the use of physical energy.
His initial example of psychokinesis was experiments that were conducted to determine whether a person could influence the outcome of falling dice.
The word ''telekinesis'', a
compound
Compound may refer to:
Architecture and built environments
* Compound (enclosure), a cluster of buildings having a shared purpose, usually inside a fence or wall
** Compound (fortification), a version of the above fortified with defensive struct ...
of the Greek τῆλε (''tēle'') – meaning "distance" – and κίνησις (''kinesis'') – meaning "motion",
was first used in 1890 by Russian psychical researcher
Alexander N. Aksakof.
In
parapsychology
Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena (extrasensory perception, telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis (also called telekinesis), and psychometry) and other paranormal claims, for example, those related to near ...
,
fictional universe
A fictional universe, or fictional world, is a self-consistent setting with events, and often other elements, that differ from the real world. It may also be called an imagined, constructed, or fictional realm (or world). Fictional universes may ...
s and
New Age
New Age is a range of spiritual or religious practices and beliefs which rapidly grew in Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise definition difficult. Although many scholars conside ...
beliefs, psychokinesis and telekinesis are different: psychokinesis refers to the mental influence of physical systems and objects without the use of any physical energy,
while telekinesis refers to the movement and/or levitation of physical objects by purely mental force without any physical intervention.
Reception
Evaluation
There is a broad scientific consensus that psychokinetic research has not produced a reliable demonstration of the phenomenon.
A panel commissioned in 1988 by the
United States National Research Council
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (also known as NASEM or the National Academies) are the collective scientific national academy of the United States. The name is used interchangeably in two senses: (1) as an umbrell ...
to study paranormal claims concluded that "despite a 130-year record of scientific research on such matters, our committee could find no scientific justification for the existence of phenomena such as extrasensory perception, mental telepathy or 'mind over matter' exercises... Evaluation of a large body of the best available evidence simply does not support the contention that these phenomena exist."
In 1984, the
United States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
, at the request of the US Army Research Institute, formed a scientific panel to assess the best evidence for psychokinesis. Part of its purpose was to investigate military applications of PK, for example to remotely jam or disrupt enemy weaponry. The panel heard from a variety of military staff who believed in PK and made visits to the
PEAR laboratory and two other laboratories that had claimed positive results from micro-PK experiments. The panel criticized macro-PK experiments for being open to deception by conjurors, and said that virtually all micro-PK experiments "depart from good scientific practice in a variety of ways". Their conclusion, published in a 1987 report, was that there was no scientific evidence for the existence of psychokinesis.
Carl Sagan
Carl Edward Sagan (; ; November 9, 1934December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, planetary scientist, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, and science communicator. His best known scientific contribution is research on ext ...
included telekinesis in a long list of "offerings of pseudoscience and superstition" which "it would be foolish to accept ... without solid scientific data". Nobel Prize laureate
Richard Feynman
Richard Phillips Feynman (; May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) was an American theoretical physicist, known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, the physics of the superflu ...
advocated a similar position.
Felix Planer, a professor of
electrical engineering
Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...
, has written that if psychokinesis were real then it would be easy to demonstrate by getting subjects to depress a scale on a sensitive balance, raise the temperature of a waterbath which could be measured with an accuracy of a hundredth of a degree
centigrade
The degree Celsius is the unit of temperature on the Celsius scale (originally known as the centigrade scale outside Sweden), one of two temperature scales used in the International System of Units (SI), the other being the Kelvin scale. The ...
, or affect an element in an electrical circuit such as a resistor, which could be monitored to better than a millionth of an ampere.
Planer writes that such experiments are extremely sensitive and easy to monitor but are not utilized by parapsychologists as they "do not hold out the remotest hope of demonstrating even a minute trace of PK" because the alleged phenomenon is non-existent. Planer has written that parapsychologists have to fall back on studies that involve only statistics that are unrepeatable, owing their results to poor experimental methods, recording mistakes and faulty statistical mathematics.
According to Planer, "All research in medicine and other sciences would become illusionary, if the existence of PK had to be taken seriously; for no experiment could be relied upon to furnish objective results, since all measurements would become falsified to a greater or lesser degree, according to his PK ability, by the experimenter's wishes." Planer concluded that the concept of psychokinesis is absurd and has no scientific basis.
PK hypotheses have also been considered in a number of contexts outside parapsychological experiments.
C. E. M. Hansel has written that a general objection against the claim for the existence of psychokinesis is that, if it were a real process, its effects would be expected to manifest in situations in everyday life; but no such effects have been observed.
Science writers
Martin Gardner
Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914May 22, 2010) was an American popular mathematics and popular science writer with interests also encompassing scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literatureespecially the writings of Lewis ...
and
Terence Hines
Terence Hines (born 22 March 1951) is a professor of psychology at Pace University, New York, and adjunct professor of neurology at the New York Medical College; he is also a science writer. Hines has a BA from Duke University, and an MA and P ...
and the philosopher
Theodore Schick
Theodore Schick is an American author in the field of philosophy.
His articles have appeared in numerous publications and include topics such as functionalism and its effect on immortality, the logic behind the criteria of adequacy, and applyin ...
have written that if psychokinesis were possible, one would expect casino incomes to be affected, but the earnings are exactly as the laws of chance predict.
Psychologist
Nicholas Humphrey
Nicholas Keynes Humphrey (born 27 March 1943) is an English neuropsychologist based in Cambridge, known for his work on evolution of primate intelligence and consciousness. He studied mountain gorillas with Dian Fossey in Rwanda; he was the fi ...
argues that many experiments in
psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...
,
biology
Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...
or
physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...
assume that the intentions of the subjects or experimenter do not physically distort the apparatus. Humphrey counts them as implicit replications of PK experiments in which PK fails to appear.
Physics
The ideas of psychokinesis and telekinesis violate several well-established laws of physics, including the
inverse square law, the
second law of thermodynamics
The second law of thermodynamics is a physical law based on universal experience concerning heat and Energy transformation, energy interconversions. One simple statement of the law is that heat always moves from hotter objects to colder objects ( ...
, and the
conservation of momentum
In Newtonian mechanics, momentum (more specifically linear momentum or translational momentum) is the product of the mass and velocity of an object. It is a vector quantity, possessing a magnitude and a direction. If is an object's mass an ...
.
Because of this, scientists have demanded a high standard of evidence for PK, in line with
Marcello Truzzi
Marcello Truzzi (September 6, 1935 – February 2, 2003) was a professor of sociology at New College of Florida and later at Eastern Michigan University, founding co-chairman of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the P ...
's dictum "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof".
The
Occam's razor
Occam's razor, Ockham's razor, or Ocham's razor ( la, novacula Occami), also known as the principle of parsimony or the law of parsimony ( la, lex parsimoniae), is the problem-solving principle that "entities should not be multiplied beyond neces ...
law of parsimony in scientific explanations of phenomena suggests that the explanation of PK in terms of ordinary ways—by trickery, special effects or by poor experimental design—is preferable to accepting that the
laws of physics
Scientific laws or laws of science are statements, based on repeated experiments or observations, that describe or predict a range of natural phenomena. The term ''law'' has diverse usage in many cases (approximate, accurate, broad, or narrow) a ...
should be rewritten.
Philosopher and physicist
Mario Bunge
Mario Augusto Bunge (; ; September 21, 1919 – February 24, 2020) was an Argentine-Canadian philosopher and physicist. His philosophical writings combined scientific realism, systemism, materialism, emergentism, and other principles.
He was ...
has written that "psychokinesis, or PK, violates the principle that mind cannot act directly on matter. (If it did, no experimenter could trust his readings of measuring instruments.) It also violates the principles of conservation of energy and momentum. The claim that quantum mechanics allows for the possibility of mental power influencing randomizers—an alleged case of micro-PK—is ludicrous since that theory respects the said conservation principles, and it deals exclusively with physical things."
Physicist
John Taylor, who has investigated parapsychological claims, has written that an unknown fifth force causing psychokinesis would have to transmit a great deal of energy. The energy would have to overcome the
electromagnetic forces binding the atoms together, because the atoms would need to respond more strongly to the fifth force than to electric forces. Such an additional force between atoms should therefore exist all the time and not during only alleged paranormal occurrences. Taylor wrote there is no scientific trace of such a force in physics, down to many orders of magnitude; thus, if a scientific viewpoint is to be preserved, the idea of any fifth force must be discarded. Taylor concluded that there is no possible physical mechanism for psychokinesis, and it is in complete contradiction to established science.
In 1979,
Evan Harris Walker
Evan Harris Walker (1935 – August 17, 2006), was an American physicist and parapsychologist. and Richard Mattuck published a parapsychology paper proposing a quantum explanation for psychokinesis. Physicist
Victor J. Stenger
Victor John Stenger (; January 29, 1935 – August 25, 2014) was an American particle physicist, philosopher, author, and religious skeptic.
Following a career as a research scientist in the field of particle physics, Stenger was associated ...
wrote that their explanation contained assumptions not supported by any scientific evidence. According to Stenger their paper is "filled with impressive looking equations and calculations that give the appearance of placing psychokinesis on a firm scientific footing... Yet look what they have done. They have found the value of one unknown number (wavefunction steps) that gives one measured number (the supposed speed of PK-induced motion). This is numerology, not science."
Physicist
Sean M. Carroll
Sean Michael Carroll (born October 5, 1966) is an American theoretical physicist and philosopher who specializes in quantum mechanics, gravity, and cosmology. He is (formerly) a research professor in the Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical ...
has written that spoons, like all matter, are made up of
atom
Every atom is composed of a nucleus and one or more electrons bound to the nucleus. The nucleus is made of one or more protons and a number of neutrons. Only the most common variety of hydrogen has no neutrons.
Every solid, liquid, gas, and ...
s and that any movement of a spoon with the mind would involve the manipulation of those atoms through the four
forces of nature: the
strong nuclear force
The strong interaction or strong force is a fundamental interaction that confines quarks into proton, neutron, and other hadron particles. The strong interaction also binds neutrons and protons to create atomic nuclei, where it is called the n ...
, the
weak nuclear force
In nuclear physics and particle physics, the weak interaction, which is also often called the weak force or weak nuclear force, is one of the four known fundamental interactions, with the others being electromagnetism, the strong interaction ...
, electromagnetism, and
gravitation
In physics, gravity () is a fundamental interaction which causes mutual attraction between all things with mass or energy. Gravity is, by far, the weakest of the four fundamental interactions, approximately 1038 times weaker than the stron ...
. Psychokinesis would have to be either some form of one of these four forces, or a new force that has a billionth the strength of gravity, for otherwise it would have been captured in experiments already done. This leaves no physical force that could possibly account for psychokinesis.
Physicist
Robert L. Park
Robert Lee Park (January 16, 1931 – April 29, 2020) was an American emeritus professor of physics at the University of Maryland, College Park, and a former director of public information at the Washington office of the American Physical Society. ...
has found it suspicious that a phenomenon should only ever appear at the limits of detectability of questionable statistical techniques. He cites this feature as one of
Irving Langmuir
Irving Langmuir (; January 31, 1881 – August 16, 1957) was an American chemist, physicist, and engineer. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1932 for his work in surface chemistry.
Langmuir's most famous publication is the 1919 art ...
's indicators of
pathological science
Pathological science is an area of research where "people are tricked into false results ... by subjective effects, wishful thinking or threshold interactions."Irving Langmuir, "Colloquium on Pathological Science," held at the Knolls Research Lab ...
.
Park pointed out that if mind really could influence matter, it would be easy for parapsychologists to measure such a phenomenon by using the alleged psychokinetic power to deflect a
microbalance
A microbalance is an instrument capable of making precise measurements of weight of objects of relatively small mass: of the order of a million parts of a gram. In comparison, a standard analytical balance is 100 times less sensitive; i.e. it is ...
, which would not require any dubious statistics. "
e reason, of course, is that the microbalance stubbornly refuses to budge." He has suggested that the reason statistical studies are so popular in parapsychology is that they introduce opportunities for uncertainty and error, which are used to support the experimenter's biases.
Explanations in terms of bias
Cognitive bias
A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment. Individuals create their own "subjective reality" from their perception of the input. An individual's construction of reality, not the objective input, m ...
research has suggested that people are susceptible to illusions of PK. These include both the illusion that they themselves have the power, and that the events they witness are real demonstrations of PK.
For example, the
illusion of control
The illusion of control is the tendency for people to overestimate their ability to control events. It was named by U.S. psychologist Ellen Langer and is thought to influence gambling behavior and belief in the paranormal. Along with illusory supe ...
is an
illusory correlation
In psychology, illusory correlation is the phenomenon of perceiving a relationship between variables (typically people, events, or behaviors) even when no such relationship exists. A false association may be formed because rare or novel occurren ...
between intention and external events, and believers in the paranormal have been shown to be more susceptible to this illusion than others.
Psychologist
Thomas Gilovich
Thomas Dashiff Gilovich (born January 16, 1954) an American psychologist who is the Irene Blecker Rosenfeld Professor of Psychology at Cornell University. He has conducted research in social psychology, decision making, behavioral economics, an ...
explains this as a biased interpretation of personal experience. For example, someone in a dice game wishing for a high score can interpret high numbers as "success" and low numbers as "not enough concentration."
Bias towards belief in PK may be an example of the human tendency to see patterns where none exist, called the
clustering illusion
The clustering illusion is the tendency to erroneously consider the inevitable "streaks" or "clusters" arising in small samples from random distributions to be non-random. The illusion is caused by a human tendency to underpredict the amount of v ...
, which believers are also more susceptible to.
A 1952 study tested for
experimenter's bias Observer bias is one of the types of detection bias and is defined as any kind of systematic divergence from accurate facts during observation and the recording of data and information in studies. The definition can be further expanded upon to inclu ...
with respect to psychokinesis. Richard Kaufman of
Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
gave subjects the task of trying to influence eight dice and allowed them to record their own scores. They were secretly filmed, so their records could be checked for errors. Believers in psychokinesis made errors that favored its existence, while disbelievers made opposite errors. A similar pattern of errors was found in
J. B. Rhine
Joseph Banks Rhine (September 29, 1895 – February 20, 1980), usually known as J. B. Rhine, was an American botanist who founded parapsychology as a branch of psychology, founding the parapsychology lab at Duke University, the ''Journ ...
's dice experiments, which were considered the strongest evidence for PK at that time.
In 1995, Wiseman and Morris showed subjects an unedited videotape of a magician's performance in which a fork bent and eventually broke. Believers in the paranormal were significantly more likely to misinterpret the tape as a demonstration of PK, and were more likely to misremember crucial details of the presentation. This suggests that
confirmation bias
Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values. People display this bias when they select information that supports their views, ignoring ...
affects people's interpretation of PK demonstrations.
Psychologist
Robert Sternberg
Robert J. Sternberg (born December 8, 1949) is an American psychologist and psychometrician. He is Professor of Human Development at Cornell University.
Sternberg has a BA from Yale University and a PhD from Stanford University, under advisor ...
cites confirmation bias as an explanation of why belief in psychic phenomena persists, despite the lack of evidence:
Some of the worst examples of confirmation bias are in research on parapsychology (...) Arguably, there is a whole field here with no powerful confirming data at all. But people want to believe, and so they find ways to believe.
Psychologist
Daniel Wegner
Daniel Merton Wegner (June 28, 1948 – July 5, 2013) was an American social psychologist. He was a professor of psychology at Harvard University and a fellow of both the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academ ...
has argued that an
introspection illusion
The introspection illusion is a cognitive bias in which people wrongly think they have direct insight into the origins of their mental states, while treating others' introspections as unreliable. The illusion has been examined in psychological ex ...
contributes to belief in psychokinesis.
He observes that in everyday experience, intention (such as wanting to turn on a light) is followed by action (such as flicking a light switch) in a reliable way, but the underlying neural mechanisms are outside awareness. Hence, though subjects may feel that they directly introspect their own
free will
Free will is the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded.
Free will is closely linked to the concepts of moral responsibility, praise, culpability, sin, and other judgements which apply only to actio ...
, the experience of control is actually inferred from relations between the thought and the action. This theory of ''apparent mental causation'' acknowledges the influence of
David Hume
David Hume (; born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas Edmund Jessop. 2020 999br>David Hume" ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 18 May 2020. was a Scottish Enlightenment philo ...
's view of the mind.
This process for detecting when one is responsible for an action is not totally reliable, and when it goes wrong there can be an
illusion of control
The illusion of control is the tendency for people to overestimate their ability to control events. It was named by U.S. psychologist Ellen Langer and is thought to influence gambling behavior and belief in the paranormal. Along with illusory supe ...
. This can happen when an external event follows, and is congruent with, a thought in someone's mind, without an actual causal link.
As evidence, Wegner cites a series of experiments on
magical thinking
Magical thinking, or superstitious thinking, is the belief that unrelated events are causally connected despite the absence of any plausible causal link between them, particularly as a result of supernatural effects. Examples include the idea that ...
in which subjects were induced to think they had influenced external events. In one experiment, subjects watched a
basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...
player taking a series of
free throws
In basketball, free throws or foul shots are unopposed attempts to score points by shooting from behind the free-throw line (informally known as the foul line or the charity stripe), a line situated at the end of the restricted area. Free throws ...
. When they were instructed to visualize him making his shots, they felt that they had contributed to his success. Other experiments designed to create an illusion of psychokinesis have demonstrated that this depends, to some extent, on the subject's prior belief in psychokinesis.
A 2006 meta-analysis of 380 studies found a small positive effect that can be explained by
publication bias
In published academic research, publication bias occurs when the outcome of an experiment or research study biases the decision to publish or otherwise distribute it. Publishing only results that show a significant finding disturbs the balance o ...
.
Magic and special effects
![Kellar levitation poster](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/Kellar_levitation_poster.jpg)
Magicians have successfully simulated some of the specialized abilities of psychokinesis, such as object movement,
spoon bending
Spoon bending is the deformation of objects, especially metal cutlery, purportedly by paranormal means. It is a common theme for magic tricks, which use a variety of methods to produce the effect. Performers commonly use misdirection to draw t ...
, levitation and teleportation. According to
Robert Todd Carroll
Robert Todd Carroll (May 18, 1945 – August 25, 2016) was an American author, philosopher and academic, best known for The Skeptic's Dictionary. He described himself as a naturalist, an atheist, a materialist, a metaphysical libertarian, and ...
, there are many impressive magic tricks available to amateurs and professionals to simulate psychokinetic powers. Metal objects such as keys or cutlery can be bent using a number of different techniques, even if the performer has not had access to the items beforehand.
According to
Richard Wiseman
Richard J. Wiseman (born 17 September 1966) is a Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom. He has written several psychology books. He has given keynote addresses to The Royal ...
there are a number of ways for faking psychokinetic metal bending (PKMB). These include switching straight objects for pre-bent duplicates, the concealed application of force, and secretly inducing metallic fractures. Research has also suggested that (PKMB) effects can be created by
verbal suggestion. On this subject the magician Ben Harris wrote:
If you are doing a really convincing job, then you should be able to put a bent key on the table and comment, ‘Look, it is still bending’, and have your spectators really believe that it is. This may sound the height of boldness; however, the effect is astounding – and combined with suggestion, it does work.
Between 1979 and 1981, the McDonnell Laboratory for Psychical Research at
Washington University
Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ...
reported a series of experiments they named
Project Alpha, in which two teenaged male subjects had demonstrated PK phenomena (including metal-bending and causing images to appear on film) under less than stringent laboratory conditions.
James Randi
James Randi (born Randall James Hamilton Zwinge; August 7, 1928 – October 20, 2020) was a Canadian-American stage magician, author and scientific skeptic who extensively challenged paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. Rodrigues 2010p. ...
eventually revealed that the subjects were two of his associates, amateur conjurers
Steve Shaw and Michael Edwards. The pair had created the effects by standard trickery, but the researchers, being unfamiliar with magic techniques, interpreted them as proof of PK.
A 2014 study that utilized a magic trick to investigate paranormal belief on eyewitness testimony revealed that believers in psychokinesis were more likely to report a key continued to bend than non-believers.
Prize money for proof of psychokinesis
Internationally there are individual skeptics of the paranormal and
skeptics' organizations who offer cash prize money for demonstration of the existence of an extraordinary psychic power, such as psychokinesis. Prizes have been offered specifically for PK demonstrations: for example, businessman Gerald Fleming's offer of
£250,000 to
Uri Geller
Uri Geller ( ; he, אורי גלר; born 20 December 1946) is an Israeli-British illusionist, magician, television personality, and self-proclaimed psychic. He is known for his trademark television performances of spoon bending and other i ...
if he could bend a spoon under controlled conditions. The
James Randi Educational Foundation
James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) is an American grant-making institution founded in 1996 by magician and skeptic James Randi. As a nonprofit organization, the mission of JREF includes educating the public and the media on the dangers of ...
offered the
One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge
The One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge was an offer by the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) to pay out one million U.S. dollars to anyone who could demonstrate a supernatural or paranormal ability under agreed-upon scientific testing ...
to any accepted candidate who managed to produce a paranormal event in a controlled, mutually agreed upon experiment.
Currently, the
Center for Inquiry
The Center for Inquiry (CFI) is a US nonprofit organization that works to mitigate belief in pseudoscience and the paranormal, as well as to fight the influence of religion in government.
History
The Center for Inquiry was established in 199 ...
offers a prize of $250,000, the largest in the world, for proof of the paranormal.
Belief
In September 2006, a survey on belief in various religious and paranormal topics conducted by phone and mail-in questionnaire
polled 1,721 Americans on their belief in telekinesis. Of these participants, 28% of male participants and 31% of female participants selected "agree" or "strongly agree" with the statement, "''It is possible to influence the world through the mind alone.''"
Subsets of psychokinesis
Parapsychologists divide psychokinetic phenomena into two categories: ''macro-psychokinesis'', large-scale psychokinetic effects that can be seen with the naked eye; and ''micro-psychokinesis,'' small-scale psychokinetic effects that require the use of statistics to be detected.
Some phenomena—such as
apports,
levitation
Levitation (from Latin ''levitas'' "lightness") is the process by which an object is held aloft in a stable position, without mechanical support via any physical contact.
Levitation is accomplished by providing an upward force that counteracts ...
,
materialization,
psychic healing
Energy medicine is a branch of alternative medicine based on a pseudo-scientific belief that healers can channel "healing energy" into a patient and effect positive results. Practitioners use a number of names including various synonyms for ...
,
pyrokinesis
Pyrokinesis is the purported psychic ability allowing a person to create and control fire with the mind. As with other parapsychological phenomena, there is no conclusive evidence in support of the actual existence of pyrokinesis. Many alleged c ...
,
retrocausality
Retrocausality, or backwards causation, is a concept of cause and effect in which an effect precedes its cause in time and so a later event affects an earlier one. In quantum physics, the distinction between cause and effect is not made at the most ...
, telekinesis,
and
thoughtography
Thoughtography, also called projected thermography, psychic photography, nengraphy, and ''nensha'' , is the claimed ability to "burn" images from one's mind onto surfaces such as photographic film by parapsychic means. While the term "thoughtogra ...
—are considered examples of psychokinesis.
In 2016,
Caroline Watt
Caroline Watt (born 1962) is a Scottish psychologist and professor of parapsychology. She is the holder of the Koestler Chair of Parapsychology at the University of Edinburgh. She is a past president of the Parapsychological Association.
She is ...
stated "Overall, the majority of academic parapsychologists do not find the evidence compelling in favour of macro-PK".
Notable claimants of psychokinetic abilities
![Edouard-Isidore-Buguet-PK-spirit-photographer](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Edouard-Isidore-Buguet-PK-spirit-photographer.jpg)
There have been claimants of psychokinetic ability throughout history. Angelique Cottin (ca. 1846) known as the "Electric Girl" of France was an alleged generator of PK activity. Cottin and her family claimed that she produced electric emanations that allowed her to move pieces of furniture and scissors across a room.
Frank Podmore
Frank Podmore (5 February 1856 – 14 August 1910) was an English author, and founding member of the Fabian Society. He is best known as an influential member of the Society for Psychical Research and for his sceptical writings on spiritualism.
...
wrote there were many observations which were "suggestive of fraud" such as the contact of the girl's garments to produce any of the alleged phenomena and the observations from several witnesses that noticed there was a double movement on the part of Cottin, a movement in the direction of the object thrown and afterwards away from it, but the movements so rapid they were not usually detected.
Spiritualist
mediums
Mediumship is the practice of purportedly mediating communication between familiar spirits or spirits of the dead and living human beings. Practitioners are known as "mediums" or "spirit mediums". There are different types of mediumship or spir ...
have also claimed psychokinetic abilities.
Eusapia Palladino
Eusapia Palladino (alternative spelling: ''Paladino''; 21 January 1854 – 16 May 1918) was an Italian Spiritualist physical medium. She claimed extraordinary powers such as the ability to levitate tables, communicate with the dead through he ...
, an Italian medium, could allegedly cause objects to move during séances. However, she was caught levitating a table with her foot by magician
Joseph Rinn
Joseph Francis Rinn (1868–1952) was an American magician and skeptic of paranormal phenomena.
Career
Rinn grew up in New York City. He coached Harry Houdini as a teenager in running at the Pastime Athletic Club. He remained a friend to Houdin ...
, and using tricks to move objects by psychologist
Hugo Münsterberg
Hugo Münsterberg (; June 1, 1863 – December 16, 1916) was a German-American psychologist. He was one of the pioneers in applied psychology, extending his research and theories to industrial/organizational (I/O), legal, medical, clinical, edu ...
. Other alleged PK mediums exposed as frauds include
Anna Rasmussen and
Maria Silbert
Frau Maria Silbert (1866–1936) was an Austrian spiritualist medium.
Biography
Silbert was born in Waltendorf, Graz and claimed powers of apportation and psychokinesis as well as the ability to produce "spirit raps". Her famous trick was to ...
.
Polish medium
Stanisława Tomczyk, active in the early 20th century, claimed to be able to perform acts of telekinetic levitation by way of an entity she called "Little Stasia". A 1909 photograph of her, showing a pair of scissors "floating" between her hands, is often found in books and other publications as an example of telekinesis.
Scientists suspected Tomczyk performed her feats by the use of a fine
thread or hair between her hands. This was confirmed when psychical researchers who tested Tomczyk occasionally observed the thread.
Many of India's "
godmen" have claimed macro-PK abilities and demonstrated apparently miraculous phenomena in public, although as more controls are put in place to prevent trickery, fewer phenomena are produced.
Annemarie Schaberl, a 19-year-old secretary, was said to have telekinetic powers by parapsychologist
Hans Bender
Hans Bender (5 February 1907 – 7 May 1991) was a German lecturer on the subject of parapsychology, who was also responsible for establishing the parapsychological institute ''Institut für Grenzgebiete der Psychologie und Psychohygiene'' in F ...
in the
Rosenheim Poltergeist case in the 1960s. Magicians and scientists who investigated the case suspected the phenomena were produced by trickery.
Swami Rama, a
yogi
A yogi is a practitioner of Yoga, including a sannyasin or practitioner of meditation in Indian religions.A. K. Banerjea (2014), ''Philosophy of Gorakhnath with Goraksha-Vacana-Sangraha'', Motilal Banarsidass, , pp. xxiii, 297-299, 331 Th ...
skilled in controlling his heart functions, was studied at the
Menninger Foundation
The Menninger Foundation was founded in 1919 by the Menninger family in Topeka, Kansas. The Menninger Foundation, known locally as Menninger's, consists of a clinic, a sanatorium, and a school of psychiatry, all of which bear the Menninger name. ...
in the spring and fall of 1970 and was alleged by some observers at the foundation to have telekinetically moved a knitting needle twice from a distance of five feet. Although he wore a face-mask and gown to prevent allegations that he moved the needle with his breath or body movements, and air vents in the room were covered, at least one physician observer who was present was not convinced and expressed the opinion that air movement was somehow the cause.
Psychics
Russian psychic
Nina Kulagina
Nina Kulagina, ''Ninel Sergeyevna Kulagina'' (russian: Нине́ль Серге́евна Кула́гина, born Ninel Mikhaylova) (30 July 192611 April 1990) was a Russian woman who claimed to have psychic powers, particularly in psychokinesis ...
came to wide public attention following the publication of Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder's bestseller ''Psychic Discoveries Behind The Iron Curtain''. The alleged Soviet psychic of the late 1960s and early 1970s was shown apparently performing telekinesis while seated in numerous black-and-white short films,
and was also mentioned in the ''U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency'' report from 1978. Magicians and skeptics have argued that Kulagina's feats could easily be performed by one practiced in sleight of hand, or through means such as cleverly concealed or disguised threads, small pieces of magnetic metal, or mirrors.
James Hydrick
James Alan Hydrick (born February 28, 1959) is an American former stage performer and self-described psychic, and convicted sex offender.
Hydrick claimed to be able to perform acts of telekinesis, such as his trademark trick of moving a pencil re ...
, an American
martial arts
Martial arts are codified systems and traditions of combat practiced for a number of reasons such as self-defense; military and law enforcement applications; combat sport, competition; physical, mental, and spiritual development; entertainment; a ...
expert and psychic, was famous for his alleged psychokinetic ability to turn the pages of books and make pencils spin while placed on the edge of a desk. It was later revealed by magicians that he achieved his feats by air currents. Psychologist
Richard Wiseman
Richard J. Wiseman (born 17 September 1966) is a Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom. He has written several psychology books. He has given keynote addresses to The Royal ...
wrote that Hydrick learnt to move objects by blowing in a "highly deceptive" and skillful way. Hydrick confessed to
Dan Korem
Dan Korem (born November 6, 1952) is an United States, American investigative journalist, author, documentary producer, speaker, and researcher. His focus is issues and practical applications related to snapshot behavioral reads. He is the author ...
that his feats were tricks: "My whole idea behind this in the first place was to see how dumb America was. How dumb the world is." In the late 1970s, British psychic
Matthew Manning
Matthew Manning (born 17 August 1955) is a best selling British author and healer, alleged to have psychic abilities. As a child he and his family were allegedly subjected to a range of poltergeist disturbances in their homes in Cambridge and L ...
was the subject of laboratory research in the United States and England, and today claims healing powers.
Magicians
John Booth and
Henry Gordon have suspected Manning used trickery to perform his feats.
In 1971, an American psychic named Felicia Parise allegedly moved a pill bottle across a kitchen counter by psychokinesis. Her feats were endorsed by parapsychologist
Charles Honorton
Charles Henry Honorton (February 5, 1946 – November 4, 1992) was an American parapsychologist and was one of the leaders of a collegial group of researchers who were determined to apply established scientific research methods to the examination ...
. Science writer
Martin Gardner
Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914May 22, 2010) was an American popular mathematics and popular science writer with interests also encompassing scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literatureespecially the writings of Lewis ...
wrote that Parise had "bamboozled" Honorton by moving the bottle with an invisible thread stretched between her hands.
Boris Ermolaev, a Russian psychic, was known for levitating small objects. His methods were exposed on the World of Discovery documentary ''Secrets of the Russian Psychics'' (1992). He would sit on a chair and allegedly move the objects between his knees; but when filmed, lighting conditions revealed a fine thread fixed between his knees, suspending the objects.
Russian psychic Alla Vinogradova was said to be able to move objects without touching them on transparent acrylic plastic or a plexiglass sheet. Parapsychologist
Stanley Krippner observed Vinogradova rub an aluminum tube before moving it allegedly by psychokinesis. He suggested that the effect was produced by an
electrostatic charge
Electric charge is the physical property of matter that causes charged matter to experience a force when placed in an electromagnetic field. Electric charge can be ''positive'' or ''negative'' (commonly carried by protons and electrons respectiv ...
. Vinogradova was featured in the Nova documentary ''
Secrets of the Psychics
"Secrets of the Psychics" is a 1993 episode of the PBS series ''NOVA'', presented by retired illusionist and paranormal investigator James Randi. Also appearing in stock footage are Peter Popoff, Uri Geller, and many others. It contains historic ...
'' (1993) which followed the
debunking work of
James Randi
James Randi (born Randall James Hamilton Zwinge; August 7, 1928 – October 20, 2020) was a Canadian-American stage magician, author and scientific skeptic who extensively challenged paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. Rodrigues 2010p. ...
.
She demonstrated her alleged psychokinetic abilities on-camera for Randi and other investigators. Before the experiments, she was observed combing her hair and rubbing the surface of the acrylic plastic.
Massimo Polidoro
Massimo Polidoro (born 10 March 1969) is an Italian psychologist, writer, journalist, television personality, and co-founder and executive director of the Italian Committee for the Investigation of Claims of the Pseudosciences (CICAP).
Early lif ...
has replicated Vinogradova's feats with acrylic surface, showing how easy it is to move any kind of object on it when it is charged with static electricity by rubbing a towel or hand on it.
Physicist
John Taylor wrote, "It is very likely that electrostatics is all that is needed to explain Alla Vinogradova's apparently paranormal feats."
Metal bending
![Uri Geller in Russia](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Uri_Geller_in_Russia.jpg)
Psychics have also claimed the psychokinetic ability to bend metal.
Uri Geller
Uri Geller ( ; he, אורי גלר; born 20 December 1946) is an Israeli-British illusionist, magician, television personality, and self-proclaimed psychic. He is known for his trademark television performances of spoon bending and other i ...
was famous for his
spoon bending
Spoon bending is the deformation of objects, especially metal cutlery, purportedly by paranormal means. It is a common theme for magic tricks, which use a variety of methods to produce the effect. Performers commonly use misdirection to draw t ...
demonstrations, allegedly by PK.
[ He has been caught many times using sleight of hand. According to science writer ]Terence Hines
Terence Hines (born 22 March 1951) is a professor of psychology at Pace University, New York, and adjunct professor of neurology at the New York Medical College; he is also a science writer. Hines has a BA from Duke University, and an MA and P ...
, all of Geller's effects have been recreated using conjuring tricks.
The French psychic Jean-Pierre Girard has claimed he can bend metal bars by PK. He was tested in the 1970s but failed to produce any paranormal effects in scientifically controlled conditions. He was tested on January 19, 1977 during a two-hour experiment in a Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
laboratory, directed by physicist Yves Farge. A magician was also present. Girard failed to make any objects move paranormally. He failed two tests in Grenoble
lat, Gratianopolis
, commune status = Prefecture and commune
, image = Panorama grenoble.png
, image size =
, caption = From upper left: Panorama of the city, Grenoble’s cable cars, place Saint- ...
in June 1977 with magician James Randi. He was also tested on September 24, 1977 at a laboratory at the Nuclear Research Centre, and failed to bend any bars or change the metals' structure. Other experiments into spoon-bending were also negative, and witnesses described his feats as fraudulent. Girard later admitted he sometimes cheated to avoid disappointing the public, but insisted he had genuine psychic power. Magicians and scientists have written that he produced all his alleged psychokinetic feats through fraudulent means.
Stephen North, a British psychic in the late 1970s, was known for his alleged psychokinetic ability to bend spoons and teleport objects in and out of sealed containers. British physicist John Hasted
John Barrett Hasted (17 February 1921 – 4 May 2002) was a British physicist and folk musician.David Gregory. (2002). ''In Memoriam: John Hasted, 1921-2002''. Canadian Folk Music/Bulletin de musique folklorique canadienne, Vol 36, No. 2. pp. 3- ...
tested North in a series of experiments which he claimed had demonstrated psychokinesis, though his experiments were criticized for lack of scientific controls. North was tested in Grenoble on 19 December 1977 in scientific conditions and the results were negative. According to James Randi, during a test at Birkbeck College
Birkbeck, University of London (formally Birkbeck College, University of London), is a public university, public research university, located in Bloomsbury, London, England, and a constituent college, member institution of the federal Universit ...
, North was observed to have bent a metal sample with his bare hands. Randi wrote "I find it unfortunate that astednever had an epiphany in which he was able to recognize just how thoughtless, cruel, and predatory were the acts perpetrated on him by fakers who took advantage of his naivety and trust."
"PK parties" were a cultural fad in the 1980s, begun by Jack Houck, where groups of people were guided through rituals and chants to awaken metal-bending powers. They were encouraged to shout at the items of cutlery they had brought and to jump and scream to create an atmosphere of pandemonium (or what scientific investigators called heightened suggestibility
Suggestibility is the quality of being inclined to accept and act on the suggestions of others. One may fill in gaps in certain memories with false information given by another when recalling a scenario or moment. Suggestibility uses cues to dist ...
). Critics were excluded and participants were told to avoid looking at their hands. Thousands of people attended these emotionally charged parties, and many were convinced they had bent the objects by paranormal means.
PK parties have been described as a campaign by paranormal believers to convince people of the existence of psychokinesis, on the basis of nonscientific data from personal experience and testimony. The United States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
has criticized PK parties on the grounds that conditions are not reliable for obtaining scientific results and "are just those which psychologists and others have described as creating states of heightened suggestibility."
Ronnie Marcus, an Israeli psychic and claimant of psychokinetic metal-bending, was tested in 1994 in scientifically controlled conditions and failed to produce any paranormal phenomena. According to magicians, his alleged psychokinetic feats were sleight of hand tricks. Marcus bent a letter opener by the concealed application of force and a frame-by-frame analysis of video showed that he bent a spoon from pressure from his thumb by ordinary, physical means.
In popular culture
Psychokinesis and telekinesis have commonly been portrayed as superpowers
A superpower is a state with a dominant position characterized by its extensive ability to exert influence or project power on a global scale. This is done through the combined means of economic, military, technological, political and cultural s ...
in comic books, movies, television, video games, literature, and other forms of popular culture.
Notable portrayals of psychokinetic and/or telekinetic characters include the Teleks in the 1952 novella ''Telek
''Telek'' is a science fiction novella about telekinesis by American author Jack Vance. It was first published in the January 1952 issue of '' Astounding Science Fiction''.
Plot summary
In the near future, humanity is divided into two groups: ...
''; Carrie White
Carrietta Nadine White is the title character and protagonist of American author Stephen King's first published 1974 horror fiction, horror novel, ''Carrie (novel), Carrie''.
In every adaptation and portrayal of ''Carrie'', she is portrayed as ...
in the Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy novels. Described as the "King of Horror", a play on his surname and a reference to his high s ...
novel and its three
3 is a number, numeral, and glyph.
3, three, or III may also refer to:
* AD 3, the third year of the AD era
* 3 BC, the third year before the AD era
* March, the third month
Books
* '' Three of Them'' (Russian: ', literally, "three"), a 1901 ...
film
A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...
adaptations
In biology, adaptation has three related meanings. Firstly, it is the dynamic evolutionary process of natural selection that fits organisms to their environment, enhancing their evolutionary fitness. Secondly, it is a state reached by the ...
, ''Carrie
Carrie may refer to:
People
* Carrie (name), a female given name and occasionally a surname
Places in the United States
* Carrie, Kentucky, an unincorporated community
* Carrie, Virginia, an unincorporated community
* Carrie Glacier, Olympic Nati ...
''; Ellen Burstyn
Ellen Burstyn (born Edna Rae Gillooly; December 7, 1932) is an American actress. Known for her portrayals of complicated women in dramas, she is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a Tony Award, and two Primetime Em ...
in the 1980 healer-themed film ''Resurrection
Resurrection or anastasis is the concept of coming back to life after death. In a number of religions, a dying-and-rising god is a deity which dies and is resurrected. Reincarnation is a similar process hypothesized by other religions, which ...
''; the Jedi
Jedi (), Jedi Knights, or collectively the Jedi Order are the main heroic protagonists of many works of the '' Star Wars'' franchise. Working symbiotically alongside the Old Galactic Republic, and later supporting the Rebel Alliance, the Jedi O ...
and Sith in the ''Star Wars
''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop-culture Cultural impact of S ...
'' franchise; the Psychic-type Pokémon in the ''Pokémon
(an abbreviation for in Japan) is a Japanese media franchise managed by The Pokémon Company, founded by Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures (company), Creatures, the owners of the trademark and copyright of the franchise.
In terms of ...
'' franchise, the Scanners in the 1981 film ''Scanners
''Scanners'' is a 1981 Canadian science fiction horror film written and directed by David Cronenberg and starring Stephen Lack, Jennifer O'Neill, Michael Ironside, and Patrick McGoohan. In the film, "scanners" are psychics with unusual telepathic ...
''; Matilda Wormwood
Matilda Wormwood, also known by her adoptive name Matilda Honey, is the title character of the bestselling 1988 children's novel '' Matilda'' by Roald Dahl. She is a highly precocious five and a half (six and a half in the 1996 film) year old g ...
in the 1988 children's novel ''Matilda
Matilda or Mathilda may refer to:
Animals
* Matilda (chicken) (1990–2006), World's Oldest Living Chicken record holder
* Matilda (horse) (1824–1846), British Thoroughbred racehorse
* Matilda, a dog of the professional wrestling tag-team The ...
'' and its 1996 film adaptation; three high school seniors in the 2012 film ''Chronicle
A chronicle ( la, chronica, from Greek ''chroniká'', from , ''chrónos'' – "time") is a historical account of events arranged in chronological order, as in a timeline. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and lo ...
''; Eleven
Eleven or 11 may refer to:
*11 (number), the natural number following 10 and preceding 12
* one of the years 11 BC, AD 11, 1911, 2011, or any year ending in 11
Literature
* ''Eleven'' (novel), a 2006 novel by British author David Llewellyn
*'' ...
as well as Vecna and various lab children from the Netflix
Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...
series ''Stranger Things
''Stranger Things'' is an American science fiction horror drama television series created by the Duffer Brothers, who also serve as showrunners and are executive producers along with Shawn Levy and Dan Cohen. Produced by Monkey Massacre Prod ...
''; Silver the Hedgehog
The '' Sonic the Hedgehog'' video game franchise began in 1991 with the game '' Sonic the Hedgehog'' for the Sega Genesis, which pitted a blue anthropomorphic hedgehog named Sonic against a rotund male human villain named Doctor Eggman (or Doc ...
in the ''Sonic the Hedgehog
is a Japanese video game series and media franchise created by Sega. The franchise follows Sonic, an anthropomorphic blue hedgehog who battles the evil Doctor Eggman, a mad scientist. The main ''Sonic the Hedgehog'' games are platformers mo ...
'' game and series franchise; Ness from the ''Mother
]
A mother is the female parent of a child. A woman may be considered a mother by virtue of having given childbirth, birth, by raising a child who may or may not be her biological offspring, or by supplying her ovum for fertilisation in the cas ...
'' franchise and Ryu Seung-ryong, Shin Seok-heon in the 2018 film ''Psychokinesis
Psychokinesis (from grc, ψυχή, , soul and grc, κίνησις, , movement, label=ㅤ), or telekinesis (from grc, τηλε, , far off and grc, κίνησις, , movement, label=ㅤ), is a hypothetical psychic ability allowing a person ...
''.
See also
References
Further reading
*
*
*
*
External links
*
{{Authority control
Paranormal terminology
Parapsychology
Pseudoscience
Psychic powers
1910s neologisms