vicarious
Vicarious may refer to:
* Vicariousness, experiencing through another person
* Vicarious learning, observational learning
In law
* Vicarious liability, a term in common law
* Vicarious liability (criminal), a term in criminal law
Religion
* Vic ...
transmission of information from one person's mind to another's without using any known human sensory channels or physical interaction. The term was first coined in 1882 by the classical scholar
Frederic W. H. Myers
Frederic William Henry Myers (6 February 1843 – 17 January 1901) was a British poet, classicist, philologist, and a founder of the Society for Psychical Research. Myers' work on psychical research and his ideas about a "subliminal self" ...
, a founder of the
Society for Psychical Research
The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) is a nonprofit organisation in the United Kingdom. Its stated purpose is to understand events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal. It describes itself as the "first society to co ...
Parapsychological Association
The Parapsychological Association (PA) was formed in 1957 as a professional society for parapsychologists following an initiative by Joseph B. Rhine. Its purpose has been "to advance parapsychology as a science, to disseminate knowledge of the fie ...
. Retrieved December 19, 2006.
Telepathy experiments have historically been criticized for a lack of proper controls and repeatability. There is no good evidence that telepathy exists, and the topic is generally considered by the
scientific community
The scientific community is a diverse network of interacting scientists. It includes many " sub-communities" working on particular scientific fields, and within particular institutions; interdisciplinary and cross-institutional activities are als ...
to be
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 unfalsifiable clai ...
.Felix Planer. (1980). ''Superstition''. Cassell. p. 218. "Many experiments have attempted to bring scientific methods to bear on the investigation of the subject. Their results based on literally millions of tests, have made it abundantly clear that there exists no such phenomenon as telepathy, and that the seemingly successful scores have relied either on illusion, or on deception."
Origins of the concept
According to historians such as
Roger Luckhurst
Roger Luckhurst is a British writer and academic. He is professor in modern and contemporary literature in the Department of English, Theatre, and Creative Writing at Birkbeck, University of London and was distinguished visiting professor at Colu ...
and
Janet Oppenheim
Janet Oppenheim (1948–1994) was an American historian.
Oppenheim was born in Manhattan. In 1975, she received her PhD in history from Columbia University. She worked as a professor of history at American University.
She is most well known for ...
the origin of the concept of telepathy in
Western civilization
Leonardo da Vinci's ''Vitruvian Man''. Based on the correlations of ideal Body proportions">human proportions with geometry described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in Book III of his treatise ''De architectura''.
image:Plato Pio-Cle ...
can be traced to the late 19th century and the formation of the
Society for Psychical Research
The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) is a nonprofit organisation in the United Kingdom. Its stated purpose is to understand events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal. It describes itself as the "first society to co ...
.Luckhurst, Roger. (2002). ''The Invention of Telepathy, 1870–1901''. Oxford University Press. pp. 9–51. As the physical sciences made significant advances, scientific concepts were applied to mental phenomena (e.g., animal magnetism), with the hope that this would help to understand
paranormal
Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Not ...
phenomena. The modern concept of telepathy emerged in this context.
Psychical researcher
Eric Dingwall
Eric John Dingwall (1890–1986) was a British anthropologist, psychical researcher and librarian.
Biography
Born in British Ceylon, Dingwall moved to England where he was educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge (M.A., 1912), and the Univer ...
criticized SPR founding members
Frederic W. H. Myers
Frederic William Henry Myers (6 February 1843 – 17 January 1901) was a British poet, classicist, philologist, and a founder of the Society for Psychical Research. Myers' work on psychical research and his ideas about a "subliminal self" ...
and William F. Barrett for trying to "prove" telepathy rather than objectively analyze whether or not it existed.
Thought reading
In the late 19th century, the magician and mentalist,
Washington Irving Bishop
Washington Irving Bishop, also known as Wellington (4 March 1855 – 13 May 1889) was an American stage mentalist. He started his career as an assistant under the muscle reader J. Randall Brown, but was most well known for his performance of t ...
would perform "thought reading" demonstrations. Bishop claimed no supernatural powers and ascribed his powers to muscular sensitivity (reading thoughts from unconscious bodily cues). Bishop was investigated by a group of scientists including the editor of the '' British Medical Journal'' and the psychologist Francis Galton. Bishop performed several feats successfully such as correctly identifying a selected spot on a table and locating a hidden object. During the experiment, Bishop required physical contact with a subject who knew the correct answer. He would hold the hand or wrist of the helper. The scientists concluded that Bishop was not a genuine telepath but using a highly trained skill to detect ideomotor movements.
Another famous thought reader was the magician
Stuart Cumberland
Stuart Cumberland (1857–1922) was an English mentalist known for his demonstrations of "thought reading".
Cumberland was famous for performing blindfolded feats such as identifying a hidden object in a room that a person had picked out or ...
. He was famous for performing
blindfold
A blindfold (from Middle English ') is a garment, usually of cloth, tied to one's head to cover the eyes to disable the wearer's sight. While a properly fitted blindfold prevents sight even if the eyes are open, a poorly tied or trick blindf ...
ed feats such as identifying a hidden object in a room that a person had picked out or asking someone to imagine a murder scene and then attempt to read the subject's thoughts and identify the victim and reenact the crime. Cumberland claimed to possess no genuine psychic ability and his thought-reading performances could only be demonstrated by holding the hand of his subject to read their muscular movements. He came into dispute with psychical researchers associated with the
Society for Psychical Research
The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) is a nonprofit organisation in the United Kingdom. Its stated purpose is to understand events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal. It describes itself as the "first society to co ...
who were searching for genuine cases of telepathy. Cumberland argued that both telepathy and communication with the dead were impossible and that the mind of man cannot be read through telepathy, but only by
muscle reading
Muscle reading, also known as " Hellstromism", "Cumberlandism" or "contact mind reading", is a technique used by mentalists to determine the thoughts or knowledge of a subject, the effect of which tends to be perceived as a form of mind reading. ...
.
Case studies
In the late 19th century the Creery Sisters (Mary, Alice, Maud, Kathleen, and Emily) were tested by the
Society for Psychical Research
The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) is a nonprofit organisation in the United Kingdom. Its stated purpose is to understand events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal. It describes itself as the "first society to co ...
and believed to have genuine psychic ability. However, during a later experiment they were caught utilizing signal codes and they confessed to fraud.
George Albert Smith
George Albert Smith Sr. (April 4, 1870 – April 4, 1951) was an American religious leader who served as the eighth president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).
Early life
Born in Salt Lake City, Utah Territor ...
and
Douglas Blackburn
Douglas Blackburn (6 August 1857, Southwark – 28 March 1929, Tonbridge) was an English journalist and novelist, who worked in the Transvaal and Natal between 1892 and 1908. He has been called "the great chronicler of the last days of the ...
were claimed to be genuine psychics by the Society for Psychical Research but Blackburn confessed to fraud:
For nearly thirty years the telepathic experiments conducted by Mr. G. A. Smith and myself have been accepted and cited as the basic evidence of the truth of thought transference...
...the whole of those alleged experiments were bogus, and originated in the honest desire of two youths to show how easily men of scientific mind and training could be deceived when seeking for evidence in support of a theory they were wishful to establish.
Between 1916 and 1924,
Gilbert Murray
George Gilbert Aimé Murray (2 January 1866 – 20 May 1957) was an Australian-born British classical scholar and public intellectual, with connections in many spheres. He was an outstanding scholar of the language and culture of Ancient Greece ...
conducted 236 experiments into telepathy and reported 36% as successful. However, it was suggested that the results could be explained by
hyperaesthesia
Hyperesthesia is a condition that involves an abnormal increase in sensitivity to stimuli of the sense. Stimuli of the senses can include sound that one hears, foods that one tastes, textures that one feels, and so forth. Increased touch sensitiv ...
as he could hear what was being said by the sender. Psychologist
Leonard T. Troland
Leonard Thompson Troland (1889–1932) was an American physicist, psychologist and psychical researcher.
Career
Troland graduated in 1912 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a degree in biochemistry. He then studied psychology at ...
had carried out experiments in telepathy at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
which were reported in 1917. The subjects produced below chance expectations.
Arthur Conan Doyle and W. T. Stead were duped into believing
Julius and Agnes Zancig
Julius and Agnes Zancig were stage magicians and authors on occultism who performed a spectacularly successful two-person mentalism act during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Julius Zancig (1857–1929) – born Julius Jörgensen in Copen ...
had genuine psychic powers. Both Doyle and Stead wrote that Zancigs performed telepathy. In 1924, Julius and Agnes Zancig confessed that their mind reading act was a trick and published the secret code and all the details of the trick method they had used under the title of ''Our Secrets!!'' in a London newspaper.
In 1924, Robert H. Gault of
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world.
Charte ...
with
Gardner Murphy
Gardner Murphy (July 8, 1895 – March 18, 1979) was an American psychologist who specialized in social and personality psychology and parapsychology.Martin Seymour-Smith, Andrew C. Kimmens. (1996). ''World Authors, 1900-1950, Volume 3''. H.W. Wi ...
conducted the first American radio test for telepathy. The results were entirely negative. One of their experiments involved the attempted thought transmission of a chosen number between one and one-thousand. Out of 2,010 replies, none was correct. This is below the theoretical chance figure of two correct replies in such a situation.
In February 1927, with the co-operation of the
British Broadcasting Corporation #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...
(BBC), V. J. Woolley who was at the time the Research Officer for the SPR, arranged a telepathy experiment in which radio listeners were asked to take part. The experiment involved 'agents' thinking about five selected objects in an office at
Tavistock Square
Tavistock Square is a public square in Bloomsbury, in the London Borough of Camden.
History
Tavistock Square was built shortly after 1806 by the property developer James Burton and the master builder Thomas Cubitt for Francis Russell, 5th Duke ...
, whilst listeners on the radio were asked to identify the objects from the BBC studio at
Savoy Hill
Savoy Place is a large red brick building on the north bank of the River Thames in London. It is on a street called Savoy Place; Savoy Hill and Savoy Street run along the sides of the building up to the Strand. In front is the Victoria Embankmen ...
. 24,659 answers were received. The results revealed no evidence of telepathy.
A famous experiment in telepathy was recorded by the American author
Upton Sinclair
Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968) was an American writer, muckraker, political activist and the 1934 Democratic Party nominee for governor of California who wrote nearly 100 books and other works in sever ...
in his book ''
Mental Radio
''Mental Radio: Does it work, and how?'' (1930) was written by the American author Upton Sinclair and initially self-published. This book documents Sinclair's test of psychic abilities of Mary Craig Sinclair, his second wife, while she was in ...
'' which documents Sinclair's test of psychic abilities of
Mary Craig Sinclair
Mary Craig Sinclair (1882–1961) was a writer and the wife of Upton Sinclair.
Early life and education
She was born Mary Craig Kimbrough in Greenwood, Mississippi on February 12, 1882, the oldest child of Mary Hunter (Southworth) and Allan McCas ...
, his second wife. She attempted to duplicate 290 pictures which were drawn by her husband. Sinclair claimed Mary successfully duplicated 65 of them, with 155 "partial successes" and 70 failures. However, these experiments were not conducted in a controlled scientific laboratory environment.
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 Lew ...
, ''
Fads & Fallacies in the Name of Science
''Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science'' (1957)—originally published in 1952 as ''In the Name of Science: An Entertaining Survey of the High Priests and Cultists of Science, Past and Present''—was Martin Gardner's second book. A survey o ...
'' (Courier Dover Publications, 1957) Chapter 25: ''ESP and PK'' available online accessed July 25, 2010. 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 Lew ...
suggested that the possibility of
sensory leakage Sensory leakage is a term used to refer to information that transferred to a person by conventional means (other than psi) during an experiment into ESP.Robert Todd Carroll. (2014)"Sensory Leakage in The Skeptic's Dictionary.
For example, where t ...
during the experiment had not been ruled out:
The Turner-Ownbey long distance telepathy experiment was discovered to contain flaws. May Frances Turner positioned herself in the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory whilst Sara Ownbey claimed to receive transmissions 250 miles away. For the experiment Turner would think of a symbol and write it down whilst Ownbey would write her guesses.John Sladek. (1974). The New Apocrypha: A Guide to Strange Sciences and Occult Beliefs. Panther. pp. 172–174 The scores were highly successful and both records were supposed to be sent to
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 ...
; however, Ownbey sent them to Turner. Critics pointed out this invalidated the results as she could have simply written her own record to agree with the other. When the experiment was repeated and the records were sent to Rhine the scores dropped to average.
Another example is the experiment carried out by the author
Harold Sherman
Harold Morrow Sherman (1898–1987) was an American writer, lecturer and psychical researcher.
Biography
Sherman was born on July 13, 1898, in Traverse City, Michigan. He studied at the University of Michigan for a brief time, then reloc ...
with the explorer
Hubert Wilkins
Sir George Hubert Wilkins MC & Bar (31 October 188830 November 1958), commonly referred to as Captain Wilkins, was an Australian polar explorer, ornithologist, pilot, soldier, geographer and photographer. He was awarded the Military Cross afte ...
who carried out their own experiment in telepathy for five and a half months starting in October 1937. This took place when Sherman was in New York and Wilkins was in the
Arctic
The Arctic ( or ) is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenland), Finland, Iceland, N ...
. The experiment consisted of Sherman and Wilkins at the end of each day to relax and visualise a mental image or "thought impression" of the events or thoughts they had experienced in the day and then to record those images and thoughts on paper in a diary. The results at the end when comparing Sherman's and Wilkins' diaries were claimed to be more than 60 percent.
The full results of the experiments were published in 1942 in a book by Sherman and Wilkins titled ''Thoughts Through Space''. In the book, both Sherman and Wilkins had written they believed they had demonstrated that it was possible to send and receive thought impressions from the mind of one person to another. The magician John Booth wrote that the experiment was not an example of telepathy as a high percentage of misses had occurred. Booth wrote it was more likely that the "hits" were the result of "coincidence, law of averages, subconscious expectancy, logical inference or a plain lucky guess". A review of their book in the ''
American Journal of Orthopsychiatry
The ''American Journal of Orthopsychiatry'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed medical journal covering orthopsychiatry. It is published by the American Psychological Association on behalf of the Global Alliance for Behavioral Health and Social Justice ...
'' cast doubt on their experiment, noting "the study was published five years after it was conducted, arouses suspicion on the validity of the conclusions.
In 1948, on the BBC radio
Maurice Fogel
Maurice Jack Fogel (7 July 1911 – 30 October 1981) was a British magician and mentalist. He described himself as "the world's greatest mind-reader". Lamont, Peter. (2013). ''Extraordinary Beliefs: A Historical Approach to a Psychological Proble ...
made the claim that he could demonstrate telepathy. This intrigued the journalist Arthur Helliwell who wanted to discover his methods. He found that Fogel's mind reading acts were all based on trickery as he relied on information about members of his audience before the show started. Helliwell exposed Fogel's methods in a newspaper article. Although Fogel managed to fool some people into believing he could perform genuine telepathy, the majority of his audience knew he was a showman.Lamont, Peter. (2013). ''Extraordinary Beliefs: A Historical Approach to a Psychological Problem''. Cambridge University Press. p. 220.
In a series of experiments Samuel Soal and his assistant K. M. Goldney examined 160 subjects over 128,000 trials and obtained no evidence for the existence of telepathy.Lawrie Reznek. (2010). ''Delusions and the Madness of the Masses''. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers . pp. 54–55 Soal tested Basil Shackleton and Gloria Stewart between 1941 and 1943 in over five hundred sittings and over twenty thousand guesses. Shackleton scored 2890 compared with a chance expectation of 2308 and Gloria scored 9410 compared with a chance level of 7420. It was later discovered the results had been tampered with. Gretl Albert who was present during many of the experiments said she had witnessed Soal altering the records during the sessions. Betty Marwick discovered Soal had not used the method of random selection of numbers as he had claimed. Marwick showed that there had been manipulation of the score sheets and all experiments reported by Soal had thereby become discredited.
In 1979 the physicists John G. Taylor and Eduardo Balanovski wrote the only scientifically feasible explanation for telepathy could be electromagnetism (EM) involving EM fields. In a series of experiments the EM levels were many orders of magnitude lower than calculated and no paranormal effects were observed. Both Taylor and Balanovski wrote their results were a strong argument against the validity of telepathy.
Research in
anomalistic psychology
In psychology, anomalistic psychology is the study of human behaviour and experience connected with what is often called the paranormal, with few assumptions made about the validity (or otherwise) of the reported phenomena.
Early history
Accordin ...
has discovered that in some cases telepathy can be explained by a covariation bias. In an experiment (Schienle ''et al''. 1996) 22 believers and 20 skeptics were asked to judge the covariation between transmitted symbols and the corresponding feedback given by a receiver. According to the results the believers overestimated the number of successful transmissions whilst the skeptics made accurate hit judgments. The results from another telepathy experiment involving 48 undergraduate college students (Rudski, 2002) were explained by
hindsight
Hindsight bias, also known as the knew-it-all-along phenomenon or creeping determinism, is the common tendency for people to perceive past events as having been more predictable than they actually were. People often believe that after an event ha ...
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 ...
, telepathy, often along with
precognition
Precognition (from the Latin 'before', and 'acquiring knowledge') is the purported psychic phenomenon of seeing, or otherwise becoming directly aware of, events in the future.
There is no accepted scientific evidence that precognition is a ...
and
clairvoyance
Clairvoyance (; ) is the magical ability to gain information about an object, person, location, or physical event through extrasensory perception. Any person who is claimed to have such ability is said to be a clairvoyant () ("one who sees cl ...
, is described as an aspect of
extrasensory 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 Universit ...
(ESP) or "anomalous cognition" that parapsychologists believe is transferred through a hypothetical psychic mechanism they call "
psi
Psi, PSI or Ψ may refer to:
Alphabetic letters
* Psi (Greek) (Ψ, ψ), the 23rd letter of the Greek alphabet
* Psi (Cyrillic) (Ѱ, ѱ), letter of the early Cyrillic alphabet, adopted from Greek
Arts and entertainment
* "Psi" as an abbreviatio ...
Parapsychological Association
The Parapsychological Association (PA) was formed in 1957 as a professional society for parapsychologists following an initiative by Joseph B. Rhine. Its purpose has been "to advance parapsychology as a science, to disseminate knowledge of the fie ...
. Retrieved December 19, 2006. Parapsychologists have reported experiments they use to test for telepathic abilities. Among the most well known are the use of
Zener card
Zener cards are cards used to conduct experiments for extrasensory perception (ESP). Perceptual psychologist Karl Zener (1903–1964) designed the cards in the early 1930s for experiments conducted with his colleague, parapsychologist J. B. Rh ...
s and the
Ganzfeld experiment
A ganzfeld experiment (from the German words for “entire” and “field”) is an assessment used by parapsychologists that they contend can test for extrasensory perception (ESP) or telepathy. In these experiments, a "sender" attempts to m ...
.
Types
Several forms of telepathy have been suggested:
* Latent telepathy, formerly known as "deferred telepathy",Rennie, John (1845), "Test for Telepathy", ''
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', V3#1 (1847-09-25) describes a transfer of information with an observable time-lag between transmission and reception.
* Retrocognitive, precognitive, and intuitive telepathy describes the transfer of information about the past, future or present state of an individual's mind to another individual.
* Emotive telepathy, also known as remote influence or emotional transfer, describes the transfer of kinesthetic sensations through altered states.
* Superconscious telepathy describes use of the supposed
superconscious
The superconscious (also super-conscious or super conscious) is a proposed aspect of mind to accompany the conscious and subconscious and/or unconscious. It is able to acquire knowledge through non-physical or psychic mechanisms and pass that kno ...
to access the collective wisdom of the human species for knowledge.
Zener cards
Zener cards
Zener cards are cards used to conduct experiments for extrasensory perception (ESP). Perceptual psychologist Karl Zener (1903–1964) designed the cards in the early 1930s for experiments conducted with his colleague, parapsychologist J. B. Rh ...
are marked with five distinctive symbols. When using them, one individual is designated the "sender" and another the "receiver". The sender selects a random card and visualizes the symbol on it, while the receiver attempts to determine that symbol telepathically. Statistically, the receiver has a 20% chance of randomly guessing the correct symbol, so to demonstrate telepathy, they must repeatedly score a success rate that is significantly higher than 20%. If not conducted properly, this method is vulnerable to sensory leakage and
card counting
Card counting is a blackjack strategy used to determine whether the player or the dealer has an advantage on the next hand. Card counters are advantage players who try to overcome the casino house edge by keeping a running count of high and low ...
.
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 experiments with Zener cards were discredited due to the discovery that
sensory leakage Sensory leakage is a term used to refer to information that transferred to a person by conventional means (other than psi) during an experiment into ESP.Robert Todd Carroll. (2014)"Sensory Leakage in The Skeptic's Dictionary.
For example, where t ...
or cheating could account for all his results such as the subject being able to read the symbols from the back of the cards and being able to see and hear the experimenter to note subtle clues. Once Rhine took precautions in response to criticisms of his methods, he was unable to find any high-scoring subjects. Due to the methodological problems, parapsychologists no longer utilize card-guessing studies.
Dream telepathy
Parapsychological studies into dream telepathy were carried out at the
Maimonides Medical Center
Maimonides Medical Center is a non-profit, non-sectarian hospital located in Borough Park, in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, in the U.S. state of New York. Maimonides is both a treatment facility and academic medical center with 711 ...
in
Brooklyn, New York
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
Montague Ullman
Montague Ullman (September 9, 1916 – June 7, 2008) was a psychiatrist, Psychoanalysis, psychoanalyst and Parapsychology, parapsychologist who founded the Dream Laboratory at the Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York and for o ...
. They concluded the results from some of their experiments supported dream telepathy. However, the results have not been independently replicated. The psychologist
James Alcock
James E. Alcock (born 24 December 1942) is a Canadian educator. He has been a Professor of Psychology at York University (Canada) since 1973. Alcock is a noted critic of parapsychology and is a Fellow and Member of the Executive Council for the C ...
has written the dream telepathy experiments at Maimonides have failed to provide evidence for telepathy and "lack of replication is rampant."
The picture target experiments that were conducted by Krippner and Ullman were criticized by C. E. M. Hansel. According to Hansel there were weaknesses in the design of the experiments in the way in which the agent became aware of their target picture. Only the agent should have known the target and no other person until the judging of targets had been completed, however, an experimenter was with the agent when the target envelope was opened. Hansel also wrote there had been poor controls in the experiment as the main experimenter could communicate with the subject.
An attempt to replicate the experiments that used picture targets was carried out by Edward Belvedere and David Foulkes. The finding was that neither the subject nor the judges matched the targets with dreams above chance level. Results from other experiments by Belvedere and Foulkes were also negative.
Ganzfeld experiment
When using the
Ganzfeld experiment
A ganzfeld experiment (from the German words for “entire” and “field”) is an assessment used by parapsychologists that they contend can test for extrasensory perception (ESP) or telepathy. In these experiments, a "sender" attempts to m ...
to test for telepathy, one individual is designated as the receiver and is placed inside a controlled environment where they are deprived of sensory input, and another person is designated as the sender and is placed in a separate location. The receiver is then required to receive information from the sender. The nature of the information may vary between experiments.''The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena'' by Dean I. Radin Harper Edge,
The Ganzfeld experiment studies that were examined by
Ray Hyman
Ray Hyman (born June 23, 1928) is a Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon, and a noted critic of parapsychology. Hyman, along with James Randi, Martin Gardner and Paul Kurtz, is one of the founders of the ...
and
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 ...
had methodological problems that were well documented. Honorton reported only 36% of the studies used duplicate target sets of pictures to avoid handling cues. Hyman discovered flaws in all of the 42 Ganzfeld experiments and to access each experiment, he devised a set of 12 categories of flaws. Six of these concerned statistical defects, the other six covered procedural flaws such as inadequate documentation, randomization and security as well as possibilities of sensory leakage.
Ray Hyman
Ray Hyman (born June 23, 1928) is a Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon, and a noted critic of parapsychology. Hyman, along with James Randi, Martin Gardner and Paul Kurtz, is one of the founders of the ...
. ''Evaluating Parapsychological Claims'' in Robert J. Sternberg, Henry L. Roediger, Diane F. Halpern. (2007). ''Critical Thinking in Psychology''. Cambridge University Press. pp. 216–231. Over half of the studies failed to safeguard against sensory leakage and all of the studies contained at least one of the 12 flaws. Because of the flaws, Honorton agreed with Hyman the 42 Ganzfeld studies could not support the claim for the existence of psi.
Possibilities of sensory leakage in the Ganzfeld experiments included the receivers hearing what was going on in the sender's room next door as the rooms were not soundproof and the sender's fingerprints to be visible on the target object for the receiver to see.
Hyman also reviewed the autoganzfeld experiments and discovered a pattern in the data that implied a visual cue may have taken place:
Hyman wrote the autoganzfeld experiments were flawed because they did not preclude the possibility of sensory leakage. In 2010, Lance Storm, Patrizio Tressoldi, and Lorenzo Di Risio analyzed 29 ganzfeld studies from 1997 to 2008. Of the 1,498 trials, 483 produced hits, corresponding to a hit rate of 32.2%. This hit rate is statistically significant with p < .001. Participants selected for personality traits and personal characteristics thought to be psi-conducive were found to perform significantly better than unselected participants in the ganzfeld condition. Hyman (2010) published a rebuttal to Storm ''et al''. According to Hyman "reliance on meta-analysis as the sole basis for justifying the claim that an anomaly exists and that the evidence for it is consistent and replicable is fallacious. It distorts what scientists mean by confirmatory evidence." Hyman wrote the ganzfeld studies have not been independently replicated and have failed to produce evidence for telepathy. Storm ''et al''. published a response to Hyman claiming the ganzfeld experimental design has proved to be consistent and reliable but parapsychology is a struggling discipline that has not received much attention so further research on the subject is necessary. Rouder ''et al''. 2013 wrote that critical evaluation of Storm ''et al''.'s meta-analysis reveals no evidence for telepathy, no plausible mechanism and omitted replication failures. A 2016 paper examined questionable research practices in the ganzfeld experiments.
Twin telepathy
Twin telepathy is a belief that has been described as a myth in psychological literature. Psychologists Stephen Hupp and Jeremy Jewell have noted that all experiments on the subject have failed to provide any scientific evidence for telepathy between
twin
Twins are two offspring produced by the same pregnancy.MedicineNet > Definition of TwinLast Editorial Review: 19 June 2000 Twins can be either ''monozygotic'' ('identical'), meaning that they develop from one zygote, which splits and forms two em ...
s.Hupp, Stephen; Jewell, Jeremy. (2015). ''Great Myths of Child Development''. Wiley. pp. 10–16. According to Hupp and Jewell there are various behavioral and genetic factors that contribute to the twin telepathy myth "identical twins typically spend a lot of time together and are usually exposed to very similar environments. Thus, it's not at all surprising that they act in similar ways and are adept at anticipating and forecasting each other's reactions to events."
A 1993 study by
Susan Blackmore
Susan Jane Blackmore (born 29 July 1951) is a British writer, lecturer, sceptic, broadcaster, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Plymouth. Her fields of research include memetics, parapsychology, consciousness, and she is best known ...
investigated the claims of twin telepathy. In an experiment with six sets of twins one subject would act as the sender and the other the receiver. The sender was given selected objects, photographs or numbers and would attempt to psychically send the information to the receiver. The results from the experiment were negative, no evidence of telepathy was observed.
The skeptical investigator
Benjamin Radford
Benjamin Radford (born October 2, 1970) is an American writer, investigator, and skeptic. He has authored, coauthored or contributed to over twenty books and written over a thousand articles and columns on a wide variety of topics including urba ...
has noted that "Despite decades of research trying to prove telepathy, there is no credible scientific evidence that psychic powers exist, either in the general population or among twins specifically. The idea that two people who shared their mother's womb—or even who share the same DNA—have a mysterious mental connection is an intriguing one not borne out in science."
Scientific reception
A variety of tests have been performed to demonstrate telepathy, but there is no scientific evidence that the power exists. A panel commissioned 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 umbrel ...
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." The scientific community considers
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 ...
a pseudoscience. There is no known mechanism for telepathy. 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 telepathy would contradict laws of science and the claim that "signals can be transmitted across space without fading with distance is inconsistent with physics".
Physicist John Taylor has written that the experiments that have been claimed by parapsychologists to support evidence for the existence of telepathy are based on the use of shaky statistical analysis and poor design, and attempts to duplicate such experiments by the scientific community have failed. Taylor also wrote the arguments used by parapsychologists for the feasibility of such phenomena are based on distortions of
theoretical physics
Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experim ...
as well as "complete ignorance" of relevant areas of physics.
Psychologist Stuart Sutherland wrote that cases of telepathy can be explained by people underestimating the probability of
coincidence
A coincidence is a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances that have no apparent causal connection with one another. The perception of remarkable coincidences may lead to supernatural, occult, or paranormal claims, or it may lead t ...
s. According to Sutherland, "most stories about this phenomenon concern people who are close to one another—husband and wife or brother and sister. Since such people have much in common, it is highly probable that they will sometimes think the same thought at the same time." Graham Reed, a specialist in
anomalistic psychology
In psychology, anomalistic psychology is the study of human behaviour and experience connected with what is often called the paranormal, with few assumptions made about the validity (or otherwise) of the reported phenomena.
Early history
Accordin ...
, noted that experiments into telepathy often involve the subject relaxing and reporting the 'messages' to consist of colored geometric shapes. Reed wrote that these are a common type of hypnagogic image and not evidence for telepathic communication.
Outside of parapsychology, telepathy is generally explained as the result of fraud, self-delusion and/or self-deception and not as a paranormal power. Psychological research has also revealed other explanations such as confirmation bias, expectancy bias,
sensory leakage Sensory leakage is a term used to refer to information that transferred to a person by conventional means (other than psi) during an experiment into ESP.Robert Todd Carroll. (2014)"Sensory Leakage in The Skeptic's Dictionary.
For example, where t ...
,
subjective validation
Subjective validation, sometimes called personal validation effect, is a cognitive bias by which people will consider a statement or another piece of information to be correct if it has any personal meaning or significance to them. People whose opi ...
and
wishful thinking
Wishful thinking is the formation of beliefs based on what might be pleasing to imagine, rather than on evidence, rationality, or reality. It is a product of resolving conflicts between belief and desire.
Methodologies to examine wishful thin ...
. Virtually all of the instances of more popular psychic phenomena, such as mediumship, can be attributed to non-paranormal techniques such as cold reading. Magicians such as
Ian Rowland
Ian Rowland (born 11 May 1961) is a corporate speaker, trainer and consultant based near London, England.
He has been a contributor to The Straight Dope Message Board and guest contributor of Staff Reports under the user name ianzin.
Citing Ro ...
and
Derren Brown
Derren Brown (born 27 February 1971) is an English mentalist, illusionist, painter, and author. He began performing in 1992, making his television debut with ''Derren Brown: Mind Control'' in 2000, and has since produced several more shows f ...
have demonstrated techniques and results similar to those of popular psychics, albeit without claiming paranormal skills. They have identified, described, and developed psychological techniques of cold reading and
hot reading
Hot reading is a technique used when giving a psychic reading in stage magic performances, or in other contexts. In hot reading, the reader uses information about the person receiving the reading (for example, from background research or overhe ...
.
Psychiatry
The notion of telepathy is not dissimilar to three clinical concepts: delusions of
thought insertion
Thought insertion is defined by the ICD-10 as the delusion that one's thoughts are not one's own, but rather belong to someone else and have been inserted into one's mind. The person experiencing the thought insertion delusion will not necessarily ...
thought broadcasting
In psychiatry, thought broadcasting is the belief that others can hear or are aware of an individual's thoughts. The person experiencing this symptom can also think that their thoughts are being broadcast through different media, such as the telev ...
. This similarity might explain how an individual might come to the conclusion that he or she were experiencing telepathy. Thought insertion/removal is a symptom of
psychosis
Psychosis is a condition of the mind that results in difficulties determining what is real and what is not real. Symptoms may include delusions and hallucinations, among other features. Additional symptoms are incoherent speech and behavior ...
, particularly of
schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by continuous or relapsing episodes of psychosis. Major symptoms include hallucinations (typically hearing voices), delusions, and disorganized thinking. Other symptoms include social wit ...
,
schizoaffective disorder
Schizoaffective disorder (SZA, SZD or SAD) is a mental disorder characterized by abnormal thought processes and an unstable mood. This diagnosis is made when the person has symptoms of both schizophrenia (usually psychosis) and a mood disorder: ...
or
substance-induced psychosis
Substance-induced psychosis (commonly known as toxic psychosis or drug-induced psychosis) is a form of psychosis that is attributed to substance use. It is a psychosis that results from the effects of chemicals or drugs, including those produced b ...
. Psychiatric patients who experience this symptom falsely believe that some of their thoughts are not their own and that others (e.g., other people, aliens, demons or fallen angels, or conspiring intelligence agencies, or artificial intelligences) are putting thoughts into their minds (thought insertion). Some patients feel as if thoughts are being taken out of their minds or deleted (thought removal). Schizophrenic patients suffering from the form of alleged telepathy known as thought broadcasting believe that their private thoughts are being broadcast to other people against their informed consent. Along with other symptoms of psychosis, delusions of thought insertion may be reduced by
antipsychotic
Antipsychotics, also known as neuroleptics, are a class of psychotropic medication primarily used to manage psychosis (including delusions, hallucinations, paranoia or disordered thought), principally in schizophrenia but also in a range of ...
medication. Psychiatrists and clinical psychologists believe and empirical findings support the idea that people with
schizotypy
In psychology, schizotypy is a theoretical concept that posits a continuum of personality characteristics and experiences, ranging from normal dissociative, imaginative states to extreme states of mind related to psychosis, especially schizophreni ...
and
schizotypal personality disorder
Schizotypal personality disorder (STPD or SPD), also known as schizotypal disorder, is a mental and behavioral disorder. DSM classification describes the disorder specifically as a personality disorder characterized by thought disorder, paran ...
are particularly likely to believe in telepathy.Mary Townsend. (2013). ''Essentials of Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing: Concepts of Care in Evidence-Based Practice''. F. A. Davis Company. p. 613. "Individuals with schizotypal personality disorder are aloof and isolated and behave in a bland and apathetic manner. Magical thinking, ideas of reference, illusions, and depersonalization are part of their everybody world. Examples include superstitiousness, belief in clairvoyance, telepathy, or "six sense;" and beliefs that "others can feel my feelings."
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...
Extended Mind
In philosophy of mind, the extended mind thesis (EMT) says that the mind does not exclusively reside in the brain or even the body, but extends into the physical world. The EMT proposes that some objects in the external environment can be part of ...
, the concept that things frequently used by the mind become part of it.
*
Ishin-denshin
is an idiom commonly used in East Asian cultures such as Japan, Korea, China, which denotes a form of interpersonal communication through unspoken mutual understanding. This four-character compound's (or ) kanji (Chinese characters) literally tran ...
, traditional Japanese concept of unspoken mutual understanding, sometimes translated as "telepathy".
* Lady Wonder, a horse that appeared to answer questions.
*
Microwave auditory effect
The microwave auditory effect, also known as the microwave hearing effect or the Frey effect, consists of the human perception of audible clicks, or even speech, induced by pulsed or modulated radio frequencies. The communications are generated di ...
Synthetic telepathy Synthetic things are composed of multiple parts, often with the implication that they are artificial. In particular, 'synthetic' may refer to:
Science
* Synthetic chemical or compound, produced by the process of chemical synthesis
* Synthetic o ...
Notes
Further reading
*
James Alcock
James E. Alcock (born 24 December 1942) is a Canadian educator. He has been a Professor of Psychology at York University (Canada) since 1973. Alcock is a noted critic of parapsychology and is a Fellow and Member of the Executive Council for the C ...
. (1981). ''Parapsychology: Science or Magic? A Psychological Perspective''. Pergamon Press.
*
Whately Carington
Walter Whately Carington (1892 – March 2, 1947) was a British parapsychologist. His name, originally Walter Whately Smith, was changed in 1933.Telepathy: An Outline of its Facts, Theory, and Implications '' Methuen & Co.
*
Bergen Evans
Bergen Baldwin Evans (September 19, 1904 – February 4, 1978) was a Northwestern University professor of English and a television host. He received a George Foster Peabody Award in 1957 for excellence in broadcasting for his CBS TV series ''The La ...
. (1954). ''The Spoor of Spooks: And Other Nonsense''. Knopf.
* C. E. M. Hansel. (1989). ''The Search for Psychic Power: ESP and Parapsychology Revisited''. Prometheus Books.
* Walter Mann. (1919) ''The Follies and Frauds of Spiritualism'' Rationalist Association. London: Watts & Co. Chapter XII. pp. 131–191.
*
David Marks
David Lee Marks (born August 22, 1948) is an American guitarist who is best known for being an early member of the Beach Boys. While growing up in Hawthorne, California, Marks was a neighborhood friend of the original band members and was a freq ...
Skeptic's Dictionary
''The Skeptic's Dictionary'' is a collection of cross-referenced skeptical essays by Robert Todd Carroll, published on his website skepdic.com and in a printed book. The skepdic.com site was launched in 1994 and the book was published in 2003 wi ...